Historical
Wager
By A
Aug 18, 2007, 22:35

"Hardly a girl. Hanna is twenty, pretty, and would make you a good wife. You are looking for a wife, are you not?" Nils Bäcker asked.

Gabriel examined the men surrounding the Glückhaus board. Picking one he demanded, "You, mason, tell me true--is his eldest daughter worth such a wager?" He asked it in jest, for he did not intend to take such a foolish gamble. Who would want a wife sight unseen?

"I’d be taken the roll myself if offered me," the mason said, hitching up his lime-spotted trousers. Drunks on either side of him laughed and slapped his back so hard his ale sloshed to the straw littered floor of the tavern. "Hanna’s caught the eye of every man in town but--"

"Are you taken my wager or not?" Nils demanded, cutting off the mason, thrusting his finger at the Glückhaus board. "A seven you take all on seven including my daughter. A two you take it all but for seven."

Gabriel considered the gameboard again as he clutched the two six-sided die in his fist.

"And if he rolls the king’s number?" the mason asked, trying to focus his drunken eyes on the board. "What if he rolls highest double? Mighty twelve?"

"Well," Nils said. He belched and scratched his enormous belly. "A king takes all, now don’t he?"

Gabriel totaled the coins on seven, the wedding square. A tidy sum that would last him a week. And he could do with a pretty wife if he won it. A baker’s daughter would be simple. She would be much easier to manage than an aristocratic woman the duke would likely choose for him. Without much fuss, the baker’s daughter, Hanna, would give him sons, run his manor, and stand in awe of his every word. Such a woman would never call him an uneducated peasant.

"Very well, I accept." Gabriel nodded. "But you cannot retreat. I call for all to make witness of this wager. A seven and your daughter is mine."

"Or a twelve," the mason said, stumbling forward drunkenly. "Kings do take all, yes, Nils?"

Nils gave the mason a hard shove with his elbow. He turned his speculative gaze to Gabriel. "Take the wager or not. It’s up to you. There are enough sober eyes to make witness. I will stand behind the roll as will you. Seven or twelve, my daughter is yours. And the coins, too. Anything else, and all is mine. Agreed?"

All the men in the tavern clustered like clotted cream to their table.

"You think your daughter is worth such a wager?" Gabriel asked with a snort of derision.

"Hanna is much talked about." Nils nodded. "There isn’t a man here who has not dreamed of making wager for my eldest daughter."

A hushed silence followed his comment. Gabriel noted the passion in the men’s eyes. Hanna must be quite a prize for her to be so well known. It made up his mind in an instant. "Then our wager is noted. By all."

"Yes, as I am an honest man," Nils said.

A ripple of laughter at such a boast by the men surrounding the board. Gabriel considered, but dismissed the amusement as he told them clearly the wager they witnessed. Ale glittered eyes, but they would remember this; not everyday did a man make wager with his own flesh and blood. Not ever had the hand of Hanna Bäcker been offered in this fashion.

Were either side to make issue of it later, the baker, Nils, would find himself deep in trouble with not only the town rulers, but the church, perhaps even the duke himself. Wagering made sin enough, but to gamble a daughter to wife with dice? All would frown on it. Gabriel, too, would have a price to pay for accepting the wager. But his sin seemed small compared to Nils’.

Listening to an inner voice, one that told him luck would always be his lady, Gabriel accepted this as he rolled the dice. To his astonishment he rolled two sixes. Twelve. The king’s number. He’d not only taken the wedding square, but the whole of the coins on the board, including the baker’s daughter.

"Nothing can be denied the king!" the tavern men shouted, lifting their ale, sloshing it together, and clapping each other on the back. Gabriel found his back pelted with well-meaning blows. Shaking them off, he stood. In this moment, Gabriel had eyes only for Nils.

Pinning him with a fierce gaze, Gabriel swept all the coins from the Glückhaus board into his leather pouch. "I will come for Hanna in the morning. Have her ready. If you do not, I will extract my payment in other ways." Three long-legged strides swept him from the tavern.

"You fool! What have you done? Truth will soon enough be his," the mason said.

Picking his teeth with his knife, Nils smiled with a wolf’s cunning. "I have made the bargain of a lifetime." In one wild wager, he rid himself of a troublesome daughter with a paltry coin of dowry. And the arrogant Ritter would not be able to retreat from their wager, no matter what gossip he heard.

                            ***

Up before first light, Hanna stoked the huge stove and checked the rising loaves. The Sprenger wedding feast would take every loaf in the shop, and all she could bake today. She sighed as she mixed a fresh batch of dough, and said, "At least it’s not my wedding."

Hanna had no intention of ever submitting herself to the rule of a man, or the horrors of childbirth. When her father died, she would continue to be a baker. The trade guild would let her join on the strength of her continuous management of her father’s shop. If they didn’t, she would find a way to make them. Ruprecht’s widow found a place, and so would she, even if she had to bribe every man in the guild to do so. Hanna had been saving her paltry coin for just such a day.

A knock against the shuttered front windows surprised her for who would be about at this cold hour? Hanna wiped her hands on her apron and hurried out the side door. Rounding the building, she stopped when she saw a blond man clad in a blue and white surcoat. He turned to face her with the most intense blue eyes she had ever seen.

"There is no bread today, I’m afraid. If you follow this lane to the butcher, and turn left, Gilbert can help you." Hanna pointed down the row of jumbled shop fronts as she eyed the man with blatant curiosity. He did not look in mind to buy, he looked in mind to take.

"I haven’t come for bread, little one." He swept one battle-scarred hand through his wheat-ripe hair. "What are you? Twelve?"

"I am twenty this winter." Hanna claimed, lifting herself to glare at him. "What are you? A jester of the duke? I hear men without power make such in his colors."

With lifted, mocking brows, the man laughed at her harsh comment. "Can I be so lucky, or cursed, that you are Hanna?"

"I am," Hanna confirmed, dread seeping down her back like winter sleet.

"Then I have come for you."

Baffled, Hanna wanted to turn and run as fast as she could as far as she could. Why would a Ritter be in need of her? Closing her eyes, she knew her father had done something. Between his beer and his braggadocio, he had landed her in another fix. How long would it take her to work off the debt this time?

"My father is within and--"

"He did not tell you." The Ritter dismounted and strode toward her.

"Tell me what?"

The Ritter brushed her aside, and entered the shop bellowing, "Nils?! Damn it man, come out here, you coward!"

Bleary eyed, in need of a shave, her father stumbled into the room still clad in clothes from the night before. "What the devil--ah, Gabriel, you’re early."

"Let me collect that owed so I can be on my way. It’s a long ride to Greyssen."

"Ah, yes. Well, I--"

"You did not tell her, did you."

"Not as such, no." Nils scratched his mostly bald pate. He turned to Hanna, took her hand without looking at her, and dragged her away saying, "Hanna, come with me."

Alone with her father in the back room, Hanna felt her dread deepen. Reeking of spent ale and unwashed flesh, her father didn’t look at her, but spoke to a spot on the wall just beyond her shoulder.

"You are to go with this man . . . as his maid, yes. His maid."

"For how long this time?"

"Well, ah, well, a year. And a day."

Before it had been a fortnight at longest. What in the world could her father have wagered that would cost so much? Thinking quickly, she decided in a drunken moment, thoughts of gold so clear in his inebriated mind, he’d wagered his shop. When he lost, he must have decided to offer her in service. Hanna longed to rail at her father for being so foolish, but she didn’t dare; her father would never forgive her for haranguing him in front of another man. Especially not a man of such high rank. A Ritter.

"But father, the Sprenger wedding feast is today, and I--"

"I’m more than capable of running the shop, Hanna." Nils thrust himself up straight so he could glare down at her. "I owe this man a debt."

"But father, I--"

"Will you ever do as I say? Your mother, God rest her weary soul, would be appalled at how you argue with me."

With frightening accuracy, her father struck the most tender part of her heart.

"A maid? You have sold me as a maid to this man for a year and a day?" It took all her will not to let tears spill down her cheeks. It seemed most of her adult life had been spent repaying his debts.

"I did not sell you as such. But I owe him. He will be good to you. He is wealthy. He is much in the duke’s favor. Do you not see? Do this for me, and when you return, I will . . . I will give you my shop."

Again, he played her as deftly as a ministerial on a vielle. He offered that she wanted most. To be a baker in her own right. To run her own shop by her own rules. Unbound by male oversight.

"Only a year and a day?"

"Only that."

"And you vow to keep your word?"

"Have I ever lied to you?"

Repeatedly, she wanted to say, but Hanna held her tongue. If her dream could come true with only the hard work of a year and a day to some Ritter. . . .

Hanna gathered her few possessions; a heavy cloak, two dresses, and her meager purse of coins. She considered the clinking metal circles and wondered if she could buy herself away from service. Judging by Gabriel’s harsh, impatient face, she decided not to ask him now. She checked that her mother’s hair pin, the only thing she had left of her mother, securely bound her thick brown hair in a knot on her head.

Her father lifted her hand, and said, "I give my daughter unto thee, Gabriel von Greyssen." Nils placed her slender, work worn hand in the tall Ritter’s massive, calloused hand. "May she be a treasure to your house."

Hanna froze. Why had her father said that? Those words rang dully in her mind. She had heard the same not long ago. As she gripped a hand more calloused than her own, she looked up into Gabriel’s eyes. He looked tired, but not from drink. His eyes were not red rimmed like her father’s eyes. No. Gabriel’s eyes were intense, focused, pinning her like a blade. Should she live and die a thousand times, she would never see eyes so blue as those of Gabriel von Greyssen. Even Danel’s eyes, held in the perfection of her heart, had not shone so deep and perfect blue.

"I take your daughter, Nils Bäcker, with only that she holds now." Gabriel lifted her hand and kissed her palm. His eyes stilled her as his lips held moist and hot to the center of her hand.

A moment in time spun out. Aware of everything, the coming morn, the smell of bread clinging to her clothes, the sound of the sleepy town rousing for another day, Hanna focused on the feel of his sultry lips on her open and trembling hand. Warmth, more powerful than the sun, touched from his mouth to race fire in her body. Like the most blessed sleep after the longest day, she almost slumped with relief. This man would not hurt her. No matter what the foul men of the village told him, he would not make her hold to rumors.

Her father shattered the moment. "So it is done." With a satisfied smile, he turned and waddled toward the store.

With a last look at the fields stripped for fodder, the hills she’d hid in for five years, Hanna turned to her father. Nils ducked into the side door of the shop. She tasted his relief. It wasn’t Gilbert, but it was another man he could cast her off on. For at least a year and a day. Hanna thought she would never see her father again. She shivered and turned away. Her eyes fell on her master. For at least and a year and a day, this man, this Ritter, this man called Gabriel von Greyssen--he commanded her.

After Gabriel stuffed her meager possessions into a saddlebag, he mounted his huge warhorse and offered his hand.

"I will not have my own mount?" she asked.

"I prefer you ride with me."

"I have no intention of running from you. With each of us on our own mount, we could--"

"Easily become separated. I can protect you better this way. Give me your hand."

His cold tone shocked her, but she extended her hand, still dusted with flour from her morning work. He grasped her wrist, yanked her forward, and then lifted her by her waist, settling her in front of him.

Hanna pressed her knees together. Then, using her hand against his meaty thigh, she pushed herself up so she could ride sidesaddle. As the massive black mount stepped forward, she swayed into Gabriel’s arms and almost knocked them both off.

"I haven’t time for foolishness." He yanked her leg over the side of his horse and crossed his arms around her, nestling her against his body. He gripped the reins and clicked. His mount began to run.

The narrow village lanes blurred with speed and Hanna leaned forward to grip the horse’s mane with both hands. Neighing with challenge, the horse ran faster.

"Let go, Hanna, or he’ll run and fling us both off." Low and soothing, he twined his hands with hers, drawing her back into his embrace.

"Let go? I’ll fall!" she gasped, her hands digging into the black mane of the horse as he sped through the muddy lanes.

"No, I have you." Gabriel crossed his arms around her and drew back on the reins. When the horse slowed, Hanna let go her death grip. The horse steadied into a quick trot, one that jostled her against the Ritter.

"He can feel your fear."

Hanna let her body hang limp. The horse slowed to a smooth walk.

"There, you see? Calm yourself, lovely Hanna, I won’t let you fall." Gabriel cradled her in his embrace.

As they rode along, the sun drew up, high in the sky, dispelling the morning fog and slowly warming the air. The scent of fresh-cut grass surrounded her. Hanna watched as the farmer and his men cut swaths through the field, putting aside fodder for their cows. Winter hid behind the wolf-sharp row of the Alps, waiting to blow cold and snow. In between working in the shop, Hanna had been setting aside fodder for her father’s animals; her father would have to do it by himself now, as step-mother was too big with another child to do much work. She hoped he remembered.

Lost in her thoughts, Hanna jolted when Gabriel pressed his mouth to her ear. In a moist wind, ripe with heat, he grasped her earlobe in a quick bite. "Sudden and fast, I know, but luck as my lady brought you to me. I am delighted at what I see." His lips fell to her neck with a rain of kisses and soft nibbles. He pulled her thick hair aside and continued to nuzzle her neck. When she sat stock-still, he pulled back, and then leaned near. "Do you find me ugly, sweet Hanna?"

His very tone brooked she would be mad to find him so. And truly she did not. Handsome as any man in a mistral’s tale, Gabriel stood testament to all any could hold male handsome; intensely fine of features, wide as a door, taller by half than any man, Gabriel could woo a nun from God were he in mind to do so. His hands, now in front of her, the reins of his mount tight within them, showed every mark of battle. She pictured his face, as she had looked to it when her father dismissed her. There had been a tiny scar, on the side of his cheek, almost as white as his teeth.

"Hanna?"

Yanked from her thoughts, realizing she daydreamed while pressed into the chest of a man she knew not, Hanna sat stiffly away from him. His forearms pressed together in a hug and he drew her back, chuckling softly in her ear.

"Calm yourself, I’m not going to have my way with you behind the first tree we come to."

Hanna relaxed on a sigh.

With a dangerous chuckle, and another nip at her ear, he whispered, "I’ll at least wait till the second or third."

Hanna sprung away from him tighter than a bow. "You think you are very clever, don’t you? You think you have gotten yourself a servant and a bed warmer all in one, but you are wrong Herr Greyssen--"

"Von Greyssen."

"Very well, Herr von Greyssen--"

"Gabriel."

"Yes, very well, Gabriel--

"Von Greyssen."

"Yes, I know, that’s not the point--"

"Ritter Gabriel von Greyssen."

"Ritter, yes--"

"Ah, no, I forget. Now I am Markgraf of Greyssen, Hutten, Bucer and many others I am too worn to name."

"Then don’t. It’s not important."

"I thought it might be."

"What?"

"My name."

"Why would your name matter?" Hanna asked, lifting her arms in frustration.

"I thought perhaps you didn’t know my name."

"If you’d kindly let me speak, I would tell you the point, and it isn’t your name!" Hanna made an awkward turn of her body to face him over his mount. "I do not like this agreement one bit, but I will honor it. You are not the first man I have found myself indentured to. A year and a day as your maid. And I give my word I will work my hands raw in your service. I will do any work you find for me. I will apprentice to your blacksmith should you demand it. I will muck your cesspit, Gabriel von Greyssen, whatever your title," she said, looking back at him. "But I will not become your camp follower no matter what you have been told!"

He only looked at her with the same glint her father had toward his second children; indulgent, proud, mostly bemused. Always wanting her father to look at her so, she found it insulting when Gabriel did it. When he smiled, slow and lazy, like a cat toying with a trapped mouse, she gave him her back. Her father had never looked at her like that. And she knew what that sly look meant.

"I will do anything as your maid but submit my body to your perverse pleasure." Tilting her nose up, she focused her attention on the path. They left behind the dairy country along the foothills and made their way into the cool darkness of the forest.

"Perverse pleasure?" He chuckled softly in her ear. "Tell me what you know of such, so I can be certain not to subject you to it."

"I know how some men treat their maids." She stiffened her body away from him. "I am only that, your maid. You have no right to my body, only my work. And I will hold you to that on your own honor."

"My lovely lady, my sweet, simple Hanna!" He laughed long and loud. "Your father couldn’t bring himself to tell you the truth."

"What truth?" But she knew. Her father’s words rang again in her ears like a terrible music she longed to escape, but she couldn’t shut out the rising notes of truth.

"You come with me not as my maid, sweet Hanna, but as my wife." He said it proud and full, as if she should be pleased.

"Wife?" She would rather be his maid. At least those women were paid for their work and retained a modicum of freedom.

"I own you now as tightly as I do my horse." He softly bit her ear again.

Hanna, too stunned by the truth, only sat astride, her body welded to a man she knew not. She found herself not sold for a year and a day, but given away in perpetual indentured servitude. Only her death would grant her surcease. Her father’s smug smile, as he walked away, played in her mind. Nils gained greatly, didn’t he? His troublesome daughter gone without feast or famine. Of her own free will.

Hanna bounced against her husband as she understood her own desire trapped her. On her father’s word, trusting him as she would no other, she sold herself into bondage. Less than a trinket bought at a faire, she could count herself less than a copper coin to the man who now owned her. Gabriel could do anything to her and she could not raise one cry against him. He could beat her, starve her, force her to work day and night and none would help her. Wife. He owned her.

"You tremble, Hanna, are you cold?"

Gabriel wrapped his cloak about her, and she shook it off.

"I am not cold." If anything, she found herself ill. Every horror she had held herself away from, denying Fate since the day she was of age to wed, had come to pass anyway. How had it happened and she’d not even seen it coming?