Page 6 of Songs and Spun Gold
For most of Katy’s life, spinning wheels had been banned in Flussendorf and the surrounding area. When King Steffan had repealed the law five and a half years ago, Katy’s father had promptly bought a flock of sheep and a spinning wheel.
Her youngest sister, Liesl, had been overjoyed to receive care of the flock. Katy discovered an aptitude for spinning, and Adele wordlessly moved into Katy’s position at the front counter of the mill. Now, Katy spent her days spinning as long as she had wool to spin.
The main room of their living space was packed with bundles of wool by the time shearing finished. Many villagers had yet to purchase a spinning wheel, and they brought their wool to Katy since they made a better profit selling it to her than hauling it to the capital. She encouraged everyone who wished to do so; it gave her hope that her father’s purchase wouldn’t ruin them.
Because he wasn’t the type to have savings lying around when an opportunity like the repeal of the ban presented itself, and he thought nothing of borrowing money. Thankfully, Katy’s yarn fetched a high price when her friend Angelika’s father sold it at the market for them.
Some days, she missed greeting her fellow villagers when they came to buy flour, but she enjoyed her spinning, so shedidn’t begrudge Adele the front counter too much.
Besides, there was only one person she wouldn’t want to miss, and he hadn’t darkened their door in over five years.
“Katy, Katy, Katy!” Liesl exclaimed as she flew past the dividing curtain one evening in late summer. She had just arrived from leaving the sheep with the night watchman. “You have a visitor!”
“A…visitor?” Mother said weakly from her seat in the rocking chair. “Who is it?”
Katy hoped none of her family noticed the way her breath caught at the announcement. Carefully setting aside her work, she looked at her sister and waited for the answer to Mother’s question.
“Probably Fritz,” Adele snorted from her crouch next to the fireplace. She stirred the evening’s stew in a pot hanging over the small fire. “He’s been haunting the road out front for the last week. I’m amazed he finally worked up the courage to come in.”
“What does he want?” Father, who was home today, leaned over the dining table, causing the long bench to creak in protest. A lock of his straw-colored hair swung forward, but the rest was held back by a leather tie.
“Josef, stop it,” Mother scolded softly. “Fritz is…a good man. And he’s probably…”
Father pounded a hand on the table, his green eyes fierce in his pale face. “He wants to steal my daughter from me, that’s what he wants! Now that she’s proving how valuable she is, he wants—”
“Father!” Katy hissed. “He can hear you!”
She hoped he couldn’t. But if Liesl was announcing his arrival, he was in the building. He could be standing at the bottom of the stairs.
He could be standing on the other side of the blanket-covered doorway.
“I never said who it was,” Liesl cut in.
Katy’s head whipped back around to her youngest sister. Could it be—?
Liesl grinned impishly. “But you’re right. It is Fritz.”
Holding back a sigh, Katy rose from her seat. She should know better by now than to hope. “I’ll slip down and see what he wants.”
“Don’t…stay out too long,” Mother told her.
“Better just stay here,” Father grumbled under his breath.
Instead of replying to either of her parents, Katy simply gave them a small smile before slipping past Liesl and walking slowly down the stairs. They creaked under her feet, time and the mad dashes of her youth finally starting to wear on them.
Fritz was waiting next to the counter, facing toward the front windows while drumming the fingers of one hand on the wooden tabletop. He must have been lost in his thoughts and not heard her approach, because he jumped when she said his name.
“Oh! G-good evening, Katy,” he said, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat and tried again. “How are you doing?”
Her lips curved up. “Quite well, thank you. Liesl said you wished to see me?”
“Ah, yes. Yes, I did,” he said, bouncing a little on his toes. Running a hand over his tied-back brown hair, he continued, “I was hoping you might be willing to, uh, to take a little walk with me.”
Wondering where his usual self-possession had gone, she paused for a moment to examine him. When she and her friends had been almost-teenagers, Angelika had laughed at Fritz’s desire to join the guard at Reineggburg, a castle about six miles from Flussendorf, because of how thin he was. He’d managed to grow a few muscles in the years since then. Lean, wirymuscles, but they were still visible under the short-sleeved shirt that he, like most men in their small village, wore in the summer. She was surprised to observe that said shirt was spotless, as was the leather vest he wore over it. Even his boots had been polished until they shone.
Katy gulped while he was busy staring at the floor. He wasn’t asking her to take a quick stroll down the street. He had come courting.
“So,” he ventured, peeking up at her before awkwardly holding out his left arm, “will you come?”
