She laughed at how clever he had been. Of course! The poker was made of stout metal, and was longer than the window was wide. Once his weight was on the rope, the poker and the stone of the tower itself would hold him. “Why didn’t we think of this before?” she said. “Oh, do run back to your things and bring the rope!”

He saluted her and ran off. She pulled up the basket, let down the string again, and took the basket to the kitchen, then waited impatiently at the window for his return.

It seemed an age, but eventually, Johann appeared around the bottom of the tower with a coil of stout rope over his shoulder. He tied one end to her string, and she hurried to pull it up and make it fast to the poker. She guided the poker in place as he pulled slowly on the rope, and once he was satisfied it was wedged properly, he scaled the side of the tower with all the skill of a practiced mountaineer. Before she was really prepared for it, he was perched on the sill, then jumping down into her room.

“Well!” he said, smiling. “Here I am at last.”

And then . . . the smile began to change. From cheerful, it turned . . . cruel. His eyes grew cold, and instinctively she began to shrink away from him. “Y-yes,” she faltered. “So you are.”

With growing alarm, as she realized that she didn’t much care for the feral gaze he was bending on her, she realized he was much taller, and very much stronger than she was.

“Now, I ask myself,” he said, advancing on her as she backed up a step at a time until her back was against the wall. “What kind of a girl meets a man in her nightdress? And what kind of a girl lets a man into her bedroom after only three days of acquaintance? I think it is the kind of girl who knows a great deal more about men than she lets on. And maybe that is why her Mother locks her in, to keep her from any more of them.”

She stared at him in shock, the blood draining from her face, unable to move.

“So I think that I will give her what she wants, yes?” And with that, he lunged for her. She was so transfixed with horror that she couldn’t even move, and he slammed her against the wall of her tower room.

She screamed then, and tried to fight him, as he pinned her against the wall with one arm and ripped her blouse open with the other. She kicked at him as he stared at her breasts greedily, and with his free hand, groped up her skirts. As her boot connected with his shin, hard, he swore, and backhanded her so hard her head bounced off the wall and, for a moment, she knew only blackness.