Free Scarlet From Gold (Book 3) by Jeffrey Quyle Page B

asked.
    “You mentioned my father,” Kaitelyn answered.
    “I was born in a village in a small valley south of here.  I was an only child, and I had a happy life.  Even though we were poor, my mother was kind to me and my father wasn’t bad.
    “But when I was about ten, my mother died,” Kaitelyn told Marco.  “She caught an illness, and within a week she went from being healthy, being the rock that my life was built on, to lying dead in our small home.
    “My father said it was time to walk away from everything and start over, so he sold all that we owned – the house and the livestock, and he took me and we started walking.  And after two long weeks of walking, we came to this inn one night.  My father paid for a room for us, and sent me to bed,” she told Marco.  “I fell asleep, and when I woke up the next morning he wasn’t in the room.  So I sat and waited all morning, and then I finally went downstairs to the innkeeper’s desk.
    “He is the same innkeeper now.  He watched me come down the stairs, and when I asked him where my father was, he told me that my father had left.  He sold me to the innkeeper, and then kept on walking away,” the girl finished her tale with the shocking, abrupt conclusion.
    “You father sold you?  You’re a slave here?” Marco asked incredulously.
    “I’m called an indentured servant.  I’ve been here for ten years now, and in two more years I’ll be free,” she told Marco, her voice steadier now.  “My father sold me for a good deal of money, and I’ve been working here ever since.  The innkeeper is a fair master.  He and his wife probably did me a favor, really, giving me a place to live and food to eat, and never taking advantage of me.
    “But they don’t love me, and neither did my father,” Kaitelyn added.  “No one’s really done a kind thing for me since my mother died, or least they hadn’t until you saved me last night.
    “Is there anything else you need, my lord?” she asked in a more formal tone, clearly ready for the interview to end.
    “Please tell me if there’s anything I can do for you,” Marco replied, feeling guilty for inadvertently forcing the girl to have to explain her painful status.
    “Can you make a boy love me?” Kaitelyn asked bitterly.  “Unless you can do that, then no, there’s nothing.  Good day, my lord,” she said, and then left the room.
    Marco stood up and struggled through the process of getting himself dressed with only one good hand, then left the room and entered the hall outside, where he followed the sounds of a boisterous public room and walked back to the dining room where he had fought the battle the previous night.
    “Look who walks among us!” Baronet Gustaf spotted Marco first, and he was quickly and courteously escorted to a table by the fireplace, and surrounded by the assembled nobility of Barcelon, eager to see their hero and eager for any novelty that would disrupt the boredom of the small country inn.
    Marco listened with astonishment to the stories they told him about himself and his adventures in Barcelon.   He had a beautiful fiancée awaiting him at his castle at Sant Jeroni, he learned, and he was a masterful, skill alchemist as well as an extraordinary swordsman.  He also was suspected of being able to change form into a sea creature; there were reports that he swam through the waters of the seas and the harbor, and some members of the noble party told of having seen him cut off his own hand in a horrific battle in the palace, the hand that had troubled him with its occasional, inexplicable manifestations of great power.
    The nobility grew intoxicated with the joy of telling Marco stories about himself, sharing all the gossip that his mysterious appearance and heroic rise in Barcelon had engendered, as well as the rumors about his inexplicable disappearance.  “Your lady love Mirra and your steward have been to the palace this spring, beseeching Duke Siplin to help find