The Bloodletter's Daughter by Linda Lafferty Page B

thumbnail and the dislodged food, smacking his lips in satisfaction. “The Rozmberks have come onto hard times and may even sell the castle.”
    “Sell the castle!” Marketa echoed. “Maybe that’s why the fair lady in white is walking the walls. I should like to look upon her again!”
    Suddenly the clatter of dishes and lip-smacking stopped.
    Marketa’s mother stared, her dark eyes bulging.
    “When have you seen a lady in white, girl?”
    “Leave her alone now, Lucie,” said her father, setting down his knife, a chunk of dumpling still speared on its end. “Let her finish her dinner.”
    “You heard me, Daughter!” her mother insisted. “When did you see a woman in white?”
    “Today, as I was washing the surgery tray,” Marketa said. “She startled me so that I dropped it and took a chip out of the rim. I am sorry. She was looking at me, and I’ve never seen her like before. Fair-haired and bejeweled, with skin whiter than bleached bedsheets in summer.”
    “It is the White Lady,” murmured Uncle Radek, swallowing at last, his hairy nostrils flaring. “She’s seen her. One of my own family! Musle, you have the gift—”
    “Do not dare call her that vulgar name in this house!” roared Pichler, his dining knife raised and pointing at his brother-in-law’s face. “This is not the tavern, and you will keep a civil tongue!”
    Marketa felt the blood drain from her face, and her cheeks went cold and numb. No one had ever dared to use that lecherous nickname in her father’s presence before. She wanted to seep into the cracks of the stone floor and hide under its darkness forever.
    She had hoped her father did not know what the townspeople now called her.
    Her mother jumped up from the bench. She knelt by her daughter’s side and grasped her hand so hard, Marketa thought she would cry out.
    “What color gloves was she wearing, Marketa?”
    “Gloves?”
    “Were they white or were they black?”
    Marketa could feel her mother’s hand trembling. She could smell her sweat and the onions from her cooking clinging to her skin.
    “I—I did not see any gloves. No—she did not wear gloves. She was bare-handed and fair-skinned as a marble statue.”
    “Liar!” said her mother, suddenly smacking Marketa with an open palm. “You chipped our good bowl and made up a lie about the White Lady just to frighten us!”
    Marketa pressed her hand against her stinging cheek. She was too stunned to cry, for her mother had never struck her before. She looked at her twin sisters, whose faces blanched, and they clutched each other in fear.
    Pichler pushed his wife away and sent her tumbling on the floor. Marketa gasped. Her father had always been a gentle soul, and now he was shouting at Uncle Radek and shoving her mother to the ground.
    “Our Marketa does not lie! If she saw a woman in white, it could have been a Rozmberk relation or guest. If she says she had bare arms, it is the truth. Do not dare to strike her again, lest you feel my own hand on your face!”
    He hugged his daughter close, sheltering her in his arms. Marketa could smell her mother’s meaty cooking in his beard and ale on his breath.
    She whispered to him, “Who is this woman and why is Mother so angry?”
    “Finish your dinner, Marketa. You are looking pale and thin. It will not do for my patients to see my assistant, my own daughter, ailing when you carry away the trays of blood.”
    “But the White Lady?”
    “Never mind now. Eat, Daughter.”
    He scraped a gravy-covered dumpling off his plate onto Marketa’s with his knife. The scratching of the blade against the pewter plate filled the room, otherwise silent in obedience to her father’s rage.
    Her mother struggled to her knees and hoisted herself back onto the bench, gathering her skirt under her. She held her head erect, her back rigid with resentment.
    For the rest of dinner, Lucie glared at her daughter across the table and seemed to have no appetite. Still, every now and again