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Show 19 than a day, Hilde has actually looked me in the eye and spoken to me, and Gast said that we would be companions, like a knight and his squire. My surprises weren't over, because when I looked up from my work a little while later, Hilde was back. "When you go to the stranger at noon," she asked, "may I come with you?" "Your father would never let you," I said. "He won't have to know. I can slip out while he's meeting with the council. Please, Geist, let me come." "And have Master Hermann take the hide off my flesh for having his daughter be seen with the lowly bakery slave? No thank you." She looked so woebegone that I softened. "If you would follow a safe distance behind me, I couldn't stop you, I suppose." Another first - Hilde smiled. After listening to a long list of instructions and threats from Master Hermann, I left the bakery just before noon. The rain had slowed to just a few scattered drops, and the sky looked lighter than it had in a long time. When I had walked the distance of one square toward the river, I looked behind me, and sure enough, Hilde was following. I walked on at an easy pace, trying to show that I was unconcerned by kicking a stone, but instead of flying away from my toe the stone stuck in my makeshift shoe, and I had to stop and take it out, feeling foolish. He was sitting on the bank holding one end of a piece of string. "You're fishing!" I exclaimed. "Did you catch anything?" "Only this," he said, pulling another drowned rat from the water. |