THIRTY-ONE
The next night, the girl was not in the crown tower nor the maiden's one, and Abraham despaired of finding her. He searched the castle in vain for three days, until he stumbled across the guard captain carrying a meal out of the castle gates. Curious, he followed the man to the tithe barns by the river, and that was where he found the princess.
Abraham hid in the shadows, waiting for the guard to leave before he stepped inside the barn.
He didn't see her at first, for the place was stacked with baskets, much like her chamber in the maiden's tower. But what he'd seen in the maiden's tower was a mere millpond compared to the endless sea he saw here.
She sat slumped over her wheeled table, with a half-full spindle beside her. The basket of filled spindles at her feet told Ab
