Morning dawned bright and sunny. The temperature had dipped below freezing overnight, and rime edged the dead leaves and bare branches of the trees in the garden.
She got out of bed before Roald did and went downstairs to the kitchen where it was warm.
Greetje sat at the kitchen table, crying into her hands.
Johanna sat opposite her, accepting tea and sweet porridge from Koby and eating silently. She felt terrible. She wanted to say that everything would be all right, that getting Master Willems and Father free, if they were still alive, was as easy as sending a letter of complaint to Alexandre.
“What is . . . likely to happen now?” she asked Koby.
Koby gave her an uneasy look. “We can only guess. There was a time that the tyrant caught a group of people having a Church service. He lo
