Chapter 12: The Lion’s Table

The footsteps halted at the turn of the stair. Konrad’s hand drifted to the dagger at his belt, but he did not draw. The crypt’s air was thick with incense and old stone, and the single torch he had carried guttered in the draft from above.

“You are not supposed to be here,” said a voice—low, female, and utterly without fear.

Konrad straightened, letting the torchlight fall across his face. The woman who descended was not the grey-cloaked specter he half-expected. She was the dark-haired lady of the Bohemian court, the one whose gaze had lingered on him in the great hall. She wore a gown of deep blue wool, and her hands were bare, ungloved, as if she had come in haste.

“I was invited,” Konrad said. “Though perhaps not to this particular chapel.”

She smiled, thin and knowing. “The dead keep no guest lists. You are Sir Konrad von Eppenstein, the king’s shadow. I had heard you were clever. Clever men do not wander into crypts before a feast.”

“And yet here I am. And here you are.” He inclined his head. “You have the advantage of me, my lady.”

“I am Lady Eliška of the House of Kuenring. My father holds lands along the Danube that your uncle covets.” She stepped closer, and the torchlight caught the cold glint in her eyes. “I came to warn you, Sir Konrad. Not out of love, but because your death tonight would inconvenience me.”

Konrad felt the weight of the parchment against his chest—the letter from the woman who signed only as H. “Inconvenience you how?”

“Because I am to be the bait in the trap Ottokar has laid for you.” She said it plainly, without shame. “The queen’s sister has arranged a dance, a private audience, a moment alone. You are to be found with your hand on my bodice, or worse. A scandal. A breach of hospitality. And then the lion has cause to demand your uncle’s envoy be punished—not killed, perhaps, but disgraced. Sent home with a broken reputation and a broken betrothal.”

Konrad’s jaw tightened. “And you agreed to this?”

“I agreed to be told of it.” Her smile turned bitter. “I did not agree to be used as a blade against a man who has done me no harm. And I did not agree to forfeit my own future to Ottokar’s spite. He thinks me a pawn. I have other plans.”

“Such as?”

She moved closer, close enough that Konrad could smell the lavender oil in her hair. “Your uncle is the rising sun. Ottokar is the fading moon. I have seen the way the wind blows, Sir Konrad. I would rather bind my house to the Habsburgs than to a king who will soon be ash.”

Konrad studied her. Every word she spoke could be a lie, a second layer of the trap. But her eyes were steady, and her hands, though bare, did not tremble.

“You want me to trust you,” he said.

“I want you to be clever enough to use me.” She stepped back, folding her arms. “At the feast tonight, Ottokar will seat you beside me. He will watch. He will wait. If you are cold and distant, he will be disappointed, but he will not strike. If you are warm, he will have his excuse. The only way to escape is to give him something else to chase.”

Konrad’s mind moved as it always did—quick, sharp, slicing through possibilities. “What does Ottokar fear more than a Habsburg envoy?”

“A divided court,” she said at once. “There are barons here who whisper that the Přemyslid star has set. They say Ottokar’s pride will drag them all into war. If you can find the thread of that whisper and pull it, the king will forget his little dance and spend the night counting his enemies.”

Konrad smiled, and it was not a kind smile. “You are asking me to sow rebellion in the Bohemian court.”

“I am asking you to survive.” She turned to go, then paused at the foot of the stair. “There is one more thing. The woman in the grey cloak—you know her as Sister Hedwig. She is not a nun, and she is not your enemy. But she is not your friend either. She serves the river, Sir Konrad. And the river remembers everything.”

She was gone before he could ask more, her footsteps fading into the stone silence above. Konrad stood alone in the crypt, the torch crackling, the parchment burning against his heart.

When he emerged into the winter twilight, the courtyard of Prague Castle was already alive with torches and servants. The great hall above blazed with light, and the smell of roasted boar and spiced wine drifted down like a promise. Konrad let a page lead him to his chambers, where a fresh tunic of dark green wool and a silver brooch shaped like a serpent had been laid out—gifts from Ottokar’s household, no doubt, meant to flatter and disarm.

He dressed slowly, his fingers tracing the serpent’s coiled body. A fang, Rudolf had called him. But a fang could be pulled. And tonight, the lion would try.

In the great hall, the Bohemian nobility glittered like a frozen river. Ottokar sat at the high table beneath a canopy of gold, his beard flecked with grey, his eyes still sharp as a hawk’s. He rose when Konrad entered, and his voice carried to every corner of the hall.

“The King of the Romans sends me a shadow, and the shadow deigns to join my feast! Come, Sir Konrad, sit beside me. I would hear how my old friend Rudolf fares in his little castle on the Rhine.”

Konrad smiled and bowed, and took the seat Ottokar indicated—not beside the king, but across from him, with Lady Eliška on his left and a bald, heavy-jowled baron on his right. The baron’s name was von Perchtoldsdorf, and he drank deeply and spoke little, but his eyes were watchful.

The courses came and went. Roasted swan, venison in juniper sauce, breads shaped like lions and serpents. Konrad ate sparingly, smiled often, and said nothing of consequence. Ottokar watched him like a cat watches a mouse, waiting for the twitch.

It came when the wine was poured—a deep red vintage from the vineyards of Moravia. The bald baron leaned close, his breath sour with drink. “You are a long way from home, Sir Konrad. I hope you find Prague to your liking.”

“Prague is beautiful,” Konrad said, “but I find the weather here uncertain. One never knows which way the wind will blow.”

The baron’s eyes flickered. “Aye. The wind changes fast in Bohemia.”

Konrad lifted his cup, but did not drink. “Then it is wise to plant deep roots before the storm.”

Across the table, Ottokar’s voice boomed. “Sir Konrad! You speak of roots. Tell me—does your uncle intend to plant his roots in my soil? I hear he has ambitions beyond the Rhine.”

The hall fell silent. Every eye turned to Konrad. He set down his cup, and met Ottokar’s gaze with a calm he did not feel.

“My uncle is an old man, Your Majesty. He wants only peace for the Empire, and a quiet grave for himself. It is the nobles of the Empire who speak of expansion—your nobles, I might add, who whisper that Bohemia’s crown has grown too heavy for its king.”

A ripple ran through the hall. Ottokar’s face went still, and for a moment Konrad saw the lion beneath the golden mane.

“My crown is not heavy,” Ottokar said, softly, dangerously. “It is my sword that carries the weight.”

Konrad bowed his head. “Then I pray Your Majesty’s sword never grows tired.”

The tension broke as Ottokar laughed—a sharp, harsh sound. He raised his cup, and the hall drank with him. But Konrad saw the baron beside him exchange a glance with a man at the far table, and he knew the seed had been planted.

The feast continued, but Konrad barely tasted the wine. He was thinking of the parchment in his tunic, and the woman in the grey cloak, and the river that remembered everything.

And he was thinking of Margarethe, waiting in Vienna, who had promised to marry him and had not told him why.

As the last course was cleared, a servant leaned close and whispered in Konrad’s ear. “There is a woman at the postern gate, sir. She says you must come at once. She says the river has risen.”

Konrad rose, excused himself, and followed the servant down the winding stairs toward the cold night air. The postern gate stood ajar, and beyond it, in the shadow of the wall, stood a figure in a grey cloak.

She turned as he approached, and in the torchlight he saw her face for the first time—not young, not old, with eyes the color of winter rivers.

“Sir Konrad,” she said. “You have found me. Now you must decide what to do with what I have told you.”

“And what is that?” he asked.

She smiled, and it was not a kind smile. “That your uncle did not choose you by chance. He chose you because you are the only one who can read the letter he does not know exists. The letter from your father, written before he died. The letter that names you—not Rudolf—as the true heir to the Habsburg name.”

The world tilted. Konrad’s hand went to the dagger at his belt, but she was already stepping back into the darkness.

“Ask him, Sir Konrad. Ask him what he buried before the snow fell.”

And she was gone, swallowed by the night, leaving Konrad alone at the gate with the weight of a dynasty pressing down on his shoulders.