Chapter 20: The River Remembers

Konrad’s hand drifted to the dagger at his belt, a gesture of habit he could not suppress. The woman before him—this scarred, grey-clad specter who claimed his blood—watched the movement with something like amusement.

“You would bleed your own aunt in a chapel?” she asked. “Rudolf taught you well.”

“Rudolf taught me that kin are the first to betray.” Konrad’s voice was steady, though his heart hammered against his ribs. “My father died in a ditch outside Zurich. His brother did not lift a finger.”

“Your father died because he was a fool who trusted the wrong priest.” Hedwig stepped closer, and the candlelight carved her face into a mask of shadows and old grief. “And Rudolf did not lift a finger because your father was not his brother. He was mine.”

The words landed like a blow. Konrad’s mind raced through the genealogies he had memorized as a boy—the von Eppenstein line, the Habsburg connections, the marriages and alliances that had been recited to him like scripture. There was no Hedwig in that litany.

“You lie.”

“Do I?” She reached into her cloak and drew out a seal ring, worn and scratched but unmistakable. The von Eppenstein wolf, rampant, clutching a cross. His own ring, the one he wore on his smallest finger, was a copy. This was the original. “Your grandfather had this struck for his two children. One to his son—my brother, your father. The other to me, before he sent me to a convent at twelve years old, because I was inconvenient and my dowry was needed for a war that never came.”

Konrad looked at the ring, then at her eyes. They were the same grey as his own. He had never noticed that before.

“Why now?” he asked. “Why reveal yourself in Prague, of all places?”

“Because Rudolf has sent you here to die.” Hedwig’s voice was flat, matter-of-fact. “Ottokar will not simply let you walk away from his Christmas feast. The lion has invited the lamb to dinner, and the lamb has come dressed in Habsburg colors.”

“I am no lamb.”

“No.” Her smile was thin and bitter. “You are a fang. But fangs can be pulled, and Rudolf knows it. He has already found his successor in Albert, his own son. You are a tool, Konrad. A sharp one, but tools are meant to be discarded.”

The chapel was cold, and Konrad felt it seep through his woolen tunic and into his bones. Margarethe had warned him. Rudolf had warned him, in his own way. And now this woman—this aunt he had never known—was telling him the same truth.

“You told me to find you,” he said. “You left word through Margarethe. ‘The river remembers.’ What does that mean?”

Hedwig’s eyes flickered toward the altar, where the carved Virgin looked down with serene indifference. “It means that blood is not so easily washed away. The river that runs through Eppenstein lands remembers what Rudolf did to our family. It remembers the fire, the forged charters, the brothers who were sent to fight in distant wars and never returned. Rudolf’s rise was built on the graves of his own kin.”

“And you want revenge.”

“I want justice.” She stepped closer, close enough that he could smell the incense on her clothes, the damp wool of her cloak. “But I am an old woman, and I have waited long enough. I will settle for the truth being known.”

Konrad’s mind churned. This could be a trap—Ottokar’s doing, or worse, Rudolf’s own test. He had seen his uncle play such games before. But the seal ring was real, and the resemblance between their faces was undeniable.

“What would you have me do?” he asked.

“Leave Prague. Tonight. Before the feast.” Hedwig’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Ottokar plans to arrest you at the Christmas banquet, to hold you as a hostage against Rudolf’s ambitions. He thinks you are valuable enough to trade. He is wrong—Rudolf will not ransom you, he will mourn you and use your death as a pretext for war. The king of the Romans wants a war with Bohemia. He simply needs a reason that does not make him the aggressor.”

The pieces clicked into place with terrible clarity. Rudolf had sent him to Prague knowing Ottokar would not let him go. The old king had called him his fang, but fangs were expendable. A dead nephew was a better weapon than a living one.

“And if I stay?” Konrad asked.

“Then you become the martyr that crowns the Habsburg eagle.” Hedwig’s voice softened, almost tender. “I did not cross half the empire to watch my brother’s son be fed to the lion. Come with me. There is a horse waiting in the north stable, and a boat on the Vltava that will take us upstream before dawn.”

Konrad looked at the altar, at the carved Virgin with her sorrowful eyes. He thought of Margarethe, of her promise to marry him, of the way she had looked at him in the candlelight of her chamber. He thought of Ottokar’s cold Latin reply, and of the dark-haired lady whose gaze lingered on him with unreadable intensity.

“I cannot leave,” he said slowly. “Not yet.”

Hedwig’s face hardened. “Why? For the woman? She is a pawn, like you.”

“For the truth.” Konrad met her eyes. “You said Rudolf built his rise on graves. I want to know whose graves. I want to know what he did to our family, to your brother, to my father. And I want to know what the dark-haired lady in Ottokar’s court has to do with any of it.”

Hedwig was silent for a long moment. Then she reached into her cloak again and drew out a folded parchment, yellowed with age.

“This is a letter,” she said. “From your father, written three days before he died. He knew he was betrayed, but he did not know by whom. He suspected Rudolf, but he could not prove it.” She pressed the parchment into Konrad’s hand. “The dark-haired lady you saw is named Eliška. She is the daughter of a Bohemian lord who was executed on Rudolf’s orders, five years ago. She has her own reasons for watching you.”

Konrad unfolded the letter. The handwriting was cramped, hurried, the ink smeared in places. He read the first lines and felt the ground shift beneath his feet.

*To my son, if he should ever come to read this: the river remembers, and so must you. I am dying not by the sword but by the cup. The man who shares my blood has poisoned me, and he will one day wear a crown he does not deserve. Beware the grey-cloaked women of Prague, for they are the only ones who tell the truth...*

“He wrote this for me,” Konrad whispered.

“He wrote it for you,” Hedwig agreed. “And now you know why you cannot leave. The question is not whether you will stay. The question is whether you will survive the feast.”

Outside, the snow had begun to fall again, blanketing the streets of Prague in white silence. Somewhere in the castle, a bell tolled the hour of compline. And in the stables below, a horse stamped its hooves, waiting for a rider who would not come.