Chapter 22: The Lion’s Cup

The wine was dark as old blood, and it smelled of cherries and cloves. Konrad held the cup in both hands, feeling the warmth of the silver against his cold fingers. Ottokar watched him with the patience of a man who had already decided the outcome of the evening.

“You hesitate,” Ottokar said. “A man who hesitates at a king’s table is either wise or guilty. Which are you, Sir Konrad?”

“Both, Your Grace,” Konrad said, and drank.

The wine burned going down, rich and spiced, and for a moment the great hall of the Prague castle swam before him. Torchlight danced on the faces of the Bohemian nobility—the dark-haired lady in the gallery, the barons with their beards and gold chains, the priests with their folded hands. Konrad set the cup down and did not die.

Ottokar’s smile widened. “Good. You are not a fool, or at least not a dead one.” He leaned forward, his voice dropping so that only Konrad could hear. “Now tell me what your uncle truly wants in Prague.”

What Rudolf wanted was everything, as always. But Konrad had learned to speak in currencies other than truth.

“He wants peace,” Konrad said. “The empire has bled enough under the interregnum. My uncle wishes to see the Bohemian crown and the imperial crown bound by friendship, not by war.”

“Friendship.” Ottokar rolled the word on his tongue like a foreign coin. “Your uncle took the Austrian duchies from me by force of arms and called it restitution. He married his daughter to my son and called it alliance. And now he sends you—a landless knight with a poet’s mouth—to speak of friendship.”

“I am landless only because the Habsburgs have not yet found me worthy of land,” Konrad said. “But I am not without value. I am my uncle’s ear, Your Grace. What I hear in Prague, he will hear in Vienna. And what you say to me tonight, you may not have the chance to say to him again before the snows melt.”

Ottokar studied him. The king’s face was handsome in the way of carved stone—strong, weathered, and capable of great cruelty. His golden hair, the badge of his Přemyslid blood, fell to his shoulders.

“You speak of snows,” Ottokar said. “You think there will be war by spring.”

“I think there will be war whenever you choose it, Your Grace. My uncle does not start wars. He finishes them.”

The king laughed again, but this time there was something darker in it. He gestured to the hall, to the nobles and the priests and the servants who moved like shadows between the tables.

“Look at them,” Ottokar said. “They eat my bread, drink my wine, and whisper my name in their prayers. But if I fell tomorrow, they would be eating the bread of whoever held Prague by nightfall. Loyalty is a garment that changes with the season.” He turned back to Konrad. “Your uncle understands this. That is why I fear him more than I fear the Pope or the Emperor of Constantinople. He knows that men are bought, not born.”

“And women?” Konrad asked, before he could stop himself.

Ottokar’s eyes flickered to the gallery. The dark-haired lady had not moved. She stood alone, apart from the other women, her hands folded before her, her gaze fixed on Konrad with an intensity that made his skin prickle.

“You have noticed her,” Ottokar said. “That is either courage or stupidity.”

“What is her name?”

“You do not need her name. You need to forget her face.” Ottokar’s voice hardened. “She is a ward of this court, and her marriage is not a matter for imperial envoys.”

Konrad felt the weight of the words. A ward—a hostage, perhaps, or a prize. He filed the knowledge away and inclined his head.

“I meant no offense, Your Grace. I am promised to another.”

“Yes. The von Stade widow.” Ottokar’s smile returned, sharp as a scythe. “I have heard of her. They say she is beautiful and dangerous, and that she has already buried one husband who displeased her.”

Konrad thought of Margarethe’s grey eyes, of the way she had warned him of Hedwig, of the note that had come to him in the night. *Ask what she did in Vienna.*

“They say many things,” Konrad said.

“They do.” Ottokar poured himself more wine, not offering any to Konrad. “They say your uncle killed his own brother to take the Habsburg name. They say he would kill you if you became inconvenient. They say the woman in grey who follows you is a ghost, and that ghosts are the only honest creatures in this world.”

Konrad kept his face still. “The woman in grey is a servant of the court. She has been kind to me.”

“Has she?” Ottokar’s eyes glittered. “Then you are luckier than most. Kindness is rarer than gold in Prague.”

The feast continued. Roasted swans were carried in on silver platters, their feathers replaced with spun sugar. Musicians played from a gallery above, their strings thin and mournful. Konrad ate and drank and smiled, and all the while he felt the dark-haired lady’s gaze upon him, and the weight of Hedwig’s words in his chest.

*The question is not whether you will stay, but whether you will survive the feast.*

Near midnight, when the wine had loosened tongues and the nobles had begun to dance, Konrad slipped away from the table. He moved through the corridors of the castle, his boots silent on the stone, until he found the chapel where Hedwig had first spoken to him.

She was there, kneeling before the altar. Her grey cloak pooled around her like water.

“You are still alive,” she said without turning.

“Ottokar’s wine did not kill me. Perhaps he wants me to die of boredom instead.”

Hedwig rose and faced him. In the candlelight, her face was older than he remembered, more worn, but her eyes were the same—Rudolf’s eyes, sharp and calculating.

“He is testing you,” she said. “The wine was not poisoned, but it was meant to make you afraid. A man who is afraid makes mistakes.”

“I am not afraid.”

“You are terrified.” She stepped closer. “You are terrified of me, of your uncle, of the woman who has promised to marry you. And you are terrified of what you have learned about yourself.”

Konrad said nothing.

“The letter is real,” Hedwig said. “Our father wrote it before he died. He named you his heir, not Rudolf. He knew what Rudolf was, what he would become. He wrote it in his own blood, Konrad, and I have kept it safe for fifteen years.”

“Why?” Konrad heard his own voice crack. “Why tell me now?”

“Because Ottokar is not the only one who reads the season. The snows will melt, and there will be war. And when the war comes, you will have to choose whose fang you are.” Hedwig pressed something into his hand—a folded parchment, sealed with wax.

“What is this?”

“Proof that Margarethe was in Vienna last autumn,” Hedwig said. “Proof of what she did there. If you are going to marry her, you should know the cost of her loyalty.”

Konrad looked down at the parchment. The seal was unfamiliar—a wolf’s head, stamped in dark wax.

“Why should I trust you?” he asked.

“You should not,” Hedwig said. “But the river remembers, Konrad. And so do I.”

She turned and walked away, her grey cloak disappearing into the shadows of the chapel. Konrad stood alone in the candlelight, holding the letter, feeling the weight of it in his hand like a stone dropped into deep water.

He broke the seal.