Chapter 23: The Wolf’s Seal

The letter was short, written in a hand that was precise, almost feminine, but with a pressure that had bitten into the parchment. It bore no salutation, no signature, only the wolf’s head seal and a single block of text:

*In Vienna, last autumn, your betrothed did not merely attend the court. She purchased a death. Ask her about the apothecary on the Tuchlauben, the one who keeps a raven in a cage. Ask her what she bought with the silver that came from a Bohemian purse. She will lie, but the raven remembers. The river remembers. It all flows to the same sea.*

Konrad read it twice. The cold of the chapel seeped through his boots, and the candle flame guttered as if a draft had passed through stone. He folded the parchment along its creases and pressed it against his chest, as if to keep the words from spilling out into the world.

Margarethe had warned him of Hedwig. She had told him to find the woman in grey, to speak the words *the river remembers*. And now Hedwig had given him a knife aimed at Margarethe’s heart. Two women, each pointing at the other, each claiming the truth, and Konrad stood between them with nothing but his own suspicion to guide him.

He left the chapel by a side door, stepping into the frozen courtyard of the Hradčany. Snow had begun to fall again, thin and sifting, powdering the cobbles and the shoulders of the guards who stood sentinel at the great hall’s doors. The air smelled of woodsmoke and iron, and somewhere beyond the walls a bell tolled the hour of Vespers. Christmas was two days away. The feast was coming, and Ottokar was waiting for him like a spider in its web.

Konrad did not return to his chambers. Instead, he walked the perimeter of the castle, keeping to the shadows, his breath clouding before him. The letter burned in his pouch. He wanted to confront Margarethe, to shake her until the truth fell out, but he knew better. She was a Saxon heiress, a widow who had survived courts that had chewed up lesser women. She would not be rattled by a landless knight with a poet’s tongue.

He found her in the women’s gallery, a narrow walkway overlooking the great hall, where servants were already laying tables for the Christmas feast. She stood alone, her hands resting on the stone balustrade, watching the bustle below. She wore a gown of deep green wool, and her hair was coiled beneath a silver net. She did not turn when he approached, but she spoke.

“You have the look of a man who has swallowed a stone.”

“I have the look of a man who has been given a gift,” Konrad said, stopping beside her. “A letter. Anonymous. Wolf’s head seal.”

Margarethe’s hands did not move from the balustrade, but he saw her knuckles whiten.

“And what does the wolf say?”

“It says that in Vienna, last autumn, you purchased a death. An apothecary on the Tuchlauben, a raven in a cage, a Bohemian purse of silver.” He watched her profile. “It says you will lie, but that the river remembers.”

She was silent for a long moment. Below, a servant dropped a platter, and the clatter echoed through the hall. A lord laughed, loud and careless.

“The apothecary on the Tuchlauben,” Margarethe said at last, her voice low. “His name is Ulrich. He is a poisoner, but he is also a coward. He sells to anyone who pays, but he keeps a ledger, and he keeps a raven that he talks to when he drinks too much.” She turned to face Konrad. Her eyes were pale grey, like the winter sky, and they held his without flinching. “I did buy something from him. But it was not a death.”

“What then?”

“I bought a truth.” She reached into the sleeve of her gown and drew out a small vial, dark glass, stoppered with wax. “This is not poison. It is a draught of forgetfulness, brewed from henbane and poppy. I gave it to my first husband, you see, on the night he died. He was in pain, Konrad. He was dying of a wasting sickness that had eaten him from the inside. I gave him mercy. But the court in Vienna believed I gave him death.”

Konrad stared at the vial. “Then the letter is a lie.”

“The letter is a half-truth,” Margarethe said. “As all good letters are. Someone in Prague—someone who knows of Ulrich’s ledger—wants you to believe I am a murderer. They want you to distrust me before the feast, so that you will stand alone when Ottokar makes his move.” She slipped the vial back into her sleeve. “The question is not what I did in Vienna, Konrad. The question is who sent that wolf to you, and why they want you isolated.”

He thought of Hedwig’s grey cloak, her cold eyes, her claim that his father had been murdered. He thought of Rudolf, who had called him fang, and warned that fangs could be pulled. And he thought of the dark-haired Bohemian lady who watched him from the gallery, whose gaze neither warmed nor chilled but simply *waited*.

“The river remembers,” he said. “That is what Hedwig told me. She said it like a key.”

Margarethe tilted her head. “And I told you to say those words to her. But I did not tell you to trust her.” She stepped closer, close enough that he could smell the lavender on her collar. “There is a third woman in this castle, Konrad. The one with the dark hair. She is not a lady of the court. She is Ottokar’s sister-in-law, Kunigunde of Brandenburg. And she is the one who holds the letter that names you as Rudolf’s heir.”

Konrad’s blood went cold. “Kunigunde. She is the key.”

“She is the lock,” Margarethe corrected. “And you are the key. But if you go to her before the feast, Ottokar will know. He is watching her. He is watching everyone.” She touched his arm, a brief, almost imperceptible pressure. “Wait. Let him think you are weak. Let him think you have come to beg. And then, when the wine is poured and the candles burn low, you will strike.”

She withdrew her hand and turned back to the balustrade, her gaze dropping to the hall below.

“Trust no one,” she said. “Not even me.”

Konrad stood beside her for a long moment, the letter burning in his pouch, the vial hidden in her sleeve, and the wolf’s head staring up at him from the dark wax of memory. The feast was coming. The lion was waiting. And somewhere in the shadows of Prague, a woman with grey eyes and a grey cloak was watching the river flow toward the sea.

He turned and walked away, and as he descended the stairs into the courtyard, he saw Kunigunde of Brandenburg standing in a doorway, her dark hair loose, her gaze fixed on him. She did not smile. She did not speak. She simply raised one finger to her lips, and then she was gone, swallowed by the shadows of the castle.

The hook was set.