Chapter 34: THE INK AND THE ASH

The parchment trembled in Konrad’s fingers, though the air in the gallery was still. *There is another. In Vienna. And he carries your father’s eyes.*

He read the words three times, as if repetition might change their meaning. It did not. His father’s eyes—grey as winter rivers, sharp as broken glass—had been buried with him in 1268, murdered on Rudolf’s orders. Or so Hedwig had claimed. But if another lived who bore those eyes, then the line did not end with him. And if the line did not end with him, then the letter naming him the true heir was worth less than the parchment it was written on.

Konrad folded the note carefully, the way he had seen Brother Anselm fold the Host into its linen. He slipped it into his tunic, beside the ring and the wolf-sealed scroll. Three secrets now pressed against his heart, and he carried them like stones.

He did not return to the feast.

The corridors of the Přemyslid palace swallowed him, their tapestries muffling his steps. He passed the door to the winter garden, where Eliska von Kuenring had left her invitation, and did not stop. He passed the gallery where Kunigunde had raised her finger to her lips, and did not look. He was hunting something else now—something older than the dance of Bohemian noblewomen and their careful smiles.

The library.

He found it at the end of a corridor he had not walked before, past the kitchens where the scullions slept among the ash, past a chapel that smelled of beeswax and old incense. The door was oak, banded with iron, and it was unlocked.

Inside, the air was cold and still. Candlelight flickered from a single sconce, revealing shelves that rose into darkness. Manuscripts lay on slanted desks, their pages open like sleeping birds. The dust was undisturbed except for a single set of footprints leading to the far corner.

Konrad followed them.

The footprints stopped at a desk where a book lay open—a chronicle, written in a clear Bohemian hand. The page was marked with a strip of red silk, and the passage it marked was underlined in faded ink.

*In the year of Our Lord 1268, Ottokar of Bohemia received at his court a certain knight of Swabia, one Ulrich von Eppenstein, who came bearing greetings from his nephew, the Count of Habsburg. The knight remained at Prague for the winter and was much favored by the king. In the spring, he departed for Vienna, where he died of a sudden fever. His body was returned to his kin in a sealed coffin, and his brother—for he had a brother—did not open it.*

Konrad’s hand went to the edge of the desk, gripping the wood until his knuckles whitened.

His father had been in Prague. He had been *favored* by Ottokar. And he had died in Vienna, of a fever, in a sealed coffin.

The chronicle said nothing of murder. But chronicles were written by men who feared the living more than the dead.

He turned the page.

The next entry was dated 1269, and it was written in a different hand—darker, more hurried, as if the scribe had been in haste.

*The knight’s brother came to Prague in the autumn, seeking his brother’s possessions. He was a tall man, grey-haired, with a scar upon his left cheek. He spoke little and smiled less. The king received him coldly and gave him nothing. He departed within the week, and was seen no more.*

Konrad’s breath caught.

A brother. His father had a brother.

*Rudolf.*

The Count of Habsburg, grey-haired and scarred, had come to Prague seeking his brother’s possessions. And Ottokar had given him nothing. Perhaps because there was nothing to give. Or perhaps because the possessions in question were not things but truths—and Ottokar had no intention of surrendering them.

Konrad closed the chronicle, pressing the pages flat as if he could smooth the past into something less jagged. But the past was not parchment. It could not be smoothed. It could only be read, and reread, until the reader understood what the words refused to say.

He was about to leave when he noticed the footprints again.

They led to the desk—and they continued past it, to the far wall, where a tapestry hung over what should have been a window. The tapestry was old, woven with the golden lion of Bohemia, and it was slightly askew.

Konrad crossed the room and lifted the tapestry’s edge.

Behind it, the wall was bare stone—except for a single brick that had been loosened, its mortar scraped away with a knife.

He worked the brick free with his fingers, careful not to make a sound. The cavity behind it was dark, and for a moment he thought it empty. Then his hand closed around something cold and smooth.

A scroll, sealed with wax.

He carried it to the candle, where the light could reach it. The seal was broken, and the wax was dark with age. He unrolled it.

The hand was his father’s. He knew it at once—he had seen letters, had traced the loops and slashes of that hand as a boy, learning to write by copying it. The script was cramped, hurried, the ink uneven, as if written in haste or fear.

*To my son, Konrad, if you should ever read these words: I have been a fool, and fools are buried young. I came to Prague to serve Ottokar, believing he would protect me from Rudolf’s jealousy. I was wrong. The king has been kind, but kindness is a leash. I have learned too much of the Habsburg plans—of the alliances Rudolf will make, of the lands he will claim, of the blood he will spend. Ottokar knows I know. He will not let me leave this city alive.*

*But I have made a bargain. I will go to Vienna willingly, and I will die there of a fever, and my brother will believe I was taken by illness. In exchange, Ottokar will protect you. He has sworn it. The boy will not be harmed, he said. The boy will be allowed to live.*

*Do not trust Rudolf. Do not trust Ottokar. Trust only the river, which remembers what men forget.*

*Your father, Ulrich.*

Konrad read the letter twice. The first time, he felt nothing but the cold weight of his father’s fear, reaching across the years. The second time, he felt the rage.

His father had been sent to die. Not by Rudolf—or not only by Rudolf. Ottokar had known. Ottokar had *arranged* it, had made the bargain that sent Ulrich to Vienna and the fever. And Rudolf, perhaps, had only taken advantage of a death that had already been purchased.

The serpent and the lion, feeding on the same corpse.

Konrad folded the letter and placed it in his tunic, beside the note and the ring and the wolf-sealed scroll. He had come to Prague to serve his uncle. He had learned that his uncle was a murderer. Now he had learned that his father’s murder had been a bargain, struck between two kings who had both seen him as a pawn.

He returned the brick to its place, smoothed the tapestry, and left the library without a sound.

The corridor was darker now, the candles guttering in their sconces. The feast would be ending soon, and Ottokar would expect his guest to appear, smiling and grateful, ready to be tested again.

Konrad walked toward the great hall, his steps measured, his face calm. But beneath his tunic, the letter burned against his skin, and the river in his blood remembered everything.