Chapter 65: THE WOLF’S WIDOW

Konrad stood in the frost-bitten garden until the snow had soaked through his boots. The woman’s words circled in his mind like trapped birds. Your son. He clutched the iron gate until his knuckles went white, then turned and walked back toward the castle with a measured, deliberate stride.

The corridors of Prague were quieter now, the feast’s roar reduced to a distant rumble. Servants hurried past with empty trenchers and stained linens, their eyes averted. Konrad found Margarethe in the small antechamber she had claimed beside the chapel, a room of cold stone and warmer secrets. She sat by the brazier, her hands spread above the coals, and did not look up when he entered.

“You knew,” he said, closing the door behind him.

“I knew many things.” She turned her palms, watching the heat rise. “You will have to be more specific.”

“The boy. The one in Vienna. You knew he was not my brother.”

Margarethe’s jaw tightened, but her eyes remained on the flames. “I knew that whatever was in Vienna would either free you or destroy you. I did not know which, and I still do not.”

Konrad crossed the room in three strides and stood over her, his shadow swallowing the firelight. “Who told you?”

“A letter. From a woman who signs herself with a wolf’s head.” Margarethe finally looked up, and her eyes were unreadable, dark as frozen rivers. “Sister Hedwig. Your aunt. She writes to me because she cannot write to you, and because I am the only one who might believe her.”

“Believe what?”

“That the boy’s mother was not some nameless merchant’s daughter. That she was a lady of the Přemyslid court who died in childbirth, and that the secret was buried deep enough to protect the child—and you.”

Konrad’s breath caught. The ring in his tunic seemed heavier, colder. Hedwig’s words came back to him: the river remembers. Not just his father’s death. Not just the letter naming him heir. His son.

“Her name,” he said. “The mother.”

Margarethe rose, smoothing her gown, and moved to a small chest against the wall. She unlocked it with a key hanging from her girdle and drew out a folded parchment, sealed with wax the colour of dried blood.

“She wrote it herself, before she died. Hedwig obtained it from the midwife who attended her.” Margarethe held the parchment out but did not release it when Konrad’s fingers touched it. “You should know what it says before you read it. It will not be kind.”

“Kindness is a luxury I abandoned at the Rhine.”

“Then you will not weep when you learn she was your cousin.”

Konrad’s hand dropped. The parchment fell to the floor between them.

“Explain.”

“Her name was Anna von Eppenstein. Your father’s brother’s daughter. She was sixteen when she came to Vienna, a hostage of sorts, a guarantee of her father’s loyalty. You were seventeen, newly knighted, and your uncle had sent you to the city to learn the ways of courts.” Margarethe knelt and picked up the parchment, smoothing it against her palm. “She loved you. You loved her. And when you left for the wars, she was already carrying your child. She died bringing him into the world, and the child was taken by those who did not want Rudolf to know he had a rival’s blood in his veins.”

Konrad felt the room tilt. He gripped the back of a chair, the carved wood biting into his palm. “I did not know. I swear by every saint, I did not know.”

“Of course you did not. That is the point.” Margarethe’s voice was gentler now, a blade wrapped in wool. “You were young, Konrad. You were sent away precisely so you would not know. Your uncle did not want you to have a family of your own. A man with a son is a man with something to fight for. A man with nothing is a man he can use.”

“And now?”

“Now you have a son, and a secret, and a war coming. The question is which one you will carry into battle.” She pressed the parchment into his hands. “Read it. Then decide what kind of man you will be.”

Konrad unfolded the letter with trembling fingers. The ink was faded, the hand unsteady, but the words were clear enough. Anna’s voice, speaking from beyond the grave, told him of her fear, her hope, and her final plea: that her son would know his father was not a monster, that he was loved even if he was never held.

When he finished, he folded the letter carefully and slid it inside his tunic, beside the ring and the scroll and the weight of everything he had learned.

“I will go to Vienna,” he said. “After the feast. Before the war. I will find him.”

“And then what?” Margarethe asked. “Bring him here? Into Ottokar’s reach? Into Rudolf’s?”

“I do not know. But I will not leave him among strangers who might use him as a blade against me.”

“He is already a blade against you. He has been since the moment he was born.” Margarethe moved closer, reaching up to touch his cheek with a cold hand. “That is what sons are, Konrad. They are the future sharpened into a weapon. The only question is whose hand will hold it.”

He caught her wrist, not harshly, but firmly. “And you? Whose hand holds you?”

Margarethe’s smile was thin, bitter, beautiful. “I hold myself, Sir Konrad. That is the only way a woman survives in this world of wolves and lions. But I have chosen to stand beside you, for now. Because you are the only man I have met who might be worthy of the truth.”

She stepped back, and the moment broke like thin ice. The fire crackled. Somewhere above them, the feast continued, Ottokar’s laughter rolling like distant thunder.

“There is one more thing,” Margarethe said, her voice dropping. “A messenger arrived from Vienna an hour ago. He bore a letter for Ottokar, sealed with the Habsburg eagle.”

Konrad’s blood ran cold. “Rudolf wrote to him?”

“Directly. And a rider left the city immediately after, riding south at speed. I do not know what the letter said, but Ottokar read it twice, and then he smiled.”

“That is not a good sign.”

“No.” Margarethe’s eyes met his. “It is not. I think the game is changing faster than you can move. And I think your uncle has just made a move that will break the board.”

Konrad stood in the firelight, Anna’s letter burning against his chest, the ring cold on his finger, and for the first time in his life, he did not know which direction to turn.

The river was pulling faster. And somewhere in Vienna, a son he had never known was sleeping beneath merchants’ wool—while in Prague, a lion smiled and sharpened his claws.