Chapter 66: THE WIDOW'S LEDGER

The house of merchants' wool stood three streets from the river, its timber frame leaning into its neighbor like a drunkard seeking comfort. Konrad had watched it for two days from the shadow of a granary, noting the comings and goings—a milkmaid at dawn, a priest at noon, a boy with a basket of eels who lingered too long at the door and left with empty hands and a full purse.

The woman who answered his knock was not the widow he expected. She was old enough to be his mother, with iron-grey hair pulled tight beneath a linen coif and eyes the color of winter river ice. She looked at him once, then stepped aside without a word, as though she had been expecting him for years.

The room within smelled of beeswax and dried lavender. Ledgers stood in neat stacks along the walls, their spines cracked with use, their pages yellowed with age. A fire burned low in the hearth, and above it hung a painting of a man Konrad did not recognize—though something in the set of the jaw, the way the chin curved slightly to the left, made his chest tighten.

“You have your father’s mouth,” the woman said, closing the door behind him. “I would have known you anywhere.”

Konrad turned, his hand moving instinctively toward the dagger at his belt. “You have the advantage of me, madam.”

“I am Agnes von Stade.” She gestured to a chair before the fire. “Margarethe’s aunt by marriage. Her mother’s sister, to be precise. We share the same blood, though not the same name anymore.”

The name struck him like a blow. Margarethe’s aunt. The woman who had raised her after her parents died, who had arranged the first marriage to the old Saxon lord, who had taught her to read charters and count coin before she could sew.

“You know why I have come.”

“I know many things, Sir Konrad.” She settled into a chair opposite him, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes never leaving his face. “I know that you carry a ring that belonged to your father. I know that you have seen the ledger of bones beneath the butcher’s shop. I know that you have a son in Vienna who has never seen your face.” She paused. “And I know that Margarethe is not what she seems.”

Konrad’s hand tightened on the dagger. “Explain.”

“Your betrothed is a clever woman. Too clever, perhaps, for her own good.” Agnes reached into her sleeve and drew out a folded parchment, worn at the edges, sealed with a blob of red wax that bore no imprint. “I have been keeping this for her. She asked me to destroy it three times, and three times I refused. She does not know I have kept a copy.”

She held the parchment out to him. Konrad did not take it.

“What is it?”

“A confession.” Agnes’s voice was steady, but something flickered in her ice-colored eyes. “Written in her own hand, in the autumn of 1273, before she came to Prague. She was in Vienna last year, as you know. She was there at the behest of your uncle Rudolf.”

Konrad felt the floor shift beneath him. “She was spying for my uncle?”

“She was doing what she was told.” Agnes’s mouth tightened. “What choice did she have? Rudolf held her brother’s life in his hands. A young man, barely twenty, who had made the mistake of supporting the wrong claimant in a border dispute. Rudolf offered a trade: her service in Vienna, and her brother’s freedom. She accepted.”

“Service in Vienna meant what?”

“She was to watch the Habsburg household. To identify those who might be disloyal to Rudolf—those who whispered too much about the old count’s death in 1268, those who wondered too loudly about the letter that named a different heir.” Agnes leaned forward. “She was to report those names to Rudolf, and he would deal with them in his own way.”

Konrad’s blood ran cold. “She was hunting my father’s allies.”

“She was hunting anyone who threatened the dynasty.” Agnes’s voice softened. “She did not know what she was doing at first. She thought she was protecting her brother. It was only later that she learned what Rudolf did with the names she gave him.”

“How many?”

“Four that she knows of. Perhaps more.” Agnes’s eyes dropped to her hands. “She carried the guilt of it for months. She tried to warn one of them—a merchant from Basel who had been kind to her—but the warning came too late. He was found in the river three days later, his throat cut from ear to ear.”

The fire crackled in the silence. Konrad stared at the parchment in Agnes’s hand, his mind churning.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because she is my niece, and I love her.” Agnes’s voice cracked for the first time. “And because I know what Rudolf will do to her when he no longer needs her. She has served her purpose. She is to marry you, to bind the Saxon lands to the Habsburg name. But once the marriage is done and the lands are secured, she will be expendable. And she knows it.”

“She told you this?”

“She does not need to tell me. I know my niece.” Agnes set the parchment on the table between them. “I am giving you this because I want you to understand what she has done, and why. And because I want you to know that she is not your enemy. She is a woman trapped between two wolves, trying to survive long enough to choose her own path.”

Konrad looked at the parchment, then at Agnes. “You said she asked you to destroy this three times. Why did you refuse?”

“Because I knew you would come.” Agnes’s eyes met his, and he saw something ancient and weary in them. “I knew that when you learned the truth about your father, you would ask questions that no one else could answer. And I knew that you would need to know the whole truth before you could decide what to do with it.”

She stood, smoothing her skirts. “Read it. Then decide what you will do with it. But know this, Sir Konrad: whatever you choose, Margarethe has already chosen you. She has refused two other offers since the betrothal was announced. She has risked her brother’s life by staying silent about your meetings. She has placed herself in Ottokar’s path, knowing what he could do to her if he learned the truth.”

Agnes moved toward the door, then paused. “The ring you carry. May I see it?”

Konrad hesitated, then drew the ring from his tunic. It was plain, unadorned, a simple band of dark iron set with a wolf’s head seal. Agnes took it, turning it over in her weathered hands, and for a moment her face softened.

“He gave this to my sister,” she said quietly. “The night before he died. He told her that the wolf would rise again, that the river would remember what the crown had tried to forget.” She handed the ring back to him. “He was a good man, your father. He did not deserve what Rudolf did to him.”

Konrad closed his fingers around the ring, feeling its cold weight against his palm. “You knew my father?”

“I knew him.” Agnes’s smile was sad. “I was there when he first saw your mother, at a summer feast in Regensburg. He spent the entire evening trying to steal glances at her without being noticed. He was not very good at it.”

For a moment, the weight of the years lifted, and Konrad saw a glimpse of the man his father might have been—young, hopeful, foolish in love.

“I have one more question,” he said.

“Ask it.”

“My son. In Vienna.” Konrad’s voice caught. “Does Margarethe know?”

Agnes was silent for a long moment. Then she nodded slowly.

“She knows. She has known since the spring. She has been watching him, Sir Konrad. Protecting him. She has paid his foster mother every month, out of her own purse, to make certain he wants for nothing.” Her eyes met his. “She did not do it for you. She did not do it for Rudolf. She did it because she could not bear to see an innocent child suffer for the sins of his father.”

She opened the door, and the cold air rushed in.

“The river remembers, Sir Konrad. But so does she.”

The door closed behind her, and Konrad stood alone in the firelight, the parchment heavy in his hand, the ring cold against his skin, and the weight of a truth he had not yet fully understood pressing down on his shoulders like a shroud.