Chapter 70: THE WIDOW'S GAMBLE

The house of merchants' wool stood silent beneath a sky the colour of old bone. Konrad had watched it for three hours from the shadow of a wine cart, counting the windows, marking the servants who came and went with their baskets and their gossip. A brother—no, a son—slept somewhere within those walls, and the weight of that knowledge sat in his chest like a stone that had grown there overnight.

He crossed the street as the bells of St. Stephen's tolled sext. The door opened before he could knock, and a woman stood in the gap, her grey eyes measuring him with the patience of one who had expected him for some time.

"You are late, Sir Konrad. The river has been waiting."

She was older than Margarethe, perhaps fifty, with hands that bore the scars of needle and knife both. Her gown was simple widow's wool, but the brooch at her throat was silver set with river pearls, and her voice carried the authority of one who had once commanded households.

"I was not aware I had an appointment."

"You have had one since the day you were born." She stepped aside, and the warmth of the house rushed out to meet him—woodsmoke and bread and something sharper beneath, the smell of herbs that had been crushed and hung to dry. "I am Frau Elsbeth von Trast. I was your mother's woman, before the end."

Konrad's hand moved to his dagger before he could stop it. "My mother died when I was six. She had no woman."

"She had me." Elsbeth closed the door and bolted it, then turned to face him in the narrow hall. "I held you when you were days old. I saw the wolf's mark on your shoulder, and I knew what it meant. I also knew why your father sent you away—and why he did not send you alone."

The words struck him like a blow to the chest. "You know my father's murder."

"I know your father's choices." She gestured toward a chamber at the end of the hall. "Come. There is wine, and there is truth, and one of them will be bitter."

The chamber was small but well-kept, with a fire burning low in the hearth and a table set for two. A boy's wooden horse stood in the corner, its paint worn from small hands, and Konrad felt his throat tighten at the sight.

"The child—"

"Is at his lessons. He will not disturb us." Elsbeth poured wine into two cups, her movements deliberate, unhurried. "You have questions. I have answers, though some of them will cost you more than you wish to pay."

Konrad did not sit. "Who is the boy's mother?"

"You know who she is." Elsbeth's eyes met his, and there was something in them that might have been pity. "You have carried her letter against your heart for weeks. Margarethe von Stade is his mother, and she has kept him here, in this house, under my care, while she played her part in Vienna."

The room seemed to tilt. "Margarethe told me the boy was my brother."

"She told you what she needed you to believe." Elsbeth set the wine cup down and folded her hands. "The boy is your son, conceived in the autumn of 1268, before your father's death—before you were sent away to the Habsburg court. She was married to von Stade then, and the child could not be claimed. So she gave him to me, and I have raised him as my own grandson."

"And my father's letter—the one naming me as heir?"

"Your father wrote that letter after he learned of the boy's birth. He wanted you to know that the line would continue, whether through you or through your son." Elsbeth's voice softened. "He also wrote another letter, one that he entrusted to me. He knew Rudolf would move against him. He knew the price of the wolf's ambition."

Konrad's hand found the ring in his tunic, the ring that Hedwig had given him in Prague. "What did he know?"

"That Rudolf would not stop at murder." Elsbeth reached into her sleeve and drew out a folded parchment, yellowed with age, sealed with the wolf's head that now felt like a brand on Konrad's soul. "He knew that if he died, Rudolf would claim you as his own instrument—that you would become the serpent's fang. And he knew that you would have to choose, in the end, whether to serve the serpent or to become the wolf."

She held out the parchment. "This is his confession, written in his own hand, witnessed by the priest who buried him. It names Rudolf as his murderer, and it names you as his true heir—not to the Habsburg title, but to the old lands, the ones that were ours before Rudolf stole them."

Konrad took the parchment, but he did not open it. His eyes remained fixed on Elsbeth's face. "Why are you giving me this now?"

"Because Margarethe is in danger." Elsbeth's voice was steady, but her hands trembled slightly as she clasped them together. "She returned to Vienna last month, as you know, to broker the marriage alliance with the Count of Tyrol. But Ottokar's agents followed her. They know about the boy. They know about you."

"Ottokar already knows." Konrad's mouth was dry. "He told me as much in Prague."

"Then you know he will use the boy to break you." Elsbeth stepped closer, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "The boy is not safe here. The servants talk, and the walls have ears. If Ottokar's men come for him—"

"They will have to come through me."

"One man against an army?" Elsbeth shook her head. "No, Sir Konrad. You must take the boy and go. Now, tonight, before the snow closes the passes. Take him south, to the Alps, to the lands your father left you. There are those who will follow you, if you can reach them."

Konrad looked at the wooden horse, at the small, worn toy that spoke of a childhood he had never known. A son. He had a son, and the boy had been here, in this house, within his reach for days—and he had not known.

"Where is Margarethe now?"

"She is in Vienna, with Rudolf." Elsbeth's face was grim. "She does not know I have sent for you. She believes you are still in Prague, still dancing at Ottokar's table. If she knew you had discovered the boy—"

"She would fear what I might do." Konrad understood. Margarethe had kept the boy hidden, not only from Ottokar, but from him. She had bound herself to him in marriage, had sworn to stand at his side, but she had never trusted him with the truth.

"Would you blame her?" Elsbeth asked softly. "You are her husband in name, but she has seen what you have done in Rudolf's service. She has seen the poison, the forgeries, the men who asked too many questions and vanished. She loves you, Sir Konrad, but she does not trust you. And she has reason."

The words were a blade, and they cut deep. Konrad opened the parchment, finally, and read the words his father had written twenty years ago—a confession, a legacy, a curse.

When he looked up, Elsbeth was watching him with the patience of one who had seen too much to be surprised by anything.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to be the man your father believed you could be." She gestured toward the corner, where the wooden horse stood waiting. "I want you to take your son, and claim what is yours."

Konrad looked at the toy, and then at the door beyond it, where somewhere in the house a boy was learning his letters—a boy with his father's eyes, who did not yet know his father was coming.

The river was pulling faster now.

And Konrad knew that the time for shadows was over.