“And they are?”
“Checkmate, my Lady.”
“Oh!” The Lady looked sharply down at the board, angry and trying to make sense of what had happened, but she recovered quickly; she might have lost one game, but she was intent on winning the other. “It is so nice to have someone who can really play, Lady Emma. Now what were you saying about your family?”
She gave Mouse an embroidery hoop and moved her basket of thread to the table. Mouse took it absently, her mind a swirl of the story of Ottakar’s mother and the hissing of the women.
“Did you see how the Younger King looked at the girl? And she him? What he calls a ward others would call a—”
Mouse stood quickly, tossing the embroidery hoop on the table, knocking over several chess pieces. “I am sorry, my Lady, but I am unaccustomed to the warmth of the room. We do not have such grand fireplaces at the abbey. Please excuse me while I get some air.”
Mouse lifted the front of her skirts as she hurried down the stairs; there was no one to see, and she was glad of it. She needed to be alone. She thought about going to her room but was afraid Gitta would be there. She decided to make good her promise to disregard Luka’s warning and slip through one of the gates and out into the woods around the castle, but when she reached the bottom landing, she saw the door to the chapel slightly askew, a few rays of light scattering through the stained glass visible in the opening. Mouse wanted the quiet of home; she felt unclean after listening to what the women thought of her and sorrowful for Ottakar and his mother. Mouse knew well how it felt to be outcast. A flicker of rage tinted her sorrow, and she pushed the heavy door open and walked into the chapel, fed up with being shut out.
Her leather slippers slapped against the stone floor and echoed in the quiet. Who are those women to condemn Ottakar or his mother? Mouse thought. Who is Mother Kazi to tell me what I can and cannot do?
She stopped where she was in the middle of the aisle and tried to pray. She knew hundreds of prayers, the common ones in the Book of Hours, forgotten ones she and Father Lucas had discovered in some old text. She started with the thirty-seventh Psalm. She did not mean to smile at the idea of those women’s tongues withering and cut like grass. Mouse did not mean to wonder if she could make it so, but she felt the power in her scratch at her chest, ready, waiting.
“‘Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; fret not thyself in any wise to do evil,’” she muttered over and over.
And then the door opened. She started to move toward the cover of the benches along the side, but she was seen already.
“I suppose I should not be surprised to see a church-Mouse in a chapel.” Ottakar put out his hand to help her stand, wincing a little at the pain in his ribs as he pulled her up. “Why are you not with the other women sewing and gossiping?”
“It was hot, and I do not much like sewing.” He was taking them closer to the altar, but Mouse was pulling a little at his hand, her stomach still twisting as she fought her anger. “Or gossip.” The last word came out as a hiss.
“Ah,” he said, turning to her. “What secrets did you hear?”
“You look tired,” she said instead. “You need to rest. Shall I make you a poultice to draw out the pain?”
“You have not answered my question.”
She sighed. “I am not familiar with women’s ways.”
Ottakar laughed. “You have spent your life in a covey of Sisters, Mouse! How can you not—”
“But they are not women. They are Sisters, and they do not talk much.” She shook her head. “These ladies, they say . . .” She didn’t want to tell him what she had heard. “But it matters little. I should leave and let you—”
“I came to clear my head before going back to the afternoon’s business. I must tend to the growing crowd of people who have matters they need managed. My father left much undone.” It was his turn to sigh.
“You do not like to manage your people?”
“Most of the time I do, but, as you say, I am tired and my mind turns to the problem at hand.” He touched the arrow wound. “I would like to know who is trying to kill me.”
“I will let you have your quiet, then.” She turned to go but he grabbed her arm gently.
“No. You help me clear my mind, Mouse.”
Her breath caught in her throat, but this time the warm tickle in her chest did not come from anger or a thirst to use her power. She thought about the intimacy he encouraged last night—her, just Mouse, and him, just Ottakar. What did he want from her?
“How can I help?”
“Come pray with me,” he said after a moment.
And Mouse found herself kneeling before the altar with the King.
“Now tell me what the women said that sent you hiding in the chapel,” he said after a while.
Mouse kept her eyes closed. “They called you the Younger King.” She heard him choke back the chuckle.
“I have been called that many times, and though I know they mean it as an insult, it is true. I am young. I am King. I am not my father.” Mouse could hear his teeth grind as he looked back to the altar. “What else?”
Mouse would not lie to him, but she did not want to confess what she had learned about his mother; she was sure it would hurt him, and if he told her himself one day, she would take it as a sign of real trust, the promise of something more.
So she gave him another truth instead.
Mouse took a breath. “They ask questions I cannot answer. About where I am from. About my family. They do not believe I am your ward. They think that I am . . . that we . . .” The warm tickle flamed in her face now. “Like Hartwin thought,” she finished.
“I see.” His voice was tight, and she turned to see if he was laughing at her again, but his face was unreadable. “And they said this to you?”
“No. I overheard them.”
“Ah.” He sat back on his heels. “I am sorry, Mouse. I cannot stop them from thinking what they will. If they accuse you of such things, then I can . . .” He reached over and took her hand. Much like the Sisters, Mouse had never really thought of herself as a girl, a woman, except for when the village boy tried to rape her, and then, because of her careless use of power, she felt like a monster. Her head was swimming now with feelings she couldn’t understand.
“Does it matter what they think, Mouse? You and I know—”
The door opened and a priest shuffled into the chapel. Ottakar stood quickly, pulling Mouse up with him.
“Oh, my Lord, I am sorry. I came for afternoon prayers, but I can—”
“No, no, your Excellency. Lady Emma and I were just about to pray for an ease to her homesickness. She misses abbey life, I fear.” He smiled down at her. “Bishop Miklaus, this is my ward, Lady Emma. You will find her quite educated. The Sisters at Teplá did well.”
“Ah, Teplá. Who is abbot there now?” Bishop Miklaus asked.
“Father Lucas,” Mouse answered.
“Oh? I understood from Brother Jan that the Father had been lost, not come home from his last mission. I assumed Brother Jan had—”
“No, your Excellency. Father Lucas is not lost. He is the abbot at Teplá. He will return soon,” she said, her voice unnaturally even in her effort to convince herself as well as the bishop that what she said was true.
“I see.” Bishop Miklaus’s eyes slid over her and back to the King. “My Lord, as you were about to pray anyway, perhaps you would join me? It might offer Lady Emma the comfort she needs.”
In answer, Ottakar led Mouse to a near bench as the bishop took his place behind the altar. Mouse knew what to do, what to say and when to kneel, but her heart raced each time she joined in response to the bishop. By the end of the short service, though, she felt a growing sense of liberation. There was no one here to bar her from the Church, no one to know that she was unholy, unbaptized, an infidel.
No one but her.
NINE
Ottakar let her stay with him in the Great Hall throughout the afternoon as Luka led in th
ose waiting for an audience with the King. Some of the disputes were over land and taxes, some between the lords themselves, but Ottakar seemed most interested in hearing the complaints of the farmers who rented and worked the land. While listening to him mediate, Mouse had an idea, and she motioned to Luka.
“Can you bring me parchment, ink, and a quill?” she whispered.
By the time the last person made his case and accepted the judgment of the King, Mouse had filled several pages, which she presented to Ottakar.
“What is this?”
“A record of the disputes you heard today and your decisions in settling them.”
“Why?”
“You listened so well to each of them, even the old man arguing about his goat, and then took such care in explaining why you judged the way you did. I thought others might learn from it and that there should be a record in case there was a misunderstanding later, if someone accused you of changing your word or of ruling differently out of favoritism. The record would serve as witness for your integrity.”
Ottakar was studying the pages. “You have written every word, Mouse. Exactly as it was said.”
She could hear the awe in his voice and she didn’t like it.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“This is wonderful. We could make a book of laws.” He smiled and tapped her on the head with the stack of parchment. “Would you be willing to do the same tomorrow?”
She didn’t need to imagine a thread pulling her up straight and tall as she nodded.
Mouse was still beaming when she entered her room a little later to rest before dressing for supper. She felt like she was beginning to see a place for herself here with Ottakar. She was on the bed dreaming about her future when Gitta came in carrying an armful of clothes.
“A fresh gown for you, my Lady.”
“From whom?” Mouse was wary of obligating herself to any of the women at court.
“Lady Harrach’s maid came to me saying her ladyship thought you might not have another dress as you just came from the abbey. She cannot wear this one seeing that she is heavy with child, so she sent me to give it to you.”
“Lady Harrach . . . she is Damek’s wife, yes?” Mouse remembered her; she had defended Ottakar that morning in the solar. Mouse ran her fingers down the gown trying to figure if it was meant as a gesture of friendship or as a trap. She shook her head; she would not let herself start making decisions based on assumed plots and politics.
An hour later, Gitta smiled and clapped her hands, happy with her work. “You look beautiful, my Lady.”
Mouse looked down at the sheen of the green silk; pearls lay at the center of embroidered red flowers that ran at the neckline and along the outside curve of her breasts down her sides to where the fabric trailed behind her. She absently rubbed her finger against the skin exposed at her chest.
“Have you no jewels, my Lady?”
Mouse shook her head, the veil tickling her cheek, but then she remembered. “Oh, wait!” She turned to where her bag lay on the bed and pulled out her mother’s bracelet. She had never worn it before, never felt like it really belonged to her. She slipped it over the tight sleeve on her wrist.
“There you be!” said Gitta as she bowed.
Mouse didn’t hesitate at the doors to the Great Hall this time but kick-swished her way to her place at the head table, pausing only to bow to Lady Harrach, who smiled at her. As she sat, Mouse tilted her head, letting her hair and veil slide to the side so she would not sit on them; Gitta had only partially braided her hair, leaving the back loose to curl at Mouse’s hips. The King was not yet at the table. With a flicker of worry at how tired he had seemed earlier in the afternoon, Mouse instantly reverted from pretend-lady to healer, but just when she stood to find Luka or Lord Rozemberk, Ottakar stepped in the room as servants with platters of food streamed past him.
“Lords and Ladies, I am delayed a moment, but I insist that you begin.” He gave a nod to the minnesingers and then left the hall.
Mouse chewed at her lip, unsure of what to do; he looked tired, his face pale and drawn. She wanted to check on him, but everyone would see her go, and she could imagine what they might think. She kept her seat, looking down the table past the empty places to the next lord in ranking—Olomouc, she remembered someone had called him; he was not one of Ottakar’s men. She watched as he knifed through the feathers of a swan seated in the center of a gold platter. The bird almost looked like it had just come up from the water to nest; someone had sewn its feathers back on in tidy rows, but its eyes were flat and dead.
As Lord Olomouc gouged out a slice of the roasted swan, Mouse overheard him whisper to his neighbor, “Seems trouble stirs in court for the Younger King.”
She turned back to her own plate, pretending to focus on the cup the servant filled with wine, but Mouse had her mind trained on the conversation down the table.
“I worry that this patched-up peace will not hold,” said Lord Olomouc.
Mouse took her knife from her waist and reluctantly cut a small piece of swan as the bird was brought to her. She had eaten no meat in her life, fasting like the Norbertine Brothers and Sisters on fish and eggs and what they could grow from the land, but she didn’t want something else to mark her as different in this strange place.
“I think the Younger King may discover that he has more enemies than he knows.” The voice came from the man on the other side of Lord Olomouc. Mouse turned, trying to see his face, but she could not see past Lord Olomouc’s girth.
As she sampled the unfamiliar food—snails and oysters and meats she did not know—she worked to overhear more of their conversation, but the men kept their mouths too full for more talk. Then the minnesingers stopped playing, moving farther back in the hall, and a handful of lords and ladies took the center floor in a round.
Barrump-barrump.
The drum started so deep that Mouse could feel it in her chest. The men and women stomped in time with the beat. When a higher drum countered with a tadum-tadum, tadum-tadum, quick and light, the women lifted the front of their skirts slightly and hopped on one leg and then the other, moving toward the center of the circle and then out again while the men kept stomping to the heavy drum.
Mouse had seen some visitors to the market fair at Teplá dance like this around a lindenwood tree, but she had been with Mother Kazi, who had frowned and muttered something about old pagan ways; they had not stayed to watch. Mouse felt a thrill now seeing the men and women bounce lightly on their feet as the flute and rebec picked up the tune.
“Would you like to dance?”
She turned to find Damek at her side.
“My wife sent me. She knows I love to dance and she is not able. She thought you might be a willing surrogate.”
Mouse found the Lady Harrach, who was smiling and pointing to the circle of dancers.
“I do not know the steps,” Mouse said even as she stood and let Damek lead her onto the floor. She found the rhythm easily enough, but it took her several steps to figure out how to manage her skirts. After a few turns, though, she spun and twirled and stomped like she had been dancing all her life. Mouse felt like a little girl again, Adele holding her skyward and spinning. She threw her head back, laughing.
And then the music stopped, and the room was spinning though Mouse was not. Damek took her arm, steadying himself as much as her. The minnesingers started playing again but a quiet tune this time, slow and pensive. The dancers held hands, stepping and leaning to the right, bending down gently at the waist and back up again, another step, closing the circle tight and sliding it open, in and out, over and over.
And then they began to sing.
Truelove, come O come to me,
I am waiting here for thee:
I am waiting here for thee,
Truelove, come O come to me!
Sweetest mouth red as the rose,
Come and heal me of my woes;
Come and heal me of my woes,
Sweetest mouth re
d as the rose.
The tune and the weaving of the dancers and the bodies and the voices cast a hypnotic calm over the room. As the circle turned so that she was facing the royal table, Mouse saw Ottakar watching her, but she could not read his face. He seemed so very serious. And only then did Mouse think to look for the man on the other side of Lord Olomouc, but he was gone.
She was flushed and out of breath when Damek escorted her to her seat. Ottakar stood to meet them, his hand at her back, his mouth held in a tight line.
“Are you ill?” she whispered to him as they sat. “Your wound?”
He shook his head, his face relaxing a bit, and took a slice of venison as the platter came to him. Mouse reached for her cup of wine.
“What is that?” Ottakar asked, taking her arm and fingering the bracelet.
“It was my mother’s. It is all I have of her.”
He ran his thumb along the engraved sparrow. Mouse grew uncomfortable with the quiet. And that he had not let go of her arm.
“Where is Lord Rozemberk?” she asked finally.
“On an errand. May I have it?”
“What?”
“The bracelet—just for a little while. This”—he pointed to the red stone crossed in gold bars—“looks like a crest and this bird might be a sigil. If so, we might learn something about your mother’s family.”
She didn’t know if it was the excitement of maybe getting answers to her past that made her throat tight, or if it was Ottakar sliding his thumb along her palm as he slipped the bracelet from her wrist.
But when he laid his mouth near her ear to say, “The men cannot keep their eyes off you, Mouse,” she knew what had made her lightheaded.
Mouse woke with vomit burning her throat, barely enough time to sit and lean her head over the side of the bed before it spewed from her mouth and splattered on the floor. Gitta, who fortunately slept on a pallet on the other side of the bed, was ready by the second wave with washbasin in one hand, pulling Mouse’s hair back from her face with the other. Mouse had never been sick before; she was exhausted and sore by the time she emptied her stomach.
Bohemian Gospel Page 9
