Bohemian Gospel

by Dana Chamblee Carpenter

  When she heard the whinnying as the horses were led out into the bailey, she pulled, letting her full weight hang on the rope, feeling it slip along the wheel above her until it grew taut, and then she let it up again. On the second pull, the clapper slapped a low dong against the bell, and Mouse started the count of seconds she would have to get the bells fully ringing and still have time to slip into the sanctuary of St. Ludmila’s Chapel to avoid being caught. After a few more pulls, the bells clanging, she ran down the stairs, not pausing as she caught a glimpse of a crowd gathering around something in the bailey. She heard the footsteps as she reached the bottom landing and pulled herself into a small alcove just as someone ran past, heading up the stairs two at a time.

  By the time they were able to stop the bells, Mouse was kneeling before the altar in the chapel, seemingly deep in prayer, her breath even and slow though the veins in her neck bounced with the quick thud of her heart.

  “I am sorry to bother you, my Lady.” A guard stood in the doorway, a nervous Bishop Miklaus not far behind him. “But did you see anyone else in the church?”

  “I have been at prayer all morning. Why? Has something happened?”

  “Someone rang the bells.”

  “Yes? At Teplá, we rang them all the time.”

  “She is new to Prague,” the bishop offered as explanation.

  The guard sighed. “But you saw no one? Heard no one?”

  “I am sure there have been people coming and going, but my attentions have been here.” She nodded to the fresco of St. Ludmila beside the altar. She reached out to the guard, who helped her stand. “You act as if something is wrong.”

  “The King is ill, my Lady,” said the bishop.

  “I shall pray for him then.” She knelt again, bowing her head as they left.

  Later, as she made her way back to the keep, she heard the people talking.

  “The King went stiff as a board and fell off his horse. A fit, it was.”

  “I seen it before. When old One-Eyed was a young man, just back from Austria, we rang the bells for his homecoming. It was the bells that did it to him,” an old lady said as she beat a rug in the crisp air. “Slather from the mouth like a sick animal, his body jerking like he got a demon in him.”

  Mouse’s heart still thrummed as she entered the solar where the other ladies were spending their afternoon. She sought the safety of numbers and the appearance of normalcy. Despite the bishop’s unintentional validation of her, she felt exposed. She’d hoped to ring the bells more than once over several days, but she knew now she couldn’t take the risk. She had more covert ways of attacking the King, but she needed more allies, willing or not.

  The women quieted as she crossed the room to pay her respects to a black-veiled Lady Lemberk, Evzen’s widow. Next to her was an older woman. Mouse guessed who she was before the introductions; Vok had his mother’s features.

  “Lady Rozemberk, this is Lady Emma, Prince Ottakar’s ward,” said Lady Lemberk.

  Mouse gritted her teeth at the slight to Ottakar.

  “His ward?” Lady Rozemberk asked, eyebrows raised.

  “Yes. My Lord King Ottakar took me under his protection when I left the abbey.” As she spoke, Mouse quickly calculated the risk of her next move. “In fact, I tended him when his men brought him to Teplá with an arrow in his chest. Some thought it an accident; some suspected intent.”

  She honed her senses on their reactions.

  Lady Lemberk’s pulse and breathing stayed steady, calm. “You tended him?” she asked, a smirk pulling at her face.

  “I am a trained healer, my Lady.” But Mouse had little interest in defending herself against accusation. She was too busy studying Lady Rozemberk. The woman had paled at the news of Ottakar’s accident, her eyes darted down, heart racing.

  “I thought perhaps your son might have told you, Lady Rozemberk. He was there.”

  “My son?”

  “The younger Lord Rozemberk, I mean. Vok.”

  “You know him?” And here the Lady’s heart skipped and jumped. She was anxious about him.

  “Yes, my Lady, I know your son.” Mouse laced the words with as much meaning as she could without seeming obvious to Lady Lemberk, who smirked still.

  Something dark slid across Lady Rozemberk’s face. “If you know him, then you should know he is no longer claimed by the Rozemberk house, whatever he may call himself. He is no son of mine.” She shifted in her seat, turning her back to Mouse. It was a clear dismissal, but Mouse knew it had been played for show. Lady Rozemberk was a mother who cared very much about her son whether the father claimed him or not.

  Mouse took a seat at the far side of the room and gathered an embroidery hoop and some thread. At first, she chatted amiably with some of the women near her; they seemed eager to please, no doubt due to the favor King Vaclav had shown her. But soon, Mouse let the conversation drop and turned her attention to her needlework. While she pulled the thread up, eased it down through the silk, and pushed it up again, she began to hum: the same sixteen notes, over and over again. All afternoon, she hummed or whistled until her lips quivered with the strain. She kept the tune low and quiet, just part of the background, so that no one really noticed.

  But then the woman at the harp began playing it.

  “That tune is beautiful. Where did you learn it?” someone asked.

  “I just made it up. Do you like it?”

  Affirmations were offered from the other ladies, and Mouse was pleased that several of the women were whistling quietly when they all retired to dress for supper.

  When the King appeared in the Great Hall that night, he looked ill and moved stiffly as if he were sore. Mouse pretended to focus on her food but kept her attention trained on him. When she saw him cower suddenly, she looked across the room, searching for the cause of his discomfort. Mother Agnes had entered the hall and sat down at a lower table. Mouse could see the fear on the King’s face. She knew that, in his addled mind, he saw not his sister but his mother. Mouse’s plan was unfolding more quickly than she’d thought.

  If she felt guilty, Mouse abated it by letting the smells and sounds of the tortured men surface in her perfect memory. She watched the King closely. Anytime his eyes fell on his sister, Mouse would whistle or hum softly as she smiled and looked out over the hall. She heard other ladies humming it, too.

  Vaclav paled at the sound, pulling at his ears. He ate little and drank much. Finally, he clamped his hands over his ears, sending his crown crashing to the floor. Lord Rozemberk half carried him from the hall.

  Mouse caught Lady Rozemberk’s eye to let her know that she was leaving; she wanted to give Vok’s mother the opportunity for a private conversation. She waited near the door to the Queen’s garden, and, as expected, Lady Rozemberk joined her minutes later. They walked together to the bench near the fountain.

  “It is terribly cold out here.”

  “I am sorry, Lady Rozemberk, but it is the only place I know where we will not be overheard. I thought perhaps you would appreciate the discretion.”

  The Lady sat heavily beside Mouse. “The King is mad.”

  “I know.”

  “My husband is very loyal.”

  “So is your son.”

  “I wish they were loyal to each other, but crown politics and their own ambition destroyed any chance of that long ago. I lay the blame at the feet of our one-eyed King and his sick, twisted mind. I hate him for what he has done to my family,” she hissed, then sighed. “Ottakar is a good boy. He lived with us during much of his childhood, did you know? He and Vok were foster brothers.”

  Mouse nodded.

  “I was quite pleased when he offered land and title to Vok. A mother’s love should spread to all of her children regardless of whether they were born first or last, girl or boy.”

  Mouse remembered what Mother Agnes had said about mothers; she thought she would approve of Lady Rozemberk’s approach. An unexpected twinge of regret pulled at Mouse as she realized that a li
fe at Houska with Father Lucas meant no hope of children for herself.

  “But my husband saw the honor to Vok as a slight to himself,” Lady Rozemberk continued. “And then when the other nobles stirred up the revolt and Vaclav came running to us, he swung the axe that finally severed the bond between my husband and son.” Lady Rozemberk wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. “I am not allowed to even speak his name. I am not supposed to have any contact with him.” She took a slow breath and let it out in a rush. “I could live with this loss if I knew Vok was happy and safe, but to have him locked up in the tower . . . I know they must be doing unspeakable things to him. He may even be dead already. My husband presses for it. How could a father hope for such a thing?” She couldn’t hold back a sob.

  “I once saw a wolf eating its own pups,” Mouse said. “The winter ran long, and he was starving. It seems to me that an ambitious man will do whatever he must in order to achieve his ends.” She paused. “I have seen your son. He is not dead yet.”

  Lady Rozemberk looked up quickly.

  Mouse described the smells, the dripping water and thumbscrews, the state of Vok’s mind.

  “I will not leave my boy there to die,” Lady Rozemberk said through gritted teeth. She sat up straighter. “My husband plotted with Vaclav to kill Ottakar. They bought some of his men—Lord Lemberk I know for certain. But my husband killed him after he brought word that the second assassination attempt had failed; Vaclav did not want anyone left who could speak of it.”

  The news was hardly a surprise to Mouse, but the vileness of it angered her all the same. Gernandus and Evzen bought by the father to kill the son; it must have been Evzen who had planned the attack on them as they neared Prague.

  “And then they staged Vaclav’s poisoning,” Mouse said, working out the plot. “They wanted to throw off any suspicion Ottakar might have against his father, to encourage him to lower his defenses and relax here in Prague with his men, all of them vulnerable. But why have they not killed them? Why wait?”

  “The King fears the people. He is afraid of revolt, should he execute his son. If Ottakar were to die in a hunting accident or be assassinated and my son with him, no one could connect it to the King, though some might suspect him. But he cannot afford Ottakar’s blood on his hands.”

  “Then why imprison Ottakar?”

  “It was not the plan. The King got angry about something Ottakar said and in a fit of rage ordered them to the tower. Now that they are imprisoned, he must find some way to lay treason at their feet so he can hang them. My husband works even now to craft evidence to prove that they tried to poison the King.”

  “Then we must act quickly.”

  “I have a few resources to get them out of the country, but how do we free them from the tower?”

  Mouse shook her head, her eyes full of rage. “We will not run. Ottakar never would. Nor your son, either. No, I will break this King. And you will help me.”

  Lady Rozemberk knew the women Vaclav took to bed—servants, maidens, wives, and widows. She sought out the ones who were biddable, bribable. She taught them the tune, paid them to hum it while the King slept. Meanwhile, Mouse spent the next several days walking the grounds whistling, infecting smithy, farmer, washerwoman, soldier with the tune. The bailey was full of it by the time the King’s physicians allowed him to ride again.

  As the King prepared to mount, Mouse watched from the shadows.

  Vaclav stuck his foot in the stirrup, then stopped, glancing wildly around the stable. “What is this? That noise?” he shouted. The startled horse reared, knocking him to the ground.

  Lord Rozemberk was instantly by the King’s side. “I hear nothing, my Lord,” he said, helping him up. Anyone nearby who had been whistling had stopped to watch, ready to witness another of the King’s fits.

  Vaclav shoved his friend away. “Leave me be! I tell you I heard something. A tune. I know that tune.” He hummed it, his eye growing wide. “But it cannot be!”

  “Here, my Lord, I have hold of your horse. Let us go.”

  “No! I do not want to ride. I need a man to go to Porta Coeli for me. Now!”

  “Why, my Lord?”

  “Now!” Vaclav screamed again. The horses shied and reared.

  “You, smithy. Fetch a courier,” Lord Rozemberk called out.

  “No, I do not trust them. They might give me a lie.”

  “A lie about what, my Lord?” Mouse could hear the growing panic in Lord Rozemberk’s voice. “Please, let us ride together out in the hills.”

  “No. You must go. Go see that the old woman is still dead—still buried at Porta Coeli.”

  “But my Lord, the morrow is Christmas. I cannot be back by then. And the sky darkens with more snow.”

  “I said GO!” He grabbed Lord Rozemberk by the back of the neck and pushed him toward his horse.

  Lord Rozemberk had no choice. “I do your will, my Lord. Always.” He mounted and rode through the South Gate, snow already beginning to fall.

  Mouse was glad. The King would be easier prey in the absence of his friend. It was better fortune than she could have hoped.

  But Mouse could not have imagined the dark turn that fortune would take.

  The screams started not long after Mouse had reached Ottakar’s room to rest and dress before supper. She hurried to the window to look down on the bailey. People were running toward the north side of the castle toward the Black Tower.

  A chill slid down her spine.

  Mouse nearly fell as she raced down the stairs. She had to fight the crowd once she reached the courtyard, squeezing herself between people. Some of them pressed hands against their mouths and looked away. Others stood staring as if they couldn’t move. Her stomach in her throat, Mouse worked her way to the edge near the wall, slipping forward until she could see.

  Damek was strapped to a large wheel. The King stood before him, swinging an iron cudgel at his immobilized limbs.

  The bones sounded like branches breaking under the weight of ice after a storm. Damek threw his head back, mouth open, as a warbled, high whine built in his throat and grew, bouncing off the stone tower and back down on the people.

  The crowd screamed for the King to give mercy. But Vaclav wasn’t listening.

  “Quiet!” he yelled, pulling his arm back for another blow. Damek’s legs jutted at odd angles, broken above and below the knee; the shattered end of a bone pierced his thigh, and blood spewed from it, spraying the King’s face. Huge snowflakes fell like goose down onto the splatters of red as Damek shrieked in pain like a dying animal.

  “Stop that noise!” the King screamed again. He swung the cudgel against Damek’s neck, and the bailey fell silent.

  Damek was dead.

  Vaclav stood for a moment staring, his arms limp by his side, and then he spun, flinging the iron cudgel behind him. “Move!” he spat at the people near the front of the crowd.

  As the crowd parted, Mouse saw her own hatred for the King reflected in their faces. These people knew Damek. They knew he was a good man—kind, always eager for a bit of fun. He was a new father. He didn’t deserve to be treated like this.

  Mouse turned and walked slowly toward Damek. She thought about the night they had danced and the night she had delivered his child and given him the good news. She wondered what would happen to him now and who would write to Lady Harrach to tell her what had become of her husband. Mouse dropped to her knees, retching.

  King Vaclav had done the killing, but she had driven him to it.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Only hours later, Christmas settled in Prague like an unwelcome guest, ushered in at the midnight Mass—the Angel Mass, the faithful called it. Mouse sat among the people. They were still angry, still unsettled by what they had witnessed their king do in the bailey. Their heads were too full of Damek’s screams to hear stories of joy or salvation.

  They met again for the second Mass at dawn. Few had slept. During the Christmas play, while the shepherds listened to the angels on high
sing of the coming of the Lord, Vaclav began pulling at the thick, grisly scar over his eye socket. At first, he just ran his fingers along its crooked line, but by the time the shepherds had followed the star to the manger, Vaclav’s head was bent, both hands digging at his flesh.

  Lady Rozemberk, sitting beside him and softly humming those sixteen notes, leaned over, whispering. “Is there something the matter, my Lord?”

  “My eye,” he said, nearly weeping. “Someone has shut up my eye.”

  “No, my Lord. Do you not remember? You lost it at the—”

  “Help me! Help me pull it open so I might see!” he yelled.

  The monks acting out the shepherd’s play looked to the bishop, unsure of what to do. Bishop Miklaus motioned the monks to continue, but Vaclav jumped up and stumbled out of the church.

  After the dawn Mass, Mother Agnes summoned Mouse. This time, when Mouse arrived, the old woman was waiting for her.

  “The man from yesterday. What was his name?” Mother Agnes asked.

  “Damek. He and his wife just had their first child. He was a good man.”

  The Mother nodded, staring into the fire. “Damek,” she said as if it were a command, an answer. “His blood is on my hands.” She shook her head now, the wimple stretching and creasing. “No more. You have some strategy, I suppose? To free my nephew and those other men?”

  “You will not like it, Mother.”

  Mouse explained the plan, and when Mother Agnes lowered her face into her hands, she felt sure the woman would take back her offer to help. Mother Agnes had spent much of her life protecting her little brother—shielding his fragile sanity, pitying the boy who had been so misused. To ask her to aid in driving him fully and finally over the edge so they might declare him unfit to rule and release Ottakar and his men was cruel. And Mouse felt the pain of it.

  But Mother Agnes knew it had to be done. “No more innocents must die, no more good men tortured at the hand of my brother.”