Bohemian Gospel

by Dana Chamblee Carpenter

  Though Mouse felt more certain of success, she grew more frightened as well. The assault on the King’s mind would be relentless, and what had been Damek’s fate yesterday could belong to Ottakar or Vok or Mother Agnes next.

  After the final Christmas Mass, everyone headed to the Great Hall. The scent of cedar boughs and mint and the smell of the meat roasting on the fire began to work its magic on the people, lifting the gloom that had settled on them at Damek’s execution. The holly glistened in the candlelight, the red berries shining like pearls. The Yule log crackled. The minnesingers played. The people grew festive.

  Mouse watched from her usual place beside the King; Lady Rozemberk sat at his other side. Servants brought in wood planks and stones and started to construct a barrier in the center of the hall for some Christmas entertainment to come. But Mouse was more interested in what was happening around the edges of the room.

  Several of the servants—agents of Mother Agnes, Mouse assumed—hummed quietly as they brought food and drink. The general roar of talk and laughter blanketed much of their efforts, but every now and then, a piece of the tune would lift above in the lull and pierce the King; his body jerked and shuddered as if he had been struck by arrows. Wide-eyed, he scanned the hundreds of faces in the hall.

  Then a woman entered the room. Most of the people were too busy eating and already half drunk to pay her much mind, but Vaclav saw her. His face sagged and drained of color as he watched the woman meander along the edge of the wall, until she neared the dais, stopping a few feet from the guard.

  A beastly roar echoed in from the courtyard, startling some and bringing eager smiles to others. Even the King turned his eyes from the woman to the door, waiting. He giggled as a man led a bear into the room on a leash. An iron muzzle circled its snout and an iron collar wrapped around its neck. As they reached the center of the room, the man tapped the animal with a stick, and it reared on its hind legs, letting out a fierce bellow.

  Bile burned Mouse’s throat. She had not anticipated a bear-baiting. Sick about the coming violence and sick with worry about how it might affect the plan to expose the King, she could do nothing but wait. And watch.

  Two other men entered the hall, pulled by four snarling dogs flinging thick strands of slobber as they shook their heads, trying to free themselves of tether and master. They wanted to kill something. They wanted the bear.

  Mouse bit into her lip as the man removed the bear’s iron muzzle.

  The King leaned over the table, resting his chin in his hands, ready for the show.

  And then the men loosed the dogs.

  They tore at the bear’s snout, ripping chunks of its flesh. It tried to swat at one of the dogs, but the other three sank teeth into its arm and haunches. The bear screamed and threw its head to the ground, pulling the man holding its leash off balance. It covered its face with its front paws, trying to protect itself.

  “No, no, no!” the King cried. “Make it fight! I want to see it fight.”

  The bear’s master prodded the animal with the stick, trying to make it rear again.

  “Make it fight!” the King yelled so shrilly he did not sound like himself. The people turned to watch the King, and Mouse could see the disgust return to their faces as they witnessed his bloodlust; it was clear they were thinking about what he’d done to Damek.

  The King stood, screaming for the bear to fight.

  And then the bells of Prague began to ring, clear and high in the cold Christmas air.

  Fractures spread through the King like he was made of glass; Mouse watched his sanity slip from his eye just as she had watched the life drain from Father Lucas’s. She followed the line of his sight. He was staring at the woman against the wall. She was looking back at him, smiling.

  Mother Agnes did not wear her habit. She had found a dress, a wimple and veil, chin strap and hat, all a deep red. She pursed her lips and whistled.

  The pain in her eyes seared Mouse.

  “Mother.” The King growled the word, low and slurred as if his tongue was too thick.

  And then he launched himself at her.

  The King rushed past the guard and threw himself on Mother Agnes, hands around her throat. His lips pulled back from his teeth like an animal, fangs bared.

  The bells chimed.

  In the center of the room, the bear’s master let go of the leash. The creature stood on its hind legs, arms stretched wide, and threw its ravaged head back. Finally freed of its constraints, it roared and dealt a swift revenge against the dogs, swiping first one and then another, slamming them into the barricade, breaking their backs. It towered over the others and then came crashing down, its weight crushing one dog, its mouth closing around the neck of the last. With one shake, the dog hung limp.

  No one had been watching the King. With a primal howl, he hurled himself and Mother Agnes into the center pit. “You will die, once and for all, Mother. You will torture me no more,” he yelled in her ear, spit splattering her face, as the bear came running toward the new threat.

  “Help her!” Lady Rozemberk stood and screamed. “That is Mother Agnes, the King’s sister. Do you see? His mind is broken. He is going to kill her! Help her!”

  The guards slid over the table and drew their swords as they moved toward the bear, the King, and Mother Agnes.

  But Mouse had already made her way from the dais to the floor. She pushed a section of the barricade open and came at the bear from the side, slowly. The bear turned to look at her. She was ready, the power summoned.

  “Be still,” she commanded. “Be at peace. No one will hurt you.”

  Instantly, the bear lowered itself to all fours and then lay down on the floor, panting, exhausted.

  Mouse was aware of the sucked-in breaths, the flutters of heartbeats, as the people watched her.

  One of the guardsmen ran up to the bear, sword raised, but Mouse stepped in front of him. “You will not hurt this animal. It is docile, see? No longer a threat. Leave it be.” The guardsman lowered his sword and backed away.

  A palpable calm settled over the hall for a moment. And then the King shrieked, shoving Mother Agnes to the ground only inches in front of the bear. It did not stir.

  Vaclav turned to his guards, pointing at Mother Agnes, trying to tell them something, but the sounds that came from his mouth were guttural, slurred, not language at all. He lurched toward the nearest man, grabbing at his sword. The guard caught him, trapping the King’s arms behind his back.

  Mouse helped Mother Agnes to stand. “Now is the time,” she whispered to the woman.

  Mother Agnes pulled herself upright, but her voice shook still. “My brother the King is ill. My Lord Chamberlain, please escort the King to his chambers and make sure that he is well tended and guarded constantly. He must not be allowed to leave his room. As you all have seen, he is a danger to himself and others. We must protect the King and pray that God will heal his mind.” Her face twisted with pain. “And, Your Excellency, Bishop Miklaus, as chancellor, it is your purview to release my nephew, King Ottakar, and the other good nobles unjustly imprisoned in the Black Tower.”

  The bishop looked hard at Mouse for a moment, but then bowed to Mother Agnes. “I will order the release at once.”

  As the King was escorted from the room, it was as if tethers had been loosed. People clamored for the door. The bear’s master cautiously sidled up to his ward.

  “May I have him back, now, my Lady?” He would not look at her nor come near.

  Mouse decided to use the fear to her advantage. “He has earned an easy life. No more fighting. Food and comfort, do you hear?”

  The man nodded.

  “I will know if you break your word, bear-keeper. And I will come for you.”

  He nodded again, stooping to hook the leash to the bear’s collar. Mouse knelt, her hand on a patch of fur not ravaged by the dogs. “Go gently. Heal and be well,” she said.

  And then only Mouse and Mother Agnes remained in the Great Hall.

 
“We broke him, my little brother.” Mother Agnes put her face in her hands and wept.

  Mouse put her arm around the Mother’s waist. “Come, let us go see your nephew. See the good that came of what we did.”

  But Mother Agnes lifted her face, which looked much older, and said, “I am going back home to the sick and the paupers. There is joy among those of us life has rejected. You would be welcome there, as well, should you wish it.”

  Mouse shook her head. Another life of isolation and rejection awaited her at Houska, but first she had a last task to do as the King’s healer.

  “Thank you for the invitation, Mother, but my duties call to me from the Black Tower. Ottakar needs me.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Ottakar learned to walk again slowly. His muscles, weakened by starvation and atrophied by weeks of disuse, gradually grew back under Mouse’s careful watch. She ordered his food, fed him, treated his wounds. His hands had been bloody pulp when they opened the box, bits of bone showing at the tips of some of his fingers where he had tried to claw his way free. Despite Mouse’s care, the scars would be with him always.

  But at least his body was healing; Mouse still worried about his mind. At first, Ottakar had spoken little. He had asked once about his father, but, reassured that Vaclav was no longer a threat to him or the country, Ottakar had receded into a silent melancholy. Mouse understood; her weeks of muteness after Father Lucas pulled her from the pit were still fresh in her mind, so she had not tried to make Ottakar talk. She read to him, told him stories; his eyes had followed her as she paced the room, finding tasks to do while she talked herself hoarse.

  By Ottakar’s birthday near the end of January, he was able to walk a little in his room and sit in a chair. Barons and dukes, many who’d been loyal to Vaclav and now clamored for the son’s favor, sent well-wishes on slick vellum, sealed with colorful wax and stamped with elaborate crests. But their gifts of horses and hunting dogs only reminded Ottakar of what he couldn’t do. He spent the day staring wistfully out the window.

  By St. Valentine’s feast day, though, he managed to attend Mass and walk in his mother’s garden. As they sat on the bench near the pool, Mouse handed him a book.

  “What is this?”

  “A gift. I did not have it ready by your birthday.”

  He looked through the book, pausing at the brilliantly colored illustrations—a man bathing in the blood of a dragon, his body covered in crimson but for the linden leaf on his back; a couple swearing vows in the dappled sunlight of a forest; a first night together, the woman’s round white thigh slipping free of the linens as the man lowered his face to hers; his corpse at her feet and her face buried in her hands. Her holding the head of another man, lifted high in revenge.

  “It is The Song of the Nibelungs,” Mouse said. “The story of brave Siegfried and his wife, Kriemhild. I read it once when I was a young girl. It helped me dwell less on my own troubles as I saw how terrible life might be.”

  Ottakar ran his finger along the edges of the picture of Siegfried and Kriemhild’s wedding night. “And beautiful. Life can be beautiful, too.”

  “Yes, beautiful, too.”

  The story had come back to her not just as a way to help Ottakar, but also as a way to heal herself. With the urgency of freeing Ottakar gone, the horrors of the pit had come back, as had a pressing sense of obligation to return to Houska and Father Lucas—and, with it, the despair of what her life would be and what she would be leaving behind.

  “You copied this? Drew the pictures? All of it?” he asked.

  Mouse nodded, though it wasn’t quite true. She hadn’t copied it like he meant; she had written it from memory and the pictures were all her own.

  “You have a gift, Mouse.”

  She winced at the word.

  “I am sorry,” he said, and Mouse looked up, ready to explain, but realized that he hadn’t seen the wince; his face was turned away.

  “Sorry for what?” she asked.

  “Being weak. I let him—” He shook his head, trying to clear away the emotion. “I let him take me. I let him torture my friends.” He swallowed hard. Mouse took his hand. “Damek is dead because of me. He was a good man. How could—”

  He let go of her hand, clenching his fists together, his head dropping slowly to his knees as the anger and guilt finally broke free. “I was helpless, listening to them laugh as they . . . I would have ripped their throats out.” The words shot through his mouth. “But it was my fault. I brought my men here and let my guard down like a stupid little boy wanting his father’s love. I was trapped in the dark, pissing myself like a baby, and then you . . .” His body shook.

  Mouse held him as he wept. She wept with him.

  “You are not weak, Ottakar,” she said when he finally sat back, dry-eyed. “You lived through that torture. You were not broken.”

  He scoffed and held his bandaged hands as evidence of his failure.

  “Wounded, yes. But not broken. You are here. You live. You never gave in to him.” She slid her arms around his waist, laid her head against his chest. “You are strong, Ottakar. Like iron. The Iron King they should call you. And you are good.” She closed her eyes and let herself see his soul, bright and steady. “Like gold,” she whispered. “The Gold and Iron King.”

  He had gotten better after that—talking, telling stories of his own, even managing some necessary business of ruling, but he kept to his rooms still. Mouse liked the isolation; she knew how the people would look at her after having seen her calm a raging bear with words. She wasn’t ready for the averted eyes, the signs of the cross, the looks of awe and fear.

  She’d had taste enough of it when Lady Rozemberk and Vok came to visit Ottakar. When Vok’s father had returned to find Vaclav locked away and himself implicated in the assassination attempt on Ottakar, he’d fled beyond the borders of Bohemia. He meant to take his wife with him, but Lady Rozemberk elected to stay with her son, who, though less injured than Ottakar, still needed time to recover.

  Mouse had actually been pleased to see them on their first visit to Ottakar’s chambers, hoping they could draw him out in conversation, but he’d had little to say, and Vok had seemed oddly deferential, almost shy, with her. Lady Rozemberk kept her eyes down and said nothing, but Mouse had heard the muttered prayer from the woman’s lips as they entered: “Holy Father, keep us from evil.”

  After that, Mouse left when they came to visit.

  But the whispered gossip followed her through the keep, some of it about what she’d done at Christmas, some of it about what she was doing at night in the King’s room.

  Of course, none of the gossipers could know that Gitta slept there as well. Or that they kept candles lit all night. Mouse even trained herself to hear the quiet sputter in her sleep, to sense the shift of light behind her closed eyes as the last candle began to flicker and die so that she would wake and light another. For Ottakar.

  Though Mouse wrestled her own demons in the dark, sure she was back in the pit, frozen and waiting for the beasts to sink their teeth into her belly, it was Ottakar’s screams that woke them; he was often still asleep but ripping the bed linens as he tried to free himself in his nightmare. Mouse would lie beside him, talking to him gently until he woke. She wanted the room lit so he could see instantly that he was no longer in the box. And then she would sing him back to sleep.

  Mouse tried to armor herself against the gossip when she and Ottakar made their first appearance in the Great Hall after Mass in early March. The celandines had started to spread a carpet of yellow as they chased away the snow, but there was still a chill in the air. Mouse held back at the door, letting Ottakar enter alone. The hall was full, noisy with greetings and conversations, but all grew silent, standing and turning to watch him cross the floor and ascend to the high table.

  “My Lord King Ottakar,” the chamberlain said as he bowed. And all in the hall bowed with him.

  “My Lord King Ottakar,” they said. And so it was that Ottakar became the sole K
ing of Bohemia. Vaclav might still hold the title while he lived, but the people, all of them, would look to the son to lead them now.

  Mouse slipped quietly to her seat beside him, the whispers already reaching her ears.

  “You look ill,” Vok said as he came to stand beside Mouse’s chair. Ottakar, who had been talking to Lady Rozemberk, turned and looked at Mouse.

  “Just a little tired.” Mouse smiled reassuringly at Ottakar. “It has been a long winter.”

  “True enough, but spring is all but come,” said Vok. He turned back to Ottakar. “We should ride out, my Lord, as soon as you are able.”

  Ottakar shook his head. “There is much business here that needs tending. Bohemia and Margrave have suffered enough neglect. I will not be a lazy king. I will do my duty first above all else.”

  Mouse fought the little shiver that ran up her back.

  “Could you not manage affairs from Hluboka, my Lord?” Vok said. “I was there just a week ago. Those German craftsmen you set to build your castle are truly artists. You should see the progress they have made.”

  “Is it an easy ride, Lord Rozemberk?” Mouse asked, thinking about the King’s still weakened condition.

  “Yes. Not far and level terrain.”

  Mouse could see the light growing in Ottakar’s eyes and the question he asked her silently. “It seems a good plan, if you wish it,” she said.

  The King nodded, smiling. “Make the preparations, Vok. I want to be there by Cyril and Methodius’s feast day.”

  But Mouse could not share Ottakar’s joy. She had sent a letter to Father Lucas with the caravan of supplies that Bishop Miklaus had ordered soon after Ottakar’s release. She had explained her absence and promised to return to Houska as soon as Ottakar was recovered.

  She had not yet told Ottakar.

  She finally found the courage the day before they left for Hluboka. They were walking in the woods, not far from where she had said good-bye to him the first time. He held her hand now as he had then.