The Bloodletter's Daughter (37 page)

“Why didn’t you tell me?” raged Jakub. His anger overwhelmed his deep respect for the older man. “How dare you keep this secret from me?”

“If you had heard of her fate before the king, you would have been in grave danger. I kept it from you because I knew you might do something rash.”

“Something rash? I would have galloped to Budejovice to be at her side.”

“Exactly. And do you think the merchants who travel the route from Budejovice to Prague would not have wagged their tongues to the king? Two of the king’s doctors lodging at the Gray Goose with a mysterious injured girl.”

“She needed my help! I should have been there all along!”

“You do not understand, even now. What would you have done but bring her back here to Prague, where she would surely be noticed? Her face is battered, and the sutured slashes still scar her. You think the court would not put two and two together? Doctor Horcicky nursing an injured girl with a Krumlov accent! How odd.”

Jakub drew a breath. He knew Mingonius was right. But his anger still raged. He took another deep breath. He had not realized
how deeply he had come to care for that simple Bohemian bathmaid until he had feared she was dead.

He felt the doctor’s hand grasp his shoulder and realized Mingonius was shaking him to get his attention. “Here,” said the doctor, holding a folded piece of parchment up for Horcicky to see. “Read this.”

He recognized Marketa’s awkward writing immediately.

My Dearest Jakub:

Forgive me. You offered me wisdom. I chose to ignore it and have paid dearly.

You warned me to beware of Don Julius, that he was a dangerous—deadly—man. I thought I saw more to him than just a madman. I thought I had glimpsed his soul. What a fool I was, and how I have suffered for it.

Doctor Mingonius and I have decided you will read these words only if the news reaches the ears of the king, and thus you. Fool that I still am, I hope that comes to pass. I know it will mean more danger lies ahead, but I would rather face the wrath of the king than have you think I have disappeared from your life as if I did not care about you.

It is for your own protection that we have left you in ignorance. I owed you that much for your warnings and concern for my life. But now that you are reading this, you know the truth. You know of my foolishness. You know of my suffering. And you know that I do care.

I write this in deep gratitude to you for your wisdom, which I ignored. And for your concern, which I am only now beginning to appreciate.

Marketa

Jakub read the letter twice, then folded it away.

Mingonius spoke gently, grasping Jakub’s shoulder. “Marketa was an informant to the king, was she not? She has confessed as much to me now, in order to protect you. We both agreed I could not deliver this letter unless the news of Don Julius’s assault on her had reached Prague.

“Had His Majesty learned that the spy you had contracted was the same girl that Don Julius attacked, he would have imprisoned you in his wrath. As it is, he has almost directed his ire at me, even though the guards and staff have sworn I had already left for Prague before the attack happened.”

Jakub felt tears start up in his eyes.

“You are a true friend to both of us. Tell me what she suffers and how I can help.”

“I am not sure how any of us can help now. She makes her home with the cunning woman of Krumlov, and the people of Krumlov protect her. The guards and staff have sworn secrecy to protect her. But she will never be truly safe until Don Julius’s death.”

At that moment Jakub knew he had to travel at once to Krumlov. He would make arrangements as quickly as possible. He unfolded the letter from Marketa and read it yet again.

T
HE
L
IBERATION OF
D
ON
J
ULIUS

The day Don Julius was released from his confinement in the castle brought threatening clouds on the horizon and ominous winds that whipped across the Vltava and bent the budding trees of spring. The king’s impulsive decree came without warning to either castle or town. The villagers in Latran and beyond in the Old Town learned only when they heard whoops of triumph as Don Julius galloped his black stallion down the steep hill, across the Barber’s Bridge, and into the town square.

Disguised under her woolen cape and hood, Marketa was bargaining for a head of cabbage from the greengrocer when Don Julius’s horse clattered into the square. Riding beside the prince were two churlish youths, one blond, one dark-haired, dressed in satin doublets and fine riding breeches.

“Stay down,
slecna
!” warned the greengrocer, pushing Marketa to her knees and piling the pyramid of cabbages higher.

“Do not rise until I say so!”

The crowd backed away from the galloping horses, mothers pulling their children close.

“Lock up your women, Krumlov! The rutting goat of the House of Hapsburg is loosed once more!” shouted the blond rider in slurred German. He swung about in his saddle, letting one foot dangle, and took a swig from a silver flask. “Hear me, oh white beards! There will be no honor in this shit pot of a Czech town when Don Julius cuts his swath!”

Exhausted by his speech, he slumped back in his saddle and belched.

“Well said, Heinrich!” cheered his companion. “Our wenching days are upon us again. Is that not so, Don Julius!”

Don Julius wore a forlorn look for a man in his moment of triumph. He turned his head away from his two rowdy companions and gazed down at his outstretched hands. He flexed them open and closed, his fingers undulating to his breath, pulsing like water grass in the river.

“Where is the girl with hair the color of the many leaves in the fall?” he wailed. “How I would love to sleep beneath her sweet-tressed forest!”

“Pick another,” said the black-haired companion, peevishly. He, like the blond youth, spoke German with a Viennese accent. “Find another wench and drink away your woes. Forget the dead whore.”

“Franz, you villain! Brilliant!” hiccupped the yellow-haired youth. “We shall sup on the wenches of Krumlov and drink to oblivion! That is the cure for you, Don Julius!”

But Don Julius seemed not to have heard. He looked up into the stormy sky and spread his arms wide.

“Where is my Marketa?” he cried as scattering raindrops fell into his eyes. He blinked up at the sky, wet-faced. “Can angels not fly? Can they not forgive as they look down from heaven?”

Marketa sucked in her breath. Now he called her an angel. This same madman who had raped her, slashed her, and caused the fall that should have been her death. How had she been such
a fool as to believe even for an instant that he was anything but a murderous beast?

“Here,” said Heinrich, the blond Austrian, dismounting from his horse and grabbing Katarina from the crowd. “Here is a fair maid to make you forget any who came before.”

He heaved her over his shoulder. She kicked and screamed, beating his back with her fists.

The Austrian youth dumped her on the ground her like a bag of grain in front of Don Julius.

“Take this wench and bury your woes between her legs!” he said, panting with the effort. He slumped down beside a barrel of ale.

Katarina scrambled to her feet and tried to retreat.

Don Julius seized her elbow and swung her toward him. He kissed her neck and explored her bosom with his groping hands, kneading her breasts. His hands moved roughly under her skirt.

She shrieked, “Let me go! It is not me you want!”

Suddenly he dropped her from his arms, as if he had no idea she was there. He gazed about the town square with a haunted look.

Katarina scurried away to hide in the crowd.

Don Julius staggered over to the brewer’s barrels, kicking the kegs.

“Beer!” he shouted. “To rinse the memory from my head.” He rubbed his temples. “My angel has cast a barb in my heart. It aches for her still.”

Marketa swallowed hard and remembered his kisses, hot on her mouth and neck. What a fool she had been!

Don Julius’s companions looked at each other, wagging their heads. Franz staggered toward the brewer and his kegs.

“You heard the king’s son. He asked for beer, you old simpleton!”

Pan Brewer hastily drew a deep tankard of beer and proffered it to Don Julius, bowing. The prince’s friends kicked the fawning man in the butt and collapsed in howls of laughter.

“And us? Are we not his companions? Where is our ale, man?”

Don Julius sat down heavily on a barrel.

“Where are the Bohemian beauties?” he cried. He seemed to have forgotten that he had been mourning Marketa just moments before.

A ripple of whispers worked through the crowd. Two whores of Virgin Lane—one with bright red hair—were pushed out from the ranks of townspeople. They were only a few years older than Marketa. For all their professional experience on their backs, they now quaked like wet lambs before the lecherous son of the king.

The girls’ hair hung matted for it had been a season since they had properly bathed, other than the splash of a whore’s wash, straddled over a splintered bucket. The matrons of Krumlov urged them on, whispering it was their duty to satisfy the lust of Don Julius and spare the innocent girls.

“Go on, show him your shoulders,” said the fisher’s wife, pulling down the red-haired girl’s blouse until her white skin was bare, just above her nipples.

The girls took two or three steps toward Don Julius, but their forced smiles died on their beet-stained lips.

The two Viennese companions hooted and howled at the exposed flesh of the women’s shoulders. Don Julius joined in, gesturing wildly at the bawdy women who approached him.

“You, red-haired whore!” called the shoemaker’s wife. “Show him your bosom! You have shown it enough times to my husband and sons to pave Virgin’s Lane in silver!”

Don Julius’s lecherous laugh stopped suddenly as he regarded the two whores who stood before him. The drunkards beside him stopped their catcalls.

No one spoke, and the only sounds were the screeching of crows circling above Krumlov and the plop of light raindrops on the cobblestones.

“You dare to offer me your leavings?” Don Julius growled ominously. “You foist these common whores on me?”

With a roar, he seized the brunette. He caught her neck in the crook of his elbow and pulled her head close. He sniffed her and curled his lip in disgust.

“You smell of Czech spunk!” he said, pushing her to the ground. He drew his rapier and made a feint at the girl, making her scream in terror.

Then he dropped the sword. It clattered on the cobblestones and he walked over it, blindly as a sleepwalker.

“Fetch me beer!” he demanded.

The brewer complied quickly, and Don Julius raised the tankard to his lips, draining it in one go.

“Bring me the yellow-haired wench,” he shouted.

The Austrian youths parted the crowd with rough shoves, making their way toward the bakery, where Katarina had run.

The blacksmith’s son jumped in front of them, blocking the way. In his hand was a dagger.

“Leave her alone!”

Despite his great size and blackened face, they laughed. “You would force us to do your bidding with that little prick of a knife?” sneered Franz, reaching for his rapier. “Let us show you what nobles carry as their members!”

Krumlov acted in a heartbeat. The fear that had lodged in the townsmen’s breasts melted and they reached for weapons. The air filled with the hiss of daggers unsheathed, the clatter of clubs seized from under crates, of hammers, scythes, and pitchforks raised.

The wind whined through the marketplace, and big raindrops pelted down on the angry mob. Their jaws set, they blinked away the rain from their white-ringed eyes.

The two Austrians suddenly sobered as they heard the crack of the stablemaster’s whip and saw the sharp gleaming hooks of the hay-balers. All around them they saw eyes burning with hatred and faces quivering with bloodlust.

Only Don Julius failed to register the danger of the situation. He yawned.

“Let us go to the hills. Tell the huntsmen to ready the hounds. I lust for blood!”

A boy who had latched onto Don Julius’s horse hurried it to him and held it steady as he mounted. Don Julius settled into the saddle and reined his horse through the crowd, and his companions eagerly followed.

“Out of my way, half-wits!” he growled. He spurred his horse and charged at a gallop, racing to the walls of the city and out toward the hills.

As Marketa stood up from behind the pyramid of cabbages, every eye of Krumlov was pinned on her.

“She is a witch, I tell you,” said the castle housekeeper in German, tucking a greasy strand of hair under her white kerchief. “That hellfire red hair, the gleaming green eyes of a cat.”

The old Viennese cook crossed herself and kissed her fingers. She stared at the red-haired stranger at the entrance of the first courtyard.

“What does she want with Doctor Horcicky? Did he not attend the Jesuit seminary? Surely he cannot admit a woman like that to cross his threshold, into the king’s sanctuary?”

One of the king’s own personal guard approached them, walking swiftly with scorn on his face, his heels clicking on the cobblestone. The women scattered like clucking hens.

“You do best not to gossip in the presence of the king’s guard,” he called after them. “Perform your duties to our king and bite your vicious tongues. Do you think your voices do not carry in the open air?”

The guard spat on the gray cobblestones and returned to the comely stranger wrapped in wool scarves and a black cloak against the cold spring weather. He found the woman who awaited Doctor Horcicky quite attractive, and unlike any woman he had ever seen in Prague.

But even the guard was amazed when Jakub entered the courtyard and received his visitor. He rushed to her and pulled the woman into his arms.

“Annabella! You have come, just as I am about to depart for Cesky Krumlov.”

“Hush,” she whispered, motioning to the guard. “Let us go where we can talk in private.”

Jakub regained his composure and signaled to the guard.

“Thank you, guard, for welcoming my sister to the
hrad
. She is most grateful for her warm reception.”

With this, Jakub offered his arm to Annabella and they walked toward his cottage in the far corner of the gardens.

It took Annabella long into the night to calm Jakub’s fears and answer his flood of questions about Marketa.

“Is she not in great danger in Krumlov?”

Annabella shook her head as she cut a wedge of cheese with a small knife. The flames of the hearth licked their reflection on the shiny blade.

“To the contrary, the safest place for her is Krumlov. All Bohemia knows now how he slashed her and how she plummeted
from the castle window, thanks to the howling laments of Don Julius. We want to preserve the lie that she died in the fall. No one in Krumlov will ever whisper the news; they will keep her secret to their death. Oh, how they hate the Hapsburgs!”

“But what if the secret is discovered? The gossips at Budejovice? What if the king learns—or worse yet—Don Julius learns that Marketa lives?”

Annabella took a bite of her cheese and a long draught of ale.

“We will deal with that when we have to,” she said, wiping the froth from her lips with her sleeve. “For now, as she recovers, she is safest among her own people.”

Jakub shook his head. “I cannot rest until I see her again. It was my fault for asking her to report on Don Julius’s treatment. I must return with you at once.”

Annabella studied him as she pared the molded rind from another chunk of cheese. She shook the knife at him, a red glow flickering with its movement. “Oh you shall see her. There will be plenty of time for that. But it will not be until deep winter, Jakub. To see her now will bring spies from Prague. For now you must let her be if you truly value her safety.”