Chapter 9: The River Remembers

The rain followed Konrad into Bohemia like a penitent’s curse, turning the roads to slurry and the forests to grey veils. He travelled with only two men—a groom named Ulrich and a scarred veteran called Dietmar, both sworn to Rudolf’s service but lent to Konrad’s purpose. They rode hard, changing horses at Cistercian abbeys, sleeping in haylofts when no hospitality was offered, and always, always eastward, toward the golden spires of Prague.

By the time they crossed the ford at Tauss on the twelfth day, Konrad’s boots had worn thin and his patience thinner. The landscape rose and fell in soft green waves, dotted with villages whose smoke curled against a low sky. Bohemia was richer than he had imagined—not merely in silver, but in grain, in timber, in the quiet confidence of its people. Ottokar had built well. And that, Konrad reflected, was exactly why Rudolf feared him.

They entered Prague through the Lesser Town as the bells of St. Vitus were ringing vespers. The city straddled the Vltava like a jewel set in iron, its castle perched on the western height, its merchants’ houses crowding the eastern bank. Konrad had seen Vienna, had walked the streets of Augsburg and Nuremberg, but Prague possessed a different texture—a Slavic pulse beneath the Latin skin, a memory of older gods in the carved lintels and the way the women wore their hair.

He found lodging at a tavern called the Black Stag, near the Judith Bridge, where the wine was sour and the landlord asked no questions. Dietmar took the horses to the stable; Ulrich stood watch at the door. Konrad sat in the corner, nursing a cup of thin ale, and listened.

The talk was all of the king. Ottokar had returned from his campaign against the Hungarians flushed with victory, and the court was preparing for a grand Christmas feast. But beneath the boasts, Konrad heard another current—murmurs of the election in Frankfurt, of the “poor Swabian count” who had dared to claim the imperial crown. Some laughed. Others crossed themselves.

“He will not suffer it,” a fat merchant said, wiping his mouth. “The King of Bohemia will sooner cut off his own hand than bend the knee to a Habsburg.”

“Then there will be war,” his companion replied, “and we will pay for it in silver and sons.”

Konrad finished his ale and left before the argument could turn to him.

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The convent of St. Agnes stood on the eastern bank, a cluster of red-roofed buildings wrapped in the grey arms of the Franciscan order. Sister Hedwig was not difficult to find—she was the one who looked at him as though she had been expecting him for years.

She was old, perhaps sixty, with a face like a walnut and eyes that had seen too much. She met him in the cloister garden, where the last roses of autumn clung stubbornly to their stems. A fountain murmured in the centre, its basin green with moss.

“You are the river’s messenger,” she said, not a question.

“I am a servant of King Rudolf,” Konrad replied carefully. “A lady of Saxony told me to find you. She said the river remembers.”

Hedwig smiled, and the expression cracked her weathered skin. “Margarethe von Stade. I knew her mother. A hard woman, but honest.” She gestured to a stone bench. “Sit. You have ridden far, and the news you carry will not improve with standing.”

Konrad sat. The fountain’s murmur filled the silence between them.

“Ottokar has taken a new wife,” Hedwig said at last. “Kunigunda of Galicia. Young, beautiful, and utterly devoted to her husband. But she is not the one you must watch.”

“Then who?”

“The Queen Mother. Margaret of Babenberg.” Hedwig’s eyes glittered. “She was married to Ottokar for years, you know, before he cast her aside for a younger womb. She has never forgiven him. She lives still in the castle, a ghost in her own court, but she has ears everywhere. If you want to bring Ottokar down, you will need her.”

Konrad leaned forward. “And she will help a Habsburg?”

Hedwig laughed, a dry sound like wind in reeds. “She will help anyone who promises to humble Ottokar. But she will demand a price.” She paused. “She wants her inheritance restored. The Babenberg lands—Austria, Styria, Carniola. Lands that Ottokar seized when he married her, lands he kept when he divorced her. If Rudolf can promise those lands to her blood—even a distant cousin—she will open every door in Prague.”

Konrad’s mind raced. Rudolf had already begun to whisper about the Babenberg inheritance, about the duchies that rightfully belonged to the Empire. If Margaret could be turned, if she could provide the inside knowledge needed to break Ottokar’s power…

“How do I reach her?” he asked.

Hedwig’s smile widened. “You don’t. She reaches you. Stay in Prague. Make yourself known at court. Attend the Christmas feast—Ottokar loves to display his wealth, and he will not deny a foreign knight his hospitality. When the time is right, she will find you.”

She stood, brushing dust from her habit. “But be warned, Sir Konrad. Margaret of Babenberg is a serpent in her own right. She has waited twenty years for revenge. Do not think you can use her without being used in turn.”

Konrad rose and bowed. “I have been used by better.”

“Have you?” Hedwig’s eyes held his for a long moment. “Then you have not yet met a queen who has lost everything.”

She turned and walked back toward the convent, her footsteps fading on the flagstones.

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That night, Konrad lay awake in his narrow bed at the Black Stag, listening to the river outside. The Vltava ran fast and cold, its voice a constant whisper against the stone of the bridge. He thought of Margarethe von Stade, of her parting words, of the way her grey eyes had held secrets like a winter sky holds snow.

He thought of Rudolf, waiting in Vienna, trusting him to lay the groundwork for a war that would decide the fate of the Empire.

And he thought of the river, which remembered everything.

The next morning, he sent a message to the castle of Prague, requesting audience with the King of Bohemia. He signed it with his full name and title, adding a flourish: *Sir Konrad von Eppenstein, Knight of the Empire, Envoy of His Grace Rudolf, King of the Romans.*

He waited three days for a reply.

When it came, it was written in Ottokar’s own hand, in a Latin that was flawless and cold:

*Let the Swabian’s shadow present himself at the Christmas feast. He will find the golden lion does not devour all who enter his den.*

Konrad folded the letter and smiled.

The lion was inviting him into the cage.

The question was who would walk out alive.