“Everyone is working around the clock to get everything ready for the wedding tomorrow night. The king was set to leave for Moravia in the morning, but he is delaying his trip until after our ceremony.”
“Will they have enough time to get everything ready?” I shifted in my seat. I could barely breathe in the dress. “A wedding is an important event.”
Radek grinned. “Don’t worry, my dear. No detail will be forgotten, no expense spared, and it shall all be completed by tomorrow night.”
I felt my father’s eyes on me, but I didn’t acknowledge him. “That’s wonderful,” I whispered.
Radek kissed my hand.
An army of servants moved from the kitchen to the dining room table carrying silver platters of food. My eyes found the pretty blonde. Ruzena’s hair was tied into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. She wore a bland cream-colored dress with a gray apron. She looked different from when I’d seen her with Marc on the morning I delivered his invitation. Ruzena kept her eyes lowered as she placed bowls of soup in front of each member of court.
“The king is heading to Moravia?” I sipped again from my glass of water. My nervousness had dried my throat.
“Yes,” Radek answered. “He’s been in an unsavory mood lately. Apparently, he has some business with his brother. It’s safe to say he’s not looking forward to the trip. But who knows? No one has seen the king since the ball.”
Except for me.
A lady seated beside my father patted her mouth with her napkin. “Can you blame Rudolf? With all the madness that’s going on outside the castle since his precious jewels were stolen? I’m surprised his old heart is still ticking. Poor soul! And to think, they’ve apprehended two of the thieves and they still have no idea where the jewels are!”
“Eva!” my father chastised.
“Well, it’s true.” Dull blue eyes found me again. “Those Protestant peasants are rioting at the gates. It’s frightening. It’s not safe for any of us to leave the castle. Do you know how suffocating that feels?”
“Let us not speak of such things at dinner,” Radek said sharply. He squeezed my hand under the table.
“I apologize, my lord.” Eva lowered her eyes but managed to glare at me from beneath her eyelashes. “I know your fiancée had a harrowing experience with those despicable blacksmith brothers.”
I sucked in air through my teeth. An awkward moment of silence filled the space between us.
“I did hear that France has a new ruler,” my father said. “Now that Henrik IV is dead.”
“Good riddance,” Eva mumbled.
“Who?” Radek asked.
My father bit into a biscuit. “Louis XIII.”
“His son?” Eva asked. “But he’s only a child.”
“He’s nine.” Václav’s eyes landed on Radek. “Interesting, don’t you think?”
“Indeed.”
Ruzena served a bowl of soup to a noble three seats down. She carefully avoided eye contact with everyone at the table. She must’ve heard what happened to Marc. Did she realize I was here?
“The seamstress has almost completed your gown,” Radek said. “It will be lovely.”
I sipped more water.
Ruzena served Radek a bowl of greenish brown liquid—turtle soup.
Another servant pushed a cart filled with bowls behind her. Ruzena moved to my right. As she leaned over my shoulder with the soup, I discreetly elbowed her arm.
The bowl tumbled from her hands and bounced off the edge of the table. The brunt of its scorching contents spilled onto my lap. I jumped to my feet and the chair fell to the floor behind me with a room-silencing clatter.
“Lady Nováková! I apologize.” Ruzena scrambled to clean the mess.
The hot liquid had splattered on my bare arms, burning my skin in splotches, but the majority of the soup had fallen to my lap. Fortunately for me, the dress’s fabric was so thick that I didn’t feel any of the heat.
“Ludmila!” Radek’s hands hovered over the brownish-green slop covering my blue dress. “Are you hurt? Are you burned?”
“No, it’s fine. I just need to clean up.”
Radek shouted at the servants swarming around me.
“I’m sorry,” Ruzena repeated. She still hadn’t made eye contact. She patted at my waist with a cloth napkin. “It was an accident. I don’t understand how I dropped the bowl. I was being so careful.”
“Help me clean this mess,” I said to Ruzena. I hated using that tone, but it was necessary. People were watching. I lifted an eyebrow.
Frightened eyes flickered to me and then fell to the floor.
“Do not make Lady Nováková repeat herself, girl,” Radek threatened.
“Of course.” Ruzena bowed.
“Do you want me to come with you?” he asked.
“No, of course not.” I stepped out from behind the fallen chair. “I’ll change my dress and be back down in a few minutes.”
He kissed my cheek and remained standing as I walked out of the dining room with Ruzena on my heels. We walked in silence through the southern corridor and up the stone stairs to my bedroom. I closed the door behind me and whirled around.
“Are you crazy?” Ruzena yelled. “Why did you do that? You could get me fired! Or killed!”
“Keep your voice down.” I retrieved a lilac dress from my trunk and tossed it on my bed. “Help me undo my laces. We only have a few minutes.”
Ruzena frowned, but she moved behind me, her fingers deftly unlacing my cords. “Tell me what you’re doing. Why am I here?”
“I need your help,” I whispered.
“My help? Why should I help you? It’s your fault Marc is in prison!”
I spun around. Ruzena’s eyes sparked with fury, but I couldn’t blame her. It was good that she was angry—maybe it would motivate her into helping me.
“Ruzena, if you don’t help me, then Marc is going to hang on Saturday morning. Do you understand what I’m saying? They are going to kill him unless we do something.”
She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “I don’t understand what you think I can do. I’m a servant. I can’t break him out of prison. Trust me, if I could, he’d already be out.”
“You can’t, but maybe Henrik can.” I stepped out of my soiled gown and slipped on the lilac dress. I crouched to the floor and searched under my bed. It took a few swipes, but my fingers eventually grazed fabric. I pulled out the package and held it up to Ruzena. “Take this.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a dagger.”
She stepped back. “What are you asking me to do?”
“I can’t get outside the castle’s walls. They’re watching me too closely, but you can come and go as you please. I need you to take this dagger to Henrik so he can use it to get Marc out of prison.”
“Henrik is a blacksmith. He doesn’t need your dagger. They have plenty of weapons—swords and axes. What’s your little dagger going to do?”
I flipped back the cloth. The fighting dragons’ garnet eyes looked blood red in the shadows. “Henrik will need these jewels to bribe his way inside. Or to buy help. Please take it. It’s all I have.”
She glanced at me through thick blond eyelashes. “You want me to smuggle a dagger to Henrik?”
“Yes.”
“And what happens when I get caught with those gems on me? What do you think will happen to me?”
I stared at her. There was no need to verbalize. We both knew what would happen.
She sighed and stuck out her hand. “I don’t like you.”
“You don’t have to. We’re doing this to save Marc. Tell Henrik they’re keeping Marc in Daliborka Tower, not the Powder Tower or the White Tower. This is important. And if I know my father, Marc will be in the dungeon. They plan to hang him on Saturday morning. That only gives us two days. Tell Henrik he must work quickly,” I said. “Can you do this?”
“I think I can.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“Yes
, yes, I can do it.”
I handed her the package and I turned around so she could lace up my lilac dress. She’d shoved the weapon in some hidden dress pocket. “You can’t come back here, Ruzena.”
“What?”
“After tonight, you can’t come back to the castle.”
“Why?” Ruzena asked. “This is my job. This is how I feed my brothers and sisters. I have to come back.”
“Are you a Protestant?” I asked.
Blue eyes fell to the ground.
“Are you?” I repeated. I had to get downstairs before Radek came looking for me.
“Yes.” She lifted her chin. “I’m a Protestant and I’m with the cause.”
“Then trust me, it won’t be safe for you behind these walls once they break Marc out of prison. They will be hunting Protestants. Stay with Henrik. Do what he says. Take your siblings, or whoever you care about, with you. Do whatever you have to do to stay away from the castle. Do you understand?”
Ruzena swallowed. “Yes.”
“Good.” I smoothed my gown and patted my hair. “Let’s go downstairs before they come looking for us.”
“Are you going to marry the duke tomorrow night?” The servant girl’s eyes were eager. Hopeful. She waited for my answer.
I hesitated. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. But if marrying Radek keeps Marc alive for a few extra hours so Henrik can save him, then I’ll have no choice.”
A flicker of something—satisfaction, maybe—flashed across Ruzena’s pretty face. “I’ll get the package to Henrik tonight.”
Chapter Twenty-one
The remainder of dinner passed without incident. Radek complimented my new lilac dress and promised if the stain didn’t come out of the cobalt one that he’d send for a new gown from Vienna.
Only the best for his fiancée.
I stayed in the dining room with the others after the lavish meal of veal, pheasant and eel from the Vltava River. I watched as the members of the king’s court stuffed themselves until they could hardly move. People were starving outside the gates and I watched my father eat six truffles.
Now, here I was in the middle of the night, standing outside the ominous Daliborka Tower. Technically, I wasn’t breaking my father’s rules. I wasn’t going outside the castle walls, but rather, deeper inside the stronghold.
The tower was named after its first ever prisoner. Some years ago, according to court gossip, a young bohemian noble supported a peasant rebellion (there seemed to be quite a bit of those in Prague’s checkered history). The revolt was nothing too grand, but a rebellion against the Crown, nonetheless. The uprising was squashed and the noble was sentenced to death. As he waited to die, he played his violin each night in the tower. Sweet, eerie music filled the castle’s grounds until he was finally executed.
The red-tiled conical roof tower loomed over me like a stone giant. Sparse moonlight reflected off the white stone structure. Eerie music wasn’t needed to amplify the feelings of dread and horror that the tower evoked in its appearance alone. How many men had been tortured there? How many had died?
I pushed the morbid thoughts aside and entered through the black iron gates. A guard sitting inside greeted me with a bow. “Lady Nováková.”
“Hello,” I said. “I need to see Marc Sýkora. Please.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry. No visitors.”
“Please?” I had no plan. No scheme. I only held the hope that somehow I could get inside to see him. “I don’t have anything on me. I just need to see him. You can search me if you want. They’re going to kill him and I have to—”
“Your father said no visitors.”
“My father is asleep. Please. Ten minutes. That’s all.”
The guard inhaled. “I could get into a lot of trouble for this, Lady Nováková.”
“I’ll be quick,” I pleaded. “No one will know I was here. Please, I’m begging you. I may not get to see him before they—”
“Put your arms out.”
“Oh, thank you!” I raised my arms and the guard patted me down. Once he was satisfied that I didn’t have any hidden weapons, he poked a thick finger at me. “Five minutes. Then you have to leave.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
I followed the guard through the shadowy hallway and down a steep staircase to the dungeon, just as I had assumed. The walls were slick with moisture and the stairs curved as we descended. There was no light except for the guard’s torch, so I had to watch my footing.
We plunged deeper into the bowels of the dungeon. The smell hit me first—unwashed bodies and decay. I swallowed down a gag and followed the guard. The circular room was full of torture devices—spikes and pokers and chairs with sharp needles in the seat. I had to look away.
To the right was a solid oak door angled into the stone. A small square was carved in the middle—where food presumably was given to the prisoner—and two windows with thick iron bars were cut into the wood. When we walked by the cell, I caught a glimpse of a dirty face.
“Blue Eyes, you’ve come to visit me.” Urek smashed his scarred face against the bars. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
Urek’s left eye had turned purple and puffy. He grinned and stretched an arm between the bars. His grimy hand extended into the walkway.
“Stay in the middle so he doesn’t grab you,” the guard said.
I cowered from Urek and almost bumped into the guard when he abruptly stopped in the middle of the room. I didn’t understand why he’d stopped until he produced a crowded key ring from his belt.
I looked down.
In the floor was a perfectly circular hole, much like a well. A rusted iron grate with crisscrossed bars covered the opening. The guard bent down and placed the key in the padlock.
My breathing accelerated. “He’s not down there . . . is he?”
The guard nodded.
“My God, why? What did he do? Why isn’t he in a regular cell?”
The guard shrugged. “Orders were to put him in the hole.”
“Whose orders?”
“Chancellor’s.”
Before he pulled the latch open, the guard looked at me. He pressed his lips together. “He may still be unconscious. They finished the lashings when they returned from the square. He’s . . . it’s bad. I’ll lower you down.”
They finished the lashings. My heart squeezed.
He placed the torch in the sconce and picked up the rope that was wound through an iron ring in the ceiling above. He tied the end of the rope into a loop, creating a seat for me.
“It’s the only way in or out,” he said.
I pulled the rope over my head and around my hips.
“If you get scared, let me know. I’ll pull you back up.”
The guard slowly lowered me into the hole until my feet hit the dusty floor. The torch above emitted a small circle of light at the base of the hole, but the rest of the cell remained in complete and absolute darkness. I couldn’t see Marc. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. Panic rose as I imagined this was an elaborate hoax. What if the guard was hiding me away in a hole forever? No one would ever find me.
The guard stuck his head in the hole. “Five minutes. Step back . . . you’ll need this.”
Something moved in his hand and then fire fell from the opening. A swooshing sound filled the silence before a torch landed on the ground a few steps from my feet. I quickly picked it up before the flame went out.
My eyes adjusted to the added light and I edged into the darkness. It was a perfectly round cell. Chains were built into the walls, but the cuffs were empty.
I peered into the black abyss, willing my eyes to see. I pointed the torch forward. I finally understood why the shackles were empty and why the guard had allowed me to see Marc. There was no need to worry about his escape. I wasn’t even certain he could stand.
Marc lay shirtless on his stomach. Lash marks crisscrossed his back. I sucked in a gulp of foul air as I counted more than tw
enty-five lashes—far more than he was supposed to receive.
Had my outburst made it worse for him?
“Marc?” I kneeled on the ground beside him.
He didn’t move.
He faced the wall, giving me a clear view of his shredded back. His hands lay limply by his sides. For a horrible, awful moment, I suspected he was already dead and this was some cruel joke. “Marc, can you hear me?”
His pinkie twitched.
I rested my hand on the back of his head and slid my fingers into his soft hair. He looked fragile, and that scared me more than anything. “It’s Mila.”
His body jerked in a spasm. He groaned as the movement jostled his damaged back.
“Shhh, it’s all right,” I whispered. “It’s me.”
Marc turned his head. The left side of his face was bruised and his bottom lip was split. His eyelids fluttered. “Mila?”
I fought back the tears that threatened to spill over. I wouldn’t upset him with selfish crying. I ran my hand through his silky hair and down his rough stubbly jaw. “It’s me, Marc. I’m here.”
“How did you get in—?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said quickly. I didn’t want to waste time on unimportant things. “I only have a few minutes.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“No, I’m fine.” I averted my eyes from the bloody gashes crisscrossing his back. The skin was missing in places where multiple lashes had overlapped. If I took in the full extent of his injuries, I wouldn’t be able to stop weeping. I had to be strong for him. I focused on his face. “I can’t believe they did this to you.”
“It’s nothing that won’t heal.”
“You don’t deserve to be here. They want to hang you on Saturday morning.”
He made a slight gesture—the equivalent of a shrug.
“Marc, this is serious. I should’ve known better than to take you to see my father.”
“How would you have known? He’s your father.”
“You knew,” I said.
He inched his arm toward me, wincing with the movement.
I sat the torch down and clasped his hand between mine, committing the feel of his warm skin to memory. I kissed the back of his hand. “Marc, if you suspected what my father was doing, why didn’t you tell me? We could’ve left together. We could have run away.”