Silent Water Page 17

When the door closed behind her, I exhaled with relief, although I knew it would be short-lived. Unless Dantyszek miraculously walked out of any of the chambers along the gallery, apologetic and ready to take on his mission, there would be no good news to give the queen one hour from now.

  My anxiety returning, I went down to the State Chambers and knocked on the door to the office that Konarski shared with another junior secretary, a man named Górka who also happened to be Magdalena’s half-brother.

  “I must talk to you,” I said, bypassing the usual greeting, when Konarski opened the door. “Privately.”

  He beckoned me to enter. “I’m alone. Górka is in bed with the sniffles. Is it about Dantyszek?” he asked as he closed the door.

  I nodded.

  “Yet another problem we don’t need at the moment,” he said, and I could hear frustration in his voice. “You probably heard that Her Majesty demanded that the chancellor send men to look for him in the city.” He gave me a look that meant to convey how that order had gone over with Stempowski.

  “I did hear about that,” I said. “I think the queen is right to be alarmed. The chancellor may not think this is a serious matter, but I have a bad feeling about it.”

  Konarski lowered his voice. “What kind of a bad feeling?”

  “I believe his absence may be connected to Helena’s departure.”

  He frowned. “How?”

  I told him about my suspicions regarding the two of them, and he laughed. “That is highly unlikely. He may be a dandy and a rake, but he is very ambitious,” he said, echoing my own thoughts from earlier that day. “His family are up-and-coming, and they entertain great hopes of an illustrious career for him at the court. He would never have done something so irresponsible, not even for love. Especially not for love,” he added.

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked sharply, feeling inexplicably irritated.

  His laugh faded, but the smile lingered in his eyes. “Only that Dantyszek is not the type to fall in love for longer than a fortnight.”

  I sighed, turning to the window, where snow was now peppering the glass, making sharp irregular sounds as the wind rose and died. Konarski’s point was well taken. Dantyszek was a ladies’ man, and he could have any woman at the court that he wanted—or most of them, anyway. It was hard to imagine that he would have thrown away such a bright future for Helena, or anyone else for that matter.

  “I think you are looking for a connection where there isn’t any,” Konarski said behind me. “Also, you are assuming that she is pregnant, but there is no evidence of that either—”

  “I should have had Baldazzi examine her,” I muttered angrily.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.” I shook my head, exhaling. “Go on.”

  “And even if she is, if Dantyszek is the father and he loves her, he could have married her in the open. There would have been no obstacles as they are of a similar rank. If, on the other hand, he didn’t want to marry her, he could have just denied being the father.”

  I turned and looked at him in dismay.

  He spread his hands. “That’s how these things go sometimes.”

  In my irritation I was about to ask him if he knew “these things” from his own experience, when I suddenly remembered the words the queen had spoken a short time earlier. Gamrat saw him at the court after vespers last night.

  “They couldn’t have eloped!” I exclaimed. “He is still in town! You cannot elope without actually leaving, can you?”

  “I suppose not. I have never tried.” He smiled, seeing my excitement. “But how do you know he’s still in Kraków?”

  “Because one of the queen’s advisors saw him here yesterday after nightfall, which means after the town gates had already been closed for the storm. He might even still be in the castle!” I began pacing the chamber, my mind working fast.

  “Do you realize,” Konarski said slowly, “that if he is in the castle, he’s likely dead? Everybody has been looking for him for hours.”

  That stopped me in my tracks. He was right. I had been so wrapped up in the elopement theory that I had entirely dismissed that other possibility.

  “But it’s not evening yet,” I said, grasping for a less awful explanation. “The others were killed at night and during a banquet. And the killer made no attempt to hide the bodies—he wanted them to be found. If Dantyszek were dead, his body would have been discovered by now, wouldn’t it?”

  “So perhaps they have eloped after all.” Konarski scratched his head; it seemed like we were going in circles. “Perhaps they were stranded in town by the weather and have taken a room at an inn somewhere to wait for the storm to pass so they can make their exit.” Then he added, “I know by nightfall even the chancellor will be concerned. He will probably send another party to search for him. If they find him—with or without Helena—I will send word to you immediately.”

  “Oh, God. Sometimes I hope that this is just a dream and I will wake up and laugh about it.”

  I pressed my palms to my eyes, feeling close to being overcome. The sound of his footsteps as he came toward me made everything inside me go still. I realized that we were alone together for the first time. He took my hands and pulled them away from my face. The candles were behind his back, making his eyes seem darker, more inscrutable, and completely arresting. I felt my throat go dry.

  He let go of my hands and took my chin lightly between his thumb and forefinger. He lifted my head and I watched, transfixed, as his lips parted only inches from mine.

  Then the silence around us was torn by the sound of the bell tolling two o’clock.

  I took a step back, my hands going instinctively to my headdress, as if it needed adjusting. “The queen will be finishing her meal,” I said as the echo of the second metallic clang dissipated over us. “I should be going back.”

  We were still for a few heartbeats, then he moved to the door and opened it for me. He touched my arm lightly as I passed. “I hate to see you worried like this,” he said when I finally managed to meet his eyes. “I hope that there is an explanation for Dantyszek’s disappearance.” A small smile curled his lips. “I will see you at the banquet tonight.”

  Chapter 13

  January 6th, 1520, The Feast of Epiphany

  Evening

  A few hours later, the queen—flanked by guards and followed by me and the maids of honor—walked down the gallery and turned onto the main corridor of the second floor of the castle. Konarski had been right: the chancellor had sent another party in search of Dantyszek that afternoon, but there had been no news still.

  As we walked toward the banqueting hall, I noticed that while there were a few more guards around than usual, it was hardly the kind of heightened security that I had expected. I guessed that the king had decided not to make an overt display of it after all, most likely for fear of stoking panic and interfering with the court’s celebrations. It was entirely in line with Zygmunt’s nature, but that night I would have felt more assured with a greater number of men-at-arms posted along the galleries.

  We walked up the wide central staircase to the third floor. Even before we came to the door of the brightly lit hall, I could hear the buzz of conversations interwoven with the melodies of Kappelmeister Gąsiorek’s musicians. The queen had given him special instructions to play a selection of the most popular Italian, French, and Flemish tunes alongside Polish ones, and I knew I would be in for a treat if I could only manage to keep my nerves at bay.

  I was desperately determined to enjoy the evening. I had put on a gown of silver brocade, trimmed at the neckline with frilly lace and slit in the front to reveal the white satin of the skirt underneath. Around my neck I wore a choker of gray pearls, and my waist was encircled with a girdle of the same pearls, falling on the front of my skirt. At the last moment, I had chosen a pair of fitted sleeves because it was a style Konarski had once told me he liked.

  As we entered the hall, the conversations ceased and everyone bowed. The queen
walked to the dais where she was to be seated with her senior ladies, and although the talk and music resumed, we were still on our feet awaiting the king’s arrival. Another pause in music and conversation some minutes later greeted his entrance, then the court was seated at the tables and the feast began.

  I could see that my determination to enjoy myself was shared by many others. While the hall was not as full as it had been at Christmas—the foreign guests had long since departed—somehow it was louder. Was it a reaction to the uncertainty and trepidation that many must have felt? An act of defiance against a faceless and a nameless killer, possibly sitting in our midst? Or did they simply feel less formal and constrained, Epiphany not being imbued with the same solemnity as Christmas? After all, it heralded the upcoming carnival season with feasts, pageants, and masquerade balls, the last largely unknown in Poland before the Italians arrived. Queen Bona was a great lover of masquerade. She had new masks and costumes sent from Venice each year, and the first ball of the season was planned for the middle of February. Like her gowns and manners, masquerades, too, were becoming popular with the local nobility, though by no means everyone. I am quite certain that Chancellor Stempowski had never attended any of them.

  Whatever the reason—it may even have been a mix of all of those—the men and women of the court were dressed in all their finery, diamonds glittering at their necks and feathers quivering in their hats. They laughed and chattered at an increasing volume, the drink brought up in constant supply from the castle’s abundant stores fueling their mood.

  I sat at the table closest to the queen’s dais together with the maids of honor. I watched the girls’ glowing faces and shining eyes, the events of the past few days seemingly forgotten, or at least set aside for a short time. They smiled at the passing gentlemen and exchanged words with those who stopped by their chairs, and even though they cast wary glances at me, I pretended not to notice. I was surprised to find that rather than being worried about them, I felt almost relieved, for it gave me an illusion that things were returning to normal. If a stolen kiss was the worst thing that happened that night, I would count all of us lucky.

  The queen, too, managed to put on a display of cheer, even though I knew how anxious she was underneath the smiles she had for her guests. Once in a while her eyes met mine, and from that we drew mutual comfort.

  Konarski arrived some time after the king. He was dressed in black leather hose, a black doublet slashed to reveal burgundy lining, and the lacings of his sleeves were embroidered in gold thread. On his head, he wore a feathered cap that sat at a jaunty angle. I smiled when I saw it, for it showed me an aspect of his personality I had glimpsed only once before, during the New Year’s banquet. It was a softer and more playful side, which he rarely displayed in the daytime. Except a few hours earlier in his office. I felt a wave of heat rise in my belly at the memory of the kiss that had almost happened, and I regretted having lost my nerve. Who knew when the next opportunity would arise, if it ever did?

  Across the table from me, Magdalena noticed my eyes following Konarski to his seat, for she looked away when I turned my gaze on her. I knew that she liked him, and although I had not noticed any interest on his part, it might be only a matter of time if I persisted in my coyness and Magdalena in her simpering.

  Konarski proceeded directly to the king’s dais, where he took a seat next to Chancellor Stempowski, and thus very close to the king himself. Did that mean that he was about to be promoted to a more senior position? I’d always had the impression that unlike Dantyszek, Latalski, and so many others, he cared little for the privileges that came with attaining a high rank within the royal household. All the same, he seemed to enjoy a high level of trust.

  The food, if possible, was even finer than during Christmas, despite the inconvenience of having to shut the kitchen down and use the warming rooms. There was an abundance of game in a variety of sauces, roasted pheasant, sweet hams, smoked eel, and trout encased in clear, delicate jelly, a very Polish dish. Besides that, we could sample an assortment of nuts, fruits, and sweets—candied, caramelized, fashioned of spun sugar into shapes of flower petals, topped with cream, cinnamon dust, or delicate white shreds of coconut, a great rarity brought from the new world.

  But I found that I could not eat or drink much. I tasted a dish that looked like some kind of fowl stewed with truffles, but my stomach roiled, much like Helena’s had done two weeks earlier. Like her, I kept glancing at the door, though for an entirely different reason. A part of me constantly expected the captain of the guard to appear there, walk hastily up to the king’s dais, and inform him that Dantyszek’s corpse had been discovered in some dark corner of the castle. Much like what the chancellor had done after Zamborski had been found.

  But the evening wore on, and nothing happened. The party kept growing louder and louder. I cast occasional—and I hoped discreet—glances in Konarski’s direction, and at one point I was alarmed when I saw that he and the chancellor were gone. But they returned soon thereafter, and I was flooded with relief. It appeared that despite the festive occasion, those two were still working, most likely on the upcoming war with the Teutonic Order.

  Shortly after that, I became aware of a conversation that made my hand, in which I held a spoon with a piece of frangipane, stop halfway between my plate and my mouth.

  “Dantyszek still hasn’t been seen,” a man at a table behind me, whose face I could not see, said to his neighbor loud enough for me to hear. It was the kind of volume a man’s voice assumes when he has had so much to drink that he believes anything he has to say is of utmost importance to everyone around him. “He was supposed to travel to Gdańsk on His Majesty’s business.”

  Despite myself, I chuckled at the inaccuracy of the information—that was how gossip started. I was about to take a bite of my frangipane when the other responded, his speech just as loud but more slurred than that of his companion. “He’ll be in trouble when they find him. Serves him right, too, for his reformist ideas.” Then he had a flash of inspiration. “Maybe he’s drinking somewhere with his German friends?”

  Clearly not everyone expected the worst to have happened to Dantyszek, but then they did not know as much about the killings as I did. I imagined that few besides myself, Konarski, the chancellor, and the captain of the castle guard were aware of the pattern of these murders occurring on feast nights. I had not even told the queen about it.

  “The chancellor sent men earlier today to make inquiries around the town, then he ordered the castle searched from top to bottom, including the servants’ floor and the attic. And nothing!” the first man said.

  I was not aware that such a thorough search of the castle had been performed. Nobody had come to search our wing all day. I leaned back in my chair to hear better.

  “Did he search the cellars?” the slurry voice asked and guffawed. “Maybe he’s been holed up down there sampling Her Majesty’s Italian wines all day. I wouldn’t blame him; they are eccellente.” He attempted to mimic the Italian pronunciation and burped.

  The spoon fell from my hand and clattered against the plate, the frangipane tumbling onto the cloth. The man had meant the castle cellars, but there was another set of cellars—empty of wine now, in a separate building that had been vacated for the last few days because of the storm. As this realization flashed through my mind, my chest tightened, and I was suddenly unable to draw a breath.

  I pushed my chair back. Everybody was so preoccupied with their conversations that they did not notice my reaction, which was just as well. I looked toward the dais, but Konarski, the chancellor, and the king were in deep talk, and I was unable to catch Konarski’s attention. Nor could I walk up and interrupt his conference with the king to tell him of my terrible suspicion. If Dantyszek had been seen in the castle after the town gates had closed last night, if the chancellor’s men had not found him in Kraków, and if the search of the castle that afternoon had revealed nothing, there was only one place he could be.

  A min
ute, then another, stretched into eternity, and Konarski was still talking with the king. Impatience tugged at me, and a sense of premonition coiled around my stomach like a snake. I had to go and see for myself if I was right about it, even though there was a chance that I might find a dead body or a dying man. Given the amount of time that had passed since Dantyszek’s disappearance, a dead body was the most likely result. This killer did not keep his victims alive; he dispatched them swiftly. But then, this had already been enough of a change of pattern that it was just possible that Dantyszek might still be alive.

  I sprang to my feet. To my right, Beatrice Roselli turned to me. “Is everything all right, signora?”

  “Yes.” My voice was taut and sounded unconvincing even to me, but Beatrice was flushed with wine and did not appear to notice. “I have to . . . can you tell Signor Konarski that I—” I broke off. There was no way to say this without causing hysteria.

  “Signor Konarski?” She grinned, then cocked her head to one side, arching her eyebrows coquettishly. “Il segretario carino?”

  Across the table Magdalena gave me a look of amusement with a hint of challenge. It suggested that she was beginning to suspect something, but also that she did not consider me a serious rival. She was probably correct in that, but right then I had no time to ruminate over any of it.

  “Non importa,” I said. Never mind. “I’ll be right back.”

  I hurried toward the door and was about to step out into the gallery when I saw Doctor Baldazzi and the Princess of Montefusco. A full head taller than the doctor, the princess was fanning herself dramatically, while her left wrist rested in Baldazzi’s hand, presumably so he could check her pulse. With eyes half closed, she looked like she was about to faint, although her color was high—whether from wine, the rouge, or her obvious good health, I could not tell.

  I took a step to pass them when another memory emerged from the recesses of my mind. My heart slowed with dread as the implication of it dawned on me.