Silent Water Page 7

  We went down a narrow unpaved path made more perilous by the softness of the sodden ground. Our boots made squelching sounds and were caked with mud within moments. When I slipped and nearly fell, my companion slackened the pace. He took my arm to help me remain steady until we arrived at the cobbled road that started at another, much larger door in the southern wall of the castle. It was the delivery entrance. We took that road all the way down to the foot of the hill, arriving at the tower door. Once there, Konarski advised me to take off my calfskin gloves and hide them inside my cloak.

  When he knocked on the heavy oak door, my anxiety returned. Everything was quiet for a long moment, and just as he raised his hand to knock again, a pair of red, bleary eyes appeared through the iron grille. They took some time to focus, then considered us for a while before vanishing. Soon, we heard the sound of bolts being pulled back and the clang of keys being turned in the locks. The door opened with a groan of its rusty hinges to reveal a fat guard whose mouth moved around in a chewing motion. Everything about him was greasy, from his hair to his hands, down to his boots.

  “Wha’s your business ’ere, sir?” he asked without pausing the chewing. Pellets of saliva-moistened bread flew in our direction, accompanied by a whiff of sour wine. I took a step back.

  “I am a secretary to Chancellor Stempowski,” Konarski said, and the guard’s bloodshot eyes became instantly more alert. “This good woman’s brother, Maciek Koza, is being held at the king’s pleasure, and I have leave to take her to his cell so she may have a word with him.” He produced a small piece of paper that he waved in the guard’s face as he pushed past him. I followed swiftly, trying to hide my surprise.

  The guard hesitated, but Konarski’s posture exuded so much confidence that he shrugged. “You will ’ave to leave your weapon wi’ me.” He reached out a calloused palm, and his fingernails were rimmed with black. “It’s the rules.”

  Konarski removed his dagger from his belt. It had a shapely wrought-silver hilt and a well-polished blade without any traces of tarnish, but no gemstone decorations. Its plain elegance was something I had already begun to associate with the king’s secretary. “Mind that it is here when we return,” he warned the guard, “or you will take up residence here yourself soon enough.”

  “I will also ’ave to check the lady for a weapon.” The guard took a step toward me, a slimy smile beginning to spread over his lips. My hand instinctively went up to where my cloak was tied at my neck, and I shuddered at the thought of those greasy fingers touching me.

  But Konarski lifted a hand before he took another step, his open palm landing on the guard’s chest with a soft thump. “You will do no such thing.” He pushed him back and waved the paper again with his other hand. “Must I remind you on whose authority we are here?”

  Again, I was surprised, for the chancellor could not possibly have given us this permit, but as the guard stared blankly at the paper, I realized that he could not read. I glanced at Konarski with renewed appreciation for his clever ruse.

  The matter of the search thus settled, the guard placed the dagger in a chipped wooden tray, mumbling under his breath, or possibly just resuming his interrupted chewing process. Then he motioned to his companion, a pimply youth with equally greasy hair and a massive set of keys at his belt, to take us to the cell. Before we were through the inner door, I heard the older guard drop back into his chair with a groan followed by a loud belch.

  The guards’ room had been warmed—although barely—by a small brazier, but when we stepped into the inner stairwell of the jail, it was as if we had found ourselves in the crypt under the cathedral again. I pulled the chambermaid’s cloak closer about me, wishing I could put my gloves back on. But I tried to find solace in the fact that at least the foul smell hanging in the air was made less aggressive by the icy cold.

  The stairwell was dark with only infrequent torches guttering on the walls, and Konarski lit his lamp from one of them as we climbed to the third floor. I kept my eyes on the back of the young guard’s worn jerkin, the stories of the tower’s ghosts rushing unbidden to my head as the shadows danced around us. From somewhere below us came a faint cry and a moan, and my heart quickened nervously as I wondered if it was one of the damned spirits of my imagination or some poor wretch, still alive, being stretched on a rack to extract a confession.

  Finally, our guide stopped in front of a door and opened it after some fumbling with the keys. As we entered, Konarski bid him to remain outside and closed the door in his face with another reminder of the chancellor.

  The cell was small, no more than four paces across, with not even a pallet to sleep on. Its floor was strewn with dirty straw that rustled and squeaked suspiciously, leaving me with no doubt as to the kinds of companions with whom the inmate shared that dismal place. But at least it had a tiny window to let in a little bit of fresh air. Not that it made a big difference.

  Maciek Koza, large and fleshy despite his sixteen years, was slumped in a corner. When he heard us, he raised his head. It was covered with thick, bristly hair, and the movement—slow and wary—made him look oddly like a bear. The small, closely set dark eyes that squinted at us in the lamplight showed a mix of dullness and fear, like a beast brought to slaughter. My chest tightened—the boy was obviously slow-witted.

  He saw that I was not one of the jailers and laughed briefly, and it was in that moment that I recognized him. My mind traveled back more than a year, to the autumn of 1518, about six months after we had arrived in Kraków. One evening, well past eleven o’clock, I heard a patter of feet past my door and looked out just in time to see Lucrezia reach the end of the queen’s gallery. But instead of taking the right turn onto the main corridor of our floor of the castle—even assuming she had any business being out of her chamber at that hour—she pushed open a small door on the left that led to the servants’ staircase. I hastily wrapped my dressing gown around me and followed her.

  When I entered the staircase, I could hear her steps fading on the top floor, where the servants slept, but it was empty when I arrived there. As I stood wondering if I would have to knock on every door and rouse everyone to find her, a door opened in the middle of the corridor and a boy came out, closing it carefully behind him. He was large but moved slowly, murmuring some words under his breath that were punctured by small bursts of laughter, idiot-like and innocent. It was the same boy who now sat in front of me in the corner of the cell.

  I remembered pushing past him into the chamber and finding Lucrezia in the embrace of his roommate, a dark and handsome fellow who often served at the lower-ranking tables in the banqueting hall. Only a few weeks earlier, I had seen Lucrezia chatting with him during the reception for the Muscovite envoys and had admonished her against it. Clearly, she had not taken it to heart. When she saw me, she screamed and pulled away from the man, gathering the folds of her dressing gown that had come loose around her neck. Even before I had a chance to say a word, she ran around me and out into the corridor, where I caught up with her.

  “What were you thinking coming here in the middle of the night for a tryst with a servant?” My voice shook with indignation at the deception. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the boy cowering against the wall, whimpering, although he must have been stronger than both of us combined.

  Lucrezia put her hands to her face and started crying. “I’m sorry, signora,” she sobbed. “I really am!”

  “You will be even sorrier when I tell the queen,” I hissed and grabbed her by the arm as doors along the corridor began opening. The last thing I needed was for us to be seen and start the gossip mill. I steered her toward the staircase. “When she learns about what you have been up to, you will be sent home with the next group leaving for Bari,” I added as we began descending.

  By then she was wailing loudly and clutching at my gown, and I had to stop on the landing lest we both tumble down the stairs. She kept promising that she would not do it again and imploring me not to tell the queen, and she only calmed down a
fter I had said that I would think about it.

  I never did tell the queen. Lucrezia’s lover was soon dismissed from service anyway, but that event was the reason I had taken to checking on the girls every night at midnight to make sure they were all in their own beds. Not that that was a sure way of keeping them there—to be certain, I would have to stop sleeping altogether.

  I ran a hand over my eyes and crouched beside the boy. Both of his wrists were shackled in iron bracelets chained to the wall. He recoiled slightly as our eyes met at his level. “Maciek?” I said gently. I wanted to put a hand on his arm, but he shifted and the chains clanged, and I felt a momentary panic as I moved back. Behind me I could hear Konarski take a step toward us, but I raised my hand to signify that I was fine.

  “My name is Caterina,” I enunciated the Polish words more carefully than I did with Konarski. “I am a lady-in-waiting to Her Majesty the Queen,” I added in what I hoped was a reassuring voice. I made sure to keep it low because I would have bet every ducat in my purse that the pimply guard was listening at the keyhole.

  “The queen.” Maciek nodded, smiling like a child. “A beautiful lady.”

  “Yes.” I smiled back. “Do you know why you are here?”

  His face darkened. “There was a murder, and they say I done it.” He rocked back and forth, then shook his head as if to convince himself. “But I done nothing!”

  I considered him for some moments. He was big, which was why he worked as a carrier, but there was a gentleness and vulnerability to him that made it hard to imagine that he would be capable of killing someone. He was a bear, but one without claws. Besides, he did not have the wits to plan a murder, and Zamborski’s killing was nothing if not deliberate.

  “What were you doing by the delivery door so late when they arrested you?” I asked.

  “I been there to see that the doors was properly locked up for the night. It was not me who done it!” From his seated position, he bowed so low that his forehead almost struck the ground. When he looked up again, I saw tears pooling in his eyes, but they were tears of bewilderment more than fear. “I swear!” He pulled on the chains, and Konarski stepped up to my side.

  “It’s all right. I believe you,” I said soothingly, and this time I touched his hand. It was icy cold. He was wearing only a linen shirt and a sleeveless jerkin, an outfit he must have had on when they brought him here from the castle. “I believe you,” I repeated and felt him calming down.

  After a moment, I asked, “Do you remember what you were doing during the Christmas feast?”

  He raised his head, his eyes wandering along the wall behind me as he tried to recall. “I stayed in our chamber with the other carriers. There was no deliveries to take.”

  “And did you stay there all evening?”

  He nodded. “We ate and drank, then we sang carols.” He gave a wan smile, his eyes roving to a metal plate sticking out of the straw near his feet, licked clean by him or the rats.

  I rose to my feet. “Thank you, Maciek. I hope that the truth will out and you will be released soon,” I said, even as I began to fear that would not happen. Whatever Stempowski’s motivations, the boy was a perfect scapegoat.

  “I only left once,” Maciek spoke again just as I was about to turn away.

  Konarski and I exchanged a look. “Left to go where?”

  “To piss.” Maciek’s forehead creased with a deep frown. “And I seen somebody.”

  “Who? Who did you see?” My heart quickened.

  “A man in a cloak.”

  “A man in a cloak?” I echoed. “By your chamber door?” I squatted down again, and it was all I could do to not shake him by his shoulders. “What did he look like?”

  “Didn’t see his face, only the cloak.”

  I took an exasperated breath. “You only saw a cloak? No person?”

  Maciek nodded. He was thinking hard, the effort obvious in the tension of his face. “He was turning a corner down the corridor when I came out. I just seen a bit of cloak, fluttering-like, and then he was gone.” He shuddered. “Like a phantom.” He huddled his broad shoulders into himself.

  I felt sorry for forcing him to remember what clearly had been a disturbing experience, but this was too important. “What color was the cloak?”

  “Black,” he said in a muffled voice, his chin still pressed to his chest.

  A thought occurred to me: was it the hem of a man’s cloak or a woman’s gown he had seen? Perhaps it was Lucrezia up to her old tricks again. But she had stayed at the table all evening.

  Then my heart stopped. Was it Helena? She had been absent for some time, and by her own admission, she had gone to meet someone. But no, it could not have been her. She would not have carried on with a servant, of that I was certain. She had to be more discriminating than Lucrezia. No, most likely Maciek had seen the back of the killer, but that was all I would get from him. It was almost as if he had seen a ghost—no face, no body, just a sweep of cloth disappearing into the shadows.

  Back downstairs, I clenched my jaw so as not to shout at the fat guard and his underling. Instead, I held out a hand with two silver ducats. “Fetch a wool blanket and some food for M— my brother.”

  The guard looked surprised that I would dispose of such a sum, but he took the coins readily enough, trying them between his teeth before pocketing them. “There will be more if you treat him well,” I added as Konarski ushered me out the door with more than a slight pressure on my back.

  “What are you doing throwing silver around like that?” he hissed. “You are supposed to be a peasant. Do you want to get us in trouble?” He fastened the dagger the younger guard had restored to him back at his belt.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I would never forgive myself if Konarski’s position was put in jeopardy because of me. “But you saw that place. I would not let a dog sleep in that cell.”

  He grunted, and we set out on our way back as the cathedral clock struck six, the clangs echoing heavy and somehow louder in the dark. We passed a whipping block and a pair of stocks on a low hill on the other side of the delivery road, where the punishments of the tower’s inmates were carried out. In warmer months, the stocks were occupied daily. Only a few days earlier, two men had been flogged for getting into a knife fight in one of the city’s taverns.

  Whenever capital crimes were dealt with, the block was replaced with a scaffold or an execution block, depending on the condemned man’s status. The owners of the nearby townhouses made a handsome profit renting out windows facing the hill, which offered a prime viewing location. Townsfolk who could not afford it but were still eager to participate in the entertainment crowded the streets below, attracting hawkers of all manner of goods as well as pickpockets, both in search of profit. It saddened me to think that Maciek might soon make for that sort of spectacle.

  It was colder now than when we had come down, the thaw seemingly over. The ground was not as soft anymore—the mud had begun to congeal as the temperature dropped—but it was not any less slippery. From the woods across the river, a wolf’s lonesome howl reached us, and I shivered.

  “Do you think he did it?” I asked as we began to pick our way back up the hill, first over the cobbles and then over the unpaved path, Konarski holding me by the arm and lighting the way with the lantern in his other hand.

  He thought for a while before answering. “I want to say no, but”—he searched for the right words—“appearances can be deceiving.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I was a boy,” he said, “my father’s groom had a son who was much like Maciek. He was large and strong, but he had the mind of a child.” There was a note of sadness in his voice as he cast his mind back. “One day, a milkmaid was found smothered in the barn, a girl of barely eleven. There were no signs of any other violence on her, and after an inquiry, it was found that the groom’s son had done it. He said he only wanted to play with her . . .”

  I patted the hand that held my arm. “Even if Maciek had some
interaction with Zamborski that night—and there is no proof that he did—that murder was no accident.”

  We continued for some time in silence.

  “He says he was with the other carriers the whole evening; surely that proves he could not have done it?” I said. “They can testify in his defense.”

  “The chancellor interviewed them on the night of Maciek’s arrest. I was there. They confirmed that he had stepped out claiming he needed to relieve himself, but what time it was or how long he was gone, they could not say as they were all drunk by then.”

  I snorted. “But if he had killed and robbed Zamborski, would he not have pawned the dagger the next day, then take off with the money, never to be seen again?” I was breathing faster from both the effort of the climb and the frustration building up inside me.

  “He will be put before a jury, and we must trust that they will make the right decision—”

  “I will ask for a meeting with Chancellor Stempowski.”

  Konarski halted abruptly, and I almost slipped. “What?”

  “I will ask to meet with the chancellor so I can speak for Maciek. I will say his family petitioned me to do that.”

  “Caterina.” He tried to sound stern, but the familiar address softened the effect. “You should forget this matter.” I started to answer, but he raised his hand. “Listen to me.” He took a breath. “The queen has detractors in the king’s household, advisors who are unhappy with her involvement in state affairs and with her push for farming reforms, which they see as unwarranted meddling.” I wanted to protest, but he was right. It had all been on display during the war council meeting. “If you seek to speak with the chancellor, it will be seen as another interference, not just by you, but by the queen,” he warned me.

  “Then we will let the boy die for someone else’s crime?” I asked indignantly.

  He took me by the elbow again, and we resumed our ascent. “I will talk to the chancellor,” he said at length. Then he added, lowering his voice to a near whisper, “I should not be telling you this, but . . . let’s just say the chancellor was not happy with his daughter’s engagement. He had been hoping for someone better connected and higher placed. But he is a devoted father, and Celina had set her heart on Zamborski, despite his reputation as a scoundrel.”