BOHEMIAN
GOSPEL
a Novel
DANA CHAMBLEE
CARPENTER
PEGASUS BOOKS
NEW YORK LONDON
For Greg,
who always keeps faith,
and for L and J,
who show me where the magic lives.
BOHEMIAN
GOSPEL
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Teplá Abbey
Mouse Girl raised at Teplá
Father Lucas Abbot, Mouse’s mentor
Mother Kazi Prioress and healer, Mouse’s mentor
Brother Jan Prior
Adele Mouse’s nursemaid
Brother Milek Kitchener
Sister Kveta Nun
Sister Ida Nun
Ottakar and His Men
Ottakar The Younger King of Bohemia
Vok Lord Rozemberk, Ottakar’s second-in-command
Damek Knight
Evzen Knight
Gernandus Knight
Hartwin Royal physician
Prague
Vaclav Ottakar’s father and King of Bohemia
Mother Agnes Ottakar’s aunt, sister to Vaclav
Prince Vladislaus Ottakar’s older brother
Lord Rozemberk Vok’s father and Vaclav’s second-in-command
Lady Rozemberk Vok’s mother
Luka Nephew of Lord Rozemberk
Bishop Bansca Bishop from Rome
Bishop Miklaus Archbishop of Prague
Lady Harrach Wife of Damek
Lady Lemberk Wife of Evzen
Lord Olomouc Friend of Vaclav
Gitta Maid in the royal court
Hluboka Castle
Ludolf Master carver
Rozemberk Castle
Hanzi Leader of the Romany clan
Margaret Widow of Henry, Duke of Austria
Sušice
Enede Cottager
Marchfeld
Vitek Heir to the Rozemberk estate
Rudolf Holy Roman Emperor
Podlazice
Bishop Andreas Abbot at Podlazice monastery
ONE
The future king of Bohemia lay dying on the floor at her feet.
Silent stars burst at the edges of her vision, flattening the world into darks and lights as her eyes adjusted to the dim room.
She could see the shadowy outlines of the men packed along the walls of the abbey’s infirmary; they looked like holes cut from the afternoon sun that filtered in through the windows behind them. The girl closed her eyes against the light and was too aware of how close they all were. Men pinned her from behind against the soldier in front of her, each of them panting from the hard ride, their axes and swords clinking as they shifted, pent up and pointless.
She had raced them from the river up to the abbey and was having a hard time catching her breath. She needed to breathe—to move. She stretched upward, arching her back and pushing against the chain mail on either side until she’d made a small space, a pocket of air that she sucked in quickly.
Her stomach heaved. The air was thick with the smell of leather soured with sweat and piss, mixed with the sweet pine of the forest, which still clung to the men’s hair and clothes.
The man in front of her turned at the sound of her gagging and took a step away, shoving the men near him to make room. She bent, hands pressed against her knees, waiting for the burn to crawl up her throat and spew through her nose and mouth, but a bit of clear air slipped past the gap between men. She sipped it slowly, her jaw locked against the nausea.
And she saw him.
He seemed so small lying there, framed by the window, much more a boy than a king, except that strands of his tawny hair, disheveled and catching the sunlight, looked like they were on fire, a crown of flames. The Younger King they had named him, those lords of the land who had urged him to overthrow his father. At fifteen, he had done as they asked—besieged his father and usurped the crown—but then the pope had demanded a compromise, one that would let father and son rule together. And so they had ruled, until the father broke his oath and sent his son running for his life. Now here he lay, dying.
These knights, stinking and scared, crowded around the dying man they were meant to protect; they were the sons of those power-hungry nobles. Now, they watched their aristocratic futures writhe and suffocate on the cold stone floor, blood oozing past the arrow in their king’s chest.
To these men, she was nothing. But to him, she might be everything.
Driving her shoulder through the gap, she burst into the light near him.
“Stop!” The command came from the dark corner on the other side of the king.
The girl took another step forward. The scrape of blade against sheath echoed around her as the king’s guards drew their swords, but she dropped to her knees and laid her hand on the king anyway. The room closed in on her as if she had pulled the strings of a purse.
A man stepped out of the shadows, his sword at her throat as she turned her face up to him. She had seen this man at the river, driving his horse up the bank with one hand, the other twisted behind him, steadying the hunched figure at his back. Time had held them for a moment—the girl, the horse, the rider, and the wounded king. She had seen the cold anger in the rider’s face as he looked down on her, had seen the king’s bloody surcoat, the goose fletching on the arrow in his chest quivering with each pounding step of the charger. She had looked up and seen the king’s face: pale, but eyes open and looking at her, not like the rider, but kindly, with the eyes of a man who knows he is dying and wants to leave the world gently.
Instinctively, she had reached toward him, the metal barding at the horse’s flank slicing her palm as they rushed past her. She had turned to follow, but the rattle of tack and high whinnies of dozens more charging horses held her still. They crashed out of the woods on the other side of the Teplá and ran into the river, horses’ bodies slapping against the water, pushing a wave forward with them as they pulled up the near bank where she stood.
“Run, girl! Out of the way!” the men had screamed at her, but there had been no time to run.
She shifted her body sideways, trying to make herself smaller. The horses’ bodies, which were warm from the river water, steamed as they struck the chill air again. She had drawn a breath as the first tendril of mist touched her just before the horses’ hooves slammed into the mud beside her.
And then she moved.
A few steps forward or back, twisting her body, the edges of her mantle swinging until the rabbit fur lining was covered in mud, her loose hair whipping and wrapping around her neck; she looked like she was dancing with the horses in some intricate and precise choreography set to music no one else could hear. Just by watching, she’d known how they would all move, which horse would bolt and which would stay steady, which rider would pull the reins and which would kick his mount, urging him forward and faster. She moved just seconds before them, this way and that, so close that their flying manes stung her face.
The horde had washed over her, breaking left and right around her like she was a stone in a stream. They left her shivering and wet from the river water and the sweaty froth the horses flung at her. The beasts’ wild eyes had rolled in surprise; their riders had crossed themselves against her.
But she was used to people being afraid of her.
She gave chase as the riders took to the lane, but she was able to weave a shortcut through the dense woods. The abbey was home for her; she’d known where they would take him.
She had run into the courtyard as the last of them were dismounting. Forced to follow the slow ooze of men through the narrow archway, she had seen the trail of blood at the threshold, her own dropping steadily from the gash on her hand t
o land like islands beside the stream the wounded man had shed. She’d gritted her teeth and leaned hard against the man to her right, squeezing herself underneath his arm and feeling the metal hauberk bite into her cheek.
Now here she was, in the halo of space the frightened men had left around their king, a sword at her throat and dozens more at her back. The men were staring at her, some of them now whispering about what they had seen her do at the river. She heard one of them call her a witch. She’d been called that before.
Father Lucas called her his little andílek. Angel or witch, she didn’t know what she was, but none of that mattered.
“Let me save him,” she said to the man who’d emerged from the shadows, his sword scratching her throat as she spoke.
“He needs more than prayers, girl. Get away from him.” He lowered his sword and turned his back on her.
“I am not—”
“Damek,” the man called to one of the knights. “Deal with this.”
“Yes, my Lord Rozemberk,” came the response from behind her.
She was just turning to see who had spoken when she felt a hand twist into her hair, nails digging into her scalp, as she was lifted and pulled back, her head forced down like she was a puppet and he the master.
“The King must live until my man brings the surgeon,” Rozemberk said to someone else in the shadows. “Get your healer.”
“As I say, Brother Jakub is himself very ill and—” It was the voice of Brother Jan, the abbey’s prior.
“Fetch him anyway.”
“He cannot help you, Lord Rozemberk. Come, I will show you.”
She heard the soft slap of Brother Jan’s shoes against the stone floor in step with the quick, sharp pings of Lord Rozemberk’s sabatons as they walked across the hall into another chamber.
The king groaned, and the girl instinctively tried to go to him, but as her feet moved forward, her head jerked back, still locked in Damek’s grip. She lost her balance and fell, sliding against his hauberk, feeling it snag against her mantle until she twisted a leg under her and stood again.
She tried to speak, but the puppetmaster had her chin shoved against her chest. She could feel the rapid thud of her heart in her mouth, and she gritted her teeth again, angry at the time she was losing. She could see little more than her own muddy feet, but she rolled her eyes up hard until the muscles were burning and she was sure they would tear; she found the king’s face again, saw the bloody bubbles at his lips.
“He is going to die,” she growled through her clamped teeth. Damek shoved her head forward to silence her.
“There is no one else, then?” Lord Rozemberk asked Brother Jan as they returned. The girl could hear the fear in his voice.
“I am sorry, my Lord, but Mother Kazi, our other healer—she is gone to train some—”
“Do something for him!” Lord Rozemberk dropped to his knees, leaning over the king and wrapping his hands around the shaft of the arrow, pushing as he tried to stop the bleeding. The king arched in pain and sucked in shallow half-breaths, the bubbles of blood dipping and rising at his lips.
She had run out of time; the king would die because of her weakness. But as her eyes stung with frustration at her own helplessness, she realized what she needed to do; she’d seen children do it with their mothers. Of course, this was no mother who held her, shoving her face into her chest, but she had to try something.
She let her body go limp quickly, forcing Damek to lurch forward against the drag of her weight, and then she wrapped her leg around his and pulled. As he fell backward, he let go of her to catch himself, and she fell on the floor beside the king.
“Stop!” she yelled as she began prying Lord Rozemberk’s hands away from the king’s chest. “You make his breathing worse, see?”
Damek’s arm wrapped around her throat, dragging her back.
Lord Rozemberk watched the king pant, trying in vain to get enough air, and then he pulled his hands away. “Let her go, Damek.”
“Fetch wine, Brother Jan,” the girl ordered as she yanked her mantle over her head and tossed it aside. She laid her cheek against the king’s chest, then sat up again quickly. “Mother Kazi has a satchel in her cell underneath her cot. It has tools in it that I need.” But Brother Jan didn’t move. He was second only to Father Lucas, who was the abbot at Teplá, but the Father had been traveling for more than a year. Bloated with authority in the Father’s absence, Brother Jan was not prepared to take orders from a girl. Especially not this one.
“Now! Or your king will die!”
“Do as she says,” Lord Rozemberk ordered.
Finally, Brother Jan bowed and turned toward the door.
The girl was already loosening the small knife that hung from her girdle. “Help me get his clothes off.”
The string of men that had tightened around her earlier now backed away, muttering. Brother Jan, just opening the door, spun around. “Nakedness is not permitted, especially with a—”
She looked up at him as she began cutting away the fabric of the king’s surcoat; the fur lining was matted with blood and came away from the tunic underneath with a sick smacking. “How am I to tend his wound if I cannot see it?”
Lord Rozemberk’s hand wrapped around her wrist, holding her still. She pulled against him, twisting her arm trying to free herself.
“What do you mean to do, Sister?”
“I mean to save this man’s life. And I am not a nun. Now help me get his clothes off! And you,” she said as she turned back to the prior, “get me that satchel and wine!”
Lord Rozemberk grabbed the king’s tunic at the neck and ripped it, baring his chest; the skin stretched taut over the rib cage, sinking into the spaces between his ribs as he tried to breathe. The girl had only ever seen drawings of naked men, but she did not blush as she slipped her hand under the king’s bare back.
“I feel the tip here. It must have lodged between the ribs. How was he shot?”
“That is of no matter to you.”
“If I know how he was shot, I will know how the arrow went in and what it might have damaged.” She talked softly but held Lord Rozemberk’s gaze, demanding an answer.
“It was an accident. The bow was not fully drawn. A man on the ground stumbled, loosed the arrow. The King was on his horse.”
Her eyes closed as she pictured the scene in her mind. Certain she now knew how the arrow had penetrated, she laid her head down on his bare stomach, listening. She heard Brother Jan’s hiss of disapproval as he neared, but she was already reaching for the wine and Mother Kazi’s satchel. She untied the leather straps and unfolded the layers inside, the silver tools clinking against each other in her hurry. She slipped a tube and small knife out of the satchel, laid them on the king’s chest, and poured the wine so it ran over the tools down to the wound and finally soaked into the pallet of straw beneath him.
As she picked up the knife, Lord Rozemberk’s hand wrapped around her wrist again.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I must cut him so he can breathe.” The king’s blood dripped from her cheek.
“That is Ottakar, King of Bohemia.” The hard look had returned to his face. He would not let some girl gut his king.
“He will be the dead King of Bohemia if you do not let me go.”
“Who are you?”
“As Brother Jan could have easily told you,”—she looked up at the prior, who simply crossed his arms and clenched his jaw—“I am a healer. I have trained with both Mother Kazi and Brother Jakub, the abbey’s infirmarians. I have read all the volumes of the al-Tasrif. I know Galen by heart. Now let me save this man.”
Doubt rolled across Lord Rozemberk’s face; he did not let go of her hand. “No, we should wait for the surgeon. He will be here soon.”
“Do you mean Vilém, Teplá’s barber-surgeon and butcher, too?” The girl laughed derisively. “Do you know what we call him? Happy Vilém. Do you know why? Knives make him happy—any kind. The big blades he uses
to hack the meat. The smooth, small ones he uses to shave a pretty face. The long ones he uses to pierce a patient. Cut flesh, the smell of blood, these things make him happy.” She spit the words. “The only time he is not happy? When his patients die and then the family blames him. Which is when Vilém gets drunk, and he is almost always drunk, Lord Rozemberk.”
She waited for the truth of what she was telling him to sink in. Then she looked down at Ottakar’s face. “We have no more time. Look, his lips turn blue. He has no air. Let me help him!”
The fear came back into Lord Rozemberk’s face and he let her go.
She bent over the King again. “You must hold him still when I cut. He cannot move or the arrow will do more damage.”
Lord Rozemberk nodded. “Damek. Evzen. Take his legs,” he said as he grabbed Ottakar’s arms. The men shuffled uncomfortably toward the King, stirring the thick smell of blood and sweat and wet furs.
Her hand shook a little as she pressed the knife against Ottakar’s skin just below his last rib. Several short, sharp strokes of the knife and the cut was big enough; she took the wine-covered cannula and pushed an end of it into the opening she had made. A hot gush of blood poured over her hand, and Ottakar instantly drew a quick breath and then another longer, fuller one. He struggled to get air, but, at last, the King was breathing.
The girl crawled backward, leaving crimson handprints on the stone floor, pushed herself to her feet, and walked toward the wall of men.
“Let me pass. I need the shelves. There.” She nodded behind the crowd of men, who parted for her like the horses had done at the river, only now she was the water moving against them, and they, the stones all clad in armor, were driven away from her. She took down a small bowl and some coriander and cloves and began crushing them with the heel of her bloody hand as she walked back to the pallet.
She dropped to her knees beside Ottakar, whose eyes were open again, his lips pink once more, his face still too pale. Gently, she brushed hair from his forehead with the back of her hand and leaned down to him.
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