The Promise of the Child

Chapter 1: part 2 (updated daily)

'Have you been there? To England?' she asked, gesturing with a nod to the table and its clutter.

Aaron's eyes followed hers to the table. 'Not for years and years, Princess – though I would venture to say it was a finer place when I did, under the rule of his father.' He raised a hand above his head briefly. 'Tall men are often more adept at governance, for some reason, and the Scot Hammer was exceedingly tall.'

Eliška had travelled abroad just the once, to meet her new husband at Luxembourg when she was barely fourteen; Aaron himself – fresh from assisting the Emperor in the wars against Florence – had arranged the union, and she remembered at first quite enjoying his company in a foreign court of strangers so far from home. He had made her feel safe, always sparing her the time to talk in confidence, no matter what the hour, and sometimes even making her laugh at a point in her life when she had thought she could not. Indeed, as she looked around the chamber, it occurred to her that there might be nowhere in the land safer than where she sat now, in this rain-battered town house. Thieves and rapists roamed the outlying districts of the city and her days finished well before the sun had set. Even her lonely rooms in the castle might not be nearly so impregnable as this dark chamber with its lingering stink of wax and varnish. Anyone at court could tell you who really ruled the city, but those who valued their noses kept their mouths shut and their eyes closed. They said Aaron the Jew kept no lovers, that he never slept; some claimed he seldom ate a morsel, the whispers among the diplomats he entertained monthly suggesting that he did not even deign to touch things. Eliška's eyes still went to the man's hands – pale and long and veined with blue – whenever they met, despite her best efforts. The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous such whispers sounded, as if her husband's court were filled with children. Of course she had seen him eat, and drink. He had touched her shoulder just then, had he not? She couldn't remember.

Whatever the prejudices against the king's secretive atheling, his statesmanship and vision were legendary, and under his guidance Praha was promising to rival Rome one day as a seat of enlightenment. Heaps of silver Groschens stamped with the collared lion of Bohemia tumbled in daily from principalities as far-flung as Berlin and Frankfurt as the city vied to become, against the designs of countless kings and princes, capital of the whole empire. The princess might even admit – privately, of course – that her husband's absence barely obstructed Aaron's designs at all. Unlike John, the softly spoken chancellor seemed to live for his adopted city, and as far as Eliška knew, Aaron hadn't left it since her father-in-law the Emperor's death in Buonconvento a few years before.

But she was not so naive as people thought, this princess, with her round, mole-speckled face and sleepy eyes. If Aaron came and went at leisure, or kept many wives, or visited all the brothels in the Holy Roman Empire, nobody would ever know. As with the affairs of state, he managed his own business behind bolted doors and heavy tapestries, in cold chambers where no fire blazed in the hearth.

He was watching her again when she looked back to the window.

'And so you are here to discuss Václav, Princess.' He looked at her properly at last. 'Begin.'

Eliška felt a blush rise to her ears. She had tried to keep something from this man and he had embarrassed her – albeit momentarily – for it.

'Yes,' she admitted. 'My son is unwell.'

Aaron nodded as if it were old, familiar news, his eyes going to the floorboards at his feet. 'As I said, you ought to have written in advance – I am busy today.'

'You could come tomorrow.' She heard the young girl in her voice as she spoke but no longer cared. 'Can you?' She kept her gaze on her hands, feeling his stare running the length of her body.

'Yes, perhaps.' He sighed. 'In the afternoon. Don't let any physicians touch him until I am there.'

She glanced at him, relief fading the blush. Whether good magic or bad, she was glad of the chance of it. 'Your . . . payment this time, Aaron?'

The man turned his head briefly to think, a few strands of iron grey, thinning hair catching the day-dark light. There were no moles on his chalky skin or blemishes of any kind save the creases around his eyes. 'He's to come here a year earlier than we agreed. When he is seven. I may choose to take the prince travelling with me.' Aaron looked sharply back at her. 'Are we agreed?'

A year earlier was small coin. Eliška knew her reputation as a methodical, industrious girl, and knew she had no choice. She would lose her son either way.

'He is yours, Aaron. Bring him back to me when he is great.'

Aaron smiled broadly, his eyes suddenly kind. 'The greatest, or not at all.'