Zel (9 page)

won’t marry her.” Konrad sits across the table from Father, his hands tense on his knees.

“You give me no explanation, yet you expect me to accept refusal. Your behavior is outrageous.” Father’s face is red again.

Konrad almost speaks Zel’s name. But he stops himself. All he knows of the girl is her name, and a name is not an explanation. “I cannot marry this girl, this girl you found for me, Father. I cannot.”

Father is silent for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is changed. Konrad has seen him make this shift in public debates; he knows his father summons his powers of persuasion. “Listen well, Konrad. You told me you think of women now. Those thoughts have consequences, especially in these days of church reform. If you want a woman, Konrad, you must wed.”

Konrad does want a woman. But he doesn’t want this unknown wife, nor does he want a woman’s attentions in exchange for money. “You don’t understand.”

Father stands, all semblance of patience gone. “I will not coddle any longer. Your refusal is intolerable!” He leans toward Konrad. “I have already made the pact, Konrad. Think of the strain on the relations between me and the girl’s father. He is not just a duke, but a representative from his city-state to the highest legislature, the Diet of the Cantons. I am forced to see him regularly.”

Konrad stands as well. “I cannot bend my life to meet the curves of your politics, Father.”

Father’s eyes bulge in anger. “Get out of my sight. And don’t come back till you are ready to talk rationally.”

But Konrad is already running, out the door, up the
stairs, to his room. He lies in bed and does not sleep, for the second night in a row. Konrad should marry this girl. Yet the thought of the wedding bed with the duke’s daughter unnerves him. He argues with himself, taking first his father’s side, then his own. And in the midst of the debate comes the image of Zel.

Konrad thinks of the moment at the smithy when he said he owed Zel something and she finally agreed that there was something she wanted. He would have given her double any sum she sought, just to show her she was ordinary. But she asked for a warm goose egg. And her request spun him around like a top.

How can he explain to Father that the thought of a girl who asks not for money but for a goose egg pushes all thoughts of other girls from his mind? Father would laugh. And with good reason. A chance encounter with a peasant girl. It is laughable.

But Konrad cannot laugh.

Like the speck of life in the fertilized goose egg, Zel entered Konrad’s world and left a mark that changed him.

When Konrad rises the next morning, he pulls his clothes from the carved chests, snorting their woody smell, and runs down the stairs.

Father is closed in his accounting room.

Konrad eats and goes to his classics tutor. The poet
Ovid makes little sense today, though Konrad gives his best effort. Between Latin lesson and Greek lesson, Konrad seeks Father out. He will bargain for time somehow. He holds his voice steady. “I am ready to talk rationally.”

“Good. I will send word telling them to set the date.”

Konrad flinches. “It is irrational to set the date for a wedding that cannot take place.”

Father stares at Konrad. “Do your lessons teach you nothing?” He shakes his head in disgust. “Leave me. Now.”

Konrad cannot concentrate through the rest of his lessons, nor through jousting practice. He sits at last at the midday meal, elbows on the table, hands in his hair. His head feels as though it would explode.

Father enters and sits as well.

Konrad waits with dread for the pronouncement he knows must come. But his mother speaks first. “I consulted the stars last night.” Her quiet voice dominates the room. “It is destined for Konrad to make his own choice.”

Father wants to argue; it shows in his face. But he will not argue with the stars. In his view and in the view of most of the people Konrad knows, the stars determine plantings and harvests, trading and exploring, even conceptions and deaths.

Konrad views the reading of the stars with skepticism,
and his parents know that. He studies the work of Copernicus, and he agrees with that Polish-Prussian scholar that every bit of evidence suggests the sun doesn’t circle the earth, but vice versa. So the organization of the universe may be entirely different from what his parents think—and their reading of the stars may be hopelessly flawed, even if there be merit to the notion of reading the stars. Still, he sits silent now, content to reap the unexpected benefit of his parents’ beliefs.

Father’s eyes study Konrad. It is clear he doesn’t miss the irony of the situation. All the same, he cannot argue. The stars guide life. And, by Father’s own admission, Konrad’s mother reads the constellations better than anyone. It was she who stopped Father from traveling under the new moon one spring, thus sparing him the terrible hailstorm that fell on Stuhlingen.

Father sighs. “I will tell the young duchess’s family that you aren’t yet ready for marriage.” Father drinks from his mug. He speaks with deliberation. “I will tell them I’ll return in a year to discuss the matter further.”

“I will never marry her.”

“You’ll come with me in a year.” Stubbornness strengthens Father’s voice. “You’ll meet her.” He looks to the countess, then back to Konrad.

A year, which has always seemed a long time to Konrad, now seems like almost nothing. For his Zel is young.
In a year will she be ready for . . . for what? Konrad will not allow himself to think of what. He doesn’t know the girl at all. Perhaps if he talks to her a second time, they will be bored with each other. Still, he cannot agree to Father’s plan. He cannot think of any other girl. “Not in a year, Father. No.”

Father rises from his chair, apoplectic.

“Tell them two years.” His mother sips her wine and speaks with a steady, low voice. “In two years if Konrad has not found a wife of his own and if this young duchess is still unmarried, then Konrad will come with you to meet her.”

Konrad waits, breath abated. Two years, please let Father give two years.

Father sinks to his chair in defeat.

The next day Father rides away, a scowl on his face, muttering about how the celebrations for Konrad’s birthday, which is only on the morrow, will have to be delayed until he returns, and it serves Konrad right.

Konrad mounts Meta at the same time and goes directly back to the smithy. After all, he left the smith with an order to get information—the smith should have completed the task by now. “Where does Zel live?”

The smith blinks. Perhaps he thought Konrad wasn’t coming back. He speaks slowly, like a half-wit. “Outside town.”

“Where outside town?”

The smith shakes his head. “That I don’t know, sire. I just know she’s not a town girl.”

“Anyone could tell she wasn’t a town girl just from looking at her.”

The smith stares at Konrad.

Konrad looks down. He sees he is pulling on one finger after the other. He stills himself. “Does she live on a farm or in a mountain cabin?”

The smith shakes his head again. “I don’t know, sire. I asked around. No one knows anything about her.”

“Think. There must be something you know.” Konrad takes a coin from his pouch. “Anything.”

“She has no oxen or donkeys.”

Konrad is surprised. How can the smith have learned this if no one knows of the girl? “Tell me more.”

“She has goats and chickens.”

Now Konrad doubts the smith. But the man appears to have no spunk. He wouldn’t dare tease a count. “What else?”

“I can’t think of anything else, sire.”

Konrad gives the smith the coin. Optimism stirs gently within him. The smith said they had no cart with oxen, no donkey even. So all their provisions had to be carried on their own backs. Surely that means they walked only a short way.

Konrad looks up at the clear sky. It bodes well. He
will start the search immediately. And at that determination, energy surges through him. He must begin.

But first Konrad returns to the castle, dismounts, and races to the study. His geography tutor has spread out a map in anticipation of the lesson. Beside the map is a chessboard with pieces at the ready—a treat to follow the lesson, no doubt.

The tutor beams and hugs a sheaf of papers to his barrel chest. “New reports from missionaries.”

Konrad nods at the excitement in his voice. Reports from missionaries, navigators, land travelers—these are filled with amazing discoveries. Normally Konrad would be reaching for the papers eagerly, for he plans to travel himself someday. But this moment is not a normal moment. “I can’t stay. We have to put geography off.”

The tutor looks stunned. “I thought you were fascinated by the New World, which seems to grow every month.”

“I am. Oh, I am.” But right now other fascinations pull, fascinations this studious tutor might not understand, fascinations Konrad would not have believed possible just days ago. “We can discuss it all tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s your birthday.”

Konrad laughs. How could he have forgotten? “Well, then, another day.” And Konrad races back outside and mounts Meta.

He rides to the closest slope and stops at the first
home. A woman sits outdoors in the shade mending clothes. “Excuse me, madam. I seek information on a girl by the name of Zel.”

The woman shakes her head. “I don’t know of any Zel. But you could try the farm down the road there. They have plenty of people coming and going.” The woman points. “Could be they’ve heard of her.”

“Thank you.”

Konrad goes directly to the farm and makes his inquiries. To no avail. He mounts once more and rides beyond into a valley and across more slopes, stopping at each dwelling. The people want to be helpful. But they know nothing. He speaks to a gaggle of women washing laundry at the lake edge. Each has suggestions. He goes to bed that night with a plan: The next day he will send three servants to gaily painted farmhouses with adjoining barns. They will cover the land.

Konrad sleeps well, finally.

The next morning is his birthday, and he wakes with unusual energy. He will resume the search himself. Why not? But first he must check with that dolt of a smith.

When he rides up on Meta, the smith comes running. “I remembered two more things, sire.”

Konrad’s hands tighten on the reins. “Speak.”

The smith holds out his hand.

Konrad drops in a coin.

“Two things, sire.”

Konrad drops in a second coin.

“First, she won’t be back to market till winter, and she’ll give me a visit when she comes then.”

This is important news. This might mean the girl came from quite far away, after all. “And the second thing?”

“Today’s her birthday.”

“What? Today? Are you sure?”

“July sixth it is, isn’t it, sire? Her mother was out getting presents for her birthday and putting them in a cloth sack. That she was. July sixth, the girl told me. Today.”

Konrad’s mouth has gone dry. Zel and he share the same birthday. Surely she isn’t turning fifteen. She has to be at least two or three years younger than he is. So they weren’t born on exactly the same day. The year differed. Still, the date is important. They are connected, oh, yes, Zel and Konrad are connected by the movement of the moon, by the changes of the sky and of the world’s waters, by time itself. Zel and Konrad were born under the same star.

Goosebumps spread up Konrad’s arms, across his chest.

He searches all that day and the next and the next. He rides week after week. He goes alone, because now the thought of being helped irritates him.

Daily he stops in at the smithy to see if anything has jogged the man’s memory. But the smith is thick as a tree.

And the people whose homes he visits are hardly better. The further he goes from town and the more isolated the home he visits, the more the people answer brusquely. Some suspect he might want the girl for low purposes. They hesitate. He throws himself on their mercy, doing nothing to hide his own confusion at his growing need. Soon the tongues of even the most suspicious farm wives loosen. But the answers are the same. No one anywhere has heard of a girl with deep, dark eyes; yellow braids; a simple smock; a special way with horses; a cheerless mother (as the smith once described her to Konrad); and the name of Zel.

Yet she’ll be back to the market in winter.

Konrad won’t wait for winter. He can’t. And, anyway, how could a girl and her mother make their way into town when the roads become ice slicks? The smith must have misunderstood. She’ll be back soon.

Now even Konrad’s dreams turn to Zel. He sees himself riding through an orchard and finding Zel perched in a tree. She tosses an apple core on his head and laughs. One leg dangles, uncovered by her smock—though she does not realize this—smooth and hairless as the tree bark. In another dream he’s been riding all day. Meta stops to drink at a mountain pool. Konrad strips and
jumps into the bracing water. And along comes Zel, cooing, luring the mare away with an early fall apple. She is unaware that Konrad’s clothes are tucked in a bag hanging from the saddle. Naturally he has to fetch the mare back.

Dreams. In Konrad’s dreams Zel has all the strength of the girl who dared to undo the lip rope at the smithy and hold Meta’s head by herself. More even. She is modest but not hesitant. She laughs at his bumblings and he thrills to that laugh. But dreams lead nowhere. Konrad gnashes his teeth in his sleep.