In another circumstance her remark might have made me laugh. Szabín smiles thinly. “You’ve heard this story before.”
“Yes, but not the wolf-girl. Tell it again, for her sake. She has more to fear from Nándor than any of us.”
My heart skips. Unlike these Patritians, Tuula doesn’t seem one for grim theatrics. I trust the bleak tenor of her words. “Tell me.”
Szabín draws a breath. “Nándor was a monstrous child, indulged in his every whim by the érsek and his mother, Marjatta. He tormented the other children while their backs were turned, and when they came to him again, he was smiling and sweet as a lamb.”
Gáspár huffs a sound that’s almost a laugh. Even without looking at him, I can hear the change in his breathing, feel the stiffening of his muscles as his weight shifts on the floorboards. The keen awareness of him is both comfort and curse. I close my four fingers into a fist.
“He was fussed over,” Szabín goes on. “There was scarcely a moment he didn’t spend cradled at his mother’s breast, or balanced on the érsek’s knee. But he was just as keen to buck their warnings. During the bitterest months of winter, we were all shut inside the monastery, for day after cold, dreary day. So Nándor roused his little rebellion, leading the other young Sons and Daughters outside and onto the frozen lake to play. No matter his moments of cruelty, we all were desperate for his favor—he had the oddest way of doing that. Marjatta said he could make a chicken bat its lashes at him while he carved it up for supper.”
“Chickens are hardly the best judge of character,” I say, but the words come out bloodless, no humor in them.
Szabín scarcely flinches at my interjection. “So we all played on the ice, our breath white, laughing. We didn’t notice how it was groaning under us. And then when it split, it seemed impossible—Nándor dragged down beneath the surface, so quick he didn’t even scream.
“We were all frozen with terror. It felt an eternity, but it could only have been a few moments before one of us ran back to the monastery for help. I remember watching the little dagger of dark water, the tiniest slit where Nándor had fallen through, waiting to see his body float up to the top. I was certain he was dead. We were all certain of it, by the time the érsek and Marjatta came. It must have been the érsek who fished him out, blue-white and cold as the ice itself. His lashes were frozen together, his eyes stuck shut. I was so scared that I wept.
“The other children were weeping, too, but Marjatta was screaming. She was cursing God in the Northern tongue and in Régyar and even in Old Régyar. The érsek had Nándor in his lap, and he was praying. The ice was still creaking under our feet. And then Nándor opened his eyes. I thought for a moment I had imagined it; his heartbeat had faltered, there was no pulse in his throat. But he opened his eyes and then he pushed himself up and the érsek took him by the hand and led him off the ice, with Marjatta following them. And the next day during our morning prayers, the érsek said that Nándor had been made a saint.”
“That’s impossible,” I say, too quickly, before silence is allowed to settle. I want to say that there’s only one man who went to the Under-World and returned, and Nándor is no Vilm?tten. But I don’t think they will appreciate my pagan fairy tales.
“I saw it,” says Szabín, without lifting her gaze. “We all did.”
“Nándor is in the capital now,” Gáspár says. “He’s been there for years, gathering his support. With the érsek’s help he’s turned half our father’s council to his side, and a cabal of Woodsmen on top of it. I suspect that he plans to try and steal the crown during Saint István’s feast.”
I can hear Tuula shift in her chair, letting out one close breath. Szabín stares at him, slack-jawed. “Saint István’s feast is eight days from now.”
“I know.”
My heart has started a feverish drumbeat. “That’s not nearly enough time—”
“I know,” Gáspár says again, sharply, and glares at me. I fall silent, face heating. Though I can’t quite articulate why, I have a bone-deep feeling that it would be unwise to reveal our plan to Tuula and Szabín, to tell them about the turul.
“Yet here we sit with the true-born prince, who we fished off the ice alongside his wolf-girl consort.” Tuula leans forward, eyes narrowing to slits. “You must forgive me for asking why you haven’t ridden back to the capital to take your usurper brother’s head off.”