The Ravens of Falkenau & Other Stories by Jo Graham Read Free Book Online

life."   She turned her eyes to mine.   "I did not understand that until I had sons of my own.   To give your own child, to give your own sweet son…   What love could be so strong that one would do so?"
    "I don't know," I said.
    Something in her face closed.   "And you will take my sons from me when you wish.   Do you think I do not know that you will kill them?"
    I opened my mouth and shut it again.
    "If you would have Falkenau pass to the heirs of your body, do you think I do not know what stands in your way?"   Her mouth narrowed to a thin line.   "They will not be the first boys killed by a murderous stepfather.   So you will see that I will do whatever will save them."
    "I will do them no harm while you are cooperative," I managed.
    She snorted.   "And when I have cooperated and you have got another son on me?   Do you think I will believe that?   Falkenau passes through the heirs of my body, not yours.   If you would truly own it, then you know what you must do.   And so do I."
    "I think that is unlikely," I said.   I took a step closer, my side to her, looking into the eye of the north wind.   "I will not live so long.   What use in begetting a son when the time is already gone?   I am not a young man, Izabela, and there are endless battles before me.   Chances are I would not see it weaned.   In the spring I will be gone to war."
    Unless there was peace.   Unless Wallenstein traded for peace.
    She did not speak, only waited me out.   Unless there was a change in the stars, something marked in the wind.   Unless the world were transformed.   And yet I did not think it would be.   I thought there would be war.   What use in planting fields that would be trampled before the harvest?   What use in begetting children to be tiny corpses at the next turn of the tide?  
    Whatever I did, it would not matter.   And therein lay the crux of it.  
    I glanced at her sideways, so young and so certain.   "Do you never waver in your faith?"
    Her eyes slid from mine and she leaned upon her elbows against the wall.   The first raindrops spattered around us in a gust of wind.   "Sometimes," she said.   "I waver."   She lifted her face to the rain and did not look at me.   "In the spring when my husband died and the armies came down upon us, I prayed to the Archangel Michael to send help not for me, but for my sons and for my people.   And instead there was you."
    My throat closed and there was nothing I could say.   Above, the banners flew in the wind, billowing around the skirts of her black dress as though we were two ravens who perched there, carrion eaters poised above the carnage of the world.
    Another spatter of rain, and I took her arm.   "Come inside, Izabela," I said.   "It is raining."

    I went down and found McDonald in the stableyard.   "Walk with me," I said.
    He followed me through the hall and up the stair, down a winding passage that zigzagged between parts of the castle built in different centuries, to the lord's chamber.   I closed the door behind us.   He looked at me with a frown.   "What's wrong?"
    I told him all, Richelieu and the rest, pacing the room like a caged beast, from door to windows that looked on mountains and river.
    When I was finished, McDonald sank into my chair beside the map table.   "A fine mess," he said.   Then he shrugged, eyes very blue.   "But what's in it for us?   Wallenstein's separate peace, I mean?   If he makes peace with the Swedes and Protestants, what becomes of us?"
    For a moment I couldn't fathom what he was talking about.
    McDonald gestured around the fine room.   "It's all well enough for you," he said.   "You've got your share.   You'll stay here and be Graf Falkenau married to a pretty wench and spend the rest of your life collecting taxes and siring fat children.   But what about those boys downstairs?   Most of them have never known any life except at arms.   They've got no prospects and no crafts.   If peace breaks out