by Dave Duncan
Selling land was about the worst thing a nobleman could do. It was failure, a betrayal of both ancestors and descendants. The fact that the staggering debt owed to the Bavarian, Baron Emilian, had been incurred by Vlad, not Otto, did nothing to relieve the sense of shame.
Going back on his word would be even worse, though.
“Wait!” Wulf said. “Let me think…” He would never claim that his modest share of Magnus brawn might be offset by having the best brain in the family. That didn’t mean he couldn’t believe it in private, of course. “Circumstances have just changed dramatically, Brother.”
The big man snorted. “You mean the fact that I don’t need the money now? In no way can that justify reneging on an agreement. I needed it when I shook hands.”
“No, I mean that Jorgary is at war. Pomerania has invaded. No one knows what will happen. King Konrad needs all his best warriors back, so he may pay off all the ransoms. The Wends may come this way. Anything is possible.” Only Anton could stop disaster, but he was irrelevant at the moment.
Otto seemed to grow even larger. His face darkened. “Who told you that?”
“I’ll explain later. Right now you just have to trust me. You don’t even need to tell them what the serious news is. It’s a state secret, so you couldn’t tell it even if you knew it. Take my word for it, and give them your own. Tell them the deal is off and their master, Count Whatever, will not want to go through with it anyway when he hears the news.”
Vlad notoriously could not tell a nod from a wink, and Anton wasn’t much better. Marek was a scholar and shrewd, but even he stood in Otto’s shadow when it came to understanding people. Otto could detect a lie at three hundred paces. And he knew Wulf wouldn’t lie to him anyway.
He beamed. “Welcome, then! Make yourself at home. I’ll go and tell them. By the way, who redecorated your face?”
“I did. It’s a long story.”
CHAPTER 23
Some battles are better lost than won. Madlenka should have remembered that, because-Heaven knew-recently the battles between her and her mother had outnumbered the stars. Few with Petr and even fewer with Father, but Mother! At the slightest provocation, they went at it like Crusaders and Saracens.
No! Madlenka refused to undress to be inspected. She was a virgin, she would be a virgin on her wedding night, and she would prove it with the traditional blood spot. Until then, Dowager Countess Edita would have to take her word for it and so would the despicable, insufferable Anton Magnus. She knew instinctively that in his brother’s place, Wulfgang would not care whether she was a virgin or not. It would never occur to him to ask. Admittedly she would very likely have jumped into bed with him that morning if he had suggested such a thing, but he hadn’t, so it was nobody else’s business.
The countess insisted, loudly. Madlenka threatened to tear her eyes out if she tried. The countess threatened to call for help from Neomi and Ivana, her closest cronies. Madlenka swore she would tear their eyes out also, and if they jointly overpowered her now she would excecate all three of them later, two eyeballs at a time. Moreover, she would take the first opportunity to dispose of the hymenal evidence so that the outrage would do them no good in the long run. The countess slapped her. Madlenka slapped her right back.
It was regrettable that Anton had mentioned Wulfgang, because he had to be discussed and described. Only three days Madlenka had known him? And she thought she was in love? Absurd! The countess poured scorn. Love within three days was mere infantile delusion. Love was something that grew and ripened within a marriage, not a passing fit of juvenile lust. As for falling for a penniless younger son… A man of eighteen was barely out of swaddling clothes. No rank, no lands, no prospects? Not even a squire, a varlet? An esquire, practically a serf! Madlenka struck her mother again.
At the end of an hour, a truce was declared. Both parties were exhausted and disheveled, but Edita accepted her daughter’s oath, sworn on the Holy Bible, that she was still a virgin. Also, that her contact with the despicable debaucher, Wulfgang, had been limited to one brief kiss, with their mouths closed.
“We didn’t know it could be done otherwise,” Madlenka said sadly, and that almost started the battle again.
She had won it, though, which turned out to be a mistake. Having recovered their poise, they went in search of the count to reassure him on the vital question of his betrothed’s virtue. He was closeted with Bishop Ugne, so they were refused admittance. They spent another hour in the solar, glaring at each other in silence.
When they were at last conducted to Petr’s room, the new count’s temporary chamber, they found him still resting on the bed but looking ominously pleased with himself.
“I am relieved to inform you, my lord,” Edita proclaimed, “that your suspicions about my daughter were baseless. Not that I ever feared otherwise, not for a moment.”
“I am delighted to hear it, my lady. And I have good news for both of you. The lord bishop and I discussed this unusual situation at length over some wine. We agreed that it would be unseemly and irreverent to hold a formal wedding so soon after the funerals. On the other hand, the king’s command makes no mention of delay. His Reverence agrees with me, therefore, that a discreet handfasting would satisfy the spirit of the royal edict, as he put it, without disrespect to the letter. As long as we say suitable vows before witnesses, we shall be married in the eyes of Mother Church. Her formal, public blessing can follow at a more appropriate time.”
Madlenka muttered, “Oh, no!”
“Oh, yes,” the count said, beaming. “We must all do our duty and be true to our allegiance, no matter how it may conflict with our personal desires.”
“I entirely agree!” said the countess.
That was when Madlenka realized that winning the battle had lost her the war. Handfasting was an antique, obsolescent custom that hung on only in remote areas where a priest might not be available in time to bless an imminent union in time for it to be holy matrimony instead of sinful fornication. It was unheard of among the nobility, and the countess would normally have rejected the suggestion with outrage. But a formal wedding during double mourning would be even more scandalous. A private handfasting would solve the Madlenka problem admirably.
Count and dowager countess waited expectantly for Madlenka to comment.
She had no defense left. She had promised Wulf that she would wait for him for forty days, but to mention that would make matters much, much worse. To hint that she suspected him of having supernatural powers would be calamitous. To protest that she had known Anton for barely three days would just prompt her mother to remark yet again that she had first met her future husband on the day before their wedding. To defy the king, her legal guardian, would result in a one-way trip along Sprosty Street to the Poor Claires’ convent, there to await His Majesty’s pleasure.
She could not defy the king, the cardinal, the bishop, the count, and her mother all at once. Oh, Wulf, Wulf! I tried!
“As it pleases my lord,” she whispered. “But your wound, my lord? Should you not be resting?”
Anton beamed. “I assure you I have never felt better. I have completely recovered my strength. Now, the bishop suggested suitable words. Who shall we call in as witnesses, Lady Edita?”
“Now?” Madlenka said. “You mean to do this awful thing right away?”
That was exactly what he meant.
There followed a brief ceremony of joining hands and swearing fidelity, a quiet supper for two, and, right after that, Anton solved her virginity problem.
CHAPTER 24
Wulf’s first problem was clothes. He was still wearing remnants of Petr Bukovany’s wardrobe, which were annoyingly long in the legs and sleeves and flatteringly tight across the chest and shoulders. He had assumed that some of the castoffs he had left behind at Dobkov a month ago would still be around, but they had all gone to the servants or been reassembled as something else. Branka skillfully measured him in all directions and organized a make-do sewing session
among the female staff who normally made the family’s clothes. The kitchen was happy to provide the second half of a meal he had started some hundreds of miles away, and about fifty adults and children had to mob him and make him welcome.
They all wanted to know where Anton was, what had happened to Wulf’s face, why he had come back, if he was going to stay long. The adult servants were too respectful to ask outright, and quickly hushed the children who did. Father Czcibor, the cadaverous but kindly castle chaplain, was content to wait and hear it in private. Truth be told, it felt very good to be home and to be somebody again after being nobody in Mauvnik.
But after an hour or so, when Otto had managed to dispose of the steward and his helpers, there came the tricky moment. Wulf had to explain that he would very much prefer to tell his story to Otto alone. Branka raised her painted eyebrows very high at that. Father Czcibor lowered his feathery ones, and a winter chill descended, but Otto backed him up.
So shutters were closed, candles lit, and the two brothers settled down in the familiar old solar with a crackling fire and two flagons of Dobkov’s best vintage. Their only companion, Whitetail, curled up at his master’s feet and went to sleep as Wulf began to talk. In the long years of Father’s last illness, Otto had naturally taken over as head of the family. Otto was completely loyal. He would support Wulf even against the Church’s wrath, if he had to.
It was very late and the candles were low when Wulf finished, having revealed everything except his broken heart, which was the crux of the problem. That tragedy was too painful and too hopeless to discuss. He feared that even Otto, who had accepted his claims of miracles without a blink, would not believe that a man could find the love of his life at first glance. Both Dante and Petrarch had done so, but they weren’t around to help with any heartrending verses. And Wulf was no poet.
“That’s all?”
Wulf laughed ruefully and refilled his cup. “Isn’t it enough?”
“No. Who are these Voices? Angels or devils? Who are you that they Speak to you? And what else can we do to help Anton? More wine?”
The answers took the best part of an hour. At the end of it, Otto took up the wine flagon again, but then just sat back, holding it and staring into the fire, thinking. One of the candles flickered and went out. The shadows moved in. Suddenly he said, “Throw another log on,” and filled Wulf’s cup. “So, in effect, you can do anything you want?”
“No!” Wulf said uneasily. “I have to ask. I have to ask aloud. Seems that in anything involving other people, I have to be close to them. I had to be close to Anton before they would heal his wound.” He had not mentioned the curious glimpse he had been given of Otto negotiating in his counting room.
“Mm,” Otto said. “Can you force people to obey you? Or change their minds for them?”
Wulf pulled a face. “I don’t know. Don’t want to know.”
“Remember Great-aunt Kristina, the abbess?”
“No.”
“Of course. I was very young the last time she came visiting. You wouldn’t even have been born. In his last months, Father told me many stories he wanted recorded in the family chronicle, things that it would have been dangerous to write earlier. Kristina was a Speaker. She entered a convent voluntarily and, so far as Father knew, the Church never learned of her powers. She certainly kept them quiet. But she strongly believed that the Voices came from Heaven.”
He sipped wine for a moment, pondering. “Some years ago, in France, there was a girl known as La Pucelle. Ever heard of her?”
“Vaguely.”
“ La Pucelle just means ‘the Maid.’ Her name was Joan, usually known as Joan of Arc. She was an illiterate shepherd girl who heard Voices. War had turned France into a desert. You can’t imagine how bad the situation was. Branka’s grandsire was there, fighting for the Burgundians, and saw it all. People were starving, living under hedges, resorting to cannibalism. It wasn’t just the English, although no one could resist their bowmen. The duke of Burgundy was making war too, because he wanted the throne, and the rightful heir, called the Dauphin, couldn’t get himself crowned because the duke held Rheims, where coronations were always held. Every time there was a battle, the French lost. The countryside had been ravaged so often and so many cities sacked that the Dauphin didn’t even have the tax income to pay an army. By 1428 or so, he was at the end of his rope. He controlled no more than fragments of the country, with enemies closing in all around. The English were besieging the city of Orleans, and if that fell he would have almost nothing left.
“Enter this ignorant, uneducated girl, aged about seventeen. She gets herself to where the Dauphin is and says her Voices have sent her to take command of the French army. He thinks that sounds like a good idea and appoints her. You believe that?”
Wulf laughed. “No. I don’t believe she would be allowed within two bowshots of a crown prince in the middle of a war.”
Otto smiled at the crackling logs. “Yet it happened. He received her, listened, and believed. He had her examined by a panel of clerics, but in the end he gave her the army. It sounds to me as if that young lady had all the powers you have and was unscrupulous enough, or desperate enough, to use them to change a few men’s minds. She turned out to be one of the greatest generals since Caesar. She remade the army-no camp followers, no swearing or cursing, lots of hymn-singing. The army was transformed, inspired. It raised the siege of Orleans. Every time it met the English now, it won. But then Joan was captured by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English. The English put her on trial and convicted her of heresy.”
That made no sense at all. “How?” Wulf said. “Why didn’t her Voices rescue her from jail?”
“I don’t know. That’s something you must try to find out. Why didn’t they rescue her when the English tied her to a stake? The English burned her, then burned her remains twice more and threw the ashes in the river.”
“The first time would be the worst,” Wulf grumbled, reaching for the wine flagon.
“But I heard recently that the Holy Father reopened the case and decided that her conviction had been an error. That didn’t do her much good in this world, I grant you, but the Church did admit that it had made a mistake. Now listen! According to Father, Great-aunt Kristina used to hint that the Church doesn’t want saints, not live ones. Dead ones can’t argue, and people collect bits of them as holy souvenirs, but living saints who go around performing miracles could be embarrassing or even dangerous. Suppose they disagree with official doctrine and preach heresy? What if they call the pope names and denounce the Church as corrupt? Which it is, of course. Saints can perform miracles and the pope can’t, so which one would you believe?”
Wulf had never heard Otto speak like this before. “There already is a St. Wolfgang. One is plenty.”
Another candle went out.
“I’m serious, chaffhead,” Otto said. “You told me that your Voices have warned you of danger and won’t tell you what it is.”
“They never answer questions like that.”
“I just answered it for you. The Church doesn’t want miracles, so it calls what you’re doing witchcraft, acts of Satan. It’s all about power, Wulf, worldly power. You are a threat to the authority of the pope and the bishops. But if Cardinal Zdenek believed that you were an agent of Satan, he would never have dared use you. It wasn’t Anton the Spider wanted, it was you.”
Wulf nodded. “He had to take Anton because I’m only a kid.”
“You’re not a kid anymore.”
“But Anton’s ten feet tall, ruts like a goat, and beats men’s brains out with his mustache.”
“So he’s your puppet. You are the one the cardinal really hired.”
Wulf sniggered. He knew that Otto had been deliberately plying him with wine, and he was also very weary. “I don’t fancy telling Anton that!”
But Otto had struck to the heart of the problem, as usual, and now it was time to explain to him that Zdenek had not divided the rewards fairly. Yet Wulf
still could not bring himself to talk about his love for Madlenka.
After waiting a moment, Otto sighed. “Back in the year Father died, a month or so after Marek was taken away, the Hartmannovas had a knighting celebration for Cousin Hans. Remember?”
“No.” That year Wulf had been twelve and fighting his own problems-strange noises and lights and the gnawing terror that he was growing up to be a Speaker like Marek.
“I went in Father’s stead, because he was too ill to travel. On the first night they held a ball and the first dance was a saltarello. There was a girl… every time we passed, our eyes met. When the dance was over I dragged my host through the crowd to her and had him introduce us. That was the end of the ball for both of us. We just sat in a corner and talked. Her name was Branka.”
Wulf swallowed a lump in his throat. “Am I so childishly obvious?”
His brother laughed. “Your eyes melted when you mentioned the beautiful heiress, but after that one time you ignored her, except to say that you think you healed her mother. Tell me about her.”
“There are no words. Her name is Madlenka. She’s glorious. Out of this world. Angelic. Clever, witty, feisty, mischievous…”
“Did you tell her that you love her?”
“And she loves me! I never knew it could happen so fast.”
Otto snapped his fingers. “Like that! I spoke with Branka’s parents the next day and when we got around to talking about dowry, I accepted their first offer. Branka and I have never regretted our marriage for a minute. But it doesn’t always have a happy ending, Wulf. Does Anton know?”
“No!” Wulf soaked in his misery for a few minutes, and finally said, “Anton wouldn’t care! If it has two legs and no crotch bulge, then he doesn’t care what face it wears.”
“Like Vlad-two nights is a long-term relationship. You’re like me, lad; you don’t keep your heart in your codpiece. I’m sure Anton would happily let you have her if she was any ordinary wench. But she isn’t, Wulf. She’s the key to his castle, a ward of the king, and any nonsense will land you in more trouble than you can imagine.”