by Dave Duncan
“Yes. Father Azuolas. And this is Brother Lodnicka, who was my master at Koupel.” Marek looked at least as shaken as Wulf felt.
“And who will be again,” Lodnicka said tartly. “So you have murdered a priest, Wulfgang Magnus. You are doomed to the pit!”
What to do with the body? What to do with Lodnicka? Both physically and magically, he was enormously powerful. Killing him would be the simplest solution. Otherwise he would return with an army. But a friar and a monk… Who would ever believe Wulf had slain them in self-defense?
“Brother Marek, you lied to me,” the monk continued. “You told me that Wulfgang was still only a Four.”
“And you lied to him,” Wulf roared. “You told him you were sending him out to find me and then go back to report where I was, but that wasn’t true, was it? Because you knew him, you could watch through his eyes. You could also go to him, anywhere, as you just did. You didn’t know me, because I had kept my face hidden when I came to Koupel. And the abbot’s attempts to eavesdrop on us prove that he didn’t have any Speakers handy just then anyway. So you sent Marek to find me and open the way to me.”
The monk sneered. “We did not lie to him. Telling partial truth in a good cause is a minor sin compared with murdering a priest!”
“But kidnapping is both a breach of the king’s peace and violence forbidden by canon law. We are fighting a war here in Cardice. Pomerania has invaded Jorgary. Your interference is treason and I doubt if King Konrad will pay much attention to benefit of clergy if he learns of it. Do you understand?”
“We fight the greater war of Christ against the armies of Satan!”
“Then fight it in your cloisters and leave this one to us. Take that corpse away and give it Christian burial, because if you don’t… disposing of two bodies in these mountains can’t be much harder than disposing of one. The wolves and the bears will be happy to assist. And stay away from here in future!”
Wulf was now so furious that he could barely restrain himself. Perhaps that showed, for the Benedictine stopped arguing. Scowling, he rose and went to the friar’s body. In an impressive show of strength-physical or psychical-he lifted it and draped it over one shoulder. Red with rage, he said, “You will regret this sin for all eternity.”
“So you keep saying. Last chance-take that cadaver and go!”
CHAPTER 33
The murderer sank down on a stool, disgusted at himself. It had been a terrible day, and was likely to get worse. Now the Church had a lot more reason to arrest him. He couldn’t imagine an army of Dominicans openly invading Castle Gallant to get him, but they would surely do something. The blood-soaked bedding where Azuolas had died would have to be explained. Vilhelmas was another Speaker who had to be killed, another shot in the back. Was this how Brutus had felt when he came home with Caesar’s blood on his knife?
Marek was examining the two metal bridles, which the intruders had left behind. “These wouldn’t hold you, would they?” he said. “You weren’t calling on your Voices when you were fighting Lodnicka. Neither was he.”
“No, they wouldn’t hold me now,” Wulf said, but without explaining more. Not even cutting out his tongue would disable him now. How had the English managed to burn Joan of Arc? How had they even managed to keep her in jail?
Marek looked at him disbelievingly, then closed his eyes. His lips moved silently, but he remained stubbornly solid. He opened his eyes again.
“Nothing.”
“It will come in time,” Wulf said firmly. “You’ve been held back for five years, so you need to practice. Bear with me a moment.”
He closed his own eyes and searched for Vranov’s to make sure he still had a chance to get at Vilhelmas. Too late! The Hound was leaving the party-on his feet and walking. Images flashed in nauseating jitter as the man’s attention flickered from one angle to another: men’s faces grinning up at him as he passed, calling out incomprehensible jokes; rough-cut plank walls and the door he was approaching; eye-stinging smoke from the fire; the youth Leonas on the floor in a corner, playing with puppies. That was a good sign, because if his father wasn’t taking him he must be planning to return. No sign of Vilhelmas. An open door, a gust of cool, wet night wind bringing scents of trees and swamp. A sickening lurch as he went down two steps to the muddy ground. No rain penetrated the heavy tree cover, but water fell in heavy drops from the branches.
Then wet tree bark, very close.
Wulf squirmed with embarrassment as his host, unaware that he was being observed, fumbled with laces and pulled down the front of his trunk hose. But once Vranov had himself in position and was enjoying what he came to do, he turned his head to study his surroundings. Through a sparse forest of conifer trunks, Wulf saw cooking fires and a camp of leather tents. He saw horses and heard men singing, oxen lowing. Then the Hound turned his attention to the opposite direction. About a hundred yards away, beyond the trees, stood half a dozen wagons, including one especially massive dray with a large, anonymous package chained to it. Four great campfires surrounded the wagon encampment and at least a dozen pickets were patrolling it. There slept the Dragon! Now Wulf knew he was at Long Valley, which Dali Notivova had described to him.
His business complete, Havel Vranov laced up his hose and headed back to the barracks shed, giving Wulf a good view of it. It was about fifty feet long, built of pine logs and roofed with shingles. There were no sentries posted around it, there in the middle of the Wend army, and almost certainly it was Castle Gallant’s advance post, whose garrison had been murdered two days ago. That crime was about to be avenged.
Vranov stamped his feet on the steps to shake mud off his boots and went inside, where the same nine or ten men still sat in a loose arc before the hearth, arguing in an impenetrable dialect. Father Vilhelmas had the place of honor in the middle, directly facing the fieldstone fireplace. Vranov went back to the stool he had vacated. Wulf opened his eyes and returned to reality and Gallant.
Marek had already changed into layman’s clothes. “Well?”
“They’re at Long Valley. Vilhelmas is still there. It should be easy.”
“Those are ominous words, Brother!” Marek said, with an almost-convincing grin.
“True. But I can open a gate through limbo. Step One: emerge right behind him. Step Two: pull trigger. Three: leave, closing gate.”
Marek nodded. “Let me do it. You’ll have to take us there, but I want to pull the trigger.”
Wulf eyed him doubtfully. “Why? There’s no honor in this. It’s craven butchery.”
Marek pouted. “Chivalry died a long time ago. I remember Grandsire complaining of that. It was only ever a set of rules agreed between Christian gentlemen, and the poor pikemen never got the benefit of it. Did you ever hear Otto tell about the man who tried to steal Balaam? Otto picked up a crossbow, armed it, and shot him dead before he had ridden out of range. Balaam turned around and came back to let his master unload the corpse on his back. Same justice here. Vilhelmas killed the count and his son. You need a cleric to kill a cleric.”
That was the weirdest logic Wulf had ever heard. “I killed Azuolas. They can hang me if they catch me, but they can’t hang me twice.”
They had burned Joan of Arc three times.
“But five years of singing psalms is enough. I’d much rather dance on the gibbet beside you than go back to that. Please, Brother?”
This belligerence was unexpected. Of the brothers, Marek had always been the least interested in martial exercises. What was he trying to prove, and was he proving it to himself or to the others? Wulf had brought only one bow, and if Marek botched the shot, the results might be disastrous. To go back to the armory for another bow would be heartless, showing a complete lack of faith in him.
“If you wish. Let’s do it, then.”
Marek took the bow and tried to span it, but after five years as a monk, he lacked the necessary muscle. He handed it to Wulf to do it for him. Wulf did.
“Ready?” he asked, conscious that his
own heart was racing fit to burst. “Tuck it under your cloak to keep the string dry.”
“Ready.”
— Limbo.
Wulf did not feel confident enough in his powers yet to try opening a gate right into the cabin at Long Valley. Instead he put it outside in the glade, facing the door but a few feet away from it, relying on the view that Vranov himself had so kindly provided. The air smelled of wood smoke and trees. Heavy drips from the branches were at least as unpleasant as the rain itself would have been, but at least there was no one close. He stepped through the gate and closed it when Marek followed. Together they ran around to the side of the building in case someone came out for the same reason Vranov had. Sounds of drunken singing showed that the party was still in progress inside.
Wulf pointed out the sentries guarding the shrouded shape of the bombard on the dray. “That must be the Dragon. Nothing else would be so well guarded.”
Marek nodded, and then suddenly gripped Wulf’s arm as he was turning away.
“Look there!” he whispered. “Is that him? Beside that wagon on the right?”
The pickets were too far away to make out any details, not even whether they were wearing armor, but Marek was indicating a group of three men standing in apparent conversation. One of them had a nimbus. Could it be Father Vilhelmas?
“Not enough time,” Wulf said. “He couldn’t have got there since…” Of course he could, because he was a Speaker.
He looked through Vilhelmas’s eyes and was instantly back in the party inside the log building: lamplight, wood smoke, strident laughter. So Vilhelmas was Count Vranov’s Speaker and the Wends had at least one of their own. A Speaker to guard the Dragon was hardly unexpected, but even one must make Wulf’s task of destroying it very much harder. Any more than one would make it impossible.
“No, he’s still inside.” Wulf handed Marek a quarrel. “Tell me when to open the gate. Don’t give them time to react.”
“Ready.”
— Open a gate just behind Vilhelmas and at the same level.
The gate opened. Firelight blazed out with a sound of music, someone strumming a lute out of the assassins’ view. It stopped abruptly as men cried out in alarm. Just on the far side of the hole in the world sat the Speaker priest, with his back turned to it, and a glow around his head. For a moment that seemed to last forever, nothing happened-or at least nothing that was supposed to happen. Marek! Shoot! The Wends started leaping to their feet. Father Vilhelmas turned his head, one eye glaring just above his massive beard. Do it now!
At long last, Marek’s crossbow loosed with a crack like a cannon. As the Speaker fell off his stool with the bolt half-buried in his skull, Wulf closed the gate.
Then the two of them were alone in the dark, with only the wind and the rush of steadily increasing rain overhead. Wulf caught Marek in his arms for a congratulatory hug. The little man dragged a couple of hard sobs, then twisted out of Wulf’s grasp, leaned against a tree trunk, and threw up.
“Well done, Brother!” Wulf said. “You have avenged two foul murders and probably won the war.”
Marek heaved again.
“He deserved to die.”
The second Speaker was still among the guards around the Dragon.
Firelight poured out of the cabin as the door flew open. Wulf grabbed his brother and dragged him back to their room in Castle Gallant.
CHAPTER 34
Vlad was leaning over the bed, examining the drying blood. He straightened up with an oath and reached for his sword. Then he recognized the newcomers and scowled. Vlad always scowled.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you two. What happened here?”
“I killed a priest,” Wulf said callously. He would not pretend to mourn Father Azuolas. No doubt the man had been sincere in his beliefs, but kidnapping boys and locking them up for being Speakers when he was a Speaker himself had been contemptible hypocrisy.
“That’s a relief. If this were a wedding bed, I would fear for the bride’s health. What happened to the door?”
“Woodpeckers.”
“So where have you been?” The big man took a hard look at Marek. “And what’s wrong with Midge?”
Marek was still leaning on Wulf. Their boots had splattered mud and water on the tiles, and a reek of forest filled the little room.
“Buck fever,” Marek muttered. He pulled free and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “I just killed another. Another priest, I mean. It’s a family weakness.” He attempted a smile. “But we did it, didn’t we, Wulfie?”
“We did. And what’s wrong with you?” Wulf asked Vlad.
“Well, I’m happy to report that the bishop has finished exorcising the hall and gone home to write a long, gossipy letter to Archbishop Svaty. I’m unhappy to report that Anton has just spilled some very bad news. Otto’s in the solar, drinking up the castle’s wine supply.”
“Anton and Madlenka?”
“They’re both with Otto. I don’t think Anton trusts his lady out of his sight.”
Wulf sighed. The events of the evening had left him emotionally numb, which was a sort of blessing. “Let’s go and join them.”
Castle Gallant’s solar was of modest size, hard-put to hold even five chairs, and the Magnus family filled it tighter than a meal sack. No one had thought to order a fire in the dreary little hearth, so Wulf perched on the hob, leaning his forearms on his knees and staring glumly at the tiled floor. Once in a while he would glance at Anton and Madlenka holding hands, just to make his wounds bleed more. He also drank. He had decided that what he needed was the world’s worst hangover. A dozen or so spare flagons of wine stood ready on a table beside Vlad’s chair. It beat the insipid beer that had been served at the meal.
No one spoke as Marek recounted the Speakers’ adventures since the end of the banquet. No one suggested that Madlenka should be excluded and she must have been warned what to expect, for she seemed unsurprised by a discussion of Satanism. She was carefully displaying no emotion at all.
At the end, Vlad said, “Well, now you’re both blooded! A Magnus isn’t a real man until he’s killed someone. That just leaves Anton.”
“I hanged a man on Monday,” Anton said coldly. “Does that count?”
“Not unless you whipped the horse yourself. Count us four bull’s-eyes and a blue, then.” The big man took a drink.
Madlenka’s lip curled slightly.
“Vladislav,” Otto said, “you have the grace of a hog and should not be allowed indoors. Marek, Wulfgang, I approve of the way you went after Vilhelmas. Priest or not, he was leading troops and doing nonclerical things. A combatant cannot claim benefit of clergy. Well done, both of you!” He raised a glass in approval. The others joined in the toast.
Wulf smiled across at Marek and raised his own glass to him. He cared nothing for Vlad’s opinions, but approval from Otto was welcome.
Marek smiled and responded, raising his glass. “Omnia audere!”
They all shouted approval and drank again. Jollity reigned: it was five years since the brothers had last been united. Wulf might not be the only one heading for a Magnus-sized hangover.
It was Otto who brought them back into the shadows. “But, Brothers-and new Sister-the Dominican’s death is going to bring real trouble. You said they were using Voices to force you to put on that iron bit, Marek. But a bystander wouldn’t have seen that, would he? It would look like you were doing it voluntarily.”
“Not ‘Voices,’” Marek said. “Lodnicka doesn’t need to Speak aloud. Nor does Wulf, now. They’re both top-rank, um, Speakers. But I know what you mean.”
Otto nodded. “A court of law would say that Wulf was the aggressor. I don’t think that, but the law will. He heard the priest speak behind the door and shot him through it in cold blood.”
“They’ll have trouble making a case at all,” Marek protested. “How can they explain these events without revealing the Church’s own use of Satanism? I expect they’ll think up something, b
ut it’ll take time.”
“Yesterday Cardinal Zdenek told me he could protect Wulf from the Church, but it was a very conditional offer. Wulf must defend Castle Gallant against the Wends without Speaking so anybody can notice. Killing friars was not discussed. The Church will now be howling for Wulf’s blood.”
“It was an accident,” Wulf said innocently. “I didn’t mean to shoot the quarrel at the door.”
“My lords?” Madlenka murmured and five pairs of eyes swung toward her.
“Yes, my dear?” Anton frowned, as if he hadn’t known she was capable of speech.
“Havel Vranov has been a Wend-killer all his life; he hunted them down like vermin. Then a few months ago he started consorting with this Orthodox priest who’s supposed to be a distant cousin, but is certainly on the Wends’ side. Do you suppose that Vilhelmas was an evil genius, bewitching him? Now that he’s dead, will Vranov come back to his senses and repent?”
They all looked to Marek, the expert on Speaking, but he looked blank. “I can’t tell you. But let’s hope so!”
After a moment Otto said, “Day before yesterday, Wulf, you told me that you had to Speak aloud to your Voices. Now Marek says you don’t.”
“No, I don’t.” Wulf did not want to admit that his Voices would not answer him now. “So what I can do is not Speaking, strictly speaking. I don’t know what it is. It’s not witchcraft!”
“Can you prove that?” Vlad demanded. Incredibly, he still sounded almost sober.
“God hears if we pray to him in silence.”
Even Otto was looking doubtful now. “Joan of Arc always insisted that her Voices came from God.”
“So will I, if the Church ever puts me on trial. I’m telling you all this because you’re my brothers and sister-in-law and I trust you. If you don’t want me here, just say so and I’ll be gone in a flash.” He did not look at Madlenka.
“Have you worked out why Joan could lift a siege of a city and yet couldn’t rescue herself from a jail?”