by Dave Duncan
“No,” Wulf said unhappily. “Maybe it’s like all the fairy tales, and we only get so many wishes.” Last night again he had dreamt of fighting the Pomeranian army single-handed and his powers disappearing in the middle of the battle.
“So you can work miracles?” Vlad said. “Show us.”
A wine flagon rose from the table beside his chair and floated across to Wulf. He refilled his goblet from it and sent it back. There was a long silence while the others stared at one another. Finally the big warrior laughed and raised his wine in a toast. “To St. Wolfcub!”
Wulf wiped his mouth. The wine was not as good as Dobkov’s. “So, Brother,” he told Otto, “if you’ve enjoyed your visit to Castle Gallant and would like to return to the arms of your loving wife, I’d be happy to arrange the journey for you.”
“Ha!” Vlad roared. “He can’t go! Tell them the news, Brother Baron.”
Otto scowled at him in disgust. “Vladislav, you’re a blabbering bone-skull.” From him, that was a stinging rebuke.
“It’s long past bedtime,” Anton said, rising to his full height. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, as Father Czcibor always says.” He held out a hand to Madlenka.
Evidently she could be trusted with Satanism but not with whatever the other news was. The rest of the men rose also.
“Don’t run away yet, Beanpole,” Vlad said. “You still have some explaining to do.”
“You go ahead, my love. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Just for a moment, Wulf saw a flicker in Madlenka’s eyes, but then she accepted the dismissal with a humility that he was certain must be costing her dearly. Anton’s Madlenka might be a kitten, but the one Wulf knew was not. She curtseyed to the company and departed.
Anton closed the door he had held for her, then leaned back against it.
“You great blabbering ox!” he snapped. “I do not want panic in the town!” He was being Count Magnus of Cardice, lord of the marches, clad in awesome authority.
Unimpressed, Vlad just chuckled. “But our miracle workers have a right to know. Listen, little brothers. Here’s the worst news yet. Before our noble count could carry his bride off to the conjugal chamber, Otto and I backed him into a corner and threatened to break his legs if he didn’t tell us the real reason the landsknechte left town.”
“Plague,” Marek said softly. He smiled his wan little smile at them.
Appalled, Wulf flopped down on the hob again. Lord have mercy! Pestilence? Then no one was safe. Even Madlenka.
“Midge is calling you a liar, Beanpole,” Vlad said angrily. “You told us you hadn’t told anyone at all before we got it out of you!”
“Knowing Marek,” Otto said, “I expect he worked it out with Aristotelean logic. Father always warned us that he was the smart one.”
Marek smiled at the compliment. “Why else would a mercenary band run away from certain money? The landsknechte wouldn’t even have been in serious danger in a siege, because Gallant’s a unique stronghold in that it always has an escape hatch on the other side. A threat of plague was the only possible explanation.”
“Bribery would be another,” Vlad grumbled.
“But the way Wulf described it, they made no attempt to bargain and play one side off against another. And when we arrived this morning, Anton was pleased to see all of us except Otto. He has a family. The rest of us can take our chances, but if he takes pestilence back to Dobkov the whole Magnus line could be wiped out.”
“Why?” Wulf snapped. “Why did you keep this news quiet?”
Anton shrugged. “I was told of one woman with a lump in her armpit. She died. That doesn’t make an epidemic. I don’t want my people fleeing out into the moors with winter coming on.”
“Was she by any chance in the infirmary while I was there?”
“I don’t know. We must pray to Our Lady that it was a false alarm and we shall be spared that horror.”
“Amen to that,” Otto said, “but meanwhile I can’t go home. I don’t even dare write a letter and ask Wulf to deliver it. Anything a pestilence victim has touched or breathed on can spread the disease.”
“I don’t believe it!” Vlad proclaimed. “If the trollop really died of plague, half the town would be sick by now. Half the town might be dead by now!”
“Possible,” Marek said, still quietly-he had learned long ago not to contradict his biggest brother directly. “But they say a town can’t be certain the pestilence has ended until forty days have passed without a new case. We have thirty-seven days to wait. After that you can go home, Otto.”
“A lot of people have left town already,” Anton said. “Scared away by Count Bukovany’s death, the threat of war, the landsknechte ’s flight. If even one of them is carrying the pestilence, it’ll be all over Jorgary by spring.”
“Don’t forget that stupid curse tonight!” Vlad boomed. He was showing the effects of the wine at last.
“Right. On Vlad’s advice,” Anton said. “I’ve ordered the gates locked. Nobody’s leaving now.”
Heads nodded in approval.
Vlad explained. “I don’t believe for a moment that Havel Vranov came here to play with puppies. He came here to frighten everyone. He brought the silk and the puppy along as gifts in case he was made welcome, but his real reason was to make that spectacular exit. It was simple terrorism.”
“It’s possible,” Marek agreed again. “But I think Vranov came for Wulf. Vilhelmas had seen how badly Anton was wounded. He spied on him later and saw him alive and restored to health, so he knew there must be a Speaker in Gallant. That changed the odds! A war must be much easier to win if you have Speakers and your opponents don’t. That was why he had Vranov crash the banquet, and why he kept peering around, looking for another Speaker. If he’d seen Wulf, he might have done to him what Wulf and I just did to him.”
Vlad completed a long drink from a wine flask. “Faugh! Sometimes you just try to take on your foes one at a time and hope they never get to combine against you. If Vranov risked appearing here tonight, even for a few moments, then he doesn’t believe in the pestilence. I’m with Beanpole. Let’s deal with the Wends first and worry about plague later, if ever.”
Anton said, “Thank you. I’m going to bed.” He glanced momentarily at Wulf, without expression, and then he was closing the door behind him.
Wulf took a brief look out of Anton’s eyes to make sure he was going away and not lurking outside the door, then through Madlenka’s to make sure she was alone. Then he stood up and stepped through limbo to her room.
CHAPTER 35
Madlenka was seated at her dressing board, taking pins out of her hair. The room was dim, with only a single lamp to scare away the shadows. She felt wrung dry by the events of the day, shattered by Wulf’s expected return, and nauseated at the thought of another interminable night with Anton. He wasn’t an evil man. If he saved the castle from the Wends, he might eventually make a good count and lord of the marches. At the moment, he was just an arrogant and insensitive youth. Perhaps few men of that age were much better, and Wulfgang was an extreme exception. She suspected that she might now be quite content with her lot if she had never met her husband’s brother.
There were two reflections in the glass.
She spun around. “Wulf! Idiot! Go away. I rang for my maid.”
“She’ll knock.” He was standing well away from her, his face grave.
“Anton-”
“Is on his way. We have a moment, that’s all. Oh, Madlenka! I just came to tell you that it was my fault and I am-”
She jumped up. “No, it was mine!”
“I told you I would be forty days and-”
“And I betrayed you in forty minutes.”
He shook his head and came a step closer. “I should have told Anton about us when I cured his wound.”
“Told him you wanted me as your share of the spoils?”
He smiled wanly. “Would you have minded if I’d called you that?”
/> “No. I would happily be your loot. Pillage me now and take me far, far away. I will never complain.”
He shook his head. “There’s no escape. That would make you a fugitive, a felon, an adulteress, and God knows what else. Even an accomplice to Satanism. We would be outside the law and condemned by the Church. Our children would be bastards, nobodies.”
She knew all that. She thought about it in bed a lot. “I don’t want you to reproach yourself. It was my fault for being so weak.”
“Mine!” he insisted.
“Your only mistake was healing Mother. If she’d not been there I could have stood up to them. But she threatened to lock me up in the Poor Claires’ convent until the king could decide what to do with me. Anton would never have done that. But she would! And the bishop…”
They had been moving closer. Now they were close enough to touch, but neither made the move. In the gloom his eyes were not golden, they were silver, like moonlight reflected in water.
“Forget all that,” he said. “It’s done, and you could never have found happiness with me. I am a Satanist. I’ve killed a priest and helped kill another. The Church will hunt me down and order me burned at the stake. I will love you forever, but you must forget me and love Anton. And pray that none of his children are Speakers, because Speaking is the curse of our line.”
Knuckles tapped softly on the door.
“My love,” he said, “always.” Then he vanished.
“If you keep doing things like that, I think I’ll burn you at the stake myself,” Vlad said.
Wulf resumed his place on the hob and filled his goblet. No one had moved in his absence: Marek was seated in the center facing him, Vlad to his right, Otto to his left.
Getting no answer, Vlad said, “Even if Anton dies, of the plague or anything else, a man cannot marry his brother’s widow.”
Wulf drank and picked up the flagon for a refill.
Vlad tried again. “Well at least you were quick. Did she enjoy it, too?”
Wulf stared at him coldly. “One more joke like that,” he said softly, “and I will burn your balls off, so help me God.” He put the goblet to his lips and drained it.
Silence.
“You are a dangerous combination, Brother,” Otto said. “The family chronicle begins almost two hundred years ago, in the time of the fourth baron. It names six Speaker daughters and hints at another, but only two Speaker sons before Marek. Meaning no disrespect to him, he has always been more of a scholar than a warrior. He would rather settle a dispute with law and reason than with sword or fist.” He glanced at Marek, who smiled to show he was not offended. “But you, Brother Wolfgang, wield your powers audaciously. You have a hair-trigger temper and you fear nothing, true to the Magnus motto.”
Wulf did not reply. He wished he had not threatened Vlad, but he would not withdraw his words.
“You are probably the most dangerous man in Jorgary,” Otto persisted.
“What I think,” Marek announced solemnly, “is that I’m going to get catastrophically drunk for the first time in my life.” He took a long draft, straight from a flagon. “Foul stuff! I’ll say this for Koupel-it does have grand wine… Brothers, one thing still puzzles me. Tonight, when I asked my Voices to restore the old countess, St. Uriel told me that it was important for me to know why she had been affected. I have asked him since to explain, but he will not. My saints have never volunteered advice before. Any helpful suggestions?”
He was looking at Wulf, who made an effort to think about it. “Vilhelmas had cursed her before, so perhaps she was more susceptible and he could do it from farther away.”
“Puppies make her sick?” Vlad suggested.
“I suppose… Mother of God!” Marek fell back in his chair, gaping up at the chimney above Wulf’s head. The room filled with a swirl of wood smoke and the sounds of voices and a crackling fire.
Otto and Vlad both spoke at once, demanding to know what was wrong.
“You killed my friend!” cried a shrill voice.
Marek made croaking noises. His brothers stared at one another in bewilderment. Just as Wulf realized that there must be an open gate in front of Marek that was only visible from that side, Leonas Vranov stepped from nowhere into the space between them. He was clutching a puppy. His always-pale face was white with fury, his fair hair stuck up in spikes, and he was slobbering.
Vlad roared an oath and started out of his chair. He drew his sword.
Otto shouted, “Wait! Careful!”
Leonas shook his free fist in Marek’s face. “You killed my friend and I HATE you!”
“That’ll do, Leonas,” his father’s voice said.
“I want you to die too!”
Wulf leaped past him and turned to view the gap, the same timber barracks, faces watching, Havel Vranov with a sword in his hand…
“Come back here, Leonas!”
The youth spat, turned around, and disappeared back into nowhere. The gate through limbo vanished.
Otto muttered a prayer and made the sign of the cross. “Gone! So now we know how it was done. But who opened the gate for him, if you killed Vilhelmas? The Wends have more Speakers?”
“Or Leonas himself is one!” Wulf said. “He was close to Countess Edita tonight. Could that be why your Voice told you… Marek? Marek! ”
Marek was leaning back in his chair, eyes glazed over. Otto and Wulf lunged across simultaneously and knelt on either side of him.
“No! Marek!” Wulf grabbed his brother’s hand. “St. Victorinus! Holy St. Helena! No! No! No!”
He could find no fire, only ash. Like Azuolas, Marek had gone.
“No pulse. He’s dead.” Otto reached out and closed their brother’s eyes.
The three stared at one another in dismay, struggling to believe it.
One by one they bent their heads in prayer.
Marek, oh, Marek! You never wanted to hurt anyone until tonight. Five years locked up in Koupel, two days’ liberty, and now this! Why didn’t you let me kill Vilhelmas?
Eventually Wulf spoke. “He warned me. He told me when Anton and I went to the monastery, ‘Anything the Voices do for you will turn to evil eventually!’”
Otto and Vlad just nodded.
Leonas! Who could have imagined that an imbecile could be a Speaker? They should have noticed that the knights didn’t stop him when he went to Madlenka in the hall. Why hadn’t they? Probably because they suddenly didn’t want to. Leonas had not deliberately done anything to them or to the countess. Like a small child, he just wanted things and expected them to happen. And in his case, they did. He had no nimbus, because that came with understanding, and he would never understand.
Otto had his hands clasped as if he were still praying. “No wonder his father keeps close watch on him. He threw a tantrum at Count Stepan and his son and they died-when? A few days later, a couple of weeks later? Is that possible?”
“You know as much as I do,” Wulf said. He felt as if he were standing inside a block of ice. Marek! Oh, Marek! “Seems anything’s possible.”
Vilhelmas had certainly been a Speaker with a nimbus, but he might not have killed Stepan and Petr Bukovany. He was a distant cousin, so Satanism ran in the Vranov family also.
Wulf put it in words. “Maybe Leonas’s curses took time to act. Or one day his father said, ‘Remember those two bad men who shouted at you at Cardice? You don’t like them, do you?’ Madlenka was kind to him, so she wasn’t affected. Leonas doesn’t like the old countess and he was close to her tonight. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing-but his father knows! Vranov uses him as a weapon, a puppet Speaker.”
Otto shook his head in despair. “You mean that just now Vranov said, ‘Do you remember that funny little man with the shaved head who ran around in the banquet hall, shouting at us? He was the one who killed Father Vilhelmas. Go and tell him how much you hate him’?”
Wulf nodded, tasting vomit. “The boy can’t be trusted in churches because the voices echo and sound like his V
oices. He probably doesn’t understand what his Voices are saying.”
“He scares the piss out of me,” Vlad said. “We’d better tell Anton.”
“Tomorrow,” Otto said. “Right now we need a priest.”
“What do you want me to do about this, Brothers?” Wulf demanded. “A Magnus lies dead. Do I avenge him? Go and kill that half-wit boy?”
“No!” Vlad bellowed. “No, not now. It’s a trap. They’ll be waiting for you.”
“Not ever, I think,” Otto said.
“Why not? I’m damned already. Obviously my Voices came from Satan. I’ve killed two priests and now my brother has died because of what I did.”
Vlad and Otto exchange shocked looks.
“No!” Vlad boomed. “Never, never think that way! Your intentions were good.”
Otto said, “But now you understand the dangers your Voices warned you against. To civic rulers like Anton you are a killer who can strike anyone, at any time. To the Church you’re Heresy Incarnate. You’re the Antichrist. You could start a great heretical movement like Jan Huss did, or overthrow the pope. Duke Wartislaw may not know about you yet, but you’ll certainly be his prime target as soon as he does. Even Cardinal Zdenek must disown you now. You could supplant him, or depose King Konrad and take the crown. You’re more dangerous than the Ottoman Sultan or the Great Pestilence. Can anybody or anything control you now, boy?”
“Another Speaker,” Wulf said. “Azuolas would have beaten me tonight if Marek hadn’t come to my aid. A gang of them certainly could.”
“You must leave Castle Gallant,” Otto persisted. “Tonight! Go far away and make a new life under a new name.”
Wulf shook his head and reached for wine. “No.”
“Remember what I told you about Joan of Arc being burned? Remember Julius Caesar, stabbed? Alexander the Great, poisoned? You’re a danger to everybody, Wulf! All power is unpopular but absolute power will turn every man’s hand against you.”
“You must go, Wolfcub.” Vlad looked genuinely concerned.
Wulf desperately wanted to do that, to be far away from Madlenka and the torment of seeing her as Anton’s wife. Now that he knew that the Wends had at least one Speaker guarding their great bombard, the chances that he could save Castle Gallant had dropped from slim to very close to zero. But there was no place to hide from Speakers. Brother Lodnicka knew his face now, so he could come to Wulf anywhere, at any time. He might be watching through his eyes right now, listening with his ears.