by Dave Duncan
Justina rolled her eyes like martyred mothers everywhere. “May the saints preserve us! Yes, child, my guest here is what is commonly called a young man. I believe he would enjoy some wine. And even were he bonnier than Apollo, he could not possibly enjoy the way you are looking at him. Move, you brazen little trollop!”
With a heartrending sigh, the girl tore her gaze away from a lingering inspection of Wulf and retraced her steps. Wulf stared after her, wondering if other women could make their hips do that when they walked. He was horribly afraid that his cheeks were a brighter red than her lips. He hadn’t shaved that morning.
“And change your clothes!” Justina shouted after her. “Pardon her, good squire.”
He swallowed a few times. “Yes, my… Justina. Your daughter? She is very beautif… How old is…”
“Lady preserve me, not my daughter! You flatter me. A distant relative-not distant enough, I sometimes think. Talent runs in my family, like yours. She’s fifteen. Women Speakers are usually fledged at sixteen. Girls are older than boys of the same age, and being a Speaker makes a girl different.”
“What sort of different?”
“Different in that she doesn’t have to fear men.”
“Fear men?” Father Czcibor had always taught that men had to fear women, who were agents of the devil, always tempting men into sin. Wulf had never quite believed that, although Sybilla had just opened his eyes a little wider than usual. Madlenka had shown no signs of being frightened of him.
Justina shook her head pityingly. “And why wouldn’t women fear men, squire? Men are stronger than us Congze=, love violence as we do not, and trap us with honeyed words so they can sow their seed in our furrows. Then they leave us to reap the crop. Tell me what that lanky brother of yours is up to.”
Startled, Wulf stole another Look through Anton’s eyes and saw a curtain wall to his left and sheer rock to his right. “He is hurrying along the Quarantine Road, going to the south gate.” With his long legs, Anton was moving like a starving foal, moving so fast that the dancing image made Wulf feel giddy. He was staring fixedly ahead, so Wulf could not tell if he had any companions with him, but there seemed to be many men-at-arms running in the opposite direction, hastily saluting the count as they passed him. Alarm bells were ringing, bugles sounding.
“It would seem he has had an urgent summons,” Justina remarked. “An angel whispered in his ear, perhaps. We must finish our talk. Sit down. You can be there when it happens, whatever it is.”
Yet Otto and Vlad had stayed at the north barbican. They were both on the roof parapet, staring out between the merlons at a column of men-at-arms marching down the Silver Road. Hundreds of them were coming around the bend at the mouth of the gorge, with the end of the column not yet in sight.
“The Wend assault has started!”
“Sit down, I said!” Justina snapped. “This matters more. Wherever you are, you can get there faster than they can. Here comes the wine. Best close your eyes.”
That was not at all necessary, or even advisable. The seductive Sybilla had returned with a flask and two crystal goblets. If she had changed her clothes, it was to make them even more provocative, with a lower neckline and higher hem. The only women Wulf had seen exposed like that in his entire life had been the street wenches in Mauvnik, and he had stayed well away from those. She slunk up to the table; he dared a small smile. She tossed her head as if he’d farted a bugle call. She thumped the flask down on the table, then spoiled the effect by setting the delicate goblets down gently. She flounced around and stalked away.
Madlenka had never scared him the way that chit did. He watched her disappear around the corner of the house.
“What did I do wrong?”
“You noticed her,” Justina said with a sigh.
“What was I supposed to do?”
“Notice her. She’s just practicing, pay her no heed. Are you as ignorant about Speaking as you are about poop-noddy?”
“About what?”
“Poop-noddy. Jig-jig. Shagging. Sarding.”
Oh, that. Anton had explained fornication many times, but it was not relevant to today Cvanem"’s discussion. “More ignorant. Marek told me what little he had been taught in the monastery, but it wasn’t much. And nothing to do with poop-noddy.”
“It wouldn’t be. You do understand that a nimbus is the sign of a qualified, fledged Speaker, a sort of ordination? And other Speakers can see it, whether or not they have nimbuses of their own yet?”
He nodded. Marek had never developed a nimbus. Wulf filled the goblets. The wine was a pale gold and had a foreign tang, strange but not unpleasant.
“Marek said there were at least seven steps. He called them sins, though. The first sin was hearing the Voices to begin with.”
Justina said, “Which is rare, but those who are destined to do so start at about thirteen.”
“The second sin is learning to understand what they are saying. My Voices claimed to be St. Helena and St. Victorinus. Of course, the Church would say that they were demons of hell.” He paused a moment for a reaction, hoping she would deny that bit about demons, but she said nothing. “The third step is starting to talk back and pray for little favors.” Like making a sour apple taste sweeter, he recalled. “The fourth was asking for real miracles-or witchery, if you prefer.”
Justina just shrugged and waited.
“And that really hurt!” he said. “The trip to Cardice-why did it hurt me?”
“That I won’t tell you. Can’t. Mustn’t. I will say that not all Speakers have to climb the same ladder. A handler could have eased your path. Go on.”
“Fifth is refusing the pain and getting the miracles without having to pay that price.” This time he earned a nod. “And the sixth step seems to be the nimbus.”
“Harken to him! He’ll be bragging he can read and write next. That’s good. Excellent! Of course, you had Marek to help and you were dropped into very deep waters, where the secrets lie, but you’ve done very well, even so.”
Vlad was bellowing at the carpenters and porters rushing to complete the first trebuchet. Archers were taking their posts at the merlons on the roof. Otto was down in the machine room, organizing more archers at the loopholes. Neither happened to be looking at the Wends, so the undetected spy could not. Anton was still heading in the opposite direction. It would make sense for the traitor Havel to attack the south gate at the same time as his Pomeranian allies attacked the north. Or perhaps they were in a race to see who could take Castle Gallant first. And Madlenka… Madlenka was dressing in frantic haste, with Giedre and the maids all trying to help and all getting in one another’s way. Whatever the news was, it had reached the keep also.
Wulf discovered that he was starting to twitch, staying on his bench Con the only with great effort. Yet he could not deny what Justina said, that he was doing more good here-learning how to use his talent, as she called it-than anything he could achieve at Gallant as a novice warrior with sword or bow. She was waiting for him, eyebrows raised. Even if the Scarlet Spider had sent her, how trustworthy was she?
“So what comes next?” she asked impatiently. “Seven stages, you said.”
“Last night, after five years, my Voices deserted me. Today they still do not answer.” He waited for a comment, but she just sipped her wine, watching him over the glass. “But I found that I could travel through limbo without having to ask them. Until then I had always had to Speak aloud, and now I just… just decide what I need and they seem to know. I discovered, too, that I could see things at a distance, Looking out of other people’s eyes.”
“Only people you have met,” she said, volunteering information for the first time. “Just as you can only go to people or places you know. Is that all? Just seven stages?”
“I ask you that. And I ask why my Voices no longer speak to me.”
She tossed her head, much as the girl had done. “I answer only that there is one higher stage, but I won’t be saying what it is or what it bring
s; all I tell you is that your Voices do not answer now because you don’t need them now. How long since that hunt where you first used your talent?”
“Friday. Exactly one week ago.” It felt like years, a different life.
“Lord be praised! I never did hear of a haggard climbing so high so fast.”
Unable to resist his sense of urgency any longer, Wulf drained his goblet. It was time to return to Gallant and join the battle. “Was Joan of Arc a Speaker?”
Justina showed surprise, and perhaps approval. “Indeed she was. For fourteen years the French lost every battle with the English. After she appeared, they never lost. You think any workaday chit of a girl could have managed that?”
Wulf wondered why she had not thereby broken the first commandment that Justina had described, but he had more urgent questions to ask about Joan.
“Then how were the English able to catch her and put her to death? Did they do to her what you said you would do to Leonas: ‘trim his talons’?”
“I won’t tell you that.”
Annoyed, he tried another ploy. “My brother Otto says that the Church fears Speakers.”
“Of course it does! A miracle worker will be hailed as a saint, and saints are a threat to the pope’s authority. They might disagree with him and the bi Cim wilshops. They might start a new church of their own. So Speakers must be denounced as agents of the devil.”
“The Church confines them and trains them to obedience?”
Justina clicked her mouth shut stubbornly. “That’s enough for today.”
“Does Bishop Ugne know about the Church’s use of Speakers?”
Justina dismissed Bishop Ugne with a snort. “Cardinal Zdenek is one of the Wise. Abbot Bohdan of Koupel is. Archbishop Svaty may be. Offhand, I can’t think of anyone else in Jorgary except the Speakers themselves, their cadgers, and their close family, if anyone, who knows. It may be that even the king on his throne doesn’t.”
Being privy to a secret that one’s king might not know was a mind-bending thought. The Hound of the Hills knew, but the Vranovs were as talented as the Magnuses.
“Can a Speaker cure pestilence?”
Justina drew in her breath sharply, then studied him carefully to see if he was serious. Finally she nodded. “One case or two. But not an epidemic! If you broke the first commandment on that scale, you’d be hailed as the Second Coming of Our Lord. Why do you ask?”
He rose. “I must go back and help my brothers.”
She made no move. “Sit down. I don’t want to do this, but you are a babe in arms. I haven’t told you the other two commandments.”
Wulf sat down.
Justina stared around for a moment-at the broken wheels, the vines-but she did not seem to be seeing them. He wondered if she was Looking elsewhere, or even consulting someone.
Madlenka and her mother were in the great hall of the keep, shouting orders to a mass of servants, mostly female, but some male, all running to and fro with burdens of cloth or furniture. Obviously they were organizing the great hall as an infirmary for the wounded, with baskets of bandages, buckets of water, and pallets laid out in rows. Nursing was traditionally a women’s duty, and tradition would be strong in a border castle like Gallant.
Justina raised her dark eyes to stare right at him. “The first, I told you, is to keep your talent secret! All Speakers are shy as field mice and now you know why. Never forget it! The second commandment is: Thou shalt not tweak! ”
“Tweak?”
“Tweak. Tweaking is using talent to change a person’s mind-workadays’ minds, of course; it won’t work on Speakers. It’s a crime and it’s dangerous, because you can drive people insane. Havel would have brought a Speaker w Ct a. Iith him to the banquet to protect him from being tweaked. But why they made such a display when they left, I cannot imagine.” She scowled. “Certain, the pope himself will hear of that.”
“And the third law?”
“It’s not so much a law as a warning: Two’s company, three’s dangerous. I honestly did not know Sybilla was here. I was not laying a trap for you, I swear. But when she appeared with her nimbus, you should have left. Instantly! Your precious Cardinal Zdenek employs Speakers. He has one in attendance at all times.”
To detect other Speakers, of course. Wulf nodded impatiently to show that he understood that much.
“One Speaker is defense,” Justina continued. “Two are aggression. Always, unless you’ve agreed beforehand. Two Speakers can almost always overpower one. Remember that. Morally, you were right to go to your brother’s aid last night. By sending two Speakers after him the Church was being aggressive. It should have just sent one, or else waited until you were present also. It will never admit that, of course. If a monk has second thoughts about his vows, he should speak to his confessor, his abbot, the archbishop, even the pope. He can ask to be released. No Speaker will ever be released, but the abbot should have sent a brother monk to reason with him-one Speaker, not two! So Marek was being assaulted, and law everywhere recognizes a man’s right to defend members of his family, his brothers not least. You were in the right, morally and legally. But never will the Church admit that. It will claim that you assaulted and murdered a priest, and it is going to hunt you to the ends of the earth for it.”
“And Count Pelrelm, the Hound of the Hills? Two but never one?”
She laughed. “You are a hound, too, lad! I’ve known bloodhounds slower to pick up a scent than you. Yes, Havel brought a Speaker to Gallant, his Father Vilhelmas. He knew by then that Anton must have a Speaker, who had healed him of his mortal wound. So he was entitled by the rules to bring a Speaker of his own. But you tell me he also brought the moron Leonas, who has no nimbus. So that was cheating. Two’s company, three’s dangerous!”
Wulf thought of that disastrous banquet and smiled to himself. “But Anton had two also, because I was there and so was Marek, who did not have a nimbus either. There were four of us: two journeyman Speakers and two apprentices!”
“Not ‘journeyman’ and not ‘apprentice.’ We talk about ‘fledged’ Speakers and ‘branchers’ instead of ‘apprentices.’ ‘Handlers’ instead of ‘teachers’ or ‘masters.’”
“Why?”
She waved a hand dismissively. “Half of all Speakers are women. You ever heard of a female apprentice?”
“No,” Wulf admitted. A brancher wa CA b="0s a bird that had left the nest but not yet the tree. He suspected his current teacher-handler was trying to distract him. “So what did Havel want? Why did he come?”
“I know not. He was given no chance to say, as you told me.”
“To kill me?”
Marek had suggested that, but Justina shook her head vigorously. “Speakers do not go around killing Speakers! Likely he just wanted to speak with your brother, the new count, and he expected there to be a guardian Speaker present, so he brought his own to make sure the discussion was fair.”
Like having a lawyer present. Speakers could detect the use of talent. Wulf realized that he was nodding. At last things were starting to make sense. Above all, he no longer felt all alone. “How much do Speakers earn?”
Justina frowned as if he had asked a stupid question. “Their lives.”
“Oh.”
“Work it out. I think you had better get to work, warrior. I’ll stay here. War is not a woman’s place. It is not a place for Speakers at all. Come with me.” She heaved herself to her feet, leaning on the table, and walked stiffly to the corner. Wulf took up his cloak and sword and followed, listening as she continued her lecture.
“If you glimpse another nimbus, stay and keep them honest. Be prepared to talk. If you see two or more, come back here instantly, you hear? You’re not ready for a fight. And come back here and ask my advice before you use any major power. Don’t worry if I’m not alone, just come.”
She paused at the door to the cottage. “Take a look.”
He looked. It was obviously a kitchen, and a well-equipped one, with a big table in the cent
er and shelves around the walls laden with crocks and pots.
“I’ll be here in Avlona, outdoors or indoors. Don’t come to me if I’m anywhere else. If there’s anyone with me here, come to the other side of the wall and enter like a workaday. And on no account murder any more priests or clerics! Come at dusk, in any case, and we’ll think what we can do about that bombard.”
“I thank you for your help,” he said, not meaning to be ironic. She had told him very little, but she had hinted at much. It had been his first proper discussion with another Speaker, and already he felt like less of a freak-there were other people out there like him! She had taught him more than Marek had learned in five years at Koupel. That wall of silence was itself informative. He slung his cloak over his shoulders. “I look forward to many more lessons, Justina.”
“We’ll see. You’re in very great danger. Not just the castle, you personally. I was sent to help you, but if m Cyousizey superiors… To be honest, I can’t see that I’ll be allowed to continue helping when this news gets out.”
So the helping hand was being withdrawn and the prison gates were closing. He did not feel surprised. The sense of doom that had come with Marek’s death returned stronger than ever. Father had always told him his temper would kill him one day.
He bowed. “Thank you for what you have done already. I don’t want to cause you any trouble, so if you’d rather I just dissolved into thin air, I’ll-”
“Wait!” she said. “That horrible gallows contrivance your hairy brother was building… Now, I am no warrior, only a simple serving wench, but I do hope they call in the bishop to bless it.”
Wulf paused in buckling on his sword. “The wood may be unsound?”
She nodded. “It’s old.”
“A blessing is a sort of curse in reverse?”
She nodded again, eyes twinkling.
“How close must a Speaker be to bless?”
“The closer the better. Laying a hand on it would be best.”
“Thank you, Justina.”
“And hereafter, mind well what you bless or curse or what oaths you swear! You may do more than you intend.”