by Dave Duncan
“They eat well,” he mumbled around a mouthful.
“Food’s the only excitement they’re allowed.”
“Suppose so. What’re you going to ask Marek?”
“Won’t know till I see him.”
“It’s been four years!”
“Five.” Wulf decided to risk another swallow of the Tokay.
Anton shrugged and cut himself another generous wedge of pie.
Wulf said, “Here he is!”
A diminutive black-robed figure had entered by the main door and was pacing along the refectory with an in-toed gait that Wulf had forgotten but now recognized as painfully familiar; head lowered, hands tucked in sleeves. Vladislav had always referred to Marek as “Midge,” but Vlad cared even less for other people’s feelings than Anton did. If he seemed even smaller now than Wulf remembered, that was quite natural, because Wulf had been only thirteen when his favorite brother was taken away by two Dominican friars and a troop of lancers.
Anton and Wulf jumped up with cries of welcome. Anton stepped around the end of the table to embrace him, armor and all, but Marek blocked him by making the sign of the cross in blessing. Baffled, Anton stopped.
The monk set back his cowl. His face was thin, pinched, with lines around his eyes. His smile was bloodless, professional. “So it really is you! I couldn’t believe it. My little brother Anton a count? And the sash of St. Vaclav? What are you now, twenty-one? No, twenty! You must have done mighty deeds for His Majesty. Or was it those dashing good looks? Did you catch the eye of Princess Laima? Cloth-of-gold suits you, Brother.”
Baffled, Anton muttered, “Thank you.” He shot Wulf an alarmed glance, looking to see what he thought, then returned to his seat. Had he not realized that five years’ prayer and discipline would change the merry youth he had known?
The strangely austere Marek turned his inspection on Wulf, who kept his greeting to a respectful smile, but found it so restricted by the bevor that he sat down and raised his sallet. There was no one else in that great hall to see his face.
“And Wulfgang, too. My dear boy! So tall now!”
Marek was the only Magnus who would describe Wulf as tall. Wulf cast about for a tactful reply. “Just well-proportioned.”
“But big for sixteen,” Marek said softly.
Why was Marek saying that? He could not have forgotten the difference in their ages. He was hinting at something, but before Wulf could question, Anton’s steel solleret banged against his boot in a needlessly painful warning. Wulf suppressed a wince.
“Someone else remarked on that to me just last night,” Anton remarked, while still chewing.
Not his lady friend, certainly. Cardinal Zdenek, most likely, Wulf decided. He didn’t understand why his age mattered, or why the king’s first minister would care about it.
“Oh, you haven’t finished?” Marek said. “Hurry up, because there are much more comfortable places to talk than here.” He stayed on his feet opposite them and regarded Wulf thoughtfully across the narrow plank table. He had dark, shrewd eyes, but his hands were ingrained with dark lines, like a peasant’s.
“What brings you here, Brother Wulfgang?”
Shrug, forced smile. “I am but an humble squire. I follow my lord.”
“When did the humility grow in?” Marek murmured in a faint echo of his former humor. “You are not planning to stay here?”
“No!” Wulf said, with more emphasis than courtesy.
Marek sighed and glanced sideways. “So explain that sash, noble Lord Magnus.” Then he went back to staring at Wulf.
“It’s a long story, Brother Marek. It’s the real thing, but I haven’t exactly earned it yet, if you follow me. You heard that Father died?”
The monk nodded and made the sign of the cross. “When Otto’s letter came, the abbot passed on the sad news, and mentioned him in our prayers that evening. How is Ottokar?”
Wulf took over the talking so that he needn’t pretend to be eating. He told how well Ottokar ruled now as baron, how Branka kept giving him twins, and of course how Vlad had gone off to war and been taken prisoner at the Battle of the Boundary Stone. Then there was Anton’s acceptance into the king’s hussars.
All the time he was tortured by the realization that there was something horribly wrong, something he could not pin down. This somber Marek was not the same happy person he had loved as a child, the only one of his brothers who had ever had much time for him back then.
“Well, it is wonderful to hear that you are all safe in God’s grace,” the monk declared, making as if to leave. “Let us go to the scriptorium and talk there. It’s above the kitchen, so it’s warm.”
Under the table, Anton’s solleret again pushed against Wulf’s boot, more gently than the last time. Whatever failings Anton might have, there was nothing wrong with his wits, so he, too, was seeing the change in Marek. He had known Marek better than Wulf had.
Wulf forced himself to cut a slice of cheese. “I haven’t finished eating. I’m talking too much. Tell us about Koupel. Are you happy here?”
Marek smiled carefully. “Oh, yes, yes! At first there was talk of making me a Dominican friar, you know, and I think I should have found their rule much too strict. Ours is easier. We live very quietly, every day like the last, but better a quiet life and the Lord’s grace than sin and eternal fires. I assist Brother Lodnicka in the herb garden now. Very interesting work, and most beneficial. Our apothecary prepares many potent medications from the herbs we cultivate. Ah! You are not eating. Ready to go now?”
“No,” Wulf said firmly, determined to talk business here, where he was fairly confident of not being overheard, not wherever it was that Marek had been told to take them. He had come to consult Marek, and a lecture on emetics and purgatives was not what he needed. “A couple of days ago, Anton performed an incredible feat of horsemanship at the royal hunt.”
The monk’s face froze. “We always knew he was the best of us on a horse. Even Vlad—”
“I’m the best now,” Wulf said. “But I would never dream of trying what he did. It was almost miraculous.”
“Stop!” Marek whispered. His gaze raked the hall as if in search of listeners. “Not unless you’ve come here to stay.”
Now that was more like it: a specific warning.
“So much so,” Wulf persisted, “that a few hours ago he was summoned by Cardinal Zdenek and promoted to lord of one of the northern marches. The Pomeranians are about to invade, but there is a very slim chance that—”
“Please!” Marek squeaked. “Do not lay this burden on me!”
“I was told to lay it on you, Brother.”
“Told by whom?”
“St. Helena and St. Victorinus.”
The monk crossed himself. All the color had left his face. “Oh, please, please! You don’t know what you are doing!” He stared down at the table, avoiding Wulf’s gaze.
Wulf cut off Anton, who was about to interrupt. “Exactly. I don’t know what I’m doing, but you do, and I want you to instruct me. It was not Anton who bespoke the miracle, it was I. Whose Voices did you hear, Brother?”
“Satan’s!”
With a shiver, Wulf said, “How do you know? The Evil One introduced himself? Did you smell sulfur?”
“Of course not. The Voices told me they were St. Uriel and St. Methodius, but now I know they were demons sent from the pit to deceive me. Do not listen to your Voices, Wulfgang, oh, please do not! They are no saints. They will trap you. They will corrupt your immortal soul and drag you down.”
That was what the Church taught. What else could a monk say?
“How can it be evil to do good? I saved Anton from breaking his neck.”
“You saved him?” Marek was becoming agitated. “No, Satan saved him, at your request. And I mean no insult to you, Brother Anton, but we mortals cannot judge what is evil and what is for the best. Only the Lord can do that. Do you remember the boy Hans? He cut a blood vessel and was bleeding to death. But I laid a hand on
the wound and called out a prayer to my saints—as I thought then—and the bleeding stopped! He lived. A blessed miracle, we all cried. We were wrong!
“Still, my folly was not entirely evil. That was how the Church learned of my peril, and came and brought me here and led me to repentance and salvation.”
This was what he had been taught, anyway—for five endless years. Wulf wondered how Anton was taking it. Oh, where was that clever, cheerful, mischievous Marek they had once known? This sneaky, sanctimonious monk, who wanted to lead them to some place where his abbot could eavesdrop on their talk—this brother they had found was not the brother they had lost.
“I saved a dying boy! I felt so proud! Sinful pride. And his family were so grateful.” Marek paused, glancing from Anton to Wulf and back again. “Whatever happened to Hans?”
Anton said, “I forget which Hans it was, there are so many churls called Hans around Dobkov.”
“Hans the blacksmith’s son,” Wulf said glumly. “He raped a girl last spring. Ottokar hanged him for it. There is going to be a child.”
Again the monk made the sign of the cross. “Did I not just warn you? Anything the Voices do for you will turn to evil eventually, however good it may seem at first. That rape now weighs against my soul. How I mourn for that poor girl and her unwanted child! I will ask for my penance to be increased.”
“If you fast any more you’ll disappear altogether,” Anton snapped. “Do you have to give your portion to your abbot?”
Marek ignored him. “Wulfgang, Wulfgang! St. Bernard of Clairvaux taught us that hell is full of good intentions.”
“Then what is Heaven full of?”
“Good deeds and faith. You think you are doing good, but you cannot tell how much evil may follow from your appeals to the Evil One. The Voices offer you anything you can possibly want, just as the Enemy led Our Lord up the mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world. Are you so strong that you can refuse temptation as he did, even after he had fasted forty days and forty nights?”
“There is a price,” Wulf said angrily, meaning headaches and belly pains. He did not want to hear any more of this.
“The price of witchcraft is eternal damnation.”
“You are speaking in circles. First you say that your miracle was good because it brought you here and saved your soul, then that it was evil because Hans sinned later. If I always do my best to use my talents for good, will those acts be held against me on Judgment Day?”
“I told you: asking for things becomes easier and easier. Soon you will stop trying to justify your requests. When did you first hear the Voices?”
“I don’t remember exactly. As a child.”
Marek nodded. “Your first sin was in hearing them at all. Did you understand what they were saying?”
“Not to begin with.”
“No, but your second sin was in listening to them. When did you begin to understand what they were saying?”
“Not long before the Dominicans took you away,” Wulf muttered.
“You were at the end of childhood, the age when we all start to lose our innocence. And when did you discover that they would grant your wishes? When did you first use a whispered little prayer to cheat at archery? To put a horse over a high jump? To make a girl kiss you?”
“Not that!” In truth, Wulf was scared of girls. Their smiles, their scent, their shape, all made him want to do forbidden things, and he believed the mind should rule the body, not the other way around. Until now he had succeeded so well that Father Czcibor seemed to disbelieve him when he made confession, cross-examining him until Wulf wondered if some of the servant girls had been making up stories about him, except he couldn’t imagine why they would.
“Little things like archery,” he admitted. “Yes, I cheated a bit, once or twice, to see if the Voices would help me. But only rabbits were hurt, not people. And I never let anyone see me.” Wulf waited for Anton to say that he hadn’t known Wulf could work miracles, as he had claimed earlier that morning. He didn’t.
Marek sighed. “The girls will follow. ‘It is love,’ you will tell yourself, and you will ask your Voices to bring her to you, or even to make her willing. When did you first ask for a real miracle, something that couldn’t have happened just by chance? Like when I healed the boy’s leg?”
“Two days ago at the hunt.”
“Ah. Tell me about the hunt.”
“Anton spurred down a very steep hill into a diabolical double jump. The riders who tried to follow him were all undone.”
“‘Almost miraculous,’ I think you said. So it was still deniable, if only just?”
“I suppose so.”
“But today?” The monk smiled slyly. “Anton spoke to Cardinal Zdenek a few hours ago. That’s what you said, didn’t you? How did you get here so quickly? We are a long day’s ride from Mauvnik here.”
“I Spoke. I asked.”
“So you rode through limbo from Mauvnik to Koupel? Two witnesses are all the Church needs now, Brother. One to testify at what hour you left the city and another to say when you arrived at the abbey door. Two witnesses and you will be condemned, both of you.”
“And then what?” Anton barked. “Did you take your vows voluntarily? The Church does not compel men to enter the cloister.”
The monk’s bright little eyes shone with sincerity. “But I was guilty of Speaking, my lord count! If I did not confess and repent, I would be tried, and an investigation of Speaking allegations is most arduous, most unpleasant. Eventually, when the Speaker can endure no more, he will either admit his guilt or call out to the devil to rescue him. It was better to repent while I had the chance.”
“And now? Will you betray us?”
Brother Marek clasped his hands as if to pray. He closed his eyes. “If I do not report this conversation to the abbot, I shall be asked at my next confession and be refused absolution unless I make amends.” Then he looked sadly at Wulf. “Repent, Brother, while there is still time! Stay here with us. We can teach you how to resist the devil’s lures. It is a hard road to walk, but I learned, with prayer and penance and the holy brothers’ patience. They taught me how. Repent and stay!”
Wulf shook his head.
“And you are now proposing to ride through limbo to the northern marches?” Marek continued. “Is that what the cardinal wants: to block a war by sending two young men to roast in hell for all eternity?”
Wulf felt the walls of the abbey closing in on him. Possibly also on Anton, as an accomplice. The gates would be locked against them. But anything would be better than a lifetime shut up in a cloister, being turned into a worm like Marek, never running a horse over the hills, never dancing with fair maidens …
“Did it hurt?” the monk asked eagerly, eyes gleaming. “There is always pain, and undeniable witchcraft must have hurt severely.”
“It hurt some,” Wulf admitted, pushing his trencher away. His nausea did seem to be fading, so that he could almost admit that he was hungry. He poured himself more wine.
“And yet you think you can just race all the way from here to the Pomeranian border? I warn you, Brother, if you think you know what pain is now, you cannot imagine what that will cost you. It will last for days. You will go mad, or even die. Many Speakers have died from their torment, for it is far worse than anything that human torturers can inflict. Does this sound like holy miracle or demonic treachery?”
Brother Marek was ablaze now, leaning forward, spraying spit and thumping his fists on the board. “Even if you survive, you may well be beyond help already. I was a neophyte. I had done only one false miracle. An experienced Speaker cannot be taught control, as I was taught when I came here. A hardened practitioner of the black art is too dangerous to restrain. Stay your present course and soon the only way to stop you summoning the devil will be to burn out your tongue!”
“So you are going to report this conversation to Abbot Bohdan?” Anton asked. “Back at Dobkov, Father and Vlad and Ottokar stood by you. They woul
d have run the troopers out of the county with their lances if the Dominicans had not been there to threaten them with a bishop’s warrant of excommunication. You will now denounce Wulfgang as a Speaker?”
Marek covered his face with his hands. He did not seem to be praying, nor weeping either.
Wulf stood up, sick at heart. “Thank you for your advice, Brother Marek. I was instructed to come and consult you, and you have duly instructed me. I expected to learn from your advice, but I fear I have been warned by your mistakes. If you will show us the way back to the stables, we shall be on our way. We can saddle our mounts ourselves. We don’t want to disturb your brothers’ Sunday devotions, nor your servants’, neither.”
Anton rose also, watching Wulf, letting him lead. That was a first.
Marek sighed and straightened up. He was biting his lip, but now there was a repellent beaten-dog expression in his eyes. “Who,” he murmured softly, “told you to hide your face, Brother?”
“It just felt like a good idea.” Wulf pulled his sallet down again.
“A very good idea.” Louder he added, “Let me show you my herb garden. Not mine, really; our herb garden. You can get from there to the stables, although it is not the most direct route.”
“An excellent idea.” Wulf glanced hopefully at Anton. “That is most kind of you.”
“Are you suggesting,” Anton demanded, “that the monks may try to prevent us leaving here?”
“Not you, my lord,” Marek whispered. “But they might delay your companion … ask questions … demand to see his face, and so on. He may have trouble getting out of the monastery. Hurry! We must be quick.”
CHAPTER 7
Three trumpets blared in unison to announce the arrival of Count Vranov before the gates of Castle Gallant. The one on the left was slightly out of tune, which made the fanfare especially unpleasant for Juozas, the count’s herald, who was standing right in front of them. As soon as the noise ended, he marched forward a few paces and loudly proclaimed the name and rank of his master, come in peace. Out came Arturas, his Bukovany counterpart.