by Dave Duncan
He had that part read to him again to make sure the amendments were satisfactory, then signed his name at the bottom: Cardice. He gazed at that proudly for a moment and then—with a sense of sheer wonder—added CStV. No Magnus before him had ever been appointed to the Order of St. Vaclav.
As Radim departed, in wandered Wulf, his normally affable expression distorted by facial bruises into ogreish menace. He looked even worse when he smiled.
“I’m away,” he said. “I hope this is not goodbye, Your Countship.”
But it could be. Anyone going on a long journey might disappear and never be heard from again.
“I wish you godspeed, Brother. Here’s my report to His Majesty. It is late to be starting out. The sun will set in an hour. You sure you won’t stay over and leave at dawn?”
“No.” He came around to the side of the bed to give Anton a farewell hug. “God bless,” he said, “and may He grant you good fortune. You’ll need it,” he added softly.
“You don’t have to do this. I have lots of good horsemen here in Cardice who could carry my dispatch south.” In the next month or so, miracles would rank very high among Castle Gallant’s requirements.
Wulf chuckled. “When did you ever know me to change my mind? Except when I used to promise to kill you, I mean, and that was only after Father begged me.”
“Never. But I’m going to need your help, Wulf.” He meant miracles, but mustn’t say so.
Wulf understood, because he shook his head very slightly. “I do intend to make it back here safe and sound. Don’t slaughter all the Wends before I can get my share.” He turned to Madlenka. “And the pulchritudinous countess designate? Farewell, my lady. You were most exceeding kind to the wounded sparrow who took refuge on your windowsill.”
“Farewell to you, squire. I am distressed that you cannot stay longer with us.”
Wulf lifted her hand to kiss her fingers. “Maid, in thy prayers be all my sins remembered.”
She blushed.
Blushed?
“And just what does that mean?” Anton barked.
“Nothing,” Wulf said hastily. “Farewell to you, too, my lady Giedre, and my thanks for your kindness also.” He vanished out the door and closed it.
Madlenka opened the book again. “More Parzival, my lord?”
Sod Parzival, and his horse, too! “No. First I would like to know why you should be remembering my brother’s sins in your prayers?’
She stared at him with a very good imitation of blank innocence. “It is only an expression, my lord, a politeness.”
“Not, perhaps, because they were your sins, also? That you were sinning together?”
Now she sprang to her feet, slapping the book shut. “My lord, that is a vicious insinuation! You asked me to see that your brother was well cared for, and I tended him myself. But we were never alone together. Always Giedre or others were present. Your remarks were unworthy of your rank and my honor. You owe me an apology.”
Anton’s temper surged up like bile, almost choking him. If he were free to jump to his feet and storm around the room he might be able to deal with this conspiracy, but his lower half was not presentable and must remain under the covers.
“Oh, do I? I remind you that you owe me fidelity and chastity. And you, Mistress Giedre? What exactly were the kindnesses that my brother remembered to thank you for so graciously? Did you perhaps take invigorating little walks when you were supposed to be chaperoning my betrothed?”
Giedre recoiled and looked to her mistress in panic, guilt written all over her face.
“Aha! Will you swear on a Bible that you never left her alone with my brother, not once?”
“Once … but only for a moment, my lord. I mean, not long enough for … anything improper to happen.”
“And you know how long those improper things take? By experience, you know, or just from old wives’ tales? It is customary on a wedding night, Lady Madlenka, for the bedsheet to be passed out so the guests can see the bloodstain that proves the bride was a virgin. I trust that you are prepared to meet this standard?”
Lady Madlenka hurled Parzival across the room at him like a stone from a ballista. It would have brained him had he not ducked.
“How dare you?” they roared simultaneously.
The perfectly penned but ponderous volume impacted a priceless carafe of Venetian glass, which shattered against the stone wall.
“Upstart!”
“Hussy!”
“Interloper!”
Someone rapped on the door.
“Whore!”
“Murdering incompetent narcissistic foulmouthed blackguard!”
“Hellcat!”
“Am I interrupting something?” inquired a new voice. Into the room swept a woman of impressive dimensions, clad all in black from toes to bonnet; even her hands were hidden by lace cuffs, but her veil was raised to reveal a face like a glacier. She moved with the somber majesty of a funeral procession. “Count Magnus!” She curtseyed to him.
“Mother!” Madlenka cried, hurling herself into the arms of—who else but?—Dowager Countess Edita. “Oh, Mother, you’re better!”
The countess endured the impact with no perceptible wobble, then detached her now-sobbing daughter. “While bathing and dressing me, my women have made me informed of all that has transpired since I was cast down by grief. As His Majesty’s chosen, you are welcome to Castle Gallant, my lord.”
“And I congratulate you on your recovery, my lady.”
“It was about time,” she conceded. “A mere hour ago I felt my prayers being answered, and the blessed Virgin sent me the strength to accept God’s will and rise from my bed.”
An hour ago? Anton glared at his wife-to-be, who caught his eye and turned away quickly to be comforted by Giedre. Had Wulfgang taken to selling his miracles now? The timing alone was almost proof. That sneaky young serpent, with his sanctimonious preaching about keeping himself pure for some future bride! His cozy little fireside chats with the devil had certainly cleaned up those ambitions in short order.
“Your arrival is most opportune, Lady Edita. I have just had occasion to censure your daughter, who is my betrothed by royal decree. Of course I must make some allowance for Castle Gallant’s isolation, but it is customary among nobility dwelling in less rustic surroundings to have young ladies chaperoned by older women, and never less than two.”
The iceberg turned to scorch Madlenka with a cold blaze of outrage. “Madlenka! Have you given Lord Anton cause to question your virtue?”
“No! No! No!”
“Yes she has,” Anton said. “I do wish my brother had stayed longer, so we could hear his version of events. He left Gallant very hurriedly not an hour ago.” He enjoyed the dowager lady’s depiction of utter horror. “Furthermore,” he added, “if she expects to continue her tantrums of throwing books at me and shouting down the bishop in his cathedral, then after our marriage I shall be forced to discipline her severely.”
“By your leave, my lord,” Countess Edita said, taking a firm grip of her daughter’s arm, “we shall investigate these matters further. I shall inform you of the results of my inquiries shortly.”
“You are most kind, my lady.”
The moment the door boomed shut behind the three women, Anton hauled on the bell rope. The page on duty arrived in moments.
“Find Arturas,” the count snapped. “I want him right away.” Then he jumped from the bed—as much as anyone could jump out of a feather mattress—and started looking for trunk hose. He was respectable and brushing his hair by the time the herald answered his summons.
“I need Bishop Ugne. Does he come to me or do I go to him?”
Arturas wore a brightly splotched smock and had a streak of green on his nose, so he must have been painting the new count’s arms on something. “Oh, you never summon a bishop, my lord! But in view of your recent injury, a discreet intimation that a courtesy call would be timely …”
“Then let him know that I need to
speak with him.”
If the countess reported that her daughter was not a virgin, all marriage preparations must stop. Madlenka would be hustled off to a nunnery, the king would withdraw his edict of marriage, and Anton could continue to enjoy bachelorhood for a few years longer, assuming that he could keep the Wends from the door. If she still was—and admittedly, as his first flash of temper cooled, he found it hard to imagine Wulf being such a rat as to deflower his brother’s fiancée—then the union had better be sealed as soon as possible. Mourning period be damned. The king had commanded it. There was a war on. Wulf’s healing had restored the count to the prime of health. In his case, healthy also meant horny.
CHAPTER 22
Copper was a fine steed, swift and steady, needing no guidance. As soon as they had left the castle, Wulf let him run, trusting him to know the road and find the best footing. He unpacked his lunch one-handed and started gnawing on a goose leg while he thought about the Voices.
Were they saints or demons? Why would they never explain or answer questions? There had to be a reason for that reticence. The prospect of another ride through limbo was daunting, and if the price was to be the same as before, he would refuse to pay it. Yet now he had healed Anton, and perhaps the unseen countess, and had suffered no pain for it.
He tossed away the bone and took a drink from his wine flagon. An excellent wine—the kitchen staff had done well by the count’s brother. He started in on a thick slice of salted ham.
It was all very well to brag to Madlenka about changing the government’s mind. A Speaker, however inexperienced and untrained, might hope to manipulate a senile, maundering king, but the calculative Cardinal Zdenek had ruled Jorgary with a steel fist since before Wulf learned how to breathe. And if the Spider could stoop to using Speakers, then so could other statesmen—the Church obviously did. So Zdenek would certainly have built defenses against Satanism into his web. He would deny it, of course, but any attempt to bewitch him must lead straight to toasted Wulfgang. Merely delivering Anton’s letter at any time short of eight days from now would be an admission of Satanism. Zdenek, in short, was a necessary ally, but a highly dangerous one.
The advisor Wulf needed was Baron Magnus of Dobkov. Even if Anton had not assigned the two thousand florins to Otto instead of Baron Emilian, Wulfgang would have headed first to Otto.
He licked his fingers, took another drink, and then laced up his saddlebag. Copper had slowed to an easy pace, happy to run over the moorland road with a competent rider. They were too far from Castle Gallant for a magical disappearance to be noted, and the only person in sight was a shepherd about a mile ahead, driving his sheep down to lower pasture for the winter. The sun was very close to the horizon. Time to go.
“Holy Saints Helena and Victorinus, hear my prayer.”
Copper decided he was not being addressed. He obviously did not notice the Light that dawned all around him.
Helena: —We are here, my son.
“My lady, if I ask you to take me home to Dobkov, what price will you demand?”
—We do not demand any price. You decide what it shall be, but it is not paid to us.
Talking with disembodied Voices was never simple. “What choices do I have?”
Victorinus, harshly: —Agony, or madness, or death.
Helena, more gently: —All of us must meet with death eventually.
Victorinus again: —Our help puts you in greater danger every time you ask for it.
They sounded just like Anton daring him to put his first pony over a ditch. “Can I refuse the pain and accept the danger?”
—You can refuse immediate pain, but the danger you accept may be of greater pain deferred or death advanced. We cannot foretell the end.
“Burning at the stake, for example?”
—That is one possibility.
Wulf decided that life must offer more profitable enterprises than trying to make sense of this. “Then know that from now on I refuse immediate pain and accept any future peril. Can you take me to … where is Ottokar, my brother?” Otto owned many estates and spent much of his life traveling between them.
Copper shied violently, making Wulf grab for the saddle pommel, and the world seemed to jar sideways and blur. He saw words, written on vellum, only about two of them legible, and then another two in their place. The vellum vanished and there was a man’s face … another man’s face … a tapestry …
“Whoa! Steady, Copper. Steady, fellow!”
A sudden breath of wind, or a rising partridge?
He calmed the shivering horse, wondering which of them had scared the other. His reaction to that flickering vision might have startled Copper, or the horse’s fright might have jarred him out of a Voice-inspired daydream. The Light was still there. He had not had time to read the writing and had not recognized the two faces. But he knew the tapestry. It hung in Otto’s counting room in Dobkov.
“Was that a warning you just sent me?”
Helena chuckled. —You spurn our warnings. Your brother is at Dobkov and you should go there at once.
“What? Why?”
Victorinus’s voice came then, harsher and more commanding. —Because great rejoicing awaits you there now, but later will bring great sorrow.
“You’ve never given me such advice before.” He should not be arguing.
—You stand higher now.
What did that mean? “Please take me to Dobkov as fast as possible.”
The moor shimmered and grew misty. Copper whinnied in alarm and bolted. Wulf gave him his head. Soon the familiar pearly haze of limbo closed about them and the sound of the wind and beat of hooves died away. Trees and buildings flew by, flickering light and shadow.
He stood higher now? What did that mean? It might be a saint’s-eye view of a man that Marek had called “a hardened practitioner of the black art.” Marek had spoken of a first sin and a second sin. St. Helena had said he was not ready for another “step.” A step could be another view of a sin in this instance. He could summon miracles without pain now, so he was progressing. To what? How many steps could there be? What was he becoming, saint or devil? Had he imagined that glimpse of Dobkov, or was he becoming a seer now?
Was he blessed beyond other men, or already damned?
The world was shimmering back into reality. Copper neighed in fright, but his hooves beat on dirt again. The high roofs and tall chimneys of Castle Dobkov showed against the sky ahead, making Wulf’s eyelids prickle with nostalgia. He knew this road through the coppice like the nails on his fingers. It was not quite a month since he and Anton left home, and it felt like years. Even their arrival in Gallant last Sunday seemed an age ago. He let Copper have his head to run off his fear. The big lad had a fine turn of speed.
Soon the road emerged from the trees onto open pasture, and then he could view the whole castle, ancient and mossy, with sunset blazing red on its windows. No mountains here, only a few gentle hills, but the castle stood on an island in the river, half a mile or so upstream from the village. The channel was wide enough to need a true bridge on pillars with a drawbridge at the island end. Copper slackened his pace at the sight of the change ahead. He tried to veer to the right, then to the left, and Wulf would allow neither, so he slowed to a cautious walk, flickering his ears as the timbers boomed under his hooves. A bored porter on the gate sprang to life.
“Wolfcub! Squire, I mean! You’re back! Chief, it’s the Cub!”
Wulf shouted a greeting and carried on through the archway into the bailey, which occupied most of the area enclosed by the curtain wall. Part was grassy, part cobbled, and there the local residents and their herds could take refuge in time of war. Near the gatehouse stood the forge, stables, granary, and castle ovens. Most important for him was the house at the far side of the bailey, which still felt like home. He reined in at the main door.
As his feet hit the ground, a tumultuous torrent of house dogs came racing out to greet him. Even the hunting hounds in their pen caught the excitement and set
up a chorus of baying. Voices called his name. Achim, former childhood playmate and now a junior hostler, came running, with several others in hot pursuit. For a moment Wulf thought they were all going to mob him in a group hug, but they remembered their station in time. They stopped and saluted.
And last, but never least, old Whitetail, who had been his constant childhood companion, came shuffling out to greet him, now lame and almost blind, but tail wagging furiously.
“Welcome back, squire!” Achim grinned, showing missing teeth. “We missed you. Place didn’t seem the same.”
He had noticed Wulf’s bruised eyes, of course, as everyone would. He should have had the Voices cure them.
“I should hope not!” Wulf was detaching his saddlebag with the fortune in it. “But I was homesick for all your cheerful faces.” It was also good to hear someone speaking properly. The strange dialects started just a few miles from home and grew steadily worse the farther one wandered. “Where is everyone?”
“All inside. Got some visiting gentry. And Sir Anton?”
“He’s … fine. Doing very well, in fact, but I must tell the baron the news first. This is Copper. He will be your friend if you give him a rubdown and a handful of oats. And tell him how pretty he is.”
He greeted the other smiling faces quickly, then ran up the steps into the lesser hall. He had already seen those visiting gentry and he could guess what their business was.
Castle Dobkov, although imposing when seen from the outside, was much smaller than Castle Gallant. A lot of it was solid masonry. The living quarters were cramped, and “lesser hall” was a grand name for a staff dining room, capable of feeding about forty people, so that every meal had to be held twice.
Who should be crossing it, though, weighed down by a huge basket of clean laundry, but the baroness herself. Branka was a large and perpetually jolly woman, with rosy cheeks and golden hair, the sort of woman ancient pagans would have worshiped as an embodiment of the Earth Mother. In five years of marriage she had presented Otto with three sets of twins, and promised to continue doing so. She was her own housekeeper, as shown by the big bundle of keys dangling at her waist, and had even been known to dabble in cooking very successfully.