by Dave Duncan
“Lady Umbral and I will lead you through them.”
He shook his head in exasperation. “Then answer me the most important question of all—where do our powers come from? From God or Satan?”
“You are not ready to know that yet.”
Wulf stood up and stepped back into nothingness.
He had vanished, gone nowhere, stayed in limbo. Queen of Heaven, why hadn’t she warned him about limbo?
CHAPTER 27
Vlad was not the first man of his troop to return to the castle. Having some misgivings about his current mount’s footing, he left the bearer-of-glad-tidings role to a couple of the youngsters, and fortunately neither of them slid over the edge in their race down the road. By the time he reached the gate, a welcome party had assembled to cheer the returning heroes. In fact, none of them had done a piddling thing, but he couldn’t give the credit where it was due, and that angered him.
His w;
“Ring your bells, my lord bishop!” he bellowed in his loudest battlefield voice. “The Lord has smitten the heretics as he smote the Midianites. God’s wrath fell on them as an avalanche, burying hundreds or thousands of them and closing the pass. Gallant is saved and the Wends are crushed. Ring your damned beg-your-pardon bells!”
Then he stomped back out again, while the bishop was still belaboring heaven with his thanks.
Back at the castle, Vlad stripped off his armor, established that His Babyship the count was believed to be in the solar, and ordered some food to be sent there. It was now Saturday, he decreed, since the sun had set, meaning red meat and none of that salt fish sewage.
The rumors had preceded him, so everyone he met wanted to confirm them, and a celebratory riot was already under way in the castle. It did not extend into the solar. Otto and Anton were slumped in chairs, scowling ferociously and clutching wine bottles with the air of men determined to get drunk as fast as possible. The only other person present was a woman he did not know.
“Wulf get back?” he demanded anxiously.
Anton said, “Yes. Hear we won.” And took another drink.
Vlad found this morbidity decidedly eerie. He started with the stranger, putting fists on hips and giving her his best bearded-monster glare. “I am Vladislav Magnus.”
She held wine, also, but in a glass. She nodded. “The last time I saw you, you were a lot less hairy and about one-third the height. I’m your Great-aunt Kristina.”
“And a sor … I mean Speaker?” She must be about a hundred years old!
“Of course. My working name is Justina.”
He choked back a couple of military expressions and went down on one knee to kiss her hand, the one without the glass. “And since these two drunks are apparently past talking, will you tell me what the problem is?”
“Their problem,” she said, “is that Cardinal Zdenek called them in and left them on their knees while he gave them a thorough chiding. Their dignity is sorely hurt.”
“Called them in—to Mauvnik? Tonight? Sata … Speaking?”
She nodded again. “In all my days, I have never seen talent being splattered around as wildly as it is here in Castle Gallant just now. If the Inquisition decides to take notice, it will have a feast day.”
Otto spoke for the first time. “It wasn’t just our dignity. Zdenek is threatening to turn both of us over to the Church unless we give him Wulfgang.”
“Give him Wulfgang,” Vlad echoed, but the words still made no sense. He stood up.
“Speakers,” his aunt said, “are required to be bound—we call it ‘jessed’—by a workaday, a non-Speaker. It makes us a little easier to live with and better behaved. The cardinal feels that he needs and deserves a falcon on his wrist, although he already has several he can call on.”
Vlad headed to the bottle table. “My youngest brother, Aunt, may not be of the full twenty-one years the law recognizes, but he is a Speaker and, as of today, a battle-hardened warrior whom I admire enormously. Who in the good God’s creation is going to order him around, or give him to anyone? Gramercy! If I wanted him to pass the salt, I’d ask politely.” He glanced around the group. “Where is Wolfcub, anyway?”
“We don’t know,” she said. “He went into limbo, and I can’t trace him until he returns to the world. He’s utterly exhausted and I’m frightened he may go to sleep there.”
“And if he does…?” He guessed from her expression that he didn’t want the answer.
A knock on the door announced a page bringing the long-awaited food. Vlad took the tray himself, telling the boy to close the door and Anton to clear a space on the table.
Provisioned with a cold goose leg and his wine bottle, he made himself as comfortable as possible on the larger of the two available chairs. Otto had snapped out of his uncharacteristic sulk to start explaining about Wolfcub. Not just Zdenek, he said—a coven called the Saints also wanted to “jess” him. Then there was another coven, which Father Vilhelmas had belonged to, and which might want revenge. And there was the Church, which feared all Speakers it did not control. Since Speakers could find a man anywhere, running away would be a mere confession of guilt. By the time Otto had finished his summary, Vlad understood the prevailing mood of gloom. He tossed the bone in the fire and went back to the manger for more hay. “So what are we going to do?”
Silence.
“I’m waiting for the superior of my order,” Justina said. “Lady Umbral. She is the best fixer in Christendom, though I wonder if even she can untie this knot.”
“Explain ‘fixer.’” Well laden, Vlad returned to his seat.
“She’s matchmaker to senior nobility, arbitrator of quarrels, advisor to crowned heads.… The world would be in a much worse mess if she didn’t exist. Only a Speaker can heal a prince who fractures his skull in the tilting yard, or cure a bishop’s leprosy. If the Amsterdam merchants hear that a Venetian galley has sunk with a cargo of spices, they can raise their prices. When a king starts mustering his army, his neighbors want to know that right away. Nothing travels faster than falcons. There are never enough of us.”
Vlad tried to whistle around a mouthful of blood sausage.
“It’s all done in absolute secrecy, of course, and only very rarely for money. If you need your heir cured of smallpox, then you must give up your threat of war on—” The old woman sat up straight. “He’s back!”
“Wulf?” three voices said.
Anton added, “Where?”
The Satanist hesitated, then said, “He’s talking with your wife.”
Anton uttered a sort of bark and shot out of his chair, heading for the door.
Otto cried, “Wait! Anton, you told him that you wouldn’t.… That you would ask the bishop…”
Anton paused with his hand on the door handle and looked back, his face a cockpit of conflicting emotions. “I was only going to tell him that we must speak with him.”
“Let him be, lad! He’s out on his feet. Even if he sleeps in your bed, I don’t think you need have any fear of being cuckolded tonight.”
Vlad rather doubted that, remembering the fires of youth with nostalgia. He had no time to comment—he was planning to guard his tongue for once, anyway—before a section of the plastered wall shimmered and faded away. In walked a nonthreatening, almost tubby little man wearing the dark robes and pectoral cross of a priest, under an oily, professional smile. Behind him loomed two much larger and younger men in garish blue and orange livery, each armed with shiny pike, sword, and dagger. They made the little room very crowded. The gap in the wall healed behind them.
“Anton,” the priest said, “I have urgent business with Wulfgang, your brother. Will you take me to him, please?”
Looking as if he’d been clubbed, Anton just nodded.
The priest smiled down at the Speaker. “You promise not to interfere, Justina?”
She sighed. “I promise, Father.”
Anton opened the door and led the way.
="0#x201D;
CHAPTER 28
Countess presumptive Madlenka had never known a worse day. After gathering up wounded in the morning, she had spent the rest of the day in the madhouse of the infirmary. When her mother became both exhausted and distraught by all the horrors she had witnessed, Madlenka took over and sent her off to rest. She was probably the youngest person there, but leadership was what nobility were for. She ordered the blood-splattered floor washed and the unneeded beds tidied away, and she cleared out all but a necessary minimum of medics, sawbones, and priests.
Anyone with a chance to live had already been bandaged and returned to his family. Eight wounded remained. By nightfall, two had died and another had gone home to do so.
She spent most of her time with Radomir. A year younger than she and the son of a palace guard, he had been a childhood friend of Petr, her brother. Now he was a smith’s apprentice, a husky, happy young man. He had just carried a building stone up to the roof of the north barbican when a Wend arrow had gone right through him. There was no way to stitch up bowels. He was bleeding inside, and if that didn’t kill him soon, fever would later, so he had been given extreme unction. He writhed in agony, but the town was out of poppy, mandrake, mallow root, and all other known painkillers. It was even short of honey for dressing wounds.
He seemed to find Madlenka better company than the muttering priests, so she sat by his bed, held his huge, rough hand—twice the size of hers—and spoke of the golden days of long ago. She helped him sip water and she wiped away his sweat. Now and again he would speak. Sometimes the one remaining doctor or priest would come by to check on him or ask her permission to do something or other. The rest of the time she just talked, and at times she managed to make him smile. News of the Wends’ destruction by a thunderbolt from God arrived, and she was passing on the wonderful news to Radomir when she realized that his eyes were no longer moving. She called the doctor over to confirm that he was dead. Then there was nothing to do except wait for the rest of the patients to die, so she left the priest in charge and went to her room to mourn.
After a while she rang for a light supper and water to wash her face. She knew she must try to get some sleep before Anton came, because she might not get much after. She asked for Giedre, but she had gone out celebrating.
Madlenka had just finished eating when Wulf appeared—not close, over by the bed. She gasped and glanced at the door. There was a bolt on it, but what possible reason could she have to lock her husband out of their bedroom? Then she took another look at Wulf.
“What’s wrong? You’re hurt?”
He forced a smile and held it. “Just tired. No sleep last night and not much for two nights before that. I’m about to fall over and disappear until morning, but I want to ask a favor.…” He leaned against the bedpost as if he needed the support. “A big favor.”
Her eyes kept sliding back to the door. “Wh="0#x “Aere’s Anton?”
“In the solar, with Otto. That’s really what I came to tell you. Anton’s going to ask the bishop to annul your handfasting.”
She leaped off the stool and went to him, gripped his arms. “You’re serious?”
“I’m ecstatic, but how do you feel?”
“Ecstaticker! Oh, Wulf, darling! This isn’t his idea of a joke?”
“No.” The smile had faded. Golden eyes solemn.… “You won’t be countess.”
“I don’t want to be countess. I want to be your wife.” She decided he wasn’t going to kiss her, so she tried to kiss him.
He turned his face away from hers but he did join in the hug, strong arms tight around her. “Wait, please! We can’t. I’m doomed. It was me destroyed the Wends’ army. I set fire to their powder wagons.”
“I wondered if that was your doing. Oh, I’m so happy!”
“I killed thousands of men, maybe even the duke himself.”
She thought of Radomir’s agony. “I wish you’d killed every last one of the rats.”
“I may have come close.”
“I don’t care. I love you. The war was their fault. You did right.”
“But the Church will not say that, even if the men were schismatics. I killed a priest. The Inquisition may take its time to plan its campaign, but it can always find me. There is nowhere I can run.”
“You don’t believe that! There must be a way out!”
“Well, maybe. But it’s a very thin chance.…”
Sudden brightness, and they were not in her room anymore. They were in … nowhere. Not truly bright, but not dark; all silent and empty, a sort of shining fog. Nothing in sight anywhere. She cried out in fear.
“It’s all right.” His embrace tightened even more. “You’re perfectly safe. This is limbo. It’s very hard to spy on us here, that’s all. There’s a legion of people after me, not just the Church. King Konrad is dying, so Cardinal Zdenek wants me, and I think he’s up to no good. Even the Orthodox Church may send Speakers to hunt me down for killing Vilhelmas. Our life together may be very, very brief. There is one, very faint hope.”
“Tell me!”
“There’s a group of Speakers calling themselves the Saints. They say they’re honorable. They say they can protect me from the Church, in return for my loyalty. They even promise a priest who will absolve me of my sins, although I don’t know if the pope himself could do that now. Speakers are only human, and the Saints believe that we cannot be trusted not to abuse our talent. I have a wickedly quick temper, as I’m sure Anton has told you.”
She chuckled. “Several times! You laid him flat with one punch, I heard.”
“Two punches. He deserved both of them, but that was fists, not talent.”
“What do you mean by ‘talent’?”
He hesitated so long, just looking at her, that she thought he wasn’t going to answer at all. Then he whispered, “The ability to speak to the devil and get him to perform evil miracles.”
“Wulf! No! You’re not that, not a Satanist!”
“I don’t know,” he said miserably. “I still don’t know! I truly think I must be damned, darling. I try to do good but everything I do turns out evil. Trying to rescue my brother, I killed a friar. Helping Marek kill Vilhelmas was wrong! I know now that he didn’t kill your father and brother, although he knew who did and didn’t stop him. He did lead the raid that killed fourteen men at Long Valley, and yet I still feel as bad about Vilhelmas as I do about destroying the Wend army. I didn’t intend to wipe out the army, just its supply of powder, but that blew thousands of men to mush.”
“Vilhelmas was a traitor and a killer and you saved Jorgary from an unprovoked war. How can you call those results evil?”
He pulled her head against his, so that they were cheek-to-cheek. “Well, I may do even more terrible things if I’m not controlled. People who know about Speaking insist that a Speaker must be bound to a person who isn’t a Speaker. The master is called the cadger and the Speaker the falcon. They’re just code words. The cadger can limit what the falcon can do. Not give orders, just permission. It’s a partnership. The Saints want me to swear to their leader, Lady Umbral, but I haven’t met her. There’s only one person in the world I trust enough, and that’s you.”
“Gladly! If an oath’s all it takes, I’ll swear to be a dormouse.”
“But it would mean that you may share in my guilt.”
This gnawing doubt wasn’t like him, she knew, but he was visibly exhausted, at the end of his tether. He should be comforted and put to bed to sleep around the clock.
She said, “I’ll happily share in your entire life, as long as I as long have your love. I just want you to live. And my second wish is to live with you.”
She felt him draw a deep breath. “I won’t swear to the Umbral woman. I don’t know her or what her motives are. I could trust Otto, but I’d be tied to him all my life, always the baby brother. I want to swear to you.”
“I swear to love you forever. What else do I have to do?”
“Just accept my oath. Now, don’t let go of me!” He removed his hug and to
ok hold of her hands instead; then he knelt down on … on nothing at all, but she was standing on nothing at all and looking down made her feel dizzy. “Madlenka, I swear by my immortal soul that I will never use my unnatural powers except to do things that you have given me permission to do, and I will never hurt you or threaten you in any way, and I will always defend you and keep you from harm, and I swear to God that I will keep this oath all the days of my life. That’s it, and all you have to do is accept my oath, which shall bind us unless and until I agree to let you transfer it to another cadger.”
“I so swear, and may God help me keep this oath all the days of my life.”
He stood up, still holding her hands. “Do I have your leave to return us to your chamber, cadger?”
“Yes, after one more kiss and … Mmmph!”
He was very good at kissing already. But then they were back in her room, in dim, wobbling candlelight.
They kissed again.
Eventually he muttered, “I must go to bed.”
He wasn’t exhausted beyond all reason. Their embrace was close enough that she could feel the signal.
“Anton may be here any minute.”
“He said he won’t sleep with you anymore.”
Joy! “Then into bed with you! Right over there, and right now. And sleep, my darling.” She would bolt the door.
“There’s something else we have to do…” he said vaguely.
“I’m willing!”
“Didn’t mean that.”
The door squeaked and Anton peered in. He opened it fully and stepped aside, admitting an ominous little figure in a black cassock and cloak; a jeweled cross hung on his breast. His smile made Madlenka think of melting butter. Behind him came two tall men-at-arms bearing pikes.
&t size="#x201C;Wulfgang, I must ask you to come with me.”
“Where to?”
His only answer was a smile.
Madlenka opened her mouth to scream “Fly! Go away! Don’t do what he says!” but not a sound emerged. Her tongue lay limp in her mouth.
