by Dave Duncan
“Answer my question!”
Wulf would never see Madlenka again, for she could give Samson back his hair, and Samson in his strength was too effective to be trusted. It would be safer for all concerned, Church and state, to dispose of him. Light the faggots! Make him a salutary example of the hazards of Satanism.
Magnuses did not plead for mercy.
“My idea. Granted Crown Prince Konrad is not the most promising clay from which to fashion a great king, but he does have the right to wear the crown of his forefathers. He deserves a chance to try.”
“You are saying that the presence of my nephew in Jorgary would imperil your future king? That my nephew would foment revolution to put himself on the throne instead?”
“The temptation would be there.”
“Opportunity!” d’Estouteville shouted. “The opportunity would be there. I want Louis to wear a crown, and I am not accustomed to being thwarted by apple-cheeked boys, Squire Wulfgang. You want to rule Jorgary yourself. You would make your prince a puppet and manipulate him by sorcery, bring back his wife and tweak the impotent pervert into siring a son—change his name, ban his orgies, make the people cheer, leave the Spider spinning webs into his dotage. God save King Whosis! You dare to pass moral judgment on me?”
Wulf had no defense against those charges. In the absence of defense, attack. “Since you mention morals, by what right did you bring me here? By what right did you abduct Countess Madlenka?”
“By what right do I hold back the Lord’s Dogs? Shall I call for Brother Luigi?”
Someone laughed. “That’s enough, both of you,” said a new voice.
Wulf glanced around and then jumped to his feet. He had not heard the newcomers enter, so they could not have come through the door. There was no doubt who the young man in front was—Wulf had seen his face on a miniature. They bowed to each other.
At the back, beyond the big table, was Sybilla, beaming with glee.… And Madlenka, paler than usual but wearing an expression of unspeakable relief. Her eyes met Wulf’s and for a moment there was no one else in the world. The temptation to rush to her made him sway on his feet.
“Sir Wulfgang!” Louis of Rouen spoke as if he had said this before and not been heard. He both looked and sounded amused. “You may not have satisfied my uncle, but you have more than satisfied me.”
Hope sprang anew, like returning pain in a wound that had gone numb but might not be mortal after all. “You are gracious, my lord.”
“And you are dangerously ingenious!” He laughed. “My remorseless uncle there wanted to throw you to the Inquisition. I told him that I was more than happy to accept what you had made possible. Every night I dream of clasping your lovely little princess in my arms. I will ask only one favor.”
“If it lies within my power, it is granted.”
Louis smiled. Already he had registered as a very personable man. Therein lay his danger, of course. “Don’t be so hasty with promises! All I ask is that if your King Krystof does prove impossible—if revolution begins to bubble and you can no longer in good conscience support him—then I ask that you transfer your loyalty to his sister.”
If the new king had produced an heir by then, the child would take precedence, but Louis and Laima might very well be the best guardians available. The last few days had taught Wulf to take life as it came. “You have my word on it, my lord.”
“Give him his absolution, Uncle.”
D’Estouteville grunted, but he was holding back a smile. “Giulio?”
Father Giulio came forward with Brother Daniel at his heels. If those two large rolls under the priest’s arm were the betrothal contract, then they had sprouted several more seals since Wulf had last seen them. But first Giulio handed a smaller document to the cardinal.
“This is signed by the Holy Father,” d’Estouteville said. “And bears his seal. It absolves Wulfgang Magnus of all sins committed before this date. That would include any involvement in the death of Father Azuolas or any Satanic practices that might be charged against him.”
Wulf reached out a hand, but Brother Daniel’s was there first.
“I take this,” he said.
Wulf nodded. Madlenka stared across at him in horror, but that was the unspoken deal Wulf had made with Zdenek: the cardinal would hold the parchment that stood between Wulf and death, so that he must keep his side of the bargain.
Father Giulio seemed surprised, but did not question. He handed another paper to the cardinal. “The annulment, Your Eminence.”
“Ah, yes.” The old scoundrel had decided to enjoy himself. He was one of those people who are always on stage, playing roles. He unrolled the scroll and pretended to study it, although he was much too blind to read without a lens. “This is addressed to Bishop Ugne, disallowing the alleged handfasting he approved, on the grounds that a handfasting is only admissible when there is no priest present to perform the sacrament of matrimony and the woman has been properly advised of her rights. Of course the dates are a little unorthodox, since your petition has not yet had time to reach Archbishop Svaty, let alone be referred by him to Rome. And this reply cannot reach Jorgary for weeks yet.”
He glanced up and changed his tone to one of professional sympathy. “We have not yet commiserated with you on the death of your brother, Wulfgang, but we now do so, and will remember him in our prayers. You could not marry his widow, but this documen have t effectively removes that obstacle, if such is your wish.” He beamed at Madlenka. “Is it?”
“Oh yes, Your Eminence!” She curtseyed, not knowing that she could be no more than a blur in his sight.
“And the betrothal,” Father Giulio concluded, holding out the two major rolls.
“Give those to my nephew. When Sybilla returns him to Paris, he can file one copy and send the other off to Mauvnik, after a suitable delay. Daniel, you may assure my eminent brother Zdenek that the terms are acceptable and the contract will shortly be on its way back. You have our leave and our blessing.”
Brother Daniel departed.
Now Wulf could hold out a hand to Madlenka. “And we too, Your Eminence?” he asked as she hurried to his side.
D’Estouteville grunted and frowned. “And where do you think you are off to in such a hurry? Heading for a bed, I shouldn’t wonder!”
Louis and Sybilla both chuckled, sharing smiles.
“Definitely,” Madlenka said.
Ladies were never so outspoken. Everyone stared at her in shock and even Wulf was startled. With Anton not yet buried? “Definitely?”
“Definitely,” she repeated. Her smile lit up all Rome.
He was still getting to know this Amazon he loved. Their life ahead would surely have stormy patches when two strong wills collided, but rather a wildcat than a lapdog.
“Definitely,” he agreed.
“Mph!” said the cardinal. “We cannot condone such carnality outside holy matrimony. Father Giulio, will you do the necessary, please?”
The priest looked outraged at this roughshod shortcut through proper ritual, but he would not argue with His Eminence.
“Certainly. Wulfgang Magnus, as the Holy Father has specifically ruled that there is no impediment…”
CHAPTER 45
Wulf took his bride into the privacy of limbo and kissed her. There was no danger of either letting go. Between kisses they spoke of love and longing; they promised faith and happiness. They spoke also of sorrow and guilt.
“I truly mourn Anton,” Madlenka said. “Had there been time, I might have accepted my duty to love him. You would have gone away—I might have managed.”
Wulf doubted that he could ever have recovered from the loss, but that did not stop him from mourning his closest brother. “He gave you no cause to love him. And me very little, but I shall miss him terribly. Had I known he was hurt, I could and would have healed him.”
“He did give me up, remember? He wanted us both to be happy. He would not stand between us.”
When Otto forced him not to.�
�� But what she had said was true.
“There is no cure for death, and only time heals wounds. My father told us that when he was dying.”
She already knew that Anton was dead and the Pomeranian flag flew over Gallant. He listed what else had happened in the two days they had been apart: that he was now Sir Wulfgang, so she was no longer a countess, but he was the prince’s master of horse, so they would live in Mauvnik, and her name was officially Magdalena, and they would have to make up some story about who she was and how they met. And they had to sup at the palace that evening.
She kissed him again. “First things first,” she whispered. “Let’s find that bed. I can tell that you need it. So do I. And I want there to be no doubt that we are now husband and wife.”
An offer he could not refuse. He opened a gate. “Welcome to the Bacchus, in Mauvnik. The Horse Room.”
She stepped in and peered around in near-darkness. “Did you say ‘room’ or ‘stall’? Is that bed really big enough for what you have in mind?”
Oh, that smile! Was his face as flushed as hers?
“What I have in—”
“At last!” Justina appeared in a swirl of cold air.
Madlenka jumped in alarm and he tightened his embrace. He peered over her shoulder at the twilit landscape beyond the new gate. “Where is that?”
“Elysium. A former monastery and the Saints’ meeting place. Lady Umbral is in conference with the Agioi, and we have been waiting for you. Come!”
Reluctantly he unwound himself from Madlenka so they could obey, but they were still holding hands as they stepped through the gate into a tiny paved courtyard, barely more than a passage between two stone buildings. A river of wind rushed through it, billowing his cloak and the women’s dresses. Straight ahead was a perilously low parapet, and beyond that, nothing, only air and sky, all the way to far-distant hills, dark against the last glow of sunset. Overhead the stars were wakening.
“You must be careful what you say,” Justina said, pushing through the wind to a low doorway. “Weigh every word. And you keep that temper of yours firmly nailed dowwhat n, Wulfgang. You had better leave all the talking to your cadger.”
Madlenka squeaked in alarm.
Wulf squeezed her hand. “She just means you must not let me lose my temper.”
“Yours? What about mine? My temper’s much worse than yours.”
“No, it’s not! Mine is a hundred times worse.”
“Imagine what ferocious children we will have!”
“How many? Five brothers to teach one another fighting and five sisters to love?”
“Will you two alley cats stop that!” The old lady had managed to wrestle the door open. She ducked under the lintel, but both Wulf and Madlenka had to stoop as they followed, still defiantly holding hands. The wind slammed the door behind them and continued to moan through chinks in the shutters.
The room they had entered was roughly square, packed with a motley crowd of standing men and women. Four brass lanterns dangled on chains from smoke-stained ceiling beams and swung wildly in the draft, providing little light and making shadows dance over rough-plastered walls. Heads turned toward the newcomers, and bodies shuffled aside to open a narrow aisle, along which Justina scampered, with Sir Wulfgang and Lady Madlenka at her heels.
Wulf thought there must be forty or fifty people present, and about half of them sported halos. Assume, then, that this was a meeting of both falcons and their cadgers, prearranged so that the three’s-dangerous rule did not apply. The participants must have gathered from far and wide, for their dress styles varied hugely, and even the odors that wafted by on drafts were alien: fish, garlic, lavender, horse, cumin, and cinnamon. He squeezed past monks and nuns, men-at-arms, serving women and grand ladies, gentlemen and workers, priests both Catholic and Orthodox, Muslim men in turbans with womenfolk in burkas … old and young, fat and thin. He soon worked out that those on his right must be Agioi supporters, and the Saints’ contingent was to his left.
He confirmed that guess when Madlenka and he reached the front row and Justina directed them to go and stand next to the left-hand wall. She then disappeared back into the crowd. The room had once been a chapel, for the low dais that stretched across that end would have been the sanctuary and held an altar. Now this was a courtroom, so the judges sat there. To the left, on a high-backed chair just a few feet in front of him, was a lady in white, and he knew at once that she must be the mysterious Lady Umbral. She was slim and probably tall; her gown was finely styled and glittered. But what she herself looked like remained a secret even now, for the chair bore the sort of canopy called a cloth of estate, which shadowed her face. More than dim lighting was at work, though; some sort of sorcery was masking her features even more. If he met her again tomorrow he would not know her. The intent must be that no Speaker could Look through her eyes or open a gate to wherever she might be.
On the right side of the dais, the man cross-legged on a divan was a real surprise, for he was a Turk, and the Agioi were supposedly the Orthodox counterparts of the Catholic Saints. Of course, the Orthodox patriarch still dwelt in Constantinople, and the Ottoman sultan who ruled there now would undoubtedly keep a firm hand on the Speakers in his empire. Not just a Muslim, either, for he was wearing the garishly multicolored uniform of the sultan’s janissary warriors—high headdress with a neck cloth, baggy trousers, curved sword, dagger, and all. Personal slaves of the sultan, originally Christian boys taken in tribute and forcibly converted to Islam, janissaries were the most dreaded warriors in the known world. Even without his Speaker nimbus he would have looked dangerous: big, slit-eyed, tough as tempered steel, and very little older than Wulf himself. Unique among Muslim men, janissaries wore mustaches but no beards.
For a few moments only the moan of the wind disturbed the silence, while the shadows swirled and the two judges appraised the newcomers.
Wulf glanced sideways. The front row comprised a monk, two women, one Orthodox priest, and two men in turbans. The priest and the friar had halos. Beyond them, against the far wall, cowered none other than Alojz Zauber, Havel Vranov’s squire, in civilian dress. The hunched way he was standing and the wide-eyed look he gave Wulf suggested that he was terrified. At his feet lay Leonas Vranov, only half dressed and curled up like a cat, apparently fast asleep on the cold flagstones.
“I am Umbral,” said the woman in white, “prelate of the Saints. We recognize Madlenka Magnus and her falcon, Wulfgang Magnus. Lady Magnus, I appreciate that you have not yet applied for membership in the Saints, but we claim jurisdiction over you. You have the choice of accepting our authority or appealing to the Church instead, which is no choice, really. Sir Wulfgang, you have only recently accepted the woman who is now your wife as your cadger, so you may have to answer alone for any misdeeds of which you are convicted this evening.”
Had Wulf jumped out of the Inquisition’s fire and into the Saints’ frying pan?
“We reserve comment!” Madlenka snapped, her tone more abrasive than Wulf expected or would have dared use.
Lady Umbral did not reply. “Opposite me is Mudar Sokullu Pasha, right hand of the Agioi. We are assembled here this evening to discuss certain trespasses by the Agioi within Saints’ territory.”
“Alleged trespasses,” the Turk growled in a harsh accent. “And trespasses by your falcons in our territory.”
“Alleged trespasses both,” Umbral agreed. “Are you ready to begin, Pasha? I believe yours is the earliest complaint.”
“May the Omniscient, the Bringer of Justice, guide our deliberations. I accuse Magnus and his cadger of being accessories to the murder of the priest Vilhelmas, Speaker of the Agioi, may he find peace.”
Before Wulf could decide whether he was expected to reply, y he findMadlenka made a vague gesture that was not quite like a schoolchild raising a hand to attract the teacher’s attention, but had the same result.
“If by ‘earliest,’” she said, “you mean that it happened first, then I object. The
beginning was the murder of my father and brother. They were smitten at the same minute, miles apart. Obviously that could only be—”
“We shall discuss details later,” Lady Umbral said, “but I accept your correction. Pasha, the earliest transgressions on the paper will be the cursing of Count Bukovany and Sir Petr Bukovany, which we attribute to your Vilhelmas.”
“I was not warned that such an allegation was to be included. I believe it is irrelevant, and neither the man you name nor his client can be here to testify. Alojz Zauber?”
Alojz’s teeth actually chattered before he did. He brought them under control. “P-P-Pasha?”
“Speaking only as a witness, maggot, can you shed some light on those deaths?”
“Pasha, my handler denied doing those things. He told me that this boy at my feet, Leonas Vranov, cursed the two victims to please his father the count.”
“I assume there is no use questioning the boy himself?” Umbral asked.
The sleeping or unconscious Leonas had not twitched at the sound of his name.
“None,” the janissary said. “Let us agree on his guilt, and may the All-Forgiving have mercy on him. The wretch’s talons will have to be clipped. Obviously both the curser and his victims were Jorgarian and there was no trespass.”
Wulf could only guess what clipping talons meant, but it gave him cold shivers anyway.
Lady Umbral said, “If we accept the brancher’s word.”
“So we can move on to the matter of Vilhelmas’s murder.”
“Not yet. Prior to his death, Vilhelmas transported himself and others out of a crowded hall in Castle Gallant. In as much as he was an Agios, he offended by using talent within Saints’ territory, and what he did was a flagrant violation of the first commandment.”
The janissary yawned, showing a maw full of yellow teeth. “Maybe so. Vilhelmas has gone to the Affirmer of Truth, and is beyond human judgment. So has the man who shot him, the cleric Magnus. But Marek’s accessory is here present. He was equally guilty, and that public assassination was certainly both trespass and a violation of the first commandment.”
