When the Saints

by Dave Duncan

  Madlenka squeezed Wulf’s hand encouragingly, but did not look at him.

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  “We can include it on the paper without accepting your interpretation of it.”

  “More important than that,” Mudar Sokullu Pasha said, as if everything so far had been trivial and they were at last getting to the meat of the matter, “the next day that same Wulfgang Magnus destroyed half the Pomeranian army, about sixteen thousand men. This may be the worst sorcerous bloodshed since the days of Tamerlane. That, too, was both trespass and violation of the first commandment!”

  Wulf had been thinking of the Inquisition as his greatest danger. He might have been misled by his ignorance.

  Umbral said, “We do not yet concede either of those acts to be crimes. Two nights ago, a member of your order, namely Alojz Zauber, transported Havel Vranov and some men inside the defenses of Castle Gallant so that they could overpower the garrison and open the gates. Count Magnus was among the dead. That is a much worse violation of the commandment, for it has no workaday explanation, and it is blatant trespass.”

  Baring his teeth in a menacing smile, the janissary glanced around the room. “‘No workaday explanation’? Have you never heard of simple treachery, woman? Can you produce witnesses who saw who opened the gates? What pig filth! Does that complete the charge sheet? Have you more to add?”

  Impossible jumps at Chestnut Hill did not count, Wulf concluded, nor instantaneous trips between Jorgary and Rome. All that mattered in this court were secrecy and territorial boundaries, with killing other Speakers a distant third. And yet the Saints and Agioi gathered here might be the true rulers of Europe, for who could gainsay their decisions?

  To his astonishment, Madlenka released his hand and took a step forward. “My lady … and Pasha.… All his life, Havel Vranov has been the Wends’ bitterest enemy. This year he has been supporting them, a traitor to his king. I charge the Agioi with … I believe the word is ‘tweaking’?… tampering with his mind.”

  Nothing of Lady Umbral’s expression could be read, but her tone of voice registered surprise. “A very cogent suggestion! We add it to our complaints. But it must have been the first trespass, and traditionally we now judge the charges in reverse order—the reason being that recent events are more easily examined. Also, once an offender is sentenced to death, his earlier misdeeds no longer matter. Two nights ago, Pasha, an Agioi Speaker, caused a Jorgarian fortress to fall to a traitor, Havel Vranov. That is trespass!”

  Astonishingly, the ferocious-seeming janissary laughed. “You think so? Brancher Alojz Zauber, go stand there!”

  He pointed to the center of the dais. The squire nervously stepped over the sleeping Leonas and went where he was bid, stooping as if afraid of losing control of his bladder. He seemed unsure of which direction he was supposed to face. “P-P-Pasha?”

  “Normally, grunge, since ydder. He ou are not yet fledged, your handler would have to answer for your actions. But since he was murdered, you have taken to using power on your own authority, so you must suffer the consequences.” He showed his yellow teeth again. “If any. Understand?”

  “Oh yes, Pasha.”

  “Where were you born, you louse-infested, unclean, eater of pigs?”

  As if seized by a sudden revelation, Alojz swung around to face Lady Umbral, and began to gabble. “In Jorgary, my lady, in Pelrelm. I was a shepherd like my father, and baptized a Catholic, but four years ago, about the time I was due to have my first communion, Father Vilhelmas came to see me. I’d never heard of him, but he explained that my mother was an illegitimate child of the count’s late brother, so we were both related to the count. He showed me what a Speaker could do and promised me that Speakers never want for anything: riches, comfort, respect. Herders don’t live long, you know. Rustlers don’t want witnesses, so they cut our throats; even if they just hamstring us to delay pursuit, we may freeze to death or die of wound fever. But Father Vilhelmas promised me long life and health, warm beds, no hunger. He said I would have to confess before my first communion, and if I told a Catholic priest about the Voices he would call me a Satanist. The Catholics would burn me at the stake or lock me up in a—”

  Mudar Sokullu broke into the tirade. “Cease, in the name of the Eternal! The infidel priest bribed you and probably tweaked you. You were born in Jorgary, so you’re a Jorgarian. And you are still unfledged. So no trespass!” he told Umbral.

  “But who told him to help Vranov take the castle?”

  “His own idea entirely. Four days ago he brought the priest’s body to us at Alba Iulia, as he should. He was told to return to Cardice and wait until we assigned him a new handler.” The janissary made a gesture of dismissal, as if throwing away a walnut kernel. “The boy is weak-minded. Whatever he did was his own idea and the voivode did not order it. The wretch is solely to blame. You may have him! Hang him, burn him, stone him, whatever you want.”

  “You told me to make myself useful!” Alojz shouted, then cowered even lower, clearly terrified of what he might have provoked.

  “And how else did you make yourself useful?” Lady Umbral inquired gently. “By ancient custom, we keep no secrets at these conferences.”

  Staring at the floor, the squire muttered, “I tweaked the bishops at the parley to help cover up Father Vilhelmas’s blunder at the banquet. That’s a permitted exception to the second commandment! I helped the count’s attack on the castle because he told … er, asked … me to. I was trying to help my handler’s client!” He blinked like a child about to weep and blurted: “I’m only three months short of being fledged. I hoped if I did a good job they would jess me and let me take over the contract!”

  Umbral’s face remained unreadable, but her chuckle was eloquent. “We are aware that the Agioi, unlike the Saints, let their falcons fly without the restraint of cadgers, answering only to the voivode. So Father Vilhelmas, a member of the Agioi, had a contract with Havel Vranov, a count in the peerage of Jorgary? This is not trespass?”

  Mudar Sokullu gave Lady Umbral a glare so toxic that it should have melted her into a puddle of terror, although it might have been directed at Alojz. “There was no contract between Vranov and Father Vilhelmas.”

  “So on whose behalf was Vilhelmas acting?”

  There was a long pause before the janissary answered. “Duke Wartislaw’s.”

  Until then the spectators had been eerily quiet, but at that news Wulf detected a sort of wordless murmur, a shuffle of feet. The wind moaned and the lamps continued their crazy dance.

  “Wartislaw,” the janissary continued, “flew three falcons of his own. We were not aware until a few days ago that he had also hired Vilhelmas and was using him to meddle in Jorgarian affairs. Vilhelmas should have informed us and obtained our permission. But this sniveling trash is a Jorgarian, and no concern of ours. Take him and clip his talons, or kill him and let us proceed to discussing the massacre of the Pomeranian army.”

  “I am not sure I want him,” Lady Umbral said tartly. “As he indirectly caused the death of Lady Magnus’s husband, Sir Wulfgang’s brother, we shall let them pronounce sentence in due course. Stand over there, brancher.”

  She pointed at Wulfgang. Alojz lurched down the step and hurried to his side, giving him a nervous smile, which Wulf did not return. Madlenka sought out Wulf’s hand again.

  “When,” Umbral demanded, “did the Agioi learn of Vilhelmas’s trespass, and why did they not act to stop it sooner?”

  “Vilhelmas has gone to the Source of Peace. The matter is of no importance.”

  “It is of importance to me.”

  And to Wulf. Now he knew how Vilhelmas had turned up at the head of the Wend invaders. Almost certainly he had been watching Anton, the unexpected new count who had arrived to take charge of the defenses. They had not yet met in the flesh, but Vilhelmas would certainly have been Looking in on Vranov’s visit to the town that Sunday and seen Anton announce himself in the cathedral. By then Wartislaw must have infiltrated an advance f
orce into Long Valley, and when Anton rode off to inspect the frontier post on Tuesday, Vilhelmas had gone to take charge. He had gone to commit murder! When Anton had been wounded, he had mockingly sent him home to bleed out or die of wound fever. Very likely he had cursed him to make sure. Any lingering guilt Wulf felt over the priest’s death now evaporated.

  The janissary scratched his right armpit vigorously. “As Allah is my judge and witness, the Agioi discovered the situation only a handful of days ago, but we decided it was a personal vendetta and the politics were incidental. Vranov was so convinced that Wartislaw could take Castle Gallant with his bombard that he turned his coat. Half a year ago he wrote to Wartislaw and offered to deliver Castle Gallant to him without a shot being fired, helped by his cousin Vilhelmas, a Speaker. Wartislaw meant to take Gallant by force, but to have Havel Vranov give it to him would have been much cheaper and an exquisite pleasure. Making Havel Vranov pay—pay long and hard—for all his crimes was an old ambition of his, so much so that he had ordered Vilhelmas to contrive the Hound’s utter destruction. He was to be branded a traitor and a Satanist, so that both king and Church would turn against him, and his nights would be filled with terror.”

  “But of course Vilhelmas had tweaked Vranov to turn his coat in the first place, as Lady Magnus suggested?” Umbral’s voice oozed scorn.

  Madlenka squeezed Wulf’s hand.

  “Oh, Vilhelmas may have nudged him a little,” the janissary growled in his harsh croak, “but you are well aware that tweaking cannot move a man far along a path he does not wish to tread. Havel succumbed because he is a coward and afeared of his sins.”

  “Then why are you so hard on the brancher? He has completed his handler’s work magnificently. Vranov has made war on his own king, is now seen to be in league with the devil, and is trapped in a stolen castle with his would-be ally buried under a mountain of snow. You should be heaping praise on the boy.”

  Alojz straightened up, leering. He glanced at Wulf as if expecting approval, and promptly shriveled again.

  The pasha spat on the floor. “If you think he is so good, you jess him. Let us discuss Magnus’s cold-blooded destruction of the Pomeranians.”

  “By Our Lady, I am surprised to hear a member of the sultan’s army worry about bloodshed,” Lady Umbral said. “That was a brilliant application of talent, with a tiny effort producing great results. Clearly the powder wagons were ignited by lightning and the explosion brought down an avalanche. It has been accepted all over Christendom as an act of God.”

  “But not all over Islam. Not in Pomerania. And not by the Agioi. It was trespass!”

  “It was not!” The shout came from Madlenka. “Those lands belonged to my father … er, my … to the count of Cardice! It was the Pomeranians trespassing, not Wulf!”

  “Lady Magnus is correct, Pasha,” Umbral said. “Occupation is not ownership. There had been no surrender or peace treaty. Is there anything more to discuss?”

  “Certainly!” The janissary pointed a hairy finger at Wulfont

  . “He murdered Vilhelmas!”

  “Sir Wulfgang,” said Umbral, “advance to the center.”

  Wulf strolled to the middle of the room and stepped up onto the dais, where he bowed to Umbral, then turned to bow to the pasha. Madlenka noted admiringly how handsome and brave he seemed, completely calm, and very unlike the cringing Alojz who had stood there a few minutes ago.

  “Your brother pulled the trigger to kill the priest,” the Turk said. “That was cold-blooded murder!”

  Wulf shook his head. “With respect, Pasha, it was justice. Two days previously, that same priest had led an attack on that same building and slaughtered the garrison, offering no preliminary challenge or quarter. The post belonged to my king and my brother the count, who gave us permission to perform the execution. As lord of the march and lord of high justice, he had the legal authority to so.”

  “You were seen by workadays! That was a violation of the first commandment.”

  “Marek was seen, true. But less than an hour earlier, Vilhelmas had created a major display of talent in the hall of the keep at Gallant. He tore up the rules first!”

  Madlenka heard a few quiet murmurs of amusement and approval behind her.

  But Wulf had not finished. “I am grateful to you for revealing his motivation, Pasha, because we have all been puzzled by it. Now that we know that Vilhelmas was working for Wartislaw and not Vranov, it makes complete sense. Vranov lost his temper, which I daresay is not an unusual occurrence, and uttered curses, so then Vilhelmas made him vanish—in a puff of sulfurous smoke, I expect. He was instantly branded an agent of Satan, until Brancher Alojz tweaked the bishops the next day and undid all that good evil, er, I mean good work.” He bowed again.

  The Turk showed his teeth in a snarl. “Then let us discuss the bloodbath in the Ruzena gorge and the death of Duke Wartislaw. You blew up their powder wagons and slaughtered thousands of innocent men!”

  “Do you have eyewitnesses that saw me do this terrible thing?”

  “I have witnesses who heard you claiming to have done it!”

  “But I am such a liar!” Wulf said sadly.

  This time there was open laughter at the way this newly fledged falcon was defying the dreaded hand of the Agioi. The Turk flushed with rage.

  “You may withdraw, Sir Wulfgang,” Lady Umbral said sharply. “Unless Sokullu Pasha has more questions. Pasha, we have discussed the charges. Shall we ask the jury to find a verdict?”

  “May the Giver of Wisdomry to guide their deliberations.”

  The six people in the front row joined hands. Led by the monk, they stepped away in a daisy chain and, one by one, vanished into the air. The room erupted in a babble of many tongues.

  CHAPTER 46

  After the jury left, Lady Umbral beckoned Madlenka. Taking a firmer grip on her husband’s strong hand, Madlenka led him forward. She had not expected to find herself treated as the senior partner, but he seemed to accept that strange situation quite happily. He flashed a smile at her and they halted together at the edge of the dais. Madlenka curtseyed; he bowed. Even at close quarters, Umbral’s face remained bizarrely indistinct and unfocused.

  “I congratulate you both on your so-recent marriage,” she said. “And you on your choice of husband, my lady. I know of no falcon ever achieving so much so soon. If you wish to join the Saints, we shall be most glad to welcome you both.”

  Madlenka glanced at Wulf; he nodded.

  She said, “We are honored, my lady. We have much to learn.”

  “We shall see that you are instructed. Meanwhile, I am confident that the judges will support our case. Despite that ferocious leer the pasha is wearing, he knows that he is about to lose.”

  They all looked at Mudar Sokullu, who bared his teeth at Madlenka. “But if I win, woman, I will take you home as a gift for my imperial master.”

  He was joking, wasn’t he?

  “Over my dead body,” Wulf said cheerfully.

  “That is understood.”

  “We are agreed, though,” Umbral said, “that the boy Leonas caused the deaths of your father and brother, and Sir Wulfgang’s brother. Although he cannot understand how he has sinned, he is more dangerous than a mad dog and must be clipped. It is a brutal process, which will leave him with even fewer wits than he has now. Do either of you disagree?”

  “No,” Madlenka said sadly. “But then what will happen to him?”

  “He is a pretty thing,” the janissary said. “I will take him and sell him in the market in Constantinople.”

  Madlenka looked at Wulf and saw her own horror reflected in his face. “Is there no alternative?” she asked.

  “I know a monastery that would take him in,” Umbral said, “but he would almost certainly run away, and then he would likely starve. Slaves are fed.”

  would almoWulf said, “A dead Magnus should be revenged, but I cannot kill a half-wit boy, and the real criminal is his father. So I do not object.”

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nbsp; “We will accept your judgment, my lady,” Madlenka said.

  “Very well. Take him, Pasha.” Lady Umbral raised her voice slightly. “But give whatever you get for him to the poor! Now, what of that Alojz Zauber? He is not short of wits, but his ethics came out of the cesspool. He caused the death of Count Magnus, your former husband. Pronounce sentence, Madlenka.”

  Madlenka started to protest that Wulf had lost a brother and should get that dubious honor, but he frowned and nodded at her to speak. “Obviously the squire has talent,” she said. “Could he be taught to behave himself, while securely bound to a better handler for, say, another year?”

  “Probation?” Umbral murmured. “I believe there have been precedents.”

  Wulf said, “I am sure Justina will be very bored without her present brancher to keep her company.”

  A couple of eavesdroppers chuckled, but Madlenka did not think either of them was Justina.

  Lady Umbral shrugged. “Will you accept probation, brancher, or would you prefer the traitor’s death?”

  Alojz fell on his knees and was still spewing out his thanks when a gate opened and the judges filed back into the room. The tallest of them, one of the bearded, turbaned Turks, announced their verdict: “We find for the Saints on all counts. Wartislaw was employing a hireling within Catholic territory and the Agioi should have stopped him. The use of talent to invade Castle Gallant was a second trespass, and the brancher obviously regarded himself as subject to the voivode’s orders at that time. The Saints may claim compensation. The execution of Father Vilhelmas and destruction of Wartislaw’s army were both extreme actions, but justified by the laws of war. No compensation is required.”

  Nobody cheered or applauded.

  The pasha sighed. “The Utterly Just has spoken, but he will remember his children another day.”

  “Lady Madlenka, Sir Wulfgang,” Lady Umbral said, “you may speak for the loss of Castle Gallant and the fate of Havel Vranov and his accomplices. You cannot ask for the return of the dead, but you may suggest any other penalty or compensation.”