Dave Duncan - Speak to the Devil

Bishop Ugne had almost reached the dismissal. Soon Madlenka would have to leave this precious sanctuary and face the world, the flesh, and the devil, with the flesh very likely being in the shape of one of Devil Vranov’s odious sons. She had met three of them, and each had been worse than the last. What pressure would the Hound apply to force her consent? To be legal, her marriage must be approved by the king, but legality had never bothered Vranov before. Why start now?

Bishop Ugne announced an unexpected prayer. She lowered her face…

“My lady!”

She jumped at the whisper coming from the end of the pew. Three men stood there, but they were not yet Vranov’s men come to get her. The speaker was Giedre’s father, Ramunas Jurbarkas.

“My lady, please come with us now!”

She rose with Giedre at her back, and followed the seneschal out of the cathedral by the side door. His companions brought up the rear, moving quietly. Perhaps no one in the cathedral saw them leave-except the bishop, of course, who must have arranged the diversion and therefore must approve of whatever was happening.

Jurbarkas was a small man, stooped and prematurely gray, but soft-spoken and universally popular, rarely without a smile for everyone. He had married twice, and was old to have a daughter of Madlenka’s age. But he had never disparaged Madlenka as a child and was unfailingly gracious to her now.

Just as Constable Kavarskas had been Father’s military officer, so Seneschal Jurbarkas ran the finances of the county. But he did much more than that, distributing the count’s alms, supervising the castle staff, arranging for road repairs, and many other things. If some tenant’s son in an outlying holding had reached an age to need a job, then the keep would suddenly want another kitchen brat or stableboy. Few people in the county had not sought his help at some time or other, and every petition had been swiftly handled or brought to the count. He was honest and loyal. Madlenka could trust him.

But he was no longer the man he had been. Father had said so many times, and had been looking for a man to take over at least some of Jurbarkas’s duties, but had failed to find one he considered honest enough before he himself had died. That blow had shaken the old seneschal more than almost anyone. He had found himself thrust into responsibilities he had never had to handle before, and he was looking older by the day.

In the cool winter sunshine, his companions were revealed as two hulking nephews. Madlenka had known them all her life and knew them to be sergeants in Kavarskas’s garrison, although they were currently wearing civilian clothing and armed only with staves. What was the town coming to if the seneschal felt he needed protection in the streets?

He started walking in the direction of the palace and she went to his side-his right side, because that was his better ear. Giedre brought up the rear, and her two cousins moved out in front as vanguard.

The narrow alleyways were almost deserted that Sunday morning and the few townsfolk they met all bowed or curtseyed as Madlenka went by. She barely noticed, eager to make the most of what must be a very brief word with Ramunas Jurbarkas.

“You know that Count Vranov is here, my lady?”

“Yes. And I think I know why.”

“You are ahead of me, then. I have left him and his entourage in the hall and provided a light repast. Your mother refuses to attend.”

“Seneschal, can I buy him off?”

The little man looked startled. “Buy him off? I very much doubt it. Havel Vranov must be one of the largest landowners in the kingdom.”

“But he wants to marry me to one of his sons to get hold of my inheritance, doesn’t he?”

“Maybe. But I doubt you have enough money to bribe him, and paying tribute to bullies just encourages them to come back for more.”

“But we might buy some time! I need time for the king to respond! Father told me we were rich.”

The little man tut-tutted. “ He was rich, yes. Had your brother succeeded, then he would have been rich also. But I don’t know that you are. The tapestries in your bedroom are family heirlooms and now yours. But Castle Gallant and its town belong to the king. Everything else is debatable. The tolls your father imposed on travelers were a royal tax, strictly speaking, so who owns the gold in the money chest? What’s yours and what’s the king’s will have to be determined.”

She felt a stab of despair: was nothing to be left to her? “Determined by the king, I suppose?”

They climbed a steep stairway between two houses, only just wide enough for two abreast. The distance from St. Andrej’s to the keep was not far for a crow to fly, but she was no crow.

“His Majesty has officials called escheators to work the abacuses, but if he reveals in advance what sort of answer he wants, then that will be the answer he gets. As an orphaned daughter of one of the king’s tenants-in-chief you are in the king’s gift. He can marry you off to any man he wants. Of course you can refuse, but the results might be very unpleasant. You get a gold ring and your husband gets your dowry, carefully calculated, not a mite more.”

“Is that unfair, or am I just biased?”

Jurbarkas sighed. “I quite understand your dislike of it, but it is the law. You have never wanted me to lie to you, my dear. The easiest and most practical solution, from everyone’s point of view but yours, is to marry you off to a trusted and experienced soldier, who can be appointed lord of the marches in your father’s place. That way he gets everything except the king’s heriot and your mother’s dowry, so it won’t matter who owns what, and the Silver Road will be securely guarded again.”

“Some fat, battle-scarred, foulmouthed forty-year-old with the manners of a rutting boar?”

The seneschal did not venture an opinion on that. “An experienced soldier is usually old enough to have been married at least once. You can refuse the king’s choice, of course, but his second choice might be worse, and the terms harsher. The third suggestion will be a one-way visit to a nunnery.”

“No choice could be much worse than any of Vranov’s spawn.”

“Perhaps not,” the old man agreed sadly. They began to climb the wooden ramp to the door of the keep, which stood on the highest point in the town. “The townsfolk do not want Vranov as the next count of Cardice, but that is for His Majesty to decide.”

“Can they do anything about it?” she asked, thinking of all those landsknechte, and wondering which side they would choose. At worst, Castle Gallant might be sacked by its own defenders.

“The townsfolk? No.”

“How about the garrison?” she asked, eyeing the two broad backs ahead of her. The seneschal must trust his own nephews or he wouldn’t have brought them to the cathedral. Dare she plot a counterrevolution to drive out the traitor?

“Well, they’re hard to judge…”

“Tell me the numbers!”

Jurbarkas laughed gently. “Your father always said you would make a good warrior! The numbers that matter most are the landsknechte. Captain Ekkehardt’s contract calls for three hundred lances, which means six hundred fighting men plus four or five hundred boys and other supporters. The constable has about five hundred, mostly archers, but that’s only if you include the militia, some of whom may be away on their farms. And there must be a thousand or more able-bodied youths and young men in the town who can handle a pike, or a wood ax, or a scythe in a pinch.”

At the base of the stairwell the nephews stepped aside, their duty done. Madlenka gave them a smile of thanks before she remembered she was wearing her mourning veil. The seneschal was too engrossed to notice them.