Dave Duncan - Speak to the Devil

They were all looking at her as if she still was. Had she made a fool of herself in front of half the town?

Worse-had she fallen into a carefully prepared trap? Why was Vranov smiling?

“Yes, it would,” the Hound said.

“I suppose it would,” Sir Jurbarkas conceded, accepting this fig leaf of authority. “I may still get hanged for grand larceny, but I could do that.”

“Then stand back, all of you,” Bishop Ugne said. He wheeled around and strode back to the altar, to replace the reliquary. Then he returned to his vantage point on the steps. The nave was full and the transepts were filling up also.

He addressed the congregation. “As you heard, we fear an attack by soldiers from Pomerania, but Count Vranov of Pelrelm is going to provide men and guns to help us. I have one brief announcement to make and then we will offer our prayers to the Lord for his aid and comfort.”

“That was the fastest courtship I ever heard of,” Marijus whispered, grinning at Madlenka.

She wished she had lowered her veil, but it might burst into flames if she did, her face was burning so. “A diplomatic marriage,” she whispered. Reaction was setting in and she was trembling. She must have gone crazy. Shouting down a bishop in his own cathedral? Whatever would Mother say when she heard?

Bishop Ugne came down to stand directly in front of her and Marijus, so that he could keep the announcement private.

“Marijus Vranov, widower,” Marijus said. “Parish of St. Juozapas, Woda.”

The bishop nodded and glanced at the seneschal to make certain that he was listening. Lowering his voice, clearly anxious not to provoke any objections from the hundreds of witnesses, he said very quickly and quietly, “I publish the banns of marriage between Marijus Vranov, widower, of the parish of St. Juozapas in Woda in the county of Pelrelm, and Madlenka Bukovany, spinster, of this parish. If any of you know cause or just impediment why these persons should not be joined together in Holy Matrimony, you are to declare it. This is for the first time of asking.” Finishing his quiet declaration, Bishop Ugne looked up to address the congregation, raising his hands and his voice. “Let us-”

“I so declare!” roared a voice, rousing the echoes.

Heads whipped around to find the speaker.

Wulf uttered a last, gurgling scream and went limp, toppling both brothers out of limbo. Anton landed on a patch of dirty wet sand, with Wulf slamming down on top of him. Had he not been wearing armor, the impact might have broken his back, and it did knock all the breath out of him, but he still managed to rip off a barrage of oaths as he struggled free. They had landed on a roughly made trail, most of which was heavily rutted and surfaced with sharp rocks. A small freshet from a recent rainstorm had spread out a patch of silt and fine debris, and it was the only flat place in sight. Either Wulf or his saints had chosen the target carefully.

“Wulf? Wulf! ”

No response. Anton rolled him over and stared in horror. The kid’s face was all swollen and discolored as if he’d been worked over by a whole team of prizefighters. How could that happen inside his armor? His lips were swollen and bleeding, and he had probably bitten his tongue, for he began to choke on the blood. Anton hastily rolled him facedown again and felt for the pulse at his wrist. He found it eventually, but it was faint and much too fast. The boy needed help, and soon.

Anton was not in the best of shape himself, but he struggled to his feet and looked around. The track was bounded on one side by a near-vertical bank of moss and boulders, tufted with a few grimly clinging shrubs, and on the other by a steep drop; he could hear a river grumbling down there. The valley was about a mile wide but it widened southward into a forested plain. The far wall was a mixture of rocky and thick forest, too steep to be any use, and dusted with recent snow higher up. The near side seemed no more cooperative. The trail on which he stood had been hacked out of the cliff by hand and was barely wide enough for a single wagon.

A sizable company of men had walked over the mud not very long ago, going downhill. A mile or so away, he thought he could make out a settlement, not a village, but a military camp for three or four hundred people, perhaps. Uphill…

Uphill his view was blocked by a slight bend in the road. He clumped over to the far edge and found himself looking up at a magnificent fortress, the original for the engraving the cardinal had given him, and not a hundred yards away. Done it! He had managed to arrive at Castle Gallant, his castle for as long as he might live. He ran back to make a quick check on Wulf, and then set off to fetch help.

The high curtain wall of reddish stone stood on top of a matching cliff, curving away out of sight. He could see how Castle Gallant had come by its reputation of impregnability. Certainly it could not be undermined, and no ladder ever built could reach from the valley floor to the top of the walls. Old-style siege engines-trebuchets and mangonels-were too inefficient to do much good unless a large number of them could be brought to bear, and here there was simply no room to site them.

Yet, however secure that formidable barbican must have been in its day, now it would be vulnerable to modern gunnery. The bend in the road would be a godsend for attackers, who could work outward from its shelter, building a redoubt of stonework to block the defenders’ archery and shelter the gunners as they dug in their bombards. They would have a clear shot at the gates. Fortunately, this wasn’t Spain or Italy. Large-scale artillery hadn’t arrived in Jorgary yet.

This was certainly the Jorgary side of the fortress, and the Wends would be coming from the north. It was Anton Magnus’s job to keep the Wends out.

The gate was closed, which was an unwelcome surprise. That implied a state of war, and perhaps even that the castle had already been seized by the Wends-why else close the gate on the Jorgarian side? It also meant that the garrison would be keeping a lookout, so he would have been seen already. He unlaced his satchel to find his baldric and baton. More than hard exercise was making his heart pound now. The castle was farther away than he had thought, uphill was uphill, and armor was damned heavy.

Last night he had imagined himself riding in on Morningstar’s back, a gallant, handsome young nobleman sent by the king to take charge. In reality he was arriving as a sweating, breathless vagrant, muddy, bedraggled, and without as much as a sword. Wulf had slobbered blood down the left side of his surcoat. Still, Anton’s appearances would matter very little if the porters were Duke Wartislaw’s men and not King Konrad’s.

The gate was a portcullis that could probably be closed in an instant, tons of ironbound timber falling free. Gasping for breath, Anton arrived at a grilled window off to one side and stared at a stubbled face framed by a mail coif. A closed gate and men-at-arms instead of porters definitely indicated a state of war.

“Declare yourself!” The words were garbled by a guttural Northern accent.

“I…” Anton paused to think. Had Count Bukovany died? If he hadn’t, Anton must not announce himself as the new lord of the marches. He would have to be Marshal Magnus, come to direct the defense of the fortress, and his other documents would have to remain out of sight. If Bukovany was dead, then why was the new count arriving alone and on foot instead of with a train of at least a hundred knights?

“Open in the… name of the… king!”

He held up one of his scrolls to let the sergeant see the royal bear and the king’s seal.

It worked. The man’s eyes widened in astonishment. They took in the seal, his youth, the baton he held in his other hand, the golden baldric. He saluted.