Dave Duncan - Speak to the Devil

Close by, Notivova and Big Herkus were tending Llywelyn.

“If you live,” remarked the priest, watching from horseback, “then you will have some loss of strength in that arm. But a wound like that is very likely to lead to lockjaw or gangrene or just severe wound fever. You had better speak with your confessor as soon as you get back to Gallant, my lord.”

“You are sending me back?”

The priest laughed. His age was hard to assess under that beard-mid-thirties, perhaps. “We don’t have a jail handy, and you do more good for our cause botching up the defense of Castle Gallant than you would rotting in a cell in Pomerania. Who would bother to ransom you, Anton? We shall empty the Bukovany coffers soon enough without selling carrion to the castle.”

“Who are you and why is a priest leading a band of raider scum- Yeaew!”

“Beg pardon, my lord,” said the surgeon cheerfully. “Did I pull on that too hard?”

The priest was still smiling. “I am merely a humble servant of the Lord, Anton, doing good works in His name. Do not mock, my son. I just saved your life. My unkind companions wanted to leave you there, bleeding to death.”

The surgeon tied the last knot and trimmed the ends of the blood-soaked string with a dagger. Another man wrapped the arm with a strip of Anton’s shirt.

“His own men can dress him,” the priest said. “Let us be on our way home to report a successful day’s work. Tomorrow morning, Anton, you must send a party under flag of truce to collect your dead. After that, any Jorgarian found near here will be put to death. Go with God, my son. I suggest you leave warfare to grown men in future.”

He made the sign of the cross, but he did it from right to left, backward.

The rain had stopped. The afternoon was sunny and not far off being warm. Wulf insisted that he was well enough to get dressed and go outside. Madlenka insisted that he was not.

“I’m as good as I ever get,” he retorted. “Or do you mean I should go outside before I get dressed?”

It was very childish humor, but one of the surest ways to recognize lovers was how easily they laughed at each other’s jokes. What he felt for Madlenka Bukovany went far beyond mere attraction. It was more than lust or admiration or friendship. It was the best thing that had ever happened to him. It was an all-consuming, once-in-a-lifetime passion. Nothing else in the world mattered. He would do anything to win her or please her, and he was certain that she felt the same about him. Neither had mentioned it. They did not need to, and must not. It was a forbidden, impossible match, and perhaps that was the very reason the madness had come upon them so quickly. Giedre knew all this as well as they did, and scowled disapprovingly in the background.

So, wearing clothes that had belonged to Petr Bukovany and trying not to show how every movement hurt somewhere, Wulf emerged on the curtain wall battlements, escorted by the future countess and her lady-in-waiting. The air was cool and sweet, the sun warm, the snowy mountains both menacing and beautiful. A steady trickle of families was heading down the road to High Meadows, but Anton would not be displeased to see those extra mouths depart, even if he lost some strong men in the process. His edict putting the town on a war footing had roused the warlike and scared the peaceable.

Down in the bailey a hundred more-or-less able-bodied men were being outfitted from a heap of all the arms and armor that a thorough ransacking of the attics of Cardice had turned up. Wulf ought to be down there, helping. Tomorrow, perhaps.

“This is a very beautiful place,” he said, studying the scenery as he strolled along the battlements with his love at his side. The urge to offer his arm or take her hand was a torment, but they were visible to half the town, and Giedre was walking close behind, so it must be resisted.

Madlenka said, “Ha! It’s cold and bleak. All my life I have dreamt of living in a gentler land, in a big city with gaiety, with music and dancing.”

He looked at her quizzically. She was as tall as he was and in other shoes might even be taller. That would not have bothered him, had things been different. And it certainly did not matter now, since the king had decreed that she marry Anton. “Vienna? Florence? Rome?”

“Mauvnik, probably.”

“Mauvnik doesn’t compare with those.”

“You’ve seen them?”

Anton would say of course he had, and describe them, quoting stories he’d heard.

“I’ve seen Mauvnik. It’s much bigger than Gallant, I admit.”

“Father always talked of marrying me into some noble family with influence at court. He almost never went to court himself, because his duty was here. A voice near the king’s ear was important, he said.”

“Near the crown prince’s ear might matter more now.” Or Cardinal Zdenek’s, although nobody knew how long the Scarlet Spider would remain as first minister when the crown changed heads.

“But now the king has sent a personal friend to marry me, instead,” Madlenka said wistfully. “So I must forget my dream duke in Mauvnik. I must live and die here in Cardice. Still, I should not complain. Your brother is young and handsome. I could have done very much worse.”

Or very much better, Wulf thought sadly. And never as well as she deserved. No man was that good.

“And Giedre,” she continued, “has refused a hundred suitors here because she planned to come with me when I went away to marry my dream duke. She was to be mistress of the robes.”

The wind was at their backs now, blowing up the valley, and Giedre would not be able to overhear.

“She’s very pretty,” Wulf said. “But I would never call her beautiful. I have only ever met one girl I would call truly, breathtakingly beautiful, like a dream of angels.”

Madlenka ignored that. “The rest of our plan was that Giedre would marry the duke’s younger brother, who would be even handsomer.”

“Well that part came true. Being handsomer, I mean. And if she fancies a serf’s cottage in Dobkov, then marriage might be negotiated. But staying with you would not be on the table. I am going away in a couple of days.” It was that or go crazy.

The lady bit her lip. “That’s probably a good idea. And one of us must go indoors now. Not because I don’t enjoy your company, Squire Wulfgang, but because we have been seen together long enough. You are my fiance’s brother, after all.”

“I am. And I love you.”

He hadn’t expected to say that.

Madlenka walked on, staring at the ground. The wind had reddened her cheeks. “You must not say that.”

“I swear as I hope for salvation that I never said it to any woman before, but I do love you. I don’t know how it happened-I think it was the first moment I saw you. Oh, I must sound like a fool! I’m sorry.”

“Keeping talking, fool,” she said quietly, so the wind snatched away her words. Would it spread them everywhere?

“You too?”

She nodded.

She loved him! He didn’t know if he should turn cartwheels or jump off the battlements. “Truly? You love me also? Say it, please, just once.”

“I love you. I wish it were you I am to marry, not your brother. But it is madness! We must not even dream of it. The king has decreed that I will marry Anton.”

Who cared nothing for her, who would cheerfully marry Medusa herself if she brought him an earldom. Wulf had not asked his Voices to make Madlenka love him. He would not ask them to interfere at all. He must not! Anton was his brother. Anton was a wealthy noble, outranking Otto and probably much wealthier, while Wulf was a penniless younger son, a mere esquire.

Marek had warned him: the girls will follow. “It is love,” you will tell yourself, and you will ask your Voices to bring her to you, or even to make her willing. Had any prophecy ever been fulfilled faster?