Dave Duncan - Speak to the Devil

“You look as if you came off worst,” Wulf said cheerfully, stepping closer. Any more worse and he would be dead already.

Anton ignored him. “Constable?” He licked his lips.

“My lord?” said the man in armor.

“Send out funeral party tomorrow. No troopers.”

“No guards?” Notivova looked puzzled.

Anton mumbled something incoherent, but it was obvious enough.

Wulf explained. “We can’t afford to lose more men, and the Wends can. They probably won’t harm civilians, but you’d better pay them danger money. Get Bishop Ugne to assign a priest or two. How many men did you lose, by the way?”

Cold eyes stared at him out of the steel coif. “You are His Lordship’s brother?”

“I am. Squire Wulfgang. You must be Constable Notivova. I’m not giving you orders; I just know how the count’s mind works. He’ll overrule me if I’m wrong. How many men did you lose?”

“Fourteen, squire.”

Hellfire! “Bad! Surprise attack, I suppose?”

“So the only survivor told us.”

“Butchers! Any more orders for him, Brother?” Wulf had to bend right down to hear the reply.

“Double guards. Full war footing. ’Ware surprise attack.”

Kaspar scurried in, bringing a bottle of wine and an armful of towels. Knowing that Anton must be parched by his loss of blood, Wulf raised his brother’s head and put the bottle to his lips. The constable left. A servant brought a steaming pitcher of water. Another brought a flagon of cold, and Wulf sweetened it with wine before letting Anton drink any.

He realized that the youth with the cane was still there, clutching a waxed wooden tablet and looking half dead with worry.

“You are Radim?”

“Yes, squire.”

“You want to dictate a letter, Brother?”

Anton murmured something about the king, but he was barely conscious now. He might be about to die.

“I think you’d better rest for a while first. Radim, why don’t you find out exactly what happened and draft a report from the count to His Majesty? I’m sure you can put it in proper form better than he can. Bring it back here when you’re ready.”

Having disposed of everyone except himself, Wulf got down to the horrible job of removing his brother’s blood-caked bandage.

He would have known that Anton was dying even without the Voices’ prophecy. The bolt seemed to have missed the bone, but internal bleeding had made his arm swell up like a sack of melons below the bandage, all the way to his fingers. Using great care, Wulf managed to cut the knot with his dagger and unwind the sodden cloth. Both the entry and exit wounds had been very clumsily sewn shut, but they still oozed and the flesh was so puffed up around them that he could barely see the stitches, let alone remove them.

“Am I going to lose my arm?” Anton whispered, eyes closed.

“Not if my Voices will help. Try a few prayers of your own.”

Wulf washed his bloody hands as well as he could in the scarlet water. He then went over to the fireplace and knelt to pray, ignoring the slurred and incoherent mumble in the bed.

“Most holy Saints Helena and Victorinus, I humbly beg that you will restore my brother Anton to health.”

Light shone through his eyelids.

— You are too far away, Wulfgang, Helena said. -Go closer. Lay your hands on him.

Surprised, he obeyed, and took the wounded arm in both hands. Anton did not react to his touch. He had stopped praying. Without a miracle he would slide quietly into death.

Then Wulf would have it all: earldom, wealth, and-best of all-Madlenka. He need only send for that ancient doctor and leave the patient in his murderous hands. In an hour the cathedral bell would toll. The count is dead, long live the count! Wulfgang, second Count Magnus of Cardice.

“Holy Saints Helena and Victorinus, I pray you to restore this man, my brother, to perfect health.”

— Do you accept the price?

“If you mean pain, then no. But I accept any risk. Omnia audere.”

Helena:- Oh, Wulfgang, child, you will regret this.

Victorinus:- Courage becomes you. Look for the fire, my son, the flame.

Wulf peered around… Where? “I don’t see any fire!”

— Do not be too hasty. Search within.

He searched: the arm; Anton’s corpse-pale face; the rest of him, stretched out on the bed like a ribbon of steel… Ah! Now he made out a faint and ghostly glow-behind those lifeless eyes, inside his brother’s head or superimposed on it-as if Wulf were seeing Anton with one eye and this vision with the other. It was like the worms of heat that crawled on embers and gave birth to butterflies of flame when you blew on them.

“I see, I think. What must I do?” Blow?”

— Stamp it out! Victorinus said. — It is his soul, seeking to escape. If it bursts into flame and departs, he will be gone. Do not let him go! Picture it on your mind. Will it! Use your hands, for the heat cannot hurt you.

Wulf tried to imagine his hands tearing a fire apart, scattering the coals; then switched the image to his feet stamping, grinding. That worked better, and in his fancy the illusional lumination crumbled to sparks, died, and was extinguished.

— It is done, Helena said. — He will live, for a little span.

The Light faded as he watched the miracle happen. An obscene sausage shrank to become a man’s arm again. Bloat became muscle. Skin turned from fish-belly white to tan. Anton stared up at him from the pillow.

“What happened? How did I…?” His gaze raked the room, the furniture, the bed curtains, and came back to Wulf. Suddenly he was fully conscious, and visibly terrified in a way Wulf had never seen before.

“You cured my wound?”

“My Voices did. Welcome back.” Wulf stood up and looked down on him fondly. “We almost lost you, you know.”

No regrets. Even Madlenka. Love could not be bought at the price of a life of shame. He could feel proud that he had passed a test.

“Who are you?” Anton whispered. “More to the point, what are you?”

“I wish I knew,” Wulf said humbly. “The Voices will not explain. I am just… their protege, I suppose. I do not understand. I am certainly not a saint.” Saints did not think the things he caught himself thinking about Madlenka. “I must try to use their gifts to do good.” Not to steal Madlenka away from you, for instance. I still can. It would be so easy and feel so good. “Let’s get that armor off you, and tuck you in like the invalid everyone expects to see.”

Anton slid out of bed, fully restored, and in minutes they had made a heap of all his mail.

“Bed!” Wulf insisted. “And listen. Everyone will guess that I have just used witchcraft. The bishop will ask questions that we cannot answer. I must leave Cardice at once-that’s obvious. And you must play invalid for at least a day, or they will accuse you of being in league with the devil, too. You are in danger also. Promise me?”

“Of course.”

“Let me bandage your arm, then. No one must see it.”

The wounds had disappeared completely, without a scar.

“Go where?” Anton grumbled. “By my faith, I need you here, Wulf! Not just your Voices. You! You can do some things much better than I can.”

“You didn’t tell me you’d taken a head wound.”

“I don’t think I did.”

“Well, you’ve never paid me compliments before.”

Anton growled and tried to rise.

Wulf pushed him back down, not gently. “Invalid, remember! Now, what did you want your secretary for?”

“To tell the king the Wends have invaded, of course.” He glared up angrily. Half naked and bloodstained, yet he still resented being babied by his kid brother.

“That’s an excellent excuse for me to leave. I’ll deliver your letter to the Spider.”