Dave Duncan - Speak to the Devil

It was time for Squire Wulfgang and Cardinal Zdenek to discuss the division of spoils. Not fair that one brother should do all the work and get none of the rewards! This could be explained to Anton later.

“Wulf! I need you, I tell you!” Anton looked unusually sincere, and extraordinarily worried. “I need someone here I can trust. I have no real experience, just what I’ve picked up listening to Father and Otto and Vlad. I’m not qualified to be a marshal, leading the country’s defense against odds of a hundred to one. I can’t handle this by myself.” His eyes brightened. “The man I really need is Vladislav! He’s doing no good rotting in captivity in Bavaria. I told the seneschal I needed to pay a ransom for my brother. He wasn’t very happy, but he admitted that it could be done. He mumbled something about letters to a bank. I didn’t understand, but it can be done!” He twirled up his mustache in delight.

Wulf shook his head. “At this time of year, with a new moon coming, I’d allow ten days for the ride to Mauvnik and probably another ten to reach wherever Vlad is in Bavaria. Then twenty for him to ride back here. Forty days. Your war will be all over in less than forty days.”

“But you could do it in less than an hour.”

“No. No! No! The Voices are warning me that every time they help me, they increase my danger.” Hinting that, anyway.

“Danger of what?”

“Of the Church catching me, I think. It may be something worse. Less than a week ago you asked me to pray for you as you tried to break your neck, and now you have me dragging you out of the grave. I’ll carry your report to Mauvnik and I’ll take Vlad’s ransom along if you like-at least you can trust me not to steal it. But this latest miracle or magic is too obvious. I have to get out of here, Long One, before I end up like Marek with a life sentence of pulling weeds all day long.” Or playing the torch in a torchlight parade, like Joan of Arc.

Anton scowled, but then he nodded. “That’s fair. I can’t thank you enough, and I mustn’t endanger you any more. See how Radim is doing, will you? And see the seneschal about the ransom. I am the count and the money is mine to spend.”

Wulf gathered the bloodstained clothes and armor into a heap, then arranged the bed curtains so that Anton was in deep shadow, visible only through a narrow slit. “Remember that you’re at death’s door,” he said, as he tugged the bell rope to summon some servants.

He found Madlenka and Giedre in the solar, counting their rosaries-praying for Anton’s recovery, Wulf assumed, although Madlenka must have considered what might happen if Anton died, just as he had.

“He’s going to be all right.”

They looked up disbelievingly.

“Really. He lost a lot of blood, but the bleeding has stopped and he’s resting.”

“Our Lady be praised!” Madlenka said. She closed her eyes for another silent prayer. Was she asking forgiveness for certain evil thoughts? “Aren’t you going to sit down?”

“I’m on my way to the stable… Mistress Giedre, I have something to tell Madlenka. Would you please give us a moment alone? Leave the door open if you wish.”

The women exchanged glances. Madlenka nodded. “Just for a minute.”

Disapproving, Giedre left. Wulf did not sit.

Madlenka rose and faced him warily. “She won’t eavesdrop. What is this dark secret, Squire Wulfgang?” She was pale. She had guessed.

“I am leaving Castle Gallant, my lady. Within the hour.”

She flinched. “You are recovered enough to ride a horse?”

“I bruise easily, but we Magnuses are very fast healers.”

Anton or Vlad would have accepted the statement as either plain fact or macho bragging, but Madlenka did not miss the other possibilities. Her eyes narrowed.

“Tough as boiled leather, I was told.”

“Tougher. But please make sure that my brother rests for the next day or two. Lock him in, or tie him down, if you can. Madlenka…”

Now what to say? He must not implicate her in his Satanism, if that was what it was, and he must not raise her hopes in vain.

“I have… a favor… I want your promise… It is possible that I will not be…” He was stammering. He stopped and started again. “But, in case I do… if I do…”

She smiled. “You are not making a great deal of sense, squire.”

“How can I make sense when I am crazed by love? I just want you to promise not to marry him until you are sure I am not coming back!”

Now she stared at him as if he was a foaming maniac-and who could blame her? “You are going to ride down to Mauvnik and ask King Konrad to change his edict? To order me to marry you instead of Anton?”

“More or less.”

“You truly are insane!”

“Almost, but not quite. It is not impossible! Listen… no, don’t. There are things I cannot tell you. It is a slim hope, but I just may return with such a document.”

“So the sash does not lie? You really are personal friends of the king?”

“My lady, it is no secret in Mauvnik that the king barely knows day from night anymore. Please, trust me. Wait for me!”

“Wait how long?” She was bewildered, naturally.

“Forty days,” he said, because that was what he had told Anton. “Just don’t go and marry him before then!”

“Marry? Now? With an enemy at the gates, my father and brother hardly cold in their graves, my mother blighted? There can be no wedding for me, squire, not for a year or more.”

“Your mother?” Someone had mentioned a mother. “What is her ailment?”

“She was seized by melancholy when my father was stricken, and has refused to leave her bed since.”

“Smitten by the same curse, you think? This is evil incarnate.”

She said, “Yes,” but her eyes were questioning. She was a clever girl, dangerously clever.

“I must go. I love you.” He hadn’t been aware of moving, but they were very close.

“And I you.” She smiled sadly. “You were so badly hurt, and so brave.”

“You were so kind.” He had always dreamed that the mother he had never known had been like her-tall and gentle and caring. There were no pictures of her. He had always assumed that she had been blond like him, not dark like Anton, but he had never dared ask. He had killed her, being born.

Madlenka’s smiles would raise the dead. She said, “A little flirting seemed harmless when there could be no future in it. Knowing we had nothing to gain, we thought we had nothing to lose.”

“How wrong we were!” He put his arms around her and drew her close, but she turned away from his attempt to kiss her.

“You haven’t told me everything, have you?”

“No, my lady. I dare not. Whatever you suspect, I beg you not to share your thoughts with anyone.”

“Is it possible that Cardinal Zdenek was fighting fire with fire?”

Clever! “I have never met that eminent gentleman, and he would never admit to such unchristian behavior.”

Then he tried again to kiss her and this time she did not refuse. He thought she would break it off very quickly, but she didn’t and he had no desire to have it end-not ever.

“Father!” Giedre said, in a voice somewhat louder than normal. “What brings you here?”

The kiss ended. Madlenka strode over to the door and out into the corridor. Her voice drifted back. “No, it isn’t there. I must have left it… Seneschal?”

“My lady, I am looking for Squire Wulfgang. The count told me to see him.”

“He looked in here a few minutes ago, to tell us that Lord Magnus was much recovered. It was kind of him. Did he say where he was going, Giedre?”

“To the stable, I think, my lady.”

The voices died away and Wulf started breathing again.