Dave Duncan - Speak to the Devil

“And I congratulate you on your recovery, my lady.”

“It was about time,” she conceded. “A mere hour ago I felt my prayers being answered, and the blessed Virgin sent me the strength to accept God’s will and rise from my bed.”

An hour ago? Anton glared at his wife-to-be, who caught his eye and turned away quickly to be comforted by Giedre. Had Wulfgang taken to selling his miracles now? The timing alone was almost proof. That sneaky young serpent, with his sanctimonious preaching about keeping himself pure for some future bride! His cozy little fireside chats with the devil had certainly cleaned up those ambitions in short order.

“Your arrival is most opportune, Lady Edita. I have just had occasion to censure your daughter, who is my betrothed by royal decree. Of course I must make some allowance for Castle Gallant’s isolation, but it is customary among nobility dwelling in less rustic surroundings to have young ladies chaperoned by older women, and never less than two.”

The iceberg turned to scorch Madlenka with a cold blaze of outrage. “ Madlenka! Have you given Lord Anton cause to question your virtue?”

“No! No! No!”

“Yes she has,” Anton said. “I do wish my brother had stayed longer, so we could hear his version of events. He left Gallant very hurriedly not an hour ago.” He enjoyed the dowager lady’s depiction of utter horror. “Furthermore,” he added, “if she expects to continue her tantrums of throwing books at me and shouting down the bishop in his cathedral, then after our marriage I shall be forced to discipline her severely.”

“By your leave, my lord,” Countess Edita said, taking a firm grip of her daughter’s arm, “we shall investigate these matters further. I shall inform you of the results of my inquiries shortly.”

“You are most kind, my lady.”

The moment the door boomed shut behind the three women, Anton hauled on the bell rope. The page on duty arrived in moments.

“Find Arturas,” the count snapped. “I want him right away.” Then he jumped from the bed-as much as anyone could jump out of a feather mattress-and started looking for trunk hose. He was respectable and brushing his hair by the time the herald answered his summons.

“I need Bishop Ugne. Does he come to me or do I go to him?”

Arturas wore a brightly splotched smock and had a streak of green on his nose, so he must have been painting the new count’s arms on something. “Oh, you never summon a bishop, my lord! But in view of your recent injury, a discreet intimation that a courtesy call would be timely…”

“Then let him know that I need to speak with him.”

If the countess reported that her daughter was not a virgin, all marriage preparations must stop. Madlenka would be hustled off to a nunnery, the king would withdraw his edict of marriage, and Anton could continue to enjoy bachelorhood for a few years longer, assuming that he could keep the Wends from the door. If she still was-and admittedly, as his first flash of temper cooled, he found it hard to imagine Wulf being such a rat as to deflower his brother’s fiancee-then the union had better be sealed as soon as possible. Mourning period be damned. The king had commanded it. There was a war on. Wulf’s healing had restored the count to the prime of health. In his case, healthy also meant horny.

Copper was a fine steed, swift and steady, needing no guidance. As soon as they had left the castle, Wulf let him run, trusting him to know the road and find the best footing. He unpacked his lunch one-handed and started gnawing on a goose leg while he thought about the Voices.

Were they saints or demons? Why would they never explain or answer questions? There had to be a reason for that reticence. The prospect of another ride through limbo was daunting, and if the price was to be the same as before, he would refuse to pay it. Yet now he had healed Anton, and perhaps the unseen countess, and had suffered no pain for it.

He tossed away the bone and took a drink from his wine flagon. An excellent wine-the kitchen staff had done well by the count’s brother. He started in on a thick slice of salted ham.

It was all very well to brag to Madlenka about changing the government’s mind. A Speaker, however inexperienced and untrained, might hope to manipulate a senile, maundering king, but the calculative Cardinal Zdenek had ruled Jorgary with a steel fist since before Wulf learned how to breathe. And if the Spider could stoop to using Speakers, then so could other statesmen-the Church obviously did. So Zdenek would certainly have built defenses against Satanism into his web. He would deny it, of course, but any attempt to bewitch him must lead straight to toasted Wulfgang. Merely delivering Anton’s letter at any time short of eight days from now would be an admission of Satanism. Zdenek, in short, was a necessary ally, but a highly dangerous one.

The advisor Wulf needed was Baron Magnus of Dobkov. Even if Anton had not assigned the two thousand florins to Otto instead of Baron Emilian, Wulfgang would have headed first to Otto.

He licked his fingers, took another drink, and then laced up his saddlebag. Copper had slowed to an easy pace, happy to run over the moorland road with a competent rider. They were too far from Castle Gallant for a magical disappearance to be noted, and the only person in sight was a shepherd about a mile ahead, driving his sheep down to lower pasture for the winter. The sun was very close to the horizon. Time to go.

“Holy Saints Helena and Victorinus, hear my prayer.”

Copper decided he was not being addressed. He obviously did not notice the Light that dawned all around him.

Helena: — We are here, my son.

“My lady, if I ask you to take me home to Dobkov, what price will you demand?”

— We do not demand any price. You decide what it shall be, but it is not paid to us.

Talking with disembodied Voices was never simple. “What choices do I have?”

Victorinus, harshly: — Agony, or madness, or death.

Helena, more gently: — All of us must meet with death eventually.

Victorinus again: — Our help puts you in greater danger every time you ask for it.

They sounded just like Anton daring him to put his first pony over a ditch. “Can I refuse the pain and accept the danger?”

— You can refuse immediate pain, but the danger you accept may be of greater pain deferred or death advanced. We cannot foretell the end.

“Burning at the stake, for example?”

— That is one possibility.

Wulf decided that life must offer more profitable enterprises than trying to make sense of this. “Then know that from now on I refuse immediate pain and accept any future peril. Can you take me to… where is Ottokar, my brother?” Otto owned many estates and spent much of his life traveling between them.

Copper shied violently, making Wulf grab for the saddle pommel, and the world seemed to jar sideways and blur. He saw words, written on vellum, only about two of them legible, and then another two in their place. The vellum vanished and there was a man’s face… another man’s face… a tapestry…

“Whoa! Steady, Copper. Steady, fellow!”

A sudden breath of wind, or a rising partridge?

He calmed the shivering horse, wondering which of them had scared the other. His reaction to that flickering vision might have startled Copper, or the horse’s fright might have jarred him out of a Voice-inspired daydream. The Light was still there. He had not had time to read the writing and had not recognized the two faces. But he knew the tapestry. It hung in Otto’s counting room in Dobkov.

“Was that a warning you just sent me?”

Helena chuckled. — You spurn our warnings. Your brother is at Dobkov and you should go there at once.