Dave Duncan - Speak to the Devil

“What? Why?”

Victorinus’s voice came then, harsher and more commanding. — Because great rejoicing awaits you there now, but later will bring great sorrow.

“You’ve never given me such advice before.” He should not be arguing.

— You stand higher now.

What did that mean? “Please take me to Dobkov as fast as possible.”

The moor shimmered and grew misty. Copper whinnied in alarm and bolted. Wulf gave him his head. Soon the familiar pearly haze of limbo closed about them and the sound of the wind and beat of hooves died away. Trees and buildings flew by, flickering light and shadow.

He stood higher now? What did that mean? It might be a saint’s-eye view of a man that Marek had called “a hardened practitioner of the black art.” Marek had spoken of a first sin and a second sin. St. Helena had said he was not ready for another “step.” A step could be another view of a sin in this instance. He could summon miracles without pain now, so he was progressing. To what? How many steps could there be? What was he becoming, saint or devil? Had he imagined that glimpse of Dobkov, or was he becoming a seer now?

Was he blessed beyond other men, or already damned?

The world was shimmering back into reality. Copper neighed in fright, but his hooves beat on dirt again. The high roofs and tall chimneys of Castle Dobkov showed against the sky ahead, making Wulf’s eyelids prickle with nostalgia. He knew this road through the coppice like the nails on his fingers. It was not quite a month since he and Anton left home, and it felt like years. Even their arrival in Gallant last Sunday seemed an age ago. He let Copper have his head to run off his fear. The big lad had a fine turn of speed.

Soon the road emerged from the trees onto open pasture, and then he could view the whole castle, ancient and mossy, with sunset blazing red on its windows. No mountains here, only a few gentle hills, but the castle stood on an island in the river, half a mile or so upstream from the village. The channel was wide enough to need a true bridge on pillars with a drawbridge at the island end. Copper slackened his pace at the sight of the change ahead. He tried to veer to the right, then to the left, and Wulf would allow neither, so he slowed to a cautious walk, flickering his ears as the timbers boomed under his hooves. A bored porter on the gate sprang to life.

“Wolfcub! Squire, I mean! You’re back! Chief, it’s the Cub!”

Wulf shouted a greeting and carried on through the archway into the bailey, which occupied most of the area enclosed by the curtain wall. Part was grassy, part cobbled, and there the local residents and their herds could take refuge in time of war. Near the gatehouse stood the forge, stables, granary, and castle ovens. Most important for him was the house at the far side of the bailey, which still felt like home. He reined in at the main door.

As his feet hit the ground, a tumultuous torrent of house dogs came racing out to greet him. Even the hunting hounds in their pen caught the excitement and set up a chorus of baying. Voices called his name. Achim, former childhood playmate and now a junior hostler, came running, with several others in hot pursuit. For a moment Wulf thought they were all going to mob him in a group hug, but they remembered their station in time. They stopped and saluted.

And last, but never least, old Whitetail, who had been his constant childhood companion, came shuffling out to greet him, now lame and almost blind, but tail wagging furiously.

“Welcome back, squire!” Achim grinned, showing missing teeth. “We missed you. Place didn’t seem the same.”

He had noticed Wulf’s bruised eyes, of course, as everyone would. He should have had the Voices cure them.

“I should hope not!” Wulf was detaching his saddlebag with the fortune in it. “But I was homesick for all your cheerful faces.” It was also good to hear someone speaking properly. The strange dialects started just a few miles from home and grew steadily worse the farther one wandered. “Where is everyone?”

“All inside. Got some visiting gentry. And Sir Anton?”

“He’s… fine. Doing very well, in fact, but I must tell the baron the news first. This is Copper. He will be your friend if you give him a rubdown and a handful of oats. And tell him how pretty he is.”

He greeted the other smiling faces quickly, then ran up the steps into the lesser hall. He had already seen those visiting gentry and he could guess what their business was.

Castle Dobkov, although imposing when seen from the outside, was much smaller than Castle Gallant. A lot of it was solid masonry. The living quarters were cramped, and “lesser hall” was a grand name for a staff dining room, capable of feeding about forty people, so that every meal had to be held twice.

Who should be crossing it, though, weighed down by a huge basket of clean laundry, but the baroness herself. Branka was a large and perpetually jolly woman, with rosy cheeks and golden hair, the sort of woman ancient pagans would have worshiped as an embodiment of the Earth Mother. In five years of marriage she had presented Otto with three sets of twins, and promised to continue doing so. She was her own housekeeper, as shown by the big bundle of keys dangling at her waist, and had even been known to dabble in cooking very successfully.

If Branka was not included in the current entertainment of gentry, then the men were talking business, which was exactly what Wulf feared.

She stared at him with eyes wide and mouth agape. “Wulfgang! What brings-”

He pecked her cheek by hugging her, basket and all, then took her burden away. “Just my ghost, but I died bravely. Tell me quick, who are the visiting gentry?”

She pouted. “Not real gentry. Count Dalnice’s steward, a banker, and a notary. What happened to your-”

“Otto is selling off land?”

“He has to, Wulf. The west vineyards.”

“No, he doesn’t have to! I’ve got Vlad’s ransom right here in this bag. All of it. Run and fetch Otto out of there quick, but don’t say why I need to see him and don’t tell the others who I am! Quick, quick, quick!”

Branka could be a human monolith when necessary, but she was very levelheaded and knew when not to argue. She took off like Copper. For a lady of girth, she could move with astonishing speed, spiraling up the stairs two at a time. Wulf ran after her, clutching the laundry as a handicap. At the top he judged that he had narrowed her lead, so he could claim to have won the race, if only barely. Branka headed left, to the counting room. He turned right and threw open the door of the room he had shared with Anton all his life. It had always been cramped, but walls four feet thick had kept monsters out.

The big bed had been replaced by two child-sized cribs. For a moment he stared in shock, and then in bittersweet nostalgia. He should have expected this! A new generation had taken possession. Dobkov was no longer his home; he was a man of the world now, a journeyman Satanist.

He dumped the laundry on a cot, and then knelt to get his face thoroughly washed by Whitetail, who had laboriously followed him upstairs.

And then he saw Otto. Even Vlad would concede that Otto was big. He was twice Wulf’s age and went to war no more, although in his time he had campaigned in France, Austria, and Lithuania. He had been as great a warrior as Father, probably better than Vlad would ever be, because he was smarter. He was still fit, able to vault into the saddle of a sixteen-hand stallion while wearing full armor. Normally he was the most amiable of men, but he had a jaw like a plowshare, which let him look as menacing as basilisks on the rare occasions when he wanted to. This was one of the occasions. He came sweeping along the corridor like a mad bull, dark eyes blazing.