Dave Duncan - When the Saints

Justina rolled her eyes, clearly furious at this news. “It is rank insanity, that is what it is! You’ll have all Jorgary packed with cardinals and awash in holy water. And quite apart from secrecy, whether you like it or not, you are a Speaker, not a warrior, so you must not resort to violence to solve problems. You have no cadger?”

Wulf wondered if the woman was mocking him, as Otto said she’d done to Anton. “Justina, I am a mere esquire, a youngest son. I don’t own a horse, let alone a mews.”

She smiled. “You don’t know what a cadger is?”

“Of course I do. My brother Ottokar employs four cadgers to carry the birds when he goes hawking.”

“Not what I meant. Who was your handler?” She stared at his puzzled expression. “Who trained you, boy?”

“No one trained me.”

“Then you are what we call a haggard.”

“Thank you,” he said icily. A haggard was either a wild hawk captured as an adult, or an unkempt savage person living in the woods. He fancied himself as neither. “When you talk about a cadger you mean a trainer?”

“No. Tell me of this Leonas, who slew your brother.”

“He’s a simpleton. Fourteen or fifteen, tall as a pike, but not shaving yet. He has the mind of a small child, yet he’s a Speaker. His father uses him as a weapon, but I’m sure Leonas doesn’t understand what he’s doing.”

Justina nodded, looking grim. “Madness and Speaking are not so rare a mix as you might think. The likes of him is dangerous. We must do something about him.”

“Kill him?” Wulf said, and it was his turn to feel revulsion.

She sho C="- took her head. “No. But trim his talons. Now I’ve told you the first commandment. Tell me what you do know about Speaking.”

“Almost nothing. Teach me, I beg you!”

“Beg all you want, but that I won’t do.” She countered his frown with a satisfied, cat-licking-cream smirk. “There is a very fine reason why Speakers do not speak about the talent, and I won’t be telling you what that reason is, even. But you tell me what you have learned, and I will warn you when you talk sewage. Sybilla! Why aren’t you with your father?”

The girl who had sauntered into view from somewhere behind Wulf’s back was nut-brown, or at least her face, lower legs, and arms were. She was barefoot, clad in a dress of costly white silk that clung to her like skin. Her hair hung long and thick, black and shiny, her eyes shone like obsidian, and her lips were redder than pomegranates. She had a nimbus.

She pouted. “I got bored. Father has no time for me just now. He’s too busy preparing for the conclave.”

Justina rolled her eyes like martyred mothers everywhere. “May the saints preserve us! Yes, child, my guest here is what is commonly called a young man. I believe he would enjoy some wine. And even were he bonnier than Apollo, he could not possibly enjoy the way you are looking at him. Move, you brazen little trollop!”

With a heartrending sigh, the girl tore her gaze away from a lingering inspection of Wulf and retraced her steps. Wulf stared after her, wondering if other women could make their hips do that when they walked. He was horribly afraid that his cheeks were a brighter red than her lips. He hadn’t shaved that morning.

“And change your clothes!” Justina shouted after her. “Pardon her, good squire.”

He swallowed a few times. “Yes, my… Justina. Your daughter? She is very beautif… How old is…”

“Lady preserve me, not my daughter! You flatter me. A distant relative-not distant enough, I sometimes think. Talent runs in my family, like yours. She’s fifteen. Women Speakers are usually fledged at sixteen. Girls are older than boys of the same age, and being a Speaker makes a girl different.”

“What sort of different?”

“Different in that she doesn’t have to fear men.”

“Fear men?” Father Czcibor had always taught that men had to fear women, who were agents of the devil, always tempting men into sin. Wulf had never quite believed that, although Sybilla had just opened his eyes a little wider than usual. Madlenka had shown no signs of being frightened of him.

Justina shook her head pityingly. “And why wouldn’t women fear men, squire? Men are stronger than us Congze=, love violence as we do not, and trap us with honeyed words so they can sow their seed in our furrows. Then they leave us to reap the crop. Tell me what that lanky brother of yours is up to.”

Startled, Wulf stole another Look through Anton’s eyes and saw a curtain wall to his left and sheer rock to his right. “He is hurrying along the Quarantine Road, going to the south gate.” With his long legs, Anton was moving like a starving foal, moving so fast that the dancing image made Wulf feel giddy. He was staring fixedly ahead, so Wulf could not tell if he had any companions with him, but there seemed to be many men-at-arms running in the opposite direction, hastily saluting the count as they passed him. Alarm bells were ringing, bugles sounding.

“It would seem he has had an urgent summons,” Justina remarked. “An angel whispered in his ear, perhaps. We must finish our talk. Sit down. You can be there when it happens, whatever it is.”

Yet Otto and Vlad had stayed at the north barbican. They were both on the roof parapet, staring out between the merlons at a column of men-at-arms marching down the Silver Road. Hundreds of them were coming around the bend at the mouth of the gorge, with the end of the column not yet in sight.

“The Wend assault has started!”

“Sit down, I said!” Justina snapped. “This matters more. Wherever you are, you can get there faster than they can. Here comes the wine. Best close your eyes.”

That was not at all necessary, or even advisable. The seductive Sybilla had returned with a flask and two crystal goblets. If she had changed her clothes, it was to make them even more provocative, with a lower neckline and higher hem. The only women Wulf had seen exposed like that in his entire life had been the street wenches in Mauvnik, and he had stayed well away from those. She slunk up to the table; he dared a small smile. She tossed her head as if he’d farted a bugle call. She thumped the flask down on the table, then spoiled the effect by setting the delicate goblets down gently. She flounced around and stalked away.

Madlenka had never scared him the way that chit did. He watched her disappear around the corner of the house.

“What did I do wrong?”

“You noticed her,” Justina said with a sigh.

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Notice her. She’s just practicing, pay her no heed. Are you as ignorant about Speaking as you are about poop-noddy?”

“About what?”

“Poop-noddy. Jig-jig. Shagging. Sarding.”

Oh, that. Anton had explained fornication many times, but it was not relevant to today Cvanem"’s discussion. “More ignorant. Marek told me what little he had been taught in the monastery, but it wasn’t much. And nothing to do with poop-noddy.”

“It wouldn’t be. You do understand that a nimbus is the sign of a qualified, fledged Speaker, a sort of ordination? And other Speakers can see it, whether or not they have nimbuses of their own yet?”

He nodded. Marek had never developed a nimbus. Wulf filled the goblets. The wine was a pale gold and had a foreign tang, strange but not unpleasant.

“Marek said there were at least seven steps. He called them sins, though. The first sin was hearing the Voices to begin with.”

Justina said, “Which is rare, but those who are destined to do so start at about thirteen.”

“The second sin is learning to understand what they are saying. My Voices claimed to be St. Helena and St. Victorinus. Of course, the Church would say that they were demons of hell.” He paused a moment for a reaction, hoping she would deny that bit about demons, but she said nothing. “The third step is starting to talk back and pray for little favors.” Like making a sour apple taste sweeter, he recalled. “The fourth was asking for real miracles-or witchery, if you prefer.”