Dave Duncan - When the Saints

He found Balaam standing in the bailey with his reins looped around the burr-plate. He looked abandoned and bewildered, but was happy to follow Copper into the stable, where the same two boys as before came running to give both horses rubdowns. Fortunately, horses could not gossip about where they had been, or explain the mud on their legs.

Vlad and Anton were in the solar.

Wulf went next to the armory to turn in Count Szczecin’s armor as a contribution to the stores. To the victor go the spoils. He detoured to the kitchens to borrow a bed warmer, which he carried on his shoulder like a pike as he went on up to the solar. The few people he passed gave him puzzled looks, but did not question.

The shabby little room felt hot as an oven after the wintery day outside. Vlad was slumped on a chair with a wine bottle, yawning. Anton was pacing to and fro, and jumped like a frog when Wulf walked in.

Wulf lifted the bottle from Vlad’s hand and took a long swig. “How’s the war going?”

He laid down the contraption he had brought from the kitchen, and took another long swig. Dutch courage, they called that.

“All quiet at the moment,” Vlad said. “We can’t see the end of our noses out there. I think both sides are bringing up guns. They’ll start work on our gates as soon as the snow stops. Gallant will fall on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

“You planning some hay time?” Anton demanded, looking at the bed warmer. He sat down also, but he was as taut as a bowstring.

“No.” It would be a very good idea, though. Lack of sleep was making Wulf’s eyes gritty and his head droop. “How do you transport gunpowder, Sir Vladislav?” He stretched across to return the wine bottle.

The big man reached a very long arm to take it. “In the best barrels. You keep it dry and away from fires.”

“Do you mark it as dangerous?”

“Sometimes,” the big man said cautiously. “I’ve seen barrels painted red.”

“I’ve just seen whole wagons painted red. The covers, I mean, but they were over barrels, I’m certain.”

All three men looked at the object on the hearth, the usual flat brass pan with a flat lid and a wooden handle about four feet long. Servants used such pans to warm the sheets on milady’s bed, or even milord’s bed, if milady wasn’t already warming it for him.

“Would it work?” Wulf asked, hoping that the answer was no.

“No,” Vlad said. “If you mean, would it blow everything sky high, no. At least… I don’t think it would. Powder’s funny stuff, unpredictable. You have to shut powder up tight to make it go bang. Loose powder just burns.”

“A whole wagonload just burns?”

“Yes. Christmas, would it burn, though! Whoosh!”

After a thoughtful silence, Vlad added, “I don’t think it would blow everything sky high. Might if you fired a gun at it. Or made a bomb. We got some powder downstairs, so if we packed it tight in a metal shell with a long fuse… but we don’t have one of those, that I know of.” He took a drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, which was almost as hairy. “We do got a couple of arquebuses.”

Too dangerous. Wulf glanced at the snow-packed casement. “If I was close enough to be sure of hitting it in this, I might go flying with the eagles.”

“Very like.”

“My way’s worth trying, then?” Wulf said unhappily. He could make fire with talent, he was sure, but again he wouldn’t get away fast enough.

“If you’ve got the balls for it.”

Did he? He thought about it. Justina had told him his talent couldn’t damage the Dragon itself. This felt like a good chance at the next best thing. It must be done now, while the snow would hide what he was doing, so he did not break the first commandment. Set one powder wagon on fire and men would flee in terror rather than try to save the others. A bombard without powder was useless junk, and it might take weeks to bring in fresh supplies, time that Duke Wartislaw did not have. The pass would close soon. Even if Wulf did not save Castle Gallant, he might cripple the subsequent invasion of lowland Jorgary.

Too good a chance to pass up, he decided. Omnia audere. He would not be the first Magnus to die before reaching legal adulthood.

“I have them now,” he said. “I hope I can keep them.”

Vlad muttered blasphemy under his breath. “You’ll have to go faster than a farting bat, lad. There’ll be powder dust on everything under the covers. One spark can do it, you know.”

Wulf knew that much. He knelt down, opened the lid of the warmer, and began picking hot coals out of the fire with the fire tongs. His brothers watched in appalled silence.

The door swung open and Otto walked in, then stopped to stare at what was going on. He had probably noticed Wulf’s guilty start.

“Going to hit a mattress?”

“No. Bolt that door, please.” Wulf went back to work.

Otto obeyed, raising inquiring baronial eyebrows at Anton, who was officially in charge of anything that happened in Castle Gallant.

“He’s located the duke’s powder wagons.”

“Virgin save us!” Otto went to a chair. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Wolfcub?”

That was Vlad’s name for him, but Otto would mean it as a term of affection.

“Oh, yes. I’m not sure what the powder will do afterward, though.” Wulf tossed down the tongs and closed the lid. That job was done. Now he must move on to the next. Which was…?

Which was to go to a moving target. He hadn’t tried that before. He could go to people he knew, so he should be able to find a wagon he knew, and it couldn’t have moved very far from where he had seen it, if at all.

He siavehoped that the snow was still falling as heavily over there as it was here.

He was forbidden to use his talent in front of witnesses, but his brothers all knew about it already, so no more harm could be done.

Recalling the wagons, he decided that the gunpowder casks must be much smaller than wine barrels, barely more than large kegs. They had been stacked four across, with a second layer on top, three across. That would explain the shape of the covers and ropes, and would make a reasonable load for a team of four horses on rough ground. Not that he knew how much gunpowder weighed, compared with, say, wine or nails, but an army wouldn’t risk too much of its total supply on a single wagon.

The wind seemed stronger than ever, at least in Gallant, and falling off the wagon would not be a good idea. He removed his cloak, which might get in his way. Anton took it for him.

He was procrastinating. Scared, in other words.

Still balanced on one foot and one knee, he turned his back on the warming pan and the hearth. He looked up at three agony-filled faces and was touched by their obvious concern.

He checked that his dagger moved freely in its sheath. The dagger had been Otto’s birthday and farewell gift to him when he and Anton had left Dobkov, not much more than a month ago. He caught Otto’s eye and they shared a smile.

“Our Lady be with you, Wolfcub.”

Anton said, “Amen!”

“And all the saints,” Vlad rumbled. “I’d come with you if I could, Cub, but thank sweet Jesus I can’t.”

That was it, then. Time to go.

Wulf went back to Long Valley.

He was very nearly blown clean off the wagon by the storm. He threw himself flat on the snowy surface and grabbed at a rope, but it was too tightly bound to give him a good grip. He found another he could hold on to, then took stock of his surroundings.

About three feet in front of his head, the carter and a pikeman were huddled together on the bench, swathed in their cloaks in an effort to keep the blizzard from running down their necks. So far they must be unaware of their passenger. The wagon was not moving, and the horses were understandably fretting, stamping hooves and tossing heads. Another wagon directly ahead was similarly stalled. The snow was too dense for Wulf to see much farther, but he could hear a lot of angry shouting as too much army tried to move along too little road.