Dave Duncan - When the Saints

“You may. And I suppose you had better let Anton in on the secret.”

Anton turned, holding a filled wine goblet. “What secret?”

Ottokar waited until the glass was safely passed. “The ‘servant’ Justina is in fact our Great-aunt Kristina, sister of Grandfather Evzen.”

Anton gulped and made a fast recovery. “A much younger sister, obviously!”

“A much older one,” she said. “I was Liber’s firstborn; Evzen was the fourth child. We Speakers wear well.” She sat down with a sigh. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t wear.”

At least Wulfgang still had his clothes on; he had just accepted a glass of wine from the doxy’s own fair hand.

“I belong to a secular order known as the Saints.” Justina sipped her own wine, which was middling good. “We’re a guild of free Speakers, owing allegiance to neither Church nor state, although we help out both on occasion. We try to use our powers for good, and we discipline any member who strays. We also keep an eye on all the talented families, like the Magnuses. When I began to hear Voices, I was recruited before the Church got me-recruited, oddly enough, by my own great-aunt, another Kristina Magnus. In due course, when she retired, I became our family’s ‘guardian,’ as we call it. The last time I came around to visit was just after Marek was born.”

Otto nodded, smiling. He had been thirteen, Vlad seven, both already tall.

“But I was becoming too obviously too young for my age, so I assigned the Magnus watch to another. He met with an accident involving burning faggots, and his successor mishandled the files. Marek escaped us, the Church got him.”

She smiled at the intent young faces. How insulted they would be if she called them that, and yet she was almost sixty years older than Otto.

“Marek, cleverly for a haggard-that’s our term for a self-trained Speaker-managed to misinform the Dominican who arrested him. That man was the same Father Azuolas that Wulfgang shot here last night, a nasty type. Marek lied to him about Wulfgang’s age. The Church keeps watch on the families, also, and everyone spies on their records. So the Scarlet Spider and the Saints both missed him too.”

“Wulf had seen what happened to Marek,” Otto said, “and was always extremely careful not to use his powers.”

Until Anton had outed him at the prince’s hunt.

“Speakers can be very dangerous people,” Justina said. “The Church’s denunciation of them is not entirely unjustified, and we have evandC; Sen turned a few of our own over to the Inquisition. The best solution anyone has ever found is what we call ‘jessing,’ which is to bind a Speaker to a wor… to a non-Speaker, somewhat like a man doing homage to a lord. I won’t go into details, but you have met Cardinal Zdenek?”

Both brothers nodded.

“Did you even notice a mousy clerk scribbling in a corner, probably dressed as a Franciscan friar? He would be a Speaker hired to guard the cardinal. Zdenek employs five Saint hirelings-two to watch over him, two to do the same for the king, and that so-called marquessa you just met to guard the crown prince. Night and day, in her case.”

Anton smirked.

Ottokar frowned. “This is the jessing you mentioned?”

“No. The Speakers in question are jessed by workaday members of the Saints, their cadgers. A cadger is a manager. The cardinal contracts with the cadger for his falcon’s services. The cardinal is their client, they are his hirelings.” She smiled at the bewildered faces. “We have our own code.”

“And how much do the Saints charge for that service?”

“You’d have to ask Lady Umbral, our prelate, but the exchange is often more of favors than gold. And don’t think of hirelings as bodyguards, because Speakers don’t stoop to killing. Assassins are almost always workadays wielding knives or poison.”

“Then what do Speakers guard against?”

“Tweaking, mostly. They can recognize other Speakers on sight. Imagine Wulfgang presenting… No, he’s too honest. Imagine Vilhelmas presenting a petition to an undefended king or minister. It would be approved instantly! People like Cardinal Zdenek need protection against that. The monastery at Koupel has a Speaker to perform its famous cures: Brother Lodnicka, jessed by Abbot Bohdan. The pope has legions of such falcons, of course.”

Wulfgang still hadn’t touched his wine, clever lad. Hedwig was describing the crown prince’s sex life in disgusting detail. Justina regarded that as a breach of professional ethics.

Ottokar was beaming. “So now Crown Prince Konrad wants to meet the young man who just won a war single-handed, in a major miracle? Our baby dragon is going to be appointed personal retainer to our future king?”

“Not if I can help it!” Justina said grimly.

Ottokar said, “Surely an appointment as…” He stopped, puzzled, and glanced from her face to Anton’s and back again.

“Crown Prince Konrad is a turd,” Anton said quietly.

“You slander the heir apparent!”

“I slander turds. He’s a worthless brat. He hunts, jousts, drinks, and holds orgies. He favors handsome young men.”

Ottokar blanched.

Justina said, “Maybe ten or fifteen years from now he will mellow into an honorable and respectable ruler, but at the moment you don’t want to give him Wulfgang.”

Appalled, Ottokar shrank down on his chair and muttered, “I suppose not.”

“I wish to enlist Wulf in the Saints,” she said. “He will still be able to serve the throne of Jorgary if he wishes, but he will not be committed to doing so for the rest of his life, and we will see that he is fairly rewarded. I may be worrying unnecessarily; he may find the crown prince as odious as I do.”

“Wulf’s not stupid,” Otto muttered, “but he’s still very innocent.”

Anton nodded agreement. “Invite him to an orgy and he’d ask what he should wear.”

“That’s witty for you,” Otto said. “Your coronet must be going to your head.”

Justina realized that the brothers were more than a little drunk. They had good reason to be so, since their sentences of imminent death in battle had just been lifted. And she was feeling quite sentimental. It was many years since she had sat down with family like this. Her brother would have burst with pride to see these stalwart grandsons.

Otto took another drink. “I know the Church gets fiery-and-brimstony about it,” he said, “but I’ve fought alongside men who had minority views. They did the loot and pillage part well enough, and had their own ideas about rape, if you follow. Their business! In most cases I would much rather have had them fighting beside me than against me. I’m sure Wulf’s thinking is quite orthodox, though.”

A narrow arch appeared in the unopened door. Through it stepped a plump, middle-aged man in a gray friar’s habit, barefoot and wearing a leather eye patch. His cowl was back, exposing his tonsure, whose highlights reflected the glow of his halo.

He waggled a reproving finger at Justina. “Sister, sister! You were present last night when Lady Umbral agreed that the cardinal would be the one to jess Wulfgang Magnus. And did she not contract to provide your assistance here during the siege in return for a one-third share of his lifetime labors?”

“Wulfgang was not consulted!”

“But Umbral committed the Saints and you are trying to renege on that agreement, aren’t you?”

Without waiting for an answer, Brother Daniel bobbed his head in a minimal gesture of respect to Ottokar and Anton. “My lords, His Eminence begs the favor of a word with you both, if you would spare him a moment?” He gestured to the arch leading through to Zdenek’s council room.