Dave Duncan - When the Saints

So Madlenka was now expected to go and bargain with the Scarlet Spider? If that prospect was more attractive than being burned at the stake, the difference was slight. As Zdenek had a reputation for working far into the night, she had no excuse to put off the ordeal until morning.

Sybilla stood up. “The music has stopped. The Promenade will be lining up. You go, Louis. And you, ma’am? You want me to send you back to Cardice?”

Madlenka rose also. “Yes, please. No, wait… If I have to negotiate with the cardinal…” How could she travel to Mauvnik and back? Justina? No, she would sell out to Lady Umbral. “I need my falcon.”

“You can’t have him. At the moment I doubt if you could wake him with a clap of thunder in both ears.”

“Then you will have to move me to the cardinal’s presence.”

“I will do no such thing!” Sybilla said. “His current hireling watchdog would flatten us. Besides, I have never been in his office or met him, so I can’t go there.” She grinned. “But one rainy afternoon, Justina took me around a dozen of the best palaces of Christendom, so if I can just remember which is which, I-”

“Don’t be cruel, Sybilla!” Louis said from the door. “Do as she asks.”

Sybilla pouted. “I’ve seen the door to Zdenek’s antechamber. I’ll put you there and you can ask for an audience.”

“And, please… In case he does not send me home again, will you look in on me later and see how I am doing?”

When he was eight years old, Herkus had lied about his age and won a job as a stableboy for the bishop. At fourteen he had been doubling as waiter and bouncer in a tavern. One night he broke up a four-way fight single-handed-wielding, it must be admitted, a stout ax handle-and thus caught the eye of Sir Karolis Kavarskas, who was then the constable. Kavarskas promptly enrolled him in the palace guard.

Since there was already one Herkus in the guard, the two were at first distinguished as Young Herkus and Old Herkus. But Old Herkus was the smallest man in the company, while Young Herkus was already one of the largest and still growing almost visibly, so they rapidly became Big Herkus and Little Herkus, respectively. Any man who mixed them up had to buy the drinks.

Now Little Herkus was twenty-two and had been enjoying life heartily until the previous day. He had a wife, a child, and another on the way, plus a very cuddlesome mistress, a woman of boundless bounce and enthusiasm. The war had provided even more excitement, with Herkus managing to kill a Pelrelmian brute during the south gate skirmish this afternoon. Sir Vladislav had congratulated him personally. Herkus really ought to be in there celebrating that victory tonight. Everyone else was celebrating. But Herkus was on sentry duty at the upper door.

The upper door, on the third floor of the keep, was connected by a drawbridge to the walkway atop the city wall. In peacetime the bridge stayed down and the door was locked at night, guarded by day. After the new count put the castle on war footing, the drawbridge had been raised every night. No need to do that tonight, Master Sergeant Jachym had declared, but the gate should be guarded, and man-at-arms Little Herkus was just the two men to do it. All alone, and apparently all night. Jachym promised he would come around, personally and very often, to make sure he was still there. If he wasn’t, then it would be fifty lashes and a dishonorable discharge. Or possibly the new count would hang him, like he’d hanged Kavarskas.

By midnight, Jachym was still coming around, still sober, and the penalty had gone up to a hundred lashes and discharge. Unfortunately, yesterday Jachym had somehow learned the identity of his wife’s lover. Herkus, he said, was going to stay there until his rammer froze and fell off.

That began to seem quite likely. Herkus was frozen through to the core. Snow came and went, but the wind never stopped, and the porch where he had to stand was steadily drifting in. He had no gloves, and his boots were thin. Meanwhile, the town roared: bel ls, trumpets, drunken singing. There was a huge party going on inside the keep itself, tantalizingly audible to Herkus even through the six-inch oaken door. Every now and again men would come out to relieve themselves over the edge of the bridge in the hope of scoring on someone walking on the road below, but no one was out in the streets tonight. They all laughed at the snowman sentry.

Fortunately, a couple of the other men-at-arms took pity on him when he showed them how his fingers had turned white, threatening frostbite. They went and brought out a brazier, so at least he could warm his hands. Jachym was sure to remove it on his next visit, so Herkus leaned his pike against the wall and held both hands close above the coals. He could barely feel the heat.

Thus he had his back to the drawbridge and was bent over when a steel-clad arm across his face dragged his head up. The knife at his throat was cold as ice and burned like fire. He had barely time to realize what was happening, or why the brazier was suddenly spluttering and steaming, before sentry and brazier toppled over together, into the scarlet snow.

Madlenka found herself in a dark corridor, just outside an open door. The hall beyond it was dim, but three lamps did burn at the far end, and there were people there. Assuming that they marked her destination, she squared her shoulders and began to walk, her feet making little tapping sounds on the floor. Reflections shone off big chandeliers overhead, off crystal mirrors and gold-framed pictures on the walls, and even in the polished marble underfoot. She went byo a group of a dozen or so silk-upholstered couches, occupied by a total of five people. The way they were spaced suggested that no two of them were together. The four men stared curiously at her as she passed; but the fifth, a dowdily dressed woman, appeared to be asleep. Or perhaps she had died of old age while waiting to be admitted to the inner sanctum, the center of the Spider’s web.

The small and unobtrusive door at that end of the big room was guarded by an elderly tonsured man at a large desk, reading a document. A simple wooden bench nearby held three boys writing on slates. All four looked up as she arrived. The man was a Franciscan friar, which was no surprise, for almost all clerks were clerics. His face bore no expression whatsoever, but his desk was littered with books, folders, and papers in heaps and bundles. She wondered if he was a Speaker.

“I wish… I need to see Cardinal Zdenek.”

The chancellor frowned and consulted a list. “You have an appointment?”

“No, but-”

He smiled wearily. “I can add your name to Thursday’s provisional list.”

“Pray tell His Eminence that Countess Madlenka of Cardice is here. I believe he will be anxious to see me much sooner than Thursday.”

The friar’s frown deepened, but he reached for a pen and dipped it in his inkpot. “On what matter?”

“Wulfgang Magnus.”

That brought a reaction. He looked up sharply. “Magnus, you said?”

“Count Magnus’s brother.”

He replaced the pen. “If it would please you to take a seat, my lady, I will advise his secretary that you are here.”

Madlenka withdrew to one of the couches, placing herself as far from the other petitioners as possible. Silence returned. Once in a while one of the boys’ slates would squeak. No one was paying her any heed, so she was free to gawk around as well as she could in the gloom. Now she understood why Petr had raved about Mauvnik when he returned from his visit in the summer. It was all very impressive, and grander than anything she knew in Cardice, although even thinking so made her feel disloyal. Yet even this hall could not stand up against the one room she had seen a little while ago in the Louvre. This decor tried too hard. It was crude. The bedroom in Paris had taste. This tried to overawe you. The room in Paris just was, and left you to draw your own humiliated conclusions.