Dave Duncan - When the Saints

She wondered how many hours or days the other people had been waiting there. She wondered what she would do if she was sent away unheard. And supposing that flibbertigibbet Sybilla forgot to come looking for her? She would be stranded alone in a city she did not know, without money or friends and no admissible explanation for hanation ow she got there.

Suddenly delayed shock struck her as if she’d been dropped into icy water. She was alone in a strange city. In a city! The little country girl who had dreamed of visiting Paris or Rome was suddenly alone in the first real city she had ever seen. In her dreams she had traveled with her handsome-prince husband. She had no husband here. She might have no husband at all, if Anton followed through on his offer to have their handfasting annulled. No Anton, no Wulf… Thoughts of Wulf calmed her. Wulf was probably safe, if Sybilla had not lied about that, and she was doing this for Wulf. Marry Louis of Rouen to Princess Laima… Madlenka Bukovany, matchmaker to the House of Jorgar! She felt an urge to giggle and beat it down.

Then came despair. This expedition was absurd. Zdenek had already spoken to Otto and Anton that evening, and would refuse to waste any more of his time seeing their juvenile sister-in-law. Even if she was granted a hearing, she had as much chance of winning a bargaining match with the Scarlet Spider as she had of throwing and pinning an ox.

After twenty interminable minutes or so, a very grandly dressed man with ostrich plumes in his hat strolled along the hall and spoke to the friar. The words exchanged were inaudible, but he was clearly refused. He walked all the way back out again, his feathers seeming to droop lower than they had on the way in.

Another fifteen or twenty minutes and the door opened a crack. The friar rose and went to speak with whoever was on the other side. Then he turned and tried to beckon the dozing woman. When she ignored him, he gestured to one of the novices, who hurried over on bare white feet and spoke to her. She jumped up and went inside, then the door closed and everyone else went back to doing what they had been doing before.

Madlenka Bukovany was being given a lesson in humility.

The woman’s interview was apparently very brief, for soon the door opened again, and this time the friar looked to Madlenka. She nodded her thanks as she went by him. Beyond that first door lay a very short corridor to a second, which was being held open for her by yet another friar, a fussy little man with an eye patch.

Beyond the second door was Cardinal Zdenek’s study, brilliantly lit by four great crystal chandeliers. There was gilt everywhere-on paneling, furniture, picture frames. What wasn’t gold seemed to be scarlet-cushions, brocade draperies, and, not least, the cardinal’s rich robes and broad hat. His chair was almost a throne, flanked by a table and a writing stand. Unusually for the times, he wore a beard, a long white one, and when he looked at Madlenka, the light caught his eyeglasses, so all she could see through them was fire. He held out a hand bearing his ring.

She knelt to kiss it.

“A seat for the lady, Brother Daniel.”

She rose and held her polite smile, hoping it had not frozen into a grimace, and fighting down a desire to babble like a baby. After a delay that seemed too long not to be deliberate, the chair was clattered down on thed down o marble behind her. She sat and folded her hands on her lap. That was the signal to begin.

“Why you?” the Spider snapped. “Where is he?”

“Sleeping. He hasn’t slept for days. Er, nights.”

“Well, why not send one of his bovine brothers? Or the chief witch herself? Why you?”

“Because I am now his cadger.”

“Ha!” The cardinal’s guffaw startled her, as it was meant to. “An unfledged falcon and an unhatched cadger? Did you come here to back me into a corner with your vicious negotiating tactics?”

He sounded just like her mother, and Madlenka had long ago learned that the best defense against browbeating was defiance.

“I am reliably informed that you are in a corner already, Your Eminence.”

“You are insolent!”

“You are very ungrateful. I think that what Squire Wulfgang achieved this day hardly justifies describing him as unfledged. You do not wish to negotiate for his future services?”

He leaned back, fiery eyes studying her. “So?” he murmured at last. “State your terms, my lady.” As a surrender, that rang as false as a stone bell.

“I offer my falcon’s exclusive services for the next year, with extensions thereafter by mutual consent.”

“Or until the Inquisition burns him, or his brother has to hang him for murder?”

“No criminal charge could be proved in court, and I have been assured that a papal pardon and absolution can be obtained for any suspicion of past sins.”

The old man chuckled. “I see. Provided I marry off Princess Laima to Louis of Rouen, of course? That Umbral strumpet never gives up.”

Madlenka felt as if her horse had just balked at a jump and she was about to land in a ditch. The old scoundrel was so far ahead of her at this sort of wrangle that he was almost certainly just playing with her. He probably meant her to think that.

“I have never met nor spoken with Lady Umbral.”

“How about Cardinal d’Estouteville?”

“No. Is he Sieur Louis’s uncle?”

Zdenek shook his head mockingly, as one might at a child showing off. “That is wh1C; That at he calls himself. Twenty years ago, just after he was appointed bishop of Rouen, Guillaume seduced the governor’s wife. The sweet little product of their happiness was the cause of much merriment in the town, but the ancient marquis was so flattered at being thought capable of siring a child that he made no complaint. So, while young Louis claims to be related to the king of France, he is in fact naught but a priest’s bastard. His true father is anxious to advance him, of course. Had Louis shown any talent for the church, he would be at least a bishop by now, probably holding several benefices. He isn’t a warrior, either; just a bit of a scholar, apparently, and a good musician, but there’s no money in those. Now d’Estouteville sees a way to catapult his by-blow into royalty at no cost to himself. But why should he pick a faraway and insignificant country like Jorgary to bless with his offspring? Have you worked that out yet, Countess?”

“There aren’t many marriageable princesses around?”

“There are many. So many, in fact, that you have the question reversed. Ask rather why d’Estouteville should bother pursuing our dear Laima for his bastard?” Zdenek shrugged his scarlet shoulders and abruptly changed the subject.

“I agree that your falcon achieved an outstanding success today, but I have absolutely no interest in being his client. Not for a year, nor for life. His cadger, yes. Then I would be interested. If he-and you also-would agree to transfer his jessing to me, then I would be willing to discuss the matter further. I insist on negotiating with him, though, not you. Now I have work to do. Have you means of returning to Castle Gallant, Countess?”

“No.” There was nothing left to say. She didn’t understand why her offer had been declined so emphatically, only that there must be deeper currents that she had not seen and perhaps never would or could. Her first attempt to help Wulf as his cadger had failed totally, and tomorrow might bring even worse disaster.

She rose, knelt to kiss the cardinal’s ring without meeting his eye, and then turned to Brother Daniel.

He, surprisingly, smiled at her, as if to compensate for his client’s rudeness. A narrow darkness appeared beside him.

“The only part of Castle Gallant I know,” he said.