Dave Duncan - When the Saints

She hesitated until she realized that she was looking into the solar, lit only by the embers in the hearth.

“My thanks, Brother,” she said, and stepped through.

The room grew even darker as the gateway closed behind her. She waited until her eyes had adjusted, then found a candle and lit it.

She opened a window a crack and heard partying still continuing. What did she do now? Where did she go? The door to her rooms would still be bolted on the inside.

The solar was a mess of uneaten food uneaten, empty bottles, and dirty dishes. It reeked of wine. The candles and firewood had all gone, and the fire itself was burned down to embers. She huddled close to it and fought with problems as uncountable as a plague of roaches. Sybilla had promised to look in on her later, so if Sybilla could be trusted, she would eventually be rescued and returned to her room. If Sybilla could be trusted.

Could Lady Umbral be trusted? If Cardinal d’Estouteville was father to both Sybilla and Louis, then Louis was nothing to Lady Umbral, and Sybilla was acting on her own in offering to rescue Wulf.

And what about Great-aunt Justina-Kristina? Whose side was she on? Was even Anton loyal to Wulf now? Love had driven a wedge between brothers. She needed Wulf! It was his life in peril, and he knew much more about his strange talent than she did.

Why had Zdenek rejected her offer so contemptuously? Was that just bargaining? Or had he obtained another falcon from somewhere to help him through his crisis, so he no longer needed Wulf? If Sybilla forgot her promise or decided that Wulf’s services were no longer available to buy the princess for her brother, then Madlenka might find herself still locked out of her room in the morning, when the castle awoke.

The celebration sounded louder than ever: much shouting and less singing, perhaps, but the clamor had spread even to this, the private area of the keep. Her father would not have allowed that. She could even hear gunshots, and he would certainly have disapproved of wasting ammunition like that.

She needed to speak with Wulf, but they -whichever they had him-would never allow that. Half a dozen words from her and Samson would have his hair back. Idiot! Moron! Why had she not given Wulf permission to use his talent any way he saw fit? Half a dozen words. Probably Sybilla had spied on her conference with the cardinal. If she knew the Wulf gambit wasn’t going to win the princess’s hand for Louis, she would wash her hands of Wulf and Madlenka.

“How did it go?” Sybilla asked.

Madlenka jumped a yard in the air and choked back a scream. “You startled me!”

“You get used to it.” Sybilla sounded slightly slurred. “People appearing and disappearing, I mean. I think you’re in danger.”

“Me?”

“You told the Spider you’re Wulf’s cadger. Other people spy on him and may have heard you. Come with me…” A hole appeared in midair, showing a narrow corridor lit by a flickering sconce: walls of bare plaster, flagstone floor.

Madlenka rose and eyed the prospect uneasily.

“Go on!” Sybilla said impatiently.

Madlenka stepped though and then stopped. The air smelled old and dank. k.

“No! Where is this?” She spun around, but the gate had vanished, and she was facing another bare plaster wall.

Wulf became aware that he was studying a paneled ceiling that had been badly stained and warped by leakage. He must, therefore, be alive and awake. He had never seen that ceiling before. He had never slept in this bed before. He must find a commode very soon. He surged upright.

He saw a small, sparse room with a very large crucifix on the wall, a compromise between a private bedroom and a monk’s cell. Some light and-he now registered-raised voices drifted in through chinks in an ill-fitting shutter, and he had certainly slept well into Saturday. He had vague memories that he had been kissing Madlenka when that little priest arrived with the men-at-arms, and then he was moved, and saw a bed right in front of him. He must have been told he could sleep there, because he had started dropping his clothes where he stood. He certainly wasn’t wearing them now. He didn’t see them lying on the floor, either, but what appeared to be neatly folded clothes lay on a little chest near the door. That other box was almost certainly the commode.

Neither luxurious nor squalid, this accommodation did not match what he would expect of the Inquisition.

He padded over bare boards in bare feet and found the relief he needed. He Looked for Madlenka and saw nothing. Anton? Otto? Nobody. Gallant, Dobkov… nothing. He was a workaday again. However much he despised his inhuman powers, to be deprived of them was to be struck blind and impotent. A small mirror on the wall told him he still had a nimbus, which could only make things worse. He was defenseless, yet any other Speaker would see him as a threat.

Closing the commode lid, he stalked across to the window and opened the shutter, confident that the sill was high enough to defend him against charges of indecent exposure. He was three stories up, looking out at a gray, drizzly day and what had once been a garden but was now a building site, a wasteland of rubble, stone blocks, and timbers. At least a hundred laborers were hard at work on a scaffolded monster that looked as if it might grow up to become a church. Beyond that… Just as he had recognized Castle Gallant when Anton showed him a lithograph of it, so he knew Castello San Angelo looming over the rooftops. And the very long building with the pointed bell tower out front looked much like drawings of St. Peter’s. So he was in Rome, and it was raining.

Chilled, he went to inspect the clothes. The only item that he recognized was the Magnus dagger, neatly laid on top. The undergarments were linen, but as soft as silk, clean and almost certainly brand new, finer than any he had ever worn. Those he could manage, but the trunk hose had one blue leg and one mulberry. Worries about being in the grip of the Inquisition faded even more, unless it had taken to torturing its victims by ridicule-he could not begin to imagine what Vlad would say if he ever saw a Magnus wearing anything like this. Still, it was a perfect fit and of much better quality than any garment he had ever owned. Never look a gift hose in the mouth. The shirt was at least white, and of equal fiineness. He had barely started lacing the two together when there came a tap on the door. Whoever was spying on him didn’t mind his knowing it.

When in Rome… “Intra?!”

An elderly manservant entered, carrying a steaming ewer, which he laid on the chest beside the empty washbasin. He smiled politely and turned on his heel.

Wulf said, “Wait!” unable to find the Latin equivalent soon enough.

He got another smile but that was all. The door closed. Although no bolt clicked, Wulf would bet there was a troop of pikemen out there.

Hot water, razor, soap, oil, comb. A steaming hot bath would have been better, but one can’t have everything. Feeling much refreshed and readier to face the world, he returned to dealing with the appalling apparel. The next garment was a thigh-length doublet of forest green with the forearms slit to show the shirt underneath, and over that went a heavier, fur-lined, pleated coat of mulberry to match his left leg. Its sleeves were slit to the elbow, so the lower halves just dangled. Saints preserve!

The floppy liripipe hat was blue and hung down to his shoulder. The left shoulder, he decided, trying to adjust it in the tiny mirror. This was not Jorgarian wilderness; this was Rome, the center of the world, but if Madlenka saw him dolled up as a clown like this, her love would be greatly tested.

He was still adjusting his liripipe when the same servant brought in a tray, whose mingled odors caught Wulf’s attention like honey caught ants. He pulled over the stool and set to work on fish, pasta, eggs, and fresh figs. Meanwhile the man attended to the wash water and the commode, even making the bed. And then he departed, having spoken not a word.