Dave Duncan - When the Saints

“No.”

She seemed relieved. “Sooth, it is a drab, cold place. Will you come with me to one more pleasant, where we may talk undisturbed?”

He had already accepted that he had nothing to lose. “Omnia audere,” he said. That was the family motto, I dare all.

“Ha! You’re not risking a whit or tittle, boy. Your Voices will bring you back here anytime you want. Speak you Greek as well?”

“A few words.”

“Then we’ll go to Avlona and peradventure teach you a few more.”

A gate through limbo opened in front of them, a gap in the air admitting a blaze of golden light and a rush of warm, scented air. He followed Justina through and found himself not in Heaven, as he half expected, but in a tiny vineyard, about twenty yards square, enclosed by stone walls draped with creepers. The light that had seemed blinding in St. Sebastijan’s holy gloom was just sun-dappled shade below the ceiling of vines on trellises. The color came from their fall-tinted leaves; the grapes had all been harvested. Humid, cloying air told him that summer still lingered here, far from Cardice.

“Now, you come this way, young squire.” Justina headed along a path paved with red tiles, flanked by vines and trellis posts, and he saw that what he had taken for just another wall was the side of a low farmhouse of white walls and red roof, its windows masked by weathered wooden shutters.

She was already untying the laces on her cloak, which seemed like a good idea, so when they arrived at a lichen-blotched stone table flanked by stone benches, he tossed his down beside hers, to be joined by a distaff, a saber, and Justina’s felt hat. Her black skirt and white blouse were of finer quality than her outer garments. Although he could not identify any difference other than the clothing, she looked less a servant now, more a rich merchant’s wife, and much less ancient.

He sat opposite her and gazed around in wonder. The tiny paved area was littered with old presses, broken furniture, and cart wheels; even a rusty anvil. The house had been inhabited a very long time. A few straggly flowers grew in giant pots, but he could see no great distance in any direction except straight up, to a sky enameled in cobalt blue.

“Where is this, my lady?”

“Justina. Suffer me to play servant, lest you forget and misspeak when another is present.” She spoke more like a chatelaine lecturing a scullery wench than a servant addressing a noble.

“Tell me where this is, Justina.”

“Near Avlona, in Greece.”

If she worked for Cardinal Zdenek, why bring him to Greece? She read the question in his face before he could ask it.

“It is a safe place for Speakers. The Orthodox Church is less bloodthirsty than that rabid pack of cardinals in the Vatican, and their Islamic overlords won’t let them roast people anyway.”

He distrusted that gibe at Rome. “What do the Turks do to witches?”

“Stone them.”

“Much better.” He smiled a peace offering. “May I ask where your loyalty lies?”

“I am doing a favor for the Scarlet Spider. I am to hold your coat while you belabor the Pomeranians.”

Help at last! “But normally you work for Archbishop Svaty?”

“God’s blood! Will you waste your whole life in useless gossip, young sir? War itself is too stupid to spoil a fine day on. Question to some purpose.”

“Do your Voices, and mine, come from God or the devil?”

She nodded, amused. “Yes, that is the nub. Would you have me admit to being in league with Satan? Do I look such a fool? Are you in state of grace, Squire Wulfgang?”

He hesitated. “I do not know. That is what I must learn.”

“And any princely cardinal or pauper priest will tell you that you can never know, not in this life. None of us ever can, so they say. So now you just do whatever you think is right, lad, and we’ll tend to the state of your soul later. I can direct you to an understanding confessor. Your brother was bemoaning things that went awry yesterday. There were deaths, he said.”

Wulf stole a quick Look at his brothers. However far Avlona was from Cardice, distance seemed not to matter to his spying magic. Otto was in a large, dim storeroom, probably in the barbican, helping to supervise work gangs; Vlad still up on the roof. Anton, though, was striding through the narrow streets, probably going back to the keep.

“Three deaths. Father Azuolas, Father Vilhelmas, and Brother Marek-a Dominican friar and priest, an Orthodox priest, and a monk posing as a friar. Marek was also my brother, the middle one of the five of us.”

“Three?” Justina pulled a face. “Best you start explaining.”

“I went to fetch a crossbow from the armory. When I came back, I found Marek being assaulted by a Dominican friar and a Benedictine monk. They both had nimbuses, and I wasn’t going to risk attacking Speakers with my fists. I had spanned the bow to try it out, so I just dropped a bolt in the notch a Cn tingnd loosed. I hit the friar, Azuolas. The monk, Brother Ludovic, attacked me.”

“Hardly surprising, I’d say.”

“I could see the friar was dying. I kept shouting at Ludovic to stop so we could join forces to heal him, but he wouldn’t. He overpowered me, but then Marek hit him with the poker. By that time Azuolas was dead. I told Ludovic to go back to Koupel and take the body with him.”

Justina pursed her lips and drummed fingers in silent disapproval on the weathered stone of the table. “Mother of Heaven! And won’t the Church be setting its hounds baying after you now? Well, that’s one death. There’s more?”

“Havel’s Orthodox priest, Father Vilhelmas, a Speaker. I opened a gate through limbo to where he was and Marek shot him with the crossbow.”

The old woman stared at Wulf in horrified disbelief. “That’s murder! Assassination!”

“Maybe. I was very sure that Vilhelmas had killed the old count and his son-although now I’m not so certain-but Anton found him leading Pomeranian troops inside Jorgarian territory. They had attacked the garrison at Long Valley without warning, which is a clear breach of the Church’s rules of war, and massacred them. What sort of priestly behavior was that? I’m a warrior, Justina. I come of warrior stock and I was trained to fight. Even Marek was. He had to beg me to let him do the killing, because it was my idea and I wanted to do it. I still think Vilhelmas deserved it.”

Justina shivered and clasped herself as if the morning had just turned cold.

“The third death was Marek himself,” Wulf said. “Vilhelmas was a distant cousin of Havel Vranov’s, but Havel also has an imbecile son, Leonas. Leonas turned out to be a Speaker, too, although he has no halo and doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing. He came to Gallant and cursed Marek for killing his friend. Marek died right away.”

After a moment Justina whispered, “Had we known about this…”

“You would have refused to help me?” he asked bitterly.

“Not I, but another… Have you never heard of the first commandment?”

“I am the Lord your God-”

“Not that one! Lord a’mercy! For Speakers, any Speakers, there are three laws, three commandments. The first is: Talent must be used in secret. You never let workadays see you using power! Nor the Church neither, if you know what’s good for you. Any people may panic if they see you using talent. Only the Wise-that’s the folk who already know about talent: the Speakers and a very few workadays, like yon brothers of yours-can be allowed Cn bise to see it.”

“Marek said as much.”

“But he was willing to step out of limbo to kill a priest before witnesses?”

Wulf sighed. “My brother saved a boy’s life once, and for that he was shut up in jail for five years. He was tired of playing by the Church’s rules.” Marek was no longer around to defend himself; someone must. “Besides, we had just seen Havel Vranov and three other men vanish from a crowded banquet hall. Havel’s not a Speaker, but he cursed Anton and Castle Gallant like Thyestes cursing Atreus, then he and his companions disappeared. What was that, if not a deliberate display of Satanism? Two hundred people saw it. A mob tried to flee out the doorway and at least a dozen people were hurt.”