Speak to the Devil (4 page)

“Don’t be so hasty. You haven’t heard the whole problem yet. The message was that, on the morning of the fifteenth, Count Bukovany had suffered a severe stroke, and the doctors held out no hope of his surviving. Sir Petr had gone deer hunting that morning and was charged by a boar at exactly the same hour his father was smitten. He was brought back on a litter, fatally gored. Are you still so eager, Lancer Magnus?”

Witchcraft!
Not quite so eager. “You suspect Speaking, Your Eminence? Satanism?”

“I do. Answer my question.”

Anton had thought he was to be asked to deliver a letter. Now the job description sounded like much more than that. Far more than anything he could handle, in truth.

“I am still very eager. Who sent the message?”

“Ah!” Long yellow fangs showed for a moment in the cardinal’s beard. “You ask shrewd questions, young man—perhaps Our Lady has answered my prayers. The warning was sent by the castle seneschal and countersigned by Count Stepan’s daughter, delivered by a juvenile son of the chief huntsman.”

“I should have expected the constable, or whoever was the count’s military deputy, to send it by a party of his lancers.”

“So should I.”

“Treachery?” Anton said with a shiver.

“It has the odor of treachery on it. The boy, Gintaras, is still barely coherent after his ordeal, but he confirms that the palace staff distrust the
landsknechte
presently reinforcing the garrison.”

Mercenaries were notoriously ready to change sides when money changed hands. They could have intercepted the official message while the private one slipped by. Anton thumped his sleepy brain to make it think harder.

“What else do I need to know?” How much would he be paid? A hundred florins would sound downright scrimpy now. To think Ottokar warned him that he might find life dull in the Light Hussars!

“You must remember that it will take at least a month to bring any significant number of the king’s men to the rescue. The only force that might be brought to Cardice’s aid in short order would be the Pelrelm muster, but the present count of Pelrelm, Havel Vranov, is known as the Hound of the Hills. Vranov would make a good impression on the devil. His specialty is burning down houses with people inside. He undoubtedly hates Wends with a passion, as his career shows, but he is not above casting a covetous eye on Cardice. Petr Bukovany reported that Vranov had been urging Count Stepan to marry his daughter to one of Vranov’s uncountable sons. The king refused to approve the match, and that was the answer Petr took home with him.”

Anton could remember Ottokar and Vladislav discussing political and
military messes like this one. He wished that he had paid more attention, but he doubted that any of their examples had ever been quite this bad.

“So the nearest ally may not be much better than the enemy?”

“You may indeed find yourself between the dogs and the wolves. This cannot be described as an easy mission, Lancer Magnus. If you arrive to find the Wends already in possession of Castle Gallant, then you will very likely die. If you arrive before that, you may still be overwhelmed despite the best that you or anyone could do.”

And still no price had been mentioned. What would his father have said? That salty old campaigner had said many things that might be pertinent in this instance. Anton chose the most polite. “Then the prize must balance the risk.”

“How much do you want?”

“Five florins and Your Eminence’s favor.”

The fiery eyes flashed. “Insolent young devil! If you won’t haggle, then neither will I.” The cardinal beckoned to Brother Daniel, who brought over a black leather satchel. Zdenek began to fish out its contents, laying them on the table for Anton to see. First came a sash of cloth-of-gold, as wide as a man’s hand, bearing emblems of a crown and a cross embroidered in pearls. “The baldric of a companion in the Order of St. Vaclav—it gives you precedence immediately after the royal family.” Next was a baton, decorated with bands of gold and jewels in colors like butterflies. “From recruit to marshal of the army in less than two weeks? You will be the talk of all Christendom.”

Parchment scrolls followed, with royal seals dangling. “Your honorable discharge from the hussars … letters patent creating you Count Magnus of Cardice and lord of the marches … your commission, promoting you to marshal, and appointing you keeper of the fortress … and the king’s warrant requiring all his subjects to aid you in your present mission.” The cardinal chuckled dryly. “You should, of course, be dubbed knight in proper form, but a humble man of the cloth like me must not wield a sword. I shall send the crown prince to Cardice to do it next summer, after you have secured the border.

“And this edict says that you may, and will, marry Madlenka Bukovany,
who is now an orphan child of one of His Majesty’s tenants-in-chief, and thus a royal ward in chancery. Marriage will let you get your hands into the Bukovany money chests and that will make your brother’s ransom seem like small change.”

The cardinal raised his eyebrow horns. He was probably amused by Anton’s state of shock. The lancer’s mouth felt drier than mummy dust.
An earldom?
No Magnus had ever reached such heights; he was barely twenty years old and had never seen a battle. After a moment he looked across at the shining eyeglasses and found his voice. “You do know how to inspire a man, Your Eminence.”

The old man sneered. “It is cheap trash to His Majesty—paper and wax, a ribbon, and a piece of wood? If you die, Anton Magnus, you will have lost what is most precious of all, life itself, while the king will have lost very little. If you succeed, you may become founder of one of the great families of the realm, the Magnuses of Cardice, and that will be a worthy reward. I am relying on you to maintain your family’s long and splendid reputation for loyalty and service.”

No, he wasn’t. Anton wished that were the case, but he was sure that Zdenek was actually relying on the family’s long and shameful record of producing Speakers. He did not want a courier, or even a warrior. Alexander the Great himself would not suffice. He wanted a Speaker. He wanted witchcraft. He thought Anton could call on the devil to help him reach Castle Gallant in record time and counter the Wendish Satanist who had cursed the Bukovanys.

But Anton Magnus
wasn’t
a Speaker. He had called on neither saint or demon for aid in jumping the stream.

“Well?” Zdenek demanded. “I cannot promise much else: a few hundred hussars at most, and not for thirty or forty days, even if the weather holds. They have all gone home, you see—officers for the hunting and men for the grape harvest. You are the only card I have to play. Do you accept?”

“Certainly I accept.”

The old man truly smiled, for the first time. It looked very much like a smile of relief. “You are insane, young man, but I salute you.”

“Our family motto is
Omnia audere
, and I will not be unworthy of it.”

The cardinal chuckled. “A humanist hussar? My, what is the world coming to? And how do you construe that apothegm, scholar? ‘To risk everything’?”

“It means, ‘I dare any odds!’”

“Close enough. Well, I doubt if any of your ancestors has even faced odds like these—one man against the devil and the entire Pomeranian army. Put your trust in God, my son, not mottoes. Brother Daniel, is it dawn yet?”

The friar peered behind a drape. “Half light, Eminence.”

“Then you needs be on your way, Lord Magnus, to dare all. Any questions?”

“How old is my bride, Madlenka Bukovany?”

“Ah, how could I leave out the most important part? Seventeen. Petr called her both a hellion, which is a judgment not unexpected from a brother, but also a great beauty, which is.” The old man jingled a leather bag. “Gold for your journey.” He began repacking the satchel. “You may need this engraving. May Our Lord and all His angels preserve you. Your varlet can gather your possessions and return them to Dobkov.”

“I shall need my … I shall take my brother with me,” Anton said. He saw no reaction from the cardinal, but he realized at once that he had let his guard down too soon and stepped into a trap. He had betrayed Wulf’s dread secret. Yet he could not help thinking that it might turn out for the best, later.

The brothers’ billet was an attic in the slum area, Lower Mauvnik. It was smelly and cramped and the roof leaked. It would be an icehouse in winter and an oven in summer, and Anton could not stand upright there, even without his hussar hat. The old couple who lived in the fourth-floor room below it feared and hated all soldiers, but the pittance the king paid them to billet two men in their loft was probably their only income. The open steps were almost as steep as a ladder and creaked monstrously, so Anton made no effort to be quiet when he entered, although the relics were still abed in the dark. He climbed through the trap at the top, closed it, and carefully set his hat on the solitary chair.

A bed too narrow for two, a rickety chest of drawers, and a small table completed the furnishings, and the plank floor was carpeted by the clothes and domestic litter of two young men unable to afford servants. Being a count in a great castle was going to be a big step up.

Wulf was standing in the dormer, having opened the shutter to let in the first rays of daylight. He was shirtless, but seemed unaware of the cold, and he was shaving, which he did every day, although he was too fair to show much in the way of stubble.

Anton flopped down on the bed. “Sorry I forgot your birthday last week, Wulf.”

“You are forgiven. I forgot it too. It’s not exactly a major festival.”

“You feeling better today?”

“I’m well.”

He had been tortured by a pounding headache yesterday morning. Possibly in the evening too; Anton had forgotten to ask. He still sounded upset. Commands from a lancer to his varlet would not work in the current situation. Careful negotiation was required.

“What’s gnawing your ass, then?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying. I’ve got important news and we’ve got to hurry, so spit it out, sonny.”

Wulf turned around, his face shining with the oil he used to lubricate the razor. “You don’t know? Really?”

“Really.”

“Just that the next time you try to commit suicide, don’t expect me to stop you, all right? It’s my soul you risk and my head you hurt. I hope your palace trollop was worth it, but from now on you can enlist your bawds by yourself.”

Despite the bitterness in the words, he spoke them softly. No matter how far he was provoked, Wulf never raised his voice. On the rare occasions when he was pushed too far, the first warning was the impact of his fist on the offender’s face.

“Your soul?” Anton protested. “I never asked you to Speak. I didn’t know you
had
Spoken until you told me yesterday. I thought Morningstar and I did that jump all by ourselves.”

“Truly?” Wulf’s yellow eyes glinted. “There I was, comfortably sitting on wet grass eating some noble leftovers in the company of six ignorant churls and a million horseflies, making eyes at a young nursemaid just on principle, when I see you waving for me to come running. The which I then do, anxious lest you need your nose wiped, and you say only, ‘Pray for me!’ Straightaway, you spur your horse down the side of a cliff and into an impossible double jump.”

“It wasn’t impossible!”

“Yes it was. And you knew what sort of prayer you were asking for.”

Anton sighed. “I suppose I did sort of hint. But I was going to try it anyway, and if my survival was your doing, or your saints’ doing, then I’m very grateful. What did you actually do, by the way? After I left?”

“I fell on my knees and begged St. Victorinus to preserve you.”

“Aloud?”

“It doesn’t work otherwise.”

Who else ever prayed to St. Victorinus? Who but Wulf had ever heard of St. Victorinus? Obviously Wulf’s odd behavior had been noted and reported, so Zdenek had known all along that it was Anton’s brother who was the Speaker. At the end, when the cardinal had tricked Anton into admitting that he would have to take Wulf along to Cardice, that had been mere confirmation.

“Perfectly natural behavior. You saw me careering downhill like that, so of course you appealed to Our Lady to save me. There was no one close enough to hear what you actually said.”

“I just hope you’re right,” Wulf said skeptically and went back to shaving.

Anton decided that a little more sincerity was required. “Wulf, I know it wasn’t fair of me. It was an impulse. I saw a chance to catch the eye of people who matter in this kingdom. It was for both our sakes. And for Vlad, too, remember! This town swarms with fine horsemen, but riding’s the only skill I have that could get me promoted.”

“You told me that swiving would,” Wulf said scornfully.

“It did.”

“Really? She does have influence at court?”

“Well, let me show you!” Anton dug in the satchel. “The baldric of a companion in the Order of St. Vaclav … a marshal’s baton … letters patent making me a count.”

His brother hooted. “By the blood, you must be almost as good as you say you are! Better than good—you must be stupendous! So you humped your way into a singing role in the next court masque?” Still laughing, the kid turned his back to continue his ordeal with the razor. Now that he had blown off his anger, the incident was closed. He had never carried grudges, fortunately, despite innumerable excuses provided by four older brothers.

So far so good, except that Anton would now have to reopen the wound.

He said, “Listen. We must be quick. I’ve got Morningstar and Sparrow downstairs, all ready to go.”

“Go where?”

Anton spread out the engraving. “Do you know where this is?”

Wulf glanced over his shoulder. “That’s Castle Gallant. I’ve seen a print of it before.”

“It’s mine now,” Anton said. He lowered his voice to a whisper. The antiquities below were both deaf and the floor was surprisingly solid and soundproof, but he was going to be revealing state secrets. “I’ve just come from a meeting with the Scarlet Spider himself. He’s given me a job. Given
us
a job, I mean. There’s bad trouble brewing in the north. The Wends are massing to invade and they’ve blindsided him, although he didn’t admit that. He thinks Pomerania is about to attack Castle Gallant, which holds the Silver Road. Now the keeper is dead, murdered by witchcraft, and his son also. He’s survived by—”