Wulf licked his fingers. “I think my way of traveling is better.”
“Oh, it is, lad, it is!”
Would Castle Gallant still be standing when the king’s men finally arrived?
After dinner, Otto changed back into traveling clothes and settled with the landlord, who was happy to rent out the same room twice in one day. Once they had left the yard, heading for the city gate, the brothers could talk freely of war and Voices.
“Vlad is as cantankerous as ever, and even bigger, I think,” Wulf said. “I’m to meet him at the castle door tomorrow. I should take him straight to Cardice, shouldn’t I?” Cardice and Madlenka! He must see her again, even if all he could do was admire her from afar, like the poet Petrarch adoring Laura.
Otto agreed. “We don’t want to have to explain any more miracles than we must. The Spider admitted that he knew who put Anton over that jump at the hunt. He admitted he wanted you more than Anton, but had been told that you were only sixteen, too young for his purpose.”
“I think Marek started that story. Which means the cardinal gets his information from the monastery.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Otto said. “And if Marek misinformed the monks about your age, he was probably trying to protect you. But Zdenek knows who and what you are, and he agrees you should be rewarded.”
“Does he truly? If I survive, of course. Reward me for Speaking to the devil? Can I sue him if he doesn’t keep his promise?”
Otto laughed. “You can probably scare him by threatening to turn him into a real spider. As far as your ladylove is concerned, he seemed quite sympathetic and certainly didn’t rule out a change of bridegroom. That is, as long as she doesn’t go and marry Anton first. And I told him that you need help just as much as Anton does. Again he didn’t promise, but he did say he would try to send someone. The password will be ‘Greenwood.’”
Wulf thought about all that and said nothing while they waited to clear the gate, where a jam of travelers was lined up to be inspected by the guards. Then a path was opened for the nobility. They were waved through and saluted.
The road was less busy outside, but the city had outgrown its walls, and was flanked by a wide sprawl of cottages. There were still too many people in view to risk a disappearance, but not so many that they could not talk freely.
“Password?” Wulf said. “Then Cardinal Zdenek regularly employs Speakers? Like the Church does?”
Otto was looking bleak. “Possible, but I got the impression that the archbishop helps out the cardinal every once in a while and Zdenek may ask for such a favor this time. Obviously he did not admit that.”
“Lord love me! You mean he’s going to borrow a Speaker from the archbishop?”
“Why not? You tell me the Wends are employing a Speaker, Father Vilhelmas. But how many more do they have? How many Speakers does it take to move a bombard along a mountain road? The archbishop won’t want a war, and certainly not an invasion led by Orthodox priests.”
“But the abbot…” Wulf wondered if the Church might even send Marek and then discarded the thought. “How do Speakers control other Speakers?”
“That question,” Otto said sadly, “is your largest worry right now.”
No, it wasn’t. Madlenka was.
“Koupel is famous for its medicinal springs, Wulf. People go there to be cured of their ills. Rich ones give generous endowments.”
That was heresy, saying that the pilgrims were cured by Satanists.
Wulf looked away to study the road. So many people! Arriving from Dobkov in the morning had been easy-the road had been empty-but now there was no gap big enough to disappear from.
His reverie was interrupted when Otto said, “Can you move two men through limbo, as you call it? Could you take both Vlad and me to Cardice?”
“I don’t move anyone, but I can ask my Voices. That would be wonderful, if you would come. Wonderful!”
Otto smiled. “I may be needed as mediator. Anton will become insufferable pretty fast. Does he wear his coronet to bed yet? He needs Vlad, but Vlad having to take orders from Anton is likely to blow up Castle Gallant faster than the Wends’ bombard.”
Wulf laughed, but then he noticed a couple of sizable barns near the road. “See those? If we ride between them, we should be out of sight long enough to enter limbo. Holy Saints, when my brother and I are out of public view behind that barn, will you please move both of us to Dobkov, to somewhere on the road where we won’t be seen?”
— You are becoming very devious in your requests, Wulfgang, my son. Helena sounded amused, fortunately.
“I am wise to be devious, aren’t I? I am very grateful for all your help.”
His trick seemed to work. They ran the horses along the corridor at a fast pace and emerged on the Dobkov road. Again old Balaam was spooked, even making a game effort to buck. Copper merely flickered his ears in the equine equivalent of a shrug. Whether anyone back at Mauvnik was having hysterics about Satanism, Wulf could not know, but it seemed unlikely. Only someone deliberately watching the two riders would have noticed their failure to reappear, and who wouldn’t sooner believe that their eyes were playing tricks?
As they rode into the bailey, the first thing Wulf noticed was a groom rubbing down a chestnut stallion over by the stable door.
“We have company! That’s Morningstar.”
Otto frowned. “So it is. Where did you leave him-Mauvnik?”
“No,” Wulf said. “Koupel.”
CHAPTER 27
Thinking furiously, Wulf rode after Otto, over to the house door. By the time he had dismounted, Achim had come running from the stable to take charge of their mounts. He saluted the baron, looking up at the big man with a huge smile. “Brother Marek is here, my lord! Just came for a visit, he says.”
“Alone?”
The stableman flinched at the sharp tone. “Yes, my lord.”
“How is Morningstar? Has he been ridden far?”
“No, he’s fresh, my lord. Still frisky.”
“You’re certain Brother Marek came alone?”
“Yes, my lord.”
As the brothers ran up the steps, Otto put into words what Wulf had thought at first and then rejected: “Marek may be the help the cardinal promised.”
“So soon?”
“Well… If Zdenek had a Speaker within call in the palace and sent him straight to Abbot Bohdan it would work. No, you’re right. The abbot would want to consider the request, then summon Marek, and so on. It’s too fast.”
Hating himself for even thinking it, Wulf said, “So his visit may be bad news.”
“You want to disappear while I find out?”
“If he had brought company I would,” Wulf admitted. He attempted a smile, although he suspected it wasn’t a very good one. “But I’d feel terrible running away from anyone his size.”
As the brothers entered the lesser hall, three excited people shouted that Brother Marek was back. He had come on a visit. He was upstairs, in the solar with the baroness, meeting his nephews and nieces.
“Let me talk with him first,” Otto said as they clanked up the spiral staircase. “You go and change.”
Deeply troubled, Wulf headed for the guest room. All through his childhood he had been told that Magnuses were allowed to feel fear but were expected to ignore it. He was feeling fear now and it refused to be ignored. Had Marek brought a warning from the Church? Would his Voices be able to bind Wulf in some sort of obedience? Had he been so distressed by seeing Anton and Wulf that he had renounced his vows and fled the cloister? If that were the case, surely he would have hounds on his heels very quickly-Dominican friars, likely. It had been Dominicans who came for him five years ago. Not for nothing were the Dominicans known as domini canes, the Lord’s dogs.
He threw open the door and went in.
A man was standing in the window alcove, leaning out and staring at something below. Apparently he had not heard the door open, and had been interrupted in the process of changing, for he wore only a breechcloth. His back was a hell of partly healed black and purple stripes, grooves of torn and crushed flesh. Wulf had seen men flogged, but never as savagely as that. A bulky monkish habit lay discarded on the floor nearby, close to a saddlebag like the one Morningstar had worn to Koupel.