Alojz rolled his eyes. Wulf did not lower his guard. If he saw the least flicker in the Pelrelmian’s nimbus, he was going rip the kid’s ear off-inside his helmet where no one else would notice.
“I hope you laugh at your folly when your head is mounted on a spike, my lord.” Havel looked to Ugne. “My lord bishop, can you not make this popinjay countling see reason? Can’t you explain to him that my life and lands are as much at risk as his are? If Wartislaw takes Cardice, he will have forced open the front door to Pelrelm also. I have fought the Wends all my life, and to accuse me of treason now is ludicrous!”
“How much did you pay the landsknechte to desert?” Anton asked.
Havel reached for his dagger. The bishops and heralds all wailed that this was a parley.
“You cannot defend this castle without my help!” the Hound yelled.
“I have the help of my brother,” Anton drawled, deliberately provoking the older man. “No, not this one, although he keeps our spirits up with an endless flow of droll stories. I refer to Sir Vladislav Magnus, a knight banneret famed throughout Christendom, who is now supervising our defenses and has assured me that there is no cause for alarm. He can hold off the Wends until it’s so cold their pissers freeze. Which is what the wind is about to do to me, so we should discontinue this meaningless blithering and save your venerable bishop from further distress. Or are you about to threaten to blast your way into my castle and steal it before the Wends do?”
Nobody spoke. Wulf wanted to look at their faces, but dared not take his attention off Alojz.
“That is your last word?” Havel growled at last.
“Almost. If you truly wish to help us,” Anton conceded, “I will admit that we are short of crossbow bolts. So if you care to deliver a wagonload or two to our outpost, I shall happily pay for them at standard rates. The same goes for rent or purchase of any bombards or other firearms you are not using, and of course suitable powder and shot. In short, your help with materiel will be welcome and gratefully acknowledged to His Majesty, but none of your men will set foot inside my gates, and that is final.”
Nicely done. A true patriot should be willing to negotiate on that basis. Wulf raised an eyebrow to invite Alojz’s approval of Anton’s verbal dexterity, but the youth just sneered.
And Havel turned his back. “Come, my lord bishop,” he said. “The boy is mad and we must leave him to God’s mercy.”
“Anton, my son, is this wise?” Ugne muttered.
“My lord bishop,” Anton declared, loud enough for all to hear, “I have knowledge sure as Holy Writ that Havel Vranov is in league with the Pomeranians.” He knew that because Wulf had seen the Hound drinking with the Wends at Long Valley last night; but Wulf could never testify to that in a court of law. “He has taken their silver on the promise of delivering Castle Gallant into their hands. His head will fall in good time to the headsman’s ax, and his soul will writhe in Satan’s furnace for eternity. Take your rabble out of my domain, Hound. You are an irrelevant nuisance.”
Anton took Bishop Ugne’s arm and turned him around. Arturas looked sadly at the opposing herald and both shrugged. The meeting broke up. The workadays went their separate ways, but Alojz Zauber lingered, probably checking that Wulf did not try anything as soon as his back was turned. Wulf also waited.
“How many of you Magnuses are there?” the Pelrelmian demanded. “You must breed like rats.”
“Enough of us to handle the Wends and the Hound without working up a sweat. You’re filling in for Father Vilhelmas, are you?”
The boy bared his teeth. “Assassins!”
“Are we? Ask the late Count Bukovany and his son.”
“Ask your brother the friar.”
“That murder was really stupid,” Wulf said. “For three hundred years, killing Magnuses has b een a swift form of suicide. Go home and talk to your confessor before it’s too late, boy.”
A life-and-death parley had degenerated into a child’s slanging match. Assuming that Anton was now safely out of range, Wulf turned on his heel and strode away.
CHAPTER 7
Although there had been no attack on Castle Gallant in Madlenka’s lifetime, nor in her father’s either, her mother had lived through the siege of Castle Zamek before her marriage and knew exactly what had to be done, or thought she did. Quick as Madlenka usually was to find fault with Dowager Countess Edita, she had to admit that the old scold did a fine job in this instance. In no time, she had collected bedding, bandages, and priests, and transformed the hall into an infirmary. Every barber-surgeon in town had been ordered to attend and bring his implements Vt›
Madlenka herself took charge of the stretcher-bearing teams, partly because she thought her authority would get help to the wounded faster, partly because she dreaded the horrors of blood and pain that would unfold in the hall. In a way, she was being cowardly in choosing the danger of the battlements, and she remembered Father telling Petr that courage usually sprang from fear of being thought a coward.
Halfway to the barbican she realized that her mother had blundered when she set up the infirmary in the keep, for it was too far from the north gate. She should have consulted one of the Magnus brothers, any of whom would probably have advised her to requisition St. Sebastijan’s church, which was much closer. And as soon as this skirmish was over, they must organize another hospital near the south gate, probably in St. Petr’s. People forget how to fight wars after too many years of peace.
When she arrived at the fighting, Madlenka had no trouble sweeping up the casualties on the curtain wall, but collecting them from the roof of the barbican was a challenge that required every glint of aristocratic arrogance she could summon. Carrying loaded stretchers down a spiral staircase would be both slow and dangerous, so she moved her first-aid station into the machine room and issued orders that the porters taking materials up must not come down empty-handed. Soon screaming wounded were arriving piggyback, or over shoulders. The bolts had been falling at very steep angles, so the wounds were mostly in shoulders and feet. More than one man had been temporarily nailed to the floor, though, and one even had his helmet spiked to his skull; he died on the stretcher.
If anyone had asked her yesterday, she would have said that such gruesome sights would throw her straight into hysteria, yet in the heat of battle she found herself so caught up by the urgency of moving these suffering men to relief as fast as possible that she never lost her nerve for a moment. Neither the blood on her hands and clothes nor the crossbow bolts going zang! off the stonework distracted her.
She was only dimly aware of what was going on outside, but she knew that the Wends must either climb over the battlements above or force the main gate below, and in either case the fighting would head for the machine room. The thick stone walls muffled the noise, the shouted orders, the cheers and groans, the clamor of firearms and crossbows. But she registered the roar when the ladders fell.
Jubilation reigned. The defenders screamed their lungs out in triumph. The emergency was over for the day, and soon the Wends withdrew, leaving hundreds of dead behind them. Most of the defenders were allowed to stand down, and promptly rushed away in search of beer, song, and other means of celebration. The last of the wounded in the machine room were carried off to the infirmary, and Madlenka breathed for the first time in too long.
She wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist and smiled at Giedre, who looked a freak. Her hair hung in a tangle, as if her head covering had gone for bandages. Her clothes and hands were filthy and bloodstained. Madlenka could be in no better shape, although at least she had retained her tur [ains aban. They had survived their first battle. Please God that it be their last!