When the Saints Read online

  “You!” Vlad came striding over like an enraged Goliath of Gath, with the wind rippling his beard and his nose flaming red with cold. “You two prissy nobles come here to dance to entertain the men, or did you plan to be useful?”

  “I was about to ask how we could help,” Otto said mildly.

  “Half this junk,” the big man boomed, waving a meaty hand at the spread of timber that was threatening to pave the entire roof, “is rotten with woodworm and useless. Go downstairs and get those drunken whoresons to pick out the good stuff and sort it into types, so if I need a left rear upright I can send for it. Also have them come up and clear the crap wood out of our way. Then burn it and all the rest like it.”

  This hardly seemed like a job requiring a count and a baron, but Otto dutifully led the way to the stairs. The attic below was a noisy, very dusty cavern, low-ceilinged and lit only by loopholes; he and Anton could barely stand erect in it. A dozen men were heaving timbers around, and several of them were shouting orders. As soon as the count himself arrived, though, he was able to seize everyone’s attention and impose silence. Before he could start issuing orders, Otto tugged at Anton’s cloak. “The light in here isn’t good enough to sort out the bad wood.”

  Anton nodded and amended Vlad’s orders accordingly. Who was in charge here? No one. How many were master carpenters? Two were. He appointed one of them gaffer. First, six men were to go back up and stack the bad pieces that Vlad had already discarded; they would do as ammunition. The rest were to start sorting all the timber into types, making a pile of each shape. When they had done that, they were to choose the worst pieces from each pile and take those away to be copied so that new trebuchets could be built to their model. And whenever they winched a piece up to the roof, they were to inspect it in good light and bring it back again if it was no good.

  Any questions? Then get to work. Yes, my lord.

  Every man ran to obey. In peace or war, men worked better when they had orders directly from a nobleman. No one argued with gentry. The big man upstairs with the beard was a knight, but a count was much higher in the eyes of God or man. Counts were very special.

  Noble blood or not, the dust was making Otto sneeze, so he gratefully followed Anton as he ran down another flight to the machine room. Count and baron shared the same dream of escape to somewhere where they could be more useful.

  “I’m going to the armor anto the y next,” Anton said, heading out the archway to the parapet walk. “Our supply of arrows—”

  “My lord?”

  He spun around to frown at the woman who had spoken. Tall but bent, she was swathed in a laced-up cloak of coarse cloth with her shoes and a few inches of black dress visible below it; from the front of it protruded a wind-reddened hand clutching a distaff like a bizarre scepter. A black felt bonnet hid her hair and ears, revealing only a face from which wrinkles and weathering had driven any trace of beauty. Her age might be anywhere between forty and seventy, depending on how many children she had borne. Undoubtedly she was a servant, almost certainly a widow, and hundreds of her like could be found in the streets anywhere. Women of her station did not normally address counts, and certainly did not stand in wait outside doorways to ambush them.

  “I am Count Magnus.”

  She smiled, nodding as if she knew that. “And I am Greenwood.”

  “Who?”

  “Greenwood!” Otto said joyfully. “Then you are welcome, goodwife. I am Baron Magnus of Dobkov.”

  “And who else would you be?” She bobbed a curtsey that seemed to be intended equally for both of them.

  Anton remembered now. “A mutual friend sent you?”

  “Doubt that anyone calls him friend, my lord, but he is widely known and not without repute.” She simpered. “My name for today is Justina.”

  “You are not quite the sort of helper I was expecting.”

  “And what sort of helper was that, my lord? Someone like that great hairy giant up there on the tower?”

  “That is my brother, Sir Vladislav.”

  “Oh, by the angels, my terrible tongue has run away with me again! Tongue, you will be getting me birched, I do swear.”

  Anton drew a deep breath, but before he could use it Otto coughed a warning. “I suspect that Justina’s innocuous demeanor is designed to confound more our adversaries than ourselves, Brother.” Anton had a limited sense of humor.

  “Save us. Those are precious big words to be using on a humble drudge like me, your lordship.”

  “Are they truly?” Otto said with a chuckle. “Now, I assume that the first thing you want to do is meet our other brother, Wulfgang?”

  “Heaven be my witness, my lord, that will be the second thing. The first wiThe firll be to have a trusty gentleman, such as your noble self, my lord, be warning him that I have come to aid and mean him no harm.”

  Otto recalled Wulf telling him that Speakers could recognize one another at a glance. “Is that your usual way of working, or have you been warned about his hair-trigger temper?”

  Justina rolled her eyes in mock terror. “By Our Lady, a fearful combination you are naming. Yet it be vital that I speak with him.”

  “All very well,” said Anton. “But where is he? I don’t remember him saying where he was going, do you?”

  Otto shook his head while racking his brain. It had been an hour since they parted; Wulf could be literally anywhere in the world by now. As a love-smitten swain, he might have doubled back to speak with Madlenka, which he had done the night before during Anton’s absence. But he would not endanger her reputation, and Anton would be making sure that she was never alone for more than a few seconds.

  “He was in low spirits,” Otto said. “I think the best place to start would be a church.”

  “A church?” Justina cried. “A church you say? Terrible things can happen in churches! Quickly, quickly, let us find him.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Downcast by lack of sleep and the nightmare of Marek’s death, Wulf had indeed gone in search of peace and solitude. Avoiding the cathedral, where he might run into that nosy, pompous bishop, he went in search of the other spires he had seen in the town. The first church he found turned out to belong to St. Sebastijan, which seemed a good omen, for he was the patron saint of soldiers. It was tiny and very bare, the air laden with old incense, murals hidden under layers of candle grease. Wulf wanted no other worshipers around, and especially did not want a priest. It was hard enough to imagine confessing to committing a couple of murders, but to admit to having dealings with the devil was unthinkable. He was cut off from the Church and hope of salvation. He was Faust, and had sold his soul to the devil to make Anton a count.

  Staying well away from the altar and the Host, he knelt in a gloomy corner at the back to pray. Prayer to the Virgin was what he had tried as a youth when the Voices spoke. He still had calluses on his knees from the hours he had spent in the castle chapel.

  He was determined not to swear more oaths. His journey from Koupel to Gallant had levied such a price in pain that he had vowed never to call on his Voices again. But two days later he had been forced to break his word in order to save Anton’s life a second time. That had seemed a worthy use of Speaking—Jesus had healed, so how could healing be evil? And yet evil had followed. Three men had died, all servants of God. Where had he gone so terribly wrong?

  Despite his resolution not to use his Satanic powers, he could not help trying to see what was happening on the battlements. First he stole a Look throug la7h Vlad’s eyes: Vlad was up on the roof of the north barbican, directing the construction of one of the trebuchets he had promised. But his attention never wandered to the north, so Wulf could not tell what the Wends were up to, if anything.

  Madlenka was being bathed by her maids, under the direction of Giedre, her best friend and chief lady-in-waiting. Then it became impossible not to steal a Look from Giedre’s point of view, and.… Stop it! He must not even think about Madlenka, let alone spy on her naked. But he found the temptat
ion almost irresistible and hated himself for letting it distract him from his prayers.

  He had received no answers and found no comfort before he heard the church door creak. Annoying boots came tapping over the flagstones in his direction. Standing over him, Otto said, “I almost didn’t see you there. It’s lucky your hair is so bright.”

  “Go away, I’m busy.”

  “There’s a woman outside needs to speak with you. Cardinal Zdenek sent her. She knew the password: Greenwood.”

  Wulf was tempted to refuse. If Speaking was Satanism, then another Speaker was the last person to ask for help. Yet he desperately needed to talk with someone who could explain who the Voices were, and why they had chosen him for their favors. He also needed to let Cardinal Zdenek know that he was being unfair, making Wulf do all the work and giving Anton all the rewards. Shouldn’t Madlenka be allowed a say in which brother she married? And just to talk for a few minutes with another Speaker might save him from going crazy. If he was already damned, he had nothing in all eternity left to lose.

  He sprang up and squeezed his face into a smile. “Is she beautiful?”

  Otto led the way to the door. “No, but she has a wicked sense of humor. She started plucking Anton’s feathers in no time.”

  “A lady after my own heart.”

  “She doesn’t admit to being a lady. You wait here and I’ll send her in.”

  Wulf stood back. An old woman entered, carrying a distaff, and Otto closed the door from the outside. She was garbed as a servant, but the nimbus around her head blazed very bright in the dim church, so Wulf bowed to her as he would to a countess.

  “I am Wulfgang Magnus, my lady, an esquire in my brother’s service.”

  She curtseyed with surprising agility. “Justina be my name today, squire.”

  “And is your social status equally protean?”

  She smiled. “Ah, a poor woman must beware young gentlemen seeking to beguile her with fine words. You haven’t been swearing any o Cwealed.aths in here, I ween?”

  “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 tmbuses, annd 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 garri
son 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 busingto 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.”