Speak to the Devil

CHAPTER 14

Madlenka stormed into her bedroom. As the door closed behind her, she whirled around. “That popinjay! That upstart! That freakishly oversized, ditch-born son of a sow. Did you hear him?”

Giedre said, “Yes.” That did not dam the torrent.

“Go and lie down, he said! Rest my poor little self! Too much excitement? What sort of a child does he think I am?” Madlenka grabbed up a painted vase and took aim at the fireplace. “Who does he think he is?”

Giedre removed the missile just before her mistress’s throwing hand began to move. “He’s the king’s man. He’s the count of Cardice. He’s your betrothed and future husband.”

“He’s a snake! He sent me to my room! He wants everyone to see him as lord of Cardice and forget that it’s marriage to me that gives him his place.”

“It was the king who put him there, not you.”

“You too? You also think I’m just part of the furniture? A serf tied to the land?” Madlenka caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her face was redder than strawberries and all her teeth were showing. Oh, horrors!

“Well, you are a sort of serf,” Giedre said. “Tied to his bed by royal decree. Arturas says that the fancy sash he wears means that he’s a trusted friend of the king!”

Madlenka forced herself to sit down on the stool and fold her hands on her lap. “I knew it! I knew it! No soldier, just a courtier. The arrogance of the man! I have never met such an overblown, self-important prig. We need a warrior and they send somebody’s juvenile son that they don’t know what else to do with. Probably escaping from a paternity problem involving triplets. He can’t know which end of a pike is the handle.”

The problem was that she had expected an older man, a mature man. Someone not unlike Father, in fact, just a little younger. Calm, fond, deliberate, soothing. This Anton didn’t seem much older that Petr had been, and he was anything but soothing. The way he looked at her…

Worse, perhaps, was that she had no idea what to expect after the inevitable wedding ceremony. Nobody would even talk about that. No one ever explained. She knew that all women were instruments of the devil, sent to entrap men in sins of lust and vice, but she had no idea how she was expected to go about it. She knew what dogs did with bitches and ganders with geese, but visions of her squatting on the floor with her arms spread out and Anton standing on her back while gripping her neck failed to convince, somehow.

The way he looked at her, Anton knew exactly what she was expected to do and would want her to do it right away.

Giedre moved in close and began to dismantle Madlenka’s headgear-hat, veil, and coif.

“I thought he handled the landsknecht in the church very well, didn’t you?” she asked serenely. “He obviously knew what he was talking about, because he impressed that hairy German troll. And just this morning you were moaning that the king would send you a warrior. Foulmouthed, fat, and forty, I think you said, with the manners of a rutting boar.” She took up a hairbrush and began to wield it.

Which was very annoying of her, because having her hair brushed never failed to bring Madlenka out of her tantrums.

“The manners fit. You think sixteen and thin as rope is an improvement?”

“Oh, yes! He’s a lot older than sixteen. And if what they say about tall men is true, his… feelings will be a lot deeper than most husbands’.”

Madlenka thought of stallions. “Stop it! I’m nervous enough already.”

Her friend smiled smugly. “What I think is that if your Count Magnus hadn’t turned up just when he did, the Vranovs would be shipping your inheritance out the gate on a mule train about now. And you with it. Which one of them would you want to be married to, if you had your choice?”

“Leonas. I’ve always liked hair that color and he does what he’s told. What am I going to wear? I’m bereaved and betrothed, both. Half black and half white?”

“The purple velvet. It suits you. His eyes will pop.”

“They already pop too much.” But, yes, neither mourning nor too festive. The purple was somber but the gown itself full and rich, with short bodice, clutched-up skirt trimmed with ermine; a neckline low enough to be interesting and a bucket-shaped hat with dangling white lace. That would do. Her hair down, of course. Soon she would be married and wearing it up. “Oh, Giedre! What would happen if I refused him?”

The hairbrush began moving faster. “Don’t even dream of it! You’d be tossed into a convent, I expect. What’s wrong with him? He’s conceited, maybe, but he has a lot to be conceited about-young, handsome, trusted friend of the king, one of the leading peers of the realm, a lord of the marches. Most women settle for much less.”

“I suppose so,” Madlenka sighed. A convent would feel like a very safe place about now. “It’s just that… I had always hoped that one day I’d meet the man I was going to marry and… lightning would flash in our eyes and angels blow on silver trumpets.”

Her friend made a noise perilously close to a snort. “You have been listening to far too many troubadours. It doesn’t work that way. You say the words, he does what he does, and the next night he does it again, and by the end of the week you’re begging for it. My mother told me. And my grandmother. And your father’s grandson will rule in Castle Gallant long after long Anton Magnus is gone.”

Madlenka laughed. “That’s true! Whatever would I do without you to keep my feet on the ground?”

“You are favored, what of me? Where is the even-more-handsome brother I was promised?”

That had always been their private joke-that when Madlenka was sent off somewhere to be the wife of some handsome young noble, Giedre would go with her to be her mistress of the robes, and would then marry the theoretical duke’s theoretical younger brother. Who would, of course, be either almost as handsome or even more handsome, depending on which of them was spinning the fantasy.

“I expect he stayed home to feed the hounds,” Madlenka countered. “Or he may have a few years’ growing up to do yet. Be patient! Now I must dress. We’ll have to find somewhere for the count to sleep until

… And we have to get Mother out of the baronial bedchamber before… Oh, Lord! The wedding night! Although I don’t suppose she’d notice if we joined her there. And what sort of an army did he bring? Have the Pelrelmians gone from High Meadows, or did he wipe them out on his way in? Single-handed, I expect. He thinks he’s capable of it. And he didn’t bring any baggage, did he? He’ll need clothes made.”

“Petr was tall. Would any of his things do?”

“No. Magnus is a hand taller, at least, and half as wide. If I am not to be wooed by a man permanently clad in armor, we’d better send for every tailor in town, Sunday or not.”

An hour later, Madlenka was sitting in the solar, sharing some bread and honey with Giedre. They ate eagerly, for it was well past noon and they had not yet broken their fast. The ceremony in the hall had ended, but Anton Magnus had gone out of the keep without a word of explanation to his betrothed. Madlenka could not even complain about this insult, because she knew that he was in no way required to report his movements to her. She had three tailors waiting down in the kitchens. Dinner was late, for the Sunday repast required the presence of the count to say grace. He might not be aware of that custom, of course.

Count Vranov and his escort had been evicted from the south gate. His men were packing up their tents in High Meadows. That much she knew. There was no sign of a Jorgarian army approaching. Just how Magnus had materialized in the cathedral remained a mystery, and Vranov’s hints of Speaking refused to be banished from her mind. If witchcraft could move a man unseen into a church, it could probably counterfeit the royal seal, too. Mustn’t think about such things.

The door opened; in walked the count.

“Ah, there you are. My, that looks good. Come, I have someone you must meet.”

The women had risen, of course. Madlenka said, “Dinner, my lord-”

“In a minute. This won’t take long.” He offered his arm and she had to accept.

Even indoors he walked too fast for her, clanking and jingling. “My brother Wulfgang is my squire. He came with me, and I’ve just rescued him from the infirmary.”

“Oh, no! Not that awful place?”

“Yes. I’ll do something about ‘that awful place’ as soon as I get the chance. I can’t understand… Well, no matter.” He was hinting that her father should have done something about it. Which was probably true, a pox on him!

He had brought her to the stairs, and was climbing at a more reasonable pace than he walked. “Wulf took a fall, a bad one. Fortunately he was wearing armor, but he’s one all-over bruise, and that idiot doctor has been drugging him with sewage. I want you to look after him for me, will you?”

“Of course, my lord!” She felt absurdly surprised that he was going to trust her to handle even that sort of trivial task.

“Keep doctors away from him, understand? Wulf’s tougher than boiled leather. He’ll be on his feet again in a couple of days.” Anton leered down at her. “At the moment he looks like sausage meat, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He swung open the door to the Orchard Room-named for its murals, not its view, for it overlooked the bailey, like most other rooms in the keep. He let Madlenka precede him.

“Wulf! Wulfie, I brought you a beautiful nurse to speed your recovery.”

The face on the pillow looked as if it had been thoroughly beaten with an ax handle, and all the rest of him was under the blankets, except for a tangle of honey-colored hair on the pillow. His eyes flickered but did not open. Both they and his lips were grossly swollen.

“He’s been doped,” Anton said with disgust. “But he should be better tomorrow.”

Behind his back, Giedre was wearing a half-witted expression, her eyes turned upward and a hand cupped to her ear. Giedre was signaling that she had found the handsome younger brother who had been promised her and she could hear the angelic silver trumpets.

Which was annoying, because Madlenka already-in those first few instants-suspected that Somebody had Made a Terrible Mistake.