Speak to the Devil

CHAPTER 23

Some battles are better lost than won. Madlenka should have remembered that, because-Heaven knew-recently the battles between her and her mother had outnumbered the stars. Few with Petr and even fewer with Father, but Mother! At the slightest provocation, they went at it like Crusaders and Saracens.

No! Madlenka refused to undress to be inspected. She was a virgin, she would be a virgin on her wedding night, and she would prove it with the traditional blood spot. Until then, Dowager Countess Edita would have to take her word for it and so would the despicable, insufferable Anton Magnus. She knew instinctively that in his brother’s place, Wulfgang would not care whether she was a virgin or not. It would never occur to him to ask. Admittedly she would very likely have jumped into bed with him that morning if he had suggested such a thing, but he hadn’t, so it was nobody else’s business.

The countess insisted, loudly. Madlenka threatened to tear her eyes out if she tried. The countess threatened to call for help from Neomi and Ivana, her closest cronies. Madlenka swore she would tear their eyes out also, and if they jointly overpowered her now she would excecate all three of them later, two eyeballs at a time. Moreover, she would take the first opportunity to dispose of the hymenal evidence so that the outrage would do them no good in the long run. The countess slapped her. Madlenka slapped her right back.

It was regrettable that Anton had mentioned Wulfgang, because he had to be discussed and described. Only three days Madlenka had known him? And she thought she was in love? Absurd! The countess poured scorn. Love within three days was mere infantile delusion. Love was something that grew and ripened within a marriage, not a passing fit of juvenile lust. As for falling for a penniless younger son… A man of eighteen was barely out of swaddling clothes. No rank, no lands, no prospects? Not even a squire, a varlet? An esquire, practically a serf! Madlenka struck her mother again.

At the end of an hour, a truce was declared. Both parties were exhausted and disheveled, but Edita accepted her daughter’s oath, sworn on the Holy Bible, that she was still a virgin. Also, that her contact with the despicable debaucher, Wulfgang, had been limited to one brief kiss, with their mouths closed.

“We didn’t know it could be done otherwise,” Madlenka said sadly, and that almost started the battle again.

She had won it, though, which turned out to be a mistake. Having recovered their poise, they went in search of the count to reassure him on the vital question of his betrothed’s virtue. He was closeted with Bishop Ugne, so they were refused admittance. They spent another hour in the solar, glaring at each other in silence.

When they were at last conducted to Petr’s room, the new count’s temporary chamber, they found him still resting on the bed but looking ominously pleased with himself.

“I am relieved to inform you, my lord,” Edita proclaimed, “that your suspicions about my daughter were baseless. Not that I ever feared otherwise, not for a moment.”

“I am delighted to hear it, my lady. And I have good news for both of you. The lord bishop and I discussed this unusual situation at length over some wine. We agreed that it would be unseemly and irreverent to hold a formal wedding so soon after the funerals. On the other hand, the king’s command makes no mention of delay. His Reverence agrees with me, therefore, that a discreet handfasting would satisfy the spirit of the royal edict, as he put it, without disrespect to the letter. As long as we say suitable vows before witnesses, we shall be married in the eyes of Mother Church. Her formal, public blessing can follow at a more appropriate time.”

Madlenka muttered, “Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes,” the count said, beaming. “We must all do our duty and be true to our allegiance, no matter how it may conflict with our personal desires.”

“I entirely agree!” said the countess.

That was when Madlenka realized that winning the battle had lost her the war. Handfasting was an antique, obsolescent custom that hung on only in remote areas where a priest might not be available in time to bless an imminent union in time for it to be holy matrimony instead of sinful fornication. It was unheard of among the nobility, and the countess would normally have rejected the suggestion with outrage. But a formal wedding during double mourning would be even more scandalous. A private handfasting would solve the Madlenka problem admirably.

Count and dowager countess waited expectantly for Madlenka to comment.

She had no defense left. She had promised Wulf that she would wait for him for forty days, but to mention that would make matters much, much worse. To hint that she suspected him of having supernatural powers would be calamitous. To protest that she had known Anton for barely three days would just prompt her mother to remark yet again that she had first met her future husband on the day before their wedding. To defy the king, her legal guardian, would result in a one-way trip along Sprosty Street to the Poor Claires’ convent, there to await His Majesty’s pleasure.

She could not defy the king, the cardinal, the bishop, the count, and her mother all at once. Oh, Wulf, Wulf! I tried!

“As it pleases my lord,” she whispered. “But your wound, my lord? Should you not be resting?”

Anton beamed. “I assure you I have never felt better. I have completely recovered my strength. Now, the bishop suggested suitable words. Who shall we call in as witnesses, Lady Edita?”

“Now?” Madlenka said. “You mean to do this awful thing right away?”

That was exactly what he meant.

There followed a brief ceremony of joining hands and swearing fidelity, a quiet supper for two, and, right after that, Anton solved her virginity problem.