Speak to the Devil

CHAPTER 31

Until the Pelrelmians crashed the party, Brother Marek had enjoyed the banquet very much, simply because he was left alone. He helped himself to each dish, poured his own wine, and no one paid any attention to him. On his right the affronted priests diligently ignored him, while Vlad, seated at the high table to his left, relentlessly bored Countess Edita with accounts of his youthful military exploits in Burgundy. The only remark he had addressed to Marek had been to ask if this food was better than the monastery’s. The countess had raised an eyebrow at that, no doubt wondering what a friar had to do with a monastery, but she probably assumed that Vlad was drunk, which he wasn’t. Even as a stripling he had always been able to hold more wine than any two other men Marek had ever met. The food was pathetic, but one must make allowances for the banquet having been ordered at very short notice.

He welcomed this neglect because he had not been alone in the last five years. He had slept in a dormitory, eaten in a refectory, studied in classrooms, and worshiped eight times a day in church. Even weeding the herb garden, he had been under the raptorial eye of Brother Lodnicka. Now he was free to do as he pleased. Yes, he must try to help his brothers defeat the Wends; and yes, the missionaries from Koupel would hunt him down eventually, but just at that moment no one would care if he turned cartwheels or opened a stall and started selling indulgences. It was heaven.

His enjoyment was further increased by the presence of women. Only the dowager countess and countess elect were anywhere close to him, the rest of the female guests being at the far side and beyond the doorway, but there were lithesome servant girls hurrying to and fro. For five years, until yesterday, Marek had not set eyes on a woman. He might be doomed to return to Koupel quite soon, but he might commit a sin or two first.

Wulf, directly across the hall from him, had been seated above Constable Notivova and the knights. They might have snubbed him as the priests were snubbing Marek, but Wulf possessed almost as much native charm as Otto, and soon he and the constable were laughing together, drinking toasts, and sharing jokes with men farther along the table. Wulf and Madlenka were ignoring each other so obviously that they must be either deadly enemies or secret lovers. That should be funny, but it was tragic.

The entertainment was clumsy and crude compared to some acts Marek remembered at Dobkov, but it was a treat after five years of ironclad piety. Then the floor was cleared and a fanfare sounded to proclaim the star of the show, whoever that might be. All eyes turned to the door as a man entered.

There was a Speaker following right behind him. Marek could see the nimbus because he was facing the door and the dark corridor beyond it. Wulf’s halo glowed just as brightly, but Wulf was on the other side of the hall and would not see the newcomer until its wearer had entered the room. Wulf must be warned! Almost before he had time to think, Marek ran around the end of the table and into the center, screaming and waving his hands. Many people cheered, thinking he was part of the act.

He had often been tempted to try something like this in Koupel, and it was a satisfying outrage while it lasted. Then Anton bellowed orders to the knights, they overturned the boards, and the banquet collapsed into a near riot. Wulf was nowhere in sight. Chuckling and satisfied that he had done his part, Marek headed back to his place. He took a celebratory draft of wine. What would Abbot Bohdan say?

The nimbus glorified a walleyed Orthodox priest, who must be the Father Vilhelmas that Wulf had mentioned. None of the intruders was armed, so only the Speaker was dangerous. For the next few minutes Marek watched him like a cat at a birdcage. Vilhelmas might have caught a glimpse of light as Wulf departed, because he kept glancing around suspiciously.

Although Vranov’s departing curse was mere playacting, the intruders’ disappearance was a genuine display of sorcery, quite convincing enough to start a panic. A mob of guests charged to the doorway. Vlad, with a warrior’s fast reactions, vaulted the table and raced over there, bellowing, in an effort to restore order and rescue those who were being crushed. The bishop and Anton jumped to their feet, shouting for calm. The countess had disappeared under the table. At the far end of the table, Otto caught Marek’s eye and smiled cynically, as if to say that it was turning out to be an interesting evening.

Marek went to help Madlenka deal with her mother, who was not truly unconscious, but mumbling nonsense. Between them they raised her to a sitting position.

“Just the shock, I think,” he said. “Holy St. Uriel, I humbly beseech you to aid this poor woman.” He made the sign of the cross, and the dowager countess opened her eyes.

— Why was this woman stricken, Marek? Uriel asked inside his head. — It is important that you understand this.

Anton’s betrothed was staring at him. “St. Uriel the archangel?”

“Certainly. He stands in the presence of God. Let us help the lady to a seat.”

The two of them raised Countess Edita and set her on a stool. She stared around at the disaster, then began to weep. Madlenka knelt to comfort her, although Marek thought that a good cry might help better than anything. Most of the guests had gone now, but at least a dozen people had been seriously hurt in the panic, and others with lesser injuries were being helped away by family or friends. The bishop was conferring with his black-robed minions. This bizarre happening would have to be reported to Archbishop Svaty and probably the pope himself.

Suddenly aware of someone towering over him, Marek looked up to find Anton glaring down at Madlenka.

“Wife,” he said. “Who was that boy who gave you the odious animal?”

She stood up. “Leonas Vranov, my lord, one of Havel’s many sons. He’s an imbecile. Despite his size, he thinks like a two-year-old. If you’re nice to him, he’s usually very sweet.”

“I’ve seen him before. The day I arrived, when I was hurrying to the cathedral, he was sitting in the street outside, playing with a stray dog. Men-at-arms were guarding him.”

She nodded. “Vranov wouldn’t let him go inside. Marijus told me he gets upset by the way sounds reverberate in churches. He’s just a baby in a youth’s body, but Vranov takes him everywhere. He says if he leaves Leonas at home, the others boys pick on him. I suspect he’s more concerned about protecting them than him. Leonas might be dangerous to small children.”

“He couldn’t hurt me, so why did you contradict my orders about the puppy?”

“It was a trap, my lord,” the girl said, being servile to an unpredictable husband. “When Vranov came visiting last month, Father got into a shouting match with the boy. He wouldn’t let Leonas sit at the high table and Leonas went crazy, screaming, throwing things, foaming at the mouth. Havel just sat there and watched as if it was all a big joke, or else Father’s fault. Petr got involved. Mother tried to reason with Leonas, but nothing worked. Eventually he broke down and lay on the floor, weeping. I didn’t want to see you involved in another scene like that.”

“Thank you,” Anton said stiffly. “I apologize for doubting you. See your mother to bed. The celebration seems to be over.”

“Does anyone have any idea,” asked Otto, who had been watching all this in silence, “what Count Vranov hoped to gain by that harebrained performance? He frightened a lot of people, but all he really did was confirm the stories that he is in league with the devil. What good can that do him?”

“If I may make a suggestion,” Vlad remarked diffidently to Anton, “you are liable to have half the population of the town streaming out the gates before sunset. I suggest you give orders that no one is to leave.”

Anton nodded uncertainly.

“Anton-my lord!” Wulf said loudly. Marek had not noticed him at the back of the group, but he must have arrived there by conventional means, for he was carrying a lantern. He had lost his hat and his hair was disheveled like storm-flattened barley. His eyes were wild. “A private word!” He grabbed Anton by the arm. “You come, too, Marek.”

Anton angrily broke loose of his grip, but he let Wulf lead him over to the fireplace and Marek followed. What was making Wulf so excited? He was positively jumpy. Where had he been and how had he left the hall?

Wulf said, “You’re lord of the marches. I ask for your approval of a sortie!”

“A what?”

Wulf turned to Marek. “The priest was the Speaker, right? Not Vranov. Only the squinty priest; no one else?”

Marek nodded.

Anton frowned. “How do you know this?”

“We can tell,” Wulf insisted. “Trust us. So Father Vilhelmas was the one who nearly killed you at Long Valley and almost certainly the one who murdered the last count and his son. I know where he is right now. I want to go there and kill him. Have I your permission?”

Anton stiffened in astonishment. “Are you drunk?”

“I am sober as a nun. If I can take out Vranov’s Speaker, I’ll have drawn his teeth. It’s the best contribution I can make to your cause right now, Count Magnus of Cardice. Do I have your permission? ”

Anton looked to Marek, probably thinking the same thing as he was: this sounded like another Wulfgang out-of-the-blue thunderbolt, like the attack that had laid Anton flat on his back that morning. Warfare needed more planning than a bare-knuckle brawl, but to kill the enemies’ Speaker would be a masterstroke like capturing an opponent’s queen in a chess game.

“Lord Anton!” Bishop Ugne had arrived with a couple of priests. “It is imperative that we perform a ritual of exorcism to cleanse this hall of the Satanic taint left by the devil worshipers.”

“Um, yes.” For a moment Anton dithered. Then he dealt with Wulf first. “Permission granted. Be careful. My lord bishop…”

“Wait!” Marek cried, running after him. “Wait, Wulf.”

Wulf did not seem to hear. He went past Otto without a glance, totally intent on whatever he was planning.

“Follow him,” Otto said to Marek. “Don’t let him do anything too crazy.”

Marek almost caught up with Wulfgang at the door, but got stuck behind some of the injured and the priests and others trying to help them. The corridor outside was dark now, for the sun had gone behind clouds or mountains. Fortunately Marek could see Wulf’s nimbus glowing as bright as his lantern. They arrived at the stairs together.

“I want to help,” Marek said.

Wulf went up two steps at a time. “No you don’t. What I’m going to do is nasty, not honorable. But I thank you very much for the warning you gave me when Vranov and his gang came into the hall.” He was bubbling like a brewer’s vat. “That was brilliant! And fast! Very well done.” He reached the landing, turned right. He seemed to know where he was going in this labyrinth.

Marek stayed close. “Glad to help. Tell me how you got out of there.”

“The same way Vlad taught me to swim-he threw me in the moat.” Wulf threw open a door and went in.

Marek followed and recognized the Orchard Room, where they had changed out of their traveling clothes that morning. The floor was still littered with boots, swords, daggers, saddlebags, and wet cloaks, and scattered clothing covered the bed. It was slightly brighter than the corridor, but still dim and cold. Wulf set the lantern on the mantel above the empty grate. Marek closed the door.

“You didn’t swim out of the hall, Brother, and you didn’t have time to call on your Voices. You just vanished.”

“Yes.” Wulf went over to the bed. He located his own boots in the heap and set them upright. Holding a bedpost to steady himself, he slid a foot into a boot. “I seem to have advanced another grade. Now I’m at least a Seven, maybe an Eight. It’s incredible!”

“Tell me.”

He smiled diffidently. “I won’t. And I’m not saying that just to vex you. I think I know now why the Voices won’t answer questions and the monks wouldn’t teach you much. There’s a good reason why Speakers don’t talk about Speaking. Telling you would do more harm than good. And listen, Marek, you honestly don’t want to be involved in an assassination. No chivalry, no challenge or warning, just cold-blooded murder. This is not for you.”

“Execution,” Marek said stubbornly. “Did Vilhelmas give the Bukovanys a formal challenge? Did the Wends warn us that they were going to attack Long Valley and murder the garrison? This is war, not a tilting yard. I want to help!”

Wulf pulled an unhappy expression. “We do trust you. You don’t have to prove whose side you’re on.”

The problem was worse than that. Marek didn’t trust himself. After five years of enforced piety, he wasn’t sure if there was any sort of real man left in him at all. He felt like a wet rag compared with his brothers, especially young Wulf, for some reason.

“Please?” he said. “It matters a lot to me. Give me a sword and I’ll stick it in Father Vilhelmas myself.”

“A crossbow is what I have in mind, but I’ll find you a sword.”

Wulf buckled on sword and dagger, took a candle off the mantel and lit it from the lamp. At the door he stopped, looking at Marek. “This is horrible, I agree, but if the Wends have no Speaker to help them, they’ll have to give up and go home. Then the war will be over for this year. I will have done my duty and I’ll be free to go far, far away. Tonight, even.” He reached for the latch.

“Wulf!”

Wulf turned.

“I’m sorry about you and Madlenka,” Marek said. He had meant it as a comfort, but knew at once that he had only increased the hurt.

Wulf froze, his face twisted in pain. “So am I. But the king has commanded and she has consented. So now she sleeps in Anton’s bed and I have to get out of here and far away before I do something crazy. That’s another reason to kill Father Vilhelmas.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Not about the reason, but I am about killing him. Once that’s done, I’ll have won the war and won’t be needed here anymore. I’m going downstairs now to get a crossbow. If you’re serious about wanting to come with me, then I’ll be very happy to have you along. I suggest you change into more appropriate clothes.”

He closed the door quietly behind him.

Lord have mercy! Killing priests? How had Marek gotten himself into this? But what sort of priest led men-at-arms on a raid to kill other men?

He wandered to the bed and looked over the heap of clothes. Branka’s needlewomen had made him his Franciscan robe, which he thought of as his friar disguise, and also a set of garments suitable for an esquire. He planned to be a friar until his tonsure grew in, but that was hardly a suitable guise for a swordsman assassin. Preparing to strip, he untied the first of the three knots that bound a friar’s girdle, symbolizing poverty, chastity, and obedience.

A voice behind him said, “May the Lord be with you, Brother.”

He turned so fast that he lost his balance, tripped on a discarded boot, and toppled back onto the bed. Sunk in the mattress, he stared up in horror at the two men standing over him, their heads wreathed in the shining nimbus of sanctity. One was Brother Lodnicka, his master from Koupel. The other, even worse, was a tall, skeletal man of around fifty, with a silver fringe around his tonsure; he wore the Dominican garb of a black cloak over a white habit. Even after five years he was easily remembered as Father Azuolas.

Marek opened his mouth to scream. His tongue was seized by invisible fingers and dragged out between his teeth, as if he were a horse being immobilized by a farrier. He could not call on his Voices for help.

Azuolas had a smile to breed nightmares. “We grew tired of waiting for your return, my son.”

“You were supposed to come back and tell us when you found Wulfgang.” Lodnicka was shorter and older, but massive and still immensely powerful, as Marek had learned under the lash. He had been a quarryman until the Church detected his talent and recruited him.

“Did you find him, Marek?” the monk asked.

Marek shook his head and then nodded.

“He seems a little confused, Brother,” Azuolas said. “Does this bother you, my son?”

Marek’s tongue was yanked painfully hard. He nodded and made urgent noises.

“Of course we are not permitted to use violence except in self-defense, but gentle restraint is permissible. Indeed, I seem to recall that you had to be restrained a few times when we first met, some years ago. Ah, you remember also. I must warn you that resistance may be dangerous, although hurting you is not my desire or intent. So I shall give you back your tongue, but you must promise not to call on your Voices. Agreed?”

Marek nodded, having no choice. His tongue was released.

“Now, who was that young man who left here a few moments ago, the one you addressed as ‘Wulf’?”

Marek swallowed a few times. Standing, or even sitting upright, he would not feel so vulnerable as he did engulfed in the soft feather mattress, helplessly tipped back on his elbows. “My brother Wulfgang, Father.”

Any minute Wulf would walk in and be taken by surprise. He would be rendered powerless and dragged off to be tried for Satanism.

“And you and your brother were planning to go and murder a certain Father Vilhelmas. How would you rate this as a sin, my son? Venial or mortal?”

How did they know this? Marek had been a fool to think he could outwit the Church. “Justice, Father. He is a Speaker and a traitor to his king. He murdered the previous count and-”

“But this is not your concern. If you have reason to suspect him of wrongdoing, then your correct course is to report him to Brother Lodnicka. Instead you plot murder? You see how quickly you are perverted when you speak with the devil, Marek?”

“Vilhelmas is a schismatic, of the Orthodox Rite!”

Azuolas barely shrugged. “He is misguided, then, but that will be charged against his soul, not yours. We may have arrived just in time to save you from an eternity in the fires of hell, my son. Brother, you brought the bridles?”

“Yes, Father.” The monk produced two iron contraptions he had been holding behind his back.

The friar held up a hand to stay him. “Some more questions first. When Wulfgang came to Koupel on Sunday, Marek, I understand that he did not display a nimbus. Is that correct?”

“Yes, Father.” Marek struggled off the bed so he could stand erect, but he still had to look up to the two men. Azuolas moved closer to the door, as if to cut off any attempt to escape.

“And does he now? Have a nimbus, I mean?”

Marek said. “No, Father.”

“You are certain of that?” the Dominican demanded suspiciously. “I have your oath on it?”

How much had he seen?

“Yes, Father. He glows when he calls on Satan to perform his black arts, that is all. Not otherwise.” Now Marek was a perjurer, but they couldn’t do anything to him much worse than what they were planning already.

“So he is still no more than a Four or Five, as that listing was explained to you?”

“Yes, Father.” Fours or Fives were obviously much less dangerous than whatever Wulf was now.

“So why did you not come back to Koupel and report?” the monk asked angrily. “As you were instructed to do and swore you would?”

The longer Marek could spin out the conversation, the better the chance that he would still be able to do some good in the struggle when Wulf returned. “When I got here my brother healed my back, and I couldn’t face the pain that the journey would cause me.”

Lodnicka smiled, showing long yellow teeth. “You have worse to face than that now, Brother Marek. I may gag him, Father?”

“Go ahead. And hurry. We must be ready for the other child of Satan when he returns.”

Lodnicka dropped one of the iron bridles on the floor and held out the other. “Put it on, Brother. You know how. It isn’t hard.”

Yes, Marek knew how. On occasion he had spent days at a time locked in one of the horrible things, for penance, unable to call on his Voices for help. He had nightmares about them sometimes.

“No!” he said. “Please not. I promise I won’t Speak.”

But the monk just smiled, and Marek’s hands took the contraption and raised it to his face without any instructions from him. Even when the metal pressed against his lips he did not resist, for then there would be a struggle for control and the bridle might break his teeth. He opened his mouth to accept the clumsy and foul-tasting tongue plate. He was a puppet, being moved by Lodnicka. His hands pulled the clasps around to the back of his head, and his feet turned him around so that the monk could close the hasp.

The click of the padlock was followed at once by a stunning explosion. Father Azuolas hurled himself onto the bed, facedown. Marek stared in bewilderment at the red foam spurting from a hole in the Dominican’s back, the surging bloodstain spreading over his clothes. Brother Lodnicka uttered a roar of fury and whirled around to meet Wulf’s attack.