When the Saints

CHAPTER 23

The awful moment came only too soon. Clad in his herald’s tabard, Arturas Synovec ducked out the postern gate and set off down the road to death or glory. He kept reassuring himself that his danger was slight, because the Church’s laws of war protected heralds from violence. Even so, he had had to stop in a corner to pee twice before he reached the barbican.

He carried a white flag in one hand and a flaming torch in the other. He stumbled down a badly rutted road made treacherous by the frozen waves of ice across it, a snowy cliff on his right, dark nothing on his left. And silence, except for the wind! He should have been able to hear the Ruzena muttering and complaining below him. The Pelrelmians wouldn’t notice the absence.

His eyes watered in the wind. The Pelrelmians had built a wooden screen across the road, what the men-at-arms called a blinding. Fifty paces. Forty… Thirty-five…

“Halt! Who goes there!”

He stopped. So far they were obeying the laws of chivalry.

“Flag of truce, a message for Count Vranov from Count Magnus.”

“What?”

He shouted louder.

In a moment a gap was opened in the blinding and a man in mail came out and clanked forward to meet him. He wore a sash that probably meant he was a master sergeant.

“Gimme the message and I’ll see he gets it.”

“No. It’s a verbal message, to the count or Sir Marijus.”

“Tell me and then get your sweet little ass back where it belongs before I ram a pike up it.”

All very predictable. Arturas had to stand there and argue with a dolt who had been given no authority to deal with a parley and had no imagination. Finally he had to be prompted. Arturas pulled out the cloth. “Here. Blindfold me and send me down to the count.”

After some thought, the man agreed.

It wasn’t easy walking on that rough ground with a blindfold on, so his guide had to grip his arm. And once through the barricade, he was pulled and pushed until he had no idea which way was which, but he could guess that they had to maneuver him between the guns they had been seen dragging up all afternoon. He heard a lot of diffgn=anicherent voices, so he was starting to collect information in spite of being blindfolded.

In warfare, knowledge could be dangerous to both the knower and the known.

It was hard to say which was worse: the times when he was being urged on after he had twisted both ankles and was almost weeping from the pain, or the pauses when he was made to stand so close to the cliff that he could feel the wind eddying off it, while hundreds of clanking feet went past on the sudden-drop side.

Even a blind man could understand what the oaths and grumbles and the creak of leather meant. Any village idiot would realize that the Pelrelmians were mustering for a night assault. So where was the Hound of the Hills? He ought to be up at the front, ready to direct his guns and lead his men. He couldn’t give orders from High Meadows, a mile away. Why was he sending so many men up when he hadn’t even opened fire on the gates? Until he battered them down, his men could do nothing. So the guns were a decoy, and Vranov expected some traitor to open the gates for him. That still didn’t explain why he wasn’t up at the front.

Nothing lasts forever. Eventually sounds of canvas flapping and odors of wood smoke told Arturas that he was now in the camp. He was made to wait until he thought he might freeze to death. He was not allowed to remove the blindfold. Then his hands were tied behind him, despite his protests that heralds should not be treated like that. He was shoved forward into a tent and the blindfold removed.

He blinked repeatedly in the brilliance of the lamps until his eyes adjusted and told him that the light was really quite dim. The tent was astonishingly hot and stuffy after the blustery cold outside, but it was much more luxurious than he had expected, with fur rugs, braziers, and furniture. The way the walls and roof rippled disconcerted him.

Four men sitting on stools, watching him, all four in armor, but with heads still uncovered, their swords and helmets lying ready at their feet. There might be a couple more behind him, but he did not look around.

Count Vranov he knew, and Sir Marijus, one of his many sons. The others were just men-at-arms.

“Well?” the Hound demanded. “You can have two minutes.”

Arturas licked his lips, thought about asking for a drink of water and decided that this might be construed as asking for hospitality. He launched into the speech he had prepared.

The count listened in stony-faced silence, so his men did the same. At the end he took a drink from a pottery beaker he was clutching in his big, hairy hand.

“So you’re suggesting that the dam may break and a flood will wash us all away?”

“It may.”

“Hate to lose the camp, but my men are safe enough at the moment, aren’t they?” al="0em"›

“Are they?” He wasn’t going to fall into that obvious trap.

The count laughed, and Arturas realized that he was drunk.

“You know where my army is tonight, little herald. And you think I’m going to send you back up the road so you can check your arithmetic?”

“That means you refuse the truce?”

“I won’t refuse it. I just won’t answer. And if that gangling strip of pig guts you call a count is too stupid to keep his guard up, that’s his lookout. You’ve probably told him all he wants to know already.”

Arturas said, “What?” He was horrified at how close to a squeak that sounded. “How would I have done that?”

“Because his brother the Speaker knows what you’re seeing and hearing.”

“Speaker? You’re accusing one of the Magnus brothers of-”

“Oh, plug your bung. You know who I mean. That yellow-haired, yellow-eyed squire of his. A witch he is, I know for a fact.”

There had been whispers. The new count’s extraordinarily fast response to the old count’s death, his speedy recovery from wounds… even the way he had ignored being knocked down in the hall by a younger brother, who should by rights have been taken out and scourged. As for today’s miraculous destruction of the Wends-people had been talking miracle while keeping their fingers crossed in case it had been the devil’s handiwork.

“I know nothing of witchcraft,” Arturas said, “except what I saw in the hall last night. I came in peace and expect- ” Oh, sweet Jesus! Vranov came and went by witchcraft last night. He was going to do the same now and open the gates himself!

“What you expect doesn’t matter.” The count glanced at his son. “What do you think?”

“Tie him up and send him home in the morning.”

Havel scratched his stubbled chin. “No. I don’t like spies.” He looked past Arturas at whoever stood behind him. “Take him outside. Give him two minutes to say his prayers, then cut his throat.”

Arturas was screaming as they dragged him out of the tent.