When the Saints

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 lah 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 temptation 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 Cweah, 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 tingnd 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 garrison 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 bise to 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.”

Justina rolled her eyes, clearly furious at this news. “It is rank insanity, that is what it is! You’ll have all Jorgary packed with cardinals and awash in holy water. And quite apart from secrecy, whether you like it or not, you are a Speaker, not a warrior, so you must not resort to violence to solve problems. You have no cadger?”

Wulf wondered if the woman was mocking him, as Otto said she’d done to Anton. “Justina, I am a mere esquire, a youngest son. I don’t own a horse, let alone a mews.”

She smiled. “You don’t know what a cadger is?”

“Of course I do. My brother Ottokar employs four cadgers to carry the birds when he goes hawking.”

“Not what I meant. Who was your handler?” She stared at his puzzled expression. “Who trained you, boy?”

“No one trained me.”

“Then you are what we call a haggard.”

“Thank you,” he said icily. A haggard was either a wild hawk captured as an adult, or an unkempt savage person living in the woods. He fancied himself as neither. “When you talk about a cadger you mean a trainer?”

“No. Tell me of this Leonas, who slew your brother.”

“He’s a simpleton. Fourteen or fifteen, tall as a pike, but not shaving yet. He has the mind of a small child, yet he’s a Speaker. His father uses him as a weapon, but I’m sure Leonas doesn’t understand what he’s doing.”

Justina nodded, looking grim. “Madness and Speaking are not so rare a mix as you might think. The likes of him is dangerous. We must do something about him.”

“Kill him?” Wulf said, and it was his turn to feel revulsion.

She sho C="- took her head. “No. But trim his talons. Now I’ve told you the first commandment. Tell me what you do know about Speaking.”

“Almost nothing. Teach me, I beg you!”

“Beg all you want, but that I won’t do.” She countered his frown with a satisfied, cat-licking-cream smirk. “There is a very fine reason why Speakers do not speak about the talent, and I won’t be telling you what that reason is, even. But you tell me what you have learned, and I will warn you when you talk sewage. Sybilla! Why aren’t you with your father?”

The girl who had sauntered into view from somewhere behind Wulf’s back was nut-brown, or at least her face, lower legs, and arms were. She was barefoot, clad in a dress of costly white silk that clung to her like skin. Her hair hung long and thick, black and shiny, her eyes shone like obsidian, and her lips were redder than pomegranates. She had a nimbus.

She pouted. “I got bored. Father has no time for me just now. He’s too busy preparing for the conclave.”

Justina rolled her eyes like martyred mothers everywhere. “May the saints preserve us! Yes, child, my guest here is what is commonly called a young man. I believe he would enjoy some wine. And even were he bonnier than Apollo, he could not possibly enjoy the way you are looking at him. Move, you brazen little trollop!”

With a heartrending sigh, the girl tore her gaze away from a lingering inspection of Wulf and retraced her steps. Wulf stared after her, wondering if other women could make their hips do that when they walked. He was horribly afraid that his cheeks were a brighter red than her lips. He hadn’t shaved that morning.

“And change your clothes!” Justina shouted after her. “Pardon her, good squire.”

He swallowed a few times. “Yes, my… Justina. Your daughter? She is very beautif… How old is…”

“Lady preserve me, not my daughter! You flatter me. A distant relative-not distant enough, I sometimes think. Talent runs in my family, like yours. She’s fifteen. Women Speakers are usually fledged at sixteen. Girls are older than boys of the same age, and being a Speaker makes a girl different.”

“What sort of different?”

“Different in that she doesn’t have to fear men.”

“Fear men?” Father Czcibor had always taught that men had to fear women, who were agents of the devil, always tempting men into sin. Wulf had never quite believed that, although Sybilla had just opened his eyes a little wider than usual. Madlenka had shown no signs of being frightened of him.

Justina shook her head pityingly. “And why wouldn’t women fear men, squire? Men are stronger than us Congze=, love violence as we do not, and trap us with honeyed words so they can sow their seed in our furrows. Then they leave us to reap the crop. Tell me what that lanky brother of yours is up to.”

Startled, Wulf stole another Look through Anton’s eyes and saw a curtain wall to his left and sheer rock to his right. “He is hurrying along the Quarantine Road, going to the south gate.” With his long legs, Anton was moving like a starving foal, moving so fast that the dancing image made Wulf feel giddy. He was staring fixedly ahead, so Wulf could not tell if he had any companions with him, but there seemed to be many men-at-arms running in the opposite direction, hastily saluting the count as they passed him. Alarm bells were ringing, bugles sounding.

“It would seem he has had an urgent summons,” Justina remarked. “An angel whispered in his ear, perhaps. We must finish our talk. Sit down. You can be there when it happens, whatever it is.”

Yet Otto and Vlad had stayed at the north barbican. They were both on the roof parapet, staring out between the merlons at a column of men-at-arms marching down the Silver Road. Hundreds of them were coming around the bend at the mouth of the gorge, with the end of the column not yet in sight.

“The Wend assault has started!”

“Sit down, I said!” Justina snapped. “This matters more. Wherever you are, you can get there faster than they can. Here comes the wine. Best close your eyes.”

That was not at all necessary, or even advisable. The seductive Sybilla had returned with a flask and two crystal goblets. If she had changed her clothes, it was to make them even more provocative, with a lower neckline and higher hem. The only women Wulf had seen exposed like that in his entire life had been the street wenches in Mauvnik, and he had stayed well away from those. She slunk up to the table; he dared a small smile. She tossed her head as if he’d farted a bugle call. She thumped the flask down on the table, then spoiled the effect by setting the delicate goblets down gently. She flounced around and stalked away.

Madlenka had never scared him the way that chit did. He watched her disappear around the corner of the house.

“What did I do wrong?”

“You noticed her,” Justina said with a sigh.

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Notice her. She’s just practicing, pay her no heed. Are you as ignorant about Speaking as you are about poop-noddy?”

“About what?”

“Poop-noddy. Jig-jig. Shagging. Sarding.”

Oh, that. Anton had explained fornication many times, but it was not relevant to today Cvanem"’s discussion. “More ignorant. Marek told me what little he had been taught in the monastery, but it wasn’t much. And nothing to do with poop-noddy.”

“It wouldn’t be. You do understand that a nimbus is the sign of a qualified, fledged Speaker, a sort of ordination? And other Speakers can see it, whether or not they have nimbuses of their own yet?”

He nodded. Marek had never developed a nimbus. Wulf filled the goblets. The wine was a pale gold and had a foreign tang, strange but not unpleasant.

“Marek said there were at least seven steps. He called them sins, though. The first sin was hearing the Voices to begin with.”

Justina said, “Which is rare, but those who are destined to do so start at about thirteen.”

“The second sin is learning to understand what they are saying. My Voices claimed to be St. Helena and St. Victorinus. Of course, the Church would say that they were demons of hell.” He paused a moment for a reaction, hoping she would deny that bit about demons, but she said nothing. “The third step is starting to talk back and pray for little favors.” Like making a sour apple taste sweeter, he recalled. “The fourth was asking for real miracles-or witchery, if you prefer.”

Justina just shrugged and waited.

“And that really hurt!” he said. “The trip to Cardice-why did it hurt me?”

“That I won’t tell you. Can’t. Mustn’t. I will say that not all Speakers have to climb the same ladder. A handler could have eased your path. Go on.”

“Fifth is refusing the pain and getting the miracles without having to pay that price.” This time he earned a nod. “And the sixth step seems to be the nimbus.”

“Harken to him! He’ll be bragging he can read and write next. That’s good. Excellent! Of course, you had Marek to help and you were dropped into very deep waters, where the secrets lie, but you’ve done very well, even so.”

Vlad was bellowing at the carpenters and porters rushing to complete the first trebuchet. Archers were taking their posts at the merlons on the roof. Otto was down in the machine room, organizing more archers at the loopholes. Neither happened to be looking at the Wends, so the undetected spy could not. Anton was still heading in the opposite direction. It would make sense for the traitor Havel to attack the south gate at the same time as his Pomeranian allies attacked the north. Or perhaps they were in a race to see who could take Castle Gallant first. And Madlenka… Madlenka was dressing in frantic haste, with Giedre and the maids all trying to help and all getting in one another’s way. Whatever the news was, it had reached the keep also.

Wulf discovered that he was starting to twitch, staying on his bench Con the only with great effort. Yet he could not deny what Justina said, that he was doing more good here-learning how to use his talent, as she called it-than anything he could achieve at Gallant as a novice warrior with sword or bow. She was waiting for him, eyebrows raised. Even if the Scarlet Spider had sent her, how trustworthy was she?

“So what comes next?” she asked impatiently. “Seven stages, you said.”

“Last night, after five years, my Voices deserted me. Today they still do not answer.” He waited for a comment, but she just sipped her wine, watching him over the glass. “But I found that I could travel through limbo without having to ask them. Until then I had always had to Speak aloud, and now I just… just decide what I need and they seem to know. I discovered, too, that I could see things at a distance, Looking out of other people’s eyes.”

“Only people you have met,” she said, volunteering information for the first time. “Just as you can only go to people or places you know. Is that all? Just seven stages?”

“I ask you that. And I ask why my Voices no longer speak to me.”

She tossed her head, much as the girl had done. “I answer only that there is one higher stage, but I won’t be saying what it is or what it brings; all I tell you is that your Voices do not answer now because you don’t need them now. How long since that hunt where you first used your talent?”

“Friday. Exactly one week ago.” It felt like years, a different life.

“Lord be praised! I never did hear of a haggard climbing so high so fast.”

Unable to resist his sense of urgency any longer, Wulf drained his goblet. It was time to return to Gallant and join the battle. “Was Joan of Arc a Speaker?”

Justina showed surprise, and perhaps approval. “Indeed she was. For fourteen years the French lost every battle with the English. After she appeared, they never lost. You think any workaday chit of a girl could have managed that?”

Wulf wondered why she had not thereby broken the first commandment that Justina had described, but he had more urgent questions to ask about Joan.

“Then how were the English able to catch her and put her to death? Did they do to her what you said you would do to Leonas: ‘trim his talons’?”

“I won’t tell you that.”

Annoyed, he tried another ploy. “My brother Otto says that the Church fears Speakers.”

“Of course it does! A miracle worker will be hailed as a saint, and saints are a threat to the pope’s authority. They might disagree with him and the bi Cim wilshops. They might start a new church of their own. So Speakers must be denounced as agents of the devil.”

“The Church confines them and trains them to obedience?”

Justina clicked her mouth shut stubbornly. “That’s enough for today.”

“Does Bishop Ugne know about the Church’s use of Speakers?”

Justina dismissed Bishop Ugne with a snort. “Cardinal Zdenek is one of the Wise. Abbot Bohdan of Koupel is. Archbishop Svaty may be. Offhand, I can’t think of anyone else in Jorgary except the Speakers themselves, their cadgers, and their close family, if anyone, who knows. It may be that even the king on his throne doesn’t.”

Being privy to a secret that one’s king might not know was a mind-bending thought. The Hound of the Hills knew, but the Vranovs were as talented as the Magnuses.

“Can a Speaker cure pestilence?”

Justina drew in her breath sharply, then studied him carefully to see if he was serious. Finally she nodded. “One case or two. But not an epidemic! If you broke the first commandment on that scale, you’d be hailed as the Second Coming of Our Lord. Why do you ask?”

He rose. “I must go back and help my brothers.”

She made no move. “Sit down. I don’t want to do this, but you are a babe in arms. I haven’t told you the other two commandments.”

Wulf sat down.

Justina stared around for a moment-at the broken wheels, the vines-but she did not seem to be seeing them. He wondered if she was Looking elsewhere, or even consulting someone.

Madlenka and her mother were in the great hall of the keep, shouting orders to a mass of servants, mostly female, but some male, all running to and fro with burdens of cloth or furniture. Obviously they were organizing the great hall as an infirmary for the wounded, with baskets of bandages, buckets of water, and pallets laid out in rows. Nursing was traditionally a women’s duty, and tradition would be strong in a border castle like Gallant.

Justina raised her dark eyes to stare right at him. “The first, I told you, is to keep your talent secret! All Speakers are shy as field mice and now you know why. Never forget it! The second commandment is: Thou shalt not tweak! ”

“Tweak?”

“Tweak. Tweaking is using talent to change a person’s mind-workadays’ minds, of course; it won’t work on Speakers. It’s a crime and it’s dangerous, because you can drive people insane. Havel would have brought a Speaker w Ct a. Iith him to the banquet to protect him from being tweaked. But why they made such a display when they left, I cannot imagine.” She scowled. “Certain, the pope himself will hear of that.”

“And the third law?”

“It’s not so much a law as a warning: Two’s company, three’s dangerous. I honestly did not know Sybilla was here. I was not laying a trap for you, I swear. But when she appeared with her nimbus, you should have left. Instantly! Your precious Cardinal Zdenek employs Speakers. He has one in attendance at all times.”

To detect other Speakers, of course. Wulf nodded impatiently to show that he understood that much.

“One Speaker is defense,” Justina continued. “Two are aggression. Always, unless you’ve agreed beforehand. Two Speakers can almost always overpower one. Remember that. Morally, you were right to go to your brother’s aid last night. By sending two Speakers after him the Church was being aggressive. It should have just sent one, or else waited until you were present also. It will never admit that, of course. If a monk has second thoughts about his vows, he should speak to his confessor, his abbot, the archbishop, even the pope. He can ask to be released. No Speaker will ever be released, but the abbot should have sent a brother monk to reason with him-one Speaker, not two! So Marek was being assaulted, and law everywhere recognizes a man’s right to defend members of his family, his brothers not least. You were in the right, morally and legally. But never will the Church admit that. It will claim that you assaulted and murdered a priest, and it is going to hunt you to the ends of the earth for it.”

“And Count Pelrelm, the Hound of the Hills? Two but never one?”

She laughed. “You are a hound, too, lad! I’ve known bloodhounds slower to pick up a scent than you. Yes, Havel brought a Speaker to Gallant, his Father Vilhelmas. He knew by then that Anton must have a Speaker, who had healed him of his mortal wound. So he was entitled by the rules to bring a Speaker of his own. But you tell me he also brought the moron Leonas, who has no nimbus. So that was cheating. Two’s company, three’s dangerous!”

Wulf thought of that disastrous banquet and smiled to himself. “But Anton had two also, because I was there and so was Marek, who did not have a nimbus either. There were four of us: two journeyman Speakers and two apprentices!”

“Not ‘journeyman’ and not ‘apprentice.’ We talk about ‘fledged’ Speakers and ‘branchers’ instead of ‘apprentices.’ ‘Handlers’ instead of ‘teachers’ or ‘masters.’”

“Why?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Half of all Speakers are women. You ever heard of a female apprentice?”

“No,” Wulf admitted. A brancher wa CA b="0s a bird that had left the nest but not yet the tree. He suspected his current teacher-handler was trying to distract him. “So what did Havel want? Why did he come?”

“I know not. He was given no chance to say, as you told me.”

“To kill me?”

Marek had suggested that, but Justina shook her head vigorously. “Speakers do not go around killing Speakers! Likely he just wanted to speak with your brother, the new count, and he expected there to be a guardian Speaker present, so he brought his own to make sure the discussion was fair.”

Like having a lawyer present. Speakers could detect the use of talent. Wulf realized that he was nodding. At last things were starting to make sense. Above all, he no longer felt all alone. “How much do Speakers earn?”

Justina frowned as if he had asked a stupid question. “Their lives.”

“Oh.”

“Work it out. I think you had better get to work, warrior. I’ll stay here. War is not a woman’s place. It is not a place for Speakers at all. Come with me.” She heaved herself to her feet, leaning on the table, and walked stiffly to the corner. Wulf took up his cloak and sword and followed, listening as she continued her lecture.

“If you glimpse another nimbus, stay and keep them honest. Be prepared to talk. If you see two or more, come back here instantly, you hear? You’re not ready for a fight. And come back here and ask my advice before you use any major power. Don’t worry if I’m not alone, just come.”

She paused at the door to the cottage. “Take a look.”

He looked. It was obviously a kitchen, and a well-equipped one, with a big table in the center and shelves around the walls laden with crocks and pots.

“I’ll be here in Avlona, outdoors or indoors. Don’t come to me if I’m anywhere else. If there’s anyone with me here, come to the other side of the wall and enter like a workaday. And on no account murder any more priests or clerics! Come at dusk, in any case, and we’ll think what we can do about that bombard.”

“I thank you for your help,” he said, not meaning to be ironic. She had told him very little, but she had hinted at much. It had been his first proper discussion with another Speaker, and already he felt like less of a freak-there were other people out there like him! She had taught him more than Marek had learned in five years at Koupel. That wall of silence was itself informative. He slung his cloak over his shoulders. “I look forward to many more lessons, Justina.”

“We’ll see. You’re in very great danger. Not just the castle, you personally. I was sent to help you, but if m Cyousizey superiors… To be honest, I can’t see that I’ll be allowed to continue helping when this news gets out.”

So the helping hand was being withdrawn and the prison gates were closing. He did not feel surprised. The sense of doom that had come with Marek’s death returned stronger than ever. Father had always told him his temper would kill him one day.

He bowed. “Thank you for what you have done already. I don’t want to cause you any trouble, so if you’d rather I just dissolved into thin air, I’ll-”

“Wait!” she said. “That horrible gallows contrivance your hairy brother was building… Now, I am no warrior, only a simple serving wench, but I do hope they call in the bishop to bless it.”

Wulf paused in buckling on his sword. “The wood may be unsound?”

She nodded. “It’s old.”

“A blessing is a sort of curse in reverse?”

She nodded again, eyes twinkling.

“How close must a Speaker be to bless?”

“The closer the better. Laying a hand on it would be best.”

“Thank you, Justina.”

“And hereafter, mind well what you bless or curse or what oaths you swear! You may do more than you intend.”

“Thank you again!” About to open a gate through limbo, he realized that the castle and town would be a whirlwind of activity, people everywhere. “Um… how do I find a safe place to return unobserved?”

She shrugged, seeming amused at his naivete. “You don’t want to be seen stepping out of thin air.”

“No, I certainly do not.”

“So you want not to?”

“Yes.” What was she hinting?

“You think your Voices don’t know that?”

Not wanting to seem stupid, he nodded. “Thank you. God be with you, Justina.”

He went back to Gallant.