fallen to treachery twice, but it had never been stormed or starved into submission.
The valley ended abruptly about a mile north of the castle, under the ramparts of the Vysoky Range, which straddled the boundary between Jorgary and lands that had recently become part of Pomerania. Northbound travelers, whether pilgrims, merchants, or fighting men, had no choice of route. They embarked on the Silver Road at High Meadows. From there the trail climbed steeply up the western side of the valley, crossing gullies on log bridges, negotiating hairpins, edging around steep spurs on cuts barely wide enough for a single oxcart. Very few places on the whole ascent would allow two carts to pass. Eventually the road arrived at Castle Gallant’s southern barbican, with a sheer drop on one side and a vertical cliff on the other. There the count’s men collected the tolls.
Anxious to reach a point where she could see what was happening at the gate, Madlenka set a very fast pace into the wind. Bishop Ugne would have had to trot just to stay level. He had to shout after her. “I doubt if your haste is wise, Madlenka. Ladies should arrive with dignity, not steaming like a horse.”
Annoyed, she slowed to a walk. Giedre was staying back. The bishop took this brief privacy as a chance to do some more holy nagging.
“You say you ‘sent for’ Sir Karolis last night? Whose man is he?”
She blinked away wind tears to look at him. “Well, he was my father’s man, of course.”
“But now? God in His almighty wisdom has seen fit to gather your father and your brother to Him. Whom does the constable serve now? Every man must have a lord, Madlenka.”
“I am my father’s heir.” But a woman. What a difference that made! Petr had been a year younger than she, just sixteen, but had he lived, the entire castle would be jumping to his bidding without question, obeying the least gesture of his little finger. But men never did that for a woman, for a woman was a frail and foolish creature interested only in frippery and finery and tantalizing men with lust to lead them to damnation.
She missed Petr even more than Father. Never at rest, ever dashing about, always laughing-it was impossible to accept that he was not just around a corner somewhere, or just about to ride in from the hills with some fresh venison. Nobody said so, but she suspected the whole county mourned the boy more than the man.
“Your mother is his relic,” the bishop declaimed, “and will have a dower interest in his estate, after the king has claimed his heriot. You undoubtedly will inherit a rich portion of whatever is left, but not the castle, daughter! This is a royal fortress. It did not belong to your father.”
“Then whom do you believe the constable serves, my lord bishop?” Not Madlenka Bukovany, certainly.
“As your father’s deputy, he must serve the king himself until a new keeper is appointed. Yes, Sir Karolis’s duty is to keep the fortress safe until His Majesty sends someone to replace your father, may he rest in peace. But Karolis Kavarskas is not your servant, my daughter. He is a proud man. He fought well in Italy and Austria. His men here generally approve of him, as your father did. He cannot take joyously to an underage, unmarried girl sending for him.”
Pompous as a stuffed owl! She muttered an apology.
“Tell him so,” the bishop said, “not me. These are indeed hard times, Madlenka. The people have been troubled ever since your father brought in the landsknechte. They fear that war is coming, and now that your father and Sir Petr are gone, they are even more frightened. You must come to Mass today, so that you can be seen.”
Seen while totally swathed in sable and black lace?
“And be patient if they try to mob you outside the cathedral to express their sorrow.”
“Yes, my lord bishop.”
“You should likewise show respect for Count Vranov. I agree that he is an odious sinner, but he is a man of power in the land, and someday-perhaps quite soon-Cardice may need his help.”
Madlenka choked back several possible rejoinders before she found a sufficiently respectful one. By then she had turned a corner and come to a place with a view of the south road. The invading force crawling up it was close enough now to make out details in the low sunlight. A liveried herald rode in the van, flanked by a standard-bearer, followed in turn by a party of eight or ten horsemen, and then a column of men-at-arms marching three abreast. The streaming banner was unreadable, but there was no doubt that this was the Hound’s army.
She paused to peer through a crenel. “How many?”
“Two hundred?” Bishop Ugne said hesitantly. “About enough to fill the lady chapel. Not many are knights, though; mostly mounted archers.”
“They can’t do us any harm as long as the constable keeps the gates shut, can they?”
Ugne made a scoffing noise. “They couldn’t break in if they had fifty times their number. Captain Ekkehardt alone has two or three times as many men.”
But if the constable had turned traitor, what then?
As they approached the barbican, she heard the clanking of the chains raising the gate. So the deed was done. They were too late!
She drew back beside Giedre to let the bishop enter first and receive the sergeants-at-arms’ salutes. At this level the tower was a single large room, dusty and echoing, lit dimly from the doorway by which she had just entered and narrow slits along the side walls. It was dominated by the gigantic gears and treadmills that raised the three successive gates that an enemy must pass to break into the city. Mercifully, the porters who had to work the system had almost finished their work on the outer gate, and in a moment the deafening racket ceased. The boss threw on the brake, and the men could relax, puffing and sweating from their work.
In addition to the porters and the normal sergeants-at-arms, there were at least a dozen soldiers present, half of them Cardice men and the other half landsknechte. The two were easily distinguished, because the locals wore conventional half armor of mail shirt and cuirass.
The mercenaries, on the other hand, were big, bearded Germans or Swiss, who seemed even bigger in their heavily padded armor-velvet or velour doublets and hose decorated with pleats and piping, slashed to expose linings of contrasting bright colors. No man was ever foolish enough to laugh at those, or at the gold chains around their necks or their wide, floppy hats with trailing ostrich plumes. Landsknechte were elite fighting troops, respected and feared all over Europe.
Ekkehardt’s band had been hired in the summer by Petr, when he visited Mauvnik. They had arrived about a month ago, six hundred fighting men complete with wagons, horses, wives, children, and the usual foul mob of loose women. The town, where nothing exciting ever happened, had been packed to the rafters since. There had been surprisingly few fights so far, but ill feeling rumbled like a mountain thunderstorm.
Only two men in the room mattered, and they were peering out through adjacent loopholes at the advancing troops. Constable Kavarskas was a lean timberwolf of a man, a seasoned warrior of around thirty, with a scar on his forehead, iron streaks in his hair, and deep furrows flanking his mouth. He had lost his left hand fighting in Italy, and a hook replaced it.
Ekkehardt, in all his glory of blue and yellow, was a thickset badger by comparison. If he was shorter, it was by very little, and the padding of his clothes merely emphasized the meaty bulk inside them. His beard and flowing mustaches were the color of ripe grain. Kavarskas turned away from his loophole just as Madlenka arrived behind him.
“Sir Karolis!”
He reversed his turn and looked down at her as if she were something underfoot. “My lady?”
“Do you still intend to let that army into the castle?”
“Of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?” He glanced at Ekkehardt with an expression of long-suffering bewilderment.
“The constable,” the landsknecht said in his heavy Saxon voice, “would never be so foolish, my lady.”
They were laughing at her.
“No doubt this is Count Vranov arriving in person to convey his respects to the countess,” Kavarskas continued, explaining carefully. “And your gracious self, of course. Such would be normal neighborly courtesy after so great a tragedy. He may have brought his wife, or some other family members along. A bodyguard is only a sensible precaution in these troubled times.”
“Sir Karolis,” Ekkehardt said, “suggested an honor guard of twenty knights to be admitted. This was too much, I thought. We agree Vranov should be allowed a token escort of five knights.”
“Once admitted,” the constable said, “he will be a guest protected by the laws of chivalry. To refuse him entry would be a gross discourtesy… my lady.” Karolis did not need to address her as if she were ten years old, but
