What are you now, twenty-one? No, twenty! You must have done mighty deeds for His Majesty. Or was it those dashing good looks? Did you catch the eye of Princess Laima? Cloth-of-gold suits you, Brother.”
Baffled, Anton muttered, “Thank you.” He shot Wulf an alarmed glance, looking to see what he thought, then returned to his seat. Had he not realized that five years’ prayer and discipline would change the merry youth he had known?
The strangely austere Marek turned his inspection on Wulf, who kept his greeting to a respectful smile, but found it so restricted by the bevor that he sat down and raised his sallet. There was no one else in that great hall to see his face.
“And Wulfgang, too. My dear boy! So tall now!”
Marek was the only Magnus who would describe Wulf as tall. Wulf cast about for a tactful reply. “Just well- proportioned.”
“But big for sixteen,” Marek said softly.
Why was Marek saying that? He could not have forgotten the difference in their ages. He was hinting at something, but before Wulf could question, Anton’s steel solleret banged against his boot in a needlessly painful warning. Wulf suppressed a wince.
“Someone else remarked on that to me just last night,” Anton remarked, while still chewing.
Not his lady friend, certainly. Cardinal Zdenek, most likely, Wulf decided. He didn’t understand why his age mattered, or why the king’s first minister would care about it.
“Oh, you haven’t finished?” Marek said. “Hurry up, because there are much more comfortable places to talk than here.” He stayed on his feet opposite them and regarded Wulf thoughtfully across the narrow plank table. He had dark, shrewd eyes, but his hands were ingrained with dark lines, like a peasant’s.
“What brings you here, Brother Wulfgang?”
Shrug, forced smile. “I am but an humble squire. I follow my lord.”
“When did the humility grow in?” Marek murmured in a faint echo of his former humor. “You are not planning to stay here?”
“No!” Wulf said, with more emphasis than courtesy.
Marek sighed and glanced sideways. “So explain that sash, noble Lord Magnus.” Then he went back to staring at Wulf.
“It’s a long story, Brother Marek. It’s the real thing, but I haven’t exactly earned it yet, if you follow me. You heard that Father died?”
The monk nodded and made the sign of the cross. “When Otto’s letter came, the abbot passed on the sad news, and mentioned him in our prayers that evening. How is Ottokar?”
Wulf took over the talking so that he needn’t pretend to be eating. He told how well Ottokar ruled now as baron, how Branka kept giving him twins, and of course how Vlad had gone off to war and been taken prisoner at the Battle of the Boundary Stone. Then there was Anton’s acceptance into the king’s hussars.
All the time he was tortured by the realization that there was something horribly wrong, something he could not pin down. This somber Marek was not the same happy person he had loved as a child, the only one of his brothers who had ever had much time for him back then.
“Well, it is wonderful to hear that you are all safe in God’s grace,” the monk declared, making as if to leave. “Let us go to the scriptorium and talk there. It’s above the kitchen, so it’s warm.”
Under the table, Anton’s solleret again pushed against Wulf’s boot, more gently than the last time. Whatever failings Anton might have, there was nothing wrong with his wits, so he, too, was seeing the change in Marek. He had known Marek better than Wulf had.
Wulf forced himself to cut a slice of cheese. “I haven’t finished eating. I’m talking too much. Tell us about Koupel. Are you happy here?”
Marek smiled carefully. “Oh, yes, yes! At first there was talk of making me a Dominican friar, you know, and I think I should have found their rule much too strict. Ours is easier. We live very quietly, every day like the last, but better a quiet life and the Lord’s grace than sin and eternal fires. I assist Brother Lodnicka in the herb garden now. Very interesting work, and most beneficial. Our apothecary prepares many potent medications from the herbs we cultivate. Ah! You are not eating. Ready to go now?”
“No,” Wulf said firmly, determined to talk business here, where he was fairly confident of not being overheard, not wherever it was that Marek had been told to take them. He had come to consult Marek, and a lecture on emetics and purgatives was not what he needed. “A couple of days ago, Anton performed an incredible feat of horsemanship at the royal hunt.”
The monk’s face froze. “We always knew he was the best of us on a horse. Even Vlad-”
“I’m the best now,” Wulf said. “But I would never dream of trying what he did. It was almost miraculous.”
“Stop!” Marek whispered. His gaze raked the hall as if in search of listeners. “Not unless you’ve come here to stay.”
Now that was more like it: a specific warning.
“So much so,” Wulf persisted, “that a few hours ago he was summoned by Cardinal Zdenek and promoted to lord of one of the northern marches. The Pomeranians are about to invade, but there is a very slim chance that-”
“Please!” Marek squeaked. “Do not lay this burden on me!”
“I was told to lay it on you, Brother.”
“Told by whom?”
“St. Helena and St. Victorinus.”
The monk crossed himself. All the color had left his face. “Oh, please, please! You don’t know what you are doing!” He stared down at the table, avoiding Wulf’s gaze.
Wulf cut off Anton, who was about to interrupt. “Exactly. I don’t know what I’m doing, but you do, and I want you to instruct me. It was not Anton who bespoke the miracle, it was I. Whose Voices did you hear, Brother?”
“Satan’s!”
With a shiver, Wulf said, “How do you know? The Evil One introduced himself? Did you smell sulfur?”
“Of course not. The Voices told me they were St. Uriel and St. Methodius, but now I know they were demons sent from the pit to deceive me. Do not listen to your Voices, Wulfgang, oh, please do not! They are no saints. They will trap you. They will corrupt your immortal soul and drag you down.”
That was what the Church taught. What else could a monk say?
“How can it be evil to do good? I saved Anton from breaking his neck.”
“ You saved him?” Marek was becoming agitated. “No, Satan saved him, at your request. And I mean no insult to you, Brother Anton, but we mortals cannot judge what is evil and what is for the best. Only the Lord can do that. Do you remember the boy Hans? He cut a blood vessel and was bleeding to death. But I laid a hand on the wound and called out a prayer to my saints-as I thought then-and the bleeding stopped! He lived. A blessed miracle, we all cried. We were wrong!
“Still, my folly was not entirely evil. That was how the Church learned of my peril, and came and brought me here and led me to repentance and salvation.”
This was what he had been taught, anyway-for five endless years. Wulf wondered how Anton was taking it. Oh, where was that clever, cheerful, mischievous Marek they had once known? This sneaky, sanctimonious monk, who wanted to lead them to some place where his abbot could eavesdrop on their talk-this brother they had found was not the brother they had lost.
“I saved a dying boy! I felt so proud! Sinful pride. And his family were so grateful.” Marek paused, glancing from Anton to Wulf and back again. “Whatever happened to Hans?”
Anton said, “I forget which Hans it was, there are so many churls called Hans around Dobkov.”
“Hans the blacksmith’s son,” Wulf said glumly. “He raped a girl last spring. Ottokar hanged him for it. There is going to be a child.”
Again the monk made the sign of the cross. “Did I not just warn you? Anything the Voices do for you will turn to evil eventually, however good it may seem at first. That rape now weighs against my soul. How I mourn for that poor girl and her unwanted child! I will ask for my penance to be increased.”
“If you fast any more you’ll disappear altogether,” Anton snapped. “Do you have to give your portion to your abbot?”
