Disapproving, Giedre left. Wulf did not sit.
Madlenka rose and faced him warily. “She won’t eavesdrop. What is this dark secret, Squire Wulfgang?” She was pale. She had guessed.
“I am leaving Castle Gallant, my lady. Within the hour.”
She flinched. “You are recovered enough to ride a horse?”
“I bruise easily, but we Magnuses are very fast healers.”
Anton or Vlad would have accepted the statement as either plain fact or macho bragging, but Madlenka did not miss the other possibilities. Her eyes narrowed.
“Tough as boiled leather, I was told.”
“Tougher. But please make sure that my brother rests for the next day or two. Lock him in, or tie him down, if you can. Madlenka…”
Now what to say? He must not implicate her in his Satanism, if that was what it was, and he must not raise her hopes in vain.
“I have… a favor… I want your promise… It is possible that I will not be…” He was stammering. He stopped and started again. “But, in case I do… if I do…”
She smiled. “You are not making a great deal of sense, squire.”
“How can I make sense when I am crazed by love? I just want you to promise not to marry him until you are sure I am not coming back!”
Now she stared at him as if he was a foaming maniac-and who could blame her? “You are going to ride down to Mauvnik and ask King Konrad to change his edict? To order me to marry you instead of Anton?”
“More or less.”
“You truly are insane!”
“Almost, but not quite. It is not impossible! Listen… no, don’t. There are things I cannot tell you. It is a slim hope, but I just may return with such a document.”
“So the sash does not lie? You really are personal friends of the king?”
“My lady, it is no secret in Mauvnik that the king barely knows day from night anymore. Please, trust me. Wait for me!”
“Wait how long?” She was bewildered, naturally.
“Forty days,” he said, because that was what he had told Anton. “Just don’t go and marry him before then!”
“Marry? Now? With an enemy at the gates, my father and brother hardly cold in their graves, my mother blighted? There can be no wedding for me, squire, not for a year or more.”
“Your mother?” Someone had mentioned a mother. “What is her ailment?”
“She was seized by melancholy when my father was stricken, and has refused to leave her bed since.”
“Smitten by the same curse, you think? This is evil incarnate.”
She said, “Yes,” but her eyes were questioning. She was a clever girl, dangerously clever.
“I must go. I love you.” He hadn’t been aware of moving, but they were very close.
“And I you.” She smiled sadly. “You were so badly hurt, and so brave.”
“You were so kind.” He had always dreamed that the mother he had never known had been like her-tall and gentle and caring. There were no pictures of her. He had always assumed that she had been blond like him, not dark like Anton, but he had never dared ask. He had killed her, being born.
Madlenka’s smiles would raise the dead. She said, “A little flirting seemed harmless when there could be no future in it. Knowing we had nothing to gain, we thought we had nothing to lose.”
“How wrong we were!” He put his arms around her and drew her close, but she turned away from his attempt to kiss her.
“You haven’t told me everything, have you?”
“No, my lady. I dare not. Whatever you suspect, I beg you not to share your thoughts with anyone.”
“Is it possible that Cardinal Zdenek was fighting fire with fire?”
Clever! “I have never met that eminent gentleman, and he would never admit to such unchristian behavior.”
Then he tried again to kiss her and this time she did not refuse. He thought she would break it off very quickly, but she didn’t and he had no desire to have it end-not ever.
“Father!” Giedre said, in a voice somewhat louder than normal. “What brings you here?”
The kiss ended. Madlenka strode over to the door and out into the corridor. Her voice drifted back. “No, it isn’t there. I must have left it… Seneschal?”
“My lady, I am looking for Squire Wulfgang. The count told me to see him.”
“He looked in here a few minutes ago, to tell us that Lord Magnus was much recovered. It was kind of him. Did he say where he was going, Giedre?”
“To the stable, I think, my lady.”
The voices died away and Wulf started breathing again.
He must go. The sooner he went, the sooner he could come back and try to do something about the Wends. They would need some time to muster their forces. So Anton would be all right. Madlenka would survive. He wished he could leave her a present, a token of how he felt, or just a reminder of him until he returned. Or something to ease her burdens? Then the answer was obvious. If his voices could cure Anton, they could surely help her mother’s despair. But how? A countess beset by melancholy would not be left unattended. An unknown young man would never be allowed into her quarters anyway.
“Most holy saints, how can I cure… I mean, how can I Speak for the countess without anyone knowing?”
The Light came.
— There is a way, my son, Helena said. — Go.
He stepped out into the corridor. Corridors in Castle Gallant were on the outside and dim, lit only by the loopholes in the outer wall. The rooms were on the bailey side, so they could have windows.
— Left, Victorinus said. — Upstairs. Right.
The corridor ended in darkness where discarded furniture had been left to molder. Wulf proceeded cautiously through the clutter of broken chairs, dismantled bedframes, and other litter until he reached a blank wall, whose stonework had been left rough and unfinished, a later addition to the original structure.
— Stand in the right-hand corner. The lady’s bed is on the other side of the wall. Now ask.
“Holy saints, is there a curse upon Countess Edita?”
— Yes.
“I beg you to remove that curse and restore her wits.”
The Light faded. Wulf headed back the way he came, wiping off dust and cobwebs. What next? Miracle or witchcraft, he refused to believe that healing people was evil.
He went looking for the seneschal, but the keep must be buzzing with more hunters than hunted, for he was cornered by young Radim. He had shed the wax tablet, but still bore his cane and his worried expression. Perhaps he always did.
“Squire, may I ask a question? I was talking with Dali-Constable Notivova, I mean-as you suggested, and he said that the Wend soldiers seemed to be led by a priest. A schismatic priest, of the Orthodox Rite.”
Not sure what reaction was expected of him, Wulf said only, “Shocking!”
“The constable says he knows him,” Radim added eagerly. “It was Father Vilhelmas, squire! He accompanied Count Vranov when he visited here last month, and he was with Vranov at the gate on Sunday, when the bishop insisted he not be admitted.”
“Yes. If you could lead me to wherever I might find the seneschal, we could talk on the way.”
“Oh. He wanders around a lot. He will most likely be in the counting room, squire. Down here.”
Matching his pace to Radim’s awkward hobble, Wulf said, “So what about Father Vilhelmas?”
“He was at Long Valley this morning! How did he do that?”
“I don’t know the country. How could he do that?”
“Well, he could have doubled back through Castle Gallant, but he wasn’t supposed to be admitted. Or he could ride west to the Hlucny and over Hlucny Pass, but all that rain we had here would be snow up there, and it’s rarely open this late in the year, and it would take him at least three days anyway. At least three days!”
