“No. But they didn’t say I shouldn’t, either. Now shut up, because talking with them has made my belly hurt already.”
He was going to cooperate! Anton allowed himself a smirk, because his face wasn’t visible. The bright side of Wulf’s stubbornness was that he could be counted on to give a job whatever it needed. Once he started, he wouldn’t stop until it was finished.
The palace hostlers had not enjoyed standing around in a cold and foul alley to please a very junior lancer, and wanted a slanging match to make up for it. Anton tried out his newly acquired hussar vocabulary on them, but lost badly. The foul-mouthed villains vaulted onto their mounts and rode off.
“You take Sparrow,” Wulf said.
“Why, for mercy’s sake?”
Sparrow was a rouncey, an ugly piebald. Morningstar was a courser, faster and larger, more fitting Anton’s height. He was also a handsome roan with far better lines.
“Because Sparrow is nimbler. St. Helena warned me that you must stay very close. If we get separated I won’t be able to find you again.”
St. Helena was the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Despite having died over a thousand years ago, she still talked to Wulf, according to Wulf. And he was serious about the horses, so Anton bit back his annoyance at this suddenly assertive young brother. He could be put back in his place some other time.
Wulf vaulted onto Morningstar’s back and paused to raise the stirrups. “Remember to stay close,” he said, and urged his mount into a run.
Prime was being rung in the distance to announce the new day, but the alley was still deserted, so Anton had no trouble following. Sparrow could keep up that pace all day. How long to Cardice as the devil rides? Suddenly Morningstar made a very sharp right turn into another alley. Fortunately Sparrow always led with his right foot so Anton could turn him to follow. He must have rounded the corner in the nick of time because, for a startling moment, there was no sign of Morningstar and Wulf, but then they somehow flickered into view about two lengths ahead.
Going faster. Anton nudged his mount to speed up, but Sparrow had realized that he was supposed to follow close. Even so, the alleys were narrow and a few pedestrians were appearing already. There would be accidents. Wulf must be made to slow down.
“Wulf! Wulf! ” But the clamor of horseshoes on cobbles was echoing off the walls and drowning out his shouts. Moreover, Wulf was deep in conversation with someone on his right, nodding his head, gesturing with his free hand. Anton could see no one there, but his crazy brother must.
Faster still! The two horses raced flat-out, weaving and winding through a labyrinth of alleys until the walls seemed to fly by in a blur. No seeming: they were a blur, and a fog had rolled in. Pedestrians, mainly somberly clad matrons on their way to Mass, were vague and indistinct, like reflections on water. Sparrow and Morningstar could see the illusion too, for their screams of terror added to the roar of hooves on stone. Anton’s job was easier, but Wulf was the best horseman in the family now and was keeping his terrified mount under perfect control, riding it full-out. A trio of brown-robed friars came into view, deep in holy discourse, and totally unaware as the nemesis rushed upon them.
Anton wailed and closed his eyes. When he opened them, the shadowy friars were just ambling away into the fog behind him, seemingly quite unaware of what had hurtled through them. “Ride like the devil,” he had said, and he had been taken literally. The mouth of hell would open before him at any minute. He had never been so scared in his life.
Now the noise had faded to a terrifying, unearthly silence and the light had almost gone. Whatever had happened to the city wall, the gate? The horses’ feet pounded on grass or mud, but the impacts were barely audible. They were running through a mirage of trees, a forest of beech and chestnuts, which should have been impenetrable but in practice put up no more resistance than trails of smoke. When Anton managed to bring Sparrow close enough, he caught fragments of Wulf’s conversation. “…put him in danger?” “…how long can you…?” “…but will the cardinal play fair later, if he…?” Anton could hear no replies, but Wulf certainly seemed to. A couple of times he laughed as he would if his ghostly companions were making jokes.
Then reality returned with a rush; Anton felt he had wakened from a dream by falling out of bed. The horses whinnied in fright as they found their hooves thumping on hard brown pasture. The countryside had opened up to fields and vineyards, very fertile, all gilded by fall and deserted on a Sunday morning. Low sun shone on gentle hills, wreathed with distant smoke plumes from burning stubble. This did not look like the countryside around Mauvnik, nor could it be Cardice, for there were no mountains. Straight ahead of them stood a massive masonry wall with a high arched gateway.
And Wulf-who, according to family legend, would be capable of riding a horse up a tree if he wanted-flew out of the saddle, turned a somersault in midair, and crashed to the ground.
CHAPTER 4
“Mother! Mother! You must get up now! You must! Havel Vranov is at the gates. I need you!”
Lady Madlenka Bukovany was addressing Dowager Countess Edita. The poor lady had retreated to the far side of the mattress and, had it not been hard against the wall, would very likely have fallen out already. She had pulled a pillow over her head. For over a week now, ever since her husband was stricken, she would not eat or speak. She had taken to bed and refused even to attend his funeral three days later. She did take fluids, so the doctors had forbidden her water and prescribed goats’ milk, just to keep her alive.
“Mother, please, as you love me?”
Nothing.
“Mother, I absolutely swear that I will never argue with you again!”
Madlenka felt very guilty. The two of them had been constantly at loggerheads for months now. Not about anything in particular, more about everything in particular. Petr had laughed at their battles and said it was time his sister was married off. Which was true-still not betrothed at seventeen, Madlenka was practically an old maid. Father had agreed, but had done no more about arranging a match for her than he had about buying guns for the castle, as Petr had wanted. Now both Father and Petr were gone, she and Mother should be supporting each other. This torpor was so incredibly unlike Countess Edita! She had always been a strong, active woman. Opinionated, too.
With a sigh, Madlenka closed the bed curtain and turned around to meet Giedre’s sympathetic gaze. Giedre was the daughter of Sir Ramunas Jurbarkas, the castle seneschal. She was officially Madlenka’s lady-in-waiting, but was in fact her best and lifelong friend, less than a day younger. Father had referred to Giedre as Madlenka’s shadow, but if so she was a midday shadow, being plump and short, where Madlenka herself was tall and skinny, with a face all bone. Giedre was dark, Madlenka fair.
“Do not think harshly of her, my lady. Whatever evil witchcraft smote your father and brother has taken her wits also.”
Bishop Ugne said the same-that the fault must lie not with the countess but with the Speaker who had cursed her. His own efforts to remove the curse had failed utterly. Madlenka was convinced that the Satanist had been either Count Havel Vranov, the Hound of the Hills, or someone in his employ. Now he was at the gates with an army, and the constable, Karolis Kavarskas, was going to let him in. Vranov just might recognize that the countess retained some vestige of her late husband’s authority, but he would spurn any attempt by Madlenka to assert her rights. An underage female orphan had precious few rights anyway.
The count’s bedchamber at Cardice was a large room by Cardice standards, and a luxurious one for Jorgary. It had glass in its windows, rugs from Syria, and chests made from the cedars of Lebanon. The wall tapestries were of Flemish weave, depicting mythical scenes, faded now. Here her father had slept and here he had died, ending his line. Women could not inherit titles. No woman could be lord of the marches.
So now Sir Karolis Kavarskas, that most hateful constable, claimed to rule in Count Bukovany’s place, “until His Majesty appoints his successor.”
Or until Havel Vranov decided to appoint himself. Why else was he riding up the Silver Road with hundreds of men at his back?
