on their records. So the Scarlet Spider and the Saints both missed him too.”
“Wulf had seen what happened to Marek,” Otto said, “and was always extremely careful not to use his powers.”
Until Anton had outed him at the prince’s hunt.
“Speakers can be very dangerous people,” Justina said. “The Church’s denunciation of them is not entirely unjustified, and we have evandC; Sen turned a few of our own over to the Inquisition. The best solution anyone has ever found is what we call ‘jessing,’ which is to bind a Speaker to a wor… to a non-Speaker, somewhat like a man doing homage to a lord. I won’t go into details, but you have met Cardinal Zdenek?”
Both brothers nodded.
“Did you even notice a mousy clerk scribbling in a corner, probably dressed as a Franciscan friar? He would be a Speaker hired to guard the cardinal. Zdenek employs five Saint hirelings-two to watch over him, two to do the same for the king, and that so-called marquessa you just met to guard the crown prince. Night and day, in her case.”
Anton smirked.
Ottokar frowned. “This is the jessing you mentioned?”
“No. The Speakers in question are jessed by workaday members of the Saints, their cadgers. A cadger is a manager. The cardinal contracts with the cadger for his falcon’s services. The cardinal is their client, they are his hirelings.” She smiled at the bewildered faces. “We have our own code.”
“And how much do the Saints charge for that service?”
“You’d have to ask Lady Umbral, our prelate, but the exchange is often more of favors than gold. And don’t think of hirelings as bodyguards, because Speakers don’t stoop to killing. Assassins are almost always workadays wielding knives or poison.”
“Then what do Speakers guard against?”
“Tweaking, mostly. They can recognize other Speakers on sight. Imagine Wulfgang presenting… No, he’s too honest. Imagine Vilhelmas presenting a petition to an undefended king or minister. It would be approved instantly! People like Cardinal Zdenek need protection against that. The monastery at Koupel has a Speaker to perform its famous cures: Brother Lodnicka, jessed by Abbot Bohdan. The pope has legions of such falcons, of course.”
Wulfgang still hadn’t touched his wine, clever lad. Hedwig was describing the crown prince’s sex life in disgusting detail. Justina regarded that as a breach of professional ethics.
Ottokar was beaming. “So now Crown Prince Konrad wants to meet the young man who just won a war single-handed, in a major miracle? Our baby dragon is going to be appointed personal retainer to our future king?”
“Not if I can help it!” Justina said grimly.
Ottokar said, “Surely an appointment as…” He stopped, puzzled, and glanced from her face to Anton’s and back again.
“Crown Prince Konrad is a turd,” Anton said quietly.
“You slander the heir apparent!”
“I slander turds. He’s a worthless brat. He hunts, jousts, drinks, and holds orgies. He favors handsome young men.”
Ottokar blanched.
Justina said, “Maybe ten or fifteen years from now he will mellow into an honorable and respectable ruler, but at the moment you don’t want to give him Wulfgang.”
Appalled, Ottokar shrank down on his chair and muttered, “I suppose not.”
“I wish to enlist Wulf in the Saints,” she said. “He will still be able to serve the throne of Jorgary if he wishes, but he will not be committed to doing so for the rest of his life, and we will see that he is fairly rewarded. I may be worrying unnecessarily; he may find the crown prince as odious as I do.”
“Wulf’s not stupid,” Otto muttered, “but he’s still very innocent.”
Anton nodded agreement. “Invite him to an orgy and he’d ask what he should wear.”
“That’s witty for you,” Otto said. “Your coronet must be going to your head.”
Justina realized that the brothers were more than a little drunk. They had good reason to be so, since their sentences of imminent death in battle had just been lifted. And she was feeling quite sentimental. It was many years since she had sat down with family like this. Her brother would have burst with pride to see these stalwart grandsons.
Otto took another drink. “I know the Church gets fiery-and-brimstony about it,” he said, “but I’ve fought alongside men who had minority views. They did the loot and pillage part well enough, and had their own ideas about rape, if you follow. Their business! In most cases I would much rather have had them fighting beside me than against me. I’m sure Wulf’s thinking is quite orthodox, though.”
A narrow arch appeared in the unopened door. Through it stepped a plump, middle-aged man in a gray friar’s habit, barefoot and wearing a leather eye patch. His cowl was back, exposing his tonsure, whose highlights reflected the glow of his halo.
He waggled a reproving finger at Justina. “Sister, sister! You were present last night when Lady Umbral agreed that the cardinal would be the one to jess Wulfgang Magnus. And did she not contract to provide your assistance here during the siege in return for a one-third share of his lifetime labors?”
“Wulfgang was not consulted!”
“But Umbral committed the Saints and you are trying to renege on that agreement, aren’t you?”
Without waiting for an answer, Brother Daniel bobbed his head in a minimal gesture of respect to Ottokar and Anton. “My lords, His Eminence begs the favor of a word with you both, if you would spare him a moment?” He gestured to the arch leading through to Zdenek’s council room.
CHAPTER 23
The awful moment came only too soon. Clad in his herald’s tabard, Arturas Synovec ducked out the postern gate and set off down the road to death or glory. He kept reassuring himself that his danger was slight, because the Church’s laws of war protected heralds from violence. Even so, he had had to stop in a corner to pee twice before he reached the barbican.
He carried a white flag in one hand and a flaming torch in the other. He stumbled down a badly rutted road made treacherous by the frozen waves of ice across it, a snowy cliff on his right, dark nothing on his left. And silence, except for the wind! He should have been able to hear the Ruzena muttering and complaining below him. The Pelrelmians wouldn’t notice the absence.
His eyes watered in the wind. The Pelrelmians had built a wooden screen across the road, what the men- at-arms called a blinding. Fifty paces. Forty… Thirty-five…
“Halt! Who goes there!”
He stopped. So far they were obeying the laws of chivalry.
“Flag of truce, a message for Count Vranov from Count Magnus.”
“What?”
He shouted louder.
In a moment a gap was opened in the blinding and a man in mail came out and clanked forward to meet him. He wore a sash that probably meant he was a master sergeant.
“Gimme the message and I’ll see he gets it.”
“No. It’s a verbal message, to the count or Sir Marijus.”
“Tell me and then get your sweet little ass back where it belongs before I ram a pike up it.”
All very predictable. Arturas had to stand there and argue with a dolt who had been given no authority to deal with a parley and had no imagination. Finally he had to be prompted. Arturas pulled out the cloth. “Here. Blindfold me and send me down to the count.”
After some thought, the man agreed.
It wasn’t easy walking on that rough ground with a blindfold on, so his guide had to grip his arm. And once
