Soon everyone had gone except for the Scarlet Spider, Wulf, and the two friars. Plus the undead king.
Wulf’s hands itched to clasp those precious sheets of vellum, so vital to his happiness and Madlenka’s. “I may now play the fastest courier in Europe, Your Eminence?”
“Shortly,” the cardinal said smugly. The ancient eyes missed nothing, not even Wulf’s impatience. “We must take note of the witnesses and so on, and I need to make arrangements to spare Brother Daniel, so he may accompany you. That was our agreement.”
“It was,” Wulf agreed.
“He will find you when we are ready.” He offered his ring in the sign of dismissal.
CHAPTER 43
Wulf emerged from limbo in a deserted corner of the palace stables. He demanded his horse, and watched as Morningstar was saddled up. With two or three hours before his sunset deadline, he must now turn his attention to Guillaume Cardinal d’Estouteville. It was make or break time. It felt very much like that breathless moment when the lances were couched, when his horse was pounding along the lists toward the other horse approaching, when the crowd was roaring, and a fearful, jarring impact was about to settle who stayed in the saddle, and who flew over his horse’s rump to hit the ground inside sixty pounds of steel. And in this case the stakes could not be higher: the hand of the lady, or the hatch to hell.
As soon as Morningstar was ready, he vaulted into the saddle and rode off through the sleepy Sunday town to the Bacchus. There he tied Morningstar to the hitching rail and ducked through a low doorway into the dim, tiny lobby. Thus his great-great-grandfather must have often come, perhaps even on peaceful Sunday afternoons like this one. The owner he found behind the counter would have been the two-or-three-greats-grandfather of the current one, Master Oldrich, who was standing there now. He was a plump, jovial man, with the oddly babyish appearance that came from a total lack of hair, even eyelashes. He wore an elaborate, old-fashioned red turban that concealed his baldness, and he had painted eyebrows, but the result was still bizarre.
He beamed. “Squire Wulfgang! God bless! Very happy to see you back so…” He hesitated, calculating. Wulf and Otto had visited only three days ago, and they had certainly not had time to ride home and return. “Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing at all. Life is wine and music and the joy of youth. You have a room for me and my dear wife, who will be joining me shortly?”
After a flurry of blessings and congratulations, Oldrich enthused that the Horse Room was available, the best room in the house, top floor, very quiet, and for newlyweds he would cut a special rate. It was Magnus family lore that the Bacchus’s rates were always special and the best room varied every time; but none of the rooms were really bad, which was what mattered.
“That will do splendidly. Has anyone been asking for me?”
“No, squire.”
Wulf had told the prince he was staying here. Evidently Konrad was not yet suspicious enough to think of confirming that.
“If anyone does, then I have been here since Wednesday.”
Nodding vigorously, Oldrich reached under the counter for his slate. “I distinctly remember writing that.”
“When we leave,” Wulf said, “there will be no need to change what you remember writing.” He was being very generous, considering that his pouch did not contain one copper mite. “I did not sleep here last night, though. I was off hunting.”
“I trust your chase was well rewarded?”
“An eight-point stag. His Highness was well pleased.” Wulf hesitated. Esquires were notorious braggarts. Years of denying his Voices had made him unnaturally reticent, but he should stay in character. He must behave like a swordsman, not a sorcerer. “Yesterday His Highness knighted me and appointed me his master of horse.”
Oldrich of course responded with a blizzard of congratulations mixed with compliments on the House of Magnus, but Wulf had noticed the momentary twitch of disapproval from the lashless eyelids. Konrad had done such a splendid job of ruining his own reputation that now Wulf would be tarred with the same brush.
With a final “Please have the lads see to Morningstar,” he headed for the stairs. He trotted up two steep flights and explored a gloomy, squeaky-floored corridor, passing images of a bell, a fish, and a snail, until he found a door with a horse on it. The room was modest in size and cramped by the presence of a single overlarge bed. Oh, Madlenka! But it should be quiet on this side.
Cardinal d’Estouteville was engaged in conversation with a man, probably a young man, from the sound of his voice, but the cardinal’s eyesight was so blurred that Wulf could make out no details. Whatever they were speaking, it did not sound like Italian. It might be French, but if it was, and the other man was who he thought he might be, then it was likely Norman French they were using, and that would be very different from the French of Paris. Not that Wulf could understand a word of either.
He stripped, laid out his Italian outfit on the covers, and set to work to ensorcel it. After a few hastily corrected misjudgments, he made the trunk hose a uniform pale gray and the doublet and coat a somber blue of modest cut and sensible sleeves. When he had dressed again, he was a stylish Jorgarian gentleman.
He still could not Look in on Madlenka. Vlad was stretched out on the bed and staring at the canopy, while Otto gazed fixedly out the window. He went to them.
Otto spun around. “Thank the Lord! You’re safe?”
“So far,” Wulf said. “Why didn’t you tell me that Gallant had fallen and Anton was wounded?”
His brother sighed and avoided his eyes. d his ey#x201C; Because there was nothing you could do. Rumors of Satanism are flying, Wulf. People suspect the Vranovs more than us, but the bishop set up a vigil of two priests at all times in Anton’s room. You could not have meddled this time. They caught him in the street, without a helmet. He took such a terrible cut to the head… You saved his life twice. You have nothing to repent.”
Wulf nodded. It was too late to explain that he had healed Countess Edita in that same room without entering it. Otto’s decision made sense, but the failure would haunt Wulf for years. If he had years.
“What’s your news, Wolfcub?” Vlad growled.
“Nothing much. I am Sir Wulfgang Magnus, the crown prince’s master of horse. I am on my way to Rome to meet with Guillaume Cardinal d’Estouteville, to negotiate the marriage of Princess Laima, and the Scarlet Spider expects me to rescue his castle from Vranov. Tonight there is going to be a Walpurgis Night party of all the best Satanists in Europe, to which I am invited but from which I may never return.”
“Glad to hear that one of us is still able to hold his head up,” Vlad growled.
“It may be higher yet if it ends on a pike,” Wulf said. “How in hell did you lose the most impregnable castle in Christendom?”
“Gross fornicating incompetence!” Vlad roared. “I made the worst mistake in warfare-I counted on the enemy doing what I wanted him to do! Vranov had been told the river had stopped running, and he could confirm that. His allies were beaten and he had nothing to gain by continuing his rebellion. If he was in any sense sane, he would be halfway home to Woda by now. I went to bed. I woke up with a sword at my throat.”
“You didn’t allow for talent? Sorcery?”
The big man nodded miserably. “I had set guards on the gates, but they must have been as drunk as lords. All the church bells were already ringing, so there was no way to sound the alarm; the whole town was drunk by then. The Satanists brought Vranov’s men right into the keep, I think. They beat us from the inside out.”
Vlad was obviously crushed by his failure. The first commandment forbade such trickery, but once again Vranov had broken the rules.
“I think we can sort it out. What Speaking has done can be undone by Speaking.” Wulf had an appointment to keep. He was also famished. “I must go.”
“God be with you, Brother,” Otto said formally. He was deliberately avoiding emotional farewells, and probably that was wise.
