until Brancher Alojz tweaked the bishops the next day and undid all that good evil, er, I mean good work.” He bowed again.
The Turk showed his teeth in a snarl. “Then let us discuss the bloodbath in the Ruzena gorge and the death of Duke Wartislaw. You blew up their powder wagons and slaughtered thousands of innocent men!”
“Do you have eyewitnesses that saw me do this terrible thing?”
“I have witnesses who heard you claiming to have done it!”
“But I am such a liar!” Wulf said sadly.
This time there was open laughter at the way this newly fledged falcon was defying the dreaded hand of the Agioi. The Turk flushed with rage.
“You may withdraw, Sir Wulfgang,” Lady Umbral said sharply. “Unless Sokullu Pasha has more questions. Pasha, we have discussed the charges. Shall we ask the jury to find a verdict?”
“May the Giver of Wisdomry to guide their deliberations.”
The six people in the front row joined hands. Led by the monk, they stepped away in a daisy chain and, one by one, vanished into the air. The room erupted in a babble of many tongues.
CHAPTER 46
After the jury left, Lady Umbral beckoned Madlenka. Taking a firmer grip on her husband’s strong hand, Madlenka led him forward. She had not expected to find herself treated as the senior partner, but he seemed to accept that strange situation quite happily. He flashed a smile at her and they halted together at the edge of the dais. Madlenka curtseyed; he bowed. Even at close quarters, Umbral’s face remained bizarrely indistinct and unfocused.
“I congratulate you both on your so-recent marriage,” she said. “And you on your choice of husband, my lady. I know of no falcon ever achieving so much so soon. If you wish to join the Saints, we shall be most glad to welcome you both.”
Madlenka glanced at Wulf; he nodded.
She said, “We are honored, my lady. We have much to learn.”
“We shall see that you are instructed. Meanwhile, I am confident that the judges will support our case. Despite that ferocious leer the pasha is wearing, he knows that he is about to lose.”
They all looked at Mudar Sokullu, who bared his teeth at Madlenka. “But if I win, woman, I will take you home as a gift for my imperial master.”
He was joking, wasn’t he?
“Over my dead body,” Wulf said cheerfully.
“That is understood.”
“We are agreed, though,” Umbral said, “that the boy Leonas caused the deaths of your father and brother, and Sir Wulfgang’s brother. Although he cannot understand how he has sinned, he is more dangerous than a mad dog and must be clipped. It is a brutal process, which will leave him with even fewer wits than he has now. Do either of you disagree?”
“No,” Madlenka said sadly. “But then what will happen to him?”
“He is a pretty thing,” the janissary said. “I will take him and sell him in the market in Constantinople.”
Madlenka looked at Wulf and saw her own horror reflected in his face. “Is there no alternative?” she asked.
“I know a monastery that would take him in,” Umbral said, “but he would almost certainly run away, and then he would likely starve. Slaves are fed.” hat wou Wulf said, “A dead Magnus should be revenged, but I cannot kill a half-wit boy, and the real criminal is his father. So I do not object.”
“We will accept your judgment, my lady,” Madlenka said.
“Very well. Take him, Pasha.” Lady Umbral raised her voice slightly. “But give whatever you get for him to the poor! Now, what of that Alojz Zauber? He is not short of wits, but his ethics came out of the cesspool. He caused the death of Count Magnus, your former husband. Pronounce sentence, Madlenka.”
Madlenka started to protest that Wulf had lost a brother and should get that dubious honor, but he frowned and nodded at her to speak. “Obviously the squire has talent,” she said. “Could he be taught to behave himself, while securely bound to a better handler for, say, another year?”
“Probation?” Umbral murmured. “I believe there have been precedents.”
Wulf said, “I am sure Justina will be very bored without her present brancher to keep her company.”
A couple of eavesdroppers chuckled, but Madlenka did not think either of them was Justina.
Lady Umbral shrugged. “Will you accept probation, brancher, or would you prefer the traitor’s death?”
Alojz fell on his knees and was still spewing out his thanks when a gate opened and the judges filed back into the room. The tallest of them, one of the bearded, turbaned Turks, announced their verdict: “We find for the Saints on all counts. Wartislaw was employing a hireling within Catholic territory and the Agioi should have stopped him. The use of talent to invade Castle Gallant was a second trespass, and the brancher obviously regarded himself as subject to the voivode’s orders at that time. The Saints may claim compensation. The execution of Father Vilhelmas and destruction of Wartislaw’s army were both extreme actions, but justified by the laws of war. No compensation is required.”
Nobody cheered or applauded.
The pasha sighed. “The Utterly Just has spoken, but he will remember his children another day.”
“Lady Madlenka, Sir Wulfgang,” Lady Umbral said, “you may speak for the loss of Castle Gallant and the fate of Havel Vranov and his accomplices. You cannot ask for the return of the dead, but you may suggest any other penalty or compensation.”
The castle was a military matter, and Madlenka was not going to meddle in that. “Falcon?” she asked quickly.
Wulf’s face was grim. “Count Vranov is a traitor to his king and has treasonously slain my brother Anton and many others. I will attend to him myself.”
“You will not, rs. I will01D; Umbral told him. “You may demand his death, but others will carry out the sentence. This must be justice, not revenge. Remember that he holds your remaining brothers hostage.”
Wulf set his jaw defiantly for a moment. “I demand that Havel Vranov suffer a heart attack, and that he survive just long enough to make confession and receive absolution, no more than one hour. His son, Sir Marijus, was obviously an accomplice in his crimes, but if he will at once withdraw his forces and return to Pelrelm, handing over Castle Gallant to my brother Sir Vladislav, then I will see that he receives a royal pardon.”
The listeners muttered.
Umbral laughed. “You can guarantee such a pardon, Sir Wulfgang?”
“Yes, I can. If Marijus refuses the offer, then I demand his death also.”
Madlenka had married a warrior and must expect him to think like one. She would not argue. But she remembered how Radomir had died while she held his hand. “And we want compensation for all the widows and orphans in Gallant, not just victims of Vranov’s attack, but the Wends’ assault, too.”
“Indeed?” Lady Umbral seemed surprised at such a notion. “About a thousand florins?” She ignored a loud gabble of Turkish from the janissary. “Does any member of the jury consider these penalties excessive?”
None of the six spoke.
“Very well. Pasha, take the boy Leonas and deliver a thousand sequins to Lady Magnus by tomorrow noon. Vranov must be dead by then, and his army must be back home in Woda within a week. That concludes our business.”
The janissary sprang nimbly to his feet. “For today, yes. But there will be many tomorrows.” He was looking at Wulf as he said it.
Mine Host Oldrich looked around from a heated argument with his wife as the front door of the Bacchus opened to admit Sir Wulfgang Magnus with a striking young lady on his arm. A glance at Lady Magnus’s clean
