“Who’s planning to kill him, Darina?”
Smiling mockingly at him, she took hold of the bell rope and tugged. “That’s not my problem.”
“Then your cadger forbade you to defend him?”
She smiled and said, “Can’t say,” offhandedly. “I just thought the famous Magnus loyalty might be interested.”
“So that was why you came and fetched me from Gallant last night?”
Shrug. “Can’t say.”
“You’re on the prince’s side, then?”
She seemed surprised by the question. “I suppose I am. He’s a moron, but not usually malicious. He’s bored crazy, because Zdenek won’t let him do anything.”
“Why does he pretend to be such a pervert if he isn’t?” Wulf realized that he was desperate to hear that there was something there worth saving.
Darina turned to stare at him appraisingly. “You’ve been thinking about this a lot, haven’t you? I don’t know, because he was doing it when I was assigned to him. He was barely shaving then.”
“Guess for me. You know him.”
“He may have started it to get back at his grandfather for ignoring him. He got the whole court seething with scandal. Now everyone’s surfeited and lost interest, but he can’t stop.”
“What will he do when he becomes king?”
That was easier. “Whatever it is will be a disaster.”
“The Bavarian war really was his idea, then?”
“Before my time,” Darina said. “I haven’t been here quite two years yet, but that’s what I was told: he talked his grandfather into it. The old man was senile already, but he could still speak then, after a fashion. It was Cabbage Head’s war, though.”
Wulf’s worst fears were confirmed. He knew now what he was going to have to do, and the wraiths of a dozen generations of Magnuses moaned in the shadows.
“I am very grateful for your help,” he said. “I hope I can return the favor sometime. Meanwhile, I don’t know my way around the palace yet. Could you put me where I could get in to see Cardinal Zdenek?”
Darina cocked an eyebrow at him. “If he feels like it, he’ll make you wait a week.”
“I haven’t got a week.” Less than an hour.
Knuckles tapped on the door.
“That’s my maid,” she said, “to help me get ready for a gentleman visitor. I’ll show you Zdenek’s exit door. Petitioners go in through the anteroom and out this way. The moment he’s alone, barge in, if you have the courage.”
It wasn’t hard to smile at such a lovely face. “No courage, just desperation. Thank you for your help.”
The marquessa opened a gate for him.
CHAPTER 37
Wulf found himself standing on a small landing at the top of a long staircase. A single door presumably led into the cardinal’s office. No, there was no handle on this side, so it only led out. There was nowhereb, to sit except the steps themselves, but the window offered a fine view over the rooftops of the capital-where he had once spent three weeks, about a hundred years ago.
He had a problem, the sort of problem workadays had all the time but a Speaker should be able to overcome. He needed to know what Zdenek was doing, but could not Look through his eyes because he had never met him. A couple of hours ago he would have been baffled, but now he tried what d’Estouteville had suggested: he simply wished that he could see through that particular door. The massive enameled and gilded oak became like smoky glass for him.
The Scarlet Spider was seated on a chair as grand as a throne, scowling down at a pudgy, rubicund man of middle years, seriously overdressed, like a burgomaster anxious to display his wealth. He had been left on his knees to plead his case, which could not be doing his fancy silken hose much good. His complaints about too much tax being collected in his city seemed to be falling on deaf ears.
Wulf leaned back against the wall and thought about tweaking. When he had first learned of it, he had been disgusted. It was forbidden by the second commandment, but its use must be impossible to prove unless another Speaker was present to witness it happening. Wulf had seen Marek tweak a guard and Alojz Zauber tweak the bishops, and in each case there had been a flash visible to other Speakers. Even if he were to tweak some workaday when there was no other Speaker present, he could never be certain that one was not Looking from afar. Yet now it seemed that duty, personal survival, and his hopes of marrying Madlenka were all going to require him to use tweaking. Father Czcibor had taught him that the devil could always show people how to justify their sins.
Wulf had not been joking when he told Otto he was between the clashing rocks. Both cardinals employed Speakers to defend themselves against tweaking, so he could not manipulate either of them that way. But unless he could change Zdenek’s mind about the Louis-Laima betrothal, d’Estouteville would let Brother Luigi have him. Which brought him back to the Inquisition and a full realization of how terrified he was. Terror was the inquisitors’ business. Whole families could vanish into the darkness. Acquittal in the secret trials was almost unknown, and anyone who did emerge into daylight again was scarred, impoverished, and universally shunned.
Dark as a thundercloud, and escorted by a Franciscan friar with a nimbus, the burgomaster came stumping over to the door. Wulf caught it as it swung open. The fat man jumped in alarm, but Wulf just smiled and begged his pardon. Then he stepped into Zdenek’s office.
The friar spun around in a swirl of robe and his nimbus flamed bright. Wulf ran into a perfectly transparent wall that felt hard as steel. He thought, I wish this wasn’t here, and the wall disappeared. The friar was tall, with reddish hair and an eye patch. He was quite young, but when Wulf made no offensive move, he did not retaliate; just stood there, watching him warily.
“Wulfgang Magnus, Your Eminence. You want to see me, I understand?”
The old man glared. Red patches flamed above his beard and he bared yellow teeth in anger. “Go and give?C; Go and your name to the chancellor! You cannot barge in on me unannounced.”
“I already did.” Wulf stepped around the friar and walked over to the throne. He knelt. “I have urgent business that I must attend to or I will be delivered to the Inquisition.” He waited for the ring to be offered.
“An excellent idea. What do you want?”
“It is more a matter of what you want, Your Eminence.” Seeing that he would not be offered the ring, Wulf stood up. A workaday guilty of such disrespect would be heading for the dungeons already, but one furious cardinal was a benevolent and almost pathetic old man compared with the overweening nightmare of the Inquisition. “You told my cadger you wished to speak with me in person.”
“Cadger?” Zdenek snorted. “That chit of a girl? I’ll give you two minutes, no more, and even that was only because of what you accomplished yesterday. That was impressive, I admit, although you were undoubtedly aided by the hand of the Lord, may His name be praised. All I have in mind is this. It is no secret that our beloved monarch must soon pass to his reward, and Crown Prince Konrad will accede to the throne of his ancestors. A king needs protection, and the Speaker who currently looks after his safety leaves much to be desired. His Highness is anxious to replace her. Having proved your loyalty and skill, you would be the natural successor. You would be well rewarded with income and a suitable title.”
He smiled mockingly. “But the idea of a falcon here in Mauvnik being flown by a juvenile cadger ten days’ journey away in Cardice is ludicrous. I would insist that she transfer your jessing to me.”
Rubbish! Cardice was a mere blink away for a Speaker. Moreover, a cadger of Zdenek’s age was liable to drop dead without warning, and then he would take his falcon’s talents with him.