When the Saints (39 page)

But Konrad was not Darina’s client, Zdenek was. In Wulf’s case, Darina had set up the treason herself. So would Zdenek allow the “education” to continue, or would he stop it? Wulf was still sailing between the clashing rocks, for he must outwit and deceive one of the cardinals, either Zdenek or d’Estouteville.

“So what do I do?” the prince whimpered.

Last night Wulf had joked about running the country and already he was veering close to that precipice. “It is not up to me to advise you, sire.”

“Yes it is. No one else dares speak plainly to me. Counsel me, Master of Horse.”

The simplest advice would be:
Make some allies, idiot! You have antagonized everyone in the realm.
A prince should have learned that much at his mother’s knee, but Konrad had been a third son, so no one had bothered, until it was too late and there was no one to teach him except a distant at a distnd embittered grandfather.

“I suggest you start by getting the Church on your side. As soon as your honored grandfather is called to his reward, announce an enormous endowment in his name—a cathedral or monastery, perhaps. The bishops will keep you in power until it’s finished! Promise more to come. Ban all festivities during official mourning. Include your own parties and make sure everyone knows that. If the clergy support you, the nobles will be much more hesitant to oppose you. Moreover, if you will excuse my presumption even farther, your position would be a lot stronger if you produced an heir to put the evil talk to rest.
Call Princess Olga back to court.
” Tweak!

“Bah! She’s cold as an icicle.”

Not according to Darina, but only fools would believe everything she said.

“That won’t stop her conceiving.” With a silent prayer for forgiveness, Wulf put it in terms the prince might understand: “Work her hard every night! She’ll soon learn to enjoy it. When you’ve gone a full month without being turned down, you’ll know that you have gotten her with child.” So Anton had told him once.

“And that’s it? That’s the only reason they hate me?”

He sounded like a hugely overgrown child, bewildered by grown-ups.

“You also get blamed for the Boundary Stone War. People whisper that you talked your grandfather into it.”

“So I did, but if he’d let me lead it as I wanted to, then it wouldn’t have been such a disaster!”

That sounded like absurd childish dreaming, but the letters Vlad had written from captivity had described incredible incompetence among the Jorgarian leaders, most of whom had shown just enough sense to die in battle instead of coming home to be put on trial. Perhaps the prince would have done no worse, although it was hard to imagine that boyish treble shouting orders. At least he would not have to defend his kingdom from a Pomeranian attack any time soon, thanks to Wulf.

“Laima?” Konrad said. “You seem to have a ready opinion on everything. You really think she’s part of this plot you suspect?”

“I have no idea what her views are. But if things go as far as assassination, then she will be your heir and have no choice in the matter. Is she likely to support such a conspiracy?”

“Never! We’re very close. She disapproves of a lot of my friends, but she would never, never, never want to see me killed!”

“That’s good.” Wulf hoped it was also true. Konrad might believe anything he wanted to believe—which would make Wulf’s own job easier as long as he could keep the prince’s ear. “Then let’s worry abou;s worryt deposition. If you were to be set aside, whether by palace coup or armed rebellion, then your brother-in-law would have a strong claim to the crown matrimonial. He would have to win the trust of the nobility. So your choice of a husband for your sister may carry a lot of weight in deciding your own future.”

At last they were getting close to Wulf’s problem. A burst of cheering from downstairs was more likely related to the progress of the orgy.

“If you mean,” Konrad growled with unexpected vehemence, “that I should marry Laima off to some misshapen dwarf who slobbers when he talks, then you can go jump your horse off another cliff. I’ve heard rumors about the toads Zdenek has been dredging out of the swamps. Not that he ever talks to me. Or listens to me. I think he’s going to fake Grandsire’s name on a marriage contract so I don’t even have a say.”

He was right, but Wulf was not supposed to know that.

“Unless he acts very quickly, the choice will be yours. Choose some healthy young nobleman. Someone she will like and will come to love, and who will love her as she deserves. But not a prince! You don’t want your kingdom entangled in foreign alliances. Best of all, someone who lives far away won’t get caught up in local conspiracies.” Someone like Louis of Rouen, for example, except that Louis was offering to move to Jorgary instead of having his wife move to France.

Rhythmic clapping from downstairs must mean that someone was putting on a superior performance.

“I’ll sleep on it.” The bed roiled as the prince turned over.

Wulf murmured agreement. That had certainly been the hardest negotiating session of his life so far, and he was glad his liege lord had chosen to conduct it in the dark.

He had never met anyone like Konrad—built like a bull, born to the purple, raised on royal jelly, yet still only a child. His sense of humor belonged in privies and bawdy houses. All his life people had agreed with his opinions, laughed at his jokes, and allowed him to choose the games to be played, the topics to be discussed. No one ever dared contradict him. Very soon now he would inherit one of the oldest thrones in Christendom.

Yet Wulf had caught glimpses of something more. There was hope.

CHAPTER
41

Before dawn, Wulf was wakened by a hard kick in the back and a command to fetch Nenad. He fought his way out of the billowy feather mattress and sweet dreams of Madlenka, with no help at all from the entangling silk nightgown.

“Where do I find him, sire?”

“Outside, of course.”

Yes, the cherubic valet lay snoring on a pallet right outside the door. The 怅 hall below was littered with discarded clothes, but there were no bodies in sight. Already fully dressed but understandably rumpled and bleary-eyed, Nenad attended his master and was told to produce hot water, wine, and the two drumsticks he had been ordered to save from last night’s roast geese; horses to be ready at the door in fifteen minutes. Wrestling was not on the agenda, apparently. Immediate return to Mauvnik was.

The valet’s efficiency was incredible. In moments he was shaving the prince and had returned Wulf’s Italian finery, washed and ironed and smelling pleasantly of wood smoke from the fire that had dried it. Meanwhile the lodge resounded with bellows of anger as the guests fought to find their own clothes and take turns with the chamber pots.

Princes wait on no man. It was very little more than fifteen minutes before Konrad ran down the long stair and out into the first flat light from a sky the color of duck eggs. He was freshly shaved, fed, and dressed in finely laundered hunter’s green. Nobody else was. He had enjoyed a full night’s sleep, too.

He caught Wulf’s arm as their horses were being led forward. “We can talk more back in Mauvnik. I’ve made you unpopular enough already. Watch your back from now on.” Then louder: “Pavel! You ride with me. And Juraj, you great pervert. I want to hear who was doing what to whom last night. Which girl was screaming?”

Wulf found himself alone, wondering how literally Konrad had meant the warning. Were any of these baby-faced parasites capable of sticking a knife in him?

“May I ride with you, Sir Wulfgang?” inquired the buck-toothed Lubos.

“I would be honored, my lord.”

As the cavalcade streamed off down the road with half the riders still dressing, Lubos opened the interrogation. “I trust you slept well, Sir Wulfgang?”

“Eventually, yes.”

“Eventually?”

“His Highness talked a lot.”

“Ah.” Lubos smiled cryptically at his horse’s ears. “How do you fancy your chances on the mat with him?”

“Those shoulders terrify me.”

That began about three hours of conversation, none of which made any sense. Wulf was partnered with a dozen different people in turn, even a couple of the very few women whose palfreys were capable of matching the prince’s frantic pace. Half the guests dropped out. At one point the new master of horse had to ride forward to warn Konrad that he was damaging some of his guards’ mounts. Konrad pouted, but did rein in the black super-horse he was riding. By the time the hunt thundered through the palace gates, the courtiers knew everything there was to be known about Wulfgang Magnus, which was effectively nothing, and he had learnehe had ld more about them than they had guessed or he had ever wanted to know.

As they entered the palace, Konrad grasped his arm in an oversized fist. “To the mat! I want to see how far I can throw you. After that—hot bath, dinner, and then we’ll beard the Spider in his web, mm?” He stormed along the hall at a pace Wulf’s longer legs could barely match.

How many hours left until Cardinal d’Estouteville’s deadline? Wulf’s impatience was scratching like a hair shirt.
Zdenek was already in his office. He had a pile of papers on his lap and was discussing them with Brother Daniel,
a different Brother Daniel.

“Now might be a good time to catch His Eminence before the crowds … I mean, a good time to catch him, sire.” Even the cardinal would not make the crown prince cool his heels in the anteroom.

Wulf had not made his remark a tweak, at least not deliberately, so he was surprised when the prince agreed. Perhaps he was trained like a hound already, eager to obey his master’s wishes.

“Let’s go and see.” Konrad took the grand staircase at a run, with his cronies trailing behind him. Servants and courtiers hastily cleared out of his path and bowed after he had already gone by. Wulf did not suggest that more royal decorum would be in order. He had tweaked and nagged far too much already, and a show of youthful energy might be just what Jorgary needed after Konrad V’s long decline.

Even on a Sunday, the cardinal’s big anteroom held a couple of dozen petitioners. The friar guarding the door looked up in astonishment at the army of green-clad hunters bearing down on him. Then he recognized the leader and sprang to his feet.

“I shall inform His Eminence of your arrival immediately, sire.”

“Or sooner,” Konrad remarked cheerfully, but he did come to a halt. His train caught up with him and gathered around, grinning and, in some cases, puffing.

In his office, Zdenek looked up from his papers with the start of an angry protest, but then nodded and laid his work aside.

“Your Highness, His Eminence will receive you now.…”

Konrad took one step before his nerve failed him, and he gestured for Wulf to accompany him. Wulf did, aware that every one of the dozen men he was leaving was mentally measuring him for a coffin. He had stolen the sun from their sky, cut the ground from under their fancy shoes. They must assume that he was now Konrad’s lover. There was no other possible explanation—except the truth, which would be much worse to have them believing.

By the time he entered the now-familiar office, the prince had already kissed the cardinal’s ring and was making polite apologies for not warning of his coming. The cardinal returned to his throne. The friar in attendance—an older, tubbier one thabbier onn yesterday—fetched a chair for the prince, exchanging a nod of respect with Wulf, each acknowledging the other’s halo. Wulf had not expected to be presented, but he was.

“Sir Wulfgang Magnus, Eminence. He’s a brother of that exhibitionist clown you made count of Cardice.”

Zdenek nodded as if mildly surprised and extended his ring. He murmured, “Sir Wulfgang,” as a man might in the circumstances, but there was enough fire in his eyes to warn that he was displeased about something. He said, “Your honored grandfather made that appointment, not I, Highness. I heard that Sir Wulfgang accosted you a couple of nights ago and offered to repeat his brother’s jump with his hands tied behind his back.”

Konrad uttered his high-pitched titter. “We didn’t tie his hands, but he did repeat it. Quite amazing. He used the same horse. I’m going to steal it off him.”

Wulf, standing at the prince’s side, said not a word. If his new liege continued to perform throughout this meeting as well as he had started, then he would have earned Morningstar. He was bearding the lion for the first time. The interview was probably costing him as much cold sweat as the jump had cost Wulf.

“Quite right, too.” Zdenek’s faint smile somehow conveyed the message that he had greatly enjoyed this little chat but now he had work to do.

“To business.” The prince raised a thumb. “First, I want you to send an escort for my wife and bring her back to the palace as soon as possible.”

“I am delighted to—”

“And issue a proclamation along the lines of needing her love and support during the trying times ahead.”

Brother Daniel was scribbling notes.

The cardinal frowned. “That would be an admission that His Majesty is dying. It is customary for monarchs to remain in excellent health until they are actually dead.”

“Everyone knows it’s coming,” Konrad snapped. He raised his index finger. “I think we have had too many Konrads already. I mean, I feel unworthy to fill the shoes of et cetera, et cetera. No one will argue with you on that. When the time comes, have me proclaimed by my second name, Krystof. King Krystof the Second?
Christoforos Secundus Rex
. Has a nice ring to it.”