Speak to the Devil by Dave Duncan Read Free Book Online Page A

and watched them pitching camp at High Meadows, then came up to the gate to report. Father would have rewarded him handsomely! You could see their campfires from the wall. This morning the lookouts heard their bugles sounding reveille.”
    The bishop frowned. “And what size do you consider a small army?”
    “About two hundred fighting men, he said, and that’s not counting servants.”
    “Who said? I hope you were not out on the wall cavorting with sentinels in the dark,
unchaperoned
?”
    “My lord bishop! Of course not!”
    “Then how do you know all this?”
    “Dali told me.” Dali was Dalibor Notivova, Constable Karolis’s deputy. “He came to see me, but I was certainly never
alone
with him. Later I sent for Sir Karolis, too. He condescended to come eventually, although he kept me waiting long enough. I asked him what he was going to do, and he said he would open the gate and let them in!”
    Father had neither liked him nor trusted Count Vranov, the Hound of the Hills. Now Madlenka suspected that he had been behind the sorcery that had killed both Father and Petr, and she was convinced that the constable was in the Hound’s pay.
    Bishop Ugne was looking thunderous. “Was Dalibor also the one who told you that Sir Karolis had not reported your father’s stroke to the king?”
    “I promised that person I would not reveal his identity.”
    The bishop took that refusal as confirmation, which it was. “My daughter, has it occurred to you that Dalibor Notivova may be after Sir Karolis’s job?”
    “It would be an improvement.”
    “Or your late father’s, even? He is a relative, is he not?”
    She hadn’t thought of that and she felt herself blushing. Dalibor was a widower. But the idea was absurd—she could neither inherit the title nor pass it on to her husband. “I’ve known Dali all my life. He taught me how to groom a horse. He is distantly related to me, yes—third or fourth cousin. He’s the only surviving male relative I know of. Of course, his claim would be through the female line and wouldn’t be valid … would it?”
    “Possibly not,” the bishop admitted. “Arturas the herald could tell you. But the direct male line is certainly extinct, which means that the king will have to appoint another lord of the Cardice marches. A local man and a distant relative, even on the distaff side, might have a chance. But Dalibor Notivova doesn’t, because he is a commoner and His Majesty has certainly never heard of him.” Ugne peered at her suspiciously. “Or did you mention his name when you sent the report to Mauvnik?”
    “No. He … My informant made me promise not to. To mention his name, I mean! He refused to say why.” The devious cleric was tying her in knots.
    Now the parrot had a cracker. The bishop smiled. “Then I have been misjudging him, just as you may be misjudging Count Vranov. You had no prior word that he was coming? I mean, it is both normal and commendable for a neighbor to come and pay his condolences after such a tragedy.”
    “Not a word! The counts of Kipalban and Gistov both sent couriers with expressions of sorrow and promises to endow prayers for their souls, but not Vranov. Not a word. So why is he here with an army?”
    “Your definition of an army may not agree with the constable’s, Madlenka. But on my way here I encountered Captain Ekkehardt, who was heading to the barbican to discuss this very problem with the constable. So why don’t we go there and see what our military experts have decided?”
    God be thanked! Until this disaster of her father’s and brother’s deaths, Madlenka had never expected to feel grateful for the presence of the
landsknecht
mercenaries in the town. But if Constable Kavarskas was to prove false, the Germans might prove a counterweight to his treachery. Delighted at the thought of action, she darted across to one of the chests and began hauling out clothes, hurling them aside, burrowing ever lower, until she had found the