When the Saints Read Free Page B

who had tended his brother’s boots and clothes and tack without complaint last week, he was now a killer, as dangerous as a lightning bolt. Furthermore, he lusted after the Ice Maiden, and she craved him too, although she staunchly denied it. Shining like gold sequins, his pale eyes stared fixedly at Anton; his face was unreadable and almost frightening.
    The absence of middle brother Marek meant that this was a military emergency that did not concern a renegade monk.
    “Please sit!” Still shivering, Anton squatted before the fire to hog the heat. The others were all well swathed in furs and hats. Otto took the stool by the dressing board, Vlad and Wulf folded down atop clothes chests.
    “You picked the worst possible time to interrupt,” Anton grumbled, carefully not looking at Wulf. Let him yearn!
    “Oh, did we?” im we?Vlad growled. “Well, let me tell you, Count , that while you’ve been sarding your brains out, we three have been doing your work for you. None of us has been to bed even to sleep, let alone getting any of what seems to be your only interest in life.” Always the soul of tact, was Vlad.
    “Sorry,” Anton said airily, not meaning it. “Didn’t know that. Explain.” Outranking his two most senior brothers, so that they must report to him, was a pleasant novelty. In three centuries, no Magnus had ever risen to the rank of count.
    “It’s like this,” Otto said. “The rain stopped in the night, although later we had snow. The pickets on watch saw fires down at High Meadows. They woke Dali Notivova and he came and told Vlad. We doubled the guard and began reinforcing the south gate, stockpiling weapons and arrows, and so on. Didn’t think you’d want your married life interrupted.”
    “Who is it?” Anton demanded, although he could guess.
    “Havel Vranov.”
    “Sure?”
    “At first light I went and looked,” Wulf said quietly. His boots were muddy and had blades of grass stuck to them.
    “I gave orders,” Anton barked, “strict orders, that the gates were to remain shut until I said otherwise. You have no authority to overrule me.”
    “I didn’t.”
    “Oh!”
    “Arrghem!” Only Vlad could clear his throat and make it sound so much like mockery. “He says they’re flying the Hound’s pennants.”
    The Hound of the Hills, Havel Vranov, lord of the Pelrelm march, and thus a neighbor—but now a traitor to his king.
    “How many?”
    “Didn’t try an exact count,” Wulf said, his face still wooden. “Many hundreds. At least twenty knights’ pavilions. They have closed the road, of course, which is why no one got through to warn us.”
    So now Castle Gallant was truly under siege. There were only two ways in and out. The Wends held the road to the north gate, and now their lackey Havel was at the south. Not that any Magnus in history had ever dreamed of running away from danger.
    Anton turned back to Vlad. “You’re the expert, Brother. What happens now?”
    The big man laughed. “We have unlimited water, unless the enemy breaks in and takes the Quarantine Road, and even then we can lower buckets to the river. So far I’ r Ive tracked down two weeks’ rations, which could be spread out to four or five weeks, but only four days’ fodder for the horses, so we’d better start eating them while they’re plump. We can get by until mid-November, more or less. By then the Wends are going to be freezing their pretty little butts, sitting out there in the hills while the lake ices over behind them.”
    “But what do we do ?”
    Vlad leered through his wilderness of beard. “You’re giving me overall command?”
    Anton restrained his temper, never an easy feat early in the morning. Vlad was notoriously prone to speak his mind, but having to accept orders from a younger brother who had been promoted to the giddy rank of count while he was still a mere knight must be straining every fiber of his self-control.
    “Vlad, I am trying to apply your renowned expertise in