@Aus, one of the slaves doesn't allow any transfer mode changes (nothing but ID)
Anyway, issue solved - don't know why but the only solution was to set exactly the same settings on both lines (so 9600 8E1). As of that moment, all started working correctly.
that's a bit odd, tbh as I'd expect UniLogic to either prevent setting two different modes or to handle them correctly.
Wrt -11 - seems, that it was related to an incorrect parity. When changed the parity to a wrong setting on the first line (and disconnected the second line) I got exactly the same error code.
cheers,
Michal