Jaws of Darkness

Nine

Some people had always turned their backs on Talsu when he walked through the streets of Skrunda. They were the folk who thought no one could come back from a dungeon without giving himself to the Algarvians. Now that he’d come out of the constabulary building without visible damage, more people turned their backs on him. They thought no one could do that without telling the redheads what they wanted to hear.

Most of the time, Talsu was able to ignore such snubs. But when they came from young men who had been his friends before he was seized, they tore at him, no matter how much he tried not to show it. He sometimes wanted to scream at them. Mezentio’s men grabbed me because I was trying to fight back! echoed through his mind. What have you done since the Algarvians occupied Jelgava? Not a cursed thing, that’s what.

Holding in his fury led to a bad temper and a sour stomach. “It’ll all get sorted out whenKingDonalitu comes back,” Gailisa said one evening, trying to soothe him after he’d snarled at everyone in his family.

“Will it?” Talsu asked bitterly.

“Of course it will,” she answered in the quiet of the cramped little bedchamber they shared. “That’s why he’ll come back-to sort things out, I mean.”

She had a touching faith in the king. Once upon a time, Talsu might have had a similar faith in Donalitu. He tried to remember when he’d lost it. Before he went into the army: he was sure of that. “If he does come back, he’ll probably throw me in the dungeon for being too friendly with the redheads.”

That exercise in cynicism got him an appalled look from his wife. “He wouldn’t do such a thing!” she exclaimed. “He’d never do such a thing! The only reason you ever got in trouble was because you wanted to do something to the Algarvians.”

“Well, let’s hope you’re right about that.” Talsu didn’t think she was, but he didn’t feel like arguing with her, either. He had other things on his mind. The other things ended up making him happy and then sleepy. The bed wasn’t really big enough for the two of them, but they were young enough not to mind sometimes waking up all tangled together.

They were tangled together when they woke up that night. It was still dark: that was the first thing Talsu noticed. It was, in fact, pitch black. For a moment, Talsu couldn’t imagine why he’d awakened. Then he heard the bells clanging out an alarm.

“Fire somewhere?” Gailisa asked.

Talsu listened, then shook his head. “I don’t think so-they’re ringing all over town. That means dragonfliers overhead.”

“Aye, you’re probably right.” Gailisa untangled her legs from his and got out of bed. “We’d better go downstairs.”

They’d huddled behind the counter in the tailor’s shop during other visits from Kuusaman and Lagoan dragons. As Talsu got up, too, he said, “I wish we had a cellar here, the way your father does.”

“Do you want to try to get over there?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Getting caught in the open when eggs start falling is the last thing you want to do. I saw what happens then in the army-and the first time the dragons came over Skrunda, during the promenade in the square.” He swatted Gailisa lightly on the backside. “Come on. Let’s get moving.”

“I was,” she said. Talsu chuckled. He hadn’t had to swat her. He’d just liked doing it.

He would have pounded on his mother and father’s door, and on his sister’s, to get them moving, but they all met in the hallway-Traku had been coming down the hall to make sure he and Gailisa were awake. After some confusion, they hurried downstairs. They huddled between the counter and the wall just as the first eggs started bursting all over Skrunda.

“Here’s hoping they come down on the Algarvians’ heads,” Talsu said.

“Powers above, make it so!” his mother said. But Laitsina added, “Here’s hoping not too many come down on ordinary people like us.”

“They do aim as well as they can,” Talsu said. That was true. But dragonfliers, high in the air and aboard bad-tempered beasts that tried to do whatthey wanted, not what the fliers wanted, couldn’t aim any too well. That was also true, but Talsu didn’t mention it. It was one more thing he didn’t care to think about.

An egg burst down the street, close enough to make the floor shake under Talsu. The front window in the tailor’s shop rattled in its frame, but didn’t break.

“They’re coming over more often than they used to,” Talsu’s sister said.

“Ausra’s right,” Laitsina said as another egg burst, this one a little farther away. “They’re sending more dragons each time, too.”

“It’s these Habakkuk things, unless I miss my guess,” Talsu said. “They can carry a lot of dragons.”

“The Algarvians don’t like ‘em, that’s for sure,” Traku agreed. “They spend a lot of space in the news sheets screaming about ‘em.”

“Anything the Algarvians scream about can’t be all bad.” Talsu spoke with great conviction. No one in his family disagreed. Not many Jelgavans in Skrunda would have disagreed-only those few who’d ended up in bed with the redheads.

“I hope they have a couple of squads of soldiers right where the arch from the Kaunian Empire used to be,” Traku said. “And I hope an egg comes down right on those buggers.”

“That would be good,” Talsu agreed. “That would be very good.” He’d watched when the Algarvian mages toppled that arch. The redheads hadn’t cared for what it said about their ancestors. They probably didn’t care for what a lot of modern Jelgavans had to say about the descendants of their ancestors, either.

“At least we get a little warning when the Lagoans and Kuusamans come over now,” Gailisa said, as the shop shook again.

“They’ve got dowsers here now, I suppose,” Talsu said. “They aren’t doing it for us, though. They’re doing it for themselves.”

Before she could answer, several eggs landed close together, and all of them close to the tailor’s shop. The window blew in. Fragments of glass clattered off the front of the counter. More fragments clattered off the wall behind it. “Who’s going to pay for that?” Traku growled. “I am, that’s who. Curse ‘em all.”

All things considered, Talsu thought they were fairly lucky. Had those eggs burst a little closer, the shards of glass might have sliced right through the counter-and through the people behind it, too. He didn’t say that. His father hadn’t seen real war face-to-face, and didn’t know everything it could do. As far as Talsu was concerned, Traku didn’t know how lucky he was.

And then an egg did burst close by, close enough to slam the counter back against the people huddling behind it. Everyone shrieked. It didn’t quite go over onto them, and it didn’t quite crush them against the wall, but it came much too close to doing both. Talsu felt not the least shame in yelling along with the rest of his family. For a dreadful moment, he thought that yell would be the last cry that ever passed his lips.

When he realized he would live a little longer, he said, “We’re going to have to remodel the shop.”

“Right this minute, son, that’s the least of my worries,” Traku said.

Gailisa pointed to the wall above the counter. “What’s that funny light?”

Talsu looked up, too. It should have been dark; Skrunda left lights out at night to make it harder for Lagoan and Kuusaman dragons to find the town. Not hard enough, Talsu thought. But that orange, flickering glow was easy enough to recognize once you got over not expecting to see it there. “Fire!” he said.

It got brighter fearfully fast, too. “It’s close,” Gailisa said, and then, “We can’t stay here.”

“You’re right.” Talsu scrambled to his feet. Eggs were still falling, but that didn’t matter. The eggs might miss. If he and his family stayed where they were, they would burn. He hauled Gailisa up, too, then reached for his sister. “We’ve got to get out while we still can.”

“But-” his mother wailed.

“He’s right, Laitsina,” Traku said. “Come on. As long as we get out in one piece, we can worry about everything else later.” He got up, and after a moment his wife did, too.

By then, Talsu was already at the front door. It didn’t want to open; the blasts of sorcerous energy left it jammed in the frame. But the window beside it was bare of glass. Talsu helped Gailisa through the emptiness there. Ausra went through by herself. Laitsina started to balk. Traku slapped her on the behind, hard. She squawked and scrambled out into the street.

Talsu gaped. He’d never imagined his father hitting his mother. “Go out there, son, or I’ll give you the same,” Traku growled. “You’re the one who said we’ve got to get out, and you’re right.”

“Aye, Father,” Talsu said, as he might have to a sergeant giving him orders in combat. Out through the glassless frame he went. His father followed.

The shop across the street was burning. So was the one two doors down-and, even as Traku watched, the shop next door caught fire. “Where are the water brigades?” a neighbor asked.

“Probably busy somewhere else,” Talsu said. “This can’t be the only blaze burning.” Water brigades were splendid for fighting the occasional fire that broke out during peacetime. If half a dozen, or a dozen, or two dozen, fires broke out all at once, they were going to be hopelessly overmatched.

“But my shop will burn if the water brigades don’t come,” the neighbor said.

“Our shop will burn, too,” Laitsina said. She was clutching Traku’s hand very hard. She wasn’t angry about what he’d done to get her moving. If she wasn’t, Talsu supposed he didn’t have any business being angry, either.

“Sweetheart, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Traku said. “Not one fornicating thing.” An egg bursting a couple of streets away punctuated his words. Shaking his head, he went on, “We’re alive. That’s all that matters right now.”

Gailisa said, “Here’s hoping the Algarvians here in Skrunda caught it as hard as we have.”

“Aye, by the powers above,” Talsu said.

A woman who lived a few doors away said, “It’s a terrible thing when the people you want to win the war are dropping eggs on your head.”

Everyone nodded. Talsu had been thinking the same thing. He hadn’t dared say it, though. If he said anything too harsh about the redheads and it got back to them, what might happen to him? He could go back to the dungeon, and he knew it.

He made himself think about what was going on here and now, not what might happen later. “We’d better get moving, before the fire catches us,” he said.

No one argued with him. He rather wished someone had. He also wished he could have gone back into the shop, gone back upstairs for. .. what? Everything that truly counted was here in the street with him. Only then did he notice his feet hurt, and that he was barefoot. He wondered how much glass he’d stepped in, and how badly cut his feet were. He shrugged. He could worry about that later, too.

Gailisa gasped and clutched at his arm. The corpse the firelight showed wasn’t pretty. Blood-it looked black-puddled in the gutter by the body. Talsu said, “We’re lucky,” and meant it.

Traku looked back over his shoulder. “There goes the shop,” he said quietly. Laitsina started to cry. Talsu felt like crying, too. He’d thought he would grow old himself as a tailor in that shop. But he still counted himself lucky, for he still had a chance to grow old.

Half the time, Vanai hoped Unkerlanter dragons would smash the Kaunian district in Eoforwic to rubble. That way, the Algarvians wouldn’t get the chance to use her life energy for their own needs. But then she would shake her head and wrap her arms around her swollen belly. Not just her life was involved here-she would have her baby soon. And she fiercely wanted the baby to live. What happened to her didn’t seem nearly so important as what happened to it.

The Algarvians hadn’t staged another roundup in her part of the Kaunian quarter, though they’d swept through other parts of it. Whenever cries and screams rose elsewhere in the district, Vanai felt a horrid sense of relief-it was happening, aye, but not to her. Afterwards, she always hated herself for that relief, but she could never stifle it at the time.

She looked out the window of her flat, then shrank back again. A couple of Algarvian constables strolled along the street. They twirled their bludgeons as they passed. If they didn’t own the world, they weren’t about to admit it. She muttered a curse under her breath, even though she’d already seen that curses wouldn’t bite on Algarvians. That hardly surprised her. They cursed themselves, doing what they did to the Kaunians… didn’t they?

One of the redheads was uncommonly plump. Vanai took a long look at him, though she was careful enough not to get close enough to the glass to let him have a good look at her. She nodded. She’d seen him before, back in Oyngestun. She and her grandfather had almost been sent west, but he’d spoken up on their behalf, and two others had gone instead.

Now he was here. What did that mean? Nothing good-she was sure of it. Were any Kaunians at all left alive in and around Gromheort? Maybe the Algarvians didn’t need constables there anymore. Vanai didn’t want to think that was true, but it made an unpleasant amount of sense.

Along with his partner, the plump constable strolled around the corner and disappeared. Vanai let out a sigh of relief, though she didn’t know why. How was she in less danger now than she had been while the constables remained in sight? In no way she could see. But she did feel better, regardless of whether she had any rational reason to do so.

“My grandfather would not approve of such irrationality,” she said. More and more these days, she’d fallen into the habit of talking aloud to the baby. She seldom had anyone else to talk to. Not many Kaunians were left in this block of flats, not after the latest roundup.

Isuppose seeing that constable made my grandfather come into my mind, Vanai thought. Normally, Brivibas didn’t enter her thoughts very often. When he did, she usually tried to force him out of them again. He would have disapproved of much more than a momentary lapse of irrationality. Her hands went to her belly once more. Having a child by a Forthwegian would have topped his list. She was sure of that. Bnvibas would have thundered on and on about diluting Kaunianity.

“But don’t you see, my grandfather?” Vanai said, as if he stood beside her. “The Algarvians have done more to dilute Kaunianity in Forthweg than the Forthwegians could have done if they’d made half our maidens marry their young men.”

Her grandfather would have said something stuffy about that being beside the point. She didn’t think it was. Back before the war-that magical phrase-perhaps one in ten ofKingPenda ’s subjects had been of Kaunian blood. How many Kaunians would be left alive by the time the war ended? Any at all? Even if there were some scattered handful, would they have any weight in Forthweg-assuming a Kingdom of Forthweg ever existed again? Penda had had to notice a tenth of his subjects. Would he have to notice a thirtieth, or a fiftieth, or whatever remnant of blonds was left?

Vanai laughed bitterly. Not being noticed by King Penda-if Penda ever came back from exile-was, at the moment, the least of her worries, and of the Forthwegian Kaunians’ worries, too. Surviving till he returned-if he returned-took pride of place there.

The baby kicked inside her, strongly enough to make her hand move on her belly. She nodded to herself. The baby kicked hard these days. Once or twice, it had kicked in just the wrong place and made one of her legs go weak beneath her for a moment. She counted herself lucky that she hadn’t fallen.

Patting her swollen stomach, she said, “And you ought to count yourself lucky that I didn’t fall, too.” The baby rewarded her with another kick and a wriggle. It wasn’t listening to her. She sighed. No one did, these days. The only person who’d ever really listened to her, as long as she could remember, was Ealstan.

Tears welled up in her eyes. She’d known terror after the Algarvians captured her. She’d expected that. What she hadn’t expected was the most crushing loneliness she’d ever known. She’d got used to having someone with whom she could talk, someone to whom she really mattered, someone to whom she wasn’t just a research assistant or a convenience (or, occasionally, an inconvenience).

She hadn’t realized how important, how marvelous that was, till she didn’t have it any more. She wiped the tears on her sleeve. Before she got pregnant, they would have embarrassed her. Now she almost took them for granted. They came more easily these days. She didn’t know why that was so, but she knew that it was so.

Even back in the days of the Kaunian Empire, people had noticed the same thing. A couple of quotations from the days of the Empire flashed through her mind. Her mouth twisted. That she knew such things was her grandfather’s doing. And what had it got her? A flat in the Kaunian district, a wait till the Algarvians caught her and took her away.

For that matter, what had Brivibas’ erudition got him? First, the attentions ofMajorSpinello, who’d had plenty of attentions to give Vanai, too, curse him. And last, a makeshift noose in an Algarvian gaol cell after he got recognized in spite of his sorcerous disguise as a Forthwegian.

“So much for scholarship,” she said, though she did wonder how her grandfather had been recognized. Had the magic worn off, as hers had done? She found that hard to believe: Brivibas was nothing if not careful and precise. Had someone known his voice in spite of the way he looked? That seemed more plausible. But who could have?

MajorSpinellomight have. Vanai shuddered. Spinello had gone off to the west to fight the Unkerlanters. She hoped he was dead, horribly dead. But even if he wasn’t, he was there, in the west, not in Gromheort. Who else? That plump constable? Would he have had any special reason to remember and recognize Brivibas? Vanai could only shrug. How could she know what had happened in Oyngestun after she left with Ealstan?

The baby wiggled and twisted inside her. The sensation was like none she’d ever known. She wondered how she could put it into words for someone who hadn’t known it. After a moment, she shook her head. She didn’t think there were any such words.

“Oh, stop,” she said, when the baby seemed to be trying to learn to dance inside a space that didn’t have room for fancy steps. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be back at my own flat, not here.”

She was sure the baby made the masking spell she’d devised fade away faster than it would have otherwise. She wondered how long the spell would hold if she tried it now, with the baby so much bigger. She’d probably have to renew it every half hour, maybe even more.

“I could,” she said. “I would. But…” Anyone who looked like a Forthwegian caught inside the Kaunian quarter would be blazed, no questions asked. “If it weren’t for that, I really could,” Vanai repeated. She had the dark brown strand of yarn and the yellow one. She even had a Forthwegian-style woman’s tunic. She’d found it going through a now-empty flat in the building. She sometimes wore it when the weather got warm. She’d always despised those baggy tunics, but they were a lot more comfortable for a pregnant woman than any trousers.

Here came that Algarvian constable and his partner, back along the street. They were both talking and gesturing animatedly, as Algarvians did. The plump constable laughed at something the other one said. How can you do that? How can you laugh? ’Vanai wondered. You must know what goes on here. How can you not care?

Bells began to clang then, not just in the Kaunian quarter but all over Eoforwic. The two Algarvian constables stopped laughing. The plump one shouted a phrase Vanai didn’t understand-one she judged unlikely ever to have appeared in polite literature-and shook his fist at the sky. Then he and his partner stopped strolling along and started hurrying away from the Kaunian quarter.

Blonds on the street started hurrying, too: hurrying toward those blocks of flats that had cellars. From the gossip at the feeding stations the Algarvians maintained, Vanai had heard that her own people had killed a couple of constables rash enough to go down into a cellar with them. She didn’t know if that was true-it sounded almost too good to be true-but she hoped so.

There wasn’t quite the desperate dash and scramble there would have been a few months before. For one thing, the redheads’ dowsing techniques had improved, which gave people a little more time to take shelter. And, for another, Unkerlanter dragons over Eoforwic were no longer a horrid surprise. They’d come often enough by now to let folk know what to expect.

One of the things to expect was disaster, if you had the misfortune to be on the upper story of a building that a bursting egg leveled. Vanai started for the door, intending to go downstairs into a cellar herself. As pregnant as she was, she couldn’t go anywhere very fast, and so was grateful for the extra warning time the Algarvian dowsers gave. Not that they’re doing it for the likes of me, she thought.

With a hand on the latch, though, she checked herself. She’d seen those constables leave the Kaunian quarter. She suspected the pair she’d seen hadn’t been the only ones getting out, either. How likely was it that the guards around the edge of the district were all staying at their posts? Not very, unless she missed her guess.

Which meant… “Which means that, if I’m lucky, if they’re in cellars, if an Unkerlanter egg doesn’t tear me to pieces, this is the best chance I’ll ever have to get out of the quarter,” Vanai breathed.

Once the idea came to her, she didn’t hesitate for a moment. She grabbed the long, Forthwegian-style tunic, then checked her pockets to make sure she had the brown yarn and the yellow. It was death to look like a Forthwegian inside the Kaunian quarter. It was also death to look like a Kaunian out of it. But if no one saw her appearance change from the one to the other… I have to try, she thought. What have I got to lose?

She left the block of flats and came out onto the street just as the first eggs began bursting in Eoforwic. Looking up, she saw rock-gray dragons wheeling in the blue sky. “Get into a cellar, you cursed fool!” somebody shouted to her.

But Vanai had no intention of getting into a cellar, and didn’t think herself at all foolish. At the awkward waddle that was the fastest gait she had, she hurried toward the edge of the Kaunian quarter, only a few blocks away. More and more eggs fell, some of them quite close. She moaned with fear, but kept going.

Someone else behind her shouted something. She looked over her shoulder and moaned again-an Algarvian constable, a plumpish one. But he wasn’t close, and he might not have been shouting at her. She still had a chance.

She ducked into a doorway, tore off her Kaunian clothes, and threw on the Forthwegian tunic. Then she raced through the spell that let her look Forthwegian, too. She stepped out onto the sidewalk and trotted-a lumbering trot, but a trot nonetheless-toward safety (barring eggs, of course) now only half a block away.

Another shout rang out behind her-another shout, and the thud of boots on flagstones. However much she didn’t want to, she turned her head. A stick in his hand, that Algarvian constable came thundering after her.

Ealstan felt as if he’d been running for a hundred miles. His heart sledged in his chest. He’d been wrong before, so often that hope was almost dead. He didn’t think he could stand to be wrong again. But I have to try, he thought, and kept running as hard as he could.

He rounded a corner… and saw no one ahead of him. Panting, he cursed loudly-in Algarvian. Then somebody ducked out of a doorway and hurried toward the edge of the Kaunian district. Ealstan cursed again, louder and more furiously-but still in Algarvian. He’d been running after a blond woman, and this was a Forthwegian. If she hadn’t been so very pregnant, she would have looked a lot like his sister, Conberge

… He started running as if he’d never run before.

He let out another great shout-”Vanai!”-as he thudded toward her. She glanced back over her shoulder and came to a stop, every inch of her sagging, her face full of hopeless despair. “Vanai!” he yelled again, and then, “Thelberge!” and then, most important of all, “Darling!”

She stared. She swayed. For a moment, he thought she would faint. An egg burst only a block or so away. Ealstan hardly noticed it. He didn’t think Vanai noticed it at all. “Ealstan?” she whispered as he dashed up and swept her into his arms. “I don’t believe it,” she went on, though the words were muffled because he was doing his best to smother her with kisses.

“It’s true, by the powers above,” he said in the brief moments when he wasn’t otherwise occupied.

“But you’re an Algarvian,” she said. “I mean, you look like an Algarvian. How can you be-?”

“You Too Can Be a Mage,”Ealstan said solemnly. “I’m an Algarvian the same way you’re a Forthwegian.” He took her by the elbow and steered her in the direction she was already going. “Come on. Let’s get you out of the quarter here. As soon as we’ve done that, we can worry about everything else.”

If he ran into any guards at the edge of the quarter, Ealstan intended to talk his way past them. The constabulary uniform he was wearing, which Pybba had got him despite grumblings, would give him a long head start toward that. But there was no need. Like any men of sense, the guards had sought shelter from the Unkerlanter eggs. So had everybody else; but for the two of them, the streets were empty.

“Out!” he said triumphantly as they passed into the part of Eoforwic where Forthwegians could go and Kaunians-at least Kaunians who looked like Kaunians-couldn’t.

“Out,” Vanai echoed. She raised an eyebrow in an expression unmistakably hers, no matter how much the magic made her look like Conberge. “I could have done this myself, you know.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Ealstan said. “Now I know. But I didn’t know before I started coming into the quarter looking for you.” His chuckle was grim. “Any Algarvian constables who saw me-any real Algarvian constables, I mean-must have figured I had a Kaunian girlfriend.” He squeezed her hand. How fine the touch of her flesh felt! “And they were right, but not the way they thought.”

Eggs burst only a couple of blocks away. Ealstan waved to the Unkerlanter dragons still circling overhead, still looking for targets in Eoforwic. The longer they stayed up there, the better his chances of getting back to his flat with Vanai.

He poked his head into the lobby of a block of flats just outside the Kaunian quarter. As he’d hoped, it was empty. Everyone there had run for a cellar. He pulled Vanai inside and stripped off his constable’s uniform. After pulling out a proper Forthwegian tunic from a pouch on his belt, he stuffed the Algarvian-style tunic and kilt and hat into the pouch. “Pybba may need them again,” he told Vanai.

“Pybba!” she said. “But Pybba’s got no use for Kaunians. I don’t know how many times you’ve told me that.”

“No, but he hasn’t got any use for Algarvians, either,” Ealstan answered. “And he has got some use for me, and so I managed to persuade him to get me this.” He hugged his wife. “I know what’s important, by the powers above.”

From another, smaller, pouch he took a length of coppery yarn and one of dark brown. He went through the spell he’d devised to shift him back from looking like an Algarvian to his usual self. Vanai clapped her hands together, which told him he’d succeeded. She said, “You patterned that charm after the one I made.”

“Well, of course I did,” he answered. “I know what works-and having a model helps when I compose in classical Kaunian.”

“You did splendidly,” Vanai said, which warmed him all over. “You must have done splendidly twice, in fact, or you wouldn’t have been able to look like an Algarvian in the first place.”

He kissed her. Even as he did, though, something else struck him. “You’d better renew your spell, too, while you’ve got the chance. No telling how long you’ll keep looking Forthwegian. We need to be back to the flat before you go back to looking like your regular self.”

“You’re right,” she said, and did just that. Her looks didn’t change, but she would keep on looking a lot like his sister for a while longer. Long enough? Maybe I’ll have her renew it again before we get home, if I see a chance, Ealstan told himself. Vanai’s thoughts were running along a different ley line: “I’ll have to get a new bottle of hair dye. No point to dyeing it-no way, either-when I was caught there.”

Ealstan shook his head. “No, you won’t. There’s still plenty left at home. I didn’t throw it away-I thought you’d be back.”Ihoped you’d be back was closer to the truth, but he said it the way he wanted to.

Vanai kissed him for it. That made it worthwhile, and more than worthwhile. She took his hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Eggs were still bursting all over Eoforwic. Ealstan said, “Now that I’ve got you back, I want the Unkerlanters to go away and leave us alone. Before, all I wanted them to do was knock Eoforwic topsy-turvy.”

“So did I,” Vanai said as they went out onto the street once more. She grinned at him. “I wanted to get back to the flat by myself and be there waiting when you walked in. You spoiled my surprise.” The grin disappeared. “You almost frightened me to death, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Ealstan said. “I’m so sorry. But looking like one of the redheads was the only way I could find to get into the Kaunian district.” He drew himself up. “It worked, too.”

Vanai couldn’t argue with that, and she didn’t try. The Unkerlanter dragons did fly away. After the eggs stopped falling, people started coming back out onto the streets. No one looked twice at Ealstan and Vanai; the only thing in the least out of the ordinary about them was her pregnancy.

They stopped in a tavern for a glass of wine to celebrate, though they didn’t say why they were celebrating. When Vanai asked if she could use the pot, the fellow behind the bar just nodded and pointed to the right door. “My wife was always running back and forth when she was expecting, too,” he said.

“Thank you.” Vanai closed the door behind her. When she came out, she nodded to Ealstan. The spell would last a while longer.

It lasted long enough for them to climb the stairs to the flat. Ealstan made Vanai hold the splintery bannister with one hand and his own hand with the other. “I’m not made of glass, you know,” she said tartly.

“We’ve come this far,” he said. “I don’t want anything-anything-to go wrong now. Is that all right?” Vanai made a face at him, but she didn’t say anything more, so he supposed he’d won his point.

He opened the door to the flat. He stood aside to let Vanai go in ahead of him. He closed the door. He barred it. He turned back to Vanai. “I love you,” he said.

They held each other for a long time. Then Vanai said, “Thank you,” and squeezed him harder than ever. “There were… times when I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”

Ealstan knew what that had to mean. Vanai trembled against him. He felt like trembling, too. He stroked her hair. “You’re safe here,” he said.

“Don’t be silly,” she answered. “I’m a Kaunian. I’m not safe anywhere. How are you going to bring a midwife here when the baby comes? I’m liable to start looking like what I am right in the middle of labor.”

He hadn’t thought of that. “Somehow or other, we’ll manage,” he said.

“We’ll manage without a midwife, is what we’ll do,” Vanai said.

“I suppose so.” Ealstan kept his reservations to himself. If anything looked as if it was going wrong, he vowed he would get a midwife and think about everything else later. He had a good deal of silver. He could bribe her, enough to keep her quiet for a little while, and then move before she brought the redheads down on Vanai and him and the baby.

Vanai said, “We can worry about that when the time comes.” She smiled at him. “I know what you’re thinking now.”

That wasn’t thought. That was automatic bodily response to holding the woman he loved in his arms. “Should you, so close to your time?” he asked.

“Once won’t hurt,” she answered. “And if you think I haven’t missed you, too, you’d better think again.” She pulled the tunic off over her head.

Her body startled him. Because she’d been locked away in the Kaunian quarter, he hadn’t been able to watch it change day by day. He hadn’t realized just how much her belly bulged. And… “Is your navel supposed to stick out like that?” Ealstan reach out a gentle, cautious finger to touch it.

“I don’t know,” Vanai answered. “All I know is that it does.” When Ealstan pulled off his own tunic and drawers, she laughed. “I’m not the only one sticking out, either.”

“I know I’m supposed to,” Ealstan said, an odd mix of dignity and eagerness in his voice. He led her back to the bedchamber.

Because of her bulging belly, they fumbled a bit before finding a way that suited them both. She lay on her back, a pillow under her bottom. He poised himself on his knees between her legs. “Oh,” she said softly as he went into her.

“I love you,” he said, which meant about the same thing. Slowly and carefully, he began to move. The posture made it easy for him to tease her with a fingertip at the same time. His pleasure built. By her sighs, Vanai’s did, too. Then, all at once, he laughed in surprise and lost his rhythm. Vanai made a noise wordless but indignant. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “Your magic just wore off. I didn’t expect it to.”

“Oh,” she said, this time thoughtfully. “All right.” They resumed.

Not much later, it was a great deal better than all right. When Vanai gasped and quivered, her belly went tight and hard for a little while.

Ealstan laughed again when her flesh rippled from the inside out. “I can really see the baby move now,” he said.

“I can really feel it,” Vanai said. “We made things crowded in there for a little while.”

“It will be all right. Everything will be all right.” For the first time since coming home to an empty flat, Ealstan dared believe that, too.

“How are you feeling this morning, my sweet?”ColonelLurcanio asked at the breakfast table.

Krasta found his solicitude cloying. He’s worried because he thinks it’s his brat in there, she thought. She thought it was Lurcanio’s, too, but she knew she had reason to be uncertain, where the Algarvian officer had only a nasty, suspicious mind making him doubt. But she had to answer him. Straight-out defiance didn’t work; she’d found that out a good many times, always to her dismay. “I’m.. . fairly well,” she said.

“Good,” Lurcanio said briskly. “Food staying down better?” His manner declared that he’d been through this business a good many times, and was somewhere between amused and annoyed at having to go through it again.

“So far,” Krasta said. “So far today, anyhow.” Her voice turned petulant as she went on, “I don’t know why they call it morning sickness. It can happen any time, and it’s always disgusting when it does.” Her stomach quivered nervously at the mere thought of being sick again.

ColonelLurcaniolaughed. Of course he’s laughing, Krasta thought. He’s a man. He never has to worry about things like this. The only thing he’s got to do with babies is having fun while they start. Oblivious-or at least indifferent- to what was going through her mind, Lurcanio said, “I’m afraid I must tell you good-bye for some little while. I have business to attend to down in the south.”

“Oh?” That made Krasta forget her belly, at least for a while. She hoped she didn’t sound too alarmed. One of the reasons Lurcanio had left Priekule for the south was to go after her brother. The Algarvians called the Valmier-ans who fought against them bandits. Krasta had thought of them the same way till she found out Skarnu was among them.

“Aye. Trouble brewing down there.” Lurcanio didn’t sound happy. For once, he didn’t sound as if he were trying to pry information out of her, either. His long face seeming even longer than usual, he continued, “Something nasty is going on across the Strait of Valmiera-the Lagoans and Kuusamans are gathering ships and men in their north-facing ports.”

Even Krasta, unschooled in every military art, saw what that meant. “An invasion!” she exclaimed.

“Maybe,” Lurcanio said. “On the other hand, maybe not, too. It may just be a bluff, to make us shift men around. I happen to know Kuusamo is also fitting out a big fleet in Kihlanki-”

“In where?” Krasta broke in.

“In Kihlanki,” he repeated. “It’s their easternmost port, so that’s surely bound against Gyongyos. Can the islanders do two big things at once? I doubt it.”

“If… if they do invade, can you beat them?” Krasta asked. Most of what she’d done since the Algarvians marched into Priekule, she’d done on the assumption that they would win the war. If that assumption turned out to be wrong…

But Lurcanio just smiled and said, “That’s why I’m going down there, my dear: to help make sure we do exactly that. I promise you, they shall have a very hard time of it indeed if they try to cross the Strait and land in Valmiera.”

He got up from the table, kissed her, and reached down to fondle her breasts through the silk of her pyjama tunic. She yelped. She couldn’t help herself. “Be careful,” she said. “They’re sore. They’re always sore these days.”

“I’m sorry,” Lurcanio said. She judged he meant it. He was always sorry when he hurt her without intending to. Those occasional other times… He’d burned those into her memory forever.

Off he went, as if he owned the mansion. He’d been here close to four years; Krasta had grown very used to having him around. She’d grown fond of him, too, most of the time. Of itself, her hand flattened on her belly. If she hadn’t grown fond of him, she… might not have been carrying a child there. Of course, she might have been, too. She sipped at a mug of apple cider. As she set the mug down, she glowered at it. Apple cider didn’t come close to matching tea as a way to start the morning. But tea refused to taste the way it was supposed to these days. As long as it tasted nasty to her, she had to stay away from it.

Shouting for Bauska, she went upstairs to change. The maidservant hurried into her bedchamber. “How may I help you, milady?” she asked.

Something in her tone of voice rubbed Krasta the wrong way. It had been there ever since Bauska found out she was pregnant. It was as if, without words, the serving woman was saying, Ihad a baby by a redhead, and now you’re doing the same thing. How are we different, then? But Krasta couldn’t punish her for a tone of voice. She said, “Help me find something to wear. I’m going into Priekule.”

“Aye, milady,” Bauska said-and, sensibly, no more than that.

Every time Krasta did go into Priekule, the city looked sadder and shabbier than it had the time before. Maybe that was because her prewar memories-her standard of comparison-receded ever further into the past and seemed ever rosier. But maybe, too, it was because Priekule, after going on four years of Algarvian occupation, did grow sadder and shabbier every day. The redheads took whatever they wanted, whatever they needed. Whatever chanced to be left after that-if anything chanced to be left-they grudgingly let the Valmierans keep.

Even the Boulevard of Horsemen wasn’t what it had been. Priekule’s chief avenue of splendid shops still showed more wealth than the rest of the city, but it had also fallen further from what it was. Some shops had been shuttered for years. Others were still selling goods from long ago, unable to get more. And others-the ones that did the best business-catered to the Algarvians and to the Valmierans, male and female, who had adhered to their cause.

Redheaded soldiers on leave strolled the Boulevard of Horsemen, staring at the clothes and jewelry and furniture on display, and staring in a different way at the Valmieran women who’d come to the Boulevard to shop. Once upon a time, Krasta had come to the Boulevard of Horsemen to display herself as well as to see what was new and expensive and chic. Now she wished the men in kilts would take no notice of her.

Whenever one of them tried to do more than look, she said, “ColonelLurcaniois my protector.” Not all of them spoke Valmieran, but they did understand the rank and-mostly-kept their hands to themselves afterwards.

But one of them spoke to her in classical Kaunian: “If he is an occupation soldier, he is not a real man. Do you want a real man?”

Her own classical Kaunian was sketchy, but she got the gist of that. And she managed to say, “He is a real colonel,” in the old language. The Algarvian looked disgusted, but he went away.

After that, she discovered she had little trouble telling redheads on occupation duty in Priekule from those who’d come to the city for surcease from the grinding war in the west. The latter were younger, rougher-looking, and wore tunics and kilts whose light brown was sometimes faded almost to white. The soldiers actually garrisoned in the city wore smarter uniforms and were better fed, but they put her in mind of dogs set next to wolves.

And then, from behind her, someone called, “Hello, sweetheart!” in a voice purely Valmieran. She turned. Sure enough, there wasViscountValnu hurrying toward her. He squeezed her and kissed her on the cheek. “You look good enough to eat,” he said.

“Promises, promises,” she answered, which made him laugh. But she had trouble caring about badinage today. More wearily and more angrily than she’d thought she would be, she added, “Half the Algarvian army seems to think the same thing.”

“Well, I do understand why, I do indeed.” Valnu’s eyes sparkled.

“If you wear your kilt any shorter, some of the redheads will think the same thing about you,” Krasta said, acid in her voice.

“Oh, some of them do,” Valnu replied blithely. “And some of them think I make a proper ally, and some of them want to beat me senseless for presuming to wear their clothes. Life is never dull.”

“No.” Krasta, for once in her life, rather wished it were. She took him by the arm. “Buy me a brandy, will you?”

“I’m putty-or something-in your hands.” Valnu pointed in the direction from which they’d both come. “The tavern back there isn’t too bad. It’s only a block or so.” Krasta nodded; she remembered walking past it. As Valnu steered her toward the place, he asked, “Is it really true? Have you got a loaf in the oven?”

With a yawn, Krasta said, “Aye.” She hated being sleepy all the time.

He gave her an arch grin. “Is papa anyone I know?”

“You may know him very well,” she answered.

“Really?” he said, and Krasta nodded again. One of his pale eyebrows rose. “Well, well. Isn’t that interesting? Shall we elope? Or shall I be angry at you because I maynot know papa as well as all that?”

“As if you had any business being angry about what I did or didn’t do,” Krasta said as Valnu held the door to the tavern open for her. He laughed. She didn’t think it was so funny. Lurcanio was convinced such things were his business. If the baby turned out to look like Valnu, he was liable to make himself very difficult. No, worse-he wasn’t just liable to; he’d already said he would.

The brandy didn’t taste right, any more than tea had lately. Krasta drank it anyway, and drank it fast. She needed not to think about Lurcanio for a little while. That was what she needed, but she didn’t get it. Valnu said, “I hear your… friend has gone down to the seashore for a while.”

“What if he has?” Krasta said. The brandy was hitting her hard, maybe because she hadn’t drunk any for a while, maybe just because she was pregnant.

When Valnu leaned toward her across the little table they shared, the smile stayed on his face for the benefit of the fellow behind the bar, but his voice came low and urgent: “You silly little twat, are the Kuusamans and the Lagoans going to land down there? Does Lurcanio think they are?”

“He thinks so, aye, but he isn’t sure. He’s going to talk with some of the Algarvians there,” Krasta answered. Only afterwards did she realize she should have been insulted.

Valnu grunted. “That’s a little more than I knew before, but not so much as I would have liked.” His shrug was almost as ornate as a redhead’s. He gulped his ale, then got to his feet. “I must dash. Always delighted to see you. And theother news you gave me was fascinating, too; it truly was.” He left some coins on the tabletop and hurried out.

“Another brandy, milady?” the tapman asked.

“No.” Krasta got up and left, too.

Out on the Boulevard of Horsemen, a band played a stirring march- Valmieran-style music, not Algarvian. And up the Boulevard came the first blond soldiers in Valmieran uniform Krasta had seen since the surrender. She stared, as a lot of other people were staring. But then she realized it wasn’tquite Valmieran uniform: each soldier wore a red, green, and white patch sewn onto the left sleeve of his tunic, to show he served not King Gainibu but King Mezentio of Algarve.

Only a couple of companies of the soldiers marched down the Boulevard of Horsemen, but they were enough. Krasta hurried back into the tavern and poured down another brandy, and then another after that. The spirits didn’t come close to taking away the taste of what she’d seen.

“A roundup?” Bembo sent Delminio a reproachful look. “Do we have to?”

His new partner nodded. “Aye, we have to. You’ll have done them before, won’t you, back in whatever no-account town you served in before you got sent here?”

“Gromheort.” Bembo didn’t know why he bothered supplying the name. Delminio wouldn’t care. “I’ve done ‘em, but I never liked em. Any way I can get out of it? My old sergeant would sometimes excuse one of the fellows in my squad. Evodio just wasn’t any use for that business-didn’t have the stomach for it. Even when Pesaro made him do it, he’d drink himself blind afterwards.”

“Your sergeant must have been a softy,” Delminio said, which made Bembo snort in disbelief. But the other constable went on, “Here, you get a choice. You can do what you’re told, or you can put on a footsoldier’s uniform and head for Unkerlant.”

“You just talked me into it,” Bembo said.

“I thought I would.” Delminio tapped his fingernail on the refectory tabletop. “We have had a few fellows who went off to fightKingSwemmel ’s whoresons. Strange birds-stupid birds, if you ask me. We haven’t had many, and none at all I can think of the past year or so.”

“I believe that.” Bembo shivered, though it was warm inside the refectory. Things in Unkerlant hadn’t been going Algarve’s way the past year or so. Fine choice, he thought. /can stifle my conscience and do as I’m told, or go off and get myself killed. But he’d already made his choice, and told Delminio as much. He hardly knew why he was fussing about a conscience distinctly vestigial. It’s nothing I haven’tdone before.

Before going into the Kaunian quarter, he and Delminio and the other constables drew army-issue sticks. Bembo waved to Oraste. His old partner from Gromheort waved back. “Going hunting,” he said. Rounding up Kaunians bothered him not at all.

Some of the guards outside the quarter were Forthwegians. “We should send them in for the roundup,” Bembo said. “They hate the blonds more than we do.”

But Delminio shook his head. “It looks like it’s a good idea, but it just doesn’t work. Some of the Kaunians would use their stupid little spell and get away.”

Bembo grunted. “I suppose so. It’s a good thing they haven’t got a spell to let ‘em look like Algarvians.”

His partner’s hand writhed in a very old sign for turning away evil omens. “Bite your tongue. Powers above, wouldn’t that be all we needed?”

A pompous constabulary captain strode out in front of the men he’d led to the district. He made exactly the sort of speech Bembo had known he would make, full of the greater glory of Algarve and a lot of other things every man there had surely heard too many times before. Then he said, “We have to meet our quota. Nothing and nobody will keep us from meeting our quota. Now let’s go do it.”

The constables tramped into the Kaunian quarter. As Bembo strode past the officer, he saw him looking about ready to burst a blood vessel. “What’s his trouble?” he asked Delminio. “Did he think we were going to burst into cheers?”

“Probably,” Delminio answered. “Have you ever known a captain who wasn’t a cursed fool?” Bembo stared at him in astonished delight. He didn’t make such a bad partner after all.

Cries of alarm and the sound of running feet ahead warned that the Kaunians knew the roundup was under way. Bembo scowled. “Now we’re going to have to dig the buggers out of their hiding places,” he grumbled. “There are times when this job looks a lot too much like work.” It did, however, look a great deal better than going off to fight in Unkerlant.

Not all the Kaunians were hiding, not yet. Something came hurtling down from the sill of an upper-story window in a block of flats. It landed on the head of a constables three ranks in front of Bembo. The noise was that of a brickbat smacking a calabash. The constable went down as if blazed-perhaps more surely than if he’d been blazed. He thrashed briefly, then lay still. Blood poured out of him, pooling among the cobblestones. His bowels let go; Bembo wrinkled his nose at the sudden stink. Flies began gathering almost at once.

The constables shouted and pointed. Bembo didn’t know why they bothered. None of them had any better idea than he did from which window the missile-by the shards, he judged it a flowerpot full of dirt-had come.

“Every blond in that building!” the captain screamed. “I want every blond in that building out here, and I want all those whoresons out here in nothing flat. Capture squads, forward!” His whistle shrilled as if he were ordering footsoldiers into battle against the Unkerlanters.

Bembo and Delminio weren’t in a capture squad. They were in a holding squad, to make sure none of the Kaunians escaped once captured. They waited in the street for their comrades to start bringing out blonds. They waited in the very middle of the street, and kept looking nervously up toward the buildings on either side of it.

“Kaunian bastards have their nerve,” Delminio said angrily.

Shrieks and screams rang out inside the block of flats. Before long, Kaunians started stumbling out of the building. The men were all bruised and bloody. The women were bruised and bloody, too, and some of them came down the steps without trousers. “Revenge,” Bembo said.

Delminio nodded. “Makes me wish I was in a capture squad,” he said. Bembo answered that with a shrug. Rape had never been his favorite sport.

A Kaunian spat on the dead Algarvian constable’s corpse. All that got him was another beating from the constables in the holding squad. Bembo swung his bludgeon with as much zeal as anyone else. “We can’t kill the bastard- that’d waste his life energy,” he said. “But we can sure as blazes make him wish he was dead.”

“All right, on with the rest of the business,” the captain said, when the last constables came out of the building. “They’ll pay. Oh, how they’ll pay.”

“Only one trouble with that,” Bembo said. Delminio raised an eyebrow. Bembo explained: “If the blonds know we’re going to do for them, why shouldn’t they try and boot us in the balls before they go west?”

His partner made a sour face. “That’s a nasty thought. You’re full of them today, aren’t you? Here’s hoping the Kaunians don’t have it, too.”

“Kaunians, come forth!” the captain shouted in front of the next block of flats. Bembo wondered why he bothered. Predictably, no blonds came forth. He just gave them another few seconds to conceal themselves before the capture squads swarmed in. The extra time didn’t seem to matter much, though. Soon, more battered Kaunians came out. The Algarvians would take their vengeance through the whole quarter.

As the holding squads took charge of the blonds the capture squads prised out of their flats, the captain kept a tally on a leaf of paper stuck in a clipboard. Bembo knew what that was all about. “Quota,” he said. “Not much point to this business if we don’t make quota, is there?”

Privately, he wondered if there was any point to it regardless of whether they made quota or not. For every Kaunian Algarve got rid of to fuel its mage-craft, what would the Unkerlanters do? Kill one of their own, or two of their own, or three, or four. Maybe KingMezentio hadn’t realized how very much in earnest about the warKingSwemmel was. If he didn’t realize it by now, he was a fool. And if he did realize it by now… maybe he was a fool anyhow, for biting off more war than he could chew.

No, I can’t say anything like that. I shouldn‘t even think anything like that. But Bembo couldn’t help it. He wasn’t blind. He wasn’t deaf. No matter what sergeants thought, he wasn’t stupid. If something hovered there in front of his nose and yelled at him at the top of its lungs, he couldn’t very well not notice it.

A lot of people he knew didn’t seem to think that way, though.

Delminio said, “I still wish we’d been on a capture squad. Some of these Kaunian wenches look pretty tasty, or they would have before our boys started roughing them up. Wouldn’t mind tearing off a piece, not even a little I wouldn’t.”

“If you want a broad that bad, pick one who suits you and throw her down on the cobblestones,” Bembo said. “Nobody’s going to do anything but cheer you on and line up behind you, not today.” He looked back toward the crumpled body of the Algarvian constable. Poor whoreson hadn’t known what hit him, anyhow. One second walking along, the next dead. There were worse ways to go.

Into the next block of flats charged the men from the capture squads. As before, they beat all the Kaunian men and most of the women before sending them out. As before, they had their sport with some of the women, too. Delminio said, “They keep on like that, they’ll be too cursed tired to finish the job.”

“They’d better not be,” the constabulary captain said. “They can do whatever they want-as long as they make quota. If they don’t make quota, they answer to me. There are still plenty of Kaunians in here, for us to harvest what we need.”

Quota. Harvest. Those were nice, bloodless words. They had very little to do with the bruised and bleeding and raped blonds huddled under the sticks of the holding squads. They let the captain do his job without thinking much about what he was doing. They’d let you do the same, if you didn’t keep poking and prodding at things, Bembo told himself. It’s only Kaunians, after all.

But the noises they made-not the words he could hardly understand, having forgotten the classical Kaunian he’d had beaten into him at school, but the wordless sounds of pain and sorrow and despair-were the same as those so many Algarvians might have made. Bembo violently shook his head. What was he doing, thinking of Algarvians in such straits? What was the war about, if not making sure Algarvians never found themselves in such straits?

One block of flats after another, the capture squads seized Kaunians and sent them down to the street. At last, the captain blew his whistle. “Quota!” he shouted. “Now let’s get ‘em to the caravan depot for transport.”

Transport. Another bloodless word. Let’s send them off to be killed. That was what the word meant. That was what the captain meant. But he didn’t have to say it, so he didn’t have to think it. Bembo shook his head. You’re thinking too much yourself again.

Some of the Kaunians were too badly battered to have an easy time walking. The constables’ solution to that was to beat them some more. They set other blonds to carrying the ones that didn’t spur into motion.

“See?” a constable said as they left the Kaunian quarter. “You’re out. Aren’t you glad? Aren’t you happy?”

Forthwegians on the streets jeered the Kaunians on their way to the ley-line caravan depot. By the way some of the Kaunians flinched, that hurt more than the beatings they’d taken from the Algarvians. Bembo didn’t understand that, but saw it was so.

As some desperate Kaunian had hurled the flowerpot down on the constables, so somebody-a woman-hurled one word in Algarvian at them from an upper story: “Shame!”

Delminio laughed. So did the captain leading the constables. Bembo only shrugged. The flowerpot had done some damage. What could a word do?

As always, shoving too many Kaunians into not enough caravan cars was hard work. As always, the constables did what needed doing, and barred the doors from the outside when they finished. The windows were already shuttered.

To Bembo’s surprise, the caravan glided off toward the east, the direction of Algarve and the Kaunian kingdoms beyond. “Haven’t seen that in a while,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“I hear the fellows with the thick spectacles are worried about Valmiera,” Delminio answered. “If Lagoas and Kuusamo try invading, we’ll throw ‘em right back into the Strait, by the powers above.”

“Aye,” Bembo said, and then, “We’d bloody well better.”

Skarnu liked the farm the Valmieran underground leaders had found for Merkela and little Gedominu-and now for himself. It wasn’t so big as the one outside Pavilosta where she’d lived, but the land was richer. He chuckled when that thought crossed his mind. Before the war, he wouldn’t have been able to tell good farmland from bad.

He thought Merkela would laugh, too, when he told her that. But she didn’t. She said, “That’s something you should have known.” She had Gedominu on her hip. She always did when she needed to do chores, and the farm always had chores to do. The baby didn’t slow her down a bit. She got more work done with him than Skarnu did without him.

“You’re probably right,” Skarnu said. “No, you’re certainly right. But I didn’t. I didn’t know a lot of things back then.” He reached out and stroked her cheek. “I didn’t know what mattered to me. That’s most important.”

She flushed. She never seemed to know how to take endearments. Maybe she hadn’t got many while married to old Gedominu. That hadn’t stopped her from loving him, or from naming their baby after him. Before she could say anything in return, her eyes swung away from Skarnu and toward the road that ran by the little farmhouse. “Someone’s coming.”

Not many people came down that road; the farmhouse was a long way from the nearest village, let alone Ramygala, the nearest real town. Skarnu looked, too. Anyone who did come this way was liable to mean trouble. But then he grinned and exclaimed, “That’s Raunu!”

“You’re right.” Merkela waved to the veteran sergeant. “I’m always glad to see him come up my road.”

As Raunu waved back, Skarnu raised an eyebrow. “Should I be jealous?” he asked. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he had them back: the answer might beaye. True, Raunu was old enough to have fought in the Six Years’ War. But her first husband had fought in the Six Years’ War, too, so would she mind?

To Skarnu’s relief, she laughed at him instead of getting angry. “I ought to say you should, just to see you fuss.”

Skarnu made a face at her, and she laughed again. Then he hurried forward to clasp Raunu’s hand. “Good to see you,” he said. “What’s up? Or did you come for a social call?”

Raunu’s snort showed how likely that was. “Captain, I like you fine, and your lady, too”-he nodded to Merkela, whose answering smile was almost warm enough to make Skarnu fuss-”but this is business. Something’s brewing in the south, and you’re one of the fellows who’s been busy down there.”

Alertness surged through Skarnu. “You’d better tell me about it.” He pointed back toward the little farmhouse. “Will you come in and drink some ale while you talk?”

“Thank you kindly. I’d be glad to.” As Raunu passed Merkela, he paused to eye little Gedominu. “He’s grown a lot since the last time I saw him. They’ve got a way of doing that, babies do.”

“Forgive the ale,” Merkela said as she poured. “It’s bought; I didn’t brew it myself.”

Raunu sipped and shrugged. “I’ve had plenty worse. Don’t fret yourself.”

After drinking from his own mug, Skarnu said, “The south.”

“Aye, the south,” Raunu agreed. “The redheads are as nervous down there as a cat trying to watch four mouseholes at once. They’ve been sending all kinds of bigwigs to the seashore to try and figure out what’s going on.” He coughed. “ColonelLurcanio’s down there right now, for instance.”

“Is he?” Skarnu gulped the mug dry. His sister’s lover had come too close to capturing him back near Pavilosta. Merkela handed him the bottle. He poured the mug full again. “Are they down there for the obvious reason? Are the Lagoans and Valmierans finally going to cross the Strait of Valmiera?”

He’d never asked that question before. He’d always been professionally incurious about it. What he didn’t know, nobody could rip from him if things went wrong. But Raunu wouldn’t have come here talking about the south if such a thing were impossible.

“By all the signs, Mezentio’s men think they are,” Raunu answered. “They’re hauling in Kaunians from Forthweg again, and you know what that means.”

“Murder,” Skarnu said. His old sergeant nodded. “Nasty magecraft,” he added, and Raunu nodded again. “Powers below eat the Algarvians,” he finished. This time, both Raunu and Merkela nodded.

“That’s about the size of it,” Raunu said. “We’ve wrecked some of the ley-line caravans, but some of them have got through.” He scowled. “Even if we’d wrecked ‘em all, there’s nothing really stopping the redheads from grabbing as many Valmierans as they need and doing them in. Only reason they don’t do that more, I think, is to keep from spooking us. But if they’ve got a chance to throw an invasion back into the sea, I figure they’d worry about that first and everything else later.”

“You’re right.” Merkela’s voice held no doubt. “It’s just like them, the-” She cursed as foully and fluently as a veteran underofficer.

“Arethe Lagoans and Kuusamans going to invade?” Skarnu demanded. “Do we know one way or the other?”

Raunu shook his head. “They won’t say aye and they won’t say no. Cursed foreigners don’t trust us.”

“There are times when they have reason not to,” Merkela said. “We have traitors in the underground. What we know, the Algarvians have a chance of learning.”

“CountAmatu,” Skarnu said. Raunu had looked unhappy at Merkela’s comment, but he couldn’t argue with that.

And, as if being reminded of Amatu reminded him of something else, he said, “The redheads have started recruiting Valmierans to fight for ‘em, too. They’ve got maybe a regiment’s worth. Some of them paraded through Priekule a few days ago, wearing Algarvian flags on the sleeves of Valmieran uniforms.”

Merkela’s curses this time made the ones she’d used before sound like endearments. Skarnu said, “They must be scraping the bottom of their own barrel.” Again, he did his best to stay professional. That way, the idea that his own countrymen would go to war for their conquerors was just a piece of information to be analyzed, not something to disgust and sicken him. Try as he would, detachment didn’t come easy. He asked the next question: “What has all this got to do with me?”

“You know what’s going on down in the south,” Raunu repeated. “Some people want you to look around and tell them what you think.”

“If they think that will help, I can do it,” Skarnu said. “Do they want me to travel by myself, or with Palasta again?”

Merkela made a noise down deep in her throat. “Should /be jealous?” she asked.

Raunu looked blank. Skarnu laughed and shook his head. “She’s a girl,” he said. “I like women, thanks.” That satisfied Merkela. It did more than satisfy her, in fact; by her smile, it pleased her. Pleased with himself for satisfying her and telling the truth at the same time, Skarnu turned to Raunu. “When and where do I meet her?”

“She’ll be in the second car of the ley-line caravan coming through Ramygala at noon tomorrow,” Raunu answered. “The caravan will take you down to the Strait of Valmiera. Here’s money for your fare and food and such, and for the return trip.” He pulled a small leather sack from his pocket and gave it to Skarnu. It clinked.

After another mug of ale, Raunu went on his way with the air of a man who had further important business to attend to. He probably did. Merkela nursed little Gedominu till he fell asleep. Then she turned to Skarnu in a marked manner. “If you’re going off again,” she said, “will you give me something to remember you by?”

“What have you got in mind?” he asked, and did as much as he could then and in the night to attend to that. When he left early in the morning to walk to Ramygala, he was yawning. Even had he been drawn to Palasta, he wouldn’t have been able to do much about it for a while.

The ley-line caravan was late. When it finally got to town, the young mage was in the car where Raunu had said she would be. She smiled as he sat down beside her. “How are you, sis?” he asked.

“Just fine, thanks,” she said. “Couldn’t be better. It’ll be good to get down to the seaside and say hello to Mother.” Skarnu nodded, even though Mother was fictitious. I wish you were my sister, went through his mind, as it had on the trip to the southeast he’d made with Palasta. I’d rather have you than Krasta. But, whatever he wished, he had no more luck choosing his relatives than did anyone from King Gainibu on down.

Because the caravan car filled up fast, they spent the trip south talking about the family they didn’t have and the plans they hadn’t made. Skarnu kept looking at the men and women around them. No telling who might be inKingMezentio ’s pay. If Valmierans could fight with Algarve’s banner sewn to their sleeves, Skarnu’s countrymen were capable of any enormity.

“Alsvanga!” the conductor called when the ley-line caravan came to a stop at the depot by the sea. “All out for Alsvanga!”

Along with Palasta, Skarnu got out. In peacetime, he could have taken a ferry across the Strait of Valmiera to Lagoas, for the ley line continued even if the land petered out. These days, there were no ferries. Lean, sharklike little Algarvian patrol boats filled the harbor. “How can the Lagoans even think of getting an army across the Strait in the face of all this?” Skarnu asked in a low voice.

“I don’t know,” Palasta answered, also quietly. “Maybe it has something to do with… what I felt the last time we went traveling.” She was young, but she was sensible, too sensible to speak much about where they’d gone and what they’d done.

And she was wise to be so sensible, too, for Alsvanga was full of Algarvians-not just sailors but also soldiers. Some of the soldiers were older men in neat uniforms: typical occupation troops. But Skarnu saw a few who were plainly combat veterans. Their eyes were hard and watchful, as his were. They didn’t care so much about how they dressed. A good many of them wore wound badges, sometimes with the ribbons that said they’d been hurt more than once.

“They’re ready,” Skarnu murmured. “They’re as ready as they can be.” By then, he and Palasta had left the town of Alsvanga and were walking along a country road. She led the way. She had more senses to guide her toward what needed discovering than Skarnu did.

But she didn’t know everything there was to know. “Where are the Algarvians coming up with their men?” she asked.

“Only one place they can be pulling ‘em from, and that’s Unkerlant,” Skarnu replied with a certain somber satisfaction. “And that won’t do them any good-no, no good at all-when the fighting picks up there. And it will. I’m sure it will.”

“Powers below eat the redheads,” Palasta whispered fiercely. She paused, gathered in thought, and pointed. “There. The camp where they’re holding the Kaumans from Forthweg is beyond that stand of beeches.”

But Skarnu, for once, hadn’t needed her sorcery to tell him that. The wind had swung. He could smell the nasty stink of unwashed humanity and human misery. “They’ll have mages around here too somewhere, won’t they?” he asked. Palasta nodded. So did Skarnu, grimly. “Aye, they’re ready, all right,” he said. “If Lagoas and Kuusamo are going to cross the Strait here, I don’t see how they can hope to land.” He kicked at the dirt. “Curse it.”