Out of the Darkness

Sixteen

Cottbus had changed. Marshal Rathar hadn’t seen the capital of Unkerlant this gay since. Now that he thought about it, he’d never seen Cottbus so gay. Gaiety and Unkerlanters seldom went together.

He’d seen the capital gray and frightened before the Derlavaian War, when nobody knew whom King Swemmel’s inspectors would seize next, or on what imagined charge. And he’d seen Cottbus past frightened the first autumn of the war against Algarve: he’d seen it on the ragged edge of panic then, with functionaries burning papers and looking to flee west any way they could, expecting the city to fall to the redheads any day. But Cottbus hadn’t fallen, and he’d also seen it grimly determined to do to King Mezentio what he’d come so close to doing here.

With Algarve beaten, the city itself seemed on holiday. People in the streets smiled. They stopped to chat with one another. Before, they would have reckoned that dangerous. Who could say for certain whether a friend was only a friend, or also an informer? No one, and few took the chance.

Unkerlant remained at war with Gyongyos, of course, but who took the Gongs seriously? Aye, they were enemies, no doubt of that, but so what? They were a long way off. They’d never had a chance to get anywhere near Cottbus, no matter how successful they were in the field. They could have been nuisances, but no more. As far as Rathar was concerned, that made them almost the ideal foes.

What made them even more perfect as enemies was the war they were fighting against Kuusamo through the islands of the Bothnian Ocean. They’d been losing that war for some time, and pulling men out of western Unkerlant to try, without much luck, to tip the balance back their way. They’d got away with that, because Unkerlant had been busy elsewhere. Now. .

Now Rathar walked across the great plaza surrounding the palace at the heart of Cottbus. The square was more crowded than he ever remembered seeing it. Women’s long, bright tunics put him in mind of flowers swaying in the breeze. He laughed at himself. You’ll be writing poetry next.

Even inside the palace, courtiers and flunkies went about their business with their heads up. A lot of them were smiling, too. They didn’t look as if they were sneaking from one place to another, as they so often did. “Come with me, lord Marshal,” one of them said, nodding to Rathar. “I know his Majesty will be glad to see you.”

What Rathar knew was that King Swemmel was never glad to see anybody. And when he got to the anteroom outside the king’s private audience chamber, age-old Unkerlanter routine reasserted itself. He unbelted his ceremonial sword and gave it to the guards there. They hung it on the wall, then thoroughly and intimately searched him to make sure he bore no other weapons. Once they were satisfied, they passed him in to the audience chamber.

Routine persisted there, too. Swemmel sat in his high seat. Rathar sank down on his knees and his belly before his sovereign, knocking his forehead against the carpet as he sang the king’s praises. Only when Swemmel said, “We give you leave to rise,” did he get to his feet. Sitting in Swemmel’s presence was unimaginable. The king leaned forward, peering at him. In his high, thin voice, he asked, “Shall we serve Gyongyos as we served Algarve?”

“Well, your Majesty, I doubt our men will march into Gyorvar any time soon,” Rathar replied. “But we ought to be able to drive the Gongs our of our kingdom, and I think we should take a bite out of them, too.”

“Many men hereabouts have told us that Gyongyos will be utterly cast down and overthrown,” the king said. “Why don’t you, who command our armies, promise the like or even more?”

Courtiers, Rathar thought contemptuously. Of course they can promise everything: they don’t have to deliver. But I do. “Your Majesty,” he said, “I can tell you what you want to hear, or else I can tell you the truth. Which would you rather?”

With King Swemmel, the question had no obvious answer. Swemmel had punished plenty of men who’d tried to tell him the truth. Whatever fantasies went on in his mind must often have seemed more real to him than the world as it was. He wasn’t stupid. People who thought he was commonly paid for that mistake in short order. But he was.. strange. He muttered to himself before coming out with something that astonished Rathar: “Well, we don’t want Gyorvar anyhow.”

“Your Majesty?” The marshal wasn’t sure he’d heard straight. Grabbing with both hands had always been Swemmel’s way. To say he wasn’t interested in seizing the capital of Gyongyos was. . more than strange.

But he repeated himself: “We don’t want Gyorvar. There won’t be anything left of the place before long, anyhow.”

“What do you mean, your Majesty?” Rathar asked cautiously. He could usually tell when the king drifted into delusion. He couldn’t do anything about it, of course, but he could tell. Today, King Swemmel was as matter-of-fact as if talking about the weather. He was, if anything, more matter-of-fact than if talking about the weather, for he rarely had anything to do with it. He was a creature of the palace, and came forth from it as seldom as he could. His journey to Herborn to watch false King Raniero of Grelz die had been out of the ordinary, and showed how important he thought that was. If I’d captured Mezentio, he would have come to Trapani, too, Rathar thought.

“We mean what we say,” Swemmel told him. “What else would we mean?”

“Of course, your Majesty. But please forgive me, for I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

King Swemmel made an exasperated noise. “Did we not tell you the cursed islanders, powers below eat them, can keep nothing secret from us, no, not even if they work their mischief in the middle of the Bothnian Ocean?”

Rathar nodded; the king had said something like that in one of their conversations by crystal. But the marshal still failed to see how the pieces fit together. “I’m sorry. What does whatever the Kuusamans and Lagoans may be up to out in the Bothnian Ocean have to do with Gyorvar?”

“They will do it there next,” Swemmel replied, “and when they do. .” He made a fist and brought it down on the gem-encrusted arm of his high seat. “No point to spending Unkerlanter lives on Gyorvar. The Gongs will spend lives, by the powers above. Oh, aye, how they will spend them!” Sudden gloating anticipation filled his voice.

Sudden alarm filled Marshal Rathar. “Your Majesty, do you mean the islanders have some strong new sorcery they can work against Gyorvar?”

“Of course. What did you think we meant?”

“Till now, I didn’t know.” Rathar wished he’d learned a great deal sooner. Swemmel clutched secrets like a miser clutching silver. “If they can do that to Gyorvar, can they also do it to Cottbus?”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wondered if he should have kept quiet. Swemmel was sure everyone around him was out to get him and every kingdom around Unkerlant out to destroy it: and that in good times. In bad, the king’s fear could be like a choking cloud. But now Swemmel only nodded grimly. “They can. We know they can. We are not safe, not until we learn how to do the like to them.”

“How long will that be?” Rathar asked. Kuusamo and Lagoas were not enemies to Unkerlant-not now. If they could badly harm this kingdom while Unkerlant couldn’t strike back, that limited how far Swemmel-and Rathar- dared go in antagonizing them.

Swemmel half snorted, half spat in disgust. “That fool of an Addanz does not know. He spent the war chasing after Algarvian mageries, and now, when we ask him-when we order him-to switch ley lines, we find he cannot do it quickly. He calls himself archmage. We call him archidiot.”

Rathar knew a certain amount of sympathy for Addanz. He’d done what he’d needed to do for the kingdom’s survival. Doing much of it had horrified him; he wasn’t a man who took naturally to murder. But he and his fellow wizards had to learn new things. Without a doubt, Swemmel was right about that.

“Has he any idea how long this will take? Any idea at all?” Rathar tried again. He might have to try to head off Swemmel himself at some time in the future. One more war might be-probably would be-one more than Unkerlant could stand.

“He speaks of years,” the king said. “Years! Why were the blunderers he leads not doing more before?”

That was so breathtakingly unfair, Rathar didn’t bother responding to it. He stuck to what he could handle: “Will having the islanders know what they know, whatever it is, hurt our campaign against the Gongs?”

“It should not.” Swemmel glowered down at Rathar. “It had better not, or you will answer for it.”

“Of course, your Majesty,” Rathar said wearily. He tried to look on the bright side of things: “Kuusamo and Lagoas want Gyongyos beaten, too. And then the war-all of the war-will be over. Then we can go on about the business of putting the kingdom back on its feet again.”

As far as he was concerned, that was the most important thing ahead for Unkerlant. King Swemmel gave an indifferent sniff. “We have enemies everywhere, Marshal,” he said. “We must make sure they cannot harm us.” Did he mean we as the people of Unkerlant or in the royal sense? Rathar couldn’t tell, not here. He wondered if Swemmel recognized the distinction. The king went on, “Everyone who stands in our way shall be cast down and destroyed. Enemies and traitors deserve destruction. If only Mezentio had lived!”

If Mezentio had lived, he might still be alive, alive and wishing for death. Thinking about what Swemmel would have done to the King of Algarve made Rathar shiver, though the audience chamber was warm and stuffy. To keep from thinking of such things, he said, “We’ll soon be in position to begin the attack against Gyongyos.”

“We know.” But Swemmel didn’t sound happy, even at the prospect of beating the last of his foes still in the field. A moment later, he explained why: “We spend our blood, as usual, and the cursed islanders reap the benefit. D’you think they could have invaded the Derlavaian mainland unless our soldiers were keeping the bulk of the Algarvian army busy in the west? Not likely!”

“No, your Majesty, not likely,” Marshal Rathar agreed, “unless, that is, they used this new strong sorcery of theirs, whatever it is, against Mezentio’s men.”

He did want to keep King Swemmel as closely connected to reality as he could. If Kuusamo and Lagoas had this dangerous new magical weapon, Swemmel needed to remember that, or he-and Unkerlant-would fall into danger. But the king’s muttering and eye-rolling alarmed Rathar. “They’re all against us, every cursed one of them,” Swemmel hissed. “But they’ll pay, too. Oh, how they’ll pay.”

“We have to be careful, your Majesty,” Rathar said. “While they have it and we don’t, we’re vulnerable.”

“We know we do, and so we shall,” King Swemmel replied. “We shall pay the butcher’s bill in Gyongyos on account of it. But the day of reckoning shall come. Never forget it for a moment, Marshal. Even against those who play at aiding us, we shall be avenged.”

Rathar nodded. Only later did he wonder whether that warning was aimed at Kuusamo and Lagoas… or at him.

Bembo knew he wouldn’t win a footrace any time soon. If a robber tried to run away from him, odds were the whoreson would get away. On the other hand, that had been true throughout his career as a constable. Long before he’d got a broken leg, he’d had a big belly.

By the middle of summer, though, the leg had healed to the point where he could get around without canes. “I’m ready to go back to work,” he told Saffa.

The sketch artist snorted. “Tell that to somebody who doesn’t know you,” she said. “You’re never ready to work, even when you’re there. Come on, Bembo-make me believe you’re not the laziest man who ever wore a constable’s uniform.”

That stung, not least because it held so much truth. Bembo put the best face on it he could: “Other people look busier than I do because I get it right the first time and they have to run around chasing after themselves.”

“Captain Sasso might believe that,” Saffa said. “A lot of times, officers will believe anything. Me, I know better.”

Since Bembo knew better, too, he contented himself with sticking out his tongue at her. “Well, any which way, I’m going to find out. I never used to think I’d be glad to walk a beat in Tricarico. After everything that went on in the west, though, this will be a treat.” He wouldn’t have to worry about rounding up Kaunians here, or about a Forthwegian uprising, or about the Unkerlanters rolling east like a flood tide about to drown the world. Criminals? Wife-beaters? After all he’d been through in Gromheort and Eoforwic, he would take them in his still-limping stride.

At the constabulary station, the sergeant at the front desk-a man only about half as wide as Sergeant Pesaro, who’d sat in that seat for years-nodded and said, “Aye, go on upstairs to Captain Sasso. He’s the one who makes you jump through the hoops.”

“What hoops are there?” Bembo asked. “I got my leg broken fighting for my kingdom-not constabulary duty, fighting-and now I’ve got to jump through hoops?”

“Go on.” The sergeant jerked a thumb at the stairway. He was no more disposed to argue than any other sergeant Bembo had ever known.

“Ah, Bembo,” Sasso said when Bembo was admitted to his august presence. “How good to see you back healthy again.”

“Thank you, sir,” Bembo replied, though he felt none too healthy. Climbing the stairs had been hard on his leg. He wasn’t about to admit that, though. Nodding to the officer, he went on, “I’m ready to get back to it.”

Captain Sasso nodded. He wasn’t much older than Bembo; well-founded rumor said he’d gained his fancy rank by knowing to whom to say aye at any given moment. “I’m sure you are,” he replied. “But there are certain. formalities you have to go through first.”

The sergeant had spoken of jumping through hoops. Now Sasso talked about formalities. “Like what, sir?” Bembo asked cautiously.

“You went west,” Sasso said.

“Aye, sir, of course I did,” Bembo replied. Sasso was the one who’d sent him west, along with Pesaro and Oraste and several other constables.

“We have orders from the occupying powers that no man who went west is to serve as a constable before he goes through an interrogation by one of their mages,” Captain Sasso said. “The penalties for going against that particular order are nastier than I really want to think about.”

“What kind of interrogation? What for?” Bembo was honestly confused.

Captain Sasso made a steeple of his fingertips and spelled things out for him: “The occupying powers don’t want anyone who was involved with whatever may have happened in the west with the Kaunians to do any kind of work that entails the trust of the kingdom. You have to understand, Bembo-it’s not up to me. I didn’t give the order. I’m only following it.”

Bembo grunted. He’d only followed orders in the west. Were they going to punish him for it now? And how nasty would this interrogation prove? Every time he thought about that dreadful old Kuusaman wizard, his heart stuttered in his chest. That whoreson had been able to look all the way down to the bottom of his soul. He didn‘t spit in my face, Bembo reminded himself. Quite.

He steadied himself. “Bring on the cursed wizards. I’m ready for ‘em.”

Sasso blinked. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Bembo answered. “Either they’ll let me back in or they won’t. If they don’t, how am I worse off than I would be if I didn’t try at all?”

“A point,” the constabulary captain admitted. “You have nerve, don’t you?”

“Sir, I have the balls of a burglar.” Bembo grinned at Sasso. “I nailed ‘em to the wall of my flat, and the burglar’s talked like this”-he raised his voice to a high falsetto squeak-”ever since.”

Captain Sasso laughed. “All right. You’ll get the chance to prove it. Come along with me. I’ll take you to the mage. Do you know any classical Kaunian?”

“Only a little,” Bembo said. “I’m like most people-they tried to thrash it into me at school, and I forgot it as soon as I escaped.”

“Escaped?” Sasso got up from his desk. “You’ve got a way with words, too. Thinking back, I remember that. How many of the reports you filed before the war were nothing but wind and air?” Before Bembo could answer, the captain shook his head. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Just come on.”

“Where are we going?” Bembo asked. “If the stinking Kuusamans want to deal with constables, don’t they have a wizard here?”

“Powers above, no!” Captain Sasso said. “We go to them. They don’t come to us-they won the fornicating war. But I don’t dare not go to them, powers below eat ‘em all. Like I said, if they find out I’ve hired anybody who isn’t checked …” He let out a hiss to show what was likely to happen to him.

“Ah,” Bembo said. “All right.” If we have to go somewhere else for this, that explains why Saffa didn’t know about it and warn me.

The Kuusaman garrison-to which a few Jelgavan soldiers and officials were also attached-was headquartered not far from Tricarico’s central plaza. The Jelgavans acted as if Bembo and Sasso were beneath their notice. The Kuusamans simply dealt with them. Jelgava had lost its share of the war; Kuusamo had won its. Bembo wondered what that said about the two kingdoms. Actually, he didn’t wonder. He had a pretty good idea what it said-nothing good about King Donalitu’s realm.

To his relief, the Kuusaman mage who questioned him turned out to speak fluent Algarvian. “So,” the fellow said. “You used to be a constable, and you want to be a constable again? And in between times you were. where? Answer truthfully.” He made a couple of passes at Bembo. “I will know if you lie-and if you do, you will not be a constable again.”

Bembo wondered whether to believe him. An Algarvian would not have phrased the warning so baldly. But Bembo had seen that Kuusamans didn’t indulge in flights of fancy, as his own countrymen delighted in doing. Besides which, he saw no point in lying here. “I was in Gromheort, and later in Eoforwic. I fought against the Forthwegian uprising there, and I was wounded when the Unkerlanters flung eggs into the place at the start of their big attack.”

“I see,” the slant-eyed mage said neutrally. “This is all very interesting, but not very important.”

“It is to me,” Bembo said. “It was my leg.”

“Not very important to what we are talking about here,” the Kuusaman said. “What we are talking about here is your dealings with the Kaunians in these two cities and thereabouts. You had dealings with Kaunians in these two cities and thereabouts, did you not?”

“Aye,” Bembo answered. He’d been a constable in the west. How could he have helped dealing with blonds?

“All right, then.” The Kuusaman grudged him a nod. “Now we come down to it. Did you ever kill any Kaunians while you were on duty in these two cities and thereabouts?”

“Aye,” Bembo said again.

“Then what are you doing here wasting my time and yours?” the Kuusaman demanded, showing annoyance for the first time. “I shall have to speak to your captain. He knows the regulations, and knows them well.”

“Will you listen to me?” Bembo said. “Let me tell you how it was, and powers below and your miserable spell both eat me if I lie.” He told the mage the tale of how he and Oraste had met the drunken ruin of a Kaunian mage sleeping in an overgrown park in Gromheort, and how the Kaunian hadn’t survived the encounter. “He was out after curfew, and he would have done something to us- he tried to do something to us, which is why we blazed the old bugger. And what does your precious magecraft have to say about that?”

“At first glance, it seems the truth. But I shall probe deeper.” The Kuusaman made more passes. He muttered in his own language. By the time he got done, he looked dissatisfied. “This is the truth-the truth as you remember it, at least.”

If he asked a question like, Is that the only time you killed a Kaunian? — if he asked a question like that, Bembo would never be a constable again. To keep him from asking it, Bembo went on, “I don’t suppose you want to hear about the time I pulled two Kaunians right out of the old noble’s castle in Gromheort and let ‘em get away.”

“Say on,” the Kuusaman mage told him. “Remember, though: if you lie, you will be permanently disqualified.”

“Who said anything about lying?” Bembo said with what he hoped was a suitable show of indignation. He told the mage about spiriting Doldasai’s parents out of the castle the Algarvians used as their headquarters in Gromheort and uniting them with their daughter, finishing, “Go ahead and use your fancy spell. I’m not lying.” He struck a pose, as well as he could while sitting down.

The Kuusaman mage made his passes. He muttered his charm. His eyebrows rose slightly. He made more passes. He muttered another charm, this one, Bembo thought, in classical Kaunian. Those black eyebrows rose again. “How interesting,” he said at last. “This does seem to be the truth. Will you now tell me you did it from the goodness of your heart?”

“No,” Bembo said. “I did it on account of I thought I’d get a terrific piece if I managed it, and I did, too.” He’d never mentioned Doldasai to Saffa, not even when he was spilling his guts to her, and he never intended to, either.

To his surprise, the Kuusaman turned red under his golden skin. Prissy whoreson, Bembo thought. “You are venal,” the mage said. “I suspect you took bribes in the form of money, too.” He might have accused Bembo of picking his nose and then sticking his finger in his mouth.

But Bembo only nodded. “Of course I did.” Fearing the spell wasn’t what made him tell the truth there. To him-to most Algarvians-bribes were nothing more than grease to help make wheels turn smoothly and quietly.

The mage looked almost as if he were about to be sick. “Disgustingly venal,” he muttered. “But that is not what I am searching for. Very well. I pronounce you fit to resume service as a constable.” He filled out forms as fast as he could. Plainly, he wanted Bembo out of his sight as fast as he could arrange it. He was too embarrassed, or perhaps too revolted, to probe much deeper.

Bembo hadn’t thought things would work out just like that, but he had thought they would work out. He usually did. And, more often than not, he turned out to be right.

Little by little, Vanai got used to living in Gromheort. Little by little, she got used to not living in fear. She needed a while to believe in her belly that no one would come through the streets shouting, “Kaunians, come forth!” The Algarvians were gone. They wouldn’t be back. A lot of them were dead. And the Forthwegians who’d bawled for Kaunian blood along with the redheads during the occupation were for the time being pretending they’d never done any such thing.

Living in the same house with Ealstan’s mother and father helped Vanai get over the terror she’d known. It proved to her, day after quiet day, that Forthwegians could like her and treat her as a person regardless of her blood. Ealstan did, of course, but that was different. That was special. Elfryth and Hestan hadn’t fallen in love with her, though they certainly had with her daughter.

Conberge often visited the house. The first time Vanai met Ealstan’s older sister, she stared intently at her, then asked, “Do I really look like that when I wear my Forthwegian mask?”

“I should say you do,” Conberge answered, eyeing her with just as much curiosity. “We could be twins, I think.”

“Oh, good!” Vanai exclaimed. “I’m so lucky, then!” That raised a blush from Conberge despite her swarthy Forthwegian complexion. Vanai meant it, too. She thought Conberge an outstandingly good-looking woman in the dark, buxom, strong-featured way of her people.

“I’m prettier with her face than I am with my own,” she told Ealstan that night.

“No, you’re not,” he answered, and kissed her. “You’re beautiful both ways.” He spoke with great conviction. He didn’t quite make Vanai believe him, but he did prove he loved her. She already knew that, of course, but more proofs were always welcome. She did her best to show Ealstan it went both ways, too.

As summer advanced, she and Conberge stopped looking just alike when she wore her sorcerous disguise, for her sister-in-law’s belly began to bulge, as her own had not so very long before. Conberge also grew even bustier than she had been, which Vanai thought almost too much of a good thing. She doubted whether Grimbald, Conberge’s husband, agreed.

The two of them walked to the market square together one blistering afternoon. Vanai had Saxburh along. Conberge watched her niece. “I ought to carry around a little notebook,” she said, “so I’ll know, ‘All right, she does this when she’s that old, and then when she gets a little older she’ll do that instead.’ “

Vanai rolled her eyes. “What she’s doing now is being a nuisance.” She’d brought along a carriage, but Saxburh pitched a fit every time she tried to put her into it. She’d just learned to walk, and walking was what she wanted to do. That meant her mother and her aunt had to match her pace, which annoyed Vanai but didn’t bother Saxburh at all.

“It’s all right,” Conberge said. “I’m in no hurry.” She set a hand on her belly. “I feel so big and slow already, but I know I’m going to get a lot bigger. I’ll be the size of a behemoth by the time I finally have the baby, won’t I?”

“No, not quite. But you’re right-you’ll think you are,” Vanai answered.

A squad of Unkerlanter soldiers patrolled the market square. Vanai was finally used to men who shaved their faces, though the smooth-faced Unkerlanters had startled her the first few times she saw them. They didn’t give her cold chills, the way Algarvian troopers would have. For one thing, they didn’t despise her people in particular. For another, they didn’t leer the way the redheads did. When they stared around, it seemed much more like wonder at being in a big city. She couldn’t know, but she would have guessed they all came from villages far smaller than Oyngestun had ever been. And they all looked so young: she doubted any of them could have been above seventeen.

When she remarked on that, Conberge nodded. “Unkerlant had to give sticks to boys,” she answered. “The Algarvians killed most of their men.” Vanai blinked. In its bleak clarity, that sounded like something Hestan might have said.

They bought olive oil and raisins and dried mushrooms-summer wasn’t a good season for fresh ones, except for some that growers raised. When they put parcels in the carriage, Saxburh started to fuss. “What’s the matter with you?” Vanai asked. “You don’t want to use it, but you don’t want anyone else using it, either? That’s not fair.” Saxburh didn’t care whether it was fair or not. She didn’t like it.

Vanai picked her up. That solved the baby’s problem, and gave Vanai one of her own. “Are you going to carry her all the way home?” Conberge asked.

“I hope not,” Vanai answered. Her sister-in-law laughed, though she hadn’t been joking.

“Do we need anything else, or are we finished?” Conberge said.

“If we can get a bargain on wine, that might be nice,” Vanai said.

Conberge shrugged. “Hard to tell what a bargain is right now, at least without a set of scales.” Vanai nodded. A bewildering variety of coins passed current in Forthweg these days. King Beornwulf had started issuing his own money, but it hadn’t driven out King Penda’s older Forthwegian currency. And, along with that, both Algarvian and Unkerlanter coins circulated. Keeping track of which coins were worth what kept everybody on his toes.

Conberge coped better than most. “I’m jealous of how well you handle it,” Vanai told her.

“My father taught me bookkeeping, too,” Conberge answered. “I’m not afraid of numbers.”

“I’m not afraid of them, either,” Vanai said, remembering some painful lessons with Brivibas. “But you don’t seem to have any trouble at all.”

“He gave me his trade,” Conberge replied with another shrug. “He didn’t stop to think there might not be anyone who’d hire me at it.”

“That’s not right,” Vanai said.

“Maybe not, but it’s the way the world works.” Conberge lowered her voice.

“Going after Kaunians isn’t right, either, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I wish it did.”

“Now that you mention it, so do I,” Vanai said. She pointed across the market square. “Look-there’s someone else with dried mushrooms. Shall we go over and see what he’s got?”

“Why not?” Conberge seemed content; perhaps even eager, to change the subject, too. “I’m not going to go in the other direction when someone has mushrooms for sale.” Forthwegians and Kaunians in Forthweg shared the passion for them.

“I wonder what he’ll have,” Vanai said eagerly. “And I wonder what he’ll charge. Some dealers seem to think they’re selling gold, because there aren’t so many fresh ones to be had.” She would have hurried to the new dealer’s stall, but no one with a toddler in tow had much luck hurrying. Halfway across the square, she started to notice people staring at her. “What’s wrong?” she asked Conberge. “Has my tunic split a seam?”

Her sister-in-law shook her head. “No, dear,” she answered. “But you don’t look like me anymore.”

“Oh!” Taking Saxburh off her shoulder, Vanai saw the baby looked like herself, too, and not like a full-blooded Forthwegian child any more. I forgot to renew the spell before we went out, she thought. I never used to do that. I must be feeling safer.

Now, though, she was going to find out if she had any business feeling safer. How long had it been since these people had seen a Kaunian who looked like a Kaunian? Years, surely, for a lot of them. How many of them had been hoping they would never see another Kaunian again? More than a few, no doubt.

Vanai thought about ducking into a building and putting the spell on again. She thought about it, but then shook her head. For one thing, too many people had seen her both ways by now, and seen her change from one appearance to the other. For another.

Her back straightened. All right, by the powers above, I am a Kaunian. My people were living in Forthweg long before the Forthwegians wandered up out of the southwest. I have a right to be here. If they don’t like it, too bad.

Conberge walked along at her side as naturally as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. That steadied Vanai. Her sister-in-law wasn’t ashamed to be seen in public with her, no matter what she looked like. But how many people are going to wonder whether Conberge’s a Kaunian in disguise now? she wondered, and hoped Ealstan’s sister wouldn’t think of that.

Nobody shouted for a constable. Being a Kaunian wasn’t against the law in Forthweg anymore. But laws had only so much to do with the way the world worked. Vanai feared people would start shouting curses or throwing things. If they did, would the Unkerlanter soldiers on patrol try to stop them? She supposed so. Even if the soldiers did, though, the damage would still be done. She would never again be able to show her face as a blond in Gromheort, and maybe not in Forthwegian disguise, either.

No one threw anything. No one said anything. No one, as far as Vanai could tell, so much as moved as she came up to the Forthwegian who was selling dried mushrooms: a plump fellow somewhere in his middle years. Into that frozen silence-it might have sprung from a wizard’s spell rather than from one wearing off-she spoke not in Forthwegian but in classical Kaunian: “Hello. Let me see what you have, if you please?”

Even Conberge inhaled. Vanai wondered if she’d gone too far. Using her birthspeech wasn’t illegal any more, either, but when had anyone last done it in public here? Would the mushroom-seller try to shame her by denying that he understood? Or would he prove to be one of those Forthwegians who’d either never learned or who’d forgotten his classical Kaunian?

Neither, as it happened. Not only did he understand the language she’d used, he even replied in it: “Of course. You’ll find some good things here.” He pushed baskets toward her.

“Thank you,” she said, a beat slower than she should have-hearing her own tongue took her by surprise. Around her, the market square came back to life. If the dealer took her for granted, other folk would do the same. Now I have to buy something from him, she thought. No matter how much he charges, I have to buy. I owe it to him.

But the fellow’s prices turned out to be better than the ones Vanai and Conberge had got from the man on the other side of the square. He wrapped up the mushrooms she bought in paper torn from an old news sheet and tied it with a bit of string. “Enjoy them,” he told her.

“Thank you very much,” she said again, not just for the mushrooms.

“You’re welcome,” he answered, and then leaned toward her and lowered his voice: “I’m glad to see you safe, Vanai.”

Her jaw dropped. Suddenly, she too spoke in a whisper: “You’re someone from Oyngestun, aren’t you? One of us, I mean. Who?”

“Tamulis,” he said.

“Oh, powers above be praised!” she exclaimed. The apothecary had always been kind to her. She asked, “Is anyone else from the village left?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “You’re the first one I’ve seen with nerve enough to show your true face. More than I’ve got, believe you me.”

It hadn’t been nerve. It had been a mistake. But I got by with it, Vanai thought. If I want to, lean do it again. Maybe lean do it again, anyway. Somehow, that maybe felt like victory.

Garivald had thought he would forever hate all Algarvians and the men who’d fought for the redheads. Now he found himself swinging a pick beside one of Mezentio’s men while a former soldier from Plegmund’s Brigade shoveled the cinnabar ore they’d loosened into a car another Unkerlanter had charge of. “Being careful,” the Algarvian said in bad Unkerlanter. “Almost dropping pick on my toes.”

“Sorry,” Garivald answered, and found himself meaning it. He’d worked beside this particular redhead before, and didn’t think he was a bad fellow. Here in the mines in the Mamming Hills, the captives, whatever they looked like, weren’t one another’s worst foes. That honor, without question, went to the guards.

All the captives-Unkerlanters, Forthwegians, Gyongyosians, Algarvians, black Zuwayzin-hated the guards with a passion far surpassing anything else they felt. They worked alongside their fellows in misery well enough. The guards were the men who made life a misery.

“Come on, you lazy whoresons!” one of them shouted now. “You don’t work harder, we’ll just knock you over the head and get somebody who will. Don’t think we can’t do it, on account of we cursed well can.”

Maybe some of the foreigners in the mine were naive enough to believe the guards wouldn’t kill any man they felt like killing. Garivald wasn’t. He doubted whether any Unkerlanter was. Inspectors and impressers had always meant that life in Unkerlant was lived watchfully. Anyone who spoke his mind to someone he didn’t know quite well enough would pay for it.

The work went on. Here in the summertime, it would still be light when the men in the mines came up after their shift ended, as it had been light when they came down to their places at the ends of the tunnels. Come winter, it would be dark and freezing-worse than freezing-above ground at each end of the shift. Down here in the mine, winter and summer, day and night, didn’t matter. To a farmer like Garivald, a man who’d lived his life by the rhythm of the seasons, that felt strange.

Of course, his being here at all felt strange. No one thought he was Garivald, the fellow who’d been a leader in the underground and come up with patriotic songs. As Garivald, he was a fugitive. Anyone who’d presumed to resist the Algarvians without getting orders from King Swemmel’s soldiers was automatically an object of suspicion. After all, he might resist Unkerlant next. Plenty of Grelzers had. Some of them were in the mines, too.

But no. Garivald was here because of what he’d done, what he’d seen, while using the name of Fariulf, which he still kept. What did I see? he wondered. Much of what he’d seen in battle, he wanted only to forget. But that wasn’t what had made the inspectors seize him when he got off the ley-line caravan. By now, thanks to a good deal of thought and some cautious talk with other captives, he had a pretty good notion of why he was here.

What did I see? I saw the Algarvians were a lot richer than we are. I saw they took for granted things we haven’t got, I saw their towns were clean and well run. I saw their farms grew more grain and had more livestock than ours do. I saw water in pipes and lamps that run on sorcerous energy and paved roads and a thick ley-line network. I saw people who weren‘t hungry half the time, and who weren‘t nearly so afraid of their king as we are of ours.

Being an Unkerlanter, he even understood why his countrymen had yanked him out of freedom-or what passed for it hereabouts-and sent him to the mines. If he’d gone back to his farm, to his life with Obilot, he would have come into the town of Linnich every so often, to sell his produce and buy what the farm couldn’t turn out. And he might have talked about what he’d seen in Algarve. That, in turn, might have made other people wonder why they couldn’t have so much their enemies took for granted. Oh, aye, I’m a dangerous character, I am, Garivald thought. I could have started a rebellion, a conspiracy.

A lot of the men in the mines were no more truly dangerous than he was. But he knew some who were. That fellow from Plegmund’s Brigade who’d once tried to comb his band out of the forest west of Herborn sprang to mind. No one would ever make Ceorl out to be a hero. He didn’t pretend to be one, either. He was a born bandit, a son of a whore if ever there was one.

And he flourished here in the mines. He led a band of Forthwegians and a couple of Kaunians. They hung together and got good food and good bunks for themselves. When other gangs challenged them, they fought back with a viciousness that made sure they didn’t get challenged often.

And Ceorl seemed to like Garivald, as much as he liked anyone. That puzzled the Unkerlanter. At last, he decided being old enemies counted almost as much as being old friends would have. Out in the wider world, the notion would have struck him as absurd. Here in the mines, it made a twisted kind of sense. Even seeing someone who’d tried to kill you reminded you of what lay beyond tunnels and barracks.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Ceorl kept saying to whoever would listen. His Unkerlanter was foul; listening took effort. But he spoke his mind-spoke it without the least hesitation. “We’ve got to get out. This place is a manufactory for dying.”

“A man at the head of a gang can live soft,” Garivald told him. “Why do you care what happens to anybody else?”

“I spent too fornicating much time in gaol,” Ceorl answered; Forthwegian obscenities weren’t too different from their Unkerlanter equivalents. “This is another one.” He spat. “Besides, this cinnabar stuff’s poison. Look at the quicksilver refineries. And even the raw stuff’s bad. I was talking with somebody from a dragon groundcrew. It’ll kill you-not fast, but it will.”

Garivald shrugged. He didn’t know whether that was true, but he wouldn’t have been surprised. The mines weren’t run as health resorts for miners. “What can you do about it?” he asked reasonably. “Run away?”

“No, of course not,” Ceorl said. “I wasn’t thinking of anything like that. Not me, pal. I know better, by the powers above.”

He spoke louder than he had been, louder than he needed to. Looking over his shoulder, Garivald saw a grim-faced guard within earshot. He doubted Ceorl had fooled the guard; of course any captive in his right mind wanted to get away. But the Forthwegian couldn’t very well say he wanted to break out of the captives’ camp and mine complex. Escape was punishable, too.

A couple of days later, at the end of a blind corridor, Ceorl picked up the thread as if the guard had never interrupted it: “How about you, buddy? You want to get out of here?”

“If I could,” Garivald said. “Who wouldn’t? But what are the odds? They’ve got it shut up tight.”

The Forthwegian laughed in his face. “You may be tough, but you ain’t what anybody’d call smart.”

Garivald marveled that the ruffian found him tough, but he let that go. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“There’s ways,” Ceorl answered. “That’s all I’m gonna tell you-there’s ways. Maybe not if you’re a redhead or a blond, but if you’re the right kind of ugly, there’s ways. Speaking the lingo helps, too.”

As far as Garivald was concerned, Ceorl didn’t really speak it. But his own Grelzer dialect made a lot of his countrymen automatically assume he’d been a traitor. Unkerlanter came in a lot of flavors. Maybe people somewhere in the kingdom talked the way Ceorl did.

Garivald rubbed his chin. “You aren’t the right kind of ugly if you keep that beard.”

Ceorl grinned. “Aye, I know it. I’ll get rid of the fornicating thing when the time comes. Till then, though …” He eyed Garivald. “If you don’t feel like staying here till you croak, wanna come along?”

“If they catch us, they’re liable to kill us.”

“And so?” Ceorl shrugged. “What difference does it make? I ain’t gonna live the rest of my days in a fornicating cage. They think I am, they can kiss my arse.”

For Garivald, it wasn’t the rest of his life. His official sentence was twenty-five years. But he’d be a long way from young if they ever let him out-and if he lived to the end of the sentence. How likely was that? He didn’t know, not for certain, but he didn’t like the odds.

Informing on Ceorl might be one way to get his sentence cut. He realized as much, but never thought of actually doing it. He hated informers even more than he hated inspectors and impressers. The latter groups, at least, were open about what they did. Informers … As far as he was concerned, informers were worms inside apples.

“What would you do if you got out?” he asked Ceorl.

“Who knows? Who cares? Whatever I futtering well please,” the ruffian replied. “That’s the idea. When you’re out, you do what you futtering well please.”

He didn’t know Unkerlant so well as he thought he did. Nobody in the kingdom, save only King Swemmel, did what he pleased. Eyes were on a man wherever he went. He might not know they were there, but they would be.

Well, if a fornicating Forthwegian doesn’t know how things work, if he gets caught again, what do I care? Garivald thought. If I can get out of here, I know how to fit back into things. All I’d have to do is separate from him.

Would he have thought like that before the war? He didn’t know. He hoped not. The past four years had gone a long way toward turning him into a wolf. He wasn’t the only one, either. He was sure of that. He stuck out his hand. “Aye, I’m with you.”

“Good.” He’d already known how strong Ceorl’s grip was. By all the signs, the Forthwegian had been born a wolf. “We’ll be able to use each other. I know how, and you can do most of the talking.”

“Fair enough,” Garivald said. And if we do get out, which of us will try to kill the other one first? As long as one of them knew about the other, they were both vulnerable. If he could see that, Ceorl could surely see it, too. He studied the ruffian. Ceorl smiled back, the picture of honest sincerity. That made Garivald certain he couldn’t trust the Forthwegians very far.

“What are you whoresons doing down there?” a guard called. “Whatever it is, come do it where I can keep an eye on you.”

“You wanna watch me piss?” Ceorl said, tugging at his tunic as if he’d been doing just that. The tunnel stank of urine; he’d made a good choice for cover. The guard pulled a horrible face and waved him and Garivald back to work.

He’s got nerve, Garivald thought. He isn’t stupid, even if he doesn’t understand Unkerlant. If he has a plan for getting out of here, it may work.

As Ceorl walked back toward the mouth of the tunnel, he muttered, “This whole fornicating kingdom’s nothing but a fornicating captives’ camp.” Garivald blinked. Maybe the man from Plegmund’s Brigade understood Unkerlant better than he’d thought.

Garivald started swinging his pick with a vim he hadn’t shown before. He wondered why. Could hope, however forlorn, do so much? Maybe it could.

Since Sabrino had declined to become King of Algarve, or of a part of Algarve, he’d got better treatment in the sanatorium. He’d expected worse. After all, he’d warned General Vatran he wouldn’t make a reliable puppet. He had no reason to think the Unkerlanter general disbelieved him. Maybe Vatran had more courtesy for an honest, and crippled, enemy than he’d expected.

Little by little, Sabrino learned to get around on one leg. He stumped up and down corridors at the sanatorium. Eventually, he even got to go outside, to test his crutches and his surviving leg on real dirt. He remained in pain. Decoctions of poppy juice helped hold it at bay. He knew he’d come to crave the decoctions, but he couldn’t do anything about that. If the pain ever went away, he would think about weaning himself from them. Not now. Not soon, either, he didn’t think.

“You’re doing very well,” his chief healer said one day, when he came back worn and sweaty from a journey of a few hundred yards. “You’re doing much better than we thought you would, in fact. When you first came in here, plenty of people doubted you would live more than a few days.”

“I was one of them,” Sabrino answered. “And I would be lying if I said I were sure you did me a favor by saving me.”

“Now, what sort of attitude is that?” The healer spoke in reproving tones.

“Mine,” Sabrino told him. “This is my carcass, or what’s left of it. I’m the one who’s got to live in it, and that’s not a whole lot of fun.”

The healer tried cajolery. “We’d hate to see everything we did go to waste after we worked so hard to keep you going.”

“Huzzah,” Sabrino said sourly. “I’m not a fool, and I’m not a child. I know what you did. I know you worked hard. What I still don’t know is whether you should have bothered.”

“Algarve is mutilated, too,” the healer said. “We need all the men we have left, wouldn’t you say?”

To that, Sabrino had no good answers. He sat down on his cot and let the crutches fall. “I never thought I would hope for calluses under my arms,” he said, “but these cursed things rub me raw.” Before the healer could speak, Sabrino wagged a finger at him. “If you tell me I’ve got the rest of my life to get used to them, I’ll pick up one of those crutches and brain you with it.”

“I didn’t say a thing,” the healer replied. “And if you kill a man for what he’s thinking, how many men would be left alive today?”

“About as many as are left alive today, if you’re thinking about Algarvians,” Sabrino said. He lay down and fell asleep almost at once. Part of that was the decoctions-though sometimes they also cost him sleep-and part of it was the exhaustion that came with being on his feet, if only for a little while.

When he woke, the healer was hovering above his cot. In his long white tunic, he reminded Sabrino of a sea bird. He said, “You have a visitor.”

“What now?” Sabrino asked. “Are they going to try to make me King of Yanina? I couldn’t be worse than Tsavellas, that’s certain.”

“No, indeed, your Excellency.” The healer turned toward the doorway and made a beckoning motion. “You may come in now.”

“Thank you.” To Sabrino’s astonishment, his wife walked into the room.

“Gismonda!” he exclaimed. “By the powers above, what are you doing here? I sent a message to tell you to get to the east if you could, and I thought you had. The Kuusamans and Lagoans beat us, but the Unkerlanters. .” His gesture was broad, expansive, Algarvian. “They’re Unkerlanters.”

“I know,” Gismonda said. “By the time I made up my mind to get out of Trapani, it was too late. I couldn’t. And so”-she shrugged-”I stayed.”

The healer shook a warning finger as he walked to the door. “I’ll be back in half an hour or so,” he said. “He is not to be overtired. And,” he added pointedly, “I am leaving this door open.”

With the decoction in him, Sabrino didn’t much care what came out of his mouth. Leering at the healer, he said, “You don’t know how shameless I can be, do you?” The fellow left in a hurry.

“Now, really!” Gismonda said, sounding a little amused but much more scandalized. “You may be dead to shame, my dear, but what makes you think am?

She’d been a beauty when they wed. She was still a handsome woman, but one who showed she had iron underneath. She’d rarely warmed up to Sabrino in the marriage bed. She gave him what he wanted when he wanted it with her, and, like a lot of Algarvian wives, she’d looked the other way when he took a mistress. But she’d always been fiercely loyal, and Sabrino had never embarrassed her, as some husbands enjoyed doing to their wives.

Now, instead of answering her, he asked the question uppermost in his mind: “Are you all right?”

“Oh, aye.” She nodded. “All things considered, the place isn’t too badly damaged. And as for the Unkerlanters. ” Another shrug. “One of them had some ideas along those lines, but I persuaded him they were altogether inappropriate, and they’ve given me no trouble since.”

“Good for you.” Sabrino wondered if Gismonda’s “persuasion” had been something swift and lethal in a cup of wine or spirits, or whether a show of sternness had convinced the Unkerlanter to take his attentions elsewhere. That wouldn’t have been beyond her, but Swemmel’s men, by all Sabrino had heard and seen, weren’t always willing to take no for an answer. He said, “I hope you didn’t take too much of a chance.”

“I didn’t think so,” Gismonda replied, “and I turned out to be right. I have had some practice at judging these things, you know. Men are men, regardless of which kingdom they come from.”

She spoke with what sounded like perfect detachment. And if that’s not a judgment on half the human race, powers below eat me if I know what would be, Sabrino thought. He knew what his own countrymen had done in Unkerlant. It didn’t go very far toward making him think she was wrong. “Well, any which way, I’m glad you came through safe, and I’m very glad to see you,” he said.

“I would have come sooner,” she said, “but the first word I got was that you were dead.” She angrily tossed her head. “It wasn’t anything official-by then, the official ley lines had all broken down. But one of the officers from your wing-a captain of no particular breeding-came to the house to give me the news that he had seen you flamed out of the sky.”

“That would have been Orosio,” Sabrino said. “Breeding or not, he’s a good fellow. I wonder if he came through alive.”

“I don’t know. That was the name, though,” Gismonda said. “If he came to tell me such a story, he might at least have had the courtesy to get it right. It must have been kindly meant-I can’t doubt that-but. . ”

“I’m lucky to be alive,” Sabrino answered. If this is luck, he added, but only to himself. Aloud, he went on, “I can’t blame him for thinking I was dead. If your dragon goes down, you usually are. Mine didn’t smash into the ground, and didn’t crush me after I got out of the harness. Luck-except for my leg.” He couldn’t pretend that hadn’t happened, no matter how much he wanted to.

His wife nodded. “I’m very sorry.”

It was more than polite, less than loving: exactly what he might have expected from Gismonda. “How did you finally find out Orosio had it wrong?”

“A mad rumor went through Trapani a couple of weeks ago-a rumor that the Unkerlanters had offered to make some wounded dragonflier King of Algarve, or of what they held of Algarve, and that he’d turned them down flat.”

Gismonda’s green eyes glinted. “I know you, my dear. It sounded so much like something you would do, I started asking questions. And here I am.”

“Here you are,” Sabrino agreed. “I’m glad you are.” He held out his hands to her. They still hadn’t touched. That was very much like Gismonda, too. But she did take his hands now. She even bent down by the side of the bed and brushed her lips across his. He laughed. “You are a wanton today.”

“Oh, hush,” she told him. “You’re as foolish as that healer of yours.”

He patted her backside-not the sort of liberty he usually took with her. “If you wanted to shut the door. .”

“I wasn’t supposed to make you tired,” Gismonda said primly.

Sabrino grinned. “You just told me the fellow was a fool. So why pay attention to him now?”

“Men,” Gismonda said again, maybe fondly, maybe not. “You’d sooner have lost your leg than that.”

“No.” The grin fell from Sabrino’s face. “I’d sooner not have lost anything. This hasn’t been easy, and it hasn’t been fun, and I’ll thank you not to joke about it.”

“I’m sorry,” his wife said at once. “You’re right, of course. That was thoughtless of me. When do they think you’ll be able to leave here?”

She was clever. Not only did she change the subject, she reminded him what he would be able to do when he healed, not of what he’d lost. “It shouldn’t be too much longer,” he answered. “I am on my feet-on my foot, I should say. I’d just gone out and about not long before you got here. They’re talking about fitting a made leg to the stump, but that won’t be for a while longer. It needs to heal more.”

“I understand,” Gismonda said. “When you do get out, I’ll take the best care of you I can-and I’ll do what I can for that, too, once we’re someplace where no one is likely to walk in on us.”

“I appreciate it.” Sabrino’s tone was sardonic. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized that was a mistake. If he was to get any pleasure from a woman from now on, from whom would it be but Gismonda? Who else would be interested in a mutilated old man? No one he could think of.

Half a lifetime earlier, such a reflection would have cast him into despair. Now … At just this side of sixty, he burned less feverishly than he had when he was younger. The decoctions he drank to hold pain at bay helped dampen his fire, too, and the brute fact of the injury he’d taken also reduced his vitality.

He sighed. “Even if you had shut the door there, I wonder if anything would have happened.”

“One way or another, I expect we’ll manage when you’re well enough to come home,” Gismonda said. “In your own way, Sabrino, you are reliable.”

“For which I thank you indeed,” he replied. “It may be flattery-in my present state of decrepitude, it’s bound to be flattery-but you mustn’t think I’m not grateful to you for keeping up the illusion.”

“Isn’t that part of what marriage is about? Keeping up illusions, I mean. On both sides, mind you, so husband and wife can go on living with each other. Or maybe you’d sooner just call it politeness and tact.”

“I don’t know.” Sabrino groped for a reply, found none, and let out a small, embarrassed laugh. “I don’t know what to say to that. But I can use the distillate of poppy juice as an excuse, and count on you to be polite enough not to let me see you don’t believe a single, solitary word of it.”

Gismonda smiled. “Of course, my dear.”

The healer bustled in. “Well, well, how are we doing?” he asked in a loud, hearty voice.

“No we, my dear fellow. I turned the kingship down,” Sabrino said grandly. The healer laughed. Gismonda smiled again. Sabrino was gladder for that; he knew she made a more discriminating audience.

In the refectory, Pekka raised her mug of ale in salute. “Powers above be praised that we aren’t teaching teams of mages anymore!” she said, and took a long pull at the mug.

“I’ll certainly drink to that.” Fernao did. Setting his mug on the table, he gave her a quizzical look. “But I’m surprised to hear you say such a thing. How will you go back to Kajaani City College if you feel that way?”

Pekka cut a bite from her reindeer chop. Chewing and swallowing gave her time to think. “It’s not the same,” she said at last. “That won’t be an emergency. And”-she looked around the refectory before she went on, making sure none of the mages they’d worked with was in earshot-”and I won’t be trying to get through to so many stubborn dunderheads. Some of the people we tried to teach must still be sure the world is flat.”

“I ran into that, too,” Fernao said. “You wouldn’t expect it from mages-”

“I thought the same thing at first,” Pekka broke in, “but now I’m not so sure. Mages know the world is full of sorcerous laws. When we showed them the ones they thought they knew weren’t really at the bottom of things, some of them didn’t want to hear that at all.”

“They certainly didn’t,” Fernao agreed. “Some of them didn’t want to believe the spells I was casting actually worked, even though they saw them with their own eyes. But even so, the ones we did manage to train went out and stopped the Algarvians as if they’d run into a wall.”

That was true. Pekka couldn’t deny it, and was glad she couldn’t. “Have you read the interrogation reports from some of the captured Algarvian mages?” she asked.

“Aye.” Fernao nodded. His smile might have belonged on the face of a shark: it was all teeth and no mercy. “They still haven’t figured out how we did what we did. They know we did something they couldn’t match, but there are about as many guesses as to what it is as there are mages.”

“And not very many of them are even close to what we really did,” Pekka said. “That makes me happier, too, because it’s likely to mean the Unkerlanters aren’t close to figuring it out, either. I hope they’re not.”

“So do I.” Fernao said. “As long as they don’t figure it out, we still hold the whip hand. The longer we can keep it, the better.” He took another sip from his mug, then asked, “Anything new from Gyongyos?”

“Not that I’ve heard,” Pekka answered with a mournful shake of the head. “If they don’t decide we meant that warning demonstration, we’ll have to show them it was real. I don’t want to do that. So many people. .”

“It will end the war,” Fernao said. “It had better, anyhow.”

That made Pekka drain the rest of her ale in a hurry. The notion that the Gongs might try to keep fighting even after having horror visited on them had never crossed her mind. No one rational would do such a thing. But, were the Gyongyosians rational, wouldn’t they have quit already? They’d surely seen by now that they couldn’t hope to win. . hadn’t they?

“What would we do if they didn’t quit?” she muttered.

“Smash another city of theirs, I suppose,” Fernao answered. “Better that than invading-or do you think I’m wrong?”

“No.” Pekka waved to one of the serving women and ordered more ale. “I don’t want to have to cast this spell once, though. Twice?” She shuddered. When the new mug of ale got there, she gulped it down fast, too.

Her head started to spin. Fernao wagged a finger at her. “Am I going to have to carry you up to your bedchamber?”

She laughed. It sounded like the laugh of someone who’d had a little too much to drink. “Ha!” she said, feeling very witty-and slightly tongue-tied. “You just want me defenseless”-she had to try twice before she could get the word out-”so you can work your evil will on me.”

“Evil?” Fernao raised a gingery eyebrow. “You thought it was pretty good the last time we tried anything.”

As best she could remember-none too clearly, not at the moment-he was right. “That hasn’t got anything to do with anything,” she declared.

“No, eh?” Fernao said. “I-”

A commotion at the entrance to the refectory interrupted him. “What’s that?” Pekka said. Kuusamans didn’t commonly cause commotions. She got to her feet to see what was going on.

So did Fernao. Since he was a good deal taller, he could see more. When he exclaimed, Pekka couldn’t tell whether he was delighted or horrified. A moment later, he spoke two words that explained why perfectly well: “Ilmarinen’s back.”

“Is he?” Pekka said, in tones identical to his.

Back Ilmarinen was. He somehow contrived to look raffish even in the uniform of a Kuusaman colonel. Catching sight of Fernao, who stood out not only on account of his inches but also for his red hair, the elderly theoretical sorcerer waved and made his way toward him, shaking off the mages and servants clustering round. A few steps later, Ilmarinen caught sight of Pekka, too, and waved again.

Pekka waved back, trying to show more enthusiasm than she felt. What’s he going to say, seeing the two of us together? she wondered. It was a question whose answer she could have done without.

What Ilmarinen did say was, “I was very sorry to hear about Leino. He was a good man. I’d hoped to see him in Jelgava, but I got up to the front just too late.”

“Thank you,” Pekka answered. She couldn’t find anything exceptionable in that.

“Aye.” Ilmarinen spoke almost absently. He looked from her to Fernao and back again. Glowering up at the Jelgavan, he said, “You’d better take good care of her.”

“I can take care of myself, Master Ilmarinen,” Pekka said sharply.

Ilmarinen waved that aside, as being of no account. He waited for Fernao to speak. “I’m doing my best,” Fernao said.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” Ilmarinen said with a dismissive snort. He waved a forefinger under Fernao’s nose. “If you make her unhappy, I’ll tear your arm off and beat you to death with it, do you understand me? I’m not kidding.”

“Master Ilmarinen-” Pekka felt herself flush.

“I didn’t think you were, Master,” Fernao said seriously, almost as if he were speaking to Pekka’s father.

But Ilmarinen wasn’t feeling fatherly: old, perhaps, but not fatherly. “By the powers above, if I were twenty years younger-ten years younger, even-I’d give you a run for your money, you overgrown galoot, see if I wouldn’t.”

“Master Ilmarinen!” Pekka hadn’t thought her cheeks could get any hotter. Now she discovered she’d been wrong.

She wondered if Fernao would laugh in Ilmarinen’s face. That wouldn’t have been a good idea. To her relief, Fernao saw as much for himself. Nodding soberly, he said, “I believe you.” Pekka believed him, too. Master Siuntio would have tempted her more. Ilmarinen? She just didn’t know about Ilmarinen, and she never had. In a land of steady, reliable people, he was hair-raisingly erratic. About three days out of four, she found that a bad bargain. The fourth, it seemed oddly attractive.

“You’d better believe me, you redheaded-” Ilmarinen began.

Before he could get any further, though, he found himself upstaged. Pekka wondered if that had ever happened before; Ilmarinen usually did the upstaging. But now Linna the serving woman whooped, “Illy! Sweetie!” and threw herself into the theoretical sorcerer’s arms.

“Illy?” Pekka echoed, deliciously dazed. She couldn’t imagine anyone calling Ilmarinen that. When she thought about it, she also had trouble imagining anyone calling him sweetie.

As Linna kissed Ilmarinen-and as he responded with an enthusiasm that said he wasn’t so very old after all-Fernao said, “Obviously, Master, you have a prior commitment here.”

When Ilmarinen wasn’t otherwise distracted, he said, “A man should be able to keep track of more than one bit of business at the same time.”

Bit of business, eh? Pekka thought, amused and indignant at the same time. He sounded almost like an Algarvian. But then her amusement evaporated. While Leino lived, she’d had to keep track of more than one bit of business at the same time herself. How would that have turned out in the end? She shook her head. She would never know now.

Ilmarinen kissed Linna again, patted her, gave her a silver bracelet, and told her, “I’ll see you in a little while, all right? I’ve got some business to talk with these people.” She nodded and went off. Ilmarinen hadn’t been talking business before, but Pekka didn’t contradict him.

As Ilmarinen pulled up a chair, another serving woman-the one who’d been taking care of the table-came up and asked him what he wanted. He ordered salmon and ale. She went back to the kitchen. Pekka asked, “What brings you back here, Master? You went off to see what the war was like.”

“So I did, but now the war in the east is over,” Ilmarinen answered. “Pity anything in Algarve is still standing, but it can’t be helped. Nothing that happened to those bastards was half what they deserved. But what am I doing here? You’re going to drop a rock on the Gongs sometime soon, aren’t you?”

“How do you know that?” Pekka demanded. “Who told you?” That whole sorcerous project was supposed to be as closely held a secret as Kuusamo had.

Ilmarinen only laughed. “I don’t need people to tell me things, sweetheart. I can figure them out for myself. I know what you were up to here, and I can see where it was going. I want to be here when it arrives. I want to help it arrive, as a matter of fact.”

“The magecraft has come a long way since you left us,” Fernao said. “How quickly can you prepare?”

“I’ve been doing some thinking on my own.” Ilmarinen took a few bedraggled leaves of paper from his beltpouch and spread them on the table. “My guess is, you’re headed in this direction.”

Pekka leaned forward to study the calculations. After a minute or so, she looked up at Ilmarinen, awe on her face. “You’re not just even with us,” she said quietly. “I think you’re ahead of us.” Slowly, Fernao nodded.

With a shrug, Ilmarinen said, “It was something to keep me busy in my spare time. I didn’t have much, or I’d’ve done more.”

Something to keep me busy in my spare time, Pekka thought dazedly. She and Fernao and the rest of the mages here in the Naantali district were clever and talented. She knew that. But Ilmarinen had just reminded her of the difference between talent and raw genius. She shook her head, trying to clear it. All she could find to say was, “I’m glad you’re back.”