Rulers of the Darkness

Twenty

Unkerlanter dragons swarmed above Herborn. Unkerlanter mages swarmed inside the reclaimed capital of Grelz and to the east of it. They had plenty of Unkerlanter victims ready to sacrifice if the Algarvians chose a sorcerous strike at Herborn during King Swemmel's moment of triumph. Common sense said nothing could go wrong.

Marshal Rathar had learned not to trust common sense. "I'm worried," he told General Vatran.

Vatran, to his relief, didn't pat him on the shoulder and go, Everything will be fine. Instead, the veteran officer screwed up his face and said, "I'm worried, too, lord Marshal. If the Algarvians get wind of what's going on here this afternoon, they'll turn this place upside down to stop it." Looking around, he added, "Of course, between the two sides, they and we've pretty much turned Herborn upside down already- and inside out, too, come to that."

"True enough." Rathar looked around, too. Herborn was one of the oldest towns in Unkerlant. An Algarvian merchant prince- or, some said, an Algarvian bandit chief- had set himself up here as king in the land more than eight hundred years before. Ever since, the city had had an Algarvian look to it, though a native dynasty soon supplanted the foreigners. Extravagantly ornamented, skyward-leaping towers always put visitors in mind of places farther east.

In the battles for Herborn, though- when the Algarvians took it from Unkerlant in the first months of the war, and now when King Swemmel's soldiers took it back- a lot of those skyward-leaping towers had been ground-ward-falling. Others yet stood but looked as if they'd had chunks bitten out of them. Still others were only fire-ravaged skeletons of what they had been.

The stink of stale smoke lingered in the air. So did the stink of death. That would have been worse had the weather been warmer.

It was still too warm to suit Rathar. "I wish we'd have a blizzard," he grumbled. "That'd make his Majesty put things off." He cast a hopeful eye westward, the direction from which bad weather was likeliest to come. But none looked like coming today.

Vatran shook his head. "For one thing, his Majesty doesn't give a fart if all the Algarvian captives he's got- well, all but one- freeze to death while he's parading 'em."

"I know that," Rathar said impatiently. "But he wouldn't care to go up on a reviewing stand and watch 'em in the middle of a snowstorm."

"Mm, maybe not," Vatran allowed. "Still and all, though, if he put things off, it'd give the redheads longer to find out what we're about."

That made Rathar nod, however little he wanted to. "Aye, you're right," he said. "If we have to do it, we'd best get it over with as soon as may be. If the king will-"

Vatran gave him a shot in the ribs with an elbow. The general had known him a long time, but that didn't excuse such uncouth familiarity. Rathar started to say so, in no certain terms. Then he too saw King Swemmel coming up, surrounded by a squad of hard-faced bodyguards. He bowed very low. "Your Majesty," he murmured. Beside him, Vatran did the same.

"Marshal. General," Swemmel said. He wore a tunic and cloak of military cut but royal splendor: even in the wan winter sunlight, their threadwork of cloth-of-gold, their encrusting pearls and rubies and polished, faceted chunks of jet glittered dazzlingly. So did the heavy crown on his head. He waved. "We are pleased with the aspect of this, our city of Herborn."

"Your Majesty?" This time, Rathar exclaimed in astonishment. Swemmel's guards caught the tone. Their faces went harder yet. Several of them growled, down deep in their throats, like any wolves. They knew lese majesty when they heard it.

But the king, for once, felt expansive enough to overlook it. He waved again. "Aye, we are pleased," he repeated. "Most of all are we pleased with that." He pointed to the tallest surviving tower of the duke's palace, the palace that had been Raniero's till not long before. Unkerlant's banner- white, black, and crimson- fluttered above it.

"Ah." Rathar nodded, as he had to Vatran. Now he understood what Swemmel meant. Hoping to take advantage of his sovereign's good humor, he asked, "Your Majesty, may I say a word?"

Swemmel's bodyguards growled again. Whatever Rathar was about to say, they could tell it would be something their master didn't care to hear. King Swemmel could tell as much, too. "Say on," he replied, icy warning in his voice.

Most of the king's courtiers would have found something harmless to ask him after that response. Doing anything else took more nerve than facing the Algarvians in battle. But Rathar would speak his mind every now and then, and did so now: "Your Majesty, what you have planned for the end of the parade-"

"Shall go forward," King Swemmel broke in. "It is our will. Our will shall assuredly be done."

"It will make the war harder to fight from now on," Rathar said. "We'll see no quarter, not anymore." He glanced over to Vatran. Vatran plainly wished he hadn't. But the white-haired general nodded agreement.

Swemmel snapped his fingers. "There is no quarter between us and Algarve now," he said. "There has been none since Mezentio treacherously hurled his armies across our border."

That held some truth. But Rathar wondered if Swemmel remembered he'd also been planning to attack the redheads, back three summers before. Much of Mezentio's treachery lay in striking first. With peasant stubbornness, Rathar tried once more: "Your Majesty…"

Slowly and deliberately, his contempt as vast as it was regal, King Swemmel turned his back. His guards didn't just growl. They snarled. Without looking at Rathar again, the king said what he'd said before: "Our will shall assuredly be done." He strode off, not giving his marshal any chance to reply. Some of the guards looked as if they wanted to blaze Rathar for his presumption.

Once they were out of earshot, General Vatran said, "Well, you tried."

"I know." Rathar kicked at the ground. It was icy; he almost fell when his booted foot slid more than he'd expected. "I wish he would have listened. Sometimes he does."

"But not today," Vatran said.

"No, not today." Rathar kicked again, more carefully this time. "But we're the ones who'll have to pay the price because he didn't."

"Hard to imagine how we could pay a price much bigger than we're paying now," Vatran said, which also held its share of truth and more.

Broadsheets summoned the people of Herborn to the parade route. Unkerlanter soldiers with megaphones also ordered them out of their homes- those who still had homes standing, at any rate. Watching the men and women coming up to line the street, Rathar wondered how many, not so long before, had waved gold-and-green flags and cheered then-King Raniero. More than a few: of that he was certain. The smart ones would already have burnt those, and whatever else gold and green they owned. If Swemmel's inspectors found such things, it would go hard on whoever had them.

Rathar's own place was on the reviewing stand, at his sovereign's side. It stood not far from the ducal palace, on the edge of Herborn's central square. That square was smaller than Cottbus', but large enough and to spare. Grelzers lined the square, too, though guards kept them well away from the reviewing stand.

King Swemmel imperiously raised his arm. "Let us begin!" he cried.

A band began the triumphal parade. Horns and drums blared out the Unkerlanter national hymn. Rathar wondered if the musicians would follow that with the hymn of the Duchy of Grelz, but they didn't. Maybe Swemmel didn't want the folk of Herborn thinking about being Grelzers at all, whether inhabitants of a separate duchy or of a separate kingdom. Maybe he just wanted them to think of themselves as belonging to the kingdom of Unkerlant- and maybe he was shrewd to want them to think of themselves so.

Instead of the hymn for the Duchy of Grelz, the band played a medley of patriotic songs that had grown popular in these parts since the Algarvians overran the region. Somebody, Rathar remembered, had said they were written by a local peasant or irregular or something of the sort. He wondered if that was true. It struck him as being too pat for plausibility, and so likelier a tale that came from Cottbus. Swemmel was shrewd enough to come up with something like that, and paid plenty of writers to come up with such things for him.

After the musicians came a regiment of behemoths, their armor clattering upon them, their heavy strides shaking the ground- the timbers of the reviewing stand vibrated beneath Rathar's feet. Nothing could have been better calculated to overawe folk who still had doubts about whom they wanted to rule over them. What the locals wanted didn't count for much, of course. King Swemmel had returned, and did not intend to be dislodged again.

And after the behemoths came a great shambling mob of Algarvian captives, herded along by spruced-up Unkerlanter soldiers. A herald bellowed scornfully: "Behold the conquering heroes!" Scrawny, unshaven, filthy, some of them bandaged, all of them in shabby, tattered tunics and kilts, they looked like what they were: men who'd fought a war as hard and as long as they could, fought it and lost it.

In high good humor, Swemmel turned to Rathar and said, "Our mines and quarries shall have labor to spare for years to come."

"Aye, your Majesty," the marshal said abstractedly. He was watching the dragons overhead more than the luckless captives. Several of them broke off their spirals and flew east. No Algarvian dragons appeared above Herborn. If any tried to come over the town, the dragons painted rock-gray drove them back.

No Grelzer captives appeared on the streets of Herborn. If Grelzers hadn't been able to sneak out of the fight and find civilian clothes, they'd seldom left it alive.

An elegant troop of unicorn cavalry followed the mass of Algarvian captives. They were beautiful to look upon, even if not much use in the field. And after them strode the high-ranking Algarvian officers Swemmel's soldiers had captured in the Herborn pocket: colonels and brigadiers and generals. They were better dressed and better fed than their countrymen of lower estate, but if anything seemed even glummer.

Last of all, separated from them by more tough-looking Unkerlanter footsoldiers, Raniero- briefly King of Grelz- marched all alone. The band, the behemoths, the ordinary captives, the unicorn cavalry, the high Algarvian officers… all left the square in front of the ducal palace. Raniero and his guards remained. Silence fell.

In the midst of that silence, certain servitors of Swemmel's wheeled a large brass kettle, nearly full of water, into the center of the square. Other servitors piled coal, a great deal of coal, beneath the kettle and lit it. Still others set up a sort of a stand by the kettle; one broad plank projected out over the polished brass vessel. The guards took Raniero up onto the platform, but not yet onto the final plank. Like everyone else, they waited for the water in the kettle to boil.

Raniero had courage. Across the square, he waved to King Swemmel. Rathar murmured, "Your Majesty, I beg you- do not do this thing."

"Be silent," Swemmel said furiously. "Be silent, or join him there." Biting his lip, Rathar was silent.

At length, one of the Unkerlanter soldiers on the platform with Raniero held up his hand. King Swemmel nodded. "Let the usurper perish!" he shouted in a great voice. "Let all who rise against us perish!" He had spoken the identical words when putting his brother Kyot to death at the end of the Twinkings War.

Raniero had courage indeed. Instead of making the guards hurl him into the kettle- as even Kyot had done- he marched out over it, waved to Swemmel again, and with a cry of "Farewell!" leaped into the seething, steaming water.

Courage failed him then, of course. His shrieks ripped through the square, but not for long. Swemmel let out a breathy grunt, as he might have after a woman. "That was fine," he murmured, his eyes shining. "Aye, very fine indeed."

Rathar was glad the breeze blew from him toward the kettle, not the other way round. Even so, he did not think he would eat boiled beef or pork again any time soon.

Sidroc stumbled as he came up to the campfire, so that he kicked a little snow onto Sergeant Werferth. Werferth shook a fist at him. "All right, you son of a whore, now you've done it!" he shouted. "Just for that, I order you boiled alive!"

"Oh, come off it, Sergeant," Sidroc said. "I have to be an Algarvian, and a prince to boot, to rate anything so fancy. Why don't you just blaze me and get it over with?"

"Nah, that's what the Unkerlanters do to Grelzers they catch," Werferth said. "You ought to get something juicier."

Ceorl was cooking some horsemeat and buckwheat groats in his mess tin, using a branch as a handle. He said. "The Unkerlanters are liable to do that to us if they catch us, too. We look too much like them."

Sidroc plucked at his beard. Unkerlanters shaved. Forthwegians didn't. When he'd lived in Gromheort, that had seemed plenty to distinguish between his own people and the bumpkins and semisavages of Unkerlant. But when he was in the midst of fighting a war against those bumpkins and semisavages, and when they seldom got a chance to shave because they spent so much time in the field, having a beard didn't seem enough differentiation.

Not that the Unkerlanters wouldn't kill him for being a Forthwegian, too. But they sometimes showed mercy to men from Plegmund's Brigade. To Grelzers who'd fought for King Raniero- dead Raniero now- hardly ever.

Squatting down by the fire, Sidroc said, "Word going around is that we're getting a counterattack ready."

"Aye, well, we'd bloody well better do something," Ceorl said. "If we don't, they'll throw us out of Grelz altogether. Maybe we weren't so cursed smart, joining the Brigade. Looks like Algarve's losing the war."

"Shut your trap," Werferth said flatly. "You're only lucky it was a couple of your squadmates heard that, not somebody who'd report you." He eyed Sidroc. Reluctantly, Sidroc nodded to show he wouldn't. He didn't like Ceorl, not even a little, but the ruffian was a good man to have along in a brawl.

"Ahh, bugger it." Ceorl spat into the fire. "What difference does it make? Not a one of us is ever going to get home to Forthweg anyway. Who cares if our side kills us, or the other bastards do?"

Sidroc waited for Werferth to pitch a fit. But the veteran sergeant only sighed. "Odds are you're right. Powers below eat you for saying so out loud, though."

"Why?" Ceorl sounded genuinely curious.

"Why? I'll tell you why," Werferth answered. "Because we've got to go on fighting like we're on the edge of winning this war, that's why. Because we'll get ourselves killed quicker if we don't, that's why. Because we still might beat the odds, too, that's why."

Ceorl dug into the meat and groats he'd cooked up. His mouth full, he said, "Fat chance."

"No, I think the sergeant's right," Sidroc said.

Ceorl sneered. "Of course you do. He's arguing with me. If he said the sky was green, you'd figure he was right."

"Oh, futter yourself," Sidroc said. "I think he's right on account of I think he's right, and on account of the Algarvians. They're sneakier than the Unkerlanters, and they're smarter, too. The war's not over yet, not by a long blaze. If they kill enough stinking Kaunians…"

"It won't make a counterfeit copper's worth of difference," Ceorl said. "Swemmel's boys will just kill as many of their own people as they need to, to even things out. Haven't we already seen that?"

"Maybe they'll come up with some other kind of magecraft, then. I don't know," Sidroc said. "What I do know is, one Algarvian is worth two or three Unkerlanters. We've seen that plenty of times. Powers above, one of us is worth two or three of Swemmel's men, too."

"Of course we are," Ceorl said- had he said anything else, he would have had Werferth arguing with him again, too. "Trouble is, one of us is worth two or three Unkerlanters, and then that fourth or fifth Unkerlanter ups and kicks us in the balls. We've seen that plenty of times, too- tell me we haven't."

Sidroc grunted. He couldn't tell Ceorl any such thing, and he knew it. He gave the best comeback he could: "They've got to run out of soldiers sooner or later."

"Sooner would be better," Sergeant Werferth said.

Neither Ceorl nor Sidroc wanted to quarrel with that. Not far away, a sentry called out a challenge in Algarvian. All three men by the fire grabbed for their sticks, not that those had been very far away. The answer came back in Algarvian, too. Neither Sidroc, Werferth, nor Ceorl relaxed. For one thing, the Unkerlanters sometimes found soldiers who could speak the language of their enemies. For another, Algarvians who didn't know the men of Plegmund's Brigade went right on taking them for Unkerlanters.

Not this time, though, not even when the sentry let out a happy yelp in Forthwegian- "Behemoths!" -that the redheads could easily have taken for Unkerlanter. Sidroc and his comrades exclaimed in delight. Behemoths with Algarvians aboard them had been too rare since so many died trying to smash their way through the Durrwangen bulge.

"I wonder who's going short so the beasts can come here," Werferth said.

"I don't, Sergeant," Sidroc answered. "I don't even care. All I know is, for once we're not going to go short."

"That's right, by the powers above," Ceorl said. Not for the first time, having Ceorl agree with him made Sidroc wonder if he was wrong.

On snowshoes, the behemoths' strides were surprisingly quiet. The white surcoats the beasts wore- the equivalent of the soldiers' snow smocks- helped muffle the clank and clatter of their chainmail. But they drew the men of Plegmund's Brigade and their Algarvian officers just the same.

And the Algarvians who crewed the behemoths retained the cheerful arrogance of earlier days. They waved to the Forthwegians as if to younger brothers. "You boys come along with us," one of them called, "and we'll do a proper job of smashing up the Unkerlanters."

"That's right," said a redhead on a different behemoth. "They haven't got a chance of standing up against us once we get rolling. You know that."

Sidroc knew nothing of the sort. What he knew was that, had the war been going just the way the Algarvians wanted, Plegmund's Brigade would never have come to the front line at all. It would have stayed in Grelz hunting irregulars, as it had started out doing. Well, now it was back in Grelz after a year and more of some of the most desperate fighting in the war, and it was facing the full weight of King Swemmel's army.

But, and especially after Ceorl's gloom, that Algarvian good cheer hit Sidroc like a strong slug of spirits. Mezentio's men had gone forward against the Unkerlanters. Why shouldn't they go forward against them again?

Algarvian footsoldiers came up with the behemoths. Some of them- new men, by their trim uniforms and unhaggard faces- gave the troopers of Plegmund's Brigade suspicious stares. "Are these fellows really on our side?" one of them asked, as if the bearded men in long tunics couldn't possibly be expected to understand his language.

"Aye, we are," Sidroc said. "And we'll stay that way as long as you don't ask idiot questions like that." The redhead glared at him. Sidroc was no older, but he'd seen things the Algarvian hadn't yet imagined. He looked through the newcomer as if he didn't exist. A couple of Mezentio's veterans talked to their countryman and calmed him down.

Somewhere not far away, the Algarvians had gathered together a good many egg-tossers, too. They all started flinging death at the Unkerlanters at once. "They'd never lay on so much just for us," Ceorl grumbled. "Put their own people into the fight, though, and they care a lot more."

That was probably true. Sidroc shook his head. No, that was certainly true. "Nothing we can do about it but make the most of it now," he said.

Whistles shrilled. The Algarvian behemoths lumbered forward, straight through the hole the egg-tossers had torn in the Unkerlanter line. Footsoldiers- Algarvians and the men of Plegmund's Brigade together- accompanied the behemoths.

Maybe the men who rode those behemoths knew what they were talking about. King Swemmel's soldiers seemed astonished to find Algarvians attacking. Whenever the Unkerlanters were astonished, they had trouble. Some of them fought, stubborn as always. But a good many fled, and a good many surrendered.

"Forward!" Algarvian officers shouted, again and again. "Keep up with the behemoths!"

Sidroc did his best. Despite the snow on the ground, sweat streamed down his face. His legs ached. But he was advancing again. He blazed at an Unkerlanter before the fellow could blaze at an Algarvian behemoth. The Unkerlanter went down. Sidroc whooped with glee.

A couple of days later, Swemmel's soldiers tried to rally at the outskirts of what was either a large village or a small town. They had egg-tossers in the place. Eggs flew through the air, kicking up fans of snow- and a few Algarvian soldiers- when they burst. The counterattack slowed and threatened to stall. Sidroc cursed. "Just when things looked like they were starting to go our way-"

"Aye," Werferth agreed mournfully. "Maybe that whoreson of a Ceorl was right. This is how it works for the redheads these days. They don't- we don't- have enough to smash the Unkerlanters flat when we're supposed to."

But he was wrong. The Algarvians had always been good at making their egg-tossers keep up with advancing soldiers. Now more eggs burst in and around the Unkerlanter-held town than came out of it. One by one, the Unkerlanter egg-tossers fell silent, suppressed by the eggs flung at them. Lately, Algarvian dragons had seemed almost as scarce in the air as Algarvian behemoths were on the ground. But a wing of them stooped on the town like kestrels. With eggs and flame, they left it a smoking ruin. Only then did officers blow their whistles and shout, "Forward!"

Behemoths advanced with the footsoldiers, tossing still more eggs on the enemy. Even before the Algarvians and the men of Plegmund's Brigade got into the village, white flags started flying. Unkerlanter soldiers stumbled toward them, hands high.

"I'll be a son of a whore," Sidroc said in something approaching awe. "Haven't seen anything like this in I don't know when."

"Forward!" an Algarvian officer not far away shouted. "Keep moving! Don't waste a heartbeat! Push 'em hard! We'll take Herborn back yet!"

Three or four days before; Sidroc would have thought him a madman. Then, like everyone else, he'd been wondering how far the Algarvians would have to retreat before finally finding a line they could hold. Now… Now, for the time being at least, they had the bit between their teeth again. He trudged on past burning peasant huts and Unkerlanter corpses. He didn't know how far he and his comrades could go, but he was interested again in finding out.

An enormous wolf with fangs dripping blood had a long, sly face that looked a lot like King Swemmel's. So no Forthwegian could miss the point, the artist who'd painted the wolf on the broadsheet had thoughtfully labeled it UNKERLANT. A stalwart Algarvian shepherd with a stout spear stood between that fearsome wolf and a flock of sheep altogether too precious and sweet to be believable. They too had a label: DERLAVAIAN CIVILIZATION.

Ealstan studied the broadsheet with a connoisseur's appraising eye. In four and a half years of war, he'd seen a lot of them. At last, with the grudged respect one gave a clever foe, he nodded. This was one of Algarve's better efforts. Few Forthwegians loved their cousins to the west. The broadsheet might prompt his countrymen to think of the redheads as their protectors.

But so what? Ealstan thought, and his face twisted into a grin almost as fearsome as the Swemmel-wolf's. So what, by the powers above? If the Unkerlanters keep pounding Mezentio's men, what Forthweg thinks about them won't matter. The Algarvians are losing. That was sweet as honey to him. Ever since the Algarvians overwhelmed the Forthwegian army- and so many others afterwards- he'd wondered if they could lose, and feared they couldn't.

Still wearing that grin, he turned away from the broadsheet and walked down the street. A news-sheet vendor on a corner shouted, "Read about the Algarvian counterattack in the Kingdom of Grelz! Herborn threatened! Swemmel flees to Cottbus with his tail between his legs! Heroes of Plegmund's Brigade!"

Ealstan strode past him as if he didn't exist. He wondered how many times he'd done that, in Gromheort and now in Eoforwic. Too many- he knew that. He pretended news-sheet vendors didn't exist whenever the Algarvians moved forward. And whenever he thought of Plegmund's Brigade, he hoped his cousin was dead: horribly dead and a long time dying, with any luck at all.

PYBBA'S POTTERTY! screeched a sign ever so much larger and gaudier than any broadsheet the Algarvians had ever put up. This wasn't the enormous warehouse down by the Twegen River, but the home of Pybba's kilns and his offices. The only pots and plates the magnate sold here were the ones that came out of the kilns too badly botched to go to the warehouse or to any shop, no matter how shoddy. OUR MISTAKES- CHEAP! another sign proclaimed. Pybba did a brisk business with them. Pybba, as far as Ealstan could tell, did a brisk business with everything.

He was prowling through the offices when Ealstan came in. "You're late," he growled, though Ealstan was no such thing. "What took you so long?"

"I was looking at a new broadsheet," Ealstan answered.

"Wasting time," Pybba said. "Sit your arse down in front of the books. That's what you're supposed to be doing, not leering at Algarvian tripe. I bet it had naked women on it. The redheads are shameless buggers."

A couple of men who'd beaten Ealstan into the pottery works laughed. Pybba was reliably loud and reliably vulgar. Ealstan perched on a tall stool and got to work. His boss' legitimate books were quite complex enough. The others…

Before long, Pybba let out a roar from inside his sanctum: "Ealstan! Get your arse in here this minute, curse you, and see if you can't bring your brains with it."

More snickers came from Ealstan's coworkers as he got down from the stool. They weren't without sympathy; before long, Pybba would be bellowing at somebody else, and everyone knew it. "What is it?" Ealstan asked, standing in the doorway.

"Shut the cursed door," the pottery magnate rumbled. Ealstan did. Pybba's voice suddenly dropped: "Which broadsheet were you talking about? The one with the wolf?"

"Aye." Ealstan nodded. "Is there another one?"

"After the Kaunians burst that egg? You'd best believe there is, boy. It shows a monster peeking out from behind a mask that looks a little like you."

"A Kaunian monster," Ealstan said. This time, Pybba nodded. Ealstan's lip curled. "That's disgusting."

"It's a pretty fair broadsheet," Pybba answered. "Maybe not quite as strong as the one with the wolf, but close. Who's got any use for Kaunians, anyhow?"

He certainly didn't; Ealstan knew as much. Picking his words with care, Ealstan observed, "If the Algarvians hate the blonds, they've probably got something going for them."

"Fat chance," Pybba said. "All right. I just wanted to find out if you knew something I didn't. You don't." He raised his voice to an angry yell: "So get your miserable carcass back to work!"

Part of the reason for that yell was to make sure nobody outside wondered what Pybba and Ealstan were talking about in their quiet conversation. The rest was because Pybba was fed up with Ealstan. Ealstan knew that too well. He'd tried again and again to get his boss to pay some attention to the Kaunians in Eoforwic and in Forthweg generally. Who in all the kingdom had better reason to hate the occupiers and work against them? Nobody Ealstan could see. But Pybba didn't care. Despising Kaunians himself, he refused to see them as allies.

He wants a Forthwegian kingdom when the Algarvians get thrown out, Ealstan realized as he went back to the ledgers. Not a Kingdom of Forthweg, the way it was before the war, but a Forthwegian kingdom, without Kaunians. The Algarvians, as far as he's concerned, are solving the Kaunian problem for him.

That thought was chillier than Forthwegian winters commonly got. For a moment, Ealstan was tempted to throw his job in Pybba's face and find other work. But he'd already seen that Pybba could make it hard for him to find bookkeeping work.

And Vanai wouldn't want him to quit. He'd already seen that, too. She would want him to keep doing everything he could to drive Mezentio's men out of Forthweg. Whatever happened after that, it would be better than having the Algarvians running the kingdom. He didn't like that line of reasoning- loving his wife as he did, he wanted nothing less than full equality for all Kaunians- but he couldn't find any holes in it.

From somewhere in the vast pottery works came a large, almost musical crash, as of a good many crocks and chamber pots and dishes meeting an untimely demise. One of the fellows who worked near Ealstan- his job was writing catchy slogans for the wares Pybba produced- grinned and said, "Get out the red ink, my friend. There go some of the profits."

Pybba heard the crash, too. Pybba, by all the signs, heard everything. He flew out of his inner sanctum like an egg flying out of a tosser. "Powers above, that's coming out of somebody's pay!" he roared. "Just let me get my mitts on the butterfingered bunghole who buggered that up. Probably greased his hand so he could play with himself, the son of a whore!" And he rushed off to find out exactly what had gone wrong and who was to blame for it.

"So calm." Ealstan rolled his eyes. "So restrained."

The slogan writer- his name was Baldred- chuckled. "Never a dull moment around this place. Of course, sometimes you wish there were."

"Why would you want that?" Ealstan wondered. "I've got so I like having my hair set on fire about three times a day. Hardly seems like I'm doing anything unless somebody's screaming at me to do more."

"Oh, it's not so bad as that," Baldred said. He was about halfway between Ealstan's age and Pybba's- in his mid-thirties- with white hairs in his beard still so few that he ostentatiously plucked them out whenever he found them. "As long as you do the work of four men, he'll pay you for two. What more could you want?"

"That's about the size of it," Ealstan agreed. He thought Baldred worked on Pybba's unofficial business as well as that pertaining to pottery, but he wasn't sure. Because he wasn't sure, he never mentioned it to the slogan-writer. Every now and again, he wondered whether Baldred wondered about him.

Pybba stomped back into the offices, a stormcloud on his face. But no cringing employee followed him to pick up whatever pay he was owed and then leave forever. Irked at Pybba, Ealstan kept at his work and didn't ask the obvious question. Baldred did: "What happened?"

"Fornicating stray dog came round a corner going one way at the same time as one of our boys came round it going the other," Pybba said. "Aye, he tripped over the stinking thing. Powers below eat him, what else could he do? Three or four people saw it, and the poor bastard's got a scraped knee on one leg and a dog bite on the other one."

"Ah," Baldred said wisely. "No wonder you didn't fire him, then."

The pottery magnate's scowl grew more fearsome yet; he'd doubtless roared out of the office intending to do exactly that. "You tend to your knitting," he rumbled, "or I'll bloody well fire you. Not a thing to say I can't do that."

Baldred got very busy very fast. Pybba eyed him long enough to make sure he was busy, then went into his own office and slammed the door behind him, hard enough to make little waves in Ealstan's inkwell. "Charming as always," Ealstan murmured.

"But of course." Baldred shrugged. "I'm not going to worry about it. Before too long, he'll pitch a fit at somebody else instead. Tell me I'm wrong."

"Can't do it." Ealstan got back to work, too.

A few minutes later, the outer door opened. Ealstan looked up, still expecting the potter who'd had the unfortunate encounter with the stray dog. What he expected was not what he got. What he got was an Algarvian colonel with spiky waxed mustaches. Ealstan wondered if he ought to run or if he ought to scream for Pybba to run. Before he could do either, the redhead swept off his hat, bowed, and spoke in pretty good Forthwegian: "I require to see the gentleman Pybba, if you would be so kind."

"Aye, I'll get him for you," Ealstan answered. "May I ask why?"

"I seek to purchase pots." The Algarvian raised an eyebrow. "If I wanted flowers, you may be sure I would go elsewhere."

Ears burning, Ealstan descended from his stool and went to fetch Pybba. "Pots?" the pottery magnate said. "I'll give him-" He shook his head and followed Ealstan out again. Eyeing the Algarvian with no great warmth, he asked, "What sort of pots have you got in mind?"

"Small ones." The officer gestured. "Ones to fit the palm of the hand and the fingers, so. Round, or nearly round, with snug-fitting lids."

"Haven't got anything just like that in stock," Pybba answered. "It'd have to be a special order- unless some sugar bowls would do?"

"Let me see them," the Algarvian said.

"Come with me," Pybba told him. "I've got some samples in the next room."

"Good. Very good. Take me to them, if you please."

When Pybba and the redhead came back from the samples room, the pottery magnate wore a sandbagged expression. "Fifty thousand sugar bowls, style seventeen," he said hoarsely, and turned to stare at the colonel. "Why would anybody want fifty thousand sugar bowls?"

"For a very large tea party, of course," the Algarvian said blandly.

That wasn't the truth, of course. Ealstan wondered what the truth was, and who would get hurt finding out.

"Rain pouring down on us," Sergeant Istvan complained, squelching along a muddy trench on the little island of Becsehely. "Water all around us." His wave encompassed the Bothnian Ocean not far away. "We might as well grow fins and turn into fish."

Szonyi shook his head, which made water fly off his waxed cloth cap. "I'd sooner turn into a dragon and fly away from this miserable place."

"Probably safer to turn into a fish," Corporal Kun observed. "The Kuusamans have too many dragons between us and the stars." He pointed upward.

"No stars to see now, not with this rain," Szonyi said. "No dragons to see, either, and I don't miss 'em one fornicating bit." Kun had disagreed with him about which impossible choice was better to make, but not even Kun could argue about that.

With a sigh, Istvan said, "If we were only fighting the Kuusamans, we'd do fine. And if we were only fighting the Unkerlanters, we'd do fine, too. But we're fighting both of 'em, and we're not doing so fine."

"We'll send you back to the capital," Kun said. "You can teach the foreign ministry how to run its business."

"It'd mean I didn't have you in my hair anymore." Istvan scratched. Something gave under his fingernail. He grunted in considerable satisfaction. "There's one louse that's not in my hair from now on." The satisfaction evaporated. "Stars only know how many I've still got, though."

"We all have 'em." Szonyi scratched, too. "You'd think the wizards would come up with a charm that could keep the lice off a fellow for more than a day or two at a time." He scowled at Kun, as if to say he blamed the mage's apprentice for the problem.

Kun shrugged. "I can't do anything about it- except scratch, just like everybody else." He did.

Lajos came up the trench. "Assembly!" the youngster called. "Captain Frigyes wants to talk to the whole company."

"Where?" Istvan asked. "When?"

"Right now," Lajos answered. "Back there, not far from the messfires." He pointed in the direction from which he'd come. At the moment, the rain had put out the fires.

Istvan nodded to the other two veterans who'd been through so much with him. "You heard the man," he said as Lajos went on to pass the word to more men in the company. "Let's find out what the captain's got to say." He slogged down the trench once more. Kun and Szonyi followed.

Captain Frigyes stood waiting while the soldiers gathered. He wore a rain cape. Instead of using the hood or a cap like Szonyi's, he had on a broad-brimmed felt hat in the Algarvian style. Even though the feather in the hat-band was sadly draggled, the headgear, cocked at a jaunty angle, gave him a dashing air he couldn't have got without it.

He returned Istvan's salute, and then those of his companions. "What's up, sir?" Istvan asked.

"I'll tell it all once," Captain Frigyes answered. "That way, I won't have to go over pieces of it three or four different times. You'll hear soon enough, Sergeant- I promise you that." Istvan nodded. What the company commander said made good sense. Even if it hadn't, of course, he couldn't have done anything about it.

A lieutenant, another sergeant, two corporals, and even a cheeky common soldier asked Frigyes more or less the same question as they came up. He gave them the same answer, or lack of answer. Istvan felt better to find out he wasn't the only nosy one in the company.

When just about everyone had gathered in front of Frigyes, he nodded to his soldiers and said, "Men, it's time to stop beating around the bush. Nobody talks about it much, but we all know the war isn't going as well for Gyongyos as it ought to be. We've got two foes, and we can't hit either one so hard as we'd like." Istvan preened in front of Szonyi and Kun. He'd said the same thing. Maybe he really did deserve a job in the foreign ministry.

Frigyes went on, "Most of you fought in the forests of Unkerlant. Some of you remember how, summer before last, we were on the edge of breaking out of the forest and into the open country beyond, and the magic the Unkerlanters made to help halt us."

Not likely I'd ever forget that, Istvan thought. The other longtimers in the company were nodding. Kun had a look of something close to horror on his face. Having at least a small fragment of a mage's talent, he'd not only felt the spell, he'd understood how the Unkerlanters had done what they'd done.

For those who didn't, Frigyes spelled it out: "King Swemmel's mages slay their own folk- the ones they reckon useless- to fuel that magecraft. The Algarvians use the same spell, but power it with the life energy of those they've conquered. Neither of those is, or could ever be, the proper Gyongyosian path."

"Stars be praised!" Kun murmured beside Istvan.

But Frigyes went on, "Still, we need to use that spell if we are to hold back the grinning dwarfs of Kuusamo."

Kun gasped. "No!"

"Aye," Frigyes said, though Istvan didn't think he could possibly have heard Kun. "We need it, for it has proved itself far stronger than any sorcery we have. But the essence of the spell is its use of life energy, not the murder of those who have done nothing to deserve it to gain that life energy."

"What's he talking about?" Kun whispered to Istvan.

Istvan looked at him in surprise. "Don't you know?" Kun was a city man. If this was what being a city man meant, Istvan was just as well pleased to come from a mountain valley. He understood how a proper Gyongyosian was supposed to think.

For Kun and any others who didn't, Captain Frigyes spelled it out again: "We are seeking volunteers among the warriors of Gyongyos. If you say aye, your name will go on a list to be held against time of need. Should the need arise, you will serve Gyongyos one last time, and the glorious stars above will remember your name and your heroism forevermore. Who now will step forward to show you are willing- no, to show you are eager- to serve Gyongyos in her time of need?"

"Madness," Kun said, though still quietly.

"No," Istvan said. "Our duty." His hand shot into the air. He wasn't the first, but he wasn't far behind, either. More and more hands went up after his, Szonyi's among them, till about two thirds of the company had volunteered.

"Stout fellows. I expected nothing less," Frigyes said. "Hold those hands high while I write down your names. I knew I could rely on you. I knew Gyongyos could rely on you. All through our army, officers are asking this question today. All through our army, I'm sure they're finding heroes."

Muttering under his breath, Kun raised his hand, too. "There you are!" Istvan said. "I knew you had a warrior's spirit in you."

"Warrior's spirit, my arse," Kun said. "If all you fools say aye, you'll hate me for saying no. That's the long and short of it."

He probably wasn't the only one to think like that; either, and he probably wasn't wrong. More and more hands went up, till only a few stubborn or fearful soldiers refused to volunteer. Frigyes had been no fool to ask all the men at the same time. They shamed one another forward.

When at last no more hands rose, the company commander nodded approval. "I knew you were warriors," he said. "If the stars be kind, as I hope they will, your names on this list will be only names and nothing more. But should the need arise to give of ourselves for Ekrekek Arpad, I know we will go bravely, and of our own free will. And I want you men to know one thing." He held up the list of names he'd taken. "My own name is here among yours. I am willing to give my life for Gyongyos, too. Dismissed!"

"That's a brave man, by the stars," Szonyi said as he and Kun and Istvan walked off together. "He put his name right down with ours."

Kun gave him a pitying look. Then the city man glanced over to Istvan. "You see it, don't you, Sergeant?"

"See what?" Istvan asked. "Szonyi's right- Captain Frigyes is brave."

"He's brave in battle. Nobody could say anything about that," Kun admitted. "But volunteering to be sacrificed doesn't prove anything about him one way or the other."

"No?" Szonyi asked. "You want your throat cut if Gyongyos gets in trouble? I don't, and I don't suppose the captain does, either."

Kun sighed, as if wondering why he met all the stupidity in the world. Szonyi started to get angry. Istvan sympathized with Szonyi. "What are you going on about?" he asked Kun. "Do you think the captain didn't put his name down on the list when he said he did? You'd better not think that." He started to get angry, too: angry at Kun, because he didn't want to be angry at the man who led them into battle.

"I don't think that, not for a minute," Kun said. "Don't you see, though? It doesn't matter."

"You keep saying it doesn't matter. I see that," Istvan answered. "The more you say it, the more I want to give you a clout in the eye. I see that, too. So either start talking sense or else shut up."

"All right, by the stars, I'll make sense." Now Kun sounded angry, too, and spoke with savage irony: "There's one captain for every hundred common soldiers, more or less. It's harder to be a captain than a common soldier. You have to do and know everything a common soldier does and knows, and a lot more besides. So when the time comes for the mages to start cutting throats, if it ever does, are they going to start cutting common soldiers' throats, or captains'? Which can they replace easier if they have to use them up?"

"Oh." Istvan walked on for a few paces. He felt foolish. He felt worse than foolish- he felt stupid. He glanced over at Szonyi. Szonyi wasn't saying anything, just tramping along with his head down and a half glum, half furious expression on his face. With a sigh, Istvan nodded to Kun. "Well, you're right."

That made Szonyi speak up: "I still want to give you a set of lumps. Maybe now more than ever."

"Why? For being right?" Kun asked. "Where's the justice there?"

"For being right in the wrong tone of voice," Istvan said. "You do that a lot."

"No, that's not it, not this time." Szonyi shook his big head. Water flew from the brim of his cap. "For making me see Captain Frigyes was talking sly himself. I don't want anybody saying one thing when he means something else, or when he doesn't mean anything at all."

"Clouds hide the truth," Kun said. "The stars shine down on it. They send out their light for us to see by."

Like everything Kun said, that sounded wise. Szonyi grunted and finally, reluctantly, nodded. Istvan wasn't so sure. Even as a sergeant, he'd seen that the tricks by which men led other men weren't so simple. Casting light on those tricks made leading harder. Considering the way the war was going, maybe Kun should have kept his mouth shut.

Garivald had never seen so many Unkerlanter soldiers in all his born days. They swarmed through the forest west of Herborn and clogged the roads north and south of the woods. With every passing day, the band of irregulars he led looked less and less important. In fact, it hardly seemed his band at all any more. Tantris gave more orders than he did, and seemed happier doing it.

No matter how happy Tantris seemed, people started slipping away from the band under cover of night. A couple of years before, they'd slipped into the woods the same way to join the irregulars. The first couple of inspectors- or were they impressers? -joined Tantris not long after Herborn fell to King Swemmel's soldiers. Garivald didn't like the way they huddled with the regular. He didn't like the way they looked at him, either.

After darkness fell that night, he spoke to Obilot in a low whisper: "I'm going to get away while I still have the chance."

She nodded. "You think they mean to shove a uniform tunic on you." It wasn't a question.

"I think they mean to shove a uniform tunic on me and send me wherever it's hottest and get me killed," Garivald answered. "After all, I've led fighters who weren't taking orders straight from King Swemmel's men."

"You're going to slide off?" Obilot said.

"I already said so," he answered. "I'm not going to waste a minute, either- I don't intend to be here when the sun comes up tomorrow." He took her hand. "This isn't the way I wanted to say goodbye, but…"

"I'll come with you, if you want," she said.

Garivald stared. "But-" he said again.

"But I'm a woman?" Obilot asked. "But they won't shove a uniform tunic on me? So what? I wish they would. It'd let me go on killing Algarvians. But you're right; they won't. And so I'll come with you. If you want."

"You know where I'll be going," Garivald said slowly.

"Back to Zossen," Obilot answered. "Back to your wife and your children. Aye, I know. That's why I said what I said the way I said it."

"What will you do once I get there?" he asked.

Obilot shrugged. "I don't know. That'll be partly up to you, anyhow. But maybe you could use somebody to watch your back on the way- and we'll have another few days together, anyhow. Past that…" She shrugged again. "I never have worried much about what happens next. When it happens, I'll worry about it."

"All right." Garivald kissed her. Part of him was ashamed of himself: he might lie with her a couple of more times on the way back to Annore, his wife. But another part of him eagerly looked forward to that. And yet another part warned he might well need a companion, and maybe a fellow fighter, before he got to Zossen. "Let's wait till midnight or so, and then we'll see if we can sneak off."

Getting out of camp, going from leader of the band of irregulars to fugitive, proved easier than he'd expected. No one challenged him as he slipped away. Tantris and the inspectors snored drunkenly by a fire. So much for efficiency, Garivald thought. Obilot joined him a few minutes after he left his hut. "If they really want to, they'll be able to follow our tracks in the snow," she said.

"I know." Garivald grimaced. "The Algarvians and the Grelzers could do the same thing in wintertime." Now he was worried about pursuit from his own side, from the side he still preferred to the expelled enemy and their puppets. He started away from the encampment. "Let's get to a road. Then our tracks won't be the only ones."

"How far is Zossen?" Obilot asked as they slipped through the trees.

"I don't know. Forty, fifty, sixty miles- something like that," Garivald answered with a shrug. "I was never more than a day's walk away from it till the redheads grabbed and and took me off to Herborn. They were going to boil me the way King Swemmel boiled Raniero, but Munderic waylaid 'em when they cut through the woods instead of going around. So I've seen Zossen and I've seen the forest and what's around it, but I haven't hardly seen whatever's in between, if you know what I mean."

Obilot nodded. "I hadn't been far from my village before the Algarvians came, either. Just to the market town. I don't think anything's left of either one of them. Our army fought there, but we didn't win."

"They were going to make a stand in Zossen, too," Garivald said. "But before they could, they heard the redheads had outflanked them, and so they fell back."

An icy breeze blew out of the west. Garivald steered by it. It was all he had, with clouds covering the stars. Somewhere not far away, an owl hooted. "I'd rather hear that than wolves," Obilot remarked.

"Aye." Garivald was carrying his stick, but his head went up and down anyway. A few paces later, he added, "Some of the wolves in these woods go on two legs, not four." Obilot laughed, not that he'd been joking. She had her stick, too.

They were both yawning when they emerged from the forest a couple of hours later. But they kept going till they struck the road. Even in the middle of the night, it had plenty of traffic: wagons and unicorns and behemoths and columns of marching men, all heading east. Garivald had to spring off to the side of the road again and again to keep from being trampled.

At sunrise, they came to a tent city that hadn't been there a few days before and probably wouldn't be there in another few days. "Can you spare us any bread?" Obilot called to the soldiers.

Had Garivald asked, the troopers likely would have cursed him or worse. But a woman's voice worked wonders. They got black bread and ham and butter and pickled onions. "Go on back to your farm, if there's anything left of it," one of the soldiers said in a northern accent. "Here's hoping you find some pieces worth picking up."

"Thanks," Garivald said. "Powers above keep you safe."

"Same to you," the soldier answered. "I may see you again one of these days. Wherever your farm's at, the inspectors and impressers'll be paying you a call sooner or later. They want everybody to join the fun- that's how things work."

"That's how things work," Garivald repeated bitterly as he and Obilot walked west against the flow of military traffic. "The worst of it is, he's right. Some locusts have two legs, too. Don't they know they have to leave some people on the land to keep everybody from starving?"

"Nobody from Cottbus knows anything." Now that Obilot was back under King Swemmel's rule, she mocked his officials, too.

They slept for a few hours in a wrecked peasant hut, lying in each other's arms under both their cloaks. When they woke and went back to the road, they couldn't go down it for quite a while: a great column of Algarvian captives filled it. Some of the redheads looked glum. Some seemed relieved just to be alive. And a few, with the lighthearted Algarvian arrogance Garivald had seen before, were doing their best to make a lark of it, singing and grinning and acting the fool.

"What'll happen to these bastards?" he called to one of the Unkerlanters herding the captives along.

"Oh, they're for the mines, every stinking one of 'em," the soldier answered. "Let 'em grub out brimstone and quicksilver and coal, so we get some use out of 'em. A short life and a not so merry one."

"Even that's too good for them," Obilot said. "I wish they had just one neck, so we could take off all their heads at once." The guard laughed and nodded. Any of the redheads who understood were probably less amused.

Garivald and Obilot fell in behind the column. They walked at whatever pace they chose. The Algarvians walked at the faster pace the guards set. Every so often, one wouldn't be able to keep up anymore. Garivald and Obilot walked past redheaded corpses in the roadway. Obilot kicked the first couple they passed. After that, she didn't bother.

A strange cracking noise made Garivald turn around to see what it was. Another, smaller, column of captives was gaining on him. These weren't Algarvians. They were men who looked a lot like him. They looked a lot like their captors, too. But their uniform tunics weren't rock-gray. They were dark green. Some of the Grelzers who'd been fighting for Raniero still lived, then.

Their guards hustled them forward, driving them even faster than the Unkerlanters in charge of the Algarvian captives. Garivald and Obilot scrambled out of the roadway to let them pass. And Garivald discovered what that cracking noise was: one of the guards carried not a stick but a whip, which he brought down again and again on the back of a Grelzer captive.

"Mercy!" the captive cried, in accents much like Garivald's.

"Mercy? For you?" His tormentor laughed. "By the time we're finished with you and your pals, filth, you'll end up envying Raniero, you will." The whip came down.

The Grelzer dashed forward, not in a run for freedom but straight toward an oncoming behemoth. As the beast raised a great foot, he dove under it. Red smeared the road when the behemoth took another step. The Unkerlanter guardsman cursed. Someone had escaped him.

Toward evening, Obilot again begged food from soldiers. "Here," one of the men said. "We can spare you and your man a tent for the night, too." To their own, they could be kindly. To their own who'd turned against them… Garivald fought to forget the sound the behemoth's foot had made as it crushed the life from the Grelzer captive.

Only a few peasants were left in the villages by the side of the road. Garivald asked an old man, "How far to Zossen?"

"Never heard of it," the fellow answered.

A couple of hours later, another old man said, "Zossen? A day, I think- maybe not even."

"No, a day and a half, easy," a woman insisted. They started to argue.

She turned out to be closer to right. Early the following morning, Garivald began recognizing the countryside. He might have done it sooner, but the fighting looked to have been heavy in these parts. He and Obilot walked on. Some time in the middle of the afternoon, he said, "Around that next bend, there'll be Zossen."

Obilot stopped. She looked at him. "You'll want to go on by yourself," she said. Rather miserably, Garivald nodded. He'd fought for his life with Obilot as well as lain beside her, but all his life before the Algarvians snatched him lay ahead. He wouldn't have come back if he hadn't wanted that. "Go on, then," Obilot told him. "I'll come along in a little while. We'll see how things are when I get there." When he still hesitated, she pushed him. "Go on, I told you. I knew how things were when we left the woods."

"All right." Garivald trudged on along the path. When he looked back over his shoulder, Obilot stood in the middle of the road, cradling her stick in a way that said she'd used it many times before and was ready to use it again if anyone bothered her.

But Garivald was looking ahead, eagerly looking ahead, when he rounded that last bend. Obilot was behind him now, in the path and in the past. Ahead of him lay the field he and his fellow peasants worked and…

Nothing.

When he looked to where the village had stood, nothing was what he saw. The Algarvians must have made a stand here. Not a house still stood: not his hut, not Waddo the firstman's two-story home, not his friend Dagulf's. None. The buildings of Zossen- the houses, the smithy, the tavern- were erased as if they had never been.

The people? His wife? His son and daughter? Maybe they'd fled. He shook his head. He knew what the odds were. Far more likely- likely almost to the point of certainty- they'd died with their village.

He was still standing, still staring, when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned. Obilot came up and put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry," she said. "Now you have nothing, too, just like me."

"Aye." Garivald's voice was still dull with shock. He and Obilot stood side by side surveying the devastation, both their lives in ruin.

Vanai was cooking rabbit stew with prunes and dried mushrooms when Ealstan gave the coded knock at their door. She hurried over to unbar it and let him in. When she did, his face glowed with excitement. That made her smile, too. She kissed him and then asked, "What's happened? Something has. I can see it."

"You'll never guess," he said.

She looked at him in amused annoyance. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to."

"You know how Herborn's fallen to the Unkerlanters," he said.

"Oh, aye." Vanai nodded. "The news sheets finally admitted that a couple of days ago, when they couldn't not admit it anymore, if you know what I mean."

"That's right- and the Algarvians and Plegmund's stinking Brigade were going to chase the Unkerlanters out again any minute now. I lose track of the lies sometimes," Ealstan said. "Well, Pybba knows more than the news sheets do. For instance, had you heard the Unkerlanters caught King Mezentio's cousin Raniero, the fellow he'd named King of Grelz?"

"No!" Vanai kissed Ealstan again, this time for bringing home such wonderful news. "What are they going to do to him?" To her way of thinking- Brivibas' way of thinking, too, but her grandfather never entered her mind- the Unkerlanters were barbarous enough to be capable of anything.

"They've already done it," Ealstan told her. "That's the real news. They held a ceremony in Herborn and boiled him alive."

"Oh." For once, the lurch Vanai's stomach gave had nothing to do with her pregnancy. "That's…" She didn't know quite what it was. "I wouldn't wish it on…" Why wouldn't you wish it on an Algarvian? she wondered. You've wished plenty of worse things on them, and what they've done to your own folk makes them deserve every one. "Good riddance," she said at last.

"Aye, just so," Ealstan said. "That's how they serve up rebels. And they slaughter their own folk when… to strike back at the Algarvians."

When the Algarvians slaughter Kaunians, he hadn't said, even if he'd started to. He tried to spare her feelings. And Forthwegians looked down on their cousins to the west hardly less than the Kaunians of Forthweg did. The only difference was, the Kaunians of Forthweg looked down on the Forthwegians, too.

Ealstan went into the kitchen and came back with two mugs of wine. He handed Vanai one and raised the other in a toast: "Down with Algarve!" He drank.

"Down with Algarve!" Vanai would always drink to that. The mere idea made any wine sweeter.

Over supper, Ealstan said, "One of these days before too long, Swemmel's men are bound to strike blows in the north to match the ones they're making down in Grelz."

"Is that something else Pybba knows but the news sheets don't?" Vanai asked.

He shook his head. "No. I wish it were. But it stands to reason, doesn't it? They'll want to run the redheads out of all of their kingdom, not just part of it."

"If they do run them out of Unkerlant, they'll run them back into Forthweg- and then they'll come after them," Vanai said. "That stands to reason, too."

"Aye." To her surprise, Ealstan didn't look so happy about it. He explained why: "We don't get rid of our occupiers. We only trade one set for another."

"It's a good trade," Vanai said. Ealstan nodded, but with something less than full enthusiasm. It would certainly be a good trade for Forthweg's surviving Kaunians; the Unkerlanters didn't much care about Kaunianity one way or the other. But an Unkerlanter occupation might not be such a good trade for the Forthwegians themselves. The men of Swemmel's kingdom liked them no better than they liked Unkerlanters.

Wistfully, Ealstan said, "It would be nice if King Penda could just come back."

Vanai reached across the table and set her hand on his. "Aye, it would," she said, giving him- and Penda- the benefit of the doubt as he'd given it to the idea of an Unkerlanter occupation.

As she was washing the supper dishes, Ealstan came up behind her and began to caress her. "Be careful," she warned him.

"I am," he said, and he was. Vanai had trouble concentrating on the dishes. Her breasts had grown more tender since she'd started expecting a baby, but they'd also grown more sensitive. After a little while, she decided the dishes could wait. She turned and put her arms around Ealstan.

Forthwegian-style tunics were easier to get out of than the short tunics and trousers she'd worn back in Oyngestun. Certain post-imperial Kaunian writers had used that truth to sneer at the morals of Forthwegian women. Back in the bedchamber, Vanai simply found it convenient.

Afterwards, she rubbed her upper lip; Ealstan's mustache had tickled her when their lips clung while they made love. "I'm happy with you," he said.

"Good," she answered. "I'm happy with you, too." She kissed him again, careless of that vicious mustache. She meant it. The accursed Algarvian officer who'd introduced her to what passed between man and woman might have been- probably had been- more skilled in this and that than Ealstan was. But so what? It wasn't even that Spinello hadn't wanted her to have pleasure. He had- so her pleasure could give him more. But his own delight came first, always. Ealstan wanted to give her pleasure for her sake, not his. He might have given a little less, but she took ever so much more.

Spinello went off to Unkerlant, she reminded herself. With any luck at all, he's dead, horribly dead, or else crippled or in torment from his wounds. A lot of Algarvian officers go to Unkerlant. Not so many come back in one piece.

"What are you thinking?" Ealstan asked. He would do that every once in a while, after lovemaking or just out of the blue.

Usually, Vanai felt obligated to answer with the truth. Tonight, she gave him only part of it: "I love you."

As she'd known it would be, that was the part he wanted to hear. He squeezed her to him. "I'm glad," he said. "I don't know where I'd be without you."

You'd be back in Gromheort with your family, she thought. If you weren't already married to some Forthwegian girl, you'd be pledged to one. You're too good a catch not to be. I ought to know.

But where would I be without you? Maybe I would have lasted long enoughin the Kaunian district in Gromheort to come up with the spell that lets Kaunians look like Forthwegians. Maybe. Or maybe somebody else would have come up with it by now. Maybe. She tried to make herself believe either of those things. It wasn't easy. Odds are, Mezentio's men would have shipped me west. I wouldn't be here worrying about it. I wouldn't be anywhere at all.

She clung to Ealstan. "I'm very lucky," she said.

He squeezed her again, this time till she could hardly breathe. "You make me lucky," he said. Vanai didn't know whether to laugh or to cry at that. It was absurd, but magnificently absurd. The baby kicked. "I felt that!" Ealstan exclaimed, which was hardly surprising, considering how tight he held her. "He's getting stronger."

"That's what he's supposed to do," Vanai answered. "He's getting bigger, too." She rolled away from Ealstan and onto her back, then lifted her head so she could look at herself. Her belly definitely bulged now. Pretty soon, even her baggy Forthwegian tunics wouldn't be able to hide her pregnancy any more. "And so am I."

He set his hand on the swelling below her navel. "That's what you're supposed to do, too." Before very long, his hand wandered lower. He was still young enough to be able to make love about as often as the thought crossed his mind.

As he began to stroke her, Vanai said, "This is how my belly started getting big in the first place."

Laughing, Ealstan shook his head. "My hand had nothing to do with that." But, what with what followed, Vanai wasn't wrong, either. Both of them slept soundly that night.

When they woke, it was later in the morning than usual. Vanai wasn't surprised when Ealstan told her her sorcerous disguise had slipped. She repaired it while he gobbled bread and almonds and wine for breakfast. "Is everything all right?" she asked when she finished the spell.

He nodded. "Fine," he said with his mouth full. "Pybba's going to burst like an egg if I don't get to work on time."

"No, he won't," Vanai said. "He knows you do good work, and he knows you do plenty of work, too. You just take him too seriously when he starts roaring and bellowing."

"If you'd listened to him roaring and bellowing as much as I have, you'd take him seriously, too." Ealstan dug a finger into one ear, as if to say listening to Pybba had left him half deaf. From her own brief meeting with the pottery magnate, Vanai could readily believe that. Ealstan gave her a quick kiss tasting of wine and hurried out the door. She rolled her eyes. He talked about listening to Pybba, but he hadn't listened to her.

She ate her own breakfast at a more leisurely clip. Then she put some silver in her handbag and went downstairs. Her thoughts of the evening before convinced her she needed a couple of new tunics, cut even more loosely than the ones she already owned. Forthwegian women just didn't display the contours of their bodies. If she was to seem a proper Forthwegian woman, she couldn't, either.

Down on the streets, news-sheet vendors shouted out their headlines. They still said nothing about King Raniero boiled alive. Their cry was, "Algarvian drive toward Herborn storms on! Plegmund's brave Brigade spearheads assault!" Vanai did not buy a news sheet.

She did buy a couple of tunics in a linen-wool blend. They would do for any but very cold days, and she could wear a cloak over them then. Picking colors was harder than it had been before she donned a Forthwegian appearance, and took a while. Forthwegians could and did wear stronger colors than she would have chosen while she still looked like her fair-haired Kaunian self. The shopgirl seemed to mean it when she particularly praised the green of one tunic, which left Vanai pleased with herself as she headed back to the flat with her purchases.

She didn't have far to go, but she'd got less than halfway when she noticed people staring at her. She wondered why, but not for more than a couple of strides. Then panic seized her. The spell must have worn off, leaving her looking like what she really was. In Eoforwic these days, what she really was could easily prove fatal.

Vanai began to run. Only a couple of blocks to the flat. If she could just get inside… She hurried past the apothecary's where she dared not stop anymore, rounded a corner- and almost ran over two Algarvian constables.

They were startled, but not too startled to grab her. "Well, well, what having we here?" one of them said. But he knew. They both knew too well. "You coming with us, Kaunian. Magic not working, eh? You arresting." Vanai screamed and kicked and clawed, but she couldn't get away. And no one on the street tried to help her. No one at all. Somehow, that was the worst of it.