Out of the Darkness

Four

When the knock on the door to Fernao’s chamber came, Pekka and he had just finished putting on their clothes. In a low voice, one that, with luck, wouldn’t carry out into the hallway beyond, Pekka said, “It’s a good thing he didn’t get here a few minutes ago.”

“I think it’s a very good thing, sweetheart,” Fernao replied as he headed for the door. His voice was so full of sated male smugness, Pekka started to stick out her tongue at his back. But she was feeling pretty well sated herself, and so she didn’t. Fernao opened the door. “Aye? What is it?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the crystallomancer in the hallway said. “I need to speak to Mistress Pekka. I checked her chamber first, and she wasn’t there, and. . well, this is the next place I looked. Is she here?”

“Aye, I’m here,” Pekka answered, coming up to stand beside Fernao. That the two of them spent all the time they could together was no secret from the folk at the hostel in the Naantali district. If it still was a secret in the wider world, it wouldn’t stay one for long. Sooner or later, word would get to Leino. Pekka would have to deal with that. . eventually. For now, she just asked, “And what’s gone wrong, or what does somebody think has gone wrong?”

“Mistress, Prince Juhainen would speak to you,” the crystallomancer said.

“Oh!” Pekka exclaimed. She stood on tiptoe to kiss Fernao-no, no secrets here, not any more-then said, “I’ll come, of course.” A call by crystal from any of the Seven would have got her immediate, complete attention, but Juhainen’s domain included Kajaani and the surrounding districts-he was her prince, or she his particular subject. “Did he say what he wanted?”

“No, Mistress Pekka,” the crystallomancer replied. She turned and started down the corridor. Pekka hurried after her. She looked back over her shoulder once. Fernao waved and blew her a kiss before shutting the door. She smiled and went on after the crystallomancer.

“I hope he won’t be angry because he’s had to wait,” she said when she and the crystallomancer reached the chamber that kept the hostel linked to the outside world no matter how beastly winter weather in the Naantali district grew.

“He shouldn’t be,” the other woman replied. “He’s been prince for a while now; he knows how these things work.” Juhainen’s uncle, Joroinen, had preceded him as one of the Seven, and had died in the Algarvian attack on Yliharma three years before. Joroinen was one of the main reasons her project had gone forward. Juhainen backed her, but not the way his uncle had.

His image looked out of the crystal at Pekka. “Your Highness,” she murmured, and went to one knee for a moment, a Kuusaman gesture of respect from a woman to a man that had a long and earthy history behind it. “How may I serve you, sir?”

Prince Juhainen was younger than she. He’d looked it, too, on first succeeding Joroinen, but didn’t any more. Responsibility was having its way with him. Pekka knew that weight, too, but Juhainen had more of it on his shoulders than she did. He said, “Mistress Pekka, I would give a great deal not to be the bearer of the news I have to give you.”

“What is it, your Highness?” Alarm flashed through her. Had the Seven somehow decided the project wasn’t worth continuing after all? That struck Pekka as insane, when magic she and her colleagues had created was used in Jelgava every day, and was one of the most important reasons the Kuusaman and Jelgavan armies had driven across the kingdom in less than half a year. She thought first of the project; that Juhainen’s news might instead be personal never crossed her mind.

Tiny and perfect in the sphere of glass in front of her, Juhainen’s image licked its lips. He doesn’t want to go on, Pekka realized, and fear began to edge its way into her alongside astonishment. The prince sighed and looked down at a leaf of paper on the table in front of him. Then, with another sigh, he said, “I regret more than I can tell you that, in operations west of the town of Ludza, your husband Leino fell victim to a sorcerous attack from the Algarvians. He and the mage with whom he was partnered both perished. They were resisting one sorcerous assault from the enemy when another, this one aimed specifically at them, struck home. For whatever they may be worth to you, Mistress Pekka, you have my deepest personal condolences, and those of all the Seven Princes of Kuusamo. We knew the work your husband did before the war; thanks to the behemoth armor he helped devise, many crews and many footsoldiers who might have died still live.”

Pekka stared at him. “No,” she whispered: not so much disagreement as disbelief. She’d hardly heard anything Juhainen said after he told her Leino was dead. Much more to herself than to the prince, she said, “But what will Uto do without his father?”

“What amends the Seven of Kuusamo can make, we will,” Juhainen promised. “Your son shall not lack for anything material. When the time comes for him to choose his course in life, all doors will be open to him. Of this you have my solemn vow.”

“Thank you,” Pekka said, almost at random. She felt as if she’d walked into a closed door in the dark: stunned and shocked and hurt, all at the same time. She believed Juhainen now, where she hadn’t a moment before. Disbelief was easier. Here, for once, she would have been happier not knowing the truth.

Ilmarinen would not approve, she thought dizzily. She knew her wits weren’t working the way they were supposed to: she knew, but she couldn’t do anything about it. People in accidents often behaved so; she’d heard as much, anyway. She wished she weren’t experiencing it for herself.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Mistress Pekka?” Juhainen asked.

“No,” Pekka said, and then remembered herself enough to add, “No, thank you.”

“If ever there is, you know you have only to ask,” the prince said.

“Thank you, your Highness,” Pekka said. Prince Juhainen’s image vanished from the crystal as his crystallomancer cut the etheric connection. Pekka got to her feet, vaguely surprised her legs obeyed her will.

“Are you all right, Mistress Pekka?” asked the crystallomancer who’d brought her to this chamber.

“No,” Pekka answered, and walked past her. She would have walked through her if the crystallomancer hadn’t scurried out of her way.

The next thing Pekka knew, she was standing in from of the door to her own room. She went inside and barred the door behind her. She hadn’t run into anyone on the way-or if she had, she didn’t remember it. She threw herself down on the bed and started to weep. All the tears she’d held back or been too numb to shed came flooding out.

Fernao will wonder where I am, wonder what’s happened, she thought. That only brought on a fresh torrent of tears-these, tears of shame. Powers above, if the knock on the door had come a few minutes earlier, we’d have been making love. Wouldn‘t that have been a perfect way to find out Leino was dead?

“It was only because you weren’t here,” she said aloud, as if her husband stood beside her listening. But Leino didn’t. He wouldn’t, not ever again. That finally started to strike home. Pekka wept harder than ever.

After a while, she got up and splashed cold water on her face. It did no good at all; looking at herself in the mirror above the sink, she saw how puffy and red her eyes were, and how much she looked like someone who’d just staggered out of a ley-line caravan car after some horrible mishap. Even as she dried her face, tears started streaming down her cheeks once more. She threw herself down on the bed again and gave way to them.

She never knew how long the knocking on the door went on before she noticed it. Quite a while, she suspected: by the time she did realize it was there, it had a slow, patient rhythm to it that suggested whoever stood out there in the hallway would keep on till she gave heed.

Another splash of cold water did even less than the first one had. Grimly, Pekka unbarred and opened the door anyhow. It might be something important, something she had to deal with. Dealing with anything but herself and her own pain right now would be a relief. Or, she thought, it might be Fernao.

And it was. The smile melted off his face when he saw her. “Powers above,” he whispered. “What happened, sweetheart?”

“Don’t call me that,” Pekka snapped, and he recoiled as if she’d struck him. “What happened?” she repeated. “Leino. In Jelgava. The Algarvians.” She tried to gather herself, but had no great luck. The tears came whether she wanted them or not.

“Oh,” Fernao said softly. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”

Are you? she wondered. Or are you just as well pleased? Why shouldn’t you be? Your rival is out of the way. How convenient. Nothing she’d ever seen from Fernao, nothing he’d ever said, made her believe he would think, did think, like that. But she wasn’t thinking very clearly herself right then. Sometimes, she did think clearly enough to understand that.

Fernao started to come into the room. Pekka stood in the doorway, blocking his path. He nodded jerkily, then bowed, almost as if he were an Algarvian. “All right,” he said, though she hadn’t said anything aloud. “I’ll do anything you want me to do. You know that. Tell me what it is, and I’ll do it. Only. . don’t shut me away. Please.”

“I don’t want to have to think about that right now,” Pekka said. “I don’t want to have to think about anything right now.” But she couldn’t help it; what ran through her mind was, Oh, powers above-I’m going to have to let Uto know his father isn‘t coming home from the war. That was another jolt, almost as bad as hearing the dreadful news from Juhainen. “For now, can you just. . leave me be?”

“All right,” he said, but the look in his eyes-so like a Kuusaman’s eyes in shape, set in an otherwise purely Lagoan face-showed she’d hurt him. “Whatever you want me to do, or don’t want me to do, tell me. You know I’ll do it… or not do it.”

“Thank you,” Pekka said raggedly. “I don’t know what the etiquette is for the wife’s lover when the husband dies.” Spoken in a different tone of voice, that might have been a joke. She meant it as a statement of fact, no more.

Fortunately, Fernao took it that way. “Neither do I,” he admitted, “at least not when-” Several words too late, he broke off. At least not when the lover has nothing to do with the husband’s demise, he’d been about to say: that or something like it. Lagoans weren’t quite so touchy or so much in the habit of taking other men’s wives for lovers as Algarvians, but some of the romances Pekka had read suggested they did have their rules for such situations.

She didn’t want to think about that now, either. In the romances, the wife was often glad when her husband met his end. She wasn’t glad. She felt as if a ley-line caravan had just appeared out of nowhere, run her down, and then vanished. Leino had been one of the anchors of her world. Now she was adrift, lost, at sea.. .

Had Fernao chosen that moment to try to embrace her, in sympathy either real or something less than real, she would have hit him. Maybe he sensed as much, for he only nodded, said, “I’ll be here when you need me,” and went down the hall, the rubber tip of his cane tapping softly on the carpet at every stride.

Pekka had never imagined she would have to compare a dead husband and a live lover. She found she couldn’t do it, not now. She dissolved in tears again. Tomorrow-perhaps even later today-she would start doing everything that needed doing. For the time being, grief had its way with her.

Colonel Sabrino had been at war more than five years. In all that time, he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of leaves he’d got. The ley-line caravan glided to a stop. “Trapani!” the conductor called as he came through the cars. “All out for Trapani!”

Grabbing his duffel bag and slinging it over his shoulder, Sabrino left the caravan car. No one waited for him on the platform: no one here knew he was coming. I’ll surprise Gismonda, he thought, and hoped he wouldn’t surprise his wife in the arms of another man. That would prove embarrassing and complicated for all concerned. One thing-he wouldn’t surprise his mistress in the arms of another man. That would have proved even more embarrassing and complicated, but Fronesia had left him for an officer of footsoldiers who she’d thought would prove more generous. Absently, Sabrino wondered if he had.

The depot had seen its share of war. Planks stretched across sawhorses warned people away from a hole in the platform. Boards patched holes in the roof, too, and kept most of the cold rain off the debarking passengers and the people waiting for them.. The sight saddened Sabrino without surprising him. All the way back from eastern Yanina, he’d seen wreckage. Some of it came from Unkerlanter eggs; more, by what people said, from those dropped by Kuusaman and Lagoan dragons. Now that the islanders were flying off the much closer islands of Sibiu, they could pound southern Algarve almost at will.

Our dragonfliers are as good as theirs, Sabrino thought bitterly. A lot of our dragonfliers are better than any of theirs. Anyone who s stayed alive since the beginning has more experience than a Kuusaman or a Lagoon could hope to match. But we haven’t got enough dragons, and we haven’t got enough dragonfliers.

Stretched too thin. The words tolled like a mournful bell inside Sabrino’s mind. Algarvian dragons had to be divided among the west-where King Swemmel’s men swarmed forward yet again-Valmiera, Jelgava, and the defense of the south against the air pirates flying out of Sibiu. How was one kingdom supposed to do all those jobs at the same time? It was impossible.

If we don’t do all those jobs, we’ll lose the war.

That was another painfully obvious truth. It had been obvious to soldiers since the battles of the Durrwangen bulge, perhaps since the fall of Sulingen. Any civilian with eyes to see would surely have noted the same thing after Kuusamo and Lagoas gained their foothold on the mainland of Derlavai in Jelgava. Now armies came at Algarve from the west and from the east. On which front will we lose ground faster?

Outside the depot, cabs waited in neat ranks, as in the old days. Sabrino waved to one. The cabby waved back. He hurried toward the cab. The driver descended, opened the door for him to get in, and asked, “Where to?”

Sabrino gave his address, or rather half of it, before stopping and staring. The cabby’s black uniform was the one he remembered, from heavy shoes to high-crowned cap with shiny patent-leather brim. But.. “You’re a woman!” he blurted.

“Sure am,” the cabby agreed. She was middle-aged and dumpy, but that wasn’t why he’d needed a moment to know her for what she was. Smiling at his confusion, she went on, “You haven’t been home for a while, have you, Colonel?”

“No,” Sabrino said numbly.

“Plenty of women doing all kinds of things these days,” the driver told him. “Not enough whole men-or crippled men, come to that-left to do them, and they’ve got to get done. Hop in, pal. I’ll take you where you’re going. You want to tell me again where that is, without choking this time?”

Still astonished, he obeyed. When he got into the passenger compartment, she closed the door behind him, then scrambled up to her seat. The cab began to roll. Sure enough, she could manage a horse.

Streets were rougher than Sabrino remembered. That wasn’t the cab’s elderly springs; it was poorly repaired holes in the roadway. Some of them hadn’t been repaired at all. Jounces made his teeth click together.

Everything seemed more soot-stained than Sabrino remembered, too. The reason for that wasn’t hard to find, either. Charred ruins were everywhere, sometimes a house or a shop, sometimes a block, or two, or three. The air stank of stale smoke. Just breathing made Sabrino want to cough.

There was the jeweler’s shop where Sabrino had had a ring-booty he’d taken in Unkerlant-repaired for his mistress. No, there was the block where the shop had stood, but only wreckage remained. He hoped Dosso had got out. He’d been doing business with the jeweler since just after the Six Years’ War.

Most of the people on the street were women. Sabrino had seen that on earlier leaves. It stood out even more strongly now. Even some of the constables were women. The rest were graybeards who looked to have been summoned from retirement. Most of the men not in uniform limped or went on crutches or had a sleeve pinned up or wore a patch over one eye or had some other obvious reason for not being at the front. Everyone seemed to be wearing somber clothing-some the dark gray of mourning, others shades of blue or brown hard to tell from it in the sad winter light. Women’s kilts had got longer, too. Sabrino let out a silent sigh.

The cab rattled to a stop. “Here you go, Colonel,” the driver said. Sabrino got out. The driver descended to hand him his bag. He tipped her more than he would have if she were a man. She curtsied and climbed up again to go look for her next fare. Sabrino went up the walk and used the brass knocker to knock on his own front door.

When a maidservant opened it, she squeaked in surprise and dropped him a curtsy more polished than the one he’d got from the cabby. “Your Excellency!” she exclaimed. “We had no idea …”

“I know, Clarinda,” Sabrino answered. “It’s not always easy to send messages from the front. But I’m here. The Unkerlanters haven’t managed to turn the lady my wife into a widow quite yet. Is Gismonda at home?”

Clarinda nodded. “Aye, my lord Count. Nobody goes out as much as we did. . beforehand. Let me go get her.” She hurried away, calling, “Lady Gismonda! Lady Gismonda! Your husband’s home!”

That brought servants from all over the mansion to clasp Sabrino’s hand and embrace him. The last time he’d had such a greeting, he thought, was when he’d managed to escape the Unkerlanters after they blazed down his dragon.

“Let me through,” Gismonda said, and the cooks and serving girls parted before her as if she were a first-rank mage casting a powerful spell. Sabrino’s wife gave him a businesslike hug. She was a few years younger than he; she’d been a beauty when they wed, and her bones were still good. She would have hated being called handsome, but the word fit her. After looking Sabrino up and down, she nodded in brisk approval. “You seem better than you did the last time they let you come home.”

“I was wounded then,” he pointed out. “You look very good, my dear-and you don’t look as if you were about to go to a funeral.” Gismonda’s tunic and kilt were of a bright green that set off her eyes and the auburn hair that, these days, got more than a little help from a dye jar.

Her lip curled. “I don’t much care for what people call fashion these days, and so I ignore it. Some fools do cluck, but the only place I care about hens is on my supper plate.” She turned to the head cook. “Speaking of hens, have we got a nice one you can do up for the count’s supper tonight?”

“Not a hen, milady, but a plump capon,” he replied.

Gismonda looked a question to Sabrino. His stomach answered it by rumbling audibly. As if he’d replied with words, Gismonda nodded to the cook. He went off to get to work. Gismonda asked Sabrino, “And what would you like in the meanwhile?”

He answered that without hesitation: “A hot bath, a glass of wine, and some clean clothes.”

“I think all that can probably be arranged,” Gismonda said. By the look she gave the servants, they would answer to her if it weren’t.

Sabrino was soaking in a steaming tub-luxury beyond price in the wilds of Unkerlant or Yanina-when the bathroom door opened. It wasn’t a servant; it was his wife, carrying a tray on which perched two goblets of white wine. She gave Sabrino one, set the other on the edge of the tub, and went out again, returning a moment later with a stool, upon which she perched by the tub. Sabrino held up his goblet in salute. “To my charming lady.”

“You’re kind,” Gismonda murmured as she drank. Their marriage, like most from their generation and class, had been arranged. They never had fallen in love, but they liked each other well enough. Gismonda sipped again, then asked a sharp, quick question: “Can we win the war?”

“No.” Sabrino gave the only answer he could see.

“I didn’t think so,” his wife said bleakly. “It will be even worse than it was after the Six Years’ War, won’t it?”

“Much worse,” Sabrino told her. He hesitated, then went on, “If you have a chance to get to the east, it might be a good idea.” He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t want to think about the Unkerlanters’ coming so far, but couldn’t help it. Gismonda’s thoughtful nod told him she understood what he meant.

Her eyes glinted. “Since you’re unfortunate enough to find yourself in Trapani without a mistress, would you like me to scrub your back for you-or even your front, if you’re so inclined?”

Before he could answer, bells started ringing all over the Algarvian capital, some nearer, some farther. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Enemy dragons,” Gismonda replied. “The warning for them, I mean. The dowsers are skilled, not that it helps much. Get dressed-quickly-and come down to the cellar. We can worry about other things later.” She sighed. “The capon will have to go out of the oven and into a rest crate. We will get to eat it eventually.”

The only clothes Sabrino had in the bathroom were his uniform tunic and kilt and a heavy wool robe. Without hesitation, he chose the robe. Even as he tied it shut, eggs began falling on Trapani. He’d delivered attacks and been under attack from the air, but he’d never imagined a pounding so large and sustained as this. And it went on and on, night after night after night? Gismonda did not have to hurry him down the stairs. He marveled that any of Trapani was left standing.

The cellar hadn’t been made to hold everyone in the mansion. It was cramped and crowded and stuffy. Even down here underground, the thuds and roars of bursting eggs dug deep into Sabrino’s spirit. Everything shook when one came down close by. If one happened to land on the roof, would everyone be entombed here? He wished he hadn’t thought of that.

After a couple of hours, he asked, “How long does this go on?”

“All night, most nights,” Clarinda answered. “Some of them fly away, but more come. We knock some down, but. .” Her voice trailed away.

All night long? Sabrino thought with something approaching horror. Every night? We never could have done that, not at the height of our strength. The height of Algarve’s strength seemed very far away now, very far away indeed. We are going to lose this war, and then what will become of us? The eggs kept falling. They gave no answer, or none Sabrino wanted to hear.

For the first time since the middle of summer, Ealstan couldn’t hear any eggs bursting. The fighting had passed east from Eoforwic. Algarvians no longer swaggered through the streets of Forthweg’s capital. Now Unkerlanters stumped along those cratered, rubble-strewn streets. If they’d expected to be welcomed as liberators, they were doomed to disappointment. But they didn’t seem to care one way or the other.

“Just another set of conquerors,” Ealstan said one afternoon, when he got back to the flat he shared with Vanai and Saxburh. “They look down their noses at us as much as the Algarvians ever did.”

“Powers above be praised that we’re safe and that this building is still standing, so we have a roof over our heads,” his wife replied. “Past that, nothing else really matters.”

“Well, aye,” Ealstan said reluctantly. “But if we rose up against Swemmel’s men, they’d squash us the same way the Algarvians did. That’s. . humiliating. Is Forthweg a kingdom, or is it a road for its neighbors to run through any time they choose?” Almost as soon as the question was out of his mouth, he wished he hadn’t asked it. Too many times in years gone by, Forthweg had proved to be nothing but a road.

But Vanai surprised him by answering, “I don’t know. And do you know something else? I don’t care, either. I don’t care at all, if you want to know the truth. The only thing I care about is, the Unkerlanters don’t march through the streets yelling, ‘Kaunians, come forth!’ And if I go outside and my sorcery slips- or even if I go outside without my sorcery-they won’t drag me off to a camp and cut my throat. They don’t care about Kaunians one way or the other, and you have no idea how good that feels to me.”

Ealstan stared. Maybe because Vanai had looked like Thelberge for so long, he’d let himself forget-or at least not think so much about-her Kaunianity. The Kaunians in Forthweg often found Forthwegian patriotism bewildering, or even laughable. That was one reason, one of many, Forthwegians and Kaunians rubbed one another the wrong way. And he couldn’t blame Vanai for thinking the way she did, not after everything she’d been through. Still. .

A little stiffly, he said, “When the war is finally over, I want this to be our own kingdom again.”

“I know.” Vanai shrugged. She walked over and gave him a kiss. “I know you do, darling. But I just can’t make myself care. As long as nobody wants to kill me because I’ve got blond hair, what difference does it make?” Ealstan started to answer that. Before he could say anything, Vanai added, “Nobody but a few Kaunian-hating Forthwegians, I mean.”

Whatever he’d been about to say, he didn’t say it. After some thought, he did say, “A lot of those people went into Plegmund’s Brigade-my cursed cousin Sidroc, for instance. I don’t think they’ll be coming home.”

“That’s good,” Vanai admitted. “But there are always more of those people. They don’t disappear. I wish they did, but they don’t.” She spoke with a weary certainty that was very Kaunian indeed.

The day was mild, as even winter days in Eoforwic often were. They had the shutters open wide to let fresh air into the flat. A couple of daggerlike shards of glass remained in the window frames, but no more. Now, maybe, I can think about getting that fixed, went through Ealstan’s mind. Maybe, in spite of everything, this city will come back to life again now that the Algarvians are gone.

Motion down on the street drew his eye. He went to the window for a better look. Through much of the summer and fall, he wouldn’t have dared do any such thing-showing himself would have been asking to get blazed. A couple of Unkerlanters, recognizable by their rock-gray tunics and clean-shaven faces, were pasting broadsheets on still-standing walls and fences. “I wonder what those say,” he remarked.

“Shall we go down and find out?” Vanai replied. “We can do that now, you know, I can do that now, you know.” To emphasize how strongly she felt about it, she switched from the Forthwegian she and Ealstan usually used to classical Kaunian.

“Why not?” Ealstan replied in the same language. Vanai smiled. Though she was more fluent in Forthwegian than he was in the tongue she’d most often used back in Oyngestun, he pleased her whenever he used classical Kaunian. Maybe it reminded her that not all Forthwegians hated the Kaunians who shared the kingdom with them.

Ealstan scooped Saxburh out of the cradle, where she’d been gnawing on a hard leather teething ring. She smiled and gurgled at him. Her eyes were almost as dark as his, but her face, though still baby-round, promised to end up longer than a pure-blooded Forthwegian’s would have. Vanai threw on a cloak over her long tunic. “Let’s go,” she said, and really did sound excited about being able to leave the flat whenever she wanted.

As usual, the stairwell stank of boiled cabbage and stale piss. Ealstan was resigned to the reek these days, though it had distressed him when he first came to Eoforwic. Back in Gromheort, his family had been well-to-do. He hoped they were well, and wondered when he would hear from them again. Not till the Unkerlanters run the redheads out of Gromheort, he thought. Soon, I hope.

Vanai pointed to the front wall of a block of flats a couple of doors down. “There’s a broadsheet,” she said.

“Let’s go have a look,” Ealstan said. Here in the street, another stink filled the air: that of dead meat, unburied bodies. The Algarvians hadn’t fought house by house in Eoforwic, not when it became plain the city would be surrounded. They’d got out instead, saving most of their men to give battle elsewhere with better odds. But a good many of them had perished, and some Unkerlanters- and, almost surely, more Forthwegian bystanders than soldiers from both sides put together.

The broadsheet’s headline was bold and black: the king will speak. Ealstan stared at those astonishing words. Vanai read the rest, “ ‘The King of Forthweg will address his subjects before the royal palace at noon on’“-the date was three days hence. “ ‘All loyal Forthwegians are urged to come forth and hear their sovereign’s words.’“

“King Penda’s back?” Ealstan’s jaw fell in astonishment. He grabbed Vanai and kissed her. “King Penda’s back! Hurrah!” He felt like cutting capers. He did cut a few, in fact. From Vanai’s arms, Saxburh stared at him in astonishment. He kissed the baby, too. “King Penda’s back! I never thought the Unkerlanters would let him show his face in Forthweg again.”

“I’m glad you’re pleased.” By Vanai’s tone, the news didn’t excite her nearly so much.

“Let’s go hear him when he speaks!” Ealstan exclaimed. His wife looked as if that wasn’t the thing she most wanted to do, but she didn’t say no. She might not share his patriotism, but she’d learned better than to argue about it with him.

And so, on the appointed day, Ealstan and Vanai and Saxburh with them went to the square in front of the palace. Ealstan wore his best tunic, not that it was much better than the others. Vanai hadn’t bothered putting on anything special.

Blue and white ribbons and streamers and banners-Forthweg’s colors-did their best to enliven the battered square and even more battered palace facade. In front of the palace stood a new wooden platform with a speaker’s podium at the front. Unkerlanter soldiers stood guard around it. More soldiers, these probably of higher rank, stood on it with a personage in fancy robes.

Ealstan got up on tiptoe, trying to see better. “Is that King Penda?” he said, almost hopping in his excitement. “Who else could that be but King Penda?” He took Saxburh from Vanai and held her up over his head. “Look, Saxburh! That’s the king!”

“I don’t think she cares,” Vanai said pointedly.

“Not now, but she will when she’s older,” Ealstan said. “She’s seen the king!”

The king did not come to the podium at once. Instead, one of the Unkerlanter officers strode forward. “People of Forthweg!” he called in accented but understandable Forthwegian. “I am General Leuvigild, King Swemmel’s commander for Forthweg.” What does that mean? Ealstan wondered. Before he could say anything, Leuvigild went on, “People of Forthweg, I give you a king who has struggled side by side with us to free your kingdom from the Algarvian invaders, a man who has fought alongside Unkerlanter soldiers rather than fleeing his kingdom for a life of ease and luxury, safe in Lagoas. People of Forthweg, I give you King Beornwulf I! Long may he reign!”

In dead silence, Beornwulf came up to the podium. A puppet, Ealstan thought bitterly. Nothing but an Unkerlanter puppet. Back before the war, he’d heard of Beornwulf a few times: the man was an earl or count with estates in the west of Forthweg. The man is a whore, naked in King Swemmel’s bed, and he prostitutes his kingdom along with himself.

“People of Forthweg, I will make you the best king I can,” Beornwulf said. “We are allied with Unkerlant in the tremendous struggle against accursed Algarve. We shall follow our ally’s lead, and in so doing regain our own freedom. So long as we do that, we shall stay great and free. I expect all my subjects to recognize the importance of this alliance, and to do nothing to jeopardize it, as I shall do nothing to jeopardize it. Together, Unkerlant and Forthweg will go forward to victory.”

He stepped back. More silence followed: no curses, no boos, but no cheers or applause, either. Quietly, Vanai said, “Well, it could be worse, you know.”

And she was right. Swemmel could simply have annexed Forthweg. Maybe rule from a puppet would prove better than direct rule by a puppet-master like the King of Unkerlant. Maybe. Ealstan wondered if he dared hope for even that much.

People started filing out of the square. They had to file past more Unkerlanter soldiers, men who hadn’t been there when the square filled. “What are they doing?” Vanai said, alarm in her voice. “They can’t be checking for Kaunians. They don’t do that… do they?”

“Your spell is fine,” Ealstan told her, and squeezed her hand. “And you dyed your hair not so long ago. You’ll get by.”

Not everyone got by. The Unkerlanters-there were a surprising lot of them-pulled people out of the crowd and let others through. They didn’t listen to the cries of protest that started rising. But nobody did more than shout. The Unkerlanters all had sticks, and likely wouldn’t hesitate to use them. Most people seemed to get through. Having no choice, Ealstan and Vanai went forward.

An Unkerlanter soldier looked Ealstan up and down. He paid Vanai no attention whatever. In what was probably his own language rather than Forthwegian, he asked, “How old are you?”

Ealstan got the drift; Forthwegian and Unkerlanter were cousins. “Twenty,” he said.

“Good.” The Unkerlanter gestured with his stick. “You come here with us.”

Ice ran through Ealstan. “What?” he said. “Why?”

“For the army,” the Unkerlanter answered. “Now come, or be sorry.”

“King Beornwulf will have an army?” Ealstan asked in surprise.

“No, no, no.” The Unkerlanter laughed. “King Swemmel’s army. Plenty of Algarvians to kill. Now come.” By the way he gestured with the stick this time, he’d use it if Ealstan balked. Numbly, Ealstan went. He didn’t even get to kiss Vanai goodbye.

Colonel Lurcanio had spent four happy, useful years in Priekule, helping to administer the occupied capital of Valmiera for King Mezentio of Algarve. He’d seen a great many other Algarvians leave Valmiera to fight in Unkerlant, a fate not worse than death but near enough equivalent to it. After the islanders landed in Jelgava, he’d seen other countrymen go north to fight there.

At last, with the Valmierans ever more restless under Algarvian control, there simply weren’t enough Algarvians left to hold down the occupied kingdom any more. And so Mezentio’s men had withdrawn from most of it, the bargain being that the Valmieran irregulars wouldn’t harass them so long as they were pulling back. Both sides had stuck to it fairly well.

And so I’ve become a real soldier again, Lurcanio thought. A tent in the rugged upland forests of northwestern Valmiera was a far cry from a mansion on the outskirts of Priekule. If he wanted his cot warmed, he could put stones by the campfire and wrap them in flannel. They were a far cry from Marchioness Krasta. Lurcanio sighed for pleasures now lost. Krasta hadn’t a brain in her head, but the rest of her body more than made up for that. Not for the first time, Lurcanio wondered if she was indeed carrying his child.

He had no time to dwell on the question. Instead of keeping Priekule running smoothly for Grand Duke Ivone, he had command of a brigade of footsoldiers these days. And they were about to strike. As soon as the Algarvians abandoned the northern coast of the Strait of Valmiera, Kuusamo and Lagoas promptly started pouring men and behemoths and dragons across the arm of the sea separating their island from the Derlavaian mainland. Algarvian dragons and leviathans did what they could to hinder that, but what they could was less than their commanders had expected-less than they’d promised, too.

“As if anyone with sense would believe our promises nowadays,” Lurcanio muttered. Too many of them had been broken. And so Kuusaman and Lagoan soldiers rampaged west through southern Valmiera, a few brigades of Valmierans with them. They were heading straight for the border of the Marquisate of Rivaroli, which had been Algarvian before the Six Years’ War, Valmieran between the Six Years’ War and the Derlavaian War, and was now Algarvian once more. How long it would stay that way. .

Is partly up to me, Lurcanio thought. He turned to his adjutant, Captain Santerno. “Are we ready?”

“As ready as we can be, sir,” Santerno answered. He was a young man, with perhaps half Lurcanio’s fifty-five years, but he wore two wound badges and what he called a frozen-meat medal that showed he’d fought in Unkerlant through the first dreadful winter of the war there. He had a scarred face and hard, watchful eyes. “Now we get to find out how good the islanders really are.”

His tone said he didn’t expect the Lagoans and Kuusamans to be very good. After what he’d seen in the west, his attitude proclaimed, nothing the islanders did was likely to impress him. And his eyes measured Lurcanio. He didn’t say, You ‘ve been sitting on your arse in Priekule, screwing blond women and living high on the hog, but what kind of warrior do you make? He didn’t say it, but he thought it very loudly.

What kind of warrior do I make? Lurcanio wondered. After four years of being a military bureaucrat, he was going to find out. “Do you think we can slice south through them, all the way to the sea?” he asked.

“We’d cursed well better, wouldn’t you say, Colonel?” Santerno replied. “Cut ‘em off, chew ‘em up. That’ll buy us the time we need here, maybe let us set things right against the Unkerlanters.” He didn’t sound convinced. A moment later, he explained why: “We’ve scraped a lot together to make this attack. We might have done better to throw it all at Swemmel’s bastards.”

“How would we stop the islanders then?” Lurcanio asked.

“Powers below eat me if I know, sir,” his adjutant said. “All I can tell you is, we haven’t got the men in the west to keep the Unkerlanters out of Algarve the way things are. I got to Valmiera just a couple of weeks before we pulled back. That was supposed to free up more men for the west, but they’ve been sucked up into Jelgava, or else they’re here in the woods. Seems like we can’t stop everybody.” He rolled his eyes. “Seems like we can’t hardly stop anybody.”

Stretched too thin, Lurcanio thought sorrowfully. Safe and warm and cozy in Priekule, he’d wondered about that. He’d sometimes even wondered about it lazy and sated in Krasta’s bed. But he’d been only a military bureaucrat, and so what was his opinion worth? Nothing, as his superiors had pointed out several times when he’d tried to give it.

“Tomorrow morning,” he said, “we’ll see what we can do.”

“Right,” Santerno said, and gave him that measuring stare once more. What will you do, Colonel, when you really have to fight?

They moved south out of the forest a little before dawn, under clouds and mist. The Lagoans and Kuusamans still hadn’t got accustomed to fighting in Valmiera. They hadn’t realized how big a force the Algarvians had built up, there in the rugged northwest of the kingdom, and had only a thin screen of pickets warding the men moving west on what they reckoned more important business. Bursting eggs and trampling behemoths and dragons painted in green and red and white announced that they’d miscalculated.

“Forward!” Lurcanio shouted all through the first day. Forward the Algarvians stormed, just as they had in the glorious early spring of the war when Valmiera fell. Disgruntled Lagoan and Kuusaman captives went stumbling back toward the rear, disbelief on their faces. Algarvian soldiers relieved them of whatever money and food they had on their persons. “Keep moving!” Lurcanio yelled to his men. “We have to drive them. We can’t slow down.”

“That’s right, Colonel,” Santerno said. “That’s just right.” He paused. “Maybe you haven’t done a whole lot of this stuff, but you seem to know what’s going on.”

“My thanks,” Lurcanio said, on the whole sincerely. He didn’t think Santerno paid compliments for the sake of paying them-not to a man twice his age, anyhow.

That first day, the Algarvians raced forward as hard and as fast as any of Mezentio’s generals could have hoped. A spear driven into the enemy’s flank, Lurcanio thought as he lay down in a barn to snatch a few hours’ sleep. Now we have to drive it home.

The roar of bursting eggs woke him before sunup the next morning. The bursts came from the south: Algarvian egg-tossers already up into new positions to pound the enemy. “You see, sir?” Santerno said, sipping from a mug of tea he’d got from a cook. “The islanders aren’t so much of a much.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Lurcanio answered, and went off to get some tea of his own.

Things went well on the second day, too, though not quite so well as they had on the first. Algarvians slogged forward through snow that slowed both foot-soldiers and behemoths. “We’ve got to keep going,” Santerno said discontentedly. “The faster we move, the better our chances.”

But the Kuusamans and Lagoans, no longer taken altogether by surprise as they had been when the attack opened, fought back hard. They also wrecked every bridge they could as they retreated, making Mezentio’s artificers spend precious hours improvising crossings. And the enemy seemed to have endless herds of behemoths, not the carefully hoarded beasts the Algarvians had accumulated with so much labor and trouble. They weren’t so good on the behemoths as the veterans who rode the Algarvian animals, but they could afford to spend their substance freely. Lurcanio’s countrymen couldn’t.

On the third day, the sun burned through the low clouds earlier than it had on the first two of the attack. “Forward!” Lurcanio shouted once more. The Algarvians had pushed about a third of the way down to the Strait of Valmiera, fairly close to the distance their plan had prescribed for the first two days. Lurcanio was more pleased than not; no plan, he knew, came through battle intact.

He was also weary unto death. He felt every one of his years like another heavy stone on his shoulders. I have had a soft war, he thought as he splashed south through an icy stream. A good thing, too, or I’d have fallen over dead a long time ago. Someone blazed at him from the trees beyond the stream as he came up onto the bank. The beam boiled a puff of steam from the snow near his feet. He threw himself down on his belly with a groan. I wish I could just lie here and go to sleep. Not far away, Captain Santerno sprawled behind a tree trunk. Lurcanio noted with a certain amount of relief that the hard-faced youngster looked about as haggard as he felt himself.

A couple of Algarvian behemoths lumbered up out of the stream. The egg-tossers on their backs made short work of the enemy footsoldiers in the trees. Lurcanio heaved himself to his feet. “Forward!” he yelled, and then, more quietly, spoke to Santerno: “Who would have thought it? We may really do this.”

“Why not?” his adjutant answered. “These Kuusamans and Lagoans, they’re not so tough. If you haven’t fought in Unkerlant, you don’t know what war’s about.”

Lurcanio had heard that song before. He began to think Santerno was right, though. Then, toward the afternoon, his brigade surrounded a town called Adutiskis. The road the Algarvians really needed to use ran through the town. The Kuusamans holed up inside threw back the brigade’s first attack, killing several behemoths Lurcanio knew his countrymen couldn’t afford to lose. He sent in a message under flag of truce to the Kuusaman commander: “I respectfully suggest you surrender your position. I cannot answer for the conduct of my men if they overrun the town. You have already fought bravely, and further resistance is hopeless.”

In short order, the messenger returned, bearing a written answer in classical Kaunian. It said, Powers below eat you. Lurcanio and Santerno stared at that. The hard-bitten adjutant swept off his hat in salute and said, “The man has style.”

“Aye,” Lurcanio agreed. “He also has Adutiskis, and it’s a cork in the bottle.” He led another attack. It failed. Mages brought up blonds to kill-maybe Kaunians from Forthweg, maybe Valmierans scooped up at random. Lurcanio asked no questions. Winning overrode everything else. But Kuusaman wizards in the town threw the spell back on their heads. “We have to get through,” Lurcanio raged. “They’re crimping the whole attack.”

The fourth morning dawned even brighter and clearer than the third had, and swarms of Kuusaman and Lagoan dragons flew up from the south. Eggs crashed down on the Algarvians’ heads. Dragons flamed behemoths one after another till the stink of burnt meat filled Lurcanio’s nostrils. The Kuusamans in Adutiskis held against a third attack, and then he had to turn men away from the town to try to contain an enemy thrust bent on relieving it. By the slimmest of margins, he did.

Even more enemy dragons were in the air the next morning. Every so often, one would get blazed out of the sky and smash down into the snow, but two or three fresh beasts always seemed to take its place. The Algarvian advance stumbled to a halt. “Did you ever see anything like this in Unkerlant?” Lurcanio asked Santerno.

Numbly, the younger officer shook his head. “We have to fall back,” he said. “We can’t stay out in the open like this. We’ll all get killed.” The Algarvian commanders took three days longer to realize the same thing, which gained them little ground and cost them men and beasts they could not spare. Adutiskis never did fall. And the way into Algarve lies open for the enemy, Lurcanio thought grimly.

Leudast had no trouble figuring out when he crossed the border from Yanina into Algarve. It wasn’t so much that the buildings in the villages changed, though they did-the Algarvians were given to vertical lines enlivened with ornamental woodwork that struck the Unkerlanter lieutenant as busy. It wasn’t even that redheads replaced small, skinny, swarthy Yaninans. More than anything else, it was the roads.

In Unkerlant, cities had paved streets. Villages didn’t. Often, good-sized towns didn’t. Roads between cities were invariably dirt-which meant that, in spring or fall, they were invariably mud. That mud had gone a long way toward slowing the Algarvian advance on Cottbus the first autumn of the war.

Yanina hadn’t seemed much different from Unkerlant, not as far as roads went. Oh, there was one paved highway leading east from Patras, but Leudast hadn’t been on it very long. Everywhere else, the rules he knew held good: paved streets in cities, dirt in villages and out in the countryside.

In Algarve, things were different. Every road was topped with cobbles or slates or concrete. Every single one, so far as Leudast could see. “Powers above, sir,” he said to Captain Drogden. “How much does it cost to pave over a whole cursed kingdom?”

“I don’t know,” Drogden answered. “A lot. I’m sure of that.”

“Aye.” Leudast clicked his tongue between his teeth. “I always knew the redheads were richer than we are. They have a lot more crystals than we do, their soldiers eat better food and more of it, they use supply caravans that put anything we’ve got to shame. But seeing their kingdom. .” He shook his head. “I didn’t know they were that much richer than we are.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Drogden said. “It doesn’t fornicating matter. The whoresons aren’t in Unkerlant any more, trying to take away what little we’ve got. Now we’re here-and by the time we’re through with them, they won’t be so fornicating rich any more. Most of ‘em’ll be too dead to be rich.”

“Suits me, sir,” Leudast said. “Suits me fine. I just don’t want to end up dead with ‘em. They pushed us back till they could see Cottbus. I’ve come this far. I want to see Trapani.”

“So do I,” Drogden said. “Bastards fight for every village like it was Trapani, too.” He spat. “They haven’t got enough men left to stop us, though.”

Leudast nodded. “Some of that last batch of captives we took look like they were too old to fight in the last war, let alone this one.”

“Some of ‘em won’t be ready to fight till the next one, either.” Drogden spat again. “Little buggers like that are dangerous, too. It’s like a game to them, not anything real. You and me, we’re afraid to die. Those kids, they don’t think they can. They’ll do crazy things on account of it.”

“They’re Algarvians,” Leudast said. “That means they’re all dangerous, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Something to that-something, but not everything,” Drogden answered. “The women, now. . Mezentio’s whoresons had fun with our girls when they came into Unkerlant. Now it’s our turn. Redhaired pussy’s as good as any other kind.”

“I expect it would be,” Leudast agreed. Drogden sounded as if he was speaking from experience. No one among the Unkerlanters’ commanders would say a word if their soldiers and officers raped their way through Algarve. Leudast hadn’t indulged himself yet. He didn’t know whether he would or not. Go without long enough and you didn’t much care how you got it.

“They’re all sluts anyway-Algarvian women, I mean,” Drogden said. “They deserve it-and they’re going to get it, too.”

“A lot of ‘em are running away from us as fast as they can go, for fear of what we’ll do to them,” Leudast said.

“That’s fine. I don’t mind a bit.” Drogden had a nasty chuckle when he chose to use it. “The more they clog their nice paved roads for their own soldiers, the more trouble they end up in. And when our dragons fly over, don’t they have fun?”

“Don’t they just?” Now Leudast spoke with the same savage enthusiasm as his regiment commander. “The redheads would do that to our peasants and townsfolk when they jumped on our back. Nice to let ‘em know what it feels like.”

Funny, he thought. I don’t mind seeing Algarvians torn to pieces by sorcerous energy from our eggs or flamed into charcoal by our dragons. I don’t mind that at all, except for the stink of the burnt meat. So why am I squeamish about throwing a woman down and stabbing her between her legs with my lance?

Before he could dwell on that, eggs burst close enough to make him flatten out on the ground like a snake. “They do keep trying to hit back,” Drogden said. “Well, they’ll pay for it. They’ll pay for everything.”

He was soon proved right. The Unkerlanters had many more egg-tossers up near the fighting front than the Algarvians did, and soon pounded the redheads into silence again. The push into western Algarve went on-till the redheads made a stand in a town called Ozieri. Instead of swarming into the town and fighting house to house, as they would have done earlier in the war, the Unkerlanters swept around it-a lesson they had learned from their Algarvian foes. Once Mezentio’s men inside Ozieri were cut off from help, the Unkerlanters could pound them and their strongpoint to bits at leisure and at minimum expense.

That didn’t bring out the Algarvian defenders. They’d learned their lessons in the long, bitter war, too. Their soldiers dug in among the ruins. Sooner or later, they would make the Unkerlanters pay the price for winkling them out. Sooner or later, we’ll throw second-line soldiers at them, Leudast thought. Losing those fellows won’t matter so much-and we’ll get rid of the Algarvians. Sometimes the game had steps almost as formal as a dance.

But the Algarvian civilians in Ozieri didn’t understand how the game was played. They’d never expected to have to learn; they’d left that lesson for the people of all the kingdoms bordering their own. When eggs started bursting among the homes and shops they’d cherished for generations, many of them didn’t know enough to go down to their cellars and try to wait out the attack. Those people grabbed whatever they could and fled east with it in their arms or on their backs.

What they didn’t realize was that it was too late for such flight. By the time the eggs started falling heavily, the Unkerlanters had already surrounded Ozieri. Civilians fleeing the place found themselves in just as much danger as soldiers would have-if anything, in more, because they couldn’t blaze back and didn’t know how to take cover.

Leudast blazed an old man with a duffel bag slung over one bent shoulder. He wasn’t happy about doing it, but he didn’t hesitate. For all he knew, the old Algarvian was one of the soldiers recently dragooned into the army, and the canvas sack was full of those nasty little throwable eggs the redheads had got so much use from the past few months.

Somebody blazed at him a moment later, from the direction from which the old man had come. He rolled behind a hedge, wishing the Algarvians hadn’t manicured their landscapes so neatly. A shriek from that same direction a moment later argued that some other Unkerlanter had taken care of the redhead with the stick.

Another shriek came from behind Leudast. This one was torn from a woman’s throat. By the way it went on, and by the laughs that accompanied it, he didn’t think she’d been wounded by an egg or a stick.

Sure enough, when he went back to check, he found three men holding her down and a fourth, his tunic hiked up, pumping away on top of her. The soldier grunted, shuddered, and pulled out. One of his pals took his place. “Hello, Lieutenant,” said the fellow on her right leg. “You want a turn? She’s lively.”

“She’s noisy, is what she is,” Leudast answered.

“Sorry, sir,” said the fellow who had her arms. “She bites whenever you put a hand over her mouth. We don’t want to get rid of her till we’ve all had a go.”

“Shut her up,” Leudast said. “She’s liable to bring redheads down on you, and you aren’t exactly ready to fight.” That got the soldiers’ attention. A rough gag didn’t stop the woman’s screams, but did muffle them. The man who was riding her drove deep, then sat back on his haunches with a satisfied smirk on his face.

“You going to take her, Lieutenant?” asked the soldier who had her arms. “Otherwise, it’s my turn.”

There she lay, naked-or naked enough-and spreadeagled. Would it make any difference to her if five men had her, or only four? Do I care? Leudast wondered. She’s only an Algarvian. “Aye, I’ll do it,” he said, and bent between her thighs. It didn’t take long. He hadn’t thought it would. And what had her brothers or husband-maybe even her son; he thought she was close to forty-done in Unkerlant? Nothing good. He was sure of that.

He didn’t feel particularly proud of himself afterwards: not as if he’d take a step toward overthrowing Mezentio. But he wasn’t sorry, either. Just. . one of those things, he thought.

“Behemoths!” The shout from ahead came in Unkerlanter, so Leudast supposed the Algarvians east of Ozieri had mustered a counterattack. They kept striking back whenever they could, even with the odds dreadfully against them. Here, if they could fight their way into the town, they might bring some soldiers out with them, and that might help them make a stand somewhere else.

As always, the Algarvians fought bravely. Their footsoldiers knew how to use behemoths to the best advantage. With skill and bravado, they pushed the Unkerlanters back about half a mile. But skill and bravado went only so far. Against dragons and many more behemoths and many more men, the counterattack faltered short of its goal. Sullenly, the Algarvians drew back.

Leudast waited for Captain Drogden to order the regiment forward again. That was Drogden’s way: to hit the redheads hard when they weren’t ready for it. But no orders came. “Where’s the captain?” Leudast asked.

An Unkerlanter pointed over his shoulder. “Last I saw him, he was going off behind that fancy house there. He had a redhead with him.” The soldier’s hands shaped curves in the air.

Leudast went after Drogden without hesitation. Fun was one thing, fun at the expense of the fight something else. “Captain?” he called as he went around the house, which was indeed a great deal fancier than any he’d seen in his own village. “You there, Captain?”

Amidst the yellowish brown of dead grass, rock-gray stood out. There lay Drogden, his tunic hiked up to his waist-and a knife deep in his back. There was no sign of the woman he’d had with him, or of his stick. Leudast scrambled away in a hurry-she might be lying in wait, ready to blaze whoever came after Drogden. But no beam bit or charred grass near Leudast. Still, he shook his head in blank dismay. Drogden was a careful fellow, he thought, but this once he wasn‘t careful enough. He shivered. It could have been me.

Skarnu found himself restless and discontented in Priekule. He’d thought that, when he came back after the Algarvians abandoned his beloved city, he would simply resume the life he’d led before the Derlavaian War called him into King Gainibu’s service. But going to one feast after another palled fast. He didn’t mind drinking a bit, but getting drunk night after night seemed a lot less enjoyable, a lot less amusing, than it had in peacetime.

And, of course, he’d gone to those feasts not least looking for some pretty girl or another with whom he might spend the rest of the night. Plenty of pretty girls still came to those affairs. Several all but threw themselves at him: almost all women with reputations for having slept with one Algarvian or another during the occupation. Maybe they think they’ll look better by going to bed with me, he thought. Or maybe they just want to make sure they’ve taken care of both sides.

These days, though, Skarnu wasn’t looking for a pretty girl. He’d found one- and one with a temper a good deal sharper than his own. “Thank you, my dear,” he told one noblewoman whose offer had left nothing to the imagination, “but it’s about even money whether Merkela would blaze you or me first if I did that.”

Her laughter was like tinkling bells. “You’re joking,” she said. Before Skarnu could even shake his head, she read his eyes. “You’re not joking in the slightest. How very. . barbaric of your.. friend.”

“My fiancee,” Skarnu corrected her. “She’s a widow. The Algarvians executed her husband. She hasn’t got much of a sense of humor about these things.” The noblewoman didn’t lose her bright smile. But she didn’t hang around long, either.

A mug of ale in her hand, Merkela came up to Skarnu a moment later. “What was that all about?” she asked, a certain hard suspicion in her voice.

“About what you’d expect.” He put his arm around her. “I know who I’m going home with tonight, though, and I know why.”

“You’d better,” Merkela said.

“I know that, too.” Skarnu chuckled. “I told Skirgaila you’d come after her-or maybe me-with a stick if she didn’t leave well enough alone. She didn’t believe me. Then she did, and turned green.”

“I ought to give her something to remember me by now,” Merkela said, with the same directness she’d used while hunting redheads.

Before she could advance on Skirgaila, Viscount Valnu came up, the usual mocking smile on his bony, handsome face. “Ah, the happy couple!” he said, and contrived to make it sound almost like an insult.

“Hullo, Valnu,” Skarnu said. Valnu didn’t seem to mind the endless rounds of feasts. But then, he’d been coming to them all through the Algarvian occupation, too. Aye, he’d been in the underground. Still, Skarnu was sure he hadn’t let that keep him from having a good time.

His arrival distracted Merkela. She didn’t know what to make of Valnu. But then, a lot of people don’t know what to make of Valnu, Skarnu thought. Skirgaila, meanwhile, had practically painted herself to the chest of another nobleman who hadn’t collaborated with the Algarvians. Skarnu nodded to himself. She wants to repair one sort of reputation, sure enough, and she doesn‘t care about the other sort.

With peasant bluntness, Merkela demanded, “Are you really father to the child Krasta’s carrying?”

Valnu’s blue, blue eyes widened. “Am I, milady? I don’t know. I haven’t looked inside there to tell.” That was bluntness of a sort Merkela wasn’t used to; she flushed. Chuckling, Valnu went on, “Could I be that father, though? Without a doubt, I could be.” He fluttered his eyelashes at Skarnu. “And now I’ll have the poor girl’s outraged brother coming after me with a club.”

“You’re impossible,” Skarnu said, at which Valnu bowed in delight. Even Merkela snorted at that. With a sigh, Skarnu went on, “I hope you are. All things considered, I’d not have the family dragged through too much dirt.”

“You’re no fun at all,” Valnu said. “I know what your problem is, though- I know just the disease you’ve caught.”

“Tell me,” Skarnu said, raising an eyebrow. “What sort of slander will you come up with? If it’s vile enough, I’ll haul you before the king.”

“It’s pretty vile, all right,” Valnu said. “You poor fellow, you’ve caught. . responsibility. It’s very dangerous unless you treat it promptly. I came down with it myself for a while, but I seem to have thrown it off.”

“I believe that,” Skarnu said. But he couldn’t stay too annoyed with Valnu. No matter how much fun the viscount had had here in Priekule during the occupation, he’d played a hard and dangerous game. Had the Algarvians realized he was anything more than a vacuous good-time boy, he would have suffered the same nasty fate as had so many men-and women-from the underground.

No sooner had that thought crossed Skarnu’s mind than Valnu said, “You know, it’s possible you’re being too hard on your poor sister.”

“And it’s possible we’re not, too,” Merkela snapped before Skarnu could answer. “That cursed redhead was hard whenever he was alone with her, wasn’t he?”

“Lurcanio? No doubt he was,” Valnu replied. The bow he gave Merkela was distinctly mocking. “And you’re learning cattiness fast. You’ll make a splendid noblewoman, no doubt about it.” He grinned. She spluttered. He went on, “But I still mean what I said. Krasta held my life in the hollow of her hand. She knew what I was, knew without the tiniest fragment of doubt after the late, unlamented Count Amatu met his untimely demise after dining at her mansion. Yet even if she did know, neither Lurcanio nor any of the other redheads learned of it from her. More: she helped make them believe I was harmless. So I beg both of you, do have such patience with her as you can.”

He sounded unwontedly serious. Merkela’s eyes blazed. Getting her to change her mind once she’d made it up was always hard. Skarnu said, “We have a while to think about it. Her baby’s not due for another couple of months. If it looks like you-”

“It will be the handsomest-or loveliest, depending-child ever born,” Valnu broke in.

“If it’s a little sandy-haired bastard, though …” Merkela’s voice was as cold as the winter winds that blew up from the land of the Ice People.

“Even then,” Valnu said. “There’s a difference between going to bed with someone for love and doing it from. . expediency, shall we say?” By his tone, he was intimately acquainted with every inch of that debatable ground.

But he didn’t persuade Merkela. “I know how far I will go,” she said. “I know how far everybody else will go, too.” She didn’t quite turn her back on Valnu, but she might as well have.

And Skarnu thought she was likely to be right. In a newly freed Valmiera where everyone was doing his best to pretend no one had ever collaborated with Mezentio’s men, bearing a half-Algarvian child would not be tolerated. The only reason Bauska had had as little trouble over Brindza as she’d had was that her bastard daughter seldom left the mansion. A servant and her child could hope to remain obscure. A marchioness? Skarnu doubted it.

“A pity,” Valnu murmured.

“How much pity did the Algarvians ever show us?” Merkela said. “How much did they show anyone of Kaunian blood? Did you ever meet any of the Kaunians from Forthweg who got away from them? You wouldn’t talk of pity if you had.”

Valnu sighed. “There is some truth in what you say, milady. Some, I have never denied it. Whether there is quite so much as you think.. ”

Merkela took a deep, angry breath. Skarnu didn’t want to see a quarrel-no, more likely a brawl-erupt. Maybe that was the disease of responsibility, as Valnu had said. Whatever it was, he had to move quickly-and delicately. Calming Merkela when her temper was high had the same potential for disaster as trying to keep an egg from bursting after its first spell somehow failed. Mistakes could have spectacularly disastrous consequences.

Here, though, he thought he had the answer. He said, “Shall we set our wedding day for about the time when Krasta’s baby is due? Whatever happens then, we’ll upstage her.”

That distracted Merkela, as he’d hoped. She nodded and said, “Aye, why not?” But she wasn’t completely distracted, for she added, “It will also help quiet the scandal if she does have a little redheaded bastard.”

“Maybe some,” said Skarnu, who’d hoped she wouldn’t think of that.

Merkela’s frown was thoughtful now, not angry-or not so angry. “As far as Krasta’s concerned, we shouldn’t muffle the scandal. We should shout it. As far as you’re concerned, though-”

“As far as the whole family is concerned,” Skarnu broke in. “Whoever that baby’s father is, it’s first cousin to little Gedominu, you know.”

His fiancee plainly hadn’t thought of that. Neither had Skarnu, till this moment. “They’ll have to live with it all their lives, won’t they?” Merkela murmured. Skarnu nodded. A bit later, and more than a bit reluctantly, so did she. “All right. Let it be as you say.”

“Do invite me,” Valnu cooed. “After all, I may be an uncle.”

Merkela hadn’t thought of that, either. Skarnu said, “We wouldn’t think of doing anything else. We’ll need someone to pinch the bridesmaids-and maybe the groomsmen, too.”

“You flatter me outrageously,” Valnu said. And then, pouring oil on the fire, he asked, “And will you invite the aunt, too?”

Skarnu wanted to hit him with something. But Merkela merely sounded matter-of-fact as she answered, “She wouldn’t come anyhow. I’m only a peasant. I don’t belong. I could be a traitor, so long as I had blue blood. That wouldn’t matter. But a farm girl in the family …”

“Is the best thing that ever happened to me.” Skarnu slipped his arm around her waist.

Valnu said, “Nobles wouldn’t be nobles if we didn’t fret about such things. It could be worse, though. It could be Jelgava. Jelgavan nobles make ours look like shopkeepers, the way they go on about the glory and purity of their blood.”

With a certain venomous satisfaction, Merkela said, “It didn’t keep their noblewomen from lying down for the redheads, did it?”

“Well, no.” Valnu wagged a finger at her. “You’re almost as radical as an Unkerknter, aren’t you? When Swemmel’s nobles turned out not to like him, he just went and killed most of them.”

“And the Unkerlanters threw Algarve back,” Merkela replied. “What do you suppose that says, your Excellency?” She used the title with sardonic relish. Valnu, for once, had no comeback ready.