Rulers of the Darkness

Nine

Tears ran down Vanai's face. She'd just finished chopping up a particularly potent onion when someone knocked on the door to the flat. As she hurried out of the kitchen, whoever it was knocked again, louder and more insistently. Fear blazed through her. This wasn't just a knock. This was liable to be the knock, the one she'd dreaded ever since coming to Eoforwic.

"Opening up!" The call came in Algarvian-accented Forthwegian. "Opening up or breaking down, by powers above!"

Vanai wondered if she ought to leap out the window and hope she could end everything quickly. The redheads wouldn't get the use of her life energy that way, anyhow. But she'd just renewed the spell that disguised her Kaunianity- and she was carrying a child. If that wasn't an expression of hope, what was?

She unbarred the door and worked the latch. The kilted Algarvian in the hall had his fist upraised to knock again. A couple of burly Forthwegian constables flanked him like bookends. He looked Vanai up and down, then said, "You are being Thelberge, wife to Ealstan?"

"Aye. That's right." More hope flowered in Vanai. If the Algarvian called her by her Forthwegian name, he probably wasn't going to seize her for being a Kaunian. Gathering courage, she asked, "What do you want?"

"Your husband is keeping books for Ethelhelm, the singing and drumming man?"

Ah. Vanai wouldn't let her knees shake with relief. If that was why the redhead was here, she could even tell the truth. "Ealstan did keep books for Ethelhelm, aye. But Ethelhelm hasn't been his client since late winter."

"But Ealstan is going- was going- to seeing Ethelhelm only a few days ago."

It wasn't a question. Maybe the Algarvian had talked to the doorman at Ethelhelm's block of flats. Again, Vanai could tell the truth, and did: "Ethelhelm did send Ealstan a note asking him to visit. But when he went to Ethelhelm's block of flats, he found Ethelhelm had left the building."

"He is knowing where the singing and drumming man is going- has going?"

"No," Vanai said. "He was surprised when he found Ethelhelm had gone. From what he told me, everyone was surprised when Ethelhelm left."

"That's the truth," one of the Forthwegian constables muttered.

"You husband Ealstan not hearing from Ethelhelm since?" the Algarvian asked.

"No," Vanai repeated. "He doesn't want to hear from him, either. They'd fallen out. I don't know what Ethelhelm wanted with him, and I don't want to find out, either." That was also true. She recognized how craven it was, but she didn't care. She only wanted that Algarvian to go away, and to take his Forthwegian henchmen with him.

And she got what she wanted. The redhead swept off his hat and bowed to her. "All right, pretty lady. We going. You seeing this Ethelhelm item, you hearing him, you telling us. We wanting him. Oh, aye. We wanting him. You telling?"

"Of course," Vanai answered: a lie, this time. The Algarvian and the two Forthwegians tramped down the hall to the odorous stairwell. Vanai stood in the doorway and watched till they disappeared. Then she shut the door, leaned against it, and slid halfway to the ground as her knees did weaken with relief.

As she put the bar back on the door, she realized what a narrow escape that had been. Ealstan and Ethelhelm might have fallen out at any time. If they had, and if Ethelhelm had disappeared not long afterwards, Mezentio's men would have come around asking questions. If they'd done it while she still looked like the Kaunian she was…

She went back to the onion and threw it in the stew pot. It still stung her eyes, but she didn't feel like crying anymore, not after she'd had her disguise tested and she'd won through to safety.

When Ealstan got back that evening, she told him about her adventure. He held her and squeezed her and didn't say anything for a long time. Then he set the palm of his hand on her belly and murmured, "You are all right. You are both all right."

Vanai needed a moment to realize he'd spoken Kaunian. She smiled and snuggled against him. Speaking Forthwegian had always seemed safer, and more and more lately. It wasn't that Ealstan was more at home in it than in Kaunian; that had always been true. But when Vanai wore Thelberge's seeming, she put on all the trappings that went with being Thelberge, including her language.

As he had when she told him she would have a baby, he went into the kitchen and came back with two cups of wine. "To freedom!" he said, also in classical Kaunian, and she happily drank to that.

He probably assumed they would make love after supper. Vanai assumed the same thing; they'd spent a lot of evenings doing that, both back in the days before she could leave the flat and afterwards. Her own left hand went to her belly as she spooned up more bean-and-barley soup with grated cheese and a couple of marrow bones. If they hadn't, she wouldn't have had a baby growing in there. She yawned. She wouldn't have been so tired all the time, either.

When they were done eating, she went out to the sofa and lay down. The next thing she knew, Ealstan was shaking her awake. "Come on," he said. "Time and past time to go on into the bedchamber. I've washed the dishes and put them away."

"You have?" Vanai said, astonished. "Why? What time is it?"

By way of answer, Ealstan pointed to their windows, which faced toward the southwest. They framed the first-quarter moon, now sinking down toward the horizon. He spelled out what that meant: "Getting on toward midnight."

"But it can't be!" Vanai exclaimed, as if he'd somehow tricked her, cheated her. "I just came out here to rest for a few minutes, and-"

"And you started to snore," Ealstan said. "I wasn't going to bother you, but I didn't think you'd want to spend the whole night here."

"Oh." Now Vanai sounded sheepish. "It caught me again." She yawned again, too. "Am I going to stay asleep till the baby's born?"

Ealstan grinned at her. "Maybe you ought to hope you will. I don't know much about what women do while they're expecting, but you were the one who said you wouldn't get much sleep after the baby's here."

That was indeed all too likely to be true. Vanai got up, cleaned her teeth, changed into a light linen tunic, and lay down in bed beside Ealstan. He went to sleep right away. She tossed and turned for a while. She was used to sleeping on her belly, but her breasts were too tender for that to be comfortable. She curled up on her side and…

It was morning. She rolled over. Ealstan wasn't there. Noise from the kitchen told where he'd gone. She went out there herself. He was dipping bread into olive oil and sipping from a cup of wine. "Hello, there," he said cheerfully, and got up and gave her a quick kiss. "Shall I fix you some?"

"Would you, please?" Vanai laughed a small, nervous laugh. "I didn't have any trouble keeping supper down. Let's hope I do all right with this, too."

"You haven't been too bad that way," Ealstan said, cutting her a chunk of bread, adding oil to the dipping bowl, and pouring wine.

"That's easy for you to say," Vanai answered. Some women, she'd heard, got morning sickness right away and kept on having it till their babies were born. She didn't know how long she'd keep having hers, of course, but she didn't have it all the time. Ealstan was right about that. Even a couple of meals disastrously lost, though, were plenty to make her wary about food.

This morning, everything seemed willing to stay down. She'd almost finished when Ealstan said, "Your spell just slipped."

"Did it?" Vanai raised a hand to her face. That was foolish; she couldn't feel any change in her looks, any more than she could see one.

Ealstan reached across the table and stroked her cheek, too. "Aye, it did," he answered, eyeing her. "That's the face I fell in love with, you know."

"You're sweet," Vanai said. "It's also the face that could ruin everything if anybody but you saw it." She got the yellow and dark brown lengths of yarn out of her handbag, twisted them together, and chanted in classical Kaunian: one use for her own first language that would not go away. When she finished, she looked a question to Ealstan.

He nodded. "Now you look like my sister again."

"I wish you'd stop saying that," Vanai told him. It was the wrong sort of family connection to have, especially now that she was pregnant.

"I'm sorry." Ealstan finished his wine. "If this cursed war ever ends, if you and Conberge ever get the chance to meet, I think you'll like each other."

"I hope so," Vanai said. She hoped with all her heart that his family would like her; so far as she knew, none of her own family was left alive. After a moment, she went on, "The one I truly want to meet is your father. He made you what you are. That first time we met in the woods, you said, 'Kaunians are people, too,' and that he'd taught you that. If more Forthwegians thought that way, I wouldn't have to worry about my magecraft."

"I know he'll like you," Ealstan told her. "He's bound to like you. You're difficult."

"Am I?" Vanai wasn't sure how to take that. It sounded as if it wanted to be a compliment.

Ealstan nodded. "Don't you suppose the Algarvians think you're difficult?"

"I never even learned that apothecary's name," Vanai said. It didn't sound like a responsive answer, but it was. Mezentio's hounds had been one man away from learning who'd devised the magic that let Kaunians look like their Forthwegian neighbors. If the apothecary hadn't had a lethal dose ready to hand, they might have torn the knowledge out of him. She wondered what they would do to someone who'd caused them so much trouble. She shivered. She was glad she didn't have to find out.

Ealstan poured his cup half full of wine once more, gulped it down, and said, "I'm off. I've got a couple of people whose accounts need casting, and another fellow, a friend of one of theirs, might want to take me on, at least to give his regular bookkeeper a hand. Pybba heads up one of the biggest pottery outfits in town, which means one of the biggest ones in the kingdom. He'd pay well. He'd better, or I won't work for him."

"Good," Vanai said. "I approve of money."

"Aye, my father would like you- will like you- just fine," Ealstan said. "That you're mother to his grandchild won't hurt, either." He got up and brushed her lips with his. She tasted the wine on them.

She stood, too, to give him a quick hug. "I'll do what I can around the house," she said. "And what I can't…" She shrugged and yawned. "I'll curl up like a dormouse and sleep the day away."

"Why not?" Ealstan said. "If Ethelhelm comes knocking, don't let him in."

"You don't need to worry about that," Vanai said. One of the reasons she approved of money was that it would let her bribe Algarvians at need. She never wanted to have to bribe them about her Kaunianity; that would leave her enslaved to them. But some silver might make them stop asking her questions about the singer. She hoped she wouldn't have to find out, but she could try it if she had to.

Through the winter, the woods in the west of Unkerlant had been quiet save for the sounds of men and men's magic. With the coming of spring, bird-songs burst out everywhere. The very air took on a fresh, green smell as the sap rose in untold millions of trees. Even some of the logs in front of the Gyongyosian army's redoubts sprouted little leafy shoots. But the Gyongyosians stayed on the defensive.

One day, Szonyi came up to Istvan and said, "Sergeant, the stars only know what kind of horrible scheme the Unkerlanters are hatching over there." He pointed east. "We ought to give 'em a good prod, knock 'em back on their heels."

Istvan shrugged. "We haven't got any orders." He shook his head. "No, I take that back. We have got orders- to sit tight."

"It's foolishness," Szonyi insisted. "It's worse than foolishness. It's going to get a lot of us killed." He waved his arms in disgust.

The motion drew Corporal Kun's notice. "What's eating him?" he asked Istvan, as if Szonyi weren't there.

"He wants to go out and kill things again," Istvan answered.

"Ah." Spectacles glinting in a shaft of sunlight, Kun turned to Szonyi. "When was the last time we saw anything that looked like reinforcements?"

"I don't know," Szonyi said impatiently. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"If we attack and use up our men and don't get any new ones, how long will it be before we haven't got any men left at all?" Kun asked, as if to an idiot child.

"I don't know that, either," Szonyi said. "But if we sit here and don't do anything and let the Unkerlanters build up and roll over us, how long will it be before we haven't got any men left that way?"

"He has a point," Istvan said.

"He should wear a hat on it," Kun said. Istvan laughed at the former mage's apprentice. Kun hated admitting that Szonyi could score off him.

Lajos, who was on sentry duty, called, "Who comes?" That sent Istvan and Kun and Szonyi and everybody else in the squad grabbing for sticks.

But the answer was immediate: "I- Captain Tivadar."

"Come ahead, sir!" Lajos said, and the men in the redoubt relaxed.

Tivadar did, sliding down into the trench behind the log barricade. Istvan hurried over to salute him. "What can we do for you today, sir?" he asked.

"Not a thing. Carry on as you were," his company commander replied. "I just came up to see how things were going."

"We're all right, sir," Istvan said. "Nothing much going on in front of us right now." Szonyi stirred, but didn't say anything. Seeing him stir made Istvan remark, "Been a while since we've seen any new men up here, sir. We could use some."

"This whole line could use some," Tivadar agreed. "Don't hold your breath till we get them, though, or we'll have one more casualty to replace."

"Something's gone wrong somewhere," Istvan spoke with the assurance of a man who had seen a great many things go wrong. "Up till not very long ago, we got- well, not everything we needed, but enough to keep us going from day to day. Now… Stars above know I mean no disrespect to Ekrekek Arpad or anybody else, but it's like people have forgotten we're here."

"You're not far wrong," Tivadar answered. "Things aren't going so well out in the islands in the Bothnian Ocean. I'm not giving away any great secrets when I tell you that. The Kuusamans keep biting them off one after another, and we're putting more and more soldiers into the ones we still hold. We don't really have enough men to fight that campaign to the fullest and this one to the fullest at the same time."

"By the stars, a couple of years ago the Kuusamans couldn't even throw us off Obuda," Istvan exclaimed. "What have they done since, and why haven't we done anything about it?"

Kun asked a different but related question: "Kuusamo is fighting us and Algarve, the same as we're fighting them and Unkerlant. How is it that they can divide up their forces but we can't?"

"Because, Corporal, their fight with Algarve is only a sham." Tivadar chose to answer Kun. "They face our allies with ships and dragons, but not with many men. What soldiers they have in the fight, they throw at us. Both our fronts are real."

"That's true," Kun said. "And if the Unkerlanters hit us hard here, we'll fall down like a stone-block house in an earthquake."

"Unkerlant's got two fronts, too," Istvan said, "and this is the one that's their sham."

Tivadar nodded. "That's about the size of it, Sergeant. We can grab chunks of their land here, but that's the most we can do. We can't take Cottbus away from them, and the Algarvians might."

Cottbus was only a name to Istvan, and not a name that seemed particularly real. Once, when the fight in western Unkerlant was new, Kun had calculated how long the Gyongyosians would need to get to Cottbus at the rate of advance they'd had then. It had been years; Istvan remembered that. How many? Three? Five? He couldn't recall. One thing seemed certain: if his countrymen weren't advancing toward Cottbus at all, they'd never get there.

That led to the next interesting question: "Sir, do you think we'll be able to hold what we've already taken from Unkerlant? The way things are now, I mean."

"Well, we're still going to try, Sergeant, sure as blazes," Tivadar replied. "The last time we talked about this, I was pretty sure we could do it. Now… It'll be harder. I'd be a liar if I said otherwise. It'll get harder still if we have to pull men out of the woods here so we can send them to fight on the islands. But the Unkerlanters have their troubles, too. We'll do our best."

"The stars favor us," Szonyi said. "With the heavens smiling, how can we lose?"

Tivadar walked over and slapped him on the back. "You're a good man. With men like you in our army, how can we lose?" Just for a moment, Szonyi held out his left hand, palm up, and looked at the scar on it. Tivadar thumped him on the back again. "You heard what I said, soldier. I meant it." Szonyi stood straight and looked proud.

Kun said, "How can we lose? That's why people fight wars- to find out how one side can lose."

Szonyi started to get angry. Istvan took a deep breath, casting about for the words that would put Kun in his place. But Captain Tivadar just laughed and said, "We need a few city men in the ranks, too. Otherwise, the rest of us would take too much for granted."

"He can't take it for granted that his-" Szonyi started.

"Enough!" Now Istvan's voice cracked sharp as a whip.

"Aye, enough." Tivadar looked from Kun to Szonyi and back again. His eye fell on Istvan, too, as his gaze passed from one soldiers to the other. "You are brothers, blooded together… in battle." The slight pause reminded them how they'd been blooded together for a different reason, too. But no one who didn't know about that other, darker, reason could have guessed it from the company commander's words. Tivadar continued, "Let no quarrel come between you now."

Kun nodded at once. City men didn't cling to feuds the way folk from the mountain valleys did. Szonyi took longer. Tivadar and Istvan both glared at him. At last, reluctantly, his big, shaggy head bobbed up and down, too.

"That's a strong fellow," Tivadar said. He turned and started to climb out of the redoubt.

"Sir? One more question?" Istvan asked. Tivadar paused, then nodded. Istvan asked, "Have we got enough mages forward to warn us if Swemmel's whoresons are going to turn that horrible magic loose on us again? You know the one I mean."

"I know the one you mean," the company commander agreed grimly. "What I don't know is the answer to your question. I'm not even sure mages can detect that spell before the Unkerlanters start slaughtering people to power it. We might do better to slide forward to find out if they're bringing peasants up toward the front."

"That's not a bad notion, sir," Kun said. "I don't mean just for us. I mean all along the line of these cursed woods."

"I'm no general. I can't give an order for the whole line. I can't even give an order for the whole regiment," Tivadar said. "But if you boys want to poke men out to the east to see what's going on, you won't make me unhappy. And now I will be on my way." He climbed the sandbagged steps at the rear of the redoubt and hurried off through the forest.

"He had a good idea there, Sergeant," Kun said. "If we could get some warning before the Unkerlanters started slaying…" He shuddered. "When they loosed that magic the last time, it was so vile I thought my head would burst like an egg. By the stars, I hoped my head would burst like an egg."

"All right, we'll do it," Istvan said, "though it'd only be luck if Swemmel's buggers had their victims in our sector. We ought to have scouts pushing forward all along the line. The Unkerlanters do, may the stars go black for them."

Before he could order anyone to go out and scout around in the woods to the east, an egg burst about fifty yards in front of the redoubt. A moment later, another burst less than half as far away. Before the third egg could land, Istvan was flat on his belly, his face pressed against the black earth. He breathed in a moist lungful of air smelling of mold and old leaves.

That third egg burst behind the redoubt, close enough that the blast of sorcerous energy made the ground shudder beneath Istvan's prostrate form. A couple of trees crashed in noisy ruin. Earth and twigs rained down on Istvan. He'd been through such pummelings before. Unless an egg burst right on top of the redoubt, he knew he was safe enough.

He was. His squad was. As more eggs burst all around, he exclaimed in dismay: "Captain Tivadar!" He didn't dare raise his head very far, no matter how dismayed he was.

"He has a good chance," Kun said, his head not an inch farther from the ground than Istvan's was. "He'd have gone flat when the first egg flew, and started digging himself a hole before the second one burst. You would. I would. The captain, too. He's no fool." From Kun, that was highest praise.

"We ought to go out after him," Szonyi said. "If it was one of us stuck in a storm like that, he'd go out and bring us back."

"We don't even know which way he went," Istvan said. But that sounded hollow even to him. Szonyi didn't answer. His silence sounded more reproachful than shouted curses would have.

Cursing on his own, Istvan heaved himself to his feet and left the redoubt. As soon as he was out in the woods, he went down on his belly again; eggs were still bursting all around. "Captain Tivadar!" he shouted, though his voice seemed tiny and lost through those shattering roars of suddenly released sorcerous energy. "Captain Tivadar, sir!"

Even if Tivadar did answer, how was Istvan supposed to hear him? His ears were bruised, overwhelmed, battered. An egg burst nearby, very close. A pine that might have stood for a hundred years swayed, toppled, and crashed down. Had it fallen at a slightly different, an ever so slightly different, angle, it would have crushed the life out of him.

Was that someone's tawny hair or a bit of dead, yellowed fern? Istvan crawled toward it, then wished he hadn't. There lay Tivadar, broken like a jointed doll some thoughtless child had stepped on. But dolls didn't bleed. A bursting egg must have flung him full force into a tree trunk.

At least he can't have known what hit him, Istvan thought. "Stars above preserve and guide his spirit," he murmured, and hurried back to the redoubt. He hoped his own end, if it came, when it came, would be as quick.

As winter gave way to spring, so Talsu accommodated himself to life in prison. He hadn't intended to do any such thing. But, as he'd found in the Jelgavan army, routine had a force of its own. Even when the routine was horrid, as it was here, he got used to it. His belly anticipated almost to the minute the times the guards fed him his nasty, sadly inadequate bowls of gruel. Afterwards, for half an hour, sometimes even for an hour, he felt as nearly content as he could in a small, stinking, vermin-infested cell.

Nearly. His best time in the prison was the exercise period, when, along with other captives from his hall, he got to tramp back and forth in the yard. Even whispers among them could bring the wrath of the guards down on their heads. The gray stone of the prison was as unlovely in the yard as anywhere else. But Talsu saw it by sunlight, a light that grew brighter almost ever day. He saw blue sky. He breathed fresh air. He began to hear birds sing. He wasn't free. He knew that all too well. But the exercise period let him remember freedom.

And then, like a drowning man sinking beneath the surface of the sea, he would have to go back into the gloom and the reek. Even that came to be part of the routine. He would put a lot of himself away, deaden himself, till the next time he got to go out and see the sun once more.

Whenever routine broke, he dreaded it. He had reason to dread it: routine never broke for anything good. The Jelgavan constabulary captain hadn't summoned him for several weeks now. Talsu hoped that meant the fellow had given up. He didn't believe it, though. If the authorities decided he was innocent- or at least harmless- wouldn't they let him go?

One morning, not long after what passed for his breakfast, the door to his cell came open at an unaccustomed time. "What is it?" Talsu demanded, alarm in his an voice. Any change in routine meant something that could- that was about to- go wrong.

"Shut up," the lead guard said. "Stand up." Talsu sprang off his cot to his feet. He said not another word. The guards punished without mercy anything that smacked of disobedience or insubordination. "Come along," the man at their head commanded, and Talsu came.

To his relief, he discovered he was not going down the corridors that led to the constabulary captain's lair. Instead, he was installed in another cell, even smaller and darker than the one from which he'd been taken. Light from the corridor leaked in only through a couple of tiny peepholes.

The guards stayed in there with him, which convinced him this change wasn't permanent. Their leader said, "All right, boys- gag him." With rough efficiency, the other guards did. Talsu wanted to struggle, but the sticks they aimed at him persuaded him not to. He wanted to protest, too, but the gag kept him from doing that.

"Here," said one of the men who'd bound the leather-and-cloth contraption over his mouth. "Now you get to look out." The guards shoved him up to one of the peepholes.

Doing his best to be contrary, Talsu closed his eyes tight. Whatever they wanted him to see, he would do his best not to see it. Then he felt the business end of a stick pressed against the back of his head. "If you make even the smallest sound now, I will blaze you," the lead guard whispered. "And that will not be the worst thing that happens- not even close to the worst. I almost hope you do sing out."

They were playing games with him. Talsu knew they were playing games with him. But that didn't mean he could keep from opening his eyes. What was so important that he had to see it but also had to keep silent about it?

There was the corridor, as uninteresting as the stretch of hallway in front of his own cell. What sort of foolish game were the gaolers making him join? A guard walked along the hall, into and out of Talsu's limited field of vision. Even if he'd looked full at Talsu, all he could have seen of him through the peephole were a couple of staring eyes. But he walked past the closed door as if it didn't exist.

"Not a word," the lead guard whispered again. Talsu nodded, but only a little. He kept his eyes to the peephole, he surely did. The guards had him going. Aye, he knew it, but he couldn't do anything about it.

Here came another guard, this one as indifferent to the door to Talsu's new cell as the first fellow had been. Behind him walked a woman. She wasn't a prisoner- her person and clothes were clean. At first, that was all Talsu noticed. Then he recognized his wife. He started to scream, "Gailisa!" in spite of the guard's warning. But he almost blessed the gag, which reminded him he must not make a sound.

Another guard followed Gailisa, but Talsu hardly saw him. His eyes were only on his wife, and he couldn't have seen her for more than two heartbeats, three at the outside. Then she was gone. The corridor was just a corridor again.

"You see?" the lead guard said with complacency that was almost obscene. "We have her, too. It won't get any better for you, and oh, how easy it can get worse."

He didn't bother ordering his henchmen to ungag Talsu before they took him back to his own cell. If any other captives were looking out and saw a gagged man marched down a corridor, what would that do except make them more likely to submit to escape a similar fate?

After they took Talsu back, after they released him from the gag, they let him stew in his own juice for a couple of days. Only then did they haul him out again and bring him before the constabulary captain who served King Mainardo as ready as he had served King Donalitu.

"Talsu son of Traku." The captain sounded reproachful. "Do you see what your stubbornness has got you? We had no choice but to bring in your wife for interrogation, too. And what she told us… I wouldn't say it looks good. No, by the powers above, I wouldn't say that at all."

I don't believe you, Talsu started to say. But he bit that back almost in the same way he'd bitten back Gailisa's name there in the cell with the peephole. Anything he said gave them a greater hold on him. He stood there and waited.

"Aye, she's turned on you," the constabulary captain said. "And she's given us enough denunciations to keep us busy for quite a while, that she has." He eyed Talsu. "What have you got to say about that?"

"Nothing, sir," Talsu answered. Eventually, this would end.

"Nothing?" Now disbelief filled the officer's voice. "Nothing? I can't believe my ears. Well, that's not what your pretty little Gailisa had to say. She sang like a redbreast- and she sang about you." He pointed a forefinger at Talsu as if it were a stick.

That bit of overacting convinced Talsu of what he'd only hoped before: that the captain was lying. He was sure Gailisa would never betray him, not like that, not for anything. He said, "Well, sir, you've already got me."

"And we'll have all the rebels in Skrunda before long," the constabulary captain said. "Make it easy on yourself like your wife did. Help us."

"But I have no names to give you," Talsu said, more than a little desperation in his voice. "We've cut these trousers before." He knew what would come at the end of such protestations, too: another beating. If that was the routine for interrogations, he wouldn't be sorry to disrupt it.

Sure enough, the guards behind him growled in eager anticipation. They knew what would come, too, and they looked forward to it. So much in life depended on whether one did or was done to.

"Here." The captain picked up a sheet of paper with writing on it and waved it in Talsu's face. "Your wife has given us a list of names. You see? She's not so shy, not so shy at all. And now, for both your sakes, I'd better have a list of names from you. And a good many of the names on it had better match the ones on this list here, or you'll be even sorrier than you are already. You may take that to the bank, Talsu son of Traku."

Seeing the list did rock Talsu. Was the constable lying? Or had Gailisa given him names? Would she do that, in the hope of freeing Talsu? She might. Talsu knew only too well that she might. She'd never betray him, but she might betray others to save him. He might have done the same for her.

What names would she give, though? She wouldn't know anyone who really was involved in fighting the Algarvian occupiers. Such people did not advertise. Talsu had gone looking for them when he started learning classical Kaunian, and whom had he found? Kugu the silversmith, Kugu the traitor. Which meant…

"Curse you," Talsu said, and the guards behind him growled again. But, before they could do anything more than growl, he went on, "Let me have some paper and a pen. I'll give you what you want. Just leave my wife alone."

"I knew we would find a key to pick your lock." The constabulary captain smiled broadly. With an almost Algarvian flourish, he passed Talsu the writing tools. "Remember what I told you."

"I'm not likely to forget," Talsu mumbled as he started to write.

He still didn't know for a fact that Gailisa had given the constabulary captain any names at all. The fellow hadn't let him get a good enough look at the list to recognize her writing. But if she had written down names, whose names would they be?

Most likely, Talsu judged, the names of people who liked the Algarvians well enough but weren't out-and-out lickspittles- using those would have made what she was up to only too clear. Talsu knew a good many people of that sort. And the redheads and their Jelgavan hounds wouldn't be able to trust people like that: after all, such folk might just be putting up a good front.

And so, wishing the worst to those who seemed happy under an Algarvian puppet king, Talsu set down a dozen names and then, after a little thought, three or four more. He passed his list back to the constabulary captain. "These are the ones I can think of."

"Let's see what we've got." The captain compared the sheet he'd got from Talsu to the one he'd waved. Maybe Gailisa really had given him a list. Maybe he wasn't such a dreadful actor after all. He clicked his tongue between his teeth. "Isn't that interesting?" he murmured. "There are some matches. I must admit I'm a little surprised. You took a long time coming to your senses, Talsu son of Traku, but I'm glad you've finally seen who has the strength in this new and greater Jelgava."

"That's pretty plain," Talsu said, which wasn't altogether untrue: had things been the other way round, men who served redheaded King Mainardo could never had laid hands on Gailisa.

"We shall have to do some more investigating- aye, indeed we shall," the captain said, at least half to himself. "Powers above only know what may have been going on right under our noses. Well, if it was, we'll put a stop to it. Aye, we will."

"What about me?" Talsu demanded. "I've given you what you wanted." He sounded like a girl who'd just let a seducer have his way with her. He felt like that, too. He'd yielded, but the constabulary captain wasn't doing anything for him.

The captain tapped the list with a fingernail. "What about you? I don't know yet. We'll find out. If you've done us some good, we'll do you some good. If you haven't…" He tapped it again. "If you haven't, you'll be sorry you tried to get clever with us." He nodded to the guards. "Take him back to his cell."

Back Talsu went. The guards didn't work him over. That was something. He returned to his place in time for supper. That was something, too. Routine returned. He wondered when it would end again… when, and how.

Pybba the pottery magnate was about fifty, with energy enough to wear down any three men half his age. He certainly left Ealstan panting. "Don't complain," he boomed. "Don't carp. Just do the work, young fellow. As long as you do the work, everything will be fine. That's why I sacked the bookkeeper I had before you: he couldn't keep up. Couldn't come close to keeping up. I need someone who will attend. If you will, I'll pay you. If you won't, I'll boot you out on your arse. Is that plain enough?"

He'd been standing much too close to Ealstan, and all but bellowing in his ear. With his most innocent expression, Ealstan looked up from the accounts he'd been casting and said, "No, sir. I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about."

Pybba stared. "Wha-at?" he rumbled. Then he realized Ealstan was pulling his leg. He rumbled again, this time with laughter. "You've got spunk, young fellow, I'll say that for you. But have you got staying power? -and I don't want to hear what your wife thinks."

That made Ealstan laugh, too, if a little uncomfortably. "I'm managing so far. And you pay well enough."

"Do the work and you earn the money. That's only fair," Pybba said. "Do the work. If you don't do the work, the powers below are welcome to you- and I'll give 'em horseradish and capers to eat you with."

Ealstan could have done the work better and faster if Pybba hadn't hovered there haranguing him. But Pybba, as best he could see, harangued everybody about everything. He also worked harder than any of his employees. As far as Ealstan was concerned, his example was a lot more persuasive than his lectures.

Eventually, Pybba went off to yell at someone else: the kilnmaster, as Ealstan- and everyone else within earshot- soon realized. Not paying attention to Pybba when he wasn't talking to them was a skill a lot of people who worked for him had acquired. Ealstan hadn't, not yet, but he was learning.

He was also learning a demon of a lot about bookkeeping. Nobody back in Gromheort ran a business a quarter the size of Pybba's. Ethelhelm had made almost as much money, but his accounts were straightforward by comparison. With Pybba, it wasn't just the right hand not knowing what the left was doing. A lot of his fingers hadn't been introduced to one another.

"Well, what do you think this is?" he demanded when Ealstan asked him about an incidental expense.

"It looks like a bribe to keep the Algarvians sweet," Ealstan answered.

Pybba beamed at him. "Ah, good. You're not a blind man. Have to stay in business, you know."

"Aye," Ealstan said. Pybba was a full-blooded Forthwegian; he had to pay out less than Ethelhelm had to stay in business. The Algarvians couldn't seize him merely for existing, as they could with the half-breed band leader. After some thought, Ealstan shook his head. The Algarvians could do that if they wanted to badly enough; they could do anything if they wanted to badly enough. But they had far less reason to want to than they did with Ethelhelm.

Because the Algarvians didn't force his bribes to rise out of the range of ordinary thievery, Pybba was making money almost faster than he knew what to do with it. "And he should be making even more than he is," Ealstan said to Vanai one evening over supper. "I don't quite know where some of it's going."

"Well, you said he pays his people well," she answered around one of a long series of yawns. "He's paying you well, that's certain. And he hired you just about full-time soon enough."

"Oh, he does," Ealstan agreed. "And he is, and he did. But that's all in the open- all in the books. Somewhere, money's leaking out of things. Not a whole lot, mind you, but it is."

"Is somebody stealing from Pybba?" Vanai asked. "Or is that what he's paying Mezentio's men so they won't bother him?" She knew how the redheads operated.

"It's not bribes," Ealstan said. "Those are on the books, too, though that's not what they're called. Someone stealing? I don't know. It wouldn't be easy, and you're right- he pays well enough, you'd have to be a greedy fool to want more."

"Plenty of people are greedy fools," Vanai pointed out. Ealstan couldn't disagree with that.

He still had clients other than Pybba, though the pottery magnate swallowed more and more of his hours. He kept trying to find out how and why Pybba wasn't making quite so much money as he should have. He kept trying, and kept failing. He imagined his father looking over his shoulder and making disapproving noises. As far as Hestan was concerned, numbers were as transparent as glass. Ealstan had thought they were, too, but all he found here was opacity.

At last, baffled, he brought the matter to Pybba's notice, saying, "I think you have a thief, but I'm cursed if I can see where. Whoever's doing this is more clever than I am. Maybe you ought to have him casting your accounts instead of me."

"A thief?" Pybba's hard face darkened with anger. "You'd better show me what you've found, lad. If I can figure out who the son of a whore is, I'll break him in half." He didn't sound as if he were joking.

"I hope you can figure it out, because I can't," Ealstan answered. "And I have to tell you, I haven't really found anything. All I've noticed is that something is lost, and I'm not even sure where."

"Let me have a look," Pybba said.

Ealstan guided him through it, showing how things didn't quite add up. He said, "I've been looking back through the books, too, trying to find out how long this has been going on. I'm sure it was happening while your last bookkeeper before me was here. The other thing I'm sure of is that he didn't even notice."

"Him? He wouldn't have noticed a naked woman if she got into bed with him, he wouldn't." Pybba snorted in fine contempt. The finger he used to mark his place darted now here, now there, as he followed the track Ealstan set out for him. He clicked his tongue between his teeth. "Well, well, young fellow. Isn't that interesting?"

"That's not the word I'd use," Ealstan answered. "The word I'd use is larcenous." He hated cooked books. They offended his sense of order. In that as in so many things, he was very much his father's son.

Then Pybba astonished him. Instead of furiously bursting like an egg and blasting his bookkeeper- and maybe the office, too- to smithereens, he set a hand on Ealstan's shoulder and said, "I'm going to pay you a bonus for finding this. You've earned it; I don't think one man in ten would have noticed any of it, let alone all of it. But it's not so much of a much. You don't need to fret yourself over it, the way you've been doing."

"Are you sure?" Ealstan asked, in lieu of, Are you out of your mind? "Somebody's stealing from you. If he's stealing not so much from you now, he's liable to steal a lot more later. And even a little hurts. And it's wrong." He spoke that last with great conviction.

Pybba said, "All sorts of things are wrong. You can start with the redheads and go on from there. I'm not going to get excited about this. It's not big enough to get excited about. And if you've got any sense, you won't get excited about it, either."

He phrased that as a request but plainly meant it as an order. Ealstan didn't see how he could disobey it, however much he might want to. But he did speak up, in plaintive tones: "I don't understand."

"I know that. I noticed." Pybba let out a gruff chuckle. "But you don't get silver for understanding. You get silver for keeping my books. You're good at that. You've proved it. You'll get your bonus, too, like I said. But if I'm not worried about this, nobody else needs to be."

That made the third time he'd said pretty much the same thing. Ealstan was- had to be- convinced he meant it, which brought him no closer to following Pybba's mind. He slammed the ledgers shut one after another, to show without words what he thought. Pybba only chuckled again, which irked him further.

But the pottery magnate, though he could be as sharp-tongued as the sherds that sprang from his trade, was a man of his word. When he gave Ealstan his next week's pay, he included the promised bonus. The size of it made Ealstan's eyes go big. "This is too much," he blurted.

Pybba threw back his head and roared laughter. "By the powers above, I've heard plenty whine that they got too little, but never till now the other way round. Go on, go home; spend it. You've said your wife is big with child, haven't you? Aye, I know you have. With a brat on the way, there's no such thing as too much money."

Coins heavy and jingling in his belt pouch, Ealstan went back to his flat in something of a daze. Vanai clapped her hands together in delight when she saw how much Pybba had given him. "He knows you're good," she said proudly.

Ealstan shook his head. He separated the silver into two gleaming piles. Pointing to the smaller one, he said, "This is what he pays me for being good." Then he pointed to the bigger one. "And this is what he paid me for… powers above only know what."

"For being good at what you do," Vanai repeated, showing more faith in him than he had in himself. "If you weren't good, you wouldn't have seen what you saw, and you wouldn't have got this."

Her logic was as good as a geometry master's- up to a point. Ealstan said, "I still don't know what in blazes I saw. And he's not paying me because I saw it. He'd be pushing hard after whoever was stealing from him if that were so. No. He's paying me-" He broke off. When he spoke again, it was with sudden new certainty: "He's paying me to keep my mouth shut, that's what he's doing. It can't be anything else."

"Keep your mouth shut about what?" Vanai asked.

"About seeing this- whatever it is," Ealstan answered. "He was surprised when I did. His last bookkeeper hadn't. I'm sure of that. He's bribing me, the same way he's bribing the Algarvians."

Vanai found the next question: "Are you going to let him bribe you?"

"I don't know." Ealstan scratched his head. "If he's hiring robbers or murderers with that missing money, then I don't want anything to do with him, either. If he's got a lady friend somewhere, that's his wife's worry. But if he's doing something to the redheads with the money… If he's doing something like that, by the powers above, the only thing I'd want to do was join him."

He wondered how he could tell Pybba that. He wondered if he ought to tell Pybba that. He couldn't prove the pottery magnate wasn't working for the Algarvians. Plenty of Forthwegians were. And Ealstan, with a Kaunian wife- and with a baby on the way- had even more to lose from a wrong guess than most of his countrymen would have.

With a regretful sigh, he said, "I don't dare try to find out. Too many bad things could happen."

"You're probably right." But Vanai sighed, too. "I wish you had the chance."

"So do I." Ealstan plucked a hair from his beard, looked at it, and let it fall to the floor. "If I ever find out where that money's going- find out for sure, I mean, not just that it's going missing somewhere- then I'll know what to do."

But Pybba had no intention of making that easy for him. When Ealstan came into the office the next day, his employer said, "Remember why you got your extra silver. No more snooping around, or you'll be sorry."

"I remember," Ealstan assured him.

That wasn't the same as promising he wouldn't snoop anymore. Most people wouldn't have noticed. Pybba did. "No getting cute with me, either, or your arse'll be out on the sidewalk before you've got time to fart. Do you understand me? Do you believe me? I won't just give you the boot, either. I'll blacken your name all over town. Don't you even think about doubting me."

"I wouldn't," Ealstan answered, thinking of nothing else.

Like most educated folk in the eastern regions of Derlavai and the islands lying near the mainland, the Kuusaman physician spoke classical Kaunian along with her own language. Nodding to Fernao, she said, "You will have to strengthen that leg a good deal more, you know."

The Lagoan mage looked down at the limb in question. It was only about half as thick as its mate. "Really?" he said in pretty convincing astonishment. "And here I was planning a fifty-mile hike tomorrow morning. What shall I do now?"

For a moment, the physician took him seriously. Then she exhaled in loud exasperation. "People who cannot take even their own health seriously do not deserve to keep it," she said.

Fernao said, "I'm sorry," in Kuusaman. That mollified the physician, who smiled at him instead of wearing that severe frown. He went on his way with nothing but a cane to help him walk. I'll probably limp all my days, he thought as he walked toward the dining room of the isolated hostel in the Naantali district. I'll probably limp, but I'll be able to walk.

Pekka was already in there, sitting alone at a table drinking a mug of ale. A couple of secondary sorcerers sat at another table, arguing about the best way to focus a spell at a distance from where it was cast. Not so long before, Fernao wouldn't have known what they were talking about. His Kuusaman got a little better every day.

Seeing him, Pekka set down the mug and clapped her hands together. "You really are making progress," she said in her own language. And, because he was making progress in that, too, he understood her.

With a nod, he said, "Aye, a bit," also in her tongue. He lifted the cane into the air and stood on his own two feet and nothing else for a few heartbeats. Pekka clapped again. Reveling in his Kuusaman, Fernao asked, "May I join you?"

That was what he thought he asked, anyhow. Pekka giggled. Switching to classical Kaunian, she said, "Several words in Kuusaman may be translated as to join. You might be wiser not to use that one to a woman married to another man."

"Oh." Fernao's cheeks got hot. "I'm sorry," he said, as he had to the physician.

Pekka returned to Kuusaman. "I'm not angry. And aye, you may join me." She used a verb different from the one he'd tried.

"Thank you," Fernao said, and asked a server for a mug of ale of his own. He had that request quite well memorized.

When his mug came, Pekka raised hers in salute. "To your full recovery," she said, and drank.

Fernao drank to that toast, too- who wouldn't? If he doubted the wish would be fully granted… then he did, that was all. And he enjoyed what he drank; the Kuusamans were good brewers. Then he said, "I hope you are well."

"Well enough, anyhow." Pekka said something in Kuusaman he didn't catch. Seeing as much, she translated it: "Overworked." She hesitated a moment, then asked, "Does the name Habakkuk mean anything to you?"

"It sounds as if it ought to come from the land of the Ice People," he replied in the classical tongue. "Other than that, no. Why? What is it?"

"Something I heard somewhere," Pekka answered, and Fernao hardly needed to be a mage to realize she wasn't telling him everything she knew. But when she went on, "I do not know what it is, either," he thought she might be telling the truth.

"Habakkuk." He tasted the word again. Sure enough, it put him in mind of a caravanmaster hairy all over and stinking because he'd never had a bath in all the days of his life. Fernao's opinion of the nomadic natives of the austral continent was not high. He'd seen enough of them for familiarity to breed contempt.

He wasn't altogether surprised when Pekka changed the subject. "In a few days, I will be going away for a week or two," she said. "I have got leave."

"You will put Ilmarinen in charge again?" Fernao asked.

"For a little while," she answered. "Only for a little while. I have got leave to see my husband and my son. And I have got leave to see my sister, too. Elimaki is expecting her first child. Her husband got leave not so long ago, you see."

Fernao smiled. "So I do. Or maybe I do." He wondered if Pekka would come back from leave expecting her second child. If she didn't, it probably wouldn't be from lack of effort. He said, "I wonder whom I would have to kill to get leave for myself."

As the physician had before, Pekka took him literally. "You would not have to kill anyone," she said. "You would have to ask me. You would ask, and I would say aye. How could I refuse you leave? How could I refuse you anything, after you have saved the project- saved me?"

Be careful, he thought. You don't know what I might ask for, and it wouldn't be leave. He rather suspected she did know. He hadn't tried to push things. He hadn't used the wrong verb on purpose. He saw no point to pushing, not when she was so obviously eager to go home to her husband. But the notion wouldn't leave his mind.

He said, "Whatever we do, the project needs to go forward. After you come back here, I can think about leave. I wonder if I speak Lagoan anymore, or if I will go through the streets of Setubal trying to use classical Kaunian with everyone I meet."

"Many people would understand you," Pekka said, "though you might surprise them- or, with your eyes, they might take you for a Kuusaman with a lot of Lagoan blood. When I return, you tell me what you want, and I shall give it to you."

To keep from saying anything he would regret later, Fernao took a long pull at his ale. Having the mug in front of his face also kept Pekka from seeing him go red again. Maybe a few passages with a friendly woman, or even a mercenary one, would let him keep his mind on business when he got back.

Ilmarinen came into the dining hall and walked over to the table where Fernao and Pekka were sitting. Nodding to Pekka, he said, "Do I hear right? I'm going to be in charge again?" He spoke Kuusaman, but Fernao followed well enough.

Pekka nodded. "Aye, for a little while," she answered in courteous classical Kaunian. "Try not to destroy the place while I am gone."

"I thought destroying as much of Naantali as we could was the reason we came here," Ilmarinen said, also in the classical language. Then he switched back to Kuusaman and called to the serving woman: "Another mug of ale over here, Linna!"

"Aye, Master Ilmarinen," Linna said. "You can have anything you want from me, as long as you just want ale."

Ilmarinen winced. "Heartless bitch," he muttered in Kaunian. His pursuit of the serving girl had gone exactly nowhere. Fernao winced, too, in sympathy. He was glad- he supposed he was glad- he hadn't tried pursuing Pekka anywhere except inside his mind.

As Linna brought the mug, Pekka told Ilmarinen, "If you want to carry out the experiments while I am away, please do. The more we get done, the sooner we can take it into battle."

"We have a ways to go before we manage that." Ilmarinen swigged at the ale, then wiped his wispy mustache on his sleeve. "And we've been hitting the Gongs pretty hard just in the ordinary way of doing things."

"Gyongyos is one kind of fight," Pekka said. "When we go onto the Derlavaian mainland against Algarve, that will be another kind. Tell me I am wrong, Master." She stuck out her chin and looked a challenge at Ilmarinen.

He only grunted and drank more ale by way of reply. Gyongyos was far away, and her soldiers being driven back one island at a time. Algarve had already proved she could strike across the Strait of Valmiera. All the mages who'd been in the blockhouse were lucky to be alive.

Fernao said, "Unkerlant will be glad to have more company in the fight on the ground when we do cross to the mainland."

"Unkerlant." Ilmarinen spoke the name of the kingdom as if it were the name of a loathsome disease. "The measure of Unkerlant's accursedness is that King Swemmel's subjects fight by the tens of thousands for murderous Mezentio against their own sovereign." He held up a hand before either Fernao or Pekka could speak. "And the measure of Algarve's accursedness is that practically every other kingdom in the world has lined up with Swemmel and against Mezentio."

"That is not a very happy way of looking at the world," Fernao said: as much protest as he was prepared to make.

"The world is not a happy place to look at nowadays," Pekka said.

"Too right it's not," Ilmarinen said. "Do you know the state we're reduced to? We're reduced to hoping the Algarvians and the Unkerlanters do a right and proper job of slaughtering each other so we can pick up the pieces without getting too badly mauled ourselves. Aren't you glad to be living in a great kingdom?" He drained his ale and shouted for a refill.

Fernao said, "I would rather live in a kingdom still fighting the Algarvians than in one that had yielded to them."

"And so would I," Ilmarinen agreed. "What we have here isn't the best of things, but it's a long way from the worst of things."

"Oh, indeed," Pekka said. "We could be Kaunians in Forthweg. That's one of the reasons we're fighting, of course: to keep Mezentio's men from having the chance to use us as they use those Kaunians, I mean."

Ilmarinen shook his head. "No. That's not right. Or it's not quite right, anyhow. We're fighting to keep anybody from using anybody else the way the Algarvians are using those poor cursed Kaunians." He held up his hand again. "Aye, I see the irony of our being allied to Unkerlant in that fight."

Linna brought him a full mug and took away the empty. "You people would be happier if you stuck to Kuusaman all the time," she declared. "All this chatter in foreign languages never did anybody any good."

With almost clinical curiosity, Pekka asked Ilmarinen, "What on earth do you see in her?" She made a point of using classical Kaunian.

After coughing a couple of times, the master mage answered, "Well, she is a pretty little thing." He glanced toward Fernao, perhaps hoping for support. Fernao only shrugged; the serving girl wasn't ugly, but she didn't do anything for him. With a sigh, Ilmarinen went on, "And besides, there's something cursed attractive about such invincible stupidity."

"I do not understand that at all," Pekka said.

"I do not, either," Fernao knew he would have been much less interested in Pekka if he hadn't thought at least as much of her mind as he did of her body.

"Sometimes things should be simple," Ilmarinen insisted. "No competition, no quarrels, no-"

"No interest in you whatever," Pekka put in.

"Besides which," Fernao said, "while you would not quarrel about your work with an invincibly stupid woman" -he used Ilmarinen's words even though he was far from sure Linna deserved them- "you would be likely to quarrel with her over everything else. Or do you think I am wrong?"

Ilmarinen gulped down his ale, sprang up from his seat, and hurried away without answering. "You frightened him off," Pekka said.

"Only from us. Not from Linna," Fernao predicted.

"Unless he decides he would rather go after some other girl," Pekka said. "As for me, I am glad my heart points in only one direction." Because of his cane, Fernao couldn't spring up and hurry away. He didn't shout for more ale- or, better, spirits- to make him forget he'd heard that, either. He hoped Pekka never realized how close he came to doing both.

When Krasta went into the west wing of her mansion to ask something of Colonel Lurcanio, she noticed more empty desks there than she'd ever seen before. It didn't take much to knock a thought right out of her head, and that was plenty. Among the empty desks was that of Captain Gradasso, Lurcanio's adjutant. Captain Mosco, Gradasso's predecessor, had already been sent off to fight in Unkerlant. Krasta wouldn't have been brokenhearted to see the same fate befall Gradasso, who embarrassed her by speaking far better classical Kaunian than she did.

But, with Gradasso's desk empty, there was no one to keep her from barging right into Lurcanio's office. Rather to her disappointment, she found Gradasso in there. He and her Algarvian lover were standing in front of a large map of eastern Derlavai tacked to the wall, and were arguing volubly in their own language.

They both jumped a little when Krasta came in. Lurcanio recovered first. "Later, Captain," he told Gradasso, switching to Valmieran so Krasta could follow.

"Aye, later, an it be your pleasure," Gradasso replied in what he thought was Valmieran. He hadn't known the modern language till being assigned to Priekule, and mixed in a lot of classical constructions and vocabulary when he spoke it. With a bow to Lurcanio, he strode past Krasta to his usual station as the colonel's watchdog.

"What was that all about?" Krasta asked.

"We don't see eye to eye about what Algarve ought to do in Unkerlant once the mud dries up," Lurcanio answered.

"Whatever it is, does it account for all those desks with no people sitting at them?" Krasta asked.

"As a matter of fact, it does," Lurcanio said. "When we strike Swemmel's soldiers this year, we shall strike them with all our strength. On that Gradasso and I agree- we can do nothing less, not if we intend to win the war, and we do. But on what to do with our strength once mustered…" He shook his head. "There we differ."

Interested in spite of herself, Krasta asked, "What does he want? And why do you think he's wrong?"

Lurcanio didn't answer directly. Krasta often thought Lurcanio incapable of answering directly. Instead, the Algarvian colonel said, "Here, come look at the way things are for yourself." Not without trepidation, Krasta walked to the map. Geography had never been a strong subject for her, not that many subjects in her brief and checkered academic career had been strong ones. Lurcanio pointed. "Here is Durrwangen, in southern Unkerlant. The Unkerlanters took it away from us this winter, and we could not quite get it back before the spring thaw down there turned the landscape to soup and stopped both sides from doing much."

Krasta nodded. "Aye, I remember you complaining about that."

"Do you?" Lurcanio bowed. "Will marvels never cease?" Before Krasta could even wonder if that was sardonic, he pointed to the map again. "You see, though, that to both the east and west of Durrwangen, we have pushed some distance south of the city."

He waited. Krasta realized she was supposed to say something. She nodded again. "That's plain from where the green pins are, and the gray ones." Her tone sharpened. "It's also plain this wall will need replastering when your precious map comes down."

Lurcanio ignored that. He was good at ignoring things he didn't want to hear. In that, he resembled Krasta herself, though she didn't realize it. He waved at the map. "You are quite the most charming military cadet I have ever seen. If Algarve's fate lay in your pretty hands, how would you take Durrwangen when the fighting starts anew?"

The day was mild and cool, but sweat burst out on Krasta's forehead. She hated questions. She always had. And she particularly hated questions from Lurcanio. He could be- he delighted in being- rude when her answers didn't satisfy him. But she saw she had to answer. After examining the map, she drew two hesitant lines with her forefinger. "If you move your armies here so they meet behind this Durrwangen place- it doesn't look like you'd have to move them very far- you could come at it from every which way at once. I don't see how the Unkerlanters could keep you out of it then."

To her astonishment, Lurcanio took her in his arms and did a good, thorough job of kissing her. "Nicely reasoned, my sweet," he said, and pinched her on the backside. She squeaked and leaped into the air. "You have reached exactly the same solution as Captain Gradasso, exactly the same solution as King Mezentio himself."

"You're teasing me!" Krasta said, wondering what kind of foolish, obvious blunder she'd made. Whatever it was, Lurcanio would enjoy pointing it out. He always did.

But he solemnly shook his head. "By the powers above, milady, I am not. You have seen the very thing that caught the eye of some of the ablest officers in the kingdom."

Krasta studied him. He remained solemn. When he felt like slapping her down, he didn't usually wait so long. But his voice had had an edge to it, even if not one aimed at her. "You were arguing with Gradasso," she said slowly. "Does that mean you didn't see this move? If I saw it, couldn't anyone- any soldier, I mean- see it?"

Lurcanio kissed her again, which left her more confused than ever. "Oh, I saw it," he said. "I would have to be far gone in my second childhood not to have seen it." Sure enough, the sarcastic sparkle was back in his voice. "But if the king saw it, if I saw it, if Captain Gradasso saw it, if even you saw it, would you not suspect the Unkerlanters might see it, too?"

"I wouldn't know." Krasta tossed her head. "I've never had anything to do with Unkerlanter barbarians, nor wanted to, either. Who can say what they'd see and what they wouldn't?"

"There is something to that," Colonel Lurcanio admitted. "Something- but how much? When we went into Unkerlant, we did not think Swemmel's men could see the sun when it was shining in their eyes. We have discovered, to our sorrow, that we were mistaken."

Which is why you started killing Kaunians from Forthweg, Krasta thought. She almost blurted that aloud. But Lurcanio would be on her like a hawk if she did. The Kaunians of Valmiera weren't supposed to know anything about that. Discretion didn't come easy, but she managed it. She asked, "What will happen if the Unkerlanters do see this?"

"What looks easy on the map will get much harder," Lurcanio replied. "That is why I wish we were doing something else, anything else."

"Have you told anybody?" Krasta asked. "You are an important man. What you think carries weight."

"I am an important man in Priekule," Lurcanio said. "In Trapani, where these decisions are made, I am nothing in particular. Only a colonel. Only a military bureaucrat. What could I know about actual fighting? I have sent my superiors a memorial, aye. Much good it will do me. Either they will read it and ignore it or they will not bother reading it before they ignore it."

Krasta gaped. Lurcanio often mocked her. He mocked other Valmierans, too. She'd even heard him mock his countrymen here in Priekule. But never till now had she known him to sound so bitter about his superiors. Slowly, she asked, "What will you do if they turn out to be right?"

"Take off my hat and bow to them." Lurcanio suited action to word, which made Krasta laugh.

But then she asked, "And what will you do if you turn out to be right and the generals back in Trapani are wrong? They won't take off their hats and bow to you."

"Of course they won't." With a lifted eyebrow, Colonel Lurcanio cast scorn on the idea. "What will I do if things come to such a pass? Most likely, my dear, I will get my marching orders, I will pick up a stick, and I will go where my colleagues have gone before me: off to the west, to do my best to throw back the Unkerlanter hordes with my body." He looked Krasta up and down, undressing her with his eyes. "There are, I confess, other things I would sooner do with my body."

"Right here? With Gradasso outside?" Krasta giggled. Being outrageous, being risky, often excited her. She'd flipped up Lurcanio's kilt in here before. "Do you want to?"

Rather to her disappointment, her Algarvian lover shook his head. "No, not now. Tonight, perhaps, but I have not the time now." He sighed. "I really have not the time to argue with my adjutant, either. With more and more of the men who have been aiding me gone, more and more of the work falls on my shoulders. For the work must be done, regardless of who does it."

To Krasta, those who occupied Valmiera had always seemed to have it easy. They lived well when even Valmieran nobles often had trouble making ends meet. They had their choice of bed partners- she knew that all too well. That they, or some of them, also worked themselves to exhaustion hadn't crossed her mind.

Lurcanio asked, "Did you come down here to pick my brains over strategy or to molest me? The one was interesting, the other would be enjoyable, but I really am too busy for either."

Being twitted worked a minor miracle: it made Krasta remember why she had come down to see Lurcanio, something that had gone clean out of her mind even before she got to his office. She said, "What did your hounds end up deciding about Viscount Valnu? He made more entertaining company at most festivities than almost anyone else who was likely to come."

"Oh, aye, indeed- Valnu has charmed any number of people, of all genders and preferences." Lurcanio didn't bother hiding his contempt. "He does very little for me, in which I seem to be almost unique in the city. But you asked about the hounds. They must not have found anything worth mentioning, for I am given to understand he is at liberty once more."

"Is he?" Krasta breathed.

She must have sounded more excited than she'd intended to, for Lurcanio laughed at her. "Aye, he is. Why? Does it mean so much to you? Will you rush right out and make him the same offer you just made me? I would advise against that; I suspect he owes his freedom not least to the, ah, enthusiasm of certain handsome Algarvian officers."

That wouldn't have particularly surprised Krasta. Valnu did what he felt like, with whomever he felt like. But she heard the edge in Lurcanio's voice, and knew she would have to soften him. "Oh, no," she said, making her eyes go wide with little-girl innocence. "I wouldn't think of doing such a thing, not after the lesson you taught me the last time."

To her chagrin, that only made Lurcanio laugh again. "You wouldn't think of doing such a thing if you might get caught. Isn't that what you mean?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Krasta said with such dignity as she could muster. Lurcanio laughed harder than ever. She stuck out her tongue at him. She hated being transparent, and disliked the Algarvian for showing her she was. When he wouldn't stop laughing, she flounced out of his office, slamming the door behind her. But she knew that, when he came to her bedchamber that evening, she wouldn't slam the door in his face.