Rulers of the Darkness

Fourteen

Skarnu had no trouble ambling along a road in southern Valmiera as a peasant would have done. He didn't look to be in much of a hurry, but mile after mile disappeared behind him. That wasn't so bad. He wished even more, though, that Amatu would disappear behind him.

No such luck there. The noble who'd come back from Lagoan exile stuck like a burr, and was just about as irritating. Not only that- Skarnu feared that Amatu would get both of them caught by the Algarvians or by the Valmieran constables who did their bidding. Amatu couldn't walk like a peasant, not- literally- to save his life. The concept of ambling seemed alien to him. He marched, and if he didn't march, he strutted. He might almost have been an Algarvian himself, as far as swagger went.

"Maybe we ought to put some pebbles in your shoes," Skarnu said in something close to despair.

Amatu looked down his nose at him- not easy, when Skarnu stood several inches taller. "Maybe you ought to let me be what I am, and not carp so much about it," he replied, his voice dripping aristocratic hauteur.

He risked giving himself away every time he opened his mouth, too. Skarnu had trouble putting on a rustic accent. But by not saying much, and by speaking in understatements when he did talk, he got by. Amatu, on the other hand, always overacted. He might have been the foolish, foppish noble in a bad play.

Back before the war, Skarnu hadn't thought such people really existed. He supposed Amatu had acted the same way then. Powers above, he'd probably acted the same way himself. But it hadn't mattered in those days, not among the aristocracy of Priekule. Now it did. Skarnu had adapted. As far as Amatu was concerned, adapting meant betraying his class.

"Being what you are is one thing," Skarnu said. "Getting me caught because you won't see reason is something else again."

"You haven't got caught yet, have you?" Amatu said.

"No thanks to you," Skarnu retorted. "You keep trying to stick your neck- and mine- in the noose."

"You keep saying that," Amatu answered. "If there's so bloody much truth to it, how come I'm still running around loose when the Algarvians grabbed everybody in the underground in Ventspils- everybody who knew just what he was doing?"

"How come? I'll tell you how come," Skarnu said savagely. "Because you were with me when we came back to our building, that's how come. If you hadn't been, you would have strolled right up to the flat where we were staying- and right into the redheads' arms, too. Or had you forgotten that, your Excellency?"

He used Amatu's title of respect with as much scorn as an angry commoner might have. And he succeeded in angering the returned exile, too. "I'd have done fine without you," Amatu snarled. "For that matter, I can still do fine without you. If you want me to go off on my own, I'm ready. I'm more than ready."

Part of Skarnu- a large, selfish part of Skarnu- wanted nothing more. But the rest made him answer, "You wouldn't last an hour on your own. And when the Algarvians nailed you- and they would- they'd squeeze out everything you knew, and then they'd come after me."

"You're not my mother," Amatu said. "I'm telling you they wouldn't catch me."

"And I'm telling you-" Skarnu broke off. Two Algarvians on unicorns came around a bend in the road a couple hundred yards ahead. Skarnu lowered his voice: "I'm telling you to walk soft now, by the powers above, if you want to keep breathing."

He wondered if Amatu would have the least idea what he was talking about. But the returned exile had spotted Mezentio's men, too. Amatu hunched his shoulders forward and pulled his head down. That didn't make him walk like a peasant. It made him walk like somebody who hated Algarvians and was trying not to show it.

And, sure as sunrise following morning twilight, it made the redheads notice him. They reined in as they came up to the two Valmierans walking along the road. Both of them had their hands on their sticks. One spoke to Amatu in pretty good Valmieran: "What's chewing on you, pal?"

Before Amatu could speak, Skarnu did it for him. "We just came from a cockfight," he said. "My cousin here lost more silver than he's got." He sadly shook his head at Amatu. "I told you that bird wasn't good for anything but chicken stew. Would you listen? Not likely."

Amatu glared at him. But then, given what he'd said, Amatu had plausible reason to glare at him. The Algarvian who spoke Valmieran translated for his companion, who evidently didn't. They both laughed. Skarnu laughed, too, as he would have at the folly of a silly cousin. The redhead who knew Valmieran said, "Never bet on cockfights. You can't tell what a cock will do, any more than you can with a woman." He laughed again, on a different note. "I know what I want my cock to do."

He tried to translate that into Algarvian, too, but the pun must not have worked in his own language, because his pal looked blank. Skarnu managed a laugh, too, to show he appreciated the trooper's wit. Then he asked, "Can we go on now, sir?"

"Aye, go, but keep your cocks out of mischief." Like a lot of people, the Algarvian ran what had been a good joke into the ground. He laughed again, louder than ever. Skarnu smiled. Amatu kept on looking mutinous. The Algarvian cavalrymen dug their knees into their mounts' barrels and flicked the reins. The unicorns trotted on down the road.

"Cocks!" Amatu snarled when the redheads were out of earshot. "I ought to put a curse on theirs."

"Go ahead and try, if you want to waste your time," Skarnu answered. "You're no trained mage, and they're warded against all the little nuisance spells, same as we were. You want to kill a soldier, you have to blaze him or cut him."

That wasn't strictly true. Sacrifice enough men and women- Kaunians from Forthweg, say, or Unkerlanter peasants- and you could power a spell that would kill plenty of soldiers. Skarnu knew as much. He preferred not to think about it.

Amatu's mind traveled along a different ley line, one that ran straight toward the sewers. "The way you talked to those fornicating whoresons, anybody would think you wanted to suck their-"

Skarnu knocked him down. When Amatu surged to his feet, murder blazed in his eyes. He rushed at Skarnu, fists flailing. He had courage. Skarnu had never doubted that. But, as a dragonflier, Amatu had never learned to fight in the hard and ruthless school of ground combat. Skarnu didn't waste time on fisticuffs. He kicked Amatu in the belly instead.

"Oof!" Amatu folded up like a concertina. Skarnu did hit him then, with an uppercut that straightened him again. Amatu had grit. He didn't go down even after that. But he was in no condition to fight anymore. As he stood swaying, Skarnu hit him once more, a blow he could measure carefully. Now Amatu crumpled.

He tried to get up again. Skarnu kicked him in the ribs, not quite hard enough to break them. So he gauged it, anyhow. If he was wrong, he wouldn't lose any sleep over it. Amatu still tried to get up. Skarnu kicked him yet again, rather harder this time. Amatu groaned and flattened out.

Skarnu kicked him once more, for good measure, and got another groan. Then he bent down and took away Amatu's knife. "We're through," he said evenly. "I'm going my way. You find yours. If you come after me from now on, I'll kill you. Have you got that?"

By way of reply, Amatu tried to hook an arm around Skarnu's ankle and bring him down. Skarnu stamped on his hand. Amatu howled like a wolf. When the howl turned into words, he cursed Skarnu as vilely as he could.

"Save it for the Algarvians," Skarnu told him. "You came back across the Strait to fight them, remember? All you've done since you got here was make trouble for everybody else who's fighting them. Now you're on your own. Do whatever you bloody well please."

Amatu answered with a fresh flurry of obscenities. He aimed more of them at Krasta than at Skarnu. Maybe he thought that would make Skarnu angrier. If he did, he was wrong. In Skarnu's mind, he'd been calling his sister worse things than any Amatu came up with ever since he found out she was sleeping with an Algarvian.

"I'm leaving you your silver," Skarnu said when Amatu finally flagged. "As far as I'm concerned, you can buy a rope and hang yourself with it. It's the best thing you could do for the kingdom."

He walked away from Amatu even as the returned exile reviled him again. However much Amatu cursed, though, he didn't get up and come after Skarnu. Maybe he was too battered. Maybe he believed Skarnu's warning. If he did, he was wise, for Skarnu meant every word of it.

When Skarnu went round the bend in the road from which the Algarvian cavalrymen had come, he looked back over his shoulder one last time. Amatu was on his feet by then, but going in the opposite direction, the direction the men on unicornback had taken. Skarnu nodded in somber satisfaction. With any luck at all, he would never see Amatu again.

He also tried to make sure luck wouldn't be the only factor involved. Whenever he came to a crossroads, he went right or left or straight ahead at random. By the time evening approached, he was confident Amatu would have no idea where he was. For that matter, he had no sure idea where he was himself.

A couple of big, rough-coated dogs ran out from a farmhouse and barked at him. His hand went to one of the knives on his belt. He didn't like farm dogs, which would often try to bite strangers. Here, though, they subsided when the farmer came after them and shouted, "Down!"

"Thanks, friend," Skarnu said from the roadway. He glanced at the sun. No, he couldn't go much farther before darkness overtook him. He turned back to the farmer. "Will you let me chop wood or do some other chores for supper and a night in your barn?" He hadn't intended to end up here, nor anywhere very close to here.

The farmer hesitated. Skarnu did his best to look innocent and appealing. A lot of people didn't trust anyone these days. If the fellow said, "No," he'd have to lie up under a tree or wherever else he could find makeshift shelter. But the farmer pointed. "There's the woodpile. There's the axe. Let's see what you can do while the light lasts."

He didn't promise anything. Clever or just tight-fisted? Skarnu wondered. Aloud, he said, "Fair enough," and got to work. By the time the sun went down, he'd turned a lot of lumber into firewood.

"Not bad," the farmer allowed. "You've done it before, I'd wager." He brought Skarnu bread and sausage and plums and a mug of what was obviously home-brewed ale, then said, "You can stay in the barn tonight, too."

"Thanks." Skarnu chopped more wood in the morning, and the farmer fed him again. Never once, though, did Skarnu set eyes on the man's wife and whatever children he had. That saddened him but left him unsurprised. Things worked so these days.

He grimaced. Over by Pavilosta- not so far away- he had a child himself, or would soon. He wondered if he'd ever get to see it.

"Setubal!" the conductor shouted as the ley-line caravan slid into the depot at the heart of Lagoas capital. "All out for Setubal, folks! This is the end of the line."

To Fernao, newly arrived in the great city after months in the wilds of southeastern Kuusamo, that was true in more ways than one. He'd been staring out the window in astonished wonder ever since the caravan began gliding through the outskirts of Setubal. Were there really so many people, so many buildings, in the whole world, let alone in one city? It seemed incredible.

Leaning on his cane and carrying a carpetbag in his other hand, he made his way out of the caravan car. He knew no little pride in managing so well. His bad leg would never be what it had been before he was injured down in the austral continent, but he could use it. Aye, he limped. He would always limp. But he could get around.

Noise smote him like a bursting egg when he got down on the platform. "Powers above!" he muttered. Had Setubal always been like this? It probably had. No, it surely had. He'd lost his immunity to the racket by going away. He wondered how- and how fast- he could get it back. Soon, he hoped.

Through the din, he heard someone calling his name. His head turned this way and that as he tried to spot the man. He looked for someone waving, but half- more than half- the people on the platform were waving.

And then he did spy Brinco, the secretary to the Lagoan Guild of Mages. They fought their way toward each other through the crowd, and clasped each other's wrists in the traditional style of all Algarvic peoples when they finally came face-to-face. "Good to see you moving so well," Brinco said. A grin stretched across his plump face. More often then not, Fernao knew, the jolly fat man was a myth. In Brinco, the clichй lived.

"Good to be moving so well, believe me," Fernao told him.

"Let me take your bag," Brinco said, and did. "Let me clear a path. You follow along behind. A cab is waiting. We'll get you to the guild hall, and-"

"And Grandmaster Pinhiero will grill me like a bloater," Fernao said. Brinco laughed at that, but didn't deny it. The secretary shouldered a man out of the way. Fernao was perfectly content to follow him. He got the feeling Brinco could have cleared a path through the icebergs that swelled from the shores of the austral continent every winter.

Absently, he asked, "Do you know the name Habakkuk?"

"Aye," Brinco answered over his shoulder. "I also know you shouldn't, and that you shouldn't throw it around where others might hear it."

"Since I do know of it, will you tell me more?"

"Not here. Not now," Brinco said. "Later, perhaps, should the Grandmaster judge that wise." A skinny little fellow caromed off his chest. "I'm so sorry," he told the man, his voice oozing false sympathy. When Fernao tried to bring up Habakkuk again, Brinco didn't seem to hear him. His deafness was patently false, too, but Fernao couldn't do anything about it.

The cab had a closed body, but Fernao gritted his teeth at the racket that came through. He peered out the windows. Every so often, he noticed missing buildings or, a couple of times, blocks of buildings that had been standing when he left for the wilds of the Naantali district. "I see the Algarvians still keep paying us calls," he remarked.

"Aye, every now and again," Brinco agreed. "Not so much lately; they've sent a lot of the dragons they did have up in Valmiera west to fight the Unkerlanters." He was some years older than Fernao, but his grin made him look like a boy. "By all accounts, the dragons aren't helping them much there."

"Too bad," Fernao said.

"It is a pity, isn't it?" Brinco said, grinning still. But the grin slipped. "By what I hear, we were lucky they didn't get the chance to serve us as they served Yliharma."

"Not just Yliharma," Fernao said grimly. "They used that cursed magecraft against us, too, you know. That's why we haven't got Siuntio working with us anymore. If it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't be here talking to you now. None of the mages over there would be here talking to anybody now."

"How did he- how did the lot of you- withstand that vicious spell, even in so far as you did?" Brinco asked.

"Siuntio and Ilmarinen rallied us," Fernao answered. "Siuntio… seemed to carry the whole world on his shoulders for just long enough to give the rest of us a chance. I don't know another mage who could have done it."

Brinco grunted and gave him a sidelong look. For a moment, Fernao had trouble understanding why. Then he realized how he'd miffed the Guild Secretary: Siuntio, of course, wasn't a Lagoan. Fernao shrugged. For a long time now, he'd been the only Lagoan working on the largely Kuusaman project. They hadn't sneered at his blood, and he didn't care to sneer at theirs.

"Here y'are, gents," the hackman, reining in in front of the great neoclassical hall that housed the Lagoan Guild of Mages. Still looking unhappy, Brinco paid the fare; Fernao had wondered if he'd be stuck with it. But Brinco carried his carpetbag up the white marble steps to the colonnaded entranceway, and seemed in good spirits as he led Fernao back toward Grandmaster Pinhiero's office.

The trip took longer than it might have. Fernao kept greeting and getting greetings from colleagues he knew. Once past greetings, though, conversations flagged. Fernao wasn't the only one who said, "I wish I could tell you what I'm working on these days." He'd heard half a dozen variations on the theme by the time Brinco ushered him in to see Pinhiero.

"Welcome home," the Grandmaster said, rising and coming out from behind his desk to clasp Fernao's wrist. Pinhiero was in his sixties, his once-red hair and mustache mostly gray now. He wasn't a great mage; his name would never go into the reference books, as Siuntio's already had. But he had gifts of his own, not least among them political astuteness. After he poured wine for Fernao and helped him ease down into a chair, he asked, "Well, is it what we thought it was?"

"No," Fernao answered, which made Pinhiero blink. Fernao sipped the wine, enjoying the Grandmaster's discomfiture. Then he said, "It's more- or it can be more, if we ever learn to control it."

Pinhiero leaned forward, as a falcon might on catching sight of a mouse. "I thought so," he breathed. "If it were less, they would have said more." He blazed out a question as if it were the beam from a stick: "Will it match Mezentio's foul magics?"

"In force, aye," Fernao said. "Again, though, the question is control. That will take time. I don't know how long, but it won't happen tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, either."

"And meanwhile, of course, the war grinds on," Pinhiero said. "Sooner or later, Lagoas and Kuusamo will be fighting on the mainland of Derlavai. Will these spells be ready when that day comes?"

"Grandmaster, I haven't the faintest idea," Fernao answered. "For one thing, I don't know when that day will come. Maybe you know more about that than I do. I hope so- you could hardly know less."

"I know what I know," Pinhiero said. "If you don't know, I daresay there are reasons why you don't."

Arrogant old thornbush, Fernao thought. But he'd already known that. Aloud, he said, "No doubt you're right, sir. The other trouble, of course, is that no one has any sure knowledge of when the cantrips will be ready to use in war and not as an exercise in theoretical sorcery."

"You had better hurry up," the Grandmaster warned, as if it were Fernao's fault and no one else's that the project wasn't advancing fast enough to suit him. "While you play with your acorns and rats and rabbits, the world around you moves on- aye, and at an ever faster clip, too."

Fernao did his best to look wise and innocent at the same time. "That's what Habakkuk is all about, eh?"

"One of the things," Pinhiero said, and then, too late, "And how do you happen to know of Habakkuk?"

"I would have trouble telling you that, sir," Fernao answered, more innocently than ever. "The world has moved on so fast since I heard about it that I've forgotten."

Pinhiero's green eyes flashed. He wasn't used to being on the receiving end of sarcasm, and didn't seem to like it much. His lips drew back from his teeth in what was as much snarl as smile. "You would have done better to forget the thing itself. But I don't suppose we could expect that of you."

"Not likely," Fernao agreed. "Will Habakkuk be ready when we need to go back to the mainland?"

"Oh, sooner than that," Pinhiero said. "Or it had better be- if not, some fancy sorcerous talent will find itself shorter by a head." He hadn't told Fernao anything about what Habakkuk actually was, merely that it was important, which the mage already knew. And now he continued, "Whether it is or it isn't, though, it's got nothing to do with you. This project you are working on is rather different, wouldn't you say? You do have some idea of what you're doing there? You'd bloody well better."

"I think I may," Fernao said tightly.

"Good," the Grandmaster told him. "Here's what we'll do: we'll put you up in a room in the guild hall here- with a cot and everything, mind- and you can draft a report for us, let us know what the Kuusamans are doing and how they're doing it. Start at the beginning and don't leave anything out."

"That isn't why I came back to Setubal," Fernao said in something approaching horror. "It's not the only reason I came back, anyhow."

Grandmaster Pinhiero was implacable. "Your kingdom needs you."

It came close to a kidnapping. Pinhiero didn't actually have four burly mages drag Fernao off to the room, but he made it plain that he would unless Fernao went there on his own. When Fernao stuck his head out a little later, he discovered one of those burly mages standing in the hallway. He nodded to the fellow and withdrew again. He couldn't sneak away, then. And he couldn't very well magic his way free, either, not with so much of the sorcerous talent in the world right here. Master Ilmarinen might have tried- and, being Master Ilmarinen, might have succeeded. Fernao knew his own talents weren't up to such sorcery. Having no other choice, he settled down and wrote.

As long as he was doing what Pinhiero wanted, the Grandmaster took care of him. Whatever he wanted in the way of food and drink came up from the kitchens in the blink of an eye. Mages fetched sorcerous tomes from the guildhall library whenever he needed to check a point. If he felt like soaking for an hour in a tub full of steaming water, he could. And once, even though he hadn't made any such request, a very friendly young woman visited the room.

She shook her head when he tried to give her something. "It's all arranged," she said. "The Grandmaster told me he'd turn me into a vole if I took even a copper from you." By the melodramatic way she shivered as she put her kilt back on, she believed Pinhiero would do just as he'd said.

"Pinhiero would never waste an important natural resource like that," Fernao said, which made the girl smile as she left. Fernao went to sleep that night with a smile on his face, too. But in the morning, after breakfast, he had to go back to writing. He started to look forward to returning to the Naantali district. He hadn't had to work nearly so hard there.

Sooner or later, Talsu knew, he would run into Kugu the silversmith again. Skrunda wasn't a big city, where they might easily have avoided each other. And, sure enough, one day in the market square Talsu came face-to-face with the man who'd betrayed him to the Algarvians.

Talsu was haggling with a farmer selling salted olives, and paid little attention to the man buying raisins at the next stall till the fellow turned around. He and Kugu recognized each other at the same instant.

Kugu might have been a treacherous whoreson and an Algarvian puppet, but he had his share of nerve and more. "Good morning," he said to Talsu, as coolly as if he hadn't had him flung into a dungeon. "It's good to see you here again."

"It's good to be here again," Talsu answered, all the while thinking, I can't wring his neck here in the middle of the market square. People would talk. He couldn't even glare so fiercely as he wanted to. If he roused Kugu's suspicions, the Algarvians would seize him again.

"I'm glad you've seen the light of day in the metaphorical as well as the literal sense of the words," Kugu said.

Before studying classical Kaunian with Kugu, Talsu would have had no idea what a metaphor was. But he'd learned more than metaphors from the small, precise silversmith. He just nodded now. If Kugu wanted to think him a traitor to Jelgava, too- well, so what? A lot of people thought that. What difference could one more make?

Kugu nodded, too, as if he'd passed a test. Maybe he had. The silversmith said, "One of these days, we'll have to have a talk."

"I'd like that," Talsu said. "I'd like to learn some more of the old language, too."

"Would you?" Kugu said. "Well, perhaps it can be arranged. But now, if you will excuse me…" He went back to looking at raisins.

I know what he'll want. He'll want me to help him trap other people who don't think Jelgava ought to have an Algarvian king. Talsu wondered how many of the people who'd been studying classical Kaunian with Kugu remained outside of Algarvian dungeons. Some still would; he was sure of that. If people Kugu taught started disappearing every week or so, the ones who remained at large wouldn't take long to realize what was going wrong.

"You going to buy those olives, pal, or are you just going to gawk at them?" asked the farmer by whose cart Talsu stood.

Talsu did end up buying the olives. Running into Kugu left him too distracted to haggle as hard as he should have. The farmer didn't bother hiding a self-satisfied smirk as Talsu gave him silver. When Talsu's wife and mother found out what he'd paid, they would have something sharp to say to him. He was mournfully certain of that.

And he proved right in short order, too. Laitsina said, "Do you think your father mints the coins himself?"

"No. He wouldn't put Mainardo's face on them," Talsu answered, giving his mother a better comeback than he'd had for the farmer.

"You could have got a better price than that at my father's shop," Gailisa said reproachfully after she came back from working there.

"I have an excuse, anyhow," Talsu said. His wife raised an eyebrow. By her expression, no excuse for spending too much on food could possibly be good enough. But then Talsu explained: "I ran into Kugu in the market square."

"Oh," Gailisa said. A moment later, she repeated the word in an altogether different tone of voice: "Oh." Kugu wouldn't have wanted to hear the way it sounded the second time. Gailisa went on, "Did you leave him dead and bleeding there?"

Regretfully, Talsu shook his head. "I had to be polite. If I'd done what I wanted to do, I'd be back in the dungeons now, not here."

"I suppose so." His wife sighed. "I wish you could have. I'm surprised he didn't try to talk you into trapping people along with him- he must think you're safe."

"As a matter of fact, he did drop a hint or two," Talsu said. At that, Gailisa let out such a furious squawk, everyone else hurried up to find out what was wrong. Talsu had to explain all over again, which led to more furious squawks.

Traku said, "Don't go back and study the old language with him again. Don't have anything to do with him, if you can help it."

"I would like to learn more classical Kaunian," Talsu said. "If the redheads think it's worth knowing- and they do- we ought to know it, too."

"Fair enough." His father nodded. "But don't study with that son of a whore of a silversmith. Find somebody else who knows it or find yourself a book and learn from that."

"I was thinking that if I got close to him…" Talsu's voice trailed away.

"No. No, no, and no," Traku said. "If you hang around him and something happens to him, what will the Algarvians do? Blame you, that's what. That's not what you want, is it? It had better not be."

"Ah," Talsu murmured. His father made an uncomfortable amount of sense. He did want something to happen to Kugu, and he didn't want Mezentio's men to pin it on him. But after a little thought, he said, "I may not have as much choice as I'd like. If I act like I can't stand the bugger, that's liable to be enough to get him to give me to the Algarvians all over again."

Gailisa spoke up: "Just tell him you're too busy working to go out of nights. He won't be able to say a word about that. The way the Algarvians squeeze us these days, everybody has to run as fast as he can to stay in one place."

"That's not bad," Talsu said. "It's not even a lie, either."

"Maybe you won't see him at all," his mother said. "I'll send Ausra to the market instead of you for a while. And I don't suppose Master Kugu would have the crust to stick his nose through this door after the trouble he caused you- the trouble he caused every one of us."

Ausra stuck out her tongue at Talsu. "See? Now I'm going to have to do your work," she said. "You'd better find a way to make that up to me."

"I will," he said, which looked to astonish his sister. In fact, he only half heard her. He was thinking about ways to make things up to Kugu, ways to make something dreadful happen to the silversmith without drawing suspicion to himself.

Gailisa must have seen as much. That night, while they lay crowded together in their narrow bed, she said, "Don't do anything foolish."

"I won't." Talsu hugged her to him. "The only really foolish thing I ever did was trust him in the first place. I won't make that mistake again any time soon."

The next morning, his father remarked, "You don't want to do anything right away, you know."

"Who says I don't want to?" Talsu answered. They sat side by side in the tailor's shop, working on heavy wool quilts for a couple of Algarvians who would be going from warm, sunny Jelgava to Unkerlant, a land that was anything but. Traku looked at him in some alarm. He went on, "I won't, because it would give me away, but that doesn't say anything about what I want to do."

"All right," Traku said, and then, a moment later, "No, curse it, it isn't all right. Look what you made me do. You frightened me so there, my finishing spell went all awry." The pleat he'd sewn by hand was perfectly straight. The spell should have made all the others match it. Instead, they twisted every which way, as jagged as the skyline of the Bratanu Mountains on the border between Jelgava and Algarve.

"I'm sorry," Talsu said.

"Sorry? Sorry doesn't cut any cloth. I ought to box your ears," Traku grumbled. "Now I'm going to have to remember that spell of undoing. Powers above, I hope I can; I haven't had to use it in a while. I ought to make you rip all these seams out by hand, is what I ought to do."

Still fuming, Talsu's father muttered to himself, trying to make sure he had the words to the spell of undoing right. Talsu would have offered to help, but wasn't sure he could. No good tailor needed the spell of undoing very often. When Traku did begin his new chant, Talsu listened intently. No, he hadn't had all the words straight. He would now, though.

After calling out the last command, Traku grunted in relief. "There. That's taken care of, anyhow. No thanks to you, either." He glared at Talsu. "Now I get to do the finishing spell over again. You're going to cost me an hour's work with your foolishness. I hope you're happy."

"Happy? No." But Talsu glanced over to his father. "D'you suppose we could build the spell of undoing into some of the clothes we make for the redheads, so their tunics and kilts would fall to pieces, say, six months after they got to Unkerlant?"

"We could, maybe, but I wouldn't." Traku shook his head. "You don't shit where you eat, and we eat with the clothes we make."

Talsu sighed. "All right. That makes sense. I wish it didn't. We have to be able to do something about the Algarvians."

"Doing something about our own people who suck up to them would be even better," Traku said. "Algarvians can't help being Algarvians, any more than vultures can help being vultures. But when people in your own town, people you've known for years, suck up to Mezentio's men, that's cursed hard to take."

With a nod, Talsu went back to the kilt he was working on. Thinking about the Jelgavans who sucked up to the redheads inevitably brought him back to thinking about Kugu. His hands folded into fists. He wanted to ruin the silversmith- more, he wanted to humiliate him. But he wanted to do it in a way that wouldn't put him back inside a dungeon an hour later.

He came up with nothing that suited him then, nor in the couple of days that followed. He was walking home from taking a cloak to a customer- an actual Jelgavan customer, not one of the occupiers- when he ran into Kugu on the street.

As they had in the market square, they eyed each other warily. Kugu said, "I gave my lessons last night. I wondered if you would come by. When you didn't, I missed you."

"My wife and family took things the wrong way," Talsu answered. "They don't understand how things are in the bigger world. So I'm having to be quiet about my change of heart, if you know what I mean. I don't want to stir anybody up, and so I think I'd be smarter to stay home for a while."

Kugu nodded, swallowing the lie as smoothly as if it were truth. "Aye, that can prove troublesome," he agreed. "Perhaps you could arrange to have something happen to one of them."

Perhaps I could arrange to have something happen to you, you son of a whore, Talsu thought. But all he said was, "People would wonder about it, you know."

"Well, so they would," the silversmith admitted, "and that kind of gossip would make you less useful. We'll think of something sooner or later, I'm sure."

Useful, am I? went through Talsu's mind. We'll see about that, by the powers above. He smiled at Kugu. "So we will."

Vanai hated it when Ealstan was gloomy. She did her best to cheer him up, saying, "You're bound to find more work soon."

"Am I?" He sounded anything but cheered. "Pybba wasn't joking, curse him. After he gave me the sack, he slandered me to everybody he knew. Finding anybody who'll trust me not to steal hasn't been easy."

"Powers below eat Pybba," Vanai said, in lieu of saying something like, Why didn't you keep your nose out of his business when he told you to? The good sense in a question like that was plain to see, but it didn't help her now. She'd said the same thing before, and Ealstan hadn't wanted to listen.

"The powers below will eat us if I don't start bringing in more money again." His voice was raw with worry.

"We're all right for a while yet," Vanai said, which was true. "We got ahead of the game when you did so well there for a while, and I spent a lot of time being poor. I know how not to spend very much."

Her husband drained his breakfast cup of wine. He made a face. Vanai understood that; it was about as cheap as it could be while staying this side of vinegar. She'd already started economizing. With a sigh, he said, "I'll go out and see what I can scrape up. I'll give it another few days. After that, if nobody wants me to cast books for him anymore…" He shrugged. "My brother spent the last couple of years of his life building roads. There's always work for somebody with a strong back." He got up, gave Vanai a quick kiss, and went out the door.

As she washed bowls and mugs, she remembered her grandfather after Major Spinello set him to work building roads outside Oyngestun. A few days of that had almost killed Brivibas. A few weeks of it surely would have, and so she'd started giving herself to Spinello to save Brivibas from the road crew.

Because of all that, the notion of Ealstan building roads filled her with irrational dread. At least I know it's irrational, she thought: small consolation, but consolation nonetheless. Ealstan was young and strong, not an aging scholar. And he was Forthwegian, not Kaunian- an overseer wouldn't be tempted to work him to death for the sport of it.

She looked in the pantry and sighed. She hadn't wanted to go shopping today, but she couldn't very well cook without olive oil, and only a little was left in the bottom of the jar. A yawn followed the sigh. More than a little ruefully, she looked down at her belly. The baby didn't show yet, but it did still leave her tired all the time.

Before she left the flat, she renewed the spell that kept her looking like a Forthwegian. She wished she'd done that while Ealstan was still there. Aye, the spell had become second nature to her, but she liked to be reassured that she'd done it right. If she ever did make a mistake, she wouldn't know till too late.

Silver clinked sweetly as Vanai put coins in her handbag. She nodded to herself. She'd told Ealstan the truth; money wasn't a worry yet, and wouldn't be for a while. She still found the handbag a minor annoyance. Trouser pockets were more convenient for carrying things. But Forthwegian women didn't wear trousers. If she wanted to look like a Forthwegian, she had to dress like one, too.

She'd just lifted the bar from the door when someone knocked on it. She jerked back in surprise and alarm. She hadn't expected visitors. She never expected visitors. Visitors meant trouble. "Who is it?" she asked, hating the quaver in her voice but unable to hold it out.

"Mistress Thelberge?" A man's voice, deep and gruff. Unquestionably Forthwegian- no Algarvian trill.

"Aye?" Cautiously, Vanai opened the door. The fellow standing in the hallway was a vigorous fifty, with shoulders like a bull's. She'd never seen him before. "Who are you? What do you want?"

He drew himself up straight. "Pybba's the name," he rumbled. "Now where in blazes is your husband?" He spoke as if Vanai might have had Ealstan in her handbag.

"He's not here," she said coldly. "He's out looking for work. Thanks to you, he'll probably have a hard time finding any. What more do you want to do to him?"

"I want to talk to him, that's what," the pottery magnate answered.

Vanai set a hand on the door, as if to slam it in his face. "Why should he want to talk to you?"

Pybba reached into his belt pouch. He pulled out a coin and tossed it to her. "Here. This'll give him a reason," he said as she caught it. She stared at the coin in her hand. It was gold.

Vanai couldn't remember the last time she'd seen a goldpiece, let along held one. Silver circulated far more freely in Forthweg than gold, and Brivibas, back in Oyngestun, had not been the sort of man who attracted any of the few goldpieces the kingdom did mint. "I don't understand," Vanai said. "You just sacked Ealstan. Why- this?" She held up the gold coin. It lay heavier in her hand than silver would have.

"Because I've learned some things I didn't know when I gave him the boot, that's why," Pybba replied. "For instance, he's got- he had- a brother named Leofsig. Isn't that so?" Vanai stood mute. She didn't know where the pottery magnate was going with his questions or why he was asking them. Pybba seemed to take her silence for agreement, for he went on, "And some son of a whore from Plegmund's Brigade killed his brother. Isn't that right?"

He didn't know everything; he didn't know that the fellow from Plegmund's Brigade who'd killed Leofsig was Ealstan's- and poor Leofsig's- first cousin. But he knew enough. Vanai asked, "What's this to you?"

"It's worth gold to me to see him, that's what it is. You tell him so," Pybba said. "Aye, tell him just that. And keep the money whether he decides he wants to see me or not. He'll be stubborn. I know cursed well he will. Some ways, he reminds me of the way I was back in my puppy days." He laughed. "Don't tell him that. It'll just put his back up. So long, sweetheart. I've got work to do." Without another word, he hurried toward the stairs. Vanai got the idea he always hurried.

She went through the rest of the day in a daze. She didn't want to take the goldpiece with her when she went down to the market square to buy oil, but she didn't want to leave it back in the flat, either. She knew that was foolish; aye, it was worth sixteen times its weight in silver, but the flat already held a good deal more than sixteen times as much silver as there was gold in that one coin. The nervousness persisted even so.

When she got back with the olive oil, the first thing she did was make sure the gold coin was where she'd left it. Then she had to wait for Ealstan to come home. The sun seemed to crawl across the sky. It was sinking down behind the block of flats across the street when he finally used the familiar coded knock.

One glance at his face told Vanai he'd had no luck. "About time for me to start paving roads, looks like," he said glumly. "Pour me some wine, will you? If I get drunk, I won't have to think about what a mess I'm in."

Instead of pouring wine, Vanai brought back the goldpiece and displayed it in the palm of her hand. As Ealstan's eyes widened, she said, "Things may not be quite so bad."

"Where-?" Ealstan coughed. He had to break off and try again. Speaking carefully, he asked, "Where did that come from?"

"From Pybba," Vanai answered, and her husband's eyes got wider still. Handing him the goldpiece, she went on, "He wants to talk with you."

Ealstan tossed the coin up into the air. "That means this is probably brass," he said as he caught it. Vanai shook her head. Ealstan didn't push it; he knew the heft of gold when he felt it, too. He scowled in bewilderment. "What does he want? What can he want? For me to come in so he can gloat?"

"I don't think so," Vanai said. "He knows about Leofsig." She explained what Pybba had said, finishing, "He said that whole business with your family was why he wanted to see you again."

"I don't understand," Ealstan muttered, as if he didn't want to admit that even to himself. He gave the goldpiece back to Vanai. "What do you think I ought to do?" he asked her.

"You'd better go see him," she replied; she'd been thinking about that ever since Pybba left. "I don't think you have any choice, not after this." Before he could indignantly deny that and insist that he could do as he pleased, she forestalled him by choosing that moment to get the wine after all, leaving him by himself to think for a minute or two. When she brought it back, she asked, "Can you tell me I'm wrong?"

"No," he said darkly, and gulped down half the cup at once. "But powers above, how I wish I could."

"Let me get supper ready." Vanai chopped cabbage and onions and radishes and dried mushrooms, adding crumbly white cheese and shaved bits of smoked pork for flavor. She dressed the salad with spiced vinegar and some of the olive oil she'd bought. Along with bread and more oil and some apricots, it made a quick, reasonably filling meal.

Her own appetite was pretty good, and everything looked like staying down. She still had occasional days when she gave back as much as she ate, but they were getting rarer. Ealstan seemed so distracted, she might have set anything at all before him. Halfway through supper, he burst out, "But how am I supposed to trust him after this?"

Vanai had no trouble figuring out who him was. "Don't," she answered. "Do what business you have to or you think you should with him, but that hasn't got anything to do with trust. Even if you go back to work for him, he's just your boss. He's not your father."

"Aye," Ealstan said, as if that hadn't occurred to him. Maybe it hadn't. He'd looked for great things from Pybba. He'd looked too hard for great things from Pybba, in fact. Maybe now he would see the pottery magnate as a man, not a hero.

When they made love later that evening, Ealstan didn't show quite the desperate urgency he'd had lately. He seemed a little more able to relax and enjoy himself. Because he did, Vanai did, too. And she slept well afterwards. Of course, she would have slept well afterwards even if she hadn't enjoyed herself making love. Carrying a child was the next best thing to getting hit with a brickbat for ensuring sound sleep.

In the morning, after more bread and oil and a cup of wine, Ealstan said, "I'm off to see Pybba. Wish me luck."

"I always do," Vanai answered.

Then she had nothing to do but wait. She'd done so much of that since coming to Eoforwic. She should have been good at it. Sometimes she even was. But sometimes waiting came hard. This was one of those days. Too many things could go very wrong or very right. She had no control over any of them. She hated that.

The longer she waited for Ealstan, the more worried she got. Waiting all the way into the early evening left her something close to a nervous wreck. When at last he knocked, she all but flew to the door. She threw it open. "Well?" she said.

"Well," he answered grandly, breathing wine fumes into her face, "well, sweetheart, I think we're back in business. Back in business, aye." He savored the phrase. "And what a business it is, too."

The summer before, the fight in the forests of western Unkerlant had been as grand as the attacking Gyongyosians could make it. They'd driven the goat-eating Unkerlanters before them, almost breaking through into the open country beyond the woods. Now… Now Istvan counted himself lucky that the Unkerlanters weren't driving his own countrymen west in disorder. King Swemmel's men seemed content to harass the Gyongyosians without doing much more.

"I'll tell you what I think it is," Corporal Kun said one evening.

"Of course you will," Istvan said. "You've always got answers, you do, whether you know the question or not."

"Here, the question's simple," Kun said.

Szonyi boomed laughter. "Then it's just right for you, by the stars." He hugged himself with glee, proud of his own wit.

Kun ignored him and went on talking to Istvan: "Remember how people were saying the Unkerlanters would hit us hard if they got into trouble with Algarve?" He waited for his sergeant to nod before going on, "Since they haven't hit us, doesn't it follow that they didn't get into trouble against the Algarvians?"

Istvan plucked at his beard. "That sounds like it ought to make sense. But our allies have hammered Unkerlant two summers in a row. Why shouldn't they be able to do it again?"

"If you hit a man but you don't knock him down and kick him till he quits, pretty soon he's going to start hitting you, too," Kun said. "That's what the Algarvians did. Now we're going to see how well they stand getting hit. That's my guess, anyhow."

Before Istvan could reply, a sentry called a challenge: "Halt! Who comes?" Everybody in the redoubt grabbed for his stick.

"I, Captain Frigyes," came the answer, and the Gyongyosian soldiers relaxed.

"Advance and be recognized," the sentry said, and then, a moment later, "Come ahead, sir."

Frigyes scrambled down into the redoubt. Nodding to Istvan, he asked, "All quiet in front of you, Sergeant?"

"Aye, sir," Istvan answered. "Swemmel's whoresons are sitting tight. And so are we. But you know about that. I guess everything worth having is heading for the islands, to fight the stinking Kuusamans."

The company commander nodded. His every motion was sharp, abrupt. So was the way he thought. He was a good soldier, but Istvan often missed the more easygoing Captain Tivadar- and he didn't want to think what would have happened had Frigyes been the officer who discovered he'd inadvertently eaten goat.

"Everything worth having is heading for the islands," Frigyes agreed. "That includes us. We pull out of line here tomorrow, after sundown, the whole regiment. No, the whole brigade."

For a moment, none of the soldiers in the redoubt spoke. Several of them stood there with their mouths hanging open. Istvan didn't realize he was one of those till he had to shut his before he could start talking: "Where will we go, sir? And who'll take our places here?"

Frigyes' broad shoulders moved up and down in a shrug. "We'll go where they send us. And I don't know who's coming in to deal with Swemmel's goat-eaters. I don't care. They're not my worry anymore. Somebody else will kill them; that's all I need to know. Anybody here ever fight against the Kuusamans?"

Istvan stuck up his hand. So did Kun and Szonyi. "Aye, sir," they chorused. "On Obuda," Istvan added.

"I'll pick your brains as we head west, then," Frigyes said. "I know the Unkerlanters, but those scrawny little slanteyes who follow the Seven Princes are a closed book to me." He turned and went up the sandbag steps and out of the redoubt. Over his shoulder, he added, "Have to let the rest of the squads know." Then he was gone.

His footsteps were still receding when all the soldiers in Istvan's squad started talking at once. He let them babble for a little while, but only for a little while. Then he made a sharp chopping motion with his right hand. "Enough!" he said. "The captain told us to be ready to move out tomorrow after sunset, and that's what we're going to do. Anybody who can't get ready by then" -he smiled his nastiest smile, all teeth and flashing eyes- "we'll leave behind for the Unkerlanters to eat."

"They're pulling the whole brigade out of the line," Kun said in wondering tones. "They can't be putting another brigade in. There'd be no point to that- if they had another brigade to put in, they'd have sent that one to the islands instead of us."

"The Unkerlanters are quiet," Szonyi said. "We've been talking about how quiet they are."

"But how long will they stay quiet once we're gone?" the youngster named Lajos asked, undoubtedly beating Kun to the punch.

"Like the captain said, that's not our worry anymore," Istvan said. "One way or another, the generals will deal with it. We've got to start thinking about the Kuusamans." He didn't care for that notion. They'd come unpleasantly close to killing him a couple of times on Obuda. Now they'd get more chances.

When Istvan thought of the Kuusamans, he thought of going into action against them as soon as he left the redoubt. Reality proved more complex, as reality had a way of doing. Along with the rest of the brigade, Istvan's regiment pulled out of the line when ordered. He didn't see any inexperienced young men trudging forward wide-eyed and eager, as befitted a warrior race, to take their places. It was nighttime, of course. Maybe that made a difference. Maybe. He tried to make himself believe it.

Having left their positions at night- presumably to keep the Unkerlanters from realizing they were going- they got no sleep. They got no sleep the next day, either, but kept tramping west through woods that seemed to go on forever. By the time Istvan finally was allowed to stop and rest, he was readier to fight his own officers than he ever had been to fight the Kuusamans.

The brigade had to march through the woods for most of a week before they got to a ley line. There might have been others closer, but they hadn't been charted. This whole stretch of the world was far, far off the beaten track. And then the weary men had to wait till enough caravan cars accumulated to carry them all west.

"It could be worse," Kun said as the squad did at last climb aboard one. "They could have decided to make us march the whole way, across the Ilszung Mountains and all. Why not? We fought our way across 'em coming east."

"Shut up, curse you," Istvan said. "Don't let any officers hear you saying something like that, or they're liable to take you up on it."

He didn't see the ley-line caravan leave the forest; by then he was asleep, his chin on his chest. When he woke again, the mountains were near. And then the caravan traveled over mountains and through mountain valleys for the next couple of days. Much of the terrain reminded Istvan achingly of his own home valley; many of the villages, with their walls and their fortresslike, steep-roofed houses of gray stone, could have been Kunhegyes, where he'd grown up. But Kunhegyes lay far from any ley line.

Some of the men from the mountains of eastern Gyongyos had never seen the plains that led down to the Bothnian Ocean. The only flat ground they'd ever known was that of the great woods of western Unkerlant, and they exclaimed in wonder to see farmland stretching from one horizon to the other.

Kun looked at Istvan over the tops of his spectacles. "I thought you'd be oohing and ahhing with the rest of the back-country lads," he remarked.

"Then you're not as smart as you like to think you are," Istvan retorted. "Didn't I come this way before, when they threw me onto a ship and sent me to Obuda?"

Kun thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Aye, of course you did, and I'm a natural-born idiot. I must be."

Down in the flatlands, towns got bigger and closer together. Istvan had all he could do not to marvel at the sight of so many buildings all in the same place, and at the sight of tall towers climbing toward the stars. "How do so many clans live together in one place without feuds tearing them to pieces?" he asked Kun. "You're a city man, so you ought to know."

"What you have to understand is, a lot of people move to the cities from out of the countryside," the former mage's apprentice answered. "Some of them are younger sons and the like- men who won't get a fair share from their family plots. And others are the men who want to find out if they can get rich. The odds are slim in town, stars above know that's so, but it'll never, ever happen on a farm."

"I suppose you're going somewhere with this, but I'm not following you, not yet," Istvan said.

"Bear with me," Kun told him. "In your valley, your clan's been living next to its neighbors for hundreds of years. Everybody remembers who did what to whom, and why, since the stars first shone. Some of the clan quarrels are that old, too. Am I right, or am I wrong?"

"Oh, you're right, of course," Istvan said. "That's how things are."

"Ha!" Kun pounced. "But it's not how things are in the cities, or not so much. If you move away from most of the people in your clan, you move away from most of the old squabbles, too. You get to know a man for what he is himself, not for whether his grandfather's great-uncle stole three hens from your cousin's great-grandma. Do you see what I'm saying?"

"What it sounds like is the army, except without the discipline in the army," Istvan said. "Here, I do what I do because the officers tell me to, and you do what you do because I tell you to, and the troopers do what they do because you tell them to. Back in my valley, my place in the clan tells me what to do. I always know what's expected, if you understand what I'm saying." He waited for Kun to nod, then went on, "But if you're living in the city away from your clan, how do you know what to do or how to act? Who tells you?"

"I tell myself," Kun answered. "That's what cities are all about: making your own choices, I mean. They're changing the face of Gyongyos, too."

Istvan disapproved of change on general principles. In that, he reckoned himself a typical Gyongyosian. His eyes slid over to Kun, who smiled as if knowing what he was thinking. As far as Istvan was concerned, Kun was no typical Gyongyosian- and a good thing, too, he thought. What Kun might be thinking of him never entered his mind.

They slid through Gyorvar the next morning, heading down to the docks. All the chief rivers watering the Gyongyosian plain came together at Gyorvar and went down as one to the not far distant sea. Istvan didn't think about that. He craned his neck to get a glimpse of Ekrekek Arpad's palace. Before his first trip through the capital, he'd imagined it as a tower taller than any mountains, a tower from which the Ekrekek could reach out and touch the sacred stars if he so desired. It was nothing of the sort, being pavilions of gleaming marble scattered across parkland, but lovely nonetheless. He'd remembered that.

And then, after Istvan got his glimpse, the ley-line caravan stopped at the docks, which were anything but lovely. He'd remembered that, too. The battered transports waiting to take his comrades and him across the sea were even more unlovely than the ones he remembered from his last trip through Gyorvar. He didn't know what that meant. Nothing good, probably.

Little by little, Cornelu was learning to read Lagoan. He'd never thought he would do that, but he turned out to have a powerful incentive: the better he read, the more readily he could learn of Unkerlant's advances in the west. Anything that told him of Algarve's troubles was worth investigating in detail. He might not have liked Lagoas' language, but he liked what was being said in it.

When he took Janira out to a band concert, though, he stuck to Sibian, saying, "Mezentio's men are finally starting to pay for their folly."

"Good," she answered in the same language. She had an odd accent- part lower-class, part Lagoan. Her father, Balio, was a Sibian fisherman who'd settled in Setubal after the Six Years' War, married a local woman, and started an eatery. Janira was in fact more fluent in Lagoan. That she spoke Sibian at all helped endear her to Cornelu.

"Aye," he said fiercely, and squeezed her hand. "May they be driven back on every front. May they be driven from Sibiu."

"May they stop dropping eggs on Setubal," Janira said. "Father's only just starting to get back on his feet." An Algarvian egg had wrecked the eatery where Balio had cooked and Janira served. She went on, "Everything is more expensive in the new place."

"I'm sorry," Cornelu said. And he was: that meant she had to work even more than she had before, which meant she had fewer chances to see him. Since his own duties often kept him from seeing her, their romance, if that was the name for it, had advanced only by fits and starts.

Of course, Cornelu was also a married man, at least technically. He hoped his little daughter Brindza was doing well back in Tirgoviste town. He hoped no such thing for his wife, not after Costache had taken up with at least one of the Algarvian officers who'd been billeted on her.

Standing in line with Janira, Cornelu tried to put all that out of his mind. The line snaked forward in the darkness. He passed through a couple of black curtains before emerging into light and paying the fee for himself and Janira. They both held out their hands. One of the fee-takers stamped them with red ink to show they'd paid. Then they hurried into the concert hall.

It was filling fast. Cornelu spotted a couple of seats. He went for them as ferociously as if charging on leviathanback. "There!" he said in something like triumph as he and Janira reached them just ahead of a Lagoan couple.

Janira smiled. "I can see why all your enemies must fear you," she said, sitting down beside him.

Cornelu smiled, too. "The main reason my enemies fear me is that they do not know my leviathan and I are there till too late. Sometimes they never find out what happened to them. Sometimes they do realize, and it is the last thing they ever know."

"You sound so… happy about it," Janira said with a small shiver.

"I am happy about it," he replied. "They are Algarvians. They are the enemies, the occupiers, of my kingdom. They are the enemies of this kingdom, too."

"I know. I understand all that." She hesitated, then went on, "It's only that… I haven't heard you sound really happy very often. It's… strange when you sound that way and it has to do with killing."

"Oh." Cornelu contemplated that for a moment. "I should probably be ashamed. But, aside from that, I have not had much to be happy about lately." Just before he turned the evening into a disaster even as it began, he redeemed himself with a handful of words: "Present company excepted, of course." Janira, who had started to cloud up, relaxed and leaned her head on his shoulder.

They both applauded when the musicians came out on stage. Lagoan music was on the whole delicate, like that of the other Algarvic kingdoms. It didn't thump and harangue, the way Kaunian music did. A couple of things set it apart, though. For one, it was generally more cheerful than anything Cornelu would have been likely to hear in Sibiu. Of course, the Lagoans had more reason to be cheerful- they lived farther away from Algarve. And, for another, they'd borrowed triangles and bells from their Kuusaman neighbors, which gave their pieces an almost fantastical feel to Cornelu's ears.

Janira enjoyed the music; that was plain. Cornelu applauded a little more than dutifully when the concert ended. Seeing his companion having a good time let him have a good time at one remove. That was almost as good as the real thing.

Even in the darkness imposed on it to keep from offering targets to Algarvian dragons, Setubal remained a busy place after dark. The Lagoans seemed to think they could use noise to make up for the lack of light. Everybody shouted at the top of his lungs. Carriages carried little bells to warn other carriages they were there. Ley-line caravan cars moved slowly and clanged big, deep-toned bells, as ships would during thick fog. From what the news sheets said, people walked in front of them every so often anyhow. Walking in front of even a slow-moving caravan car usually produced a funeral. But the alternative to going out in pitch darkness was staying at home, and the folk of Setubal didn't fancy that.

As far as Cornelu was concerned, the cacophony of shouts and most unmusical bells of all sizes and tones might as well have canceled the concert. "Powers above," he muttered. "I wouldn't be surprised if Algarvian dragon-fliers could hear Setubal, even if they can't see it."

Janira had a Sibian father, aye. She spoke the language of the island kingdom, aye. But she proved herself a true Lagoan by the way she navigated the dark streets back to the flat she shared with Balio. "Here we are," she said at last.

"If you say so," Cornelu answered. "For all that I can tell by looking, we might be going into King Vitor's palace."

Janira laughed. "No," she said. "That's down the street. And it's not half so fine a place as this." She laughed again. "Why, you can see for yourself."

To Cornelu, a sober, literal-minded man not much given to whimsy, that meant nothing for a moment. Then he got the joke and laughed, too. He took her in his arms. Their lips had no trouble finding each other in the darkness. His hands slid along the length of her. She let him lift her kilt and stroke her there, but then she twisted away. "Janira-" he said hoarsely. They could have done anything at all right there, and no one but the two of them would ever have known.

"Not now," she said. "Not yet. I'm not ready, Cornelu. Good night." He heard her footsteps on the stairs. The door to her block of flats opened. Then it closed.

He kicked at the slates of the sidewalk. She wasn't teasing him, leading him on. He was sure of that. One of these days, when she was ready, they would go further. "But why not tonight?" he muttered, kicking at the sidewalk again. In the blackness, he could have reached under his own kilt and relieved some of his agitation, too, but he didn't. Instead, he set out for his dockside barracks.

Not being a native of Setubal, he didn't unerringly find his way to them. He did manage to get aboard one of the many ley-line caravans gliding through the streets of the city. It wasn't any of those that went down to the harbor district, but it took him to a stop where he could catch a caravan that would carry him where he needed to go. He felt pretty good about that.

He didn't feel so good when reveille pried him out of his cot the next morning. Yawning, he staggered to the galley and gulped cup after cup of strong tea. One of his fellow exiles teased him: "You'll be pissing all day long."

"I probably will," Cornelu agreed, yawning again. "At least all the running to the jakes and back will keep me awake."

"Must have been quite a night last night." His countryman sounded jealous.

"Not so bad," Cornelu said. Janira, had she heard that, would have been irate; it implied he'd had his way with her, which he hadn't. But she wasn't there and the other Sibian was, and so Cornelu boasted a little.

He was going back for yet another mug of tea when a Lagoan officer he'd never seen before strode briskly into the mess hall. Suspicion flamed in Cornelu; an unfamiliar Lagoan with something on his mind was the last thing he wanted to see early in the morning- or any other time of day, either.

Sure enough, the Lagoan spoke up in his own language: "How many of you understand me?" About half the Sibians raised their hands. Cornelu followed well enough, but kept his down. The Lagoan switched to Algarvian: "How many of you understand me now?"

This time, Cornelu raised his hand. So did most of his countrymen. One of them called out in his own language: "Why don't you speak Sibian, if you want to talk to us?"

The Lagoan ignored that. Lagoans were generally good at ignoring anything they didn't want to hear. In Algarvian, the fellow continued, "You will all report to the Admiralty offices after breakfast for an important briefing."

"What's it about?" Cornelu called.

He got no answer. He hadn't really expected one. Having delivered his message, the Lagoan officer turned on his heel and marched away. Muffled curses followed him- and some that weren't so muffled. "High-handed son of a whore," one of the exiles said, and everybody else nodded. Lagoans were like that.

But the Sibians all tramped over to the Admiralty offices at the required time, too. Cornelu wondered what sort of orders- or lies- they would hear from the Lagoan officers in charge of getting the most out of them. Cornelu sometimes thought the Lagoans were as intent on using up the Sibians as they were on using them. He shrugged. He couldn't do anything about that.

At the Admiralty, a grizzled Lagoan petty officer whose ribbons and medals declared that he'd fought bravely during the Six Years' War spoke to the Sibians: "Down the hallway to the conference room." Unlike a lot of his countrymen- including plenty with fancier ranks and fancier educations- he spoke Sibian, not Algarvian. He even had a Facaceni accent.

"Where did you learn my language?" Cornelu asked him.

"Always a bit of dealing going on," the Lagoan answered, and said no more. Smuggler, Cornelu guessed. Whether he was right or wrong, he couldn't do anything about it now.

Gold letters over the entrance to the conference room proclaimed that it was named for Admiral Velho, one of Lagoas' heroes in the last naval war against Sibiu a couple of hundred years before. Assembling Sibians here to listen to whatever the Lagoans had to say struck Cornelu as less than tactful, but the Lagoans had been less than tactful ever since the Sibian exiles arrived.

Cornelu turned to complain to one of his countrymen as he started into the conference room, but stopped with the words unuttered. One look at the map on the far wall swept them out of his head. The other Sibians were pointing and staring, too. Their talk rose to an excited buzz.

A Lagoan officer in tunic and kilt darker than the Sibian sea-green stood beside the map. "Have we got your attention?" he asked the exiles- in Algarvian. For once, Cornelu didn't care. With that map in front of him, he would listen to anything.