“You may,” the healer replied, precise as a schoolmaster. “I hope you can—that was why we performed the sorcery.”
“Well, let’s find out.” Leudast swung down off the table. One of the attendants who’d hauled him up onto it reached out to steady him. He waved the man away. The leg wasn’t perfect, but it would do. He could use it. He nodded to the healers. “Thanks. I’m ready to go back into the line.”
“We shall fill out the necessary papers,” one of them said. Another very carefully peeled the shining cloth from Leudast’s leg. The healer who was doing the talking went on, “Make sure you have this sorcery reversed in a month’s time. As I said, if you forget, your last month will be nothing but torment to you.”
“I understand,” Leudast said, and he did. The mere idea of knowing a month ahead of time that he would be dead … He shuddered. Even war against the Algarvians seemed clean next to that. And he was suddenly more eager than ever to get back to the field. If he died in battle, at least it would be over fast—he hoped.
Merkela glared at Skarnu and at the underground fighter who called himself “Tytuvenai” after the town where he was based. She said, “I don’t think you ought to be talking with the Algarvians. I think you ought to be blazing them.”
“Oh, we’ll do some of that even yet,” “Tytuvenai” said lightly. He winked at Skarnu. “Eh, ‘Pavilosta’?”
“Aye, no doubt,” Skarnu answered. He glanced over to Merkela. “Like it or not, we have to talk with them now.”
“Give me one good reason,” she snapped.
“They hold the towns. They hold the roads. If they want to, they can start slaughtering Valmierans the same way they’ve been slaughtering the Kaunians from Forthweg,” Skarnu said. “They can do it any time they please.
Merkela winced. Reluctantly, she nodded. “There is that.”
“Aye, there is,” “Tytuvenai” agreed. “If we want to have a kingdom left when this cursed war finally ends, we have to walk a little softer than we might like right now. And so …” He nudged Skarnu. “We’d better get moving.”
“Right,” Skarnu said without any great enthusiasm. Whether he recognized the need or not, he wasn’t thrilled at the idea of talking with the Algarvians, either. But he kissed Merkela and went out to the horses “Tytuvenai” had waiting outside the farmhouse. As he mounted and rode off, he grumbled, “Why don’t the people up in the north handle this themselves?”
“They do,” “Tytuvenai” answered. “But we have to do our part, too.” As usual, he was cheerfully cynical: “You can’t expect those fellows up there to count on their fingers and get the same answer twice running.” Skarnu laughed, though he was sure the northern Valmierans said the same thing about him and “Tytuvenai” and the other irregulars here in the south.
He and his comrade rode for about three hours. Skarnu’s backside started to hurt; he wasn’t used to so much equestrianism. By the way “Tytuvenai” started grunting every so often, Skarnu suspected he was feeling it, too.
After a while, “Tytuvenai” grunted again, this time in relief. “We’re supposed to meet the redheads in that apple orchard ahead. I’ve got a flag of truce in the saddlebag here. Demon of a thing to have to use with the Algarvians, isn’t it?”
“It’s war,” Skarnu answered with a shrug. “There’s nothing dishonorable about it.” But he was trying to convince himself as much as “Tytuvenai.”
They tied their horses to a couple of the apple trees. Skarnu didn’t fancy going into the orchard armed with nothing more than a white flag on a little pole. If the Algarvians grab us, they’ll be sorry, he thought. They’ve got to know they ‘II be sorry … don’t they?
A tall man in his later middle years stepped out from between a couple of trees. He, too, carried a flag of truce. “Good day, gentlemen,” he said in fluent if accented Valmieran, and gave the two irregulars a courteous bow. “I have the honor to be Colonel Lurcanio, administrator of Priekule under Grand Duke Ivone. And you are … ?”
“Tytuvenai,” “Tytuvenai” said.
“Pavilosta,” Skarnu said. He eyed Lurcanio. Till now, he’d had only one brief look at the redhead who was his sister’s lover. He hoped Lurcanio wouldn’t recall the name of the hamlet he used as a sobriquet.
No such luck. Lurcanio’s cat-green eyes kindled. He bowed again, this time to Skarnu alone. “So pleased to meet you at last. We have … an acquaintance in common.”
“I know,” Skarnu said, and said no more.
“You may be interested to learn she is expecting a child,” Lurcanio remarked.
“Is she?” Skarnu said tonelessly. But that wasn’t quite enough. And so, loathing Krasta, he asked the question he had to ask: “Yours?”
To his surprise, the Algarvian didn’t smirk and nod. Indeed, the fellow’s voice was cautious as he answered, “So I have been given to understand.”
What was that supposed to mean? Before Skarnu could ask—before he could even decide whether he ought to ask—”Tytuvenai” said, “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”
“An excellent suggestion,” Lurcanio said. “You would be wise to bear in mind that we are still strong enough to punish acts of madness aimed against us.”
“We would reckon some of your punishments acts of madness, you know,” Skarnu said.
“No doubt. One day, perhaps, we can discuss the role perspective plays in human affairs.” Lurcanio was a cool customer. Skarnu wondered what Krasta saw in him. The Algarvian resumed: “We have other business before us at present, however.”
“So we do,” “Tytuvenai” said. “Such as making us believe we shouldn’t do more to hold up the ley-line caravans you’re using to ship your soldiers out of here.”
“Go ahead.” Lurcanio gave him a smile half charming, half coldly vicious. “The people of Valmiera will not be happy with the choice you make, but go ahead. Do as you feel you must, and we shall do as we feel we must.”
“A lot of the people of Valmiera will be happy with anything that gets you people out of our kingdom,” Skarnu said. “Anything at all. And you know why. ‘Night and Fog.’ “ That was what the Algarvians or their henchmen scrawled on buildings whose occupants had vanished for good—usually into the camps where the redheads kept Kaunians they killed.
“The people most intimately concerned with our vengeance will not be happy,” Lurcanio said. “On that you may rest assured.”
“Why, you—” “Tytuvenai” began.
“Wait,” Skarnu said. The other irregular looked at him in some surprise. Skarnu seldom spoke like a nobleman giving a servant an order; that tone more often appeared in Krasta’s mouth. Here, though, he made an exception—and “Tytuvenai” did fall silent.
“You own some glimmering of sense,” Colonel Lurcanio said.
“I wonder if you do,” Skarnu answered. “Tell me, do you really think Algarve still has any hope of winning the war?”
“With King Mezentio’s leadership, with our strong sorceries, one never knows,” Lurcanio said.
Skarnu laughed in his face. He waited for Lurcanio to get offended, but the Algarvian just waited to see what he would say next. What he said was, “Do you think Algarve has any realistic chance of winning the war?”
Lurcanio shrugged one of the elaborate shrugs in which his countrymen delighted. After a few heartbeats, Skarnu realized that was as far as the redhead would go. He didn’t suppose he could blame Lurcanio—for that, anyhow. He hadn’t wanted to talk, or even think, about Valmiera’s troubles back in the days before Algarvian behemoths and dragons leveled his kingdom’s hopes.
“You might want to bear one thing in mind,” Skarnu said. “If you do lose this war, your enemies will remember everything you did while you held their kingdoms down. How large a price do you want to pay after your armies can’t fight any more?”
For once, Colonel Lurcanio had no quick answer, no snappy comeback. He eyed Skarnu with no liking, but with wary respect nonetheless. “There is enough between your ears for sparks to
strike, is there not?” he remarked. “Your sister is prettier than you, but her head is empty.”
With a shrug of his own—he didn’t want to show Lurcanio he agreed with him—Skarnu said, “That’s also something to talk about some other time. But if you start killing Valmierans for the sport of it, think what will happen when Valmieran soldiers march into Algarve.”
Lurcanio raised an eyebrow. “And if our best chance to keep Valmieran soldiers from ever marching into Algarve lies in killing all the Valmieran civilians we can lay our hands on?”
This time, “Tytuvenai” spoke before Skarnu could: “If you try something like that, Algarvian, you’d better be sure you do win. Can you do that? Trying and losing anyhow will be worse than not trying at all.”
But Colonel Lurcanio shook his head. “By the powers above, nothing would be worse than not trying at all.” He and the two Valmierans eyed one another in perfect mutual incomprehension.
“We will not attack ley-line caravans taking your soldiers out of Valmiera if you don’t take our civilians out with you and if you don’t start killing them for your magecraft,” Skarnu said. “If you do, everything is fair game. And we reckon any caravan bringing your soldiers into Valmiera is fair game, too.”
“That is not right. That is not just,” Lurcanio said. “Many—most, even—of the men we bring here do not come to fight. They come for leave from the fight they have been making in the west.”
“They’re still soldiers,” Skarnu said. “If you give them sticks, what will they do? Start to dance?”
He surprised a laugh out of the Algarvian colonel. “There may perhaps be something to that,” Lurcanio said. “I speak for myself when I say so, however, not for Grand Duke Ivone. You were an officer. You will understand the need for following orders.”
Skarnu started to nod. “Tytuvenai” broke in, saying, “Some orders are wicked. No one should follow those. Anyone who follows an order to murder people deserves whatever happens to him.”
“Anyone who lets his kingdom lose a war it might win deserves whatever happens to him,” Lurcanio answered. They glared at one another once more, at a fresh impasse. Lurcanio said. “Can we agree to anything?” he asked.
“Leave our civilians alone, and we’ll let your caravans leave in peace,” Skarnu said.
“We had that bargain before, or so I thought,” Lurcanio said. “So King Gainibu hinted, at any rate.”
Maybe he thought the king’s name would fill the Valmierans with overwhelming awe. And maybe it would have … before the war. Skarnu said, “These past four years, we’ve been on our own. We haven’t paid much attention to his Majesty—and that’s the fault of you Algarvians. Why should we start over now?”
He hadn’t seen Colonel Lurcanio taken aback till then. “Why? Because he is your sovereign, of course,” the redhead—actually, he’d gone quite gray—replied.
“He’s welcome to reign,” “Tytuvenai” said. “Why should he rule? What has he done for us lately?”
Lurcanio wagged a finger at him, a very Algarvian gesture. “If we should ever leave this kingdom, you will find that he still intends to rule, mark my words. May you have joy of it.” He paused. “I think we have said everything that wants saying.” He paused again, then nodded to Skarnu. “Have you any message for your sister?”
“I have no sister,” Skarnu said stonily. “No point even telling her you saw me.”
“You take this business altogether too seriously,” Lurcanio said. Skarnu did not reply. The Algarvian shrugged. “It shall be as you wish, of course.” He turned and strode away.
Skarnu started to call something after him, but didn’t. What point to it? What was Lurcanio but an enemy? He might be—Skarnu thought he was— an honest enemy, but an enemy he remained. Skarnu turned to “Tytuvenai.” He nodded once. “Let’s go,” he said.
After a long, deep, restful night’s sleep, Colonel Spinello yawned, stretched, and finally opened his eyes. The mattress was large and soft; the house not far outside of Eoforwic had, he thought, belonged to a Kaunian before Kaunians in Forthweg fell on hard times. It was ever so much more comfortable than lying down on bare dirt, which he’d done far too often while escaping the disaster that had overtaken the Algarvian armies in northern Unkerlant.
“Not so bad, eh, sweetheart?” he said.
When Jadwigai didn’t answer, Spinello rolled over toward her. She wasn’t lying in bed beside him, either. He shrugged. No law said she couldn’t get up before him, though he wouldn’t have minded pinning her to that soft, resilient mattress just then: why not start the day with pleasure, when it was all too likely to end in death or some other disaster?
Spinello pulled on his tunic and kilt and ambled out into the kitchen to see what Jadwigai had put together for breakfast, or what he could. Some Algarvians—the ones who’d never gone west to fight in Unkerlant—complained about how miserable things were in Forthweg. Spinello and the others who’d been driven out of Swemmel’s kingdom only laughed—they knew better.
“Jadwigai?” Spinello called when he didn’t see her. She didn’t answer. He shrugged again, and went to get himself some food. Bread and olive oil and wine wasn’t his favorite breakfast, but it beat the blazes out of bugs and nasty, sour berries and swamp water.
A leaf of paper lay on top of what was left of the loaf of black bread. Spinello picked it up. He hadn’t seen Jadwigai’s script before, but this couldn’t belong to anyone else. His own name was written on one side of the paper. He turned it over to the other.
By the time you read this, Jadwigai had written in classical Kaunian, I will be gone. I do thank you for saving me in the fight and flight through Unkerlant. I know you did not do it all for my sake, but also for your own. Even so, you did it, and I am grateful.
But I also know what happens to Kaunians in Algarvian hands. I know it could happen to me if you get hurt or get tired of me. I have learned that Kaunians, these days, have little trouble looking like Forthwegians. I would rather do that than live the way I have been living. Even if Unkerlant conquers Forthweg, I would rather do that.
I do not wish you ill, not in your own person. I do not wish ill on any of the men of the Albarese Regiment who still live. They could have killed me or kept me to give their bodies relief until I died, and they did not. But I do not want Algarve to win this war. I find I cannot forget after all that I am a Kaunian. Farewell.
She’d scrawled her name under the note.
Spinello plucked at his chin beard (he’d neatened up after returning to civilized company). Jadwigai had been naive to leave the leaf of paper. If he wanted to, he could give it to a mage to use the law of contagion to track her through it. Should I do that? He stroked his chin again. She wouldn’t be happy, or anything close to it.
Of course, he’d enjoyed bedding Vanai precisely because she hadn’t been happy about it. But things would be different with Jadwigai. He’d be breaking a bond of trust if he hauled her back. He’d never had one with Vanai, only a bargain: her body in exchange for keeping her grandfather from getting worked to death on a road gang. Jadwigai could have killed him or betrayed him to the Unkerlanters more times than he could count.
And so … He was, in his own way, an honest man. There were live ashes in the hearth. He got a little fire going and tossed the note into it. The paper charred, blackened, and burst into flames. He ate his bread and oil, and washed them down with not one mug of wine but two.
When he walked outside, the sentry in front of the house stiffened to attention. Spinello’s resolution wavered a little, perhaps under the influence of wine. “Have you seen Jadwigai?” he asked.
“Your wench? No, sir. I would’ve remembered.” The Algarvian soldier’s eyes lit up, as any man’s would when he thought of Jadwigai. “I thought she was in there with you.” You lucky whoreson. He didn’t need to say it. Again, Spinello could read it in his eyes.
“No.” Spinello let it go at that. Jadwigai would know when sentries went off duty and when they c
ame on. If she’d timed her disappearance to just before the last fellow went off, he wouldn’t wonder that she hadn’t returned and his replacement wouldn’t know she was gone. The only risk would have been waking Spinello when she got out of bed. And if she had wakened him, she would have just had to put up with him one more day before trying again.
“Is something wrong, sir?” Like any Algarvian, the sentry had a nose for scandal.
“No, not a thing.” Spinello lied without hesitation. “She went off somewhere without telling me, that’s all.”
“That’s liable not to be healthy, the way things are around here these days,” the sentry remarked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Spinello said dryly. The sentry chuckled. Spinello went on, “Next to Unkerlant, this is a fornicating walk in the fornicating park.” The sentry laughed again. He wore the ribbon for a frozen-meat medal, the decoration King Mezentio had given out by the tens of thousands to the men who’d come through the first winter’s fighting in Unkerlant. Spinello had one, too.
Smoke rose from Eoforwic, where the Forthwegians still battled desperately to drive back the Algarvian armies. The Unkerlanters across the Twegen still stayed quiet, though Spinello could see distant smoke in the south, where Swemmel’s men had forced a bridgehead over the river. They weren’t trying to break out of it yet, but the Algarvians hadn’t been able to crush it, either. When Spinello let himself think about that, he worried.
But he had plenty of other things to worry about, too. The sentry spelled out one of them: “Are we going back into Eoforwic today, sir? I wouldn’t mind a holiday, and that’s a fact.”
With a chuckle, Spinello said, “I wouldn’t, either, old man. Neither would Algarve, come to that. When the Forthwegians and Unkerlanters and islanders decide to give us one, though—that’s another question. So aye, we’ll be going back into town.”
“I thought you were going to tell me that.” The corners of the sentry’s mouth turned down; like so many Algarvians, he wore his heart on his sleeve. “I’d just as soon sit this one out, if it’s all the same to you.”
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