Out of the Darkness

by Harry Turtledove

  When she remarked on that, Conberge nodded. “Unkerlant had to give sticks to boys,” she answered. “The Algarvians killed most of their men.” Vanai blinked. In its bleak clarity, that sounded like something Hestan might have said.

  They bought olive oil and raisins and dried mushrooms--summer wasn’t a good season for fresh ones, except for some that growers raised. When they put parcels in the carriage, Saxburh started to fuss. “What’s the matter with you?” Vanai asked. “You don’t want to use it, but you don’t want anyone else using it, either? That’s not fair.” Saxburh didn’t care whether it was fair or not. She didn’t like it.

  Vanai picked her up. That solved the baby’s problem, and gave Vanai one of her own. “Are you going to carry her all the way home?” Conberge asked.

  “I hope not,” Vanai answered. Her sister-in-law laughed, though she hadn’t been joking.

  “Do we need anything else, or are we finished?” Conberge said.

  “If we can get a bargain on wine, that might be nice,” Vanai said.

  Conberge shrugged. “Hard to tell what a bargain is right now, at least without a set of scales.” Vanai nodded. A bewildering variety of coins passed current in Forthweg these days. King Beornwulf had started issuing his own money, but it hadn’t driven out King Penda’s older Forthwegian currency. And, along with that, both Algarvian and Unkerlanter coins circulated. Keeping track of which coins were worth what kept everybody on his toes.

  Conberge coped better than most. “I’m jealous of how well you handle it,” Vanai told her.

  “My father taught me bookkeeping, too,” Conberge answered. “I’m not afraid of numbers.”

  “I’m not afraid of them, either,” Vanai said, remembering some painful lessons with Brivibas. “But you don’t seem to have any trouble at all.”

  “He gave me his trade,” Conberge replied with another shrug. “He didn’t stop to think there might not be anyone who’d hire me at it.”

  “That’s not right,” Vanai said.

  “Maybe not, but it’s the way the world works.” Conberge lowered her voice.

  “Going after Kaunians isn’t right, either, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I wish it did.”

  “Now that you mention it, so do I,” Vanai said. She pointed across the market square. “Look--there’s someone else with dried mushrooms. Shall we go over and see what he’s got?”

  “Why not?” Conberge seemed content; perhaps even eager, to change the subject, too. “I’m not going to go in the other direction when someone has mushrooms for sale.” Forthwegians and Kaunians in Forthweg shared the passion for them.

  “I wonder what he’ll have,” Vanai said eagerly. “And I wonder what he’ll charge. Some dealers seem to think they’re selling gold, because there aren’t so many fresh ones to be had.” She would have hurried to the new dealer’s stall, but no one with a toddler in tow had much luck hurrying. Halfway across the square, she started to notice people staring at her. “What’s wrong?” she asked Conberge. “Has my tunic split a seam?”

  Her sister-in-law shook her head. “No, dear,” she answered. “But you don’t look like me anymore.”

  “Oh!” Taking Saxburh off her shoulder, Vanai saw the baby looked like herself, too, and not like a full-blooded Forthwegian child any more. I forgot to renew the spell before we went out, she thought. I never used to do that. I must be feeling safer.

  Now, though, she was going to find out if she had any business feeling safer. How long had it been since these people had seen a Kaunian who looked like a Kaunian? Years, surely, for a lot of them. How many of them had been hoping they would never see another Kaunian again? More than a few, no doubt.

  Vanai thought about ducking into a building and putting the spell on again. She thought about it, but then shook her head. For one thing, too many people had seen her both ways by now, and seen her change from one appearance to the other. For another . .

  Her back straightened. All right, by the powers above, I am a Kaunian. My people were living in Forthweg long before the Forthwegians wandered up out of the southwest. I have a right to be here. If they don’t like it, too bad.

  Conberge walked along at her side as naturally as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. That steadied Vanai. Her sister-in-law wasn’t ashamed to be seen in public with her, no matter what she looked like. But how many people are going to wonder whether Conberge’s a Kaunian in disguise now? she wondered, and hoped Ealstan’s sister wouldn’t think of that.

  Nobody shouted for a constable. Being a Kaunian wasn’t against the law in Forthweg anymore. But laws had only so much to do with the way the world worked. Vanai feared people would start shouting curses or throwing things. If they did, would the Unkerlanter soldiers on patrol try to stop them? She supposed so. Even if the soldiers did, though, the damage would still be done. She would never again be able to show her face as a blond in Gromheort, and maybe not in Forthwegian disguise, either.

  No one threw anything. No one said anything. No one, as far as Vanai could tell, so much as moved as she came up to the Forthwegian who was selling dried mushrooms: a plump fellow somewhere in his middle years. Into that frozen silence--it might have sprung from a wizard’s spell rather than from one wearing off--she spoke not in Forthwegian but in classical Kaunian: “Hello. Let me see what you have, if you please?”

  Even Conberge inhaled. Vanai wondered if she’d gone too far. Using her birthspeech wasn’t illegal any more, either, but when had anyone last done it in public here? Would the mushroom-seller try to shame her by denying that he understood? Or would he prove to be one of those Forthwegians who’d either never learned or who’d forgotten his classical Kaunian?

  Neither, as it happened. Not only did he understand the language she’d used, he even replied in it: “Of course. You’ll find some good things here.” He pushed baskets toward her.

  “Thank you,” she said, a beat slower than she should have--hearing her own tongue took her by surprise. Around her, the market square came back to life. If the dealer took her for granted, other folk would do the same. Now I have to buy something from him, she thought. No matter how much he charges, I have to buy. I owe it to him.

  But the fellow’s prices turned out to be better than the ones Vanai and Conberge had got from the man on the other side of the square. He wrapped up the mushrooms she bought in paper torn from an old news sheet and tied it with a bit of string. “Enjoy them,” he told her.

  “Thank you very much,” she said again, not just for the mushrooms.

  “You’re welcome,” he answered, and then leaned toward her and lowered his voice: “I’m glad to see you safe, Vanai.”

  Her jaw dropped. Suddenly, she too spoke in a whisper: “You’re someone from Oyngestun, aren’t you? One of us, I mean. Who?”

  “Tamulis,” he said.

  “Oh, powers above be praised!” she exclaimed. The apothecary had always been kind to her. She asked, “Is anyone else from the village left?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “You’re the first one I’ve seen with nerve enough to show your true face. More than I’ve got, believe you me.”

  It hadn’t been nerve. It had been a mistake. But I got by with it, Vanai thought. If I want to, lean do it again. Maybe lean do it again, anyway. Somehow, that maybe felt like victory.

  Garivald had thought he would forever hate all Algarvians and the men who’d fought for the redheads. Now he found himself swinging a pick beside one of Mezentio’s men while a former soldier from Plegmund’s Brigade shoveled the cinnabar ore they’d loosened into a car another Unkerlanter had charge of. “Being careful,” the Algarvian said in bad Unkerlanter. “Almost dropping pick on my toes.”

  “Sorry,” Garivald answered, and found himself meaning it. He’d worked beside this particular redhead before, and didn’t think he was a bad fellow. Here in the mines in the Mamming Hills, the captives, whatever they looked like, weren’t one another’s worst foes. That honor, without question
, went to the guards.

  All the captives--Unkerlanters, Forthwegians, Gyongyosians, Algarvians, black Zuwayzin--hated the guards with a passion far surpassing anything else they felt. They worked alongside their fellows in misery well enough. The guards were the men who made life a misery.

  “Come on, you lazy whoresons!” one of them shouted now. “You don’t work harder, we’ll just knock you over the head and get somebody who will. Don’t think we can’t do it, on account of we cursed well can.”

  Maybe some of the foreigners in the mine were naive enough to believe the guards wouldn’t kill any man they felt like killing. Garivald wasn’t. He doubted whether any Unkerlanter was. Inspectors and impressers had always meant that life in Unkerlant was lived watchfully. Anyone who spoke his mind to someone he didn’t know quite well enough would pay for it.

  The work went on. Here in the summertime, it would still be light when the men in the mines came up after their shift ended, as it had been light when they came down to their places at the ends of the tunnels. Come winter, it would be dark and freezing--worse than freezing--above ground at each end of the shift. Down here in the mine, winter and summer, day and night, didn’t matter. To a farmer like Garivald, a man who’d lived his life by the rhythm of the seasons, that felt strange.

  Of course, his being here at all felt strange. No one thought he was Garivald, the fellow who’d been a leader in the underground and come up with patriotic songs. As Garivald, he was a fugitive. Anyone who’d presumed to resist the Algarvians without getting orders from King Swemmel’s soldiers was automatically an object of suspicion. After all, he might resist Unkerlant next. Plenty of Grelzers had. Some of them were in the mines, too.

  But no. Garivald was here because of what he’d done, what he’d seen, while using the name of Fariulf, which he still kept. What did I see? he wondered. Much of what he’d seen in battle, he wanted only to forget. But that wasn’t what had made the inspectors seize him when he got off the ley-line caravan. By now, thanks to a good deal of thought and some cautious talk with other captives, he had a pretty good notion of why he was here.

  What did I see? I saw the Algarvians were a lot richer than we are. I saw they took for granted things we haven’t got, I saw their towns were clean and well run. I saw their farms grew more grain and had more livestock than ours do. I saw water in pipes and lamps that run on sorcerous energy and paved roads and a thick ley-line network. I saw people who weren‘t hungry half the time, and who weren‘t nearly so afraid of their king as we are of ours.

  Being an Unkerlanter, he even understood why his countrymen had yanked him out of freedom--or what passed for it hereabouts--and sent him to the mines. If he’d gone back to his farm, to his life with Obilot, he would have come into the town of Linnich every so often, to sell his produce and buy what the farm couldn’t turn out. And he might have talked about what he’d seen in Algarve. That, in turn, might have made other people wonder why they couldn’t have so much their enemies took for granted. Oh, aye, I’m a dangerous character, I am, Garivald thought. I could have started a rebellion, a conspiracy.

  A lot of the men in the mines were no more truly dangerous than he was. But he knew some who were. That fellow from Plegmund’s Brigade who’d once tried to comb his band out of the forest west of Herborn sprang to mind. No one would ever make Ceorl out to be a hero. He didn’t pretend to be one, either. He was a born bandit, a son of a whore if ever there was one.

  And he flourished here in the mines. He led a band of Forthwegians and a couple of Kaunians. They hung together and got good food and good bunks for themselves. When other gangs challenged them, they fought back with a viciousness that made sure they didn’t get challenged often.

  And Ceorl seemed to like Garivald, as much as he liked anyone. That puzzled the Unkerlanter. At last, he decided being old enemies counted almost as much as being old friends would have. Out in the wider world, the notion would have struck him as absurd. Here in the mines, it made a twisted kind of sense. Even seeing someone who’d tried to kill you reminded you of what lay beyond tunnels and barracks.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Ceorl kept saying to whoever would listen. His Unkerlanter was foul; listening took effort. But he spoke his mind--spoke it without the least hesitation. “We’ve got to get out. This place is a manufactory for dying.”

  “A man at the head of a gang can live soft,” Garivald told him. “Why do you care what happens to anybody else?”

  “I spent too fornicating much time in gaol,” Ceorl answered; Forthwegian obscenities weren’t too different from their Unkerlanter equivalents. “This is another one.” He spat. “Besides, this cinnabar stuff’s poison. Look at the quicksilver refineries. And even the raw stuff’s bad. I was talking with somebody from a dragon groundcrew. It’ll kill you--not fast, but it will.”

  Garivald shrugged. He didn’t know whether that was true, but he wouldn’t have been surprised. The mines weren’t run as health resorts for miners. “What can you do about it?” he asked reasonably. “Run away?”

  “No, of course not,” Ceorl said. “I wasn’t thinking of anything like that. Not me, pal. I know better, by the powers above.”

  He spoke louder than he had been, louder than he needed to. Looking over his shoulder, Garivald saw a grim-faced guard within earshot. He doubted Ceorl had fooled the guard; of course any captive in his right mind wanted to get away. But the Forthwegian couldn’t very well say he wanted to break out of the captives’ camp and mine complex. Escape was punishable, too.

  A couple of days later, at the end of a blind corridor, Ceorl picked up the thread as if the guard had never interrupted it: “How about you, buddy? You want to get out of here?”

  “If I could,” Garivald said. “Who wouldn’t? But what are the odds? They’ve got it shut up tight.”

  The Forthwegian laughed in his face. “You may be tough, but you ain’t what anybody’d call smart.”

  Garivald marveled that the ruffian found him tough, but he let that go. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “There’s ways,” Ceorl answered. “That’s all I’m gonna tell you--there’s ways. Maybe not if you’re a redhead or a blond, but if you’re the right kind of ugly, there’s ways. Speaking the lingo helps, too.”

  As far as Garivald was concerned, Ceorl didn’t really speak it. But his own Grelzer dialect made a lot of his countrymen automatically assume he’d been a traitor. Unkerlanter came in a lot of flavors. Maybe people somewhere in the kingdom talked the way Ceorl did.

  Garivald rubbed his chin. “You aren’t the right kind of ugly if you keep that beard.”

  Ceorl grinned. “Aye, I know it. I’ll get rid of the fornicating thing when the time comes. Till then, though ...” He eyed Garivald. “If you don’t feel like staying here till you croak, wanna come along?”

  “If they catch us, they’re liable to kill us.”

  “And so?” Ceorl shrugged. “What difference does it make? I ain’t gonna live the rest of my days in a fornicating cage. They think I am, they can kiss my arse.”

  For Garivald, it wasn’t the rest of his life. His official sentence was twenty-five years. But he’d be a long way from young if they ever let him out--and if he lived to the end of the sentence. How likely was that? He didn’t know, not for certain, but he didn’t like the odds.

  Informing on Ceorl might be one way to get his sentence cut. He realized as much, but never thought of actually doing it. He hated informers even more than he hated inspectors and impressers. The latter groups, at least, were open about what they did. Informers ... As far as he was concerned, informers were worms inside apples.

  “What would you do if you got out?” he asked Ceorl.

  “Who knows? Who cares? Whatever I futtering well please,” the ruffian replied. “That’s the idea. When you’re out, you do what you futtering well please.”

  He didn’t know Unkerlant so well as he thought he did. Nobody in the kingdom, save only King Swemmel, did what he please
d. Eyes were on a man wherever he went. He might not know they were there, but they would be.

  Well, if a fornicating Forthwegian doesn’t know how things work, if he gets caught again, what do I care? Garivald thought. If I can get out of here, I know how to fit back into things. All I’d have to do is separate from him.

  Would he have thought like that before the war? He didn’t know. He hoped not. The past four years had gone a long way toward turning him into a wolf. He wasn’t the only one, either. He was sure of that. He stuck out his hand. “Aye, I’m with you.”

  “Good.” He’d already known how strong Ceorl’s grip was. By all the signs, the Forthwegian had been born a wolf. “We’ll be able to use each other. I know how, and you can do most of the talking.”

  “Fair enough,” Garivald said. And if we do get out, which of us will try to kill the other one first? As long as one of them knew about the other, they were both vulnerable. If he could see that, Ceorl could surely see it, too. He studied the ruffian. Ceorl smiled back, the picture of honest sincerity. That made Garivald certain he couldn’t trust the Forthwegians very far.

  “What are you whoresons doing down there?” a guard called. “Whatever it is, come do it where I can keep an eye on you.”

  “You wanna watch me piss?” Ceorl said, tugging at his tunic as if he’d been doing just that. The tunnel stank of urine; he’d made a good choice for cover. The guard pulled a horrible face and waved him and Garivald back to work.

  He’s got nerve, Garivald thought. He isn’t stupid, even if he doesn’t understand Unkerlant. If he has a plan for getting out of here, it may work.

  As Ceorl walked back toward the mouth of the tunnel, he muttered, “This whole fornicating kingdom’s nothing but a fornicating captives’ camp.” Garivald blinked. Maybe the man from Plegmund’s Brigade understood Unkerlant better than he’d thought.