Garivald started swinging his pick with a vim he hadn’t shown before. He wondered why. Could hope, however forlorn, do so much? Maybe it could.
Since Sabrino had declined to become King of Algarve, or of a part of Algarve, he’d got better treatment in the sanatorium. He’d expected worse. After all, he’d warned General Vatran he wouldn’t make a reliable puppet. He had no reason to think the Unkerlanter general disbelieved him. Maybe Vatran had more courtesy for an honest, and crippled, enemy than he’d expected.
Little by little, Sabrino learned to get around on one leg. He stumped up and down corridors at the sanatorium. Eventually, he even got to go outside, to test his crutches and his surviving leg on real dirt. He remained in pain. Decoctions of poppy juice helped hold it at bay. He knew he’d come to crave the decoctions, but he couldn’t do anything about that. If the pain ever went away, he would think about weaning himself from them. Not now. Not soon, either, he didn’t think.
“You’re doing very well,” his chief healer said one day, when he came back worn and sweaty from a journey of a few hundred yards. “You’re doing much better than we thought you would, in fact. When you first came in here, plenty of people doubted you would live more than a few days.”
“I was one of them,” Sabrino answered. “And I would be lying if I said I were sure you did me a favor by saving me.”
“Now, what sort of attitude is that?” The healer spoke in reproving tones.
“Mine,” Sabrino told him. “This is my carcass, or what’s left of it. I’m the one who’s got to live in it, and that’s not a whole lot of fun.”
The healer tried cajolery. “We’d hate to see everything we did go to waste after we worked so hard to keep you going.”
“Huzzah,” Sabrino said sourly. “I’m not a fool, and I’m not a child. I know what you did. I know you worked hard. What I still don’t know is whether you should have bothered.”
“Algarve is mutilated, too,” the healer said. “We need all the men we have left, wouldn’t you say?”
To that, Sabrino had no good answers. He sat down on his cot and let the crutches fall. “I never thought I would hope for calluses under my arms,” he said, “but these cursed things rub me raw.” Before the healer could speak, Sabrino wagged a finger at him. “If you tell me I’ve got the rest of my life to get used to them, I’ll pick up one of those crutches and brain you with it.”
“I didn’t say a thing,” the healer replied. “And if you kill a man for what he’s thinking, how many men would be left alive today?”
“About as many as are left alive today, if you’re thinking about Algarvians,” Sabrino said. He lay down and fell asleep almost at once. Part of that was the decoctions--though sometimes they also cost him sleep--and part of it was the exhaustion that came with being on his feet, if only for a little while.
When he woke, the healer was hovering above his cot. In his long white tunic, he reminded Sabrino of a sea bird. He said, “You have a visitor.”
“What now?” Sabrino asked. “Are they going to try to make me King of Yanina? I couldn’t be worse than Tsavellas, that’s certain.”
“No, indeed, your Excellency.” The healer turned toward the doorway and made a beckoning motion. “You may come in now.”
“Thank you.” To Sabrino’s astonishment, his wife walked into the room.
“Gismonda!” he exclaimed. “By the powers above, what are you doing here? I sent a message to tell you to get to the east if you could, and I thought you had. The Kuusamans and Lagoans beat us, but the Unkerlanters. . .” His gesture was broad, expansive, Algarvian. “They’re Unkerlanters.”
“I know,” Gismonda said. “By the time I made up my mind to get out of Trapani, it was too late. I couldn’t. And so”--she shrugged--”I stayed.”
The healer shook a warning finger as he walked to the door. “I’ll be back in half an hour or so,” he said. “He is not to be overtired. And,” he added pointedly, “I am leaving this door open.”
With the decoction in him, Sabrino didn’t much care what came out of his mouth. Leering at the healer, he said, “You don’t know how shameless I can be, do you?” The fellow left in a hurry.
“Now, really!” Gismonda said, sounding a little amused but much more scandalized. “You may be dead to shame, my dear, but what makes you think am?
She’d been a beauty when they wed. She was still a handsome woman, but one who showed she had iron underneath. She’d rarely warmed up to Sabrino in the marriage bed. She gave him what he wanted when he wanted it with her, and, like a lot of Algarvian wives, she’d looked the other way when he took a mistress. But she’d always been fiercely loyal, and Sabrino had never embarrassed her, as some husbands enjoyed doing to their wives.
Now, instead of answering her, he asked the question uppermost in his mind: “Are you all right?”
“Oh, aye.” She nodded. “All things considered, the place isn’t too badly damaged. And as for the Unkerlanters . .” Another shrug. “One of them had some ideas along those lines, but I persuaded him they were altogether inappropriate, and they’ve given me no trouble since.”
“Good for you.” Sabrino wondered if Gismonda’s “persuasion” had been something swift and lethal in a cup of wine or spirits, or whether a show of sternness had convinced the Unkerlanter to take his attentions elsewhere. That wouldn’t have been beyond her, but Swemmel’s men, by all Sabrino had heard and seen, weren’t always willing to take no for an answer. He said, “I hope you didn’t take too much of a chance.”
“I didn’t think so,” Gismonda replied, “and I turned out to be right. I have had some practice at judging these things, you know. Men are men, regardless of which kingdom they come from.”
She spoke with what sounded like perfect detachment. And if that’s not a judgment on half the human race, powers below eat me if I know what would be, Sabrino thought. He knew what his own countrymen had done in Unkerlant. It didn’t go very far toward making him think she was wrong. “Well, any which way, I’m glad you came through safe, and I’m very glad to see you,” he said.
“I would have come sooner,” she said, “but the first word I got was that you were dead.” She angrily tossed her head. “It wasn’t anything official--by then, the official ley lines had all broken down. But one of the officers from your wing--a captain of no particular breeding--came to the house to give me the news that he had seen you flamed out of the sky.”
“That would have been Orosio,” Sabrino said. “Breeding or not, he’s a good fellow. I wonder if he came through alive.”
“I don’t know. That was the name, though,” Gismonda said. “If he came to tell me such a story, he might at least have had the courtesy to get it right. It must have been kindly meant--I can’t doubt that--but. . . .”
“I’m lucky to be alive,” Sabrino answered. If this is luck, he added, but only to himself. Aloud, he went on, “I can’t blame him for thinking I was dead. If your dragon goes down, you usually are. Mine didn’t smash into the ground, and didn’t crush me after I got out of the harness. Luck--except for my leg.” He couldn’t pretend that hadn’t happened, no matter how much he wanted to.
His wife nodded. “I’m very sorry.”
It was more than polite, less than loving: exactly what he might have expected from Gismonda. “How did you finally find out Orosio had it wrong?”
“A mad rumor went through Trapani a couple of weeks ago--a rumor that the Unkerlanters had offered to make some wounded dragonflier King of Algarve, or of what they held of Algarve, and that he’d turned them down flat.”
Gismonda’s green eyes glinted. “I know you, my dear. It sounded so much like something you would do, I started asking questions. And here I am.”
“Here you are,” Sabrino agreed. “I’m glad you are.” He held out his hands to her. They still hadn’t touched. That was very much like Gismonda, too. But she did take his hands now. She even bent down by the side of the bed and brushed her lips across his. He
laughed. “You are a wanton today.”
“Oh, hush,” she told him. “You’re as foolish as that healer of yours.”
He patted her backside--not the sort of liberty he usually took with her. “If you wanted to shut the door . . .”
“I wasn’t supposed to make you tired,” Gismonda said primly.
Sabrino grinned. “You just told me the fellow was a fool. So why pay attention to him now?”
“Men,” Gismonda said again, maybe fondly, maybe not. “You’d sooner have lost your leg than that.”
“No.” The grin fell from Sabrino’s face. “I’d sooner not have lost anything. This hasn’t been easy, and it hasn’t been fun, and I’ll thank you not to joke about it.”
“I’m sorry,” his wife said at once. “You’re right, of course. That was thoughtless of me. When do they think you’ll be able to leave here?”
She was clever. Not only did she change the subject, she reminded him what he would be able to do when he healed, not of what he’d lost. “It shouldn’t be too much longer,” he answered. “I am on my feet--on my foot, I should say. I’d just gone out and about not long before you got here. They’re talking about fitting a made leg to the stump, but that won’t be for a while longer. It needs to heal more.”
“I understand,” Gismonda said. “When you do get out, I’ll take the best care of you I can--and I’ll do what I can for that, too, once we’re someplace where no one is likely to walk in on us.”
“I appreciate it.” Sabrino’s tone was sardonic. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized that was a mistake. If he was to get any pleasure from a woman from now on, from whom would it be but Gismonda? Who else would be interested in a mutilated old man? No one he could think of.
Half a lifetime earlier, such a reflection would have cast him into despair. Now ... At just this side of sixty, he burned less feverishly than he had when he was younger. The decoctions he drank to hold pain at bay helped dampen his fire, too, and the brute fact of the injury he’d taken also reduced his vitality.
He sighed. “Even if you had shut the door there, I wonder if anything would have happened.”
“One way or another, I expect we’ll manage when you’re well enough to come home,” Gismonda said. “In your own way, Sabrino, you are reliable.”
“For which I thank you indeed,” he replied. “It may be flattery--in my present state of decrepitude, it’s bound to be flattery--but you mustn’t think I’m not grateful to you for keeping up the illusion.”
“Isn’t that part of what marriage is about? Keeping up illusions, I mean. On both sides, mind you, so husband and wife can go on living with each other. Or maybe you’d sooner just call it politeness and tact.”
“I don’t know.” Sabrino groped for a reply, found none, and let out a small, embarrassed laugh. “I don’t know what to say to that. But I can use the distillate of poppy juice as an excuse, and count on you to be polite enough not to let me see you don’t believe a single, solitary word of it.”
Gismonda smiled. “Of course, my dear.”
The healer bustled in. “Well, well, how are we doing?” he asked in a loud, hearty voice.
“No we, my dear fellow. I turned the kingship down,” Sabrino said grandly. The healer laughed. Gismonda smiled again. Sabrino was gladder for that; he knew she made a more discriminating audience.
In the refectory, Pekka raised her mug of ale in salute. “Powers above be praised that we aren’t teaching teams of mages anymore!” she said, and took a long pull at the mug.
“I’ll certainly drink to that.” Fernao did. Setting his mug on the table, he gave her a quizzical look. “But I’m surprised to hear you say such a thing. How will you go back to Kajaani City College if you feel that way?”
Pekka cut a bite from her reindeer chop. Chewing and swallowing gave her time to think. “It’s not the same,” she said at last. “That won’t be an emergency. And”--she looked around the refectory before she went on, making sure none of the mages they’d worked with was in earshot--”and I won’t be trying to get through to so many stubborn dunderheads. Some of the people we tried to teach must still be sure the world is flat.”
“I ran into that, too,” Fernao said. “You wouldn’t expect it from mages--”
“I thought the same thing at first,” Pekka broke in, “but now I’m not so sure. Mages know the world is full of sorcerous laws. When we showed them the ones they thought they knew weren’t really at the bottom of things, some of them didn’t want to hear that at all.”
“They certainly didn’t,” Fernao agreed. “Some of them didn’t want to believe the spells I was casting actually worked, even though they saw them with their own eyes. But even so, the ones we did manage to train went out and stopped the Algarvians as if they’d run into a wall.”
That was true. Pekka couldn’t deny it, and was glad she couldn’t. “Have you read the interrogation reports from some of the captured Algarvian mages?” she asked.
“Aye.” Fernao nodded. His smile might have belonged on the face of a shark: it was all teeth and no mercy. “They still haven’t figured out how we did what we did. They know we did something they couldn’t match, but there are about as many guesses as to what it is as there are mages.”
“And not very many of them are even close to what we really did,” Pekka said. “That makes me happier, too, because it’s likely to mean the Unkerlanters aren’t close to figuring it out, either. I hope they’re not.”
“So do I.” Fernao said. “As long as they don’t figure it out, we still hold the whip hand. The longer we can keep it, the better.” He took another sip from his mug, then asked, “Anything new from Gyongyos?”
“Not that I’ve heard,” Pekka answered with a mournful shake of the head. “If they don’t decide we meant that warning demonstration, we’ll have to show them it was real. I don’t want to do that. So many people . . .”
“It will end the war,” Fernao said. “It had better, anyhow.”
That made Pekka drain the rest of her ale in a hurry. The notion that the Gongs might try to keep fighting even after having horror visited on them had never crossed her mind. No one rational would do such a thing. But, were the Gyongyosians rational, wouldn’t they have quit already? They’d surely seen by now that they couldn’t hope to win . . . hadn’t they?
“What would we do if they didn’t quit?” she muttered.
“Smash another city of theirs, I suppose,” Fernao answered. “Better that than invading--or do you think I’m wrong?”
“No.” Pekka waved to one of the serving women and ordered more ale. “I don’t want to have to cast this spell once, though. Twice?” She shuddered. When the new mug of ale got there, she gulped it down fast, too.
Her head started to spin. Fernao wagged a finger at her. “Am I going to have to carry you up to your bedchamber?”
She laughed. It sounded like the laugh of someone who’d had a little too much to drink. “Ha!” she said, feeling very witty--and slightly tongue-tied. “You just want me defenseless”--she had to try twice before she could get the word out--”so you can work your evil will on me.”
“Evil?” Fernao raised a gingery eyebrow. “You thought it was pretty good the last time we tried anything.”
As best she could remember--none too clearly, not at the moment--he was right. “That hasn’t got anything to do with anything,” she declared.
“No, eh?” Fernao said. “I--”
A commotion at the entrance to the refectory interrupted him. “What’s that?” Pekka said. Kuusamans didn’t commonly cause commotions. She got to her feet to see what was going on.
So did Fernao. Since he was a good deal taller, he could see more. When he exclaimed, Pekka couldn’t tell whether he was delighted or horrified. A moment later, he spoke two words that explained why perfectly well: “Ilmarinen’s back.”
“Is he?” Pekka said, in tones identical to his.
Back Ilmarinen was. He somehow contriv
ed to look raffish even in the uniform of a Kuusaman colonel. Catching sight of Fernao, who stood out not only on account of his inches but also for his red hair, the elderly theoretical sorcerer waved and made his way toward him, shaking off the mages and servants clustering round. A few steps later, Ilmarinen caught sight of Pekka, too, and waved again.
Pekka waved back, trying to show more enthusiasm than she felt. What’s he going to say, seeing the two of us together? she wondered. It was a question whose answer she could have done without.
What Ilmarinen did say was, “I was very sorry to hear about Leino. He was a good man. I’d hoped to see him in Jelgava, but I got up to the front just too late.”
“Thank you,” Pekka answered. She couldn’t find anything exceptionable in that.
“Aye.” Ilmarinen spoke almost absently. He looked from her to Fernao and back again. Glowering up at the Jelgavan, he said, “You’d better take good care of her.”
“I can take care of myself, Master Ilmarinen,” Pekka said sharply.
Ilmarinen waved that aside, as being of no account. He waited for Fernao to speak. “I’m doing my best,” Fernao said.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” Ilmarinen said with a dismissive snort. He waved a forefinger under Fernao’s nose. “If you make her unhappy, I’ll tear your arm off and beat you to death with it, do you understand me? I’m not kidding.”
“Master Ilmarinen--” Pekka felt herself flush.
“I didn’t think you were, Master,” Fernao said seriously, almost as if he were speaking to Pekka’s father.
But Ilmarinen wasn’t feeling fatherly: old, perhaps, but not fatherly. “By the powers above, if I were twenty years younger--ten years younger, even--I’d give you a run for your money, you overgrown galoot, see if I wouldn’t.”
“Master Ilmarinen!” Pekka hadn’t thought her cheeks could get any hotter. Now she discovered she’d been wrong.
She wondered if Fernao would laugh in Ilmarinen’s face. That wouldn’t have been a good idea. To her relief, Fernao saw as much for himself. Nodding soberly, he said, “I believe you.” Pekka believed him, too. Master Siuntio would have tempted her more. Ilmarinen? She just didn’t know about Ilmarinen, and she never had. In a land of steady, reliable people, he was hair-raisingly erratic. About three days out of four, she found that a bad bargain. The fourth, it seemed oddly attractive.
Out of the Darkness Page 59