He sighed. So many things that had once seemed as changeless as these hills looked different, doubtful, dangerous, in the aftermath of the Derlavaian War. For as long as he’d been alive, Algarve had been the pivotal kingdom in the east, the one around which events revolved, the one toward which her neighbors looked with awe and dread. That had remained so even after she lost the Six Years’ War.
No more. Hajjaj was sure of that. It wasn’t just that Mezentio’s kingdom had been shattered, with one king in Algarve propped up by the islanders, the other by Swemmel of Unkerlant. But Algarve had shattered herself morally as well. No one could look toward her now without disgust. That marked a great change in the world.
Would everyone turn to Unkerlant, then? Swemmel surely ruled the most powerful kingdom on the mainland of Derlavai. Would Yaninans and Forthwe-gians and Zuwayzin and even Algarvians start shouting, “Efficiency!” at the top of their lungs? The notion made Hajjaj queasy, but where else would folk look?
Kuusamo, maybe, he thought. Kuusamo and Lagoas were the only kingdoms that could hope to hold any sort of balance against Unkerlant. Kuusamo isn’t even a kingdom, not really, Hajjaj reminded himself. How does it hold together under seven princes? Somehow it managed, and more than managed. Its soldiers had done more than the Lagoans to beat Algarve in the east, and it had also beaten Gyongyos even without the final sorcery. Aye, Kuusamo was a place to watch.
Hard to have a vicious tyranny like Unkerlant’s with seven lords in place of one, Hajjaj thought. And anything else, he was sure, made a better choice than Swemmel of Unkerlant.
Twenty
Here, Vanai.” Elfryth held out a platter. “Would you like another slice of mutton?”
“No, thank you,” Vanai said. “I’m full.”
Her mother-in-law frowned. “Are you sure? Powers above, you haven’t even finished what you’ve got there. Now that we have enough food again, you really ought to eat.”
“I’m full,” Vanai repeated. She meant it, too. In fact, what she’d already eaten was sitting none too comfortably in her belly.
“I’ll have some more mutton,” Ealstan said. “And pass the porridge, too, please. Garlic and mushrooms and almonds.. .” He grinned and smacked his lips.
Hestan picked up the bowl and handed it to Vanai. “Pass this to your husband.”
“All right,” she said, and did. She’d had a helping of porridge herself, and liked it. But the odor of garlic wafting up from it now made her insides churn. “Here,” she told Ealstan. Then, gulping, she left the table in a hurry.
When she came back, she’d got rid of what was bothering her--got rid of it most literally. She took a cautious sip of wine to kill the nasty taste in her mouth. She swallowed it even more cautiously, wondering if her stomach would rebel again. But the wine gave her no trouble.
“Mama!” Saxburh said from her high chair. Vanai gave her a wan smile. The baby looked to be wearing more porridge than she’d eaten.
“Are you all right, dear?” Elfryth asked.
“I’m fine--now,” Vanai said.
Something in her tone made her mother-in-law’s eyes widen. “Oh,” she said, and then, ‘‘If I’m wrong, you’ll tell me, but... is Saxburh going to have a little brother or sister?”
So much for keeping it a secret a while longer, Vanai thought. Of course, bolting from the table in the middle of a good meal had a way of killing a secret dead. Vanai made herself nod. “Aye, I think she will.”
And maybe it hadn’t been such a secret after all. Hestan nodded and said, “You’ve been falling asleep pretty early lately. That’s always a sign.”
Ealstan said, “I thought so, too. I wasn’t going to ask you for another little while, though. So we’ll have a two-year-old and a baby in the house at the same time, will we?” He looked from his father to his mother. “How did you two manage?”
“It’s simple enough,” Hestan answered. “You go mad. Most of the time, though, you’re too busy to notice you’ve done it.” Elfryth nodded emphatically.
Saxburh plucked the spoon from her bowl of porridge and flung it on the floor. “Done!” she announced. Vanai grabbed the bowl before it followed.
Ealstan surveyed his daughter. “Before we turn her loose, I think we ought to take her to the public baths. They might have enough water to get her properly clean.”
“She’s not so bad as that,” Vanai said. “A wet rag will do the job just fine.” And so it did, though Saxburh liked getting washed no better than usual. Sometimes washing her face wasn’t much different from wrestling.
“Another grandchild.” Hestan smiled. “I like that.”
“So do I,” Elfryth said. “We can enjoy them, but Vanai and Ealstan have to do most of the work. What’s not to like about an arrangement like that?”
“Ha,” Ealstan said in a hollow voice. “Ha, ha, ha.”
“What makes you think your mother was joking?” Hestan asked, sounding as serious as he did most of the time.
No matter how serious he sounded, Vanai knew better than to take him seriously. “You--both of you--have given us lots of help with Saxburh. I know you’ll help some with the new baby, too. Of course we’ll do more--it’s our child, after all.”
“You married a sensible woman, son,” Hestan said to Ealstan. “My only question is, if she’s as sensible as she seems, why did she marry you?”
In a lot of families, a question like that would have been the opening blaze in a row. Here, Ealstan didn’t even blink. “I fooled her. I told her I was rich and I came from a good family. She hadn’t met you yet, of course, so she didn’t know what a liar I was.”
“Well! I like that!” Elfryth said. But her eyes twinkled, too.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” Ealstan said. “I guess I’m only half a liar.”
“Oh, stop, all of you,” Vanai said. She’d seen how Ealstan and his family teased one another without angering or hurting anybody. She’d seen it, aye, but she didn’t understand it or fully believe it. Had she and her own grandfather made cracks like that, the air around the two of them would have frozen for days. Brivibas appreciated a certain sort of dry wit, but he’d had no sense of humor to speak of. And I always meant everything I told him, too, Vanai thought. Looking back, some of the things she’d said didn’t make her proud, but her grandfather had always had the knack for infuriating her.
Saxburh banged both little fists down on the high chair’s tray, interrupting her mother’s gloomy reflections. “Out!” she said.
“She’s talking very well,” Elfryth said as Vanai turned the baby loose. “She’s going to be smart.” She shook her head. “No, she’s already smart.”
“Must take after her mother,” Hestan remarked.
“No doubt,” Ealstan agreed. “Do you suppose I’m an idiot because I got it from you, or just because you raised me?”
“Both, I’d say,” Hestan answered placidly. He turned to Vanai and shifted from Forthwegian to classical Kaunian: “When do you intend to teach the baby this language along with ours?”
“My father-in-law, I didn’t do it before because of the occupation,” Vanai said in the same language. “If she’d spoken the wrong tongue while we were sorcerously disguised, that could have been . . . very bad.”
“Of course,” Hestan said. “But you can do it now--and you should, I think. With so many of your people gone on account of the cursed Algarvians, classical Kaunian is in danger of dying out as a birthspeech. After so many generations, that would be very bad, too.”
“I’ve had the same thought,” Vanai said. That a Forthwegian would feel as she did surprised her. Ealstan would. Ealstan does, she thought. But Ealstan was in love with her. His father wasn’t. But he gets a lot of his ideas from his father. She shook her head, bemused at arguing with herself.
Hestan plucked at his thick gray beard. “I’m not my brother, and I thank the powers above that I’m not,” he said. “We don’t all hate Kaunians and Kaunianity, even if the war let too many who do run wild.�
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“I know that,” Vanai said. “If I didn’t know that, would I have married your son? Would we have a baby who’s not one thing or the other, with another one on the way?”
“No, indeed,” Hestan answered. “But sometimes these things do need saying.”
“Fair enough.” Vanai nodded. Saxburh scrambled up into her lap. The toddler looked curiously from her to Hestan and back again. They were talking, but they were using words she hadn’t heard much before and couldn’t understand. By her wide eyes, that was very interesting.
Ealstan said, “The next question is, how do I make enough money to feed a wife and two babies and maybe even myself?” He laughed. “After six years of questions like, How do I stay alive? and How do I keep the cursed redheads from murdering my wife?--after worrying about questions like those, thinking of money isn’t so bad.”
“I’ve never gone hungry, and neither did my children,” Hestan said. “I don’t think yours have much to worry about.”
“If this were real peace, I wouldn’t worry,” Ealstan said. “But with everything all torn to pieces by the war, business just isn’t what it used to be.”
“Not now,” his father agreed, “but it’s bound to get better. It could hardly get worse, after all. And we’re still willing to share, you know.”
“Haven’t we taken enough already?” Ealstan said.
“We’re a family. This is what families are for.” Elfryth nodded, most vehemently, toward Vanai. From personal experience, Vanai had only a vague notion of what families were for. She didn’t want to shrug, so she just sat still.
Her husband still seemed unhappy. “You’re not helping Conberge the same way you’re helping us.”
“So we’re not, and do you know why?” Hestan asked. Ealstan shook his head. His father went on, “Because Grimbald’s parents are helping the two of them--the three of them, soon--that’s why.”
“Oh,” Ealstan said in a small voice.
Vanai said, “Thank you very much for everything you’ve done for us. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”
“This is what families are for,” Elfryth repeated.
Hestan added, “And if you and Ealstan got by in the middle of Eoforwic in the middle of the war, I don’t expect you would have had much trouble here in Gromheort in peacetime.”
It’s because he says things like that, Vanai realized, that all his teasing doesn’t pack a sting. Ealstan couldn’t doubt he really was loved, no matter how sardonic his father got. And the ley line ran in both directions. That was obvious, too.
Saxburh screwed up her face and grunted. No matter how clever she was, she was a long way from knowing how to wait when she needed to go. Vanai eagerly looked forward to the day when she learned. But another baby’s coming, she thought in sudden dismay. Even after Saxburh knows what to do, her little brother or sister won’t.
She carried her daughter away to clean up the mess. “Come on, you little stinker,” she said. Saxburh thought that was funny. So did Vanai--but only after she’d washed her hands.
After Saxburh went to bed, Vanai soon followed. In this pregnancy as in the one before, she found herself sleepy all the time. “Another baby,” Ealstan said in wondering tones. “I had thought you might be expecting again--your courses hadn’t come.”
“No, they hadn’t,” Vanai replied around a yawn. “They won’t, not for a while now.” She laughed a little. “I miss nine months of cramps, and then I get to make up for it all at once, and then some.”
“If it’s a boy, I’d like to name him Leofsig, for my brother,” Ealstan said.
Vanai didn’t see how she could quarrel with that, especially not when Leof-sig, from all she’d heard, had got on with Kaunians as well as the rest of this remarkable Forthwegian family did--and when Sidroc, who’d gone into Pleg-mund’s Brigade, had killed him. Nodding, she said, “I would like to give him-- or her, if it’s a girl--a Kaunian name, too.”
“Of course,” Ealstan said.
He hadn’t quarreled. He hadn’t even hesitated. He’d just said, Of course. Vanai gave him a hug. “I love you,” she told him.
“I love you, too,” he answered seriously. “That’s what makes it all worthwhile. By the powers above, I do hope I’ll be able to keep feeding everybody.”
“I think you will,” Vanai said. Ealstan still looked worried. She added, “Your father thinks you will, too. He’s a very sharp man. If he thinks you can manage, he’s likely right.”
Ealstan kissed her. “You’re the one who always knows the right thing to say.”
She yawned again. “What I’m going to say now is, ‘Good night.’“ She rolled over onto her side and felt sleep coming down on her like a soft, dark blanket. She yawned one more time. Tomorrow, life would go on. It was an utterly ordinary thought--for anyone who hadn’t been through what Vanai had. To her, the ordinary would never seem so again, not when she compared it to the years just past. Being able to have an ordinary life . . . Who, really, could want much more than that? Not me, she thought, and slept.
Pekka had run the largest, most complex sorcerous project the land of the Seven Princes had ever known. Over in the Naantali district, mages by the dozen had leaped to obey her. Thanks to the project, the Gyongyosians had surrendered and the Derlavaian War was over.
“Aye? And so?” Elimaki said when Pekka went over her accomplishments.
“And so? And so?” Pekka threw her hands in the air and scowled at her sister. “And so you’d think I’d be able to put together a simple wedding. That’s and so. Wouldn’t you?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Elimaki said soothingly. “You’re doing fine. Everything will be wonderful. You’re only getting upset because it’s three days away.”
“And because the caterer and the florist haven’t got a clue--not even a hint--about what they’re supposed to be doing,” Pekka added. “They’re both idiots. How do they stay in business when they’re such idiots?”
“They’ve both been in business as long as we’ve been alive,” her sister pointed out. “Come the day, everything will be perfect.” Her mouth tightened. “A few years later, though, who knows?” Barristers and solicitors were still gnawing over the remains of her marriage, a marriage as much a wartime casualty as any wounded soldier.
Pekka wished Elimaki hadn’t said that. “I’m nervous enough as things are,” she said.
“If you don’t want to go through with it--” Elimaki began.
“It’s not that,” Pekka broke in, shaking her head. “It’s not that at all.” She hoped she wasn’t trying to convince herself as well as Elimaki. “But how can I help worrying about it? I worry about everything. I have to.”
“I hope you’re as happy ten years from now as you will be when you say your vows,” Elimaki told her. “Uto thinks the world of Fernao, if that means anything to you.”
“It means a lot,” Pekka said. “The only question I have is whether it should make me happy or scare me.”
Elimaki laughed. She knew Pekka’s son as well as Pekka did herself. She might know Uto better than I do, Pekka thought. The past few years, she’s seen a lot more of him than I have. “A little of both,” she said. “You don’t want him not to like Fernao. ...”
“I certainly don’t,” Pekka said.
“But you wonder what he’s liking if he likes him too much,” her sister went on. “How much of a mischievous little boy can your fiancé be?”
“Some, I expect,” Pekka answered. “Most men can, from everything I’ve seen.” She thought of Ilmarinen, who still had a wide streak of mischievous little boy in him at more than twice her age. He and Uto had recognized each other as two of a kind. That was another frightening thought.
“If Uto’s content with Fernao, that’s good,” Elimaki said. “A boy should have a man around, I think.” She hesitated, then nodded to herself and went on, “And you don’t have to tell him anything, either.”
“No,” Pekka said. “That crossed my mind, too.”
As far as she was concerned, it was far better that Uto never find out she and Fernao had been lovers before Leino died. Her son would have a much easier time accepting Fernao as a stepfather this way than as someone who might have displaced his real father even if Leino hadn’t died.
“Simpler,” Elimaki said.
“Aye.” Pekka nodded. “And the world usually isn’t simple, either.”
“Don’t I know it!” Elimaki exclaimed. “It’s never simple once the solicitors get their claws into it, believe me it isn’t. Powers below eat Olavin, why didn’t he just walk in front of a ley-line caravan?”
Pekka thought she understood why Olavin had taken up with his secretary.
He’d been away from his wife for a long time, so he’d found someone else. She’d done something not far removed from that herself. Since she saw no way to tell Elimaki anything of the sort without making her sister burst like an egg, she prudently kept her mouth shut.
Elimaki asked, “What sort of trouble is the caterer giving you?”
That made Pekka want to burst like an egg. “The moron! The idiot! The imbecile! He’s telling me he can’t get enough smoked salmon for the feast.”
“Why not?”
“Why? I’ll tell you why! Because his illiterate, crackbrained assistant who does his ordering didn’t order enough, that’s why,” Pekka said. “He knew how much I’d asked for. He just forgot to get it. Incompetent bungler. Powers above, I wish we still took heads, the way our ancestors did in the old days. But his would be empty.”
Elimaki went out to the kitchen. When she came back, she was carrying two mugs of brandy. “Here.” She handed one of them to Pekka. “Drink this. You’ll feel better.”
“In the old days--”
“In the old days, this would have been fermented reindeer milk,” her sister said firmly. Pekka found herself nodding. She took a sip, and nodded again. Sure enough, civilization had made progress in the past thousand years. Elimaki went on, “Everything will be fine at the wedding. You’ll see. And I hope everything will be fine afterwards, but that’s up to you--you and Fernao, I mean.”
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