Only one way to learn, he thought again. He strode out of the building. He hadn’t gone more than half a block before two Algarvian troopers walked by. They both saluted. One said, “Good morning, Lieutenant.” Ealstan returned the salute without answering. He spoke some Algarvian, but with a sonorous Forthwegian accent.
He shrugged-then shrugged again, turning it into a production, as Algarvians were wont to do with any gesture. He’d passed the test. Now he had several hours in which to hunt down that son of a whore of a Spinello. The stick he carried was more likely to be a robber’s weapon than a constable’s or an officer’s, but that didn’t matter so much these days, either. If a stick blazed, Mezentio’s men would use it.
Algarvian soldiers saluted him. He saluted officers. Forthwegians gave him sullen looks. No one paid much attention to him. He hurried west toward the riverfront, looking like a man on important business. And so he was: that was where he’d seen Spinello. He could lure the redhead away, blaze him, and then use a counterspell to turn back into his proper self in moments.
He could … if he could find Spinello. The fellow stood out in a crowd. He was a bantam rooster of a man, always crowing, always bragging. But he wasn’t where Ealstan had hoped and expected him to be. Had the Unkerlanters killed him? How would I ever know? Ealstan thought. I want to make sure he’s dead. And who has a better right to kill him than I do?
“Where’s the old man?” one redheaded footsoldier asked another.
“Colonel Spinello?” the other soldier returned. The first man nodded. Ealstan pricked up his ears. The second Algarvian said, “He went over to one of the officers’ brothels by the palace, the lucky bastard. Said he had a meeting somewhere later on, so he might as well have some fun first. If it’s anything important, you could hunt him up, I bet.”
“Nah.” The first redhead made a dismissive gesture. “He asked me to let him know how my sister was doing-she got hurt when those stinking Kuusamans dropped eggs on Trapani. My father writes that she’ll pull through. I’ll tell him when I see him, that’s all.”
“That’s good,” the second soldier said. “Glad to hear it.”
Ealstan turned away in frustration. He wouldn’t get Spinello today. Braving an Algarvian officers’ brothel was beyond him, even if murder wasn’t. He also found himself surprised to learn Spinello cared about his men and their families. But then he thought, Well, why shouldn’t he? It’s not as if they were Kaunians.
For four years and more, the west wing of the mansion on the outskirts of Priekule had housed the Algarvians who administered the capital of Valmiera for the redheaded conquerors. No more. Occupying it these days were Marquis Skarnu; his fiancee, Merkela; and Gedominu, their son, who was just starting to pull himself upright.
Skarnu’s sister, Marchioness Krasta, still lived in the east wing, as she had all through the occupation. She’d had an Algarvian colonel warming her bed all through the occupation, too, but she loudly insisted the baby she was carrying belonged to Viscount Valnu, who’d been an underground leader. Valnu didn’t disagree with her, either, worse luck. That kept Skarnu from throwing Krasta out of the mansion on her shapely backside.
He had to content himself with seeing his sister as little as he could. A couple of times, he’d also had to keep Merkela from marching into the east wing and wringing Krasta’s neck. The Algarvians had taken Merkela’s first husband hostage and blazed him; she hated collaborators even more than redheads.
“We don’t know everything,” Skarnu said, not for the first time.
“We know enough,” Merkela answered with peasant directness. “All right, so she slept with Valnu, too. But she let the redhead futter her for as long as he was here. She has to pay the price.”
“No one ever said she didn’t. No one ever said she won’t.” While Skarnu was out in the provinces, he’d got used to thinking of himself as being without a sister after he’d learned that Krasta was keeping company with her Algarvian colonel. Finding things weren’t quite so simple jolted him, too. He sighed and added, “We’re not quite sure what the price should be, that’s all.”
“I’m sure.” But Merkela grimaced and turned away. She didn’t sound sure, not even to herself. Doing her best to recover the fierceness she’d had when fighting Algarve seemed futile, she brushed blond hair back from her face and said, “She deserves worse than this. This is nothing.”
“We can’t be too hard on her, not when we don’t know for certain whose baby it is,” Skarnu said. They’d had that argument before, too.
Before they could get deeply into it again, someone knocked on the door to their bedchamber. Skarnu went to open it with more than a little relief. The butler, Valmiru, bowed to him. “Your Excellency, a gentleman from the palace to see you and your, ah, companion.” He wasn’t used to having Merkela in the mansion, not anywhere close to it, and treated her as he might have treated any other dangerous wild animal.
Her blue eyes widened now. “From the palace?” she breathed. Gentlemen from the palace were not in the habit of calling on farms outside the hamlet of Pavilosta.
“Indeed,” Valmiru said. His eyes were blue, too, like those of Merkela, of Skarnu, and of almost all folk of Kaunian blood, but a blue frosty rather than fiery. Over the years, his hair had faded almost imperceptibly from Kaunian blond toward white.
Merkela pushed at Skarnu. “Go see what the fellow wants.”
“I know one thing he wants,” Skarnu said. “He wants to see both of us.” When Merkela hung back, he took her hand, adding, “You weren’t afraid to face the redheads when they were blazing at you. Come on.” Merkela glanced toward Gedominu, but the baby offered her no excuse to hang back: he lay asleep in his cradle. Rolling her eyes up to the ceiling like a frightened unicorn, she went with Skarnu.
“Good day, your Excellency, milady.” The man from the royal palace bowed first to Skarnu and then, just as deeply, to Merkela. He was handsome and dapper, his tunic and trousers too tight to be quite practical. Skarnu had outfits like that, but he’d come to appreciate comfort in his own time on a farm. Merkela’s tunics and trousers were all of the practical sort needed if one were to do actual work in them. Instead of working, the functionary handed Skarnu a sealed envelope, then bowed again.
“What have we here?” Skarnu murmured, and opened it. Someone who practiced elegant calligraphy instead of working had written, To the Marquis Skarnu and the Lady Merkela: the pleasure of your company is requested by his Majesty, King Gainibu of Valmiera, at a reception this evening to honor those who upheld Valmieran courage during the dark days of occupation.
“I trust you will come?” the palace functionary said.
Skarnu nodded, but Merkela asked a question that sounded all the sharper for being so nervous: “Is Krasta invited?” She gave Skarnu’s sister no title whatever.
Voice bland, the functionary replied, “This is the only invitation I was charged to bring here.” Valmiru sighed when he heard that. All the servants would hear it in short order. So would Krasta, and that was liable to be ugly.
But Merkela nodded as sharply as if her family had been noble for ten generations. “Then we’ll be there,” she declared. The functionary bowed and departed. Only after the butler had closed the door behind him did Merkela let out something that sounded very much like a wail: “But what am I going to wearV
“Go out. Go shopping,” Skarnu said-even he, a mere man, could see why she might be worried.
But he couldn’t guess how worried she was. In something like despair, Merkela cried, “But how do I know what people wear to the palace? I don’t want to look like a fool, and I don’t want to look like a whore, either.”
Valmiru coughed to draw her notice, then said, “You might do well to take someone who is knowledgeable in such matters with you-Bauska, perhaps.”
“Bauska?” Merkela exclaimed. “With her half-Algarvian bastard?”
“She’s Krasta’s maidservant,” Skarnu said. “She knows clothes better than anyone else
here.”
“She knows what I think of her, too,” Merkela said. “She’d probably get me to buy something ugly just for spite.”
“Whatever she suggests, bring it back and try it on for me first,” Skarnu said. “I know enough not to let that happen. But Bauska’s the best person you could choose. . unless you wanted to go out with Krasta?” As he’d thought it would, that made Merkela violently shake her head. It also persuaded her to go out with the maidservant. Skarnu hadn’t been so sure that would happen.
Gedominu woke up while his mother was on her expedition to Priekule. Proving he’d been away from his servants for a long time, Skarnu changed him himself and fed him little bits of bread. The baby hummed happily while he ate. Skarnu wished he himself were so easy to amuse.
A peremptory knock on the door warned him he was about to be anything but amused. He thought about ignoring it, but that wouldn’t do. Sure enough, Krasta stood in the hallway. Without preamble, she said, “What’s this I hear about you and. . that woman going to the palace tonight?”
“It’s true,” Skarnu answered. “His Majesty invited both of us.”
“Why didn’t he invite me?” his sister demanded. Both her voice and the line of her jaw seemed particularly hard and unyielding.
“I have no idea,” Skarnu said. “Why don’t you ask him the next time you see him?” And then, his own temper boiling over, he asked, “Will he recognize you if you’re not on an Algarvian’s arm?”
“Futter you,” Krasta said crisply. She turned and stalked away. Skarnu resisted the impulse to give her a good boot in the rear to speed her passage. She is pregnant, he reminded himself.
“Dada!” Gedominu said, and Skarnu’s grim mood lightened. His son made him remember what was really important.
When Merkela returned festooned with boxes and packages, he waited to see what she’d bought, then clapped his hands together. The turquoise tunic and black trousers set off her eyes, emphasized her shape without going too far, and made the most of her suntanned skin. “You’re beautiful,” Skarnu said. “I’ve known it for years. Now everyone else will, too.”
Despite her tan, she turned red. “Nonsense,” she said, or a coarse, back-country phrase that meant the same thing. “Everyone at the court will sneer at me.” Skarnu answered with the same coarse phrase. Merkela blinked and then laughed.
On the way to the palace, she snarled whenever she saw a woman shaved bald or with hair growing out after a shaving: the mark of many who’d collaborated horizontally. “I wonder if Viscount Valnu will have his hair shaved, too,” Skarnu remarked.
Merkela gave him a scandalized look. “Whatever he did, he did for the kingdom.”
“I know Valnu,” Skarnu told her. “He may have done it for the kingdom, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t enjoy every minute of it.” Merkela clucked but didn’t answer.
When they pulled up in front of the palace, Skarnu handed Merkela down, though he knew she was used to descending for herself. The driver took out a flask with which to keep himself warm. A flunky checked Skarnu and Merkela’s names off a list. “Go down this corridor,” the fellow said, pointing. “The reception will be in the Grand Hall.”
“The Grand Hall,” Merkela murmured. Her eyes were already enormous. They got bigger with every step she took along the splendid corridor. “This is like something out of a romance, or a fairy tale.”
“It’s real enough. It’s where King Gainibu declared war on Algarve,” Skarnu said. “I didn’t see him do it; I’d already been called to my regiment. But the kingdom didn’t live happily ever after, I’ll tell you that.”
At the entry to the Grand Hall, another flunky in a fancy uniform called out, “Marquis Skarnu and the Lady Merkela!” Merkela turned red again. Skarnu watched her eyeing the women already in the Grand Hall. And, a moment later, he watched her back straighten as she realized she wasn’t out of place after all as far as looks and clothes went.
Skarnu took her arm. “Come on,” he said, and steered her toward the receiving line. “Time for the king to meet you.” That flustered her anew. He added, “Remember, this is why he invited you.”
Merkela nodded, but nervously. The line moved slowly, which gave her the chance to get back some of her composure. Even so, she squeezed Skarnu’s hand and whispered, “I don’t believe this is really happening.”
Before Skarnu could answer, the two of them stood before the king. Gainibu had aged more than the years that lay between now and the last time Skarnu saw him; the red veins in his nose said he’d pickled as well as aged. But his grip was firm as he clasped Skarnu’s hand, and he spoke clearly enough: “A pleasure, your Excellency. And your charming companion is-?”
“My fiancee, your Majesty,” Skarnu answered. “Merkela of Pavilosta.”
“Your Majesty,” Merkela whispered. Her curtsy was awkward, but it served.
“A pleasure to meet you, milady,” the king said, and raised her hand to his lips. “I’ve seen Skarnu’s sister at enough of these functions, but she was always with that Colonel Lurcanio. Some things can’t be helped. Still, this is better.”
“Thank you, your Majesty,” Merkela said. She had her spirit back now, and looked around the Grand Hall as if to challenge anyone to say she didn’t belong there. No one did, of course, but anyone who tried would have been sorry.
Skarnu glanced back at Gainibu as he led Merkela away. Gainibu, plainly, had not had an easy time during the Algarvian occupation. Even so, he still remembered how to act like a king.
The dragon farm lay just outside a Yaninan village called Psinthos. Sleet blew into Count Sabrino’s face as he trudged toward the farmhouse where he’d rest till it was time to take his wing into the air and throw the dragonfliers at the Unkerlanters yet again. Mostly, the mud squelched under his boots, but it also had a gritty crunch that hadn’t been there a couple of days before.
It’s starting to freeze up and get hard, Sabrino thought. That’s not so good. It means better footing for behemoths, and that means King Swemmel’s soldiers will come nosing forward again. Things have been pretty quiet down here the last couple of days. Nothing wrong with that. I like quiet.
He opened the door to the farmhouse, then slammed it and barred it to keep the wind from ripping it out of his hands. Then he built up the fire, feeding it wood one of the dragon-handlers had cut. The wood was damp, and smoked when it burned. Sabrino didn’t much care. Maybe it’ll smother me, went through his mind. Who would care if it did? My wife might, a little. My mistress? He snorted. His mistress had left him for a younger man, only to discover the other fellow wasn’t so inclined to support her in the luxury to which she’d been accustomed.
Count Sabrino snorted again. I wish I could leave me for a younger man. He was nearer sixty than fifty; he’d fought as a footsoldier in the Six Years’ War more than a generation before. He’d started flying dragons because he didn’t want to get caught up once more in the great slaughters on the ground, of which he’d seen entirely too many in the last war. And so, in this war, he’d seen plenty of slaughters from the air. It was less of an improvement than he’d hoped.
Smoky or not, the fire was warm. Little by little, the chill began to leach out of Sabrino’s bones. Heading into the fourth winter of the war against Unkerlant. He shook his head in slow wonder. Who would have imagined that, back in the days when Mezentio of Algarve hurtled his army west against Swemmel? One kick and the whole rotten structure of Unkerlant would come crashing down. That was what the Algarvians had thought then. They’d learned some hard lessons since.
Joints clicking, Sabrino got to his feet. I had a flask somewhere. He thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. I really am getting old if I can’t remember where. He snapped his fingers. “In the bedding-that’s right,” he said aloud, as if talking to himself weren’t another sign of too many years.
When he found the flask, it felt lighter than it should have. Of that he had no doubt whatever. If that dragon-handler gives me wood, I don’t s
uppose I can begrudge him a knock of spirits. He yanked out the stopper and poured down a knock himself. The spirits were Yaninan: anise-flavored and strong as a demon.
“Ah,” Sabrino said. Fire spread outward from his belly. He nodded, slowly and deliberately. I’m going to live. I may even decide I want to.
At that, he was better off than a lot of Algarvian footsoldiers. Psinthos was far enough behind the line to be out of range of Unkerlanter egg-tossers. How long that would last with the ground freezing, he couldn’t guess, but it remained true for the time being. And the furs and leather he wore to fly his dragon also helped keep him warm on the ground.
Someone knocked on the door. “Who’s there?” Sabrino called.
The answer came in Algarvian, with a chuckle attached: “Well, it’s not the king, not today.”
King Mezentio had visited Sabrino, more than once. He wished the king hadn’t. They didn’t see eye to eye, and never would. That was the reason Sabrino, who’d started the war as a colonel and wing commander, had never once been promoted. He opened the door and held out the flask. “Hello, Orosio. Here, have some of this. It’ll put hair on your chest.”
“Thanks, sir,” Captain Orosio said. “Don’t mind if I do.” The squadron commander drank while Sabrino shut the door. After drinking, Orosio made a horrible face. “Burn the hair off my chest, more likely. But still, better bad spirits than none at all.” He took another swig.
“What can I do for you?” Sabrino asked.
“Feels like a freeze is coming,” Orosio said as he walked over to stand in front of the fire. He was in his late thirties, almost as old for a captain as Sabrino was for a colonel. Part of that came from serving under Sabrino-a man under a cloud naturally put his subordinates under one, too. And part of it sprang from Orosio’s own background: he’d had barely enough noble blood to make officer’s rank, and not enough to get promoted.
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