Merkela scooped him up. “It’s all right,” she said. After a moment or two in her arms, it was all right, too. Skarnu wished his own hurts were so easily fixed. That thought had hardly crossed his mind when Merkela flicked one of those hurts. She ruffled Gedominu’s fine, golden hair and murmured, “You look the way you’re supposed to. That’s more than anybody can say about your nasty little cousin.”
Skarnu sighed. He wished Krasta’s baby had looked like a proper Valmieran. That would have taken the taint of scandal off the whole family. As things were, he sighed and said, “It’s not the baby’s fault.”
“It certainly isn’t,” Merkela agreed. “It’s her fault.” She still didn’t want to call Krasta Skarnu’s sister. Ever since they’d first learned Krasta was keeping company with a redhead, they-and Merkela especially-had denied Skarnu even had a sister. That was harder now that they were living in the same house with Krasta, but Merkela managed. She went on, “She was going to name the baby Valnu.”
“Too bad she couldn’t,” Skarnu said. “Sooner or later, these things have to come to an end.”
“Not yet, by the powers above,” Merkela declared. “When she had Lurcanio’s bastard, I told her she should name it for him.”
Skarnu sighed. “That doesn’t help, you know. Krasta’s going to be your sister-in-law whether you like it or not.” He held up a hand. “You don’t. You’ve told me. You don’t need to tell me again. Just remember, Valnu put in a good word for her. He’d be dead if she’d opened her mouth at the wrong time. Then there wouldn’t have been any doubt who the baby’s father was.”
“She opened her mouth at plenty of the wrong times,” Merkela said. While Skarnu was still spluttering over that, his fiancee added, “If she’d done it once more, she wouldn’t have had the little bastard in the first place.” That only made Skarnu splutter again.
In the end, he decided not to push the argument. He wasn’t going to change Merkela’s mind. Part of him-not half, but close to it-agreed with her, anyhow. What he most wanted now was to get through the wedding ceremony without any fresh scandal. Enlisting Merkela in that effort was bound to be futile. Trying to enlist Krasta in it was bound to be worse than futile. Skarnu had spent a lot of time away from home, but not so much that he didn’t know what to do in such cases.
He approached Valmiru, who nodded wisely. “You are holding the ceremony out of doors, is it not so?” the butler said. When Skarnu agreed that he was-he could hardly deny it, not with the pavilion already up behind the mansion- Valmiru nodded again. “Very well. I shall make a point of allowing no physical disruption. I cannot necessarily promise there will be no commotion from within the house, however.”
“I understand that. Believe me, Valmiru, I’ll be grateful for anything you can do-and I’ll make it worth your while, too,” Skarnu said. The butler’s expression didn’t change in any way Skarnu could have defined, but he contrived to look pleased nonetheless. They were indoors. Skarnu looked up at the sky even so. “It had better not rain, that’s all I’ve got to say.”
To his vast relief, it didn’t. The wedding day dawned fine and mild. It might have come from the end of springtime, not the beginning. The ceremony was set for noon. Guests started arriving a couple of hours early. Servants steered them around the mansion to the pavilion in back of it. Giving the temporary structure that name could not disguise its origins: it was, in fact, an outsized tent borrowed from the Valmieran army. Being an officer who’d never been formally discharged had certain advantages when it came to laying one’s hands on such things.
Every now and then, an alert listener-Skarnu, for instance-might have heard a newborn baby wailing inside the mansion. Most of the guests knew by then that the baby had hair of not quite the right color. A couple of people clapped Skarnu on the back in sympathy. Valnu gave him a comic shrug almost exaggerated enough to have come from an Algarvian, as if to say, Well, it could have been mine.
At one point, not long before the ceremony was to begin, a listener would not have needed to be alert in the least to hear Krasta trying to come outside and expressing her detailed opinions of the people who kept her from doing so. She waxed eloquent, in a vulgar way. Several people shrugged at Skarnu now.
White-mustached old Marstalu, the Duke of Klaipeda, conducted the ceremony. As far as Skarnu was concerned, conducting a wedding was about what he was good for. He’d commanded the Valmieran troops opposing Algarve in the early days of the war, and had had not a clue about beating back Mezentio’s men. His nephew had been a collaborator, but that brush didn’t tar him.
“He’s splendid looking,” Merkela whispered as she and Skarnu approached him. Skarnu thought she looked quite splendid herself, in tunic and trousers of glowing green silk, the color of fertility in Valmiera since the days of the Kaunian Empire. That it went well with his own darker green captain’s uniform was a happy coincidence.
Marstalu looked like a kindly grandfather. He spoke classical Kaunian as if it were his birthspeech. He had enough years on him to make that seem almost plausible (his backward cast of mind during the fighting made it seem plausible, too, but Skarnu did his best not to dwell on that). Skarnu’s own command of the old language left something to be desired; Merkela knew next to none. But they’d rehearsed. When the duke stopped and looked expectantly at them, that meant he’d just asked if they agreed to live together as man and wife. “Aye,” Skarnu said loudly. Merkela echoed the agreement in a softer voice.
“It is accomplished,” Duke Marstalu boomed, still in classical Kaunian. Then, the formal part of the ceremony concluded, he grinned and switched to ordinary, everyday Valmieran: “Kiss her, boy, before I beat you to it.”
“Aye, sir.” Skarnu saluted. “I’ve never had an order I was gladder to obey.” He gathered Merkela in. All the guests cheered and whooped and clapped their hands. People pelted the newlyweds with flowers and nuts-more symbols of fertility. Some of the nuts flew back and forth in among the crowd, as if rival armies were tossing eggs at each other. Skarnu had seen that happen at other weddings, too.
After the ceremony, people ate and drank and danced and gossiped. If any more squawks came from the mansion, the noise the guests made drowned them out. Somebody slapped Viscount Valnu’s face. Skarnu was at the far end of the pavilion then, and never did find out whether Valnu had offended a man or a woman.
And then, towards evening, the guests began to drift away. Valnu said,
“I had a splendid time.” Getting slapped hadn’t bothered him in the least. He leered and added, “But not nearly so fine a time as the two of you are going to have-I’m sure of that.” He kissed Merkela and then, for good measure, kissed Skarnu, too. After that, whistling and grinning, he took his leave.
“Impossible man,” Merkela said, to which Skarnu could only nod. She glanced over to her new husband. “Are you sure he was on our side during the occupation?”
“Positive,” Skarnu answered. His new bride sighed.
Servants had charge of little Gedominu for the evening. Skarnu held the door to the bedchamber open for Merkela. After she went in, he closed it and barred it behind them. She smiled. “No one’s going to bother us tonight, and I won’t try to get away.”
“You’d better not.” Skarnu took her in his arms. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t made love before; the son they weren’t watching proved that. But the first time as man and wife still seemed special. “I love you,” Skarnu told Merkela just before pleasure overwhelmed him.
He wasn’t sure she heard him; she wasn’t far from her own joy. But then, as their hearts both slowed, she reached up to stroke his cheek and said, “You must,” in wondering tones. Some small part of her must have wondered if he would abandon her when he could. It being a wedding night, Skarnu got other chances to prove how wrong that was.
He and Merkela were both sodden with slumber when someone rapped on the bedchamber door much too early the next morning. His first coherent words were some of the harsher ones he’d picked up as a
soldier. But then Valmiru’s voice came through the door: “Your pardon, my lord, milady, but King Gainibu summons you to the palace at once. A carriage awaits.”
That put a different light on things. “We’ll be down directly,” Skarnu said. He and Merkela dressed as fast as they could, dragged brushes through their hair, and hurried out to the front of the mansion, where a carriage did indeed wait. Half an hour later, they were bowing before the King of Valmiera.
“Congratulations to you both,” Gainibu said. He still looked like a man who sometimes had too much to drink, but he didn’t sound like a man who’d done it lately. Like his kingdom, he was recovering from the occupation. He went on, “I’ve been thinking about what sort of present to give you, and I believe I’ve found a good one.”
“You’re too kind, your Majesty,” Skarnu murmured. Merkela kept silent. Speaking to the king had seemed even stranger to her than marrying a noble.
Gainibu said, “The estate formerly held by the late Count Enkuru and his son, the late Count Simanu, has been adjudged forfeit to the Crown because of their treason and collaboration with the foe.” Skarnu nodded. That was the noble estate nearest Pavilosta. He’d had a good deal to do with Enkuru’s demise; he and Merkela had both had a great deal to do with killing Simanu. The king continued, “I have it in mind to raise that estate from a county to a marquisate and to confer it on the two of you. That way, I know it will stay in loyal hands. What do you say to the notion?”
Skarnu glanced at Merkela. Her eyes glowed with astonished delight. She found words now: “We say, Thank you, your Majesty. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.”
With a chuckle, Gainibu remarked. “She’s speaking for you already, is she? Well, I’m glad you’re pleased. This will also let you get away from Krasta, and from her unfortunately irregular offspring. Oh, aye, I’ve heard about that. And may I make one suggestion?” He didn’t wait for anyone’s approval before giving it: “Take as many of your household staff as care to go.”
Merkela laughed out loud at that. A little more reluctantly, so did Skarnu. He didn’t think his sister would be very happy. He also didn’t think King Gainibu cared.
For as long as he’d seen only their soldiers, Sidroc had been able to hold on to his admiration for the Algarvians. Their fighting men knew what they were doing. Even with the odds against them, as they certainly were now, footsoldiers and behemoth crews and the men who served egg-tossers and dragonfliers went about their jobs with a matter-of-fact competence he’d never seen from his own people, from the Unkerlanters, or from the Yaninans (not that that last was saying much).
Now, though, Plegmund’s Brigade was actually inside Algarve, fighting not to take the war to the Unkerlanters but to hold them out of Trapani. Sidroc and his comrades weren’t just dealing with Algarvian soldiers any more. They had to deal with Algarvian civilians, too. And Algarvian civilians, to put it mildly, left him unimpressed.
“Get your crap out of the road, lady!” he shouted to a woman who seemed intent on taking everything she owned with her as she fled east-this though she had only a tiny handcart in which to carry it all. “Get it out of the way or we’ll fornicating well kick it out of the way for you.”
The woman in question was one of the plump, middle-aged sort who make a life out of running their towns-and their neighbors’ affairs. Getting orders rather than giving them didn’t sit well with her. “I don’t know what the world is coming to,” she said, “when we have barbarians loose in the streets of our cities.”
“Futter you, lady,” Sidroc said cheerfully. “You don’t let us do what we’re supposed to be doing, King Swemmel’s boys’ll get in here. You think we’re barbarians? We’re on your side, you stupid twat. The Unkerlanters take this place, about twenty of ‘em’ll line up, and they’ll all futter you-if they don’t decide you’re too stinking ugly to waste cock on and bash in your stupid head instead.”
His squad-Forthwegians and a couple of blonds from the Phalanx of Valmiera, which had fallen on even harder times than Plegmund’s Brigade- laughed raucously. The Algarvian woman gaped as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “I shall find a civilized man,” she said, and flounced off.
She didn’t have to flounce far before finding Lieutenant Puliano. He cut her off as she started to spin her tale of woe. “Shut up,” he said. “I heard Corporal Sidroc, and I know bloody well he’s right.” He waved. “Go on through her stuff, boys. She doesn’t need it, and it’s just in the way.”
Sidroc kicked a brass-wired bird cage as if it were a football on a pitch. The door flew open as it rolled. A couple of finches from Siaulia-brilliant little birds, all scarlet and gold and green-flew out of it and away. He hoped they’d do all right so far from home. The war wasn’t their fault.
“Keep moving!” the lieutenant called. “You see more junk in the road, just go on through it.”
Ceorl did just that, and seemed to take considerable pleasure in trampling the possessions the Algarvians in the town had spent a lifetime gathering. “You ask me, these whoresons don’t deserve to win the war,” he said. “If they can’t figure out what in blazes is important and what they’d better leave behind, the powers below are welcome to ‘em.”
By all the signs, the powers below were going to get their hands on a lot of Algarvians regardless of whether they knew what to do with their goods. And they’ll probably get their hands on me, too, Sidroc thought. He shrugged. He’d stuck with the redheads this far. He couldn’t very well abandon them now.
He couldn’t even strip off his uniform, find civilian clothes, and do his best to pretend he’d never been in the army. He looked about as unlike an Algarvian as it was possible for anyone this side of a black Zuwayzi to look. He would have had a better chance pretending to be an Unkerlanter.
Some few Algarvian soldiers, at least, were doing their best to slide out of the war. Maybe some of them got away with it. Not all of them did. As the men of Plegmund’s Brigade tramped out of the town, they passed three redheaded corpses hanging from trees by the side of the road. The placards tied round their necks warned, this is what deserters get.
“They deserve it,” Lieutenant Puliano said. “Anybody who gives up on his kingdom when it needs him the most deserves everything that happens to him, and more besides.”
The Forthwegians in Algarvian service solemnly nodded. Unlike the redheads, they couldn’t even try to go home again. The handful of blonds from Valmiera also nodded. They really couldn’t go home again. They were far worse traitors in the eyes of their countrymen than the men of Plegmund’s Brigade were to theirs.
But Sidroc had some gloomy thoughts of his own as he marched by the hanged deserters. Even Mezentio’s men are starting to see there’s no hope left for them. If they can see it, I’d have to be a cursed fool to miss it myself. He knew he wasn’t the brightest fellow around. If he’d ever had any doubts on that score, spending years getting compared to his clever cousin Ealstan would have cured them.
He laughed, none too pleasantly. If Ealstan was so fornicating smart, why did he fall in love with a Kaunian girl? I wonder if he ever found out he was getting that redheaded officer’s sloppy seconds. He laughed again. I hope so.
“Watch your step here, boys,” Puliano called. “You don’t want to go off the road, or you’d end up arse-deep in mud. This is swampy country.”
“It doesn’t look too bad,” somebody said. And, indeed, it didn’t. In fact, it looked greener than most of the firmer ground farther west. On dry land, spring was just starting to make itself known. Here, though, the swamp plants, or most of them, had kept their color through the winter. The road might almost have been passing through a meadow.
Sudaku stepped up alongside Sidroc. In his Valmieran-flavored Algarvian, he said, “This swamp is a sign we grow near to Trapani. I passed through the capital and through this country on the way west to join the Phalanx of Valmiera.”
“Getting near Trapani, eh?” Sidroc said, and the blond’s head bobbed up and down.
Sidroc grunted. “That doesn’t sound so good.”
“No,” the Kaunian said. “But, by now, what is left for us to do but die like heroes?”
Sidroc grunted again. “I didn’t sign up to be a hero.”
“But what else are we, fighting to the death for a cause surely lost?” Sudaku persisted.
“Who knows? Come to that, who cares?” Sidroc said. “Besides, if we lose- when we lose-who’s going to call us heroes? Winners are heroes. They get the girls, and they don’t get their uniforms mussed. In the stories, we’re just the fellows who blaze at them and miss.”
“Everyone is a hero in his own story,” the Kaunian said. “The only trouble is, our stories, I fear, will be ending soon.”
Before Sidroc could answer that-not that it needed much answering, for it seemed pretty obviously true-someone toward the rear of the weary, shambling column of men let out a frightened shout: “Dragons! Unkerlanter dragons!”
Looking back over his shoulder, Sidroc spied the great rock-gray shapes bearing down on his comrades-and on him. He wasn’t ready for his story to end quite yet. “Into the mud!” he yelled, and dove for the side of the road.
It was the only hope the soldiers had, and they made the most of it they could. Like Sidroc, they floundered into the swamp as far as they could go. Some of them blazed. Others just tried to cover themselves in ooze. The dragons roared fiercely as they belched out fire. None of the flames came too close to Sidroc, but he felt the heat from them all the same. What happened to the men who’d stayed on the road wasn’t pretty.
Survivors gathered themselves and trudged on. That was all they could do. Ceorl was as filthy as Sidroc. “You son of a whore, I thought they’d’ve got rid of you a long time ago,” he said. “You’re tougher than I gave you credit for.”
“Thanks, I suppose,” Sidroc said.
Up the road was a town called Laterza. It had taken as much damage as any other Algarvian town not far from Trapani. Standing in the middle of the main street, though, as if on a normal day, was a captain wearing a mage’s emblem. “Ah, good,” he said when he saw what sorts of soldiers Lieutenant Puliano led. “A band of mercenaries and auxiliaries.” Sidroc didn’t like his tone or the sneer on his face. I’ve been through too much for him to have any business looking at me like that, he thought. The mage went on, “You will furnish me all your Kaunians at once.”
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