Ealstan nodded. “I think caravans are dangerous, too. That leaves walking, unless we find someone to give us a wagon ride for part of the way.” He grimaced. “With the two of us, I don’t know how likely that is.”
“Not very,” Vanai said succinctly, and Ealstan nodded again. She went on, “Let me take this to my grandfather and get a heavier cloak and some stouter shoes.” She sighed. “I’ll leave him a note to tell him some of what I’m doing, so he wont think the Algarvians got me. He’ll have some learning to do, but I think he can. He’s not stupid, even if he is a fool. Wait for me here. I’ll be back soon.” She hurried away.
Instead of waiting, he went up to his room and gathered his own meager belongings, then returned to the apothecary’s shop. Good as her word, Vanai came up a few minutes later. She was wearing the heavier cloak, and had a cloth bag slung over her shoulder. “Let’s go,” Ealstan said. Side by side, they started out of Oyngestun, heading east.
As soon as a grove of pale-leaved olive trees hid the village behind them, they began holding hands. They leaped apart when a Forthwegian on a mule came past them, but then resumed. Not long after that, they were kissing. Not too much longer after that, they went off the road into another, thicker grove. It wasn’t perfect privacy, but it was good enough. When they started walking again, they both wore foolish smiles. Ealstan knew he was in trouble, but had a hard time worrying about it. He was, after all, only seventeen.
Thirteen
Priekule was a gray, unhappy town after more than a year and a half of Algarvian occupation. Krasta still frequently left her mansion to visit the shops and cafes in the heart of the city, but what she found there satisfied her less and less often.
The food in the cafes seemed to get nastier every week. Sometimes a mere sniff after she went inside one was enough to send her stalking out again, elegantly straight nose high in the air. Jewelers hardly ever showed anything new. And the clothes. . . She’d occasionally worn kilts back in the days when Valmiera and Algarve were at peace, but only trousers--proper, traditional Kaunian garments--ever since. These days, though, more and more clothiers were showing kilts for both men and women. She knew people who wore them. She couldn’t make herself do it.
After walking out of one such display, she angrily strode along the Boulevard of Horsemen: tall, lean, arrogant. A news-sheet vendor called, “Fierce Algarvian counterattack in Unkerlant! Read all about it!”
Krasta stomped past him. She didn’t care two figs about Unkerlant. Out there in the distant west, it might have been on the far side of the moon as far as she was concerned (the same held true for virtually the entire world outside of Priekule). She did know mild surprise that the Algarvians hadn’t conquered it yet, as they had every other kingdom they’d assailed. But the details of the fighting mattered not at all to her.
A few days farther on, she paused, staring at three words whitewashed onto the window of a confectioner’s shop: NIGHT AND FOG. The shop was closed. It looked to have been closed for some little while. She wondered when, or if, it would open again.
Another vendor, peddling a different news sheet, waved it in her face. Krasta impatiently pushed past him and strode on down the sidewalk. She decided she wished after all that the Algarvians had taken Cottbus. Then the war would have been over, or as near as made no difference. After that, maybe the world could have started coming back to normal.
A couple of Algarvian soldiers, cloaked against the chill of Priekule’s winter, strode up the street toward her. They both leered shamelessly; as far as the occupiers were concerned, any woman was fair game. Krasta stared straight through them, as if they didn’t exist. They doubtless didn’t know she was a noblewoman and wouldn’t have cared had they known--what were the ranks of the conquered to the conquerors?
One of them proved as much: still undressing Krasta with his eyes, he spoke in bad Valmieran: “Sleeping with me, sweetheart?” He reached under his cloak and shook his belt pouch. Coins jingled and clinked.
Krasta’s temper kindled, as it had a way of doing. “Powers below eat you, you son of a whore,” she said, slowly and distinctly--she wanted to make sure he understood. “May it rot. May it fall off. May it never stand again.”
She started by the soldiers. The one who hadn’t spoken grabbed her by the arm--maybe he understood some Valmieran, too. He did; he said, “Not talking like that, bitch.” His trilling accent grated on her ears.
“Take your hands off me,” she told him, ice in her voice.
“I don’t thinking so,” he said with a nasty smile. “You insulting us. You paying for that.”
He was one of the conquerors, all right, used to doing whatever he wanted with and to Valmieran women. Later, Krasta realized she should have been afraid. At the time, only fury filled her. “Take your hands off me,” she repeated. She had a trump to play, and played it without hesitation: “I am the woman of Colonel Lurcanio, the count of Albenga, and not for the likes of you.”
That did the trick. She’d been sure it would. The Algarvian soldier let go of her arm as if magecraft had suddenly turned it red-hot. He and his comrade both hurried away, babbling ungrammatical apologies.
Nose in the air again, Krasta went on down the Avenue of Horsemen. Triumph filled her narrow soul--hadn’t she just given those boors a lesson in whom they might annoy? Had she been more introspective, she might have realized that defending herself by proclaiming she was a prominent occupier’s mistress only showed how low Valmiera had fallen. Such insight, though, was beyond her, and probably would be for all her days to come.
She kept on walking to the end of the boulevard full of expensive shops: farther than she’d intended, but she needed to burn off the rage with which the arrogant Algarvians had filled her. Arrogant herself, she recognized no one else’s right to be that way--except Lurcanio’s, and he intimidated her far more than she was willing to admit.
At the end of the Boulevard of Horsemen was one of Priekule’s many parks, the grass dead and yellow now, with muddy ground showing through here and there. Trees sent bare branches reaching toward the cloudy sky, as if they were so many skeletons supplicating the powers above. Pigeons and sparrows begged for crumbs from the few people who sat on benches by the brick walkways, probably because they had nowhere better to go.
In the center of the park towered the Kaunian Column of Victory. The marble column had stood there for more than a thousand years, since the days of the Kaunian Empire. How many years more than a thousand it had stood there, Krasta couldn’t have said. She hadn’t done well in history--or in many other subjects--at the series of finishing schools and academies she’d attended till everyone gave up on her education. She did know the victory it celebrated was of civilized imperials over the Algarvian barbarians who even in those ancient days had swarmed out of their forests to attack the Empire. Algarvian eggs had damaged the column during the Six Years’ War, but it had been restored since.
Now, a good many kilted Algarvians stood at the base of the Column of Victory. They gestured with the theatrical enthusiasm of their kind. Life, to Algarvians, was melodrama. A couple of Valmierans looked to be arguing with them. A tan-clad soldier knocked down one of Krasta’s countrymen.
Because she gave herself to Colonel Lurcanio, no redhead of lower rank could cause her much trouble. Conscious of that near-immunity, she strode down the sidewalk toward the column. “What on earth is going on here?” she demanded in a loud, harsh voice.
The Valmieran who’d been knocked down got to his feet. One trouser knee was torn, though he seemed not to notice. He had a pinched, intelligent face--not the sort of man Krasta would normally have looked at twice, or even once. He was intelligent enough to recognize her rank, saying, “Milady, these men mean to topple the column.”
“What?” Krasta stared not at the Algarvians but at her fellow Valmieran. “You must be out of your mind.”
“Ask them.” The man pointed to the redheads. Some were ordinary soldiers, like the one who’d pushed him t
o the bricks. Some were officers, including, Krasta saw, a brigadier. She wondered if she was as immune from trouble as she’d thought. And a couple had the indefinable air of mages about them, the air of seeing and knowing things ordinary people didn’t see and couldn’t know. They set Krasta’s teeth on edge.
She turned to the Algarvians. “You can’t be thinking of doing what he says.”
“Who are you to say we can’t?” That was the brigadier, a big-bellied fellow in his mid-fifties--twice her age, more or less--with graying red mustachios and chin beard all waxed to spikelike points. He spoke Valmieran well--almost as well as Lurcanio did.
She drew herself up to her full height, which came close to matching his. “I am the Marchioness Krasta, and this is my city.” She sounded as if she were King Gainibu’s queen--although, as she’d seen herself, Priekule wasn’t really even Gainibu’s city anymore.
No sooner had that thought crossed her mind than the Algarvian proceeded to rub it in. Turning back to the Column of Victory, he said, “These cursed carvings tell lies. They make my ancestors, my heroic ancestors”--he drew himself up, too, though with his bulging belly it wasn’t so impressive--”out to be cowards and robbers, which every honest man knows to be a base and vile lie. Now we have the chance to correct this, and correct it we shall.”
“But it’s a monument!” Krasta exclaimed.
“A monument of lies, a monument of curses, a monument of humiliation,” the fat brigadier said. “It does not deserve to stand. Now we are the victors, and it shall not stand. Two days from now, my lads here”--he pointed to the mages--“will set eggs by the base, burst them, and topple it like an old pine.”
“You can’t do that,” Krasta said. The Algarvian brigadier laughed in her face. She started to slap him, but then remembered the unfortunate things that had happened after she was rash enough to slap Lurcanio. This redhead outranked her lover. She spun on her heel and hurried away.
“Do what you can, milady,” the clever-looking Valmieran man called after her. Then he cried out in pain--the Algarvian soldiers had set on him again.
Krasta found her carriage waiting on a side street. Seeing her approach, the driver corked a small flask and stuck it in his pocket. Krasta ignored that. “Take me back to the mansion,” she snapped. “This instant, do you hear me?”
“Aye, milady,” the driver answered, and prudently said no more.
The mansion lay on the outskirts of Priekule; it had been a country estate when it was built almost four centuries before. These days, Algarvian administrators of Valmiera’s conquered capital used and dwelt in the west wing, leaving the rest for Krasta. Her brother would have shared it with her, but Skarnu had never come home from the war. She occasionally missed him.
Now, though, he didn’t enter her mind. She stormed through offices that had been drawing rooms and salons, taking no notice of the Algarvian clerks who filled them. Only when she neared the smaller chamber where Lurcanio worked did she slow. She had to snarl her way past Captain Mosco before she could see him. Snarl she did, and see Lurcanio she did, too.
He looked up from his paperwork--sometimes he reminded Krasta more of a clerk than of a colonel--and smiled. That made his wrinkles shift without removing them; he wasn’t too much younger than the Algarvian brigadier in the park. “Hello, my dear,” he said in his excellent Valmieran. “What is it? It must be something, by your face.”
Bluntly, Krasta answered, “I want you to keep them from wrecking the Column of Victory.”
“I wondered when you would learn of that.” Lurcanio shrugged an extravagant Algarvian shrug. “I can do nothing about it. And”--his voice hardened--”I would not if I could. That column affronts Algarve’s honor.”
“What about Valmiera’s honor?” Krasta demanded.
“Well, what about it?” Lurcanio said. “If Valmiera had honor, you would have held the Algarvian army in check. That we have this conversation here in the heart of a conquered kingdom, that you welcome me to your bed rather than my wife welcoming a Valmieran conqueror to hers, proves whose honor has more weight. Now do please let me work. I have too much to do, and not enough time in which to do it. Close the door when you go out.”
Furious, Krasta slammed the door so hard, the whole mansion shook. Unable to do anything more than that to take out her wrath on Lurcanio, she screamed at her servants instead. That did no good. Two days later, the Kaunian Column of Victory came crashing down. She heard the roar of the bursting eggs and the falling stone and cursed with a fluency a teamster might have envied.
When Lurcanio sought her bed that night, she welcomed him with a barred bedchamber door. She kept the door barred for another week. But then she relented, partly because she craved pleasure and partly because she feared that, if she kept on rejecting Lurcanio, he would simply find someone else. She didn’t care to be without an Algarvian protector, not with Priekule as it was these days. What that had to say about honor never once crossed her mind.
Garivald was well on the way to being drunk when someone pounded on the door to his house. “Who’s that?” he growled irritably. Like most of the peasants in Zossen, he’d managed to hide plenty of spirits from the Algarvians who occupied the village. When winter came, what else was there to do but drink?
The pounding came again, louder than before. “Opening up or we breaking down!” an Algarvian shouted.
“Open it, Annore,” Garivald said. He was sitting on a bench closer to the door than his wife, but he was also drunker than she. He didn’t feel like getting up and moving just then.
Annore sent him a dark look, but rose and unbarred the door. After a few heartbeats, Garivald did get up after all and stand behind her--you never could tell what an Algarvian might be after. The redheads glaring at him looked miserably cold; their capes weren’t up to the weather here. One of them said, “You coming to die village square.”
“Why?” Garivald asked.
Both Algarvians were carrying sticks. With a chill that had nothing to do with winter, Garivald realized they weren’t men who garrisoned Zossen, but real combat soldiers, mean as wild boars. He wished he hadn’t given them any back-talk. The one who’d spoken aimed his stick at Garivald’s face. “Why? Because I saying so.”
“Aye,” Garivald said hastily, ducking his head in submission as he would have to an Unkerlanter inspector. He took out his fear by shouting at Annore: “Come on, curse it! Don’t just stand there. Grab our cloaks.”
Annore did as he asked without arguing. They threw on the thick wool garments; Garivald hoped the Algarvians wouldn’t steal them. “Syrivald, watch the baby,” Annore said. Syrivald nodded, eyes wide. Leuba, playing happily on the floor, was the only one who didn’t know anything was wrong.
When Garivald and Annore got to the square, it had already started filling. Under the sticks of more Algarvian combat soldiers, several villagers were putting up an odd-looking wooden frame. After a moment, Garivald realized what it was: a gibbet. Another icy pang of fright ran through him.
A couple of Unkerlanter men he’d never seen before stood near the gibbet, their hands tied behind them. They were scrawny and ill-shaven and looked to have seen hard use--blood covered the face of one of them, while the other had an eye swollen shut. More redheads kept watch on them.
Waddo, the firstman, limped into the village square. Close behind him came the Algarvians stationed in Zossen. They looked almost as alarmed at what was going on as the villagers did.
One of the newly come Algarvians proved to speak pretty good Unkerlanter. Pointing to the captives, he growled, “Are these miserable whoresons from this stinking hole of a village? We caught them in the woods. Anybody know them? Anybody know their names?”
For a moment, nobody spoke. Then all the men and women in Zossen started talking at once. With a single voice, they denied ever setting eyes on the men before. They know what happened to a village that harbored men who kept fighting against the Algarvians.
So did the redhead who’d ask
ed the questions. With a sneer, he demanded, “Why should I believe you? You’d lie and say your mothers weren’t whores. We ought to wreck this place just for the sport of it.” By his tone, he wasn’t more than a finger’s breadth away from ordering his troopers to do just that.
Everyone’s eyes swung toward Waddo. The firstman looked about ready to burst into tears. But he did what he had to do--in the most abject tones Garivald had heard even from his lips, he cried, “Have mercy, sir!”
“Mercy?” The Algarvian threw back his head and laughed. He spoke one word in his own language--probably translating for his men. They laughed, too, and their laughter was like the baying of wolves. “Mercy?” the redhead repeated. “What have any Unkerlanters ever done to deserve mercy?”
“These are not men of our village.” Waddo pointed at the captives as the Algarvian had. “By the powers above, they aren’t! If you don’t believe me, ask your own men who have been here for months. They will know.”
“He’s selling those two poor buggers to the Algarvians,” Garivald whispered to his wife.
“If he didn’t, he’d be selling all of us,” Annore whispered back. Reluctantly, Garivald nodded. He wouldn’t have wanted to stand in Waddo’s felt boots, not for all the money in the world.
And he wondered if Waddo’s betrayal of the Unkerlanter irregulars caught in the forest would go for naught. The Algarvian still seemed poised to order his men to start blazing. But the soldiers stationed in Zossen spoke up. They spoke up, naturally, in Algarvian, which Garivald didn’t understand. But his hopes rose when he saw how unhappy the leader of the combat troops looked. Algarvians always seemed to show just what was in their minds--one more reason they struck Garivald as strange, hardly human.
At last, the bad-tempered redhead who spoke Unkerlanter threw his hands in the air. He shouted something in his own language at the garrison troops. They all grinned. Garivald knew they’d helped save Zossen, not least because they wanted to go on living here, but why didn’t matter. What they’d done did.
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