Darkness Descending

by Harry Turtledove

  “Tell me everything you did,” Vanai said after they’d kissed. “Everything, from the moment you went out the door.” Cooped up in here, she relied on him to be her eyes and ears on the outside world, as a blind man might rely on a cleverly trained dog to take him through streets he could not see.

  His arms still around her, Ealstan obliged. Not only did he have a good memory for detail, he also had a most appreciative audience. And, as he talked, his hands wandered, now to the small of Vanai’s back, now farther down, now straying upward to cup her breast. Touching her got him as drunk as wine did, with never a hangover afterwards.

  She snuggled against him, too. He’d discovered she didn’t like being surprised by touch. Her face would go hard and tight, and she would stand as stiff as if carved from wood. Something bad must have happened to her back in Oyngestun, but she’d never said what it was, and he didn’t have the nerve to ask. But when she wasn’t taken aback, he pleased her as much as she pleased him.

  And what he had to say pleased her this evening. “Ethelhelm said that about me?” she demanded, and made Ealstan repeat it. “He said that? Really? He is a good fellow, isn’t he?” She paused and lost a little of her glow. “Of course, he’s also supposed to be part Kaunian himself.”

  “Aye--but I think he would have said the same thing even if he weren’t,” Ealstan answered. “You don’t have to be part Kaunian to like Kaunians--I ought to know.” He stroked her hair. She tilted her face up. They kissed for a long time.

  At last Vanai broke away. “Let me go take the pot off the fire so supper doesn’t scorch,” she said. She was gone only a moment. Then they went into the bedchamber together.

  When they’d finished, they lay side by side for a while, one of her legs hooked over his. He leaned over, taking his weight on an elbow, so he could caress her with his free hand. He knew he would rise again pretty soon; at seventeen, he could make love about as often as he wanted to. But his stomach had other things on its mind, and growled loud enough for Vanai to hear.

  She giggled. Ealstan’s ears heated. She said, “Shall we eat now? We can always come back.” With so little else to do and with both of them so young, they spent a lot of time in the bedchamber.

  As if to leave no possible doubt about its opinion, Ealstan’s stomach rumbled again. He laughed, which was the easiest way to hide his embarrassment. “All right,” he said. “I’d better, or my belly will shake the building down.”

  He spooned up barley and onions and chopped almonds and a few tiny bits of smoked pork, thoughtfully smacking his lips. “You did something different this time.”

  Vanai nodded. “You got me that fennel I asked for, so I used it.”

  “Is that what it is?” Ealstan said. For Forthwegians, fennel was medicine, especially useful in hemorrhoid preparations. Kaunians did more cooking with it, a tradition that went back to the days of the Empire. Ealstan smacked his lips again. “Tastes better than I thought it would.” Listening to himself, he admired his own calm. He hoped Vanai did, too.

  By the way the corners of her mouth twitched, she was trying not to smile, or maybe not to laugh out loud. “You shouldn’t have bought it if you didn’t expect me to put it in the food, you know.”

  “I suppose not.” Valiantly, Ealstan kept eating. People did cook with fennel, and they didn’t perish as a result. He had bought this particular batch, and it hadn’t gone into a hemorrhoid cream. And when you got down to it, it wasn’t so bad. “Interesting flavor,” he admitted. This time Vanai did laugh.

  They’d just finished supper when shouts down on the street made them both hurry to the window to find out what was going on. Night had already fallen, and the street was poorly lit, but Ealstan didn’t need long to make sense out of what was happening: a couple of men in kilts were forcing a fellow in trousers along the sidewalk. One of them took a bludgeon off his belt and walloped the luckless Kaunian, who cried out again. No one came to his rescue.

  Gently, Ealstan pushed Vanai away from the window. “We have to be careful, sweetheart,” he said. “We don’t want them looking up here and seeing you.”

  Two tears slid down her cheeks. By her expression, they were tears of rage. “No, of course we don’t,” she said, her voice quivering. “As long as I stay inside my trap here, I’m perfectly safe.”

  Ealstan didn’t know how to answer her. He didn’t think there was any way to answer all the meanings she’d put into that. He did the best he could: “I love you.”

  “I know you do,” Vanai said. “That just leaves the rest of the world out of the bargain.”

  Once again, Ealstan found himself without a good reply.

  Skarnu felt a certain amount of pride at going into Pavilosta by himself. He’d been staying on the farm once Gedominu’s for going on two years now: long enough for the locals to conclude he’d be around for a while, even if they’d call him things like the new fellow the rest of his days.

  Silver jingled in the pockets of the homespun trousers Merkela had made for him. He needed a couple of drill bits. He knew more about them than Merkela did, and at least as much as Raunu, so he was the logical one to come and buy them. Even so, he felt small-boy enthusiasm for an outing of a sort he hadn’t enjoyed before.

  Down in Priekule, he would have gone into an ironmonger’s, bought what he needed, and left with as much dispatch as he could. In a village like Pavilosta, he’d discovered, that was bad manners. A customer was supposed to pass the time of day rather than brusquely laying down his money. Skarnu found that peculiar, since the country folk were usually much more sparing of words than his old set back in the capital, but it was so.

  After gossip about the weather, the way the crops were shaping, and a couple of juicy local scandals, Skarnu managed to make his escape. His time in and around Pavilosta had changed him more than he would have guessed, though, for instead of heading straight back to the farm, he ambled into the market square to see what he could see and hear what he could hear.

  Maybe I’ll learn something to help in the fight against the redheads, he thought. But he was too honest with himself to let that stand for long. Maybe I’ll pick up something to make Merkela laugh or cluck. That came closer to the truth, and he knew it.

  Somehow or other, he found himself gravitating toward the enterprising taverner who was in the habit of setting out a table at the edge of the square. If he stood around and soaked up a mug of ale, or even a couple of mugs of ale, he wouldn’t look the least bit out of place. So he told himself, at any rate.

  As a lure to the men who were both thirsty and curious, the taverner had set out a couple of copies of a news sheet that had come in from some larger town-- from Ignalina in the east, Skarnu saw by the masthead. “Full of nonsense and drivel,” the taverner said as the noble picked up the sheet.

  “Well, why do you have it, then?” Skarnu asked.

  “To give people something to complain about, more than anything else,” the taverner answered. Skarnu laughed. The other fellow held out his hands. “What? D’you think I’m joking? See for yourself--you’ll find out.”

  “I don’t need to read it to know it’ll be full of all the things the Algarvians want us to hear and empty of the ones they don’t,” Skarnu said.

  “Right the first time,” the taverner said. “Some people believe the manure the news sheets print, if you can believe that, pal.” Skarnu nodded but said nothing. He would have bet that, while talking to people who got on well with the redheads, the taverner praised the news sheet to the skies. With him, the fellow went on, “Take a look at this here, for instance. Go on, just take a look at it.”

  BALL IN THE CAPITAL CELEBRATES ALGARVIAN-VALMIERAN AMITY, the headline read. The subscription fees for the ball had gone to pay for relief for wounded Algarvian soldiers. Skarnu hoped die redheads needed to collect lots and lots of money for such a worthy cause.

  The list of those who attended the ball showed what the Algarvians meant by amity, too. Pointing to it, Skarnu said, “It’s all
their officers and our women.”

  “Oh, aye--did you expect anything different?” the taverner said with a scornful sneer. “These noblewomen, they’re all whores, every cursed one of’em.”

  Skarnu started to bristle at that slur against his class. He had to remind himself that he wasn’t, at the moment, a member of his class. His eyes kept sliding down the list. It was always Brigadier and Viscount So-and-so, a redhead, coupled with Countess What’s-her-name, a Valmieran. He had no doubt that most of the pairs named were coupled literally as well as metaphorically.

  Colonel and Count Lurcanio and Marchioness Krasta. Skarnu almost missed that one pairing among so many. He stared and stared, wishing his eyes had gone on past without catching his sister’s name. What was she doing? What could she be doing? But that had an all too obvious answer.

  He stared so hard, the taverner noticed. “What’s the matter, pal?” he asked. “See somebody you know?” He threw back his head and laughed uproariously at his own wit.

  What would he do if Skarnu said aye? Call me a liar, I hope, Skarnu thought; every other possibility struck him as worse. “Likely tell,” was all he answered, which made the taverner chuckle, but not chortle again.

  Worst was that Skarnu couldn’t just up and leave. He had to hang around and finish his ale and keep on chatting while he was doing it. Anything else would have been out of character and drawn notice.

  Concealing his anguish was as hard as hiding a physical wound would have been. He’d always known Krasta was headstrong and willful, but what could have possessed her to take up with an Algarvian officer? He wondered if she knew; she’d never been long on self-examination.

  After he could finally start back to the farm with propriety, he heaved a long sigh. His sister had made, or more likely unmade, her bed; now she would have to lie in it... with this Colonel Lurcanio. Skarnu sighed again. Whatever Krasta had done, he couldn’t do anything about it.

  He walked on for a while before realizing that wasn’t true. If he and his comrades did somehow manage to expel the Algarvians from Valmiera, Lurcanio would go and Krasta, presumably, would stay. What would happen then? He couldn’t imagine. Nothing pleasant--he was sure of that.

  “My own sister,” he muttered as he tramped along the road. It was safe enough; he could see a good long blaze in every direction. “My own sister?’ He’d never dreamt of being on opposite sides of a civil war with Krasta.

  When he got back to the farm, he told Raunu and Merkela the news straightaway. He knew he didn’t have to; no one else was likely to associate his name and that of a noblewoman in Priekule. But he preferred not to take the chance: better they should hear it from him than from anybody else.

  Raunu had been repairing the steps that led up to the farmhouse porch. He paused to pound in a couple of nails, using what struck Skarnu as needless force. Then he said, “That’s hard, sir. Aye, that’s about as hard to choke down as anything I can think of.”

  Merkela took Skarnu by the hand. “Come upstairs with me,” she said. Raunu’s ears went red. He drove one more nail in a tearing hurry, then almost ran out of earshot of the farmhouse; Skarnu listened to the veteran’s footfalls fade as he himself followed Merkela up the stairs to her bedchamber. If this was how she wanted to make him feel better, he had no doubt she’d succeed.

  In the bedchamber, she turned his way. He held out his arms to her. She stepped toward him--and slapped him in the face almost hard enough to knock him off his feet.

  He staggered back, one hand coming up to his cheek, the other grabbing for the door frame to help him stay upright. “Powers above!” he exclaimed, tasting blood in his mouth. “What was that for?”

  Merkela’s eyes blazed. “I’ll tell you what that’s for,” she snarled. “It’s for caring about your sister now that she’s an Algarvian’s whore.”

  “She’s still my sister,” Skarnu mumbled. His cheek felt as if it were on fire. He probed the inside of his mouth with his tongue, trying to find out whether Merkela had loosened any of his teeth for him.

  “You haven’t got a sister, not anymore.” Merkela spoke with great certainty--in that, at least, she was a lot like Krasta. “If she knew what you were doing, don’t you think she’d blab to this redheaded colonel and count, whatever his name was? Powers below eat him and eat his name, too.”

  Skarnu started to say, Of course she wouldn’t. But the words clogged in his throat. He had no idea what Krasta would do if she found out he was one of the small, stubborn band of men--and women--keeping the war against Algarve

  Darkness Descending

  sputteringly alive in the countryside. Maybe she would keep silent. But maybe she wouldn’t, too.

  Merkela saw the doubt on his face. She nodded. “You aren’t trying to lie to me, anyhow. That’s something.”

  “Lurcanio,” Skarnu said. “His name’s Lurcanio.”

  “I told you, I don’t care what his name is,” Merkela answered. “He’s an Algarvian. That’s enough to know. Your sister gave herself to him, and now you have no sister.”

  “Aye,” Skarnu said dully. Merkela viewed the world in very simple terms. He’d known that all along. This time, though, try as he would, he couldn’t find any way to believe she was wrong.

  She eyed him. She nodded once more, in what looked like grudging approval. And then, in a swift, sudden motion, she pulled her tunic up over her head and threw it on the floor. She kicked off her sandals, yanked down her trousers and drawers, and took the couple of steps that brought her over to the bed. She lay down on it. Now she held out her arms to him. “You have no sister,” she repeated. “But you have me.”

  Getting out of his own clothes was a matter of a moment. He lay down beside her, clutching at her flesh as fiercely as she grabbed for him. Very often, their lovemaking reminded him more of combat than of anything he’d ever known with other women. This was one of those times. She sank her teeth into his shoulder as if she meant to draw blood; her nails scored his back and flanks. He squeezed and pinched and prodded her. She pressed his hands to her, urging him to be rougher yet.

  And when, not much later, he drove into her, he hardly cared whether he hurt her as well as pleasing her. By the way she moaned and bucked beneath him, she hardly cared, either, or knew the difference. His lips and teeth, jammed against hers, muffled her final cry. A couple of fierce thrusts later, he spent himself deep inside her.

  Sweat made their bodies stick and slide against each other. Merkela pushed at him, to remind him to take a little weight on his elbows. He didn’t want to pull away; he hoped he’d get hard again inside her, so they could start again. Now that he was past thirty, though, such things didn’t happen very often. Sure enough, in a minute or two he flopped out.

  Merkela reached for him. She wasn’t trying to make him rise; it seemed almost a gesture of respect for an admired foe. “Later,” she said. “There’s always later.”

  “Aye,” Skarnu said, though he thought she was talking more to part of him than to all of him.

  And indeed, Merkela started slightly, as if his voice reminded her all of him lay in this bed with her. Maybe she needed reminding; even more than a year after they’d started lying down together, she often called out her dead husband’s name at the moment of climax.

  Her expression sharpened. She reached out and tapped Skarnu’s chest with a fingernail. “You have no sister,” she said once more, and he nodded again, admitting as much. She turned her head south, in the direction of Priekule. Her voice sank to a throaty whisper. “But oh, the vengeance you can take on her who was once your kin after the kingdom is free once again.”

  Skarnu thought about it. What would he do if he ever saw Krasta face to face again? Colonel and Count Lurcanio and Marchioness Krasta. The words in the news sheet seared like vitriol. He nodded. “Aye.”

  Nineteen

  Hajjaj’s secretary--his new secretary, his loyal secretary, his secretary who was not an Unkerlanter spy--stuck his head into the Zuwayzi foreign minister
’s office and said, “Your Excellency, Marquis Balastro has arrived.”

  “Very well, Qutuz. I am ready to receive him.” Hajjaj rose to display the Algarvian-style tunic and kilt he had donned for the occasion. They were making him sweat unreasonably, but that was one of the prices he had to pay for conforming to the diplomatic usages of the rest of Derlavai. “You may bring him in.”

  “Aye, your Excellency,” Qutuz said, and went off to get the Algarvian minister.

  A moment later, Hajjaj and Balastro were clasping hands. “Good day, good day,” Balastro said. He was stocky, middle-aged, vigorous, and much smarter than he looked. Reaching out to pat Hajjaj’s tunic, he said, “If you were a pretty young wench, I’d be disappointed you were wearing this. As is”--he shrugged a grandiloquent Algarvian shrug--”I can live with it.”

  “Your reassurances do so ease my mind,” Hajjaj said dryly, and the redheaded Algarvian noble threw back his head and laughed out loud. Balastro would have laughed out of the other side of his mouth had Hajjaj told him Ansovald of Unkerlant had said something similar not so long before. Foreigners always thought of Zuwayzi nudity in terms of pretty young wenches. In one sense, Hajjaj understood that. In another, the ways it missed the point never failed to amuse him.

  Balastro made himself comfortable with the cushions that did duty for chairs in Hajjaj’s office. So did the Zuwayzi foreign minister. Unlike most of his countrymen, he had a desk, but a low, wide one, one he could use while sitting on the carpet: another compromise between Zuwayzi usages and those of the rest of Derlavai.

  The secretary came in with a silver tray that held the ritual tea and cakes and wine. Unlike Ansovald, Balastro appreciated the ritual. As long as he and Hajjaj nibbled and sipped, he stuck to small talk. He had an abundant store of it; Hajjaj enjoyed listening to him and fencing with him. He said as much--tea and cakes and wine were also a time for frank praise.