Jaws of Darkness d-5

by Harry Turtledove

  Everything went well till the seventh mage, another woman, turned the water to ice instead of boiling it. “What did I do wrong?” she asked anxiously.

  “I think it was your pass in the second versicle,” Fernao answered. “The motion needs to be across and then under, and I believe you went over with your left hand. Try again, please.” The woman did, and succeeded. After all had gone through the demonstration, Fernao dismissed them and went looking for Pekka.

  He found her in the refectory, eating a sandwich made of a round, chewy roll, smoked salmon, a sliced gherkin, and onions. She looked tired. She was teaching practical mages, too, as well as doing the administrative work for the project. She nodded to him as he came up. “Hello,” she said. “You have something on your mind. I can see it.”

  “So I do.” Fernao nodded. He looked around. The refectory was crowded with practical mages, a lot of whom he’d never seen before. “When you’re done here, can we go someplace quiet and talk?”

  Pekka hesitated. Fernao winced. She hadn’t come knocking at his door after they’d made love that once. He hadn’t knocked on hers, either, however much he’d wanted to. “About what?” she asked at last.

  “Something important I don’t want to talk about here,” he answered, “but notthat, in case you were wondering.”

  “All right. I trust you.” But Pekka’s voice held doubt-she still had to be wondering whether he’d planned to seduce her when he’d invited her to his chamber. She finished the odorous sandwich in a few bites, took a gulp of tea to wash it down, and stood. “Come to my chamber with me, then.”

  When they got there, Pekka sat down on the bed. Fernao would have liked to sit beside her, but didn’t think she would like it if he did. He perched on the stool instead. Even as Pekka raised a questioning eyebrow, he asked, “Why are all the mages we’re training Kuusamans? Why aren’t there any Lagoans?”

  “Ah.” Pekka visibly relaxed. Thatwas important, and it had nothing to do with their going to bed with each other. She ticked off points on her fingers. “Item-the spells are in Kuusaman. Until they get translated into classical Kaunian or Lagoan, my folk will have an advantage. Item-even if that weren’t so, your Guild of Mages hasn’t sent any sorcerers for training. Item- the Algarvians would have an easier time planting a spy among Lagoans, because you are also an Algarvic people. Shall I go on?”

  Those were all good reasons. Fernao wished he could have argued otherwise. He said, “You do understand why I’m worrying? If your mages all learn these spells and my countrymen don’t, who has the advantage if we quarrel after the war?”

  “Aye, I see that,” Pekka answered. “The first two points can and should be addressed. I don’t know how you can help looking like Algarvians, though.” She winked at him.

  He grinned; she hadn’t done anything like that since they became lovers, and the only reason he could think of that she hadn’t was that she didn’t want to encourage him. But the grin didn’t last. He said, “If we had more Lagoan mages here, the problem of translating the spells would be smaller. Your people have not seemed to want to let my countrymen join me, though.”

  With candor that surprised him, she said, “We aren’t very eager, no. You worry about what Kuusamo might do. Here, we worry about what Lagoas might do.”

  “Why?” Fernao asked. “You’re bigger than we are. Nothing we can do will change that.”

  “Bigger, aye, but with this spell even a small kingdom will be able to wreak havoc on its neighbors. And”-Pekka’s nose wrinkled-”Lagoans are Lagoans, after all. Who can guess what you people will do next?”

  “You’re right, of course.” Fernao slid down off the stool, took two steps forward, gave her a quick kiss, and backed away again while she was still letting out a startled squeak. He was glad his leg had healed enough to let him move fairly fast; she might have hit him had he lingered.

  As things were, she shook her head and said, “Fernao,” in such a way that his name couldn’t mean anything but, Iwish you hadn’t done that.

  He didn’t wish he hadn’t done it. He wished he’d done more: “Pekka,” he said, and got that into her name, too.

  She shook her head. She’d heard what he meant, just as he’d heard her. “It’s no good,” she said. “It’s no good at all.”

  “That’s not what you thought then,” Fernao answered. He was in no doubt whatever about that.

  Pekka didn’t try to deny it. Instead, she said, “That makes it worse, not better. I was stupid. Now everybody’s life is more complicated than it would have been.”

  “But-” Fernao struggled for words. He’d never tried dealing with a woman who’d enjoyed going to bed with him but still didn’t want to do it again.

  Pekka shook her head again. “No. Itwas good, but that isn’t enough.” She held up a hand before he could snort in disbelief or do anything else in like vein. “Itisn’t. For you, maybe, but, for one thing, you’re a man, and-”

  “Thank you so much,” he said.

  She talked right through him: “-and, for another, you’re not a married man. Your life isn’tso much more complicated than it was before. Mine is.”

  Fernao started to protest. But what complicated his life, at the moment, was Pekka’s unwillingness to sleep with him again. Somehow, he didn’t think that would impress her.

  She sighed and said, “If I weren’t happy with Leino, that would be something different. But I am. It’s just that we were apart too long. Sometimes your body can make you stupid. I think it happens more easily with men, but it happens to women, too.”

  “I suppose so,” Fernao said dully. He didn’t much care to be reckoned no more than the object of her stupidity.

  Pekka pointed a finger at him. “Maybe we ought to get more Lagoans to the hostel here, after all. I know how Lagoans think about my people. If you had those tall, round Lagoan women here, you wouldn’t look twice at me.”

  But now Fernao shook his head. “I started wishing I could meet you back when I was reading your journal articles, before you Kuusamans stopped publishing all of a sudden. It isn’t just that I think you’re beautiful…” He hadn’t quite intended to say that, which didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

  Pekka looked down at the floor directly between her feet. In a very small voice, she said, “You’re not making this any easier, you know.”

  “I’m sorry.” Fernao shook his head. He wasn’t sorry. He was about as far from sorry as he could be, and wanted to make things as hard as he could. Most of all, he wanted to bed her again, and again, and again, and let whatever happened afterwards take care of itself.

  That must have been very plain. Pekka said, “I think you’d better go.” She laughed-briefly. “In the romances, I’d throw yourself into your arms now, either because you were here and my husband wasn’t or because you made me so passionate, I couldn’t help myself. But life isn’t always like the romances. Youdid make me passionate-I’d be lying if I said anything else. It’s not enough, though, and I’m not going to let it be enough. I know where I belong.”

  He heard the finality in that. He wished he were so sure of such things. He didn’t see that he could do anything but what she asked now. She looked relieved when he got up and started for the door. Relieved he was going? Or relieved he wasn’t making her make hard choices? He wished he could believe the latter. Every fiber of him wanted to. Every nerve ending he had told him he’d be wrong if he did.

  If only I hadn’tbeen after anything but seducing her, he thought as his hand fell on the latch. But if there were two more dismal words thanif only in Lagoan-or Kuusaman, or classical Kaunian, or any other language-he was cursed if he knew what they were.

  A band stood on the deck of theHabakkuk, thumping away in the emphatic style the Kaunian kingdoms favored. To Leino, the Jelgavan royal hymn sounded like a lot of raucous noise. Not far away from him, Xavega twisted her face into a sneer. She looked pretty even while sneering, no mean feat. Ireally have been away from Pekka too long, Leino thought.
>
  But looking at Xavega was more pleasant than looking atKingDonalitu of Jelgava, whose presence aboard theHabakkuk occasioned the band. Donalitu was pudgy and graying. Neither his face nor his body seemed to match the splendid, dazzlingly bemedaled uniform he wore.

  Xavega sneered atKingDonalitu, too. Lagoas might be at war with Algarve, but that didn’t mean Lagoans loved and admired folk of Kaunian blood, any more than they loved and admired Kuusamans. As far as Leino could see, Lagoans loved and admired nobody but other Lagoans, and often not too many of them.

  He didn’t love or particularly admireXavega. All I want to do is get it in, he thought. She started to glance toward him. He looked away. He didn’t want to see her sneer aimed at him. He knew it would be, but he didn’t want to see it.

  CaptainBrunho, who commanded theHabakkuk, was also a Lagoan, which meant he towered more than half a head over Leino. He ledKingDon-alitu up to the Kuusaman mage and spoke in classical Kaunian: “Your Majesty, I present to you Leino of Kajaani, one of the sorcerers who designed and created this ship here.”

  Leino bowed. “I am honored to meet you, your Majesty,” he said. It was at least theoretically true.

  The exiled King of Jelgava looked him over. By Donalitu’s expression, what he saw didn’t much impress him-he could have given Xavega lessons in sneering. He said, “So you will help me get my throne back? You will help drive the filthy, barbarous usurper from the high place that is not his?”

  “Uh, I will do what I can, your Majesty,” Leino said. Beside Donalitu, CaptainBrunho turned a dull red: the color of hot iron. When Donalitu called Algarvians filthy barbarians, he also indirectly called Lagoans-his protectors, and another Algarvic people-filthy barbarians. He seemed unaware that might prove a problem. Odds were he’d been unaware of it ever since going into exile. Leino had no intention of being the one to enlighten him.

  Donalitu said, “What good is this big icy boat? I hope I shall not catch cold here.”

  Now Leino suspectedhe was turning a dull red. By all appearances, no one had ever taught Donalitu anything resembling manners. Maybe kings didn’t need them, though Leino had his doubts about that. Keeping a careful grip on his temper, he replied,“Habakkuk can carry many more dragons than any ordinary ship, your Majesty. This ship is also harder to damage than any of the ordinary sort.”

  “But it will melt,” Donalitu exclaimed.

  Patiently, Leino said, “Not if we have mages refreshing the ice-and we do.” Maybe no one had ever taughtKingDonalitu to think, either.

  Donalitu turned toCaptainBrunho and said, “I shall be glad to go back aboard a proper ship, a natural ship, when this inspection is done.”

  “Aye, your Majesty.” Brunho’s face and voice were wooden.

  Leino held his face straight, too, though it wasn’t easy. Donalitu assumed an iron ship was a natural ship. What kind of sense did that make, when ice floated and iron sank? He almost said as much, but somehow managed to keep his mouth shut.

  CaptainBrunholed the King of Jelgava off to inspect the dragonfliers and their mounts. With any luck at all, a dragon will bite off his head, Leino thought. That would do his kingdom some good. As soon asKingDonalitu was out of earshot, or perhaps rather sooner, Xavega said something in Lagoan. The mages who spoke her language snickered. Not wanting to be left out, Leino asked, “What was that?” in classical Kaunian.

  “I said, ‘What a horrid, stupid little man,’ “ she replied in the same tongue. In her loathing of Donalitu, she was willing to treat Leino as an equal. It was the first time she’d done that since the Algarvian leviathan-rider planted an egg on theHabakkuk. Plainly, she needed something drastic.

  After what seemed like forever, KingDonalitu left the iceberg-turned-dragon-hauler. He went down a rope ladder into a little patrol boat that took him back to the ley-line cruiser-the iron ship, the natural ship, Leino thought with amusement-in which he’d come out to visitHabakkuk. The cruiser sped away.

  Leino waved after it. “Good-bye!” he called in classical Kaunian. “With any luck, we shall never see you again. Good-bye!”

  “May it be so!” Xavega said. She beamed-she actually beamed-at Leino. His hopes, or something close to his hopes, rose. Common sense quashed that. Xavega’s smile wasn’t likely to show how much she liked him. It would show how much she despised Donalitu of Jelgava.

  CaptainBrunhocame up behind them. “That will be enough of that,” he said. “That will be more than enough of that, in fact.”

  “He insulted you, he insulted the ship, he insulted all of us, he is a moron,” Xavega snarled. “Are we supposed to put our lips on his posterior?”

  “He is a king. He is an ally. He deserves respect,” Brunho said formally.

  “Powers below eat him,” Xavega said. “Even Leino here could tell he is more like a leg of mutton than a proper man.”

  A leg of mutton? Leino wondered. Maybe it was a Lagoan insult, translated literally. Maybe it just meant Xavega’s command of classical Kaunian wasn’t quite so good as she thought it was. Whatever it was, Leino felt he had to say something, and did: “The land of the Seven Princes would be ashamed to have him as one of the Seven.”

  “You are welcome to your opinion,” Brunho said. “You are not welcome to express it on my ship, not where others can hear it, not where it can affect the morale of my crew.”

  “You would not have a ship-you would not havethis ship-if it were not for us mages,” Xavega pointed out.

  “That is true. But I do have it now.”

  Maybe such relentless precision made Brunho a good captain. For his sake, forHabakkuk ’s sake, Leino hoped so. Nevertheless, he observed, “Bringing King Donalitu aboard will do more to hurt morale than I could if I talked for a month.”

  Xavega laughed and clapped her hands and nodded. CaptainBrunho stared down at Leino out of cold green eyes. “This was done at the command of my sovereign, KingVitor. I prefer his opinion to yours.” He swung that disapproving stare toward Xavega. “KingVitoris your sovereign, too, in case you have forgotten.”

  “I remember perfectly well,” she snapped. “But if he approves of that Donalitu creature, he has less in the way of taste than I would have thought.” She flounced off. Leino watched her do it. He watched carefully.

  CaptainBrunhowas made of stern stuff-he kept his attention on Leino. “You mages are an insubordinate lot,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Leino answered. Whatever Brunho had been expecting by way of a reply, that wasn’t it. He spun on his heel-carefully, so as not to fall on the icy deck of theHabakkuk -and stalked away.

  Before long, Leino went below to serve a shift fightingHabakkuk ’s unfortunate tendency to melt. That tendency was more in evidence than ever lately, as the ship cruised the ley lines in warmer, more northerly waters. Without constant attention from mages, Habakkuk would have ceased to be. We aren‘t too insubordinate to keep you from swimming, CaptainBrunho, Leino thought.

  Xavega was also part of this anti-melting shift. The magecraft, by now, was routine, though it hadn’t been when Leino helped develop it down in the land of the Ice People. The sorcerers didn’t need to give it all their attention; they could gossip while they worked.

  “A pity we have Donalitu for an ally,” Xavega said. “He would make a much better enemy.”

  “He does think the world of himself, does he not?” Ramalho said, shaking his head. The Lagoan mage continued, “He thinks the world spins around him, too.”

  “If you told him that back in Jelgava, you would have ended up in one of his dungeons faster than you could blink,” Essi remarked. Her hands never faltered in the passes she needed to support the spell.

  “All the more reason for throwing him into one of those dungeons himself.” Xavega stopped reviling Donalitu in classical Kaunian long enough to chant her portion of the spell that keptHabakkuk solid-also in classical Kaunian.

  “He is a useful tool against Algarve,” Ramalho said. “His countrymen dote on him.”

  “Whi
ch only goes to prove Jelgavans are not so smart as they would have other people believe,” Leino said.

  The other mages chuckled. Xavega said, “No one who has Donalitu for a king could be very smart. And if our preciousCaptainBrunho cannot see that, may the powers below eat him.” To Leino’s surprise, she nodded his way. “You could see it, whether Brunho could or not. Thank you for trying to get him to be sensible.”

  “Er-you are welcome,” Leino answered in some surprise. She’d actually talked to him in friendly fashion. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that. For a moment, he couldn’t imagine why she’d done it. But that didn’t take long to figure out. He’d agreed with her about Donalitu, and he’d said as much toCaptainBrunho ’s face. What could be more calculated to endear him to her than agreement? Nothing he could think of offhand.

  As if to confirm that calculation, Xavega went on, “I had not realized you were such a sensible man.” The look she gave him was frankly appraising.

  “I do my best to hide it,” Leino said, which made her laugh out loud. If I’m so sensible, why do I want to flip up her kilt? But there was more than one kind of sense, and he knew it. Bedding a good-looking woman needed no fancy justifications. It was its own best argument.

  He performed his share of the maintenance spell with casual competence.

  His eyes kept sliding Xavega’s way. Hers kept meeting his, and she wasn’t looking at him as if she wanted to go wash her hands afterwards any more, either. Was it really that easy? he wondered. Did I just have to make her think I thought she was right, to make her forget I’m a Kuusaman? He wasn’t used to people who responded so simply.

  Do I really want anything to do with somebody who responds so simply? If Pekka were here… If Pekka were there, Xavega wouldn’t have done anything but amuse him. He was sure of that. But Pekka was far away, and had been for quite a while. Every time Leino looked at Xavega, and every time he caught her looking at him, he was reminded of just how long he’d been away from his wife.