“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fernao replied, and Ilmarinen laughed raucously. Ignoring him, the Lagoan mage switched to classical Kaunian: “And suppose-just suppose, mind-that you were right about what you tried to do. Suppose the sorcery does have a true timelike component. I do not think it does, but suppose as much for the sake of argument.”
“I have supposed as much,” Ilmarinen said in the same language. “That is why I tried to do what I did. And if I had succeeded, the world would be a different place, and a better place, right now. Because of Pekka, that wouldn’t make you so happy, I know, but it’s still true.” He spoke the language of scholarship as fluently and idiomatically as he used Kuusaman.
“Different? Aye. Better?” Fernao shrugged. “Perhaps you would have changed things to your heart’s desire. But what would the next person who meddled in the past have done? What about the fellow afterhint! How long before we had no true past at all, only an endless war of changes? If the Kaunian Empire had beaten the Algarvians at the Battle of Gambolo, would it have fallen? If Sibiu had beaten Lagoas in our sea wars two hundred and fifty years ago, the Sibs would have got more from Siaulia and the islands in the Great Northern Sea than they did, and we less. And so on, with every kingdom trying to set its lost cause to rights. Do you see?”
He spoke classical Kaunian like most scholars and mages: well enough, but without real liveliness. But that didn’t matter so much here. All he wanted to do was get his point across. And he did. Ilmarinen didn’t answer right away. “You’ve given this a good deal of thought, haven’t you?” he said at last.
“Aye,” Fernao answered. “Pekka and I had little else to do while going out to the blockhouse but think and worry. The other thing we worried about was how much energy your spell would release if it went wrong.”
“Nothing you could have done about that-except jumping on me and stopping me the way you did, I mean,” Ilmarinen said. He added, “I saw the carriage you came in. You should have spent your time screwing-the driver wouldn’t have known. If you were going to die, at least you would have died happy.”
Fernao got to his feet. “You are impossible,” he said. “Fortunately, the spell you tried is also impossible.” He wanted to warn Ilmarinen not to try it again, but refrained once more. He wished he could have strutted away with his nose in the air. His permanent limp and the stick he used prevented that. He did the best he could, given his physical limitations. It was good enough to make Ilmarinen laugh at his retreating back.
And he got his nose high enough in the air to keep him from paying much attention to where he was going. He almost ran over Pekka before he realized she was there. “What did I do to you?” she asked.
“You?” he replied. “Nothing, sweetheart.” Her expression warned him not to say such things. It always had, ever since he’d fled his own bedchamber after they’d made love. But this time, he was able to go on. “Ilmarinen, on the other hand…”
Pekka’s face cleared. She was always ready to be annoyed at the elderly theoretical sorcerer, even if he was her own countryman. “What now?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing new,” Fernao said. “But he still thinks he’s right in spite of the evidence, and-” He broke off again.
“And what?” Pekka asked. When Fernao didn’t answer right away, she drew her own-accurate-conclusion. “He’s teasing you about what we did, is he?” Fernao nodded. Pekka wagged a finger at him. “You see? Going to bed didn’t stop the gossip. It didn’t slow it down. It didn’t solve anything.”
“But it was wonderful,” Fernao said.
That didn’t solve anything, either; it just brought the annoyed look back to Pekka’s face. “It made things more complicated,” she said. “We don’t need things to be more complicated right now. The most important thing we can do is work on this magecraft. Anything that gets in the way-anything at all-we have to push aside.”
She didn’t deny that they’d had a good time in bed. She’d never denied it. But she did keep on behaving as if it hadn’t happened. That might not have been calculated to drive Fernao out of his mind, but it certainly had that effect.
“What are we going to do?” he said.
“When I get the chance, I’m going back to my husband and my son,” Pekka answered. “As for you, I hope you find a wonderful Lagoan woman-or even a wonderful Kuusaman woman, if you find your tastes running that way.”
“I already have,” Fernao told her.
“One without encumbrances,” Pekka told him. When she saw he didn’t understand the word in Kuusaman, she translated it into classical Kaunian. He could have done without such thoughtfulness. She added, “And I’m not feeling any too wonderful right now, either.”
Fernao looked around. By some accident, nobody was staring at them as they stood just outside the refectory. That wouldn’t last long, though. It couldn’t, by the very nature of things. While he had the chance, Fernao kicked at the boards of the floor-after carefully positioning his stick so he didn’t fall on his face. “What’s the use?” he muttered. “What’s the cursed use?”
“You see?” Pekka set a hand on his arm. It was a sympathetic gesture, not an affectionate one-or not an affectionate one of the sort he craved. “It complicated your life, too, even without encumbrances.” Now she used the Kuusaman word without explanation.
“It wouldn’t have, if…” he said.
“If I’d decided to keep doing what we did once,” Pekka said, and he nodded. She shook her head. “The complications would just have taken longer to get here and been worse when they finally did. I’m sorry, Fernao; by the powers above, I’m very sorry. But I can’t imagine anything that would make me change my mind now.”
“All right,” he said. But it wasn’t all right, nor anywhere close. He limped off toward his room. Pekka didn’t come after him or try to call him back. He hadn’t really expected her to. He’d hoped-but expectation had the encumbrance of truth, while hope lived its own life, wild and free.
Once he got back to his chamber, he wondered why he’d come. All he had here was the chance to be alone with his misery. He sat down on the bed, then wished he hadn’t. Sitting there made him think of those frantic few minutes when he’d got everything he wanted… only to discover that, once he’d got it, he couldn’t keep it. That felt worse than not getting it, for now he could look back on what he’d had, know it was real, and know-or at least be certain enough for all practical purposes-it wouldn’t happen again.
Muttering something pungent under his breath, he got up and left his room. He did, at least, know where he was going: to the crystallomancers’ chamber, where the mages and their crystals kept the hostel in the Naantali district connected to the outside world throughout the year. As spring gave way to summer, getting here was easy enough, but that didn’t hold in fall or early spring or through the seemingly endless winter blizzards.
“I want a crystal for private communication with my Grandmaster,” he told the Kuusaman mage in charge of the chamber.
“Of course,” she said. It hadn’t always beenof course; he’d had to make a nuisance of himself to gain the privilege. Only by pointedly asking whether Lagoas was truly an equal ally to Kuusamo had he prevailed. The chief crystallomancer took him to a crystal in the corner. The couple of Kuusamans closest to that crystal moved away so they couldn’t listen to him. “Here you are,” the chief said. “Do remember that the Algarvians are always trying to spy on our emanations.”
“I will,” Fernao said. Looking discontented, the Kuusaman mage went back to her desk. Fernao murmured the charm that would link this crystal to the one in Grandmaster Pinhiero’s office back in Setubal. As the crystal activated, light flared inside it. A moment later, Pinhiero’s image filled the glass globe.
“Who’s that?” the Grandmaster said, peering into his own crystal. Then he recognized Fernao. “Ah, it’s you. What do you want? What sort of trouble are you in?”
So far as Fernao knew, Pinhiero hadn’t heard about his entan
glement with Pekka. Fernao hadn’t told him, anyway, which might not have been the same thing. Pinhiero could learn things from all sorts of unlikely places. Fernao said, “When will the first contingent of Lagoan mages come here for training? We really need our own wizards familiar with the new magecraft now that we’re fighting on the Derlavaian mainland.” Speaking his own tongue with Pinhiero felt odd after using classical Kaunian and Kuusaman for so long.
“They’ll be leaving Setubal day after tomorrow,” Pinhiero said, scratching at one end of his graying, sandy mustache. “The demon of getting them ready, of course, was making sure none of them would start whispering in Mezentio’s ear. Would you believe it, we found one mage the Algarvians planted on us twenty-five years ago? He’d had a past made up that was perfect rill you looked really hard, and he speaks Lagoan better than I do.”
“I’m glad you found him,” Fernao said. “Now-can you find someone to take over for me here? I think I’ve done about as much in Kuusamo as I can do.”
Pinhiero shook his head. “In a word, no. In two words, definitely no. I don’t care if your affair with that Kuusaman mage didn’t work out the way you hoped. This is more important than you, my boy. This is for the Guild and the kingdom. You stay right where you are.”
Fernao scowled. He might have known Pinhiero had a peephole of some sort into the gossip here. “Aye, Grandmaster,” he said, and broke the etheric connection with no more of a good-bye than that.
KingSwemmel glared out of the crystal atMarshalRathar. Rathar stolidly stared back; he much preferred dealing with the King of Unkerlant at a distance to trying to deal with him face-to-face. “We are not amused, and we are not pleased,” Swemmel said in his harsh, high-pitched voice.
“I’m sorry to hear that, your Majesty,” Rathar replied. That, on the whole, was true; when Swemmel felt aggrieved, he was even more hair-raisingly erratic than in his calmer moods.
“They mocked us,” the king snarled. “They mocked us most unforgivably-CountGusmao and in especialLordMoisio. Were they not ministers of kingdoms also at war against Algarve”-he couldn’t bring himself to say, friendly kingdoms -”their heads should answer for it. We do not tolerate insolence.”
Rathar wondered when anyone had last dared be insolent to Swemmel. Not for a good many years; the marshal was sure of that. But the ministers from Lagoas and Kuusamo had the advantage of not being Unkerlanter subjects. Swemmel risked real wrath if he abused them. Of course, even that might not stop him if he reckoned himself provoked enough.
“They have the gall to say, ‘I told you so,’ to us. Tousl” Swemmel snapped, still fuming.
Gusmao and Moisiohad told Swemmel what was going to happen. And they’d told him the truth. He hadn’t seemed much interested in hearing it at the time-he’d actively resisted believing it at the time-but it had turned out to be true. And… “Your Majesty, now that the Lagoans and the Kuusamans finally are on the Derlavaian mainland, that can only help us,” Rathar said. “The redheads can’t concentrate all their strength against Unkerlant alone.”
“That is so.” Swemmel sounded unhappy about admitting even that much. But Rathar had distracted him. “Aye, thatis so. And we shall make the Algarvians pay.” He stabbed a finger out at Rathar; even though it was only an image in the crystal, the marshal had all he could do not to flinch. “Do you suppose that, if they capture the Algarvian pretender in Jelgava, they shall use him as we used the Algarvian pretender in Grelz?”
“I… don’t know, your Majesty.” Rathar tried to imagine the Kuusamans boilingKingMainardo alive. The picture refused to form in his mind. But he couldn’t very well tell his sovereign that.
“Well, never mind.” Swemmel waved a hand. “You carry on with what you have been ordered. And mind you, Marshal-we expect to see results.” His image vanished. The crystal flared, then went back to being an inert glass globe.
As often happened after a conversation with the king, Rathar needed to shake himself to return to the real world. The commandant’s headquarters in Pewsum weren’t so very much, not as the real world went. Rathar got up, stretched, and walked out onto the street. No one followed him. No one dared disturb his privacy. Who would disturb the most powerful man in Unkerlant save Swemmel alone?
After a little while, GeneralGurmun dared. Gurmun, from everything Rathar had seen, had as much daring as any officer needed, and a little more besides. “What news from the king?” he asked.
MarshalRathareyed him. Gurmun also had as much ambition as any officer needed, and a little more besides. One of the posts to which an ambitious Unkerlanter general might aspire was the one Rathar held. Even so, the question was reasonable. Picking his words with care, Rathar replied, “His Majesty is irked at the Kuusaman and Lagoan ministers for not being as polite as they might have when talking about their invasion of Jelgava.”
“He’s got a right to be irked, too, if anybody wants to know what 1 think,” Gurmun answered. “We’ve been carrying the load against Algarve all by ourselves the past three years. And now the islanders are crowing like roosters because they’ve taken on a little? Powers below eat ‘em, I say.”
That held some truth. It certainly matched Swemmel’s view of things. Rathar said, “They haven’t been idle, not altogether.” Gurmun snorted. The marshal went on: “And, as I told his Majesty, the more the redheads have to put into fighting Lagoas and Kuusamo, the less they’ll have left to use against us.”
“Well, that’s true enough.” Gurmun nodded vigorously. “It should have happened last year, or maybe even the year before, but it is true now. We’ll make Mezentio’s men pay, too.”
“I expect we will,” Rathar agreed. “Our edge has always been in manpower and behemoths and dragons. Now it will be a bigger edge, and I intend to take advantage of it.” He pointed toGeneralGurmun. “You’re going to help me do it, too.”
Gurmun showed his teeth in a wolfs smile. “That’s just what I’ve got in mind, lord Marshal. I’m really looking forward to it.”
“We’re all looking forward to it, General,” Rathar replied. “We’ve been looking forward to it for a long time. If all goes well, we get to show the Algarvians what good scholars we’ve been these past three years.”
“Did the king say anything about the timing of what we’ve got laid on?” Gurmun asked.
“Not a word.” More than a little relieved at that, Rathar shook his head. “We’re still two weeks away, more or less. That’s always provided the redheads don’t do something we didn’t expect.”
“They’re not bloody likely to attack us first, not with everything they’ve got on their plate,” Gurmun exclaimed.
“I should hope not.” But then Rathar shook his head again. “No-I should hope so. If they want to waste their substance, they’re welcome to do it as far as I’m concerned. But that isn’t what I meant.”
“What did you mean, then, sir?”GeneralGurmun sounded suspicious. He didn’t care for Rathar’s seeing things he couldn’t.
Here, Rathar wasn’t sure what he was seeing, or whether he was seeing anything at all. He answered, “It’s just that… you never can tell with the redheads. They might pull some new sorcery out from under their kilts, they might not try to stand their ground, they might have ready lines farther east…”
“No sign of it from the dragons,” Gurmun said. “No sign of it from the mages. No real sign they even know what’s building against them here in the north. As far as we can tell, they’re still worried most about the Duchy of Grelz.”
“Aye, as far as we can tell,” Rathar agreed. “I just hope we can tell far enough.” His chuckle held no mirth. Back in the days of the Twinkings War, he’d always had a good notion of what Kyot’s forces were likely to do. Like him, they were Unkerlanters; he’d understood how they thought. “Anybody who’s sure he understands what the Algarvians are up to deserves to get his head handed to him, and he probably will.”
“They aren’t as smart as they think they are, and we aren’t as stupid as they t
hink we are,” Gurmun said. “We’ve used that against them a few times.”
Rathar nodded. Pretending to do something foolish in the hope the Algarvians would pounce on it and thus fall into a later trap theyhadn’t foreseen, had worked well fairly often, in fact. Mezentio’s men were proud of their own cleverness. If they saw the ignorant Unkerlanters acting stupid, they felt duty bound to punish them-and ended up punishing themselves in the process. And, in their arrogance, they had trouble realizing what they’d done wrong.
“Are your behemoths in place?” the marshal asked.
Gurmun’s blunt-featured head bobbed up and down. “I’m right on schedule, lord Marshal. If we weren’t moving only at night, if we weren’t keeping quiet with our crystals, we’d be farther along still. Not being able to send a message ahead to let people prepare for the beasts slows us down.”
“I know,” Rathar said. “But all the emanations we’ve been able to intercept from the redheads show they don’t know what’s coming. That’s just how I want things to stay. The surprise will make up for everything.”
“I hope you’re right, sir.” Gurmun’s eyes flashed. If you’re wrong, KingSwemmel will hear about it. I’ll make sure he hears about it.
Rathar almost let his smile show on his face. One thing he’d seen was that Swemmel didn’t think he aimed at usurpation. He was content to be marshal; the idea of being king horrified him. Did Gurmun feel the same way? Rathar had his doubts. And, if he had doubts, Swemmel surely had deep, dark suspicions. Imay not be so easy to topple as you think, General.
A wagon in no way out of the ordinary pulled up. The driver asked, “Ready to go on up to the front?” Rathar nodded and climbed in, Gurmun right behind him. Lots of wagons went up to the front. Both Rathar and Gurmun wore uniform tunics ordinary but for their rank badges; not even a dragonflier at treetop height would judge them anything but common soldiers. Of course, even common soldiers get attacked, Rathar thought. He shrugged. Life didn’t come without risks. If Gurmun worried, he didn’t show it. Rathar had never had any reason to doubt his courage.
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