After the downfall

by Harry Turtledove

  Bottero rumbled, deep down in his chest. He could not and would not see any Grenye ruler as an equal. With the air of one making a great concession to a churl who didn't come close to deserving it, he said, "Well, say your worthless say, and then you can go and get lost."

  "Thank you so much for your gracious kindness, your Majesty," Otset said, deadpan. He might be a shrimp, but he had nerve. Bottero rumbled some more, but he didn't seem to realize he'd been one-upped. The ambassador or herald or whatever he was went on, "Lord Zgomot says, you have his leave to return to your own realm. His brave armies will not harry you if you turn around and go home."

  That set not only Bottero but most of the high officers who rode at the fore with him laughing their heads off. "What a generous worm your so-called lord is," the king said. "We thought we didn't see your armies because they didn't have the nerve to stand against us." He mockingly bowed in the saddle. "So thanks for telling us they're brave. Without you, we never would have known."

  Most of the Lenelli went right on laughing. Hasso didn't. Bottero was pushing it, and had to know he was. The Bucovinan army the Lenelli had beaten didn't fight badly. The Grenye had no magic working for them, and they'd never had a striking column shatter their line before. Under those circumstances, no wonder they lost. But they didn't disgrace themselves.

  Otset only shrugged his narrow shoulders. He wore a dark blue woolen cloak with a hood over a linen shirt brightened with embroidery. His breath smoked as he replied, "Plenty of other Lenello armies have come into Bucovin out of the west. We still stand. We will go on standing after you have to leave our land, too."

  King Bottero went brick-red again. "By the goddess, little man you will not!" he shouted. "We'll burn Falticeni around your heads, savage, and when we catch you we'll throw you on the fire. Now get away from me, before I kill you on the spot for spewing shit at your betters!"

  "Word of your charm has preceded you, your Majesty," Otset said. This time, Bottero did recognize the sarcasm. He bellowed wordless fury, like a bull. Otset took no notice of it, but continued, "The folk of Bucovin will fight you. The land of Bucovin will fight you, too. And the last time the goddess visited us, she barely got free with her life." He nodded to Velona, who rode not far from the king — he knew her for what she was. "If you persist, if she persists, luck may be different this time."

  Bottero bellowed again. Hasso paid him little heed, but eyed Velona instead. She jerked in the saddle as if taking a wound, then pretended, not quite well enough, that she'd done no such thing. "You may mock me," she said, "but you scorn the goddess at your peril."

  Otset shook his head. "I do no such thing, lady. But this is not the goddess' land. Better for you to go back to places she has taken for her own."

  "She will take this land, too," Velona said. "She will take all this land, however far it reaches. It will be hers. It is hers, and her folk will settle it."

  Lebensraum, Hasso thought, not for the first time. Velona put it differently from the way the Fuhrer had, but it amounted to the same thing. The only trouble was, the Ivans had the Lebensraum now, and the Germans damn well didn't. All kinds of things were different here, though. Chances were that one would be, too.

  "You say it, lady, but saying it does not make it so." Otset sketched a salute to Velona, a courtesy he omitted with King Bottero. He spoke to his escort. They turned their horses and rode off in the direction from which they'd come.

  Several Lenelli nocked arrows, ready to shoot Otset and the rest of the Bucovinan riders out of the saddle. Bottero did not a thing to stop them. But Velona, her face troubled, raised a hand, and none of the big blond men let fly. "The goddess would not want us to slay an envoy," she said.

  "Even an envoy who knows her not?" Marshal Lugo sounded scandalized.

  "He knows her." Velona's voice was troubled. "But he denies she has power here. It is up to us to prove him wrong."

  That stirred the king. "Right!" he shouted. "We'll smash them!" How the Lenelli cheered!

  After Otset's warning about the land, Hasso more than half expected blizzards to start roaring down out of the north. He'd been through that in Russia in 1941, and had a Frozen Meat Medal to prove it. Not many of the old sweats who'd earned that one were still in one piece; he was, as those things went, lucky.

  When he worried about blizzards out loud, the Lenelli laughed at him. "We don't get weather like that, goddess be praised," Orosei said.

  "Even if we did, the stinking Grenye couldn't bring 'em down on us," King Bottero added.

  And they turned out to be right. No stormwinds full of snow blew in the advancing soldiers' faces. But that didn't mean the Lenelli advanced very far or very fast. No snow came, no, but rain fell in buckets, barrels, hogsheads. The muddy road turned to swamp. The invaders started getting hungry, too, because they couldn't forage widely, and the supply wagons had even more trouble moving than did men mounted or afoot.

  "We whipped the weather once," Bottero told Hasso. "Why don't you cast a spell so we can do it again?"

  Why don't I? Hasso thought wildly. Because I don't have the faintest idea how, that's why. He tried to put that less blatantly: "Your Majesty, I work one spell my whole life. You want me to get rid of this? He looked up at the gray, gloomy sky, and got a faceful of rain for his trouble.

  But the king only nodded. "Yes, that's what I want. You're what I've got. I'm going to use you, or else use you up."

  A Wehrmacht colonel ordering a platoon to stay behind as a rear guard so the rest of the regiment could get away from the Ivans couldn't have been more brutally blunt. Soldiering was soldiering, no matter which world you wound up in. Sometimes you got the shitty end of the stick, that was all.

  Hasso found himself holding it here. He saluted. "I do my best, your Majesty."

  "Never mind your best. Just do what I tell you." Sure as hell, Bottero thought like a king.

  Rain, rain, go away. Come again some other day. That was the only charm Hasso knew along those lines. Just on the off chance, he chanted it up at the heavens, first in German and then in Lenello. The rain kept right on falling. He hadn't expected anything different. He sighed. It would have been nice if things were simple.

  Since they weren't, he went to talk with Velona. She wore a thick wool cloak with a hood, not very different from Otset's. It smelled powerfully of sheep, and so was probably good and greasy — better than the one he had on, anyhow. She heard him out, her face getting graver and graver as he went on. Then she said, "Well, you can try."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Hasso asked.

  "Weather magic is never easy," she answered, her tone as somber as her expression. "And weather magic in Bucovin will be harder yet. That wretch of an Otset wasn't wrong. I've seen it for myself, and I've spoken of it with you — there is a bond between the Grenye and the land here. It isn't magic. I don't know what the right name for it is. But it is real."

  "What can I do about it? How can I beat it?"

  She shrugged, which made water bead up and run down the cloak. "Do the best you can, Hasso Pemsel. I will pray to the goddess to grant you favor and lend strength to your spell. Back in our own lands, I am sure she would hearken to me. Here — " Velona shrugged again and spread her hands. Raindrops splashed off her palms, which did nothing to encourage Hasso.

  He scratched his beard. By now, he was used to wearing it. It had got long enough not to itch any more. Back in the Wehrmacht, he'd had to shave it off when he found the chance. The only problem with it was that it gave lice more room to roam when he got infested.

  What was the opposite of rain? Sunshine. Brilliant, Hasso, he told himself. He couldn't pull the sun out of a pouch on his belt. He could, he supposed, make a fire and use that to symbolize the sun. Maybe it would serve, if he could get a fire going in this dripping, puddle-filled land. And the opposite of wet was dry. If he could find a dry sponge or even a dry cloth to symbolize soaking up the rainwater, he could try his magic.

  Maybe it would work. Even i
f it didn't, King Bottero would know he'd tried. Sometimes making the effort counted as much as succeeding or failing. The Germans had put in plenty of pointless attacks against the Russians to keep Hitler happy, and then gone back to what really needed doing. Hasso understood how that game was played.

  As she had with his first spell, Velona helped him here. He was convinced he had even fewer poetic gifts in Lenello than in German. But she nodded as they worked together. "You've got a good notion of how magic is supposed to work," she told him.

  "You say the sweetest things, darling," Hasso answered, deadpan. Velona's face lit up like a flashbulb — a comparison that, in all this world, would have occurred to him alone. He added, "If only it were true." The subjunctive was for talking about conditions contrary to fact. He used it here without the slightest hesitation.

  Bottero's army slogged and sloshed forward, not going anywhere very fast. In Russia, even tracked vehicles bogged down in mud like this. The Ivans had light wagons with enormous wheels, wagons that almost doubled as boats, that could navigate such slop. Every German outfit tried to lay hold of a few of them. Hasso hadn't seen anything like them here. He could describe them to Lenello wainwrights, but they wouldn't get built in time to do any good on this campaign. And so… So I get to work magic, he thought. Again.

  He waited till the army stopped to encamp for the evening. That was in midafternoon, not only because darkness came even earlier with the clouds but also because the Lenelli needed extra time to set up an elaborate web of sentries. The Bucovinans liked to sneak in a few marauders to hamstring horses and murder men in their tents. If the raiders died instead, that might discourage them. It would certainly discourage the ones who got killed.

  "You're ready, are you?" Bottero boomed. "Good. That's good, Hasso."

  "I don't know how good it is, your Majesty," the German answered. "I can try, that's all."

  "You'll do fine. You did before." The king didn't lack for confidence.

  Maybe I will, Hasso thought. He hadn't dreamt he would be able to divine where the Bucovinans' underwater bridges lay. No matter what he hadn't dreamt, he'd done it. Why shouldn't I do it again? No reason at all.

  After Poland and France and the Balkan campaign, that kind of reasoning took the Fuhrer into the Soviet Union. The German gamble there almost paid off. The Wehrmacht came so close to knocking the Ivans out of the fight. But what did they say? Close only counted with horseshoes and hand grenades.

  Hasso wished he had a few potato-mashers on his belt, They wouldn't help with his rain magic, but they made a damn fine life-insurance policy.

  But he didn't, and he didn't like to dwell on things he didn't have. Velona had warned him more than once that you had to pay attention when you cast a spell. If you didn't, the magic could turn and bite you. Hasso wished she hadn't told him that. The magic could also turn and bite you if you screwed up your chant. For somebody with a still uncertain grasp of Lenello, that was also less than encouraging news.

  Velona chose that moment to ask him, "Are you ready?"

  "No," he answered honestly. She blinked — that wasn't what she'd expected to hear. He went on, "But I don't get — I won't get — any readier if I wait. So I try the spell. We see what happens."

  She kissed him, which was distracting in a much more pleasant way than his own gloomy and uncertain thoughts. "You can do it. I've seen that you can."

  Maybe she'd been listening to Bottero.

  "Well, I hope so." He got a little fire going in the bottom of a pot that he put under an awning made of tent cloth. He set another pot upside down under the awning and put the dry cloth under it. He couldn't help thinking that a real wizard would have used far more elaborate preparations. Aderno probably would have laughed his ass off at what Hasso was doing. But Aderno wasn't here, and Hasso damn well was. Like those kids who found themselves in the Volkssturm, he had to do the best he could.

  He wished he hadn't thought of it like that. The Ivans and the Amis and the Tommies slaughtered the poor damned kids in the Volkssturm in carload lots. A few lived long enough to learn how to soldier. Most got wounded or killed before they could. Was that true of wizards, too? There was another cheerful notion.

  No time for it now. "Give me the parchment," he told Velona. She did, and held her cloak over it so the rain wouldn't wash away the words before he could chant them. He called on the goddess. He called on the heavens. He called on the sun and the clouds. Once, when he stumbled over a word, the fabric of the world seemed to stretch very tight. Sudden frightening heat built up inside him. He got the next word right, and the one after that, and found his rhythm again. The heat receded.

  His fear didn't. He wondered if it ever would. Yeah, you could blow yourself up with this stuff if you didn't know what you were doing. And he didn't. Worse, he knew he didn't.

  Recognizing his own ignorance made him want to race through the spell, to get it over with as fast as he could. That probably wasn't smart — it made him more likely to screw up. Tortoise, he told himself. Not hare. Tortoise. You have to do it right. That's more important than doing it fast.

  Making himself believe it wasn't easy.

  At last, he got through it. He didn't burst into flames or explode from water buildup inside him or dry out as if he'd been stuck in the Sahara for a million years or do any of the other interesting and horrible things his overactive imagination came up with. He just said, "So may it be," one more time and slumped down, exhausted. Was that rain soaking him, or sweat? Did it matter?

  Velona straightened him up. She had strength for two, or maybe for an army. "There," she said. "You did it. You did everything a man could do. But I already knew you did everything a man can do." To leave him in no possible doubt of what she meant, she kissed him again.

  He was sure she would have taken him to bed if he'd shown even the slightest interest. Just then, though, he was so weary, he didn't think he could have got it up with a crane. "Wine," he croaked. "Or beer, anyhow."

  Velona didn't get angry, which had to make her a princess — no, a goddess — among women. "I'll get you some," she said, but she didn't. Instead, she shouted for Berbec. The captured Bucovinan obeyed her faster than he followed Hasso's orders, and with less back talk. By the standards of this world, Hasso was probably a softy. He shrugged. He couldn't do much about that, and he was too damn tired to care right now, anyway.

  Berbec came back with wine. Hasso wondered where he'd got it. From the king's cooks, maybe? If Berbec said the goddess wanted something, who would have the nerve to tell him no? Even Bottero would think twice before he did that.

  The wine was thick and sweet, like all the vintages here. Anybody with a sophisticated palate would have thrown up his hands in despair. Hasso didn't give a damn. The alcohol gave him a jolt, and the sugar gave him another one. By the time he'd downed a big mug, he'd improved all the way up to elderly.

  Velona drank some, too. Then she kissed him one more time. He didn't know about kisses sweeter than wine, but kisses sweetened with wine were pretty nice. And he remembered Berbec, and the line in the Bible about not binding the mouths of the cattle that thresh the grain. He sloshed the wine jar. It was almost empty, but not quite. He gave it to the Bucovinan. "Here," he said. "Finish this."

  "Me?" Berbec sounded astonished. Velona looked even more astonished, and angry, too. Hasso nodded, pretending he didn't see the storm on her brow. Berbec gulped hastily, then gave a sort of half-bow. "Much obliged, master," he said, and scurried away before that storm burst.

  It did, as soon as he was gone. "Keeping slaves content is one thing. Wasting wine on them is something else," Velona said pointedly.

  "So I'm a crappy master. The world won't end," Hasso said. "I don't have it in me to fight right now, either. Let's see how the magic turns out, all right?"

  He wondered if a soft answer would turn away wrath. Velona followed her own road, first, last, and always. If you weren't heading in that direction, you were commonly smart to stay out of her way.
But she just said, "I'll try to talk sense into you later, then."

  If those weren't words of love, Hasso didn't think he'd ever heard any.

  Come morning, he looked up into the sky. It was still cloudy. It wasn't exactly raining, but it wasn't exactly not raining, either. A fine mist got his face wet.

  He had the feeling someone was watching him. He looked around, but the only person he saw was Berbec. The servant had his tunic off. He was getting lice and their eggs out of the seams. Hasso wondered how many times he'd done that since 1939. More than he wanted to remember, anyhow. You never got ahead of the goddamn bugs. You had a bastard of a time staying even.

  "Are you watching me?" Hasso asked." Were you watching me?" Yes, pasts and futures were starting to come.

  Berbec paused. After crushing something between his thumbnails, he said, "I try to keep an eye on you, see what you want." He had a mat of hair on his chest and belly. He also had some impressive muscles. He might be a runt, but he was a well-built runt.

  And he and Hasso were talking past each other. "No," the Wehrmacht officer said. "I mean, were you watching me just now?"

  "Not me." Berbec shook his head. "I was paying attention to these lousy things." He looked surprised, then started to laugh. His Lenello was also imperfect, and he'd made the joke by accident.

  "All right. Maybe it isn't — wasn't — you, then." Hasso looked around again. He still didn't see anyone else close enough to have given him the willies that way. He looked up into the sky again. The mist kept coming down, but it was no more than mist.

  And the feeling that he was being watched got worse. He remembered the Bucovinan envoy, and he remembered how Velona felt when she got deep into Bucovin. The land wasn't on the Lenelli's side here. Did the land include the sky? He didn't know. How could he? He was more foreign in these parts than the Lenelli were, a million times more foreign. His sorcery might not have stopped the rain, but did seem to have slowed it down. Would that be enough to get the countryside pissed off at him?