Into the Darkness (3 page)

“He will seize the Duchy.” That wasn’t Ealstan; it was his mother, Elfryth. She’d hurried out of the kitchen, and was wiping her hands on a linen towel. “He will seize it, and we will go to war.” She did not sound excited, but about to burst into tears. After a moment, she gathered herself and went on, “I was about your age, Conberge, when the Six Years’ War ended. I remember the uncles and cousins you never got to know because they didn’t come home from the war.” Her voice broke. She did begin to cry.

Ealstan said, “Leofsig will fight for Forthweg. He won’t be dragooned into Algarve’s army, or Unkerlant’s, either, the way so many Forthwegians were in the last war.”

His mother looked at him as if he’d suddenly started speaking the language of the Lagoans, whose island kingdom lay beyond the isles of Sibiu, far southeast of Forthweg. “I don’t care under which banner he fights,” she said. “I don’t want him to fight at all.”

“Losing the last war didn’t teach the Algarvians their lesson,” Ealstan said. “This time, we’ll hit them first.” He smacked a fist into the palm of the other hand. “They won’t stand a chance.” That should have convinced his mother; none of his masters could have faulted his logic. For some reason, though, Elfryth looked less happy than ever.

So did Hestan, his father, when he came home from casting accounts for one or another of Gromheort’s leading merchants. He had already heard the news. By then, very likely, all of Gromheort, all of Forthweg but for a few peasants and herders, had heard the news. He didn’t say much. He seldom said much. But his silence seemed … heavier than usual as he drank his customary evening glass of wine with Elfryth.

He had a second glass of wine with supper, something he rarely did. And, all through supper, he kept looking, not east toward Algarve but to the west. He had nearly finished his garlicky stew of mutton and eggplant when, as if unable to contain himself any longer, he burst out, “What will Unkerlant do?”

Ealstan stared at him, then started to laugh. “Your pardon, sir,” he said at once; he was, on the whole, a well-mannered boy. “The Unkerlanters are still digging out from their Twinkings War, and trying to fight Gyongyos in the far west, and snapping and snarling at Zuwayza, too. Don’t you think they have enough on their plate?”

“If they hadn’t fought themselves in the Twinkings War, they would still rule most of Forthweg,” Hestan pointed out. Ealstan knew that, but it felt like history as old as that of the Kaunian Empire to him. His father resumed: “Anyhow, what I think doesn’t matter. What matters is what King Swemmel of Unkerlant thinks—and, by all I’ve heard, he doesn’t know his own mind from day to day.”

Tealdo studied himself in the little hand mirror. He muttered something vile under his breath: one of the spikes of his mustache was not all it might have been. He applied a little more orange-scented wax, twisted the mustachio between thumb and forefinger, and studied the result.
Better,
he decided, but kept fiddling with the mustache and with his imperial even so.
Better
wasn’t good enough, not here, not now. Even perfection would be barely good enough.

Panfilo came swaggering up the aisle of the caravan coach. His own mustaches, even more fiery of hue than Tealdo’s, swept up and out like the horns of a bull. Instead of a chin beard, he favored bushy side whiskers. He paused to nod at Tealdo’s primping. “That’s good,” he said. “Aye, that’s very good. All the girls in the Duchy will want to kiss you.”

“Sounds fine to me, Sergeant,” Tealdo said with a grin. He patted the sleeve of his drab tan uniform tunic. “I just wish we could wear something with a little style to it, the way our fathers and grandfathers did.”

“So do I, and I’ll not deny it,” Panfilo said. “But our fathers went into the Six Years’ War in gold tunics and scarlet kilts. They looked like they were already blazing, and they burned—how they burned!” The sergeant went on up the aisle, snarling at soldiers less fastidious than Tealdo.

The caravan hummed south along the ley line. A few minutes later, Lieutenant Elio came through the coach and snapped at a couple of men Panfilo had missed. A few minutes after that, Captain Larbino came through and growled at men Elio had missed—and at a couple he hadn’t.

Nobody growled at Tealdo. He leaned back in his seat and whistled an off-color song and watched the Algarvian landscape flow by outside the coach. Red brick and timber had long since replaced whitewashed plaster; the southern part of the realm was cool and cloudy and not well suited to the airier forms of architecture in fashion farther north. Here, a man wanted to be sure he stayed warm of nights—and of days, too, a good part of the year.

Halfway through the afternoon, the almost subliminal hum of the caravan deepened as it drew less energy from the line over which it traveled. It slowed to a stop. Captain Larbino threw open the door to the coach. “Form up in order of march outside,” he said. “Remember, King Mezentio has done us great honor by allowing this regiment to take part in the return of the Duchy of Ban to its rightful allegiance. Remember also, any man failing to live up to this honor will personally answer to me.” He set a hand on the basket hilt of his officer’s rapier; Tealdo did not doubt he meant that. The captain added, “And finally, remember that we are not marching into a foreign country. We are welcoming our brothers and sisters home.”

“Hang our brothers,” said the soldier next to Tealdo, a burly fellow named Trasone. “I want one of our sisters in Bari to welcome me home, and then screw me till I can’t even walk.”

“I’ve heard ideas I liked less,” Tealdo said as he got to his feet. “Lots of them, as a matter of fact.” He filed toward the door, then jumped down from the coach, which floated a couple of feet above the ground, and took his place in the ranks.

Captain Larbino’s company was not the first in the regiment, but was the second, which let Tealdo see ahead well enough. In front of the first company stood the color guard. He envied them their gaudy ceremonial uniforms, from gilded helms to gleaming boots. The man in the middle of the color guard, who had surely been chosen for his great height, bore the banner of Algarve, diagonal slashes of red, green, and white. The soldier to his left carried the regiment pennon, a blue lightning bolt on gold.

Just ahead of the color guard stood a squat brick building also flying the Algarvian national banner: the customs house on the border—what had been the border—between Algarve and Bari. Its turnstile was raised, inviting the Algarvian soldiers forward. An almost identical brick building stood a few feet farther south, on the other side of the border. Bari’s banner, a white bear on orange, floated on a staff beside it. Its wooden turnstile still made as if to bar the road into the Duchy.

Out of that second building came a plump man in uniform. His tunic and kilt were of different color and cut from those of the Algarvians: not tan, but a brown with green mixed in. Duke Alardo, powers below curse his ghost, had
liked
running his own realm; he’d been the perfect cat’s-paw for the victors of the Six Years’ War.

But he was dead now, dead without an heir. As for what his people thought… The plump man in the mud-and-moss uniform bowed to the Algarvian banner as the color-bearer brought it up to the border. Then he turned and bowed to the Barian banner before running it down from the pole where it had floated for a generation and more. And
then
he let it fall to the ground and spurned it with his boots. He raised the turnstile, crying, “Welcome home, brothers!”

Tealdo shouted himself hoarse but could hardly hear himself, for every man in the regiment was shouting himself hoarse. Colonel Ombruno, who commanded the unit, ran forward, embraced the Barian—the former Barian—customs officer, and kissed him on both cheeks. Turning back to his own men, he said, “Now, sons of my fighting spirit, enter the land that is ours once more.”

The captains began singing the Algarvian national hymn. The men joined them in a swelling chorus of joy and pride. They marched past the two customs houses now suddenly made useless. Tealdo poked Trasone in the ribs and murmured, “Now that we’re entering the land, let’s see if we can enter the women too, eh, like you said.” Trasone grinned and nodded. Sergeant Panfilo looked daggers at both of them, but the singing was so loud, he couldn’t prove they hadn’t taken part. Tealdo did start singing again: lustily, in every sense of the word.

Parenzo, the Barian town nearest this stretch of the border with Algarve—no, nearest this stretch of the border with the rest of Algarve—lay a couple of miles south of the customs houses. Long before the regiment reached the town, people began streaming out of it toward them. Perhaps the fat Barian customs officer had used his crystal to let the baron in charge of the town know the reunion was now official. Or perhaps such news spread by magic less formal but no less effective than that by which crystals operated.

Whatever the reason, the road was lined with cheering, screaming men and women and children before the regiment got halfway to Parenzo. Some of the locals waved homemade Algarvian banners: homemade because Alardo had forbidden display or even possession of the Algarvian national colors in his realm while he lived. In the handful of days since the Duke’s death, quite a few Barians had dyed white tunics and kilts with stripes of green and red.

The crowds didn’t just line the road, either. In spite of Colonel Ombruno’s indignant shouts, men dashed out to clasp the hands of the Algarvian soldiers and to kiss them on the cheeks, as he had done with the customs officers. Women ran out, too. They pressed flowers into the hands of the marching Algarvians, and national banners, too. And the kisses they gave were no mere pecks on the cheeks.

Tealdo did not want to let go of a sandy-haired beauty whose tunic and kilt, though of perfectly respectable cut, were woven of stuff so filmy, she might as well have been wearing nothing at all. “March!” Panfilo screamed at him. “You are a soldier of the Kingdom of Algarve. What will people think of you?”

“They will think I am a man, Sergeant, as well as a soldier,” he replied with dignity. He gave the girl a last pat, then took a few steps double-time to resume his place in the ranks. He twirled his mustache as he went, in case the kisses had melted the wax out of it.

Because of such distractions, the two-mile march to Parenzo ended up taking twice as long as it should have. Colonel Ombruno went from apoplectic at the delay to placid when a statuesque woman in an outfit even more transparent than that of the girl who’d kissed Tealdo attached herself to him and showed no intention of letting go till she found a bed.

Trasone snickered. “The good colonel’s wife will be furious if word of this ever gets back to her,” he said.

“So will both his mistresses,” Tealdo said. “The bold colonel is a man of parts—and I know the part he intends using tonight.”

“The same one you do, once we billet ourselves in Parenzo,” Trasone said.

“If I can find that same lady again—why not?” Tealdo asked. “Or even a different one.”

A shadow flicked across his face, and then another. He craned his neck. A flight of dragons, their scaly hides painted red, green, and white, flew down from Algarve into Bari: one of many entering the Duchy, no doubt. High as they flew, the rhythmic whoosh of their wingbeats was easy to hear on the ground.

Tealdo made as if to clap his hands when the dragons flew past Parenzo. “Dragonfliers always get more than their share of women,” he said. “For one thing, most of them are nobles. For another, they’ve got the lure of the beasts.”

“Not fair,” Trasone agreed.

“Not even close to fair,” Tealdo said. “But if they don’t land anywhere close to us, it doesn’t matter.”

In the town square of Parenzo, the local baron stood on a wooden rostrum. He had the intent look of a man who was either going to make a speech or run for the latrine. Tealdo knew which he would have preferred, but no one consulted him.

The speech, inevitably, was long and boring. It was also in the fast, clucking Barian dialect, so that Tealdo, who came from the foothills of northeastern Algarve, not far from the Jelgavan border, missed about one word every sentence. Duke Alardo had tried to make the Barian dialect into a language of its own, further sundering his people from the rest of Algarve. He’d evidently had some luck. But when the count led the regiment in singing the national hymn, he and King Mezentio’s soldiers understood one another perfectly.

Colonel Ombruno ascended to the rostrum. “Noble Baron, I thank you for your gracious remarks.” He looked out over the neat ranks of soldiers. “Men, I grant you permission to fraternize with your fellow countrymen of Parenzo, provided only that you return to this square for billeting before the chimes of midnight. For now—dismissed!”

He came down and slipped an arm around the waist of the woman in the filmy tunic and kilt. With whoops and cheers, the regiment dispersed. Tealdo did his share of backslapping and wrist clasping with his fellow countrymen, but that wasn’t the only thing on his mind.

Having been blessed with a good sense of direction, he went farther from the central square than did most of his comrades, thereby reducing his competition. When he walked into a cafe, he found himself the only soldier—indeed, the only customer—in the place. The serving girl was pretty, or even a little more than pretty. Her smile was friendly, or even a little more than friendly, as she came up to him. “What can I get you, hero?” she asked.

Tealdo glanced at the bill of fare on the wall. “We’re not far from the sea,” he answered, smiling back, “so how about the stewed eels with onions? And a yellow wine to go with them—and a glass for yourself, sweetheart, if you’d like one.”

“I’d like one fine,” she said. “And after supper, would you like to get your own eel stewed? I have a room upstairs.” Her sigh was low and throaty. “It’s so
good
to be in Algarve again, where we belong.”

“I think it’ll be good, coming into Ban,” Tealdo said, and pulled the serving girl down on to his lap. Her arms twined around him. Suddenly, he didn’t care whether he got supper or not.