Into the Darkness (65 page)

Sergeant Magnulf, now, was not a man to be easily fooled. He and the Algarvian who had a smattering of Unkerlanter and Forthwegian were still dickering. At last, the redhead threw up his hands. “All right! All right! You winning!” he said, and gave Magnulf not only a knife Leudast thought quite fine but also a couple of Algarvian silver coins. He angrily snatched the flask of spirits from Magnulf’s hands.

“If you don’t want it, I’ll give you back your stuff,” Magnulf said.

“I wanting!” the Algarvian said. He seemed to get excited about everything, and clutched the flask to his bosom as if it were a beautiful woman. Then, relaxing a little, he asked, “We fighting war, you Unkerlanterians and we?”

Before Leudast could cough or otherwise warn Magnulf the question had teeth, the sergeant showed he’d figured that out for himself. He shrugged and answered, “How should I know? Am I a general? I hope not, is all I can tell you. Nobody who’s seen a war can like one.”

“Here you talking true,” the Algarvian agreed. He turned to his men and spoke to them in their own language. The ones who were on foot swung up into the saddle. Again, they looked like soldiers who knew exactly what they were doing. In a real fight, though, the unicorns would suffer terribly before they could close with their foes.

The Algarvians forded the river once more and resumed their patrol on the eastern bank. The trooper who could make himself understood to the Unkerlanters turned to wave to Sergeant Magnulf’s squad. Magnulf waved back. The Algarvians rode behind some bushes and disappeared.

“Not bad,” Magnulf said to the men he led. “No, not bad at all. Since these are Forthwegian daggers, nobody needs to know we were trading with the Algarvians.”

“What would happen if somebody found out?” one of his men asked.

“I’m not sure,” the sergeant said. “I don’t think trying to see would be the most efficient thing we could do, though.” No one disagreed with him.

But after they’d walked on for another half a mile or so, Leudast went up to Magnulf and spoke in a low voice: “Sergeant, maybe we ought to let somebody know we did some talking with the redheads. That one Algarvian was spying on us, curse me if he was doing anything else. Don’t you think our officers need to know the Algarvians are worried about us attacking them?”

Magnulf looked him up and down. “I thought you were a smart soldier. You came through the mountains in one piece. You came through the desert in one piece, and with a stripe on your sleeve. And now you -want to stick your own sausage into the meat grinder? Why don’t you just cut it off with your pretty new knife instead?”

Leudast’s ears got hot. But his stubbornness was one of the reasons he’d come through the fighting he’d seen, and so he said, “Don’t you think our officers would forgive us for trading with the Algarvians when they find out what we learned?”

“Maybe they would—maybe the line officers would, anyhow,” Magnulf answered. “But this is intelligence information, and that means it would have to go through the inspectors. We couldn’t very well tell them where we got it without telling them we broke regulations, could we? When have you ever heard of an inspector forgiving anybody for breaking regulations?”

“Not lately,” Leudast admitted, “but—”

“No buts,” Magnulf said firmly. “Besides, what makes you think we’ve been able to find out anything the inspectors don’t already know? If ordinary soldiers are asking other ordinary soldiers about what’s going to happen next, don’t you think the spies on both sides are keeping busy, too?”

“Ah.” Leudast nodded. That made sense to him. “You’re likely right, Sergeant. That’d be the efficient thing for ‘em to do, anyhow.”

“Of course it would,” Magnulf said. “And so, my most noble and magnificent corporal”—his expression was as jaundiced as that of a Zuwayzi camel—“is it all right with you that we keep our mouths shut?”

“Aye, Sergeant, it is,” Leudast said, and Magnulf pantomimed enormous relief. Leudast went on, “Sergeant, do
you
think we’ll be fighting the Algarvians next?”

That was not only a different question, it was a different sort of question. Magnulf walked on for several strides before saying, “Do you suppose we’d have done all that drilling against behemoths and such if we weren’t going to fight them? Our generals aren’t always as efficient as they might be, but they aren’t that inefficient.”

Leudast nodded. That also made sense to him: all too much sense. He said, “What’s your guess? Will they hit us, or will we jump them first?”

Now Magnulf laughed out loud. “Answer me this one: when have you ever known King Swemmel to wait for anything or anybody?”

“Ah,” Leudast said again. He looked east across the little river into Algarvian-occupied Forthweg. From a distance, the countryside over there looked no different from the chunk of Forthweg Unkerlant held. Leudast got the feeling he’d be seeing that distant countryside up close before too long.

Vanai had not enjoyed going out on to the streets of Oyngestun since the Algarvians occupied the village. (She hadn’t much enjoyed going out on to the streets of Oyngestun before the war began, either, but chose not to dwell on that now.) But, with Major Spinello paying court to her grandfather these days, going out on to the streets of Oyngestun had become an impossible ordeal.

Before the war began, before the Algarvian major and scholar began calling at Brivibas’s home, the Kaunians of Oyngestun had been well-inclined to her, even if the Forthwegians sneered at her because of her blood and leered at her because of her trousers. The Forthwegians still sneered and leered, as did the Algarvian troopers of Oyngestun’s small garrison. Vanai could have dealt with that; she was used to it.

These days, though, her own people also rejected her, and that was like a knife in the heart. When she walked through the district in which most of Oyngestun’s Kaunians lived, the politer folk turned their backs on her, pretending she did not exist. Others—mostly those closer to her own age—called her more filthy names than she’d found in the seamiest classical Kaunian texts.

“Look out!” The cry raced up the street ahead of her as she walked toward the apothecary’s. “Here comes the redhead’s dripholder!”

Laughter floated out through the small windows opening on to the street. Vanai held her head up and her back straight, however much she wanted to cry. If her own people pretended they could not see her, she would pretend she could not hear them.

The apothecary, a pale, middle-aged man named Tamulis, liked money too well to pretend Vanai did not exist. “What do you want?” he demanded when she came inside, as if anxious to get her out again as soon as he could.

“My grandfather suffers from headache, sir,” Vanai answered in a low, polite voice. “I would like a jar of the willow-bark decoction, if you please.”

Tamulis scowled. “You and Brivibas make all the Kaunians of Oyngestun suffer from headache,” he said coldly. “Who else sucks up to the Algarvians as you do?”

“I do not!” Vanai said. She started to go on to defend her grandfather, but the words stuck in her throat. At last, she did find something she could truthfully say: “He has brought no harm to anyone else in the village. He has accused no one. He has denounced no one.”

“Not yet,” Tamulis said. “How long will it be before that comes, too?” But he bent and searched the shelves behind the high counter until he found the decoction Vanai wanted. “Here. That will be one and six. Take it and get out.”

Biting her lip, she gave him two large silver coins. He returned half a dozen small ones. She put them in her pocket. After a moment, she put the jar of willow-bark decoction in another pocket. When she walked down the street carrying something, boys had been known to run by and strike it out of her hand. They thought that great sport. Vanai didn’t.

Tamulis spoke more kindly than he had before: “Have you nowhere you might go, so your grandfather’s disgrace does not stick to you?”

“He is my grandfather,” Vanai said. The apothecary scowled, but then reluctantly nodded. Were Kaunian family ties not strong, no recognizable

Kaunians would have been left in Forthweg. Vanai added, “Nor have I ever heard that pursuing knowledge brought disgrace with it.”

“Pursuing knowledge, no,” Tamulis admitted. “Pursuing food when others go hungry—that is a different matter. And you may tell Brivibas I say so. I have said as much to his face.”

“He has not pursued food,” Vanai said. “By the powers above, he has not!”

“Your loyalty does you credit: more credit than your grandfather deserves,” Tamulis said. “Tell me also that he has not accepted the food the redheads give him to keep him sweet.” When Vanai stood mute, the apothecary grunted and gave another of those reluctant nods. “You are honest, I think. You may discover, though, that being honest does you less good than you might expect.”

“You need not fear, sir.” Vanai let her bitterness come out. “I have already discovered that.” She dipped her head in what looked very much like respect, then left the apothecary’s shop.

Going back to the house in which Brivibas had raised her, she ran the gauntlet again. Some people ignored her, often ostentatiously. Others shouted abuse at her or about her. Her strides grew longer and more determined as she neared her house. If her fellow Kaunians could not see that they’d hurt her, then in some the way they hadn’t.

Her heart sank when she saw a bored-looking Algarvian trooper standing in front of the house. That meant Major Spinello was inside, and also meant her grandfather’s reputation—and hers—would sink even lower, if such a thing was possible. Blood started pounding at her temples and behind her eyes. Maybe she would take some of the willow-bark decoction herself.

The Algarvian soldier stopped looking bored the instant he spotted her. Instead, he looked like a hound that had just had a pork chop waved in front of it. He blew Vanai a loud, smacking kiss. “Hello, sweetheart!” he said in loud, bad, enthusiastic Forthwegian.

“I am sorry. I do not understand what you are saying,” Vanai answered in Kaunian. The redhead did not seem the sort who would have studied the classical tongue in school. Sure enough, he looked blank. Before he could make up his mind whether she was lying, she walked rapidly past him and into the house. The door had been unbarred when she went out. She made sure she barred it behind her now.

Brivibas’s voice, and Spinello’s, too, came from the direction of her grandfather’s study. As quietly as she could, Vanai went into the kitchen and set the jar of medicine on the counter there. Regardless of whether or not her grandfather had a headache, she did not want the Algarvian major with a passion for ancient history to know she was there. He’d never tried to do anything with her or to her, but, like all Algarvians, he watched her too hard.

“But, sir,” he was saying now in his really excellent Kaunian, “you are a reasonable man. Surely you can see this would be in your own best interest and in that of your people here.”

“Some people may well find lying to be in their best interest. I, however, am not any of those unfortunate individuals.” When Brivibas sounded stuffiest, he was also stubbornest. “And how a lie can benefit my people is also beyond me.”

Major Spinello’s sigh was quite audible; from it, Vanai guessed he and her grandfather had been arguing for some time. The Algarvian said, “In my view, sir, I have asked you for no untruth.”

“No, eh? The Algarvian occupation of Forthweg and Valmiera is in your view a positive good for Kaunianity?” Brivibas said. “If that be your view, Major, I can only suggest that you see an oculist, for your vision has suffered some severe derangement.”

Vanai hugged herself for joy. She wished her grandfather had spoken thus to Spinello at his first visit. But Spinello hadn’t talked of anything but antiquarian subjects then, and Brivibas enjoyed playing the master to a bright student, even a bright Algarvian student. It was, in a way, the role he played with Vanai.

“I think not,” Spinello answered. “Tell me how wonderfully the Forthwegians treated you Kaunians when they ruled here. Were they not as barbarous as their Unkerlanter cousins?”

Brivibas didn’t answer right away. That meant he was thinking it over, analyzing it. Vanai did not want him bogged down in an argument over details, where the main point would get lost. Hurrying into the study, she said, “That has nothing to do with the way the Algarvian army overran Valmiera.”

“Why, so it doesn’t, my dear child,” Major Spinello said, which made Vanai see red that had nothing to do with his hair. “So good to see you again,” he went on. “But had we not overrun Valmiera, King Gainibu’s army would have overrun us, is it not so? Of course it is so, for that is what the Valmierans did during the Six Years’ War. Now do please run along and let your elders discuss this business.”

“There is nothing to discuss,” Brivibas said, “and Vanai may stay if she so desires, this being her home, Major, and not yours.”

Spinello bowed stiffly. “In this you are of course correct, sir. My apologies.” He turned and bowed to Vanai as well, before giving his attention back to Brivibas. “But I continue to maintain that you are being unreasonable.”

“And I continue to maintain that you have not the faintest notion of what you are talking about,” Brivibas said. “If occupation by King Mezentio’s soldiers be such a boon for us Kaunians, Major, why have you Algarvians ordered that we may no longer set our own language down in writing, but must use Forthwegian or Algarvian? This, mind you, when Kaunian has been the language of scholarship since the days of antiquity you say you love so well.”

Major Spinello coughed and looked embarrassed. “I did not give this order, nor do I approve of it. It strikes me as overzealous. As you hear, I have no objections to your language: on the contrary.”

“Whether it be your order does not matter,” Brivibas said. “That it is an Algarvian order does. The Forthwegians never restricted us so: one more reason I fail to view the present order of things as beneficial to Kaunians.”

“Oh, good for you, my grandfather!” Vanai exclaimed. At his best, Brivibas aimed logic like the beam from a stick, and, she thought admiringly, with even more piercing effect.