“Aye, milady. Of course, milady.” Bauska’s nod was obsequiousness itself—or so Krasta thought, till her maidservant asked the next question: “When the baby comes, do you hope for a boy or a girl, milady?”
Krasta’s jaw fell open. All at once, she wasn’t sleepy any more. She’d just begun admitting that possibility to herself, and she still didn’t care to think of it as more than a possibility. “How did you know?” she blurted.
“Milady, I handle your clothes,” Bauska said patiently, as if to a foolish child. “Do you think I don’t notice what happens—and what doesn’t?”
“Oh.” Krasta couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken to Bauska in such a small voice. She hated the feeling that Bauska had the advantage of her, but couldn’t very well escape it.
Her maidservant went on, “Does Colonel Lurcanio know yet?”
“Of course not!” Krasta exclaimed. Bauska raised an eyebrow and said nothing. Krasta’s face heated. She hated the idea that other people knew more about her life than she wanted them to or than she thought they did. But then, still unusually subdued, she changed her answer: “I don’t think so.”
Bauska’s nod was businesslike. “I’m sure he’ll look after you and the baby very well,” she said, “as long as he’s in Priekule.” Krasta glared at her for that addition. Bauska’s Captain Mosco had been very attentive to her—till he got sent to Unkerlant not long before her little bastard was born. From that day on, Bauska had never heard a word from him.
“I’m sure he will, too.” Krasta did her best to sound sure. It wasn’t so easy as she wished it were. Conceiving by her Algarvian lover would prove inconvenient any which way; she was already sure of that. What she wasn’t altogether sure of, and what could prove worse than inconvenient, was whether she’d conceived by Lurcanio or by Viscount Valnu. She’d thoroughly enjoyed her infidelity, and hadn’t worried in the least about consequences. But if she had a consequence growing somewhere behind her navel—she was vague about such details, although she supposed she wouldn’t be able to stay vague much longer—that could end up complicating her life more than she wanted.
What would Lurcanio do if she bore a child who looked nothing like him, nothing like any Algarvian? It was a mild spring morning, but Krasta shivered anyhow. She didn’t want to think about that.
To keep from thinking about it, she said, “I’m going down to breakfast.” And, to keep Bauska from nattering at her any more, she chose a tunic and trousers without any help from her maidservant. Bauska seemed content to stand back and let Krasta do things for herself. Of course she does, the lazy slut, Krasta thought. If I do the work, it means she doesn‘t have to.
When she got down to the breakfast table, Lurcanio was already there. He sat sipping tea, nibbling on a roll he kept dipping in honey, and reading a news sheet written in Algarvian—Krasta couldn’t make out a word of it. Punctilious as usual, he got to his feet and bowed. “How are you, my sweet?” he asked.
“Still sleepy,” Krasta answered, yawning yet again. She sat down and accepted a cup of tea from the hovering servitor. Even if it didn’t taste good to her, it would help her wake up.
“What else would you care for, milady?” the fellow asked.
“Something that will stick to my ribs,” Krasta answered. Valmierans ate more heartily than Algarvians were in the habit of doing. “A ham and cheese and mushroom omelette, I think.” She nodded. “Aye, that will do splendidly.”
“Just as you say.” Bowing, the servant took Krasta’s request back to the kitchen.
“Is the news good?” she asked Lurcanio, pointing to the sheet she couldn’t read.
“I’ve seen it better,” he answered. “But, on the other hand, I’ve also seen it worse. These days, one takes what one can get.”
Krasta could hardly disagree with that. She’d taken what she could get— and had got more than she’d bargained for. Thinking of Captain Mosco and his journey to Unkerlant—did he even remain alive these days, or had he given everything he could give for King Mezentio?—she asked, “How does the war against King Swemmel go?”
Lurcanio shrugged. “Largely quiet right now. The good news is that we aren’t losing any ground. The bad is wondering why it’s quiet and what the Unkerlanters are building up for.”
“And what you’re building up for yourselves—you Algarvians, I mean,” Krasta said.
“Of course.” Lurcanio seemed a little taken aback at the suggestion, but he nodded. Then he said, “Here comes your breakfast. How you Valmierans can eat such things day after day and not turn round as balls is beyond me, but you do seem to manage, I must admit.” He dipped his roll in the honey and took a small, deliberate bite.
Krasta was not in the mood to be deliberate, especially since the tea hadn’t tasted right despite more sugar than usual. No matter what the dealer says, the blend is off, she thought. It’s on account of the war. Everything is on account of the war. Without the war, Lurcanio wouldn’t have shared a breakfast table with her, that was certain. He wouldn’t have shared a bed with her, either. And certain other consequences … might not have ensued.
Not caring to dwell on that, Krasta attacked the buttery omelette. She gobbled down three or four bites before she paused to listen to what her body was telling her. She gulped. Spit flooded into her mouth. The room seemed to spin.
“Are you all right, my dear?” Lurcanio asked. “You look a little green.”
“I’m fine,” Krasta said. More cautiously than she had before, she ate another couple of bites of egg and ham and cheese. That was a mistake. She knew it was a mistake as soon as she finished—which was a bit too late. She gulped again. This time, it didn’t help. “Excuse me,” she said in a muffled voice, and bolted from the table.
She got where she was going barely in time to keep from making the disaster worse. When she returned to the table, her mouth still burned and tasted nasty in spite of her having rinsed it again and again. She looked at the omelette and shuddered. She wouldn’t have one again any time soon.
Colonel Lurcanio gave her another bow. “Are you all right?” he asked again, this time with more concern in his voice. Krasta managed a wan nod. Lurcanio waved to the servant. “Bring your lady some plain bread.” The man hurried off to obey. Lurcanio’s gaze swung back to Krasta. “I take it this does mean you will be having a child?”
“Aye,” she said dully, and then, “You don’t sound surprised.”
“I’m not,” he answered. “Not after I noted the way the veins stand out so much more than usual in your breasts the other night.”
“Did you?” Krasta said—after letting out a small, indignant squeak. Everyone around her paid more attention than she did. She hadn’t noticed any changes in her breasts, except that they were more tender than usual.
“I did indeed.” Lurcanio raised an eyebrow. He waited for the servant to give Krasta the bread and depart, then said, “Tell me—is it mine?”
“Of course it is!” Krasta said indignantly, doing her best not to show the alarm that blazed through her. Taking a wary bite of bread helped. She gulped again as she swallowed, but the bread, unlike the omelette, seemed willing to stay down. “Whose else could it be?” she added, in tones suggesting the only possible answer was no one.
“That scrawny viscount we should have executed comes to mind.” Lurcanio smiled at Krasta. She wished he hadn’t; the curve of his lips reminded him how little luck she’d ever had trying to outmaneuver him.
“Nonsense!” she said. “I never did!” I’m only off by one, she thought. That’s hardly worth noticing. True—under most circumstances. Here, though, the difference between never and only once might prove all too noticeable.
Lurcanio sipped his tea. It evidently tasted fine to him. He shrugged an elaborate, ever so Algarvian shrug and made a steeple of his fingertips. “I am a patient man,” he said. “I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. For nine months, I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. After that, I will
know, one way or the other. If the baby bears some passing resemblance to me, well and good. If not, milady, you will be sorry. I am not one who appreciates a cuckoo’s egg being raised in his nest. Do I make myself clear?”
“Unpleasantly so,” Krasta said. “Most unpleasantly so, in fact.” She ate more bread. Sure enough, it sat quiet in her stomach. That made it easier for her to sound like her usual haughty self as she went on, “I assure you, I have told you the truth.” Some of it—I hope. “If you are going to be boring about this business …”
Lurcanio threw back his head and laughed: guffawed, in fact. “Not at all, milady. By no means.” To Krasta’s amazement, he sounded as if he meant it. “I told you I would give you the benefit of the doubt, and so I shall. If I say even a word to you between now and the day, you may bring me up as sharply as you like.”
“I’ll remember that,” Krasta said. “I’ll hold you to it, too.”
“Fair enough.” Colonel Lurcanio nodded. “But you must also remember the rest of what I said, because I am going to hold you to that. And I think I shall give you one more thing to remember.”
“Which is?” Krasta did her best to keep on sounding haughty. The alternative was sounding frightened, which would not do at all.
The Algarvian officer pointed at her, aiming his right forefinger as he might have aimed a stick, “Nothing is to happen to the child until such time as we are able to know what needs to be known. If anything should happen before that time, I shall make all the assumptions you least wish me to make, and I shall act on them. Is that plain, milady?”
Curse you, Lurcanio, Krasta thought. What he’d just forbidden would have been the most convenient arrangement all the way around—except that he’d just forbidden it. “Aye,” she said coldly. “And will you let your wife know you’ve sired a brand new bastard?”
“I may,” Lurcanio replied, “if it turns out I have. And now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do.” He rose, bowed once more, and departed.
Krasta quietly cursed him again, this time for being so invulnerable, so impenetrable. A moment later, she started to giggle. If only I’d been impenetrable myself. I wouldn‘t have anything to worry about then. She wanted to call Lurcanio back so she could tell him the joke. Even as things stood, he would have laughed. She was sure of it. But she sat where she was and didn’t say a word.
Kolthoum looked at Hajjaj and slowly shook her head. With a sigh, she said, “You really are going to have to do something about this impossible situation, you know.”
“Of course I am,” the Zuwayzi foreign minister agreed. “But I have no idea what. I am most open to suggestions.”
He hoped his senior wife would have some. He and Kolthoum had been together for half a century. He told anyone who would listen that she was wiser than he. Few Zuwayzin seemed to want to hear that. As happened so often, the truth made people nervous. They dealt with him, so they wanted to think he had all the answers.
“As I see it,” Kolthoum said, “you have four choices.”
“Really?” Hajjaj said, his surprise altogether genuine. “Try as I would, I could find only three. Tell me, my dear, by all means tell me. Now you truly have my interest.”
His wife laughed. Her body shook. She’d never been a famous beauty, and she’d put on flesh over the years. Hajjaj didn’t care. He’d never cared. She understood him perfectly. He couldn’t say that about anyone else in the world. She began to tick off points on her fingers: “First, you could send Tassi back to Minister Iskakis. That would make him stop screaming at everyone from King Shazli down to the Zuwayzin who walk past the Yaninan ministry.”
“Well, so it would,” Hajjaj said. “It would also probably be dangerous for Tassi. She didn’t show up on my doorstep—she didn’t show up naked on my doorstep—because she was madly in love with Iskakis. You know that as well as I do. She was just a bauble to him. And how will he use her, now that she’s offended him by running off and showing the world a side he wanted hidden away?”
“Every word of that is true,” Kolthoum said. “Which brings me to the next possibility—sending her to Marquis Balastro. He would take good care of her.”
“For a while—till he got bored,” Hajjaj said. Kolthoum laughed, though neither of them thought it was funny. “But he and Tassi have already quarreled. And if he flaunts her to infuriate Iskakis—and he will, being an Algarvian—he’ll just make things between Algarve and Yanina worse than they are already. They’re both supposed to be our allies, you know. I can’t think of anything Yanina can do to hurt our kingdom, but I can think of plenty of things King Tsavellas might do to hurt Algarve.”
“Would Tsavellas do them?” his senior wife asked. “In the war against Unkerlant, anything that hurts Algarve hurts Yanina, too.”
“When Yaninans go after revenge, they’re even worse than we are,” Hajjaj said. “They don’t care what happens to them as long as something worse happens to their foes.”
“That does make things harder,” Kolthoum admitted. “And you are right—Balastro wouldn’t keep her. Next choice is to bestow her on some Zuwayzi noble, then, wouldn’t you say?”
“I might do that. I’ve been trying to do that,” Hajjaj replied. “But there are only so many nobles who might be interested in a foreign woman, and it’s not obvious that Tassi would be interested in any of them. Which leaves, as far as I can see, nothing.”
“No?” Kolthoum looked amused. “You could just keep her here, you know, for your own pleasure. She’s young and pretty, and you haven’t had a woman like that since you sent Lalla back to her clanfather.”
“Do you know, I haven’t thought about that in any serious way,” Hajjaj said slowly. He looked down at his hands, at the dry, wrinkled skin and prominent veins. “And if my not having thought about it seriously doesn’t prove I’ve got old, I don’t know what would.”
“You’re not so old as all that,” Kolthoum said.
Hajjaj smiled. “You’re sweet to say so, my dear.” The two of them hadn’t bedded each other in something close to a year—but then, they needed less physical reminding of what they shared than they had when they were younger. He went on: “Things do still work … occasionally.”
“Well, then,” Kolthoum said, as if everything were all settled.
But Hajjaj shook his head. “It’s not so simple, you know. Where I might see Tassi as my reward, she’s more likely to see me as her punishment.”
“No.” His senior wife shook her head, too. “Not when she came here to your house and showed herself off to you without her clothes. I know what that means for people who aren’t Zuwayzin.”
Hajjaj grunted. The same thought had crossed his mind when he saw the young Yanina woman naked. Tassi hadn’t done anything to discourage it, either; on the contrary. Were he younger himself, he supposed—no, he knew—he would have done more to explore her half-promises. As things were … As things were, he shook his head again and said, “I don’t think I’m in urgent need of a pet, even one of the two-legged sort. Besides, I would feel as if I was taking advantage of her.”
“As if you were,” Kolthoum corrected.
“As if I was,” Hajjaj repeated. “I don’t think the condition would be contrary to fact, and so it doesn’t need the subjunctive.” He grinned at Kolthoum. Not even Qutuz, his secretary, quibbled with him over grammar.
She grinned back, unabashed, and stuck out her tongue at him as if she were a cheeky young girl herself. “You don’t know whether the condition is contrary to fact or not, because you haven’t bothered finding out,” she said.
“True—I haven’t,” he said. “And doesn’t that tell you something all by itself?”
“It tells me you are an old-fashioned gentleman,” Kolthoum answered, “which is nothing I haven’t known for a good many years. But, if you are going to make choices for this woman, don’t you think you ought to know what she wants for herself?”
“Now I know why you let me win the grammatical arguments,” Hajjaj sai
d. Kolthoum made a small, questioning noise. He explained: “So I won’t feel too disappointed when you win the ones that matter.”
His senior wife hid her face in her hands. “My secret’s out. What shall I do?” she asked, her voice muffled behind her palms.
Slipping an arm around her shoulder, Hajjaj said, “When we have this between us, why do I need a young woman, a stranger?”
“Why?” Kolthoum reached out and gently stroked him between the legs. “That’s why.”
“There. You see? I already have a shameless woman, too.” Hajjaj kissed her. More than a little to his own surprise, he found himself rising to the occasion. He and Kolthoum made love slowly, lazily; somehow, the lack of urgency, the lack of fuss, added to his enjoyment—and, he hoped, hers—rather than taking away from it. Afterwards he said, “I didn’t expect that to happen.”
“Neither did I.” Kolthoum wagged a forefinger in front of his nose. “But you’re not going to use it as an excuse to keep from asking Tassi what she wants.”
“Aye, my dear,” Hajjaj answered. Under the circumstances, he could hardly say no.
Having made the promise, he had to keep it. A couple of days later, he asked Tewfik to bring Tassi into his study. The majordomo nodded. “Just as you say, your Excellency.” His wrinkled, jowly face gave no hint of what he thought. He shuffled off and returned a few minutes later with Minister Iskakis’ runaway wife.
“Good day, your Excellency,” she said in her careful Algarvian, dipping her head to Hajjaj. She was still bare, and still seemed barer than any Zuwayzi would have—but then, she would also have seemed out of place in his house had she chosen to wear clothes.
“And a good day to you,” Hajjaj replied in the same language. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Would you care for tea and wine and cakes?” When she dipped her head in Yaninan-style agreement, Hajjaj nodded to Tewfik, who waited in the doorway. The majordomo left and returned with a silver tray bearing the essentials of Zuwayzi hospitality.
Jaws of Darkness Page 24
