Rulers of the Darkness d-4

by Harry Turtledove

  At last, baffled, he brought the matter to Pybba's notice, saying, "I think you have a thief, but I'm cursed if I can see where. Whoever's doing this is more clever than I am. Maybe you ought to have him casting your accounts instead of me."

  "A thief?" Pybba's hard face darkened with anger. "You'd better show me what you've found, lad. If I can figure out who the son of a whore is, I'll break him in half." He didn't sound as if he were joking.

  "I hope you can figure it out, because I can't," Ealstan answered. "And I have to tell you, I haven't really found anything. All I've noticed is that something is lost, and I'm not even sure where."

  "Let me have a look," Pybba said.

  Ealstan guided him through it, showing how things didn't quite add up. He said, "I've been looking back through the books, too, trying to find out how long this has been going on. I'm sure it was happening while your last bookkeeper before me was here. The other thing I'm sure of is that he didn't even notice."

  "Him? He wouldn't have noticed a naked woman if she got into bed with him, he wouldn't." Pybba snorted in fine contempt. The finger he used to mark his place darted now here, now there, as he followed the track Ealstan set out for him. He clicked his tongue between his teeth. "Well, well, young fellow. Isn't that interesting?"

  "That's not the word I'd use," Ealstan answered. "The word I'd use is larcenous." He hated cooked books. They offended his sense of order. In that as in so many things, he was very much his father's son.

  Then Pybba astonished him. Instead of furiously bursting like an egg and blasting his bookkeeper- and maybe the office, too- to smithereens, he set a hand on Ealstan's shoulder and said, "I'm going to pay you a bonus for finding this. You've earned it; I don't think one man in ten would have noticed any of it, let alone all of it. But it's not so much of a much. You don't need to fret yourself over it, the way you've been doing."

  "Are you sure?" Ealstan asked, in lieu of, Are you out of your mind? "Somebody's stealing from you. If he's stealing not so much from you now, he's liable to steal a lot more later. And even a little hurts. And it's wrong." He spoke that last with great conviction.

  Pybba said, "All sorts of things are wrong. You can start with the redheads and go on from there. I'm not going to get excited about this. It's not big enough to get excited about. And if you've got any sense, you won't get excited about it, either."

  He phrased that as a request but plainly meant it as an order. Ealstan didn't see how he could disobey it, however much he might want to. But he did speak up, in plaintive tones: "I don't understand."

  "I know that. I noticed." Pybba let out a gruff chuckle. "But you don't get silver for understanding. You get silver for keeping my books. You're good at that. You've proved it. You'll get your bonus, too, like I said. But if I'm not worried about this, nobody else needs to be."

  That made the third time he'd said pretty much the same thing. Ealstan was- had to be- convinced he meant it, which brought him no closer to following Pybba's mind. He slammed the ledgers shut one after another, to show without words what he thought. Pybba only chuckled again, which irked him further.

  But the pottery magnate, though he could be as sharp-tongued as the sherds that sprang from his trade, was a man of his word. When he gave Ealstan his next week's pay, he included the promised bonus. The size of it made Ealstan's eyes go big. "This is too much," he blurted.

  Pybba threw back his head and roared laughter. "By the powers above, I've heard plenty whine that they got too little, but never till now the other way round. Go on, go home; spend it. You've said your wife is big with child, haven't you? Aye, I know you have. With a brat on the way, there's no such thing as too much money."

  Coins heavy and jingling in his belt pouch, Ealstan went back to his flat in something of a daze. Vanai clapped her hands together in delight when she saw how much Pybba had given him. "He knows you're good," she said proudly.

  Ealstan shook his head. He separated the silver into two gleaming piles. Pointing to the smaller one, he said, "This is what he pays me for being good." Then he pointed to the bigger one. "And this is what he paid me for… powers above only know what."

  "For being good at what you do," Vanai repeated, showing more faith in him than he had in himself. "If you weren't good, you wouldn't have seen what you saw, and you wouldn't have got this."

  Her logic was as good as a geometry master's- up to a point. Ealstan said, "I still don't know what in blazes I saw. And he's not paying me because I saw it. He'd be pushing hard after whoever was stealing from him if that were so. No. He's paying me-" He broke off. When he spoke again, it was with sudden new certainty: "He's paying me to keep my mouth shut, that's what he's doing. It can't be anything else."

  "Keep your mouth shut about what?" Vanai asked.

  "About seeing this- whatever it is," Ealstan answered. "He was surprised when I did. His last bookkeeper hadn't. I'm sure of that. He's bribing me, the same way he's bribing the Algarvians."

  Vanai found the next question: "Are you going to let him bribe you?"

  "I don't know." Ealstan scratched his head. "If he's hiring robbers or murderers with that missing money, then I don't want anything to do with him, either. If he's got a lady friend somewhere, that's his wife's worry. But if he's doing something to the redheads with the money… If he's doing something like that, by the powers above, the only thing I'd want to do was join him."

  He wondered how he could tell Pybba that. He wondered if he ought to tell Pybba that. He couldn't prove the pottery magnate wasn't working for the Algarvians. Plenty of Forthwegians were. And Ealstan, with a Kaunian wife- and with a baby on the way- had even more to lose from a wrong guess than most of his countrymen would have.

  With a regretful sigh, he said, "I don't dare try to find out. Too many bad things could happen."

  "You're probably right." But Vanai sighed, too. "I wish you had the chance."

  "So do I." Ealstan plucked a hair from his beard, looked at it, and let it fall to the floor. "If I ever find out where that money's going- find out for sure, I mean, not just that it's going missing somewhere- then I'll know what to do."

  But Pybba had no intention of making that easy for him. When Ealstan came into the office the next day, his employer said, "Remember why you got your extra silver. No more snooping around, or you'll be sorry."

  "I remember," Ealstan assured him.

  That wasn't the same as promising he wouldn't snoop anymore. Most people wouldn't have noticed. Pybba did. "No getting cute with me, either, or your arse'll be out on the sidewalk before you've got time to fart. Do you understand me? Do you believe me? I won't just give you the boot, either. I'll blacken your name all over town. Don't you even think about doubting me."

  "I wouldn't," Ealstan answered, thinking of nothing else.

  ***

  Like most educated folk in the eastern regions of Derlavai and the islands lying near the mainland, the Kuusaman physician spoke classical Kaunian along with her own language. Nodding to Fernao, she said, "You will have to strengthen that leg a good deal more, you know."

  The Lagoan mage looked down at the limb in question. It was only about half as thick as its mate. "Really?" he said in pretty convincing astonishment. "And here I was planning a fifty-mile hike tomorrow morning. What shall I do now?"

  For a moment, the physician took him seriously. Then she exhaled in loud exasperation. "People who cannot take even their own health seriously do not deserve to keep it," she said.

  Fernao said, "I'm sorry," in Kuusaman. That mollified the physician, who smiled at him instead of wearing that severe frown. He went on his way with nothing but a cane to help him walk. I'll probably limp all my days, he thought as he walked toward the dining room of the isolated hostel in the Naantali district. I'll probably limp, but I'll be able to walk.

  Pekka was already in there, sitting alone at a table drinking a mug of ale. A couple of secondary sorcerers sat at another table, arguing about the best way to focus a spell at a distanc
e from where it was cast. Not so long before, Fernao wouldn't have known what they were talking about. His Kuusaman got a little better every day.

  Seeing him, Pekka set down the mug and clapped her hands together. "You really are making progress," she said in her own language. And, because he was making progress in that, too, he understood her.

  With a nod, he said, "Aye, a bit," also in her tongue. He lifted the cane into the air and stood on his own two feet and nothing else for a few heartbeats. Pekka clapped again. Reveling in his Kuusaman, Fernao asked, "May I join you?"

  That was what he thought he asked, anyhow. Pekka giggled. Switching to classical Kaunian, she said, "Several words in Kuusaman may be translated as to join. You might be wiser not to use that one to a woman married to another man."

  "Oh." Fernao's cheeks got hot. "I'm sorry," he said, as he had to the physician.

  Pekka returned to Kuusaman. "I'm not angry. And aye, you may join me." She used a verb different from the one he'd tried.

  "Thank you," Fernao said, and asked a server for a mug of ale of his own. He had that request quite well memorized.

  When his mug came, Pekka raised hers in salute. "To your full recovery," she said, and drank.

  Fernao drank to that toast, too- who wouldn't? If he doubted the wish would be fully granted… then he did, that was all. And he enjoyed what he drank; the Kuusamans were good brewers. Then he said, "I hope you are well."

  "Well enough, anyhow." Pekka said something in Kuusaman he didn't catch. Seeing as much, she translated it: "Overworked." She hesitated a moment, then asked, "Does the name Habakkuk mean anything to you?"

  "It sounds as if it ought to come from the land of the Ice People," he replied in the classical tongue. "Other than that, no. Why? What is it?"

  "Something I heard somewhere," Pekka answered, and Fernao hardly needed to be a mage to realize she wasn't telling him everything she knew. But when she went on, "I do not know what it is, either," he thought she might be telling the truth.

  "Habakkuk." He tasted the word again. Sure enough, it put him in mind of a caravanmaster hairy all over and stinking because he'd never had a bath in all the days of his life. Fernao's opinion of the nomadic natives of the austral continent was not high. He'd seen enough of them for familiarity to breed contempt.

  He wasn't altogether surprised when Pekka changed the subject. "In a few days, I will be going away for a week or two," she said. "I have got leave."

  "You will put Ilmarinen in charge again?" Fernao asked.

  "For a little while," she answered. "Only for a little while. I have got leave to see my husband and my son. And I have got leave to see my sister, too. Elimaki is expecting her first child. Her husband got leave not so long ago, you see."

  Fernao smiled. "So I do. Or maybe I do." He wondered if Pekka would come back from leave expecting her second child. If she didn't, it probably wouldn't be from lack of effort. He said, "I wonder whom I would have to kill to get leave for myself."

  As the physician had before, Pekka took him literally. "You would not have to kill anyone," she said. "You would have to ask me. You would ask, and I would say aye. How could I refuse you leave? How could I refuse you anything, after you have saved the project- saved me?"

  Be careful, he thought. You don't know what I might ask for, and it wouldn't be leave. He rather suspected she did know. He hadn't tried to push things. He hadn't used the wrong verb on purpose. He saw no point to pushing, not when she was so obviously eager to go home to her husband. But the notion wouldn't leave his mind.

  He said, "Whatever we do, the project needs to go forward. After you come back here, I can think about leave. I wonder if I speak Lagoan anymore, or if I will go through the streets of Setubal trying to use classical Kaunian with everyone I meet."

  "Many people would understand you," Pekka said, "though you might surprise them- or, with your eyes, they might take you for a Kuusaman with a lot of Lagoan blood. When I return, you tell me what you want, and I shall give it to you."

  To keep from saying anything he would regret later, Fernao took a long pull at his ale. Having the mug in front of his face also kept Pekka from seeing him go red again. Maybe a few passages with a friendly woman, or even a mercenary one, would let him keep his mind on business when he got back.

  Ilmarinen came into the dining hall and walked over to the table where Fernao and Pekka were sitting. Nodding to Pekka, he said, "Do I hear right? I'm going to be in charge again?" He spoke Kuusaman, but Fernao followed well enough.

  Pekka nodded. "Aye, for a little while," she answered in courteous classical Kaunian. "Try not to destroy the place while I am gone."

  "I thought destroying as much of Naantali as we could was the reason we came here," Ilmarinen said, also in the classical language. Then he switched back to Kuusaman and called to the serving woman: "Another mug of ale over here, Linna!"

  "Aye, Master Ilmarinen," Linna said. "You can have anything you want from me, as long as you just want ale."

  Ilmarinen winced. "Heartless bitch," he muttered in Kaunian. His pursuit of the serving girl had gone exactly nowhere. Fernao winced, too, in sympathy. He was glad- he supposed he was glad- he hadn't tried pursuing Pekka anywhere except inside his mind.

  As Linna brought the mug, Pekka told Ilmarinen, "If you want to carry out the experiments while I am away, please do. The more we get done, the sooner we can take it into battle."

  "We have a ways to go before we manage that." Ilmarinen swigged at the ale, then wiped his wispy mustache on his sleeve. "And we've been hitting the Gongs pretty hard just in the ordinary way of doing things."

  "Gyongyos is one kind of fight," Pekka said. "When we go onto the Derlavaian mainland against Algarve, that will be another kind. Tell me I am wrong, Master." She stuck out her chin and looked a challenge at Ilmarinen.

  He only grunted and drank more ale by way of reply. Gyongyos was far away, and her soldiers being driven back one island at a time. Algarve had already proved she could strike across the Strait of Valmiera. All the mages who'd been in the blockhouse were lucky to be alive.

  Fernao said, "Unkerlant will be glad to have more company in the fight on the ground when we do cross to the mainland."

  "Unkerlant." Ilmarinen spoke the name of the kingdom as if it were the name of a loathsome disease. "The measure of Unkerlant's accursedness is that King Swemmel's subjects fight by the tens of thousands for murderous Mezentio against their own sovereign." He held up a hand before either Fernao or Pekka could speak. "And the measure of Algarve's accursedness is that practically every other kingdom in the world has lined up with Swemmel and against Mezentio."

  "That is not a very happy way of looking at the world," Fernao said: as much protest as he was prepared to make.

  "The world is not a happy place to look at nowadays," Pekka said.

  "Too right it's not," Ilmarinen said. "Do you know the state we're reduced to? We're reduced to hoping the Algarvians and the Unkerlanters do a right and proper job of slaughtering each other so we can pick up the pieces without getting too badly mauled ourselves. Aren't you glad to be living in a great kingdom?" He drained his ale and shouted for a refill.

  Fernao said, "I would rather live in a kingdom still fighting the Algarvians than in one that had yielded to them."

  "And so would I," Ilmarinen agreed. "What we have here isn't the best of things, but it's a long way from the worst of things."

  "Oh, indeed," Pekka said. "We could be Kaunians in Forthweg. That's one of the reasons we're fighting, of course: to keep Mezentio's men from having the chance to use us as they use those Kaunians, I mean."

  Ilmarinen shook his head. "No. That's not right. Or it's not quite right, anyhow. We're fighting to keep anybody from using anybody else the way the Algarvians are using those poor cursed Kaunians." He held up his hand again. "Aye, I see the irony of our being allied to Unkerlant in that fight."

  Linna brought him a full mug and took away the empty. "You people would be happier if you s
tuck to Kuusaman all the time," she declared. "All this chatter in foreign languages never did anybody any good."

  With almost clinical curiosity, Pekka asked Ilmarinen, "What on earth do you see in her?" She made a point of using classical Kaunian.

  After coughing a couple of times, the master mage answered, "Well, she is a pretty little thing." He glanced toward Fernao, perhaps hoping for support. Fernao only shrugged; the serving girl wasn't ugly, but she didn't do anything for him. With a sigh, Ilmarinen went on, "And besides, there's something cursed attractive about such invincible stupidity."

  "I do not understand that at all," Pekka said.

  "I do not, either," Fernao knew he would have been much less interested in Pekka if he hadn't thought at least as much of her mind as he did of her body.

  "Sometimes things should be simple," Ilmarinen insisted. "No competition, no quarrels, no-"

  "No interest in you whatever," Pekka put in.

  "Besides which," Fernao said, "while you would not quarrel about your work with an invincibly stupid woman" -he used Ilmarinen's words even though he was far from sure Linna deserved them- "you would be likely to quarrel with her over everything else. Or do you think I am wrong?"

  Ilmarinen gulped down his ale, sprang up from his seat, and hurried away without answering. "You frightened him off," Pekka said.

  "Only from us. Not from Linna," Fernao predicted.

  "Unless he decides he would rather go after some other girl," Pekka said. "As for me, I am glad my heart points in only one direction." Because of his cane, Fernao couldn't spring up and hurry away. He didn't shout for more ale- or, better, spirits- to make him forget he'd heard that, either. He hoped Pekka never realized how close he came to doing both.

  ***

  When Krasta went into the west wing of her mansion to ask something of Colonel Lurcanio, she noticed more empty desks there than she'd ever seen before. It didn't take much to knock a thought right out of her head, and that was plenty. Among the empty desks was that of Captain Gradasso, Lurcanio's adjutant. Captain Mosco, Gradasso's predecessor, had already been sent off to fight in Unkerlant. Krasta wouldn't have been brokenhearted to see the same fate befall Gradasso, who embarrassed her by speaking far better classical Kaunian than she did.