Rulers of the Darkness d-4

by Harry Turtledove

  "It's Prince Juhainen, Mistress Pekka," the crystallomancer said.

  "What?" Pekka squeaked. "Powers above, why didn't you say so?" She rushed out of the dining hall past the crystallomancer, not bothering to wait for her. The woman hurried after her, stammering apologies. Pekka ignored those, but dashed into the room where the crystals were kept. Sure enough, Prince Juhainen's image waited in one of them. She went down to a knee for a moment before asking, "How may I serve you, your Highness?"

  "Along with two of my colleagues, I propose visiting your establishment soon," the young prince answered. "We have spent a good deal of money over in Naantali, and we want to discover what we are getting for it."

  "I see," Pekka said. "It shall be as you say, of course."

  "For which I thank you," Juhainen said. "We expect to be there day after tomorrow, and hope to see something interesting."

  "Very well, your Highness. Thank you for letting me know you are coming," Pekka said. "We shall try our best to show you what we've been doing, and, if you like, we can also discuss where we hope to go from here."

  Juhainen smiled. "Good. You have taken the words out of my mouth. I look forward to seeing you in two days' time, then." He nodded to someone whose image Pekka couldn't see- probably his own crystallomancer. A moment later, his image vanished.

  "A princely visit!" the crystallomancer at Naantali exclaimed. "How exciting!"

  "A princely visit!" Pekka echoed. "How appalling!" Performing under the eyes of Siuntio and Ilmarinen had been intimidating in one way: if she blundered, she would humiliate herself in front of the mages she admired most. She didn't admire Juhainen and his fellow princes nearly so much as she did her peers. But performing in front of them would be intimidating, too. If they didn't like what they saw, they could end the project with a snap of the fingers. The power of the purse wasn't sorcerous, but was potent nonetheless.

  She hurried out of the chamber with the crystals and started telling every mage she knew. Her colleagues reacted with the same mixture of surprise, anticipation, and dread that she felt. When Ilmarinen said, "With any luck at all, once they see what we're up to, we can all go home," Pekka laughed, too. Ilmarinen sardonic was far preferable to Ilmarinen whining and nagging.

  Fernao asked a truly relevant question: "Can they get here by day after tomorrow, with this hostel out in the middle of nowhere?"

  "I do not know," Pekka admitted. "But we are going to assume they can. If we are ready and they are not here, that is one thing. If they are here and we are not ready, that is something else again- something I do not intend to let happen."

  They readied the animals they would use in the experiment. The secondary sorcerers practiced their projection spells. All the theoretical sorcerers but Pekka prepared more counterspells in case something went wrong with her incantation. She went over the charm again and again. I will not drop a line this time, she thought fiercely. By the powers above, I will not.

  The princes did arrive on the appointed day, though late. They brought with them a fresh squad of protective mages. That, to Pekka, made excellent sense. The Algarvians hadn't struck here since their first heavy blow, but there was no guarantee that they wouldn't.

  With Juhainen came Parainen of Kihlanki in the far east and Renavall, in whose domain the district of Naantali lay. Pekka went to one knee before each of them. She said, "By your leave, your Highnesses, we shall demonstrate our work tomorrow. For tonight, you are welcome to share our hostel here and see how we live."

  Prince Renavall chuckled and remarked, "This is probably an effort to extort finer quarters from us." Pekka and the other mages laughed. So did Juhainen. Prince Parainen only nodded, as if his colleague had said what he was already thinking.

  Ilmarinen said, "If we can survive here for months on end, even princes are a good bet to last the night." In a lot of kingdoms, such a crack would have made him a good bet not to last the night. In easygoing Kuusamo, Juhainen and Renavall laughed again. Even Parainen, who worried more about Gyongyos than the Algarvian threat against which the mages were so concerned, managed a smile.

  Sure enough, all three princes came down to breakfast the next morning and accompanied the team of sorcerers to the blockhouse. They and their protective mages badly crowded it, and they suffered most because of that, since Pekka insisted on stationing them against the walls where they wouldn't be in the way. "You came to see the sorcery succeed- is that not so, your Highnesses?" she said with her sweetest smile. "And so you could not possibly want to interfere with those who perform it, could you?" Juhainen shrugged. Renavall smiled. Parainen gave back only stony silence.

  We had better succeed now, Pekka thought. She recited the Kuusaman ritual that marked the beginning of any sorcerous enterprise in her land. As always, it helped steady her. "I begin," she said abruptly, and did.

  For a demonstration for three of the Seven, they broke no new ground. She used a spell they had tested before, and gave it every ounce of concentration she had. The rumbling roar of suddenly released energies shook the blockhouse. Stones and clods of dirt thudded down on the roof, even though the secondary sorcerers had transferred the effect of the spell to the animal cages a couple of miles away.

  "May we see what you wrought?" Parainen asked when silence and steadiness returned.

  Glad he was the one who'd asked and even gladder he sounded less sure of himself now, Pekka said, "By all means." Ilmarinen caught her eye. She shook her head. This was not the time or place for him to expound on his hypothesis of what they were really doing. To her relief, he subsided.

  To her even greater relief, the princes gaped in undisguised wonder at the new crater gouged from the soil of Naantali. Parainen said the two words Pekka most wanted to hear from him: "Carry on."

  ***

  Numbers had always been Ealstan's friends. He was, after all, a bookkeeper's son, and now a bookkeeper of growing experience himself. He saw patterns in what looked like chaos to most people, as mages did when they developed spells. And when he found chaos in what should have been order, he wanted to root it out.

  Pybba's books drove him mad. Money kept right on leaking out of the pottery magnate's business. Ealstan was morally certain it went to resist the Algarvians, but Pybba had paid him a hefty sum not to notice. Vanai didn't want him poking his nose into things, either.

  And so, when he probed the mystery, he had to be most discreet. He told neither his boss nor his wife what he was doing. He just quietly kept doing it. My father would act the same way, he thought. He'd want to get to the bottom of things, even if somebody told him not to. Maybe especially if somebody told him not to.

  More of the money vanished in the invoices at one of Pybba's warehouses than from any other place in the magnate's business. Ealstan had never been to that warehouse, which lay on the outskirts of Eoforwic. He thought about asking Pybba if he might go look things over there, thought about it and shook his head. His boss would see right through him if he did.

  When he went to look the place over, then, he went on his day off. He wore a grimy old tunic and a battered straw hat against the sun. As he headed out the door, Vanai said, "You look like you're ready for a day of tavern crawling."

  He nodded. "That's right. I'm going to come home drunk and beat you, the way Forthwegian husbands do."

  Even in sorcerous disguise as a swarthy Forthwegian, Vanai blushed. Kaunians often perceived Forthwegians as drunks. In modern Kaunian literature in Forthweg, the drunken Forthwegian was as much a clichй as the sly or aloof Kaunian was in Forthwegian romances. Vanai said, "You're the only Forthwegian husband I know, and I like the things you do."

  "That's good." A wide, foolish grin spread over Ealstan's face. He couldn't get enough praise from his wife. "I'm off," he said, and headed out the door.

  To get to that warehouse, he could either walk for an hour or ride most of the way on a ley-line caravan. Without hesitation, he chose the caravan. He tossed a small silver bit into the fare box- everything was outrageo
usly expensive under the Algarvians- and took his seat.

  Because the fare was high, the caravan wasn't close to full. As best he could tell, the car hadn't been cleaned since the Algarvians took Eoforwic, or maybe since the Unkerlanters took it a year and a half before that. Someone had slit the upholstery of the seat on which Ealstan sat. Someone else had pulled out most of the stuffing. What was left protruded from the gashes in the fabric in pathetic tufts. The seat next to Ealstan's had no padding at all, and no upholstery left, either. None of the windows in the car would open, but several had no glass, so that evened out.

  Getting out of the car was something of a relief, at least till Ealstan saw what sort of neighborhood it was. He marveled that Pybba would put a warehouse here; it seemed the sort of place where breaking crockery was the favorite local sport. No matter how shabby Ealstan looked, he had the feeling he'd overdressed.

  A drunk came up and whined for money. Ealstan walked past as if the beggar didn't exist, a technique he'd had to perfect since coming to Eoforwic. The drunk cursed him, but only halfheartedly- a lot of people must have walked past him over the last few years. Down an alley, a dog barked and then snarled, a sound like ripping canvas. Ealstan bent down and grabbed a stout olive branch. To his relief, the dog didn't come out after him. He held on to the branch anyhow, and methodically pulled twigs from it. It was better than nothing against beasts with four or two legs.

  He had no trouble finding the warehouse. PYBBA'S POTTERY, shouted a tall sign with red letters on a yellow ground. Pybba never did anything by halves, which was part of what made him so successful. People all over western Forthweg knew who he was. His pots and cups and basins and plates might not have been better than anyone else's, but they were better known. That counted for at least as much as quality.

  Now that Ealstan had got here, he wondered what the demon to do next. How in blazes could he hope to find out why the money from Pybba's booming business looked to be leaking here? He doubted the clerks would say, if they even knew. Maybe he should have gone out and got drunk instead. He would have had more fun, even if beating his wife wasn't part of it. He could hardly have had less.

  As he walked up to the warehouse entrance, he was surprised to see a couple of guards there. He shouldn't have been; he remembered the line item for their salary. But a line item was one thing. A couple of burly men carrying bludgeons was something else again. Ealstan made a point of setting down his olive branch before he got close to them.

  "Hello, friend," one of them said with a polite nod and a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "What can we do for you today?"

  "Want to buy some dishes," Ealstan answered. "My wife keeps throwing 'em at me, and we're running out."

  The guards relaxed and laughed. The one who'd spoken before said, "This is the place, all right. I used to hang around with a woman like that. Aye, she was good in bed, but after a while she got to be more trouble than she was worth, you know what I mean?"

  Ealstan nodded. "I hear what you're saying, but you know how it is." His shrug suggested a man who was putting up with a lot for the sake of a woman. Laughing again, the guards stepped aside to let him into the warehouse.

  After the bright sunshine outside, Ealstan's eyes needed a moment to adjust to the gloom within. When they did, he gaped at aisle on aisle of crockery, every one with a sign that said SALE! or MARKED DOWN! or PYBBA'S LOW PRICES! As best Ealstan could tell, his boss didn't miss a trick.

  He couldn't stand there gaping very long. A woman said, "Get out of the way," and pushed past him before he could. She made a beeline for a display of cups and saucers with a mustard-yellow glaze. Ealstan thought them very ugly, but Pybba was going to rack up a sale no matter what he thought.

  Ealstan ambled up one aisle and down the next, making as if to examine more different kinds of pottery than he'd ever seen under one roof. Nothing he spotted on the floor of the main room gave him the slightest hint about where Pybba's money was going. He hadn't really thought anything would. Anything obvious to him would be obvious to other people, too- to the Algarvians, if Pybba really was trying to fight them.

  Several doors led into back rooms. Ealstan eyed those as he pretended to examine dishes. Going through one of them might tell him what he wanted to know. It also might land him in more trouble than he could afford. Whatever he did, he wouldn't get the chance to go through more than one. He was sure of that.

  Which one, then? From this side, they all looked alike. He chose the one in the middle of the back wall, for not better reason than its being in the middle. After fidgeting in front of it for a minute or two, he opened it and walked into the back room. A man sitting at a desk looked up at him. Ealstan scowled and said, "That fellow out there said this was where the jakes were at."

  "Well, they bloody well aren't," the man replied in some annoyance.

  "You don't have to bite my head off," Ealstan said, and closed the door behind him. He chose four dinner plates in a flowered pattern, paid for them, and left. The guards nodded to him as he went. He walked away from the ley-line caravan stop, not toward it. Once he was around the corner from the warehouse, he doubled back and found his way to the stop.

  To his relief, a caravan car glided up a few minutes after he got to that corner. He put another small silver coin in the fare box and sat down for the ride back to the heart of Eoforwic. The plates rattled against one another in his lap.

  A man sitting across the aisle pointed to them and said, "Powers below eat me if you didn't get those at Pybba's."

  "Best prices in town," Ealstan answered- one of the many slogans Pybba used to promote himself and his business.

  "That's the truth," the other passenger said. "I've bought plenty from him myself."

  "Who hasn't?" Ealstan said. Nobody gave him any trouble the rest of the way home, though a couple more people asked if he'd got his plates from Pybba. By the time he got off at the stop closest to his flat, he'd started to think his boss could have occupied all of Forthweg if the Algarvians hadn't beaten him to it.

  Vanai wasn't deceived when he brought the plates home. She asked, "Did you learn anything while you were snooping around?"

  "Well, no," Ealstan admitted, "but I didn't know I wouldn't before I started out." He was ready to do a more thorough job of defending himself than that, but Vanai only sighed and dropped the subject. That left him feeling bloated: he had what he thought a pretty good argument trapped inside him, but it couldn't get out.

  As he went off to cast accounts for Pybba the next morning, he decided that argument could stay right where it was. It would have done him no good had he had to use it to sweeten his boss. Pybba was not a man arguments could sweeten. The only arguments he listened to were his own.

  "About time you got here," he shouted when Ealstan walked into his office. Ealstan wasn't late. He was, if anything, early. But Pybba was there before him. Pybba was there before everybody. He had a wife and family, but Ealstan wondered if they ever saw him.

  That, though, was Pybba's worry. Ealstan settled down and got to work. Before long, Pybba started shouting at somebody else. He had to shout at someone. The louder he yelled, the more certain he seemed that he was alive.

  Halfway through the day, somebody said, "Oh, hello," to Ealstan. He looked up from endless columns of numbers and saw the man who'd been behind the desk in that back room at the potter warehouse. The fellow went on, "I didn't know you worked for Pybba, too."

  Pybba overheard. Despite the racket he always made, he overheard a lot. Pointing to Ealstan, he asked the other man, "You know him?"

  "I don't really know him, no," the man replied. "Saw him at the warehouse yesterday, though. He was looking for the jakes."

  "Was he?" Pybba rumbled. He shook his head in what looked like real regret, then jerked his thumb from Ealstan toward the door. The gesture was unmistakable, but he added two words anyhow: "You're fired."

  Fourteen

  Skarnu had no trouble ambling along a road in southern Valmiera as a p
easant would have done. He didn't look to be in much of a hurry, but mile after mile disappeared behind him. That wasn't so bad. He wished even more, though, that Amatu would disappear behind him.

  No such luck there. The noble who'd come back from Lagoan exile stuck like a burr, and was just about as irritating. Not only that- Skarnu feared that Amatu would get both of them caught by the Algarvians or by the Valmieran constables who did their bidding. Amatu couldn't walk like a peasant, not- literally- to save his life. The concept of ambling seemed alien to him. He marched, and if he didn't march, he strutted. He might almost have been an Algarvian himself, as far as swagger went.

  "Maybe we ought to put some pebbles in your shoes," Skarnu said in something close to despair.

  Amatu looked down his nose at him- not easy, when Skarnu stood several inches taller. "Maybe you ought to let me be what I am, and not carp so much about it," he replied, his voice dripping aristocratic hauteur.

  He risked giving himself away every time he opened his mouth, too. Skarnu had trouble putting on a rustic accent. But by not saying much, and by speaking in understatements when he did talk, he got by. Amatu, on the other hand, always overacted. He might have been the foolish, foppish noble in a bad play.

  Back before the war, Skarnu hadn't thought such people really existed. He supposed Amatu had acted the same way then. Powers above, he'd probably acted the same way himself. But it hadn't mattered in those days, not among the aristocracy of Priekule. Now it did. Skarnu had adapted. As far as Amatu was concerned, adapting meant betraying his class.

  "Being what you are is one thing," Skarnu said. "Getting me caught because you won't see reason is something else again."

  "You haven't got caught yet, have you?" Amatu said.

  "No thanks to you," Skarnu retorted. "You keep trying to stick your neck- and mine- in the noose."

  "You keep saying that," Amatu answered. "If there's so bloody much truth to it, how come I'm still running around loose when the Algarvians grabbed everybody in the underground in Ventspils- everybody who knew just what he was doing?"