His image faded out of the crystal. Once more, though, it did not flare: the etheric connection remained intact. After a moment, Hajjaj saw Qutuz’s face again. “Were you able to listen to any of that?” the Zuwayzi foreign minister asked.
“Aye, your Excellency.” Qutuz suddenly looked anxious. “Why? Would you rather I hadn’t?”
“No, no. It doesn’t matter. I doubt Marquis Balastro would kidnap you and torture you or offer you lickerish Algarvian lasses to find out what Hadadezer had to say. It’s only that …” Hajjaj’s voice trailed away. He was more than a little horrified to find himself on the edge of tears. “Wasn’t it the saddest thing you ever heard?”
“That it was,” his secretary said. “Poor fellow hasn’t a clue. By the way he made it sound, his king hasn’t a clue, either. Not a clue in the whole kingdom, or his Excellency wouldn’t have come crying to you.”
“No, none,” Hajjaj agreed. “Ortah’s been able to stay apart from the rest of Derlavai too long. Nobody there knows how to do anything else.” With seeming irrelevance, he added, “I read an account once of an island the Valmierans—I think it was the Valmierans—found in the Great Northern Sea.”
Qutuz’s eyebrows rose. “Your Excellency?” he asked, obviously hoping Hajjaj would make himself clear.
The Zuwayzi foreign minister did his best: “It was an uninhabited island—uninhabited by people, anyhow. It was full of birds that looked like big doves, doves the size of dogs, so big they couldn’t fly. If I remember rightly, the Valmierans called them solitaires, or maybe it was Solitary Island. I haven’t thought of it in years.”
“Why couldn’t they fly?” Qutuz still sounded confused.
“They’d lost the need, you might say. They had no enemies there,” Hajjaj replied. “The Ortahoin, who’ve lost the need to deal with their neighbors, put me in mind of them.”
“Ah.” Qutuz still didn’t seem altogether clear about where his superior was going, but he found the right question to ask: “What happened to these big birds, then?”
Hajjaj grimaced. “They were good to eat. The Valmierans hunted them till none was left—they couldn’t get away, after all. The island wasn’t very big, and they couldn’t fly to another one. All we know of them now, we know from a few skins and feathers in a museum in Priekule.” He paused. “If I were you, I wouldn’t tell this tale to Hadadezer.”
“I promise,” Qutuz said solemnly.
When Pekka walked into the refectory in the hostel in the Naantali district, she found Fernao fighting his way through a Kuusaman news sheet. What with the news sheet, a Kuusaman-Lagoan lexicon, and, almost incidentally, the grilled herring and scrambled eggs and hot tea in front of him, he was as busy a man with breakfast as Pekka had ever seen.
Somehow, he wasn’t too busy to notice her come in. He smiled at her and waved the news sheet in the air, almost upsetting his teacup. “Habakkuk!” he exclaimed.
“Aye, Habakkuk.” Pekka turned the word into a happy, three-syllable squeak.
“That is brilliant sorcery. Brilliant, I say.” Fernao spoke in classical Kaunian so he wouldn’t have to pause and search for a word or two every sentence. “Sawdust and ice for strengthening the landing surface the dragons use. More magecraft, drawing energy from the ley lines to keep the icebergs frozen in warm seas. Aye, brilliant. Sea fights will never be the same, now that so many dragons can be carried across the water so quickly.”
“You talk like an admiral,” Pekka said. The term literally meant general on the ocean; the ancient Kaunian Empire had been far stronger on land than at sea.
Fernao waved the news sheet again. “I do not need to be an admiral to see what splendid magecraft went into this.” He read from the sheet: “Not least because of their dominance in the air, Kuusaman and Lagoan forces had little trouble overwhelming the relatively weak Algarvian garrisons on the five main islands of Sibiu.’”
“You read that very well,” Pekka said. “Your accent is much better than it used to be. How much did you understand?”
“Almost all—now.” Fernao tapped the lexicon. “Not so much before I worked my way through it.”
“All right.” Pekka nodded. “If you stay here too much longer, though, we will make a Kuusaman of you in spite of yourself.”
“Though I would have to clip my ponytail, there are probably worse fates. And I already have some of the seeming.” Fernao rested his index finger by one narrow, slanted eye to show what he meant. Those eyes argued powerfully that he did have some Kuusaman blood. Then he waved to the seat across from his at the table. “Will you join me? You must have come here to eat, not to talk shop.”
“Nothing wrong with talking shop,” Pekka said as she did sit down. “But you will have to move that news sheet if I am to have enough room for my breakfast.” When a serving girl came up to her, she ordered smoked salmon scrambled with eggs and her own mug of tea.
The tea arrived very quickly. She had to wait a little longer for the rest of her breakfast. As she sat chatting with Fernao, she noticed that neither of them said a word about Leino, though they both knew her husband had had a lot to do with the icebergs-turned-dragon-carriers that went by the name of Habakkuk. Fernao had praised the magecraft without praising the mages who worked it. As for her, she was proud as could be of Leino. But she didn’t have much to say about him to Fernao, any more than she’d had much to say about Fernao when she went home to Leino.
But those shouldn’t be inverses of each other, she thought. Before she had much chance to wonder why she’d acted as if they were, Ilmarinen came in and started raising a fuss. “Why are we here?” he said loudly. “What are we doing wasting our time in the middle of nowhere?”
“I do not know about you,” Fernao said, buttering a slice of dark brown bread. “As for me, I am eating breakfast, and enjoying it, too.”
“So am I.” Pekka looked up over the rim of her mug of tea at Ilmarinen. “Do you have anything in particular in mind that we should be doing but are not, Master? Or are you just angry at the world this morning?”
He glared at her. “You’re not my mother. You’re not going to pat me on the head and tell me everything’s all right and get me to go back to work like a good little boy.”
“No?” In fact, Pekka was in the habit of treating him rather as if he were Uto, but she’d never told him that. She was tempted now, just to see the look on his face. “What would you have me do, then?”
“Leave me alone!” Ilmarinen shouted, loud enough to make everyone in the refectory, mages and servants alike, stare at him.
Fernao surged to his feet. Pekka noted that he put only a little weight on his cane. Not so long before, he couldn’t have done anything without it. “Now see here,” he began, looming over Ilmarinen.
“Sit down,” Pekka told him, her voice not sharp but flat. He looked astonished. Of course he’s astonished, Pekka thought. He thinks he’s helping me. She didn’t look at him. She didn’t repeat herself. She just waited. The Lagoan mage sank back into his seat. Pekka’s gaze swung back to Ilmarinen. “I suggest you also sit down. Have breakfast. Whatever you are upset about will still be here when you have finished. Standing around and screaming at one another is a game for mountain apes or Algarvians, not for civilized men.” She spoke in classical Kaunian, partly for Fernao’s benefit, partly because it helped her sound dispassionate.
Like Fernao before him, Ilmarinen sat down before he quite seemed to realize he’d done it. Pekka waved for a serving girl. She wasn’t sorry the one she got was Linna, for whom Ilmarinen still yearned. She hoped the master mage wouldn’t want to make a bigger fool of himself in front of the girl. And he didn’t; he ordered breakfast, much more like a civilized man than a shrieking mountain ape.
Pekka nodded. “And have some tea, Master, have some bergamot tea. It will help soothe you.” She nodded to Linna to make sure the serving girl added the tea to Ilmarinen’s order. Linna hurried off and brought the tea before anything else. The look she gave Pekka wasn’t
quite conspiratorial, but it came close.
As the fragrant leaves steeped, Ilmarinen muttered something under his breath. “What was that?” Fernao asked, though Pekka wished he would have let it ride.
Ilmarinen repeated himself, a little louder: “Seven Princes and a Princess—Pekka of Naantali.”
“Nonsense,” Pekka said, “nonsense or maybe treason, depending on whether Prince Renavall, whose district this is, finds himself in a merciful mood.”
Ilmarinen took a couple of somber sips of tea and shook his head. “I have no trouble disobeying princes. I enjoy disobeying princes, by the powers above. But I obeyed you. Why do you suppose that is?” He sounded puzzled, almost bewildered.
“Because you know you were making an idiot of yourself?” Pekka suggested.
“That seldom stops me,” Ilmarinen answered.
“Aye, we have seen as much,” Fernao said.
Ilmarinen turned a baleful eye his way. “I’m not the only one at this table who’s doing it,” he snapped. “I’m just the only one who’s not ashamed to admit it.” Fernao turned very red. With his fair skin, the flush was easy to see.
Something close to desperation in her voice, Pekka said, “Enough!” She hoped she wasn’t flushing, too. If she was, she hoped it didn’t show. She went on, “Master Ilmarinen, you came in and said we were wasting our time. You said it at the top of your lungs. Suppose you either explain yourself or apologize.”
“Suppose I do neither one.” Ilmarinen sounded as if he was enjoying himself again.
Pekka shrugged. She kept on speaking classical Kaunian: “If you would sooner disrupt the work than join it, you may leave, sir. We have snow on the ground again. Sending you by sleigh to the nearest ley-line caravan depot would be easy—nothing easier, in fact. You could be in Yliharma day after tomorrow. You would not be wasting your time, or ours, there.”
“I am Ilmarinen,” he said. “Have you forgotten?” What he meant was, Do you think you can accomplish anything without my brilliance?
“I remember all too well. You make me remember all too well with your disruptions,” Pekka answered. “I am the mage who leads this project. Have you forgotten? If your disruptions cost more than you give, we are better off without you, no matter who you are.”
“Aye,” Fernao growled.
But Pekka waved him to silence. “This is between Master Ilmarinen and me. How now, Master Ilmarinen? Do you follow where I lead here, or do you go your own carefree way somewhere else?”
She wondered if she’d pushed it too hard, if Ilmarinen would leave in a huff. If he did, could they go forward? He was, unquestionably, the most brilliant living mage in Kuusamo. He was also, as unquestionably, the most difficult. She waited. Ilmarinen said, “I would like a third choice.”
“I know. But those are the two you have,” Pekka said.
“Then I obey,” Ilmarinen said. “I even apologize, which is not something you will hear from me every day.” In token of obedience, he slipped out of his seat and went to one knee before Pekka, as if she were truly one of the Seven Princes … and he were a woman.
She snorted. “You overact,” she said, now in quick Kuusaman, rather hoping Fernao couldn’t follow. “And you know what that posture means.”
“Of course I do,” he answered in the same tongue as he sat in the chair again. “But so what? It’s fun no matter who’s doing it to whom.”
Now Pekka knew she was blushing. Very much to her relief, she saw Fernao hadn’t caught all of the byplay. She returned to classical Kaunian: “Enough of that, too. More than enough, Master Ilmarinen. I ask you again: why do you say we are wasting our time here? I expect an answer.”
“You know why. Both of you know why.” Ilmarinen pointed to her and to Fernao in turn. “Our experiment brought fresh green grass here in dead of winter. If we can do that, we can go the other way as well.”
“We are not grass,” Pekka said. “And we have no notion from which summer the grass came hither.”
Ilmarinen waved his hand. “That is a detail. One reason we don’t know is because we haven’t tried to find out. That’s why I say we’re wasting time.”
Fernao spoke up: “You were the one who showed similarity and contagion have an inverse relationship, not a direct one. If the relationship is not direct, what works in one direction will fail in the other. Calculations to that effect are very plain, would you not agree?”
“Without experiment, I agree to nothing,” Ilmarinen said. “Calculation springs from experiment, not the other way round. Without the experiment of Mistress Pekka here, the landscape would have a good many fewer holes in it, Master Siuntio would still be alive, and you would be back in Lagoas where you belong.”
“That will be quite enough of that,” Pekka snapped. To her surprise, Ilmarinen inclined his head in—another apology? She had trouble believing that, but she didn’t know what else it could be. Then Fernao started to say something. He and Pekka got on very well—sometimes, she feared, almost too well—most of the time, but now she pointed her index finger at him as if it were a stick, since she was sure he was about to aim a barb at Ilmarinen. “Do not even start,” she said sternly. “We have had too much quarreling among ourselves as is. Do you understand me?”
“Aye.” After a moment’s hesitation, Fernao added, “Mistress Pekka.” He looked as apologetic as Ilmarinen had.
For a heartbeat or two, Pekka simply accepted that and was glad of it. Then she stared down at her own hands in something very much like wonder. By the powers above, she thought, a little—more than a little—dazed. I’m leading them. I really am.
Grelz boiled and bubbled like a pot of cabbage soup too long on the fire. Grelzer soldiers trudged west, to try to help Algarve and keep the land a kingdom. Unkerlanter soldiers battled their way east, to try to make it into a duchy once more. And the peasants who made up the bulk of the population were caught in the middle, as peasants all too often were during wartime.
Some of them, those who would soon have lived under puppet King Raniero than fierce King Swemmel, fled east ahead of the oncoming Unkerlanter army and the retreating Algarvians and Grelzers. In the mud time, the roads would have been bad without them. With them clogging those roads, the redheads and their Grelzer hounds had an even harder time getting men and beasts and supplies to the front
With so many strangers on the move, Garivald’s band of irregulars could operate far more freely than they had before. Most of the time, a stranger’s appearance in a peasant village brought gossip and speculation. Having lived his whole life up till the war in Zossen, a village much like any other, Garivald understood that in his bones. But things were different now. With strangers everywhere, what difference did one more make?
“Our army’s still moving,” Garivald told Tantris as reports from the outside world trickled into the woods where the irregulars denned. “Not easy to press forward in the mud time. I ought to know.”
“Marshal Rathar’s no ordinary soldier,” the Unkerlanter regular replied. “He can make men do things they couldn’t manage most of the time.”
“The ground’s starting to freeze every now and then,” Garivald said. “That’ll make things easier—at least till the first big blizzard.”
“Easier for both sides,” Tantris said. “When it’s mud, we’ve got the edge on the redheads.”
“Oh, aye, no doubt,” Garivald agreed. “We can move a little, and the stinking Algarvians can hardly move at all.”
He’d intended that for sarcasm, but Tantris took him literally and nodded. “If you can get any kind of advantage, no matter how small, you grab it with both hands,” he said. “That’s how you win.”
For once, Obilot agreed with him. “We have the best chance to hurt the Algarvians now,” she told Garivald inside the tent the two of them had started sharing. “The real army is getting close. Mezentio’s whoresons will be careless of us. They’ll have bigger things, worse things, on their minds.”
“Aye.” Garivald knew
he sounded abstracted. He couldn’t help it. If the army wasn’t so far away from here, it was even closer to Zossen … Zossen, where his wife and son and daughter lived. One of these days, he would have to go back, which meant that one of these days there would be no place for Obilot in his life.
He reached for her. She came to him, a smile on her face. They made love under a couple of blankets; it was cold in the tent, and getting colder. At the moment when she stiffened and shuddered and her arms tightened around him, she whispered his name with a kind of wonder in her voice he’d never heard from anyone else. He missed his wife and children, but he would miss her, too, if this ever had to end.
Afterwards, he asked her, “Do you think about what life will be like once the army takes back all of Grelz?
“When there’s no more need for irregulars, you mean?” she asked, and he nodded. She shrugged. “No, not very much. What’s the point? I haven’t got anything to go back to. Everything I had once upon a time, the redheads smashed.”
Garivald still didn’t know what she’d had. He supposed she’d been a wife, as Annore was his wife back in Zossen. Maybe she’d been a mother, too. And maybe it wasn’t just her family that didn’t exist anymore. Maybe it was her whole village. The Algarvians had never been shy about giving out lessons like that.
“Curse them,” he muttered.
“We’ll do worse than curse them,” Obilot answered, “or maybe better. We’ll hurt them instead.” She spoke of that with a savage relish at least as passionate as anything she’d said while she lay in his arms.
And she left the woods the next morning to go spy out the roads and the nearby villages. Both the Algarvians and the Grelzers paid less attention to women than they did to men. In a way, that made sense, for more women were less dangerous than most men. But Obilot was different from most women.
When she came back the next day, excitement glowed on her face. “We can hurt them,” she said. “We can hurt them badly. They’re mustering at Pirmasens for a strike against the head of the column of regulars moving east.”
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