Rulers of the Darkness

by Harry Turtledove

  Another thought occurred to Bembo: or we have to go on taking it till we lose. He resolutely shoved that one to the back of his mind.

  He wasn’t walking a beat here. He had to keep reminding himself of that. Whether he was or he wasn’t, though, he soon found himself back at the constabulary station where he’d spent so much time before going to Gromheort. He hadn’t seemed to belong anywhere else.

  He went up the stairs and into the beat-up old building with hope thudding in his heart. He got his first jolt when he opened the door: that wasn’t Sergeant Pesaro sitting behind the desk in the front hall. Of course not, you idiot, Bembo jeered at himself. You left Pesaro back in Forthweg. He didn’t recognize the fellow in the sergeant’s familiar seat.

  The constable didn’t recognize him, either. “What do you want, pal?” he asked in tones suggesting that Bembo had no business wanting anything and would be wise to take himself elsewhere in a hurry.

  I’m not in uniform, Bembo realized. He fished in his belt pouch and found the card that identified him as a constable from Tricarico. Displaying it, he said, “I’ve been on duty in Forthweg the past couple of years. Lightning finally struck—they gave me leave.”

  “And you came back to a constabulary station?” the man in Pesaro’s seat said incredulously. “Haven’t you got better things to do with yourself?”

  “Curse me if I know for sure,” Bembo answered. “Tricarico looks dead and about halfway buried. What’s wrong with everybody, anyway?”

  “War news isn’t so good,” the other constable said.

  “I know, but that’s not it, or not all of it,” Bembo insisted. With a shrug, he went on, “Here, at least, I know some people.”

  “Go on, then,” said the constable behind the desk. “Just don’t bother anybody who’s working, that’s all.”

  Bembo didn’t dignify that with a reply. He hurried down the hall to the big room where clerks and sketch artists worked. A lot of the clerks he’d known were gone, with women taking their places. Most of the time, that would have cheered Bembo, but now he was looking for familiar faces. The jeers and insults he got from the handful of people who recognized him felt better than blank stares from even pretty strangers.

  “Where’s Saffa?” he asked one of the clerks who hadn’t gone off to war when he didn’t see the artist. “The army can’t have taken her.”

  “She had a baby a couple weeks ago,” the fellow answered. “She’ll be back before too long, I expect.”

  “A baby!” Bembo exclaimed. “I didn’t even know she’d got married.”

  “Who said anything about married?” the clerk replied. That made Bembo laugh. It also made him wonder why, if Saffa was going to fall into bed with somebody, she hadn’t fallen into bed with him. Life isn’t fair, he thought, and pushed on farther into the station.

  Frontino the warder hastily stuck a trashy historical romance into his desk drawer when Bembo came in. Then he pulled it out again, saying, “Oh, it’s you. I thought it might be somebody important,” as if the constable had never gone away. He got up and clasped Bembo’s wrist.

  “Nice to see some things haven’t changed,” Bembo said. “You’re still a lazy good-for-nothing.”

  “And you’re still an old windbag,” Frontino retorted fondly.

  Again, trading insults made Bembo feel at home. His wave encompassed the whole constabulary station, the whole town, the whole kingdom. “It’s not the same as it was, is it?”

  Frontino pondered that. Bembo wondered how the warder was supposed to judge, when he spent most of his time shut away in the gaol he ran. But he didn’t take long to nod and say, “It’s been better, sure enough.” Bembo nodded, too. All at once, he looked forward to getting back to Gromheort.

  A baby’s thin, angry wail woke Skarnu in the middle of the night. Merkela stirred beside him in the narrow, crowded bed. “Hush,” she told the baby in the cradle. “Just hush.”

  The baby wasn’t inclined to listen. Skarnu hadn’t thought he would be. He didn’t suppose Merkela had thought so, either. With a weary sigh, she got out of bed and lifted their son from that cradle. “What does he want?” Skarnu asked. “Is he wet, or is he just hungry?”

  “I’ll find out,” she answered, and then, a moment later, “He’s wet. I hope I don’t wake him up too much changing him.” She laid the baby on the bed and found a fresh rag with which to wrap his middle. “Hush, Gedominu,” she murmured again, but the baby didn’t want to hush.

  “He’s hungry,” Skarnu said.

  Merkela sighed. “I know.” She sat down beside the baby, picked him up, and gave him her breast. He nursed avidly— and noisily. Skarnu tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t. He listened to his son eat. The baby was named for Merkela’s dead husband, whom the Algarvians had blazed. It wasn’t the name Skarnu would have chosen, but Merkela hadn’t given him much choice. He could live with it. Gedominu had been a brave man.

  Little Gedominu’s sucking slowed, then stopped. Merkela raised him to her shoulder and patted him till he gave forth with a surprisingly deep belch. She set him back in the cradle and lay down beside Skarnu again.

  “Not too bad,” she said, yawning.

  “No, not too,” Skarnu agreed. Little Gedominu was only a couple of weeks old. Already, Skarnu and Merkela had learned the difference between good nights and bad, fussy feedings and others. Skarnu went on, “One of him and two of us. He only outnumbers us by a little.”

  No matter how sleepy she was, Merkela noticed that. “Ha!” she said: not laughter but an exclamation. “That isn’t funny.”

  “I didn’t think it was,” Skarnu replied. A new thought crossed his mind. “Powers above! How do you suppose people with twins or triplets manage?”

  Merkela noticed that, too. “I don’t know,” she said. “They probably just go mad, wouldn’t you think?” She yawned again. Skarnu started to answer, but checked himself when her breathing grew slow and regular. She had the knack for falling asleep at once—or maybe, taking care of Gedominu, she was too weary to do anything else.

  Gedominu woke once more in the night, and then again at first light. That left Skarnu shambling and red-eyed from lack of sleep, and Merkela a good deal worse. As she put a pot on the wood-burning stove to make tea, she said, “It might have been simpler just to let the Algarvians catch us.”

  She’d never said anything like that while they were on the farm. But then, she hadn’t had to contend with a new baby while they were on the farm, either. Skarnu went over and set a hand on her shoulder. “Things will straighten out,” he said. “Sooner or later, they have to.”

  “I suppose so.” Even though Gedominu lay in the cradle, awake but quiet, Merkela sounded anything but convinced. When she waved her arm, she almost hit Skarnu and she almost hit a couple of walls; the flat wasn’t very big. That, to her, was part of the problem. She burst out, “How do townsfolk stand living cooped up like this all their lives? Why don’t they run screaming through the streets?”

  Her farmhouse hadn’t been very large, either, but when she looked out the windows there she saw her fields and meadows and the trees across the road. When she looked out the one small, grimy window here, all she saw were the cobbles of the street below and, across that street, another block of flats of grimy yellowish brown bricks much like the ones here.

  “Erzvilkas isn’t much of a town,” Skarnu said with what he reckoned commendable understatement, “and this isn’t much of a flat, either. We’ll do better as soon as we get the chance. For now, though, we’re safe from the redheads, and that’s what matters most.”

  Merkela only grunted and poured two mugs of tea. She took a jar of honey and spooned some into her mug, then passed it to Skarnu, who did the same. He sipped the hot, sweet, strong brew. It drove back the worst of his weariness.

  But it couldn’t drive away his worries. They’d escaped the Algarvians, aye. That wasn’t the same as saying they were safe from them. Skarnu knew as much, whether Merkela did or not. When Merke
la fled the farm, she’d left everything behind. Algarvian mages could use her clothes or her cooking gear and the law of contagion to help find her. You didn’t have to be a mage to know that objects once in contact remained in contact. Fortunately, you did have to be a mage to do anything about it.

  Algarvian mages were spread thin these days. The war wasn’t going so well for the redheads. Maybe they wouldn’t worry so much about one renegade Valmieran noble. In the larger scheme of things, Skarnu wasn’t that important. So he hoped they would reckon the odds, anyway.

  It all boiled down to, how badly did they want him? He sighed. The other side of the coin was, they were liable to want him quite a bit with both his sister and Amatu howling for his blood. He didn’t dare get too sure he was safe.

  Merkela’s thought followed a different ley line. After another sip of tea, she said, “How long can they keep holding down our kingdom? Sibiu is free again, or just about.”

  “Aye, I think so.” Skarnu nodded. “The news sheets would talk more about the fighting there if it were going better for Algarve. But the Sibs didn’t free themselves: Lagoas and Kuusamo beat King Mezentio and took the kingdom away from him. And it’s a lot easier to invade some islands in the middle of the sea than to put soldiers ashore on the Derlavaian mainland.”

  For a moment, Merkela looked as if she hated him. “I want to be free again,” she said. “I want that so much, I’d—” Before she could say what she might do, Gedominu started to whimper. Merkela laughed ruefully. “Nobody who wants to be free should ever have a baby.” She picked him up and held him in the crook of her elbow. Maybe that was what he wanted, for he quieted down.

  “Where’d that honey jar go?” Skarnu got up and opened it. He tore a piece off a loaf of black bread, dipped it in the honey, and ate it. Back before the war, he would have turned up his nose at the idea of such a breakfast. Now he knew that any breakfast at all was a long way toward being a good one.

  “Fix some of that for me, too, would you?” Merkela said. Skarnu nodded and did. Gedominu stared up at his mother, as if trying to understand what she’d just said.

  His intent expression made Skarnu start to laugh. “The world must be a demon of a confusing place for babies,” he remarked as he handed Merkela the bread and honey.

  “Of course it is,” Merkela said. “It’s a demon of a confusing place for everybody.” She took a bite. Gedominu was still watching, wide-eyed. She shook her head at him. “You can’t have any of this. Not till you get bigger.”

  The baby’s face screwed up. He started to cry. Skarnu started to laugh. “That’ll teach you to tell him what he can’t do,” he said. Merkela jiggled Gedominu up and down and from side to side. He subsided. She let out a sigh of relief.

  Someone knocked on the door, a quick, hard, urgent knock.

  Skarnu had been about to pour himself another cup of tea. He froze. So did Merkela, with a bite of bread halfway to her mouth. Nobody in Erzvilkas had any business here at this hour.

  The knock came again. Skarnu grabbed a knife and went to the door. “Who is it?” he growled, his voice clotted with suspicion.

  “Not the redheads, and cursed lucky for you.”

  Hearing that rough reply, Skarnu unbarred the door and worked the latch. Sure enough, Raunu stood in the hallway. Skarnu looked him up and down. “No, you’re not the redheads,” he agreed. “But if you’re here now, you don’t think they’re very far behind you.”

  “They’re sniffing around, all right,” the veteran sergeant agreed. “Time for you and yours to pack up and go.”

  “What about you?” Skarnu demanded. “What about the Kaunians from Forthweg?”

  Patiently, Raunu said, “I’m not a captain. I’m not a marquis. As far as the Algarvians are concerned, people like me are two for a copper. And Vatsyunas and Pernavai are just a loose end. You, though, you’re a prize. And your lady’s bait.”

  “He’s right,” Merkela said from behind Skarnu. “We have to go.” She held little Gedominu in her arms, and also carried a sack full of diapers. “When there’s no other choice, we run, and then we strike again another time.”

  Raunu smiled at her and gave her half a bow, as if her veins, not Skarnu’s, held noble blood. “That’s good sense. You’ve always shown good sense, as long as I’ve known you.” He turned back to Skarnu. “Come on, Captain. We’ve a mage of sorts downstairs, ready to block the redheads’ searching as best she can.”

  “A mage of sorts?” In spite of everything, Skarnu smiled. “That sounds—interesting.” But the smile slipped. He was worried about Merkela. “Can you flee again, so soon out of childbed?” he asked her.

  “Of course I can,” she said at once. “I have to. Do you think I want to fall into the Algarvians’ hands?”

  He had no answer to that. “Let’s go, then,” he said roughly. Raunu’s shoulders rose and straightened, as if he’d just had a burden lifted from them. He hurried for the stairs. Skarnu and Merkela followed. When they got to the stairway, Skarnu took the baby and the sack of cloths. Merkela didn’t protest, a telling measure of how worn she was.

  Out on the street, a carriage waited. Skarnu let out his own sigh of relief when he saw it. No matter how fiercely insistent she was, Merkela couldn’t have got far on foot.

  Also waiting was Raunu’s “mage of sorts.” She couldn’t have been above fifteen, her figure half formed, her hair stringy, pimples splashing her cheeks and chin. In a low voice, Skarnu said, “She’s going to hold the Algarvian wizards off our trail?”

  It wasn’t low enough; the girl heard him. She flushed, but spoke steadily: “I think I can do that, aye. The techniques for breaking affinities have improved remarkably since the days of the Six Years’ War.”

  Skarnu stared. She certainly spoke as if she knew what she was doing. Raunu let out a soft grunt of laughter. He said, “I’ve been pretty impressed with Palasta, I have.”

  “Maybe I see why,” Skarnu answered, and bowed to her.

  “Get you gone,” Palasta told him. “That’s the point of this business, after all. From now on, powers above willing, the Algarvians will have a harder time coming after you.”

  Raunu had already helped Merkela up into the carriage. Now he slapped Skarnu on the back and gave him a little push. Skarnu handed Merkela Gedominu and the bag of cloths, then scrambled up beside her. The driver—another man from the underground—flicked the reins. The carriage started to roll.

  Fleeing again, Skarnu thought bitterly. He reached out and set his hand on Merkela’s. This time, at least, he had what mattered most to him.

  The silversmith’s shop that had been Kugu’s remained closed. Every so often, Talsu would walk by, just for the satisfaction of seeing it locked and dark and quiet. He knew better than to do that very often. Someone might note it and report him to the Algarvians. He was grimly certain Kugu hadn’t been the only collaborator in Skrunda.

  He’d wondered if the redheads would come around asking questions of him after Kugu’s untimely demise. So far, they hadn’t. A forensic mage could have assured them he hadn’t been in the room when the silversmith perished. That was true. But truth, here, had many layers.

  He also knew Algarve still had foes in his home town. He wondered if Kugu’s former students were among the men responsible for the new graffiti he saw on so many walls these days. HABAKKUK! they read, and HABAKKUK IS COMING! And he wondered what in blazes Habakkuk was.

  “Whatever it is, Mezentio’s men don’t like it,” Gailisa said when Talsu wondered out loud at supper one evening. “Have you seen them putting together gangs of people they drag off the street to paint it out wherever they find it?”

  Talsu nodded. “Aye, I have. That’s got to mean it’s something good for Jelgava.” He laughed. “Feels funny, hoping for something without knowing what I’m hoping for.”

  “I know what I’m hoping for,” Traku said, dipping a piece of barley bread in garlic-flavored olive oil. “I’m hoping for more orders of winter gear from Algarvians
heading off to Unkerlant. That wouldn’t make me unhappy at all, Habakkuk or no Habakkuk.”

  “I won’t say you’re wrong there, because you’re right.” Talsu nodded again. “But it’s such a funny name or word or whatever it is. It doesn’t sound Jelgavan at all.”

  “Is it classical Kaunian?” his father asked.

  “It’s nothing Kugu ever taught me, anyhow,” Traku answered, “and Kugu taught me all sorts of things.” He paused, recalling some of the painful lessons he’d learned from the silversmith. Then he said, “Pass me the bread and oil, would you please?”

  His mother beamed. “That’s good. That’s very good,” Ausra said. “High time you got some meat back on your bones.”

  Talsu knew better than to argue with his mother about such things. Later, in the small room that now seemed even smaller because he shared it with Gailisa, he asked his wife, “Am I still as skinny as all that?”

  “There’s certainly more to you than there was when you first came home,” Gailisa said after a brief pause for thought. “Back then, I think your shadow took up more room in bed than you did. But you’re still skinnier than you were before the Algarvians grabbed you.”

  He lay down on the bed and grinned up at her. “If I take up more room now than I used to, maybe you can get on top tonight.”

  Gailisa stuck out her tongue at him. “I did that anyhow when you came back—or have you forgotten? I didn’t want you working too hard. Now …” Her eye’s sparkled as she started to undo the toggles on her tunic. “Well, why not?”

  She’d just gone off to her father’s grocery store the next morning when an Algarvian captain strode into the tailor’s shop. “Good morning, sir,” Traku said to him. “And what can we do for you today?” He didn’t ask the redhead if he was looking for something warm. The Algarvian might have taken that as gloating over a trip to Unkerlant, which would have cost Traku business.