Rulers of the Darkness

by Harry Turtledove

  Officers started coming in to greet their new commander a few minutes later. The brigade was made up of five regiments. Majors led four of them, a captain the fifth. Spinello nodded to himself. He’d led a regiment as a major, too.

  “Very pleased to make your acquaintance, gentlemen,” he said, bowing. “By what I saw on the map, we have a good deal of work ahead of us to make sure King Swemmel’s whoresons stay where they belong, but I think we can bring it off. I tell you frankly, I’d be a lot more worried if we didn’t have Yadwigai here to make sure everything turned out all right.”

  The officers stared. Then they broke into broad smiles. A couple of them even clapped their hands. Spinello smiled, too, at least as much at himself as at his subordinates. Sure as sure, he’d got his new command off on the right foot.

  “With your kind permission, milady,” Colonel Lurcanio said, bowing, “I should like to invite Count Amatu to supper again tomorrow night.”

  Krasta drummed her fingers on the frame of the doorway in which she was standing. “Must you?” she said. “I don’t like hearing my brother cursed in the house that is—was—his home.”

  “I understand that.” Lurcanio bowed again. “I shall do my best to persuade Amatu to be moderate. But I should be grateful if you would say aye. He needs to feel … welcome in Priekule.”

  “He needs to feel not quite everybody hates him, you mean.” Krasta tossed her head. “If he curses Skarnu, I will hate him, and I will let him know about it. Even you don’t do that.”

  “For which praise, such as it is, I thank you.” Lurcanio bowed once more. “Professionally speaking, I quite admire your brother. He is as slippery as olive oil. We thought we had him again not long ago, but he slipped through our fingers again.”

  “Did he?” Krasta kept her voice as neutral as she could. She was glad the Algarvians hadn’t caught Skarnu, but knew Lurcanio could and would make her unhappy for showing it Changing the subject and yielding on the side issue struck her as a good idea; with a theatrical sigh, she said, “I suppose Amatu is welcome—tomorrow night, you said?—if he behaves himself.”

  “You are gracious and generous,” Colonel Lurcanio said—qualities few people had accused Krasta of having. He went on, “Might I also beg one more favor? Would it be possible for your cook to serve something other than beef tongue?”

  Krasta’s eyes sparkled. “Why, of course,” she said, and her prompt agreement made Lurcanio bow yet again. Krasta kissed him on the cheek and hurried into the kitchen. “Count Amatu will be coming for supper again tomorrow night,” she told the cook. “Do you by any chance have some tripe in the rest crate there?”

  He nodded. “Aye, milady. I do indeed.” He hesitated, then said, “From what I know of Algarvians, the colonel will be less happy at eating tripe than Count Amatu will.”

  “But Amatu is our honored guest, and so his wishes must come first.” Krasta batted her eyes in artful artlessness. She doubted she convinced the cook. If Lurcanio asked him why he’d prepared a supper unlikely to be to an Algarvian’s taste, though, he had only to repeat what she said and she would stay out of trouble. She hoped she would stay out of trouble, anyhow.

  The cook dipped his head. “Aye, milady. And I suppose you will want the side dishes to come from the countryside, too.” He didn’t quite smile, but something in his face told Krasta he knew what she was up to, sure enough.

  All she said was, “I’m certain Count Amatu would enjoy that. Pickled beets, perhaps.” Lurcanio wouldn’t be happy with tripe and pickled beets or whatever else the cook came up with, but she didn’t think he would be so unhappy as to do something drastic.

  Still, having given the cook his instructions, Krasta thought she might be wise to get out of the house for a while. She ordered her driver to take her into Priekule. “Aye, milady,” he said. “Let me harness the horses for you, and we’ll be on our way.”

  He took the opportunity to don a broad-brimmed hat and throw on a heavy cloak, too. The slight sloshing noise Krasta heard between hoofbeats came from somewhere by his left hip: a flask under the cloak, she realized. That would also help keep him warm. Thinking of Lurcanio discomfited put Krasta in such a good mood, she didn’t even snap at the driver for drinking on the job.

  He stopped the carriage on a side street just off the Avenue of Equestrians. Krasta looked back over her shoulder as she hurried toward Priekule’s toniest boulevard of shops. He’d already tilted the flask to his lips. It wouldn’t slosh nearly so much on the way back to the mansion. It might not slosh at all. She shrugged. What could you expect from commoners but drunkenness?

  She shrugged again, much less happily, when she started up the Avenue of Equestrians toward the park where the Kaunian Column of Victory had stood from the days of the Kaunian Empire till a couple of winters before, when the Algarvians demolished it on the grounds that it reflected poorly on their barbarous ancestors. She’d got used to the column’s no longer being there, though its destruction had infuriated her. The shrug came from the sorry state of the shops. She’d been unhappy about that ever since Algarve occupied the capital of Valmiera.

  More shopfronts were vacant now than ever before. More of the ones that still had goods had nothing Krasta wanted. No matter how many Valmieran women—aye, and men, too—wore Algarvian-style kilts these days, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She’d had kilts in her closet before the war, but that had been fashion, not compulsion. She hated compulsion, or at least being on the receiving end of it.

  A couple of Algarvian soldiers ogled her. They did no more than that, for which she was duly grateful. She sneered at a Valmieran girl in a very short kilt, though she suspected the redheads would like the girl fine. And she started to sneer at a Valmieran man in an almost equally short kilt till he waved at her and she saw it was Viscount Valnu.

  “Hello, sweetheart!” he cried, hurrying up to kiss her on the cheek. “How much of your money have you wasted this afternoon?”

  “None, yet,” Krasta answered. “I haven’t found anything worth spending it on.”

  “What a tragedy!” Valnu exclaimed. “In that case, why don’t you buy me a mug of ale, and maybe even a bite to eat to go with it?” He waved. They stood in front of an eatery called Classical Cuisine. “Maybe it’ll have dormice in honey,” he said.

  “If they do, I’ll get you a big plate of them,” Krasta promised. But, since Valnu had made it plain she’d be doing the buying, she held the door open for him instead of the other way round. He took the point, and kissed her on the cheek again as he walked past her into the eatery.

  She ordered ale for both of them, and—no dormice appearing on the bill of fare—strips of smoked and salted beef to go with it. “I thank you,” Valnu said, and raised his mug in salute.

  “It’s all right,” Krasta said. “It’s rather better than all right, in fact.”

  “Really?” The tip of Valnu’s rather sharp pink tongue appeared between his lips for a moment. “What have you got in mind, darling?”

  He meant, Do you want to go to bed with me, darling? Krasta did want to, but didn’t dare. She had to get in her digs at her Algarvian lover less directly. “I’m going to feed Lurcanio tripe tomorrow night,” she answered, “and he’ll have to eat it and make as if he likes it.”

  “You are?” Valnu said. “He will? How did you manage that?”

  “I didn’t, or not mostly. Lurcanio did it himself, and to himself,” Krasta replied. “He’s invited Count Amatu to supper again, and Amatu, say what you will about him, eats like a Valmieran. Do you know him?”

  “I used to, back before the war. Haven’t seen much of him since,” Valnu said.

  Krasta sighed and gulped down her ale. “I wish I could say the same. He’s a bit of a bore these days. More than a bit, if you want to know the truth.”

  Valnu finished his ale, too. Instead of ordering another round for both of them, as Krasta expected him to, he got up and fluttered his fingers at her. “I’m terribly sorry, my love, b
ut I must dash,” he said. “One of my dear friends will beat me to a pulp if he thinks I’ve stood him up.” He shrugged a comic shrug. “What can one do?”

  “Pick different friends?” Krasta suggested. Instead of getting angry, Valnu only laughed and slid out of the eatery. Krasta bit down on a strip of smoked meat with quite unnecessary violence.

  A waiter came up to her. “Will there be anything else, milady?”

  “No,” she snarled, and strode out of Classical Cuisine herself.

  Not even buying a new hat made her feel better. The hat sported a jaunty peacock feather leaping up from the band—an Algarvian style, although that, perhaps fortunately, didn’t occur to her. Her driver hadn’t got too drunk to take her back to her mansion. The horse knew the way, whether the driver was sure of it or not.

  Lurcanio praised the hat. That made Krasta feel a little guilty about the supper she’d planned for the next evening, but only a little: not enough to change the menu. If Lurcanio would inflict Amatu on her, she would inflict tripe on him.

  Amatu, for a wonder, did have the sense not to talk much about Skarnu when he came. Maybe Lurcanio really had warned him to keep his mouth shut. Whatever the reason, it made him much better company. And he praised the tripe to the skies, and made a pig of himself over it. That made him better company still. Colonel Lurcanio, by contrast, picked at his supper and drank more than he was in the habit of doing.

  “So sorry to see you go,” Krasta told Amatu when he took his leave. To her surprise, she meant it.

  “I’d be delighted to come again,” he answered. “You set a fine table—eh, Colonel?” He turned to Lurcanio. The Algarvian’s nod was halfhearted at best. Krasta hid a smile by swigging from her mug of ale.

  Amatu’s driver had had his supper with Krasta’s servants. She never even thought to wonder what they had eaten. The count’s carriage rattled off toward the heart of Priekule. Standing in the doorway, Krasta watched till it was out of sight—which, in the all-encompassing darkness that pervaded nights to foil Lagoan dragons, did not take long.

  When she closed the door and turned around, she almost bumped into Lurcanio, who stood closer behind her than she’d thought. She let out a startled squeak. Lurcanio said, “I trust you were amused, serving up another supper not to my taste.”

  “I served it for Count Amatu. He certainly seemed to enjoy it.” But Krasta, eyeing Lurcanio, judged it the wrong moment for defiance, and so changed her course. Putting a throaty purr in her voice, she asked, “And what would you enjoy, Colonel?” and set a hand on his arm.

  Up in her bedchamber, he showed her what he would enjoy. She enjoyed it, too; he did know what he was doing, even if he couldn’t do it quite so often as a younger man might have. Tonight, unusually, he fell asleep beside her instead of going back to his own bed. Maybe he’d put down even more ale with the supper he’d disliked than Krasta had thought. She fell asleep, too, pleased in more ways than one.

  Some time in the middle of the night, someone pounded on the bedchamber door, someone who shouted Lurcanio’s name and a spate of unintelligible Algarvian. Lurcanio sprang out of bed still naked and hurried to the door, also exclaiming in his own language. Then he remembered Valmieran, and called to Krasta as if she were a servant: “Light the lamp. I need to find my clothes.”

  “I need to go back to sleep,” she complained, but she didn’t dare disobey. Blinking in the sudden light, she asked, “What on earth is worth making a fuss about at this hour?”

  “Amatu is dead,” Lurcanio answered, pulling up his kilt. “Rebel bandits ambushed him on his way home from here. Powers below eat the bandits, we needed that man. His driver’s dead, too.” He threw on his tunic and rapidly buttoned it. “Tell me, milady, did you mention to anyone—to anyone at all, mind you—that the count would visit here tonight?”

  “Only to the cook, so he would know to make something special,” Krasta replied around a yawn.

  Lurcanio shook his head. “He is safe enough. He can’t fart without our knowing it, let alone betray us. You are certain of that?”

  “Of course I am—as certain as I am that I’m sleepy,” Krasta said. Lurcanio cursed in Valmieran, and then, as if that didn’t satisfy him, said several things in Algarvian that certainly sounded incandescent. And Krasta, yawning again, realized she’d just told a lie, though she hadn’t intended to. She’d mentioned Amatu to Viscount Valnu when they went into that place called Classical Cuisine. Which meant …

  Which means I hold Valnu’s life in the hollow of my hand, Krasta thought. I wonder what I ought to do with it.

  Cornelu would rather have entered Tirgoviste harbor aboard his own leviathan. But the Lagoan and Kuusaman naval patrols around the harbor were attacking all leviathans without warning; the Algarvians had already sneaked in a couple and sunk several warships. And so Cornelu stood on the foredeck of a Lagoan ley-line frigate and watched the wharves and piers come nearer.

  Speaking Algarvian, a Lagoan lieutenant said, “Coming home must feel good for you, eh, Commander?”

  “My kingdom no longer has King Mezentio’s hobnailed boot on its neck,” Cornelu replied, also in the language of the enemy. “That feels very good indeed.” Thinking he’d got agreement, the Lagoan nodded and went away.

  The frigate glided up to its assigned berth, a pretty piece of work by its captain and the mages who kept it afloat. Sailors on the pier caught bow lines and stem lines and made the ship fast. When the gangplank thudded down, Cornelu was the first man off the ship. He’d had a new sea-green uniform tunic and kilt made up in Sigisoara town, so that he looked every inch a proper Sibian officer—well, almost every inch, for the truly observant would have noticed he still wore Lagoan-issue shoes.

  He cursed when he got a close look at the harbor buildings. They’d taken a beating when the Algarvians first seized the city, and had been allowed to decay. It would be a while before Tirgoviste became a first-class port again. “Whoresons,” he muttered under his breath.

  But he had more reasons, and more urgent and intimate reasons, for cursing Mezentio’s men than what they’d done to the harbor district. Three Algarvian officers had been billeted in the house his wife and daughter shared, and he feared—no, he was all too certain—Costache had been more than friendly with them.

  Away from the harbor, Tirgoviste town looked better. The town had yielded to Algarve once the harbor installations fell, and the Algarvians hadn’t made much of a stand here after Lagoan and Kuusaman soldiers gained a foothold elsewhere on Tirgoviste island. Cornelu didn’t know whether to be grateful to them for that or to sneer at them for their faintheartedness.

  Tirgoviste town rose rapidly from the sea. Cornelu was panting by the time he began to near his own house. Then he got a chance to rest, for a squad of Kuusamans herded a couple of companies’ worth of Algarvian captives past him, and he had to stop till they went by. The Algarvians towered over their slight, swarthy captors, but that didn’t matter. The Kuusamans were the ones with the sticks.

  A small crowd formed to watch the Algarvians tramp past. A few people shouted curses at Mezentio’s defeated troopers, but only a few. Most just stood silently. And then, behind Comelu, somebody said, “Look at our fancy officer, back from overseas. He’s all decked out now, but he couldn’t run away fast enough when the Algarvians came.”

  Cornelu whirled, fists clenched, fury on his face. But he couldn’t tell which Sibian had spoken, and no one pointed at the wretch who’d impugned his courage. The last of the captives went by, opening the intersection again. Cornelu let his hands drop. He couldn’t fight everybody, however much he wanted to. And he knew he’d have a fight a few blocks ahead. He turned back around and walked on.

  Algarvian recruiting broadsheets still clung to walls and fences. Cornelu spat at one of them. Then he wondered why he bothered. They belonged to a different world—and not just a different world now, but a dead one.

  He turned onto his own street. He’d envisioned knocking on the door, having Co
stache open it and watching astonishment spread over her face. But there she was in front of the house, carrying something out to the gutter in a dustpan—a dead rat, he saw as he got closer.

  What the dustpan held wasn’t the first thing he noticed, however much he wished it would have been. The way her belly bulged was.

  She dumped the rat into the gutter, then looked up and saw him. She froze, bent out over the street, as if a sorcerer had turned her to stone. Then, slowly and jerkily, she straightened. She did her best to put a welcoming smile on her face, but it cracked and slid away and she gave up trying to hold it. When she said, “You came back,” it sounded more like accusation than welcome.

  “Aye.” Cornelu had never imagined he could despise anyone so much. And he’d loved her once. He knew he had. But that made things worse, not better. So much worse. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

  “Of course I did,” Costache answered. “Nobody thought the Algarvians would lose the war, and you were never coming home if they won.” She dropped the dustpan: a clatter of tin. Her hands folded over her swollen stomach. “Curse you, do you think I’m the only one who’s going to have a baby on account of Mezentio’s men?”

  “No, but you’re mine.” Cornelu corrected himself: “You were mine. And it wasn’t as if you thought I was dead. You knew I was still around. You saw me. You ate with me. And you still did—that.” He pointed to her belly as if it were a crime somehow separate from the woman he’d wooed and married … and lost.

  “Oh, aye, I saw you.” Scorn roughened Costache’s voice till it cut into Cornelu like the teeth of a saw. “I saw you filthy and unshaven and stinking like the hillman you were pretending to be. Is it any wonder I never wanted anything to do with you after that?”