Through the Darkness

by Harry Turtledove

  When she got up the next morning, she used the handle of a brush to mash the glowworms into a revolting paste. She reasoned that would be easier to mix into a cup of wine or a mug of ale than would whole bugs. Having a pretty good notion of when the cook would be fixing Lurcanio’s breakfast, she went down to the kitchens just then.

  “Aye, milady, it is ready,” the cook said, bowing; Krasta seldom stuck her nose into his domain. “I was setting things on his tray, as a matter of fact.”

  “I shall carry it to him,” Krasta said. “We quarreled yesterday, and I want to show him all is forgiven.” The cook bowed again, in acquiescence. If the idea of Krasta forgiving anyone startled him, he gave no outward sign. He simply handed her the tray when it was ready, then held the door open for her so she could take it into the west wing.

  Before she got there, she stirred some of the glowworm paste into Lurcanio’s ale. Watching him drink it would be revenge in and of itself, even if the spell didn’t work. But Krasta wanted it to work. Lurcanio enjoyed mocking her. If she left him impotent, she could do the mocking, and could also enjoy acting as seductive as she could, making him pant for what he couldn’t have.

  Seeing her with the breakfast tray, Gradasso didn’t try to keep her out of Lurcanio’s office. “What’s this?” Lurcanio said when she came in. “Have we got a new maid?”

  “Aye.” Krasta did her best to sound contrite, which wasn’t easy for her. “I was down in the kitchens, and thought I would bring you what the cook had made. And”—she looked down at her toes in pretended maidenly embarrassment—“I thought tonight you might bring me something, too.”

  “Did you, now?” Lurcanio boomed laughter. “Some sausage, maybe? Is that it?” Still affecting innocence, Krasta shyly nodded. Lurcanio laughed again, and raised the mug of ale in salute. “Well, since you ask for it so prettily, perhaps I shall.” He drank. Krasta had to fight hard not to hug herself with glee. She wondered if he would notice anything odd about the taste, but he didn’t.

  The rest of the day passed most happily. Krasta didn’t scream once at Bauska, not even when her maidservant’s bastard brat spent half an hour howling like a wolf with a toothache. Bauska eyed her as if wondering what was wrong. Most days, that would have been plenty to anger Krasta by itself. Today, she didn’t even notice, which made Bauska more curious and suspicious than ever.

  Krasta also ate her own breakfast, and luncheon, and supper, without sending anything back to the cook. By the time evening came around, everyone at the mansion was wondering whether she was really herself—and hoping she wasn’t.

  For bed, she put on almost transparent silk pajamas, slid under the covers, and waited. Not too much later, someone knocked on the door to the bedchamber. “Come in,” Krasta said sweetly. “It’s not barred.”

  In came Lurcanio. He barred the door, and wasted no time taking off his tunic and kilt. When he flipped back the sheets, he paused a moment to admire Krasta in her filmy nightclothes, then got her out of them. And then, with his usual panache, he proceeded to make love to her. He had no trouble whatever. Krasta was so surprised, she let him bring her to her peak of pleasure before she realized she wasn’t supposed to be enjoying it.

  “How did you do that?” she asked, still breathing a little hard.

  “How?” Lurcanio leaned up on an elbow and raised an eyebrow. “The usual way. How else?” But he paid more attention to her tone than she was in the habit of giving his. “Why? Did you think I would be unable? Why would you think I might be unable?”

  “Well . . . er . . . I . . . uh . . .” Krasta had seldom made heavier going of an answer.

  To her mingled mortification and relief, Lurcanio started to laugh. “Little fool, did you try to curse me with impotence? I told you it was a waste of time. Soldiers are warded against much magic from real mages, let alone from lovers who work themselves into a snit because they don’t get enough attention.” He reached out and stroked her between the legs. “Did you think I paid enough attention to you just now?”

  “I suppose so,” she said sulkily.

  “If I were younger, I would go another round,” the Algarvian said. “But even though I am not so young, I can still pay you more attention.” He brought his face down where his hand had been. “Is this better?” he asked as he began. Krasta didn’t reply in words, but her back arched. Presently, it was a great deal better indeed.

  With a weary sigh, Trasone tramped east, away from the fighting front in southern Unkerlant. “By the powers above, it sure feels good to get pulled out of the line for a few days,” he said.

  “Enjoy it while it lasts,” Sergeant Panfilo answered, “on account of it won’t.”

  “Don’t I know it?” Trasone said mournfully. “Aren’t enough of us to do all the job that needs doing. I hear tell there are a couple of regiments of Yaninans off on the left of the brigade, because there aren’t enough real Algarvian soldiers to hold the whole line.”

  “I’ve heard that, too,” Panfilo said. “I keep hoping it’s a pack of lies.”

  “It had better be.” Trasone’s tone was dark. “If the Unkerlanters start running behemoths at a bunch of lousy Yaninans with pom-poms on their shoes, you know what’ll happen as well as I do.”

  “They’ll run so fast, they’ll be back in Patras day after tomorrow,” the veteran sergeant replied, and Trasone nodded. Panfilo went on, “Half the time, I think we’d do better if those buggers were on Swemmel’s side instead of ours.”

  “Aye.” Trasone trudged on up the road. It was summer, and dry, so a cloud of dust, like thick brown fog, obscured his comrades more than a few yards away. That was better than slogging through mud or snow, but not much. The dead, bloated carcass of a unicorn, feet sticking up in the air, lay by the side of the road. He smelled it before he could see it. Pointing to it, he said, “I thought that was going to be soldiers, not just a beast.”

  “The stink’s a little different,” Panfilo said. “Unicorns are . . . sweeter, maybe.” His prominent nose wrinkled. “It’s not perfume, though, any which way.”

  “Sure isn’t.” Trasone pointed ahead. “What’s the name of that town’there? We just took it away from the Unkerlanters last week, and already I can’t remember.”

  “Place is called Hagenow,” Panfilo told him. “Not that I care, as long as the lines in front of the brothels don’t stretch around the block, and as long as they’ve got plenty of pop-skull in the taverns.”

  Trasone nodded. Strong spirits and loose women . . . he was hard pressed to think of anything else he required from a leave in the rear areas. After a moment, though, he did. “Be nice to go to sleep and not worry about waking up with my throat cut.”

  “And that’s true, too,” Panfilo said. “If the dice are hot, I’ll win enough silver to make myself armor out of it when I go back.”

  “In your dreams,” Trasone said, and then, remembering proper military etiquette, “In your dreams, Sergeant.”

  They marched along in silence for a while, two weary, filthy men in a battalion full of soldiers just as weary and just as filthy. From somewhere up ahead, Major Spinello’s bright tenor came drifting back on the breeze. Somehow or other, Spinello kept the energy to sing a dirty song. Trasone envied him without wanting to imitate him.

  Something else came drifting back on the breeze, too: a stink of unwashed humanity worse than that rising from the soldiers, along with a strong reek of nasty slit trenches. “Phew!” Trasone said, and coughed. “If that’s Hagenow, the Unkerlanters are welcome to it. I don’t remember that it smelled all that bad when we went through it before.”

  “Neither do I.” Panfilo peered ahead, shading his eyes—not that that did much against the dust. Then he pointed. “Look there, Trasone, in that barley field. That’s not Hagenow, not yet. We haven’t gone over the little river in front of it. So what in blazes is that? I’d take oath it wasn’t here when we headed west over this stretch of road.”

  “So would I.” Trasone narrowed his eyes, al
so trying to pierce the dust. After a little while, he grunted. “It’s not a town—it’s a captives’ camp.”

  “Ah, you’re right,” Panfilo said. The guards and the palisade around the place helped make its nature clear . . . or so it seemed. Then a gate opened so more people could go into the camp.

  Trasone grunted again. “Those aren’t Unkerlanters—they’re blonds.” His laugh was nasty. “Well, I don’t expect they’ll be in there stinking up the place all that long. And when they go, I hope our mages give Swemmel’s whoresons a good kick in the balls with their life energy.”

  “That’s the truth,” Panfilo agreed. “If it weren’t for the Kaunians, we wouldn’t have a war. That’s what everybody says, anyhow, so it’s likely right.”

  “Well, by the time this war’s over, there won’t be a whole lot of Kaunians left,” Trasone said. “Maybe that means the next one’ll be a long time coming. Hope so.”

  Half an hour later, they got into Hagenow. It was more than a village and less than a city, and had taken a beating when the Algarvians managed to drive the Unkerlanters out of it. Not many Unkerlanters were on the streets now. The ones who were flinched away from the Algarvian soldiers. As far as Trasone was concerned, that was how things were supposed to be.

  Major Spinello turned to his men. “Listen, you rogues, I expect you to leave bits and pieces of this town still standing so the next gang of soldiers coming in have somewhere to enjoy themselves, too. Past that, have yourselves a time. Me, I aim to screw myself dizzy.” And off he went, plainly intent on doing just that.

  “He’s got it easy,” Trasone said, a little jealous. “He won’t have to stand in line at an officers’ brothel.”

  “He pulls his weight,” Panfilo said. “We’ve had plenty of worse officers over us, and cursed few better ones. Go on, tell me I’m wrong.”

  “Can’t do it,” Trasone admitted. He pointed to the queue in front of the closest brothel for ordinary troopers. It wasn’t quite so long as Panfilo had feared, but it wasn’t what anybody would call short. “Can’t get my ashes hauled right away, either. Might as well pour down some spirits first.”

  An Algarvian soldier served as tapman in a tavern that had surely belonged to an Unkerlanter before Mezentio’s army swept into and then past Hagenow. Trasone wondered what had happened to the Unkerlanter, but not for long. “What have you got?” he demanded when he elbowed his way up to the bar.

  “Ale or spirits,” the fellow answered. “Wasn’t much wine in town, and the officers have it all.”

  “Let me have a slug of spirits, then,” Trasone told him, “and some ale to chase it.” The tapman gave him what he asked for. He knocked back the spirits, then put out the fire in his gullet with the ale. Before other thirsty troopers could shove him away from the bar, he got a refill.

  He thought about drinking till he couldn’t stand up any more. He thought about getting into a dice game, too. Three or four were going on in the tavern. But he had other things on his mind. He looked around for Panfilo, but didn’t see him—maybe the sergeant had other things on his mind, too.

  Panfilo wasn’t in the line Trasone chose. It snaked forward. With a few drinks in him, he didn’t mind its not moving faster. When a drunken soldier started cursing how slowly it moved, two military constables hustled him away. Trasone was glad he hadn’t complained.

  After what seemed a very long time, he got inside the brothel. In the downstairs parlor sat six or eight weary-looking women in wide-sleeved long tunics of red or green or yellow silk: almost the uniform of whores down in Forthweg or Unkerlant. About half the women were Unkerlanters, the others Kaunians. Blonds didn’t live in this part of Unkerlant; the Algarvian authorities must have shipped them in for their soldiers’ pleasure. They’d likely get shipped off to a captives’ camp when they wore out, too. Trasone thought most Forthwegian women dumpy and plain. He pointed to a Kaunian. She nodded, slowly rose from her chair, and led him upstairs.

  In a little room up there, she pulled off her tunic and lay down naked on the pallet. Trasone quickly got out of his own clothes and lay down beside her. When he began to caress her, she said, “Don’t bother. Just get it over with.” She spoke good Algarvian.

  “All right,” he said, and did. She lay still under him. Her eyes were open, but she looked up through him, looked up through the ceiling, to somewhere a million miles away. He had to close his own eyes, because the empty expression on her face put him off his stroke. He didn’t think she’d last much longer. When he grunted and spent himself, the whore pushed at him so she could get up and put her tunic back on.

  Trasone went back across the street to the tavern and did some more drinking. After a while, he got back into the line for the whorehouse. This time, he chose a Forthwegian woman. She proved a little livelier; he didn’t feel as if he were coupling with a corpse.

  The leave passed that way. He had a dreadful hangover when Major Spinello collected the battalion and started everyone toward the front again. Sergeant Panfilo kept bragging about the havoc he’d wreaked in the brothels of Hagenow. Trasone didn’t mind the boasts; he’d heard their like before. But he kept wishing Panfilo wouldn’t talk so loud.

  They were marching west past the labor camp when Trasone said, “Look—they’re taking out a bunch of blonds.”

  “What are they going to do with ’em?” Panfilo asked. “And how do you know they aren’t getting away on their own?”

  “They’d be running harder if they were getting away, and they wouldn’t have soldiers standing watch over ’em.” Trasone’s pounding head made him testy. He pointed again. “And look there—those aren’t just soldiers. They’re mages. They’ve got to be. Nobody in uniform who isn’t a mage stumbles around like that.”

  Panfilo chuckled. “Well, I won’t say you’re wrong. And if those are mages . . .” His voice dropped. “If those are mages, I think I know what they’re going to do with the Kaunians. So this is how it goes.”

  “Aye, this is how it goes,” Trasone agreed. He’d felt the strong lash of Algarvian sorcery passing over him to fall on the Unkerlanters. And he’d been on the receiving end as the Unkerlanters massacred their own people to build a sorcery to strike back at the Algarvians. But he’d never seen how such magecraft was made. Now he would, unless his squad marched past before the slaughter began.

  They didn’t. The Algarvian soldiers in the field lined the Kaunians up in neat rows. Then, at a shouted order Trasone clearly heard, they raised their sticks and started blazing. The blonds who didn’t fall at once tried to run now. That did them no good. The soldiers kept on blazing, and the Kaunians had no place to flee. After a few minutes, they all lay dead or dying.

  And the mages got to work. Trasone could hear their chants rising and falling, too, but couldn’t understand a word of them. After a moment, he realized why: they weren’t incanting in Algarvian, but in classical Kaunian. He started to laugh. If that didn’t serve the blonds right, what did?

  He felt the power the mages were raising. The soldiers had killed hundreds of Kaunians. How much life energy was that? He couldn’t measure it—he was no wizard. But it was enough and more than enough to make his hair stand on end under his broad-brimmed hat even though he was getting only the tiniest fringe of it as it built.

  Then it flashed away. He could tell the very instant the mages launched it at King Swemmel’s men. The feel of the air changed, as it did just after a thunderclap. All that energy would come down on the Unkerlanters’ heads. He turned to Sergeant Panfilo. “Better them than us,” he said. “Powers above, a lot better them than us.” The sergeant didn’t argue with him.

  As always, Marshal Rathar was glad to get out of Cottbus. Away from the capital, he was his own man. When he gave an order, everyone leaped to obey. It was almost like being king. Almost. But he’d seen the kind of obedience King Swemmel commanded. He didn’t have that. He didn’t want it, either.

  What he did have was a hard time making his way into the south, where the worst
of the fighting was. The Algarvians, having punched through the Unkerlanter defenses, now stood astride most of the direct routes from Cottbus to the south. To get where he was going, Rathar had to travel along three sides of a rectangle, taking a long detour west to use ley lines still in Unkerlanter hands.

  When he got to Durrwangen, he wondered if he’d come too late. Algarvian eggs were bursting just outside the city, and some inside it as well. “We have to hold here as long as we can,” he told General Vatran. “This is one of the gateways to the Mamming Hills and the cinnabar in them. We can’t just give it up to the redheads.”

  “I know how to read a map, too,” Vatran grunted. “If we don’t hold ’em here, there’s nowhere else good to try and stop ’em this side of Sulingen. But the whoresons have the bit between their teeth again, the way they did last summer. How in blazes are we supposed to make ’em quit?”

  “Keep fighting them,” Rathar answered. “Or would you sooner let them have all the cinnabar they need?”

  Would you sooner lie down and give up? was what he really meant. He studied Vatran. He’d urged Swemmel to keep the officer in charge down here. Now he was wondering if he’d made a mistake. Vatran’s attack south of Aspang had failed. There were reasons it had failed; neither Vatran nor any other Unkerlanter had realized the Algarvians were concentrating so many men in the south. But Vatran hadn’t covered himself with glory since, either. The question was, could anyone else have done better?

  Vatran understood that question behind the question. He glared up at Rathar, who stood a couple of inches taller. Vatran’s nose was sharp and curved as a sickle blade; had it been one in truth, he might have used it to cut the marshal down. “If you don’t care for the job I’m doing,” he ground out, “give me a stick, take the stars off my collar, and send me out against the Algarvians as a common soldier.”