***
Talsu walked through the streets of Skrunda thinking about spells of undoing. There had to be a way to get more out of them than he'd yet seen. He was convinced of that. But he wasn't yet sure what it might be.
A news-sheet vendor waved a leaf of paper at him. "Gyongyos crushes Kuusaman air pirates!" the fellow called. "Read the whole exciting story!"
Instead of answering, Ta lsu just kept walking. If he'd said no, the vendor would have done his best to turn it into an argument, hoping to entice him to buy the news sheet that way. But silence gave the fellow nothing to grip. He glared at Talsu. Talsu ignored that, too.
As soon as he turned a corner, though, he cursed under his breath. The vendor had made him fall away from the ley line his thought had been following. Whatever the answer he'd sought, he wouldn't find it right away.
FINE SILVERSMITHING BY KUGU, a shopfront sign said, and then below, in smaller letters, JEWELRY MADE AND REPAIRED. CUSTOM FLATWARE. POTS & BOWLS OUR SPECIALTY. The shop was closed.
"Pest-holes and betrayals, our specialty," Talsu muttered under his breath. He wanted to let his face show exactly what he thought of the silversmith. But he couldn't even do that, because he was meeting Kugu for supper at an eatery that should be... He brightened. "There it is." He'd walked past the Dragon Inn any number of times. He'd never gone inside, not till now. It came as close to being a fine eatery as any place Skrunda boasted.
His nostrils twitched at the smell of roasting meat as he opened the door. He didn't suppose the inn cooked with a real dragon: stoves and grills surely gave better-to say nothing of safer-results. But food and flame did come together here. His belly rumbled. He didn't eat much meat back home.
As if by sorcery, a waiter appeared at his elbow. "May I help you, sir?" The tone was polite but wary. He got the feeling he'd be out on the street in a hurry if the fellow didn't like his answer.
But the waiter relaxed when he said, "I'm dining with Master Kugu."
"Ah. Of course. Come with me, then, if you'd be so kind. The gentleman is waiting for you." The waiter led him to a booth in the back where Kugu did indeed sit waiting. With a bow, the fellow said, "Enjoy your meal, sir," and vanished as suddenly as he'd appeared.
Kugu rose and clasped Talsu's hand. "Good of you to join me," he murmured. "Let me pour you some wine." He did, then raised his goblet in salute. "Your very good health."
"Thanks. And yours." With straight-faced hypocrisy, Talsu drank. His eyebrows rose. He didn't get to enjoy wine like this at home: a full-bodied vintage, with just a touch of lime to give it the tartness Jelgavans craved. He thought he could get tiddly on the bouquet alone.
"Order whatever suits your fancy: it's my pleasure," Kugu said. "The leg of mutton is very fine, if you care for it. They don't stint the garlic."
"That sounds good," Talsu agreed, and he did choose it when the waiter came back with an inquiring look on his face. So did Kugu. Talsu had all he could do not to gape like a fool when his supper arrived. Aye, that much meat could have fed his father and mother and sister and wife-and him to boot-for a couple of days, or so he thought. It was tender as lamb but far more flavorful; it seemed to melt off the bone. In an amazingly short time, nothing but that bone remained on the plate.
"I trust that met with your approval?" Kugu asked as the waiter carried the plate away. The silversmith had also demolished his supper. Talsu nodded; he was too full to speak. But he discovered he still had room for the brandied cherries the man brought back. They were potent. After only three or four, his eyes started to cross. Kugu ate them, too, but they didn't look to bother him. He said, "Shall we get down to business?"
"Aye. We might as well," Talsu agreed. He would have agreed to anything about then, regardless of how he felt about the silversmith.
Kugu's smile reached his mouth but not his eyes. "You alarmed the occupying authorities, you know."
"How could I have done that?" Talsu asked. "Powers above, I was in a dungeon. I was about as alarming as a mouse in a trap."
"Mice don't write denunciations," Kugu said patiently, as if he'd had nothing to do with Talsu's ending up in a dungeon. "You named people the Algarvians thought were safe. They did some checking and found out that some of those people weren't so safe after all. Do you wonder that they started worrying?"
Talsu shrugged. "If I'd told them a pack of lies, I'd still be in that miserable place." And I remember who put me there. Aye, I remember.
"I understand that," the silversmith said, more patiently still. "But when they found out they'd trusted some of the wrong people, they started checking everybody they'd trusted. They even checked me, if you can imagine."
Talsu didn't trust himself to say anything to that. Any reply he gave would have sounded sardonic, and he didn't dare make Kugu any more suspicious than he was already. He sat there and waited.
Kugu nodded, as if acknowledging a clever ploy. He went on, "And so, you see, we have to show we can work together. Then the Algarvians will know they can trust both of us. That's something they need to know. There's a lot of treason in this kingdom."
He spoke very earnestly, as if he meant treason against Jelgava rather than treason against her occupiers. Maybe he confused the two. Maybe Talsu had come closer to getting him in serious trouble than he'd thought possible, too. He
hoped so. He wanted Kugu in serious trouble, however it happened. He wasn't the least bit fussy about that. "What have you got in mind?" he asked.
Kugu returned a question for a question: "Do you know Zverinu the banker?"
"I know of him. Who doesn't?" Talsu answered. He didn't point out how unlikely it was for a tailor's son to have made the acquaintance of probably the richest man in Skrunda.
"That will do," Kugu said. Maybe he really did know Zverinu. Talsu had seen that he knew some surprising people. For now, he went on, "If we both denounce him, a few days apart, the Algarvians are bound to haul him in. That will make us look good in their eyes. It'll make us look busy, if you know what I mean?"
"Has he done anything that needs denouncing?" Talsu asked. If Kugu said aye, he would find some excuse not to do anything of the sort.
But the silversmith only shrugged, as Talsu had a while before. "Who knows? By the time the Algarvians are done digging, though, they'll find something. You can bet on that."
Talsu abruptly wondered if he'd be sick all over the table in front of him. This was fouler than anything he'd imagined. It felt like wading in sewage. Worse still was being unable to show what he thought. He spoke carefully: "The Algarvians are liable to know I don't know anything about Zverinu."
"Not if you phrase the denunciation the right way." Kugu taught treason with the same methodical thoroughness he gave classical Kaunian. "You can say you heard him on the street, or in the market square, or any place where you could both plausibly be. You can even say you had to ask somebody who he was. That's a nice touch, in fact. It makes things feel real."
"I'll see what I can come up with." Talsu gulped the fine wine Kugu was buying. That first denunciation had got him out of the dungeon, but it hadn't got him out of trouble. If anything, it had got him in deeper.
"All right." Kugu emptied his own goblet. "Don't take too long, though. They're keeping an eye on both of us. It's a hard, cold world, and a man has to get along as best he can."
A man has to get along as best he can. Talsu had lived by that rule in the army. The idea of living by it to the extent of turning against his own kingdom filled him with loathing. But all he said was, "Aye." Here he was, getting along with Kugu as best he could till he found some way to pay back the silversmith.
Kugu set coins on the table, some with King Donalitu's image, more with that of King Mainardo, the younger brother of King Mezentio. If nothing else, Talsu had made him spend a good deal of his, or perhaps Algarve's, money. That wasn't so bad, but it wasn't enough, not nearly.
In the cool evening twilight outside the eatery, Kugu asked, "Do you want to lead off with your denun
ciation, or shall I go first?"
"You go ahead," Talsu answered. "Yours will be better than mine; it's bound to be. So mine can add on to what you've already said." The longer he delayed, the more time he had to come up with something to undo Kugu.
But the silversmith took Talsu's flattery, if that was what it was, as no more than his due. Nodding, he said, "I give my language lessons tomorrow. I'll work on mine over the next couple of days after that and turn it in. That gives you plenty of time to get something ready."
"All right," Talsu said, though it wasn't. "I'd better get back before curfew catches me."
"Before long, you won't need to worry about that," Kugu said. "People will know who you are." Confident as if he were a redhead, he strode away.
So did Talsu, less confidently. He was thinking furiously as he went back to his father's tailor's shop and his room above it. He kept right on thinking furiously all the next day. He was thinking so hard, he wasn't worth much at work. Traku scolded him: "How many times are you going to use the undo spell, son? The idea is to get it right the first time, not to see how many different kinds of mistake you can fix."
"I'm sorry." Talsu didn't like lying to his father, but he didn't know what else to do. He wanted to see just how many things he could undo, and in how many ways.
His father and his mother and his sister and Gailisa all squawked at him when he went out that night, but he did a good job of pretending to be deaf. He also did a good job of evading patrols as he made his way to Kugu's house. Skrunda was his town. In the mandatory darkness of night, he knew how to disappear.
He didn't knock on Kugu's door. He waited across the street, hidden in a deeper shadow. Several language students went in. They didn't s ee him, any more than the Algarvian constables had. He lurked there till he was sure Kugu would be immersed in his classical Kaunian lesson and then, very quietly, he began to chant.
Odds are, I'm wasting my time, he thought. Undoing spells were funny business. Could he make what worked with cloth work on a man, too? He'd twiddled up a spell as best he knew how, but he knew he didn't know much. Could he really undo Kugu's mask of virtue and patriotism and make him reveal himself to the men he taught for what he really was? Even if he could, would he ever know he'd done it? Might he have to write his denunciation even if he succeeded?
He hadn't known if he would get answers to any of those questions, but he got answers to all of them, and in short order, too. Without warning, furious shouts and screams from inside Kugu's house shattered the stillness of the night. Crashes and thuds followed immediately thereafter. The front door flew open. The silversmith's students fled into the night.
Talsu slipped away, too, still unseen. He wondered how by word or deed he'd made Kugu betray himself. He would never know, and it didn't matter, but he still wondered. When he got back home, he found his whole family waiting anxiously for him. He grinned, greeted them with two words-"He's undone" -and laughed loud and long.
***
The crystallomancer nodded to Rathar. "Go ahead, lord Marshal. His Majesty awaits you."
"So I see," Rathar said: King Swemmel's pale, long-faced image peered out of the crystal at him. He took a deep breath and went on, "Your Majesty, as I greet you I stand on the soil of the Duchy of Grelz."
"Ah." The king's eyes glittered. "We are pleased to hear that, Marshal. Aye, we are very pleased indeed."
Rathar bowed. "So I hoped. And the Algarvians continue to fall back before us."
He might as well not have spoken, for the king talked right through him: "We would have been better pleased still, though, had Grelz never fallen to the invader in the first place."
"So would I, your Majesty." That was true, even if Rathar knew how lucky Unkerlant was to have survived the first dreadful year of fighting against the redheads. "Your armies are doing their best to make amends."
"Aye." The king sounded as if that best were not nearly good enough. But then he brightened. "Inside Grelz," he murmured, at least half to himself. "The time comes for a great burning and boiling and flaying of traitors."
"As you say, your Majesty." Rathar knew there were traitors aplenty in Grelz. His men had already run up against Grelzer soldiers: men of good Unkerlanter blood wearing dark green tunics and fighting for Raniero, the Algarvian puppet king. Some of those companies and battalions broke and fled when the first eggs burst near them. Some fought his men harder and with more grim determination than any Algarvians. That was what Swemmel's reign had sown, and what it now reaped.
If Swemmel himself realized as much, he gave no sign of it. "Carry on, then, Marshal," he said. "Purify the land. Purify it with fire and water and sweet- edged steel." Before Rathar could answer, the king's image disappeared. The crystal flared and then became nothing but an inert globe of glass.
"Do you require any other connections, lord Marshal?" the crystallomancer asked.
"What?" Rathar said absently. Then he shook his head. "No. Not right now."
He took his umbrella and left the ruined house where the crystallomancer had set up shop. Rain thrummed on the umbrella's canvas when he stepped outside. His boots squelched in mud. Two years before, the fall rains and mud had slowed Mezentio's men on their drive toward Cottbus. Now they slowed the Unkerlanters in their assault on the invaders. Rain and mud were impartial. Curse them, Rathar thought, squelching again.
Every house in this village was wrecked, to a greater or lesser degree. The Algarvians had fought hard to hold the place before sullenly, stubbornly withdrawing. Curse them, too, Rathar thought. Nothing in this summer's drive toward the east had been easy. The redheads never had enough men or behemoths or dragons to halt his men for long, but they always knew what to do with the ones they had. Despite the rain, the stench of death was strong here.
Eggs burst, somewhere not far away. No, the redheads hadn't given up, nor the Grelzers they led, either. If they could stop the Unkerlanters, they would. And if they couldn't, they would make King Swemmel's soldiers pay the highest possible price for going forward. He'd seen that, too.
"Urra!" a peasant shouted as Rathar walked down the street toward what had probably been the firstman's house. Rathar nodded at him and went on. The peasant was gray-haired and limped. Maybe he'd been wounded in the Six Years' War. That might keep Swemmel's impressers from hauling him into the army once the front moved a little farther east. The younger, haler men in the village, though, those of them that were left, would probably be wearing rock-gray and carrying sticks before long.
Those of them that were left. A sour expression on his face, Rathar surveyed the village. Aye, it had been fought over. But he'd been through plenty of other villages that had been fought over. Once the fighting was over, the peasants came back from wherever they'd been hiding and got on with their lives. Here in Grelz, a lot of them didn't. A lot of them fled east with the retreating
Algarvians. He'd seen some of that before, in lands to the south and west. He'd never seen it to the degree he was seeing it here, however.
How bad would it be if the Algarvians had set up a local noble as king, and not King Mezentio's first cousin? he wondered. No way to know, of course, but he suspected it would have been a good deal worse. As things were, a lot of Grelzers still remained loyal to the throne of Unkerlant. Had they had one of their own set above them, not some foreign overlord...
Algarvians were arrogant. It was their worst failing. They hadn't thought they would need to worry about how the Grelzers felt. And so Raniero got to wear a fancy crown and call himself king-and plenty of men who might have put up with a Grelzer puppet went into the woods and fought for Swemmel.
Rathar stomped on over to the firstman's house, scraping mud from his boots off against the doorsill. General Vatran looked up from a mug of tea-fortified tea, for Rathar's nose caught the tang of spirits. "Well?" Vatran asked. "I trust his Majesty was pleased to learn where we are?"
"Aye, so he was," Rathar agreed. "Much easier to explain advances than retreats, by the powers abov
e."
"I believe it." Vatran lifted his mug in salute. "May we have many more advances to explain, then."
"That would be very fine." Rathar raised his voice a little: "Ysolt, can I get a mug of tea, too? And a good slug of whatever Vatran poured into it?"
"Coming up, lord Marshal." The headquarters cook had been plucking a chicken. Now she went over to the brass kettle hanging above the fire and poured tea for Rathar. As she brought it to him, she went on, "You'll have to pry the brandy out of the general. That's his, not ours." She went back to the bird, rolling her formidable haunches as she walked.
Rathar held out the mug to Vatran. "How about it, General?"
Vatran undid the flask he wore on his belt. "Here you go, lord Marshal. If this doesn't make your eyes open wide, you're dead."
Turtledove, Harry - Darkness 04 - Rulers Of The Darkness Page 61
