Through the Darkness d-3

by Harry Turtledove

  “I know,” Rathar said. “And we’re lucky. If the Algarvians had used a little more honey, if they’d had the wit to prop up a Grelzer noble in Herborn. .”

  “They didn’t think they needed to,” Vatran said scornfully. “They figured they could do whatever they pleased, same as they did in the east. Now they’ve found out they were wrong-but it’s a little fornicating late for that, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Here’s hoping,” answered Rather, whose greatest fear all along had been that the Unkerlanter peasantry, after more than twenty years of King Swemmel’s rule, would prefer any other overlords, even ones with red hair. But that hadn’t happened, and it didn’t look like happening now. He pointed to the map, north and east of Sulingen. “Before too long, maybe we can start giving them back some of their own.”

  “Ground’s not frozen hard enough yet,” Vatran observed.

  “I said, ‘before too long.’ “ Rathar sighed. “Do you know what I’ve had more trouble about than anything else?”

  “Of course I do,” Vatran answered. “Keeping King Swemmel from ordering us to do things before we’re ready to do them.” He lowered his voice. “If Kyot hadn’t been the same way, Swemmel never would have won the Twinkings War.”

  “I know.” Memories of that confused, vicious struggled crowded forward in Rathar’s mind. He shoved them down again; none taught much about the general’s art. “But we’ve managed it this time-so far, anyhow. Easier when I’m away from Cottbus than when I’m there.”

  “Aye-his Majesty’s not bending your ear so much,” Vatran said. “Only question is, who’s bending his ear while you’re down here?”

  “I do wonder about that every now and then: when I have time to wonder about anything except what the Algarvians are doing, I mean,” Rathar said. “We haven’t had any trouble so far.”

  “So far.” Vatran freighted the words with ominous import, as if he were a fortune-teller seeing doom ahead.

  “His Majesty wants this war won,” Rathar said. “Till you understand that, you understand nothing about him. He is as inflexible now as he ever was in the days when Kyot offered to split the kingdom.”

  “All right.” Vatran leaned forward and spoke in a very, very low voice: “Where d’you suppose we’d be if Kyot had won the civil war?”

  “You and I?” Rathar didn’t need long to think that over. “We’d be dead. Kyot didn’t love his enemies any more than Swemmel did-does. They were twins, after all, like as two peas in a pod.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you bloody well know it,” Vatran said. “Where would the kingdom be? Better? Worse? The same?”

  “How can you judge?” Rathar answered with a shrug. “Not much different, odds are. The faces would be, but not Unkerlant. Or do you think otherwise?”

  “No, not really.” Vatran sighed. “It would be nice if we could be efficient without talking about efficiency all the time, if we could be a proper Derlavaian kingdom instead of a great slapdash thing that never manages to get it right the first try, and usually not the second one, either. Do you know what I’m saying, lord Marshal, or is this all just moonshine and hogwash to you?”

  “I know what you’re saying, all right,” Rathar answered. “Anybody who’s ever led troops against Algarvians knows what you mean: either he knows or he gets killed before he can find out. But I’ll tell you something, General.”

  “What’s that?” Vatran sounded like a man who’d drunk himself sad, even if he’d had nothing stronger than tea.

  “The more we fight the Algarvians, the more efficient we get,” Rathar replied. “We have to. Either that, or we go under. And I’ll tell you something else, too: the redheads never figured we’d last this long. We’ve already given ‘em one surprise. Now we find how many more we’ve got.” He nodded, liking the sound of those words. “We find out pretty soon, by the powers above.”

  “Come back here, you miserable, cursed thing!” Skarnu called to a sheep that had broken away from the flock. The sheep showed no interest in coming. It had found some good grass near the edge of the woods, and its thick woolly coat, which hadn’t been sheared in a while, shed the cold, nasty rain that pelted down out of a sky gray to begin with and now darkening toward evening.

  Skarnu’s hooded cape shed rain, too, but not so well. He squelched toward the sheep, temper fraying with every step he took. He hefted his crook. When he got close enough to the infuriating animal, he intended to teach it who was boss, and in no uncertain terms.

  But the sheep might have known what he had in mind-and it certainly knew just how far he could reach with that crook. Nimble as if it had grown up hopping from crag to crag in the Bratanu Mountains, it skipped away from him again and again. He wondered if it would try to jump the fence and cross the road so it could get in among the oaks and forage for acorns like a wild boar.

  It didn’t jump, but it did evade him again, almost as if it were playing with him. Longingly, he looked back toward the farmhouse. Merkela would have a big pot of stew bubbling over the fire. He didn’t care if it was only barley and peas and beans and cabbage. It would fill him up and warm him from the inside out. As things were, he’d be lucky if he didn’t come down with chest fever by the time he finally chased down this pestilential sheep.

  “You’d make good mutton,” he growled. “You’d make bloody wonderful mutton, do you know that?”

  He wondered what Merkela would say if he cut the sheep’s throat when he finally caught it, gutted the carcass, and dragged it back to the farmhouse. He sighed. No, he didn’t really wonder what Merkela would say. He knew. The sheep would live, no matter how much he wished it dead.

  In the driving rain and deepening gloom, he didn’t see the horsemen coming up the road till they were quite close. They didn’t see him, either-and then, all at once, they did. One of them called out in accented Valmieran: “You are being the peasant calling self Skarnu?”

  Skarnu didn’t wait to admit or deny he was himself. He stood only a couple of strides from the rail fence. He scrambled up over it, dashed across the road, and ran off into the woods.

  “Halting!” yelled the Algarvian who spoke his language. But Skarnu had no intention of halting. He could think of only one reason the redheads would want him, the same one that had made him hide in the woods before. He cursed his sister again for betraying him to her Algarvian lover.

  Mezentio’s men didn’t just shout at Skarnu. They started blazing at him, too. Beams sizzled past, boiling raindrops as they went. But in weather like this, the beams weakened rapidly. When one struck him, it had enough force left to burn through his cloak, enough to burn through his trousers, but not enough to do much more than scorch his backside. On a rainless day, it might have brought him down.

  As things were, he howled and yelped and sprang in the air and clapped a hand to the singed part, almost as if he were a comic actor up on the stage. He ran on for a couple of steps, wondering how bad the wound was. Then he decided he couldn’t be too badly hurt if he could keep on running so fast. He dodged in and out among the trees, trying to put as many trunks as he could between himself and the Algarvians.

  They pounded after him on foot, calling to one another in their own language. There were four or five of them; he hadn’t bothered to count before fleeing. They all had sticks, and his throbbing right buttock proclaimed they weren’t shy about using them. But it was getting dark, and he knew the woods, and they didn’t. Once he stopped running in blind panic and started using his head, he had little trouble shaking them off.

  Hood drawn down over his face, he sheltered in a thick clump of bushes while they ran past. One came within fifteen or twenty feet, but had no idea he was anywhere close by. Once they were all out of earshot, he got up and moved off to the side, away from the track they would have to take going back to their horses.

  He was tempted to go back to the horses himself, to ride off on one and lead the others away after it. But he didn’t know whether the redheads had left a man to watch
the animals. He would have, in their boots. And so, however alluring the prospect of giving them a good tweak was, he decided to content himself with escape.

  He spent a long, cold night in the woods. Without the cloak, he might have frozen. With it, he was merely miserable. He slept very little, no matter how tired he was. However much he wanted to, he couldn’t go back to the farm. He hoped the Algarvians had only been after him, not after Merkela and Raunu and the two Kaunians from Forthweg who’d joined them. He didn’t dare find out, though, not now.

  What do I do? Where do I go? The questions ate at him. For the time being, he wasn’t going anywhere, not unless he heard the Algarvians coming after him in the darkness. He was too likely to blunder into them. Instead, he waited for dawn or something close to it, and tried to stay as dry as he could. That wasn’t easy, not the way the rain kept pouring down.

  When at last he could see his outstretched hand in front of his face, he got moving. He struck the northbound road about where he thought he would. A slow smile stretched itself across his face. After a couple of years here, he was starting to know his way around as well as the locals did. No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than he chuckled. Any local to whom he was rash enough to say that would laugh himself silly.

  The redheads had men posted about where he thought they would: at the main crossroads. Had he been panicked, they would have nabbed him with ease. But he saw them before they spied him, and slipped in among the trees to slide around them.

  Before long, he left the road for one of the many little paths that meandered from one farm to another. He stayed on the verge wherever he could; the path was almost as full of water as a creek. It was lower than the surrounding countryside, which made it the drainage channel. He wondered how long people and animals and wheels had been wearing it down. Since the days of the Kaunian Empire? He wouldn’t have been surprised.

  After half a mile or so of hard, wet, slippery going, he walked up to another farmhouse. Rain rivered down the wood shakes of the roof and off the eaves, making a small lake around the house. Skarnu splashed through it, went up the stairs, and knocked on the front door.

  For a few minutes, nothing happened. He knocked again, and called: “It’s me. I’m by myself.” Then he had to wait some more.

  At last, though the door, did swing open. The farmer who stood in the doorway had a Valmieran military stick in his hands. Behind him, his hulking son held another. “It’s all right,” the farmer said, and they both lowered their weapons. The farmer stood aside. “Come in, Skarnu, before you catch your death.”

  “My thanks, Maironiu,” Skarnu answered. “I won’t stay long. The redheads were on my trail, but I lost ‘em. Some food, maybe a chance to rest a little-and whom do you know that lives east of here?”

  “Shed your cloak. Shed your boots. Eat some bread,” Maironiu said. “You’re sure you lost the redheaded buggers?” At Skarnu’s nod, he relaxed a little, but not much. His wife brought out the bread, and a mug of ale to go with it. Skarnu tore into the food like a starving wolf. Maironiu asked, “Did they scoop up everybody at old Gedominu’s place, the way they do sometimes?”

  It would be Gedominu’s place till the last man who’d known Merkela’s husband died of old age. Skarnu had long since resigned himself to that. He shook his head now. “I don’t think so. I think they were after me in particular.”

  Maironiu scowled. “That’s not good. That’s not even close to good. How could they know about you? Somebody blab?”

  Skarnu nodded again. My sister, he thought. He didn’t want to believe it of Krasta, but he didn’t know what else to believe. “I don’t think they know about anybody else in these parts,” he said. “I hope they don’t, anyhow.”

  “They’d better not,” Maironiu’s son burst out. “Life’s hard enough around here as is.”

  Seeing how Skarnu ate, Maironiu’s wife brought him another big chunk of bread. He bowed to her as he might have bowed to a duchess. He didn’t usually show off his court manners. For one thing, he seldom had the need. For another, he was so tired now, he hardly knew what he was doing. Maironiu and his wife exchanged glances; they knew what that bow was likely to mean. Maironiu asked the question with surprising subtlety: “You have enemies in the big city?”

  “Huh?” Skarnu needed a moment to figure out what that meant. He’d almost forgotten about his noble blood; a couple of years of farm work made him think it nothing very special after all. “It could be,” he said at last.

  “Well, go on out to the barn and curl up for a few hours, whoever you were once upon a time,” Maironiu told him. “Then I’ll take you east. I do know somebody who’s not part of our regular group, but he’ll know somebody else. They’ll pass you along, get you away from here.”

  “Thanks,” Skarnu repeated, though leaving Merkela, leaving the child she was carrying, was the last thing he wanted to do. One more reason to curse the Algarvians, he thought. Calling Mezentio’s men to mind made him ask, “What’ll you do if the redheads come while I’m in the barn?”

  “Get you away if we can,” Maironiu answered. “If we can’t…” He shrugged broad shoulders. “We’ll pretend we didn’t know you were there, that’s all.”

  “Fair enough.” Skarnu didn’t think he could have come up with a better response, not when he was endangering Maironiu and his family by being here. He picked up his sodden cloak and put it back on. Maironiu’s wife exclaimed at the puddle it left on the floor.

  Skarnu hadn’t slept on straw for a while, not since he’d started sharing Merkela’s bed. Exhausted as he was, he could have slept on nails and broken glass. He felt deep underwater when Maironiu shook him awake. The farmer had on a cloak much like his. “Hate to do it to you, pal,” Maironiu said, “but some things just won’t wait.”

  “Aye.” Skarnu hauled himself to his feet. The first few steps he took, out to the barn door, he stumbled like a drunken man. Then the cold rain hit him in the face. That woke him up, and sobered him up, in a hurry. “Where are we going?” he asked as he followed Maironiu away from the farm.

  “Like I told you, I know somebody,” Maironiu replied. “You don’t really want a name, do you?” Skarnu considered, then shook his head. Maironiu grunted approval. “All right, then. Once you’re out of this part of the kingdom, you should be pretty safe again, eh?”

  “I suppose so.” Skarnu kept looking back over his shoulder, not toward Maironiu’s farm but toward Merkela’s. Old Gedominu’s place, he thought. Everything in the world that mattered to him was there, and he couldn’t go back, not if he wanted to live. Cursing under his breath, he squelched after Maironiu.

  Sixteen

  Sergeant Pesaro glared at the constables lined up before him. Bembo looked back steadfastly, holding out a shield of burnished innocence to cover up whatever he might have done to rouse Pesaro’s anger. But Pesaro wasn’t angry at him. The sergeant seemed angry at the whole world. “Boys, we’ve got ourselves a problem,” he declared.

  “Our problem is whatever’s eating him,” Bembo whispered to Oraste. The other constable grunted and nodded.

  Pesaro pointed to a Forthwegian in a knee-length tunic walking past the barracks. “D’you see that bastard?” he said. “D’you see him?”

  “Aye, Sergeant,” the constables chorused dutifully. Bembo made sure his voice was a loud part of that chorus.

  Sergeant Pesaro kept right on pointing at the stocky, hook-nosed, black-bearded man. “You see him, eh? Well, all right-how do you know he’s not a stinking Kaunian?”

  “Because he doesn’t look like a Kaunian, Sergeant,” Bembo said, and then, under his breath to Oraste, “Because we’re not bloody idiots, Sergeant.” Oraste grunted again.

  But Pesaro was unappeased. “Do you know what those lousy blonds have gone and done? Do you? I’ll bloody well tell you what they’ve done. They’ve found themselves a magic that lets ‘em look like Forthwegians, that’s what. How are we supposed to tell who’s a stinking Kaunian snake in the gras
s if we can’t tell who’s a stinking Kaunian snake in the grass?”

  Bembo’s head started to ache. If that Forthwegian really was a Kaunian- if you couldn’t tell who was who by looking-how in blazes were you supposed to keep the blonds in their own district?

  Somebody stuck up a hand. Pesaro pointed to him, as if relieved not to be pointing at the Forthwegian-if he was a Forthwegian-anymore. The constable asked, “Can they make themselves look like us, too, or only like Forthwegians?”

  “That’s a good question,” Pesaro said. “I don’t have a good answer for it. All I got told about was Kaunians looking like Forthwegians.”

  Bembo stuck his hand in the air. “How do we know ‘em if we do find any? And what do we do if we catch one?”

  “The way you know is, snip off some hair. If it turns blond once it’s cut, you’ve caught yourself a Kaunian. If you catch one, you take the bugger to the caravan depot and ship his arse west. If he’s a she, you can do whatever else you want first. Nobody’ll say boo. We’ve got to stop this.”

  “Pretty miserable business, all right,” Bembo said. “The blonds don’t want to go west, so they stop looking like blonds. That’s not playing fair.”

  “Too cursed right it isn’t.” Pesaro didn’t notice the joke. “If we’re going to lick the Unkerlanters, we need Kaunians. We can’t let ‘em slip out from between our fingers like snot. And if you nail the whoreson who came up with this magic, you can ask for the moon. They’d probably give it to you. Any more questions? No? Get your backsides out there and catch those buggers.”

  He didn’t say how. Then Oraste raised his hand. Pesaro looked at him in some surprise; Oraste didn’t usually bother with questions. But when the sergeant nodded his way, he came up with a good one: “What shall we do, take along manicure scissors to snip hair with?”

  “If you’ve got ‘em, why not?” Pesaro answered. “It’s a better idea than people with fancier badges than yours have come up with, I’ll tell you that. But listen-don’t spend all your time checking the prettiest girls. We want the bastards with beards, too. They’re likely to be more dangerous. All right? Go on.”