Having those little brass stars on his collar tabs, though, put things in a new light. The peasants in Leiferde bowed and scraped before him. As often as not, they called himyour Excellency.
His own men figured out what was going on before he did. With a grin, SergeantKiun said, “Do you know what it is, sir?” When Leudast shook his head, Kiun’s grin got wider than ever. “I’ll tell you what it is. What it is is, they think you’re a nobleman.”
“A nobleman?” Leudast stared at his comrade. That idea had never entered his mind, not even for a moment. “You’re bloody daft, is what you are.”
“By the powers above, I’m not,” Kiun retorted.
“Lookat me,” Leudast said. “Do I look like a nobleman to you? I need a shave. My tunic’s filthy. There’s dirt under my fingernails. There’s dirt ground into my knuckles, too, so deep no steambath’ll ever sweat it out. You think nobles have dirty hands?”
“Thereis a war on, in case you haven’t noticed.” Kiun shrugged. “You can let ‘em know you’re just a nobody, if that’s what you want to do. I’ll tell you something, though: you’ve got a lot better chance of getting the girl in that hut where you’re staying to put out for you if she thinks she might have a baron’s bastard than if you’re just hoping she decides you’re a handsome whoreson… sir.”
Leudast raised an eyebrow. Now Kiun had his attention. “You think so?” he said. “Alize isn’t bad, is she?”
“Well, I wouldn’t throw her out of bed,” Kiun said, “not that she’s likely to end up in mine. But I haven’t done too bad for myself. I may not be an officer, but I know what I want and I know how to get it. If you want, sir, everybody in the company’ll talk you up for a blueblood. You’ve taken care of us. We can take care of you.”
“You don’t need to go that far.” Leudast paused and scratched the side of his jaw. “But I don’t suppose you have to go out of your way to tell people I know how to muck out a barn at least as well as they do, either.” Kiun laughed, nodded, winked, and went on his way.
A nobleman? Me? Leudast still found the idea absurd. It was, in fact, absurd for several reasons, not least that Unkerlanter nobility wasn’t what it had been back in the days before the Six Years’ War. A lot of nobles had fallen fighting Algarve then. A lot more had sided with Kyot, Swemmel’s brother, in the madness of the Twinkings War afterwards. Few who’d made that mistake remained among the living. AndKingSwemmel had gone right on getting rid of noblemen who met his displeasure all through his reign. The Algarvians had killed many more in this war. One reason the Unkerlanter army had so many officers without breeding was that there weren’t nearly enough nobles to fill the required slots.
Then Leudast stopped thinking of absurdities and started thinking of Alize. She was a few years younger than he, which put her somewhere around twenty. She had bright eyes and very white teeth and a shape even the long, baggy tunics Unkerlanter women wore couldn’t disguise. She’d given him plenty of pleasant smiles. If she wanted to give him more than smiles, he wouldn’t mind at all.
For the time being, all he could do was think about it. He squelched through Leiferde and the surrounding fields, making sure his men were ready to fight in case the Algarvians attacked in spite of the mud-and making sure they were ready to go forward in case his own superiors gave the word. He hoped his own superiors would have the good sense to do no such thing, but years as a common soldier and a sergeant had taught him not to rely on his superiors’ good sense.
When he got back to the house where he was billeted, he was all over mud. Alize’s mother, a brisk, handsome woman called Bertrude, gave him a bucket of hot water from the kettle over the stove and a rag. “Here you are, your Excellency,” she said. “This may not be so fine as you’re used to, sir, but it should do the job.”
She sounded more deferential than she had before. Had Kiun been telling tales? Leudast could hardly ask her. All he said was, “It will do fine,” and cleaned himself off as best he could.
Bertude’s husband, whose name was Akerin, rarely stirred from the bench where he was sitting. He had a jar of spirits beside him. Leudast had never seen him without a jar of spirits beside him. A lot of Unkerlanter peasants passed their winters that way. He’d done it himself.
Bertrude bustled over and poured Leudast a mug of spirits. “This will help warm you up, too, sir,” she said.
“Well, so it will.” Leudast drank. The spirits were potent, but no more so than he’d had back home. He pointed to a pot bubbling beside the hot-water kettle. “The stew smells good.”
“I’m glad it suits you, your Excellency,” Bertrude said, and dropped him a curtsy, as if she were a duchess herself. Aye, Kiun ‘s been running off at the mouth, Leudast thought. The peasant woman went on, “Alize there put it together. She’s a fine cook, Alize is, a fine cook-better than I was at the same age, I’m sure.”
Alize was mending a tunic. Hearing her name, she looked up and smiled at Leudast. As an experiment, he bowed to her. Though her skin was as swarthy as his own, he saw her blush. “Why don’t you let me have some?” he said.
Blushing still, she hurried to get a bowl and serve him. “I hope you like it, your Excellency,” she said, her voice so soft Leudast had to bend toward her to hear.
She stood waiting nervously while he began to eat. He wondered what an Algarvian officer who didn’t care for the stew might have done. Nothing good-he was sure of that. She had to fear his doing something just as dreadful. He smiled at her and said, “Very tasty.”
Her own smile was the sun coming out from behind thick clouds. Her lips shaped silent words. Powers above be praised. She probably would have said the same thing after an Algarvian officer approved-or after one ofKingSwemmel ’s inspectors did. That thought shamed Leudast. Bedding Alize when she hardly dared say no struck him as unsporting.
Bertrude made a clucking noise and beckoned imperiously. Her husband came over to her. She spoke too quietly for Leudast to make out what she was saying. Whatever it was, though, she plainly intended to brook no disagreement. When Akerin started to say something, she poked him in the chest with her forefinger and talked through him. Only when he started nodding did she look satisfied. A lot of the time, Unkerlanter men slapped their women around. Not in this hut, though.
After a little while, Bertrude fell silent. Her husband cleared his throat a couple of times, and then spoke to Alize: “Your mother and I, we’re going to go next door for a bit, see if we can get back that pot the neighbors borrowed from us. Likely we’ll chat some, too.”
“All right, Father,” Alize said.
“You’ll be all right by yourself with the lieutenant here,” Bertrude added. “He can protect you better than we could, if you get right down to it. Come along, Akerin.” She all but dragged her husband out of the hut.
Alize blushed again. Up till now, her mother and father had made a point of not leaving her alone with Leudast. Now they were making a point of going off. Leudast doubted Alize needed protecting. He thought Bertrude and Akerin were angling for a husband for her.
Of course, being an officer and being liable to get called away to fight as soon as the spring thaw ended, he could enjoy himself with her without worrying about details like weddings. She had to know the game her parents were playing. She probably knew he could do what he wanted without concern for consequences, too. More roughly than he’d intended, he said, “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Alize.” Sure enough, his sense of shame was still working.
“Oh. That,” she said. “I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all. If you want to know the truth, you’re the first one who ever bothered saying anything like that.” She made a wry face. “Mother would slap me silly if she heard me telling you such things. She’d want me to make you think I was still a maiden-and how likely isthat, after everything that’s happened the past few years?”
“I don’t know,” Leudast answered, though he had a pretty good idea.
“Well, then,” Alize said, and pulled the t
unic off over her head.
When Leudast saw her deep-breasted, sweetly curved form, his shame melted like the snow outside, only far faster and far more thoroughly. He reached for her. Her flesh was soft and warm under his hands. Her breath sighed out when he tilted her face up for a kiss.
He soon shed his own uniform tunic. Clinging to each other, he and Alize went over to the padded benches along the wall that made up most of the furniture of an Unkerlanter peasant house. When they lay down together, Leudast discovered that Alize would have had a hard time convincing him she was a maiden. She knew too much of men and what pleased them.
Because she did, he enjoyed himself more than he might have otherwise. He thought she did, too; if she didn’t, she was artful about hiding it. After they finished, he took his weight on his elbows and knees, which made her nod in measured approval. Looking up at him, she said, “You’ll be going away before long, won’t you?”
“Probably,” he answered. “I didn’t come to Leiferde for this. It’s more fun than fighting Algarvians, but it’s not why the king gives me silver-when he bothers to give me silver, I mean.”
That made Alize laugh. She nodded again, and then flipped back a lock of dark hair that had fallen in front of her face. She said, “Powers above keep you safe. Afterwards-if there is an afterwards-if you want to come back here and talk about things, that’s all right. And if you don’t…” Her shrug was delightful to behold.
Leudast caught her to him. They began again. He had no idea whether he’d want to come back to Leiferde if the war ever ended. He had no idea if it would ever end. Powers above, he thought, Ihave no idea if her mother and father are going to walk in on us. She wrapped her legs around him. For the moment, he didn’t care about any of that, either.
PrinceJuhainensteepled his fingers as he studied Pekka. “How soon will this sorcery be ready to use against the Algarvians?” he asked. His eyes flicked around her room in the hostel. He didn’t seem much impressed. The Seven Princes of Kuusamo were neither so rich nor so ostentatious as the kings on the mainland of Derlavai, but such bare little chambers had to be alien to them.
She answered, “Your Highness, we’ve already used this sorcery against the Algarvians, when they tried to use their murderous magic against us.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Juhainen said. He was younger than Pekka; maybe that was why she had trouble taking him seriously. Or maybe it was just that she didn’t reckon him a man to match his uncle, PrinceJoroinen, whom he’d succeeded when the Algarvians’ sorcerous attack on Yliharma slew Joroinen.
With some effort, Pekka kept her temper. “What did you mean, then, your Highness?” she asked.
“How soon will ordinary mages be able to use the spells your group of sorcerers has developed?” Juhainen did his best to make himself clear.
And that was a good question, a question worth asking. “As soon as we make the spells as strong and as safe as we can, we’ll turn them over to the practical mages,” Pekka promised.
“But when will that be?” Juhainen persisted. “How long will it take? Will it happen by the summertime? Will it be a year from now? Will it be five years from now? You will understand, I have an interest in knowing.”
“Of course, your Highness,” Pekka said. “But you will understand-or I hope you will understand-the question isn’t easy to answer. The more we learn, the more we find we can learn. The more we do, the more we find we can do. I can’t guess when that will stop, or if it ever will.”
“Whether it does or not, you will understand that out beyond the Naantali district we are fighting a war,”PrinceJuhainen said. “We need the weapons you are readying here. If they aren’t quite perfect… we need them anyhow, the sooner the better.”
“We’ll do what we can, your Highness,” Pekka said.
“Please do. Time is shorter than you might think.” Without waiting for an answer, the prince rose and strode out of Pekka’s chamber. The door clicked shut behind him.
Well, well. How intriguing, she thought. Up till now, the Seven Princes had paid little direct attention to her project. Every now and then, they would ask questions. Every now and then, too, they would grumble about how much things cost. Other than that, they’d left her alone. Not anymore. And what did that mean?
Only one answer occurred to her. Before very long, we’re going to need that sorcery, and need it badly. As far as she could see, that could mean only one thing, too: before long, Kuusaman and Lagoan soldiers would be fighting on the Derlavaian mainland.
It wasn’t anything that came as any great shock. Ships and leviathans and dragons weren’t going to be enough to drive the Algarvians out of Valmiera and Jelgava, not without soldiers on the ground to go in and take those lands away from them. She sighed. There was so much left to learn about the relationship between the laws of similarity and contagion, and about the inverted unity lying at their heart.
After that sigh, though, came a smile. Ilmarinen was ready to experiment endlessly, to pursue his own theories about twisted time. Nothing likely to annoy him struck Pekka as altogether distressing.
By the time she got down to the refectory, PrinceJuhainen had already left the hostel. He could escape whenever he chose. He didn’t have to come here unless he wanted to. Pekka envied him. Oh, how she envied him!
As things were, she had to go on herding cats-at least that was what dealing with her fellow theoretical sorcerers often felt like. Raahe and Alkio sat in the refectory, drinking tea. They weren’t so bad. Pekka waved to a serving girl and asked for some tea herself. Then she went over and sat down beside the married couple. As theorectical sorcerers went, they were pretty well civilized. Their being husband and wife probably had a good deal to do with that.
“What did his Highness want?” Raahe asked, setting down her cup. Juhainen had told Pekka nobody in the outside world knew where he was, but keeping secrets inside the hostel was impossible.
Pekka didn’t try. “He wanted us to hurry toward turning our spells into something final.”
“Ah.” That was Alkio. More often than not, he let his wife do the talking. Now, though, he said, “They’re wondering how soon they can put men on the mainland, unless I miss my guess.”
“I thought the same thing,” Pekka answered.
“What did you tell him?” Raahe asked.
“That we weren’t quite ready yet, that we were still finding ways to make the spells stronger and safer,” Pekka said. “I don’t know if practical mages who used them could stand against the murderous magic the Algarvians hurl around.”
“Wedid,” Raahe said. “We didn’t just stand against Mezentio’s magic, either. We beat the Algarvians back, by the powers above.”
“Aye, we did.” Every word of that was true. But could practical mages match it if menaced by Mezentio’s magecraft? Could my husband defeat Algarvian wizards who were killing Kaunians to try to kill him? Pekka didn’t want to put it that way, even if that thought was uppermost in her mind. What she did say was, “We’re not ordinary mages.”
“I should hope not.” Raahe glanced around to make sure nobody at the other tables was listening. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “If Ilmarinen were ordinary…” She rolled her eyes.
Before Pekka could get out more than the beginnings of a giggle, Alkio said, “The mages who attacked us probably weren’t ordinary, either. The Algarvians knew we were doing something important. They’d have thrown their best at us.”
“And we beat them,” Raahe repeated.
That was also true. “I hadn’t thought of it in those terms,” Pekka admitted. But Alkio was likely to be right. Kuusaman and Lagoan mages fighting on the mainland might well not face magecraft of the same vicious intensity as that which had surmounted the Strait of Valmiera and struck at the Naantali district.
“Hadn’t thought of what in which terms?” Ilmarinen demanded, hurrying toward the table where Pekka sat. “You’ve got to think of everything- either that, or you’ve got to have someone who wi
ll do it for you.” By the way he preened as he sat down, he had someone in mind. Raahe rolled her eyes again.
Since Ilmarinen did commonly think in terms that occurred to no one else under the sun, Pekka couldn’t even get annoyed at him-not for that, anyhow, though she knew he was bound to give her some other reason before long. She explained what the conversation had been about.
“Ah,” Ilmarinen said when she was through. He nodded to Alkio. “Aye, that makes sense-which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. Their magic gets a large energy release any which way: killing is good for that, if you’ve got the stomach for it. Ours is different. Ours has to be done just right. If it isn’t, you might as well not bother.” His gaze swung toward Pekka. “And I hope you toldPrinceJuhainen as much.”
“Not in those words, no, but I did say we weren’t ready,” Pekka replied.
“Good,” Ilmarinen said. “Practical mages are a pack of thumb-fingered fools.”
“They say the same thing about us,” Pekka observed.
“Of course they do. So what?” Ilmarinen let out a wheezy chuckle. “Everything they say about us is a filthy lie, while everything we say about them is true.”
Raahe nodded. Ilmarinen chuckled again. Pekka felt sorry for Raahe, who’d just proved she couldn’t recognize irony if it walked up and bit her in the backside. Pekka said, “We do have to get ready pretty soon, to turn out magic even those thumb-fingered fools can use.”
She waited. Would Ilmarinen understand she’d noticed his irony and respond in kind? Or would he singe her as he’d just singed Raahe, or perhaps roast her as he’d roasted so many others over the years? He dipped his head and answered, “You’re right. The Algarvians have already arranged things so thattheir thumb-fingered fools can make the most of their magic.”
“Powers below eat the Algarvians,” Alkio said. “Do we want to imitate everything they do? Do we want to imitate anything they do?”
“We want to imitate everything they do that makes them likelier to win the war,” Pekka said, and then, before the other mages could tear her limb from rhetorical limb, “Everything we can imitate with a clean conscience. The kind of magecraft they use is one thing. The way they organize their mages is something else again. It’s morally neutral, not wicked the way the wizardry is.”
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