“But what am I going to do?” Krasta exclaimed-as usual, she came first in her own thoughts.
Her Algarvian lover shrugged. “I expect you will manage. You have a knack for it-and you are pretty enough to let you get away with a lot that would be intolerable from some other woman.” He stepped forward and slid his hand under the waistband of her trousers. Instead of fondling her as he’d done so many times, though, he let his palm rest on her belly. “If by some accident the baby does turn out to be mine, try not to hate it on that account.” He brushed his lips across hers, then hurried down the stairs without a backward glance.
Krasta took a step after him, but only one. She recognized futility when it hit her in the face. Lurcanio wouldn’t stop for her or for anyone else. She turned around and went to the bedchamber window. A small swarm of carriages waited there. Lurcanio came out and said something in his own language as he got into one. The Algarvian drivers flicked their reins. The carriages rattled away. Krasta watched till the last one vanished into predawn darkness.
How many Algarvians were leaving Priekule now, by carriage and on horse- and unicornback and aboard ley-line caravans gliding west? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Krasta couldn’t begin to guess. The question nonetheless had an answer. All of them. Lurcanio had said so.
What would Priekule be like without redheads strutting through it?
Krasta could hardly imagine. It had been too long. More than four years, she thought with sleepy wonder. She lay down again. Of itself, her own hand went where Lurcanio’s had lain only moments before.
Only a little bulge under there-no sound at all, of course. No movement, either, or none to speak of. She thought she’d felt the baby stir once or twice, but she wasn’t sure. “Why aren’t you Valnu’s?” she whispered to her belly. “Maybe youare Valnu’s. He had the first chance that day, after all.”
By the time she’d fallen asleep, she was more than halfway to convincing herself the Valmieran viscounthad to be the baby’s father.
Rain on the roof woke her-rain on the roof and the sounds of a raucous celebration downstairs. She muttered something vile under her breath. Since she’d started carrying that baby-ViscountValnu ’s baby; of course it wasViscountValnu ’s baby-she’d needed all the sleep she could get, and an extra hour besides. She started to shout for Bauska, then checked herself. She could hear her maidservant making a racket along with the rest of the help, and Bauska wasn’t likely to hear her.
Muttering more unpleasantries, she got out of bed, threw on some clothes (the trousers weren’t stylish, but they weren’t tight, either, which counted for more), and emerged from her bedchamber. Having emerged, she slammed the door behind her. That should have been plenty to make the servants downstairs grow quiet on the instant.
It should have, but it didn’t. Somebody-was that, could that possibly have been, her driver?-howled out a suggestion for King Mezentio that had to be the foulest thing she’d ever heard in her life, and she’d heard a good deal. A moment later, one of the cooks topped it. Everyone down there roared laughter.
Hearing that laughter, Krasta shivered a little. That laughter didn’t hold mirth-or rather, not mirth alone. A hunger for vengeance lived there, too. With the Algarvians gone like so many thieves in the night, where would that hunger feed?
“And the same to the twat upstairs!” someone else yelled, which brought more laughter and several cries of agreement. Krasta shivered again. She’d just had her question answered for her. She wished she knew who’d shouted that last. She would have dismissed him at once, and with a bad character, too.
A moment later, though, she squared her shoulders and marched down the stairs. Those wereservants down there, after all, and who of noble blood could take servants quite seriously?
They were sitting-some sprawling-around the big dining-hall table, eating her food and swilling down her ale and brandy. Abrupt silence fell when they saw her standing in the doorway. “Here is the twat upstairs,” she said crisply. “Now, what do you intend to do about it?”
That should have cowed them. Before the war, it surely would have. Even now, it almost did-almost, but not quite. After that silence stretched, it tore. One of the women pointed at her and said, “Filthy whore! She’s got an Algarvian baby growing in her belly!”
Those weren’t roars that rose from the servants now. They were growls- fierce, savage growls. Krasta wondered if she should have left Priekule with Lurcanio. She wondered if he would have taken her. Too late to worry about any of that. If she didn’t face down the servants this very minute, she would never get another chance. She might never get a chance to do anything else, ever again.
“Smilgya, you’re sacked,” she said. “Take whatever you have and go.”
“You can’t tell me what to do any more,” Smilgya screeched, “not when you’ve been spreading your legs for the redheads all this time. Whore! Traitor!”
There sat Bauska, gulping ale and nodding vigorously. Krasta almost sacked her, too, but came up with something better instead: “How is Brindza this morning, Bauska? And what do you hear fromCaptainMosco?”
Bauska flushed scarlet. Her half-Algarvian bastard daughter was almost three years old now. The other servants-some of them, anyhow-stared at her, not at Krasta. They’d come to take Brindza for granted. Suddenly they had to remember her mother had had a redheaded lover, too.
And she wasn’t the only one, either. Smiling spitefully, Krasta said, “How many women here haven’t bedded an Algarvian or two? You all know the truth.” She didn’t know the truth herself, but she’d heard a lot of gossip.
When no one came back with an immediate sharp retort, her smile got wider and more spiteful still. Then, in a shrill voice, Smilgya said, “Inever did, by the powers above!”
“I believethat,” Krasta replied with flaying contempt: Smilgya was chunky, fifty-five or so, and homely. She let out a shriek of fury, but some of the other servants-mostly men-laughed at her. Krasta pressed an advantage she knew she might not keep for long: “I told you-you’re dismissed. Get out of my house.”
Smilgya looked around for support. She didn’t see so much as she’d expected. Springing to her feet, she cried, “I wouldn’t work for anyone who sucked up to the redheads-who sucked off the redheads-like you did, not any more I wouldn’t.” She stormed away, adding, “I hope your Algarvian bastard is born with the pox, and I hope you’ve got it, too.”
Krasta set a hand on her belly again. This time, she tried to forget Lurcanio’s hand resting there in the middle of the night. “That’s not an Algarvian bastard in me,” she said. Ihope it’s not. Doing her best to ignore her own thought, she went on rapidly: “It’sViscountValnu ’s, and you all know what he did to the redheads, and how they almost killed him for it.”
“That’s not what you’ve been saying,” Bauska pointed out.
“Well, what if it isn’t?” Krasta tossed her head. “Wouldyou have told Lurcanio you’d been with another man, and a Valmieran at that? Or told yourCaptainMosco, when you were riding his prong? I doubt it very much, my dear.”
Bauska looked daggers at her. She didn’t care about that. She cared about stopping what felt like a peasant uprising from years gone by. Someone chose that moment to hammer on the front door with the old bronze knocker there. That helped distract the servants, too.
“Be so good as to answer that, Valmiru,” Krasta said, almost-but not quite-as imperiously as she might have before the war.
The butler got to his feet. Two or three servants shook their heads. One reached out to try to stop him. Valmiru just shrugged and headed for the door. A moment later, surprise filled his voice as he called back, “It’s Viscount Valnu, milady!”
“There, you see?” Krasta said triumphantly. The servants blinked and gaped. Bauska’s eyes looked big as saucers. Krasta had hoped it might be Valnu, but hadn’t dared expect it. She started to hurry to the front door, but changed her mind and took her time. A gaggle of servitors trailed after her, as if wanting to s
ee the viscount for themselves before believing Valmiru.
Valnu’s smile lit up his bony face when Krasta strode into the entry hall. “Hello, sweetheart!” he said, and hurried up to plant a kiss on her mouth. “They’re gone at last. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“It certainly is,” Krasta answered, that seeming a better choice of words than a grudging, I suppose so. Asking whether Valnu missed certain handsome Algarvian officers didn’t strike her as the best idea at the moment, either. Instead, she set a hand on her belly and said, “I’m so glad you came to see us.”
ViscountValnu’s smile only got brighter. “Life is full of such interesting possibilities, isn’t it?” he murmured, and slipped an arm around Krasta’s waist. The staring servants sighed-relief? disappointment? Krasta couldn’t tell. She didn’t care, either. I got away with it, she thought.
Every time Ealstan came home to her and Saxburh, Vanai praised the powers above. These days, he had to sneak back to their block of flats, for the Algarvians had retaken this part of Eoforwic. While Vanai was about her praises, she squeezed in some gratitude that their block of flats remained standing. Two on the other side of the street were nothing but debris.
“What is the point?” she demanded of him one evening. The flat was a grim, dark place; the Algarvians blazed without hesitation or warning at any light that showed, and the shutters weren’t all they might have been. It was also chilly-none of the windows had any glass save a few knifelike shards left in it. When the rains came in earnest… She didn’t want to think about that. So far, the autumn had stayed dry.
Ealstan spooned up the stew of barley and peas and almonds she’d cooked with wood taken from the ruins across the way. He’d brought back a couple of jugs of wine; they both sipped from them. The water still wasn’t working here. Vanai had to carry water back from a fountain on a street corner a few blocks away.
“We’ve got to keep trying,” Ealstan said stubbornly.
“Why?” Vanai demanded. “Can’t Pybba see you’ve lost? You’ll only get more men killed if you go on fighting.”You might get killed yourself, she thought, and made a gesture older than the Kaunian Empire-or so Brivibas had told her, at any rate-to turn aside the evil omen. Iwouldn‘t want to go on living if anything happened to you. What would I do without you? How would I go on living? Why would I care to?
But Ealstan shook his head. She could hardly see the motion, there in the gloom. “We have to go on now, and hope for the best. When the redheads catch us these days, they kill us. They won’t let us surrender. If Pybba tried to give up, they’d slaughter all our fighters.”
“Oh.” Vanai hated the weakness and fear she heard in her own voice, hated them but couldn’t help them. She was relieved when Saxburh woke from a nap and started to cry.
As she went to get the baby, though, her husband’s voice pursued her: “Now the Forthwegian fighters are starting to understand what being a Kaunian in this kingdom was like. They don’t much care for it.” He laughed without mirth.
Vanai brought her daughter out to the kitchen. As she undid her tunic so Saxburh could nurse, she said, “Stay here with me, then. Don’t go back to it at all. You’ve done enough-can’t you see that?”
“If we can drive the redheads out of Eoforwic ourselves, we have a better chance of dealing with the Unkerlanters afterwards,” Ealstan insisted.
“So what?” Vanai said. “So fornicating what?” Even in the darkness, she could see his mouth fall open. She went on, “What difference does it make? Between you and Mezentio’s men, you’ve wrecked the city. It won’t be the same for the next fifty years. And the Unkerlanters are going to take it away from you or the Algarvians sooner or later anyhow.”
“We have to try,” Ealstan said again, and Vanai knew argument was useless. Forthwegian patriots were some of the bravest men on the continent of Derlavai. No one would have quarreled with that. They were also some of the most blockheaded men on Derlavai. Vanai expected she would have got quarrels there. But she knew what she knew, and Ealstan gave her all the evidence she needed to prove it.
She thought about seducing him to get him to stay here instead of going back to the fighting. Spinello had taught her everything she ever needed to learn about trading favors for something she wanted. But she’d never done that sort of thing with Ealstan, and the idea of starting sickened her. She hadn’t married Ealstan, she hadn’t borne his child, to prostitute herself with him.
Besides, and even more to the point, she didn’t think it would work. Unlike Spinello, Ealstan wasn’t one to change his mind because a woman did or didn’t go to bed with him. In fact, the next thing she found that would make him change his mind once he’d made it up would be the first.
Even though it was dark, Saxburh felt like playing once she’d been fed and changed. She’d learned how to roll over not too long before, and would do it again and again, laughing each time. Her joy made Ealstan laugh, too, something Vanai hadn’t been able to manage.
Eggs burst, not too far away. Saxburh had heard those roars so often, they hardly bothered her any more. She remained intent on what she’d been doing. Vanai envied her. Unlike the baby, she knew the havoc eggs could wreak.
“By the time this is over, there won’t be much left of Eoforwic-you’re right about that,” Ealstan said.
“Pybba should have thought of that before he raised his rebellion,” Vanai answered. Saxburh just kept laughing. The pure glee in the sound made Vanai wish she were four months old, too.
“Who would have thought Mezentio’s men would fight back likethis?” Ealstan said bitterly. “And who would have thought the Unkerlanters would sit quiet on the other side of the Twegen and let the Algarvians smash us?”
“Algarvians are Algarvians,” Vanai pointed out. “We’ve known for years how they’re fighting this war. And the Unkerlanters are no bargain, either, except when you compare them to the redheads.”
“True. Every word of it’s true.” Ealstan slammed his fist, hard, into the palm of his other hand. “But seeing it…” He hit himself again, harder yet. Maybe he was hoping he could hurt himself.
“You couldn’t have done anything to change the way it happened,” Vanai said, guessing what was troubling him. “Pybba wouldn’t have listened to you even if you tried. Pybba doesn’t listen to anyone but himself.”
“Well, that’s true enough,” Ealstan said. “Still-”
“No.” Vanai did her best to make her voice firm and unyielding. “You’ve done everything you could. You’ve done more than anyone could have expected, including yourself. Sometimes things don’t work out the way you wish they would have, and that’s all there is to it.”
“I wish I could say you were wrong,” Ealstan told her. “You don’t know how much I wish I could say that.”
“Oh, I think I might,” Vanai said. He thought about that, then nodded. As if to stop thinking for a little while, he picked up Saxburh and cuddled her. She promptly fell asleep. She seemed to do that faster for Ealstan than she did for Vanai. It sometimes annoyed Vanai-she did most of the work of taking care of the baby, so why should Saxburh go to sleep more easily for Ealstan?
When Ealstan set Saxburh in the cradle, she woke up with a yowl. Vanai, feeling vindicated, scooped her out and rocked her till she quieted down again. It didn’t take long; the babywas sleepy. Vanai got her back into the cradle without waking her.
Ealstan sighed. So did Vanai. “Let’s go to bed,” she said. With the lights working, it wouldn’t have seemed so late. As things were. ..
As things were, Ealstan chuckled and asked, “How do you mean that?”
Vanai considered. Giving herself to him now wouldn’t be the same as doing it in the hope of keeping him from going out to try to kill more Algarvians. And if we don’t do it now, we may not get another chance. She did her best to suppress that thought, as she did whenever ones like it crossed her mind.
After a pause almost surely too short for Ealstan to notice, she said, “However you like. If you’
d rather just sleep, that’s all right.”
He snorted. “I’m so far behind on sleep, I don’t think I’ll ever get even. Come to think of it, I’m pretty far behind on the other, too.” He caught her to him. They hurried into the bedroom, each with an arm around the other’s waist.
Afterwards, Vanai lay awake for a while, listening to the sounds of war in Eoforwic. Ealstan sprawled beside her, not moving, hardly seeming to breathe. He didn’t usually roll over and go to sleep right after making love, but he didn’t usually set his life on the line every time he left the flat, either. Jokes about men who rolled over and fell asleep went back at least to the days of the Kaunian Empire, but Vanai couldn’t begrudge Ealstan the rest he needed so badly.
Pybba, on the other hand… She wished something unfortunate would happen to Pybba. He couldn’t have known ahead of time how things would turn out. Who could? All the same, his miscalculation had brought Eoforwic down in ruins, along with his hopes.
All this death, all this wreckage-and even if they had thrown Mezentio’s men out of Eoforwic for good, how much difference would it have made to Swemmel of Unkerlant? Even a copper’s worth? Vanai didn’t think so. Forthwegian pride had done nothing more than leave a lot of Forthwegians dead.
And the Algarvians are killing any fighters they catch. Have they finally run out ofKaunians? Vanai shivered. She moved closer to Ealstan, for warmth and because she didn’t want to be alone even if he was dead to the world. Couldn’t Mezentio’s men take blonds out of Valmiera and Jelgava? Vanai shrugged. Since the Forthwegians in Eoforwic rose up against the Algarvian occupiers, she’d heard little about how the war was going in other corners of Derlavai. If Ealstan hadn’t been close to Pybba, she wouldn’t have heard anything at all.
She started to set a hand on Ealstan’s shoulder, but quickly drew back before touching him. She’d made the mistake of doing that once, and only once. He might be asleep to the point of unconsciousness, but he woke instantly and struck out, as if someone were trying to kill him. Maybe someonehad tried to kill him while he was asleep. If so, the redhead hadn’t managed it-and Ealstan had never said a word about it to Vanai.
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