Then he noticed that Bottero was eyeing him. "Didn't Aderno say you had some of the talent?" the king rumbled.
"He says it, but I don't know if I believe it." Hasso's voice broke as if he were one of the fifteen-year-olds to whom the Volkssturm gave a rifle and a "Good luck!" as they sent them off to try to slow down the Red Army. "And even if it's true, I don't know how to use it."
"About time you find out, then, isn't it?" Bottero said. "If you can do it, you'll give us a big hand."
"But — But — " Hasso spluttered.
"His Majesty's right," Orosei said. "Magic isn't a common gift. If you've got it, you shouldn't let it lie idle. The goddess wouldn't like that."
Did he mean Velona or the deity who sometimes inhabited her? Hasso didn't know, and wondered whether the Lenello did. "But — But — " he said again. He hated sounding like a broken record, but he didn't know what else to say.
The king slapped him on the back, which almost knocked him out of the saddle. If he'd fallen off the horse and landed on his head, it would have been a relief. "Talk to Velona," Bottero said. "She'll give you some pointers, and you can go from there. It doesn't sound like the kind of magic that can kill you if you don't do it right. Give it your best shot."
Hasso hadn't even thought about the consequences of a spell gone wrong. He wished his new sovereign hadn't reminded him of such things, too. But what were his choices here? He saw only two: say no and get a name for cowardice — the last thing he needed — or give it his best shot.
He'd long since decided that a big part of courage was nothing more than a reluctance to look like a coward in front of people who mattered to him. And so, reluctantly, he said, "Yes, your Majesty."
Velona came up and kissed him, which was a hell of a distraction for somebody contemplating his very first conjuration. "You can do it," she said. Her voice was full of confidence — and perhaps some warm promise, too. "I'm sure you can do it. The goddess wouldn't have brought you here to let you fail."
He didn't know why the goddess had brought him here. He didn't even know that the goddess had brought him here. King Bottero had a point, though. Velona knew a lot more about magic than he did. Christ! My horse knows more about magic than I do, he thought. Between her suggestions and his own few feeble ideas, he'd come up with what might be a spell.
It turned dowsing upside down and inside out. He wasn't trying to find water flowing underground — he was looking for unmoving objects concealed beneath running water. If everything went exactly right, the forked stick in his hands would rise when he pointed it at a submerged bridge.
The not-quite-dowsing stick was carved from one of the timbers the Lenelli had torn from the first underwater bridge. Velona said that would give it a mystic affinity with the other bridges… if there were others. The idea seemed reasonable, in an unreasonable kind of way.
Even so, he let his worry show: "If I find no bridges, does that mean there are no bridges? Or does it mean I can't find them? If I am no wizard, casting a spell does not help. Will not help." He remembered how to make the future tense. He didn't need to worry about the future, though. He was tense right now.
"Cast the spell. Then see what happens," Velona said. That also seemed reasonable — if your view of reason included spells in the first place. Hasso's didn't. Or rather, it hadn't.
Fighting not to show his fear, he started to chant. Velona had come up with a lot of the spell. Hasso would never make a poet in Lenello — come to that, he'd made a lousy poet auf Deutsch. What he had to remember here was to get the words right. He understood what the magic ought to do, even if he didn't perfectly follow all the phrases in the charm. Poetry was supposed to be challenging… wasn't it?
Velona gestured. That reminded him to move the not-dowsing rod. He swung it slowly from southwest to northeast, paralleling the course of the Aryesh. All of a sudden, it jerked upwards in his hands. He almost dropped it, he was so surprised. He'd no more thought he could truly work magic than that he could fly.
"There!" Velona said. "Go back, Hasso Pemsel. Go back and get the exact direction, so the artisans can find the hidden bridge."
He did, and damned if the rod didn't rise again. His own rod rose, too. He remembered how she'd called him by his full name when they met, there on the causeway through the swamp. He remembered what they'd done right afterwards, too, and he wanted to do it again.
His thoughts must have shown on his face, for Velona laughed, softly and throatily. "Soon," she promised. But then she tempered that, adding, "But not yet. First we see where the savages can sneak across the river."
"Oh, all right." Hasso knew he sounded like a petulant little boy who couldn't have what he wanted just when he wanted it. (Quite a bit like the Fuhrer, in fact, he thought.) Velona, who knew nothing about Hitler except that he was the man who ruled the country Hasso came from, laughed again, this time with rich amusement in her voice.
Hasso wished he had a compass, to give him a precise bearing on where that bridge lurked under the water. Nobody here had any idea what a compass was. If he could float an iron needle in a bowl of water… But he had too many other things to worry about right now.
Velona marked off the bearing as best she could. Hasso decided it would probably serve; they weren't very far from the Aryesh. "Go on," she urged him. "See if there are any more."
He wished she were urging him on while they were doing something else, but he saw the need for continuing with this. That need might not delight him, but he did see it. And working magic had a fascination, and an astonishment, all its own. He didn't think he'd been so delightfully surprised since the first time he played with himself.
And… "I'll be a son of a bitch!" he muttered. Damned if the rod didn't jerk up in his hand again. Chanting the charm over and over, he fixed the precise direction. Again, Velona marked it.
He found one more bridge after that, or thought he did. Part of him — a good bit of him — still wondered whether this wasn't some kind of delusion. But even in his world dowsers could — or claimed they could — find water. Maybe there was something to it.
Velona had no doubts. As soon as the spell was done, she plastered herself against him tighter than a coat of paint and gave him a kiss that curled his ears and made steam come out of his hair. Before he could sling her over his shoulder and carry her off to their tent — the first thing that occurred to him, even if she didn't weigh that much less than he did — she broke free and called for the artisans. After a moment, regretfully, so did Hasso.
The men came up with astonishing haste. Hasso didn't flatter himself that his shouts had much to do with it. When your goddess yelled for you, you went to her first and then wondered why she wanted you. (Hasso sometimes wondered why Velona still wanted him, but in a much more pleasant way.)
"Follow these bearings to the river, one by one," she said, pointing at the lines she'd laid out. "When you get there, probe under the surface. You'll find hidden bridges in each place. Tear them up."
They saluted, clenched fists over their hearts. "We'll do it!" they said, and hurried off. Hasso hoped they weren't going off for nothing, not least because he would look like a jerk if they were.
They must have found what they were looking for, because that evening King Bottero summoned Hasso to dine with him. He hadn't done that since Hasso's striking column slammed through the Bucovinans in the first — and, so far, only — big battle the two sides had fought. Bottero poured wine for Hasso with his own hand. "You see?" he said expansively. "I told you you could do it."
"Yes, your Majesty," Hasso said, which was an answer as useful here as Jawohl, mein Fuhrer! had been back in the Reich. And it wasn't even a lie this time around. Bottero did say so, and he was right.
"Why did you have any doubts?" the king asked. "If Aderno said you had the power, you did. Aderno may be a pain in the fundament sometimes, but he knows the difference between a snake and its cast skin."
"No magic in the world I come from," Hasso said. "Hard fo
r me to believe anyone has it." He jabbed a thumb at his own chest. "Extra hard to believe I have it."
"Well, you do," Bottero said. "Get used to it. The artisans came back all excited about how you knew exactly where to send them. They said you made their work easy. One of them asked why our regular wizards couldn't do so well."
Hasso winced. "They shouldn't say that." He didn't want the regular wizards angry at him. Maybe he could work a little magic, however crazy that seemed. But he wasn't a pro, and he knew it. If somebody who was a pro decided to turn him into a prawn, he didn't know how to defend himself or fight back.
A pretty young Grenye woman brought in a platter of pork ribs and roasted parsnips. The robe she wore was so thin, it wouldn't have kept her warm long outside. The king ran his hand up her leg. Was her smile forced or real? Was she glad to be getting off as easy as this, or did she hate him for groping her — and, no doubt, for taking her, too? Hasso had no way to know, which might have been — surely was — just as well.
He concentrated on the food. After a while, he asked, "How far to Falticeni, your Majesty?"
"We're getting there," Bottero answered. "Pretty soon, the savages will have to fight us again. We'll whip them, and then we'll go on and take the place."
The woman stood by the king, waiting for anything he might want — for anything at all, plainly. "Should you talk with her here?" Hasso asked.
"Why not?" Bottero asked. "She knows how to say, 'Yes,' in Lenello, and that's about it. And she's not going anywhere anyhow. She's hot enough to keep around for a while." He fondled her again, then asked, "You want her to suck you off? She's good."
Hasso might have enjoyed that if he'd found the girl himself. With Bottero watching, as he plainly intended to do? "No, thanks, your Majesty. I just came from Velona."
"Ah." The king leered. "She can wear anybody out."
"Yes." Hasso left it at that, and hoped Bottero would. He wasn't lying; Velona had helped him celebrate his successful sorcery. He also feared being unfaithful to her. As a woman? No, not so much, though she would be incandescent enough if scorned. But as a woman with the goddess indwelling? The last thing Hasso wanted to do was face an irate deity.
He didn't say that to King Bottero. It didn't seem manly. Then Bottero said, "You're pretty smart. If she found out about you and some chit, she'd fry your nuts off, I bet. Forget I asked you."
So the king respected — if that was the right word — Velona, too? Well, he would. He really believed in the goddess, believed in his belly and his balls. (Hasso tried not to think of his belly on Velona, his balls slapping the inside of her thighs.) To Hasso, belief like that came much harder, no matter what he'd seen here.
"How do we make the Bucovinans fight us?" Hasso asked. "If they stand, we can beat them, yes?"
"We'd better!" Bottero said. "That's what I'm trying to do — take a big bite out of them. Instead, they've been nibbling on us… and I don't mean like Sfinti here." He swatted the Bucovinan woman on the backside. She smiled at him again. Again, Hasso wondered what went on behind her eyes.
But only for a moment — he had other things to think about. The Wehrmacht had wanted to get the Red Army to stand and fight, too. Instead, the Russians traded space for time, drawing the Germans on till they got overextended and then hitting back. The Bucovinans looked to be playing the same game against Bottero.
Would it work here? If the Lenelli took Falticeni, obviously not. Otherwise? Hasso shrugged. He was too much a stranger here to be sure of much. Hell, he hadn't even been sure he could do magic. He still had trouble believing it.
He didn't want to think about that now. He gnawed on ribs and drank beer and tried not to watch Bottero pawing Sfinti. It wasn't that he hadn't seen plenty worse, most recently at Muresh. But the way she just stood there and let the king do what he wanted raised Hasso's hackles. He wouldn't have wanted to sleep with her, not literally, even if she kept on smiling. Wouldn't you be much too likely to wake up slightly dead the next morning?
King Bottero didn't seem to worry about it. Bottero didn't seem to worry about much of anything. "The rest of the Lenello kingdoms will be so jealous of us once we've cut off Bucovin's head," he boasted.
"Jealous enough to gang up on you?" Hasso asked. That would be all Bottero needed: getting through one war only to end up in another that was worse. Against other Lenelli, he wouldn't have any special edge.
"Don't think so." No, the king didn't worry about much. "What it will do, though, is it'll draw us more people from across the sea. They'll know we'll have lands to hand out, lands with plenty of Grenye on 'em to work and to have fun with." He pulled Sfinti down onto his lap.
Hasso got to his feet. "Maybe I'd better go, your Majesty," he said. King Bottero didn't tell him no. He bowed his way out of the tent. As the flap fell, Bottero laughed and the Bucovinan woman giggled. The guards outside grinned and nudged one another. One of them winked at Hasso. He had to make himself grin and wink back.
He also had to make himself hope Bottero knew what he was doing in there. The king pretty obviously thought so. Were the Bucovinans smart enough to leave a pretty assassin behind to be captured? Or would an ordinary Grenye woman pull out a knife if she saw the chance?
And even if the answer to both those questions was no, what would happen to Bottero's kingdom after this campaign? Hitler's biggest mistake was thinking he could take on almost the entire rest of the world. Was the local king doing the same stupid thing? Again, Hasso had to shrug. He didn't know enough to judge — just enough to worry.
"You're back sooner than I expected," Velona remarked when he ducked into the tent they shared.
"His Majesty has other things on his mind." Hasso shaped an hourglass in the air with his hands.
The Lenelli didn't use that gesture, and Velona needed a moment to realize what it meant. When she did, she laughed… for a moment. "He didn't want to share with you?" she asked ominously.
He could, to his own relief, answer with the exact truth: "I don't want to share with him. I have better here."
He wasn't afraid of facing the Bucovinans in battle. He wasn't afraid of trying to work magic, either — though maybe he needed to be, now that he'd discovered he could do it. But facing an angry Velona… That scared him green. He would rather have jumped on a Russian grenade.
Her eyes flashed as she inspected him. It wasn't just a figure of speech; the spark in them seemed to light up the gloom inside the tent. Maybe he was imagining things, but he didn't think so. Her gaze didn't probe him the same way a wizard's would have, which was not to say it didn't probe him.
At last, grudgingly, she nodded. "All right. I believe you. But if you ever waste your seed with a Grenye woman…" She didn't go on, not with words. She did create the strong impression that that wouldn't be a good idea. And Captain Hasso Pemsel, veteran of five and a half years of war in Europe and a campaign season's worth in this strange new world, shivered in his boots.
He didn't shiver only because Velona intimidated him. (He tried not to admit to himself that she did — he tried for a good second and a half, and then gave it up as a bad job.) It was bloody cold in there. Winter was coming on, and the tent walls were about as good at keeping the chill out as they would have been on the Eastern Front. He threw more charcoal on the brazier, which might have raised the temperature half a degree: from arctic all the way up to frigid.
He breathed easier when Velona relented enough to ask, "Does the king think he can make the Bucovinans stand and fight?"
"He wants to." Hasso was glad to talk about the campaign instead of anything that had to do with Sfmti's charms. "Can't conquer them unless they stand — or unless they let us walk into Falticeni."
"They won't," Velona said flatly, and Hasso nodded. He didn't think the Bucovinans would, either; they were fighting the Lenelli every way they knew how. And they had sense enough to see that pitched battles weren't the best way to do it. Her gaze went far away. "It won't be easy." Her voice might have been coming
from Beyond, too.
Was that prophecy? Could there be such a thing in this world? Once more, Hasso didn't know. He did know his shiver, this time, had nothing to do with the cold outside.
XII
Two mornings later, a Bucovinan — noble? — approached the army to parley. He did it formally, with an escort of a dozen or so horsemen with armor as good as any Hasso had seen on a Bucovinan. As usual, they carried greenery in lieu of the white flags that served as truce signs in Hasso's world.
Some of the Lenelli muttered at that. "Who do they think they are, acting like civilized men?" Marshal Lugo grumbled. "We ought to run this beggar off just to teach him proper manners."
"Better to hear him," Hasso said. "Let us find out what he and his master have in mind." Hortatory subjunctive, he thought, pleased with himself. He hadn't needed to come out with one of those since he was taking Latin a hell of a long time ago.
"Bring him here," Bottero decided. "Listening to him doesn't cost us anything, and we can always run him off later if we don't like what he says."
The Bucovinan envoy bowed in the saddle to the king. "I am Otset, your Majesty," he said in excellent Lenello. "I bring you the words of Zgomot, Lord of Bucovin." He didn't claim Zgomot was a king; any Lenello sovereign would have either laughed or got furious at such presumption. "Hear my lord's words and marvel at how generous and full of forbearance he is."
King Bottero's face turned the color of brick dust. "Do you want us to horsewhip you home, little man? You sound like you do."
Otset bit his lip. He wasn't very big, especially when measured against the enormous Lenelli. But he answered calmly enough: "If someone invaded your kingdom, your Majesty, would you greet him with cheers and flowers and bread and salt?"
When the Wehrmacht rolled into the Ukraine in 1941, some of the locals had greeted the Germans just like that. If the Germans had treated them better, the Ukrainians and other Soviet subjects might have stayed friendly, which would have made an enormous difference in the war. The measure of Stalin's damnation was that close to a million of his citizens fought on Hitler's side in spite of everything. And the measure of Hitler's damnation was that almost the whole goddamn world fought on Stalin's side in spite of everything.
After the downfall Page 20
