After the downfall

by Harry Turtledove

  "You've got some kind of fancy reason for not telling me," Scanno said, which was nothing but the truth. His red-tracked eyes swung to Hasso. "And fry my balls if it doesn't have to do with magic." He made as if to touch the amulet he wore, but dropped his hand before it got where it was going. "So you think the dragon bone really does have something to do with blocking spells, eh?"

  Hasso and Zgomot looked at each other again. Scanno might have been — was — a renegade with a hollow leg, but that didn't make him a jerk. With a weary sigh, Zgomot said, "Well, you have made sure you will not leave Falticeni until the bone hunters return with their quarry. We cannot have the Lenelli pulling this out of you."

  "I wasn't going anywhere, Lord." There was that whine again, this time thick enough to slice. Hasso eyed Scanno with imperfect trust. If Scanno brought word about dragon bones to King Bottero and his wizards, chances were the news would buy his way back into their good graces. And Hasso knew all about the impulse to switch sides. Fortunately, Zgomot didn't know how well he knew it. Scanno went on, "I'll let your people know where they can find the bones. My head will answer if they don't bring back a cartload of 'em, or at least find out where they were."

  "That is what I want. Go talk to the scribes. Tell them where the place is. Draw them a map. Do that now, while the thought is fresh in your mind," Zgomot said.

  "Whatever you want, Lord." Scanno sketched a salute and hurried off.

  As soon as he was out of earshot, Hasso said, "Keep an eye on him, Lord. Keep an eye on his wife, too. Watch them the same way you watch me."

  "I intend to keep an eye on him, and an eye on Nechemat as well," Zgomot answered placidly. "And you have an interesting way of putting that."

  Shrugging, Hasso said, "I know you keep an eye on me. You need to. I hope I know the difference between what I like and what is. And now you really need to keep an eye on Scanno, too. He knows too much."

  "Yes. And he likes to talk, too. You do not have that vice, anyhow," Zgomot said.

  "In my world, I know how important keeping secrets is," Hasso said. "Now some secrets to keep here, too."

  The Lord of Bucovin nodded. "Yes. I would not have thought that, but yes. And you realize you will not be leaving Falticeni, either, or not without guards, not until the bonehunters have returned."

  As steadily as he could, Hasso nodded back. "No one is ever going to trust me again. That is part of what is, too. Not what I like, but what is."

  "We will see what we can do about what you like." Zgomot sent Hasso away without explaining himself — he had the ruler's privilege of the last word.

  Hasso didn't think the Bucovinans had beauty contests. If they did, the girl who came to his room that night would have finished no worse than third runner-up. Her name, she told him, was Tsiam. Seriously, she added, "Lord Zgomot says I am to do anything you want."

  "Anything?" Hasso said.

  "Anything." Tsiam nodded, but she couldn't keep a touch of fear from her voice. Who could guess what big blond foreigners might like?

  "What would you do if it were up to you?" Hasso asked.

  "Why, whatever Lord Zgomot told me to do, of course," Tsiam answered.

  "Let me say it a different way. Where would you be if Lord Zgomot didn't tell you to be here?"

  "With Otset. But he's starting to get tired of me. That's why Zgomot sent me to you."

  Otset was the Bucovinan who'd warned King Bottero to turn back not long before the natives laid their trap and captured Hasso. Up till now, Hasso had thought he was pretty smart. But if he was, why would he get tired of a girl as pretty as Tsiam? One more try: "Do you want to be here? If you don't, you don't have to be. You can go."

  "You don't want me?" Tsiam seemed — affronted?

  "Not unless you want me."

  She frowned. "How do we really know till we try?"

  And what am I supposed to say to that? Hasso wondered. He found only one thing, and he said it: "Come on, then, and we try."

  Try they did. When it was over, neither one of them would have called it a success. Tsiam said, "You were thinking about someone else, weren't you?"

  "Afraid so," Hasso answered. "I'm sorry. Don't mean for it to show so much."

  She shrugged. "Nothing much to do about it. Do you want me to bother coming back?"

  "No. It's all right. Tell Lord Zgomot I am not angry at you — that is the truth. I thank you for your kindness. Tell Lord Zgomot I thank him for his. But this is not what I am after."

  "All right. I hope you find it, whatever it is." Tsiam quickly dressed and slipped out of the room. Hasso made a fist and slammed it down onto the mattress. That didn't do him any good, either.

  He was eating a glum breakfast the next morning when Drepteaza set her bowl of mush down by his. "By Lavtrig, why doesn't Tsiam suit you?" she asked. "She's much prettier than I ever will be. And after spending a couple of years learning to please Otset, she's bound to be better in bed, too."

  "Then why doesn't he want her anymore?" Hasso asked.

  "He's had time to get bored with her. You gave her one night."

  Hasso shrugged. "She isn't what I want." He paused to spoon up some more of the mush, and to wash it down with bad Bucovinan beer. None of that changed his mind, so he went on, "You are. You know that."

  "Yes. I do know that. It only makes things harder for both of us." Drepteaza looked down at the rough planks of the tabletop.

  "I'm sorry. Not sorry, but — you know." Again, Hasso hated stumbling through a language he didn't speak well. "Curse it, do you fall in love just where you are supposed to?"

  "I haven't fallen in love at all, so I can't really answer that," Drepteaza answered. "But you, Hasso Pemsel — it seems to me that you look for the worst places to fall in love, and then go and do that."

  If she'd mocked him, he would have gone up like jellied gasoline. But she didn't. She simply sounded as if she was telling him how things looked to her. And maybe she wasn't so far wrong. He doubted he would have had a happy ending with Velona even if the Bucovinans didn't capture him. Something else would have gone wrong, or she would have found somebody new. And then… No, that wouldn't have been pretty. It might have been lethal. Velona herself had warned him.

  He didn't want to think about Velona. It still hurt. So did thinking about Drepteaza, but not the same way. Stubbornly, he said, "You are not a bad place to fall in love. You are the best place I know."

  "Here," she said: one quiet word that hit him the way a Panzerfaust blew the turret off a Soviet T-34. His face must have shown as much, for she softened it a little: "Maybe I would not be such a bad place for you if I felt for you what you feel for me. But I don't. I almost wish I did. It would make things easier for Bucovin."

  "This is not about Bucovin. I do plenty for Bucovin."

  "I know you've done plenty for Bucovin — more than I could," Drepteaza said quickly. "But you're right. This has nothing to do with that. This is just about us.

  "No us to be about," Hasso said, which held more truth than grammar.

  Drepteaza understood it anyway, and nodded to show she did. "That is what this is about — why there is no us," she said.

  "Us takes two," Hasso said. "Without two, forget it. If you don't like me — "

  "It's not even that," she broke in. "By now, I know you as well as anyone in Falticeni is likely to." She was bound to be right, especially with the qualification. A couple of people back in Drammen, or wherever they were these days… But that was another story, and looked as if it always would be. The priestess went on, "You are brave. You are not stupid — anything but stupid. You are not a bad man. If only — "

  "If only I don't look the way I do," he broke in.

  She nodded. "Yes, that might do it," she said.

  "Maybe I should wear a mask. Maybe I should walk on my knees." Hasso was joking, and yet he wasn't.

  Drepteaza understood that, too. "You are trying to be as difficult as you can," she said, her voice full of mock severity — or mayb
e it wasn't mock at all.

  Hasso bowed. "At your service," he said. "Or I would be, only.

  "Yes. Only," Drepteaza said. "I am sorry. If I could do anything about it, I would, and that is the truth."

  He thought about telling her he was such a wonderful lover he would make her forget all about the way he looked. If he were speaking German, he might have tried it. In Bucovinan, it was bound to come out wrong. He didn't even want to imagine it in Lenello. Lenello was what he was doing his best to stay away from.

  Much better not to try a line like that than to botch it. So he said, "No mask and knees, eh? Maybe I make a magic to look like one of your folk instead." He remembered, too late, that Velona had done something like that. He waited for Drepteaza to throw it in his face.

  She didn't — not directly, anyhow. She said, "A spell like that might not work in Falticeni. And even if you did use magic, that would remind me of what you… what you look like. I know it is not what you are. But what you look like matters, too. What a woman looks like matters to you, doesn't it?"

  "Yes." He wished he could have said no, but he knew damn well he wasn't that good a liar. He could add, "A woman doesn't have to be big and blond to be pretty for me. This is the truth." He held up his right hand with first two fingers upraised, as if taking an oath back in Germany.

  "I believe you," Drepteaza said; he couldn't tell if she understood the gesture. "But most men are less fussy than most women when it comes to such things. Often enough, even a Grenye will do."

  "You talk about the Lenelli. I am no Lenello, no matter what I look like."

  "You look like one, no matter what you are." The old impasse. You're ugly. Go away.

  "I can't help what I am," he muttered.

  "And I can't help what I feel," Drepteaza said. "I almost wish — "

  "What?"

  "Nothing. Let it go."

  "When you start to say something like that, you should finish."

  She sighed. "I suppose you're right. I almost wish I could help what I feel. It would keep you from mooning around the way you do. At least you don't paw me all the time, the way a real Lenello would. If you did, I would have to learn to throw you over my shoulder. And who could I learn that from but you? You see what a problem it would be."

  He couldn't help smiling. She had a barbed wit when she felt like turning it loose. "If you want to learn to throw people, even people my size, I can teach you."

  He thought she would say no, not wanting to give him any excuse to get his hands on her. But she nodded. "That might be useful. Lenelli aren't the only troublemakers around here. We have thieves and robbers of our own."

  "Sometimes, if someone comes with a sword or knife, better to give what he wants," Hasso said. "Don't be stupid. You can get killed for no good reason if you are stupid."

  "I understand," Drepteaza answered. "Is there ever a good reason to get killed?"

  "You ask a soldier, remember. Sometimes it's worse for everyone else — and for you, too — if you run away instead." How many men, friends and enemies alike, had Hasso seen making that same unhappy choice? A lot of soldiers — most of them — died from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But some chose their time and place, and died trying to keep the bastards on the other side from doing something nasty. And sometimes it made a difference, and sometimes it didn't. You couldn't know ahead of time. You did what you did, that was all.

  "Am I big enough to throw you around if I have to?" Drepteaza asked, derailing his train of thought.

  "To throw someone my size, anyway. I throw Lenelli much bigger than me. Maybe throwing me is harder, because I know what you do before you do it," Hasso answered.

  "I see." She nodded. "How does someone small throw someone larger, though?"

  "Size is not the trick. The trick is knowing what to do." Hasso muttered to himself. He wanted to say leverage, but he had no idea how, either in Bucovinan or in Lenello.

  "I hope you're right. Let me go change into breeches, so I can get thrown around without embarrassing myself."

  Hasso laughed in surprise. "What about the baths?"

  "The baths are the baths. This is different," Drepteaza said.

  "Why?"

  "I don't know. I never thought about it, but it is. Doesn't your country have customs that wouldn't make any sense to an outsider? The gods know the Lenelli do."

  "Maybe we do. I'm sure we do." Hasso sketched a salute. "All right. Go change, then. I meet you in the fencing practice room."

  "See you there." Drepteaza got up and left the table.

  As Hasso walked down the corridor, he almost ran into Dumnez. His driver said, "Hello. I'm going to be one of the people getting dragon bones. We set out tomorrow."

  "No!" The Wehrmacht officer clapped a hand to his forehead. "You can't! You mustn't! Somebody screws up to let you."

  "Why shouldn't I? I want to give the Lenelli one in the teeth, same as everybody else does," Dumnez said. "This has to do that some kind of way. It's too important not to."

  "But you know about gunpowder. You shouldn't go where they might catch you." Security! Hasso was sure Lord Zgomot would see it when it got pointed out to him. He'd worried about Scanno, who could tell the Lenelli just why Bucovin wanted their dragon bones. The people who were going didn't know that, which was all to the good. But Zgomot hadn't thought about other security worries.

  Dumnez looked mutinous. "They won't catch me."

  "True. You don't go, so they don't catch you," Hasso said. Dumnez tried to slip past him, but Hasso grabbed his arm. For a moment, he wondered if he would need his dirty-fighting talents. Taking on somebody he outweighed by more than thirty kilos wasn't close to fair, but if Dumnez grabbed a knife.. To forestall him, Hasso added, "We talk to Lord Zgomot. If you don't listen to me, you listen to him, right?"

  "He won't waste time on the likes of me," Dumnez said.

  "He does — he will — for this," Hasso said. "Come on."

  He had to talk his way past the stewards and chamberlains who shielded any ruler from the slings and arrows of outrageous reality. But, even though gunpowder wasn't magic, it was a magic word. It got Hasso and Dumnez through to the Lord of Bucovin in short order. Zgomot listened, pondered, and spoke: "The foreigner is right, Dumnez. You stay here. Is anyone else who knows about gunpowder going?"

  "I don't think so, Lord," Dumnez replied.

  "Go find out. If anybody is, pull him off," Zgomot said. "Good thing you bumped into Hasso. We don't want to take chances we don't have to." Dumnez gave the Wehrmacht officer a sour look, but he didn't argue with his sovereign.

  And Hasso wasn't very late to the fencing room. He apologized to Drepteaza, explaining what had happened. "That wouldn't have been good," she agreed, and then got down to business. "So. You're going to throw me around, are you?"

  "Yes. You know how to land soft?"

  "I think so."

  "All right. We go slow at first."

  He showed her how to flip a man. He didn't take any undue liberties with her person when he flipped her. He was sure he bruised her, though she did land well. She was strong for her size, and well coordinated. He'd thought she would catch on fast, and he was right. It wasn't hard — grab, turn, duck, twist, heave.

  "Now I come at you," he said, and he did. When she flipped him, he didn't do anything to try to stop her. He went over on his back, and got a bruise or two of his own.

  "You let me do that." Her voice was accusing. "You even helped."

  "Well, sure," he said as he climbed to his feet. "You have to learn." He tried not to think about the feel of her against him. "I went easy with King Bottero's master-at-arms at first, too."

  "So he knows these flips?" Drepteaza said.

  "Not any more. He's dead."

  "Oh." That seemed to satisfy her. "Let's try it again. Faster this time?"

  "A little," Hasso agreed. He went over her shoulder and thudded down. "Oof! That's good."

  Drepteaza smiled. "It is! Again!"

&nbs
p; Hasso picked up more bruises. He couldn't have cared less. "You will be sudden death on two legs," he said. Drepteaza positively beamed.

  XXIV

  When Hasso started working with gunpowder and catapults, Lord Zgomot changed his mind and suggested that he move away from Falticeni for a while. Hasso didn't say no. The Lord of Bucovin had two excellent reasons on his side. One was not showing everybody in a good-sized city what Bucovin was up to. The other was not unnerving everybody in a good-sized city with strange booms and blasts.

  The place where Hasso ensconced himself was more than a farm and less than an estate. Maybe it was as close as the Bucovinans could come to a Lenello-style estate. It had a big, fancy house — but one with a thatched roof. Several peasant families who worked the fields and tended stock in the meadows lived in cottages not far from the big house. The house and land belonged to Zgomot himself. The place was more than thirty kilometers away from Falticeni — far enough to let Hasso and his men make as much noise as they needed to.

  Rautat and Drepteaza went with him. The underofficer translated for him with carpenters and catapult makers when his Bucovinan ran dry. The priestess did some of that, too. She also taught him more of the natives' language. And she seemed intent on learning all the dirty fighting he knew how to teach.

  '"Sudden death on two legs,'" she quoted. "That's what I want."

  "You're on your way," Hasso said. She wasn't as strong as he was, and she didn't have his reach. But she was a long way from a weakling, and she was fast as a striking snake. She could hurt him, and she had, more than once. He'd knocked her about, too; once you started practicing anywhere close to full speed, that was bound to happen. Thumping down on thick grass in a meadow hurt less than the rammed-earth floor of the fencing room had.

  The more-or-less estate didn't stink the way Falticeni did — another advantage of moving to the country. Sure, it had a dungheap and some odorous privies. But it didn't have tens of thousands of people crapping and pissing and not worrying much about how to dispose of the filth. Bucovinans bathed more than Lenelli, but their notions of sanitation were just as rudimentary as those of the blonds.