Into the Darkness d-1, page 65
part #1 of Darkness Series
Never again, Sabrino thought, echoing Mezentio. He was old enough to remember the humiliation and the chaos that followed the loss of the Six Years’ War. Never again, he thought once more. Victory was better. Whatever victory required, he wanted Algarve to do.
You can’t make war halfheartedly, he thought. As if that needed proving, Valmiera and Jelgava had proved it to the hilt. And now, as King Mezentio had said, they were paying the price. Well, Algarve had paid. It was their turn.
Someone not far away shouted angrily. Sabrino turned his head. A Yaninan in shoes with decorative pompoms, tights, and a puffy-sleeved tunic was waving his finger in an Algarvian’s face. “You are wrong, I tell you!” the Yaninan said. “I tell you, I was up by the Raffali River myself last week, and the weather was sunny—warm and sunny.”
“You are mistaken, sir,” the Algarvian said. “It rained. It rained nearly every day—quite spoiled the horseback ride I had planned.”
“You call me a liar at your peril,” the Yaninan said; his folk took slights even more seriously than Algarvians did.
“I do not call you a liar,” the redheaded noble replied with a yawn. “A senile fool who cannot recall today what happened yesterday: that, most assuredly. But not a liar.”
With a screech, the Yaninan flung his drink in the Algarvian’s face. Among Algarvians, their friends would have made arrangements for them to meet again. The Yaninan was too impatient to wait. He hit his foe in the belly, and then a glancing blow off the side of his head.
The Algarvian grappled with him, pulled him down, and started pummeling him. The Yaninan didn’t like that so well, as his foe was about half again as big as he was. By the time Sabrino and the other men pulled the Algarvian off him, he was more than a little worse for wear.
“You would be well advised to learn some manners,” the Algarvian told him.
“You would be well advised to—” the Yaninan began as he climbed to his feet.
“Shall I give you another lesson on why you would be well advised to learn manners?” the Algarvian asked, as politely as if he were offering another glass of brandy punch rather than another punch in the eye. The Yaninan did not lack spirit, but he didn’t altogether lack sense, either. Instead of starting up the fight again, he took himself elsewhere.
Sabrino bowed to the Algarvian victor, saying, “Well done, sir. Well done.”
“You do me too much honor.” His countryman returned the bow. “All these westerners—if you take a firm line with them, they are yours to command.”
“Aye.” Sabrino laughed. “That is the way of it, sure enough.”
Marshal Rathar strolled through King Swemmel Square, which was said to be the largest paved-over open space in the world. He had no idea whether that was true, or whether everything associated with King Swemmel had to be the biggest or the most of whatever it was simply because of its association with the king. He wondered whether anyone had actually measured all the great plazas of the world and compared them one to another. Then he wondered why he worried his head about such unimportant things. It wasn’t as if he had not important things about which to worry.
A wind howling up from the south blew little flurries of snow into his face. He pulled his cloak more tightly around him, and tugged the hood down low on his forehead. The cloak was the rock-gray of Unkerlanter army issue, but, unlike the long tunic beneath it, did not show his rank. Thus swaddled, he could have been anyone. He enjoyed his few minutes of anonymity. All too soon, he would have to return to the palace, return to his work, return to the knowledge that King Swemmel might order him dragged off to the headsman at any time.
Statues of past Unkerlanter kings, some in stone, some in bronze, marked the outer boundary of the square. One statue towered twice as tall as any of the others. Rathar did not need to glance at it to know it was made in King Swemmel’s image. Swemmel’s successor would no doubt knock it down. Maybe he would replace it with one to match the others in size. Maybe, having knocked it down, Swemmel’s successor would not replace it at all.
Under the shielding hood, Rathar shook his head. He might have been a man bedeviled by gnats, but no gnats could withstand Cottbus’s winter weather. No, he knew what he was: a man bedeviled by his own thoughts. Those were harder to shake off than gnats, and more dangerous, too.
He sighed. “I had better get back to it,” he muttered. If he buried himself in work, he would not—he hoped he would not—have much time to think about King Swemmel the man even as he carried out the orders of King Swemmel the sovereign.
He turned back toward the palace. As he did so, a couple of other men in nondescript rock-gray cloaks who had also been walking through King Swemmel Square turned in the same direction. Not enough other people were abroad in the square to let them disguise their movements, try as they would.
Rathar laughed. The wind tore apart the puff of vapor that burst from his mouth. He’d been a fool to imagine he could stay anonymous even for a few minutes.
Inside the palace, he took off the cloak at once, draping it over his arm. As if to make up for the savage weather outside, Unkerlanters commonly heated their dwellings and workplaces beyond the comfortable.
Major Merovec saluted him when he came into the office. “My lord Marshal, a gentleman from the foreign ministry has been waiting to see you,” his adjutant said. As usual, Merovec’s voice and face revealed little.
“And what does he want?” Rathar asked.
“Sir, he says he will discuss that only with you.” Merovec wasn’t shy about letting the marshal know what he thought of that: it infuriated him.
“Then I’d better see him, hadn’t I?” Rathar said mildly.
“I will get him, sir,” Merovec said. “I did not wish to leave him alone in your private office.” He’d probably found a broom closet for the foreign ministry official instead, if the gleam in his eye was any sign. That gleam still there, he hurried away.
When he returned, sure enough, he had an angry official with him. “Marshal, this man of yours has not granted me the deference due the deputy foreign minister of Unkerlant,” the fellow snapped.
“My lord Ibert, I am sure he only sought to keep secrets from spreading,” Rathar replied. “My aides can sometimes be more zealous on my behalf than I would be were I here in person.”
Ibert kept on glaring at Merovec, who might have been carved from stone. The deputy foreign minister muttered under his breath, but then said, “Very well, my lord Marshal, I will let it go—this time. Now that you are here in person, shall we closet ourselves together to keep secrets from spreading?” He kept an eye on Merovec: he wanted his own back.
And Rathar could not refuse him. “As you wish, my lord,” he said. “If you will do me the honor of accompanying me …” He led Ibert into his private office, closing the door behind them. The last he saw of the outside world was Merovec’s face. He knew he would have to make things right with his adjutant, but that could wait. He nodded to the deputy foreign minister. “And for what reason have we closeted ourselves together here?”
Ibert pointed to the map behind Rathar’s desk. “My lord Marshal, when we go to war against Algarve come spring, are we prepared to defend ourselves against a Zuwayzi attack from the north?”
Rathar turned to the map himself. Pins with colored heads showed concentrations of Unkerlanter soldiers and, somewhat less certainly, those of Algarve and Yanina. Almost all the gold-headed pins that represented Unkerlant’s war-ready forces were near the kingdom’s eastern border. The marshal clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Not so well as we might be, my lord,” he answered. “If we are to beat the redheads, I have no doubt we shall need every man we can scrape up.” He looked back to Ibert. “You are telling me we should prepare for such a misfortune, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Ibert said flatly. “Our spies and his Majesty’s minister in Bishah report there can be no doubt that Zuwayza and Algarve are conspiring against us.”
Sighing, Rathar tried to seem more surprised than he was. “That is too bad,” he said, and marveled at how large an understatement he could pack into four short words. Another of King Swemmel’s pigeons had come home to roost—and had shit on the windowsill as it flew in. Had Rathar been wearing King Shazli’s shoes (all Shazli was in the habit of wearing), he would have thought about avenging himself on Unkerlant, too.
“What do you propose to do about this?” Ibert demanded, sounding almost as petulant as his sovereign.
However petulant he sounded, it was the right question. Rathar said, “Since you assure me we do need to ready ourselves to meet this danger, I shall consult with my officers and develop a plan to do so. My immediate response”—he glanced at the map again—“is not to worry a great deal.”
“How not?” Ibert said. “The Zuwayzin were a thorn in our side during our last fight against them. Why should they prove any different now?”
Patiently, Rathar answered, “During the last war, they fought on the defensive. The going is usually harder when one attacks. And, even if the black men should win some early successes—if you will pardon my blunt-ness, my lord, so what?”
Ibert’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. “ ‘So what,’ my lord Marshal? Is that all you care for the soil of Unkerlant, that you would let the naked savages of the north seize it for their own?”
“Seizing it is one thing,” Rathar answered. “Keeping it is another. With the worst will in the world toward us, the Zuwayzin cannot go far beyond the borders they had before we forced them back a year ago. They have not the men, the behemoths, or the dragons to do more.”
“That would be quite bad enough,” Ibert said.
“Would it?” Rathar asked. “If we weaken the force with which we fight Algarve, we shall surely regret it, because it will mean we are less likely to beat the redheads. Once we have beaten the Algarvians, though, how can Zuwayza hope to stand alone against us?”
He studied Ibert. The man had held his post for some time, no mean achievement under King Swemmel. The easiest way to do so, though, was to do nothing but mirror the king’s thoughts and desires. Rathar waited to discover whether the deputy foreign minister had any thoughts of his own.
Ibert licked his lips. “Suppose you take no troops from the Algarvians, and they and the Zuwayzin defeat us anyhow?”
That was a very good question. Rathar wished Swemmel would ask such questions from time to time. So Ibert did have wits of his own: something worth knowing. The marshal said, “If that should happen—which the powers above prevent—it will be the redheads who beat us, not the black men. I would not wish to move soldiers away from the stronger foe to ward myself against the weaker.”
“That strikes me as a reasonable reply, my lord Marshal,” Ibert said. “I shall bear your words to his Majesty.”
And if Swemmel threw a tantrum and ordered an all-out assault on Zuwayza instead of the attack on Algarve… Rathar would obey him, and would obey him with a small sigh of relief. He did not relish the prospect of assailing King Mezentio’s men. He would have obeyed an order to attack Zuwayza with a large sigh of relief rather than a small one had he not begun to worry that the Algarvians were also contemplating an attack on Unkerlant.
But when he mentioned that to Ibert, the deputy foreign minister shook his head. “We’ve seen little evidence of it, aside from the attempted seduction of Zuwayza. Our ministries otherwise report unusually cordial relations with the redheads, in fact.”
“We are not the only ones moving soldiers toward our common border,” Rathar insisted.
“Neither the foreign ministry nor the king views these movements with alarm,” Ibert said. “His Majesty is confident we shall enjoy the advantages of surprise when the blow falls in the east.”
“Very well,” Rathar said, somewhat reassured. Swemmel saw conspiracies all around him. If he did not think the Algarvians suspected anything here, then the chance that they truly did not seemed pretty good to the marshal of Unkerlant. Of course, Swemmel had made mistakes before—about Rathar himself, for instance—but the marshal chose not to dwell on those.
Besides, Rathar told himself, then Swemmel was seeing danger where none existed. He wouldn’t miss danger where it truly lurked… would he?
Ibert said, “Submit to his Majesty a formal plan based on what you have discussed with me. I believe he will accept it.”
Rathar hoped the deputy foreign minister was right. King Swemmel, though, had an enormous attachment to Unkerlanter territory. Would he be willing to yield any, even temporarily, to gain more? The marshal had his doubts. He wished he were free of them, but he wasn’t. Still, he could only say, “He will have it before the week is out.” What he did with it… Whatever he did with it, the sooner he did it, the more time Rathar would have to try to set things to rights again.
Ibert departed, looking pleased with himself. He looked even more pleased as he strutted past Merovec. Rathar’s adjutant looked as if he wanted to see the deputy foreign minister shipped off to some distant village to keep a crystal going. As best he could, Rathar soothed Merovec’s ruffled feathers. That was part of his job, too.
“Come on,” Ealstan said to Sidroc. “New semester today. New masters. Maybe we’ll get some decent ones, for a change.”
“Fat chance,” his cousin answered, as usual dawdling over his breakfast porridge. “Only difference will be new hands breaking switches on our backs.”
“All right, then,” Ealstan said. “Maybe we’ll have a bunch of old men who can’t hit very hard.”
As he’d hoped it would, that made Sidroc smile, even if it didn’t make him eat any faster. After a swig of watered wine, Sidroc said, “Curse me if I know why we bother with school, anyhow. Your brother had a ton of it, and what’s he doing? Roadbuilding, that’s what. You could train a mountain ape to put cobblestones in place.”
Leofsig had already gone off to labor on the roads. “He would be helping my father, if it weren’t for the war,” Ealstan said. “Things can’t stay crazy forever.” Even as he said that, though, he wondered why not.
So did Sidroc. “Says who?” he replied, and Ealstan had no good answer. Sidroc got to his feet. “Well, come on. You’re so eager, let’s go.”
They both threw cloaks over their tunics. Snow didn’t fall in Gromheort more than about one winter in four, but mornings were chilly anyhow. So Ealstan thought, at any rate; maybe someone from the south of Unkerlant would have had a different opinion.
Ealstan was soon glad they had started out with time to spare, for they had to wait at a street corner while a regiment of Algarvian footsoldiers tramped by heading west. They weren’t men from Gromheort’s garrison; they kept looking around and exclaiming at the buildings—and at the good-looking women—they saw. Ealstan found he could understand quite a bit of their chatter. Master Agmund had a heavy hand with the switch, but he’d made his scholars learn.
At last, the redheads passed. Sidroc moved at a brisk clip after that. He didn’t like getting beaten. The trouble was, most of the time he didn’t like doing the things that kept him from getting beaten, either.
“We’re here in good time.” Ealstan knew he sounded surprised, but couldn’t help himself.
“Aye, we are,” his cousin answered, “and what does it get us? Not a cursed thing but the chance to queue up for the registrar.”
He was right. A long line of boys already snaked out of the office. Ealstan said, “We’d be even farther back if we were later.” Sidroc snorted. Ealstan’s cheeks heated. It had been a weak comeback, and he knew it.
Little by little, the line advanced. More boys took their places behind Ealstan and Sidroc. Ealstan liked that. It didn’t change how many boys were in front of him, but he wasn’t a tailender any more.
As he got nearer to the registrar’s office, he heard voices raised in anger. “What’s going on?” he asked the fellow in front of him.
“I don’t know,” the youth said. “They’re only letting in one at a time, and people aren’t coming out this way.” He shrugged. “We’ll find out pretty soon, I guess.”
“Something’s going on.” Sidroc spoke with authority. “This isn’t how they did things last semester, and that means they’re up to something. I wonder what.” His nose quivered, as if he were one of the dogs some rich nobles trained to hunt truffles and other extra-fancy mushrooms.
Ealstan wouldn’t have figured that out so quickly, but saw at once that his cousin was likely to be right. Sidroc had a gift for spotting the underhanded. Ealstan preferred not to wonder what else that said about him.
“It’s an outrage, I tell you,” the youth in the registrar’s office shouted. Ealstan leaned forward, trying to hear what kind of reply the scholar got. Whatever it was, it was too soft for him to make out. He slammed a fist into the side of his thigh in frustration.
Before long, the fellow in front of him in the queue went inside. Now Ealstan could hear whatever happened. But nothing happened. The scholar got his list of classes and didn’t say a word about it. “Next!” the registrar called.
Ealstan was in front of Sidroc, so he went in. The registrar looked up at him over a pair of half glasses. Having gone through this twice a year for a good many years, Ealstan knew what was expected of him. “Master, I am Ealstan son of Hestan,” he said. He didn’t think anyone at the school shared his name, but ritual required that he give his father’s name, too, and sticking to ritual was as important in registration as in sorcery. The registrar thought so, anyhow, and his was the only opinion that counted.
“Ealstan son of Hestan,” he repeated, as if he’d never heard the name before. But his fingers belied that; they sorted through piles of paper with amazing speed and sureness. The registrar plucked out the couple of sheets that had to do with Ealstan. Glancing at one, he said, “Your fees were paid in full at the beginning of the year.”
“Aye, Master,” Ealstan answered with quiet pride. In spite of everything, his father did better than most in Gromheort.
