Authors: Harry Turtledove
As the driver swung the carriage off the street and on to the path that led up to the mansion, that good mood blew out like a candle flame. She pointed angrily. “What are those horses and unicorns doing there?” she demanded, as if the driver not only knew how they’d arrived but could do something about it. He only shrugged; with Krasta, least said was usually wisest.
Then she saw the kilted Algarvian soldier standing by the animals. Before she could shout at him, he turned and went into the mansion. That only made her angrier—how dared he go in there without her leave?
“Bring me right up to the front entrance,” Krasta told the driver. “I aim to get to the bottom of this, and right away, too. What business do these intruders have in my ancestral home?”
“I obey, milady,” the driver answered, which was the best thing he could possibly have said.
He halted in front of the Algarvians’ unicorns and horses. Krasta sprang from the carriage before he could come around and hand her down. She was storming toward the mansion when the door opened and a pair of Algarvians—officers, she realized by the badges on their tunics and hats—came toward her.
Before she could start screaming at them, they both bowed low. That surprised her enough to let the older of them speak before she did: “A splendid good day to you, Marchioness. I am delighted to have the honor to make your acquaintance.” He spoke fluent Valmieran, with only a slight accent. Then, surprising her again, he shifted into classical Kaunian: “If you would rather, we can continue our conversation in this language.”
“Valmieran will do,” she said, hoping her haughty tone would keep him from realizing his grasp of the classical tongue was considerably better than hers. Anger welled up through surprise: “And now, I must require that you tell me the reason for this intrusion upon my estate.”
Servants stared out from the windows on either side of the doorway, and from those of the second story as well. Krasta noticed them only peripherally; to her, they were as much a part of the mansion as the kitchen or the stairways. Her attention was and remained on the Algarvians.
“Allow me to introduce myself, milady,” the older one said, bowing again. “I have the honor to be Count Lurcanio of Albenga; my military rank is colonel. My adjutant here, Captain Mosco, has the good fortune to be a marquis. By order of Grand Duke Ivone, commander of the Algarvian forces now occupying Valmiera, we and our staff are to be billeted in your lovely home.”
Captain Mosco also bowed. “We shall do our best to keep from inconveniencing you,” he said in Valmieran slightly less fluent than Colonel Lurcanio’s.
Billeted
was not a word Krasta often heard; she needed a moment to realize what it meant. When she did, she marveled that she didn’t leap on the Algarvians with nails tearing like claws. “You mean you intend to
live
here?” she said. Lurcanio and Mosco nodded. Krasta threw back her head, a magnificent gesture of contempt. “By what right?”
“By order of the Grand Duke Ivone, as my superior told you,” Captain Mosco replied. He was earnest and good-looking and patient, none of which, right this minute, mattered a jot to Krasta.
“By right of the laws of war,” Colonel Lurcanio added, still polite but unyielding. “Valmierans billeted themselves on my estate after the Six Years’ War. I would be lying if I told you I did not take a certain amount of pleasure in returning the favor. My adjutant had the right of it: we shall inconvenience you as little as we can. But we
shall
stay here. Whether
you
stay here depends on your getting used to that idea.”
No one had ever spoken to Krasta like that in her entire life. No one had ever had the power to speak to her so. Her mouth opened, then closed. She shivered. The Algarvians weren’t acting like barbarians in Priekule. But, as Lurcanio had just reminded her, they could act like barbarians if they chose, and like triumphant barbarians at that.
“Very well,” she said coldly. “I shall accommodate you and your men, Colonel, in one wing. If you wish to inconvenience me as little as possible, as you claim, you and your men will have as little to do with me as possible.”
Lurcanio bowed again. “As you say.” He was willing to be gracious now that he’d got his way—in that, he was much like Krasta. “Perhaps, as time goes by, you will come to change your mind.”
“I doubt it,” Krasta said. “I never change my mind once I make it up.”
Mosco said something in Algarvian, a language Krasta had never had the least interest in learning. Lurcanio laughed and nodded. He pointed to Krasta and said something else.
They’re talking about me,
she realized with no small outrage.
They’re talking about me, and I don’t know what they’re saying. How rude! They
are
barbarians after all.
She stalked past them, back stiff, nose in the air. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw their heads swivel to watch her backside as she strode toward the door. That made her nose go higher than ever. It also gave her a small, sneaking satisfaction of a different sort.
Let them watch,
she thought.
It’s the only thing they’ll ever have the chance to do.
To inflame them, she put a little extra hip action in her walk.
When she got inside, the servants converged on her as if they were children and she their mother. “Milady! What shall we do, milady?” they cried.
“The Algarvians are going to quarter themselves here,” she said. “I see nothing to be done about that. We shall put them in the west wing—first removing anything of value there. After that, as best we can, we shall ignore them. They will not be welcome in any other part of the mansion, which I shall make quite clear to their officers.”
“What if they come anyhow, milady?” Bauska asked.
“Make them so unwelcome, they will not wish to come again,” Krasta said. “They are nothing but Algarvians—not worth the notice of civilized people.” She rounded on a couple of redheaded troopers who were looking at pictures and knickknacks. “Get out,” she told them. “Go on, get out.” She gestured to show what the words meant.
They left slowly, and laughing as they went, but they did leave. The servants looked gratified—all but one, whom a soldier patted on the bottom as he went by. And she didn’t look so irate as she might have.
Krasta shook her head. What would she do if a servant let an Algarvian have his way with her? How could she stop it? If Bauska was any indication, commoners these days had no moral fiber whatever. Krasta clicked her tongue between her teeth. One way or another, she’d just have to manage.
Marshal Rathar threw himself down on his belly before King Swemmel. He made the usual protestations of loyalty with more than the usual fervor. He knew the king of Unkerlant was angry with him. He knew why, too. The king often got angry at his subjects for reasons no one but he could see. Not this time.
Swemmel let—made—Rathar stay on his belly, his head knocking against the carpet, far longer than usual. At last, evidently deciding Rathar was humiliated enough, the king spoke in a deadly voice: “Get up.”
“Aye, your Majesty,” the marshal of Unkerlant said, climbing to his feet. “I thank you, your Majesty.”
“We do not thank you,” Swemmel snarled, stabbing out a finger at
Rathar as if his fingernail were the business end of a stick. Had it been, he would have blazed his marshal down. His voice, already high and thin, went higher and thinner as he mocked Rathar: ‘“Wait till the Algarvians are tied down against Valmiera,’ you said. ‘Wait till they’re fully committed in the east.
Then
strike them, when they cannot easily move reinforcements against us.’ Were those your words, Marshal?”
“Those were my words, your Majesty,” Rathar said stolidly. “I judged that the most efficient course. It seems I was wrong.”
“Aye, it seems you were.” Swemmel returned to his normal tones. “Had we wanted a fool, a dunce, to lead the armies of Unkerlant, rest assured we could have found one. We hoped we had chosen a marshal who would know what might happen, not one who was
wrong.”
He made the word a curse.
“Your Majesty, in my own defense, my only possible reply is that no one here, no one in the east, and, I daresay, no one in Algarve imagined the redheads’ armies could overthrow Valmiera in the space of a month,” Rathar answered. “Aye, I was wrong, but I am far from the only man who was.”
He waited for Swemmel to sack him, to order him sent to dig coal or salt or brimstone, to order him killed on the spot. Swemmel was capable of any of those things. Swemmel was capable of things much worse than any of those. Anyone who served him lived on the edge of a precipice. Sooner or later, anyone who served him fell off. How the crows and vultures would gather to tear pieces from the fallen Rathar!
King Swemmel said, “Not that you deserve it, but we will give you a tiny chance to redeem yourself before meting out punishment. What will Mezentio do next? Will he strike Lagoas? Will he strike Jelgava? Will he strike our kingdom?”
Rathar’s first thought was,
I
had better be right.
Swemmel allowed few men the chance to be wrong twice. That he would allow anyone to be wrong three times struck Rathar as absurd. Picking his words with great care, he said, “I do not see how Algarve can attack Lagoas without control of the sea between them, which her navy does not have. The Lagoans will not be fooled as the Sibians were. And there are no signs in Forthweg that Mezentio is building to assault us.”
“Jelgava, then,” Swemmel said, and Rathar reluctantly nodded. Now he was pinned down. Swemmel could—Swemmel would—hold him to what he said here. The king went on, “And when Algarve fights Jelgava—what then?”
“Your Majesty, the war should be long and difficult,” Rathar said. “But then, I said the same about the war against Valmiera, and the Algarvians surprised their foes with a thrust through rough country. I do not see how they can surprise the Jelgavans—there are only so many passes through the mountains between them. But that I do not see something does not have to mean Mezentio’s generals are likewise blind.”
“Your advice, then, is to wait for Algarve to become fully embroiled with Jelgava and then strike?” Swemmel asked.
“Aye, that is my advice,” Rathar answered. He knew better than to say,
That is what I would do if I were king,
as some luckless courtier had done a few years before. Swemmel took that to mean the poor, clumsy-tongued fool was plotting against him. That poor fool was now shorter by a head, and no one had made his mistakes since.
Swemmel said, “And what if Algarve beats Jelgava as quickly and easily as she beat Valmiera? What then, Marshal?”
“Then, your Majesty, I will be surprised,” Rathar said. “Algarvians have the arrogance to make good soldiers and good mages, but they are only men, as we are, as the Jelgavans are as well.”
“Why not fling our armies at them the minute they start to fight with Jelgava, if this be so?” Swemmel said.
“Your Majesty, you are my sovereign. If you order this, I will do my best to carry out your orders,” Rathar replied. “But I think King Mezentio’s men will be ready and waiting for us if we try it.”
“You think we will fail.” Swemmel sounded like an inspector accusing a peasant in a law court.
What happened to peasants haled before such tribunals was usually anything but pleasant. Nevertheless, Rathar said, “The best plan in the world is useless at the wrong time. We struck too soon against the Zuwayzin, and paid a high price for that. We would pay more and suffer worse if we struck the Algarvians while they were ready and waiting for us.”
“You have already complained that we struck too soon against Zuwayza,” King Swemmel said. “We do not agree; our view is that we struck years too late. But never mind that. Because of your complaints, we delayed ordering our armies forward against Algarve, and the result has been worse than if we had attacked.”
“Not necessarily,” Rathar replied. “We might have been badly beaten. The Zuwayzin hurt us badly when that war began, but they were not strong enough to follow up on their early victories. That does not hold with Algarve, especially not after what the redheads showed first in Forthweg and then in Valmiera.”
“A moment ago, you said the Algarvians were only men,” Swemmel said. “Now you say you fear them. Are Unkerlanters, then, suddenly made into mountain apes in your mind?”
“By no means, your Majesty,” Rathar said, although for hundreds of years Unkerlanters had felt the same blend of admiration and resentment for Algarvians that Algarvians felt for folk of Kaunian stock. Gathering himself, he went on, “When we attack, though—if we attack—I would want it to be at the moment I judge best.”
“Will you ever judge any moment best?” Swemmel asked. “Or will you delay endlessly, like the old man in the fable who could never find the time to die?”
Rathar risked a smile. “He didn’t have such a dreadful fate, did he? And the kingdom is at peace for now, which is also not such a dreadful fate. As a soldier who has seen much of war, I say peace is better.”
“Peace is better, when those around you grant your due,” Swemmel said. “But when we should have been raised to the throne, no one would recognize what was rightfully ours. We had to fight to gain the throne, we had to fight to hold the throne, and we have been fighting ever since. During our struggle with the usurper”—his usual name for his twin brother—“the kingdoms neighboring Unkerlant took advantage of her weakness. We have made Gyongyos respect us. We have humbled Forthweg. We have taught Zuwayza half a lesson, at any rate.”
“All that you say is true, your Majesty,” Rathar replied, “yet Algarve has done us no harm during your glorious reign.” Like other courtiers, he’d had to learn the art of gently guiding the sovereign back from his memories—real or imaginary—of injustice and toward what needed doing in the here and now.”
Sometimes King Swemmel refused to be guided. Sometimes he had his reasons for refusing to be guided. He said, “Algarve harmed us gravely during the Six Years’ War. The kingdom requires vengeance, and the kingdom shall have it.”