Authors: Harry Turtledove
“Of course, your Majesty,” Lurcanio said, cat-courteous as usual. But he couldn’t quite keep the faintest hint of astonishment—or was it alarm?— from his voice. And he couldn’t keep from glancing over to Grand Duke Ivone. Ivone’s smile looked as if it were held in place with carpet tacks.
“This may be an interesting reception after all,” Krasta said as they made their way toward the tables piled high with food and drink.
“So it may.” Lurcanio sounded anything but happy at the prospect. “What in blazes is wrong with Gainibu?”
“He seemed better than he has in a long time,” Krasta said.
“That is what I meant,” Lurcanio snarled. He took a glass of something potent and knocked it back at a gulp. Krasta chose a mug of ale for herself. She had less of an urge to drink herself blind at these affairs than she’d had before she found herself expecting a baby. She couldn’t decide whether that was good or not.
On a raised platform in one corner of the reception hall sat several musicians softly playing. They were Valmierans themselves, but played soft, delicate, tinkling, Algarvian-style music rather than the more emphatic rhythms and more raucous instruments—bagpipes and thumping drums—of their own kingdom. Krasta had got used to hearing the occupiers’ music in the royal palace. Now, for some reason, she noticed it again.
Colonel Lurcanio didn’t need long to notice it, either. “They must have got drunk up there,” he growled, pointing to the men (and one woman) on the low platform. “Either that or they are making a hash of things on purpose just to annoy us.”
“Why would they do that?” Krasta asked.
“It is called kicking a man when you think he is down,” her Algarvian lover answered. His eyes glittered; his smile seemed more carnivorous than usual. “You had better be right, or you will be very sorry.”
But Krasta hardly heard those last few words.
Kicking a man when you think he is down.
Much suddenly became clear: things she was seeing here, and things she had seen elsewhere. The Valmierans thought their occupiers were in trouble, and so they could afford to show insolence.
Some of them thought that way, anyhow. But a big, swag-bellied man with a provincial accent came up to Colonel Lurcanio and boomed, “Ho! Congratulations on your armies’ bold, brave defensive stand along the Twegen River.” By his tone, the Algarvians were still cocks o’ the walk.
Lurcanio bowed. “For which I thank you, your Excellency.”
Krasta had never heard of the Twegen River. She’d never heard of a lot of the western places that found themselves written into the chronicles of the war with letters of blood. She stared down into her mug of ale, wishing she felt like drinking more, while Lurcanio and the Valmieran noble from the back of beyond talked endlessly about the fighting and how it was going. After a while, she yawned and found a chair and sat down. Carrying a baby gave her an excuse for showing she was tired and bored.
The Valmieran baron or whatever he was talked loud enough to let the whole reception hall know his opinions—
as if anyone cares,
Krasta thought acidly. Still booming like a courting grouse, he went on, “Surely the Unkerlanter hosts will break themselves on the rock of your might.”
“May it be so,” Lurcanio answered with another bow. “And now, if you will excuse me—” He hurried off to get himself another drink.
By the time he got back, the Valmieran had gone off to boom in someone else’s ear. Lurcanio poured down the drink even so. “What
was
he going on about?” Krasta asked.
“Something about which he knows much less than he thinks he does.” A certain amused malice in his voice, Lurcanio went on, “There are, I suspect, a great many things about which he knows much less than he thinks he does.”
Even though Krasta still hadn’t emptied her first mug of ale, that made her giggle. She might have said the same sort of thing herself. Then she quickly got to her feet and curtsied once more: King Gainibu was coming toward her and Lurcanio. The king’s walk had more purpose and less wobble in it than she’d seen for years.
Lurcanio noted the same thing, as he’d noted Gainibu’s unusual steadiness in the receiving line. His bow was politeness personified, but hard suspicion ruled his voice as he murmured, “Your Majesty.”
“Good evening, Colonel… and milady, of course,” Gainibu said. But after that, he might have forgotten Krasta was there. It irked her less than it would have from a lesser personage; the king was the king, and did as he pleased. Swinging his attention back to Lurcanio, he continued, “I told you earlier in the evening that we should have somewhat to discuss.”
“So you did, your Majesty,” the Algarvian replied. “By all means, say on.”
“I shall. You need not worry about that.” King Gainibu’s wave somehow encompassed not only the reception hall but the whole kingdom of Valmiera. “At some point or other, probably sooner rather than later, you will have to evacuate this land to fight elsewhere.”
“It could be,” Lurcanio said. “It is, on the other hand, anything but certain.”
“Don’t bandy words with me.” Gainibu’s voice was sharp, peremptory— the voice of a king. “You are already moving men out of Valmiera, moving them through Priekule, to fight in the west and the north. Before long, parts of the kingdom will be all but bare of Algarvians.”
“We shall hold what we need, your Majesty.” Lurcanio, for his part, spoke with studied self-assurance. “If you think we shall let ourselves be dispossessed of the main cities and the roads and ley lines between them, I must say I believe you to be mistaken.”
“This may come to a test,” Gainibu said.
They’re bargaining,
Krasta realized in sudden surprise. The Algarvians hadn’t had to bargain in Valmiera for some time.
She looked around for Viscount Valnu, but didn’t see him. She shrugged. Even if she had, he probably would have been in the company of one Algarvian officer or another, and she really didn’t want to see him like that. Her free hand went to her belly for a moment. All at once, she hoped Valnu had sired her child. He’d had the first chance, after all. And a Valmieran father might prove much more … convenient than she’d thought only a few weeks before.
She’d missed a little of what the king and Lurcanio were saying. “—would regret it,” came from Lurcanio’s mouth.
“Both sides would regret it,” Gainibu answered. “Do you doubt that? And so, my proposal: if there are no outrages—and you know the sort I mean—you will find your withdrawal easier than it would prove otherwise. If not…” He shrugged. “It will not be withdrawal, but a running fight.”
“Words. Rhetoric.” But Lurcanio sounded uneasy. “How can you hope to make your promises good?”
“I have ways,” the king said. “Remember what Algarve managed after the Six Years’ War despite being beaten and occupied. We can do the same, especially as you will be busy elsewhere. I told Ivone as much. He said you were the man for the details. Good evening, Colonel.” He nodded and walked off.
“What sort of details?” Krasta asked. “What exactly was he talking about?”
“The sort of details, my sweet, that are all too likely to put me in charge of combat troops once more, however tedious that may prove,” Lurcanio answered. Careless of who might be watching, he closed his hand on her breast. “I shall have to make the most of things while I can.”
Hajjaj woke to the sound of distant thunder. That was his first thought. His second thought was that the first was idiotic—thunder in Bishah might have been more likely than snow there at that season (or at any season), but it wasn’t a great deal more likely.
Beside him on the low bed, Tassi stirred and muttered. After a particularly loud roar, she stiffened and sat up and said something or other in Yaninan. Hajjaj spoke in Algarvian, the only language they had in common: “The Unkerlanters have sent dragons against Bishah again. Their eggs should not burst close to here, not when we’re up in the hills.”
“Oh,” she said, now fully awake. “I thought it was a storm.” She snuggled against him. He enjoyed the touch of her soft, bare skin. He would have enjoyed it more had sweat not sprung out wherever their bodies touched. Zuwayzi summer nights were not really made for lovers who craved clasping each other close.
“In winter, it might have been a storm,” Hajjaj replied. “At this season … I hope our dragonfliers and the Algarvians do a proper job of punishing the raiders.”
“May it be so,” Tassi said, and then, “As long as we are awake, would you like to … ?”
Hajjaj chuckled. “Ask me again in a couple of days and I’ll gladly say aye. You pay me the compliment of treating me as if I were younger than I am. It
is
flattering; far be it from me to deny that. But I know what this old carcass can do and what is beyond its powers these days.”
“Do you?” Tassi said, mischief in her voice. She slithered down toward the foot of the bed. “Maybe I can surprise you.”
Maybe she could have, too. She’d pleasantly surprised Hajjaj once or twice before. Kolthoum had been right, as usual; Tassi made a splendid amusement. But she hadn’t even begun when someone tapped on the bedchamber door. She let out a startled squeak. Hajjaj was a little startled, too; he always slept lightly, and his retainers knew better than to bother him in the night without urgent need. “What is it?” he called out in Zuwayzi.
“Your Excellency, you are wanted at the crystallomancer’s.” Tewfik’s voice came from the other side of the door. “It is General Ikhshid.”
Despite the summer heat, ice ran up Hajjaj’s back. “I’ll come, of course,” he said, and got out of bed.
“What’s wrong?” Tassi asked in Algarvian, not following the quick conversation between the two Zuwayzin.
“I don’t know,” Hajjaj answered in the same tongue, though he feared he did. “But I had better go and find out.”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, lad,” Tewfik said as Hajjaj stepped out into the dimly lit hallway. The wrinkled old majordomo’s laugh had a leer in it. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
“No,” Hajjaj said, and let it go at that. “You can go back to bed now yourself, Tewfik. I’ll take care of whatever needs doing.”
But Tewfik shook his head. “I’m up. I’ll stay up. You may need more from me before the morning comes.”
How much did he know? How much did he guess? Hajjaj had no time to find out. Whatever his majordomo knew, Tewfik would keep it to himself. Hajjaj did know that. He hurried down the hall toward the chamber where the crystallomancers kept this isolated clanfather’s house in touch with the wider world.
Sure enough, General Ikhshid’s image stared out at him as he sat down in front of one of the crystals there. As soon as Ikhshid saw him, the Zuwayzi officer began to speak: “Well, your Excellency, the whoresons have dropped the other boot.”
“The Unkerlanters?” Even now, Hajjaj could hope he was wrong.
But Ikhshid nodded grimly. “I’m afraid so. This isn’t just another raid on Bishah. They’re pounding us all along the front—pounding us hard, I mean. They aren’t playing games any more, your Excellency. They’ve got a demon of a lot of men and behemoths and dragons and egg-tossers.”
“Are we holding?” The Zuwayzi foreign minister asked the question he had to ask, and asked it with more than a little dread.
“For now—mostly,” Ikhshid said. “That’s by the reports I have right this minute, mind you. I don’t have reports from the whole line yet, and that worries me. Some of our brigades may not be reporting because they aren’t there to report any more. And if they aren’t…” His bushy white eyebrows came down and together in a frown.
“If they aren’t, Swemmel’s soldiers are liable to be pouring through the gaps,” Hajjaj said. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
Most unhappily, General Ikhshid nodded. “Aye. And if they are, powers above only know how we’re going to stop them.”
“We gave them a good fight when they attacked us almost five years ago,” Hajjaj said. That was true. Also true was that the Unkerlanters had prevailed in the end.
And Ikhshid said, “What worries me most, your Excellency, is that they’re a lot better than they were back then. We haven’t changed all that much, but they’ve had three years of lessons from the Algarvians. You don’t get any better schoolmasters than Mezentio’s men.”
That didn’t sound good.
No, it doesn’t sound good at all,
Hajjaj thought gloomily. He asked, “Have you told King Shazli yet?”
“I don’t mind so much waking you up,” Ikhshid said. “I thought I’d let his Majesty sleep till morning—if the Unkerlanter eggs will.”
“Wake him. He is the sovereign, and he needs to know,” Hajjaj said. “Don’t tell him you’ve told me first. Tell him you’re about to let me know, and that he doesn’t have to. I’m going to head down into the city right now.”
“All right. I’ll do it just as you say.” Ikhshid nodded to someone Hajjaj couldn’t see—presumably his crystallomancer, for the crystal flared with light and then went inert as the etheric connection was broken.
Hajjaj went out into the hall. He wasn’t surprised to find Tewfik waiting. “I’m going to need a driver right away, I’m afraid,” he said.
The majordomo nodded. “I’ve already got him out of bed. He’s harnessing up the carriage.”
“Thank you, Tewfik,” Hajjaj said. “You are a wonder.” The ancient retainer nodded, accepting the praise as no less than his due.
By the time Hajjaj got down into Bishah, the Unkerlanter dragons had flown off to the south. A bit of smoke hung in the air. The moon was down, or Hajjaj judged he would have seen dark columns rising into the sky. Eggs had fallen close to the royal palace, but not on it. A few minutes after Hajjaj got to the foreign ministry, Qutuz came in.
“Did General Ikhshid have a crystallomancer get hold of you, too?” Hajjaj asked his secretary.
Qutuz shook his head. “No, your Excellency. The attack seemed bigger than usual, so I thought I should be here in case something was going on. I gather it is?”
“You might say so,” Hajjaj answered. “The Unkerlanters have struck the lines down by our southern border, and they’ve struck hard.”
“Are we holding?” Qutuz asked anxiously.
“We were when I spoke to Ikhshid,” Hajjaj said. “I hope we still are.”