After the Downfall (53 page)

He wondered if he would make her angry, but she smiled. “And I am too young and too pretty?” she asked.

“You are not
too
young. You are just right. And there is no such thing as too pretty,” Hasso answered.

“You don’t think so? You might be surprised,” Drepteaza said. Sure as hell, Velona came up in Hasso’s mind. Was it the goddess dwelling within her that sometimes made her beauty like a blow in the face? Or was it just that she was what she was?

What she was ... was gone. Hasso didn’t know how many times she had to try to kill him to get the message across. However many times it was, she’d finally crossed the threshold. He truly believed she didn’t want him back. He didn’t like it, but he believed it.

Drepteaza wasn’t in that class - but who was? She was more than pretty enough. Hasso bowed, returning the curtsy. “I would like you to surprise me,” he said.

“I bet you would.” She wagged a finger at him. “You cooked up this whole scheme against the Lenelli for no better reason than to get me into bed with you.”

“How could there be a better reason?” Hasso asked, as innocently as if he didn’t mean every word of it.

“Go pour a bucket of cold water on yourself,” Drepteaza said. “Then go talk to Lord Zgomot. He is the one who has to set things moving.”

“And after that?”

“After that, go pour another bucket of cold water on yourself,” Drepteaza answered. But she was still smiling. Hasso clung to that, as a drowning man would cling
to ... to an anvil, if he’s dumb enough,
and odds are you qualify,
the German thought. He went off to see Lord Zgomot. Zgomot was none too young and none too pretty. But he was plenty smart. “If this works,” he told Hasso, “it will be the most important weapon we’ve ever found against the Lenelli.”

“Not perfect,” Hasso said. “If your army is in a pass and they magic up a landslide, amulets don’t stop falling rocks. I am sure of it.”

“So am I.” The Lord of Bucovin’s voice was dry. “We have tried all sorts of things to block their magic. I am not surprised no one thought of dragon bones till now, though. Dragons are just too hard to come by.” He spoke to one of his attendants: “Fetch the blond named Scanno here.”

“Yes, Lord.” The man bobbed his head and hurried away.

When Scanno came in, he had his right arm in a makeshift sling. He took one look at Hasso and stopped dead. “Is this miserable bastard complaining about me, Lord? I ought to complain about him, the - ”

What followed was a colorful mix of Bucovinan and Lenello.

“He is not complaining of you. He says you know of a dragon’s skeleton in Bottero’s kingdom. Is that so?”

“I ought to break him in half. I will, too, first chance I get.” Scanno didn’t shift gears easily.

“That will be later. Answer my question now,” Zgomot said. “Do you know where there is a dragon’s skeleton in King Bottero’s lands?”

Scanno shook his good fist at Hasso. “You were just lucky, you - ” The Lord of Bucovin coughed sharply. That seemed to recall Scanno to himself. “Uh, yeah. I know where there is one - or where there was one, anyway, once upon a time. What about it? Why does it matter?”

“You will set down directions for reaching this place. You will do so as exactly as you know how to do. If we succeed in bringing back dragon bones, you will be rewarded as handsomely as we know how. If you lead us astray ... That would be unfortunate. For you.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t do that, Lord. You know me. I hate Bottero more’n you do, that blowhard pile of pig shit.” Scanno’s voice took on a certain whine Hasso had heard before - not here, but in Europe during the war. It was the whine of collaborators who knew they had to keep reminding their bosses that they were useful and that they really had switched sides. It was a whine Hasso hoped he would never hear in his own voice.

“You can do what I ask of you, then?” Zgomot pressed.

“Sure. Only I don’t know if the bones’ll still be there, y’know? I haven’t had anything to do with ‘em for years and years, so you can’t scrag me - well, you shouldn’t scrag me - if they aren’t, like. It’s at the butt end of nowhere, too.”

“If my men believe you have led them to the right spot, no harm will come to you - by Lavtrig I swear it,” Zgomot said. “There should be some evidence of that, whether the bones remain or not. Is that fair?”

“I guess.” But Scanno’s whine got stronger. “What’s all this about, anyhow? How come you need dragon bones all of a sudden?”

Lord Zgomot looked at Hasso. Hasso looked back at the Lord of Bucovin. He didn’t think Zgomot would say anything. But the native did: “What you don’t know, Scanno, no one can drag out of you if misfortune comes.”

“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 maybe 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.”