Jaws of Darkness (23 page)

But the brigade came first. If finding out he’d bedded their pet would upset the men, he couldn’t do it.
Powers below eat the brigade,
he thought, not for the first time. What came out through his clicking teeth, though, was, “Tell them to heat up the steam room for me, would you, sweetheart?”

“Of course.” Jadwigai hurried away. She came back in a few minutes and took Spinello by the arm. “You get a fresh uniform and come along with me, Colonel. You’ll be better for it.”

“I’d follow you anywhere, darling,” he said, but he made sure he kept his tone light. Jadwigai laughed. So did Spinello, though it wasn’t easy.

Just as well for him that he did: his driver waited outside the steam room, too. They scurried in together, and shut the door behind them. “Ahh!” Spinello said, stripping off sodden tunic and kilt. The driver did the same.

Few Unkerlanters had their own bathing tubs. They didn’t go in for public bathhouses, either, the way their Forthwegian cousins did. Instead, they sat around roaring fires and sweated themselves clean. A circle of benches surrounded the central fire in the hut that did duty for a steam room in Gleina. Spinello and his driver sat down side by side and baked.

“Ahh!” This time, the driver said it, though Spinello would have. Warmth flowed into him, banishing the chilly damp. Then he began dripping again, this time with sweat. That felt better still. He picked up a bucket and poured water onto the hot stones around the fire. A great cloud of steam rose. He sweated more than ever.

During the wintertime, the Unkerlanters would go out and roll in the snow after baking long enough. In warmer weather, they made do with a bucket of cold water. Spinello had always considered either of those more nearly death-defying than anything else. When he got warm, he wanted to
stay
warm. Here, though, he couldn’t, or at least not indefinitely. He had to put on his uniform and hurry back to his own hut once he couldn’t bear the steam heat any more. Running through the rain wasn’t all that much different from getting splashed with a bucket of water. Spinello failed to see how it improved things.

But when Jadwigai asked him, “Isn’t that better, Colonel?” he found himself nodding.

“So it is, my dear,” he replied. “Of course, anything would be an improvement on the drowned puppy I was when I got back here.”

She nodded. She herself was a puppy saved from drowning. Unlike a puppy, she had to know it. She gave no sign, though. Maybe she didn’t want to think about it, for which Spinello could hardly blame her. Or maybe she never mentioned it for fear of giving ideas to the Algarvians who’d made a pet of her instead of flinging her into the river. Spinello could hardly blame her for that, either.

“What did Brigadier Tampaste say?” she asked, as if she were one of Spinello’s regimental commanders.

He answered her as if she were one of his regimental commanders, too: “He said that, whatever the bloody Unkerlanters are up to, we’ve got to stop them with what we’ve got—no hope for reinforcements.”

“Oh.” Jadwigai considered that very much as an officer would have. “Can we?”

No.
Spinello didn’t care to admit that to her, or even to himself, so he leered and struck a pose. “My sweet, when an Algarvian sets himself between a beautiful girl and war’s desolation, he can do anything,” he said grandly.

Jadwigai blushed bright pink.
Well, well,
Spinello thought.
Isn’t that interesting?

When Talsu’s mother came downstairs into the tailor’s shop where he worked with his father, she caught him not working: he was eating almonds dusted with sugar crystals and washing them down with citrus-flavored wine. Since Traku was doing the same thing, Talsu hardly felt guilty.

Laitsina wagged her forefinger at both of them. Sadly, she said, “My husband and my son—just a couple of lazy bums.”

“I am not.” Talsu would have sounded more indignant if he hadn’t tried talking with his mouth full.

“No?” his mother said. “Well, I’ll give you the chance to prove it. I was going to walk over to the grocer’s shop for some olive oil and some capers, but you can go if you’re not too lazy to get there.”

Talsu hopped down off his stool. “Sure,” he said, and started for the door at something close to a run.

Traku chuckled. “I just know his heart’s breaking, when you gave him an excuse to go see his wife before she gets back from work. He looks heartbroken, doesn’t he?”

“Like in a stage melodrama,” Laitsina answered. Talsu was already out on the street when she called after him: “Have you got any money?”

“Oh.” He stopped, feeling foolish, and went through his pockets. Then, feeling more foolish still, he went back inside and took some silver from the cash box. He went on his way again, jingling the coins to prove he had them.

Spring was in the air in Skrunda. Jelgava was a northerly kingdom, and not cursed with harsh winters; but the bright sun, the brilliant blue sky, and the dry heat all looked ahead toward summer, not back at the rain and clouds that did duty hereabouts for blizzards. Birds trilled in the bushes and from rooftops. New leaves were on the trees.

And new graffiti were on the walls, DONALITU LIVES! cried the hastily painted scrawls, THE TRUE KING WILL RETURN!

King Donalitu had lived in Lagoan exile the past three and a half years. Back in the days when he’d ruled Jelgava, Talsu had taken him as much for granted as the weather, and feared his storms a good deal more. The Algarvians hadn’t needed to introduce dungeons to Jelgava after he fled; they’d just taken over the very respectable ones he already had running.

No, Talsu hadn’t thought that much of Donalitu while he reigned. But when the choice was between oppression from one’s own countryman or from foreign occupiers, the exiled king didn’t look so bad. A choice without oppression in it somewhere hardly seemed real to Talsu.

The grocer’s shop was only a couple of blocks away. He must have seen six or eight scrawls in the little stretch. Whoever’d been putting up Donalitu’s name had been diligent about it.
Good,
he thought.

He was grinning when he opened the door to the shop. Gailisa’s father owned it, as his family had for three or four generations. Predictably, he was nowhere in sight, leaving her to do the work. She was putting jars on a shelf behind the counter when the bell over the door chimed to announced a customer. “Hello,” she said without turning around. “What can I do for you today?”

“Well, you could give me a kiss,” Talsu answered.

That made his wife whirl. Indignation vanished when she saw him. She hurried out from in back of the counter and gave him what he’d asked for. “There you are, sir—your order, personally delivered,” she said, mischief in her gray-blue eyes. “Can I give you anything else?”

“Sure.” Talsu squeezed her and let his hands wander a little. “But people would talk if they came in while you were doing that.”

“I suppose so.” Gailisa sounded disappointed, which in turn disappointed Talsu. Now he’d be counting the minutes till she got home, till they could go back into the bedchamber that had once been his alone, that was so much more cramped these days but so much happier, too. Gailisa went on: “Did you come in here with anything else on your mind?”

“Aye,” he said virtuously. “Olive oil and capers.”

“I can do that,” she said.

While she was doing it, he asked, “Did you see the new scribbles on the walls when you were coming over here?” When she nodded, he went on. “For some reason, people don’t much like the redheads. I wonder why.” He looked down to the floor planks. The stain of his own blood there had been scrubbed at and had faded, but he could still make it out. An Algarvian soldier had stabbed him after he objected to the fellow’s remarks to Gailisa. Nothing had happened to the redhead, of course. In Jelgava, the occupiers could do no wrong.

“Here you are,” Gailisa said brightly, as if he were just another customer. He made a face at her. They both laughed. He set silver on the counter. She shoved the coins back at him, whispering, “What my father doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Sometimes she would do that. Sometimes she wouldn’t. Talsu had never figured out how she made up her mind.

He kissed her again, then spoke regretfully: “I’d better get back to work.” After one more kiss, out he went, large jar of olive oil in one hand, small jar of capers in the other. He nodded every time he passed one of the graffiti proclaiming King Donalitu’s return. After Algarvian rule, he would indeed welcome the rightful king with open arms.

He’d just delivered the groceries to his mother and gone back downstairs to return to work when two Algarvians came into the shop. One of them pointed to him and asked, “You being Talsu son of Traku?”

“Aye, that’s who I am.” Talsu fought the impulse to mimic the way the redhead spoke Jelgavan.

Keeping a civil tongue in his head probably proved a good idea. He didn’t think so at the time, for both Algarvians whipped short sticks from their belts and pointed them at him. “You coming with us,” said the one who’d spoken before.

“What in blazes is this here all about?” Traku demanded.

The other Algarvian swung his stick toward Talsu’s father, who had something of the look of a bruiser to him. “We are investigating treason against King Mainardo.” He spoke Jelgavan almost perfectly. “If your son is innocent, he will be released.”

Talsu had arranged the untimely demise of Kugu the silversmith, the man who’d betrayed him to King Mezentio’s men. If the Algarvians knew about that, he was in a lot of trouble. If they didn’t—and they’d never shown any sign of it—he thought he could hope to come home again. In any case, a needle was no argument against a stick. He set it down and slid off the stool. “I’ll go with you,” he said.

“Of course you coming with we,” the first Algarvian said. All the redheads Talsu had ever met were arrogant whoresons. But then, he’d met only occupiers, a role bound to breed arrogance.

As he’d expected, Mezentio’s men took him to Skrunda’s constabulary station. Most of the people working there were the Jelgavans who’d patrolled the town before Algarve overran their kingdom. They kept doing the same job, but for new masters and with new purposes. Talsu wondered how they slept at night. By the look of them, they had no trouble. One, in fact, was all but dozing at his desk now.

But the redheads didn’t turn Talsu over to his own countrymen, as they had the last time they captured him. Instead, they took him into a small, win-dowless chamber and closed the door behind them. He braced himself for a beating. He’d had several in the dungeon, all from fellow Jelgavans.

“What do you know about these new foul scrawls on the streets of Skrunda?” asked the Algarvian who spoke Jelgavan well.

“Nothing,” Talsu answered. “I’ve seen them”—he couldn’t very well deny that—”but that’s all.”

“Liar!” shouted the Algarvian who wasn’t so fluent. He brought out that word with ease; he’d doubtless had practice.

Talsu shook his head. “No, sir. That’s the truth.” And so it was. He hoped its being the truth would do him some good.

“You were released from imprisonment on condition that you cooperate with us,” the fluent Algarvian said. “But we have not seen much cooperation from you. Do you wonder that we do not trust you?”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” Talsu said. “All I do is mind my own business.”
By the powers above, I wish you’d do the same,
he thought.

“Liar!” the other Algarvian shouted again. “We fixing you, you and your lyings.”

The door to the chamber opened. Another Algarvian came in: not a torturer, as Talsu first feared, but a mage. That might be even worse. The redhead who spoke good Jelgavan said, “Because we do not trust you, we shall have to interrogate you with a sorcerer present.”

“You lying, you paying,” the second Algarvian added, slashing his thumb across his throat.

“I’m not lying,” Talsu said, and then, to the first redhead, “Go on and ask your questions. I can’t very well stop you.”
No matter how much I wish I could.

“What do you know of the new graffiti that falsely claim the fled King Donalitu will come back to Jelgava?” the Algarvian asked.

“Nothing except that I’ve seen them,” Talsu repeated.

“Do you know who painted them?”

“No, sir,” Talsu said.

“Can you guess who might have painted them?”

“No, sir. I have no idea.”

His interrogator glanced over at the mage, who’d been muttering to himself during the questions and answers. The wizard spoke in Algarvian, punctuating his words with a fanciful shrug. The other redhead, the one who spoke Jelgavan badly, cried out in obvious disbelief. The mage shrugged again. Talsu’s interrogator tried a different tack: “Are you shielded against magecraft?”

“No, sir,” Talsu said.

“Have you ever had a shielding spell laid on you?”

“Not since I went into the army,” Talsu answered. “I know they tried to protect soldiers as best they could.”

The Algarvian waved that aside with an impatient gesture. “Do you know of anyone in Skrunda with reason to dislike Algarve?”

“Of course I do,” Talsu exclaimed. “I don’t much like your kingdom myself. Why should I, after your soldier stuck a knife in me and then walked free?”

More back-and-forth between the interrogator and the mage. Talsu knew he’d told nothing but the truth. Of course, the Algarvian hadn’t asked the right questions. The interrogator said, “Think what you will, but we are not unjust. You may go. Your answers set you free.”

“Thanks,” Talsu said, and found himself meaning it. This had indeed been easier than he’d expected. As he left the constabulary station, he couldn’t help wondering how the mage’s truth spell would have judged the Algarvian’s claim of justice. He didn’t know, but he had his own opinion.

Back in the days when Leudast was a common soldier or a sergeant, nobody in the villages the Unkerlanter army recaptured from the Algarvians ever paid any particular attention to him. Now that he was a lieutenant, he was discovering things were rather different. When the spring thaw started, his company was billeted in and around a village east of Herborn called Leiferde. He knew they would be billeted there for a while, too; hip-deep mud glued Unkerlanters and Algarvians alike in place for weeks each spring.