“What?” Skarnu jerked as if stung by a wasp. “They can’t do that!” His memories of the column went back to earliest childhood, back to the days before his parents had died in a ley-line caravan collision, orphaning him and Krasta.
“They can,” the taverner said. “Pretty rotten piece of business, anybody wants to know what I think . . . which isn’t too likely, especially if you listen to my wife go on.”
Skarnu was only half listening. He picked up the mug of ale, gulped it down, and shoved it and coins across the table for a refill. He took a long pull at that, too, trying to imagine the capital’s skyline without that pale stone needle thrusting up from the middle of the park. He couldn’t do it; he had an easier time visualizing the royal palace gone. “Powers above,” he said at last. “They wouldn’t just knock down a monument. They’re trying to make us forget who we are.”
Now the taverner gave him a blank look. The fellow might be shrewd in business, but how much education did he have? Not much, probably. That wasn’t so for Skarnu, who’d always been a better student than his sister. Valmiera’s roots, like those of Jelgava to the north, were anchored in the soil of the long-ago Kaunian Empire. Monuments survived all over both kingdoms; the Column of Victory was just one of the more spectacular. If the Algarvians were trying to destroy them . . .
“They’re trying to kill our Kaunianity,” Skarnu said.
Intelligence kindled in the taverner’s eyes. He understood what that meant, all right. “Hadn’t thought of it so,” he said, “but curse me if I’ll tell you you’re wrong. No, curse the redheads.”
“Aye, curse the redheads,” Skarnu agreed.
“Aye, curse the redheads,” Merkela said, coming up beside him. “Buy me some ale and tell me why we’re cursing them this time.” She didn’t bother keeping her voice down. Both Skarnu and the taverner looked around the square in alarm. Fortunately, none of the Algarvians seemed to have heard. Skarnu explained--in a voice hardly above a whisper--what Mezentio’s men spoke of doing. Merkela nodded. “Powers below eat them,” she snarled.
“May it be so,” Skarnu said, and did his best to change the subject: “Have you got what you need?”
Such ploys failed more often than they worked. This time, he got lucky. “I do,” Merkela answered, “and for a better price than I thought I would, too. Every copper counts these days.” That set her cursing the Algarvians again, but in a more restrained way. “What about you?”
“Oh, I just came along to keep you company and get out of a morning’s work,” Skamu answered. And to keep you out of trouble, he added to himself. As for the work, only in winter could a farmer--or even someone turning into a farmer--say such a thing and get away with it.
Even at this season of the year, Merkela reproachfully clicked her tongue between her teeth. “Work shouldn’t wait,” she said, which might have been a peasant’s creed all over Derlavai. She drank the mug of ale Skarnu had got her, then slipped her arm into his. For a moment, he thought that was fond possessiveness. Then she declared, “Come on, let’s go. You can finish most of the chores this afternoon and not leave so much for tomorrow.”
She was in deadly earnest. She usually was. Skarnu wanted to laugh it off, but didn’t quite dare. Meek as any henpecked husband, he let her lead him out of the square, out of Pavilosta, and back toward the farm. He was chuckling inside, but made sure it didn’t show.
Like most towns, Pavilosta had gone up at a power point, which let mages work there without fueling their sorcery with sacrifices. Pavilosta’s power point was small and feeble, one reason the place remained no more than a village.
Another reason was that it did not lie on the ley line connecting two stronger local power points. That line lay between Pavilosta and Merkela’s farm. Most times going to and from the village, Skarnu hardly noticed it. The Algarvians kept the brush down along it, as had the Valmierans before them; but in winter there was no brush to keep down.
Today, though, he and Merkela had to pause at the ley line because a long caravan was passing by; it was heading southeast, in the direction of Priekule and, beyond the capital, the Strait of Valmiera. Merkela stared at the cars as they silently slid past. “Why are all the windows covered with those wooden grates?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Skarnu answered. “I’ve never seen anything like that, either.” But, after the caravan had passed, a stench lingered in the cold, crisp air. It put him in mind of the smell of the trenches--unwashed men and undisposed-of waste--but it was stronger and even more sour. “Maybe it’s a prison caravan,” he suggested.
“Maybe.” Merkela looked along the ley line. “If those are prisoners of the Algarvians, I hope they get away.” Skarnu peered after the caravan, too. Slowly, he nodded.
When Ealstan fled Gromheort, he’d though everything would turn out fine after he got to Oyngestun. Vanai lived there, after all. If he hadn’t fallen for her, he wouldn’t have fought with his cousin and had to flee the city. Falling for a Kaunian girl would have been hard enough for a Forthwegian even in peacetime. With the redheads occupying the kingdom ...
I wonder if I killed Sidroc? Ealstan thought for the hundredth, or maybe the thousandth, time. Sooner or later, he would hear from his family. Leofsig would know where he’d gone. Leofsig or their father would find a way to get in touch with him. Ealstan didn’t dare write back to Gromheort; that would tell the local constables, and maybe the Algarvians, too, where he was staying.
Of course, if Sidroc wasn’t dead and didn’t have his wits scrambled when he hit his head after Ealstan punched him, he would likely know where Ealstan was, too. But if Sidroc wasn’t dead and didn’t have his wits scrambled, he and Uncle Hengist would have gone to the Algarvians because of the fight. That constable coming up the Street of Tinkers might have Ealstan’s name and description. He might take out his stick and threaten Ealstan with death if he didn’t come along quietly.
He did nothing of the sort. He walked past Ealstan without even noticing him. For all he knew, Ealstan’s ancestors might have lived in Oyngestun for generations uncounted. The Forthwegians whose ancestors had lived in the village for generations uncounted knew better, of course. But a stranger here wasn’t such a prodigy as he would have been before war stirred the countryside like a woman stirring soup in a pot above a kitchen hearthfire.
Ealstan walked the Street of Tinkers from one end to the other, as he had every day since coming to Oyngestun. Vanai lived in one of the houses along the street. Ealstan knew that from the letters they’d sent back and forth. But he didn’t know which one. They all looked much alike, presenting only walls--some whitewashed, some painted--and doorways and tiny windows to the street. Most Forthwegian houses were like that: built around a central courtyard, and not showing the outside world whatever ostentation lay within.
He kicked at the cobblestones in frustration. He hadn’t dared ask after Vanai. That might have involved her in his trouble--and it might have got back to the constables or the redheads. Even had he known which house was hers, she shared it with her grandfather. Ealstan had no doubt Brivibas was as appalled at the notion of his daughter’s falling in love with a Forthwegian as most Forthwegians would have been at the idea of one of their kind’s loving a Kaunian.
“Powers above,” Ealstan muttered to himself. “Doesn’t she ever come outside? Doesn’t she even look outside?”
As best he could tell, Vanai didn’t. He couldn’t spend every waking moment pacing up and down the Street of Tinkers, however much he wanted to. That would get him noticed, the last thing he wanted.