Farther inland, he could crumble twice-baked bread into pea soup at a place where he’d never gone while wearing Sibiu’s uniform. The meal he got showed he’d known what he was doing when he stayed away, too. But it made his belly stop growling like an angry dog. He set silver on the table and stalked out.
Before long, he found himself walking along his own street. That was stupidly dangerous, and he knew it. Old neighbors were far likelier to know him for who and what he was than were waiters at a seaside eatery. He couldn’t help himself, though.
There stood his house. It looked very much as it always had. The flowers in front of it were dead and the grass yellow and dying, but that happened every winter. Smoke rose from the chimney. Someone was at home. Costache? Just Costache? Well, just Costache and Brindza? Or was one of the Algarvian officers quartered there, or more than one, at the house, too?
If one of the Algarvians answered, he could beg and then shamble away.
They’d be none the wiser. But if it was Costache, if it was Costache ... He’d posted a note saying he was coming into town and suggesting they meet tomorrow. To protect her and himself, he’d signed it Your country cousin and used a false name. She would know his hand.
All at once, tomorrow seemed impossibly far away. He started up his own walk. Aye, a risk, but one he couldn’t help taking.
He was about to set his foot on the first step leading up to the porch when a man spoke inside the house. Those trilling “r”s could only come from an Algarvian’s mouth. Cornelu hesitated, hating himself for hesitating. But the risk had just gone up.
As he was about to go on despite that risk, Costache laughed. She’d always had an easy, friendly laugh. It had brightened Cornelu’s day whenever he heard it. Now he heard her lightly giving it to one of King Mezentio’s men. That wounded him almost as much as if he’d peeked in their bedroom window and seen her limbs entwined with the Algarvian’s in the act of love.
He turned away, staggering a little, as if he’d taken a beam from a stick. But his stride firmed faster than it would have after a physical wound. He no longer worried about being recognized; who would know him with this black scowl distorting his features?
“Tomorrow,” he muttered under his breath as he hurried away from his neighborhood. Tomorrow, if the powers above were kind, he’d see his wife. Maybe she would have an explanation that satisfied him.
For the life of him, he couldn’t imagine what it would be.
With the remains of naval discipline, he walked past half a dozen taverns. If he started drinking, he would either drink himself blind or drink himself angry. He could easily see himself storming up to his own front door with ale or spirits coursing through him and trying to kill all the Algarvians in his house or maybe trying to slap Costache around for not being distant enough to them. That he could also see the tragedy that would follow immediately thereafter made the picture only a little less tempting.
He bought a sack of crumbs at the edge of a park and tossed them to pigeons and sparrows till late autumn’s early dusk came. A couple of Algarvian soldiers walked by, but they didn’t bother him. He wasn’t the only fellow passing time in the park feeding the birds.
As soon as the sun sank below the northwestern horizon, the wind picked up. It seemed to blow straight through him, and carried the bite of the land of the Ice People, where it had originated. It blew the park empty in short order. Cornelu hoped the others who were leaving had better places to go than he.
He ate fried clams and allowed himself one mug of ale at a tavern that also sold meals. The clams weren’t bad, but the ale had been watered to the point where two or three mugs would have done little to him. Next door stood a rooming house where he bought a cubicle for the night. The tiny chamber barely had room for the bed and the cheap nightstand that held a cup, basin, and pitcher.
The mattress smelled sour when he lay down on it. He might have done better rolled in a blanket in the park. But he might not have, too; the Algarvians might have picked him up for being out after curfew. He didn’t want to fall into their hands for any reason. Eventually, he slept.
It was still dark when he woke. The clouds in the northeast had gone from black to dull gray, though, so dawn wasn’t far away. He scratched, hoping the nasty bed didn’t have bugs in it, then got dressed, went downstairs, and walked out of the rooming house. A new clerk had come on duty sometime in the night, but he looked as sullen and indifferent as the fellow from whom Cornelu had rented his little room.
He went back to the tavern. It was already crowded with fishermen fortifying themselves for the day ahead. The fried bread Cornelu ordered sat like a boulder in his stomach. The only resemblance the murky brown liquid the tavern served bore to tea was that it was hot. He drank it without complaint. On a morning like this, heat sufficed.
After stretching breakfast till sunrise, Cornelu went back to the park. A Sibian constable strolling through looked at him as if he were crazy, even after he displayed the bag of crumbs, still half full. The birds appreciated him, though, and came close to feeding right from his hand.
He stretched out the bread crumbs, too, making them last till nearly noon. Then he got up, brushed his hands on his kilt, and left the park for the short walk to the bell tower at the edge of Tirgoviste’s old market square. He’d asked Costache to meet him there. “She’d better,” he said as he made his way through the square. “By the powers above, she’d better.”
Clang! Clang! The bells blared out noon just as Cornelu got to the base of the tower. He looked around. The square wasn’t crowded, not the way it would have been before the Algarvians came, but he didn’t see his wife.
And then he did. His heart leaped. Here she came, striding with determination across the square. If he could be alone with her, even for a few minutes. . . But he wouldn’t be, for she was pushing the baby carriage ahead of her. Brindza’s head popped up as she looked out. Cornelu knew he shouldn’t hate his daughter, but remembering that wasn’t easy when she kept coming between him and Costache.
He knew better than to show what was going through his mind. He smiled and waved and stepped forward to embrace her. He squeezed her to him. She raised her mouth to his. After a long, breathless kiss, he murmured, “Oh, it’s good to see you again.” See you wasn’t exactly what he meant. Feel you came closer.
“And you,” Costache said, a quaver in her voice that sent tingles through Cornelu. She looked him over with an expression he recognized: comparing what she recalled to what she saw. After a moment, she clucked in distress. “You’ve got so thin and hard-looking.”
“I can’t help it,” he answered. “I’ve been working hard.”
“Mama,” Brindza said, and then, “Up.” King Burebistu could have given no more imperious command.
Costache picked up her daughter--my daughter, too, Cornelu reminded himself. His wife looked tired. He’d thought that the first time he saw her after coming back to Tirgoviste. He said, “I wish you could have found a way to leave her at home.”
She shook her head. “Mezentio’s men won’t take care of her for me, curse them. I’ve asked.”
“Aye, curse them,” Cornelu agreed. He eyed his wife again. “But you were laughing with one of them yesterday.”
“How do you know that?” Costache asked in surprise. When he told her, she went pale. “I’m so glad you didn’t knock!” she exclaimed. “All three of them were there. You’d be in a captives’ camp now.”