Maybe he thought the king’s name would fill the Valmierans with overwhelming awe. And maybe it would have… before the war. Skarnu said, “These past four years, we’ve been on our own. We haven’t paid much attention to his Majesty-and that’s the fault of you Algarvians. Why should we start over now?”
He hadn’t seenColonelLurcanio taken aback till then. “Why? Because he is your sovereign, of course,” the redhead-actually, he’d gone quite gray-replied.
“He’s welcome to reign,” “Tytuvenai” said. “Why should he rule? What has he done for us lately?”
Lurcanio wagged a finger at him, a very Algarvian gesture. “If we should ever leave this kingdom, you will find that he still intends to rule, mark my words. May you have joy of it.” He paused. “I think we have said everything that wants saying.” He paused again, then nodded to Skarnu. “Have you any message for your sister?”
“I have no sister,” Skarnu said stonily. “No point even telling her you saw me.”
“You take this business altogether too seriously,” Lurcanio said. Skarnu did not reply. The Algarvian shrugged. “It shall be as you wish, of course.” He turned and strode away.
Skarnu started to call something after him, but didn’t. What point to it? What was Lurcanio but an enemy? He might be-Skarnu thought he was- an honest enemy, but an enemy he remained. Skarnu turned to “Tytuvenai.” He nodded once. “Let’s go,” he said.
After a long, deep, restful night’s sleep, ColonelSpinello yawned, stretched, and finally opened his eyes. The mattress was large and soft; the house not far outside of Eoforwic had, he thought, belonged to a Kaunian before Kaunians in Forthweg fell on hard times. It was ever so much more comfortable than lying down on bare dirt, which he’d done far too often while escaping the disaster that had overtaken the Algarvian armies in northern Unkerlant.
“Not so bad, eh, sweetheart?” he said.
When Jadwigai didn’t answer, Spinello rolled over toward her. She wasn’t lying in bed beside him, either. He shrugged. No law said she couldn’t get up before him, though he wouldn’t have minded pinning her to that soft, resilient mattress just then: why not start the day with pleasure, when it was all too likely to end in death or some other disaster?
Spinello pulled on his tunic and kilt and ambled out into the kitchen to see what Jadwigai had put together for breakfast, or what he could. Some Algarvians-the ones who’d never gone west to fight in Unkerlant-complained about how miserable things were in Forthweg. Spinello and the others who’d been driven out of Swemmel’s kingdom only laughed-they knew better.
“Jadwigai?” Spinello called when he didn’t see her. She didn’t answer. He shrugged again, and went to get himself some food. Bread and olive oil and wine wasn’t his favorite breakfast, but it beat the blazes out of bugs and nasty, sour berries and swamp water.
A leaf of paper lay on top of what was left of the loaf of black bread. Spinello picked it up. He hadn’t seen Jadwigai’s script before, but this couldn’t belong to anyone else. His own name was written on one side of the paper. He turned it over to the other.
By the time you read this, Jadwigai had written in classical Kaunian, Iwill be gone. I do thank you for saving me in the fight and flight through Unkerlant. I know you did not do it all for my sake, but also for your own. Even so, you did it, and I am grateful.
But I also know what happens to Kaunians in Algarvian hands. I know it could happen to me if you get hurt or get tired of me. I have learned that Kaunians, these days, have little trouble looking like Forthwegians. I would rather do that than live the way I have been living. Even if Unkerlant conquers Forthweg, I would rather do that.
I do not wish you ill, not in your own person. I do not wish ill on any of the men of the Albarese Regiment who still live. They could have killed me or kept me to give their bodies relief until I died, and they did not. But I do not want Algarve to win this war. I find I cannot forget after all that I am a Kaunian. Farewell.
She’d scrawled her name under the note.
Spinello plucked at his chin beard (he’d neatened up after returning to civilized company). Jadwigai had been naive to leave the leaf of paper. If he wanted to, he could give it to a mage to use the law of contagion to track her through it. Should I do that? He stroked his chin again. She wouldn’t be happy, or anything close to it.
Of course, he’d enjoyed bedding Vanai precisely because she hadn’t been happy about it. But things would be different with Jadwigai. He’d be breaking a bond of trust if he hauled her back. He’d never had one with Vanai, only a bargain: her body in exchange for keeping her grandfather from getting worked to death on a road gang. Jadwigai could have killed him or betrayed him to the Unkerlanters more times than he could count.
And so… He was, in his own way, an honest man. There were live ashes in the hearth. He got a little fire going and tossed the note into it. The paper charred, blackened, and burst into flames. He ate his bread and oil, and washed them down with not one mug of wine but two.
When he walked outside, the sentry in front of the house stiffened to attention. Spinello’s resolution wavered a little, perhaps under the influence of wine. “Have you seen Jadwigai?” he asked.
“Your wench? No, sir. I would’ve remembered.” The Algarvian soldier’s eyes lit up, as any man’s would when he thought of Jadwigai. “I thought she was in there with you.”You lucky whoreson. He didn’t need to say it. Again, Spinello could read it in his eyes.
“No.” Spinello let it go at that. Jadwigai would know when sentries went off duty and when they came on. If she’d timed her disappearance to just before the last fellow went off, he wouldn’t wonder that she hadn’t returned and his replacement wouldn’t know she was gone. The only risk would have been waking Spinello when she got out of bed. And if she had wakened him, she would have just had to put up with him one more day before trying again.
“Is something wrong, sir?” Like any Algarvian, the sentry had a nose for scandal.
“No, not a thing.” Spinello lied without hesitation. “She went off somewhere without telling me, that’s all.”
“That’s liable not to be healthy, the way things are around here these days,” the sentry remarked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Spinello said dryly. The sentry chuckled. Spinello went on, “Next to Unkerlant, this is a fornicating walk in the fornicating park.” The sentry laughed again. He wore the ribbon for a frozen-meat medal, the decoration King Mezentio had given out by the tens of thousands to the men who’d come through the first winter’s fighting in Unkerlant. Spinello had one, too.
Smoke rose from Eoforwic, where the Forthwegians still battled desperately to drive back the Algarvian armies. The Unkerlanters across the Twegen still stayed quiet, though Spinello could see distant smoke in the south, where Swemmel’s men had forced a bridgehead over the river. They weren’t trying to break out of it yet, but the Algarvians hadn’t been able to crush it, either. When Spinello let himself think about that, he worried.
But he had plenty of other things to worry about, too. The sentry spelled out one of them: “Are we going back into Eoforwic today, sir? I wouldn’t mind a holiday, and that’s a fact.”
With a chuckle, Spinello said, “I wouldn’t, either, old man. Neither would Algarve, come to that. When the Forthwegians and Unkerlanters and islanders decide to give us one, though-that’s another question. So aye, we’ll be going back into town.”
“I thought you were going to tell me that.” The corners of the sentry’s mouth turned down; like so many Algarvians, he wore his heart on his sleeve. “I’d just as soon sit this one out, if it’s all the same to you.”
“I’m going in,” Spinello said. “I could use the company.” He and the sentry grinned at each other. They were both going in, and they both knew it. They both hoped they would both come out again when the day was done.