Pekka shook her head again. “No. Itwas good, but that isn’t enough.” She held up a hand before he could snort in disbelief or do anything else in like vein. “Itisn’t. For you, maybe, but, for one thing, you’re a man, and-”
“Thank you so much,” he said.
She talked right through him: “-and, for another, you’re not a married man. Your life isn’tso much more complicated than it was before. Mine is.”
Fernao started to protest. But what complicated his life, at the moment, was Pekka’s unwillingness to sleep with him again. Somehow, he didn’t think that would impress her.
She sighed and said, “If I weren’t happy with Leino, that would be something different. But I am. It’s just that we were apart too long. Sometimes your body can make you stupid. I think it happens more easily with men, but it happens to women, too.”
“I suppose so,” Fernao said dully. He didn’t much care to be reckoned no more than the object of her stupidity.
Pekka pointed a finger at him. “Maybe we ought to get more Lagoans to the hostel here, after all. I know how Lagoans think about my people. If you had those tall, round Lagoan women here, you wouldn’t look twice at me.”
But now Fernao shook his head. “I started wishing I could meet you back when I was reading your journal articles, before you Kuusamans stopped publishing all of a sudden. It isn’t just that I think you’re beautiful…” He hadn’t quite intended to say that, which didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
Pekka looked down at the floor directly between her feet. In a very small voice, she said, “You’re not making this any easier, you know.”
“I’m sorry.” Fernao shook his head. He wasn’t sorry. He was about as far from sorry as he could be, and wanted to make things as hard as he could. Most of all, he wanted to bed her again, and again, and again, and let whatever happened afterwards take care of itself.
That must have been very plain. Pekka said, “I think you’d better go.” She laughed-briefly. “In the romances, I’d throw yourself into your arms now, either because you were here and my husband wasn’t or because you made me so passionate, I couldn’t help myself. But life isn’t always like the romances. Youdid make me passionate-I’d be lying if I said anything else. It’s not enough, though, and I’m not going to let it be enough. I know where I belong.”
He heard the finality in that. He wished he were so sure of such things. He didn’t see that he could do anything but what she asked now. She looked relieved when he got up and started for the door. Relieved he was going? Or relieved he wasn’t making her make hard choices? He wished he could believe the latter. Every fiber of him wanted to. Every nerve ending he had told him he’d be wrong if he did.
If only I hadn’tbeen after anything but seducing her, he thought as his hand fell on the latch. But if there were two more dismal words thanif only in Lagoan-or Kuusaman, or classical Kaunian, or any other language-he was cursed if he knew what they were.
A band stood on the deck of theHabakkuk, thumping away in the emphatic style the Kaunian kingdoms favored. To Leino, the Jelgavan royal hymn sounded like a lot of raucous noise. Not far away from him, Xavega twisted her face into a sneer. She looked pretty even while sneering, no mean feat. Ireally have been away from Pekka too long, Leino thought.
But looking at Xavega was more pleasant than looking atKingDonalitu of Jelgava, whose presence aboard theHabakkuk occasioned the band. Donalitu was pudgy and graying. Neither his face nor his body seemed to match the splendid, dazzlingly bemedaled uniform he wore.
Xavega sneered atKingDonalitu, too. Lagoas might be at war with Algarve, but that didn’t mean Lagoans loved and admired folk of Kaunian blood, any more than they loved and admired Kuusamans. As far as Leino could see, Lagoans loved and admired nobody but other Lagoans, and often not too many of them.
He didn’t love or particularly admireXavega. All I want to do is get it in, he thought. She started to glance toward him. He looked away. He didn’t want to see her sneer aimed at him. He knew it would be, but he didn’t want to see it.
CaptainBrunho, who commanded theHabakkuk, was also a Lagoan, which meant he towered more than half a head over Leino. He ledKingDon-alitu up to the Kuusaman mage and spoke in classical Kaunian: “Your Majesty, I present to you Leino of Kajaani, one of the sorcerers who designed and created this ship here.”
Leino bowed. “I am honored to meet you, your Majesty,” he said. It was at least theoretically true.
The exiled King of Jelgava looked him over. By Donalitu’s expression, what he saw didn’t much impress him-he could have given Xavega lessons in sneering. He said, “So you will help me get my throne back? You will help drive the filthy, barbarous usurper from the high place that is not his?”
“Uh, I will do what I can, your Majesty,” Leino said. Beside Donalitu, CaptainBrunho turned a dull red: the color of hot iron. When Donalitu called Algarvians filthy barbarians, he also indirectly called Lagoans-his protectors, and another Algarvic people-filthy barbarians. He seemed unaware that might prove a problem. Odds were he’d been unaware of it ever since going into exile. Leino had no intention of being the one to enlighten him.
Donalitu said, “What good is this big icy boat? I hope I shall not catch cold here.”
Now Leino suspectedhe was turning a dull red. By all appearances, no one had ever taught Donalitu anything resembling manners. Maybe kings didn’t need them, though Leino had his doubts about that. Keeping a careful grip on his temper, he replied,“Habakkuk can carry many more dragons than any ordinary ship, your Majesty. This ship is also harder to damage than any of the ordinary sort.”
“But it will melt,” Donalitu exclaimed.
Patiently, Leino said, “Not if we have mages refreshing the ice-and we do.” Maybe no one had ever taughtKingDonalitu to think, either.
Donalitu turned toCaptainBrunho and said, “I shall be glad to go back aboard a proper ship, a natural ship, when this inspection is done.”
“Aye, your Majesty.” Brunho’s face and voice were wooden.
Leino held his face straight, too, though it wasn’t easy. Donalitu assumed an iron ship was a natural ship. What kind of sense did that make, when ice floated and iron sank? He almost said as much, but somehow managed to keep his mouth shut.
CaptainBrunholed the King of Jelgava off to inspect the dragonfliers and their mounts. With any luck at all, a dragon will bite off his head, Leino thought. That would do his kingdom some good. As soon asKingDonalitu was out of earshot, or perhaps rather sooner, Xavega said something in Lagoan. The mages who spoke her language snickered. Not wanting to be left out, Leino asked, “What was that?” in classical Kaunian.
“I said, ‘What a horrid, stupid little man,’ “ she replied in the same tongue. In her loathing of Donalitu, she was willing to treat Leino as an equal. It was the first time she’d done that since the Algarvian leviathan-rider planted an egg on theHabakkuk. Plainly, she needed something drastic.
After what seemed like forever, KingDonalitu left the iceberg-turned-dragon-hauler. He went down a rope ladder into a little patrol boat that took him back to the ley-line cruiser-the iron ship, the natural ship, Leino thought with amusement-in which he’d come out to visitHabakkuk. The cruiser sped away.
Leino waved after it. “Good-bye!” he called in classical Kaunian. “With any luck, we shall never see you again. Good-bye!”
“May it be so!” Xavega said. She beamed-she actually beamed-at Leino. His hopes, or something close to his hopes, rose. Common sense quashed that. Xavega’s smile wasn’t likely to show how much she liked him. It would show how much she despised Donalitu of Jelgava.
CaptainBrunhocame up behind them. “That will be enough of that,” he said. “That will be more than enough of that, in fact.”
“He insulted you, he insulted the ship, he insulted all of us, he is a moron,” Xavega snarled. “Are we supposed to put our lips on his posterior?”