Aloud, he said, "Well, the crows take him for making me come halfway across town for nothing. If he ever wants me again, I expect he knows where to find me." He turned and left the block of flats. With a little luck, I'll never see it again, he thought.
Someone had scrawled PENDA AND FREEDOM! on a wall not far from Ethelhelm's building. Ealstan nodded when he saw that. He hadn't felt particularly free when Penda still ruled Forthweg, but he hadn't had standards of comparison then, either. King Mezentio's men had given him some.
He saw the slogan again half a block later. That made him nod even more. New graffiti always pleased him; they were signs he wasn't the only one who despised the Algarvian occupiers. He hadn't seen so many since the spate of scribbles crowing about Sulingen. The redheads, curse them, had proved they weren't going to fold up and die in Unkerlant after all.
When an Algarvian constable came round the corner, Ealstan picked up his pace and walked past the new scribble without turning his head toward it. He must have succeeded in keeping his face straight, too, because the constable didn't reach for his club or growl at him.
I'm well rid of Ethelhelm anyhow, Ealstan thought. He'd found a couple of new clients who between them paid almost as much as the musician had and who didn't threaten to disappoint him with a friendship that would turn sour. His father had been friendly with his clients, but hadn't made friends with them. Now Ealstan saw the difference between those two, and the reason for it.
Not far from the ley-line caravan depot, a work gang was clearing rubble where an Unkerlanter egg had burst. Some of the laborers, the Forthwegians among them, looked like pickpockets and petty thieves let out of gaol so the Algarvians could get some work from them. The rest were trousered Kaunians taken out of their district.
Ealstan hadn't seen so many blond heads all together for a long time. He wondered why the Kaunian men hadn't dyed their hair and used Vanai's spell to help themselves disappear into the Forthwegian majority. Maybe they just hadn't got the chance. He hoped that was it. Or maybe they didn't want to believe what the Algarvians were doing with and to their people, as if not believing it made it less true.
The Forthwegians weren't working any harder than they had to. Every so often, one of the redheads overseeing the job would yell at them. Sometimes they picked up a little, sometimes they didn't. Once, an Algarvian whacked one of them in the seat of his tunic with a club. That produced a yelp, a few curses, and a little more work. The Kaunians in the gang, though, labored like men possessed. Ealstan understood that, and wished he didn't. The Forthwegians would sooner have been sitting in a cell. But if the Kaunians didn't work hard, they'd go west and never, ever come back. Their lives depended on convincing the Algarvians they were worth their keep.
A Forthwegian passing by called, "Hey, you Kaunians!" When a couple of the blonds looked up, he drew his finger across his throat and made horrible gurgling noises. Then he threw back his head and laughed. So did the Algarvian strawbosses. So did about half the Forthwegian laborers. The Kaunians, for some reason, didn't seem to find the joke so funny.
And Ealstan had to walk on by without even cursing his loutish countryman. He didn't dare do anything that would draw the occupiers' notice. His own fate was of no great concern to him. Without him, though, how would Vanai manage? He didn't want her to have to find out.
At the doorway to the flat, he gave the coded knock he always used. Vanai opened the door to let him in. After they kissed, they both said the same thing at the same time: "I've got news." Laughing, they pointed to each other and said the same thing at the same time again: "You first."
"All right," Ealstan said, and told Vanai of Ethelhelm's disappearance. He finished, "I don't know where he's gone, I don't know what he's doing, and I don't much care, not anymore. Maybe he even listened to me- maybe he's gone off to find some quiet little place in the country where nobody will care where he came from or what he used to do as long as he pulls his weight."
"Maybe," Vanai said. "That would be easier for him if he didn't look as if he had Kaunian blood, of course. Maybe someone got my spell to him."
"Maybe somebody did," Ealstan said. "For his sake, I hope somebody did. It would make things easier." He paused, then remembered he wasn't the only one with something on his mind. He pointed at Vanai and asked, "What's your news?"
"I'm going to have a baby," she answered.
Ealstan gaped. He didn't know what he'd expected her to say. Whatever it was, that wasn't it. For a couple of seconds, he couldn't think of anything to say. What did come out was a foolish question: "Are you sure?"
Vanai laughed in his face. "Of course I am," she answered. "I have a perfectly good way to tell, you know. I was pretty sure a month ago. There's no room for doubt now, not anymore."
"All right," he mumbled. His cheeks and ears heated. Talk of such intimate details embarrassed him. "You surprised me."
"Did I?" Vanai raised an eyebrow. "I'm not surprised, not really. Or rather, the only thing I am surprised about is that it took so long to happen. We've been busy."
He heard her, but he wasn't really paying much attention to what she said. "A baby. I don't know anything about taking care of babies. Do you?"
"Not really," she said. "We can learn, though. People do. If they didn't, there wouldn't be any more people."
"We'll have to think of a name," Ealstan said, and then added, "Two names," remembering it might be either boy or girl. "We'll have to do… all sorts of things." He had no idea what most of them were, but Vanai was right- he could learn. He'd have to learn. "A baby."
He walked past his wife into the kitchen, opened a jar of red wine, and poured two cups full. Then he went out to Vanai, handed her one, and raised the other in salute. They both drank. Vanai yawned. "I'm sleepy all the time. That's another thing that's supposed to be a sign."
"Is it?" Ealstan shrugged a shrug meant to show ignorance. "I'd noticed you were, but I didn't think it meant anything."
"Well, it does," she said. "You sleep as much as you can beforehand, because you won't sleep once the baby's born."
"That makes sense," Ealstan agreed. "A baby." He kept saying the words. He believed them, but in a different sense he had trouble believing them. "My mother and father will be grandparents. My sister will be an aunt." He started to mention his brother also, started and then stopped. Leofsig was dead. He still had trouble believing that, too.
Vanai's mind was going down the same ley line. "My grandfather would be a great-grandfather," she said, and sighed. "And he would grumble about miscegenation and halfbreeds as long as he lived."
Ealstan hadn't cared about that. He didn't think his family would, either. Oh, there was Uncle Hengist, Sidroc's father, but Ealstan wasn't going to waste any worry on him. "The baby will be fine," he said, "as long as-"
He didn't break off quite soon enough. Vanai thought along with him again. "As long as Algarve loses the war," she said, and Ealstan had to nod. She went on, "But what if Algarve doesn't lose? What if the baby's looks show it has Kaunian blood? Will we have to make magic over it two or three times a day till it can make magic for itself? Will it have to make magic for itself for the rest of its life?"
"Algarve can't win," Ealstan declared, though he knew no certain reason why not. The redheads seemed convinced they could.
But Vanai didn't contradict him. She wanted to believe that as much as he did- more than he did. "Let me get supper ready," she said. "It won't be anything fancy- just bread and cheese and olives."