"You're joking." But Cornelu saw that the wizard wasn't. He set down the meat and took a big swig of spirits. Once he had the spirits in his mouth, he swished them around before swallowing, as if cleaning his teeth. In fact, that was exactly what he was doing.
The mage laughed. "You've got to get used to eating things cooked with it if you're going to try and live in the land of the Ice People. There isn't much in the way of wood here. If there were, would you be bringing sawdust from Lagoas?"
"You never can tell," Cornelu answered, which made the mage laugh again.
"Well, maybe not," the fellow said. "Some of those blockheads in Setubal ought to be ground up for sawdust themselves, if anybody wants to know what I think."
Cornelu tried again: "Now that you have all this sawdust, what will you do with it?"
"Mix it with ice," the Lagoan mage answered, as Leino had. "We're trying to make cold drinks for termites, you see."
"Thank you so very much," the Sibian exile said. All that got him was still more laughter from the wizard.
"Are you feeling refreshed after your long journey here?" Leino asked in classical Kaunian. When Cornelu admitted he was, the Kuusaman mage asked, "Then you will not mind if I row you out to sea again so you can summon your leviathan and so we can bring these casings full of sawdust to the shore?"
Whatever the mages wanted to do with the sawdust, they were eager to get at it. With a sigh, Cornelu got to his feet again. "After tasting the delicacies of the countryside here, I suppose I can," he answered. The sooner he left the land of the Ice People and its delicacies, the happier he would be. He didn't say anything about that. The mages who were stuck down here at the bottom of the world couldn't leave no matter how much they wanted to.
Leino handled the oars with ease a fisherman might have envied. As he rowed, he asked, "When you go back to Setubal, Commander, you will take letters with you?"
"Aye, if you and your comrades give them to me," Cornelu answered.
"We will." The Kuusaman sighed. "The cursed censors will probably have to use their black ink and knives on them. They have taken too many bites out of the letters my wife sends to me."
"I can do nothing about that." Cornelu's wife didn't write him letters. The most he could say about her was that she hadn't betrayed him to the Algarvians even after she started giving herself to them. It wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough.
Leino let the rowboat drift to a stop. "This was about where I picked you up, was it not?"
"I think so, aye." Cornelu leaned out over the gunwale and slapped the water in the pattern that would summon his leviathan if it was anywhere close by. He waited a couple of minutes, then slapped again.
He got only a brief glimpse of the leviathan's sinuously muscled shape before its snout broke the surface by the boat and sent water splashing up onto the two men in it. Still in his rubber suit, Cornelu didn't mind. Leino spluttered and said something in Kuusaman that sounded pungent before returning to classical Kaunian: "I think the beast did that on purpose."
"I would not be a bit surprised if you were right," Cornelu answered. "Leviathans seem to think people were made for their amusement." He slid down into the sea and swam over to the leviathan. After patting it and praising it for coming, he undid the egg casings it carried under its belly and brought the two ropes over to Leino. "The cases are of neutral buoyancy," he said as he got back into the boat. "They will not pull you under." Leino made the ropes fast to the stern of the boat.
When the Kuusaman mage started to row again, he grunted. "They may not sink me, but they are not light. The shore looks a good deal farther away than it did when you were here before."
"I gather you and your colleagues wanted a good deal of sawdust," Cornelu replied. "I still do not understand why you wanted it, but you did, and now you have it. I hope you use it to confound Algarve."
"With the help of the powers above, I think we may be able to oblige you." Leino took another stroke and grunted again. "Assuming my arms do not fall out of their sockets between here and the beach, that is."
"Would the work not go on either way?" Cornelu asked, as innocently as he could.
Leino started to say something- perhaps something sharp- then checked himself and chuckled. "Commander, you are more dangerous than you look."
Cornelu courteously inclined his head. "I hope so."
Nine
Tears ran down Vanai's face. She'd just finished chopping up a particularly potent onion when someone knocked on the door to the flat. As she hurried out of the kitchen, whoever it was knocked again, louder and more insistently. Fear blazed through her. This wasn't just a knock. This was liable to be the knock, the one she'd dreaded ever since coming to Eoforwic.
"Opening up!" The call came in Algarvian-accented Forthwegian. "Opening up or breaking down, by powers above!"
Vanai wondered if she ought to leap out the window and hope she could end everything quickly. The redheads wouldn't get the use of her life energy that way, anyhow. But she'd just renewed the spell that disguised her Kaunianity- and she was carrying a child. If that wasn't an expression of hope, what was?
She unbarred the door and worked the latch. The kilted Algarvian in the hall had his fist upraised to knock again. A couple of burly Forthwegian constables flanked him like bookends. He looked Vanai up and down, then said, "You are being Thelberge, wife to Ealstan?"
"Aye. That's right." More hope flowered in Vanai. If the Algarvian called her by her Forthwegian name, he probably wasn't going to seize her for being a Kaunian. Gathering courage, she asked, "What do you want?"
"Your husband is keeping books for Ethelhelm, the singing and drumming man?"
Ah. Vanai wouldn't let her knees shake with relief. If that was why the redhead was here, she could even tell the truth. "Ealstan did keep books for Ethelhelm, aye. But Ethelhelm hasn't been his client since late winter."
"But Ealstan is going- was going- to seeing Ethelhelm only a few days ago."
It wasn't a question. Maybe the Algarvian had talked to the doorman at Ethelhelm's block of flats. Again, Vanai could tell the truth, and did: "Ethelhelm did send Ealstan a note asking him to visit. But when he went to Ethelhelm's block of flats, he found Ethelhelm had left the building."
"He is knowing where the singing and drumming man is going- has going?"
"No," Vanai said. "He was surprised when he found Ethelhelm had gone. From what he told me, everyone was surprised when Ethelhelm left."
"That's the truth," one of the Forthwegian constables muttered.
"You husband Ealstan not hearing from Ethelhelm since?" the Algarvian asked.
"No," Vanai repeated. "He doesn't want to hear from him, either. They'd fallen out. I don't know what Ethelhelm wanted with him, and I don't want to find out, either." That was also true. She recognized how craven it was, but she didn't care. She only wanted that Algarvian to go away, and to take his Forthwegian henchmen with him.
And she got what she wanted. The redhead swept off his hat and bowed to her. "All right, pretty lady. We going. You seeing this Ethelhelm item, you hearing him, you telling us. We wanting him. Oh, aye. We wanting him. You telling?"
"Of course," Vanai answered: a lie, this time. The Algarvian and the two Forthwegians tramped down the hall to the odorous stairwell. Vanai stood in the doorway and watched till they disappeared. Then she shut the door, leaned against it, and slid halfway to the ground as her knees did weaken with relief.