“Tell me another one, you little prick,” Hasso retorted – little dark prick just didn’t sound right. Rautat splashed him. He splashed back. They ducked each other and raised hell like a couple of six-year-olds. Hasso had never imagined having fun in Falticeni, but this sure felt like it.
XX
When spring came, King Bottero’s men stopped harrying Bucovin – for a while, anyhow. Hasso wasn’t surprised. Like fall, spring was the mud time. Rasputitsa, the Ivans called it. They needed a word for it, because they had a godawful one. All of winter’s snow melted there, and for six weeks nothing moved. It wasn’t so bad here, but it wasn’t good.
And reports came back from the west that the Grenye peasants in Bottero’s realms were kicking up their heels. Hasso felt good and bad about that at the same time. It took some of the pressure off Bucovin, which was why he’d proposed it to Lord Zgomot. But the Lenelli were bound to give the rebellious natives a hard time.
“We have to take care of ourselves first,” Zgomot observed. “And those Grenye aren’t Bucovinans anyway – I’ve said so before.”
“Yes, but they’re people,” Hasso answered.
Zgomot gave him an odd look. “That is the last thing I would expect to hear from a Lenello.” He held up a hand before Hasso could reply. “I know you are not a Lenello. By Lavtrig, Hasso Pemsel, I do. You look like one, though, and you cannot say you do not. And so I naturally think – ”
“I understand, your Lordship. It’s an easy mistake to make. Lots of people here do it.”
Hasso had made plenty of mistakes along those lines himself. He thought he kept his tone smooth here. He must not have done such a good job, though, for Zgomot’s gaze sharpened. “You wish some of those people looked at you in a different way. One person in particular, perhaps.”
“Perhaps,” Hasso agreed tonelessly. How much had Drepteaza told the Lord of Bucovin about that? What did Zgomot think of it? Whatever it was, it didn’t show on his face. Hasso went on, “Nothing I can do about it. I look the way I look, not any other way.”
“Most of us are guilty of something like that,” Zgomot said. Hasso chuckled in spite of himself; the Lord of Bucovin had a refreshingly cynical view of the world. He added, “After a while, other people might even forgive you for it. One person in particular, again, might.”
“Really?” Again, Hasso did his best not to show too much with that – he hoped – casual-sounding question. Zgomot nodded. Did one corner of his mouth quirk up, just a little? Hasso thought so, but wouldn’t have sworn to it. He decided he needed to know more. “Did she tell you that?” he asked.
“Not in so many words. Women do not like to put things in so many words,” the Lord of Bucovin replied. “But you listen to what they do not say, and you watch them, and after a while maybe you start to know what is going on.” Now he was smiling, and smiling crookedly. “And sometimes you are right, and sometimes you are wrong, and that is what makes women women.”
“Ja,” Hasso said. “You can’t live with ‘em and you can’t live without ‘em.”
“They say the same kinds of things about us,” Zgomot said. “It would not surprise me if they were right, too.”
“No, wouldn’t surprise me, either,” Hasso agreed. “If you would excuse me, Lord…?”
“Where are you going?” A moment later, Zgomot waved aside his own question. “Never mind. I think I can guess. You will likely find her in the temple at this time of day.”
“Thank you, Lord.” The palace had its own temple. The palace had enough of its own things to be almost a city of its own within Falticeni. With its smithy and bakeries and storehouses and chapel (which Hasso recalled only too vividly), King Bottero’s palace was the same way. Were the Grenye imitating the Lenelli again, or was that just the nature of working palaces? Plenty of the ones back in Europe were cluttered places, too.
Paintings and statues – some in wood, others in stone – of Lavtrig and the other Bucovinan gods ornamented the temple. They weren’t a handsome pantheon like the gods of Greece and Rome, or even an impressively grim one like those of Scandinavia. Some of them looked like the forces of nature they were supposed to represent. Others were monstrous in one way or another. The god of death had a corpse-pale face and fangs like a viper. They got more macabre from there.
Drepteaza was lighting a taper in front of a god – or perhaps goddess – whose earthly representation was a lump of brownish sandstone. After murmuring a prayer, she nodded. “Good day, Hasso Pemsel.”
“Good day,” Hasso answered. “What is that deity? What does he – she? – do?”
“Jigan endures,” Drepteaza told him. “Enduring is a useful thing for Grenye to be able to do these days, don’t you think?”
“Useful for anyone,” Hasso said. “Do you – will you – talk to me?” He tried to do his talking in Bucovinan. He still felt more fluent in Lenello, but he wanted his accent, which was not like the one the Lenelli had, to remind her he differed from them.
“I will talk with you,” she said. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Us,” Hasso said.
Drepteaza frowned. “I’m not sure there’s anything to talk about. Should there be anything to talk about?”
“I … hope so.” Hasso started to say, I think so, but changed his mind halfway through. He didn’t want to sound like someone who was insisting. He was in no position to insist. If Drepteaza wanted him dead, all she had to do was speak to Lord Zgomot, and he would die – slowly, if she felt like it.
“No harm in talk,” she said now. “Shall we go out to the garden? No one will bother us there – or if anyone tries, we can send him away with a flea in his ear.” That was how Hasso translated the Bucovinan phrase, anyhow; the literal meaning was a flea on his ass. Bucovinan was an earthy language.
Gardens were not an idea the natives had had for themselves. Along with so much else, they’d borrowed the notion from the Lenelli. Several nobles in Drammen had formal gardens behind their homes. Lord Zgomot had one on the palace grounds as much to show he was somebody as to admire the flowers.
A gardener trimming bushes took one look at the priestess and the tall foreigner and decided to find something to do in a different part of the palace. He was no fool; in his muddy sandals, Hasso would have done the same thing. Or maybe the fellow was – had he hung around, Hasso would have paid him to go away.
Hasso didn’t recognize many flowers. Big stretches of the garden weren’t blooming yet; not everything was even green. Drepteaza sat down on a bench of some hard, smooth reddish wood. After a moment, Hasso sat down beside her. She didn’t move away on the bench, which was – or at least might have been – reassuring.
She seemed as self-possessed – to say nothing of self-assured – as usual. “Well, Hasso Pemsel, what do you want to say?” she asked.
Now that he had to talk, he felt tongue-tied. How long had it been since he really talked to a woman? The last time you did with Velona, he answered himself. But that wasn’t the same thing: they’d been lovers before they could talk to each other at all.
It had to be back before the war, then. After the fighting started, he’d sweet-talked French shopgirls and Russian peasants into bed with him, but that wasn’t the same, either. With them, as with the Grenye women here, he wasn’t doing anything but screwing. Life got complicated when you wanted more than that.
Well, if he chickened out now, he’d probably never get another chance with Drepteaza. Hell, if he chickened out now, he wouldn’t deserve another chance. Faint heart never won fair lady. The worst that could happen if she told him to get lost was … he’d feel even more miserable than he already did.
He jabbed a thumb at his own chest. “I am no Lenello,” he declared. Was he getting it out in the open or just being clumsy? Damned if he knew.
“Yes, I’ve seen that,” Drepteaza agreed gravely. “When you first got here, I wasn’t sure what you were. Now I think you are what you say you are: a man from another world who joined the Lenelli because you found yourself among them – and because you looked like them.”
Hasso could have done without that last. But, when he saw three little dark men chasing one tall blond woman, what was he supposed to think? Had he seen three Lenelli chasing one Grenye woman – well, who could say what he would have done? Life wasn’t in the habit of letting you take it over.
He made himself nod. “Yes, I look like. But am not.” He pointed at himself again.
“I told you, I know that,” Drepteaza replied. “It matters less than you think, I’m afraid. You still do look like one. I don’t see how I could want someone who looks like that.”
There it was, plain as a wet fish in the face. “You look like a Grenye,” Hasso said. “Doesn’t bother me.”
That surprised her – he could see as much. Her answering smile was sweet and sad. “Plenty of Lenelli have lain with Grenye women. Most men are less choosy than most women. When they want, they take whatever they can find.”
“For screwing, sure.” Speaking Bucovinan, Hasso had to be blunt, too. “If screwing all I want, I be happy with Leneshul and Gishte. More to life than just screwing, I think. Yes? No? Maybe?”
“Yes – sometimes,” Drepteaza said. “You flatter me, you know?” She had to explain what flatter meant. When Hasso nodded, she went on, “I don’t think a Lenello would waste his time talking like this. He would think I was his because he was a Lenello and I wasn’t.”
“Not a Lenello,” Hasso said one more time. He slipped an arm around her, drew her close to him, and kissed her.
She didn’t scream or beat him over the head or even try to get away. She just… didn’t kiss him back. If a one-sided kiss wasn’t the most useless thing in the world, Hasso had no idea what would be. He broke it off in a hurry.
“I’m sorry,” Drepteaza said, his hand still dead on her shoulder. “It isn’t there. I almost wish it were – things might be simpler. But I won’t lie to you. Do you want me to leave you alone and have nothing to do with you from now on? Would that be easier for you? I’ll do it if you want.”
She would do almost anything if he wanted her to – except what he really wanted her to do. Lord Zgomot, dammit, wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. Hasso shook his head. “What difference does it make?” he said dully. As if in afterthought, he lifted his hand.
Drepteaza didn’t slide across the bench to put some distance between them. She sat where she was, confident he wouldn’t do anything more than he’d already done. He had no idea where to go from there. He didn’t see anything he could do or say that would make any difference. Muttering, he heaved himself to his feet and strode off.
“Hasso!” she called after him. “Hasso Pemsel!”