“If you were an Unkerlanter, you’d still be a lousy woodcutter,” Szonyi said. “By the stars, you’d be a lousy woodcutter if you were an Algarvian.”
“Algarvians,” Kun said, and chopped away at the wood scattered before him with great spirit if not with great efficiency.
“They’re strange people.” Szonyi paused for a moment to wipe sweat from his face with a tunic sleeve. Like most early autumn days on the island of Obuda, this one was cool and misty, but cutting wood was plenty of work to keep a man warm. “Even the one who speaks our language is strange, and the other three…” He rolled his eyes. “They’re even worse.”
“Makes you wonder why we ever allied with them,” Istvan said, leaning on his axe. “They’re… foreign.”
Kun laughed. “Of course they’re foreign. They’re foreigners, by the stars. Did you expect them to be just like us?”
Actually, Istvan had expected something like that. The only foreigners with whom he’d had any experience up to now were Unkerlanter and Kuusaman enemies-and trying to kill one another hadn’t proved the best way to strike up an acquaintance-and the natives of Obuda, whom he reckoned contemptible because they bowed down to whoever occupied their island. He said, “I expected them to be more like us than they are, I’ll tell you that.”
“Why?” Kun asked.
“Because we’re on the same side, of course,” Istvan answered. Szonyi nodded vigorous agreement.
“We’re on the same side as the naked black Zuwayzin, too,” Kun said. “Do you think they’ll be just like us?”
Istvan had trouble believing there really were people with black skins who ran around with no clothes on all the time. It sounded like one of the stories big boys told their little brothers so those little brothers would look like fools when they repeated them to their parents. He said, “I’ve never seen a Zuwayzi, and neither have you. And we weren’t talking about them. We were talking about Algarvians.”
“Aye, but you were saying that foreigners shouldn’t-” Kun began.
“No to talk!” a guard shouted in bad Gyongyosian. “To work! To chop!”
With something close to relief, Istvan went back to cutting wood. Kun had a way of twisting things till they seemed upside down and inside out. The former mage’s apprentice got back to work, too, but he didn’t stop talking. He never does, Istvan thought, which wasn’t quite fair. Kun continued, “Foreigners shouldn’t be different from us if we’re going to ally with them? I think that’s a silly notion.”
“No to talk!” the Kuusaman guard yelled again. This time, Kun did shut up-for a while.
After what seemed like forever, the wood-chopping detail finished its work. The Kuusamans carefully counted the axes before sending the captives back to their barracks. Istvan didn’t know how anyone could hope to sneak an axe away, but the guards took no chances.
In the barracks, Captain Frigyes and Borsos the dowser and the Algarvian who spoke Gyongyosian-his name was Norandino, which struck Istvan as a thoroughly barbarous appellation-had their heads together. Istvan didn’t like that. Both Frigyes and, from what he’d been able to see, Algarvians in general were much too fond of blood sacrifice and the sorcerous power that sprang from it to suit him.
By the way Frigyes looked up in alarm, he and Borsos and Norandino had been plotting something. Whether it had to do with cutting some large number of Gyongyosian throats here, Istvan didn’t know. He hoped he wouldn’t ever have to find out.
Norandino said something in questioning tones, too low for Istvan to make out the words. Frigyes answered a little more loudly: “Oh, aye, they’re reliable enough. Nothing to worry about with them.”
Istvan knew he should have felt reassured, complimented, even flattered. What he felt instead was something a man not from a self-styled warrior race would unquestionably have called fear. He had too good a notion of what sort of bloody thoughts went through his company commander’s mind.
Szonyi and the rest of the woodcutters went to their cots and relaxed without the slightest worry-all save Kun, who caught Istvan’s eye. Kun didn’t say anything. He hardly changed expression. But Istvan knew they were thinking the same thing, and that it appalled them both.
Norandino’s laugh rang out. It filled the barracks hall. How could anyone who talked of slaughter sound so cheerful about it? Istvan didn’t know, but the redhead certainly seemed to manage. And it wasn’t a laugh of anticipation of someone else’s trouble, as might have come from a Gyongyosian. By the sound of it, Norandino knew his own neck might be on the line. He not only knew, he thought that was part of the joke.
Or maybe I’m imagining things, Istvan thought as he lay down on his own cot. He stared up at the boards of the ceiling and tried to make himself believe it. He couldn’t. Why would Frigyes and a mage of sorts and an Algarvian talk together, if not for purposes of sorcery and sacrifice?
Reliable. Captain Frigyes thinks I’m reliable. Am I? That he could even ask himself the question left him startled. If I thought he could really do something to win the war for Gyongyos, I might not feel the same. But he can’t hurt anything but Obuda, and the fighting’s moved a long way from here.
Which meant… Istvan knew what it meant. He knew, but he shied away from following the thought where it had to lead. He glanced over toward Kun, who sprawled a couple of cots away. Kun was looking in his direction, too. Istvan jerked his eyes away, as if he’d caught the other man doing something disgusting. But he hadn’t. The disgust was all in his own mind, with much of it aimed at himself.
Kun didn’t shy away from logic. Kun would know the choice perfectly well-would know it and know what to make of it. Either you let your throat be cut-or, if you were lucky, your friends’ throats-or you let the Kuusamans know what was brewing. Istvan saw no middle ground.
He’d talked about such matters. Talking about them, he discovered, was one thing. Actually nerving himself to speak to a guard? That was something else again. If I do it, I can never go back. If I do it, I can probably never set eyes on another Gyongyosian as long as I live.
But that wasn’t it, or wasn’t the biggest part of it, anyway. If I do it, will the stars still shine on me? Or will they cast me into eternal blackness once I die?
Then Borsos said something loud enough for him-and for the whole barracks-to hear: “No, by the stars! I’ll have no part of it!” The dowser sprang to his feet and hurried out of the building.
Istvan let out a loud, long sigh of relief. He didn’t care who heard him, not right then he didn’t. The stars be praised! blazed through his mind. They’ve arranged things so I don’t have to betray my countrymen. Truly they are as kindly as people say. Even his cot all at once felt more comfortable than it had.
But he soon discovered the stars intended other things than keeping him happy. Captain Frigyes called, “Come over here a moment, Sergeant Istvan.”
“Sir?” Istvan said, his heart sinking. He would sooner have gone into battle again in the trackless forests of western Unkerlant than climb to his feet and walk over to the corner of the barracks hall where Frigyes and Norandino the Algarvian sat.
Captain Frigyes nodded to him in a friendly way, which only worried him more. “Now, Sergeant,” the company commander said, “I’ve been telling Norandino here that you’re a man with good sense.”
“He has indeed. His praise of you would make the stars blush in the sky,” Norandino said. That praise made Istvan blush. So did the redhead’s whole manner of speaking. Gyongyosian was a language in which a man said what he meant and had done. The Algarvian turned it into something that sounded flowery and unnatural.
When Istvan merely stood mute, Frigyes pressed ahead: “You’ve said you know Major Borsos, haven’t you?”
He knew perfectly well Istvan had said that. Istvan couldn’t deny it now, however much he wanted to. “Aye, sir,” he said unhappily, and said no more.
Captain Frigyes beamed at him. “Splendid!” He sounded almost as flowery as Norandino. “Then you won’t mind talking him into seeing what’s good sense, will you?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Istvan answered, more unhappily still. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.” That was a great thumping lie, but how he wished it were the truth!
“We want to do to Kuusamo all we can-is that not true?” Norandino said. “And we see only one way of doing anything at all to Kuusamo on this miserable little island. Is that not also true?” He made everything he said seem not only true but obvious.
Istvan had his doubts about what was true. To him, nothing seemed obvious except that Frigyes was daft. Daft or not, Frigyes was also his superior. And so, instead of saying what he thought, he just shrugged.
Norandino looked disappointed. “Oh, my dear fellow,” he began, as if he were Istvan’s close kin.
“I’ll handle this,” Frigyes broke in. He aimed a forefinger at Istvan as if it were a stick. “You swore an oath. Are you ready to live up to it, or not? Answer me straight out, Sergeant.”
“Sir, I wasn’t a captive then, stowed away where I couldn’t do Ekrekek Arpad or Gyongyos any good,” Istvan said.
Frigyes eyed him with cold contempt. “Begone, oathbreaker. Believe me, I can find someone else to make Borsos see what needs seeing, do what needs doing. And as for you, Sergeant, as for you… May the stars forget you as you have forgotten them.” Istvan stumbled away, shame and joy warring in his heart.
Eighteen
A sharp, peremptory knock on the bedchamber door woke Krasta in the middle of the night. “Who is it?” she asked muzzily, though only one person was likely to presume on her so. And even he had his nerve, waking her out of a sound sleep.
Sure enough, Colonel Lurcanio spoke from the hallway: “I am a commercial traveler, milady. Can I interest you in a new laundry soap?”
With a snort, Krasta got out of bed and walked to the door. The waistband of her pyjama trousers was getting tight. Her belly had finally started to bulge. Before long, she would have to start wearing a larger size-and then do it again and again, until I finally have this baby, she thought with more than a little annoyance.
She’d opened the door before she realized she could have told Lurcanio to go to the powers below. If he suddenly took it into his head to want her at whatever ghastly hour this was, she was ready to give herself to him, no matter how much she might resent it later. Till she knew him, she’d never imagined a man could intimidate her so. No one else had ever come close.
There he stood in full uniform, from boots to jaunty hat complete with jaunty plume. Instead of taking her in his arms, he swept off the hat and bowed. “Good-bye, my sweet, and as much good fortune to you as you deserve, or perhaps even a little over that. Because of you, I have enjoyed Priekule a good deal more than I thought I would.” He bowed again.