"I promise," Qutuz said solemnly.
When Pekka walked into the refectory in the hostel in the Naantali district, she found Fernao fighting his way through a Kuusaman news sheet. What with the news sheet, a Kuusaman-Lagoan lexicon, and, almost incidentally, the grilled herring and scrambled eggs and hot tea in front of him, he was as busy a man with breakfast as Pekka had ever seen.
Somehow, he wasn't too busy to notice her come in. He smiled at her and waved the news sheet in the air, almost upsetting his teacup. "Habakkuk!" he exclaimed.
"Aye, Habakkuk." Pekka turned the word into a happy, three-syllable squeak.
"That is brilliant sorcery. Brilliant, I say." Fernao spoke in classical Kaunian so he wouldn't have to pause and search for a word or two every sentence. "Sawdust and ice for strengthening the landing surface the dragons use. More magecraft, drawing energy from the ley lines to keep the icebergs frozen in warm seas. Aye, brilliant. Sea fights will never be the same, now that so many dragons can be carried across the water so quickly."
"You talk like an admiral," Pekka said. The term literally meant general on the ocean; the ancient Kaunian Empire had been far stronger on land than at sea.
Fernao waved the news sheet again. "I do not need to be an admiral to see what splendid magecraft went into this." He read from the sheet: " 'Not least because of their dominance in the air, Kuusaman and Lagoan forces had little trouble overwhelming the relatively weak Algarvian garrisons on the five main islands of Sibiu.' "
"You read that very well," Pekka said. "Your accent is much better than it used to be. How much did you understand?"
"Almost all- now." Fernao tapped the lexicon. "Not so much before I worked my way through it."
"All right." Pekka nodded. "If you stay here too much longer, though, we will make a Kuusaman of you in spite of yourself."
"Though I would have to clip my ponytail, there are probably worse fates. And I already have some of the seeming." Fernao rested his index finger by one narrow, slanted eye to show what he meant. Those eyes argued powerfully that he did have some Kuusaman blood. Then he waved to the seat across from his at the table. "Will you join me? You must have come here to eat, not to talk shop."
"Nothing wrong with talking shop," Pekka said as she did sit down. "But you will have to move that news sheet if I am to have enough room for my breakfast." When a serving girl came up to her, she ordered smoked salmon scrambled with eggs and her own mug of tea.
The tea arrived very quickly. She had to wait a little longer for the rest of her breakfast. As she sat chatting with Fernao, she noticed that neither of them said a word about Leino, though they both knew her husband had had a lot to do with the icebergs-turned-dragon-carriers that went by the name of Habakkuk. Fernao had praised the magecraft without praising the mages who worked it. As for her, she was proud as could be of Leino. But she didn't have much to say about him to Fernao, any more than she'd had much to say about Fernao when she went home to Leino.
But those shouldn't be inverses of each other, she thought. Before she had much chance to wonder why she'd acted as if they were, Ilmarinen came in and started raising a fuss. "Why are we here?" he said loudly. "What are we doing wasting our time in the middle of nowhere?"
"I do not know about you," Fernao said, buttering a slice of dark brown bread. "As for me, I am eating breakfast, and enjoying it, too."
"So am I." Pekka looked up over the rim of her mug of tea at Ilmarinen. "Do you have anything in particular in mind that we should be doing but are not, Master? Or are you just angry at the world this morning?"
He glared at her. "You're not my mother. You're not going to pat me on the head and tell me everything's all right and get me to go back to work like a good little boy."
"No?" In fact, Pekka was in the habit of treating him rather as if he were Uto, but she'd never told him that. She was tempted now, just to see the look on his face. "What would you have me do, then?"
"Leave me alone!" Ilmarinen shouted, loud enough to make everyone in the refectory, mages and servants alike, stare at him.
Fernao surged to his feet. Pekka noted that he put only a little weight on his cane. Not so long before, he couldn't have done anything without it. "Now see here," he began, looming over Ilmarinen.
"Sit down," Pekka told him, her voice not sharp but flat. He looked astonished. Of course he's astonished, Pekka thought. He thinks he's helping me. She didn't look at him. She didn't repeat herself. She just waited. The Lagoan mage sank back into his seat. Pekka's gaze swung back to Ilmarinen. "I suggest you also sit down. Have breakfast. Whatever you are upset about will still be here when you have finished. Standing around and screaming at one another is a game for mountain apes or Algarvians, not for civilized men." She spoke in classical Kaunian, partly for Fernao's benefit, partly because it helped her sound dispassionate.
Like Fernao before him, Ilmarinen sat down before he quite seemed to realize he'd done it. Pekka waved for a serving girl. She wasn't sorry the one she got was Linna, for whom Ilmarinen still yearned. She hoped the master mage wouldn't want to make a bigger fool of himself in front of the girl. And he didn't; he ordered breakfast, much more like a civilized man than a shrieking mountain ape.
Pekka nodded. "And have some tea, Master, have some bergamot tea. It will help soothe you." She nodded to Linna to make sure the serving girl added the tea to Ilmarinen's order. Linna hurried off and brought the tea before anything else. The look she gave Pekka wasn't quite conspiratorial, but it came close.
As the fragrant leaves steeped, Ilmarinen muttered something under his breath. "What was that?" Fernao asked, though Pekka wished he would have let it ride.
Ilmarinen repeated himself, a little louder: "Seven Princes and a Princess- Pekka of Naantali."
"Nonsense," Pekka said, "nonsense or maybe treason, depending on whether Prince Renavall, whose district this is, finds himself in a merciful mood."
Ilmarinen took a couple of somber sips of tea and shook his head. "I have no trouble disobeying princes. I enjoy disobeying princes, by the powers above. But I obeyed you. Why do you suppose that is?" He sounded puzzled, almost bewildered.
"Because you know you were making an idiot of yourself?" Pekka suggested.
"That seldom stops me," Ilmarinen answered.
"Aye, we have seen as much," Fernao said.
Ilmarinen turned a baleful eye his way. "I'm not the only one at this table who's doing it," he snapped. "I'm just the only one who's not ashamed to admit it." Fernao turned very red. With his fair skin, the flush was easy to see.
Something close to desperation in her voice, Pekka said, "Enough!" She hoped she wasn't flushing, too. If she was, she hoped it didn't show. She went on, "Master Ilmarinen, you came in and said we were wasting our time. You said it at the top of your lungs. Suppose you either explain yourself or apologize."
"Suppose I do neither one." Ilmarinen sounded as if he was enjoying himself again.
Pekka shrugged. She kept on speaking classical Kaunian: "If you would sooner disrupt the work than join it, you may leave, sir. We have snow on the ground again. Sending you by sleigh to the nearest ley-line caravan depot would be easy- nothing easier, in fact. You could be in Yliharma day after tomorrow. You would not be wasting your time, or ours, there."
"I am Ilmarinen," he said. "Have you forgotten?" What he meant was, Do you think you can accomplish anything without my brilliance?
"I remember all too well. You make me remember all too well with your disruptions," Pekka answered. "I am the mage who leads this project. Have you forgotten? If your disruptions cost more than you give, we are better off without you, no matter who you are."
"Aye," Fernao growled.
But Pekka waved him to silence. "This is between Master Ilmarinen and me. How now, Master Ilmarinen? Do you follow where I lead here, or do you go your own carefree way somewhere else?"
She wondered if she'd pushed it too hard, if Ilmarinen would leave in a huff. If he did, could they go forward? He was, unquestionably, the most brilliant living mage in Kuusamo. He was also, as unquestionably, the most difficult. She waited. Ilmarinen said, "I would like a third choice."
"I know. But those are the two you have," Pekka said.
"Then I obey," Ilmarinen said. "I even apologize, which is not something you will hear from me every day." In token of obedience, he slipped out of his seat and went to one knee before Pekka, as if she were truly one of the Seven Princes… and he were a woman.
She snorted. "You overact," she said, now in quick Kuusaman, rather hoping Fernao couldn't follow. "And you know what that posture means."
"Of course I do," he answered in the same tongue as he sat in the chair again. "But so what? It's fun no matter who's doing it to whom."
Now Pekka knew she was blushing. Very much to her relief, she saw Fernao hadn't caught all of the byplay. She returned to classical Kaunian: "Enough of that, too. More than enough, Master Ilmarinen. I ask you again: why do you say we are wasting our time here? I expect an answer."
"You know why. Both of you know why." Ilmarinen pointed to her and to Fernao in turn. "Our experiment brought fresh green grass here in dead of winter. If we can do that, we can go the other way as well."
"We are not grass," Pekka said. "And we have no notion from which summer the grass came hither."
Ilmarinen waved his hand. "That is a detail. One reason we don't know is because we haven't tried to find out. That's why I say we're wasting time."
Fernao spoke up: "You were the one who showed similarity and contagion have an inverse relationship, not a direct one. If the relationship is not direct, what works in one direction will fail in the other. Calculations to that effect are very plain, would you not agree?"
"Without experiment, I agree to nothing," Ilmarinen said. "Calculation springs from experiment, not the other way round. Without the experiment of Mistress Pekka here, the landscape would have a good many fewer holes in it, Master Siuntio would still be alive, and you would be back in Lagoas where you belong."