After the downfall Read online

  Sure enough, the Grenye's shrieks pierced the interrogation chamber like so many spearthrusts. The other little dark men quivered whenever a new one rang out. Hasso let a couple of them go free after Aderno's magic showed they really were hunting or fishing when the Lenelli scooped them up. "If you are not King Bottero's enemy, I am not your enemy," he told them. "But if you are the king's enemy, my job is to make you sorry. I do — I will do — my job."

  The ones he turned loose blubbered their thanks. Some of the ones he didn't turn loose went on claiming they had nothing to do with anything. Aderno's spell didn't always prove they were lying. It didn't exonerate them, either. It did… nothing. The ambiguity, the blankness, were plenty to make Hasso and Aderno suspicious. Those Grenye went to the torturer, too.

  One peasant sang like a goldfinch. His name was Lupul, and he admitted everything as soon as he heard another Grenye yell in torment. Hasso could almost watch his ballocks crawl up into his belly. "Yes, I wanted to tell Bucovin what you were doing," he gabbled. "Why not? My people rule Bucovin. You blond robbers don't."

  "We will," Aderno said. He turned to Hasso. "Now what do we do with him?"

  "He should have a quick end, anyway," Hasso said. "Give him to the headsman." Lupul wailed. Hasso felt like wailing himself, though he didn't show it. If the Grenye were still clan against clan, tribe against tribe, beating them in detail would be easier. If they saw the struggle as all of them against the Lenelli… well, it sure didn't help.

  VII

  King Bottero didn't invade Bucovin along the causeway road through the swamp. He sent soldiers along it, but only to hold it against any counterthrusts from the Grenye to the east.

  "Once we drive the savages back, we can send supplies and reinforcements up the causeway," he said.

  Hasso nodded along with Bottero's marshals. The men of Bucovin could have blocked an advance along the causeway for a long time with only a handful of men. Hasso was relieved that the Lenelli could see as much for themselves. He didn't like having to point out their stupidities and blindnesses to them. Some of it was necessary — hell, a lot of it was necessary — but he recognized the difference between gadfly and pain in the ass.

  He felt Orosei's ironic eye on him. The master-at-arms was no marshal, but Bottero would have had a mutiny on his hands if he tried to keep him in the dark. Did Orosei know what Hasso was thinking? It looked that way to the Wehrmacht officer.

  Some of the lighter boats could go out into the marsh, at least partway. The rest unloaded their supplies, which went into more wagons. That made the army slower and more unwieldy than it had been, but Hasso didn't know what anybody could do about it. You needed things to fight, and you needed to haul them to where you fought.

  His horse's hooves drummed on the planks of a bridge that took him over the Drammion to the south bank. Grenye farmers looked up from their fields to stare at the Lenelli riding by. In their dull homespun, the peasants seemed hardly more than domestic animals themselves. Looks could deceive, though — and probably did.

  In Russia, the Germans hadn't paid much attention to the peasants. Once the Red Army was beaten, the new overlords would get around to the muzhiks. Then the partisans started dynamiting railroad lines and sniping from the woods.

  How many of these Grenye would try to slip off and let Bucovin know which way the Lenelli were going? Too many — Hasso was sure of that. His security cordon had stopped a lot of the natives from succeeding as spies. Had it stopped all of them? Could it? He knew better.

  He rode up alongside the king. Pointing out the peasants in the fields, he said, "More spy trouble."

  "Well, we'll deal with it," Bottero answered. "By now, we're moving as fast as they are. They won't get to Bucovin much ahead of us."

  "Yes, your Majesty," Hasso said — that was true. "I wished they like Lenelli better than they do."

  "I don't care what they think about us. As long as they don't make trouble, they can think whatever they want," the king said.

  In a way, he made sense. That offered the Grenye a safety valve. In another way, though… "If they think bad things about Lenelli, maybe they try to do bad things, too," Hasso said.

  "Let them try. We'll squash them. We've done it before — we can do it again." Bottero didn't lack confidence. From everything Hasso had seen, Lenelli rarely did. But the Germans had been sure they would have no trouble ruling Russia. Maybe they wouldn't have, had they won.

  The Lenelli would be fine, too — as long as they kept winning. So it seemed to Hasso, anyway. If they ever started to lose…

  With magic on their side, could they lose? Were the Grenye really forever barred from it? What about halfbreeds? There had been renegade wizards — Bottero had spoken of them. What if another one arose?

  Hasso laughed at himself. Was he trying to see how much trouble he could borrow? The laughter died. Every time he'd done that in the Wehrmacht, there always turned out to be even more than he thought.

  He had a tent for himself and Velona. He wondered why she'd come along. Was she a mascot for Bottero's army? Did she intend to fight? He knew she was strong enough and skilled enough to do that if she wanted to. She'd gone into Bucovin all alone, without an army at her back.

  She'd gone in alone, yes, and she'd barely come out alive. If not for somebody literally falling into the swamp from another world, she wouldn't have. The Grenye would have caught her and killed her. What did that say?

  Whatever it said, she didn't want to talk about it. All she wanted to do was joke. Holding her nose, she said, "You smell like a horse, my dear."

  "So do you," Hasso answered. She did, too. But she also smelled like herself — better than any other woman Hasso had ever known. Still bantering, he went on, "I love you anyhow."

  That sobered her as effectively as a bucket of cold water in the face. "Be careful, Hasso Pemsel," she said, her voice altogether serious. "It is dangerous to love me too much. Deadly dangerous for a Lenello. Deadly dangerous for you, too, unless you're much more different from us than I think you are."

  "How can anyone help it?" he asked.

  "Men can't help it," she answered, without modesty and also without doubt. "That's part of what makes it so dangerous."

  "Only part?" He kept trying to tease.

  But Velona's nod was the next thing to somber. "Yes, only part. Remember, I am the goddess, too. A man, a mere man, who loves me is like a moth that loves a torch. He flies too close — and he burns."

  "What about King Bottero?" No, the night of the summer solstice wouldn't go away. And the autumn equinox was coming. Would Bottero and Velona — and the goddess — celebrate it in front of the army? If they did, Hasso expected another drunken night and another painful morning.

  In the dim lamplight, Velona's eyes went even wider and bigger than they were already. "By the goddess, no!" she exclaimed. "He enjoys me. I know that. But love me? He's not so foolish — he knows better."

  "But I don't? Is that what you mean?" Hasso didn't try to hide his bitterness.

  "Some of what I mean." Velona was nothing if not blunt. Maybe some of that had to do with the indwelling divinity she carried. More, though, Hasso judged, came from her own nature. She went on, "The other difference is, I like Bottero, but I really care for you. I don't want anything bad to happen to you because of me, but it may."

  "If you care for someone" — he stayed away from the explosive word love — "you worry about things like that. I thank you." He gave her a gesture that was half a nod, half a salute.

  She sighed. "You don't know what you're talking about. You're thinking of a broken heart. You can get a broken heart if you fall in love with a milkmaid. Even a Grenye in love with another ugly little Grenye can get a broken heart. But if the goddess ever has reason to be angry at you…" She left it there.

  Hasso started to ask her what might happen. Maybe she'd already answered him, though. Like a moth that loves a torch. In his world, it would have been one more figure of speech. Here? He wasn't so su
re he wanted to find out.

  "Have to keep the goddess happy with me, then," he said, and reached for Velona. "Even if she does smell like a horse."

  Laughing, Velona kissed him. But then she said, "Oh, no — that's just me." He thought about teasing her some more. It didn't seem like a good idea. Making love, on the other hand… never seemed like a bad idea. He blew out the lamp.

  Castle Pedio, hard by the border between Bottero's kingdom and Bucovin, was less a fortress than an observation post. It had the tallest towers Hasso had seen since coming to this new world. The reason was simple: those towers let the Lenelli see as far into Bucovin as they could.

  Half a kilometer east of Castle Pedio rose another structure, one that looked a lot like it. Castle Galats, that one was called. The Grenye had built it. It was clumsier, heavier — the Grenye didn't have the tools or the skills the Lenelli did. But Castle Galats served its purpose: a signal fire at the top warned Bucovin that King Bottero was on his way by this route.

  Hasso swore when he saw the fire. "Should take that castle by surprise when you decide to go to war," he told Bottero. "Then signal doesn't go out."

  The king frowned. "You tell me that now. I see it makes sense, but why didn't you suggest it before?"

  "I don't know this castle is here then," Hasso answered with a shrug. "Why don't you tell me about it?"

  "Everyone must have thought you did know," Bottero said. "Anybody who knows anything about the border would." He stopped and sighed. "But you don't know anything much about the border, do you?"

  "Only what I hear," Hasso said. "I don't hear about watchtowers — I'm sorry. But this is the first time I am here, your Majesty. I am stranger here. This place can still surprise me. It still does surprise me every day."

  "Well, you surprise us, too — mostly in good ways," King Bottero said. "Except when you show you don't belong here, we think you do."

  "Thank you," Hasso said, even if the king meant, You don't seem too barbarous most of the time. He pointed toward Castle Galats. "Do we take that place, or do we just mask it?"

  "Mask it," Bottero said at once. "The men from Castle Pedio can do that. Neither place has a big garrison."

  "However you like," Hasso said. "I just don't want any nasty surprises when we go by. I don't like getting nasty surprises. Giving is better." He pointed toward the beacon fire in the Grenye tower. "We don't give any for a while now."

  "Sooner or later, we will." As usual, the king sounded confident. "When the Grenye try to face us, we'll make them pay. Your striking column will help, by the goddess."

  "I hope so." Hasso had all kinds of reasons for saying that. He wanted to make Marshal Lugo look like the stick-in-the-mud, the French general in Lenello's clothing, that he was. He wanted to make his own stock rise. And he wanted to beat Bucovin, which would help him reach both those other goals.

  The Grenye in Castle Galats jeered at the Lenelli as the invaders went by. Bottero's men stayed out of arrow range of the watchtower, so Hasso couldn't get a close look at the barbarians' equipment. Some of the Grenye seemed to be wearing iron, while others made do with bronze.

  "They know iron when Lenelli come here?" Hasso asked Aderno.

  "Yes, but they were just learning to use it." The wizard looked as if he'd just bitten down on a particularly sour pickle. "They've learned a lot more since — from us. They buy as much as they make themselves — from us."

  "Why sell to them?"

  "Some people care more about money than anything else, and don't care how they get it," Aderno replied. "Is it not the same in your world?"

  Since it was, Hasso nodded and let it go. He looked around. "So we are inside Bucovin now?"

  "Oh, yes." Aderno nodded, too. "Can't you see how shabby everything looks?"

  To Hasso's eyes, the land on this side of the border seemed no different from the land on the other side. The peasants in Bottero's kingdom were also Grenye. The thatch-roofed cottages here looked the same as the ones farther east — to the Wehrmacht officer, anyway. "How do you mean?" he asked.

  Aderno made an exasperated noise. "Anyone with eyes to see would know… Well, maybe you don't have eyes to see. All right, then." He started ticking points off on his fingers. "A lot of their crops here are native weeds. They don't grow the fine vegetables and good grains we brought with us from across the sea. You can live on millet and sorghum and squashes, but why would you want to?" He made a face.

  Were the Grenye slobs, or was Aderno a snob? Some of both, probably, Hasso judged. He and his buddies had sneered at the Ivans for eating kasha and sunflower seeds… till they gradually realized that sneering at the Ivans wasn't such a good idea any which way. "I see," he said slowly.

  "Do you? I hope so," Aderno said. "I was just getting started, though. Their livestock is inferior, too. They had no chickens before we came, only ducks — miserable things, too — and half-tame quail and partridges. Their pigs are only a short step up from wild boars. The sheep and cattle they breed, they stole from us. Their native horses are barely even ponies. And they have no unicorns at all. They can't ride them, and unicorns also come from across the sea." He laid a hand on the side of his mount's white neck.

  Europeans would have said the same kinds of things about Red Indians. But how much of what the Grenye had was really that much worse than its Lenello equivalents, and how much just seemed unfamiliar to Aderno and his folk? Hasso didn't know the answer. He did know Aderno didn't even see the question.

  "Are you sure the Grenye can't ride unicorns?" he asked. An edge came into his voice as he added, "Remember, not long ago you say that about me."

  This time, Aderno might have been sucking on the mother of all lemons. "I was wrong about you, and it cost me. I am not wrong about the Grenye, by the goddess." He paused thoughtfully. "Maybe I was wrong when I said they had no unicorns. They've stolen a few from us, the way they steal big horses to improve their herds, and it's possible that they've bred the unicorns, too. But no one has ever seen a Grenye on unicornback, not in all the years since Lenelli crossed the sea."

  He sounded positive. Hasso, who'd been here a matter of months, was in no position to contradict him. "I see," the German said again — let Aderno make whatever he wanted of that.

  Before long, Hasso saw something else, too: the first armed Grenye he'd spotted in the field. They weren't an army, only scouts — a handful of men on horseback who kept their eye on King Bottero's army but stayed as far away from it as they could while still doing their job. Every so often, one of them would ride off; no doubt to report to their superiors, while another took his place.

  "We should catch some of them," Hasso said. "We should find out what they know. We should find out what they think."

  "We should find out if they think," Aderno said scornfully. "Besides, they'll just scurry off into the woods if we chase them. You see how close to the trees they stay?"

  "Yes." Hasso had noticed that. "Can't you bring them in by magic, though?"

  He'd rarely seen any Lenello at a loss. He did now with Aderno. "By the goddess, I don't know," the wizard said. "It would be child's play on the other side of the border. Here? Well, I can find out."

  Back in his own world, Hasso might have asked a radio technician to find the direction from which a Soviet signal was coming. Aderno set to work with that same kind of unflustered competence. He rummaged first in his belt pouches and then in his saddlebags for what he needed. He found a chunk of amber, a small stone that showed different colors depending on how the sun struck it — an opal, Hasso realized — and a smooth, rounded pebble that looked thoroughly ordinary.

  "What is that?" Hasso asked, pointing at it.

  "A capon's gizzard stone. A five-year-old capon's gizzard stone," Aderno answered with relentless precision. "It aids in gaining one's desire from any man. The other two, taken together, will make you victorious against your adversaries."

  Oh, yeah? Hasso thought. Back home, he wouldn't have believed it, though he knew plenty of hig
h-ranking Nazis were gaga for the occult and the supernatural. Much good that had done them, or the Reich. The way Germany was collapsing seemed to him the best argument in the world — in that world — against sorcery.

  But things were different here. On the back of his unicorn, Aderno started juggling the three stones. Hasso Pemsel thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever seen, especially when the wizard thrust out his right index finger at a Grenye rider while all three stones were in the air at the same time.

  It might have looked ridiculous. Hell, it did look ridiculous. That didn't mean it didn't work. The Grenye from Bucovin — the wild Grenye, the Lenelli would have called him — didn't want to ride up to King Bottero's army. He didn't want to approach the wizard on the unicorn. Hasso could see that more and more plainly as the fellow rode closer and closer. No matter how unwilling he was, he did what Aderno required of him, not what he wanted to do.

  "Well, well." Aderno sounded pleased with himself. "Isn't that nice. Isn't that something?"

  "Something, yes." Hasso wasn't sure what. He was sure it made his hackles rise. But as long as it worked, how much did that matter?

  "Here you are, Grenye," Aderno said as the horseman came up alongside him and Hasso. "Do you speak Lenello?"

  "Yes, I speak it." The Grenye's accent was thicker than Hasso's, but he made himself understood.

  "Tell me your name," Aderno said, and then, in an aside to Hasso, "One more sorcerous hold on him."

  Again, the Grenye didn't want to but found he had no choice. "I am called Nebun," he said.

  Instead of a Lenello-style conical helm, he wore a leather cap strengthened with iron strips. His mailshirt showed less skill than the elegant armor Lenelli wore.

  His sword, though… Hasso would have guessed a Lenello smith forged it, for it seemed the same as the ones Bottero's soldiers carried. What had Lenin said about capitalists selling the Soviet Union the rope it would use to hang them? No, some things didn't change a bit from one world to another.

  "What are your orders, Nebun?" Aderno asked, and twisted his fingers in a certain sign. Again to Hasso, he added, "Keeps him docile."