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  “That is my pleasure, your Majesty, and my duty,” Rathar replied, and stood to the right of the throne where Swemmel could easily seek his opinion. Whether Swemmel would want advice, or whether he would take it once he got it, were questions of a different sort.

  A herald cried, “His Excellency, Count Gusmao, minister to Unkerlant from King Vitor of Lagoas! His Excellency, Lord Moisio, minister to Unkerlant from the Seven Princes of Kuusamo!”

  As usual, Gusmao and Moisio walked up the aisle toward the throne together: a pair of oddly mismatched twins. Coming from the island their kingdoms had shared for so long gave them a similarity that transcended their complete lack of physical resemblance. Moisio was little and swarthy and flat-faced, with a few wisps of gray hair on his chin to do duty for a beard. But for Gusmao’s neat ponytail and a few differences in the cut of his tunic and kilt, he could have been an Algarvian: he was tall and fair, with red hair and cat-green eyes. Lagoans are of Algarvic stock, too, Rathar reminded himself. They’re allies, not Algarvians. Seeing Gusmao still made him nervous.

  Both ministers bowed low to King Swemmel. Being their own sovereigns’ direct representatives in Unkerlant, they didn’t have to prostrate themselves. Swemmel nodded to each of them. “Through you, we greet your rulers,” he said.

  “Thank you, your Majesty.” That was Lord Moisio—a Kuusaman title of annoying ambiguity. He spoke Unkerlanter understandably, but with the most peculiar accent Rathar had ever heard. “I appreciate your courtesy, as always.” Was that sarcasm? With Moisio, you could never be sure.

  Count Gusmao said, “King Vitor congratulates you, your Majesty, on the victories your brave soldiers have won against our common foe.” His accent was different from Moisio’s. It was also different from the way Algarvians spoke Unkerlanter, which helped Rathar feel easier around the redheaded Lagoan minister.

  “We thank you,” Swemmel said. That restraint astonished Rathar: restraint wasn’t usually one of Swemmel’s outstanding character traits. Then the king leaned forward on the throne and pointed a long, skinny finger at Count Gusmao. “We would thank you more were your soldiers fighting on the mainland of Derlavai, as ours are.”

  “Taking Sibiu back ought to count for a little something.” Moisio spoke before Gusmao could. The Kuusaman minister courted lèse majesty every time he opened his mouth. Swemmel had never executed a minister from another kingdom, not even the Algarvian minister after Mezentio beat him to the punch. There was always a first time, though.

  Before the king could start roaring at Lord Moisio, Gusmao added, “And from Sibiu our dragons pound Valmiera and Algarve itself.”

  King Swemmel snapped his fingers, as he had with Rathar in discussing the islanders. “Sibiu is nothing but rocks and mud dropped into the sea. If it fell in Unkerlant, no one would notice. We fight the Algarvian murderers from the Narrow Sea in the frozen south to the Garelian Ocean in the steaming north. Have your overlords the courage to cross to Derlavai and close with the foe?”

  He’d asked that question of the ministers from the two island kingdoms a year before. They’d talked about how many other wonderful things they were doing in the fight against Algarve. Rathar knew there was a good deal of truth in what they said. That didn’t keep him, like a lot of Unkerlanters, from resenting them for the easy time they’d had of the war.

  “We do close with the Algarvians,” Gusmao said. “We close with them on the sea, we close with them on the air, we have driven them from Sibiu—”

  “You do everything except the thing that truly matters,” Swemmel said, and snapped his fingers again. “We know why you hang back, too: you hope to see the Algarvians maim us while we maim them, then come in and sweep up the leavings for yourselves. Is it not so, Marshal?” He nodded to Rathar.

  Rathar wished he hadn’t. He suspected Swemmel had a point. Whether the king had a point or not, though, he shouldn’t have raised it with his allies. Rathar said, “His Majesty means we’ve carried the burden on the mainland of Derlavai by ourselves for a long time now. Help would be welcome.”

  “We mean what we said,” Swemmel broke in, ruining Rathar’s try for diplomacy.

  “Shall we stop fighting the Gyongyosians out among the islands of the Bothnian Ocean, then?” Moisio asked. “That would let the Gongs concentrate on you, of course, but if it’s what you want… .” He shrugged.

  “Gyongyos is an ague,” King Swemmel said. “Algarve is a plague. Do you understand the difference? Do you understand anything at all?”

  The foreign minister will probably cut his throat, Rathar thought. But then, the king had always had even less use for the foreign minister’s advice than he had for that from his chief soldier.

  Count Gusmao said, “When we hit the Algarvians, you may be sure we shall hit them hard.”

  Swemmel yawned. “When you have something new to say, come before us again and let us hear it. Until then …” He made a gesture of dismissal.

  “If you will not listen, your Majesty, how can you expect to hear anything new?” Lord Moisio asked.

  Gasps rose from the Unkerlanter courtiers. One of those gasps rose from Marshal Rathar. He sometimes dared tell the king things others would have hidden from him. Never, not even in the days of the Twinkings War, had he dared be rude to Swemmel. The King of Unkerlant was conscious of his kingship, first, last, and always.

  King Swemmel’s eyes widened, then narrowed. Through those narrowed eyes, he stared down at the Kuusaman minister. “Do you seek to see how far you can try the immunity granted to a diplomat, sirrah?” the king inquired in a voice deadly cold. “We shall teach you the answer there, if you like, but you will not have joy of the learning.”

  “You are as good a foe to your friends as you are to your foes,” Moisio answered. “Keep that up a while, and see how many friends you have at the end of it.”

  “Your Majesty—” Rathar began urgently. Whether Swemmel did or not, he understood that Unkerlant would have a much harder time beating Algarve and Gyongyos without help from the two island kingdoms.

  “Be silent, Marshal,” Swemmel snapped, and Rather, ingrained to obedience, was silent. The king’s head swung back to Moisio. “We grant immunity to no man, diplomat or otherwise, for insolence against our person.”

  “ ‘Insolence’? What insolence?” the Kuusaman said. “Count Gusmao told you a thing. You would not hear it. You refused to hear it. Where lies the insolence in that?”

  More gasps rose from the Unkerlanters. This time, Marshal Rathar kept quiet. Every once in a while, someone taking a line like Moisio’s could get through to Swemmel where flattery and court tricks failed. More often, of course, such attempts ended in disaster, which was why even Rathar used them only as a last resort.

  Swemmel said, “I have heard such nonsense as he spouts from both of you before. Why should I care to hear it again?” He wasn’t shouting for his guards to take Lord Moisio away and do something dreadful to him. His failure to shout for them was as much as—more than—Rathar could have hoped for.

  “ ‘Why,’ your Majesty?” Count Gusmao spoke for himself. “Because it is not nonsense. I told you the truth, and nothing but. When we hit the Algarvians, you may be sure we shall hit them hard.”

  “Aye, no doubt. And when will that be?” King Swemmel jeered.

  Moisio did something then that Rathar thought would get him killed in the next instant: he stepped up onto the base of the throne and beckoned to Swemmel to lean down to him. To Rathar’s astonishment, the king did—maybe Swemmel was too astonished to do anything else, too. And the Kuusaman minister, standing on tiptoe, whispered something into his ear.

  “Really?” Swemmel, for once, sounded altogether human and not in the least royal.

  “Really.” Lord Moisio’s voice was firm. Whatever he’d told the king, he believed it. Hearing the way he affirmed it, Rather believed it, too. The only problem was, he had no idea what Moisio had said. And, by Swemmel’s conspiratorial smirk—one that Moisio shared—he wouldn’t
get to find out any time soon, either.

  Four

  A blizzard howled outside the peasant hut in eastern Grelz that Colonel Sabrino had taken for his own. Sabrino wondered if it would be the last blizzard of the winter: it was heavy, wet snow, not the dry, powdery stuff that fell—or sometimes just blew sideways—when the weather was even colder. Whether it proved the last blizzard or not, it was too thick for the wing of dragons he commanded to fly. And so he sat in the hut in front of a roaring fire and poured down spirits to make time go by. The peasant who’d once lived here had probably passed the winter the same way.

  “One thing, anyhow,” Sabrino said, pronouncing each word with considerable care.

  “What’s that, sir?” Captain Orosio sat on another stool not far away. He had a mug of spirits, too, and he’d also emptied it more than once.

  “In weather like this, even the cursed Unkerlanters can’t get their dragons off the ground,” Sabrino said.

  Orosio considered that with owlish intensity. Once it had penetrated, he nodded. “You’re right, sir,” he said, as if Sabrino had given him some hidden key to the true meaning of the world. “By the powers above, you’re right.”

  “Of course I am,” Sabrino said grandly. He drew himself straight on his stool, and almost fell off it. “I am a colonel of dragonfliers. Do I know these things, or do I not?”

  “You’re a colonel of dragonfliers. Of course you do.” Orosio tilted back his mug and drained it. He reached for the jar that sat on the rammed-earth floor between Sabrino and him. The jar sloshed when he picked it up. Grunting in satisfaction, he poured himself a refill. After he drank, he turned— carefully—toward Sabrino. “How come you’re still a colonel of dragonfliers?”

  “What’s that?” Sabrino asked.

  “How come you’re still just a colonel of dragonfliers, lord Count?” Orosio said again. “You’ve got the blue blood, and powers above know you fight your wing like a mad bastard. How come you’re not a brigadier of dragonfliers, or maybe a lieutenant general of dragonfliers by now? Plenty of people who started behind you and weren’t so good to begin with are ahead of you now. It doesn’t seem fair to me.”

  “Ah.” Sabrino reached out and patted Orosio on the shoulder. “You are a gentleman, my friend. Nothing less than a gentleman. But the war could go on till I was much older than I am now—which is quite old enough, believe you me it is—and I would die a colonel of dragonfliers. I suppose I ought to count myself lucky I wouldn’t die a sergeant of dragonfliers.”

  “I don’t understand, sir.” Orosio sounded on the verge of tears because he didn’t understand.

  There had been times when Sabrino found himself on the verge of tears because he understood altogether too well. No more, though. He was—or he told himself he was—resigned to what had happened to his career. “Do you want to know why I’m not a brigadier of dragonfliers or even a lieutenant general of dragonfliers, Orosio? It’s simple. Nothing simpler, in fact. I told King Mezentio to his face that he was making a mistake when he started sacrificing Kaunians for the sake of sorcery, and I turned out to be right. That’s why I’m still a colonel of dragonfliers, and why I’ll be one till my dying day.” He emptied his own mug and poured it full again.

  “Would you have had a better chance for promotion if you turned out to be wrong?” Orosio asked.

  Sabrino shook his head. “No, not any chance at all,” he said loudly—aye, he could feel the spirits, sure enough. “It didn’t help that I turned out to be right, but it didn’t matter much, either. You tell the king he’s made a mistake and you’ve made a worse one, if you ever wanted to see rank higher than the one you owned.”

  “That’s not fair. By the powers above, it’s not fair,” Captain Orosio said with drunken insistence of his own. “You’re a free Algarvian. You’ve got as much right to tell him what’s so as he’s got to tell you.”

  “Oh, aye, I’ve got the right,” Sabrino agreed. “I’ve got the right, but he’s got the might.” The jingling rhyme made him laugh—a telling measure of how drunk he was.

  “Not fair,” Orosio said again. “The way things are, we need every good soldier doing everything he can.” He leaned over to pat Sabrino this time, and he too almost fell off his stool. “You’re a good soldier, sir, but you’re not coming close to doing everything you can.”

  “No? You think not?” Sabrino’s laugh was loud and emphatic, too. “Right this minute, I’m doing everything I can just to sit up, same as you are.”

  “Who, me?” Orosio said. “I’m fine, just fine.” To prove how fine he was, he burst into raucous song.

  “That’s lovely,” Sabrino said, another telling measure of how low in the jar the level of spirits had got. He yawned enormously. “Let’s go to bed.”

  “Aye, let’s,” Captain Orosio said, not that the hut boasted any real beds. Instead, it had benches against the wall, on which the Unkerlanter peasants who lived there had been wont to throw pillows and blankets and themselves.

  Those pillows and blankets were long gone, as were the Unkerlanter peasants. Sabrino did not miss them. For one thing, the hut already boasted a generous oversupply of lice and bedbugs and fleas. For another, the dragonfliers were wearing the furs and leathers in which they rose high with their mounts. Those were warm enough to take the measure of even an Unkerlanter winter.

  Sabrino lay down. So did Orosio. The wing commander heard Orosio start to snore. Then weariness and spirits rolled over him like an avalanche, and he heard nothing more for a long time.

  When he woke up, he was lying on the floor by the bench. He had no recollection of falling off, but he must have done it. Orosio remained where he’d lain down. He was still snoring, too. The horrible noise made Sabrino wince.

  Everything, just then, made Sabrino wince. The fire had died into embers, but even their faint red glow seemed too bright for his eyes. His head throbbed as if eggs were bursting inside it. “Powers above,” he muttered. Talking hurt, too. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done such a thorough job of damaging himself with spirits.

  He started to crawl toward the jar, then gathered himself, got to his feet, and walked over to it. He poured some spirits—not too much—into his mug and swallowed as if he were swallowing medicine. His outraged stomach tried to rebel, but he sternly refused to let it. After the first dreadful shock, the spirits started cutting into his hangover instead of making it worse.

  Had he been an Unkerlanter peasant, he probably would have gone from hangover remedy straight into another drunk. He was tempted to do that anyway, but shook his head, which also hurt. The blizzard might end. If the dragons hadn’t frozen out there, he might have to fly. Flying hung over was painful; he’d done that a few times. Flying drunk … Flying drunk was asking to get killed. He might have felt like death, but he didn’t feel like dying.

  He shook Orosio. The squadron leader groaned, but then went back to snoring. Sabrino shook him again. Orosio opened one eye, which was redder than the embers in the hearth. “Go away,” he croaked. His eyelids slid shut again.

  “Duty,” Sabrino said.

  “Futter duty,” Orosio answered. “I’m not fit for it, anyway. Can’t you see I’m diseased? I need a healer.”

  “I know what you need.” Sabrino poured some more spirits into a mug. It was the one from which he’d drunk, but he wasn’t worrying about the niceties just then. And the gurgle and splash got Orosio’s attention. The squadron leader opened both eyes. He sat up. When Sabrino held out the mug to him, he took it and gulped the spirits.

  “Powers above, that’s foul stuff,” he said, and then, a moment later, “Let me have some more.”

  “No.” Sabrino shook his head again, which made him wish it would fall off. “The idea is to cure you, not to start you down the slope again.”

  “Oh, I’m cured,” Orosio said in hollow tones. “Into shoe leather, I think. I’m going to swear off spirits forever, or at least until the next time I feel like getting drunk again.” He eye
d the jar in Sabrino’s hand. “A little more?”

  “No,” Sabrino repeated, and shoved the stopper into the jar again. He sat down beside Orosio: his legs didn’t want to hold him up any more. “I didn’t take any more for myself than I gave you—enough to take the edge off things, but that’s all.”

  “You’re a hard, cruel man, Colonel.” Orosio grimaced. “I’ve got demons ringing bronze bells in my head.”

  “I know what you mean.” With an old man’s spraddle-legged shuffle, Sabrino walked to a window. He felt like a very old man just then. When he undid the leather lashings that held the shutter closed, he looked out on swirling white. “The snow hasn’t let up.”

  “Good,” Orosio said. “Maybe we’ll be somewhere close to human before we have to fly again. Right now, I don’t think the undertakers did much of a job embalming me.”

  “You embalmed yourself, same as I did,” Sabrino answered. “I wonder how many men in the wing have gone and done the same.”

  “Nothing else to do in this miserable place,” Orosio said. “Nothing to do on this whole front but drink and fly. If we can’t fly, that only leaves one thing.” He cast a longing eye at the jar of spirits.

  “Don’t remind me.” Sabrino’s laugh was half real amusement, half something darker, something grimmer. “When I’m drunk, I keep looking around for my wife to hit, the same as any Unkerlanter peasant would.” He laughed again. “I wouldn’t really hit Gismonda, mind you; she’d have the law on me in nothing flat. But if Fronesia were here …”

  “But she’s not your mistress anymore,” Orosio said. “Didn’t you tell me she’d taken up with a major of footsoldiers?”

  “A major, a colonel, something like that.” Sabrino made a fist. “Well, my good fellow, what better reason to hit her than that?”