Through the Darkness Read online

  “Thanks,” Ealstan said, and then had to hand the fellow a coin for doing what he should have done for nothing. Ealstan took the envelope and went off before opening it; whatever it held, he didn’t want the doorman knowing it.

  Hello, the note read.

  I’m hoping you’ve come down with something. If you haven’t, the Algarvians have probably come down on you and your lady. You can get over the one easier than the other, I think, the way things are these days. If you’re reading this, everything is probably all right. If you’re not, then I wish you were. Take care of yourself.

  The band leader had scrawled his name below the last sentence.

  Ealstan smiled as he refolded the note and put it in his belt pouch. Ethelhelm enjoyed speaking in riddles and paradoxes. And Ealstan could hardly find fault with this one. Better to have any natural sickness than to let the Algarvians know he was harboring Vanai.

  That point got driven home when he came back to his own sorry little street. A couple of overage, overweight Algarvian constables were standing in front of the block of flats next to his. One of them turned to him and asked, “You knowing any Kaunian bitch living in this street here?”

  “No, sir,” Ealstan answered. “I don’t think any of the stinking blonds are left in this part of town.” He did his best to sound like an ordinary Forthwegian, a Forthwegian who hated Kaunians as much as King Mezentio’s men did.

  The other Algarvian spoke in his own language: “Oh, leave it alone, by the powers above. So we didn’t get to have her. The world won’t end. She paid us off.”

  “Bah,” the first constable said. “Even if all these buggers say they never saw her, we both know she’s around here somewhere.”

  After King Mezentio’s men took Gromheort, Ealstan’s home town in eastern Forthweg, they’d made academy students start learning Algarvian instead of classical Kaunian. That no doubt helped make the students better subjects. It also sometimes had other uses. Ealstan made a point of looking as dull and uninterested as he could.

  “Digging her out is more trouble than it’s worth,” the second constable insisted. “And if we try digging her out and don’t come up with her, we’ll be walking the beat around the city dump till the end of time. Come on, let’s go.”

  Though he kept grumbling, the constable who’d spoken Forthwegian let himself be persuaded. Off he went with his pal. Ealstan stared after them. If they were talking about anyone but Vanai, he would have been amazed.

  But they weren’t going to call in their pals and try to unearth her. Ealstan clung to that. As he walked upstairs, he wondered if he ought to mention what he’d overheard. He decided that was a bad idea.

  When Vanai let him in after his coded knock, she clicked her tongue between her teeth in dismay. “Sit down,” she said in tones that brooked no argument. “You’re worn to a nub. Let me get you some wine. You shouldn’t have gone out.”

  “I have to keep my business going, or else we won’t be able to buy food,” he said, but he was glad to sit down on the shabby sofa and stretch his feet out in front of him. Vanai fetched him the wine, clucking all the while, and sat down beside him. He cocked his head to one side. “You don’t need to make such a fuss over me.”

  “No?” She raised an eyebrow. “If I don’t, who will?”

  Ealstan opened his mouth, then closed it again. He had no good answer, and was smart enough to realize as much. If they didn’t take care of each other here in Eoforwic, no one else would. Things weren’t as they had been back in Gromheort for him, with his mother and father and sister to worry about him and his big brother to flatten any nuisances he couldn’t handle himself.

  And having Vanai fuss over him wasn’t like having his mother fuss. He had trouble defining how and why it wasn’t, but the difference remained. After another sip of wine, he decided that Vanai, even though she fussed, didn’t treat him as if he were two years old while she was doing it. As far as his mother was concerned, he would never be anything but a child.

  He took one more sip of wine, then nodded to Vanai. “Thank you,” he told her. “This is good. It’s what I needed.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, and laughed, though not as if she were merry and carefree. “I sound silly, don’t I? But I hardly know what to do when somebody tells me that. My grandfather didn’t, or not very often, and the things I had to do for him. . . .” She laughed again, even more grimly than before.

  “Maybe Brivibas had trouble figuring out you weren’t a baby any more,” Ealstan said; if that was true for his parents—especially his mother—why not for Vanai’s grandfather, too?

  But she shook her head. “No. He had an easier time with me when I was small. He could count on me to do as I was told then. Later on . . .” Now her eyes twinkled. “Later on, he never could be sure I wouldn’t do something outrageous and disgraceful—say, falling in love with a Forthwegian.”

  “Well, if you had to pick something outrageous and disgraceful, I’m glad you picked that,” Ealstan said.

  “So am I,” Vanai answered. “A lot of my other choices were worse.” She looked bleak again, but, with what seemed a distinct effort of will, put aside the expression. Her voice thoughtful, she went on, “You know, I didn’t fall in love with you, not really, till we’d been in this flat for a while.”

  “No?” Ealstan said in no small surprise. He’d fallen head over heels in love with her from the moment she’d given him her body. That was how he thought of it, anyway.

  She shook her head again. “No. I always liked you, from the first time we met hunting mushrooms. I wouldn’t have done what I did there in the woods last fall if I hadn’t. But you were . . . a way out for me, when I didn’t think I could have one. I needed a while to see, to be sure, how much more you were.”

  For a moment, his feelings were hurt. Then he realized she’d paid him no small compliment. “I won’t let you down,” he said.

  Vanai leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. “I know you won’t,” she answered. “Don’t you see? That’s one of the reasons I love you. No one else has ever been like that for me. I suppose my mother and father would have been, but I can hardly even remember them.”

  Ealstan had always known he could count on his family. He’d taken that as much for granted as the shape of his hand. He said, “I’m sorry. That must have been hard. It must have been even harder because you’re a Kaunian in a mostly Forthwegian kingdom.”

  “You might say so. Aye, you just might say so.” Vanai’s voice went harsh and ragged. “And do you know what the worst part of that is?” Ealstan shook his head. He wasn’t sure she noticed; she was staring at nothing in particular as she went on, “The worst part of it is, we didn’t know when we were well off. In Forthweg, we Kaunians were well off. Would you have believed that? I wouldn’t have believed it, but it was true. All we needed was the Algarvians to prove it, and they did.”

  Ealstan put his arm around her. He thought of those two chubby constables in kilts and hoped the powers above would keep them away. Even if he hadn’t been feeling so feeble, he feared that encircling arm wouldn’t be so much protection as Vanai was liable to need.

  But it was what he could give. It was what she had. She seemed to sense as much, for she moved closer to him. “We’ll get through it,” he said. “Somehow or other, we’ll get through it.”

  “They can’t win,” Vanai said. “I can’t stay hidden forever, and there’s nowhere I can go, either, not if they win.”

  But the Algarvians could win, as Ealstan knew all too well. “Maybe not in Forthweg,” he admitted, “but Forthweg isn’t the only kingdom in the world, either.” Vanai looked at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. Maybe I have, he thought. But then again, maybe I haven’t.

  Hajjaj stared down at the papers his secretary handed him. “Well, well,” he said. “This is a pretty pickle, isn’t it?”

  “Aye, your Excellency,” Qutuz answered. “How do you propose to handle it?”

  “Carefully,” the
Zuwayzi foreign minister said, which won a smile from Qutuz. Hajjaj went on, “And by that I mean, not least, not letting the Algarvians know I’m doing anything at all. They’re our allies, after all.”

  “How long do you suppose you can keep this business secret?” Qutuz asked.

  “A while,” Hajjaj replied. “Not indefinitely. And, before it is secret no more, I had better get King Shazli’s views on the matter.” I had better see if I can bring King Shazli’s views around to my own, if they happen to differ now. “I don’t think that will wait. Please let his Majesty’s servitors know that I seek audience with him at his earliest convenience.”

  His secretary bowed. “I shall attend to it directly, your Excellency,” he said, and hurried away. Hajjaj nodded at his bare brown departing backside: like all Zuwayzin, Qutuz wore clothes only when dealing with important foreigners. Hajjaj’s secretary was diligent, no doubt about it. When he said directly, he meant it.

  And, only a couple of hours later that afternoon, Hajjaj bowed low before the king. “I gather this is a matter of some urgency,” Shazli said. He was a bright enough lad, or so Hajjaj thought of him—the late sixties looking back at the early thirties. “Shall we dispense with the rituals of hospitality, then?”

  “If your Majesty would be so kind,” Hajjaj replied, and the king inclined his head. Thus encouraged, Hajjaj continued, “You need to declare your policy on a matter of both some delicacy and some importance to the kingdom.”

  “Say on,” Shazli told him.

  “I shall.” Hajjaj brandished the papers Qutuz had given him. “In the past couple of weeks, we have had no fewer than three small boats reach our eastern coastline from Forthweg. All three were packed almost to the sinking point with Kaunians, and all the Kaunians alive when they came ashore have begged asylum of us.”

  Sometimes, to flavor a dish, Zuwayzi chefs would fill a little cheesecloth bag with spices and put it in the pot. They were supposed to take it out when the meal was cooked, but every once in a while they forgot. Shazli looked like a man who had just bitten down on one of those bags thinking it a lump of meat. “They beg asylum from us because of what our allies are doing to their folk back in Forthweg.”

  “Even so, your Majesty,” Hajjaj agreed. “If we send them back, we send them to certain death. If we grant them asylum, we offend the Algarvians as soon as they learn of it, and we run the risk that everything in Forthweg that floats will put to sea and head straight for Zuwayza.”

  “What Algarve is doing to the Kaunians in Forthweg offends me,” Shazli said; he needed only the royal we to sound as imperious as King Swemmel of Unkerlant. Hajjaj had never felt prouder of him. The king went on, “And any Kaunians who escape will be a cut above the common crowd—is it not so?”

  “It’s likely, at any rate, your Majesty,” the foreign minister answered.

  “Asylum they shall have, then,” Shazli declared.

  Hajjaj bowed as deeply as his age-stiffened body would let him. “I am honored to serve you. But what shall we say to Marquis Balastro when he learns of it, as he surely will before long?”

  King Shazli smiled a warm, confident smile. Hajjaj knew what that sort of smile had to mean even before the king said, “That I leave to you, your Excellency. I am sure you will find a way to let us do what is right while at the same time not enraging our ally’s minister.”

  “I wish I were so sure, your Majesty,” Hajjaj said. “I do remind you, I am only a man, not one of the powers above. I can do one of those things or the other. I have no idea how to do both at once.”

  “You’ve been managing the impossible now for as long as Zuwayza has had her freedom back from Unkerlant,” Shazli said. “Do you wonder when I tell you I think you can do it again?”

  “Your Majesty, may I have your leave to go?” Hajjaj asked. That was as close as he’d ever come to being rude to his sovereign. He softened it at once by adding, “If I am to do this—if I am to try to do this—I shall need to lay a groundwork for it, if I possibly can.”

  “You may go, of course,” Shazli said, “and good fortune attend your groundlaying.” But he’d heard the edge in his foreign minister’s voice. By his sour expression, he didn’t care for it. Bowing his way out, Hajjaj didn’t care for being put in a position where he had to snap at the king.

  When the foreign minister got back to his office, Qutuz raised an inquiring eyebrow. “They will stay,” Hajjaj said. “All I have to do now is devise a convincing explanation for Marquis Balastro as to why they may stay.”

  “No small order,” his secretary observed. “If anyone can do it, though, you are the man.”

  Again, Hajjaj was bemused that others had so much more faith in him than he had in himself. Since Shazli had given him the task, though, he had to try to do it. “Bring me a city directory for Bishah, if you would be so kind,” he said.

  Qutuz’s eyebrows climbed again. “A city directory?” he echoed. Hajjaj nodded and offered not a word of explanation. His secretary mumbled something under his breath. Now Hajjaj’s eyebrow rose, in challenge. Qutuz had no choice but to go fetch a directory. But he was still mumbling as he went.

  Even though Hajjaj donned his spectacles, reading the small print in the directory was a trial. Fortunately, he had a good notion of the kinds of names he was looking for. Whenever he came across one, he underlined it in red ink and dog-eared the page so he could find it again in a hurry. He nodded at a couple of the names: they belonged to men he’d known for years. When he was done, he put the directory in his desk and hoped he wouldn’t have to pull it out again.

  That that was a forlorn hope, he knew perfectly well. And, sure enough, less than a week later Qutuz came in and told him, “Marquis Balastro is waiting in the outer office. He came without seeking an appointment first, and he says he couldn’t care less whether you bother putting on clothes or not.”

  Balastro no doubt meant it; he came closer to conforming to Zuwayzi usages than any other minister. Nevertheless, Hajjaj said, “Tell him that, for the sake of my kingdom’s dignity, I prefer to dress before receiving him. Getting into those ridiculous wrappings will also give me time to think, but you need not tell him that. Be sure to bring in tea and wine and cakes as quick as you can.”

  “Just as you say, your Excellency,” Qutuz promised. “First, though, the Algarvian.”

  Balastro usually had the hail-fellow-well-met air so many of his countrymen could don with ease. Not today. Today he was furious, and making no effort to hide it. Or, perhaps, today he donned a mask of fury with as much skill as he usually used while wearing a mask of affability.

  Before Balastro could do much in the way in the way of blustering, Hajjaj’s secretary came in with the customary dainties on a silver tray. The Algarvian minister fumed to see them, but his manners were too good to let him talk business for a while. Hajjaj carefully hid his smile; he enjoyed turning the Algarvian’s respect for Zuwayzi customs against him.

  But the small talk over refreshments could go on only so long. At last, Hajjaj had to ask, “And to what do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit?”

  “Unexpected? I doubt it,” Balastro said, but some of the harsh edge was gone from his voice: Qutuz had picked a particularly smooth, particularly potent wine. Still, he did not sound accommodating as he went on, “Unless you can speak the truth when you tell me your kingdom isn’t taking in Kaunian fugitives.”

  “No, I cannot do that, and I do not intend to try,” Hajjaj replied. “Zuwayza is indeed taking in Kaunian refugees, and will continue to do so.”

  “King Mezentio has charged me to say to you that your giving haven to these fugitives”—Marquis Balastro clung to his own word—“cannot be construed as anything but an unfriendly act on the part of your kingdom.” He glared at Hajjaj; the wine hadn’t softened him so much after all. “Algarve knows full well how to punish unfriendly acts.”

  “I am sure of it.” Hajjaj glared back. “Is Mezentio thinking of using us as fodder for his mages to kill to
power their sorceries, along with however many Kaunians you have left?”

  The sheer insolence of that, far out of character for Hajjaj, made Balastro lean forward in surprise. “By no means, your Excellency,” he replied after a pause for thought. “But you are an ally, or so Algarve has believed. Do you wonder that we mislike it when you clasp our enemies to your bosom?”

  “Zuwayza is a small kingdom of free men,” Hajjaj replied. “Do you wonder that we welcome others who come to us looking for freedom they cannot find in their own lands?”

  “I wonder that you welcome Kaunians,” Balastro growled. “And you know cursed well why I wonder that you welcome them, too.”

  “Indeed I do.” Hajjaj pulled the city directory out of the drawer where he had put it a few days before and opened it to one of the dog-eared pages. “I see here the name of Uderzo the florist, who has been here for thirty years now—since he got out of Algarve at the end of the Six Years’ War. And here is Goscinnio the portraitist. He has been here just as long, and got here the same way. Do you think Forthweg and Jelgava and Valmiera and Lagoas weren’t screaming at us for taking in Algarvian refugees? If you do, sir, you’re daft.” He opened the directory to yet another marked page. “I can show you a great many more, if you like.”

  “Never mind. I take your point.” But Balastro didn’t look or sound happy about taking it. “I remind you, though, your Excellency, that you were not allied to any of those kingdoms at the time.”

  “As I have told you before, we are your allies, we are your cobelligerents against Unkerlant, but we are not your servants or your slaves,” Hajjaj replied. “If you try to treat us as if we were, we shall have to see how long we can remain your allies.”

  “If you bring in spies and enemies, we shall have to see whether we want you for allies,” Balastro said. “Remember how many dragons you have from us, and how many behemoths; remember how our dragonfliers help ward your skies. If you want to face Unkerlant on your own . . .” He shrugged.