Jaws of Darkness Read online

  Skarnu wondered whether he would have ended up in Merkela’s arms even if the Algarvians hadn’t killed her husband. She was a farmwoman and he a marquis, but that had nothing to do with the way they were drawn to each other. He didn’t suppose her wedding vows would have had anything to do with it, either.

  But she wasn’t just his lover. Before she’d got pregnant, she’d fought alongside him. Count Simanu, who’d been in bed with the redheads, was dead largely because of the two of them. And now …

  Now Skarnu stared at the walls of the cramped little flat he and Merkela and Gedominu shared. It was a far cry from the mansion in which he and his sister Krasta had lived before the Derlavaian War broke out. And it was almost equally far, in a different way, from the farmhouse whose mistress Merkela had been. With a sigh, Skarnu said, “Ukmerge isn’t much of a town.”

  Merkela’s lip curled. She spoke quietly so she wouldn’t bother Gedominu, but didn’t bother hiding her venom: “I never wanted to live in Pavilosta when I went there on market days, but Ukmerge makes Pavilosta look like it was one of the king’s pleasure palaces.”

  Even had he wanted to, Skarnu would have had trouble arguing with that. Pavilosta was a pleasant little market town, or perhaps village; it still kept much of the air of the countryside that was its reason for being. In Ukmerge, they made shoes. The town stank of leather. People either worked in one of the two big shoe manufactories or sold things to those who did. And the folk who filled the manufactories also filled grim blocks of flats like this one.

  Gedominu let Merkela’s nipple slide out of his mouth. She put a cloth on her shoulder, then raised the baby to it and patted his back. He rewarded her with a belch and a little sour milk. She laughed at him when he spit up. Wiping his mouth, she said, “You thought you were going to ruin my tunic, didn’t you? You thought so, but I fooled you.” Gedominu replied with a series of noises from the other end. Merkela laughed again, ruefully this time. “You can’t stay ahead of a baby, no matter how hard you try.”

  “Give him to me. I’ll change him,” Skarnu said; he’d discovered she scowled at him if he left her to do all the work with the baby. As he cleaned Gedominu’s bottom and put a fresh cloth around it, he went on. “As long as we stay ahead of the Algarvians, that’s what counts.”

  Merkela shook her head. “We’ve got to do more than that. That was good enough when you pulled me off the farm before the redheads grabbed me—powers below eat your cursed Count Amatu for betraying me to them. It was good enough when we got out of Erzvilkas after their mages tracked us there. But it’s not good enough any more. Now I want to hit back again.”

  “So do I,” Skarnu said. “But the underground isn’t very strong here in Ukmerge.”

  Merkela’s lip curled again, this time with contempt as complete and automatic as Krasta could have shown—which was saying a great deal. “Shoemakers,” she sneered as she set her tunic to rights. “They don’t care whether they’re making shoes for their own people or for the Algarvians.”

  That was an unkind judgment on the folk of Ukmerge, but also, Skarnu feared, an accurate one. The shoe manufactories had missed hardly a day’s work after the Valmieran army abandoned the town and the Algarvians marched in. Ley-line caravans carried endless crates of marching boots west to Algarve for King Mezentio’s soldiers to wear. As Merkela said, the shoemakers got paid no matter who wore what they made.

  Gedominu looked up at Skarnu and smiled. Skarnu smiled back. He could hardly help it. His son hadn’t been smiling very long. Every time Gedominu did, it was as if he’d discovered the idea of being happy for the very first time and wanted everyone around him to be happy, too. Then, smiling still, the baby proceeded to ruin the cloth Skarnu had just pinned into place around his middle.

  Skarnu said something rather more pungent than the odor wafting from Gedominu. Merkela laughed and asked, “Do you want me to change him this time?”

  “It’s all right.” Skarnu shook his head. “I haven’t even washed my hands yet.” He cleaned the baby off again, then tossed the sodden, stinking rag into a pail that held a good many others. The pail, fortunately, had a tight-fitting lid. Skarnu shut it and then did wash up, wondering all the while if Gedominu would make yet another mess.

  Someone knocked on the door. Skarnu and Merkela both froze. Knocks on the door, these days, were all too likely to mean trouble. Skarnu had acquired a small stick from some highly unofficial sources. As a footsoldier, or even as a farmer hunting vermin or after small game for the pot, he would have despised it. But it could knock over a man at short range, and what more did somebody on the run need?

  “Who is it?” he asked. If he didn’t like the answer, he’d find out exactly what the little stick could do.

  “Tytuvenai,” said the man on the other side of the door. That wasn’t a man’s name; it was the name of a town not too far from Ukmerge. Underground leaders often called themselves by the names of the towns where they harassed the Algarvians. It made them harder for the redheads to identify. Skarnu knew a fellow who’d called himself Tytuvenai. The man in the hallway asked, “That you, Pavilosta?”

  “Aye.” Warily, Skarnu opened the door. If “Tytuvenai” was an Algarvian captive, King Mezentio’s men would get an unpleasant surprise. But the fellow from the underground stood there alone. “Well, come in,” Skarnu said, and closed the door after him.

  “My thanks,” “Tytuvenai” said. He nodded to Merkela. “Hello, milady. I’ve heard somewhat of you. You’ve tweaked the Algarvians a time or two yourself, if even half what they say about you is true.”

  “They deserve worse than tweaking,” Merkela said with a scowl. “By the powers above, they deserve worse than what they’ve given our Kaunian cousins in Forthweg. And I want to give it to them.” Merkela had no compromise in her, not when it came to the Algarvians and not when it came to anything else, either.

  “What are you doing here?” Skarnu asked his unexpected guest.

  “I have some news that might interest you.” “Tytuvenai” seemed unperturbed at Skarnu’s suspicions. Anyone who wasn’t suspicious these days, of course, was likely either a fool or a dupe.

  “Go on,” Skarnu said.

  “Good news and bad news, actually,” the other man from the underground told him. “The good news is that Count Amatu, whom I gather you got to know better than you wanted to, is no more. He met with an unfortunate accident in Priekule not long ago.”

  “That is good news,” Skarnu exclaimed. It was such good news, he went into the cramped little kitchen, got out three glasses, and poured peach brandy into them. After he brought them out, he raised his and said, “Here’s to Amatu’s untimely demise. If I’d known he would go over to the Algarvians, I’d have killed him myself and saved whoever else it was the trouble.”

  They all drank. Merkela asked, “What’s the bad news, then?”

  Instead of directly answering her, “Tytuvenai” swung his gaze back to Skarnu. “The bad news is, he was killed coming home from Marchioness Krasta’s mansion.”

  “From my sister’s mansion,” Skarnu said, and “Tytuvenai” nodded. Skarnu knocked back the rest of the brandy in his glass at a gulp. “I don’t know why it surprises me,” he remarked, and then shook his head. “It doesn’t surprise me, curse it. For years, she’s been sleeping with that Algarvian colonel who’s come after me. Why wouldn‘t she invite Amatu in for tea?”

  “One of these days, you’ll have your revenge against your sister,” Merkela said. “May it be soon. May it be strong.”

  “Aye, may it be so,” Skarnu said. He would never forget the shocked betrayal he’d felt when he saw Krasta’s name and Colonel Lurcanio’s linked in a news sheet that had come down from Priekule to Pavilosta.

  “Now that the Lagoans and Kuusamans are flying dragons out of Sibiu and from their own island, they’ll knock that mansion into a pile of rubble,” “Tytuvenai” said. “Here’s hoping, anyway.” With a nod to Skarnu and another to Merkela, he left as abruptly as he
’d arrived.

  Skarnu barred the door. “So may it be, just as he said it,” Merkela said.

  “No.” Skarnu shook his head.

  “What?” Her stare was fierce and angry, like a hawk’s. “You have no sister. We’ve been through this before.”

  “I know,” Skarnu said impatiently. “But I still don’t want dragons dropping eggs on the mansion. It’s not just Krasta’s. It’s mine, too. One of these days, after the war is won, I want to bring you there, you and Gedominu, too. He’s my heir, after all.”

  Now Merkela’s eyes widened. He’d never said anything like that before. She knew he was a marquis, but he usually played it down. She started to laugh. “Me, a peasant whose folk have been peasants since dirt, in a nobleman’s mansion in Priekule? That’s daft.”

  Skarnu shook his head. “Not when I love you. And not when you’ve fought for Valmiera. If that doesn’t make you more noble than my precious sister, I don’t know what would.” He took her in his arms. They’d started making love again, cautiously, a couple of weeks before. There was nothing cautious about it this time.

  Along with his partner Oraste, Bembo tramped through the streets of Gromheort. Looking around at the grimy, battered Forthwegian city, the plump Algarvian constable said, “Curse me if I’m not glad to be back.”

  “What? Here?” Oraste was a man of few but strong opinions. “You’re out of your stinking mind.”

  “Not me,” Bembo said. “Not a bit of it. Tricarico was even gloomier than this place is, and all my friends are here.”

  Oraste snorted. “Like you’ve got friends. The only one of us who’s ever got leave since they sent us to this miserable place, and it wasn’t good enough for you. Are you an idiot or just an ingrate?”

  “Aye, rag on me as much as you want, but I was there and you weren’t,” Bembo said. “Seemed like everybody was too worried and working too hard to have a good time.” He nodded, liking the taste of the words. “That’s just how it was, sure enough.”

  “If a tart laid you for free, you’d complain because you didn’t like her negligee,” Oraste jeered. “Speaking of which, even looking at Algarvian women had to be worth going home for. These Forthwegian dames are built like bricks, and the long tunics they wear might as well be tents.”

  “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Bembo said. He’d done a lot more looking than touching, but he wouldn’t embarrass himself by admitting as much to his partner. “Did I tell you Saffa had somebody’s baby?”

  “Only four times now, or is it five?” Oraste returned. “If you ask me, you’re just jealous on account of she didn’t have yours.”

  Bembo walked the next block in wounded silence. Oraste had been teasing him, but that blaze hit entirely too close to the mark. He wouldn’t have minded had the pretty little sketch artist had his baby, or at least done something with him that made it possible for her to have a baby. But she hadn’t wanted to do anything of the sort, not with him. That she’d done it with someone else was all the more galling.

  Most days, his definition of an ideal tour on the beat would have been to have nothing to do but cadge food and drink from the bakers and taverners on the streets he patrolled. Today, though, he was glad to hear a noisy quarrel ahead.

  So was Oraste. He pulled his bludgeon off his belt and slapped it into the palm of his hand. “Let’s see what’s going on,” he said, anticipation in his voice. He liked breaking heads. He’d complained Forthwegian women were built like bricks. So was he. Unlike Forthwegian women, he was just about as hard as a brick, too.

  Two men stood in the middle of the street screaming at each other, caring nothing if they got in the way of wagons and carriages. The first thing Bembo noticed was that they looked very much alike, save that one of them had a typical proud, hooked Forthwegian nose, while that of the other fellow was shaped more like a tuber. The second thing he noticed was that he’d seen and spoken with the fellow with the ordinary nose before.

  He didn’t know whether Oraste noticed the same thing. If his partner did notice, he didn’t seem to care. “Get out of the roadway, you idiots, before you get mashed flat,” Oraste growled, assuming the Forthwegians would speak his language. Maybe he meant a wagon would squash them if they didn’t move. Maybe he meant he would. Bembo knew which way he would have bet.

  The Forthwegians did understand Algarvian. They also understood what a constable bearing down on them with a bludgeon was likely to mean. Before Oraste could do anything they would regret, they hurried back onto the sidewalk.

  “Now, what’s going on here?” Bembo asked. Being partnered with Oraste often made him take the role of sweet reason. He resented that: it wasn’t one for which he was well suited.

  “My brother is a traitor,” said the Forthwegian with a nose like a tuber.

  “My brother is a liar,” said the other Forthwegian, the one who looked familiar.

  Before Bembo could say anything, Oraste used his bludgeon to point at the fellow who’d spoken first. “Every son of a whore is a liar. Not everybody’s a traitor. That means you start. Who are you? Who’s he? And if you two are brothers, how come you’re calling each other nasty names?”

  Those were all questions Bembo would have asked. He wouldn’t have asked them as if he intended to murder the Forthwegian if he didn’t like the answers. Maybe that made Oraste a better constable than he was. He didn’t much care.

  “I’m Hengist,” the Forthwegian with the bumpy nose answered. “He’s Hestan. Why is he a traitor? I’ll tell you why. Because his son ran off with a Kaunian slut, that’s why.”

  “I have no idea where Ealstan is,” Hestan said. “All I know is, he left Gromheort two years ago, and I haven’t seen him or heard from him since.”

  “Left? He ran off after he had a fight with my son. My guess is, he thought he murdered Sidroc,” Hengist said furiously. “And what were they fighting about? Sidroc got hit in the head, but he finally got reminded or remembered. They were fighting about a blond bitch named Vanai, that’s what.”

  “Futter your son!” Hestan shouted, sounding even angrier than Hengist. “Talk about murder—Sidroc murdered my Leofsig and nothing happened to him, so now he thinks he can put a noose around Ealstan’s neck, too.”

  “Hold on. Slow down,” Oraste said. “Who’s who again? Too many names all at once.”

  But Bembo had heard all the names before. He pointed to Hestan. “This is the fellow who was talking with that Brivibas bugger when I recognized his voice in spite of the magic that made him look like a Forthwegian.”

  “So?” Oraste said. But then, a couple of beats behind Bembo, he began to catch up. “Wait a minute. That long-winded bastard was what’s-her-name’s granddad, wasn’t he?”

  “That’s right.” Bembo nodded. “One of our officers who came through here not so long ago was looking for that Vanai twist, too. He’d had her when he was garrisoned in Oyngestun, and he wanted to take her west with him so he wouldn’t have to sleep all by his lonesome. But she never got pulled into Gromheort, remember? She’d skipped Oyngestun before we cleaned out the place.”

  “Aye, that’s right,” Oraste said. “I forgot how all the pieces fit together.” He glowered at Hestan. “What’s this nonsense about murder you were spewing.”

  “It isn’t nonsense,” the Forthwegian said. “His son”—he spat at Hengist’s shoes—”beat mine to death with a chair in my own dining room.”

  “Why didn’t he hang for it, then?” Oraste demanded.

  Hestan didn’t answer right away. When he didn’t, Bembo did: “I recall that. Nasty business. This Sidroc item had just signed on with Plegmund’s Brigade, so nobody much cared what he did.”

  “Aye, he’s loyal to King Mezentio,” Hengist said, “unlike some people I could name.”

  Bembo was less impressed than Hengist had thought he would be. “Most of what’s in Plegmund’s Brigade is stable scrapings, you ask me,” he said.

  Oraste’s big head went up and down. “That’s the truth. Ha
lf of’em’d be in gaol if they weren’t in Unkerlant.” Hestan laughed. Hengist looked as if he hated Bembo and Oraste both. But Oraste wasn’t finished: “Still and all, this fellow”—he pointed at Hestan—”hangs around with Kaunians, and his kid’s likely a Kaunian-lover, too. I say we run him in, see if the bigwigs think he’s worth keeping.”

  “Suits me.” Bembo pointed to Hestan. “You can come along quiet-like, or we’ll make you unhappy and then you’ll come along anyway.” He jerked a thumb at Hengist. “As for you, pal, get lost before we haul you in, too.”

  Hengist turned to go, but not without a parting blaze: “His precious Leof-sig escaped from a captives’ camp. He bribed officials to look the other way.”

  “Did he, now?” Bembo eyed Hestan in a speculative way. He’d never been allergic to cash on the side, or under the table.

  But Oraste said, “He won’t get away with that, not with us.” Oraste had been known to take a bribe every now and then, but only every now and then. More often, he preferred making people he nabbed suffer, whether by beating them or just by letting the law take its course instead of giving them the chance to get out of their trouble.

  Since Bembo couldn’t very well take a bribe if Oraste wouldn’t, he grabbed Hestan by the arm and said, “Come along, you.” He’d intended to sound fierce. He suspected he sounded petulant instead.

  Hestan said, “I never thought I would wish anything ill on my brother, in spite of what his son did to my family. But now…” He shook his head. “Powers below eat him, and may they crunch his bones doing it.”

  “Aye, he’s a piece of work, all right,” Oraste agreed. “Somebody ought to give him a good kick in the bollocks.”