Into the darkness, p.23
Into the Darkness, page 23
part #1 of Darkness Series
“Oh, very well.” The fancy grocer sounded testy. “But customers want to see me. They come to deal with me.” He puffed out his chest with pride—and with air, which he used to shout, “Gyzis!” The clerk emerged from the back room, wearing a leather apron over a Yaninan-style puffy-sleeved tunic. Grudgingly, Varvakis put him in charge of the front of the shop and took Fernao into the back room.
More delicacies lined the shelves there, some in jars, others kept fresh in rest crates. “About this steward—” Fernao prompted.
“Aye, aye, of course.” Varvakis’s eyes flashed. “Do you take me for a halfwit? For a price, he says, he can get you in to see King Penda—maybe Penda can moan that he’s pining for smoked trout. What you do once you see Penda, I know nothing about. I wish to know nothing about it.”
He held an arm in front of his head, so that his sleeve drooped down and covered his eyes.
“I understand that,” Fernao said patiently. “Money shouldn’t be any trouble.” By all the signs, Shelomith had money coming out of his ears. He’d given Fernao a goodly sum, and he’d given Varvakis a goodly sum, too: Varvakis did not strike the mage as a man who would be very cooperative without a well-greased palm.
He proved that again, saying, “What I give to Cossos does not come from my fee. It will be redeemed.”
“I agree,” Fernao said at once. Why not? He wasn’t spending his own money. “Set up the meeting. Pay whatever you have to pay. We will reimburse you.”
Varvakis dipped his head in agreement. “Go, then. Take yourself out of here. We should not be seen together. When the meeting is arranged, you will hear from me. You will also hear how much you owe. You will pay before you see Cossos.”
Was that the edge of a threat? Probably. Varvakis could pocket the money and let Fernao walk into a trap. For that matter, he could pocket it and set up a trap for Fernao. The unpleasant possibilities were almost endless.
Back at the nondescript—indeed, dingy—hostel where he and Fernao were staying, Shelomith waxed enthusiastic. “This is just the chance we need!” he said, clapping Fernao on the back. “I knew that, sooner or later, one of my contacts would survey a ley line to his Majesty for us.”
Fernao mentally substituted I hoped for I knew. Aloud, he said, “Whatever this Cossos wants, he won’t work cheap.” Shelomith only shrugged. They were staying at a hostel less than of the finest to keep from drawing notice to themselves. Shelomith had plenty of gold—just how much, Fernao didn’t know. Plenty for all ordinary and most extraordinary purposes, that was certain.
And so, with Varvakis along as a go-between, Fernao approached King Tsavellas’s palace a couple of days later. Yaninan architecture ran to tall, thin watchtowers and to onion domes, all very exotic to a practical Lagoan. The guards at the entrance wore tights with red and white stripes and red pompoms on their shoes, but looked tough and determined despite the absurd costume. Recognizing Varvakis, they bowed in greeting, and accepted Fernao because he accompanied the purveyor of fancy foods.
Paintings on the walls showed Yaninan kings with odd domed crowns; long somber faces; and robes so thick with gold and silver threads, they had to be almost too heavy to wear. Other paintings celebrated the triumphs of Yaninan arms. Judging by those paintings, Yanina had never lost a battle, let alone a war. Judging by the map, those paintings didn’t tell the whole story.
“We can talk here,” Cossos said, escorting Fernao and Varvakis into a small chamber. Like Varvakis, he spoke good Algarvian. The Yaninans had learned a great deal from their eastern neighbors. Not all the lessons had been pleasant.
Varvakis said, “The two of you talk. What you talk about, I don’t want to hear. If I don’t hear it, I don’t have to tell lies about it.” He bowed first to Fernao, then to Cossos, and departed before either of them could say a word.
“No stones to that man,” Cossos remarked, tossing his head in a Yaninan gesture of scorn. He was about forty-five, wiry, shrewd-looking, with a nose like a swordblade. “Now, my friend, what can I do for you?”
“I doubt I am your friend,” Fernao said. “If all goes well, I may be your benefactor, though.”
“That will do well enough,” Cossos said briskly. “I ask you once again: what can I do for you?”
Fernao hesitated. Here was where the jaws of the trap might close on him. If someone besides Cossos was listening … If that was so, Fernao might find out more about the dark places of Yanina than he ever wanted to know. He could not sense anyone listening, but he could not gauge whether Yaninan wizards were masking a spy from his powers, either.
But he had not come here to be cautious. Taking a deep breath, he said, “I would like half an hour alone with Penda of Forthweg, with no one to know I have come to see him. I also require your studied forgetfulness that you ever arranged such an appointment for me.”
“Studied forgetfulness, eh?” Cossos bared his teeth in what was almost, but not quite, a smile of genuine amusement. “Aye, I can see how you would. Well, I can manage that. In fact, I’d better, or my head would answer it, after the other. But it’ll cost you.” He named a sum in Yaninan lepta.
After Fernao converted it into Lagoan sceptres, he whistled softly.
Cossos did not think small. But Shelomith had gold aplenty. “Agreed,” the mage said, and Cossos blinked, evidently having expected him to haggle. Fernao added, “I will take any oath you like that I mean Penda no harm.”
Cossos shrugged. “It’d cost you less if you did mean him harm,” he said. “King Tsavellas would just as soon see him dead. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about him any more. Bring me the money and—”
“I’ll bring you the first half,” Fernao broke in. “The other half comes afterwards, in case you’d just as soon see me dead.” Cossos bared his teeth. Fernao stood firm against all his complaints, saying, “You need a reason not to betray me.” In the end, grumbling, the steward gave in.
Well pleased with himself, Fernao headed back to the hostel. Shelomith would pay without blinking; he was sure of that. He was less sure he could walk out of the palace with Penda and with no one the wiser, but he thought so. Lagoan mages knew more than those in this benighted corner of the world. He’d already had a couple of good ideas, and more would come to him.
He rounded the last corner and stopped dead. Green-uniformed constables surrounded the hostel like ants at an outdoor feast. A couple of them carried a body out on a litter. Fernao knew it would be Shelomith’s before he got close enough to recognize it, and it was. The constables were laughing and joking, as if they’d found treasure. They probably had found treasure—Shelomith’s treasure. Fernao gulped. Now all he had was the money in his own pouch, and he was alone and friendless in a foreign town.
Seven
DRAGONS SWOOPED low over Trapani. Marching in the triumphal procession through the streets of the Algarvian capital, Colonel Sabrino hoped none of the miserable beasts would choose the moment in which it flew over him to void. Long and intimate experience informed his mistrust of dragons.
No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than he had to step smartly to keep from putting his foot down on a pile of behemoth dung. Squadrons of the great beasts were interspersed among the marching troops, to give the swarms of civilians who packed the sidewalks something extra at which to cheer.
Sabrino marched with his shoulders back, his head up, his chin thrust forward. He wanted everyone who saw him to know he was a fierce fighting man, one who would never take a step back from the foe. Algarvians made much of appearances. And why not? Sabrino thought. Have the mages not proved that appearances help shape reality?
He also wanted people, especially pretty women, to notice. He was happy with his wife, he was happy with his mistress, but he would not have been broken-hearted had some sweet young thing adoringly cast herself at his feet. No, he would not have been broken-hearted at all.
Whether he would find himself so lucky after the end of the parade, he did not know. He was pretty sure a good many soldiers would, though. Women kept running out to kiss them as they tramped past. A lot of the cheers that washed over them weren’t the sort of cheers soldiers usually got. They sounded more like the ones excited followers usually gave popular balladeers or actors.
Behind Sabrino, Captain Domiziano must have been thinking along similar lines, for he said, “If a man can’t get laid today, sir, it’s only because he’s not trying very hard.”
“You’re right about that,” Sabrino answered. “You are indeed.” He kept eyeing women, though he told himself that was foolish: the ones he passed here would be long gone by the time the parade ended. But his eyes were less disciplined than his mind—or, to put it another way, he enjoyed watching regardless of whether or not he could do anything but watch.
People held up signs saying things like GOODBYE, FORTHWEG! and ONE DOWN, THREE TO GO! and ALGARVE THE INVINCIBLE! It hadn’t been like that in the Six Years’ War, Sabrino remembered. The kingdom had fought only reluctantly then. Now, with her neighbors declaring war on her after she had done no more than retrieve what was rightfully hers, Algarve was united behind King Mezentio—and behind the army that had won this triumph.
The parade ended at the royal palace, men and behemoths tramping by under the balcony from which King Mezentio had announced that Algarve was at war with Forthweg and Sibiu, Jelgava and Valmiera. Mezentio stood there now, reviewing the troops who had won such a smashing victory. Sabrino doffed his hat and waved it in the direction of his sovereign. “Mezentio!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, his cry one of hundreds, thousands, aimed at the king.
Around the palace to the far side, the side opposite the Royal Square and also out of sight of the crowd, the triumphal procession disintegrated. Behemoth riders took their beasts off through alleys so narrow, they had to go in single file. Martinets led their companies and regiments back toward their barracks. Officers with more heart gave their men liberty. The released soldiers hurried back toward the Royal Square to see what arrangements they could make for themselves.
Sabrino had just turned his men loose, and was about to follow them back toward the square and try his luck when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He spun, to find himself facing a man in the green, red, and white livery of a palace servant. “You are the Count Sabrino?” the servitor asked.
“I am,” Sabrino admitted. “What do you desire of me?”
Before answering, the servant made a mark on the list, probably checking off his name. Then he said, “I have the honor, my lord, of inviting you to a reception in an hour’s time in the Salon of King Aquilante V, wherein his Majesty shall express his gratitude to the nobility for supporting him and Algarve during our present crisis.”
“I am honored,” Sabrino said, bowing. “You may tell his Majesty that I shall certainly attend him.”
He wondered if the servant even heard; the fellow had already turned away to look for the next man on his list. He must have assumed Sabrino would accept the invitation. And why not? Who in his right mind would refuse a summons from his sovereign? Sabrino hurried toward the nearest palace entrance.
Guards there unsmilingly examined his uniform, his dragonflier’s badge, and his badge of nobility. They ticked off his name as the servitor who’d tendered him the invitation had done. Irritated, Sabrino snapped, “I am not a Sibian spy, gentlemen, nor a Valmieran assassin, either.”
“We believe you, my lord,” one of the guards said. “Now we believe you. Pass on, and enjoy the pleasures of the palace.”
Sabrino knew his way to the Salon of King Aquilante V; he had attended several other gatherings there. Nonetheless, he did not object when a serving woman stepped forward to guide him. He would have liked it even better had she guided him to her bedchamber, but walking along flirting with her was pleasant enough.
“Count Sabrino!” a herald cried in a great voice when he entered the salon. To his disappointment, the pretty serving girl went off to escort someone else. Faithless hussy, he thought, and laughed at himself.
Tables piled high with refreshments stood against one wall. He took a glass of white wine and a slice from a round of flatbread piled high with melted cheeses, salt fish, eggplant slices, and olives. Thus equipped, he sallied forth on to the social battlefield.
Naturally, he did his best to put himself in the way of King Mezentio, who circulated through the reception hall. Being a resourceful man, he soon succeeded in drawing the king’s notice. “Your Majesty!” he cried, and bowed low enough to gladden a protocol officer’s heart without spilling a drop of wine or losing a single olive from his flatbread.
“Powers above, straighten up!” Mezentio said irritably. “Do you think I’m King Swemmel, to need all that head-knocking nonsense? He thinks it makes people afraid of him, but what does an Unkerlanter know? Nothing to speak of— Unkerlanters grow like onions, with their heads in the ground.”
“Even so, your Majesty,” Sabrino said, nodding. “If only there weren’t so many of them.”
“By the hamhanded way he’s fighting that war against Zuwayza, Swemmel is doing his best to make them fewer,” the king answered. “And my congratulations, by the way, on how well you and your wing fought above Wihtgara. I was very pleased by the reports I read of your exploits.”
“I shall pass on your praise to my dragonfliers,” Sabrino said with another bow. “They, after all, are the ones who earned it for me.”
“Spoken as a good officer should speak,” Mezentio said. “Tell me, Count, in your fighting above Forthweg, did you find many of Kaunian blood opposing you on dragons painted in Forthwegian colors?”
“Speaking solely from my own experience, your Majesty, that’s hard to say,” Sabrino replied. “One often doesn’t get close enough to the foe to see exactly who he is. When the dragons fly high, going up there’s a chilly business, too, so the men who fly them are often bundled against the cold. I’m given to understand, though, that the Forthwegians set a good many obstacles in the way of Kaunians who seek to fly dragons, the same as they do against Kaunian officers of any sort.”
“I know for a fact that last is true.” Mezentio frowned. “Curious how the Forthwegians look down their beaky noses at the Kaunians inside their own borders, but follow like lapdogs when the Kaunians in the east seek to savage us.”
“They’ve paid for their folly,” Sabrino said.
“Everyone who harms Algarve shall pay for his folly,” Mezentio declared. “Everyone who has ever harmed Algarve shall pay for his folly. We lost the Six Years’ War. This time, come what may, we shall win.”
“Certainly we shall, your Majesty,” Sabrino said. “The whole world is jealous of Algarve, of what we are and of the way we’ve pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps even after everyone piled on to us in the Six Years’ War.”
“Aye, the whole world is jealous—the whole world, and especially the Kaunian kingdoms,” Mezentio said. “You mark my words, Count: those yellow-haired folk still hate us for destroying their cozy little empire more than a thousand years ago. If they could kill us all, they would. Since they can’t, they seek to crush us so we may never rise again.”
“It won’t happen.” Sabrino spoke with great sincerity.
“Of course it won’t,” Mezentio said. “Are we as stupid as Unkerlanters, to let them scheme and plot to destroy us without making plans of our own?” The king laughed. “And the Unkerlanters are stupid indeed, with Swemmel always bellowing ‘Efficiency!’ at the top of his lungs and then blundering into one idiotic war after another.” He turned away from Sabrino toward a noble who stood waiting to be recognized. “And how are you, your Grace?”
Sabrino went back for another goblet of wine. That was more time than he’d enjoyed with the king in any other meeting. And Mezentio not only knew who he was—which he’d expected—but also where his wing had served—which he hadn’t. He didn’t fight to gain royal notice, but he wouldn’t turn down royal notice if it came his way.
He drifted through the room, greeting men he knew, flirting with serving women and the companions of nobles who happened to live in Trapani, and keeping his ears open for gossip. There was plenty; the only trouble was, he didn’t always know to what it referred. When one white-goateed general said to another, “We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down,” what door was he talking about? Whoever was standing behind it wouldn’t care to have it kicked in on him. Of that Sabrino was certain.
A commodore in naval black spoke to a colleague: “Well, this ought to set the history of warfare on the sea back about a thousand years.”
Laughing, his friend answered, “They pay off on what you do. They don’t pay off on how you do it.” Then he noticed Sabrino was listening. Whatever he said after that was in a voice too low for the dragonflier to hear. Annoyed at having been caught, Sabrino took himself elsewhere.
A woman put a hand on his arm. She wasn’t a servant; the green of her silk tunic was darker than that of the national banner, and she wore more gold and emeralds than a servant could even have dreamt of. As Algarvian women sometimes did, she came straight to the point: “My friend’s drunk himself asleep, and I don’t want to go back to my flat alone.”
He looked her up and down. “Your friend, my dear, is a fool. Tell me your name. I want to know whose fool he is.”
“I am Ippalca,” she answered, “and you are the famous Count Sabrino, the man in all the news sheets.”
“My sweet, I was famous long before the news sheets ever heard of me,” Sabrino said. “When we get back to your flat, I will show you why.” Ippalca laughed. Her eyes glowed. Sabrino slid an arm around her waist. Together, they left the Salon of King Aquilante V.
“Efficiency.” Leudast made the word into a curse. It had already doomed a lot of Unkerlanter soldiers. He looked around. After the homelike fields of western Forthweg, this Zuwayzi waste of sunbaked rock and blowing sand seemed a particularly cruel joke.
