Harry Turtledove - Through the Darkness

“Aye.” But Sabrino’s agreement felt hollow. His wing had smashed up the column of Unkerlanter behemoths, and they’d given better than they got in the air. At the level Domiziano was talking about, that did make a good day’s work. But did it bring the Algarvians much closer to being able to break through to Sulingen? Not that Sabrino could see. To him, that was the level that mattered. At that level, the wing had hardly done anything at all.

Rain pattered down on Hajjaj’s roof. And, as it had a way of doing almost every winter, rain pattered down through Hajjaj’s roof. The Zuwayzi foreign minister stood with hands on hips, watching the leaks plop into pots and pans servants had set out. Turning to his majordomo, he said, “Refresh my memory. Did we or did we not have the roofers out here last year?”

“Aye, young fellow, we did,” Tewfik answered in his usual gravelly tones.

“And what sort of lying excuse will they give when we ask them why we have to call them out again?” Hajjaj waved his hands above his head, a perfect transport of temper for him. “They’ll say the roof never leaks as long as it doesn’t rain, that’s what they’ll tell us!”

“More likely, they’ll just say they didn’t fix this particular stretch.” Tewfik raised one white, shaggy eyebrow. “That’s what they always say.”

“Powers below eat them and their lying excuses both,” Hajjaj snapped.

“We need the rain,” the majordomo said. “Getting so much of it at once is a bloody nuisance, though.”

By the standards of more southerly lands, what the hills outside Bishah got wasn’t much in the way of rain. Hajjaj knew that. In his university days in Trapani, he’d found a land so moist, he’d thought he would grow mold. Buildings in other kingdoms were made really watertight, because they had to be. In Zuwayza, heat was the main foe, with rain treated as an inconvenient afterthought-when builders bothered to think of it at all, which they didn’t always.

“When the roofers do get here-if they ever choose to come-I aim to give them a piece of my mind,” Hajjaj said, his tone suggesting he wasn’t so far removed from his desert-warrior ancestors after all.

Before he could go into bloodthirsty detail, one of his servants came up, bowed low before him, and said, “Your Excellency, the image of your secretary has appeared in the crystal. He would speak with you.”

Qutuz lived down in Bishah, and could not use the rain as an excuse for staying away from the foreign ministry. He also knew better than to disturb Hajjaj at home unless something important had come up. With a sigh, Hajjaj went from bloodthirsty nomad to suave diplomat. “Thank you, Mehdawi. Of course I will speak with him.”

“Good day, your Excellency,” Qutuz said when Hajjaj sat down in front of the crystal. “How is your roof? The one over my head here at the palace leaks.”

“So does mine,” the foreign minister replied. “I trust that is not the reason for this conversation?”

“Oh, no.” Qutuz shook his head. “But Iskakis’ secretary has just paid a call on me, asking if you could possibly meet the Yaninan minister here this afternoon, a little before the hour for tea. He is waiting in the outer office-which also leaks-to take your reply back to his principal.”

“Well, well. Isn’t that interesting? I wonder what he might want to say to me.” Hajjaj rubbed his chin. “Aye, I’ll see him. I’d better find out what’s in his mind.” I’d better find out if anything is in his mind. His opinion of the Yaninan was not high.

Tewfik made the predictable complaints when Hajjaj proposed going out in the rain. Having got them out of his system, the majordomo made sure the carriage was ready. In truth, the journey down to the city on a road muddy rather than its usual dusty self was slow and unpleasant, but Hajjaj endured it.

Roofers were banging overhead when he reached the foreign ministry. As always, the palace could call on their services with some hope of actually getting them. No one else could. “Miserable day, isn’t it?” Qutuz said.

“It is, and seeing Iskakis does nothing to improve it,” Hajjaj answered. “Still and all, if I have to wear clothes, I’d sooner do it in winter than in summer.”

“Have you got a Yaninan outfit in the closet, your Excellency?” Qutuz asked.

“No, I’ll dress in Algarvian clothes,” Hajjaj said. “That will show Iskakis I do remember we have the same allies.” And, right this minute, I expect we both find the Algarvians equally unpalatable.

He put on the tunic and kilt-their cut was years out of fashion, which worried him not at all-and waited. He had a considerable wait; despite having set the hour for the meeting, Iskakis was late. When the Yaninan minister finally did arrive, Hajjaj exacted a measure of revenge by stretching out the Zuwayzi ritual of wine and tea and cakes as long as he could.

As he sipped and nibbled, he watched the Yaninan fume. Iskakis was in his fifties, short and bald and swarthy for a light-skinned man, with a big gray mustache and big gray tufts of hair sticking out of his ears. In Algarvian, the only tongue they shared, Hajjaj said, “I trust the lovely lady your wife is well?”

That was a commonplace of the small talk which had to accompany wine and tea and cakes. It was also a barb. Iskakis’ wife was lovely, and couldn’t have been more than half his age. Maybe she didn’t know the minister preferred pretty boys, but everyone else in Bishah did. “She is very well,” Iskakis said grudgingly. He shifted on the mound of pillows he’d built for himself. The pompoms that decorated his shoes wobbled back and forth. Hajjaj watched them in fascination. He never had been able to figure out why the Yaninans found them decorative.

At last, any further delay would have been openly rude. Qutuz carried off the silver tray on which he’d brought in the refreshments. Suppressing a sigh, Hajjaj got down to business: “And how may I serve you, your Excellency?”

Iskakis leaned forward. His dark eyes bored into Hajjaj’s. “I want to know your view of the course of the war,” he said, his tone suggesting he would tear that view from Hajjaj if the foreign minister didn’t give it to him. Kaunians and Algarvians who shared his tastes would more likely than not have seemed effeminate. Instead, he affected an exaggerated masculinity. That was familiar to Hajjaj, for most Zuwayzi men who preferred their own sex did the same.

“My view?” Hajjaj said. “My view is as it has always been: that the war is a great tragedy, and I wish it had never begun. As for how it will turn out, I can only hope for the best.”

“The best being an Algarvian triumph,” Iskakis said, again sounding as if he might spring on Hajjaj if the Zuwayzi presumed to disagree.

“Algarve is a better neighbor for us than is Unkerlant, not least because Algarve is a more distant neighbor,” Hajjaj said.

“Not for us,” Iskakis said bitterly, and Hajjaj had to nod. Yanina lay sandwiched between Algarve and Unkerlant, an unenviable position if ever there was one. With a scowl, Iskakis went on, “Things are not so good down in the southwest.”

“I have heard this, aye.” Hajjaj had heard it from his own generals, from boasts by the Unkerlanters in the broadsheets they sometimes rained down on Zuwayzi soldiers, and from the Algarvian minister. Marquis Balastro had been profanely inventive in explaining that things had gone wrong north of Sulingen not least on account of Yaninan cowardice. Hajjaj wondered if Balastro had been as inventive-and as profane-to Iskakis’ face. He wouldn’t have been surprised.

“What are we to do if the Algarvians piss away all the victories they have won?” Iskakis demanded.