Harry Turtledove - Through the Darkness

“If that’s the game they want to play, by the powers above, we’ll play it,” Pesaro said. “By pairs, men. Go through the houses and bring them out.”

As he and Oraste got started, Bembo said, “We went down this street the last time we were here.”

“Did we?” Oraste shrugged. “Why bother remembering?” He pounded on a door and shouted, “Kaunians, come forth!”

To Bembo’s surprise, the door opened. The elderly Kaunian who stood in the entry hall spoke slow, clear Algarvian: “I am here. What do you want?”

“Come with us, grandpa,” Bembo said, and jerked a thumb back toward the village square. “All you blonds are going back to Gromheort.”

“We’ve seen this old buzzard before,” Oraste said.

“So we have, by the powers above,” Bembo said, nodding. “He’s the one with the cute granddaughter, right?” He didn’t wait for his partner to agree, but turned back to the Kaunian. “Come on, grandpa. Where is she?”

“Vanai is not here,” the old man answered. “She has not been here since the early winter. She ran off with a Forthwegian lout. I do not know where they went.”

“A likely story,” Oraste said with a sneer.

Bembo was inclined to believe the Kaunian; the fellow would have had trouble sounding so indignant were he lying. But you never could tell. “We’re going to have to search your place,” he said.

“Go ahead. You will not find her,” the Kaunian said, and then, “If I am to be taken to Gromheort, what may I bring with me?”

“You’re not going to be taken, pal-you’re going to walk,” Oraste answered. “You can take whatever you can carry, but if you don’t keep up, you’re going to get what’s coming to you, and that’s for sure.” He looked as if he would enjoy giving the old man what he thought was coming to him.

“I will keep up,” the Kaunian said. He stood aside. “Come search. Try not to steal too much.” He shook his head. “What difference does it make? I have spent my whole life here, but I doubt I shall ever see this place again. My empire of knowledge has fallen, just as the great Empire did in times gone by.”

“What’s he talking about?” Oraste asked.

“Why do you think I know?” Bembo replied in some annoyance. He pointed at the old man. “Pack what you’re going to take, and be quick about it. Then go to the square. Come on, Oraste. Let’s make sure that gal isn’t hiding here.”

“Oh, aye.” A murky light sparked in Oraste’s eyes. “If we catch her, I know how to make her pay.”

When they went inside, Bembo stared in astonishment. He turned to the Kaunian. “What in blazes do you do with all these books?” He’d never seen so many in one place in his life.

“Read them. Study them. Cherish them,” the blond answered. “I have spent my life seeking understanding. And what has it got me? One sack to carry on the road to Gromheort.” He bowed stiffly. “I suppose I should thank you for paring existence down to essentials.”

“What’s he talking about?” Oraste repeated. He sounded more irritable this time, more ready to strike out at what he didn’t understand.

“It doesn’t matter,” Bembo told him. “Come on. Let’s look for the girl. We can’t waste time about it. We’ve got plenty of other Kaunians to shift.”

He and Oraste tore through the house with practiced efficiency. They found no one lurking in pantries or behind or under furniture or anywhere else. “Maybe the old bugger was telling the truth,” Oraste said. “Who would have believed it?”

“Stranger things have happened,” Bembo answered. “Did you get anything good when we split up there?”

“This and that,” the other constable said. “Don’t know what all of it’s worth, but some of it’s cursed old, that’s for sure. How about you?”

“About the same,” Bembo told him. “Somebody ought to do something about these books. They’re probably worth a good bit to somebody, but not to anybody I know.”

“Most of ’em are Kaunian garbage, anyway,” Oraste said. “You ask me, the mice and the silverfish are welcome to ‘em. Come on, Bembo. Like you said, he’s not the only stinking blond we’ve got to fetch.”

They did their job well enough to keep Sergeant Pesaro from screaming too loudly at them. By early afternoon, all the Kaunians the constables could flush out were standing in the square. With Evodio translating, Pesaro said, “Now we go back to Gromheort. Have you got that? Anybody who doesn’t keep up will be sorry to the end of his days-and that won’t be a long way off. Let’s go.”

“Curse you, you pox-ridden redheaded barbarian!” a blond shouted in pretty good Algarvian. “Why should we do what you-?”

Oraste pulled his stick off his belt and blazed the Kaunian, with deliberate malice, in the belly. The man fell, shrieking and writhing. A woman-probably his wife-screamed. Over their cries, Oraste shouted, “Anybody else want to get gay with us? We’ll give you what he got.”

Evodio turned that into classical Kaunian, though Bembo didn’t think it needed any translating. Pesaro said, “Get moving.” Evodio translated that, too. All the Kaunians started east except the blazed man. Even his wife, her face stunned and empty, trudged out of Oyngestun.

Some of the Forthwegians who lived in the village jeered as the blonds left. Some waved mocking good-byes. Some had already started going through the houses of the people who’d lived side by side with them for so many years.

Bembo said, “Curse them, they have a better chance to clean out the Kaunians than we got.” He sighed. “Being a constable’s a tough job.” Self-pity came easy to him.

Oraste raised a gingery eyebrow. “You want to go fight the Unkerlanters instead?”

“Powers above, no!” The mere thought was enough to make Bembo turn and curse the Kaunians shambling along the road.

The old Kaunian scholar spoke in his own language. Several of his countrymen smiled. Seeing that Bembo did not follow, he shifted to Algarvian: “It is a proverb from the days of the Kaunian Empire, and still true today, I think. ‘Speech is a mirror of the soul: as a man speaks, so is he.’ “

Bembo yanked his bludgeon off his belt and belabored the old man till blood streamed down his face from a split scalp. “Quote proverbs at me, will you?” he shouted. “I’ll teach you one: keep your lousy mouth shut. Have you got it? Have you?” He raised the bludgeon again.

“Aye,” the Kaunian choked out. Bembo strutted along, feeling better about the world. Oraste slapped him on the back, which made him happier yet.

Garivald woke with the sun in his face. When he looked around, he saw other men-some wrapped in rock-gray Unkerlanter army blankets, some in captured Algarvian tan ones, some in peasant homespun-lying on pine boughs among the trees. He shook his head in slow wonder, as he did almost every morning when he woke. He wasn’t a peasant any more, or not an ordinary peasant. He was an irregular, fighting King Mezentio’s men far behind their lines.

He wriggled out of his own blanket-the redhead who’d carried it into southern Unkerlant wouldn’t need it, not ever again-sat up, and stretched. Then he put on his sandals and got to his feet. His belly rumbled. Not far away, a stewpot was bubbling above a slow fire. He hurried over. “What’s in there?” he asked the fellow stirring the pot with a big iron spoon.

“Barley mush and a little bit of blood sausage,” the cook answered. Like Garivald, like most Unkerlanters, he was stocky and swarthy, with dark hair and a strong hooked nose, but his accent said he came out of the north, not from the Duchy of Grelz. “Want a bowl?”

“Hmm.” Garivald rubbed his chin, as if thinking it over. Bristles rasped under his fingers; chances to shave here in the woods seldom came. His belly rumbled again. He quit being coy. “Aye!”