Harry Turtledove - After the downfall

"Then maybe you understand, sir. King Bottero lets me do those things. You don't — you won't — you wouldn't."

"Suppose your other choice is the chopper?"

"Suppose it is." Hasso hoped he sounded more nonchalant and less frightened than he felt. "How do you trust anything you chop out of me?"

"Oh, we have ways." That wasn't the Lord of Bucovin. That was Rautat, the practical noncom. He sounded very sure of himself, and probably with good reason. Zgomot said something in Bucovinan. Rautat answered in the same language. Hasso didn't like it when people hashed out his fate in a tongue he couldn't understand. Who would have?

"Well, nothing is going to happen right away," Zgomot said, returning to Lenello. "Maybe we can show you you made a mistake taking service with Bottero. Or maybe, if we decide you're too dangerous to keep alive, we'll have to kill you to make sure you don't go back. We'll just have to see."

"Whatever you say, Lord." At least it's not the chopper right away!

"Whatever I say?" Zgomot's laugh was hardly more than a token effort. "Well, stranger, you've never ruled, have you?"

Prison. It was about the most Hasso could have expected, but it was nothing to get excited about. He had a room with a window much too narrow to give him any chance to escape through it. He had a cot and a slops bucket. The bucket did boast a cover. For such refinements he was grateful.

The door was too sturdy to break down. The bar was on the outside. Guards always stood in the corridor — he could hear them talking every now and again.

They fed him twice a day. The food wasn't especially good, but there was plenty of it. He didn't need to worry about going hungry. And, by the way soldiers with swords and bows glowered at him whenever the door opened to admit the servant with the tray, he didn't need to worry about escaping, either. He wasn't going anywhere till Zgomot decided to let him out.

He didn't have a torch or a lamp. When the sun went down — which it did very early at this time of year — he sat and lay in darkness till at last it rose again.

Grimly, he made the most of the few light hours. He did pushups and situps and other calisthenics. He ran in place. He paced around and around the cell, which was about three meters square. He'd got used to short days and long nights in Russia. This wasn't as bad as that. They didn't give him a brazier, but he had plenty of blankets. And it wasn't as cold here as it had been there — nowhere close.

After he'd been in there for eight days — he thought it was eight, but it could have been seven or nine — the door opened at an unexpected time. Ice ran through him. He knew enough about being a prisoner to suspect any change in routine. Was this the day when they'd sacrifice him to the great god Mumbo-Jumbo, er, Lavtrig?

In walked the usual guards with the usual cutlery. In with them walked someone else. She couldn't have been much more than a meter and a half tall; she didn't come up to the top of Hasso's shoulder. But she carried herself like a queen. No, more like a dancer, with a straight back and long, graceful strides that made her skirt swirl around her ankles as if she belonged to a flamenco troupe.

"You are the man from a far land who took service with Bottero," she said in a clear contralto. Her accent was much better than Hasso's. It might even have been better than Lord Zgomot's; she lacked the fussy precision that informed his speech.

"That's right." Hasso nodded. "Who are you?"

"My name is Drepteaza." She made four syllables of it. She waited. Hasso repeated the name. She corrected him. He tried again. She nodded. "That's close enough," she said. "I am here to teach you to talk like a human being." That was how it came out in Lenello.

In spite of everything, Hasso smiled. "What am I doing now?"

"Talking like a western wolf," Drepteaza answered seriously. The Bucovinans loved the Lenelli no more than the Lenelli cared for them. Up till now, Hasso hadn't had to worry about that, any more than he'd worried about what Jews felt about Germans. That would only have mattered to him if he'd got captured by a band of Jewish partisans. Now, in effect, he had been. And what the natives felt about the Lenelli and about one Hasso Pemsel could literally be a matter of life and death.

He bowed to Drepteaza. "I am at your service, my lady. You are a prettier teacher than Rautat would be, that's for sure." And so she was. She was probably somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, with strong cheekbones, fine dark eyes, and an elegant blade of a nose. He would have bet she had a nice shape under that baggy tunic and skirt, though maybe her elegant gait was what made him think so.

She looked at him with as much warmth as if he'd got poured out of the slops bucket. So much for flattery, Hasso thought. One of the guards turned out to understand Lenello. Hefting his sword, he growled, "Watch your mouth with the holy priestess."

"Sorry," Hasso said. Maybe ninety seconds after meeting a goddess, he'd started screwing her brains out. Plainly, the Bucovinans did things differently. Hasso bowed to Drepteaza again, this time in apology. He told her, "Sorry," too, and hoped she believed he was sincere.

"I suppose you meant no harm," she said, but Murmansk winter still chilled her voice. "To be sorry in our language is intristare!' She waited as she had before. He said the word. She corrected him. He tried again. The s was a long hiss, the r closer to a French than a German one, but not quite like that, either. She corrected him once more. At least she didn't expect him to get it right away. He gave it another try. She nodded, satisfied at last.

"How do you say, 'I am sorry'?" he asked.

She told him. Before he could try it, she added, "That is how a man says it. The form for a woman is — " Hasso winced, and hoped it didn't show. Somebody'd told him Polish had masculine and feminine verb forms. To him, that proved it wasn't a civilized language. Oh, well, he thought.

He repeated the masculine form, as well as he remembered it. This time, Drepteaza nodded right away. Hasso felt absurdly pleased with himself, as if he were a dog that had won a scrap of meat for a trick.

Then the guard said, "You better learn that one. You need it a lot, you — " He said something in Bucovinan that the priestess didn't translate. Hasso doubted it was an endearment.

She taught him a few more words. He asked, "May I have pen and parchment, please, to write them down?"

She raised a dark eyebrow. "The Lenelli taught you their letters?"

"Yes. But I have my own letters before. I probably use those. I am more used to them."

"Your own letters," Drepteaza murmured. "I had not thought of that. But you are supposed to know all sorts of curious things, aren't you? Yes, you may have parchment and pen and ink. I don't think you can use them to get away."

"Neither do I," Hasso said. "I wish I did."

The guard who spoke Lenello chuckled. Drepteaza didn't. She was a hard sell. But she did unbend enough to speak to the guards in Bucovinan. One of them touched a bent forefinger to his forehead. The salute wasn't in the least military, but was respectful. The guard hurried away.

He came back a few minutes later with writing supplies. Drepteaza taught Hasso their names in her language. He wrote them down. Drepteaza looked at the way he did it. "That is not Lenello," she said. "Is it your script?"

"Ja," he said absently, and then, "Yes."

"Is it easier to learn than Lenello?"

He had to think about that. "About the same, I suppose. Lenello has more characters, but that is good and bad. Each sound has its own characters with Lenello. With my writing, you need more than one letter for some sounds." He showed her some examples: sch and ei and ch. She caught on fast.