Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

He was halfway through the throne room, in fact, before he recognized it for what it was. The throne remained, but only as a chair; all the gold leaf had been stripped off. He hadn’t even time to feel outrage. Before it could start to grow, he was pressing on toward the governor’s office, which had been the king’s.

Although the governor-a fat man with a duke’s silver dragon perched on the left breast of his uniform tunic-was talking with some other, lesser, official, he sent the man away at once, declaring, “The front comes first.” Ealstan understood him very clearly. When the other redhead went out, Ealstan shut the door behind him. The governor went on, “What is the latest, gentlemen? Will we be able to keep Swemmel’s men from crossing the Twegen and aiding these stinking Forthwegians?”

The two men dressed as officers led him toward a map. He paid no attention whatever to Ealstan. Why should a governor notice a sergeant? Ealstan unslung his stick. He had all the time in the world to blaze the Algarvian duke in the back of the head. The man crumpled without a sound.

“Good work,” the Forthwegian dressed as a major said. “Let’s get out of here.” Out they went, locking the door behind them. “His Grace is preparing a response for us,” the counterfeit major told the fellow who’d been conferring with the governor. “He’ll need a little while.” The genuine redhead nodded.

Ealstan and his comrades were out of the palace and in the back room of an abandoned house two blocks away when the hue and cry began. By then, he’d already turned the other two men who looked like Algarvians back into Forthwegians, and they’d pulled ordinary Forthwegian tunics from their packs and put them on. He gave himself his proper appearance, too. Leaving their sticks behind was a nuisance, but couldn’t be helped.

They went out onto the street once more without the slightest trace of fear. Ealstan felt like cutting capers. Mezentio’s men were looking for three of their own kind. They paid no attention to lowly unarmed Forthwegians, just as the governor had paid no attention to a lowly sergeant. Ealstan grinned and clapped his hands together once, liking the comparison very much.

For once, even Marquis Balastro’s bravado failed him when Hajjaj called on him at the Algarvian ministry in Bishah. The Zuwayzi foreign minister took that as a bad sign. Doing his best to conceal his worry, he said, “You are gracious for agreeing to see me on such short notice, your Excellency.”

“You are gracious for wanting to see me at all, your Excellency,” Balastro returned. “I am glad you do not find Algarve a sinking ship, to be abandoned as soon as possible.”

As a matter of fact, Hajjaj did reckon Algarve a sinking ship. Abandoning it was another matter. Abandoning Algarve meant casting Zuwayza on King Swemmel’s mercy, and Swemmel hardly knew the meaning of the word.

“I am sorry to find our officers were right about the building Unkerlanter offensive in the north,” Hajjaj said, “and even sorrier you have not had better fortune repelling it.”

“So am I,” Balastro said bleakly.

“Do you think you will be able to hold on the line of the Twegen?” Hajjaj asked.

“For a while,” the Algarvian minister replied. “Perhaps for a long while.” Hajjaj wondered if that was bravado returning. But Balastro went on, “After all, Swemmel lets us do him a favor if he stops there.”

“A favor?” Hajjaj scratched his head. Having to wear clothes on a blisteringly hot day like this, he felt like scratching everywhere at once, but refrained. “I’m sorry, your Excellency, but I don’t follow that.”

“We did the Forthwegians a favor. We got rid of their Kaunians for them, and precious few of them miss the blonds even a little bit,” Balastro said. “Now we’re getting rid of a whole great whacking lot of Forthwegians who enjoy rising up and causing trouble. If we kill them, they can’t very well rise up and cause trouble for the Unkerlanters, now can they?”

“Oh,” Hajjaj said. “I see what you mean. Do you really think King Swemmel is that devious?”

“When it comes to getting rid of people who might cause him trouble one fine day, nobody’s better than Swemmel.” Marquis Balastro spoke with great conviction.

And he was probably right, too. Turning the subject away from Forthweg and toward something more immediately important to him, Hajjaj said, “You will understand that King Shazli has a certain amount of concern because the front has shifted so far to the east.”

That was a diplomatic way to say, King Shazli is scared green because there aren‘t any Algarvian soldiers anywhere close enough to help us hold back the Unkerlanters, and we can’t do it by ourselves. We already tried, and we lost. To Hajjaj’s relief, the Algarvian minister understood it as such. Balastro said, “We will send you more dragons, your Excellency. We will send you as many behemoths as we can spare. We will send as many soldiers and mages as we can spare, too.”

“Thank you for your generosity,” Hajjaj said. “You might have done better to send us all these things earlier, you know.”

“Maybe.” Balastro sounded bland. “But King Mezentio has not forgotten you, and that is something you must always remember.”

Hajjaj nodded. Now he understood. The more worried Algarve was that Zuwayza might drop out of the war, the more the redheads would do to keep her in it. The more enemies Unkerlant had to fight, the better off Algarve was. In a way, that was reassuring. In another way, as the Zuwayzi foreign minister had said, it was liable to be too little, too late. Hajjaj rose and bowed. “I shall take your reassurances back to the palace. His Majesty will be glad to have them.”

When he got back to the palace, though, he went to General Ikhshid before calling on the king. Ikhshid’s fleshy face was unhappy. “So they’ll send us more dragons and behemoths, will they?” he said, one white eyebrow rising. “They’d better do it fast, if they’re going to do it.” He didn’t sound convinced. He didn’t sound cheerful, either.

“Fast?” Hajjaj raised an eyebrow, too. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“Maybe,” Ikhshid answered, “but it’s nothing that’d surprise you very much, I’d bet. The Unkerlanters are starting to bring more and more soldiers up against our lines in the south.”

That didn’t surprise Hajjaj. It did alarm him. “Can we beat them back?” he asked anxiously.

“We’ll do the best we can with what we’ve got and whatever the Algarvians give us,” General Ikhshid said. “You hit anything hard enough, though, and it’ll break. If the Unkerlanters put enough men in the fight, we’re in trouble. We saw that four and a half years ago.”

“Do you think they can?” Hajjaj asked.

“Depends on how they’re doing against Algarve and Gyongyos.” Ikhshid’s jowls wobbled as he frowned. “Odds are better now that they can than they were six weeks ago. They’ve gone a long way east, and the redheads don’t seem able to stop them anywhere.” Hajjaj explained Balastro’s theory of why the Unkerlanters had paused on the Twegen. It made Ikhshid no more cheerful. He said, “I wish that made less sense than it does.”

“My thought exactly,” Hajjaj said. “Have you told the king what you just told me?”

General Ikhshid shook his head. “Not yet.”

“I have to see him now,” Hajjaj said. “I’ll give him the broad outline, if that’s all right with you, and you can fill in the details later.”

“Fine. Fine.” Now Ikhshid nodded. “He’ll likely take it better from you than he would from me.”

Hajjaj thought the general overestimated his powers of persuasion, but headed off to see Shazli nonetheless. The king served him tea and wine and cakes, and didn’t take the royal privilege of cutting short the small talk that accompanied the refreshments. Having played many such games himself, Hajjaj judged that Shazli knew the news would be bad and didn’t much want to hear it.