Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

“No, sir,” Garivald said simply.

Andelot sighed. “You really must have lived in the back of beyond.” Garivald shrugged again. He probably had. Andelot taught him the rhyme, which had a catchy little tune. He learned it quickly enough to please the lieutenant. “That’s good,” Andelot said. “That’s very good. Here, let me give you more paper. You can have that pen, too, and here’s a bottle of ink. Go practice shaping the letters and keep saying the rhyme so you know what each one sounds like. In a couple of days, I’ll show you how to read more things, too.”

“Thank you, sir,” Garivald said. He went back to his own hole, his head as full of that children’s rhyme as it had ever been with his own songs. He wrote the alphabet several times, reciting the rhyme as he wielded the pen. Then-first looking around to make sure no one could see him-he wroteGarivald as, best he could, being certain to use the royal form of the G.

And then he crumpled up that leaf of paper and threw it in the closest fire. He let out a small sigh of relief as he watched it burn. In Swemmel’s kingdom, no one could be too careful. Fariulf he was, and Fariulf he would have to remain.

Istvan raised an axe and brought it down on a chunk of firewood. The chunk split into two smaller chunks. The Kuusaman guards who watched the woodcutting detail stayed very alert-axes were real weapons. A few feet from Istvan, Kun was chopping away, too.

“Anyone can tell you didn’t grow up cutting wood,” Istvan said.

“I do it well enough.”Kun was touchy about everything. That had got him into trouble with the guards at the captives’ camp a couple of times. It would have been worse trouble if he hadn’t managed to talk his way out of most of it.

“I didn’t say you didn’t,” Istvan answered.

“I’ll say that,” Szonyi toldKun with a grin. “You don’t cut as much wood as the sergeant or I do, not even close.”

“You’re both twice my size,”Kun said-an exaggeration, but not an enormous one: by Gyongyosian standards, hewas on the scrawny side.

Even so, Istvan shook his head. “We’d still do more, even if we were your size or you were ours. Anybody can see that. You waste motion.”

“If I were an Unkerlanter, you’d complain I wasn’t efficient enough,”Kun said.

“If you were an Unkerlanter, you’d still be a lousy woodcutter,” Szonyi said. “By the stars, you’d be a lousy woodcutter if you were an Algarvian.”

“Algarvians,”Kun said, and chopped away at the wood scattered before him with great spirit if not with great efficiency.

“They’re strange people.” Szonyi paused for a moment to wipe sweat from his face with a tunic sleeve. Like most early autumn days on the island of Obuda, this one was cool and misty, but cutting wood was plenty of work to keep a man warm. “Even the one who speaks our language is strange, and the other three…” He rolled his eyes. “They’re even worse.”

“Makes you wonder why we ever allied with them,” Istvan said, leaning on his axe. “They’re… foreign.”

Kunlaughed. “Of course they’re foreign. They’reforeigners, by the stars. Did you expect them to be just like us?”

Actually, Istvanhad expected something like that. The only foreigners with whom he’d had any experience up to now were Unkerlanter and Kuusaman enemies-and trying to kill one another hadn’t proved the best way to strike up an acquaintance-and the natives of Obuda, whom he reckoned contemptible because they bowed down to whoever occupied their island. He said, “I expected them to be more like us than they are, I’ll tell you that.”

“Why?”Kun asked.

“Because we’re on the same side, of course,” Istvan answered. Szonyi nodded vigorous agreement.

“We’re on the same side as the naked black Zuwayzin, too,”Kun said. “Do you think they’ll be just like us?”

Istvan had trouble believing there really were people with black skins who ran around with no clothes on all the time. It sounded like one of the stories big boys told their little brothers so those little brothers would look like fools when they repeated them to their parents. He said, “I’ve never seen a Zuwayzi, and neither have you. And we weren’t talking about them. We were talking about Algarvians.”

“Aye, but you were saying that foreigners shouldn’t-”Kun began.

“No to talk!” a guard shouted in bad Gyongyosian. “To work! To chop!”

With something close to relief, Istvan went back to cutting wood. Kun had a way of twisting things till they seemed upside down and inside out. The former mage’s apprentice got back to work, too, but he didn’t stop talking. He never does, Istvan thought, which wasn’t quite fair. Kun continued, “Foreigners shouldn’t be different from us if we’re going to ally with them? I think that’s a silly notion.”

“No to talk!” the Kuusaman guard yelled again. This time, Kun did shut up-for a while.

After what seemed like forever, the wood-chopping detail finished its work. The Kuusamans carefully counted the axes before sending the captives back to their barracks. Istvan didn’t know how anyone could hope to sneak an axe away, but the guards took no chances.

In the barracks, CaptainFrigyes and Borsos the dowser and the Algarvian who spoke Gyongyosian-his name was Norandino, which struck Istvan as a thoroughly barbarous appellation-had their heads together. Istvan didn’t like that. Both Frigyes and, from what he’d been able to see, Algarvians in general were much too fond of blood sacrifice and the sorcerous power that sprang from it to suit him.

By the way Frigyes looked up in alarm, he and Borsos and Norandino had been plotting something. Whether it had to do with cutting some large number of Gyongyosian throats here, Istvan didn’t know. He hoped he wouldn’t ever have to find out.

Norandino said something in questioning tones, too low for Istvan to make out the words. Frigyes answered a little more loudly: “Oh, aye, they’re reliable enough. Nothing to worry about with them.”

Istvan knew he should have felt reassured, complimented, even flattered. What he felt instead was something a man not from a self-styled warrior race would unquestionably have called fear. He had too good a notion of what sort of bloody thoughts went through his company commander’s mind.

Szonyi and the rest of the woodcutters went to their cots and relaxed without the slightest worry-all saveKun, who caught Istvan’s eye. Kun didn’t say anything. He hardly changed expression. But Istvan knew they were thinking the same thing, and that it appalled them both.

Norandino’s laugh rang out. It filled the barracks hall. How could anyone who talked of slaughter sound so cheerful about it? Istvan didn’t know, but the redhead certainly seemed to manage. And it wasn’t a laugh of anticipation of someone else’s trouble, as might have come from a Gyongyosian. By the sound of it, Norandino knew his own neck might be on the line. He not only knew, he thought that was part of the joke.

Or maybe I’m imagining things, Istvan thought as he lay down on his own cot. He stared up at the boards of the ceiling and tried to make himself believe it. He couldn’t. Why would Frigyes and a mage of sorts and an Algarvian talk together, if not for purposes of sorcery and sacrifice?

Reliable. CaptainFrigyes thinks I’m reliable. Am I? That he could even ask himself the question left him startled. If I thought he could really do something to win the war for Gyongyos, I might not feel the same. But he can’t hurt anything but Obuda, and the fighting’s moved a long way from here.

Which meant… Istvan knew what it meant. He knew, but he shied away from following the thought where it had to lead. He glanced over towardKun, who sprawled a couple of cots away. Kun was looking in his direction, too. Istvan jerked his eyes away, as if he’d caught the other man doing something disgusting. But he hadn’t. The disgust was all in his own mind, with much of it aimed at himself.