Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

“I don’t know,” Palasta answered, also quietly. “Maybe it has something to do with… what I felt the last time we went traveling.” She was young, but she was sensible, too sensible to speak much about where they’d gone and what they’d done.

And she was wise to be so sensible, too, for Alsvanga was full of Algarvians-not just sailors but also soldiers. Some of the soldiers were older men in neat uniforms: typical occupation troops. But Skarnu saw a few who were plainly combat veterans. Their eyes were hard and watchful, as his were. They didn’t care so much about how they dressed. A good many of them wore wound badges, sometimes with the ribbons that said they’d been hurt more than once.

“They’re ready,” Skarnu murmured. “They’re as ready as they can be.” By then, he and Palasta had left the town of Alsvanga and were walking along a country road. She led the way. She had more senses to guide her toward what needed discovering than Skarnu did.

But she didn’t know everything there was to know. “Where are the Algarvians coming up with their men?” she asked.

“Only one place they can be pulling ‘em from, and that’s Unkerlant,” Skarnu replied with a certain somber satisfaction. “And that won’t do them any good-no, no good at all-when the fighting picks up there. And it will. I’m sure it will.”

“Powers below eat the redheads,” Palasta whispered fiercely. She paused, gathered in thought, and pointed. “There. The camp where they’re holding the Kaumans from Forthweg is beyond that stand of beeches.”

But Skarnu, for once, hadn’t needed her sorcery to tell him that. The wind had swung. He could smell the nasty stink of unwashed humanity and human misery. “They’ll have mages around here too somewhere, won’t they?” he asked. Palasta nodded. So did Skarnu, grimly. “Aye, they’re ready, all right,” he said. “If Lagoas and Kuusamo are going to cross the Strait here, I don’t see how they can hope to land.” He kicked at the dirt. “Curse it.”

Now that so many practical mages came to the wilds of the Naantali district to train, more copies of Kuusaman news sheets also arrived. When Pekka walked into the refectory of a morning, she found Fernao working his way through one. “You’re reading it without a lexicon,” she said, and softly clapped her hands together to applaud him.

“I’ve always been good at languages,” he replied. “Where is this place called Kihlanki? Somewhere in your east, isn’t it?”

“As far east as you can go and stay in Kuusamo,” Pekka said as she sat down beside him. She wasn’t so nervous about being with him as she had been after they ended up in bed, though she did sometimes wonder whether that lack of nerves was a good sign or not. “Why?”

He waved the news sheet. “Because unless I’m reading this wrong, it says that your navy has gone and launched a big fleet into the Bothnian Ocean from there, bound for the islands Gyongyos still holds.”

“Let me see,” Pekka said. Fernao handed her the sheet. Their fingers brushed for a moment. Fernao noticed it; his breath caught. Pekka noticed it, too, and did her best to pretend she hadn’t. She quickly read through the article Fernao had been talking about. “You read it rightly. That’s what it says.”

“If any Lagoan news sheet published a story like that, KingVitor ’s men would close it down the next day-maybe the same day,” Fernao said. “It tells the enemy what you’re going to do.”

Pekka shrugged. “We don’t like to close down news sheets unless we have a truly important reason. I’ve seen things like that before. We would rather be open and tell ourselves the truth than have someone say we may not.”

“Even if it hurts your kingdom?” Fernao asked.

“Even if it hurts some in the short run,” Pekka said. “In the long run, we think it’s better.”

Fernao scratched his head. “You Kuusamans are peculiar people.” He smiled a lopsided-and oddly attractive-smile. “Maybe that’s why I’m so fond of you.” He set his hand on hers.

Something close to panic swept over her, as if he’d made much more overt, much cruder advances. What caused part of the panic was that alarm wasn’t the only reason her heart beat faster. Even so, she took her hand away. “That’s over,” she said. “It has to be over.”

“Why?” he asked, in much the same tones her son Uto might have used with an endless series ofWhy? s when he was four years old.

She felt like answering, Because, which had the virtue of stopping that whole ley-line caravan of questions. In fact she did say, “Because,” but went on, “I have a family, and I want to go on having a family. Once”-she shrugged-”anything can happen once. If something like that happened again and again, though, what would I have to go home to?”

“Me,” Fernao answered.

He meant it. She could see as much. That made it worse, not better. “It’s impossible,” she said. “It has to be.” She grimaced; that left her open to another, Why?

Instead of using it, Fernao just shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said. “You’ve decided you want it to be that way, which isn’t the same thing at all. If you think I’m going to quit trying to get you to change your mind, you’re wrong.”

He told her that in fluent, idiomatic Kuusaman. A few months before, he would have had to use classical Kaunian to get his meaning across. Pekka wished he still did; that would have accented the differences between them. She said, “If you go on this way now, you’ll make me angry. That won’t do you any good.”

Fernao studied her face, plainly trying to decide if she meant it. She did her best to look stern, partly to convince him, partly to convince herself. Most of her recognized the need for that. Part of her, though, kept saying things like, Of course you can enjoy yourself here, and then break it off when the war’s over or when Leino comes home or when you and Fernao get assigned to two different places.

A serving woman came up and asked her what she wanted. She ordered smoked salmon and eggs, glad for the distraction. How am I going to make Fernao believe I don’t want to go to bed with him again when I have trouble making myself believe it? she wondered. She called after the serving woman: “Oh, and a pot of tea, too.” The woman nodded. Pekka hoped the tea would help her think straight. She hoped something would.

By Fernao’s expression, he knew she was fighting a war with herself. He wasn’t of two minds; he knew exactly what he wanted. In a way, that was flattering. In another way, it just made life more difficult.

Before Fernao could find anything to say, a serving girl came up to the table they were sharing. “MistressPekka?” she asked.

“Aye?” Lost in her own thoughts, Pekka needed a moment to realize it wasn’t the woman who’d taken her breakfast order. “What is it, Linna?” she asked. She needed another moment to realize that, whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Linna was pale and biting her lip. “What’s wrong?”

Fernao was a jump ahead of her: “Is it something to do with Ilmarinen?”

Looking paler than ever, Linna nodded. “Is he-?” Pekka broke off the question without finishing it. Ilmarinen wasn’t a young man, and Linna was a young, pretty woman. If he’d tried to do something too strenuous, he might have died happy, but that could only be horror for the person in whose company he was at the time.

But Linna said, “I don’t know where he is. I went to his chamber this morning, and I found two envelopes. This one was addressed to me.” She pulled out an envelope and took a note from it. “It says, ‘If I come back, we’ll celebrate. If I don’t, there’s a little something in my will to remember me by. Have fun with it. I had fun with you.’ “ She folded the leaf of paper, and then produced another envelope. “This one has your name on it, MistressPekka.”