Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

“I am telling you this,” the Algarvian said. “You are not having to say anything. Algarve in Jelgava is…” He used a word in his own language. Talsu didn’t know what it meant, but the officer’s gestures were expressive enough for him to get the idea: ruined was the politest term he could think of. Idly, he wondered if Algarvians would be able to talk at all with their hands tied. “How are we fighting here?” the redhead asked. “All our good men, all our good behemoths and dragons-where are they being? Here? No, Unkerlant!” He used that word again, with vast scorn.

“If that’s what you think, why fight?” Talsu asked. “Why not just give up?”

“No, no, no, no.” The Algarvian wagged a forefinger under Talsu’s nose. “No doing that. I am being a soldier. Fighting is what I am doing. And who is knowing?” He shrugged an elaborate Algarvian shrug. “Maybe Kuusamo and Lagoas will be making mistakes. We can be doing that-so can they be doing it. If they are making mistakes, we may be winning yet. And so”- another shrug-”I am fighting still.”

He sounded like a soldier, sure enough. Talsu hadn’t gone into the fight against Algarve with any great hope or expectation of victory, but he’d kept at it till his superiors surrendered. On a personal level, he didn’t suppose he could blame the redhead for doing the same. On a level slightly different from the personal…

Talsu shook his head. If he started thinking that way, he’d stab the officer instead of measuring him for a kilt. Were the fighting right outside of Skrunda, he would have thought about that. As things were, nobody was going to kick the Algarvians out of this part of Jelgava any time soon. And so, with a small sigh, he advanced with the tape measure, not with a knife.

Traku drummed a fingernail on the three-legged stool that was the sole bit of real furniture in the tent. After Talsu finished measuring the Algarvian, his father said, “What with things being the way they are right now”-his wave encompassed the canvas walls and the blankets on bare ground-”I think maybe you’d better pay up front.” He named his price.

The Algarvian raised an eyebrow. Talsu expected him to raise a fuss-Mezentio’s men, to a Jelgavan, were some of the fussiest people ever born. But, instead of turning red and throwing a tantrum, or even haggling, the captain dug into his belt pouch and set silver on the stool. “Here,” he said, and started to walk out. As he reached for the tent flap, he looked back over his shoulder. “Two days’ time?”

“Three,” Talsu said.

“Three,” the redhead agreed. “I am seeing you in three days’ time, then.” He ducked out of the tent and strode away.

Once he was gone, Talsu and his father stared at each other. “Did you hear that?” Talsu breathed. “Did youhear that? By the powers above, there’s a redhead who doesn’t think Algarve can hang on in Jelgava!”

“KingDonalitu’s back,” Traku said. “We’re going to be free again.”

“Aye,” Talsu said, but then, quite suddenly, “No. We’re going to have our own king back again. It’s not exactly the same thing.” His father made a questioning noise. Talsu explained: “When the redheads arrested me and threw me in the dungeon, the fellow who interrogated me wasn’t an Algarvian. He was a Jelgavan, doing the same job for KingMainardo as he’d done forKingDonalitu. And ifKingDonalitu ’s giving orders in Balvi again, what do you want to bet that same son of a whore will go right on doing his job in the dungeon, except with different prisoners?”

Traku grunted. “Gaolers are all bastards, no matter who they work for.”

“Oh, aye.” Talsu nodded. “But you have to be aparticular kind of bastard to do your job without caring who you work for.” He hesitated, then added, “And you have to be a particular kind of bastard to want your dungeons full of people-if you happen to be a king, I mean.”

Traku looked around, as if fearing people were leaning up outside the tent with hands cupped to their ears. Even in the days before the war, such words incautiously spoken could cause a man to disappear for months, for years, sometimes forever. “If it’s a choice between our bastard and the Algarvians’ bastard, I’ll take ours,” he said at last.

“Oh, aye,” Talsu said again, and then sighed. “That’s the choice we’ve got, sure enough. I wish we had another one, but I don’t know what it would be. Most kings are whoresons, nothing else but.”

They got supper that evening from kettles full of slop not much better than he’d eaten in his army days. After they brought their bowls back to the tent, Gailisa said, “Somebody who came into the grocery shop today said that Mainardo was going to run away from Balvi and back to Algarve. That would be wonderful.”

“Even the redheads don’t think they can go on holding our kingdom down,” Traku said, and recounted the Algarvian captain’s words earlier in the day.

Talsu bent down to spit a bit of gristle onto the ground. Then he said, “The redheads may not think they can hold Jelgava, but they’ve got to keep trying.”

“Why?” his wife asked. “Why don’t they just go away and leave us alone?”

“I wish they would,” his sister added.

“So do I, Ausra,” Talsu said. “But if they go away, the Lagoans and Kuusamans-and I suppose our own army, if we have an army again-will follow them right on into Algarve. And so they’ve got to fight here, to hang on to their own kingdom.”

“We’ll just have to help throw them out, then,” Ausra said, not quite so quietly as Talsu would have liked. He didn’t answer that. He’d tried to help throw out the redheads, and what had it got him? Time in the dungeon and an undeserved name as a collaborator. Of course, his timing had been bad.

If I saw the chance, would I fight the Algarvians again? he wondered. He gnawed on another piece of gristly meat. That helped hide the fierce smile on his face. Of course I would. If only I could kill them all.

Ilmarinen looked at Fernao as if he hated him. He probably did. “You miserable pup,” Ilmarinen said. “I was after experimental proof.”

Fernao shrugged. “You wouldn’t have got it. Even you’ve admitted you ignored that indeterminacy. All you would have done was take out a big piece of the landscape, and you have to admit that, too.”

“I don’t have to do any such thing, and I’m not about to, either,” Ilmarinen retorted. “It might have worked fine. We’ll never know now- thanks to you.”

Theycould find out. Ilmarinen could go off and repeat his experiment. Fernao kept his mouth shut. If he suggested any such thing, the Kuusaman mage was altogether too likely to take him up on it. He could think of nothing he wanted less. To keep Ilmarinen from coming up with the same notion, he changed the subject: “Our armies are pushing farther into Jelgava. So far, the Algarvians haven’t started killing people to try to stop them.”

“So far,” Ilmarinen echoed. He leaned across the refectory table. “But I have friends in interesting places. One of them said the redheads-the other redheads, I mean: not your lot-moved a lot of Kaunians from Forthweg down to the edge of the Strait of Valmiera, because they thought the blow would fall there. How long will it take to drag those poor whoresons to Jelgava, or else to start hauling Jelgavans off the street?”

“Not long,” Fernao said.

Ilmarinen grunted. “There-you see? You’re not as foolish as you look. And I was trying to go back and change all that-change everything that’s happened since this war started-and you and Pekka had the nerve to try to stop me? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.” His eyebrow rose. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for all kinds of reasons, but that’s the one I’ve got in mind right now.”