Harry Turtledove - Rulers of the Darkness

"They've already done it," Ealstan told her. "That's the real news. They held a ceremony in Herborn and boiled him alive."

"Oh." For once, the lurch Vanai's stomach gave had nothing to do with her pregnancy. "That's…" She didn't know quite what it was. "I wouldn't wish it on…" Why wouldn't you wish it on an Algarvian? she wondered. You've wished plenty of worse things on them, and what they've done to your own folk makes them deserve every one. "Good riddance," she said at last.

"Aye, just so," Ealstan said. "That's how they serve up rebels. And they slaughter their own folk when… to strike back at the Algarvians."

When the Algarvians slaughter Kaunians, he hadn't said, even if he'd started to. He tried to spare her feelings. And Forthwegians looked down on their cousins to the west hardly less than the Kaunians of Forthweg did. The only difference was, the Kaunians of Forthweg looked down on the Forthwegians, too.

Ealstan went into the kitchen and came back with two mugs of wine. He handed Vanai one and raised the other in a toast: "Down with Algarve!" He drank.

"Down with Algarve!" Vanai would always drink to that. The mere idea made any wine sweeter.

Over supper, Ealstan said, "One of these days before too long, Swemmel's men are bound to strike blows in the north to match the ones they're making down in Grelz."

"Is that something else Pybba knows but the news sheets don't?" Vanai asked.

He shook his head. "No. I wish it were. But it stands to reason, doesn't it? They'll want to run the redheads out of all of their kingdom, not just part of it."

"If they do run them out of Unkerlant, they'll run them back into Forthweg- and then they'll come after them," Vanai said. "That stands to reason, too."

"Aye." To her surprise, Ealstan didn't look so happy about it. He explained why: "We don't get rid of our occupiers. We only trade one set for another."

"It's a good trade," Vanai said. Ealstan nodded, but with something less than full enthusiasm. It would certainly be a good trade for Forthweg's surviving Kaunians; the Unkerlanters didn't much care about Kaunianity one way or the other. But an Unkerlanter occupation might not be such a good trade for the Forthwegians themselves. The men of Swemmel's kingdom liked them no better than they liked Unkerlanters.

Wistfully, Ealstan said, "It would be nice if King Penda could just come back."

Vanai reached across the table and set her hand on his. "Aye, it would," she said, giving him- and Penda- the benefit of the doubt as he'd given it to the idea of an Unkerlanter occupation.

As she was washing the supper dishes, Ealstan came up behind her and began to caress her. "Be careful," she warned him.

"I am," he said, and he was. Vanai had trouble concentrating on the dishes. Her breasts had grown more tender since she'd started expecting a baby, but they'd also grown more sensitive. After a little while, she decided the dishes could wait. She turned and put her arms around Ealstan.

Forthwegian-style tunics were easier to get out of than the short tunics and trousers she'd worn back in Oyngestun. Certain post-imperial Kaunian writers had used that truth to sneer at the morals of Forthwegian women. Back in the bedchamber, Vanai simply found it convenient.

Afterwards, she rubbed her upper lip; Ealstan's mustache had tickled her when their lips clung while they made love. "I'm happy with you," he said.

"Good," she answered. "I'm happy with you, too." She kissed him again, careless of that vicious mustache. She meant it. The accursed Algarvian officer who'd introduced her to what passed between man and woman might have been- probably had been- more skilled in this and that than Ealstan was. But so what? It wasn't even that Spinello hadn't wanted her to have pleasure. He had- so her pleasure could give him more. But his own delight came first, always. Ealstan wanted to give her pleasure for her sake, not his. He might have given a little less, but she took ever so much more.

Spinello went off to Unkerlant, she reminded herself. With any luck at all, he's dead, horribly dead, or else crippled or in torment from his wounds. A lot of Algarvian officers go to Unkerlant. Not so many come back in one piece.

"What are you thinking?" Ealstan asked. He would do that every once in a while, after lovemaking or just out of the blue.

Usually, Vanai felt obligated to answer with the truth. Tonight, she gave him only part of it: "I love you."

As she'd known it would be, that was the part he wanted to hear. He squeezed her to him. "I'm glad," he said. "I don't know where I'd be without you."

You'd be back in Gromheort with your family, she thought. If you weren't already married to some Forthwegian girl, you'd be pledged to one. You're too good a catch not to be. I ought to know.

But where would I be without you? Maybe I would have lasted long enoughin the Kaunian district in Gromheort to come up with the spell that lets Kaunians look like Forthwegians. Maybe. Or maybe somebody else would have come up with it by now. Maybe. She tried to make herself believe either of those things. It wasn't easy. Odds are, Mezentio's men would have shipped me west. I wouldn't be here worrying about it. I wouldn't be anywhere at all.

She clung to Ealstan. "I'm very lucky," she said.

He squeezed her again, this time till she could hardly breathe. "You make me lucky," he said. Vanai didn't know whether to laugh or to cry at that. It was absurd, but magnificently absurd. The baby kicked. "I felt that!" Ealstan exclaimed, which was hardly surprising, considering how tight he held her. "He's getting stronger."

"That's what he's supposed to do," Vanai answered. "He's getting bigger, too." She rolled away from Ealstan and onto her back, then lifted her head so she could look at herself. Her belly definitely bulged now. Pretty soon, even her baggy Forthwegian tunics wouldn't be able to hide her pregnancy any more. "And so am I."

He set his hand on the swelling below her navel. "That's what you're supposed to do, too." Before very long, his hand wandered lower. He was still young enough to be able to make love about as often as the thought crossed his mind.

As he began to stroke her, Vanai said, "This is how my belly started getting big in the first place."

Laughing, Ealstan shook his head. "My hand had nothing to do with that." But, what with what followed, Vanai wasn't wrong, either. Both of them slept soundly that night.

When they woke, it was later in the morning than usual. Vanai wasn't surprised when Ealstan told her her sorcerous disguise had slipped. She repaired it while he gobbled bread and almonds and wine for breakfast. "Is everything all right?" she asked when she finished the spell.

He nodded. "Fine," he said with his mouth full. "Pybba's going to burst like an egg if I don't get to work on time."

"No, he won't," Vanai said. "He knows you do good work, and he knows you do plenty of work, too. You just take him too seriously when he starts roaring and bellowing."

"If you'd listened to him roaring and bellowing as much as I have, you'd take him seriously, too." Ealstan dug a finger into one ear, as if to say listening to Pybba had left him half deaf. From her own brief meeting with the pottery magnate, Vanai could readily believe that. Ealstan gave her a quick kiss tasting of wine and hurried out the door. She rolled her eyes. He talked about listening to Pybba, but he hadn't listened to her.

She ate her own breakfast at a more leisurely clip. Then she put some silver in her handbag and went downstairs. Her thoughts of the evening before convinced her she needed a couple of new tunics, cut even more loosely than the ones she already owned. Forthwegian women just didn't display the contours of their bodies. If she was to seem a proper Forthwegian woman, she couldn't, either.