Harry Turtledove: Into the Darkness

That would be something special, he thought. A song like that would last forever. He kicked at the snow, sending little clumps of it flying. Now he would be thinking about that to the exclusion of everything else. He saw it was a thing that might be done, but had no idea how to go about it. He wished he knew more. He had no formal training in music or song-making. He had no formal training in anything. He’d learned how to farm by watching his father, not by having a schoolmaster beat lessons into his back with a switch.

Standing out here at the edge of the village was peaceful. After so much time in the company of his wife and son and daughter and animals—in their company whether he wanted to be or not, for the most part—he savored as much peace as he could find.

He couldn’t find much, even on the outskirts of Zossen. Here came Waddo, waving his arms and bearing down on him like a behemoth in rut. A rhyme flew out of Garivald’s head, never to return. He glowered at the village firstman. “What is it now, Waddo? Whatever it is, couldn’t it have waited?”

He was, perhaps, lucky. Waddo was so full of himself, he paid no attention to anything Garivald said. “Have you heard?” he demanded. “Powers above, have you heard?” Then he shook his head. “No, of course you haven’t heard, and I’m an idiot. How could you have heard? I just got it off the crystal myself.”

“Why don’t you back up and start from the beginning?” Garivald asked. Whatever Waddo had heard had upset him beyond the mean.

“Aye, I’ll do that,” the firstman said, nodding. “What I heard is, the lousy, stinking Algarvians have gone and invaded Yanina, that’s what I heard. King Swemmel is hopping mad about it, too. He’s calling it a breach that will not stand, and he’s moving soldiers to the border with Yanina.”

“Why?” Garivald wondered. “From everything I’ve heard about Yanina”—he hadn’t heard much, but had no intention of admitting it—“Algarve is welcome to the place. People with pompoms on their shoes?” He shook his head. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want anything to do with ’em.”

“You don’t understand,” Waddo said, which was likely to be true. “Yanina borders Algarve, right? And Yanina borders Unkerlant, too, right? If the redheads march into Yanina, what’s the next thing they’re going to do?”

“Catch the clap from all the loose Yaninan women,” Garivald answered, “and maybe from the loose Yaninan men, too, if half the stories they tell about them are true.”

Waddo exhaled in half scandalized exasperation. “That’s not what I meant,” he said, “and it’s not what his Majesty meant, either.” His chest swelled with self-importance; he’d heard King Swemmel with his own ears. “The next thing the Algarvians are going to do is keep right on marching, straight on into Unkerlant, and we aren’t going to let that happen.”

Impressers will be coming, Garivald thought. If Unkerlant got into a fight with Algarve, she’d need all the men she could find. The Six Years’ War had written out that lesson in letters of blood. Aside from that, though… “Zossen’s a long way from the border with Yanina,” he said. “I don’t see how it’s going to matter to us, any more than the war with Zuwayza did. Just another loud noise in a room far away.”

“It’s an insult to the whole kingdom, that’s what it is,” Waddo said, no doubt echoing the angry voice he’d heard in the crystal. “We won’t stand for it. We won’t take it lying down.”

“What will we do, then?” Garivald asked reasonably. “Sit on a bench? That’s about the only thing left for us, wouldn’t you say?”

“You’re being absurd,” the firstman said, though Garivald wasn’t the one who’d used the figures of speech. “As soon as the ground is dry enough, we’re going to have to drive the Algarvians out of there.”

“Aye, that sounds efficient—if we can do it,” Garivald said. “Can we do it, do you think?”

“His Majesty says we can. His Majesty says we will,” Waddo said. “Who am I to argue with his Majesty? He knows more about the business than I do.” He fixed Garivald with a sour stare. “And, before your mouth runs away with you again, he knows more about this business than you do, too.”

“Well, that’s likely so,” Garivald admitted. “But talk with some of the older men here, Waddo. See how they like the idea of another war with the redheads.”

“Maybe I will,” said Waddo, who, like Garivald, was too young to have fought in the Six Years’ War. The firstman went on, “But whether they like it or not doesn’t matter. If King Swemmel says we’re at war with Algarve, why then, by the powers above, we’re at war with Algarve. And if we’re at war with Algarve, we’d better lick the redheads, or else they’ll lick us. Isn’t that right?”

“Aye, it is,” Garivald said. The only other choice was going to war against King Swemmel. Garivald was old enough to remember the Twinkings War. He didn’t see how fighting Algarve could be worse than civil war in Unkerlant. After what Swemmel ended up doing to Kyot, he didn’t see how any other challenger for the throne would dare try unseating the king, either.

“There you have it, then,” Waddo said. “What his Majesty tells us to do, we’ll do, and that’s all there is to it.”

Garivald couldn’t argue with that, either. Something else occurred to him: “How did the Algarvians go marching into Yanina just like that? Yanina’s down south, same as we are. The going can’t be easy there. I’m not a king and I’m not a marshal, but I wouldn’t want to go invading anybody at this time of year.” He waved at the snowdrifts covering the fields.

“I don’t know anything about that,” said Waddo, who plainly hadn’t thought about it, either. “King Swemmel didn’t say how the cursed redheads did it. He just said that they did it. How doesn’t matter. The king wouldn’t lie to us.”

Why not? Garivald wondered. He would have spoken that thought aloud with Annore. He might have spoken it aloud with Dagulf. Speaking to his wife or his trusted friend was one thing. Speaking to the firstman was something else again. Waddo was more Swemmel’s man than a proper villager.

“I’m off to tell some others now,” Waddo said. “You were the first man I saw, Garivald, so you were the first to get the news. But everyone in Zossen needs to hear.” Off he went, kicking up snow from the path with each step he took.

Some men of Garivald’s acquaintance would have gone with him, to spread the news farther and faster. Garivald liked his gossip as well as any man. Come to that, few old wives in Zossen liked gossip any better. But he did not follow Waddo. For one thing, this wasn’t gossip, or not exactly gossip: it was too big. He couldn’t think of anything much bigger than news of impending war. And, for another, he didn’t like Waddo well enough to help him with anything he didn’t have to.

Garivald stared east across the fields. He was glad a couple of hundred miles separated his village from Yanina’s western border. The Algarvians hadn’t come this far during the Six Years’ War, nor anywhere close. That made it a good bet they wouldn’t come so far this time, either.

Then he kicked up snow himself. That the war wouldn’t come to Zossen didn’t mean he wouldn’t go to the war, wherever it ended up being fought. He looked back toward Waddo’s two-story house and silently cursed the crystal the firstman had there. Evading the impressers would be much harder with that crystal here. They could report to Cottbus, get their orders for however many men the army required, and call for whatever help they needed, all right away.