Harry Turtledove: Into the Darkness

Like everyone else in Gromheort, Ealstan fancied himself a connoisseur of rumors. This one sounded highly probable. “King Mezentio will claim Bari,” he said grimly.

“If he does, we’ll fight him.” Sidroc sounded grim, too, grim and excited at the same time. “He can’t fight Forthweg and Valmiera and Jelgava all at once. Not even an Algarvian would be crazy enough to try that.”

“Nobody knows what an Algarvian is crazy enough to try,” Ealstan said with conviction. “He may have more enemies than that, too—Sibiu doesn’t like Algarve, either, and the islanders are supposed to be tough. Come on—let’s hurry home. Maybe we can be first with the news.” They both began to run.

As they ran, Sidroc said, “I bet your brother will be glad to get the chance to slaughter some stinking Algarvians.”

“Not my fault Leofsig was born first,” Ealstan panted. “If I were nineteen, I’d have gone into the King’s levy, too.” He pretended to spray fire around, so recklessly that, had it been real, he would have burned down half of Gromheort.

He dashed into his own house shouting that Duke Alardo was dead. “What?” His sister Conberge, who was a year older than he, came in from the courtyard, where she’d been trying to keep the flower garden flourishing despite Forthweg’s savage summer heat. “What will Mezentio do now?”

“He will seize the Duchy.” That wasn’t Ealstan; it was his mother, Elfryth. She’d hurried out of the kitchen, and was wiping her hands on a linen towel. “He will seize it, and we will go to war.” She did not sound excited, but about to burst into tears. After a moment, she gathered herself and went on, “I was about your age, Conberge, when the Six Years’ War ended. I remember the uncles and cousins you never got to know because they didn’t come home from the war.” Her voice broke. She did begin to cry.

Ealstan said, “Leofsig will fight for Forthweg. He won’t be dragooned into Algarve’s army, or Unkerlant’s, either, the way so many Forthwegians were in the last war.”

His mother looked at him as if he’d suddenly started speaking the language of the Lagoans, whose island kingdom lay beyond the isles of Sibiu, far southeast of Forthweg. “I don’t care under which banner he fights,” she said. “I don’t want him to fight at all.”

“Losing the last war didn’t teach the Algarvians their lesson,” Ealstan said. “This time, we’ll hit them first.” He smacked a fist into the palm of the other hand. “They won’t stand a chance.” That should have convinced his mother; none of his masters could have faulted his logic. For some reason, though, Elfryth looked less happy than ever.

So did Hestan, his father, when he came home from casting accounts for one or another of Gromheort’s leading merchants. He had already heard the news. By then, very likely, all of Gromheort, all of Forthweg but for a few peasants and herders, had heard the news. He didn’t say much. He seldom said much. But his silence seemed… heavier than usual as he drank his customary evening glass of wine with Elfryth.

He had a second glass of wine with supper, something he rarely did. And, all through supper, he kept looking, not east toward Algarve but to the west. He had nearly finished his garlicky stew of mutton and eggplant when, as if unable to contain himself any longer, he burst out, “What will Unkerlant do?”

Ealstan stared at him, then started to laugh. “Your pardon, sir,” he said at once; he was, on the whole, a well-mannered boy. “The Unkerlanters are still digging out from their Twinkings War, and trying to fight Gyongyos in the far west, and snapping and snarling at Zuwayza, too. Don’t you think they have enough on their plate?”

“If they hadn’t fought themselves in the Twinkings War, they would still rule most of Forthweg,” Hestan pointed out. Ealstan knew that, but it felt like history as old as that of the Kaunian Empire to him. His father resumed: “Anyhow, what I think doesn’t matter. What matters is what King Swemmel of Unkerlant thinks—and, by all I’ve heard, he doesn’t know his own mind from day to day.”

Tealdo studied himself in the little hand mirror. He muttered something vile under his breath: one of the spikes of his mustache was not all it might have been. He applied a little more orange-scented wax, twisted the mustachio between thumb and forefinger, and studied the result. Better, he decided, but kept fiddling with the mustache and with his imperial even so. Better wasn’t good enough, not here, not now. Even perfection would be barely good enough.

Panfilo came swaggering up the aisle of the caravan coach. His own mustaches, even more fiery of hue than Tealdo’s, swept up and out like the horns of a bull. Instead of a chin beard, he favored bushy side whiskers. He paused to nod at Tealdo’s primping. “That’s good,” he said. “Aye, that’s very good. All the girls in the Duchy will want to kiss you.”

“Sounds fine to me, Sergeant,” Tealdo said with a grin. He patted the sleeve of his drab tan uniform tunic. “I just wish we could wear something with a little style to it, the way our fathers and grandfathers did.”

“So do I, and I’ll not deny it,” Panfilo said. “But our fathers went into the Six Years’ War in gold tunics and scarlet kilts. They looked like they were already blazing, and they burned—how they burned!” The sergeant went on up the aisle, snarling at soldiers less fastidious than Tealdo.

The caravan hummed south along the ley line. A few minutes later, Lieutenant Elio came through the coach and snapped at a couple of men Panfilo had missed. A few minutes after that, Captain Larbino came through and growled at men Elio had missed—and at a couple he hadn’t.

Nobody growled at Tealdo. He leaned back in his seat and whistled an off-color song and watched the Algarvian landscape flow by outside the coach. Red brick and timber had long since replaced whitewashed plaster; the southern part of the realm was cool and cloudy and not well suited to the airier forms of architecture in fashion farther north. Here, a man wanted to be sure he stayed warm of nights—and of days, too, a good part of the year.

Halfway through the afternoon, the almost subliminal hum of the caravan deepened as it drew less energy from the line over which it traveled. It slowed to a stop. Captain Larbino threw open the door to the coach. “Form up in order of march outside,” he said. “Remember, King Mezentio has done us great honor by allowing this regiment to take part in the return of the Duchy of Ban to its rightful allegiance. Remember also, any man failing to live up to this honor will personally answer to me.” He set a hand on the basket hilt of his officer’s rapier; Tealdo did not doubt he meant that. The captain added, “And finally, remember that we are not marching into a foreign country. We are welcoming our brothers and sisters home.”

“Hang our brothers,” said the soldier next to Tealdo, a burly fellow named Trasone. “I want one of our sisters in Bari to welcome me home, and then screw me till I can’t even walk.”

“I’ve heard ideas I liked less,” Tealdo said as he got to his feet. “Lots of them, as a matter of fact.” He filed toward the door, then jumped down from the coach, which floated a couple of feet above the ground, and took his place in the ranks.

Captain Larbino’s company was not the first in the regiment, but was the second, which let Tealdo see ahead well enough. In front of the first company stood the color guard. He envied them their gaudy ceremonial uniforms, from gilded helms to gleaming boots. The man in the middle of the color guard, who had surely been chosen for his great height, bore the banner of Algarve, diagonal slashes of red, green, and white. The soldier to his left carried the regiment pennon, a blue lightning bolt on gold.