Harry Turtledove - Into the Darkness

Hengist grunted, as if Hestan had hit him in the belly. “You are likely to be right,” he said. “Of course this new master is an Algarvian lapdog. What he hears, the redheads will hear.” He pointed to Sidroc. “We have suffered enough already. Whatever you think of this new language master, keep it locked in your head. Never let him suspect it, or we will all pay.”

“I don’t mind him so much,” Sidroc said with a shrug. “And Algarvian looks to be a lot easier than classical Kaunian ever was.”

That wasn’t what Hengist had meant. Ealstan understood as much, even if Sidroc didn’t. Understanding such things went with being occupied, too. If Sidroc didn’t figure them out pretty soon, he would be sorry, and so would everyone around him.

Ealstan’s mother understood. “Take care, all of you,” Elfryth said, and that was also good advice.

The next morning, Odda was not in the Algarvian class. He was not in any of his classes that day. He did not return to school the next day, either. Ealstan and Sidroc never saw him again. Ealstan understood the lesson. He hoped his cousin did, too.

King Shazli nibbled at a cake rich with raisins and pistachios. He licked his fingers clean, then glanced at Hajjaj from lowered eyelids. “It would seem King Swemmel did not purpose attacking us after all,” he said.

When his sovereign decided to talk business, Hajjaj could with propriety do the same, even if his cake lay on the tray before him only half eaten. “Say rather, your Majesty, that King Swemmel did not yet purpose attacking us,” he replied.

“You say this even after Unkerlant and Algarve have split Forthweg between them, as a man will tear a peeled tangerine in half that he might share it with his friend?”

“Your Majesty, I do,” the foreign minister said. “If King Swemmel intended to leave Zuwayza alone, we would not see these continual proddings along the border. Nor would we see his envoy in Bishah lyingly denying that any fault attaches to Unkerlant. When Swemmel is ready, he will do what he will do.”

Shazli started to reach for his teacup. At the last moment, his hand swerved and seized the goblet that held wine. After drinking, he said, “I confess I am not sorry that King Penda chose to flee south instead of coming here.” Hajjaj drank wine, too. Thinking of the King of Forthweg as an exile in Bishah was enough to make any Zuwayzi turn to wine, or perhaps to hashish. “We could not very well have turned him away, your Majesty, not if we cared to hold our heads up afterwards,” he said, and then, before Shazli could speak, he went on, “We could not very well have kept him here, not if we cared to hold our heads on our shoulders.”

“You speak nothing but the truth there.” Shazli gulped the goblet dry.

“Well, now he is Yanina’s worry. I tell you frankly, I am more glad than I can say that King Tsavellas has to explain to Unkerlant how Penda came to go into exile in Patras. Better him than me. Better Yanina than Zuwayza, too.”

“Indeed.” Hajjaj tried to make his long, thin, lively face look wide and dour, as if he were an Unkerlanter. “First, King Swemmel will demand that Tsavellas turn King Penda over to him. Then, when Tsavellas tells him no, he’ll start massing troops on the border with Yanina. After that”—the Zuwayzi foreign minister shrugged—“he’ll probably invade.”

“If I were Tsavellas, I’d put Penda on a ship or a dragon bound for Sibiu or Valmiera or Lagoas,” Shazli said. “Swemmel might forgive him for harboring Penda just long enough to palm him off on someone else.”

“Your Majesty, King Swemmel never forgives anyone for anything,” Hajjaj said. “He proved that after the Twinkings War—and those were his own countrymen.”

King Shazli grunted. “There, I judge, you speak nothing but the truth. Everything he has done since seating himself firmly on the throne of Unkerlant goes toward confirming it.” He reached for his wine goblet again, so abruptly that a couple of his gold armlets clashed together. Discovering the goblet was empty, he called for a servant. A woman came in with a jar and refilled the goblet. “Ah, thank you, my dear,” Shazli said. He watched her sway out of the antechamber, then turned his attention back to Hajjaj: Zuwayzin saw too much flesh to let it unduly stir them. “If, as you seem to think, we are next on Swemmel’s list, what can we do to forestall him?”

“Dropping an egg on his palace in Cottbus might have some effect,” Hajjaj said dryly. “Past that, we are, as your Majesty must know, in something less than the best position.”

“As I must know. Aye, so I must.” Shazli’s mouth twisted. “Finding allies would be easier if we were of the same blood as most of the other folk of Derlavai. If you were a tow-headed, fair-skinned Kaunian, Hajjaj—”

The foreign minister presumed to interrupt his sovereign (not much of a presumption, not with an easygoing king like Shazli): “If I were a Kaunian, your Majesty, I’d long since be dead in this climate of ours. It’s no wonder the old Kaunian Empire traded with Zuwayza but never tried planting colonies here. Even more to the point, the only kingdom with whom we share a border is Unkerlant.”

“Aye.” Shazli looked at Hajjaj as if that were his fault—or perhaps Hajjaj was feeling the strain from continued Unkerlanter pressure, to imagine such a thing. “This also makes the search for allies more difficult than it might be otherwise.”

“No one will ally with us against Unkerlant,” Hajjaj said. “Forthweg might have, but Forthweg, as we have seen, as we have just discussed, is no more.”

“And, as we have seen, Unkerlant and Algarve had divided the kingdom between them as smoothly as two butchers chopping up a camel’s carcass,” Shazli said discontentedly. “I had hoped for better—better from our point of view, worse from theirs.”

“So had I,” Hajjaj said. “Given half a chance, King Mezentio can be as headstrong as King Swemmel. But, with Algarve so sorely beset from so many sides at once, Mezentio almost has common sense forced upon him.”

“What an unfortunate development.” Shazli paused, looking thoughtful. “Of course, Mezentio no longer has to fret about his western frontier, which may leave him more room to maneuver.”

“If I may correct your Majesty, King Mezentio no longer has a war on his western frontier,” Hajjaj said. “With Unkerlant as his new neighbor, he would be a fool indeed did he not fret about it.”

“You have the right of it there, Hajjaj, without a doubt,” King Shazli admitted. “See how delighted we are, for instance, to have Unkerlant for a neighbor. And Unkerlant and Algarve are by no means enamored of each other. Have we any hope of exploiting that to our advantage?”

“As your Majesty will know, I have had certain conversations with the Algarvian minister here in Bishah,” Hajjaj answered. “I fear, however, that Marquis Balastro has not been encouraging.”

“What of Jelgava and Valmiera?” Shazli asked.

“They are sympathetic.” Hajjaj raised an eyebrow. “Sympathy, however, is worth its weight in gold.” King Shazli pondered that for a moment, then laughed. It was not a happy laugh. Hajjaj went on, “Also, the Kaunian kingdoms are not only warring against Algarve but very far away.”

Shazli sighed and drained his second goblet of wine. “We are truly in a desperate predicament if King Mezentio offers our best hope of aid.”

“It is not a good hope,” Hajjaj said. “It is, if anything, a very faint hope. Balastro has made it clear Algarve will not anger Unkerlant while the war goes on in the east and south.”

“A faint hope is better than no hope at all,” Shazli said. “Why don’t you pay another call on the good marquis today?” Seeing the foreign minister’s martyred expression, the king laughed again, this time with something approaching real amusement. “Spending an afternoon in clothes will not be the death of you.”