Harry Turtledove: Into the Darkness

A horn’s clear note pierced the chatter. “Forth comes Gainibu III,” a herald cried, “King of Valmiera and Emperor of the provinces and colonies across the seas. Give him great honor, as he deserves!”

Krasta rose from her seat and bowed very low, as did all the nobles and diplomats in the Great Hall. She remained standing till Gainibu had taken his place behind the podium at the front of the hall. Like so many of his nobles, he wore a uniform, the chest of which was almost hidden by a great profusion of medallions and ribbons. Some of those showed honorary affiliations. Some were true rewards for courage; while still Crown Prince, he had served with distinction against Algarve during the Six Years’ War.

“Nobles and people of Valmiera,” he said, while artists sketched his picture and scribes scribbled down his words for news sheets to reach the people whose villages were too poor and too far from a power point to boast even one crystal, “the Kingdom of Algarve, in willful violation of the terms of the Treaty of Tortush, has sent armed invaders into the sovereign Duchy of Bari. The Algarvian minister to Valmiera has stated that King Mezentio has no intention of withdrawing his men from the said Duchy, and has positively rejected my demand that Algarve do so. When this latest outrage is added to the many others Algarve has committed in recent years, it leaves me no choice but to declare that, from this moment forth, the Kingdom of Valmiera considers itself to be at war with the Kingdom of Algarve.”

Along with the other nobles King Gainibu had summoned to the palace, Krasta applauded. “Victory! Victory! Victory!” The shout filled the Grand Hall, with occasional cries of “On to Trapani!” thrown in for good measure.

Gainibu held up his hand. Slowly, silence returned. Into it, he said, “Nor does Valmiera go to war alone. Our allies of old are our allies yet.” As if to prove as much, the minister from Jelgava came and stood beside the king. “We too are at war with Algarve,” he said. Krasta understood his words with no trouble, though to her ear they had an odd accent: Jelgavan and Valmieran were so closely related, some reckoned them dialects rather than two separate languages.

The tunic the swarthy minister from Forthweg wore could not disguise his blocky build. Instead of Valmieran, he spoke in classical Kaunian: “Forthweg, free not least because of the courage of Valmiera and Jelgava, stands by her friends in bad times as well as good. We too war with Algarve.” Formality fell from him like a mask. He abandoned the ancient tongue for the modern to roar, “On to Trapani!” The cheers were deafening.

“Bari in Algarvian hands is a dagger aimed at Sibiu’s heart,” the minister from the island nation said. “We shall also fight the common foe.”

But the minister from Lagoas, which had been Valmiera’s ally in the Six Years’ War, stayed silent now. So did the slant-eyed envoy from Kuusamo, which ruled the eastern, and much larger, part of the island it shared with Lagoas. Lagoas was nervous about Kuusamo; Kuusamo was fighting a desultory naval war far to the east against Gyongyos—though not, strangely, in any real alliance with Unkerlant. The Unkerlanter minister also sat on his hands, as did the envoys from the minor powers between Unkerlant and Algarve.

Krasta hardly noticed the omissions. With her allies, Valmiera would surely punish the wicked Algarvians. They had brought the war on themselves—now let them see how they liked it. “On to Trapani!” she yelled.

Count Sabrino elbowed his way through the crowd in Trapani’s Royal Square, toward the balcony from which King Mezentio would address the people and nobles of Algarve. He wanted to hear Mezentio’s words with his own ears, not read them later on or, if he was lucky, catch them from a crystal some nearby sorcerer was holding.

People gave way before him, men with nods that would have to make do in the crush for bows, women, some of them, with inviting smiles. Those had nothing to do with his noble rank. They had everything to do with his tan uniform, with the three silver pips of a colonel on each shoulder strap, and, most of all, with the prominent Dragon Corps badge just above his heart.

Close by, a man with his mustache going from red to white spoke to a younger woman, perhaps a daughter, perhaps a mistress or new wife: “I was here, darling, right here, when King Dudone declared war on Unkerlant all those years ago.”

“So was I,” Sabrino said. He’d been a youth then, too young to fight until the Six Years’ War had nearly run its course. “People were afraid then. Look now.” He waved, ending with a typically flamboyant Algarvian twist of the wrist. “This might be a festival!”

“We’re taking back our own this time, and everybody knows it,” the older man said, and his female companion nodded vigorous agreement. Noticing the silver dragon coiled on Sabrino’s chest, the man added, “And the greatest good luck to you in the air, sir. Powers above keep you safe.”

“For which you have my thanks, poor though they be.” Crush or no crush, Sabrino bowed to both the man and his lady before pressing on.

He brought a chunk of melon wrapped in a parchment-thin slice of ham from a vendor with an eye for the main chance, and advanced with only one elbow to clear his path while he ate. He hadn’t come quite so far as he wanted when King Mezentio appeared on the balcony: a tall, lean man, his golden crown gleaming even more brightly in the noonday sun than his bald scalp would have.

“My friends, my countrymen, we are invaded!” he cried, and Sabrino, to his relief, found he had no trouble hearing. “All the Kaunian countries want to gnaw our bones. The Jelgavans are attacking us in the mountains, the Valmierans have swarmed out of the marquisate on this side of the Soretto they stole from us in the Treaty of Tortusso, and Forthweg’s fierce cavalry sweeps over the plains in the northwest. Even Sibiu, our own blood kin, plunges the dagger into our back, assaulting our ships and burning our harbors. They think—they all think—we shall be meat for their butchering. My friends, my countrymen, what say you about that?”

“No!” Sabrino shouted it at the top of his lungs, along with everyone else. The roar was terrific, overpowering.

“No,” Mezentio agreed. “We have done nothing but take back that which is rightfully ours. Even doing that, we were calm, we were reasonable. Did we war with the traitor Duke of Ban, Alardo the lickspittle? We had every reason to war with him, but we let him live out his long and worthless span of days. Only after the flames claimed his carcass did we reclaim the Duchy—and the people of Bari welcomed us with flowers and kisses and songs of joy. And for those songs of joy, we are plunged into a war we do not want.

“My friends, my countrymen, did we claim the Marquisate of Rivaroli, which Valmiera cut from the body of our kingdom after the Six Years’ War for their foothold on this side of the Soretto? We did not. We do not, though King Gainibu’s men mistreat the good Algarvians who live there. I thought no one could doubt the justice of our claim to Bari. It seems I was wrong.

“It seems I was wrong,” Mezentio repeated, bringing his right fist down on the waist-high marble balustrade. “The Kaunians and their jackals sought any excuse for war, and now they think they have one. My countrymen, my friends, mark my words: if we lose this struggle, they will ruin us. Jelgava and Forthweg will join hands in the north across the corpse of our kingdom, cutting us off forevermore from the Garelian Ocean. In the south, the Treaty of Tortusso gave barely a taste of what Valmiera and Sibiu, aye, and Lagoas, too, would do to us if only they could.”

Sabrino frowned a little. Since the Lagoans had not declared war on Algarve, he would not have mentioned them. He did not for a moment think King Mezentio wrong about what Lagoas wanted, merely a trifle impolitic.