Harry Turtledove: Darkness Descending

“Uh-huh.” The ferret-faced Forthwegian didn’t believe that. After a moment, she understood why: a brother would have been as conspicuous as she was. That meant this fellow knew she had a Forthwegian lover. But he was saying, “Two blocks over, a block and a half up, and he won’t ask no questions. Just stay invisible between here and there.”

“My thanks,” Vanai said. But the Forthwegian had gone on his way as if she really were invisible.

Few of the other dark, blocky men and women on the streets seemed to notice she was there, either. In Eoforwic, she remembered, Forthwegians and Kaunians had rioted together against the Algarvian occupiers when they learned what happened to the Kaunians the redheads sent west. It hadn’t been like that in Oyngestun. It hadn’t been like that most places in Forthweg. Had it been, the Algarvians would have had a harder time doing what they did.

“What do you need?” a gray-bearded Forthwegian asked her. He was grinding some powder or another with a brass mortar and pestle. As the fellow who’d recommended his place had said, he didn’t seem to care that she was a Kaunian.

“A fever-fighter,” she answered, and described Ealstan’s symptoms without saying who or what he might be in relation to her.

“Ah.” The apothecary nodded. “There’s a deal of that going around, so there is. I’ll mix you up some willow bark and poppy juice, aye, and a bit of hairy marshwort, too. It’s got an ugly name, but it’s full of virtue.” He reached for bottles full of bark and a dark liquid and dried leaves, then mixed them together after grinding all the solids to powder. After that, he poured in something clear and sparkling. “Just a bit of grain spirits--for flavor, you might say.”

“Whatever you think best.” Vanai trusted him at sight. He knew what he knew, and was good at what he did. Had an Algarvian or a naked black Zuwayzi told him of the same symptoms, he would have made the identical medicine. She was sure of that.

“Here you are,” he said when he was done. “That’ll be three in silver.” Vanai nodded and paid; she thought Tamulis, back in Oyngestun where things were cheaper, would have charged her more. As she turned to go, the apothecary showed the first sign of knowing what she was: he called after her, “Get home safe, girl. Get home and stay there.”

She looked back over her shoulder. “That’s what I intend to do. Thank you.” He didn’t answer. He just went back to the medicine he’d been compounding when she came into the shop.

She clung close to the walls of shops as she scurried back toward her block of flats, as if she were a mouse scurrying along a baseboard to its hole. Again, most Forthwegians she saw pretended not to see her. She did hear one shout of, “Dirty Kaunian!” but even the woman who yelled made no move to do anything about it.

Powers above be praised, she thought as she reached the last corner she had to turn before reaching her building. Igot away with it. She turned the corner . . . and almost walked into a pair of Algarvian constables who were about to turn onto the street she was leaving.

Had Vanai seen them half a block away, she could easily have escaped; they were both pudgy and middle-aged. But one of them reached out and grabbed her even as she was letting out a startled squeak. “Well, well, what are we having here?” he said in fairly fluent Forthwegian.

“Let me go!” Vanai exclaimed. She kicked at him, but he was nimble enough despite his bulk; her shoe didn’t strike his stockinged shin. Then she thought to use guile instead of force. “I’ll pay you if you let me go.” She reached down and made the silver in her pocket jingle.

The constable who didn’t have hold of her leered. “How you paying us, eh?” His Forthwegian was worse than his partner’s, but Vanai had no trouble understanding what he wanted from her.

Most of the horror that gripped her was horror at not feeling more horror. If that was what it took to get rid of the Algarvians, why not? Major Spinello had inflicted himself on her for months. After that, what were a few minutes with a couple of strangers? She should have been appalled at thinking that way. Part of her was, but only a small part. Spinello had burned away the rest of her sense of. . . shame?

In quick, almost musical trills, the Algarvians talked back and forth. One of them pointed to the dark mouth of an alleyway across the street from where they stood. If they took her back there, they could do what they wanted with her and no one would be the wiser unless she screamed. “Let’s be going,” said the one who had hold of her, and he gave her a shove in that direction.

She would have seized a chance to escape, but they offered her none. Now I have to hope they’ll let me go after. . . this, she thought, grinding her teeth. Relying on the honor of men all too liable not to have any made her legs light and shaky with fear.

And then a Forthwegian loomed in front of the constables. “Turn her loose,” he rumbled. “She ain’t done nothing.”

“Aye, that’s right,” a woman said from behind her.

“She is being a Kaunian,” the constable answered, as if that explained everything. Most places in Forthweg, it would have.

Not here. “Aye, she’s a Kaunian, and you’re a son of a whore,” said the burly man blocking the constables’ path. A crowd started to gather. The Forthwegian repeated, “Turn her loose, curse you.”

Had he shouted for Vanai’s blood, he might well have got that. As things were, everybody in the growing crowd shouted for the constables to let her go. The two Algarvians looked at each other. They were time-servers, not heroes. The bold, the young, the brave, were off doing real fighting. These fellows couldn’t hope to blaze everybody who was yelling at them. They would get mobbed, and a riot would start.

The one who had hold of Vanai’s arm held out his other hand. “Ten silvers’ fine, for being on street without permitting,” he declared.

Vanai gave him the coins without hesitation. The other constable stuck out his hand, whereupon the first one split the money with him. They both beamed. Why not? They’d made a profit, even if she hadn’t gone into the alley and done lewd things for them.

With a pat on the head as if she’d been a dog, the first constable let her go. “Run along home,” he told her.

She didn’t wait to let him change his mind--or for the crowd to disperse, which might have tempted him to do just that. And the crowd helped in another way, for it kept the Algarvians from seeing which building she entered. “Safe,” she breathed as she got inside. She hurried up the stairs to give Ealstan the medicine. She clutched the jar tightly. It had ended up being expensive, but oh!--how much more it might have cost.

Waddo came limping up to Garivald as the peasant tramped in from the fields with a hoe on his shoulder as if it were a stick. The firstman grabbed Garivald by the elbow and pulled him aside. “It’s gone,” he said hoarsely, his eyes wide with fear.

“What’s gone?” Garivald asked, though he thought he knew the answer.

“Why, the crystal, of course,” Waddo answered, proving him right. “It’s gone, and powers above only know who’s got it or what he’s going to do with it.” He stared at Garivald. “ You haven’t got it, have you? We were going to take it out of the ground together, the two of us.”

“No, I haven’t got it,” Garivald said. Waddo hadn’t asked him if he’d dug it up. Had the firstman asked him that, he would have denied it, too, not caring at all whether he lied. The less Waddo knew, the less anyone--particularly anyone Algarvian--could wring out of him.

At the moment, Waddo seemed not far from panic. “Someone has it!” he said. “Aye, someone has it. Someone who’ll use it against me. He’ll tell the redheads, and they’ll hang me. They’re bound to hang me.”