Harry Turtledove - Darkness Descending

Bembo did not rise to that. One narrow escape was enough. The caravan slid along the ley line toward Gromheort. He tried to remember if he’d ever heard of the place. He didn’t think so. It would have been under Algarvian rule before the Six Years’ War, so it might not prove too bad, but he wouldn’t have bet more than a copper on that.

Nor did his first glimpse, by moonlight, send him into raptures. The depot was battered, and about one building in four between it and the barracks where the constables would spend the night had been wrecked. “The Forthwegians fought hard here,” explained the officer, who guided them to the barracks.

“Why haven’t they repaired it since?” Bembo asked, safely anonymous in the darkness.

“They have,” the army officer answered. “If you think it’s bad now, you should have seen it just after we took it.” He pointed ahead, to a low, squat building that once must have housed cattle or Forthwegian soldiers. “Go through the curtains one man at a time, to keep light from spilling out.”

Inside, the barracks were as bad as Bembo had expected. After a day spent traveling across northern Algarve, he didn’t care. He hurried to a pallet, set his pack under his head in lieu of a pillow (he labored under no delusions about his fellow constables, who were bound to have some light-fingered souls among them), and went to sleep.

Next morning, glum-looking Forthwegians served up bread and olive oil and harsh red wine. Another Algarvian army officer came in and distributed maps of Gromheort to those constables who would patrol it. “Things are pretty quiet,” he told the newcomers. “Just keep ‘em that way and everything will be fine.” He offered no suggestions on how to achieve that laudable end.

Without enough breakfast to suit him, without a bath, without really knowing his way around, Bembo was thrust out onto the streets of Gromheort. Forth-wegians in long tunics glared at him or tried to pretend he didn’t exist. Kaunians got out of his way in a hurry. That, at least, felt right and proper.

No one did anything in the least untoward. All the same, he walked far more warily than he would have back in Tricarico. There, only the rare desperate fool would take on a constable. Here, in a sullen conquered kingdom, who could say? He didn’t want to find out the hard way.

At midmorning, feeling peckish, he stepped into an eatery and demanded an omelette. The proprietor made as if he didn’t understand Algarvian. Bembo’s gut told him the fellow was bluffing. He hefted his club and growled--and got his omelette. He didn’t care for the cheese the Forthwegian used, but it wasn’t too bad. Patting his belly, he walked out.

“You pay!” the proprietor exclaimed--he knew some Algarvian, all right.

Bembo only laughed. If he wouldn’t have paid for a meal back in Tricarico--and he wouldn’t--he was cursed if he’d do it here in a land Algarve had won by the sword. What could the Forthwegian do if he didn’t? Not a thing. He snapped his fingers and went on his way.

In summer, a cold bath looked better to Leofsig than at other seasons of the year. After a day of building roads in the sun, he took himself to Gromheort’s public baths to wash off the sweat and dirt before he went home. He paid the attendant at the door a copper, hung his tunic on a peg in the antechamber, and, naked, hurried toward the pools and plunges beyond. He tested the water of what had been the warm plunge with a toe.

“Not too bad,” said an older man already in there. “Could be chillier than this and feel good on a day like today.”

“Aye, that’s so.” Leofsig slid into the water himself. He rubbed at his hide. By the time he got through, he was three shades lighter than when he’d begun. The plunge wasn’t so warm as to make him want to linger, though, as it would have been in happier times. He climbed up the steps and headed for the soaping room.

The liquid soap in the troughs wasn’t what it had been before the war, either. It was cheap and harsh with lye and smelled nasty. When he rubbed it into a little cut on his arm, it burned like fire.

An enormous rub stood in the rinsing room. He grabbed a bucket with a pierced bottom, filled it in the tub, and hung it from a hook at a level above his head. As the water in it streamed out through the holes, he stood under it and let the soap run off down the drain. A man in a hurry could make do with one bucket. Tonight, Leofsig used two.

On the other side of the brick wall, women were rinsing. As every man of Gromheort had surely done, Leofsig imagined that wall suddenly made transparent. Imagining Felgilde, his almost-fiancee, bare and wet and slick made the water seem warmer than it was. Imagining the screech she’d let out if the wall did turn transparent made him laugh. He set the bucket back by the tub for another bather to use, then got a towel from a Kaunian attendant who’d been there as long as he could remember--and as long as his father could remember, too.

When Leofsig was younger, he’d once said, “Maybe he’s been handing out towels since the days of the Kaunian Empire.”

Hestan had laughed, but then, precise as always, he’d shaken his head and said, “No. People bathing together is a Forthwegian custom, and an Unkerlanter one, too, but not a Kaunian one.”

Dry and clean now, Leofsig threw his towel into a wickerwork basket and went up to the antechamber to get his tunic. He hated to put it back on; it was grimy and smelly. But he was no Zuwayzi, to walk unconcerned through the streets of Gromheort without a stitch on. I’ll change when I get home, he thought.

He’d gone only a block or so when a chubby Algarvian in tunic and kilt of cut somewhat different from the army’s spoke to him in Algarvian. “I don’t know your language,” he said in Forthwegian. That wasn’t quite true, but, unlike his brother Ealstan and cousin Sidroc, he hadn’t had to learn it in school. Plainly, the redhead didn’t follow him, either. Leofsig tried classical Kaunian: “Do you understand me now?

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he wondered if he’d made a bad mistake. The Algarvians despised everything in any way connected to Kaunians. But this fellow, after frowning, answered in halting, thickly accented Kaunian: “Understanding little. Not using when . . . after . . . since school.” He beamed at coming up with the right word.

Leofsig nodded to show he understood, too. “What do you want?” he asked, speaking slowly and clearly.

“Not finding,” the Algarvian said. After a moment, Leofsig realized he meant lost. The redhead pulled a sheet of paper out of a tunic pocket. It turned out to be a map of Gromheort. He pointed. “Going here, please?” Here was a barracks where soldiers had been garrisoned. The Algarvian waved, one of his people’s extravagant gestures. “I now where?” He made a comic display of frustration and embarrassment.

“I will show you,” Leofsig said. He’d started to help before remembering he hated the conquerors. He had trouble hating this particular one, who was rumpled and funny and had asked for help instead of demanding it. And so, instead of sending him the wrong way, Leofsig traced the route back to the barracks on the map.

“Ah.” The Algarvian swept off his hat and bowed as deeply as his rotund frame would allow. “Thanking.” He bowed again. Leofsig nodded in return; Forthwegians were a less demonstrative people. Peering at the map, the redhead went off down the street. Maybe he would find the barracks. He was headed in the right direction, anyhow. He looked back to Leofsig and waved. Leofsig gave him another nod and headed on toward his own home.

He mentioned the affable Algarvian over supper. His father nodded. “That must be one of the constables they’re bringing in,” Hestan said. “If they use constables to keep order hereabouts, they can put more soldiers into the attack on Unkerlant.” He glanced over to Uncle Hengist, as if he’d just proved a point.