Harry Turtledove - Darkness Descending

“Ah.” Balastro took the point. “Can’t have him sunburned, can we? He’s got better things to do.”

He followed Zuwayzi custom in the library, talking about books with Hajjaj instead of coming straight to his real business. He did not read Zuwayzi, but was as apt to choose a classical Kaunian title as one written in Algarvian. He seemed to have as much regard for Kaunians of imperial day as his kingdom had little for modern ones. That puzzled Hajjaj, who longed to ask him about it, but could not: it was too serious to discuss before the rituals of hospitality were completed.

No sooner had Balastro sunk to the cushions tJian serving wenches brought in die inevitable refreshments. As part of his perfect care for his master’s guest, Tewfik had chosen a couple of the prettiest women to wait upon Balastro and Hajjaj. They eyed the Algarvian minister with no small curiosity, and looked to be fighting giggles, perhaps because of his race, perhaps because of the ritual of manhood he’d endured.

He eyed them, too, with interest that soon became visible. That made them giggle more. After they’d left the room, he asked Hajjaj, “Powers above, your Excellency, how do you keep from, ah, rising to die occasion whenever you see a comely wrench?”

“I am old,” Hajjaj answered, remembering Lalla’s taunt.

Balastro sipped wine. “Not so old as that, and you know it cursed well.”

Hajjaj inclined his head; the Algarvian was right. “If you see something often enough, it loses its power to excite.”

“I suppose that’s so,” Balastro said. “Seems a pity, though.” He nibbled at a cake. “These are the nuts called cashews, aren’t they? Tastier than walnuts and almonds, I think.”

“Generous of you to say so,” Hajjaj replied. “Not many of your countrymen would agree. I think you are right, but I grew up with cashews.” He chuckled. “Of course, I grew up with date wine, too, but I know better than to serve you that.”

Balastro’s fastidious shudder could have played on the stage. “For which mercy, your Excellency, I thank you.”

Presently, with tea and wine drunk and cakes diminished, with books and nudity talked dry, Hajjaj could with propriety inquire, “And what brings you up into the hills today, sir?”

“Past the desire for good wine and good company, you mean?” Balastro asked, and Hajjaj nodded. The Algarvian minister answered, “I was hoping we might get more aid from you 2’uwayzin for the assault on Glogau than we’ve had thus far.”

Hajjaj frowned. “And you come to me for this? Surely it is a matter for your military attache to work out with his Majesty’s officers down in Bishah.”

Now Balastro looked annoyed, a genuine expression rather than the play-acting he’d used before. “I pray you for both our sakes, your Excellency, do not be disingenuous with me. You must know that your officers have dissembled and delayed and done their best to keep from answering aye or nay. This reluctance must spring from the king or from the foreign ministry: from you, in other words, in either case.”

“If you think I lead King Shazli around by the nose, I must tell you that you are very much mistaken,’’ Hajjaj said.

“Aye, you must tell it to me, for your honor’s sake and your sovereign’s, but must I believe it?” the Algarvian minister to Zuwayza returned: a toss with a good deal of justice in it. “Let us here--merely for the sake of argument, if you like--imagine that you are the author of your kingdom’s treatings with its neighbors.”

“For the sake of argument, as you say.” Hajjaj steepled his fingers and fought against a smile. He liked Balastro, which made the fight harder. “I might say, in that case, that Zuwayza, by now, has avenged herself in full against Unkerlant--in full and more. Glogau has never been ours; few if any Zuwayzin dwell there, or ever have.”

“Zuwayza is our ally, and needs must aid our cause,” Balastro said.

Hajjaj shook his head. “No, your Excellency. Zuwayza is your cobelligerent. We war against Unkerlant for our own reasons, not yours. And, since this discussion is hypothetical, I might add that the vengeance you are wreaking on your neighbors leaves me somewhat relieved not to be one.”

“We have been foes to the cursed Kaunians for time out of mind,” Balastro said with a shrug. “Now that we have the whip hand, we shall use it. Tell me you love the Unkerlanters. Go ahead--I need a good laugh today.”

“We have been known to live at peace with them,” Hajjaj said, “even as you Algarvians have been known to live at peace with the Kaunians.”

“Peace on their terms.” Balastro had no bend in him (and was, Hajjaj knew, forgetting long stretches of his homeland’s history). “Now it is peace on our terms. That is what victory earned us. We are the valiant. We are the strong.”

“Then surely, your Excellency, you will not need much in the way of help from Zuwayza in reducing Glogau, will you?” Hajjaj asked innocently.

Balastro gave him a sour look, got to his feet, and departed with much less ceremony than was customary. Hajjaj stood in the doorway and watched his carriage start back toward the Algarvian ministry back in Bishah. As soon as it rounded a corner--but not an instant before--the Zuwayzi foreign minister let himself smile.

Istvan eyed the pass ahead with something less than delight. “There’ll be Unkerlanters up yonder,” he said, with as much gloomy certainty as a man eyeing dark clouds billowing up from the horizon might use in saying, There’s a storm on the way.

“Aye, no doubt.” That was Szonyi. “And we’ll have to pay the bill for digging them out, too.”

“There won’t be very many of them.” Kun, of all people, was looking on the bright side of things.

“There won’t need to be very many of them.” Istvan waved a hand at the steep-sided jumble of rocks to right and left. “This is the only way forward. As long as they hold it, we aren’t going anywhere.”

Szonyi nodded, looking no more happy than Istvan felt. “Aye, the sergeant’s right, Kun. Ever since the Unkerlanters decided they were going to fight after all, this is the game they’ve played. They aren’t trying to stop us. They’re trying to slow us down, to give us as little as they can till winter comes.”

“And winter in this country won’t be any fun at all.” Istvan eyed the sun. It still stood high in the northern sky at noon, but a tiny bit lower each day. Winter was coming, as inexorably as sand ran through the neck of a glass and down into the bottom half.

Trouble was coming, too. From the strong position they’d set up for themselves in that pass, the Unkerlanters started tossing eggs at the advancing Gyongyosians. Their aim wasn’t particularly good; many of the eggs, instead of bursting on the paths Istvan and his countrymen were using, smote the mountainsides above them. Before long, Istvan discovered the Unkerlanters knew what they were doing after all. One of those bursts touched off an avalanche that swept several soldiers and several donkeys off a path and down to their doom.

“Whoresons!” Istvan shook his fist toward the east. “That’s a coward’s way to fight.”

“They have no honor,” Kanizsai said. “They do nothing but toss eggs and blaze at us from ambush.”

“That’s because there aren’t very many of them here,” Kun said, as if explaining things to an idiot child. “They can’t afford a big standup fight with us, because they’re in the middle of a big standup fight with Algarve.”

“No honor,” the young recruit repeated.

“Whether they do or whether they don’t, we still have to shift the goat-buggers,” Istvan said. As if to underscore his words, an egg burst close by, hurling a big chunk of stone past his head.