Out of the Darkness

Talsu shuddered. “I’m not likely to forget you,” he said. The Jelgavan major had interrogated him during his last stretch in the dungeons. Then, he’d been asking questions for King Mainardo and the Algarvians. Now he served Donalitu, as he had before the redheads invaded. Then he’d been a mere captain. Bitterly, Talsu remarked, “I see you got promoted.”

“I’m good at what I do,” the interrogator said placidly. He wagged a finger at Talsu. “Didn’t I tell you I would still be here, still doing my job, under whoever happened to be ruling the kingdom?”

“You served the Algarvians with all your heart,” Talsu said. “If that’s not treason, what in blazes do you call it?”

“Following orders,” the major replied. “I am a useful man, and known to be loyal to the king. Neither of those applies to you.” His tone sharpened. “You are charged with associating with Kugu the silversmith, a known Algarvian agent and collaborator, during the late occupation. What have you got to say for yourself?”

“You idiot!” Talsu howled, too outraged to remember where he was. “I went to Kugu trying to join the underground against the fornicating Algarvians. You know that’s true. You have to-he’s the son of a whore who betrayed me to the redheads.”

“I’m not referring to that association,” the interrogator told him. “I’m referring to the association you continued to have with him after you were released from your last period of confinement. That’s plainly treason against King Donalitu.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Talsu said. “I had to associate with Kugu then. If I didn’t, you people would have thrown me back into a cell.” He’d also arranged for the silversmith’s untimely demise, but he didn’t even bother bringing that up. He couldn’t prove it, as he’d done it by stealth and sorcery.

“That is no excuse,” the interrogator said. “You also provided the occupying authorities with the names of certain people you believed to be loyal to King Donalitu. Arrests were made as a result of your actions. Punishments were inflicted. I will have you know, this is a very serious charge.”

“Occupying authorities?” Talsu started to get up to throttle the fellow. The guards slammed him down onto the stool again. They didn’t try to keep him from talking: “What occupying authorities? You were the bastard who tormented me-and tormented my wife, too-till I gave you names. I did get into the underground, and I fought the Algarvians while you were probably still torturing people for them.”

“Subject does not deny the charges,” the major murmured, jotting a note on the pad in front of him. Talsu howled again, a wordless cry of fury. The interrogator gestured to the bully boys. They went to work on Talsu. Before long, he had plenty more reasons to howl.

Over the years, Bembo had grown used to giving orders. It wasn’t just that he’d been a constable in occupied Forthweg. He’d been a constable long before that, here in Tricarico. People jumped when he told them to jump. They did him favors to stay on his good side. He’d had no trouble getting all sorts of bribes and other sweeteners.

That was over now, and his broken leg had nothing to do with it. The leg was healing as well as it could, though it looked thin as a twig under the splints that protected it. But Algarvians didn’t give orders in Tricarico anymore. The city belonged to the Kuusamans now, and they made who was in charge very plain.

Bembo and Saffa sat at a table in a sidewalk cafe, drinking wine he would have turned up his nose at before the war and eating olives and salted almonds. Saffa’s nose-much cuter than Bembo’s-wrinkled. “What’s that stink?” she asked.

Taking everything into account, Tricarico had been lucky during the war. Devastation had mostly left it alone, and, when the town fell, it fell fast. Having been in Eoforwic, Bembo knew things didn’t have to be that way. The grinding fight there had also left him intimately acquainted with the stench in question. “That’s dead bodies,” he answered, and surprised even himself with how casually the words came out.

“Oh.” Saffa grimaced. “That’s right. Those three in the town square. I’d forgotten.”

“Naughty.” Bembo waggled a forefinger at her. “The Kuusamans don’t want you to forget. They don’t want any of us to forget. That’s why they hanged those three stupid bastards right in the middle of the square four days ago, and it’s why they haven’t taken ‘em down, too.”

“Stupid bastards?” The constabulary sketch artist let out an indignant squawk. “They were patriots, heroes, martyrs.”

“They were cursed fools,” Bembo said. “If you aren’t in the army and you blaze at the people who’ve taken your town and they catch you, this is one of the things that’re liable to happen.” He remembered some of the things that had happened in Eoforwic. Compared to those, hanging was a mercy. Saffa didn’t know about things like that, and didn’t know how lucky she was not to.

“But the Kuusamans are the enemy,” she protested.