Out of the Darkness

“My bastard, as I told you, is back in Priekule,” Lurcanio answered calmly. Unless it’s Valnu’s bastard. He shrugged. He would gladly claim paternity here, just to watch the Valmieran steam. He wondered how many times Krasta had been unfaithful to him, and with whom. Another shrug. As many as she thought she could get away with, or I miss my guess. It wasn’t as if he’d spent all his nights in her bed.

Off went the Valmieran, still furious and not trying very hard to hide it any more. Santerno came over and slapped Lurcanio on the shoulder. “Well done, your Excellency, well done! Your occupation duty turned out to be good for something after all. You put that fellow in his place as neatly as you please.”

“And now we find out how much we’ll pay for my pleasure,” Lurcanio replied. “If the islanders are annoyed enough, they’ll plague us with their egg-tossers for the rest of the day.”

And the Lagoans and Kuusamans did exactly that. The egg-tossers the Algarvians had left did their best to reply. Huddling in a hole in the ground, Lurcanio was glumly certain their best would not be good enough.

The next morning, Major Vizgantu returned, white flag and all. A different soldier brought him to Lurcanio, saying, “Sir, this cursed Kaunian says he is ordered to report to you, if you’re still alive.”

“I think I may qualify,” Lurcanio answered, which made the soldier chuckle. Lurcanio bowed to the Valmieran. “And a good day to you, Major. We meet again.”

“So we do,” Vizgantu said coldly. He took from his pocket a folded leaf of paper, which he held out to Lurcanio. “This is for you.”

“Thank you so much.” Lurcanio unfolded the paper. It was written in classical Kaunian. To Colonel Lurcanio of the Algarvian army, greetings, he read. Major Vizgantu is my chosen representative in requesting a surrender of the Algarvian forces currently surrounded in this area. If you do not permit him to proceed to your commander, no other representative will be proffered, and no other request for surrender will be made. The fate of your army will be left, in that case, to the chances of the battlefield. The choice, sir, is yours. Your humble servant, Marshal Araujo, commanding allied armies in southern Algarve.

“Have you read this?” Lurcanio asked the Valmieran. A slight smirk was all the answer he needed. He let out a long sigh. The enemy commander had had his revenge, and had taken more than he’d expected. Was Araujo bluffing? Lurcanio studied the note again. He didn’t think so, and he knew the army of which he was a part had no hope of stopping any serious push the Lagoans and Kuusamans-aye, and the Valmierans-chose to make.

“What is your answer, Colonel?” Vizgantu demanded.

Lurcanio contemplated his choice: give up his pride or give up any hope for the soldiers in the pocket with him. He knew more than a few of his countrymen who would have sacrificed the army for the sake of pride. Had he been younger, he might have done the same himself. As things were. .

He thought of salvaging what he could by insulting the Valmieran again, by saying that if Marshal Araujo, a distinguished soldier, chose to use a man who was anything but as his emissary, that had to be respected, but he himself deplored it. He thought of it, then shook his head. It would have come out as childish petulance, no more. All he said was, “I shall send you forward, Major.”

“Thank you,” Vizgantu said. “You might have done this yesterday and saved everyone a good deal of difficulty.”

“So I might have, but I did not,” Lurcanio replied. “And I doubt everything was perfectly smooth in Valmiera almost five years ago, when you folk found yourselves on the other end of victory.”

Vizgantu gave back a proverb in classical Kaunian: “The last victory counts for more than all the others before it.”

Since Lurcanio knew that to be true, he didn’t try to argue it. He just sent the Valmieran major deeper into the pocket the Algarvians still held. If the Algarvian commander chose to surrender, that was, or at least might have been, his privilege. And if he chose to fight on …