Out of the Darkness

“Supper’s just about ready,” his mother said. “I know I can find that high chair.” She did, too, and triumphantly brought it into the dining room. Saxburh ate little bits of torn-up chicken and bread, and drank well-watered wine from a cup whose lid had three little holes. She made a mess. Elfryth smiled at Ealstan in a way that said she remembered him doing the same thing.

Halfway through supper, the sorcerous disguises Vanai had given herself and the baby wore off. All Hestan said to Ealstan was, “You married a pretty girl either which way.” Ealstan nodded. He hadn’t seen much of Vanai’s true Kaunian features for a long time.

Vanai couldn’t see her own features change, of course, but she noticed it on Saxburh and understood what Hestan’s comment had to mean. “I can put the spell back on,” she said hastily.

“Only if you want to,” Ealstan’s father said. “Myself, I don’t think there’s any need to, not when you’re among friends.”

“Among friends,” Vanai echoed. She shook her head in wonder, her gray-blue eyes wide. “You don’t know how strange that sounds to me. Be thankful you don’t know.”

Hestan didn’t try to argue. All he said was, “Strange or not, it’s true here.”

“It certainly is,” Elfryth agreed. Vanai brushed at her eyes with the back of her hand. She didn’t quite cry, but Ealstan thought she came close.

After supper, Saxburh fell asleep in Vanai’s lap. Maybe the wine helped, but the baby had had a long, hard day, too. Ealstan’s mother brought out the cradle. “It was right by the high chair,” she said. Vanai laid Saxburh in it.

Before too much longer, Vanai started yawning herself. Ealstan and his father moved a bed from a guestroom into the one he was using. That crowded the chamber, but he didn’t care. Yawning still, Vanai went off to bed.

“I see what you see in her,” Ealstan’s father said after the door closed.

“She’s very sweet,” his mother added, nodding. “And I want to eat your daughter up.”

“We’re all back together again,” Ealstan said. “That counts for more than anything.” His wounded leg twinged. He ignored it. In spite of it, what he’d said remained true.

He waited till he thought Vanai would surely be asleep, then tiptoed back to the bedroom, careful not to tap with his canes. Opening the door as quietly as he could, he stepped inside, then closed it behind him.

From the new bed, Vanai whispered, “I thought you’d never get here. If you’d waited much longer, I really would have fallen asleep.” She flipped back the bedclothes. Under them, she was bare. “I’ve missed you,” she said.

“Oh, darling,” was all Ealstan answered-with words, anyhow.

Prince Juhainen’s image stared out of the crystal. “Aye, Mistress Pekka,” he said. “The demonstration was everything we could possibly have wanted it to be. The Gongs who saw it with their own eyes were horrified. The crew aboard the ley-line cruiser all agree on that.”

“But the Gyongyosians in Gyorvar won’t believe them,” Pekka said. “Is that where the problem lies?”

“That seems to be it, aye,” the prince answered. “They have made it plain they intend to keep fighting.”

Pekka scowled. “We could have brought the lash down on Gyorvar straightaway. Don’t they see that? We try to warn them, we try to show them mercy, and they refuse to take it? Are they mad?”

“Just stubborn, I think,” Juhainen said. “If they insist on paying the price, you can make them pay it?”

“Aye, your Highness,” Pekka said, “though I don’t like to think about doing that to a place with people in it.”

“If they’ll heed nothing else, we do have to gain their attention,” Juhainen said.

“I suppose so, sir,” Pekka said. “In fact, I know you’re right. But doing something like. . that to Gyorvar or to one of the Gongs’ other towns still comes hard. I’d sooner have done it to Algarve.”

“I know you would, and I understand your reasons,” Juhainen said. “In your turn, though, you have to understand those are not reasons of state.”

“Revenge isn’t the only reason I said that, your Highness,” Pekka replied. “It plays a part; I’d be lying if I told you anything else. Taken all in all, though, the Gongs have fought a pretty clean war. They’re just enemies, people who want the same islands we do and won’t take no for an answer. The few times they’ve used the murderous sorcery the Algarvians came up with, the men they killed to fuel it were all volunteers-real volunteers, by everything we could learn. With what Mezentio’s men did, they deserved being on the receiving end of this more than Gyongyos does.”

“Very well. I see your point,” Prince Juhainen said. “But if we can’t convince them to give up the fighting any other way, we shall have to hit them over the head with a rock. Better that than all the Kuusaman soldiers’ lives we would have to spend invading their homeland. Or do you think I’m wrong?”