Out of the Darkness

“Shut up, both of you!” the Unkerlanter shouted. “You, old man, you can come with me right now, or we can have another war right now. There’s your choice, powers below eat you.”

“This is an outrage!” Qutuz exclaimed.

“Too bad,” the Unkerlanter said. He scowled at Hajjaj. “Are you coming or not? You say no, you watch what happens to this pisspot of a kingdom.”

They know, Hajjaj thought gloomily. They must know. With a sigh, he replied, “I will come with you-under protest. May I dress first, to match your custom?”

“Don’t waste the time. It’s inefficient,” the Unkerlanter said. “Get your scrawny old carcass moving, that’s all.”

“Very well. I am at your service,” Hajjaj said. He nodded to Qutuz. “I’ll see you later.” I hope I will. I hope they let me leave the ministry. He took a broad-brimmed hat from the hat rack in the outer office and set it on his head. “Let us go.”

At this season of the year, even Zuwayzin went out as little as they could in the middle of the day. The sun smote down from as close to the zenith as made no difference. The palace’s thick walls of mud brick shielded against the worst of the heat. Out in the streets, the air might have come from a bake oven. Hajjaj’s shadow puddled at his feet, as if even it were looking for someplace to hide.

The Unkerlanter ignored the heat. He had a carriage waiting outside. The driver-also hatless, and a bald man to boot-sat steaming under that merciless sun. Hajjaj hoped he wouldn’t keel over halfway to the Unkerlanter ministry.

The fellow who’d stormed into his office spoke to the driver in their own language, then held the carriage door open for Hajjaj-one of the few formal courtesies he’d ever had from an Unkerlanter. By the way the man slammed it shut after getting in behind the Zuwayzi foreign minister, that courtesy hadn’t come easy.

They got to the ministry unscathed. The driver kept right on sitting out in the open. “You really should let him come inside and cool off,” Hajjaj remarked. “This weather can kill, you know.”

“You worry about your business,” the Unkerlanter told him. “We will tend to ours.”

“Zuwayza has been saying that very thing to Unkerlant for centuries,” Hajjaj said. “Somehow, you never seem to listen.”

The fellow escorting him didn’t seem willing to listen. Unkerlanters, as Hajjaj had said, never did listen to their northern neighbors. Being badly outweighed, Zuwayzin had to listen to Unkerlanters, no matter how little they cared to. This particular Unkerlanter took Hajjaj straight to Minister Ansovald, and spoke two words in his own tongue: “He’s here.” Hajjaj was far from fluent in Unkerlanter, but had no trouble understanding that.

Ansovald glared at Hajjaj. Hajjaj had met the Unkerlanter minister’s glares before, and bore up under this one. When he didn’t immediately crumple and admit guilt, Ansovald shouted, “You treacherous son of a whore!”-in Algarvian, because Hajjaj didn’t have enough Unkerlanter to carry on diplomacy-if such this was-in that language.

“Good day, your Excellency,” Hajjaj said now. “As always, I am delighted to see you, too.”

Irony was wasted on Ansovald. Like so many of his countrymen, he seemed immune to both shame and embarrassment. To serve King Swemmel, he needs to be, Hajjaj thought. But Unkerlanter boorishness was far older than the reign of the current King of Unkerlant.

“We’re going to hang all those Algarvian bastards,” Ansovald shouted now. “And when we’re done with that, we’re liable to hang you, too. How far will that scrawny neck of yours stretch?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hajjaj said.

“Liar,” Ansovald said. What would have been an ugly truth from another man sounded like a compliment from him. “You’re hiding Balastro and a whole raft of other redheads in a stinking little town called Harran. We want ‘em. We’re going to get ‘em, too-or you’ll be sorry, and so will everybody else in this tinpot kingdom.”

“Even if I were to admit their presence, which I do not, on what grounds could you want them?” Hajjaj asked.

“Conspiracy to violate the Treaty of Tortusso by annexing Rivaroli. Conspiracy to wage war against Forthweg, Valmiera, Jelgava, Sibiu, Lagoas, Kuusamo, and Unkerlant. Conspiracy to murder Kaunians from Forthweg,” Ansovald answered. “Those will do for starters. We can find plenty more. Don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll try ‘em before we hang ‘em, so everything looks pretty.”

Hajjaj winced. He hadn’t expected Ansovald to come up with such a detailed, and damning, indictment. No doubt a good many of the Algarvian refugees were guilty of those things. Still, he said, “If they had won the war, they could charge you with as many enormities as you blame them for now.”