Out of the Darkness

“It might,” Krasta said. “I’m sure it would make things easier for me. I could show him in public without worrying about all the dreadful things that happen to … people with babies that have the wrong color hair.” Her own convenience came first. That looking like everyone else might be better for little Gainibu was also nice, but distinctly secondary.

“Sooner or later, things will ease up,” the wet nurse predicted. “People will get excited about something else, and then they won’t care so much about who did what during the war. That’s how it works.”

“I hope so,” Krasta said fervently. “As far as I’m concerned, people have made much too big a fuss about that already.”

The wet nurse nodded sympathetically. Maybe she’d had an Algarvian boyfriend during the occupation. For all Krasta knew, she might have a little bastard at home herself. The wet nurse said, “Plenty of women were friendly with the redheads. That was just how things were back then. A baby? A baby was bad luck.”

“He certainly was,” Krasta said, giving her son a venomous stare. If he’d looked the way he was supposed to, or if he hadn’t come along at all, she wouldn’t have had nearly the troubles she’d had.

But the wet nurse said the same thing Lurcanio had: “It’s not really his fault, milady. He can’t help what he looks like.”

“I suppose not,” Krasta said reluctantly.

“And he is a nice little baby,” the wet nurse went on. “Doing what I do, I see plenty of the little brats. He’s sweeter than most. I think dyeing his hair is a good idea. You must be very clever, to have thought of that. If he looks like everybody else, he should be able to get on fine.”

“Maybe,” Krasta said. No, she wasn’t about to admit that dyeing Gainibu’s hair hadn’t been her idea. If the wet nurse thought it was clever, she would take credit for it. Lurcanio? She snapped her fingers. By the time you read this, I expect I shall be dead. She didn’t miss him. On the contrary; as long as he’d lived, she’d had to remember she hadn’t always been able to do exactly as she pleased. Few thoughts could have been less pleasant to her.

“Let me have Gainibu again,” she said. The wet nurse burped the baby before handing him to her. Krasta peered down into his little face. But for the color of his hair, he did look like her, as best she could tell.

He smiled again and then, without any fuss, spit up on her. The wet nurse hadn’t burped him quite well enough. For once, Krasta didn’t get angry. She kept studying the baby. With blond hair, he might do after all.

If the boy has your looks and my wit, he may go far in the world. Krasta shook her head. She’d flushed those words down the commode. Since they were gone, they couldn’t possibly be true. . could they?

Leudast stood on the farther slopes of the Elsung Mountains, looking west into Gyongyos. No matter what his superiors said, he’d never expected to come so far so fast. He’d never expected the Gongs to lie down and surrender, either. He’d fought them before, and knew they didn’t do things like that. But they had.

He also knew the Unkerlanters’ onslaught hadn’t been the only thing that made Gyongyos quit. Every new rumor said something different and horrible had happened to Gyorvar. Leudast didn’t want to believe any of the rumors, because they all sounded preposterous. But if something truly dreadful hadn’t happened to their capital, would the Gyongyosians have thrown in the sponge? He didn’t think so.

His regiment had come far enough that, right at the edge of visibility, he could see the mountains sloping down toward the lowlands farther west still. He could also see the green in the bottom of a good many valleys. The Gongs, he’d heard, recruited a lot of their soldiers from such places. Unkerlant’s broad, almost endless plains yielded many more men. He wasn’t sure the average Unkerlanter made as ferocious a warrior as the average Gyongyosian, but that hadn’t turned out to matter.

Captain Dagaric came up to stand beside him and look at the vast expanse of rock and snow and greenery. After staring a while in silence, Dagaric asked, “Do you know what you’ll do next, Lieutenant?”

“No, sir,” Leudast admitted. “I’m afraid I don’t. I’ve been in the army a long time.” It wasn’t forever. It only felt that way.

“Aye, you’ve been in the army a long time,” the regimental commander agreed. “If you were still a common soldier or a sergeant, I wouldn’t worry about it so much. But you’re an officer now, and you haven’t been an officer all that long. You ought to think about it.”

“I have been thinking about it, sir,” Leudast replied. “If I weren’t an officer, I’d be on my way home now. “Well, trying to get home, anyhow. But. . You don’t mind my saying so, you’re dead when they blaze you, regardless of whether you’re a sergeant or a lieutenant.”