Out of the Darkness

“I don’t know,” he answered cheerfully. “That’s why I’m going there: to find out. I know everything I can do here and”-he yawned with almost as much theatrical flair as an Algarvian might have-”I’m bored.”

“That shouldn’t be reason enough to abandon something of which you’re such an important part,” Pekka insisted.

“Maybe it shouldn’t, but for me it is.” Ilmarinen’s foxy features donned that leer once more. “If I happen to run into your husband while I’m in Jelgava, what shall I tell him?”

Not a thing! Not a fornicating thing! Pekka wanted to shout. Just before she did, she realized that was the worst thing she could possibly say. With studied indifference, she answered, “Tell him whatever you please. You will anyway.”

That took the leer off his face. It got her what might have been a respectful glance. “You’re cooler about the whole business than I thought,” Ilmarinen said.

Pekka, just then, felt anything but cool. Letting him know that, though, didn’t strike her as a good idea. She said, “If you’re bound and determined to do this, powers above keep you safe.”

“For which I thank you,” Ilmarinen said. “I will miss you, curse me if I won’t. Your heart’s in the right place, I think, even if I can’t imagine what you see in that overgrown Lagoan mage.”

“He’s not overgrown!” Indignation crackled in Pekka’s voice. “And you’re a fine one to talk. What do you see in Linna the serving girl?”

“A pretty face and a tight twat,” he answered at once. “I’m a man. Men aren’t supposed to need any more than that, are they? But women, now, women should have better sense, don’t you think?”

Actually, Pekka did think that, or something like that, anyway. But Ilmarinen was the last person with whom she wanted to talk about it. Instead of talking, she hugged him hard enough to make him wheeze as the air came out of him. Then, for good measure, she kissed him, too. “I still think you’re being a fool, but you’re a fool I’m fond of.”

“You’re stuck with me a while longer,” he said, “till this accursed weather eases up. But then I’m flying-or more likely sailing-north for the winter.” Off he went down the hallway. Pekka wondered why she’d even tried to change his mind. He was no more inclined to listen to her than she was to pay attention to the advice she got from a clerk at a grocer’s shop. He did what he wanted, and reveled in it.

If he wants to tell Leino, I’ll kill him, she thought. But that worried her less than it had when he first asked his sardonic question. Had Ilmarinen really intended to blab to her husband if he saw him, he wouldn’t have teased her about it first. She was sure-well, she was pretty sure-of that.

Still shaking her head in astonishment, she went back to the paperwork. A few minutes later, another knock on the door interrupted her. This time, it was Fernao: tall and redheaded and, but for his eyes, most un-Kuusaman looking. Even the neat ponytail in which he wore his hair shouted that he was a Lagoan.

But, over the past couple of years, he’d got pretty fluent in Kuusaman. “You’ll never guess what,” he said now. He even had something of a Kajaani accent, which only showed he’d done a lot of talking and listening to Pekka.

“About Ilmarinen disappearing?” she said, and watched his jaw drop. “He came to me first,” she told him. “How did you find out about it?”

“He’s in the refectory, pouring down ale and boasting about the wires he pulled to get away,” Fernao answered.

“That sounds like him,” Pekka said sourly.

“He’s really off to Jelgava?” Fernao asked.

“That’s what he says,” Pekka replied. “He has connections with the Seven Princes that go back longer than either one of us has been alive, so I suppose he is. I haven’t seen the paperwork, but he wouldn’t carry on like that without it.”

“No, he wouldn’t.” Fernao didn’t sound particularly happy. After a moment, he showed Pekka why: “If he goes to Jelgava, if he sees your husband there, will he talk? You Kuusamans are such a straitlaced folk, I fear he might.”

“We’re no such thing!” Pekka exclaimed. Then, a little sheepishly, she asked, “Is that how Lagoans see us?”

“A lot of the time, aye,” he said. “You. . often take such things too seriously.”

“Do we?” Pekka suddenly remembered fleeing his bedchamber in tears after the first time they’d made love. “Well, maybe we do. But I don’t think Ilmarinen will talk too much to Leino. He’s not an ordinary Kuusaman, you know.”

“Really?” Fernao’s voice was dry. “I never would have noticed. What did you do, tell him you’d put a lifetime itching spell on his drawers if he ever opened his mouth?”

Pekka giggled. “It’s a pretty good idea, but no. If I’d threatened him, he would blab to Leino if he ever saw him. He may not see him, of course. He probably won’t, in fact-Jelgava is a good-sized kingdom. But when he teased me about it, I told him to do whatever he wanted, so he won’t feel he has to run off at the mouth.”