Rulers of the Darkness

A couple of Algarvian constables strode past Ealstan. Their height and red hair separated them from the Forthwegians their kingdom had overcome. So did the pleated kilts they wore. And so did their swagger. No matter what had happened to their countrymen down in Sulingen, they showed no dismay.

But a Forthwegian behind Ealstan shouted, "Get out of here, you whoresons! Go home!"

Both Algarvians jerked as if stuck with pins. The shout had been in Forthwegian, but they'd understood. They whirled, one grabbing for his club, the other for his stick. For a dreadful moment, Ealstan thought they thought he'd yelled. Then, to his vast relief, he saw they were looking past him, not at him. One of them pointed toward a Forthwegian whose black beard was streaked with gray. They both strode purposefully by Ealstan and toward the older man. He stared this way and that, as if wondering whether flight or holding still was more dangerous.

Before he had to find an answer, someone from farther up the street- someone behind the constables now, someone they couldn't see- cried out, "Aye, bugger off!"

Again, the Algarvians spun. Again, they hurried past Ealstan. Again, they seized no one, for more insults rained down on them whenever they turned their backs. Algarvians often had tempers that burst like eggs. These redheads proved no exception. One of them shook his fist and shouted in pretty fluent Forthwegian: "You fornicating bigmouths, you yell much more, we treat you all like stinking Kaunians!" To leave no doubt about what he meant, his partner stuck his chin in the air and drew a forefinger across his throat.

"Shame!" Ealstan yelled. That might have got him into trouble, but other Forthwegians were also yelling, and yelling worse things. As Ealstan knew too well, most of them cared little about what happened to the Kaunian minority in Forthweg, but they all cared about what happened to them.

The constable who'd shouted the threat was the one who'd taken the stick off his belt. Cursing now in his own language, he blazed between a couple of Forthwegians standing not far from him. His beam missed them both, but bit into the wooden wall of the wineshop behind them. The wall began to smolder. The Forthwegians fled.

So did everyone else on the street. Ealstan wasted no time ducking around the first corner he came to. He kept on running after that, too, the hem of his long wool tunic flapping just below his knees. "Those bastards have gone daft!" another man making himself scarce said.

"What's daft about it?" Ealstan returned bitterly. "They probably get a bonus for anybody they blaze."

When the other fellow didn't argue with him, he decided he'd made his point. Having made it, he went right on trotting. He didn't know whether a new round of rioting was about to flare up in Eoforwic, and didn't care to stay around to find out. That was the trouble with people feeling feisty: no matter how much trouble they stirred up, they still couldn't get rid of the Algarvians.

"One of these days, though," Ealstan murmured. "Aye, one of these days…" He heard the longing in his own voice. Mezentio's men had been sitting on Forthweg for three and a half years now. He smiled when he passed another scribbled SULINGEN. Surely they couldn't hold down his kingdom forever.

His own block of flats lay in a poor part of town, one already scarred again and again by rioting. He wouldn't have minded seeing another round of that if it meant throwing Mezentio's men out of Eoforwic. Since he didn't think it would, he was glad things seemed quiet.

The stairwell smelled of stale cabbage and staler piss. He sighed as he trudged up toward his flat. He'd been used to better in Gromheort before he had to flee the eastern town and come to the capital. As a matter of fact, he could afford better here. But staying in a district where no one cared about you or what you were and no one expected you to be anybody much had advantages, too.

He walked down the hall and knocked on the door to his flat- once, twice, once. A scraping noise came from inside as Vanai lifted the bar that held the door closed. His wife worked the latch and let him in. He gave her a hug and kissed her. The magecraft that hid her Kaunianity and made her look Forthwegian made her look astonishingly like a particular Forthwegian: his older sister, Conberge. He'd needed a while before that stopped bothering him.

"We could stop using the coded knock, you know," he said. "Now that you don't look Kaunian anymore, there's not much point to it."

"I still like to know it's you at the door," she answered.

That made Ealstan smile. "All right," he said, and sniffed. "What smells good?"

"Nothing very exciting," Vanai told him. "Just barley porridge with a little cheese and some of those dried mushrooms I got from the grocer the other day."