Through the Darkness

The Zuwayzi foreign minister finished the goblet of date wine and poured himself another one. Normally a moderate man, Hajjaj felt like getting drunk. “Algarve or Unkerlant? Unkerlant or Algarve?” he murmured. “Powers above, what a horrible choice.” His allies were murderers. His enemies wanted to extinguish his kingdom--and were murderers themselves.

He wished the Zuwayzin could have dug a canal across the base of their desert peninsula, hoisted sail, and floated away from the continent of Derlavai and all its troubles. If that meant taking along some Kaunian refugees, he was willing to give them a ride.

Had he been able to float away, though, Derlavai would probably have come sailing after him and his kingdom. That was how the world worked these days.

“Reformed Principality of Zuwayza.” Hajjaj tasted the words, then shook his head. No, that didn’t have the right ring to it. King Swemmel hadn’t figured out how to interest the Zuwayzin in betraying their own government-- not yet, anyhow. But could he, if he kept trying? Hajjaj wasn’t sure. That he wasn’t sure worried him more than anything else about the whole business.

Even though Bembo couldn’t read all of the message painted in broad strokes of whitewash on the brick wall, he glowered at it. He could tell it contained the word Algarvians. No whitewashed message containing that word in Gromheort was likely to hold a compliment.

Bembo grabbed the first Forthwegian he saw and demanded, “What does that say?” When the swarthy, bearded man shrugged and spread his hands to show he didn’t understand the question, the constable did his best to turn it into classical Kaunian.

“Ah.” Intelligence lit the Forthwegian’s face. “I can tell you that.” He spoke Kaunian better than Bembo did. Almost anyone who spoke Kaunian spoke it better than Bembo did.

“Going on,” Bembo urged.

“It says”--the Forthwegian spoke with obvious relish--”Algarvian pimps should go back where they came from.” He spread his hands again, this time in a show of innocence. “I did not write it. I only translated. You asked.”

Bembo gave him a shove that almost made him fall in the gutter. To the constable’s disappointment, it didn’t quite. He made as if to grab the bludgeon he carried. “Getting lost,” he growled, and the Forthwegian disappeared. “Pimp,” Bembo muttered in Kaunian. He switched to Algarvian: “Takes one to know one.”

Before walking on, he spat at the graffito. Some Forthwegian or other thought himself a hero for sneaking around with a paint brush in the middle of the night. Bembo thought the Forthwegian, whoever he was, nothing but a cursed nuisance.

Half a dozen Forthwegians in identical tunics came up the street toward him. After a moment, he realized they belonged to Plegmund’s Brigade. He eyed them warily, much as he would have eyed so many mean dogs running around outside a farm. They were useful creatures, no doubt about it, but liable to be dangerous, too. And, by the way they looked at him, they were thinking about being dangerous right now.

He’d moved out of their way before he quite realized what he was doing. They realized it fast enough; a couple of them laughed as they tramped past. His ears burned. Forthwegians weren’t supposed to intimidate Algarvians--it was supposed to be the other way round.

“Bugger ‘em,” Bembo said under his breath. “They don’t pay me enough to be a hero.” He laughed a nasty laugh. They doubtless didn’t pay those young toughs in Plegmund’s Brigade enough to be heroes, either. All he had to do was pound the pavement here in Gromheort. The Forthwegians would get shipped off to the west to fight King Swemmel’s troopers. They might not make heroes, but a lot of them would end up dead.

Serve ‘em right, too, Bembo thought. Let ‘em laugh now. They’ll be laughing out of the other side of their mouths soon enough.

Once he’d got round the corner from the men of Plegmund’s Brigade, he started swaggering once more. Why not? No one who’d seen him embarrass himself was around now. As far as he was concerned, what had happened back there might as well have belonged to the days of the Kaunian Empire.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than he saw a Kaunian on the street. He reached for his bludgeon. A Forthwegian woman who saw him and the blond called out in Algarvian: “Make him wish the powers below had hold of him instead of you!”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Bembo answered, even though the woman was ten years older than he was, shapeless, and homely to boot. She got even homelier when she smiled, which she did now. Bembo didn’t have to look at her for long, though. He swung his attention--and his anger--toward the Kaunian. “You there! Aye, you, you miserable son of a whore! Who let you out of your kennel?”