Through the Darkness

Only a block and a half away from Ethelhelm’s elegant flat, a labor gang was clearing away the rubble of a burnt-out building. The laborers were Kaunians, some men, some women. Had their overseers been Algarvian soldiers or constables, Ealstan would have been angry but unsurprised. But the men holding the Kaunians to their tasks were Forthwegians armed with nothing more than bludgeons--and the certainty that they were doing the right thing.

Ealstan wanted to curse them. He wanted to persuade them they were wrong. He wanted to tell them they were playing into their conquerors’ hands. In the end, he did none of that. He simply walked on, free hand curled into a fist tight enough to make his nails bite into his palm, belly churning with rage he dared not show.

More wrecked, burnt-out buildings lay in the poorer parts of Eoforwic. No one had started clearing them away. Ealstan wondered how long that would take. He also wondered if it would ever happen. He didn’t intend to hold his breath.

Here and there, people went through the wreckage. Some were folk who’d lived and worked in those buildings, doing their best to salvage what they could. And some, no doubt, were nothing but scavengers. Ealstan glared at the gleaners, which did no good at all: it might have angered the people who had a right to search for what was theirs, but bothered the looters not at all.

He stopped in a baker’s shop and bought two loaves of bread. It was nasty stuff, and had got nastier since the latest riots. He’d long since grown used to wheat flour cut with barley and rye. They made loaves thicker and chewier, because they rose less readily than wheat, but they didn’t taste too strange. Ground-up peas and beans and buckwheat groats, on the other hand ...

“What’s next?” he asked the baker. “Sawdust?”

“If I can’t get anything else,” the fellow answered, adding, “Listen, pal, I eat the same bread I sell. Times aren’t easy.”

“No,” Ealstan agreed. Did the baker really eat the same bread he sold his customers? Ealstan doubted it. From everything he’d seen, anyone who got a position privileged in any way took advantage of it as best he could. Ealstan chuckled mirthlessly. If that wasn’t an Algarvian way of looking at the world, he didn’t know what was.

When he got back to his own part of town, he paused and marveled that all the buildings on his block had come through intact. Oh, some new windows on the bottom couple of stories were boarded up, but a lot of windows had been boarded up for a long time; glass, these days, was expensive and hard to come by.

Feet and hooves and wheels had worn away the fresh bloodstains from the crowns of the cobbles, but the red-brown still lingered between the gray and yellow-brown stones. Someone had left a bloody handprint on the wall of the building next to Ealstan’s, too. He wondered what had happened to that fellow. Nothing good, he feared.

He paused in the lobby to get his mail from the brass bank of boxes against the wall opposite the door. The lock on his box was as stout and fancy as he could afford; he had one key, the postman the other. The rest of the boxes sported similar impressive pieces of the locksmith’s art. Few people hereabouts trusted their neighbors’ good intentions.

When Ealstan saw his father’s precise, familiar script on an envelope, he grabbed it with a mixture of excitement and alarm. He didn’t hear from home very often, and wrote back even less. But news, he’d discovered when he got the letter telling of Leofsig’s death, could be bad as easily as good.

I’ll open it upstairs, he told himself. Iwon’t be able to do anything about it down here, anyhow. He laughed at himself, again without amusement. He wouldn’t be able to do anything about it after he got up to his flat, either.

He had to set down the ledgers so he could knock on the door. Vanai let him in. “What have you got there?” she asked, pointing to the envelope.

“It’s from home,” he answered. “That’s all I know right now.” He held up the envelope to show her he hadn’t opened it, then added, “I didn’t have the nerve to do it down in the lobby.”

Vanai bit her lip as she nodded. “Let me pour some wine.” She hurried off to the kitchen. Ealstan clenched his jaw. He’d needed numbing after other letters from home, and knew too well he might need it again.

He waited till Vanai came back with two full glasses before he tore open the envelope and took out the letter inside. He unfolded it, started to read-- and let out a chuckle that was shaky with relief. “Oh!” he said. “Is that all?”

“What is it?” Vanai asked, a wineglass still in each hand.

“My sister’s married,” Ealstan answered. That seemed strange--Conberge had been a part of the household his whole life--but he’d known it was likely to happen one day. “My father says everything went very well. Powers above be praised for that! Wouldn’t it have been fine if Sidroc walked in right in the middle of the ceremony?”