Through the Darkness

“Jolly.” It wasn’t the word Ealstan would have chosen. He tapped the ledger again. “If they squeeze you a whole lot harder than this, you’re going to have trouble holding on to the flat here, you know.”

“I was hoping you’d tell me different, because that’s how it added up to me, too,” Ethelhelm answered. “I’m taking the band out on tour again as soon as I can--as soon as the redheads let me. I make more money touring than I do sitting here, I’ll tell you that. Can’t play Eoforwic every day. I’d wear out my welcome pretty cursed quick if I tried.”

That made sense. Ethelhelm was a good businessman as well as a good musician. Ealstan had seen as much. But the bandleader had made his accommodations with the occupiers, and what had it got him? Only more trouble. Thinking aloud, Ealstan said, “You’d have to sing whatever they wanted you to.”

“Don’t remind me,” Ethelhelm said sourly. “Sometimes I wish I’d never ...” He didn’t finish, but Ealstan had no trouble doing it for him. I wish I’d never started bending in the first place--he had to mean something like that.

He went on, “I do think they will let me tour. Why shouldn’t they? The more I make, the more they can steal from me.”

“That’s what they do,” Ealstan said. “That’s what they’ve done to the whole kingdom.” You thought you could stay free of it because you were already rich and famous. All you had to do was make a little deal. But bargains with the redheads always have more teeth than you see at first.

“Be thankful your problems are smaller than mine, Ealstan,” Ethelhelm said. “Smaller now, anyhow.” Ealstan nodded. He didn’t laugh in the bandleader’s face, but for the life of him he had trouble figuring out why not.

Seventeen

Snow clung to the branches of pine and fir and spruce in the endless woods of western Unkerlant. Snow covered the leaves fallen from birch and beech and poplar. Snowflakes danced in the air. They were very pretty--for anyone who could take the time to watch them. Istvan couldn’t. “Have a care,” he called to the men of his squad. “The Unkerlanters will be able to spy our trails.”

“We’ll see theirs, too, Sergeant,” Szonyi said. “And we’ll make them pay for it.”

Corporal Kun took off his spectacles so he could blow a snowflake from one of the lenses. When he set them back on his nose, he cursed. “They’re fogged up,” he grumbled. “How am I supposed to see when they’re fogged up?”

“What difference does it make?” Istvan asked. “Half the time, you don’t pay attention to what you do see.” He grinned at Kun.

“For one thing, that’s a lie.” Kun wasn’t grinning. He enjoyed ruffling other people’s feathers, but didn’t care to have his own ruffled. “For another, I see more than you know.” He peered at Istvan through the possibly befogged spectacles, doing his best to look clever and mysterious.

That best only made Istvan snort. “You were a mage’s apprentice, Kun, not a mage on your own hook. If you saw as much as you want us to think you do, you’d have all the privileges of an officer, like that dowser named Borsos back on Obuda.”

“I can see some things about you.” Kun sounded hot. “For instance--”

Istvan’s temper kindled, too. “Can you see that I’m a sergeant? You’d better be able to see that. By the stars, you couldn’t even see that. . .” He looked around. Everyone within earshot already know, was already part of, the dread secret the squad shared. “You couldn’t even see we were eating goat before we did it.”

“Don’t you blame me for that,” Kun said furiously. “You were the one who wanted to knock over the Unkerlanters for what they had in their stewpot.”

“Stuff a legging in it, both of you,” Szonyi hissed. “Somebody’s coming up to the line.”

Kun and Istvan fell silent at once. Istvan hoped his secret would stay secret till he took it to the grave--and afterwards, too, for they sometimes exhumed goat-eaters and scattered their remains. He knew a certain amount of relief when he saw Captain Tivadar coming up to the front. He couldn’t betray the secret to his company commander, for Tivadar already knew it.

But the captain had someone with him, a tubby fellow who looked nothing whatever like Kun but put Istvan in mind of him even so. As soon as Istvan saw the sorcerer’s star pinned to the stranger’s tunic, he understood why. “What’s up, sir?” he asked Captain Tivadar.

“I don’t know,” Tivadar answered. “Nobody knows, not exactly. But the Unkerlanters are up to something. That’s what’s brought Colonel Farkas here up to the front: to see if he can find out what it is.”