Through the Darkness

He did. When he woke, he felt much more like himself. By then, Vanai did lie curled beside him. Her mouth had fallen open; she was snoring a little. He looked over at her and smiled. She didn’t just know what he wanted. She knew what he needed, too, and that was liable to be more important.

A couple of days later, he started going out and about through Eoforwic, seeing the people for whom he cast accounts. He discovered he’d lost a couple of them to other bookkeepers: inevitable, he supposed, when he hadn’t been able to let them know why he wasn’t showing up. That he’d kept as many clients as he had pleased him very much.

Ethelhelm the singer and drummer wasn’t in his flat when Ealstan came to call. The doorman for the building said, “The gentleman has taken his band on tour, sir. He did give me an envelope to give you if you returned while he and his colleagues were away.”

“Thanks,” Ealstan said, and then had to hand the fellow a coin for doing what he should have done for nothing. Ealstan took the envelope and went off before opening it; whatever it held, he didn’t want the doorman knowing it.

Hello, the note read.

I’m hoping you’ve come down with something. If you haven’t, the Algar-vians have probably come down on you and your lady. You can get over the one easier than the other, I think, the way things are these days. If you ‘re reading this, everything is probably all right. If you ‘re not, then I wish you were. Take care of yourself.

The band leader had scrawled his name below the last sentence.

Ealstan smiled as he refolded the note and put it in his belt pouch. Ethel-helm enjoyed speaking in riddles and paradoxes. And Ealstan could hardly find fault with this one. Better to have any natural sickness than to let the Algarvians know he was harboring Vanai.

That point got driven home when he came back to his own sorry little street. A couple of overage, overweight Algarvian constables were standing in front of the block of flats next to his. One of them turned to him and asked, “You knowing any Kaunian bitch living in this street here?”

“No, sir,” Ealstan answered. “I don’t think any of the stinking blonds are left in this part of town.” He did his best to sound like an ordinary Forthwegian, a Forthwegian who hated Kaunians as much as King Mezentio’s men did.

The other Algarvian spoke in his own language: “Oh, leave it alone, by the powers above. So we didn’t get to have her. The world won’t end. She paid us off.”

“Bah,” the first constable said. “Even if all these buggers say they never saw her, we both know she’s around here somewhere.”

After King Mezentio’s men took Gromheort, Ealstan’s home town in eastern Forthweg, they’d made academy students start learning Algarvian instead of classical Kaunian. That no doubt helped make the students better subjects. It also sometimes had other uses. Ealstan made a point of looking as dull and uninterested as he could.

“Digging her out is more trouble than it’s worth,” the second constable insisted. “And if we try digging her out and don’t come up with her, we’ll be walking the beat around the city dump till the end of time. Come on, let’s go.”

Though he kept grumbling, the constable who’d spoken Forthwegian let himself be persuaded. Off he went with his pal. Ealstan stared after them. If they were talking about anyone but Vanai, he would have been amazed.

But they weren’t going to call in their pals and try to unearth her. Ealstan clung to that. As he walked upstairs, he wondered if he ought to mention what he’d overheard. He decided that was a bad idea.

When Vanai let him in after his coded knock, she clicked her tongue between her teeth in dismay. “Sit down,” she said in tones that brooked no argument. “You’re worn to a nub. Let me get you some wine. You shouldn’t have gone out.”

“I have to keep my business going, or else we won’t be able to buy food,” he said, but he was glad to sit down on the shabby sofa and stretch his feet out in front of him. Vanai fetched him the wine, clucking all the while, and sat down beside him. He cocked his head to one side. “You don’t need to make such a fuss over me.”

“No?” She raised an eyebrow. “If I don’t, who will?”

Ealstan opened his mouth, then closed it again. He had no good answer, and was smart enough to realize as much. If they didn’t take care of each other here in Eoforwic, no one else would. Things weren’t as they had been back in Gromheort for him, with his mother and father and sister to worry about him and his big brother to flatten any nuisances he couldn’t handle himself.