Through the Darkness

Would Mezentio make good on such a threat? He might, and Hajjaj knew it; the Zuwayzi foreign minister dared not underestimate the hatred the King of Algarve had for Kaunians. “How long ago were you begging us for more help here in the north?” Hajjaj asked. “Not very, as I recall.”

“We didn’t get much of it, as I recall.” Balastro leaned forward again, this time with keen interest. “Might we get more, in exchange for looking the other way at certain things you do?”

Algarvians were good at looking the other way when there were things they didn’t want to see. Hajjaj usually found that trait dismaying. Now he might be able to use it to Zuwayza’s advantage. “That could be a bargain, or the start of one,” he said, hoping to escape this dilemma with honor after all.

Skarnu’s world had shrunk to the farm where he lived with Merkela and Raunu, the hamlet of Pavilosta, and the roads between those places. He’d had little reason and less chance to go far astray since washing up on the farm, one more piece of flotsam tossed adrift as Valmiera foundered.

By now, though, he’d made a name for himself as one of the leaders of the fight against Algarve in his country. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. On the one hand, he was flattered that other Valmierans knew he was one of those who hadn’t despaired of the kingdom. On the other, their knowing he remained a rebel against the occupiers made it more likely the redheads would find out, too.

And so, when he strode into the town of Tytuvenai, he looked around to make sure no Algarvians were paying him any undue attention. To his surprise, he saw hardly any of King Mezentio’s men on the streets. Valmieran constables as blond as Skarnu patrolled them instead. In smart uniforms that reminded him of the one he’d worn in the army, they eyed his homespun tunic and baggy trousers with almost as much scorn as nobles in Priekule would have aimed at him.

“Come to see the bright lights, farmboy?” one of them called to Skarnu. The fellow’s partner laughed.

“Aye,” Skarnu answered with a wide, foolish grin. The role he played amused him: a city man pretending to be a country yokel to fool a couple of other city men. But if the new audience criticized his performance, he wouldn’t get a bad notice in the local news sheet. He’d get killed.

He’d never been in Tytuvenai before, and so some of his curiosity was genuine. The town, he’d heard, had some monuments that dated back to the days of the Kaunian Empire. He saw none. He did see some plots of ground that looked as if they’d recently held something or other but were now empty. He wondered if Algarvian wreckers had got rid of monuments they didn’t fancy, as he knew they’d done elsewhere in Valmiera.

After some searching, he found the tavern called the Drunken Dragon. The dragon on the signboard above the door certainly looked as if it had had several too many. Skarnu smiled up at it. Before he went inside, he checked to make sure no one had picked his pockets: the Drunken Dragon lay in that kind of neighborhood. Valmieran constables didn’t come hereabouts.

Inside, the place was dark and smoky and crowded. People gave Skarnu, a stranger, a once-over as he made his way to the bar. “What’ll it be?” asked the taverner, a man missing a couple of fingers from his right hand--probably from a wound in the Six Years’ War, for he was old enough.

“Ale and roasted chestnuts,” Skarnu answered, as he’d been told to do.

The taverner eyed him, then slowly nodded. After giving him what he’d asked for, the fellow said, “Why don’t you take ‘em over to that table by the fireplace? Looks like it’s got room for a couple more.”

“All right, I’ll do that,” Skarnu said. The men sitting at that table didn’t look much different from the rest of the crowd. Some were old. Some were young. None looked rich. One or two looked a good deal shabbier than Skarnu did. A couple, but only a couple, looked as if they’d be nasty customers in a fight.

“Where you from?” one of the tough-looking fellows asked.

That was the question he’d been waiting for. “Pavilosta,” he answered.

“Ah,” the tough said. Several of the men nodded. One of them lifted a glass of wine in salute. “Simanu. That was a nice piece of work.”

Skarnu had never heard an assassination praised in such matter-of-fact terms. This was the crowd he’d come to meet, all right. He hoped none of the blonds at the table was an Algarvian spy. By coming to Tytuvenai, he’d bet his life none of them was.

A balding fellow with silver-rimmed spectacles said, “We’re just about all here now. I don’t know if Zarasai will be able to come.” That was not the name of a man but the name of a town: a sensible precaution, Skarnu judged. The bespectacled man went on, “Those people talk all the way across Valmiera. They can act all over the kingdom at the same time, too. We have to be able to do the same if we’re going to make their lives interesting.”