Through the Darkness

Pirmasens wasn’t one of the villages from which Munderic’s irregulars usually gathered food and supplies. The Algarvians held it tight, not least because it stood close to a ley line. Munderic needed to know what they were up to. Irregulars from other parts of Unkerlant would have betrayed themselves as soon as they opened their mouths. Garivald would be a stranger in Pirmasens, but a stranger with the right accent.

As he neared the village, he saw it was intact, which meant Unkerlanter soldiers hadn’t made a stand here the summer before. That wasn’t so good; it gave the locals less reason to hate the redheads. It also gave them more reason to betray a fugitive bard named Garivald, if any of them should recognize him in the person of Liaz. Another drop of sweat slid down his spine.

“It won’t be so bad,” he muttered, and did his best to make himself believe it. Before the war, a stranger wandering into a peasant village would have been a surprise, especially if he was just another peasant and not a merchant with something to sell. The fighting, though, had torn things up by the roots. So Munderic had told Garivald, anyhow. Garivald hoped the irregulars’ leader was right.

Hoofbeats made him look back over his shoulder. An Algarvian trooper on a lathered horse cantered past him and into Pirmasens. The redhead eyed him on riding by, just as he watched Mezentio’s soldier. Any man who trusted another, even for a moment, risked his life these days.

Well behind the horseman, Garivald came into Pirmasens. It was a bigger place than Zossen, which remained his touchstone, probably because it lay close to the ley line and so drew more trade. It looked achingly normal: men out in the fields around the village, women in the vegetable plots by their houses, children and dogs and chickens underfoot. A lump came into Garivald’s throat. This was the way life was supposed to be, the way he’d always known it.

Then a couple of kilted Algarvians strode out of one of the few buildings in the village that wasn’t somebody’s house: the tavern, unless he missed his guess. He’d planned on going in there himself--how better to find out what was going on in Pirmasens than over a few mugs of ale? Now he wondered if that was such a good idea.

A dog came yapping up to him. He stamped his foot and growled back, and the dog ran away. “That’s how you do it, all right,” a villager called. Garivald had to work hard not to stare at the fellow. He’d never seen an Unkerlanter with a fancy waxed mustache before. He hoped he’d never see another one, either; such fripperies might do well enough for an Algarvian, but they struck him as absurd on one of his countrymen.

“Aye, sure is,” Garivald replied.

Hearing Grelzer dialect identical to his own coming out of Garivald’s mouth, the man with the mustache grinned. It was a fine, friendly grin, one that should have made Garivald like him at sight. But for the hair on his lip, it might have. Even seeing the mustache--surely the mark of someone currying favor with the redheads--Garivald warmed somewhat. The local said, “Haven’t seen you in these parts before, have I?”

Now Garivald smiled back. He might be an amateur spy, but he recognized a counterpart on the other side when he heard one. “Wouldn’t think so. I’m from east of here--a little place called Minsen.” That was a village not far from Zossen. “Swemmel’s soldiers, curse ‘em, fought hard to hold it, so it’s not there anymore. Neither is my wife. Neither are my son and daughter.” He made himself sound grim.

“Ah, I’ve heard tales like that so many times,” the fellow with the mustache said. He came up and draped an arm around Garivald’s shoulder, as if he were a sympathetic cousin. “I’m not sorry we’re out from under Swemmel’s yoke, and that’s a fact. Look at the price you paid for getting stuck in the middle of a lost war.”

“Aye,” Garivald said. “You’ve got a good way of looking at things, ah ...”

“My name’s Rual,” the man from Pirmasens said.

Garivald clasped his hand, which also let him shake off that arm. “And I’m Liaz,” he said. He’d got it right the first time, anyhow.

“Let me buy you a mug of ale, Liaz,” Rual said. “We can sit around and swap stories about what a son of a whore Swemmel is.”

“Suits me fine,” Garivald said. “I’ve got plenty of ‘em.” And he did, too. Loving Swemmel wasn’t easy. After what he’d seen, after what he’d been through, hating the redheads more was. “I’ll buy you one afterwards, too. I’ve got enough coppers for that, anyhow.”

“Well, come on, then. Let’s get out of the hot sun.” Sure enough, Rual led him to the building from which the Algarvians had come.

More Algarvians sat inside. One of them nodded to Rual in a familiar way. As if the mustache hadn’t been enough, that told Garivald all he needed to know about the other peasant’s allegiance. It also told him he had to be extra careful if he wanted to get out of Pirmasens in one piece.