After the Downfall

“Most of us are guilty of something like that,” Zgomot said. Hasso chuckled in spite of himself; the Lord of Bucovin had a refreshingly cynical view of the world. He added, “After a while, other people might even forgive you for it. One person in particular, again, might.”

“Really?” Again, Hasso did his best not to show too much with that – he hoped – casual-sounding question. Zgomot nodded. Did one corner of his mouth quirk up, just a little? Hasso thought so, but wouldn’t have sworn to it. He decided he needed to know more. “Did she tell you that?” he asked.

“Not in so many words. Women do not like to put things in so many words,” the Lord of Bucovin replied. “But you listen to what they do not say, and you watch them, and after a while maybe you start to know what is going on.” Now he was smiling, and smiling crookedly. “And sometimes you are right, and sometimes you are wrong, and that is what makes women women.”

“Ja,” Hasso said. “You can’t live with ‘em and you can’t live without ‘em.”

“They say the same kinds of things about us,” Zgomot said. “It would not surprise me if they were right, too.”

“No, wouldn’t surprise me, either,” Hasso agreed. “If you would excuse me, Lord…?”

“Where are you going?” A moment later, Zgomot waved aside his own question. “Never mind. I think I can guess. You will likely find her in the temple at this time of day.”

“Thank you, Lord.” The palace had its own temple. The palace had enough of its own things to be almost a city of its own within Falticeni. With its smithy and bakeries and storehouses and chapel (which Hasso recalled only too vividly), King Bottero’s palace was the same way. Were the Grenye imitating the Lenelli again, or was that just the nature of working palaces? Plenty of the ones back in Europe were cluttered places, too.

Paintings and statues – some in wood, others in stone – of Lavtrig and the other Bucovinan gods ornamented the temple. They weren’t a handsome pantheon like the gods of Greece and Rome, or even an impressively grim one like those of Scandinavia. Some of them looked like the forces of nature they were supposed to represent. Others were monstrous in one way or another. The god of death had a corpse-pale face and fangs like a viper. They got more macabre from there.

Drepteaza was lighting a taper in front of a god – or perhaps goddess – whose earthly representation was a lump of brownish sandstone. After murmuring a prayer, she nodded. “Good day, Hasso Pemsel.”

“Good day,” Hasso answered. “What is that deity? What does he – she? – do?”

“Jigan endures,” Drepteaza told him. “Enduring is a useful thing for Grenye to be able to do these days, don’t you think?”

“Useful for anyone,” Hasso said. “Do you – will you – talk to me?” He tried to do his talking in Bucovinan. He still felt more fluent in Lenello, but he wanted his accent, which was not like the one the Lenelli had, to remind her he differed from them.

“I will talk with you,” she said. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Us,” Hasso said.

Drepteaza frowned. “I’m not sure there’s anything to talk about. Should there be anything to talk about?”

“I … hope so.” Hasso started to say, I think so, but changed his mind halfway through. He didn’t want to sound like someone who was insisting. He was in no position to insist. If Drepteaza wanted him dead, all she had to do was speak to Lord Zgomot, and he would die – slowly, if she felt like it.

“No harm in talk,” she said now. “Shall we go out to the garden? No one will bother us there – or if anyone tries, we can send him away with a flea in his ear.” That was how Hasso translated the Bucovinan phrase, anyhow; the literal meaning was a flea on his ass. Bucovinan was an earthy language.

Gardens were not an idea the natives had had for themselves. Along with so much else, they’d borrowed the notion from the Lenelli. Several nobles in Drammen had formal gardens behind their homes. Lord Zgomot had one on the palace grounds as much to show he was somebody as to admire the flowers.

A gardener trimming bushes took one look at the priestess and the tall foreigner and decided to find something to do in a different part of the palace. He was no fool; in his muddy sandals, Hasso would have done the same thing. Or maybe the fellow was – had he hung around, Hasso would have paid him to go away.

Hasso didn’t recognize many flowers. Big stretches of the garden weren’t blooming yet; not everything was even green. Drepteaza sat down on a bench of some hard, smooth reddish wood. After a moment, Hasso sat down beside her. She didn’t move away on the bench, which was – or at least might have been – reassuring.

She seemed as self-possessed – to say nothing of self-assured – as usual. “Well, Hasso Pemsel, what do you want to say?” she asked.