After the Downfall

He did wonder whether Zgomot would have the chopper waiting. If the ruler decided he’d learned enough from the dangerous blond … Hasso shrugged. He just had to hope that wasn’t so. Bottero’s men wanted to kill him. If Zgomot’s did, too… He’d damn well die in that case, and he didn’t know what he could do about it.

“Catapults,” he said out of the blue. He said it in Lenello, but the Bucovinan name was almost the same; the natives had taken the word as well as the thing. It was what Drepteaza called a bastard word, with long and short vowels.

“What about them?” Rautat asked.

“We need light ones on wheeled carts,” Hasso said. “Then they can throw pots of gunpowder at the Lenelli.”

“Oh, yeah?” A slow grin spread over Rautat’s face. “I like that, Lavtrig give me boils on my ass if I don’t. What other sneaky ideas have you got?”

“That would be telling,” Hasso answered. Rautat laughed. So did Hasso, but he wasn’t kidding. What kept him alive was being the goose that laid golden eggs. As long as he could keep laying them, and as long as none of them turned out to be gilded lead, he figured he was all right. If he screwed up, Lord Zgomot would start sharpening that chopper.

So don’t screw up, he thought. Good advice – but hard to live up to.

Coming back to Falticeni wasn’t exactly coming home. Hasso had no home in this world, and wondered whether he ever would. But he knew lots of people in the palace. Zgomot was interesting to talk to. And Drepteaza – was Drepteaza. Hasso sighed. He would be glad to see her. One of these days before too long, he would probably need to get drunk, too.

Hell, he’d done that on account of Velona, too. But it was different with her. He’d got smashed because she screwed Bottero. Drepteaza wasn’t screwing anybody, not as far as Hasso knew. That was the problem.

How the natives stared when he rode through the crowded, muddy, smelly streets with his Bucovinan escort! Nobody had any idea who he was – the Bucovinans figured him for a Lenello. Without photography and printing, nobody except kings could get famous enough for everyone to recognize them. And kings put their portraits on coins, which struck Hasso as cheating.

“Look at that big blond prick,” a Bucovinan said, pointing at him.

“Who are you calling a prick, you asshole?” Hasso replied in Bucovinan. The native gaped. His buddies gave him the horselaugh. Rautat slapped Hasso on the back. They rode on.

“So he did it?” one of the gate guards said to Rautat when they got to the palace.

“He sure did.” The underofficer sounded proud of Hasso. He probably was. If he hadn’t found the Wehrmacht officer in the pit and decided not to finish him off, he wouldn’t have got soft duty at the palace. He was enough of a Feldwebel to know when – and why – he was well off.

“Good,” the gate guard said. “About time we had some magic on our side.”

It wasn’t magic. Lord Zgomot understood that. So did Drepteaza. So did the Bucovinans who worked with gunpowder. As for the rest – well, what if they thought it was? That was probably good for morale.

Grooms came out to take charge of the travelers’ horses. Hasso stretched and grunted. He stumped around bowlegged, like an arthritic chimpanzee. That got a laugh from Rautat and the rest of the Bucovinans. Then he said, “I want a bath.”

“Me, too,” Rautat said. Gunoiul and Peretsh and Dumnez and the others who’d ridden with them nodded.

“Boy, when he says things like that, you’d hardly think he was a Lenello,” the gate guard said, as if Hasso weren’t there or didn’t speak Bucovinan. The German didn’t bash the native in the head, however much he wanted to. The man had already shown he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

But most of the Grenye in Falticeni were bound to think the same things about Hasso – the ones who’d heard of him, anyway. How many had? No way for him to know.

He wondered if he could figure out how to make a printing press. In the long run, ideas were as important as weapons. Ideas were weapons. But that was in the long run. Lots of other things to worry about first.

That bath, for instance. Hasso let Rautat lead the way. He was glad to get out of his grubby clothes, and even gladder to soak in the warm water with the root the Bucovinans used in place of soap. If only he had some cigarettes …

“If you were a Lenello, you’d still stink,” Rautat said.

“If I were a Lenello – ” Hasso dropped it right there. If he were a Lenello, he would have deserted when he got to the west. If he were a Lenello, he probably would have got away with it, too. “But I’m not.” He was sick of saying that. If only the Bucovinans would listen to him for a change!

Or maybe Rautat was listening. “I said, ‘If you were,’“ he reminded Hasso. “You don’t stink. You enjoy being clean, just like a human being does.”