After the Downfall

Hasso bowed low. “Those are the right things to worry about, Lord.” He wasn’t trying to butter Zgomot up, either. The Lord of Bucovin had a good eye for problems. Spending his whole reign trying to hold off people with more tricks up their sleeve than he had doubtless contributed to that. Hasso went on, “Very steady pikemen with long pikes can hold off knights. Good archers can do the same thing. If you have knights of your own, they can keep the Lenelli from getting too close in the first place.”

“How sure are these ploys?” Zgomot asked.

“It’s war, Lord.” Hasso spread his hands. “Nothing is sure in war. You already show that to King Bottero, yes?” He mimed falling into a pit. “And you already show that to me.”

“We have to do such things,” Zgomot said. “When we face the big blond bastards straight up, we lose. We don’t have enough big horses to raise swarms of knights the way they do. We will one of these days, but not yet. How long would your long pikes have to be?”

“About ten cubits,” Hasso answered. That was five meters, more or less. “Several rows of spearheads stick out in front of the first row of soldiers. If the pikemen stay steady and don’t run, knights can’t get through. A hedgehog, we call that.” The proper term was a Swiss hedgehog, but Zgomot didn’t know anything about the Swiss.

The Lord of Bucovin thought hard now. “These men would need training. They would need practice. What would happen if a wizard beset them?”

Again, he saw the problems very clearly. “They would need training, yes,” Hasso said. “As for a wizard … A wizard is more likely to go after the catapults and the gunpowder, I think.”

“I think so, too,” Zgomot said. “But we could use a hedgehog against the Lenelli even without catapults and gunpowder, could we not?”

“No doubt about it, Lord.” And no doubt that Zgomot was one plenty sharp cookie indeed. Hasso added, “Archers would need better bows to fight knights. They would need training, too.” He knew of English longbows, but he didn’t know much about them.

“So this is not something we can do right away?” Zgomot said.

“No,” Hasso admitted. “War is a trade like any other. You have to learn how if you want to do it well.”

The Lord of Bucovin sighed. “I suppose so. If we get beaten before we can learn, though…” He sighed again. “That only means we should have started sooner, I suppose.” He was right, however little good being right might do him.

Hasso was eyeing the dragon’s tooth in the corridor on the way to the throne room when Drepteaza came up. She stopped when she saw him. “So,” she said. “You came back after all, Hasso Pemsel.”

“People keep telling me so,” Hasso said. “Here I am, so I suppose I have to believe them.” He gave her something more than a nod but less than a bow. “I am glad to see you.”

“And I’m glad to see you – here,” Drepteaza said, which wasn’t the same thing at all. “Lord Zgomot was worried about you.”

“Yes, I know.” Hasso frowned. Something in her voice wasn’t quite right. “Were you worried, too?”

“Not as much as Lord Zgomot was,” she answered.

Whatever was bothering her, it wasn’t aimed at him. “Why are you angry at the Lord of Bucovin?” Hasso asked.

Drepteaza gave him a sidelong glance. “You ought to know.”

“Me? What have I got to do with it?” Hasso had thought he was off the hook. Maybe he was wrong.

“I told you – Lord Zgomot feared you would run off, run back to the Lenelli.” It all made perfect sense to the priestess.

Not to Hasso. “What does that have to do with you?” he asked.

“You really don’t know? You really don’t understand?” Drepteaza sounded as if she couldn’t believe her ears.

In some exasperation, Hasso shook his head. “If I understood, would I be asking?”

“Well, you never can tell.” Drepteaza had to tilt her head back to look up at him. He always wondered if she was looking up his nose. With the air of someone giving a dull person the benefit of the doubt, she said, “If you had run off to the Lenelli, Lord Zgomot would have blamed me.”

“You? What could you do about me?” Hasso reached to scratch his head – and banged his knuckles on the ceiling. Dammit, he didn’t fit in castles built for Grenye. “You stay here in Falticeni.”

“Yes, and that’s part of the problem, too,” Drepteaza said. “Lord Zgomot worried you might go back to the blonds because I wouldn’t go to bed with you. He was angry at me because I didn’t.”

“Oh,” Hasso said. Yeah, Lord Zgomot was a sharp cookie, all right. Hasso didn’t like seeming so transparent, especially to a man he still thought of as more than half a barbarian. Like it or not, he evidently was. He tried to put the best face on it he could: “You see? You don’t have anything to worry about. Neither does he.” But only because King Bottero’s men had orders to kill one Hasso Pemsel on sight. If they didn’t … If they didn’t, I’d be back in Drammen now. Luckily, the Bucovinans didn’t know anything about that. Hasso’s little sleep spell accomplished so much, anyhow.