After the Downfall

“Oh, with him I am the goddess and me both,” Velona answered matter- of-factly. “The seasons need renewing, and this is how we do it. And he is a man, and I am a woman, and that is how men and women do it. You ought to know.” She poked him in the ribs.

“Well, yes,” he said. She made it sound so reasonable. The only thing wrong was that what happened between men and women wasn’t reasonable. No matter how people tried, they couldn’t make it reasonable, either. They couldn’t in the world he came from, anyhow. He didn’t think the Lenelli and Grenye were much different.

Velona laughed. “In fact…” she said. Sure enough, he’d just bumped her belly. They started all over again. He hadn’t thought a man his age could perform the way he did. But then, he hadn’t had inspiration like this, either.

Afterwards, he wished for a cigarette. Even the ones the German quartermasters doled out, that tasted of hay and horseshit instead of honest tobacco, would have been better than nothing. But he’d had them in the back pocket of his trousers when he landed in the swamp here, and they got ruined. Too damn bad.

“Is it better now?” Velona might have been soothing a little boy. Her methods were different – were they ever! – but not her tone.

“Well, yes,” Hasso said again. And it was, too, and it would stay that way till the summer solstice, or till he thought about the summer solstice, or till he ran into King Bottero, or for a little while, anyhow.

What could he do about it, any which way? Tell the goddess not to do what the goddess did? Velona would laugh in his face. He’d be lucky if Bottero only laughed. He could go from vassal to victim in the time the king took to snap his fingers.

And so… And so what? he wondered. If he couldn’t stand the idea, the only thing he could do was break off with Velona. The king would still keep him around, as a soldier, as an unarmed – combat instructor, and maybe in the hope that he could teach the Lenelli to make firearms. They wouldn’t turn out Schmeissers any time in the next few hundred years. If he could make black powder, though, they might manage cannons and matchlock muskets. And cannons ought to be plenty to win him a field marshal’s baton, or whatever they used here instead of one.

So he could make his way here without Velona if he wanted to. He thought so, anyhow. But did he want to? If he did, he figured he needed to check his brain for working parts. If she had to do what a goddess had to do, he figured he could live through it.

“It’ll be all right,” he told himself.

“What?” Velona asked, and he realized he’d spoken not only out loud but in German.

“All good,” he said in Lenello, and hoped he meant it.

The master-at-arms at Castle Drammen was a fellow named Orosei. He wasn’t particularly big for a Lenello – only a couple of centimeters taller than Hasso – but he was in perfect shape. As they faced each other in the courtyard, stripped to the waist, the German could see as much. He wasn’t bad himself, but Orosei had not a gram of fat and muscles like steel bands.

Soldiers watched the faceoff. Hasso was starting to understand bits of Lenello. They figured he was crazy – nobody in his right mind messed with Orosei. Eyeing his opponent, Hasso thought they had a point.

He’d done this at Castle Svarag, but Orosei looked like a much rougher customer than Sholseth or his buddies. This guy didn’t just have muscle. He had technique, too. Hasso could see that at a glance.

“So you know tricks, do you?” Orosei said. His gaze went here, there, everywhere. He wouldn’t give himself away by eyeing his target before he went after it.

Hasso shrugged. “Maybe a few.”

“Well, let’s get on with it,” Orosei said. “Nothing personal, you understand.” I make my living squashing people. You’re just another one.

“Nothing personal,” Hasso agreed. If I can beat you, I look like a big deal. You’re in the way – like Poland.

They circled warily. Hasso took it on faith that Orosei was good. The master-at-arms didn’t seem inclined to take chances on anybody. Once things started happening, fights could – often did – end in seconds. Someone would make a mistake or just move an instant slower than he should have, and that would be that.

“Did you come here to fight or to dance?” Orosei asked. In the middle of the question, without warning or even raising his voice, he sprang.

The next few seconds were one of those frantic flurries that happened when two pros went at each other without any rules. One of Orosei’s boots thudded into Hasso’s chest – not quite in his solar plexus and not quite hard enough to break ribs. The Lenello’s thumb didn’t quite take out Hasso’s left eye, either – and Hasso didn’t think he quite broke it when he bent it back. He got in some licks of his own, too.