After the Downfall

Aderno was as thrilled about working under Hasso as the Wehrmacht officer figured he would be. Thanks to his translation spell, the wizard didn’t have to pull any punches, either. “If you weren’t sleeping with the goddess, King Bottero never would have given you this post.”

“I know,” Hasso said calmly. That made the wizard’s jaw drop. Still calmly, Hasso went on, “If I hadn’t rescued the goddess, I wouldn’t be sleeping with her. I didn’t see you anywhere around when I did it, either. So why don’t you just shut up?”

“I ought to turn you into a – “ Aderno broke off most abruptly, as any man with a gram of sense would do when somebody aimed a Schmeisser at his belly button. Unlike people from Hasso’s own world, he didn’t know exactly what the weapon would do, but it had killed three Grenye, after all, so he was convinced it would do something dreadful. And he wasn’t wrong, because it would.

“Don’t mess with me,” Hasso told him. “If you really can’t stand this, go talk to the king. He gave you the job. Maybe he’ll take you off it and assign me somebody civilized instead. But if you stay, you’ll do what needs doing, and you’ll do it the right way. What’ll it be?”

Sometimes the Lenelli reminded Hasso of Germany’s Balkan allies – a well-timed show of arrogance would put them in their place … for a while. “I don’t want to bother the king,” Aderno said. “I’ll do what you ask of me.”

“Good.” Hasso hid a smile. He hadn’t even had to threaten to sic Velona on the wizard. “First thing I want to do is talk to that drunk who lives with the Grenye.”

Aderno blinked. “Why?” he squawked, quite humanly surprised.

“Because chances are he knows more about them than any three so-called experts here at the castle,” Hasso answered. “And he’ll know things they’d never think to try and find out.”

By the look on Aderno’s face, he found that none too wonderful. But then he remembered his promise and nodded. “Whatever you want,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll send some soldiers to haul him out of his sty and drag him over here. He’ll likely think we aim to throw him in the dungeon – but the scare will serve him right.”

Hasso shook his head. “No. I don’t want to scare him. I want to win him over. No hauling, no dragging. I’ll go to him.”

“Into the Grenye quarter?” The wizard looked revolted.

Hasso only nodded. “Why not?” he said, and meant it. The Lenelli had fleas and lice, too. The Grenye were grubbier, but it was a difference of degree, not of kind. Before the war, Hasso would have hated how grubby he was himself. But after what he’d been through in the Wehrmacht, it was just one of those things.

Not to Aderno. “They are Grenye,” he said, as if that explained everything. Velona had been just as thrilled about wearing Grenye boots, Hasso remembered. He couldn’t have disgusted an SS man more by suggesting a walk through a ghetto.

He shrugged now. “The more we learn, the better the chance we have when King Bottero moves against Bucovin.” Would Aderno be able to come up with an argument against that? Hasso would have bet the wizard couldn’t, and he would have won his bet.

They plunged into the Grenye quarter that very afternoon. They went on foot; Hasso wanted to be as inconspicuous as he could. That wasn’t very easy. He was fairer than any Grenye, and at least fifteen centimeters taller than most of them. And Aderno, who was both fairer and taller still, walked on tiptoe all the way, as if afraid he would pollute himself if he planted his feet squarely.

Here in their own district, the Grenye were bolder and noisier than at Castle Drammen. There they got very quiet whenever any Lenelli came into sight. Part of that was deference; part, Hasso judged, was fear. Among their own kind, the short, swarthy natives chattered and chaffered, both in the Lenello tongue and in what sounded like two or three of their own languages.

Hasso stopped in front of a plump man who was selling wickerwork baskets. “Where can I find Scanno?” he asked – that was the drunken Lenello’s name.

The Grenye had been crying his wares in the blond men’s tongue. Hearing the question, though, he looked elaborately blank. “What do you say?” he asked.

Patiently, Hasso repeated himself. The basket-seller shrugged a fancy shrug. “I don’t understand you.” He added something in a language that wasn’t Lenello and spread his hands as if in apology.

“He’s lying,” Aderno said from behind Hasso.

“Yes,” Hasso agreed, because the phrase for No kidding didn’t spring to mind.

“I can make him sweat.” Aderno sounded as if he looked forward to it.

“No,” Hasso said; Lenello could make him laconic. He turned back to the Grenye. “By the goddess, no harm to Scanno. Where can I find him?”

“By the goddess?” the man said, watching his eyes.

“By the goddess,” Hasso said again. “Her name is Velona when she dwells in a woman. I know the woman.”