After the Downfall

Orosei winked at him. Maybe the master-at-arms thought he’d made the mistake on purpose. Or maybe Orosei thought he’d said the right thing, even if his grammar was bad. He could hope so, anyhow.

By the way Bottero’s eyes lit up, Hasso had said the right thing. “I am going to win,” the king boomed. “The kingdom is going to win. We will drive the Grenye before us like chaff on the breeze.” But that seemed to remind him of something else. “You got silly about some Grenye wench not long ago, didn’t you, Hasso Pemsel?”

Except for Velona, the Lenelli mostly used his full name when they weren’t happy with him, the way a parent might have. Hearing it used that way put his back up. “Silly? I don’t think so, your Majesty. Does Aderno treat a horse or a dog bad on purpose? Not likely. Why treat a Grenye bad on purpose, then? Just make trouble with no need. Plenty of trouble already, yes? Why make more if you don’t have to?”

“This will help our folk,” Bottero said in that-settles-it tones.

Marshal Lugo was no fool – or, at least, was not the kind of fool who made a bad courtier. “Yes, your Majesty,” he intoned. If his tone suggested he would sooner go on the rack than do anything Hasso proposed … well, how could you prove that? You couldn’t, and Hasso knew it too bloody well.

If King Bottero found anything wrong with the way his marshal agreed, he didn’t let on. He made a fist and slammed it into his other hand. “We march against Bucovin,” he declared, and that was that. The Fuhrer could have been no more decisive.

As Bottero’s realm readied itself for war, Hasso found himself wondering whether the king might not be too decisive. It struck him as late in the year to start a major campaign. Germany had moved against the Ivans on 22 June after delaying six weeks to squash Yugoslavia and Greece. That delay probably kept the Wehrmacht from taking Moscow. And 22 June was right at the summer solstice. They were well past it here; Hasso grimaced when he remembered how they’d celebrated it.

So much he didn’t know about the way things worked here. How big exactly was Bucovin? Bottero’s maps had no reliable scale of distances. And how bad were the local winters? Hasso had no idea. He’d never been through one.

He could find out. Velona’s eyes got wide when he asked whether rivers or lakes froze over. “No,” she said. “Farther north, maybe, but not around here. Do they do that where you come from?”

“Sometimes.” Too damned often, in Russia, Hasso thought. Then he asked, “Does it snow here?” Only trouble was, he didn’t know how to say snow in Lenello. The question came out as, “Does ice fall from the sky?” He used fluttering fingers to show snowflakes dancing on the breeze.

Velona laughed after she understood what he meant. “Oh, yes,” she said, and taught him the words he needed to ask the question the right way. She kissed him when he showed he remembered them and could pronounce them. If he’d got rewards like that in school, he figured he would have grown up to be a genius.

“How often does it snow in the winter?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” Velona said with an enchanting shrug. Don’t get too distracted, Hasso reminded himself. She went on, “It snows every winter – sometimes more, sometimes less.”

“You make war in the wintertime?” Hasso persisted.

“Not so much as in the summer, but we do,” Velona answered. “We aren’t peasants, the way the Grenye are. Fighting in the winter is harder for them. It takes them away from their farms.”

Maybe there was method in Bottero’s madness after all, then. Hasso could hope so, anyhow. “Your harvests the past few years are good?” he asked.

“Good enough.” Velona started laughing again, this time at him. “Good heavens, darling, are you going to count every ear of wheat in the granary and every arrow in every horse-archer’s quiver?”

“Someone should,” Hasso said stubbornly. Man for man, panzer for panzer, the Wehrmacht was better than the Red Army. Everybody knew that, even the Ivans. But when they could mass five times the men, eight times the panzers, twenty times the guns, quantity took on a quality of its own. Bucovin wouldn’t have that big an edge – or he hoped it wouldn’t. Even so … “Lots of Grenye.”

“Too many. That’s why we’re going to war.” It all seemed simple to Velona. “The goddess wants us to rule them.”

“She tells you that?” In Hasso’s world, the question would have floated on a sea of sarcasm. Not here. He’d seen enough to make him shove sarcasm aside. If Velona told him the goddess possessed her now and then, he couldn’t very well argue. He had no better name for what happened.

Velona nodded now. “She wouldn’t have led us here if she didn’t.”