After the Downfall

Rautat and the other Bucovinans escorting Hasso went back and forth with the guards at the entryway. The Wehrmacht officer understood not a word of what they said. Their language, of course, was no more related to Lenello than Cherokee was to English. He sighed mournfully. Just when he started getting fluent … he had to start over. Yes, some of these people spoke Lenello. Some Russians spoke German, too. That didn’t mean they enjoyed doing it.

Rautat pointed to him and gave a pretty good impression of a Schmeisser going off. He’s the guy – or maybe, He’s the son of a bitch – with the thunderstick. Hasso could guess what the commentary meant, even if he didn’t know words or grammar. The gate guards looked and sounded suitably impressed. Sure, they were natives, but they were also people. He could read their expressions and their tone of voice. And a whole fat lot of good that may do me, too.

“I take you to the palace,” Rautat told him. “The lord will want to talk to you.”

Hasso made himself nod, made himself seem calm. But do I want to talk to him? That would have been funny, if only it were funny. Do I have a choice? He had the choice the native named when capturing him: he could die. He didn’t want to do that. Of course, the Bucovinans hadn’t got to work on him yet, either.

The guards stepped aside, waving Hasso and his escorts around the last kink in the entryway and into Falticeni. Not without pride, Rautat gave a wave of his own. “This is our city,” he said.

At first, it looked a lot like the Grenye districts in Drammen. Streets were narrow and winding and muddy, and they stank. Most of the houses and shops Hasso could see were of wattle and daub, with thatched roofs. Big ones sat next to small ones with no order Hasso could find. None seemed to be more than two stories high.

That meant Hasso could see what had to be the royal palace in the middle of town. As the reconstructed wall aped Lenello fortifications, so the palace imitated Lenello castles. Even the red clay semicylindrical roof tiles copied the ones the Lenelli used. The local lord might have been saying, See? All the modern conveniences. We can do this stuff, too.

Getting there was less than half the fun. Nobody already in the streets wanted to let newcomers by. Scrawny dogs yapped and snarled and made as if to bite the horses’ fetlocks. Scrawny children of all sizes from toddlers on up raced around like maniacs, some wailing, others yelling at the top of their lungs. A few paused to stare at the spectacle of a big blond captive going through their streets. Hasso didn’t think the things they shouted were endearments.

One kid bent to scoop up a handful of mud, or maybe manure, and throw it at him. Hasso ducked. The stuff flew over his head and splatted against a wall across the street. Rautat yelled at the kid. The brat bent over and showed off his bare backside, which was as skinny as the rest of him. Rautat made as if to kick it. He couldn’t come close, not without dismounting. The kid scampered off.

“Thanks,” Hasso said.

“Oh, I didn’t do it for you,” the Bucovinan replied. “I just want to make sure you’re in one piece when I deliver you, so they can get the answers they need.”

You’re nothing to me but an interesting piece of meat. That was daunting. But if Hasso weren’t an interesting piece of meat, Rautat would have slit his throat and gone on to the next one in the pit.

“Well, thanks anyhow,” Hasso said.

Rautat gave him a long look. “You’ve got nerve, anyway,” he said grudgingly.

Hasso shrugged. “Big deal.”

“You talk like a soldier,” the native remarked.

“I am – I was – a soldier before I came here, in a bigger war than this world ever saw,” Hasso answered. “The tools of the trade were different. The life isn’t, not very much.”

Outside a tavern, a drunk in ragged clothes sprawled in the street snoring, a jug clutched tight to his chest. Hasso could have seen – hell, he had seen – the like in any number of Russian villages … and, yes, in some German ones as well. People were people, in his own world or here, Lenelli or Grenye. Rautat scowled at the sot and rode a little faster to get by him. Hasso hid a smile. The native was self-conscious about his folk’s shortcomings, as almost anyone from any folk would have been.

They rode past a brothel, too, with a couple of naked women displaying themselves in second-story windows. Hasso thought they were more likely to catch pneumonia than customers. They gaped at him, for a moment startled out of their cocked-hip, bosom-thrusting poses.

One of them called something to Rautat. He laughed and shook his head. Turning to Hasso, he said, “She wants to know if you’re really big.”