After the Downfall

“Sorry,” Hasso said. Maybe ninety seconds after meeting a goddess, he’d started screwing her brains out. Plainly, the Bucovinans did things differently. Hasso bowed to Drepteaza again, this time in apology. He told her, “Sorry,” too, and hoped she believed he was sincere.

“I suppose you meant no harm,” she said, but Murmansk winter still chilled her voice. “To be sorry in our language is intristare!’ She waited as she had before. He said the word. She corrected him. He tried again. The s was a long hiss, the r closer to a French than a German one, but not quite like that, either. She corrected him once more. At least she didn’t expect him to get it right away. He gave it another try. She nodded, satisfied at last.

“How do you say, ‘I am sorry’?” he asked.

She told him. Before he could try it, she added, “That is how a man says it. The form for a woman is – ” Hasso winced, and hoped it didn’t show. Somebody’d told him Polish had masculine and feminine verb forms. To him, that proved it wasn’t a civilized language. Oh, well, he thought.

He repeated the masculine form, as well as he remembered it. This time, Drepteaza nodded right away. Hasso felt absurdly pleased with himself, as if he were a dog that had won a scrap of meat for a trick.

Then the guard said, “You better learn that one. You need it a lot, you – ” He said something in Bucovinan that the priestess didn’t translate. Hasso doubted it was an endearment.

She taught him a few more words. He asked, “May I have pen and parchment, please, to write them down?”

She raised a dark eyebrow. “The Lenelli taught you their letters?”

“Yes. But I have my own letters before. I probably use those. I am more used to them.”

“Your own letters,” Drepteaza murmured. “I had not thought of that. But you are supposed to know all sorts of curious things, aren’t you? Yes, you may have parchment and pen and ink. I don’t think you can use them to get away.”

“Neither do I,” Hasso said. “I wish I did.”

The guard who spoke Lenello chuckled. Drepteaza didn’t. She was a hard sell. But she did unbend enough to speak to the guards in Bucovinan. One of them touched a bent forefinger to his forehead. The salute wasn’t in the least military, but was respectful. The guard hurried away.

He came back a few minutes later with writing supplies. Drepteaza taught Hasso their names in her language. He wrote them down. Drepteaza looked at the way he did it. “That is not Lenello,” she said. “Is it your script?”

“Ja,” he said absently, and then, “Yes.”

“Is it easier to learn than Lenello?”

He had to think about that. “About the same, I suppose. Lenello has more characters, but that is good and bad. Each sound has its own characters with Lenello. With my writing, you need more than one letter for some sounds.” He showed her some examples: sch and ei and ch. She caught on fast.

“Better to stick with Lenello writing,” she said after some thought of her own. “Then we can still read what the blonds do.”

“That make sense,” Hasso agreed.

“Say the words you know. Write them, too,” Drepteaza told him. She had to remind him of some he’d forgotten. He was just glad she didn’t punish him for forgetting. She said, “Memorize what you know. I will come back. We will go on from there. Do we have a bargain?”

“Do I have a choice?” he asked.

As Rautat had, she said, “There is always a choice.”

“Do I have a choice besides dying right away?”

“If you don’t care to learn our tongue and show us some of what you know, Lord Zgomot will decide you’re more trouble than you’re worth. He’ll probably kill you to make sure you don’t go back to the Lenelli and their goddess.” Was that scorn or fear in Drepteaza’s voice, or maybe both at once? And did she know about him and Velona? He wouldn’t have thought so … till this moment. She resumed: “He may just break your legs so you can’t escape. Is that better or worse?”

“I don’t know. It’s pretty bad,” Hasso said.

“Yes. Learn what I teach you, then. I’ll see you later.” Drepteaza left the cell. So did her guards.

She didn’t say what she would do to him if he didn’t learn, though that warning about Zgomot’s wrath certainly gave him food for thought. But he wanted to have something to do in his cell besides calisthenics. He would have tried to learn even if she told him not to. He smiled crookedly to himself. He might have learned better had she told him not to.

She gave him a couple of days to digest what she’d taught. Or maybe, since she was a priestess, she had enough other things to do that she couldn’t bother with him for a couple of days. That crooked smile came back. What is Hasso, that thou art mindful of him?

She returned not long after breakfast. A growling belly wouldn’t distract him, anyhow. He bowed to her. “Good day,” he said in the best Bucovinan he could command.