Darkness Descending

Hajjaj raised an eyebrow. “I hope you will not take it amiss if I tell you that kingdoms may have troubles far worse than the one you name.”

“I did not expect you to understand.” Horthy sipped again at the date wine. “Few if any outside the dominions of Ekrekek Arpad do. The Algarvians sometimes come near to the thing, but even they ...” He shook his big head.

“I believe they, at the moment, face a problem the opposite of yours,” Hajjaj said. Now Horthy’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. Hajjaj explained: “Do you not think Algarve may have undertaken a war beyond her mettle, however great that may be?--and I hasten to add I think it is very great indeed.”

“I mean no offense when I say I believe you are mistaken,” Horthy replied, “and is it not so that you may be speaking too soon? King Mezentio’s armies still move westward.”

“Aye, they do.” Hajjaj let out a sigh far more wintry than even the coolest night in Zuwayza. “But do they move forward by virtue of their mettle or through some other means? Consider the language we use, your Excellency. You spoke before of irony. Do you see no irony here?”

“Ahhh,” Horthy said: a long, slow exhalation. “Now I take your meaning where I did not before. Worse that the Unkerlanters slaughter their own, in my view.”

“We differ,” Hajjaj said politely. As soon as he could do so with propriety, he disengaged himself from the Gyongyosian minister.

“A toast!” Count Balastro called. He had to call several times to gain the attention of all the feasters. When at last he had it, he raised his glass on high. “To the grand and glorious triumph of those united against the vast barbarism that is Unkerlant!”

To refrain from drinking would have made Hajjaj stand out too much. The things I do in the name of diplomacy, he thought as he raised his goblet to his lips. He did not sip now, but tossed back the date wine. It was sweet and potent and mounted to his head. He found himself moving through the crowd toward Balastro.

“How now, your Excellency?” the Algarvian minister said with a wide, friendly smile. It faded as he got a good look at Hajjaj’s face. “How now indeed, my friend?” Balastro asked. “What troubles you?”

He was Hajjaj’s friend. That made what the Zuwayzi had to say harder. He spoke anyhow, though in a voice he hoped only Balastro would hear: “Shall we also drink a toast to the vast barbarism that is Algarve?”

Balastro did not pretend to be ignorant of what Hajjaj was talking about. For that, Hajjaj gave him reluctant credit. “We do what we must do to win the war,” Balastro said. “And the Kaunians have long oppressed us. You’ve lived in Algarve; you know that for yourself. Why blame us and not them?”

“When your armies broke into the Marquisate of Rivaroli, which Valmiera took from you--unjustly, in my view--after the Six Years’ War, did your foes massacre the Algarvians there to gain the sorcerous power that might have thrown you back?” Hajjaj asked. He answered his own question: “They did not. And they could have, as you must admit.”

“What they did to us in the years before that was as bad as a massacre,” Balastro said. “For long and long, we fought among ourselves, Kaunian cat’s-paws. Let people wail and moan as they please, your Excellency. I feel not the least bit of guilt.” He threw out his chest and looked fierce.

“I am sorry for you, then,” Hajjaj said sadly, and turned away.

“We grow strong, and you grow strong with us, riding on our backs,” Balastro said. “Are you not ungrateful to complain about the road when you wanted revenge on Unkerlant?”

Hajjaj turned back. That held enough truth to sting. “Who now will want revenge on Algarve, your Excellency, and for what good reasons?” he asked.

Balastro s shrug was a masterpiece of both indifference and Algarvian theatricality. “My dear fellow, it will matter very little once we are the masters of Derlavai. Whoever wants revenge on us will no more be able to have it than a dog howling at the moon can make it come down for him.”

“Surely the lords of the Kaunian Empire, at the height of their glory, thought the same,” Hajjaj replied, and had the doubtful pleasure of seeing Balastro look very indignant indeed.

Cornelu felt no small pride at finally making it down into Tirgoviste town. He even had Giurgiu’s leave to spend an extra couple of days there before returning to the woodcutting gang. He hadn’t had to offer to fight the gang boss again to get it, either. He’d lost their last encounter, but had won a measure of respect.

And so now, bundled up against the icy south wind, he walked along the edge of the harbor. He might look like a rustic in town to sell firewood, but he surveyed the quays with a practiced eye. The Algarvians didn’t have so heavy a naval presence here as Sibiu had, but he wouldn’t have wanted to try breaking into the harbor against what they did have.