Darkness Descending

“It’s a dirty business we’re in,” Evodio said. “Maybe even dirtier than soldiering, because soldiers have real enemies who can blaze back in front of’em.”

Bembo stared at him in some surprise. “How come you weren’t crying your head off with him, if you feel like that?”

Evodio shrugged, almost dropping his half of Almonio. “I can take it. I don’t think we’ve got anything to be proud of, though.”

Since Bembo didn’t think the Algarvian constables had anything to be proud of, either, he kept quiet. Between them, they got the sodden Almonio into his cot. One of the constables in a dice game on the floor of the barracks looked up with a grin. “He’s going to be miserable when he wakes up, the poor, sorry son of a whore,” he predicted.

“He was pretty miserable already, or he wouldn’t have gotten this drunk,” Bembo answered.

“Ah, one of those, eh?” the other constable said. “Well, let him spend a while longer in this business and he’ll figure out you’re wasting your time if you get upset over stuff you can’t do anything about.” The next roll of the dice went against him, and he cursed furiously.

With a laugh, Bembo began, “You’re wasting your time if you get upset--”

“Oh, shut up,” the other constable said.

When Bembo stuck his nose outside the barracks the next morning, he shivered. Most of the time, Gromheort wasn’t that much cooler than Tricarico. But the wind that blew out of the southwest today had a nasty chill reminiscent of the broad plains of Unkerlant from which it had come. “Just my luck,” Bembo grumbled as he headed out on patrol. He was always ready to pity himself, since no one else seemed interested in the job.

He took some consolation in seeing that the Forthwegians and Kaunians on the street looked as unhappy and put upon as he felt. Some of them had mufflers wrapped around their necks and heavy cloaks over their tunics or trousers, but more, like Bembo, simply had to make do. When a particularly nasty gust blew in under his kilt, he envied the Kaunians their trousers.

By now, he’d found a number of places whose proprietors were good for a handout. He stopped in at one of them for a mug of tea sweetened with honey. He drank it so fast, it burned his mouth. He didn’t much care. It put some warmth in his belly, too, which was what he’d had in mind.

As he started tramping the pavement again, a wagonful of laborers clattered past, its iron-tired wheels loud on the cobbles. Most of the laborers were Forthwegians, a few Kaunians. The blonds looked even scrawnier and more ragged than the Forthwegians. They didn’t get paid as much for the same work. Bembo’s sympathy was fleeting at best. Those Kaunians could have been a lot worse off, and he knew it.

“Good morning to you, Constable,” one of the laborers called. He was a Forthwegian, but used classical Kaunian--a good thing, too, because Bembo still hadn’t learned more than a handful of words in the Forthwegian language.

After a moment, he recognized the laborer as the fellow who’d helped him find the barracks when he was new to Gromheort and very lost. He didn’t want to speak Kaunian where a lot of people could hear him doing it. He did take off his hat and wave it to the Forthwegian. That seemed to do the job; the black-bearded young man waved a hand in return.

A couple of blocks later, Bembo heard a man and a woman shouting at each other in Forthwegian. Setting a hand on the bludgeon he wore on his belt, he turned a corner and tramped down a muddy alley to find out what was going on. “What’s all this about?” he said loudly, in Algarvian. Whether anybody would understand him was liable to be a different question, but he’d worry about that later.

Sudden silence fell. The man, Bembo saw, was a prosperous-looking Forthwegian, the woman a Kaunian who had strumpet written all over her. Strumpet or not, she turned out to speak Algarvian. Pointing to the man, she said, “He cheated me. I gave him what he wanted, and now he won’t pay.”

“This bitch lies,” the Forthwegian said, also in Algarvian--maybe he’d done business across the border before the war broke out. “I ask you, Officer--do you think I’d want a drab like this?”

“Never can tell,” Bembo said--he’d heard of plenty of rich Algarvians with peculiar tastes, so why not a Forthwegian, too? Turning to the woman, he asked, “What do you say he wanted from you?”

“My mouth,” she answered at once. “I know him--he’s too lazy to screw.”

Ignoring the Forthwegian’s bellow of fury, Bembo glanced at the knees of the Kaunian woman’s trousers. They had fresh mud on them. He hefted the bludgeon. “Pay up,” he told the Forthwegian.

The man cursed and fumed, but reached into his belt pouch and slapped silver into the Kaunian woman’s hand. He stomped off, still muttering under his breath. The Kaunian woman eyed Bembo. “Now I suppose you’ll take half of this--or maybe all of it,” she said.