Darkness Descending

“I don’t know,” Skarnu answered. “I’ve never seen anything like that, either.” But, after the caravan had passed, a stench lingered in the cold, crisp air. It put him in mind of the smell of the trenches--unwashed men and undisposed-of waste--but it was stronger and even more sour. “Maybe it’s a prison caravan,” he suggested.

“Maybe.” Merkela looked along the ley line. “If those are prisoners of the Algarvians, I hope they get away.” Skarnu peered after the caravan, too. Slowly, he nodded.

When Ealstan fled Gromheort, he’d though everything would turn out fine after he got to Oyngestun. Vanai lived there, after all. If he hadn’t fallen for her, he wouldn’t have fought with his cousin and had to flee the city. Falling for a Kaunian girl would have been hard enough for a Forthwegian even in peacetime. With the redheads occupying the kingdom ...

Iwonder if I killed Sidroc? Ealstan thought for the hundredth, or maybe the thousandth, time. Sooner or later, he would hear from his family. Leofsig would know where he’d gone. Leofsig or their father would find a way to get in touch with him. Ealstan didn’t dare write back to Gromheort; that would tell the local constables, and maybe the Algarvians, too, where he was staying.

Of course, if Sidroc wasn’t dead and didn’t have his wits scrambled when he hit his head after Ealstan punched him, he would likely know where Ealstan was, too. But if Sidroc wasn’t dead and didn’t have his wits scrambled, he and Uncle Hengist would have gone to the Algarvians because of the fight. That constable coming up the Street of Tinkers might have Ealstan’s name and description. He might take out his stick and threaten Ealstan with death if he didn’t come along quietly.

He did nothing of the sort. He walked past Ealstan without even noticing him. For all he knew, Ealstan’s ancestors might have lived in Oyngestun for generations uncounted. The Forthwegians whose ancestors had lived in the village for generations uncounted knew better, of course. But a stranger here wasn’t such a prodigy as he would have been before war stirred the countryside like a woman stirring soup in a pot above a kitchen hearthfire.

Ealstan walked the Street of Tinkers from one end to the other, as he had every day since coming to Oyngestun. Vanai lived in one of the houses along the street. Ealstan knew that from the letters they’d sent back and forth. But he didn’t know which one. They all looked much alike, presenting only walls--some whitewashed, some painted--and doorways and tiny windows to the street. Most Forthwegian houses were like that: built around a central courtyard, and not showing the outside world whatever ostentation lay within.

He kicked at the cobblestones in frustration. He hadn’t dared ask after Vanai. That might have involved her in his trouble--and it might have got back to the constables or the redheads. Even had he known which house was hers, she shared it with her grandfather. Ealstan had no doubt Brivibas was as appalled at the notion of his daughter’s falling in love with a Forthwegian as most Forthwegians would have been at the idea of one of their kind’s loving a Kaunian.

“Powers above,” Ealstan muttered to himself. “Doesn’t she ever come outside? Doesn’t she even look outside?”

As best he could tell, Vanai didn’t. He couldn’t spend every waking moment pacing up and down the Street of Tinkers, however much he wanted to. That would get him noticed, the last thing he wanted.

“I ought to go away,” he murmured. “I ought to go far away, go someplace where nobody’s ever heard of me, and wait for things to blow over.”

He’d said that before. Logically, intellectually, it made good sense. No matter how much sense it made, he couldn’t do it. Vanai was here . . . somewhere. Of course she drew him now, as a lodestone drew bits of iron.

Shaking his head, he went back to the tavern where he was renting a nasty little chamber above the taproom. The drunken racket below made his nights hideous, but he couldn’t very well complain. The taverner made more from the noisy drunks than he did from Ealstan.

A few doors up the street from the tavern was an apothecary’s shop run by a plump Kaunian named Tamulis. Ealstan had been in there a couple of times, in search of a nostrum to knock down the headaches he got from not sleeping enough. He hadn’t had much luck.

He was just coming up to the apothecary’s door when it opened and someone came out of the shop. He had to step smartly to keep from running into her. “I’m sorry,” he said in Forthwegian. Then he stopped in his tracks, his mouth falling open. “Vanai!”

She hadn’t recognized him, either, not for a moment. Her jaw dropped, too; her blue-gray eyes opened enormously wide. “Ealstan!” she exclaimed, and flung herself into his arms.