Darkness Descending

They separated almost at once, as if each found the other burning hot. To be seen embracing was to court danger from Algarvians, Forthwegians, and likely Kaunians as well. But the memory of Vanai pressed against him warmed Ealstan better--deeper--than his long, heavy tunic and the wool cloak he wore over it.

“What are you doing here?” Vanai demanded. She spoke Forthwegian as readily as Kaunian; Ealstan could use Kaunian, but only more slowly. She held a green glass bottle in her hand. Ealstan had an identical bottle of willow-bark decoction up in his room. It might have helped fight fever from the grippe; he couldn’t tell that it did any good against a headache.

In a few terse sentences, he explained what he was doing in Oyngestun, finishing, “After Sidroc wouldn’t wake up, I knew I had to get out of Gromheort. There was only one place I wanted to come, and here I am.”

Vanai flushed; with her fair skin, far paler than Ealstan’s, the progress of the blush was easy--and fascinating--to watch. She knew why he wanted to come to Oyngestun. “But what will you do now?” she asked. “You can’t have a lot of money.”

“More than you think,” he answered. “But I’ve been doing odd jobs, too: anything I can to get my hands on some extra cash so I don’t go through what I’ve got so fast.” As a bookkeeper’s son, he understood he needed income to balance his expenses.

“All right. Good.” Vanai nodded; she had a briskly practical streak. Then she repeated the question she’d asked before: “What will you do now?”

Ealstan knew what he wanted to do. Holding Vanai would have put the thought in his mind had it not been there already. But that wasn’t what she meant. And he’d had time to think, pacing along the Street of Tinkers. He said, “If you want, we could go to Eoforwic together. From all I’ve heard, there are more mixed couples there than in the rest of Forthweg put together.”

Vanai flushed again. “Maybe there were, back before the war--in fact, I know there were, back before the war,” she said. “But now, under the Algarvians... Do you want to put yourself through that?”

“Why else would I have come to Oyngestun?” Ealstan asked. Vanai murmured something too low to hear and looked down at her shoes. Ealstan said, “You aren’t talking about your grandfather, the way you always did before.”

“No, I’m not talking about my grandfather,” Vanai agreed wearily. “I think I may have said everything there is to say about him, and done everything there was to do for him. And he’s certainly said everything there was to say about me.” Her jaw set. Ealstan thought she was a year or so older than he. Suddenly, she looked a good deal older than that and harder than he’d dreamt she could.

He started to ask what her grandfather had said about her. A second glance at her face convinced him that wouldn’t be a good idea. Instead, he said, “Will you come with me?”

Her laugh had a raw edge to it. “This is only the fourth time we’ve ever set eyes on each other. We haven’t spent more than a few hours together, and we’ve sent a few letters back and forth. And because of that, you want me to leave behind everything and everybody I’ve ever known and go off with you to a place neither one of us has ever seen?”

Dull embarrassment filled Ealstan. He’d let his hopes run away with him. Life as you lived it wasn’t really much like what it was once the writers of romances got through with it. Kicking at the cobbles once more, he began, “Well, I--”

“Of course I’ll come with you,” Vanai broke in. “By the powers above--the powers above who are deaf and blind to everything we Kaunians have suffered--how could whatever happens to me there be worse than what’s happened to me here?”

He knew he didn’t know everything that had happened to her here in Oyngestun. Once more, he realized asking wouldn’t be smart. In any case, joy and astonishment left him little room to worry about such things. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you,” he said. “Not ever.”

To his astonishment, her face worked. She bit her lip, plainly fighting back tears. “Nobody but you has ever said anything like that to me,” she whispered.

“No?” Ealstan shook his head in bewilderment. “A lot of people have wasted a lot of chances, then.” He saw he’d flustered her again. Since he didn’t want that, he asked, “Will your grandfather be all right if you leave him alone?”

“I hope so. In spite of everything, I hope so,” Vanai answered. “But the redheads are as likely to scoop me up on the way to Eoforwic as they are to grab him here. I can’t do anything about that. I managed to keep him from going out and having to work himself to death on the road, but those days are gone now.”

“How did you stop the Algarvians from sending him out to do road work?” Ealstan asked.

“I managed,” Vanai repeated, and said no more. Her face went hard and closed again. None of the pictures that flooded into Ealstan’s mind was any he wanted to see. He asked no more questions, which seemed to relieve Vanai.