Darkness Descending

Now she tried to break the tension: “How can we go to Eoforwic? I don’t think they’ll let us ride together in a caravan car, and I wouldn’t feel safe in one, anyhow. Too easy for the Algarvians to stop the caravan and haul away everybody with yellow hair.”

Ealstan nodded. “I think caravans are dangerous, too. That leaves walking, unless we find someone to give us a wagon ride for part of the way.” He grimaced. “With the two of us, I don’t know how likely that is.”

“Not very,” Vanai said succinctly, and Ealstan nodded again. She went on, “Let me take this to my grandfather and get a heavier cloak and some stouter shoes.” She sighed. “I’ll leave him a note to tell him some of what I’m doing, so he wont think the Algarvians got me. He’ll have some learning to do, but I think he can. He’s not stupid, even if he is a fool. Wait for me here. I’ll be back soon.” She hurried away.

Instead of waiting, he went up to his room and gathered his own meager belongings, then returned to the apothecary’s shop. Good as her word, Vanai came up a few minutes later. She was wearing the heavier cloak, and had a cloth bag slung over her shoulder. “Let’s go,” Ealstan said. Side by side, they started out of Oyngestun, heading east.

As soon as a grove of pale-leaved olive trees hid the village behind them, they began holding hands. They leaped apart when a Forthwegian on a mule came past them, but then resumed. Not long after that, they were kissing. Not too much longer after that, they went off the road into another, thicker grove. It wasn’t perfect privacy, but it was good enough. When they started walking again, they both wore foolish smiles. Ealstan knew he was in trouble, but had a hard time worrying about it. He was, after all, only seventeen.

Thirteen

Priekule was a gray, unhappy town after more than a year and a half of Algarvian occupation. Krasta still frequently left her mansion to visit the shops and cafes in the heart of the city, but what she found there satisfied her less and less often.

The food in the cafes seemed to get nastier every week. Sometimes a mere sniff after she went inside one was enough to send her stalking out again, elegantly straight nose high in the air. Jewelers hardly ever showed anything new. And the clothes. . . She’d occasionally worn kilts back in the days when Valmiera and Algarve were at peace, but only trousers--proper, traditional Kaunian garments--ever since. These days, though, more and more clothiers were showing kilts for both men and women. She knew people who wore them. She couldn’t make herself do it.

After walking out of one such display, she angrily strode along the Boulevard of Horsemen: tall, lean, arrogant. A news-sheet vendor called, “Fierce Algarvian counterattack in Unkerlant! Read all about it!”

Krasta stomped past him. She didn’t care two figs about Unkerlant. Out there in the distant west, it might have been on the far side of the moon as far as she was concerned (the same held true for virtually the entire world outside of Priekule). She did know mild surprise that the Algarvians hadn’t conquered it yet, as they had every other kingdom they’d assailed. But the details of the fighting mattered not at all to her.

A few days farther on, she paused, staring at three words whitewashed onto the window of a confectioner’s shop: NIGHT AND FOG. The shop was closed. It looked to have been closed for some little while. She wondered when, or if, it would open again.

Another vendor, peddling a different news sheet, waved it in her face. Krasta impatiently pushed past him and strode on down the sidewalk. She decided she wished after all that the Algarvians had taken Cottbus. Then the war would have been over, or as near as made no difference. After that, maybe the world could have started coming back to normal.

A couple of Algarvian soldiers, cloaked against the chill of Priekule’s winter, strode up the street toward her. They both leered shamelessly; as far as the occupiers were concerned, any woman was fair game. Krasta stared straight through them, as if they didn’t exist. They doubtless didn’t know she was a noblewoman and wouldn’t have cared had they known--what were the ranks of the conquered to the conquerors?

One of them proved as much: still undressing Krasta with his eyes, he spoke in bad Valmieran: “Sleeping with me, sweetheart?” He reached under his cloak and shook his belt pouch. Coins jingled and clinked.

Krasta’s temper kindled, as it had a way of doing. “Powers below eat you, you son of a whore,” she said, slowly and distinctly--she wanted to make sure he understood. “May it rot. May it fall off. May it never stand again.”

She started by the soldiers. The one who hadn’t spoken grabbed her by the arm--maybe he understood some Valmieran, too. He did; he said, “Not talking like that, bitch.” His trilling accent grated on her ears.

“Take your hands off me,” she told him, ice in her voice.

“I don’t thinking so,” he said with a nasty smile. “You insulting us. You paying for that.”