Darkness Descending

As soon as Traku spoke the final word of command, the thread he’d laid on the left side of the tunic writhed as if alive, then stitched itself through the fabric, duplicating his careful sewing on the right side. He watched anxiously, trusting even long-familiar magic less than his needlework. But everything turned out as it should have.

“That’s a nice piece of work, Father,” Talsu said, setting the oil and the garlic on the counter by the newly finished tunic.

“Aye, it is, if I say so myself,” Traku agreed. “Cursed pity I’m wasting it on the redheads.” Talsu grimaced and had to nod.

Eoforwic was like no place Vanai had ever known. Of course, she hadn’t known many places in her young life: only Oyngestun and a few visits to Gromheort. She’d thought Gromheort a great city. Next to Oyngestun, it surely was. But measured against the capital of Forthweg--the former capital of former Forthweg, she thought--Gromheort sank down to what it was: a provincial town like two dozen others in the kingdom.

Gromheort had at its heart the local count’s palace. Eoforwic had at its heart the royal palace. The palace was badly battered. Forthwegian soldiers had defended it against invading Unkerlanters, and then, less than two years later, the Unkerlanters had defended it against invading Algarvians. Even battered, though, it was far larger, far grander, and far more elegant than the count of Gromheort’s residence. And the rest of Eoforwic was in proportion to its heart.

“Aye, it’s a big place,” Ealstan said one morning, doing his resolute best not to show how impressed he was. “More chances for us not to get noticed.” His wave took in the cramped little flat they were sharing. “Like this, for instance.”

Vanai nodded. “Aye. Like this.” After the comfortable house in which she’d lived with her grandfather, the flat, in a rundown part of town, seemed especially small and especially dingy.

But living with Ealstan rather than Brivibas made a lot of difference. Her grandfather had neither known nor much cared about what she was thinking. Ealstan, by contrast, thought along with her: “I know it’s not much. I’m used to better, too. But nobody who’s not really looking hard for us would ever find us here. And the company’s good.”

She went around the rickety kitchen table and gave him a hug. After serving as an Algarvian officer’s plaything, she’d thought she would never want another man to touch her, let alone that she would want to touch a man herself. Finding she’d been wrong was a wonder and a delight.

Ealstan pulled her down onto his lap--which made his chair, as decrepit as the table, creak--and kissed her. Then he let her go, something Major Spinello hadn’t been in the habit of doing. “I’m off,” he said matter-of-factly. “The last fellow I worked for has a friend who’s also glad to find a bookkeeper who can count past ten without taking off his shoes.”

“He couldn’t possibly pay you what you’re worth,” Vanai said. This time, she kissed him. Why not? The door was closed, the window shuttered against late-winter chill. No one would know. No one would care.

“He’ll pay me enough to keep us eating a while longer and keep a roof over our heads,” Ealstan answered with a bleak pragmatism she found very appealing. He headed out the door as if he’d been going off to work every day for the past twenty years.

Vanai washed the breakfast dishes. She’d been doing that ever since she was able to handle plates without dropping them; her grandfather, while a splendid historical scholar, was not made for the real world. Then she went back into the bedroom and sprawled across the bed she and Ealstan shared at night.

Looking at the bare, roughly plastered wall only a couple of feet from her face made her sigh. She missed the books she’d left behind in Oyngestun. Until she met Ealstan, books were almost the only friends she’d had. She missed the books more than she missed Brivibas. That should have shamed her, but it didn’t. Her grandfather had been perfectly hateful toward her since she started giving herself to the Algarvian to get him out of the labor gang.

The only book in the flat was a cheap, badly printed volume the previous tenant had forgotten when he moved out. At the moment, it lay on the nightstand. Vanai picked it up, sighed, and shook her head. It was a Forthwegian translation of an Algarvian historical romance called The Wicked Empire Aflame.

Because it was the only book she had, she’d read it. It was laughably bad in any number of different ways. She had trouble deciding whether it took liberties with history or simply ignored it. All the Algarvian mercenaries were virile heroes. The men of the Kaunian Empire were cowards and villains. Their wives and daughters fairly panted to find out what the Algarvians had under their kilts--and find out they did, in great detail.