Darkness Descending

Skarnu wondered about that. Where did you draw the line between simply going on with your daily life and collaborating with the redheads? Was a tailor a collaborator if he made the occupiers tunics and kilts? Was the chap who steered a ley-line caravan a collaborator if he took Algarvians around Priekule? Maybe not. But what if he took them in the direction of fighting? What then? Questions were easy, answers less so.

Merkela didn’t care to look so hard. She had her answers. Sometimes Skarnu envied her certainty. Seeing the world in black and white--or redhead and blond--was simple, and required next to no thought. He shrugged. In broad outline, they agreed. He knew who the enemy was, sure enough.

As if to echo that, Raunu said, “This Negyu’s a bad egg, no doubt about it. He tells the Algarvians everything he hears, and everything his wife hears, too.

“And his daughter’s carrying a redhead’s bastard, the little slut,” Merkela added. “And she doesn’t even have the decency to be ashamed. I heard her bragging in the market square at Pavilosta about all the presents her man gives her. I bet she gave him one, too--the clap.” No, she didn’t need to look hard to hate.

“We’ll take care of’em,” Raunu said.

“We ought to make it look as much like an accident as we can,” Skarnu said. Blazing Negyu didn’t bother him. Blazing Negyu’s wife and his pregnant daughter felt different, even if they were as much hand in glove with the Algarvians as Negyu.

“Why?” Merkela shook her head, making her golden hair fly back and forth. “We ought to paint something like DAY AND SUNSHINE on their door to give the redheads something new to think about.”

“If we do, they’ll take hostages and they’ll blaze them,” Skarnu said. That was why her husband Gedominu was no longer among the living.

But she said, “The more hostages they blaze, the more the people will hate them.” Anything that made Valmierans hate the occupiers was fine by her. She looked to Raunu for support, since it didn’t seem forthcoming from her lover.

But the veteran shook his head. “The more hostages they blaze, the more people will fear them, too.” The glare Merkela gave him said he’d betrayed her. Raunu stood up under it without flinching; as a longtime sergeant, he’d stood up under more than his share of sour looks. Seeing that she couldn’t sway him, she flounced off. Raunu glanced at Skarnu and muttered something under his breath. Skarnu could not quite make it out, but thought it was, Better you than me.

Sometimes farm work made the day pass swiftly. Sometimes, the sun seemed nailed to one place in the sky. This was one of those latter days. Skarnu felt he’d been working for a week before he went into a supper of ale and cheese and a porridge of beans and sour cabbage and parsnips. Merkela was a good cook, but not even her skill could make the bland supper very lively.

Once it was done, once she’d washed the bowls and mugs and silverware, she took Gedominu’s hunting stick from its hiding place by the hearth. “Let’s go,” she said.

Skarnu kept their sticks--infantry weapons that blazed heavier beams farther than the one Merkela carried--hidden in the barn. After reclaiming them, they started south down the road toward Negyu’s farm. They were all ready to dive off the road and into the undergrowth to either side at the least hint of trouble. The Algarvians had declared a curfew after the murder of Count Simanu and did sometimes patrol the roads to enforce it.

About halfway to Negyu’s farm, the road passed through a wood of mixed elms and chestnuts. They weren’t in leaf yet, but they would be soon. Out of the darkness came a soft challenge: “King Gainibu!”

“The Column of Victory,” Skarnu replied--not the most original challenge and answer for Valmieran patriots, but easy for them to remember. Getting the right response, four more men stepped out into the roadway. After handclasps, Skarnu said, “Single file down the road. Raunu, you’re the best of us--you walk point. Let’s go do what needs doing.”

They obeyed without argument. To the farmers, Skarnu deserved to be obeyed because he’d been an officer in JQng Gainibu’s army. They assumed he knew what he was doing. Raunu, who’d taught him everything he did know about fighting, understood how ignorant he remained. But he’d given the right order this time, and so the sergeant kept quiet.

The night was crisp, but not so cold as it had been earlier in the winter. It said spring would come, even if not quite yet. Skarnu was warm enough and to spare in the sheepskin jacket that had been Gedominu’s even if that jacket fit him worse than it might have.

As they drew near Negyu’s farm, Raunu halted them. “All I can do is take us straight up the road,” he said. “One of you fellows who’ve lived here forever will know of some little deer track that’ll lead us right to the whoreson’s back door without the Algarvians’ ever being the wiser about how we got there.”