Darkness Descending

She did not distract him today. “Let my men think whatever they please,” he said. “You came down here to tell me you had heard . .. certain things. Now you do not seem to want to tell me what these things are. I need to know that.” He waited, looking at her.

Again, Krasta felt herself obeying. Because she was obeying and not doing as she wanted--as she did whenever she was not around Colonel Lurcanio--she gave it to him full in the face: “Is it true that Algarve is taking Kaunians out of Valmiera or Jelgava or ... or wherever”--she’d been shaky in geography, as she’d been shaky in a good many subjects at the academies she’d sometimes (often briefly) graced--“and doing horrible things to them off in barbarous Unkerlant?”

“Oh. That.” Lurcanio gestured dismissively, as if flicking a speck off his tunic. “I thought you were talking about something important, my sweet. No, it is not true that we are taking people out of Valmiera or Jelgava or doing anything to them anywhere. There. Is that plain enough?”

She didn’t notice he hadn’t answered quite all of her questions; had she paid closer attention at one of her academies or unfinished finishing schools, perhaps she might have. But his assertion didn’t lay a fortnight’s rumors to rest at a stroke, either. “Then why do people say you are?” she persisted.

“Why?” Lurcanio sighed. “Have you not seen for yourself that most people--especially most common people--are fools and will repeat anything they hear, as if they were so many trained jackdaws?”

That, aimed at Krasta, was a shrewder stroke. “I certainly have!” she exclaimed. “The commoners who aren’t fools are commonly knaves. Commoners... commonly.” She laughed. She made jokes mostly by accident, and didn’t always recognize them even then. When she did, she felt uncommonly pleased with herself.

Lurcanio laughed, too, more than the feeble wordplay deserved. “There--you see? Out of your own mouth you convict these liars. Have any of your friends disappeared? Have any of your servants disappeared? Have any of their friends disappeared? Of course not. How could we hope to keep such a thing secret if it were so? It would be impossible.”

“Aye, so it would,” Krasta admitted. Had anything truly been going on in Valmiera, the rumors would have been juicier, full of more details. Now that she thought about it, she saw that plain. Still. . . “Why does Kuusamo war on you, then?”

“Why?” Colonel Lurcanio raised an elegantly sardonic eyebrow. “I’ll tell you why, my sweet: because the Seven Princes are jealous of our triumphs, and look for any excuse to tear us down.”

“Ah.” Again, that made sense to Krasta. She’d done the same thing to social rivals and had it done to her. She nodded.

Now Lurcanio’s smile was charming again. He pushed his chair back and away from his desk. The chair was Algarvian military issue; its brass wheels squeaked. “As long as you are here, do you care to give my men something to gossip about?”

This time, his voice held no command. He never tried to force Krasta in such matters: not overtly, anyhow. Had she chosen to walk out the door, he would never have said a word about it. Not least because she was free to refuse, she decided not to. Knowing the other Algarvian officers would be jealous of Lurcanio didn’t hurt, either. She sank to her knees in front of him and flipped up his kilt.

Having eased her mind (and her body; Lurcanio was scrupulous about returning such favors), she went back to her bedchamber to choose a cloak for the day’s journey through the shops of Priekule. Bauska was no help. With her, what people called morning sickness lasted all day long. She was liable to gulp and flee at any moment. If that was what carrying a child meant, Krasta wanted no part of it.

Her driver, also muffled against the chill of approaching winter, took the carriage to the Boulevard of Horsemen. As soon as he handed her down onto the street, he took a flask out of his pocket and swigged from it. That would help keep him warm, or at least make him stop caring he was cold.

Krasta was more intent on what she would do than on what her servitor was doing. The Boulevard of Horsemen, which held Priekule’s finest shops, was not what it had been before the Algarvians came. Far fewer people walked--paraded, really--along its splendid sidewalks. Many who did were redheaded soldiers in kilts. Shopkeepers did good business with them, at any rate; as often as not, packages filled their arms. Krasta’s smile was nasty as she watched a couple of Algarvians emerge from a shop that sold lingerie. Would the silks and lace they’d bought adorn their Valmieran mistresses or go home to keep their wives happy and unsuspecting?

She wished Lurcanio would buy her presents there. If he didn’t, though, the world wouldn’t end. Several earlier lovers already had. The dainties rested in a drawer in her bedchamber, smelling of cedar to hold the moths at bay.