Darkness Descending

“Home,” he muttered. “Food. Sleep.” As far as he was concerned, nothing else mattered tonight. Sleep loomed largest of all. If he hadn’t known the Algarvian constables were liable to take him for a drunk and beat him up, he could easily have lain down on the sidewalk and fallen asleep there.

He put one foot in front of the other till he made it to his own front door. But even as he knocked, he heard a commotion inside. He came to alertness. Commotion was liable to mean danger for him or his whole family. If, for instance, Sidroc had got his memory back . . .

Someone in there heard his knock and lifted the bar off its brackets. Leofsig worked the latch and opened the door. And there stood Sidroc, a large, uncharacteristic grin spread over his heavy features. “I’ve finally gone and done it,” he declared.

“Well, good for you,” Leofsig answered. “Done what, now? If it’s what it sounds like, I hope she was pretty.”

His cousin guffawed, but then shook his head. “No, not that, though I won’t have any trouble getting that, too, whenever I want it. I’ve gone and signed up for Plegmund’s Brigade, that’s what I’ve done.”

“Oh,” Leofsig said. “No wonder everybody in there is screaming his head off, then. You can hear the racket out here. Powers above, you can probably hear the racket over in the count’s castle.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me one bit,” Sidroc said. “I don’t care. I made up my mind, and I’m going to do it. Powers below eat the Unkerlanters, and the cursed Kaunians, too.”

“But fighting for Algarve?” Leofsig shook his head. He was too tired to argue as hard as he would have at another time. “Let me by, would you? I want to get some wine and I want to get some supper.”

Now Sidroc said, “Oh,” and stood aside. As Leofsig went past him, he continued, “Not so much fighting for Algarve as fighting for me. I want to go do this. I want to go see what the war is all about.”

“That’s only because you haven’t done it,” Leofsig said, remembering the smell of entrails laid open--and remembering the smell of fear, too.

“You sound like my father,” Sidroc said scornfully.

“He hasn’t done it, either, so he doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Leofsig answered, relishing the chance to say that about Uncle Hengist. “But I have, and I do, and I’m telling you you’re crazy, too.”

“You can tell me whatever you want. It doesn’t matter worth a sack of beans because I signed the papers this afternoon,” Sidroc said. “Anybody who doesn’t like it can cursed well lump it.”

Leofsig wanted to lump Sidroc. But he also still wanted supper and sleep. And a house without Sidroc in it was liable to be a more peaceable place. So all he said was, “Have it your way,” and walked down the entry hall and turned left into the kitchen.

His mother and sister were in there. “I heard you talking with him,” Elfryth said in a stage whisper. “Fighting for Mezentio after what the redheads have done to our kingdom! The very idea! Did you persuade him not to?”

“No, Mother,” Leofsig answered, and poured himself some wine. “And do you know what else? I didn’t try very hard.”

“Good.” Conberge didn’t bother holding her voice down. “I won’t be sorry to see him out of this house, and nobody can make me say I will. Having him here has been nothing but trouble. If the Algarvians want him, they’re welcome to him, as far as I’m concerned.”

Sidroc must have gone back into the dining room after letting Leofsig in, for more shouts erupted from there: he and Uncle Hengist were going at each other hammer and tongs. Leofsig cocked his head to one side, wanting to catch some of the choicer names they were throwing back and forth. He almost missed his mother saying, “Here--I had a kettle of hot water over the fire waiting for you. You can wash now.”

Reluctantly, he came back to the real world. “Oh. Thank you,” he said, and hoped he didn’t sound too vague.

Conberge set a basin on the floor for him. She and Elfryth headed out of the kitchen to give him privacy in which to wash. Over her shoulder, Conberge said, “Take the pork stew off the fire if it starts to smell like it’s burning.”

“All right.” Leofsig worked the pump handle in the sink to get cold water to mix with what his mother had heated for him. Then he scrubbed away at the dirt and sweat that clung to him. A washrag and a basin didn’t let him do the job he could have at the baths, but he hadn’t had to go out of his way to get here.

His father came into the kitchen while he was drying off. Leofsig didn’t know whether Hestan had been home for a while or just stepped in. His father quickly made that plain: “You’ll have heard the news, I expect.”

“Oh, aye,” Leofsig answered with a nod. “The whole neighborhood will have heard it by now, except for that old deaf man three doors down.”

Hestan chuckled, then sighed. “That would be funny, if only it were funny, if you know what I mean. Sidroc doesn’t want to listen to anybody, though I wish he would.”