Into The Darkness

"So many of the superior class do not even try to come up to such use of standards," Krasta said. "And so many of the lower order these days are eject so grasping and vulgar and rude, they require lessons in the art of dealing with their better." She explained how she had dealt with the clerk in the Krasta's clothier's establishment. aValnu's delighted gnin displayed very white, even teeth and made him almost look more like a skull than ever, save only for the glow of admiration in e fire his bright blue eyes. "That is excellent," he said. "Excellent! You could [..]"

"Will hardly have done better without running her through, and, had you done that, she would not have long appreciated what you'd taught her." [..course steered r hand. o good ... I t seen rother irclight es, they ce. His wn, he ture of ows so esperate rice...] Valnu [..].

"I suppose not," Krasta agreed regretfully, "though that might have left a stronger impression on the rest of the vulgar herd."

Valnu clicked his tongue between his teeth several times, shaking his head all the while. "People would talk, my dear. People would talk. And now" - he sipped his porter - "shall we talk?"

Talk he and Krasta did: who was sleeping with whom, who was feuding with whom (two topics often intimately related), whose family was older than whose, who had been caught out while trying to make his family seem older than it was. That was meat and drink to Krasta. She leaned across the small table toward Valnu, so intent and interested that she hardly noticed the waiter bringing them their luncheons.

Valnu did not at once attack his sausage and sour cabbage, either. In a sorrowful voice, he said, "And, I hear, Duke Kestu lost his only son and heir in Algarve the other day. When I think of how the Six Years' War cut down so many noble stems, when I think of how likely this war is to do the same… I fear for the future of our kind, milady."

"There will always be a nobility." Krasta spoke with automatic confidence, as if she had said, There will always be a sunrise in the morning. But her farrudy's male line depended on her brother. And Skarmi was fighting in Algarve, and he had no heir. She did not care to think about that. To keep from thinking about it, she took a long pull from her flagon of ale and began to eat the trout and nice on the plate before her.

"I hope everything goes as well as it can for you and yours, milady," Valnu said quietly. Krasta wished he had not said anything at all. If he had to say something, that was more kindly and less worrisome than most of the other things she could think of.

He dug into the pungent cabbage and sausage - peasant fare indeed and made them disappear at an astonishing rate. However emaciated he appeared, it was not due to any failure of appetite.

Nor, very plainly, was anything wrong with any of his other appetites, either. As Krasta ate, she was startled - but, given some of the things she'd heard about Valnu, not surprised - when, under the table, his hand came down on her leg, well above the knee. She brushed it away as she might have brushed away a crawling insect. "My lord viscount, as you yourself said, people would talk."

His answering simile was hard and bright and predatory. "Of course they would, my dear. They always do." The hand returned. "Shall we, then, give them something interesting to talk about?"

She considered, letting his hand linger and even stray upwards while she did. He was well-born, and was attractive in a bony way. While he would certainly be unfaithful, he would never pretend to be anything else. In the end, though, she shook her head and took his hand away again. "Not this afternoon. Too many shops I haven't yet visited."

"Thrown over for shops! For shops!" Valnu clapped both hands over his heart, as if pierced by a beam from a stick. Then, in an instant, he went from melodrama to pragmatism: "Well, better that than being thrown over for another lover."

Krasta laughed. She almost changed her mind. But she still had gold in her handbag, and plenty of shops along the Avenue of Equestrians she hadn't seen. She paid for her luncheon and left the Bronze Woodcock.

Valnu blew her a kiss.

Skarmi stared in grim dismay at the line of fortresses ahead. Having seen them, the VaIrmieran captain no longer wondered why his superiors hesitated before hurling their army at those works. The Algarvians had lavished both ingenuity and gold on them. Whoever tried to smash them down, whoever tried to break through them, would pay dearly.

"Come away, Captain," Sergeant Raunu urged. "Like as not, the stinking Algarvians'll put a hole through anybody who takes too long a look."

"Like as not, you're night," Skarmi said, and ducked back down into the barley that helped shield him from unfriendly eyes - and, east of where he crouched, there were no eyes of any other sort. East of where he crouched, too, were very few places to hide. Whatever else might happen to it, the Algarvians' defensive line would not fall to surprise attack.