Out of the Darkness

Elimaki’s house struck Fernao as enormous. In Setubal, the biggest city in the world, people were crowded too close together to let anyone but the very wealthy enjoy so much space. An advantage to provincial towns I hadn’t thought of. “You’ll want something to eat,” Elimaki said, and disappeared into the kitchen. Pekka followed her. That left Fernao alone with Uto.

He didn’t know what to say. He’d never had much to do with children. If I want to stay with Pekka, though, I’ll have to learn. While he searched for words, Uto found some: “Aunt Eli says you’re Mother’s friend, her special friend.”

As gravely as Uto had on meeting him, Fernao nodded. “That’s true.”

“Does that mean you’re my special friend, too?”

“I don’t know,” Fernao said. “It’s not just up to me, you know. It’s up to you, too.”

Pekka’s son pondered that with the care his mother gave a new spell. At last, he nodded. “You’re right. I guess I have to think about it some more.” After another pause, he said, “I know I’m not supposed to ask you much about what you’re doing, but you’re helping Mother find magic to beat the Algarvians, aren’t you?”

Fernao nodded again. “I can’t tell you much about what I’m doing, either, but I can tell you that much. That’s just what I’m doing.”

A fierce light kindled in Uto’s eyes. “In that case, I do want you to be my special friend. I’m still too little to pay them back for Father myself.” However fierce he sounded, he started to cry again. Fernao held out his arms. He didn’t know whether the boy would come to him, but Uto did. Awkwardly, he comforted him.

“Breakfast’s ready,” Elimaki called from the kitchen. Uto bounded away. He still had tears on his cheeks, but he was smiling again. Fernao followed more slowly. As he came into the kitchen, Elimaki saw Uto’s tears. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he answered carelessly, and turned to his mother, who was serving up plates of smoked salmon scrambled with eggs and cream. “I like your friend.”

“Do you?” Pekka said, and Uto gave an emphatic nod. She tousled his hair. “I’m glad.” Pekka looked toward her sister, as if to say, I told you so. Fernao pretended not to notice.

“I like him, too,” Elimaki said, and then tempered that by adding, “More than I expected to,” so Fernao wasn’t sure how much credit he’d earned. Some, anyhow: by the relief in Pekka’s eyes, perhaps even enough.

Vanai, these days, was a better housekeeper than she’d ever been, at least when it came to keeping the floor of her flat clean. She hadn’t really sought such neatness; she’d had it forced on her. Saxburh crawled all over the flat. She could go surprisingly--sometimes alarmingly--fast. If she found anything she thought was interesting, it was liable to end up in her mouth before Vanai could take it away from her. The cleaner the floor was, the fewer the chances she had to eat anything disgusting or dangerous.

Saxburh didn’t appreciate her mother’s vigilance. As far as the baby was concerned, everything she could reach was supposed to go into her mouth. How could she tell what it was if she couldn’t taste it? She fussed and squawked when Vanai took things away from her.

“Fuss all you like,” Vanai told her after one rescue in the nick of time. “You can’t eat a dead cockroach.” By the way the baby wailed, she was liable to be stunted for life if she didn’t get her fair share of dead bugs.

Keeping such things out of her hands and, more to the point, out of her mouth was Vanai’s second-biggest worry. It was the biggest one about which she could do anything. Ealstan was and remained somewhere far away to the east. She wondered if she’d even know if anything--powers above, forbid it!--happened to him. She’d heard not a word since he got dragooned into King Swemmel’s army. If he didn’t come back after the war ended, that would tell her what she needed to know--or it might, for the Unkerlanters could simply have hauled him off to the other end of their vast kingdom.

How would I be able to find out, one way or the other? she wondered. The answer there was painfully obvious: I wouldn’t. She pushed the worry to the back of her mind, as she did whenever she started fretting about what she couldn’t help.

If only Ealstan were here... If Ealstan were here, he would find life in Eoforwic easier than it had been at any time since he and Vanai came to the Forthwegian capital. It had been weeks since Algarvian dragons appeared overhead. Gromheort still held out, but the rest of Forthweg belonged to Unkerlant these days--and, nominally, to King Beornwulf as well.