Out of the Darkness

Oberto’s head bobbed up and down, as if on a spring. “Of course I do,” he said. “Any fool can see as much.”

Any fool could have seen as much two years earlier, when the Unkerlanters drove the Algarvians back from Sulingen. Lurcanio bowed again, then backhanded Oberto across the face. The mayor of Carsoli cried out and staggered. “Be thankful I don’t order you blazed on the spot. Get out of my sight. I have a war to fight, whether you’ve noticed it or not.”

“You’re a madman,” Oberto said, bringing a hand up to his cheek.

“I’m a soldier,” Lurcanio answered. In his own mind, he wasn’t so sure the two were different, but he would never have admitted that to the luckless, cowardly mayor of Carsoli. Admitting it to Oberto might have meant admitting it to himself.

Hand still pressed to his face, Oberto staggered away. I wonder if I ought to draft an order of the day reminding the men they are still obliged to do their duty, Lurcanio thought. If they give up, what hope have we? A moment later, he grimaced and kicked at the muddy ground. Even if they don’t give up, what hope have we?

He had been thinking about pulling back through Carsoli if enemy pressure grew too great. Now he resolved to fight in the place till not one brick remained atop another. That’s what you get, Oberto, curse you. You would have done better to keep your mouth shut, but what Algarvian could ever manage that?

In a perfectly foul temper, he stormed off toward the farmhouse where he made what passed for his headquarters. Before he got there, though, another soldier called, “Colonel Lurcanio!”

“What is it?” he snarled.

“Er--” As the sergeant had done, this fellow had a civilian in his wake: no, not one civilian, but half a dozen or so. “These . . . people need to speak with you, sir.”

“Oh, they do, do they?” Lurcanio snapped. “What in blazes do they want? And why do I need to say one fornicating word to them?” But then he got a good look at who came behind the soldier, and his fiery temper cooled. “Oh,” he said, and, “Oh,” again. He nodded. “Them. Aye, I’ll talk to them.”

The four men and two women who came up to Lurcanio wore tunics and kilts in the Algarvian style, but they were blonds, their hair soaked and falling down stringily over their faces. “You have to help us, Colonel!” the tallest man exclaimed, his Algarvian fluent enough but accented with the more guttural consonants and flat vowels of Valmieran. “By the powers above, you have to!”

Lurcanio had known him well enough back in Priekule. “I have to, eh? And why is that, Smetnu?” For a refugee without a kingdom to give him orders really was a bit much.

Smetnu had an answer for him, though: “I’ll tell you why. Because I spent four years--more than four years--helping you, that’s why. Didn’t my news sheets sing King Mezentio’s song all over Valmiera?”

“And my broadsheets!” another man added.

“And my plays,” said a third.

“And our acting,” one of the women and the fourth man said together.

The other woman, whose name was Sigulda and who was either married or at least thoroughly attached to Smetnu, said, “If you don’t help us, they’ll catch up with us. And if they catch up with us . . .” She drew a thumb across her throat. Her nails were painted red as blood, which added to the effect of the gesture.

And the Valmierans were right. That was all there was to it. Lurcanio bowed. “Very well, my friends. I will do what I can. But I can do, perhaps, less than you think. You will have noticed, Algarve is falling deeper into ruin and disaster with each passing day.”

They nodded. Their own kingdom--the Algarvian version of Valmiera they’d promoted and upheld--had already fallen into ruin. And now that Algarve was breaking under hammer blows from west and east, few of Mezentio’s subjects could spare them any time or aid or effort. If anything, they were an embarrassment, a reminder of what might have been. They were, in spite of everything, Kaunians, and somehow not quite welcome even to watch Algarve’s death throes. The destruction of a great kingdom was, or at least should have been, a private affair.

Unlike most of his countrymen, Lurcanio did feel a certain obligation toward them. He’d worked with them for a long time. Baldu, the playwright, had done some splendid work during the occupation. His dramas deserved to live-- unless the Valmierans flung them all into the fire because he’d written them under Algarvian auspices and because some of his characters (not all, by any means) had friendly things to say about the men who’d occupied his kingdom.

Bowing again, Lurcanio asked, “Where would you go?”