Rulers of the Darkness

Ealstan shook his head. He separated the silver into two gleaming piles. Pointing to the smaller one, he said, "This is what he pays me for being good." Then he pointed to the bigger one. "And this is what he paid me for… powers above only know what."

"For being good at what you do," Vanai repeated, showing more faith in him than he had in himself. "If you weren't good, you wouldn't have seen what you saw, and you wouldn't have got this."

Her logic was as good as a geometry master's- up to a point. Ealstan said, "I still don't know what in blazes I saw. And he's not paying me because I saw it. He'd be pushing hard after whoever was stealing from him if that were so. No. He's paying me-" He broke off. When he spoke again, it was with sudden new certainty: "He's paying me to keep my mouth shut, that's what he's doing. It can't be anything else."

"Keep your mouth shut about what?" Vanai asked.

"About seeing this- whatever it is," Ealstan answered. "He was surprised when I did. His last bookkeeper hadn't. I'm sure of that. He's bribing me, the same way he's bribing the Algarvians."

Vanai found the next question: "Are you going to let him bribe you?"

"I don't know." Ealstan scratched his head. "If he's hiring robbers or murderers with that missing money, then I don't want anything to do with him, either. If he's got a lady friend somewhere, that's his wife's worry. But if he's doing something to the redheads with the money… If he's doing something like that, by the powers above, the only thing I'd want to do was join him."

He wondered how he could tell Pybba that. He wondered if he ought to tell Pybba that. He couldn't prove the pottery magnate wasn't working for the Algarvians. Plenty of Forthwegians were. And Ealstan, with a Kaunian wife- and with a baby on the way- had even more to lose from a wrong guess than most of his countrymen would have.

With a regretful sigh, he said, "I don't dare try to find out. Too many bad things could happen."

"You're probably right." But Vanai sighed, too. "I wish you had the chance."

"So do I." Ealstan plucked a hair from his beard, looked at it, and let it fall to the floor. "If I ever find out where that money's going- find out for sure, I mean, not just that it's going missing somewhere- then I'll know what to do."

But Pybba had no intention of making that easy for him. When Ealstan came into the office the next day, his employer said, "Remember why you got your extra silver. No more snooping around, or you'll be sorry."

"I remember," Ealstan assured him.

That wasn't the same as promising he wouldn't snoop anymore. Most people wouldn't have noticed. Pybba did. "No getting cute with me, either, or your arse'll be out on the sidewalk before you've got time to fart. Do you understand me? Do you believe me? I won't just give you the boot, either. I'll blacken your name all over town. Don't you even think about doubting me."

"I wouldn't," Ealstan answered, thinking of nothing else.

***

Like most educated folk in the eastern regions of Derlavai and the islands lying near the mainland, the Kuusaman physician spoke classical Kaunian along with her own language. Nodding to Fernao, she said, "You will have to strengthen that leg a good deal more, you know."

The Lagoan mage looked down at the limb in question. It was only about half as thick as its mate. "Really?" he said in pretty convincing astonishment. "And here I was planning a fifty-mile hike tomorrow morning. What shall I do now?"

For a moment, the physician took him seriously. Then she exhaled in loud exasperation. "People who cannot take even their own health seriously do not deserve to keep it," she said.

Fernao said, "I'm sorry," in Kuusaman. That mollified the physician, who smiled at him instead of wearing that severe frown. He went on his way with nothing but a cane to help him walk. I'll probably limp all my days, he thought as he walked toward the dining room of the isolated hostel in the Naantali district. I'll probably limp, but I'll be able to walk.

Pekka was already in there, sitting alone at a table drinking a mug of ale. A couple of secondary sorcerers sat at another table, arguing about the best way to focus a spell at a distance from where it was cast. Not so long before, Fernao wouldn't have known what they were talking about. His Kuusaman got a little better every day.

Seeing him, Pekka set down the mug and clapped her hands together. "You really are making progress," she said in her own language. And, because he was making progress in that, too, he understood her.

With a nod, he said, "Aye, a bit," also in her tongue. He lifted the cane into the air and stood on his own two feet and nothing else for a few heartbeats. Pekka clapped again. Reveling in his Kuusaman, Fernao asked, "May I join you?"

That was what he thought he asked, anyhow. Pekka giggled. Switching to classical Kaunian, she said, "Several words in Kuusaman may be translated as to join. You might be wiser not to use that one to a woman married to another man."