Rulers of the Darkness

The oil merchants found several interesting reasons. Those reasons clinked in the constables' belt pouches as they went back to walking their beat. Oraste reached out and hit Bembo in the belly- not much of a punch, but the flesh gave a good deal under his fist. "You're soft," he remarked. "Soft in more ways than one."

"You just want to smash everything flat," Bembo answered. "They're oil merchants. They greased our palms. That's what they're for, right?"

"Funny," Oraste said. "Funny like a man with a wooden leg."

Bembo sent him an injured look. "When we get back to Tricarico, we'll be rich, or close to it, anyway. It's not like we've got a lot to spend our money on here. The wine and the spirits are cheap, and nobody wants to go to the brothel every night."

"Speak for yourself," Oraste said- like any Algarvian, he was vain about his manhood. "The whores here aren't as expensive as they are back home." His lip curled. "Of course, they aren't as pretty as they are back home, either."

Oh, I don't know. Bembo almost said it, remembering his steamy passage with Doldasai. He was vain about his manhood, too. But then he remembered he couldn't talk about that. Nobody'd grabbed her or her mother and father when the Algarvians raided the Kaunian quarter in Gromheort. From that, Bembo figured the blonds had got and used the sorcery that let them look like Forthwegians and slipped out of the quarter before the raids. Nobody'd ever said anything about their disappearance where he could hear, but some high-ranking officers wouldn't be happy that they weren't enjoying what he'd had once. Keeping his mouth shut came no easier for him than for any other boastful Algarvian, but a keen sense of self-preservation made him do it.

Their remaining time on the beat passed easily enough. When they got back to the constabulary barracks, Bembo pounced on the latest edition of the news sheet. "Ha!" he said. "Here's news of the fighting, or of some fighting, anyway."

"What's it say?" Oraste asked.

"I'll read it." Bembo did, in a deep, artificial, portentous voice: " 'In severe defensive struggles southeast of Durrwangen, Algarvian forces inflicted severe casualties on the foe. Despite heavy bombardment by egg-tossers and fierce attacks from Unkerlanter dragons and behemoths, his Majesty's forces withdrew to already prepared rearward positions, yielding only about a mile of ground and shortening their lines in the process.' " He returned to his normal tones to ask Oraste, "What do you make of that?"

His partner pondered, but not for long. "Sounds like a demon of a lot of dead soldiers to me."

"Ours or theirs?"

"Both," Oraste said.

Bembo gave forth with a theatrical sigh. "I was hoping you'd tell me something different, because that's what it sounds like to me, too."

***

"Where is everyone?" Krasta demanded of Colonel Lurcanio as the carriage pulled up in front of Viscount Valnu's house. She gave her Algarvian lover a peeved look. "Are you sure you got the date right?" She hoped- oh, how she hoped- Lurcanio had got it wrong. If he had, she'd never let him live it down.

But he nodded and pointed through the gloom. "A few carriages are there- do you see?" Even so, his voice was doubtful as he added, "I admit, I expected a good many more."

"Is someone else giving another entertainment?" Krasta asked.

Lurcanio shook his head. In dark night, with no street lamps, Krasta could barely see the motion. He said, "No. I would have heard of that. And if by some chance I did not, you would have."

He was right; Krasta realized as much at once. "We'll just have to find out, then, won't we?" she said as the carriage pulled to a stop. "Where everyone else has gone, I mean."

"Aye. So we will." Now Lurcanio's voice had an edge to it. "Perhaps people have not gone anywhere. Perhaps they have simply chosen not to come."

"Don't be ridiculous." Krasta didn't wait for him to hand her down, but descended from the carriage herself and hurried toward Valnu's house. Over her shoulder, she added, "Why would anybody be as stupid as that?"

Lurcanio caught up with her faster than she might have wanted. "There are times when you can be quite refreshingly naive," he remarked.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said in some annoyance.

"I know. It's part of your charm," Lurcanio answered. Krasta would have snapped at him some more, but he'd already rung the bell. A moment later, the door swung open. One of Valnu's servants let them into the front hall. He closed the door behind them before opening the dark curtains at the end of the hallway that kept light from leaking out.

Krasta blinked at the bright lights the curtains revealed. She also blinked at Viscount Valnu, who stood just beyond the curtains. His tunic and kilt were of cloth-of-gold that caught the lamplight and glittered. She wouldn't have wanted to wear such material herself- too gaudy. But Valnu brought it off, not least by appearing to reject the possibility that he might do anything else.