Rulers of the Darkness

"My lady!" he cried when he saw Krasta. He took her in his arms and kissed her on the cheek. "So good to see you here."

"Spare me your embraces," Lurcanio said dryly as Valnu turned to him. Valnu had been known to kiss him on the cheek, too: Valnu was never one who did anything by halves.

"I obey," he said now, and bowed himself almost double. Krasta had to blink again because of the reflections coruscating from his costume. Then he bowed again, as if intent on showing himself to be even more ceremonious than the average Algarvian. Speaking with unwonted seriousness, he went on, "I am in your debt, your Excellency, and I am not ashamed to own it. Were it not for your good offices, I would probably be languishing in some nasty cell."

"I had little to do with it," Lurcanio answered. "Some of your friends" -he put a certain ironic emphasis on the word- "undoubtedly helped you more."

Valnu didn't pretend to misunderstand him. "But you, sir, unlike they, were known to be disinterested."

"Disinterested? No." Lurcanio shook his head. "Uninterested? There I must say aye. A nice show of the difference in meaning between the two words, eh?"

"Your Excellency, you speak my language with a scholar's precision," Valnu said.

"I beg leave to doubt it," Lurcanio replied. But he didn't sound displeased. He took Krasta's arm and led her past their host. Krasta gave Valnu a bright, even a glowing, smile. She kept trying to forget about the trouble in which she'd landed herself for trifling with him and letting him trifle with her. She probably would have succeeded, too, had Lurcanio not found such a fitting way to punish her. Few lessons stuck with her for long, but that one, at least, had left her cautious.

As for Valnu, his long, lean face stayed sober. Maybe he really did think he owed Lurcanio a debt. Or maybe he didn't feel like taking the chance of getting caught again, either.

His cook and his cellarer had set out an elegant and lavish display, as they always did. Krasta hadn't eaten supper. Even so, she hesitated to go over and get anything. The guests already here left her dismayed. Oh, not the Algarvian officers and their Valmieran mistresses: she was used to them. But the few Valmieran nobles who'd come were either of the fierce and brutal sort or else were those who fawned on the Algarvians the most extravagantly.

"Where are all the interesting people?" Krasta murmured to Lurcanio.

Her Algarvian lover had also been surveying the crowd- not that it unduly crowded Valnu's reception hall. Lurcanio sighed. "Fair-weather friends, most of them."

"What do you mean?" Krasta asked.

"What do I mean? I mean that too many of them are wondering about their choices." Lurcanio let out a scornful sniff. "Mark my words, my dear: no one can recover his virginity as easily as that."

He was being obscure again. Krasta hated it when he wouldn't come out and say what he meant. Powers above, she thought. I always say what I mean. But she'd already asked what he meant once. She had too much pride- and too much dread of his sharp tongue- to embarrass herself by asking again.

With another sigh, Colonel Lurcanio said, "We might as well drink. After a while at the bar, things may look better."

"Why, so they may." Krasta had improved plenty of gatherings with enough porter or wine or, for severe cases, wormwood-laced brandy. This festivity, if that was what it was, looked like a severe case. Even so, she started with red wine, reasoning she could always move up to something stronger later on.

Lurcanio raised an eyebrow when she gave the tapman her order. Maybe he'd expected her to drink herself blind in short order. She smiled at him over the top of her goblet. She didn't want to be too predictable. Smiling himself, a little quizzically, Lurcanio asked for red wine, too. "To what shall we drink?" he asked.

That startled Krasta; he usually proposed toasts himself rather than asking her for them. She raised her goblet. "To good company!" she said, and then, under her breath, "May we find some soon." She drank.

With a laugh, so did Lurcanio. Then the laughter slipped from his face. "I think we are about to have company, whether good or otherwise." He bowed to the Valmieran nobleman approaching him. "Good evening sir. I do not believe we have met. I am Lurcanio. I present to you also my companion here, the Marchioness Krasta."

"Right pleased to meet you, Colonel," the Valmieran said in a backwoods dialect. "I'm Viscount Terbatu." He held out his hand. Lurcanio, in Algarvian fashion, clasped his wrist. Except for a brief nod, Terbatu ignored Krasta. That suited her fine. He looked more like a tavern brawler than a viscount: his nose bent sideways, and one of his ears was missing half the lobe. She drank more wine, content to let Lurcanio deal with him.

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, your Excellency," Lurcanio said, polite as a cat. "And what can I do for you?" By his tone, he assumed Terbatu would want him to do something.

"Fight," Terbatu growled.