Rulers of the Darkness

"I beg your pardon?" Lurcanio said. And then, though he remained a polished gentleman, he showed he was polished steel. Drawing himself a little straighter, he asked, "Do we need to continue this conversation through friends? If so, I shall make every effort to give satisfaction."

By that, even Krasta understood him to mean, I'll kill you. She thought he could do it, too, and without breaking a sweat. Terbatu put her in mind of a bad-tempered hound barking at a viper. He was liable to be dead before he knew it.

But he shook his close-cropped head. "No, no, no. Not fight you, sir- not that at all. Fight for you, I meant. Valmierans fighting for Algarve. I've tried to get your people to let me raise a regiment and go hunting Unkerlanters, but nobody wants to pay any attention to me. Who do I have to kill to make you wake up?"

Lurcanio rocked back on his heels. To Krasta, who knew him well, that showed astonishment. To Terbatu, it might have shown nothing at all. Krasta was astonished, too, and not so good at hiding it as Lurcanio. "You want to fight for the redheads?" she blurted, careless of her lover beside her. How could any man of Kaunian blood want to do that when Mezentio's men were murdering the Kaunians from Forthweg for the sake of their life energy?

Terbatu said, "I'm not wild about the notion of fighting for Algarve." He nodded to Lurcanio. "No offense, your Excellency." Turning back to Krasta, he went on, "But the Unkerlanters, now, the Unkerlanters deserve smashing up. If ever a kingdom was a boil on the arse of mankind, Unkerlant's the one. Bloody big boil, too," he added, looking to Lurcanio again.

"It certainly is," the Algarvian colonel agreed. After a moment, he bowed to Terbatu. "You must understand, sir, that I appreciate the spirit in which you offer yourself and whatever countrymen who might fight under your banner. There are, however, certain practical difficulties of which I doubt you are aware."

You're a Kaunian, and we're already killing Kaunians to fight Unkerlant. That was what Lurcanio meant. Krasta knew it. Again, she had all she could do not to shout it at the top of her lungs.

And then Terbatu said, "Wouldn't you sooner have live men fighting on your side than dead ones, Colonel?"

Krasta stared at him. So did Lurcanio. After a long, long pause, Lurcanio said, "I have no idea what you are talking about, my lord Viscount."

The backwoods noble started to get angry. Then, grudgingly, he checked himself and nodded. "I suppose I see why you have to say such things, your Excellency. But we're men of the world, eh, you and I?"

Lurcanio certainly was. He didn't look as if he wanted to admit any such thing about Terbatu. Krasta didn't blame him there. He let another pause stretch longer than it should have, then said, "In any case, your Excellency, I am not the man to hear such proposals. You must put them to Grand Duke Ivone, my sovereign's military governor for Valmiera. If you will excuse me-" Rather pointedly, he took Krasta by the elbow and steered her away.

He also left Valnu's mansion earlier than he might have. "I trust you enjoyed yourself, your Excellency, milady?" Valnu said.

Krasta was willing to keep silent for politeness' sake. Lurcanio said, "I am glad to find you such a trusting soul." Once out of the mansion and into his carriage, he asked Krasta, "Do you know what that Terbatu fellow was talking about back there?"

Cautiously- ever so cautiously- she answered, "I think a lot of people have heard things. Nobody knows how much to believe." The first sentence was true, the second anything but: she, at least, knew exactly how much to believe.

"A good working rule," Lurcanio said, "is to believe as little as one possibly can." Krasta laughed a nervous laugh, but he was plainly serious. And if a crack like that didn't mark him as a man of the world, what would?

***

King Shazli of Zuwayza leaned toward his foreign minister. "The question, I gather, is no longer whether Algarve can go forward against Unkerlant, but whether she can keep Unkerlant from going forward against her."

"No, your Majesty." Hajjaj solemnly shook his head.

"No?" Shazli frowned. "This is what I have understood from everything you and General Ikhshid have been telling me. Am I mistaken?"

"I'm afraid you are, your Majesty." Hajjaj wondered how he would have been able to say such a thing to King Swemmel. Well, no: actually, he didn't wonder. He knew it would have been impossible. As things were, he had no trouble continuing, "Unkerlant will go forward against Algarve this summer. This question is, how far?"

"Oh," King Shazli said, in the tones of a man who might have expected better but who saw the difference between what he'd expected and what lay before him. "As bad as that?"