Rulers of the Darkness

Little by little, Cornelu was learning to read Lagoan. He'd never thought he would do that, but he turned out to have a powerful incentive: the better he read, the more readily he could learn of Unkerlant's advances in the west. Anything that told him of Algarve's troubles was worth investigating in detail. He might not have liked Lagoas' language, but he liked what was being said in it.

When he took Janira out to a band concert, though, he stuck to Sibian, saying, "Mezentio's men are finally starting to pay for their folly."

"Good," she answered in the same language. She had an odd accent- part lower-class, part Lagoan. Her father, Balio, was a Sibian fisherman who'd settled in Setubal after the Six Years' War, married a local woman, and started an eatery. Janira was in fact more fluent in Lagoan. That she spoke Sibian at all helped endear her to Cornelu.

"Aye," he said fiercely, and squeezed her hand. "May they be driven back on every front. May they be driven from Sibiu."

"May they stop dropping eggs on Setubal," Janira said. "Father's only just starting to get back on his feet." An Algarvian egg had wrecked the eatery where Balio had cooked and Janira served. She went on, "Everything is more expensive in the new place."

"I'm sorry," Cornelu said. And he was: that meant she had to work even more than she had before, which meant she had fewer chances to see him. Since his own duties often kept him from seeing her, their romance, if that was the name for it, had advanced only by fits and starts.

Of course, Cornelu was also a married man, at least technically. He hoped his little daughter Brindza was doing well back in Tirgoviste town. He hoped no such thing for his wife, not after Costache had taken up with at least one of the Algarvian officers who'd been billeted on her.

Standing in line with Janira, Cornelu tried to put all that out of his mind. The line snaked forward in the darkness. He passed through a couple of black curtains before emerging into light and paying the fee for himself and Janira. They both held out their hands. One of the fee-takers stamped them with red ink to show they'd paid. Then they hurried into the concert hall.

It was filling fast. Cornelu spotted a couple of seats. He went for them as ferociously as if charging on leviathanback. "There!" he said in something like triumph as he and Janira reached them just ahead of a Lagoan couple.

Janira smiled. "I can see why all your enemies must fear you," she said, sitting down beside him.

Cornelu smiled, too. "The main reason my enemies fear me is that they do not know my leviathan and I are there till too late. Sometimes they never find out what happened to them. Sometimes they do realize, and it is the last thing they ever know."

"You sound so… happy about it," Janira said with a small shiver.

"I am happy about it," he replied. "They are Algarvians. They are the enemies, the occupiers, of my kingdom. They are the enemies of this kingdom, too."

"I know. I understand all that." She hesitated, then went on, "It's only that… I haven't heard you sound really happy very often. It's… strange when you sound that way and it has to do with killing."

"Oh." Cornelu contemplated that for a moment. "I should probably be ashamed. But, aside from that, I have not had much to be happy about lately." Just before he turned the evening into a disaster even as it began, he redeemed himself with a handful of words: "Present company excepted, of course." Janira, who had started to cloud up, relaxed and leaned her head on his shoulder.

They both applauded when the musicians came out on stage. Lagoan music was on the whole delicate, like that of the other Algarvic kingdoms. It didn't thump and harangue, the way Kaunian music did. A couple of things set it apart, though. For one, it was generally more cheerful than anything Cornelu would have been likely to hear in Sibiu. Of course, the Lagoans had more reason to be cheerful- they lived farther away from Algarve. And, for another, they'd borrowed triangles and bells from their Kuusaman neighbors, which gave their pieces an almost fantastical feel to Cornelu's ears.

Janira enjoyed the music; that was plain. Cornelu applauded a little more than dutifully when the concert ended. Seeing his companion having a good time let him have a good time at one remove. That was almost as good as the real thing.