Rulers of the Darkness

"I thought so," Spinello said: since he hadn't made the joke, he had to take credit for laughing at it. But maybe the wine he'd drunk had made him bolder than he'd believed, for he heard himself asking, "And when do we start making the Unkerlanters laugh out of the other side of their mouths again your Majesty?"

"If you have a way to do that, Colonel, leave a memorial with my officers," Mezentio replied. "I assure you, they will give it their closest attention."

He means it, Spinello realized, a wintry notion if ever there was one. The brigadier must have had the same thought, too, for he exclaimed, "We should have been readier when we struck them, then."

Now Mezentio looked right through him. "Thank you for your confidence in us, Carietto," the king said, for all the world as if he were Swemmel of Unkerlant, or perhaps twins. Spinello hadn't known the brigadier's name, but Mezentio did. Carietto, plainly, would never, ever, advance in rank again.

Spinello said, "Your Majesty, what can we do?"

"Keep fighting," King Mezentio said at once. "Make our foes bleed themselves white- and they will. Hold on till our mages strengthen their sorceries- and they will. Never admit we can be defeated. Fight with every fiber of our being so that victory comes to us- and it will."

He sounded very sure, very strong. Spinello saluted. So did Brigadier Carietto, not that it would do him any good. With a grin, Spinello said, "There may not be any Kaunians left by the time we're through."

"And so what?" Mezentio said. "How better to serve our ancient oppressors than to use them as weapons against the western barbarians? Algarve must save Derlavaian civilization, Colonel- and it will." He had a brandy in his hand. He knocked it back and strode away.

So much for old Malindo, Spinello thought. The savant, briefly, had made him feel guilty. Mezentio made him feel proud. Pride was better. He glanced over at Carietto. The brigadier looked like a man refusing to acknowledge he was wounded. He had pride, too. When he went back to the fighting, Spinello didn't think he would let himself live long.

"What were you talking about with the king?" That wasn't Carietto, but a woman about Spinello's own age. She had a wide, generous mouth, a nose with a tiny bend that made it more interesting than it would have been otherwise, and a figure her tight tunic and short kilt displayed to advantage.

Spinello bowed. "The war. Nothing important." He bowed again. "I would sooner talk about you, milady. I am Spinello. And your name is-?"

"Fronesia." She held out her hand.

After bowing over it once more, Spinello kissed it. "And whose friend are you, milady Fronesia?" he asked. "As lovely as you are, you must be someone's."

She smiled. "A colonel of dragonfliers' friend," she answered. "But Sabrino has been in the west forever and a day, and I grow lonely, to say nothing of bored. When I got myself invited here tonight, I hoped I would find a new friend. Was I right?"

Algarvian women had a way of coming straight to the point. So did Algarvian men. "Milady, with your looks" -Spinello's eyes traveled her curves- "you could have an array of friends, did you so choose. If you want one in particular, I am at your service."

Fronesia nodded. "If you're as generous as you are well-spoken, we should get on very well indeed, Colonel Spinello."

"There is generosity, and then there is generosity." Spinello looked her up and down again.

"My flat isn't far from here, Colonel," Fronesia said. "Shall we go back there and talk about it?"

"As long as we're there, we might as well talk, too," Spinello agreed. Laughing, they left together.

***

Ealstan had come up in the world. From bookkeeper, he'd advanced all the way to conspirator. If that wasn't progress, he didn't know what was. "I wish I'd found you a long time ago," he told Pybba.

"No, no, no." His boss shook his head. "Wish we'd been strong enough to give the stinking Algarvians a good boot in the balls when the war first started. Then we wouldn't have to play all these stupid games."

The pottery magnate was playing enough of them. Ealstan had thought as much when he first found the discrepancies in Pybba's books. He'd hoped as much. But even he hadn't had any notion of how deeply Pybba was involved in resisting King Mezentio's men in Forthweg. Nothing but admiration in his voice, he said, "I don't think anybody can write anything nasty about the Algarvians on a wall anywhere in Eoforwic unless you know about it before it happens."

"That's the idea." Pybba sounded smug: his usual growl with a purr mixed into it. The purr disappeared as he went on, "Now shut up about what you're not supposed to be talking about and get back to work. If I don't make any money, I can't very well put any money into giving the redheads a hard time, now can I?"