Rulers of the Darkness

Jurbarkas wasn't far from Pavilosta. That thought kept echoing and reechoing in Skarnu's mind. If Merkela hadn't had her baby- his baby- yet, she would any day now. But if he showed himself around those parts, he would be recognized. Even if the redheads didn't catch him, he might give them the excuse they needed to write NIGHT AND FOG on Merkela's door. He didn't want to do that, no matter what.

He wondered if Amatu would come after him. But as day followed day and nothing happened along those lines, he began to feel easier there. The returned exile was somebody else's worry now.

He did wonder a little that no one from the underground tried to get hold of him. But even that didn't worry him so much. He'd spent three years sticking pins in the Algarvians. He was willing- even eager- to let somebody else have a turn.

He stood in the market square at sunrise one morning. Despite the mug of hot tea he'd bought from a small eatery there, he shivered a little. Fall was in the air, even if the leaves hadn't started turning yet. Farmers came into town early, though, to get a full day's work from whomever they hired there and to keep from losing too much time themselves.

A fellow who wasn't a farmer walked up to Skarnu and said, "Hello, Pavilosta."

Only a man from the underground would have called him by the name of the hamlet near which he'd lived. "Well, well," he answered. "Hello yourself, Zarasai." That was also the name of a town, not a person. He didn't know the other man's real name, and hoped the fellow didn't know his. "What brings you here?"

"Somebody got wind that you were in these parts, even if you have been lying low," answered the other fellow from the underground. "I just came around to tell you lying low's a real good idea these days."

"Oh?" Skarnu said.

"That's right." The man from Zarasai nodded. "We've got trouble on the loose. Some madman is leaking to the redheads, leaking like a cursed sieve."

Skarnu rolled his eyes. "Just what we need. As if life weren't hard enough already." That got him another nod from the fellow who called himself Zarasai. Skarnu asked, "Who is the whoreson? Are we trying to kill him?"

"Of course we're trying to kill him. You think we're bloody daft?" "Zarasai" answered. "But the Algarvians are taking good care of him. If I were in their boots, curse them, I'd take good care of him, too. As for who he is, I haven't got a name to give him, but they say he's one of the fancy-trousers nobles who came back across the Strait of Valmiera from Lagoas to fight Mezentio's men. Then he changed his mind. He should have stayed down there in Setubal, powers below eat him."

"Powers below eat me," Skarnu exclaimed. The man from Zarasai raised a questioning eyebrow. Skarnu said, "That's got to be Amatu. The blundering idiot kept trying to get himself and everybody with him- including me- killed. He couldn't help acting like one of those nobles who want commoners to bow and scrape before 'em- that's what he was. Is. We finally fought about it. I gave him a good thumping, and we went our separate ways. I came here… and I guess he went to the redheads."

"I can see how you wouldn't have had any use for him," "Zarasai" said, "but he's singing like a nightingale now. We've lost at least half a dozen good men on account of him. And even a good man'll sing sometimes, if the Algarvians work on him long enough and hard enough. So we'll lose more, too, no doubt about it."

"Curse him," Skarnu repeated. "He wasn't important enough in the underground to suit him. He's important to the Algarvians, all right, the way a hook's important to a fisherman."

"Zarasai" said, "Sooner or later, he'll run out of names and places. After that, Mezentio's men will probably give him what he deserves."

"They couldn't possibly." Skarnu didn't try to hide his bitterness.

"Mm, maybe not," the other underground leader said. "But you're safe here, I think. If you parted from him, he won't know about this place, right? Sit tight, and we'll do our best to ride things out."

"I wish the redheads had caught him and not Lauzdonu over in Ventspils," Skarnu said. "He's not a coward. I don't think he would have had much to say if they'd just captured him. But he's a spoiled brat. He couldn't have everything he wanted from us, and so he went to get it from the Algarvians. Aye, he'd sing for them, sure enough."

"You've given us a name," "Zarasai" said. "That'll help. When we listen to the emanations from the Algarvians' crystals, maybe we'll hear it, so we'll know what they're doing with him. Maybe he'll have an accident. Aye, maybe he will. Here's hoping he does, anyhow." He slipped away. Skarnu didn't watch him go. The less Skarnu knew about anyone else's comings and goings, the less the Algarvians could tear out of him if they caught him and squeezed.