Rulers of the Darkness

The slogan writer- his name was Baldred- chuckled. "Never a dull moment around this place. Of course, sometimes you wish there were."

"Why would you want that?" Ealstan wondered. "I've got so I like having my hair set on fire about three times a day. Hardly seems like I'm doing anything unless somebody's screaming at me to do more."

"Oh, it's not so bad as that," Baldred said. He was about halfway between Ealstan's age and Pybba's- in his mid-thirties- with white hairs in his beard still so few that he ostentatiously plucked them out whenever he found them. "As long as you do the work of four men, he'll pay you for two. What more could you want?"

"That's about the size of it," Ealstan agreed. He thought Baldred worked on Pybba's unofficial business as well as that pertaining to pottery, but he wasn't sure. Because he wasn't sure, he never mentioned it to the slogan-writer. Every now and again, he wondered whether Baldred wondered about him.

Pybba stomped back into the offices, a stormcloud on his face. But no cringing employee followed him to pick up whatever pay he was owed and then leave forever. Irked at Pybba, Ealstan kept at his work and didn't ask the obvious question. Baldred did: "What happened?"

"Fornicating stray dog came round a corner going one way at the same time as one of our boys came round it going the other," Pybba said. "Aye, he tripped over the stinking thing. Powers below eat him, what else could he do? Three or four people saw it, and the poor bastard's got a scraped knee on one leg and a dog bite on the other one."

"Ah," Baldred said wisely. "No wonder you didn't fire him, then."

The pottery magnate's scowl grew more fearsome yet; he'd doubtless roared out of the office intending to do exactly that. "You tend to your knitting," he rumbled, "or I'll bloody well fire you. Not a thing to say I can't do that."

Baldred got very busy very fast. Pybba eyed him long enough to make sure he was busy, then went into his own office and slammed the door behind him, hard enough to make little waves in Ealstan's inkwell. "Charming as always," Ealstan murmured.

"But of course." Baldred shrugged. "I'm not going to worry about it. Before too long, he'll pitch a fit at somebody else instead. Tell me I'm wrong."

"Can't do it." Ealstan got back to work, too.

A few minutes later, the outer door opened. Ealstan looked up, still expecting the potter who'd had the unfortunate encounter with the stray dog. What he expected was not what he got. What he got was an Algarvian colonel with spiky waxed mustaches. Ealstan wondered if he ought to run or if he ought to scream for Pybba to run. Before he could do either, the redhead swept off his hat, bowed, and spoke in pretty good Forthwegian: "I require to see the gentleman Pybba, if you would be so kind."

"Aye, I'll get him for you," Ealstan answered. "May I ask why?"

"I seek to purchase pots." The Algarvian raised an eyebrow. "If I wanted flowers, you may be sure I would go elsewhere."

Ears burning, Ealstan descended from his stool and went to fetch Pybba. "Pots?" the pottery magnate said. "I'll give him-" He shook his head and followed Ealstan out again. Eyeing the Algarvian with no great warmth, he asked, "What sort of pots have you got in mind?"

"Small ones." The officer gestured. "Ones to fit the palm of the hand and the fingers, so. Round, or nearly round, with snug-fitting lids."

"Haven't got anything just like that in stock," Pybba answered. "It'd have to be a special order- unless some sugar bowls would do?"

"Let me see them," the Algarvian said.

"Come with me," Pybba told him. "I've got some samples in the next room."

"Good. Very good. Take me to them, if you please."

When Pybba and the redhead came back from the samples room, the pottery magnate wore a sandbagged expression. "Fifty thousand sugar bowls, style seventeen," he said hoarsely, and turned to stare at the colonel. "Why would anybody want fifty thousand sugar bowls?"

"For a very large tea party, of course," the Algarvian said blandly.

That wasn't the truth, of course. Ealstan wondered what the truth was, and who would get hurt finding out.

***

"Rain pouring down on us," Sergeant Istvan complained, squelching along a muddy trench on the little island of Becsehely. "Water all around us." His wave encompassed the Bothnian Ocean not far away. "We might as well grow fins and turn into fish."

Szonyi shook his head, which made water fly off his waxed cloth cap. "I'd sooner turn into a dragon and fly away from this miserable place."

"Probably safer to turn into a fish," Corporal Kun observed. "The Kuusamans have too many dragons between us and the stars." He pointed upward.

"No stars to see now, not with this rain," Szonyi said. "No dragons to see, either, and I don't miss 'em one fornicating bit." Kun had disagreed with him about which impossible choice was better to make, but not even Kun could argue about that.