Rulers of the Darkness

"People masquerading as things they aren't," the Algarvian colonel said. "We've pretty much put a stop to that by now- and about time, too, if you ask me."

"People masquerading," Krasta echoed. "The folk here are masquerading as things they aren't- as important people, I mean."

"Oh, but they are important," Lurcanio said. "They are very important indeed. Without them, how could we run Valmiera?"

"With your own men, of course," Krasta answered. "If you don't run Valmiera with your own men, why have you taken half my mansion?"

"Do you know what the Algarvians in your mansion do?" Lurcanio asked. "Have you any idea?"

Krasta didn't like his sardonic tone. She returned it, with venomous interest: "You mean, besides seducing the serving women? They run Priekule for your king." Spoken baldly like that, it seemed less shameful that Algarve should run a city that had never been hers.

Lurcanio clicked his heels and bowed. "You are correct. We run Priekule. And do you know how we run Priekule? Nine times out of ten, we go to some Valmieran and say, 'Do thus and so.' And he will bow and say, 'Aye, your Excellency.' And lo and behold, thus and so will be done. We have not the men to do all the thus and sos ourselves. We never did. With the war in the west drawing so many thither, having so many Algarvians here grows more impossible by the day. And so, as I say, we rule this kingdom and your countrymen run it for us."

Valmieran constables. Valmieran caravan conductors. Valmieran tax collectors. Even, Krasta supposed, Valmieran mages. And every one of them in the service, not of poor drunken King Gainibu, but of redheaded King Mezentio and the Algarvian occupiers.

She shuddered. Before she thought- nothing new for her- she said, "It reminds me of sheep leading other sheep to the slaughter."

Lurcanio started to reply, then checked himself. "There are times when I do believe that, given education and application, you could be formidable." He bowed to Krasta, who wasn't sure whether that constituted praise or dismissal. When she didn't say anything, he went on, "As for your metaphor, well, what do you think a bell wether is sometimes called upon to do? And what do you think happens to a ram when he is made into a wether?"

"I don't know," Krasta said, irritable again. "All I know is, you're confusing me."

"Am I?" Lurcanio's smile turned smug again. "Well, this isn't the first time, and I doubt it will be the last."

Krasta found one question more- one question too many, probably: "What will happen to all these people if Algarve loses the war?"

The smug smile slipped. "You may rest assured, my poppet, that will not happen. Life is not so easy as we wished it would be, but it is not so hard as our enemies wish it were, either. We struck Kuusamo a heavy blow not long ago- struck it from here in Valmiera, in fact." Lurcanio seemed on the point of saying more, but turned the subject instead: "But I will answer you, in a hypothetical sense. What would happen to them? Not what will, mind you, but what would? It should be obvious even to you: whatever the victors wanted."

If Algarve somehow lost the war, what would the victors do with those who had taken her side? Krasta couldn't stay on that high philosophical plane for long. As usual, her thoughts descended to the personal: if Algarve somehow lost, what would the victors do to her?

She shuddered again. That might have some distinctly nasty answers. She'd made her bed, made it and lain down in it and invited Lurcanio into it to keep her warm. Clasping his arm in sudden fright, she said, "Take me home."

"You listened to a ghost story and frightened yourself," Lurcanio said.

That was likely to be true. Krasta hoped it was. She would have held that hope even more strongly were Lurcanio not pursuing her brother, and had Skarnu not penned that sheet claiming all sorts of horrors in the west. But she'd chosen her side, and she had no idea how to unchoose it. "Take me home," she repeated.

Lurcanio sighed. "Oh, very well," he said. "Let me apologize to our gracious host" -he couldn't say that with a straight face, try as he would- "for leaving the festivities so early."

A chilly rain had begun to fall. They both put up the hoods to their cloaks as they hurried out to Lurcanio's carriage. He spoke to his driver in Algarvian. The driver, already hooded against the rain, nodded and got the horses moving. The carriage rolled away from the cheese merchant's house.

"I hope he can find his way back," Krasta said. "It's very dark. I can hardly see across the street."

"I expect he will manage," Lurcanio answered. "He used to have trouble, I know, but by now he has been here long enough to learn his way around." That was another way of saying Valmiera had been in Algarvian hands for quite a while. Krasta sighed and snuggled against Lurcanio, partly for warmth, partly to keep from thinking about the choices she'd made and the choices she might have made.