Out of the Darkness

“I wonder. I really do,” Fernao said. “The Algarvians thought the same thing about them, I suppose, and look at the surprise they got.”

“They deserved the surprise they got,” Pekka said. “They should have got more and worse, as a matter of fact.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Fernao wagged a finger at her in an Algarvic gesture. “What’s more, you know it’s not what I meant. Unkerlanter mages turned out to know their business pretty well. If they matched what Mezentio’s men did, why shouldn’t they match us, too?”

“It doesn’t seem likely to me,” Pekka said. “What will Swemmel do to push them forward? Kill the sorcerers who tell him it can’t be done as fast as he wants?”

She’d meant it for a joke, but Fernao nodded. “He might. Nothing concentrates the mind like the prospect of being boiled alive in the morning.”

Pekka made a horrible face. “That’s disgusting.”

“I know,” Fernao answered. “That doesn’t mean it won’t work.”

“There are times I wish I’d never performed my experiments,” Pekka said.

“If you hadn’t, someone else would have,” Fernao said. “It might have been an Algarvian or an Unkerlanter. If anyone can do this, better Kuusamo and Lagoas than most other places I could name.”

“I think you’re right,” she said. “If you were to ask an Algarvian or an Unkerlanter, though, he would tell you different.”

“Oh, no doubt,” Fernao agreed. “That doesn’t mean they’d know what they were talking about, though.” He laughed. “After all, what are they but a bunch of ignorant foreigners?”

“You’re impossible,” Pekka told him. “And”-she jabbed a finger his way- “as far as I’m concerned, you’re an ignorant foreigner, too, even if you do speak Kuusaman with a south-coast accent.”

“Whose fault is that?” Fernao said. “Besides, if I settle down with you in Kajaani, will I still be a foreigner?” He held up a hand. “I know I’ll still be ignorant. You don’t need to remind me of that.”

“No, eh?” Pekka was a trifle annoyed that he’d seen her next gibe coming before she could make it. She thought about the question he’d put her. “I don’t know if you’d be a foreigner or not. A lot of that would depend on you, wouldn’t you say, and on how much you’d want to fit in?”

Fernao bent down and kissed the top of her head. That reminded her how much taller he was than the average Kuusaman, woman or man. He said, “I’ll never look like one of your countrymen.”

“You do have the eyes,” she answered, and he nodded. She went on, “And there are a fair number of Kuusamans-people who speak Kuusaman, who think of themselves as Kuusamans-with red hair and with legs longer than they need to be, especially in the western part of the land, the part close to Lagoas. You have some short, dark, slant-eyed folk who think of themselves as Lagoans, too.”

“We have people who look like everything under the sun who think of themselves as Lagoans,” Fernao said. “For the past hundred years, people have been coming to Setubal to get away from wherever they were living. They think of themselves as exiles, but their children learn Lagoan. And we’re a mongrel lot, anyhow-we mostly look Algarvic, but you said it: we’ve got Kuusaman blood in us, too, and some Kaunian blood besides, from the days of the Empire’s province in the northwest of the island.”

Pekka snapped her fingers. “That reminds me,” she said. “Kuusamo is going to get some new Kaunian blood of its own. Remember the poor fellow from Jelgava whose wife wrote to Leino when he got thrown in a dungeon?”

“I translated the letter for you. I’d better remember,” he answered. “So you know what happened to him, do you?”

“Aye.” Pekka nodded. “The Seven Princes complained to King Donalitu. Donalitu let him out of the dungeon, all right, but he kicked him and his wife out of Jelgava altogether. They’ve just come to Yliharma. He’s a tailor, I think.”

“He’ll have to get used to doing some new things,” Fernao said with a chuckle. “Kaunians wear trousers, Algarvic folk wear kilts, and Unkerlanters and Forthwegians wear long tunics, but you Kuusamans throw on whatever you please.”

“We aren’t Kaunian. We aren’t Algarvic,” Pekka said. “And we don’t need our clothes to tell us who and what we are.”

Fernao reached out and patted her on the bottom. “I should hope not. Sometimes it’s more fun finding out things like that with no clothes at all.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Pekka said severely, but the corners of her mouth couldn’t help curling up. “If you move to Kajaani, will you stay in kilts all the time, or will you wear leggings and trousers now and again, too?”

“I don’t know,” Fernao answered. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Well, maybe you should, if you’re talking about turning into a Kuusaman,” Pekka said. He did, quite visibly. After a bit, to her relief, he nodded.

Fourteen

Hajjaj had been going on about his business and doing his best to forget that a good many high-ranking Algarvian refugees had taken up residence in Zuwayza. He’d always known how much trouble that might cause. Till it did, though, he’d kept hoping it wouldn’t.

As so many of his hopes had been since Unkerlant attacked his kingdom more than five years before, that one was wasted. Without warning, a blocky Unkerlanter strode into the outer office of the foreign ministry. Hajjaj heard him arguing with Qutuz. That wasn’t hard; everyone along the whole corridor surely heard the Unkerlanter’s shouts in accented Zuwayzi.

Getting to. his feet, the foreign minister went out to the outer office, where he found his secretary nose to nose with the irate Unkerlanter. “What’s going on here?” Hajjaj asked mildly.

“This. . gentleman”-plainly not the description Qutuz had in mind- “desires to speak with you, your Excellency.”

“I do not desire. I demand,” the Unkerlanter said. “And I demand that you come to the Unkerlanter ministry at once. At once, do you understand me?” The man snorted like a bull. Either he was a better actor than any of his countrymen Hajjaj had seen, Minister Ansovald included, or he was genuinely furious.

If he was really that angry, Hajjaj knew what was likeliest to make him so. Alarm ran through the Zuwayzi foreign minister. This is too soon for them to have found out, he thought. Much too soon, in fact. He did his best to sound calmer than he felt: “A man does not make demands of another kingdom’s minister in his own office, sir.”

“That’s what I told him, your Excellency,” Qutuz said. “That’s just what I told him, curse me if it isn’t.”

“Shut up, both of you!” the Unkerlanter shouted. “You, old man, you can come with me right now, or we can have another war right now. There’s your choice, powers below eat you.”

“This is an outrage!” Qutuz exclaimed.

“Too bad,” the Unkerlanter said. He scowled at Hajjaj. “Are you coming or not? You say no, you watch what happens to this pisspot of a kingdom.”

They know, Hajjaj thought gloomily. They must know. With a sigh, he replied, “I will come with you-under protest. May I dress first, to match your custom?”

“Don’t waste the time. It’s inefficient,” the Unkerlanter said. “Get your scrawny old carcass moving, that’s all.”

“Very well. I am at your service,” Hajjaj said. He nodded to Qutuz. “I’ll see you later.” I hope I will. I hope they let me leave the ministry. He took a broad-brimmed hat from the hat rack in the outer office and set it on his head. “Let us go.”

At this season of the year, even Zuwayzin went out as little as they could in the middle of the day. The sun smote down from as close to the zenith as made no difference. The palace’s thick walls of mud brick shielded against the worst of the heat. Out in the streets, the air might have come from a bake oven. Hajjaj’s shadow