I’d have to do is separate from him.

Would he have thought like that before the war? He didn’t know. He hoped not. The past four years had gone a long way toward turning him into a wolf. He wasn’t the only one, either. He was sure of that. He stuck out his hand. “Aye, I’m with you.”

“Good.” He’d already known how strong Ceorl’s grip was. By all the signs, the Forthwegian had been born a wolf. “We’ll be able to use each other. I know how, and you can do most of the talking.”

“Fair enough,” Garivald said. And if we do get out, which of us will try to kill the other one first? As long as one of them knew about the other, they were both vulnerable. If he could see that, Ceorl could surely see it, too. He studied the ruffian. Ceorl smiled back, the picture of honest sincerity. That made Garivald certain he couldn’t trust the Forthwegians very far.

“What are you whoresons doing down there?” a guard called. “Whatever it is, come do it where I can keep an eye on you.”

“You wanna watch me piss?” Ceorl said, tugging at his tunic as if he’d been doing just that. The tunnel stank of urine; he’d made a good choice for cover. The guard pulled a horrible face and waved him and Garivald back to work.

He’s got nerve, Garivald thought. He isn’t stupid, even if he doesn’t understand Unkerlant. If he has a plan for getting out of here, it may work.

As Ceorl walked back toward the mouth of the tunnel, he muttered, “This whole fornicating kingdom’s nothing but a fornicating captives’ camp.” Garivald blinked. Maybe the man from Plegmund’s Brigade understood Unkerlant better than he’d thought.

Garivald started swinging his pick with a vim he hadn’t shown before. He wondered why. Could hope, however forlorn, do so much? Maybe it could.

Since Sabrino had declined to become King of Algarve, or of a part of Algarve, he’d got better treatment in the sanatorium. He’d expected worse. After all, he’d warned General Vatran he wouldn’t make a reliable puppet. He had no reason to think the Unkerlanter general disbelieved him. Maybe Vatran had more courtesy for an honest, and crippled, enemy than he’d expected.

Little by little, Sabrino learned to get around on one leg. He stumped up and down corridors at the sanatorium. Eventually, he even got to go outside, to test his crutches and his surviving leg on real dirt. He remained in pain. Decoctions of poppy juice helped hold it at bay. He knew he’d come to crave the decoctions, but he couldn’t do anything about that. If the pain ever went away, he would think about weaning himself from them. Not now. Not soon, either, he didn’t think.

“You’re doing very well,” his chief healer said one day, when he came back worn and sweaty from a journey of a few hundred yards. “You’re doing much better than we thought you would, in fact. When you first came in here, plenty of people doubted you would live more than a few days.”

“I was one of them,” Sabrino answered. “And I would be lying if I said I were sure you did me a favor by saving me.”

“Now, what sort of attitude is that?” The healer spoke in reproving tones.

“Mine,” Sabrino told him. “This is my carcass, or what’s left of it. I’m the one who’s got to live in it, and that’s not a whole lot of fun.”

The healer tried cajolery. “We’d hate to see everything we did go to waste after we worked so hard to keep you going.”

“Huzzah,” Sabrino said sourly. “I’m not a fool, and I’m not a child. I know what you did. I know you worked hard. What I still don’t know is whether you should have bothered.”

“Algarve is mutilated, too,” the healer said. “We need all the men we have left, wouldn’t you say?”

To that, Sabrino had no good answers. He sat down on his cot and let the crutches fall. “I never thought I would hope for calluses under my arms,” he said, “but these cursed things rub me raw.” Before the healer could speak, Sabrino wagged a finger at him. “If you tell me I’ve got the rest of my life to get used to them, I’ll pick up one of those crutches and brain you with it.”

“I didn’t say a thing,” the healer replied. “And if you kill a man for what he’s thinking, how many men would be left alive today?”

“About as many as are left alive today, if you’re thinking about Algarvians,” Sabrino said. He lay down and fell asleep almost at once. Part of that was the decoctions-though sometimes they also cost him sleep-and part of it was the exhaustion that came with being on his feet, if only for a little while.

When he woke, the healer was hovering above his cot. In his long white tunic, he reminded Sabrino of a sea bird. He said, “You have a visitor.”

“What now?” Sabrino asked. “Are they going to try to make me King of Yanina? I couldn’t be worse than Tsavellas, that’s certain.”

“No, indeed, your Excellency.” The healer turned toward the doorway and made a beckoning motion. “You may come in now.”

“Thank you.” To Sabrino’s astonishment, his wife walked into the room.

“Gismonda!” he exclaimed. “By the powers above, what are you doing here? I sent a message to tell you to get to the east if you could, and I thought you had. The Kuusamans and Lagoans beat us, but the Unkerlanters. .” His gesture was broad, expansive, Algarvian. “They’re Unkerlanters.”

“I know,” Gismonda said. “By the time I made up my mind to get out of Trapani, it was too late. I couldn’t. And so”-she shrugged-”I stayed.”

The healer shook a warning finger as he walked to the door. “I’ll be back in half an hour or so,” he said. “He is not to be overtired. And,” he added pointedly, “I am leaving this door open.”

With the decoction in him, Sabrino didn’t much care what came out of his mouth. Leering at the healer, he said, “You don’t know how shameless I can be, do you?” The fellow left in a hurry.

“Now, really!” Gismonda said, sounding a little amused but much more scandalized. “You may be dead to shame, my dear, but what makes you think am?

She’d been a beauty when they wed. She was still a handsome woman, but one who showed she had iron underneath. She’d rarely warmed up to Sabrino in the marriage bed. She gave him what he wanted when he wanted it with her, and, like a lot of Algarvian wives, she’d looked the other way when he took a mistress. But she’d always been fiercely loyal, and Sabrino had never embarrassed her, as some husbands enjoyed doing to their wives.

Now, instead of answering her, he asked the question uppermost in his mind: “Are you all right?”

“Oh, aye.” She nodded. “All things considered, the place isn’t too badly damaged. And as for the Unkerlanters. ” Another shrug. “One of them had some ideas along those lines, but I persuaded him they were altogether inappropriate, and they’ve given me no trouble since.”

“Good for you.” Sabrino wondered if Gismonda’s “persuasion” had been something swift and lethal in a cup of wine or spirits, or whether a show of sternness had convinced the Unkerlanter to take his attentions elsewhere. That wouldn’t have been beyond her, but Swemmel’s men, by all Sabrino had heard and seen, weren’t always willing to take no for an answer. He said, “I hope you didn’t take too much of a chance.”

“I didn’t think so,” Gismonda replied, “and I turned out to be right. I have had some practice at judging these things, you know. Men are men, regardless of which kingdom they come from.”

She spoke with what sounded like perfect detachment. And if that’s not a judgment on half the human race, powers below eat me if I know what would be, Sabrino thought. He knew what his own countrymen had done in Unkerlant. It didn’t go very far toward making him think she was wrong. “Well, any which way, I’m glad you came through safe, and I’m very glad to see you,” he said.

“I would have come sooner,” she said, “but the first word I got was that you were dead.” She angrily tossed her head. “It wasn’t anything official-by then, the official ley lines had all broken down. But one of the officers from your wing-a captain of no particular breeding-came to the house to give me the news that he had seen you flamed out of the sky.”

“That would have been Orosio,” Sabrino said. “Breeding or not, he’s a good fellow. I wonder if he came through alive.”

“I don’t know. That was the name, though,” Gismonda said. “If he came to tell me such a story, he might at least have had the courtesy to get it right. It must have been kindly meant-I can’t doubt that-but. . ”

“I’m lucky to be alive,” Sabrino answered. If this is luck, he added, but only to himself. Aloud, he went on, “I can’t blame him for thinking I was dead. If your dragon goes down, you usually are.

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