Out of the Darkness

Hestan said, “You got some pretty good handfuls of mine in your day.”

“If I did, she’s giving you your revenge.” Ealstan tickled Saxburh, who squealed. “Aren’t you?” She squealed again.

“If you’re going to play with her, may I see the news sheet?” Vanai asked. Ealstan spun it across the room to her. As soon as Vanai started to read, Saxburh scrambled down off Ealstan’s lap, toddled over to her, and started batting at the news sheet. “Cut that out,” Vanai said. Saxburh didn’t. Vanai rolled her eyes. “She doesn’t want anybody reading-that’s what it is.”

“Maybe she thinks we’ll get too excited when we see that King Penda vows he’ll come back to Forthweg,” Ealstan said.

“Not likely,” Vanai exclaimed. “Who’d want him back, after he led the kingdom into a losing war?”

“That’s the line the story takes,” Ealstan said.

“I’m surprised the news sheet mentioned his name at all,” Hestan said.

“It takes the same tone Vanai did,” Ealstan repeated. “The feeling it wants to give is, Oh, he can’t possibly be serious, and who would care even if he were? It’s not a headline or anything-it shows up at the bottom of an inside page. That’s one more way to show nobody thinks Penda’s very important any more, I guess.”

His father musingly plucked at his beard. “You know, that’s clever,” he said after he’d thought it through. “If they just ignored Penda, people would hear about this vow of his anyhow, and they’d think, King Beornwulf is afraid. See how he’s trying to hide things? This way, they’ll go, Well, Beornwulf is king now, and Penda can make as much noise as he wants off in Lagoas. Aye, clever.”

“Mama!” Saxburh said indignantly, and swatted at the news sheet.

“You know you’re not supposed to do that,” Vanai said. “Are you getting fussy? Are you getting sleepy?”

“No!” Saxburh denied the mere possibility, and burst into tears when her mother picked her up.

“Most babies don’t start saying no till they’re a few months older than that,” Hestan remarked. “Of course, my granddaughter is naturally very advanced for her age.”

“I wish she were advanced enough to stop making messes in her clothes,” Ealstan said. “Is she dry?”

Vanai felt the baby and nodded. “I think she’ll go to sleep, too,” she said, putting the critical word in classical Kaunian so Saxburh wouldn’t follow it. But she’d done that once too often; her daughter had figured it out, and cried harder than ever. Vanai looked half pleased-one day, she did want Saxburh to learn the language she’d grown up speaking-and half annoyed. “There, there. It’ll be all right.” She rocked the little girl in her arms. Saxburh didn’t think it was all right; she went on wailing. But the wails grew muffled as her thumb found its way into her mouth. After a little while, they stopped.

“Almost like the quiet after the fighting’s over,” Hestan said.

Ealstan shook his head. “No,” he said positively. “That’s different.”

His father didn’t argue. He just shrugged and said, “You’d know better than I, I’m sure. How’s your leg these days?”

“It’s getting better. It’s still sore.” Ealstan shrugged, too. “When the rainy season comes, I’ll make a first- rate weather prophet.”

“I’m sorry about that. I’m more sorry than I can tell you,” Hestan said. “But I’m glad you’re still here to be able to predict bad weather before it comes.”

“Oh, so am I,” Ealstan said. “I’ll tell you what gravels me, though.” He laughed at himself. “I know it’s a small thing, especially when you set it against all the evil that came during the war, but I wish I’d been able to finish my schooling. First the Algarvians watered everything down, and then I had to leave.” He glanced over at Vanai, and at Saxburh, who’d started snoring around that thumb. “Of course, I learned a good many other things instead.”

His wife was wearing her swarthy Forthwegian sorcerous disguise. She turned pink even so. “Everyone learns those lessons, sooner or later,” she said. “I think it’s very fine that you want to learn the others, too.”

Her grandfather had been a scholar, of course. Considering how badly he and she had got along, it was a wonder she didn’t hate the whole breed. But Kaunians had often looked down their noses at Forthwegians as being ignorant and proud of it. Vanai had never said any such thing to Ealstan, which didn’t mean she didn’t think it from time to time: not about him, necessarily, but about his people.

Hestan said, “If there hadn’t been a war, I was thinking about sending you to the university at Eoforwic, or maybe even to the one at Trapani. I doubt either of them is still standing these days, and powers above only know how many professors came through alive.”

“Trapani,” Ealstan said in slow wonder. “If there hadn’t been a war, I would have wanted to go there, too. That’s very strange. The only thing I’d want to do now is drop an egg on the place. It’s had plenty, but one more wouldn’t hurt.” He eyed his father. “Sending me to a university would probably ruin me as a bookkeeper, you know.”

“Bookkeepers make more than professors ever dream of,” added Vanai, sharply practical as usual.

Hestan shrugged. “I do know both those things. But a man who can dream should get his chance to do it. A careful man-which you’ve always been, Ealstan-doesn’t need to be rich; he gets by well enough with a little less. Not having the chance to do what you really want can sour you for life.”

Vanai carried Saxburh off and put her to bed. When she came back, she asked, “You’re not talking about yourself, are you, sir? You don’t seem soured on life, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Me? No.” Hestan sounded a bit startled. “Not really, anyhow. But then, I’ve been lucky with my wife and- mostly-lucky with my children. That makes up for a good deal, believe me.”

“I believe you,” Ealstan said, and looked at Vanai in a way that made her turn redder than she had before.

His father smiled that slow smile. “That isn’t what I meant, or not all of what I meant, though I expect you’ll have a hard time believing me when I say so. But the truth is, I like moving numbers around. Maybe, if I’d had a chance, I’d be moving them around in different ways from those a bookkeeper uses. But if I tried to tell you I’m pining for a scholarly career I never had, that would be a lie.”

Elfryth ducked her head into the dining room. “I just looked in on Saxburh. She’s so sweet, lying there asleep.”

“Sure she is,” Ealstan said. “She’s not making any noise.”

His mother sniffed indignantly. His father chuckled and said, “Spoken like the proper sort of parent: a tired one.”

“Stop that, Hestan,” Elfryth said. “What were you saying there about telling lies?”

“I was telling them about running off and joining a traveling carnival when I was young,” Hestan answered, deadpan. “Everything went fine till the elephant stepped on me. I used to be a much taller man, you know.”

“Pity the beast didn’t squash the silliness out of you, too,” Elfryth observed.

Vanai looked from Ealstan’s father to his mother and back again. “Is that where we’ll be in twenty years?” she asked.

Ealstan didn’t answer. He didn’t know. Elfryth said, “Either something like this or you’ll shout at each other all the time. This is better.”

“I think so, too,” Vanai said.

Hestan asked, “Are you still interested in going on to the university, Ealstan? We could probably afford it if you are.”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I never even graduated from the academy.”

“You can always find ways around things like that.” His father spoke with great assurance.

“Maybe,” Ealstan said. “The other thing, though. . Well, you said it yourself. I’ve got a family to worry about now-and I think I’ve been pretty lucky there, too.” Having a wife and child would make his life as a student more complicated. Having a Kaunian wife and half-Kaunian child might make his life as a student much more complicated. That wasn’t anything he could say to Vanai.

“It does make a difference, doesn’t it?” Hestan said, and Ealstan nodded.

As Ealstan and Vanai lay down together that night, she said, “If you want to be a scholar, we could make it work, I think.”

He shrugged. “Things aren’t the way they were before the war. They’re never going to be the same as they