Out of the Darkness

How Kolthoum would laugh if he told her that! And why shouldn’t she laugh? Her temperament was much the same as his own. That was one reason why he loved her, why the two of them fit like foot and sandal, why he wondered how he might go on living if anything happened to her. Arranged marriages didn’t usually work out so. Then again, from what he’d seen, marriages springing from first fruits of passion didn’t usually work out so, either. Every once in a while, you get lucky.

He rose to his feet and left the library. He wasn’t much surprised when Tewfik came up to him a few minutes later and said, “You put a flea in her ear, did you, young fellow?”

No one could have overheard his conversation with Tassi. But Tewfik might have been as much prophet as majordomo. Hajjaj was convinced the old man knew what went on well before it happened. “I hope I did,” Hajjaj said now. “Maybe she’ll listen. Maybe she’ll go on thinking she can do just as she pleases, the way Lalla did.”

“She’s smarter than Lalla,” Tewfik said.

“I think so, too,” Hajjaj said. “I hope she is, for her sake. I don’t want to give her back to Iskakis, but if she makes me not want to have her around, either. . ”

“Pity Marquis Balastro didn’t want to keep her,” Tewfik said. “Pity Balastro got himself hauled down to Unkerlant, too. You could have sent her to him if he hadn’t.”

“For one thing, he didn’t want her any more. That was part of the reason she came here, if you’ll recall,” Hajjaj said. The majordomo nodded. Hajjaj also thought it a pity the Algarvian minister to Zuwayza had been sent down to Unkerlant. Had that not happened, he wouldn’t have been a retired diplomat himself. But… “A great pity Balastro got taken away. Swemmel’s men blazed him, you know.”

“I had heard that, aye, sir. Most unfortunate.”

“I’m sure the marquis would be the first to agree with you,” Hajjaj said.

Tewfik coughed. “If I may say so, sir, it is perhaps not the worst of things that the Unkerlanters’ passion for vengeance should be aimed mostly at our late allies and not at us.”

“Passion indeed,” Hajjaj said-one more dangerous exercise of it. “And I fear you are right there, too, as you usually are.”

The majordomo made a self-deprecating gesture. Inside, though, he would be preening. Hajjaj had known him all his own life, and was sure of it. But his praise of Tewfik hadn’t been hypocritical. Had the Unkerlanters wanted to avenge themselves on Zuwayza as they were avenging themselves on Algarve, he might have been blazed alongside Balastro.

He wondered why Swemmel was so much more intent on punishing the redheads. Maybe there was some sense in Unkerlant that the Zuwayzin had had good reason for waging the war they did. After all, the Unkerlanters had invaded Zuwayza before the war with Algarve started. King Shazli owed them as much revenge as he could get, and if he lined up with the Algarvians to grab it, then he did, that was all.

Or maybe I’m imagining things, Hajjaj thought. If I’m giving Swemmel a sense of justice, that’s bound to be senility creeping up on me.

“If I may make a suggestion, sir?” Tewfik said.

“By all means,” Hajjaj said.

“You really should get the roofers out here, sir, before the fall rainy season begins,” the majordomo said. “If the powers above be kind, they may perhaps find some leaks before the rain makes them obvious.”

“And if they don’t find any, they’ll start some, to give them business later.” Hajjaj hated roofers.

“Chance we take,” said Tewfik, who did not admire them, either. “If we don’t have them out, though, the rain is bound to show us where the holes are.”

“You’re right, of course,” Hajjaj said. “Why don’t you see to it, then?”

“I’ll do that, sir,” Tewfik said. “I expect they’ll be out in the next few days.” Ancient and bent, he shuffled away.

Hajjaj stared after him. What exactly was that last supposed to mean? Had the majordomo already summoned the roofers, and was he getting retroactive permission for it? That was what it sounded like. Hajjaj shrugged. He’d run Zuwayza’s foreign affairs for a generation, aye. Tewfik had been running this household a lot longer than that.

What will happen when he finally falls over dead? Hajjaj wondered. His shoulders went up and down in another shrug. He wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find Tewfik outlasting him. The majordomo seemed as resistant to change as the hills outside Bishah.

For a moment, that thought cheered Hajjaj. Then he frowned. What would happen to these hills if someone unleashed on them the appalling sorcery the Kuusamans and Lagoans had used against Gyorvar? Nothing good: Hajjaj was sure of that. The more he heard about that spell, the more it frightened him. He’d thought the first reports to come in to Bishah no more than frightened exaggerations, but they’d proved less than the dreadful reality. He’d never before known rumor to fall behind truth.

He’d heard Minister Horthy’s aides had had to keep watch on the Gyongyosian minister day and night, to make sure he didn’t slay himself. Hajjaj didn’t know whether that was true; he did know Horthy hadn’t been seen in public since Gyongyos surrendered to the islanders and to Unkerlant.

He sighed. So many things that had once seemed as changeless as these hills looked different, doubtful, dangerous, in the aftermath of the Derlavaian War. For as long as he’d been alive, Algarve had been the pivotal kingdom in the east, the one around which events revolved, the one toward which her neighbors looked with awe and dread. That had remained so even after she lost the Six Years’ War.

No more. Hajjaj was sure of that. It wasn’t just that Mezentio’s kingdom had been shattered, with one king in Algarve propped up by the islanders, the other by Swemmel of Unkerlant. But Algarve had shattered herself morally as well. No one could look toward her now without disgust. That marked a great change in the world.

Would everyone turn to Unkerlant, then? Swemmel surely ruled the most powerful kingdom on the mainland of Derlavai. Would Yaninans and Forthwe-gians and Zuwayzin and even Algarvians start shouting, “Efficiency!” at the top of their lungs? The notion made Hajjaj queasy, but where else would folk look?

Kuusamo, maybe, he thought. Kuusamo and Lagoas were the only kingdoms that could hope to hold any sort of balance against Unkerlant. Kuusamo isn’t even a kingdom, not really, Hajjaj reminded himself. How does it hold together under seven princes? Somehow it managed, and more than managed. Its soldiers had done more than the Lagoans to beat Algarve in the east, and it had also beaten Gyongyos even without the final sorcery. Aye, Kuusamo was a place to watch.

Hard to have a vicious tyranny like Unkerlant’s with seven lords in place of one, Hajjaj thought. And anything else, he was sure, made a better choice than Swemmel of Unkerlant.

Twenty

Here, Vanai.” Elfryth held out a platter. “Would you like another slice of mutton?”

“No, thank you,” Vanai said. “I’m full.”

Her mother-in-law frowned. “Are you sure? Powers above, you haven’t even finished what you’ve got there. Now that we have enough food again, you really ought to eat.”

“I’m full,” Vanai repeated. She meant it, too. In fact, what she’d already eaten was sitting none too comfortably in her belly.

“I’ll have some more mutton,” Ealstan said. “And pass the porridge, too, please. Garlic and mushrooms and almonds.. ” He grinned and smacked his lips.

Hestan picked up the bowl and handed it to Vanai. “Pass this to your husband.”

“All right,” she said, and did. She’d had a helping of porridge herself, and liked it. But the odor of garlic wafting up from it now made her insides churn. “Here,” she told Ealstan. Then, gulping, she left the table in a hurry.

When she came back, she’d got rid of what was bothering her-got rid of it most literally. She took a cautious sip of wine to kill the nasty taste in her mouth. She swallowed it even more cautiously, wondering if her stomach would rebel again. But the wine gave her no trouble.