Out of the Darkness

sometimes even for a couple of days. By then it was far too late for them to puke up what they’d eaten. The poison stayed inside them, working, and no healer or mage had ever found a cure for it. Soon enough, Spinello would know what she’d done.

“Isn’t that fine?” Vanai asked Saxburh. “Isn’t that just the most splendid thing you ever heard in all your days?” The baby didn’t have many days, but, by the way she gurgled and wriggled with glee, it might have been.

All Forthwegians hunted mushrooms whenever they got the chance. In that, if in few other things, the Kaunians in Forthweg agreed with their neighbors. No one-not even Algarvian soldiers, not any more-paid much attention to people walking with their heads down, eyes on the ground. And who was likely to notice what sort of mushrooms went into a basket? One thing Vanai’s grandfather had taught her was how to tell the poisonous from the safe. Everyone in Forthweg learned those lessons. This once, Vanai had chosen to stand them on their head.

“And so you too have some measure of revenge, my grandfather,” she whispered in classical Kaunian. Brivibas would never have approved of her saying any such thing to him in mere Forthwegian.

Saxburh’s eyes-they would be dark like Ealstan’s, for they were already darkening from the blue of almost all newborns’ eyes-widened. She could hear that the sounds of this language were different from those of the Forthwegian Vanai and Ealstan usually spoke.

“I will teach you this tongue, too,” Vanai told her daughter, still in classical Kaunian. “I do not know if you will thank me for it. This is a tongue whose speakers have more than their share of trouble, more than their share of woe. But it is as much yours as Forthwegian, and you should learn it. What do you think of that?”

“Dada!” Saxburh said.

Vanai laughed. “No, you silly thing, I’m your mama,” she said, falling back into Forthwegian without noticing she’d done it till after the words passed her lips. Saxburh babbled more cheerful nonsense, none of which sounded like either Forthwegian or classical Kaunian. Then she screwed up her face and grunted.

Knowing what that meant even before she caught the smell, Vanai squatted down, laid Saxburh on the floor, and cleaned her bottom. Saxburh even thought that was funny, where she often fussed over it. Vanai laughed, too, but she had to work to keep the corners of her mouth turned up. She wouldn’t have used Forthwegian so much before she started disguising herself. It really was as if Thelberge, the Forthwegian semblance she had to wear, were gaining at the expense of Vanai, the Kaunian reality within.

Even if the Algarvians lose the war, even if the Unkerlanters drive them out of Forthweg, what will it be like for the blonds left alive here? Will they-will we-go on wearing sorcerous disguises and speaking Forthwegian because it’s easier, because the Forthwegians-the real Forthwegians-won’t hate us so much then? If we do, what happens to the Kaunianity, the sense of ourselves as something special and apart, that we’ve kept alive ever since the Empire fell?

She cursed softly. She had no answer for that. She wondered if anyone else did, if anyone else could. If not, even if the Algarvians lost the Derlavaian War, wouldn’t they have won a great battle in their endless struggle against the Kaunians who’d been civilized while they still painted themselves strange colors and ran naked through their native forests throwing spears?

The familiar coded knock Ealstan used interrupted her gloomy reverie. She snatched up Saxburh and hurried to unbar the door. Ealstan gave her a kiss. Then he wrinkled his nose. “I know what you’ve been doing,” he said. He kissed Saxburh. “And I know what you’ve been doing, too.” He took her from Vanai and rocked her in his arms. “Aye, I do. You can’t fool me. I know just what you’ve been doing.”

“She can’t help it,” Vanai said. “And it’s something everybody else does, too.”

“I should hope so,” Ealstan answered. “Otherwise, we’d all burst like eggs, and who would clean up after us then?” Vanai hadn’t thought of it like that. When she did, she giggled. Ealstan went on, “And what did you do with your morning?”

Before Vanai realized she would, she answered, “While Saxburh was taking a nap, I put on a blue-and-white armband and went out and pretended I was one of Hilde’s Helpers.”

“Powers above, you’re joking!” Ealstan exclaimed. “Don’t say things like that, or you’ll make me drop the baby.” He mimed doing just that, which made Vanai start and made Saxburh laugh.

Vanai said, “I really did. And do you want to know why?”

Ealstan studied her to make sure she wasn’t kidding him. What he saw on her face must have satisfied him, for he replied, “I’d love to know why. The only reason that occurs to me right now is that you’ve gone crazy, and I don’t think that’s right.”

“No.” Vanai said that in Forthwegian, but then switched to classical Kaunian. “I wore the armband because I wanted to give a certain officer of the redheaded barbarians a special dish-and I did it.”

“A special dish?” Ealstan echoed in his own slow, thoughtful classical Kaunian. “What kind of-? Oh!” He didn’t need long to figure out what she meant. His eyes glowed. “How special was it?”

“Four death caps,” she answered proudly.

“Four?” He blinked. “That would kill anybody ten times over.”

“Aye. I know.” Vanai wished she could have killed Spinello ten times over. “I hope he enjoyed them, too. People who eat them say they’re supposed to be tasty.”

“I’ve heard the same thing,” Ealstan answered, falling back into Forthwegian. “Not something I ever wanted to find out for myself.” He carefully set Saxburh in her little seat, then came back and took Vanai in his arms. “You told me not to take chances, and then you went and did this? I ought to beat you, the way Forthwegian husbands are supposed to.”

“It wasn’t so risky for me as it would have been for you,” she answered. “I just gave him the food, took back the bowl, and went on my way. He still feels fine-I’m sure of it-but pretty soon he won’t. What was I to him? Just another Forthwegian.” Just another wench, she thought, remembering the feel of his lips on hers. But the last wench, the very last.

“It’s a good thing you did get the bowl-and the spoon, too, I hope,” Ealstan said. Vanai nodded. He went on, “If you hadn’t, the Algarvian mages could have used the law of contagion to trace them back to you.”

“I know. I thought of that. It’s the reason I waited for them.” Vanai didn’t tell Ealstan about the couple of quizzical looks Spinello had sent her while he ate her tasty dish of death. Had he half recognized, or wondered if he recognized, her voice? Back in Oyngestun, they’d always spoken classical Kaunian. Here, of course, Vanai had used what scraps of Algarvian she had. That, and the difference in her looks, had kept Spinello from figuring out who she was.

“Well, the son of a whore is gone now, even if he hasn’t figured it out yet. Four death caps?” Ealstan whistled. “You could have killed off half the redheads in Eoforwic with four death caps. Pity you couldn’t have found some way to do it.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Vanai said. “But I got rid of the one I most wanted dead.” That was as much as she’d ever said since Ealstan found out about Spinello.

Ealstan nodded now. “I believe that,” he said, and let it go. He’d never pushed her for details, for which she was grateful.

Saxburh started to cry. Ealstan joggled her, but this time it didn’t restore her smile. “Give her to me. I think she’s getting fussy,” Vanai said. “She’s been up for a while now.” And I’ve been dancing with her, dancing because of what I just did to Spinello. And I still feel like dancing, by the powers above.

She sat down on the couch and undid the toggles that held her tunic closed. Ealstan reached out and gently cupped her left breast as she bared it. “I know it’s not for me right now,” he said, “but maybe later?”

“Maybe,” she said. By her tone, it probably meant aye. As Saxburh settled in and began to nurse, Vanai wondered why that should be so. Wouldn’t seeing Spinello have soured her on men and anything to do with men? Till she first gave herself to Ealstan, she’d thought the Algarvian had soured her on lovemaking forever. Now. . Now I just fed him four death caps, and I want to celebrate. “Come on, sweetheart,” she crooned to Saxburh. “You’re getting sleepy, aren’t you?”

Ealstan, who’d gone into the kitchen, heard that and laughed. He came back with a couple of mugs of something that wasn’t water. He gave Vanai one. “Here. Shall we drink to … to freedom!”

“To freedom!” Vanai echoed, and raised the cup to her lips. Plum brandy slid hot down her throat. She glanced toward Saxburh. Sometimes the baby was interested in what her mother ate and drank. Not now, though.