Out of the Darkness

women who’d given themselves to Mezentio’s soldiers. With a sigh, the maidservant repeated, “What can I do for you, milady?”

“My trousers don’t fit me anymore,” Krasta said peevishly. “Hardly any of them even come close to fitting any more. Look at me! I’m still in these summery silk pyjamas with the elastic waist, and I’m about to freeze my tits off. Maybe I ought to get a great big long loose tunic to cover all of me, the kind Unkerlanter women wear.” She shuddered at the mere idea.

But Bauska’s voice was serious as she answered, “Maybe you should, milady. The Unkerlanters have done so much to fight the Algarvians, everything about them is stylish these days. One of their tunics might be just the thing for a woman with child to wear.”

“Do you think so?” Krasta asked, intrigued. She considered, then shook her head. “No, I don’t want to. I don’t care whether their clothes are stylish or not. They’re too ugly to stand. I want trousers, but I want some that fit me properly.”

“Aye, milady.” Bauska sighed. But that sigh wasn’t aimed at Krasta, for she went on, more to herself than to the marchioness, “Maybe you’re right. When I think about Captain Mosco, I don’t suppose I want to see Unkerlanter-style clothes catch on here in Valmiera.”

Mosco had been Colonel Lurcanio’s aide-and was father to Bauska’s bastard daughter. He’d never seen his child by her, though. Before Brindza was born, he’d gone off to fight in Unkerlant. He was one of the first Algarvians pulled west by the ever more desperate battle against King Swemmel’s men, but far from the last. He’d never sent so much as a line back once ordered away from Priekule. Maybe that meant he’d been a heartbreaker from the start. Maybe, on the other hand, it meant he’d died almost as soon as he made the acquaintance of warfare so much more savage than any that had washed over Valmiera.

With a sniff, Krasta said, “Remember, you silly goose, he had a wife somewhere back in Algarve.”

“I know.” Bauska sighed again. What that meant was, she didn’t care. Had Mosco walked into the mansion right then-assuming he could have come anywhere close to it without getting blazed by vengeful Valmierans-she would have greeted him with open arms and, no doubt, open legs. Fool, Krasta thought. Little fool.

Lurcanio had a wife somewhere back in Algarve, too. He’d never denied it or worried about it. Krasta hadn’t cared. Men, in her considerable experience, got what they could where they could. She’d never imagined herself in love with Lurcanio, as Bauska had with Mosco. He’d given her skill in bed and protection from other redheads, and she hadn’t really looked for anything more.

Now that Lurcanio was gone from her bed, gone from Priekule, gone-she thought-from Valmiera (though he could have been one of the Algarvians hanging on in the rugged country of the northwest), there were times when Krasta missed him. Now that he was gone, she remembered with a warm glow what he’d been able to do for her. . and she conveniently forgot how he’d frightened and intimidated her. He being the only man who’d ever managed to do that, forgetting came all the easier.

But she couldn’t forget how even these pyjama bottoms were starting to grow cruelly tight. “Where in blazes do I go to find clothes I can wear?” she demanded. “As far as I know, there was only one shop on the whole Boulevard of Horsemen that catered to pregnant women, and it’s been closed up with night and fog scrawled across the window for two years now.”

The Boulevard of Horsemen was, far and away, the toniest street of shops in Priekule. That meant it was the only one Krasta cared about. Going anywhere else would have been stepping down in class, and she would sooner have been buried alive. But if the Boulevard didn’t have what she needed, she could look elsewhere without social penalty.

Bauska said, “I found the clothes I needed on Threadneedle Street, milady. Plenty of such shops there, some cheap, some not so.”

“Threadneedle Street,” Krasta echoed. She remembered Bauska’s clothes as being ugly. She could do better, though. She was sure of it. She had more taste and more money. How could she go wrong? Musingly, she said, “I’ve never been down to Threadneedle Street.”

“Never, milady?” Bauska looked astonished. “But everybody buys clothes there.”

“I don’t do what everybody else does,” Krasta said in lofty tones. And if I hadn’t taken an Algarvian lover when so many other women did. . But it was much too late to worry about that.

After some rummaging, Bauska found her a pair of trousers she could at least wear. Her tunics were getting tight, too, both at what was left of her waist and at the chest. She reckoned only part of that a drawback; the rest was an asset, especially when dealing with men.

Her driver gave her a bleary look when she told him she wanted to go out. He was drinking much too much these days. Krasta couldn’t even yell at him, the way she wanted to. Who could guess what would happen if she antagonized the servants? They were liable to go to her brother, and she had enough trouble with Skarnu as things were.

The day was clear and cold and crisp as the carriage rattled into the heart of Priekule. People on the streets looked shabby, but they looked happy, lively, in a way they hadn’t when the Algarvians held the city. Krasta still wasn’t used to not seeing redheads strolling along and taking in the sights. When Algarvian soldiers in Unkerlant got leave, they often came east to rest and relax in the capital of a kingdom that had, at least for a while, truly yielded to them.

No Valmieran wore kilts these days, either. They’d grown moderately popular among those who wanted to curry favor with the occupiers or just wanted to show off shapely legs. No more, though. Now, if the Algarvian-style garments weren’t thrown out, they lay at the bottom of clothes chests and in the back of closets. For a Valmieran to put on a kilt today might well be to risk a life.

“Threadneedle Street, milady,” Krasta’s driver said glumly. “Best you get out now, so I can find a place to put the carriage.”

“Oh, very well,” Krasta said. The street was crowded, not only with carriages but also with goods wagons and with a swarm of foot traffic. Tradesmen and shopgirls and riffraff like that, Krasta thought scornfully. If these are the people Bauska thinks of as everybody, powers above be praised that I have some idea of what true quality is worth.

But her maidservant had been right: plenty of the cramped little shops along Threadneedle Street sported names like for a mother and clothes for you both and even-dismayingly, as far as Krasta was concerned-maybe it’s twins. She rolled her eyes. She didn’t particularly want one baby. If she were to have two. . She wondered if Valnu could have sired one and Lurcanio the other. Wouldn’t that be a scandal? She had no idea if it were possible, and even less idea of whom to ask. Not asking anyone struck her as a pretty good plan.

Shopping here, she rapidly discovered, was different from shopping on the Boulevard of Horsemen. No fawning shopgirls guided her from one elegant creation to the next. Instead, clothes were crammed onto racks. In shops with sale! painted on their windows, getting anything took harder fighting than most of what the Valmieran army had done. Commoner women much more extravagantly pregnant than Krasta elbowed her aside to get at a pair of loose-fitting trousers or a baggy tunic they wanted. She didn’t need many lessons along those lines. Before long, she gave as good as she got, if not better. After all, wasn’t elbowing commoners aside a proper sport for a noblewoman?

The clothes were cheaper than she’d expected. They were also none too sturdily made. When she complained about that to a shopkeeper, he said, “Lady, use your head. You think you’re gonna be in ‘em long enough to wear ‘em out?”

What he said made good sense, but his tone infuriated her. “Do you know who I am?” she demanded.

“Somebody trying to waste my time, and I ain’t got it to waste,” he answered, and turned to a woman holding out some trousers to him. “You like these, darling? That’s two and a half in silver. . Thank you very much.”

Krasta didn’t buy anything there: the only revenge she could take. She did get what she needed, and she hunted down her driver, who stowed away his flask when he saw her coming. “Home,” she said, and escaped Threadneedle Street with nothing but relief.

Back at the mansion, though, Merkela happened to be walking outside when Krasta came up the drive. The farm woman’s son toddled beside her, holding her hand for balance. “What have you got in the sacks?” Merkela snapped, as if suspecting Krasta of smuggling secrets to the Algarvians.