Kuusamo and Lagoas gained their foothold on the mainland of Derlavai in Jelgava. Now armies came at Algarve from the west and from the east.
Outside the depot, cabs waited in neat ranks, as in the old days. Sabrino waved to one. The cabby waved back. He hurried toward the cab. The driver descended, opened the door for him to get in, and asked, “Where to?”
Sabrino gave his address, or rather half of it, before stopping and staring. The cabby’s black uniform was the one he remembered, from heavy shoes to high-crowned cap with shiny patent-leather brim. But.. “You’re a woman!” he blurted.
“Sure am,” the cabby agreed. She was middle-aged and dumpy, but that wasn’t why he’d needed a moment to know her for what she was. Smiling at his confusion, she went on, “You haven’t been home for a while, have you, Colonel?”
“No,” Sabrino said numbly.
“Plenty of women doing all kinds of things these days,” the driver told him. “Not enough whole men-or crippled men, come to that-left to do them, and they’ve got to get done. Hop in, pal. I’ll take you where you’re going. You want to tell me again where that is, without choking this time?”
Still astonished, he obeyed. When he got into the passenger compartment, she closed the door behind him, then scrambled up to her seat. The cab began to roll. Sure enough, she could manage a horse.
Streets were rougher than Sabrino remembered. That wasn’t the cab’s elderly springs; it was poorly repaired holes in the roadway. Some of them hadn’t been repaired at all. Jounces made his teeth click together.
Everything seemed more soot-stained than Sabrino remembered, too. The reason for that wasn’t hard to find, either. Charred ruins were everywhere, sometimes a house or a shop, sometimes a block, or two, or three. The air stank of stale smoke. Just breathing made Sabrino want to cough.
There was the jeweler’s shop where Sabrino had had a ring-booty he’d taken in Unkerlant-repaired for his mistress. No, there was the block where the shop had stood, but only wreckage remained. He hoped Dosso had got out. He’d been doing business with the jeweler since just after the Six Years’ War.
Most of the people on the street were women. Sabrino had seen that on earlier leaves. It stood out even more strongly now. Even some of the constables were women. The rest were graybeards who looked to have been summoned from retirement. Most of the men not in uniform limped or went on crutches or had a sleeve pinned up or wore a patch over one eye or had some other obvious reason for not being at the front. Everyone seemed to be wearing somber clothing-some the dark gray of mourning, others shades of blue or brown hard to tell from it in the sad winter light. Women’s kilts had got longer, too. Sabrino let out a silent sigh.
The cab rattled to a stop. “Here you go, Colonel,” the driver said. Sabrino got out. The driver descended to hand him his bag. He tipped her more than he would have if she were a man. She curtsied and climbed up again to go look for her next fare. Sabrino went up the walk and used the brass knocker to knock on his own front door.
When a maidservant opened it, she squeaked in surprise and dropped him a curtsy more polished than the one he’d got from the cabby. “Your Excellency!” she exclaimed. “We had no idea …”
“I know, Clarinda,” Sabrino answered. “It’s not always easy to send messages from the front. But I’m here. The Unkerlanters haven’t managed to turn the lady my wife into a widow quite yet. Is Gismonda at home?”
Clarinda nodded. “Aye, my lord Count. Nobody goes out as much as we did. . beforehand. Let me go get her.” She hurried away, calling, “Lady Gismonda! Lady Gismonda! Your husband’s home!”
That brought servants from all over the mansion to clasp Sabrino’s hand and embrace him. The last time he’d had such a greeting, he thought, was when he’d managed to escape the Unkerlanters after they blazed down his dragon.
“Let me through,” Gismonda said, and the cooks and serving girls parted before her as if she were a first-rank mage casting a powerful spell. Sabrino’s wife gave him a businesslike hug. She was a few years younger than he; she’d been a beauty when they wed, and her bones were still good. She would have hated being called handsome, but the word fit her. After looking Sabrino up and down, she nodded in brisk approval. “You seem better than you did the last time they let you come home.”
“I was wounded then,” he pointed out. “You look very good, my dear-and you don’t look as if you were about to go to a funeral.” Gismonda’s tunic and kilt were of a bright green that set off her eyes and the auburn hair that, these days, got more than a little help from a dye jar.
Her lip curled. “I don’t much care for what people call fashion these days, and so I ignore it. Some fools do cluck, but the only place I care about hens is on my supper plate.” She turned to the head cook. “Speaking of hens, have we got a nice one you can do up for the count’s supper tonight?”
“Not a hen, milady, but a plump capon,” he replied.
Gismonda looked a question to Sabrino. His stomach answered it by rumbling audibly. As if he’d replied with words, Gismonda nodded to the cook. He went off to get to work. Gismonda asked Sabrino, “And what would you like in the meanwhile?”
He answered that without hesitation: “A hot bath, a glass of wine, and some clean clothes.”
“I think all that can probably be arranged,” Gismonda said. By the look she gave the servants, they would answer to her if it weren’t.
Sabrino was soaking in a steaming tub-luxury beyond price in the wilds of Unkerlant or Yanina-when the bathroom door opened. It wasn’t a servant; it was his wife, carrying a tray on which perched two goblets of white wine. She gave Sabrino one, set the other on the edge of the tub, and went out again, returning a moment later with a stool, upon which she perched by the tub. Sabrino held up his goblet in salute. “To my charming lady.”
“You’re kind,” Gismonda murmured as she drank. Their marriage, like most from their generation and class, had been arranged. They never had fallen in love, but they liked each other well enough. Gismonda sipped again, then asked a sharp, quick question: “Can we win the war?”
“No.” Sabrino gave the only answer he could see.
“I didn’t think so,” his wife said bleakly. “It will be even worse than it was after the Six Years’ War, won’t it?”
“Much worse,” Sabrino told her. He hesitated, then went on, “If you have a chance to get to the east, it might be a good idea.” He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t want to think about the Unkerlanters’ coming so far, but couldn’t help it. Gismonda’s thoughtful nod told him she understood what he meant.
Her eyes glinted. “Since you’re unfortunate enough to find yourself in Trapani without a mistress, would you like me to scrub your back for you-or even your front, if you’re so inclined?”
Before he could answer, bells started ringing all over the Algarvian capital, some nearer, some farther. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Enemy dragons,” Gismonda replied. “The warning for them, I mean. The dowsers are skilled, not that it helps much. Get dressed-quickly-and come down to the cellar. We can worry about other things later.” She sighed. “The capon will have to go out of the oven and into a rest crate. We will get to eat it eventually.”
The only clothes Sabrino had in the bathroom were his uniform tunic and kilt and a heavy wool robe. Without hesitation, he chose the robe. Even as he tied it shut, eggs began falling on Trapani. He’d delivered attacks and been under attack from the air, but he’d never imagined a pounding so large and sustained as this. And it went on and on, night after night after night? Gismonda did not have to hurry him down the stairs. He marveled that any of Trapani was left standing.
The cellar hadn’t been made to hold everyone in the mansion. It was cramped and crowded and stuffy. Even down here underground, the thuds and roars of bursting eggs dug deep into Sabrino’s spirit. Everything shook when one came down close by. If one happened to land on the roof, would everyone be entombed here? He wished he hadn’t thought of that.
After a couple of hours, he asked, “How long does this go on?”
“All night, most nights,” Clarinda answered. “Some of them fly away, but more come. We knock some down, but. .” Her voice trailed away.
For the first time since the middle of summer, Ealstan couldn’t hear any eggs bursting. The fighting had
