Out of the Darkness

“I ought to give her something to remember me by now,” Merkela said, with the same directness she’d used while hunting redheads.

Before she could advance on Skirgaila, Viscount Valnu came up, the usual mocking smile on his bony, handsome face. “Ah, the happy couple!” he said, and contrived to make it sound almost like an insult.

“Hullo, Valnu,” Skarnu said. Valnu didn’t seem to mind the endless rounds of feasts. But then, he’d been coming to them all through the Algarvian occupation, too. Aye, he’d been in the underground. Still, Skarnu was sure he hadn’t let that keep him from having a good time.

His arrival distracted Merkela. She didn’t know what to make of Valnu. But then, a lot of people don’t know what to make of Valnu, Skarnu thought. Skirgaila, meanwhile, had practically painted herself to the chest of another nobleman who hadn’t collaborated with the Algarvians. Skarnu nodded to himself. She wants to repair one sort of reputation, sure enough, and she doesn‘t care about the other sort.

With peasant bluntness, Merkela demanded, “Are you really father to the child Krasta’s carrying?”

Valnu’s blue, blue eyes widened. “Am I, milady? I don’t know. I haven’t looked inside there to tell.” That was bluntness of a sort Merkela wasn’t used to; she flushed. Chuckling, Valnu went on, “Could I be that father, though? Without a doubt, I could be.” He fluttered his eyelashes at Skarnu. “And now I’ll have the poor girl’s outraged brother coming after me with a club.”

“You’re impossible,” Skarnu said, at which Valnu bowed in delight. Even Merkela snorted at that. With a sigh, Skarnu went on, “I hope you are. All things considered, I’d not have the family dragged through too much dirt.”

“You’re no fun at all,” Valnu said. “I know what your problem is, though- I know just the disease you’ve caught.”

“Tell me,” Skarnu said, raising an eyebrow. “What sort of slander will you come up with? If it’s vile enough, I’ll haul you before the king.”

“It’s pretty vile, all right,” Valnu said. “You poor fellow, you’ve caught. . responsibility. It’s very dangerous unless you treat it promptly. I came down with it myself for a while, but I seem to have thrown it off.”

“I believe that,” Skarnu said. But he couldn’t stay too annoyed with Valnu. No matter how much fun the viscount had had here in Priekule during the occupation, he’d played a hard and dangerous game. Had the Algarvians realized he was anything more than a vacuous good-time boy, he would have suffered the same nasty fate as had so many men-and women-from the underground.

No sooner had that thought crossed Skarnu’s mind than Valnu said, “You know, it’s possible you’re being too hard on your poor sister.”

“And it’s possible we’re not, too,” Merkela snapped before Skarnu could answer. “That cursed redhead was hard whenever he was alone with her, wasn’t he?”

“Lurcanio? No doubt he was,” Valnu replied. The bow he gave Merkela was distinctly mocking. “And you’re learning cattiness fast. You’ll make a splendid noblewoman, no doubt about it.” He grinned. She spluttered. He went on, “But I still mean what I said. Krasta held my life in the hollow of her hand. She knew what I was, knew without the tiniest fragment of doubt after the late, unlamented Count Amatu met his untimely demise after dining at her mansion. Yet even if she did know, neither Lurcanio nor any of the other redheads learned of it from her. More: she helped make them believe I was harmless. So I beg both of you, do have such patience with her as you can.”

He sounded unwontedly serious. Merkela’s eyes blazed. Getting her to change her mind once she’d made it up was always hard. Skarnu said, “We have a while to think about it. Her baby’s not due for another couple of months. If it looks like you-”

“It will be the handsomest-or loveliest, depending-child ever born,” Valnu broke in.

“If it’s a little sandy-haired bastard, though …” Merkela’s voice was as cold as the winter winds that blew up from the land of the Ice People.

“Even then,” Valnu said. “There’s a difference between going to bed with someone for love and doing it from. . expediency, shall we say?” By his tone, he was intimately acquainted with every inch of that debatable ground.

But he didn’t persuade Merkela. “I know how far I will go,” she said. “I know how far everybody else will go, too.” She didn’t quite turn her back on Valnu, but she might as well have.

And Skarnu thought she was likely to be right. In a newly freed Valmiera where everyone was doing his best to pretend no one had ever collaborated with Mezentio’s men, bearing a half-Algarvian child would not be tolerated. The only reason Bauska had had as little trouble over Brindza as she’d had was that her bastard daughter seldom left the mansion. A servant and her child could hope to remain obscure. A marchioness? Skarnu doubted it.

“A pity,” Valnu murmured.

“How much pity did the Algarvians ever show us?” Merkela said. “How much did they show anyone of Kaunian blood? Did you ever meet any of the Kaunians from Forthweg who got away from them? You wouldn’t talk of pity if you had.”

Valnu sighed. “There is some truth in what you say, milady. Some, I have never denied it. Whether there is quite so much as you think.. ”

Merkela took a deep, angry breath. Skarnu didn’t want to see a quarrel-no, more likely a brawl-erupt. Maybe that was the disease of responsibility, as Valnu had said. Whatever it was, he had to move quickly-and delicately. Calming Merkela when her temper was high had the same potential for disaster as trying to keep an egg from bursting after its first spell somehow failed. Mistakes could have spectacularly disastrous consequences.

Here, though, he thought he had the answer. He said, “Shall we set our wedding day for about the time when Krasta’s baby is due? Whatever happens then, we’ll upstage her.”

That distracted Merkela, as he’d hoped. She nodded and said, “Aye, why not?” But she wasn’t completely distracted, for she added, “It will also help quiet the scandal if she does have a little redheaded bastard.”

“Maybe some,” said Skarnu, who’d hoped she wouldn’t think of that.

Merkela’s frown was thoughtful now, not angry-or not so angry. “As far as Krasta’s concerned, we shouldn’t muffle the scandal. We should shout it. As far as you’re concerned, though-”

“As far as the whole family is concerned,” Skarnu broke in. “Whoever that baby’s father is, it’s first cousin to little Gedominu, you know.”

His fiancee plainly hadn’t thought of that. Neither had Skarnu, till this moment. “They’ll have to live with it all their lives, won’t they?” Merkela murmured. Skarnu nodded. A bit later, and more than a bit reluctantly, so did she. “All right. Let it be as you say.”

“Do invite me,” Valnu cooed. “After all, I may be an uncle.”

Merkela hadn’t thought of that, either. Skarnu said, “We wouldn’t think of doing anything else. We’ll need someone to pinch the bridesmaids-and maybe the groomsmen, too.”

“You flatter me outrageously,” Valnu said. And then, pouring oil on the fire, he asked, “And will you invite the aunt, too?”

Skarnu wanted to hit him with something. But Merkela merely sounded matter-of-fact as she answered, “She wouldn’t come anyhow. I’m only a peasant. I don’t belong. I could be a traitor, so long as I had blue blood. That wouldn’t matter. But a farm girl in the family …”

“Is the best thing that ever happened to me.” Skarnu slipped his arm around her waist.

Valnu said, “Nobles wouldn’t be nobles if we didn’t fret about such things. It could be worse, though. It could be Jelgava. Jelgavan nobles make ours look like shopkeepers, the way they go on about the glory and purity of their blood.”

With a certain venomous satisfaction, Merkela said, “It didn’t keep their noblewomen from lying down for the redheads, did it?”

“Well, no.” Valnu wagged a finger at her. “You’re almost as radical as an Unkerknter, aren’t you? When Swemmel’s nobles turned out not to like him, he just went and killed most of them.”

“And the Unkerlanters threw Algarve back,” Merkela replied. “What do you suppose that says, your Excellency?” She used the title with sardonic relish. Valnu, for once, had no comeback ready.