is at liberty to see me for a few minutes, either here or in his own office.”
“Just as you say, your Excellency, so it shall be.” Qutuz’s flowery language might have come straight from the desert, too. Hajjaj bent over and rubbed his backside, as if he’d been riding a camel much too long. Laughing, Qutuz activated his crystal and spoke with one of General Ikhshid’s aides. He turned to Hajjaj. “The general says that, if you don’t mind going over there, he can see you directly.”
“I don’t mind,” Hajjaj said. “We’re old men, Ikhshid and I; he wouldn’t make me walk without good cause.”
Soldiers bustled in and out of Ikhshid’s headquarters, which was certainly a busier-looking place than the foreign ministry. The stocky, grizzled general bowed Hajjaj into his own office and closed the door behind them. “Sit- make yourself comfortable,” he said, and waited till Hajjaj had arranged a mound of pillows on the floor. Then, with military abruptness, Ikhshid came to the point: “Well, your Excellency, what won’t you talk about over the crystal now?”
“You know me well,” Hajjaj said.
“I’d better, after all these years,” General Ikhshid replied. “And you still haven’t answered my question.”
“I shall, never fear,” Hajjaj said. “His Majesty and I were discussing the Algarvians’ chances of taking Glogau either with or without our aid.”
“Were you?” Ikhshid’s eyebrows rose. “And what were your views on the subject?”
Hajjaj did his well-honed best to keep his face from showing anything. He said, “I would sooner have your unvarnished opinion, if you please.”
Ikhshid’s grunt might have been laughter or anger. “Afraid I’ll turn weather-vane on you? Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.” Hajjaj shrugged and held his face still. After a wordless grumble, Ikhshid said, “They can’t do it this campaigning season, that’s certain sure. They’ve stripped the north and center bare as a Zuwayzi to free up dragons and behemoths and egg-tossers for the push to the Mamming Hills.”
“They’ve made Unkerlant do the same, too,” Hajjaj pointed out.
“I don’t deny it,” Ikhshid said. “But the Unkerlanters are just trying to hold on in Glogau. They aren’t trying to break out. You don’t need as much to hang on, because the country fights with you, if you know what I mean.”
“All right,” Hajjaj said, more than a little relieved to find Ikhshid’s judgment confirming his own. “Another question: will the Algarvians take Sulingen?
“They’ve already taken it, or taken most of it, anyhow,” Ikhshid answered.
“That’s not what you want to ask. What you want to ask is, will they have anything left to throw across the Wolter once they’ve finished clearing the town, and will Swemmel’s men have anything left to throw at ‘em while they’re trying to do it?” He waited. Hajjaj obediently asked him those two questions. Ikhshid gave him a wry grin. “Your Excellency, I haven’t the faintest idea. If we knew ahead of time how a war was going to turn out, we usually wouldn’t have to fight it.”
“I thank you.” Hajjaj inclined his head to the general. “Truly you are a font of wisdom.”
Ikhshid waggled a forefinger at him. “You’re so cursed smart all the time, Hajjaj-did you know who would win when the redheads took on Valmiera? They tried going east in the last war, too, and it bloody well didn’t work. The Valmierans didn’t think it would work this time, either. Turned out they were wrong.”
“So it did.” After some thought, Hajjaj nodded again. “Very well. I take your point. Since we cannot know what happens till it happens, we had best be as ready as we can for all the possibilities.”
“There you are.” Now General Ikhshid beamed at him. “I always knew you were a smart fellow, your Excellency. And you do keep proving it.”
“Do I?” Hajjaj scratched his head. “Easy enough to see what wants doing. How to do it? That is a very different question, General.”
“You’ll find a way,” Ikhshid said. “I don’t know what it is yet, and you don’t, either, but you will. And Zuwayza will be better off with you as foreign minister than we would be without you.”
Hajjaj considered that. Without false modesty, he decided Ikhshid was likely to be right. He gave the general a seated bow. “You pay me a great compliment.”
“You’re likely to earn it.” Ikhshid opened one of his desk drawers. Like Hajjaj’s, his desk stood low to the ground, so he could work at it while sitting on the floor. From the drawer he took a squat jar of Forthwegian apricot brandy and a couple of earthenware cups. He poured them both full, then handed Hajjaj one. “And now, your Excellency, what shall we drink to?”
This time, Hajjaj replied at once: “To survival.” Ikhshid nodded and raised his cup in salute. They both knocked back the potent spirits. When Ikhshid offered the jar again, Hajjaj did not say no.
Ealstan and Vanai walked hand in hand through the streets of Eoforwic. He was still bemused whenever he glanced toward her; with her sorcerous disguise, she could have been his sister new-come from Gromheort. But that she looked like Conberge was in the eyes of the world a small thing. That she looked like a Forthwegian, any Forthwegian, mattered far more.
In her free hand, Vanai was carrying a wickerwork basket. She held it up and smiled. “I wonder what sort of mushrooms we’ll find,” she said.
“Me, too.” Ealstan also carried a basket. “We’re probably out too early, though. The fall rains have hardly started. Things will be better in another couple of weeks.”
“I don’t care,” Vanai said. “We can go out then, too, if you want. I’ll never say no to going after mushrooms. But I want to get an early start.”
He squeezed her hand. She’d been trapped inside the flat for most of a year. He couldn’t blame her for going out at any excuse or none. And they weren’t the only people on the street with baskets in their hands and looks of happy anticipation on their faces. In Forthweg, people thought any chance of getting mushrooms was worth taking.
“There’s that park I was telling you about.” Ealstan pointed ahead. The grass in the park hadn’t been trimmed in a long time-probably not since the Unkerlanters took Eoforwic, almost certainly not since the Algarvians drove the Unkerlanters off to the west. “See-it’s a good big stretch of ground. We might find almost anything in here.”
Vanai looked discontented. Ealstan knew why she did. Before he could say anything, she did it for him: “I know we can’t go out into the countryside. Things won’t last long enough to let us.”
The constables understood enough Forthwegian to know what he meant. They made horrible faces and shook their heads. “How can they eat those miserable, nasty things?” one of them said to the other in their own language. The second constable gave an extravagant Algarvian frown. Ealstan didn’t let on that he’d understood.
“That was wonderful,” Vanai whispered, which made Ealstan feel twice as tall as he really was, twice as wide through the shoulders, and as heavily armored as a behemoth. He leaned over and gave her a quick kiss. It wasn’t at all like kissing Conberge.
“We may do as well in the park as we would anywhere else,” Ealstan said. “We don’t know the good hunting spots here, the way we did around Gromheort and Oyngestun.”
“Maybe.” Vanai didn’t sound convinced. But then she brightened. “Look. There’s a little grove of oaks.” When she smiled that particular smile, she didn’t really look like Conberge, either; no smile from his sister had ever made Ealstan’s blood heat so. With a small sigh, Vanai went on, “In the middle of the city, it would probably be too crowded.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Ealstan said, and the regret in his voice made Vanai laugh. When he thought about it, he laughed, too. They could always go back to the flat, where they would be sure of privacy, and where the bed was far more comfortable than grass and fallen leaves. Even so, looking toward the scrubby trees, he had the feeling of a chance wasted.
“Well, even if we can’t find a chance for
