too bloody well even so. That’s why you find SULINGEN scrawled on every other wall.”
“Let’s see how many times we see it before we get to the hall of laws,” Vanai said, at least as happy at the idea of Algarvian disasters as Ealstan was.
They counted fourteen graffiti on the walk through Eoforwic. Twice, the name of the Unkerlanter city had been painted over recruiting broadsheets for Plegmund’s Brigade. The combination made Ealstan thoughtful. “I wonder if Sidroc’s down in Sulingen,” he said hopefully. “The only thing wrong with that would be getting my revenge through an Unkerlanter instead of all by myself.”
“Would it do?” Vanai asked.
After a little thought, Ealstan nodded. “Aye. It would do.”
The hall of laws lay not far from King Penda’s palace. In the days before the war, judges and barristers and functionaries would have gone back and forth from one building to the other. They still did, the only difference being that most of them, and all the high-ranking ones, were Algarvians now.
Forthwegians did remain in the hall of laws-as clerks and other minor officials not worth the occupiers’ while to replace. One of those clerks, who looked so bored he should have been covered with dust, handed a form to Ealstan and another to Vanai. “Fill these out and return them to me with the fee indicated on the sign on the wall,” he droned, not even bothering to point at the sign he’d mentioned.
Ealstan filled in his own true name and his place of residence. That was where the truth stopped for him. He invented his father’s name and declared that his fictitious forebear had been born and raised in Eoforwic. He didn’t know whether the constables were still looking for Ealstan son of Hestan of Gromheort, but he didn’t know that they weren’t, either, and didn’t care to find out by experiment.
Glancing over at Vanai’s form, he saw that the only truth she’d told on it was her place of residence. She’d invented a fine Forthwegian pedigree for herself. Their eyes met. They both grinned. This was all part of the masquerade.
When they went back to the counter, the clerk barely glanced at the forms. He was more interested in making sure Ealstan had paid the proper fee. On that, he was meticulous; Ealstan supposed the Algarvians would take it out of his pay if he came up short there. Having satisfied himself, the clerk said, “There is one more formality. Do you both swear by the powers above that you are pure Forthwegian blood, without the slightest taint of vile Kaunianity?”
“Aye.” Ealstan and Vanai spoke together.
But the occupiers required more than oaths. A couple of burly Forthwegian men came up to Ealstan; a couple of almost equally burly women approached Vanai. One of the men said, “Step into this anteroom with us, if you please.” He sounded polite enough, but not like somebody who would take no for an answer.
As Ealstan headed for the antechamber, the women led Vanai off in the other direction. “What’s all this about?” he asked, though he thought he already knew.
And, sure enough, the bruiser said, “Ward against oathbreakers.” He closed the door to the antechamber, then took a small scissors from his belt pouch. “I’m going to snip a lock of hair from your head.” He did, then nodded when it failed to change color. “That’s all right, but you wouldn’t believe what some of the stinking Kaunians try and get away with. I’m going to have to ask you to hike up your tunic and drop your drawers.”
“This is an outrage!” Ealstan exclaimed. He wondered what Vanai was saying in the other room. With any luck, something more memorable than that.
With a shrug, the Forthwegian tough said, “You’ve got to do it if you want to get married. Otherwise you throw away your fee and you get the redheads poking and prodding at you, not just fellows like me.”
Still fuming, Ealstan did what he had to do. The tough with the scissors snipped again, with surprising delicacy. He looked at the little tuft of hair between his fingers, nodded, and tossed it into a wastepaper basket. Ealstan yanked his drawers back up. “I hope you’re satisfied.”
“I am, and now you can be.” The bruiser chuckled at his own wit. So did his pal. Ealstan maintained what he hoped was a dignified silence.
Vanai came out of her anteroom at the same time as he came out of his. She looked furious, like a cat that had just been forced to take a bath. The two blocky women who’d escorted her in there were both smirking. But they weren’t restraining her. Ealstan assumed that meant she’d passed her test.
He asked the clerk, “What do we have to go through now?”
“Nothing,” the man answered. “You’re married. Congratulations.” He sounded as bored saying that as he had through the rest of the proceedings.
Ealstan didn’t much care how he sounded. Turning, he embraced Vanai and gave her a kiss. The two bruisers who’d taken him away snickered. So did the women who’d examined Vanai-but not closely enough.
The newlyweds left the hall of laws as quickly as they could. Not all of Vanai’s fury turned out to be acting. “Those, those-” She came out with a classical Kaunian word Ealstan had never heard before. “I’d almost sooner have had your pair. They couldn’t have been worse about letting their hands wander where they didn’t belong. And they kept looking at me as if they thought I was enjoying it.” She said that Kaunian word, in a low voice but even more hotly than before. Now Ealstan had a pretty fair notion of what it meant.
He said, “The ones who got hold of me weren’t interested like that. They just wanted to make sure I was a real Forthwegian.”
“Well, I’m a real Forthwegian, too-now I am,” Vanai said. “And I took an oath to prove it.” She sighed. “I hate being forsworn, but what choice had I? None.”
“It was a wicked oath,” Ealstan said. “If the oath is wicked, how can you do wrong by swearing falsely?” He wasn’t sorry when Vanai didn’t pursue that. He saw the slippery slope ahead. Who decided when an oath was wicked? Whoever he was, how did he decide? This one seemed obvious to Ealstan, but it must have looked different to the Algarvians.
“Married,” Vanai said in wondering tones. Then she chuckled, not altogether pleasantly. “My grandfather would pitch a fit.”
“I hope he’s alive
“On the whole, so do I,” Vanai answered, and he shut up in a hurry.
When they got back to the flat, he unlatched the door. He motioned for Vanai to go in ahead of him. While she was in the doorway, he stepped in beside her, took her arm so she couldn’t fully pass into the flat, and gave her a kiss. She squeaked. “That’s what we do at proper Forthwegian weddings,” he said, “not the kind where the fee is the only thing that makes it real.”
“I knew that. I’ve seen Forthwegian weddings in Oyngestun,” Vanai said. “At a proper Kaunian wedding, there would be flowers and there would be olives and almonds and walnuts-oh, and mushrooms, too, of course-for fruitfulness.” She sighed and shrugged. “However we did it, I’m glad I’m married to you.”
Ealstan hadn’t thought anything could make up for the shabby ceremony-no ceremony at all, really-and for the goons who’d tried to make sure he and Vanai weren’t Kaunians in sorcerous disguise. But that double handful of words did the job. He kissed her again, this time for the sake of the kiss, not for anything else. Then he said, “I bet there’s one part of the wedding-or right after the wedding-that’s the same for Forthwegians and Kaunians.”
Vanai cocked her head to one side. “Oh?” she said. “Which part do you mean?
He wanted to grab her. He wanted to take her hand and set it on the part of him he had in mind. He did neither. He’d seen she didn’t care for such things-in fact, she sometimes froze for a moment when he did them. He still didn’t know exactly what had happened to her before they came together, but he thought something bad had. One day, she might decide to tell him. If she did, fine. If she didn’t… he would live with that, too.
And she was still standing there smiling, waiting for his answer. “Come into the bedchamber,” he said, “and I’ll show you.”
He did. She showed him, too. They lay side by side, waiting for him to rise for another round. He was eighteen; it wouldn’t take long. Stroking her, he said, “That’s better magic than any the sorcerers work.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Vanai said. “I wonder if it was the very first magic, and everything else grew out of it.”
“I don’t know. I don’t suppose anyone else knows, either,” Ealstan said. After a little while, they began again. The oldest magic of all, if that was what it was, had them well and truly-and happily-ensnared.
Talsu got up from the supper table. “I’m off,” he said in Jelgavan, and then, in classical Kaunian, “I go to learn my lesson.”
