Through the Darkness

what you did tell me.” He hurried away, his shoulders hunched as if awaiting blows only too likely to fall on them.

That could have been worse, went through Leofsig’s mind as he walked on toward his own house. If Cousin Sidroc had come upon them, for instance, it could have been much worse. But Sidroc was away, training in Plegmund’s Brigade with other Forthwegians mad enough to want to fight for Algarve. Or if Brivibas had come to the house and spoken with Uncle Hengist, Sidroc’s father.. Oh, the unpleasant possibilities had few limits.

When Leofsig rapped on the door, Hengist opened it. “Hello, boy,” he said as Leofsig stepped in. Leofsig was taller than he was, and thicker through the shoulders, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Hello,” Leofsig said shortly. He didn’t mind his father and mother thinking of him as a child; it grated when Uncle Hengist did it. Leofsig strode past his father’s brother and into the house.

As Hengist shut and barred the door, he said, “The Algarvians are on the move in Unkerlant again, no denying it now.”

“Huzzah,” Leofsig said without stopping. If all the Algarvians in the world moved into Unkerlant and got killed there, that would have suited him fine. But Hengist, like Sidroc, kept finding reasons not to hate the invaders so much. Leofsig thought it was because the redheads were strong, and his uncle and cousin wished they were strong, too.

Now, though, Hengist had a new reason for thinking well, or not so badly, of King Mezentio’s men: “As long as the Algarvians move forward, Plegmund’s Brigade won’t be going into such danger.”

“I suppose not,” Leofsig admitted. If he’d been one of Mezentio’s generals, he would have spent Forthwegians’ lives the way a spendthrift went through an inheritance. Why not? They weren’t Algarvians. But he didn’t say that to his uncle. He couldn’t afford to antagonize Hengist, who knew how he’d got out of the captives’ camp. Muttering to himself, he left the entry hall and went into the kitchen.

“Hello, son,” his mother said as she pitted olives. “How did it go today?”

“Not too bad,” Leofsig answered. He couldn’t talk about Brivibas, not with Uncle Hengist still liable to be in earshot. That would have to wait. “Where’s Conberge?” he asked.

“Your sister is primping,” Elfryth answered primly. “She won’t be having supper with us tonight. Grimbald-you know, the jeweler’s son-is taking her to the theater. I don’t know what they’re going to see. Something funny, I hope.”

“Most of the plays they put on these days are funny, or try to be, anyhow,” Leofsig said. He paused in thought. “This isn’t the first time Grimbald’s come by for Conberge, is it?”

His mother laughed at him. “I should say not! And if you’d been paying any attention at all, you’d know how far from the first time it was, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if his father started talking with your father before long.”

That rocked Leofsig back on his heels. Thinking of his sister married. . He didn’t want her to be an old maid, but he didn’t want her moving away, either. For the first time in his life, he felt time hurrying him along faster than he wanted to go.

Quietly, he said, “I have news. It’ll have to keep, though.” He jerked his chin toward the entry hall. He didn’t know that Uncle Hengist was still hanging around there, but he didn’t know that Hengist wasn’t, either.

Elfryth nodded, understanding what he meant. “Good news or bad?” she murmured. Leofsig shrugged. He didn’t know what to make of it. His mother fluttered her hands, looked a little exasperated, and went back to the olives.

When someone knocked on the door a few minutes later, Leofsig opened it. There stood Grimbald. Leofsig let him in, gave him a cup of wine, and made desultory small talk till Conberge came out a couple of minutes later. By the way she beamed at Grimbald, she might have invented him. Away they went, hand in hand.

“Let’s have supper,” Elfryth said after they’d gone. The casserole of porridge and cheese and onions, with the pitted olives sprinkled over the top, filled the pit in Leofsig’s belly. Afterwards, he and his mother and father sat quiet and replete.

Uncle Hengist tried several times to get a conversation going. He had no luck, not even when he twitted Leofsig’s father about the way the Algarvians were still advancing. After a bit, he rose to his feet and said, “I think I’d need to be a necromancer to squeeze any talk from you people. I’m heading off to a tavern. Maybe I can find some live bodies there.” And out he went into the night.

Hestan smiled at Leofsig. “Your mother told me you knew something interesting. My thought was that, if we were all dull enough, my brother might get impatient. Hengist has been known to do that.”

“Well, it worked.” Elfryth rounded on Leofsig. “Now-what happened that you couldn’t tell me about before?”

Leofsig recounted the meeting with Brivibas. When he’d finished, his father said, “I’d heard they’d brought the Kaunians from Oyngestun to Gromheort. I wondered if Ealstan’s… friend had any relatives among them. He had nerve, coming out of the Kaunian district.” He clicked his tongue between his teeth. “I hope I would have done the same for my kin.”

“Ealstan didn’t much like him,” Leofsig said. “I can see why-he thinks he knows everything there is to know, and he’s one of those Kaunians who’ve never forgiven us for coming out of the west and turning Forthweg into Forthweg.”

“And now he’s got a Forthwegian in his family,” Hestan said musingly. “No, he wouldn’t much care for that, would he? No more than a lot of Forthwegians would care to have a Kaunian in theirs.” He left himself out of that group, and after a moment continued, “I’ll have to see what I can do for him, poor fellow. I’m afraid it may not be very much, though.”

“If the Algarvians put him on a caravan and send him west-” Elfryth began.

“I can’t do anything about that,” Hestan answered. “I wish I could, not just for him, but I can’t. Once I find out where he’s staying, I can send him money. If he has any sense about such things, he’ll be able to pay off the redheads. They can be bought.” He glanced over to Leofsig. Several Algarvians had been bought so they wouldn’t notice his unauthorized return to Gromheort from that captives’ camp.

“I’m just glad most of the redheads you paid off are out of Gromheort these days, Father,” Leofsig said. “But I don’t know how much sense this Briv-ibas has. Not a lot, maybe, if his own granddaughter and Ealstan both wanted to stay clear of him.”

Hestan sighed. “You may well be right, but I can hope you’re wrong.”

“I hope I’m wrong, too,” Leofsig said. “He can put us in danger, not just himself.”

Vanai sprawled across the bed in the cramped little flat she shared with Ealstan, reading. The flat, which had had only one abandoned romance-and that a piece of hate translated from Algarvian-in it when they started living there, now boasted a couple of rickety bookcases, both of them packed. Ealstan brought home several books a week. He did work hard to keep her as happy as he could.

But, trained by her grandfather, she’d cut her teeth on the subtleties of Kaunian epics and histories and poetry. Forthwegian romances struck her as spun sugar: straightforward, all bright colors, heroes and villains sharply defined. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy them; she usually did. Still, at least half the time she knew all the important things that would happen before she got a quarter of the way into a book.

The slim little volume in her hands now wasn’t a romance at all. It was called You Too Can Be a Mage. In the preface, the author-who didn’t say what rank of magecraft he held, or if he was a ranked mage at all-didn’t come right out and promise that anyone who finished the book would end up a first-rank mage, but he certainly implied it.

“A likely story,” Vanai muttered. If magecraft were so easy, everybody would have been a mage. But using sorcery and performing it on your own were two very different things.

Despite her doubts, she kept reading. The author had a sprightly style, and seemed convinced he was telling the truth, regardless of how improbable Vanai found that. You can unleash the power within yourself, he insisted.

Back in Oyngestun, she’d tried magic-a cantrip lifted from a text belonging to her grandfather that dated back to the Kaunian Empire-to try to get Major Spinello to leave her alone. A little later, Spinello got posted to Unkerlant. Vanai still didn’t know whether the spell and his departure had anything to do with each other. She didn’t know… but she hoped.