Through the Darkness

wasn’t, but the difference remained. After another sip of wine, he decided that Vanai, even though she fussed, didn’t treat him as if he were two years old while she was doing it. As far as his mother was concerned, he would never be anything but a child.

He took one more sip of wine, then nodded to Vanai. “Thank you,” he told her. “This is good. It’s what I needed.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, and laughed, though not as if she were merry and carefree. “I sound silly, don’t I? But I hardly know what to do when somebody tells me that. My grandfather didn’t, or not very often, and the things I had to do for him. . ” She laughed again, even more grimly than before.

“Maybe Brivibas had trouble figuring out you weren’t a baby anymore,”

Ealstan said; if that was true for his parents-especially his mother-why not for Vanai’s grandfather, too?

But she shook her head. “No. He had an easier time with me when I was small. He could count on me to do as I was told then. Later on …” Now her eyes twinkled. “Later on, he never could be sure I wouldn’t do something outrageous and disgraceful-say, falling in love with a Forthwegian.”

“Well, if you had to pick something outrageous and disgraceful, I’m glad you picked that,” Ealstan said.

“So am I,” Vanai answered. “A lot of my other choices were worse.” She looked bleak again, but, with what seemed a distinct effort of will, put aside the expression. Her voice thoughtful, she went on, “You know, I didn’t fall in love with you, not really, till we’d been in this flat for a while.”

“No?” Ealstan said in no small surprise. He’d fallen head over heels in love with her from the moment she’d given him her body. That was how he thought of it, anyway.

She shook her head again. “No. I always liked you, from the first time we met hunting mushrooms. I wouldn’t have done what I did there in the woods last fall if I hadn’t. But you were … a way out for me, when I didn’t think I could have one. I needed a while to see, to be sure, how much more you were.”

For a moment, his feelings were hurt. Then he realized she’d paid him no small compliment. “I won’t let you down,” he said.

Vanai leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. “I know you won’t,” she answered. “Don’t you see? That’s one of the reasons I love you. No one else has ever been like that for me. I suppose my mother and father would have been, but I can hardly even remember them.”

Ealstan had always known he could count on his family. He’d taken that as much for granted as the shape of his hand. He said, “I’m sorry. That must have been hard. It must have been even harder because you’re a Kaunian in a mostly Forthwegian kingdom.”

“You might say so. Aye, you just might say so.” Vanai’s voice went harsh and ragged. “And do you know what the worst part of that is?” Ealstan shook his head. He wasn’t sure she noticed; she was staring at nothing in particular as she went on, “The worst part of it is, we didn’t know when we were well off. In Forthweg, we Kaunians were well off. Would you have believed that? I wouldn’t have believed it, but it was true. All we needed was the Algarvians to prove it, and they did.”

Ealstan put his arm around her. He thought of those two chubby constables in kilts and hoped the powers above would keep them away. Even if he hadn’t been feeling so feeble, he feared that encircling arm wouldn’t be so much protection as Vanai was liable to need.

But it was what he could give. It was what she had. She seemed to sense as much, for she moved closer to him. “We’ll get through it,” he said. “Somehow or other, we’ll get through it.”

“They can’t win,” Vanai said. “I can’t stay hidden forever, and there’s nowhere I can go, either, not if they win.”

But the Algarvians could win, as Ealstan knew all too well. “Maybe not in Forthweg,” he admitted, “but Forthweg isn’t the only kingdom in the world, either.” Vanai looked at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. Maybe I have, he thought. But then again, maybe I haven’t.

Hajjaj stared down at the papers his secretary handed him. “Well, well,” he said. “This is a pretty pickle, isn’t it?”

“Aye, your Excellency,” Qutuz answered. “How do you propose to handle it?”

“Carefully,” the Zuwayzi foreign minister said, which won a smile from Qutuz. Hajjaj went on, “And by that I mean, not least, not letting the Algarvians know I’m doing anything at all. They’re our allies, after all.”

“How long do you suppose you can keep this business secret?” Qutuz asked.

“A while,” Hajjaj replied. “Not indefinitely. And, before it is secret no more, I had better get King Shazli’s views on the matter.” I had better see if I can bring King Shazli’s views around to my own, if they happen to differ now. “I don’t think that will wait. Please let his Majesty’s servitors know that I seek audience with him at his earliest convenience.”

His secretary bowed. “I shall attend to it directly, your Excellency,” he said, and hurried away. Hajjaj nodded at his bare brown departing backside: like all Zuwayzin, Qutuz wore clothes only when dealing with important foreigners. Hajjaj’s secretary was diligent, no doubt about it. When he said directly, he meant it.

And, only a couple of hours later that afternoon, Hajjaj bowed low before the king. “I gather this is a matter of some urgency,” Shazli said. He was a bright enough lad, or so Hajjaj thought of him-the late sixties looking back at the early thirties. “Shall we dispense with the rituals of hospitality, then?”

“If your Majesty would be so kind,” Hajjaj replied, and the king inclined his head. Thus encouraged, Hajjaj continued, “You need to declare your policy on a matter of both some delicacy and some importance to the kingdom.”

“Say on,” Shazli told him.

“I shall.” Hajjaj brandished the papers Qutuz had given him. “In the past couple of weeks, we have had no fewer than three small boats reach our eastern coastline from Forthweg. All three were packed almost to the sinking point with Kaunians, and all the Kaunians alive when they came ashore have begged asylum of us.”

Sometimes, to flavor a dish, Zuwayzi chefs would fill a little cheesecloth bag with spices and put it in the pot. They were supposed to take it out when the meal was cooked, but every once in a while they forgot. Shazli looked like a man who had just bitten down on one of those bags thinking it a lump of meat.

“They beg asylum from us because of what our allies are doing to their folk back in Forthweg.”

“Even so, your Majesty,” Hajjaj agreed. “If we send them back, we send them to certain death. If we grant them asylum, we offend the Algarvians as soon as they learn of it, and we run the risk that everything in Forthweg that floats will put to sea and head straight for Zuwayza.”

“What Algarve is doing to the Kaunians in Forthweg offends me,” Shazli said; he needed only the royal we to sound as imperious as King Swemmel of Unkerlant. Hajjaj had never felt prouder of him. The king went on, “And any Kaunians who escape will be a cut above the common crowd-is it not so?”

“It’s likely, at any rate, your Majesty,” the foreign minister answered.

“Asylum they shall have, then,” Shazli declared.

Hajjaj bowed as deeply as his age-stiffened body would let him. “I am honored to serve you. But what shall we say to Marquis Balastro when he learns of it, as he surely will before long?”

King Shazli smiled a warm, confident smile. Hajjaj knew what that sort of smile had to mean even before the king said, “That I leave to you, your Excellency. I am sure you will find a way to let us do what is right while at the same time not enraging our ally’s minister.”

“I wish I were so sure, your Majesty,” Hajjaj said. “I do remind you, I am only a man, not one of the powers above. I can do one of those things or the other. I have no idea how to do both at once.”

“You’ve been managing the impossible now for as long as Zuwayza has had her freedom back from Unkerlant,” Shazli said. “Do you wonder when I tell you I think you can do it again?”

“Your Majesty, may I have your leave to go?” Hajjaj asked. That was as close as he’d ever come to being rude to his sovereign. He softened it at once by adding, “If I am to do this-if I am to try to do this-I shall need to lay a groundwork for it, if I possibly can.”

“You may go, of course,” Shazli said, “and good fortune attend your groundlaying.” But he’d heard the edge in his foreign minister’s voice. By his sour expression, he didn’t care for it. Bowing his way out, Hajjaj didn’t care for being put in a position where he had to snap at the king.