“Half now, half on delivery,” Traku said, and Talsu had to try to get that across to the Algarvian. As the fellow had before, he did a good game job of not understanding. At last, looking as if he were biting down hard on a lemon, he paid. Only then did Talsu take out a tape measure and note down his waist size and the length of his kilt. After the measurements were done, the Algarvian bowed and left.
“We’ll make some silver off him,” Traku said.
“Aye,” Talsu agreed. “You fought him hard there.”
“I wish I could have done it with a stick in my hand,” his father answered. Having been too young to fight in the Six Years’ War and too old to be called out with Talsu, Traku imagined army life as being more exciting than the terror-punctuated boredom Talsu had known as a soldier.
“It wouldn’t have made much difference,” Talsu told him, which was undoubtedly true. After a moment, he went on, “Doesn’t seem right, listening to one of Mezentio’s whoresons spouting the old language when we can’t hardly speak it ourselves.”
“That’s a fact,” his father said. “I’m cursed if I know what we can do about it, though. I couldn’t stay in school; I had to buckle down and make a living. And it worked out the same way for you.”
“And if anybody thinks I miss school, he’s daft,” Talsu said. “Still and all, if the Algarvians can speak classical Kaunian, there’s got to be something to it, wouldn’t you say? Otherwise, they wouldn’t have it in their schools.”
“Who knows what the redheads would do?” Traku said.
But Talsu wouldn’t be pushed off his ley line, not even by scorn for the Algarvians. “And they’re wrecking all the monuments from the Kaunian Empire, too,” he persisted. “They know classical Kaunian, and they don’t want us to know anything about the old days. What does that say to you?”
“Says we used to be on top, and they don’t want us knowing about it now that we’re on the bottom,” Traku answered.
Talsu nodded. “That’s what it says to me, too. And if they don’t want me to know it, seems like I ought to, doesn’t it? There’d be people in town who could teach me the old language without putting stripes on my back if I did a verb wrong, I bet.”
His father gave him an odd look. “I thought you were the one who just said he didn’t miss school.”
“It wouldn’t be school, exactly,” Talsu said. “You go to school because you have to, and they make you do things whether you want to or not. This would be different.”
“If you say so.” Traku sounded anything but convinced.
But Talsu answered, “I do say so. And do you know what else? I’d bet plenty I’m not the only one who thinks the same way, either.”
Traku went back to work on the cloak once more. No, keeping the past alive didn’t matter that much to him. It hadn’t mattered to Talsu, either, not till the Algarvian showed greater knowledge of an important part of that past than he had himself. And if other people in Skrunda felt the same way… Talsu didn’t know what would happen then. Finding out might be interesting.
As Krasta was in the habit of doing, she made her way through the Algarvian-occupied west wing of her mansion toward Colonel Lurcanio’s office. She ignored the admiring looks the redheads gave her as she walked past them. No: she didn’t ignore those looks, though she affected to. Had the clerks and soldiers not glanced up as she went past, she would have been offended.
Lurcanio’s new aide, Captain Gradasso, rose, bowed, and spoke in classical Kaunian: “My lady, I am sorry, but the colonel has given me specific orders to the effect that he is not to be disturbed.”
Krasta could be devious, especially where her own advantage was concerned. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying,” she replied in Valmieran. That wasn’t quite true, but Gradasso would have had a hard time proving it. Gradasso, for that matter, would have had a hard time understanding the modern language. Krasta strode past him and into Lurcanio’s office.
Her Algarvian lover stared up from the papers strewn across his desk. “I don’t care to see you right now,” he said. “Didn’t Gradasso tell you as much?”
“Who knows what Gradasso says?” Krasta replied. “The old language is more trouble than it’s worth, if anyone wants to know what I think.”
“Why would anyone want to know that?” Lurcanio sounded genuinely curious.
“Why don’t you care to see me now?” Intent on her own thoughts, Krasta paid no attention to his.
“Why?” Lurcanio echoed. “Because, my rather dear, I have been far too busy, and I will be for quite some time.”
“Doing what?” Krasta demanded. If it didn’t have to do with her, how could it possibly be important?
“Running enemies of my kingdom to earth,” Lurcanio answered; his tone reminded her why she feared him.
Still, she tossed her head, as if deliberately tossing aside the fear. “Why do you need to waste your time doing things like that?” she asked. “Valmiera is yours, after all. Don’t you have more important things to worry about?”
By the way Lurcanio raised an eyebrow, he understood her perfectly well. “My sweet, nothing in Valmiera is more important to me than the triumph of my kingdom,” he told her. “Nothing. Do you follow that, or shall I draw you a diagram?”
Krasta glared. “I don’t know why I put up with you.”
“No one requires you to do any such thing,” Lurcanio said. “If I do not please you, go find someone else, and I will do the same. It shouldn’t be that hard for either one of us.”
She kept on glaring, harder than ever. As no Valmieran lover had ever done, Lurcanio used indifference as shield and weapon both. He knew he could find another lover without much trouble; plenty of Valmieran women were looking to form connections with the occupiers. If Krasta went looking for another Algarvian, she would have to compete with all of them. Was she likely to find one as well placed as Lurcanio? She didn’t think so. Was she likely to find one as irksome? She doubted that, too, but it counted for less than the other.
“Curse you, you infuriating man!” she snarled.
Colonel Lurcanio bowed in his seat, infuriating her still more. “You are welcome to try,” he said. “I doubt you will have much luck. And now, please leave. I will talk to you more later, but that can keep. My work cannot.”
“Curse you!” Krasta said again-this time, in fact, she shrieked it. She spun on her heel and stomped out, slamming the door behind her as she went. Captain Gradasso stared at her. She made a suggestion she couldn’t possibly have translated into classical Kaunian. Gradasso might not have understood it, but he did realize it was no compliment. That sufficed.
Krasta stalked through the Algarvian functionaries. She made similar incandescent suggestions to the ones who presumed to look at her. Some of them did speak Valmieran, and some of those made suggestions of their own. By the time Krasta got back to her own wing of the mansion, she was in a perfect transport of temper.
She thought about tormenting Bauska, but that was too easy to give her much satisfaction. She thought about going out to the Avenue of Equestrians to wander from shop to shop, but that would make her rage go away. She didn’t want it to go away. She wanted to savor it, as she would have savored a fine ale.
And she wanted to do something with it. She wanted to hit back at Lurcanio, who had provoked it in the first place. With that in mind, she paused somewhere she didn’t usually stop: in front of the large bookcase downstairs. Most of the volumes there had gone unexamined-certainly by her-since the days when her mother and father were still alive.
She pulled one off the shelf. When she blew on it, she raised a puff of dust. She made a mental note to berate the cleaning women, but that could wait. What she had in mind couldn’t. Smiling a predatory smile, she carried the book up to her bedchamber and barred the door behind her.
“Dare me, will he?” she muttered. “Well, I’ll teach him, powers below eat me if I don’t.”
Her heart sank when she opened the volume. All the curses were in classical Kaunian, which meant Krasta didn’t understand at first glance what they would do to an indifferent lover. And, in fact, she had trouble finding one aimed at an indifferent lover. Plenty cursed faithless lovers, but that wasn’t Lurcanio’s flaw-or Krasta didn’t think it was, anyhow.
Even the headings above the spells were written in an annoyingly antique style, halfway back toward the classical language. She considered
