wandering into a peasant village would have been a surprise, especially if he was just another peasant and not a merchant with something to sell. The fighting, though, had torn things up by the roots. So Munderic had told Garivald, anyhow. Garivald hoped the irregulars’ leader was right.
Hoofbeats made him look back over his shoulder. An Algarvian trooper on a lathered horse cantered past him and into Pirmasens. The redhead eyed him on riding by, just as he watched Mezentio’s soldier. Any man who trusted another, even for a moment, risked his life these days.
Well behind the horseman, Garivald came into Pirmasens. It was a bigger place than Zossen, which remained his touchstone, probably because it lay close to the ley line and so drew more trade. It looked achingly normal: men out in the fields around the village, women in the vegetable plots by their houses, children and dogs and chickens underfoot. A lump came into Garivald’s throat. This was the way life was supposed to be, the way he’d always known it.
Then a couple of kilted Algarvians strode out of one of the few buildings in the village that wasn’t somebody’s house: the tavern, unless he missed his guess. He’d planned on going in there himself-how better to find out what was going on in Pirmasens than over a few mugs of ale? Now he wondered if that was such a good idea.
A dog came yapping up to him. He stamped his foot and growled back, and the dog ran away. “That’s how you do it, all right,” a villager called. Garivald had to work hard not to stare at the fellow. He’d never seen an Unkerlanter with a fancy waxed mustache before. He hoped he’d never see another one, either; such fripperies might do well enough for an Algarvian, but they struck him as absurd on one of his countrymen.
“Aye, sure is,” Garivald replied.
Hearing Grelzer dialect identical to his own coming out of Garivald’s mouth, the man with the mustache grinned. It was a fine, friendly grin, one that should have made Garivald like him at sight. But for the hair on his lip, it might have. Even seeing the mustache-surely the mark of someone currying favor with the redheads-Garivald warmed somewhat. The local said, “Haven’t seen you in these parts before, have I?”
Now Garivald smiled back. He might be an amateur spy, but he recognized a counterpart on the other side when he heard one. “Wouldn’t think so. I’m from east of here-a little place called Minsen.” That was a village not far from Zossen. “Swemmel’s soldiers, curse ‘em, fought hard to hold it, so it’s not there anymore. Neither is my wife. Neither are my son and daughter.” He made himself sound grim.
“Ah, I’ve heard tales like that so many times,” the fellow with the mustache said. He came up and draped an arm around Garivald’s shoulder, as if he were a sympathetic cousin. “I’m not sorry we’re out from under Swemmel’s yoke, and that’s a fact. Look at the price you paid for getting stuck in the middle of a lost war.”
“Aye,” Garivald said. “You’ve got a good way of looking at things, ah …”
“My name’s Rual,” the man from Pirmasens said.
Garivald clasped his hand, which also let him shake off that arm. “And I’m Liaz,” he said. He’d got it right the first time, anyhow.
“Let me buy you a mug of ale, Liaz,” Rual said. “We can sit around and swap stories about what a son of a whore Swemmel is.”
“Suits me fine,” Garivald said. “I’ve got plenty of ‘em.” And he did, too. Loving Swemmel wasn’t easy. After what he’d seen, after what he’d been through, hating the redheads more was. “I’ll buy you one afterwards, too. I’ve got enough coppers for that, anyhow.”
“Well, come on, then. Let’s get out of the hot sun.” Sure enough, Rual led him to the building from which the Algarvians had come.
More Algarvians sat inside. One of them nodded to Rual in a familiar way. As if the mustache hadn’t been enough, that told Garivald all he needed to know about the other peasant’s allegiance. It also told him he had to be extra careful if he wanted to get out of Pirmasens in one piece.
Rual waved to the fellow behind the bar, who wore not only a mustache but also a ridiculous little strip of chin beard, as if he hadn’t been paying attention while he shaved. “Two mugs of ale here,” Rual called, and set a shiny, newly minted silver coin on the table.
Garivald picked it up and looked at it. “So that’s what King Raniero looks like, is it?” he remarked. “Hadn’t seen him before.” In his opinion, Raniero had a pointy nose. He didn’t think Rual would care about his opinions in such matters.
“Aye.” Rual waited till the tapman brought him his ale, then raised his mug. “And here’s to Raniero.” Having expected such a toast, Garivald had no trouble drinking to it. Rual added, “Good to have a king in Grelz again.”
“That’s the truth,” Garivald said, though Swemmel was the only king in Grelz he acknowledged. After a pull at his ale-which was pretty good-he added, “I wish we hadn’t had to have a war to get one, though.” He also wished the king Grelz had got weren’t an Algarvian, one more opinion he kept to himself.
“No, we should have had one of our own all along,” Rual said. “But I’d sooner be tied to the redheads than to Cottbus.”
The Algarvians in here were surely listening to him, as he was listening to Garivald. Garivald wondered what they’d think of his wanting a Grelzer king rather than Mezentio’s cousin. “I never worried about things like this before the fighting started,” he said at last. “I just wanted life to go on the way it always had.” He wasn’t even lying.
Rual gave him another sympathetic look, though the last thing Garivald wanted was his sympathy. “I understand what you’re saying-powers above know I do,” Rual assured him. “But weren’t you sick of inspectors stealing your crops and impressers liable to drag you off into the army if you looked at ‘em sideways or even if you didn’t?”
“Well, who wasn’t?” Garivald said, making it sound like an admission Rual had dragged out of him. Again, he wasn’t lying. Again, it didn’t matter, which Rual didn’t seem to understand. The Algarvians had done worse in Zossen- and, no doubt, elsewhere in Unkerlant-than Swemmel’s inspectors and impressers. Garivald decided to make his own comment before Rual could ask another question: “This looks like a pretty happy place now, I’ll tell you that.”
“Oh, it is,” Rual assured him. “Raniero makes a fine king. So long as we don’t trouble anything, he leaves us alone. You could never say that about Swemmel, now could you?”
“No, indeed.” Garivald laughed a particular kind of laugh, one that suggested a lot of things you could say about King Swemmel. He would have enjoyed saying them, too-to his wife, or to his friend Dagulf back in Zossen. Saying them to Rual would have been blackest treason.
“Well, there you are,” Rual said, as if certain Garivald agreed with him in every particular.
“Aye, here I am-at the bottom of my mug of ale.” Garivald set coins- old coins, coins of Unkerlant, not Grelz- on the table and waved to the Unkerlanter with the preposterous mustache and strip of beard behind the counter. When he caught the fellow’s eye, he pointed to his mug and Rual’s. The tapman brought them refills.
“My thanks,” Rual said. “You’re a man of your word. Too many drifters coming through Pirmasens these days want to grab what they can and then slide out again. This is a nice, quiet place. We want to keep it that way.”
“Don’t blame you,” Garivald said. “Almost tempts a fellow into wanting to settle down here for good.” He drank some more ale, to get rid of the taste of the lies he was telling.
“You could do worse, Liaz,” Rual said, and the curse of the war Unkerlant and Algarve were fighting was that he was probably right. “Aye, it’s right peaceful here.” He didn’t mention-maybe he even didn’t consciously notice-the Algarvian soldiers drinking at a table not ten feet away from him. If they’d been back in Algarve where they belonged, he would have come closer to telling the truth.
Garivald finished his ale. Now came the tricky part: sliding out of Pirmasens under the noses of those Algarvian soldiers, and under Rual’s, too. He got to his feet. “Good to find a friendly face,” he said. “Aren’t many of ‘em left these days.”
“Where are you heading?” Rual asked.
“Somewhere that got hurt worse than you seem to,” Garivald answered. “Maybe somewhere I can find a farm nobody’s working and get things going again. That’d keep me too busy to worry about anything else for a while, I expect.”
“And I expect you’re right,” Rual said. “Good luck to you.”
“Thanks.” Garivald took a couple of steps toward the doorway. One of the redheads sitting in the tavern spoke to him in Algarvian. He froze in alarm entirely unfeigned. Turning to Rual, he asked, “What did that mean? I don’t know any of their language.”
“He told you to count yourself lucky you’re still breathing,” Rual said.
