Through the Darkness

“What are you talking about?” she asked. “Those are Ethelhelm’s things, aren’t they?”

“Of course they are. What else would they be?”

“Why are you calling them rubbish, then?”

“Why? I’ll tell you why.” Ealstan took a deep breath and did exactly that. The more he talked, the more the outrage and sense of betrayal he’d had to hide while he was at Ethelhelm’s bubbled to the surface. By the time he finished, he was practically in tears. “He’s making all the money in the world-or all the money that’s left in Forthweg, anyhow-and he’s stopped caring about the things that got him rich in the first place.”

“That’s. . too bad,” Vanai said. “It’s even worse because he probably does have some of my blood in him. Forgetting his own kind-” She grimaced. “Probably plenty of Kaunians who’d like to forget their own kind, if only the Forthwegians and Algarvians would let them.” She set a hand on Ealstan’s shoulder for a moment, then turned back toward the kitchen. “Supper’s almost ready.”

Ealstan ate in gloomy silence, even though Vanai had made a fine chicken stew. After sucking the last of the meat off a drumstick, he burst out, “I’ve been afraid this would happen since the first time the redheads asked his band to play for Plegmund’s Brigade when those whoresons were training outside of Eoforwic.”

Vanai said, “It’s not even treason, not really. He’s looking out for himself, that’s all. A lot of people have done a lot worse.”

“I know,” Ealstan said. “That’s all Sidroc was doing, too: looking out for himself, I mean. That’s how it starts. The trouble is, that’s not how it ends.” He thought of what had happened to Leofsig. Then he thought about what might happen to Vanai. He had been angry. Now, all at once, he was afraid.

Nine

As happened so often when Pekka was intent on her work, a knock on the door made her jump. She came back to herself in some surprise; it was time to head for home, which meant that was likely her husband out there. Sure enough, Leino stood in the hallway. Only after she gave him a hug did she realize how grim he looked. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Sorceries making squibs instead of fires today?”

“No, the magic went about as well as it could,” he answered. “But they’re closing down my group, or most of it, even so.”

The sentence made perfect grammatical sense. It still didn’t mean anything to Pekka. “Why would they do that?” she asked. “It’s crazy.”

“Maybe so, but maybe not, too,” Leino said. “They don’t think so. They’re calling just about every practical mage who’s a man and under fifty into the military service of the Seven Princes-into the army or navy, in other words.”

“Oh.” Pekka deflated with the word, as a blown-up pig’s bladder might have done after a pinprick. “But how will they make better weapons if they send the sorcerers off to fight?”

“It’s a good question,” Leino agreed. “The other side of the silverpiece is, how can the soldiers fight without mages at the front to ward them and to use spells against the enemy?”

“But we haven’t got that big an army,” Pekka said.

“We haven’t now, no. But we’re going to,” Leino said. “Come on; let’s walk to the caravan stop. No use getting home late because of this, is there? I’m not going in tonight, or tomorrow, either. It won’t be long, though.” He started down the hall toward the door.

Numbly, Pekka followed. Having Olavin go into the army was one thing. Her brother-in-law would keep right on being a banker. He’d just be a banker for Kuusamo rather than for himself and his partners. If Leino went to war, he would go to war in truth.

As if reading her thoughts, he said, “You know, sweetheart, we’re only just getting started in this war. We’re going to need a lot of soldiers to fight the Gongs and the Algarvians both, and they’re going to need a lot of mages. When the Algarvians smote Yliharma, that was a warning about how hard this fight would be. If we don’t take it seriously, we’ll go under.”

“But where will the new things come from?” Pekka repeated as her husband held the door open so she could go outside.

He closed the door, then trotted a couple of steps to catch up with her as they walked across the campus of Kajaani City College. “From the mages who aren’t men under fifty,” he answered. “From the old men like your colleagues, and from women, too. We aren’t Algarvians, after all, to think women worthless outside the bedroom.”

“Will it be enough?” Pekka asked.

“How can I know that?” Leino said, all too reasonably. “It had better be enough-that’s all I can tell you.”

Two students, both young men, strode across their path. One of them looked back at Pekka. It meant nothing; it was no more than the way almost any man would eye an attractive woman. All of a sudden, though, Pekka hated him. Why wasn’t he going into the army instead of Leino?

Because he doesn’t know anything much. The thought echoed inside her head. She glanced over toward her husband. How unfair to have to go off and leave his family behind because he’d spent years learning to master a complex, difficult art. Knowledge was supposed to bring rewards, not penalties. Pekka reached out and squeezed Leino’s hand as hard as she could. He squeezed back, nodding as if she’d said something he understood perfectly well.

A good-sized crowd had gathered at the caravan stop in the center of the campus, waiting to go back to their homes in town. A news-sheet vendor cried out headlines: “Algarvians send dragons by the score over Sulingen again! Town in flames! Thousands said to be dead!”

“If it weren’t for the Strait of Valmiera, that could be us,” Pekka said.

Leino shrugged. “We have trouble fighting Gyongyos and Algarve at the same time. Mezentio won’t have an easy time warring on us and Lagoas and Unkerlant. He’d better not, anyhow, or we’re all ruined.”

“That’s so.” But then Pekka remembered how she’d thought the whole world was falling apart when the Algarvians made their sorcerous attack on Yliharma. “But we have scruples Mezentio’s thrown over the side, too.” And she clung to Leino, afraid of what would happen if he went to war against a kingdom whose mages didn’t blink at slaughtering hundreds, thousands-for all she knew, tens of thousands-to get what they wanted.

“It’ll be all right,” Leino said, though he had no more certain way of knowing that than Pekka did.

She was about to tell him as much when the ley-line caravan came gliding up. Only a couple of people got off, one of them a grizzled night watchman who’d been patrolling the City College campus longer than Pekka had been alive. But even the Kuusamans, most of the time an orderly folk, jostled and elbowed one another as they swarmed onto the cars.

Pekka found herself with a seat. Leino stood by her, hanging on to the overhead railing. The caravan slid away toward the center of town and then toward the residential districts farther east. The fellow sitting beside Pekka got up and got off. She moved over by the window. Leino sat down beside her till the caravan got to the stop closest to their home.

They held hands all the way up the little hill that led up to their house, and to Elimaki and Olavin’s beside it. Pekka smiled at Uto’s excited squeal when Leino knocked on the front door. Elimaki was smiling when she opened the door, too-smiling in relief, unless Pekka missed her guess. Since Uto often made her feel that way, she could hardly blame her sister for being glad to hand back her son.

Uto came hurtling out. Leino grabbed him and tossed him in the air. “What did you do today?” his father asked.

“Nothing,” Uto replied, which, if it meant anything, meant nothing Aunt Elimaki caught me at, anyhow.

“You look tired,” Elimaki told Pekka.

“No, that’s not it.” Pekka shook her head. “But Leino”-she touched her husband on the arm-”has been called into the service of the Seven Princes.”

“Oh!” Elimaki’s hand leaped up to her mouth. She knew what that meant, or might mean. Aye, Olavin had gone into the service, too, but he probably wouldn’t get anywhere near real fighting, not when he was as skilled at casting accounts as he was. The same didn’t hold for Leino. Pekka’s sister stepped forward and hugged him.