is true. He was wounded, and is recovering.”
Cornelu took from his tunic pocket an envelope. “I hope you will do me the honor of conveying this to him: my best wishes, and my hope that his health may be fully restored.”
Brinco took the envelope. “It would be my distinct privilege to do so.” He coughed discreetly. “You understand, I trust, that we may examine the note before forwarding it. I intend no personal offense in telling you this: I merely note that these are hard and dangerous times.”
“That they are,” Cornelu said. “Your kingdom trusted me to join in the raid on Dukstas, so of course you would assume I am engaged in sending your mage subversive messages.”
Grandmaster Pinhiero’s secretary flushed again, but said, “We would do the same, sir, were you his Majesty’s eldest son.”
“You are-” Cornelu broke off short. He’d been about to call Brinco a liar, but something in the mage’s voice compelled belief. With hardly a pause, Cornelu went on, “-saying Fernao is involved in work of some considerable importance.”
“I am not saying any such thing,” Brinco replied. Now he sent Cornelu a look as chilly as the one the Sibian leviathan-rider had given him. “Will there be anything more, Commander?”
His clear implication was that there had better not be. And, in fact, Cornelu had done what he’d come to do. Bowing to Brinco, he answered, “No, sir,” and turned and strode away. He was not a mage, so he couldn’t possibly have sensed Brinco’s eyes boring into his back. He couldn’t have, but he would have taken oath that he did.
Outside the Guild building, he paused and considered. He knew, or thought he knew, which ley-line caravan would take him back to the harbor, back to the leviathan pens, back to the barracks where he and his fellow exiles had painfully built a tiny, stuffy re-creation of Sibiu in this foreign land.
But that satisfied him hardly more than Setubal itself did. Unlike some of his countrymen, he recognized how artificial their life inside the barracks was. He wanted the real thing. He wanted to go back to Tirgoviste town and have everything the way it was before the Algarvians invaded his homeland. Wanting that and knowing he couldn’t have it ate at him from the inside out.
Instead of lining up at the caravan stop, he tramped down the street, looking for… he didn’t know what. Something he didn’t have-he knew that much. Would he even recognize it if he saw it? He shrugged, almost as if he were an Algarvian. How could he know?
Plenty of Lagoans seemed to have trouble figuring out what they wanted, too. They paused in front of shop windows to examine the goods on display- even now, in wartime, goods richer and more various than Cornelu would have found in Tirgoviste town before the fighting started. Cornelu wanted to shout at them. Didn’t they know how much hardship was loose in the world?
Here in Setubal, it showed in only one place: the menus of the eateries. Local custom was to post the bill of fare outside each establishment, so passersby could decide whether they cared to come in and buy. Cornelu approved of the custom. He would have approved of it more had he made easier going of the menus. Lagoan names for domestic animals-cows, sheep, swine-came from Algarvic roots, so he had little trouble with them. But the words for the meats derived from those animals-beef, mutton, pork-were of Kaunian origin, which meant he had to pause and contemplate them before he could figure out what was supposed to be what. Similar traps lurked elsewhere.
These days, though, he had fewer things to contemplate. Almost every eatery’s menu had several items scratched out, generally those involving things imported from the mainland of Derlavai. Beef dishes were also fewer than they had been, and more expensive. Cornelu sighed. That didn’t seem to be enough acknowledgment of the war.
When he saw an eatery offering crab cakes, though, he went inside. For one thing, the Lagoan name was almost identical to its Sibian equivalent, so he had no doubt what he’d be getting. For another, he liked crab cakes, and couldn’t remember the last time they’d served them at the barracks.
Inside, the place looked anything but fancy, but it was clean enough. A cook with red hair going gray cracked crabs behind the counter. Cornelu sat down. A young woman with a family resemblance to the cook came up to him. “What’ll it be?” she asked briskly.
“Crab cakes. Rhubarb pie. Ale.” Cornelu could get along in Lagoan, especially on basics like food.
But the waitress cocked her head to one side. “You’re from Sibiu.” It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t scornful, either, which rather surprised Cornelu: most Lagoans thought well of themselves, not so well of anyone else. At his nod, the woman turned to the cook. “He’s from the old kingdom, Father.”
“It happens,” the cook said in Lagoan. Then he switched to Sibian with a lower-class accent he wouldn’t have learned in school: “My father was a fisherman who found he was making more money in Setubal than back on the five islands, so he settled here. He married a Lagoan lady, but I grew up speaking both languages.”
“Ah. I got out when Mezentio’s men overran Tirgoviste town,” Cornelu said, relishing the chance to use his own tongue. He nodded to the waitress, really noticing her for the first time. “And you-do you speak Sibian, too?”
“I follow it,” she answered in Lagoan. “Speak a little.” That was Sibian, a good deal more Lagoan-flavored than her father’s. She returned to the language with which she was obviously more familiar: “Now let’s get your dinner taken care of. I’ll bring the ale first off.”
It was strong and nutty and good. The crab cakes, when they came, reminded Cornelu of home. He ate them and the sweet, sweet rhubarb pie with real enjoyment. And speaking Sibian with the cook and his daughter was indeed enjoyable, too. The man’s name was Balio, which might almost have been Sibian; his daughter was called Janira, a name as Lagoan as any Cornelu could imagine.
“This is all wonderful,” he said. “You should have more customers.” He was, at the moment, the only one in the place, which was why he could go on speaking Sibian.
“It’ll get livelier tonight,” Balio said. “We have a pretty fair evening crowd.”
Janira winked at Cornelu. “You just have to come back here and eat up everything we’ve got. Then we’ll get rich.”
She spoke Lagoan, but he could answer in Sibian: “You’ll get rich, and I’ll get fat.” He laughed. He didn’t laugh very often these days; he could feel his face twisting in ways it wasn’t used to. “Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.” Janira laughed, too.
Qutuz said, “The Marquis Balastro is here to see you, your Excellency.” His nostrils twitched. He ached to say more; Hajjaj could tell as much.
And, since his visitor was the minister from Algarve. . “Let me guess,” Hajjaj said. “Has he come to call in what we Zuwayzin would reckon proper costume?”
“Aye,” his secretary answered, and rolled his eyes. “It’s not customary.”
“He’ll do it now and again anyhow,” Hajjaj said.
“I wish he wouldn’t,” Qutuz said. “He’s very pale, the parts of him his clothes usually cover. And-he’s mutilated, you know.” For a moment, the secretary cupped a protective hand over the organ to which he was referring.
“Algarvians have that done when they turn fourteen,” Hajjaj said calmly. “They call it a rite of manhood.”
Qutuz rolled his eyes again. “And they reckon us barbarians because we don’t drape ourselves in cloth!” Hajjaj shrugged; that had occurred to him, too, every now and again. With a sigh, his secretary said, “Shall I show him in?”
“Oh, by all means, by all means,” the Zuwayzi foreign minister answered. “I must admit, I’m not broken- hearted about avoiding tunic and kilt myself. It’s a hot day.” In Bishah, home of hot days, that was a statement to conjure with.
Having seen Balastro’s portly, multicolored form undraped before, Hajjaj knew what to expect. Zuwayzin took nudity for granted. Balastro wore bareness as theatrically as he wore clothes. “Good day, your Excellency!” he boomed. “Lovely weather you’re having here-if you’re fond of bake ovens, anyhow.”
“It is a trifle warm,” Hajjaj replied; he wouldn’t admit to a foreigner what he’d conceded to Qutuz. “You will of course take tea and wine and cakes with me, sir?”
“Of course,” Balastro said, a little sourly. The Zuwayzi ritual of hospitality was designed to keep people from talking business too soon. But, since Balastro had chosen Zuwayzi costume, or lack of same, he could hardly object
