men and most of the women before sending them out. As before, they had their sport with some of the women, too. Delminio said, “They keep on like that, they’ll be too cursed tired to finish the job.”
“They’d better not be,” the constabulary captain said. “They can do whatever they want-as long as they make quota. If they don’t make quota, they answer to me. There are still plenty of Kaunians in here, for us to harvest what we need.”
Quota. Harvest. Those were nice, bloodless words. They had very little to do with the bruised and bleeding and raped blonds huddled under the sticks of the holding squads. They let the captain do his job without thinking much about what he was doing. They’d let you do the same, if you didn’t keep poking and prodding at things, Bembo told himself. It’s only Kaunians, after all.
But the noises they made-not the words he could hardly understand, having forgotten the classical Kaunian he’d had beaten into him at school, but the wordless sounds of pain and sorrow and despair-were the same as those so many Algarvians might have made. Bembo violently shook his head. What was he doing, thinking of Algarvians in such straits? What was the war about, if not making sure Algarvians never found themselves in such straits?
One block of flats after another, the capture squads seized Kaunians and sent them down to the street. At last, the captain blew his whistle. “Quota!” he shouted. “Now let’s get ‘em to the caravan depot for transport.”
Transport. Another bloodless word. Let’s send them off to be killed. That was what the word meant. That was what the captain meant. But he didn’t have to say it, so he didn’t have to think it. Bembo shook his head. You’re thinking too much yourself again.
Some of the Kaunians were too badly battered to have an easy time walking. The constables’ solution to that was to beat them some more. They set other blonds to carrying the ones that didn’t spur into motion.
“See?” a constable said as they left the Kaunian quarter. “You’re out. Aren’t you glad? Aren’t you happy?”
Forthwegians on the streets jeered the Kaunians on their way to the ley-line caravan depot. By the way some of the Kaunians flinched, that hurt more than the beatings they’d taken from the Algarvians. Bembo didn’t understand that, but saw it was so.
As some desperate Kaunian had hurled the flowerpot down on the constables, so somebody-a woman-hurled one word in Algarvian at them from an upper story: “Shame!”
Delminio laughed. So did the captain leading the constables. Bembo only shrugged. The flowerpot had done some damage. What could a word do?
As always, shoving too many Kaunians into not enough caravan cars was hard work. As always, the constables did what needed doing, and barred the doors from the outside when they finished. The windows were already shuttered.
To Bembo’s surprise, the caravan glided off toward the east, the direction of Algarve and the Kaunian kingdoms beyond. “Haven’t seen that in a while,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“I hear the fellows with the thick spectacles are worried about Valmiera,” Delminio answered. “If Lagoas and Kuusamo try invading, we’ll throw ‘em right back into the Strait, by the powers above.”
“Aye,” Bembo said, and then, “We’d bloody well better.”
Skarnu liked the farm the Valmieran underground leaders had found for Merkela and little Gedominu-and now for himself. It wasn’t so big as the one outside Pavilosta where she’d lived, but the land was richer. He chuckled when that thought crossed his mind. Before the war, he wouldn’t have been able to tell good farmland from bad.
He thought Merkela would laugh, too, when he told her that. But she didn’t. She said, “That’s something you should have known.” She had Gedominu on her hip. She always did when she needed to do chores, and the farm always had chores to do. The baby didn’t slow her down a bit. She got more work done with him than Skarnu did without him.
“You’re probably right,” Skarnu said. “No, you’re certainly right. But I didn’t. I didn’t know a lot of things back then.” He reached out and stroked her cheek. “I didn’t know what mattered to me. That’s most important.”
She flushed. She never seemed to know how to take endearments. Maybe she hadn’t got many while married to old Gedominu. That hadn’t stopped her from loving him, or from naming their baby after him. Before she could say anything in return, her eyes swung away from Skarnu and toward the road that ran by the little farmhouse. “Someone’s coming.”
Not many people came down that road; the farmhouse was a long way from the nearest village, let alone Ramygala, the nearest real town. Skarnu looked, too. Anyone who did come this way was liable to mean trouble. But then he grinned and exclaimed, “That’s Raunu!”
“You’re right.” Merkela waved to the veteran sergeant. “I’m always glad to see him come up my road.”
As Raunu waved back, Skarnu raised an eyebrow. “Should I be jealous?” he asked. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he had them back: the answer might beaye. True, Raunu was old enough to have fought in the Six Years’ War. But her first husband had fought in the Six Years’ War, too, so would she mind?
To Skarnu’s relief, she laughed at him instead of getting angry. “I ought to say you should, just to see you fuss.”
Skarnu made a face at her, and she laughed again. Then he hurried forward to clasp Raunu’s hand. “Good to see you,” he said. “What’s up? Or did you come for a social call?”
Raunu’s snort showed how likely that was. “Captain, I like you fine, and your lady, too”-he nodded to Merkela, whose answering smile was almost warm enough to make Skarnu fuss-”but this is business. Something’s brewing in the south, and you’re one of the fellows who’s been busy down there.”
Alertness surged through Skarnu. “You’d better tell me about it.” He pointed back toward the little farmhouse. “Will you come in and drink some ale while you talk?”
“Thank you kindly. I’d be glad to.” As Raunu passed Merkela, he paused to eye little Gedominu. “He’s grown a lot since the last time I saw him. They’ve got a way of doing that, babies do.”
“Forgive the ale,” Merkela said as she poured. “It’s bought; I didn’t brew it myself.”
Raunu sipped and shrugged. “I’ve had plenty worse. Don’t fret yourself.”
After drinking from his own mug, Skarnu said, “The south.”
“Aye, the south,” Raunu agreed. “The redheads are as nervous down there as a cat trying to watch four mouseholes at once. They’ve been sending all kinds of bigwigs to the seashore to try and figure out what’s going on.” He coughed. “ColonelLurcanio’s down there right now, for instance.”
“Is he?” Skarnu gulped the mug dry. His sister’s lover had come too close to capturing him back near Pavilosta. Merkela handed him the bottle. He poured the mug full again. “Are they down there for the obvious reason? Are the Lagoans and Valmierans finally going to cross the Strait of Valmiera?”
He’d never asked that question before. He’d always been professionally incurious about it. What he didn’t know, nobody could rip from him if things went wrong. But Raunu wouldn’t have come here talking about the south if such a thing were impossible.
“By all the signs, Mezentio’s men think they are,” Raunu answered. “They’re hauling in Kaunians from Forthweg again, and you know what that means.”
“Murder,” Skarnu said. His old sergeant nodded. “Nasty magecraft,” he added, and Raunu nodded again. “Powers below eat the Algarvians,” he finished. This time, both Raunu and Merkela nodded.
“That’s about the size of it,” Raunu said. “We’ve wrecked some of the ley-line caravans, but some of them have got through.” He scowled. “Even if we’d wrecked ‘em all, there’s nothing really stopping the redheads from grabbing as many Valmierans as they need and doing them in. Only reason they don’t do that more, I think, is to keep from spooking us. But if they’ve got a chance to throw an invasion back into the sea, I figure they’d worry about that first and everything else later.”
“You’re right.” Merkela’s voice held no doubt. “It’s just like them, the-” She cursed as foully and fluently as a veteran underofficer.
“Arethe Lagoans and Kuusamans going to invade?” Skarnu demanded. “Do we know one way or the other?”
Raunu shook his head. “They won’t say aye and they won’t say no. Cursed foreigners don’t trust us.”
“There are times when they have reason not to,” Merkela said. “We have traitors in the underground. What we know, the Algarvians have a chance of learning.”
“CountAmatu,” Skarnu said. Raunu had looked unhappy at Merkela’s comment, but he couldn’t argue with
