chance. The things my cobelligerents have done horrify me. The things my foes could do if they get the chance horrify me more. I am sorry, gentlemen, but you cannot ask me to risk my people for the sake of yours.'
Nemunas and Vitols put their heads together for a couple of minutes, muttering in low voices. When they were done, they both bowed to Hajjaj. Vitols spoke for them: 'Very well, your Excellency. We understand your reasons. We don't agree, mind, but we understand. We'll obey. We wouldn't endanger your folk after you saved ours.'
'I thank you.' Hajjaj bowed in return. 'I also require that obedience.'
'You'll have it,' Vitols said, and Nemunas nodded. The meeting ended a few minutes later.
On the way back to the ley-line caravan depot, Qutuz remarked, 'They're lying.'
'I know,' Hajjaj said calmly.
'But…' his secretary said.
'I've done what I had to do,' Hajjaj said. 'I've warned them. Our ships will sink some of them. That will make the Algarvians happy. And if some do get back to Forthweg and raise trouble… that won't make me altogether unhappy.' He smiled at Qutuz. The carriage rolled on toward Najran.
Krasta had been to a good many entertainments since joining herself with Colonel Lurcanio. Having a companion from among the victorious Algarvians with whom to go to entertainments had been one of the reasons, and not, perhaps, the least of them, why she'd let Lurcanio into her bed. But this one, at a wealthy cheese merchant's house in Priekule, struck her as the strangest of any of them.
After looking around at the other guests, she stuck her nose in the air, ostentatiously enough for Lurcanio to notice. 'Is something troubling you, my sweet?' he asked, concern mostly masking the faint scorn in his voice.
'Something? Aye, something.' Krasta struggled to put what she felt into words. Except when inspired by spite, she wasn't usually very articulate. What she came up with now was a horrified four-word outburst: 'Who are these people?'
'Friends of Algarve, of course,' Lurcanio said.
'Powers above help you, in that case.' As soon as she spoke, Krasta realized she might have gone too far. She cared- Lurcanio, when annoyed, made life unpleasant for her- but only to a point. The trouble was, she'd spoken altogether too much truth.
Most gatherings since the redheads overran Valmiera featured mixed crowds. Krasta had grown to accept that. Some nobles, like her, made the best of things; others chose not to appear with the occupiers. Not all the female companions the Algarvians found for themselves were noblewomen, or even ladies. And a lot of the Valmieran men who worked hand in glove with Algarve conspicuously lacked noble blood.
But tonight's crowd… Except for Lurcanio- possibly except for Lurcanio, Krasta thought with a sweet dash of spite- the Algarvian officers were boors, busy getting drunk as fast as they could. The women with them were sluts; half of them were making plays for men of higher rank than the ones who'd brought them.
One of them, in too much powder and paint and not enough clothes, sidled up to Lurcanio, who didn't bother pretending he didn't notice her. 'Go away,' Krasta hissed at her. 'You'll give him a disease.'
'He already has one,' the tart retorted. 'You're here.'
'What's your name?' Krasta asked sweetly. 'Do you dare tell it? If they look in the constabulary records, how many solicitation charges will they find?'
She hadn't meant to be anything but bitchy, but the other woman, instead of going on with the row, turned pale under her thick makeup and found something else to do in a hurry.
'I have better taste than that, I assure you,' Lurcanio said.
'Maybe you do.' Krasta's eyes left her Algarvian lover's face and slid down to the front of his kilt. 'I'm not so sure about him.' Lurcanio threw back his head and laughed, for all the world as if she were joking.
She didn't enjoy her little triumph long. It oozed away as she went back to contemplating the company she was keeping. The Algarvian officers were bad. The Valmieran women were worse. But the Valmieran men were worst of all.
Even the handful of nobles depressed her. Backwoods counts and viscounts, they'd never shown their faces in Priekule before the Algarvians came- and there were good reasons why they hadn't. Krasta knew a couple of them by reputation. The Valmieran nobility was and always had been reactionary. Krasta despised commoners and was proud of it. But, even by her standards, that count over there- the one who belted his trousers with a short, nasty whip- went too far.
She had little use for the commoners in the crowd, either. Some people came from families that had been prominent for generations, even if they weren't noble. You could rely on folk like that. The ones here at the cheese merchant's… Krasta hadn't heard of any of them before the Algarvians took Priekule, and wished she hadn't heard of most of them since.
'We shall prevail,' one of them told another not far away.
'Oh, aye, of course we shall,' the other man answered. 'We'll grind Swemmel into the dust. Plenty of time after that to settle with treacherous Lagoas.'
Both men wore kilts and tunics not merely Algarvian in style but modeled after those of Algarvian soldiers. They'd grown side whiskers and little strips of chin beard, too; one of them waxed his mustaches so that they stuck out like horns. But for being blond and speaking Valmieran, they might have been born in Mezentio's kingdom.
Krasta nudged Lurcanio and pointed to the two men. 'Buy them some hair dye and you could have a couple of new Algarvians to throw into the fighting against Unkerlant.'
He surprised her by taking her seriously. 'We've thought about that. But in Forthweg and in Algarve, hair dye has caused us more problems than it's solved, so we probably won't.'
'What kind of trouble?' Krasta asked.
'People masquerading as things they aren't,' the Algarvian colonel said. 'We've pretty much put a stop to that by now- and about time, too, if you ask me.'
'People masquerading,' Krasta echoed. 'The folk here are masquerading as things they aren't- as important people, I mean.'
'Oh, but they are important,' Lurcanio said. 'They are very important indeed. Without them, how could we run Valmiera?'
'With your own men, of course,' Krasta answered. 'If you don't run Valmiera with your own men, why have you taken half my mansion?'
'Do you know what the Algarvians in your mansion do?' Lurcanio asked. 'Have you any idea?'
Krasta didn't like his sardonic tone. She returned it, with venomous interest: 'You mean, besides seducing the serving women? They run Priekule for your king.' Spoken baldly like that, it seemed less shameful that Algarve should run a city that had never been hers.
Lurcanio clicked his heels and bowed. 'You are correct. We run Priekule. And do you know how we run Priekule? Nine times out of ten, we go to some Valmieran and say, 'Do thus and so.' And he will bow and say, 'Aye, your Excellency.' And lo and behold, thus and so will be done. We have not the men to do all the thus and sos ourselves. We never did. With the war in the west drawing so many thither, having so many Algarvians here grows more impossible by the day. And so, as I say, we rule this kingdom and your countrymen run it for us.'
Valmieran constables. Valmieran caravan conductors. Valmieran tax collectors. Even, Krasta supposed, Valmieran mages. And every one of them in the service, not of poor drunken King Gainibu, but of redheaded King Mezentio and the Algarvian occupiers.
She shuddered. Before she thought- nothing new for her- she said, 'It reminds me of sheep leading other sheep to the slaughter.'
Lurcanio started to reply, then checked himself. 'There are times when I do believe that, given education and application, you could be formidable.' He bowed to Krasta, who wasn't sure whether that constituted praise or dismissal. When she didn't say anything, he went on, 'As for your metaphor, well, what do you think a bell wether is sometimes called upon to do? And what do you think happens to a ram when he is made into a wether?'
'I don't know,' Krasta said, irritable again. 'All I know is, you're confusing me.'
'Am I?' Lurcanio's smile turned smug again. 'Well, this isn't the first time, and I doubt it will be the last.'
