Darkness Descending

That, aimed at Krasta, was a shrewder stroke. “I certainly have!” she exclaimed. “The commoners who aren’t fools are commonly knaves. Commoners... commonly.” She laughed. She made jokes mostly by accident, and didn’t always recognize them even then. When she did, she felt uncommonly pleased with herself.

Lurcanio laughed, too, more than the feeble wordplay deserved. “There--you see? Out of your own mouth you convict these liars. Have any of your friends disappeared? Have any of your servants disappeared? Have any of their friends disappeared? Of course not. How could we hope to keep such a thing secret if it were so? It would be impossible.”

“Aye, so it would,” Krasta admitted. Had anything truly been going on in Valmiera, the rumors would have been juicier, full of more details. Now that she thought about it, she saw that plain. Still. . . “Why does Kuusamo war on you, then?”

“Why?” Colonel Lurcanio raised an elegantly sardonic eyebrow. “I’ll tell you why, my sweet: because the Seven Princes are jealous of our triumphs, and look for any excuse to tear us down.”

“Ah.” Again, that made sense to Krasta. She’d done the same thing to social rivals and had it done to her. She nodded.

Now Lurcanio’s smile was charming again. He pushed his chair back and away from his desk. The chair was Algarvian military issue; its brass wheels squeaked. “As long as you are here, do you care to give my men something to gossip about?”

This time, his voice held no command. He never tried to force Krasta in such matters: not overtly, anyhow. Had she chosen to walk out the door, he would never have said a word about it. Not least because she was free to refuse, she decided not to. Knowing the other Algarvian officers would be jealous of Lurcanio didn’t hurt, either. She sank to her knees in front of him and flipped up his kilt.

Having eased her mind (and her body; Lurcanio was scrupulous about returning such favors), she went back to her bedchamber to choose a cloak for the day’s journey through the shops of Priekule. Bauska was no help. With her, what people called morning sickness lasted all day long. She was liable to gulp and flee at any moment. If that was what carrying a child meant, Krasta wanted no part of it.

Her driver, also muffled against the chill of approaching winter, took the carriage to the Boulevard of Horsemen. As soon as he handed her down onto the street, he took a flask out of his pocket and swigged from it. That would help keep him warm, or at least make him stop caring he was cold.

Krasta was more intent on what she would do than on what her servitor was doing. The Boulevard of Horsemen, which held Priekule’s finest shops, was not what it had been before the Algarvians came. Far fewer people walked--paraded, really--along its splendid sidewalks. Many who did were redheaded soldiers in kilts. Shopkeepers did good business with them, at any rate; as often as not, packages filled their arms. Krasta’s smile was nasty as she watched a couple of Algarvians emerge from a shop that sold lingerie. Would the silks and lace they’d bought adorn their Valmieran mistresses or go home to keep their wives happy and unsuspecting?

She wished Lurcanio would buy her presents there. If he didn’t, though, the world wouldn’t end. Several earlier lovers already had. The dainties rested in a drawer in her bedchamber, smelling of cedar to hold the moths at bay.

A few doors past the lingerie shop stood a clothier’s Krasta enjoyed visiting. She peered past the peeling gold leaf in the window to see what new things he was displaying. If she didn’t stay up with fashion, Lurcanio might decide to buy lingerie for someone else.

She stopped and stared. The nearly military cut of the new tunics and trousers on display wasn’t what caught her eye. She had never imagined a Valmieran clothier would put kilts out for sale after Algarve beat her own kingdom in war. It struck her as indecent--no, worse, un-Kaunian.

But out of a dressing room stepped a young blond woman wearing a kilt that stopped a couple of inches above her knees and left the rest of her legs bare. “Indecent,” Krasta muttered. She’d worn kilts before the war, but now? It seemed a far more public admission of defeat than taking an Algarvian lover. But the clothier’s assistant clapped her hands in delight, while her customer reached into the pockets of the trousers she wasn’t wearing any more and paid for the kilt.

I won’t shop there again, Krasta thought, and walked on, discontented. She stepped into a jeweler’s, looking for earrings, but he had nothing that suited her. She reduced the shop girl to tears before leaving. That restored most of the good humor she’d lost standing in front of the clothier’s.

And then, walking up the street toward her, she saw Viscount Valnu. He waved gaily and went from a walk up to a trot. Krasta stiffened and turned away. Valnu was wearing a kilt.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked, and leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek.

She turned away again, not playfully as she so often had, but in grim earnest. “What’s the trouble?” she echoed. “I’ll