Darkness Descending

The mattress smelled sour when he lay down on it. He might have done better rolled in a blanket in the park. But he might not have, too; the Algarvians might have picked him up for being out after curfew. He didn’t want to fall into their hands for any reason. Eventually, he slept.

It was still dark when he woke. The clouds in the northeast had gone from black to dull gray, though, so dawn wasn’t far away. He scratched, hoping the nasty bed didn’t have bugs in it, then got dressed, went downstairs, and walked out of the rooming house. A new clerk had come on duty sometime in the night, but he looked as sullen and indifferent as the fellow from whom Cornelu had rented his little room.

He went back to the tavern. It was already crowded with fishermen fortifying themselves for the day ahead. The fried bread Cornelu ordered sat like a boulder in his stomach. The only resemblance the murky brown liquid the tavern served bore to tea was that it was hot. He drank it without complaint. On a morning like this, heat sufficed.

After stretching breakfast till sunrise, Cornelu went back to the park. A Sibian constable strolling through looked at him as if he were crazy, even after he displayed the bag of crumbs, still half full. The birds appreciated him, though, and came close to feeding right from his hand.

He stretched out the bread crumbs, too, making them last till nearly noon. Then he got up, brushed his hands on his kilt, and left the park for the short walk to the bell tower at the edge of Tirgoviste’s old market square. He’d asked Costache to meet him there. “She’d better,” he said as he made his way through the square. “By the powers above, she’d better.”

Clang! Clang! The bells blared out noon just as Cornelu got to the base of the tower. He looked around. The square wasn’t crowded, not the way it would have been before the Algarvians came, but he didn’t see his wife.

And then he did. His heart leaped. Here she came, striding with determination across the square. If he could be alone with her, even for a few minutes. . . But he wouldn’t be, for she was pushing the baby carriage ahead of her. Brindza’s head popped up as she looked out. Cornelu knew he shouldn’t hate his daughter, but remembering that wasn’t easy when she kept coming between him and Costache.

He knew better than to show what was going through his mind. He smiled and waved and stepped forward to embrace her. He squeezed her to him. She raised her mouth to his. After a long, breathless kiss, he murmured, “Oh, it’s good to see you again.” See you wasn’t exactly what he meant. Feel you came closer.

“And you,” Costache said, a quaver in her voice that sent tingles through Cornelu. She looked him over with an expression he recognized: comparing what she recalled to what she saw. After a moment, she clucked in distress. “You’ve got so thin and hard-looking.”

“I can’t help it,” he answered. “I’ve been working hard.”

“Mama,” Brindza said, and then, “Up.” King Burebistu could have given no more imperious command.

Costache picked up her daughter--my daughter, too, Cornelu reminded himself. His wife looked tired. He’d thought that the first time he saw her after coming back to Tirgoviste. He said, “I wish you could have found a way to leave her at home.”

She shook her head. “Mezentio’s men won’t take care of her for me, curse them. I’ve asked.”

“Aye, curse them,” Cornelu agreed. He eyed his wife again. “But you were laughing with one of them yesterday.”

“How do you know that?” Costache asked in surprise. When he told her, she went pale. “I’m so glad you didn’t knock!” she exclaimed. “All three of them were there. You’d be in a captives’ camp now.”

“Every day I’m away from you, I feel like I’m in a captives’ camp,” Cornelu complained. “This whole island is a captives’ camp. This whole kingdom is a captives’ camp. What else would you call it?”

Costache gave back a pace before his fury. Brindza stared at him with wide green eyes, the same shade as her mother’s. After a moment, Costache said, “Things are hard, aye, but they’re worse in the camps. When the Algarvians let people out of them, they come back as skeletons. I think half the reason Mezentio’s men turn them loose is to frighten other people.”

She spoke calmly, reasonably, logically. She made good sense. She said not a word Cornelu cared to hear. “Have you any notion of how much I want you?” he burst out.

“Aye,” his wife answered in a low voice, “but I don’t know when we can. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to, not till the war is over, if it ever is.”

Cornelu started to slap her for saying such a thing. Before the motion was well begun, though, he turned it into a quick spin away from Costache. He’d never imagined he could wish he’d stayed up