had summoned him down from his hillside home in the rain.
Being who he was, he had no trouble gaining audience with King Shazli. “Beastly weather, isn’t it?” the king said after Hajjaj had bowed before him. He sent his foreign minister a curious look. “What brings you down from your nice, dry house on a day like this, your Excellency?”
“My house leaks, too, your Majesty,” Hajjaj answered. “When duty called, I answered--which seems to be more than one can say of roofers.”
“Heh,” Shazli replied. The curious look hadn’t gone away. “And what sort of duty was it?” He shook his head. “No, don’t tell me now. Let’s refresh ourselves with tea and wine and cakes before you get into it.”
Being the king, Shazli had the right to interrupt the rituals of hospitality. The foreign minister wished he would have exercised it. Holding in such important news felt wrong.
But, as Hajjaj nibbled on a cake flavored with honey and pistachios, as he sipped first tea and then date wine, he decided it didn’t matter so much after all.
Shazli was no fool. He would realize the duty that had brought Hajjaj down from the hills didn’t involve good news. Presently, the king repeated his earlier question.
“General Ikhshid summoned me on the crystal,” Hajjaj told him. “He convinced me I ought to hear his news straight from his mouth to my ear.”
“Did he?” King Shazli still had wine left in his goblet. He drank it off now. “Let me guess: Mezentio’s men have fallen short of Cottbus.”
“So it would seem, your Majesty.” Hajjaj inclined his head to the king. No, Shazli was not a fool. “The Unkerlanters have declared it and the Algarvians haven’t denied it, which means it’s likely true.”
Shazli let out a long sigh. “Things would have been so much simpler if they’d driven King Swemmel howling into the uttermost west of Unkerlant.”
“That they would,” Hajjaj said. “Things are seldom so simple as we would wish, though.” He wondered if King Shazli really understood that. Not only was Shazli still a young man, he’d had whatever he wanted since he was very small. Who could be surprised if things looked simple to him?
But he said, “We have got as much as we could out of this war now--would you not agree? The best thing we can hope for now is to keep as much of it as we can.”
That struck Hajjaj as a good, sensible attitude. It was, in fact, not so far removed from his own attitude. He said, “Your Majesty, I’ll do everything I can to make sure we manage exactly that.”
“Good,” Shazli said. “I know I can rely on you.”
Hajjaj inclined his head once more. “You do me too much honor,” he murmured, and hoped he was being overmodest.
Twelve
Garivald wasn’t drunk yet from this latest jar of spirits, but he wasn’t far away, either. There just wasn’t that much else to do, not with snowdrifts taller than a man on the ground in Zossen.
Oh, the livestock took up some time, but less than in summer, the pig and the chickens and Garivald’s couple of sheep and the cow shared his thatch-roofed house with him, Annore, Syrivald, and Leuba. They would freeze if they tried to go through the winter outdoors. Here in the hut, they helped the hearth keep things warm.
They also made a dreadful mess, even if the floor was only of rammed earth. Annore did her best to clean up after them, but her best, though better than that of most village wives, wasn’t nearly good enough. Garivald didn’t mind the stink; he’d long since got used to that, as he did every winter. He didn’t like stepping in freshly dropped dung, but a careful man didn’t do that very often.
He lifted his mug and let another swig of spirits burn its way down his throat. “Well, it’s not as bad as it could have been, I suppose,” he said.
“What isn’t?” Annore asked darkly. She was washing Leuba’s feet. Leuba, at not quite three, didn’t watch where she stepped, and didn’t much care, either.
“Having the Algarvians in Zossen,” Garivald answered.
“What? The redheads?” Annore’s thick eyebrows shot upwards. “Powers above curse them,
