attack the Empire. Algarvian eggs had damaged the column during the Six Years’ War, but it had been restored since.
Now, a good many kilted Algarvians stood at the base of the Column of Victory. They gestured with the theatrical enthusiasm of their kind. Life, to Algarvians, was melodrama. A couple of Valmierans looked to be arguing with them. A tan-clad soldier knocked down one of Krasta’s countrymen.
Because she gave herself to Colonel Lurcanio, no redhead of lower rank could cause her much trouble. Conscious of that near-immunity, she strode down the sidewalk toward the column. “What on earth is going on here?” she demanded in a loud, harsh voice.
The Valmieran who’d been knocked down got to his feet. One trouser knee was torn, though he seemed not to notice. He had a pinched, intelligent face--not the sort of man Krasta would normally have looked at twice, or even once. He was intelligent enough to recognize her rank, saying, “Milady, these men mean to topple the column.”
“What?” Krasta stared not at the Algarvians but at her fellow Valmieran. “You must be out of your mind.”
“Ask them.” The man pointed to the redheads. Some were ordinary soldiers, like the one who’d pushed him to the bricks. Some were officers, including, Krasta saw, a brigadier. She wondered if she was as immune from trouble as she’d thought. And a couple had the indefinable air of mages about them, the air of seeing and knowing things ordinary people didn’t see and couldn’t know. They set Krasta’s teeth on edge.
She turned to the Algarvians. “You can’t be thinking of doing what he says.”
“Who are you to say we can’t?” That was the brigadier, a big-bellied fellow in his mid-fifties--twice her age, more or less--with graying red mustachios and chin beard all waxed to spikelike points. He spoke Valmieran well--almost as well as Lurcanio did.
She drew herself up to her full height, which came close to matching his. “I am the Marchioness Krasta, and this is my city.” She sounded as if she were King Gainibu’s queen--although, as she’d seen herself, Priekule wasn’t really even Gainibu’s city anymore.
No sooner had that thought crossed her mind than the Algarvian proceeded to rub it in. Turning back to the Column of Victory, he said, “These cursed carvings tell lies. They make my ancestors, my heroic ancestors”--he drew himself up, too, though with his bulging belly it wasn’t so impressive--”out to be cowards and robbers, which every honest man knows to be a base and vile lie. Now we have the chance to correct this, and correct it we shall.”
“But it’s a monument!” Krasta exclaimed.
“A monument of lies, a monument of curses, a monument of humiliation,” the fat brigadier said. “It does not deserve to stand. Now we are the victors, and it shall not stand. Two days from now, my lads here”--he pointed to the mages--“will set eggs by the base, burst them, and topple it like an old pine.”
“You can’t do that,” Krasta said. The Algarvian brigadier laughed in her face. She started to slap him, but then remembered the unfortunate things that had happened after she was rash enough to slap Lurcanio. This redhead outranked her lover. She spun on her heel and hurried away.
“Do what you can, milady,” the clever-looking Valmieran man called after her. Then he cried out in pain--the Algarvian soldiers had set on him again.
Krasta found her carriage waiting on a side street. Seeing her approach, the driver corked a small flask and stuck it in his pocket. Krasta ignored that. “Take me back to the mansion,” she snapped. “This instant, do you hear me?”
“Aye, milady,” the driver answered, and prudently said no more.
The mansion lay on the outskirts of Priekule; it had been a country estate when it was built almost four centuries before. These days, Algarvian administrators of Valmiera’s conquered capital used and dwelt in the west wing, leaving the rest for Krasta. Her brother would have shared it with her, but Skarnu had never come home from the war. She occasionally missed him.
Now, though, he didn’t enter her mind. She stormed through offices that had been drawing rooms and salons, taking no notice of the Algarvian clerks who filled them. Only when she neared the smaller chamber where Lurcanio worked did she slow. She had to snarl her way past Captain Mosco before she could see him. Snarl she did, and see Lurcanio she did, too.
He looked up from his paperwork--sometimes he reminded Krasta more of a clerk than of a colonel--and smiled. That made his wrinkles shift without removing them; he wasn’t too much younger than the Algarvian brigadier in the park. “Hello, my dear,” he said in his excellent Valmieran. “What is it? It must be something, by your face.”
Bluntly, Krasta answered, “I want you to keep them from wrecking the Column of Victory.”
