“I wondered when you would learn of that.” Lurcanio shrugged an extravagant Algarvian shrug. “I can do nothing about it. And”--his voice hardened--”I would not if I could. That column affronts Algarve’s honor.”
“What about Valmiera’s honor?” Krasta demanded.
“Well, what about it?” Lurcanio said. “If Valmiera had honor, you would have held the Algarvian army in check. That we have this conversation here in the heart of a conquered kingdom, that you welcome me to your bed rather than my wife welcoming a Valmieran conqueror to hers, proves whose honor has more weight. Now do please let me work. I have too much to do, and not enough time in which to do it. Close the door when you go out.”
Furious, Krasta slammed the door so hard, the whole mansion shook. Unable to do anything more than that to take out her wrath on Lurcanio, she screamed at her servants instead. That did no good. Two days later, the Kaunian Column of Victory came crashing down. She heard the roar of the bursting eggs and the falling stone and cursed with a fluency a teamster might have envied.
When Lurcanio sought her bed that night, she welcomed him with a barred bedchamber door. She kept the door barred for another week. But then she relented, partly because she craved pleasure and partly because she feared that, if she kept on rejecting Lurcanio, he would simply find someone else. She didn’t care to be without an Algarvian protector, not with Priekule as it was these days. What that had to say about honor never once crossed her mind.
Garivald was well on the way to being drunk when someone pounded on the door to his house. “Who’s that?” he growled irritably. Like most of the peasants in Zossen, he’d managed to hide plenty of spirits from the Algarvians who occupied the village. When winter came, what else was there to do but drink?
The pounding came again, louder than before. “Opening up or we breaking down!” an Algarvian shouted.
“Open it, Annore,” Garivald said. He was sitting on a bench closer to the door than his wife, but he was also drunker than she. He didn’t feel like getting up and moving just then.
Annore sent him a dark look, but rose and unbarred the door. After a few heartbeats, Garivald did get up after all and stand behind her--you never could tell what an Algarvian might be after. The redheads glaring at him looked miserably cold; their capes weren’t up to the weather here. One of them said, “You coming to die village square.”
“Why?” Garivald asked.
Both Algarvians were carrying sticks. With a chill that had nothing to do with winter, Garivald realized they weren’t men who garrisoned Zossen, but real combat soldiers, mean as wild boars. He wished he hadn’t given them any back-talk. The one who’d spoken aimed his stick at Garivald’s face. “Why? Because I saying so.”
“Aye,” Garivald said hastily, ducking his head in submission as he would have to an Unkerlanter inspector. He took out his fear by shouting at Annore: “Come on, curse it! Don’t just stand there. Grab our cloaks.”
Annore did as he asked without arguing. They threw on the thick wool garments; Garivald hoped the Algarvians wouldn’t steal them. “Syrivald, watch the baby,” Annore said. Syrivald nodded, eyes wide. Leuba, playing happily on the floor, was the only one who didn’t know anything was wrong.
When Garivald and Annore got to the square, it had already started filling. Under the sticks of more Algarvian combat soldiers, several villagers were putting up an odd-looking wooden frame. After a moment, Garivald realized what it was: a gibbet. Another icy pang of fright ran through him.
A couple of Unkerlanter men he’d never seen before stood near the gibbet, their hands tied behind them. They were scrawny and ill-shaven and looked to have seen hard use--blood covered the face of one of them, while the other had an eye swollen shut. More redheads kept watch on them.
Waddo, the firstman, limped into the village square. Close behind him came the Algarvians stationed in Zossen. They looked almost as alarmed at what was going on as the villagers did.
One of the newly come Algarvians proved to speak pretty good Unkerlanter. Pointing to the captives, he growled, “Are these miserable whoresons from this stinking hole of a village? We caught them in the woods. Anybody know them? Anybody know their names?”
For a moment, nobody spoke. Then all the men and women in Zossen started talking at once. With a single voice, they denied ever setting eyes on the men before. They know what happened to a village that harbored men who kept fighting against the Algarvians.
So did the redhead who’d asked the questions. With a sneer, he demanded, “Why should I believe you? You’d lie and say your mothers weren’t whores. We ought to wreck this place just for the sport of it.” By his tone, he wasn’t more than a finger’s breadth away from ordering his troopers to do just that.
