“I’m as safe as any Kaunian in Forthweg,” Peitavas said. “As long as I build roads for the Algarvians, I’m more useful to them alive than dead. With most of my people, it’s the other way round.” He turned down a side street before Leofsig could answer.
Leofsig cast a longing look toward the public baths. He sighed, shook his head, and walked on toward his home. His mother or sister would have a basin of water and some rags waiting for him. That wasn’t as good as a warm plunge and a showerbath, but it would have to do. Anyway, with fuel scarce and expensive in Gromheort these days, the plunge more often than not wasn’t warm. And getting into the baths cost a copper, a good part of what he’d spent the day slaving to earn.
Home, then, through the dark streets of the city. Curfew hadn’t come yet but wasn’t far away. Once, an Algarvian constable stopped him and started asking questions in bad Kaunian and worse Forthwegian. He wondered if he’d land in trouble and whether he ought to kick the chubby fellow in the balls and run. But then they recognized each other. Leofsig had helped the constable find his way back to his barracks when he got lost just after arriving in Gromheort. “Going on,” the Algarvian said, tipping his hat, and went on himself.
And so, instead of returning to the captives’ camp from which he’d escaped or having something worse happen to him, Leofsig knocked on his own front door a few minutes later. He waited for the bar to be lifted, then worked the latch and went inside. Conberge waited in the short entry hall. “You’re late tonight,” she said.
“Redheads worked us hard, curse ‘em,” he answered.
His sister wrinkled her nose. “I believe that.” To leave no possible doubt about what she believed, she added, “The basin’s waiting for you in the kitchen. It’ll be mostly cold by now, but I can put in some more hot water from the kettle over the fire.”
“Would you?” Leofsig said. “It’s chilly out there, and I don’t want to end up with chest fever.”
“Come along, then,” Conberge said briskly. She was between him and Ealstan in age, but insisted on mothering him in much the same style as their true mother. As Leofsig went past her and turned left toward the kitchen, she lowered her voice, murmuring, “We’ve heard from him.”
Leofsig stopped. “Have you?” he said, also softly. “Where is he? Is he all right?”
His sister nodded. “Aye, he is,” she whispered. “He’s in Eoforwic.”
“Not in Oyngestun?” Leofsig asked, and Conberge shook her head. “Is the Kaunian girl with him?”
She shrugged. “He doesn’t say. He says he’s happy though, so I think she is. Now come on. People will have heard you come in, and they’ll be wondering why you’re dawdling in the hallway.”
Fondly, Leofsig patted her on the shoulder. “You’d have made a terrific spy.” Conberge snorted and stopped acting motherly; she elbowed him harder than Oslac could have done. Thus propelled, into the kitchen he went. His mother was stirring a pot hanging over the fire next to the kettle. By the way Elfryth nodded, by the secretly delighted look in her eye, he knew she knew the news. All she said was, “Clean yourself off, son. Supper will be ready soon.”
“I’m going to give him some fresh hot water,” Conberge said, and used a dipper to draw some from the kettle. As Leofsig scrubbed dirt and sweat from his arms and legs and face, she went on, “I think he ought to put on a clean tunic, too, before he comes to the supper table.” That was also motherly: she didn’t seem to think he had sense enough to change clothes unless she told him to.
“Let me have a cup of wine first,” Leofsig said. Conberge poured him one. Before he drank, he raised the cup in salute. His sister and mother both smiled; they understood what he meant.
After putting on a fresh wool tunic and fresh drawers, he went across the courtyard to the dining room, which lay just to the right of the entry hall so as to make it convenient to the kitchen. As he’d expected, he found his father and uncle already there. Uncle Hengist was reading the news sheet: reading it aloud, and loudly. “ ‘No Unkerlanter gains reported on any front,’ “ he said. “What do you think of that, Hestan?”
Leofsig’s father shrugged. “The Unkerlanters have already gained a lot of ground,” he said in mild tones; his brother enjoyed hearing himself talk more than he did.
“But the Algarvians haven’t fallen to pieces, the way you said they would a few weeks ago,” Hengist insisted.
“I didn’t say they would. I said they might,” Hestan answered with a bookkeeper’s precision. “Pretty plainly, they haven’t. You’re right about that.” He nodded to Leofsig, looking to change the subject. “Hello, son. How did it go today?”
“I’m tired,” Leofsig answered. He could have said that any day and been telling the truth. He raised an eyebrow at his father. Hestan nodded, ever so slightly. He knew about Ealstan, too, then.
