Darkness Descending

seen it briefly when she and Ealstan first came here from the east. Since then, she’d stayed high up, looking out through window glass at the world but taking no part in it.

Seeing strange faces up close felt wrong, unnatural. And people stared at her, too. A Forthwegian with a face like a big-nosed ferret grabbed her by the arm. Even as she twisted away, he demanded, “Lady, are you out of your skull? You want the redheads to nab you?”

She needed a moment to notice that the question had come in Kaunian, a slangy dialect far removed from what she’d heard and used back in Oyngestun-- the kind of Kaunian pickpockets and thieves would speak. This fellow had probably learned it from blond pickpockets and thieves.

“I need an apothecary,” she said in Forthwegian--no use drawing attention to herself by ear as well as eye. “My . . . brother’s sick.”

“Uh-huh.” The ferret-faced Forthwegian didn’t believe that. After a moment, she understood why: a brother would have been as conspicuous as she was. That meant this fellow knew she had a Forthwegian lover. But he was saying, “Two blocks over, a block and a half up, and he won’t ask no questions. Just stay invisible between here and there.”

“My thanks,” Vanai said. But the Forthwegian had gone on his way as if she really were invisible.

Few of the other dark, blocky men and women on the streets seemed to notice she was there, either. In Eoforwic, she remembered, Forthwegians and Kaunians had rioted together against the Algarvian occupiers when they learned what happened to the Kaunians the redheads sent west. It hadn’t been like that in Oyngestun. It hadn’t been like that most places in Forthweg. Had it been, the Algarvians would have had a harder time doing what they did.

“What do you need?” a gray-bearded Forthwegian asked her. He was grinding some powder or another with a brass mortar and pestle. As the fellow who’d recommended his place had said, he didn’t seem to care that she was a Kaunian.

“A fever-fighter,” she answered, and described Ealstan’s symptoms without saying who or what he might be in relation to her.

“Ah.” The apothecary nodded. “There’s a deal of that going around, so there is. I’ll mix you up some willow bark and poppy juice, aye, and a bit of hairy marshwort, too. It’s got an ugly name, but it’s full of virtue.” He reached for bottles full of bark and a dark liquid and dried leaves, then mixed them together after grinding all the solids to powder. After that, he poured in something clear and sparkling. “Just a bit of grain spirits--for flavor, you might say.”

“Whatever you think best.” Vanai trusted him at sight. He knew what he knew, and was good at what he did. Had an Algarvian or a naked black Zuwayzi told him of the same symptoms, he would have made the identical medicine. She was sure of that.

“Here you are,” he said when he was done. “That’ll be three in silver.” Vanai nodded and paid; she thought Tamulis, back in Oyngestun where things were cheaper, would have charged her more. As she turned to go, the apothecary showed the first sign of knowing what she was: he called after her, “Get home safe, girl. Get home and stay there.”

She looked back over her shoulder. “That’s what I intend to do. Thank you.” He didn’t answer. He just went back to the medicine he’d been compounding when she came into the shop.

She clung close to the walls of shops as she scurried back toward her block of flats, as if she were a mouse scurrying along a baseboard to its hole. Again, most Forthwegians she saw pretended not to see her. She did hear one shout of, “Dirty Kaunian!” but even the woman who yelled made no move to do anything about it.

Powers above be praised, she thought as she reached the last corner she had to turn before reaching her building. I got away with it. She turned the corner . . . and almost walked into a pair of Algarvian constables who were about to turn onto the street she was leaving.

Had Vanai seen them half a block away, she could easily have escaped; they were both pudgy and middle-aged. But one of them reached out and grabbed her even as she was letting out a startled squeak. “Well, well, what are we having here?” he said in fairly fluent Forthwegian.

“Let me go!” Vanai exclaimed. She kicked at him, but he was nimble enough despite his bulk; her shoe didn’t strike his stockinged shin. Then she thought to use guile instead of force. “I’ll pay you if you let me go.” She reached down and made the silver in her pocket jingle.

The constable who didn’t have hold of her leered. “How you paying us, eh?” His Forthwegian was worse than his partner’s, but Vanai had no trouble understanding what he wanted from her.

Most of the horror that gripped her was horror at not feeling more horror. If that was what it took to get rid of the Algarvians, why not? Major Spinello had inflicted himself on her for months. After that, what were a few minutes with a couple of strangers? She should have been appalled at thinking that way. Part of her was, but only a small part. Spinello had burned away the rest of her sense of. . . shame?