Darkness Descending

Neither of them looked at Sidroc. Hestan was less ostentatious about not looking at him than Hengist was. Up until today, Hengist would probably have added some comment about how the Algarvians were still moving forward in spite of the hard fighting. Now he just nodded, still not looking at his son. He wanted Sidroc to think about what hard fighting meant. The trouble with that was, Sidroc had never experienced it. Leofsig, who had, hoped he never did again.

In a musing voice, Hestan went on, “Heavy fighting’s bound to mean a lot of men dead, a lot of men hurt.”

“Aye,” Hengist said again. Again, he said no more. A couple of days before, things would have been different, sure enough.

Sidroc spoke up: “A lot of Unkerlanters stomped down into the mud, too. You’d best believe that.” He glowered at Hestan, as if defying him to disagree.

But Leofsig’s father only nodded. “Oh, no doubt. Still, would King Mezentio want Forthwegians to do his fighting for him if he weren’t running low on redheads?”

“If we don’t show we can fight, how will we ever get our kingdom back?” Sidroc said. “If you ask me, that’s what Plegmund’s Brigade is all about.”

Now no one else at the table wanted to look toward Sidroc. “Fighting is all very well,” Leofsig said at last, “but you have to remember for whom you’re fighting and against whom you ought to be fighting.” He didn’t see how he could put it any more plainly than that.

Ealstan found a way. Very quietly, he asked, “Cousin, who killed your mother? Was it Swemmel’s men or Mezentio’s?”

Uncle Hengist drew in a sharp breath. Sidroc stared. In spite of everything he could do--and he fought hard--his face began to work. His eyes screwed shut. He let out a great sob. Tears poured down his cheeks. “Curse you, Ealstan!” he shouted in a grief-choked voice. “Powers below eat you, starting at the toes!” He sprang to his feet and ran blindly from the room. A moment later, the door to the bedchamber he shared with his father slammed. In the silence enveloping the table, Leofsig could hear his weeping even through the thick oak portal.

Leofsig leaned toward Ealstan and murmured, “That was well done.”

“Aye, lad, it was,” Uncle Hengist said. He shook himself. “Sometimes we lose track of what matters. You did right to remind Sidroc--and me, too, I’ll own.”

“Did I?” Ealstan sounded not at all convinced.

“Aye, son, you did,” Hestan said. Elfryth and Conberge also nodded.

Not even his family’s reassurance seemed to persuade Ealstan. “Well, it’s done, and I can’t change it,” he said with a sigh. “I just hope Sidroc won’t hate me in the morning the way he does now.”

He was looking at Leofsig. Leofsig started to ask why it mattered what Sidroc thought. But that answered itself. If Sidroc decided he really hated Ealstan, he was liable to decide he really hated Leofsig, too. Even if he also hated the Algarvians, who could guess what he might do in such a state? “I hope he won’t, too,” Leofsig said.

Six

Ealstan ate his porridge and gulped down his morning cup of wine. He looked across the table at Sidroc as he might have looked at an egg that had fallen from below a dragon’s belly but failed to burst. Sidroc ate stolidly, eyes down on his bowl. At last, Ealstan had to speak: “Come on. You know they’ll thrash us if we’re late.”

Sidroc didn’t say anything to that, not at first, Ealstan cursed under his breath. He stirred in his seat, ready to head for his first class without his cousin. Maybe Sidroc doesn’t care if they break a switch on his back. I do. But, just as he was gathering himself to go, Sidroc said, “I’m ready,” and got up himself.

They walked along in silence for a while. Every time Ealstan spied the broadsheet proclaiming Plegmund’s Brigade, he pretended he hadn’t. Sidroc must have seen the broadsheets, too, but he didn’t say anything about them. He strode toward the school with a set expression on his face that Ealstan didn’t like.

They had to pause to let a couple of companies of Algarvian soldiers march past along a cross street. “Remember how, the day the Duke of Bari died, we had to wait for our own cavalrymen?” Ealstan asked. “That spilled the chamber pot into the soup, all right.”

“We did, didn’t we?” Sidroc said. By the wondering look in his eye, he’d forgotten till Ealstan reminded him. Then he scowled again. “And a whole lot of good our cavalrymen did us, too. Fighting beside them”--he pointed to the Algarvians--”that’d be something. They’re winners.”

“Remember what my father said,” Ealstan answered. “If they were doing as well as all that, they wouldn’t need the likes of us to help them.”