Darkness Descending

Sidroc had his sneer back. “If your father were half as smart as he thinks he is, he’d be twice as smart as he really is. He knows numbers, so he thinks he knows everything. He doesn’t, you hear me?”

“I hear a lot of wind.” Ealstan wanted to punch his cousin. If he did, though, what would Sidroc do? Getting into a brawl was one thing when all they could do was beat on each other. It was something else again when Sidroc could betray Leofsig to the Algarvians--and Ealstan’s father with him. Ealstan’s eyes slid toward Sidroc again. If I ever get the chance, I’ll knock out one of your teeth for every time I’ve had to hold back. Then you can spend the rest of your days sipping supper through a straw.

They passed a couple of mushrooms pushing up through a gap between a couple of the slates of the sidewalk. As any Forthwegian--or, for that matter, any Kaunian who lived in Forthweg--would have done, Ealstan slowed to eye them. “They’re just scrawny little worthless toadstools,” Sidroc said. “Like you.”

“If you are one, you know one,” Ealstan retorted. Boys had probably been saying that to one another since the days of the Kaunian Empire. One glance at the mushrooms, though, told him that, but for the insult, Sidroc was right. He said, “Pretty soon, the ones worth having will start sprouting.”

“That’s so, and we’ll all go off to the fields and the woods with baskets.” Sidroc leered. “And maybe you’ll come home with that Kaunian wench’s basket again--or maybe you’ll stick your mushroom in her basket.” He guffawed.

One more tooth you’ll lose some day, Sidroc, Ealstan thought. Aloud, he said, “She’s not like that, so why don’t you drag your mind out of the latrine?” He did hope he would see Vanai again. And if she turned out to be a little bit--only the tiniest bit, he assured himself--like that, he didn’t think he’d mind.

By then, they were very close to the school. Ealstan braced himself for another day of meaningless lessons. Putting up with his masters, though, would be a pleasure next to putting up with Sidroc.

He endured the boredom. When called on to recite, he recited. He’d dutifully memorized all four assigned verses of the rather treacly poem from two hundred years before, and delivered the first one without a bobble. Sidroc got called on for the third verse, made a hash of it, and got his back striped. “Curse it,” he said as they went on to their next class, “I knew the first verse. Why didn’t I get chosen in your place?”

“Just luck,” Ealstan answered. He’d known the third verse as well as the first, so he wouldn’t have minded getting called in Sidroc’s place. With his cousin feeling abused and put upon, he decided not to mention that.

Sidroc got through the rest of the day without any more beatings, which left him in a somewhat better mood as Ealstan and he headed home. Ealstan, on the other hand, felt gloomier than he had in a while. It must have shown on his face like a fire in the night, for Sidroc--hardly the most perceptive fellow ever born--asked him, “Somebody go and steal your last bite of bread?”

“No,” Ealstan said, though the cliched question for What’s wrong? had taken on a new and literal meaning in these hungry times in Gromheort. His wave encompassed the whole battered city. “It’s just that--I don’t know--everything looks so shabby and broken and gray. I’ve been thinking about how things were that day when we saw the Forthwegian cavalry and how they are now, and I keep wondering how anybody stands it.”

“What else can we do?” Sidroc said. They walked on a little farther. Sidroc kicked a small stone out of the way. As he watched it spin off, he went on,

“Maybe that’s one of the reasons Plegmund’s Brigade doesn’t look so bad to me. It would get me away from--this.” His wave was as all-embracing as Ealstan’s had been.

Ealstan found himself too surprised to answer. He hadn’t imagined Sidroc could look so keenly at himself. He also hadn’t imagined his cousin might have such a sensible-seeming reason for thinking about fighting on King Mezentio’s side. As far as Ealstan was concerned, Plegmund’s Brigade remained the wrong answer, but now, at least, he understood the question Sidroc was asking. How can I escape? had crossed his own mind, too, many times.

An Algarvian constable threw up his hands to stop pedestrians and carts and riders. “Halting!” he shouted in halting Forthwegian.

“We’ve got stuck going to and from today,” Sidroc grumbled, sounding more like his usual self. Ealstan nodded. He hadn’t been happy about waiting for his own kingdom’s soldiers; he was far less happy about having to wait for the conqueror’s troopers.

But this procession held only a few Algarvians: guards, sticks at the ready. Most of the men who flowed past the intersection where Ealstan and Sidroc stood were Unkerlanter captives. As far as looks went, there was little to distinguish them from Forthwegians: they were most of them dark and stocky and hook-nosed. And their beards were growing out, which made them look even more like Ealstan’s people.