Sidroc shook his fist at them. “Now you know what it’s like to have your kingdom overrun, you thieves!” he shouted. Some of the Unkerlanters looked at him as if they understood. They might have; the northeastern dialects of their language weren’t far from Forthwegian.
Most of them, though, kept shambling on. Their stubbly cheeks were hollow, their eyes blank. They’d endured--how much? However much it was, they would have to endure more. “What do you suppose the redheads will do with them--to them?” Ealstan asked.
“Who cares, the stinking backstabbers?” his cousin answered. “As far as I’m concerned, the Algarvians can cut their throats to make sticks or work whatever other magic with their life energy they care to.” He shook his fist at the Unkerlanter captives.
“They won’t do that,” Ealstan said. “If they do, the Unkerlanters will start cutting the throats of their Algarvian captives, and then where will we be? Back in the red days after the Kaunian Empire fell, that’s where.”
“If you ask me, the Unkerlanters deserve it.” Sidroc drew his thumb across his own throat. Ealstan started to say something. Before he could, Sidroc went on, “If you ask me, the redheads deserve it, too. Powers below eat both sides.”
Ealstan pointed frantically toward the Algarvian constable. The redhead stood so close to them, he couldn’t have helped hearing. But he didn’t speak enough Forthwegian to understand what they were saying. The last few Unkerlanter captives tramped past, and the last couple of Algarvian guards. The constable gave a sweeping wave, as if he were a noble graciously granting peasants a boon. Along with the rest of the Forthwegians who’d been waiting for the procession to pass, Ealstan and Sidroc crossed the street.
“Why do you keep going on about Plegmund’s Brigade if that’s the way you feel about the redheads?” Ealstan asked his cousin.
Sidroc said, “I wouldn’t be joining for the Algarvians. I’d be joining for me.”
“I can’t see the difference,” Ealstan said. “I bet you King Mezentio wouldn’t be able to see the difference, either.”
“That’s because you’re a blockhead,” Sidroc said. “If you want to tell me Mezentio’s a blockhead, too, I won’t argue with you.”
“I know what I’ll tell you,” Ealstan said. “I’ll tell you I’m not the biggest blockhead here, that’s what.”
Sidroc mimed throwing a punch. Ealstan mimed ducking. They both laughed. They were still insulting each other, but not the way they had been lately. This was just schoolboys’ foolish talk, not the sort of business that could poison things between them for years to come. A little stretch of childishness felt good.
They hadn’t stopped tossing insults around, or laughing about it, by the time they knocked on the door of Ealstan’s house. Conberge unbarred it and stood in the entry hall looking from one of them to the other. “I think both of you stopped in a tavern on the way here,” she said, and Ealstan couldn’t tell whether she was joking or not.
Sidroc stepped up and breathed in her face. “No wine,” he declared. “No ale, either.”
Conberge mimed reeling away. “No, but when was the last time you cleaned your teeth?” she said. Considering how little love she bore for Sidroc, her voice should have had an edge. Had it borne one, it would have wrecked the moment like a bursting egg. Somehow, it didn’t. Sidroc breathed in Ealstan’s face. Not about to let his sister outdo him, Ealstan mimed falling over dead. He and Sidroc were laughing so hard, they had to hold each other up. Conberge could no more help laughing, too, than she could help breathing.
A door opened across the street. A neighbor stared at the three of them, wondering what could be so funny in grim, occupied Gromheort. Ealstan wondered, too, but not enough to stop laughing. Maybe part of him sensed that this little glowing stretch couldn’t last long no matter what.
The neighbor closed the door, shaking her head. That was funny, too. But then Conberge, who hadn’t been quite so immersed in giggles as Ealstan and Sidroc, said, “The two of you are later than you should be if you came straight home.”
“We did,” Ealstan said. “Really. We had to wait for a bunch of Unkerlanter captives to shuffle through the middle of town. I suppose they’re on the way to a camp.” As soon as he’d spoken, he knew he’d punctured the magic. Captives and camps didn’t go with heedless laughter.
From out of the south, a cloud rolled across the sun, plunging the street into gloom. Ealstan wondered how he could have let himself be so silly, even if only for a little while. By Sidroc’s expression, the same thought was in his mind. Ealstan sighed. “Come on, let’s go in,” he said. “It’s getting chilly out here.”
Bembo did not like marching along a road roughly paved with cobblestones and other bits of rubble, especially not when the cobbles and other bits of rubble were slick and wet with last night’s rain.
