After the Downfall

“I understand,” he answered, which wasn’t the same as promising to deliver. Whatever he gave the Bucovinans would hurt the Lenelli. The hope that he would give them things that would hurt the Lenelli was the only reason the natives hadn’t murdered him instead of taking him prisoner.

Drepteaza eyed him shrewdly. “You understand, but you don’t want to do it. Plenty of real Lenelli do, and you aren’t one.”

You’re just as foreign there as you are here, so why not help us? That was what she meant, all right. She wasn’t quite right, though. Hasso felt more at home among the Lenelli than he did here, and he doubted things would have been different had he landed here first. The Lenelli came closer to thinking the way he did. They were conquerors. They were winners. Bucovin was a land trying to figure out how not to lose. It wasn’t the same.

He couldn’t say that to Drepteaza without insulting her. So he said something simpler: “I swear – swore – an oath to King Bottero.”

“I’ve heard about it.” The swarthy little priestess looked at him. “How much would your oath matter if you weren’t sleeping with that blond cow?”

“Velona’s no cow!” Hasso exclaimed: the first thought that sprang into his head. You could call her all kinds of things, but cow? If you called her a cow, you’d never met her and you had no notion, no notion at all, what she was like.

Drepteaza gave him the native equivalent of a curtsy; it looked more like a dance step. “Excuse me,” she said with wintry politeness. “That blond serpent, should I call her? That blond wolf-bitch?”

Those both came closer. Still, Hasso said, “I don’t insult you or your folk.”

This time, Drepteaza looked through him. “The Lenelli are not your folk. You said so yourself.”

And he had, again and again. “But – ” he began.

“But what?” The priestess sounded genuinely confused. Then her eyes widened. She said something in Bucovinan that he didn’t get. She must have seen he didn’t, for she went back to Lenello: “You really love her!” She couldn’t have seemed more appalled had she accused him of breakfasting on Grenye babies.

He remembered that Velona had sounded just as horrified herself when she realized the same thing. “Well, what if I do?” he said roughly, doing his best to forget that.

“Moths fly into torch flames because they must. Do they love them when they do?” Drepteaza said – the exact figure Velona had used.

Hasso’s ears heated. “I don’t know. I’m not a moth,” he said.

“No, you’re not, which only makes it worse. You have a choice, and you choose to be a fool,” Drepteaza told him.

The more she argued with him, the more she put his back up. “What am I supposed to do? Tell my heart no?” he asked.

“You would if you had any sense. If you had any sense – ” Drepteaza broke off and threw her hands in the air. “Oh, what’s the use? If you could show a fool his folly, he wouldn’t be a fool anymore.” She turned and spoke to the guards in Bucovinan: “Come on. It’s hopeless. He’s hopeless.”

Hasso understood that just fine. Yes, she was a good teacher. She just didn’t want to teach him anymore. The closing door and the thud of the bar on the outside falling back into place had a dreadfully final sound.

He wondered whether the Bucovinans would take away his small comforts again and remind him he was a prisoner. For that matter, he wondered whether he would find out how ingenious the local torturer was. If you told your captors things they didn’t want to hear, you had to expect to pay the price.

Drepteaza really hadn’t wanted to hear that he loved Velona. For that matter, neither had Velona. It would have been funny if it hadn’t put his ass in a sling. Hell, it was pretty funny anyhow.

They went on feeding him, and the food stayed better than the prison slop he’d had before. Somebody – maybe Drepteaza, maybe Lord Zgomot, maybe just Rautat – was in a merciful mood, at least as far as that went. Not expecting any mercies, Hasso was grateful even for small ones.

He spent the next several days wondering whether small ones were the only ones he’d get. The natives who brought him food didn’t speak to him, and didn’t answer when he tried to speak to them. Neither did the ones who emptied his chamber pot.

And nobody else showed up. Drepteaza didn’t come in to teach him more Bucovinan. Rautat didn’t come in with guards to escort him around Falticeni. They let him stew in his own juices instead.

I’m not going to stop feeling what I feel about Velona, he thought. I’m not going to forget my oath to Bottero. Some more time went by. I hope I’m not, anyway.

He did what he’d done before: he slept as much as he could. The long, cold winter nights lent themselves to that. To sleep, perchance to dream … If he wasn’t too hungry and he wasn’t too cold, why not? He couldn’t turn on the radio or even curl up with a good book.

At first, he didn’t dream much, or didn’t remember what he dreamt if he did. He’d never paid a whole lot of attention to his dreams, so that didn’t worry him. And even if he had been, the clout in the head he’d taken might have scrambled his brains worse than he knew.

When he did start noticing what he dreamt, that was enough to make him sit up and wonder what the hell was going on. All the dreams had the same theme: somebody was looking for him, trying to talk to him. He had no idea who or why. The dreams didn’t seem threatening. That was as much as he was willing to say about them, even to himself.

When, after a couple of weeks, Drepteaza did start giving him lessons again, he mentioned them to her. He tried first in his very basic, very bad Bucovinan. When that failed, he switched to Lenello. She heard him out with her usual thoughtful air. Once he finished, she said, “I will pray, and see if that does anything.”

It didn’t, not as far as Hasso could tell. She listened gravely when he told her so, then promised to speak to Rautat about it. The veteran underofficer came up to Hasso and winked at him. “I know what you need,” he said.

“Do you?” Hasso said. “I don’t.” Rautat thought that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

Hasso found out why a couple of nights later, when a reasonably good-looking Bucovinan woman came into his room without any guards escorting her. “My name is Leneshul,” she said in fair Lenello. “They say you have been without pleasure too long. I can give you some.” As matter-of-factly as if she were going to wash dishes, she pulled her top off over her head and tugged her skirt and drawers down to the floor. “Do I suit you?” she asked, standing naked – and she was naked, not nude – before him. “You can have someone else if I don’t.”

Part of him wanted to tell her to leave and not to ask anyone else to come in her place. But he was almost painfully aware of how very long he’d gone without. It didn’t have to mean anything – just relief and, as she’d said, some momentary pleasure. “You’ll do,” he told her, and got out of his own clothes.

He wasn’t sure she enjoyed it, but he wasn’t sure she didn’t. She was certainly limber and uninhibited. He rode her the first time. After they finished, she sucked him hard again and straddled him. He squeezed her small, firm breasts as she bucked up and down. She threw back her head and groaned. If she came, it was right then. He knew he did a moment later.

“There,” she said, leaning down to brush her lips across his. “Is that better?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. She laughed throatily.

He slept without dreams that night. Drepteaza asked him about it at their language lesson the next morning. She seemed pleased at his answer. “Rautat was clever,” she said. “More clever than I was. You may have Leneshul any night you please – or another woman, if you’d rather.”

What about you? Hasso wondered. Drepteaza was cool, almost cold, as if she had no idea how pretty she was. That made the prospect of heating her all the more exciting. But she looked at him as if he were a side of beef. If he offended her, she could do anything she wanted to him. He kept his big mouth shut … about that, anyway.

“Leneshul is all right,” he told her.

“Then she will come to you again,” Drepteaza said briskly. And Leneshul did, two or three nights a week. On those nights, Hasso never had any of the dreams that disturbed him. He had them less often on other nights, too.

But when they did come on other nights, they seemed more urgent, as if whatever was behind them felt itself