After the Downfall

“You haven’t known me for a very long time.” Drepteaza was relentlessly precise. “What else have you wanted to do?”

He did his best to show her. He hadn’t thought he would be her first, and he wasn’t. He did hope he pleased her. He wasn’t sure, because she didn’t show what she felt as extravagantly as Velona. That he should think of Velona now, even for an instant… only showed he really had it bad. Well, he did, dammit.

Afterwards, he had no idea what to say. Before he could come up with anything, Drepteaza beat him to the punch: “There. Are you happier now?”

He started to laugh. That was as blunt as usual. “Yes,” he answered. “Are you?”

She frowned, thinking it over the way she so often did. If she said no, he thought he would sink down into the ground. But, thoughtful still, she nodded. “Yes, I am. I don’t know whether I will be if I bear a wizard’s child three seasons from now, but that is in the hands of the gods.”

Could a halfbreed work magic? Hasso thought so, but he wasn’t sure. He also wasn’t sure a German-Grenye halfbreed would be the same as a Lenello-Grenye halfbreed. Since he couldn’t do anything about that, or about whether Drepteaza would catch, he asked her, “Was it all right for you?”

If you have to ask, you won’t like the answer. That was a rule as ancient as women. Drepteaza, though, was out of the ordinary. She kept so much of herself to herself.

She nodded now – slowly, but she nodded. “You were … sweeter than I thought you would be,” she said. “You really meant it.”

“I said so,” Hasso replied. “What I say, I mean.”

“It would seem so,” Drepteaza admitted. “But I told you before – I know a lot of men will say anything to get a woman to go to bed with them.”

“Not in bed,” Hasso said with dignity – and with precision of his own. “On the grass.”

“So we are,” Drepteaza said. “We ought to get dressed, too, before someone comes over to find out why we’re not trying to ruin each other.”

“Wait,” Hasso said, and kissed her again. The kiss took on a life of its own, but not quite enough to start a second round. I’m getting old, dammit, the German thought. Even if he was still this side of forty, two in a row were only a memory.

She shook her head as she put on her breeches and tunic. “You are a very strange man, Hasso Pemsel.”

He shrugged. He couldn’t very well tell her she was wrong, not here, even if he would have been ordinary enough in the Reich. “I come from another world. What do you expect?”

As she had a habit of doing, she answered what he’d meant for a rhetorical question: “I expected you to act the way you look. I expected you to act like a Lenello. If I’d doubted you were one, I’d be sure you weren’t now.”

How did she mean that? Did she know how Lenello men made love? Did she know from experience? Do I want to find out? Hasso wondered, and decided he didn’t.

He pulled on his own trousers. “A good thing I see – uh, saw – those kicks coming,” he said. “Otherwise, we never do this now. If both those kicks get home, maybe we never do this forever.”

“I just have to practice more,” Drepteaza said sweetly. And how the hell did she mean that ⁷. Once more, Hasso decided he didn’t want to find out.

Even if no one came out on the meadow and caught them in flagrante, the rest of the Bucovinans didn’t need long to figure out that Hasso and Drepteaza had become lovers. Rautat spoke for them: “You make her unhappy, you big blond prick, and I’ll cut you off at the knees so we’re the same size. Then I’ll really give you the whipping you deserve.”

“I don’t want to make her unhappy,” Hasso protested.

“You’d better not,” the underofficer growled. “She’s special, and not just ‘cause she’s a priestess, either.”

“You think I don’t think so, too?” Hasso said.

Rautat snorted. “Who knows what you think? Who knows if you think?”

“I love you, too,” Hasso said.

“Fat chance,” Rautat said with another snort. “Are we just about finished here? Can we go back to Falticeni pretty soon? We’ve done all the fooling around we need. We have to fight pretty soon – or don’t you think Bottero will come after us again as quick as he can?”

“Of course he will,” Hasso answered. “You know that as well as I do.”

“Well, no.” Rautat shook his head. “You’ve met the man. You know him. I haven’t. I don’t. Being on the same battlefield with him doesn’t count.”

Hasso hadn’t just met Bottero – he liked him. That had nothing to do with anything, not any more. Hasso thought Bottero’s enmity was only professional, not personal like Velona’s. When it came to wanting him dead, that might matter a pfennig’s worth. Or it might not. He stuck to business, saying, “We can go back to Falticeni. You’re right – we’ve done what we came here to do.”

“What about the dragon bones? Have you heard anything?” Rautat asked.

“Not a word,” Hasso said. “You?”

“Nothing,” the underofficer answered. “I wonder which of us they’d tell. I wonder if they’d tell either one of us.”

“They’d better. We need to know,” Hasso said. “And the people going after the dragon bones better get out before King Bottero’s army marches. If they come after, it’s too late.”

“Good point. They can make amulets for themselves and be safe from Lenello magic, not that that does us any good,” Rautat said.

“They can’t even do that,” Hasso said. “They don’t know what the dragon bones are for. They only know Lord Zgomot wants them.”

“You’re right. That’s your fault. We never would have worried about stuff like that by ourselves,” Rautat said.

“One more reason the Lenelli keep beating you,” Hasso said. “Their security isn’t very good. If yours is worse…” He rolled his eyes, but then he brightened. “The dragon bones should ward Zgomot’s men whether they know why or not, come to think of it.”

“Hmm. Yeah, I suppose so.” The Bucovinan paused, eyeing Hasso. “You know something? You’re starting to speak our language pretty well. Not like you grew up in Falticeni or anything, but pretty well. I think it’s better than your Lenello by now.”

“Maybe,” Hasso said. “If it is, I have to thank you and Drepteaza.”

Rautat leered at him. “Well, if you tried sweet-talking the priestess in Lenello, she’d make you sorry, and we both know it.”

Hasso thought about that. Drepteaza angry wouldn’t be an erupting volcano like Velona. She’d make him think a glacier had crushed him instead. Fire or ice? Better not to provoke either. The German said, “I know you think I’m stupid. I’m not that stupid. Hope not, anyhow.”

“I used to think you were stupid,” Rautat said. “Part of it was because you didn’t talk very well, not in any language I know. I’ve found out different since. Stupid you’re not, but you are bloody strange.”

“Everybody says that. You’d be bloody strange in my world, too,” Hasso answered. Landing in his world, Rautat wouldn’t know the customs or speak the language. He’d end up in trouble before he could learn. How could he help it?

“I’d be strange anywhere,” the underofficer said, not without pride. He wasn’t wrong, either. Hasso laughed and clapped him on the back.

The German knew how to deal with Rautat. He’d handled plenty of Feldwebels in his Wehrmacht days. The language here changed. So did a few of the details. The art as a whole? No.

Dealing with Drepteaza as a lover … That he had to learn one step at a time. It wasn’t simple, either. There were moments when he felt like a man trying to defuse a booby-trapped bomb. The priestess was more private and much more complicated than Velona had been. When Drepteaza was unhappy, she’d retreat into herself. She would stay polite all the time. If you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t notice anything was wrong. Then you would lose more points for not noticing.