After the Downfall

“You don’t hold it against me?” Hasso asked.

“If you had killed me, I would hold that against you,” Zgomot said. Hasso laughed, as much in surprise as for any other reason – the Lord of Bucovin didn’t make jokes, even wintry ones, very often. Zgomot went on, “As things stand, no. You were on the other side. You were doing what you could for Bottero. I might fault your taste, but not your loyalty. If you tried to shoot me now, I would hold that against you – and I would have good reason to, I think.”

“So do I, Lord,” Hasso said quickly. “I have no reason to do that.”

“Well, I hope not,” Lord Zgomot said. “We are giving you as much as we can. And I hope you stay happy with Drepteaza, and I hope she stays happy with you. I spent a lot of time worrying about that.”

“I know, Lord,” Hasso replied. Zgomot had damn near ordered her to go to bed with him for what the Reich would have called national-security reasons. The only problem was, Drepteaza didn’t take orders like that worth a damn. Hasso thanked whatever gods happened to be in business locally that she’d eventually found reasons of her own. He said, “I am very happy. I hope Drepteaza is, too.”

“She cannot be too unhappy, or she would drop you. She has a mind and a will of her own,” Zgomot said, which paralleled Hasso’s thoughts of a moment before only too well. The native continued, “I have tried to ask her a time or two, but she does not always tell me all of what she thinks. She does not always tell anyone all of what she thinks.”

Hasso nodded; it wasn’t as if he hadn’t also noticed that. “She is her own person, yes. I like the person she is.”

“So do I, though not, I daresay, the same way.” Zgomot smiled one of his crooked, knowing smiles. “Since you came to this world, you have been lovers with two women with minds of their own. Well, not all of Velona’s mind is her own, since part of it belongs to the Lenello goddess, but you know what I mean. Attracting two women of that sort is a compliment to you.”

“I would like it better if one of them didn’t keep trying to kill me, Lord,” Hasso said.

“Indeed. I can see how that might be so. But I assure you that you would like it less if they both did. If both of those two went after a man at the same time, I do not think he would last long.”

“Neither do I,” Hasso said, which was the truth. When he was coming back from trying to re-defect to the Lenelli, he’d had similar thoughts about Bottero and Zgomot. He couldn’t make it here without one of them, not unless he aimed to go into the king business himself. And he didn’t. He might like to carry whatever they gave you here instead of a Generalfeldmarschall’s baton, but he had not the slightest desire to wear a crown.

Yes, if Bottero and Zgomot both wanted him dead, dead he would be. If Velona and Drepteaza both wanted him dead, dead he would be, too. He suspected he would enjoy dying a lot less in that case.

Suppose Velona didn’t want him dead. Suppose she wanted him back. What would he do then? If he had any brains, he would stay with Drepteaza even so. If he had any brains … Being with Velona had nothing to do with brains. You went with Velona for the same reason a test pilot climbed into a new fighter plane’s cockpit – to see what kind of thrills it would give you next. And Velona’s thrills were a hell of a lot more exciting than any you could get from a lousy airplane.

Hasso shook his head. It was dead. It would never come back to life. He might miss it – he did miss it. If he spent all his time mooning over what was lost, he would lose sight of what he had. What he had was pretty goddamn special, too.

“The goddess’ rules are different from anyone else’s,” Zgomot said quietly.

“Ja,” Hasso said, and then did a double take. “Are you sure you are not a wizard, Lord?” He didn’t like being so transparent. It was dangerous. And if Zgomot could read him like that, couldn’t Drepteaza do the same thing?

“I am only a man, Hasso Pemsel,” the Lord of Bucovin answered. “But I am a man who knows something of women – as much as a man can, anyhow. And I am a man who has heard a lot about the Lenello goddess. I am jealous of you – maybe only half an hour’s worth of jealous, but jealous even so.”

Half an hour’s worth of jealous … That sounded about right. Would you throw away the chance for happiness for the rest of your life for half an hour? If the half-hour was with Velona, you just might. And for a while afterwards you might think you’d made a good bargain, too. If that wasn’t power, what was it?

With a shiver, Hasso said, “Let’s beat them, Lord.” Zgomot nodded.

XXVI

Drepteaza rode with the army, too. Hasso wasn’t sure she was there to help him translate or just because she couldn’t bear to stay behind. He wouldn’t have wanted to wait back in Falticeni, either. Better to know than to worry about every courier who came into town.

Whatever her reasons, he was glad she was there. She had the same fears as Zgomot. They boiled down to one basic question, which she asked Hasso in the tent they shared the night after they set out from the capital: “Can we really beat the big blond pricks?”

“Can we?” the German echoed. “Yes, of course we can.”

She gave him an exasperated look. “Will we?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. The look got more exasperated. But he went on, “I am not a god, to know things ahead of time. Maybe they ambush us. Maybe their magic works in spite of amulets. Maybe … I don’t know what. All kinds of things can go wrong.” His mouth twisted. “Believe me when I say that. I know what I talk about.”

Could Germany have beaten Russia? Maybe, if the Yugoslavs hadn’t fought, costing the Wehrmacht six weeks of good weather in the East. Maybe, if the second year’s campaign that led to Stalingrad hadn’t got fucked up from the start. Maybe Germany could have got a draw if she hadn’t thrown away so many panzers in the Kursk bulge. Almost two years lay between Kursk and Berlin, but it was downhill all the way after that.

“What are our chances?” Drepteaza asked.

That was a better question. Hasso shrugged. “Better than they would be without gunpowder. Better than they would be without amulets. Better than they would be without the Hedgehogs.”

“You’re supposed to pat me on the back and tell me everything will be fine,” Drepteaza said.

“Maybe it will. I hope so,” Hasso said. “But what you hope and what you get are two different beasts. I make no promises. I can’t without lying.”

“What if we lose?” she persisted.

“Even if we lose, I think we scare the Lenelli out of their hair.” That was what you did in Bucovinan instead of scaring somebody out of a year’s growth. “I think they think twice about messing with Bucovin after this fight.”

“Either that or they all get together and jump on us while they still can.” Drepteaza’s mood swung much more than usual. “If they see dangerous Grenye, then they will make friends. And they will stay friends till we are beaten.” The priestess sounded very sure of herself.

Hasso wanted to tell her she was wrong, but that wasn’t so easy. The Lenelli were full of contempt for the Grenye. It sprang from their certainty that the natives couldn’t really be dangerous. If the Grenye suddenly turned out to be opponents worth fighting, the Lenelli might go after them like hunters after wolves – or maybe more like hunters after mad dogs.

“About time they find out they make too many mistakes when it comes to Grenye,” Hasso said. “My kingdom made mistakes about its neighbors. It will spend a long time paying for them.”

“You see? You can make the verbs behave when you think about it,” Drepteaza said. For a moment, he was annoyed she’d changed the subject. Then he was just surprised. And, after that, he decided he’d eased her mind, at least a little.

Now if only he could ease his own.

Bucovinans with pots of gunpowder, fuses, and spades – and others with fuses and spades but no pots of gunpowder – did their best to delay Bottero’s march east. Hasso figured they would blow up a few Lenelli and make the rest thoughtful. None of them knew how to make gunpowder; he wanted to hold that secret as tight as he could as long as he could. It would leak eventually – such things always did. But eventually wasn’t now, and now was what counted.

All the natives who harassed the Lenelli also wore dragon-bone amulets. If Aderno and his pals wanted to try