At last, as the sun set behind him and evening twilight began to gather, the marshal heard the rumble of bursting eggs ahead. When he entered the next village, a couple of Unkerlanter sentries popped out of the ruins and barked, “Halt! Who goes there?”
“I am Marshal Rathar,” Rathar said mildly. “Before you blaze me for not knowing the password, take me to your commander. He will vouch for me.” He wondered just which colonel or brigadier was in charge in these parts. If it was a man whose career he’d blighted, the fellow might deny any knowledge of him and have him blazed for a spy. It wasn’t likely, but stranger things had happened in Unkerlanter history.
In the event, Rathar wasted some perfectly good worries. The officer to whom the wide-eyed sentries led him, Colonel Euric, saluted so crisply, Rathar thought his arm would fall off. He gave Rathar his own battered chair, fed him a big bowl of boiled buckwheat groats, onions, and what was probably horsemeat, and poured him a heroic nip of spirits.
“I may live,” Rather said when he’d got outside of the meal and the drink. “All of me but my backside hopes I will, anyhow.”
“They don’t pay you to be a cavalryman, lord Marshal,” Euric answered with a grin. “They pay you to tell cavalrymen what to do.”
“I can’t very well do that if I don’t know what’s going on myself,” Rathar said. “That’s why I like to come up to the front when I get the chance.” He pointed at Euric, much as King Swemmel was in the habit of pointing at him. “What is going on up here, Colonel?”
“Not a whole lot, to tell you the truth, not right this minute,” Euric answered. “We’re waiting for things to dry out, and so are the stinking redheads. Meanwhile, we toss some eggs at them, they toss some at us, a few soldiers on both sides get killed, and it won’t change the way the war turns out one lousy bit.” He stuck out his chin, as if defying Rathar to come down on him for his frankness.
Rathar instead got up, walked over to him, and folded him into a bear hug. “I always praise the powers above when I run into a man who speaks his mind,” he said. “It doesn’t happen all that often, believe you me.”
Euric laughed. He was young to be a colonel--not far past thirty. Rathar wondered how many men above him had been killed or disgraced to let him get where he was. Outspoken captains were common enough. Most of them never advanced past captain. Euric was likely to be good at what he did and had surely been in the right place at the right time.
The colonel said, “I tell you this, too: we’ll lick the buggers unless we do something stupid. And we’re liable to.” He raised an eyebrow and grinned at Rathar. “Nothing personal, of course.”
“Of course.” Rathar grinned back. He slapped Euric’s shoulder. “You’ll go far. No telling who’ll chase you while you’re going, but you’ll go far.”
Both men laughed. They shared a bond, the same bond that joined so many Unkerlanter officers: So far, they’d survived the worst both King Swemmel and the Algarvians could do to their kingdom. Rather felt he was ready for anything now. By Euric’s jaunty expression, they had that in common, too.
Algarvian dragons started dropping eggs on the village. Both Euric and Rather jumped down into a hole in the ground behind the battered hut where Euric made his headquarters. “What will they diink of you in Cottbus when you come back all covered with mud?” Euric asked.
“They’ll think I’m earning my keep,” Rathar replied. “Either that or they’ll think I’m a cursed fool for taking chances I don’t have to.”
“As opposed to the rest of us poor sods, who do have to take chances,” Euric said. Rathar shrugged. That had no answer, nor had it since the beginning of time. But Euric laughed and added, “You took your share before--I know that for a fact.” An egg burst close by, showering Rathar with mud that stank of corpses. Even so, he felt. . .forgiven was the word he finally found.
“You do good work,” Ethelhelm said to Ealstan as they sat in the band leader’s flat sipping wine. “If I’d had you casting accounts for me since the days before the war, I’d’ve had a lot more money for the Algarvians to take away from me.”
“Heh,” Ealstan said. Ethelhelm’s wit always had a bite to it. Rubbing his chin, Ealstan went on in musing tones: “Before the war ... It was only two and a half years ago, but it seems like forever.”
“Oh, longer than that.” Ethelhelm cocked his head to one side, waiting to see how Ealstan took his reply. Ealstan laughed. A lot of people, he supposed--his cousin Sidroc assuredly among them--would have stared in blank incomprehension. Ethelhelm nodded, as if he’d passed an obscure test. “You’re hardly old enough to piss without wetting yourself, but you’ve got an old head on your shoulders, don’t you?”
“People say so,” Ealstan answered. “I’m cursed if I know. I take after my father is what I think it is.”
“I took after my father, too, once upon a time,” Ethelhelm said. “Took after him with a carving knife, as a matter of fact. Didn’t catch him, though.”
Ealstan couldn’t imagine going after his father with a knife. Uncle Hengist? That was a different story. Ealstan wondered how Sidroc was doing, if he was hale, whether he’d gone off to fight for the Algarvians yet. He rather hoped Sidroc had. That would be the easiest on everyone--except perhaps Sidroc.
“I’d better get back,” Ealstan said, rising to his feet. He couldn’t suppress a pang of disappointment at leaving Ethelhelm’s large, airy, elegantly decorated flat and having to go back to his own, which was none of those things. Ethelhelm was a wealthy young man; Ealstan knew to the copper just how wealthy the musician was. He’d made a fortune before the war broke out and had managed to hold onto most of it despite Eoforwic’s occupation first by the Unkerlanters and then by the Algarvians.
What with the business Ealstan had, not only from Ethelhelm but also from his other clients, he could have afforded better than the nasty little flat in which he and Vanai were living. He could have afforded better, but he didn’t dare move. If he went to a better neighborhood, Vanai would draw more notice. That was the last thing he wanted, especially now that the redheads had herded all the Kaunians into one cramped bit of Eoforwic.
Ethelhelm came with him to the door and set a hand on his arm. “You’re a good fellow, Ealstan. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of you--or meeting your lady, either.”
“Thank you,” Ealstan said, and meant it. Not all his father’s clients--probably not even half his father’s clients--dealt with Hestan socially, as opposed to on business matters. And for Ethelhelm to say that about Vanai. . . Ealstan bowed. “We’d like that, too. But with things the way they are, I don’t know how we’d manage it.”
Ethelhelm had never seen Vanai in person, and Ealstan made a point of not referring to her by name. But the musician had shown, as much by what he didn’t say and didn’t ask as by what he did, that he had a good notion she was a Kaunian. “With things the way they are,” he echoed. “Well, here’s hoping they don’t stay that way forever, my friend. You be careful, do you hear me?”
Ealstan laughed; it might have been his father’s laugh coming out of his mouth. “You’re talking to a bookkeeper, remember? If I weren’t careful, what would I be?”