Cornelu had to gauge when to dive for his attack. If he waited too long, Mezentio’s men would spot him. If he dove too soon, his leviathan wouldn’t be able to come alongside the cruiser. He would have to surface before it got there, and then he would really be in trouble.
When he judged the moment ripe, he tapped the leviathan, which slipped beneath the waves and sped toward the ley-line cruiser. It knew it had to swim alongside or under the ship long enough to let him attach the egg. He’d sometimes wondered if leviathans had any true notion why men did such things. The beasts fought among themselves, over mates and sometimes over food. Did they know their masters fought, too?
And then Cornelu had no more time to wonder, for the leviathan brought him up right below the cruiser. His lost Eforiel could not have done a finer job. All he had to do was pick the moment to signal the leviathan to swim belly-up beneath the Algarvian warship, so he could slide along the harness and release an egg. The egg clung to the hull of the ley-line cruiser. As soon as its shell touched the ship, a spell began to bring it to life.
Cornelu regained his position near the leviathan’s blowhole. Urgently now, he ordered his mount away from the ship. The egg would burst whether he was close or far. He didn’t want to have to endure a burst close by: this egg was far heavier and more potent than any a dragon could haul into the air. He also wanted to get far enough from the ley-line cruiser to let the leviathan surface safely.
He didn’t quite manage that. The leviathan had to spout a little sooner than he’d expected. The Algarvians flashed mirrors in his direction. They weren’t sure to which side he belonged. He took a mirror from his belt pouch and flashed back. His signal would be wrong, but, as long as they kept playing with mirrors, they wouldn’t be lobbing eggs at him. And his leviathan swam farther from the cruiser with every heartbeat.
Before long, the Algarvians realized he wasn’t one of their own. Eggs began flying through the air toward the leviathan. The first couple fell short, but the enemy’s aim was liable to improve in a hurry.
Then the egg he’d planted burst. The ley-line cruiser staggered in the water, as if it had collided with an invisible wall. The Algarvians forgot all about him as they tried to save their ship. They couldn’t. Its back broken, it plunged beneath the sea. Cornelu’s bellow of triumph might have burst from the throat of a warrior from five hundred years before: “For King Burebistu! For Sibiu!” This time, he’d struck the enemies of his kingdom a heavy blow.
About every other Algarvian officer who came into the tailor’s shop Traku ran took one look at Talsu working beside his father and told him, “You are lucky to be alive.” Each time, he had to nod politely and say something like, “Aye, I know it.” However polite he acted, he wasn’t always sure it was a good thing that he was alive. The wound in his left side still pained him. When he walked, he wanted to bend his body to favor it as much as he could. When he sat, he kept twisting to find the position where it hurt least. He couldn’t find a position where it didn’t hurt at all. By what the healer said, that would be awhile yet, if it ever came.
What made it hard to stay polite, though, was that the Algarvians didn’t mean he was lucky to be alive after the redheaded soldier stabbed him. They meant he was lucky the occupying authorities hadn’t seized him, tied him to a post, put a blindfold on him, and blazed him.
One of Mezentio’s officers wagged a forefinger under Talsu’s nose. “You are a fortunate fellow in that the military governor for this district is an easygoing old man who would sooner swive his pretty young mistress than do his job. With most of his kind ...” And the fellow drew that finger across his own throat.
“Oh, aye, I’m about the luckiest man in the world,” Talsu agreed. By then, he’d said it so often, he managed to sound as if he believed it. The Algarvian captain shut up and left him alone.
But what right did the redheads have to take any woman who struck their fancy? What right did they have to pick a fight with someone who happened to be a Jelgavan woman’s friend? What right did they have to stab someone who didn’t care for their lewdness?
The right of the conqueror. That was what they would answer. That Algarvian had proved his answer with the point of his knife and had got off scot free. Talsu didn’t have so sharp a counterargument.
“Well, Father, it will be awhile yet before I can run around and get in trouble like I could before,” he told his father that evening as Traku was closing up the shop.
Traku started to slap him on the shoulder, as he would have done before Talsu made the acquaintance of a blade. He stopped awkwardly, the motion half completed. Any jar hurt Talsu these days. Embarrassed at himself, Traku said, “I wouldn’t mind if you did.”
“I wouldn’t mind if I did, either,” Talsu said, “but I can’t, not for a while. I haven’t got the strength to haul rocks or break them, either. But you taught me the needle and scissors, so I can still bring in money.”
“Once upon a time, the way fathers will, I hoped you’d make something better than a tailor of yourself,” his father answered, barring the door. “But you couldn’t hope to rise too far out of your class, and I’m glad you’re content to stay where you are.” That wasn’t exactly what Talsu had said. Before he could tell his father so, Traku went on, “And if you want to right about now, I bet we could fix up a marriage for you that’s in our class, and the arrangements would go like that.” He snapped his fingers.
Talsu flushed. “D’you really think so?” he mumbled.
“Aye, I do,” Traku said. “Gailisa’s never hated you, you know, and now that you took on the redheads to keep them from doing whatever they would have done to her, she really thinks the sun rises and sets on your head.”
A slow smile stretched across Talsu’s face. “Aye, I had noticed that. She’s come visiting a lot since I got stuck, hasn’t she?”
“Just a bit,” his father said solemnly. “Pretty girl. Good girl, too, and that counts for more in the long run, though you can’t always see as much when you’re young. She’s grateful to you, sure enough.” He nodded, agreeing with himself. “She shows it, too, in ways that count. “We haven’t eaten this well since before the war. If you end up deciding needle and scissors and tape measure and tailoring magic don’t suit you, you might have yourself a grocer’s shop instead.”
“I’m not going to worry about that right now,” Talsu said. A delicious smell floated down the stairs. He grinned. “I’d sooner worry about supper--stuffed cabbage, or my nose has gone daft.”
“The rest of you, maybe. Your nose, no.” His father held out a hand. “Do you want some help getting up the steps?”
“I can manage,” Talsu said. “It doesn’t hurt as much as it used to.” Going up or down stairs, especially up them, made him raise his legs higher than usual, which meant the healing muscles in his flanks had to work harder. Up he went, slowly. Saying it hurt less than it had was true, but didn’t mean it didn’t hurt at all.
He made it, though, and made it without gritting his teeth more than a couple of times. That was a sizable improvement on the bent-over hobbling he’d done when he first came home. And once, a few days before, he’d stumbled going up the stairs. He’d thought he was going to come to pieces. He’d rather hoped he would, in fact; he hadn’t hurt so much since just after he got stabbed.