“And we thank you for that,” Pekka said, giving Uto a glare that bounced off him like a beam from a stick off a dragon’s silvered belly.
“I don’t thank her,” Uto said. “I want to see what it’s like in there.”
“Aunt Elimaki keeps her rest crate locked when she isn’t using it for the same reason we keep ours locked when we aren’t using it,” Leino said. “The magic in there is to keep food fresh. It isn’t to keep little boys fresh.”
“Aye--you’re fresh enough already,” Pekka told her son. As if to prove her right, Uto stuck out his tongue.
Leino swatted him on the bottom, more to gain his attention than to punish him. Elimaki rolled her eyes again. She said, “He’s been like that all day long.”
“We’ll take him home now,” Pekka declared. Uto hopped off the porch and down the walk like a frog. Pekka’s knees ached just watching him. With a sigh, she turned to Leino. “Some kinds of magic haven’t got anything to do with mage-craft.” Leino considered, then solemnly nodded.
In days gone by, Cornelu had strolled through the streets of the shore town of Tirgoviste in his uniform or in tunic and kilt of the latest style and the softest linen, always perfectly pressed and pleated. He’d been proud to put himself on display, to show off who and what he was: a commander in the island kingdom’s navy.
Coming into Algarvian-occupied Tirgoviste now, he still wore his best clothes, such as they were: a much-patched sheepskin jacket over a sleeveless undertunic, with a wool kilt that had long since lost whatever shape it might once have owned. He looked like a shepherd from the inland hills down on his luck. Three days of ruddy stubble on his cheeks and chin only added to the impression. The first Algarvian soldier who saw him tossed him a coin, saying, “Here, you poor beggar, buy yourself a mug of wine.”
By his accent, he came from the far north of Algarve; Algarvian and Sibian were closely related tongues, but a real shepherd from back in the hills probably wouldn’t have understood him. But the small silverpiece carried its own meaning. Cornelu bobbed his head and mumbled, “My thanks.” Laughing, nodding, King Mezentio’s soldier went on his way, for all the world as if Tirgoviste were his own town.
Cornelu hated him for that despite his causal kindness. Cornelu hated him all the more because of his casual kindness. Toss a Sibian dog a bone, will you? He thought. Not showing what he felt ate at him. Algarvians played at feuds, made them into elegant games. Sibians nursed them, cherished them, never let them go.
A broadsheet pasted on a brick wall drew Cornelu’s eye. It showed two bare-chested, sword-swinging warriors from ancient days. One was labeled ALGARVE; the other, younger and half a head shorter, SIBIU. Below them was the legend, SIBIANS ARE AN ALGARVIC FOLK, TOO! JOIN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST UNKERLANTER barbarism! Below that, a line of smaller type added, SEE THE RECRUITER, 27 DUM-BRAVENI STREET.
Fury filled Cornelu. After a moment, it leaked away. A slow smile spread over his face instead. If Mezentio’s minions were trying to get Sibians to fight for them, how many men were they losing? More than they could afford, evidently.
But men hawking news sheets did their best to tell a different story. They shouted about one Algarvian victory in Unkerlant after another. By what they said, Herborn, the biggest city in the Duchy of Grelz, was on the point of falling. Even if that proved a lie, that the Algarvians had come far enough to make the claim did not speak well for the fight King Swemmel’s men were putting up.
Another Algarvian soldier strolled by, this one arm in arm with a girl who spoke Sibian with a Tirgoviste accent like Cornelu’s. They didn’t always understand each other, but they were having fun trying. The girl’s face shone as she looked up at the man who had helped bring her kingdom to its knees.
Again, Cornelu had to fight to keep from showing what he felt. He’d already come into the city a couple of times since swimming ashore after Eforiel, his leviathan, was killed, and had seen the same kinds of things then. They tore at his heart. Some--too many--of his countrymen were willing to accept that they had been conquered.
“Not I,” he muttered under his breath. “Not I. Not ever.”
He made his way along the hilly streets till he came to an eatery that had been fine once but had gone down in the world. He nodded as he set his hand on the latch. He’d gone down in the world himself.
Inside, the place was cool and dim. It smelled offish and the oil in which the cook fried them. A couple of old men sat at one table nursing glasses of pear brandy. A fisherman was demolishing a platter of fried prawns at another. The rest were empty. Cornelu sat down on a stool at one of those.
A waiter came over with an expectant look. Cornelu glanced at the bill of fare chalked on a board behind the bar. “Fried cod, boiled parsnips and butter, and a mug of ale,” he said.
“Aye.” The waiter went into a back room. He didn’t come out right away; maybe he was the cook, too. He didn’t have so much trade that he couldn’t be both.
Presently, the door from the street opened. Cornelu started to leap to his feet. A tired-looking fisherman came in and sat down with the fellow eating prawns. Cornelu sank back onto his stool.
Out came the waiter, with his supper on a tray. He set it down, then took his new customer’s order. That fellow wanted prawns, like his friend. Cornelu started eating his fish. It wasn’t bad. He’d had better, but also worse. He sipped the ale. Like the fish, it was middling good.
He ate slowly, stretching out the meal, making it last. That wasn’t easy. He felt hungry as a wolf. He’d come up onto the island without a copper banu to his name and stayed alive doing odd jobs. He really had herded sheep for a while. He’d spent a lot of time hungry.
Coins clinked as the old men paid for their brandy. They got up and left. The waiter scooped their money into a leather pouch he wore at the front of his kilt. Cornelu raised a forefinger and asked for another mug of ale. The waiter looked him over, then raised an eyebrow. He understood the challenge, and set silver on the table. Mollified, the waiter gave him what he wanted.
He’d almost finished the parsnips and was halfway down that second ale when the door opened again. A worn woman pushing a baby carriage paused in the doorway and looked at the handful of customers in the eatery.
A worn woman pushing a carriage ... for a moment, to his shame, that was all Cornelu saw. He salved his conscience by noting she’d needed a moment to recognize him, too. Then he did leap up, as he’d started to do before. “Costache!” he exclaimed.
“Cornelu!”
He’d expected his wife to run to him. In his dreams, that was how it had been. His dreams, though, had left out the carriage. Carefully pushing it ahead of her, she made her way to his table. Then he embraced her. Then he kissed her. As if from very far away, he heard the fishermen sniggering. He didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, the powers below could swallow them both.
At last, Costache asked, “Do you want to see your daughter?”
What he wanted was a chance to start another child then and there. He knew he couldn’t have that. As naturally as he could, he looked down into the carriage. “What is her name?” he asked. He’d been able to write to his old address, to the house where Costache still lived, but he’d had no address of his own, drifting from one place to another. Till this moment, he hadn’t known whether his child was boy or girl.
“I called her Brindza, after your mother,” Costache answered.
Cornelu nodded. It was good. It was fitting. He wished the baby could have been named Eforiel, but that would have been wrong. The leviathan had still been living when she was born.