On the ground, he was glad to let the handlers tend to his dragon. The beast liked them better than him, anyhow; he worked it hard, while they gave it the meat and brimstone and quicksilver it craved. It liked no one very much, though. Sabrino knew dragons too well to have any doubts on that score.
He ate hastily roasted mutton himself, along with hard bread, olives, and a nasty white wine the cooks who ran the field kitchen should never have bothered stealing. “Too sweet and too sour at the same time,” he said, staring at his cup in dismay. “Tastes like a diabetic’s piss.”
“If you say so, sir,” Captain Domiziano said innocently. “Myself, I wouldn’t know.” Sabrino made as if to throw the mug at him. He almost did it for real; it wouldn’t have been a waste of the wine. But he was laughing even as he reared back, and so were the officers who ate with him.
“Hello!” Captain Orosio pointed toward the manor house. “Looks like the old boy in there has finally decided to come out and see what we’re up to.”
Sure enough, an elderly Unkerlanter approached the dragonfliers. Sabrino had ordered the manor house and whoever lived in it left alone, except for taking what he needed from the flocks to keep men and dragons fed. Until now, the Unkerlanter noble--for such Sabrino assumed him to be--had also ignored the Algarvians.
He was straight and spry and, for an Unkerlanter, tall. He wore a bushy white mustache, a style outmoded in his clean-shaven kingdom since the middle of the century, the days before the Six Years’ War. And he proved to speak excellent Algarvian, saying, “I never expected to see your folk come so far into my land.”
Sabrino got to his feet and bowed. “Here we are, sir, nonetheless. I have the honor to be the Count Sabrino; very much at your service.” He bowed again.
A small, bitter smile crossed the Unkerlanter’s face as he returned the second bow. “In my younger days, I had some considerable experience with Algarvians,” he said. “I see the breed has changed little during my retirement.”
“And you are, sir?” Sabrino asked politely.
“I doubt my name would mean anything to you, young fellow,” the Unkerlanter replied, though Sabrino was not so young as all that. “I am called Chlodvald.”
Not only Sabrino but some of his officers exclaimed at that. “Powers above!” the wing commander said. “If you are that Chlodvald, your Excellency”--and he had no doubt the old man was--”you were the best general your kingdom had during the Six Years’ War.”
“You compliment me too highly. I had good fortune,” Chlodvald said with a shrug. In his place, an Algarvian would have preened and boasted.
“Will you give us the privilege of dining with us?” Sabrino asked. Several of the junior officers added eager agreement.
Chlodvald raised an eyebrow. “Generous of you to offer to share with me what is mine.”
“Sir, it is war,” Sabrino said stiffly. “Did you never feast from the fruits of victory?”
“There you have me,” the retired general admitted, and sat down among the dragonfliers. His kingdom’s enemies fell over one another to give him food and drink. When he tasted the wine, that eyebrow rose again. “This did not come from my cellars.”
“Your Excellency, with all my heart I should hope not,” Sabrino said. After Chlodvald had eaten and drunk, the wing commander asked him, “How is it that you live quietly here, sir, and are not engaged in helping Unkerlant against us?”
“Oh, I have lived quietly here a good many years, and I did not expect King Swemmel to call me into his service even when war broke out anew,” Chlodvald replied. “You may not recall, but I fought for Kyot in the Twinkings War.”
“Ah,” Sabrino whispered.
Captain Orosio blurted what was in Sabrino’s mind: “Then how come you’re not dead?”
Chlodvald smiled that bitter smile again. “King Swemmel didn’t spare many. I’d known both the young princes well back in Cottbus, of course, before their father died and they went at each other. Maybe that had something to do with it. I don’t know; he slew others he knew as well as me. But he said he was letting me live because of my earlier service to Unkerlant, which partly excused my madness. Anyone who opposed him was and is in his mind mad.”
“What is in himself, he sees in others,” Sabrino said. Chlodvald did not disagree.
Captain Domiziano said, “Algarve is the broom that will sweep him away. King Mezentio will arrange this kingdom as it should be.”
For the third time, the strange smile appeared on Chlodvald s face. “If only you had come twenty years ago, we should have welcomed you with open arms. But now it’s too late. We were just getting back on our feet after the Six Years’ War and the Twinkings War, and now you come and throw us back so we shall have to start all over again. Now we are fighting for Unkerlant, and in that cause we are all united.”
Sabrino eyed his officers. They all looked amused, as he felt amused. Politely inclining his head to Chlodvald, he said, “Your Excellency, Unkerlant may be united, but we would not be here by Sommerda were that doing King Swemmel any enormous amount of good.”
“Perhaps not,” the retired--forcibly retired--Unkerlanter general replied. “But then again, while you are winning, you have not yet won. Tell me: has the fight been easy for you?”
Sabrino started to nod. In some ways, the fight had been very easy. The Unkerlanters weren’t skilled, either in the air or on the ground. They blundered into traps that would have fooled no Valmieran or Jelgavan officer. Sometimes, though, they battered their way out of those traps, too, as the Valmierans or Jelgavans would not have even tried to do. They fought hard all the time; if they were doomed to defeat, they did not admit it even to themselves.
“You have not answered me, Count Sabrino,” Chlodvald said.
“Easy enough,” Sabrino said, and tossed an egg of his own: “How is it that all of Unkerlant’s neighbors have joined against her? That speaks volumes about how well King Swemmel is loved throughout Derlavai.”
“All of Algarve’s neighbors joined against her, too,” Chlodvald observed. “And what does that say about King Mezentio?”
“Yanina marches with us!” Captain Domiziano blurted.
Chlodvald raised his snowy eyebrow and said not another word. After a moment, Domiziano turned red. Sabrino had all he could do not to laugh at his squadron leader. He still wasn’t sure having the Yaninans as allies helped Algarve more than it helped Unkerlant.
Chlodvald got to his feet. Rather stiffly, he nodded to Sabrino. “You Algarvians were a polished lot when you fought us in the Six Years’ War. I see that has not changed. But I will take the liberty of telling you one thing more before I leave you: Unkerlant is a kingdom--Unkerlant is a land--that rubs the polish from invaders no less than from its own folk. Good night.” He turned away.
“Good night,” Sabrino called after him. “We may not meet again: before long, we shall be advancing once more.”
Chlodvald did not reply; Sabrino wondered if the old man heard. He watched Chlodvald walk through deepening twilight back toward the manor house and go inside. No lamps showed at the windows; the Unkerlanter general was too courteous to try to betray his foes in such a way. Even so, Unkerlanter dragons came over that night, dropping eggs all around the Algarvian dragon farm. They killed only a couple of dragons and no fliers, but their stubbornness made Sabrino thoughtful.
Lalla stamped her foot. The angry gesture set her bare breasts bouncing prettily. “But I already ordered that emerald necklace!” she said. “What do you mean, I can’t have it? The jeweler will deliver it soon.”