Paalo turned as red as a golden-skinned Kuusaman could. “I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but. . ”
“But you’re going to,” Ilmarinen said. “After a buildup like that, my friend, you’ll blab or I’ll turn you into a sparrow and me into a sparrowhawk. Talk!”
Instead of talking, Paalo suffered a coughing fit. “Well, sir, it’s only that. . Anyone who knew Leino and Xavega here in Jelgava knew they.. they.. ”
“Were lovers?” Ilmarinen suggested.
Paalo nodded gratefully. “So they were. And so we all assumed Leino had no, ah, impediments that would have kept him from. .”
“Screwing her,” Ilmarinen supplied, and got another grateful nod from Paalo, who struck him as a very straitlaced man. “Xavega,” Ilmarinen murmured. “Xavega. I saw her at a sorcerers’ colloquium or two, I think. Bad-tempered woman, if I recall, but pretty enough to get away with it a lot of the time.”
“That’s her,” Paalo said. “Drawn straight from life, that’s her.”
Ilmarinen hardly heard him. “And put together?” he added, his hands shaping an hourglass in the air. “I wouldn’t have thrown her out of bed, even if I’d been married to two of my wives at the same time.” He eyed Paalo, who’d gone from red to a color not far removed from chartreuse, and patted him on the back. “There, there, my dear fellow, I’ve upset you.”
“It’s nothing, sir,” the other wizard said stiffly. He was plainly lying through his teeth, but Ilmarinen rather admired him for it here. After a moment, gathering himself, Paalo added, “You aren’t. . quite what I expected in a master mage, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I’m a raffish old son of a whore, is what I am,” Ilmarinen said, not without a certain pride. “What you expected was Master Siuntio-but even he had more juice in him than people who didn’t know him would guess. But, juice or no juice, plaster or no plaster, he’s dead now, and you’re bloody well stuck with me. And if I don’t match what you think a master mage should be-I am a master mage, so maybe you’d do better revising your hypothesis.”
“Er. .” Paalo said yet again. He laughed a nervous laugh. “You aren’t what I expected, not at all.”
“Too bad.” Ilmarinen leaned forward to tap the driver on the shoulder. “How much longer till we get where we’re going?”
“Half an hour, sir,” the fellow answered, “if the Algarvians don’t go and drop any eggs on our heads.”
“Are they in the habit of doing that?” Ilmarinen glanced at Paalo. “Your head still looks moderately well stuck on.”
He’d expected the younger mage to go, Er, for the fourth time. Instead, solemnly, Paalo said, “I do begin to wonder, the more I sit by you.” That startled a laugh out of Ilmarinen. Paalo went on, “No, the Algarvians haven’t got many dragons in the air here. We rule the skies. They’re trying to hold our beasts on Sibiu away from Trapani and the south, and most of their dragons that aren’t doing that are fighting the Unkerlanters.”
“Ah, the Unkerlanters,” Ilmarinen said. “Swemmel’s paid the butcher’s bill for this war, even if we islanders may come out of it looking better than he does. I’m sorry for him. I’d be even sorrier if he weren’t such a nasty, miserable bastard in his own right. An ally, aye, but a nasty, miserable bastard all the same.”
“Best thing that would happen would be for Mezentio’s men to wreck Unkerlant as badly as Swemmel’s men wreck Algarve,” Paalo said. “Then we wouldn’t have to worry about either one of them for a generation.”
That fit in quite well with Ilmarinen’s view of the world. But all he said was, “How likely is it? The things we want most, the things we need most-those are the things we’re least likely to get.”
“What do we do, then?” Paalo asked, his tone not far from despairing.
Ilmarinen set a hand on his shoulder. “The best we can, son. The best we can.” He cocked his head to one side. “Do I hear eggs bursting up ahead? The first thing we’d better do is, we’d better finish whipping the Algarvians. What they think is the best thing that could happen isn’t what we want, believe you me it isn’t.”
“I know that,” Paalo said. “Every single Kuusaman has known it since they used their filthy magic against Yliharma.”
“And ever single Kuusaman should have known it since they started using their filthy magic against the Unkerlanters,” Ilmarinen said. “Killing people for the sake of their life energy is just as nasty aimed at the Unkerlanters as it is when it’s aimed at us.”
“I suppose so,” the other mage said. “It doesn’t hit home the same way, though. I guess it should, but it doesn’t.” Since he was right, Ilmarinen didn’t argue with him.
The carriage rolled past olive trees and almonds and the oranges and lemons the Jelgavans used to flavor their wine and the vineyards in which they raised the grapes for that wine. None of those crops would have grown in Kuusamo. Oh, a few cranks raised a few grapes on north-facing hills in the far, far north of Ilmarinen’s homeland, and in warm years they got a few bottles of thoroughly indifferent wine from those grapes. They were proud of themselves. That didn’t mean they weren’t cranks.
Ilmarinen enjoyed the spicy, aromatic scent of the citrus leaves. Even in wintertime, birds hopped here and there through the trees, searching for bugs. That would have been plenty to tell the master mage he wasn’t home any more. Pink-flowered oleanders added their sweet, slightly cloying scent to the mix. Then the breeze shifted a little. Ilmarinen’s nose wrinkled.
So did Paalo’s. “Dead behemoths,” he explained. “The Algarvians had a few around here. We surrounded them and pounded them with dragons, and that’s what you smell. They’re very good with the beasts. Our own behemoth crews go on and on about that. They’ve had plenty of practice fighting the Unkerlanters, I suppose. But all the practice in the world won’t help you if you’re as outnumbered as they were and if you haven’t got any dragons of your own overhead.”
“Good,” Ilmarinen said. “Nobody ever said the Algarvians weren’t fine soldiers. Nobody ever said they weren’t brave soldiers. That doesn’t mean they don’t need beating. If anything, it means they need beating more than ever, because it makes them more dangerous than they would be otherwise.” He pointed ahead, to a ragtag collection of tents. “Is that where I go to work?”
“It is, sir, aye,” Paalo said. “I’m sorry. I wish it were finer.”
“Don’t worry,” Ilmarinen said. “Let the Algarvians worry instead.” He hoped they would.
Four
When the knock on the door to Fernao’s chamber came, Pekka and he had just finished putting on their clothes. In a low voice, one that, with luck, wouldn’t carry out into the hallway beyond, Pekka said, “It’s a good thing he didn’t get here a few minutes ago.”
“I think it’s a very good thing, sweetheart,” Fernao replied as he headed for the door. His voice was so full of sated male smugness, Pekka started to stick out her tongue at his back. But she was feeling pretty well sated herself, and so she didn’t. Fernao opened the door. “Aye? What is it?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the crystallomancer in the hallway said. “I need to speak to Mistress Pekka. I checked her chamber first, and she wasn’t there, and. . well, this is the next place I looked. Is she here?”
“Aye, I’m here,” Pekka answered, coming up to stand beside Fernao. That the two of them spent all the time they could together was no secret from the folk at the hostel in the Naantali district. If it still was a secret in the wider world, it wouldn’t stay one for long. Sooner or later, word would get to Leino. Pekka would have to deal with that. . eventually. For now, she just asked, “And what’s gone wrong, or what does somebody think has gone wrong?”
“Mistress, Prince Juhainen would speak to you,” the crystallomancer said.
“Oh!” Pekka exclaimed. She stood on tiptoe to kiss Fernao-no, no secrets here, not any more-then said, “I’ll come, of course.” A call by crystal from any of the Seven would have got her immediate, complete attention, but Juhainen’s domain included Kajaani and the surrounding districts-he was her prince, or she his particular subject. “Did he say what he wanted?”