"All right, scum- back you go," the guard sergeant said when the exercise period was over. Now Talsu stared down at the stone paving blocks so the guards couldn't see his glare. The Algarvians hadn't built this prison, or the others much like it scattered over the face of Jelgava- Jelgavan kings had done that, to keep their own subjects in line. But the redheads were perfectly willing to use the prisons- and the guards, as long as they kept their jobs, didn't care whom they were guarding, or for whom, or why.
Talsu sat back down on his cot and waited for the bowl of mush that would be dinner. It might even have a couple of bits of salt pork floating in it. Something to look forward to, he thought. The worst part of that was noticing how seriously he meant it.
But a guard strode up to the cell before dinnertime. "Talsu son of Traku?" he demanded.
"Aye, sir," Talsu said.
The guard made a check on his list. He unlocked the door and pointed a stick at Talsu's chest. "You will come with me," he said. "Interrogation."
"What about my dinner?" Talsu yelped. He really had been looking forward to it. They wouldn't save it for him. He knew that all too well. Instead of answering, the guard jerked his stick, as if to say Talsu wouldn't need to worry about dinner ever again if he didn't get moving right now. Having no choice, he got moving.
Even his interrogator was a Jelgavan, a man who wore the uniform of a constabulary captain. He did not invite Talsu to sit down. Indeed, but for his stool and those on which two armed guards perched, the room had nowhere to sit. One of the guards rose and positioned a lamp so it shone straight into Talsu's face. It was bright enough to make him blink and try to look away.
"So," the constabulary officer said. "You are another one who betrayed his lawful sovereign. What have you got to say for yourself?"
"Nothing, sir," Talsu answered. "Nothing I could say would get me out of the trouble I'm in, anyhow."
"No. There you are wrong," the interrogator said. "Give us the names of those who plotted with you and things will start looking better for you in short order. You may rest assured of that: I know whereof I speak."
"I don't know any names," Talsu said, as he had the first time they'd bothered questioning him. "How could I know any names? Nobody did any plotting with me. I was all by myself- and your man got me." He didn't try to hide the self-reproach in his voice.
"You assert, then, that your father knew nothing of your treason."
It wasn't treason, not in Talsu's eyes. How could turning on the Algarvians be treason for a Jelgavan? It couldn't. He didn't think the constable felt that way, though, so all he said was, "No, sir. You ask around in Skrunda. He's made more clothes for the Algarvians in town than anybody else there."
The interrogator didn't pursue it, from which Talsu concluded he'd already asked around, and had got the same answers Talsu had given. Now he tried a new tack: "You also assert your wife knew nothing of this."
"Of course I do," Talsu exclaimed in alarm he didn't try to hide. "I never said anything about it to Gailisa. By the powers above, it's the truth."
"And yet, she has plenty of reasons for disliking Algarvians- is that not so?" the interrogator went on. "Is it not so that she saw an Algarvian soldier stab you before you were married?"
"Aye, that is so." Talsu admitted what he could hardly deny. "But I never told her about anything. If I had told her about anything, she probably would have wanted to come with me. I didn't want that to happen."
"I see," the Jelgavan in Algarvian service said in tones suggesting Talsu hadn't helped himself or Gailisa with that answer. "You are not making this easy. You could, as I have said, if only you would name names."
"I haven't got any names to give you," Talsu said. "The only name I know is Kugu the silversmith's, and he's been on your side all along. I can't very well get him into trouble, can I?" I would if I could, he thought.
"Perhaps we can refresh your memory," his interrogator said. He rang a bell. A couple of more guards strode into the chamber. Without a word, they started working Talsu over. He tried to fight back, but had no luck. One against two was bad odds to begin with, and the fellows with the sticks would have intervened had he got anywhere. He didn't. The bruisers had learned their trade in a nastier school than he'd known even in the army, and learned it well. They had no trouble battering him into submission.
When the battering was done, he could hardly see out of one eye. He tasted blood, though no teeth seemed broken. One of his feet throbbed: a guard had stamped down hard on it. His ribs ached. So did his belly.
Calmly, the interrogator said, "Now, then- who else knew that you were plotting treason against King Mainardo?"
"No one," Talsu gasped. "Do you want me to make up names? What good would that do you?"
"If you want to name some of your friends and neighbors, go ahead," the interrogator said. "We will haul them in and question them most thoroughly. Here is paper. Here is a pen. Go ahead and write."
"But they wouldn't have done anything," Talsu said. "I'd just be making it up. You'd know I was just making it up."
"Suppose you let us worry about that," the interrogator said. "Once you make the accusations, things will go much easier for you. We might even think about letting you go."
"I don't understand," Talsu said, and that was true: he had trouble understanding anything but his own pain. The Jelgavan constabulary captain didn't answer. He just steepled his fingertips and waited. So did the guards with sticks. So did the bully boys who'd beaten Talsu.
It would be so easy, Talsu thought. I could give them what they want, and then they wouldn't hurt me anymore. He started to ask the interrogator to hand him the pen and paper. What happened to the people he might name didn't seem very important. It would, after all, be happening to someone else.
But what would happen to him? Nothing? That didn't seem likely. All at once, he saw the answer with horrid clarity. If he gave the Algarvians- or rather, their watchdog here- a few names, they would want more. After he gave them a first batch, how could he refuse to give them a second, and then a third? How could he refuse them anything after that? He couldn't. Had Kugu the silversmith started by making up a few names, too? Talsu gathered himself. "There wasn't anybody else," he said.
They beat him again before frog-marching him back to his cell. He'd expected they would. He'd hoped his armor of virtue would make the beating hurt less. It didn't. And he didn't get the bowl of mush he'd missed when they took him away. Even so, he slept well that night.
The blizzard screamed around the hostel in the barren wilderness of southeastern Kuusamo. It left Pekka feeling trapped, almost as if she were in prison. She and her fellow mages had come here so they could experiment without anyone else but a few reindeer noticing. That made good sense; some of the things they were doing would have wrecked good-sized chunks of Yliharma or Kajaani even if they went perfectly. And if some of those experiments escaped control… Pekka's shiver had nothing to do with the ghastly weather.
But, while the blizzards raged, Pekka and her colleagues couldn't experiment at all. If the rats and rabbits they were using froze to death the instant they went out of doors in spite of the best efforts of the secondary sorcerers, they were useless. That limited the amount of work the mages could do.
When Pekka said as much over supper one evening, Ilmarinen nodded soberly. "We should use Kaunians instead," he declared. "No one cares whether they live or die, after alclass="underline" the Algarvians have proved as much."