"Of course I did," Costache answered. "Nobody thought the Algarvians would lose the war, and you were never coming home if they won." She dropped the dustpan: a clatter of tin. Her hands folded over her swollen stomach. "Curse you, do you think I'm the only one who's going to have a baby on account of Mezentio's men?"
"No, but you're mine." Cornelu corrected himself: "You were mine. And it wasn't as if you thought I was dead. You knew I was still around. You saw me. You ate with me. And you still did- that." He pointed to her belly as if it were a crime somehow separate from the woman he'd wooed and married… and lost.
"Oh, aye, I saw you." Scorn roughened Costache's voice till it cut into Cornelu like the teeth of a saw. "I saw you filthy and unshaven and stinking like the hillman you were pretending to be. Is it any wonder I never wanted anything to do with you after that?"
He clapped a hand to his forehead. "You stupid slut!" he shouted. "I couldn't very well go around in uniform then. Do you think I wanted to end up in a captives' camp, or more likely blazed?"
Instead of answering right away, Costache looked all around, as if to see which neighbors were likely drinking in the scandal. That also seemed to remind her of the dustpan, which she picked up. "Oh, come inside, will you?" she said impatiently. "You don't have to do this in front of everyone, do you?"
"Why not?" Cornelu slapped her in the face. "Don't you think you deserve to be shamed?"
Her hand flew to her cheek. "I think…" She grimaced- not with pain, he thought, but with disgust, and not self-disgust- disgust at him. "What I think doesn't matter anymore, does it? It never will anymore, will it?" She walked up the path to the house, not caring, or at least pretending not to care, whether Cornelu followed.
He did, still almost too furious to speak. In the front room, Brindza was playing with a doll- the gift of an Algarvian officer? Of the father of her half brother or sister to come? Cornelu's own daughter shied away from him and said, "Mama, who is the strange man in the funny clothes?"
"Brindza, I am your father," Cornelu said, but he could see that didn't mean anything to her.
"Go on back to your bedroom now, sweetheart," Cornelu told her. "We'll talk about it later." Brindza did as she was told. Cornelu wished Costache would have done the same. He looked down at himself. Sibian naval uniform- funny clothes? Maybe so. Brindza might never have seen it before. That spoke unhappy volumes about the state of Cornelu's kingdom.
Costache went into the kitchen. He heard her getting down goblets, and knew exactly the cupboard from which she was getting them. He knew which cupboard held the wine and ale and spirits, too. Costache came back carrying two goblets full of wine. She thrust one of them at him. "Here. This will be bad enough any which way. We may as well blur it a little."
"I don't want to drink with you." But Cornelu took the goblet. Whether with her or not, he did want to drink. He took a big swig, then made a face. "Powers above, that's foul. The Algarvians sent all their best vintages here, didn't they?"
"I gave you what I have," Costache answered.
"You gave everybody what you have, didn't you?" Cornelu pointed at her belly as he finished the wine. Costache's mouth tightened. He went on, "And you're going to pay for it, too, by the powers above. Sibiu's free again. Anyone who sucked up to the Algarvians" -he started to say something else along those lines, but the thought so infuriated him, he choked on the words- "is going to pay."
She just stood there, watching him. She has nerve, curse her, he thought angrily. "I don't suppose I could say anything that would make you change your mind," she observed.
"Ha!" He clapped a hand to his forehead. "Not likely! What'll you tell me, how handsome the Algarvian was? How good he was?"
That got home. Costache flushed till the handprint on her cheek seemed to fade. She said, "I could talk about how lonely I was, and how afraid, too."
"Aye, you could," Cornelu said. "You might even get some softheaded, softhearted fool to believe it, too. But so what? You won't even get me to listen."
"I didn't think so," Costache said tonelessly. "You never had any forgiveness in you. And I'm sure you never got into bed with anyone all the time you were away."
"We're not talking about me. We're talking about you," Cornelu snapped. "I'm not carrying an Algarvian's bastard. You miserable little whore, you were sleeping with Mezentio's men when you knew I was on Tirgoviste island. Do you even know which one put the baby in you?"
"How do you know what I was doing or what I wasn't?" she asked.
"How do I know? They were chasing me, that's how!" Cornelu howled. "I came down here out of the hills hoping I'd find some way to shake free of them and bring you and Brindza along with me. And what did I find? What did I find? You telling the Algarvians how much they'd enjoy it, that's what!"
He took a couple of quick steps across the room and slapped her again. She staggered. The goblet flew out of her hand and shattered on the floor. She straightened, the whole side of her face red now. "Did you enjoy that?" she asked.
"Aye," he growled, breathing hard. He might have been in battle. His heart pounded. His stomach churned. He raised his hand to hit her once more. Then, quite suddenly, his stomach did more than churn. It knotted. Horrible pain filled him. He bent double, clutching at his belly. The next thing he knew, he'd crumpled to the floor.
Costache stood over him, looking down. Calmly, she said, "The warning on the packet was true. It does work on people the same way it works on rats."
"You poisoned me," he choked, tasting blood in his mouth. He tried to reach for her, to grab her, to pull her down, but his hands obeyed him only slowly, oh so slowly.
She stepped back, not very far. She didn't need to step back very far. "So I did," she told him, calm still. "I knew what you'd be like, and I was right." Her voice seemed to come from farther and father away.
Cornelu stared up at her. "You won't- get away- with it." His own words seemed to come from farther and farther away, too.
"I have a chance," she said. He tried to answer. This time, no words came. He still stared up, but he saw nothing at all.
Nineteen
“See that that gets translated into Algarvian," Hajjaj told his secretary, "but let me review the translation before we send it on to Marquis Balastro, and then… Are you listening to me?"
"I'm sorry, your Excellency." Qutuz had cocked his head to one side and seemed to be listening not to the Zuwayzi foreign minister but to something outside King Shazli's palace. "Is that thunder?"
"Nonsense," Hajjaj said. Aye, fall and winter were the rainy season in Zuwayza, but the day- the whole week- had been fine and dry and sunny. But then his ears also caught the low rumble the younger man had heard before him. He frowned. "That is thunder. But it can't be."
He and Qutuz both found the answer more slowly than they should have. They both found it at the same time, too. "Eggs!" Qutuz blurted, while Hajjaj exclaimed, "The Unkerlanters!"
Ever since the war began, King Swemmel's dragonfliers had occasionally visited Bishah. They hadn't come in large numbers; they could hardly afford to, not with Unkerlant locked in a life-or-death struggle against Algarve. As far as Hajjaj could tell, they'd mounted the attacks more to remind the Zuwayzin that Swemmel hadn't forgotten about them than for any other reason. The Unkerlanter dragons had also done their best to hit the Algarvian ministry in Bishah, but they'd never quite succeeded.
Hajjaj didn't need long to realize this morning would be different. "They're dropping a good many eggs today, aren't they?" he remarked, doing his best to stay calm- or at least not to show he was anything else but.