Pybba stomped back into the offices, a stormcloud on his face. But no cringing employee followed him to pick up whatever pay he was owed and then leave forever. Irked at Pybba, Ealstan kept at his work and didn't ask the obvious question. Baldred did: "What happened?"
"Fornicating stray dog came round a corner going one way at the same time as one of our boys came round it going the other," Pybba said. "Aye, he tripped over the stinking thing. Powers below eat him, what else could he do? Three or four people saw it, and the poor bastard's got a scraped knee on one leg and a dog bite on the other one."
"Ah," Baldred said wisely. "No wonder you didn't fire him, then."
The pottery magnate's scowl grew more fearsome yet; he'd doubtless roared out of the office intending to do exactly that. "You tend to your knitting," he rumbled, "or I'll bloody well fire you. Not a thing to say I can't do that."
Baldred got very busy very fast. Pybba eyed him long enough to make sure he was busy, then went into his own office and slammed the door behind him, hard enough to make little waves in Ealstan's inkwell. "Charming as always," Ealstan murmured.
"But of course." Baldred shrugged. "I'm not going to worry about it. Before too long, he'll pitch a fit at somebody else instead. Tell me I'm wrong."
"Can't do it." Ealstan got back to work, too.
A few minutes later, the outer door opened. Ealstan looked up, still expecting the potter who'd had the unfortunate encounter with the stray dog. What he expected was not what he got. What he got was an Algarvian colonel with spiky waxed mustaches. Ealstan wondered if he ought to run or if he ought to scream for Pybba to run. Before he could do either, the redhead swept off his hat, bowed, and spoke in pretty good Forthwegian: "I require to see the gentleman Pybba, if you would be so kind."
"Aye, I'll get him for you," Ealstan answered. "May I ask why?"
"I seek to purchase pots." The Algarvian raised an eyebrow. "If I wanted flowers, you may be sure I would go elsewhere."
Ears burning, Ealstan descended from his stool and went to fetch Pybba. "Pots?" the pottery magnate said. "I'll give him-" He shook his head and followed Ealstan out again. Eyeing the Algarvian with no great warmth, he asked, "What sort of pots have you got in mind?"
"Small ones." The officer gestured. "Ones to fit the palm of the hand and the fingers, so. Round, or nearly round, with snug-fitting lids."
"Haven't got anything just like that in stock," Pybba answered. "It'd have to be a special order- unless some sugar bowls would do?"
"Let me see them," the Algarvian said.
"Come with me," Pybba told him. "I've got some samples in the next room."
"Good. Very good. Take me to them, if you please."
When Pybba and the redhead came back from the samples room, the pottery magnate wore a sandbagged expression. "Fifty thousand sugar bowls, style seventeen," he said hoarsely, and turned to stare at the colonel. "Why would anybody want fifty thousand sugar bowls?"
"For a very large tea party, of course," the Algarvian said blandly.
That wasn't the truth, of course. Ealstan wondered what the truth was, and who would get hurt finding out.
"Rain pouring down on us," Sergeant Istvan complained, squelching along a muddy trench on the little island of Becsehely. "Water all around us." His wave encompassed the Bothnian Ocean not far away. "We might as well grow fins and turn into fish."
Szonyi shook his head, which made water fly off his waxed cloth cap. "I'd sooner turn into a dragon and fly away from this miserable place."
"Probably safer to turn into a fish," Corporal Kun observed. "The Kuusamans have too many dragons between us and the stars." He pointed upward.
"No stars to see now, not with this rain," Szonyi said. "No dragons to see, either, and I don't miss 'em one fornicating bit." Kun had disagreed with him about which impossible choice was better to make, but not even Kun could argue about that.
With a sigh, Istvan said, "If we were only fighting the Kuusamans, we'd do fine. And if we were only fighting the Unkerlanters, we'd do fine, too. But we're fighting both of 'em, and we're not doing so fine."
"We'll send you back to the capital," Kun said. "You can teach the foreign ministry how to run its business."
"It'd mean I didn't have you in my hair anymore." Istvan scratched. Something gave under his fingernail. He grunted in considerable satisfaction. "There's one louse that's not in my hair from now on." The satisfaction evaporated. "Stars only know how many I've still got, though."
"We all have 'em." Szonyi scratched, too. "You'd think the wizards would come up with a charm that could keep the lice off a fellow for more than a day or two at a time." He scowled at Kun, as if to say he blamed the mage's apprentice for the problem.
Kun shrugged. "I can't do anything about it- except scratch, just like everybody else." He did.
Lajos came up the trench. "Assembly!" the youngster called. "Captain Frigyes wants to talk to the whole company."
"Where?" Istvan asked. "When?"
"Right now," Lajos answered. "Back there, not far from the messfires." He pointed in the direction from which he'd come. At the moment, the rain had put out the fires.
Istvan nodded to the other two veterans who'd been through so much with him. "You heard the man," he said as Lajos went on to pass the word to more men in the company. "Let's find out what the captain's got to say." He slogged down the trench once more. Kun and Szonyi followed.
Captain Frigyes stood waiting while the soldiers gathered. He wore a rain cape. Instead of using the hood or a cap like Szonyi's, he had on a broad-brimmed felt hat in the Algarvian style. Even though the feather in the hat-band was sadly draggled, the headgear, cocked at a jaunty angle, gave him a dashing air he couldn't have got without it.
He returned Istvan's salute, and then those of his companions. "What's up, sir?" Istvan asked.
"I'll tell it all once," Captain Frigyes answered. "That way, I won't have to go over pieces of it three or four different times. You'll hear soon enough, Sergeant- I promise you that." Istvan nodded. What the company commander said made good sense. Even if it hadn't, of course, he couldn't have done anything about it.
A lieutenant, another sergeant, two corporals, and even a cheeky common soldier asked Frigyes more or less the same question as they came up. He gave them the same answer, or lack of answer. Istvan felt better to find out he wasn't the only nosy one in the company.
When just about everyone had gathered in front of Frigyes, he nodded to his soldiers and said, "Men, it's time to stop beating around the bush. Nobody talks about it much, but we all know the war isn't going as well for Gyongyos as it ought to be. We've got two foes, and we can't hit either one so hard as we'd like." Istvan preened in front of Szonyi and Kun. He'd said the same thing. Maybe he really did deserve a job in the foreign ministry.
Frigyes went on, "Most of you fought in the forests of Unkerlant. Some of you remember how, summer before last, we were on the edge of breaking out of the forest and into the open country beyond, and the magic the Unkerlanters made to help halt us."
Not likely I'd ever forget that, Istvan thought. The other longtimers in the company were nodding. Kun had a look of something close to horror on his face. Having at least a small fragment of a mage's talent, he'd not only felt the spell, he'd understood how the Unkerlanters had done what they'd done.
For those who didn't, Frigyes spelled it out: "King Swemmel's mages slay their own folk- the ones they reckon useless- to fuel that magecraft. The Algarvians use the same spell, but power it with the life energy of those they've conquered. Neither of those is, or could ever be, the proper Gyongyosian path."