"Friends of Algarve, of course," Lurcanio said.
"Powers above help you, in that case." As soon as she spoke, Krasta realized she might have gone too far. She cared- Lurcanio, when annoyed, made life unpleasant for her- but only to a point. The trouble was, she'd spoken altogether too much truth.
Most gatherings since the redheads overran Valmiera featured mixed crowds. Krasta had grown to accept that. Some nobles, like her, made the best of things; others chose not to appear with the occupiers. Not all the female companions the Algarvians found for themselves were noblewomen, or even ladies. And a lot of the Valmieran men who worked hand in glove with Algarve conspicuously lacked noble blood.
But tonight's crowd… Except for Lurcanio- possibly except for Lurcanio, Krasta thought with a sweet dash of spite- the Algarvian officers were boors, busy getting drunk as fast as they could. The women with them were sluts; half of them were making plays for men of higher rank than the ones who'd brought them.
One of them, in too much powder and paint and not enough clothes, sidled up to Lurcanio, who didn't bother pretending he didn't notice her. "Go away," Krasta hissed at her. "You'll give him a disease."
"He already has one," the tart retorted. "You're here."
"What's your name?" Krasta asked sweetly. "Do you dare tell it? If they look in the constabulary records, how many solicitation charges will they find?"
She hadn't meant to be anything but bitchy, but the other woman, instead of going on with the row, turned pale under her thick makeup and found something else to do in a hurry.
"I have better taste than that, I assure you," Lurcanio said.
"Maybe you do." Krasta's eyes left her Algarvian lover's face and slid down to the front of his kilt. "I'm not so sure about him." Lurcanio threw back his head and laughed, for all the world as if she were joking.
She didn't enjoy her little triumph long. It oozed away as she went back to contemplating the company she was keeping. The Algarvian officers were bad. The Valmieran women were worse. But the Valmieran men were worst of all.
Even the handful of nobles depressed her. Backwoods counts and viscounts, they'd never shown their faces in Priekule before the Algarvians came- and there were good reasons why they hadn't. Krasta knew a couple of them by reputation. The Valmieran nobility was and always had been reactionary. Krasta despised commoners and was proud of it. But, even by her standards, that count over there- the one who belted his trousers with a short, nasty whip- went too far.
She had little use for the commoners in the crowd, either. Some people came from families that had been prominent for generations, even if they weren't noble. You could rely on folk like that. The ones here at the cheese merchant's… Krasta hadn't heard of any of them before the Algarvians took Priekule, and wished she hadn't heard of most of them since.
"We shall prevail," one of them told another not far away.
"Oh, aye, of course we shall," the other man answered. "We'll grind Swemmel into the dust. Plenty of time after that to settle with treacherous Lagoas."
Both men wore kilts and tunics not merely Algarvian in style but modeled after those of Algarvian soldiers. They'd grown side whiskers and little strips of chin beard, too; one of them waxed his mustaches so that they stuck out like horns. But for being blond and speaking Valmieran, they might have been born in Mezentio's kingdom.
Krasta nudged Lurcanio and pointed to the two men. "Buy them some hair dye and you could have a couple of new Algarvians to throw into the fighting against Unkerlant."
He surprised her by taking her seriously. "We've thought about that. But in Forthweg and in Algarve, hair dye has caused us more problems than it's solved, so we probably won't."
"What kind of trouble?" Krasta asked.
"People masquerading as things they aren't," the Algarvian colonel said. "We've pretty much put a stop to that by now- and about time, too, if you ask me."
"People masquerading," Krasta echoed. "The folk here are masquerading as things they aren't- as important people, I mean."
"Oh, but they are important," Lurcanio said. "They are very important indeed. Without them, how could we run Valmiera?"
"With your own men, of course," Krasta answered. "If you don't run Valmiera with your own men, why have you taken half my mansion?"
"Do you know what the Algarvians in your mansion do?" Lurcanio asked. "Have you any idea?"
Krasta didn't like his sardonic tone. She returned it, with venomous interest: "You mean, besides seducing the serving women? They run Priekule for your king." Spoken baldly like that, it seemed less shameful that Algarve should run a city that had never been hers.
Lurcanio clicked his heels and bowed. "You are correct. We run Priekule. And do you know how we run Priekule? Nine times out of ten, we go to some Valmieran and say, 'Do thus and so.' And he will bow and say, 'Aye, your Excellency.' And lo and behold, thus and so will be done. We have not the men to do all the thus and sos ourselves. We never did. With the war in the west drawing so many thither, having so many Algarvians here grows more impossible by the day. And so, as I say, we rule this kingdom and your countrymen run it for us."
Valmieran constables. Valmieran caravan conductors. Valmieran tax collectors. Even, Krasta supposed, Valmieran mages. And every one of them in the service, not of poor drunken King Gainibu, but of redheaded King Mezentio and the Algarvian occupiers.
She shuddered. Before she thought- nothing new for her- she said, "It reminds me of sheep leading other sheep to the slaughter."
Lurcanio started to reply, then checked himself. "There are times when I do believe that, given education and application, you could be formidable." He bowed to Krasta, who wasn't sure whether that constituted praise or dismissal. When she didn't say anything, he went on, "As for your metaphor, well, what do you think a bell wether is sometimes called upon to do? And what do you think happens to a ram when he is made into a wether?"
"I don't know," Krasta said, irritable again. "All I know is, you're confusing me."
"Am I?" Lurcanio's smile turned smug again. "Well, this isn't the first time, and I doubt it will be the last."
Krasta found one question more- one question too many, probably: "What will happen to all these people if Algarve loses the war?"
The smug smile slipped. "You may rest assured, my poppet, that will not happen. Life is not so easy as we wished it would be, but it is not so hard as our enemies wish it were, either. We struck Kuusamo a heavy blow not long ago- struck it from here in Valmiera, in fact." Lurcanio seemed on the point of saying more, but turned the subject instead: "But I will answer you, in a hypothetical sense. What would happen to them? Not what will, mind you, but what would? It should be obvious even to you: whatever the victors wanted."
If Algarve somehow lost the war, what would the victors do with those who had taken her side? Krasta couldn't stay on that high philosophical plane for long. As usual, her thoughts descended to the personaclass="underline" if Algarve somehow lost, what would the victors do to her?
She shuddered again. That might have some distinctly nasty answers. She'd made her bed, made it and lain down in it and invited Lurcanio into it to keep her warm. Clasping his arm in sudden fright, she said, "Take me home."
"You listened to a ghost story and frightened yourself," Lurcanio said.
That was likely to be true. Krasta hoped it was. She would have held that hope even more strongly were Lurcanio not pursuing her brother, and had Skarnu not penned that sheet claiming all sorts of horrors in the west. But she'd chosen her side, and she had no idea how to unchoose it. "Take me home," she repeated.