“Shed your cloak. Shed your boots. Eat some bread,” Maironiu said. “You’re sure you lost the redheaded buggers?” At Skarnu’s nod, he relaxed a little, but not much. His wife brought out the bread, and a mug of ale to go with it. Skarnu tore into the food like a starving wolf. Maironiu asked, “Did they scoop up everybody at old Gedominu’s place, the way they do sometimes?”
It would be Gedominu’s place till the last man who’d known Merkela’s husband died of old age. Skarnu had long since resigned himself to that. He shook his head now. “I don’t think so. I think they were after me in particular.”
Maironiu scowled. “That’s not good. That’s not even close to good. How could they know about you? Somebody blab?”
Skarnu nodded again. My sister, he thought. He didn’t want to believe it of Krasta, but he didn’t know what else to believe. “I don’t think they know about anybody else in these parts,” he said. “I hope they don’t, anyhow.”
“They’d better not,” Maironiu’s son burst out. “Life’s hard enough around here as is.”
Seeing how Skarnu ate, Maironiu’s wife brought him another big chunk of bread. He bowed to her as he might have bowed to a duchess. He didn’t usually show off his court manners. For one thing, he seldom had the need. For another, he was so tired now, he hardly knew what he was doing. Maironiu and his wife exchanged glances; they knew what that bow was likely to mean. Maironiu asked the question with surprising subtlety: “You have enemies in the big city?”
“Huh?” Skarnu needed a moment to figure out what that meant. He’d almost forgotten about his noble blood; a couple of years of farm work made him think it nothing very special after all. “It could be,” he said at last.
“Well, go on out to the barn and curl up for a few hours, whoever you were once upon a time,” Maironiu told him. “Then I’ll take you east. I do know somebody who’s not part of our regular group, but he’ll know somebody else. They’ll pass you along, get you away from here.”
“Thanks,” Skarnu repeated, though leaving Merkela, leaving the child she was carrying, was the last thing he wanted to do. One more reason to curse the Algarvians, he thought. Calling Mezentio’s men to mind made him ask, “What’ll you do if the redheads come while I’m in the barn?”
“Get you away if we can,” Maironiu answered. “If we can’t…” He shrugged broad shoulders. “We’ll pretend we didn’t know you were there, that’s all.”
“Fair enough.” Skarnu didn’t think he could have come up with a better response, not when he was endangering Maironiu and his family by being here. He picked up his sodden cloak and put it back on. Maironiu’s wife exclaimed at the puddle it left on the floor.
Skarnu hadn’t slept on straw for a while, not since he’d started sharing Merkela’s bed. Exhausted as he was, he could have slept on nails and broken glass. He felt deep underwater when Maironiu shook him awake. The farmer had on a cloak much like his. “Hate to do it to you, pal,” Maironiu said, “but some things just won’t wait.”
“Aye.” Skarnu hauled himself to his feet. The first few steps he took, out to the barn door, he stumbled like a drunken man. Then the cold rain hit him in the face. That woke him up, and sobered him up, in a hurry. “Where are we going?” he asked as he followed Maironiu away from the farm.
“Like I told you, I know somebody,” Maironiu replied. “You don’t really want a name, do you?” Skarnu considered, then shook his head. Maironiu grunted approval. “All right, then. Once you’re out of this part of the kingdom, you should be pretty safe again, eh?”
“I suppose so.” Skarnu kept looking back over his shoulder, not toward Maironiu’s farm but toward Merkela’s. Old Gedominu’s place, he thought. Everything in the world that mattered to him was there, and he couldn’t go back, not if he wanted to live. Cursing under his breath, he squelched after Maironiu.
Sixteen
Sergeant Pesaro glared at the constables lined up before him. Bembo looked back steadfastly, holding out a shield of burnished innocence to cover up whatever he might have done to rouse Pesaro’s anger. But Pesaro wasn’t angry at him. The sergeant seemed angry at the whole world. “Boys, we’ve got ourselves a problem,” he declared.
“Our problem is whatever’s eating him,” Bembo whispered to Oraste. The other constable grunted and nodded.
Pesaro pointed to a Forthwegian in a knee-length tunic walking past the barracks. “D’you see that bastard?” he said. “D’you see him?”
“Aye, Sergeant,” the constables chorused dutifully. Bembo made sure his voice was a loud part of that chorus.
Sergeant Pesaro kept right on pointing at the stocky, hook-nosed, black-bearded man. “You see him, eh? Well, all right-how do you know he’s not a stinking Kaunian?”
“Because he doesn’t look like a Kaunian, Sergeant,” Bembo said, and then, under his breath to Oraste, “Because we’re not bloody idiots, Sergeant.” Oraste grunted again.
But Pesaro was unappeased. “Do you know what those lousy blonds have gone and done? Do you? I’ll bloody well tell you what they’ve done. They’ve found themselves a magic that lets ‘em look like Forthwegians, that’s what. How are we supposed to tell who’s a stinking Kaunian snake in the grass if we can’t tell who’s a stinking Kaunian snake in the grass?”
Bembo’s head started to ache. If that Forthwegian really was a Kaunian- if you couldn’t tell who was who by looking-how in blazes were you supposed to keep the blonds in their own district?
Somebody stuck up a hand. Pesaro pointed to him, as if relieved not to be pointing at the Forthwegian-if he was a Forthwegian-anymore. The constable asked, “Can they make themselves look like us, too, or only like Forthwegians?”
“That’s a good question,” Pesaro said. “I don’t have a good answer for it. All I got told about was Kaunians looking like Forthwegians.”
Bembo stuck his hand in the air. “How do we know ‘em if we do find any? And what do we do if we catch one?”
“The way you know is, snip off some hair. If it turns blond once it’s cut, you’ve caught yourself a Kaunian. If you catch one, you take the bugger to the caravan depot and ship his arse west. If he’s a she, you can do whatever else you want first. Nobody’ll say boo. We’ve got to stop this.”
“Pretty miserable business, all right,” Bembo said. “The blonds don’t want to go west, so they stop looking like blonds. That’s not playing fair.”
“Too cursed right it isn’t.” Pesaro didn’t notice the joke. “If we’re going to lick the Unkerlanters, we need Kaunians. We can’t let ‘em slip out from between our fingers like snot. And if you nail the whoreson who came up with this magic, you can ask for the moon. They’d probably give it to you. Any more questions? No? Get your backsides out there and catch those buggers.”
He didn’t say how. Then Oraste raised his hand. Pesaro looked at him in some surprise; Oraste didn’t usually bother with questions. But when the sergeant nodded his way, he came up with a good one: “What shall we do, take along manicure scissors to snip hair with?”
“If you’ve got ‘em, why not?” Pesaro answered. “It’s a better idea than people with fancier badges than yours have come up with, I’ll tell you that. But listen-don’t spend all your time checking the prettiest girls. We want the bastards with beards, too. They’re likely to be more dangerous. All right? Go on.”
Off the constables went. Oraste asked Bembo, “You have a little scissors?”
“Of course I do.” Bembo was as vain of his person as most Algarvians. “How am I supposed to keep my mustaches and imperial in proper trim without one?”
“You could gnaw ‘em,” Oraste said helpfully. “Or you could let ‘em grow out thick and bushy all over your face, the way the Forthwegians do.”
“Thank you, but no thank you,” Bembo replied with dignity. “If I want fur, I’ll buy a ruff.” He pointed to the first reasonably good-looking Forthwegian girl he saw and called out, “You there! Aye, you. Stop.”