He’d taken a couple of hitching steps in that direction when someone called his name. He stopped and looked around-and there sat Pekka, not far from one of the stoves. She waved to him. “Come and join me, if you care to,” she said in classical Kaunian.
“I would be very glad to,” he answered.
She had a skein of dark green yarn in her lap and a length of finished green cloth into which were inserted a pair of crocheting hooks. “If I am not the worst crocheter in the world, I pity the poor woman who is,” Pekka said. “Would you care for a muffler, Master Fernao? You had better say aye, for I cannot make anything else.”
“Aye, and thank you,” Fernao said. “If I asked you for something with sleeves, you would probably knit me to death with those things.”
“Knitting needles are different,” Pekka said. “I knit even worse than I crochet, which is why I do not knit at all anymore.” She pointed to his newly freed arm. “I leave knitting to you. And I am glad to see you are doing it well.”
Reminded of the arm, he scratched it. “A very able lady physician named Juhani took off the cast. You Kuusamans worry less about the differences between men and women than my people do.”
Pekka shook her head. “No, that is not so,” she answered. “We worry less about differences in what men and women do than most other folk. We know there are differences between men and women.” She smiled. “If there were not, the world would have ended a long time ago, or at least our place in it.”
“That is true enough.” Fernao smiled, too.
Pekka rolled her eyes. “I wonder what my son is doing now, down in Kajaani. Something to drive my sister mad, I have no doubt. And, speaking of the differences between men and women, I never behaved that way when I was seven years old.”
“No?” Fernao’s chuckle threatened to become a belly laugh. “Would your mother and father say the same thing about you?”
“I hope so!” Pekka exclaimed. “Their hair is still almost altogether dark. Mine, I think, will be white as snow by the time Uto grows to manhood.”
Fernao ran a hand through his own coppery hair, which was just beginning to be frosted with gray. “I have no children,” he said. “If my hair turns white overnight, it may be on account of what you Kuusamans have come up with.”
“That might do it to me, too.” Before saying anything more, Pekka looked around to see if anyone might be listening. So did Fernao. He spotted no one close by. Pekka couldn’t have, either, but she went on, “I mislike speaking of this in public. Shall we talk further in my rooms?”
To a Lagoan, that might have been an invitation of one sort or an invitation of another sort altogether. Fernao asked, “What would your husband say if he heard you asking me there?”
“He would say that he trusted me,” Pekka answered. “He would also say that he had reason to trust me. I presume you would not try to prove him wrong?”
“Now that you have spoken so, of course not,” Fernao said. “But I did wonder. Customs differ from one kingdom to another.”
“So they do. But I am telling you how things are here.”
“I said all right once,” Fernao replied, not sure whether to be annoyed or amused. “If you do not believe me, take back the invitation.”
“If I did not believe you, Master Fernao, I would do more than take back the invitation.” Pekka sounded sterner than he’d thought she could. “I would do everything I could to have you sent back to Setubal. And I think I could do it.” Her smile had iron in it-no, she wasn’t a woman of the sort Fernao was used to dealing with. She got up. “But now, if you will come with me, we can go up to my rooms-and talk of business.”
Where Pinhiero grumbled about paying the price of a room at the Principality, the Seven Princes had installed Pekka in a suite far larger than the flat Fernao called his own back in Setubal. He said, “With all this, why did you bother coming down to the lobby at all?”
“I get lonely, in here with nothing to look at but the walls,” Pekka answered. “I would rather see open country, as I do out behind my house down in Kajaani, but even the lobby and the street are better than … walls.”
Fernao thought nothing of looking at the walls of his own flat for days on end. Hostel lobbies and city streets were his natural habitat, as was true of any native of Setubal. As for open country, he’d seen more than he’d ever wanted in the land of the Ice People. The only thing he could say about it was that he hadn’t quite died there.
He didn’t want to say anything at all about the land of the Ice People. Instead, he did talk of business: “If the implications of your experiments are what they seem to be, as Ilmarinen says-”
“Even if they are, I do not think we can exploit them,” Pekka said, and now she sounded even more angry than she had when she’d warned what she would do if she didn’t trust him. “I do not think memory can be conserved; I am not at all convinced physical existence can be conserved. The amount of energy released inclines me to doubt it.”
“How could we make an experiment to test that?” Fernao asked.
“Do we not have more obviously urgent things to do?” Pekka returned.
“More obvious? Certainly,” Fernao said. “More urgent? I do not know. Do you?” After a bit of thought, Pekka shook her head. She was honest. Maybe that was why she insisted on honesty from him.
Algarvian soldiers guarded King Gainibu’s palace these days, as they had for more than two years. Seeing redheads in kilts there still irked Krasta. Turning to Colonel Lurcanio in the carriage they shared, she said, “You should have left the king an honor guard of his own people.”
“I?” Her Algarvian lover spread his hands. He had fine hands-an artist’s hands, or a surgeon’s, with long, slim fingers-and was vain of them. “My sweet, it was not my decision that put them there; it was Grand Duke Ivone’s, or perhaps King Mezentio’s. You may take your complaint to either one of them, and I wish you joy of it.”
“You’re making fun of me!” Krasta said shrilly.
“No, only of your silly idea,” Lurcanio answered. Most Algarvians were excitable. He was often excitable himself. Tonight, he stayed calm, probably because that annoyed Krasta more. He went on, “Do you not see that a Valmieran honor guard might easily decide its honor lay in rebellion? That would be a nuisance to us, and unfortunate for King Gainibu.”
As far as Krasta was concerned, Gainibu was already unfortunate: a prisoner in his own palace, with nothing better to do than drink till the fact of imprisonment blurred along with everything else. But, after a moment, she realized exactly what Lurcanio meant. “You’d kill him!”
“I?” This time, Lurcanio shook his head. “My countrymen? It could be. Mezentio’s brother is King of Jelgava. His first cousin is King of Grelz. I am sure he has some other near kinsman who could do duty as King of Valmiera.”
“Of all the nerve!” Krasta exclaimed. Lurcanio only smiled. He might not be so reliably excitable as some of his countrymen, but he had the full measure of Algarvian arrogance. Krasta wanted to slap him. But he would slap her back, and he wouldn’t care that he did it in public. She cursed quietly, but held still.
One of the Algarvian guards approached the carriage and called a soft challenge in his own language. Lurcanio’s driver responded, also in Algarvian. Krasta heard Lurcanio’s name and her own, but understood nothing of what the driver said. The guard laughed and withdrew. Lurcanio also laughed under his breath. Krasta looked daggers at him, but to no avail.
Agile despite his years, Lurcanio descended from the carriage and held out his hand to help Krasta down. “Step carefully, my dear,” he said. “You would not want to trip on the cobbles in the darkness and turn your pretty ankle.”
“No, I certainly wouldn’t.” Krasta’s voice was testy. “If you’d beaten the Lagoans by now, I wouldn’t have to fumble around in the dark. You could let lights shine without drawing dragons.”
“Once we settle Unkerlant, you may rest assured that Lagoas is next on the list,” Lurcanio said. The statement would have been more impressive had he not chosen that moment to stumble. He almost fell, but caught himself by flailing his arms.