“In the last war, we’d throw eggs at forts and then just charge right at ’em,” Raunu said. “Maybe they’ve learned something since.”

  “If they’d learned anything since, we wouldn’t be in a war now,” Skarnu answered. The veteran sergeant blinked, then slowly nodded.

  Off to the north, Valmieran egg-tossers started lobbing destruction at the line of forts. The burst resounded like distant thunder. Skarnu wondered how much damage they were doing. Not so much as he would have liked: he was certain of that. The Algarvians had used stone and earth and cement and iron and bronze to fashion a line of death that ran for many miles north and south and was most of a mile deep. How long would soldiers batter their heads against that line, as Raunu had said, in search of a breakthrough that might not be there at all? Forever?

  Probably not. Even so, Skarnu sighed as he said, “They built that to dare us to try to go through it, to dare us to spend the men we’d need to get to the other side. They don’t think we have the nerve to do it.”

  “I wouldn’t be sorry if they were right, either,” Raunu said.

  “Would you rather fight inside Valmiera, the way we did for most of the Six Years’ War?” Skarnu returned.

  “Sir, it’s like you said: if you ask me what I’d rather, I’d rather not fight at all,” the sergeant said.

  Skarnu clicked his tongue between his teeth. Sergeant Raunu had indeed used his own words to reply to him, which meant he could hardly take exception to what the veteran said. But he’d seen that a good many of the common soldiers had little stomach for the fight against Algarve in general, and even less for the assault on the forts. He said, “We should have pushed harder, so we would have been through this line before the Forthwegians collapsed.”

  “Aye, I see what you’re saying, sir, but I don’t know how much difference that would have made.” Raunu pointed ahead. “Doesn’t look like the cursed redheads have put any new men in their lines, even if they don’t have to worry about their western front any more.”

  “They don’t have to worry about Forthweg any more,” Skarnu corrected. “Now they’re face to face with Unkerlant. If they’re not worried about that, they’re fools.”

  “Of course they’re fools. They’re Algarvians.” Raunu spoke with an automatic scorn Skarnu’s sister Krasta might have envied. But then, as Krasta would never have done, he changed course slightly: “They’re fools most ways, I mean. They make good soldiers, whatever else you say about ’em.”

  “I wish I could tell you you were wrong,” Skarnu said. “Our lives would be easier.” The Algarvians had resisted the Valmieran advance to the fortified line with only light forces, but they’d fought stubbornly. They’d also fought skillfully, perhaps more skillfully than the men he commanded. Had there been more of them, he wondered if his men would have been able to advance at all. Along with most of his other worries, he kept that one to himself.

  A runner came up to him. “My lord marquis?” the fellow asked.

  “Aye?” Skarnu said in some small surprise. Far more often these days, he was addressed by his military rank, not title. After a moment, a possible reason for this exception came to mind.

  And, sure enough, the runner said, “My lord, his Grace the Duke of Klaipeda bids you sup with him and with some of the other leading officers of our triumphant army at his headquarters this evening. The supper shall begin an hour past sunset.”

  “Please tell his Grace I am honored, and of course I shall attend him,” Skarnu answered. The runner bowed and hurried away.

  Raunu eyed Skarnu. He’d understood Skarnu was a noble, of course. That was one thing. An invitation extended to a captain to sup with the commander of an army of tens of thousands was something else again. Almost defensively, Skarnu said, “I went to school with his Grace’s son.”

  “Did you, sir?” the sergeant said. “Well, you’ll get a good meal out of it, and that’s the truth. I will say, though, sir, the men think well of you for eating out of the same pot they use.”

  “It’s the best way I could think of to make sure they got decent food,” Skarnu said. “Nobody cares when a common soldier fusses and complains. When a captain grumbles, though, people start to notice.”

  “Aye, sir,” Raunu said, “especially when he’s a captain who went to school with the Duke of Klaipeda’s son.” More than half to himself, he added, “It’s a wonder you’re just a captain and not a colonel.”

  Skarnu wished he hadn’t had to mention his connection with the duke, whose son, while not the depraved little monster so beloved of romancers without much imagination, had been one of the most boring youths he’d ever met. He also wished the duke were paying more attention to the commanders who would lead great parts of the Valmieran army into battle and less to his son’s social connections.

  But, regardless of the duke’s shortcomings, Skarnu spruced himself up and made his way back toward the village of Bonorva. The village was a good deal more battered than it had been when he’d first seen it from the woods that now lay on the far side from the front. The duke had taken up residence in one of the larger houses there. It still looked scarred and abused: no point cleaning it up and offering the Algarvians a target. Skarnu chuckled as he drew near. After he wrote to Krasta, she’d be sick with jealousy at the exalted company he was keeping.

  When he went inside the unprepossessing building, Skarnu might have been transported to another world, the world in which the Valmieran nobility had idled away its time in Priekule and on estates out in the provinces. Lights blazed; dark cloth over the windows and behind the door kept it from leaking out and drawing the notice of Algarvian dragons overhead or the cunning snoops who kept trying to spy targets for the enemy’s egg-tossers.

  Marstalu, the Duke of Klaipeda, stood just inside the doorway greeting new arrivals. He was a portly man in his late fifties, his complexion very pink, his hair gone white as snow: he looked like everyone’s favorite grandfather. His uniform put Skarnu in mind of those the Kaunian Emperors had won. So did the brilliant constellation of medals—some gold, some silver, some bejeweled, some with ribbons like comets’ tails—spangling his chest.

  Skarnu bowed low, murmuring, “Your Grace.”

  “Good to see you, lad. Good to see you,” the duke said, beaming in a grandfatherly way. “Make yourself at home. Plenty of good things to eat and drink here—better than you’ll find at the front, that’s certain.”

  “No doubt, sir.” Skarnu felt out of place here despite Marstalu’s friendly words. Most of the other noble officers present glittered hardly less than their commanders. Skarnu’s unadorned uniform made him look and feel like a servant. It also made him feel like a real soldier in amongst a flock of popinjays. Perhaps that was what made him ask, “Sir, when will the attack against the Algarvian works go in?”

  “When all is in readiness,” Marstalu answered easily. That might mean anything. It might mean nothing. Skarnu suspected it meant nothing here. The duke went on, “Perhaps we could be more zealous now had we reached this position before the Algarvians finished their dismantling of Forthweg.”

  Skarnu didn’t know what to say to that. Marstalu was saying the same thing he had to Raunu. Raunu hadn’t thought it would make a difference. Skarnu had to hope the sergeant was right and he and the commander of the army wrong. But, had the Duke of Klaipeda wanted to reach the fortified belt before Forthweg collapsed, he should have pushed harder. He could have. Of course, he couldn’t have known Algarve’s attack would shatter Forthweg, but everything Skarnu had ever soaked up about the military art suggested that wasting time was never a good idea.

  Pushing Marstalu further would accomplish nothing but getting him on the commander’s black list. He could see as much at a glance. That being so, what better choice than enjoying the choice viands and potables set out on the tables before him? He sat down between a pair of bemedaled colonels. One of them jabbed a serving fork into the large, savory bird lying on a tray in front of him. Juices spurted. “Have some, Captain,” he said. “As you can see, we’ve finally gone and cooked Algarve’s goose.”

  The colonel on the other side of Skarnu laughed so uproariously at that sally, Skarnu was convinced he’d already emptied the crystal goblet before him several times. Lifting his own wine goblet, Skarnu said, “May we serve the king as we have served the goose.”

  “Oh, well said, young fellow, well said,” both colonels exclaimed in the same breath. They drank. So did Skarnu. He carved off a thick slice of goose, then spooned a good helping of parsnips seethed in cream and dotted with butter on to his plate. The salad was of fine lettuces and chopped scallions dressed with wine vinegar and walnut oil.

  One of the colonels boasted about the speed of the fine horses he had liberated from an Algarvian noble’s stables. The other boasted about the agility of the fine mistress he had liberated from an Algarvian noble’s bedchamber. Skarnu tried to boast about the fighting qualities of the men in his company. Neither colonel seemed the least bit interested. They were fascinated with each other’s brags, though. Sometimes it was hard to tell which one was talking about his new acquisition.

  Gloom settled over Skarnu like a winter fog in Priekule. King Gainibu had been more interested in starting the war against Algarve than his officers were in fighting it. They’d taken what the Algarvians were willing to yield. Now that the Algarvians had yielded everything up to their long-established defensive line, they weren’t going to be willing to yield any more. And going up against that line was, ever more plainly, the last thing any Valmieran commander wanted to do.

  One of the boastful colonels upended his goblet once too often. He set his head down on the table and started to snore. Skarnu felt like getting that drunk, too. Why not? he thought. Raunu runs the company just as well when I’m not there.

  In the end, though, he refrained. He started to make his way over to the Duke of Klaipeda to say his farewells, but Marstalu seemed far gone in wine himself. Skarnu slipped out into the cool, dark night and headed east toward his company. All things considered, he would rather not have been invited to the feast. He’d hoped for reassurance. What he’d got was more to worry about.

  5.

  Fernao strolled through the streets of Setubal, delighting in the life that brawled around him. The capital of Lagoas had long been the most cosmopolitan city in the world. Now, the mage thought sadly, it was, as near as made no difference, the only cosmopolitan city left in the world.

  Lagoas was not at war with anyone. That made the island kingdom unique among the major powers. Oh, Unkerlant was not at war with anyone at the moment, but Fernao, along with everyone else, assumed that was only because King Swemmel, having helped himself to a large chunk of Forthweg, was looking around for his next neighbor to assault. Zuwayza affronted him merely by existing, as Forthweg had, but Yanina had taken in King Penda when he fled Eoforwic. One of them would go under soon. Maybe both of them would go under soon. Fernao guessed Yanina would go first.

  But Lagoas, with any luck at all, could stay neutral through the whole mad war. Fernao hoped his kingdom could. Monuments in Setubal’s many parks and at street corners warned of wars past: recent monuments to the fight against Algarve in the Six Years’ War, older ones to war against Valmiera, older ones still to wars against Kuusamo and the pirates of Sibiu who were all the rage in Lagoan romances these days, even a couple of Kaunian columns from the days before the Empire brought its armies back home to the mainland of Derlavai.

  What sort of monument might a kingdom erect to a war in which it hadn’t fought? Fernao visualized a marble statue, three times life size, of a man swiping the back of his hand across his forehead in relief. After a moment, he realized the man he’d visualized looked a lot like him. He laughed at that. He’d known he was vain. Maybe he hadn’t known how vain he was.

  He turned into a tavern (a good piece of magecraft, that, he thought, now with a laugh that was more like a snort) and ordered a glass of Jelgavan red wine. When the taverner gave it to him, he took it over to a small table by the wall and sipped in leisurely fashion. The taverner gave him a sour look, as he might have done with any man likely to occupy space without bringing in much business.

  Plenty of other people were drinking more than Fernao: Lagoans, slant-eyed Kuusamans, Valmierans in trousers, Sibians, even a few Algarvians who’d managed to run their foes’ blockade. The mage wondered what sort of shady deals they were cooking up. Since everyone could come to Setubal, anything was liable to happen here. He knew that very well.

  Along with noting the conversation humming around him, he listened with a different part of his being to the power humming through Setubal. There were more power points in a smaller space here than anywhere else in the world; more ley lines converged on the Lagoan capital than on any other city. In a mage’s veins, the song of that power sometimes seemed stronger than his pulse.

  A man slid down on to the ladderbacked chair across the table from Fernao. “Mind if I join you?” he asked with a friendly smile.

  “It’s all right,” Fernao answered. He would sooner have been alone with his thoughts, but the tavern was crowded. He lifted his wineglass. “Your good health.”

  “I thank you, sir. And yours.” The stranger lifted his mug in return. Steam and a sweet, spicy smell rose from it: hot mulled cider in there, unless Fernao’s nose had lost its cleverness. The stranger sipped, then nodded with the air of a connoisseur. “Powers above, that’s good,” he said.

  Fernao nodded, politely but without intending to encourage further conversation. But, as he drank a little more wine, he could not help starting to size up the man across from him. And, once he’d started, he found he couldn’t stop. The fellow spoke unaccented Lagoan, but he didn’t look like a native of King Vitor’s domain. Lagoans were more various in their appearance than the folk of many kingdoms—Fernao’s slanted eyes said as much—but very few were dark and stocky and heavily bearded.

  Even fewer wore trousers. That was a Kaunian fashion no kingdom sprung from Algarvic stock had ever adopted. Taken all in all, the stranger might have been put together out of pieces from three or four different puzzles.

  He also noticed Fernao scrutinizing him, which he wasn’t supposed to do. He smiled again, a surprisingly charming smile from a man less than handsome. After another sip at his hot cider, he said, “Am I correct in understanding, sir, that you are more than a little skilled at getting into and out of places where others might possibly not want to go?”

  A trip into Feltre despite the anger of the Sibian Navy qualified Fernao to answer aye. He did nothing of the sort, instead saying, “You are correct in understanding, sir, that my business is my business—and no one else’s unless I choose to make it so.”

  The fellow across the table from him laughed gaily, as if he’d said something very funny. Fernao knocked back his wine—the taverner, no doubt, would be pleased—and started to get to his feet. Where nothing else had, that made the stranger lose his too-easy smile. “Please, sir, don’t go yet,” he said in a voice that, despite its polite tones, held iron underneath.

  His right hand rested, broad palm down, on the tabletop. He might have had some sort of weapon—a cut-down stick, perhaps a knife under it. But when he lifted it, taking care that Fernao and no one else could see •what he did, he revealed not a weapon but the sparkle of gold.

  Fernao sat back down. “You have engaged my attention, at least for the time being. Say on, sir.”

  “I thought that might do the trick,” the stranger said complacently. “You Lagoans have the name of being a mercenary folk. That you trade with both sides during the current unpleasantness does nothing to detract from it.”

  “That we trade with both sides shows a certain common sense, in my view,” Fernao said. “That you sneer at my people does nothing to attract me to you. And, if we are to continue this discussion, give me a name to call you. I do not deal with nameless men.” Unless I have no choice, he thought but did not say aloud. Here, though, the choice was his.

  “Names have power,” the man across the table from him observed. “Names especially have power in the mouth of a mage. But you may call me Shelomith, if you must stick a handle on me as if I were a hot pot.”

  “If whatever notion you have in mind could not burn me, you would have approached me in a different way,” Fernao said. And Shelomith was not the name with which the stranger had been born. It sounded like one the barbarous Ice People used. Whatever blood ran in Shelomith’s veins, it was not from that stock. Fernao went on, “You have shown me gold. I presume you have in mind paying me some. How do you expect me to earn it?”

  “This for listening,” Shelomith said, and shoved the coin he had concealed across to the mage. It showed the fuzzy-bearded king of Gyongyos, whose image was bordered by an inscription in demotic Gyongyosian script, which Fernao recognized but could not read. He did not think the coin’s origin said anything about what Shelomith had in mind. Gold circulated freely all across the world, and a crafty man could use it to conceal rather than to reveal. As if to point in that same direction, Shelomith spoke again: “For listening—and for your discretion.”

  “Discretion goes only so far,” Fernao said. “If you ask me to betray my king or my kingdom, I will do nothing of the sort. I will shout for a constable instead.”

  He wondered if Shelomith would find urgent business elsewhere on hearing that. The stranger only shrugged wide shoulders. “Nothing of the sort,” he said in reassuring tones. Of course, he would have said the same thing had he been lying. He went on, “You may remain apart from the proposal I shall put to you, but it could not offend even the most delicate sensibility.”

  “Such a statement is all the better for proof,” Fernao said. “Tell me plainly what you want from me. I will tell you if you may have it and, if so, at what price.”