“Ah, the Treaty of Bludenz.” Ansovald’s smile was anything but pleasant. “Kyot the traitor dickered the Treaty of Bludenz with you Zuwayzin, thinking to be efficient: by not fighting your secession, he had more resources to use against King Swemmel. Much good it did him.” The unpleasant smile got broader. “Why should King Swemmel pay the least heed to anything the traitor did?”

  Hajjaj was no longer indignant. He was appalled. He briefly wondered whether Unkerlant would have been a more pleasant neighbor had Kyot won the Twinkings War. He doubted it: Unkerlanters, worse luck, were Unkerlanters. Speaking now with great care, he said, “King Swemmel has conformed to the terms of the Treaty of Bludenz since gaining sole rule over Unkerlant. You would not be here as his minister, your Excellency, did he not recognize Zuwayza as a free and independent kingdom. Would it be efficient for him to overturn a policy that has given him good results?”

  Not even the phrase that seemed so magic to Unkerlanter ears swayed Swemmel’s envoy. Shrugging yet again, Ansovald said, “What is efficient changes with circumstances. In any case, the protest you have conveyed from King Shazli is rejected. Have you anything more, or are we through?”

  Even by Unkerlanter standards, that was brusque to the point of rudeness. “Please inform King Swemmel that we shall defend our borders,” Hajjaj said as he rose to go. He added a parting blaze: “Our legitimate borders.”

  Ansovald yawned. Legitimacy did not concern him. Spitefully, Hajjaj wondered if it had concerned his father.

  Outside on the street, the Zuwayzi foreign minister almost stripped off his tunic right there in front of the Unkerlanter ministry. That wouldn’t have shown the stolid, sweating guards anything they wanted to see, but it would have relieved his feelings. Not without regret, he restrained himself. As he rode back to the palace, he morosely watched sweat darken the cotton.

  Once at the palace—a building whose thick walls of mud brick helped fight the heat—he did pull the tunic off over his head. King Shazli’s guardsmen grinned sympathetically as he sighed with relief. “Out of the funeral wrappings, eh, your Excellency?” one of them said, white teeth shining in his dark face.

  “Even so.” Hajjaj rolled the tunic into a ball and stuffed it into his case. The breeze felt sweet on his skin. He waved to one of Shazli’s servitors. “Can his Majesty see me now? I’m just back from consulting with Ansovald of Unkerlant.” Neither by word nor by expression did he imply the meeting with Ansovald had gone anything but well. That was no one’s business but the sovereign’s.

  “Of course, your Excellency,” the servant answered. “He has been awaiting your return.”

  Shazli received his foreign minister in a chamber off the throne room. Hajjaj bowed low to the king of Zuwayza, who, without his golden circlet of rank, might have been anyone: in the absence of clothes, status could be hard to gauge. Shazli was a medium-sized, rather pudgy man in his early thirties, a bit less than half Hajjaj’s age. His father had regained Zuwayza’s freedom; some generations before, an Unkerlanter army that forced its way through the desert to Bishah had brought the land into the muscular embrace of its larger neighbor.

  A serving woman carried in ajar of wine, a teapot, and a plate of honey cakes fragrant with cinnamon. She was comely; Hajjaj admired her as he admired the elegant ivory figurines adorning the chamber, and with hardly more desire. Being habitual to Zuwayzin, nudity did not inflame them.

  Drinking and eating and chatting with the king helped Hajjaj relax; the thudding urgency he’d felt while meeting with the Unkerlanter minister receded, at least a little. After a while, Shazli said, “And how badly did Ansovald hurry you today? Efficiency.” He rolled his eyes to show what he thought of the term, or at least of the way the Unkerlanters used it.

  “Your Majesty, I have never known worse,” Hajjaj said with feeling. “Never. And he rejected your protest out of hand. And he did something no Unkerlanter has ever done before: he questioned the legitimacy of the Treaty of Bludenz.”

  The king hissed like a sand viper. “No, Unkerlant has never presumed to do that before,” he agreed. “I mislike the omen.”

  “As do I, your Majesty, as do I,” Hajjaj said. “Up till now, we have been lucky in our relations with the Unkerlanters. They suffered hideously in the Six Years’ War and then, as if they were not satisfied, they warred among themselves. That gave your father of splendid memory the chance to remind them we still remembered how to be our own masters. Afterwards, they were busy picking up the pieces they themselves had dropped.”

  “And after that, for good measure, they marched straight into a senseless war with Gyongyos,” King Shazli added. “Were King Swemmel half as efficient as he thinks he is, he would be twice as efficient as he truly is.”

  “Even so, your Majesty, and elegantly phrased.” Hajjaj smiled and sipped at his wine. “Of course, Ekrekek Arpad also took advantage of Unkerlant’s internecine strife to make his own realm grow at Swemmel’s expense.”

  “And Swemmel has spent the last several years trying to take his revenge,” Shazli said. His eyes narrowed; he looked very crafty indeed. “Now, I appreciate revenge as much as the next man—I could scarcely be a Zuwayzi did I not, eh? But a man who does not weigh what he spends against what he gets is a fool.”

  “Seen through King Swemmel’s eyes, Gyongyos is not the only kingdom against which Unkerlant needs to be avenged,” Hajjaj said. “I suppose that explains some of Ansovald’s insolence.” He started to take another sip of wine, but paused with the goblet halfway to his lips. “I should attune my crystal to that of the Gyongyosian minister. No. I should pay a call on Horthy myself.”

  “Why say you that?” King Shazli asked.

  “Because, your Majesty, if Unkerlant is seeking to patch up a truce in the far west—or if King Swemmel has already patched up such a truce—we may be next on the list for a visit from our friends,” Hajjaj replied. “I don’t think even Swemmel is stupid enough to get into two wars at once. Should he abandon one …”

  Shazli’s eyes widened. “Will Horthy tell you?”

  “I don’t see why he shouldn’t,” Hajjaj said. “By the very nature of things, Gyongyos and Zuwayza can hardly be enemies. We are too far apart; all we have in common is a border with Unkerlant.” He opened his leather case and took out the tunic he’d stuffed into it. With a martyred sigh, he donned the garment once more. “I’d better go now, your Majesty. I don’t think this will wait.”

  Skarnu stood against a tree to ease himself. Since the tree was a few miles inside Algarve, the young Valmieran marquis consoled himself by thinking he was pissing on the enemies of his kingdom. He would have felt more consolation, though, had the invasion pushed farther and done more.

  After buttoning his fly, he rejoined his company. His noble birth made him an officer. Till he was mobilized, he’d thought his noble birth also prepared him for command. He was certainly used to giving orders, even if he didn’t enjoy it quite so much as his sister Krasta did. But he’d soon discovered the difference between giving orders in a mansion and giving them to soldiers: the former sort merely required obedience from the servants, while the latter also needed to make sense.

  “Where now, Captain?” asked Raunu, the company’s senior sergeant. He was senior enough to have a lot of silver threads in the gold of his hair, senior enough to have fought as a youth in the Six Years’ War. But his father sold sausages for a living, so he was unlikely ever to rise above senior sergeant. If he resented that, he hid it very well.

  After scratching his head, Skarnu pointed west and answered, “Forward to the edge of open country. If there are any more Algarvians lurking here in the woods, we need to flush them out.” He scratched again. He itched all the time. He wondered if he was lousy. The idea made his flesh crawl, but he knew it could happen to soldiers in wartime.

  Raunu considered, then nodded. “Aye, about the best thing we can do, I reckon.” He turned Skarnu’s notion into precise, cautious reality, ordering scouts ahead and to either side and sending the rest of the company forward by sections along three different game tracks.

  In fact, as Skarnu had quickly realized, Raunu ran the company. He knew how to do the job, whereas Skarnu’s presence, while ornamental, was anything but necessary. That had mortified the marquis, seeming an offense against both propriety and honor.

  “Don’t fret yourself about it, lord,” Raunu had said when he broached the issue. “There’s three kinds of noble officers. Some don’t know anything and stay out of their sergeants’ way. They’re harmless. Some don’t know anything and give forth with all sorts of orders anyhow.” He’d shuddered. “They’re dangerous. And some don’t know anything and try and learn. Give ’em time, and they’re apt to make pretty fair soldiers.”

  Skarnu had never before heard such a blunt appraisal of his class. None of the servants back at his mansion would have dared speak to him thus. But he was not Raunu’s master and employer; King Gainibu was. That made the sergeant’s relationship with a noble also serving the king different from that of a cook or butler. Skarnu was doing his best to fall into the third class of officer. He hoped he was succeeding, but hadn’t had the nerve to ask.

  Now, stick at the ready, he paced along the gloomy track. The Algarvians hadn’t offered much resistance at the border, falling back before the advancing Valmierans toward the line of forts they’d built about twenty miles inside their territory. The Duke of Klaipeda, who commanded the Valmierans, was exultant; he’d published an order of the day reading, “The enemy, beset by many foes, ingloriously flees before our triumphant advance. Soon he must either give battle on our terms or yield his land to our victorious arms.”

  That sounded splendid to Skarnu till he thought about it for a little while. If the Algarvians were ingloriously fleeing, why didn’t the illustrious Duke of Klaipeda put more pressure on them? Skarnu knew himself to be imperfectly trained in the military arts. He hoped the same did not hold true for the illustrious duke.

  A beam from a stick struck the trunk of an elm a couple of feet above his head. Steam spurted from the tree, smelling of hot sap. Though imperfectly trained in the military arts, Skarnu knew what to do when people started blazing at him: he threw himself flat and crawled on his belly toward some bushes by the side of the track. If the Algarvian couldn’t see him, he couldn’t shoot.

  Another Valmieran went down, too, this one with a harsh cry of pain. From cover, Skarnu shouted, “Hunt the enemy down!” He got up into a crouch and then dashed forward, diving down on to his belly behind a stout pine.

  Another beam slammed into the tree. Its resinous sap had a tangy odor very different from that of the elm. Skarnu was. glad the woods were moist; the fight would have fired drier country. He peered up over the top of a gnarled root. Spying a bit of tan among green bushes, he stuck his finger into the stick’s recess and blazed away at it.

  The leaves the beam touched went sere and brown in an instant, as if winter had come all at once to that corner of the world. An Algarvian soldier had been hiding in those bushes, too. He let out a horrible cry in his ugly, trilling native tongue. Another Valmieran blazed at him from off to one side of Skarnu. That cry abruptly cut off.

  “Come on, men!” Skarnu shouted. “Forward! King Gainibu and victory!”

  “Gainibu!” his men shouted. They did not rush straight at the Algarvians lurking among the trees. Such headlong dash was all very well in an entertainment. In real war, it brought nothing but gruesome casualties. The Valmierans darted from tree to tree, from bush to rock, one group blazing to make the enemy keep his head down while another advanced.

  A couple of soldiers went staggering back with wounds, one with an arm over the shoulder of a healthy comrade. One or two men went down and would not get up again. The rest, though, drove the Algarvians, who did not seem present in any great numbers, before them. Once, by the shouts—no, the screams—the fighting came to such close quarters that it went on with knives and reversed sticks rather than with beams, but that did not last long. Valmieran voices soon rang out in triumph.

  Pushing forward as he did, paying more heed to what the enemy soldiers in tan kilts were trying to do than to exactly where he was, Skarnu was surprised when he burst out of the woods. He stood a moment, blinking in the bright afternoon sun that beat into his face. Ahead lay fields of barley and oats going from green to gold, and beyond them an Algarvian farming village. The sturdy buildings would have looked more picturesque had he not been able to make out Algarvian troops moving among them.

  Algarvian troops rather closer by could make him out. One of them blazed at him from the cover of the growing grain. The beam went wide. Cursing, Skarnu ducked back among the trees. He went some little distance along the edge of the forest before peering out again. This time, he was careful to keep a screen of leaves and branches in front of his face.

  As if by sorcery, Sergeant Raunu silently materialized beside him. “Wouldn’t want to try crossing that without a lot of friends along,” Raunu remarked in matter-of-fact tones. “Truth is, I wouldn’t want to cross that even with a lot of friends along, but some of us might get to the other side if we did it like that.”

  Skarnu’s voice was dry: “I hadn’t planned on ordering us to cross those fields and seize that village.”

  “Powers above and powers below be praised,” Raunu muttered.

  Not knowing whether he was supposed to have heard him, Skarnu pretended he hadn’t. He pulled a map out of a tunic pocket. “That should be the village of Bonorva,” he said. “It’s past those woods on the other wide that the Algarvians are supposed to have their main belt of fortifications.”

  Raunu nodded. “Aye, that makes sense, lord. The forts are too far back for us to fling eggs at ’em from our side of the border.”

  Skarnu whistled thoughtfully. That hadn’t occurred to him. Raunu might be a sausage-seller’s son, but he was no fool. Many Valmieran nobles assumed all those below them to be fools: Skarnu chuckled, thinking of his sister. He had less of that attitude in him, but he wasn’t free of it, either.

  “They’ll have to bring everyone up for the assault on the forts,” he said. “That will make taking Bonorva look like a walk in Two Rivers Park by comparison.”

  “It’ll cost a deal of blood, all right,” Raunu agreed. “I wonder how many who hit the forts from this side will make it through to the other.”

  “However many they are, they’ll be in position to peel the shell off Algarve, the way you do with a plump lobster,” Skarnu said.

  “I wouldn’t know about that, sir,” Raunu said. “It’s bread and sausage and fruit for the likes of me. But you can’t peel anything if you don’t get through. Anybody who fought in the Six Years’ War would tell you that.”

  All of Valmiera’s generals, like those of any other kingdom, were veterans of the war a generation earlier. But Skarnu was not thinking of other kingdoms; he was thinking of his own. “That’s why we haven’t pressed our attacks harder!” he exclaimed with the air of a man who’d had a revelation. “The commanders dread the casualties they’d cost.”

  “Commanders who don’t dread casualties don’t stay in command, either,” Raunu said. “After a while, the troops won’t stand any more. Jelgava had mutinies during the Six Years’ War. The Unkerlanter armies that were fighting Algarve mutinied so they could go off and fight each other—Unkerlanters are fools, you ask me. And finally the Algarvians mutinied, too. That’s what won the war for us, more than anything else.”

  It was history to Skarnu; Raunu had lived it. Skarnu said, “May they mutiny again, then. If they didn’t want a war, they shouldn’t have gone tramping into Ban.”

  “I suppose that’s so, sir.” Raunu sighed, then chuckled. “I’m an old soldier at heart, and I make no bones about it. I’d sooner be back in the barracks drinking beer than here in the middle of this powersforsaken country.”

  “Can’t blame you for that, but when the king and his ministers order, we obey,” Skarnu said, and the sergeant nodded. Skarnu withdrew deeper into the woods, then scribbled a note describing his company’s position and called for a runner. When a man came up, Skarnu gave him the note and said, “Take this back to headquarters. If they plan on bringing reinforcements forward, hurry back to let me know. That will tell me whether to prepare another attack or to settle in and defend what we’ve gained here.”

  “Aye, sir—just as you say.” The runner hurried off.

  “The Algarvians will have something to say about whether we attack or defend, too, sir,” Raunu observed, pointing west.

  “Mm, that’s true,” Skarnu said, not altogether happily. “That’s one reason I wish we’d pressed this opening attack harder: the better to impose our will on the enemy.”

  Raunu grunted. “The Algarvians have plenty of will of their own. I’m surprised they haven’t tried imposing theirs on us.”

  “They’re beset from four sides at once,” Skarnu said. “Before long, they’ll break somewhere.” Raunu grunted again. A few minutes later, the runner came back with orders for Skarnu’s men to consolidate their position. He obeyed, as he was obliged to obey. If he muttered under his breath, that was his business, and no one else’s.

  High above Vanai’s head, a dragon screamed. She craned her neck, trying to find the tiny dot in the sky. At last, she did. The dragon was flying from west to east, which meant it belonged to Forthweg, not Algarve. Vanai waved, though the man aboard the dragon could not possibly have seen her.

  Brivibas walked on for several steps before realizing she was no longer beside him. He looked back over his shoulder. “The work won’t wait,” he snapped, exasperated enough to speak Forthwegian instead of Kaunian without even knowing he’d done it.