“Here are your courses, then.” The registrar thrust the other sheet of paper at Ealstan. Did he wince as he did so? For a moment, Ealstan thought he was imagining things. Then he remembered the shouts and arguments he’d heard. Maybe he wasn’t.

  He looked at the list. The Algarvian language, history of Algarve, something called nature of Kaunianity… “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to it.

  “New requirement,” the registrar said, which was less informative than Ealstan would have liked. By the set of the man’s chin, though, it was all he intended to say on the subject.

  With a mental shrug, Ealstan glanced down the rest of the list: Forthwegian language and grammar, Forthwegian literature, and choral singing. “Where’s the rest of it?” he asked. “Where’s the stonelore? Where’s the ciphering?”

  “Those courses arc no longer being offered,” the registrar said, and braced himself, as if for a blow.

  “What?” Ealstan stared. “Why not? What’s the point of school, if not to learn things?” He sounded very much like his father, though he didn’t fully realize it.

  By the look on the registrar’s face, he didn’t want to answer. But he did, and in a way that relieved him of all responsibility: “Those courses are no longer offered, by order of the occupying authorities.”

  “They can’t do that!” Ealstan exclaimed.

  “They can. They have,” the registrar said. “The headmaster has protested, but he can do no more than protest. And you, young sir, can do no more than go out that door yonder so I can deal with the next scholar in line.”

  Ealstan could have done more. He could have pitched a fit, as several of his schoolmates had done before him. But he was too shocked. Numbly, he went out through the door at which the registrar had jerked his thumb. He stood in the hallway, staring down at the class list in his hand. He wondered what his father would say on seeing it. Something colorful and memorable, he had no doubt.

  Sidroc came through the door less than a minute later. Smiles wreathed his face. “By the powers above, it’s going to be a pretty good semester,” he said. “Only hard course they’ve stuck me with is Algarvian.”

  “Let’s see your list,” Ealstan said. His cousin handed him the paper. His eyes flicked down it. “It’s the same as mine, all right.”

  “Isn’t it fine?” Sidroc looked about to dance for joy. “For once in my life, I won’t feel like my brains are trying to dribble out my ears when I do the work.”

  “We should be taking the harder courses, though,” Ealstan said. “You know why we’re not, don’t you?” Sidroc shook his head. Ealstan muttered something his cousin fortunately did not hear. Aloud, he went on, “We’re not taking them because the redheads won’t let us take them, that’s why.”

  “Huh?” Sidroc scratched his head. “Why should the Algarvians care whether we take stonelore or not? I care, on account of I know how hard it is, but what difference does it make to the Algarvians?”

  “Have I told you lately you’re a blockhead?” Ealstan asked. Sidroc wasn’t, not in all ways, but he’d missed the boat here. Before he could get angry, Ealstan went on, “They want us to be stupid. They want us to be ignorant. They want us not to know things. You don’t see Forthwegian history on this list, do you? If we don’t know about the days of King Felgild, when Forthweg was the greatest kingdom in Derlavai, how can we want them to come back?”

  “I don’t care. I don’t much care, either,” Sidroc said. “All I know is, I’m not going to be measuring triangles this semester, either, and I’m cursed glad of it.”

  “But don’t you see?” Ealstan said, rather desperately. “If the Algarvians don’t let us learn anything, by the time our children grow up Forthwegians won’t be anything but peasants grubbing in the dirt.”

  “I need to find a woman before I have children,” Sidroc said. “As a matter of fact, I’d like to find a woman whether I have children or not.” He glanced over at Ealstan. “And don’t tell me you wouldn’t. That blond wench in mushroom season—”

  “Oh, shut up,” Ealstan said fiercely. He might not have sounded so fierce had he found Vanai unattractive. He had no idea what she thought of him, or even if she thought of him. All they’d talked about were mushrooms and the Algarvians’ multifarious iniquities.

  Sidroc laughed at him, which made things worse. Then his cousin said, “If you’re going to cast books like Uncle Hestan, I can see why you might want more ciphering lessons, I suppose, but what do you care about stonelore any which way? It’s not like you’re going to be a mage.”

  “My father always says the more you know, the more choices you have,” Ealstan answered. “I’d say the Algarvians think he’s right, wouldn’t you? Except with them, it’s the other way round—they don’t want us to have any choices, and so they don’t want us to know anything, either.”

  “My father always says it’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” Sidroc said, which did indeed sound like Uncle Hengist. “As long as we can make connections, we’ll get on all right.”

  That had more than a little truth in it. Ealstan’s father had used his connections to make sure no one looked too closely at where Leofsig had been before he came back to Gromheort. In the short run, and for relatively small things, connections were indeed splendid. For setting the course of one’s entire life? Ealstan didn’t think so.

  He started to say as much, then shook his head instead. He couldn’t prove he was right. He wondered if he could even make a good case. Whether he did or not, Sidroc would laugh at him. He was sure of that.

  Even though Ealstan kept his mouth shut, Sidroc started laughing anyhow, laughing and pointing at Ealstan. “What’s so cursed funny?” Ealstan demanded.

  “I’ll tell you what’s so cursed funny,” his cousin replied. “If you can’t get the courses your father thinks you ought to have here at school, what’s he going to do? I’ll tell you what: he’ll make you study those things on your own. That’s what’s funny, by the powers above. Haw, haw, haw!”

  “Oh, shut up,” Ealstan said again, suddenly and horribly certain Sidroc was right.

  19.

  King Shazli beamed at Hajjaj. “We shall have vengeance!” he exclaimed. “King Swemmel, may demons tear out his entrails and dance with them, will wail and gnash his teeth when he thinks of the day he sent his armies over the border into Zuwayza.”

  “Even so, your Majesty,” Hajjaj replied, inclining his head to the young king. “But the Unkerlanters are suspicious of us; Swemmel, being a treacherous sort himself, sees treachery all around him. As I have reported to you, my conversations with the Algarvian minister have not gone unnoticed.”

  By Shazli’s expression, he started to make some flip comment in response to that. He checked himself, though, at which Hajjaj nodded somber approval. Shazli could think, even if he remained too young to do it all the time. “Do you doubt the wisdom of our course, then?”

  “I doubt the wisdom of all courses,” the foreign minister said. “I serve you best by doubting, and by admitting that I doubt.”

  “Ah, but if you doubt everything, how can I know how much weight to place on any particular doubt?” Shazli asked with a smile.

  Hajjaj smiled, too. “There you have me, I must admit.”

  “Explain your doubts here, then, your Excellency, if you would be so kind,” Shazli said. “That we want, that we are entitled to, revenge on Unkerlant cannot be doubted. What better way to get it than by making common cause with Algarve? The Algarvians have proved willing—nay, eager—to make common cause with us.”

  “Oh, indeed,” Hajjaj said. “Count Balastro has been accommodating in every possible way. And why not? We serve his interests, as he serves ours.”

  “Well, then!” Shazli said, for all the world as if Hajjaj had just completed a geometric proof on the blackboard.

  But Hajjaj knew all too well that kingdoms did not behave so neatly as circles and triangles and trapezoids. “Algarve is a great kingdom,” he said, “but Unkerlant is also a great kingdom. Zuwayza is not a great kingdom, nor shall it ever be. If the small involve themselves in the quarrels of the great, they may be sorry afterwards.”

  “We are already sorry. Unkerlant has made us sorry,” Shazli said. “Do you deny this? Can you deny it?”

  “I do not. I cannot,” Hajjaj said. “Indeed, I was glad to begin conversations with the Algarvians, as your Majesty surely knows.”

  “Well, then,” Shazli said again. This time, he amplified it: “How can we go wrong here, Hajjaj? Algarve does not border us. She can make no demands upon us, as Unkerlant can and does. All she can do is help us get our own back, and get our own back we shall.”

  “She will be able to make demands afterwards, for we shall owe her a debt,” Hajjaj replied. “She will remember. Great kingdoms always do.”

  “Here, I think, you start at shadows,” the king said. “Perhaps she can make demands. How can she enforce them?”

  “How many dragons did Algarve hurl against Valmiera?” Hajjaj asked. “How many against Jelgava? They could fly against us, too. How do you propose to stand against them, your Majesty, come the evil day?”

  “If you would have us withdraw from the alliance we have made, say so now and say so plainly.” Shazli spoke with a hint of anger in his voice.

  “I would not,” Hajjaj said with a sigh. “But neither am I certain all will go as well as we hope. I have lived a long time. I have seen that things rarely go as well as people hope they will.”

  “We shall take back the land Swemmel stole from us,” Shazli said. “Perhaps we shall even take more besides. Past that, I am willing to let the future fend for itself.”

  It was a good answer. It was, at the same time, a young man’s answer. Hajjaj, who would probably see far less of the future unfold than would his sovereign, worried about it far more. “Indeed, I think we shall take it,” he said. “I only hope we shall keep it.”

  Shazli leaned forward, staring at him in surprise. “How can we fail? The only way I can imagine our failing would be for Unkerlant to defeat Algarve. How likely do you suppose that to be?” He threw back his head and laughed, which gave Hajjaj his view on the subject.

  “Not very likely, else I would have warned you not to follow this course,” the Zuwayzi foreign minister said. “But how likely would we have reckoned it that Algarve could overthrow Valmiera and Jelgava in bare weeks apiece?”

  “All the more reason to think the redheads will give King Swemmel the thrashing he deserves,” Shazli said, not quite taking Hajjaj’s point. “Efficiency!” His lip curled. “Not in Unkerlant. Will you tell me otherwise?” He looked a challenge at Hajjaj.

  “I will not. I cannot,” Hajjaj said. Shazli nodded, an I-told-you-so look in his eye. Then he nodded again, in a different way. Hajjaj rose, knowing he had been dismissed. “We have only to wait for spring, to see what comes then. May it prove good for the kingdom, as I hope with all my heart it does.”

  When he got back to his own office, he found his secretary arguing with a fellow who wore several amulets and lockets that clanked together whenever he moved. “No,” Shaddad was saying when Hajjaj walked in, “that is not acceptable. His Excellency would—” He turned. “Oh. Here you are, your Excellency. Powers above be praised! This bungler proposes to undertake sorcery in and around your office.”

  “I am not a bungler, or I hope I am not.” The fellow with the amulets bowed, which produced more clinkings and clankings. “I am Mithqal, a second-rank mage, with the honor of serving in his Majesty’s army. My orders, which your secretary now has, request and require me to do my best to learn whether any other mages have been sorcerously spying on you.”

  “Let me see these orders,” Hajjaj said, and put on his spectacles to read them. When he was through, he looked over the tops of the spectacles at Shaddad. “Captain Mithqal appears to be within his rights.”

  “Bah!” his secretary said. “For all we know, he just wants to snoop about. Why, for all we know, he could be—”

  “Do not say something you may regret.” Hajjaj did not like to bring Shaddad up so sharply, but his secretary sometimes got an exaggerated notion of his own importance. And having a mage, especially a mage who was also a soldier, angry at Shaddad would not do the secretary any good. Hajjaj went on, “Use the crystal to consult with this man’s superiors. If they have indeed sent him here, well and good. If not, then by all means raise the alarm.”

  “I tried to suggest this very course to him, but he would not hear me,” Mithqal said.

  Shaddad sniffed. “As if I should take seriously any mountebank who sets himself before me.” He bowed to Hajjaj. “Very well, your Excellency. Since you require it of me—” He turned his back on Mithqal to use the crystal, bending low over it to speak in a quiet voice. After a moment, his shoulders slumped further. When he turned around again, he looked as embarrassed as Hajjaj had ever seen him. “My apologies, Captain Mithqal. I seem to have been mistaken.”

  “May I now proceed?” Mithqal asked, a sardonic edge to his voice. He was looking at Hajjaj, who nodded. Shaddad nodded, too, which the mage affected not to notice. Hajjaj bit the inside of his lip to keep from smiling.

  Shaddad sidled up to the Zuwayzi foreign minister. “I must confess, I am mortified,” he murmured.

  “We are all foolish now and then,” Hajjaj said. What he was thinking was, Well you might be, but that would only have flustered Shaddad further.

  Mithqal said, “Your Excellency”—he kept right on ignoring Shaddad—“I aim to check two things: first, to learn whether anyone is spying on your office from a distance; and second, to learn whether anything has been secreted hereabouts to send word or your doings to whoever may be listening: a clandestine crystal, perhaps, though that is not the only way to achieve the effect.”

  “No one could have placed such a thing here,” Shaddad said. “Had someone brought such an object during a meeting with his Excellency, it would have been noted, and we do have sorcerous wards in place to keep out unwelcome guests when his Excellency and I are not present.”

  “What one mage can do, another can undo,” Mithqal said. “That is as basic a law of sorcery as those of similarity and contagion, though I own that many mages are loth to admit as much.”

  He took from the large pouch he wore on his belt a candle of black beeswax, which he set on Shaddad’s desk, and used ordinary flint and steel to light it. The glow that came from it, though, was anything but ordinary. Hajjaj rubbed at his eyes. Not only could he see Shaddad and Mithqal, but also, in an odd sort of way, into them and through them as well. He could also see into and through Shaddad’s desk.

  Mithqal took out a six-sided crystal. “The iris stone,” he said, and held it up. Rainbows appeared on all the walls of the office. “Thus you note its chiefest property.” He might have been delivering a lecture. “Should the rainbows be agitated, that will show the influence of some other magic.”

  He carried the iris stone all around the desk. The rainbows shifted and swirled, but he accepted that, so Hajjaj supposed he was seeking some larger derangement. And, sure enough, Mithqal put down the crystal with every sign of satisfaction. He blew out the candle, carried it into Hajjaj’s chambers, and lighted it again, repeating the ritual he had used in the outer office.

  Once more, the rainbows swirled on the walls as Mithqal carried the iris stone around the candle. Once more, that was the only thing that happened. The mage nodded to Hajjaj, “Your Excellency, as best I can tell, no one is spying on you from without.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” Hajjaj said.

  “I could have told you as much, your Excellency,” Shaddad said. Hajjaj glanced at him. He coughed a couple of times. “Er—not with such certainty, perhaps.”

  “Indeed,” Mithqal said, and mercifully let it go at that. “Now to see if anyone has been listening from within.” He drew a couple of withered objects from his pouch, one small and looking rather like a bean, the other resembling a thick, curled brown leaf, but hairy on one side. “I have the heart of a weasel, with which to seek out treachery, and also the ear of an ass, to signify treachery in respect to hearing.” As an aside, he remarked, “Perhaps I might have done without the latter.” Shaddad suffered another coughing fit.

  Holding the heart in one hand and the ass’ ear in the other, Mithqal began to chant. The ear started writhing and twitching, as it would have done were it attached to a living animal. Shaddad jumped; he might never have seen magecraft before. Hajjaj watched in the fascination he gave any workman manifestly good at his craft. “Something?” he asked in a low voice, so as not to disturb the mage.

  “Something, aye,” Mithqal breathed. He stalked out to the outer office, in the direction toward which the ear pointed. Hajjaj followed. So did Shaddad, his eyes round and white and staring in his dark face. Guided by the ass’ ear, Mithqal moved toward the secretary’s desk.

  Shaddad cried out in despair and fled.

  Mithqal threw down his sorcerous implements and pursued. He was younger and lighter on his feet than Hajjaj’s secretary. After a moment, Hajjaj heard more shouts, and then a thud. He sank to a cushion and buried his face in his hands. He had trusted Shaddad, and here was his trust repaid with treason. But anguish was only half of what he felt. The other half was fear. How long had Shaddad been suborned, and how much had he passed to Unkerlant?

  The secretary cried out once more, this time in pain. Hajjaj winced. Those questions would have answers, and soon. Shaddad would not like giving them. That no longer mattered. He would give them whether he liked to or not.

  “What one mage can do, another can undo.” Pekka quoted the adage loud. She preferred talking to herself to listening to the icy winds from the south howling around her Kajaani City College office. The only trouble was, she was lying to herself. Her laugh came bitter. “What one mage can do, even the same mage can’t undo—or figure out how she did it in the first place.”

  Her only consolation was that she wasn’t the only baffled theoretical sorcerer in Kuusamo. Raahe and Alkio hadn’t been able to discover where the missing acorn from the pair in her experiment had gone. Neither had Piilis. Neither had Master Siuntio, and neither had Ilmarinen, so far as she knew, though he was worse than any of her other colleagues at telling everyone what he was up to.