Darkness Descending (45 page)

When they went inside, Conberge came up to Ealstan with a smile and handed him an envelope. “Here’s another letter from your friend in Oyngestun.”

Ealstan had asked Leofsig not to tell anybody else about Vanai. Evidently, his brother had kept the promise he’d made. He hadn’t told Conberge, anyhow. Now, all at once, Ealstan wished he hadn’t forced the promise out of Leofsig. “Thanks,” he told Conberge with a rather sickly smile.

“Oyngestun,” Sidroc said, as if wondering where he’d heard the name before. Ealstan had never before hoped so hard his cousin would stay stupid. By the way Sidroc’s gaze suddenly sharpened, he knew that was going to be one more blighted hope. Sidroc snapped his fingers. “Oyngestun! That’s where that what’s-her-name, that Vanai”—to Ealstan’s horror, he even came up with her name—”lives. And somebody’s writing you from there?
Another
letter, your sister said. If you aren’t a lousy Kaunian-lover, I don’t know who is.”

Maybe he meant it as a joke. Ealstan thought of that only afterwards. At the moment, he handed Vanai’s letter back to Conberge and hit Sidroc in the face as hard as he could.

Sidroc’s head snapped back; he didn’t get an arm up to block the blow. He staggered backwards, fetching up against the wall of the entry hall. But he was made of rugged stuff. After a muttered curse, he surged forward, fists churning. A solid right thudded into Ealstan’s ribs.

But, however aggressive Sidroc was, he was also still dazed from that first punch. He moved a little slower than he might have otherwise. Ealstan punched him again, right on the point of the chin. The sudden sharp pain he felt in his own knuckles told how effective the blow was. Sidroc stood swaying a moment, then toppled. His head hit the floor with a dull thud.

“Powers above!” Conberge exclaimed. “The way you went after him, anyone would think he knew what he was talking about.”

“He did,” Ealstan said shortly. Conberge’s eyes widened. Ealstan knelt beside his cousin. “Come on, Sidroc. Wake up, curse it.” Sidroc didn’t wake up. He was breathing steadily—snoring, in fact—but he just lay there, his eyes half open. Ealstan glanced up at Conberge. “Get some water. We’ll flip it in his face and bring him around.”

But the water didn’t bring Sidroc to himself, either. Drawn by shouts and thumps, Elfryth came into the front hall hard on Conberge’s heels. Ealstans mother stared at Sidroc inert on the floor and let out a small shriek. “What happened?” she cried.

“I hit him.” Ealstan’s voice was toneless. “I hit him, and he hit his head.” He’d always thought he might be able to lick Sidroc, but wished he hadn’t been proved quite so thoroughly right.

“Is he dead?” Elfryth asked.

Sidroc’s snores should have told her the answer to that, but Ealstan said, “No, he’s not,” anyhow. Sidroc showed no signs of coming to, either. Rubbing at a bruised knuckle, Ealstan went on, “If he doesn’t wake up, what will Uncle Hengist do? For that matter, if he does wake up, what will Uncle Hengist do?”

“He’ll go to the Algarvians.” Now Elfryth’s voice came out flat.

“And if Sidroc does wake up,
he’ll
go to the Algarvians,” Conberge added. “Either that, or he’ll wait for you to come round a corner and then bash out your brains with a fire iron.” Ealstan started to say Sidroc wouldn’t do anything like that, but the words clogged in his throat. Sidroc took revenge seriously.

Elfryth stared down at her nephew, loathing on her face. “He’s been nothing but trouble since he had to come here.” Her gaze swung toward Ealstan. When she x spoke again, she was as grimly practical as Hestan had ever dreamt of being: “You had better go. Leave the front door open after yourself. Conberge and I don’t know a thing about whatever happened here. Maybe it was a footpad. That’s what we’ll say if he doesn’t come to himself—the footpad killed Sidroc and knocked the wits out of you so you went wandering off. You’ll be able to come back then, eventually. But if Sidroc does wake up—”

“Take all those letters with you before you go,” Conberge broke in. “He may not remember where this one came from. People who get hit in the head can have trouble remembering things.”

“Letters?” Ealstan’s mother asked.

“Never mind,” Ealstan and Conberge said together. Ealstan turned to his sister. “Aye, you’re right—I’ll do that. Thanks.” He paused a little while in thought. “I’d better not stay in Gromheort. I’ll need whatever money we have in the house to keep me eating till I find work.”

“I’ll get it,” Conberge said, and left.

“But where will you go?” Elfryth asked.

“Conberge will know. So will Leofsig,” Ealstan answered. “At first, anyhow. After that”—he shrugged a man’s slow, sour shrug—”I’ll just have to see how things work out.”

“What will you do?” his mother said.

He shrugged again. “I can dig ditches. I can cast accounts. I’m not as good at it as Father, but I’m not bad. I’m better than most of the bookkeepers they’ll have in little towns, the ones who can’t count past ten without taking off their shoes.”

Conberge came back and handed him a heavy, clinking leather purse. “Here,” she said, and he fastened it to his belt. She went on, “You have to get those letters. I don’t know where you keep them.”

“Aye.” Ealstan retrieved them from the bedchamber, then went out to the front hall again. Sidroc still lay unconscious. Ealstan hugged his mother and his sister. Elfryth was fighting back tears as she withdrew.

Conberge kissed Ealstan. “Be careful,” she said.

“I will.” He went to the door, leaving it ajar as his mother had suggested. As he headed from Gromheort’s west gate—the gate on the road to Oyngestun—he opened Vanai’s letter, the one that had led him to flee, and began to read.

Ten

S
karnu hiked past Pavilosta toward Dauktu’s farm. He carried a headless chicken by the feet. If an Algarvian patrol questioned him, he’d say he owed it to the other farmer. He didn’t expect to be stopped—the Algarvians were spread thin in Valmiera these days, with the war sucking soldiers to the west—but he didn’t believe in taking chances.

He’d never tramped country roads in wintertime till coming to the farm that had been Gedominu’s and now was Merkela’s—and, in an odd way, his. The leather jacket he wore had been Gedominu’s, too. It didn’t fit very well, but kept warm those parts of him it did cover. He’d had to buy new boots; he couldn’t squeeze his feet into Gedominu’s. After a couple of walks along country roads, the boots had got muddy and battered enough not to look new any more.

But for the mud and the cold, the countryside had a certain austere beauty. His sister would have sneered at it, but his sister was in the habit of sneering at everything. Bare trees and empty fields were not so much in and of themselves, but they held the promise of future growth. Looking at them as they were, he could see them as they would be. He hadn’t been able to do that before.

A squirrel with a nut in its mouth scurried up the trunk of an oak tree. It knew to keep the tree trunk between itself and Skarnu. Living in a mansion down in Priekule, he would have turned up his nose at the idea of squirrel stew. Merkela had taught him it could be surprisingly tasty.

“Not today, little fellow,” he told the squirrel as he walked past the oak. The squirrel chattered indignantly; it had to think he’d prove a liar if he got the chance, and it was very likely right.

He’d skirted Pavilosta, and saw no one on the road before he got to Dauktu’s farm. Winter for the peasantry, he’d found, was a time of pulling back, offending one’s own, of preparing for the spring sowing. It was not a time for dances and feasts, as it was among the nobles of Valmiera. Skarnu kicked a pebble in a show of defiance. Count Simanu would give no dances this winter, host no feasts for his Algarvian friends and overlords.
I
made sure of that,
Skarnu thought.

Triumph filled him, which meant he needed longer than he should have to notice that no smoke curled up from the chimney of Dauktu’s farmhouse. When he did notice that, he frowned; on a day like this, he would have wanted a good fire roaring in the fireplace. And Dauktu had plenty of firewood: a big pile, covered by a canvas tarpaulin, stood by the barn.

Still, Skarnu didn’t think much of it. If Dauktu and his wife and their daughter preferred bundling themselves to the eyebrows, that was their business. Swinging the chicken as he walked, Skarnu drew near the farmhouse.

Then he noticed the front door standing open. He stopped in his tracks.

“Something’s wrong,” he muttered, and stood irresolute, not knowing whether to go forward or to flee. In the end, warily, he went forward.

When he got closer still, he saw the door had something written on it. Scratching his head, he took step by cautious step till he could read it. It was five words in all, daubed on with whitewash that had run: SIMANU’S VENGEANCE—NIGHT AND FOG.

He scratched his head again. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked the winter air. He got no answer. He raised his voice and called Dauktu’s name. Again, no answer. Wondering if he should go back, he went forward again.

All at once, the quiet seemed eerie. When Skarnu set foot on the wooden steps leading up to the porch, the thunk of his bootheel made him start in alarm. He called Dauktu’s name once more. Not a sound came from the house. He went inside, though half of him was warning that he ought to turn tail.
Too late for that anyway,
he thought.

Something in the front room moved. Skarnu froze. So did the red fox that had been eating from the plate spilled on the floor. The fox darted under a rough-hewn chair. Skarnu went into the kitchen. The oven was as cold and dead as the fireplace. When he walked back into the front room, the fox had scurried away.

“Dauktu?” he called up the stairway. Only silence answered him. Normally, he would never have presumed to go up to the farmer’s bedchamber uninvited. Now... Now he didn’t think it would matter.

The bedchamber was neat and empty. So was the smaller one across the hall, which had to belong to Dauktu’s daughter. As far as Skarnu could see by anything up there, the other farmer and his family might just have stepped away for a moment. They’d stepped away, all right. The spilled plate of food downstairs argued that they weren’t ever coming back.

“Night and fog,” Skarnu murmured. He’d never seen the phrase before. He didn’t know exactly what it meant, but it couldn’t have meant anything good for Dauktu and his wife and daughter.

Skarnu went back downstairs, and then back out of the farmhouse. He stared at the words painted on the doorway. Ever so slowly, he shook his head. Still carrying the chicken, he started the long walk back to the farmhouse where he lived. It seemed much longer than the walk out to Dauktu’s house had. He’d been bubbling with ideas on how to strike another blow against the Algarvian occupiers of Valmiera. Unless he was dreadfully wrong, they’d struck a blow of their own.

Again, the road might have been deserted but for him. Everyone else might have vanished—
vanished into night and fog,
he thought uneasily, and his shiver had nothing to do with the weather.

When he got back, he breathed a silent sigh of relief to see Merkela scattering chicken feed in front of the barn. If disaster had struck Dauktu’s farm, it might have struck here, too. But no: there stood Raunu not far away, nailing a fence rail to a post. Skarnu waved to both of them.

They waved back. Raunu called, “What’s the matter? Dauktu didn’t want that scrawny old hen, so you had to bring it back?”

Merkela laughed. Skarnu knew he would have laughed, too, had he found things different at Dauktu’s farm. But he said, “He wasn’t there.” His voice came out as flat as if he were reciting a lesson in a primer.

Merkela went on feeding the chickens. She didn’t know what that flat tone meant. Raunu, who’d seen combat since before Skarnu was born, did. Instead of asking where the other peasant had gone, he found the right question on the first try: “What happened to him?”

That made Merkela stop scattering grain and come to alertness herself. Skarnu answered, “Night and fog.” He explained how he’d found the words painted on Dauktu’s door, and what he’d discovered when he went into the farmhouse.

“Simanu’s vengeance, eh?” Raunu looked unhappy. “Did they pick him because he was one of us, or just because they pulled his name out of a hat? And if they wanted to avenge Simanu, why didn’t they leave his body there, and his family dead with him?”

“I don’t know the answer to either of those.” Skarnu felt as unhappy as Raunu looked. “I’d like to, especially the first.”

“If people get killed, everyone knows how it happened,” Merkela said. “If they just disappear, everybody wonders. Did the redheads take them away and murder them somewhere else? Or are they still alive and suffering because the Algarvians don’t want to let them die?”

“There’s a pleasant thought,” Skarnu said. After a bit of thought, he admitted, “It makes better sense than anything I came up with on the way back here.”

“Aye.” Raunu nodded. “It’d be like the Algarvians to try and put us in fear.”

“If they are torturing Dauktu and his kin, they’ve put me in fear,” Skarnu said. “Who knows what a man’s liable to blab when they’re pulling out his toenails or working over his daughter in front of him?”