After the Downfall (63 page)

Velona was looking from one of them to the other, too. And she also knew what she saw. “Who is this

... person?” she asked Hasso, and if the last word of the question held a certain mocking edge, what could he do about it? It was the word he’d used himself.

“I am Drepteaza, priestess of Lavtrig in Falticeni.” She spoke for herself, in her own excellent Lenello.

“And...” She stepped forward and took Hasso’s hand in hers.

“Yes. And.” He squeezed hers.

Velona’s eyes flashed. “Disgusting,” she said.

“As a matter of fact, no,” Hasso told her. This time, Drepteaza squeezed him. But he had to speak to Velona again: “You warn me not to love you. How do you blame me if I love someone else?”

Velona stared at him. So did Drepteaza. Had he said anything to
her
about love? He didn’t think so. His timing was less than ideal. He’d have to fix that later. Now... Now Velona spoke to him as if he were an idiot - and she doubtless thought he was. As if spelling out what he should have known already, she said,

“I meant a Lenello, not a Grenye.”

“Too bad,” Hasso said. “Grenye
are
people, too.” He underscored that by switching to Bucovinan to ask Drepteaza, “What do we do with her?”

“I don’t know,” the priestess answered in the same language. No, Velona didn’t speak it - Hasso hadn’t thought she would stoop to learning. Drepteaza went on, “We could do two things, I suppose. We could kill her or let her go.”

“Not keep her prisoner, the way you do - uh, did - with me?” Hasso asked.

“If she were only Velona, I would say yes, we could do that,” Drepteaza said. “With the goddess in her...” She shook her head. “I don’t know how much power she can pull through that connection. I don’t want to find out. It could be worse than keeping all your gunpowder prisoner in one place.”

Hasso grunted and nodded. He’d always thought Velona was so much female dynamite. Here was his own thought come back to him transmuted. “How much bad luck goes with killing her?” he wondered aloud.

“I don’t know the answer to that, either,” Drepteaza said. “Even with an amulet that works, I’m not sure I want to find out. Do you?”

“She would kill me in a heartbeat.” Hasso’s eyes kept sliding to Velona. Beat-up as she was, she still looked damn good to him. Drepteaza had to know it, too. He would likely end up paying for that later. He sighed. “I haven’t got the heart to do it, regardless of bad luck.”

“I told you you were a fool. But then, if you love me, you already know that.” Drepteaza turned to Rautat, who was hovering in the background. “Go fetch Lord Zgomot. This should be his choice.”

“Yes, priestess.” The underofficer seemed relieved to have an excuse to beat it.

“What are you barking and mooing about?” Velona asked Hasso: so much for her opinion of Bucovinan.

“Whether to kill you or not,” he answered.

Her nostrils flared. It wasn’t fear. It was more the reaction a cat would have if it heard the mice were planning to bell it. “The curse of the goddess would fall on the guilty,” she warned.

“We know,” Drepteaza said.

“That didn’t worry the three guys chasing you when I first came to this world.” Hasso used two Lenello past tenses in one sentence. He impressed himself, if not Velona.

She looked at him as if a donkey had just lifted its tail and left him lying in the roadway. “When you did, I thought you would be a blessing for my folk, not a curse.”

“He is a blessing for this world,” Drepteaza said quietly.

“Not if he helps Grenye.” Velona had the courage - and the blindness - of her convictions.

“We are not your beasts of burden.” Drepteaza’s voice had an edge to it. Hasso could have told her she was wasting her breath. Odds were she already knew. A thousand-kilo bomb wouldn’t change Velona’s mind.

“Well, well,” Lord Zgomot said - courteously, in Lenello. “I did not expect this.”

Velona eyed him with a certain caution if not respect - he’d caused the Lenelli a lot of trouble over the years. “Neither did I,” she said bitterly.

“What do we do with her, Lord?” Hasso asked, also in Lenello. Drepteaza filled in the alternatives - in Bucovinan. If Velona didn’t like it, too bad - that was her attitude. Hasso didn’t see how he could blame her.

Zgomot seldom looked happy. Maybe he had right after his army’s smashing victory. Contemplating what to do with Velona gave him a good excuse for his chronic dyspepsia. “She hurts us if we keep her, if we kill her, or if we let her go,” he said, which summed things up pretty well. “Best to let her go ... I think. At least she won’t hurt us in the realm if we do that - not right away, anyhow.”

“King Bottero will thank you,” Velona said in unwontedly quiet tones.

“No, he won’t,” Zgomot replied. “He’s dead.”

“Dead? Bottero?” The full magnitude of the disaster Velona’s kingdom had suffered seemed to sink in for the first time.
Goddess.
Her lips shaped the word without a sound. But she got no help from the goddess then. Was she too badly hurt to sustain such aid? Did all the amulets around her block it? Hasso had no idea.

“I will give you one of the horses we captured,” the Lord of Bucovin told her. “You may ride away on it. If you are wise, you will not set foot in my lands again.”

“I doubt I am wise, if that is wisdom,” she said. “But I thank you for the gift all the same.” By the way she spoke, it was no less than her due.

Hasso wondered if she could even stand, let along ride, but she was one tough cookie. When the horse came, the groom who brought it promptly took a powder. “Do you want help getting up into the saddle?”

Hasso asked.

“Not from you,” she said coldly. “You beat me. You beat my kingdom. You beat my folk. You have not stolen my pride.” She swayed, but she mounted without help from Hasso or from anyone else. And he was convinced nothing but that enormous - maybe monstrous - pride kept her on the horse as she rode west at a slow walk.

“Whew!” Hasso’s shoulders slumped, as they might have had the Bucovinans lost.

“You ... loved her? You loved ... that?” Drepteaza asked.

“Yeah, well, you already knew I was stupid.”

“There are degrees to everything.”

“You must be right. You usually are.” Hasso bent down and kissed her, right there on the battlefield. You probably weren’t supposed to do things like that. But when he came up for air, he saw Lord Zgomot smiling at them. Zgomot pulled his face straight in a hurry, but not quite fast enough. Drepteaza saw the Lord of Bucovin smiling, too. She sent him a severe look, then turned up the voltage when she aimed it at Hasso. “You are impossible,” she said.

“Jawohl!”
He stiffened to attention and clicked his heels, which nobody from this world did. His arm shot out in a salute nobody from this world used. “At your service, fair lady!”

“Impossible,” Drepteaza repeated, but without the iron that had been in her voice before. She turned to Zgomot. “What are we going to do with him, Lord?”

“Well, as for me, I aim to keep him as long as I possibly can,” Zgomot answered. “What you do with him is up to you, of course, but he does not seem to want to go away in spite of, ah, everything.”

In spite of Velona,
he meant. Was he right? As things worked out, yes.
Would he be right if Velona
wanted me back?
Hasso wondered.
Damned if I know.
Never a dull moment with her - no, not even close - but one day, sure as hell, she’d detonate and blow you to bits. Drepteaza was quieter but safer, definitely better for the long haul.

And he had something he needed to say straight to her, not just let her hear in passing: “I
do
love you, you know.”

She nodded. “Yes, I do. Nice of you to tell me, though.” As his ears heated, she went on, “And if you loved her, too, I have to wonder about your taste.”

“Maybe not.” Lord Zgomot threw the drowning Hasso a line. “Men don’t judge women the same way women judge men.”

“A pretty face, a nice shape, a tight snatch ... I know,” Drepteaza said, and Hasso’s ears got hotter yet. She went on, “Plenty for a good-time girl, but for
love7.
You ought to look for more there.”

This time, Hasso spoke for himself: “Well, I did. I found you, yes?”

“Who knows what you were looking for when you found me?” she said.

“A pretty face, a nice shape ... The other I don’t know about, but I wouldn’t be surprised,” Zgomot said. Yes, Bucovinans could be very blunt. Drepteaza squeaked. Hasso might have if she didn’t beat him to the punch.

Since she did, he added, “And more.”

“Impossible,” Drepteaza repeated. He nodded, not without pride of his own. She made a face at him and said, “If I can forgive you for being big and blond, I
must
love you.”

“Good,” Hasso said, and kissed her again. He found Zgomot smiling once more when he broke the clinch. If
Bless you, my children
wasn’t written all over the Lord of Bucovin’s canny face... If it wasn’t, then maybe Hasso was seeing sheer relief. All across the field, Zgomot’s men were slitting the throats of Lenelli or leading them off into captivity. Some would make useful laborers. Others would know things the Bucovinans didn’t, and that Hasso didn’t, either. Bucovin was still behind its neighbors most ways. Now Zgomot’s realm had more of a chance to catch up, and now the Bucovinans knew a few things the Lenelli didn’t, too.

I did that. For better or worse, I did,
Hasso thought. Now he’d seen from both sides what happened when technically superior enemies who thought themselves the lords of creation came at you. It was great fun when the panzers rolled forward or the assault column of knights struck home. Being on the receiving end was a different story - yeah, just a little.

No wonder the Russians fought back so hard. No wonder they hated the German invaders so much. Hasso hadn’t got it then. Even the Red Army’s counterattacks hadn’t made him understand - he’d only understood that there were way too many Ivans. If the other guy aimed to take
your
land and wipe
you
out or enslave
you
forever ... Nothing like putting the shoe on the other foot. It would have happened here. It would have, but it hadn’t, and he had a lot to do with that. Maybe Velona was right after all when she said the goddess brought him here for a reason. It just wasn’t the reason she thought. He kissed Drepteaza one more time.
Good-bye, Velona.
Table of Contents

HARRY TURTLEDOVE

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