“I believe that,” Krasta replied with flaying contempt: Smilgya was chunky, fifty-five or so, and homely. She let out a shriek of fury, but some of the other servants-mostly men-laughed at her. Krasta pressed an advantage she knew she might not keep for long: “I told you-you’re dismissed. Get out of my house.”

Smilgya looked around for support. She didn’t see so much as she’d expected. Springing to her feet, she cried, “I wouldn’t work for anyone who sucked up to the redheads-who sucked off the redheads-like you did, not any more I wouldn’t.” She stormed away, adding, “I hope your Algarvian bastard is born with the pox, and I hope you’ve got it, too.”

Krasta set a hand on her belly again. This time, she tried to forget Lurcanio’s hand resting there in the middle of the night. “That’s not an Algarvian bastard in me,” she said. I hope it’s not. Doing her best to ignore her own thought, she went on rapidly: “It’s Viscount Valnu ’s, and you all know what he did to the redheads, and how they almost killed him for it.”

“That’s not what you’ve been saying,” Bauska pointed out.

“Well, what if it isn’t?” Krasta tossed her head. “Would you have told Lurcanio you’d been with another man, and a Valmieran at that? Or told your Captain Mosco, when you were riding his prong? I doubt it very much, my dear.”

Bauska looked daggers at her. She didn’t care about that. She cared about stopping what felt like a peasant uprising from years gone by. Someone chose that moment to hammer on the front door with the old bronze knocker there. That helped distract the servants, too.

“Be so good as to answer that, Valmiru,” Krasta said, almost-but not quite-as imperiously as she might have before the war.

The butler got to his feet. Two or three servants shook their heads. One reached out to try to stop him. Valmiru just shrugged and headed for the door. A moment later, surprise filled his voice as he called back, “It’s Viscount Valnu, milady!”

“There, you see?” Krasta said triumphantly. The servants blinked and gaped. Bauska’s eyes looked big as saucers. Krasta had hoped it might be Valnu, but hadn’t dared expect it. She started to hurry to the front door, but changed her mind and took her time. A gaggle of servitors trailed after her, as if wanting to see the viscount for themselves before believing Valmiru.

Valnu’s smile lit up his bony face when Krasta strode into the entry hall. “Hello, sweetheart!” he said, and hurried up to plant a kiss on her mouth. “They’re gone at last. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“It certainly is,” Krasta answered, that seeming a better choice of words than a grudging, I suppose so. Asking whether Valnu missed certain handsome Algarvian officers didn’t strike her as the best idea at the moment, either. Instead, she set a hand on her belly and said, “I’m so glad you came to see us.”

Viscount Valnu ’s smile only got brighter. “Life is full of such interesting possibilities, isn’t it?” he murmured, and slipped an arm around Krasta’s waist. The staring servants sighed-relief? disappointment? Krasta couldn’t tell. She didn’t care, either. I got away with it, she thought.

Every time Ealstan came home to her and Saxburh, Vanai praised the powers above. These days, he had to sneak back to their block of flats, for the Algarvians had retaken this part of Eoforwic. While Vanai was about her praises, she squeezed in some gratitude that their block of flats remained standing. Two on the other side of the street were nothing but debris.

“What is the point?” she demanded of him one evening. The flat was a grim, dark place; the Algarvians blazed without hesitation or warning at any light that showed, and the shutters weren’t all they might have been. It was also chilly-none of the windows had any glass save a few knifelike shards left in it. When the rains came in earnest… She didn’t want to think about that. So far, the autumn had stayed dry.

Ealstan spooned up the stew of barley and peas and almonds she’d cooked with wood taken from the ruins across the way. He’d brought back a couple of jugs of wine; they both sipped from them. The water still wasn’t working here. Vanai had to carry water back from a fountain on a street corner a few blocks away.

“We’ve got to keep trying,” Ealstan said stubbornly.

“Why?” Vanai demanded. “Can’t Pybba see you’ve lost? You’ll only get more men killed if you go on fighting.” You might get killed yourself, she thought, and made a gesture older than the Kaunian Empire-or so Brivibas had told her, at any rate-to turn aside the evil omen. I wouldn‘t want to go on living if anything happened to you. What would I do without you? How would I go on living? Why would I care to?

But Ealstan shook his head. She could hardly see the motion, there in the gloom. “We have to go on now, and hope for the best. When the redheads catch us these days, they kill us. They won’t let us surrender. If Pybba tried to give up, they’d slaughter all our fighters.”

“Oh.” Vanai hated the weakness and fear she heard in her own voice, hated them but couldn’t help them. She was relieved when Saxburh woke from a nap and started to cry.

As she went to get the baby, though, her husband’s voice pursued her: “Now the Forthwegian fighters are starting to understand what being a Kaunian in this kingdom was like. They don’t much care for it.” He laughed without mirth.

Vanai brought her daughter out to the kitchen. As she undid her tunic so Saxburh could nurse, she said, “Stay here with me, then. Don’t go back to it at all. You’ve done enough-can’t you see that?”

“If we can drive the redheads out of Eoforwic ourselves, we have a better chance of dealing with the Unkerlanters afterwards,” Ealstan insisted.

“So what?” Vanai said. “So fornicating what?” Even in the darkness, she could see his mouth fall open. She went on, “What difference does it make? Between you and Mezentio’s men, you’ve wrecked the city. It won’t be the same for the next fifty years. And the Unkerlanters are going to take it away from you or the Algarvians sooner or later anyhow.”

“We have to try,” Ealstan said again, and Vanai knew argument was useless. Forthwegian patriots were some of the bravest men on the continent of Derlavai. No one would have quarreled with that. They were also some of the most blockheaded men on Derlavai. Vanai expected she would have got quarrels there. But she knew what she knew, and Ealstan gave her all the evidence she needed to prove it.

She thought about seducing him to get him to stay here instead of going back to the fighting. Spinello had taught her everything she ever needed to learn about trading favors for something she wanted. But she’d never done that sort of thing with Ealstan, and the idea of starting sickened her. She hadn’t married Ealstan, she hadn’t borne his child, to prostitute herself with him.

Besides, and even more to the point, she didn’t think it would work. Unlike Spinello, Ealstan wasn’t one to change his mind because a woman did or didn’t go to bed with him. In fact, the next thing she found that would make him change his mind once he’d made it up would be the first.

Even though it was dark, Saxburh felt like playing once she’d been fed and changed. She’d learned how to roll over not too long before, and would do it again and again, laughing each time. Her joy made Ealstan laugh, too, something Vanai hadn’t been able to manage.

Eggs burst, not too far away. Saxburh had heard those roars so often, they hardly bothered her any more. She remained intent on what she’d been doing. Vanai envied her. Unlike the baby, she knew the havoc eggs could wreak.

“By the time this is over, there won’t be much left of Eoforwic-you’re right about that,” Ealstan said.

“Pybba should have thought of that before he raised his rebellion,” Vanai answered. Saxburh just kept laughing. The pure glee in the sound made Vanai wish she were four months old, too.