“Who would have thought Mezentio’s men would fight back like this?” Ealstan said bitterly. “And who would have thought the Unkerlanters would sit quiet on the other side of the Twegen and let the Algarvians smash us?”

“Algarvians are Algarvians,” Vanai pointed out. “We’ve known for years how they’re fighting this war. And the Unkerlanters are no bargain, either, except when you compare them to the redheads.”

“True. Every word of it’s true.” Ealstan slammed his fist, hard, into the palm of his other hand. “But seeing it…” He hit himself again, harder yet. Maybe he was hoping he could hurt himself.

“You couldn’t have done anything to change the way it happened,” Vanai said, guessing what was troubling him. “Pybba wouldn’t have listened to you even if you tried. Pybba doesn’t listen to anyone but himself.”

“Well, that’s true enough,” Ealstan said. “Still-”

“No.” Vanai did her best to make her voice firm and unyielding. “You’ve done everything you could. You’ve done more than anyone could have expected, including yourself. Sometimes things don’t work out the way you wish they would have, and that’s all there is to it.”

“I wish I could say you were wrong,” Ealstan told her. “You don’t know how much I wish I could say that.”

“Oh, I think I might,” Vanai said. He thought about that, then nodded. As if to stop thinking for a little while, he picked up Saxburh and cuddled her. She promptly fell asleep. She seemed to do that faster for Ealstan than she did for Vanai. It sometimes annoyed Vanai-she did most of the work of taking care of the baby, so why should Saxburh go to sleep more easily for Ealstan?

When Ealstan set Saxburh in the cradle, she woke up with a yowl. Vanai, feeling vindicated, scooped her out and rocked her till she quieted down again. It didn’t take long; the baby was sleepy. Vanai got her back into the cradle without waking her.

Ealstan sighed. So did Vanai. “Let’s go to bed,” she said. With the lights working, it wouldn’t have seemed so late. As things were…

As things were, Ealstan chuckled and asked, “How do you mean that?”

Vanai considered. Giving herself to him now wouldn’t be the same as doing it in the hope of keeping him from going out to try to kill more Algarvians. And if we don’t do it now, we may not get another chance. She did her best to suppress that thought, as she did whenever ones like it crossed her mind.

After a pause almost surely too short for Ealstan to notice, she said, “However you like. If you’d rather just sleep, that’s all right.”

He snorted. “I’m so far behind on sleep, I don’t think I’ll ever get even. Come to think of it, I’m pretty far behind on the other, too.” He caught her to him. They hurried into the bedroom, each with an arm around the other’s waist.

Afterwards, Vanai lay awake for a while, listening to the sounds of war in Eoforwic. Ealstan sprawled beside her, not moving, hardly seeming to breathe. He didn’t usually roll over and go to sleep right after making love, but he didn’t usually set his life on the line every time he left the flat, either. Jokes about men who rolled over and fell asleep went back at least to the days of the Kaunian Empire, but Vanai couldn’t begrudge Ealstan the rest he needed so badly.

Pybba, on the other hand… She wished something unfortunate would happen to Pybba. He couldn’t have known ahead of time how things would turn out. Who could? All the same, his miscalculation had brought Eoforwic down in ruins, along with his hopes.

All this death, all this wreckage-and even if they had thrown Mezentio’s men out of Eoforwic for good, how much difference would it have made to Swemmel of Unkerlant? Even a copper’s worth? Vanai didn’t think so. Forthwegian pride had done nothing more than leave a lot of Forthwegians dead.

And the Algarvians are killing any fighters they catch. Have they finally run out ofKaunians? Vanai shivered. She moved closer to Ealstan, for warmth and because she didn’t want to be alone even if he was dead to the world. Couldn’t Mezentio’s men take blonds out of Valmiera and Jelgava? Vanai shrugged. Since the Forthwegians in Eoforwic rose up against the Algarvian occupiers, she’d heard little about how the war was going in other corners of Derlavai. If Ealstan hadn’t been close to Pybba, she wouldn’t have heard anything at all.

She started to set a hand on Ealstan’s shoulder, but quickly drew back before touching him. She’d made the mistake of doing that once, and only once. He might be asleep to the point of unconsciousness, but he woke instantly and struck out, as if someone were trying to kill him. Maybe someone had tried to kill him while he was asleep. If so, the redhead hadn’t managed it-and Ealstan had never said a word about it to Vanai.

Time was, when I had secrets from you, but you had none from me, Vanai thought. It’s not like that anymore. When they’d first come together, the year or so she had on him had often seemed like four or five. It wasn’t like that anymore, either. Ealstan was a man, with a man’s silences hanging about him. The thought made Vanai, at twenty-one, feel very old indeed.

She fell asleep at last without noticing she’d done it. Saxburh let her sleep through the night. Sometimes the baby did, sometimes she didn’t. When Vanai woke, gray, gritty light was sneaking through the slats of the shutters. She rolled toward Ealstan, and discovered he wasn’t lying beside her.

She cursed in both classical Kaunian and Forthwegian as she got out of bed. He’d gone off to fight again, and he hadn’t even said good-bye. He’d done that before, and it never failed to infuriate her. She went out to the kitchen to build up the fire in the stove.

Ealstan had left a note on the table there. That was something: not enough, but something. I love you, he’d written in classical Kaunian. Because I love you, I will be careful.

She hoped he wasn’t lying to make her feel better. And she wished he didn’t love Forthweg quite so much. A lot of good that wish does me, she thought, and fought back tears.

“Come on!” Skarnu said. “We’re going home, by the powers above. I’ve been waiting more than four years for this day.”

But Merkela, instead of scrambling up into the seat of the worn-out old carriage the Valmierans had scrounged up for them from who could guess where, hung back, little Gedominu in her arms. “I don’t know,” she said, and Skarnu could indeed hear the doubt in her voice. “I never thought I’d go to Priekule, and I’m not so sure I want to.”

“Dadadadada!” Gedominu said cheerfully. He might even have known what it meant; he sometimes said, “Mama,” too, although, to Merkela’s annoyance, less often than the other.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” Skarnu said. “Priekule’s our city again, Valmiera’s city again, and we’re going back to settle accounts with all the traitors and collaborators. You weren’t afraid to take on Count Simanu, in the days when the kingdom had hardly any hope at all. Now we finally get to pay my sister back for sleeping with that redhead all these years.”

That made Merkela brighten, but less than Skarnu had hoped it would. At last, she came out with what was really bothering her: “When we get to Priekule, you’ll be a marquis again, and I’ll just be a peasant wench.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Skarnu said, or something rather earthier than that.

“When we get to Priekule, you’ll be the woman I’m going to marry and spend the rest of my days with. And if any fancy bitch toting a sandy-haired baby instead of a proper blond”-he reached out and ruffled Gedominu’s fine, white-gold hair; the baby squealed with glee-”says anything different, I do believe I’ll break her pointy nose.”

“That won’t make the bluebloods like me any better,” Merkela said.