“Your Majesty-” Rathar began urgently. Whether Swemmel did or not, he understood that Unkerlant would have a much harder time beating Algarve and Gyongyos without help from the two island kingdoms.

“Be silent, Marshal,” Swemmel snapped, and Rather, ingrained to obedience, was silent. The king’s head swung back to Moisio. “We grant immunity to no man, diplomat or otherwise, for insolence against our person.”

“ ‘Insolence’? What insolence?” the Kuusaman said. “ Count Gusmao told you a thing. You would not hear it. You refused to hear it. Where lies the insolence in that?”

More gasps rose from the Unkerlanters. This time, Marshal Rathar kept quiet. Every once in a while, someone taking a line like Moisio’s could get through to Swemmel where flattery and court tricks failed. More often, of course, such attempts ended in disaster, which was why even Rathar used them only as a last resort.

Swemmel said, “I have heard such nonsense as he spouts from both of you before. Why should I care to hear it again?” He wasn’t shouting for his guards to take Lord Moisio away and do something dreadful to him. His failure to shout for them was as much as-more than-Rathar could have hoped for.

“ ‘Why,’ your Majesty?” Count Gusmao spoke for himself. “Because it is not nonsense. I told you the truth, and nothing but. When we hit the Algarvians, you may be sure we shall hit them hard.”

“Aye, no doubt. And when will that be?” King Swemmel jeered.

Moisio did something then that Rathar thought would get him killed in the next instant: he stepped up onto the base of the throne and beckoned to Swemmel to lean down to him. To Rathar’s astonishment, the king did-maybe Swemmel was too astonished to do anything else, too. And the Kuusaman minister, standing on tiptoe, whispered something into his ear.

“Really?” Swemmel, for once, sounded altogether human and not in the least royal.

“Really.” Lord Moisio ’s voice was firm. Whatever he’d told the king, he believed it. Hearing the way he affirmed it, Rather believed it, too. The only problem was, he had no idea what Moisio had said. And, by Swemmel’s conspiratorial smirk-one that Moisio shared-he wouldn’t get to find out any time soon, either.

Four

A blizzard howled outside the peasant hut in eastern Grelz that Colonel Sabrino had taken for his own. Sabrino wondered if it would be the last blizzard of the winter: it was heavy, wet snow, not the dry, powdery stuff that fell-or sometimes just blew sideways-when the weather was even colder. Whether it proved the last blizzard or not, it was too thick for the wing of dragons he commanded to fly. And so he sat in the hut in front of a roaring fire and poured down spirits to make time go by. The peasant who’d once lived here had probably passed the winter the same way.

“One thing, anyhow,” Sabrino said, pronouncing each word with considerable care.

“What’s that, sir?” Captain Orosio sat on another stool not far away. He had a mug of spirits, too, and he’d also emptied it more than once.

“In weather like this, even the cursed Unkerlanters can’t get their dragons off the ground,” Sabrino said.

Orosio considered that with owlish intensity. Once it had penetrated, he nodded. “You’re right, sir,” he said, as if Sabrino had given him some hidden key to the true meaning of the world. “By the powers above, you’re right.”

“Of course I am,” Sabrino said grandly. He drew himself straight on his stool, and almost fell off it. “I am a colonel of dragonfliers. Do I know these things, or do I not?”

“You’re a colonel of dragonfliers. Of course you do.” Orosio tilted back his mug and drained it. He reached for the jar that sat on the rammed-earth floor between Sabrino and him. The jar sloshed when he picked it up. Grunting in satisfaction, he poured himself a refill. After he drank, he turned- carefully-toward Sabrino. “How come you’re still a colonel of dragonfliers?”

“What’s that?” Sabrino asked.

“How come you’re still just a colonel of dragonfliers, lord Count?” Orosio said again. “You’ve got the blue blood, and powers above know you fight your wing like a mad bastard. How come you’re not a brigadier of dragonfliers, or maybe a lieutenant general of dragonfliers by now? Plenty of people who started behind you and weren’t so good to begin with are ahead of you now. It doesn’t seem fair to me.”

“Ah.” Sabrino reached out and patted Orosio on the shoulder. “You are a gentleman, my friend. Nothing less than a gentleman. But the war could go on till I was much older than I am now-which is quite old enough, believe you me it is-and I would die a colonel of dragonfliers. I suppose I ought to count myself lucky I wouldn’t die a sergeant of dragonfliers.”

“I don’t understand, sir.” Orosio sounded on the verge of tears because he didn’t understand.

There had been times when Sabrino found himself on the verge of tears because he understood altogether too well. No more, though. He was-or he told himself he was-resigned to what had happened to his career. “Do you want to know why I’m not a brigadier of dragonfliers or even a lieutenant general of dragonfliers, Orosio? It’s simple. Nothing simpler, in fact. I told King Mezentio to his face that he was making a mistake when he started sacrificing Kaunians for the sake of sorcery, and I turned out to be right. That’s why I’m still a colonel of dragonfliers, and why I’ll be one till my dying day.” He emptied his own mug and poured it full again.

“Would you have had a better chance for promotion if you turned out to be wrong?” Orosio asked.

Sabrino shook his head. “No, not any chance at all,” he said loudly-aye, he could feel the spirits, sure enough. “It didn’t help that I turned out to be right, but it didn’t matter much, either. You tell the king he’s made a mistake and you’ve made a worse one, if you ever wanted to see rank higher than the one you owned.”

“That’s not fair. By the powers above, it’s not fair,” Captain Orosio said with drunken insistence of his own. “You’re a free Algarvian. You’ve got as much right to tell him what’s so as he’s got to tell you.”

“Oh, aye, I’ve got the right,” Sabrino agreed. “I’ve got the right, but he’s got the might.” The jingling rhyme made him laugh-a telling measure of how drunk he was.

“Not fair,” Orosio said again. “The way things are, we need every good soldier doing everything he can.” He leaned over to pat Sabrino this time, and he too almost fell off his stool. “You’re a good soldier, sir, but you’re not coming close to doing everything you can.”

“No? You think not?” Sabrino’s laugh was loud and emphatic, too. “Right this minute, I’m doing everything I can just to sit up, same as you are.”

“Who, me?” Orosio said. “I’m fine, just fine.” To prove how fine he was, he burst into raucous song.

“That’s lovely,” Sabrino said, another telling measure of how low in the jar the level of spirits had got. He yawned enormously. “Let’s go to bed.”

“Aye, let’s,” Captain Orosio said, not that the hut boasted any real beds. Instead, it had benches against the wall, on which the Unkerlanter peasants who lived there had been wont to throw pillows and blankets and themselves.

Those pillows and blankets were long gone, as were the Unkerlanter peasants. Sabrino did not miss them. For one thing, the hut already boasted a generous oversupply of lice and bedbugs and fleas. For another, the dragonfliers were wearing the furs and leathers in which they rose high with their mounts. Those were warm enough to take the measure of even an Unkerlanter winter.

Sabrino lay down. So did Orosio. The wing commander heard Orosio start to snore. Then weariness and spirits rolled over him like an avalanche, and he heard nothing more for a long time.

When he woke up, he was lying on the floor by the bench. He had no recollection of falling off, but he must have done it. Orosio remained where he’d lain down. He was still snoring, too. The horrible noise made Sabrino wince.