“No accounting for taste,” Hajjaj said, a profoundly unoriginal truth. Before too long, he took the opportunity to make his excuses and go back to his home in the hills above Bishah. Getting out of the clothes he’d worn and into the usual Zuwayzi outfit-sandals and, for outdoors, a hat-was, as usual, a great relief.

He was about to go down into the capital the next morning when someone knocked on the one door in the fortresslike outer wall to the sprawling compound that was as much clan center as dwellingplace. Tewfik, the ancient majordomo who presided over the residence, made his slow way out to see who was disturbing his master. He sent a younger, sprier servant hotfooting it back to Hajjaj. “Your Excellency, you’ve got to come see this for yourself,” the servant said, and would say no more even when Hajjaj barked at him.

And so, grumbling under his breath, Hajjaj went out to the gateway. There he found Tewfik looking, for once, quite humanly astonished. And there he also found Tassi, the wife of Iskakis the Yaninan minister. Polite as a cat, she bowed to him. “Good day, your Excellency,” she said. “I come to you, sir, seeking asylum from my husband, and from Marquis Balastro, and from everything and everyone outside Zuwayza.”

“Do-do-do you?” Hajjaj knew he was stammering, but couldn’t help it. He felt at least as astonished as Tewfik looked.

Tassi dipped her head, as she had at the reception: sure enough, a Yaninan nod. “I do. You see? I already begin to follow your customs.” By that, she meant she stood before him wearing only sandals and a straw hat. Marquis Balastro occasionally aped Zuwayzi nudity. With Balastro, the effect was more ludicrous than anything else. With Tassi…

All at once, Hajjaj understood that the Algarvian words nude and naked were not perfect synonyms. His own people, who took their bare skin for granted, were nude. Tassi was naked, using her skin for her own purposes. Sensuality came off her in waves.

And she knew as much, too, and relished the confusion-among other things-she paused. “Take me in, your Excellency, protect me,” she purred, “and I will do anything you like, anything at all. Take me in. I beg you.” Gracefully, she dropped to both knees. It wasn’t exactly, or solely, a begging gesture. It also promised something else. She bowed her head and waited.

“What will you do?” Tewfik hissed in Zuwayzi.

“Powers below eat me if I know,” Hajjaj replied in the same tongue. He switched back to Algarvian: “Get up, milady. The least you can do is have breakfast here. Afterwards… Afterwards, we shall see.” He was an old man, aye. Was he too old for such amusements? And if he wasn’t, how much would domestic relations with Tassi hurt foreign relations with Yanina?

Fernao woke to the sound of dripping. He’d fallen asleep to the sound of dripping, too. He’d lived with it for the past several days. He would have to go right on living with it for a good many more days to come, no matter how much it made him want to go running to the jakes. All around the hostel in the Naantali district, the ice and snow were melting. They would take a while to finish the job, and the ground would stay soupy for a while afterwards: till the sun, which spent more and more time in the sky every day, finally dried up the accumulated moisture. As it did in Unkerlant and the land of the Ice People, spring announced itself in southeastern Kuusamo with a great thaw.

A malignant buzzing penetrated the drips. A mosquito landed on Fernao’s arm, which lay outside the covers. The buzzing ceased. He slapped. The buzzing resumed. He cursed. That meant he’d missed the miserable thing.

Mosquitoes and gnats bred in puddles, of course. During the spring thaw, the Naantali district was all over puddles. For some time thereafter, it was all over mosquitoes and gnats, too. No wonder birds coming back from the north chose this time to mate and lay their eggs. They had plenty of food for themselves and for their youngsters, too. The only trouble was, they didn’t, couldn’t, come close to catching all the bugs. Plenty were left to torment people.

With a sigh, Fernao got out of bed and splashed cold water on his face. That wasn’t torture, as it would have been during the winter. It still did help wake him up. He put on clean drawers and a fresh tunic, then pulled on his kilt, tucked in the tunic, and went downstairs to the refectory.

Ilmarinen already sat down there, eating smoked salmon and onions and drinking tea. “That looks good,” Fernao said, sitting beside him and waving to a serving girl.

“It is,” Ilmarinen agreed. “But it’s mine. You can bloody well get your own.”

“I did intend to,” Fernao said mildly. The serving girl came up. Fernao pointed to Ilmarinen’s plate. “I’ll have what he’s having.” Seeing a wicked glint in the other theoretical sorcerer’s eye, Fernao corrected himself: “Not his helping, but the same thing as he’s having.” Balked, Ilmarinen subsided.

The serving girl ignored the byplay. She just nodded and went off to the kitchen. Fernao patted himself on the back. He didn’t win skirmishes with Ilmarinen all that often. Neither did anyone else.

Pekka walked into the refectory at the same time as Fernao’s breakfast arrived. Seeing him, she smiled and waved and came on over. He spoke quietly to Ilmarinen: “Could you let the two of us be for once? Life’s hard enough as is.”

“I could,” Ilmarinen said, but Fernao’s relief was short-lived, for he added, “That doesn’t necessarily mean I will.”

Pekka sat down by Fernao. The serving girl-Fernao was just as glad it wasn’t Linna-walked over and raised a questioning eyebrow. Pointing to Fernao, Pekka said, “I’ll have what he’s having.”

Without so much as looking at Ilmarinen, Fernao shoved his plate and teacup over to Pekka. “Here,” he said, deadpan, and nodded to the serving girl. “You can bring me more of the same.”

“All right.” Off she went again. The vagaries of mages fazed her not in the least.

“Something is going on here, and I don’t know what,” Pekka said darkly. She cast Ilmarinen a suspicious glance.

“I’m just sitting here,” he told her. “Why are you picking on me? If something is going on and you don’t understand it, you shouldn’t complain, anyhow. You should experiment to find out what it is.” His eyes flicked from her to Fernao and back again. “All sorts of interesting experiments you might try.”

Fernao kicked him under the table. Pekka couldn’t reach him to kick him, but looked as if she wanted to. Fernao had imagined some of those experiments. He didn’t dare say so. He wished he hadn’t given her his breakfast. Now he had nothing with which to busy himself.

Ilmarinen laughed, which only irked Fernao further-he knew he shouldn’t have asked the Kuusaman mage to go easy. “Why are you getting upset?” Ilmarinen asked. “I can’t be saying anything the two of you haven’t thought of for yourselves.”

“There is a difference between what I think and what I do.” Fernao switched from Kuusaman to classical Kaunian for the sake of greater precision: “If there were not, I would be wringing your neck right now instead of quietly sitting here.”

He’d hoped that might alarm Ilmarinen. Instead, it amused the elderly theoretical sorcerer, who laughed raucously. Fernao made himself stay in his chair, so that Ilmarinen never found out how close he did come to getting strangled. Ilmarinen finished his breakfast just as the serving girl brought Fernao more food. Getting to his feet, the master mage nodded to Fernao and Pekka in turn. “Well, I’m off,” he said cheerily. “I’m sure the two of you have a lot to talk about, so you won’t want me around anyhow.” Away he went, whistling a tune that sounded bawdy.

At least Fernao did have something to do now, and he did it: he concentrated on his breakfast. He concentrated so fiercely, in fact, that when Pekka said something he didn’t notice what it was, and hardly noticed she’d spoken at all. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking up from his smoked salmon and blinking. “I’m afraid I missed that.”