"No, not at Yliharma," the man from Ventspils agreed. "They did something nasty with the life energy they stole, something that helped them and hurt us. I don't know any more about it than that. I don't think anybody in Valmiera knows much more about it than that."

He'd succeeded in making Skarnu curious. He'd also let him know his curiosity wouldn't be satisfied. Scowling, Skarnu said, "Who are these two fellows, and how will you bring them here without bringing Mezentio's men, too?"

"I won't," the painter said. "You'll go to them. You know that little village you visited once before? Tomorrow, about noon, a wagon will stop here. The man driving it will say, 'The Column of Victory.' You answer, 'Will rise again.' He'll take you where you're going."

"What if he doesn't say that?" Skarnu asked.

"Run like blazes," the other irregular leader answered. As if he'd said everything he'd come to say, he turned on his heel and ambled back toward Ventspils.

Sure enough, the wagon turned up the next day. Skarnu warily approached. The driver said what he was supposed to say. Skarnu gave the countersign. The driver nodded. Skarnu climbed aboard. The driver flicked the reins and clucked to the horses.

They got to the village a day and a half later. By then, Skarnu thought his fundament was turning to stone. The driver seemed undisturbed. He even chuckled at the old man's hobble with which Skarnu made for the house that served as the underground's nerve center.

The woman he'd met there at his last visit let him in. She gave him bread and beer, which were both welcome, and let him sit down on a soft chair, which at the moment seemed almost as fine as falling into Merkela's arms. He let out a long sigh of pleasure before asking, "I'm to meet someone?"

"So you are," she said. "Let me go upstairs and get them. I'll be back directly." Skarnu was perfectly content for her to take as much time as she wanted. He could have sat in that chair forever without minding in the least. But she came back, far too soon to suit him fully, with a couple of men dressed in the shabby homespun of farmers- dressed much as he was, as a matter of fact.

He had to heave himself to his feet to greet them. His back groaned when he rose. But then, to his astonishment, he discovered he recognized both newcomers. "Amatu! Lauzdonu! I thought you were dead."

"No such luck," said Lauzdonu, the taller of the two. He grinned and pumped Skarnu's hand.

"We were both flying dragons down in the south when the collapse came," Amatu added.

"I knew that," Skarnu said. "That's why I thought you'd bought a plot."

"Came close a few times," Lauzdonu said in the offhand way of a man who had indeed had death brush his sleeve a time or two. "The Algarvians had too many dragons down there- nothing like a fair fight."

"They had too much of everything all over the place," Skarnu said bitterly.

"That they did," Amatu agreed. "But when the surrender order came, neither one of us could stomach it. We climbed on our dragons and flew across the Strait of Valmiera to Lagoas, and we've been in Setubal ever since." His lip curled. "They're Algarvic over there, too, but at least they're on our side."

Skarnu remembered that Amatu had always been a snob. Lauzdonu, who had somewhat more charity in him, put in, "Aye, they kept fighting even when things looked blackest."

"Well, so did you two," Skarnu said. "And so did I." And if more Valmieran nobles had, we'd have given Mezentio's men a harder time, he thought. But most of them, and a lot of the kingdom's commoners, had made their accommodations. Inevitably, his sister sprang to mind yet again. To force the thought of Krasta down, he asked, "And what are you doing here on the right side of the Strait again?"

Their faces, which had been smiling and excited, closed down again. Skarnu knew what that meant: they had orders they couldn't talk about. Lauzdonu tried to make light of it, saying, "How's that pretty sister of yours, my lord Marquis?"

"My lord Count, she's sleeping with a redhead." Skarnu's voice went flat and harsh.

Lauzdonu and Amatu both exclaimed then, the one in surprise, the other in outrage. Lauzdonu strode forward to lay a sympathetic hand on Skarnu's shoulder. Skarnu wanted to shake it off, but made himself endure it. Amatu said, "Something ought to happen to her, and to her lover, too."

"I wouldn't mind," Skarnu said. "I wouldn't mind at all." He eyed the two nobles he'd known in Priekule. "You may have to talk to me sooner or later. They brought me here to go with you, wherever it is you're going."

"Better you than that leviathan-rider who fetched us from Lagoas," Amatu said. "He told us he was a Sib, but he could have passed for an Algarvian any day."

"It'll be good to have you along," Lauzdonu said. "After all, it's been going on three years since we left. We don't know who's alive, who's dead… who chose the wrong bloody side." He patted Skarnu again.

"Where are you going?" Skarnu asked. "I won't ask what you'll do when you get there, but I do need to know that."

"Zarasai," Lauzdonu answered. Amatu's lip curled again. To him, any town that wasn't the capital really wasn't worth visiting. Lauzdonu seemed to have a clearer understanding of the way things worked: "If we go to Priekule, somebody will betray us to the Algarvians."

"That's why I haven't gone back," Skarnu agreed. He nodded to the two of them. Priekule, then Setubal- they'd been spoiled, and they didn't even know it. "You'll find the rest of the countryside isn't so bad. And" -he turned serious- "you'll find you do better if you don't let on that you've got noble blood."

"Commoners getting out of hand, are they?" Amatu said. "Well, we'll tend to that once we've beaten the Algarvians, by the powers above."

"I'm surprised you didn't take your dragons up to Jelgava," Skarnu murmured. "You'd have felt right at home there." Amatu stared at him in annoyed incomprehension. Lauzdonu snickered and then tried to pretend he hadn't. Jelgavan nobles had long since given themselves a name for reaction. That Amatu couldn't hear how he sounded warned that he would indeed have fit right in.

Lauzdonu said, "Skarnu knows how things work these days, better than we do."

"I suppose so," Amatu spoke grudgingly.

"Zarasai." Skarnu spoke in musing tones. "Well, among other things, that's a good place to monitor the ley lines coming down toward the coast from the north and west."

"What are you talking about?" Amatu sounded impatient, in a way that reminded Skarnu achingly of Krasta. Lauzdonu murmured in the other returned exile's ear. "Oh." Amatu's nod was reluctant, too, even after he got the point. Skarnu wondered what he'd done to make the irregulars hate him enough to saddle himself with these two. Maybe it's their revenge on me for being of noble blood myself. He sighed. The Algarvians were the only people on whom he wanted that much revenge.

A Valmieran waiter fawned on Colonel Lurcanio- and, incidentally, on Krasta, too. Krasta expected servile deference from commoners. So did Lurcanio: servile deference of a slightly different sort, the deference of the conquered to their conquerors. Since he got it here, he seemed happy enough. In fact, he seemed happier than he had for quite some time.

"The war news must be good," Krasta ventured.

"Better, at any rate," Lurcanio allowed. "Even if the cursed Unkerlanters did keep us from retaking Durrwangen, they won't be doing anything much for some weeks. General Mud has replaced General Winter over there, you see."

"No, I don't see." Krasta's voice had an edge in it. "What are you talking about? Why do you always talk in riddles?"

"No riddle," he said, and then paused while the waiter brought him white wine and Krasta ale. When the fellow scurried off again, Lurcanio resumed: "No riddle, I say, merely mud, a great, gluey sea of it. And when the fighting starts again, it will be on our terms, not King Swemmel's." He raised his wineglass. "To victory!"