After the Downfall

The Lord of Bucovin nodded. “Yes. I would not have thought that, but yes. And you realize you will not be leaving Falticeni, either, or not without guards, not until the bonehunters have returned.”

As steadily as he could, Hasso nodded back. “No one is ever going to trust me again. That is part of what is, too. Not what I like, but what is.”

“We will see what we can do about what you like.” Zgomot sent Hasso away without explaining himself – he had the ruler’s privilege of the last word.

Hasso didn’t think the Bucovinans had beauty contests. If they did, the girl who came to his room that night would have finished no worse than third ru

“Anything?” Hasso said.

“Anything.” Tsiam nodded, but she couldn’t keep a touch of fear from her voice. Who could guess what big blond foreigners might like?

“What would you do if it were up to you?” Hasso asked.

“Why, whatever Lord Zgomot told me to do, of course,” Tsiam answered.

“Let me say it a different way. Where would you be if Lord Zgomot didn’t tell you to be here?”

“With Otset. But he’s starting to get tired of me. That’s why Zgomot sent me to you.”

Otset was the Bucovinan who’d warned King Bottero to turn back not long before the natives laid their trap and captured Hasso. Up till now, Hasso had thought he was pretty smart. But if he was, why would he get tired of a girl as pretty as Tsiam? One more try: “Do you want to be here? If you don’t, you don’t have to be. You can go.”

“You don’t want me?” Tsiam seemed – affronted?

“Not unless you want me.”

She frowned. “How do we really know till we try?”

And what am I supposed to say to that? Hasso wondered. He found only one thing, and he said it: “Come on, then, and we try.”

Try they did. When it was over, neither one of them would have called it a success. Tsiam said, “You were thinking about someone else, weren’t you?”

“Afraid so,” Hasso answered. “I’m sorry. Don’t mean for it to show so much.”

She shrugged. “Nothing much to do about it. Do you want me to bother coming back?”

“No. It’s all right. Tell Lord Zgomot I am not angry at you – that is the truth. I thank you for your kindness. Tell Lord Zgomot I thank him for his. But this is not what I am after.”

“All right. I hope you find it, whatever it is.” Tsiam quickly dressed and slipped out of the room. Hasso made a fist and slammed it down onto the mattress. That didn’t do him any good, either.

He was eating a glum breakfast the next morning when Drepteaza set her bowl of mush down by his. “By Lavtrig, why doesn’t Tsiam suit you?” she asked. “She’s much prettier than I ever will be. And after spending a couple of years learning to please Otset, she’s bound to be better in bed, too.”

“Then why doesn’t he want her anymore?” Hasso asked.

“He’s had time to get bored with her. You gave her one night.”

Hasso shrugged. “She isn’t what I want.” He paused to spoon up some more of the mush, and to wash it down with bad Bucovinan beer. None of that changed his mind, so he went on, “You are. You know that.”

“Yes. I do know that. It only makes things harder for both of us.” Drepteaza looked down at the rough planks of the tabletop.

“I’m sorry. Not sorry, but – you know.” Again, Hasso hated stumbling through a language he didn’t speak well. “Curse it, do you fall in love just where you are supposed to?”

“I haven’t fallen in love at all, so I can’t really answer that,” Drepteaza answered. “But you, Hasso Pemsel – it seems to me that you look for the worst places to fall in love, and then go and do that.”

If she’d mocked him, he would have gone up like jellied gasoline. But she didn’t. She simply sounded as if she was telling him how things looked to her. And maybe she wasn’t so far wrong. He doubted he would have had a happy ending with Velona even if the Bucovinans didn’t capture him. Something else would have gone wrong, or she would have found somebody new. And then … No, that wouldn’t have been pretty. It might have been lethal. Velona herself had warned him.

He didn’t want to think about Velona. It still hurt. So did thinking about Drepteaza, but not the same way. Stubbornly, he said, “You are not a bad place to fall in love. You are the best place I know.”

“Here,” she said: one quiet word that hit him the way a Panzerfaust blew the turret off a Soviet T-34. His face must have shown as much, for she softened it a little: “Maybe I would not be such a bad place for you if I felt for you what you feel for me. But I don’t. I almost wish I did. It would make things easier for Bucovin.”

“This is not about Bucovin. I do plenty for Bucovin.”

“I know you’ve done plenty for Bucovin – more than I could,” Drepteaza said quickly. “But you’re right. This has nothing to do with that. This is just about us.

“No us to be about,” Hasso said, which held more truth than grammar.

Drepteaza understood it anyway, and nodded to show she did. “That is what this is about – why there is no us,” she said.

“Us takes two,” Hasso said. “Without two, forget it. If you don’t like me -”

“It’s not even that,” she broke in. “By now, I know you as well as anyone in Falticeni is likely to.” She was bound to be right, especially with the qualification. A couple of people back in Drammen, or wherever they were these days … But that was another story, and looked as if it always would be. The priestess went on, “You are brave. You are not stupid – anything but stupid. You are not a bad man. If only -”

“If only I don’t look the way I do,” he broke in.

She nodded. “Yes, that might do it,” she said.

“Maybe I should wear a mask. Maybe I should walk on my knees.” Hasso was joking, and yet he wasn’t.

Drepteaza understood that, too. “You are trying to be as difficult as you can,” she said, her voice full of mock severity – or maybe it wasn’t mock at all.

Hasso bowed. “At your service,” he said. “Or I would be, only.

“Yes. Only,” Drepteaza said. “I am sorry. If I could do anything about it, I would, and that is the truth.”

He thought about telling her he was such a wonderful lover he would make her forget all about the way he looked. If he were speaking German, he might have tried it. In Bucovinan, it was bound to come out wrong. He didn’t even want to imagine it in Lenello. Lenello was what he was doing his best to stay away from.

Much better not to try a line like that than to botch it. So he said, “No mask and knees, eh? Maybe I make a magic to look like one of your folk instead.” He remembered, too late, that Velona had done something like that. He waited for Drepteaza to throw it in his face.

She didn’t – not directly, anyhow. She said, “A spell like that might not work in Falticeni. And even if you did use magic, that would remind me of what you… what you look like. I know it is not what you are. But what you look like matters, too. What a woman looks like matters to you, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.” He wished he could have said no, but he knew damn well he wasn’t that good a liar. He could add, “A woman doesn’t have to be big and blond to be pretty for me. This is the truth.” He held up his right hand with first two fingers upraised, as if taking an oath back in Germany.

“I believe you,” Drepteaza said; he couldn’t tell if she understood the gesture. “But most men are less fussy than most women when it comes to such things. Often enough, even a Grenye will do.”

“You talk about the Lenelli. I am no Lenello, no matter what I look like.”

“You look like one, no matter what you are.” The old impasse. You’re ugly. Go away.

“I can’t help what I am,” he muttered.

“And I can’t help what I feel,” Drepteaza said. “I almost wish -”