After the Downfall (10 page)

Patiently, Hasso repeated himself. The basket-seller shrugged a fancy shrug. “I don’t understand you.”

He added something in a language that wasn’t Lenello and spread his hands as if in apology.

“He’s lying,” Aderno said from behind Hasso.

“Yes,” Hasso agreed, because the phrase for
No kidding
didn’t spring to mind.

“I can make him sweat.” Aderno sounded as if he looked forward to it.

“No,” Hasso said; Lenello could make him laconic. He turned back to the Grenye. “By the goddess, no harm to Scanno. Where can I find him?”

“By the goddess?” the man said, watching his eyes.

“By the goddess,” Hasso said again. “Her name is Velona when she dwells in a woman. I know the woman.”

“Ah,” the Grenye said, suddenly able to understand him - or more willing to admit he did. “You’re that one. I wasn’t sure before.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
Hasso wondered. The basket-seller went on, “He mostly drinks at Negustor’s tavern.” He rattled off directions too fast for Hasso to follow. Turning to the wizard, Hasso asked, “You have that?”

“I have it,” Aderno said grimly, sounding as if he wished he could throw it away. “We go there, we’re asking to get knocked over the head.”

“Tell me - slow - how to go. I go by myself, then. You stay behind,” Hasso said.

“I ought to,” Aderno exclaimed. But Hasso shamed him into leading the way, as he’d thought he might. When they left the road to the east gate, everything got even smellier and dirtier and more crowded than it had before. The muddy streets were hardly wide enough to let Hasso stretch out his arms without hitting buildings to either side. He had to flatten himself against a wall when two Grenye led several heavily burdened donkeys up one alley.

“Excuse us, masters,” the men said, doffing their lumpy brown wool caps. The things reminded Hasso of cowflops.

“We shouldn’t get out of the way for Grenye,” Aderno said.

“Not do that. Get out of the way for donkeys,” Hasso said, which left his companion scratching his head.

Negustor’s tavern stood next door to what seemed to be a pawnshop and across the street from what was undoubtedly a brothel. A bare-breasted Grenye woman in an upstairs window shouted an invitation to Hasso and Aderno, then mocked their manhood when they ignored her. Hasso thought it was a good thing the day was clear; had raindrops hit the wizard’s skin, they probably would have burst into steam. Inside the tavern, Hasso had to duck his head. The ceiling was plenty high for Grenye, but not for him or Aderno. It was dark and gloomy and smoky enough to make his eyes sting. Along with the smoke from the torches, the place smelled of stale beer and sour piss.

Hasso looked around. Grenye drank at the bar, and at several tables. They were looking at him, too, and not with anything approaching warmth. A new dog in the neighborhood would have got the same kind of once-over. He wondered whether somebody would be drunk and angry enough to pick a fight. Meanwhile, there was Scanno. He wasn’t a big Lenello, which meant he was about Hasso’s size. But, even sitting down, he was noticeably bigger - to say nothing of noticeably blonder - than the Grenye at the table with him. And he was also noticeably drunker, swaying on his stool as he poured down what was obviously at least one too many large mugs of beer.

One of his small, dark drinking buddies left as soon as Hasso and Aderno came far enough into the tavern to give him a clear path to the door. Hasso wondered who wanted him, and for what, and how badly. But that was a question for another day. He went up to the Grenye behind the counter - Negustor himself? - set a small silver coin on the counter, and said, “Beer, please.”

The tapman blinked. Had he ever heard
please
from a Lenello? Even from Scanno? Or from anyone at all? He made the coin disappear, then dipped up a mug, filling it quite full. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” Hasso turned. “Want something, Aderno?”

To get out of here.
Every line of Aderno shouted it. But the wizard just said, “Wine.” He set down a coin, too. The tapman took it and gave him a smaller mug. Aderno tasted, made a sour face, and sighed. Hasso dug out another coin. He pointed to Scanno. “One for him, too, please.”

“He needs more beer like a drowning man needs a boulder,” the tapman said, but he dipped out one more mug.

Hasso took it and carried it over to Scanno’s table. “Here,” he said, setting it down in front of the Lenello. “Join you?”

“Hang on.” Scanno drained the mug he already had. Then he patted the stool to his left that that Grenye had hastily vacated. “Anybeery who buys me bod’s a friend of mine.” He frowned, knowing that wasn’t right, but fixing it seemed too much trouble.

Aderno, disapproval sticking out of him like a porcupine’s quills, perched gingerly on another stool. The Grenye next to whom he sat down upended his mug and also made a quick exit. The one on Hasso’s left stayed where he was. Innocent? Curious? Dangerous?
I’ll find out,
Hasso thought. Scanno’s eyes had as many red tracks as a railroad map of the
Reich.
God only knew when he’d last combed his beard. He stank of sweat, alcohol, and stale hops. “Well, friend, waddaya want?” he asked, slurring his words so Hasso could barely understand him. “You out slumming?”

“We want to talk to you,” Hasso answered.

Scanno took a pull from the fresh mug of beer. “Piss in the river.” He eyed Hasso, blinking blearily. No matter how bleary he was, his ears still worked. “You’re no Lenello,” he said. “I’ve heard plenty of Grenye who talk our lingo better’n you. Who are you? Where are you from?”

“My name is Hasso Pemsel.”
And now you know as much as you did before.
“I am from a different world. Magic. I am in King Bottero’s service now.”

That might have been the funniest thing Scanno ever heard. He laughed till tears ran down his cheeks and into his matted beard. “You came from another world and you couldn’t do any better’n joining up with Buttfart? The goddess must hate you bad, pal.”

Aderno audibly ground his teeth. Hasso kicked him in the ankle under the table. He said, “The goddess does not hate me.” There, at least, he could be positive. Then he asked, “What is better than to serve the king?”

“Anything short of an arrow in the ass,” Scanno answered. That was plenty for the last Grenye at the table, who got out while the getting was good. Scanno went on, “I mean, look at me.” He jabbed a thumb at his chest. “I serve myself, nobody else. I’m better off than your shadow here any day of the month, ‘cause I’m free.”

“Your so-called freedom is a recommendation for slavery,” Aderno said icily.

“Hush,” Hasso told him. The wizard looked not only affronted but alarmed. Was he wondering whether Hasso was about to join the forces of drunken lawlessness? It looked that way to the German. He’d succeeded in surprising Scanno, too. “What’s with you?” the renegade said. “You look like a Lenello, but you sure don’t act like one.”

“Is better to act like Grenye?” Hasso asked. That made Aderno perk up, deciding Hasso likely was on King Bottero’s side after all.

And Scanno, drunk and hoping he’d found a friend, wasn’t on his guard. “You’re cursed well right it is,”

he said. “Would I be here if it wasn’t?” He drained the mug Hasso had bought him. Hasso signaled to the tapman, who carried over another one. Scanno would have a head that pounded like a drop-forging plant when he came down from this bender, but that was his worry.

He seemed to think the fresh beer had got there of its own accord. “What do you have against your own folk?” Hasso asked him.

“Waddaya think?” Scanno said. Since Hasso had no idea, he kept quiet and waited. Scanno got to his feet and staggered over to a corner, his gait like a ship at full sail on a rough sea. After easing himself, he lurched back. For a wonder, he remembered where he’d been going before the interruption: “Ever watch a twelve-year-old steal a ripe pear from a kid half his size?”

“I know what you mean,” Hasso said. And he did. The image held a lot of truth. Aderno looked as if he were about to burst. Hasso kicked him under the table again. Aderno’s idea of gathering intelligence was tearing what you wanted to know out of whoever had it. Teasing it out seemed beyond his mental horizon.

“Well, that’s what we’re doing here,” Scanno said. “By the goddess, it
is!
I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I said a plague on it - and here I am.”

“What about Bucovin?” Hasso said. “Bucovin not so small. Not so...” He looked for a word, and was glad to find one without needing help from the wizard: “Not so easy.”

“Bucovin had time to figure things out, see?” Scanno said. “The little Grenye kingdoms, the ones by the sea, they went down bam, bam, bam like nobody’s business. They never knew what hit ‘em. But Bucovin watched and started figuring stuff out.”

“Like what?” Hasso asked. “Bucovin full of Grenye. No magic in Bucovin. How to fight against Lenello wizards?”

“Magic? Magic - “ Scanno spat on the straw-strewn dirt floor.
“That
for magic! That’s about what it’s worth.”

“Shall I sing you up a case of boils, wretch?” No, Aderno wouldn’t keep his mouth shut even when he needed to. “Shall I show you what magic’s worth?”

“You’ve got emerods on your tongue, Turdface,” Scanno said. Hasso had spent enough time in Lenello barracks to have no trouble with the insult. Scanno aimed a shaky finger in Aderno’s direction. “I knew what you were before you started bragging. I could smell it, I could. Do your worst. You’re not such a big pile of shit as you think you are.”

Holding Aderno back after that would have been impossible. Hasso didn’t even try. The wizard snarled his spell - plainly one he knew well - rather than singing it. “Skin break, skin bubble, skin burn!” he cried, and aimed his finger the way Hasso would have aimed his Schmeisser: with purpose and with malice.

“Transform! Transform! Transform!”

And nothing happened.

Aderno stared at Scanno, who was drunk and surly but not disfigured. He stared at his finger as Hasso would have stared at the submachine gun after a misfire. Hasso could hope to clear a jam. What did you do when magic misfired?

The first thing Aderno did was try the spell he’d used on Hasso when they met in the courtyard of Castle Svarag. He sketched a star in the air between himself and Scanno. Hasso saw him do it, but didn’t see the star glow on its own, as it had when the wizard did it with him.

Aderno did some more staring, this time at his own index finger. He tried the spell with Hasso, who saw the same golden star he had before. After Aderno made sure he had, the wizard shook his head. “The magic seems to be in order. But - “

“It doesn’t work,” Hasso finished for him.

“It doesn’t work,” Aderno agreed. “And I don’t know why not. This miserable sot has no magic, used no magic. And yet my spell would not bite. And I don’t know why.” A German engineer couldn’t have sounded any more upset if he’d watched a book fall up instead of down.

“Told you so, know-it-all,” Scanno jeered.

Lenello magic, from what Hasso had heard, grew weak and erratic in Bucovin. Scanno was right here, but Aderno’s magic didn’t want to work against him, either. What did that mean? Hasso had no idea. Plainly, neither did Aderno.

V

Aderno wanted to take Scanno back to Castle Drammen to experiment on him. The wizard didn’t put it in quite those words, but that was what it boiled down to. Scanno, not surprisingly, didn’t want to go.

“You aren’t going to play games with me,” he said.

“It’s for the good of the Lenelli,” Aderno said.

Scanno blew beer fumes in his face as he laughed. “Like I care!”

“Come on,” Aderno said to Hasso. “We can get him there.”

Hasso didn’t feel like fighting a drunk who was unlikely even to notice if he got hurt. He also didn’t want to wreck whatever chance they had of getting voluntary cooperation from Scanno. “Forget it,” he said in Lenello, so Scanno could follow. “We come back a different time.”

“I wouldn’t come back here for half the gold in the treasury!” the wizard exclaimed.

“Fine,” Hasso said. ‘
I
come back a different time.”

“You’re a peculiar one,” Scanno said. “You belong with me, not with this tight-arsed twit.”

“No.” Hasso let it go there. He didn’t want to tell the renegade that he’d killed Grenye. He didn’t want to tell him he was sleeping with the goddess on earth, either. If Scanno asked around, he could hear it for himself. Hasso got to his feet. “Come on. We go.”

The tapman gave him a polite nod as he left. He nodded back, which seemed to surprise the Grenye again.

Out on the street, Aderno lost his temper. “What do you think you’re doing, taking that lout’s side? Are you crazy? Are you a traitor, too?”

“Shut up,” Hasso said in Lenello, an officer’s snap in his voice. He went on in German, knowing the wizard would understand and the Grenye all around wouldn’t: “Let him think I’m on his side, or I might be. Let him think that, and who knows how much we may learn from him? Get rough now, and we end up with nothing.”

Aderno gaped. “Maybe you’re playing your own game. Maybe you think all of us are children.”

“You act like it sometimes.” Hasso said that in Lenello. Aderno flushed, for he used the second-person singular, not plural.

A Grenye with a pheasant feather stuck in his cap said something about his nice, clean sister and pointed to the brothel across the street. Hasso shook his head. The Grenye didn’t want to take no for an answer. He reached out to tug at Hasso’s arm. Aderno said something too fast for the
Wehrmacht officer
to follow. The Grenye got it, though. He disappeared in a hurry.

“If our magic fails against the Grenye, how are we supposed to conquer Bucovin?” Aderno said.

“Maybe you do it one bite at a time,” Hasso answered. “Maybe you go on to Falticeni and take it away from their king.”

“Their chief, you mean,” the Lenello said scornfully.

“Whatever he is.” It didn’t matter to Hasso. “Or maybe you decide it’s too much trouble and you leave them alone. We had a big neighbor who we thought would be a pushover, too. That’s why I was fighting in what was left of my own capital.” If the
Führer
had gone after England instead of trying to knock out Russia ... Well, things could hardly have turned out worse.