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When the battering was done, he could hardly see out of one eye. He tasted blood, though no teeth seemed broken. One of his feet throbbed: a guard had stamped down hard on it. His ribs ached. So did his belly.

Calmly, the interrogator said, "Now, then- who else knew that you were plotting treason against King Mainardo?"

"No one," Talsu gasped. "Do you want me to make up names? What good would that do you?"

"If you want to name some of your friends and neighbors, go ahead," the interrogator said. "We will haul them in and question them most thoroughly. Here is paper. Here is a pen. Go ahead and write."

"But they wouldn't have done anything," Talsu said. "I'd just be making it up. You'd know I was just making it up."

"Suppose you let us worry about that," the interrogator said. "Once you make the accusations, things will go much easier for you. We might even think about letting you go."

"I don't understand," Talsu said, and that was true: he had trouble understanding anything but his own pain. The Jelgavan constabulary captain didn't answer. He just steepled his fingertips and waited. So did the guards with sticks. So did the bully boys who'd beaten Talsu.

It would be so easy, Talsu thought. I could give them what they want, and then they wouldn't hurt me anymore. He started to ask the interrogator to hand him the pen and paper. What happened to the people he might name didn't seem very important. It would, after all, be happening to someone else.

But what would happen to him? Nothing? That didn't seem likely. All at once, he saw the answer with horrid clarity. If he gave the Algarvians- or rather, their watchdog here- a few names, they would want more. After he gave them a first batch, how could he refuse to give them a second, and then a third? How could he refuse them anything after that? He couldn't. Had Kugu the silversmith started by making up a few names, too? Talsu gathered himself. "There wasn't anybody else," he said.

They beat him again before frog-marching him back to his cell. He'd expected they would. He'd hoped his armor of virtue would make the beating hurt less. It didn't. And he didn't get the bowl of mush he'd missed when they took him away. Even so, he slept well that night.

***

The blizzard screamed around the hostel in the barren wilderness of southeastern Kuusamo. It left Pekka feeling trapped, almost as if she were in prison. She and her fellow mages had come here so they could experiment without anyone else but a few reindeer noticing. That made good sense; some of the things they were doing would have wrecked good-sized chunks of Yliharma or Kajaani even if they went perfectly. And if some of those experiments escaped control… Pekka's shiver had nothing to do with the ghastly weather.