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"Tell it to the Algarvians," Vanai said savagely. "In summer, they go forward in Unkerlant. In winter, they go back." Before Ealstan could answer, she made her own commentary to that: "Except this year, powers below eat them, they couldn't go forward in summer. They tried, but they couldn't."

"No." Ealstan's voice held the same fierce, gloating joy as hers. "Nothing came easy for them this year. And now there's fighting down in Sibiu, too. I don't think that's going so well for the redheads, either, or they'd say more about it in the news sheets."

"Here's hoping you're right," Vanai said. "The thinner they spread themselves, the better." She stooped and plucked up a couple of horse mushrooms, slightly more flavorful cousins to ordinary meadow mushrooms. As she put them in her basket, she sighed. "I don't think there are as many interesting kinds around Eoforwic as there were back where we came from."

"I think you're right." Ealstan started to add something else, but broke off and looked at her with an expression she'd come to recognize. Sure enough, he said, "Your sorcery's slipped again."

Vanai's mouth twisted. "It shouldn't have. I renewed it not long before we walked to the caravan stop."

"Well, it has," her husband said. "Is it my imagination, or has the spell been fading faster since you got pregnant?"

"I don't know," Vanai said. "Maybe. It's a good thing nobody's close by, that's all." Now she hurried for the shelter of the oaks- not that they gave much shelter, with most of the leaves off the branches. She took out her two precious lengths of yarn, twirled them together, and made the spell anew. "Is it all right?" she asked.

"Aye." Ealstan nodded. Now he looked thoughtful. "I wonder why it isn't holding so long these days. Maybe because you've got more life energy in you now, and so the spell has more to cover."

"It could be. It sounds logical," Vanai said. "But I hope you're wrong. I hope I just didn't cast the spell quite right. I could have lost the disguise on the caravan car, not out here where no one but you saw me." Her shiver, again, had nothing to do with the chilly, nasty weather. "That would have been very bad."

***

"Forward!" Sergeant Leudast shouted. "Aye, forward, by the powers above!" Since the great battles in the Durrwangen bulge, he'd shouted the order to advance again and again. It still tasted sweet as honey, still felt strong as spirits, in his mouth. He might almost have been telling a pretty woman he loved her.

But the men holed up in the village ahead didn't love him or his comrades. The ragged banners flapping in the chilly breeze there were green and gold- the colors of what the Algarvians called the Kingdom of Grelz. As far as Leudast was concerned, that kingdom didn't exist. The Grelzers blazing at his company from those battered huts had a different opinion.

"Death to the traitors!" Captain Recared yelled. Somewhere in the long fight between Durrwangen and west-central Grelz, a promotion had finally caught up with him. Leudast couldn't remember where. It didn't matter to him. Promotion or no, Recared kept doing the same job. Leudast kept doing the same job, too, and nobody would ever promote him to lieutenant's rank. He was sure of that. He had neither the bloodlines nor the pull to become an officer. "Death to the traitors!" Recared cried again, from behind a pale-barked birch tree.