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"You know how Herborn's fallen to the Unkerlanters," he said.

"Oh, aye." Vanai nodded. "The news sheets finally admitted that a couple of days ago, when they couldn't not admit it anymore, if you know what I mean."

"That's right- and the Algarvians and Plegmund's stinking Brigade were going to chase the Unkerlanters out again any minute now. I lose track of the lies sometimes," Ealstan said. "Well, Pybba knows more than the news sheets do. For instance, had you heard the Unkerlanters caught King Mezentio's cousin Raniero, the fellow he'd named King of Grelz?"

"No!" Vanai kissed Ealstan again, this time for bringing home such wonderful news. "What are they going to do to him?" To her way of thinking- Brivibas' way of thinking, too, but her grandfather never entered her mind- the Unkerlanters were barbarous enough to be capable of anything.

"They've already done it," Ealstan told her. "That's the real news. They held a ceremony in Herborn and boiled him alive."

"Oh." For once, the lurch Vanai's stomach gave had nothing to do with her pregnancy. "That's…" She didn't know quite what it was. "I wouldn't wish it on…" Why wouldn't you wish it on an Algarvian? she wondered. You've wished plenty of worse things on them, and what they've done to your own folk makes them deserve every one. "Good riddance," she said at last.

"Aye, just so," Ealstan said. "That's how they serve up rebels. And they slaughter their own folk when… to strike back at the Algarvians."

When the Algarvians slaughter Kaunians, he hadn't said, even if he'd started to. He tried to spare her feelings. And Forthwegians looked down on their cousins to the west hardly less than the Kaunians of Forthweg did. The only difference was, the Kaunians of Forthweg looked down on the Forthwegians, too.

Ealstan went into the kitchen and came back with two mugs of wine. He handed Vanai one and raised the other in a toast: "Down with Algarve!" He drank.

"Down with Algarve!" Vanai would always drink to that. The mere idea made any wine sweeter.

Over supper, Ealstan said, "One of these days before too long, Swemmel's men are bound to strike blows in the north to match the ones they're making down in Grelz."

"Is that something else Pybba knows but the news sheets don't?" Vanai asked.

He shook his head. "No. I wish it were. But it stands to reason, doesn't it? They'll want to run the redheads out of all of their kingdom, not just part of it."

"If they do run them out of Unkerlant, they'll run them back into Forthweg- and then they'll come after them," Vanai said. "That stands to reason, too."

"Aye." To her surprise, Ealstan didn't look so happy about it. He explained why: "We don't get rid of our occupiers. We only trade one set for another."

"It's a good trade," Vanai said. Ealstan nodded, but with something less than full enthusiasm. It would certainly be a good trade for Forthweg's surviving Kaunians; the Unkerlanters didn't much care about Kaunianity one way or the other. But an Unkerlanter occupation might not be such a good trade for the Forthwegians themselves. The men of Swemmel's kingdom liked them no better than they liked Unkerlanters.