Out of the Darkness

So did Fernao. Since he was a good deal taller, he could see more. When he exclaimed, Pekka couldn’t tell whether he was delighted or horrified. A moment later, he spoke two words that explained why perfectly well: “Ilmarinen’s back.”

“Is he?” Pekka said, in tones identical to his.

Back Ilmarinen was. He somehow contrived to look raffish even in the uniform of a Kuusaman colonel. Catching sight of Fernao, who stood out not only on account of his inches but also for his red hair, the elderly theoretical sorcerer waved and made his way toward him, shaking off the mages and servants clustering round. A few steps later, Ilmarinen caught sight of Pekka, too, and waved again.

Pekka waved back, trying to show more enthusiasm than she felt. What’s he going to say, seeing the two of us together? she wondered. It was a question whose answer she could have done without.

What Ilmarinen did say was, “I was very sorry to hear about Leino. He was a good man. I’d hoped to see him in Jelgava, but I got up to the front just too late.”

“Thank you,” Pekka answered. She couldn’t find anything exceptionable in that.

“Aye.” Ilmarinen spoke almost absently. He looked from her to Fernao and back again. Glowering up at the Jelgavan, he said, “You’d better take good care of her.”

“I can take care of myself, Master Ilmarinen,” Pekka said sharply.

Ilmarinen waved that aside, as being of no account. He waited for Fernao to speak. “I’m doing my best,” Fernao said.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” Ilmarinen said with a dismissive snort. He waved a forefinger under Fernao’s nose. “If you make her unhappy, I’ll tear your arm off and beat you to death with it, do you understand me? I’m not kidding.”

“Master Ilmarinen--” Pekka felt herself flush.

“I didn’t think you were, Master,” Fernao said seriously, almost as if he were speaking to Pekka’s father.

But Ilmarinen wasn’t feeling fatherly: old, perhaps, but not fatherly. “By the powers above, if I were twenty years younger--ten years younger, even--I’d give you a run for your money, you overgrown galoot, see if I wouldn’t.”

“Master Ilmarinen!” Pekka hadn’t thought her cheeks could get any hotter. Now she discovered she’d been wrong.

She wondered if Fernao would laugh in Ilmarinen’s face. That wouldn’t have been a good idea. To her relief, Fernao saw as much for himself. Nodding soberly, he said, “I believe you.” Pekka believed him, too. Master Siuntio would have tempted her more. Ilmarinen? She just didn’t know about Ilmarinen, and she never had. In a land of steady, reliable people, he was hair-raisingly erratic. About three days out of four, she found that a bad bargain. The fourth, it seemed oddly attractive.

“You’d better believe me, you redheaded--” Ilmarinen began.

Before he could get any further, though, he found himself upstaged. Pekka wondered if that had ever happened before; Ilmarinen usually did the upstaging. But now Linna the serving woman whooped, “Illy! Sweetie!” and threw herself into the theoretical sorcerer’s arms.

“Illy?” Pekka echoed, deliciously dazed. She couldn’t imagine anyone calling Ilmarinen that. When she thought about it, she also had trouble imagining anyone calling him sweetie.

As Linna kissed Ilmarinen--and as he responded with an enthusiasm that said he wasn’t so very old after all--Fernao said, “Obviously, Master, you have a prior commitment here.”

When Ilmarinen wasn’t otherwise distracted, he said, “A man should be able to keep track of more than one bit of business at the same time.”

Bit of business, eh? Pekka thought, amused and indignant at the same time. He sounded almost like an Algarvian. But then her amusement evaporated. While Leino lived, she’d had to keep track of more than one bit of business at the same time herself. How would that have turned out in the end? She shook her head. She would never know now.

Ilmarinen kissed Linna again, patted her, gave her a silver bracelet, and told her, “I’ll see you in a little while, all right? I’ve got some business to talk with these people.” She nodded and went off. Ilmarinen hadn’t been talking business before, but Pekka didn’t contradict him.

As Ilmarinen pulled up a chair, another serving woman--the one who’d been taking care of the table--came up and asked him what he wanted. He ordered salmon and ale. She went back to the kitchen. Pekka asked, “What brings you back here, Master? You went off to see what the war was like.”

“So I did, but now the war in the east is over,” Ilmarinen answered. “Pity anything in Algarve is still standing, but it can’t be helped. Nothing that happened to those bastards was half what they deserved. But what am I doing here? You’re going to drop a rock on the Gongs sometime soon, aren’t you?”

“How do you know that?” Pekka demanded. “Who told you?” That whole sorcerous project was supposed to be as closely held a secret as Kuusamo had.