Jaws of Darkness by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online

plump Algarvian constable said, “Curse me if I’m not glad to be back.”
    “What? Here?” Oraste was a man of few but strong opinions. “You’re out of your stinking mind.”
    “Not me,” Bembo said. “Not a bit of it. Tricarico was even gloomier than this place is, and all my friends are here.”
    Oraste snorted. “Like you’ve got friends. The only one of us who’s ever got leave since they sent us to this miserable place, and it wasn’t good enough for you. Are you an idiot or just an ingrate?”
    “Aye, rag on me as much as you want, but I was there and you weren’t,” Bembo said. “Seemed like everybody was too worried and working too hard to have a good time.” He nodded, liking the taste of the words. “That’s just how it was, sure enough.”
    “If a tart laid you for free, you’d complain because you didn’t like her negligee,” Oraste jeered. “Speaking of which, even looking at Algarvian women had to be worth going home for. These Forthwegian dames are built like bricks, and the long tunics they wear might as well be tents.”
    “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Bembo said. He’d done a lot more looking than touching, but he wouldn’t embarrass himself by admitting as much to his partner. “Did I tell you Saffa had somebody’s baby?”
    “Only four times now, or is it five?” Oraste returned. “If you ask me, you’re just jealous on account of she didn’t have yours.”
    Bembo walked the next block in wounded silence. Oraste had been teasing him, but that blaze hit entirely too close to the mark. He wouldn’t have minded had the pretty little sketch artist had his baby, or at least done something with him that made it possible for her to have a baby. But she hadn’t wanted to do anything of the sort, not with him. That she’d done it with someone else was all the more galling.
    Most days, his definition of an ideal tour on the beat would have been to have nothing to do but cadge food and drink from the bakers and taverners on the streets he patrolled. Today, though, he was glad to hear a noisy quarrel ahead.
    So was Oraste. He pulled his bludgeon off his belt and slapped it into the palm of his hand. “Let’s see what’s going on,” he said, anticipation in his voice. He liked breaking heads. He’d complained Forthwegian women were built like bricks. So was he. Unlike Forthwegian women, he was just about as hard as a brick, too.
    Two men stood in the middle of the street screaming at each other, caring nothing if they got in the way of wagons and carriages. The first thing Bembo noticed was that they looked very much alike, save that one of them had a typical proud, hooked Forthwegian nose, while that of the other fellow was shaped more like a tuber. The second thing he noticed was that he’d seen and spoken with the fellow with the ordinary nose before.
    He didn’t know whether Oraste noticed the same thing. If his partner did notice, he didn’t seem to care. “Get out of the roadway, you idiots, before you get mashed flat,” Oraste growled, assuming the Forthwegians would speak his language. Maybe he meant a wagon would squash them if they didn’t move. Maybe he meant he would. Bembo knew which way he would have bet.
    The Forthwegians did understand Algarvian. They also understood what a constable bearing down on them with a bludgeon was likely to mean. Before Oraste could do anything they would regret, they hurried back onto the sidewalk.
    “Now, what’s going on here?” Bembo asked. Being partnered with Oraste often made him take the role of sweet reason. He resented that: it wasn’t one for which he was well suited.
    “My brother is a traitor,” said the Forthwegian with a nose like a tuber.
    “My brother is a liar,” said the other Forthwegian, the one who looked familiar.
    Before Bembo could say anything, Oraste used his bludgeon to point at the fellow who’d spoken first. “Every son of a whore is a liar. Not everybody’s a traitor. That means you