Jaws of Darkness by Harry Turtledove

beside me and watch me eat it. And if you care to”—he paused, as if about to make a radical suggestion— “you may even get one for yourself.”
    “I think I’ll do just that,” Ilmarinen said, and slid into a chair.
    “How are you this morning?” Fernao asked.
    “Why, my usual sweet, charming self, of course,” the older mage replied. Like most educated folk, Fernao had no trouble using classical Kaunian to communicate—at first, he’d used it all the time after coming to Kuusamo, since it was the only tongue he’d had in common with the locals. But, again like most educated folk, he spoke it with a certain stiffness. Not so Ilmarinen. He was so fluent in the ancient language, it might almost have been his birth-speech.
    Fernao eyed him. “I must say, you did not seem particularly sweet and charming.” Ilmarinen reveled in irony and crosstalk, but he hadn’t seemed ironic, either. What he’d seemed like was a jealous lover of the most foolish and irksome sort.
    Perhaps he even knew as much, for the smile he gave Fernao was more sheepish than otherwise. “But did I seem my usual self?” he asked.
    “If you mean your usual self lately, aye,” Fernao answered, not intending it as a compliment.
    Before Ilmarinen could say anything, Linna came out again. She waved to the master mage, then walked over and ruffled his hair. Ilmarinen beamed. As long as she was happy with him, all seemed right with his world. Fernao wondered what would happen if—no, when—she tired of him. For the sake of the work on which so many mages were engaged, he hoped he wouldn’t have to find out any time soon.
    Ilmarinen asked for smoked salmon, too, and sliced onions to go with it. Linna’s nose wrinkled. “Poo!” she said. “See if I kiss you.”
    Ilmarinen looked devastated—but not so devastated as to change his order. Fernao took that for a good sign. Sniffing, Linna headed back to the kitchens.
    And then Fernao stopped worrying about Ilmarinen’s infatuation, for Pekka walked into the refectory and he had to start worrying about his own. Like most Lagoan men, he’d always reckoned Kuusaman women on the small and scrawny side. By Lagoan standards, Pekka was on the small and scrawny side. Somehow, that mattered very little once Fernao had come to know her.
    She sat down at the table with him and Ilmarinen. “I hope the two of you were talking about our next experiment,” she said in classical Kaunian.
    Since she was not only a woman in whom he was interested but also the theoretical sorcerer heading the project for which he’d come to Kuusamo, Fernao didn’t want to lie to her. On the other hand, the prospect of telling her the truth didn’t fill him with delight, either. It didn’t bother Ilmarinen one bit. “Well, now that you mention it, no,” he said breezily.
    Pekka gave him a severe look. It rolled off him the way water rolled off greasy wool. She said, “What were you talking about?”
    “Oh, I just wanted to let this Lagoan lecher know that, if I ever caught him sniffing around my Linna, I’d cut out his liver and eat it without salt,” Ilmarinen replied.
    He was on the small and scrawny side, too, to say nothing of being an old man. That didn’t keep a small twinge of icy dread, like a detached bit of the savage winter outside, from sliding up Fernao’s back. However small and scrawny and old Ilmarinen was, he was also, with Master Siuntio dead at Algarvian hands, the leading theoretical sorcerer of his generation, and a formidable practical mage as well. He wouldn’t have to use a knife to make unfortunate things happen to Fernao’s liver.
    Fernao said, “For about the fourth time, I was not sniffing around her.”
    When he brought out a phrase like that in classical Kaunian, he sounded both pompous and preposterous. Ilmarinen, now, Ilmarinen sounded menacing.
    Pekka snorted. “I have never seen Fernao behave at all strangely around Linna,” she said, “which is rather more than I can say