carried him south across the Wolter, he realized it was the first time since the war with Algarve began that he’d been taken away from the fighting, not toward it. That was almost worth getting wounded for. Almost-the pain in his leg said nothing could really be worth it.
Traku gave Talsu a severe look. “Hold still, curse it,” the tailor told his son. “If you were a wee bit smaller- just a wee bit, mind you-I’d box your ears but good. How can I measure you for your wedding suit if you keep fidgeting like you’ve got a flock of fleas in your drawers?”
“I’m sorry,” Talsu answered, more or less sincerely. “Weren’t you nervous before you married Mother?”
“Oh, maybe a little,” Traku said. “Aye, maybe just a little. I expect that’s why your grandfather said he’d box my ears for me if I didn’t hold still.”
Talsu’s eyes went to the bolt of dark blue velvet that lay on the counter. “Seems a shame to put so much effort and so much money into an outfit I won’t wear much,” he said.
“Powers above, I hope you don’t want to be the kind of fellow who puts on a wedding suit five or six times over the course of his life, and each one with a different girl,” Traku said. “Some of our nobles are like that-reach out and grab for anything that looks good to them. Algarvians are like that, too, except most of the time they don’t even bother getting married, from what I’ve heard.”
“By their own faithlessness they condemn themselves,” Talsu said, one of the classical Kaunian sentences he’d studied the week before. His father raised an inquiring eyebrow. He translated the sentence into modern Jelgavan.
“Sounds fancier in the old language, I will say,” Traku observed. “I think that’s what the old language is mostly good for-sounding fancy, I mean.” He turned brisk again. “You’ll wear your outer tunic unbuttoned, of course. And you’ll want a fine pleated shirtfront, right?”
“You’ll work yourself ragged, Father,” Talsu protested; Traku had refused to let him help prepare his wedding outfit in any way.
And Traku shook his head now. “No, I won’t. I’ll use the spells that Algarvian military mage gave us. That’ll cut the work in half, maybe more, all by itself. That fellow might have been a redheaded son of a whore, but he knew what he was talking about. Can’t argue that.”
“I wish we could,” said Talsu, who wanted as little to do with the occupiers of Skrunda as he could arrange. He changed the subject: “Do you know what Gailisa will be wearing?”
“Haven’t the faintest idea,” her father answered at once. “I didn’t get her business, because you’d’ve found out before the day was done if I did. Whatever it turns out to be, I expect it’ll be pretty, on account of your sweetheart’ll be in it.”
“It’d be prettier if you made it,” Talsu said. “Everybody knows you’re the best in Skrunda.” Even the Algarvians knew that much, but Talsu wanted to think about the occupiers as little as he could, too.
His father said, “I thank you kindly, that I do. But Gailisa will look just fine, and you know it.” Traku turned his head so he could glance up the stairs. He evidently decided neither Ausra nor Laitsina was within earshot, for he lowered his voice and added, “Besides, you know what a bride’s proper outfit on her wedding day is.”
“Aye,” Talsu said, and hoped he didn’t sound too eager.
Along with Talsu’s outfit, Traku was also working on his own-of somber black relieved by a white pleated shirtfront to be worn under an unbuttoned outer tunic like his son’s-and his wife’s and daughter’s. Laitsina had chosen pale peach linen, while Ausra would wear blue velvet like Talsu’s, though her tunic would flare at the hips and be buttoned, buttoned snugly, to show off her bust.
Traku turned down work to get all the wedding clothes ready for the day. He irked an Algarvian captain till the redhead found out why he couldn’t get a uniform tunic ready in a hurry. “Ah, a wedding,” the Algarvian said, kissing his bunched fingertips. “I am having in every town where I am stationed a wedding. This is making pretty girls happy. Is making me happy, too.” He leered.
Neither Talsu nor Traku said anything to that. It sounded like the sort of thing one of Mezentio’s men would do-maybe even worse than no weddings at all. The Algarvian bowed to each of them in turn and left the shop, whistling one of the intricate, ornate tunes that delighted his countrymen and baffled Talsu and every other Jelgavan he knew. If music didn’t have a strong, thumping beat, what good was it?
The hall where Talsu and Gailisa married was also the one in which, before the Derlavaian War, veterans of the Six Years’ War had been wont to get together and drink and tell one another lies about what heroes they’d been. Flowers and olive and almond and walnut boughs and crepe-paper streamers made it look a lot more cheerful than it had when the veterans congregated there. Even so, Talsu smelled, or imagined he smelled, the citrus- flavored wine the veterans had swilled down by the pitcherful. Maybe it was only the flowers. He noticed his father sniffing, too, though.
When he came into the hall, one of his cousins called to him, “Say, did you invite the redhead who stabbed you? Hadn’t been for him, there probably wouldn’t be a wedding now.”
That held some truth-just how much, Talsu didn’t know and, by the nature of things, would never be able to find out. His mother and sister bristled at the suggestion. If they hadn’t, he might have. As things were, he could laugh and shake his head and send his cousin a rude gesture. That made his cousin laugh, too.
Up at the head of the hall, an assistant to the burgomaster of Skrunda stood waiting, dressed in colorful baggy tunic and trousers from the days between the overthrow of the Kaunian Empire and the rise of the kingdom of Jelgava. For a few hundred years, Skrunda, like most of the towns of the Jelgavan peninsula, had been a power in its own right. The tradition lingered in ceremony, though nowhere else.
Traku murmured, “I’m glad the Algarvians don’t send their officials to do weddings and such.”
“So am I,” Talsu answered. “I wouldn’t really feel married if a redhead said the words over Gailisa and me.”
“Well, come on.” Traku took him by the elbow. “We’ve got to be waiting up there when your bride approaches-if she approaches.” He grinned at Talsu. “She’s got the right to call the whole thing off, you know.”
“So she does.” Talsu refused to let his father rattle him any more than he was already. Instead, he teased back: “And you’d be stuck with the bills for the feast.”
“Oh, I’d probably have a thing or two to say to her father about that,” Traku said. “Step lively now, son. We’ve got people to impress.”
Talsu didn’t know whether he stepped lively or not. He imagined himself on parade in dress uniform, and marched as impressively as he could. The men in the audience who’d been in the army-most of them, odds were- would surely recognize what he was doing. But nobody laughed at him, which was all that mattered in his eyes. A lot of them had probably gone up to wait for their brides at exactly the same slow march tempo.
After bowing to the burgomaster’s assistant, Talsu did a neat about-turn and stood waiting for Gailisa. Every once in a while, a bride didn’t come up and pledge herself with a prospective groom. People gossiped about scandals like those for months. Often, jilted grooms had to move away. Talsu was sure no such thing would happen here. He was sure, but. .
He couldn’t help letting out a small sigh of relief when, escorted by her doughy father, Gailisa walked toward him in tunic and trousers of grass-green linen that made her golden hair shine like the sun. He also couldn’t help glancing toward the cousin who’d given him a hard time and who, at the moment, looked consumed with jealousy. That was exactly what Talsu wanted to see.
When Gailisa came before the burgomaster’s assistant, she bowed as Talsu had done. Then she turned to her bridegroom. She and Talsu bowed to each other. Then she bowed to Traku while Talsu bowed to her father, who went very red returning the courtesy.
“We are gathered here today to celebrate in public what has been agreed upon in private, the wedding of Talsu and Gailisa,” the burgomaster’s assistant intoned. For all the excitement he showed, he might have been made of clockwork. Talsu wondered how many times he’d said these words. “For the town must recognize this union to make it true and binding. And the town is pleased to do so, confident that the two of you will live many happy years together and bring up many children who will be a delight to Skrunda and an asset to the Kingdom of Jelgava.”
