through him somehow sank deeper than that from the snow gently falling on King Mezentio’s men in Sulingen.
During the day, Talsu hardly felt married. He went downstairs to work with his father, while Gailisa walked the couple of blocks back to her father’s grocery to help him there. The only difference in the days was that they both got wages, out of which they paid for food and the tiny lodging that was Talsu’s room.
At night, though. . Talsu wished he’d got married a lot sooner. He seemed to come to work every morning with an enormous grin on his face. His father eyed him with amused approval. “If you can stay happy with your lady when you’re cooped up together in a room where you couldn’t swing a cat, odds are you’ll be happy anywhere for a long time to come,” Traku remarked one morning.
“Aye, Father, I expect so,” Talsu answered absently. It was a cool day, so he wore a wool tunic, and it rubbed at the scratches Gailisa had clawed in his back the night before. But then, thinking about that
“It’s the war.” Traku blamed the war for anything that went wrong. “Not just flats are dear these days. Everything costs more than it should, on account of the Algarvians are doing so much thieving. Isn’t enough left for decent folks.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if you’re right.” Like his father, Talsu was willing to blame Mezentio’s men for any iniquity. Even so … “If it weren’t for the redheads, though, we’d have a lot less work ourselves, and that’d mean a lot less money.”
“I won’t say you’re wrong,” Traku answered. “And do you know what?” He waited for Talsu to shake his head before continuing, “Every time I turn out something in an extra-heavy winter weight, I’m not even sorry to do it.”
“Of course you’re not-it means one more Algarvian heading out of Jelgava and off to Unkerlant.” Talsu thought for a moment, then spoke in classical Kaunian: “Their wickedness goes before them as a shield.”
“Sounds good,” his father said. “What’s it mean?” Talsu translated. His father thought about it, then said, “And with any luck at all, the Unkerlanters’ll smash that shield all to bits. How long have the news sheets been bragging that the redheads’ll have the last Unkerlanter out of that Sulingen place any minute now?”
“It’s been a while,” Talsu agreed. “And they say it’s already started snowing down there.” He shuddered at the very idea. “Only time I ever saw snow was up in the mountains when I was in the army. Nasty cold stuff.”
“It snowed here the winter before you were born,” Traku said reminiscently. “It was pretty as all get-out, till it started melting and turning sooty. But you’re right-it was bloody cold.”
Before Talsu could answer, the front door opened. The bell above the door jingled. In walked an Algarvian major with bushy red side whiskers with a few white hairs in them and a little chin beard. “Good day, sir,” Traku said to him. “What can I do for you?” The Algarvians had occupied Skrunda for more than two years; if the locals weren’t used to dealing with Mezentio’s men by now, they never would be.
“I require winter gear,” the major said in good Jelgavan. “I mean to say, tough winter gear, not winter gear for a place like this, not winter gear for a place with a civilized climate.”
“I see.” Traku nodded. He said not a word about Unkerlant. Talsu understood that. Some Algarvians got very angry when they had to think about the place to which they were bound. “What have you got in mind, sir?”
The officer started ticking things off on his fingers. “Item, a white smock. Item, a heavy cloak. Item, a heavy kilt. Item, several pairs of thick wool drawers reaching to the knee. Item, several pairs of thick wool socks, also reaching to the knee.”
During the first winter of the war in the west, Algarvians bound for Unkerlant had been a lot less certain about what they needed. They’d learned, no doubt from bitter experience. Talsu wasn’t sorry; the redheads had given a lot of other people bitter experience, too. He said, “How many do you reckon go into several, sir?”
“Say, half a dozen each,” the Algarvian answered. He pointed one forefinger at Talsu, the other at Traku. “Now we shall argue over price.”
“You’ll argue with my father,” Talsu said. “He’s better at it than I am.”
“Then I would sooner argue with you,” the major said, but he turned to Traku. “I have some notion of what things should cost, my dear fellow. I hope you will not prove too unreasonable.”
“I don’t know,” Traku answered. “We’ll see, though. For everything you told me-” He named a sum.
“Very amusing,” the Algarvian told him. “Good day.” He started for the doorway.
“And a good day to you, too,” Traku replied placidly. “Don’t forget to shut the door when you go out.” He picked up his needle and went back to work. Talsu did the same.
The officer hesitated with his hand on the latch. “Maybe you are not madmen, merely brigands.” He named a sum of his own, a good deal lower than Traku’s.
“Don’t forget to shut the door,” Traku repeated. “If you want all that stuff for that price, you can get it. But you get what you pay for, whether you think so or not. How do you suppose those cheap drawers you find will hold out in an Unkerlanter blizzard?”
Mentioning that name was a gamble, but it paid off. Scowling, the Algarvian said, “Very well, sir. Let us dicker.” He drew himself up and approached the counter again.
He proved better at haggling than most of the redheads who’d gone up against Talsu’s father. He kept starting for the door in theatrical disbelief that Traku wouldn’t bring his price down further. The fourth time he did it, Talsu judged he really meant it. So did his father, who lowered the scot to something not too much higher than he would have charged one of his own countrymen.
“There, you see?” the Algarvian said. “You can be reasonable. It is a bargain.” He stuck out his hand.
Traku shook it, saying, “A bargain at that price?” After the major nodded, Traku said, “You might have screwed me down a little more yet.”
“I do not quibble over coppers,” the redhead said grandly. “Silver, aye; coppers, no. You look to need coppers more than I do, and so I give them to you. I shall return in due course for my garments.” He swept out of the shop.
Traku couldn’t help chuckling. “Some of them aren’t
“Maybe not,” Talsu said grudgingly. “But I’ll bet he would have stabbed me if he’d been in the grocer’s shop, too.” Traku coughed a couple of times and made a point of looking busy for a while.
When Talsu told the story over the table the next morning, Gailisa said, “I hope all the Algarvians get sent to Unkerlant. I hope they never come back, either.”
Talsu beamed at his new bride. “See why I love her?” he asked his family- and, by the way he said it, the world at large. “We think alike.”
His sister Ausra snorted. “Well, who doesn’t want the Algarvians gone? Powers above, I do. Does that mean you want to marry me, too?”
“No, he’d know what he was getting into then,” Traku said. “This way, he’ll be surprised.”
“Dear!” Laitsina gave her husband a reproving look.
“Let discord not come among us,” Talsu said in the old language. Classical Kaunian came close to making common sense worth listening to. Then he had to translate. In Jelgavan, it came out sounding like, “We’d better not squabble among ourselves.”
“That’s what our nobles kept telling us,” Gailisa said. “And we didn’t squabble with them, and so they led us into the war against Algarve-and right off a cliff.” She started to say something else in that vein, but suddenly stopped and looked at Talsu-not at his face, but toward his flank, where the redhead had stuck a knife into him. When she did speak again, it was in a subdued voice: “And now, the way Mezentio’s men have treated us, I wouldn’t be sorry to see the nobles back again.”
“Aye, that’s the truth.” Talsu nodded toward his wife. “Next to the Algarvians, even Colonel Dzirnavu seems.. well, not too bad.” The rabid patriotism of a man whose kingdom groaned under the occupier’s heel couldn’t make him say more than that for the fat, arrogant fool who’d commanded his regiment.
Traku said, “Anyhow, half the nobles have gone to the court at Balvi to suck up to the king the redheads gave us. If they suck up to the Algarvians, how are they any different than the Algarvians?”
“I’ll tell you how,” Ausra said hotly. “They’re worse, that’s how. The Algarvians are our enemies. They’ve never made any bones about that. But our nobles are supposed to protect us from our enemies, instead of… sucking up, like Father says.” She looked on the point of bursting into tears-tears of fury more than sorrow.
Gailisa got to her feet. “I’d better go on over now.” She bent and brushed Talsu’s lips with her own. “I’ll see
