Darkness Descending

west.

Traku shook his head back and forth, back and forth, a man seemingly caught in the grip of nightmare. Before throwing his hands in the air in despair, he stared toward his son. “I have more cursed orders than I know what to do with,” he moaned.

They’d been facing different problems a few weeks before. “That one Algarvian liked the outfit you made for him, so he went and told his friends,” Talsu answered. “By everything I’ve seen, the redheads do like to talk.”

“I wouldn’t mind if. . .” Traku corrected himself: “I wouldn’t mind so much if I didn’t think all the talk going through Skrunda had to have some truth behind it. But if I’m slaving for the Algarvians while they’re doing horrible things to our folk, that’s hard to stomach.”

“Aye,” Talsu said, “but you know how rumors are. One day everybody says this was bound to happen, the next day it’s that, and then the day after it’s something else. In the war, the Algarvians weren’t any worse than we were, and that’s the truth. They might have been better.” He remembered Colonel Dzirnavu and the captive Algarvian woman he’d taken into his pavilion. Not a soul in the regiment had shed a tear when she cut Dzirnavu’s fat throat.

“Here’s hoping you’re right,” Traku said. “I don’t know that I think you are, but here’s hoping.”

Before he or Talsu could say anything further, the door to the tailor’s shop opened and an Algarvian officer came inside. Not just an Algarvian officer, Talsu saw, but the Algarvian officer: the one who’d made Traku popular among his countrymen garrisoned in Skrunda. “Good day, sir,” Talsu said, and then, on taking a closer look, “Are you all right?”

“All right? Of course I am all right. Why shouldn’t I be all right?” the redhead said in his accented Jelgavan. He staggered rather than walked, red tracked his eyes, and the stench of strong spirits came off him in waves. Pointing a peremptory finger at Traku, he said, “My good man, I require a cloak of the heaviest stuff you can buy, and I require it as soon as you can possibly turn it out, which had better be pretty cursed quick, do you hear me?”

“Aye, sir, I do,” Traku said, “though if you’ll forgive my saying so, a heavy cloak isn’t the sort of garment you’ll get much use from in Jelgava.”

“Jelgava?” the Algarvian officer cried. “Jelgava?” He might never have heard of the kingdom before. “Who said anything about cursed Jelgava? They’re shipping me to Unkerlant is what they’re doing. They haven’t had enough men killed there to satisfy them yet, so they’re going to try to put me on the list, too. Go ahead, tell me I won’t need a cloak like that in Unkerlant.”

“It’s supposed to be a cold kingdom, for true.” Traku turned brisk. “Now, then, sir, what will you pay me for such a cloak?”

‘As if money matters when I am going to Unkerlant!” the Algarvian exclaimed. As far as Talsu was concerned, that proved how drunk he was: money always mattered. The redhead fumbled about in his belt pouch and set two gold-pieces on the counter in front of Traku. “There! Does that satisfy you?”

“Aye,” Traku answered in a strangled voice. Talsu stared at the gold coins, both stamped with King Mezentio’s beaky visage. He didn’t blame his father for sounding astonished. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen gold. Traku gathered himself and asked, “When will you require the cloak, sir?”

“Day after tomorrow--no later,” the Algarvian answered. “The cursed ley-line caravan leaves the day after that. Unkerlant!” It was almost a howl of despair. “What did I do to make someone want to send me to Unkerlant?”

“Maybe Algarve is running short on soldiers,” Talsu said. He didn’t want to sound as if he was gloating but had trouble doing anything else. His father hissed at him in alarm, lest he queer the bargain. Traku might not want to serve the Algarvians, but he didn’t mind taking their money.

Fortunately, the officer paid Talsu’s tone no mind. “Someone still has to garrison Jelgava,” he said. “It might as well be me.”

This time, Talsu had the sense to keep his mouth shut. Traku said, “A cloak is not a complicated garment. I can make one for you in two days, sir. The heaviest wool I can lay my hands on, is that right?”

“Just exactly right.” The Algarvian officer snapped his fingers. “The heaviest light-colored wool you can lay your hands on. I don’t care to stand out like a lump of coal against the stinking snowfields.”

“Aye,” Traku said tonelessly. When Talsu glanced his father’s way, Traku wouldn’t meet his eye. Had he planned on giving the Algarvian a black cloak in the hope that it would get him killed? Talsu couldn’t prove it, and he couldn’t ask, either, no matter how drunk the redhead