Skrunda all that often even in wintertime; save that it made the crops grow, they looked on it as a nuisance.
Four or five Algarvian soldiers came up the street toward Talsu. A couple of them looked as miserable to be out in the wet as any man of Skrunda. The rest, though, seemed perfectly content even though water dripped from the broad brims of their felt hats and ruined the jaunty feathers in their hatbands. Talsu had heard it rained all the time in the forest country of southern Algarve. Maybe those redheads had got used to bad weather there. On the other hand, since they were Algarvians, maybe they just didn’t know any better.
He had to press himself against a stone wall to give them room to pass. That got him wetter. They took no notice--though they would have if he hadn’t gotten out of the way. He glared at them over his shoulder. Fortunately for him, none of them looked back.
With a sigh of relief at escaping the rain, he flipped back his hood as he ducked into the grocer’s shop. With even more relief, he saw that the fat old fellow who ran the place wasn’t behind the counter, and his daughter was. “Hello, Gailisa,” Talsu said, swiping at his hair with his hand in case the cloak had left it in disarray.
“Hello,” Gailisa answered. She was a year or two younger than Talsu; they’d known each other since they were both small. But Gailisa hadn’t been so nicely rounded then, and her hair hadn’t shone so golden--or if it had, Talsu hadn’t noticed. He did now: he made a point of noticing. She went on, “I’m glad you’re not an Algarvian.”
“Powers above, so am I!” Talsu exclaimed.
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken: “You don’t always keep trying to handle the merchandise.”
For a moment, he didn’t understand exactly what she meant. When he did, he wanted to kill every lecherous Algarvian soldier in Skrunda. He couldn’t, but he wanted to. “Those miserable . . .” he began, and then had to stop again. He couldn’t say what he thought of the redheads, either. A soldier’s ripe vocabulary was the only one that fit, and Gailisa wouldn’t have cared to listen to it.
She shrugged. “They’re Algarvians. What can you do?”
Talsu had already thought of one of the things he’d like to do. He would also have liked to handle the merchandise himself. If he tried, though, he was gloomily certain Gailisa would do her best to knock his head off. He wasn’t a conquering soldier, just a fellow she’d known forever.
“What can I get you?” she asked. He told her what his mother wanted. She frowned. “How much of each? It makes a difference, you know.”
“I know that, aye,” he said, flustered. “I don’t know how much, though.”
“You chowderhead,” she said. She’d called him worse than that when he got orders mixed up. “Well, how much money did you get to buy this stuff?”
He had to fish the coins his father had given him out of his pocket and look at them before he could tell her, which only made him feel more foolish. “As far as I’m concerned, you can give me mostly olives,” he said. “I like ‘em.”
“And then tomorrow I can explain to your mother why she couldn’t make the stew she wanted.” Gailisa rolled her eyes. “No, thank you.” She dipped up some salted olives from a jar: enough to fill a waxed-paper carton. Then she beckoned to him and gave him a couple of olives to eat. “Nobody has to know about these.”
“Thanks.” He popped them into his mouth, worked the soft, tasty pulp off the pits with his teeth, and spat the pits into the palm of his hand. Gailisa pointed to a basket next to the counter. He tossed the pits into it. “More?” he asked hopefully.
Gailisa gave him another one. “When my father asks why we’re not making any money, I’ll tell him it’s your fault,” she said. She dipped beans and chickpeas out of barrels and into larger cartons. “There you are, Talsu. Now you’ve spent all your silver; I’ll give you three coppers’ change.”
“Don’t bother,” he said. “Let me have three coppers’ worth of dried apricots instead.”
“I love those, but right after olives?” Gailisa made a face. She gave him the little handful of dried fruit, though.
He ate one apricot, just to see her make another face. Then he pushed the rest of them back across the counter. “Here, you take them. You enjoy them more than I do, anyhow.”
“You don’t need to do that,” she said. “I can reach into the crate any time I please, and I know times are tight for everybody.” Talsu looked out through the doorway at the rainy street, as if he hadn’t heard a word she said. “You’re impossible!” she told him, and he thought she’d got angry. But when he turned around, she was eating an apricot.
