Darkness Descending

“If only we’d fought harder, I wouldn’t have to be doing this kind of work.”

By that, Talsu knew he meant, If only you’d fought harder. His father felt guilty about not seeing battle. Because he did, he had a low opinion of those who had seen it and hadn’t prevailed--like Talsu.

With a sigh of his own, Talsu answered, “No. Instead you’d be sewing jewels onto some noblewoman’s cloak, and you’d be grumbling about that.”

Traku grunted and ran his fingers through his hair. He was going gray but, like his son and most of his countrymen, was so blond it hardly showed. “Well, what if I would?” he said. “At least she’d be one of our own noblewomen, not a cursed redhead.”

Before Talsu answered, he looked out into the street. No one there looked like coming into the tailor’s shop above which Traku and Talsu and his mother and sister lived. Satisfied he could speak frankly, Talsu said, “If it weren’t for all out idiot noblemen clogging up the officer corps, maybe we wouldn’t have a cursed redhead calling himself King of Jelgava these days. I had to follow their orders, remember--I know what kind of soldiers they made.”

Traku opened the cash box, took out a small silver coin with Bang Mainardo’s beaky portrait stamped on it, and ground it under his heel. “That’s what I think of having any Algarvian, let alone King Mezentio’s worthless brother, set up as the ruler of a decent Kaunian kingdom.”

“Oh, aye, I have no love for him, either,” Talsu said. “Who does? But if King Donalitu hadn’t run away to Lagoas after the redheads broke in here, we wouldn’t have an Algarvian calling himself king now. You ask me, Father, Donalitu was as useless as his nobles.”

“That’s what the Algarvians want you to say,” his father answered. “A king doesn’t have a use, except to be king. He stands for his kingdom, or else he’s no use at all. And how can an Algarvian king stand for a Kaunian kingdom? It’s against nature, that’s what it is.”

Talsu had no good comeback for that. By everything he knew of magecraft--which wasn’t much--Traku was right. But Traku thought of the Jelgavan nobility in terms of luxuries used up and money wasted. That was how Talsu had thought of the nobles before the war. Now he thought of dukes and counts in terms of lives wasted, which were far more expensive.

“I’ll see you later,” he said, starting out of the shop. “Mother asked me earlier this morning to get her some olive oil and some garlic, and I haven’t done it yet.”

“Go on, then.” Traku was willing to let the argument lie. “You’d better, if you expect to eat supper tonight.”

Laughing--though his father hadn’t been joking--Talsu headed for the grocer’s a couple of blocks away. The weather was mild. Winter in Skrunda only rarely got chilly; the beaches on Jelgavas northeastern coast, the ones that looked across the Garelian Ocean toward equatorial Siaulia, were subtropical themselves. In happier times, they were a popular holiday resort for folk fleeing nasty weather farther south.

The grocer’s lay in the direction of the market square. As always, Talsu looked toward the square on the off chance he might spy something interesting. He didn’t but gave a small double take anyhow. That was foolish; the Algarvians had wrecked the triumphal arch from the days of the Kaunian Empire months before. But he still wasn’t used to its being gone.

One reason Talsu didn’t mind going to the grocer’s was his pretty daughter, Gailisa. She was behind the counter when he walked in, and smiled to see him. “Hello, Talsu,” she said. “What can I get you today?”

“A pint of the middle-grade olive oil and some fresh garlic,” he answered.

Gailisa said, “There’s plenty of garlic, but we’re out of the middle-grade oil. Do you want the cheap stuff or the extra-virgin?” Before he could answer, she held up a warning hand. “If you make jokes about that the way the miserable Algarvians do, I’ll clout you with the jar, do you hear me?”

“Did I say anything?” Talsu asked, as innocently as if such thoughts had never entered his mind. The grocer’s daughter snorted; she knew better. Talsu went on, “Let me have the good oil, if you please.”

“All right--since you asked for it so pretty.” Gailisa reached behind her, pulled an earthenware jar off the shelf, and set it on the counter. “Do you want to choose your own garlic, or shall I grab one for you?”

“Go ahead,” Talsu told her. “You’d do a better job than I would.”

“I knew that,” Gailisa said. “I wondered if you did.” She pulled a good-sized head off a string and handed it to him, then said something in classical Kaunian.

Talsu hadn’t spent enough time in school