Three or four more Kaunians stepped out of the crowd. “This won’t do,” Pesaro said, shaking his head and setting hands on hips in theatrical dismay. “No, this won’t do at all.” In an aside to his own men, he added, “Hard to get this across when I can’t do it in Algarvian.”
Someone in the crowd of Kaunians asked a question. Evodio translated: “She wants to know if they can bring anything with them when they go west.”
Pesaro shook his head. “Just the clothes on their backs. They won’t need anything else. We’ll take care of them once they’re there.”
Another question, this one from a man: “How long will we be there?”
“Till the war is won, of course,” Pesaro said. Somebody shouted in his direction from the ley-line caravan. He scowled. “We haven’t got all day. Any more volunteers?” Another pair of Kaunians stepped forward. Pesaro sighed. “This isn’t good enough. We’ve got to have the full number.” He pointed to a man. “You!” He jerked his thumb. A woman. “You!” Another man. “You!” He pointed to the pair Bembo and Oraste had summoned. “You--the old hound and his young doxy. Aye, both of you.”
Bembo said, “She’s his granddaughter, Sergeant.”
“Is she?” Pesaro rubbed his chin. “All right, never mind. You two instead.” He pointed at a pair of middle-aged men. “Probably a couple of quiffs.” Before long, the selection was done. Under the sticks of the Algarvian constables and the guards already aboard, the chosen Kaunians squeezed into the ley-line caravan cars. “Go home!” Pesaro shouted to the rest of the blonds. Evodio translated, for the ones who were dense. The Kaunians left the square a few at a time, some of them sobbing for suddenly lost loves. The caravan glided away.
“There’s a good day’s work done,” Oraste said.
“How much work do you think we’ll get out of them, hauled off the street like that?” Bembo asked. Oraste gave him a pitying look, one Sergeant Pesaro might have envied. A lamp went on in Bembo’s head. “Oh! It’s like that, is it?”
“Got to be,” Oraste said, and he was surely right; nothing else made sense.
Bembo was very quiet on the long tramp back to Gromheort. His conscience, normally a quiet beast, barked and snarled and whined at him. By the time he got back to the barracks, he’d fought it down. Somebody far above him had decided this was the right thing to do; who was he to argue? Tired as he was from marching, he slept well that night.
Autumn in Jelgava, except up in the mountains, was not a time of great swings in the weather, as it was in more southern lands. People went from wearing linen tunics and cotton trousers to cotton tunics and trousers of wool or wool and cotton mixed. Talsu’s father had his business pick up a little as men and women bought replacements for what had worn out during the last cool season.
“I need more cloth, though,” Traku grumbled. “Thanks to the cursed Algarvians, I can’t get as much as I could use. They’re taking half of what we turn out for themselves.”
“Everybody needs more of everything,” Talsu said. “The redheads are stealing everything that isn’t nailed down.”
His father glowered. “This is what happens when a kingdom loses a war.”
“Aye, it is,” Talsu agreed. “But powers above, I wish you’d get over the notion that I lost it all by myself.”
“I don’t think that for a moment, son,” Traku said. “You had help, lots of help, starting with the king and going straight on down through your officers.” He did not bother to lower his voice. In the old Jelgava, that would have been insanely dangerous. But the Algarvians didn’t mind if the common people reviled King Donalitu--on the contrary. They didn’t even seem to mind too much if the common people reviled them. Talsu wouldn’t have wanted to try such tolerance too far, though.
He was very pleased for a moment, thinking his father didn’t blame him for the kingdom’s defeat after all. Then he listened again in his mind to what Traku had said, and realized he hadn’t said anything of the sort. All he’d said was that Traku hadn’t been the only one who lost it.
Before Talsu could start the argument up again, Dustbunny trotted into the tailor’s shop, tail held high and proud. The small gray cat, who had thus far managed not to become roof rabbit at the butcher’s shop, carried in her mouth a large brown rat. She dropped it at Talsu’s feet, then looked up at him with glowing green eyes, waiting for the praise she knew she deserved.
Talsu bent down and scratched her ears and told her what a brave puss she was. She purred, believing every word of it. Then she pushed the dead rat with her nose so it half covered one of his shoes. Traku laughed. “I think she expects it to go into the stew pot tonight.”
“Maybe she does.” Mischief kindled in
