Out of the Darkness

Ilmarinen went, protesting all the while. To go quietly would have been out of character for him. Andelot and the mage walked with him. He wondered what the Unkerlanters didn’t want him to see. He wondered if there really was something he shouldn’t see. Curse Swemmel’s whoresons, he thought. When you start dealing with them, you have to start thinking like them.

Lieutenant and wizard stood watching till he boarded the ferry, till it began to move, till it reached the other side of the river. What don’t they want me to see? Is anything at all there? Can I find out? He was planning ways and means when he realized he’d given himself a new challenge.

Spring in Skrunda was an enjoyable time most years: warm without being too hot, with just enough rain to keep things green and growing. Talsu enjoyed this spring even more than the past few. Not only were the Algarvian occupiers gone from Jelgava, but the news sheets shouted of the triumphs of allied armies deep inside Algarve itself. A few Jelgavan regiments were in the fight, too. By the way the news sheets trumpeted what they did, they might have been whipping King Mezentio’s men all by themselves.

Some people-people who hadn’t seen action themselves-doubtless believed the news sheets. Talsu knew better. He knew what sorts of armies the Kuusamans and Lagoans had. He had a pretty fair notion of what sort of army the Unkerlanters had. In amongst all those fighters, a few regiments of Jelgavans would have been like a fingernail: nice to have, but hardly essential to the body as a whole.

When he remarked on that to his father, Traku said, “Well, we’ve got to start somewhere, I expect.”

“I suppose so,” Talsu admitted, “but do we have to cackle so much about it?”

He made a noise that might have come from a chicken after it laid an egg.

Traku laughed and then tossed him a pair of linen trousers. “Here-these are ready to go to Mindaugu for summer wear. He’s got himself too much silver to sweat in wool.”

“I’ll take them,” Talsu said. “I’ll be glad to, in fact-his house is near the grocery where Gailisa’s working.”

“Don’t dawdle away the whole day there,” his father said. “I would like to get a little more work out of you.”

“Foosh,” Talsu said. His father laughed. Talsu grabbed the trousers and headed across town with them. When he got to Mindaugu’s, the wealthy wine merchant took them, ducked away to try them on, and came out beaming. He gave Talsu his silver. Talsu looked the coins over, as he’d got into the habit of doing. “Wait a bit. This one’s got Mainardo’s ugly mug on it.”

Mindaugu made a sour face. “I thought I’d made a clean sweep of those.” He suddenly looked hopeful. “The silver’s still good, you know.” Talsu just clicked his tongue between his teeth. He had right on his side, and he knew it. Muttering, Mindaugu replaced Mainardo’s coin with one that had King Donalitu’s image. Talsu stuck it and the others in his pocket and headed off to the grocery store.

I won’t spend too much time there, he thought, but a fellow is entitled to see his wife every once in a while, isn’t he? He’d been married for more than a year, but still felt like a man on his honeymoon.

As he left the wine merchant’s, a couple of utterly ordinary middle-aged men in clothes even more ordinary (a tailor’s son, he noticed such things) who’d been leaning against a wall stepped out into the middle of the sidewalk-and into his path. “You Talsu son of Traku?” one of them asked, his voice mildly friendly.

“That’s right,” Talsu answered; only afterwards did he wonder what would have happened had he lied. As things were, he just said, “Do I know you?”

“You know us well enough,” replied the man who hadn’t asked his name. He reached into a trouser pocket and pulled out a short stick such as a constable might use. “You know us well enough to come along quietly, don’t you?”

Ice ran through Talsu. When he first saw the stick, he thought the men were a couple of robbers. He would have given up the silver he’d just got-it wasn’t worth his life. But they knew his name. And they wanted him, not his money. That could only make them King Donalitu’s men. As he bleated, “But I haven’t done anything!” he thought he would rather have dealt with robbers.

“Quietly, I said.” That was the fellow with the stick.

“Charge is treason against the Kingdom of Jelgava,” added the other one, the one who’d asked his name.

“Come along,” they said again, this time together. The one who didn’t have his stick out took Talsu’s arm. The other one fell in behind them so he could blaze Talsu at the first sign of anything untoward.