Through the Darkness

“I’m sorry,” Talsu answered, more or less sincerely. “Weren’t you nervous before you married Mother?”

“Oh, maybe a little,” Traku said. “Aye, maybe just a little. I expect that’s why your grandfather said he’d box my ears for me if I didn’t hold still.”

Talsu’s eyes went to the bolt of dark blue velvet that lay on the counter. “Seems a shame to put so much effort and so much money into an outfit I won’t wear much,” he said.

“Powers above, I hope you don’t want to be the kind of fellow who puts on a wedding suit five or six times over the course of his life, and each one with a different girl,” Traku said. “Some of our nobles are like that--reach out and grab for anything that looks good to them. Algarvians are like that, too, except most of the time they don’t even bother getting married, from what I’ve heard.”

“By their own faithlessness they condemn themselves,” Talsu said, one of the classical Kaunian sentences he’d studied the week before. His father raised an inquiring eyebrow. He translated the sentence into modern Jelgavan.

“Sounds fancier in the old language, I will say,” Traku observed. “I think that’s what the old language is mostly good for--sounding fancy, I mean.” He turned brisk again. “You’ll wear your outer tunic unbuttoned, of course. And you’ll want a fine pleated shirtfront, right?”

“You’ll work yourself ragged, Father,” Talsu protested; Traku had refused to let him help prepare his wedding outfit in any way.

And Traku shook his head now. “No, I won’t. I’ll use the spells that Algarvian military mage gave us. That’ll cut the work in half, maybe more, all by itself. That fellow might have been a redheaded son of a whore, but he knew what he was talking about. Can’t argue that.”

“I wish we could,” said Talsu, who wanted as little to do with the occupiers of Skrunda as he could arrange. He changed the subject: “Do you know what Gailisa will be wearing?”

“Haven’t the faintest idea,” her father answered at once. “I didn’t get her business, because you’d’ve found out before the day was done if I did. Whatever it turns out to be, I expect it’ll be pretty, on account of your sweetheart’ll be in it.”

“It’d be prettier if you made it,” Talsu said. “Everybody knows you’re the best in Skrunda.” Even the Algarvians knew that much, but Talsu wanted to think about the occupiers as little as he could, too.

His father said, “I thank you kindly, that I do. But Gailisa will look just fine, and you know it.” Traku turned his head so he could glance up the stairs. He evidently decided neither Ausra nor Laitsina was within earshot, for he lowered his voice and added, “Besides, you know what a bride’s proper outfit on her wedding day is.”

“Aye,” Talsu said, and hoped he didn’t sound too eager.

Along with Talsu’s outfit, Traku was also working on his own--of somber black relieved by a white pleated shirtfront to be worn under an unbuttoned outer tunic like his son’s--and his wife’s and daughter’s. Laitsina had chosen pale peach linen, while Ausra would wear blue velvet like Talsu’s, though her tunic would flare at the hips and be buttoned, buttoned snugly, to show off her bust.

Traku turned down work to get all the wedding clothes ready for the day. He irked an Algarvian captain till the redhead found out why he couldn’t get a uniform tunic ready in a hurry. “Ah, a wedding,” the Algarvian said, kissing his bunched fingertips. “I am having in every town where I am stationed a wedding. This is making pretty girls happy. Is making me happy, too.” He leered.

Neither Talsu nor Traku said anything to that. It sounded like the sort of thing one of Mezentio’s men would do--maybe even worse than no weddings at all. The Algarvian bowed to each of them in turn and left the shop, whistling one of the intricate, ornate tunes that delighted his countrymen and baffled Talsu and every other Jelgavan he knew. If music didn’t have a strong, thumping beat, what good was it?

The hall where Talsu and Gailisa married was also the one in which, before the Derlavaian War, veterans of the Six Years’ War had been wont to get together and drink and tell one another lies about what heroes they’d been. Flowers and olive and almond and walnut boughs and crepe-paper streamers made it look a lot more cheerful than it had when the veterans congregated there. Even so, Talsu smelled, or imagined he smelled, the citrus-flavored wine the veterans had swilled down by the pitcherful. Maybe it was only the flowers. He noticed his father sniffing, too, though.

When he came into the hall, one of his cousins called to him, “Say, did you invite the redhead who stabbed you? Hadn’t been for him, there probably wouldn’t be a wedding now.”

That held some truth--just how much, Talsu didn’t know and, by the nature of things, would never be able to find out. His mother and sister bristled at the suggestion. If they hadn’t, he might have. As things were, he could laugh and shake his head and send his cousin a rude gesture. That made his cousin laugh, too.