Through the Darkness

During the first winter of the war in the west, Algarvians bound for Unkerlant had been a lot less certain about what they needed. They’d learned, no doubt from bitter experience. Talsu wasn’t sorry; the redheads had given a lot of other people bitter experience, too. He said, “How many do you reckon go into several, sir?”

“Say, half a dozen each,” the Algarvian answered. He pointed one forefinger at Talsu, the other at Traku. “Now we shall argue over price.”

“You’ll argue with my father,” Talsu said. “He’s better at it than I am.”

“Then I would sooner argue with you,” the major said, but he turned to Traku. “I have some notion of what things should cost, my dear fellow. I hope you will not prove too unreasonable.”

“I don’t know,” Traku answered. “We’ll see, though. For everything you told me--” He named a sum.

“Very amusing,” the Algarvian told him. “Good day.” He started for the doorway.

“And a good day to you, too,” Traku replied placidly. “Don’t forget to shut the door when you go out.” He picked up his needle and went back to work. Talsu did the same.

The officer hesitated with his hand on the latch. “Maybe you are not madmen, merely brigands.” He named a sum of his own, a good deal lower than Traku’s.

“Don’t forget to shut the door,” Traku repeated. “If you want all that stuff for that price, you can get it. But you get what you pay for, whether you think so or not. How do you suppose those cheap drawers you find will hold out in an Unkerlanter blizzard?”

Mentioning that name was a gamble, but it paid off. Scowling, the Algarvian said, “Very well, sir. Let us dicker.” He drew himself up and approached the counter again.

He proved better at haggling than most of the redheads who’d gone up against Talsu’s father. He kept starting for the door in theatrical disbelief that Traku wouldn’t bring his price down further. The fourth time he did it, Talsu judged he really meant it. So did his father, who lowered the scot to something not too much higher than he would have charged one of his own countrymen.

“There, you see?” the Algarvian said. “You can be reasonable. It is a bargain.” He stuck out his hand.

Traku shook it, saying, “A bargain at that price?” After the major nodded, Traku said, “You might have screwed me down a little more yet.”

“I do not quibble over coppers,” the redhead said grandly. “Silver, aye; coppers, no. You look to need coppers more than I do, and so I give them to you. I shall return in due course for my garments.” He swept out of the shop.

Traku couldn’t help chuckling. “Some of them aren’t so bad,” he said.

“Maybe not,” Talsu said grudgingly. “But I’ll bet he would have stabbed me if he’d been in the grocer’s shop, too.” Traku coughed a couple of times and made a point of looking busy for a while.

When Talsu told the story over the table the next morning, Gailisa said, “I hope all the Algarvians get sent to Unkerlant. I hope they never come back, either.”

Talsu beamed at his new bride. “See why I love her?” he asked his family-- and, by the way he said it, the world at large. “We think alike.”

His sister Ausra snorted. “Well, who doesn’t want the Algarvians gone? Powers above, I do. Does that mean you want to marry me, too?”

“No, he’d know what he was getting into then,” Traku said. “This way, he’ll be surprised.”

“Dear!” Laitsina gave her husband a reproving look.

“Let discord not come among us,” Talsu said in the old language. Classical Kaunian came close to making common sense worth listening to. Then he had to translate. In Jelgavan, it came out sounding like, “We’d better not squabble among ourselves.”

“That’s what our nobles kept telling us,” Gailisa said. “And we didn’t squabble with them, and so they led us into the war against Algarve--and right off a cliff.” She started to say something else in that vein, but suddenly stopped and looked at Talsu--not at his face, but toward his flank, where the redhead had stuck a knife into him. When she did speak again, it was in a subdued voice: “And now, the way Mezentio’s men have treated us, I wouldn’t be sorry to see the nobles back again.”

“Aye, that’s the truth.” Talsu nodded toward his wife. “Next to the Algarvians, even Colonel Dzirnavu seems.. . well, not too bad.” The rabid patriotism of a man whose kingdom groaned under the occupier’s heel couldn’t make him say more than that for the fat, arrogant fool who’d commanded his regiment.

Traku said, “Anyhow, half the nobles have gone to the court at Balvi to suck up to the king the redheads gave us. If they suck up to the Algarvians, how are they any different than the Algarvians?”

“I’ll tell you how,” Ausra said hotly. “They’re worse, that’s how. The Algarvians are our enemies. They’ve never made any bones about that. But our nobles are supposed to protect us from our enemies, instead of... sucking up, like Father says.” She looked on the point of bursting into tears--tears of fury more than sorrow.