Through the Darkness

Gailisa got to her feet. “I’d better go on over now.” She bent and brushed Talsu’s lips with her own. “I’ll see you tonight, sweetheart.” Her voice was full of delicious promise. Talsu wondered if he were the only one who heard it. By the way his mother and father and even his sister grinned at him, he wasn’t.

As soon as the door downstairs closed, showing Gailisa was on her way to her father’s shop, Ausra said, “You turned pink, Talsu.” She laughed at him.

He glared. “Somebody ought to turn your backside red.”

“That will be enough of that,” his mother said, as if he and Ausra were a couple of small, quarrelsome children. She turned toward him. “Remember what you said in the old-time language? You should have paid more attention to it.”

“She started it.” Talsu pointed at his sister. He felt like a small, quarrelsome child--a small, quarrelsome, embarrassed child.

“Enough,” Laitsina repeated. His mother could have given Colonel Dzirnavu lessons in command. She went on, “Now you and Traku had better go on down and get some work done. Your poor wife shouldn’t have to do it all.”

The unfairness of that took Talsu’s breath away. Before he could find a comeback, Traku said, “Aye, we’ll get downstairs, won’t we, son? That we, we’ll have half a chance to hear ourselves think.” He left in a hurry. Talsu, no fool, followed in a hurry.

As they worked away on the Algarvian officer’s winter outfit, Talsu said, “I wish our nobles weren’t sucking up to King Mezentio’s pointy-nosed brother. I wish they were doing something to get rid of the redheads. I wish somebody was doing something to get rid of the miserable redheads.”

His father finished threading a needle before answering, “Somebody is. Who painted all those slogans in classical Kaunian a few weeks ago?”

“Algarvians haven’t caught anybody.” Talsu gestured dismissively. “Besides, who cares about slogans?”

“Maybe there’s more to it than slogans,” Traku said. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

“I haven’t seen any.” Talsu went back to basting together the redheaded major’s white smock. After a while, his silence grew thoughtful. The people with whom he studied classical Kaunian didn’t care for the Algarvians, not even a little. What all were they doing? Could he find out without putting his own neck on the line? That was a good question. He wondered what sort of answer it had. Maybe I ought to see, he thought.

“Do you ever hear anything from Zossen?” Garivald asked Munderic. “Seems like I’ve been gone--forever.” A cold, nasty wind whipped through the forest west of Herborn. Garivald could smell snow on the breeze. It had already fallen a couple of times, but hadn’t stuck; along with the autumn rains, it left the ground under the trees a nasty, oozy quagmire.

Munderic shook his head. “Nothing to speak of. The Algarvians still have their little garrison in it, if that’s what you mean.”

“I figured that,” Garivald said.

“I figured you did,” the leader of the band of irregulars answered. “But I don’t know if the firstman’s wife is sleeping with the redheads, or whether swine fever’s gone through, or if the harvest is good--haven’t heard anything like that. Too far away.”

“If the Algarvians are sleeping with Herka, they’re a lot more desperate than anybody thought they were,” Garivald said, and Munderic laughed. Garivald started to walk off, then turned back. “What about the fight at that Sulingen place?”

“Still going on.” Now Munderic spoke with great assurance. “By the powers above, the redheads stuck their dicks in the sausage machine there, and now they can’t get ‘em out. Breaks my heart, that it does.”

“Mine, too.” Now Garivald did walk away.

Munderic’s voice pursued him: “We’re going after that ley line tonight, remember. Got to keep the Algarvians from moving things through.”

“I hadn’t forgotten.” Garivald paused to look back over his shoulder. “That’ll get harder when the snow does start sticking, and it won’t be long. Cursed Algarvians will be able to follow our tracks a lot easier.”

“We lived through last winter and kept fighting,” Munderic answered. “We can do it again, I expect. Maybe Sadoc will figure out a way to hide our tracks.”

Garivald rolled his eyes. “Maybe Sadoc will figure out a way to get us all killed, not just some of us. The longer it is since he’s tried to work wizardry, the better the mage you misremember him to be.”

“When you work better, you can pick nits,” Munderic said angrily. “Till then, he’s the only excuse for a mage we’ve got.”

“You said it, I didn’t. But I’ll say this: from everything I’ve seen, no mage-craft is better than bad magecraft.” Garivald kept on walking this time, and paid no attention to whatever Munderic shouted after him.

He walked right out of the clearing where most of the irregulars squatted or lounged. Just beyond it, he almost fell when his feet slipped in wet, rotting leaves. He had to grab for a tree trunk to keep from landing on his backside.