Through the Darkness

“I’m your sergeant,” Leudast told him. “Come on. Let’s get moving. We’ve got to catch up with the rest of the regiment.”

“The rest of the company, you mean,” the other soldier said.

Both statements amounted to about the same thing. A couple of run-ins with the redheads had melted what was a regiment on the books to a company’s worth of men. Leudast hoped the Algarvians who’d faced his regiment had melted in like proportion, but wouldn’t have bet on it.

He stumbled along, sticking a foot into the muck every now and again himself. When he would cock his head to listen to the redheads’ progress, the noise they made got fainter and fainter. He nodded to himself. No, they couldn’t follow the path in the dark.

Somewhere before midnight, the ground grew firm under his feet no matter where he set them. Swamp gave way to meadow. What was left of the regiment waited there. Leudast lay down on the sweet-smelling grass and fell asleep at once. He’d come through another one.

In summertime, after the hucksters and farmers and artisans left the market square in Skrunda, young Jelgavans took it over. By the light of torches and sorcerously powered lamps, they would promenade and flirt. Sometimes, they would find places where the lights didn’t reach and do other things.

Talsu and Gailisa headed for the market square hand in hand. Talsu walked more freely these days; the knife wound an Algarvian soldier had given him in the grocery Gailisa’s father ran still troubled him, but not so much as it had. He said, “At least the cursed redheads let us keep our lights. Down in Valmiera, everything goes dark at night so enemy dragons can’t see where to drop their eggs.”

“No enemy dragons around these parts,” Gailisa said. She lowered her voice and leaned over to whisper in Talsu’s ear: “The only enemies in these parts wear kilts.”

“Oh, aye,” Talsu agreed. With her breath soft and warm and moist on his earlobe, he would have agreed to just about anything she said. But he might not have had that fierce growl in his voice. He’d reckoned the redheads enemies long before one of them stuck a knife in him, and had been part of Jelgava’s halfhearted attack on Algarve before the Algarvians overran his kingdom.

Into the square he and Gailisa strolled, to see and to be seen. They weren’t the chief attractions, nor anything close to it. Rich men’s sons and daughters didn’t stroll. They strutted and swaggered and displayed, as much to show off their expensive tunics and trousers and hats as to exhibit themselves.

Gailisa hissed and pointed. “Look at her, the shameless creature,” she said, clicking her tongue between her teeth. “Flaunting her bare legs like a, like an I don’t know what.”

“Like an Algarvian,” Talsu said grimly, though he didn’t mind the way the rich girl’s kilt displayed her shapely legs. To keep Gailisa from thinking he was enjoying the spectacle too much, he also pointed. “And look at that fellow there, the one with the mustache. He’s as blond as we are, but he’s in a kilt, too.”

“Disgraceful,” Gailisa said. “What’s the world coming to when Kaunian folk dress up in barbarian costumes?”

“Nothing good,” Talsu said. “No, nothing good at all.”

Something new had been added to the promenade since Algarve invaded Jelgava and King Donalitu fled for Lagoas: redheaded soldiers leaning against the walls and eyeing the pretty girls along with the young men of Skrunda. One of the Algarvians beckoned to the girl in the kilt. When she came over, he chucked her under the chin, kissed her on the cheek, and put his arm around her. She snuggled against him, her face shining and excited.

“Little hussy,” Gailisa snarled. “I want to slap her. Shameless doesn’t begin to say what she is.” She stuck her nose in the air.

Talsu had been looking at the girl’s legs again. If kilts hadn’t been an Algarvian style, he would have said they had something going for them ... for women. As far as he was concerned, the young Jelgavan man in a kilt simply looked like a fool.

A Jelgavan in proper trousers came by, squeezing music out of a concertina. The Algarvians made horrible faces at the noise. One of them shouted at him: “Going away! Bad musics.”

But the Jelgavan shook his head. “My people like it,” he said, and half a dozen Jelgavans raised their voices in agreement. They far outnumbered the redheads, and the soldiers weren’t carrying sticks. A fellow in a sergeant’s uniform spoke to the music critic, who didn’t say anything more. The concertina player squeezed out a happy tune.

Gailisa tossed her head. “That’ll teach ‘em,” she said.

“Aye, it will.” Talsu pointed toward a fellow trundling a barrel along on a little wheeled cart. “Would you like a cup of wine?”

“Why not?” she said. “It’ll wash the taste of that mattress-backed chippy out of my mouth.”