Also waiting was Raunu's "mage of sorts." She couldn't have been above fifteen, her figure half formed, her hair stringy, pimples splashing her cheeks and chin. In a low voice, Skarnu said, "She's going to hold the Algarvian wizards off our trail?"
It wasn't low enough; the girl heard him. She flushed, but spoke steadily: "I think I can do that, aye. The techniques for breaking affinities have improved remarkably since the days of the Six Years' War."
Skarnu stared. She certainly spoke as if she knew what she was doing. Raunu let out a soft grunt of laughter. He said, "I've been pretty impressed with Palasta, I have."
"Maybe I see why," Skarnu answered, and bowed to her.
"Get you gone," Palasta told him. "That's the point of this business, after all. From now on, powers above willing, the Algarvians will have a harder time coming after you."
Raunu had already helped Merkela up into the carriage. Now he slapped Skarnu on the back and gave him a little push. Skarnu handed Merkela Gedominu and the bag of cloths, then scrambled up beside her. The driver- another man from the underground- flicked the reins. The carriage started to roll.
Fleeing again, Skarnu thought bitterly. He reached out and set his hand on Merkela's. This time, at least, he had what mattered most to him.
The silversmith's shop that had been Kugu's remained closed. Every so often, Talsu would walk by, just for the satisfaction of seeing it locked and dark and quiet. He knew better than to do that very often. Someone might note it and report him to the Algarvians. He was grimly certain Kugu hadn't been the only collaborator in Skrunda.
He'd wondered if the redheads would come around asking questions of him after Kugu's untimely demise. So far, they hadn't. A forensic mage could have assured them he hadn't been in the room when the silversmith perished. That was true. But truth, here, had many layers.
He also knew Algarve still had foes in his home town. He wondered if Kugu's former students were among the men responsible for the new graffiti he saw on so many walls these days. HABAKKUK! they read, and HABAKKUK IS COMING! And he wondered what in blazes Habakkuk was.
"Whatever it is, Mezentio's men don't like it," Gailisa said when Talsu wondered out loud at supper one evening. "Have you seen them putting together gangs of people they drag off the street to paint it out wherever they find it?"
Talsu nodded. "Aye, I have. That's got to mean it's something good for Jelgava." He laughed. "Feels funny, hoping for something without knowing what I'm hoping for."
"I know what I'm hoping for," Traku said, dipping a piece of barley bread in garlic-flavored olive oil. "I'm hoping for more orders of winter gear from Algarvians heading off to Unkerlant. That wouldn't make me unhappy at all, Habakkuk or no Habakkuk."
"I won't say you're wrong there, because you're right." Talsu nodded again. "But it's such a funny name or word or whatever it is. It doesn't sound Jelgavan at all."
"Is it classical Kaunian?" his father asked.
"It's nothing Kugu ever taught me, anyhow," Traku answered, "and Kugu taught me all sorts of things." He paused, recalling some of the painful lessons he'd learned from the silversmith. Then he said, "Pass me the bread and oil, would you please?"
His mother beamed. "That's good. That's very good," Ausra said. "High time you got some meat back on your bones."
Talsu knew better than to argue with his mother about such things. Later, in the small room that now seemed even smaller because he shared it with Gailisa, he asked his wife, "Am I still as skinny as all that?"
"There's certainly more to you than there was when you first came home," Gailisa said after a brief pause for thought. "Back then, I think your shadow took up more room in bed than you did. But you're still skinnier than you were before the Algarvians grabbed you."
He lay down on the bed and grinned up at her. "If I take up more room now than I used to, maybe you can get on top tonight."
Gailisa stuck out her tongue at him. "I did that anyhow when you came back- or have you forgotten? I didn't want you working too hard. Now…" Her eye's sparkled as she started to undo the toggles on her tunic. "Well, why not?"
She'd just gone off to her father's grocery store the next morning when an Algarvian captain strode into the tailor's shop. "Good morning, sir," Traku said to him. "And what can we do for you today?" He didn't ask the redhead if he was looking for something warm. The Algarvian might have taken that as gloating over a trip to Unkerlant, which would have cost Traku business.
But this particular Algarvian turned out not to be going to Unkerlant. Pointing to Talsu, he spoke in good Jelgavan: "You are Talsu son of Traku, is it not so?"
"Aye," Talsu answered. As his father had, he asked, "What can I do for you today, sir?" -but he feared he knew the answer.
Sure enough, the Algarvian said, "We haven't heard much from you. We'd hoped for more- quite a lot more."
"I'm sorry, sir," replied Talsu, who was anything but. "I've just stayed close to home and minded my own business. I haven't heard anything much."
With a frown, the Algarvian said, "That's not why we ordered you turned loose, you know. We expected to get some use out of you."
"And so you have, by the powers above," Traku put in. "I couldn't have done half as much for you people without my son here stitching right beside me."
"That's not what I meant," the redhead said pointedly.
"I don't care," Traku growled.
"Father-" Talsu said in some alarm. He didn't want to go back to the dungeon himself, no, but he didn't want to send his father there on his account, either.
But Traku wasn't inclined to listen to him, either. Glaring at the Algarvian, he went on, "I don't care what you meant, I tell you. Go ask the soldiers who've left this sunny land of ours for Unkerlant. Ask them about their tunics and kilts and capes and cloaks. Ask them if Talsu's done something worth doing for them. Then come back here and complain, if you've got the nerve."
Now the Algarvian captain frankly stared at him. Odds were; nobody in Jelgava had ever dared talk back to him before. He didn't seem to know what to make of it. At last, he said, "You play a dangerous game."
Still furious, Traku shook his head. "I'm not playing games at all. For you, maybe, it's a game. For me and my son, it's our lives and our livelihood. Why don't you cursed well leave us alone and let us mind our own business, like Talsu here said?"
He was shouting, shouting loud enough to make Ausra come halfway down the stairs to find out what was going on. When Talsu's mother saw the redhead in the shop, she let out a horrified gasp and retreated in a hurry. Talsu sighed in relief. He'd feared she would lay into the Algarvian the same way his father had.
The captain said, "There is service, and then there is service. You are trying to tell me that one kind is worth as much as another. In this, you…" Then, to Talsu's astonishment, he grinned. "In this, you may be right. I do not say you are; I say you may be. Someone of higher rank than I will make the final decision." He bowed and strolled out of the shop.
Talsu gaped at his father. "That was one of the bravest things I ever saw," he said.
"Was it?" Traku shrugged. "I don't know anything about that. All I know is, I was too little to go off and fight the redheads in the last war, and I get bloody sick of bending my neck and going, 'Aye, sir,' whenever they come through the door. So I told this son of a whore a couple of plain truths, that's all."
"That's not all," Talsu said. "You know the risk you were running."
"What risk?" Traku didn't want to take him seriously. "You went after the Algarvians with a stick in your hands. That, now, that was running a risk. This isn't so much, not even close." He coughed once or twice. "There've been times when I've sounded like it was your fault Jelgava didn't lick those Algarvian buggers. I know there have. I'm sorry for it."