But when Jadwigai asked him, “Isn’t that better, Colonel?” he found himself nodding.
“So it is, my dear,” he replied. “Of course, anything would be an improvement on the drowned puppy I was when I got back here.”
She nodded. She herself was a puppy saved from drowning. Unlike a puppy, she had to know it. She gave no sign, though. Maybe she didn’t want to think about it, for which Spinello could hardly blame her. Or maybe she never mentioned it for fear of giving ideas to the Algarvians who’d made a pet of her instead of flinging her into the river. Spinello could hardly blame her for that, either.
“What did Brigadier Tampaste say?” she asked, as if she were one of Spinello’s regimental commanders.
He answered her as if she were one of his regimental commanders, too: “He said that, whatever the bloody Unkerlanters are up to, we’ve got to stop them with what we’ve got-no hope for reinforcements.”
“Oh.” Jadwigai considered that very much as an officer would have. “Can we?”
No. Spinello didn’t care to admit that to her, or even to himself, so he leered and struck a pose. “My sweet, when an Algarvian sets himself between a beautiful girl and war’s desolation, he can do anything,” he said grandly.
Jadwigai blushed bright pink. Well, well, Spinello thought. Isn’t that interesting?
When Talsu’s mother came downstairs into the tailor’s shop where he worked with his father, she caught him not working: he was eating almonds dusted with sugar crystals and washing them down with citrus-flavored wine. Since Traku was doing the same thing, Talsu hardly felt guilty.
Laitsina wagged her forefinger at both of them. Sadly, she said, “My husband and my son-just a couple of lazy bums.”
“I am not.” Talsu would have sounded more indignant if he hadn’t tried talking with his mouth full.
“No?” his mother said. “Well, I’ll give you the chance to prove it. I was going to walk over to the grocer’s shop for some olive oil and some capers, but you can go if you’re not too lazy to get there.”
Talsu hopped down off his stool. “Sure,” he said, and started for the door at something close to a run.
Traku chuckled. “I just know his heart’s breaking, when you gave him an excuse to go see his wife before she gets back from work. He looks heartbroken, doesn’t he?”
“Like in a stage melodrama,” Laitsina answered. Talsu was already out on the street when she called after him: “Have you got any money?”
“Oh.” He stopped, feeling foolish, and went through his pockets. Then, feeling more foolish still, he went back inside and took some silver from the cash box. He went on his way again, jingling the coins to prove he had them.
Spring was in the air in Skrunda. Jelgava was a northerly kingdom, and not cursed with harsh winters; but the bright sun, the brilliant blue sky, and the dry heat all looked ahead toward summer, not back at the rain and clouds that did duty hereabouts for blizzards. Birds trilled in the bushes and from rooftops. New leaves were on the trees.
And new graffiti were on the walls, donalitu lives! cried the hastily painted scrawls, the true king will return!
KingDonalituhad lived in Lagoan exile the past three and a half years. Back in the days when he’d ruled Jelgava, Talsu had taken him as much for granted as the weather, and feared his storms a good deal more. The Algarvians hadn’t needed to introduce dungeons to Jelgava after he fled; they’d just taken over the very respectable ones he already had running.
No, Talsu hadn’t thought that much of Donalitu while he reigned. But when the choice was between oppression from one’s own countryman or from foreign occupiers, the exiled king didn’t look so bad. A choice without oppression in it somewhere hardly seemed real to Talsu.
The grocer’s shop was only a couple of blocks away. He must have seen six or eight scrawls in the little stretch. Whoever’d been putting up Donalitu’s name had been diligent about it. Good, he thought.
He was grinning when he opened the door to the shop. Gailisa’s father owned it, as his family had for three or four generations. Predictably, he was nowhere in sight, leaving her to do the work. She was putting jars on a shelf behind the counter when the bell over the door chimed to announced a customer. “Hello,” she said without turning around. “What can I do for you today?”
“Well, you could give me a kiss,” Talsu answered.
That made his wife whirl. Indignation vanished when she saw him. She hurried out from in back of the counter and gave him what he’d asked for. “There you are, sir-your order, personally delivered,” she said, mischief in her gray-blue eyes. “Can I give you anything else?”
“Sure.” Talsu squeezed her and let his hands wander a little. “But people would talk if they came in while you were doing that.”
“I suppose so.” Gailisa sounded disappointed, which in turn disappointed Talsu. Now he’d be counting the minutes till she got home, till they could go back into the bedchamber that had once been his alone, that was so much more cramped these days but so much happier, too. Gailisa went on: “Did you come in here with anything else on your mind?”
“Aye,” he said virtuously. “Olive oil and capers.”
“I can do that,” she said.
While she was doing it, he asked, “Did you see the new scribbles on the walls when you were coming over here?” When she nodded, he went on. “For some reason, people don’t much like the redheads. I wonder why.” He looked down to the floor planks. The stain of his own blood there had been scrubbed at and had faded, but he could still make it out. An Algarvian soldier had stabbed him after he objected to the fellow’s remarks to Gailisa. Nothing had happened to the redhead, of course. In Jelgava, the occupiers could do no wrong.
“Here you are,” Gailisa said brightly, as if he were just another customer. He made a face at her. They both laughed. He set silver on the counter. She shoved the coins back at him, whispering, “What my father doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Sometimes she would do that. Sometimes she wouldn’t. Talsu had never figured out how she made up her mind.
He kissed her again, then spoke regretfully: “I’d better get back to work.” After one more kiss, out he went, large jar of olive oil in one hand, small jar of capers in the other. He nodded every time he passed one of the graffiti proclaimingKingDonalitu ’s return. After Algarvian rule, he would indeed welcome the rightful king with open arms.
He’d just delivered the groceries to his mother and gone back downstairs to return to work when two Algarvians came into the shop. One of them pointed to him and asked, “You being Talsu son of Traku?”
“Aye, that’s who I am.” Talsu fought the impulse to mimic the way the redhead spoke Jelgavan.
Keeping a civil tongue in his head probably proved a good idea. He didn’t think so at the time, for both Algarvians whipped short sticks from their belts and pointed them at him. “You coming with us,” said the one who’d spoken before.
“What in blazes is this here all about?” Traku demanded.
The other Algarvian swung his stick toward Talsu’s father, who had something of the look of a bruiser to him. “We are investigating treason againstKingMainardo.” He spoke Jelgavan almost perfectly. “If your son is innocent, he will be released.”
Talsu had arranged the untimely demise of Kugu the silversmith, the man who’d betrayed him toKingMezentio ’s men. If the Algarvians knew about that, he was in a lot of trouble. If they didn’t-and they’d never shown any sign of it-he thought he could hope to come home again. In any case, a needle was no argument against a stick. He set it down and slid off the stool. “I’ll go with you,” he said.