Rulers of the Darkness

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.