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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."