unicode server data incorrectly converted to iso-8859-1 on client

 Hello,
I'm stuck with what seems to be a very old problem: getting non-latin texts
from SQL server 2005 into freetds. Using Perl's DBD::Sybase on Linux, all
freshly built latest versions, I have tried all sorts of incantations:

DBI->connect("dbi:Sybase:host=$dbserver;port=$dbport;database=[the-db];charset=utf-8;tds
version=9.0")

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8 (which does work, with various terminal apps)

checked if iconv works, it does and supports UTF

checked if freetds is built with iconv support
Version: freetds v0.82
freetds.conf directory: /etc
MS db-lib source compatibility: yes
Sybase binary compatibility: yes
Thread safety: yes
iconv library: yes
TDS version: 4.2
iODBC: no
unixodbc: yes

With an nvarchar(100) text field, I get the following in freetds.log:
write.c:136:tds_put_string converting 61 bytes of "select top 2 firstname
from users"
token.c:3294:adjust_character_column_size:
        Server charset: UCS-2LE
        Server column_size: 200
        Client charset: ISO-8859-1
        Client column_size: 100
token.c:1490:tds7_get_data_info:
        colname = firstname (9 bytes)
        type = 39 (varchar)
        server's type = 231 (x UCS-2 varchar)
        column_varint_size = 2
        column_size = 100 (200 on server)

and the dreaded error
Open Client Message:
Message number: SEVERITY = (9) NUMBER = (99)
Message String: Some character(s) could not be converted into client's
character set.  Unconverted bytes were changed to question marks ('?')

Any hints on how to explain to freetds that I want utf on the client end? Or
even unmodified ubcs2, at least I would be able to convert afterwards using
Perl..