Elizabeth Moon - Paksenarrion 04 - Surrender None

SURRENDER NONE
Elizabeth Moon
the legacy of gird 01

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Contents
Prologue
Part I
|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|
Part II
|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|
Part III
|19|20|21|22|23|24|25|26|27|28|29|30|
Part IV
|31|32
WHY WE FIGHT
“You lost children?” Others shushed that voice, someone in a leather cloak, but Gird answered it, counting them on his fingers.

“My first two sons died of fever; the lord refused us herb-right in the wood. My wife lost two babes young, one from hunger and one from fever. My eldest daughter they raped; killed her husband. The babe died unborn. My youngest son they struck down; he lives. Another daughter they struck down, breaking her arm; I know not if she lives or dies. And my brother’s children, that I’d taken in: two of them dead, by the lords’ greed. And that’s children. I lost friends, my parents, my brother.

“You ask yourselves: if they can take one child, will they stop there? Will all your submission, all your obedience, get you peace and enough food? Has itever worked? You can sit here and let them take you one by one, or you can decide to fight back.”

BAEN BOOKS byELIZABETHMOON Sheepfarmer’s Daughter
Divided Allegiance
Oath of Gold
The Deed of Paksenarrion
Liar’s Oath
The Legacy of Gird
Hunting Party
Sporting Chance
Winning Colors
Once a Hero
Rules of Engagement
Change of Command
Against the Odds
Remnant Population
Sassinak(with Anne McCaffrey)
Generation Warriors(with Anne McCaffrey)
The Planet Pirates(with Anne McCaffrey & Jody Lynn Nye)
Phases
ELIZABETHMOON—The Legacy of Gird
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
The Legacy of Girdhas been published in two parts asSurrender None, copyright © 1990 by Elizabeth Moon, andLiar’s Oath, copyright © 1992 by Elizabeth Moon.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing EnterprisesP.O. Box 1403Riverdale,NY10471www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-671-87747-X Cover art is a computer-generated composite from the art forSurrender None, by Larry Elmore, and Liar’s Oath, by Gary Ruddell

First printing, September 1996 Second printing, August 2000
Distributed by Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of theAmericasNew York,NY10020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moon,Elizabeth.
The legacy of gird / Elizabeth Moon. p. cm.
“A Baen Books original”—T.p. verso. ISBN 0-671-87747-X (trade pbk.) 1. Fantastic fiction, American. I. Title PS3563.0557L4 1996
813'.54—dc20 96-2957
CIP
Printed in theUnited States of America
SURRENDER NONE
In memory of Travis Bohannon
a country boy fromFlorence,Texas
who gave his life to save his family from fire.
Not all heroes are in books.
PART I
Acknowledgements

Too many people helped with technical advice and special knowledge to mention all, and leaving any of them out is unfair. But special thanks to Ellen McLean, of McLean Beefmasters, whose stock has taught me more than a college class in Dairying ever did, to Joel Graves for showing me how to scythe without cutting my ankles off, and to Mark Unger for instruction and demonstration of mixed-weapon fighting possibilities. Errors are mine; they did their best to straighten me out.

Prologue
^»
The Rule ofAareis rule one: Surrender none.

“Esea’s light on him,” muttered the priest, as the midwife mouthed, “Alyanya’s sweet peace,” and laid the wet pink newborn on his mother’s belly. The priest, sent down hurriedly in the midst of dinner from the lord’s hall, dabbed his finger in the blood and touched it to a kerchief, then cut with silver scissors a lock of the newborn’s wet dark hair, which he folded in the same kerchief. With that as proof, no fond foolish peasant girl could hide the child away from his true father. The stupid slut might try that; some of them did, being so afraid of the lord’s magic, although anyone with wit enough to dip stew from a kettle ought to realize that the lords meant no harm to these outbred children. Quite the contrary. With a final sniff, the priest sketched a gesture that left a streak of light in the room long after he’d left, and departed, to report the successful birth. Not a monster, a manchild whole of limb and healthy. Perhaps this one would inherit the birthright magic… perhaps.

Behind, in the birthing room, the midwife glowered at the glowing patch of air, and sketched her own gesture, tossing a handful of herbs at it. It hung there still, hardly fading. The new mother grunted, and the midwife returned to her work, ignoring the light she was determined not to need. She had the healing hands, a legacy of a great-grandmother’s indiscretion in the days when such indiscretions meant a quick marriage to some handy serf. She hardly believed the change, and having a priest of Esea in the birthing room convinced her only that the high lords had no decency.

In the lord’s hall, the infant’s future was quickly determined. His mother could be his nurse, but his rearing would be that of a young lord, until his ability or lack of it appeared.

The boy showed a quick intelligence, a lively curiosity; he learned easily and could form the elegant script of Old Aare by the time he had seen six midwinter festivals. He had no peasant accent; he had no lack of manners or bodily grace. He also had no magic, and when the lord lost hope that he might show a useful trace of it, he found the boy a foster family in one of his villages, and sent him away.

It could have been worse. His lord provided: the family prospered, and the youth, as he grew to be, had no trouble finding a wife. He would inherit a farmstead, he was told, and in due time he had his own farm. With his father’s gifts, he started well above the average, and as well he had the position of a market judge in the nearest town. It was not enough to live on, but it supplemented his farm’s production. He knew he was well off, and shrugged away the hopes he’d once had of being adopted into the lord’s family. Yet he could not forget his parentage, or the promise of magic.

In the year of his birth, and far away, the boy already lived who would make his parentage worthless.
Chapter One
«^»

“You’re big enough now,” said the boy’s mother. “You don’t need to be hanging on my skirts any more. You’re bold enough when it’s something you want to do.” As she spoke, she raked at the boy’s thick unruly hair with her fingers, and wiped a smudge of soot from his cheek. “You take that basket to the lord’s steward, now, and be quick about it. Are you a big boy, or only a baby, then?”

“I’m big,” he said, frowning. “I’m not scared.” His mother flicked her apron over his shirt again, and landed a hand on his backside.
“Then get on with you. You’re to be home right away, Gird, mind that. No playing about with the other lads and lasses. There’s work to be done, boy.”

“I know.” With a grunt, he lifted the basket, almost hip-high, and leaned sideways to balance the weight; it was piled high with plums, the best from their tree. He could almost taste one, the sweet juice running down his throat…

“And don’t you be eating any of those, Gird. Not even one. Your Da would skin you for it.”

“I won’t.” He started up the lane, walking cantways from the weight, but determined not to put the basket down for a rest until he was out of sight of the house. He wanted to go alone. He’d begged for the chance, last year, when he was clearly too small. And this year, when she’d first told him, he’d—he frowned harder, until he could feel the knot of his brows. He’d been afraid, after all. “I’m not afraid,” he muttered to himself. “I’m not. I’m big, bigger than the others.”

All along the lanes he saw others walking, carrying baskets slung over an arm or on a back. A handbasket for each square of bramble-berries; an armbasket for each tree in its first three years of bearing; a ruckbasket for each smallfruit tree over three years, and a back-basket for apples in prime. Last year he’d carried a handbasket in each hand: two handbaskets make an armbasket, last year’s fee. This year was the plum’s fourth bearing year, and now they owed the lord a ruckbasket.

And that leaves us, he thought bitterly, with only an armbasket for ourselves. It had been a dry year; most of the fruit fell before it ripened. He had heard his parents discussing it. They could have asked the lord’s steward to change their fee, but that might bring other trouble.

“It’s not the name I want, a man who argues every measure of his fee,” said his father, leaning heavily on the table. “No. It’s better to pay high one year, and have the lord’s opinion. ’Tis not as if we were hungry.”

Gird had listened silently. They had been hungry, two years before; he still remembered the pain in his belly, and his brother’s gifts of food. Anything was better than that. Now, as he walked the lane, his belly grumbled; the smell of the plums seemed to go straight from his nose to his gut. He squinted against the bright light, trying not to think of it. Underfoot the dust was hot on the surface, but his feet sank into a coolness—was it damp? Why did wet and cold feel the same? He saw a puddle left from the rain a week ago, and headed for it before remembering his mother’s detailed warnings. No puddles, she’d said; you don’t come into the lord’s court with dirty feet.

The lane past his father’s house curved around a clump of pick-oak and into the village proper. Gird shifted his basket to the other side, and stumped on. Up ahead, just beyond the great stone barn where the whole village stored hay and grain was the corner of the lord’s wall. The lane was choked with people waiting to go in the gate, children younger than Gird with handbaskets, those his own age with armbaskets, older ones with ruckbaskets like his. He joined the line, edging forward as those who had paid their fee came out and left room within.

Once inside the gate, he could just see over taller heads one corner of the awning over the steward’s table. As he tried to peek between those ahead of him, and see more, someone tapped his head with a hard knuckle. He looked around.

“Good looking plums,” said Rauf, Oreg the pigherd’s son. “Better than ours.” Rauf was a hand taller than Gird, and mean besides. Gird nodded, but said nothing. That was safer with Rauf. “They’d look better in my basket, I think. Eh, Sig?” Rauf nudged his friend Sikan in the ribs, and they both grinned at Gird. “You’ve more than you need, little boy; that basket’s too heavy anyway.” Rauf took a handful of plums off the top of the basket, and Sikan did the same.

“You stop!” Gird forgot that loud voices were not allowed in the lord’s court. “Those are my plums!”
“They may have been once, but I found them.” Rauf shoved Gird hard; he stumbled, and more plums rolled out of the basket. “Found them all over the ground, I did; what’s down is anyone’s, right?”

Gird tried to snatch for the rolling plums. Sikan kicked him lightly in the arm, while Rauf tipped his basket all the way over. Gird heard some of the other boys laughing, a woman nearby crying shame to them all. The back of his neck felt hot, and he heard a wind in his ears. Before he thought, he grabbed the basket and slammed it into Rauf’s face. Sikan jumped at him; Gird rolled away, kicking wildly. In moments that corner of the courtyard was a wild tangle of fighting boys and squashed fruit. The steward bellowed, the lord’s guards waded into the fight, using their hands, their short staves, the flats of their swords. And Gird found himself held immobile by two guards, with Rauf lying limp on the stones, and the other boys huddled in a frightened mass behind a line of armed men.

“Disgraceful,” said someone over his head. Gird looked up. The lord’s steward, narrow-faced, blue-eyed. “Who started it?”
No one answered. Gird felt the hands tighten on his arms, and give a shake. “Boy,” said a deeper voice, one of the men holding him. “What do you know about this. Who started it?”

“He stole my plums.” Before he spoke, he didn’t realize he was going to. In the heavy silence, with Rauf lying still before him, and the courtyard a mess of trampled fruit, his voice sounded thin. The steward looked at him, met his eyes.

“Your name, boy? Your father?”
“Gird, sir. Dorthan’s son.”
“Dorthan, eh? Your father’s not a brawling man; I’d have thought better of his sons.”
“Sir, he stole my plums!”
“Your tribute… yes. What was it, this year?”
“A ruckbasket, sir. And they were fine plums, big dark ones, and he—”
“Who?”
Gird nodded at Rauf. “Rauf, sir. Him and Sikan, his friend.”
“Anyone else see that?” The steward’s gaze drifted over the crowd of boys. Most stared at their feet, but Teris, a year older than Gird and son of his nearest neighbor, nodded.
“If you please, sir, it was Rauf started it. He said they were good plums, and would look better in his basket. Then he took some, and Gird said no, and he knocked Gird aside—”
“Rauf struck the first blow?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Anyone else?” Reluctant nods followed this. Gird saw a space open around Sikan, who had edged to the rear of the group. Sikan flushed and moved forward when the steward stared hard at him.
“It wasn’t so bad, sir,” he said, trying to smile around a bruised lip. “We was just teasing the lad, like, that was all.”
“Teasing, in your lord’s court?”
“Well—”
“And did you hit this boy?” The steward pointed at Gird.
“Well, sir, I may have—sort of—sort of pushed at him, like, but nothing hard, not to say brawling. But he’s one of them, you know, likes to make quarrels—”

The steward frowned. “It’s not the first time, Sikan, that you and Rauf have been found in bad order.” He nodded at the men behind Gird, and they released his arms. Gird rubbed his left elbow. “As for you, Gird son of Dorthan, brawling in the lord’s court is always wrong—always. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” There was nothing else to say.

“And you’re at fault in saying that your plums were stolen. They were your lord’s plums, owed to him. If Rauf had given them in, the lord would still have them. Instead—” The steward waved his hand at the mess. Very few whole fruit had survived the brawl. “But your family has a good name, young Gird, and I think you did not mean to cause trouble. So there will be no fine in fruit for your family… only you, along with these others, will stay and clean the court until those stones are clean enough to satisfy Sergeant Mager here.”

“Yes, sir.” And he would be late home, and get another whipping from his father.

“Now as for you, Sikan, and Rauf—” For Rauf had begun to move about, and his eyes opened, though aimlessly as yet. “Since you started trouble, and moreover chose a smaller boy to bully, you’ll spend a night in the stocks, when this work is done.” And the steward turned away, back to his canopy over the account table where the scribes made marks on long rolls of parchment.

Gird found the rest of that day instructive. He had scrubbed their stone floor often enough at home, and scraped dung from the cowshed. But his mother was no more particular about the bowls they ate from than Sergeant Mager about the courtyard stones. He and the other boys picked up pieces of the squashed fruit and put them in baskets—without getting even a taste of it. Then they carried buckets of water—buckets so large that Gird couldn’t carry one by himself—and brushed the stones with water and long-handled brushes. Then they rinsed, and then they scrubbed again.

Just when Gird was sure that the stones could be no cleaner had they just been quarried, the Sergeant would find a scrap of fruit rind, and they had it all to do over again. But he did his best, working as hard as he could. By the time the Sergeant let them go, it was well pastmidday, and Gird’s fingers were raw with scrubbing. He called Gird back from the gate for an extra word.
“Your dad’s got a good name,” he said, laying a heavy hand on Gird’s shoulder. “And you’re a good lad, if quick-tempered. You’ve got courage, too—you were willing to take on those bigger lads. Ever think of being a soldier?”

Gird felt his heart leap. “You mean… like you?”

The sergeant laughed. “Not at first, of course. You’d start like the others, as a recruit. But you’re big for your age, and strong. You work hard. Think of it… a sword, a spear maybe… you could make sergeant someday.”

“Do you ever get to ride a horse?” That was his dream, to ride a fast horse as the lords did, running before the wind.

“Sometimes.” The sergeant smiled. “The steward might recommend you for training. A lad like you needs the discipline, needs a place to work off his extra energy. Besides, it’s a mouth less to feed at home.” He gave Gird’s shoulder a final shake, and pushed him out the gate. “We’ll have a word with your dad, this next day or so. Don’t start trouble again, eh?”

“Holy Lady of Flowers!” His mother had been half-way down the lane; she must have been watching from the house. “Gird, what did you mean—”

“I’m sorry.” He stared at the dust between his toes, aware of every rip in his clothes. They had been his best, the shirt actually new, and now they looked like his ragged old ones. “I didn’t start it, Mother, truly I didn’t. Rauf stole some plums, and I thought we might have a fine—”

“Effa says Rauf hit you first.”
“Yes’m.” He heard her sigh, and looked up. “I really didn’t—‘
“Gird—” She put a hand on his head. “At least you’re back, and no fine. Effa says the steward didn’t seem angry, not like she thought he would be.”

“I don’t think he is.” Suddenly his news burst out of him. “Guess what the sergeant said—maybe I can train to be a soldier! I could have a sword—” Excited as he was, he didn’t notice her withdrawal, the shock on her face. “Sometimes they even ride horses, he said. He said I was big enough, and strong, and—” Her stiff silence held him at last; he stared at her. “Mother?”

“No!” She caught his arm, and half-dragged him down the lane to the house.
The argument went on all evening. His father’s first reaction to the story of the plums was to reach for his belt. “I don’t brawl,” he said. “And I didn’t raise my sons to be brawlers.”
Arin, as usual, stood up for him. “Da, that Rauf’s a bad lot, you know that. So’s the steward: they’ve got him in stocks this night, and Sikan too.”

“And I’ll have their fathers down on me, did you think of that? Oreg’s no man to blame his own son, even if Rauf tells the tale aright. If Gird hadn’t fought back, Oreg would’ve known he owed me sommat, a bit of bacon even. And Sikan’s father—I want no quarrel with him; his wife has the only pardon for dyecraft in this village. As for this way—it’s no good. We can’t be fighting each other; the world’s hard enough without that. They’ll have to know I punished Gird, and I’ll have to go to them and apologize.” So it was a whipping on top of his bruises, and no supper as well as no lunch. Gird had expected as much; he saw from Arin’s wink that he would have a scrap to eat later, whatever Arin could sneak to him without being caught. But his father was as unhappy as his mother to hear of the sergeant’s offer of training.

“It’s never good to come into notice like that. Besides, we follow the Lady: would you take sword against your own folk, Gird? Break the village peace in blood and iron?” But before he could decide whether it was safe to answer—the answer he’d thought of, while waiting for his father to come from the fields—his father shrugged. “But if the steward comes, what can I say? They have the right to take you, no matter what I think about it. The best I can hope for is that the steward forgets it.”

The steward did not forget. Gird spent the next day wrestling with the family’s smallest scythe—still too long for him—mowing his father’s section of the meadow. He knew he’d been sent there to get him out of sight, away from the other village boys. He knew his mother had baked two sweet cakes for Rauf’s family and Sikan’s, and his father had taken them over in the early morning. It was hot, the steamy heat of full summer, and the cold porridge of his breakfast had not filled the hollows from yesterday’s fast. But above him, in the great field, his father was working, able to see if he shirked.

He kept at it doggedly, hacking uneven chunks where his brother could lay a clean swathe. There had to be a way. He paused to rub the great curved blade with the bit of stone his father had given him, and listened to the change in sound it made on different parts of the blade. When he looked sideways up the slope to the arable, he saw his father talking to another of the village men. Gird leaned on the scythe handle, the blade angled high above him, and picked a bur from between his toes.

When he looked again, his father had started back up the arable. Gird dared not move out of the sun to rest, but he tipped his head back to get the breeze. Something rustled in the tall grass ahead of him. Rat? Bird? He scratched the back of one leg with the other foot, glanced upslope again, and sighed. Someday he would be a man, and if he wasn’t a soldier, he’d be a farmer, and able to swing a bigger scythe than this one. Like his father, whose sweeping strokes led the reapers each year. Like his brother Arin, who had just grown out of this scythe. He grunted at himself, and let the long blade down. Surely he could find a way to make this work better.

By nightfall, with all his blisters, he had begun to mow a level swathe. He’d changed the handles slightly, learned to get his hip into the swing, learned to take steps just the right length to compensate for the blade’s arc. The next day, he spent on the same patch of meadow. Now that he had the knack of it, he was half-hoping the steward would not come. He would grow up a farmer like his father, leading the reapers in the field, guiding his own oxen, growing even better fruit…

It was the next day that the steward came at dusk, when his father had come in from the fields, and Gird had begun to feel himself out of disgrace as far as the family went. The children were sent to the barton out back, while the steward talked, and his father (he was sure) listened. He wanted to creep into the cowbyre and hear for himself, but Arin barred the way. He had to wait until his father called him in.

There in the candlelight, his father’s face looked older, tireder. His mother sat stiffly, lips pressed together, behind her loom. The steward smiled at him. “Gird, the sergeant suggested that you were a likely lad to train for soldier: strong and brave, and in need of discipline. Your father will let you choose for yourself. If you agree, you will spend one day of ten with the soldiers this year, and from Midwinter to Midwinter next, two days of ten. It’s not soldiering at first, I’ll be honest with you: you’ll work in the barracks just as you’d work here. But your father’d be paid the worth of your work, a copper crab more than for fieldwork. And the following year, you’d be a recruit, learning warcraft, and your father will get both coppers and a dole off his fee. ’Twould help your family, in hard times, but your father says you must do as you wish.”

It was frightening to see his parents so still, so clearly frightened themselves. He had never really understood them before, he felt. Behind him, in the doorway, Arin and the others crowded; he could hear their noisy breathing. Could soldiering be so bad as they thought? All his life he’d seen the guardsmen strolling the village lane, admired the glitter of their buckles, the jingle of their harness. He’d been too young to fear the ordersticks, the clubs… he’d had strong hands rumpling his hair, when he crowded near with the other boys, he’d had a smile from the sergeant himself. And the soldiers fought off brigands, and hunted wolves and folokai; he remembered only last winter, cheering in the snow with the others as they carried back the dead folokai tied to poles. One of them had been hurt, his blood staining the orange tunic he wore, but the world was hard, and there were many ways to be hurt.

He wanted to stand on one leg and think about it, but there stood the steward, peering at him in the dimness with eyes that seemed to see clear into his heart. He’d never spoken to a lord before, exactly. Was the steward a lord? Close enough.

“It would not be a binding oath,” the steward said, a little impatiently. Gird knew that tone; his father had it when he asked who had left the barton wicket open. It meant a quick answer, or trouble. “If you did not like it, you could quit before you started the real training…”

Gird ducked his head, and then looked up at the steward. From one corner of his vision he could see his father’s rigid face, but he ignored it.
“Sir… steward… I would be glad to. If my father allows.”

“He has said it.” The steward smiled, then. “Dorthan, your son Gird is accepted into service of the Count Kelaive, and here is thepirik —” The bargain-sum, Gird remembered: not a price paid, as if he were a sheep, but a sum to mark the conclusion of any bargain. The price was somewhat else.

The very next morning, Gird left at dawn to walk through the village to the count’s guards’ barracks. None of his friends were out to watch him, but he knew they would be impressed. The guard at the gate admitted him, sent him straight across the forecourt to the barracks. The guards were just getting up, and the sergeant was crosser than Gird remembered.

“Get in the kitchen first, and serve the food; then you can clean for the cooks until after morning drill. I’ll see you then. Hop, now.”

The porridge was much like their own, if cooked in larger pots and served in bigger bowls. Gird carried the dirty bowls back, and scrubbed them, under the cook’s critical eye, then scrubbed the big cookpots. Then it was chop the onions, while his eyes burned and watered, and chop the redroots until his hands were cramped, and then fetch buckets of clean water. All the while the cook scolded, worse than his oldest sister, while mixing and kneading the dough that would be dumplings in themiddaystew. The sergeant came in while Gird was still washing down the long tables. “Right, lad. Now let’s see what we’ve got, here. Come along.” He led Gird out the side door of the kitchen, into a back court, a little walled enclosure like a barton with no byres. In one corner was the kitchen well, with the row of buckets Gird had scrubbed neatly ranged along the wall.

The sergeant was just as impressive as ever, to Gird’s eye: taller and broader than his own father, hard-muscled, with a brisk authority that expected absolute obedience. Gird looked at him, imagining himself grown into that size and strength, wearing those clean, whole, unmended clothes, having a place in the village and in his lord’s service more secure than any farmer.
“You’re a hard worker, and strong,” the sergeant began, “but you’ll have to be stronger yet, and you’ll have to learn discipline. Begin with this: you don’t talk unless you’re told to, and you answer with ‘sir’ any time I speak to you. Clear?”

Gird nodded. “Yes… sir?”
“Right. You’re here to learn, not to chatter. Dawn to dusk, one day of ten… can you count?”
“Not really, sir.”
“Not really is no. Can’t count sheep, or cows?”
Gird frowned. “If they’re there… but not days, sir, they don’t stay in front of me.”
“You’ll learn. Now, Gird: when you come here, you must be clean and ready to work. If you can’t wash at home, come early and wash here. I’ll have no ragtags in my barracks. Is that your only shirt?”
“No, sir, but th’other’s worse.”
“Then you’ll get one, but only for this work. Do you have shoes? Boots?”
Gird shook his head, then remembered to say “No, sir.” Shoes? For a mere lad? He had never had shoes, and wouldn’t until he wed, unless his father had a string of good years.

“You’ll need them later; you can wear them here, but not at home. Did you have breakfast at home this morning?” Of course he had not, beyond a bit of crust; the porridge had just gone on when he walked up to the barracks. The sergeant hmmphed at that. “Can’t grow soldiers on thin rations. I’ll tell the cook, and you’ll eat here all day on your workdays. Now—about the other boys. I want no brawling, young Gird, none at all. If they tease you about going for soldier, you learn to let it pass. No threats from you, no catcalling at Rauf or Satik or whatever his name was. You’ll be where they can’t bother you, if you keep your nose clean. Hothead soldiers cause more trouble than they’re worth; you have your chance, for you and your family: earn it.”

An answer seemed required; Gird said “Yes, sir.”

The rest of that day was more chores and little that Gird could see as soldiering, although he did see the inside of the barracks, with the lines of wooden bunks and thin straw mattresses, the weapons hung neatly on the walls, the jacks (inside!He wondered, but did not ask, how they were cleaned. Surely they were cleaned; they smelled less than his own family’s pit.) He swept a floor that seemed clean enough already, carried more buckets of water to the cook, ate a bowl of stew larger than his father ever saw for his lunch, washed dishes until his hands wrinkled afterwards, fetched yet more water (he felt his feet had worn a groove from the well to the kitchen door) and sliced yet more redroots, had a huge slab of bread and a piece of meat for supper, and was allowed to stand silent in a corner and watch the ordered marching that preceded the changing of watch before dusk.

He ran home along the dark lane his bare feet knew so well, bursting with excitement. Meat! He didn’t know if he would tell them, because they would see no meat until harvest… but it had tasted so good, and the stew and bread had filled all the hollows in his belly. He burped, tasting meat on his breath, and laughed.
They were waiting, and had saved a bowl of gruel and hunk of bread for him; he felt both shamed and proud when he could give it to the others.

“So—they’ll feed you well?” His mother wasn’t quite looking at him, spooning his share carefully into other bowls.
“Yes. Breakfast too, but I must get there early.”
“And do you like soldiering?” she asked, a sharpness in her voice.
“It’s not soldiering yet,” he said, watching the others eat. “I helped the cook today, chopping onions and carrying water… I carried enough water for two days.”
“You can carry my water tomorrow,” his mother said. His father had yet said nothing, watching Gird across the firelight as he ate.

The time from summer to Midwinter passed quickly. One day in ten he rose before dawn, at first cockcrow, and ran up the lane to the gate where the guards now knew him by name and greeted him. Into that steamy kitchen, larger than his own cottage, where the cook—never so difficult as that first day—gave him a great bowl of porridge before he served the others. As the days drew in with autumn, that kitchen became a haven, rich with the smells of baking bread and roasting meat, savory stews, fruit pies. It was a feast-day, however plain the soldiers found the food (and he was amazed to hear them grumble), he had his belly full from daylight to dark. With a full belly, the work went easily. Hauling water, sweeping, washing, chopping vegetables, chopping wood for the great hearths. He learned the names of all the guards, and knew where everything was kept. Two of them were recruits, one from his village and one from over the fields sunrising, tall boys he would have thought men if he hadn’t seen them next to the soldiers. He began to learn the drill commands as he watched.

The other nine days passed as his days always had, in work with his family. He was growing into the scythe, or managing it better, and he was allowed in the big field for the first time. Arin took him up to the high end of the wood, where the village pigs spent the summer rooting and wallowing, to help gather them into the lower pens. They ate their meager lunch in a rocky cleft up higher than others ever came, a place Arin had shown him the first year he went to help gather pigs. He spent a few days nutting in the woods, with his friends, laughing and playing tricks like the others. They all wanted to know what he was learning. When he explained that so far it was just work, like any work, they wondered why he agreed.

“Itwill be soldiering,” Gird said, leaning back against a bank and squinting up at one of their favorite nut trees. “And in the meantime, it’s food and coppers for my family—what better?”
“Good food?” asked Amis. He was lean and ribby, as they all were that year.
Gird nodded. “Lots of it, too. And that leaves more—”
“Can you take any home?”

“No.” That had been a disappointment, and his first disgrace. Sharing food was part of his life: everyone shared, fast or feast. But when he tried to take home a half-loaf being tossed out anyway, it had brought swift punishment. “The sergeant says that’s stealing. They’re getting enough for me, he says, more than I’m worth. That may be so, though I try. But not one crust will they let me take out, or a single dried plum.” The stripes had not hurt as much as knowing he could not share; he had not told his father why he’d been punished.

Terris made the closed-fist gesture against evil. “Gripe-hearts, is what they are. You watch, Gird, they’ll turn you against us.”
“Never.” Gird said it loudly, though he could already sense a rift between him and his friends. “I can share from my own, when I earn my own: then you’ll see. Open heart, open hands: the Lady’s blessing.”
“Lady’s blessing,” they all said. Gird made sure to put a handful more than his share into the common sack, that would go up to the count’s steward as their fee for nutting in those woods.

At Midwinter Feast, he stood once more before the steward, this time in the Hall, and agreed to his next year’s service. His father had stayed home, shrugging away Gird’s concern for his cough. Two days in ten, he thought, they will not have to feed me, and there’s the coppers besides. He was proud of the thought that his pay might help with the fieldfee.

Two days in ten made one in five. In the short days of winter, the sergeant set him to learning counting and letters. Gird hated it. Sitting with cold feet and numbed hands over a board scrawled with mysterious shapes was far harder than fetching water from the well, even when that meant breaking the ice on it first. At home he could read tallies well enough, the notched sticks all the farmers used to keep count of stock and coin. But here were no helpful hints… you could not tell, from the words, who wrote them. Without the clue that this tally wasOder’s… when everyone knew thatOderhad only a double-hand of sheep… you had to knowall the words and numbers to find out what it said.

Some of the men laughed unkindly at his struggles. “Thickhead,” said one, a balding redhead whom Gird had rather liked before. “Perhaps the knowledge could get in, if we cracked it open for you?”
“More like his little wit would fall out,” said another. “He thinks with his hands and feet, that one, like most peasants.”

Gird tried to concentrate on markings that seemed to jump and jiggle about in the flickering candlelight. Was the sign for three supposed to stick outthis way, or that? He wiggled his fingers, trying to remember. The sergeant’s sword was on the same side as that hand… he shook his head, confused once more.

“Here,” said the redhead, handing him two pebbles. “Put this in your hand—no, that hand—and hold it there. Now call that your left hand, eh? Stonehand. Some signs are stonehand, some are empty hand—you can remember that much, can’t you?”

He might have, but he was angry. He clenched his teeth against the temptation. The sergeant intervened. “Let him alone, Slagin. The stone’s a good idea, but leave the rest of it. Some boys take longer, that’s all. All right, Gird, the cook needs more water.”

By spring, the two days in ten of plentiful food had begun to show. He had always been heavier built than most of his sibs. “More like my brother,” his father had said, of an uncle dead before he was born. Now his broader frame began to carry thicker muscle. He had grown another two fingers up, and was straining the seams of his shirt. And that summer he carried a ruckbasket of plums without difficulty.

All that year, Gird worked his two days in ten, and his family settled into the knowledge that he would almost certainly become a soldier. His father continued to teach him the crafts and skills of farming, but with less urgency. His mother let out his old shirt, and made a new one, without pleading with him to stay home. His brothers admitted, privately, that life was a bit easier when he got part of his food elsewhere, and the coppers came in on quarterdays. Rauf tried once to tease him into a fight, calling him coward when he backed off; a few months later he noticed that Rauf crossed the lane to avoid him. And his friends seemed glad to see him, when any of them had time off for foolery, which wasn’t often.

So at Midwinter, he gave his oath to the steward, and entered training as a recruit, to sleep in the barracks with the others and learn the arts of war.
Chapter Two
«^»
“Your oath to the steward’s one thing,” said Sergeant Mager. “It’s me you’ve got to satisfy.”

Gird, along with three other recruits, all from other villages, stood uneasily in his new orange uniform while the sergeant stalked back and forth in front of them. The other soldiers were inside, enjoying the Midwinter Feast. They were in the little back courtyard he knew so well, with an icy wind stiffening their skins.

“If you make it through training,” the sergeant went on, “you’ll give your oath to our lord or his guardian. You’ll go where he sends you, and fight his battles, the rest of your time as soldier. Some of you—” He did not look at Gird. “—some of you started your training as boys. But you needn’t think you know much yet. You all start level.”

Level meant the bottom. The senior recruits, that Gird had seen cuffed and bullied by the older men, now cuffed and bullied the new ones. Gird was no longer the cook’s helper, but he still hauled buckets of water, scrubbed floors, and now had his uniform to keep clean and mended, besides. The boots that went with it kept his feet from the snow, but chafed badly until he learned how to pack them with oily wool. He had never had to do anything to a bed but fall into it and fight his brothers for the cover: now he had to produce as neat a mattress, as tightly rolled a blanket, as the others. And, lacking a boy to do the work, all four new recruits washed dishes.

Yet none of them complained. Like Gird, they had all been peasants’ sons, only one of them the son of a free tenant. It was worth all the abuse to have a full belly all winter long, somewhere warm to sleep. Gradually they got used to having enough to eat, a bunk each, with a warm blanket, whole clothes that fit, boots.

Gird had been hoping to move quickly into training with weapons, but the sergeant had other priorities. They would all, he said firmly, with a hard look at Gird, learn their letters well enough to follow simple orders. They would learn to keep count, so they could help the steward or his agents during tax-time. Ifor, who had been sent from the nearest trading town, could already read a little, and use the pebble-board for figuring. He didn’t mind the daily session with letters that was still torture to Gird.

“You’ll never make sergeant, Gird, if you don’t learn this,” the sergeant warned. Gird was beginning to think he didn’t care, if making sergeant meant making sense of reading and writing and numbers. He could see, as clear as his hand on the table, how many legs two sheep had, but trying to think of it and write it down made the sweat run down his face. He was the slowest in this, as he was strongest in body. The sergeant insisted that it didn’t have to work that way, that many strong men were quick-minded in learning to read. Gird eyed the others wistfully, wondering what the difference was inside their heads. He struggled on. He knew all the marks, now, that stood for numbers and sounds; he could read the simplest words, and write his own name in awkward, shaky letters. But it got no easier, for all his labors.

Besides that, they had to learn about their lord’s domain: the correct address for the lord himself, for the steward, for the various officers who came through on inspections. The names of all the villages, and the headmen of each, and the sergeants in all the places the guard was stationed. Once in the lord’s guard, they might be sent anywhere within his domain. Most men served away from their homes, at least until they were well along in service. Gird had never really considered the possibility that he might leave and never come back. Going off to war was one thing, but leaving this village—the only place he’d ever known—to make a life somewhere else—that was new and disturbing. He frowned, but said nothing. At least this was better than reading and writing. The lists went on and on. They had to know the right name for each piece of equipment in the barracks, from the tools used on the hearth to the weapons hung on the walls. Each weapon had not only a name, but a name for each part—for each movement with which it could be used—for the command given to make each movement.

When they did begin what Gird recognized as soldier’s training, it was hardly different from the games boys played. Wrestling—he had wrestled with the other lads all his life. He was good at it. When the sergeant asked him if he thought he knew how, he answered briskly that he did, and stepped out. Someone chuckled, but he ignored it. They laughed at everything the new recruits did, good or bad. He eyed the balding redhead he’d been told to work with, and cocked his arm, edging in as the boys always did. Something like a tree trunk suddenly grabbed him and he felt himself flying through the air, to land hard on the cold stone floor.

“It’s not a game, any more,” said his partner mildly. “Try again.” Some five falls later, when Gird was breathless, bruised, and much less cocky—and the other man had hardly broken into a sweat— the sergeant called a halt.

“Now you know what you don’t know. Convinced?”
“Yes, sir.”

“Remember: if we have to crack your head to let in wisdom, we will.” The sergeant was serious, but Gird grinned at that. It made sense. His father said much the same, and he’d known all his life that his own head was considered harder than most.

Besides wrestling, there was drill. Gird found he liked that, although he had trouble with some of the sequences, and more than once turned in the wrong place and got trodden on. And pounded, when the sergeant caught up with him. But when it worked, when all the separate individuals merged into one body, and the boots crashed on the stones together, it sent shivers down his backbone. This was really soldiering, something the village folk could watch and recognize, something to show off.If the sergeant ever let them past the gates, which he had not for tens and tens of days.

One late winter day, shepherds came to ask the guard’s help in hunting a pack of wolves. The steward agreed, and the sergeant, now mounted on a stout brown horse, led them all out into a miserably cold, bleak day with neither sun nor snow to commend it. Gird marched for the first time in uniform down the lane past his cottage, where his younger sister peeked through the leafless hedge and dared a shy wave. He could not wave back, not with the sergeant’s eye on him, as it surely was, for all he rode ahead. But he knew she watched, and admired her older brother, and someday all the others would too. He could imagine himself receiving admiring glances from all the villagers, when he saved their stock from wolves or folokai, or protected them from brigands.
Gird enjoyed the wolf hunt, though it meant that he and the other inexperienced ones spent three whole days trudging through cold damp woods and across even colder wet pastures, looking for wolf signs. It was not until much later that he realized the sergeant never expected them to find any—that’s what the gnarled old tracker with his hounds was for—but it kept them out of trouble and far away from the actual hunt. They returned in the glow of a successful hunt, behind the lucky ones who had actually killed two wolves and so got to carry them through the village (Gird and the other recruits had carried them most of the way back, while the hunters themselves told and retold exactly how each spear had gone into its prey.)

With the coming of spring, they spent more of their time outside, and more of it in things Gird recognized as soldierly. Marching drill, and long marches across the fields and pastures. Archery, not with the simple and fairly weak bows his own people used for hunting small fowl in the woods, but with the recurved bows that took all his strength to draw. They learned the use of stick and club, facing off in pairs and later with the older recruits in sections. Gird collected his fair share of bruises and scrapes without comment, and dealt as many.

Days lengthened with the turning year. Soldiers as well as farmers had to put in their due of roadwork, and Gird’s weapon on that occasion was a shovel. He hesitated before jamming it into the clogged ditch: was this like a plow? Did he need to perform the spring ritual of propitiation before putting iron in Alyanya’s soil? He muttered a quick apology as he saw the sergeant glare his way. It would have to do. He meant no disrespect, and he had brought (on his own time) the sunturning flowers to the barracks well. Although the sergeant had brushed them away without comment, surely the Lady would understand.

He might have known his mutter would not go unnoticed. Even as he tossed the second shovelful of wet clay and matted leaves to one side, the sergeant was beside him.
“What’s that you said, Gird?”
“Just asked the Lady’s peace, sir, before putting iron to ’er.”

The sergeant sighed, gustily, and looked both ways to be sure the others were hard at work before he spoke. “Gird, when you were a farmer’s brat, you paid attention to the Lady, and no doubt to every well-sprite, spring spirit, and endstone watcher. I’ve no doubt who it was tied that bunch of weeds to the wellpost.”

Gird opened his mouth to say it wasn’t weeds at all, but the proper flowers, picked fresh that morning, but thought better of it.

“But now you’re a soldier, or like to be. You need a soldier’s patron now, Gird, not a farmer’s harvest matron. Gods know I’m as glad of the Lady’s bounty as anyone, and I grant her all praise in harvest time. It’s right for farmers to follow all the rituals. But not you. Will you stop to ask the Lady’s blessing every time you draw steel, in the midst of battle? You’ll have a short life that way.”

“But sir—”

“You cannot be both, Gird, farmer and soldier. Not in your heart. Did your folk teach you nothing of soldiers’ gods?” Gird shook his head, still shoveling, and the sergeant sighed again. “Well, ’tis time you learned. Tir will take your oath in iron, same as mine, and asks nothing but your courage in battle and your care for your comrades. The lords say he’s below Esea, their god—” He peered at Gird’s face, to see if he understood. Gird nodded, silently; his father had had a lot to say about Esea—a foreign god, he’d said, not like their own Lady, and not like the Windsteed. “But to us it doesn’t matter,” said the sergeant. “He’s god enough for me, my lad, and that should be enough for you. Think about it. And no more flowers around my well, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.” He had not thought soldiers that different. Everyone knew the capriciousness of themerin, the well-sprites… how the water rose and fell, regardless of local rains, how even its flavor changed. Had that well in the barracks yard gone years without proper care? He was sure the water had tasted sweeter after his offering. But he could not argue with his sergeant.

After the roadwork, after the bridge repairs that followed the spring rains, the recruits had their first chance to mingle with the villagers. Gird spent most of that time helping his father and brothers with their work, but found an hour now and then to meet with his old friends. At first they were properly impressed with his growing strength and martial skills, but that didn’t last long.

“It’s not fair,” said Tens, when Gird had thrown him easily for the third time one evening. “You’re using soldier’s tricks against friends, and that’s not fair.” He, turned away. So did the others.
“But I—” Gird stared at their backs. He knew what that meant.

If they shut him out, he would have no one in the village but his family. And his family, just lately, had been irritating him with complaints about his attitude. If the sergeant forbade him to remember all the Lady’s rituals, his family insisted that he perform them all perfectly. He could not lose his friends: not now. “I—I will teach you,” he offered. “Then it would be fair.”

“Would you, truly?” Teris turned around again.

“Of course.” Gird took a deep breath. The sergeant might think he knew nothing—or that’s what he kept saying—but here he knew more than any of them. “We can say we have a guard unit—we can have a sergeant, a captain—”

“I suppose you’ll want to be captain,” said Kev.
“If he’s teaching us,” said Teris, shrugging, “he can be captain. For awhile.”

“We need a level field,” said Gird. He would teach them marching, he thought to himself. Maybe if he taught them, he wouldn’t forget the commands himself. Somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered an oath not to teach “peasants and churls” the arts of war. But marching in step wasn’t an art of war. They’d all tried it when they were little boys; they just hadn’t known how to do itright. And wrestling wasn’t an art of war; no one fought battles by wrestling. And archery… all boys played with archery. Nonetheless, he took care that the level field they decided on was well out of sight of the guard stations.

In a few weeks, Gird’s troop of boys was moving around the back horse pasture with assurance. Bit by bit, as he learned from the sergeant, he transferred knowledge to the boys.

“The little groups are called squads,” he said one day. “We have enough to have three of them; it’s like pretend armies. Every squad has a leader, and marches together, and you can do real things with it.” They built a sod fort in the field, and practiced assaults. Teris, in particular, had a gift for it; he remembered everything Gird told him, the first time.

Now, rehearsing his new knowledge with his friends, Gird felt that his life as a soldier was well begun. That first summer as a recruit, he spent all his free time with them; he saw no reason why their old friendship should ever end. He wished he could show them off to the sergeant. If he could train them, he had to be learning himself, didn’t he?

But as time passed, Gird’s friends were working too hard in the fields to have time for boyish play. First one, then another, failed to turn up for drill, and then the others refused to do it. They wanted to lie in the long grass and talk about things Gird didn’t know: whose brother was courting whose sister, which family might have trouble raising the field-fee this year, all that timeless village gossip. When he tried to argue them into drill or wrestling, they simply looked at him, a look the sergeant had taught him to think mulish and stupid. He gave in, since arguing would not serve, and wished he could live in two places at once.

After harvest, he had less time off himself, and rarely came into the village all that winter. The recruits had begun to learn sword-work, and even Gird knew that he could make no excuse for teaching his friends to use edged weapons, even if they had had them to practice with. No one did; the strictest of the laws forbade any but soldiers to have weapons, and even the free smiths feared the punishment for breaking that law. Besides, the sergeant still insisted that he keep trying to learn to read and write. None of his friends could, or cared to. His father admitted that reading was a useful skill, but wasn’t at all sure that it was right for a farmer to know. Gird opened his mouth to say “But I’m not a farmer!” and shut it again. That was the whole point, and they all knew it.

There were other barriers growing, too, between them He could not tell them what the sergeant said about Alyanya, or what he felt himself. Even the rituals of harvest had seemed a little silly; the twisted wisps of straw, the knotted yarn around the last sheaf, all that was peasant lore, far removed from his future as a soldier. He felt guilty when he listened to the other soldiers’ jests; those were his people, his family and extended kin. Yet he wished that the villagers would somehow impress the soldiers—would somehow be more soldierly, so that he could feel pride in them.

And there was the matter of soldiers’ discipline. For himself, Gird could stand a few buffets when he made a mistake, a few lashes for coming back drunk from the harvest festival trying to sing “Nutting in the Woods.” Being clouted by the others was no worse than being mauled by Rauf and the older boys when he’d been younger. For that matter, many families were almost as rough; his father had taken a belt to him more than once, and his oldest brother had pummeled him regularly before he married and moved away.

What he did not like was having to do the same to others. When Keri, a lad from one of the distant villages, mishandled a sword, and the sergeant had them all join in the punishment, Gird told himself that someone who couldn’t stand a few buffets wouldn’t stay strong in battle, but he didn’t like to think which bruise on that battered face had come from his fist. He got a reputation for being strong enough but unaggressive, a little too gentle. The sergeant shook his head at him after seeing him flinch from Keri’s punishment. “And I thought you’d be the quarrelsome sort, glad enough to clout others. Well, better this way, as long as you don’t mind killing an enemy. But mind, lad, soldiering’s not for the faint heart or weak stomach.” He was sure he would not mind a battle; it was having to hit someone helpless that made him feel sick to his stomach. This was another thing he could not share with boyhood friends; he knew they would not understand.

Past Midwinter Feast, in the slack of late winter, he found another troubling presence in the barracks. Three of the soldiers, all from Finyatha and rotated here from the count’s household, favored Liart. Gird had never heard of Liart before that second winter, when he came back from the jacks one night to find the three crouched before the hearth with something that whimpered between them. When they heard him, one of them whirled.

“Get away!” he’d said. “Or by Liart’s chain, you’ll rue it!” He had gone to the sergeant, unsure, and seen the sergeant’s face tighten.

“Liart, is it? Liart’s chain? I’ll give them Liart’s chain!” And he had stormed out, bellowing. But in the end he had gone to the steward, and come back shaken. “A god of war is a god of war,” he’d said then, in the bleak light of a winter morning. “Our lord approves, if someone chooses Liart for patron.”

Gird tried to ask, and was sworn at for his pains. Then, later, one of the other men, Kadir, explained. “Liart’s followers buy his aid with blood; ’tis said he likes it best if it comes hardly… d’you see?” Gird didn’t, but knew he didn’t want to know. “Liart’s chain… that’s the barbed chain, like the barbed whip they use on murderers, up in Finyatha. Some lords use it, more than used to. Mostly it was thieves and outlaws, in the old days, so I heard. But the thing is, Gird, don’t you be asking trouble of Liart’s followers; they’ll torment you as glad as anyone, if you bring notice to them. I’d be careful, was I you.”

A few days later he found a short length of barbed chain on his bunk, as they came in for inspection. The sergeant’s eyes met his; he took his punishment without complaint; they both knew he had not put it there. He himself had declared for Tir, as his sergeant had suggested the previous summer, although he had not yet given his oath of iron. That would require a Blademaster, and the sergeant said they would have the chance after they’d given their final oath to the lord when training was over. The sergeant had told him what was lawful for him to know, though, and it was very little like anything the villagers taught.

So when the days lengthened again into spring, there were many things he could not share with old friends. They would have questions he could not answer—that was the best face he could put on it. Likely it would be worse. And he himself, as tall now as any of the guards, would be promoted from recruit come Summereve, when the lord was home from Finyatha.

Later he would remember that spring as one of the happiest times of his life, drenched in honey. He was young and strong and handsome; when he walked along the lanes to visit his family, with the brass badge of his lord’s service shined and winking in the sun, the little children smiled and waved at him, tagging along behind. “Gird,” they called. “Strong Gird… carry me, please?” Girls near his age glanced at him sideways; he felt each glance like a caress. Boys too old to tag him like the younger children watched nonetheless, and when he stopped to speak to someone they’d come close. “Is it hard to be a soldier, Gird?” they’d ask. And sometimes he told them tales of the barracks, and watched their eyes widen.

Once, twice, he had leave to go to the gatherings in the sheep-folds around, where the young men and girls met and danced. He was too young yet—he merely watched—but he enjoyed the music, and the respectful, if wary, glances. His old friends still joked with him, cautiously, but none ventured to wrestle or match arms. He didn’t mind that; he didn’t want to hurt them, and he knew now that he could.

Even at home, it was a good spring. His father’s eyes still showed concern, but his older brothers were clearly proud to have a brother in the guards. Other lads his own age were still “lads” only—too young to marry, too young to inherit a farm, and most were younger sons. “Sim’s boys” or “Artin’s boys,” they were called, in lumps like cattle. But he, Gird son of Dorthan, he had a name for himself in the village, and a nickname to match, for even the veterans called him “Strong Gird.” And on his rare days off, when he helped his father and brothers on the farm, he knew he deserved that nickname: he could outlift any of them, could haul more wood and dig a longer line of ditch. Now he could handle the longest scythe they had, and mow as level a swathe as his father.

“I can’t say they’ve spoiled you for work,” his father said one of those nights, when Gird was enjoying a last few minutes by the fire before walking back to the barracks. “You’re a good worker; you always were, from a little lad. You’re strong, and you’ve no foolish ideas about it. But I still wish— ” He left the wish unfinished. Gird knew what he would have said, but he had never understood it. He would never forget his family, the people of his heart.

And, strong as he was, he wouldn’t die in battle far away—he would come home to them. Couldn’t they understand that?

“I’ll be all right, Da,” he said, patting his father’s shoulder. “I’ll be good, and someday—” But he could not name his private dream, not then. It trembled on the edge of his mind, half-visible in a cloud of wishes too vague to express. He would do something wonderful, something that made the village and the sergeant both proud of him. Something very brave, that yet hurt no one but bad men, or monsters.

“Go in peace, Gird, as long as you may,” his father said. “I pray the Lady forgives your service of iron.”

His father always said that, and it always annoyed him now. Alyanya, the Lady of Flowers, the Lady of Peace, the Lady whose permission they must have each spring to touch the land with plow or spade—Gird thought of her in his mind as a more beautiful form of the village maids. Rahel, maybe, with shining hair down her back, or Estil whose perfect breasts swung dizzyingly with every stroke of the scythe during haying. Those girls, those flower-scented soft-skinned girls with their springtime bodies swaying along the lanes, those girls didn’t mind his “service of iron.” No, he had seen them glance, seen them smile sideways at him, while farm lads his age received no flicker of eyelash at all.

And surely the Lady herself, whatever else she was, understood the need for soldiers—surely she also admired broad shoulders, strength, the courage of a man with bright weapons in his hand. The sergeant had told him an old tale about Alyanya and Tir, in which the Lady had her Warrior guardian, and was glad of his service. He had never heard such a tale at home, but it made sense, the way the sergeant told it. That the iron of plow and spade was but another form of the iron of sword and spear, and the Lady’s consent to one was as gracious as her consent to the other. “Bright harvest,” the sergeant’s tale had sung, “born of this wedding, child of this marriage—” Girl and Lady, he thought to himself, both know and want the strong arm, the bright steel. But he did not argue with his father, as he had once the year before. His father was a farmer, born and bred, and would die as a farmer— may it not be soon! he thought piously—and he could not expect a farmer to understand soldiers’ things.

He walked back through the late-spring night, with starlight glittering in the puddles alongside the lane, as happy as he could imagine being. He was Gird, the local farmer’s son who had made good, had made a place for himself in the lord’s household, by the strength of his arm and the courage of his heart.

Then the lord count arrived from the king’s court. All the guards stood rigid in the courtyard for that: Gird in the back row, with the other recruits. Tall as he was, he had a good view of the cavalcade. A halfsquad of guards, looking somehow older and rougher than those he had met, on chunky nomad-bred horses, followed by two boys that looked younger than Gird on tall, light-built mounts. Behind them, a prancing warhorse with elaborate harness embroidered and stamped on multicolored leathers. And on the warhorse, their lord—Gird’s liege lord, Count Seriast Vanier Dobrest Kelaive—a sour-faced young man in orange velvet, black gloves, tall black boots, and a black velvet cap with an orange plume. He looked, Gird thought, like a gourd going bad in storage—a big orange gourd spotted with fungus.

Immediately he suppressed the thought. This was his lord, his sworn liege, and for the rest of his life he would be this man’s loyal vassal. His eyes dropped to the horse, the saddle, the tall polished boots. There were his spurs, the visible symbol of his knighthood, long polished shafts and delicate jewelled rowels. The steward came forward; the squires dismounted, handing their horses to grooms. One of them held the lord’s bridle; the other steadied the off stirrup while he dismounted. Gird watched every detail. So far he had not had a chance to ride more than the mule that turned the millsweep. But in watching the horse, he heard everything, heard the steward’s graceful speech of welcome, the curt response.

He knew, as did they all, that the young lord had been educated at the king’s court in Finyatha; this year, at Summereve, he would take over his own domain, and the steward’s rule would end. Everyone had liked that idea—or almost everyone—and had told one another tales of the steward’s harshness. A young lord, they’d said, their own lord, living finally on his own domain, would surely be more generous. The steward would have to do his bidding, not make up orders of his own.

But now, seeing the young lord in person, Gird had a moment of doubt. For all the complaints he’d heard of the steward’s harshness, most years no one went hungry. The sergeant had told him of other lands where brigands or war brought famine. Here, despite the fees, a hardworking family could prosper, as his had, with one brother tenanting his own cottage, and Arin soon to marry. Would things be better under the young count?

Still, Summereve, only a few days away, would bring a great day for both of them. The lord’s investiture, in the moments aftermidnight. He could not imagine what solemn rituals gave one of the lords dominion; the sergeant made it clear that it was none of their business. Perhaps the sergeant himself had never seen. Village rumor, he remembered, had it that the lords gained their great powers when they took office. But he had never seen any lord, or anyone with powers beyond the steward’s ability to ferret out the truth when someone lied. He could not begin to imagine what kind of powers their young lord might have, or use. He pulled his mind back from this speculation to his own prospects. His promotion from recruit to guard private, the next afternoon, would be part of the lord’s formal court, the first occasion on which the count would show his wisdom and ability to rule well. Gird had his new uniform ready, had every bit of leather oiled and shining, every scrap of metal polished. He let his eyes wander to the rest of the entourage. Behind the lord’s horse came others equally gaudily caparisoned: young nobles in velvets and furs, sweating in the early summer heat. Young noblewomen, attended each by maids and chaperons, riding graceful horses with hooves painted gold and silver. They began to dismount, in a flurry of ribbons and wide-sweeping sleeves, a gabble of voices as loud and bright as a flight of birds in the cornfield. As the young lord passed his steward’s deferential bow, and led the party into the house, Gird felt a surge of excitement. The real world, the great world of king’s court, the outside world he had never seen, had come to him, to his own village, and he would be part of it.

Chapter Three
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Behind the main mass of the lord’s hall lay the walled gardens. To the east, the fruit orchard, with its neatly trimmed plums and pears, its rare peach trained against a southern wall. To the west, the long rows of the vegetable garden, mounds of cabbage like a row of balls, the spiky blue-green stalks of onions and ramps, the sprawling vine-bushes of redroot. Ten-foot stone walls surrounded each garden, proof against the casual thief and straying herdbeast. But not, of course, against the daring of an occasional boy who would brag the rest of his life about a theft of plum or pear from the lord’s own garden.

Meris, son of Aric, now the tanner’s apprentice, had taken a plum the year before, but it was partly green. This year, he determined to take a sackful, and share them out, and they would be ripe ones, too. The lord’s best plum tree, as Meris knew well (for his uncle was a skilled pruner of trees, and worked on them), was the old one in the middle of the garden, the only survivor of a row of plums grafted from scions of the king’s garden in Finyatha. Its fruit ripened early, just before Summereve, medium-sized reddish egg-shaped plums with a silver bloom and yellow flesh.
It seemed to him that the young lord’s arrival would be an excellent time to make his raid. The lord and his retinue would be busy, and nearly everyone else would be watching the excitement in the forecourt. So as soon as the first horns blew across the field, signalling the approaching cavalcade, Meris left off scraping the hair from the wet hide he was working on, and begged his master to let him go.

“Oh, aye, and if I don’t you’ll be so excited you’ll likely scrape a hole in it. Very well… put it back to soak, and begone with you. But you’ll finish that hide before supper, Meris, if it takes untilmidnight.”

With the prospect of a belly full of his lord’s best plums, a delayed supper was the last thing Meris needed to worry about. He grinned his thanks and darted from the tannery. He had hidden what he needed behind a clump of bushes on the east side of the lord’s wall… a braided rawhide rope with a sliding loop. Other boys used borrowed ladders, and he’d heard of the smith’s boy using some sort of hook tied to rope, but he had found that the looped rope could nearly always find a limb to fasten on. With a little support from the rope, and the skill of his bare feet on the rough-cut stone walls, he had always managed to get over. And the rawhide rope, without a hook or other contrivance, never attracted the suspicious attention of the guard. Once they’d found it, and he watched from the bushes as they shrugged and left it in place. A herdsman’s noose, they’d said, dropped by some careless apprentice. Let the lad take his master’s punishment, and braid another.

He waited, now, in the same clump of bushes, watching people stream by from the eastern fields. Soon no one passed. He heard a commotion around the wall’s corner, from the village itself. Let it peak, he thought. Let the lord arrive. He waited a little longer, then glanced around. No one in sight, not even a distant flock. He swung the noose wide, as he’d practiced, and tossed it over the fence. He heard the thrashing of leaves as he pulled, and it tightened. He tugged. Firm enough.

Standing back a bit from the base of the wall, he threw himself upward, finding a toehold, and another. Whenever he found nothing, he used the rope, but most of it was skill and scrambling. At the wall’s top, he flattened himself along it and gave a careful look at the hall’s rear windows. Once he’d been seen by a servant, and nearly caught. But, as he’d expected, nothing moved in those windows. Everyone must be watching the forecourt, and the young lord’s arrival. He pulled up his rope, and coiled it on the top of the wall. He could gain the wall from the inside by climbing one of the pears trained along it; he needed the rope only for getting in. This time, though, he planned to use it to lower the sack of stolen fruit on his way out. He checked his sack, took another cautious look around, and climbed quickly down a pear tree to the soft grass under the trees.

He heard a blast of trumpets from the forecourt, and grinned. Just as he’d planned: complete silence in the gardens, and everyone out front gaping at the lord. Silly. He was going to be there long enough for all to see, so why bother? Meris glanced around, still careful. No sign of anyone. One of the gates between the fruit orchard and the vegetable garden was open; he could see the glistening cabbage heads, the spikes of onion.

He moved forward. None of the pear trees had ripe fruit, but all were heavy with green pears. One of the golden plums was ripe; a single fruit lay on the grass beneath. Meris snatched it up and bit into it. Sun-warm and sweet, the juice slid down his throat. He spat the pit into the grass and plucked several of the golden plums for his sack. He took a few red plums from another tree, and then found himself at the old one, the “king tree” as his uncle called it.

It was loaded with ripe and overripe plums; clearly the steward had decided to leave it for the young lord’s pleasure. Ordinarily, Meris knew, the trees were picked over every day to prevent loss to bird and wasp. But here the limbs drooped, heavy with plums, and the grass beneath was littered with fallen fruit. Wasps buzzed around these; the air was heavy with the scent of plum. Meris stepped forward, careful of the wasps beneath, and started picking.

He had nearly filled his sack, when he heard a door slam at the far end of the garden. He looked over his shoulder. Surely the welcoming ceremonies would have taken longer than this! He could see nothing between the trees, but he heard voices coming nearer. To go back, he would have to cross the central walk, in clear view of whatever busybody gardener had come back to work. But on this side, only a few steps away, was the open door to the vegetable gardens. He could outrun any gardener, he was sure, but he might be recognized. If he could hide for a little…

Quietly, he eased through the garden door, still without seeing whose were the oncoming voices, and found himself in unknown territory. To his left, rows of cabbage and onion stretched to the rear of the stable walls. Ahead were the beanrows, tall pole frames with bean vines tangling in them, only waist-high at this season. In a few weeks the beanrows would have been tall enough, but right now he’d have to crawl in between the poles. Scant cover, and once he was among them, a long way to any of the walls. On his right, the low matted redroots, with gourds beyond them, and some feathery-leaved plants he’d never seen before. The wall he’d come through was covered with some sort of vine; it had orange flowers and was trimmed off a foot or so below the wall-height. He saw no one, in the whole huge garden, but he saw no place to hide quickly if someone came, in.

He flattened himself against the wall by the open door, and listened. Guards, they sounded like, rough voices. Perhaps the lord had sent them to check on everything—though Meris thought he should have trusted his local sergeant. The voices had passed beyond, and then he heard them coming back, heard the steady stride, the faint chink of metal on metal. Guards, sure enough. He dared a look, saw a broad back in the orange and black striped tunic, no one he recognized. Guards who had come with the young lord, then. They were through; they passed by, and kept going. He listened to their heavy step all the way down the main walk.

He grinned to himself. His luck was holding. In a mad impulse, he darted forward and yanked two onions out of the ground and stuffed them in his sack. And a ramp. Ramps, the onion cousin that none of the peasants was allowed to grow, brought from the old south, so they’d always heard, and sold sometimes on market days for high prices—he would have a ramp of his own, the whole thing. He might even plant it, under the forest edge, and grow more. Then he stood up.

“Hey—you there!” In the time it had taken him to pull a ramp, one of the gardeners had entered by the stable doors. Meris did not wait to see what would happen; he bolted straight for the door into the orchard. Behind him, the gardener’s yell had started others yelling. He slammed the door behind him and threw the latch; it might slow them an instant. Then he was off, running between the trees as hard as he could pelt, the sack of stolen fruit banging his thigh.

He hardly saw the group of people strolling along the main walk before he had run into them, knocking one man flat. He heard high-pitched cries, and deeper yells of rage, and kept going, knocking aside someone’s grab at his arm. It seemed the orchard had grown twice as wide; tree limbs thrashed his face. Behind him now were the heavy feet of guardsmen as well. When he came to the wall, he swarmed up the pear tree as fast as a cat fleeing a wolf, and gained its top, Here he paused a moment. The guards were too heavy for the pears; they’d never be able to climb so high, he thought. Of course, they’d bring ladders… He caught a flash of bright orange between the trees below, and someone yelled. Hardly thinking, he snatched an onion from his bag and fired it at the shape. Another bellow; he turned to leap into the thicket below. He’d have to risk mashing his fruit. He had no time to lower it carefully; in fact, he’d have to run off without it if he didn’t want to be caught.
The sergeant kept them on parade in the forecourt even though the young lord had gone on into his hall. He might come back out; besides, the peasants were still milling about in the lane near the gates. When the noise began, a reverberant yell from somewhere deep in the hall, the sergeant sent squads in at once, one through the hall itself. Almost as soon as they disappeared into the hall, they came boiling back out again, running for the gates. Gird, with the other recruits, knew that something had happened, but not what; the sergeant silenced them with curses when they asked, and finally sent them off to the barracks. There they shifted from foot to foot, nervous as young colts in a pen. They dared not sit on the bunks made ready for inspection; they dared not do anything, lest it be the wrong thing.

Not long after, they were called back. The sergeant looked as grim as Gird had ever seen him; no one dared speak. He hurried them into formation, marched them once more to the forecourt. This time they were told to form a line dividing the forecourt in half. On one side, the lord and his steward, and the guardsmen. On the other, the villagers, crowding in behind Gird and the other recruits. And between them, his shirt torn half off his back, Meris son of Aric.

Gird stared at the scene before him, bewildered. He had known Meris all his life; the younger boy had a name for mischief, but Gird had thought him safely apprenticed to the tanner. What could Meris have done, to cause such an uproar?

The boy, held tightly by two guardsmen, stood as if lame, leaning a bit to one side. Gird could see a bruise rising over his eye. On the far side of the court, the lord started forward, slapping one black glove against the other. The steward laid a hand on his arm, was shaken off with a glare, and stepped back.

“What’s his name?” asked the lord. No one answered for a moment; Gird thought no one was sure who should, or how the young lord should be addressed. Then the steward spoke up.
“Meris, son of Aric,” he said. “A tanner’s apprentice.”
The young lord flung a glance back at the steward, and nodded. “Meris, son of Aric… and is Aric here?”
“No, my lord. Aric is a herdsman; your cattle are in the pastures beyond the wood right now; he is with them.”
“And the tanner, his master: where is he?”
A movement among the villagers, and the tanner stepped forward. “Here, sir.”
“Sircount , churl.” The lord looked him up and down. “A fine master you are—did you teach your ’prentice to thieve, is that it?”
“Sir?” The tanner’s face could not have been more surprised if he’d found himself dyed blue, Gird thought. The young lord barked a contemptuous laugh at him.

“You mean to claim you did not know where he was? You did not know he was stealing fruit from my orchard? From the way he ran straight for that pear tree, I daresay had done it often before. You know the law: a master stands for his apprentice’s misdeeds—”

“Stealing fruit?” Gird did not know the tanner well; the man had moved into the village only three years before, when old Simmis had died and left the tannery vacant. But he seemed honest enough now, if perhaps none too bright. “But he begged the time off to see your honor’s coming—”

“While you, I presume, were too busy to see your liege lord’s arrival, or to supervise your apprentice properly?”
The tanner looked from lord to steward and back again, seeing no help anywhere. “But—but sir—I didn’t know. I thought he—”

“You should have known; he was your apprentice. Be glad I don’t have you stripped naked and in the stocks for this; the steward will collect your fine later.” The lord smiled, and turned to the boy. “And as for this young thief, this miscreant who was not content to steal my fruit, but boldly assaulted my person—you’ll climb no more walls, and steal no more fruit, and I daresay you’ll remember the respect you owe your lord to the end of your life.” The steward moved, as if he would speak, but the young count stared him down. “It is your laxness, Cullen, that’s given these cattle the idea they can act so. You should have schooled them better.”

The courtyard was utterly silent for a long moment. Then a soft murmur began, like the first movement of leaves in a breeze, rustling just within hearing. Gird felt a wave of nausea, as he realized with the others that the young lord intended far worse than the steward ever had. Even now he could not believe that Meris had assaulted the lord: Meris had never assaulted anyone. His mischiefs were always solitary.

It was then, as his eyes slid from one to another, not quite meeting anyone’s as their eyes avoided his, that he noticed the pin clasping the young count’s cloak. A circle, like the symbol of Esea’s Eye, the Sunlord, but sprouting horns… like a circle of barbed chain, the barbed chain the followers of Liart had left on his bunk. And those three, of all the soldiers, were untroubled by the count’s malice… were eager, he realized, for whatever the count wanted.

What the count wanted, as events proved, was threefold; to terrorize his peasantry, to impress his friends from the king’s court, and to leave Meris just enough life to suffer long before dying. Long before the end of it, Gird and many others had heaved their guts out onto the paved court, had fallen shaking and sobbing to their knees, trying not to see and hear what they could not help seeing and hearing. Not even his sergeant’s fist on his collar, the urgent “Getup , boy, before it’s you—” could steady him. He staggered up, shook free of the sergeant’s hold, and bolted across the empty space into the crowd, fighting his way to the gate like a terrified ox from a pen.

He had moved so suddenly, with so little forethought, that no one caught him; behind him the villagers reacted to his panic with their own, screaming and thrashing away from the scene of torture. That kept the rest of the soldiers busy, though Gird didn’t realize it. He ran as if he could outrun his memories, down the long lane past his father’s cottage, out beyond the great field, the haymeadows, fighting his way blindly through the thickets beside the creek, and through the rolling cobbles to the far side. Then he was running in the wood, staggering through briar and vine, falling over the gnarled roots of the old trees to measure his length again and again. He never noticed when his uniform tore, when thorns raked his arms and face, tore at his legs. Higher in the wood, and higher… past the pens where they fed the half-wild hogs, past the low hut where the pigherder stayed in season. He startled one sounder of swine, so they snorted and crashed through the undergrowth with him for a space. Then he was falling into another branch of the creek, and turning to clamber upstream, instinct taking over where his mind couldn’t, his legs finally losing their stride to let him topple into the rocky cleft his brother Arin had shown him all those years ago.

For some time he knew nothing, felt nothing, and the hours passed over him. He woke, with a countryman’s instinct, at dusk, when the evening breeze brought the hayfield scent up over the wood, and tickled his nose with it. He ached in every limb; his scratches burned and itched, and his mouth tasted foul. Until he was up on his knees, he did not remember where he was, or why— but then a spasm of fear and shame doubled him up, and sourness filled his mouth. He gulped and heaved again. Meris, a boy he had known—a lad who had tagged behind him, more than once—would never walk straight again, or hold tools, and he had worn the uniform of the one who had done it.

He could hear his mother’s voice ringing in his head. This was what she’d meant, about taking service of iron, and leaving the Lady of Peace. This was what his father had feared, that he would use his strength to hurt his own people. Scalding tears ran, down his face. He had been so happy, so proud, only a few days before… he had been so sure that his family’s fears were the silly fears of old-fashioned peasants, “mere farmers,” as the sergeant so often called them.

Arin came to the cleft before dawn, sliding silently between the trees. “Gird?” he called softly. “Girdi—you here?”
Gird coiled himself into an even tighter and more miserable ball as far back as he could burrow, but Arin came all the way in, and squatted down beside him.
“You stink,” he said companionably, one brother to another. “The dogs will have no trouble.”
“Dogs?” Gird had not thought of dogs, but now remembered the long-tailed hounds that had gone out with the tracker after wolves.

“I brought you a shirt,” said Arin. “And a bit of bread. Go wash.” The very matter-of-factness of Ann’s voice, the big brother he had always listened to, made it possible for him to unclench himself and stagger to his feet. He took the shirt from Arin without looking at it, and moved out of the cleft before stripping off his clothes. In the clean chill of dawn, he could smell himself, the fear-sweat and vomit and blood so different from the honest sweat of toil. Arin smelled of onions and earth. He wished he could be an onion, safe underground. But the cold water, and a bunch of creekside herbs crushed to scrub with, cleansed the stench from his body. His mind was different: he could still hear Meris scream, still feel, as in his own body, the crack of breaking bones.

“Hurry up,” said Arin, behind him. “I’ve got to talk to you.”

Gird rinsed his mouth in the cold water, and drank a handful, then another. He pulled on the shirt Arin had brought; it was barely big enough across the shoulders, and his wrists stood out of the sleeves, but it covered him. Arin handed him the bread. Gird had not thought he was hungry, but he wolfed the bread down in three bites. He could have eaten a whole loaf.

By this time it was light enough to see his brother’s drawn face, and read his expression. Arin shook his head at him. “Girdi, you’re like that bullcalf that got loose and stuck in the mire three years ago—do you remember? Thought he was grown, he was so big, but once out of his pen and in trouble, he bawled for help like any new-weaned calf.” Gird said nothing; he could feel tears rising in his eyes again, and his throat closed. “Girdi, you have to go back.” That opened his eyes, and his throat.

“I can’t!” he said, panting. “Arin, I can’t—you didn’t see—”

“I saw.” Arin’s voice had hardened. “We all saw; the count made sure of it. But it’s that or outlaw, Girdi, and you won’t live to be an outlaw—the count will hunt you down, and the fines will fall on our family.”

It was another load of black guilt on top of the other. “So—so I must die?”

“No.” Arin had picked up a stick, and poked it into the moss-covered ground near the creek. “At least—I hope not. What your sergeant said was that if someone knew where you were, and if you’d turn yourself in, he thought he could save your life. And we’d not lose our holding. The steward… the steward’s not with the count in this. You saw that. But you have to come in, Gird, on your own. If they chase and capture you—”

“I can’t be a soldier,” said Gird. “I can’t do that—what they did—”

“So I should hope. They don’t want you now, anyway.” Even in his misery, that hurt. He knew he’d been a promising recruit, barring his slowness in learning to read; he knew the sergeant had had hopes for him. And now he’d lost all that, forever. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he’d also lost plentiful free food. “We can use you,” Arin went on. “We always could.”

His mind was a stormy whirlwind of fear and grief and shame. He could imagine what the sergeant would say, the sneers of the other men, the ridicule. And surely he would be punished, for disgracing them so, and breaking his oath of service. Would he be left like Meris, a cripple? Better to die… and yet he did not want to die. The thought of it, hanging or the sword in his neck—and those were the easy ways—terrified him. Arin’s look was gentle.

“Poor lad. You’re still just a boy, after all, aren’t you? For all the long arms and legs, for all the bluster you’ve put on this past spring.”
“I’m—sorry.” He could not have said all he was sorry for, but a great sore lump of misery filled his head and heart.
“I know.” Arin sighed. “But I’m not sorry to think of you working beside me, Gird, when this is over. Come now: wash your face again, and let’s be going back.”
He felt light-headed on the way, but the stiffness worked out of his legs quickly. His soiled uniform rolled under his arm, he followed Arin down paths he hardly remembered.
“We need to hurry,” said Arin over his shoulder. “They were going to start searching again this morning, and I’d like to get you down to the village before they set the dogs loose.”
“What—what happened, after—

“After you bolted? Near a riot, that was, with everyone screaming and thrashing about. It took awhile to settle, and the count had more to think of than you. Then your sergeant came to our place, and talked to father. Said you’d deserted, and they’d have to hunt you unless you came back on your own, and even if you did it might go hard with you. He didn’t like the count’s sentence on Meris any more than the rest of us, but… he had to go along. He took out a few of the men late in the evening, calling for you. I was sure you’d come up here.”

“I didn’t think,” said Gird. “I just couldn’t stand it—

“Mmm. Then the steward came, after dark.” Arin stepped carefully over a tangle of roots and went on. “Said we’d lose the holding, the way the count felt. He’d come down to show off his inheritance to his friends from court, all those fine lords and ladies, and then Meris hit him with an onion—”

“He what!”

“That’s right. You probably don’t know what really happened. Meris was stealing fruit, thinking everyone would be busy out front, but the count wanted to show the ladies the garden, and hurried through. So when Meris was spotted, he ran straight into the count and knocked him flat, in front of his friends, and then fired an onion at him from the top of the wall. Probably thought it was a guard. Poor lad.”

Gird was silent, thinking what sort of man would cripple a boy for such a ridiculous mistake.

“He was wrong, of course, and now we’re all in trouble, from the steward on down, but—” Arin flashed a grin back over his shoulder. “At least you didn’t take part in it—and if they want to call it cowardice, well, I say brave men have better to do than batter rash boys into ruin.”

“I don’t want to die,” said Gird suddenly, into the green silence of the wood.
“No one does,” said Arin, “but sick old men and women. Did you think a soldier would never see death?”

“No, but—but I didn’t think it would be like this. If it is, I mean.” He didn’t expect an answer to that, and got none. Early sun probed through the leaves, shafts of golden light between the trees. The wood smelled of damp earth, herbs, ripening bramble-berries, a whiff here and there of pig or fox or rabbit. He was afraid, but he could not shut out the richness of the world around him, the springy feel of the leafmold under his feet. Air went in and out his nose despite his misery.

They came to the straggling end of the lane without being seen. Gird hesitated to follow Arin into the open, but his brother strode on without looking back, trusting him. He could see no one, but a distant shepherd far across the fields. Up the lane toward the village. Now he could see the first cottages, his father’s well, the lane beyond, the great fields to his right. A few women at the well, someone (he could not tell who) behind the hedge in front of their cottage.

Arin spoke again. “It’s better if you go alone, Gird. Can you do that?”

Cold sweat sprang out all over him. Alone? But he knew Arin was right. The sergeant and steward would know that his brother had gone to bring him in—the whole village knew already—but if he went the rest of the way alone it could go unspoken. Less chance that more punishment would fall on Arin.

The soldiers were just starting out from the gates when he came in sight of them; the sergeant must have delayed as long as he could. They paused, and the sergeant gestured. Gird walked on. His legs felt shaky again, and it was hard to breathe. When he was close enough, he didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t salute, not with his filthy uniform under his arm, and a peasant shirt on his back. The sergeant’s face was closed, impassive.

“Well, Gird,” he said.

“Sir,” said Gird miserably, looking down at his scuffed and dirty boots. He forced himself to meet the sergeant’s eyes. “I—I was wrong, sir.” One of the men guffawed; the sergeant cut it short with a chop of hid hand.

“You broke your oath,” the sergeant said. He sounded weary and angry together, someone who had come near the end of his strength as well as his patience. “Right in front of the count himself—” He stopped. “You’re carrying your uniform? Right. Give it here.” Gird handed it over, and the sergeant took it, his nostrils pinched. “Take off your boots, boy.” Gird stared a moment, then hurried to obey. Of course the boots were part of the uniform; he should have thought of that. His feet, pale and thin-skinned from more than a year of wearing boots daily, found the dusty lane cool and gritty. The sergeant jerked his head at Keri, one of the other recruits, who came to take the boots, and the uniform both. “We’ll burn them,” said the sergeant. “We want nothing tainted with cowards’ sweat.” Gird felt himself flushing; the sergeant nodded at him. “Yes, you. You were wrong, and so was I, to think you’d ever make a soldier. I should have known, when you flinched from it before…” His voice trailed away, as the steward came out the gates with the village headman.

The steward gave Gird the same sort of searching look. “So. He came back, did he? Or did you track him down?”
“He came back, sir. Brought his uniform; he’d got a shirt from somewhere.”

The steward looked Gird up and down. “It’s a bad business, boy, to break an oath. Hard to live down. Reflects on the family. The count would make an example of you, but for the sergeant’s report: you’re strong, and docile, and will do more good at fieldwork than you will feeding crows from the gibbet. See that you work, boy, and cause no trouble. One more complaint of you, and your family’s holding is forfeit.” He turned to the headman, ignoring Gird.

The sergeant said, “You heard him. What are you waiting for? Get along to work, boy, and thank your Lady of Peace that you still have the limbs to work with. I wouldn’t mind laying a few stripes on your back myself.”

Chapter Four
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In time Gird thought the stripes would have hurt less. He walked back to his father’s cottage, that bright morning, with his feet relearning the balance of walking bare, and his skin prickling with the knowledge that everyone knew he had been disgraced. Had disgracedhimself , he reminded himself firmly. That first time along the lane, no one said anything, though he was aware of all the sidelong glances. He made it home without incident, to find Arin waiting for him.

“You’re to clean out the cowbyre,” said Arin, handing him the old wooden shovel. “He thinks it better if you keep out of sight.”

Gird glanced at his mother, busy at her loom. Her expression said “I told you no good would come of it,” as clearly as if she’d spoken aloud. His youngest sister Hara had obviously been told to keep quiet. He wondered if she’d been the one peeking through the hedge earlier. Probably. He took the shovel and went to work.

Across the barton, Arin was mending harness. Beyond the barton wicket, Gird could see a cluster of men in the greatfield. Midmorning now; they’d stopped work for a chat and a drink. He shoveled steadily, piling the dirty straw and manure in the basket, to drag across the barton and toss on the pile just beyond the gate. He wasn’t sure why Arin was staying close—did they think he would run again? And Arin hadn’t asked what happened up at the manor gates. Gird felt as touchy as after his first sunburn each spring. Every glance Arin gave him seemed to be made of flame.

Atnoon, Hara passed through the cowbyre with their father’s lunch wrapped in a cloth; she gave Gird a cool nod that cut him to the bone. Arin stopped punching holes and lacing straps together, and stretched. He smiled; by then Gird was not sure what that smile meant.

“Come on, then, long-face. It’s not what you’re used to, but it is food.” Arin hardly needed to wash, but Gird was muck to the knees and elbows. He remembered to flick a spatter of clean water out for grace, and washed carefully enough to please the sergeant before going in to get his bowl of mush. It hardly seemed to touch his hunger, but then the look on his mother’s face tightened his throat so that he could not have swallowed another bite.

By late afternoon, he had cleared the cowbyre, and when the cowherd brought the animals back to the village, and Arin led their own three into the barton, he had the stalls spread with fresh straw. He washed up quickly, and started milking. He had always liked the cows, even the crook-horned red cow who slapped his face with her dirty great tail and did her best to tread in the bucket. His father appeared as he was milking the second, but said nothing before going on inside. Gird leaned his head into a warm, hairy flank, and let his hands remember the rhythmic squeeze and pull that brought the milk down quickly and easily. The milk smelled good, no taint of onion or wild garlic. He leaned closer, and gave himself a warm, luscious mouthful.

“I saw that,” said Arin, from around the rump of the third cow.
“You know better.” It was the old bantering tone of their boyhood, but it didn’t seem the same.

“Sorry,” said Gird, wishing he weren’t so conscious of the taste of that milk, the richness of it. Their milk was traded to the village cheesemaker; grown men did not drink milk. He felt he could drink the whole bucket. He finished the last quarter, and carried the bucket into the kitchen. From there he could hear the voices in the front room: his father and the steward. What now? he wondered. But his mother, square athwart the kitchen hearth, sent him back to the barton with a wave of her spoon.

He ranged around it, doing every chore he could think of, until his father called him in. It was much like the night the steward had visited to offer him the chance to train: his mother and father sitting stiffly on one side, and the steward at their single table. Arin followed him in. Hara, banished to the kitchen, was as close to the door as she could be, and not be seen by the elders.

“You should know,” said the steward without preamble, “what your rashness will cost your father. He must appear at court, the afternoon of the count’s investiture. I have spoken with the count, and pled what I can: your youth, your father’s record of work, your brothers. But the fact is, the count is angry, and with reason. And your father, head of your family, will be fined. I came to tell him, that he might have it ready to pay, and save himself a night in the stocks.”

Gird met his father’s eyes. His father in the stocks? For his running away?

“You will attend as well, boy, and it may be the count will have something to say to you. He is your lord; he may do as he pleases. Remember your rank, and try—” the emphasis was scornful, “to cause no more trouble.”
When the steward had gone, Gird’s father patted his shoulder. “It’s all right, Gird. You’re here, and alive, and—it’s all right.” Gird knew it was not. For the first time in his life, he realized that he could do harm he could not mend. He felt at once helpless and young, and far removed from the boyish confidence of a few days before.

“What—how much is the fine?” he asked.

His father cleared his throat. “Well. They want repaid all they spent on your training. It’s all in the steward’s accounts, he says. Food, clothing, the coppers he sent me, even barracks room. And then a fine for oath-breaking—” Gird had never really mastered figures, but he knew he’d worn clothes worth far more than his family could have bought him. And eaten more, of better food. His father turned to Arin. “I’ll have to ask you—”

Arin nodded. “Of course. Will it be enough?”
His father scrubbed at his face with both hands. “We’ll see. Gird, you were too young before: come here, now, and see where our coins lie hid.”

He had known it was under some stone in the fireplace; everyone hid valuables that way. But not which—and before his father levered out the stone, he would not have suspected that one. Within was a leather pouch, and in that his father’s small store of coppers and silvers. His father counted it out twice.

“I saved most of your wages, for Ann’s marriage-price, and Hara’s dower. There’s a hand of coppers, and another hand of coppers. But a fine of double the fieldfee—that’s a silver and a hand of coppers, and doubled—” He laid it out as he spoke, handling the coins as gingerly as if they were nettles to sting him. Gird held his breath, thinking of the hours of labor, baskets of fruit and grain, that each represented. “And the uniforms—” The last of the coppers went into a row, and his father frowned, shaking his head. ‘ Tis not enough, even so. They might have let you keep the boots, at least, if we must pay for them.“

“How much?” asked his mother.
“Eight copper crabs, and that’s if the count holds to the steward’s say. I doubt he will. It’ll be a sheep, then, or a furl of cloth.”
“I have a furl, set by,” his mother said. “It was for—”
“No matter what it was for,” said his father harshly. “It is for Gird’s life, now.”
“I know that,” said his mother. Gird watched as she opened the press that stored her weaving, and pulled out a rolled furl of cloth. His father touched it lightly, and nodded.
“We’ll hope that will do,” he said.

The lord held court in the yard, with the count seated beneath an awning striped orange and yellow. None of his noble friends was with him; having sat through his investiture atmidnight, they had all slept late.

Despite Gird’s father’s oath to the steward that they would appear, one of the soldiers came that morning to march them up to the manor gates. He had studiously ignored Gird; others had not, small children who had stared and called and been yanked back within cottages by their mothers. Gird’s feet were sore, not yet toughened to going bare, and his shirt had already split. His mother had patched it the night before. He was acutely aware of the patch, of his bare feet, of the difference between Gird, Dorthan’s son, peasant boy, and Gird the recruit.

That contrast was sharpened when he watched the other recruits accepted into service as they gave their oaths to the count, and pinned on the badges of guard private. None of them met his eyes, not even Keri. One by one they came forward, knelt, swore, and returned to the formation. Gird’s heart contracted. For one moment he wanted to throw himself before the count and beg to be reinstated. Then his roving eye saw the stocks, with the stains of Metis’s blood still dark on the wood.

Another case preceded theirs. The steward had intended it, Gird knew, as the ritual single case the new lord must judge; he had saved it back from the spring courts. Now he rushed the witnesses through their stories of missing boundary stone and suspected encroachment on someone’s strip of arable. Clearly not even the plaintiff and defendant thought it was as important as before, compared with Gird and his father. The count concurred with the steward’s assessment, and the loser didn’t bother to scowl as he paid his two copper crabs to the winner, and another to the count.

Then it was their turn. The steward called his father forward; Gird followed two paces behind, as he’d been bidden. To his surprise, the sergeant came too.
The count’s face was drawn down in a scowl of displeasure that didn’t quite conceal an underlying glee. The steward began, explaining how Gird had been recruited.
“A big, strong lad, already known as a hard worker. He seemed brave enough then, as boys go—” He turned to the sergeant.
“Willing to work, yes. Obedient, strong… not too quick in his mind, my lord, but there’s good soldiers enough that can’t do more than he did. Never gave trouble in the barracks.”
“And he gave you no hint of his… weakness?” The count’s voice this day was almost silken smooth, no hint of the wild rage he’d shown before.
The sergeant frowned. “Well, my lord, he did in a way. He didn’t like hurting things, he said once, and he never did give up his peasant superstitions. Flowers to the well-sprite, and that sort of thing.”
“Complained of hard treatment, did he?”
“No, my lord. Not that. Like I said, a willing enough lad, when it came to hard work, not one to complain at all. But too soft. I put it down to his being young, and never from home, but that was wrong.”

“Indeed.” The count stared at Gird until he felt himself go hot all over. “Big lout. Not well-favored, no quality in him. Some are born cattle, you know, and others are born wolves. You can make sheepdogs of wolves, but nothing of cattle save oxen in yokes. He looks stupid enough. I can’t imagine why you ever considered him; if you want to stay in my service, you’d best not make such mistakes again.”

“No, my lord,” said the sergeant and steward, almost in the same breath.

“Well,” said the count, “to settle young oxen, put stones on the load. You had a recommendation, steward?” The steward murmured; Gird heard again the terms his father had told him. The count nodded. “Well enough, so far as it goes, but not quite far enough. Let one of my Finyathans give the boy a whipping, and if his father wants him whole, let him pay the death-gift for his life. Else geld the young ox, and breed no more cowards of him.” His eyes met Gird’s, and he smiled. “Do you like my judgment, boy?”

Beside him, his father was rigid with shock and fear; Gird bowed as well as he could. The death-gift for a son was a cow and its calf that year. A third of their livestock gone, or his future sons and daughters. He knew his father would pay, but the cost!

The steward muttered again; the count shook his head. “Let the father pay now. What is it to be, fellow?” Gird’s father stepped forward, and laid the pouch of coins, and the furl of cloth, on the table. The steward took the pouch and counted the coins quickly.

“The cow?” he said without looking up. Gird’s father nodded, and the steward noted it down. “Go fetch the cow,” he said brusquely.
“Sir, she’s with the cowherd—”
“Will you fetch the cow or not?” The steward’s face was white. “It’s all one to me whether you have grandsons from this boy.”
Gird’s father bowed. “I’ll go now, sir, may I?” he said, his voice trembling, and backed away. The count laughed.

“Tis no wonder the boy’s a coward, with such a father. At least he’s docile.” The count waved a hand, and one of the Finyathan guards went off, to return in a few moments with a long rod bound in leather. “And you, sergeant, as you erred in choosing him, I don’t doubt you’d like a chance to leave your mark on him?”

Whether he wanted to or not, Gird could not tell, but the sergeant had no choice. That much was clear. Nor did he. He went to the stocks without resistance, hoping he could keep from crying out. He felt the scorn more than the blows, but the Finyathan guard, when the sergeant gave up the rod to him after four or five stripes, had evident delight in his work. The count watched, leaning on one elbow and chatting to the steward without taking his eyes off Gird’s face. By the time his father came back with the cow, Gird had bruises and lumps from more than the rod. He had closed his eyes before they swelled shut, not wanting to see his former friends in the guards as they joined in.

He woke face-down in a puddle of water that had been thrown over him, with the count’s waspish voice saying “Take the oaf away, and pray I forget all this.” His father’s arm helped him up; outside the gates Arin too waited, to help him home.

His head rang. He could not have made it without help. His mother and Hara cleaned the blood off, and muttered over the damage done to the shirt. The rest of that day and night he lay wrapped in a blanket, sipping the bitter brew his mother spooned down him at intervals. For himself, he’d have been glad to have wound-fever and die of it, to be at peace, for his old dreams tormented him like haunts, making mock of his pride. He twisted and groaned, until Arin woke and held him.

“It’s all right, Girdi. It’s over now.” But it was not over, and wouldn’t be. He was sour with his own sweat, disgusted with himself, and shaking with fears he could not express. If things had gone so wrong so fast, what was safe? Arin’s reassurance meant nothing. He remembered the look on the count’s face, the delight in cruelty. He might have been killed—really killed—his life had hung on the count’s whim. The next morning he forced his stiff, aching body out of bed. He was not sure he could work, but he knew he must. His mother had yet to remake his shirt from the ragged scraps left after his punishment, so she insisted he stay indoors. His father and Arin agreed. Indoors, then, he worked—back to childhood, he thought, scrubbing the stone hearth, washing dishes and pots, carrying buckets of water from the well. It was hot indoors, breathless as Midsummer usually was. Sweat stung in the welts and scrapes; he ignored it, shrugged away his mother’s attempt to put a poultice on the deepest ones. She glared at him.

“You may want a fever, to get out of work, but we’ve no time for that, lad. Stand you there and no more shifting, while I clean this out again.” He felt himself flush, but stood. What else could he do? He had forfeited his chance to adult status. Her fingers were gentler than her voice. The sharp fragrance of herbs worked its way past his misery for a few moments as she stroked the heavy ointment on his back. “ ’Tis a bad world, lad, where such things happen. But you see what comes of taking iron to mend them. Remember this: no matter how bad it seems, soldiering makes it worse. It always comes hardest on those with the least. Mind your father, keep out of the lord’s eye: that’s best. Notice brings trouble, no matter if it seems good at first. Remember what tree the forester chooses.”

He’d heard that often and often before. It was not in the Lady’s ritual, but it was the village’s favorite truth: notice brings trouble. As bad to be always first in reaping as always last; as bad to be richest as poorest. The tall tree catches the forester’s eye, and the fattest ox suggests a feast. He had never liked it, since he could not have hidden among others even if he wanted to. What, he had wondered, was the tall tree supposed todo ? But his trouble would prove the truth as far as the village was concerned, and he expected to hear it many times again.

He was young and strong and healthy; his body healed quickly and he was soon hard at work with his father. But he could not escape the knowledge that he had brought trouble to his family. They had been prosperous, for peasants: three cows, eight ewes, extra cloth laid away, the copper and silver coins that took so long to earn. His father had had a good reputation with the steward, and had no enemies in the village itself.

Now Arin could not marry until they earned the marriage-fee, but before that came the field-fee and house-fee, and the harvest taxes were coming soon. He could help with the work, but he had to eat, and he brought no more land with him, on which more crops could grow, or beasts graze.

His father said nothing of this. He had no need to say it; Gird knew precisely what it meant, what it would cost them all in labor and hunger to regain even a scrap of safety. His feet toughened quicker than his mind. Daylong in the fields he caught the tail end of comments that seemed intended for his ear. The other men said nothing near his father, but left him in no doubt what they thought. Young lout, they said, set himself up for a soldier and then shamed us all with his weakness. He knew some of them had been as sickened as he, but if they remembered it at all, they didn’t say so around him. It was convenient to blame it all on him. He knew, on one side of his mind, that this had always happened so, that once he had done the same, but it still hurt. His former friends stayed away from him, whether because of their fathers’ orders or their own scorn he didn’t know, and soon didn’t care. He was in a deep wallow of misery, just like the bullcalf in the bog Arin had mentioned.

In that first month of trouble, between the event and the harvest, only one mercy intervened. The young count and his entourage left to visit another of his holdings, and the steward conveniently forgot to put Gird on the workroll. In the required workdays, he could work his family’s garden and fieldstrip, while his father and Arin worked the greatfield for the count. And he could do day-labor for anyone hiring work done, taking his pay in a meal away from home more often than hard coin. Most of this was unskilled labor, fetching and carrying. Gird carried water for the masons brought in to raise the count’s orchard walls, and lugged baskets full of clay and broken rock. It was hard work, even for someone of his strength, and he soon felt the difference the change in food made. He came home so tired he could hardly eat, and fell onto the bed as soon as he’d cleaned his bowl.

At harvest, Gird could not avoid the other men and boys. Harvest time gathered in more than crops; the village people worked together and celebrated together, and the year’s stories began to form into chants and tales that would be retold over and over during long winter nights. It was no fault of Gird’s that his disgrace so neatly fit the measures of an old song, “The Thief’s Revenge” and needed but little skill to change a few words. He never knew who sang it first, but its jangling rhymes followed him down the lanes. “He gave a cry and ran away, as fast as he could run—” jibed the little boys. “Eh, Gird, can you outrun a fox? A pig?”

Now his former friends had their own say. A shrug, a wink between them, a shoulder turned to him. Teris even said “If you were going to make such a fuss, you could at least have saved Meris,” which was completely unfair. He could not have saved Meris; no one could. They hadn’t. But they blamed him for Meris, and for trying and failing. Some—Amis among them—said nothing, just watched him. Were they waiting for him to defend himself, to argue? But he had nothing to say. He was too tired to argue, too hungry and too miserable.

The girls never looked his way at all, and he was sure they laughed about him in their little groups. He was careful not to watch them openly and court more ridicule, although he had come to the age where the mere sight of a girl leaning to pull a bucket from a well could send his blood pounding. It was slightly easier to ignore the girls if he wasn’t with the boys. He quit trying to talk to anyone, soon, and kept to his own family.

With all they had lost, that winter was hard. They could not afford to butcher an animal for winter meat; they would need every calf and lamb next spring to pay the fieldfee. Gird’s scanty earnings had gone for the fall taxes, along with two of their sheep. That meant less wool next spring, for his mother to spin and weave, and less cloth to trade or sell. At least they had fodder in plenty, for that had been gathered before they lost the extra animals. And Gird roamed the wood bringing back loads of firewood and sacks of nuts. He avoided the nutting parties of the other boys and young men, avoided the last autumn gatherings of dancers at the sheepfold.

Later, he remembered that winter as the coldest, hungriest, and most miserable of his life, although he knew that wasn’t true. There was no real famine; they had beans and grain enough, some cheese. Except for the ritual cold hearth at Midwinter, they had a good fire yearlong. His mother had managed a whole shirt for him, pieced out of scraps, and he had rags enough to wrap his feet. It was the sudden difference, from more than enough to barely enough, that made it seem so bleak.

Meris died in the long cold days after Midwinter. Gird had tried to visit him once, but his family, suffering under a heavy fine as well as Meris’s injuries, wanted no contact with another unlucky boy. Meris had had few friends, but those boys loosed their frustrated rage on Gird when they caught him alone, and battered him into the snow. He might have fought back, to ease his own frustration and grief, but one of them got a bucket over his head. The guards heard the noise, and broke it up; when Gird wrestled the bucket off his head, the sergeant was standing there sucking his teeth speculatively. He said nothing, just watched, as Gird made it to one knee, then another, and staggered off down the lane.

That was the last direct assault, but by then Gird was convinced that everyone was against him. The next time he got a bit of work, and a copper crab, he took it to the smelly leanto behind Kirif’s cottage, where a couple of other men hunched protectively over mugs of sour ale. He knew it was wrong. He didn’t care. For a crab he got more ale than his head would hold, mug after mug, and his father found him snoring against the wall.
That loosed his father’s tongue, where the other had not. “A sot as well as a coward! I didn’t work so hard to save a drunken oaf, lad; this had best be the last time you spend our needs on your own pleasure.” It didn’t feel like pleasure then; his head was pounding and his stomach felt as if it never wanted food again. His father was not finished, however. He heard the full tale of his misdeeds, from the time he’d run off to follow Arin on the pighunt as a child, to the stupidity of going for a soldier, right down to his selfishness and sullenness in the past months. He had not told his father about Meris’s friends attacking him, or what Teris had said; he realized that it wouldn’t do any good now.

He felt almost as guilty as his father seemed to want. It was his fault, no getting around it, and if some of the consequences weren’t fair, nothing ever had been. Only one of the gods cared about fair, that he knew of, and the High Lord was far away, nothing much to do with the village folk or the soldiers, either one. He went back to work doggedly, determined to pay back enough of the debt he owed so that Arin could marry within a year. He didn’t visit the aleshop until after Midsummer, and then with a basket of mushrooms to trade, not good coin his family could use. And he stopped with a single mug, that put a pleasant haze between him and the other villagers.

Arin’s wedding briefly lightened his miseries, for his favorite brother would include Gird in the celebration despite anything he’d done. “Besides,” Arin said, “you’ve worked hard to get my fee together. You might have done much less; it wasn’t all your fault, after all. I know I can depend on you.”

For a wedding, all quarrels ceased. Oreg even donated a pig to the feast. Gird was old enough to wait in the barton with the men, to watch his brother’s dance, and join the drinking afterwards, when the newlyweds were safe abed and women were cleaning up the last of the feast. This was not like Kirif’s leanto; here was a cask of the strong brown brew from a neighboring vill, and hearty voices singing all the rollicking old songs he’d grown up with, from “Nutting in the Woods” to “Red Sim’s Second Wife.” He had enough ale to soften the edges of any remarks about him, and joined his loud voice to the others without noticing anyone’s complaint.

But this did not last. Arin and his wife took over the bed he had shared with Gird, as was only right; Gird slept on the floor near the hearth that winter. Arin’s wife, soon with child, began to have the childsickness, waking early every morning to heave and heave, filling the cottage with the stink of her illness. Gird, now on the work rolls, had his own duties to fulfill when the required days came around; he could no longer replace his brother and free one worker for the family. When Arin’s first child was born, another mouth to feed, they had not yet put by enough for the fieldfee. That year was leaner than the one before.

Soon Gird felt that he would never get anywhere at all. Arin’s wife lost a child, but was soon pregnant again. As hard as they all could work was barely enough to feed them; they had no chance to save towards replacing the sheep or cow Gird had cost them. Year flowed into year, a constant struggle to survive. Gird could not miss the gray in his father’s hair, the cough that every winter came sooner and lasted longer.

Chapter Five
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“I don’t see why you care.” Gird hunched protectively over his mug. The mood Amis was in, if he turned around to argue, Amis would grab it away. He didn’t have anything to trade for another, and this one would barely fuzz the edges of his misery.
“You’re turning into a drunk,” said Amis, far too briskly. “It’s been what—three years?—and all you do is work and drink—”

“And eat,” said Gird. “Don’t forget that—they tell me all the time at home.”
“And eat. You never come out with us—”
Gird shrugged, and took a swallow. Worse than usual, it tasted, but the bite in his throat promised ease later. “You may want me; the others don’t.”
“It’s past, Gird. So you’re not a soldier, so what? We didn’t like it that much when you were—”
“That’s true. You don’t much like anything I do: fight or not fight, run or not run, drink or not drink. If I gave up ale, Amis, would that make me friends? Not likely.”
“You know what I mean. Drink for celebration, yes—with all of us, a lot of singing and dancing and rolling the girls—but not this way. Come with us tonight, anyway.”

Gird swallowed the rest of the mug he allowed himself, and tried to think past the rapidly spreading murk in his head. Walk across the fields to some sheepfold, listen to a wandering harper play, dance with—it would have to be girls from the other village, none from here would have him. And then back by daybreak, to work— his feet ached, his back ached, all he wanted was his bed. But at home his father’s eyes would question silently: what did you take, to trade for that drink? What will you take next? It was my own, he answered that unspoken question. I found the mushrooms, I picked them when you were resting, it’s my right—

“All right,” he said gruffly. Amis grinned at him, steadied him as he stood. He did not look to see the reactions of the other men drinking in Kirif’s hut; he thought he knew exactly what he’d see if he did.

Somewhere on the walk, two others joined them: Koris and Jens, he’d known them all his life. His skin prickled; he was sure they were none too happy to find him coming along. But nothing they said led that way. It was all the common talk of their village, Jens courting Torin and her father’s dislike of it, a wager between Koris and his older brother on the sex of an unborn calf, Teris’s problems with his wife’s mother, how the last spring storm had damaged the young fruit on the trees. The thought passed through his mind that, but for subjects, it was much like the talk of his mother and aunt and sisters, that nearly drove him mad when he had to be indoors listening to it. For all that Jens and Koris talked of the girls, while Effa and Hara talked of the boys, it was the same talk. Who liked, who spurned, who loved secretly—who would be honest, and who lied in all encounters—whose work could be trusted, and who put rotten plums in the bottom of the basket.

He said nothing, having nothing to say, as the cool night air gradually blew the fumes of ale away. They were walking over the higher pastures sunrising of the village—east, as the lords called it. Under his feet the turf made an uneven carpet; overhead the spring stars blossomed as the night darkened. It had been a long time since he’d been out in the dark looking up, his gaze unmisted by drink. Some night-blooming plant—he knew he should know the name, but he’d forgotten—spread rare perfume on the air, and every lungful he took in seemed important, as if it carried a secret message.

They could see the sheepfold from the ridge, dark against the leaping flames of the fire built in the outer enclosure. As they came down the slope, the harpsong came to greet them, first the more carrying notes, then all of them, a quick rhythm that made them hurry. It ended, and voices rose in noisy swirls of greeting, flirtation, argument. Gird lagged as the others moved forward. He saw Jens edge toward a darker corner. There was Torin, who must have come earlier with her friends. Koris glanced back at him, and Gird stepped into the brighter firelight, not quite sure what he was going to do. He hadn’t been to one of these since he was old enough to be serious about it. Boys the age he’d been lounged against the low stone wall, or crouched atop, knocking elbows and joking about the older ones.

At least three times a growing season, from early spring to fall, the young unmarried men and women of five villages met at this communal sheepfold. Gird had no idea how the dates were set, only that the word would spread through the young men—tomorrow night, tonight—and those who wished would go. One cold autumn evening, the first year he’d gone, there’d been only three young men and two women, and the music had come from a ragged lad playing a reed pipe. Usually there were more, and always someone from outside, a stranger, to play the music they danced to. But he had not come since he left the guard’s training.

He heard someone say his name, across the fire, and his head jerked up. He couldn’t see who, even when he squinted against the flames. So. They’d heard the story too, no doubt, and it would all be told over again. He glared at the coals beneath the burning wood, that half-magical heap of colored lights and mysterious shapes that seemed to be struggling to say something. A long hiss ended in a violentpop , and he jumped.

“I wonder what it said that time.” The girl’s voice held humor, as well as warmth. Gird didn’t look at her.
“What all fires say,” he said.
“Here’s home and safety,” she said. And then, surprisingly, “Here’s danger; here’s death.”

Gird turned. She had a broad face, boldly boned for strength, not beauty, and all he could tell of her coloring in that uncertain light was that she was darker than he. Big capable hands held the ends of her shawl; she looked like any other young woman. Except for those eyes, he thought, watching the perfect reflection of the fire in them. Except for the mind that said those words.

“You’re Gird,” she said. “The one who left the guards.”
“Yes.” He wished he hadn’t looked at her.
“Are they hard on you?”

He looked again, once more surprised. “Now?” She said nothing, and he wondered whether he dared be honest. Silence lengthened. No one else came near them; he could feel no other attention, no other pressure than her quiet interest. “At first,” he began, “it was worst on my family—my father, my brothers—” He told her about that, the fines they’d had to pay, the extra labor on the roads. She said nothing, only nodding when he broke off. Tentatively, warily, he told her more. The guards themselves had bothered him least— even now that surprised him, that the sergeant, after that one explosion, had been fair, if distant, and the other soldiers neutral. “I’m just another farmer’s son to them. They don’t bother me, if they see me; they treat me no differently than the others. They never teased—” His head went down, remembering those who did, whose taunts he could not answer.

“It’s like rape,” she said. He stared at her, shocked and ready to argue, but she was still talking. “They blame the blameless, the victim: they always do. When the young count’s houseparty went hunting our way, and one of them took my cousin, took her there in the street just for the excitement of it, everyone blamed her. My aunt said ‘Oh, if you hadn’t loitered there,’ and the lad who loved her—or said he did—had nothing to say but blame. All her fault, it was, but how could she help it? They blame you, for not preventing what they never moved to prevent.”

“But I wasn’t—”

“Not your body ,” she said, in a tone that meant he should have understood. Then, “Never mind. If you’re not killed, you’re still alive; so my cousin said, and married elsewhere a year later, after the babe died. She survived; you will; that’s how we all live.”

“It’s not right,” Gird said, in a voice that he remembered in himself from years past.
Her brows went up. “Are we gods, to know right and wrong beyond the law? I hate the way it is, but no one made me a lord.”
He would have answered, or tried to, but the music began again. At close range, the harp drowned out soft words, and the others had begun a song. Gird didn’t know it, but the girl did.
“Fair are the flowers that bloom in the meadows
Fair are the flowers that bloom on the hill
Each spring brings more to brighten the season
Each winter snowstorm the bright flowers kills—”

She had a husky singing voice, melodic but not strong, that clung to the melody like a peach to a twig, half-enfolding it. Gird could feel her singing along his body, a warm, slightly furry touch. He wanted to sing with her, at least hum the melody, but his throat was too tight. Another song followed that one, this time an even sadder lament that they all knew. He sang, feeling his voice unkink and lengthen into the line of the song; her voice rolled along beside, rich and mellow. At the end of the many verses, he realized that others had fallen silent to listen, and at once his voice broke harshly, ruining the ending. Someone laughed, across the firelight; Gird flinched as if he’d been slapped, but the girl’s hand was on his arm.

“Never mind,” she said, under cover of the harper’s quick fingering—it would be a jig, this time, and someone had found sticks to patter. Without really looking at the girl, Gird eased back to the angle between wall and fold, not at all surprised to find she had come with him. She stood closer than he found really comfortable; he could have put his arm around her and found her no closer.

“You know my name,” he said, gruffly, unwilling to ask what she might refuse to answer.

“I’mMali, from the village near the crossing—some call it Fire-oak.” He remembered that name, from his guards’ training; with the name he called up the location, the number of families, all the details he’d been taught. It surprised him; he didn’t know he could remember all that. He looked down at her.

“You knew of me—”

She shrugged, and the shawl slipped back from dark hair. Something marked the side of her face: a scar, a birthmark. Hard to see in that light, but he could just make out a paler path across her cheek. “Most do; that kind of tale spreads. But Amis told me of you, and your past before the Guards. So I wanted to see you, see what they’d made of you.”
“A failure,” Gird said, then jumped as she slugged his arm. Hard: he would have a bruise there.

“Only you can make yourself a failure—and you a great strong lad with a head of solid stone—”
He was wide awake, now, as if he’d been dipped in a well. “Whatare you, some foretelling witch—?”

Firelight and shadow moved on her face; he could not read her expression. “I? I’m a farmer’s daughter, as you’re a farmer’s son. I’m headstrong too, so they say of me, and a dangerous lass to cross. If you married me you’d have a strong mother of your children, and a loyal friend—”

“Marry—I can’t marry—I’m—”

“A whole man,” she said. Gird could feel his ears go hot; he wanted to grab her and shake her, or disappear into thin air. He knew he was whole; his body was as alive to her as his ears, and far more active. Wasthis how girls his age bantered? Surely she was bolder than the others.

“I’m sorry,” she said then, in a quiet voice. He could feel her withdrawing without actually moving; she slid the shawl back over her hair. The withdrawal pierced him like a blade. He could not stand if it she left.

“Wait!” he said hoarsely. “I—you—I never heard anyone—”

“It’s no matter.” She wrapped the shawl tightly around herself, hugged her arms. “I’m overbold and wild; I’ve been told often enough. But I’d heard of you, and how you had changed, refusing your friends. I thought perhaps I could help, being a stranger—”

“You did.” Gird rubbed his own arms, feeling the texture of his clothes and skin for the first time in—when?—years? He felt alive, awake, inside and out, and not only in that way which proved men whole. His skin tingled. “I’m—I’m awake,” he said, wondering if she’d understand. Hot tears pricked his eyes; his throat tightened again.

She was looking at him, dark eyes hard to see in that flickering firelight—but he could feel the intensity of her gaze. “Awake?”

“It—oh, I can’t talk here! Come on!” Without thinking, he grabbed her arm and led her around the wall to the entrance. She had stiffened for an instant, but then came willingly, hardly needing his guidance. He barely noticed someone by the gate turning to look, and then they were out beyond the walls, on the open fields, with the firelight twinkling behind them and stars brilliant overhead.

He stopped only when he stumbled over a stone and fell, dragging her down too. He had been crying, he realized, the roaring of blood in his ears louder than any night sound, the smell and taste of his own tears covering up the fragrance on the wind. She had pulled free when he fell, and now crouched, a dimly visible shape, an armspan away. When he got his breath at last, he sat up; she did not move, either towards him or away.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t—I’ve never done that before—”
“I should hope not.” The tone carried tart amusement, but not hostility.
“I had to get away—I couldn’t talk about it there, with those—” “Only a few of them would still mock you, Gird.”
“It’s not that. It’s—oh, gods, I’m awake again! I didn’t know I wasn’t. I didn’t know I’d gone so numb, and now—”

“Does it hurt, like a leg you’ve sat on too long?” He drew a long breath, trying to steady his breathing. “Not— hurt, exactly, though it does prickle. It’s more as if I’d been sick, shut indoors a long time, so long I forgot about the colors outside, and then someone carried me out into spring.” He turned to her, wishing he could see her expression. “Did you mean that about marrying?”

To his surprise, she burst out laughing, a joyous rollicking laugh that he could not resist. He didn’t know why it was funny, but he laughed too. Finally, after a last snort, she quieted down, and apologized.
“I shouldn’t laugh at you, I know that, but for someone just waking after long illness, you do move fast. Was this how you courted the girls, back when you were in the guards?”

“I didn’t, back then—I was too young.” Even in starlight, he could see that she’d let the shawl slip back again, revealing her face. His body insisted that he was not too youngnow ; he tried to stay calm. “Mmm—would you sit with me?”

She moved closer, spread her skirts, and sat down almost hip-to-hip. “I thought I was, with you the closest person to me on this whole dark night.”

She had a scent he had not noticed before; now it moved straight from his nose to his heart. Did all women smell like this? He cursed himself for a crazy fool, to have wasted the years in which he might have learned how to court such a girl. He clenched his fists to keep from reaching for her.

“But surely—” His voice broke, and he started again. “But surely you have someone—someone in your village—?”

Her low chuckle warmed his heart. “Alas no, Gird. For I’m the forward, quick-tongued lass you heard tonight; I will not guard my tongue for any man’s content, though I swear by Alyanya there’s no malice in it. And though I’m big and strong enough, and a good cook, I’m not much for threadcraft. My spinning’s full of lumps, and my weaving’s as bad as a child’s. My family’s parrion has always been in threadcraft, though my great-aunt taught me her parrion of cooking—she said I’d been born with a gift that way.”

“My mother and sisters have threadcraft enough,” Gird said. “But a parrion of cooking they’d welcome, even more in herblore than bakecraft.” He could hardly believe they had come so fast to discussion of parrions. Wasn’t that the last part before formal betrothal? He could not remember; he could not think of anything but the girl herself—Mali, he reminded himself firmly—and the smell and feel of her.

“Mine is that,” she said, the weight of her coming now against his arm; he shifted it around her shoulders, and she leaned into him. Where she touched him, her body seemed to burn right through their clothes; he felt afire with longing for her. It was a struggle to speak calmly. He took another long breath of the cold, clean night air.

“Your father?” Gird thought it likely her father wouldn’t agree, given his own reputation. But she shook her head, in the angle of his arm, where he could feel it.
“Grandmother’s our elder, and village elder too—the magelords don’t like it, but they agreed. She’ll be glad enough if anyone wants me, and you’re a farmer’s son, in the same hearthing. But what of your mother?”

“She’ll be happy.” He leaned closer, to smell her hair. Was he really talking of marriage with someone met just this night, and by firelight? Could she be a witch—or, worst of all, a magelady pretending to be peasant, disguised by her magic?

“I have to tell you about this,” saidMali, struggling upright for a moment. He looked at her; she had one hand to the mark on her face. “I’m no beauty, besides my loud tongue. Many call me ugly, for this scar if nothing else.”

“What happened?” It was a chance to breathe, to remind himself of the customs of his people.

Malimade a curious noise that Gird could not interpret, somewhere between a sniff and a snort. “I wish I could claim it came from defending my cousin against the magelords—it happened the same day—but in fact it was my own clumsiness. I was carrying a scythe to my brother in the fields, and tripped. When I came running back, looking for sympathy, there was my cousin in the lane. No one had time for me then, and no wonder. I thought to save my grandmother trouble by treating it myself, but failed to put herin in the poultice, so it scarred. My own fault.” She laid her warm hand on his. “But I will understand if you change—I mean, it’s not fair. I’ve landed on you this night like a fowler’s net on a bird. You must have a free choice, a chance to make up your own mind. See me in daylight and then if you still wish—‘

Contending thoughts almost silenced him. Gird eyed her. “Is it that you think you can get nothing better than the coward of the count’s own village? Was I just a last chance for you, is that what you’re saying?”
She sat bolt upright. For an instant he thought she was going to hit him again; the place she’d slugged him before still ached. “Youfool ! If you don’t want me, just say so. Don’t make it my fault.”
“I didn’t—

“You did.” She was breathing fast, angry, and he waited. Finally she went on. “I was curious. I’d heard—what I told you. For myself, barring I like a roll as well as anyone, I’d live alone rather than marry anyone’s last chance. Then meeting you—Amis said you were gentle, but he didn’t say how you sang.” Her voice trailed away. “And you’re no coward, whateveryou think.”

“You don’t think a man knows himself best?”

Laughter burst out of her again. “Who could? Can water know it’s wet, or stone know it’s hard? What could it measure itself against? I know my feelings, but my grandmother knew I was meant for herblore, not needlecraft or weaving. So with you—did your father or mother think you would make a soldier?”

Surprise again. “I—don’t know. Not really, I suppose, although they feared I could be—”

“Cruel?” He could see her head shake in the starlight. “No, not like that. You can do what you must, but you take no pleasure in giving pain.” He was eased by that, and his suspicions fled. A strange girl, like no girl he’d known (but what girls had he known?) but not a cunning one. If she said she liked him, then she did. Gird cleared his throat.

“I would like to—” Lady’s grace; he didn’t even know how to ask. But Mali had moved nearer to him again, her shoulder against his, her fragrant hair once more against his face.

“You should wait until sunrise,” she said. “You might change your mind.” Gird laughed. “Sunrise,” he said, “is too far away. Or do you want to go back and find witnesses to make it formal?”

“I want no witnesses,” she said, in a low voice that was almost a growl. “Not for this.” She folded her shawl, and lay back upon it, arms wide. “I swear by the Lady, that for this night I am content.”

And content were they both by sunrise. Gird had thought he knew how it went between men and women; it was no secret after all, and any child saw it often enough growing up. But Mali’s body, sweet-scented and warm on the cool hillside grass, was nothing like his imaginings—or far more. He could not get enough of touching her smooth skin, her many complex curves all ending in another place to enjoy with tongue and nose and fingers. And she, by all evidence, enjoyed it all as much as he did. They had fallen asleep at last, to be wakened by the loud uneven singing of Gird’s friends on their way home. Mali chuckled.

“They want to let you know it’s time to go, but without interrupting. You know, Gird, they are your friends. You must forgive them someday.”
Right then he would have forgiven anyone anything, or so he felt. A pale streak marked distant sunrise. With a groan, he pulled his clothes together. “I don’t want to leave.”
Mali was already standing, shaking out her shawl. “If you wish, you know where.”
“You know I want to marry you.”

“I do not know. I know you enjoyed my body, and I enjoyed yours, but there’s more to marriage than that. But I like you, Gird. I say that now, after hearing you sing, laugh, and cry—more than many girls do, before they wed. Look on my face in daylight, and decide.” She turned away to start home. Gird caught her arm.

“Why not now?”

“What of your work today? What of your family? Go home, lo— Gird. Go home and think whether you want a big, clumsy, loud-voiced wife with a scarred face. If you do, come see me in daylight. Ask me then—”

“I’m asking now!”
“No. I’ll not answer now. Daylight for both of us then.” And she pulled away and was gone. Gird stared after her, then followed the distant voices of his friends toward home.
He caught up with them within sight of home. By then it was light enough to see their expressions; he could feel himself going red. Amis elbowed Jens.
“You see I was right. He just needed to get a little fresh air—”
“He got more than fresh air, I’ll warrant. Look at his face. If I’d gone out like that with Torin—”
“You wouldn’t. You’ll be learning how in your marriage bed, Jens.”

“I know how.” Jens shoved Koris, who shoved back. “It’s just that with her father—” “Come on, Gird,” said Amis, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “Tell us—you drag the girl out in the middle of the dancing, did you just throw her on the ground, or what?”

He could hear the undertones in their voices—they weren’t sure if he was going to be angry, or sulk, or what. He felt like singing, and instead burst out laughing.
“That’s new,” said Amis. “I like that—Gird laughing again.”
“Be still,” he said, ducking away from Amis’s arm and the finger that was prodding his ribs. “You were right: I admit it. I needed to go dancing—”
“You didn’t dance,” said Jens.
Gird shrugged. He could feel more laughter bubbling up, like a spring long dry coming in. “I did well enough,” he said.
“Watch him go to sleep behind the hedges today.” Koris grinned, but it had no bite to it. “You may be tired by nightfall, eh?”

Gird grinned back. He felt that the bad years had never happened; he felt he could work for two days together. He drew a long breath—sweet, fresh air of dawn—and said nothing more. He had never expected to be happy again, and now he was.

He came in through the barton, aware of the stale, sour smell of the cottage after the freshness outside. All very well to fall for a girl, to marry her—but where would they sleep? He’d have to build a bed. He’d have to earn the marriage fee for the count, and the fee to her family for her parrion. He’d have to—

“You’re looking blithe this morning,” said Arin, from the flank of the red cow. Milk hissed into the bucket. Arin’s voice had sharpened, in the difficult years, but he sounded more worried than angry.
“Sheepfold last night,” said Gird. He took down the other milking stool, and a bucket.
“You? I thought you’d gone to Kirif’s.”

Gird washed the cow’s udder with water from the stable bucket and folded himself up on the milking stool. The brindle cow flapped her ears back and forth as he reached for her teats, and he leaned into her flank and crooned to her. “Easy, sweetling—I was at Kirif’s first, and then Amis came along and we went over to the fold—”

“Good for you,” said Arin. “Meet anyone?”

He might as well admit it; it would be all over the village by the time they came to the field. “You always meet someone at the fold,” he began, but he couldn’t hold the tone. “Someone,” he said again. “Arin, there’s a girl from Fireoak—”

“Where?”
“Fireoak. Sunrising of here. You know, Teris’s wife’s sister married into Fireoak. And her parrion is cooking and herblore—”
“Teris’s wife’s sister?” said Arin, with maddening cooless.
“No. Mali’s parrion. The girl I met.”
“Arin’s eyebrows went up. ”You were talking parrions? In one night?“
“We did more than talk,” said Gird, stripping the first two teats and going on to the next.
“You can’t mean—you’re not betrothed? Gird, you know you have to ask—”

Gird grinned into the cow’s flank and squirted a stream of milk at Arin, who had come to stand by her hip. “Not betrothed, but more than talk. Lady’s grace, Arin, you know what I mean. And I will ask for her, just you wait.”

“But are you sure? The first time you’ve been out with the lasses since before—” he stopped short, and reddened. Gird laughed.
“Since before I left the guards, you mean, and you’re right. So you think it’s like a blind man’s first vision, and I should wait and see? So she said, but I tell you, Arin, this is my wife. You’ll like her.”
“I hope so,” said Arin soberly. “Best tell Da.”
“After milking.” He finished the brindle cow, and took both buckets into the kitchen.
His mother gave him one look and said “Who?” Gird looked at her. “Is it so obvious?”
“To a woman and a wife? Did you think I was blind, lad? No, you’re a lad no more. Man, then. You’ve found a woman, and bedded her, and now you want to marry.”
“True, then. What d’you think?”
She looked at him, a long measuring look. “About time, I think.If you’re ready. You’ve spent long enough sulking—”
“I know,” he said, to forestall what was coming. She shook her head at him, but didn’t continue the familiar lecture.
“Well, then—I don’t know where the fee’s coming from, but you can earn that. What’s her parrion?”
“Herbcraft and cooking.” He held his breath; his mother had always talked of finding a wife with a parrion to complement hers: another weaver or spinner, perhaps a dyer.

“Well enough. No lad—man—takes advice of his mother, but you think now, Gird—is she quarrelsome? The house will be no larger for cross words.” That was said low; Arin’s wife was still in the other room, and she had brought, his mother had said once, a parrion of complaining.

“Not—quarrelsome.” She had said she was freespoken, but nothing in her voice had sent the rasp along his skin.

“Best tell your father.” She gave him a quick smile. “If she’s brought you laughter again, Gird, I’ll give her no trouble. It’s been a long drought.”
His father, still hunched over his breakfast, brightened when Gird told him. Arin’s wife said nothing, briskly leading her oldest out the front door. His father leaned close.

“Comely, is she?”
“She’s—” Gird could not think of words. She had been starlight and scent, warmth and strength and joy, all wrapped in one. “She’s strong,” he offered. His father laughed.
“You sound like the lad you were. Strong didn’t give that gleam to your eye, I’ll warrant. There’s more to the lass than muscle. When will you go to her father?”
“Soon. I—I’m not sure.”

His father whistled the chorus of “Nutting in the Woods” and laughed again. “Young men. By the gods, boy, I remember your mother—” Gird was shocked. His mother had been his mother— that capable, hard-handed woman in long apron, spooning out porridge or carding wool or weaving—all his life. His father had gone on. “Hair in a cloud of light around her face, and she smelled like—like—I suppose all girls do, in their spring. Never a young lad can resist that, Gird; we all go that way, rams to the ewes and bulls to the cows, and spend the rest of our days yoked in harness— but it’s times like this make it worthwhile.”

“Eh?” He had not followed all that; his father’s words brought back Mali’s scent, as if she stood next to him, as if she lay—and he pulled his mind back with an effort.
His father thumped the table. “To see sons ready to wed themselves, strong sons: that’s what’s worth the work, Gird. To see you with your eyes clear and your mind on something but the past.”
Gird shrugged. The self of yesterday, the self that had had nothing to hope for, was gone as if it had never lived.
“’Tis the Lady’s power,” said his father. “She can bring spring to any field.” This no longer embarrassed Gird; he had returned whole-hearted to his family’s beliefs.
His visit to Fireoak began auspiciously. Mali’s own mother had seen his mother’s weaving at the tradefair years before.

“She has the parrion for the firtree pattern,” the woman said. She was as tall as Mali, but spare, her dark hair streaked with gray. “If she has not the parrion for the barley pattern, I would be glad to trade.” Gird knew that his mother had wanted the barley pattern for years, and had never been able to work it out herself. She had bestowed the firtree pattern on Arin’s wife’s aunt; surely she would trade with his wife’s mother. He nodded: no commitment, but possibility.

Mali herself was kneading bread, her arms flour-smudged to the elbows. The scar she’d told him of was obvious enough, along the right cheek, more broad than deep. He didn’t care; he had known he would not care. It was hard to be that close to her, in the same air, and not holding her. Her eyes twinkled at him: agreement. Then she looked back at the bread dough and pummeled it again. He could feel once more her fist on his arm, the strength of her. She was strong inside and out; his knees weakened as he remembered the feel of her body all along his on the starlit grass.

“Mali’s not the quietest girl,” said Mali’s father. He was not so dark as Mali and her mother, a brown square man with a graying beard, almost bald. “She’s got a quick tongue.”
“Gird knows that,” said Mali, flipping the dough and slamming it down again.
“Like that,” said her father. Gird smiled at him.
“Better a quick tongue than one full of malice,” he said, misquoting the old proverb on purpose.

“Oh, aye, if it’s not quick into the pot. Good cook; her parrion’s valuable.” That began the bargaining phase. A daughter’s parrion was a family’s most valuable possession, the secrets and inherited talent of generations of women passed to a chosen carrier. A valuable parrion enriched the household gaining it, and impoverished those left behind. The lords’ fee for marriage was the same for all of the same rank, but he would owe Mali’s family for her parrion.

At least it meant that her family found his acceptable, and she must have agreed as well. Despite all the lords had done, the people had never come over to thinking that girls had to go where their families bestowed them. Marriage was, in the old rituals, the mingling of fires on a hearth—and if either failed to kindle, the marriage could not be.

Arin had come along for the bargaining phase, since Gird was neither holder nor heir. Gird and Mali escaped to the smallgarden, there to stand awkwardly staring at each other, in full view of her village. An amazing number of people seemed to need to go back and forth in the lane. Gird knew none of them, but noticed the same small boys driving the same goats up and down, a girl in a red skirt carrying a basket—full, then empty, then full again—past the gate. Mali finally began to laugh.

“It’s true—they’re just seeing how long we can stand here, and expecting one of us to turn tail and run.”
“The scar doesn’t matter.” The words were out before he thought; she flushed and it showed whiter. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“No—I’m used to it. Ithought you’d come anyway, and I thought you’d still—but I’m blushing because it’s my fault.”
“Fault?”
She looked away past his shoulder. “I had heard of you; I went there to meet you, and no one else. And meeting you, I wanted you—and then—”
“And then I wanted you. So?”
“So—I still want you, but—don’t bring it back to me, years from now.”

“No.” He moved closer to her, ignoring the women now carrying buckets past on their way to the well. “No, it was meant. The Lady meant it, maybe, or some other god.” He put his arm around her waist, and she leaned on him. He could have carried her off to the barton, then and there, but Arin came out looking pleased.

“So—we have work to do, Gird, to earn your fees.”

He knew he had turned red; he could feel the heat on his face. “Ah—yes. Mali—” “Don’t tarry,” she said. Then she leaned against him again, and kissed him, and whispered in his ear. “We may have a Lady’s blessing already.”

Chapter Six
«^»

The only awkwardness came when he had to bring Mali before the count’s steward, to have her transferred on the Rolls. Luckily the count himself was not in residence, but the steward might have decided to invoke the rule himself.

“So—you’re marrying, young Gird?”
“Yes, lord steward.” Gird kept his eyes down.
“About time—you’ve loafed long enough.” The voice was chilly; Gird watched the fingers holding the pen tap on the edge of the parchment. “Look up at me, boy.”
The steward’s face was older, grayer, but otherwise unchanged. Gird met those ice-blue eyes with difficulty.

“You brought the marriage fee?” Gird handed it over, the heavy copper coins slipping out of his hands much faster than they’d come in. “And this is the girl—” The steward looked her up and down, and then glanced at Gird. “You chose strength, eh? A good worker, I’ll be bound—none too pretty—” Gird felt his ears burning; Mali’s face had gone mottled red. Her scar stood out, stark white, from brow to jawline. “Wide hips—good bearer. Any mageblood in your line, girl?”

“No, lord steward.” Her voice was husky, almost a growl.

“No, I daresay not. Nor would breed mages, is my guess. Waste of his lordship’s time, your sort, bar the fun of it.” The steward looked back down at the parchment. “Mali of Fireoak, daughter of Kekrin, son of Amis, wed to Gird of this village, son of Dorthan, son of Keris. Fee paid, permission granted to farm with Dorthan. That’s all then.”

They ducked their heads and went out quickly, both of them flushed and angry, but too wise to speak of it. First to Gird’s father’s house, for Mali to lay her first fire on the greathearth; every old grannie in the village was there to cry the portents of that flame. Gird held his breath. She put the splinters down in the Star pattern, and above them the tripod of fireoak, brought from her own family’s hearth, and then struck the flints. Once—would have been too soon. Twice—a fair omen, but not the best. On the third strike, a spark leapt from her tools to the tip of the fireoak splinters, and kindled living flame. Now she moved quickly, laying the rest of the fire in ritual patterns: this twig over that, this herb, a twist of wool from her father’s sheep, an apple-seed from their tree. The grannies muttered and flashed handsigns at each other; Gird was worried, but his mother smiled happily. It must be all right, then.

He and the other men left then, trudging through the back kitchen, then the cowbyre, into the narrow, cramped barton where the women had laid out the wedding feast on planks. This would be the refusing, he knew: Mali’s parents would come, and try to persuade her to go home. She would first refuse them, with the door open, then—when they argued longer—close and bar the door to them. After a ritual greeting to her mother-in-law, and a prick of the finger to get two drops of blood, one for the fire and one for the hearthstone, her parents would knock again. And now, as a member of this household, she would greet them as honored guests.

All this time, Gird endured the jokes of his friends and his brothers and father. He had heard such jokes all his life, finding them funny once he was old enough, but now, waiting for Mali to become his wife, and not her parents’ daughter, he was not amused. What did these grotesque fantasies have to do with Mali? He swiped irritably at his brother, when Arin tried to tie the traditional apron on him.

“You have to, Gird. You’re her husband now; don’t you want children?”

Gird looked at the apron, its ancient leather darkened by generations of celebrants. It was ridiculous. Bulls didn’t need such a thing; why did the gods demand it of humans? He could remember sniggering in the corner when Arin danced in the apron, and wondering how his brother could approach his wife in his own skin afterwards. His friends had come nearer, warily, ready to help Arin force him into it if necessary. He sighed, and let his arms fall.

“All right. But I still think—” He said no more; their hands were busy with thongs and lacings. “I wonder how old this custom is—”

Mali, when she came out, bit her lip to keep from laughing. At least, he hoped that was suppressed laughter on her face. He felt a fool enough, strutting around like a young bull first meeting heifers, and nearly as big. She wore the maiden’s vest of soft doeskin embroidered with flowers, laced tightly behind, where she could not reach it, a tradition as old as his apron. The men began to stamp the beat, their deep voices echoing off the barton walls as they chanted. Gird stamped as hard, feeling his face redden, hating it—but the old rhythm began to move him.

The steps were only partly traditional: part was each new-married man’s invention. The jiggling thing on the apron was ridiculous, yes—but it was notmerely ridiculous. Gird strutted the length of the barton, whirled, skipped a step, backed—and closed on Mali. Her eyes were bright, twinkling with laughter; she glanced down, pretended shock, looked skyward and reeled backwards, to catch herself with a clutch at Gird’s shoulder. The watchers howled. She snatched her hand back, a maiden caught in indiscretion, and turned away. Gird circled her, faced her again, put his hands behind his back and waggled his hips. For an instant she grinned delightedly, then covered her face with her hands, brushed past him close enough for her skirts to catch on the apron, and then leaped like a startled deer.

Clearly, the dance was not embarrassing Mali—she played into the jokes as heartily as most men. Gird took heart, then. They could make their families laugh—their private joke, if their red faces came from exertion, and not from the shouts and laughter of others. They spun it out, circling and dodging between others and the tables, playing parts they only half understood. When they were both dripping sweat, Gird gave her a little nod, and his next rush carried them both into the cowbyre, where a stall had been laid with fresh straw for this occasion.

Here she had to unlace his apron, and he to unlace the maiden’s vest she wore, to replace it with the matron’s looser vest, his wedding present to her. Her fingers on his legs, his waist, brushed tantalizingly; the apron would be hardly more obvious than his response if she didn’t hurry. He fumbled with the vest lacings.

“Did they have to lace it so tightly?”

“That was my sister,” said Mali, breathless. “She wanted to see me faint, I think. Don’t break the laces, remember.” If he broke the laces, they’d have to give her family a sheep. He grunted and worked carefully. Finally the last knot came loose, and Mali drew a deep breath. “Ahh. Better.” She worked her arms out of the vest carefully, and turned to him.

Gird handed her the matron’s vest his mother and sisters had made. “You’d best get this on, if you don’t want to spend the rest of the feast in here.”
Mali chuckled as she looked him up and down. “Eager, are you?” She twitched her shoulders, putting the vest on, and Gird felt his pulse quicken. “But we’d better hang these out, or they’ll come in to help.”

“I’ll do it,” said Gird. The apron and vest had to be returned to each family, and the first step was to hang them on the appropriate pegs outside the cowbyre. A roar greeted him as he came out and put them up. Two of his friends were ready to grab him and keep him out, but he was quicker and managed to dart back into the stall with Mali.

Someone outside began another song, in which the women joined as well. Mali hummed the melody, and sat swaying a little back and forth. Gird stared at her. He wanted her—wanted her even more than on a hillside in the dark—but on the other side of the wall the whole village was waiting for this. It was one thing to be roused by someone else’s marriage rites, he was discovering, and quite another to fulfill all the rituals with everyone watching him. Or not exactly watching, but not indifferent, either.

Then Mali turned away, and burrowed into the straw. Gird watched, bemused. There was nothing in this stall; he’d cleaned it himself, that morning, and laid the clean straw carefully. Mali grunted, and came up with a stoppered jug and something wrapped in a cloth.

“You are a witch.” Gird pulled the stopper out when Mali passed him the jug. He sniffed. “What’s this?”
“My aunt’s favorite. And I’m not a witch, but you don’t know all the rituals. Groom prepares the stall, but the bride bribes her new mother-in-law to supply it.”
Gird sipped cautiously; a fiery liquid ran down his throat and made him blink. “Lady’s blessing—that would bring—”

“Trouble if the lords knew of it.” Mali took a swig, and opened her eyes. “My. No wonder she wouldn’t let me taste it before.” She unwrapped the cloth, and Gird saw a half-loaf of bread and some cheese. They ate quietly for the rest of that song, and the beginning of the next. Then either Mali’s aunt’s potion or Mali herself—warm and spicesmelling beside him—drove out his lingering embarrassment. He rolled toward her on the clean straw, and she embraced him. It was as satisfying as the first time, even when he roused to the ring of faces peering down at them.

“You went to sleep,” Amis said, grinning. “We could hear you snore all through the singing.”

Gird looked past them at the opening; it was nearly dark. Mali, her skirts back down around her knees, started rebraiding her hair. When he looked at her, she winked, and wrinkled her nose. “Well,” he said, “did you eat all the food, or can we have some?”

They had to lead more dancing, that night, in the final Weaving that took them in and out of every cottage in the village, and around all three wells. Then at last it was over: all the food eaten, all the songs sung, all the dances danced, and a few hours to sleep (this time only sleep) until dawn brought work and their first day as a married pair.

Despite his mother’s approval, Gird had worried about Mali’s quick tongue in the house, when she had to share that cramped kitchen with two other women and the children. His mother’s health had begun to fail; she was querulous sometimes, and Arin’s wife could never weave to suit her. But Mali left the loom alone, and took over all the kitchen work. The other two had no more scouring and scrubbing to do, no more washing of pots or kneading of dough. Gird had never known how much difference a parrion for cooking could make. All women cooked, and many men; food was food. Now he realized that food differed as much as weaving. Mali’s bread was lighter, her stews more savory, her porridge smooth, neither lumpy nor thin. She gathered herbs in the wood, and hung them to dry; they gave the cottage a different, sharper smell. She even knew how to make cheese.

With no kitchen work to do, Gird’s mother could concentrate on weaving, and let Arin’s wife do all the carding and spinning. They traded Mali’s cheese for extra wool; his mother sent three furls to the trading fair in the next village, which brought them precious coppers, almost as much as the marriage fee even that first year. Gird’s mother had always liked weaving better than anything else. Now she produced furl after furl, trading to the dyer for skeins of colored yarn, rich golds and reds and dark green. With those, she could weave patterned cloth that brought a higher price, combining the barley pattern Mali’s mother had taught her with color.

The other cheesemaker in the village was getting old, and people began to bring Mali milk. She traded herbs to the older cheese-maker for one of her tubs, and made more cheese. For every five, a hand, she could keep one. Her cheese was not as good as some, she admitted—she would not try to sell it at a tradefair—but in the village it brought them what they needed to feed the extra mouths.

Gird’s first child was born just after Midwinter. Mali had gathered the herbs she said she needed back in the summer, and as usual the village grannies came to help with the birthing. Gird had not realized how much his status would improve, first as a married man, and then as a father. Now all the grown men spoke to him by his own name. In the rest breaks they would wait for him before starting a conversation. Teris, who had been married more than a year, now treated him as an equal, an old friend. For a few days he resisted this, remembering Teris’s accusations. One bleak day when they were both in the cowbyre, Mali wormed the old quarrel out of him, and counseled forgiveness.

“You can’t change the past, love. If he’s a good friend now, why not?”
Gird found that his old grudge looked very different when he got it out and tried to explain it to Mali. “You make everything so simple,” he complained.
“It’s not simple, but it’s over. He erred, back then—did you never err?”
“You know I did, but—”
“Well, then, let be. He blamed you unfairly; if you refuse his friendship now, you’ll be blaming unfairly.”
“Are you ever angry?” He looked down at her; she had the baby at her breast, and he could smell her milk and the baby’s scent overlaying her own.

Mali knotted her brows, thinking. “Angry… yes. When things happen, not later. If I’d been here, and seen someone hurting you, then I’d have been angry. Otherwise—’tis like a bit of old milk in the pan that sours the new. All life would sour if we held anger. So I yell, and throw things, and scour it all away, right then, so the next day won’t sour.”

“But when things aren’tright —”
Mali shifted the baby to the other breast; he noticed how the baby’s sucking had changed the shape of her nipple before she pulled her vest across to cover it. “Is this about Teris, or something else?”

Gird chuckled; he wasn’t sure why. “Something you said that first night. And talking with the men in the village council. Things have changed since my father was a young man, and more since his father’s day. And not for the better.”

“Taxes?” Taxes were up again, the field-fee higher for the third year in a row.

“Not only that.” Gird rolled on his back and tried to think. “The law itself has changed. Old Keris was telling us yesterday about the way it was back then. No guards here, for one thing, and fewer everywhere. No lockups. No stocks, no whippings.”

“Old men always think their youth was golden,” said Mali, stroking the baby’s back.

“He saw the lords’ magic himself, he said.” Gird looked for a reaction to that and got it; Mali stared at him, shocked that he would speak of it openly. “He said they used to show it all the time, use it for aid in drought and storm.”

“What was it like?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“He saw them call rain, he said. Bring clouds out of a clear sky, gather them up as a shearer gathers the tags of fleece, and then call rain down.” Gird cleared his throat and looked around. No one else was in hearing. “He said, too, that the old lords would warm the heart to see, not like our count. That everyone wanted to please them.”

“Old men’s tales,” said Mali, but without conviction.

That year the spring rains came timely, and a rich harvest rewarded their labors. Arin’s wife had another baby in the fall; by Midwinter, Mali told him she was pregnant again. The cottage seemed to bulge at the seams already…

The dun cow lowed, her hoarse voice as loud as if she’d been in the cottage. No, she seemed to cry. No, no, no… o… o. Gird palmed his burning eyes and wanted to groan a refrain to it. No. He was not ready to get up and help that cow; he wanted to lie where he was and sleep. But the cow was not giving up; with the stubborn insistence of a deprived bovine, she let out another long plaint. Most cows tried to edge furtively into the woods when about to calve, but this one wanted someone there… yet refused to do it where it was convenient. Gird rolled on his back, grunting at the ache in his shoulders from plowing, and slowly sat up. He heard his father’s harsh breathing, the catch in every inhalation. One of the children snored: probably Rahel. The cow called again, this time answered by the two in the cowbyre. Gird stifled an oath, and sat up, feeling around on the floor for his boots.

Outside, the predawn light in the sky only made the barton itself darker. Gird carried a splinter of oak from the fire, its tip bright orange, almost flaming in the breeze of his movement. Tucked in his tunic was the scrap of candle he’d light if he needed it when the time came: no use to waste candle if daylight came before the crisis. The dun cow had stayed out of the byre last night, as she did every time she calved. She would be in the thicket near the creek, if he was lucky. Outside the barton, the lower meadow looked silver-gray under a sky sheened with dawn. Heavy spring dew wet his boots through before he came to the thicket, guided more by the cow’s voice than his sight, though it grew lighter moment by moment. In among the gnarled and twisted scrub, though, he could barely see, and staggered more than once over root or stone. Stupid cow, he thought, as he had thought for three years now. Staying out in the cold and dark, hiding yourself in the thicket, when you know you’ll want my help. There she was, a large hump of shadow among lighter, flickering shadows. Down already, grunting and panting, her tail thrown back out of her way. He pulled out the candle, found a smooth stone to set it on, and with a wisp of dry grass and breath, blew the splinter into a flame. The cow’s big eyes reflected it, making three flames where there had been one. For a moment his mind wandered: did the cow see a reflection of flame in his eyes? Was that why she looked afraid? He lit the candle, picked it up, and walked closer, crooning to the nervous cow.Have a heifer , he begged silently.Have a heifer this time . A contraction moved across her girth; a bulge extruded below her tail. A pearly blot inside… a hoof. That was good, unless the other leg was back. He couldn’t quite see. Another contraction, and he could: two hoofs and a nose. A normal delivery, so far, with the shiny black nose already free of the sack. Now it was light enough to see the shapes he needed to see. He tipped the candle, quenching it against the damp grass with a hiss, and tucked it back into his tunic. His feet were cold. The cow groaned again, a softer sound but eloquent of struggle. Gird stroked her flank, and began the calving chant.

“So, cow, gentle cow, quiet cow, so… Birth calf, milk calf, little calf grow… so cow, kind cow, good cow, so… Life come, growth come…”

Another contraction, and another, this one longer, pushing the shoulders out. The shoulders came, all in a rush, as always, and the wet calf lay still a moment, hind end still in the cow. Then the rest of the body followed. The cow made a noise Gird never heard save in those moments after calving, almost a murmur. The calf’s ear flicked. With a lumbering rush, the cow heaved herself up, and the cord broke. She shook her head at Gird, who went on chanting until the wildness left her eyes, The cow nosed around the calf, licking it clean of the birth sac, licking it dry, murmuring, encouraging. The dun cow was a good mother cow. The calf shook its head, waggling both ears, and tapped its tiny front hooves on the ground as it tried to figure out how to stand. The cow licked on, still murmuring. The calf pushed one front leg out, then another, and heaved itself to a sitting position, then fell over. But it tried again, and again, its ridiculous little ears flicking back and forth with each effort. And it was a heifer, the year’s good luck, for he could keep it.

Gird was never sure what made him look away from the calf, to glance between the knotted limbs of creek plum and hazel, but there across the meadow walked a creature of grace and light. Tall, lithe, so inexpressibly lovely that his throat closed. What was it?

The creature turned, as if feeling his glance, and looked toward him. A voice came, bell-like but slightly discordant.
“And what are you thinking, human, alone before dawn on this unlucky day?”

Gird could find nothing to say, only then remembering that it was the spring Evener, the day and night of equal length, when the creatures of night ruled until truedawn, and the creatures of day could not wander the dusks unscathed.

“The cow called,” he said finally. The black-cloaked figure came nearer, hardly seeming to touch the ground.
“The cow called. Cattle to cattle: as your masters would say of you. Less than cattle, we think you, worse.”

He could see the face now, inhuman but beautiful with a beauty that called human hearts and eyes. Pale against the black cloak, wide eyes starry bright. Was this a treelord? He had heard tales of them but no one he knew had ever seen one.

“No, I am not one of those dreamsoaked lost singers,” the figure said. Gird shivered. He had said nothing; it had picked the thought out of his mind. “I am what they were, and should have stayed, had they any pride or wit at all. Your kind, when they know us at all, call us kuaknom.”

He had never heard that word. Kuak, that was the old word for tree—and the nomi were the windspirits that hated order and served chaos. Kuaknom: that would be—
“Old lords,” said the being, now just outside the thicket. “Very old, human slave. Firstborn of the elder races, lords of power and darkness—”

“The fallen treelords,” Gird said, having finally put it all together. The treelords who had quarreled with Adyan the Maker, so the tales went, and turned against their kin, and riven the forests that used to cover the land in a great battle.

“Not fallen, little man,” said the kuaknom, with a smile that sent ice to Gird’s heart. “Not fallen—but changed. And on this night, until truedawn, those witless enough to wander abroad are our lawful prey. You, little man—”

Gird flinched as the kuaknom reached for him. The cow grumbled, in the way of new mother cows, and rattled her horns against the hazels. And a shaft of red sunlight, sharp as an arrow, stung his eyes; he flung up his hand, and the kuaknom backed away, muttering in its own language. Then again, to him:

“You are safe, human, by that one gleam of sun, but I curse you for it. May your loins wither, and your beasts fall sick, and the strength of your arm fail when you need it most.” Even as Gird squinted against the sunlight, it was gone, a shadow across the field.

He sat a long time, bemused, until he heard Raheli’s shrill voice calling for him. Was such a curse dangerous? Would he die, lose his manhood, his cattle, his strength? The cow continued to groom and nurse the calf, who showed all the sturdy life of a healthy young bovine.

Nothing befell to make him think the curse had force until the following winter. He had consoled himself that it was, after all, delivered in sunlight, which ought to make the words of the dark powerless. He had given more than his usual share to the rituals of Alyanya and even contributed freely to the lords’ offering to Esea. Esea was, after all, a god of light, who might be expected to offer protection against the powers of darkness. When the rest of the year went well (the other two cows also calving heifers), he counted himself lucky.

But that was the winter of the wolves, the worst that had been seen since Gird’s childhood. It began even before Midwinter. They had heard the wolves howling night after night, but none of the stock had yet been touched. The headman had gone to the steward, asking the guards’ help to hunt the pack, but the steward had refused. Some of the men had gone out to the more distant folds, to help the shepherds watch. Arin went, over his mother’s objections, twirling his long staff and grinning at Gird as he walked away.

Gird was hauling dung to the pile when he heard the shouts. He hauled himself to the top of the barton wall. There they came, across the snow, a cluster of men moving awkwardly. Carrying something—no, someone—he slid down, and went through the cottage without stopping to speak. His father was already out in the lane. Together they moved toward the group—and then he could see it was Arin they carried, Arin whose blood stained his clothes and dripped scarlet on the snow.

They got him into the house and stretched on the table. Gird felt his own heart pounding, slow but shaking his whole body, as he saw Arin’s wounds. Then his mother pushed him aside.
“Go fetch water,” she said. And to Arin’s wife, “Get those children out of here—into the kitchen—”
Gird went out to the well; the men stood around silently, shoulders hunched against the cold. He lowered the bucket into icy black water and drew it up. As he turned to carry it in, Amis turned to him. “Is he—?”
Gird shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Kef’s gone for the steward,” Amis said. Gird nodded and went back inside with the bucket. Coming in the clean air, he could smell the blood as if it were a slaughterday. He gave the bucket to Mali, who reached for it, and went to stand behind his father.

Arin had long bleeding gashes on his legs and arms; one hand was badly mangled. “He was trying to choke one of them with it,” offered Cob, one of the men who had carried him in. Gird’s mother said nothing; she and Mali were cleaning the wounds with one of Mali’s brews, and wrapping them with the cloths the women kept. Arin looked as white as the snow outside against the dark wood of the table; he did not move or speak. “He bled all the way back,” said Cob, into the silence.

Gird’s mother gave him a fierce look. “You might have tied these up then,” she said.
Cob spread his hands. “We had nothing but our dirty clothes; I would not give him woundfever.”
Gird’s mother opened her mouth and shut it with a snap. Gird could imagine what she would have said to him. But Cob had done the best he knew, and Cob was not her son.

The door opened, and someone coughed. Gird turned. The steward was there. No one said anything; the steward came nearer. In the dim light his face was stern as usual, but Gird thought his eyes softened when he saw Arin’s wounds.

“Wolves, or folokai?” he asked.
“Wolves, sir,” said Cob. “At the sheepfold, they were, and Arin come to drive them off—”
“Alone?” asked the steward.

“No, sir. But he went first, and it seemed the wolf drew away— just the one, that we could see. He went to chase it a bit, and that’s when the pack ran at him, and then the rest of us ran out with torches, and drove them off him.”

The steward moved closer yet. Gird’s mother put out a hand, as if to stop him, and drew it back. The steward laid his hands on Arin’s shoulders.
“Heal him, sir?” asked Gird’s mother in a choked whisper.
The steward looked startled, then shook his head. “No, I can’t do that—I have not the power.” He looked closely at Arin’s wounds. “I doubt he’ll live—he looks to have lost too much blood—”
“No!” Gird’s mother grabbed at his sleeve. Gird felt his heart contract with pity for her and Arin both. “It’s not fair—he alone against the wolves—”
The steward pulled free. “I’m sorry. It’s a shame—I’ll take his name off the work rolls—if he lives, he’ll be unfit to work until well into summer. If he dies, I’ll remit half the death fee; he deserves that much.”
“And more,” someone muttered behind Gird. The steward’s head came around, but the mutter had been too low to identify. Even Gird had no idea who it was.
“And I’m sending down a sheep,” said the steward. “He will need meat broth to mend, if he can.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Gird’s father. His mother nodded. The steward glanced around the room, as if looking for an excuse to say something else. His gaze lit on Gird.
“At least you have another son, a strong one. And this one— Arin, is it?—has sired already, hasn’t he?”

A wave of hot fury rolled over Gird. He knew the lords considered them cattle, but the steward rarely made it so clear. Arin had bred; Arin’s children lived; Arin himself—the laughing, steadfast, honest brother who had saved his own life more than once—that Arin did not matter to the steward, and even less to the lord who ruled the steward. He himself was just another bullcalf; if he died, the steward would shrug as easily. By the time he’d mastered his anger, the steward had left, and the other men not of the family. Gird’s oldest living brother, a cottager in his own holding, had come; he and Gird stood beside the table.

Arin opened his eyes and stared vacantly at the ceiling for a moment. Then his eyes roved until he met his mother’s. “Lady bless you,” he said. “This is home?”
“Home,” she said. “We’ll soon have you well…”
“Not so soon.” His voice was so weak Gird could hardly hear it. “If I die—”
“You will not die!” Arin’s wife had come back in, and clasped his hand.
“If—you will take care of the children?” He looked at Gird, not his older brother or father, and Gird answered, feeling in an instant the weight on his shoulders.
“I will, as my own.”
“Good. The wolf—I was—frightened.” His eyes sagged shut, and his head rolled sideways.

It was late that night before he spoke again. By then the sheep had come, a carcass already cleaned, and Mali had a broth cooking, rich with herbs as well as meat. By then, too, they knew the old tracker and the guards had already gone after the wolves. Too late, Gird thought bitterly. But he held his tongue. Arin roused briefly, asked for water. He could not lift his head to drink; Gird put an arm under his shoulders and lifted him. He could feel the heat through his shirt. Was it a good sign, that Arin was warm again, or a bad sign of woundfever? He didn’t know. He felt the trembling of Arin’s muscles as he drank; when his mother had wiped Arin’s mouth, Gird let him down as gently as he could, and pulled the blanket straight. Arin’s eyes were bright, but not quite focused.
“Issa?” His wife moved up and took his good hand. “I will try, but—I am afraid the wolves have done for me.”

“No—” she breathed.
“Yes. You will have a place here. Gird will take care of you.”
“Arin—” began his father. Arin interrupted him, talking in broken phrases, without heeding any of them.
“I saw—a place—the Lady’s garden. Flowers in the snow. Gird. Little brother—remember what I said.”
“Yes, Arin,” said Gird. He had no idea which of the things Arin had said over the years had come to him now, but he would forget none of them.
“You are more a soldier than you know. But don’t give up the Lady’s bounty, Gird.”
“I won’t.” His vision blurred, and he realized he was crying. It felt strange to be lookingdown at Arin. Arin’s eyes roved, and found his father’s.

“You—told me not to go—” he murmured. His father shrugged. Gird looked at him sharply. Could he say nothing? But the firelight glittered on the tears that ran down his face. Although tears were nothing unusual among the village men, Gird was still surprised. His father cried rarely; now his shoulders shook with silent sobs. “Don’t cry,” said Arin, quite clearly. “I chose, or the Lady chose my time—” He said nothing more; his eyes closed. Gird watched the blankets for the rise and fall of breath.

In the hours of watching that night, in the flickering firelight, as their words to each other gradually failed and all was silence but for the snoring of Arin’s oldest and the thin wail of Gird’s youngest when he woke hungry in the turn of night, Gird felt the weight of manhood settle on his shoulders. He looked from face to face, seeing in the exhaustion of his father’s the truth that he was now— must be now—the head of their family, in fact if not in law. Here, in this room: all that his father had made was now his to protect, support, defend.

When Mali had fed the baby, she came to sit beside him, her hand on his. He looked into her eyes, and saw her absolute confidence that he could do what he must, that they were safe with him. It was not true. He felt simultaneously the cold menace without, all that winter stood for, of famine, wolves, cold, even the lords’ ravaging taxes, and the cozy seeming security within. How could he stand between, one mortal man? Cold sweat came out on his face; he felt himself shiver as if someone had poured a bucket of icy water over him. Mali squeezed his hand. Her warmth, her strength leaned against him. He was not alone, then—there was another pair of arms, another strong back. Enough? It had to be enough. He could feel through his skin her awareness of his feelings, and her impossible joy that fought all his despair with laughter. His fear did not frighten her, nor his weakness weaken her.

Arin was still alive at dawn, when Gird and his father began the day’s work. Gird eyed his father, noticing what he had not before— how weak his father had become in the past few years. That great frame had bent; the broad hands that had frightened him were stiff, knobby with swollen joints. His bush of yellow hair had gone gray. Had this begun while Gird was sulking, before his marriage, Gird wondered? Not that it mattered; somehow his father had become an old man.

All that day, he thought about it while doing his work. Sim would not come back—some old quarrel that had been far over his head when he was a boy had sent Sim out to make his own way. Now that he had cothold, he would be a fool to give it up. And if Arin died—he hoped fiercely that Arin would not die, but knew that hope alone could not save him. If Arin died—when Arin died, since even if he lived through this he might die before Gird another way—Gird would have it all to care for. Arin’s wife Issa—the children—Mali—his own children now and to come—his parents. In the bleak light of that late-winter day he admitted to himself that his parents might not live long.

Arin lived another two days. He said nothing more that they could follow, although once the fever rose he muttered constantly, tossing and turning restlessly. He could not drink the broth Mali had made; Gird was almost ashamed to take a bowl of it, but they could not waste food. The sheep was already dead. They all drank quietly, avoiding each others’ eyes and trying not hear Arin’s moans.

Not long after Arin died, just after the first thaw, Gird’s father dropped suddenly one day, and lay twitching. By morning he, too, was dead. The steward came again, to value the cottage and the lord’s property therein. Gird had the death-fee to pay, part in coin and part in livestock—his precious heifers, two of them—and then the steward confirmed him in his father’s place, as “half-free tenant of this manor,” whose clothes and few personal tools might be handed down to his heir. The rest—the land, the cottage, the livestock, the major tools such as ox-yoke, plow, and scythe—were the lord’s and he was “allowed” to use them.

Chapter Seven
«^»

He loved the feel of the scythe, the oiled wood smooth under his hands, the long elegant curve ending in its shining blade. Facing the uncut grain, with the sun over his left shoulder throwing his shadow ahead of him, he paused for the first of the harvest prayers.

“Alyanya, gracious Lady, harvest-bringer…” That was the oldest reaper, away on the other end of the field, to his right.
“Lady of seed and shoot, Lady of flower and corn…” That was the oldest granny in the vill, holding a wreath of harvest-daisies high.
“As the seed sprouts, and the green leaf grows, as the flowers come, and the seed swells…” And that was the Corn-maiden, who would wear the wreath while they reaped.

“So we with our blood offer, and you with your bounty reply…” All the reapers, their response ragged with distance, but sincere— and Gird with the others had nicked the heel of his palm with the scytheblade, and squeezed a drop of blood to flick on the ground. Then he smeared the rest on the blade itself, to return his strength to the cut grain. Garig, the headman, blew a mellow note on the cow’s horn, and the harvest began.

Gird swung back his scythe and swept it forward and around. The wheat fell away from his stroke, as if swept by a gust of wind. Step forward, swing, sweep… and another swathe turned aside for him. That old rhythm reclaimed him, required—so early in the day—hardly any effort. Step, swing, sweep, return. Step, swing, sweep, return. On one side the standing grain, and before him the diminishing row he worked, and on his left side the bright stalks lying with their heads on the short green grass. The ripe wheat gave up a smell almost as rich as bread baking. Beneath the stalks lay a secret world, tiny runs that showed as he worked his way along.
He looked up, to see his way, and realized he was nearly halfway. Pakel, the oldest reaper, was only a third along his row—but no one expected him to be fast, not at his age. Still, he moved as smoothly as ever, and Gird knew he would be working just that well at day’s end. Gird went on. Step, swing, sweep, return.

Something flickered in the stalks ahead of him, and he smiled. So the little ones, the harvest mice, had realized their day was come? He took another stroke, and another. Another mousetail, just escaping his blade to leap deeper into the wheat.

Gird reached the end of his row long before Pakel was through. He stopped to whet his blade from the stone looped to his belt. Behind him, three men worked on the half-field he’d begun, in staggered rows, as three others followed Pakel. It was the custom to harvest in halves, all reapers in each half working the rows one way, to “fold the field” as it was said. Gird walked back up, outside the fallen grain, and took a pull from the water jug one of the women held. He didn’t need it yet, but it was wise to drink on every row. Then he began another row behind the last man on his half.

The little cut on his hand itched, as it always did. The sun was higher, and the smell of the ripe grain richer. A little breeze ruffled the wheatears and brought up the green smell of the haymeadows nearer the river. Step, swing, sweep, return. This was the best time of the harvest-day, when he had one swathe down, and his body had warmed and loosened to the work. The scythe swung and sliced almost on its own; his body was merely the pivot for its swing, leaving his mind free to wander. He enjoyed the evenness of his cuts, the smooth stubble he left behind, the proof of his skill. He saw every tiny blossom of the weeds within the grain: the starry blue illin, the delicate red siris, like drops of blood. Overhead arched a cloudless sky, a harvester’s boon, and out of it came the song of a kiriel, sweet and piercing. He felt the prickle of stubble on his feet, the sleeves of his shirt on his arms as they swung.

This—not the other—was the right use of his strength. He felt as if he could swing the scythe forever without tiring. Row after row, selion after selion, flowed away behind him. The sun’s heat, which a few years ago had worn him down by midday, now seemed to give him its energy. He remembered, as clearly as if it had been that morning, the first time he’d taken a scythe to swing. Arin’s scythe, that had been, and his first cuts down in the haymeadow had been ragged as if he’d ripped at the grass with his hands. Now Arin was three years dead, and he was the leading reaper, the strongest man in the village, able to provide for his own and his brothers’ children as well. He did not let himself think of the children who had died, his two eldest sons, one of Arin’s, in a fever. It might have been that kuaknom’s curse, or chance, but it was over.

He stopped to drink at the end of the row, and rubbed his hands together. He could just feel the pressure at the base of his thumbs from the grips; the right had shifted. He spat on the handle and worked the grip back and forth slightly. There. He tapped a splinter under the bindings to tighten it, and swung the scythe lightly to check… yes.

Across the field he could see Arin’s oldest lugging water up to the fieldmasters. Another selion or two, and it would be time for the noon break. He was not tired, but he was hungry, his belly reminding him how long it had been since that crust of bread before dawn. He could smell cooking food even over the rich smell of ripe grain around him. They were supposed to lunch on the lord’s bounty when harvesting the great field, but that bounty had been less each year. Back before Arin’s death, it had meant meat as well as bread, and barrels of ale. In his childhood he remembered harvest meals of roast meat, bread, cheese, and sweet cakes, heavy with honey and spices. Last year, bread and meat broth only; the men had grumbled, but what good did that do? The steward would not kill one of the lord’s sheep or cows for grumbling alone. He had not grumbled; he could not afford to, with two families to support. It did no good to become known as a grumbler. He’d eaten his bread and broth, taking an extra helping while others complained.

He looked ahead critically. They might finish the great field in two days, at this pace, and then begin the harvest of the individual strips. Would the weather hold? It had been a dry spring, and they’d all prayed for rain, but rain now would add nothing to the harvest.

At the noon meal, the steward handed out round dark loaves and bowls of thin soup. This year no one grumbled. Gird ate silently, steadily. The more he could take of the lord’s bounty, the better for his family. Arin’s boy, as a water carrier, could eat with the harvesters this year. He came to sit by Gird, a boy as quiet and shy as Arin had been cheerful and open. Gird wondered if seeing his father die had changed him—but he’d been a quiet baby, for all that.

“Mali’s coming out to bind,” said the boy—Fori, his name was, though they seldom called him by name. He was “Arin’s boy” to the whole village. Gird frowned.
“She should not: she’s too near her time.”

“Ma has the sickness,” said Fori, ducking his head. Gird sighed. Issa loathed fieldwork, and although she was not as good a weaver as his mother had been, she would spend all her time at the loom. Leaving all the other work for Mali, Gird thought—but she also had the sickness, no one could deny it. No one with the sickness could come into the harvest field; throwing up on the first day of harvest was the worst of bad luck. And it was no fault of Fori’s, what Issa did or did not do. But he worried about Mali. Big and strong as she was, every child seemed to take more out of her; she had not looked well this time.

“Make sure she has enough water,” said Gird. Fori nodded. He had not finished his bowl of soup, but sat dangling his hands.
“Eat! You take all you can get, lad.” The boy slurped up the rest of his soup.
“It’s not as good as Mali’s,” he said through a mouthful of bread.
“No, but Mali didn’t have to cook it. It’s not from our stores. When you’re doing the lord’s work, you feed from his bounty: that’s custom.”
Gird followed his own advice, and went back for more. At least the steward wasn’t stinting them on amounts—no one frowned when he picked up another half-loaf of bread and refilled his bowl.

When he was full, he lay back in the shadow of the old fireoak at the field’s corner until the horn blew. The afternoon’s work was always harder: the field seemed to swell with heat, lengthening every selion. Gird was soon back in the rhythm of the work. His mind seemed to hang on every close detail now, unwilling to soar abroad as it had in the morning. His shadow, at first a squat dark figure close beneath him, lengthened with the hours. He was still far ahead of the others, overtaking one after another on their selions, and swinging away beyond them. Yet no one minded: he was, he sensed, their pride as well as his own. Gird Strongarm, they said, grinning as he came past.

On the outer edges of the field, the women and older girls were binding the cut grain into shocks. None of his or Arin’s girls were old enough yet: only a woman who had bled could gather in harvest. But he could see Mali’s peaked hat busy among the others. Some years she worked first among the women, almost as much faster than others as he was. This year, she lagged, slowed by the coming child that made bending difficult.
By dusk, when he could feel the damp coming out, more than half the great field was down. Now the men joined the women in binding the last grain. Again tonight, they would eat the lords’ bread and meat—if there was any meat, Gird thought. Surely there would be. He found Mali, and led her up to the serving line. She moved heavily, and beneath the day’s sunburn, her skin was pale.

There was meat, although the steward’s men doled it out one slice to a loaf of bread. A pottage of beans, cheese, and a wooden cup of ale completed the meal. “No sweet cake?” Gird heard someone ask. The steward’s men said nothing, handing a serving to the next in line.

“I heard the steward tell the cooks they need not kill another sheep—that the great field would be done early enough that there’d be no evening meal tomorrow.” Mali kept her voice low.
“What?” Gird stared at her. “That’s—we can’t be done by noon, and if we work the afternoon, he has to feed us.”

Mali, her mouth full of meat, merely shrugged. Gird tore off a hunk of bread and chewed it, thinking hard. The custom had always been to feed them for any part of a day spent on the lords’ work. When they finished harvest a bit early, they had time for a rest before the meal, even a bit of singing. He worked his way through the bean porridge, which lacked the flavor of Mali’s, and wondered what could be done.

As it happened, Mali was not the only one to have heard the steward’s words. The men gathered cautiously after dark, in the lane near Gird’s cottage.
“Not fair,” said Teris. “We work faster, and they punish us—”
“So we can work slow, if Gird can hold back,” said Amis’s uncle.
Gird felt himself flushing. “It’s not my fault,” he said.
“No one said it was. But if being fast loses us a feast, maybe being slow will get it back.”
“ ’Course, he’s already told the cooks,” said Amis. “Might be even if he has to feed us, it won’t be much. No meat, anyway. And he’d be angry with us. Is it worth that?”
“Where’s Garig?” asked Pakul. “What does he think?”
“Garig’s in the steward’s back pocket,” said someone too softly to make out.
“We can’t do aught without him,” said Gird. “It’s not fair, I’ll stand to that, and do what I can, but we need Garig. It’s only he can speak for us to the steward, anyway.”
“I’ll say what I can,” Garig sighed, though, and Gird was sure he’d come back with nothing. “The steward— the steward’s told me some of it.”
“Of what?”
“What’s gone wrong. There’s a place—somewhere far off, I don’t know—where the lords come from, back when they come. It’s where they traded, over the mountains. It’s gone.”
“Gone? How can a place be gone?”
“Raided, I suppose, like a town the nomads have burned. Anyway, the lords got gold and jewels that way, and now they don’t.”
“So what’s that got to do with us?” asked Teris. “We need to eat, same as always, and it’s always been if we do the work on the lord’s field, he feeds us.”
“The count’s squeezinghim ,” said Garig. “So he’s squeezing us— that’s the truth of it. He has to send more—”
“We can’t.” Mutters of agreement with that, a low voiced growl. “Might’s well join the Stone Circle—”
“None o’ that!” Garig’s voice rang out. “We’ll have none o’ that talk here. D’you want the guards down on us? They’re outlaws, no better than brigands, that bunch.”

Gird agreed, but silently. He had heard more than one mention of the Stone Circle in the past two years. All he knew about them came from such brief encounters. The steward had warned Garig that anyone found helping a member of the Stone Circle would be turned out, if not killed outright. According to him, they were lawless, lazy farm lads who tried to get higher wages by threatening the farms—burning grain and hayfields, tacking herds in pasture, and so on. The other stories Gird had heard were of young men who saw no chance of marrying or having a place to farm—whose families could not spare the food, no matter how hard they worked. He tried not to think about it, about the disappearance of four or five younger sons from his own village in the past three years. Somewhere, the stories went, was a great circle of stones bigger than any mortal man could move, and into that circle fell miraculous showers of grain and fruit, more than enough for all who came. And the stones protected anyone who found the way inside, that was in the tales too. From that mysterious place, the movement took its name, promising peace and plenty in the days when “all men are stones of the circle, and none must run and hide.”

“I’ll speak to the steward,” Garig said, sounding more angry than understanding. “I’ll try—but no promises. And if there’s slacking tomorrow, we could all be in trouble.”

The men stood awhile in the lane, grumbling softly, when Garig had gone into his cottage and slammed the door. Gird was glad enough to stand there, in the warm darkness. Inside his own cottage, Issa’s sickness fouled the air, and the children bickered over their meager supper. He tried to tell himself that they were doing all right, better than some others, but it was poor comfort.

The next day, Gird worked as slowly as he could. Garig had said that the steward had consented to another evening feast, if the work took them past mid-afternoon. Mali could not come, but Issa was doing her best raking up the fallen heads of grain into baskets. He was worried about Mali. She had not looked really well since losing the one of the twins. This baby should be her last—would be, if he had to force the herbs into her himself. He grinned at that thought. Mali might be weaker, but she was as headstrong as ever.

They finished the greatfield before dark, but not long before. Gird noticed that everyone came to the feast quietly, with none of the usual songs and laughter. There was meat, sure enough—not abundance, but some, and plenty of bread and cheese. He made sure that Fori and Issa ate heartily, and stuffed himself. Tomorrow he could begin cutting their own strip, grain that would feed them and help pay the fieldfee.

It was dark, the thick dark of a cloudy night, with enough wind to keep the leaves rustling uneasily. “What?” Gird asked softly.
“We want to talk to you.” That was Teris, he could tell. Gird sighed.
“Do you have nothing better to do than—”
“Shhh. Not here. Come along with us.”
“Who’s us?”
“I told you he’d make trouble.” Tam’s voice, this time.
“I’m not making trouble. I just want to know what—”
“Comeon .” Teris had his arm, and shook it. “We’ll talk, but someplace safe.”

Gird let Teris lead him along the lane, between two cottages that he was sure were Garig’s and Tam’s, and down between a barton wall and the gurgling stream. The night air smelled wet and green; he could pick out scents he never noticed by day.

“There’s someone here needs to talk to you,” Teris said. Gird felt his heart begin to pound. Someone in the dark, someone he didn’t know? He remembered all at once that Teris’s mother was reputed to be a dire witch, laying curses on those who crossed her. “Go on,” Teris said into the darkness. “Ask him.”

Someone he could not see cleared his throat and said “Teris says you know about soldiering.”
“No.”
“Yes,” hissed Teris, “You do.”
“We need—we want someone to teach us.”
“Who?” asked Gird. He thought he knew already. Instead of a spoken answer, he heard the click of stone on stone, and then felt a stone pressed into his palm.
“You know,” said the voice. “The farmer’s only hope… the only thing what won’t burn in the fire that’s coming…”
“But you’re not soldiers,” he said. “You don’t—”
“We need to know how. We’re getting enough, almost, now—if we only knew how to fight, and had weapons—”
“It won’t work.” Even here, where he was sure no one listened, he kept his voice low. “Running at ’em in a mob, like—they’ll just ride over you and ride over you—”

“We have to try .” His eyes were more used to the dimness; he could just make out Tam’s face and the gleam of his eyes. Tam’s weaker eye wandered off-focus, then came back. “We can’t be soldiers; we don’t have the training—”
“You!” Gird snorted. Tam couldn’t throw a rock straight, let along make a soldier. “You’ll just be killed, and they’ll take it out of your families and the rest of us. Use sense, man! You’d have to know how to march, how to use your weapons together—”

“You could teach us,” said the stranger, now a hunched black shape against the faint gleam of the water. “You were teaching them to march, Teris said. It was forbidden, but that didn’t stop you. And then—”

No one had brought up his cowardice to him for years. They’d accepted him, he thought, once he grew up and married, once he was bent to the same lash as the rest of them. What had they told this stranger, that his voice changed when he said “And then—?”

“I—can’t,” he said hoarsely. “I—I don’t remember enough of it.”
“You remember enough to know that an untrained mob is hopeless. You can’t have forgotten it all. I didn’t.” Teris again, hectoring as usual.
“I—”
“You’re scared still, aren’t you? After all these years—”

“He was my friend !” It came out louder than he meant, and he muted the rest of it. “I could not be part of what did that to him.That’s why I ran, and if you want to call that cowardice, fine.” He had never explained it to his friends before. Now the words poured out of him. “If you think I feared blood or pain, why d’you think I stayed in ’til then? If you remember so well, Teris, you must remember the beatings I got. You saw my bruises.”

“Well—yes. But they said—”

“ Theycalled it cowardice, and my father bade me accept that. ’Twas hard enough on us, without causing more trouble. And that’s what’s really wrong with them—that they’d think cowardice is not wanting to cause pain.”

“But you haven’t joined—” and the stones clicked again.

“No. I had the family to think of, not just my own but my brother’s. Once already I’d caused them all trouble; my mother died of the young lord’s enmity, when he refused us the herb-right in the common wood. And the Stone Circle when it started was young lads, unmarried and mostly orphans: they had no family to suffer if they were caught.”

“So—?”

Gird sighed. That bleak vision of his nightmares edged nearer, tried to merge with reality. “So—who will feed my wife, my children, if I go off to teach the Stone Circle how to march in step? Who will plow the field, or tend the beasts? If it could happen, and an army of peasants took the field, who would feedthem ? Some must plow and plant, some must spin and weave, or that army would die hungry and ragged, too weak to fight the spears.”

“Is that what you plant for? That army, or your family alone?”
Gird spat rudely at the stranger’s feet. “I plant for the lord, like all the rest, and we live on the spillage from the tax-cart—dammit, you ask questions like the steward laying blame for a cracked pot! You know my name, but hide yours; why should I listen to you?”

The stranger’s head moved, as if listening for something, then gave Gird a long, neutral stare. “You know it’s getting worse. You know we have no chance to resist without the knowledge you have. And you sit there, smug as a toad, giving good reasons to a bad argument—whyshouldn’t I put a thorn in your backside? You think I have no family, or these others? Those lads who joined Stone Circle years back are fathers now, just as you are. Those that didn’t rot on the spikes. You think your children will thank you, for leaving them helpless before enemies?”

“They would not thank me for throwing them in prison to starve, either.”
“Take ’em with you.”
“No.”
“At least tell us something, something we can use.”

“I—” Gird looked around; there were four or five crouched nearby. He was sure of Teris and Tam, but not the others. Was Amis there? He could not tell. “I don’t think it will work, even if I taught you—even if real soldiers taught you. The best way for us is to work and keep our peace; what you do only makes the lords angrier, raises the taxes higher—”

The stranger growled, and stood. Gird stood too, and they faced one another a long moment. Then the stranger laughed softly. “It’s coming, Gird, whether you like it or not—you will see, and I hope you see before you suffer more deeply than a man can stand. I lost family; I would not wish that on anyone. My name is Diamod, when you want to find me again.”

Gird turned away, wondering if they would let him go. No one touched him. He felt his way along the wall of Tam’s barton, and then let his feet remember the way along the lane to his own cottage. Teris. Tam. Three or four others, who had not spoken so that he could not know who they were. Did they think he would tell Garig or the steward? His heart ached at that. His hands ached to strike something, anything. He would help them, if he had no family to think of. He could imagine himself teaching them as he had taught Teris and Amis and the others. But he could not risk Mali and Issa and the children.

He got back to bed without waking anyone up, and fell into heavy sleep. Dreams troubled him. In his mind’s eye, he could see them, ragged, workworn, scarred, hungry, running in uneven clumps and strings to strike at the horsemen with their poles and scythes, their sickles and clubs. Behind the horsemen, the lords’ army waited, trained soldiers in good armor, with their sharp swords and pikes. But they had nothing to do, for the horsemen could deal with the peasants. At the end— He woke with a jerk and a chopped-off cry. Beside him, Mali turned over and groaned softly, then snored.

In the thick darkness of the cottage, he seemed to see the past years as a painted streamer like the ones the lords sometimes carried on horseback. Hard work and hunger now, yes—but he had known hard work and hunger as a child. Yet his children were thinner than he had been, hard as he worked. He had never accumulated the store of coppers and silvers that his father had had beneath the hearthstone when it was needed. If something did happen with his own children, or Arin’s, he would not be able to do what his father had done.

The next morning, he was still thinking about it as he shoveled manure. What could he do? He could not imagine sneaking away from the village some nights, to train Stone Circle members, coming back at dawn to work, but he could not imagine taking his whole family into an uncertain future, either. He was mulling this over when he heard shouts from the lane, and the heavy roll of hoofbeats.

He went through the kitchen to find Mali and Issa and the children starting out the front door.

“Get back!” he shouted. They made way for him. He could see, now, people in the lane nearer the center of the village. Amis was headed out his front gate, and Gird moved slowly toward his own. He could hear the loud complaints, the bellowed orders of the guard sergeant, the cries of children. It must be the Stone Circle man, Diamod, he thought, but he didn’t see him. Had someone seen him? Reported him? He realized suddenly that his friends might think he had, if that was indeed who the guards were after.

It looked as if the guards were trying to search each cottage and barton. The noisy crowd surrounded them, not actually resisting but somewhat obstructive. The guards, some mounted and some afoot, moved toward Gird’s end of the village. Now he could see faces he recognized, guards and villagers alike. An old woman, Teris’s mother, was arguing with one of the soldiers, clinging to his arm, shaking it. He wrenched free of her and she staggered away, to be caught by her daughter. A child darted out into the lane ahead of the horses, and Amis went after him. The soldier riding the lead horse yelled something at him; Amis, intent on the child, shook his head and lunged forward.

Although he was behind the others, hardly out of his own door-yard, Gird saw exactly what happened. The soldier’s arm moved, and Amis turned, his shoulder already hunching against the expected blow. The soldier’s mace caught Amis full in the face, that familiar flesh disappearing instantly in a mush of blood and broken bone. One tooth flew free, a chip of white spinning in the hot sunlight before it fell out of sight behind the other bystanders. Gird felt something prick his hand, and looked down to see the handle of his shovel broken like a dry stick; he opened his hand and let the pieces fall.

As if in a dream, all motion slowed. One by one those at the back of the crowd turned to run, their eyes white-rimmed, their mouths open. Even before Amis fell to the ground, they had opened a path for the soldiers, those in front scrambling back, afraid to turn, afraid… and the soldiers’ horses, their high necks streaked with sweat, ridged with lather where the reins rubbed, setting their ironshod hooves down one by one, so slowly that it seemed they could hardly catch the terrified fugitives. Amis lay huddled, blood pooling in the lane, soaking into the dust, both hands covering his ruined face. One of the horses, bumped hard by another, placed a front hoof in the center of his back so slowly, with such precision, that Gird had to believe it was a deliberate choice. He could hear a terrible crunch over the other sounds, the thunder of hooves, the screams—

And motion returned to normal, the crowd flowing back along the lane in a panic, the leaders running flat out, arms wide. Behind, the horses surged, the soldiers yelled, their weapons slicing from side to side. Gird stepped back, between the plum trees; it was all he had time for before they were past, horses bumping and trampling over the slow and clumsy, in pursuit of the fleetest. From the corner of his eye, he saw Diamod, cause of the whole incident, slipping quietly from the back of Amis’s cowbyre to make his way over the fields.

Gird swallowed the same bolus of rage and fear that he had chewed and swallowed so often before. Now it was Amis on the ground, dead or dying he was sure and then it had been Arin torn by wolves, and before that Meris.

Amis breathed in difficult, jerky snorts. Gird laid his hand against his neck; the pulse was thin, irregular. Was Amis conscious at all? He should say something. What could he say?
“Amis? Can you hear me?” Stupid enough, but something. Amis’s hand twitched; Gird laid his own over it.
“You’ve got todo something!” That high voice was Eso, always ready for someone else to do something. “Get him to safety—wash his face—”
“Be still,” growled a deeper voice. Amis’s father. He knelt beside Gird, his face as gray as his beard. His hands shook as he reached out to his son. “Is he—?”
“He’s dying—I saw the mace hit his face, and a horse trampled him— ” Gird gestured at the pulped mess of Amis’s back.
“And if they come back, they’ll but hurt him more.” Amis’s father held his son’s slack hand. “Gird—get a plank or bench.”

Gird nodded, and backed away on his knees. He shivered, nauseated, and barely made it to the trampled verge before throwing up, the morning’s food and a life’s bile together. Then he went into the front room, where Mali stood with her fist against her mouth, white as milk, and ripped the legs off one of the benches without a word. The long plank banged against the doorpost as he went out, and he almost lost control again. Amis. Kindly, cheerful, steady Amis, who had taken him to the sheepfold gathering to meet Mali—who had farmed alongside his strip for ten years, who had never done one thing wrong but be where a mace could destroy him—

Amis’s father and Gird wrestled Amis onto the plank; that long, lanky body felt wrong , as if it were a boneless sack of seedcorn. He was still breathing, a hoarse rattle, in and out, that bubbled the blood on his face. What had been a face. Gird thought of the cheerful brown eyes, the nose lopsided from a cow’s kick, the wide mouth.

Amis’s wife had fainted; Mali sat beside that crumpled heap, comforting the younger children, as Gird and Amis’s father carried him through, all the way into the barton. There they sponged the blood off his back, rolled him over. Gird turned his head aside and retched again. They could do nothing. Amis’s breathing filled the barton with pain. One of his brothers came, and stood beside them, watching. Amis’s wife, finally, biting her kerchief, holding their youngest baby close. Mali came to stand behind Gird, and put a hand on his shoulder.

Amis never woke, and when he finally quit breathing Gird could not at first turn away. Only the noise of the returning Guard, angry voices and the clash of weapons in the lane, loosened the paralysis that had locked his joints in place. He stayed calm in the turmoil that followed, giving his evidence to the steward in a slow, deep voice that came to him for that occasion. Amis had never been known as a troublemaker; his lunge at the guard’s horse was a grab for the child who had run unknowing into danger. The steward nodded, shrugged, remitted part of the death-fee, and evicted Amis’s wife to live with Amis’s father. Another family, strangers relocated from another vill, moved into it.

And Gird put a sack of grain at the far edge of the wood, with two stones on top of it. It was gone the next day.
PART II
Chapter Eight «^»

The first scream brought him out of his musings; he looked across the ploughed strips to see nothing at first. Perhaps someone had spilled a kettle of hot water. He scratched the back of one leg with his other foot, and clucked to the oxen. They leaned into the yoke. Then another shriek, one he would have known anywhere. Raheli! He dropped the plowhandles, and started across the field at a run. Then the horses came, from between the cottages, and crashing through the back gate of his barton. Lords’ horses, with the bright orange and green and yellow he had seen going in the manor gates the day before. Another scream, and another, shriller—one of the little girls? He had yelled himself before he realized it, a deep roar of rage and pain. Up the field, another plowman answered.

“Stop, you!” yelled one of the riders, waving something at him. Gird paid no mind, charging toward his own gate. Now he could hear a man’s voice, yelling, and more screams down the lane. The same rider yelled “Guards! Ho!” The horsemen closed toward him, the horses plunging with excitement. Behind them now he could see footsoldiers in Kelaive’s bright orange. The sun glittered on their helmets, on riders’ buckles and saddlefittings, on the stubble of last year’s grain. Gird took a breath, slowing to see how he might get by. Now one of the riders was above him, the tall dark horse snorting and prancing.

“Get back, fellow!” the rider said. Gird peered up at a narrow pale face. “It’s nothing to do with you. Get back to work!” The voice had fear in it, as well as arrogance. Was he armed? Gird tried to circle the horse, but the horse spun, and blocked him. “Get back!” the man said, louder. Gird looked aside; the guards were almost on him, their cudgels ready. Another scream, this one a man’s death-cry, ending in a gurgle. Gird flinched, and shivered— it had to be Parin, he was the only one inside. His belly churned; his vision blurred. Then pain stung him awake; the rider had slashed his back with a whip. He spun, fury once more driving out fear, but the guards had him, four of them. For all he could do, it was nothing—they had him face-down in the fresh-plowed furrows, choking on dirt, two of them on his back, as the screams went on—and then died away. When they let him up, the other plowmen were back at work, and the riders were gone, and the grim-faced guard sergeant gave him his warning.

He knew before he came inside what he would find. The shattered barton gate, the ewe he had brought in for nursing lying dead in the barton, her guts strewn wide, their one pig gone, the cottage doors smashed, the great loom broken: that was bad enough. But there lay Parin, his face one curdled mess of blood and shattered bone, and there lay Raheli, naked, the slight bulge of her belly that had promised so much to her and Parin. He knelt beside her, so full of grief he could not breathe. When he felt that first warm breath on his hand, he could hardly believe it. Alive? After the blow that had split her face all down one side, and drenched her in blood? After that blade or another had bared her ribs on one side, and sliced deep into her hip? After the beating, and the rape? He looked at the body he had not seen since she became a woman. Even at that moment, he noticed—and hated himself for noticing—the white beauty of her skin, the full young breasts, the long curve of back and thigh now streaked with blood. Her breath touched his hand again, and he drew a long shaky breath of his own. Alive. He had to do something—

He looked around the room again, seeing destruction everywhere, and out the front door, now splintered—something stirred, there. He could not leave Raheli, but he must; he had to get water, rags, something. He stood too quickly and his head spun. Staggering, he made it to the door and then crouched, heaving all he had eaten into the trampled torn dirt of the yard.

Then he looked up and saw the rest of it.

She must have been at the well, for the blood trail started there, and the water jug lay broken beside it. Girnis lay sprawled between the well and door, her slight body twisted as if she’d been thrown against the wall. And Pidi, where was Pidi? Gird found him on the far side of the well, fists jammed into his mouth, trying not to cry; a hard blue knot on the side of his head and a welt on his back.

He was shaking with rage and grief; he could hardly lower the bucket to the water. The weight of it full dragged on him, steadied him; he got it up, and scooped a handful for Pidi, who said nothing but drank it.

“Stay here,” he said to the boy; Pidi nodded. Gird went to Girnis; she was alive, but unconscious. Her left arm was crooked, and swelling: broken. He glanced around for something to splint it with, and caught sight of someone, a kerchiefed head, over the sidewall.

It disappeared; he did not call. He found a piece of the splintered door, and tore a strip from his tunic. Girnis did not stir when he handled her broken arm. Should he carry her inside? No. Girnis would do well enough out here until she woke, he thought, and knew that he wasn’t thinking as well as he should. But Raheli needed him. He took the bucket inside, breathing hard through his mouth. The cottage stank of blood and brains and slaughter. He had killed animals more cleanly—but he could not stop to think of that.

Raheli’s face, if she lived, would have a scar from hairline to jaw. He was not sure she would live. The blade that had cut her had gone through into her mouth, come near her eye—might have broken her jaw or her cheekbone as well, he couldn’t tell. Raheli had had the parrion of herbal wisdom from Mali; it was not his knowledge. Blood pooled under her head; her scant breaths gurgled. Blood in her mouth, what if she choked? He looked wildly around, and this time found the scattered bedding, the cooking cloths for straining, the cloths for women in their time. As quickly as he could, trying not to think beyond the immediate wound, he pressed the cleanest rags into her wounds. The long shallow gash along her ribs had nearly quit bleeding anyway; the deeper wound where the blade had met her hip oozed steadily, reddening the cloth. Her face—her face was hopeless, he thought at first, as blood soaked one cloth after another.

“Gird?” He jumped, swore, and turned to glare at the light that poured in the broken door. Then he saw it was a woman, though he could not make out her face against the light. “Is—is Raheli alive?”
“Just.” His voice grated and broke; he wanted to burst into tears. Hard enough to be alone with this, but harder with someone else.
“Let me see.” She came up to him, and now he could see it was Tam’s aunt, old Virdi. Her breath hissed out. “Aahhh—Lady’s Peace, she’s bad—”
“I know that.” He had never liked Virdi, but she had the healing in her hands, so his mother had said. And no scorn to her for not saving Mali—healing in the hands was nothing in a plague of fever.
“The lord, he did this?” He thought he heard derision in her voice, and bristled. Next she would ask why he’d let it happen. But when he glared at her, her eyes were soft, not accusing at all.
“He did. I was—plowing. They—” He could not go on.
She nodded. “I saw across the fields—the guards knocked you down, there were too many. Lady’s Curse on Mikrai Pidal Kevre Kelaive: may he never know peace.”
He had never heard a woman lay a curse before, but there was no doubt Virdi had done just that. So simple? He shivered, suddenly cold. Her hand touched his head, dry and chill as a snake.

“Near broke your head, they did, too—” He had not realized that he’d been hit, but where she touched him was a heavy pain— and then it was gone, and she was rubbing her hands briskly on the hearthstone. She gave him a quick smile. “Rock to rock; the hearthstone’s strong enough.” She pointed, and he saw a little crack he didn’t remember seeing.

Her hands on Raheli’s head hardly seemed to have weight; they hovered, touched as light as a moth on a nightflower, retreated. She sighed, then lifted the cloths he’d laid on that torn face, and hissed again. “Get more water—and—” a quick look at the hearth, now fireless, “—go to Tam’s, and bring a live coal.”

“But will she die while I’m—?” Gird didn’t finish the question, for she interrupted.

“Not if you’re quick about it.” She had poured the remaining water in the bucket into the one unbroken pot, and he took the bucket and went out. Pidi still crouched by the well, but now he was crying, shoulders heaving. Gird drew another bucket of water, and found the dipper somehow unbroken, caught in the hedge. He squatted beside Pidi.

“Come on, lad—let me see—” Pidi looked up, eyes streaming. “I—I couldn’t—” He winced as Gird touched the lump on his head. “You couldn’t stop them. Neither could I.”
“But—but they—they hurt Raheli—and Parin tried to fight—”
“Pidi, listen. I have to get fire. Can you stay here?”

“Raheli? And—and Girnis! They—hurt her too!” The boy grabbed Gird’s arm with both hands, threatening to overturn the bucket. Gird set the bucket carefully aside and gathered up his youngest child, letting him sob. He wanted to do that himself, would have given anything for a strong shoulder to cry on, but all the ones he’d known were gone. He patted the boy’s back, carefully avoiding the welt on it, and carefully not thinking. Enough to comfort one who could be comforted. “I’m so sorry,” the boy was saying between sobs. “I’m so sorry—”

“It’s not your fault.” Gird tried to keep his voice steady, soothing, as if Pidi were a sheep caught in a briar, a cow with her head through a gap. Finally sobs quieted to gulps. Gird unhooked the boy’s hands and moved him away far enough to see his face. “Here—let me wipe that for you—” Pidi nodded, mouth set tight, and Gird cleaned his face. “Now—I still have to go get a firestart, from Tam’s house. Will you stay here quietly?” Pidi nodded, solemnly, tears threatening again. “I’ll be back,” said Gird. Pidi said nothing.

He saw no one on the way to Tam’s cottage, though he was aware of a stir in the village, of people watching him and ducking from his sight. All the doors were shut. He knocked on Tam’s door, and Tam’s wife, white-faced, opened at once. She paled even more when she saw the blood on his clothes.

“Virdi sent me for a firecoal,” he said, as calmly as he could. Tam’s children were huddled around the hearth, silent and staring. “Our fire’s out.” Tam’s wife nodded. Without saying a word, she went to her hearth, and took a burning brand, far bigger than the custom was. She offered it with a stiff little bow, and he took it gingerly.

In the sunlight, the flame was pale, hardly visible; he could feel the heat of it as it blew back toward his face. He knew by that he was walking fast, too fast. Pidi waited in the yard, sitting now by Girnis. He nodded to the boy, and stopped to pick up some splinters of the door.

Inside, Virdi had Raheli’s face clean of blood, but for the wound itself. She had her hand over Raheli’s cheek, her expression withdrawn. Gird stepped carefully around her and laid the only fire pattern he knew, the shape the men used in the open. The brand from Tam’s house lit it instantly, and warmth returned to his hearth. He went back out for the bucket, and picked up more wood. For an instant, he wondered if it was bad luck to burn doorwood, but then shrugged. How much worse could his luck be? He put the bucket down beside Raheli, and laid the wood carefully on the fire.

“Is there a boiler left?” asked Virdi suddenly. Gird looked around the chaos in the room, and then went to check in the back room. There he found a single metal pot, the one Mali had used for steeping her herbs, dented but still whole. He took it to Virdi, who nodded. “Good. Start heating water in it—put it near the fire, but not in it. And then clean your hands. I’ll need your help.”

They had Raheli’s wounds bound, and her body covered with the cleanest cloth, when the steward came. All that time anger had grown in Gird’s heart, anger he had controlled so long that he had half-forgotten some of it. Now it grew as swiftly as a summer storm-cloud, filling him with black rage. He had tried so hard: he had suffered so much already. In spite of all he had brought up three of his own children, and two of Arin’s—he would have had his first grandchild the next year—and the lords could not let even one hardworking farmer alone, in peace.

Yet when the steward came—an old man, now, slightly bent but still capable of rule—Gird said nothing of it. He heard what he expected to hear: he, as head of his household, would bear the penalty for his son-in-law’s attack on the count’s son and his friends, and for his own attempt to get to his cottage to defend them. The loss of the cottage he expected, immediate eviction, fines, loss of all “so-called personal” property, damages assessed for the breakage of the lords’ property in the cottage.

“The count remembers you,” the steward said slowly, his eyes drifting from the broken loom to the smashed door. “He will be content, he says, if you sign yourself and all your children into serfdom, become his property in name as in fact.” He paused, and his voice lowered so that Gird could hardly hear it. “Were I you, Gird, I would flee: he’ll name you outlaw, but you would escape for a time. Otherwise—you well understand what kind of man he is; he would take delight in all you fear, in far worse than you have seen, in this manor. I have done all I can.”

“You serve him.” That was all Gird dared say, and he clamped his mouth on the rest of it.

“I serve him—I gave my oath, long ago, to the count’s father; had he not died young—but that’s no matter. I break my oath by this much—to warn you, to say that for this night I can promise you no pursuit. Say you will clean and mend what you can by midday tomorrow, when you must be evicted: I will tell him that.”

It was all the kindness left; years later Gird realized what the steward risked, and what he would suffer if anyone found out what he had done.
Chapter Nine
«^»

All the times he had thought about leaving, it had never been like this. He had imagined sending the children away somewhere (but where?), going himself to join the little band of rebels he had first met—but not this terrifying journey. He was sure they were leaving a trail a child could follow through the narrow wood. Anyone would expect him to go that way—but what other way was there? He could not have strolled past the manor itself with Raheli on his back.
It still worried him that he’d left the cottage such a wreck. It wasn’t his fault, he knew that, but a lifetime’s work and care nagged at him. He should have—

Ahead, two rocks clacked sharply together. Gird halted, breathing hard. Behind him, he could hear Fori’s breathing as well, on the other end of the litter. Raheli was heavier than he’d guessed. Pidi, beside him, glanced up and Gird nodded. Pidi clicked two pebbles in his hand, mimicking the stones’ sound. Another clack, this a triple. Pidi replied with the triple of triples Gird had taught him. Trouble, that was. Danger, trouble, need help—any of those.

Raheli moved on the litter, and moaned softly. Gird looked over his shoulder. Blood had seeped through the pack of moss on her face, staining it dark. He heard a twig crack, and looked ahead. There were three, coming down the slope. One was Diamod. He could have wished it was someone else.

“Gird—what is it?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“Only the rock signals of trouble, that someone was needed. Yours?” Diamod looked past him at the children.
“Aye. My daughter’s hurt bad; they killed her husband. Outlawed me, for what he did, and for trying to get to her—”
“I’m sorry.” Diamod actually sounded sorry; Gird had been half-certain that he would dare amusement or scorn. “So—you’re fugitives now?”
“Yes. I don’t know if Rahi will live—”
“Later. Now we must get you away.” Diamod waved the other two men forward, and they took the handles from Gird and Fori.
“These are smooth!” said one, clearly surprised.
Gird hawked and spat. “Scythe and shovel handles,” he said. “I’m outlawed anyway; might’s well bring something useful.”
Diamod grinned at him, then sobered as he looked at the others. “Are all these coming?”
“Fori’s my brother’s son. His wife died last year, in childbirth. The other two are mine, and have no place in that village.”

They set off again, faster for the unwearied strength of the two men carrying Raheli. Gird strained his ears backwards, expecting to hear any moment the cry of hounds, horses’ hooves crashing in the leaves behind them. But he heard nothing, only their own hard breathing, their own footsteps.

They followed the water up out of the wood, past the cleft Arin had shown Gird all those years ago, where the Stone Circle visitors had waited for so many nights. Up a narrow, rocky defile, and carefully around the west slope of the hill, keeping as much as possible to the low scrub. Gird looked up once or twice, seeing folds of land ahead he did not know, but looked back oftener. When would the pursuit come, and how bad would it be?
By noon, when the sun baked pungent scent from the scrub, they had found another watercourse, this one winding away to the south. Along its banks low trees formed dense cover. Diamod lagged far behind, watching for pursuit, as the others paused for a brief rest. Gird dipped water from the creek, and bathed Raheli’s face.

She was awake again, lips pressed tightly together, eyes dull. He did not want to speak to her—what could he say?—but she questioned him. “Where—are we?”
“South of the village, beyond the hill. We had to leave, Rahi.”
“Parin—they killed him—”
“Yes.”
Her hand strayed to her belly, as if feeling for the child within. “I—don’t want to lose the baby—”
“Virdis said you would not, unless you got fevered. She gave me herbs for you.” He dug into the roll of clothing and bandages for the little packet of herbs. Rahi shook her head.
“I’m fevered now—I can tell. If I lose it—” Her voice trailed away, and her eyes fixed on some distance Gird could not fathom. Then she looked at him directly. “The little ones?”

“Pidi has a lump on his head, but he’s all right. It would take more than a lump to damage him. Giri has a broken arm. Here— you need to drink—” Gird lifted her as gently as he could, but Rahi flinched and moaned. He could feel her fever burning through the wrappings Virdis had put around her. She sipped a little water, then shook her head. He laid her back down. She alone, of all his children, reminded him of Mali—she had that same hair, the same quick wit. He could not lose her. But her fever mocked him. Of course he could lose her, as he had lost his parents, his brother, his brother’s wife, the babies that had died. He could lose her quickly or slowly, as the fever raged or died, or as pursuit caught them.

He looked around at the others. Giri, her arm bound tightly to her side, looked pale and sick; she had never been as strong as Rahi. Pidi, whose lump had matured into a spectacular black eye, sat watching Gird alertly. Fori, much like Arin but with Issa’s slender build, sat hunched with his head down, breathing heavily.

“Fori?” Gird put a hand on his shoulder, and Fori jumped. When he looked up, his face was streaked with tears.
“I should have stopped them,” Fori said, through sobs. “I—I should have been there.”
“I, too—but we weren’t. And if we had been, we’d have been dead as Parin is now.”
“But she’s—”
“Your cousin, and my daughter.”

Diamod came back before he could say more, breathing hard as if he’d been running a long way. “I saw guards on the near side of that first hill, moving slowly. Not the way we’d come, exactly— I don’t think they have a trail. But we can’t stay here. We must move under cover, and keep moving.” This time Gird and Fori took the litter again, and the other two men took their bundles. One of them led the way southward, summering as Gird thought of it, keeping them along the creek bank as the water deepened and broadened, then leading them eastward, sunrising, up a tributary. Diamod lagged behind, overtaking them again near dark, when they’d stopped under a clump of pickoak where a spring came bubbling up from the rocks.

“They didn’t follow,” he said, before anyone asked. “They’ve put someone up on the hill—I saw a glitter up there—but no sign of real pursuit. We must stay out of sight of that hilltop, and no fire, but we can think now where to take the—your daughter.”

Gird hoped his face did not show all he felt. “She’s fevered now,” he said, ducking his head. Raheli had said nothing, all the afternoon, but she seemed to be in a sick daze. He had gotten her to drink a little twice, but nothing more.

“She needs shelter, and a healer. Have you any family in another village?”
Gird shook his head. “Only my wife’s—my dead wife’s—family, over in Fireoak. But I don’t know where that is from here, and even so they might not take her.”
One of the other men turned to him. “Fireoak? My sister married into that village. They don’t have much trade, those folk, but they’re kindly.”
“We can find Fireoak easily enough, but it will be days of careful travel. We’re a day or more from the sheepfold where the dances are.”
Gird nodded. “I know that.”
“For healthy men it would be a day’s journey, but carrying her, and with the others, it will be two, I think. Then from there to Fireoak is—”
“A day, like this. But it’s the only shelter between, that fold.”
Mali’s parents, like his own, had been dead some years, but her brother was alive. He squatted beside the litter and laid a hand on Raheli’s head.
“Mali’s child?”
“Aye.” Gird felt restless, in here where he could not see.
“We heard there’d been trouble your way. Your name was mentioned.” Gird was sure it had been, if the guards had been by. “They said a man died—?”
“Rahi’s husband, Parin. He was inside; he tried fight them off.”
“Mmm. And you?”

He felt the rush of shame again. “I was out plowing—when I heard her scream, I tried—but the guards got me—”
Mali’s brother shook his head. “None o’ us can stand against them. It’s no blame to you. Well. I reckon we can take her in, see if she heals—and the younger girl?”

“Has a broken arm.”
“She’s welcome here too. The lords come here rarely, and one woman—one girl—but the thing is—”
“You can’t let us stay. I know that.” Gird sighed, heavily. “I— I’m an outlaw now, we both know that. Trouble for you. But if you’ll care for them—”
“We will.”
“Then I’ll leave now, before I bring trouble.”
“Will you tell us where?”
“No. What you don’t know, you won’t be withholding. If Rahi lives, I may come through again sometime.”
Mali’s brother nodded. “I can give you a bit of food—”
“Save it for Rahi—I’m giving you two more mouths to feed, maybe three if she doesn’t lose the child—”
“Never mind. We’re glad to help Mali’s daughters. May the Lady’s grace go with you.”

Gird almost answered with a curse—what grace had he had from the Lady this several years?—but choked it back. The man meant no harm, and maybe the Lady meant no harm either. He and Fori eased out of the barton, keeping close to the walls and low, until they came between the hedges that edged the fields of Fireoak. Back up the grassy lane—the plough-team’s lane, he was sure—to the heavy clump of wood that reminded him of the way the wood had been when he was a child. Here no lord had thinned it, and the oak and nut trees made a vast shade.

Diamod was waiting, with Pidi; the others had disappeared. Gird and Fori scooped up the sticky paste of soaked grain, and ate it from dirty fingers. For the first time, Gird felt like a real outlaw. No fire, no shelter, no table or spoons—only the knife at his belt, and the farm tools he had carried away.

“And now?” Diamod asked. “What will you do now?”
Gird looked sideways at him. “What is there to do, but try to live and fight?”
“You had said you were thinking of teaching us what you knew of soldiering.”
Gird wiped sticky fingers in the leafmold, and scowled at the result. “I had some ideas, yes. But your people—were they all farmers before?”
“Most of them. I was a woodworker, myself. There’s a one-armed man who was a smith, but crippled for forging long blades.”
“But most have used farming tools, sickles and scythes and shovels and the like?”

“Yes—but why?” Gird had crouched by the trickle of water to scrub his hands clean; now he flipped the water from them, and leaned back against a tree. Something poked him in the back, and he squirmed away from it.

“You can’t fight soldiers as an unarmed mob; we know that already. It takes too many—and too many die. Drill would help; having a plan and following it, not rushing around in a lump. But weapons—that’s the thing. We’ll never get swords enough, not with the watch they keep on smiths. I’d thought of making weapons from the blades of scythes or sickles, but that too would take a smith willing to work the metal, and then training to use them. I had just begun sword training myself; I’m not any good with a sword.” He paused to clear his throat. Diamod was scowling, and now he shrugged.

“So? Are you still saying there’s no way peasants can defend themselves?”
“No. What I’m saying is we have to use what we have. The tools the men are used to—the tools we can make, or that we have already—and then learn to use those tools for fighting.”
Diamod looked unconvinced. “Are you saying that ex-farmers with shovels can stand up to soldiers with pikes and swords?”
“If we can’t, then we’re doomed. I don’t know if they—we— can. But we have to try.”
“And you’ll teach us.”
“I hope so. There’s something else—”
“What?”
“Just an idea. Let me tell the others about it later.”

Diamod led Gird, Fori, and Pidi through the woods that lay between Fireoak and the next holding to the east. Gird tried to keep in mind how they had come, but soon found all the trees, trails, and creeks blurring in his mind. That night they spent in the wood, eating another cold meal of soaked grain. The next day, they followed a creek most of the day, coming at last to a clearing where the creek roared down a rocky bluff. At the foot of the waterfall, a rude camp held a score of men.

In the center of the camp was a circle of stones around the firepit, symbolic of their name, but actually used for seating. The lean blackhaired man who appeared to be the leader did not rise from his stone when Diamod led Gird forward.

“So this is Gird of Kelaive’s village, eh?” The man looked worn and hungry, as they all did. Diamod started to speak, and the man waved him to silence. “I’ll hear Gird himself.”
Gird stared at him, uncertain. So many strangers—not one familiar face beyond Fori and Pidi—upset him. He could not read their expressions; he did not know where they were from, or how they would act.
“Have you ever been out of your vill before?” asked the man, less brusquely.
“Only to trade fair, one time, and to Fireoak when I was courting,” Gird said. The man’s voice even sounded strange; some of his words had an odd twang to them.

“Then you feel like a lost sheep, in among wild ones. I know that feeling. Fireoak’s in your hearthing, anyway—hardly leaving home and kin, like this. Diamod has told us about you—that you sent grain, the past few years, after your friend was killed—”

“Amis,” said Gird. It seemed important to name him.
“And now you’ve run away to join us. Why?”
Gird got the tale out in short, choked phrases; no one interrupted. When he finished, he was breathing hard and fast, and the others were looking mostly at their feet. Only the blackhaired man met his eyes.
“Outlaw—this is what you chose. After telling Diamod you would not consider it—”
“While I could farm,” Gird said. “Now—”
“You can’t farm here,” the man gestured at the surrounding forest. “So what skills do you bring us?”

Gird was sweating, wishing he could plunge away into the trees and lose himself. What did these men want? Were they going to grant him shelter or not? “I thought I would do what Diamod asked before: teach you what I know of soldiering.”

Someone snickered, behind him. The blackhaired man smiled. “And what do you know of soldiering, after a lifetime spent farming? Did you bring swords, and will you teach us to use them? Or perhaps that scythe slung on your back will turn to a pike at your spellword? Diamod told me he had found someone, a renegade guardsman, he said, to teach us soldiers’ drill, but what good is drill without weapons?”

The tone of the questions roused his anger, and banished fear. “Without drill you couldn’t use weapons if you had them. With it— with it, you can use whatever comes to hand, and make a weapon of it.”
“S’pose you’ll lead us into battle wi’ sticks, eh?” asked one man. Others chuckled. “Fat lot of good that will do, a stick against a sword.”
“It can,” said Gird, “if you’ve the sense to use it like a stick, and not try to fence with it.” This time the chuckles were fewer; he could see curiosity as well as scorn in their faces.
“ ’Course,” said the black-haired man, “we’ve only got your word for it, that you can fight at all.”
“That’s true.” Gird relaxed; he knew what would come of this. They wanted to see what Diamod had dragged in, but it would be a fair fight. “You want to see me fight?”
“I think so.” The blackhaired man looked around at the others. “Aye—that’s what we want. Show us something.”
“Let’m eat first, Ivis,” said one of the other men. “They been travelin’ all day.”
“No guest-right,” the blackhaired man scowled. “Until this Gird proves what he is or isn’t, I’m not granting guest-right.”

“No guest-right,” said Gird. He was surprised to find outlaws following that much of the social code. Food was more of the soaked grain, and a cold mush of boiled beans. Looking around, Gird saw only the one firepit, and no oven. The blackhaired man unbent enough to explain.
“Sometimes the lords hunt this wood, and their foresters use this clearing. So a fire here is safer than one elsewhere in the wood; folks is used to seeing smoke from about here. We tried to build an oven once, but they broke it up when they found it.”

“Where do you go when the foresters come?” asked Gird.
“That you’ll find out after you fight.If you convince us to let you stay.”
When Gird had eaten a little, he stood and stretched. The others went on eating, all but a strongly built man a little shorter than he was. Gird glanced at the black-haired man, who grinned.
“You’ll fight Cob; he’s our best wrestler. Used to win spicebread at the trade fair that way, as a lad. Show us how a soldier fights, but no killing: if you’re good, we can’t afford to lose you or Cob.”

“All right.” Gird had seen Cob’s sort of wrestler before; he would be strong and quick. But the sergeant had taught his recruits many ways to fight hand-to-hand, and which ones were best against which kind of opponent. Gird watched Cob crouch and come forward in a balanced glide, and grinned to himself.

Although he knew what to do, it had been a long time since he’d done it. He got the right grip on Cob’s arm, and put out his own leg, but his timing was just off, and Cob twisted away before he was thrown. Gird avoided Cob’s attempt at a hold, but the effort threw him off balance and he staggered. Cob launched himself at Gird, knocking him sideways, and threw a leg across him quickly. Gird remembered that—it took a roll, here, and a quick heavethere , and suddenly he was on top of Cob. Under him, the man’s muscles were bunched and hard. He was not quitting. Gird did not wait for Cob’s explosion, but rolled backwards suddenly, releasing his grip. Cob bounced up and charged. This time Gird was ready; he took the wrist of the arm Cob punched at him, pivoted, and flung Cob hard over his shoulder onto the ground.

Cob lay blinking, half-stunned. Gird heard something behind him, and whirled in time to catch another charge, even as the blackhaired man said “Triga—no!” Triga’s mad rush required no great skill; Gird used the man’s own momentum to send him flying as well. He landed hard and skidded an armlength when he landed.

Cob whistled, from his place on the ground. “You could’ve made money with that throw, Gird. Teach me?”
Gird looked at the blackhaired man. “Well?”
“Well. You can fight—not many overthrow Cob. I’m sorry about Triga, but glad to see you have no trouble with him. We can use those skills.”
“And the rest?”

The blackhaired man frowned slightly. “I am not the only leader, the Stone Circle is made of many circles, and each has its own. You must convince us all that this is something we need, and can use. I still do not see how sticks and shovels will let us stand against soldiers with sharp steel.”

Gird started to say that he wasn’t sure, but realized that these men didn’t want to hear that. Those eyes fastened on his face wanted certainty, confidence, the right answer. The only answer he was sure of was drill. “You have to start with drill,” he said. He knew they could hear the certainty in his voice about that. “You have to learn to work together, move together. Let me show you.”
“Now?” someone asked, as if it were absurd to start something new so late in the day.

“You can’t start sooner,” said Gird, quoting the old proverb. Several of the men chuckled, but it was a friendly chuckle this time.
“Start with me,” said the blackhaired man. “My name’s Ivis.” He stood and the rest stood also. Cob, cheerful despite his fall, had climbed to his feet, and reached a hand down to Triga.

Gird took a deep breath and tried to remember the expression on his sergeant’s face. “The first thing is, you line up here.” He scratched a line in the dirt with his toe. “You, too, Fori—come on. Pidi, just stay out of the way. Two hands of you here, and two behind, an armslength.” That would make two ranks of ten.

When the front ten had their toes more or less arranged on the line he’d scratched, he looked at them again. They slouched in an uneven line, shoulders hunched or tipped sideways, heads poked forward, knees askew. Triga was rubbing his elbow. Those behind were even more uneven; they had taken his armslength literally, and the short ones stood closer to those in front than the tall ones. This was going to be harder than he’d thought. His boyhood friends had been eager to play soldier.

“Stand up straight,” he said. “Like the soldiers you’ve seen. Heads up—” That sent one of them staggering, as he jerked his head up too far. Someone else chuckled. Ivis growled at them, and they settled again. Gird did not like their expressions: they weren’t taking this seriously at all. Only Fori and Cob and Ivis looked as if they were even trying. “You three—” he said, pointing to them. “You get together here in the middle. And you others—look at them, how they’re standing. Like that is what you need. Feet together, toes out a little. Hands at your sides. You in the back row, make a straight row—” Gradually they shifted and wiggled into something more like military posture. Gird wondered if he had looked like that at first. Maybe this was the best they could do, for now.

“Now you have to learn to march.” He glared, daring anyone to laugh. No one did, but he saw smirks. His old sergeant would have had something to say about that, but he had never dealt with outlaws, either. “You all have to start with the same foot—”

“Like dancing?” asked Cob. Gird stopped, surprised. He’d never thought of it as like dancing, but all the dances required the men to step out with the same foot, or they’d have been tripping each other. He thought his way into the harvest dance he had led so many times. Wrong foot.

“Like dancing,” he said finally, “but not the same foot. The other foot, from the harvest dance.” Surely they all danced it the same way. “Think of the dance, and then pick up the other foot.” Slowly, wavering, one foot after another came up, until they were all teetering on one foot. All but two had the correct foot. Those looked down, saw they were wrong, and changed feet. “Now one step forward.” The double line lurched towards him, out of step and no two steps the same length. Gird felt a twinge of sympathy for his old sergeant. Had it been this difficult? “Straighten out the lines,” he said.

He kept them at it until his voice was tired. By then they could break apart and reassemble in two fairly straight lines, and they could all pick up the same foot at the same time. But when they walked forward, their uneven strides quickly destroyed the lines. He was sure they could have danced it, arms over each others’ shoulders, but they couldn’t fight in that position. He’d told them that, and a few other things, and remembered some of the words his sergeant had used.

They were ready to lounge around, eating their meager supper, but Gird remembered more than his sergeant’s curses.
“We must learn to keep things clean,” he said.
“Clean!” Triga had scowled often; now he sneered. “We’re not lords in a palace. How can we be clean—and why should we?”

“Soldiers keep themselves clean, and their weapons bright. I spent my first days in the guard scrubbing the floor, washing dishes, and scouring buckets. First, it keeps men healthy—you all know that—and protects against fevers. And second, it means that you know your equipment will work. A weapon’s no good if the blade is dull. And third, I stink bad enough to tell any forester there’s a poor man here: so do you all, after the drill. D’you want hounds seeking us? It’s warm enough: we should all bathe.”

Sighing, Ivis and Cob heaved themselves up, and the others followed. Gird led them to the waterfall. Once well wet, the men cheered up and began joking, splashing each other. Pidi had found a clump of soaproot, and sliced off sections with his knife. Soon the creek was splattered with heavy lather.

When Gird felt that the grime and sweat of the past days was finally gone, he washed his clothes as best he could, and saw the bloodstains from Parin and Rahi fade to brownish yellow. The other men watched him, curious, but some of them fetched their own ragged garments and tumbled them in the water. Gird smiled when he saw them laying out the wet clothes on bushes, as he was doing. Diamod brought him a clump of leaves.

“Here—rub this on, and the flies will stay away. Otherwise you’ll be eaten up by the time your things are dry.”
“I should’ve washed clothes first—now it’s near nightfall. But I have a spare shirt.”
“Most of them don’t.”
But even in dirty clothes, the men stank less, and carried themselves less furtively. Gird, with a clean shirt tickling his bare knees, suggested another change in their customs.
“Why not bake a hearthcake on one of these stones? ’Twouldn’t be bread, exactly, but it would be hot, and cooked—
“If we had honey we could have honeycakes, an’ we had grain,” said Triga. Gird began to take a real dislike to Triga.
“There’s always bees in a wood,” he said crisply. “And stings to a bee, for all that.”
“There’s none knows how to make the batter, Gird,” said Ivis. “We’ve no mill or flour. All we know is crush the grain and soak it—if you know better, teach us that.”

Gird thought of the millstones left behind—but he could not have carried them and Rahi. He looked at the stones used as seats, and found one with a slightly hollowed surface. Then he went to the creekside, and looked for cobbles. He could feel the other men watching him, as if he were a strange animal, a marvel. But millstones, the cottage millstones, were no different. A hollowed stone, like a bowl, and the grinder. Some people had flatter ones, with a broader grinder. It had to be fine-grained stone, and hard. He picked up several cobbles he liked, and hefted them, felt along their smooth curves with a careful finger. Yes.
Ivis had the grainsack out for him when he returned. Gird wondered if it was grain he’d grown, or someone else’s contribution. It didn’t matter. He dipped a small handful, and poured it onto the stone, then rubbed with the cobble. It wasn’t the right shape— neither the bottom stone nor the grinder—and the half-ground grain wanted to spit out from under and fall off. He worked steadily, ignoring the others, pushing the meal back under the grinder with his finger. He was careful not to lick it, as he would have at home: thin as they all were, they must be keeping famine law, when all the food was shared equally.

When the first handful was ground to a medium meal, he brushed it into a wooden bowl that Ivis had brought. It was not enough to make any sort of bread for all of them, but he could test his memory. Cob brought him a small lump of tallow, and he took a pinch of salt from the saltbag he’d brought himself. Meal, water, fat, salt—not all he liked in his hearthcakes, but better than meal and water alone. He stirred it in the wooden bowl, while the fire crackled and Pidi brushed off the flattest of the stones facing the firepit. The tallow stayed in its lump, stubborn, and Gird remembered that he needed to heat it. He skewered it on a green stick, and held it over the fire, catching the drips in the bowl.

Finally it melted off, and he stirred it in quickly. He felt the stone, and remembered that he should have greased it. The stick he’d used for the tallow was greasy now; he rubbed his fingers down it, and then smeared the stone. The stone was hot, but was it hot enough? He poured the batter out. It stiffened almost at once, the edges puckering. Hot enough. With his arm, he waved heat toward it, to cook the upper surface. Mali had had the skill to scoop up the hearthcakes and flip them, but the only times he’d tried it, they’d fallen in the fire.

The smell made his mouth water and his belly clench. He looked up, and saw hungry looks on all the faces. Now the upper side was stiff and dull—dry, and browning. He hoped he’d put enough tallow on the rock, He slid a thin twig under it, and it lifted. He got his fingers on it—hot!—and flipped it to Ivis. Ivis broke it in pieces— each man had a small bite—and then it was gone. But if his fighting had gotten their respect, this had gotten their interest.

“I thought you were a farmer, not a cook,” said Ivis.
“My wife was sick a lot, that last few years.” Gird gestured at the bowl. “May I give my son that?”
Ivis nodded. “Of course. It’s fair; he had none of the hearthcake itself.” Pidi grinned and began cleaning the batter from the bowl with busy fingers and agile tongue. “But tell us—what do we need?”
Gird thought about it. “Millstones—we can use this, but we can’t carry it along, not if the foresters come here. But we can put millstones in another place, if you have a particular place.”
“Where I came from, we all had to use the lord’s mill,” said Ivis.

Gird shrugged. “That was the rule for us, too, but most of us had handmills at home. Always had. The lord’s mill was a day’s journey away—we had no time for that. And then if you did go, you’d have to wait while he ground someone else’s, and might not get your own back. Anyway, we can have millstones for hand milling—it’ll take time, is the main thing. We can’t have bread every day. Tallow, we need, and a bit of honey if it’s available. Salt—I brought some with me, but we’ll need more—”

“There’s a salt lick downstream a bit,” said Cob. “I can show you.”
“And if we want lightbread, we’ll need a starter. Do you ever get milk?” “D’you think we live in a great town market, where we can buy whatever we like?” asked Triga.

From the tone of the response, others were as tired of Triga’s complaints as Gird was. Gird waited until the others had spoken, then said “No, but I think you’re not so stupid as you act.” Cob grinned. Triga, predictably, scowled. Gird turned back to Ivis. “How long have you lived out here?”

“Me? A hand of years—five long winters. Artha’s been here longer, but most don’t stay that long. They move on, or they die.”
“You’ve done well, on beans and grain.”

“There’s more in the summer. We find herbs, do a little hunting, rob a hive once a year—no one wants to do it more, with all the stings we get. We do get milk sometimes, when we venture in close to a farmstead. Not all of us, o’ course. Milk, cheese, trade honey or herbs for a bit of cloth…”

Cloth, in fact, was one of the hardest things to come by. Gird, remembering his mother’s hours at the loom, and the value of each furl, did not wonder at this. To share food was one thing; to share the product of personal skill was another. The outlaws had learned to tan the hides of beasts they hunted—“Stick ’em in an oak stump that’s rotted and got water in it”—but good leather took more than that; many of the hides rotted, or came out too brittle to use for clothing.

As he listened to Ivis and Cob, and thought about all that this group needed, he thought back to his sergeant’s comments about the importance of supply. Soldiers did not grow their own food, or raise their own flocks, or build their own shelters—this, so they could have the time to practice soldiering. But these men would have to do it themselves. Could they do that, and learn to be soldiers as well?

Chapter Ten
«^»
The next morning, Gird realized that the others were all looking to him for leadership, and not only in military training.
“Do we work on drill before breakfast, or after?” asked Ivis.

“After,” said Gird, to give himself time. His clothes were still damp; he turned them over and hoped the morning sun would dry them. Then he eyed the trees, and realized it would be a long time before the sun came into the clearing. Breakfast was another cold mess of soaked grain. Gird was already tired of it. He was spoiled, he supposed, by having had a wife and daughter with a parrion for herbs and cooking. Pidi leaned against him as he ate, and Gird put an arm around him. He wished he could have left the boy with Mali’s brother—he was really too young for this. Fori sat on Gird’s other side, carefully not leaning, but clearly nervous among so many strangers.

“Do you have a plan beyond training us?” asked Cob. Gird glanced at Ivis, who seemed interested but not antagonistic.
“When Diamod first came to our village,” Gird said, “he wanted to learn soldiering. Wanted me to teach all of you. I thought he meantyou had a plan—whoever your leader was.”

“We’ve tried things,” Ivis said. “And the other groups—I know they have. Captured a guards’ store house, one did, and burned it out, but that brought more guards, and they took prisoners—finally killed them. Robbed a few traders, but that’s—we don’t like to be brigands; that’s not what we’re here for.”

“And that is?”
Diamod leaped into the discussion. “We’ve got to be the peasant’s friend—free the peasants, somehow, from the lords—”
“That won’t happen!” Triga stamped his foot in emphasis. “There’s always been lords and peasants. But if we can make them understand they have to be fair—”

“Now that is what will never happen.” Cob stamped both feet. “Lords be fair indeed! They wouldn’t know how, and why should they? Nay, ’slong as we’ve got the lords over us, they’ll do their best to keep us down, and take every bit they can. Does the farmer leave the sheep half a fleece, or feed a cow and not milk her?”

“A good farmer leaves the beasts alive and healthy,” muttered another man. Gird could tell this was an old argument, comfortable in their mouths as their tongues were. He knew its byways as well, having heard them all in his own village. He cleared his throat, and to his surprise they all quieted and looked at him.

“You have no plan,” he said, as if musing. “One wants to teach the lords how to rule, and another wants to end their rule, and I suppose some of you would like to go and live peacefully far away, if you could.”
“Aye—” More than one voice answered him.

“I used to think,” Gird went on, “that it was best to work hard and live within the lords’ laws. That if a man worked hard enough, honestly enough, everything would be right in the end. That’s what my father taught me, and times I did other than he said, we all suffered for it. I determined to follow his advice, and trust he was right. But I was wrong.” He paused, and looked around. Pidi was trembling a little in the arc of his arm; Fori’s face was set. The others watched him closely, and did not move. “I told you a little—about my daughter and her husband—but not all that led me here. It began long before, and over the years I built a wall of the stones I swallowed—stones of anger and stones of sorrow. A wall to keep myself at peace, and safety within—and it did not work.” He ran a hand through his thinning hair, and scrubbed his beard. “I don’t know if any law is fair, but the law the lords put on us is not fair, and no man can live safe under it. I don’t know if all the lords are alike, but some of ’em—Kelaive, for one—are not only greedy, but cruel. They like to hurt people; they like to see people suffer. Such men cannot rule wisely, or fairly. And when such men rule, no one can live an honest life.” He drew a long breath, gave Pidi a squeeze, and then pushed him gently away. He could not say what he was going to say, with his arm around his youngest child.

“I have taken that wall down,” Gird said. “Those stones—those stones I will throw at our enemies. Those stones, which I bring to this circle—because the Lady herself cannot give us peace unless we drive off the alien lords who rule us.”

“But we can’t,” said Triga. “We are too few—”

“Now, in this place, yes: we are too few. But there are more farmers than lords, more servants than lords. Few have joined you, as I did not join you, because they too think we are too few. They do not wish more trouble than they have. But if we can show success, they will come. I’m sure of it.” “Yes!” Cob stamped his feet again. “Yes, you’re right. Gird’s right,” he said to the others. Most were nodding, smiling, clearly pleased with what Gird had said. And Gird, putting his arm around Pidi again, wondered if he could possibly perform what they were sure he had promised.

Serious planning began after a short review of yesterday’s drill. He had realized that the clearing was really too small and too cluttered for serious drill; he could not march his two lines of ten five steps without someone having to step over or around a log or stone. And in the noise they made while drilling, a squad of mounted guards could have ridden up on them without anyone noticing.

“Do you have anyone out looking for foresters?” he asked Ivis.

“Usually someone goes downstream, and someone goes upstream,” Ivis scratched his jaw and looked thoughtful. “We use stone clicks for signals. But today everyone wanted to hear what you said.” In other words, Gird thought, just when it was most dangerous, they had no guard set. That would have to change.

“What about at night?”
“No, no one goes out at night. The foresters don’t travel at night.”
“But—” He wondered how far to go. Would Ivis be angry? It had to be said. “At night, you could see the glow of their fire— smell smoke or cooking food—and be warned.”

“I suppose.” Ivis didn’t look eager to wander the forest at night; Gird could understand that. But Diamod had seemed to like sneaking about the village—maybe he could. He glanced at Diamod, who smiled brightly. He still did not understand Diamod, and he wondered if he ever would. The other men seemed to feel the way he felt—would have felt, if he’d left home under any other circumstances, he reminded himself. They were here because they had to be. But Diamod seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Someone should go out now, and be sure no foresters are coming,” he said to Ivis. Ivis nodded, but did nothing. “Who will you send?” Gird asked.
“Me? But you’re—”
“Do youwant me to take over as leader? Is that what you’re saying?”

Ivis sat silent a long moment, his face somber. Then he looked Gird in the face. “I haven’t done much,” he said. “Just—just tried to keep them together—talk to farmers about food—but I don’tfeel like a leader. I never did. They started listening to me after Rual died, but I never wanted it. They’re used to me, but you’ll do better.”

“It’s not something you and I should decide,” Gird said, almost before he thought it. “If this is about fairness, and ruling fairly, then they should have a say.”
“Triga will quarrel,” said Ivis. Gird shrugged.

“Let him quarrel. He won’t do more; he didn’t like landing on the ground.” He looked around at the others, now lounging around the clearing in the attitudes of men trying to hear a private conversation without seeming to listen. “Ivis and I were talking,” he began, not raising his voice. They edged closer. “He asked me if I wanted to be leader.”
“You! We don’t even know you,” Triga said. Predictable, Gird thought. He’s so predictable.

“Quiet now—you can argue later.” He put a bite into his voice, and Triga subsided. The others were attentive; he could not tell if they approved or not. “Ivis—do you want to tell them what you said to me?”
Ivis swallowed, gulped, and finally repeated most of what he’d said. “I think he’d be a good leader,” he finished. “He’s strong, and he has a plan. And he knows more than just soldiering. I’d rather follow him.”
“And I,” said Cob quickly, giving Gird a wide grin. “I want to learn how to fight like that.”
“Yes,” said some of the others, and “Gird—let’s have Gird.” Triga was obstinately silent until everyone else had spoken. They all looked at him, and he turned red.
“Come on, Trig,” said Cob. “You know you want to—it’s just your stubbornness.”
“What if he’s a spy?” Triga said. “How do we know he isn’t a guard in disguise?”

“I’m not that stupid!” Diamod glared at him. “I was in his village: I met his friends. They told me a lot—” He gave Gird a long look, steady and measuring. “A lot about his past. They couldn’t all have been lying. He’s a farmer and a farmer’s son, and if you think he’s not, you can argue it with me. Knife to knife.”

“Enough,” Gird said. “We can’t be spilling each other’s blood over little quarrels, if we want to fight a war. Triga, d’you think Diamod’s lying?”
“No.” It was a sulky no.

“Do you think I am? I’ll have no one in my army that thinks I’m a liar.” He felt ridiculous, speaking of an army when what he had was twenty ragged, hungry, untrained men and one boy, but he saw the others straighten a little. If coward was a word to make men flinch and bend, maybe army was a word to straighten their backs and make them proud. He saw Triga’s face change, as he realized that he might actually be thrown out of the group. Fear and anger contended; fear won.

“No—I don’t think you’re lying.” Slightly less sulky, and somewhat worried.
“These others agreed to have me as their leader—do you?” He kept his eyes locked on Triga’s; he could feel the struggle in the man.
“I suppose. For awhile. We can see.” Cob and Diamod looked angry, but Gird shook his head.

“That’s fair. You don’t completely trust me, but you’re willing to give me a chance.” Triga’s jaw dropped in surprise; he had been braced for an argument. Gird looked around at the others. “I told Ivis I would not take the leadership on his word alone. You have all chosen, as you have a right to do—and I thank Triga for trusting as far as he can. None of us can do more than that.”

The others sat back, their expressions ranging from puzzled to satisfied. Triga said nothing, but looked as if he were chewing on a new idea.
“Now, We need to send out watchers, to let us know if anyone comes. Ivis says you usually had two; I’d like to send four—two of you, and my son Pidi and my nephew Fori. They need to learn the forest.”
“It’s my turn,” said Ivis. “And Kelin—” Kelin was a slight brownhaired man with one shoulder higher than the other. He did not quite limp when he walked, but his stride was uneven. Gird nodded.
“Pidi knows many useful herbs,” he said. “My daughter taught him.”
Kelin grinned. “Then let him come with me: all I know is flybane and firetouch. And sometimes I miss firetouch until I’m already itching.”
“Three pairs of clicks,” said Ivis, as they left. “That’s the danger signal. ”You pass it on, whichever way it comes, and move away from it. Cob knows the trails.“

When they had gone, Gird surveyed the clearing itself. If they had to leave it untouched, so that foresters who used it would not know they’d been there, he could not move the logs and stones used for seating to give more room for drill. They really needed a campsite the foresters didnot use. This one could become a trap, particularly if his people became effective against the lords. So what did he need in a campsite? He thought about that as he roamed the clearing, pacing off distances, and trying to listen for clicks.

Water. Good drainage, and room for the jacks trenches he would have them dig; the disgusting stench just behind a trio of cedars was entirely too obvious. Level ground, uncumbered, for drill, but enough trees for cover. A cave would be nice, shelter from weather and a place to store food and equipment. While he was asking, why not a forge with a skilled smith? He remembered that Diamod had said one of the men had been a smith, a one-armed man— there he was. His name was odd, a smithish name: Ketik.

“Ketik—”
“Aye.” He had a rough voice, and stood canted a little sideways, as if missing the weight of his arm. The stump was ugly, a twisted purple lump of scar. He wore no shirt, only a sleeveless leather jerkin.
“If we found another campsite, what would we need for a forge?”
Ketik stared at him out of light-blue eyes. “A forge? Don’t you see this arm? I’m no smith now.”
“If we had what is needed, couldn’t you take an apprentice? Teach someone?”
Ketik snorted, a sound half-laughter, half-anger. “Could you teach someone to swing a scythe by telling them? Wouldn’t you have to show them? Do you think smithery is so simple?”
“Not simple at all,” said Gird quietly. “It is a great mystery, and our village had no smith at all. We shared one with Hardshallows. But we will need a smith—”
“And not all are weapons smiths,” Ketik said.
“I know. What I’m thinking of wouldn’t take a swordsmith. But we would have to have our own forge.”

“A good fireplace,” Ketik said rapidly. “Fuel—fireoak is best. Someone to make charcoal, because you’d need to be able to refine ores sometimes. Leather for the bellows, and not the rotting, stiff mess these idiots make in old tree stumps. Real leather, properly tanned. Tools, which means iron: ore or lump iron from some smelter. Both are illegal. An anvil. Someplace with water, too, and a way to disguise the smoke. Satisfied?”

“We will need to move anyway,” Gird said. “We might as well look for what we need.” “What we need is the gods’ blessing and a fistful of miracles,” said Ketik. He sounded slightly less irritated now, as if challenging Gird had eased his mind.

“You’re right,” Gird said. “But though we need Alyanya’s blessing for a good harvest, we still have to plow and plant and weed and reap.”
Ketik laughed aloud. “Well—you may be the leader we need after all. I never heard of a one-armed smith teaching smithery, but then I never heard of a farmer teaching soldiering, either.”
Triga had come close while they were talking; now he said, “I said last autumn we should find a new campsite.”
Gird nodded, ignoring the rancorous tone. “Did you find someplace you thought would be good?”
“Me?” Triga looked surprised. “They wouldn’t listed to me.”
“If you already know a place—”
“I know another place than this, but it might not be what you want.”
“How far is it?”
“A half-day, maybe, or a little longer.” He pointed across the stream. “Sunrising. It’s swampy; the foresters never go there.”

Gird opened his mouth to say that the last thing they needed was a swamp, and closed it again. If Triga was trying to be helpful, why stop him, “I think we’ll need more than one place, but that sounds useful. If we’re pursued—”

“It’s like a moat, I thought,” said Triga.
“As long as we have a bridge over it—one they can’t see.”

“Gird—about the grain—do you want us to grind more today?” That was Herf, who had been tending the fire when Gird awoke. Triga looked sulky and opened his mouth; Gird shook his head. “Triga, tomorrow or the next day I’d like to see your swamp. Right now, though, the grain comes first.”

Triga said “I could go look for a path through the swamp.”

“Good idea.” Gird had never seen a swamp, and had no idea what one would look like. Were they flat? Sloped? Did they have high places that were dry? “If you find a dry place inside it,” he said slowly, “like the castle inside the moat—?”

“I’ll look.” Triga actually seemed cheerful—for him—as he waded across the stream and turned to wave back at them. Gird shook his head and turned to Herf.
“Now. How much grain do we have?”

When Herf showed him their meager food stores, and the way they were kept, Gird could hardly believe the band had not starved long ago. Sacks of grain and dry beans were sitting on damp stone under a rainroof made of small cedars with their tops tied together. Gird prodded the bottom of the sacks and felt the telltale firmness of grain rotted into a solid mass. Beans had begun to sprout through the coarse sacking. Herf had tried to store onions and redroots in a trench, but most of them were sprouting.

“I know,” he said in answer to Gird’s look. “Once they sprout, the redroots are poisonous. But I couldn’t dig them in any deeper here, without proper tools. The ground’s stony.”

“Well.” Gird squatted beside the trench, and brushed the leaf-mold off a healthy redroot sprout. “My da used to tell about his granda’s da—or somewhat back there—about the time before the lords came, when our folk grew things in the woods.”

“In thewoods ?”

“In fields, too, the grain—of course. But redroots and onions and such—some we don’t grow now—along the streams, and in the woods. We can’t eat these—maybe we should plant them now, and harvest in the fall.”

“We can still eat the onions—”
“Some of them, yes. But why not plant the others? Spread ’em around in the wood—no one’d recognize them as plantings, and they’d be where we knew—”
Herf frowned, thinking hard. “Then—we could grow the greenleaves, too, couldn’t we? Cabbages, sorli—”

“Maybe even sugarroot.” Gird poked at the leafmold. “This here’s good growing soil for some crops. Herbs, greenleaves—grow ’em along the creekbank, we could. You know how hard it is to haul water to the greenstuff in summer—we could plant it where it needs no help.”

“Aye, but breadgrain and beans—we can’t live on greenstuff and redroots alone.”
“Right enough for now—you get your grain from farmers, right?”
“Or steal it from traders—but that’s rare.”
“When we take it from farmers, they go hungry—so we can’t afford to let any rot—”
“It’s the best I could do!” Herf puffed up almost like a frog calling.
“I’m not saying it wasn’t. But if we find a new campsite, maybe we can do better. Besides—did you ever see the big jars the lords use?”
“Jars?”
“Aye. Brown, shiny on inside and outside. Like our honeypots but bigger. They’re almighty heavy and hard to move, but grain and even meal stay dry inside them.”
“And where would we get such? We don’t have a potter.”

Another miracle to wish for, thought Gird. They needed some pots—at least small ones. In his mind’s eye, his future campsite had sprouted another fireplace, although it wavered as he looked at it. He’d never seen a potter’s workshop. He knew they had a special name for the hearth in which they cooked their pots, but not what it looked like. But he could see as clearly as if he stood there the kitchen of the guard barracks at Kelaive’s manor, with the great jars of meal and beans, the huge cooking kettles, the shiny buckets, the longhandled forks and spoons, the rack of knives. If he was going to have an army, he would have to have a kitchen capable of feeding it—and storerooms—his head ached, and he shook it. What he had was a sack and a half of grain, some of it rotted, less than a sack of beans, a few sprouting onions, and redroots that might be edible in half a year. An open firepit, two or three wooden bowls, the men’s belt knives. He sighed, heavily, and heaved himself up.

“All right. We’ll grind some of that grain, and make hearthcakes tonight. But we’re going to need more grain, and I know the villages are short right now. Some of the men hunt, don’t they? How often do they bring anything back?”

“Not that often. There are only two bows, not very good ones, and the arrows—”
“Are as bad. I can guess that. Anyone who can use a sling, or set snares?”

Herf shook his head. Gird added those skills to the list in his head, and told himself not to sigh again. It would do no good. He wished he hadn’t sent Fori off; the lad had a talent for setting snares, and had once taken a squirrel with his sling. Come to think of it, slings could be weapons too.

“All right.” He raised his voice. “Come here a bit, all of you. There are some things need doing.” The men came closer, curious. “If we’re going to be an army,” he said, “we have to organize like soldiers. Food, tools, clothing—all that. We’re starting with what we have. The first thing is to get all the rotten grain and beans apart from what’s good, and protect the good from the wet. Then we’re going to plant the sprouted redroots, scattered along our trails, so that we’ll have them next fall. They’ll get bigger, you know, and double or triple for us. Who here has used a handmill?” That was usually women’s work, although many men helped grind the grain. Two hands raised. Gird nodded at them. “Herf will give you the grain—you saw how I did it yesterday. We’re making enough hearthcakes for everyone tonight. Unless the foresters show up, of course.

By midday, all the clothes washed the previous evening were dry. Gird pulled on his trousers happily; he did not feel himself with his bare legs hanging out. The two volunteer millers had produced almost a bowlful of meal, and Herf had used Gird’s clean shirt to hold the little good grain in one sack while he scraped out the spoiled and turned the sack inside out. The bottom end was beginning to rot. Without Gird having to suggest it, Herf decided to rip out the stitching there and sew the top end shut, so the weakest material would be at the opening. Since he seemed to know how to use a long thorn and a bit of twine to do it, Gird left him alone. Two other men had gone out in both directions along the creek, with the sprouted redroots, and were planting them. Gird reminded them that there was no good reason to plant them close to that campsite, since they would be moving somewhere else.

Fori appeared unexpectedly in midafternoon with a pair of squirrels he’d knocked down, showing off to Ivis with his sling. He had skinned and gutted them already, and had the skins stretched on circles of green wood. Gird grinned at him, delighted. But two squirrels would hardly feed twenty hungry men—they had no soup kettle.

Herf had the answer to that, showing Gird how hot rocks dropped in a wooden bowl could make the water hot enough to cook without burning holes in the bowl. By this time, he had all the good grain in one sack, and the dry beans separated from the damp, sprouting ones. Gird had wondered if they could also grow beans in the wood, but beans liked a lot of sun. Reluctantly, he had buried the smelly remnants of spoiled grain and beans. Now Gird sliced up onions, his eyes watering and burning, to go in with the squirrels and one dry, wrinkled, unsprouted redroot. Herf added the beans he’d put on to soak that morning.

The guards came back in the dusk to the smell of roasting hearthcakes and squirrel and bean stew. Gird had already found another, besides Diamod, who would be willing to stand night guard; these two had eaten, and when Ivis and Kelin returned with Pidi, the night guards went out. Gird had also drilled the others, in the afternoon, and insisted on their cleaning up. He was pleased to notice that Ivis and Kelin stopped to wash hands and face in the creek before approaching the fire.

They had only three bowls to eat from; these passed from one to another, along with the two spoons. But compared to the night before, it was a festive meal. Even Triga made no complaint. Ivis came to sit by Gird, and said, “I made the right choice.”

“It won’t always be like this,” Gird said, thinking of all the things he had to do. “We were lucky that Fori got those squirrels.”
“But it feels different.” Ivis wiped his mouth with his tattered sleeve and grinned, teeth bright in the firelight. “You know what to do.”

Across the fire, Fori was basking in the praise of older men; Pidi was showing Herf the herbs he had brought back in his shirt. They were feeling at home here; Gird wondered if the young adjusted more easily. He was not sure what he felt. The blinding pain when he thought of Rahi was still there; when it hit, he found himself turning in the direction of Fireoak,willing himself across the woods and fields between to be with her. She might be dead by now, or still struggling in fever. He could not know.

He was beginning to know the men around him, and already knew that several of them would have been friends if they’d grown up in the same village. Cob reminded him of Amis, with his matter-of-fact friendliness. Ivis was more like Teris—responsibility made him truculent, but once freed of it, he was amiable and mild-tempered. Gird told himself that these were mostly farmers—men like those he’d known all his life—and in time would be as familiar as the men of his village, but for the moment he could not quite relax into kinship with them.

That night before he dropped off to sleep, he made an effort to speak individually with each of them, to fix their faces and names in his mind. Then he burrowed into a drift of leaves, with Pidi snuggled close to his side. It was still hard to sleep, in the open, knowing he had no cottage to return to, but he was tired, and the strain of the past few days overcame him.

The next morning brought complications. Instead of cool spring sunshine, the sky was cloudy, and a fine misty drizzle began to penetrate their clothes. The foul stench of their ill-dug jacks oozed across the clearing. Gird was sure they could smell it in the next village, wherever that was. He wrapped his leather raincloak around the sacks of grain and beans. The night guards arrived back at camp hungry, while Herf was struggling with the fire. Smoke lay close to the ground, making them all cough. After the previous night’s feast, plain soaked grain seemed even more dismal than usual. Gird’s joints ached; he wished fervently for a mug of hot sib. He heard low grumbles and mutters, and Triga’s voice raised in a self-pitying whine.

This would never do. Gird strode back into the center of the clearing as if the sun were shining and he knew exactly what to do. The men looked up at him, sour-faced.

“Triga, what did you find yesterday?” Triga, interrupted in mid-complaint, looked almost comical. Then he stood up.
“I found that swamp I told you about—” Someone groaned, and Triga whipped around to glare in that direction.

“Never mind,” said Gird. “Go on—and you others listen.”
“I walked all around it—that’s why I came back so late. There’s three little creeks goes into it, and two comes out. I don’t know what the middle’s like yet—there wasn’t time—”
“Good. That’s where we’ll go today.”
“All of us?” Herf asked. “It’s raining.”
“It’s raining here, too,” Gird pointed out. “You’ll get just as wet sitting here complaining about the rain, as walking along learning something useful. Maybe we’ll find a cave, and can sleep dry.”
They didn’t look as if they believed him, but one by one his fledgling army stood up. He grinned at them.
“But first,” he said. “We’re going to do something aboutthat .” And he pointed toward the jacks. “It stinks enough to let anyone know a lot of men have been here, and it’s making us sick as well.”
“We don’t have no tools,” someone said. Kef, that was the name. Gird grinned again.
“I brought a shovel, remember? I’ll start the digging, but we’ll all be doing some—because there’s more to it than just shoveling.”

He had spotted a better site the day before. Now he took his shovel and tried it. Here a long-gone flood had spread across the clearing below the waterfall, and left a drift of lighter soil, almost sand. He started the trench he wanted, and gave the shovel to Kef. “That deep, and straight along there,” he said. They really needed a bucket, too, but they didn’t have one. He’d have to use the wooden bowls for the ashes. The men watched as he scooped ashes and bits of charred wood from the side of the firepit into one of their bowls. “You, too,” Gird said, pointing at the other bowls. “We’re going to need a lot of ashes.”

“But I though ashes only worked in a pit,” said Ivis.
“Best in a pit. But a trench is like a little pit. Ashes on top, then dirt, after you use it.”
“Every time?”

“Every time—or it won’t work. The guards kept a pot of ashes in the jacks; I started doing that at our cottage later, and ours smelled less than most.” He looked at them, noticing the squeamish faces. “The worst part,” he said carefully, “is going to be burying what’s already there.” He was pleased to note that no one asked if they had to.

It took longer than he’d hoped,with only the one shovel and small bowls to carry ashes, but at last they had the worst of the noisome mess buried, strewn with ashes, and a new bit of clean trench for that morning’s use. Gird covered it up himself when they were all done, and marked the end with a roughly cut stake poked in the ground.

“Now we clean up,” Gird said, “and then we go look for Triga’s swamp. He’s right—if we can find a safe way into it, that the foresters and guards don’t know, it could be a very handy place.” Chapter Eleven
«^»

Triga led the way, with Gird behind him, and then the others. Gird had asked Ivis to be the rear guard, staying just in sight of the others. Within the first half-league, he was wondering how this group had survived undetected so long. They talked freely, tapped their sticks against trees and rocks as they passed, made no effort to walk quietly. Finally Gird halted them.

“We’re making more noise than a tavern full of drunks. If there’s a forester in the wood anywhere, he’s bound to hear us.”
Ivis turned a dull red. “Well—Gird—we don’t like to come on ’em in surprise, like—”
“The foresters? You mean they know—”

“It’s sort of—well—they’d have to know, wouldn’t they? Being as they have to know the whole wood. But what they don’t actuallysee they don’t have to take notice of. My brother’s one of them, you see, and—”

“And on the strength of one brother, you trust them all? What about the guard?”
“Oh, the duke’s guard is a very different matter—very different indeed. But they don’t venture into the wood except when the duke’s hunting. And then they’re guarding him, not poking about on their own.”
“And—duke? Your lord isn’t Kelaive?”
“Gods, no! I’ve heard about him, even before you came. Our duke’s Kelaive’s overlord, just as the king is his.”

“So the foresters of this wood know that a band of outlaws lives here, and expects you to make enough noise coming so they can avoid you. What if they change their minds? Surely your duke’s offered a reward.”

“My brother wouldn’t take a reward for me,” Ivis said earnestly. “And if he captures the others, there I’d be, right in the middle.”

“What if he’s transferred, or killed, or one of the other foresters gets greedy?” Ivis said nothing in answer; from his expression, he had thought of this before and tried to forget it. Gird looked at all the others. “Listen to me: an army does not go about expecting its enemies to get out of the way. We can’t fight like that. Cannot. Perhaps Ivis’s brother has enough influence on the foresters of this wood, but we will not always be in this wood. We have to leave it someday, and you must know how to movequietly . And we must be alert—we must find the foresters before they find us, and never let them know we were near. Understand?” Heads nodded, some slowly. “Now—the first thing—no talking while we march. No banging on stones or tree limbs. Walk one behind the other, far enough that if one man stumbles, the others don’t fall too. Triga, you should be far enough ahead that I can just see, and you shouldn’t be able to hear us—you listen for anyoneelse . If you go too fast, I’ll click pebbles twice; if I click three times, stop. You give two double clicks if you hear foresters. Ivis, if you hear anything behind us, give two double clicks. The rest of you—if you hear two double clicks, stop where you are and do not make a noise. Clear?”
Again, heads nodded. Gird hoped that there were no foresters out that day, so they could get in at least one practice before it was needed. He waved Triga ahead, waited until he was almost out of sight on the narrow trail, and started off himself. Behind him, the noise of the others was much less, although he could hear an occasional footfall. Triga led them fairly quickly, and Gird had a time keeping him in sight and avoiding obvious noisemakers. But his followers grew even quieter, as if they were listening for themselves, and learning from their own noise how to lessen it.

The double-click he had been half-waiting for startled him when it came. The others had frozen in place; Gird took a final step and a stick broke under his foot. He grimaced, and looked back along the line. Cob, behind him, grinned, wagged his head, and made the shame sign with his fingers. Gird shrugged and spread his hands. When he looked ahead, Triga had stopped just in sight. Gird could hear nothing now but the blood rushing in his own ears, and the faint trickle of water somewhere nearby.

The click had come from behind him, and now he saw a stirring in the line, silent movement as one man leaned to another and mouthed something. Gingerly, Gird took a step back toward Cob, placing his feet carefully on soggy leaves and moss. Cob leaned back to get the message, then forward to Gird.

“Ivis. Said we were a lot quieter, but should practice stopping. He may do it again.”

Gird wished he’d thought of suggesting it, but at the same time wanted to clobber Ivis. His heart was still racing at the thought of being caught by foresters. He nodded, instead, and murmured “Tell him not too many—we have a long way to go.” Cob nodded, and passed the message back. Gird waited what he thought was long enough for it to reach Ivis, then waved Triga on, and started again himself. He almost trod on the same stick, but managed to stretch his stride and avoid it.

Triga’s swamp, when they came to it, appeared first as softer mud in the trail, and then a skim of sib-colored water gleaming between the leaves of some low-growing plant with tiny pink flowers. Ahead was an opening in the forest, with tussocks of grass growing out of the water.

“We have to turn here, if we’re going around it,” said Triga softly to Gird. The others had come up, but were squatting silently in the dripping undergrowth on the dryest patches they could find.
“Have you ever been out in it?”
“When I was a lad, once. There’s someplace out there with plum trees; I could smell the flowers.”
Gird sniffed. It was just past blooming time for the plums in his village, but wild plums came both earlier and later. He didn’t smell any.
“Did you find the trees?”
“Finally—after I got wet to the thighs, and then when I got home my da beat me proper for running off from the goats—but there’s a dry hummock somewhere, with plums.”
“Right out in the middle, I’ll bet,” said Cob. “O’ course, we’re already wet.”
“There used to be a path partway in,” said Triga. “Follow me and step just where I do.” And with that he was off again. The others fell into line.

Triga’s way led alongside the bog, and finally came close enough so that Gird could see how big it was. Despite the drizzle and fog, he could just make out the forest on the other side, a dark massive shadow. In the bog itself were islands crowned with low trees tangled into thick mats. After a short time, Triga came out from under the trees, and stepped onto one of the tussocks. It trembled, but held him up as he took two steps and hopped to another. Gird looked at it distrustfully. How deepwas that dark water? And what was under it?

“One at a time,” he said, and reached a leg across to the black footprint Triga had left. He didn’t like the way his foot sank in, and stepped quickly to the gap between tussocks. The mud sucked at his feet, and let go with a little plop. Across the gap, and onto another tussock. Now he was out in the open, where anyone could see him—anyone sitting snug under the forest edge, for instance. His neck prickled. One of Triga’s footprints had a finger of murky water in it; when Gird stepped there, his foot sank to the ankle.

“I don’t like this,” said someone behind him, and someone else said “Shhh!” Their feet squelched on the wet ground, and Gird cursed silently as icy water oozed through his boot.

Only six of them had started into the bog, when the first foothold gave way and Herf found himself hip deep in cold, gluey muck. He yelped; three gray birds Gird had not noticed fled into the air with noisy flapping wings and wild screeches. Triga stopped and looked back, grinning. Gird said “Wait!” as softly as he thought Triga would hear.

They could not explain what happened without talking; Gird sweated, but endured the noise as best he could, while they established that yes, Herf had stepped carefully in the now-sinking footprint, and yes, all the footprints had been getting wetter, and no, it was clear that nobody else could make it. Herf, sprawled across the tussock with one leg stuck in the mud, was grimly silent.

“All right,” Gird said finally. “First we get Herf out, and back on solid ground. Then all of you in the forest start circling the bog, and looking for other ways in. Don’t get stuck.”
“Don’t walk on moss,” Triga added. “It looks solid, but it won’t hold you up.”
“We can’t come back the way we came in,” Gird went on. “So Triga will have to find us a way across. And now we know that a group trying to follow us would bog down—”
“Although the tracks are easy to see,” said Cob.
“Right. If we use this, we need a way in that we can all take, and that they can’t see.”
Getting Herf loose was no easy matter, and involved five men getting themselves wetter and muckier than they had intended. Two more got stuck, although not as badly.

In the meantime, Gird and the others perched on tussocks noticed that water was creeping up around their feet. “We have to keep moving,” Triga said, unnecessarily, and went on, aiming for one of the brush-covered islands. By the time all of them had made it there, to crouch under the thick tangle of limbs and new leaves, they were mud to the knees and breathless.

“I didn’t know it would be worse with more than one,” said Triga. Gird accepted that as an apology, and nodded. At least some of the little trees were plums, tiny fruits just swelling on the ends of their stems. Water dripped on him, sending an icy trickle down the back of his neck and along his spine. He hoped his raincape was keeping the grain and beans dry. If he had to be wet and cold, it should be for a good purpose.
“We’d better go on,” he said. “And if there’s a way for each of us to pick his way safely—that might be better than stepping in your tracks.”

“It’s that kind of grass.” Triga showed them again. “Not that other, with the thinner blades; it grows on half-sunk moss, and you can go right through. This stuff is usually half-solid, but you have to keep moving. Try to pick your way several tussocks ahead, so you don’t have to stop except at places where trees grow. All those are safe. I think.”

“Look at this,” Cob said. He pointed to a delicate purple flower on a thin stalk. “I never saw anything like that.”
“They grow in bogs,” Triga said. “A little later, the whole bog will be pink with a different flower—the same kind, but larger. The purple ones grow only on the islands.”
Gird looked at him. This sounded less and less like the knowledge gained on one clandestine visit as a child. Triga reddened.
“No one could find me here,” he said. “I used to come here a lot, before I left home.”
“And not after?”
“The others didn’t want to see a swamp, they said.”
“Well, we’re seeing it now. What else do you know about it?”

Triga began to lead them across the little island to the bog on the far side. “There aren’t many fish, for all this water. Lots of frogs, though, and little slick things like lizards, but wet. Birds— different kinds you don’t see anywhere else. Some of them swim in the bits of open water, and dive. Most of them wade, and eat frogs and flies. Flowers. One island has a wild apple grove, and one has the best brambleberries I’ve ever eaten. Wild animals: something like a levet that swims, long and sleek, and levets, of course. Rabbits sometimes—I’ve surprised them grazing the grass on the islands. Deer come to the edge to drink and once I saw one where the apples grow. They jump very fast and carefully.”

They began to cross to the next island, this time picking individual ways, with much lurching and staggering. But no one fell in the mud, and they all arrived safely and somewhat drier, but for the rain. This island had fewer trees, and starry blue flowers as well as the tall purple ones.

“In midwinter,” Triga said, as if someone had asked, “the bog may freeze on top, but you still can’t trust the moss. If the ice is thick enough to walk on, then it’s safe, but not otherwise. Most years it freezes that hard after Midwinter. But the thaw comes early—I don’t know why—and I’ve put a leg through the ice more than once.”

This time they did not pause, but went on across the island and back onto the bog. Gird lurched and barely kept himself from falling into the muck.
“I’m thinking this might make a better farm than a castle,” he said.
“Farm?” Triga glanced back at him, teetered, and regained his balance.
“Plums, apples, brambleberries, all guarded by this muck. I’d wager that in full summer the flies are fierce.”
“So they are. The worst of them aren’t out yet, the big deerflies.”
“Onions would grow on the edges; redroots on the islands.”
“Some of these grasses have edible seeds,” Triga said. “My mother’s father, he showed me some of ’em. As much grain as wheat, almost. That’s what the birds come for, the swimmers.”

Gird was about to ask how the swimmers could find space to swim, when they came to a stretch of open water. Under the dark sky, with the drizzle falling, it was impossible to tell how deep it was. “Now what?”

“We’ve gone too far down. Turn up this way, upstream.”

Gird could not see any movement in the water; it lay blank and still, dimpled like hammered pewter by the falling rain. Grunting, he followed Triga to the right, trying to pick his way. Eventually that space of water narrowed, and narrowed again, until he could leap across to a tussock that lurched under him. He grabbed the tallest stalks, and managed not to fall. Something hit the water with a loud plop behind him; he broke into a sweat again.

“Frog,” said Triga. “Big one—he’d be a good dinner.”
“You eatfrogs ?”
“What’s wrong with that? They’re good.”

Gird shuddered, and tried to hide it. That was the explanation for Triga’s attitude, he was sure. Anyone who would eat frogs would naturally be quarrelsome and difficult. “They’re… cold. Slimy.” He remembered very well the little well-frog he’d caught as a boy: the slickness, the smell, the great gold eyes that looked so impossible. His father had shown him frogspawn down in the creek, and he’d prodded it with a curious finger. It had felt disgusting.

Triga shrugged, looking sulky again. “It’s better than going hungry. Food’s food.” He gave Gird a challenging look. “I ate snakes, too.” Gird’s belly turned. What could you say to someone who ate snakes and frogs?

“You eat fish, don’t you?” asked Triga, pursuing this subject with vigor.

“I had a fish once.” Gird remembered the bite or two of fish that he had eaten on his one trip to the trade fair as a youth. They had bought a fish, all of them together, and tried to cook it over their open fire. He could barely remember how it had tasted, though the smell was clear enough. It hadn’t been as filling as mutton. He met Triga’s expression with a grin. “The fish in our creek were about a finger long—the little boys caught them, but no one ate them.”

From the looks on the others’ faces, Triga’s revelations about fish, frogs, and snakes were explaining his behavior to them as well. As if he’d realized that, he led them on faster, landing with juicy splashes on his chosen tussocks. Gird followed at his own pace, carefully. Snakes, too. There might be snakes out here, worse snakes than the striped snakes that wove through the stems of the grain, or the speckled snakes by the creek. He wanted to ask Triga how big the snakes in the bog could be, but he didn’t want to admit he didn’t know. Did they swim?
A sweet perfume broke through his concern about snakes, and he realized they were almost to an island whose scrubby gnarled trees were covered with palepink blossoms. Apples. Gird drank in the delicious scent, so different from the rank sourness of the bog itself, or the faintly bitter scent of the purple flowers. He climbed onto the rounded hump of solid ground with relief. Triga had thrown himself flat on dripping grass, and seemed back in a good humor; he smiled as Gird and the others crawled under low, snagging limbs to join him.

“This was always my favorite,” he said. “Wild apples here, and crabs at the far end, two of them.”
Gird crouched beside him. “What I don’t understand is what made the islands. Why isn’t the bog all bog?”
Triga shrugged. “I don’t know. The way each island has its own trees and flowers, it’s almost like a garden—as if someone planted them that way. But who or why I have no idea.”
“Are any of the islands large enough for a camp?”

“No—probably not. I thought so, but now I see just six of us on one of them, I realize they’re too small. The biggest has nut trees— not as tall as most nut trees—that would give good cover around the edge. But I think even twenty of us would crowd it. Certainly if you’re going to be finicky about the jacks. Out here I always perched over open water.”

The drizzle had stopped, but the apple limbs still dripped cold water on them. Gird looked out between the twisted trunks and caught a gleam of brighter light glinting from water and wet grass. It reminded him of something. He sat quiet, letting the memory come… he’d been crouched under another thicket, another time… dawn, it was… and the shadow had come, the thing that claimed kinship with the elder singers, but claimed also to be different. Kuaknom, it had been. Gird looked across the wet and dripping bog, now slicked with silver as the sun broke through for a moment. There across the uneven wet mat of moss and grass was an island, its trees like miniatures of the forest, bright flowers shining along its shore.

“I know who planted this,” he said. It had come to him, with the beauty of the moment, the glittering, brilliant colors outlined in silver light.
“Who?” asked Triga.
“The singers. The old ones.” He shivered as he said it. Was it bad luck to name them? Would it bring the illwishers here?
“You knowthem ?” asked Triga, sitting bolt upright.
“No… no, but I know the tales. And I met one of their—the ones that went wrong, the kuaknomi.”
“Gods take the bane!” Triga flicked his fingers twice, throwing the name away. “Don’t speak of them!”
“But the others. I know they did. A garden, you said, each island like its own bed of flowers or fruit. I don’t really like it, Triga, but it’s very beautiful.”
“Even the frogs?”

“Even the frogs.” The sun vanished again behind low clouds, and by the time they reached the far side of the bog, a light rain was falling. Cob scraped the muck from his worn boots with a handful of moss.

“I never thought I’d be so glad to find a muddy trail in a forest,” he said. “And now we have to walk all the way back around to get home.”

Gird gave him a warning look, and he was quiet. They all were, listening to the many sounds of the rain, the almost musical tinkling of the drops of water in the bog, the soft rush of it in the leaves overhead, the plips and plops of larger drops falling to the forest floor. Where, Gird wondered, was the rest of his troop?

Rock clicked on rock somewhere in the wet distance. One click. What was that? Gird peered around, seeing nothing but wet leaves and treetrunks. His heart began to pound heavily. He blinked rain off his eyelashes, and wished fervently that he’d let the damned grain rot, and taken his leather cape along. Then at least he wouldn’t have rain crawling through his hair, trickling down his neck. He didn’t mind arms and legs; he was used to being wet— but not hishead . From the expressions the others had, none of them liked it. Hats, he thought to himself. We have to make hats, somehow. Every summer the women had plaited grass hats that lasted the season; they threw them away after harvest.

“Were we quiet enough?”

Gird leaped up and barely stopped the bellow that tried to fight its way from his throat. Ivis was grinning at him, along with the rest of the men who had gone around the bog. Rage clouded his vision for a moment as his heart raced. He felt he would explode. They were all watching, with the wary but smug look of villagers who have just outwitted a stranger. Another cluster of raindrops landed on his head, cold as ever, and it was suddenly funny. Theyhad outwitted him, as fair as any trick he’d ever seen.

“You—” he began, growling over the laughter that was coming despite his rage. “Yes, damn you, you were quiet enough.” A chuckle broke loose, then another. “Now let’s see how quietly you can march home, eh?”

They were not as quiet, for the rainy spring evening began to close in fast, and they had to hurry. When they came to the clearing, Gird was glad he’d told Pidi to stay and mind the fire; they all needed to crowd near the glowing coals. Pidi had cooked beans, flavored slightly with the herbs he’d gathered.

Next morning was damp and foggy, but not actively raining. Gird woke stiff and aching, with a raw throat. Around him, the others were still sleeping, Pidi with the boneless grace of all small children. Gird pushed himself up, cursing silently, and crouched by the fire-pit. He held out a hand to the banked fire—still warmth within. But dry fuel? He peered around in the dimness. Someone—Pidi, he supposed—had made a crude shelter of stone, and laid sticks in it. They might be drier than the rest. He poked the fire cautiously with one of them, uncovering raw red coals. After a moment, the end of the stick flared. Dry enough. He yawned until his jaw cracked, then coughed as the raw air hit his sore throat. Sleeping wet in wet clothes—he hadn’t done that for years. He’d never enjoyed it.

Alone in the early morning gloom, he let himself sag into sour resentment. Forget the hot sib. What he needed was a good stout mug of ale. Two mugs. Maybe they could build barrels and brew? No, first they had to have a dry place to sleep. A drop of cold water hit his bald spot. No, first they had to have hats. He added more sticks to the fire. Some of them steamed, hissing but enough were dry to waken crackling flames. Someone across the clearing groaned, then coughed.

“Lady’s grace, I hurt all over,” he heard someone say. He felt better. If he wasn’t the only one, it didn’t mean he was too old for this. Another groan, more coughs. “I’d give anything for a mug of ale,” said another man. “Sib,” said someone else. “Anything but beans or soaked wheat,” said yet another. Gird felt much better. The soldiers had grumbled in the barracks, when he was a recruit. They’d grumbled when it rained and they had to work in it; they’d grumbled when it was hot and sweat rolled out from under their helmets. Grumbling was normal. He was normal. And he knew exactly what the sergeant had done about grumbling.

“Time to get up,” he said briskly.

A startled silence. A low mutter: “Gods above, he’s up. He’s got the fire going.” He heard more stirrings, and turned to see men sitting up, clambering to their feet, rolling over to come up on one elbow. He grinned at them.

“Can’t fight a war in bed,” he said. Utter disbelief in some faces, amused resignation in others. Pidi, who had not walked to the bog and back, came over to the fire, all bright eyes and eagerness.
“I found most of the roots and barks for sib.” He showed Gird a small pile which Gird would not have recognized. “There’s no kira in sight of camp, and you told me not to leave—”
“Good for you,” said Gird. “Do you know how much of each?”He certainly didn’t. Pidi nodded.
“But it takes a long time. Do you want me to start it?”
“Go ahead. We need it.”

While Pidi started the sib, Gird went off to the new jacks trench, along with several others. Already the camp smelled better, he thought. Certainly the men looked better, even grumpy and stiff as they were. That hike in the rain had accomplished something.

“We need to set up work groups,” Gird said without preamble, as they gathered near the fire. “A hand to each group—” They began shuffling themselves into clusters of five. Gird had thought of assigning them to groups, but decided to let them pick their partners—for now, at least. With his knife, he shaped chunks of bark peeling from a fallen limb into the familiar tallies of the farmer. “One notch for food, two for tools, three for camp chores. Two groups get a food tally, and one hand each for the others. We’ll drill after breakfast, then the groups go to their assignments—”

“What’s food for?” asked Triga. “We’re the ones get to eat?” No one laughed. Gird shook his head.
“Those with a food tally go looking for food: hunt, gather herbs, tend the things we plant, later. Ivis, how did food donated by farmers come to you? Did someone tell you it was there, or did you go ask?”

“Every so often someone would come to the wood, and leave a feathered stick in a certain tree—that’s for Whitetree, the nearest. Fireoak usually brought the food itself, put it just inside the wood. Diamod traveled about so much, he’d know, or he’d see it and bring it in, or come get us to carry it. And sometimes, when things were very bad, one of us’d sneak into the village and beg.”

“Which is dangerous for them and for us both. And I suppose too much hunting would bring the foresters, wouldn’t it?”

“Aye. They don’t mind rabbits and hares and such, but the duke likes his deer hunts.” “Well, we’ll have to do something. Fori’s good with his sling, and he can set snares: that’s something you can all learn. We need a better way to let the villagers know when we need something, and what it is. With a few more tools, we might be able to gather more food and lean on them less.” Gird handed the first food tally to the group Ivis was with. “You know the local village; you’ve got kin there. Find out what they can send, and when. What is the most trouble to them. When they’ve had trouble, and what gave them away. If they can’t send food, find out if they can send sacks, boxes, a bucket—anything we can use to store or prepare the food we have. Even little things: a small sack is better than none.”

“The other food tally.” Gird handed it to the group Fori was with. “Go some distance away from this camp, and then look for anything edible you can find. Birds’ eggs, birds in the nest, rabbits, squirrels—most creatures are having young about now; look for their hiding places.”

“Frogs?” Triga was not in that group, but he spoke up anyway.
“When you’re carrying the food tally, you can catch us frogs, Triga,” Gird said.
“And you’ll eat them?”

Gird swallowed hard. “I’ll do my best. Now—you are with the tool tally. You all know we need a lot of things we don’t have. Another shovel, axes, chisels. A shepherd’s crook would be handy for pulling down vines with edible berries; a drover’s stick for beating nuts from the nut trees next fall. We need pots to cook in, bowls to eat from, baskets or sacks to carry what our gatherers find, spoons, buckets, rope: every one of these will help us make more of what we need. Whoever holds the tool tally will work for that day on one of the things we need.”

“I can make baskets,” Triga said. Everyone stared at him; usually women made baskets. He reddened. “I used to plait the grasses in the bog,” he said. “First just for something to do, and then to see what I could make.”

“Could you make a basket from anything around here?” asked Gird. He did not want to make another trek to the bog so soon.
Triga stared around, uncertain. “Maybe… I can try… but it may not work right the first time.”

“That’s all right. If you find a way, it’s time well spent. Any of the rest of you like to whittle?” One man raised his hand. “Good— why don’t you start whittling some spoons, and bowls if you find the right chunks of wood. You others try it—anything’s better than nothing.”

“What about the guard we send out to listen for foresters?” asked Ivis.

“From the last group, those with camp chores tally. Two go out, and three will have plenty to do here. Gathering wood for the fire, tending the fire, and some other things I’ve thought up. But first— we didn’t do any drill yesterday, so let’s line up.”

This time they lined up quickly and almost evenly. They all started on the same foot, and they marched almost in step from the firepit to the stream, still in lines. Wavery lines, but lines. Gird showed them how to turn in place to the right and left, and then had them march around the camp as a column of twos. They had to weave in and out of trees, and they were soon out of step, but the pairs did manage to stay side by side. By this time Gird was warm and had worked the stiffness out, so he sent the two groups with food tallies off, and picked two guards from the camp chores group. One of the remaining three he sent in search of the driest wood he could find, one sat by the fire, and Gird beckoned to the last. He had had the idea that they could weave lengths of wattle, as he’d used for the barton gate, and the fence between his smallgarden and his neighbor’s. Wattle laid at an angle against a log might give some protection from wet. He explained what he had in mind to Artha, a very tall, loose-jointed man nearly bald on top. Artha had vague, hazy blue eyes, and the least initiative Gird had seen.

“But I don’t—that wattle, now, we allus made it wi’ the sticks i’ the ground, like. Put the sticks down in the wet mud, my granda he said, and then put the vines through, back and forth, back and forth—”

“But the sticks don’t have to be in the ground,” Gird said. The times he’d mended his gate, without ever taking it down, he knew that. Artha stood slack-handed, his jaw hanging. Gird realized that this was going to take firmness, as if Artha had been a child. “Artha, bring me some sticks, about so long—” He spread his arms to show the length.

“All right, but I dunno how you’ll do it lessen you put them sticks in the mud first—”

“Never mind, just bring me the sticks.” Artha ambled off, and Gird searched up and down the streambank until he found a willow sprouting multiply from the muck. He cut the pliant sprouts and stacked them.

By midday, Gird looked around the busy campsite and smiled to himself. The voices he heard all sounded content; one man was even whistling “Nutting in the Woods.” His sergeant and his father had both been right: idleness was a fool’s delight, and work brought its own happiness. Triga had created one lopsided basket from the same willow sprouts Gird was using, and then torn it down to make it “right” as he said. Now he was halfway through again. It didn’t look quite like any basket Gird had seen, but it was going to be a useful size, he could tell. The man who liked to whittle—Kerin, that was—had turned out three recognizable spoons. He’d pointed out that he needed something to rub them with, to finish them, and one of the others had experimented with Gird’s collection of cobbles. Gird and Artha had made one length of wattle, not quite an armspan wide by twice that in length. Gird held it up to the light: it would no more keep water out than a basket, he thought. But it would support somethingelse. Leaves? A deerhide?

Late afternoon brought the food gatherers back. First came the hunting and gathering group, with a miscellany of edibles. Birds’ eggs from different kinds of nests: small, round and beige, pointy and blue with speckles, streaked with brown on beige. They’d found a rabbit’s burrow, and while the blind, squirming kits had been very small, there were eight of them. Fori had knocked another squirrel out of a tree, and they’d found a squirrel nest—but that led to near disaster, when Fori, precariously wrapped around the slender bole, had met a furious mother squirrel face to face. Fori had come down faster than he went up, losing skin off his arms. “But I have a nose, still,” he said. They had also, on the advice of one of the others, dug up the roots of the thick-leaved grasslike plants that grew along the stream lower down. One man had the bight of his shirt full of last fall’s nuts: some were rotting or sprouting, but some were still whole and sweet.

Ivis’s group had come back with little food, but other important treasures. “Gars says he never used his granda’s old stone tools— even his granda didn’t—but look—” and he emptied a well-worn, greasy leather sack. Gird looked at the odd-shaped bits of stone curiously. He could remember seeing clutter like that in someone’s cottage… and old Hokka had used a sickle set with tiny stone blades. But he’d never used stone tools himself. “They’re sharp,” Ivis said, as if he’d asked. “Gars thinks some of them had handles— wooden handles—but I don’t know how they’d fasten. But you can cut with them.” Some were obviously blades, thin shards of stone like broken pottery. Others were rough lumps with a sharp edge, like handax heads, or chisels. Kerin poked at them.
“I could use these… it would be easier to make a bowl with this than a knife…” Gird nodded; that got him off the hook.

“Fine—try them, and if you can teach someone else—” He turned to thank Ivis, but Ivis was still grinning.
“That’s not all. Look here—” Wrapped in a wet cloth, he had brought seedlings of the common greenleaves: cabbage, lettuce…

The villagers had liked the idea of the outlaws growing some of their own food, and he’d been given as much as he could carry without crushing it. One of the men carried a small round cheese, and another had a large lump of tallow. He had also thought to ask for things Gird hadn’t mentioned: beeswax, soap, thread. “Best of all—” Ivis nodded at the last member of his team, who pulled a bundle from under his shirt. It was cloth, something rolled into a lump—but the deepest, most intense blue Gird had ever seen.

“What isthat ?” he asked.
Ivis grinned. “You know the lords won’t let us have blue clothes—”
“Yes. I never saw any.”

“This is old, from my granda’s time. He used to say that the blue was expensive—it came from some kind of blue stone, from far away north—but before the lords came it was a favorite color. Good luck color. Anyway, my brother says if you’re serious about overturning the lords, best we’d have some blue shirts.”

Gird unfolded the bundle carefully. Two blue shirts, each decorated with intricate embroidery around the neck, flowers and grain in brilliant colors. The old woolen cloth was as sound as ever. “Where had they kept this? Not even a moth hole…”

“I don’t know. My brother’s the eldest; he knew about it and I didn’t. But I do remember my granda’s stories. What do you think?”
“I think it’s good luck,” said Gird, refolding the shirts carefully.
Chapter Twelve
«^»

On a bright, blustery day in early summer, Gird led his troop eastward through the wood. There were twenty-four of them now, and every one of them carried his own spoon and bowl as well as his own belt knife. Each had a hat, plaited of grass and oiled against rain, and a staff about his own height. Each had three flat hard loaves of bread tucked into his shirt. And they marched quietly through the wood, with Diamod scouting ahead, and Triga bringing up the rear.

They were on their way to meet another of the Stone Circle groups two days away; Diamod (as usual) made contact. Behind them, the forester’s campsite was clean and bare; they had moved all their gear some days back to another site Gird had found. Gird found himself about to whistle, and didn’t. They were all doing well, including the new ones. He’d been surprised when three more came from his old village; a friend of Fori’s, Teris’s son Orta, and Siga, a single man about ten years Gird’s junior.

They had told him all the latest news: how the steward had come to Gird’s cottage only to find it stripped to the bare walls. He had taken that for Gird’s impudence, but the villagers had done it, hiding every pot, tool, and bit of cloth. Gird had felt tears burning his eyes when the boys showed what they brought—his people, his neighbors, had cared that much, to risk themselves to save his things, and then to send their sons with it. Irreplaceable treasure indeed: two hammers, three chisels, his awl and his axe, a shovel blade, a spokeshave, a plane, a kettle, a longhandled metal spoon, firetongs, the cowhides that had been stretched across the bed-frames, a furl of cloth that still showed rusty bloodstains… “We couldn’t carry it all,” Orta had explained. “But if you go back, or send someone, there’s more.”

His eyes still burned, thinking of it. He blinked the tears away, and told himself to keep his mind on the journey.

Part of that involved watching out for forage along the way. They had all learned, since he came, to make use of whatever food came along. Gird had even eaten one of Triga’s frogs; he was sure it wriggled in his throat, but he had to admit it tasted like food. More or less. Some of the others refused, but most followed his lead. He still didn’t like frogs for dinner, but better that than hunger. Now he scanned the undergrowth on either side for edible berries and fruits, herbs and mushrooms. Fori, still the best slinger in the troop, would be watching the trees for squirrels or levets.

Gird wished it had been possible to leave Pidi with someone. The boy was too young for this, he told himself again—but then again, the boy was not as young as he might be. The black eye had faded, leaving only a faint dark stain beneath, but the little child he had been, thoughtless and carefree, had not come back. Pidi seemed happy enough—he laughed sometimes, and scampered through the woods like a young goat—but he would never be carefree. It would have happened in time, Gird knew, but—he shook that thought away. There was no safe place for Pidi. Home had not been safe. That led him to Rahi, and the black sorrow pierced him again. She had lost the child, in fever, and when he’d last heard, a few days ago, she was still too weak to get up.

A gust of wind roared by overhead, whipping the forest canopy and letting a flash of sunlight through. The Windsteed in spring seeks the far-ranging Mare … he thought, clicking his tongue in the rhythm of the chant. This was late for the Windsteed’s forays, but what else could it be? He accepted the omen, and let the wind blow away his dark thoughts. It never paid to argue with the gods, any of them.

That night he insisted that their temporary campsite be set up as neatly as the old one. No one argued. Fori lopped a sapling to make a handle for the shovel blade, tied it snugly, and began digging the jacks trench. They would have no fire, but they ate their beans (cooked the night before) from bowls, with spoons. Even plain beans tasted better that way, not scooped up with fingers. Almost before he said anything, the correct tally group had gathered up bowls and spoons to wash them in the creek by the camp; when they were done, everyone stripped down and bathed.

The full measure of what he had accomplished became obvious when they met the other Stone Circle group the next afternoon. They had come out of the wood, and angled between some brush-covered hills, and down a crooked stream bed. The other group had a guard out to meet them—that much Gird could approve— but they could smell the camp long before it came in sight. He noticed that his men wrinkled their noses as well. He had not intended to bring them in as a formal drill, but they began to fall in step, rearranging themselves into a column.

They came into a space set off by a rocky bluff on one side, and house-high thickets of pickoak on the others, to find unkempt men lounging around a smoking fire. Someone had stretched a line between two trees, from which flapped something intended as laundry, but Gird could not recognize one whole garment. His own troop fairly strutted into the clearing, and came to a smart halt without the command he forgot to give. The others stared at them, wide-eyed as cattle staring over a gate. The one who seemed to be the leader, a redhaired man whose sunburnt nose was peeling, stared as hard as any. Then he got up from his log.

“I don’t believe it. Diamod, you said these were farmers?”
Diamod smirked. “I said these were farmers who had learned soldiering. Was I right?”
“You—andyou must be Gird.” The man came forward, looking Gird over with interest.
“I’m Gird, yes.”
“And you were a soldier?”
“Years ago I was a recruit. Then a farmer. Now—what you see.”
The man looked along the column, and swallowed. “What I see is hard to believe. How long have you been training them?”
Gird squinted, thinking. “Since late-plowing time. I was finishing plowing the day it happened.”
“I didn’t tell himeverything ,” Diamond interrupted.
“And you did that much that fast. Can you teach us?”
“I might, aye. But there’s more than just marching in step.”
“Swordfighting, of course. Or do you use spears?”
Gird laughed. “We don’t use swords or spears—where would we get them?”
The man’s face fell. “But—what do you fight with? Not just sticks, surely.”
He had not intended this kind of entrance, or a display of the other things he’d been teaching his men, but this was a chance he could not overlook.

“Aruk!” he said. Behind him, twenty-four sticks came up, to be held stiffly in front of each man. Gird took a step forward, clearing the necessary space, and said, “Form—troop.” This was tricky; they’d only been doing it right a few days, and it looked anything but soldierly if someone forgot. Properly, it took them from a column to the parade formation in smart steps and turns, each pair coming forward and spreading to the sides. It might have been wiser to simply face the column right or left and pretend that was the same maneuver—but if this worked, it was far more impressive. He did not look around; he wanted to see how these others reacted. From the even tramp behind him, and the heavy breathing, they were doing it right. From the faces in front of him, it looked professional.

Now he turned, as neatly as he could, and looked at his troop. They had all made it into place, still with sticks held vertically before them. Now came the interesting part. He gave the commands crisply, and the sticks rotated: left, right, horizontal, vertical, all moving together in an intricate dance of wood. No one was off-count today; he was proud of them.
“But—” the redhaired man said. Gird spun around to him.

“You fight with a sword?”
“Not very well yet, but—”

“These sticks are longer than swords. You can’t fence against a sword, no, but you can poke with it—just as you’d poke cattle through a gap. D’you think soldiers are harder to move than cattle, if you hit them right?”

“Well—no. But I thought—”
“If you want to learn from me—what’s your name, anyway?”
“Felis.”
“Felis, if you want to learn from me, the first thing is to clean up this stinking camp!” He had not quite meant to be that rude, but a gust of wind brought the foulness thick into his lungs.
“But what’s that got to do with—”
“Yes or no.”
“Well, yes, but—”
Gird glared around at the men in the camp, most of whom were sitting up more alertly now, sensing a fight coming. Two were not; they lay against the rock face, with another crouched beside them.
“What’s wrong with them?” Gird asked, pointing.
Felis glanced that way, then shrugged. “Sim has some kind of fever, and Pirin has the flux—”
“And you ask why the stink matters! Didn’t you have jacks where you came from? Didn’t the grannies teach you about any of that?”
Felis flushed dark red. “We don’t have any tools, hardly, and it’s not so easy out here away from the towns—”

Gird snorted. He felt good, the righteous anger running in his veins like stout ale at harvest. “You thought soldiering was easy? You thought fighting a war was going to be easy?” His sergeant had said something like that more than once—he had the rhythm right, anyway. Felis glared at him, but said nothing. Gird went on. “You ask any of these men—Ivis, or Diamod—ifwe had more than this when I started. You ask them if someone can smell our camp from as far away.”

Some of the men were standing now, coming forward slowly. Gird could not tell if they came in support of their leader, or from curiosity. Felis looked around, seeking support.
“There’s no way—we don’t have good ground here, for digging jacks and such. It’s hard enough to find enough to eat, and—”
A taller man intervened. “So what would you do, stranger, if you had command here? Or is it all talk?”
Gird raised his brows ostentatiously. “Do you want us to show you? Or had you rather live like this?”
“Show us!” Felis spat. “Go ahead—let’s see what you can do.”
“Your people must help,” Gird said. Felis shrugged.
“I won’t make them. You can try.”
“You’re giving me command?” There was a moment’s absolute silence, on everyone’s indrawn breath. Felis paled; his jaw clenched. Then he spread his hands.
“For one day, for what you can do. I’ll be interested. Of course, we’ve nothing to share for supper.” Gird was sure that was a lie, but he smiled.
“We brought our own, and enough for return,” he said. Then he turned his back on Felis, taking that chance, and dismissed his own men “—to your tally groups.”

Raising his voice to reach all the men in the camp, he said, “You have two bad problems. The first is your jacks, which is making you sick with its filth. No need to ask where it isn’t—but you need a good deep trench far away from the creek.”

“The ground’s all rocky hereabout,” said the tall man. “We can’t dig it with our fingernails.”
“Fori.” Gird put out his hand, and Fori handed him the shovel blade. “Here’s a shovel, if you can put a handle to it. Anyone here can cut a pole, or—”
“I’ll cut a pole,” said the tall man. He turned on his heel and stalked off. Gird watched him for a moment, then went on.

“What do you have to carry things in?” he asked the group at large. After a moment’s silence, someone pointed to the kettle on the fire, and a large wooden bowl. Gird smiled at them. “That’s more than we had,” he said. “We had no kettle. But we don’t dirty a kettle with filth. Triga, I’ll want some baskets. Any of you men know how to make a basket?”

“A man make baskets?” asked one with a low whistle. Gird put out his hand to stop Triga (and Triga’s arm was there—predictable as always) and said “Don’t laugh; Triga’s a good enough soldier to know that supplies help win wars. Learn from him; we need baskets to haul that stinking waste into the hole you—” He nodded at the tall man who had cut his pole and was bringing it back, “—are going to dig for it.”

“I’m not moving any of that filth!” snarled someone across the firepit. Gird heard mutters of agreement, and the amused chuckles of his own men.
“Move the filth, or move yourselves,” Gird said. “It’s killing you—and you know it.”
“That’s not all,” came Ivis’s voice from behind him, “he’ll have you bathing, and if you get a cut, he makes you scrub it out with soaproot. Besides, nobody wants to eat in this stench. Just get rid of it.”

Gird grinned at his people, and walked over to the firepit. The kettle on it gave off a thin steam, but he could not tell what was in it. The overall stink was too strong. “What is it?” he asked the man tending the fire.

“Grain mush. It’s been grain mush for months, ’cept when someone snares a rabbit, or finds a berry patch.”
“No bread?”
The man squinted up at him. “You a housewife? I never learned to make bread. Besides, it takes things we don’t have.”
“You’ll get them.” Gird patted the man’s shoulder, and left him peering backwards, stirring ashes instead of the fire.

Now for the sick men. He knew he’d been lucky that none of his own troop had sickened yet. Although he’d tried to nurse his mother and Mali, he knew very little of the healing arts. Cleanliness, of course—everyone knew that the fever spirits thrived on foul smells and dirt. They grew fat and multiplied on what made healthy men ill. It was nearly impossible to be clean enough to keep them all away (his mother had insisted that even a speck of old milk left in the bucket could feed enough spirits to ruin the next batch) but the cleaner the better.

The stench worsened as he neared the sick men.‘ One of them had red fever patches on his cheeks; his breath was labored, almost wheezing. His eyes were shut, and he didn’t pay any attention to Gird. The other, pale and sweating, had vomited; the man with him was wiping his face clean. Gird felt a tug at his sleeve, and turned. Pidi, almost as pale, had come up beside him.

“I picked some breakbone weed on the way—it might help for the fever. But I didn’t bring any flannelweed.”
“Boiling water,” said Gird. “See if they have another pot, and be sure you get the water well upstream.” Pidi went off, and Gird forced himself to squat down beside the sick men. The caretaker glared at him.

“Ya canna’ do aught for ’em. This’n’ll die by morning; feel his head.” Gird reached out to the fevered man, whose forehead felt like a hot stone—dry. “And this’n, bar he stops heaving, he’ll go in a day or two. He’s lost all he can, below, and I can’t get ’im to the jacks we got, let alone the jacks you say you’ll dig.”

“You know flannelweed?” Gird asked. The man shrugged.
“I’m no granny, with a parrion of herbs. What be you, man or woman?”

Gird took hold of his wrist and squeezed until the bones grated; the man paled. “Man enough, if strength makes men. But I’d be glad of a woman’s parrion of healing, if ’twould save lives. Have you sought a healer?”

“Aye. Felis brought one from the vill, a hand or more of days ago, when it was just Jamis here. But she was like you, all twinchy about the smell. Said we’d have to clean it up afore she could do aught. So’s Felis told her what he told you, and she huffed off, about holding her nose.”

Gird let go of the man’s wrist, and picked up the rag sodden with vomit. “This’ll do him no good here, but to make him heave again.” He tossed it away, and turned back to the sick man, who was staring at him with the frantic look of a trapped animal. “If we can find flannelweed, and get you to a clean place—I’ll try, at least.” He made himself touch the man’s hands, filthy as they were, and managed not to flinch when the man clutched at him.

“Please, sir—please—”
“I’ll try.” Gird looked at the sulky caretaker. “You can go clean up; I’ll get my people to carry them.”
“You’re welcome to it.” The man stalked away, clearly furious, rubbing the wrist Gird had bruised.

Gird looked around. Herf, in the tally group for camp chores, had picked up the stinking rag on a stick, and was carrying it toward the stream. He could hear the solid chunks of the shovel at work somewhere among the pickoaks. Ivis came up.

“Are you going to want to move them? I can have someone cut poles—”
“Yes, and I’ll need a bucket of clean water, if you can find one. Does anyone but Pidi know flannelweed?”
“I’ll ask. Those rags on the line aren’t really clean, but they’re cleaner than that—” Ivis pointed to the sodden rags under the two men.

“We’ll need them, but not here. No sense in dirtying them now.” Gird unhooked the sick man’s fingers from his hand, one by one, and stood up. Pidi was coming back down the slope with a bucket of water—had he had to go all the way up to find clean? Triga, Gird saw, had a cluster of men around him—presumably he was making a basket and showing them how. Artha—who, Gird wondered, had told him?—was carefully scooping ash from the cool side of the firepit into a sack of some kind. The cook looked furious, but wasn’t interfering.

Gird went to look at the stream, and shuddered. It looked as if hogs had wallowed in it, and it smelled worse. All along the banks, except at a crossing, were the uncovered remnants of a long encampment. Flies swarmed over them, rising in a cloud when he came near. Some of the filth had fallen into the stream and was far too wet to shift easily. It had been foul so long that rocks in the stream were slimed with luxuriant green weed, its brilliant color clear evidence of the steady supply of filth. It would be best to move the camp entirely, but he could not do that by himself.

“Gahhh.” Diamod had come up behind him. “This is worse than I recall. But perhaps you’ve changed my nose for me.”

“It’s a damned shame,” said Gird. He was angry again, but this time with a slow, steady anger that would burn for days. “It’s hard enough to think of fighting the lords, with their soldiers and their weapons. We can’t be fighting ourselves, too. There’s no village this bad; these men came from better. They should know.”

“So did we, but we didn’t do it until you made us. Be fair, Gird, when you were a boy, did you do more than your father demanded? Or your sergeant?”

“I grew to a man,” Gird said, growling, and forcing away the memory of his boyhood sulks. Had his mother really had to threaten beatings to get him to clean the milk pails? Had his father clouted him more than once for leaving muck on the tools? He sighed gustily. “True, I was the same way. But now—they’re men, they should know better.”
“Teach them, like you taught us.”

“I wish I could move the camp. Now. This moment.” Diamod grinned. “Tomorrow, maybe: the way you’re going, you could do that.”

Gird stared moodily at the mess near his feet. “We can’t move all this tonight. Ashes, I suppose for the rest.” He turned and called Artha. “There may not be enough—but try to spread ashes on all of this. Up-stream and down. Don’t step in it.”

“No, Gird.”

On his way to see how the trench was coming, Gird passed Triga, who held up one of his “fast” baskets, a flat, scoop-shaped affair. “Gird, it might go faster if we had something like a hoe, to scrape the stuff right into the basket.” A solution creating another problem, Gird thought, but one of the local men looked surprised and said “We have a hoe—course, it’s just wood—”

“Fine,” said Gird. “Triga, I don’t think we can move it all tonight, but see what you can do with that.” Triga nodded, not sulky at the moment. It had to be eating frogs, Gird thought, that made a man so touchy on some things so reasonable when given a problem to solve.

The steady thunk of the shovel led him to the trench diggers. The tall man who had cut the pole for the shovel handle was jabbing the dirt with another, pointed pole to loosen it for the man with the shovel. Four others—two of Gird’s, and two locals—were picking out rocks ahead of the shovel. The trench was deep enough, and reasonably straight, but it would never hold the accumulation on the banks of the stream. This would do for current and future use.

“Fori—” Fori was on the shovel at that moment; he looked up. “We’re going to need another hole for the old stuff. Not a trench; just a pit. Let’s put it farther back in the wood, away from this.” Fori nodded, and shouldered the shovel. The other men looked from Gird to Fori, and back to Gird. “Artha’s got the ashes; I told him to go ahead and use them where they are, but he can get more.”

“Does Triga have carriers yet?” asked Fori.
“Yes, and a hoe for scraping up.” Gird glanced up at the sky; it wasn’t long until sundown. “We can’t finish tonight, but we can get a start on it.”
The tall man leaned on his pole and looked at Gird. “You remind me of my da. He was always one for starting a job now.”

Gird smiled. “I was just thinking of my own da.” He turned away, sure that Fori could handle that little group by himself. By now, Pidi should have hot water—and he’d forgotten that he’d sent Ivis to find someone to find flannelweed. And where were the food tally groups?

Back in the clearing, he noticed a controlled activity. Pidi crouched over a bucket of steaming water, chatting with the local cook, who looked much less sulky. Felis, of all people, was gathering the dry rags off the line. Ivis, Cob, and Herf were crouched near the sick men; a stack of sticks had appeared by the firepit; and much of the clutter of the campsite was gone, replaced by clumps of gear that he suspected were not really organized. But it looked better, and he could walk across the open space without tripping over bits of wood and someone’s rotted boot. His own men and the locals were moving about as if they had something to do and were doing it. The cook waved to him, and Gird veered toward the firepit. “This boy says he’s yours—right?”

“Right.” Gird tousled Pidi’s hair. “My youngest.”
“You got nerve, dragging your boy along to a war.”
Gird gave him a hard look. “I had no choice. They threw me out of my holding, because my daughter’s husband tried to defend her—and I hit one of them—so did Pidi, for that matter, boy that he is.”
“Oh. Your daughter—she died?”
Gird could feel his head beginning to pound; Pidi laid a hand on his arm, and he realized he’d made a fist. “No. She’s alive, last I heard, but she lost the baby. And she may die. I don’t know.”

The man gulped, and looked away. “I’m sorry.” After a pause, in which Gird tried to get his temper locked down again, he said, “The lad brought me herbs, for flavoring. Wild onions, too. Most lads don’t know that.”

“His mother and sister both had a parrion of herbcraft. Pidi learned quickly.”
“This’s not ready, Da, but it might help.” Pidi pointed to the steaming bucket, in which Gird could now see leaves steeping. He sniffed the sharp-smelling steam.

“At least it smells good.” He dipped some in his own bowl, and took it over to the sick men. Now he’d have to remember not to eat from his bowl until he could wash it. But Ivis had found a wooden cup the fevered man had used. Gird poured the hot liquid into it carefully. Ivis and Cob had stripped off his clothes, and washed him with the clean water they’d brought. Gird had no idea what the fever was; the man had the sour smell of sickness, but nothing he could recognize.

“Will he rouse at all?”
Ivis shrugged. “He opened his eyes when we first touched him with the wet cloth, but said nothing.”
Gird held the steaming cup under the man’s nostrils; they twitched. “Let’s lift him, and see if he’ll drink.”
Cob looked worried. “The healer in our village said if they’re not awake, don’t make them drink.”

“Just a sip.” Gird was sure the man was really dying, but felt he had to try. Ivis lifted him, and Gird held the cup to his lips. When he tried to pour a little in, it dribbled back out. Gird sighed. “Well. If he wakes, we can try again.”

“Do you think he’ll wake?”
“No. But I’m no healer; I could be wrong.”

They turned to the other man. Gird helped Herf bathe him with clean water, and wrap him in the cleanest clothes they could find. Gird hated touching the man’s clammy skin; it reminded him of tending Issa, who had been sick so often. They gave him a drink of clean water; he did not heave it up at once, so Gird felt more hopeful. He looked across the campsite, and saw Triga and someone else dragging loaded baskets away toward the pickoaks. Artha was back at the firepit, gathering more ashes.
“Do you think they would share our food?” asked Cob. That was what Gird had been thinking; he simply did not know.

“If they would, we’d have them in our troop before midnight,” said Ivis, grinning. “I still think it was that first hearthcake, Gird, that settled your place in our camp.”

Gird grinned back. “You were tougher than that. I thought it was Fori’s squirrels. But you know the customs: if they eat our food, and we don’t eat theirs, that’s their obligation and our protection. And they’ve already said they won’t share.”

“Felis said it. Felis may be wishing he hadn’t been so clever.”
“We can offer.” Gird stood up and headed for the firepit again. At this auspicious moment, one of his food tally groups returned, gleefully carrying the carcass of a young pig.
“If they won’t share now,” breathed Herf, “they’re so crazy we don’t want them.”

“How did they get that?” muttered Gird. “They haven’t been down robbing some farmer’s pigsty, have they?” When the commotion died down, he learned that they’d come across a sounder of wild swine, feasting on mushrooms and old acorns under the pick-oaks. One fell to a lucky shot by one of the slingers Fori had been trying to teach.

“I guess there were enough of us, so the most of them ran, and that one—it just knocked him flat, and then we landed on him, and slit his throat.”
“And the others didn’t come back. We were lucky.” Gird looked at his smug foragers, spattered with blood and dirt, and then around at the locals, who looked as hungry as wolves.
“We caught him, but he lived in your wood,” Gird said loud enough for all to hear. “We would share the feast.”
The local men in the clearing looked at Felis, who spread his hands. “All right. But all we have is grain mush.”

Gird breathed a sigh of relief. They should share food both ways; that made the obligations equal. “We would be glad to share freely, all we have with all you have.” He would like to have insisted that all of them, locals and his men alike, clean up before eating, but with the stream so foul that was impossible. He called his troop together, while the cook and Diamod fashioned a spit for roasting the pig, and supervised the washing of hands in clean water. No one argued; they seemed almost proud to demonstrate their superior habits to the locals. That led to a flurry of handwashing by the locals as well, and Gird was content.

Soon the smell of roasting pig overcame the worst of the camp’s stench. The cook caught the dripping juices off the pig, and stirred them into the mush, along with salt from Gird’s pouch. By the time the pig was done, Gird’s appetite had returned full force. With roast pig, mush, and the bread they’d brought, everyone had plenty to eat, and the conversations around the firepit were friendly. Then one of the locals got up and sauntered toward the creek.

“Use the new trench,” said Gird. The man stopped. “But it’s dark. I couldn’t find it.”
“Cob, help him.”
The man opened his mouth to complain and shut it again. Cob was up, with a brand from the fire. “This way,” he said.
“But we always—” the man said, looking at Felis.
“Do it,” Felis said. “They fed us our own pig; they can tell us where to put our own jacks.”

Gird was up before dawn; the rank smell had gotten into his dreams, and he’d been pursued through dark tunnels by something with poison fangs and bad breath. His own men were curled up neatly enough under the edge of the pickoaks, where the smell was least. The locals were sprawled anyhow around the firepit. Gird went to the jacks, then picked his way to the firepit and poked up the fire. It was going to be a clear day, but dew had soaked the stones; he dared not sit down until they dried. He went to look at the sick men, and found that the fevered one had died in the night. The other was asleep, breathing easily. He put more wood on the fire, until it crackled, and then took a bucket and started upstream. On his way back, he met Fori with the other bucket.

“I thought this must be where you were,” said Fori. “And I knew you’d want more good water.”
“Another fifty paces up, there’s a clean creek coming in from one side. I went up that to a pool—I think there’s a spring under it.”
“That’s what Pidi said, when I asked him. Felis is asking for you.”

“Is he?” Gird went back down, stepping carefully as the water tried to slosh out of the bucket. Felis would have waked with one of two plans, and Gird hoped the man had sense. He doubted it; anyone who couldn’t stay out of his own mess could hardly be called sensible. Besides, it was never easy for a man to give up leadership.

Felis, however, had taken a third route Gird hadn’t thought of. “I talked to everyone,” he said, as soon as Gird came into the clearing. “They want to follow you. They think you know how to run an army.” Gird set the bucket down by the firepit, and blinked. He hadn’t expected Felis to ask the others himself, privately. “What about you?” he asked.

Felis darkened with the easy blush of the redhead. “I wish I had done what you did,” he said. “I wish I’d thought of all that. All I thought of was fighting itself—I kepttrying to learn swordfighting— Gird met his gaze. “Do you want to learn my way, or go your own?”

“I’ll stay, if you’ll let me.”
“You fooled me,” Gird said. “I thought you’d be angry, and go away.”
“Iam angry,” said Felis. “But you did it fairly, and not to make me angry. Did you?”
“No. At least—” remembering his own anger of the day before, “—at least, I didn’t start that way. It seemed such a waste.”
Felis’s followers had been watching their conversation from a distance, furtively; when Gird and Felis smiled at each other and clasped hands, everyone relaxed.

That day was spent cleaning up the camp as best they could, while the new members learned how Gird’s system worked. Supper was less a feast, for no lucky catch rewarded that day’s hunters. But the camp stank less, and Pidi had given two draughts of flannelweed to the man with flux. He had not died, at least, and had not heaved all day.

“What now?” asked Felis, as they sat around the dying fire. “Are you going to drill us for a few hands of days, and then go take over another group?”

Gird yawned and stretched. He was very tired. “No,” he said. “No, I have another plan. The Stone Circle must learn drill, and all the soldiering possible, but we’ll never have enough outlaws to fight a war. We’ve got to have a way to traineveryone. At home. While they farm, or make pots, or whatever it is they do.”

“How?” asked Cob, beside him.
“Tomorrow,” said Gird. “I’ll explain it all tomorrow.”
Chapter Thirteen
«^»

The newcomers, Gird discovered, had already grasped the idea of traveling quietly, with scouts ahead and behind. He led them back up the stream they had camped beside. The sick man looked as if he would definitely recover; they carried him in a pole-slung litter. All of them carried some piece of equipment, for Gird did not intend to return to that camp until it had had time to clean itself.

“I suppose you want us to dig a jacks trench every time we stop?” asked Felis.
“Yes.” Gird was ready to glare, but Felis merely shook his head, and grinned. They were halted for a noon rest on the shady side of a hill, where the scrub grew barely more than head-high.
Summer heat shimmered on the slopes around them, and baked pungent scents from the scrub.
“So will you tell us your plan now?”

Gird looked around at the others. They were all listening; he wondered how they would react. Was there a better time? He thought not. But instead of answering Felis directly, he asked, “How many men did you have when you started?”

Felis frowned thoughtfully. “I didn’t start it—but there were three hands when I came. Then Irin died, and then two more came, and then six, but one of them died soon; he’d been hurt. Three hands, four—it went up and down.”

“And how many other groups are there, and how large do you think they are?”

Felis began tapping the ground, as if a map, to remind himself. “I heard of one away westward—beyond your village—Diamod went there once and said they had less than two hands of men. North and west, another, but I heard that one was captured and killed, all of them. Two hands, maybe three. South and east, someone told me of a large group: five or six hands of men, maybe more. But I heard they have fields, and can feed themselves.”

Gird nodded. “That’s what I thought. There may be more groups, but nowhere more than the farmers can support. We can’t feed ourselves. So a day or two of travel between groups—each one drawing food from two or three villages—and the villages are so poor. Four hands is a large group; five is too large for most. And without proper care for the food theydo get, some of it is wasted. Diamod told me several years ago there were enough in the Stone Circle to fight a war, but ten soldiers here and fifteen there and twenty over here don’t make an army. They have to be together. Organized. Training together.”

“But I don’t see—”

“We need the Stone Circle: we need a place for men to go when they’ve been outlawed or have lost their holdings. But we need an army more. And we need an army that can feed itself during training, house itself during training, clothe itself—”

“It’s impossible!”

“No, I don’t think so.” Gird let his eyes wander from face to face. “We were all farmers, craftsmen—we fed ourselves, housed ourselves—and in the evenings, off-season, we sat around our bartons or our homes and talked.”

“Yes, and you yourself would have nothing to do with fighting when you still had your holding,” said Diamod boldly.

“That’s true, because you wanted me to sneak away and teach you drill—go away from my home, and my work, and risk discovery both ways, to teach strangers. I say now I was wrong. But what I told you then still has force. Suppose you had said, ‘Letus teachyou how to fight and defend yourselves—here in your own village, you and the men you know best fighting shoulder to shoulder to protect your own against the lords.’ Do you think I might have answered differently?”

A long silence. Diamod opened his mouth and shut it. Felis pulled a grass stem, chewed it, and spat it out. The others said nothing, but all the faces conveyed shifting thoughts and emotions. Finally Triga said, “You mean for us to go into villages and teach farmers what you’ve taught us—by ourselves?”

“It won’t work,” said Herf suddenly. “It can’t—the lords would see it, their guards would. Right under their noses, peasants drilling? They’d be hung on the spikes by nightfall.”
“There aren’t guards stationed in every village,” said Ivis. “If they would have their own scouts out, to see anyone coming—”
“Better than that,” said Gird. “Think how our villages are built. Every cottage, nearly, has its own—”
“Barton!” said Fori, eyes suddenly alight. “Walled in—no one can see, but over the back gate—

“That’s right,” said Gird. “Bartons. Big enough to teach a few men to march together, use sticks. No one notices when the men go into a barton of an evening, or the noise that comes out of it— men telling jokes, drinking ale—” He could suddenly feel it, the mellow flow of liquid down his throat that would ease his joints and make the old stories new again.
Felis pursed his lips. “Not everyone in the village will do it— what about those who don’t? What if they report it?”

“Start small. One or two, let the locals decide who else to ask. Nobody in my village would’ve reported it to the steward, though some wouldn’t come. Let ’em stay home. And if the guards do come, what’s to see? A group of men talking and singing, same as any evening.”

On face after face, Gird could see the idea take root and grow. He watched its progress through the group. It would work; he knew it would work. It had come to him in a flash of insight so intense that it waked him out of a sound sleep. He had been planning to try it, but the attack on Rahi had come first.

“So: you train us, and we train them. Just those of us here could reach five, six hands of villages, and if every village trained four hands of men—”
“But would we try to move in with them? Someone would surely notice that—”

Gird nodded. “I know. I’m not sure what the best way is, but I’m sure that training the farmers at home is part of it.” He stretched, relieved that they seemed to understand his point and agree. “But right now, each one of you must know everythingI know—and be able to teach it. And if you know something I don’t, you must teach me.”

“You don’t know everything?” asked Felis slyly.

“No. I didn’t know how to plait baskets or cook frogs; Triga taught me that.” Triga grinned and raised a fist. “We all share some knowledge—the farmers among us, at least. But many of us have special skills, something extra, which we can share with others.”

By Midsummer Eve, Gird had both groups drilling with sticks. They camped apart, for he still could not feed both at once. One campsite lay just within the east side of the wood, and the other was near (but carefully not in) Triga’s bog. But the flow of information, skills, and supplies went back and forth almost daily. They drilled apart three days, and came together on the fourth, to practice larger group movement outside the forest, on a grassy hillside.

Both camps had the clean, tidy look of a good master’s workshop—and it was a workshop, as Gird explained often. If they had an army someday, of farmers who had trained in their bartons, they would have to have camps in the field, and those camps would have to have jacks, kitchens, shelters for wounded, space to store supplies. Here, in small groups, they could learn what worked, and later they could show others.

As summer days lengthened, the food-gathering groups were able to bring back more and more supplies. Gird insisted that some of these be stored for emergencies. They dried fruit on lattices of plaited grass, cut the wild grain and threshed it, dug edible tubers, honed their skill at slinging and throwing. Archery was harder. Of the four bows between the two groups, one had broken early, and it seemed no one could make good arrows. Still, the best of them occasionally hit a bird or rabbit. Each camp had its own handmill, and when there was grain to grind, they had bread. Gird toyed with the idea of trying to brew some ale, but they really couldn’t afford the grain. Maybe after harvesttime, he thought—next winter would be cold and dismal enough, without giving up ale entirely.

Gird rotated all the men through all the tally groups, but noticed which had special abilities. The whittlers, sure of an appreciative audience, worked even when not on actual tool duty, fashioning spoons and bowls, dippers and pothooks. Some of the men took to the old stone tools, and one liked to spend his spare time chipping new blades from flint cobbles. No one sneered, now, at those who could make useful baskets, or sew neat patches.

On Midsummer Eve, lacking ale, they drank the fresh juice of wild grapes and sat out under the stars, singing the old traditional songs. Like Midwinter, Midsummer was a fireless night, but this one was not dark and cold. In the freshness before Midsummer dawn, when every sweet scent of the earth redoubled its strength, Gird lay in the long grass and wished they could have women with them. The other men, too, were restless, remembering the traditional end to all those traditional songs, when the brief hours of darkness were spent first hunting the elusive flowers said to bloom only that night, and then celebrating them. Gird thought of his first night with Mali, of all the Midsummers he’d spent with her. A breath of air moved, wafting still more scent past him, and he rolled up on one elbow. She had been dead, and he had not gone back out, but now he was out, and he could not stop thinking about it.

Of course it would not do. He made himself get up and walk around the others, who pretended to be asleep. The two or three who were really asleep risked dangerous dreams, on Midsummer night. They snored, or muttered, and tossed uneasily. He did not wake them, walking farther away into the stillness. Dew lay heavy on the grass, gray-silver in the starlight, in the slow light of dawn that rose from the east in faintly colored waves.

Two days later, he had just come from the eastern camp, and was nearing the other, when Diamod met him on the trail.
“I have to tell you something,” he said. Gird stopped. He had made a rule that they not talk on the trail, even when chance-met like this. But Diamod’s expression declared this an emergency.
“What, then?”
“Your daughter Raheli—”

Gird’s heart contracted; his vision hazed. “She’s dead.” Despite the two reports he had had, he had continued to worry, sure that she might yet die of her injuries or her sorrow. He had worked harder, to keep himself from thinking about it, but her face haunted him.

“No—she’s come.”
Relief and shock contended; he felt that the ground beneath him swayed “Come? You mean—come here ? They wouldn’t keep her?”
“They would have been glad to keep her; she would not stay. She has come here, and she insists she is joining us.”

“No!” That was loud enough to send birds squawking away in the forest canopy overhead, and loud enough for any forester to hear. Gird bit back another bellow and lowered his voice. “It’s impossible. She can’t—”

“You come tell her that. She followed me here from Fireoak— I didn’t even know she was following until I reached the wood, and then I couldn’t—I didn’t think I should—send her back. Or that she’d go.”

Rahi alive, and well enough to walk so far—that was as much as he’d hoped. More. He wanted to see her, hold her, know she was whole and strong again. He remembered the blood on her face, on her body. When he looked at Diamod, the man seemed to have understood his very thought, because he nodded slowly.

“Yes, she has a terrible scar, and no, she seems not to mind. She wore no headscarf. Something else, she’s dressed like a man.”

Gird shook his head, shrugged, could not think of anything to say. Most headstrong of his children—how was he going to convince her to leave? If she had come this far, it would not be easy, and if she refused to obey him, it would cause him trouble with the men.

“What has she said to the men?” he asked Diamod.
“She said she was your daughter, and must see you. She had told me she meant to stay, but when I left she had said nothing else to the others.”
“Thank Alyanya’s grace for that,” said Gird. He shivered, flicked his fingers to avert the trouble, whatever it had been (and he could guess well enough) and started on toward the camp.

The other men were all busy, carefully busy and carefully avoiding the tall, strongly built person in trousers and man’s shirt who sat motionless on a log, back toward him. Gird paused to look at her. From that distance, in that garb, she looked like a boy, her short dark hair (she had cut her hair!) rumpled, her big hands busy with a knife on a stick of wood. What was she whittling? When had she learned to whittle—or had she known, and he not known it?

He came toward her; the other men’s glances at him alerted her, and she turned, then stood. She stood very straight, as she had when expecting punishment in childhood—she had been the one of his children most likely to defy him. Now he could see the ruin that blow had made of her beauty, a scar worse than her mother’s, puckering the corner of her mouth. Her jaw had been broken, by the unevenness of it now. Her eyes held nothing he had seen before, in her years as child and maid and young wife. They might have been stones, for all the softness in them.

He could not bear it. He could not bear it that his daughter, his (he could admit it to himself) favorite, could look at him “Rahi—” he began. Then he found himself reaching for her, sweeping her into his hug despite her tension when she felt his hands. She stiffened, pushed him back, then stood passively. That was worse. He held her off, searching her face for some part of the girl who had been. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think—”

“I came to stay,” she said, as if it were a ritual she had memorized. “I came to fight. I am strong. I have no—no family ties.”
“Rahi—!” He was appalled. But she went on.
“No child, no husband, nothing—but the strength of my body, the skill of my hands. I can be useful, and I can fight.”
The other men had vanished, into the trees. Gird did not blame them; he was grateful for their tact. He was also sure they were listening avidly from behind every clump of leaves.
“I can’t marry again,” Rahi went on. “I’m—too noticeable. Imagine going before a steward or bailiff.

And the healers say that fever may have made me barren, as well as killing my—the—child. And I don’t want to marry again. I want to do something—” She snapped the stick she’d been whittling, and flung the pieces away. “Something to end this, so no other young wife will see her husband die as I did, and then have it be his wrongdoing—” She looked up at Gird, eyes suddenly full of tears. “I have to do this, Gird, here or somewhere else.”

She had not called him Da, or the more formal father: she had called him Gird, like any of his men. That was another pain, even closer to the deep center of his heart where father and child were bound in ancient ties. He blinked back his own tears, and brushed away those that had run down his cheeks. His beard was wetter than he expected.

He tried to stay calm. “Rahi, love, we can’t have women here, in the camps. Not to fight—and it’s not fair otherwise. It’s not safe.”
“Was I safe tending my own hearth at home?” she asked bitterly. “Is any woman safe? Are we safer when the strongest men are off in the woods playing soldier?” Gird grasped at the weak end of that.

“That’s going to change; I thought of a way for men to learn soldiering in the villages.” He explained quickly, before she could argue, and when he finished she was nodding. “So you see—” he said, easing into it.

“I see,” she interrupted. “I see that the men will get some training, and then you’ll take them away to a battle, leaving the women unprotected.”
“That’s not what I meant!”

“That’s what it will be. You know that. Remember, years ago, when you told me I was as good as another son? After Calis died? I know many girls aren’t that strong—but not all men are as strong as you, yet you’ve got Pidi here—little Pidi that I can sling over my shoulder—and you think I can’t—”

“It’s not just strength. You know that.” Gird was sweating; he could feel it trickling down his ribs, and his hands were slick with it. “What about—you know—all those women things—”

Rahi stared at him a moment, and then snorted. A chuckle fought its way up, and she was suddenly convulsed with laughter. “Oh, Da—oh, Lady’s grace, it still hurts when I laugh, but—You mean you neverknew ?”

“Knew what?” He could not imagine what she thought was funny about the problems having women in camp could bring.

Her hand waved, vaguely, as she tried to stop laughing, and hiccuped instead. “Mother never told you? All those years and you thought—” she shook her head, laughing again. Finally, eyes streaming tears, she regained control. Now, flushed from laughter, she looked like his daughter again, like her mother—all the warmth and laughter that Mali had brought into his life regained. Gird stared at her, halfway between anger and delight. She took a long breath, with her hand to her side, and explained “Da, women have ways—herbs, brews—we’re not like cows, you know. We’re people; we understand our bodies. If it’s a bad time—and I agree, fighting a war would be a bad time—we take care of it and don’t make a mess. I can’t tell you; it’sour knowledge.”

“But Issa—”

“Oh, Issa!” Rahi shook her cropped hair. “It doesn’t work for some women, or they won’t bother—that kind wouldn’t want to learn soldiering anyway.” She chuckled softly, a gentler sound. “I thought I would never laugh again, and here the first time I see you, I disgrace myself—”

“It’s no disgrace to laugh,” Gird said. He wanted to reach for her again, hug her, stroke her hair as he had when she was a small child. But she was a woman, and a woman who had suffered too much to be treated as a child. “Even after sorrow—it comes, sometimes, when no one expects it.”

Rahi nodded. “Mother used to say it was the Lady’s way of making it bearable. Tears in joy, laughter in sorrow, she said, were a sign of the Lady’s presence.” She reached out to him, her hand almost as large as his own, and patted his shoulder. “There—now I’ve grieved, and laughed, and called you Da again, which I said would not do, were I your soldier. But I’m staying.”

And from that decision he could not budge her, not then nor that night nor the next day. Their argument was conducted in the spurious privacy of the camp, with everyone not listening. Between bouts, Rahi demonstrated her usual competence, fitting her contributions of work and skill in effortlessly. Gird began to notice covert grins, sidelong sly looks at her, at him. The skin on the back of his neck itched constantly from being looked at. His ears felt sunburnt. Rahi did not take part in the drill sessions, but she was clearly watching and learning the commands.

After the afternoon’s stick drill, Ivis lingered when the others dispersed to their assigned groups. “Your daughter—” he said, his eyes down.
“Yes.” Gird bit it off. He was going to have to talk about it, without having solved it, and it could do nothing but harm.
“You told us.”
“Yes.” He’d forgotten that, by this time. He looked at Ivis, who was staring past his shoulder. Gird resisted the temptation to look around—was Ivis looking at Rahi?
“She’s a lot like you,” Ivis said.
“She’s—what?”
“Like you. Gets things done. Strong—more than one way.” Gird grunted. He could see where this was leading, and he didn’t like it. Had Rahi been talking to them behind his back?
“She hasn’t said anything, but we couldn’t help hearing a little…”

Gird squinted up at the bright sky showing between the leaves, and asked himself why Mali hadn’t had all boys. Life would have been a lot simpler. “She wants to stay; you all know that. She can’t. She’s stubborn, like her mother.”And me , his mind insisted silently.

“Stubborn on both sides,” he admitted aloud. “But it’s impossible.”
Ivis dug a toe into the dirt and made a line. “She’s not like most women.”

Gird snorted. “She’s like all women. Wants her way, and expects to get it. But with Rahi, it’s even more so. Her next older brothers died, in a plague. That may have been it, though Mali—my wife— she was a strongminded woman too.” As if she were alive again, he heard her voice in his ear, as she had warned him that first night at the gathering.I will not guard my tongue for any man, she’d said, and she’d kept that vow. Along with all the others. And had taught Rahi the same, if teaching had anything to do with what was born in the blood. He could feel his own blood contending. If only Rahi had been his son—but then it might have been Rahi dead, and his (her?) wife left. Gird shook his head. That was too complicated; what he had was complicated enough. How could the men respect a leader who couldn’t make his daughter obey?

“We think she’s earned it—if she can, if she’s strong enough—”
“Strong enough! Of course she’s strong enough; that’s not the point.”

Ivis cleared his throat noisily. “Gird—it is the point. To us, anyway. You’ve worried about some of the men here having the strength to lead, or the courage when it comes to a real fight. She’s—she’s your daughter, and we know what happened. She should be here.”

Gird stared at him. “You think that? But if I let her—what about others?”
Ivis cleared his throat again. “The—the one thing I did hear her say, to Pidi, was that women could train at home too. In the bartons.”

In the bartons I don’t have yet, Gird thought furiously. In the bartons that are safe—if they are safe—only because the men always gather in the bartons. Again a memory of Mali forced itself into his consciousness, the day of their wedding when she had faced the ridiculous ceremonies with no embarrassment whatever. Were women really just humoring men with all that squealing and shyness? Could they—he had no doubts about Rahi, who could probably ride wild horses if the chance occurred—couldother women really learn to fight, use weapons,kill —alongside men?

Ivis was watching his face with a wary expression. “She said I shouldn’t say anything to you,” he said.
Gird glared at him. “I thought you said you hadn’t talked to her!”
“I haven’t. I would have, but she wouldn’t. Said it was up to you and her to work out, and I should stay out of it.”
“Giving you orders, eh?” For some reason that amused him; he could feel Rahi’s resentment of someone’s interference, her fierce determination to convince Gird by herself.
Ivis grinned, catching the change in Gird’s mood. “You notice I didn’t obey.”
“So how many of them agree with you?”
Ivis relaxed still more. “I didn’t talk to all, but all I asked agreed that they would let her stay.”

Gird muttered one of the old guards’ curses he hadn’t used in years; Ivis clearly had never heard it and didn’t understand. “Go away, then. I want to talk to her.” Ivis vanished, as if whisked away by magic. Gird looked around for Rahi. There she was, grinding grain as placidly as any housewife by her hearth. He had a sudden sinking feeling, as if a hole had opened in his chest, and let his heart fall out on the ground. Could he possibly be about to do what he was going to do? He swallowed against the feeling, and called her. She looked up, smiled, and came to him. He noticed that she had, even in that moment, scooped the ground meal into a bowl, and laid another atop it to keep out dirt.

This time he looked her over as if she were a real recruit. Within a finger of his height, broad shouldered, as Mali had been. Thin, from the fever, but with strength in her arms. The scar down her face made her too distinctive to send into a village or town—but she could still see out of both eyes, and had two good arms and legs. He had men with less. She stood there calmly, not arguing. Not intending to change her mind, either; he could feel the force of that determination as if it were heat from a fire.

“I don’t think you understand,” he said without preamble, “how hard it is for me. I’ve already seen you lying at my feet in a pool of blood. I don’t think I can stand seeing that again.”

Her face paled. “You don’t understand how hard it is for me,” she said. “I lost that blood, lost my husband, lost my child, and could not strike even one good blow to stop it. Iknow I cannot stand that—I will not be that helpless again. Not ever. Either you teach me, or—I don’t know, but I’ll learn somehow.”

“And die somewhere I never know,” Gird sighed, near tears again. “And that will be my fault, as it was my fault for not protecting you before. You give me a hard choice, Rahi.” She opened her mouth, but he shook his head. “You would say, as your mother said often enough, that it is a world of hard choices. All right. I give in, on this one thing. But if this kills you, Rahi, make sure it is not because you failed to learn what I could teach.”

If she felt triumph, she did not show it. Only in the corner of her eye, the little wrinkle twitched, whether from surprise or delight, he could not tell, and would not ask.
“And you were right,” he went on, “to call me ‘Gird’ when you first came. If you would be a soldier, then it is for that you are here, and not as my daughter.”
She nodded, gravely. “Yes, Gird.”
“And if you—if you need—” Now her eyes crinkled in what could only be laughter. Gird glared at her. “Dammit—!”
“Gird, if I cannot stay as a soldier, for some reason, I will tell you at once, and go. But it is not likely, even without what I know of herbs: the healer said so.”

His arms ached to hold her, comfort her, restore to her the promises of her childhood—the promises all children should have. But it was too late for that. She looked content with what life had left her; he had no choice now himself. Her future was no more doubtful than his—and, he thought sourly, the only doubt waswhen they’d be strung on the spikes, not if.

But when she returned to grinding, and he saw by the glances passed around the campsite that everyone understood, and accepted his decision (he could not believe many of them actually approved) he was able to return to planning with a lighter heart. If he could establish training in the villages, bartons full of trained men—his mind put other women in that picture, and he hastily blanked them out—in time they would outnumber the lords and their guards. Would any of the guards come over? They had come from peasant ranks. If they saw their friends and family actually fighting, would that make a difference? He let himself imagine a series of battles in which the peasants stood their ground, in drill array, using their sticks and shovels, pushing back the guard and then the lords themselves. Of course, he still didn’t know whether the sticks would work as he saw them in his head.

He sighed. Time to start the next level of training. He had in mind straw-stuffed dummies tied onto logs, to simulate horsemen. It would help if he’d ever actually ridden a horse, and knew in his own body how firmly a horseman could sit. He’d seen men bucked off—he remembered trying to ride calves—but that was not like a soldier on horseback firmly in the saddle. Still, it ought to work. If they could unseat horsemen, they could ambush mounted patrols. Even more important, if they could unseat horsemen—even one horseman—even a straw dummy tied to a log—it might convince the farmers in their villages that it was worthwhile spending all those hours learning to drill and use a stick.

Making the straw dummy was quick work, in the hot days of tall grass and long afternoons. Cob suggested weighting the body with rocks; Triga had the even better suggestion of seating a real person on the log, and pulling him off slowly—to see how a person felt— and then making the dummy feel the same. That turned into several days of experiment, with one after another trying to keep his seat on the log with friends pushing and pulling from one or both sides. Gird took a turn, wondering if it felt anything like riding a real horse, or if it could be a way to learn. It was easy to wrap his long legs around the log and hang on, but hard to keep his balance when someone yanked his arm. After his second fall, he watched Ivis on the log.

“We don’t need the straw dummy,” he said, “As long as we pad the ends of our sticks, and remember that this one is a friend. Whoever’s up can tell us which moves are hardest to counter.”

The rider—Ivis, then others—was equipped with a reed “sword” and laid about vigorously to simulate resistance. Slowly at first, then with increasing confidence and speed, they all learned where to strike a rider to throw him off balance. The game became so popular that Gird had to remind them that there were other ways—and enemies—to fight, or they would have spent all their time knocking one another off logs.

Rahi, in the meantime, had merged almost invisibly into the troop. Gird was acutely aware of her presence for the first few days; then he went off to the other camp, and when he returned it was as if she had always been there—but as a soldier, not his daughter. She did not avoid him, exactly, but she did not spend her free time with Pidi, or with Gird, and even seemed to steer clear of Fori. She had her place in drill, and made no more than the usual beginner’s mistakes. As he would have expected, she learned fast. Gird waited for something to go wrong, but nothing did.

It was now nearing harvest. After harvest the fieldfee collectors would be out; Gird wanted to introduce his barton idea to at least a few villages before then. For that he needed seasoned older men, men the farmers might trust as similar to themselves. They had to be proficient in the drill (although he didn’t expect them to teach the farmers much in the short time until harvest—but they had to impress them.) And—perhaps most important—they had to be reliably close-mouthed. He himself would go, of course. Ivis had developed into a trusted lieutenant, as had Cob. Diamod was known in five or six villages as a Stone Circle organizer. Felis, who might have been another possibility, had broken his wrist on his last “ride” as a target, and would not be fit until after harvest.

After long discussions, Gird chose four villages to test his idea: Fireoak, Harrow (where Felis’s group had supporters), Whitetree, where Ivis’s brother lived, and Hardshallows. Cob and a man from Felis’s group went to Harrow, Ivis to his brother, Gird to Fireoak, and Diamod to Hardshallows. They were to spend no more than two nights in the village, and talk to no more than five men.

Chapter Fourteen
«^»

Coming into Fireoak on a late summer day, as an active rebel organizer, was very different from leaving it as a fugitive who had only the ghost of an idea for rebellion. The two of them joined a stream of workers coming in from the fields: harvest markers, who went into the fields before harvest to make sure the boundary stones didn’t roll an armspan one way or the other—herders prodding slow-moving cows toward home and milking time. Gird flared his nostrils, enjoying the scent of cow. He had never understood those who thought cows stank. Pigs stank; dogs stank; even people—but cows had a rich, joyful scent, as befitted animals who lived on fresh grass and herbs. Their droppings had never disgusted him. Someone—he could not right then remember who—had told him once that a man should keep only those animals whose smells were pleasant to him.

The Fireoak farmers and herdsmen knew perfectly well the two were outlanders, but they knew Diamod and had heard of Gird. They sauntered down the lane, dusty and brown as the farmers with them, and no one spoke to them. Slow, traditional talk rolled by: harvest chances, taxes, a remedy for stiff ankles followed by a joke about the cause, comments on cows and weather and the uncommon number of rabbits that summer—a joke directed at Gird, which he well understood and knew better than to answer.

“Pop up and down everywhere, they do,” someone said a second time, to see if he would rise to the bait. “Got so common, we might think they’s people.”

Then the village, with its familiar cottages, the wattle fences between smallgardens, the walls of bartons rising behind. It was at once strange and the same: so like his own village, and yet not his village—and his village was not his village. Gird sniffed: bread, cheese, the vegetables they had not yet planted for the camps, ale somewhere—his mouth watered. Children wandered about, too thin but not yet starving, noticing the strangers but warned away from saying anything by quick gestures from their elders.

He would have passed Mali’s brother’s cottage, if Diamod had not jabbed him in the ribs. It looked different by daylight, from the front. He remembered Rahi’s harsh feverish breathing in the barton out back, the gray light of dawn when he’d eased out the gate into the field beyond. Now he saw a low fence enclosing a ragged smallgarden, the beaten path to the front door. And in the door, a thin girl, yellowhaired, who held one crooked arm as if it pained her. Her face whitened, and she ducked inside. Gird turned to see Diamod wink before he walked on.

Gird came to the door, stepped out of his boots, and said “Girnis?”

Mali’s brother’s wife, a face he barely remembered from that one night, said “You’re Gird? Gods above, what do you mean— come in, don’t stand there!” Gird picked up his boots and ducked beneath the low lintel. It was dark inside, and would have been cool if not for the fire on the hearth. By that flickering light, Gird could see Girnis standing flat against the wall between a loom and a wheel.

“Is—is Rahi—?”

“She’s alive, and well, and stubborn as ever.” Gird looked at the wife, whose lips were folded together. What had he walked into? He had not asked Rahi all that had happened here, but perhaps he should have.

“I thought—” the woman began, then closed her mouth, and twisted her hands, and finally said again “I thought you were leaving Girnis with us. To be ours.”
“I did,” said Gird, surprised. “I said so; I was grateful.”
She looked at him hard, then her mouth relaxed a little. “You didn’t come to take her?”

“Of course not! Why would you think—” “Raheli left. When she didn’t come back, we thought she was with you, or dead—we didn’t hear of anyone being killed. And then we thought, if you wanted her, you might want Girnis, but she’s—”

“She’s not Rahi.” She was the child of Mali’s illness, the twin that lived, but never as vigorous as a singleton. “I wouldn’t take her. Girnis, let me see you.”
Girnis came to him, shyly but now unalarmed. Her arm had healed a little crooked—not so bad, when she held it out. But she stood with it up, as if it were still in its bindings, and it was thinner than the other.
“Does it still hurt you?” he asked. She nodded.
“Mother Fera—” she glanced toward the woman, “—says I should move it more, but the joint hurts, Da, when I try.”

“Let me feel.” Gird took her arm, conscious of its thinness, and the faint tremor—nervousness? pain?—that met his touch. He bent and straightened it slowly, stopping when he met resistance and heard her indrawn breath. He could feel nothing wrong but stiffness, but he was not a healer. “I’m sure your aunt has tried heat,” he said, “and herb poultices. I think myself it would be good to move it more. Sometimes things hurt when they’re healing. A few times a day, anyway—I think you could do that.” She nodded, solemnly. She was quiet; she had always been quiet, the quietest of his children, but not slow. Just quiet, in a house full of noisy ones.

The woman had moved nearer; she looked less alarmed. “We’ve had an offer for her,” she said. “She has a mixed parrion, she says?”
Gird nodded. “Yes. She has Mali’s parrion of herbcraft, and Issa’s—my brother’s wife’s—parrion of embroidery. Issa was a weaver, as well, but died before Girnis learned enough.”
“I am a weaver,” the woman said. “I can teach her, if her arm strengthens. But—will you let us arrange the marriage?”
“Of course. I told you—if you in your kindness will have her, she is your daughter, and yours is the right to speak for or against.”
He heard boots in the barton, and stiffened, but the woman called through the house: “Gird’s here. It’s all right.”
After that awkwardness, he was surprised to find that Mali’s brother was enthusiastic about the possibility of training within the village.

“Of course, the bartons,” he said. “You’re right, Gird, and I don’t know why we hadn’t thought of it before. Had no one to teach us, I suppose. I know—let me think—I know two hands of men who would join here, at once. What about weapons?”

“Drill first, then weapons,” said Gird. He and Barin were sitting on the cool stones of the barton, drinking ale to celebrate. He could feel a delicate haze leaching the tiredness from his bones.
“What about women?” asked Barin.

“Mmm?” “You’ve got Rahi now. I’m Mali’s brother, after all; I remember what she was like and how relieved the family was when you offered for her. Will you take women like that in?”

Gird shrugged. “Iwould myself, but I can’t force another group to do it. What about you?”
“I don’t like the thought of seeing my wife—but after all, she could be cut down for no reason, as Rahi was. Most of them won’t want to anyway, but for a few—why not?”

The following night, five other men visited Barin’s, presumably to finish an open barrel of ale before the beginning of harvest, when it was bad luck to have one. They talked village gossip until the stars were thick and white, then Gird spoke his piece. Less open than Barin, they still agreed it was a good idea. The longer they talked it over, the more they liked it—except that only two of them thought women should be allowed to join.

“They talk too much,” said one of the men. “Let them find out, and it’d be all over the village by dawn.”
Barin laughed. “And who was it let out the secret of Kinvit’s lover, last winter?”

The others burst into laughs; the man who had complained of women talking too much said “But it wasn’t my fault!” Gird chuckled. It was always the same; the loosest mouths complained that others gossiped.Their tales were always true, and if the wrong story got out, it was never their fault. Finally the man came around, laughing at himself. “All right,” he said. “I got drunk; I opened my mouth, and out fell Kinvit and Lia, doing what Kinvit and Lia had been doing since harvest. No nosy old granny could have done worse.” But he was still opposed to having women training in the village. Gird did not push him, letting Barin do most of the talking. They would all know, by now, about Raheli; they would all assume that Gird had a special reason for allowing women to fight. And that was perfectly true.

In the end, the men voted to organize a barton meeting, and gradually recruit new members. Gird promised to send someone— “It may not be me,” he pointed out—to train them. “Consider him a sergeant,” he said at first, but even in starlight he could see the dislike they had for that name, associated as it was with the lords’ tyranny. “What would you call him, then?”

They talked back and forth, suggesting and arguing, until one of them said “We’re like a bunch of cattle milling in a pen, waiting for the herdsmarshal to set us on our way.”
“Marshal!” said Barin, smacking his leg with his fist. “That’s good—and it’s not a word we would fear to have overheard. Marshal. And the rest of us are—”
“Yeomen,” said Gird. “That covers all of us, farmers and craftsmen alike. Any but lords. And no one will ever know, from talk of it, what it is.”
“I do like that,” Barin said. “The yeomen and the marshal meet in the barton tonight. As long as we need only those two ranks—”

“But we’ve got another!” It had come to Gird in another of those flashes of insight. “Marshal—that’s one of us traveling, coming to train you. But even in the village, you’ll need a leader—that’s the yeoman-marshal. And then yeoman for everyone else.”

“And someday—” Barin said. He didn’t have to finish. They all drained the last of their ale, and stamped their feet in agreement. Gird could see it—the flow of men out to the Stone Circle, to learn. The flow back in, to train those in the bartons… and back out, to the fight they all knew must come, and then back, to take up their peaceful lives. As natural as breathing, or the cycle of seasons. He knew from experience that ale could make things seem simpler than they were in morning’s light, but this was going to work.

Work began in earnest when he returned to the camp and conferred with the others who had gone out. All the villages had shown an interest—not surprising, since they had talked to men already known to be Stone Circle sympathizers. Two of the others had noticed that the villagers shied from the usual military rank terms of sergeant and captain, but they had not come up with alternatives. They nodded when Gird told them about marshal, yeoman-marshal, and yeoman.

“That’ll do,” said Ivis. “They won’t mind that—it’s nothing like the guards. Best of all, we can talk about it in front of anyone— even a guard sergeant—and he won’t know what it is.” Gird nodded.
“They thought of that, too.”
“Will we all be marshals?” asked Cob. “I mean, when we’re drilling here, that’s going be to confusing.”

“None of us are marshals yet,” Gird said. “And some of us may be better than others at teaching. Besides, we still don’t know enough.” In his mind, the wheel of the year turned, grinding the moments away. How long before the first snowfall? Before full winter? Four bartons to train, this winter—maybe more. “After harvest,” he said, “we need to bring one man from each village here, to drill with us, and see how the larger units work. When the taxes are paid, no one takes much notice if someone travels to visit relatives. In the meantime, our own harvest: I hear the field-fees are up again, and we cannot starve our allies.”

For the next few hands of days, they drilled only briefly, spending most of their time gathering food and preparing it for storage. No casual nutting and berrying, this time, but a planned harvest of the woods and fields, that must be done before the lords came to hunt, in the days after the fieldfees were paid. Gird had planned food storage sites both in and away from the camps, so that if one were found and destroyed, others would be safe. They could not hunt, and risk foresters preparing for the lords’ visits seeing their smoke or smelling the blood, but they could gather fruit, tubers, berries, and stow them away. Into storage pits lined with rock went redroots and onions: their own harvest had been abundant. Other roots and tubers, bulbs and nuts, were stored with them, along with apples and plums and dried berries, bundles of herbs, strips of necessary barks. Their own baskets stored grain as well, harvested from the edges of common pastures, along streambanks, and in Triga’s bog. Gird moved from place to place, checking the growing stores, and trying to foresee what hazards they must survive.

After harvest, the lords would come to hunt the large wood; Gird moved everyone to the tangle of hills where Felis’s group had lived, and the only game worth hunting was wild boar. If they stayed out of the pickoak scrub, living uncomfortably in the lower brush, they should avoid the occasional hunting party with a taste for pig. The men grumbled, but only slightly. Gird found work for them even in the chest-high thickets of brush.

“We might need to come this way and hide, and it would be good to have paths they can’t see from the opposite hill.” So his troop crawled and twisted through the thick growth, hacking out paths wider than the rabbit-trails they found. Rahi sniffed the hacked ends of the scrub, and said she thought some of these were medicinal, stunted by soil or dryness. She began making a collection of twigs, bark, roots, and brewed a variety of pungent bitter concoctions which she insisted he taste. They all made his tongue rough up in furrows; they tasted as if they ought to do something good. One made him sweat profusely.

At last Ivis’s forester friends sent word that their duke and his friends had returned to the city; the forest was theirs for the winter. By this time the autumn rains were beginning, turning their trails to cold gray mud. Gird wished he had a stone cottage, with a great roaring hearth; his knees ached constantly. Instead, he had the three main campsites he’d found for winter, two backed into the south face of a hill, and one deep in a grove of cedars and pines. His favorite had a clean-running creek, small but adequate to their needs, and the surrounding trees had all dropped their leaves, letting in the low winter sunlight. The other south-facing camp had a larger stream, but he was somewhat worried about floods, come spring. Even in the slower autumn rains, they had to cross the stream on fallen logs. The men called that one Big Creek, and the other Sunbright; the most secluded campsite they called Cedars.

No one grumbled when he insisted they go right on working, rather than huddle in the first shelter they could contrive. He did not know if they were learning to think ahead, or if they simply accepted his orders. But wet and cold as it was now, winter could only be worse. The shelters he had planned went up quickly: wattle frames for side and roof, thatched with whatever they could find, mostly wild grass. Gird realized, as they wrestled with the grass between rains, that he should have had them out scything it earlier. Next year, he thought. And by then he would need another scythe or two. And some sickles. They smeared mud on the insides of the walls. Triga suggested another plan: poles braced against a tree, lashed together, and then wattle woven to make a circular peaked shelter. After building a couple like this, he admitted that it took more work, and gave less interior room, but the two they had made a welcome change, like extra rooms, during that winter.

The newly designated yeomen marshals arrived for their training while this was still going on; Gird had to stop for a couple of days to give them intensive training. But they were almost as impressed with the troop’s camp organization as with the drill. This, in turn, helped convince the last doubters among his soldiers that such organization was important. If it could impress strangers, then it was not just a matter of comfort.

The yeomen marshals stayed a hand of days; on the last day, Gird discussed with them the way they’d organize and train during the winter.
“By spring,” he said, “I’d like to have your yeomen ready to drill with another barton. Someday we’ll have to have bartons able to come together quickly.”

“What about recruiting new bartons?” asked the yeoman-marshal from Hardshallows. “I know you wouldn’t want to risk it in your old village—the steward, I hear, is still furious about you, and the men who left after you—but we’re less than a day’s walk from Hawkridge to the west, and not much more from Millburh, down our own stream.”

Gird had hoped no one would suggest that yet; he had wanted to be sure the barton idea would work before starting more. But he could not actually stop them—these were nothis men yet—all he could do was make them sneaky, if they’d already decided. In the pause, while he tried to think how to answer, Barin from Fireoak spoke up.

“I think we should wait until we have at least two—maybe three—hands of yeomen, all drilling well. How else could we show them what we mean? And if—I don’t mean to be illwishing, but if this doesn’t work—if we find that our neighborsdo tell the lords’ men, then better only a few bartons die, than many.”

Gird nodded, glad he hadn’t had to say it himself. “Barin’s right, I think. If your barton grows and prospers, and you’re sure it’s safe, then I will not tell you not to tell the next village. But we’re like a man starting a journey with a heavy load: it’s better to take a few slow steps, and be sure it’s balanced and will hold, than to set off at a run and have the whole thing fall apart.” His hands mimed the falling load, and they all laughed. “One village at a time. I think myself it would be better if only one in each barton knew the name of the yeoman marshal in other bartons.”

“But if he dies?”

“Each of you tell one of your yeomen—not someone you usually work in the field with—how to contact us , here. And let us know the name of that person. Later, everyone will know everyone, but for now, as Barin said,if someone tells, it’s better that only a few die.”

When the yeoman marshals had left, Gird and his troop used the hand of days between the last of the autumn rains and the first of the snows to transport and stow the food and supplies the villages had given them, cut and haul wood for their fires, and add such refinements to their shelters as time and ingenuity allowed. When that first bank of blue cloud rolled across, cutting off the slanting autumn sun, and dropping the temperature, Gird felt that they were as well prepared for winter as possible.

This did not mean he had thought of everything. His own well, in the foreyard of his cottage, froze only in the bitterest winters, and only after midwinter. The clear-running creek that was one of the reasons for choosing Sunbright froze solid before Midwinter, and they must either melt snow and ice for water, or carry it (a cold, heavy load that sometimes froze before they got it home) from a spring some distance away. He had thought to dig the jacks trenches ahead, before the ground froze, but had not realized that the “loose” dirt from them would freeze, and have to be chopped into chunks to fill the trench.

Problems had the advantage of helping Gird keep everyone busy. In the villages, winter boredom led to quarrels and occasional fights. Here, such dissension could be fatal. So his four tally groups had assigned chores, and whenever the weather allowed, Gird chivvied everyone out for a march or drill practice. He divided the groups slightly differently. One brought food from storage, and another cooked it, while the camp chores group had to maintain the fire, the jacks, and the supply of water. The tool groups were set to repairing tools broken or chipped, and to making useful items for the camps. One of the things the villages had sent (at Gird’s request) was yarn; Rahi taught several of the men to knit, using smooth-polished twigs as needles. Knitting was an unusual parrion; she had had it from Mali’s brother’s wife, in the time she lived there, and liked it much better than weaving.

Midwinter was a different kind of problem. Gird had always known when Midwinter was coming because the village headman said so. Here, he realized, everyone thought of him as headman, and he should know when to celebrate Midwinter. He looked up, at a heavy gray sky. The days were still getting shorter, so it wasn’t Midwinter yet. He felt that it would come in a hand or two of days, but he did not know when it would be, or how to find out. But missing the Midwinter celebration was unthinkable.

He asked the others. Most thought it would be “soon” but no one had an exact date. Would it matter? At that thought, a colder chill ran down his neck. Of course it mattered; Midwinter and Midsummer were the ends of the axle on which the year turned. He had to know. He had to find out. Now that the men knew he did not know, they were looking at him nervously.

“How did you find out last year?” he finally thought of asking Ivis.

Ivis flushed. “Last year—well—we all went into one village or another, near Midwinter, and celebrated there.” And before Gird could decide to do the same, he said, “I don’t think we can, this year—we’re too many.”

“True, but we can ask.” Ivis’ village was too far away, across the wood, but one of them could make it to Fireoak and back. To Gird’s surprise, Fori asked to go.
“I can stay with Barin, and ask about Girnis. And the barton.”
Gird nodded. “Good—but be sure you’re backbefore Midwinter.”

Fori set off the next morning with a sack of food and everyone’s prayers. Gird watched all the faces staring after him, and said, “Since you’re all so glad to be outside, get your sticks.” A general groan, but not so dismal as he’d expected.

Stick drill had progressed a little farther. Felis, once his arm healed, was able to demonstrate what he had learned of swordsmanship. Gird suspected it wasn’t much, but he himself had never gotten that far. One thing he did know was the length of swords Kelaive’s guards had used. He asked the others; the duke, Ivis said, carried a longer sword, but no longer than from waist to ground. He had seen him standing with its tip resting on the ground. So, Gird thought, a sword could have a blade that long, or shorter. He asked his one-armed smith, who mentioned curved blades and broad-bladed swords, but agreed on length. That meant that a longer stick could fend off a sword—not fence with it, to lose chips as the sword chopped—but if the stick could hold the swordsman back, the sword could not harm the person with the stick.

It seemed reasonable, but they had to test it. Slowly, Gird insisted. Carefully. No more broken bones, if possible. Felis took those of his original group who had learned the most about swords, and these faced Gird, Cob, and a few others Gird thought he could trust to stay calm.

The sticks were nowhere near spear length, but about the length a man would choose as a walking staff, or for guiding cattle. So far they were not all the same length, although a broad hand would cover the difference. Gird had watched them in use over the past season, noticing carefully what went wrong most often, when the sticks clashed in ranks, which grips did not hold. Now, with Felis well again, they would see. He felt a little silly, standing there with a real stick facing an imaginary sword, but what else could they do?

Felis waggled his wooden “sword” and swiped at Gird. Gird lowered his stick, and pointed it at Felis, who sliced at it. Before the “sword” struck, Gird jabbed the stick at Felis’s face. Felis jerked back, and his sword stroke went wild.

“Wait,” said Felis. “Try that again, slower.” It would not be slow in battle, but they were only learning. Gird nodded, let Felis begin his sideways swipe with the sword, and then jabbed again. Again Felis jerked his head back, and this time, while he was still off balance, Gird jabbed again, and got him in the chest, gently. Felis grunted, then straightened. “I can’t—I think I’m just not good enough—but if you keep poking that at my eyes—I have to back up.”

“Let Cob and Arvan try it,” said Gird, stepping back, Arvan advanced with his “sword” and very little enthusiasm, to meet Cob. Here Cob was the shorter by a head, yet with the length of his stick he could force Arvan off balance.

“It’s too easy,” said Felis, scratching his thick red beard. “These sticks we’re using for swords don’t have the weight of a real weapon. If someone got a blow in, it would jar your stick aside—”

“But could they?” Arvan was frowning. “Cob, just hold it still— let me try.” He swung hard at the stick, and managed to bat it aside, but it swung back on rebound, and Cob needed little force to control it. “But suppose there were more than one swordsman,” Felis said. “If you have more than one coming in, you can’t just poke one. The other one will poke you.”

“That’s what the formation is for,” Gird said. “If it works.” This time he and Cob lined up facing Felis and Arvan. When they lowered their sticks, and jabbed, the two “swordsmen” found themselves giving ground, flailing uselessly with their shorter weapons.

“Just remember,” Felis said, “that even an accidental blow with a sword is going to take chips off that stick. It won’t last forever. Can you do real damage with it?”
“I don’t know.” Gird tapped him in the chest again. “If I did that much harder, you might fall down; I might even break your breastbone, or a rib.”
“You’ll have to swing it to knock someone flat, most times.” Triga, watching, entered the discussion. “And if you swing it, that gives time for a fast swordsman to slip in and kill you.”
“Andif you swing it,” Felis pointed out, “it can foul on someone else’s stick who’s fighting another opponent.”

“Mmmph. I thought we could try this—hold still, now, I won’t really hit you hard.” Gird jabbed at Felis’s face, then tapped his chest, and then slid his hands down to swing the stick like a flail. But Arvan chose that moment to dart in and put his “sword” to Gird’s neck.

“Like that,” Felis said, grinning at Arvan and Gird both. Gird glowered at Cob.
“And where were you, partner?”
Cob looked rueful. “Standing watching you, when I should have been watching Arvan. We have more to learn, yeomen.”
“We could whittle a point on these sticks, and fire-harden it,” said Triga.

“It’s still not going to go through any kind of armor. Even if it did, it would catch there, and I’d be standing there with a dead soldier on the end of my weapon, looking foolish.” Gird scratched his beard vigorously, as if that could clear his head. “I thought if we hit them in the chest hard enough—or in the belly—that would knock them down, maybe even out.”

“Hit them in the face—that makes ’em back up, and they’ll worry about losing an eye—”

“True, but—” Gird thought about that. “We need a way to kill them, or we’d be standing all day poking poles at them. I did think of some farm tools—the shovel, the mattock, the scythe—but they all have to be swung. And you’re saying, aren’t you, that anything we swing will be clumsier than a sword?”

Felis half-closed his eyes, and began swiping the air. Gird stared, then realized he was imagining himself swinging various farm implements. Gird tried to guess which, from Felis’s movements, but except for the sickle (a short swing, with a snap to the wrist) he could not be sure which was which. Felis opened his eyes, made a few passes with his “sword,” and grinned. “I think there’s a chance with a mattock—and even a scythe, though the grips would have to be moved around. But it wouldn’t be easy.”

Gird heaved a dramatic sigh. “None of this is easy. If it was easy, someone would’ve done it long ago.” Rahi spoke, for the first time in a drill session. “What if two or three worked together? One with the stick, to force the swordsman’s attention, and one or two with weapons more likely to kill, but slower.”

“That’s fine, if we outnumber the enemy,” said Felis. “But in battle—”
“Wait,” said Gird. “That might work—and we had better outnumber them, Felis, facing steel with wood. Let’s try it.”

Felis shrugged, but stepped forward again. This time Rahi stood beside Gird with one of the sickles. She was on his left, but then looked at her sickle and quickly changed sides as Gird lunged at Felis. Felis backed, his attention necessarily on the stick in his face. When Rahi came forward, he tried to swing at her, but the pole caught him in the angle of neck and shoulder. Arvan swung at Rahi, but missed as Cob’s pole got him in the chest, and then poked again at his face. Rahi could easily dodge Felis’s wild strokes, and she swung, stopping just as the sickle tip hooked into his side. Then, slow for the exercise, but smoothly, she swung back, pivoting, to come forward again and take Arvan in the belly. They all stopped and stood up.

“It works in slow motion,” said Felis doubtfully. “And I don’t know how we’ll practice it fast, not without killing each other.”

“We still need someone with a stick for every swordsman.” Gird scratched again, and stared at the stick. “And some behind with the other weapons, the killing weapons. Not that the sticks can’t kill. But there’s something I’m not seeing. Anyone else?”

“Well—you ever see that old-style stickfighting, on fair days?” asked Cob.
“No—the only fair-day I ever went to had one wrestler not as good as you, and a man who could throw knives.”

“They started it like a dance,” Cob said. “One man tapping a drum, and them tapping the sticks together. It was pretty, like watching horses in a field, tappity-tap. Then they started going faster, and faster, and about then I realized it was a kind of fighting. I’d have learned more, only I was there to make a few crabs wrestling, and my friends had bet on me. I asked one of them later, and he said it was old, something our great-great-grand-das would have known about.”

“Do you remember any of it?”
“Only the first bits, the slow part. But it’d be good practice, anyway. Get us used to the feel of something hitting the sticks.”

It took longer than Gird would have expected before he could match Cob’s pattern; his knuckles felt as if he’d hit them with hammers. And that was with both of them being careful. Triga, who’d been to the same fair, and thought he remembered the stickfighting very well, tried to start fast and ended up sucking his split knuckles ruefully. At least he wasn’t angry—but there had been no frogs to eat for days. Arvan picked up the movements quickly, as did Felis, but Padug, who had been Felis’s other star pupil at swordsmanship, was slower than Gird. By the time Fori came back, to announce that Midwinter Feast should be celebrated in eight days, most of them were still fumbling their way through this new drill.

Midwinter itself was the coldest and darkest Gird had ever known. No one was sick—Alyanya’s grace—but that meant no excuse for any fire whatever. And the rituals of Midwinter had always involved the whole family: each member had his or her assigned role. He had asked the men, and located an eldest son, youngest son, the oldest and youngest overall. Rahi had to take all the women’s roles; Gird hoped the gods would understand and accept their intent, and not demand the precision only a whole family could provide.

At dusk on the first night, all their fires were quenched, and the hearths brushed clean. Water, fire, ritual earth (though they had no garden or ploughland), each handled with due reverence—the icy air breathed with respect and affection both. Rahi, not surprisingly, remembered all the women’s verses: she had been, once, the youngest daughter, then the eldest, and with Mali’s death and her marriage, Alyanya’s representative in Gird’s home. Together, finally, hands cupped around symbolic light, they sang the Darksong. That was in the middle of the night, when Torre’s Necklace stood high overhead. From then until dawn, they huddled together, telling old tales of their childhoods, their fathers’ tales as far back as any could remember. Their breath steamed silver in the starlight, each speaker like a tiny chimney. Then—best of omens—a clear dawn to Midwinter Day, and Rahi set the circle pattern of twigs for the new fire. In a great circle, hand to hand, they watched her light it, on the lucky third spark.

They had their feast, as well, for Gird had hidden a comb of honey, and dripped it liberally over hearthcakes and grain mush. Besides that, they had deer, hunted safely long after the lords had gone back to their city. They feasted in comfort, around the roaring fires, and spent the second long night singing more songs than Gird had ever heard. All it lacked was ale; he missed the warmth in his throat and belly, though not the aching head when he woke.

The rest of that winter was hard, but not as hard as he’d feared. When the snowmelt began, with the myriad tinkling music of dripping icicles, they were all still healthy. No one had lost fingers or toes to the cold; no one had had lung fever.

Twice he’d been able to send men to the four original bartons, to check on their training. All had a full three hands or more in training; Hardshallows had five. And they were still recruiting, though cautiously. Fireoak had discovered a man who thought Kelaive would pay him for rebel names. He had changed his mind, Barin reported, when they explained it to him personally. Fori’s report of that explanation was fuller than Barin’s; the barton had expressed their opinion of him with force—the man would limp for awhile. Gird winced, but accepted it. Better one man beaten than many killed—or even one. He felt slightly better when he found, still later, that the one who had hit the man in the head with a pot was his wife, now an accepted barton member.

Hardshallows reported that it had indeed started a daughter barton, down in Millburh. Growing slowly, but Millburh had a resident guard post, almost a fort. They had to be careful. As the weather lifted, the barton in Ashy, Felis’s old village, sent word that it, too, had contacted another village: Three Springs, which had passed the word to two other vills in the same hearthing. As soon as the spring plowing was over, those bartons would be sending elected yeomen marshals to train with the main force.

It was all moving faster than Gird had expected. He still could not quite believe that he’d been away from his own home almost a year—and was alive, leading a growing number of disaffected peasants in what was clearly going to be an army. And yet they’d had no clashes with the lords, no trouble with any of the guard forces. It would be easy to be careless, moving through the green and fragrant woods of spring, with flowers starring the pastures beyond, with the birds carolling overhead.

We don’t have an armyyet , he reminded himself firmly. Chapter Fifteen
«^»

All that spring and summer, the movement spread, like ripples from a dropped stone. The Stone Circle began to become what it had always claimed to be, the center of a wider movement of rebellion. The first bartons ventured out of their villages to drill with Gird in the fields. Their yeomen marshals contacted Stone Circle supporters in other villages. Distant Stone Circle outlaws, living wild in the woods and hills, sent messengers to find out what was happening. Gird would not let any more stay with him; he knew they could not support more where they were. But he sent those he thought would make good teachers and leaders, both to new bartons and to outlaw groups. Gradually—sometimes painfully—he discovered which of his people could do that work, and which of the outlaw groups were honest rebels, and which were brigands.

He insisted that the groups he led provide as much of their own food as they could. That summer was even busier than the one before, as strangers came and went, learning and taking back what they’d learned, while the work of supporting his own troops still had to be done. He saw no end to it, the things he had to do, remember, foresee. But he noticed that some of his people were learning to think ahead for themselves, learning to think how something used one way for a lifetime could be useful for doing something else.

He heard, late that summer, that a distant barton had ambushed a lord’s taxman, and shook his head. “That’ll start us trouble,” he muttered.
Triga cocked an eyebrow at him. “You were hoping to have a war without trouble?”
“I was hoping to have a war when we were ready for it. Not in bits and pieces, here and there, where they have the advantage.”
“What I heard was the barton got the money, all of it, and killed the taxman and his two guards. Sounds to me like the barton had the advantage.”

“As long as they didn’t take anything that can be traced. Where can they spend those coins? And on what? I hope they’ve sense enough not to go to a smith. They start trying to buy weapons, and we’ll see trouble we haven’t thought of yet.” Gird doubled his own outposts and guards, expecting the worst. Sure enough, mounted patrols swept through the country, both in the wood and beyond in the hills. Gird’s men were very glad of their low paths through the scrub. They came back to find that one of their winter camps, Sunbright—deserted now for several hands of days—had been found. The patrol had destroyed the little they’d left behind, and they would certainly know where it was the next winter.

But the patrols, after that double raid, stayed away. From their contacts in the villages, they heard of more trouble—searches of cottages and barns for illegal weapons, men taken on suspicion of rebel activity and beaten or—in two cases—killed outright. Only one of these was actually a Stone Circle supporter, and he had not been a member of the local barton (being, as the yeoman marshal put it, too hotheaded to wear a hat without its catching fire.) These searches and arrests actually increased support for the rebels: after all, if you could be arrested for nothing, why not join?

Gird split his group into threes, and sent each one to a different area for the rest of the summer. They drilled together only a few times, and cautiously, with watchers on all the nearby heights. During harvest, and the lords’ favorite hunting time after it, more patrols came. But they’d been expected, and they found nothing but the same deserted camp they had found before. Once the winter storms began, Gird knew no more patrols would come. That winter was like the previous one, except that he began to try to keep accounts of his troop. He had begun with simple tallies, marked with wheatear, sickle, and flower, but he needed lists of all his people, and their villages, and the bartons and their yeoman marshals. Rahi brewed a brownish ink, but he had nothing like the smooth parchment the sergeant had had to write on. He struggled for awhile with the pale inner bark of a poplar, but finally gave up in disgust. He hated writing anyway.

That spring, the spirit of unrest made the whole countryside uneasy. Gird was not quite sure now how many bartons there were. The long winter months were ideal for conspiracy; each barton wanted to claim a daughter barton or two. That meant more than doubling, over the winter. Requests came in for Gird himself, or one of his senior instructors, to come inspect and drill not just one barton, but several. Gird and the others agreed on basic rules for drilling bartons together—how far the drillground must be from any village, what kinds of lookouts to set, what the signals would be, and what common commands all bartons should know. But he knew it was futile; in time, they would be discovered.

On those days of drill, Gird noticed first one blue shirt, then another. They had three at the camp now. Those who wore the blue held themselves proudly, aware of defiance. Gird insisted they have another shirt or cloak to throw over it, should an enemy show up. It would be hard enough to switch from drill to some innocuous activity, without having to explain away a forbidden blue shirt.

They could not, in these short sessions, teach all the new people all they themselves had learned. Gird felt the push and pull of time, the sense of things moving fast and slow at once: the lords could not long remain unaware of all that went on around them, but his people were not ready yet. They needed more time, more drill, and he needed to know more himself. When he thought of gathering all the bartons, in a full army, and meeting the lords with theirs, he was terrified.

Time ran out before he was satisfied with himself or the bartons, after Midsummer and well before harvest. He had gone to the gathering place for the sheep of five villages, so much like the pens where he had met Mali, but far to the north and east. Norwalk Sheepfold, they called it locally, the usual stone-walled shelter, back to the winter winds, with a fenced yard before it. It lay in the hollow of grassy hills, a half-morning’s walk from the nearest village, where no troops were stationed anyway.

As usual, Gird came to the meeting site before anyone else, met the shepherds who would be their lookouts, and gave his instructions. Then he squatted in the lee of the sheepfold, eating a chunk of hard cheese, to wait for the first barton to arrive.

When it came straggling along, hardly any two yeomen in step, and weapons every which way, Gird winced. He knew it had formed recently, but that did not excuse the shambling, uncertain line, the complete lack of organization. He began, as always with a new barton, with an attempt at an inspection. As always, he found more than one thing wrong.

“You got to take care of yer own scythe, Tam!” Gird yanked the blade loose and just stopped himself from throwing it on the ground. They couldn’t afford to lose a single scrap of edged steel. But every single time he had to check the bindings himself—it was enough to infuriate the Lady of Peace herself. Tam’s jaw set stubbornly; the others stared, half-afraid and half-fascinated. Gird took a long breath and let it out. “This time get it tight,” he said, handing Tam the blade. He could feel the tension drain away as he went down the line, looking at the other scythes. Most were in reasonable shape, though he wondered if they really would hold against horses or armor.

Fifteen men and three women. Eleven scythes, one pruning hook, two sickles, three shepherds’ crooks, two simple staves. Everyone had a knife, and all but one of them were sharp. Before they began the actual drill, he looked around the skyline. Nothing but a flock of sheep to the north, whose shepherd waved from the rise. Safe.

“All right. Line up.” They had done this before, taught by Per who had learned from Aris, who had learned from Gird the year before in Burry. They moved too slowly, but they did end up in straight lines, three rows of six. Tam was still trying to jam the end of his blade into the notch of the pole, tamping it against the ground. Maybe he’d learn, before he died.

“Carry.” They stared at him, then half the group remembered that that was a command, and wobbled their weapons, clearly unsure where the “carry” position was.Don’t rush it, Gird reminded himself, remembering the defections after his last temper tantrum.They have to learn from where they are, not from where they should be. “Carry,” he reminded them. “On your left shoulder—this one—because you have to be able to carry your weapon a long way, and without hitting anyone behind or beside you, or catching on theirs.” He reached out and took a scythe from someone—Battin, the name was—in the front rank, and showed them. “Like this.”

By the time they were all able to follow the basic commands at a halt, the sun was nearly overhead. Gird looked around again. The northern flock was out of sight over the rise, but another moved now across the slope to the west, and its shepherd waved elaborately. Good. Two more bartons coming to drill. Even so, even with the shepherd’s signals, he would take the usual precautions.

“Weapons into the sheepfold,” he said. “Another barton’s coming in.” Much more quickly than before, they obeyed, laying the scythes out of sight behind the low walls of the pens. Two of the women began to cut thistles with their sickles, gathering them into their aprons. The men with shepherds’ crooks leaned on the low-roofed lambing hut and began talking sheepbreeding. The others hid in the lambing hut itself. Gird sat on one of the walls, and caught his breath.

“Sir? Gird?” That was Per, the nominal yeoman marshal of this barton.
“Just Gird, Per. You’ve got a good group here.” It would be a good group after a year of enough to eat and heavy training, but it would do no good to say that.
“I’m sorry about Tam’s scythe. I—there’s so much I don’t know—”
“Don’t worry. You can’t do it all; that’s why I tell them they have to maintain their own weapons. You’ve done a lot: eighteen, and fifteen scythes.”
“Three women,” muttered Per. Gird shot him a glance.
“You believe the lords’ sayings about women, Per?”
“Well, no, but—”

“Our women have suffered with us all these years. We never kept them safe; they’ve borne the lords’ children, and lost them if they had one touch of magic: you know that. Now they ask to learn fighting with us: if our pain has earned that right for us, theirs has earned it for them.”

“But they’re not as strong—”
Gird bit back another sharp remark, and said instead, “Per, we don’t ask anyone to be strongest, or stronger. Just strong enough.”
“Whatever you say.”

“No. Whatever you finally see is right—dammit, Per, that’s what this is about. Not just my way—not just Gird instead of your lord or the king, but a fair way for everyone. You, me, our women, our children. Fair for everyone.”

“Fair for the lords?”

Gird snorted, caught off guard. “Well—maybe not for them. They had their chance.” He pushed himself off the wall. The incoming bartons had joined somewhere along the way, and were marching some thirty strong, all in step and clearly proud of themselves. He could not tell, at this distance, exactly what weapons they carried, but at least some of them were scythes. Per’s foot began to tap the beat as the formation came nearer. Gird let himself think what they could do with some decent armor, some real weapons. They were marching like soldiers, at least, and impressing the less experienced group he’d been working with. He called those in the lambing shed out to watch as the yeoman marshal of Hightop brought the formation to a halt.

They had a short rest, then all three bartons began drilling together. Almost fifty, Gird reckoned them up, a half-cohort as the lords would call it, most with staves. For the first time, Gird couldsee them facing real troops, the lords’ militia, with a chance to win. He marched them westward, away from the sheepfolds, got them reversed, reversed again, and then tried to convince them that when the column turned, it turned in only one place. Those behind were not to cut the corner, but march to the corner, and turn. Again, and another tangle. He sorted it out, and got them moving again.

It was then that a shepherd’s piercing whistle broke through the noise of their marching. Gird looked around, already knowing what it had to be. There, to the east, a mounted patrol out of Lord Kerrisan’s holding; already they’d been spotted. He saw the flash of sunlight on a raised blade. His mind froze, refusing to work for a moment. Someone else saw them, and moaned. He turned to see his proud half-cohort collapsing, some already turning to run, others with weapons loose in their hands. The sun seemed brighter; he could see every detail, from the sweat on their faces to the dust on their eyelashes.

“We have to get away,” said Per in a shaky voice. He heard the murmur of agreement, a grumble of dissent.
“We’ll never make it,” breathed someone else, and a heavy voice demanded “Whotold them we were out here?”

“It’s a random patrol,” Gird answered, without really thinking about it. “A tensquad, no spears—if they’d known we were here they’d have sent more, and more weapons. Archers, lancers.” He glanced at the horsemen, now forming a line abreast. One of them had a horn, and blew a signal. Two of the horsemen peeled off, rode at an easy canter to either side. “They’re circling, to pen us—”

“But what can we do?” asked someone at the back of the clump that had once been a fighting formation.

I ask for a sign, and I get this, Gird sent silently to the blazing sun. Lord of justice, where are you now ? A gust of wind sent a swirl of dust up his nose, and he sneezed. “I’ll tell you what we can do,” he said, turning on his ragged troops the ferocity that had no other outlet. “We can quit standing here like firewood waiting the axe, andline up !Now !” A few had never shifted; a few moved back, others forward. Two at the back bolted. “No!” To his surprise, his voice halted them; they looked back. “Run and you’re dead. We’re all dead. By the gods, this is what we’ve been trainingfor . Now get in your places, and pick up your weapons, andlisten to me.”

The others moved, after nervous glances at the slowly moving horsemen, back into their places. Gird grinned at them. “And get those weaponsready !” Far too slowly, the scythes and sickles and crooks and sticks came forward. At once Gird could see what was wrong, besides not having anything but a knife and short cudgel of his own. They could face only one way, and he knew, knew without even trying it, that they’d never reverse in formation, with weapons ready. There had to be a way—what could work? In his mind, he saw his mother’s pincushion, pins sticking out all ways—but then how could they move? There was no time; the horsemen were closing, still at a walk, but he knew they would break to a trot or canter any moment. They must be a little puzzled by a mass of peasants who weren’t trying to run, weren’t screaming in fear.

“We have to kill them all,” Gird said, as calmly as if he knew they could do it. “When they’re close enough to fight, they can recognize you. The only way you can be safe back on your farms, is if you kill them all. That’s what all this drill is for, and now you’re going to use it.” All those eyes stared right at his, blue and gray and brown. He felt as if someone were draining all the strength from his body; they were pulling it out of him, demanding it. “You can do it,” he said, not pleading but firmly, reminding them. Never mind that this wasn’t the best place for a small group of half-trained peasants to fight a mounted troop. Make do, make it work anyway. Miss this chance and you’ll not have another.I’ll be safely dead, he thought wryly.

Almost automatically, the formation had chosen the side facing the horsemen as the front. Gird walked quickly along it, nodding, and then, talking as he worked, shifted those on the flank and rear to face out. “If they come from two directions, we have to be ready. You turn like this—yes—facing out, and you behind him— yes, you—you put your crook here. You, with the stick—poke at their eyes.”

“But do we hit the horse or the man?” asked someone behind him. This group had never drilled against even imaginary horses.
“The horse,” said Gird. “If you hurt the horse, either it’ll run or the man will fall off. Now think—you want to open a big hole—”

He heard the hoofbeats louder now, and faster. Sure enough, they were trotting towards him, eight horsemen with their swords out and shining in the sun. The horses looked huge, and their hooves pounded the dry ground. The two sent around the peasant formation had stopped: clearly they were intended to prevent runaways. The horsemen yelled, a shrill wavering cry, and Gird yelled back, instinctively. His motley troop yelled, too, a sound half-bellow and half-scream of fear. Two of the horses shied, to be yanked back into line by their riders. The peasants yelled again, louder; the riders spurred to a full charge. Belatedly, the other two riders charged the back side of the formation.

He was still thinking I hope this works when the riders crashed into the block of peasants. The horses’ weight and speed drove them into the formation, but five of them died before they cleared the other side. Gird himself slammed his cudgel into one horse’s head, leaping aside to let it stagger past into the sickle of the woman behind him. The rider missed his swing at Gird, but got the woman’s arm; someone buried a scythe in his back before he could swing again. Two riders were dragged from their mounts and stabbed; another took a scythe in the belly before sliding sideways off his horse, screaming. Gird saw one of the women with a simple pole poke one rider off-balance; someone else caught his sword-arm and stabbed him as he fell.

It was over in minutes. Ten horsemen lay dead or dying on the ground; seven horses were dead, two crippled, and one, spooked, galloped away to the west. Gird looked around, amazed. The woman who had lost an arm sat propped against a dead horse, holding the stump and trying not to cry. Eight were dead; two others badly hurt. But—but peasants on foot, with no weapons but the tools of their work, had defeated armed men on horseback. Not an equal fight, but a real one.

He knew he should say something to them, but he couldn’t think of anything fitting. He looked around the horizon, and saw only the sentinel shepherd, waving that no danger neared. Per came up to him, bleeding from a gash on his scalp, bruised, amazed to be alive. They all were. Per nodded at the woman who’d lost an arm, and said “Gird—I see now.”

“Do you?” He felt a thousand years older as his fury drained away. It had to be better to die this way, fighting in the open, than rotting in dungeons or worked to hunger and sickness, but those silent bodies had been people a few minutes before. That woman had had two hands. He nodded at Per, and walked over to crouch beside her. Someone else had already torn a strip of cloth from her skirt to tie around the stump. “You—?”

She had gone pale, now, the gray-green pallor before fainting or death, but she managed a shaky smile, and moved her other hand, still gripping the sickle. “I—killed the horse.”
“You did.”
“I—fought—they—died—”
“Yes.”
“All?”
“All.”
“Good.” With that she crumpled, and before they had finished sorting out the dead and wounded, she had died.

“Noooo!” That scream came from one of the other women, who fell sobbing on the dead one’s body. Then she whirled to face Gird, her face distorted. “You let her die! You—you killed her—and this is what happens—” She waved her arms to encompass the whole bloody scene. “You said fight to live, but she’s dead, and Jori and Tam and Pilan—” Her voice broke into wild sobbing. Gird could think of nothing to say: she was right, after all. The woman had died, and seven others, and the two worst wounded would probably die, even if their lord didn’t notice their wounds and kill them for that. The ten horsemen had probably had lovers or wives, maybe children—the weight of that guilt lay on his shoulders. But another voice, thick with pain, spoke out.

“Nay, Mirag! Rahi’s dead, but she died happy, knowing she’d fought well. Not in a cage in the castle, like young Siela, when she tried to refuse that visiting duke, and not hanging from a hook on the wall, screaming for hours, like Varin. Gird promised us a chance, not safety.”

“You say that, with that hole in you, with your heart’s blood hot on your side? What will Eris say, tonight, when she has no one beside her: what will your children say?”

The man coughed, and wiped blood from his mouth. “Eris knows I’m here, and she knows why. If she weren’t heavy for bearing, she’d be here herself, and the little ones too. This is best, Mirag. Rahi’s satisfied, and I’m satisfied, and if you keep whining along like that, I’ll say out what I think should happen to you!”
The woman paled, and her mouth shut with a snap. The man looked at Gird.

“She’s not bad, Marig—Rahi’s her sister.”
“I’m sorry,” It was all he could say. Marig shrugged, an abrupt jerk of her shoulder; the man beckoned with a finger and Gird went to him.
“D’you know much of healer’s arts?” Gird shook his head “Might should learn, then. If I’d been able, I’d’ve put a tighter band on Rahi’s arm. You’ll need that craft, Gird.”
“You’ll get well, and be our healer,” said Gird, but the man shook his head.
“Nay—this is a killing wound, but slower than some. Blood’ll choke me, inside. But you’d best get all away, before more trouble comes.”
A flick of memory, of his old sergeant’s words long ago, came to Gird. “We won’t leave wounded here, to be taken and questioned.”
The man grinned tightly. “I hoped you’d think so. Make it quick, then.”
“Is there anyone you’d—?”

“You’ll do. You made it work.” Gird grimaced; he had to have someone else agree, or it would feel like simple murder. He called Per over, and Aris, the yeoman marshal of Hightop. The wounded man was still conscious enough to give his assent again, and Aris, slightly more experienced than Per, saw at once why it must be done.

But neither would do it. So Gird took his well-worn dagger, and knelt by the man’s side, and wondered how he’d feel if he were lying there, bleeding inside and choking, and how he could be quickest. Worst would be weakness, another pain that did not kill. So he put the whole strength of his arm into it, slicing almost through the man’s neck.

The other badly injured man was unconscious, having been hit in the head, and then trampled under a horse. He quit breathing, with a last gasping snort, just as Gird reached him. Then it was only the hard, bloody work of dragging the corpses together onto a pile of brushwood and thistles, stacking what weapons they could use to one side. The group from Per’s barton left first, to enter their village as best they might without attracting attention. They dared not carry any of the spare weapons, and Gird cautioned them not to take personal belongings from their friends’ bodies.

“They’ll know someone was here,” he said, “to start the fire. But if you’re carrying a tool or trinket someone recognizes, they’ll know you, too, were part of it. This way it can seem that everyone from this village died, and it might spare you trouble.” Not really, he knew: there was going to be trouble for everyone—but there had always been.

They seemed calm enough, even Marig. She had quit sobbing, at least, and she laid the locket she’d taken from her sister’s neck back on her without being told twice. “Can’t we even take Tam’s scythe?” one man asked. “We don’t have that many.” His own crook had shattered. Gird shook his head again.

“With so few scythes, everyone will know that Tam’s is with you. It’ll be taken, but not to your village.” He nodded to Per, who started them off, in trickles of two or three, moving indirectly.

Aris had the other two bartons ready to move out; each one carried his or her own weapon, and some them carried a second, taken from the fallen. Gird dithered over the swords. For one of them to be found carrying a soldier’s sword meant instant death— but to lose all those blades—In the end he let them decide, and ten volunteers belted swords they could not use around their peasant jerkins.

“Are you sure you need to burn the bodies?” Aris asked. Gird said nothing; he’d never imagined doing anything else. It was in all the tales. “We’ll need a good start of them,” Aris went on, when Gird didn’t answer. “They’ll have horses near enough—we don’t know but what the smoke could be seen a long way, and the horses might come anyhow, and find us on the way. I don’t know—I don’t know if I could lead another fight today.”

“You could if you had to,” said Gird, plunged once more into how different it was in stories and reality. But Aris made sense, and he looked at the stacked bodies. The smoke would draw attention; someone would come, and that someone would likely be mounted, and ready for trouble. No smoke, and another patrol would go looking for the first—might not find them right away—but to let the dead lie out unprotected? He squinted up, and saw the first dark wings sailing far up. That alone would draw attention.

“All right,” he said, finally. “No fire.” Lady, bless these dead —these brave and helpless — Aris nodded, clearly relieved, and set off with his bartons. Gird angled away from them, his own new sword heavy at his side.Did I do the right thing ? he asked himself.Am I doing the right thing now ?

He looked back from a farther ridge, some hours later, and saw a column of dark wings. The woman’s face came to him, that face so composed, even as she died, and the thought of dark beaks tearing her face, gouging out her eyes—he stopped abruptly, and threw up on the short grass, retching again and again, and scrubbing the dried blood on his hands. Nor could that be the end of it: he had started something, back there, that no crow could pick clean, and no fox bury the bones of—he had started something, like a boy rolling a rock down a hillside, and the end would be terrible.

Word of the Norwalk battle spread as fast among the lords as among the bartons. Gird, sifting reports from his runners and spies, spared a moment for amazement at the varying interpretations. By the end of the first day, that column of carrion crows had attracted another patrol. By the end of the second, the little village of Berryhedge had been put to the torch, and the villagers—those who had not fled the first night—were dead or penned in the nearest fort’s yard, to be dealt with at the next court. The other two bartons had made it home safely, and so far their stolen blades had not been discovered. Bruises and cuts alone were not suspicious; too many of the farmfolk suffered injuries in their work year-round for that to be a sign of collaboration. But all the lords’ guards were alert, watching for smoke from illicit fires, searching for weapons, stopping travelers on the roads. It was, some said, a huge army— an invasion from the neighboring kingdom of Tsaia—the private war of one lord on another—the peasant uprising that had been feared so long. On the strength of one escaped horse, and its tracks, someone even decided that it had been an attack by cavalry, using peasants as infantry. No, argued another: it was an alliance of horse nomads and peasants.

To Gird’s surprise, some bartons now wanted to march out looking for patrols to fight. He reminded them of the dead and wounded, the village destroyed. But this was the first time that his people had fought, in military formation, against their old enemies, and they were elated.

“I can’t see why you aren’t happier about it,” Felis said. “It worked, just as you said it would. Losses, yes: you had warned us, no war without deaths, without wounded. We understand that. But it worked. If we keep drilling, keep working, we can stand against them. And there are more of us; the numbers are on our side.”

“I am happy.” Even to himself, Gird did not sound happy, and he knew it. “I am—I just see the other side. Felis, we have only one real chance: we have to do itall , and do it right, because if we don’t, then everyone who dies has died for nothing.”

“It’s not for nothing; it’s for freedom.” Felis scratched his sunburnt nose, and stalked around a moment before coming back to plant himself in front of Gird. “Look—you found a way for us to stand against their weapons and their training. It worked. Not even with the best of us, who’ve been training years now, but with one barton so new they hardly knew their left feet from their right. If you can do it with that, you can do it with anyone. Lady’s grace, Gird, the day you walked into our camp I wouldn’t believe you could get my men to pick up their own filth. But you did. What’s wrong now?”

Gird could not answer. He knew, as he knew the ache in his bones, that it was not that easy. It could not be that easy. But they needed him to say it was, to cheer them on, to give the simple answer he knew was not enough. He felt himself resisting, as he had once or twice when the steward put pressure on him, as if he were a tree, rooting himself deep in the ground. The one thing he knew, the one thing he had to give, was his own certainty when he was right—and if he did not know he was right, he could not say it.

Felis, he could see, did not like his expression or that refusal to rejoice in their victory. Nor did others, who visibly damped their own glee when he was around. He should do it—but when he opened his mouth, stretched it in a smile, nothing came out.We won , he told himself, and the depths of his mind, cautious as any farmer to the last, saidWe won that time .

He was not even sure what it would take to win, in the way he meant win, in the way that would bring lasting peace. He threw himself into more planning, trying to calculate how many yeomen they had by now, and where, and trying to picture the larger country in which his war would now take place. A few soldiers had defected, men ordered to burn their own villages, or seize their own relatives, men who faced in adulthood what Gird had faced as a boy. They knew more of tactics than he did, and insisted that he had to have support in the towns, as well as the farms.

Meanwhile, the conflicts continued. Another ambush, and another. A guard encampment attacked at night; another village burned, and its fields torched. Like it or not, ready or not, it was on him; he must fly on that wind, or be left behind. Gird drove himself and those he knew best, traveling far to meet the yeoman-marshals of other bartons, to speak to those who were not sure, who were afraid. By autumn, he was moving far beyond the villages and fields he knew best, trusting those he had trained to keep his own group working, to find a safe wintering. This next year would see whole villages rise—even before planting time—and he had to be ready to lead his army in the field.

Chapter Sixteen
«^»

Something rasped, in the dry winter bushes, a sound too small for a cry, too great for a wild thing slipping away. Gird crouched, stock still, wondering whether to run now or investigate. It could be—it was probably—a trap. Someone had talked, and the town guard were out here to catch him. The sound came again, and with it another, like a sob choked down. Trickery, it would be. They were trying to lure him that way. But even as he thought this, he was moving, carefully as he might, threading his way through the prickly stiff brush.

In the gloom, he nearly stepped on the naked, bruised body that lay curled on its side. He stooped, after a hard look around that showed nothing but more brush. A man, an old man with thin gray hair and beard. One eye had been gouged out; the other showed only bloodshot white behind an enormous bruise. The man’s pale skin bore many bruises, scratches where the bushes had torn at him, whip marks on his back, burns on his hands and feet. Yet he was alive, his breathing unsteady and loud, but strong enough, and he had a steady pulse at his neck.

Gird squatted on his heels, considering. It was already cold, and would be colder with full night. An old man, beaten and burned, missing an eye—he’d likely die by morning, left here with no covering and no care. But inside the town, the barton waited. Even now they’d be gathering, waiting for him, waiting for the hope that only he could bring. And the old man might die anyway. Gird touched the old man’s shoulder, then wished he hadn’t, for the bloodshot eye opened.

“No…” breathed a tremulous voice.
“You’re safe,” said Gird, knowing he lied, but not what else to say.
“Cold…” came a murmur.

“It’s all right.” His mind went back to his own home, the times he’d teased one of the women for that soothing “It’s all right,” when it wasn’t. He could understand that now. It didn’t make things all right. With a gusty sigh—too loud a sigh, he thought instantly: it would carry in the quiet twilight—Gird stripped to the waist and laid his shirt, sweaty as it was, on the old man’s body. He had to have his dark jerkin for later… but he could spare the shirt.

“I’ll help you,” he said, and put his arm under the old man’s shoulder. Groaning, and obviously trying to smother it, the old man managed to get his arms into Gird’s shirt.
“You—should not—”

“I can’t leave you here to die,” said Gird. He couldn’t help it that the words came out harsh, not comforting. He was late, and he was going to be later yet, and if he had to climb in over the wall, he was very likely to be seen.

“Who?” Now wrapped in the shirt, the old man had recovered scraps of his dignity; he asked with little volume but much authority. Gird chose to misunderstand the question.
“Who beat you? I don’t know; I just found you. You don’t remember?”

The old man held up his hands—longfingered, graceful hands, for all the ugly burns—and said softly, “Esea’s light be with you, the High Lord’s justice come to you, the Lady of Peace lay her hand on your brow—” He paused, as Gird scrambled back, careless of noise. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t curse me!” It was hardly louder than the old man’s murmur, but the anger in it carried.
“Curse you?” The old man chuckled, a breathy sound much like the whuffling of a horse. “Lad, it’s a blessing —I’m giving you my blessing. Don’t you know that much?”
Gird shifted uneasily. “What I know is, the longer we stay here, the likelier we’ll be seen. Whoever beat you—”

“The senior priest at Esea’s hall,” said the old man. He was sitting up on his own, now, looking with apparently idle curiosity at the burns on his feet. “He called me a heretic, and held what he would call a trial by fire. I call that torture, but the law permits it. And as I lived still when he was done, they stripped and beat me and threw me off the wall.”

“You should be dead!” said Gird, and then reddened, realizing how it sounded.

The old man chuckled again. “That’s what the high priest said, in other words—that I should be dead, for the harm I’d done and might do, and he did his best. The gods, however, sent you—” He reached around, in the gathering darkness, as if groping for a staff, then stretched his hand to Gird. “Here, then. Help me up.”

“But you can’t—

“I can’t lie here in the cold in your shirt. Come now—give me your hand. It’s not so bad as you think.” Gird reached out, and felt the man’s hand slide into his. It was bony, as old hands are, with loose skin over the knuckles, but stronger than he expected. And he could not feel, against his own horny palm, the crusted burns he expected. The old man staggered once, then stood, peering about. “Ah—” he said finally. “There they are.” Gird looked, and saw nothing but the chest-high bushes disappearing into evening gloom. “If you will wait,” the old man said, more command than request, and he plunged into the tangle without making a sound. Gird waited, although he was definitely going to have to climb the wall. The barton would be wondering if he’d been caught.

When the old man came back, he had a very dirty ragged garment slung around his shoulders, over Gird’s shirt, and some kind of covering on his feet. It looked, in that light, much like the rags peasants wore wrapped around their feet in winter, when they had nothing better.

“Now, lad,” he said, far more briskly than Gird would have thought possible. “Now we can go into town without fear.”

Gird opened his mouth to argue, but instead found himself retracing his path through the bushes, the old man’s hand clenched firmly on his elbow. The old man’s other hand held Gird’s staff. Without fear? Did the old man plan to ask the gate guards to let them in, when he’d been beaten and left for dead? What was he?

When they came to the gates, the postern was still open, and the last few townspeople were hurrying in. A row of torches burned brightly, lighting their faces for the guards to see. Gird tried to shy aside, into the shadows, but the old man’s hand forced him to walk right up the middle of the trade road, into that golden light. He thought frantically how he could get out of this without alerting the guards, and glanced sideways at the old man.

In torchlight, the old man looked altogether different. Smaller, crook-backed, with a dry seamed scar where his eye had been, not the red dripping socket Gird had seen. Almost bald on top, and a wisp of pure white at his chin, a patched leather cape over a rough wool shirt (and it doesn’t even look like my shirt, thought Gird), patched leather breeches on bowed legs, feet indeed wrapped in dirty rags. He leaned on Gird’s arm, and the staff, as if his legs could hardly bear his weight.

“Ho, there!” One of the guards stepped forward, lifting a torch to peer at their faces. “And who be you, coming in so late—don’t know your face!”
Gird opened his mouth, and found a name in it. “Amis of Barle’s village, m’lord, and m’father’s father Geris, come to pilgrimage at th’shrine.”

“Should’ve come earlier; the gate’s closed to outsiders.”

At this the old man mewled, an infantile wail of misery and disappointment. The guard grinned, insolent but not unkind. “Never seen anyone needed a miracle more, and that’s a fact. Got any honey to sweeten the sib, Amis of Barle’s?”

“Honey, m’lord?” Gird let his jaw hang down stupidly, and patted his “grandfather’s” hand. “We’s no bees, m’lord, that’s for them’s got orchard trees. But we’s barley-cake—” He fished in his jerkin for the stale end of barley cake he’d saved from breakfast, and offered it. Whatever was going on, he was supposed to pretend stupidity and meekness. The guardsman looked at him, long and steady, then pushed it back. “If that’s all you’ve had, coming in from so far, keep it. Now, gransire, we’ve had an upset today, and I’ll have to see your hands before you enter.”

“Hands?” asked Gird before he thought. The one on his arm squeezed hard, hard as a strong young man, and released him. The guard nodded.

“In case a thief tries to sneak back in,” he said. “He’s hand-branded, that one, and we’re to look at all strangers, especially those with one eye gone. I’m sure your gransire isn’t the thief, but I must look.” And he took each of the old man’s knotted hands, and looked at the palm. So did Gird—and saw nothing but old pink skin, marked by heavy work. The guard jerked his chin up. “Get on in, fellow, you and your gransire, and be sure you’re not up to any mischief this night. Beggars’ steps on the winter side of Hall, and no laying up in someone’s doorway.”

“Thanks, m’lord.” Gird found himself pulling his forelock before he thought of it, and edged by the guard with care for his companion.

Once through the town’s wall, the old man used his grip of Gird’s elbow to guide him toward the main square. The streets were busy yet, full of people who knew exactly where to go. Gird had his own directions from the gate, but he went where the old man wanted him to—he had no choice.

In the square, a few stalls still had shutters open. A bakery, its main doors closed, sold the remnants of the day’s baking out a broad window. From one stall came the sour smell of bad ale, from another the stomach-churning scent of hot oil and frying meat. Gird swallowed his hunger, and found that his tongue now responded to his own will.

“I’ve somewhere to go,” he said gruffly. “Can you find a safe place?”
“Better than you,” said the old man. “Could you have come through the gates alone?”
Gird grunted. Of course he couldn’t, not that late, but if it hadn’t been for the old man, he wouldn’t have been that late. “I don’t understand you,” he said. “You were hurt, you could hardly move—”

“We can’t stand here in the open talking,” said the old man. “I want my supper.” This last became a weak whine, suitable to the aged cripple he seemed to be, and Gird was not surprised to see a couple of guards walk by, scanning the faces as they went.

“I don’t have anything but that barley cake,” said Gird, and added unwillingly, as the guards paused, “Granther, you know that. It took all coppers we’s got to make this trip for your eye. Here—” He fished out the barley cake, and broke it, as the guards watched. The old man took his share in a shaky hand, almost whimpering in his eagerness. A drop of spittle ran down his chin into his beard, glittering in the guards’ torchlight.

“Beggars’ steps over there,” said one of the guards gruffly, gesturing across the square. Gird bobbed his head, hoping he looked stupid and harmless. The guards moved on, stopping to joke with the baker’s lass, as she reached to close the shutters at the window. The old man touched Gird’s arm, pushing him gently towards the beggars’ steps.

When they sank down on the lowest of the five steps, Gird stuffed his piece of barley cake back into his jerkin, and said again
“I have somewhere I must go. Can you stay here? Will they find you?”
In the dimness, the old man’s face was suddenly more visible, as if a candle had been lit inside it. “Lad, I can stay here, or go, or stay with you, and they will not find me—have you seen nothing this evening?”
“Riddles,” said Gird. “You give me tricks and riddles—”
“I give you light in darkness.” The old man’s face shone brighter, then dimmed. “But the blind cannot see light, and think darkness is reality.”

Gird stirred on the cold step, not sure what he could say. The old man was mad, and no wonder, with what he’d been through. He must have been one ofthem —perhaps one of their elder mages—and he’d angered someone. They’d taken their revenge, and wrecked his mind as well as his body. Probably as bad as the rest of them, when he was whole, but now—“I need to go now,” he said, as gently as he could. “I’ll come back you.”

“Yes,” said the old man. “You will.” He bit off a chunk of the barley cake, and started chewing it. Gird watched a moment, feeling a strange confusion in his mind, then shook his head and got up.

The meeting place, when he finally found it, was a merchant’s storeroom crowded with nervous men, at least a dozen of them, and lit by two candles. He’d expected only the elders of the barton, but apparently others had insisted on coming. Was this a trap? He tried to see the corners of the storeroom as he gave the password again, but darkness lurked behind bales and boxes as if it were alive and twitching. His neck itched; he wanted to whirl and look behind himself, but he controlled that urge.

Calis, the only man he’d met before, limped forward to shake his arm and then grinned broadly at the rest. “I told you he’d come. Whatever happens, he’d come.”
“He’s late.” That was a square-built, black-bearded man, with a look of authority and the weathered face of someone out in the open most of his life.
“He’s here. That’s what counts.” Calis shook his arm again. “Lady bless you, Gird, for coming. You’ll lead us, eh? Make us free?”

Calis had not sounded that simple back in Harrow, when he visited that barton’s drill. Then he had seemed a possible leader, someone who could organize a barton, start its training. Gird looked around as calmly as he might, trying to figure out what had gone wrong here. Fifteen men, no women—that was still common enough, despite his urging. None very young: quite right, at such a secret meeting; young men talked too much. None very old. Four held themselves with a kind of furious rigidity: men used to command, perhaps, pretending a passivity they could not feel? Gird smiled at the black-bearded man. “Hurry makes the fleet fall, and the aim wide: I came as I might, to come safely.”

“You would preach safety in war?” That was another of the four he’d noted, a tall brown bear of a man leaning against the stacked boxes across from him.

“I preach nothing, being no priest. As Calis will have told you, I expect—” He glanced at Calis, whose gaze slid past him. So. Trouble indeed. “I teach what seems obvious to me, that wild rebellion against the king but causes death and torment.”

“And this is what we came for?” The brown man pushed away from the boxes to confront him. “We came to hear the same song the priests sing: obey, submit, seek peace from the Lady in your hour of death?”

“Gird,tell them. Tell them what you told us at Harrow.”

The worst trouble: treachery. Their first rule was never to mention one barton in another, to say only “there” or “that other place” or “his barton.” Gird shook Calis’s hand from his arm, but without violence, and tried to decide where the worst danger lay. He could not fight fifteen, were they all of the same mind, but it was just as likely that Calis had tried to entrap honest rebels as well as one rebel leader. If he could but find them out, and lead them. A dense silence packed the room thicker than the men. Someone behind the black-bearded man coughed. Was it a signal?

Gird glanced around the group, meeting all eyes but Calis’s. In the candlelight, all glittered; he could not tell false from true. He lifted his hand for silence, though all were quiet, and began.

“You know the times are bad. You know they’re getting worse. Bad enough when peasants are murdered at their work, when wives and mothers are raped and beaten, left for dead with their babies crawling in their blood. Worse, when the craftsman’s skill is bought with pain and threats, when a smith must make shackles and chains for prisoners, 