“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 kept trying to learn swordfighting— Gird met his gaze. “Do you want to learn my way, or go your own?”
&
nbsp; “I’ll stay, if you’ll let me.”
“You fooled me,” Gird said. “I thought you’d be angry, and go away.”
“I am 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 train everyone. 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 they do 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, ‘Let us teach you 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 everything I 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, an
d 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.
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