“She’s right. What I do from now on is one thing, but what I did to Binis and those others is another—something I have to deal with. What I thought is I’d go after her, find her. Apologize—
“No! She’ll turn you in.”
Gird shrugged. “If she does, it’s better than her setting the sier on all of you.”
But this provoked more discussion and argument. Gird waited it out. Finally, Red Selis seemed to speak for most when he said, “It’s already happened; if she’s gone to the sier, then she’s gone— we don’t want to lose you as well. If she comes back, you can apologize then.”
“She won’t be back,” said someone else. “But the redhead has the right of it. You’re no good to us dead or captured.”
“I should tell her—” Gird began, when a voice behind him spoke out.
“Tell her what?” It was Rahi; he turned to see her standing there as if she’d never been anywhere else.
“I’ll tell you I’m sorry,” he said. “About last night—I didn’t know how drunk I was.”
“Very,” she said. Her mouth quirked. “More than I ever remember. I hope you learned something from it.”
“I did. And I was going to find Binis, and tell her—
Rahi shook her head before he finished. “Best not. I’ve got her settled for now, best I could do.”
“What?”
“Where did you think I’d gone off to? Someone had to be sure she didn’t put the sier’s men on us right away. I let her have her say—and she’s got a tongue on her almost as bad as yours, when she’s roused—and finally convinced her she wouldn’t get any profit out of the steward, besides it not being everyone’s fault. But she hates you still, and she’d be glad to do you an injury if she could. You can’t mend it; best end it.”
The meeting broke up into clumps of people talking, a few arguing, some coming to Gird to thank him for speaking, some edging around him. He spoke to all who approached him, feeling Rahi’s attention at his back like a warm fire. Finally everyone wandered off into the gloom, and she came up beside him.
“You were stupid,” she said quietly. He heard the steel underneath.
“I was. I don’t know—”
“Mother said when you were young you drank like that sometimes. Came home ready to fight anyone.”
“I don’t remember—before I met her, yes, but after—”
“Only a few times, she said, but when she was dying she bade me watch for it. Help you if I could.”
“You helped me here. I’m sorry, Rahi.” He would have hugged her, but she stood just too far away, his daughter no longer, making sure he knew it. That, too, pierced his heart with a pain as great as all the rest.
She heaved a sigh much like his, and her hands turned, gesturing futility. “I don’t think you can understand what your ways have meant to women—beyond what you saw in it.” He raised his brows, inviting her to speak, but she shook her head. “You can’t understand; you’ve never been where we were. But don’t take it back, whatever you do. Not for me or for any of us. You’ll lose—lose more than soldiers from your army, if you do.”
“I don’t mean to, Rahi. You keep me straight, eh?”
She grinned, a little uneasily. “I’ll tell you you’re drinking too much, and you’ll curse at me.”
“To no effect; the gods know what curses to take seriously. I tell you now, when I’m sober—do it, and I’ll listen, or you can lay a hauk across my skull and let sense in. Did you hear me tell the others? Well then—it goes for you, too.”
Chapter Twenty-five
In the next few days, there was no sign that Binis had carried out her threat to expose the army to her sier. Gradually, by ones and twos, those who had fled returned. Gird, having apologized publicly, would have liked to forget it had ever happened, but knew that it had. In fact, the longer he thought about it, the worse it seemed: first a defeat, and then a drunken temper tantrum. He would have to do something to redeem himself.
His first choice of action was the disruption of a taxday at a market town west of them. Most towns had a garrison of troops, either belonging to the local lord or to the king. This made enforcement of special fees and taxes much easier. As well, the townsfolk felt even more at risk than poor farmers, and were less willing to lend their skills to Gird’s supporters. Although most farming villages now supported a barton, few towns did, and those bartons were small and timid.
This time, Gird made sure, through his spies, that none of the lords were actually in Brightwater before he planned his attack. He would face fewer than a hundred soldiers—well trained and equipped, but unsupported by magicks—and he had the support of bartons in all the surrounding farm villages, as well as shaky support from a faction of artisans in Brightwater itself.
Brightwater lay in a valley between two ridges, just where a stream had cut the western ridge to join the one that ran northward toward the Honnorgat. Most of Gird’s army had been east of it; he moved two cohorts onto the ridge west of the town, and waited. The town was too small to infiltrate beforehand; even with the summer fair approaching, the local troops were being cautious. He could not count on help from the two hands of yeomen in the barton there, either; they had formed only that winter, and had no regular place to drill. But as he’d expected, the approaching fair, and the incoming traders, distracted the local soldiers; they kept close to the town, scrutinizing traders, and did not bother to scout the woods. Once the fair began, the soldiers gave up even a pretense of patrol. They had enough to do in the town and the meadows around it. Traders who had not made it through to Grahlin on the River Road had turned aside and come here; the fields south of the town were thick with their camps.
On the day before the tax would be collected, a second contingent of soldiers arrived from Finyatha, wearing the king’s colors and carrying pikes. Selamis, watching this with Gird, announced that the enemy now had 150 soldiers in the town. Gird scowled, and sent scouts to check back along all the roads to make sure there were no more surprises. Then he called Rahi over.
“We’ll want every yeoman who can carry a weapon, and they need to be there—” He pointed across the valley to a wood below an outcrop of streaked yellow rock. “When we come down here, the fight’ll slide that way, and they’ll be placed right to land on ’em—”
“You’re sure?”
“Naught’s sure but death, but it should be so. They can’t go the other way, without getting into the rapids where the streams come together. Handy of the Brightwater folk to build their town on this side of the river. If things go well for us, I’ll want our reserves right down there by the bridge when they retreat that way.”
In the event, it happened as Gird had planned. His two cohorts made it to the edge of the fields just south of the town unobserved; the traders who might have seen him were in the market square, complaining bitterly about the tax being exacted. The soldiers stood around the market square, menacing the traders. The few traders’ servants took one look at Gird’s ragged but determined army and dove under the wagons, too scared to give an alarm. By the time they reached the town’s inadequate wall, with its gates standing wide for the fair, a few soldiers did see the peasants coming, and tried to sound an alarm, but in the confusion of a fair that alarm went unanswered until Gird and his men were well inside the town.
It was less a battle than a bloody slaughter, as his first cohort took a section of guardsmen in the rear. They had been stationed around the market, to keep merchants in until the tax had been collected; they could not turn and combine fast enough to defend themselves. Many of the people in the market had their own grievances, and joined in the fight with savage glee. Gird saw one woman lobbing cheeses at a line of soldiers just before they fell; a shepherd yanked back one man’s head in time for a yeoman’s knife to slice his throat. Gird’s battle plan dissolved as everyone entered into the fray on one side or the other. When the tax officer fell, a swarm of peasants and merchants tore at the sacks holding the fees, and dove
after the shower of coins that spilled out.
On the other side of the market, the soldiers had chance to regroup and settle themselves to fight. Their trumpets blared signals; they locked shields and started forward. Gird managed to get his cohorts back together, not without difficulty, and forced a way through the surging crowd, even as the crowd fell away from the soldiers’ swords.
The two groups met in the market square; Gird’s had the advantage of numbers, and forced the soldiers back into one of the narrow lanes opening onto the square. At this point, the citizenry re-entered the fray by throwing things out of windows—mostly at the soldiers, but some of the missiles landed on Gird’s group. When a ripe plum splattered on his head and dripped sweet sticky juice down his face, Gird was instantly reminded of that first row in his own village. He kept his cohorts moving, and the soldiers, increasingly unsure, retreated faster.
The town gates on the east opened onto a narrow strip of land between the walls and the river; as with most towns, the bridge was not in the town proper. Here the soldiers tried to rally, but they had no real hope against Gird’s larger number and longer weapons. They backed raggedly south, along the town walls, toward the fields where the traders had camped, and the bridge that would let them across the river to a road leading safely north. But Gird’s reserves were just where he had expected, and the soldiers were caught between.
Gird was just ordering the bodies stripped of weapons, when a stream of bellowing men ran out of Brightwater’s east gates. His cohorts reformed instantly. The men slowed, and a small group approached cautiously.
“Who’s in command?” asked a tall, heavyset man in a trader’s gown. He was used to command himself, by his voice. Gird stepped forward. “I am Gird.” The man’s worried expression eased. “Gird—I’ve heard of you. You have to do something! They’re rioting in there; they’ve killed the council, and they’re looting in the market—”
Gird shrugged. “What did you expect? I daresay they’re hungry.”
“But you—but I heard you were different—that you had studied law or something of that sort, that you had some notion of order.”
Gird gave him a long, level look. “Are you asking me to bring order to the city?” He heard a stirring in the ranks behind him, but ignored it.
The man’s eyes shifted, and he turned to glance at the other equally worried men behind him. Gird noted that they all looked prosperous; their clothes had no patches and their faces had good flesh.
“Well, I—I can’t. I don’t know anyone else—they said you could control the peasants.”
“Is that what you want?” asked Gird of the others. A few nodded; the rest looked confused. Gird felt a sudden surge of excitement. Was this the start of the new society he had dreamed of? A chance to set one town on the right path? It was a chance, whether or not it was the right one. He nodded, abruptly, and saw on their faces that they were more glad than frightened. He hoped his cohorts would agree. He turned to them, scanning their faces quickly. Some looked as confused as the traders; some looked eager, and a few angry or unwilling. Those he called out, and sent as scouts to patrol the roads.
“We’ve been asked to help Brightwater regain its order,” he said. One of the merchants mumbled something; Gird ignored it. “I want no looting, no idle mischief: you know what I mean. These are our people, same as farmers; we need them and they need us. We’ll let them see if they like our rule, if they think it’s fair.”
He took in only one cohort, replacing wounded with sound yeomen from the others, and marched them in as if for drill practice.
The crowd in the market dispersed, to stand flattened against the walls. He could hear some dispute at a distance, angry voices and clangs and clatters; that would have to be dealt with, whatever it was, but for the moment he had to control the center of town.
It looked far worse than the count’s courtyard: dead bodies, some that stirred, broken pottery and foodstuffs scattered and trampled, market stalls torn down, broken, their awnings ripped and flapping in the breeze. Once he had his troops in the market square, it occurred to him that he had never explained how to organize a city. He wasn’t sure himself.
The traders and merchants who had come after him now sidled up, looking even more alarmed. “You have to say something!” hissed the leader. Gird nodded, but let his silent gaze pass across the square, catching the eyes of those who watched, noting their expressions. Then he nodded, sharply, and raised his hand for silence.
They stared back at him, much like the first men he had met in the wood. Perhaps the same common-sense would work with them.
“You’ve heard of me,” he began, not sure they had. “I’m Gird; we’re peasants seeking a better way to live. We fight the lords who tax and tax—” A ragged, halfhearted cheer interrupted him; he held up his hand again and it ended. “You’ve seen peasants fight before, out of desperation, but we are not desperate. We know a better way, a fairer way, and we want to see that for everyone. These men—” he pointed at the traders, “—came out and asked me to bring order to Brightwater. I would rather bring justice—is that what you want?”
A sulky-looking man slouched against a wall yelled out, “What matters what we want? You got the weapons; you’ll do what you want.”
Gird shook his head. “No: if Brightwater prefers chaos to order, you may have it. Do you?”
“Me? I want my rights, that’s what I want.”
“That’s what we want for all.” Other heads nodded. Gird noticed unfriendly looks aimed at the sulky man. He raised his voice to carry beyond the square and said, “Where is Jens, the harnessmaker’s assistant?”
“Here!” Gird had never met Jens, yeoman-marshal of the Brightwater barton, but he liked the compact young man with bright blue eyes under a mop of chestnut hair. Jens had his entire barton together, and they were standing in what could pass for a double row.
Gird turned back to the others. “This is the yeoman-marshal of Brightwater barton. He will help me restore order, and bring justice to your town. He knows you, and you know him; what he says is said in my name.” He looked at Jens. “Do you know what fighting is still going on? Are there more lords’ men here?”
Jens shook his head. “No, sir. I think that noise is at the council chambers, people taking things, but no more soldiers.”
“All right then. We need this square cleaned up—” Gird looked around. “Wounded by the well, so the healers don’t have far to go for water. Dead outside the walls—we’ll need men to dig graves. Those whose stalls are broken, you can start repairing them.” He pointed to the woman he remembered throwing the cheeses. “You—what about your stall?”
She pointed at a jumble of broken wood and ripped cloth. “That was it, sir, and how I’m to get another I don’t know—”
Gird pointed to two of his yeomen. “Help her fix what she can. Selamis—” Selamis was at his shoulder, staring bright-eyed around. Gird glared at him. “You can take accounts—who had what space, who needs help to repair stalls or houses. Anything else you find out.” He looked at Kef, one of the marshals he’d brought along. “You take a half-cohort and settle that riot, or whatever it is. Rahi, you take the rest and make sure everything else is quiet.”
Gird stayed in the square with Selamis, trying to get a sense of the town’s organization. It was far more complex than his village, or the army. The artisans were not simply “craftsmen” as he had supposed: each craft had its own standing in the town, and rivalry between crafts became apparent as he listened. Within each, too, were hierarchies and rivalries. So a tanner’s apprentice might jostle a dyer’s apprentice with no more than a curse in response, but a potter’s apprentice ranked a tanner’s. The finesmith had nothing to do with the blacksmith, and Brightwater boasted both a weaponsmith and a toolsmith. In Gird’s village, anyone might peg a bench together or frame a cowbyre; here carpenters and joiners were separated by custom and caste. He wondered what Diamod would say about that, then remembered that Diamod was off scout
ing. Then there were merchants, some as specialized as the salt seller, and some as general as the importer who handled any and all goods transported across the mountains, from needles to silks to carved buttons in the shape of sea monsters. The houses towered two and three stories tall; those of the wealthiest were clustered in the southwest corner.
An uneasy stillness gripped the town soon after Gird’s yeomen occupied the soldiers’ guardhouse. Gird did his best to keep everyone busy, insisting that streets must be cleaned of dead bodies (“Yes, the rats too!” he had yelled at someone who asked) and debris. When it was possible, he restored goods to the merchants who had owned them—although he could not clean and mend what the fight had soiled and broken.
He settled such minor disputes as were brought to him the first day with what wit he could muster, although some of them seemed frivolous. Why would someone in the aftermath of a battle want a judgment against a neighbor for using the neighbor’s balcony as one end of a laundry line? Why pick this moment to complain that someone’s son was courting a daughter without the father’s permission? He realized that the Brightwater yeoman-marshal, though well-known and considered to be honest, had the low status of a “mere” harness-marker’s assistant; whatever he said on an issue was immediately appealed to Gird. Gird might have found this funny (after all, they were preferring the judgment of a discottaged serf), but he had no leisure to savor the joke.
That night, Gird found himself invited to dine with the principal traders, who had, he was sure, their own ideas about his notions of justice. They offered beef and ale, raising their eyebrows when he refused the ale, and insisted that they each take a bite of the bread he brought before he would eat of their meat.
“We had heard you liked ale,” one of them said, too smoothly. “If you prefer wine—”
“I prefer water,” Gird said, smiling. “In war, I’ve discovered, the drunkard has half the men of a sober man, and less than half the wit.”
They laughed politely, and came to the point rather sooner than he expected. What did he mean by justice, and how would he insure that traders would be respected and treated fairly? Gird answered as the gnomes had taught him: one law, the same for all, of fair weights and measures. A market judicar, backed by a court to which all parties could appoint representatives. He sensed that some of the traders were satisfied by this (he had never believed that all traders were inherently dishonest), but that one or two were appalled. One of these last walked with him back to the guards’ barracks, complimenting him on the discipline of his troops. Gird felt as he had when the steward complimented him on the sleekness of a calf.
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