Renga looked down at it and gasped with delight, then forced herself to hold it out. “I thank you deeply, mum, but it would be wrong to take it and give nothing in return.”
“Why, then, give me a gift,” Alea said, smiling, “whatever you choose—but I will say that my brother and I grow hungry on the road.”
“Bread of my own baking, and cheese then!” Renga turned to hurry back to her family’s cottage. “You have every reason to be proud,” Alea told her mother.
The woman turned back from beaming fondly after the girl. “I am that, lass, and I thank you.” She shook herself, becoming businesslike again. “But a daughter like that deserves a pretty or two. I’ve opals and garnets to trade; have you a necklace to match that ring?”
Alea dug in her pack, back to business again. When the customers were done with her, they went to listen to Gar, who had taken out a wooden flute and was drawing a mournful tune from it. When he was finished, a man said, “Witless or not, you’ve some talent, lad.”
Gar nodded wisely and said, “Talent is governance.” Several people smothered laughter, but the man only smiled with sympathy and asked, “Governance? What’s that, lad?”
“Order,” Gar said, and blew a scale, then looked up, grinning. “Order.”
“Setting the notes one after another, eh?” The man nodded, considering.
“Order chickens,” Gar suggested. “Order houses.”
“Housework, you mean? No, that’s economics,” said a middle-aged woman.
So it was, Alea remembered—the Greek word had originally meant wise and thrifty household management.
“Many houses! ” Gar spread his hands wide to embrace the whole village. “Who orders you?”
Now they all laughed. Gar stared, startled and frightened. Seeing that, the villagers choked off their laughter and the man explained, “It’s a comical notion, lad, one person ordering the whole village.”
“Why, we can make all the order we need by ourselves,” the woman said, “each tending to her own house and garden.”
“And all of us tending the crops in the fields,” another man agreed, “children to watch the sheep crop the lawn, and us to watch the children. What more order does anyone need?”
Gar looked up at them wide-eyed, then glanced over each shoulder apprehensively and beckoned the man closer. With a gentle smile, the man complied, and Gar whispered into his ear, “Bandits!” No one laughed this time and the man said gravely, “Ah, bandits there are—for those who want what others have, and who won’t care for their own house and garden, can’t stay in the town. Then they band together and come to try to take what we have. But if they become too big a nuisance, the Scarlet Company stops them, of course.”
By this time, everyone was done trading and had gathered around Gar. Alea buckled their packs and came into the circle, saying, “You mustn’t mind his silly questions, good people. He can’t remember the answers, so he asks them again in every village.”
“It’s good of you to say so, lass,” said a grandmotherly woman, “but such questioning is as much to be expected of an idiot as of a little child. We must be kind to all.”
Alea sighed. “Sometimes I am amazed and delighted at the goodness of people.”
Gar exchanged a quick and piercing glance with her; he too was amazed at the gentleness and understanding of these villagers. Then he turned back to the people with a gaze once more vacant and tried again. “Who gives orders?”
“Why, everyone will order what they want from your sister, lad,” the grandmother told him, “and if she has it, we will bargain with what we have.”
Gar surrendered and only gave them his loose-lipped grin while he pulled the coarse, brightly patterned blanket closely around him. “Gar’s not a-cold anymore! ”
The people laughed again, more with pleasure at seeing him warm than in ridicule.
At last they apologized for lack of hospitality but said they had a day’s work to do and drifted away to evening chores and back into houses—but the woman who had traded a night’s hospitality brought them hot porridge, saying, “I don’t know when you ate last or how much, but I’ll warrant it was hours past. Eat of this; it should go well with Renga’s fresh bread and cheese.”
Surprised and gratified, Alea said, “Thank you kindly, good woman—very kindly indeed!”
“Thank kindly!” Gar agreed.
“It’s my pleasure,” the woman said, smiling at the thanks, “and part of my bargain, after all. My name is Llyena, by the way. If you feel like telling tales or singing songs to keep the little ones busy, that would be kind. We’ll all hope to hear news from you after supper.” Her eyes turned almost avaricious, but when Alea didn’t offer any sudden disclosures, she smiled, nodded at them, and went back to her garden.
“We had better think up some news quickly,” Gar muttered.
“Long-distance listening is your job.” Alea gave him a slab of bread and cheese. “I’m too new at telepathy. I can tell them about General Malachi, though.”
“That should do for a start,” Gar agreed. “Still, the telepathy might yield some results.”
“You mean you haven’t tried it yet?”
“Well, yes, while I was keeping watch last night,” Gar confessed, “though people’s dreams aren’t exactly sound journalistic sources.” He frowned. “Frustrating, too—no one was dreaming anything about the government.”
“Would you expect them to?” Alea demanded. “Well, there’s usually someone having nightmares about taxes,” Gar replied, “and someone dreaming about being a king or a queen—but there was none of that here.”
Alea shrugged. “Maybe they don’t have kings and queens. My people didn’t.”
“Yes, but you did have squires, and they had a council. No one here was dreaming about anything of the sort—except the bandits.”
“They don’t have to have a government,” Alea pointed out.
“Ridiculous!” Gar scoffed. “Every society has to have a government of some sort. Without it, a nation falls apart. That’s what happened to the cultures who did try it, and that’s why they’re not around anymore.”
“People can always discuss their problems over a campfire or a banquet table,” Alea protested.
“Yes, but that’s called a village council, and it’s a government of a sort,” Gar said. “Admittedly, it’s pretty minimal, and it won’t work for anything larger than a village. Have a city or even a dozen villages, and you have to have a formal council that meets regularly. Then some people will emerge as leaders in that council, and you’ll start having officials of one sort or another.”
“Perhaps that’s all they have here,” Alea offered. “I’d settle for it,” Gar said, “but I haven’t seen any sign of it, either in people’s dreams last night or among our customers today.”
“You were studying them,” Alea accused.
“Of course,” Gar said. “I wasn’t about to ignore them, after all—but I didn’t see any sign of a power structure at all!” He sounded very frustrated.
Alea hid a smile and said, “Well, I did notice that the adults deferred to their elders. The youngsters were pretty good about that, too, but they had lapses.”
“Teenagers always do.” Gar shuddered at a flash of memory from his own adolescence. “Respectful and defiant by turns.”
“It’s part of growing up,” Alea agreed, “but these adults are very gentle about restraining their young people.”
“Very,” Gar agreed; “and the kids seem to respond to it.” He looked up with his loose-lipped grin as a woman passed by carrying a basket. She paused at a post set at the edge of the common and dropped something into a box fixed to its top, then went her way.
“What did she drop in there?” Gar’s gaze was glued to the box.