“Is it your turn to work in the fields, then?” Gar asked.
Bartrum glanced at Celia; she shrugged and said, “Bartrum doesn’t mind the plowing much. I hate it. I go for the sowing, though.”
“We do take turns during hoeing season,” Bartrum told them, “and of course we both go to the reaping—all of us, in fact.”
“So it’s up to each family,” Gar summarized.
“Of course.” Bartrum frowned. “Isn’t that how they do it in your country, friend?”
“More or less,” Gar said. “I’ve never really thought of it much.”
Alea gave him a quick glance. Never before had she heard him say anything about his station in life on his home world—not that she could trust what he was saying when he was trying to draw out his hosts, of course.
“It’s just something we all do,” Gar said, “just the way it’s done.”
Bartrum nodded; he could understand the dictates of custom. “Among us, each couple decides for themselves,” he said. “No one minds so long as each household does its share of the work.”
Gar didn’t have to ask what happened if they didn’t. He knew what social pressure was—that didn’t take a government.
When they were about to leave on the northern road, Bartrum warned them, “Go warily. We’ve been hearing more reports of outlaws these last few months.”
“Outlaws, not just bandits?” Gar turned to him, fairly glowing with interest.
“Well, of course they’re both,” Celia said, puzzled at his eagerness.
“I haven’t heard any talk of laws here,” Gar said. “What are they?”
“Oh, the laws everyone knows,” Bartrum said. “You must respect your elders, mustn’t start a fight, mustn’t steal or lie or cheat.”
“You shouldn’t want more than you need,” Celia added, “and you mustn’t try to make other people do things they don’t want to do—and of course, you should honor the gods.”
“As many as that?” Gar asked, wide-eyed. Only Alea could hear the irony in his tone and perhaps even she only detected it because she was picking up his emotions.
“Only that,” Celia concurred, “but—simply because we know the laws doesn’t mean the outlaws honor them. Be careful, friends!”
“Be careful,” Bartrum seconded, “and remember that if you ever need anything, you have only to ask it of your friends here.”
Alea hugged Celia impulsively while Gar clasped Bartrum’s hand. “Thank you for this timely warning.” He turned to Alea. “Perhaps we should stay awhile; profit does us little good if it’s stolen.”
Alea understood that the remark was only a show for their hosts’ benefit. “How else would we live? Or are you ready to settle down and farm?”
Gar glanced out at the fields and Alea was startled to see a sort of hunger in his eyes—but he said slowly, “No, not yet.”
“Then we had best be on our way,” Alea said briskly, and hugged Celia again. “Thank you ever so much for your hospitality!”
“Thank you ever so much for my son’s life,” Celia returned “Oh, take care, my friends! Take care!”
When they were too far away for the couple to hear, though they were still waving good-bye, Gar said, “We shall certainly take care—unlike General Malachi, who will take everything he can!”
“At least they’ve had the good sense to declare him an outlaw,” Alea said.
“That is hopeful,” Gar agreed, “and common law is better than none. Interesting to see that they’ve developed eight of the Ten Commandments and a variation on the Golden Rule.”
“Ten Commandments? What are those?” Alea asked, frowning, and when Gar explained, she admitted, “My people only had seven of those but quite a few others besides. Still, those seven must be so vital that no nation could last without them!”
“I shouldn’t think so,” Gar agreed. “After all, if you don’t have a law forbidding murder, what’s to keep your people from killing each other off?”
Alea shuddered but said bravely, “And if you don’t insist that it’s wrong to steal, neighbors can’t trust one another.”
Gar nodded. “Strange that they don’t have a law against incest, though. If people marry their first cousins for too many generations, the whole society falls apart from madness and idiocy.”
Alea glanced at him sharply. “How do you know that?”
Gar shrugged. “The only societies that are alive and well are the ones that prohibit inbreeding. Any that ever permitted it have died off as I’ve said.”
“So your evidence is that there isn’t any evidence?”
“No, a bit more than that,” Gar said slowly. “There have been quite a few royal families that insisted on brothers marrying sisters and first cousins marrying first cousins so that the magical royal blood would be kept within the family and not contaminated by commoners—until the last kings were so weak and stupid that they became easy prey to ambitious outsiders.”
“That makes sense.” Alea frowned. “My … Midgard’s laws forbid murder, incest, and theft, but of course they don’t apply to slaves, or to dwarves or giants.”
“Of course not,” Gar said. “In Neolithic societies, the laws usually apply only within your own group. It’s perfectly all right to go stealing from that tribe over the hill—in fact, it’s a virtue, if you don’t get caught.”
Alea smiled bleakly; thinking of her homeland saddened and angered her, as it always did. “My people do insist on honoring the gods, though, or at least paying them lip service.”
“A Neolithic god is a model for living,” Gar agreed. “You try to be as much like the god of your choice as you can, live the way he or she lived.”
Alea smiled sourly. “If that’s the case, General Malachi should be inventing a god of thieves and a god of warriors.”
“Why not?” Gar shrugged. “Other Neolithic societies did.”
If General Malachi had invented a thieves’ god he must have been praying to his homemade deity, because Gar and Alea encountered his soldiers again in midmorning. They were approaching a stand of trees where the road made a bend.
“Men talking on the other side of that curve,” Gar said. “They’re taking a rest from riding. They could be ordinary plowmen, or they could be one of Malachi’s patrols.”
“Let’s not take chances,” Alea said. “Into the trees.”
“Forests are friendly,” Gar agreed, and they stepped off the road, pushed their way through underbrush, and came into the green and leafy spaces. They moved through the woods carefully, making very little noise, cutting across the bend to come up behind the men. They could hear their loud talk and raucous laughter a hundred yards away and stopped at fifty feet, peering through the screen of brush to see whether or not the men wore General Malachi’s uniform.
“Whatcha lookin’ at, half-wit?” snarled a gravelly voice, and a boot caught Gar on the side, tumbling him over with a startled cry.
9
Alea spun in alarm, trying to strike with her staff, but she didn’t have room for a proper swing and the man caught the stick in one hand while he caught her wrist in the other. Grinning, he said, “Don’t just watch, sweetheart,” and shoved his face forward for a kiss.
His breath reeked. Revolted, Alea kicked as hard as she could. The man yelped and let go to catch at his shin, hopping about.
“Ho, Arbaw! Hold her!”
Alea looked up in alarm. The soldiers from the roadside were running toward them, weaving in and out among the trunks. She blessed the trees for slowing them down even as she turned and ran.
But Arbaw snarled and caught her arm as she went past. She kicked at his other shin, but he managed to put the injured foot down in time to sidestep—and his weakened leg almost folded. Alea helped it, chopping her heel into the back of his knee. Arbaw howled and fell, but he dragged her with him. He had delayed her long enough. The other bandit-soldiers burst from the trees with howls of glee. “Well caught, Arbaw!” one called. “Answer a call of nature, and see how Nature answers!”