“Not if they listen, too,” Versey said, his smile telling her that they now shared a great treasure. “Not if you can talk them into listening, too.”
Gar’s pack bulged by the time he was done trading, pelts and furs take up a great deal more room than needles and spices. Well, Herkimer could always use more furs to fashion clothing for the next cold-weather planet they might visit. Gar would simply have to arrange another drop and send the furs back up with the drone that brought him more trade goods. Certainly none of the clans would want more pelts; they all trapped enough on their own. At least the outlaws had found some gold nuggets to trade—not that they would bring much from the next clan down the road. They might do for fashioning buttons, or even jewelry, but the clansfolk didn’t really seem to have any concept of money.
Trading done, they all sat around a fire in the center of the circle of cottages, watching the spit turn the carcass of the day’s game—a wild boar. Gar looked from Rowena on his right to Lem on his left and wondered why they bothered waylaying travelers if they had no use for money. Needles and pins, perhaps? “Penny for your thoughts, peddler,” Rowena said.
“A penny?” Gar looked up, startled. “You have pennies?” Rowena turned wary. “Of course, but don’t think you can talk us into trading them away. Everyone knows you need pennies to lay on the eyes of the dead.”
“Oh.” Gar pursed his lips in thought. “So that’s what they’re for?”
“Of course!” Rowena stared. “What would you use them for?”
“Trading,” Gar said quickly.
Rowena gave a laugh that was more like a grunt. “Fools they’d be who traded them away. How would they bury their dead, then? That must be why the ancients made so many pennies—because they knew everyone must die some day.”
“Is that why you waylay travelers, then?” Gar asked. “In hopes they’ll have pennies?”
“Who’d be so foolish as to bring their dead-coins with them on a journey?” Rowena countered.
“Peddlers,” Gar said, “like me. You must have a lot of us come through your woods, if you find us worth ambushing.” Rowena looked at him strangely. “Peddlers are even more rare than pennies, stranger, and don’t try to tell me you don’t know it! No, most of the traffic is the escort parties a clan sends to take a Druid or bard from one clan to another, or their young folk on wander-year, and you may be sure we give each one a wide berth.”
“Then who do you rob?”
Rowena shrugged. “There’s the occasional Druid or bard who’s as cocky as you, thinking he or she can fight off a whole outlaw band—though they mostly have less reason.” She gave him a sardonic smile. “You didn’t fare so badly. If all travelers fought like you, we’d have to send every outlaw against them, every time.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” Gar said. “Peddlers don’t rate armed escorts, though?”
“More than any Druid or healer!” Rowena said. “Fact is, they’re so prized that no clan will risk hurting them.” The sardonic smile was still there. “That’d be cause enough to start a new feud.”
“So a peddler alone is a real find,” Lem put in.
“Yes, I can see I must have been,” Gar said slowly. “Too tempting to resist.” He looked around him at gaunt faces with the sores of scurvy and other vitamin deficiencies. They watched the roasting boar with gleaming, hungry eyes. “You can’t farm among these trees, can you?”
“No, and if we cleared land for a field, it would tell the clansfolk where to look,” Lem confirmed. “ ‘See here! Outlaws near! Come and get ‘em!’ ”
Rowena nodded. “They won’t miss a few sheep, or the odd cow now and then—but a dozen sheep at a time, or a cow a week? That would bring the whole clan marching against us.”
“I wouldn’t think any clan would risk a pitched battle against so strong a band. Why, there must be sixty of you! And in your own forest?”
“Oh we might win—once,” Rowena said. “Trouble is, they wouldn’t stay gone. They’d come back—and back, and back, and back. We’d start another feud, and that’s what we’ve fled.”
Gar looked again at the people around him and felt renewed determination to find a way to end the fighting.
Gar declined several offers of hospitality, saying that he felt hemmed in by houses, and rolled out his blanket by the communal fire. He wasn’t fooling anyone—the outlaws all knew he had reason not to trust them.
Of course, by the same token, he didn’t dare sleep, so he sat cross-legged on the blanket, recited a koan, and let himself fall into a trance that would give his body some rest but also leave him aware of his surroundings. He knew he would have to find a shelter for a nap the next day, but he wasn’t about to leave himself vulnerable just then.
When the waking sleep had taken hold, and the outlaws’ village seemed remote, as though he saw it through a pane of thickened glass, Gar let his awareness expand to embrace the myriad of thoughts and emotions from the animals of the forest—hunger and greed, fear and the excitement of the chase, lust and frustration—then farther and farther, eavesdropping for a few seconds on the dreams of each of the homesteads around the forest. There, finally, he found the waking mind he sought.
How was your day, Alea?
Gar! Thank heavens! she thought back, then poured out the tale of the Gregor clan and Linda’s near-death—not in words, but in a rush of emotions and images that lasted only seconds. Then you saved another life? Well done!
How could I do less? Alea thought, abashed.
No, that’s not your way. His thoughts warmed in a way that made her both yearn and shrink. Gar must have sensed it, for he overlaid the heat with a layer of seeming coolness. Because of that, you seem to have won the approval of the family Druid.
Approval, and a great deal of knowledge. Alea sent another tumble of images and concepts that summarized all Versey had told her about his life, and his place in a society built on feuding. Finally she asked, What of you? Where are you? Not alone in the forest, I hope!
In the forest, but not alone. Now it was Gar’s turn for the cascade of emotions, images, and ideas that had made up his day. When he was done, Alea asked, So the clans assign escort parties to peddlers? Wouldn’t it have been handy to know that!
It would, Gar answered, but if I had, I wouldn’t have come to know as much about the outlaws as I do.
Yes. Fancy being outlawed for pleading the cause of peace! We peacemakers have been declared criminals before this. Gar’s thought carried a tone of resignation. I’ve even heard of them being jailed during wartime.
How ironic! The killers are honored and the peace-lovers are despised! What of the thieves and murderers and adulterers?
If they murder someone within their own clan, they’re outlawed, Gar returned. As to the others, as long as their crimes are directed against the enemy clan, they’re applauded.
So the feuds turn everything upside down, Alea mused. What if there were no war? Would it be turned right-side up?
Let us cause an outbreak of peace and find out, Gar suggested.
There was a little more, an exchange of personal reactions to the day, but Alea’s thoughts grew more and more bleary with sleepiness, and Gar told her good night. The conversation over, he sat and listened to the silence for a while.