“You’re welcome to make it better any way you want,” Banhael grunted. “Not much need to worry about the roof, though—there’s no sign of rain tonight.”
“True, but we might want to stay a few days.” Gar waited just long enough to see dismay register on Banhael’s face, then turned to Dirk, who was coming out the door. “How is it?”
“Needs sweeping,” Dirk informed him, “and we might want to shovel the ashes out of the hearth, in case we’re here long enough for the weather to turn cold.”
“But it’s summer!” Banhael protested.
“I like to plan ahead,” Gar informed him. “I believe there was some mention of dinner?”
“Cook it yourself!” Banhael snapped, and turned away.
Gar watched him go, amused. “How soon do you think he’ll gather his men to attack us?”
“Tomorrow night,” Dirk said immediately. “I think he’ll let us be for tonight, and hope we’ll go away all by ourselves.”
“That might not be a bad idea.” Coll glanced nervously around the camp, his gaze returning to his sister and mother.
“There is some merit to the notion,” Gar admitted, “but we do want to give the losing soldiers time to sneak home, and get out of our way.”
“On the other hand,” Dirk reminded him, “we don’t want to be gone too long, or the king will think we’ve been up to something.”
“Why not give him grounds for concern?” Gar mused. “Besides, we might not choose to go back to him.”
“You’re not thinking of staying in this den of thieves!” Coll protested.
“No,” Gar admitted, “but there are other possibilities … I see these outlaw women, at least, are generous.”
Coll turned, and saw Mama and Dicea coming up laden with food: Dicea carried a small kettle. “How hospitable they are!” Mama exclaimed. “I’ve two new recipes to try out right away! And it was so good of Pinella to lend us her spare pot!”
Coll stared, and Gar shook his head, marveling. “You forage amazingly, goodwife.”
For a moment, a tinge of sadness showed. “Call me ‘goodwife’ no longer, sir—no, not since my husband died in the earl’s wars, God rest his soul. Call me ‘mother,’ or ‘widow.’ ” Then she brightened. “But for now, call me ‘cook’! Come, Dicea, I see a hearth of stones! Kindle a fire and set up the tripod!”
“I can do that much, at least.” Coll gathered up some dry grass and a few sticks and settled down with flint and steel.
Mama gazed down at him fondly. “He’s a good boy, sir. On the headstrong side, yes, and he does have a temper, but he’s a good boy.”
“We’ve found him so,” Gar agreed. “You’ve made friends quickly enough, Mother.”
“Oh, they’re so kindly, sir! Even eager, I might say, for the company of an older woman! They’ve been reft from their mothers, you see—from their villages, for that matter, all of them, or so Pinella tells me.”
“Does she really?” Gar said, with keen interest—almost admiration, it seemed to Coll. “I would have thought they were outlaws themselves.”
“Well, some of them are, sir. They fled to the forest rather than go to the bed of a cruel knight, then found themselves bundled into the blankets of a bandit instead.” Mama saddened a little. “Some fled because they were charged with stealing, and would rather take their chances with wild beasts than lose a hand—but I don’t know as they thought of the beasts who went on two legs. Indeed, some of them are girls who were foolish enough to venture into the woods alone, and were stolen away to be an outlaw’s consort whether they would or no.”
“Foolish indeed.” But Dicea sounded angry.
“I thought everybody knew about the outlaws in the forest,” Dirk said, and Gar shot him a curious glance.
“All do, sir, all do,” Mama sighed, “but young girls never think they might be as hard as the knights or their soldiers. Still, men are men, and what can a woman do with them?”
“Try to tame them, of course,” Gar said, and Mama looked up in surprise. “Why, so they do, sir, though I never thought to hear a man admit it! But even as you say, some of the women have settled down with one man only, borne him children, and become wives in all but name—and in that too! Though without a priest to bless the union, other men keep challenging their husband’s right”
“And if he’s a bad husband, she’s tempted to change partners,” Dirk said dryly. “That’s where you get the really nasty fights.”
“True, sir, though there’s always fighting over the women who haven’t yet managed to get a man to themselves.”
“Let me guess,” Dirk said. “It’s the prettiest ones who have managed the common-law marriages.”
Mama frowned. “An odd term, sir, though I doubt not it will serve—if there were a law common to all serfs, not set upon them by their lords. Yet you guess wrongly, for it isn’t the most beautiful women who wed. Indeed, many here are beauties, or they would not have needed to flee the lords, but what cares a man about beauty, when there are so few women?”
Dirk nodded. “Nice if you can get it, but not exactly vital. So what does determine who gets married?”
Mama shrugged. “Those who make a man most yearn for them, sir—by their conduct, I suppose, though I notice the ‘wives’ are the older women.”
“Yes, must be well into their twenties,” Dirk sighed. “Y’know, Gar, the whole setup seems very familiar.”
“Familiar?” Mama frowned, looking from one knight to the other. “How so?”
“Like an outlaw band he knew at home, I think,” Gar explained, “and so did I.”
“ ‘Home’ for these gentlemen was very far away, Mama,” Coll explained.
“Very,” Dirk agreed, his voice flat. “But there was a band there that we spent some time with, whose captain was a woman.”
“A woman?” Mama stared. “Captain of an outlaw band? How could she make her men mind?”
“By sheer force of personality,” Gar told her, “coupled with an unfailingly fair and accurate sense of judgment, and very high intelligence.”
“Even so, I marvel that a woman could rise to rule men!”
“She was a very exceptional woman,” Gar agreed, “and would have been so in any society, anywhere.”
“Did she not bend men by power of beauty?” Dicea asked.
“No, because she didn’t have any,” Dirk answered. “She was plain, and very fat. They called her ‘Lapin,’ which means ‘rabbit,’ because she taught her men to run and hide from the lords’ men when they didn’t stand an even chance of winning.”
“Wise advice,” Coll grunted.
“Yes, wasn’t it? So her band survived and grew, while the others were killed off. After a few years, she virtually ruled the forest.”
“I don’t see any such wisdom in Banhael.” Coll frowned at the outlaw leader, who was cuffing one of his men, then roaring an order.
“No, so I’ve no doubt he’ll only last until someone smarter comes along,” Gar said. “But he’s a good fighter, and canny in his ambushes, as you’ve found out all too well, so his band has grown and lasted long enough for some of the men to harry and start families.”
Coll pursed his lips, frowning. “So as long as he wins and keeps them alive, they’ll listen to him?”
Gar nodded. “The real test of an outlaw leader, I suppose—simple survival.”
“Yes, and survival is what being an outlaw is all about,” Gar agreed. “In fact, if you have oppressive lords with unfair laws, and punishments so harsh that a man has less to lose by fleeing and hiding than by submitting to punishment, it’s inevitable that you’ll have outlaws in the forest.”
“Yes, provided that you have forests so big they’re impossible to police,” Dirk said.