“Comment noted,” Gar confirmed, then turned to Coll. “I hope you’re worth all this trouble, stranger.”
“Not to mention a few flesh wounds.” Dirk turned to Coll, too. “Of course, you took your share. Who are you, anyway?”
Coll stared at them, suddenly realizing that two total strangers had saved him. “Only Coll,” he said, “only a runaway serf and murderer.” He raised his spear to guard. “For your help, I thank you—but why?”
Gar ignored the spear. “We don’t like seeing one man attacked by a pack.”
“No, definitely not,” Dirk agreed. “Of course, there’s also the little matter of our needing a guide. We’re from out of town, see, and we figure we can get around quicker if we have someone who knows the territory.”
“Why … I can guide you through the lands for ten miles about,” Coll said slowly. “I’ve come to know them well, in this month of running and hiding. Beyond that, though, I know no more than you do—and if the lords find you harboring an outlaw, they’ll have your heads!”
Dirk shrugged. “They’ll have to take them first. Besides, how do we know you’re a criminal? You just bumped into us on the road—what did we know?”
Gar pulled tunic and hose from his saddlebag. “Whoever thought that a man dressed so well could be on the run?”
Coll stared. “For me?”
“Well, you’ll have to take a bath first.” Dirk drew a bottle from his saddlebag and came up to Coll, pouring some of the fluid onto a square of cloth. “Of course, we’d better see about those cuts. Hold still—this will sting.”
Coll eyed the cloth with misgiving, but stood his ground. Dirk wiped his shoulder, and Coll gasped with pain, then set his teeth, determined not to cry out. Instead, he managed to say, “You really mean to take me as your servant?”
“ ‘Hire’ is the term,” Gar said helpfully. “You may not know the territory very far away, but you do know which lord is which, and who hates whom—and I suspect you could make a rather shrewd guess as to which will attack the other.”
Dirk stepped back, turning some sort of black cap onto the bottle in place of a cork, and Coll relaxed; the stinging was already passing. “Who will attack?” He shrugged. “Any of the lords. But they will attack the new king, not one another. They have been patching up their feuds ever since he was crowned, getting ready to teach him his place.”
Gar raised his eyebrows. “I thought your noblemen were always fighting one another.”
“They are, and it’s a blessed rest,” Coll told him. “Of course, Graf Knabe is still fighting Count Gascon, and Duke Vladimir is defending his border from the raids of the Marquis de la Port—but their families have been fighting for as long as anyone can remember.”
“So they certainly wouldn’t stop for a mere little thing like a coronation, eh?” Gar asked.
“Of course not,” Dirk answered. “Why waste a perfectly good feud?” He turned back to Coll. “So it’s going to be one of the lords attacking the new king, eh?”
Coll shrugged. “Unless he attacks one of them first.”
“In which case, they’ll all pile in on top of him?”
“They might,” Coll said slowly, “but they also might sit back and wait till he is weakened. If His Majesty wins, some others will look for excuses to attack him, while the neighbors of the losing lord divide up his estates.”
“Sure. Why not wait till they’re both weakened?” Dirk said.
“No reason that I can think of.” Coll didn’t seem to recognize sarcasm—or didn’t see any place for it. “Some of the village elders favor the one, some the other. One or two do think the lords will all attack the king without waiting for cause, though.”
“Quite a country,” Dirk said to Gar, “when every peasant with a few years’ experience could teach a course in political intrigue.”
Gar shrugged. “We learn what we need, to stay alive.” Then to Coll, “However, since Dirk and I haven’t learned yet, we’d like to take you along as a teacher.”
Coll gave a harsh laugh. “Teacher? When was a serf taught to read or write?”
“Only after the revolution.” Dirk’s face hardened. Coll frowned. “What is a revolution?”
“The peasants getting fed up with the lords,” Dirk explained. “No, I think you have all the qualifications we need. What’s your name, by the way?”
“Coll,” the outlaw said, bemused. “But I tell you, I know nothing! ”
“And we tell you that you know everything we need to learn,” Gar corrected. “Besides, we can be sure whose side you’re on.”
“Yes, you can.” Coll’s face was stone, but turned to confusion again as he blurted, “How can you trust me, though? I’m an outlaw! A killer!”
“What kind of choice did you have?” Gar asked.
“I could have let a knight take my sister,” Coll said grimly, and felt the bitterness rise again. “He probably did, anyway.”
Gar and Dirk exchanged a glance. Dirk gave a nod and turned back to Coll. “Yeah, we can trust you. Now about that bath…”
Dirk helped Coll bathe—helped by giving him a cake of real, actual soap, some sort of oily potion to clean his hair—then some brown liquid to rinse it with. Gar gave him a length of soft, fluffy cloth to dry his body. As Coll pulled on the leggins—no, hose!—he protested, “What if someone from my village should see me? Or one of my lord’s men?”
“They won’t recognize you,” Dirk assured him, “or did you have those scars on your face before you left home?”
“Well … no.” Coll hadn’t thought of that.
“Besides, they all know that Coll has yellow hair.” Gar drew a polished circle of metal from his saddlebag. “Look!” Coll looked at the circle, and saw a face looking back. He stared in shock—it looked very little like the face he had seen staring back from the still pool only a month before! It was hardened, scarred—and topped with brown hair! He looked up at Gar wide-eyed. “What magic is this?”
“Hair dye,” Gar explained, “though it does look a little odd with that yellow beard. We’re going to teach you a new skill, Coll.”
The serf stared up at him. “A skill?”
“It’s called ‘shaving.’ ” Dirk unfolded a strange, square-ended blade from its hollow wooden handle. “You do it with a razor, like this. Hold still, now—this won’t hurt much.”
Which was more or less true, at least compared to being wounded with a spear—but it hurt enough that Coll was dismayed to hear he was going to have to do it every day. When he looked in the mirror again, though, he didn’t recognize himself at all. Why, he was bare-faced as any knight! Or at least a squire… “You were right! Even my neighbors would never know me now!”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t,” Dirk agreed. “Still, it never hurts to make sure. Which way is your home village, Coll?” Coll pointed to the west. “That way, on Earl Insol’s estates.”
“Then we’ll go east.” Dirk mounted his horse. “What lies that way?”
“The king’s own demesne,” Coll answered.
Dirk and Gar exchanged another glance. “Well,” the big man said, as he mounted his tall roan, “no matter who attacks whom, we’ll be there to see it. Do they hire extra soldiers, Coll?”
“Free lances? Yes, and there are many of them riding the roads.” Coll frowned. “If they can’t find work, they turn bandit—and far more cruel than I’ve ever been, from what the minstrels sing!”
Dirk nodded. “That’s the kind of work we’re looking for. You can still change your mind, Coll. You don’t have to come along.”
Coll looked back at his hill and thought of the knight and his men who would be coming to about now and discovering the dead bodies among them. “Thank you for the choice, fine gentleman—but when I think it all through, I find I would just as soon come with you.”