"Toma!"
"The tribes don't bother anyone, Rula. They never did. Hywel goes out of his way to avoid trouble.
Just because those royal busybodies got themselves massacred.... They asked for it, trying to make Hywel and Stojan bend the knee."
"Toma, they'll fine us too."
"They have to hear me first."
"They know everything. People tell on each other. You know...."
"Because they're scared. Rula, if the bandits keep pushing, we won't care if we're afraid."
Tain delivered the meal to table. He asked, "Who are the Caydarmen? The one I saw was no Iwa Skolovdan."
"Mercenaries." Toma spat. "Crown wouldn't let Caydar bring regulars. He recruited Trolledyngjans who escaped when the Pretender overthrew the Old House up there. They're a gang of bandits."
"I see." The problem was taking shape. Baron Caydar would be, no doubt, a political exile thrust into an impossible position by his enemies. His assignment here would be calculated to destroy him. And what matter that a few inconsequential colonists suffered?
Tain's motherland was called Dread Empire by its foes. With cause. The Tervola did as they pleased, where and when they pleased, by virtue of sorcery and legions unacquainted with defeat.
Shinsan did have its politics and politicians. But never did they treat citizens with contempt.
Tain had studied the strange ways of the west, but he would need time to really grasp their actuality.
After supper he helped Toma haul more water. Toma remarked, "That's the finest eating I've had in years."
"Thank you. I enjoyed preparing it."
"What I wanted to say. I'd appreciate it if you didn't anymore." Tain considered. Toma sounded as though he expected to share his company for a while.
"Rula. She shouldn't have too much time to worry."
"I see."
"I appreciate the help you're giving me...." "You could save a lot of water-hauling with a windmill." "I know. But nobody around here can build one. Anyway. I couldn't pay much. Maybe a share on the sheep. If you'd stay...." Tain faced the east. The sunset had painted the mountains the color of blood. He hoped that was no omen. But he feared that legionnaires were dying at the hands of legionnaires even now. "All right. For a while. But I'll have to move on soon."
He wondered if he could outrun his past. A friend had told him that a man carried his pain like a tortoise carried his shell. Tain suspected the analogy might be more apt than intended. Men not only carried their painshells, they retreated into them if emotionally threatened.
"We need you. You can see that. I've been too stubborn to admit it till now...."
"Stubbornness is a virtue, properly harnessed. Just don't be stubborn against learning."
Steban carried water with them, and seemed impressed. Later, he said, "Tell us about the wars you were in, Tain."
Rula scowled.
"They weren't much. Bloody, sordid little things, Steban. Less fun than sheep-shearing time."
"Oh, come on. Tain. You're always saying things like that." "Mikla made a glory tale of it," Rula said. "You'd think... Well.... That there wasn't any better life."
"Maybe that was true for Mikla. But the El Murid Wars were long ago and far away, and, I expect, he was very young. He remembers the good times, and sees only the dullness in today." "Maybe. He shouldn't fill Steban's head with his nonsense." So Tain merely wove a tale of cities he had seen, describing strange dress and customs. Rula, he noted, enjoyed it as much as her son.
Later still, after his evening ritual, he spent several hours familiarizing himself with the countryside. A soldier's habits died hard.
Twice he spied roving Caydarmen. Neither noticed him. Next morning he rose early and took the gelding for a run over the same ground.
VII
Rula visited Tain's makeshift forge the third afternoon. Bringing a jar of chill spring water was her excuse. "You've been hammering for hours, Tain. You'd better drink something."
He smiled as he laid his hammer aside. "Thank you." He accepted the jar, though he wasn't yet thirsty. He was accustomed to enduring long, baking hours in his armor. He sipped while he waited.
She had something on her mind.
"I want to thank you."
"Oh?"
"For what you're doing. For what you've done for Toma. And me."
"I haven't done much."
"You've shown Toma that a man can be proud without being pig-headed. When he's wrong. But maybe you don't see it. Tain. I've lived with that man for eighteen years. I know him too well."
"I see." He touched her hand lightly, recognizing a long and emotionally difficult speech from a woman accustomed to keeping her own counsel.
He didn't know how to help her, though. An unmarried soldier's life hadn't prepared him. Not for a woman who moved him more than should be, for reasons he couldn't comprehend. A part of him said that women were people too, and should respond the same as men, but another part saw them as aliens, mysterious, perhaps even creatures of dread. "If I have done good, I have brought honor to the house."
He chuckled at his own ineptitude. Iwa Skolovdan just didn't have the necessary range of tonal nuance.
"You've given me hope for the first time since Shirl...." she blurted. "I mean, I can see where we're getting somewhere now. I can see Toma seeing it.
"Tain, I never wanted to come to the Zemstvi. I hate it. I hated it before we left home. Maybe I hated it so much that I made it impossible for Toma to succeed. I drove Shirl away...."
"Yes. I could see it. But don't hate yourself for being what you are."
"His dreams were dying, Tain. And I wouldn't give him anything to replace them. And I have to hate myself for that. But now he's coming alive again. He doesn't have to go on being stubborn, just to show me."
"Don't hate anybody, Rula. It's contagious. You end up hating everything, and everybody hates you."
"I can't ever like the Zemstvi. But I love Toma. And with you here, like a rock, he's becoming more like the boy I married. He's started to find his courage again. And his hope. That gives me hope. And that's why I wanted to thank you."
"A rock?"
"Yes. You're there. You don't criticize, you don't argue, you don't judge, you don't fear. You know. You make things possible.... Oh, I don't know how to say what I want. I think the fear is the biggest thing. It doesn't control us anymore."
"I don't think it's all my fault. Rula. You've done your part." He was growing unsettled. Even embarrassed.
She touched his arm. "You're strong, Tain. So strong and sure. My brother Mikla.... He was sure, but not always strong. He fought with Toma all the time."
Tain glanced south across the green hills. Toma had gone to the village in hopes of obtaining metal that could be used in the windmill Tain was going to build. He had been gone for hours.
A tiny silhouette topped a distant rise. Tain sighed in a mixture of disappointment and relief. He was saved having to face the feelings Rula was stirring.
Toma loved the windmill. He wanted to let the house ride till it was finished. Tain had suggested that they might, with a little ingenuity, provide running water. Rula would like that. It was a luxury only lords and merchant princes enjoyed.
Rula followed his gaze. Embarrassment overtook her. Tain yielded the jar and watched her flee.
Soon Toma called, "I got it, Tain! Bryon had an old wagon. He sold me enough to do the whole thing." He rushed to the forge, unburdened himself of a pack filled with rusty iron.
Tain examined the haul. "Good. More than enough for the bushings. You keep them greased, the windmill will last a lifetime."
Toma's boyish grin faded.
"What happened? You were gone a long time."
"Come on in the house. Share a jar of beer with me."
Tain put his tools away and followed Toma. Glancing eastward, he saw the white stain of Steban's flock dribbling down a distant slope, heading home. Beyond Steban, a little south, stood the grotesque rock formation locals called the Toad. The Sharans believed it the home of a malignant god.