“Some of them might be more like us than you think. Leaderless farmers thrown out of their villages—isn’t that what you started with?”
Cob sat up straight and glared at Selamis. “We were not brigands. We may have been disorganized, lazy, filthy, and incompetent, but we were not brigands.”
Selamis smiled at him. “That’s what I meant. But your lord called you brigands, I’d wager.” Cob was not mollified; he glowered at Selamis. But Ivis nodded.
“He did. And maybe—you were good with us, Gird, and if you found even another cohort by full spring—”
Gird mastered his anger with an effort. Late winter had always been the worst time for quarrels, even in the villages: empty bowls and enforced idleness made everyone irritable. “I suppose you have a particularly saintly brigand in mind for me to recruit?”
“I can’t promise saintliness, but these last two villages both claim that the brigands near them muster a cohort or two. And there’s a man who can guide you to their camp.”
“I’ll think about it.” He would have thought about it between other things for a long time, but the next day a stranger came bearing an offer—written, Gird was surprised to see—from that very brigand captain. He had been a soldier, he said, and turned his coat when the war began. He had much to offer Gird, and would meet with him—in his camp. Gird talked to Arranha. The old priest shook his head and spread his hands.
“You put your life in the hands of Sier Segrahlin, Gird, and came out of that alive; if you want to chance this brigand I have no reason to think you’ll do worse. Will you take a cohort of your own?”
“No. We don’t have the food now to move them that far, and have them look like anything but starvelings. That won’t impress him or his men. I’ll go alone, and wear my best boots.”
“You might like to consider something.” The big man’s face was dark with more than weather; ancient dirt outlined every crease, and his heavy dark hair was greasy. But the dagger with which he was paring his filthy nails was spotless, its edge gleaming.
“I might,” said Gird, accepting the dirty clay pot one of the other men offered without enthusiasm. Gods only knew what kind of brew would be in it. He sniffed as unobtrusively as possible. The big man’s shrewd eyes missed nothing.
“If you want ale, we’ve got it. That’s just water—spring water, from over there.” His head jerked, and Gird’s eyes followed, to a glisten of water among rank weeds across the clearing. Gird sipped, cautiously. It tasted like spring water, untainted by any herbs he knew.
“You’re the peasants’ new general, I hear,” said the big man. He waved his hand, and a woman in a striped skirt, a pattern Gird had never seen, brought over a wooden tray. On it were a loaf and two wooden bowls half-full of stew. The stew had slopped onto the tray, making a gray puddle, but it smelled good. “Here,” the man said, breaking the loaf and offering both chunks to Gird. Gird took the smaller; the man frowned, but passed him one of the bowls.
“I’m not a general,” Gird said. He nibbled the bread: coarse and sour, but no worse than his own baking.
“General, captain, leader, whatever you want to call it. You’re commanding them now—”
Gird nodded. No use hiding it, and by rumor this one would never tell the nobles.
“You need troops.” The big man dipped his own chunk of bread in the stew, and stuffed his mouth full, then bit it off savagely. “I have troops.”
Gird looked around at the men huddled at the cookfires, being served by the two women. “These?”
“Among others. More than you have, peasant general.” The words were slurred with chewing.
“Then you want to join us?”
The man swallowed that mouthful, took another, and finished it before answering. “You need us. I think you want us.”
Gird dipped his own bread into the stew and took a large bite. Better meat than he’d tasted since spring. “Good stew,” he said. The man frowned at him, but said nothing. Gird looked past his shoulder at the others, and found eyes staring back at him that quickly looked away. He put his bowl down, and leaned forward, fists on knees.
“I need people who want to make a better land.”
The man’s eyes widened, and then he laughed, an explosive gust that sprayed spittle an armspan. “Better land! What kind of talk is that? Is that what you peasants think you’re doing?”
“If it’s not, we’re nothing but outlaws.”
“And you think that’s so terrible? Simyits’ fingers, Gird, we’ve been outlaws so long most of us don’t know where we come from, and do we look so starveling to you?” The man pushed up his sleeve, and squeezed a meaty forearm. “See this? Show me the peasant with as much meat on his bones—not you, not anyone you know. Besides, you’re all outlaws: the lords have a bounty on you, same as us.”
Gird was aware of ears stretched long to hear their words. “We’re outlaws because we had no choice. Because the magelords’ law gave us no way to live within it. Given a fair chance, I don’t know many as ’ud live outside the law. All I ever heard of outlaws, they was mostly men driven off their lands by some greedy lord.”
The man hawked and spat, not too near Gird’s feet. “Aye, it’s unfairness drives most men to the woods. Some of us was stolen away young, or born to free fathers. But we’re all free now, that’s the thing. Free, and with no wish to put our necks under the yoke again.”
“The magelords’ yoke?”
“Any yoke.” The man spat again, this time a hairs-breadth nearer. Gird thought it was deliberate. “See here, Gird, I’ll be straight with you. We’re free, and we want to stay free. You talk of a better land: just what do you mean? A better king? A better tax gatherer?”
Some of the others had come nearer. Gird had noticed before that they were well-fed; now he could see the glint of weapons in their hands. “No king,” he said. “The magelords brought kings to our land; we had none before.”
“Who told you that?” It was a long, lanky redhead well behind his leader.
“The gnomes,” he answered. He would have gone on, but the collective intake of breath stopped him. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You deal with gnomes?” The big man sounded both angry and afraid.
He was not sure how to answer. Would they understand that bargain he’d made, or would they fear gnomish incursions? “I learned of old times from the gnomes,” he said finally. “And of law.”
The big man’s eyes slewed to left and right, meeting others and picking up control as visibly as a man picks up the reins of horses in harness. Gird felt a cold draft down his back. Something he’d said had changed their minds—and not for the better.
“I would not call it better for the rule of gnomes or gnomish men,” said the leader.
“They seek no rule in human lands,” said Gird. “They abide by their laws, which forbid that.”
“But you learned law of them—and from them learned what you would do to make the land better?”
“It’s obvious enough what would make it better. Honest dealing between one man and another, one craft and another. Fair judges. Taxes there must be, but fair, and no more than a man can pay and still live decently. From them I learned what is needed to make such things exist, what rules groups need.”
The big man’s teeth gleamed as he grinned. “Fair dealing, eh? And who’s to say what’s fair, with no king? The gnomes?”
Gird shook his head, pushing away his doubts. This was familiar ground, at least, and perhaps they would listen. “Not the gnomes; they have their law, for themselves. We need a law, a rule, for us—for all of us. We decide what’s fair, all of us, in council—as our forefathers did, in the old days of steading and hearthing.” Talking fast, he explained more of the plan he and his friends had worked out. But he knew soon enough that they listened with only idle interest. When he finished, the leader was shaking his head.