“You stop!” Gird forgot that loud voices were not allowed in the lord’s court. “Those are my plums!”
“They may have been once, but I found them.” Rauf shoved Gird hard; he stumbled, and more plums rolled out of the basket. “Found them all over the ground, I did; what’s down is anyone’s, right?”
Gird tried to snatch for the rolling plums. Sikan kicked him lightly in the arm, while Rauf tipped his basket all the way over. Gird heard some of the other boys laughing, a woman nearby crying shame to them all. The back of his neck felt hot, and he heard a wind in his ears. Before he thought, he grabbed the basket and slammed it into Rauf’s face. Sikan jumped at him; Gird rolled away, kicking wildly. In moments that corner of the courtyard was a wild tangle of fighting boys and squashed fruit. The steward bellowed, the lord’s guards waded into the fight, using their hands, their short staves, the flats of their swords. And Gird found himself held immobile by two guards, with Rauf lying limp on the stones, and the other boys huddled in a frightened mass behind a line of armed men.
“Disgraceful,” said someone over his head. Gird looked up. The lord’s steward, narrow-faced, blue-eyed. “Who started it?”
No one answered. Gird felt the hands tighten on his arms, and give a shake. “Boy,” said a deeper voice, one of the men holding him. “What do you know about this? Who started it?”
“He stole my plums.” Before he spoke, he didn’t realize he was going to. In the heavy silence, with Rauf lying still before him, and the courtyard a mess of trampled fruit, his voice sounded thin. The steward looked at him, met his eyes.
“Your name, boy? Your father?”
“Gird, sir. Dorthan’s son.”
“Dorthan, eh? Your father’s not a brawling man; I’d have thought better of his sons.”
“Sir, he stole my plums!”
“Your tribute . . . yes. What was it, this year?”
“A ruckbasket, sir. And they were fine plums, big dark ones, and he—”
“Who?”
Gird nodded at Rauf. “Rauf, sir. Him and Sikan, his friend.”
“Anyone else see that?” The steward’s gaze drifted over the crowd of boys. Most stared at their feet, but Teris, a year older than Gird and son of his nearest neighbor, nodded.
“If you please, sir, it was Rauf started it. He said they were good plums, and would look better in his basket. Then he took some, and Gird said no, and he knocked Gird aside—”
“Rauf struck the first blow?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Anyone else?” Reluctant nods followed this. Gird saw a space open around Sikan, who had edged to the rear of the group. Sikan flushed and moved forward when the steward stared hard at him.
“It wasn’t so bad, sir,” he said, trying to smile around a bruised lip. “We was just teasing the lad, like, that was all.”
“Teasing, in your lord’s court?”
“Well—”
“And did you hit this boy?” The steward pointed at Gird.
“Well, sir, I may have—sort of—sort of pushed at him, like, but nothing hard, not to say brawling. But he’s one of them, you know, likes to make quarrels—”
The steward frowned. “It’s not the first time, Sikan, that you and Rauf have been found in bad order.” He nodded at the men behind Gird, and they released his arms. Gird rubbed his left elbow. “As for you, Gird son of Dorthan, brawling in the lord’s court is always wrong—always. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” There was nothing else to say.
“And you’re at fault in saying that your plums were stolen. They were your lord’s plums, owed to him. If Rauf had given them in, the lord would still have them. Instead—” The steward waved his hand at the mess. Very few whole fruit had survived the brawl. “But your family has a good name, young Gird, and I think you did not mean to cause trouble. So there will be no fine in fruit for your family . . . only you, along with these others, will stay and clean the court until those stones are clean enough to satisfy Sergeant Mager here.”
“Yes, sir.” And he would be late home, and get another whipping from his father.
“Now as for you, Sikan, and Rauf—” For Rauf had begun to move about, and his eyes opened, though aimlessly as yet. “Since you started trouble, and moreover chose a smaller boy to bully, you’ll spend a night in the stocks, when this work is done.” And the steward turned away, back to his canopy over the account table where the scribes made marks on long rolls of parchment.
Gird found the rest of that day instructive. He had scrubbed their stone floor often enough at home, and scraped dung from the cowshed. But his mother was no more particular about the bowls they ate from than Sergeant Mager about the courtyard stones. He and the other boys picked up pieces of the squashed fruit and put them in baskets—without getting even a taste of it. Then they carried buckets of water—buckets so large that Gird couldn’t carry one by himself—and brushed the stones with water and long-handled brushes. Then they rinsed, and then they scrubbed again. Just when Gird was sure that the stones could be no cleaner had they just been quarried, the Sergeant would find a scrap of fruit rind, and they had it all to do over again. But he did his best, working as hard as he could. By the time the Sergeant let them go, it was well past midday, and Gird’s fingers were raw with scrubbing. He called Gird back from the gate for an extra word.
“Your dad’s got a good name,” he said, laying a heavy hand on Gird’s shoulder. “And you’re a good lad, if quick-tempered. You’ve got courage, too—you were willing to take on those bigger lads. Ever think of being a soldier?”
Gird felt his heart leap. “You mean . . . like you?”
The sergeant laughed. “Not at first, of course. You’d start like the others, as a recruit. But you’re big for your age, and strong. You work hard. Think of it . . . a sword, a spear maybe . . . you could make sergeant someday.”
“Do you ever get to ride a horse?” That was his dream, to ride a fast horse as the lords did, running before the wind.
“Sometimes.” The sergeant smiled. “The steward might recommend you for training. A lad like you needs the discipline, needs a place to work off his extra energy. Besides, it’s a mouth less to feed at home.” He gave Gird’s shoulder a final shake, and pushed him out the gate. “We’ll have a word with your dad, this next day or so. Don’t start trouble again, eh?”
“Holy Lady of Flowers!” His mother had been half-way down the lane; she must have been watching from the house. “Gird, what did you mean—”
“I’m sorry.” He stared at the dust between his toes, aware of every rip in his clothes. They had been his best, the shirt actually new, and now they looked like his ragged old ones. “I didn’t start it, Mother, truly I didn’t. Rauf stole some plums, and I thought we might have a fine—”
“Effa says Rauf hit you first.”
“Yes’m.” He heard her sigh, and looked up. “I really didn’t—”
“Gird—” She put a hand on his head. “At least you’re back, and no fine. Effa says the steward didn’t seem angry, not like she thought he would be.”
“I don’t think he is.” Suddenly his news burst out of him. “Guess what the sergeant said—maybe I can train to be a soldier! I could have a sword—” Excited as he was, he didn’t notice her withdrawal, the shock on her face. “Sometimes they even ride horses, he said. He said I was big enough, and strong, and—” Her stiff silence held him at last; he stared at her. “Mother?”
“No!” She caught his arm, and half-dragged him down the lane to the house.
The argument went on all evening. His father’s first reaction to the story of the plums was to reach for his belt. “I don’t brawl,” he said. “And I didn’t raise my sons to be brawlers.”