“Mali’s child?”
“Aye.” Gird felt restless, in here where he could not see.
“We heard there’d been trouble your way. Your name was mentioned.” Gird was sure it had been, if the guards had been by. “They said a man died—?”
“Rahi’s husband, Parin. He was inside; he tried to fight them off.”
“Mmm. And you?”
He felt the rush of shame again. “I was out plowing—when I heard her scream, I tried—but the guards got me—”
Mali’s brother shook his head. “None o’ us can stand against them. It’s no blame to you. Well. I reckon we can take her in, see if she heals—and the younger girl?”
“Has a broken arm.”
“She’s welcome here too. The lords come here rarely, and one woman—one girl—but the thing is—”
“You can’t let us stay. I know that.” Gird sighed, heavily. “I—I’m an outlaw now, we both know that. Trouble for you. But if you’ll care for them—”
“We will.”
“Then I’ll leave now, before I bring trouble.”
“Will you tell us where?”
“No. What you don’t know, you won’t be withholding. If Rahi lives, I may come through again sometime.”
Mali’s brother nodded. “I can give you a bit of food—”
“Save it for Rahi—I’m giving you two more mouths to feed, maybe three if she doesn’t lose the child—”
“Never mind. We’re glad to help Mali’s daughters. May the Lady’s grace go with you.”
Gird almost answered with a curse—what grace had he had from the Lady this several years?—but choked it back. The man meant no harm, and maybe the Lady meant no harm either. He and Fori eased out of the barton, keeping close to the walls and low, until they came between the hedges that edged the fields of Fireoak. Back up the grassy lane—the plough-team’s lane, he was sure—to the heavy clump of wood that reminded him of the way the wood had been when he was a child. Here no lord had thinned it, and the oak and nut trees made a vast shade.
Diamod was waiting, with Pidi; the others had disappeared. Gird and Fori scooped up the sticky paste of soaked grain, and ate it from dirty fingers. For the first time, Gird felt like a real outlaw. No fire, no shelter, no table or spoons—only the knife at his belt, and the farm tools he had carried away.
“And now?” Diamod asked. “What will you do now?”
Gird looked sideways at him. “What is there to do, but try to live and fight?”
“You had said you were thinking of teaching us what you knew of soldiering.”
Gird wiped sticky fingers in the leafmold, and scowled at the result. “I had some ideas, yes. But your people—were they all farmers before?”
“Most of them. I was a woodworker, myself. There’s a one-armed man who was a smith, but crippled for forging long blades.”
“But most have used farming tools, sickles and scythes and shovels and the like?”
“Yes—but why?”
Gird had crouched by the trickle of water to scrub his hands clean; now he flipped the water from them, and leaned back against a tree. Something poked him in the back, and he squirmed away from it.
“You can’t fight soldiers as an unarmed mob; we know that already. It takes too many—and too many die. Drill would help; having a plan and following it, not rushing around in a lump. But weapons—that’s the thing. We’ll never get swords enough, not with the watch they keep on smiths. I’d thought of making weapons from the blades of scythes or sickles, but that too would take a smith willing to work the metal, and then training to use them. I had just begun sword training myself; I’m not any good with a sword.” He paused to clear his throat. Diamod was scowling, and now he shrugged.
“So? Are you still saying there’s no way peasants can defend themselves?”
“No. What I’m saying is we have to use what we have. The tools the men are used to—the tools we can make, or that we have already—and then learn to use those tools for fighting.”
Diamod looked unconvinced. “Are you saying that ex-farmers with shovels can stand up to soldiers with pikes and swords?”
“If we can’t, then we’re doomed. I don’t know if they—we—can. But we have to try.”
“And you’ll teach us.”
“I hope so. There’s something else—”
“What?”
“Just an idea. Let me tell the others about it later.”
Diamod led Gird, Fori, and Pidi through the woods that lay between Fireoak and the next holding to the east. Gird tried to keep in mind how they had come, but soon found all the trees, trails, and creeks blurring in his mind. That night they spent in the wood, eating another cold meal of soaked grain. The next day, they followed a creek most of the day, coming at last to a clearing where the creek roared down a rocky bluff. At the foot of the waterfall, a rude camp held a score of men.
In the center of the camp was a circle of stones around the firepit, symbolic of their name, but actually used for seating. The lean blackhaired man who appeared to be the leader did not rise from his stone when Diamod led Gird forward.
“So this is Gird of Kelaive’s village, eh?” The man looked worn and hungry, as they all did. Diamod started to speak, and the man waved him to silence. “I’ll hear Gird himself.”
Gird stared at him, uncertain. So many strangers—not one familiar face beyond Fori and Pidi—upset him. He could not read their expressions; he did not know where they were from, or how they would act.
“Have you ever been out of your vill before?” asked the man, less brusquely.
“Only to trade fair, one time, and to Fireoak when I was courting,” Gird said. The man’s voice even sounded strange; some of his words had an odd twang to them.
“Then you feel like a lost sheep, in among wild ones. I know that feeling. Fireoak’s in your hearthing, anyway—hardly leaving home and kin, like this. Diamod has told us about you—that you sent grain, the past few years, after your friend was killed—”
“Amis,” said Gird. It seemed important to name him.
“And now you’ve run away to join us. Why?”
Gird got the tale out in short, choked phrases; no one interrupted. When he finished, he was breathing hard and fast, and the others were looking mostly at their feet. Only the blackhaired man met his eyes.
“Outlaw—this is what you chose. After telling Diamod you would not consider it—”
“While I could farm,” Gird said. “Now—”
“You can’t farm here,” the man gestured at the surrounding forest. “So what skills do you bring us?”
Gird was sweating, wishing he could plunge away into the trees and lose himself. What did these men want? Were they going to grant him shelter or not? “I thought I would do what Diamod asked before: teach you what I know of soldiering.”
Someone snickered, behind him. The blackhaired man smiled. “And what do you know of soldiering, after a lifetime spent farming? Did you bring swords, and will you teach us to use them? Or perhaps that scythe slung on your back will turn to a pike at your spellword? Diamod told me he had found someone, a renegade guardsman, he said, to teach us soldiers’ drill, but what good is drill without weapons?”
The tone of the questions roused his anger, and banished fear. “Without drill you couldn’t use weapons if you had them. With it—with it, you can use whatever comes to hand, and make a weapon of it.”
“S’pose you’ll lead us into battle wi’ sticks, eh?” asked one man. Others chuckled. “Fat lot of good that will do, a stick against a sword.”
“It can,” said Gird, “if you’ve the sense to use it like a stick, and not try to fence with it.” This time the chuckles were fewer; he could see curiosity as well as scorn in their faces.
“ ’Course,” said the black-haired man, “we’ve only got your word for it, that you can fight at all.”
“That’s true.” Gird relaxed; he knew what would come of this. They wanted to see what Diamod had dragged in, but it would be a fair fight. “You want to see me fight?”