“How?” asked Cob, beside him.
“Tomorrow,” said Gird. “I’ll explain it all tomorrow.”
Chapter Thirteen
The newcomers, Gird discovered, had already grasped the idea of traveling quietly, with scouts ahead and behind. He led them back up the stream they had camped beside. The sick man looked as if he would definitely recover; they carried him in a pole-slung litter. All of them carried some piece of equipment, for Gird did not intend to return to that camp until it had had time to clean itself.
“I suppose you want us to dig a jacks trench every time we stop?” asked Felis.
“Yes.” Gird was ready to glare, but Felis merely shook his head, and grinned. They were halted for a noon rest on the shady side of a hill, where the scrub grew barely more than head-high. Summer heat shimmered on the slopes around them, and baked pungent scents from the scrub.
“So will you tell us your plan now?”
Gird looked around at the others. They were all listening; he wondered how they would react. Was there a better time? He thought not. But instead of answering Felis directly, he asked, “How many men did you have when you started?”
Felis frowned thoughtfully. “I didn’t start it—but there were three hands when I came. Then Irin died, and then two more came, and then six, but one of them died soon; he’d been hurt. Three hands, four—it went up and down.”
“And how many other groups are there, and how large do you think they are?”
Felis began tapping the ground, as if a map, to remind himself. “I heard of one away westward—beyond your village—Diamod went there once and said they had less than two hands of men. North and west, another, but I heard that one was captured and killed, all of them. Two hands, maybe three. South and east, someone told me of a large group: five or six hands of men, maybe more. But I heard they have fields, and can feed themselves.”
Gird nodded. “That’s what I thought. There may be more groups, but nowhere more than the farmers can support. We can’t feed ourselves. So a day or two of travel between groups—each one drawing food from two or three villages—and the villages are so poor. Four hands is a large group; five is too large for most. And without proper care for the food they do get, some of it is wasted. Diamod told me several years ago there were enough in the Stone Circle to fight a war, but ten soldiers here and fifteen there and twenty over here don’t make an army. They have to be together. Organized. Training together.”
“But I don’t see—”
“We need the Stone Circle: we need a place for men to go when they’ve been outlawed or have lost their holdings. But we need an army more. And we need an army that can feed itself during training, house itself during training, clothe itself—”
“It’s impossible!”
“No, I don’t think so.” Gird let his eyes wander from face to face. “We were all farmers, craftsmen—we fed ourselves, housed ourselves—and in the evenings, off-season, we sat around our bartons or our homes and talked.”
“Yes, and you yourself would have nothing to do with fighting when you still had your holding,” said Diamod boldly.
“That’s true, because you wanted me to sneak away and teach you drill—go away from my home, and my work, and risk discovery both ways, to teach strangers. I say now I was wrong. But what I told you then still has force. Suppose you had said, ‘Let us teach you how to fight and defend yourselves—here in your own village, you and the men you know best fighting shoulder to shoulder to protect your own against the lords.’ Do you think I might have answered differently?”
A long silence. Diamod opened his mouth and shut it. Felis pulled a grass stem, chewed it, and spat it out. The others said nothing, but all the faces conveyed shifting thoughts and emotions. Finally Triga said, “You mean for us to go into villages and teach farmers what you’ve taught us—by ourselves?”
“It won’t work,” said Herf suddenly. “It can’t—the lords would see it, their guards would. Right under their noses, peasants drilling? They’d be hung on the spikes by nightfall.”
“There aren’t guards stationed in every village,” said Ivis. “If they would have their own scouts out, to see anyone coming—”
“Better than that,” said Gird. “Think how our villages are built. Every cottage, nearly, has its own—”
“Barton!” said Fori, eyes suddenly alight. “Walled in—no one can see, but over the back gate—”
“That’s right,” said Gird. “Bartons. Big enough to teach a few men to march together, use sticks. No one notices when the men go into a barton of an evening, or the noise that comes out of it—men telling jokes, drinking ale—” He could suddenly feel it, the mellow flow of liquid down his throat that would ease his joints and make the old stories new again.
Felis pursed his lips. “Not everyone in the village will do it—what about those who don’t? What if they report it?”
“Start small. One or two, let the locals decide who else to ask. Nobody in my village would’ve reported it to the steward, though some wouldn’t come. Let ’em stay home. And if the guards do come, what’s to see? A group of men talking and singing, same as any evening.”
On face after face, Gird could see the idea take root and grow. He watched its progress through the group. It would work; he knew it would work. It had come to him in a flash of insight so intense that it waked him out of a sound sleep. He had been planning to try it, but the attack on Rahi had come first.
“So: you train us, and we train them. Just those of us here could reach five, six hands of villages, and if every village trained four hands of men—”
“But would we try to move in with them? Someone would surely notice that—”
Gird nodded. “I know. I’m not sure what the best way is, but I’m sure that training the farmers at home is part of it.” He stretched, relieved that they seemed to understand his point and agree. “But right now, each one of you must know everything I know—and be able to teach it. And if you know something I don’t, you must teach me.”
“You don’t know everything?” asked Felis slyly.
“No. I didn’t know how to plait baskets or cook frogs; Triga taught me that.” Triga grinned and raised a fist. “We all share some knowledge—the farmers among us, at least. But many of us have special skills, something extra, which we can share with others.”
By Midsummer Eve, Gird had both groups drilling with sticks. They camped apart, for he still could not feed both at once. One campsite lay just within the east side of the wood, and the other was near (but carefully not in) Triga’s bog. But the flow of information, skills, and supplies went back and forth almost daily. They drilled apart three days, and came together on the fourth, to practice larger group movement outside the forest, on a grassy hillside.
Both camps had the clean, tidy look of a good master’s workshop—and it was a workshop, as Gird explained often. If they had an army someday, of farmers who had trained in their bartons, they would have to have camps in the field, and those camps would have to have jacks, kitchens, shelters for wounded, space to store supplies. Here, in small groups, they could learn what worked, and later they could show others.
As summer days lengthened, the food-gathering groups were able to bring back more and more supplies. Gird insisted that some of these be stored for emergencies. They dried fruit on lattices of plaited grass, cut the wild grain and threshed it, dug edible tubers, honed their skill at slinging and throwing. Archery was harder. Of the four bows between the two groups, one had broken early, and it seemed no one could make good arrows. Still, the best of them occasionally hit a bird or rabbit. Each camp had its own handmill, and when there was grain to grind, they had bread. Gird toyed with the idea of trying to brew some ale, but they really couldn’t afford the grain. Maybe after harvest time, he thought—next winter would be cold and dismal enough, without giving up ale entirely.