"Perhaps," Zaranda answered quietly. "But with some of your men double-mounted on mules, we're not much faster than this wagon train. I don't want to look back to see a troop of kettle-head heavy cavalry riding up our tails."
The mercenary officer pulled a thoughtful face and nodded.
The bandit chief was looking thoughtful too. In his case it was a pained expression. He was a man who
didn't readily harbor more than one thought at a time. A new idea had clearly forced its way into his head and was grinding around in there.
"Why are you really letting us go?" he asked.
"So you can do what our friends in the caravan will likewise be doing," Zaranda said. "Spreading the word that the Star Company, Protective Services Extraordi-naire, is open for business."
17
The village consisted of a sparse collection of blocky houses. Though it overlooked the not altogether mighty Sulduskoon River, where it bowed away from the east-ern tag end of the Starspire Mountains and the forest of Tethir toward Ithmong, it lay far enough inland that little rain fell, so that instead of the stone and brick walls and pitched tiled roofs of the coastal zone, the buildings had adobe walls and flat roofs.
When Zaranda led her little mounted band into the midst of it on a sun-drenched morning a few days after her escape from Zazesspur, it showed no more sign of life than if it had been abandoned at the time of the fall of Castle Tethyr. The houses were closed up tight with stout wooden shutters. The doors were shut. No pigs, dogs, or even chickens were to be seen on or among the buildings.
"All of this is clear evidence that they need us," Zaranda commented aloud as they reined up in the village common, which was bare, packed earth but for a great spreading oak tree planted many generations before at one edge of the common. "No village is that poor."
"What are we doing here, anyway?" demanded Chen, riding behind her.
"Patience, and you'll see." She raised her voice. "Knock, knock!"
For a moment nothing but the wind slapping the mud-brick walls answered her. Then: "Go away," a querulous voice emanated from the nearest house, muf-fled by the shutters. "We've nothing left worth steal-ing."
"If I were a determined thief, I wouldn't believe that for a minute," Zaranda said. "But we aren't thieves. We are here to discuss trading with you."
"And what have you to trade?"
"Protection."
Another moment, and then there was the scrape of a bar being withdrawn from a door. A squeal of ill-lubricated hinges, and a weathered gray man stepped out, blinking, into the sunlight.
"We could never afford to pay a band as large as yours to guard us," he said in tones of real regret.
"That's understood," Zaranda said. "That's not what I've come to offer."
A brown-skinned, solemn little girl clad in a ragged smock appeared in the doorway to clutch at the elder's burlap chemise and stare bug-eyed at the intruders. He waved her back inside.
"What then? Will you sell us arms? We have no skill at using them."
"Indeed we have arms to sell you, but that's not all," Zaranda said. "We would teach you how to use them as well."
"Leave off, Osbard!" a female voice cried from the house behind him. "She speaks madness! The bandits will kill us if we try to resist."
"Not," Zaranda said, "if you kill them first."
Despite the dearth of trade in the interior of Tethyr, the village was just managing to straggle along the raw edge of subsistence. Which meant that they were still able to leave some of their acreage fallow, rather than being forced to plant it all, trading off the chance of starv-ing in the future when the land was exhausted against the certainty of starving now. Zaranda stood facing her troops across a field being rested, with the stunted, sun-burned remnants of last year's bean crop still underfoot.
"You know, Randi," said Goldie, who stood behind her mistress and watched the proceedings with inter-est, "it's not too late for us to turn bandit ourselves."
The village volunteers, nineteen of them, of both sexes and various ages, stared with mingled fascination and horror at the spectacle of a talking horse. They seemed to find it as hard to get over Goldie as they did to get over Shield of Innocence.
"Why don't you go graze down by the river?" Zaranda asked out of the corner of her mouth. "You're unsettling the recruits."
"I wouldn't miss this for the world," Goldie declared. "But go ahead; don't mind me. I won't say another word. You people there, with your pots on your heads and your kitchen cutlery clutched in your fists—pre-tend I'm just another horse."
Zaranda covered her eyes momentarily with her hand. Not for the first time she wondered why she hadn't taken Baron Hardisty up on his offer. It proba-bly had to do with the fact that it helped to be able to look into a mirror when she wanted to brush out her hair.
The mercenaries Zaranda had brought out of Zazesspur stood or lounged about some straw bales that had been dragged up to serve as target practice. Farlorn stood by them, arms crossed and yarting slung
over his back, amusing them with a constant low-voiced commentary, probably biting. Shield of Innocence and Stillhawk stood behind her, winged out left and right, with the ranger back a bit farther so that he could keep an eye on the great orc as well as the village volunteers. Chen hovered behind Zaranda, as close as she could and still have reasonable claim of being out of the way.
Collecting herself, Zaranda strode forward to place herself in front of her troops, doing a deft sidestep en route to avoid tripping over an inquisitive yellow hen. The livestock had miraculously appeared on the village streets. The children were still being kept inside at Zaranda's request. She didn't need them hooting and laughing at the efforts of their elder siblings.
"People of Tweyar," she declared. "My name is Zaranda Star. I and my people are here to show you all, men and women alike, how to fight to defend your-selves, your loved ones, and your village. We know we cannot keep you away from your field's more than an hour or two a day, so we'll get started—"
"Women can't fight."
Zaranda craned her head. "I beg your pardon?"
"I said, women can't fight. It's a waste trying to teach them to. Like teaching a dog to talk."
"Well, so long as you specify dogs," Goldie murmured.
The voice had come from the second rank. "Please step forward so that I can have a look at you."
The speaker didn't seem eager to leap forward, but the pair standing directly in front of him stepped with alacrity to either side, leaving him little choice. He was a young man of middle height in brown chemise and holed tan hose, whose width of chest and shoulders would have been considered huge on a tall man; likewise his belly. His legs by contrast seemed almost comically short and thin. His hair was brown and lank, and a beard fringed his jaw, as broad as Shield's.
"I am Bord, the miller's son," he said sullenly. "And I still say women can't fight. It takes strength to be a warrior. I'm strong."
"No doubt you are, Bord Millerson. But I don't agree that strength is the only thing in combat, or even the most important thing. Many other things matter as welclass="underline" skill, speed, wind, heart. And most of all, intelligence."
Stubbornly he shook his head. "None of that matters if I hit you with this." He held up a fist the size and ap-parent consistency of an oak burl.
"Ah, but first you have to hit me. Listen welclass="underline" if strong was better than smart, horses would ride us."
"I find that remark in poor taste, Randi," Goldie said.
"Pipe down."
"Words," the burly youth said, shaking his head like a bull troubled by a blowfly. "Just words."