All the times he had thought about leaving, it had never been like this. He had imagined sending the children away somewhere (but where?), going himself to join the little band of rebels he had first met—but not this terrifying journey. He was sure they were leaving a trail a child could follow through the narrow wood. Anyone would expect him to go that way—but what other way was there? He could not have strolled past the manor itself with Raheli on his back.
It still worried him that he'd left the cottage such a wreck. It wasn't his fault, he knew that, but a lifetime's work and care nagged at him. He should have—
Ahead, two rocks clacked sharply together. Gird halted, breathing hard. Behind him, he could hear Fori's breathing as well, on the other end of the litter. Raheli was heavier than he'd guessed. Pidi, beside him, glanced up and Gird nodded. Pidi clicked two pebbles in his hand, mimicking the stones' sound. Another clack, this a triple. Pidi replied with the triple of triples Gird had taught him. Trouble, that was. Danger, trouble, need help—any of those.
Raheli moved on the litter, and moaned softly. Gird looked over his shoulder. Blood had seeped through the pack of moss on her face, staining it dark. He heard a twig crack, and looked ahead. There were three, coming down the slope. One was Diamod. He could have wished it was someone else.
"Gird—what is it?"
"You haven't heard?"
"Only the rock signals of trouble, that someone was needed. Yours?" Diamod looked past him at the children.
"Aye. My daughter's hurt bad; they killed her husband. Outlawed me, for what he did, and for trying to get to her—"
"I'm sorry." Diamod actually sounded sorry; Gird had been half-certain that he would dare amusement or scorn. "So—you're fugitives now?"
"Yes. I don't know if Rahi will live—"
"Later. Now we must get you away." Diamod waved the other two men forward, and they took the handles from Gird and Fori.
"These are smooth!" said one, clearly surprised.
Gird hawked and spat. "Scythe and shovel handles," he said. "I'm outlawed anyway; might's well bring something useful."
Diamod grinned at him, then sobered as he looked at the others. "Are all these coming?"
"Fori's my brother's son. His wife died last year, in childbirth. The other two are mine, and have no place in that village."
They set off again, faster for the unwearied strength of the two men carrying Raheli. Gird strained his ears backwards, expecting to hear any moment the cry of hounds, horses' hooves crashing in the leaves behind them. But he heard nothing, only their own hard breathing, their own footsteps.
They followed the water up out of the wood, past the cleft Arin had shown Gird all those years ago, where the Stone Circle visitors had waited for so many nights. Up a narrow, rocky defile, and carefully around the west slope of the hill, keeping as much as possible to the low scrub. Gird looked up once or twice, seeing folds of land ahead he did not know, but looked back oftener. When would the pursuit come, and how bad would it be?
By noon, when the sun baked pungent scent from the scrub, they had found another watercourse, this one winding away to the south. Along its banks low trees formed dense cover. Diamod lagged far behind, watching for pursuit, as the others paused for a brief rest. Gird dipped water from the creek, and bathed Raheli's face.
She was awake again, lips pressed tightly together, eyes dull. He did not want to speak to her—what could he say?—but she questioned him. "Where—are we?"
"South of the village, beyond the hill. We had to leave, Rahi."
"Parin—they killed him—"
"Yes."
Her hand strayed to her belly, as if feeling for the child within. "I—don't want to lose the baby—"
"Virdis said you would not, unless you got fevered. She gave me herbs for you." He dug into the roll of clothing and bandages for the little packet of herbs. Rahi shook her head.
"I'm fevered now—I can tell. If I lose it—" Her voice trailed away, and her eyes fixed on some distance Gird could not fathom. Then she looked at him directly. "The little ones?"
"Pidi has a lump on his head, but he's all right. It would take more than a lump to damage him. Giri has a broken arm. Here—you need to drink—" Gird lifted her as gently as he could, but Rahi flinched and moaned. He could feel her fever burning through the wrappings Virdis had put around her. She sipped a little water, then shook her head. He laid her back down. She alone, of all his children, reminded him of Mali—she had that same hair, the same quick wit. He could not lose her. But her fever mocked him. Of course he could lose her, as he had lost his parents, his brother, his brother's wife, the babies that had died. He could lose her quickly or slowly, as the fever raged or died, or as pursuit caught them.
He looked around at the others. Giri, her arm bound tightly to her side, looked pale and sick; she had never been as strong as Rahi. Pidi, whose lump had matured into a spectacular black eye, sat watching Gird alertly. Fori, much like Arin but with Issa's slender build, sat hunched with his head down, breathing heavily.
"Fori?" Gird put a hand on his shoulder, and Fori jumped. When he looked up, his face was streaked with tears.
"I should have stopped them," Fori said, through sobs. "I—I should have been there."
"I, too—but we weren't. And if we had been, we'd have been dead as Parin is now."
"But she's—"
"Your cousin, and my daughter."
Diamod came back before he could say more, breathing hard as if he'd been running a long way. "I saw guards on the near side of that first hill, moving slowly. Not the way we'd come, exactly—I don't think they have a trail. But we can't stay here. We must move under cover, and keep moving."
This time Gird and Fori took the litter again, and the other two men took their bundles. One of them led the way southward, summering as Gird thought of it, keeping them along the creek bank as the water deepened and broadened, then leading them eastward, sunrising, up a tributary. Diamod lagged behind, overtaking them again near dark, when they'd stopped under a clump of pickoak where a spring came bubbling up from the rocks.
"They didn't follow," he said, before anyone asked. "They've put someone up on the hill—I saw a glitter up there—but no sign of real pursuit. We must stay out of sight of that hilltop, and no fire, but we can think now where to take the—your daughter."
Gird hoped his face did not show all he felt. "She's fevered now," he said, ducking his head. Raheli had said nothing, all the afternoon, but she seemed to be in a sick daze. He had gotten her to drink a little twice, but nothing more.
"She needs shelter, and a healer. Have you any family in another village?"
Gird shook his head. "Only my wife's—my dead wife's—family, over in Fireoak. But I don't know where that is from here, and even so they might not take her."
One of the other men turned to him. "Fireoak? My sister married into that village. They don't have much trade, those folk, but they're kindly."
"We can find Fireoak easily enough, but it will be days of careful travel. We're a day or more from the sheepfold where the dances are."
Gird nodded. "I know that."
"For healthy men it would be a day's journey, but carrying her, and with the others, it will be two, I think. Then from there to Fireoak is—"
"A day, like this. But it's the only shelter between, that fold."
Mali's parents, like his own, had been dead some years, but her brother was alive. He squatted beside the litter and laid a hand on Raheli's head.
"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?"
"I think so." The blackhaired man looked around at the others. "Aye—that's what we want. Show us something."
"Let'm eat first, Ivis," said one of the other men. "They been travelin' all day."
"No guest-right," the blackhaired man scowled. "Until this Gird proves what he is or isn't, I'm not granting guest-right."
"No guest-right," said Gird. He was surprised to find outlaws following that much of the social code. Food was more of the soaked grain, and a cold mush of boiled beans. Looking around, Gird saw only the one firepit, and no oven. The blackhaired man unbent enough to explain.
"Sometimes the lords hunt this wood, and their foresters use this clearing. So a fire here is safer than one elsewhere in the wood; folks is used to seeing smoke from about here. We tried to build an oven once, but they broke it up when they found it."
"Where do you go when the foresters come?" asked Gird.
"That you'll find out after you fight. If you convince us to let you stay."
When Gird had eaten a little, he stood and stretched. The others went on eating, all but a strongly built man a little shorter than he was. Gird glanced at the black-haired man, who grinned.
"You'll fight Cob; he's our best wrestler. Used to win spicebread at the trade fair that way, as a lad. Show us how a soldier fights, but no killing: if you're good, we can't afford to lose you or Cob."
"All right." Gird had seen Cob's sort of wrestler before; he would be strong and quick. But the sergeant had taught his recruits many ways to fight hand-to-hand, and which ones were best against which kind of opponent. Gird watched Cob crouch and come forward in a balanced glide, and grinned to himself.
Although he knew what to do, it had been a long time since he'd done it. He got the right grip on Cob's arm, and put out his own leg, but his timing was just off, and Cob twisted away before he was thrown. Gird avoided Cob's attempt at a hold, but the effort threw him off balance and he staggered. Cob launched himself at Gird, knocking him sideways, and threw a leg across him quickly. Gird remembered that—it took a roll, here, and a quick heave there, and suddenly he was on top of Cob. Under him, the man's muscles were bunched and hard. He was not quitting. Gird did not wait for Cob's explosion, but rolled backwards suddenly, releasing his grip. Cob bounced up and charged. This time Gird was ready; he took the wrist of the arm Cob punched at him, pivoted, and flung Cob hard over his shoulder onto the ground.
Cob lay blinking, half-stunned. Gird heard something behind him, and whirled in time to catch another charge, even as the blackhaired man said "Triga—no!" Triga's mad rush required no great skill; Gird used the man's own momentum to send him flying as well. He landed hard and skidded an armlength when he landed.
Cob whistled, from his place on the ground. "You could've made money with that throw, Gird. Teach me?"
Gird looked at the blackhaired man. "Well?"
"Well. You can fight—not many overthrow Cob. I'm sorry about Triga, but glad to see you have no trouble with him. We can use those skills."
"And the rest?"
The blackhaired man frowned slightly. "I am not the only leader, the Stone Circle is made of many circles, and each has its own. You must convince us all that this is something we need, and can use. I still do not see how sticks and shovels will let us stand against soldiers with sharp steel."
Gird started to say that he wasn't sure, but realized that these men didn't want to hear that. Those eyes fastened on his face wanted certainty, confidence, the right answer. The only answer he was sure of was drill. "You have to start with drill," he said. He knew they could hear the certainty in his voice about that. "You have to learn to work together, move together. Let me show you."
"Now?" someone asked, as if it were absurd to start something new so late in the day.
"You can't start sooner," said Gird, quoting the old proverb. Several of the men chuckled, but it was a friendly chuckle this time.
"Start with me," said the blackhaired man. "My name's Ivis." He stood and the rest stood also. Cob, cheerful despite his fall, had climbed to his feet, and reached a hand down to Triga.
Gird took a deep breath and tried to remember the expression on his sergeant's face. "The first thing is, you line up here." He scratched a line in the dirt with his toe. "You, too, Fori—come on. Pidi, just stay out of the way. Two hands of you here, and two behind, an armslength." That would make two ranks of ten.
When the front ten had their toes more or less arranged on the line he'd scratched, he looked at them again. They slouched in an uneven line, shoulders hunched or tipped sideways, heads poked forward, knees askew. Triga was rubbing his elbow. Those behind were even more uneven; they had taken his armslength literally, and the short ones stood closer to those in front than the tall ones. This was going to be harder than he'd thought. His boyhood friends had been eager to play soldier.
"Stand up straight," he said. "Like the soldiers you've seen. Heads up—" That sent one of them staggering, as he jerked his head up too far. Someone else chuckled. Ivis growled at them, and they settled again. Gird did not like their expressions: they weren't taking this seriously at all. Only Fori and Cob and Ivis looked as if they were even trying. "You three—" he said, pointing to them. "You get together here in the middle. And you others—look at them, how they're standing. Like that is what you need. Feet together, toes out a little. Hands at your sides. You in the back row, make a straight row—" Gradually they shifted and wiggled into something more like military posture. Gird wondered if he had looked like that at first. Maybe this was the best they could do, for now.
"Now you have to learn to march." He glared, daring anyone to laugh. No one did, but he saw smirks. His old sergeant would have had something to say about that, but he had never dealt with outlaws, either. "You all have to start with the same foot—"
"Like dancing?" asked Cob. Gird stopped, surprised. He'd never thought of it as like dancing, but all the dances required the men to step out with the same foot, or they'd have been tripping each other. He thought his way into the harvest dance he had led so many times. Wrong foot.
"Like dancing," he said finally, "but not the same foot. The other foot, from the harvest dance." Surely they all danced it the same way. "Think of the dance, and then pick up the other foot." Slowly, wavering, one foot after another came up, until they were all teetering on one foot. All but two had the correct foot. Those looked down, saw they were wrong, and changed feet. "Now one step forward." The double line lurched towards him, out of step and no two steps the same length. Gird felt a twinge of sympathy for his old sergeant. Had it been this difficult? "Straighten out the lines," he said.
He kept them at it until his voice was tired. By then they could break apart and reassemble in two fairly straight lines, and they could all pick up the same foot at the same time. But when they walked forward, their uneven strides quickly destroyed the lines. He was sure they could have danced it, arms over each others' shoulders, but they couldn't fight in that position. He'd told them that, and a few other things, and remembered some of the words his sergeant had used.
They were ready to lounge around, eating their meager supper, but Gird remembered more than his sergeant's curses.
"We must learn to keep things clean," he said.
"Clean!" Triga had scowled often; now he sneered. "We're not lords in a palace. How can we be clean—and why should we?"
"Soldiers keep themselves clean, and their weapons bright. I spent my first days in the guard scrubbing the floor, washing dishes, and scouring buckets. First, it keeps men healthy—you all know that—and protects against fevers. And second, it means that you know your equipment will work. A weapon's no good if the blade is dull. And third, I stink bad enough to tell any forester there's a poor man here: so do you all, after the drill. D'you want hounds seeking us? It's warm enough: we should all bathe."
Sighing, Ivis and Cob heaved themselves up, and the others followed. Gird led them to the waterfall. Once well wet, the men cheered up and began joking, splashing each other. Pidi had found a clump of soaproot, and sliced off sections with his knife. Soon the creek was splattered with heavy lather.
When Gird felt that the grime and sweat of the past days was finally gone, he washed his clothes as best he could, and saw the bloodstains from Parin and Rahi fade to brownish yellow. The other men watched him, curious, but some of them fetched their own ragged garments and tumbled them in the water. Gird smiled when he saw them laying out the wet clothes on bushes, as he was doing. Diamod brought him a clump of leaves.
"Here—rub this on, and the flies will stay away. Otherwise you'll be eaten up by the time your things are dry."
"I should've washed clothes first—now it's near nightfall. But I have a spare shirt."
"Most of them don't."
But even in dirty clothes, the men stank less, and carried themselves less furtively. Gird, with a clean shirt tickling his bare knees, suggested another change in their customs.
"Why not bake a hearthcake on one of these stones? Twouldn't be bread, exactly, but it would be hot, and cooked—"
"If we had honey we could have honeycakes, an' we had grain," said Triga. Gird began to take a real dislike to Triga.
"There's always bees in a wood," he said crisply. "And stings to a bee, for all that."
"There's none knows how to make the batter, Gird," said Ivis. "We've no mill or flour. All we know is crush the grain and soak it—if you know better, teach us that."
Gird thought of the millstones left behind—but he could not have carried them and Rahi. He looked at the stones used as seats, and found one with a slightly hollowed surface. Then he went to the creekside, and looked for cobbles. He could feel the other men watching him, as if he were a strange animal, a marvel. But millstones, the cottage millstones, were no different. A hollowed stone, like a bowl, and the grinder. Some people had flatter ones, with a broader grinder. It had to be fine-grained stone, and hard. He picked up several cobbles he liked, and hefted them, felt along their smooth curves with a careful finger. Yes.
Ivis had the grainsack out for him when he returned. Gird wondered if it was grain he'd grown, or someone else's contribution. It didn't matter. He dipped a small handful, and poured it onto the stone, then rubbed with the cobble. It wasn't the right shape—neither the bottom stone nor the grinder—and the half-ground grain wanted to spit out from under and fall off. He worked steadily, ignoring the others, pushing the meal back under the grinder with his finger. He was careful not to lick it, as he would have at home: thin as they all were, they must be keeping famine law, when all the food was shared equally.
When the first handful was ground to a medium meal, he brushed it into a wooden bowl that Ivis had brought. It was not enough to make any sort of bread for all of them, but he could test his memory. Cob brought him a small lump of tallow, and he took a pinch of salt from the saltbag he'd brought himself. Meal, water, fat, salt—not all he liked in his hearthcakes, but better than meal and water alone. He stirred it in the wooden bowl, while the fire crackled and Pidi brushed off the flattest of the stones facing the firepit. The tallow stayed in its lump, stubborn, and Gird remembered that he needed to heat it. He skewered it on a green stick, and held it over the fire, catching the drips in the bowl. Finally it melted off, and he stirred it in quickly. He felt the stone, and remembered that he should have greased it. The stick he'd used for the tallow was greasy now; he rubbed his fingers down it, and then smeared the stone. The stone was hot, but was it hot enough? He poured the batter out. It stiffened almost at once, the edges puckering. Hot enough. With his arm, he waved heat toward it, to cook the upper surface. Mali had had the skill to scoop up the hearthcakes and flip them, but the only times he'd tried it, they'd fallen in the fire.
The smell made his mouth water and his belly clench. He looked up, and saw hungry looks on all the faces. Now the upper side was stiff and dull—dry, and browning. He hoped he'd put enough tallow on the rock, He slid a thin twig under it, and it lifted. He got his fingers on it—hot!—and flipped it to Ivis. Ivis broke it in pieces—each man had a small bite—and then it was gone. But if his fighting had gotten their respect, this had gotten their interest.
"I thought you were a farmer, not a cook," said Ivis.
"My wife was sick a lot, that last few years." Gird gestured at the bowl. "May I give my son that?"
Ivis nodded. "Of course. It's fair; he had none of the hearthcake itself." Pidi grinned and began cleaning the batter from the bowl with busy fingers and agile tongue. "But tell us—what do we need?"
Gird thought about it. "Millstones—we can use this, but we can't carry it along, not if the foresters come here. But we can put millstones in another place, if you have a particular place."
"Where I came from, we all had to use the lord's mill," said Ivis.
Gird shrugged. "That was the rule for us, too, but most of us had handmills at home. Always had. The lord's mill was a day's journey away—we had no time for that. And then if you did go, you'd have to wait while he ground someone else's, and might not get your own back. Anyway, we can have millstones for hand milling—it'll take time, is the main thing. We can't have bread every day. Tallow, we need, and a bit of honey if it's available. Salt—I brought some with me, but we'll need more—"
"There's a salt lick downstream a bit," said Cob. "I can show you."
"And if we want lightbread, we'll need a starter. Do you ever get milk?"
"D'you think we live in a great town market, where we can buy whatever we like?" asked Triga.
From the tone of the response, others were as tired of Triga's complaints as Gird was. Gird waited until the others had spoken, then said "No, but I think you're not so stupid as you act." Cob grinned. Triga, predictably, scowled. Gird turned back to Ivis. "How long have you lived out here?"
"Me? A hand of years—five long winters. Artha's been here longer, but most don't stay that long. They move on, or they die."
"You've done well, on beans and grain."
"There's more in the summer. We find herbs, do a little hunting, rob a hive once a year—no one wants to do it more, with all the stings we get. We do get milk sometimes, when we venture in close to a farmstead. Not all of us, o' course. Milk, cheese, trade honey or herbs for a bit of cloth . . ."
Cloth, in fact, was one of the hardest things to come by. Gird, remembering his mother's hours at the loom, and the value of each furl, did not wonder at this. To share food was one thing; to share the product of personal skill was another. The outlaws had learned to tan the hides of beasts they hunted—"Stick 'em in an oak stump that's rotted and got water in it"—but good leather took more than that; many of the hides rotted, or came out too brittle to use for clothing.
As he listened to Ivis and Cob, and thought about all that this group needed, he thought back to his sergeant's comments about the importance of supply. Soldiers did not grow their own food, or raise their own flocks, or build their own shelters—this, so they could have the time to practice soldiering. But these men would have to do it themselves. Could they do that, and learn to be soldiers as well?