The next morning, Gird realized that the others were all looking to him for leadership, and not only in military training.
"Do we work on drill before breakfast, or after?" asked Ivis.
"After," said Gird, to give himself time. His clothes were still damp; he turned them over and hoped the morning sun would dry them. Then he eyed the trees, and realized it would be a long time before the sun came into the clearing. Breakfast was another cold mess of soaked grain. Gird was already tired of it. He was spoiled, he supposed, by having had a wife and daughter with a parrion for herbs and cooking. Pidi leaned against him as he ate, and Gird put an arm around him. He wished he could have left the boy with Mali's brother—he was really too young for this. Fori sat on Gird's other side, carefully not leaning, but clearly nervous among so many strangers.
"Do you have a plan beyond training us?" asked Cob. Gird glanced at Ivis, who seemed interested but not antagonistic.
"When Diamod first came to our village," Gird said, "he wanted to learn soldiering. Wanted me to teach all of you. I thought he meant you had a plan—whoever your leader was."
"We've tried things," Ivis said. "And the other groups—I know they have. Captured a guards' store house, one did, and burned it out, but that brought more guards, and they took prisoners—finally killed them. Robbed a few traders, but that's—we don't like to be brigands; that's not what we're here for."
"And that is?"
Diamod leaped into the discussion. "We've got to be the peasant's friend—free the peasants, somehow, from the lords—"
"That won't happen!" Triga stamped his foot in emphasis. "There's always been lords and peasants. But if we can make them understand they have to be fair—"
"Now that is what will never happen." Cob stamped both feet. "Lords be fair indeed! They wouldn't know how, and why should they? Nay, 'slong as we've got the lords over us, they'll do their best to keep us down, and take every bit they can. Does the farmer leave the sheep half a fleece, or feed a cow and not milk her?"
"A good farmer leaves the beasts alive and healthy," muttered another man. Gird could tell this was an old argument, comfortable in their mouths as their tongues were. He knew its byways as well, having heard them all in his own village. He cleared his throat, and to his surprise they all quieted and looked at him.
"You have no plan," he said, as if musing. "One wants to teach the lords how to rule, and another wants to end their rule, and I suppose some of you would like to go and live peacefully far away, if you could."
"Aye—" More than one voice answered him.
"I used to think," Gird went on, "that it was best to work hard and live within the lords' laws. That if a man worked hard enough, honestly enough, everything would be right in the end. That's what my father taught me, and times I did other than he said, we all suffered for it. I determined to follow his advice, and trust he was right. But I was wrong." He paused, and looked around. Pidi was trembling a little in the arc of his arm; Fori's face was set. The others watched him closely, and did not move. "I told you a little—about my daughter and her husband—but not all that led me here. It began long before, and over the years I built a wall of the stones I swallowed—stones of anger and stones of sorrow. A wall to keep myself at peace, and safety within—and it did not work." He ran a hand through his thinning hair, and scrubbed his beard. "I don't know if any law is fair, but the law the lords put on us is not fair, and no man can live safe under it. I don't know if all the lords are alike, but some of 'em—Kelaive, for one—are not only greedy, but cruel. They like to hurt people; they like to see people suffer. Such men cannot rule wisely, or fairly. And when such men rule, no one can live an honest life." He drew a long breath, gave Pidi a squeeze, and then pushed him gently away. He could not say what he was going to say, with his arm around his youngest child.
"I have taken that wall down," Gird said. "Those stones—those stones I will throw at our enemies. Those stones, which I bring to this circle—because the Lady herself cannot give us peace unless we drive off the alien lords who rule us."
"But we can't," said Triga. "We are too few—"
"Now, in this place, yes: we are too few. But there are more farmers than lords, more servants than lords. Few have joined you, as I did not join you, because they too think we are too few. They do not wish more trouble than they have. But if we can show success, they will come. I'm sure of it."
"Yes!" Cob stamped his feet again. "Yes, you're right. Gird's right," he said to the others. Most were nodding, smiling, clearly pleased with what Gird had said. And Gird, putting his arm around Pidi again, wondered if he could possibly perform what they were sure he had promised.
Serious planning began after a short review of yesterday's drill. He had realized that the clearing was really too small and too cluttered for serious drill; he could not march his two lines of ten five steps without someone having to step over or around a log or stone. And in the noise they made while drilling, a squad of mounted guards could have ridden up on them without anyone noticing.
"Do you have anyone out looking for foresters?" he asked Ivis.
"Usually someone goes downstream, and someone goes upstream," Ivis scratched his jaw and looked thoughtful. "We use stone clicks for signals. But today everyone wanted to hear what you said." In other words, Gird thought, just when it was most dangerous, they had no guard set. That would have to change.
"What about at night?"
"No, no one goes out at night. The foresters don't travel at night."
"But—" He wondered how far to go. Would Ivis be angry? It had to be said. "At night, you could see the glow of their fire—smell smoke or cooking food—and be warned."
"I suppose." Ivis didn't look eager to wander the forest at night; Gird could understand that. But Diamod had seemed to like sneaking about the village—maybe he could. He glanced at Diamod, who smiled brightly. He still did not understand Diamod, and he wondered if he ever would. The other men seemed to feel the way he felt—would have felt, if he'd left home under any other circumstances, he reminded himself. They were here because they had to be. But Diamod seemed to be enjoying himself.
"Someone should go out now, and be sure no foresters are coming," he said to Ivis. Ivis nodded, but did nothing. "Who will you send?" Gird asked.
"Me? But you're—"
"Do you want me to take over as leader? Is that what you're saying?"
Ivis sat silent a long moment, his face somber. Then he looked Gird in the face. "I haven't done much," he said. "Just tried to keep them together—talk to farmers about food—but I don't feel like a leader. I never did. They started listening to me after Rual died, but I never wanted it. They're used to me, but you'll do better."
"It's not something you and I should decide," Gird said, almost before he thought it. "If this is about fairness, and ruling fairly, then they should have a say."
"Triga will quarrel," said Ivis. Gird shrugged.
"Let him quarrel. He won't do more; he didn't like landing on the ground." He looked around at the others, now lounging around the clearing in the attitudes of men trying to hear a private conversation without seeming to listen. "Ivis and I were talking," he began, not raising his voice. They edged closer. "He asked me if I wanted to be leader."
"You! We don't even know you," Triga said. Predictable, Gird thought. He's so predictable.
"Quiet now—you can argue later." He put a bite into his voice, and Triga subsided. The others were attentive; he could not tell if they approved or not. "Ivis—do you want to tell them what you said to me?"
Ivis swallowed, gulped, and finally repeated most of what he'd said. "I think he'd be a good leader," he finished. "He's strong, and he has a plan. And he knows more than just soldiering. I'd rather follow him."
"And I," said Cob quickly, giving Gird a wide grin. "I want to learn how to fight like that."
"Yes," said some of the others, and "Gird—let's have Gird." Triga was obstinately silent until everyone else had spoken. They all looked at him, and he turned red.
"Come on, Trig," said Cob. "You know you want to—it's just your stubbornness."
"What if he's a spy?" Triga said. "How do we know he isn't a guard in disguise?"
"I'm not that stupid!" Diamod glared at him. "I was in his village: I met his friends. They told me a lot—" He gave Gird a long look, steady and measuring. "A lot about his past. They couldn't all have been lying. He's a farmer and a farmer's son, and if you think he's not, you can argue it with me. Knife to knife."
"Enough," Gird said. "We can't be spilling each other's blood over little quarrels, if we want to fight a war. Triga, d'you think Diamod's lying?"
"No." It was a sulky no.
"Do you think I am? I'll have no one in my army that thinks I'm a liar." He felt ridiculous, speaking of an army when what he had was twenty ragged, hungry, untrained men and one boy, but he saw the others straighten a little. If coward was a word to make men flinch and bend, maybe army was a word to straighten their backs and make them proud. He saw Triga's face change, as he realized that he might actually be thrown out of the group. Fear and anger contended; fear won.
"No—I don't think you're lying." Slightly less sulky, and somewhat worried.
"These others agreed to have me as their leader—do you?" He kept his eyes locked on Triga's; he could feel the struggle in the man.
"I suppose. For awhile. We can see." Cob and Diamod looked angry, but Gird shook his head.
"That's fair. You don't completely trust me, but you're willing to give me a chance." Triga's jaw dropped in surprise; he had been braced for an argument. Gird looked around at the others. "I told Ivis I would not take the leadership on his word alone. You have all chosen, as you have a right to do—and I thank Triga for trusting as far as he can. None of us can do more than that."
The others sat back, their expressions ranging from puzzled to satisfied. Triga said nothing, but looked as if he were chewing on a new idea.
"Now, we need to send out watchers, to let us know if anyone comes. Ivis says you usually had two; I'd like to send four—two of you, and my son Pidi and my nephew Fori. They need to learn the forest."
"It's my turn," said Ivis. "And Kelin—" Kelin was a slight brownhaired man with one shoulder higher than the other. He did not quite limp when he walked, but his stride was uneven. Gird nodded.
"Pidi knows many useful herbs," he said. "My daughter taught him."
Kelin grinned. "Then let him come with me: all I know is flybane and firetouch. And sometimes I miss firetouch until I'm already itching."
"Three pairs of clicks," said Ivis, as they left. "That's the danger signal. You pass it on, whichever way it comes, and move away from it. Cob knows the trails."
When they had gone, Gird surveyed the clearing itself. If they had to leave it untouched, so that foresters who used it would not know they'd been there, he could not move the logs and stones used for seating to give more room for drill. They really needed a campsite the foresters did not use. This one could become a trap, particularly if his people became effective against the lords. So what did he need in a campsite? He thought about that as he roamed the clearing, pacing off distances, and trying to listen for clicks.
Water. Good drainage, and room for the jacks trenches he would have them dig; the disgusting stench just behind a trio of cedars was entirely too obvious. Level ground, uncumbered, for drill, but enough trees for cover. A cave would be nice, shelter from weather and a place to store food and equipment. While he was asking, why not a forge with a skilled smith? He remembered that Diamod had said one of the men had been a smith, a one-armed man—there he was. His name was odd, a smithish name: Ketik.
"Ketik—"
"Aye." He had a rough voice, and stood canted a little sideways, as if missing the weight of his arm. The stump was ugly, a twisted purple lump of scar. He wore no shirt, only a sleeveless leather jerkin.
"If we found another campsite, what would we need for a forge?"
Ketik stared at him out of light-blue eyes. "A forge? Don't you see this arm? I'm no smith now."
"If we had what is needed, couldn't you take an apprentice? Teach someone?"
Ketik snorted, a sound half-laughter, half-anger. "Could you teach someone to swing a scythe by telling them? Wouldn't you have to show them? Do you think smithery is so simple?"
"Not simple at all," said Gird quietly. "It is a great—mystery, and our village had no smith at all. We shared one with Hardshallows. But we will need a smith—"
"And not all are weapons smiths," Ketik said.
"I know. What I'm thinking of wouldn't take a swordsmith. But we would have to have our own forge."
"A good fireplace," Ketik said rapidly. "Fuel—fireoak is best. Someone to make charcoal, because you'd need to be able to refine ores sometimes. Leather for the bellows, and not the rotting, stiff mess these idiots make in old tree stumps. Real leather, properly tanned. Tools, which means iron: ore or lump iron from some smelter. Both are illegal. An anvil. Someplace with water, too, and a way to disguise the smoke. Satisfied?"
"We will need to move anyway," Gird said. "We might as well look for what we need."
"What we need is the gods' blessing and a fistful of miracles," said Ketik. He sounded slightly less irritated now, as if challenging Gird had eased his mind.
"You're right," Gird said. "But though we need Alyanya's blessing for a good harvest, we still have to plow and plant and weed and reap."
Ketik laughed aloud. "Well—you may be the leader we need after all. I never heard of a one-armed smith teaching smithery, but then I never heard of a farmer teaching soldiering, either."
Triga had come close while they were talking; now he said, "I said last autumn we should find a new campsite."
Gird nodded, ignoring the rancorous tone. "Did you find someplace you thought would be good?"
"Me?" Triga looked surprised. "They wouldn't listen to me."
"If you already know a place—"
"I know another place than this, but it might not be what you want."
"How far is it?"
"A half-day, maybe, or a little longer." He pointed across the stream. "Sunrising. It's swampy; the foresters never go there."
Gird opened his mouth to say that the last thing they needed was a swamp, and closed it again. If Triga was trying to be helpful, why stop him, "I think we'll need more than one place, but that sounds useful. If we're pursued—"
"It's like a moat, I thought," said Triga.
"As long as we have a bridge over it—one they can't see."
"Gird—about the grain—do you want us to grind more today?" That was Herf, who had been tending the fire when Gird awoke. Triga looked sulky and opened his mouth; Gird shook his head. "Triga, tomorrow or the next day I'd like to see your swamp. Right now, though, the grain comes first."
Triga said "I could go look for a path through the swamp."
"Good idea." Gird had never seen a swamp, and had no idea what one would look like. Were they flat? Sloped? Did they have high places that were dry? "If you find a dry place inside it," he said slowly, "like the castle inside the moat—?"
"I'll look." Triga actually seemed cheerful—for him—as he waded across the stream and turned to wave back at them. Gird shook his head and turned to Herf.
"Now. How much grain do we have?"
When Herf showed him their meager food stores, and the way they were kept, Gird could hardly believe the band had not starved long ago. Sacks of grain and dry beans were sitting on damp stone under a rainroof made of small cedars with their tops tied together. Gird prodded the bottom of the sacks and felt the telltale firmness of grain rotted into a solid mass. Beans had begun to sprout through the coarse sacking. Herf had tried to store onions and redroots in a trench, but most of them were sprouting.
"I know," he said in answer to Gird's look. "Once they sprout, the redroots are poisonous. But I couldn't dig them in any deeper here, without proper tools. The ground's stony."
"Well." Gird squatted beside the trench, and brushed the leaf-mold off a healthy redroot sprout. "My da used to tell about his granda's da—or somewhat back there—about the time before the lords came, when our folk grew things in the woods."
"In the woods?"
"In fields, too, the grain—of course. But redroots and onions and such—some we don't grow now—along the streams, and in the woods. We can't eat these—maybe we should plant them now, and harvest in the fall."
"We can still eat the onions—"
"Some of them, yes. But why not plant the others? Spread 'em around in the wood—no one'd recognize them as plantings, and they'd be where we knew—"
Herf frowned, thinking hard. "Then—we could grow the greenleaves, too, couldn't we? Cabbages, sorli—"
"Maybe even sugarroot." Gird poked at the leafmold. "This here's good growing soil for some crops. Herbs, greenleaves—grow 'em along the creekbank, we could. You know how hard it is to haul water to the greenstuff in summer—we could plant it where it needs no help."
"Aye, but breadgrain and beans—we can't live on greenstuff and redroots alone."
"Right enough for now—you get your grain from farmers, right?"
"Or steal it from traders—but that's rare."
"When we take it from farmers, they go hungry—so we can't afford to let any rot—"
"It's the best I could do!" Herf puffed up almost like a frog calling.
"I'm not saying it wasn't. But if we find a new campsite, maybe we can do better. Besides—did you ever see the big jars the lords use?"
"Jars?"
"Aye. Brown, shiny on inside and outside. Like our honeypots but bigger. They're almighty heavy and hard to move, but grain and even meal stay dry inside them."
"And where would we get such? We don't have a potter."
Another miracle to wish for, thought Gird. They needed some pots—at least small ones. In his mind's eye, his future campsite had sprouted another fireplace, although it wavered as he looked at it. He'd never seen a potter's workshop. He knew they had a special name for the hearth in which they cooked their pots, but not what it looked like. But he could see as clearly as if he stood there the kitchen of the guard barracks at Kelaive's manor, with the great jars of meal and beans, the huge cooking kettles, the shiny buckets, the longhandled forks and spoons, the rack of knives. If he was going to have an army, he would have to have a kitchen capable of feeding it—and storerooms—his head ached, and he shook it. What he had was a sack and a half of grain, some of it rotted, less than a sack of beans, a few sprouting onions, and redroots that might be edible in half a year. An open firepit, two or three wooden bowls, the men's belt knives. He sighed, heavily, and heaved himself up.
"All right. We'll grind some of that grain, and make hearthcakes tonight. But we're going to need more grain, and I know the villages are short right now. Some of the men hunt, don't they? How often do they bring anything back?"
"Not that often. There are only two bows, not very good ones, and the arrows—"
"Are as bad. I can guess that. Anyone who can use a sling, or set snares?"
Herf shook his head. Gird added those skills to the list in his head, and told himself not to sigh again. It would do no good. He wished he hadn't sent Fori off; the lad had a talent for setting snares, and had once taken a squirrel with his sling. Come to think of it, slings could be weapons too.
"All right." He raised his voice. "Come here a bit, all of you. There are some things need doing." The men came closer, curious. "If we're going to be an army," he said, "we have to organize like soldiers. Food, tools, clothing—all that. We're starting with what we have. The first thing is to get all the rotten grain and beans apart from what's good, and protect the good from the wet. Then we're going to plant the sprouted redroots, scattered along our trails, so that we'll have them next fall. They'll get bigger, you know, and double or triple for us. Who here has used a handmill?" That was usually women's work, although many men helped grind the grain. Two hands raised. Gird nodded at them. "Herf will give you the grain—you saw how I did it yesterday. We're making enough hearthcakes for everyone tonight. Unless the foresters show up, of course."
By midday, all the clothes washed the previous evening were dry. Gird pulled on his trousers happily; he did not feel himself with his bare legs hanging out. The two volunteer millers had produced almost a bowlful of meal, and Herf had used Gird's clean shirt to hold the little good grain in one sack while he scraped out the spoiled and turned the sack inside out. The bottom end was beginning to rot. Without Gird having to suggest it, Herf decided to rip out the stitching there and sew the top end shut, so the weakest material would be at the opening. Since he seemed to know how to use a long thorn and a bit of twine to do it, Gird left him alone. Two other men had gone out in both directions along the creek, with the sprouted redroots, and were planting them. Gird reminded them that there was no good reason to plant them close to that campsite, since they would be moving somewhere else.
Fori appeared unexpectedly in midafternoon with a pair of squirrels he'd knocked down, showing off to Ivis with his sling. He had skinned and gutted them already, and had the skins stretched on circles of green wood. Gird grinned at him, delighted. But two squirrels would hardly feed twenty hungry men—they had no soup kettle.
Herf had the answer to that, showing Gird how hot rocks dropped in a wooden bowl could make the water hot enough to cook without burning holes in the bowl. By this time, he had all the good grain in one sack, and the dry beans separated from the damp, sprouting ones. Gird had wondered if they could also grow beans in the wood, but beans liked a lot of sun. Reluctantly, he had buried the smelly remnants of spoiled grain and beans. Now Gird sliced up onions, his eyes watering and burning, to go in with the squirrels and one dry, wrinkled, unsprouted redroot. Herf added the beans he'd put on to soak that morning.
The guards came back in the dusk to the smell of roasting hearthcakes and squirrel and bean stew. Gird had already found another, besides Diamod, who would be willing to stand night guard; these two had eaten, and when Ivis and Kelin returned with Pidi, the night guards went out. Gird had also drilled the others, in the afternoon, and insisted on their cleaning up. He was pleased to notice that Ivis and Kelin stopped to wash hands and face in the creek before approaching the fire.
They had only three bowls to eat from; these passed from one to another, along with the two spoons. But compared to the night before, it was a festive meal. Even Triga made no complaint. Ivis came to sit by Gird, and said, "I made the right choice."
"It won't always be like this," Gird said, thinking of all the things he had to do. "We were lucky that Fori got those squirrels."
"But it feels different." Ivis wiped his mouth with his tattered sleeve and grinned, teeth bright in the firelight. "You know what to do."
Across the fire, Fori was basking in the praise of older men; Pidi was showing Herf the herbs he had brought back in his shirt. They were feeling at home here; Gird wondered if the young adjusted more easily. He was not sure what he felt. The blinding pain when he thought of Rahi was still there; when it hit, he found himself turning in the direction of Fireoak, willing himself across the woods and fields between to be with her. She might be dead by now, or still struggling in fever. He could not know.
He was beginning to know the men around him, and already knew that several of them would have been friends if they'd grown up in the same village. Cob reminded him of Amis, with his matter-of-fact friendliness. Ivis was more like Teris—responsibility made him truculent, but once freed of it, he was amiable and mild-tempered. Gird told himself that these were mostly farmers—men like those he'd known all his life—and in time would be as familiar as the men of his village, but for the moment he could not quite relax into kinship with them.
That night before he dropped off to sleep, he made an effort to speak individually with each of them, to fix their faces and names in his mind. Then he burrowed into a drift of leaves, with Pidi snuggled close to his side. It was still hard to sleep, in the open, knowing he had no cottage to return to, but he was tired, and the strain of the past few days overcame him.
The next morning brought complications. Instead of cool spring sunshine, the sky was cloudy, and a fine misty drizzle began to penetrate their clothes. The foul stench of their ill-dug jacks oozed across the clearing. Gird was sure they could smell it in the next village, wherever that was. He wrapped his leather raincloak around the sacks of grain and beans. The night guards arrived back at camp hungry, while Herf was struggling with the fire. Smoke lay close to the ground, making them all cough. After the previous night's feast, plain soaked grain seemed even more dismal than usual. Gird's joints ached; he wished fervently for a mug of hot sib. He heard low grumbles and mutters, and Triga's voice raised in a self-pitying whine.
This would never do. Gird strode back into the center of the clearing as if the sun were shining and he knew exactly what to do. The men looked up at him, sour-faced.
"Triga, what did you find yesterday?" Triga, interrupted in mid-complaint, looked almost comical. Then he stood up.
"I found that swamp I told you about—" Someone groaned, and Triga whipped around to glare in that direction.
"Never mind," said Gird. "Go on—and you others listen."
"I walked all around it—that's why I came back so late. There's three little creeks goes into it, and two comes out. I don't know what the middle's like yet—there wasn't time—"
"Good. That's where we'll go today."
"All of us?" Herf asked. "It's raining."
"It's raining here, too," Gird pointed out. "You'll get just as wet sitting here complaining about the rain, as walking along learning something useful. Maybe we'll find a cave, and can sleep dry."
They didn't look as if they believed him, but one by one his fledgling army stood up. He grinned at them.
"But first," he said. "We're going to do something about that." And he pointed toward the jacks. "It stinks enough to let anyone know a lot of men have been here, and it's making us sick as well."
"We don't have no tools," someone said. Kef, that was the name. Gird grinned again.
"I brought a shovel, remember? I'll start the digging, but we'll all be doing some—because there's more to it than just shoveling."
He had spotted a better site the day before. Now he took his shovel and tried it. Here a long-gone flood had spread across the clearing below the waterfall, and left a drift of lighter soil, almost sand. He started the trench he wanted, and gave the shovel to Kef. "That deep, and straight along there," he said. They really needed a bucket, too, but they didn't have one. He'd have to use the wooden bowls for the ashes. The men watched as he scooped ashes and bits of charred wood from the side of the firepit into one of their bowls. "You, too," Gird said, pointing at the other bowls. "We're going to need a lot of ashes."
"But I though ashes only worked in a pit," said Ivis.
"Best in a pit. But a trench is like a little pit. Ashes on top, then dirt, after you use it."
"Every time?"
"Every time—or it won't work. The guards kept a pot of ashes in the jacks; I started doing that at our cottage later, and ours smelled less than most." He looked at them, noticing the squeamish faces. "The worst part," he said carefully, "is going to be burying what's already there." He was pleased to note that no one asked if they had to.
It took longer than he'd hoped, with only the one shovel and small bowls to carry ashes, but at last they had the worst of the noisome mess buried, strewn with ashes, and a new bit of clean trench for that morning's use. Gird covered it up himself when they were all done, and marked the end with a roughly cut stake poked in the ground.
"Now we clean up," Gird said, "and then we go look for Triga's swamp. He's right—if we can find a safe way into it, that the foresters and guards don't know, it could be a very handy place."