The only awkwardness came when he had to bring Mali before the count's steward, to have her transferred on the Rolls. Luckily the count himself was not in residence, but the steward might have decided to invoke the rule himself.
"So—you're marrying, young Gird?"
"Yes, lord steward." Gird kept his eyes down.
"About time—you've loafed long enough." The voice was chilly; Gird watched the fingers holding the pen tap on the edge of the parchment. "Look up at me, boy."
The steward's face was older, grayer, but otherwise unchanged. Gird met those ice-blue eyes with difficulty.
"You brought the marriage fee?" Gird handed it over, the heavy copper coins slipping out of his hands much faster than they'd come in. "And this is the girl—" The steward looked her up and down, and then glanced at Gird. "You chose strength, eh? A good worker, I'll be bound—none too pretty—" Gird felt his ears burning; Mali's face had gone mottled red. Her scar stood out, stark white, from brow to jawline. "Wide hips—good bearer. Any mageblood in your line, girl?"
"No, lord steward." Her voice was husky, almost a growl.
"No, I daresay not. Nor would breed mages, is my guess. Waste of his lordship's time, your sort, bar the fun of it." The steward looked back down at the parchment. "Mali of Fireoak, daughter of Kekrin, son of Amis, wed to Gird of this village, son of Dorthan, son of Keris. Fee paid, permission granted to farm with Dorthan. That's all then."
They ducked their heads and went out quickly, both of them flushed and angry, but too wise to speak of it. First to Gird's father's house, for Mali to lay her first fire on the greathearth; every old grannie in the village was there to cry the portents of that flame. Gird held his breath. She put the splinters down in the Star pattern, and above them the tripod of fireoak, brought from her own family's hearth, and then struck the flints. Once—would have been too soon. Twice—a fair omen, but not the best. On the third strike, a spark leapt from her tools to the tip of the fireoak splinters, and kindled living flame. Now she moved quickly, laying the rest of the fire in ritual patterns: this twig over that, this herb, a twist of wool from her father's sheep, an apple-seed from their tree. The grannies muttered and flashed handsigns at each other; Gird was worried, but his mother smiled happily. It must be all right, then.
He and the other men left then, trudging through the back kitchen, then the cowbyre, into the narrow, cramped barton where the women had laid out the wedding feast on planks. This would be the refusing, he knew: Mali's parents would come, and try to persuade her to go home. She would first refuse them, with the door open, then—when they argued longer—close and bar the door to them. After a ritual greeting to her mother-in-law, and a prick of the finger to get two drops of blood, one for the fire and one for the hearthstone, her parents would knock again. And now, as a member of this household, she would greet them as honored guests.
All this time, Gird endured the jokes of his friends and his brothers and father. He had heard such jokes all his life, finding them funny once he was old enough, but now, waiting for Mali to become his wife, and not her parents' daughter, he was not amused. What did these grotesque fantasies have to do with Mali? He swiped irritably at his brother, when Arin tried to tie the traditional apron on him.
"You have to, Gird. You're her husband now; don't you want children?"
Gird looked at the apron, its ancient leather darkened by generations of celebrants. It was ridiculous. Bulls didn't need such a thing; why did the gods demand it of humans? He could remember sniggering in the corner when Arin danced in the apron, and wondering how his brother could approach his wife in his own skin afterwards. His friends had come nearer, warily, ready to help Arin force him into it if necessary. He sighed, and let his arms fall.
"All right. But I still think—" He said no more; their hands were busy with thongs and lacings. "I wonder how old this custom is—"
Mali, when she came out, bit her lip to keep from laughing. At least, he hoped that was suppressed laughter on her face. He felt a fool enough, strutting around like a young bull first meeting heifers, and nearly as big. She wore the maiden's vest of soft doeskin embroidered with flowers, laced tightly behind, where she could not reach it, a tradition as old as his apron. The men began to stamp the beat, their deep voices echoing off the barton walls as they chanted. Gird stamped as hard, feeling his face redden, hating it—but the old rhythm began to move him.
The steps were only partly traditional: part was each new-married man's invention. The jiggling thing on the apron was ridiculous, yes—but it was not merely ridiculous. Gird strutted the length of the barton, whirled, skipped a step, backed—and closed on Mali. Her eyes were bright, twinkling with laughter; she glanced down, pretended shock, looked skyward and reeled backwards, to catch herself with a clutch at Gird's shoulder. The watchers howled. She snatched her hand back, a maiden caught in indiscretion, and turned away. Gird circled her, faced her again, put his hands behind his back and waggled his hips. For an instant she grinned delightedly, then covered her face with her hands, brushed past him close enough for her skirts to catch on the apron, and then leaped like a startled deer.
Clearly, the dance was not embarrassing Mali—she played into the jokes as heartily as most men. Gird took heart, then. They could make their families laugh—their private joke, if their red faces came from exertion, and not from the shouts and laughter of others. They spun it out, circling and dodging between others and the tables, playing parts they only half understood. When they were both dripping sweat, Gird gave her a little nod, and his next rush carried them both into the cowbyre, where a stall had been laid with fresh straw for this occasion.
Here she had to unlace his apron, and he to unlace the maiden's vest she wore, to replace it with the matron's looser vest, his wedding present to her. Her fingers on his legs, his waist, brushed tantalizingly; the apron would be hardly more obvious than his response if she didn't hurry. He fumbled with the vest lacings.
"Did they have to lace it so tightly?"
"That was my sister," said Mali, breathless. "She wanted to see me faint, I think. Don't break the laces, remember." If he broke the laces, they'd have to give her family a sheep. He grunted and worked carefully. Finally the last knot came loose, and Mali drew a deep breath. "Ahh. Better." She worked her arms out of the vest carefully, and turned to him.
Gird handed her the matron's vest his mother and sisters had made. "You'd best get this on, if you don't want to spend the rest of the feast in here."
Mali chuckled as she looked him up and down. "Eager, are you?" She twitched her shoulders, putting the vest on, and Gird felt his pulse quicken. "But we'd better hang these out, or they'll come in to help."
"I'll do it," said Gird, The apron and vest had to be returned to each family, and the first step was to hang them on the appropriate pegs outside the cowbyre. A roar greeted him as he came out and put them up. Two of his friends were ready to grab him and keep him out, but he was quicker and managed to dart back into the stall with Mali.
Someone outside began another song, in which the women joined as well. Mali hummed the melody, and sat swaying a little back and forth. Gird stared at her. He wanted her—wanted her even more than on a hillside in the dark—but on the other side of the wall the whole village was waiting for this. It was one thing to be roused by someone else's marriage rites, he was discovering, and quite another to fulfill all the rituals with everyone watching him. Or not exactly watching, but not indifferent, either.
Then Mali turned away, and burrowed into the straw. Gird watched, bemused. There was nothing in this stall; he'd cleaned it himself, that morning, and laid the clean straw carefully. Mali grunted, and came up with a stoppered jug and something wrapped in a cloth.
"You are a witch." Gird pulled the stopper out when Mali passed him the jug. He sniffed. "What's this?"
"My aunt's favorite. And I'm not a witch, but you don't know all the rituals. Groom prepares the stall, but the bride bribes her new mother-in-law to supply it."
Gird sipped cautiously; a fiery liquid ran down his throat and made him blink. "Lady's blessing—that would bring—"
"Trouble if the lords knew of it." Mali took a swig, and opened her eyes. "My. No wonder she wouldn't let me taste it before." She unwrapped the cloth, and Gird saw a half-loaf of bread and some cheese. They ate quietly for the rest of that song, and the beginning of the next. Then either Mali's aunt's potion or Mali herself—warm and spicesmelling beside him—drove out his lingering embarrassment. He rolled toward her on the clean straw, and she embraced him. It was as satisfying as the first time, even when he roused to the ring of faces peering down at them.
"You went to sleep," Amis said, grinning. "We could hear you snore all through the singing."
Gird looked past them at the opening; it was nearly dark. Mali, her skirts back down around her knees, started rebraiding her hair. When he looked at her, she winked, and wrinkled her nose. "Well," he said, "did you eat all the food, or can we have some?"
They had to lead more dancing, that night, in the final Weaving that took them in and out of every cottage in the village, and around all three wells. Then at last it was over: all the food eaten, all the songs sung, all the dances danced, and a few hours to sleep (this time only sleep) until dawn brought work and their first day as a married pair.
Despite his mother's approval, Gird had worried about Mali's quick tongue in the house, when she had to share that cramped kitchen with two other women and the children. His mother's health had begun to fail; she was querulous sometimes, and Arin's wife could never weave to suit her. But Mali left the loom alone, and took over all the kitchen work. The other two had no more scouring and scrubbing to do, no more washing of pots or kneading of dough. Gird had never known how much difference a parrion for cooking could make. All women cooked, and many men; food was food. Now he realized that food differed as much as weaving. Mali's bread was lighter, her stews more savory, her porridge smooth, neither lumpy nor thin. She gathered herbs in the wood, and hung them to dry; they gave the cottage a different, sharper smell. She even knew how to make cheese.
With no kitchen work to do, Gird's mother could concentrate on weaving, and let Arin's wife do all the carding and spinning. They traded Mali's cheese for extra wool; his mother sent three furls to the trading fair in the next village, which brought them precious coppers, almost as much as the marriage fee even that first year. Gird's mother had always liked weaving better than anything else. Now she produced furl after furl, trading to the dyer for skeins of colored yarn, rich golds and reds and dark green. With those, she could weave patterned cloth that brought a higher price, combining the barley pattern Mali's mother had taught her with color.
The other cheesemaker in the village was getting old, and people began to bring Mali milk. She traded herbs to the older cheese-maker for one of her tubs, and made more cheese. For every five, a hand, she could keep one. Her cheese was not as good as some, she admitted—she would not try to sell it at a tradefair—but in the village it brought them what they needed to feed the extra mouths.
Gird's first child was born just after Midwinter. Mali had gathered the herbs she said she needed back in the summer, and as usual the village grannies came to help with the birthing. Gird had not realized how much his status would improve, first as a married man, and then as a father. Now all the grown men spoke to him by his own name. In the rest breaks they would wait for him before starting a conversation. Teris, who had been married more than a year, now treated him as an equal, an old friend. For a few days he resisted this, remembering Teris's accusations. One bleak day when they were both in the cowbyre, Mali wormed the old quarrel out of him, and counseled forgiveness.
"You can't change the past, love. If he's a good friend now, why not?"
Gird found that his old grudge looked very different when he got it out and tried to explain it to Mali. "You make everything so simple," he complained.
"It's not simple, but it's over. He erred, back then—did you never err?"
"You know I did, but—"
"Well, then, let be. He blamed you unfairly; if you refuse his friendship now, you'll be blaming unfairly."
"Are you ever angry?" He looked down at her; she had the baby at her breast, and he could smell her milk and the baby's scent overlaying her own.
Mali knotted her brows, thinking. "Angry . . . yes. When things happen, not later. If I'd been here, and seen someone hurting you, then I'd have been angry. Otherwise—'tis like a bit of old milk in the pan that sours the new. All life would sour if we held anger. So I yell, and throw things, and scour it all away, right then, so the next day won't sour."
"But when things aren't right—"
Mali shifted the baby to the other breast; he noticed how the baby's sucking had changed the shape of her nipple before she pulled her vest across to cover it. "Is this about Teris, or something else?"
Gird chuckled; he wasn't sure why. "Something you said that first night. And talking with the men in the village council. Things have changed since my father was a young man, and more since his father's day. And not for the better."
"Taxes?" Taxes were up again, the field-fee higher for the third year in a row.
"Not only that." Gird rolled on his back and tried to think. "The law itself has changed. Old Keris was telling us yesterday about the way it was back then. No guards here, for one thing, and fewer everywhere. No lockups. No stocks, no whippings."
"Old men always think their youth was golden," said Mali, stroking the baby's back.
"He saw the lords' magic himself, he said." Gird looked for a reaction to that and got it; Mali stared at him, shocked that he would speak of it openly. "He said they used to show it all the time, use it for aid in drought and storm."
"What was it like?" Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"He saw them call rain, he said. Bring clouds out of a clear sky, gather them up as a shearer gathers the tags of fleece, and then call rain down." Gird cleared his throat and looked around. No one else was in hearing. "He said, too, that the old lords would warm the heart to see, not like our count. That everyone wanted to please them."
"Old men's tales," said Mali, but without conviction.
That year the spring rains came timely, and a rich harvest rewarded their labors. Arin's wife had another baby in the fall; by Midwinter, Mali told him she was pregnant again. The cottage seemed to bulge at the seams already . . .
The dun cow lowed, her hoarse voice as loud as if she'd been in the cottage. No, she seemed to cry. No, no, no . . . o . . . o. Gird palmed his burning eyes and wanted to groan a refrain to it. No. He was not ready to get up and help that cow; he wanted to lie where he was and sleep. But the cow was not giving up; with the stubborn insistence of a deprived bovine, she let out another long plaint. Most cows tried to edge furtively into the woods when about to calve, but this one wanted someone there . . . yet refused to do it where it was convenient. Gird rolled on his back, grunting at the ache in his shoulders from plowing, and slowly sat up. He heard his father's harsh breathing, the catch in every inhalation. One of the children snored: probably Rahel. The cow called again, this time answered by the two in the cowbyre. Gird stifled an oath, and sat up, feeling around on the floor for his boots.
Outside, the predawn light in the sky only made the barton itself darker. Gird carried a splinter of oak from the fire, its tip bright orange, almost flaming in the breeze of his movement. Tucked in his tunic was the scrap of candle he'd light if he needed it when the time came: no use to waste candle if daylight came before the crisis. The dun cow had stayed out of the byre last night, as she did every time she calved. She would be in the thicket near the creek, if he was lucky. Outside the barton, the lower meadow looked silver-gray under a sky sheened with dawn. Heavy spring dew wet his boots through before he came to the thicket, guided more by the cow's voice than his sight, though it grew lighter moment by moment.
In among the gnarled and twisted scrub, though, he could barely see, and staggered more than once over root or stone. Stupid cow, he thought, as he had thought for three years now. Staying out in the cold and dark, hiding yourself in the thicket, when you know you'll want my help. There she was, a large hump of shadow among lighter, flickering shadows. Down already, grunting and panting, her tail thrown back out of her way. He pulled out the candle, found a smooth stone to set it on, and with a wisp of dry grass and breath, blew the splinter into a flame. The cow's big eyes reflected it, making three flames where there had been one. For a moment his mind wandered: did the cow see a reflection of flame in his eyes? Was that why she looked afraid? He lit the candle, picked it up, and walked closer, crooning to the nervous cow. Have a heifer, he begged silently. Have a heifer this time. A contraction moved across her girth; a bulge extruded below her tail. A pearly blot inside . . . a hoof. That was good, unless the other leg was back. He couldn't quite see. Another contraction, and he could: two hoofs and a nose. A normal delivery, so far, with the shiny black nose already free of the sack. Now it was light enough to see the shapes he needed to see. He tipped the candle, quenching it against the damp grass with a hiss, and tucked it back into his tunic. His feet were cold. The cow groaned again, a softer sound but eloquent of struggle. Gird stroked her flank, and began the calving chant.
"So, cow, gentle cow, quiet cow, so . . . Birth calf, milk calf, little calf grow . . . so cow, kind cow, good cow, so . . . Life come, growth come . . ."
Another contraction, and another, this one longer, pushing the shoulders out. The shoulders came, all in a rush, as always, and the wet calf lay still a moment, hind end still in the cow. Then the rest of the body followed. The cow made a noise Gird never heard save in those moments after calving, almost a murmur. The calf's ear flicked. With a lumbering rush, the cow heaved herself up, and the cord broke. She shook her head at Gird, who went on chanting until the wildness left her eyes. The cow nosed around the calf, licking it clean of the birth sac, licking it dry, murmuring, encouraging. The dun cow was a good mother cow. The calf shook its head, waggling both ears, and tapped its tiny front hooves on the ground as it tried to figure out how to stand. The cow licked on, still murmuring. The calf pushed one front leg out, then another, and heaved itself to a sitting position, then fell over. But it tried again, and again, its ridiculous little ears flicking back and forth with each effort. And it was a heifer, the year's good luck, for he could keep it.
Gird was never sure what made him look away from the calf, to glance between the knotted limbs of creek plum and hazel, but there across the meadow walked a creature of grace and light. Tall, lithe, so inexpressibly lovely that his throat closed. What was it?
The creature turned, as if feeling his glance, and looked toward him. A voice came, bell-like but slightly discordant.
"And what are you thinking, human, alone before dawn on this unlucky day?"
Gird could find nothing to say, only then remembering that it was the spring Evener, the day and night of equal length, when the creatures of night ruled until truedawn, and the creatures of day could not wander the dusks unscathed.
"The cow called," he said finally. The black-cloaked figure came nearer, hardly seeming to touch the ground.
"The cow called. Cattle to cattle: as your masters would say of you. Less than cattle, we think you, worse."
He could see the face now, inhuman but beautiful with a beauty that called human hearts and eyes. Pale against the black cloak, wide eyes starry bright. Was this a treelord? He had heard tales of them but no one he knew had ever seen one.
"No, I am not one of those dreamsoaked lost singers," the figure said. Gird shivered. He had said nothing; it had picked the thought out of his mind. "I am what they were, and should have stayed, had they any pride or wit at all. Your kind, when they know us at all, call us kuaknom."
He had never heard that word. Kuak, that was the old word for tree—and the nomi were the windspirits that hated order and served chaos. Kuaknom: that would be—
"Old lords," said the being, now just outside the thicket. "Very old, human slave. Firstborn of the elder races, lords of power and darkness—"
"The fallen treelords," Gird said, having finally put it all together. The treelords who had quarreled with Adyan the Maker, so the tales went, and turned against their kin, and riven the forests that used to cover the land in a great battle.
"Not fallen, little man," said the kuaknom, with a smile that sent ice to Gird's heart. "Not fallen—but changed. And on this night, until truedawn, those witless enough to wander abroad are our lawful prey. You, little man—"
Gird flinched as the kuaknom reached for him. The cow grumbled, in the way of new mother cows, and rattled her horns against the hazels. And a shaft of red sunlight, sharp as an arrow, stung his eyes; he flung up his hand, and the kuaknom backed away, muttering in its own language. Then again, to him:
"You are safe, human, by that one gleam of sun, but I curse you for it. May your loins wither, and your beasts fall sick, and the strength of your arm fail when you need it most." Even as Gird squinted against the sunlight, it was gone, a shadow across the field.
He sat a long time, bemused, until he heard Raheli's shrill voice calling for him. Was such a curse dangerous? Would he die, lose his manhood, his cattle, his strength? The cow continued to groom and nurse the calf, who showed all the sturdy life of a healthy young bovine.
Nothing befell to make him think the curse had force until the following winter. He had consoled himself that it was, after all, delivered in sunlight, which ought to make the words of the dark powerless. He had given more than his usual share to the rituals of Alyanya and even contributed freely to the lords' offering to Esea. Esea was, after all, a god of light, who might be expected to offer protection against the powers of darkness. When the rest of the year went well (the other two cows also calving heifers), he counted himself lucky.
But that was the winter of the wolves, the worst that had been seen since Gird's childhood. It began even before Midwinter. They had heard the wolves howling night after night, but none of the stock had yet been touched. The headman had gone to the steward, asking the guards' help to hunt the pack, but the steward had refused. Some of the men had gone out to the more distant folds, to help the shepherds watch. Arin went, over his mother's objections, twirling his long staff and grinning at Gird as he walked away.
Gird was hauling dung to the pile when he heard the shouts. He hauled himself to the top of the barton wall. There they came, across the snow, a cluster of men moving awkwardly. Carrying something—no, someone—he slid down, and went through the cottage without stopping to speak. His father was already out in the lane. Together they moved toward the group—and then he could see it was Arin they carried, Arin whose blood stained his clothes and dripped scarlet on the snow.
They got him into the house and stretched on the table. Gird felt his own heart pounding, slow but shaking his whole body, as he saw Arin's wounds. Then his mother pushed him aside.
"Go fetch water," she said. And to Arin's wife, "Get those children out of here—into the kitchen—"
Gird went out to the well; the men stood around silently, shoulders hunched against the cold. He lowered the bucket into icy black water and drew it up. As he turned to carry it in, Amis turned to him. "Is he—?"
Gird shook his head. "I don't know."
"Kefs gone for the steward," Amis said. Gird nodded and went back inside with the bucket. Coming in the clean air, he could smell the blood as if it were a slaughterday. He gave the bucket to Mali, who reached for it, and went to stand behind his father.
Arin had long bleeding gashes on his legs and arms; one hand was badly mangled. "He was trying to choke one of them with it," offered Cob, one of the men who had carried him in. Gird's mother said nothing; she and Mali were cleaning the wounds with one of Mali's brews, and wrapping them with the cloths the women kept. Arin looked as white as the snow outside against the dark wood of the table; he did not move or speak. "He bled all the way back," said Cob, into the silence.
Gird's mother gave him a fierce look. "You might have tied these up then," she said.
Cob spread his hands. "We had nothing but our dirty clothes; I would not give him woundfever."
Gird's mother opened her mouth and shut it with a snap. Gird could imagine what she would have said to him. But Cob had done the best he knew, and Cob was not her son.
The door opened, and someone coughed. Gird turned. The steward was there. No one said anything; the steward came nearer. In the dim light his face was stern as usual, but Gird thought his eyes softened when he saw Arin's wounds.
"Wolves, or folokai?" he asked.
"Wolves, sir," said Cob. "At the sheepfold, they were, and Arin come to drive them off—"
"Alone?" asked the steward.
"No, sir. But he went first, and it seemed the wolf drew away—just the one, that we could see. He went to chase it a bit, and that's when the pack ran at him, and then the rest of us ran out with torches, and drove them off him."
The steward moved closer yet. Gird's mother put out a hand, as if to stop him, and drew it back. The steward laid his hands on Arin's shoulders.
"Heal him, sir?" asked Gird's mother in a choked whisper.
The steward looked startled, then shook his head. "No, I can't do that—I have not the power." He looked closely at Arin's wounds. "I doubt he'll live—he looks to have lost too much blood—"
"No!" Gird's mother grabbed at his sleeve. Gird felt his heart contract with pity for her and Arin both. "It's not fair—he alone against the wolves—"
The steward pulled free. "I'm sorry. It's a shame—I'll take his name off the work rolls—if he lives, he'll be unfit to work until well into summer. If he dies, I'll remit half the death fee; he deserves that much."
"And more," someone muttered behind Gird. The steward's head came around, but the mutter had been too low to identify. Even Gird had no idea who it was.
"And I'm sending down a sheep," said the steward. "He will need meat broth to mend, if he can."
"Thank you, sir," said Gird's father. His mother nodded. The steward glanced around the room, as if looking for an excuse to say something else. His gaze lit on Gird.
"At least you have another son, a strong one. And this one—Arin, is it?—has sired already, hasn't he?"
A wave of hot fury rolled over Gird. He knew the lords considered them cattle, but the steward rarely made it so clear. Arin had bred; Arin's children lived; Arin himself—the laughing, steadfast, honest brother who had saved his own life more than once—that Arin did not matter to the steward, and even less to the lord who ruled the steward. He himself was just another bullcalf; if he died, the steward would shrug as easily. By the time he'd mastered his anger, the steward had left, and the other men not of the family. Gird's oldest living brother, a cottager in his own holding, had come; he and Gird stood beside the table.
Arin opened his eyes and stared vacantly at the ceiling for a moment. Then his eyes roved until he met his mother's. "Lady bless you," he said. "This is home?"
"Home," she said. "We'll soon have you well . . ."
"Not so soon." His voice was so weak Gird could hardly hear it. "If I die—"
"You will not die!" Arin's wife had come back in, and clasped his hand.
"If—you will take care of the children?" He looked at Gird, not his older brother or father, and Gird answered, feeling in an instant the weight on his shoulders.
"I will, as my own."
"Good. The wolf—I was—frightened." His eyes sagged shut, and his head rolled sideways.
It was late that night before he spoke again. By then the sheep had come, a carcass already cleaned, and Mali had a broth cooking, rich with herbs as well as meat. By then, too, they knew the old tracker and the guards had already gone after the wolves. Too late, Gird thought bitterly. But he held his tongue. Arin roused briefly, asked for water. He could not lift his head to drink; Gird put an arm under his shoulders and lifted him. He could feel the heat through his shirt. Was it a good sign, that Arin was warm again, or a bad sign of woundfever? He didn't know. He felt the trembling of Arin's muscles as he drank; when his mother had wiped Arin's mouth, Gird let him down as gently as he could, and pulled the blanket straight. Arin's eyes were bright, but not quite focused.
"Issa?" His wife moved up and took his good hand. "I will try, but—I am afraid the wolves have done for me."
"No—" she breathed.
"Yes. You will have a place here. Gird will take care of you."
"Arin—" began his father. Arin interrupted him, talking in broken phrases, without heeding any of them.
"I saw—a place—the Lady's garden. Flowers in the snow. Gird. Little brother—remember what I said."
"Yes, Arin," said Gird. He had no idea which of the things Arin had said over the years had come to him now, but he would forget none of them.
"You are more a soldier than you know. But don't give up the Lady's bounty, Gird."
"I won't." His vision blurred, and he realized he was crying. It felt strange to be looking down at Arin. Arin's eyes roved, and found his father's.
"You—told me not to go—" he murmured. His father shrugged. Gird looked at him sharply. Could he say nothing? But the firelight glittered on the tears that ran down his face. Although tears were nothing unusual among the village men, Gird was still surprised. His father cried rarely; now his shoulders shook with silent sobs. "Don't cry," said Arin, quite clearly. "I chose, or the Lady chose my time—" He said nothing more; his eyes closed. Gird watched the blankets for the rise and fall of breath.
In the hours of watching that night, in the flickering firelight, as their words to each other gradually failed and all was silence but for the snoring of Arin's oldest and the thin wail of Gird's youngest when he woke hungry in the turn of night, Gird felt the weight of manhood settle on his shoulders. He looked from face to face, seeing in the exhaustion of his father's the truth that he was now—must be now—the head of their family, in fact if not in law. Here, in this room: all that his father had made was now his to protect, support, defend.
When Mali had fed the baby, she came to sit beside him, her hand on his. He looked into her eyes, and saw her absolute confidence that he could do what he must, that they were safe with him. It was not true. He felt simultaneously the cold menace without, all that winter stood for, of famine, wolves, cold, even the lords' ravaging taxes, and the cozy seeming security within. How could he stand between, one mortal man? Cold sweat came out on his face; he felt himself shiver as if someone had poured a bucket of icy water over him. Mali squeezed his hand. Her warmth, her strength leaned against him. He was not alone, then—there was another pair of arms, another strong back. Enough? It had to be enough. He could feel through his skin her awareness of his feelings, and her impossible joy that fought all his despair with laughter. His fear did not frighten her, nor his weakness weaken her.
Arin was still alive at dawn, when Gird and his father began the day's work. Gird eyed his father, noticing what he had not before—how weak his father had become in the past few years. That great frame had bent; the broad hands that had frightened him were stiff, knobby with swollen joints. His bush of yellow hair had gone gray. Had this begun while Gird was sulking, before his marriage, Gird wondered? Not that it mattered; somehow his father had become an old man.
All that day, he thought about it while doing his work. Sim would not come back—some old quarrel that had been far over his head when he was a boy had sent Sim out to make his own way. Now that he had cothold, he would be a fool to give it up. And if Arin died—he hoped fiercely that Arin would not die, but knew that hope alone could not save him. If Arin died—when Arin died, since even if he lived through this he might die before Gird another way—Gird would have it all to care for. Arin's wife Issa—the children—Mali—his own children now and to come—his parents. In the bleak light of that late-winter day he admitted to himself that his parents might not live long.
Arin lived another two days. He said nothing more that they could follow, although once the fever rose he muttered constantly, tossing and turning restlessly. He could not drink the broth Mali had made; Gird was almost ashamed to take a bowl of it, but they could not waste food. The sheep was already dead. They all drank quietly, avoiding each others' eyes and trying not hear Arin's moans.
Not long after Arin died, just after the first thaw, Gird's father dropped suddenly one day, and lay twitching. By morning he, too, was dead. The steward came again, to value the cottage and the lord's property therein. Gird had the death-fee to pay, part in coin and part in livestock—his precious heifers, two of them—and then the steward confirmed him in his father's place, as "half-free tenant of this manor," whose clothes and few personal tools might be handed down to his heir. The rest—the land, the cottage, the livestock, the major tools such as ox-yoke, plow, and scythe—were the lord's and he was "allowed" to use them.