“Eralie!” the lad groaned, burying his face in his hands. “I’ll be revenged on them for this, I swear it!”
“I don’t know how,” the other young man swore, “but I’ll find a way to cut their throats and break their heads!”
“I’ll hold them while you cut, Borg,” Crel said, then bleated with the pain of his wounds. “I’ll see them burn as they burned us!”
“There has to be a way to hurt them,” the young woman said with the intensity of hatred, “and when I find it, I’ll watch each of them die screaming—or at least their general!”
Alea started to tell them that trying to revenge would only destroy them but caught herself and pressed her lips shut at the last second. Later they might respond to such an idea—months later. Right now, though, they needed whatever purpose they could find to give them the will to live.
Shuba and his neighbors took the young people home to nurse while they waited for the priestess to come to heal them, and to tell their own villagers of the horror they had seen. Alea and Gar watched them go. Shaken to her core, Alea mourned their former hosts. “Those cheerful, openhearted, generous young people we saw only two days ago, with everything to live for and every minute an adventure—they’re as burned out as their village now, grim and filled with bitterness!”
“Crel’s wrong when he called them animals,” Gar said grimly. “Wolves and bears only kill bodies, but these monsters have maimed their souls!”
“If the Scarlet Company is so good at stopping bullies,” Alea said bitterly, “what are they waiting for?”
“Good question,” Gar said. “Let’s find them and ask.”
They found a town instead—a real, genuine town, or at least a village large enough to qualify as one. Actually, it looked more like a collection of villages than an actual town.
“You’d better bury that charcoal robe and take a bath before you go in there,” Alea warned.
Gar looked down at his doctor’s robe, the hem ragged and charred. “You’re right—I must look like a fugitive from a coal mine.” He turned back to her. “I’m sorry to burden you so long with such a sight. I hadn’t realized.”
“No, you wouldn’t, would you?” Alea asked. “You had others’ suffering to worry about—and so had I. But you might have told me you could vanish from my side and appear miles away.”
“Ah—that.” Gar had the grace to look embarrassed. “Yes, well, I was going to lead up to that when you’d developed your telepathic talent to the point at which we could tell if you were also telekinetic.”
“I would have appreciated knowing a little sooner,” Alea said with irony. “How many other secrets are you hiding?”
“About my general powers, none,” Gar said. “About what I can do with them, quite a few. I’ll tell you about them as you develop your skills.”
“I think I’d better know about them now.”
“As you wish,” Gar said, “but we’d better find a stream first.”
They found a brook, and while he bathed Alea took out the peddler’s clothing she had stored in her pack when he’d decided to disguise himself as a halfwit. She was tempted to peek while he bathed but told herself it was silly—she’d seen his whole body when he was in his idiot guise except for what the loincloth covered, and she certainly didn’t want to see that! Still, the thought sent a shiver running deeply into her. She did her best to ignore its destination.
When Gar came up, amazingly clean, she turned her back to let him dress and asked, “What else can you do with these ‘basic powers’ of yours?”
“Heal burns, as you’ve seen,” Gar told her. “It’s telekinesis really, just moving things on a very small level—and you can perceive them with an aspect of telepathy, though you have to know what’s inside the body first. Also, it’s good for making explosions or stopping them, changing the nature of a substance—say, lead into gold, though that sets up dangerous radiation—and for setting fires or dousing them.”
“So that’s how you walked through a burning village and only singed your robe!”
“Ran, actually, from one suffering person to another. I had to knock out a few soldiers in order to save the villagers, but none of them saw me coming.”
“You really had time to worry about whether or not the soldiers would remember you?”
“More a matter of trying to make sure they didn’t gang up on me,” Gar said, “so I didn’t scruple to strike from behind. Good thing, too, if we don’t want a total manhunt after me.”
“Would that really bother you?”
Gar cocked his head, thinking it over. “I wouldn’t mind it a bit, if we could persuade a few hundred villagers to set up an ambush for Malachi and his bandits. Since we can’t, though, I’d just as soon not attract too much of their attention.”
“Neither would I.” Alea shuddered at the thought. “Are you done dressing yet?”
“Yes,” Gar said. “Good thought about the peddler’s clothing—we must be far enough away from Malachi’s camp so that I won’t be recognized now. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Alea turned to face him. “Let’s go to town.”
They followed the road down to a broad river; the town had grown up where two streams joined with a road, and people unloaded barges into wagons and vice versa. They wandered through the streets for an hour or more amid the familiar bustle of a busy trade town—apprentices wheeling loads on barrows, teamsters driving loaded wagons, merchants haggling happily and loudly. No one seemed to take any particular notice of them; what was another peddler more or less in this busy place?
They found a market where people traded rutabagas for iron ingots, wool for cloth, and amber for spices. There were inns, frequented by merchants and farmers, where guests paid with anything from ounces of metal to piglets on the hoof. They found streets filled with craftsmen—blacksmiths and silversmiths and carpenters and tradesmen of all kinds who would accept almost any kind of goods for their services.
They didn’t find a government.
When they stopped for lunch at a food stall in a small park, Alea had to fight valiantly to keep from saying, “I told you so.” Instead, she offered, “That street with tradesmen—the blacksmith did seem to be some kind of leader.”
“Yes, the other people deferred to his opinion, and that one man did come to discuss the problem with his son,” Gar agreed, “but that’s a far cry from actually giving orders and making sure they’re obeyed.”
“Does a government have to compel people?” Alea asked.
“If it doesn’t, it’s just a debating society.”
Alea thought that one over for a minute, then asked, “What if a debating society decides what people should do and comes with their fists if anybody refuses?”
“That’s a government,” Gar admitted.
“Then we’ve seen that happening in every village we’ve visited. It just hasn’t been formal and official.”
“Yes, neighbors deciding what everyone in the village should do about a given situation,” Gar agreed. “They use disapproval and the silent treatment instead of fists, but that’s enough enforcement for me to be willing to call it a form of government.”
“Then why are you still looking?”
“Because it’s only happening village by village,” Gar explained. “Who coordinates all the villages? Who makes sure there’s a full warehouse in case there’s a bad harvest? Who patrols the roadway to guard against bandits? Nobody!”
“But every village has a granary,” Alea retorted, “and the people seem to have survived the lean years.” Her lips tightened at the memory of the youth village. “I admit it would be very nice to have someone put down General Malachi and his bandits—but everyone seems to be sure the Scarlet Company will take care of him.”