Gar’s face suddenly became an unreadable mask. “I would agree to that last.”
Magda noticed, and relented. “I was married, though, for ten months, and my husband was very dear to me, the more so because he was away fighting for a month at a time, then home only for a week before he was off again. There was no help for it—his city was at war—but he was slain, and I left a widow.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Dirk said slowly. “Is that why you’re commanding your home domain?” There was a brief and awkward silence. Dirk realized he’d made a social mistake, tripped up by a custom he didn’t know.
“They’re foreigners,” Cort explained to Magda, “from very far away. They don’t understand our ways.”
“Of course,” Magda said, relieved.
“It’s quite true,” Gar said. “Tell me, since I’m so ignorant of your ways, how do I address you? Castellan?”
“Yes, castellan, though my brother is a squire,” Magda said. “No other title is really necessary.”
“Her people probably call her ‘my lady,’ though,” Cort told them.
“They do,” Magda admitted, then turned the tables. “And how do I address you, gentlemen?”
“Oh! Forgive my rudeness!” Cort exclaimed. “I’m Lieutenant Cort of Molerpa. This is my sergeant major, Otto, and these are two of my staff sergeants, Dirk Dulaine and Gar Pike.”
“Gar Pike?” Magda looked Gar up and down and bit back a laugh.
“You’re very polite,” Gar said gravely.
“Thank you.” Magda had the laugh under control, but her eyes were merry. “My brother and I aren’t bullies, after all, nor any sort of tyrants—we’re squires, chosen by our people to lead them, not to rule them.”
“Who does rule you?” Gar asked.
“The town council, sergeant, and my brother only enforces such measures as they issue—and oversees their military training, and leads them in war, of course.”
Privately, Dirk thought the young man must have done very well to stay alive so long. He shuddered at the thought of this delicate, beautiful creature having to stand against the lances of a whole army.
“Who taught your people to fight?” Gar asked. “The sages, sir, and ours still do teach the young in that fashion. Our ancestor-farmers were farther from the cauldron of conquests and bloody battles than most, and their sages had always taught them arts such as T’ai Chi and Yoga, to help them teach the mind to control the body, and Kung Fu and Karate to those who wished to become sages themselves. When they began to hear rumors of bullies riding forth to conquer, they and their advanced students taught the arts martial to all the people. That encouraged the headmen of the villages in this domain, making them think that they might actually defend themselves, so they joined together in discovering ways to use their farming tools as weapons—fighting with long poles and shovels, battling with flails and scythes. Thus our ancestors studied war, and when the bullies came, they fought them off. True, there were dead, but there would have been even if the people had bowed in submission to the bullies without a fight—that they had learned from the news about other villages.”
“But once they had saved themselves,” Gar guessed, “they found they had to stay organized?”
“Yes, for the bosses came when the bullies had failed, and still do. The villages banded together and looked to the largest, Quilichen, to lead them. Thus my ancestors reared their children to war, and became squires from generation to generation who led troops of yeomen, not gangs of slaves in soldiers’ livery.”
“I take it your people live better than the serfs of the bosses.”
“Look about you,” Magda said with a broad gesture. They had come out into the open plain, a patchwork of fields circling all about Quilichen. The farmers straightened to wave, watching them as they passed, alert and ready.
“At her slightest sign, they would charge us with those hoes,” Cort confided to Dirk, “and they could do great damage with them, believe me! Even with spears and swords, we would be hard-pressed to come out of it alive!”
“They wear good clothing,” Dirk commented, “stout broadcloth, dyed in bright colors.”
Cort nodded. “Proper breeches and smocks, not the sacks of the bosses’ peasants. Oh, they have much to fight for, these yeomen of the free cities.”
Dirk saw a bit more of that later, as they rode through a village. The elders and mothers were watchful, but didn’t run for cover at the sound of hooves; indeed, they surveyed the newcomers with curiosity and waved to the archers with smiles. The children ran and shouted, and looked to be well fed and healthy. The women wore skirts and blouses in jewel tones, with kerchiefs for the grandmothers and white aprons for everyone. Their houses were proper cottages, single story but all of it above ground, built of fieldstone with windows and thatched roofs, and chimneys that bespoke proper fireplaces.
“Your form of governing works well,” Gar commented.
“I thank you,” Magda said.
“But the office of squire passes from father to son?”
Magda nodded. “And the daughters grow up to become castellans. We have to stand for the acclamation of all the yeomen, mind you, but there have only been three squires’ children who were not acclaimed in all the history of this village, and that’s more than four hundred years.”
“An enviable record,” Gar said with approval. “I gather that not all the free villages fared so well.” Magda looked up at him in surprise. “No, they didn’t. Many squires gathered the best of their fighters into a standing army, then used them to enslave their own people, becoming bullies. My ancestors did not, though, nor shall my brother and L”
They came to the gates of the town, and the guards hailed them, calling, “Bravely won, my lady!”
“Overawed, at least,” she answered, smiling. “There was little enough fighting to do, thank our stars.”
They rode through the gates into the midst of a cheering throng. Magda smiled and waved to her people, but confided to her guests, “It doesn’t take much of a victory to make them happy.”
“Don’t underestimate it.” Dirk came riding up on her other side, green with envy of Gar. “You faced down a mercenary officer. That took a lot of courage.”
She flashed him a grateful smile, but said only, “We do what we must, Sergeant Dirk. Greet my people, please, for you’re their guests as much as mine.”
So Cort and his sergeants rode beside their hostess, waving and smiling, up winding streets between stone houses, higher and higher on the hillside until the houses ended abruptly, giving way to a long slope of well-tended lawn, dotted with grazing sheep and a few cows.
“No army is going to be able to sneak up on your castle through the back alleys,” Cort observed.
“Indeed they won’t,” Magda said, “and during peacetime, the people enjoy this lawn for exercise and pleasure—and, of course, grazing.”
“So that’s how you keep it so neatly trimmed,” Dirk said, smiling.
Magda returned the smile, and did he imagine it, or were her eyes showing more than amusement? But she only said, “Indeed so, sergeant, but we must limit the numbers of the sheep and cows quite strictly.”
“Still, it gives you a valuable asset during a siege.”
“It does indeed,” she replied, and Dirk was seeing definite interest in her gaze now. He hoped it was really there, not just in his mind.
Through the castle gates they rode, with the sentries cheering as loudly as any of the townspeople, then into the courtyard, where a groom sprang to hold Magda’s horse. She slipped from the saddle onto a mounting block, then stepped down. “My steward will show you where you may bathe and refresh yourselves, sirs, while I change my garb. I’d far rather have the freedom of skirts than these clumsy trousers—but they’re better for riding, I fear.”