"Ugaine was Stercus' plaything, in the town the Aquilonians have built," said Balarg. "Tarla stays here in Duthil, and Stercus has not laid a finger—not so much as a finger —upon her. Do you deny it? Do you, damn your stiff neck?"
"I do not," said Mordec. "But do you deny that even his own officer warned us against Stercus? Do you deny he has given her more attention than is her due? What he has done is no guide to what he will do, or to what he would do. And you will also have heard the stories the Aquilonian soldiers tell, that he was cast forth from their capital, cast forth from their kingdom, for liking young girls too well? He has done these things, Balarg. Given the chance, he will do them again."
"You are the one who speaks Aquilonian, so you would know better than I," said Balarg. Mordec glowered and flushed; the weaver might have accused him of friendship with the invaders. Sensing his advantage, Balarg went on, "Besides, if we listened to everything the soldiers said, we would never have time for anything else. I think your quibbles spring from a different seed, myself."
"What nonsense are you spewing now?" rumbled Mordec irritably.
"Nonsense? I doubt it." Balarg was a clever man, and, like most clever men, pleased with his own cleverness, and with showing it off. "You complain about the Aquilonian because you aim to match Tarla with your own great gowk of a son. I've seen him casting sheep's eyes at her often enough."
Mordec scowled, for at least part of what the weaver said was true. "He'd make a better match for her than any other you'd find in Duthil, and you know it."
"In Duthil? Aye, likely enough." But Balarg spoke as if Duthil were a very small place indeed. "Tarla, though, Tarla might find a match in any of the villages of Cimmeria, and pick and choose from among her suitors."
"What if- " But Mordec broke off with that question unspoken. If he asked Balarg whether Tarla would entertain a suitor from Venarium, he would mortally insult the other villager, and their feud would burst into flame whether he wanted it to or not. Or, worse, Balarg might make it plain that he would entertain a suit from Stercus, in which case Mordec did not see how he could keep from inflaming the feud himself.
Being a clever man, Balarg saw much of that, if not all, regardless of whether Mordec finished the question. "I think you have said enough," growled the weaver. "I think you have said too much. And I think you had better go, or one of our wives will be a widow before the sun sets tonight."
"Oh, I'll leave," said Mordec. "But I will tell you one thing more, Balarg: you are no blacksmith, and you know nothing of the fire you play with." He turned on his heel and tramped out into the street.
The boys' ball came bounding toward him. Before he thought, he drew back his foot, then shot it forward. His toe met the ball squarely and sent it flying over the houses of Duthil and far out into the fields beyond. The boys skidded to a stop, their necks craning comically as they turned in unison to follow the flight of the ball. When at last it thudded to earth, some of them ran after it. Others stared in awe at Mordec.
"Nobody can kick like that," said one.
"He just did, Wirp," said another. Wirp shook his head, manifestly disbelieving what he had just seen.
Mordec said not a word. He slowly walked back to the smithy, wishing he could boot sense into Balarg as readily as he had vented his spleen on a harmless ball.
On sentry-go outside the Aquilonian camp by Duthil, Granth son of Biemur watched Count Stercus ride south toward Venarium. Turning to his cousin, he said, "I wish he'd find some other village to visit."
Nodding, Vulth answered, "You aren't the only one. The more he comes here, the more trouble I see down the road."
Out of the side of his mouth, Benno said, "Here comes trouble closer than down the road."
Sergeant Nopel emerged from the fortified encampment and bore down on the sentries. Granth tried to straighten up, and also tried not to be too noticeable as he straightened: that might have made Nopel see he'd been slouching. Nopel noticed almost everything; noticing was part of what made him a sergeant. But he only waved now, a world-weary flap of the arm that said he had larger things to fret about than whether his sentries slouched. "As you were, boys," he called.
Despite that, Granth did not relax from the brace he had taken. "What's up, Sergeant?" he asked.
Nopel did not answer right away. He looked toward Duthil. After a moment, Granth realized he was looking beyond Duthil toward the trackless wilderness still inhabited by wild, unsubdued Cimmerians. He said, "The tribes are stirring."
Granth and Vulth and Benno and Daverio stared at one another in consternation. "How do you know that?" asked Daverio.
"How do I know?" said Nopel. "How do I know? By Mi-tra, I'll tell you how I know. I've just come from talking with Captain Treviranus, and he told me. That's how I know." By the way he spoke, he might have had the news from the gods themselves.
Granth was not prepared to disagree with him. As far as the Gunderman was concerned, Treviranus made as good a garrison commander as anyone could want. If he said a thing was so, so it was likely to be. But cynical Daverio asked the question that had barely occurred to Granth: "Well, how does the captain know?"
"How does he know?" Sergeant Nopel sounded as if he could not believe his ears. But the Bossonian bowman nodded. Nopel's frown was fearsome. "Why, because he's heard, that's how."
"Well, who told him?" persisted Daverio. "It wasn't anybody from here, or we'd all have heard about it by now."
And Granth could hardly disagree with that, either. Anything anyone in the garrison knew, everyone in the garrison knew in a matter of minutes. The Gundermen and Bossonians, a tiny island in a vast, hostile sea, had no secrets from one another.
"I don't know who told him. I only know what he told me," said Nopel. He fixed Daverio with a challenging stare. "You want to go tell him he's wrong? You want to tell him you know better, and we can all relax? He'll be glad to hear that. You bet he will."
Daverio was a hard and stubborn man, but no common soldier would have been so rash as to beard Captain Treviranus in his den. He shook his head now, saying, "I'm trying to find out what's going on, that's all. If the tribes are stirring out there somewhere, what are we supposed to do about it?"
Exactly how vast was Cimmeria? Granth did not know, not in any detail; he knew only that the corner of it Count Stercus' army had worried off was just that—a corner. Countless clans of barbarians — clans assuredly uncounted by any Aquilonian, at all odds —still prowled the dark woods in squalid freedom. If they were to band together against the soldiers and settlers from the south— "Aye, Sergeant," said Granth. "What are we supposed to do about it?"
"I was coming to that," said Nopel portentously. "Did you think I wasn't? We've got to push scouts up to the north and see with our own eyes what the damned barbarians are up to."
"We can send scouts north, all right," said Vulth. "We can send 'em, but will we ever see 'em again if we do?"
"And why wouldn't we?" demanded Nopel.
All the sentries laughed. The laughs were not pleasant. "Why, Sergeant?" said Granth. "On account of the damned Cimmerians will do for them, that's why. Do you think we can kill ten for one for what happens up there?"
Nopel grunted. He turned and tramped away without answering. Vulth clapped Granth on the back. "Well done, cousin," said Vulth. "You made the sergeant shut up, and not everybody can boast of that."
Benno had a more practical way of congratulating Granth. He took his water bottle off his belt and offered it to him. When Granth tilted back his head and drank, he wasn't too surprised to find sweet, strong wine running down his throat. He took another pull at the bottle, and then another, until at last Benno snatched it out of his hand.
Granth wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Benno glowered. Vulth chuckled. "You see?" he said to the archer. "He's figuring out what it's all about."