So the burden that women wanted to place on her—the way they wanted to see her as the women’s Marshal-General—bothered her less and less. She would not be the Marshal-General, but she could make sure that the code that bore his name remained fair to women. And that, she was convinced, began with women drilling in the bartons alongside men. Even to Gird, that had been what mattered: if the women risked the same in war, then they deserved the same from the law. Men could not argue against that, as they could if women did not willingly risk the same in times of danger. That women—as she knew from her own past—were always at risk did not help; being a victim won no respect.
Convincing the women of all that, in peacetime, was another matter. Once she thought of it, she quit accepting so easily the excuses that came to her, and applied the hard logic of the war she’d survived. If there were war, she said firmly to the woman (or more often man) who came to explain why Maia or Pir or Mali wasn’t coming, she would learn to fight, or be killed. Have you all forgotten? Do you want to see the slaughter of untrained peasants again?
Gradually, she had increased the number of women in her own grange and bartons who actually appeared reasonably often of drill-nights. Ailing fathers and tired husbands found they could survive a cold supper; when they complained to Raheli, she suggested tartly that they come to drill with their wives and daughters. Some couples began to do so, and that heartened others. The young girls she caught early, insisting to their mothers that such drill would not make them unfit to bear. “I am barren because my husband and I did not know how to fight,” she had said more than once. “Not because I fought in the war.”
But it wasn’t the reluctant ones who bothered her most. She had been reluctant herself; she knew what was in their hearts. And while she didn’t share the feeling, she could understand those like Seri, who enjoyed drill for its own sake, and dreamed of using their weapons to protect others. No, the ones who bothered her were the few—usually town girls, she liked to think—who were eager to learn the drill, eager to learn weaponlore, and even more than that eager to shed someone else’s blood. Those made her shiver. How could a girl, whose life should be risked in giving life, be eager to end it? She did her best to make explanations. This one had a brutal father; that one had been estranged from her natural family from birth.
If she had thought about it beforehand—and she hadn’t—she might have thought that girls who had no interest in boys would be like that, but the difference between those who loved women and those who loved men ran across the difference between those who liked to hurt and those who did not. She herself had been angry, after Parin’s death, after the loss of her child; she had been so angry she dreamed night after night of striking at others the blows that had struck her. She had expected to exult in mageborn blood, when her chance came . . . but in fact the first time she had hit an enemy she had almost dropped her weapon and apologized. The memory of that first battle in the forest, the feel of striking another human being, still came back to her on bad nights. She did not tell the young ones that—she had, after all, become good at soldiering, or she would not have survived—but she did not understand those who wanted to hurt others.
“Marshal?” A girl’s voice brought her out of her musing. Raheli looked at her, noticing how the face had lengthened in the past year, how she had grown so much taller. This was not one of her problems, but a delight: a girl she would have been glad to have as a little sister.
“Yes, Piri?”
“The lads say you’ll be looking among the junior yeoman for a yeoman-marshal—”
“Yes, from the eldest group. Whoever it is will be sent to another grange to work with that Marshal for a few years. Why?”
“Sent away—?”
“Yes. It would be hard on a lad to have his friends beneath him, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, Marshal.” Piri had the dark hair and gray eyes common to this cluster of villages; now she flushed and looked down. “I just wondered, Marshal, if you ever thought of a girl.”
“A girl? You?” Raheli was startled. Piri came to drill faithfully, but seemed perfectly suited to follow her two sisters into marriage. Had she quarreled with the boy she seemed most likely to marry?
“No—but there’s Erial.” As if anticipating her Marshal’s reaction, Piri rushed on. “She’s better at drill than most of the boys, she never gets tired, and she doesn’t flirt.”
“With boys,” said Raheli drily. “She flirted with you last year, until you made it clear you preferred young Sim.”
“Well . . . yes . . . but that won’t cause any trouble because most junior yeomen are boys.”
“And she asked you to ask me?” Raheli said.
“No . . . she didn’t. I just thought . . .” Piri looked down. Raheli sighed. The two had been best friends as small children, then that simple relationship had been complicated for them by whatever god governed the loves of adults. Piri had a soft heart; she would not want to hurt her friend, but she felt uncomfortable with her.
“Piri, you’re right that Erial is good in drill; she might make a good yeoman-marshal. But one thing any yeoman-marshal needs is a desire to take on that job. Yes, it would be easier on you if she moved away, or was busy with something like this . . . but none of us can live Erial’s life for her. She understands that you love Sim; you must understand that she may not want to go away.”
“If she asked would you consider her?”
“Piri, is she bothering you?”
“Not really—I mean she’s not doing anything, but I know what she’s thinking about.”
Raheli snorted. “I doubt it, child. Most of us think we can read thoughts like scrolls, and yet we have no idea what’s behind someone’s eyes.” She looked at Piri’s red face thoughtfully. “Is it Sim? Is he upset about Erial?”
Piri turned even redder. “He did say—that when I wasn’t looking he saw her watching me.”
“Watching you. And Sim thinks no one has a right to look at you but him, is that it? Boys! At that age, Piri, they’re like young bulls, jealous of everything. If he knew a sheep looked at you he’d probably drive it away. No, lass: from what I’ve seen, Erial understands very well that you prefer Sim; she may not like it, but she’s no worse than you are and unless you have something more than ‘Sim says she looks at me’ you have no real complaint. What did your mother say?”
“That Sim’s a young cockerel crowing over his first pullet.” Raheli grinned; Piri’s mother had come closer than she had. Sim was much more gamecock than bull. “She said Erial’d been my friend all my life and it was silly to fuss now. But I thought maybe—”
“You thought maybe there was an easy way out that would please Erial and Sim both, didn’t you?” Piri nodded. “Piri, the easy ways we see out of things are usually full of traps: think how we tempt an animal into a pen. We make the gate look like the easy way out of trouble. Learn to look on both sides of the gate before you walk through it. Now. About Erial. If she wants to be a yeoman-marshal, and she asks me, I’ll consider it. Not for you, but for her and the yeomen she will serve later. But she has to ask, and I don’t want you hinting to her in the meantime. Does Sim know you came about this?”
“No, Marshal. It was my idea.”
“Good. Then you don’t tell Sim, because the way he is, he would go straight to Erial and tell her.”