Gird felt the unshakeable substance of the man, as unyielding in his way as the gnomes. He had never found anyone to give such an oath to; the oaths he had had to give the steward he had never felt as binding. A peasant did what he must to survive; honor was something the lords sang of, in ballads.
“You disapprove?” asked Marrakai. Gird shrugged and shook his head.
“I have no right to approve or disapprove. It is right to keep a promise, that I’ll agree, and if that is how you see your duty to your king, it may—must—be right for you.”
“I wonder sometimes,” said Marrakai. His lips quirked in a rueful smile. “What I propose to do is, in the eyes of many, just as bad as marching my own men out to face his. Fine wit, one of my tutors said, splits hairs, but split hairs make weak ropes to hang a life on.” Gird said nothing; he could not follow that. Marrakai seemed to understand, for he shrugged in his turn. “Let me be clear, then: the gnomes sent word that you were the best of possible leaders to the revolt surely coming in Finaarenis. Last summer I thought you might come, and heard instead of your campaigns—”
“Not all of them mine,” said Gird, rubbing his nose. “That fellow in the south—”
“I expected confusion of tales,” Marrakai said. “But some were surely yours. The gnomes said you might—with the High Lord’s judgment—win in one season, but they expected not. You would need gold for good weapons, they said, and possibly troops, and they were unwilling to provide either. They thought I might, for my own reasons.” He looked at his son. “There is one of my reasons: Mesha will not succeed to my lands as long as Felis is king. He was too forthright at court, worse even than I am.” A chuckle escaped him; Gird noticed that the young man’s ears were bright red. Marrakai shook his head. “We are not good at hiding our opinions, we Marrakai; it has been so for generations. My grandfather said someone dropped yeast in the mix when the gods shaped the first of us; it bubbles out at inconvenient moments.”
Gird looked from one to the other. He knew nothing of the lords’ way of living, but he would expect no great tact from either of them. Curiosity pricked him. “What did you do?” he asked Mesha. The young man turned even more red than before, but his eyes twinkled. He started to answer, but his father waved him to silence.
“What does not matter, save that he spoke the truth as he saw it, and that was too stony a mouthful for the king’s dignity to chew and swallow. I’ll not have it a common jest, Mesha, I told you that: I’m proud of your honesty and courage, but it is wrong to make tavern gossip of your liege lord.”
“He’s not my liege lord,” Mesha said, eyeing his father warily. “He will not take my oath—he said it—and thus—”
“I named you heir, and my oath binds you. Gods above, lad, this is no time for your antics! We are near enough the traitor’s blade as it is.” The younger man sat back, averting his face, and Marrakai turned to Gird. “I’m sorry, Gird: it is discourteous to withhold the tale, and yet I cannot let him tell it. Forgive me that discourtesy, if you will, and accept in its stead my support.”
“Support?” Gird was still confused by the rapid exchange between father and son.
“Yes. You need weapons; I can supply some, and gold to buy others. You may need sanctuary; my woodlands are open to you, and my troops will not permit others to cross the boundary, if you should be pursued. If my peasants wish to organize—bartons, do you call them?—then I will make no objection. Your war will spread into Tsaia—it must, because our king is allied to yours—and you must win in both kingdoms if you are to win at all.” He paused long enough that Gird wondered if he had finished speaking. “What I want is much like the gnomes asked of you: I want your assurance that you will do your best to organize a society after the war, in which order and law prevail—and that you do not urge your followers to massacres and destruction beyond the necessities of war.”
“I’m doing that already,” Gird said.
“So I had heard, but the stories were confused enough I was not sure which stories were of you, and which of your more fanciful selves. I can see for myself that you are not a man who hates easily, who would kill or rape for the pleasure of it; I know, from my own life, that war is a fire that cannot be caged in a hearth. This has already been bloody; it will be worse. I want to know I am supporting someone with a vision of peace beyond the war.”
“Yes.” Gird saw the futility of more words; how could he explain his vision? But his calm certainty seemed to convince Marrakai, who nodded shortly, and then stood.
“Gold I brought with me; you may take it as you go. Mesha will guide you to our borders, and introduce you to trusted men of my personal guard. Weapons—you will have to provide transport beyond my borders, but I can supply 250 pikes, whenever you can take them, and heads for the same number, if you have the poles.”
Once again Gird found himself handling gold coins, this time in daylight, openly. Coins of both kingdoms were minted with the same values: Tsaian crowns were traded in Finaarenis often enough to cause no comment. He let his fingers rummage among them, enjoying the feel, and looked up to see a wary expression on Marrakai’s face.
“They’re so—heavy,” Gird said. “And they feel—they feel so different against my skin. It’s no wonder some men become misers, and want to touch gold all the time.”
“Had you never felt gold before?” asked Mesha.
“Once. Someone tried to bribe me.” Gird poured the coins from his hand back into the leather bag Marrakai had handed him.
“You cannot be bribed?” Mesha asked.
Gird met his eyes. “Between this gold and my heart is the memory of my daughter, raped and bleeding, her dead husband, my closest friend, struck down for nothing. I could be bribed, I daresay, but not with gold.” The young man looked alarmed, but Marrakai smiled.
“I have trusted the right man, then. Fare well with that gold, and your memories.”
Mesha, on the way to the Marrakai border, shared knowledge as precious as the gold he carried. “My father says I cannot tell you what I did to be banished from court and my inheritance, but he said nothing about what I saw.” He explained the kinds of magicks the lords might use, and the tools needed for each, and the cost. He knew nonmagical counters for some of them, because the Marrakai, having lost their magicks early, had had to defend themselves from rival mages.
“It’s said the best defense is a pure heart, but none of us has one pure enough, if we even knew what the gods meant by it. Men were not made perfect, I say, and come nearest perfection as fools when they deny their mistakes.”
Gird nodded. “I’ve made plenty. It’s a rare young man sees that, but you have a rare father.”
“He’s—different.” Mesha walked on some strides before explaining that. “I knew that before I knew why; I could see it in the way others treated him. They’re afraid of him, although they have greater powers.”
“I hope for your peoples’ sake that you are different the same way,” said Gird.
Mesha looked at him, started to speak, and then, after several minutes of silence, tried again, his face turning red even as he spoke. “What is it like, being a peasant?” When Gird did not answer at once, he turned away, ears flaming, and hurried on. “The harpers sing of simple country joys, of the delights of the farm. My father’s people seem happy enough, but they would not tell me, would they? I asked my father, and he said go and try it—but my tutor brought me back.”
Gird thought at least part of Mesha’s curiosity was genuine interest, something he had had no chance to pursue in a place he was so well known. He looked, to see the young man staring at the ground as he strode along.
“I liked farming,” Gird said. “It’s hard work, but I grew up with it; I was good at it. Have you ever milked a cow? Swung a scythe? No? Well, it came natural to me. Digging’s no fun, but it has to be—plowing, planting, harvesting, all that’s the good part. Seeing Alyanya’s grace fill the baskets and barrels. Weather’s weather, the same for all. What’s bad comes from other men—from the lord taking more and more in field-fee every year, from death-fee and marriage-fee, from losing the right to gather herbs and firewood in the forest, all that. Having to take grain to his mill, instead of using our handmills, and having to buy ale from his brewery, instead of brewing our own. Going hungry, when there’s no need but to pay the taxes, seeing our children thin and sick, while his plump younglings ride by on fat ponies, trampling our fields.”