He was not even sure what it would take to win, in the way he meant win, in the way that would bring lasting peace. He threw himself into more planning, trying to calculate how many yeomen they had by now, and where, and trying to picture the larger country in which his war would now take place. A few soldiers had defected, men ordered to burn their own villages, or seize their own relatives, men who faced in adulthood what Gird had faced as a boy. They knew more of tactics than he did, and insisted that he had to have support in the towns, as well as the farms.
Meanwhile, the conflicts continued. Another ambush, and another. A guard encampment attacked at night; another village burned, and its fields torched. Like it or not, ready or not, it was on him; he must fly on that wind, or be left behind. Gird drove himself and those he knew best, traveling far to meet the yeoman-marshals of other bartons, to speak to those who were not sure, who were afraid. By autumn, he was moving far beyond the villages and fields he knew best, trusting those he had trained to keep his own group working, to find a safe wintering. This next year would see whole villages rise—even before planting time—and he had to be ready to lead his army in the field.
Chapter Sixteen
Something rasped, in the dry winter bushes, a sound too small for a cry, too great for a wild thing slipping away. Gird crouched, stock still, wondering whether to run now or investigate. It could be—it was probably—a trap. Someone had talked, and the town guard were out here to catch him. The sound came again, and with it another, like a sob choked down. Trickery, it would be. They were trying to lure him that way. But even as he thought this, he was moving, carefully as he might, threading his way through the prickly stiff brush.
In the gloom, he nearly stepped on the naked, bruised body that lay curled on its side. He stooped, after a hard look around that showed nothing but more brush. A man, an old man with thin gray hair and beard. One eye had been gouged out; the other showed only bloodshot white behind an enormous bruise. The man’s pale skin bore many bruises, scratches where the bushes had torn at him, whip marks on his back, burns on his hands and feet. Yet he was alive, his breathing unsteady and loud, but strong enough, and he had a steady pulse at his neck.
Gird squatted on his heels, considering. It was already cold, and would be colder with full night. An old man, beaten and burned, missing an eye—he’d likely die by morning, left here with no covering and no care. But inside the town, the barton waited. Even now they’d be gathering, waiting for him, waiting for the hope that only he could bring. And the old man might die anyway. Gird touched the old man’s shoulder, then wished he hadn’t, for the bloodshot eye opened.
“No . . .” breathed a tremulous voice.
“You’re safe,” said Gird, knowing he lied, but not what else to say.
“Cold . . .” came a murmur.
“It’s all right.” His mind went back to his own home, the times he’d teased one of the women for that soothing “It’s all right,” when it wasn’t. He could understand that now. It didn’t make things all right. With a gusty sigh—too loud a sigh, he thought instantly: it would carry in the quiet twilight—Gird stripped to the waist and laid his shirt, sweaty as it was, on the old man’s body. He had to have his dark jerkin for later . . . but he could spare the shirt.
“I’ll help you,” he said, and put his arm under the old man’s shoulder. Groaning, and obviously trying to smother it, the old man managed to get his arms into Gird’s shirt.
“You—should not—”
“I can’t leave you here to die,” said Gird. He couldn’t help it that the words came out harsh, not comforting. He was late, and he was going to be later yet, and if he had to climb in over the wall, he was very likely to be seen.
“Who?” Now wrapped in the shirt, the old man had recovered scraps of his dignity; he asked with little volume but much authority. Gird chose to misunderstand the question.
“Who beat you? I don’t know; I just found you. You don’t remember?”
The old man held up his hands—longfingered, graceful hands, for all the ugly burns—and said softly, “Esea’s light be with you, the High Lord’s justice come to you, the Lady of Peace lay her hand on your brow—” He paused, as Gird scrambled back, careless of noise. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t curse me!” It was hardly louder than the old man’s murmur, but the anger in it carried.
“Curse you?” The old man chuckled, a breathy sound much like the whuffling of a horse. “Lad, it’s a blessing—I’m giving you my blessing. Don’t you know that much?”
Gird shifted uneasily. “What I know is, the longer we stay here, the likelier well be seen. Whoever beat you—”
“The senior priest at Esea’s hall,” said the old man. He was sitting up on his own, now, looking with apparently idle curiosity at the burns on his feet. “He called me a heretic, and held what he would call a trial by fire. I call that torture, but the law permits it. And as I lived still when he was done, they stripped and beat me and threw me off the wall.”
“You should be dead!” said Gird, and then reddened, realizing how it sounded.
The old man chuckled again. “That’s what the high priest said, in other words—that I should be dead, for the harm I’d done and might do, and he did his best. The gods, however, sent you—” He reached around, in the gathering darkness, as if groping for a staff, then stretched his hand to Gird. “Here, then. Help me up.”
“But you can’t—”
“I can’t lie here in the cold in your shirt. Come now—give me your hand. It’s not so bad as you think.” Gird reached out, and felt the man’s hand slide into his. It was bony, as old hands are, with loose skin over the knuckles, but stronger than he expected. And he could not feel, against his own horny palm, the crusted burns he expected. The old man staggered once, then stood, peering about. “Ah—” he said finally. “There they are.” Gird looked, and saw nothing but the chest-high bushes disappearing into evening gloom. “If you will wait,” the old man said, more command than request, and he plunged into the tangle without making a sound. Gird waited, although he was definitely going to have to climb the wall. The barton would be wondering if he’d been caught.
When the old man came back, he had a very dirty ragged garment slung around his shoulders, over Gird’s shirt, and some kind of covering on his feet. It looked, in that light, much like the rags peasants wore wrapped around their feet in winter, when they had nothing better.
“Now, lad,” he said, far more briskly than Gird would have thought possible. “Now we can go into town without fear.”
Gird opened his mouth to argue, but instead found himself retracing his path through the bushes, the old man’s hand clenched firmly on his elbow. The old man’s other hand held Gird’s staff. Without fear? Did the old man plan to ask the gate guards to let them in, when he’d been beaten and left for dead? What was he?
When they came to the gates, the postern was still open, and the last few townspeople were hurrying in. A row of torches burned brightly, lighting their faces for the guards to see. Gird tried to shy aside, into the shadows, but the old man’s hand forced him to walk right up the middle of the trade road, into that golden light. He thought frantically how he could get out of this without alerting the guards, and glanced sideways at the old man.
In torchlight, the old man looked altogether different. Smaller, crook-backed, with a dry seamed scar where his eye had been, not the red dripping socket Gird had seen. Almost bald on top, and a wisp of pure white at his chin, a patched leather cape over a rough wool shirt (and it doesn’t even look like my shirt, thought Gird), patched leather breeches on bowed legs, feet indeed wrapped in dirty rags. He leaned on Gird’s arm, and the staff, as if his legs could hardly bear his weight.