He might have done it, had not Calis seized his hand and rushed into speech. “Yes, Gird, yes! He’s a good lord, he is, and fair and just—he’ll keep his word to you—” But under the rush of words was fear, and in the other eyes he saw the same fear trembling. He shook off Calis’s hand, and met the brown man’s eyes.
“You will protect me, you say.” The brown man nodded, gravely. “But what of these others? You may be trying to be a good lord, sir—” The sir came out slowly, but inexorably, “—but here are those who thought you bad enough to join a plot against you.” He waved his hand around at those who clearly wished they could be invisible. “You may be better than Kelaive—I dare say you are, and it should be easy enough. But you can’t protect all those that need it, and it looks like you haven’t protected all your own, even.”
The brown man looked around; Gird watched the men flinch as he looked at each one slowly. “Cobbler. Wheelwright. Cloth merchant. Baker’s helper. You think to make a government out of such as these, farmer? Who’ll make your laws? Who’ll judge in your courts?”
“Honest men, sir.” He didn’t want to say “sir,” to someone who would either kill him, or be killed, this night, but he found himself doing it anyway. And he could not hate this man, who was so much more reasonable than Kelaive.
“Honest merchants?” Scorn edged the brown main’s voice. Gird noticed one of the men stiffen: that had gone home. “You think to find honest judges from a tangle of merchants who pour water in the milk, or chalk in flour they sell you. Or among farmers who put the bruised fruit in the basket first, or craftsmen who put as much base metal in gold or silver as they can?”
“As near there as among nobles, sir,” Gird said, and braced himself for the blow that would surely come. The brown man glared at him, showing anger for the first time. “At least among common men, of different trades, there’s a chance they’d stick to a measure, not make different weights and measures for each case.”
“Damn!” The brown man clenched his fist then opened it. “You are a man, after all. I hate—it’s too bad you cannot bring yourself to take service here.” He glanced aside, at the black-bearded man who had been one of the swordsmen. “Remember what I said, Caer? Squeeze the mud, and it turns to stone; beat the ore and get gold: from the pressure we put on them, such comes out. I would be proud if son of mine had courage to speak so before a deadly peril, had wit to think in bondage.” He turned back to Gird. “Death it must be, but a man like you does not fear death. I swear no torment; come quietly and I’ll ensure the headsman’s single blow. If you must fight, then I cannot interfere, and not all wounds kill cleanly.”
For some reason he could not define, Gird felt a change in the room’s atmosphere, as if a shutter had opened, letting in fresher air and truer light. He smiled at the brown man. “Sir, it’s not my way to give in so easily. But I will admit that had my lord been like you, I might not be here.”
“Were my subjects like you, Gird, I might not be here either.” He looked around again. “Out of these weaklings, these trimmers, you’d make an army? Were you to have the chance to try, I’d wish you luck of it, but worry none.”
Some bright image stung Gird’s mind, and he said “Well—if you have no worry, you could let me train them, as a wager, and see if they can withstand trained arms.”
The man laughed openly. “Well, indeed, fellow! Wit and tenacity combined! Let you train a score or so of malcontents to harass my guards, and for a wager—that passes wit, Gird of Kelaive’s domain, and near approaches madness. And I should be mad to take such wager.”
“But why are you here, if you fear nothing from them?”
The brown man scowled, and a quick flicking glance to the green-eyed youth in the shadows conveyed some urgent menace. “You ask much, fellow. But if you think only subjects have troubled families, and because you will soon be dead, I’ll tell you. That—” He flicked a hand at the green-eyed youth. “That’s my son, one of them, a true-son, of my lady’s breeding. I came because he came, and knew he came because that bold tailor, there, came to me and warned me. My son’s of an age to seek adventures, to throw off fatherly wisdom, and stir up excitement—to seek, in a word, such midnight meetings, secret societies, all that.”
“I tried to tell you—” began the youth, but his father’s gesture stopped him.
“He would say that he’s done this for me: the lad lies, and all my beatings never stopped him. He feels deprived, that his brothers’ share of my wealth is larger. They’ve increased it; he’s squandered his. So he joins conspiracies against me, but with no real conviction. He’d most likely have confessed this one in another season.”
“Your son. You love him?”
“Love! He’s my son; he’s my blood and bone—but he’s as craven as any of these fools about to spend their last breath in prison.”
“You’ll put him there too?”
“Him? No; he’s my son. I may send him off to serve with the king’s army against the nomads, though. Let him freeze his rump in an icy saddle for a winter, and see if he learns wisdom.”
“And so a rich young man, who’s had all the chances to do better, gets off with a half-year’s exile from home, while the poor wretches with him must die—”
“It’s necessary,” said the brown man roughly.
“Oh, it’s necessary,” said Gird slowly, drawling it out in caricature of his own peasant accent. “And it’s that makes it necessary for us to fight. When it comes down to it, your justice is to save your own blood, and kill what stands in the way.”
“So does anyone!” snapped the man, his patience clearly fraying.
“No, sir. I’ve seen it myself, villagers sharing their few bits of food so the fewest died. We was all hungry, sir, each one of us, but we didn’t grab for self alone. You don’t have to believe it, but I’ve seen, and I know, and so does most of these others.”
Suddenly, as if he were suspended in the air at the very top of the room, Gird saw himself from outside, his own heavy-boned weatherbeaten face, his shaggy thinning hair, his heavy arms gleaming with sweat, his old leather jerkin a little loose where the past months of travel had thinned his belly. Baggy-kneed breeches, patched and stained, worn boots badly in need of resoling, no weapons but fists like knotted lumps of hardwood.
And he saw the brown man, and even into the brown man’s mind—saw the slight awe the brown man felt, and the fainter tinge of disgust that such a lout should speak sense, when his own son had none. He saw the candlelight quiver on a guard’s helmet as the man shifted slightly; he saw the sides and backs of the other heads watching him. And he saw the green-eyed man, that had looked older but was only a youth, sliding a throwing knife from his sleeve, as he looked at his father.
He was back in himself, yelling “No!” in a bellow that raised dust from the boxes, and throwing himself at the brown man so fast that the guards could not react. He hit the brown man square, and knocked him sprawling, just as the blade came spinning out of the dark, catching light and flickering. It missed them both, and stuck in the floor, quivering. The guard on that side had seen the blade whirl past; he turned to face the thrower. The other guard moved forward to swing at Gird, but met instead the black-bearded man, who had yanked his sword out to take Gird from behind. Their weapons rang together, and Gird managed to roll off the brown man and get out from under them.
Then a second blade flashed through the light and caught Calis in the throat, even as he pointed a finger to the green-eyed man.
“Traitor,” he said. “Call my father in, will you? Try to warn him?” And as Calis choked in his blood and died, the green-eyed man had his own sword out, and came into the fight on his own. He caught the black-bearded man under the ribs from behind, then parried the guard’s pike stroke and danced away. “Brother in law, are thy ribs sore enough?” The black-bearded man had fallen, hardly an arm’s length from Gird, and blood rolled out from beneath his hand. The brown man scrambled back, grabbing the fallen swordsman’s weapon.