“You knew this was here—you had it ready!” Arranha sounded excited for the first time.
Gird let himself grin. “Aye. Thought it up. Looks like nothing but old walls, but it’s as good as a house. Almost.” He had lifted his end carefully, so that the snow did not slide off; it was heavier that way, but it would look less obvious. He hoped. When they had it braced in place, he looked at it again. Those two side walls had been intended to support a slanted roof, he was sure—he hoped his roof would slant enough to drip on the wall, not inside. The end wall should be lying within the enclosed space; he reached into the snow again, and found the end. He pulled it out, careful to bring its load of snow with it. This piece was light enough for one to move; he shifted it until it almost closed the gap. Now they had a small house, its walls chest-high, topped with a slanted roof with its back to the north wind. Its floor was almost snow-free, because that snow had come out with the end wall.
“You thought this up?” asked Arranha.
“Not all of it. I thought of wattle for temporary roofs, in our camps, but others thought of leaving sections where we might need them. And a man in Burry thought of putting the piece down where you might want no snow when the shelter was built.” As he talked, Gird braced the foot of the wattle enclosing the end with rocks. His hands began to go numb; he blew on them. Then he reached into his jerkin, and brought out one of his thongs. “We have to tie the roof on, or any little puff will blow it away.” Arranha took the hint, and began lacing the roof to the end hurdle.
Inside the shelter, it was quite dark. Gird felt around in the protected corner, and found the dry sticks he’d bundled, and the little sack of meal. He thought of the time it was going to take to start a fire with a firebow, and sighed. It would be sensible to ask Arranha to start the fire with his finger—if that worked, and if it cooked bacon it should—but he hated to ask a favor of a lord.
“If you would let me, I will start the fire,” Arranha said quietly. Gird backed out of the shelter and looked at him. No visible haughtiness, just an old man pinched with cold after a long day’s walk in the snow.
“In that far corner, then. There’s wood; I’ll find more.”
Arranha nodded and ducked inside the shelter. Gird did not stay to watch; he gathered an armload of wood, and came back to a shelter that let chips of light out between the chinks of the wattle.
Inside was warmth and firelight—none of Arranha’s magicks. Was Arranha tired, or simply being tactful? Gird did not know, or care; he was glad enough to see a warm fire. The jug was nestled near the fire, and Arranha had found the niche in the wall with the cooking bowl. He had poured the meal into the bowl, but looked as if he did not know what to do next.
“Let me.” Gird reached for the bowl, and felt the side of the pot. Warm, but not hot enough. He scrabbled around the floor of the shelter for small pebbles and pushed them into the fire. “For cooking,” said Gird, to Arranha’s surprised look. “I’ll drop them in the jug, to make the water hot quicker. That way it won’t crack the pot.”
By the time the mush was done, Gird was ready to eat the bowl as well. He swallowed hard, handed the bowl to Arranha first, and forced himself to match spoonful for spoonful the pace Arranha set. They scraped the bowl clean; with a sigh, Gird took it outside to scrub it clean with snow. After a final visit to the outside—Gird insisted on showing Arranha the proper place to use as jacks—they came back to the fire, ready enough for a night’s sleep.
Or so Gird expected. Instead, Arranha did whatever he did to brighten the light until Gird could see as clearly as in daylight. From the recesses of his clothes, he pulled a scroll. Gird blinked. The man had been naked; Gird had given him a shirt. Then he had had clothes of some kind—but Gird still didn’t have his shirt back—and now he was taking things he had not had out of clothes he had not had. He did not like this. But the alternative was, again, a cold night alone in the woods—and here was warmth and light and someone alive. He gave Arranha the look he would have given one of his men who pulled a stupid trick, but Arranha did not react to it.
Arranha pointed to the scroll. “Can you read that?” Gird peered at it, his long-forgotten struggles with reading sending cold sweat to his brow. The list looked familiar, the lengths of line and numbers made it certain.
“No—but I know what it is. It’s the Rule of Aare. I’ve seen it before; we had to learn it in the Kelaive’s Guard.”
“And what does it mean?” Gird stared at him, and Arranha nodded encouragingly. “The first one, for instance. What does it mean—how does it tell you to live?”
“Surrender none,” said Gird. “That’s obvious enough. Grab and hold what you’ve got. Don’t quit. Don’t give anything up.”
“And what is ‘anything’?”
“Anything—oh, lands, I suppose. Money. Power. Whatever they’ve got that they value—”
“Value,” said the priest, in that tone that made Gird think he meant more than he said. “Things of value—think, Gird.” He was thinking, and it made him restless. He wanted the ale he had had the night before, to ease the ache in his joints. He wanted to get out of this cold cramped shelter and take a walk across open, sunlit fields. He scowled, hoping that it would pass for thought, and ready to be angry if the priest laughed. The priest did not laugh. “Value,” he said again. “Gird, what do you value most?”
“Me?” All the usual answers raced through his mind: money, food, ale, the pleasures of the body, possessions, a better bull for his cows. Then slower, deeper, the people he knew, the way of life he wanted to live. But for that he had no words, no way to say it. “Not just money,” he said slowly. “Not things to buy or use, exactly. Friends—a good master, fair dealing in the market and at tax time—family—” Children, he would have said, but it was ill-luck to name them.
“Peace,” said the priest, casting that name over ordinary life without turmoil or undue trouble, as Gird himself had said that morning. “Justice.” And that stood for all the fair dealing, market or court or steward’s assessment, for a lord who would not trample young grain on a hunt, or refuse the use of medicinal herbs in his wood. “Love,” the priest said last, and it covered family and friends well enough, all the complicated relationships that made a life more than existence.
“But the law—” began Gird. The priest held up his hand, and Gird stopped short.
“The old law,” said the priest, “said nothing of peace or justice or love, because everyone agreed on their importance. And the first Rule, ‘Surrender none’ meant precisely that none of these should be given up: not peace, not justice, not love.”
“But—” began Gird again, and again the priest stopped him.
“Surrender none,” the priest repeated, this time in a tone of command that would, Gird was sure, have held an army spellbound. “None—none of the Rules themselves, and none of the great goods the Rules were intended to preserve. Our people have forgotten that. Our priests have forgotten that. We have taught them the wrong meanings of those simple commands, and it is these, acted out, which brought them to such actions as trouble you. They think they are meant to grasp more and more, and hold it tightly, sharing it with none, when they were meant to surrender no opportunity of doing right, of spreading Esea’s light, the High Lord’s justice, Alyanya’s peace.”