Gird, although he heard this, felt a fierce exultation warming his whole body. He had been afraid of the lords so long, afraid of their cruelty, their wealth, their power. It had never occurred to him that they might be afraid, that they might be weak where his own people were strong.
But Arranha was still talking. “Gird, remember: if this is the strength of your people, and you are their proper leader, then it will be demanded from you—you will be their symbol—”
Gird shrugged. “Do you think I’m afraid to give?”
Arranha looked at him a long moment. “No—you’ve shown that you can. But I think you do not understand how much you may have to give—”
Gird shrugged again, this time irritably. “I may die; I know that. It’s likely. We all may. More than that, no man can give.” Arranha started to say something, closed his mouth, and shook his head. Gird cocked an eyebrow at him, but the old man merely waved for him to lead the way.
So what had that been about, Gird wondered, as he continued toward Burry. He had already lost his wife, most of his children, his home, his beloved cows (he wondered who was milking the dun cow, and if she had settled again). The children he had left might die, and that would hurt—that would worse than hurt; he knew he could hardly live through it, if more happened to Rahi or Pidi or Girnis. He himself could be captured, tortured, killed—but he could not imagine anything else. And by being where he was, he had consented to those losses, if they were demanded of him.
“I still think you should talk to the gnomes,” Arranha said suddenly, after a long silence.
“I don’t know any gnomes,” Gird said. That should settle that. Besides, he had a winter’s work to do with the bartons, keeping the training going. He would send someone else to recruit in another town, someone who had been in a town before, maybe.
“I do,” Arranha said. “They have much you need to know. For example, leaving law aside, have you ever drilled two or three cohorts together? Do you know how to place them on a battlefield when cavalry threatens? Do you know what to do about archers? Or the kinds of magical weapons my people have?”
“We won at Norwalk against cavalry. We practice pushing men off horses,” said Gird, feeling stubborn. Of course it wasn’t really pushing men off horses; it was pushing men off logs, and he had to hope it was much the same thing. Arranha had said that the gnomes had fought the Aarean lords—and won. He would like to know how they’d done it. What he could remember of the sergeant’s lectures on tactics had most to do with controlling unruly crowds, clearing the village square, hunting wolves. He had a sudden terrible vision of what his ignorance could mean if he led all his bartons out to battle and did something stupid—so stupid that the lords won easily, and his own people were dying, captured. He shook his head, banishing that ill-luck.
“Besides,” he said, “you say the gnomes give nothing away. Why should they teach me soldiering for nothing? Or law?”
“You might have something valuable to trade,” Arranha said. Gird waited for him to explain, but he didn’t. So what did he have? Nothing but his own strength, the allegiance (for now) of some hands of half-trained peasants, his own burning desire for peace and justice. Arranha had said the lords violated the gnomish borders. But would they trade for that, when they could defend themselves as well as Arranha said? Would they trade bad neighbors for good?
“Would you talk to the gnomes if they would talk to you?” asked Arranha, breaking into this line of thought.
Soldiering beyond what his sergeant had taught, ways to make laws fair for everyone. Would it work? He had nearly got himself killed in that town, for knowing so little; he did not want to be the one to get all his men killed. And he did want peace, and justice, on the other side of battle. What would the others think, if he went to the gnomes? He thought about that. He had good marshals, now, who could keep the camps going, keep the bartons going, until he came back. It would be a season or more, he knew. But was he trusting Arranha because of some wicked magic?
“I will think about it,” he said, looking back to see Arranha’s expression. “I would need to tell my—my friends.”
“Of course. If you would take my advice, go to them without me—so you can be sure there is no power of mine involved—and discuss it. If they agree, and you agree, then I will take you.”
Part III
Chapter Nineteen
Winter wind had scoured the sky clean of clouds, autumn rains were past. The next clouds would bring serious snow, but that was likely days away. Gird followed Arranha across the frostbitten grass, his farmer’s mind noticing every sheep dropping, every wisp of wool caught on a thornbush.
“I feel uneasy, out in the daylight like this,” he said finally, when a fold of ground hid them from the wood in which they’d spent the night.
Arranha gave a brief smile back over his shoulder. For an old man, he was remarkably quick across country. “We are beyond Gadilon’s domain, remember?”
“They wander beyond, often enough.”
“Not this way. Kapristi taught Gadilon’s sires caution, Gird. It was his great-great-grandfather who tried to start a war with them.”
“I still can’t believe—”
“—that those little folk could defeat the magelords? Nor could my people, at first. But you, you want to defeat them with peasants—is that so different?”
“Well—we’re bigger—”
“And not so disciplined. Even with the bit of drill you learnt from your count’s sergeant. You need more; your people need more: law and drill both, which to the kapristi are but branches of the same tree. Or, as they would say, two ends of one rod.”
“Rod?”
“Measuring rod, or staff of justice. One measure suits all lengths: that’s one of their sayings. One law serves justice; many laws serve misrule.”
“I think I will like that,” said Gird slowly. “That’s a problem I know, well enough—right there in the Rule of Aare, it is, though you say it wasn’t meant to be like that.”
Arranha smiled peacefully at him. “Truth is greater than either of us, Gird. I might mean to speak truly and be mistaken: I’m no god. And you might find it where you didn’t expect it.”
A little higher on the slope, something marked the rough grass . . . a straight line, he realized, that went on across the slope, and around the edge of the hill, to reappear on the next elbow west. He could not tell if it went beyond that. Neither fence nor wall nor plowed furrow—but a line in the grass, as if it had been closely mown perhaps two handspans wide. He nudged Arranha. “Is that the track of some demon?”
“You saw it! Good. That’s the kapristi boundary line. Many humans don’t notice—”
“Any farmer would,” said Gird. “How do they mow it so evenly? How do they keep the line? I don’t see any endstones.”
“They don’t need endstones: it’s their domain, and they set the line where they will. Our people no longer dispute it, and yours never did, being wiser.”
“And now?”
“Now we call, and then wait. Remember what I’ve told you: they’re absolutely honest and fair, but they demand the same of others. They give nothing; fair exchange is their rule. They will not take simple courtesies amiss, but they will not return them. Expect no thanks, if a bargain is struck, and don’t expect to get any more for asking please.” Arranha led the way up to the boundary, and called upslope in words Gird did not know. “Kapristi speech, of course,” he answered Gird’s question.
“But no one’s around,” said Gird.
“No humans, no. But a dozen kapristi could be a stone’s throw from here, and you’d not know it unless they wanted you to. This is their land, Gird; make no assumptions about what you do not know.”