Gird sniffed elaborately, reference to the old saying about onions and barleycorn, and said, “I smell an onion in this seedsack, so I do—” They laughed uproariously.
“It works both ways,” the old shepherd admitted. “No onions from barleycorns, but no hiding an onion from anyone with a nose. But them’s certain as they smelled stupid, afore ever they got here; we’s no reason to argue with ’em.”
“How many?” asked Gird. The old shepherd held up his hands and spread them twice: four hands of men, about the size he’d expected.
The little Farmeet barton had only two hands of yeomen: six men and four women. It would probably spend the entire war herding its sheep, shearing, spinning wool, but it had already served him well.
From Farmeet, he made it safely to Holn, where the rumors the brigands had spread had not yet come. Other rumors had. Already conflict had started, and the lords were raising all their troops, planning to crush the peasants before the summer came. They would move, Gird was told, on Kelaive’s domain first, sweeping east across the lands where he had been known to dwell. Gird’s own people had runners in all the southern villages, waiting word from him; Holn’s runner had already gone to tell Ivis and Felis he was back, and another runner waited any message he wanted to send.
What he wanted, desperately, was a pause in time—a few days when nothing happened, so that he could get back with his own troop and make plans. But it could not be, and he understood it. He listened late to the yeomen of Holn, spreading the maps the gnomes had provided and running his finger along the lines. Then he slept, for a few hours, and had a last conference with the barton, warning them about the brigands who claimed his name. He had no time to stop and teach them the new drills the gnomes had taught him; they would have to learn later, when they rose. For now, he must get to his own troops as quickly as possible.
Although he knew the country near Holn, he was glad to have a local guide, who knew just where the patrols had been going. The first bits of green were showing in hedge and wood; wild plum frothed white, and tiny pink flowers starred the rumpled grass that had green at its roots. Cold wet air gusted past him, carrying occasional snowflakes, spurts of rain, and gleams of unsteady sunlight. He could smell the growth in it, the spring smell that made new lambs throw their tails over their backs and frisk as he and his guide went past. There was a pasture with cows, the herder in his leather cape standing hunched against a flurry of hard raindrops, and here was a ditch brimful of racing water, clear as deep winter ice in a bucket. Gird would have frisked if he could, and he chuckled to himself at the thought of a middle-aged farmer-turned-rebel, throwing his tail over his back to dance in a spring rain.
They saw no patrols that day, but between showers Gird thought he saw a smudge of dark smoke blowing away somewhere to the east. He asked his guide, who shrugged.
“There’s been burnings, this winter past. A whole grange, we heard of: every bit of grain and hay lost, and the stones cracked, some of ’em. The lords were making everyone burn the stubble in the fields, last harvest, so’s no one could hide in it. Hayricks, too, some places.”
From Holn to Sawey, where Felis waited in the barton of a farmer called Ciri. It was dark, quiet but for dripping off the roofs—too quiet for a village on an early spring evening. His guide led him to the back gate, clicked the pebbles in his pocket together. Someone answered the clicks from within, then pushed the gate open for them. Inside was the good smell of food, cows, leather, oiled wood, and the sight of friends’ faces. They hugged, smacking each others’ shoulders. The gnomes’ impassive dourness faded from Gird’s mind—these were men, humans that he knew, faces alive with passion for one thing after another.
“At last,” Felis said. Others echoed him. Gird took a deep breath. There was no going back now; there had been no going back from Norwalk, but now he could not hesitate. It was truly “at last” and he must do what he had come to do. They were watching him, relieved to see him but still a little uncertain. Hoping he was over whatever had bothered him after Norwalk Sheepfolds—needing him to be over it—but unsure that he was. They reminded him of boys watching a father whose uncertain temper determines the quality of their life. I am sure, he told himself. When he smiled at them, their faces relaxed.
“At last which?” he asked Felis, intentionally lightening the moment. “At last I am here to settle an argument, or so that you can tell me you don’t want me, or—”
“You know,” said Felis, rubbing his nose. How, Gird wondered, had it gotten sunburnt so early in the year?
“I do, but I’m not sure you do. Yes, this is the year, and yes, I have learned things we can use, and yes, we start now. Tonight.”
He felt the change in the tiny enclosure: relief, eagerness, and—as always—fear.
“I told you,” said one of the local men, in the corner. Gird smiled at him, raising an eyebrow; he flushed. “Some said you’d say wait, like you did last year, but I knew. I knew you had not lost your courage.”
Felis jumped into that. “Only a few, Gird, and no one—”
“It’s all right.” He felt calm and light, certain now where he was going with this group, and for the next few days. After that—“I could not say what I thought was wrong; you know that saying things is not my skill. I’m a plain farmer, same as any of you. I was as glad as any, we’d won at Norwalk, but I knew something was wrong, and now I know what.”
“And that is?” asked Felis, a challenge in his tone. Gird stretched, and let himself hunker down in a corner comfortably.
“You’ve heard of the gnomes’ soldiering, haven’t you?” Felis scowled, but nodded. “Well, they’ve taught me a lot. Norwalk was lucky. I had to learn better—and I have—and with what I know now and you can learn quick enough, even the gnomes think we can win.”
“What did you trade them?” asked Ciris, whose barton it was.
“Our—my—pledge that we would respect their borders, deal fairly with them—” That got nods, and muttered agreement. “—And our help in one battle: they want to trap the magelords in a place called Blackbone Hill.”
This caused less comment than he’d expected; if the gnomes wanted their help, they must think Gird’s was good, and that meant good fortune. Gird had his doubts, but wasn’t about to share them. Not yet.
“We’re not in the same camps,” Felis told Gird, when the other men had left and he and Gird were sharing a heap of straw. “The patrols began to come too close. Ivis thought we’d do better spread through several bartons. He said his forester friends told him the duke was planning a raid around Midwinter. So we left, and let out word to one of the brigand gangs that the camps had supplies in them. They moved in; the duke’s men caught them—and recognized them, too; the leader’s someone the duke’s wanted for years. We hope that’s convinced the duke that his peasant uprising was really a brigand gang in his wood. Ivis’s brother agreed to say in the duke’s court that the leader had been coming to him, threatening him.”
Gird shook his head, half in admiration of their ingenuity, and half in concern. “Not all brigands are that gullible,” he said, and told Felis about that other band he’d run into.
“So what will you do?”
“Fight my war, and let them fight theirs. People will recognize the difference soon enough.” He told Felis about the shepherds of Farmeet. Felis chuckled.