He hardly saw the group of people strolling along the main walk before he had run into them, knocking one man flat. He heard high-pitched cries, and deeper yells of rage, and kept going, knocking aside someone’s grab at his arm. It seemed the orchard had grown twice as wide; tree limbs thrashed his face. Behind him now were the heavy feet of guardsmen as well. When he came to the wall, he swarmed up the pear tree as fast as a cat fleeing a wolf, and gained its top, Here he paused a moment. The guards were too heavy for the pears; they’d never be able to climb so high, he thought. Of course, they’d bring ladders… He caught a flash of bright orange between the trees below, and someone yelled. Hardly thinking, he snatched an onion from his bag and fired it at the shape. Another bellow; he turned to leap into the thicket below. He’d have to risk mashing his fruit. He had no time to lower it carefully; in fact, he’d have to run off without it if he didn’t want to be caught.
The sergeant kept them on parade in the forecourt even though the young lord had gone on into his hall. He might come back out; besides, the peasants were still milling about in the lane near the gates. When the noise began, a reverberant yell from somewhere deep in the hall, the sergeant sent squads in at once, one through the hall itself. Almost as soon as they disappeared into the hall, they came boiling back out again, running for the gates. Gird, with the other recruits, knew that something had happened, but not what; the sergeant silenced them with curses when they asked, and finally sent them off to the barracks. There they shifted from foot to foot, nervous as young colts in a pen. They dared not sit on the bunks made ready for inspection; they dared not do anything, lest it be the wrong thing.
Not long after, they were called back. The sergeant looked as grim as Gird had ever seen him; no one dared speak. He hurried them into formation, marched them once more to the forecourt. This time they were told to form a line dividing the forecourt in half. On one side, the lord and his steward, and the guardsmen. On the other, the villagers, crowding in behind Gird and the other recruits. And between them, his shirt torn half off his back, Meris son of Aric.
Gird stared at the scene before him, bewildered. He had known Meris all his life; the younger boy had a name for mischief, but Gird had thought him safely apprenticed to the tanner. What could Meris have done, to cause such an uproar?
The boy, held tightly by two guardsmen, stood as if lame, leaning a bit to one side. Gird could see a bruise rising over his eye. On the far side of the court, the lord started forward, slapping one black glove against the other. The steward laid a hand on his arm, was shaken off with a glare, and stepped back.
“What’s his name?” asked the lord. No one answered for a moment; Gird thought no one was sure who should, or how the young lord should be addressed. Then the steward spoke up.
“Meris, son of Aric,” he said. “A tanner’s apprentice.”
The young lord flung a glance back at the steward, and nodded. “Meris, son of Aric… and is Aric here?”
“No, my lord. Aric is a herdsman; your cattle are in the pastures beyond the wood right now; he is with them.”
“And the tanner, his master: where is he?”
A movement among the villagers, and the tanner stepped forward. “Here, sir.”
“Sir count, churl.” The lord looked him up and down. “A fine master you are—did you teach your ’prentice to thieve, is that it?”
“Sir?” The tanner’s face could not have been more surprised if he’d found himself dyed blue, Gird thought. The young lord barked a contemptuous laugh at him.
“You mean to claim you did not know where he was? You did not know he was stealing fruit from my orchard? From the way he ran straight for that pear tree, I daresay had done it often before. You know the law: a master stands for his apprentice’s misdeeds—”
“Stealing fruit?” Gird did not know the tanner well; the man had moved into the village only three years before, when old Simmis had died and left the tannery vacant. But he seemed honest enough now, if perhaps none too bright. “But he begged the time off to see your honor’s coming—”
“While you, I presume, were too busy to see your liege lord’s arrival, or to supervise your apprentice properly?”
The tanner looked from lord to steward and back again, seeing no help anywhere. “But—but sir—I didn’t know. I thought he—”
“You should have known; he was your apprentice. Be glad I don’t have you stripped naked and in the stocks for this; the steward will collect your fine later.” The lord smiled, and turned to the boy. “And as for this young thief, this miscreant who was not content to steal my fruit, but boldly assaulted my person—you’ll climb no more walls, and steal no more fruit, and I daresay you’ll remember the respect you owe your lord to the end of your life.” The steward moved, as if he would speak, but the young count stared him down. “It is your laxness, Cullen, that’s given these cattle the idea they can act so. You should have schooled them better.”
The courtyard was utterly silent for a long moment. Then a soft murmur began, like the first movement of leaves in a breeze, rustling just within hearing. Gird felt a wave of nausea, as he realized with the others that the young lord intended far worse than the steward ever had. Even now he could not believe that Meris had assaulted the lord: Meris had never assaulted anyone. His mischiefs were always solitary.
It was then, as his eyes slid from one to another, not quite meeting anyone’s as their eyes avoided his, that he noticed the pin clasping the young count’s cloak. A circle, like the symbol of Esea’s Eye, the Sunlord, but sprouting horns… like a circle of barbed chain, the barbed chain the followers of Liart had left on his bunk. And those three, of all the soldiers, were untroubled by the count’s malice… were eager, he realized, for whatever the count wanted.
What the count wanted, as events proved, was threefold; to terrorize his peasantry, to impress his friends from the king’s court, and to leave Meris just enough life to suffer long before dying. Long before the end of it, Gird and many others had heaved their guts out onto the paved court, had fallen shaking and sobbing to their knees, trying not to see and hear what they could not help seeing and hearing. Not even his sergeant’s fist on his collar, the urgent “Get up, boy, before it’s you—” could steady him. He staggered up, shook free of the sergeant’s hold, and bolted across the empty space into the crowd, fighting his way to the gate like a terrified ox from a pen.
He had moved so suddenly, with so little forethought, that no one caught him; behind him the villagers reacted to his panic with their own, screaming and thrashing away from the scene of torture. That kept the rest of the soldiers busy, though Gird didn’t realize it. He ran as if he could outrun his memories, down the long lane past his father’s cottage, out beyond the great field, the haymeadows, fighting his way blindly through the thickets beside the creek, and through the rolling cobbles to the far side. Then he was running in the wood, staggering through briar and vine, falling over the gnarled roots of the old trees to measure his length again and again. He never noticed when his uniform tore, when thorns raked his arms and face, tore at his legs. Higher in the wood, and higher… past the pens where they fed the half-wild hogs, past the low hut where the pigherder stayed in season. He startled one sounder of swine, so they snorted and crashed through the undergrowth with him for a space. Then he was falling into another branch of the creek, and turning to clamber upstream, instinct taking over where his mind couldn’t, his legs finally losing their stride to let him topple into the rocky cleft his brother Arin had shown him all those years ago.
For some time he knew nothing, felt nothing, and the hours passed over him. He woke, with a countryman’s instinct, at dusk, when the evening breeze brought the hayfield scent up over the wood, and tickled his nose with it. He ached in every limb; his scratches burned and itched, and his mouth tasted foul. Until he was up on his knees, he did not remember where he was, or why— but then a spasm of fear and shame doubled him up, and sourness filled his mouth. He gulped and h
eaved again. Meris, a boy he had known—a lad who had tagged behind him, more than once—would never walk straight again, or hold tools, and he had worn the uniform of the one who had done it.
He could hear his mother’s voice ringing in his head. This was what she’d meant, about taking service of iron, and leaving the Lady of Peace. This was what his father had feared, that he would use his strength to hurt his own people. Scalding tears ran, down his face. He had been so happy, so proud, only a few days before… he had been so sure that his family’s fears were the silly fears of old-fashioned peasants, “mere farmers,” as the sergeant so often called them.
Arin came to the cleft before dawn, sliding silently between the trees. “Gird?” he called softly. “Girdi—you here?”
Gird coiled himself into an even tighter and more miserable ball as far back as he could burrow, but Arin came all the way in, and squatted down beside him.
“You stink,” he said companionably, one brother to another. “The dogs will have no trouble.”
“Dogs?” Gird had not thought of dogs, but now remembered the long-tailed hounds that had gone out with the tracker after wolves.
“I brought you a shirt,” said Arin. “And a bit of bread. Go wash.” The very matter-of-factness of Ann’s voice, the big brother he had always listened to, made it possible for him to unclench himself and stagger to his feet. He took the shirt from Arin without looking at it, and moved out of the cleft before stripping off his clothes. In the clean chill of dawn, he could smell himself, the fear-sweat and vomit and blood so different from the honest sweat of toil. Arin smelled of onions and earth. He wished he could be an onion, safe underground. But the cold water, and a bunch of creekside herbs crushed to scrub with, cleansed the stench from his body. His mind was different: he could still hear Meris scream, still feel, as in his own body, the crack of breaking bones.
“Hurry up,” said Arin, behind him. “I’ve got to talk to you.”
Gird rinsed his mouth in the cold water, and drank a handful, then another. He pulled on the shirt Arin had brought; it was barely big enough across the shoulders, and his wrists stood out of the sleeves, but it covered him. Arin handed him the bread. Gird had not thought he was hungry, but he wolfed the bread down in three bites. He could have eaten a whole loaf.
By this time it was light enough to see his brother’s drawn face, and read his expression. Arin shook his head at him. “Girdi, you’re like that bullcalf that got loose and stuck in the mire three years ago—do you remember? Thought he was grown, he was so big, but once out of his pen and in trouble, he bawled for help like any new-weaned calf.” Gird said nothing; he could feel tears rising in his eyes again, and his throat closed. “Girdi, you have to go back.” That opened his eyes, and his throat.
“I can’t!” he said, panting. “Arin, I can’t—you didn’t see—”
“I saw.” Arin’s voice had hardened. “We all saw; the count made sure of it. But it’s that or outlaw, Girdi, and you won’t live to be an outlaw—the count will hunt you down, and the fines will fall on our family.”
It was another load of black guilt on top of the other. “So—so I must die?”
“No.” Arin had picked up a stick, and poked it into the moss-covered ground near the creek. “At least—I hope not. What your sergeant said was that if someone knew where you were, and if you’d turn yourself in, he thought he could save your life. And we’d not lose our holding. The steward… the steward’s not with the count in this. You saw that. But you have to come in, Gird, on your own. If they chase and capture you—”
“I can’t be a soldier,” said Gird. “I can’t do that—what they did—”
“So I should hope. They don’t want you now, anyway.” Even in his misery, that hurt. He knew he’d been a promising recruit, barring his slowness in learning to read; he knew the sergeant had had hopes for him. And now he’d lost all that, forever. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he’d also lost plentiful free food. “We can use you,” Arin went on. “We always could.”
His mind was a stormy whirlwind of fear and grief and shame. He could imagine what the sergeant would say, the sneers of the other men, the ridicule. And surely he would be punished, for disgracing them so, and breaking his oath of service. Would he be left like Meris, a cripple? Better to die… and yet he did not want to die. The thought of it, hanging or the sword in his neck—and those were the easy ways—terrified him. Arin’s look was gentle.
“Poor lad. You’re still just a boy, after all, aren’t you? For all the long arms and legs, for all the bluster you’ve put on this past spring.”
“I’m—sorry.” He could not have said all he was sorry for, but a great sore lump of misery filled his head and heart.
“I know.” Arin sighed. “But I’m not sorry to think of you working beside me, Gird, when this is over. Come now: wash your face again, and let’s be going back.”
He felt light-headed on the way, but the stiffness worked out of his legs quickly. His soiled uniform rolled under his arm, he followed Arin down paths he hardly remembered.
“We need to hurry,” said Arin over his shoulder. “They were going to start searching again this morning, and I’d like to get you down to the village before they set the dogs loose.”
“What—what happened, after—
“After you bolted? Near a riot, that was, with everyone screaming and thrashing about. It took awhile to settle, and the count had more to think of than you. Then your sergeant came to our place, and talked to father. Said you’d deserted, and they’d have to hunt you unless you came back on your own, and even if you did it might go hard with you. He didn’t like the count’s sentence on Meris any more than the rest of us, but… he had to go along. He took out a few of the men late in the evening, calling for you. I was sure you’d come up here.”
“I didn’t think,” said Gird. “I just couldn’t stand it—
“Mmm. Then the steward came, after dark.” Arin stepped carefully over a tangle of roots and went on. “Said we’d lose the holding, the way the count felt. He’d come down to show off his inheritance to his friends from court, all those fine lords and ladies, and then Meris hit him with an onion—”
“He what!”
“That’s right. You probably don’t know what really happened. Meris was stealing fruit, thinking everyone would be busy out front, but the count wanted to show the ladies the garden, and hurried through. So when Meris was spotted, he ran straight into the count and knocked him flat, in front of his friends, and then fired an onion at him from the top of the wall. Probably thought it was a guard. Poor lad.”
Gird was silent, thinking what sort of man would cripple a boy for such a ridiculous mistake.
“He was wrong, of course, and now we’re all in trouble, from the steward on down, but—” Arin flashed a grin back over his shoulder. “At least you didn’t take part in it—and if they want to call it cowardice, well, I say brave men have better to do than batter rash boys into ruin.”
“I don’t want to die,” said Gird suddenly, into the green silence of the wood.
“No one does,” said Arin, “but sick old men and women. Did you think a soldier would never see death?”
“No, but—but I didn’t think it would be like this. If it is, I mean.” He didn’t expect an answer to that, and got none. Early sun probed through the leaves, shafts of golden light between the trees. The wood smelled of damp earth, herbs, ripening bramble-berries, a whiff here and there of pig or fox or rabbit. He was afraid, but he could not shut out the richness of the world around him, the springy feel of the leafmold under his feet. Air went in and out his nose despite his misery.
They came to the straggling end of the lane without being seen. Gird hesitated to follow Arin into the open, but his brother strode on without looking back, trusting him. He could see no one, but a distant shepherd far across the fields. Up the lane toward the village. Now he could see the first cottages, his father’s well, the lane beyond, the great fie
lds to his right. A few women at the well, someone (he could not tell who) behind the hedge in front of their cottage.
Arin spoke again. “It’s better if you go alone, Gird. Can you do that?”
Cold sweat sprang out all over him. Alone? But he knew Arin was right. The sergeant and steward would know that his brother had gone to bring him in—the whole village knew already—but if he went the rest of the way alone it could go unspoken. Less chance that more punishment would fall on Arin.
The soldiers were just starting out from the gates when he came in sight of them; the sergeant must have delayed as long as he could. They paused, and the sergeant gestured. Gird walked on. His legs felt shaky again, and it was hard to breathe. When he was close enough, he didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t salute, not with his filthy uniform under his arm, and a peasant shirt on his back. The sergeant’s face was closed, impassive.
“Well, Gird,” he said.
“Sir,” said Gird miserably, looking down at his scuffed and dirty boots. He forced himself to meet the sergeant’s eyes. “I—I was wrong, sir.” One of the men guffawed; the sergeant cut it short with a chop of hid hand.
“You broke your oath,” the sergeant said. He sounded weary and angry together, someone who had come near the end of his strength as well as his patience. “Right in front of the count himself—” He stopped. “You’re carrying your uniform? Right. Give it here.” Gird handed it over, and the sergeant took it, his nostrils pinched. “Take off your boots, boy.” Gird stared a moment, then hurried to obey. Of course the boots were part of the uniform; he should have thought of that. His feet, pale and thin-skinned from more than a year of wearing boots daily, found the dusty lane cool and gritty. The sergeant jerked his head at Keri, one of the other recruits, who came to take the boots, and the uniform both. “We’ll burn them,” said the sergeant. “We want nothing tainted with cowards’ sweat.” Gird felt himself flushing; the sergeant nodded at him. “Yes, you. You were wrong, and so was I, to think you’d ever make a soldier. I should have known, when you flinched from it before…” His voice trailed away, as the steward came out the gates with the village headman.