They began to cross to the next island, this time picking individual ways, with much lurching and staggering. But no one fell in the mud, and they all arrived safely and somewhat drier, but for the rain. This island had fewer trees, and starry blue flowers as well as the tall purple ones.
"In midwinter," Triga said, as if someone had asked, "the bog may freeze on top, but you still can't trust the moss. If the ice is thick enough to walk on, then it's safe, but not otherwise. Most years it freezes that hard after Midwinter. But the thaw comes early—I don't know why—and I've put a leg through the ice more than once."
This time they did not pause, but went on across the island and back onto the bog. Gird lurched and barely kept himself from falling into the muck.
"I'm thinking this might make a better farm than a castle," he said.
"Farm?" Triga glanced back at him, teetered, and regained his balance.
"Plums, apples, brambleberries, all guarded by this muck. I'd wager that in full summer the flies are fierce."
"So they are. The worst of them aren't out yet, the big deerflies."
"Onions would grow on the edges; redroots on the islands."
"Some of these grasses have edible seeds," Triga said. "My mother's father, he showed me some of 'em. As much grain as wheat, almost. That's what the birds come for, the swimmers."
Gird was about to ask how the swimmers could find space to swim, when they came to a stretch of open water. Under the dark sky, with the drizzle falling, it was impossible to tell how deep it was. "Now what?"
"We've gone too far down. Turn up this way, upstream."
Gird could not see any movement in the water; it lay blank and still, dimpled like hammered pewter by the falling rain. Grunting, he followed Triga to the right, trying to pick his way. Eventually that space of water narrowed, and narrowed again, until he could leap across to a tussock that lurched under him. He grabbed the tallest stalks, and managed not to fall. Something hit the water with a loud plop behind him; he broke into a sweat again.
"Frog," said Triga. "Big one—he'd be a good dinner."
"You eat
frogs
?"
"What's wrong with that? They're good."
Gird shuddered, and tried to hide it. That was the explanation for Triga's attitude, he was sure. Anyone who would eat frogs would naturally be quarrelsome and difficult. "They're . . . cold. Slimy." He remembered very well the little well-frog he'd caught as a boy: the slickness, the smell, the great gold eyes that looked so impossible. His father had shown him frogspawn down in the creek, and he'd prodded it with a curious finger. It had felt disgusting.
Triga shrugged, looking sulky again. "It's better than going hungry. Food's food." He gave Gird a challenging look. "I ate snakes, too." Gird's belly turned. What could you say to someone who ate snakes and frogs?
"You eat fish, don't you?" asked Triga, pursuing this subject with vigor.
"I had a fish once." Gird remembered the bite or two of fish that he had eaten on his one trip to the trade fair as a youth. They had bought a fish, all of them together, and tried to cook it over their open fire. He could barely remember how it had tasted, though the smell was clear enough. It hadn't been as filling as mutton. He met Triga's expression with a grin. "The fish in our creek were about a finger long—the little boys caught them, but no one ate them."
From the looks on the others' faces, Triga's revelations about fish, frogs, and snakes were explaining his behavior to them as well. As if he'd realized that, he led them on faster, landing with juicy splashes on his chosen tussocks. Gird followed at his own pace, carefully. Snakes, too. There might be snakes out here, worse snakes than the striped snakes that wove through the stems of the grain, or the speckled snakes by the creek. He wanted to ask Triga how big the snakes in the bog could be, but he didn't want to admit he didn't know. Did they swim?
A sweet perfume broke through his concern about snakes, and he realized they were almost to an island whose scrubby gnarled trees were covered with palepink blossoms. Apples. Gird drank in the delicious scent, so different from the rank sourness of the bog itself, or the faintly bitter scent of the purple flowers. He climbed onto the rounded hump of solid ground with relief. Triga had thrown himself flat on dripping grass, and seemed back in a good humor; he smiled as Gird and the others crawled under low, snagging limbs to join him.
"This was always my favorite," he said. "Wild apples here, and crabs at the far end, two of them."
Gird crouched beside him. "What I don't understand is what made the islands. Why isn't the bog all bog?"
Triga shrugged. "I don't know. The way each island has its own trees and flowers, it's almost like a garden—as if someone planted them that way. But who or why I have no idea."
"Are any of the islands large enough for a camp?"
"No—probably not. I thought so, but now I see just six of us on one of them, I realize they're too small. The biggest has nut trees—not as tall as most nut trees—that would give good cover around the edge. But I think even twenty of us would crowd it. Certainly if you're going to be finicky about the jacks. Out here I always perched over open water."
The drizzle had stopped, but the apple limbs still dripped cold water on them. Gird looked out between the twisted trunks and caught a gleam of brighter light glinting from water and wet grass. It reminded him of something. He sat quiet, letting the memory come . . . he'd been crouched under another thicket, another time . . . dawn, it was . . . and the shadow had come, the thing that claimed kinship with the elder singers, but claimed also to be different. Kuaknom, it had been. Gird looked across the wet and dripping bog, now slicked with silver as the sun broke through for a moment. There across the uneven wet mat of moss and grass was an island, its trees like miniatures of the forest, bright flowers shining along its shore.
"I know who planted this," he said. It had come to him, with the beauty of the moment, the glittering, brilliant colors outlined in silver light.
"Who?" asked Triga.
"The singers. The old ones." He shivered as he said it. Was it bad luck to name them? Would it bring the ill-wishers here?
"You know
them
?" asked Triga, sitting bolt upright.
"No . . . no, but I know the tales. And I met one of their—the ones that went wrong, the kuaknomi."
"Gods take the bane!" Triga flicked his fingers twice, throwing the name away. "Don't speak of them!"
"But the others. I know they did. A garden, you said, each island like its own bed of flowers or fruit. I don't really like it, Triga, but it's very beautiful."
"Even the frogs?"
"Even the frogs."
The sun vanished again behind low clouds, and by the time they reached the far side of the bog, a light rain was falling. Cob scraped the muck from his worn boots with a handful of moss.
"I never thought I'd be so glad to find a muddy trail in a forest," he said. "And now we have to walk all the way back around to get home."
Gird gave him a warning look, and he was quiet. They all were, listening to the many sounds of the rain, the almost musical tinkling of the drops of water in the bog, the soft rush of it in the leaves overhead, the plips and plops of larger drops falling to the forest floor. Where, Gird wondered, was the rest of his troop?
Rock clicked on rock somewhere in the wet distance. One click. What was that? Gird peered around, seeing nothing but wet leaves and treetrunks. His heart began to pound heavily. He blinked rain off his eyelashes, and wished fervently that he'd let the damned grain rot, and taken his leather cape along. Then at least he wouldn't have rain crawling through his hair, trickling down his neck. He didn't mind arms and legs; he was used to being wet—but not his
head
. From the expressions the others had, none of them liked it. Hats, he thought to himself. We have to make hats, somehow. Every summer the women had plaited grass hats that lasted the season; they threw them away after harvest.
"Were we quiet enough?"
Gird leaped up and barely stopped the bellow that tried to fight its way from his throat. Ivis was grinning at him, along with the rest of the men who had gone around the bog. Rage clouded his vision for a moment as his heart raced. He felt he would explode. They were all watching, with the wary but smug look of villagers who have just outwitted a stranger. Another cluster of raindrops landed on his head, cold as ever, and it was suddenly funny. They
had
outwitted him, as fair as any trick he'd ever seen.
"You—" he began, growling over the laughter that was coming despite his rage. "Yes, damn you, you were quiet enough." A chuckle broke loose, then another. "Now let's see how quietly you can march home, eh?"
They were not as quiet, for the rainy spring evening began to close in fast, and they had to hurry. When they came to the clearing, Gird was glad he'd told Pidi to stay and mind the fire; they all needed to crowd near the glowing coals. Pidi had cooked beans, flavored slightly with the herbs he'd gathered.
Next morning was damp and foggy, but not actively raining. Gird woke stiff and aching, with a raw throat. Around him, the others were still sleeping, Pidi with the boneless grace of all small children. Gird pushed himself up, cursing silently, and crouched by the fire-pit. He held out a hand to the banked fire—still warmth within. But dry fuel? He peered around in the dimness. Someone—Pidi, he supposed—had made a crude shelter of stone, and laid sticks in it. They might be drier than the rest. He poked the fire cautiously with one of them, uncovering raw red coals. After a moment, the end of the stick flared. Dry enough. He yawned until his jaw cracked, then coughed as the raw air hit his sore throat. Sleeping wet in wet clothes—he hadn't done that for years. He'd never enjoyed it.
Alone in the early morning gloom, he let himself sag into sour resentment. Forget the hot sib. What he needed was a good stout mug of ale. Two mugs. Maybe they could build barrels and brew? No, first they had to have a dry place to sleep. A drop of cold water hit his bald spot. No, first they had to have hats. He added more sticks to the fire. Some of them steamed, hissing but enough were dry to waken crackling flames. Someone across the clearing groaned, then coughed.
"Lady's grace, I hurt all over," he heard someone say. He felt better. If he wasn't the only one, it didn't mean he was too old for this. Another groan, more coughs. "I'd give anything for a mug of ale," said another man. "Sib," said someone else. "Anything but beans or soaked wheat," said yet another. Gird felt much better. The soldiers had grumbled in the barracks, when he was a recruit. They'd grumbled when it rained and they had to work in it; they'd grumbled when it was hot and sweat rolled out from under their helmets. Grumbling was normal. He was normal. And he knew exactly what the sergeant had done about grumbling.
"Time to get up," he said briskly.
A startled silence. A low mutter: "Gods above,
he's
up. He's got the fire going." He heard more stirrings, and turned to see men sitting up, clambering to their feet, rolling over to come up on one elbow. He grinned at them.
"Can't fight a war in bed," he said. Utter disbelief in some faces, amused resignation in others. Pidi, who had not walked to the bog and back, came over to the fire, all bright eyes and eagerness.
"I found most of the roots and barks for sib." He showed Gird a small pile which Gird would not have recognized, "There's no kira in sight of camp, and you told me not to leave—"
"Good for you," said Gird. "Do you know how much of each?"
He
certainly didn't. Pidi nodded.
"But it takes a long time. Do you want me to start it?"
"Go ahead. We need it."
While Pidi started the sib, Gird went off to the new jacks trench, along with several others. Already the camp smelled better, he thought. Certainly the men looked better, even grumpy and stiff as they were. That hike in the rain had accomplished something.
"We need to set up work groups," Gird said without preamble, as they gathered near the fire. "A hand to each group—" They began shuffling themselves into clusters of five. Gird had thought of assigning them to groups, but decided to let them pick their partners—for now, at least. With his knife, he shaped chunks of bark peeling from a fallen limb into the familiar tallies of the farmer. "One notch for food, two for tools, three for camp chores. Two groups get a food tally, and one hand each for the others. We'll drill after breakfast, then the groups go to their assignments—"
"What's food for?" asked Triga. "We're the ones get to eat?" No one laughed. Gird shook his head.
"Those with a food tally go looking for food: hunt, gather herbs, tend the things we plant, later. Ivis, how did food donated by farmers come to you? Did someone tell you it was there, or did you go ask?"
"Every so often someone would come to the wood, and leave a feathered stick in a certain tree—that's for Whitetree, the nearest. Fireoak usually brought the food itself, put it just inside the wood. Diamod traveled about so much, he'd know, or he'd see it and bring it in, or come get us to carry it. And sometimes, when things were very bad, one of us'd sneak into the village and beg."
"Which is dangerous for them and for us both. And I suppose too much hunting would bring the foresters, wouldn't it?"
"Aye. They don't mind rabbits and hares and such, but the duke likes his deer hunts."
"Well, we'll have to do something. Fori's good with his sling, and he can set snares: that's something you can all learn. We need a better way to let the villagers know when we need something, and what it is. With a few more tools, we might be able to gather more food and lean on them less." Gird handed the first food tally to the group Ivis was with. "You know the local village; you've got kin there. Find out what they can send, and when. What is the most trouble to them. When they've had trouble, and what gave them away. If they can't send food, find out if they can send sacks, boxes, a bucket—anything we can use to store or prepare the food we have. Even little things: a small sack is better than none."