"Does Triga have carriers yet?" asked Fori.
"Yes, and a hoe for scraping up." Gird glanced up at the sky; it wasn't long until sundown. "We can't finish tonight, but we can get a start on it."
The tall man leaned on his pole and looked at Gird. "You remind me of my da. He was always one for starting a job now."
Gird smiled. "I was just thinking of my own da." He turned away, sure that Fori could handle that little group by himself. By now, Pidi should have hot water—and he'd forgotten that he'd sent Ivis to find someone to find flannelweed. And where were the food tally groups?
Back in the clearing, he noticed a controlled activity. Pidi crouched over a bucket of steaming water, chatting with the local cook, who looked much less sulky. Felis, of all people, was gathering the dry rags off the line. Ivis, Cob, and Herf were crouched near the sick men; a stack of sticks had appeared by the firepit; and much of the clutter of the campsite was gone, replaced by clumps of gear that he suspected were not really organized. But it looked better, and he could walk across the open space without tripping over bits of wood and someone's rotted boot. His own men and the locals were moving about as if they had something to do and were doing it. The cook waved to him, and Gird veered toward the firepit.
"This boy says he's yours—right?"
"Right." Gird tousled Pidi's hair. "My youngest."
"You got nerve, dragging your boy along to a war."
Gird gave him a hard look. "I had no choice. They threw me out of my holding, because my daughter's husband tried to defend her—and I hit one of them—so did Pidi, for that matter, boy that he is."
"Oh. Your daughter—she died?"
Gird could feel his head beginning to pound; Pidi laid a hand on his arm, and he realized he'd made a fist. "No. She's alive, last I heard, but she lost the baby. And she may die. I don't know."
The man gulped, and looked away. "I'm sorry." After a pause, in which Gird tried to get his temper locked down again, he said, "The lad brought me herbs, for flavoring. Wild onions, too. Most lads don't know that."
"His mother and sister both had a parrion of herbcraft. Pidi learned quickly."
"This's not ready, Da, but it might help." Pidi pointed to the steaming bucket, in which Gird could now see leaves steeping. He sniffed the sharp-smelling steam.
"At least it smells good." He dipped some in his own bowl, and took it over to the sick men. Now he'd have to remember not to eat from his bowl until he could wash it. But Ivis had found a wooden cup the fevered man had used. Gird poured the hot liquid into it carefully. Ivis and Cob had stripped off his clothes, and washed him with the clean water they'd brought. Gird had no idea what the fever was; the man had the sour smell of sickness, but nothing he could recognize.
"Will he rouse at all?"
Ivis shrugged. "He opened his eyes when we first touched him with the wet cloth, but said nothing."
Gird held the steaming cup under the man's nostrils; they twitched. "Let's lift him, and see if he'll drink."
Cob looked worried. "The healer in our village said if they're not awake, don't make them drink."
"Just a sip." Gird was sure the man was really dying, but felt he had to try. Ivis lifted him, and Gird held the cup to his lips. When he tried to pour a little in, it dribbled back out. Gird sighed. "Well. If he wakes, we can try again."
"Do you think he'll wake?"
"No. But I'm no healer; I could be wrong."
They turned to the other man. Gird helped Herf bathe him with clean water, and wrap him in the cleanest clothes they could find. Gird hated touching the man's clammy skin; it reminded him of tending Issa, who had been sick so often. They gave him a drink of clean water; he did not heave it up at once, so Gird felt more hopeful. He looked across the campsite, and saw Triga and someone else dragging loaded baskets away toward the pickoaks. Artha was back at the firepit, gathering more ashes.
"Do you think they would share our food?" asked Cob. That was what Gird had been thinking; he simply did not know.
"If they would, we'd have them in our troop before midnight," said Ivis, grinning. "I still think it was that first hearthcake, Gird, that settled your place in our camp."
Gird grinned back. "You were tougher than that. I thought it was Fori's squirrels. But you know the customs: if they eat our food, and we don't eat theirs, that's their obligation and our protection. And they've already said they won't share."
"Felis said it. Felis may be wishing he hadn't been so clever."
"We can offer." Gird stood up and headed for the firepit again. At this auspicious moment, one of his food tally groups returned, gleefully carrying the carcass of a young pig.
"If they won't share now," breathed Herf, "they're so crazy we don't want them."
"How did they get that?" muttered Gird. "They haven't been down robbing some farmer's pigsty, have they?" When the commotion died down, he learned that they'd come across a sounder of wild swine, feasting on mushrooms and old acorns under the pick-oaks. One fell to a lucky shot by one of the slingers Fori had been trying to teach.
"I guess there were enough of us, so the most of them ran, and that one—it just knocked him flat, and then we landed on him, and slit his throat."
"And the others didn't come back. We were lucky." Gird looked at his smug foragers, spattered with blood and dirt, and then around at the locals, who looked as hungry as wolves.
"We caught him, but he lived in your wood," Gird said loud enough for all to hear. "We would share the feast."
The local men in the clearing looked at Felis, who spread his hands. "All right. But all we have is grain mush."
Gird breathed a sigh of relief. They
should
share food both ways; that made the obligations equal. "We would be glad to share freely, all we have with all you have." He would like to have insisted that all of them, locals and his men alike, clean up before eating, but with the stream so foul that was impossible. He called his troop together, while the cook and Diamod fashioned a spit for roasting the pig, and supervised the washing of hands in clean water. No one argued; they seemed almost proud to demonstrate their superior habits to the locals. That led to a flurry of handwashing by the locals as well, and Gird was content.
Soon the smell of roasting pig overcame the worst of the camp's stench. The cook caught the dripping juices off the pig, and stirred them into the mush, along with salt from Gird's pouch. By the time the pig was done, Gird's appetite had returned full force. With roast pig, mush, and the bread they'd brought, everyone had plenty to eat, and the conversations around the firepit were friendly. Then one of the locals got up and sauntered toward the creek.
"Use the new trench," said Gird. The man stopped.
"But it's dark. I couldn't find it."
"Cob, help him."
The man opened his mouth to complain and shut it again. Cob was up, with a brand from the fire. "This way," he said.
"But we always—" the man said, looking at Felis.
"Do it," Felis said. "They fed us our own pig; they can tell us where to put our own jacks."
Gird was up before dawn; the rank smell had gotten into his dreams, and he'd been pursued through dark tunnels by something with poison fangs and bad breath. His own men were curled up neatly enough under the edge of the pickoaks, where the smell was least. The locals were sprawled anyhow around the firepit. Gird went to the jacks, then picked his way to the firepit and poked up the fire. It was going to be a clear day, but dew had soaked the stones; he dared not sit down until they dried. He went to look at the sick men, and found that the fevered one had died in the night. The other was asleep, breathing easily. He put more wood on the fire, until it crackled, and then took a bucket and started upstream. On his way back, he met Fori with the other bucket.
"I thought this must be where you were," said Fori. "And I knew you'd want more good water."
"Another fifty paces up, there's a clean creek coming in from one side. I went up that to a pool—I think there's a spring under it."
"That's what Pidi said, when I asked him. Felis is asking for you."
"Is he?" Gird went back down, stepping carefully as the water tried to slosh out of the bucket. Felis would have waked with one of two plans, and Gird hoped the man had sense. He doubted it; anyone who couldn't stay out of his own mess could hardly be called sensible. Besides, it was never easy for a man to give up leadership.
Felis, however, had taken a third route Gird hadn't thought of. "I talked to everyone," he said, as soon as Gird came into the clearing. "They want to follow you. They think you know how to run an army." Gird set the bucket down by the firepit, and blinked. He hadn't expected Felis to ask the others himself, privately.
"What about you?" he asked.
Felis darkened with the easy blush of the redhead. "I wish I had done what you did," he said. "I wish I'd thought of all that. All I thought of was fighting itself—I kept trying to learn swordfighting—"
Gird met his gaze. "Do you want to learn my way, or go your own?"
"I'll stay, if you'll let me."
"You fooled me," Gird said. "I thought you'd be angry, and go away."
"I
am
angry," said Felis. "But you did it fairly, and not to make me angry. Did you?"
"No. At least—" remembering his own anger of the day before, "—at least, I didn't start that way. It seemed such a waste."
Felis's followers had been watching their conversation from a distance, furtively; when Gird and Felis smiled at each other and clasped hands, everyone relaxed.
That day was spent cleaning up the camp as best they could, while the new members learned how Gird's system worked. Supper was less a feast, for no lucky catch rewarded that day's hunters. But the camp stank less, and Pidi had given two draughts of flannelweed to the man with flux. He had not died, at least, and had not heaved all day.
"What now?" asked Felis, as they sat around the dying fire. "Are you going to drill us for a few hands of days, and then go take over another group?"
Gird yawned and stretched. He was very tired. "No," he said. "No, I have another plan. The Stone Circle must learn drill, and all the soldiering possible, but we'll never have enough outlaws to fight a war. We've got to have a way to train
everyone
. At home. While they farm, or make pots, or whatever it is they do."
"How?" asked Cob, beside him.
"Tomorrow," said Gird. "I'll explain it all tomorrow."
The newcomers, Gird discovered, had already grasped the idea of traveling quietly, with scouts ahead and behind. He led them back up the stream they had camped beside. The sick man looked as if he would definitely recover; they carried him in a pole-slung litter. All of them carried some piece of equipment, for Gird did not intend to return to that camp until it had had time to clean itself.
"I suppose you want us to dig a jacks trench every time we stop?" asked Felis.
"Yes." Gird was ready to glare, but Felis merely shook his head, and grinned. They were halted for a noon rest on the shady side of a hill, where the scrub grew barely more than head-high. Summer heat shimmered on the slopes around them, and baked pungent scents from the scrub.
"So will you tell us your plan now?"
Gird looked around at the others. They were all listening; he wondered how they would react. Was there a better time? He thought not. But instead of answering Felis directly, he asked, "How many men did you have when you started?"
Felis frowned thoughtfully. "I didn't start it—but there were three hands when I came. Then Irin died, and then two more came, and then six, but one of them died soon; he'd been hurt. Three hands, four—it went up and down."
"And how many other groups are there, and how large do you think they are?"
Felis began tapping the ground, as if a map, to remind himself. "I heard of one away westward—beyond your village—Diamod went there once and said they had less than two hands of men. North and west, another, but I heard that one was captured and killed, all of them. Two hands, maybe three. South and east, someone told me of a large group: five or six hands of men, maybe more. But I heard they have fields, and can feed themselves."
Gird nodded. "That's what I thought. There may be more groups, but nowhere more than the farmers can support. We can't feed ourselves. So a day or two of travel between groups—each one drawing food from two or three villages—and the villages are so poor. Four hands is a large group; five is too large for most. And without proper care for the food they
do
get, some of it is wasted. Diamod told me several years ago there were enough in the Stone Circle to fight a war, but ten soldiers here and fifteen there and twenty over here don't make an army. They have to be together. Organized. Training together."
"But I don't see—"
"We need the Stone Circle: we need a place for men to go when they've been outlawed or have lost their holdings. But we need an army more. And we need an army that can feed itself during training, house itself during training, clothe itself—"
"It's impossible!"
"No, I don't think so." Gird let his eyes wander from face to face. "We were all farmers, craftsmen—we fed ourselves, housed ourselves—and in the evenings, off-season, we sat around our bartons or our homes and talked."
"Yes, and you yourself would have nothing to do with fighting when you still had your holding," said Diamod boldly.
"That's true, because you wanted me to sneak away and teach you drill—go away from my home, and my work, and risk discovery both ways, to teach strangers. I say now I was wrong. But what I told you then still has force. Suppose you had said, 'Let
us
teach
you
how to fight and defend yourselves—here in your own village, you and the men you know best fighting shoulder to shoulder to protect your own against the lords.' Do you think I might have answered differently?"
A long silence. Diamod opened his mouth and shut it. Felis pulled a grass stem, chewed it, and spat it out. The others said nothing, but all the faces conveyed shifting thoughts and emotions. Finally Triga said, "You mean for us to go into villages and teach farmers what you've taught us—by ourselves?"