Gird nodded, on surer ground now. "Three elders, there were. One was of the hunters, one of the growers, and one of the crafters. The hunter was a man, the crafter a woman, and the grower might be either."
"And the crafters were weavers? Potters?"
"Toolmakers, builders, anything we made. Of course all know something of it—anyone can build a wall." Even as he said it, Gird wondered. Anyone could build a wall if someone good at building walls gave directions. Some walls were better than others.
"Hmm. Did women make weapons?"
"Of course. Why shouldn't they?"
Arranha crunched along several strides before answering. "Among our people, it's thought bad luck to let women make weapons. Their blood shed during the making could weaken the weapon's hunger for blood, make it weak."
Gird stopped short and turned; Arranha nearly crashed into him. "Blood
weaken
? You mean you don't blood your hearths, or your foundations?" From the shocked expression on Arranha's face, they did not. Gird's mind whirled. These lords were even stranger than he'd thought. To take food without giving meant strength, but bloodshed meant weakness: another refusal to give, he thought that was. Yet they had magical power to heal themselves—why should they be afraid to give blood where it was needed? And what would this mean in a war? He was not about to explain the power of giving blood to this alien priest. But Arranha was quick, he had seen it for himself. His eyes widened even more, and his mouth fell open.
"It's—the giving again. Esea! I would
never
have thought of that. The food giver is stronger—the blood giver is stronger—and
that's
why our people found women ruling your steadings. And that's why your people follow Alyanya: the Lady gives harvest—food—and blood. I—am—amazed." He shook his head, like someone recovering from a hard blow. Then, softly. "And I see that you can never accept our laws. If you are to have your own, you will have to forge them from your own beliefs."
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."
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."
I'm not
, Gird thought silently. He watched the slope above them, as it roughened into rocky outcrops of some gray stone streaked with black. Rockfolk. Elder folk, like the blackcloak, the kuaknom, he had seen. Like the treesinging elves he had not seen. Even more like the dwarves of legend, who sang gold out of the deep mountain rocks, and made jewels by squeezing rock in their hard fists. Folk created before humankind, who might see humans as he saw the Aarean magelords: intruders, dangerous, enemies.
Rocks moved, coming down the slope. He blinked warily, and they were not rocks, but small gray men. Kapristi, not men, he reminded himself. Gnomes out of fireside stories, all cautionary: what happened to the man who tried to cheat a gnome, the woman who hired a gnome to clean the chimney, the child whose goats strayed over the gnome's boundary. As a child, he'd thought that last story silly, but back then he'd assumed that the gnome lands had a tall wall around them, that the boy must have pretended his goats got in as an excuse to climb the walls and see for himself what treasures the gnomes had.
The gnomes (he felt slightly more comfortable with his peoples' name for them in his mind) moved with steady precision, nothing at all like men slipping and clomping down a slope. Six of them, all looking (to his eye) much alike. They loosed no shower of stones, no bits of turf, to roll before them. They had narrow clean-shaven faces (or did they not grow beards?) under close-cropped dark hair. Although they barely came up to his chest, he could not have confused them with boys—no boy moved with such economy, or had such hardness of face. They all wore gray: belted jerkins over long-sleeved shirts, narrow gray trews tucked neatly into gray boots. Jerkins and trews might have been leather; the shirts were wool.
Meanwhile, Arranha had bowed and spoken again in their angular tongue. Gird heard his own name mentioned, and glanced at Arranha, then looked back at the gnomes. The apparent leader was looking at him, a speculative look that made Gird feel like a carthorse up for sale. He could feel his ears and neck getting hot. Finally, Arranha turned to him again.
"Gird, this is Lawmaster Karik—that's not all of his name, but that's the polite way for a human to speak to him. I have told him about you, and he has agreed to speak with you. He has not, however, agreed to let you enter kapristi lands: he will speak with you here, across the line."
If it had not been for Arranha's gaze, Gird would have turned on his heel and stomped away. They didn't trust him, that's what it was, and he had done nothing to earn their distrust.
Yet
, said a voice in his mind. Arranha had told him of the Aarean nobles' attempt to take gnomish lands; they had reason to distrust humans.
Gird choked back all he wanted to say, and bowed awkwardly at the gnomish leader.
"Lawmaster Karik—"
"Gird? You have no clan-name?"
"Dorthan Selis's son was my father; but our clan name was lost. Our lord was Kelaive, whose subject-name I refuse."
"Ah." A gabble of gnomish between the leader and another of his group. Then the leader turned back to Gird. "It is that you have no master? No clan? No allegiance? You are without law?"
Gird stared. What were they driving at? He looked at Arranha, who said nothing, and wanted to smack that smug smile off the priest's face . . . except that it wouldn't work. He cleared his throat, and then realized that a wad of spit could be misunderstood. He swallowed it. The gnomes waited, motionless but not unattending.
"Lawmaster Karik, our lord destroyed our law." That got attention; he could almost feel the intensity of their interest. "I came seeking law—a way to make things fair."
"
Things
are fair, human farmer: it is living beings who may choose unfairness. Are you a god, to know justice and give judgment?"
Gird shook his head, hoping the gnomes had the same gesture. "No god at all, Lawmaster, but a man seeking knowledge. I know unfairness when I see it: short weight, shoddy work, carelessness that causes injury, stealing and lying—but Arranha has taught me that knowing wrong is not all I need to do right."
"And he brought you here? Or did you seek us on your own?"
"I—he would have taught me his rules, Lawmaster. He showed me that the magelords have broken the Rules of Aare, changed their meanings . . . but I want nothing of those old rules. I want new rules, better rules, that cannot be so misunderstood."