His most direct route took him across a trade road that connected Gadilon's towns with those in Tsaia to the east and Ierin, the most southwesterly town in Finaarenis. The gnomes had pointed out that he must, eventually, control traffic on this road in order to secure either southern quadrant of the realm. Like the River Road, along the southern bank of the Honnorgat in the north, the southern trade road allowed the lords to move soldiers and supplies easily from one fortified town to another. Gird himself found moving across country easier, but the gnomes had insisted that no organized army could travel like a single man or a small group.
Gird made it to the road with only one more close brush with a patrol (he had hidden in a dense cedar as the men rode by underneath, discussing the deaths of their friends in the ambush Gird had seen. He was dismayed to find that they assumed peasants had done it—and that the peasants and brigands were in league.) Now he peered from a thick growth of plums, all white with bloom, at a rutted track that seemed deserted. A horseman had ridden by sometime before; he'd heard the hoofbeats, and he could see fresh tracks overlying older ones. He leaned forward a little, shivering the plums, and the bees in the blossoms lifted with a whine to their buzz. Bees didn't bother him (he wondered where their hive was), but he still could not tell if anyone was on the other side, watching. The soldiers had said something about closing the trade road, keeping the peasants from using it or crossing it. That would take sentries all along the way—surely they weren't doing that—but he would hate to take an arrow in the neck finding out.
Something chuffed, across the track. Gird held very still. A deer burst through the plums there, paused in the track, ears wide and tail high, and chuffed again. Even as Gird heard the snap of a bowstring, an arrow thunked into the deer and it staggered, limped a stride, and fell awkwardly. Three men dressed alike crashed through the undergrowth, lashed the deer's carcass to a pole, and disappeared back into the wood on the far side of the road, without a glance toward Gird. Their silent cooperation convinced Gird that they worked together constantly, but he had no idea whether they were foresters, soldiers, or brigands. Or, for that matter, poaching peasants. He could hear their progress through the wood; taking a chance that anyone else watching would be attracted by that noise, he darted across the road and into the trees, then swung wide of their path.
He wished he dared speak to them. That archer had been powerful and accurate; that's what the gnomes said he needed. If those were peasants, poaching deer, then he might find a useful follower. More likely an arrow, he reminded himself. Too risky.
He made it safely to Farmeet, only to find the shepherds far less outgoing than he remembered from the summer before.
"I heard you was taking on Gadilon's patrols," said one of the shepherds, not quite looking at Gird. "Heard as you come on 'em sleeping, and killed 'em lying there, and took their clothes and all . . ."
"No," said Gird. "That was brigands."
"How'd you know?" They were all very still, sitting hunched as shepherds do, their long crooks angling up over their shoulders.
"I was there, hiding from the soldiers, when the brigands came." They said nothing, but he could feel their disbelief. It was unlikely, he had to admit; to such as these, unlikely was nearly the same as impossible. Only a complete story would do; they would suspect anything less. Keeping his voice low and matter-of-fact, he told it all, from first sighting the sentry to laying mint on the bodies.
"Good you did that," said the oldest shepherd, nodding. "Shows respect to the Lady, that do. Proper to do it for both sides, too."
"They said they was you?" asked another.
Gird nodded. "They did, and they meant it to confuse both Gadilon's men and our people."
"We heard things this past winter." The oldest shepherd poked the fire. "You'd gone down to the underworld, we heard. Talked to that one—has the horned circle, you know what I mean?"
"Liart—" breathed Gird.
"Aye. No good, that one. Them's follows him likes hurting. Our lord's got some like that in his service. Heard you made bargain with 'im, anyhow. That's where you were, eh? Is it?"
"No." Gird wondered where that story had come from, the lords or the brigands or simple imagination. "No, I was with the kapristi—the gnomes, the little rockfolk."
"Ah. They're not
his
followers, what I hear."
"No. They follow the High Lord; I went to them to learn about law—what's wrong with the lords' law, and what might replace it."
A younger shepherd spat. "Anyone can see what's wrong with the lords' law—it don't take muckin' about underground to see that."
"Hush, Dikka. This'll be more, what Gird's talkin' about."
"When this war's over," Gird began, hoping they could think that far ahead, "we'll have to have fair laws, if we're to have peace. Most of our people don't remember how it was before the lords came. What we do now's a mix of our old customs and their laws—it makes no sense, as anyone can see—you're right there. But what to do about it—that's something else."
"And you saw beyond the war, to the peace? Ah, that's good." The oldest shepherd finally turned to look directly at Gird. "You want the peace, do you? And not just the fighting?"
"That's right."
"And you know a fair law for all of us then, when it's over?"
Gird shook his head. "I know a way to devise such a law—but it will mean many of us working on it. You, too, perhaps."
"Not me—but I'll be glad to think on it, that someone is. So you've naught to do with the horned chain?"
"No." He let it stand baldly, like that; they looked at him a long moment, then all nodded.
The oldest shepherd said, "You have an honest look, and nothing that fits one of the horned chain worshippers. So I say—" gathering the others with his eyes. "I say he
is
Gird, and not that fellow as stopped by a hand of days ago, claiming Gird's name and asking our help."
"What!" They had said nothing of this before. The old man grinned, showing the gaps in his teeth.
"Aye—another Gird was here, if we believed him, which we didn't. Big fellow, like you in that. Grinned a lot with plenty of teeth. Said that great powers was with him—and us if we joined him—and the lords would be cast down and trampled in the dust. Our sheep'd grow fat and have golden fleece, the way he told it—you'd think he'd been talking to the Master Shepherd and not the Master of Torments."
"So what did you do?" asked Gird, fascinated. The shepherds all chuckled.
"Do? We's no more'n stupid old shepherds, lad. Us can't think o' none but sheep and wool—can't make an onion from a barleycorn, nor sheep of mice, no more'n make soldiers of th' likes o' us, can you now?" The exaggeration of their accents was so pronounced that Gird found himself grinning; they grinned back, well pleased with his reaction. "He wanted a barton here; we said we's no barton—we's shepherds, not farmfolk. He says what's Farmeet, then, as he's been told it's a barton—and we says it's a bitty sheepfold, no more'n that, just a lambing shed and pen. He was not happy wi' us when he left."
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."