"Because I know the country almost as well as any of his boots," Ralke said, "and better, in terms of finding bolt-holes. There's a cave not far off where we can hide our goods and a few of the drivers to guard them."

"Why not all of us?"

"Because it's not that big, and because we could never keep that many mules quiet long enough for the boots to march by."

"Then where will we hide?" Gar asked. "There's a peasant village not far from here," Ralke told him. "We can hide among them easily enough."

"But they'll be risking their lives!"

"Not really," Ralke told him, "and the poor folk will do anything for a few coppers. I should know-I was born one of them, and so were all my men. But there's the other reason, too."

"Which is?"

"A chance to strike back at the boots and the boss in some small way." Ralke flashed him a grin. "Oh, they'll help us, right enough."

Gar could scarcely tell where the fields left off and the village began. The only clue was a large circle of bare, beaten earth with the smoldering remains of a communal fire in its center. Around it stood a ring of low, moldering haystacks-or at least, that was what Gar took them for at first. But when Ralke said, "Here's our hiding place,"-Gar looked more closely and saw holes in each haystack, pointing toward the central fire. These were actually shelters where people lived!

Ralke held up a hand to halt the caravan-only twenty barebacked donkeys now, with ten riders and two wounded men on litters. Then he called out, "Headman Bilar! It's Ralke who calls!"

A head popped out of one of the guts, almost as unkempt as the thatch above it. Then a body followed it, and Gar had to throttle back a gasp of dismay. The man was old, ancient, bald on top with a fringe of long hair stringy with dirt and snarled from never knowing a comb. It straggled into his beard and down his back, not that Gar could tell where beard left off and hair began, for both were light gray. All he wore was a sort of sack made of coarse brown cloth, faded to tan but darkened by dirt. His arms and legs were scrawny and scarred here and there from work accidents, and his feet were bare, the soles toughened almost to hornbut he was alive, Gar realized. He wondered how many of his generation could have said the same.

The oldster came up to Ralke and said, "Greet ye, merchant!"

"And I greet you." Ralke held up a palm. "How go the crops, gaffer?"

"They'm still stand, sair, thank 'ee. No war this year yet."

"And the rain has been good." Ralke nodded. "Where's Bilar?"

"He'm in t' fields, sair. Will 'ee have us call 'im in?"

"I think so," Ralke said slowly.

The gaffer turned and gestured. Several other heads had poked out of doorways, now that the old man had shown them it was safe. One of them nodded and shot away running-a boy of six or seven, Gar decided, wearing only a loincloth.

The women began to come out, with children clinging to their skirts. They wore their hair shoulder length or longer, tousled and snarled, mostly of varying shades of brown with here and there a blonde or redhead. A few were slender and had no wrinkles in their faces or arms-presumably young. Most of them had thickened with maturity and childbearing, though, and even those whose hair hadn't begun to gray already had nets of wrinkles on their faces. The gray-heads, many of whom were balding, also had wrinkled skin on arms and hands-and presumably legs, though there was little of them to be seen. They wore the same sacklike garment as the old man, except for the ones who had babes in arms, beginning to nurse again now that the alarm was past. These women wore the sacklike garment cut in two, so that they could lift the waist of the "blouse" to expose a nipple for the baby.

Gar felt not the slightest stirring of desire. What repelled him most wasn't the lack of grooming nor the dowdiness of their clothes, but he air of resignation and defeat they all wore. The whole village seemed immersed in sadness.

Several old men hobbled out on canes to sit by the doorways in the sunshine. Only the one Ralke had called "gaffer" was fit enough to walk unaided.

Gar noticed that there were far fewer old men than old women.

"Sit 'ee down, sair," the gaffer said to Ralke. The merchant complied, and Gar sat with him. "If 'ee has aught to sell, though," the gaffer said, "I'm afeard we have nowt to buy with."

"It's always so, gaffer. We'll give you what little news we have for free."

"Thank 'ee, sair, thank 'ee!" The gaffer beckoned, and all the people came crowding around. Even the old men hauled themselves to their feet and tottered over to hear Ralke begin the news.

Gar quickly became lost. It seemed to be only a list of which boss was fighting which, and what bully had raided what other boss's bully's border. It was relieved by the occasional account of a bully who had been hanged for betraying his lord, and the odd boss who had been killed on the battlefield, losing his domain completely to his enemy. Ralke added in reports of good crops, and reports of droughts which were fortunately distant.

The villagers hung on his every word, for even though all the stories were drily variations on a common theme, they were news of the world beyond the boundaries of their bully's fields.

Finally there was a shout, and they looked up to see a middle-aged man wearing only a loincloth come trotting in behind the boy. The crowd pulled back, and the headman stepped up to Ralke, who stood to greet him. Breathing hard, the headman nodded and said, "Greet you, merchant."

"Greet you, headman." Ralke grinned. "It has been a long year, but not a bad one, from what your villagers tell me."

"Not bad at all," Bilar said, more with relief than with satisfaction. "The crops were good, and the bully left us enough flax to make new clothes. He even sent us meat once a month, and only took three girls for his bed."

"A good year indeed," Ralke said, with a very forced smile.

"That doesn't mean we have anything to buy with, though."

"But we do," Ralke said.

Murmurs of wonder went through the camp. "We ask a night's food and lodging of you," Ralke explained. "I'll pay two copper coins for each man."

Bilar frowned. "How's this, merchant? Every other year you come, you and your men camp in the village common!"

"Yes, but every other year, we haven't had boots chasing us."

A whirlwind of hubbub and speculation caught up all the villagers, filled with fear and protest. Bilar's frown deepened. "The boss would hang us all for traitors!"

"The boss doesn't know about it," Ralke told him. "His steward has sent the soldiers out to hunt us down. We beat them off once, but they'll come again."

"The steward would be a bad enemy, too." But Bilar seemed relieved. He glanced up at Gar and said, "We could say you forced us."

"You could," Ralke agreed.

"How would we hide you? Where would another dozen men have come from?"

"My men will strip down to loincloths and go out into the fields. They'll lash sticks together to form sleds, and harness the mules to draw them for haywains=you are haying, aren't you?"

Bilar nodded, a gleam in his eye. "Then come nightfall, we bury 'em under the hay, yes?" He jabbed a thumb at Gar. "Take a heap o' hay to cover him!"

"It Would," Ralke agreed. "He and I would both stay in your houses. I'll wear a tunic-you must have one or two waiting to be mended. Gar will lie against the wall, and you can cover him with straw and rags, to pretend he's a bed."

"Might work," Bilar said, "and if they find him, we can always say we feared to anger him." He looked up and down Gar's great length and said, "Even boots'd believe that."

"I'd believe it, too," Gar said. "Sometimes I even scare myself."

Bilar threw back his head and laughed. Then he said, "I'll ask." He turned back to beckon his people around him. Excited, they came, crowding into a huddle, and a torrent of talk poured forth. The other grown men came running in from the field and joined the huddle. Furious argument erupted.

Ralke leaned back, arms folded. "They'll come to it eventually," he said.

"This isn't the first time you've left a few coppers among them, is it?" Gar asked.

Ralke looked up, startled, then nodded slowly, his face a mask. "As I told you-I was born and grew up in a village like this."

"How'd you get out?"

"There's only one way for a man-as a boot or a soldier. I was lucky enough for a mercenary company to come along."

Gar nodded. "And for a woman?"

"A boss's bed," Ralke said, "then a bully's. After that, she can stay and go among his boots, if she wishes, and make a job of it. If she's lucky, she might get a chance to follow a mercenary company to a town."

Gar began to realize that the mercenary companies were the bright hope of the young here-a bright hope that usually ended with death in combat, or with being worn out in prostitution. "Master Ralke, I was wondering ... the gaffer who greeted us, how old is he?"

"Forty," Ralke said, watching Gar's face closely. "Bilar is thirty."

Gar's face stayed imperturbable, no matter what he was feeling. "I was afraid of that."

The huddle broke up, and Headman Bilar came back to them. "We'll do it. Where's your copper, merchant?"

Gar found he could almost hope Ralke was broke.

Cort led Dirk to the front of the room and turned to face the tables that had somehow become emptied of civilians and filled with soldiers. He took a deep breath, then bellowed, "Atten-shun!"

The clatter of overturned benches was drowned out by the double stamping of fifty pairs of boots. Into the sudden silence Cort said, "Men, let me introduce you to Sergeant Dirk Dulaine." He paused, bracing his feet against the room's odd tendency to sway, then went on, finding he had to be very careful to speak clearly."He's joining the Blue Company. When we get back to headquarters, I expect the captain will want to give him a platoon of his own. Any one of you might be in it."

The soldiers stood like statues, eyes straight to the front, but Cort could fairly hear their brains clicking as the point worked its way home. No soldier wanted to have a sergeant with a grudge against him; therefore, it behooved them all to be very hospitable to the new arrival.

"At ease!" Cort barked, and the room resounded with another stamp as the men set their feet eighteen inches apart and slapped their hands together behind their backs. Cort turned to Dirk.

"Care to have a word with the men, Sergeant Dulaine?"

"Yeah." Dirk grinned like a shark and stepped forward into the tension generated by forty-three hostile gazes, most of the men wondering what the hell he was doing walking in as a sergeant when all of them had been working their way up from private for a year or more.

The other three knew the answer. They'd been in the alley facing the citizen's committee.

"I'll be taking the watch tonight, so your poor overworked lieutenant can get some shut-eye while the master sergeant's out trying to keep your mates from stepping into the mud too deep." Dirk grinned around at them. "Anyone got a problem with that?"

"Yeah," a voice called. "I got a problem with that."

Dirk turned to look-then looked up, and up and up, until he finally found the grinning face on top of all the muscle.

 

CHAPTER 7

Big wasn't the word for this soldier-he was huge, at least six foot five and more than two hundred thirty pounds of solid muscle: "Shut it, Korgash!" Cort rapped out. "This man has the right to command you because I say he has!"

"True," Dirk agreed, "but if I have to go running to you to back up every order I give, lieutenant, I might as well not be here." After all, Korgash wasn't really all that impressive to a man who had Gar Pike for a friend. "I think I'd better prove to Private Korgash that I can enforce my own orders."

"Corporal!" Korgash pointed to the two chevrons on his sleeve.

"You were until now," Dirk told him.

"You think you can take off one of my stripes?" Korgash grinned down at Dirk. "Come and get it!" Dirk strode across the room and reached up for Korgash's stripe. The big man's grin widened as he snatched Dirk's tunic at his throat and lifted him off the floor.

Dirk kicked him in the belly.

Korgash dropped him with a strangled shout of fury, doubling over. Dirk landed lightly and stepped in to throw a haymaker.

The other soldiers shouted in outrage.

Even doubled over in pain, Korgash managed to raise a fist to block, and Dirk stepped in to drive his left into the corporal's face. Korgash caught his hand, though, and squeezed. Dirk yelped, pulling his left back.

The other soldiers cheered and started pushing the tables back to leave a nice, wide ring for the match.

Korgash managed to draw a breath and was just starting to grin again when Dirk slammed his right into Korgash's face. This time, he followed through.

The big man bellowed and stood upright, letting go of Dirk's left, and Dirk shot another right into Korgash's belly, where his foot had hit. Korgash blocked with a shout of anger, then slammed a punch at Dirk's head.

Cort couldn't follow what happened next, because it was too fast, but somehow, Korgash was flying through the air. He landed with a jar that shook the room, with Dirk still holding on to his wrist-so Korgash bellowed anger and yanked Dirk down on top of him, slamming a punch at the sergeant's head. Dirk rolled, though, and somehow the punch caught his left shoulder instead of hitting his chin. His face whitened with pain, but he clamped his jaw shut even as he rolled and came up to his feet.

Korgash scrambled up, too, mouth open in a roar that Cort couldn't hear because the other soldiers were shouting so loudly, but the corporal hadn't quite straightened before Dirk's fist caught him on the chin. Korgash's head snapped up, and Dirk slammed into him full-body. What exactly he did, Cort couldn't see, but the corporal fell over backward and landed hard. He was slow to move, and his mates went crazy, shouting for him to get up.

Dirk stepped back, breathing hard and massaging his left shoulder.

Korgash finally pushed himself up to sit, shaking his head to clear it. He saw Dirk and shoved himself to his feet, snarling, and came after the sergeant, winding up a fist for a blow that would have flattened a bear.

Dirk wasn't a bear. He leaped in close and drove his right straight up into Korgash's chin. The big man's head snapped back, but even as it did, he slammed a fist at Dirk's head. Dirk blocked it, but it landed anyway, and Dirk fell backward. But he kept hold of Korgash's wrist and pulled as he fell, both feet coming,up to catch the big man in the stomach and send him somersaulting into the wall.

Dirk rolled and came up to his feet, panting and shaking his head to clear it. The crowd went wild, calling for Korgash to get up. He tried, rolling over, then pushing himself up, and stumbled to his feet.

Dirk stepped in, drove his left into Korgash's belly. The corporal doubled over, raising a fist to block, but far too slowly now, and Dirk slammed a punch into the side of his head. Korgash fell, and lay still.

The crowd shut up on the instant, staring. "Enough!" Cort stepped forward, and wondered why the floor seemed uneven. "I won't have my men killing each other!" He frowned down at Korgash, then jerked his head at a trooper. "Wake him up!" The trooper grabbed the nearest flagon and poured it over Korgash's face. The big man spluttered, shook his head, sat up-and found himself staring up at Dirk, who stood over him, breathing heavily. Korgash blinked and looked around him. "Was I out?"

"Like a cobble," one of his fellow soldiers informed him.

Korgash turned back to look up at Dirk. Slowly, he reached up to fumble at his sleeve.

"Keep it," Dirk told him. "You just earned it back."

Korgash stared at him. Then, slowly, he grinned. Dirk reached down. Korgash caught his arm, pulled himself to his feet, and came to attention as much as he could. "What's your order, sergeant?"

"To sit down until you recover," Dirk said, still breathing heavily, "and to have a drink."

Korgash smiled again. "Yes, sergeant!" He moved to sit down, started to fall, but two of his buddies jumped forward to catch him and ease him down on a bench.

As they gathered around him, praising and reassuring, Cort stepped over to Dirk. "Very imp ... impreshive, Shergeant. But those ... tricksh won't work ... twishe. "

"They don't have to," Dirk assured him. "I've got fifty more."

"The'll try t' uzhe 'em on you," Cort warned. "They're not as easy as they look," Dirk answered.

But Cort wasn't listening; he had reached the remorseful stage of drunkenness. He turned away, shaking his head and muttering, "Shouldn't'a letcha do it. Korgash's lethal, prob'ly a changeling."

"Changeling?" Dirk frowned. "Isn't he a little big to be an elf left in somebody else's cradle?"

"Big?" Cort frowned up at Dirk, then squinted, trying to bring him into focus. " 'Course he's big! Fair Folk're bigger'n him!"

"Are they really?" Dirk said slowly.

"Ev'body knowzh 'at." Suddenly, Cort's knees gave way. He folded onto a bench, blinking.

The soldiers didn't notice; they were busy putting the chairs and tables back in order. Dirk sat down to keep Cort company.

"Ale for the officers!" A wide trooper slammed two tankards down on the table. "After a fight like that, sergeant, you need it!"

"Thanks, uh, private." Dirk managed to spot the man's single stripe as he turned away. Then he turned back to pull the ale away from Cort, but the lieutenant already had the flagon tilted to his lips, gulping thirstily, dribbles running down at each corner of his mouth. Dirk raised a cautioning hand, but Cort managed to lower the empty flagon and say, "Can't trusht women, shergeant," before his eyes closed, and he slumped forward onto the table. .

A nightbird called, and the family came rushing back into the house; even the grandmother hobbled as quickly as she could.

"Nightbirds don't call in the daytime," Gar said to the ancient, tangle-haired, sack-clothed man next to him, "and the sun hasn't quite set yet. Was that their lookout?" He knew the answer, of course, but had to make it look as though he didn't.

"It was," Ralke told him. Bilar's family had brought him gypsum to whiten his hair and beard and cooking grease to make it stringy. He looked very much like any of the village grandfathers, and this house had none anymore. "Get under the straw, quickly!"

Gar dove in and held his breath. Small feet came pattering, and children heaped the mouldering, foul-smelling straw high over him. Gar wondered if they only had clean bales every fall.

The inside of the but smelled of stale sweat and staler cooking odors; the aroma had slapped Gar in the face when he'd stepped in through the hidedoor. The place was dark and foul; he'd stepped to the side carefully, and waited for his eyes to adjust. Then he'd wished they hadn't.

The dwelling was a circle twenty feet across, a dugout four feet down from ground level with the haystack-thatched room starting where the earthen walls left off. The thatch, like the sleeping pallets, was of old and rotting straw-again, probably replaced only in the fall, when the harvest yielded fresh heaps. In fact, Gar doubted whether it was properly thatched indeed, or only piled on layer by layer, like the haystack it resembled. There was a wooden frame to hold it up, made of bent tree branches, but no boards to bridge the spaces between them, only a sketchy network of wither. A fire smoldered in a central pit, directly below a smokehole. The floor was earth, hardened by generations of calloused feet. There was one pitiful attempt at a rug, maybe six feet square, woven of rags. Heaps of soiled straw lay along the foot of the wall, beds for the family. Daytime living centered around the fire.

There wasn't even an attempt at privacy.

The posts that held up the roof served for hanging two pots and pans, a scythe, several hoes, and a saw. There were no weapons, of course.

"So this is how the average family lives in this land," Gar muttered.

Ralke nodded. "Now you see why everyone dreams of going to the towns. Of course, most folk there live no better than this, but there's always the chance of making enough money for a better life. Here, there's no chance at all."

Now, an hour later, Gar lay under the straw, trying not to breathe the odors of mildew and stale sweat. A sudden weight landed on his hips, then spread out from his knees to his shoulders; he grunted. A clear female voice told him, "Pardon, sair, but ah mun hide ma face-an' they'll ne'er think I'm layin' atop a man."

"Thanks for the disguise," Gar wheezed. Then both he and the girl settled into waiting in suspense for the soldiers to come stamping in. They had passed by four hours before, quickmarching through the village and roaring at the peasants to get out of their way-laughable, really, considering that everyone had disappeared into their houses the second the sentry had called, "Boots coming!" But they had trotted out of the village as quickly as they had come in, hot on what they thought was the caravan's trail-after all, the mules had to stay on the road, didn't they? They scarcely spared a glance for the fields, and didn't seem to notice that there were more field hands, and more mules, than normal.

Now, though, they must have searched everywhere the caravan could have gone in so short a time, and were coming back to double check.

"One side!" a boot bellowed as he burst through the doorway. "Let's see what you're hiding!" Then he noticed the girl lying on the straw. He laughed low and in his throat, as he, strode over, reaching down. "Here now, sweetmeat! Don't hide your face from me! Turn and show me your beauty!"

"None of that!" a voice barked, and another boot came in.

The family moaned and cringed away.

"There's no time for skin-games now," the brute snapped. "Besides, if she's worth looking at any, the boss will want her!"

"Aye, but if she's only half-pretty, she's our meat," the boot protested.

"Then come back another day! We're looking for merchants now, not toys!"

"As you will, brute," the boot said with disgust. He drove his toe into the straw.

There was enough of it to weaken the impact, but Gar still felt the blow on his shin, then on his thigh, his belly, and his chest. He clamped his jaw to keep from grunting at the pain.

"Nothing there but a year's rot," the boot said in disgust. "It's packed tight from a year's sleeping. How can you live like this? You, there, boy! Remember when you grow up-boots get clean straw every month!"

"We'll recruit them later," the brute snapped. "You on the bed by the door! Why aren't you in the fields?"

"Sick," Bilar groaned.

The brute backed away, making the sign against evil. "What sickness is it, woman?" he demanded. "Only bread that molded too much, sair," Bilar's wife whined. "I hope."

"Well, keep an eye on him, and if anyone else gets stomach pains, keep everyone inside," the brute ordered. "We don't want pestilence spreading among you cattle. Boot! Check those other three beds while I check these!"

Gar heard a succession of kicks all around the hut. Then the brute said with disgust, "Nothing. They must have hidden in the woods between here and the castle. Off with you, now!" He went out the door, bellowing, "Form up!"

"How old is she?" the boot asked Ralke. "Answer true, or you'll feel a boot's boot!" He chuckled at his own cleverness.

"Twelve," Ralke answered, his accent thicker than normal. "She'm budded early, our Else, though she'm still be but twelve."

"Then I'll be back in three years," the boot promised, and went out the door, calling, "Aye, aye, brute, I'm here."

Everyone sat, still and taut, while they listened to the brute bellowing his troops into line. Then came the heavy tread of forty feet marching. It faded and was gone.

Ralke heaved a sigh of relief and came to his feet. "Good fortune! I've never been more glad for a boot's stupidity!"

"I'm glad, too." Bilar rolled to his feet.

"I'm fifteen," the girl said indignantly as her weight lifted off Gar. He sat up, scattering straw. "So tha art, ma lass, but if the boot had knowed it, he'd ha' come back and taken 'ee off to the woods, and brought ye back weeping," her mother said, with the air of one who knows by bitter experience. "Keep the face smudged and the locks in a tangle, as I've bade 'ee!"

"Thank 'ee for so quick a lie," Bilar said to Ralke.

"The least ah could do," Ralke said, unconsciously falling back into the villager's accent. "Thank 'ee for the hiding of us!"

"Glad, we're glad. Remember us if tha comest back this way. Dress thee, na, an' be off!"

Ralke changed clothes quickly, leaving his hair for later washing. Then he beckoned to Gar and went out the door-but he turned back to count twelve copper coins into Bilar's hand.

The earthquake hit, and Cort's eyes flew open, his heart thudding wildly with fear. "What's happening?"

The earthquake stopped abruptly, the room stopped shaking, and a strange voice said, with regret, "Sorry to have to wake you, lieutenant. You need your sleep-say, another ten hours' worth."

"Sleep?" Cort sagged back onto the bed. His stomach lurched and tried to climb up his throat. "Let me die! My head feels like an anvil with a smith forging a -sword! Who stuffed their laundry into my mouth?"

"You did, only it wasn't laundry, it was a whole bottle of brandy."

Memory stirred. Cort rolled to the side, squinting against the horrid glare. "I know you from somewhere..."

"We met last night," the stranger said obligingly, "over a couple of civilians your soldiers had decided to use as punching bags."

"I remember." But the effort made Cort's head hurt, and he grabbed it with a groan. "An alley ... a band of citizens . . ." He squinted up at the stranger. "You're ... Poniard? Dagger?"

"Dirk," the stranger said helpfully, "Dulaine. Here, drink this." He held out a tin cup full of dark fluid.

Cort flinched at the smell. "Brandy? It turns my stomach now!"

"Hair of the dog that bit you," Dirk insisted. "Just a shot, lieutenant. Drink it down and you'll feel better-eventually."

Cort eyed Dirk, decided he must be ten years older than Corn himself and had presumably had more experience with toxic fluids. He accepted the tin cup gingerly, took a deep breath, and downed the liquid at one swallow. Then he dropped the cup and exhaled, feeling as though he were breathing. fire.

Dirk caught the cup and set it aside. "It'll help, believe me."

Cort held his head, moaning. "What happened? I remember the alleyway, and..." He stared up at Dirk. "I hired you as a sergeant!"

Dirk nodded. "You were a little drunk by that time. You can change your mind, no hard feelings." But Cort was hot on the track of memory. "You beat the changeling corporal!"

"Well, you know and I know that he's not really a changeling..."

"No, any man who can do that is too valuable to let go," Cort mused. "Why did you let me drink so much?"

"I'm your sergeant, not your conscience! Besides, I could tell you were in a mood to get very drunk on very little, so I figured you needed it, as long as it was safe."

"And you made sure it was safe." Cort stiffened, looking around him, realizing for the first time that he was in a bedchamber. "How did I get here?"

"I carried you," Dirk explained simply.

"And rolled me into this bed?" For the first time, Cort realized he was naked except for his loincloth. "And stripped me?"

"Your uniform needed cleaning, by that time," Dirk explained. "Excuse me-your livery"

"I couldn't keep the liquor down?" Cort blushed furiously.

"The body's little defense against alcohol poisoning, lieutenant."

"Did I..." Cort reddened. "Did I babble?"

"Nothing worth repeating," Dirk said firmly, "and I was the only one who heard you."

But the sympathy in his eyes told Cort that his new sergeant had heard about his broken love in detail. He reddened even more and turned away, but said, "Would you hand me my kerchief, please?"

"I'm just one of your sergeants." Dirk rummaged on the table, then came back to press the kerchief into Cort's hand. "You don't need to say `please' to me."

"I don't usually ask my sergeants to wait on me," Cort said. He slid Violet's ring from his finger, and noticed for the first time that it was really a rather cheap gaud-surely the metal was only brass, for it had made his finger green, and the stone in it was the color of her name; yes, but it had the sheen of glass. Why had he never thought of that before? But he wrapped the ring in his kerchief and turned to hold it out to Dirk. "Would you do me one more favor? Take this to Squire Ellsworth's house, down on that broad side street where the well-to-do people live. Anyone in town can tell you where it is. Tell them . . ." His stomach suddenly bucked, and he stopped to choke it down. "Tell them it's for Violet, and that I wish her well in her future life."

"Sure, lieutenant, no problem. I mean, `Yes, sir.' " Dirk straightened and turned to go.

"Why couldn't you have just let me sleep?" Cort moaned.

"Oh, yeah, I almost forgot!" Dirk turned back. "There's a messenger here, a very young soldier wearing your livery, who says he's from Captain Devers. Want me to let him in?"

"No!" Cort clutched the blanket about him, then remembered himself and pointed at his pack. "There's spare livery in there. Toss it to me, will you?"

"Sure." Dirk opened Cort's pack, pulled out the clean clothing, and set it on the bed. "I'll tell him you'll just be a few minutes. Want him to wait downstairs?"

Cort weighed the likelihood of his making it down the stairway without falling, and decided, "No. Tell him to have his breakfast, if he hasn't already, and to have a flagon of ale if he has, then to come back up and wait upon me here."

"Will do. Hope you feel better soon." Dirk went out, but before the door closed, Cort heard him telling the messenger, "He's a little under the weather, but if you give him a few minutes..."

Then the door closed, and Cort heaved his legs out of bed, then waited for his stomach to settle again. The movement had made his head start pounding worse, too. When both had slackened, he reached out for the livery and began dressing. He knew that the young soldier was indeed a messenger, and suspected what he was going to tell Cort: that they were to report back to headquarters as quickly as possible.

 

CHAPTER 8

The mules began to pace faster, heads bobbing, and the drivers began to talk to one another with excitement. Then the caravan rounded a curve. The trees opened out into a broad plain cut up into small fields surrounding the walls of a city with a castle dimly seen through the morning mist. The drivers cheered, and Ralke breathed, "Home!" His eyes sparkled, his gaze fastened to his city.

Gar studied the town. Something was different about it, contrasting with Loutre, but he couldn't pin it down. "Who's your boss?"

"Ranatista has no boss, friend," Ralke said. "Legend says that when the troubles started, we were far enough from the seacoast settlements that our ancestors had time to get ready for trouble. Their sage had already taught them to fight with their open hands, for it was a discipline that taught the mind control of the body, and taught the soul to compete without hatred or anger." Gar frowned, though it sounded very familiar. "How do you know that?"

"Because that's why our sages still teach it to us today. But the first squire, Sanahan, called our ancestors to defend themselves. He led them in learning how to use flails and scythes and staves in a kind of fighting that kept the spirit the sages taught, and quarterstaff-play turned very quickly to spear-play. They even had time to build this wall that you see glowing golden in the sunrise. When the bullies came marching to conquer us, our ancestors poured boiling water on them from the battlements, and wherever they broke through the wall or climbed over it, our ancestors made short work of their boots. One after another, the bullies advanced against us, then retired in consternation, for bullies won't stay chewing at a target that costs them too much in men or weapons."

"Most bullies pick victims they're sure they can beat," Gar said grimly.

"Indeed they do, so all our ancestors needed was to defend themselves well, and the bullies left, since none of them wished to sit down in a siege, easy meat for any other bully who came after them. Thus it is to this day, and all our young men take it in turns to serve in the home guard."

"And Sanahan's successor?"

"We choose a new squire when the old one is fifty, if he lives that long-and most of them do. Then he leads us till his turn comes to retire."

"None of them want to stay squire?"

"Most of them, surely, but they can't deny custom! Oh, they can still live in the castle with their families, and the new squires always value their council-but after fifty, they can't be squire any more, though folk still call them that out of courtesy."

"Squire, retired." Gar nodded. "A good system. Do all the merchants come from such towns as yours?"

Ralke looked sharply at him, then smiled slowly. "You reason quickly, friend. Yes, merchants always come from free towns. Every now and again a young man from a boss's town tries to break into the trade, and we give him what help we can, but the boss always takes all the profit when the youngster returns home, and he has nothing with which to begin another journey."

"Odd that the bosses don't realize they need to encourage the merchants, if they want the wealth they bring in."

"Bosses can see no further than their own comfort, friend Gar."

"Do any of the young men from bosses' towns ever escape to the free towns?"

"It happens now and again," Ralke said, amused. "I was one such."

Gar nodded. "That makes sense. Otherwise, how would you have been a peasant in a boss's domain?" He pointed at the cottages of a small village a few hundred yards from the road and the farmers who were mowing hay nearby. They wore tunics and cross-gartered hose with sandals, and though the garments weren't new, they weren't nearly worn through, either. "Your peasants seem to live a bit better than the ones who hid us."

"Be sure they do! They're citizens like the rest of us, after all, and share in the wealth of the domain as much as any other!"

"Except the squire."

Ralke shrugged. "He leads us in battle, sees. that we're taught how to fight, and works far into the night overseeing the growing and storage of crops. No one begrudges him his home in the castle, nor the grand clothes he must wear when he greets the emissary of the next boss who threatens to attack us."

The guards at the gate called out a cheerful greeting, welcoming Ralke home, glad to see him well, and were saddened at the news of the man who had died. Citizens came running to welcome the caravan, cheering them as though they were a victorious army-which in some measure they were, having fought off bandits and brought home the spoils, though they were the profits of commerce, not the loot of battle.

The cheering throng accompanied them to Ralke's warehouse, and his wife came running down the outer stairs to throw herself into his arms. A teenaged boy and girl waited their turn, with two younger children dancing in impatience. "Poppa, Poppa! What did you bring us?"

Gar smiled, amused at the timeless chant, then smoothed his face into impassivity as his heart twisted, pained at the sight of the warmth he would never know.

When they had unpacked the mules and turned them over to the hostlers, Ralke called his drivers up one by one for their pay and their share of the profits. Whooping with delight, they ran out to indulge themselves in a bit of celebration-but Gar noticed that each of them stopped by the window in the big building next to the warehouse, each handing over his pay bag, keeping only a few coins for his purse. When Ralke had paid the last driver, Gar asked, "Why are they giving their money to the man in that building?"

"Why, to keep it safe, friend. They lay their money on the bank for him to count-"

"We'd call it a counter," Gar said, "and the building a bank."

Ralke shrugged, miffed that it wasn't all news to Gar. "Then you probably also know that the banker keeps accounts of how much each man has deposited, but keeps all the coins in a huge vault."

"Yes." Gar smiled. "And I suspect that he lends some of it out to merchants who want to buy more goods for their next trip."

"You know more of commerce than I'd thought," Ralke said, giving him the keen look again. "Will you ride with us on our next venture?"

"It's a very attractive offer," Gar said slowly, "and I'd love to. How soon will it be?"

"Two weeks."

Gar shook his head. "I'm too restless a man to wait that long, Master Ralke, but if I'm back this way at that time, I'll be glad to join you."

"I had thought as much," Ralke said with a sigh. "Well, friend, here's your pay. I'll write a letter like the one you showed me from the Braccalese fellow, recommending you to anyone who wants to hire you. Off with you to your next employmentbut try to pick one that ends in time to join us when we next go a-venturing."

At least Cort had gotten over wishing he were going to die, and had risen to the level of being afraid that he would. Under the circumstances, it was a major improvement.

The road stretched out before him in the afternoon sunlight, filled with a double file of disgruntled and hungover soldiers. Their form was lousy, but Cort was in no condition to complain. The master sergeant was leading, being in better shape than Cort. The sergeants paced beside, careful to see that no one lagged. Cort was riding, and Dirk, being the only other soldier who had a horse, rode beside him. "You understand you'll have to leave your mount in the company stables once we're back at headquarters, don't you?" Cort asked.

Dirk nodded. "Sure do. You hired me on as infantry, after all."

"You've been cavalry, then?"

"Anything in soldiering, lieutenant-even an officer when they were desperate."

So he'd had at least one battlefield promotion. In spite of the hangover, Cort was almost interested.

Almost. Not quite enough to think up another question. He let the conversation lapse, and turned back to watching his men straggle on before him. Dirk had given him some strange white pills that had killed the worst of his headache, but the nausea was still there, and the general feeling of sickness. It was hard to think about anything else, so he was only irritated when Dirk pointed at the huge grassy dome rising out of the fields and said, "Oddlooking hill, that. You don't often see one that looks like half a melon."

"Unh?" Cort looked up, following Dirk's pointing arm. " 'Course you do. They're all over the land, at least one in every district. Haven't you ever seen a Hollow Hill before?"

"Hollow Hill?" Dirk turned to him, interested. "Where the Little People live?"

"Little People?" Cort asked, puzzled. "Maybe they're little where you come from, but in our country, the Fair Folk are anything but little! They're taller than the biggest of us, and fair of hair and skin. Beautiful they are, men and women alike, and deadly with their magic! They may choose to help or choose to harm, and a man never knows which!"

"That last part sounds like the People of the Hollow Hills, back home," Dirk mused. "I've heard of the tall kind, of course, but I've never been in their country before."

"You are from far away," Cort grunted.

"And Corporal Korgash? You think the Fair Folk left him in an ordinary person's cradle?"

"He's the right coloring and size," Cort grunted, "blond and light-skinned, and more than six feet tall. Besides, he's ugly enough for the Fair Folk to have wanted to be rid of him." With that, he lapsed back into the misery of his hangover. Probably because of his stomach and his general malaise, he never thought twice about the conversation, and never remembered it, either.

It had taken the sergeants most of the morning to find all the troopers and gather them together to hear the captain's order. Cort had been awfully glad of Dirk then; he had taken word to the master sergeant, letting Cort stay in bed. Then he had helped corral the Blue Company and feed each man his "hair of the dog"; he confided later that he had put the white pills in with the beer. By that time, Cort had managed to pull himself together enough to address the men, telling them that the captain wanted them back at headquarters right away, and had found the strength to stand against the wind of their massed groan and torrent of cursing. When the worst of it had passed, he had ordered them to form up into columns, then chivvied them into moving out of the town and onto the trail. From there, he had slumped and let the sergeants take over. It was pretty routine, and any sergeant would tell you that he could manage the men better than any officer-unless the order was one he didn't want to take the blame for, of course. When Cort had needed to issue a command, he had muttered it to Dirk, who had ridden to the head of the column to relay the order to the master sergeant, letting Cort suffer through his hangover in relative peace.

But between the hangovers and a startling lack of eagerness to reach their destination, the troopers moved far more slowly than they had coming down to the town. Night caught them only halfway to the mountains and the captain, so Cort sent up the order to pitch camp.

The hangovers had worn off enough for the men to have worked up appetites, and for Cort to be able to stroll around the camp to keep up morale. Dirk stayed beside him, though, probably worried that Cort might collapse. Cort didn't scold himhe wasn't all that sure that Dirk might not be right.

"Why the plague is he calling us back?" one trooper grunted. "Only a single lousy night of liberty!"

"Just a bastard," his mate griped. "All officers are." Then he caught sight of Cort approaching and ducked his head, staring down into his cooking pot.

Cort managed a. mirthless smile and walked on. "Don't worry, I know it's not true," Dirk told him. "I also know that thinking all officers are heartless brutes helps keep soldiers in line."

"Especially the ones who are heartless brutes," Cort agreed. "There are always the ones who'd disobey every order and savage every civilian, if they didn't think the captain was a tougher old dog than any of them."

"What the clash could be so all-powered important to call us back so sudden?" another trooper grunted.

"Maybe the captain's got a new girlfriend he wants to impress," the other trooper guessed, "so he needs us all there to parade for her."

"Maybe you'd better tell them the real reason," Dirk said as they sauntered past the cookfire.

"Tomorrow," Cort told him, "when I'm feeling fit again."

"You can guess what it is, of course."

"What else?" Cort said, with an impatient shrug. "The captain's found another job for us, and it can't wait. Probably paying us double to come protect some slob of a boss from his neighbor, when he's too slack to keep his men in fighting trim. Oh, don't look so shocked-that's one of the good things about being a mercenary, being able to speak your mind about the bosses."

"But if a bruiser tried that, his bully would hear about it and siring him up at dawn the next day, huh?"

"Why would he wait for dawn?" Cort asked. He reflected that this foreigner had a great many odd ideas.

"Ever wonder why the bosses are always fighting?" Dirk asked. "From what I see, most of their battles are about some small strip of land right on the border, which they both claim. A skirmish like that would be really easy to settle by making both men sit down and discuss it reasonably."

"True, if the quarrel were really about that strip of land," Cort agreed, "but it isn't-it's just an excuse to fight. The attacking boss actually wants the whole domain, and his rival boss as a prisoner into the bargain."

"Too bad somebody can't make 'em stop," Dirk grunted.

"What are you trying to do, ruin our business?" Dirk shrugged. "You're telling me the bosses and their men don't really want to resolve their disputes, just want an excuse to fight every few years. There're so many of them, each lording it over a dozen square miles or so, that the warfare is constant-As soon as one battle stops, another begins a few miles away."

Cort nodded. "Tragic, isn't it? Sometimes I wish there really were some way to end it-but then I tell myself I'm a fool, that it makes good business for us."

"There is that," Dirk agreed. "So much for the only force that could make the bosses behave."

"The only force?" Cort frowned. "What do you mean?"

"If the mercenaries banded together, they could tell the bosses to stay in their own domains, and make it stick."

"Easily," Cort said, with a snort that might have been a laugh if he'd been feeling better. "Any three mercenary companies could easily beat any one boss-but why bother? That's how we make our money, after all-by fighting the bosses' battles for them."

"So the mercenaries could stop the fighting," Dirk sighed, "but they won't. They have a vested interest in warfare."

"You could put it that way," Cort agreed, "especially since every now and then, one of the captains manages to become a bully himself."

"And never thinks of pushing for boss, and conquering all the others?"

"Are you joking?" Cort asked. "All the other bosses would ally against him on the instant, and all the mercenary captains, too. No one's going to risk the rise of a boss of bosses who would be able to tell any one of them what he could and couldn't do."

"Right," Dirk said sourly. "No bully wants to be bullied, eh? But he always is."

"There's always someone stronger than a bully-and they call him boss." Cort nodded. "But there isn't a bully of bosses, and they're bound and determined that there never will be."

They had come to the edge of the camp. Cort looked out over it with a sigh. "I take first watch. If ever I didn't want it, this is the night."

"Go to bed," Dirk said. "I'll take your shift. What is it, just walking the perimeter and making sure the sentries stay awake?"

"You have been an officer, haven't you?" Cort asked. "Yes, you'll be officer of the watch. Thank you deeply, Dirk."

"My pleasure. Who do I wake up to take second watch, and when?"

"The master sergeant, at midnight." Cort hesitated. "He might..."

"Resent me a bit, because' I've been hired in as a sergeant and stayed pretty close to you? Don't worry, lieutenant, I'll reason with him."

"Just make sure your reasoning doesn't leave any bruises," Cort cautioned.

Dirk grinned, shaking his head. "I wouldn't dream of assaulting a senior noncom, lieutenant. Sleep tight."

"That's what sent me into this misery," Cort groaned. "If you don't mind, I'll sleep sober." True to his word, Dirk wandered through the camp while the men were bedding down, and even found a chance to exchange a few words with Sergeant Otto.

"Glad you joined up," the older man told him. "Young officers need watchdogs now and then, and I'm just as glad to have someone share the job."

Dirk grinned. "So you knew why I really signed up."

"Took a liking to him right away, didn't you? And you had nothing else going, at the moment. Well, it's good for young men to make friends. You've been an officer, too, though, haven't you?"

"An officer, and a sergeant major before that," Dirk confirmed, "but I started as a private."

Sergeant Otto nodded. "Then I'm glad to have someone else to help keep this crew of thugs in order. Just don't let on when we rejoin the company."

"I'll revert to the lowliest infantry sergeant," Dirk promised.

"I doubt that." Otto grinned. "But I'll settle for your taking orders."

Then Dirk went out to pace the unseen picket line, visible only as-line-of-sight between sentries. They were easy enough to see, because they were on a flat meadow. He stopped by the first and said, "What of the night?"

"Quiet, sergeant." The trooper tried to hide his disdain of this disguised civilian.

Dirk decided he needed a lesson. He pointed. "See that bush?"

"Of course, sergeant," the soldier replied, with a trace of scorn.

"How far away is it?"

The soldier thought a moment, then said, "Twenty yards."

Dirk nodded. "Keep an eye on it. When I come back, tell me if it's even five yards nearer."

"Closer?"The soldier stared at him as though he were crazy. "How could a bush move?"

"By somebody cutting it off at the roots and using it to hide behind as he crept closer to you," Dirk explained.

The sentry's gaze snapped back to the bush, staring.

"Keep the watch," Dirk said, turning away. "Yes, sergeant!" The young man's voice held a note of respect now.

Dirk made the rounds, chatting with each soldier and winning a little trust from each, if not yet respect. Then he stepped out past the picket line, strolling around it twenty yards out, ostensibly checking the ground. It wasn't the best military tactic, but it did provide some privacy. He took the medallion out of his shirt front and managed to fake a rather believable sneeze. He waited a few minutes, then sneezed again.

The medallion spoke in Gar's voice. "Receiving."

 

CHAPTER 9

"Are you someplace where you can talk without being overheard?" Dirk asked. "I've just signed off as a caravan guard, and I'm out on my own, camping in a cave for the night," Gar answered. "Where are you?"

"Patrolling the perimeter as officer of the watch for a mercenary company," Dirk answered. "I bummed around for a bit, learning the language, until I found the town they were visiting for R and R. Stayed overnight in a peasant hovel, took a short courier job for a boss, that kind of thing. How about you?"

"We fought off some mercenaries moonlighting as bandits," Gar told him, "and I pumped the caravan merchant for every bit of information I could get about trade and the political setup, or lack of it. Then we outwitted a translator who was trying to make a profit out of swindling both his boss and us, and he sicced some off-duty boots on us-that's..."

"Boss's soldiers, I know," Dirk said. "Just offhand, I'd say that between the two of us we've seen a pretty good cross section of the population."

"I've picked up enough legends to work out the history of the planet after Terra cut them off," Gar told him.

"Me, too," Dirk said. "The folktales make it pretty clear the people remember their ancestors being anarchists."

"From what I've heard, they really thought they could live with no government, imitating the virtue of their sages," Gar agreed. "The first generation managed to live by their ideals, but some of their children didn't feel obligated. A few of them liked to throw their weight around, and decided to steal as much as they could by brute force. They bullied other tough guys into taking orders, gathered gangs, and started beating up their neighbors, enslaving them, and taking all their food except the bare minimum to keep them alive and reproducing."

Dirk nodded, forgetting that Gar couldn't see him. "Then one bully started conquering another, two allied against one, the one allied with two more, and the situation turned into perpetual warfare. Finally one bully managed to conquer three or four others and declared himself boss. Word got out, the idea caught on, and other bullies started fighting it out to see who could become boss."

"Which worked fine to make a boss over several bullies," Gar agreed, "but by the time one boss started trying to conquer another one, some enterprising soul had already invented mercenary companies, and with each side hiring mercenaries to help out, the battles only ended in futility and bloodshed."

Dirk added, "And nobody noticed that it wasn't exactly ethical."

"They seem to have the idea that morality is only for weaklings," Gar said, "and there's no religion to make them rethink the point."

"Yes, you noticed that, too?" Dirk frowned. "No religion at all. I gather the original colonists were trying very hard to be good philosophers and better atheists."

"Well, they succeeded," Gar said grimly, "and the bosses finished the job. They did their best to kill off all the philosophers."

"Yeah, I picked up traces of that, too," Dirk agreed. "The sages told their people not to try to defend them, but the people tried to fight for them anyway, and were slaughtered. So ended all the philosophers."

"Except for the ones who were willing to come up with logical excuses for bosses to exist, and be used as mouthpieces," Gar said, "and willing to concoct a philosophy that said bosses were right to be bosses, and the common people should stay in their places."

"I get the impression that a very few sages survived by going so far out into the wilderness that the bosses didn't care about them," Dirk said. "Anyway, each district seems to have at least one sage, and he's keeping the basic ideas of Taoism alive, to comfort the people when they're on the verge of despair."

"So philosophy becomes the opiate of the masses," Gar said, with irony. "I also found out that after Terra cut the colony off and manufactured goods became scarce, the second generation reinvented capitalism. Since there was no government to force it to stop, it caught on."

"Interesting that you've found a merchant," Dirk commented. "All I've seen are mercenaries."

"That does seem to be the most widespread form of capitalism," Gar agreed. "Most of the bosses' money goes into hiring free companies. The wars between bosses quickly became a matter of seeing who could hire the most and the best mercenaries, and the ordinary people were ground down to pay for them."

"I've found out that mercenary officers can become rich enough to retire in comfort," Dirk said, "complete with big houses and dowries for their daughters-and captains can actually make enough money to buy their way into bossdom. How do any merchants manage to stay in business, with all this fighting?"

"Most of them come from free towns," Gar told him.

"Free towns?" Dirk frowned. "I haven't heard of those. The only towns without castles that I've seen are securely within the domain of one boss or another. I've heard a legend that some independent villages hired a bully to protect them, but after he had fought off the enemy, he wound up enslaving the people who had hired him."

"Some villages were far enough from the center of the troubles so that they had some warning, and were doubly blessed in having a sage who taught martial arts as part of his philosophy," Gar explained. "They elected a leader who figured out how to use weapons, so when a bully came to conquer, they fought him off long enough to make the price in men and arms more than he wanted to pay. Apparently, the secret of staying in the bully business was a quick win. By the time the bosses came marching, the mercenaries were available for hire, and the free cities became some of their best customers. I don't doubt that the occasional enlightened boss lets his merchants keep enough of their profits to stay in business, but most of the entrepreneurs are from the free towns."

"I expect they have to learn a lot of different dialects," Dirk mused.

"Have any communication troubles?" Gar asked.

"Only for the first twenty-four hours or so. If I listen long enough, I can track down the vowel shifts and guess the occasional homegrown word. They've all evolved out of Galactic Standard, of course, so I don't have too much trouble figuring them out. The locals don't know the original Galactic pronunciation, though, so most of them can't understand the people from the next county. It does open up work for interpreters, huh?"

"That seems to be one of the tasks of the bosses' stewards," Gar told him. "That's all the government there is-the bosses and their servants-and within each domain, the boss's whim is law. There's no central government to stop him from doing anything he wants to the people." His voice hardened. "They live like animals, Dirk-no, worse. The local bully takes any girl he wants for a night's pleasure, then turns her over to his officers, and when they're done with her, they turn her over to the boots. I've seen a lot of poor people on a lot of planets, but I don't think I've ever seen any ground down worse than these."

"The end result of anarchy," Dirk agreed. "It works only as long as nobody gets greedy, but when somebody does, there's nothing to stop him. Didn't the original anarchists have some idea about assassinating anyone who tried to bully his neighbors?"

"Not that I've ever read," Gar replied. "Good idea, I suppose, if you don't find it unethical to kill somebody without a trial, or without his bein there to be tried. But who's going to keep the assassin from becoming a bully himself?"

"The old problem." Dirk sighed. " `Who will police the police?' Or, you might say, who will govern the government?"

"The people," Gar answered, "but that means you've developed some form of democracy."

"In which everyone's a soldier when he's needed," Dirk concurred. ".`Well, there are advantages to military life: a guaranteed place to live, steady pay if you ever find a place to spend it, regular meals, free clothing . . ."

"The clothes tend to be a bit monotonous," Gar reminded him, "but yes, it's a secure life, apart from the chance of being killed in battle every now and then. Take it to the extreme of everyday life, and you have Sparta, where everyone's a soldier all the time."

"Except for the slaves," Dirk reminded.

"But the Spartans didn't count them as people," Gar pointed out. "From what else I hear about them, it was a nice place to have on your side, but you wouldn't want to visit."

"And definitely not live there," Dirk agreed. "But let's not lose sight of the fact that there are one or two good things about this sort of anarchy."

"I must have missed them," Gar said, voice dripping sarcasm. "Remind me."

"High social mobility, for one," Dirk said. "You can be born a peasant, but end up the captain of a Free Company, or maybe even a boss."

"But more likely in an early grave," Gar pointed out.

"The risks are very high," Dirk conceded. "Of course, if you live in one of the free towns you've told me about; there are probably all sorts of opportunities, such as becoming a merchant. How high is their death rate?"

"Fairly high, from what I saw on this journey," Gar told him, "and it probably would have been worse, if they hadn't had a telepath along to tell them when the enemy was coming. But you're right about the free cities being a decent existence-they even have enough extra food and money to support an artist or two. Of course, everybody has to drill every week, and the men march off to war every year or so, but as long as they can keep from being conquered, they live fairly well."

"Government?" Dirk asked.

"Town council," Gar answered. "I'm sure there are power blocs and influence peddlers, but I wasn't there long enough to study the details. So life is all right here, if you're a soldier or a citizen of a free town-but for the serfs it's miserable."

"Yes," Dirk said, "and they're the vast majority. Aside from near-starvation and backbreaking work, life in a hole in the ground isn't too bad, if you don't mind sacks for clothes and freezing toes. Of course, there's the little problem of constant warfare, with women being raped and people killed, villages burned, and crops trampled..."

"Which leads to complete starvation," Gar said, his voice tight with pain. "Do you have any doubts that we have to destroy this system?"

"None at all," Dirk said with full conviction. "But what is there to destroy? We're professionals at overthrowing governments, Gar. Where's the government to overthrow?"

"I'm very much afraid that this time, we'll actually have to set up a government," Gar sighed, "but it does go against the grain. We'll have to start by establishing a lasting peace."

"I thought we were going to have to cobble together some sort of government, in order to see that peace declared," Dirk countered. "These people are so miserable that they'd even cheer for a dictafor-at least it would be some protection, some order."

"They'd be ground down just as badly," Gar said, his voice hard. "Think of the last planet we visited, of our friends Miles and Orgoru and the dictator who ruled them. What about the torture and the stunted lives his people endured?" Then he remembered, and his voice lightened. "Miles! How's about that, Dirk? Think you can start a minstrel movement, and introduce songs with the underlying idea that peasants are fully human?"

"It's a start, anyway," Dirk sighed. "I do think it's time for us to get back together, though."

"I agree. Herkimer, where is Dirk relative to me?" Gar asked.

The computer answered instantly, obviously eavesdropping. "His signal originates from a district approximately twenty miles south by southwest of you, Magnus."

"We're in the foothills of a mountain range," Dirk told him, "on our way back to the Blue Company's headquarters. I'm sure they'll love having you as a recruit. We've just come out of a forest, and we're in a meadow, but we'll be going back into forest as we start upslope tomorrow."

"I'll see you in the trees, then."

"Right." But Dirk hesitated a second, then said, "Gar? Did you ever wonder what right we have to do this? To just burst into somebody else's planet, and try to change their governmental system?"

"We probably don't have any right at all," Gar admitted, "but we do have a duty. Personally, I couldn't live with myself if I knew I could have done something to ease the suffering of a million individuals, but sat by and did nothing."

"Yeah, well, that's okay if you bump into thembut we go out looking!"

"Yes," Gar said, "because we know there are people suffering out there, and we know we have the duty to help them. After all, we're free to do it-we don't have any other responsibilities at this point in our lives-so we'd be less than ourselves if we didn't search. When the day comes that we go through all the computer records, visit every planet whose people might be oppressed, and come to the conclusion that on all of them, the government is doing the best it can and that no other government would do any better for its people-then we can very seriously ask if we have any right to interfere."

"Then we can retire," Dirk grunted.

Gar rode in silence for a while, then said, "Don't let my obsession rule your life, my friend. If you're lucky enough to find your destiny, to find a woman you love and a place where you belong, don't feel you have to forsake them all for me or my dream."

Dirk stared at the medallion, amazed, and wondered if he should feel rejected. "If the woman and the place are your destiny," Gar said, "then your duty to them is greater than your duty to the suffering millions on dozens of planets you've never heard of. We each have to try to make life better in the corner of reality that's revealed to each of us; we can't do more."

"I never knew you were religious," Dirk said softly.

"Oh, yes, you did." Gar smiled sardonically. "But that kind of talk doesn't have to be religious. It might only mean that I'm beginning to understand my father."

It was the first time Gar had ever mentioned anyone related to him. Dirk stared, thunderstruck by the realization that Gar didn't exist in a vacuum.

Cort was his old self the next morning, at least to outward appearances, alert and energetic, issuing his orders quietly to the master sergeant, who bawled them out to the other sergeants, who ordered the men into columns and set them moving onto the road.

It was an uphill climb, and though the men were no longer hungover, they weren't happy about having their leave cut short, so they still went slowly. They were just coming to the first plateau when a rider came out of the trees before them. Discipline kept the soldiers marching, but without it, they would have stopped dead, for the stranger was huge, seven feet tall and broad to match, astride a horse that stood five hands taller than most.

He started to ride toward them. Then brownclothed soldiers burst from the trees by the roadside with shrill, ear-splitting cries.

Their first charge mowed down a dozen men, but the sergeants were already bawling, "Stand to! Fight!" and the soldiers, out of sheer reflex, turned on their ambushers.

There were at least forty of them to the platoon's thirty, well armed and armored, with boiledleather breastplates and iron skullcaps. They wielded their spears as both quarterstaves and cutting blades, still skirling their battlecry. But the Blue Company, now braced for battle and over their first surprise, fought back with equal skill, and with the ferocity of outrage. Spearheads rang on bucklers, shafts rattled against shafts. Sergeants bellowed as they ran back and forth, knocking the attackers off their men.

Cort rode through the battleline, shouting in anger and hewing about him with his sword. A brown-coated soldier leaped to catch his horse's reins as a second stabbed upward at him and a third jammed his spearbutt between Cort and his saddle. Cort caught the spear on his buckler, then whirled to chop at the lever-man, but the spear came back and grazed his ribs even as the third soldier fell away. Cort roared in rage and pain and slammed his shield into the second soldier's face. He turned to the front just as a spearhead came stabbing up at his face.

Another sword leaped in from the side, knocking the spear up, and Dirk kicked its bearer in the head. The first soldier fell, letting go of the reins.

"Thanks," Cort called. "Where's their officer?"

"Only a lieutenant, as far as I can see," Dirk shouted back.

"He's mine!" Cort turned and charged at a brown-coat with brass epaulets, but even as he did, a brown-clad rider burst out of the trees at the roadside, howling and riding straight toward him, sword slashing.

A huge roar sounded. The brown-coat turned and whirled his sword frantically, trying to protect himself-as well he might, for the man who thrust and slashed at him was the giant, wielding a blade more than three feet long. He bellowed like a bear and hacked and chopped at the brown-coat officer, then suddenly spun his horse away and charged down the battleline, bellowing.

The brown-coats took one look and leaped away-but so did the Blue Company, in sheer terror. The giant turned on the brown soldiers, though, slashing at them with his huge sword. Soldiers jumped aside, for they could see his swings coming a mile away-and a mile wide they seemed. But none wanted to stay for another slash, so they turned and fled, leaving half their number groaning and writhing in the road.

Still roaring, the giant chased them back into the woods.

"Rally!" the brown-coat officer cried, turning on the Blue Company alone.

His sword rang on Cort's blade, and both men went silent, slashing in quick and desperate strokes.

 

CHAPTER 10

The two were about the same age and size, Cort a little younger, his enemy a little older. They were so well matched that they staYed where they were, neither advancing or giving ground, their horses dancing around and about one another.

The Blue Company stared at the duel, fascinated.

"You're all alone, you know," Dirk called. Startled, the officer spun his horse, still facing Cort and parrying madly, but looking past his foe to see that there wasn't a single brown-coat left in sight. Suddenly he broke away with a high, shrill cry and spurred his mount toward the trees.

Cort started to chase him, but the man reached the trees first, and Cort pulled up, cursing, knowing the man might have left a rearguard in ambush. He turned back to his own troops.

Sergeant Otto had already bullied the unwounded men back into a battleline, spears outward, while the other sergeants went from wounded man to wounded man, doing what they could for first aid; so did Dirk. The huge stranger was off his horse and down with them, tending to the fallen brown-coats.

Cort rode up to Sergeant Otto. "What's the tally?"

"Two of ours dead and ten wounded, sir," Sergeant Otto answered. "Too soon to tell who can walk, but my guess is that six of them won't fight again for months."

Cort nodded grimly and glanced at the giant. "Detail men to guard him. I don't know who he is, but he helped us, and I don't want some wounded Hawk killing him with a lucky stroke."

"Yes, sir." The master sergeant turned to bawl orders, then turned back to Cort. "Why would the Hawk Company attack us when neither of us is hired to fight, sir?"

"Just because the Blue Company hasn't been hired, doesn't mean the Hawks haven't," Cort told him, "and for all we know, Captain Devers may have already signed on with some boss or squire who has a war coming up. My guess is that the Hawks are fighting for the enemies of whoever has just hired the Blue Company, and the more of us they can kill before the battle, the fewer they'll have to face on the field."

"That's against all the rules in the Free Companies' Code," the master sergeant said grimly.

"It certainly is." Cort's words rang like those of a judge pronouncing sentence.

"When the captains hear of this, they'll turn on the Hawk Company in a body," Otto predicted. "They will indeed," Cort agreed. "That's why the Hawks don't dare let us live to tell of it."

The master sergeant's eyes widened. "You're right, sir, of course! They'll be back with three times their number!"

"And they won't be surprised by a giant this time," Cort said grimly. "Form up the men as soon as you can, sergeant! We have to march." He turned away. "Sergeant Dulaine!"

"One more stitch, sir." Incredibly, Dirk was sewing a man's wound shut. He tied off the thread, broke it, and came over to Cort, tucking his needle away in a little wooden case that he slipped into his tunic. "Who the hell were they?"

"Two platoons from the Hawk Company, ambushing us before the battle begins," Cort told him. "How long before our wounded are fit to travel?"

"Now, sir, if you carry them in litters," Dirk said. "Seven of them can walk, but they can't fight."

"You and I will have to carry the dead on our horses until we can bury them," Cort told him. "There's no time now; the Hawks will be back with three times our number, maybe with their whole company. Set up litters." Dirk nodded. "Yes, sir." He turned away and called, "How many of those brown-coats will live until their friends come back, Gar?"

"They all will, if their buddies stay to take care of them," the giant answered.

Cort stared. "You know each other?"

"Old friends," Dirk told him. "He was supposed to meet me back in town, but he was late, so I left a note at the inn, telling him which road to take, and that there might be work for him at the end of it."

"Oh, there surely is," Cort said softly, "and he doesn't even have to wait till he reaches headquarters."

It made sense that they should know each other-the huge man's accent was even worse than Dirk's. Cort raised his voice. "You there! Giant!"

The big man's head snapped up; he scowled. "Yes, little man?"

Cort stiffened, and Dirk said quickly, "He doesn't like to be called names any more than any of us do."

"My apologies," Cort called stiffly.

"Accepted." Gar stood and came over to the officer; his head was as high as the horse's. "I'm Gar Pike at your service, sometime officer and sometime sergeant."

"I'm only a lieutenant, so I can only hire you as a sergeant," Cort told him, then turned to call. "Sergeant Otto?"

"Yes, sir?" the noncom called as he came over. "Will you accept yet one more sergeant?"

"Him?" The master sergeant stared. "Be sure I will, sir, and I won't be surprised if the captain promotes him over me!" He held out a hand. "I'm Master Sergeant Otto. You fought well."

"Gar Pike." The giant shook his hand. "It's easy, when you can scare your opponents just by standing up."

"No, I watched how you handled your sword," the master sergeant said. "You're damn good-but so was that Hawk lieutenant."

"Yes, he was," Gar said, frowning. "I hope they sent their best, because if the rest of their officers are that good, we're in trouble."

"You know they'll come back, then?" Cort asked, surprised.

"I would," Gar explained, "no matter why they attacked us. They weren't just after loot, or they wouldn't have picked on professional soldiers. No, we were their assignment, and they're not going to leave it unfinished."

"Wise insight," Cort approved. "We have to march to some kind of stronghold." He looked around at his makeshift cadre. "Any ideas?"

Gar pointed to the northeast. "I passed a town with a small castle on my way here. The peasants in the fields were well dressed, so I'd guess it's a free town."

"A good guess!" Cort's spirits lifted. "Free towns always want to keep mercenaries on their sidethey never know when they'll need us." Then he frowned. "Of course, they could be the ones who hired the Hawk Company."

"I didn't see anyone in that uniform around there," Gar told him, "and if the peasants were out hoeing, they weren't expecting a battle. Besides, if these Hawks had been there and had expected a fight, they would have challenged me or tried to recruit me, not just let me ride through."

"True." Cort nodded. "Will you carry a dead man across your horse's rump, Sergeant Pike?" Gar smiled slowly. "I like an officer who won't leave his dead if he doesn't have to. Of course I'll carry a dead man, sir, and a live one, too, if I have to."

"It may come to that," Cort admitted. "How far away is this castle?"

"A dozen miles." Gar pointed northeast again, off to the side of the road. "I came overland."

"Then you found a route that doesn't need a road, and won't leave trampled crops to show where we've gone?"

Gar nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Then lead us!" Cort ordered, and turned back to Sergeant Otto. "Load up! We march!"

They marched for the rest of the day, slowly because of their walking wounded, and when the sun set, Cort had to call a halt. The wounded men sat down heavily right where they stood, but the others set to pitching camp and warming dinner.

"We can't rest long, sir," the master sergeant said.

"I know," Cort said, frowning. "I wish I had some notion how far behind us the Hawks are."

"A day's march," Gar said with certainty. "I followed them in until I had to cut off to find the village."

"A day?" Cort said with relief. "Then we can rest for a few hours." It occurred to him to wonder how Gar could have followed so many soldiers and still have seen peasants hoeing without fear, but he had other things to worry about.

"How long do we rest, sir?" Sergeant Otto asked.

"Six hours at the most," Cort told him. "Then we'll move out."

"Marching at midnight?" The sergeant major. paled. "But the Fair Folk, sir!"

"We'll have to chance it. After all, I haven't seen a Hollow Hill anywhere along the route."

"There might be one farther ahead, sir," the master sergeant protested.

"Hollow Hill? Fair Folk?" Gar frowned. "Why should we fear them?"

Cort turned to him in surprise, then remembered. "That's right, you're a foreigner."

"I'll tell him while we pitch camp," Dirk said, and led Gar away, talking in low tones, but Cort did catch the phrase, "gas domes." He wondered what Dirk was saying-and Gar, for that matter. He overheard the big man telling Dirk something about doing as the Romans do. He had heard of Romans, of course, but they were just legends, tales that grandmothers told as the winter nights drew in. What did Romans have to do with Fair Folk?

He dismissed the thought-he had worse worries at the moment. He wondered just how far away the Hawk Company camp was, and hoped Gar was right.

The very beautiful girl started to unlace her bodice, then reached down to shake Cort's shoulder. "Wake up, lieutenant!" she insisted.

Cort wanted to do anything but wake up. Actually, he had something very definite he wanted to do, but the girl said "Wake up!" again, and this time she had a deep basso voice. Cort shoved himself up on one elbow as the girl faded to nothing, and forced his eyes open to see the banked and glowing campfire. Alarm jolted through him; he sat up, staring around, and saw Gar.

"Good, you're awake," the big man said. "I made a mistake about the Hawks, lieutenant." Cort scrambled to his feet. "Are they here?"

"No, and their camp is where J thought it was, but they sent cavalry. I can hear hooves, way out there." Gar pointed off toward the west.

Cort froze, listening, but all he could hear was the breeze. "You've good ears, sergeant."

"It was just a minute's sound blown on a breeze," Gar told him, "a freak echo from the far side of the valley, and of course I can't be sure it's the Hawk Company..."

"But farmers don't usually drive that many horses on their wagons," Cort said with sarcasm. "Wake Sergeant Otto and get the company on the march."

The men weren't happy about marching at night-they muttered constantly, and fearfully, about the Fair Folk and other night-spirits.

"Stop worrying about something you might run into," Dirk told them, "and pay attention to the danger you can be sure will jump you, if you don't keep moving-the Hawk Company!"

The muttering didn't stop, but the men did march faster.

Even without the wounded men and the corpses, they would have gone far more slowly than the horsemen who were chasing them. With them, progress seemed to be a crawl. Gar kept listening, though, and claimed to be able to hear the Hawks. They. were approaching, but were having trouble finding the Blue Company's trail-they had expected them to stay on the roads. So they weren't following directly--they were going at an angle, cutting across the Blue Company's line of march, then turning to search and cutting across the line again. "They'll find us sooner or later, lieutenant, but it'll be dawn before they can see our signs well enough to catch up fast."

"With any luck, we'll have found a stronghold by then, or been able to talk the free town into sheltering us," Cort said, but his stomach was hollow with dread.

The world paled with predawn light, and finally, on the crisp breeze that blew through the clear air of early morning, Cort heard it, too: the distant thudding of hooves, almost felt rather than heard, horses at the trot.

The soldiers heard it as well. They glanced over their shoulders and muttered with dread, but the hooves faded again.

"Still cutting our trail," Gar reported, "but it won't be long before they see our footprints, and follow directly."

"Faster!" Cort barked. "I know you're dog tired, but march faster, blast it! Or you'll have a worse lash than mine on your backs!"

"There!" Dirk pointed uphill, at a towering mass of stone pierced here and there by holes. "Better than nothing, lieutenant!"

"I'll take it! There, men-march for that wall, quickstep!"

The soldiers needed no urging. Exhausted but on the verge of panic, they picked up the pace to a double march.

As they came up to the wall, they heard the sound of hooves come back, faint with distance, but it didn't fade this time.

"They've found our trail!" Gar snapped. "Quickly, lieutenant! Fort up!"

They rode around behind the wall-and stared. "Thank all our lucky stars," Cort breathed. "Shelter!"

There was no roof and maybe never had been, but the wall extended around them in a circle, only fifty feet across, and was pierced here and there with tall, narrow holes. "It is a stronghold," Cort cried, "or the ruins of one! Thanks be to whatever ancestors built it!"

One of the soldiers let out a cry, pointing upward. Cort whirled to look, and saw a man in green clothing slide down a slope of the wall and leap to the ground.

"Bring him down!" Sergeant Otto called, and two soldiers ran for the gateway, hefting their spears.

"No!" Cort bellowed. "We're guests, and we want their hospitality! Let them bring all the troopers they have! Maybe they'll fight the Hawks for us!"

"And maybe they'll spit us like pheasants for roasting," Otto grumbled. "But you're right, lieutenant, they're probably more interested in making friends with a Free Company, as long as it _doesn't have enough men to threaten them."

The sentry appeared again through the gateway, running flat out across the fields toward a walled town with a small castle that appeared through the morning mist as a sunbeam struck it, turning it golden. The soldiers lowered their spears reluctantly; the man was running in a straight line, and was a tempting target. Even as they watched, though, he veered, then veered again.

"Smart," Otto approved. "Ran straight just long enough to draw our fire, then swerved in time to avoid it."

"It might be that we're not dealing with amateurs," Cort said.

Then he realized that the drum of hooves had become louder. "Into the arrow slits, quickly! A ruin is better protection than none! One man to each aperture, hurry!"

Sergeants bawled orders, and the soldiers set down their wounded comrades behind the walls. Dirk, Gar, and Cort tied their horses to large rocks, then scrambled upward. Even the walking wounded climbed up to the embrasures. Loose rock slipped under foot, and men went sliding, but their comrades caught them and pulled them up.

"Stay out of sight unless they charge us!" Cort called.

All the men flattened themselves against the wall beside the arrow slits, watching the grassy courtyard below, waiting for the sound of the Hawks' horses on the outside of the wall.

Finally it came, drumming closer and closer; then slowing to a walk, and a disgusted voice cried, "A fortress! And they've gone in!"

"Then we'll have to go in after them," a heavier voice growled. "Follow their track around! Ready your crossbows!"

Several of the Blue Company blanched-they only had one spear each, and two javelins across their backs. But Cort grinned with delight and hefted a rock half the size of his head, nodding to his men. The sergeants nodded and turned to the men, pantomiming javelin throwing. The soldiers took their short spears from their backs and lifted them.

The horses suddenly leaped into a gallop and burst into the courtyard below. Eighteen arms swung, filling the air with javelins. Even as they did, bowstrings twanged. The Blue Company threw themselves to the ground. One or two shouted oaths as -crossbow bolts caught them in buttock or leg, whichever was too slow in falling. Then Cort leaped up, and the men who could, imitated him, their second javelins in their hands. They saw half a dozen Hawk horses with empty saddles, their riders writhing on the ground.

The crossbows would take too long to crank. The Hawk commander shouted "Charge!" and spurred his horse. His men pounded after him.

"The idiots!" Cort called, to hearten his men. "Charging stone walls! Wait for sure targets!" But as they came close, the horses suddenly swerved, galloping in zigzags, almost colliding but never quite, and always coming closer and closer to the walls.

"Choose your target and stay with him!" Cort bawled. The soldiers did as he told them, then threw their spears. Some struck home, and a few more Hawks fell from their saddles. Most missed their targets by scant inches. The Hawks shouted triumph and pulled up by the walls, climbing onto their saddles, then leaping for handholds and footholds to take them up to their quarry.

The Blue Company braced their spears and waited, thin-lipped. They were still outnumbered two to one.

Then more hooves thundered, and sixty horsemen rode into the ruined courtyard with a slender officer at their fore who cried, "Loose high!" in a clear tenor, and bowstrings thrummed. A storm of arrows rattled on the walls. A few ricocheted and struck Hawk men; others struck flakes that fell into their eyes. The Hawks let go with an oath and leaped down to the ground, turning with naked swords-to face sixty drawn bows, the archers crowding their horses forward around their officer.

"Leave this place at once!" the tenor cried. "Mount and ride back beyond the river, for everything between it and this ruin is part of the territory of Quilichen!"

The Hawks stood, truculent and reluctant. Then one man mounted, and the others, grumbling, followed suit, but the first rider snatched his crossbow from his saddle, slapped a bolt in it, and started winding.

"I forbid!" the tenor cried, and an arrow struck the man's shoulder. He dropped the crossbow with a howl of pain.

"Let no man else try to load," the Quilichen officer ordered. "All our bows are bent, and be sure we can loose three rounds for every one of yours!"

The shaft in the soldier's shoulder had pierced boiled-leather armor, with bit enough left to lodge itself in the muscle. The Hawks slowly lifted their hands from their weapons.

"None may come to this domain without our leave!" the Quilichen officer cried. "Be off with you!"

"What of our enemies?" the Hawk officer retorted. "Will you let them stay?"

"I shall deal with them when you are gone," the Quilichen officer replied.

The Hawk officer said, in a threatening tone, "Your town may need us someday. Do you dare court our ill will?"

"Do I dare court the ill will of the Blue Company?" the tenor returned.

"So, then," the Hawk officer said, with a smile of cold malice, "it comes down to a question of which company you trust."

"I trust that neither of you will let sentiment get in the way of business."

The Hawk officer lost his smile.

"We shall have to take that chance, though," the Quilichen officer said. "In the meantime, you must leave, or be turned into pincushions. Besides the archers you see, there are many more behind and to each side of you, who have crept up into the ruins while we've been talking."

"You could be lying," the Hawk officer said through stiff lips.

"I could also be telling the truth. Do yop dare take the chance?" The Quilichen officer went right on without giving him the chance to embarrass himself by having to reply. "There are even more of my archers hidden flanking the path through the woods to the river. Again, I request that you leave, and don't come back into Quilichen's territory unless we hire you."

"Or your enemies do!"

"That's as may be, and the future shall show it," the Quilichen officer replied. "Now go, and don't stop till you've crossed the river, for you may be sure that archers of mine will watch you every step of the way. You won't see them, but they'll be there!"

Slow and surly, the Hawk officer moved his horse forward. His men fell into line behind him, grumbling, and the Quilichen riders stepped aside, opening a lane for them to exit.

When the last of them had ridden out of the courtyard, the officer spurred forward. "You on the walls! I see you are Blue Company by your livery! Why have you come to Quilichen?"

"To ask sanctuary of you," Cort replied. "These Hawks ambushed my platoon on our way back to headquarters, when we were not yet at war. They have killed or wounded a quarter of my force, and would have slain all the rest. Quilichen was the nearest stronghold that might take pity on poor fugitives who were so vastly outnumbered."

The officer turned aside for a quick conference with a sergeant, then turned back and cried, "You have chosen well and wisely! We have no great wish to make enemies of the Hawk Company, but we don't have it in us to send you to certain doom! Lay down your weapons and come with us to our town, to heal your wounded and recover yourselves! We shall give you back your weapons when you leave!"

Without hesitation, Cort slid his sword back into the scabbard, unbuckled his sword belt, and laid it down on the rock. Slowly, Gar, Dirk, and Otto imitated him. Then, with great reluctance (for a spearman's spear is his life), so did the rest of the men.

"Come down and be our guests!" the officer called.

Cort led the way, as was his right-led the way into possible death, but also into possible life. His only security was the hope that no free town would willingly bring down the wrath of the Blue Company upon itself by slaying soldiers to whom they'd promised sanctuary.

But the Quilichen archers cheered as Cort strode among them, and the officer dismounted to clasp his hand. "You fought valiantly even outnumbered and facing sure death! Any of us will honor you highly for that!"

"I thank you," Cart said, feeling dazed.

"We, too." Gar, Dirk, and Otto came up behind Cort. "We thank you for our very lives."

"Have I the honor of addressing the Squire of Quilichen?" Cort asked.

"No, you have met the castellan, his sister." The officer removed her helmet, and a wealth of chestnut hair tumbled down around her shoulders.

 

CHAPTER 11

"Four men stared at large, dark-brown eyes, a finely chiseled face, and wide, full lips that were red without any aid of paint. The lovely, gentle face seemed incongruous above the chain mail and surcoat with the town's emblem appliqued on it, but the companions couldn't deny her effectiveness."

"I am Magda, castellan in my brother's absence," the officer explained.

"I have heard of women having to hold the castle while their husbands were away at war," Cort said slowly, "but I have never met one."

"I won't be the last, I'm sure," Magda told him. "My brother, Wilhelm, has taken service with the Achilles Company for a while, to see if he'can hear rumors of any threats to us while we are still at peace."

"That," Gar said, "has more the sound of a restless young man who is eager for glory and finds little chance of it at home."

"I'm afraid you read Wilhelm aright," Magda admitted, then turned to smile at Dirk. "Have you never seen a woman warrior before, sir?"

"Uh ... yes!" Dirk snapped out of a staring trance. "But never so many at once. A third of your archers are women, if I guess rightly."

"You have sharp eyes." Magda should have known, because those eyes were fastened on her, and hers on him, even though she spoke of others. "A man of our village invented a way of stringing a compound bow with pulleys, so that it takes a fair amount of strength to bend it, but very little to hold it ready. My women may not draw bows quite so powerful as those of my men, but they are quite strong enough to drive an arrow that will pierce armor."

"I don't doubt it," Dirk said, with a tone of awe. Cort had a notion that the awe wasn't for the wonderful bow. Gar was thinking that Dirk must have noticed the genders of the archers during the parlay, because he certainly hadn't been looking at them since Magda took off her helmet.

She turned her horse toward the gateway from the ruins. "Come, let's go back to Quilichen Town. You have men who must be buried, I see, and my footmen will dig their graves quickly."

"I fear the Hawk Company were better fighters than we hoped," Gar admitted. He fell in beside Magda, gaining a look of resentment from Dirk, but knew that his friend wasn't quite up to the rudeness of asking what he was dying to know. "I'm surprised that your brother would risk his sister in the leading of your troops."

Magda shrugged. "We're at peace now, and there's little danger. Besides, I've no one to leave bereft of care if I'm slain."

Dirk stared, horrified.

"I'm sure your brother would be desolate," Gar demurred, "and all your people."

"I think they would grieve," Magda agreed, with a trace of a smile, "but it's not as though I would leave a husband to pine in melancholy, or children with no one to care for them."

Gar could fairly hear Dirk's pulse accelerate. "I'm amazed that you're not married."

"Because I'm too old, or because I'm attractive?" Magda's smile was a little bitter. "Men often think that a beautiful woman unmarried is a waste, but women only think that a life is a waste without love."

Gar's face suddenly became an unreadable mask. "I would agree to that last."

Magda noticed, and relented. "I was married, though, for ten months, and my husband was very dear to me, the more so because he was away fighting for a month at a time, then home only for a week before he was off again. There was no help for it-his city was at war-but he was slain, and I left a widow."

"I'm sorry to hear it," Dirk said slowly. "Is that why you're commanding your home domain?" There was a brief and awkward silence. Dirk realized he'd made a social mistake, tripped up by a custom he didn't know.

"They're foreigners," Cort explained to Magda, "from very far away. They don't understand our ways."

"Of course," Magda said, relieved.

"It's quite true," Gar said. "Tell me, since I'm so ignorant of your ways, how do I address you? Castellan?"

"Yes, castellan, though my brother is a squire," Magda said. "No other title is really necessary."

"Her people probably call her `my lady,' though," Cort told them.

"They do," Magda admitted, then turned the tables. "And how do I address you, gentlemen?"

"Oh! Forgive my rudeness!" Cort exclaimed. "I'm Lieutenant Cort of Molerpa. This is my sergeant major, Otto, and these are two of my staff sergeants, Dirk Dulaine and Gar Pike."

"Gar Pike?" Magda looked Gar up and down and bit back a laugh.

"You're very polite," Gar said gravely.

"Thank you." Magda had the laugh under control, but her eyes were merry. "My brother and I aren't bullies, after all, nor any sort of tyrantswe're squires, chosen by our people to lead them, not to rule them."

"Who does rule you?" Gar asked.

"The town council, sergeant, and my brother only enforces such measures as they issue-and oversees their military training, and leads them in war, of course."

Privately, Dirk thought the young man must have done very well to stay alive so long. He shuddered at the thought of this delicate, beautiful creature having to stand against the lances of a whole army.

"Who taught your people to fight?" Gar asked. "The sages, sir, and ours still do teach the young in that fashion. Our ancestor-farmers were farther from the cauldron of conquests and bloody battles than most, and their sages had always taught them arts such as T'ai Chi and Yoga, to help them teach the mind to control the body, and Kung Fu and Karate to those who wished to become sages themselves. When they began to hear rumors of bullies riding forth to conquer, they and their advanced students taught the arts martial to all the people. That encouraged the headmen of the villages in this domain, making them think that they might actually defend themselves, so they joined together in discovering ways to use their farming tools as weapons-fighting with long poles and shovels, battling with flails and scythes. Thus our ancestors studied war, and when the bullies came, they fought them off. True, there were dead, but there would have been even if the people had bowed in submission to the bullies without a fight-that they had learned from the news about other villages."

"But once they had saved themselves," Gar guessed, "they found they had to stay organized?"

"Yes, for the bosses came when the bullies had failed, and still do. The villages banded together and looked to the largest, Quilichen, to lead them. Thus my ancestors reared their children to war, and became squires from generation to generation who led troops of yeomen, not gangs of slaves in soldiers' livery."

"I take it your people live better than the serfs of the bosses."

"Look about you," Magda said with a broad gesture. They had come out into the open plain, a patchwork of fields circling all about Quilichen. The farmers straightened to wave, watching them as they passed, alert and ready.

"At her slightest sign, they would charge us with those hoes," Cort confided to Dirk, "and they could do great damage with them, believe me! Even with spears and swords, we would be hardpressed to come out of .it alive!"

"They wear good clothing," Dirk commented, "stout broadcloth, dyed in bright colors."

Cort nodded. "Proper breeches and smocks, not the sacks of the bosses' peasants. Oh, they have much to fight for, these yeomen of the free cities."

Dirk saw a bit more of that later, as they rode through a village. The elders and mothers were watchful, but didn't run for cover at the sound of hooves; indeed, they surveyed the newcomers with curiosity and waved to the archers with smiles. The children ran and shouted, and looked to be well fed and healthy. The women wore skirts and blouses in jewel tones, with kerchiefs for the grandmothers and white aprons for everyone. Their houses were proper cottages, single story but all of it above ground, built of fieldstone with windows and thatched roofs, and chimneys that bespoke proper fireplaces.

"Your form of governing works well," Gar commented.

"I thank you," Magda said.

"But the office of squire passes from father to son?"

Magda nodded. "And the daughters grow up to become castellans. We have to stand for the acclamation of all the yeomen, mind you, but there have only been three squires' children who were not acclaimed in all the history of this village, and that's more than four hundred years."

"An enviable record," Gar said with approval. "I gather that not all the free villages fared so well." Magda looked up at him in surprise. "No, they didn't. Many squires gathered the best of their fighters into a standing army, then used them to enslave their own people, becoming bullies. My ancestors did not, though, nor shall my brother and L"

They came to the gates of the town, and the guards hailed them, calling, "Bravely won, my lady!"

"Overawed, at least," she answered, smiling. "There was little enough fighting to do, thank our stars."

They rode through the gates into the midst of a cheering throng. Magda smiled and waved to her people, but confided to her guests, "It doesn't take much of a victory to make them happy."

"Don't underestimate it." Dirk came riding up on her other side, green with envy of Gar. "You faced down a mercenary officer. That took a lot of courage."

She flashed him a grateful smile, but said only, "We do what we must, Sergeant Dirk. Greet my people, please, for you're their guests as much as mine."

So Cort and his sergeants rode beside their hostess, waving and smiling, up winding streets between stone houses, higher and higher on the hillside until the houses ended abruptly, giving way to a long slope of well-tended lawn, dotted with grazing sheep and a few cows.

"No army is going to be able to sneak up on your castle through the back alleys," Cort observed.

"Indeed they won't," Magda said, "and during peacetime, the people enjoy this lawn for exercise and pleasure-and, of course, grazing."

"So that's how you keep it so neatly trimmed," Dirk said, smiling.

Magda returned the smile, and did he imagine it, or were her eyes showing more than amusement? But she only said, "Indeed so, sergeant, but we must limit the numbers of the sheep and cows quite strictly."

"Still, it gives you a valuable asset during a siege."

"It does indeed," she replied, and Dirk was seeing definite interest in her gaze now. He hoped it was really there, not just in his mind.

Through the castle gates they rode, with the sentries cheering as loudly as any of the townspeople, then into the courtyard, where a groom sprang to hold Magda's horse. She slipped from the saddle onto a mounting block, then stepped down. "My steward will show you where you may bathe and refresh yourselves, sirs, while I change my garb. I'd far rather have the freedom of skirts than these clumsy trousers-but they're better for riding, I fear."

"Only reason anybody ever invented them, I think," Dirk agreed, and bowed as a maid stepped up to take Magda's helmet. "In an hour, then, my lady?"

"An hour will do," she agreed. "Till then, my guests."

She turned away, and a footman stepped up to lead the men to the tub. They followed him, Gar muttering, "She is pretty, isn't she?"

"Hm?" Dirk looked up at him, startled. "Sorry--I wasn't listening. What did you say?"

"Nothing worth hearing. Do you suppose they'll have clean clothes for us?"

"I sure hope so!" Dirk said. Then his gaze drifted.

Cort smiled and said, "If they don't give us fresh clothing, there's not much point in our bathing, is there?"

"Oh, Dirk won't mind." Gar glanced at his friend with a smile. "Right now, I don't think he'd even notice."

The conversation during dinner was quite lively, Cort and Dirk trying to outdo one other in wit and sparkle. Magda simply sat back and enjoyed it with the air of a woman to whom this was familiar, but who hadn't experienced it in a long time. After dinner, though, she offered her guests a tour of the gardens.

"Why, that sounds-" Cort broke off, gritting his teeth; Gar's boot had caught him on the shins.

Gar said, "I thank you, but I'm rather weary from the day's events-and the night's."

Cort forced a smile. "Yes, that sounds just the way I feel! If you'll excuse me, my lady, I'll retire." He dug an elbow into Sergeant Otto's ribs.

The sergeant said a bright "Oof!" then, "I'm afraid I'm tired, too, my lady. Will you excuse me?"

"Of course," Magda said graciously, and rose. The men shoved themselves to their feet, too. "Who wouldn't be tired, after a day of fighting and retreating?" their hostess asked. "But you, Sergeant Dirk, will you see my gardens?"

"I'd love to, my lady."

"Thank you, sergeant. Then good night, gentlemen."

The other three chorused "Good night," inclining their heads in bows, then turned away to follow a footman back to their rooms. Magda led Dirk through the screens passage. "You flatter me in choosing my company over that of Sleep, sergeant, when you must be as tired as your companions."

"Oddly, I don't feel the weariness when I'm in your company." After all, if she already knew he was flattering her, why not lay it on thicker?

Magda gave a low, musical laugh and led him out into the garden. Moonlight made it a magical place, old trees bending low over glittering flower beds, pale marble benches standing beside a glimmering pool. Roses filled the night with perfume. She led him toward the water, then sat on the bench. Dirk stood beside her, looking about him, enthralled by the moment of peace and enchantment in which he had suddenly become embedded, then realized that the garden's illusion of serenity and beauty was Magda's doing. He opened himself to the enchantment, letting the thrill build within him, partly the beauty of the garden, but more the beauty of the woman.

"You are silent," she murmured.

"Only enjoying one of the rare moments of bliss that life brings, my lady," Dirk said, "a moment that comes from beauty twice experienced."

Magda let out an audible breath, but before she could tell him his flattery was too thick, he changed topics. "I'm very impressed with the quality of life you give your people, my lady."

"Do you criticize my hospitality, sergeant?" she asked, but there was a teasing note in her voice. "Not at all, though I notice you don't live in anywhere nearly as much luxury as you could. Instead, you seem to be doing all you can to improve the lot of your yeomen and their families."

Magda nodded. "It isn't enough simply to live as rightly as we can, doing our best to be in harmony with the living world about us, and expect our people to imitate us. We must help them to live as closely to our standard as we can, hoping that the more prosperous they become, the more rightly they shall live, for they'll have less reason to do otherwise."

Dirk turned back to her, frowning. "I thought it was the job of your sages to teach right living."

"It's everyone's job, each doing as much as he or she can. Squires must try to follow the sages in selflessness and not needing things. We enjoy such luxuries as we have, but try not to depend on them, the proof of that being that we're willing to share them with our people-and most of them seem to do the same." But the teasing note was gone, and her brows puckered.

"You seem worried," Dirk ventured.

Magda sighed. "There's always the problem of explaining the well-being of the yeomen to my brother, whenever he returns home. I tell him that our strength is the love and loyalty of our people, who will be our shield against our enemies, but he sees only a waste of money. He has been out among the bullies and the bosses, and in his mind, if the yeomen have decent clothing and even sandals instead of wads of rags, they are no doubt using money that could be spent on a new suit of armor."

"Well, taking the statement literally, it's true," Dirk said, "but you have to ask if the new armor is really needed."

"I wouldn't dare!"

Dirk smiled, unable to imagine even a brother managing to be angry with this woman-at least, not for long. "One must also ask if the yeomen produce more when they're happier."

"Why, that's true!" Magda turned to him, eyes wide. "They do raise more grain and fruit than the bosses' slaves, don't they? Surely more than they spend, with something left over toward that new suit of armor!"

"Probably," Dirk qualified. "You'd have to sit down and compare the production of your fields against those of an equal number of common people on a boss's estate, then subtract the cost of living of your yeomen and their families-but I think you'd find that there's almost as much left toward, shall we say, improvements in the war budget your way, as with gouging the serfs for every copper you can get."

" `Gouging'-a very vivid term indeed!" Magda smiled. "What a font of ideas you are, Sergeant Dirk! Might I guess that you haven't always been a sergeant?"

"If you're asking if I've been an officer, the answer is yes," Dirk said. "Whenever I travel a long distance, though, I have to start all over again and work my way up through the ranks."

"Surely." Magda frowned. "Why do you travel so often and so far?"