“Right, Sergeant.” Rollant knew better than to say anything else. Some of the bottles he got were of oiled leather, others of earthenware. Most, though, were stamped from tin, and almost identical to one another. The manufactories in the south might not make very interesting goods, or even very fine ones, but they made very many. That counted, too; King Geoffrey’s domain had trouble matching them.
Joram must have grown up on a farm: as he’d predicted-and as Rollant had thought, too-a stream wound on toward the Franklin River. He wasn’t the only man in Avram’s gray filling water bottles there; far from it. “These stinking things are light enough to carry when they’re empty,” said a dark-haired soldier with a scar on his cheek, “but they’re fornicating heavy once they’re full of water.”
Several troopers laughed. “That’s the truth,” Rollant said, and they nodded. But if he’d complained about having to carry the water bottles, one of them would have been sure to call him a lazy blond. If he wanted the Detinans to think him even half as good as themselves-if he wanted them to think he deserved to be reckoned a Detinan himself-he had to show he was twice as good as they were.
Out in the middle of the stream, a red-eared turtle stared at the soldiers from a rock. Had Rollant seen it in his days as a serf on Ormerod’s estate, he would have tried to catch it. Turtle stew was tasty, and serfs didn’t always have enough to eat after paying their liege lords the required feudal dues. He’d learned, though, that most southrons not only didn’t eat turtles but were disgusted at the idea that anybody would. This one slid into the water undisturbed by him.
Not far from where he was filling the water bottles, a mossy stone bridge spanned the stream. One glance at it told him it had been there since before the Detinans crossed the Western Ocean: it was the work of his own people. Detinan arches used proper keystones; this one didn’t.
We were something, he thought. We weren’t as strong as the invaders, but we were something, all by ourselves. Whatever we were becoming, though, the gods-our gods, the Detinan gods, I don’t know which gods-didn’t let us finish turning into it. Now we’re part of something else, something bigger, something stronger, and I don’t know what we can do except try to make the best of it.
He was putting the stoppers in his water bottles when the bushes on the far side of the stream rustled. He didn’t have his crossbow with him, but a couple of men close by did. If a few of King Geoffrey’s soldiers still lingered, they would have a fight on their hands.
“Come out of there, you gods-hated northern traitor son of a bitch,” rasped one of the troopers with Rollant.
More rustling, and out of the bushes came not northern soldiers but a scrawny blond man and woman in filthy, tattered clothes and four children ranging in size from almost as tall as the woman down to waist high on her. The man-plainly a runaway serf-said, “You’re Good King Avram’s soldiers?”
That made the Detinans laugh. The one who’d called the challenge answered, “If we weren’t, pal, you’d already have a crossbow quarrel between the ribs.”
“Gods be praised!” the serf exclaimed. “We’re off our estate for good now. The earl’ll never get us back again.” He led his wife and children across the bridge toward the soldiers. They were halfway across when he noticed Rollant. “Gods be praised!” he said again. “One of our own, a soldier for the southron king.” Then, pointing at Rollant, he let loose with a spate of gibberish.
“Speak Detinan,” Rollant answered. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.” Back in the old days, blonds in what was now Detina had spoken scores of different tongues. This one sounded nothing like the one Rollant’s ancestors near Karlsburg had used. That language was nearly dead these days, anyhow, surviving only as scattered words in the Detinan dialect the serfs of Palmetto Province spoke.
The runaway looked disappointed. In Detinan, he said, “I want to be a soldier for King Avram, too, and kill the nobles in the north.”
“What about us?” the woman with him asked, pointing to the children and herself as they finished crossing the bridge.
One of the troopers in Detinan gray had a different question: “What do we do with ’em?”
“Let the blond fellow here deal with them,” another veritable Detinan answered. “They’re his, by the gods.”
Rollant would have bet a month’s pay one of the dark-haired men would say that. He’d already escaped to the south. He had not a word of this serf’s language. But his hair was yellow, not brown. To a man whose forefathers had crossed the Western Ocean-or even to one who’d crossed himself-that made all the difference.
And, Rollant had to admit, it made some difference to him, too. He waved to the serf and his family. “Come along with me. I’ll take you to my captain. He’ll decide what to do with you.” He pointed to the water bottles he’d filled. “You can help me carry these, too.”
That set the other soldiers laughing. “He’s no fool,” one of them said. “Doesn’t feel like working himself when he can get somebody else to do it for him.” Had he used a different tone of voice, he would have been mocking a lazy serf. But he sounded more admiring than otherwise: one soldier applauding another’s successful ingenuity.
“Come on,” Rollant said again. The escaped serf ran forward and picked up almost all the water bottles. For him, bearing burdens for King Avram’s soldiers was a privilege, not a duty-and a nuisance of a duty at that. Rollant smiled as he grabbed the couple of bottles the runaway hadn’t. “When I finally got into the south, I was the same way you are now,” he told the fellow.
“My liege lord can’t tell me what to do any more,” the serf said simply. “He can’t come sniffing after my woman any more, neither.”
Rollant led the whole family of runaways back to the encampment. Sergeant Joram glared at him. “I sent you after water, not more blonds,” he growled, and then, before Rollant could say anything, “Take ’em to the captain. He’ll figure out what to do with ’em.”
Since Rollant had intended to do just that, he obeyed cheerfully. Captain Cephas eyed the newcomers and said, “We can use somebody to chop wood. You handy with an axe, fellow?” The escaped serf nodded. Cephas turned to the woman. “Can you cook? The fellow we’ve got could burn water.”
“Yes, lord, I can cook,” she answered softly.
“I’m not a lord. I’m just a captain,” Cephas said. “We’ll put the two of you on the books. Half a common soldier’s pay for you” -the man- “and a third for you” -the woman. Their delighted expressions on realizing they’d get money for their labor were marvels to behold. Rollant understood that. He’d felt the same way. Only later would they find out how little money they were getting.
Count Thraxton knew a lot of his soldiers had expected him to fall back all the way to Marthasville after retreating from Rising Rock. Of all the towns in Peachtree Province, Marthasville was the one King Geoffrey had to hold, for it was a great glideway junction, and most of the paths leading from the long-settled west to the eastern provinces passed through it. Falling back closer to it-to Stamboul, say, halfway there-might even have been prudent.
But, after his vow to Ned of the Forest, Thraxton would have reckoned himself forsworn-and, worse, the officers serving under him would have reckoned him forsworn-had he retreated that close to Marthasville. And so he didn’t go very far to the northwest, but made his new headquarters at a little town in southern Peachtree Province called Fa Layette, not far from the picturesquely named River of Death.
Death suited Thraxton’s present mood. Nor was that mood improved when a fellow who’d escaped from Rising Rock after the southrons seized it was brought before him and said, “They paraded right through the town, sir, the whole scapegrace army of ’em, all their stinking bands blaring out the battle hymn of the kingdom till your ears wanted to bust.”