A Wizard in War

6

Dirk rolled, the quarterstaff gouged earth where he’d been, and he thrust upward. The outlaw dropped his staff with a howl, clutching his forearm; blood rose between his fingers. Dirk kept on rolling, up to his feet, and struck the man’s head with the hilt of his sword. The outlaw fell like an ox in the shambles, and Dirk turned to the next enemy.

There was none, at least not nearby. Farther away, Gar was harrying a whole rank of outlaws, whooping and shouting as he rode from one end of the line to the other, then whirled his horse and rode back again, just in time to strike down the few who tried to slip past him to get at Coll and his family. Gar wasn’t even using a sword—just a straight stick three feet long! Coll stared, amazed to realize the big man was actually having fun. He hadn’t known Gar could.

“Coward!” the biggest outlaw raged. “Swine! Of course you can herd us all, with your steel shirt and your high horse and your sword at your hip! Come down from there and fight me man to man, if you’ve the heart for it!” Gar drew in his horse, his eyes glittering.

“Oh, no!” Dirk groaned. “I never thought he’d be a sucker for a dare!” He stepped over to his own horse and mounted quickly.

Sure enough, Gar swung down from the saddle and unbuckled his breastplate. “I hope you fight as well as you talk, little man! I haven’t had a good match in years!”

The “little man” was easily the biggest of the outlaws, more than six feet tall and burly as an oak. However he was still a head shorter than Gar, and although the knight looked less muscular, Coll had some idea of how strong he was. The outlaw stared at Gar, amazed to see him on the ground; then he grinned, showing several gaps between his stained teeth. “No match in years? Then you’re out of practice, I’d say.”

“Come on and find out,” Gar invited.

The big outlaw saw that Gar’s hands were still busy with buckles; he roared and charged, flailing with his sword. Gar stepped inside the swing, caught his arm, and whirled, sending the big outlaw flying. As he fell, the giant called, “You’ll have to do better than that!”

The outlaw scrambled to his feet. “Hang all knights and their fancy tricks!”

“Try.” Gar tossed his breastplate aside. “Just try.”

The outlaw bellowed and charged again, arms wide for a bear hug. Gar yanked off his helmet and threw it in the man’s face. “I’m not done disrobing, if you don’t mind.”

The big outlaw went reeling back; two of his men stepped forward to catch him. He threw them off with a snarl and went to pick up his sword as Gar pulled the chainmail shirt over his head and threw it over his horse’s withers. “I like to know who I’m fighting. Do you have a name?”

The outlaw chief reddened. “Aye, I’ve a name, and a proper one it is! I’m Banhael, I am! What are you? And no ‘sir,’ mind you—I said man to man!”

“Well enough. I’m Gar.” Banhael gave a shout of delight, and the giant grinned. “Yes, only one syllable—a name fit for a serf. You’ve two syllables, so you feel your name is distinguished, I take it.”

Banhael wasn’t too sure what a syllable was, but he knew a mocking tone when he heard one. “We’ll see which of us fights like a peasant,” he growled, “and which like a knight!” With that, he leaped forward, slashing with his two-handed sword, not even pausing to riposte but slashing again from the other side, over and over again in a rough figure eight.

He managed it so easily because Gar didn’t stop to block a single cut; he only retreated, smiling as though he were amused. That angered Banhael. His sword swings became wilder and wilder as he roared, “Stand still, you hopping monkey! Stand and fight!”

“If you say so,” Gar said agreeably, and brought his own sword up in a parry. Banhael’s blade glanced off it and shot into the dirt. He yanked it out with a curse—and felt a wasp sting on his neck. The other outlaws called out angrily as he clapped a hand to it, a hand that came away with a smear of blood of a color that matched the smear on the end of Gar’s blade. “Count your throat cut,” Gar said quietly, “but like a true hero, fight on until I’ve stabbed your heart.”

“You would, would you!” Banhael shouted, and swung a huge, vicious overhand chop straight at Gar’s head.

Of course, that head wasn’t there when the blow landed. Gar danced aside, then in to catch Banhael’s wrist as his sword sank into the dirt again. He tried to draw it out, but Gar held his wrist down as he stepped up chest to chest, gazing down into the shorter man’s face and purring, “I should think you’d have learned not to swing that cleaver as though you were chopping logs. You should try thrusting with the point, like this.” He leaped back, his rapier flickered in, and Banhael felt a sting on his cheek. “Second blood,” Gar said quietly. “Do try thrusting, Banhael.”

“Just as you say, teacher,” Banhael snarled, and stabbed two-handed, straight toward Gar’s chest.

Gar parried; the sword hissed aside, cutting the cloth of his gambeson. Redness stained the padding, and the bandits shouted approval. “There,” Gar said. “See how much more effective it is? But your technique is faulty; you should thrust like this!” The rapier flickered in again, feinting quickly toward hip, then toward heart; in a panic, Banhael swung his huge blade from side to side, but the rapier was gone before his crude block arrived, then darted in a third time to score his other cheek. The outlaws shouted in anger, and Coll gathered himself to charge out to protect his friend if they mobbed him—and hoped his friend could protect Coll and his family. The outlaws did start toward the duelers—but Dirk moved his horse halfway around the little clearing, and they ground to a halt, watching him warily. His own rapier was drawn now, and he, too, was grinning.

Banhael turned crafty then. He circled Gar, huge sword weaving, seeking an opening. Gar circled around his circle, grinning, then obligingly dropped his guard. “Hah!” Banhael shouted in glee, and lunged. But Gar’s sword leaped back up, and Banhael saw to his horror that he was hurtling straight toward its point. He tried to stop in midair, to twist aside—and Gar’s blade circled the outlaw’s sword, catching it and flinging it away. Then Gar stepped in, striking with his sword hilt, and Banhael, off balance, fell. He pushed himself up—and found himself staring at the tip of Gar’s sword.

“A man once told me that, from this position, all you can look forward to is a quick surrender or a quicker death,” Gar said pleasantly. “Which do you choose?”

The outlaws shouted and started forward—and Dirk’s horse leaped out along their line, his sword swinging in circles—just in front of the bandits’ noses. Sharp cracks echoed as his blade cut the heads off a couple of spears, and the men crowded backward.

“I surrender,” Banhael croaked.

“Well, let me see,” Gar mused. “Shall I let you live? Accept your surrender? I think there should be a price for my self-denial—a night’s lodging, let us say, and a good supper of roast meat.”

Banhael glared at him, but he was glaring up along the length of Gar’s rapier, so he forced himself to say, choking on every word, “Of course. Be our guests. We will be delighted to give you our finest guest hut and our choicest cuts.”

“Of meat, I hope you mean. Well, thank you! We accept your hospitality.” Gar withdrew his sword and held down a hand. Banhael took it and clambered to his feet. “I don’t think I need to tell you what will happen if you’re foolish enough to try to betray us,” Gar said with a slight smile.

Banhael looked into his eyes and shuddered. “Breach hospitality? We wouldn’t think of it!”

“Oh, yes you would,” Dirk called.

Banhael reddened. “Well, we would never do anything about it. Your persons shall be sacred, sir knights, as shall those of these folk you’ve so strangely fought to protect.”

“Not so strange as all that,” Gar told him. “Coll is our squire, and these women are his mother and sister.”

“Yes, we’ve had the pleasure of meeting,” Banhael said dryly. “Well, come along, then.” He turned to bark orders to his men, and they set off through the forest.

“Not quite so quickly, if you please,” Gar said with an edge to his voice, “and I’d appreciate it if you’d choose a pathway more suited to horses.”

The outlaws slowed, and Banhael glanced back at him, glowering. “Well, come along, then!”

“Quickly, you three,” Gar said softly.

Coll led his mother and sister scrambling out from their lean-to, then fell behind them as they hurried after the bandits. He looked up at Gar. “The outlaws’ camp is anything but the place we want to go.”

“You’ve nothing to fear, with the two of us beside you,” Gar assured him.

Dirk explained, “Gar beat Banhael in a fair fight. That took the boss outlaw down in his band’s view, which means they could turn on him. He has to boost himself back up, and the easiest way to do that is to chum up to Gar.”

Coll gave him a wary glance. “What’s the harder way?”

“To ambush us,” Gar told him, “killing us in our sleep, for example. But he knows he could get killed that way, and so do his men.”

Dirk nodded. “We’re not fools enough to sleep without leaving someone on watch, and he knows it.”

“How?”

“If none of Earl Insol’s soldiers have fled to Banhael’s band yet,” Gar said, “they will soon—and they’ll carry rumors about the two stranger knights who led the king’s forces.”

Coll looked up in alarm. “Earl Insol lost, then?”

“Oh yes,” Gar assured him, “and the king won, easily.”

“If you don’t count the number of peasant soldiers dead on the battlefield,” Dirk said grimly, “and the number of serfs who got trampled underfoot.”

Gar shrugged. “When have these aristocrats ever counted any body that wasn’t encased in armor?”

A vision of men of his own village lying dead and bleeding flashed before Coll’s eyes. Grief swamped him, then yielded to the slow anger that began to burn inside him again.

“Grieve, then let it pass as a river flows past a ford,” Gar said softly. “Then perhaps we can find some way to end this ceaseless fighting, and the deaths that go with it.”

“Be glad none of the dead are your own this time,” Dirk said, equally softly.

Coll nodded, letting the anger push the grief aside until there would be time to deal with it—and until he was sure it was warranted; he hadn’t actually seen any dead men he had known yet. “But won’t the king be angry when you don’t come back?”

“His Majesty may regret losing two such useful knights,” Gar acknowledged, “but men are always disappearing in battle, especially when they refuse to wear full armor. When we do come back, he will be delighted that we have escaped the enemy, or found our way out of the swamps, and won’t ask too closely why it took us so long.”

“There are advantages to being useful,” Dirk agreed.

The outlaws’ camp surprised them all. It was a regular village, hidden deep within the greenwood, surrounded by trunks and roofed over by leafy boughs. Men went about their tasks—fletching arrows, skinning game, thatching roofs, practicing archery. A few children ran here and there in some frantic game, and there and here, a woman stirred a pot or roasted a fowl over a fire.

“Ah!” Mama cried. “Decent cooking!” And she bustled Dicea off to the nearest campfire, to chatter merrily with the woman there. The cook looked up in surprise, then smiled and answered a question. In minutes, they were all laughing and gossiping.

Banhael shook his head in wonder. “Women! Total strangers, and they’re god-sibs in five minutes!”

“My mother has a way of making friends,” Coll told him.

“She does indeed!”

“You do seem to have quite a few women,” Gar pointed out, looking about the camp. “Why were you so desperate to find more?”

“Because all my men want them, but only one out of five has one,” Banhael answered shortly. “There’s constant fighting over it. I could almost wish for a priest to come and set some marriages, so my men would know which women were taken and not to be stolen away!”

“Your men?” Gar turned back to him. “Are you the leader of this whole motley crew, then?”

“I am,” Banhael answered, with a level, defiant glare. “How fortunate,” Gar said mildly. “Then I won’t have to fight twice.”

“Would you dare?” Banhael demanded. “I’ve four times as many men around me now!”

“The ones you had didn’t do you much good before,” Gar pointed out.

Banhael glared at him, but something distracted him—maybe the rattle as Dirk loosened his rapier in its scabbard—and he turned away with a snarl.

“Where is this guest’s hut you told us about?” Dirk asked.

“Come along, I’ll show you,” Banhael grunted. “Such honored guests should be led by the captain himself!”

He took them to a but that was almost identical to all the others. Dirk ducked inside while Gar strolled around the outside, inspecting. “Needs a bit of new thatch, doesn’t it?”

“You’re welcome to make it better any way you want,” Banhael grunted. “Not much need to worry about the roof, though—there’s no sign of rain tonight.”

“True, but we might want to stay a few days.” Gar waited just long enough to see dismay register on Banhael’s face, then turned to Dirk, who was coming out the door. “How is it?”

“Needs sweeping,” Dirk informed him, “and we might want to shovel the ashes out of the hearth, in case we’re here long enough for the weather to turn cold.”

“But it’s summer!” Banhael protested.

“I like to plan ahead,” Gar informed him. “I believe there was some mention of dinner?”

“Cook it yourself!” Banhael snapped, and turned away.

Gar watched him go, amused. “How soon do you think he’ll gather his men to attack us?”

“Tomorrow night,” Dirk said immediately. “I think he’ll let us be for tonight, and hope we’ll go away all by ourselves.”

“That might not be a bad idea.” Coll glanced nervously around the camp, his gaze returning to his sister and mother.

“There is some merit to the notion,” Gar admitted, “but we do want to give the losing soldiers time to sneak home, and get out of our way.”

“On the other hand,” Dirk reminded him, “we don’t want to be gone too long, or the king will think we’ve been up to something.”

“Why not give him grounds for concern?” Gar mused. “Besides, we might not choose to go back to him.”

“You’re not thinking of staying in this den of thieves!” Coll protested.

“No,” Gar admitted, “but there are other possibilities … I see these outlaw women, at least, are generous.”

Coll turned, and saw Mama and Dicea coming up laden with food: Dicea carried a small kettle. “How hospitable they are!” Mama exclaimed. “I’ve two new recipes to try out right away! And it was so good of Pinella to lend us her spare pot!”

Coll stared, and Gar shook his head, marveling. “You forage amazingly, goodwife.”

For a moment, a tinge of sadness showed. “Call me ‘goodwife’ no longer, sir—no, not since my husband died in the earl’s wars, God rest his soul. Call me ‘mother,’ or ‘widow.’ ” Then she brightened. “But for now, call me ‘cook’! Come, Dicea, I see a hearth of stones! Kindle a fire and set up the tripod!”

“I can do that much, at least.” Coll gathered up some dry grass and a few sticks and settled down with flint and steel.

Mama gazed down at him fondly. “He’s a good boy, sir. On the headstrong side, yes, and he does have a temper, but he’s a good boy.”

“We’ve found him so,” Gar agreed. “You’ve made friends quickly enough, Mother.”

“Oh, they’re so kindly, sir! Even eager, I might say, for the company of an older woman! They’ve been reft from their mothers, you see—from their villages, for that matter, all of them, or so Pinella tells me.”

“Does she really?” Gar said, with keen interest—almost admiration, it seemed to Coll. “I would have thought they were outlaws themselves.”

“Well, some of them are, sir. They fled to the forest rather than go to the bed of a cruel knight, then found themselves bundled into the blankets of a bandit instead.” Mama saddened a little. “Some fled because they were charged with stealing, and would rather take their chances with wild beasts than lose a hand—but I don’t know as they thought of the beasts who went on two legs. Indeed, some of them are girls who were foolish enough to venture into the woods alone, and were stolen away to be an outlaw’s consort whether they would or no.”

“Foolish indeed.” But Dicea sounded angry.

“I thought everybody knew about the outlaws in the forest,” Dirk said, and Gar shot him a curious glance.

“All do, sir, all do,” Mama sighed, “but young girls never think they might be as hard as the knights or their soldiers. Still, men are men, and what can a woman do with them?”

“Try to tame them, of course,” Gar said, and Mama looked up in surprise. “Why, so they do, sir, though I never thought to hear a man admit it! But even as you say, some of the women have settled down with one man only, borne him children, and become wives in all but name—and in that too! Though without a priest to bless the union, other men keep challenging their husband’s right”

“And if he’s a bad husband, she’s tempted to change partners,” Dirk said dryly. “That’s where you get the really nasty fights.”

“True, sir, though there’s always fighting over the women who haven’t yet managed to get a man to themselves.”

“Let me guess,” Dirk said. “It’s the prettiest ones who have managed the common-law marriages.”

Mama frowned. “An odd term, sir, though I doubt not it will serve—if there were a law common to all serfs, not set upon them by their lords. Yet you guess wrongly, for it isn’t the most beautiful women who wed. Indeed, many here are beauties, or they would not have needed to flee the lords, but what cares a man about beauty, when there are so few women?”

Dirk nodded. “Nice if you can get it, but not exactly vital. So what does determine who gets married?”

Mama shrugged. “Those who make a man most yearn for them, sir—by their conduct, I suppose, though I notice the ‘wives’ are the older women.”

“Yes, must be well into their twenties,” Dirk sighed. “Y’know, Gar, the whole setup seems very familiar.”

“Familiar?” Mama frowned, looking from one knight to the other. “How so?”

“Like an outlaw band he knew at home, I think,” Gar explained, “and so did I.”

“ ‘Home’ for these gentlemen was very far away, Mama,” Coll explained.

“Very,” Dirk agreed, his voice flat. “But there was a band there that we spent some time with, whose captain was a woman.”

“A woman?” Mama stared. “Captain of an outlaw band? How could she make her men mind?”

“By sheer force of personality,” Gar told her, “coupled with an unfailingly fair and accurate sense of judgment, and very high intelligence.”

“Even so, I marvel that a woman could rise to rule men!”

“She was a very exceptional woman,” Gar agreed, “and would have been so in any society, anywhere.”

“Did she not bend men by power of beauty?” Dicea asked.

“No, because she didn’t have any,” Dirk answered. “She was plain, and very fat. They called her ‘Lapin,’ which means ‘rabbit,’ because she taught her men to run and hide from the lords’ men when they didn’t stand an even chance of winning.”

“Wise advice,” Coll grunted.

“Yes, wasn’t it? So her band survived and grew, while the others were killed off. After a few years, she virtually ruled the forest.”

“I don’t see any such wisdom in Banhael.” Coll frowned at the outlaw leader, who was cuffing one of his men, then roaring an order.

“No, so I’ve no doubt he’ll only last until someone smarter comes along,” Gar said. “But he’s a good fighter, and canny in his ambushes, as you’ve found out all too well, so his band has grown and lasted long enough for some of the men to harry and start families.”

Coll pursed his lips, frowning. “So as long as he wins and keeps them alive, they’ll listen to him?”

Gar nodded. “The real test of an outlaw leader, I suppose—simple survival.”

“Yes, and survival is what being an outlaw is all about,” Gar agreed. “In fact, if you have oppressive lords with unfair laws, and punishments so harsh that a man has less to lose by fleeing and hiding than by submitting to punishment, it’s inevitable that you’ll have outlaws in the forest.”

“Yes, provided that you have forests so big they’re impossible to police,” Dirk said.

Gar nodded. “Or mountains so high and rugged that any army going in will be cut down man by man before they can fight a pitched battle—or deserts or glaciers where a man who knows the territory can outlast any soldier. Yes, I daresay outlaw bands are inevitable indeed.”

“But having a leader like Lapin, who did what Lapin did, is anything but sure,” Dirk said somberly.

“Why, what did Lapin do?” Mama asked brightly.

Dirk glanced at Gar, who stood immobile a moment, then gave a cautious nod. Dirk sighed and turned back to Mama. “Lapin led her bandits in a revolt against the lords,” he said, “at the same time that a dozen other bands rose up.”

Dicea gasped; Coll stared, feeling the hair rise on the nape of his neck; and Mama quavered, “How slowly did she die?”

“Not at all,” Dirk answered. “In fact, she’s still alive, and doing quite well, thank you. She’s the head of all the rebels, and they’re the government of the plan … uh, kingdom, now.”

“But what of the lords?” Dicea asked, eyes round. “There were a few good ones,” Dirk admitted. “The rest are dead.”

Coll’s head swam with the audacity, the enormity of it! Serfs overthrow the lords? No, impossible! Surely impossible!

But if it weren’t …

“A deed of heroes!” Mama breathed, and Dicea echoed her. “Was this in an age of legend, sir?”

“Well, no, actually,” Dirk said, shifting uncomfortably. “It was six months ago. But far away, mind you! Very far away! And the rebels had a lot of help, from a wizard.”

“Two wizards,” Gar muttered, “one of whom was a legend.”

Dirk shot him a dark look. “But one of whom was very much alive.”

“Yes, he was, wasn’t he?” Gar stared straight at Dirk. “You aren’t thinking what I think you’re thinking,” Dirk said, his voice hollow.

“Oh, but I am,” Gar said softly.