A Wizard in War

7

Gar began work on Banhael during dinner that very night. The outlaws had roasted a deer, and everyone sat around the center of the encampment, sharing the meat and whatever roots, nuts, and berries the women had gathered.

“Are all your meals like this?” Gar asked. “The whole band eating together, I mean.”

“Dinner, yes,” Banhael grunted. “Otherwise, it’s up to each man to find what he can. Those with women fare better than single men.”

“Yes, women do seem to make life better, if they care enough to do more than warm a man’s bed,” Gar reflected. “In fact, I’m surprised to find your band so well established that you can have women.”

Banhael took the left-handed compliment with another grunt, but he puffed himself up a little. “We’re the largest band in the forest, sir knight, and we’re hidden deep, with sentries always on watch. Yes, my men can offer a woman safety, and some assurance of a good future.”

“Yes, as long as the game stays plentiful,” Gar mused, “and the other bands don’t join together against you.”

Banhael looked up, startled. “Why should they do that?”

“To make sure you won’t attack any one of them,” Gar returned. “That’s why you started building your band, wasn’t it?”

Banhael turned away to frown at the fire. “I suppose it was, now that you mention it—join up or die.’ ”

Gar nodded. “Very much the sort of thing, yes. After all, what’s the surest way to guarantee that someone else doesn’t attack you?”

“Attack him first,” Banhael grunted. “I guess it is pretty clear, isn’t it?”

“Paranoid, too,” Dirk muttered, but Gar went on easily. “Very clear. In fact, I suspect that’s how the first lords came to power.”

“The lords? Attack first? ‘Join or die’?” Banhael looked up in surprise, then turned thoughtful, nodding slowly. “Yes, that makes sense. I’d always thought they were born lords right from the first.”

“That’s what they want you to believe,” Dirk said with a cynical smile.

Gar nodded. “Every noble house began with a man who wasn’t born to power, but seized it by force of arms.”

“Well, I suppose knights should know.” Banhael still sounded doubtful.

“But not too well, you mean?” Gar gave him a sardonic smile. “If we really understood it, we would seize power for ourselves?”

“Of course, it could be that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Dirk pointed out, “only you’re seeing us when we’re just starting out.”

“And need a small army of your own to begin with, eh? Such as a band of outlaws in a forest? Do you think I’ve made myself a little army just so you can take it and use it?” Banhael demanded.

Gar nodded approval. “You do understand us, don’t you?”

Yes, Banhael understood them, Coll realized—as long as they led him to it, step by step.

“I’ve no lust for cleared lands and tilled fields,” Banhael snapped. “The greenwood is enough for me,”

“Yes, but how much of it?” Gar demanded.

There was a shout; they looked up as a drum began to beat, and one of the younger women began to move her feet in time to it. A young man stepped out to join her, then another, and older outlaws took up instruments, one a willow pipe, another a sort of fiddle.

“Enough of this talk of armies and lords.” Banhael turned to watch the dancers with glittering eyes. “Life is for pleasure.”

“True,” Gar agreed, “though sometimes you have to fight hard to have anything to enjoy.”

“Or work hard to gather or raise it,” Dirk pointed out. Coll felt a rush of gratitude—all this talk of armies and fighting was making him nervous. Hadn’t Gar and Dirk said that was what they wanted to stop?

They certainly seemed to have forgotten it for the time being. Gar was clapping his hands in time to the beat, and Dirk was stepping out to join the dancers. With a gleam in her eye, Dicea rose to join them, and the rest of the evening was spent in revelry—and, for Coll, in worry, for he knew his sister was doomed to disappointment—Dirk didn’t have the look of a man who was ready to settle down—not yet, nor for a long time to come. Neither did Gar, for that matter—and it did matter, since Coll had seen her eyeing the bigger knight, too. In fact, there was a quality of aloofness about Gar that belied the friendliness and occasional warmth of his words, a sense of standing back and watching the life that went on about him without really being part of it. Nonsense, of course, considering the number of fights Coll had seen Gar embroiled in, or the fact that he had led Dirk in rescuing Coll himself—or the battle they had just won, which Gar had virtually commanded. Yes, it was nonsense, but the feeling was there nonetheless.

Banhael brought up the issue himself over breakfast, or what passed for it—black bread and cheese, washed down with warm ale. “Look you,” he said truculently, “it’s plain flat impossible to fight the lords. I know, for two years ago, I gathered fifty men who were eager for revenge and came out of the woodland to seize a village. The lord led his knights and men-at-arms against us and killed half my men outright. The other half were lucky to escape to the greenwood, and it was two years and four victories over smaller bands before they had any faith in me again.”

Coll didn’t like the sound of that. Trying to seize a village? Why, Banhael was no better than the lords themselves—or, he realized with a shock, the lords were no better than Banhael, and wasn’t that what Gar had been saying last night?

No, he had been saying a bit more, at least to judge by the way he was nodding at Banhael’s words and the earnest attention he gave the bandit chief. “So you had the courage to try! But what are fifty archers and quarterstaff men against armored knights and soldiers with halberds? How many of them were there—a hundred to your fifty? Two hundred?”

“Twice our number at least,” Banhael grunted, “but what does that matter? A lord will always have more soldiers at his call than I will have bandits, and trained warriors, too, every one of them!”

“Then train your men,” Gar retorted. “I can see they’re skilled archers already. How many bands are there in this forest? A dozen? A score?”

“Only two or three like ours,” Banhael countered, “large enough to build huts and care for children. But there are sixteen others that I know of, though most are only half a dozen men who scrabble for a living.”

“Perhaps two hundred men in all,” Gar summarized. “And there are a dozen forests in this land of yours…”

“Twelve?” Banhael looked up, startled.

“Fourteen, actually,” Dirk told him.

Coll stared. How did two men from so far away, who were so ignorant of this land in every other way, know what even he himself didn’t? And so sure of it, too!

“If there are as many men in each of those forests as there are here,” Gar told him, “you’ll have twenty-five hundred men and more. Not a great number, no, but enough to win a few battles, if you fight like outlaws, not soldiers.”

“Like outlaws?” Banhael scowled. “How do you mean?”

“Soldiers fight by lining up in an open field, then charging at each other. Outlaws fight by leaping out from behind trees, striking a blow or loosing an arrow, then leaping back.”

“Oh, that way!” Banhael said in surprise. “Well, of course. But how do you hide behind a tree in an open field?”

“You find what you can—a ditch, a barn, a bush, or even bring some greenery with you. But why should you fight in a field?”

“Because that’s where the soldiers are!”

Gar shook his head. “Let them stand there alone all day, while you wait for them among the trees. If you wait long enough, they’ll either go away or come in after you.”

“Why, so they will, won’t they?” Banhael said, wide-eyed. “But what good does that do if you’re trying to take a village from its lord?”

“There, you send the villagers to the forest, and have your men hide behind the huts—or hide in the forest yourselves, and chop the soldiers to bits when they come in after you. Then you take the village.”

Banhael guffawed, slapping his knee. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you? But how can an outlaw fight a soldier, man to man, and win, eh? The soldier is trained to it! ”

“As I’ve already told you.” Gar spread his hands. “Train your men as well.”

“Easy to say.” Banhael scowled. “How do you do it?”

“Let me show you.” Gar rose and stepped out into the center of the village clearing. “Bring me a dozen men.” Banhael smiled, wide and wolfish. “Wawn! Brock! Lod! Ang! Bring each three men with you, and go to Sir Gar there.”

Coll stared as the men lined up facing one another as Gar gave them directions. Did the giant really know what he was doing, know what pack of hounds he was unleashing? Coll didn’t doubt for a minute that Banhael would take all Earl Insol’s lands if he could—and everything considered, Coll wasn’t all that sure that he wouldn’t rather be ruled by Earl Insol than by Banhael.

Lord Banhael? He shuddered at the thought, and watched Gar’s fighting lessons with misgiving. He was teaching them to use quarterstaves as spears, Coll saw, and knew that soon enough, these expert staff fighters would be the equal of any soldier who knew a spear only as a stabbing weapon. If Gar went on to teach them how to use their swords properly, could this ragtag batch of escaped serfs really challenge a lord’s army and win?

Yes, if the army weren’t too big. But the lords had far more soldiers than the forests had outlaws, even if all the bandits could be made to obey one single lord. Coll relaxed. Training these outlaws might make trouble for the lords on their own estates, but would scarcely overthrow them.

Why, then, was Gar training them?

Then Coll noticed that he wasn’t the only one watching the training. The other outlaws were gathering around, watching the session with keen interest …

… and so was Dicea.

She sat a short distance away from Coll, watching the training with shining eyes—no, Coll saw, watching Gar! He looked again at her face, the glowing smile, the fluttering lashes, and felt his heart sinking deeper. He tried to console himself with the notion that if she was smitten with both Gar and Dirk, she couldn’t be interested enough in either one to be terribly hurt—but it really wasn’t much comfort at all; he loved his sister dearly, but he didn’t doubt for a minute that she was quite capable of being in love with two men at the same time—or, well, not with the men, exactly, so much as with the idea of being a knight’s lady.

If she was, she was doomed to disappointment. Coll gazed at his sister, feeling his heart twist, and hoped that she could learn to guard her feelings as well as the outlaws were learning to guard their bodies.

Coll had known it would be inevitable that Gar would call upon him to demonstrate his combined spear-and-quarterstaff skills, then put him to work helping train the men in the new sort of unarmed combat he was teaching them, where feet counted for as much as fists, and open hands chopped like hatchets. In particular, Coll had learned how to shift from punching to wrestling with the tricks Dirk had shown him, and he was far enough ahead of the outlaws to do some real teaching. After two days, Coll was amazed at the outlaws’ change in attitude. The women had taken Mama and Dicea to their hearts from the first, of course, but the men began to be friendly with Coll, chatting and inviting him to practice his archery with them. They were impressed by his skill there, too, and by the second day, they were joking and gossiping with him as though they were old friends.

Still, they made no attempt to hide the lustful glances they gave Dicea, and Coll knew better than to try to stop her from flirting with every man in sight—it seemed as natural to her as breathing, and he wasn’t always sure she knew she was doing it. These woman-hungry lust buckets didn’t understand that, though, and Coll braced himself for the fight he knew was coming.

Before it did, he found he was going.

On the morning of the third day, Gar declared, “They know enough now to pull themselves together, and draw in more bands.”

“Read: take over,” Dirk said.

Gar shrugged. “Banhael’s band already has enough reputation to pull in recruits of their own accord, especially when winter comes. The next convoy a lord sends through the forest will never reach its destination, and Banhael’s band will grow in reputation. The other bands may not join up, but they’ll do what he says.”

“Is this truly a good thing?” Coll asked.

“Good enough for our purposes,” Gar said, but didn’t explain. “Time for us to move along and spread the word that the lords can be beaten.”

“But isn’t that a lie?” Coll protested.

“Oh, no,” Dirk said softly. “Be very sure, it’s not a lie.”

“But there aren’t enough outlaws to fight all those soldiers! ”

“There are, when you consider that most of the soldiers spend most of their time fighting one another,” Dirk pointed out. “Besides, outlaws aren’t the only ones who can fight.”

“Who, then?” Coll said, completely at a loss.

“Let’s go find out, shall we?” Gar said quietly. “Or would you prefer to stay here, with the outlaws?”

“Don’t feel you have to come,” Dirk said quickly. “I won’t lie—we’d much rather have you with us—but we’ll understand if you want to stay. It is more secure than the open road, after all.”

Coll agreed with that, but he saw a big, burly outlaw, one of the ones who shaved once a week and bathed once a month, pausing to eye Dicea as she moved about the cooking fire, and since Gar and Dirk were watching, she was at her most graceful. “I would like to,” he said slowly, “but my mother and sister may not, and I can’t leave them alone again.”

“Of course not,” Gar agreed. He turned to the women. “Will you come with us, Mother, lass?”

“Ah, me!” Mama sighed. “It would indeed be pleasant to stay in the greenwood, and I would certainly feel quite safe myself—but Dicea…”

“Don’t you dare leave me here!” Dicea exclaimed. “There isn’t a man among them who hasn’t been undressing me with his eyes, and with you gone, they wouldn’t hesitate a minute to do it with their hands!” She glanced at the two knights out of the corner of her eye as she said it.

Coll glanced, too, and saw Gar only nodding judiciously. Dirk said, “No, you’d better come with us.”

“We will certainly be glad of your company,” Gar said. “Coll’s advice has been invaluable, and the presence of women always sweetens the day.”

Dicea blushed and lowered her eyes, and even Mama flushed with pleasure. Coll wondered if the big knight knew that what he intended as mere gallantry, Dicea might take as flirtation.

So that afternoon, they bade good-bye to Banhael and his men. The leader was quite surprised, and tried to talk them into staying. “You will be welcome, you will be more than welcome!” He shot a covetous glance at Dicea, and Coll could have killed the old goat—he had a woman and three cubs at home! “You don’t need to worry about attack, Sir Gar…”

“I know.” Gar clapped Banhael on the shoulder. “I’ve come to trust you amazingly in just these two days, Banhael.”

Which meant that it would be amazing if he trusted Banhael at all, Coll thought. On the other hand, he could trust Banhael, too—trust him to try to bundle Dicea into his bed the moment her brother and the two knights were out of sight. Come to think of it, Gar could trust Banhael quite a lot, indeed—trust him to stick a knife in his back as soon as he didn’t need Gar anymore, trust him to betray the knights at every turn, trust him to try to twist the knights’ presence into a way of gaining mastery over the forest, then over the wider world …

“But there are other forests we must visit, other bands we must tell about you and your resolve,” Gar explained. Banhael covered a quick look of alarm; he had planned to be the bandit leader to control all the forests. However, Gar’s second phrase seemed to reassure him—a little.

“We have to go looking for other groups of men who want to stop the lords’ oppression,” Dirk explained. “If it all comes down to numbers, we’ve got to dredge them up.”

Gar nodded. “There are more serfs than lords, after all. There must be some way to arm and raise more of them than the lords can.”

Banhael looked skeptical, but all he said was, “Well, if I can’t dissuade you, then I can wish you well. Vinal! Oram! Guide these guests out of the forest by the most secret path!”

So they set off out of the settlement with Banhael’s parting gift—another stallion and two ponies, for the women to ride.

And, of course, his guides to follow. Coll rode with his spear in his fist, and noticed that Gar and Dirk each kept a hand close to his sword. In spite of it all, though, they rode unthreatened to the edge of the forest, where Vinal and Oram touched their forelocks and Vinal said, “Yonder lies the pastureland and the plowed fields, sir knights.”

“We wish you well, and so does Banhael,” Oram said. “Remember, if things go wrong out there, you’ll always have friends and a home in here.”

Coll hoped they wouldn’t have to live in it.

They wouldn’t, at least for the moment. As the afternoon waned into twilight, they came upon a ragtag band of people clustered around a campfire, backed by two oxcarts. They looked up warily as Gar and Dirk rode up, but some of the women glanced behind the knights and saw two peasant women, which seemed to reassure them somewhat. The oldest man, a hale and hearty greybeard, stood and came toward them, sweeping off his hat to bow. “Good evening, good sirs! Can a poor band of mountebanks aid you in any way.”

“Mountebanks!” Gar and Dirk exchanged a startled glance, then turned back to the man with slow smiles. “Are you players?” Dirk asked.

“We have that privilege, sir.”

“Actors who perform plays?” Gar clarified.

“Well, we do try,” the man said with a self-effacing smile.

“Then we would like to travel with you to your next performance, so that we may watch,” Gar told him. “Would that trouble you?”

“No—no, not at all,” the man said, with a look that verged on panic. The other players stirred uneasily, trying to hide their alarm.

“Oh, yes it does,” Dirk said with a smile. “We’ll camp near you, then, but not with you, and follow you in the morning.” He turned his horse away, and Coll turned with him—but his gaze lingered on one young woman, a redheaded, sloe-eyed beauty, who noticed his interest and lost her alarm in a slow, measuring smile.

Dicea frowned and moved her pony forward. “Then let us find a resting place quickly, while there is still light.”

“Yes, of course!” Dirk jolted himself out of his reverie. “We’ll see you in the morning then, players.”

“Good night to you, sir knights,” the greybeard said, obviously relieved, and the party moved on—but Coll glanced back twice, and felt his heart leap when he saw that the redhead’s gaze stayed fixed on him.

Gar pulled them off the road into a small clearing. The earth was beaten hard, and there were two rings of blackened stones with the evidence of many fires. “This seems to be a virtual way station. Did you bring canvas, Dirk?”

“Canvas? Sure.” Dirk dismounted and pulled a thick square of folded cloth from a saddlebag. So did Gar. They pitched camp, and Mama set herself to working wonders with dried meat, some roots that she grubbed up, and a kettleful of water. Scarcely had she set the pot over the fire, though, when she exclaimed with annoyance, “Savory! There’s none to be found. I’ll just walk back to those players, and see if they have any.”

“You shouldn’t go alone, Mama,” Coll said quickly. “I’ll go with you.” He fell in beside his mother, his heartbeat quickening at the thought of red hair and huge eyes. He heard scraps of talk behind him.

“Now, why would the good widow do that?” Gar wondered. “Surely the herbs cannot be so very important!” Dicea turned to him, forcing a smile that became real as she gazed at him. “It isn’t the savory she really goes for, sir—it’s the other travelers.”

“Oh, of course.” Gar nodded. “I expect the company of other women would be comforting. Are you sure you don’t want to go with her?”

Dicea gazed up at him, and her eyelids drooped. “By your leave, sir, I’d sooner stay here with yourself and Sir Dirk.”

Coll frowned, a little nettled at not being even an afterthought, which he always had been, as far as Dicea was concerned. He sighed, glad that he wasn’t going to have to stay to watch his sister flirt with the impassive giant.