Garivald set his hands on his hips. He knew a trimmer when he heard one. 'You can't have it both ways,' he said. 'We can't farm and fight the Algarvians at the same time. That means we've got to get food from somewhere. This is somewhere.' Even to him, though, it looked like nowhere. Next to Dargun, Zossen- nothing out of the ordinary as villages went- looked like a metropolis.
The firstman's sigh was close to a wail. 'What I really wish is, things were back the way they were before the war started. Then I wouldn't have to… worry all the time.'
Then I wouldn't have to make hard choices. That, or something close to it, had to be what he meant. And what hard choices was he contemplating? Feeding the irregulars or betraying them to the soldiers who followed false King Raniero? That was one obvious possibility.
'Everything gets remembered,' Garivald remarked, keeping his tone casual. 'Aye, that's so- everything gets remembered. When King Swemmel's inspectors come back to this part of the realm, they'll know who did what, even if something goes wrong with us. Somebody will tell them. Or do you think I'm wrong?'
By the look the firstman gave him, he was certainly loathsome, regardless of whether he was right or wrong. 'If the inspectors ever get this far again,' the fellow said.
Munderic would have blustered and bellowed. Garivald pulled a knife from his belt and started cleaning dirt from under his fingernails with the point. 'Chance you take,' he agreed, doing his best to stay mild. 'But if you think the inspectors aren't ever coming back, you never should have started feeding us in the first place.'
The firstman bit his lip. 'Curse you!' he muttered. 'You don't make things easy, do you? Aye, I want the Algarvians out, but-'
'But you don't want to do anything to make that happen,' Garivald finished, and the firstman bit his lip again. Garivald went on, 'You're not fighting. Fair enough- not everybody can fight. But if you won't fight and you won't help the folk who are fighting, what good are you?'
'Curse you,' the firstman repeated, his voice weary, hopeless. 'It almost doesn't matter who wins the stinking war. Whoever it is, we lose. Take what you need. You would anyhow.' Back before the Algarvians had hauled him out of Zossen, Garivald hadn't felt much different. He'd just wished the war would go away and leave him and his alone. But it hadn't worked like that. It wouldn't work like that here in Dargun, either.
Along with his irregulars and several pack mules borrowed from the village, he trudged toward the woods. One peasant from Dargun came along, too, to lead the mules back after they weren't needed anymore. The mules were heavily laden with sacks of beans and barley and rye. So were the men- as heavily laden as they could manage and still walk through the mud. Garivald, his back bent and creaking, didn't want to think about what would happen if a Grelzer patrol came across them. Because he didn't want to think about it, he had trouble thinking about anything else.
More irregulars met them at the edge of the woods and took the sacks the mules carried. The peasant headed off to Dargun. Garivald wondered if he should have kept him behind. Munderic might have. But Garivald didn't see much point to it. Everybody knew the irregulars denned somewhere in this forest. The peasant wouldn't find out where. As far as Garivald could see, that meant he was no great risk.
When he got back to the clearing the irregulars had reclaimed after the Grelzer raiders left the wood, he expected applause from the men and women who hadn't gone along to bring in the supplies. After all, he'd done what he set out to do. If anything, he'd done better than he expected. They wouldn't have to worry about food again for two or three weeks, maybe even a month.
And, indeed, people were staring at him and the men he led as they came into the clearing. Among the people staring were a couple of men Garivald had never seen before. He wondered if he ought to shrug the beans off his back and grab for his stick. But the irregulars who hadn't gone out to Dargun seemed to take the newcomers for granted. They wouldn't have if they'd thought the strangers meant trouble.
Obilot came up to one of those strangers and pointed toward Garivald. 'That's our leader,' she said, her voice not loud but very clear. A couple of the other irregulars nodded. Garivald straightened with pride despite the weight he carried.
Both newcomers strode toward him. They had on rock-gray tunics. At first, that meant little to him; a lot of the men in his band still wore the ever more threadbare clothes they'd used while serving in King Swemmel's army. But these tunics weren't threadbare. They weren't particularly clean, but they were new. Garivald didn't need long to realize what that meant. He let the sacks of beans down to the ground and stuck out his hand. 'You must be real soldiers!' he exclaimed.
The two men looked at each other. 'He's quick,' one of them said.
'Aye, he is,' the other agreed. 'That's efficient.' But, by the way one of his thick eyebrows rose, he might have thought Garivald too quick for his own good.
'Wonderful to see real soldiers here,' Garivald said. He knew the real fighting still lay far to the west, which led to an obvious question: 'What are you doing here?'
'Being efficient.' The Unkerlanter soldiers spoke together. The one who might have thought Garivald too efficient continued, 'We've brought you a crystal.'
'Have you, now?' Garivald wondered how efficient that was. 'Can I keep it activated without have to sacrifice somebody every month or two, the way a mage had to do back in my home village?'
Before the soldiers could answer, Sadoc's big head bobbed up and down. 'Aye, you can,' he said. 'There's a power point in these woods- not a very big one, but it's there. If it wasn't, I couldn't work any magecraft at all.'
In Garivald's view, that would have been an improvement, but he didn't say so. Instead, he gave a sharp, quick nod and turned back to the soldiers. 'All right. I guess I can run a crystal. Now what will I do with it?'
'Whatever his Majesty's officers tell you to do, by the powers above,' answered the one who'd mentioned the crystal. 'We're getting these things out to as many bands behind the Algarvian line as we can. The more you people work with the regular army, the more efficient the fight against the redheads becomes.'
That made a certain amount of sense. It also fit in with everything Garivald knew about King Swemmel: he wanted control as firmly in his fists as he could make it. The other Unkerlanter soldier said, 'We'll also bring you weapons and medicines whenever we can.'
'Good. I'm glad to hear it. We can use them.' Garivald eyed the two regulars. 'And you'll tell us what to do whenever you can.'
They looked at each other for a moment. Then they both nodded. 'Well, of course,' they said together.
Bembo walked up to Sergeant Pesaro in the constabulary barracks and said, 'Sergeant, I want some leave time.'
Pesaro looked him up and down. 'I want all sorts of things I'm not going to get,' the fat sergeant said. 'After a while, I get over it and go about my business. You'd better do the same, or you'll be sorry.'
'Have a heart!' Bembo exclaimed- not a plea likely to win success when aimed at a superior. 'I haven't been back to Tricarico in forever. Nobody's got out of Forthweg in a demon of a long time. It's not fair. It's not right.'
Pesaro opened a drawer of the desk behind which he sat. 'Here.' He handed Bembo a form- a form for requesting leave, Bembo saw. 'Fill this out, give it back to me, and I'll pass it on up the line… and it'll bloody well get ignored, the way every other leave-request form gets ignored.'
'It's not fair!' Bembo repeated.
'Life's not fair,' Pesaro answered. 'If you don't believe me, go dye your hair blond and see what looking like a Kaunian gets you. They aren't taking many leave requests from soldiers, and they aren't taking any from constables. But if you want to volunteer to go fight in Unkerlant so you have a little chance of getting leave, I've got a form for that, too.' He made as if to reach into the desk drawer again.
'Never mind,' Bembo said hastily. 'I feel better about things already.' Compared to leave in Tricarico, patrolling the streets of Gromheort wasn't so good. Compared to fighting bloodthirsty Unkerlanter maniacs, it wasn't so bad.
'There, you see?' Pesaro's round, jowly face radiated as much goodwill as a sergeant's face was ever likely to show. But he didn't keep on beaming for long. The scowl that spread over his countenance was much more in character. 'What in blazes are you doing now?'
