Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion) (19 page)

“An’ he had no childer …”

“He had one who lived,” Arianya said. “His daughter, Rahel.”

“But no one after.”

“No. She could not have children; she had been hurt by the magelords.”

“ ’Tis sadder that way,” the woman said. “Marshal says we’re all Gird’s childer in a way, but I wish … it doesn’t feel the same.”

“There’s a scroll Paksenarrion brought us,” Arianya said. “It records a dream Gird said he had before the Battle of Greenfields. He thought he was being told he would die in that battle but it would bring peace for his people … and he accepted that. But he did not die then. He felt he’d done something wrong. Dreams are not always about what we think they’re about. I believe his dream was about what was coming later, not what came then. He gave his life to bring peace to his people, and for a time it did. But people do not always want peace as much as they want their own way.”

“That be true, Marshal-General,” Salis said. “And that’s why I made Gird’s Cow to remind them. Quarrelin’ and hatin’ don’t help none, but carin’ for a cow or a person’s much alike.” He looked around. “But … tell you true, I didn’t imagine this … Would Gird’s Cow be better outside?”

It would be better unmade and something more cowlike made instead, Arianya thought, but Salis’s earnest goodwill kept her from saying that. The thought lingered—she’d never seen a life-size statue, but
could
someone make a cow? Of what—of clay? Carved in a block of stone? Something more like a cow? Would Salis mind?

“I think this may not be the best place for it,” she said. “We should pray about that, don’t you think?”

He nodded. “That be right, Marshal-General. That’s what we should do.”

Together, the little group moved to the far end of the Hall, where light shone through the round window. Arianya knelt, as she had so often. In the still air, the smell of sweaty human and cow grew stronger … the cow smell gradually predominating. What could that mean? The smell diminished, vanished, replaced by the fragrance of a forest. She didn’t understand that, either. But questions she could ask Salis rose in her mind and some ideas about Gird’s Cow—in this or another form.

When she stood, the forest scent vanished. In silence, she led Salis and his followers back outside. The cowhide-covered shape on the wagon looked even more ridiculous now. Salis stopped, staring at it. “Marshal-General … it’s not right.”

“Salis?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m just an old farmer … I was stupid.”

“No,” she said. “You were not, and are not, stupid. Please tell me what troubles you.”

“That’s … I wanted it to be Gird’s Cow, but it’s not. That—in there—praying—I saw it.”

“What?”

“I saw Gird’s Cow. A dun cow, just like I always heard, and there was Gird, plain as day, with his hand on her neck.”

The hair stood up on Arianya’s arms. “You … 
saw
Gird?”

“Yes.” The battered hat came off again, and he rubbed his head with his other hand. “Didn’t you?”

“Not like that,” Arianya said. Should she say she smelled it? Probably not.

“So this—” Salis gestured at his wagon. “This is just a cowhide over some sticks and straw.” He paused, glaring at it. “I thought it was enough—but I kept having to tell people what it was. If it was really Gird’s Cow, they’d know right off, wouldn’t they?”

There was no other way; she had to tell him. “I smelled Gird’s
Cow,” Arianya said. She tried not to see the look on Marshal Celis’s face. “In the High Lord’s Hall, just now—that’s what I was granted, to smell it and know that Gird approved.”

Salis looked worried. “You’re sure it wasn’t just us?”

“Yes,” Arianya said. “And I think your idea—of reminding people that Gird was about caring for people first, not hating and killing—was good. I think your idea of an image that would remind them of that was good. We have so many stories of Gird fighting—Gird Strongarm, Gird’s Club, and so on—that the Gird who loved cows and cared for cows and his family—isn’t that much in mind.”

“But—but that—” Another look at the wagon and the cowish shape.

“It was the best you could do, wasn’t it?” Arianya said. He nodded. “Then it was a gift that Gird accepted. I think that’s what your vision of him meant. With maybe a suggestion to let others help you do better.”

“But who—” He looked at her. “You? You would help?”

“We need something,” Arianya said. “I’ve been praying since the troubles started for something, anything, that might unite the people in peace. I never thought of a cow, but
you
did. And look—people who agreed with you already.” She waved an arm at his followers.

“But I told them—”

“And they believed you were right. Salis—you may well be the answer I asked the gods to bring. You and your—Gird’s—cow.”

The look on High Marshal Celis’s face offered no encouragement; Arianya looked at the stuffed shape again. “Your wooden medallions—who whittled those?”

“Benis,” Salis said. Arianya looked at the group; one of the younger men nodded, blushing. “Benis whittles the bowls and spoons in our vill, as well as pegs and such, Marshal-General. He can whittle most anything.”

“They look very cowlike,” Arianya said. “Benis, would you whittle one for me?”

He turned redder. “Yes’m. Be glad to.”

“Salis, let’s move your wagon into one of the stables for safety.
And then let’s talk about how to make Gird’s Cow and your ideas do Gird’s work.”

“Marshal-General—could we come back after eating … we didn’t stop on the way up the hill—”

“Come to the kitchens,” Arianya said. She led them through the small garden, where they stopped to wash in the fountain, and then directly into the kitchens. Soon they were all seated at one of the tables, tearing open loaves of fresh bread as the cooks sliced cheese and meat.

Arianya watched as they ate. All of them but three came from the same vill. “Dakin’s from Rosehedge,” Salis said through a mouthful of bread and cheese, waving at the darkest of the lot. “Married in, didn’t you, Daki?”

“My grandda’s from east somewhere,” Dakin said.

“Clothi’s from Sheepwalk,” Salis went on. “And her cousin Gadin as well.” Those two nodded at Arianya.

Arianya nodded back, thinking hard. Could the idea of Gird’s Cow help stop the violence? Maybe. She couldn’t be sure.

Arvid came into the kitchen—an unusual time for him—and held up his hand. A note, probably from his Marshal. Arianya smiled and waved him over to the table. “Have you eaten, Arvid?”

“Marshal-General, I’ve brought you a message and am expected to bring one back. There’s a situation.”

Arianya glanced at the others. Salis was staring at Arvid, a spoon halfway to his mouth.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I must answer Arvid’s Marshal.” She hoped it was his Marshal. “Come along, Arvid.”

Behind them, as Arvid led the way out of the kitchen, she heard, “It
is
him. Him and that gnome—”

“What’s the problem?” she asked on the way to the stairs.

Arvid handed her the note but spoke as she opened it. “Group of rowdies went through Marshal Hudder’s grange and took the children to test for magery. They’re holed up in Master Talin’s wool warehouse and say they’re not coming out until they’ve—” His voice changed to a snarl. “—‘dealt with what the Marshal-General got no guts for.’ ” In his own tones again, he said, “They claim they’ve got a perfect test for magery.”

“Where’s Marshal Hudder?”

“They attacked him and his yeoman-marshals, beat them badly, and left them tied up in his office with the door barred on the outside. Mador may die—head wound. Hudder’s got broken ribs and an arm, and Nadin’s got two broken arms.”

“Who’s with them?”

“Marshal Gantol and an herbwoman. Rivergate Grange’s yeomen are guarding the grange.”

The smell of cow—the cow and cow manure both—overwhelmed her for a moment. No cows here … Why couldn’t Gird just say what he wanted?

Arvid had a faraway look.

“Arvid?”

“It’s him,” he said. “Gird. And he says bring the cow.”

“Bring—”

“The cow. And he’s smiling.”

Arianya turned back to the kitchen. The little group was still eating, though more slowly. To Salis she said, “I need you. All of you. We need to take Gird’s Cow with us.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Marshal Hudder’s grange was one of the lowest in the city, backing onto the remains of the old city wall. The wagon with Gird’s Cow had to be held back by ropes on its way down through the streets but arrived safely, the cow figure still intact. A crowd surrounded the grange, many of them parents of the children who had been taken. Some of the women were wailing, arms around one another’s shoulders. Men muttered; most held staves.

“Marshal-General!” That was Marshal Stoll. “You’ve come!”

“As soon as I heard,” Arianya said. “How’s Hudder? And Mador?”

“Bad,” he said. “Marshal Gantol is praying a healing, but you know when the headbone’s split—”

“Where are the child thieves?” she asked. “I heard in a woolhouse?”

“Talin’s. They broke in, knocked down t’old man and his daughter, pushed ’em out, and barred the door. You know where ’tis?”

“Yes. How many children?”

“All that was in school here, like every morning. That would be fifteen or so. And they say they’ll fire the woolhouse if we try to break in.”

Around the tall blank front of the woolhouse—its door shut, the windows shuttered—surged an angry, frightened crowd, growing larger by the moment. Gird’s Cow was a momentary distraction—enough to quiet them so Arianya could hear a ranting voice berating the crowd through the door’s peephole. Whoever that was caught sight of her.

“There’s the problem, yeomen! Calls herself Marshal-General but lets evil mages live. Gird wouldn’t a done that! Gird knew magery’s evil. She’s weak; Gird was strong!”

Behind and around her the crowd growled, a sound that raised the hair on her neck.

“Gird wouldn’t hurt children!” she yelled. “Hurting children is evil.”

“
Magery
is evil. Child mages is evil. Like rats—kill’m young!”

The crowd heaved itself forward a little. A screech from nearby: “My Suli’s not evil! She never done nothin’ mean!”

“You come too close, we burn the house and all in it!”

The pressure of bodies, the smell of rage and terror mixed … and no way at all to break into the woolhouse that Arianya could see.

“I can get in without their knowing,” Arvid said quietly. She hadn’t noticed that he’d come that close; he spoke practically in her ear. “But I’ll need my cloak.” He glanced at the cow. “And a distraction. Can you have them sing about Gird’s Cow? Over and over?”

She looked at him. That narrow handsome face did not look like the Arvid she’d known these past quarters, the peaceful scribe, but even more dangerous than she’d seen the night he had stood between her and her attackers. The way he must have looked in his days as a thief-enforcer. But she had no one else. “How long to get your cloak?”

He flicked fingers where she alone could see them.

“Go, then.”

A wool warehouse was nothing like so difficult a target as a thieves’ Guildhouse … except it was broad daylight, the streets full of alert and angry citizens. Arvid began three buildings away in an alley no one seemed to be watching. Buildings here were old and had once been barracks for magelord troops or warehouses for their stores, then merchants’ homes and stores. A staircase, built later, led up to the roof, but he preferred a less obvious way up in case the child stealers had a lookout up there.

Arvid slid into a narrow crevice and went up the angle of two walls to the roof and eased over, staying back near the city wall, where he could not be seen easily from the street. A cautious look … he saw no one on any of the roofs. He picked his way over mossy slates to the next building—only a long step across from one to the other—and then with more care approached the wool warehouse. It was taller than the one he was on, but they shared a wall. At the back of the warehouse, he spotted a gap between it and the city wall, about a man-length wide. A ledge ran across from the roof he was on to a small arched opening in the back wall of the warehouse. He considered the ledge and its inviting approach to the warehouse interior. Above it, a beam projected, just like the one in the front of the warehouse, but without the block and tackle. Why was it even there?

Then he grinned. A bolt-hole, a way out … and a way to remove goods, if necessary. In the old days, a way for smugglers to move
goods over the wall without being noticed. Surely magelord troops had lived in the woolhouse once. He looked down; a long drop, but the building did extend to the wall below, leaving a blind space wide enough to fall into and no way to climb out. And—since it was on the highest floor of the warehouse, a warehouse that most people thought backed up right onto the wall—not an exit the mage-hunters were likely to know.

Still, he approached the opening with caution. Street noise now included the toneless loud singing of “Gird’s Cow” along with the angry shouts and wailing of forlorn parents. He could hear nothing when he put one of his “donkey’s ears” to the planks that filled the opening. The wood was weathered but solid, oak by the grain, clearly an actual door, though small: it had hinges on one side and a lockplate on the other.