Power of Three (9 page)

Orban was most genial. Defeated and homeless he might be, but now Og was dead, Orban was Chief of the Otmounders. Otmound was the oldest mound on the Moor and, therefore, even without a mound, Orban was the senior Chief and more important than Gest. He blandly refused to move the forge. He insisted that his new house should be larger than Gest's. And he wanted to lead out an army straightaway to kill as many Dorig as possible.

“Well, yes. But don't let's be too hasty about it,” Gest said. “People could say the Dorig are quite justified, after the way you drove them into the water by Islaw.”

“That was years ago!” said Orban. “This attack was quite unprovoked. You don't expect me to sit here and let them get away with it, do you?”

“Of course not,” said Gest. “I just don't want to be rash. We're not prepared here. We ought to train the men.”

“There's no training like real fighting,” Orban said. “If we go quickly, we can catch them napping.”

“I don't think we dare go that quickly, not with this many people in Garholt,” Gest said. “We'd have to provision the mound first. It'll take at least one big hunt before the Feast of the Sun, and that's only for meat.” This was true. There were now double the number of people in Garholt, and the Otmounders had not brought any food with them. The supplies from the last hunt were eaten in two days. If the Feast was to be held in anything like proper style, more meat had to be got and more drink brewed. “Suppose we wait until after the Feast of the Sun,” said Gest, “and then consider attacking.”

“We can send half out for food and the rest against the Dorig,” said Orban. “Dorig crumple if you hit them hard. It doesn't take many men.”

“But that means leaving Garholt without men or provisions,” Gest pointed out. “If the Dorig attacked it, it would be completely defenseless.”

“But you've had their word they wouldn't attack—and I like their nerve!” Orban said, growing exasperated. “What's the matter with you, Gest?”

“Nothing,” said Gest. “I'd just prefer to wait at least till Autumn, when we've got food in—”

“Autumn! You expect me to sit and let the Dorig lord it in Otmound, and not do a thing about it till Autumn!” Orban bellowed.

“Now don't think I don't see your point of view—” Gest said.

“Nice of you! I don't see yours at all,” said Orban.

The argument went on for days. Orban grew more and more exasperated. Gest remained wonderfully polite and steadily reasonable, and yet, as the days went by, it became clearer and clearer to Gair as he listened that his father had no intention of fighting the Dorig if he could avoid it. Gair could not understand it. Gest seemed so craven. He had given way to Orban about the forges, he had agreed to build Orban a very large house, but, on the one matter where it really seemed to Gair that Orban had right on his side, Gest politely refused to give in. This did not seem to be the Gest out of Miri's stories at all. The gloomy, foreboding feeling Gair had had the first morning came back to him whenever he heard Orban and Gest arguing. It did not seem quite to be connected with the argument, but it troubled him more and more every time they argued. He confided it to Ayna in the end, since Adara was not prepared to listen to him.

“I'm not surprised,” said Ayna. “What with Father and Orban arguing, and Kasta saying catty things to Mother and boring everyone about Ondo, and Miri and Fandi looking daggers at one another, life's unbearable. And it's supposed to be forever! If Father doesn't agree to fight the Dorig, it
will
be forever. Gair, ask me if they're ever going, please!”

“Are the Otmounders going next month?” Gair asked.

The faraway look on Ayna's face was mixed with surprise and relief. “Yes. Thank the Sun!”

“Back to Otmound?” said Gair eagerly.

Ayna's face became even more surprised. “No. Far, far away. Oh, what a relief!”

Gair was as relieved as Ayna. It made it easier to bear with Ondo. For Ondo, as soon as he had recovered from his fright, became more odious than ever. He dared not harm Ceri, and scorned Ayna as a mere girl, so all his dislike was now aimed at Gair. He wanted to revenge himself on Gair for Ceri's Thought, so he opened hostilities by reminding Gair that he had no Gifts. But that cut both ways. Ondo took up a new line. He came swaggering up with Scodo and Pad to where Gair was mixing mortar for Orban's new house.

“Kiss my hand, Gair,” he said. “Come on.”

“Whatever for?” said Gair.

“I'd have thought even an idiot like you would understand that,” said Ondo, at which Scodo and Pad sniggered heartily. “Because I'm going to be High Chief, of course. You might as well kiss my hand now and admit it.”

“Who says you're going to be High Chief?” Gair said scornfully. “You couldn't be High Caterpillar!”

“Don't you call names!” said Scodo. “And he is. So.”

“Everyone says so,” said Pad. “Like Orban.”

“Orban's not High Chief,” said Gair.

“He will be,” said Ondo. “You should listen to what everyone's saying. They want to make my father High Chief because Gest is such a coward and daren't fight the Dorig.”

“So kiss his hand,” said Scodo.

Since Gair had been wondering for the last three days if Gest was a coward, this was more than he could bear. He growled with rage, and he would have gone for all three—a very unequal combat, as Scodo and Pad were both older and taller than Ondo—had not Brad strolled up, meaningly swinging a spade. Ondo, Scodo and Pad at once strolled away, laughing.

“Cowards!” said Brad. “Look, Gair, if you don't try and beat Ondo up, you'll have this for the rest of your life. You get Ondo. I'll see to the other two for you. All the Garholters are on your side.”

Gair went back to his mortar, mixing it with stabs and punches, pretending it was Ondo. He knew Brad was right. Just let Ondo do one more thing—!

An hour later, he looked up to see Ondo, Scodo and Pad playing knucklebones up on his windowsill. It was deliberate. Ondo knew as well as anyone that the windowsill was Gair's. Gair stood up, so angry that everything in Garholt was blurred and faint except for those three figures on the sill. He did not see the way all the Garholters, old and young, were watching eagerly, ready for a general fight once Gair attacked Ondo.

Adara did see, and she hurried to prevent it. “Gair, can you help me fold these blankets?” Gair looked at her, muddled and fuzzy-eyed with rage. “But you'd better wash your hands before you do,” Adara added. Without thinking, Gair went to the nearest bucket and put his hands in it. As soon as he touched the water, it dawned on him how she had tricked him.

“You made me wash my hands of him! It's not fair!”

“I know. I'm sorry,” said Adara. “But if you fight Ondo, we'll have both peoples taking sides, and it could be serious. He'll leave you alone when he sees you won't play. Promise me you won't fight him.”

Sulkily, Gair promised. And, having promised, he felt he was forced to keep his promise, much to everyone's disappointment. He ground his teeth and tried not to look at Ondo sitting smugly on his windowsill for the rest of the day. Gest saw Ondo, too. He might disapprove of Gair sitting there, but, like everyone else, he still thought of it as Gair's windowsill.

“What the Ban does Gair mean by letting that little beast sit there?” he demanded of Adara. Adara explained what had happened. “I see,” Gest said curtly. He had just come from a long, long argument with Orban over the size of his new house and, though he had managed to keep his temper, he was so annoyed with Orban that he could not help thinking Gair was very poor-spirited not even hitting Ondo once. It did nothing to help any understanding between them.

The next day, Gair got to the windowsill first. It meant leaving his share of the building, but few Garholters blamed him. Gair did not feel at all triumphant. He sat with his knees under his chin, moodily looking out at the flat, deep green of the Moor, nagged at by the unhappy, uneasy feeling he kept having, and fairly sure that Brad and Gest, and probably everyone else, thought he was being a coward over Ondo. He thought he was being a coward himself. But, having made that promise, he did not know what to do. He had almost reached the point where he thought Ondo was right to hate him when he looked round to find Ondo, Scodo and Pad crowded onto the windowsill, too. While Gair was looking out at the Moor, they had quietly climbed up beside him.

Ondo grinned exultantly. Yesterday had convinced him Gair was easily crushed. “Get down,” he said. “We want to be here.”

Gair pushed on his heels and levered his back up the side of the window until he was standing up. He felt defeated. He knew that if he let Ondo get away with this, he would be giving in. But he had promised Adara not to fight. Dimly, down inside the mound, he could see people stopping whatever they were doing and turning to see what would happen on the windowsill. It looked as if he was going to make this a public humiliation for Garholt. All he could think of to say was, “This is my place—and I didn't ask you up.”

“I don't need
your
permission,” said Ondo. “Down.”

“Gair's scared,” said Scodo to Pad.

“Like Gest—he talks big and acts little,” said Pad to Scodo.

As before, the suggestion that Gest was a coward was too near Gair's own fears for him to take quietly. “What do you mean by that?” he said.

All three laughed. “Everyone in Otmound knows what a cheat Gest is,” said Ondo. “He never did any of those tasks Og set him. He was too scared. So he cheated. Ask your mother, if you like. She told him the answers to all the riddles.”

“And of course he was too scared to kill a Dorig,” said Scodo. “So he went and swore friendship with one so that he could get its collar. Ask him where his own collar went, if you don't believe us.”

“And you know how they say he moved the stone?” asked Pad.

“No. How?” said Gair. Each thing they said made him more blindly angry. He could hardly see them by this time. For he knew they were speaking the truth. It all fitted in. He knew Gest could not answer riddles, and he had always wondered why Gest had come home without his collar. “How did he move the stone?”

Ondo sniggered. “He didn't. He got a Giant to move it for him, of course!”

Gair forgot his promise and went for Ondo. Scodo and Pad stood in his way, but he was so angry he hardly noticed them. His shoulder hit Scodo and his elbow caught Pad, and the two of them vanished. Gair heard both of them yell, below somewhere, and a furious buzzing from the bees, but he was too intent on catching Ondo to bother about them. Ondo, finding nothing between him and the raging Gair, did his best to climb back among the looms before Gair could reach him. Gair got to him when his head was still above the sill and seized hold of his gold collar. “Mother!” shrieked Ondo. There were screams from Kasta, beyond the looms, and screams to Gair, from the looms themselves, to baste Ondo. Gair hardly heard them. With the strength that only blind rage gives, he heaved the large, solid Ondo back onto the sill again, swung him round by his collar and hurled him after Scodo and Pad. “Mother!” roared Ondo.

It was a delicious feeling. For a moment, Gair stood panting, enjoying it. Ondo was rolling and bawling. Scodo and Pad were yelling. The bees were out in a dark cloud as high as the sill itself and as busy as the boys were noisy.

Inside Garholt, Gest pushed his way among the jostling, shouting people. He was very angry, largely because he was going to have to punish Gair for doing something he had been itching to do himself. “
Gair!
” His voice rose above the shouting, and even above Ondo's screams. “
Gair! Come down at once!
”

But, after what Ondo had told him, Gest was the last person Gair wanted to see. He did not even think what to do. He simply leaped after his three enemies, high and long, so that he missed their rolling, wailing bodies and landed some way down the hillside. A cloud of bees, thoroughly excited and confused, came after him and buzzed round his head. They knew him, and did not sting him. And Gair remembered to do his duty by them. You should always tell bees what happens. “I'm going,” he said into the buzzing cloud. “You saw why. I don't know where, but I'm going to find some Dorig.”

He set off at a run toward the marshes.

For some time after he had gone, Garholt rang with accusations and insults, outcry and confusion. No one knew why fighting did not break out then and there, as the Otmounders united in blaming Gair, and the Garholters felt they had stood enough from Otmound and said so. But Gest went outside and spoke sharp words to the bees—which sent them back into their hives in some haste—and brought the three swollen, blubbering boys indoors. He did not say much, but the Otmounders recollected that, but for Gest's kindness, they would have nowhere to live, and even Kasta moderated her language. Everyone ran about for remedies for bee stings.

When peace was somewhat restored, Ceri said to Ayna, “What is Gair going to do today?”

“He's going to look for Dorig and find Giants,” said Ayna. The faraway look on her face gave way to excitement. “I say—where
is
Gair, Ceri?”