The Tale of Oriel (20 page)

“And I'm no longer a child, at twelve,” Tamara insisted.

“She has the right of it,” Oriel said. Until Tamara had said it, in those words, he hadn't understood the deep senselessness of the situation. “And it's wrong.”

“We still have time,” Tamara said, encouraged by his sympathy. “We could take ourselves inland, upriver, until danger passes.”

“And abandon all we own?” Vasil asked.

“With our lives safe, we can reclaim our property.”

“And be called cowards?” Vasil asked.

By the readiness of the Salter's objections, Oriel knew the man had thought the same thoughts.

“Nobody would ever think any one of you a coward.”

“You don't fear Wolfers inland?” her father asked her.

Tamara's round, serious face turned scornful at the suggestion. “I think these Wolfers are—stories, to frighten us with. Are you frightened of stories, you three? I don't believe these Wolfers are real. Oriel, do you?”

Oriel was distracted by admiration of Tamara's resolution. All over Selby, he thought, women must be talking thus to their men. “Yet you put faith in the Kingdom, Tamara.”

“There were merchants who traveled there.”

“None for years, none since the wars broke out, and many years before,” her father said.

“But they had been there. You've heard such men, Father. I think there must be such a country, hidden away among the mountains, where every city isn't the prey of armies, where every farm isn't endangered. I could live happily in such a place, whatever—”

“Never mind the Kingdom, or the Wolfers, Master,” Oriel interrupted her.

A sudden thought held him in its talons and he could think of nothing else except to tell his master the shape of it.

“If Selby could protect itself. Then it would need the aid of no armies, it would have no four-colored affrays. If the people were men of Selby, and no other man's men. Then the town could stand. Why should the people of Selby give their coins to four foreigners, to supply and outfit armies, when they could gather the coins to outfit themselves for battle? Or to pay tribute with, if they decided that was the wiser course?”

“Could the men of Selby fight?” Vasil asked.

“We see it every market day, now,” Oriel said, smiling. “I could fight, and more bravely for the place where I live than for some man ambitious to be Count over cities I'll never see.”

“But we have no Captains,” the Saltweller said. “Although we might find a Captain for hire, to train us in soldiery.”

“Would you not prefer Selby's color to any other man's?” Oriel asked, although the question didn't need asking.

“That isn't what I meant,” Tamara objected. Her eyes filled with tears that spilled onto her cheeks. “That isn't what I want.”

“Aye, Tamara,” Griff said. “But we must make what's best out of what we have.”

“Can the men of Selby forget their old quarrels, to act as one?” the Salter wondered.

“I could follow you, Master,” Oriel said. Griff agreed. “Or the Innkeeper at the Captain, he's a man bold enough to follow.” Griff agreed. “So there's two alrea—”

Vasil's deep laughter broke out, and cut Oriel off. Vasil looked at Oriel, and laughed, and laughed.

Oriel flushed. He felt a boy again, and a small stupid boy, and as if he were back on Damall's Island. He felt his cheeks grow hot and a desire fill his heels, to turn and run away from the mockery. He felt in his fists a clenching and a desire to strike out at this mockery.

“Why do you laugh, sir?” Oriel inquired. He heard how stiff and cold his voice was.

The Saltweller seemed not to hear that, or, if he did, he chose not to take offense. “Aye, you'll laugh, too, when I tell you why.”

Immediately, Oriel understood that there was something here Tamara should not know. Immediately, he was at ease.

“If Selby were to stand for itself, and not for any man else.” The Saltweller turned to his daughter. “Like you, I have heard too much of the Kingdom to disbelieve, although I have a hard time believing what I have never seen with my own eyes. I think, if all is lost here, we might do well to search for your Kingdom. But I will do all I can not to be driven from my land, and I like your thinking, Oriel. I could wear the colors of Selby, and I think I know many who feel the same way. The Innkeeper at the Captain,” at which naming a huge smile cracked his face in half, “among others.”

ALMOST EVERY MAN OF SELBY
attended the meeting at the Captain at the Gate. Those who couldn't fit into the barroom stood craning their necks at the door and passing the words that were being spoken back along, out onto the crowded street. Vasil presented the idea: “Why do we offer our loyalties to strangers? Why do we wear the colors of men we don't know, and hope never to meet?”

Voices challenged him, from all corners. The Innkeeper growled deep in his throat, and called for silence. Gradually, silence fell, so that the one protester who called out could be heard clearly. “Selby has no soldiers, Saltweller.”

“And why should we not be our own soldiers, if needs must?” Vasil answered. “I'd trust you, more than your sworn master Karle, to fight well for my land and daughter. Wouldn't you so trust me, more than some soldier hired to do your killing, who if he doesn't live won't enjoy the profit of his hire?”

“Or the booty he seizes,” a voice called.

“Just because I will fight, that doesn't mean I can,” a voice called.

“Will outweighs Can,” the Innkeeper answered. The crowd fell silent again. “We can hire one of these Captains to teach us to fight. Lads aren't born knowing how to be soldiers, are they? Soldiers have learned the use of arrow and spear, sword and dagger. I already know how to use my fists and feet, and I believe I can learn all the rest, and I believe I can learn it quickly. I believe you can, too—we all can—if we would all choose to be men of Selby, and no other man's men.”

“Without the protection of the Count—whoever he is—where would we be?” a man asked.

“Aye, look around you, where are we with it?” the Innkeeper called back. His cheeks were red, with heat and excitement, and his eyes sparkled. His fist pounded the barfront, for emphasis. “There was a dead man four mornings ago, a man whose only error was taking too much to drink on the same night when those who wore another man's color at their necks had also had too much to drink. I name no names, but I have one companion less in this world, and I have not so many men I call companion that I can spare any. I name no names, and bear no grudges, for we have grown to be this way—but when I think it could be otherwise, when I think we could stand together, stand for Selby, and stand strongest that way—my heart rises,” the Innkeeper cried out.

“There's truth in what he says.”

“We must be stronger together than divided into four. That's only sense.”

“But when there's a victory decided and a new Count, what will happen to us?”

“No harm, for we'll have sided with none of his enemies.”

“Why should there ever be a victory, when there has been none yet, not even at the start when men were fresh and well supplied?”

“If we stand all together, then at the worst we will fall beside friends.”

“And never serve any Count again? I don't think I can imagine that.”

“Imagine it,” the Innkeeper advised. “Have you forgotten the Countess's stewards, when they came to collect her taxes? Have you forgotten what it was to give over to her luxury the coins or fish, the grains or barrels of ale, the steel blades or cloth or shoes that you had made for your own family's keeping? To be spent on some great rope of pearls to hide the wrinkles on her neck?”

“Also for houses where the poor might find food,” a voice protested.

“For the keeping of priests, who fled the land as soon as she died,” another voice said.

“For the Countess's long peace,” someone reminded them.

Those words, and many more of like import, were spoken over several meetings. A meeting was called, men spoke and listened, and at the end there were always more men than there had been at the meeting's start who were convinced that it was time for change. More and more men arrived at the meetings as did the Salter and his two lads, wearing no man's color.

RUMORS CAME TO SELBY, ALL
summer long. Rumors came closer and closer, but still Mad Magy lived in her little house and was fed by the city, the men taking in turn the responsibility for carrying food out to her. While rumor tightened like a noose.

The men of Selby met together. Why should they not bind themselves by oath to one another, as they would be bound by oath to any man who ruled over the city? Let the common rule be the master, and the common weal. The men of Selby would rather choose one of their own number to be their Governor than give that honor to a man chosen by a Count.

After one of these meetings, Griff suggested to Oriel that the Governor's place might be filled not by one man but by a pair of men, or four, or five. Or that the Governor should be first man for only a limited run of years. So that, Griff said, there would never be danger that one man would try to rule as Count over Selby.

“Bring this before the meeting,” Oriel advised, ignoring the envy nibbling at his heart. Griff owned the honor of the idea.

“No,” Griff answered. “You should bring it forward. For when you speak men listen, and they want to hear the truth in what you say.”

Oriel did what Griff wished, and brought the idea forward as his own. Oddly, it was the Saltweller's objections that rang out loudest and quickest. “What man can serve more than one Governor? How can a council exact obedience?” he demanded.

“What one man have we obeyed these last years?” a voice answered him. “And I do not see the city walls crumbling, and I do not see the men of Selby unable to feed their families. I tell you what men I could follow—the Saltweller for one, and our host here, for a second, and this lad to make three. The Saltweller for his wealth and the wisdom to conserve it. Our host for his courage. And the lad to keep us honest, and show us where the new ways lie. Am I the only man here would pick out these three?”

“Oriel's too young. He owns no land. He has no trade,” Vasil objected. “What does he know of governing?”

The same voice put Oriel to the test, by asking how Oriel would see the oath to Selby was kept. Oriel's answer was that paying a fine seemed enough to keep a man true to his word. Who would impose the fine, he was asked, and who would enforce it upon a reluctant citizen, and who would judge the question, and how would that man be recompensed for the time sitting in judgment took from his labors, and where would the fines be kept and to what purpose would they be kept? Oriel thought that all the men of Selby should contribute to a common fund, into which also the fines would be paid, in coin or goods, field fruits, and labor, too. The city itself might choose a man of proven judgment, to render justice; out of its own wealth the city might pay this man for his services to it, and other men also, for didn't the citizens of Selby often complain about those houses whose waste was thrown out into the streets, houses that emptied their nightpots over garden walls into a neighbor's yard? Did the wives of Selby not often suspect that such filth was a breeding ground for sickness, and did not everyone know it was a breeding place for vermin? What no man could do on his own, a town of men banded together could accomplish with ease—to determine a manner of keeping itself clean and sweet smelling. Common rules of conduct might easily be decided upon, as those that most men agreed to follow, and when written down, all might know what was expected of the citizens of Selby.

Oriel looked around at all the attentive faces. There was some fear in their silence but he didn't know why they should fear his words—and just as he knew his mistake Vasil named it.

“Aye, he can write. Aye and read, and figure with numbers.” Vasil had the room's attention now. “Aye, what you're thinking, that's what the lad is.”