Elizabeth Moon - Gird 01 - Surrender None

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Elizabeth Moon - Surrender None
SURRENDER NONE
Elizabeth Moon
the legacy of gird 01
EBook Design Group digital back-up edition 1.0 
click for scan notes and proofing history
valid XHTML 1.0 strict
Contents
Prologue
Part I |1|2|3|4|5|6|7|
Part II|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|
Part III
|19|20|21|22|23|24|25|26|27|28|29|30|
Part IV
|31|32
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Elizabeth Moon - Surrender None

WHY WE FIGHT

“You lost children?” Others shushed that voice, someone in a leather

cloak, but Gird answered it, counting them on his fingers.

“My first two sons died of fever; the lord refused us herb-right in the

wood. My wife lost two babes young, one from hunger and one from

fever. My eldest daughter they raped; killed her husband. The babe

died unborn. My youngest son they struck down; he lives. Another

daughter they struck down, breaking her arm; I know not if she lives

or dies. And my brother’s children, that I’d taken in: two of them

dead, by the lords’ greed. And that’s children. I lost friends, my

parents, my brother.

“You ask yourselves: if they can take one child, will they stop there?

Will all your submission, all your obedience, get you peace and

enough food? Has it ever worked? You can sit here and let them take

you one by one, or you can decide to fight back.”

BAEN BOOKS by ELIZABETH MOON

Sheepfarmer’s Daughter

Divided Allegiance

Oath of Gold

The Deed of Paksenarrion

Liar’s Oath

The Legacy of Gird

Hunting Party

Sporting Chance

Winning Colors

Once a Hero

Rules of Engagement

Change of Command

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Against the Odds

Remnant Population

Sassinak (with Anne McCaffrey)

Generation Warriors (with Anne McCaffrey)

The Planet Pirates (with Anne McCaffrey & Jody Lynn Nye)

Phases

ELIZABETH MOON—The Legacy of Gird

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in

this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or

incidents is purely coincidental.

The Legacy of Gird has been published in two parts as Surrender

portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-671-87747-X

Cover art is a computer-generated composite from the art for

Surrender None, by Larry Elmore, and Liar’s Oath, by Gary Ruddell

First printing, September 1996 Second printing, August 2000

Distributed by Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New

York, NY 10020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Moon, Elizabeth.

The legacy of gird / Elizabeth Moon. p. cm.

“A Baen Books original”—T.p. verso. ISBN 0-671-87747-X (trade

pbk.) 1. Fantastic fiction, American. I. Title PS3563.0557L4 1996

813'.54—dc20 96-2957

CIP

Printed in the United States of America

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SURRENDER NONE

In memory of Travis Bohannon

a country boy from Florence, Texas

who gave his life to save his family from fire.

Not all heroes are in books.

PART I

Acknowledgements

Too many people helped with technical advice and special knowledge

to mention all, and leaving any of them out is unfair. But special

thanks to Ellen McLean, of McLean Beefmasters, whose stock has

taught me more than a college class in Dairying ever did, to Joel

Graves for showing me how to scythe without cutting my ankles off,

and to Mark Unger for instruction and demonstration of mixed-

weapon fighting possibilities. Errors are mine; they did their best to

straighten me out.

Prologue

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Elizabeth Moon - Surrender None

^ »

The Rule of Aare is rule one:

Surrender none.

“Esea’s light on him,” muttered the priest, as the midwife mouthed,

“Alyanya’s sweet peace,” and laid the wet pink newborn on his

mother’s belly. The priest, sent down hurriedly in the midst of dinner

from the lord’s hall, dabbed his finger in the blood and touched it to a

kerchief, then cut with silver scissors a lock of the newborn’s wet

dark hair, which he folded in the same kerchief. With that as proof,

no fond foolish peasant girl could hide the child away from his true

father. The stupid slut might try that; some of them did, being so

afraid of the lord’s magic, although anyone with wit enough to dip

stew from a kettle ought to realize that the lords meant no harm to

these outbred children. Quite the contrary. With a final sniff, the

priest sketched a gesture that left a streak of light in the room long

after he’d left, and departed, to report the successful birth. Not a

monster, a manchild whole of limb and healthy. Perhaps this one

would inherit the birthright magic… perhaps.

Behind, in the birthing room, the midwife glowered at the glowing

patch of air, and sketched her own gesture, tossing a handful of herbs

at it. It hung there still, hardly fading. The new mother grunted, and

the midwife returned to her work, ignoring the light she was

determined not to need. She had the healing hands, a legacy of a great-

grandmother’s indiscretion in the days when such indiscretions meant

a quick marriage to some handy serf. She hardly believed the change,

and having a priest of Esea in the birthing room convinced her only

that the high lords had no decency.

In the lord’s hall, the infant’s future was quickly determined. His

mother could be his nurse, but his rearing would be that of a young

lord, until his ability or lack of it appeared.

The boy showed a quick intelligence, a lively curiosity; he learned

easily and could form the elegant script of Old Aare by the time he

had seen six midwinter festivals. He had no peasant accent; he had no

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lack of manners or bodily grace. He also had no magic, and when the

lord lost hope that he might show a useful trace of it, he found the

boy a foster family in one of his villages, and sent him away.

It could have been worse. His lord provided: the family prospered,

and the youth, as he grew to be, had no trouble finding a wife. He

would inherit a farmstead, he was told, and in due time he had his

own farm. With his father’s gifts, he started well above the average,

and as well he had the position of a market judge in the nearest town.

It was not enough to live on, but it supplemented his farm’s

production. He knew he was well off, and shrugged away the hopes

he’d once had of being adopted into the lord’s family. Yet he could

not forget his parentage, or the promise of magic.

In the year of his birth, and far away, the boy already lived who

would make his parentage worthless.

Chapter One

« ^ »

“You’re big enough now,” said the boy’s mother. “You don’t need to

be hanging on my skirts any more. You’re bold enough when it’s

something you want to do.” As she spoke, she raked at the boy’s

thick unruly hair with her fingers, and wiped a smudge of soot from

his cheek. “You take that basket to the lord’s steward, now, and be

quick about it. Are you a big boy, or only a baby, then?”

“I’m big,” he said, frowning. “I’m not scared.” His mother flicked

her apron over his shirt again, and landed a hand on his backside.

“Then get on with you. You’re to be home right away, Gird, mind

that. No playing about with the other lads and lasses. There’s work to

be done, boy.”

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“I know.” With a grunt, he lifted the basket, almost hip-high, and

leaned sideways to balance the weight; it was piled high with plums,

the best from their tree. He could almost taste one, the sweet juice

running down his throat…

“And don’t you be eating any of those, Gird. Not even one. Your Da

would skin you for it.”

“I won’t.” He started up the lane, walking cantways from the weight,

but determined not to put the basket down for a rest until he was out

of sight of the house. He wanted to go alone. He’d begged for the

chance, last year, when he was clearly too small. And this year, when

she’d first told him, he’d—he frowned harder, until he could feel the

knot of his brows. He’d been afraid, after all. “I’m not afraid,” he

muttered to himself. “I’m not. I’m big, bigger than the others.”

All along the lanes he saw others walking, carrying baskets slung

over an arm or on a back. A handbasket for each square of bramble-

berries; an armbasket for each tree in its first three years of bearing; a

ruckbasket for each smallfruit tree over three years, and a back-

basket for apples in prime. Last year he’d carried a handbasket in

each hand: two handbaskets make an armbasket, last year’s fee. This

year was the plum’s fourth bearing year, and now they owed the lord

a ruckbasket.

And that leaves us, he thought bitterly, with only an armbasket for

ourselves. It had been a dry year; most of the fruit fell before it

ripened. He had heard his parents discussing it. They could have

asked the lord’s steward to change their fee, but that might bring

other trouble.

“It’s not the name I want, a man who argues every measure of his

fee,” said his father, leaning heavily on the table. “No. It’s better to

pay high one year, and have the lord’s opinion. ’Tis not as if we were

hungry.”

Gird had listened silently. They had been hungry, two years before;

he still remembered the pain in his belly, and his brother’s gifts of

food. Anything was better than that. Now, as he walked the lane, his

belly grumbled; the smell of the plums seemed to go straight from his

nose to his gut. He squinted against the bright light, trying not to

think of it. Underfoot the dust was hot on the surface, but his feet

sank into a coolness—was it damp? Why did wet and cold feel the

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same? He saw a puddle left from the rain a week ago, and headed for

it before remembering his mother’s detailed warnings. No puddles,

she’d said; you don’t come into the lord’s court with dirty feet.

The lane past his father’s house curved around a clump of pick-oak

and into the village proper. Gird shifted his basket to the other side,

and stumped on. Up ahead, just beyond the great stone barn where

the whole village stored hay and grain was the corner of the lord’s

wall. The lane was choked with people waiting to go in the gate,

children younger than Gird with handbaskets, those his own age with

armbaskets, older ones with ruckbaskets like his. He joined the line,

edging forward as those who had paid their fee came out and left

room within.

Once inside the gate, he could just see over taller heads one corner of

the awning over the steward’s table. As he tried to peek between

those ahead of him, and see more, someone tapped his head with a

hard knuckle. He looked around.

“Good looking plums,” said Rauf, Oreg the pigherd’s son. “Better

than ours.” Rauf was a hand taller than Gird, and mean besides. Gird

nodded, but said nothing. That was safer with Rauf. “They’d look

better in my basket, I think. Eh, Sig?” Rauf nudged his friend Sikan

in the ribs, and they both grinned at Gird. “You’ve more than you

need, little boy; that basket’s too heavy anyway.” Rauf took a

handful of plums off the top of the basket, and Sikan did the same.

“You stop!” Gird forgot that loud voices were not allowed in the

lord’s court. “Those are my plums!”

“They may have been once, but I found them.” Rauf shoved Gird

hard; he stumbled, and more plums rolled out of the basket. “Found

them all over the ground, I did; what’s down is anyone’s, right?”

Gird tried to snatch for the rolling plums. Sikan kicked him lightly in

the arm, while Rauf tipped his basket all the way over. Gird heard

some of the other boys laughing, a woman nearby crying shame to

them all. The back of his neck felt hot, and he heard a wind in his

ears. Before he thought, he grabbed the basket and slammed it into

Rauf’s face. Sikan jumped at him; Gird rolled away, kicking wildly.

In moments that corner of the courtyard was a wild tangle of fighting

boys and squashed fruit. The steward bellowed, the lord’s guards

waded into the fight, using their hands, their short staves, the flats of

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Elizabeth Moon - Surrender None

their swords. And Gird found himself held immobile by two guards,

with Rauf lying limp on the stones, and the other boys huddled in a

frightened mass behind a line of armed men.

“Disgraceful,” said someone over his head. Gird looked up. The

lord’s steward, narrow-faced, blue-eyed. “Who started it?”

No one answered. Gird felt the hands tighten on his arms, and give a

shake. “Boy,” said a deeper voice, one of the men holding him.

“What do you know about this. Who started it?”

“He stole my plums.” Before he spoke, he didn’t realize he was going

to. In the heavy silence, with Rauf lying still before him, and the

courtyard a mess of trampled fruit, his voice sounded thin. The

steward looked at him, met his eyes.

“Your name, boy? Your father?”

“Gird, sir. Dorthan’s son.”

“Dorthan, eh? Your father’s not a brawling man; I’d have thought

better of his sons.”

“Sir, he stole my plums!”

“Your tribute… yes. What was it, this year?”

“A ruckbasket, sir. And they were fine plums, big dark ones, and

he—”

“Who?”

Gird nodded at Rauf. “Rauf, sir. Him and Sikan, his friend.”

“Anyone else see that?” The steward’s gaze drifted over the crowd of

boys. Most stared at their feet, but Teris, a year older than Gird and

son of his nearest neighbor, nodded.

“If you please, sir, it was Rauf started it. He said they were good

plums, and would look better in his basket. Then he took some, and

Gird said no, and he knocked Gird aside—”

“Rauf struck the first blow?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Anyone else?” Reluctant nods followed this. Gird saw a space open

around Sikan, who had edged to the rear of the group. Sikan flushed

and moved forward when the steward stared hard at him.

“It wasn’t so bad, sir,” he said, trying to smile around a bruised lip.

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“We was just teasing the lad, like, that was all.”

“Teasing, in your lord’s court?”

“Well—”

“And did you hit this boy?” The steward pointed at Gird.

“Well, sir, I may have—sort of—sort of pushed at him, like, but

nothing hard, not to say brawling. But he’s one of them, you know,

likes to make quarrels—”

The steward frowned. “It’s not the first time, Sikan, that you and

Rauf have been found in bad order.” He nodded at the men behind

Gird, and they released his arms. Gird rubbed his left elbow. “As for

you, Gird son of Dorthan, brawling in the lord’s court is always

wrong—always. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” There was nothing else to say.

“And you’re at fault in saying that your plums were stolen. They

were your lord’s plums, owed to him. If Rauf had given them in, the

lord would still have them. Instead—” The steward waved his hand at

the mess. Very few whole fruit had survived the brawl. “But your

family has a good name, young Gird, and I think you did not mean to

cause trouble. So there will be no fine in fruit for your family… only

you, along with these others, will stay and clean the court until those

stones are clean enough to satisfy Sergeant Mager here.”

“Yes, sir.” And he would be late home, and get another whipping

from his father.

“Now as for you, Sikan, and Rauf—” For Rauf had begun to move

about, and his eyes opened, though aimlessly as yet. “Since you

started trouble, and moreover chose a smaller boy to bully, you’ll

spend a night in the stocks, when this work is done.” And the steward

turned away, back to his canopy over the account table where the

scribes made marks on long rolls of parchment.

Gird found the rest of that day instructive. He had scrubbed their

stone floor often enough at home, and scraped dung from the

cowshed. But his mother was no more particular about the bowls they

ate from than Sergeant Mager about the courtyard stones. He and the

other boys picked up pieces of the squashed fruit and put them in

baskets—without getting even a taste of it. Then they carried buckets

of water—buckets so large that Gird couldn’t carry one by

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