Free The King's Peace by Jo Walton Page B

Urdo as armiger. It was too late for me to ask his permission. I tried hard to avoid speaking to Veniva alone. This was not difficult, for my family were living in the farm, and I was assigned to the third pennon, and busy.
    Angas was my decurio, and Osvran ap Usteg was sequifer. Angas treated him as the second-in-command. He was a tall man, from Demedia, his parents were farmers, though he had been fostered with Angas and grown up with him. We slept six to a tent in the top meadow. By day we scouted up and down the coastline, going farther west than I had ever been, as far as the ruins of Dun Morr and even farther, as far as Tapit Point. We found four places where the pirates had landed. Everything indicated that they had taken sufficient plunder and left. It was raiding season, and we surprised one group of pirates who ran off back to their ship, and those we saw out to sea were too afraid to land once they caught sight of us. The Jarnish ships had the sea to themselves. Their square sails were visible far off, and then we would see their dragon prows cutting through the sparkling water, their oars rising and falling, sometimes even the pale-skinned faces of the raiders above the shields. Only one ship came in to meet us; the fight was nothing much—we had little difficulty driving them off. Angas found places along the cliffs where he said we should build lookout towers, as had been done near Caer Thanbard.
    "They are no good unless we have enough armigers near to deter them, or unless we can fight them at sea, though," he said, scowling at the dragon ship slipping away eastward. "If Urdo can get money enough, he will build ships. These ships have come so far west because it is raiding season, and the coast around Caer Thanbard is closed to them. We need to hold the whole coast."
    I began to learn to use a lance properly. Darien would have loved that training. He
    "would have enjoyed life in the ala. I thought of him often. Lancework did not come naturally to me. It was not an easy skill to master, for much of what Duncan had taught me must be relearned differently. I came straight off over Apple's head several times and lost the lance more times than I could count before I got the trick of picking up stakes from the ground.
    Garah spent much of her time looking after the horses for me, and after half a month I asked her if she would like to be a groom and come with me. She had a knack with animals, and Apple liked her. Most of the grooms were nervous of him, and he picked it up and gave them good reason. With Garah he was always good-tempered, though she did spoil him with treats.
    We spent much time visiting outlying farms seeking supplies, especially roots for the horses.
    When Angas paid at one farm with coin the farmer shook her fist at him.
    "What good is this to me? You're as bad as the Jarns, taking half my turnips. Where can I spend this? What can I buy with it?"
    "Peace," said Angas, angrily, then turned and wheeled away. He sent me back with Osvran, to calm her down.
    We rode back to the farm, where the farmer was not pleased to see us. Osvran reassured her that she could spend the coin at any of the king's markets by the king's law, or that Page 30

    my father would accept it as proof that her taxes were paid. I heard this with some uncertainty. I had only the vaguest idea about taxes, but I had heard my mother say they were a terrible thing, the ruin of the gentleman class and the cause of the decline of the towns. I assured her that my father would accept the coin as worth the value of the turnips, and that she should plant more next year, perhaps one of the fields now lying empty. She knew who I was and subsided, I sang a charm over her cow's mastitis before we went, and she gave us both a drink of good creamy milk.
    When we rejoined the rest of the pennon on the headland Angas was still red in the face.
    "If a farmer spoke to my father so he would have her whipped!" he stormed.
    "She has a right to be heard