Free The Legacy of Gird by Elizabeth Moon

his eyes, not even Keri. One by one they came forward, knelt, swore, and returned to the formation. Gird's heart contracted. For one moment he wanted to throw himself before the count and beg to be reinstated. Then his roving eye saw the stocks, with the stains of Meris's blood still dark on the wood.
    Another case preceded theirs. The steward had intended it, Gird knew, as the ritual single case the new lord must judge; he had saved it back from the spring courts. Now he rushed the witnesses through their stories of missing boundary stone and suspected encroachment on someone's strip of arable. Clearly not even the plaintiff and defendant thought it was as important as before, compared with Gird and his father. The count concurred with the steward's assessment, and the loser didn't bother to scowl as he paid his two copper crabs to the winner, and another to the count.
    Then it was their turn. The steward called his father forward; Gird followed two paces behind, as he'd been bidden. To his surprise, the sergeant came too.
    The count's face was drawn down in a scowl of displeasure that didn't quite conceal an underlying glee. The steward began, explaining how Gird had been recruited.
    "A big, strong lad, already known as a hard worker. He seemed brave enough then, as boys go—" He turned to the sergeant.
    "Willing to work, yes. Obedient, strong . . . not too quick in his mind, my lord, but there's good soldiers enough that can't do more than he did. Never gave trouble in the barracks."
    "And he gave you no hint of his . . . weakness?" The count's voice this day was almost silken smooth, no hint of the wild rage he'd shown before.
    The sergeant frowned. "Well, my lord, he did in a way. He didn't like hurting things, he said once, and he never did give up his peasant superstitions. Flowers to the well-sprite, and that sort of thing."
    "Complained of hard treatment, did he?"
    "No, my lord. Not that. Like I said, a willing enough lad, when it came to hard work, not one to complain at all. But too soft. I put it down to his being young, and never from home, but that was wrong."
    "Indeed." The count stared at Gird until he felt himself go hot all over. "Big lout. Not well-favored, no quality in him. Some are born cattle, you know, and others are born wolves. You can make sheepdogs of wolves, but nothing of cattle save oxen in yokes. He looks stupid enough. I can't imagine why you ever considered him; if you want to stay in my service, you'd best not make such mistakes again."
    "No, my lord," said the sergeant and steward, almost in the same breath.
    "Well," said the count, "to settle young oxen, put stones on the load. You had a recommendation, steward?" The steward murmured; Gird heard again the terms his father had told him. The count nodded. "Well enough, so far as it goes, but not quite far enough. Let one of my Finyathans give the boy a whipping, and if his father wants him whole, let him pay the death-gift for his life. Else geld the young ox, and breed no more cowards of him." His eyes met Gird's, and he smiled. "Do you like my judgment, boy?"
    Beside him, his father was rigid with shock and fear; Gird bowed as well as he could. The death-gift for a son was a cow and its calf that year. A third of their livestock gone, or his future sons and daughters. He knew his father would pay, but the cost!
    The steward muttered again; the count shook his head. "Let the father pay now. What is it to be, fellow?" Gird's father stepped forward, and laid the pouch of coins, and the furl of cloth, on the table. The steward took the pouch and counted the coins quickly.
    "The cow?" he said without looking up. Gird's father nodded, and the steward noted it down. "Go fetch the cow," he said brusquely.
    "Sir, she's with the cowherd—"
    "Will you fetch the cow or not?" The steward's face was white. "It's all one to me whether you have grandsons from this boy."
    Gird's father bowed. "I'll go now, sir, may I?" he said, his voice trembling,