A Thief in the Night

Chapter Seventeen

In the morning, Malden woke late, and came out to the common room to find that he could not break his fast-the kitchen was already closed. Remembering there was food stored in the wagon, he headed out toward the stables and found his companions there waiting for him. Cythera and Croy were already on horseback, looking impatiently toward the east, while Morget and Slag had the wagon up on blocks. The dwarf was underneath its wheels, grunting and swearing as he worked on the wagon’s undercarriage with a hammer and a wrench. The barbarian stood placidly by, ready to lift the vehicle by one end as Slag requested.

Eventually Slag emerged from beneath the wagon and told Morget to remove the blocks. The barbarian kicked them out of the way and the wagon dropped heavily onto its wheels-and bounced up and down for a while before coming to a stop. As Morget strapped the two hackneys into their harness, the dwarf explained.

“I spent all yesterday trying to sleep in this thing and failed miserably. Every time we drove over a pebble in the road I got thrown against this berk’s pile of iron weapons,” he said, nodding his head in Morget’s direction. “So I fixed it.”

Malden looked underneath the wagon and saw a cunning arrangement of leaf springs mounted to the axles. “So now it will bounce and rattle even more?” he asked.

“I fixed it,” Slag repeated, one eye squinting nearly shut. “I’m a dwarf. Trust me. You’ll be happier this way, too.”

They got under way quickly enough then. Morget proved to have an easy hand for the reins, and while the wagon did sway more than it had before, Malden soon realized the dwarf had done something right. When the wagon wheels passed over deep ruts in the road, the wheels went up but the body of the wagon did not, and when the wheels dropped into ruts, the springs kept Malden from flying off his seat. It was almost like the wagon was suspended above the road, held up by invisible hands.

The only disadvantage of the rebuilt wagon was that it made it even harder to stay awake. After a mostly sleepless night, and unable to stretch his legs, Malden found himself dozing constantly, only to be awakened with a fright as he realized he was about to slump over to the side and fall from the wagon-or worse, to lean over and rest his head on Morget’s shoulder. He was uncertain what the barbarian would do if he inadvertently touched him, but he was sure it would be painful.

Watching the fields of wheat go by on either side only made things worse. The mile markers were too far between to hold his attention. Cythera rode far ahead of the wagon, so he could not talk to her, and Croy was singing again. There was nothing for it but to talk to the barbarian.

Fortunately Morget seemed to love the sound of his own voice. He told Malden many tales of his native land, few of which Malden could understand. Apparently there was no feudal system at all on the eastern steppes. No villeinage, no manorial obligations. No kings or knights or lords either. That sounded fine-wonderful, in fact, to someone with Malden’s political sympathies-until you learned what the barbarians had in place of those institutions. “The strongest man rules, as chieftain,” Morget said. “This is the basis of all our laws. If you disagree with his policies, you challenge him to a fight. If you win, you get to be chieftain and make your own rules.”

Malden frowned. “But surely some young fool with muscles but no brains could become king of you all, then.”

“Aye,” Morget said. “And often does. But such rarely last long. No matter how strong a man’s arm may be, there’s always someone stronger out there, waiting.”

Malden frowned. “But what of justice? What recourse do the meek have, if the strong decide what is right?”

Morget laughed, loud enough to make Slag shout for peace. The barbarian shrugged and told Malden, “In Skrae, I’ve met many such as you. Philosophers and priests, two things we have none of on the steppes. They’ve tried to explain this justice to me, and other abstract concepts, and yet all I hear is the voices of children saying, ‘It’s not fair, it’s not fair.’ Where they got this idea that life was meant to be fair remains a mystery to me.”

Malden tried to imagine how he would survive under barbarian law, and the prospect made him queasy. “If every chieftain makes his own laws, what is to stop him from saying that murder is no crime, or that a man may lie with his sister if he chooses?”

Morget shrugged. “In principle, I suppose, it is possible. Yet I’ve never heard of a chieftain that would ignore such basic laws. If a man kills in cold blood, we run him through with a sword, that’s always been the way. If a man rapes another man’s daughter or wife or mother, we strangle him.”

“What if… just hypothetically, here-a man were to steal another man’s property? Say, his horse blanket. Or something trivial like that.”

“What’s the penalty for such in your Free City?”

Malden shrugged. “Hanging.”

“Ah! You see, there’s where your civilization breaks down. You put a man to death for stealing? Regardless of why he did it? What if he only takes a loaf of bread, to feed his hungry family? That is senseless cruelty!”

“I always did think the penalty too harsh,” Malden agreed.

“Yes, in the East we are far more humane. We do not kill our thieves. We simply cut off their feet and leave them crawling in the dirt like the dogs they are.”

“Oh,” Malden said. “But then-how would such a thief feed his family after that? He would be reduced to begging.”

“We have no beggars in my country,” Morget said.

“No?”

The barbarian laughed again. “If a man cannot feed himself, we make him a slave. We would never let someone starve!”

“Ah,” Malden said.

“You know-sometimes I think if my people overran this country,” Morget said, gesturing at the fields of wheat, “it would be a good thing for your people. You’re so soft! You need a good war to toughen you up. Make you remember what is important in life.”

“You’ll forgive me,” Malden said, “if I hope it never comes to that.”

The barbarian laughed. “Don’t worry, little man. You’ve got a whole mountain range protecting you. A wall to keep us out.” He chortled so exuberantly he nearly dropped the reins.

“And knights like Croy to defend us,” Malden pointed out.

The barbarian stopped laughing on the instant. He turned a shrewd eye toward Croy, who was singing some old ballad, a duet with Cythera. “It’ll be interesting to see what he’s made of, when we face our demon. Whether he can fight or not.”

He wasn’t laughing when he said it. A fact that made Malden uneasy for reasons he couldn’t quite explain.