Crown of Renewal

by Elizabeth Moon

  Partway through the meal, Marshal Vesk said, “I wonder how long it will take Paksenarrion to find a Kuakgan.”

  Arianya swallowed the bite of sausage—it was spicier than she remembered—and said, “I suppose it depends on how near one is to Fintha. Although some wander—she might meet a wandering Kuakgan.”

  “We … worry a little.”

  “As do I. A lot, in fact. Was my moment of temper this afternoon a sign of some evil influence or just the way I’ve been for years? Am I tired because of blood loss and spending too many days in bed, or … again … evil influence? If it is that, then I’m the last person to detect it.”

  “You seem yourself to me, but everyone knows about Paksenarrion.”

  “Yes. However, thanks to her, I will not have to endure what she did. I still think about that—”

  “You know the Marshalate agreed with you. Well, except for those like Haran.”

  “Yes, but the Marshalate was as ignorant as I was. And as for Haran, it’s her views we’re now faced with.” She sighed. “Though had I known all I needed to about Paksenarrion and had I found her a Kuakgan, Haran would still have felt aggrieved … Why was a Marshal-General consulting a Kuakgan? she would have asked. And those of her mind now would still oppose any acceptance of magery.” She looked at the rest of the sausage and decided to finish the beef-barley soup instead.

  Several days later, Deinar’s report on Arvid’s progress was accompanied by a scowl that the report itself did nothing to explain. He had examined Arvid on the first section beyond the fingers and toes, something taught to yeoman-marshals. Arvid had mastered the material and was able to apply it to the standard situations yeoman-marshals were expected to face.

  “I spoke to Marshal Cedlin,” he said, “and asked if he had thought of making Arvid a yeoman-marshal. He said he had not, but Arvid was outpacing the other yeomen, so he allowed him to read deeper into the Code.” Deinar looked hard at Arianya. “I would like to be able to say that this is unwise in all cases, but Arvid seems to have an unusual ability to absorb the meat of the matter. Although he often seems glib in his speech, there is nothing superficial about his understanding.”

  “Have you an explanation for his progress?” Arianya asked.

  “He is unusually intelligent, obviously. Quick to learn, Marshal Cedlin says, and says he was so informed by Arvid’s former Marshal in Aarenis.” Deinar tipped his head. “Have you considered, Marshal-General, that he was, before becoming a thief, a defrocked judicar, perhaps in Tsaia?”

  “No,” she said. “That never occurred to me. It is my understanding he was born into a thief family and brought up as one.”

  “I have not known many thieves—we do not have the Guild here, as you know, so our thieves are not so organized. But this man—truly, Marshal-General, he is in some way not … not what I expected. I still do not understand his motives …”

  “I’m sure you will,” Arianya said. “You are perceptive; I believe all judicars are.”

  “Perhaps. We try to be. Mostly we try to be very precise and very clear.” A long pause as Deinar looked out the window. Finally he turned back to her and said, “I suppose there’s no possibility that he’s half-elven …”

  “Arvid? Not so far as I know, and I myself have seen nothing elven about him.”

  “It is his way of speaking, at times,” Deinar said. “Very … elaborate.”

  “He is from Tsaia,” Arianya said. “And I know he spent much time in Vérella. So perhaps he picked up that way of speaking from the court.” She wondered why she had never thought about that before. Arvid had been a thief—why would he speak with such sophistication?

  “Perhaps.” Deinar sighed. “But at any rate, Marshal-General, I must say … he is far more interesting a pupil than I expected, and so far I would judge that he will master the entire Code fairly quickly. What then? Surely you have plans for him.”

  “Not precisely,” Arianya said, folding her hands. “I feel he has great potential, and I feel Gird’s own hand pushing me to see that he learns to use it. But as what exactly—that I do not know.”

  “You are sure it’s Gird—” Deinar stopped and shook his head. “Of course you are. You would not say it if you weren’t.”

  “Excuse me, Marshal-General, but there’s a man—”

  Arianya and Deinar both turned. A young yeoman-marshal stood in the doorway, looking worried.

  “A man,” Arianya said. “What kind of man?”

  “A Girdish yeoman from someplace I never heard of. He wants to put a cow—I mean a … a sort of statue of a cow, though it isn’t really a statue, exactly, but the skin and the head and bones, and all that, over some kind of frame—”

  “Come now, Yeoman-Marshal,” Deinar said as Arianya was trying to imagine a cowhide draped over sticks tied together to make a cow shape. The head would surely stink. “Do you mean a cow statue or not?”

  “It’s supposed to look like a cow, but it isn’t a cow, it’s got the hide and all, but it’s not alive and it’s not made of stone or wood,” the yeoman-marshal said in a rush, her ears bright red with embarrassment. “He wants to put it in the High Lord’s Hall.”

  “He can’t—” began Deinar.

  “Why does he want to?” asked Arianya, cutting across Deinar.

  “He says it’s because Gird loved cows. And if there’s a cow to remind people, then they’ll think about Gird instead of magelords.”

  Arianya looked at Deinar. He shrugged, eyebrows raised. “It has a certain logic,” he said. “The original Gird, his known fondness for cows … but I don’t think it would work.”

  Rapid boot steps rang down the corridor, more than one pair, and loud voices with them.

  “I don’t care—nobody is taking that stinking thing—”

  “You can’t just—it’s up to the Marshal-General—”

  “No, it’s not—it’s up to the Marshal-Judicar-General.”

  Voices arrived at the door simultaneously—High Marshal Bradlin and High Marshal Celis, both ready to leap into argument. Arianya held up her hand.

  “If it’s about the cow, I’m about to go see it.”

  Arianya ignored the peculiar object on the wagon at first and concentrated on the people. Beside the wagon stood a short, stocky man with weathered skin and callused hands. He whipped off a shapeless hat, revealing a freckled bald pate, and his gap-toothed grin expressed both a sunny good nature and absolute confidence in his mission. Behind the wagon a small group of dusty, trail-worn travelers clumped together, looking wide-eyed at the High Lord’s Hall on one side and then the old palace on the other. All looked like country folk, all wore blue shirts, and all wore little wooden cow shapes dangling from strings around their necks.

  She looked back at the first man. “I’m Marshal-General Arianya,” she said. “What’s this about?”

  He bobbed his head, still grinning. “I’m Salis, Marshal-General, from Tillock-Uphill. And this is Gird’s Cow.”

  “Go on,” Arianya said.

  “It’s this, Marshal-General.” He took a long breath and started into what was clearly a memorized spiel. “Gird was a cowman. We know that; m’Marshal told us it says the same in the new things that’s been found. We call him Gird Strongarm, and I don’t doubt he was, but he was also a cowman, and it’s my thought that’s a better way to think of him. Now, a cowman cares for cows, be they spotted or solid, fawn or black, even if they got one crooked horn or wry tail or hoof-rot. Even if a cow has a two-headed calf, he don’t kill that calf for having two heads. And he don’t cut off one head.” He paused.

  Arianya looked at the thing in the wagon. It was vaguely animal-shaped, four-legged at least, and the wrapping was clearly cowhide. The head had cow ears, and holes where the cow’s eyes had been, but below the recognizable part of a cow face was a bulbous lump, also covered with cowhide.

  “I built it on a frame,” Salis explained. “It’s not that heavy, really—I stuffed it with straw to make it lighter and round�
�”

  It was very round, like a giant pillow, and not at all cowlike except for the hide and the ridgepole that would have been a spine in a cow, but here was clearly—even through the hide—a not quite straight tree branch or possibly the trunk of a sapling with a couple of sticks—or maybe branches—poking out of the hide where a cow’s hip bones would be. Instead of hooves, the postlegs ended in wooden wheels. Each leg was lashed fore and aft and sideways to the cart.

  Arianya knew she must not laugh. The man was completely serious, convinced in his own mind. Yet it was ridiculous. This—this thing—was not a cow, and though Gird had loved cows, she could not see any connection between Gird’s love of cows and Gird’s admonitions to his followers on the subject of magelords. And she had important problems to deal with—this was a distraction just when she didn’t need it.

  “As Gird he loved his cows so much …” The little group began to sing in the wavering, nearly tuneless voices of those who aren’t sure what will happen.

  As Gird he loved his cows so much,

  so we should love our yeoman friends.

  And this here cow she stands as such,

  to show Gird’s care it never ends.

  “Hideous!” muttered High Marshal Bradlin.

  O Gird, O Gird, your cow we bring to you!

  O Gird, O Gird, you wear a shirt of summer blue.

  As they sang, the tune they were trying for became clearer. “ ‘Run Fox Run,’ ” High Marshal Celis said. “The northern version. ‘As fox runs through the summer grass, the farmer’s home he will not pass …’ ”

  “They’re singing it wrong.” High Marshal Bradlin sniffed as the yeomen continued with another verse. “And they all stink of cow.”

  O Gird, O Gird, your cow we bring to you!

  O Gird, O Gird, you wear a shirrrt—of summer blue!

  The group finished with enthusiasm and stood staring at the Marshals so much like cows over a fence that Arianya had to grin at them. Their leader grinned back, clearly pleased at what he saw as approval.

  “So now,” he said, “we want to put Gird’s Cow in the High Lord’s Hall.”

  “Why there?” Arianya asked.

  “So everyone will see it,” he said, as if that were obvious. “People come here, don’t they? And they come see the High Lord’s Hall—”

  “Have you ever seen it?” Arianya asked.

  “No, not until now, but I heard of it. Our Marshal, that’s Marshal Tam, he told us about it. Bigger than three granges end to end, he said, and colored windows, and was there before Gird. I can see it’s big—” He glanced toward the Hall.

  “You all come with me,” Arianya said. “You and your followers. Leave the … leave Gird’s Cow here; High Marshal Celis will take care of it.” She gestured and noticed that the group did not move until Salis nodded and took a step. Devout followers already.

  She led them into the High Lord’s Hall; they stopped, once inside, and gaped at the colored light, the height of the interior.

  “It’s … really big,” Salis said. “And beautiful. And to think Gird was here. Himself.”

  “Yes,” Arianya said. “Come see where he was buried.”

  They stared at the stone she pointed out, the letters blurred with all the hands that had touched them. After a long silence, one of the women sighed.

  “An’ he had no childer …”

  “He had one who lived,” Arianya said. “His daughter, Rahel.”

  “But no one after.”

  “No. She could not have children; she had been hurt by the magelords.”

  “ ’Tis sadder that way,” the woman said. “Marshal says we’re all Gird’s childer in a way, but I wish … it doesn’t feel the same.”

  “There’s a scroll Paksenarrion brought us,” Arianya said. “It records a dream Gird said he had before the Battle of Greenfields. He thought he was being told he would die in that battle but it would bring peace for his people … and he accepted that. But he did not die then. He felt he’d done something wrong. Dreams are not always about what we think they’re about. I believe his dream was about what was coming later, not what came then. He gave his life to bring peace to his people, and for a time it did. But people do not always want peace as much as they want their own way.”

  “That be true, Marshal-General,” Salis said. “And that’s why I made Gird’s Cow to remind them. Quarrelin’ and hatin’ don’t help none, but carin’ for a cow or a person’s much alike.” He looked around. “But … tell you true, I didn’t imagine this … Would Gird’s Cow be better outside?”

  It would be better unmade and something more cowlike made instead, Arianya thought, but Salis’s earnest goodwill kept her from saying that. The thought lingered—she’d never seen a life-size statue, but could someone make a cow? Of what—of clay? Carved in a block of stone? Something more like a cow? Would Salis mind?

  “I think this may not be the best place for it,” she said. “We should pray about that, don’t you think?”

  He nodded. “That be right, Marshal-General. That’s what we should do.”

  Together, the little group moved to the far end of the Hall, where light shone through the round window. Arianya knelt, as she had so often. In the still air, the smell of sweaty human and cow grew stronger … the cow smell gradually predominating. What could that mean? The smell diminished, vanished, replaced by the fragrance of a forest. She didn’t understand that, either. But questions she could ask Salis rose in her mind and some ideas about Gird’s Cow—in this or another form.

  When she stood, the forest scent vanished. In silence, she led Salis and his followers back outside. The cowhide-covered shape on the wagon looked even more ridiculous now. Salis stopped, staring at it. “Marshal-General … it’s not right.”

  “Salis?”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m just an old farmer … I was stupid.”

  “No,” she said. “You were not, and are not, stupid. Please tell me what troubles you.”

  “That’s … I wanted it to be Gird’s Cow, but it’s not. That—in there—praying—I saw it.”

  “What?”

  “I saw Gird’s Cow. A dun cow, just like I always heard, and there was Gird, plain as day, with his hand on her neck.”

  The hair stood up on Arianya’s arms. “You … saw Gird?”

  “Yes.” The battered hat came off again, and he rubbed his head with his other hand. “Didn’t you?”

  “Not like that,” Arianya said. Should she say she smelled it? Probably not.

  “So this—” Salis gestured at his wagon. “This is just a cowhide over some sticks and straw.” He paused, glaring at it. “I thought it was enough—but I kept having to tell people what it was. If it was really Gird’s Cow, they’d know right off, wouldn’t they?”

  There was no other way; she had to tell him. “I smelled Gird’s Cow,” Arianya said. She tried not to see the look on Marshal Celis’s face. “In the High Lord’s Hall, just now—that’s what I was granted, to smell it and know that Gird approved.”

  Salis looked worried. “You’re sure it wasn’t just us?”

  “Yes,” Arianya said. “And I think your idea—of reminding people that Gird was about caring for people first, not hating and killing—was good. I think your idea of an image that would remind them of that was good. We have so many stories of Gird fighting—Gird Strongarm, Gird’s Club, and so on—that the Gird who loved cows and cared for cows and his family—isn’t that much in mind.”

  “But—but that—” Another look at the wagon and the cowish shape.

  “It was the best you could do, wasn’t it?” Arianya said. He nodded. “Then it was a gift that Gird accepted. I think that’s what your vision of him meant. With maybe a suggestion to let others help you do better.”

  “But who—” He looked at her. “You? You would help?”

  “We need something,” Arianya said. “I’ve been praying since the troubles started for something, anything, that might unite the
people in peace. I never thought of a cow, but you did. And look—people who agreed with you already.” She waved an arm at his followers.

  “But I told them—”

  “And they believed you were right. Salis—you may well be the answer I asked the gods to bring. You and your—Gird’s—cow.”

  The look on High Marshal Celis’s face offered no encouragement; Arianya looked at the stuffed shape again. “Your wooden medallions—who whittled those?”

  “Benis,” Salis said. Arianya looked at the group; one of the younger men nodded, blushing. “Benis whittles the bowls and spoons in our vill, as well as pegs and such, Marshal-General. He can whittle most anything.”

  “They look very cowlike,” Arianya said. “Benis, would you whittle one for me?”

  He turned redder. “Yes’m. Be glad to.”

  “Salis, let’s move your wagon into one of the stables for safety. And then let’s talk about how to make Gird’s Cow and your ideas do Gird’s work.”

  “Marshal-General—could we come back after eating … we didn’t stop on the way up the hill—”

  “Come to the kitchens,” Arianya said. She led them through the small garden, where they stopped to wash in the fountain, and then directly into the kitchens. Soon they were all seated at one of the tables, tearing open loaves of fresh bread as the cooks sliced cheese and meat.

  Arianya watched as they ate. All of them but three came from the same vill. “Dakin’s from Rosehedge,” Salis said through a mouthful of bread and cheese, waving at the darkest of the lot. “Married in, didn’t you, Daki?”

  “My grandda’s from east somewhere,” Dakin said.

  “Clothi’s from Sheepwalk,” Salis went on. “And her cousin Gadin as well.” Those two nodded at Arianya.

  Arianya nodded back, thinking hard. Could the idea of Gird’s Cow help stop the violence? Maybe. She couldn’t be sure.

  Arvid came into the kitchen—an unusual time for him—and held up his hand. A note, probably from his Marshal. Arianya smiled and waved him over to the table. “Have you eaten, Arvid?”

  “Marshal-General, I’ve brought you a message and am expected to bring one back. There’s a situation.”