Most of the population were peasants, who fell into several categories. The highest was prosperous enough to hire help, or to contract with sharecroppers. The second class owned their own land and farmed it with the labor of their family. The third was sharecroppers, and below them day laborers who found paying work as they could.
The Kullvordi had a slightly different situation. One thing remained of their previous independence: they had no bailiffs. Local headmen, whom they elected themselves, presided over day-to-day life, but could be overruled and dismissed by the reeves, who also set and collected the taxes.
“And there you have it,” Wollerda finished. “Our obstacles and our opportunities. We’ve got to work out ways to make use of the one and get around the other. What you did in Gormin Town showed me more potential in the flatlanders than I’d realized they had.” He got to his feet. “Come ride with me,” he said. “Just the two of us.”
“All right,” Macurdy said, and got to his feet. The invitation hadn’t been casual; the commander wanted privacy. Wollerda saddled his own horse; he was not a leader who demanded to be waited on, though he might if his army grew enough to seriously tax his time. Unaccompanied by aides, they rode out of camp in the beginnings of dusk.
“There are things about you,” Wollerda said, “that don’t add up. First, you claim to come from Oz. I’ve never been in Oz, but I’ve known a few Ozmen in my travels. And you? You’re different from any of them.”
“All men are different.”
“In details. But every people has its own ways, its own beliefs and viewpoints. Ozmen tend to be impulsive and more or less warlike. You fit there. But some of the things you’ve done . . .” Wollerda shook his head. “It’s hard to imagine an Ozman undertaking what you did in Gormin Town. Or intervening at such risk in a fight between bandits and dwarves. And not keeping the horses?” He shook his head in rejection.
“Hmh! Interesting.”
“Why did you do those things? What drives you?”
“I guess I’m an adventurous soul.”
Wollerda grunted. “It goes beyond that.”
Macurdy said nothing for a while, not consciously thinking about it, feeling the roll and shift of the horse beneath him as it walked, the animal’s smell, the sound of tree frogs in the evening. And the hum and bite of mosquitoes. He wove a repellent field as he rode.
Finally he spoke. “If I told you, you’d think I was lying. Or crazy.”
There was a short lag before Wollerda replied. “I can’t commit myself to an ally whose motives I can’t even guess.”
Macurdy reined in his horse. “Are you telling me you’ll turn down my help if I can’t explain why I’m doing this?”
Wollerda eyed him calmly. “My friend, I admire what you’ve done—I’m even in awe of it—and I appreciate the guts and strength and ability it took. I wish you success in your efforts against Gurtho, and I’ll move to take advantage of them. But unless I know more about you—why you’ve involved yourself—I can’t exchange plans with you. Let alone operate under one plan, as the two hands of one body.”
For a long moment, Macurdy sat his horse without speaking, reexamining Wollerda’s aura. It told him this man could be stubborn, but offered no clue on what to do about it.
“I’ve been wronged and abused myself,” Macurdy said, “been made a slave, and beaten, and my wife stolen from me. It’s easy for me to see things from a Kullvordi point of view.”
He felt Wollerda’s eyes examining, and recalled something that Arbel had said once in passing: That some people saw auras without realizing it, even learned to read them a bit without being aware of it. Was Wollerda reading his?
“There’s more to it than that,” Wollerda said. “The heart of it is something else.”
Macurdy, looking for what else he might say, decided to try the truth. “All right,” he said, “I’ll trust you. I’m from Farside. I was a farmer there, and married a beautiful woman with red hair—and tilty green eyes.” He paused, letting Wollerda absorb the words, examine them, realize their significance. He also watched Wollerda’s aura, thinking to learn more about the indicators of disbelief, and maybe indignation. Instead he saw a flash of realization. “After a while,” he went on, “she told me about Yuulith, and the gates, and the Sisterhood. Then one day, people from the Sisterhood found us and stole her. Took her through the Oz Gate. I followed them, but I had to wait a month before it opened again.