and laughed till you could tell it hurt him, and though it wasn't a noisy laugh, some men heard and came over and looked at him and looked at me, and some of them began laughing too.
"Oh," he said at last, wiping his eyes and sitting up. "Oh. That did me good. That's a kilt, young 'un. You wear it—" and he began to laugh again, and doubled up, and wheezed, and finally said, "You wear it on the other end."
I looked at the thing, and saw it had a waistband, like trousers.
"I'll do without," I said. "If you don't mind."
"No," he said, wheezing. "I don't mind. Give it back, then."
"Why would the kid want one of your fool skirts, Chamry?" one of the onlookers said. "Here, kid, I'll get you something decent." He came back with a pair of breeches that fit me well enough, though loosely. When I had them on he said, "Keep 'em, they're too tight for my belly. So you came in with Brigin and them today? Joining up, are you? What'll we call you?"
"Gavir Arca," I said.
The man who had given me the kilt said, "That's your name."
I looked at him, not understanding.
"Do you want to use it?" he asked.
I had done so little thinking for so long, my mind would not move quickly at all; it needed a lot of time. I said at last, "Gav."
"Gav it is," said the man who had given me the kilt. "I'm Chamry Bern of Bernmant, and I use my name, for I'm so far from where I came that no one can track me by name or fame or any game."
"He's from where the men wear skirts and the women piss standing," said one of the onlookers, and got some laughter from the others.
"Lowlanders," said Chamry Bern, of them, not to them. "They know no better. Come on, you, Gav. You'd better take the oath, if that's what you came for, and get your share of dinner. I saw you carrying in your share of it and more."
The god Luck is deaf in one ear, they say, the ear we pray to; he can't hear our prayers. What he hears, what he listens to, nobody knows. Denios the poet said he hears the wheels of the stars' great chariots turning on the roads of heaven. I know that while I was sunk far beneath any thought of prayer, with no hope, no trust in anything, no desire, Luck was always with me. I lived, though I took no care to survive. I came to no harm among strangers. I carried money and was not robbed. When I was alone and on the verge of death, an old mad hermit beat me back to life. And now Luck had sent me to these men, and one of them was Chamry Bern.
Chamry went and whacked on a crowbar hung from a post of the largest hut. The signal brought men to gather around the porch of the hut. "Newcomer," he said. "Gav is his name. He says he's been living with Cuga the Ogre, which would explain the smell that came with him. And after a bath in our river he seeks to join our company. Right, Gav?"
I nodded. I was intimidated by being the center of what seemed to me a great crowd of men—twenty or more—all looking me over. Most of them were young and had a trim, fit, hard look, like Brigin, the man who'd led me here, though there were several grey or bald heads and a couple of slack bellies.
"Do you know who we are?" one of the bald heads demanded.
I took a deep breath. "Are you the Barnavites?" That caused some scowling and some laughter. "Some of us used to be," the man said, "maybe. And what do you know of Barna's lot, boy?"
I was younger than they were, but I didn't like being called kid and boy all the time. It put my back up.
"I heard stories. That they lived in the forest as free men, neither masters or slaves, sharing fairly all they had."
"Well put," said Chamry. "All in a nutshell." Several men looked pleased and nodded.
"Well enough, well enough," the bald man said, keeping up his dignity. Another man came up close to me; he looked very much like Brigin, and as I learned later they were brothers. His face was hard and handsome, his eyes clear and cold. He looked me over. "If you live with us you'll