Salvisa turned back to Don. He was ashen-faced.
"Are you all right?" She asked as she checked him over for injuries. He was raw to bleeding around the wrists from the ropes that held him, and had a few bruises too old to be from his capture.
"You killed them." He said, in surprise rather than accusation
"Yes. They should have had their warning from the brigands we met on the road- I recognized the sword one of them had by the shelter."
"I've never seen a person killed."
"Good," Salvisa frowned slightly, "Someone who isn't bothered by killing another should be feared or pitied. Or both."
"And you?"
"I regret every time. Let's get you home. Did they take anything from you?"
Don nodded. When Salvisa turned back to Lop he was already rooting through the piles of trash and booty for anything useful. The first thing he pulled out was a string of small game, and with that now at his feet he picked more casually through the rest.
"It's mine. You have a problem?" Lop asked, noticing Salvisa had her eyes on the pile of fur in the leaves.
"Not with anything I see."
Salivsa shrugged. Perhaps it was because she never had any estate of her own, or because she had spent many years scouting through wildernesses with no known owner, but she could never sit well with beasts in the wild being "owned". Thankfully for Salvisa, the enforcement of Harmonian law was to her discretion, and her principal duty was to carry out the special assignments of the Temple.
The three made short work the contents of the lean-to. Anything worth carrying, from food to coins to goods, was easily carried in hand back to Manastash. The dead brigands were left where they fell, as a warning to their comrades.
Walse welcomed his son back with a slap across the face that knocked Don off balance and a bear hug. "I told you you'd get in trouble if you kept going into the forest." He admonished, "Thanks, Salvisa. Was it much trouble?"
Salvisa shook her head, "No. I've had to remove outlaws before, and much more skilled than these."
"Huh." Walse grunted, "How 'removed' are they?"
"Three are dead. The brigands we met on the road would have joined them, but they were not present. There is another thing, Walse. One of them mentioned that they had a deal with the guard. It sounded like the guard is either accepting or extorting money to turn a blind eye."
"And I thought the guard were thieves before…By the way, you and Lop are welcome to dinner with us tonight."
Walse's offer still left all the afternoon. While Don helped his father in the fields, Lop had no such obligation. While Salvisa helped him clean and dress the morning's game, they came to an agreement that if Lop would show her the best paths through the forest, she would teach him what more she knew of scouting. He was an unnervingly quick learner- given a few more years' experience, and different circumstances, Salvisa would have been terrified of him.
When evening fell, Salvisa finally had the opportunity to enter Walse's home. It was dim and smokey, but still smelled like home. Finding a seat on the floor by the cooking fire put her knees against Flossie's right and Lop's left. Walse's insistence that she not stay in his house may have had as much of a practical reason as a personal one.
Don's wife, Linde, served a livelier stew than Salvisa had come to expect. It even had meat in it, the first that she had tasted in days. Salvisa joined her hosts in savoring the food as if it was from a priestly banquet.
"That's a very pretty ring you have." Linde commented, "Do you have someone waiting for you in Crystal Valley?"
"It's more that I'm waiting for him." Salvisa said, blushing.
"He must be very handsome. What's his name?"
Salvisa laughed, "I don't know!"
"But Don said you had a son?"
"Yes, yes. I do have a son, Bram. The man who gave me this ring helped me escape the Temple, but I don't know him otherwise."
"I hope you can be reunited soon." Linde said earnestly.
"Mmm. Though right now, I'd hate to put more people in danger than I already have."
"Speaking of," Walse interrupted, "I met with most of the other villagers in the fields today. We want to make a formal complaint to the captain of the guard. Are you interested in coming if things go badly?"
"I'm flattered." Salvisa said with a note of sarcasm.
"Don't be. You're able, that's all. If you know where your loyalties lie, you can refuse just as well."
Salvisa didn't need long to think before she nodded in agreement. "How many others? You said at least twenty soldiers."
"There's me and Flossie, and around ten other village men are free." Walse said. He looked grim with Salvisa reminding him of the odds. Salvisa frowned, thinking that at least it would be a dozen in one place against something less, but also that it was trained fighters against lifelong farmers.
"I'm going too." Lop added emphatically.
"You sound confident that people will get hurt." Salvisa countered Walse, hoping to dissuade Lop, "Is there enough medicine in the village? Can you even afford to lose more people, and suffer retaliation from the military?"
"Right now, we can't afford anything. Least of all to allow those bastards to abuse us as they do. Haven't you seen this village? We've lost everything because they won't forgive a single potch in tax- we've no more livestock, there's never enough grain, and we have nothing else they take our children into debt bondage."
Walse was shaking, his hairy fists white-knuckled with fury. Flossie wrapped her husband in a gentle embrace that did nothing to calm him. Her expression was one of bitter sorrow, but one she could no longer weep for. Salvisa needed no more convincing.
"I will go with you. When will you make your case?"
"We'll meet the bastards tomorrow morning." Walse said, still shaking, "Bring your sword with you to meet us here tomorrow morning."
"I only have one request." Salvisa said, rising to her feet, "If there are any spare clothes, I would like to borrow them. I don't think I can risk wearing what I have. If you have a head scarf too…"
Salvisa self-consciously ran her fingers through her fine blonde hair. A second-class merchant might have been able to afford the food that nourished her height and lithe muscles. Even some subhumans lucked into having clear blue eyes. But it was almost unheard of for anyone but the carefully bred first-class citizens of Harmonia to have both those attributes and hair the color of honey. Among the people of the village, she would stand out like a sunbeam in a landscape of dirt and soot. If word had yet reached Manastash from Crystal Valley of her escape, who to arrest would be obvious.
