"The people believe in an actual individual who is the stomper
counterpart of Garth here," the general broke in. "You know, Mr. Cole,
the stompers we kill ordinarily are all females. The males are smaller,
with a white crest, and they keep to the deep forest except on Hoggy
Darn nights. Maybe the frenzy then has something to do with mating--no
one knows. But Garth will kill the largest male he can find. The
people, and I expect Garth and I as well, are going to believe that he
has killed Grandfather Stomper in person."
The general sipped water and looked sternly over his glass at Cole.
Cole glanced at Pia, who seemed lost in a dream of her own, not there
to them.
"I see. A symbol," he agreed.
"Not the less real," Arscoate said tartly. "Symbols both mean and are.
Garth here is a symbol too and that is why, old as he is, he must be
in the thick of it. He is like the ancient battle flags of romantic
pre-space history. People before now have actually _seen_ Grandfather
Stomper. I am _not_ a superstitious backworlder, Mr. Cole, but--"
Cole raised a placatory hand. "I know you are not, general. Forgive me
if I seemed to suggest it."
"Let's have wine," Bidgrass said, pushing back his chair. "We'll take
it in the parlor and Pia can sing for us."
When General Arscoate said good-night he told Cole not to worry, that
he would have reliable guards at the manor gate during Garth Bidgrass'
absence in Car Truro.
"I meant to tell you and Pia in the morning, lad," Bidgrass said.
"Arscoate and I must go to Car Truro. There's heartburning there over
who gets to fight and who must stay behind. It will be only two days."
* * * * *
Cole felt uneasy all day. He spent most of it writing the covering
letter for his report and phrasing his resignation from the university
field staff. He wrote personal letters to his uncle and a few friends.
After dinner he finally signed the official letters and took the
completed report to Bidgrass' desk. Then he went to bed and slept
soundly.
Pia wakened him with frantic shaking.
"Dress quickly, Flinter. The guard at the gate was just changed and
it's not time."
She darted out to the hall window while he struggled with clothing,
then back again.
"_Quickly_, darling! Morgan's crossing the garden, with men. Follow me."
She led him through the kitchen and out a pantry window, then stooping
along the base of a hedge to where a flowering tree overshadowed the
garden wall.
"I planned this, out of sight of guard posts, when I was a little
girl," she whispered. "I always knew--over, Flinter, quickly!"
Outside was rough ground, a road, a wide field of cabbages and then
the barrier. Veiled Annis rode high and bluish in the clear sky. They
crossed the field in soaring leaps, and shouts pursued them. The girl
ran north a hundred yards behind the shadowy buttresses and squeezed
through a narrow crack between two huge timber baulks. Cole barely made
it, skinning his shoulders.
"I found this too when I was a little girl," Pia whispered. "I had to
enlarge it when my hips grew, but only just enough. Morwenna grant
they're all too big!"
"Morgan is, for sure," Cole said, rubbing his shoulder. "Pia, I _hate_
to run."
"We must still run. My old plan was to reach here unseen, but now they
know and they'll come over the wall in flyers. We'll have to hide in
the thick brush near the forest edge until Uncle Garth returns."
She pulled a basket out of the shadows.
"Food," she said. "I brought it last night."
He carried the basket and they raced across the half-mile belt to
concealment among high shrubbery and enormous mounds of fungi. Flyers
with floodlights came low along the wall and others quartered the
clearing. Cole and Pia stole nearer to the forest edge, into its
shadow. They did not sleep.