Sentry Peak by Harry Turtledove

from almost as tall as the woman down to waist high on her. The man—plainly a runaway serf—said, “You’re Good King Avram’s soldiers?”
    That made the Detinans laugh. The one who’d called the challenge answered, “If we weren’t, pal, you’d already have a crossbow quarrel between the ribs.”
    “Gods be praised!” the serf exclaimed. “We’re off our estate for good now. The earl’ll never get us back again.” He led his wife and children across the bridge toward the soldiers. They were halfway across when he noticed Rollant. “Gods be praised!” he said again. “One of our own, a soldier for the southron king.” Then, pointing at Rollant, he let loose with a spate of gibberish.
    “Speak Detinan,” Rollant answered. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.” Back in the old days, blonds in what was now Detina had spoken scores of different tongues. This one sounded nothing like the one Rollant’s ancestors near Karlsburg had used. That language was nearly dead these days, anyhow, surviving only as scattered words in the Detinan dialect the serfs of Palmetto Province spoke.
    The runaway looked disappointed. In Detinan, he said, “I want to be a soldier for King Avram, too, and kill the nobles in the north.”
    “What about us?” the woman with him asked, pointing to the children and herself as they finished crossing the bridge.
    One of the troopers in Detinan gray had a different question: “What do we do with ’em?”
    “Let the blond fellow here deal with them,” another veritable Detinan answered. “They’re his, by the gods.”
    Rollant would have bet a month’s pay one of the dark-haired men would say that. He’d already escaped to the south. He had not a word of this serf’s language. But his hair was yellow, not brown. To a man whose forefathers had crossed the Western Ocean—or even to one who’d crossed himself—that made all the difference.
    And, Rollant had to admit, it made some difference to him, too. He waved to the serf and his family. “Come along with me. I’ll take you to my captain. He’ll decide what to do with you.” He pointed to the water bottles he’d filled. “You can help me carry these, too.”
    That set the other soldiers laughing. “He’s no fool,” one of them said. “Doesn’t feel like working himself when he can get somebody else to do it for him.” Had he used a different tone of voice, he would have been mocking a lazy serf. But he sounded more admiring than otherwise: one soldier applauding another’s successful ingenuity.
    “Come on,” Rollant said again. The escaped serf ran forward and picked up almost all the water bottles. For him, bearing burdens for King Avram’s soldiers was a privilege, not a duty—and a nuisance of a duty at that. Rollant smiled as he grabbed the couple of bottles the runaway hadn’t. “When I finally got into the south, I was the same way you are now,” he told the fellow.
    “My liege lord can’t tell me what to do any more,” the serf said simply. “He can’t come sniffing after my woman any more, neither.”
    Rollant led the whole family of runaways back to the encampment. Sergeant Joram glared at him. “I sent you after water, not more blonds,” he growled, and then, before Rollant could say anything, “Take ’em to the captain. He’ll figure out what to do with ’em.”
    Since Rollant had intended to do just that, he obeyed cheerfully. Captain Cephas eyed the newcomers and said, “We can use somebody to chop wood. You handy with an axe, fellow?” The escaped serf nodded. Cephas turned to the woman. “Can you cook? The fellow we’ve got could burn water.”
    “Yes, lord, I can cook,” she answered softly.
    “I’m not a lord. I’m just a captain,” Cephas said. “We’ll put the two of you on the books. Half a common soldier’s pay for you” —the man— “and a third for you” —the woman. Their delighted expressions on realizing they’d get money for their labor