A Meeting at Corvallis (26 page)

He turned to the Mackenzies and Bearkillers. “You folks know what I did before the Change?”

“No,” Mike Havel said. “You weren't a student, like everybody else in this town?”

“Nah, I was a cop. Sometimes I think that's a disadvantage. I may…will need to talk to you all again. Please notify me if you're leaving town before this is settled.”

“This is bad,” Juniper said again, as he left.

“It was bad when we arrived, Juney. This just makes it worse,” Havel said, and looked at his sister-in-law and her companions. “You couldn't, just maybe, have told the rest of us what was going on?”

“We didn't expect Lady Sandra to have Sir Jason
killed,
” Astrid said, a slightly defensive note in her voice. “He was her own liege man…well, her husband's baron's liege man. We thought she'd try to
rescue
him. All she'd have to do would be to get him out on the street and we couldn't take him back.”

Signe snorted. “Anyone who underestimates Sandra Arminger's…focus…is going to be sorry and sore,” she said. “She's just as smart as the bastard she married, and a lot more clear-headed.”

“And sir…” Alleyne said. “Perhaps we were being a trifle vain, but we thought the four of us could intercept whoever she sent and Sir Jason as they left. We also felt that a larger party would have been too likely to be detected. We
wanted
to catch someone, after all, not deter them from trying at all.”

“Yeah.” Havel nodded. “That's the way I'd have bet, too. Sandra's got a real pro working for her. Pity you didn't kill her.”

“Wait a minute,” Signe said. They all glanced over at her. “I've got an idea.”

She spoke for five minutes. When she finished, Astrid frowned and spoke. “But what if Lady Sandra doesn't buy it?”

“Then at least we'll be able to see who she uses to contact them. She'll have to investigate.”

Astrid smiled sweetly. “Oh, I think I have an idea about that too. A fail-safe. We have to be careful. But I think I know the right bait, if it was Tiphaine Rutherton.”

Mike Havel glanced back and forth between them. After a moment, he began to laugh. “I see why the Larssons stayed on top of the heap all those generations.”

Corvallis and area, Oregon
January 12th, 2008/Change Year 9

“M
atti!” Sandra Arminger said, holding out her arms. “Oh,
puh
-leeze,” Astrid muttered under her breath.
“Raica pedeth!”

No,
Rudi Mackenzie thought.
She really means it. Yeah, she's showing it off, too, for those guys
—his eyes went to the Corvallan officials, who were looking uneasy—
but she's really sad and upset too.

It was odd, the way other people had trouble telling each other's feelings. They were pretty obvious to him, most of the time.

Mathilda ran to her mother. They were in a seldom-used public room, some sort of meeting place in one of the town government's buildings, empty except for windows and chairs and a table, gloomy, dead light fixtures still in the particle-tile ceiling, with a bare, fusty smell of stale linoleum and dead insects. Rudi didn't like it; he'd grown up in buildings made of honest logs and planks, and preferred the feel of wood. He stood a little closer to his own mother.

This old stuff is creepy,
he thought, shivering slightly, and focused on the people instead.

Sandra Arminger's cotte-hardi and headdress made a splash of silver and pearl gray and white, the silk and linen and wool warm despite the restrained colors. Mathilda's sumac red jacket and plain kilt were a contrast to it as she hugged her mother. For a long moment they embraced, and then they spoke together in low tones. When the girl turned to beckon him, her face was wet with tears.

“Hello, young lord,” Mathilda's mother said, after he'd walked over and bowed.

She extended a hand, and he took it and kissed it courteously, bending a knee slightly; it was polite of her to treat him like a grown-up. When he looked up their eyes met; hers were dark and deep, like wells full of cleverness and hidden thought; Rudi could feel them probing at him, as if she could see inside him, or was trying to. He smiled, and saw her mouth quirk up at one corner in response.

“Lady Sandra,” he said formally. “I'm happy to meet you.”

“My daughter tells me you've been a good friend to her,” the woman said.

Rudi's smile grew into a grin, and he put an arm around Mathilda's shoulders for a momentary squeeze. “Sure!” he said. “Matti's cool. We're best friends.”

“Ah!” her mother said, and her eyes warmed, losing a little of that knife-keen look. “Now isn't that nice? She needs a friend, being so far from home. Could we talk a little more?”

He bowed again and withdrew; Astrid and Eilir and Juniper stayed by the door, well out of earshot; his mother gave him a little nod at his enquiring look, and he went out through the door into the corridor. That was a little better, even if it was dark except for one smelly lantern. Aoife and Liath were there, leaning on their bows.

“Can I go outside?”

The two young warriors of the Clan looked at each other; Sandra Arminger had come with only her one bodyguard, and Astrid and Eilir were in there with her, and it was all very official and aboveboard, with the Corvallans ready to be
very
angry at anyone who broke the peace. The meeting had been set up on the sixth floor, just to make any dirty business impossible, with a sheer drop smoother than the city wall, and taller. Nobody was going to be jumping out of windows.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Aoife said.

“These big old buildings give me the creeps,” Liath said. “I feel like I'm smothering. I wish the townies would tear them all down.”

Rudi cocked his head, distracted for a moment. “That's what I was thinking,” he said. “But isn't your house an old building? Sam's place.”

“Not like this,” Liath said, and shivered slightly as she looked around.

“Yeah, it never feels bad there when I'm visiting,” Rudi acknowledged.

“It's an
old
old building, if you know what I mean. It was always a farmhouse, and that means it belongs to the Mother.”

He nodded; that made sense. Aoife went on: “Let's go outside, then. We can wait in the court.”

She stuck her head through the door and spoke something quietly. Then they went down the dark echoing metal stairwell; on the lower floors they passed a few Corvallans, busy about the town's business—the more easily accessible parts of the building were still in use, and they had a more living smell as well, wool and the hot metal of stoves and candle tallow. At the bottom of the stairs was a swinging metal door with Exit painted on it in flaking red paint.

Silly,
Rudi thought.
What else would it be? Did people in the old times have to
read
before they knew what a door was?

They might have, at that. From the stories, they'd been very very odd back then, in the old times. The sign also said an alarm would go off; he chuckled at an image of someone standing there blowing a trumpet or a horn every time the door was opened, or a big brass bell ringing. That probably wasn't what the sign meant, but then the old stuff was often incomprehensible or dumb or both.

I'm glad I live now and not then,
he thought, taking a deep breath of the fresher air outside. It still had more smoke and the smell of more people than he was accustomed to. Even Dun Juniper could get stuffy and give him a closed-in feeling, but you could always run out into the meadows.
And I'm glad I don't live in a big city like this, either. You'd have to
walk and walk
to get to the fields and woods!

There were new watering troughs and hitching posts around the asphalt square that filled the hollow of the L-shaped building. Horses were tethered there, and Lady Sandra's carriage—and enough City guards to outnumber her escort of men-at-arms very thoroughly, just in case. The Association warriors stood in a group, with their shields slung over their backs and their hands resting casually on the peace-bonded hilts of their swords. They carefully didn't look at the Corvallan crossbowmen standing behind them, and the crossbowmen carefully didn't point their weapons anywhere near them—but they were spanned and had quarrels in the grooves. Rudi grinned to himself; it was like two groups of big, unfriendly dogs watching each other from opposite ends of a lane; most times they'd just run up and down barking at each other, and then go back and flop down and pant as if they'd done something important.

The rest of the guards were leaning on their glaives and talking with each other—he could hear a couple complaining how this special call-up was cutting into their regular, everyday jobs and hoping it would all be over soon. Now and then their armor would rustle or clank; most of them were wearing brigandines or chain shirts, but a couple had sheet-steel breastplates and tassets.

A pair in lighter gear were grooming their horses and tending their tack. They looked up and brightened as Rudi walked over towards them. People usually smiled back at him—that was only natural, since he liked most people he met, so why shouldn't they like him? His own smile had a little extra calculation; the two were looking at Aoife and Liath, and hoping to strike up a conversation. Witch-girls had a reputation for being friendly, and this raw windy day was beyond boring. Rudi didn't intend to be bored; he seldom was, and never when there was a horse to investigate.

“That's a good horse,” Rudi said, after everyone had exchanged names. “Is it yours?”

He had some dried fruit in his pouch; he offered it carefully in his palm, and the big bay gelding bent its head to eat, the hairs on its lips tickling his hand.

“Yup, Blockhead here's mine. The city rents him from me when we're called up together. My folks have a farm outside the Westgate, and I think he's glad to get a change from pulling a cart.”

“Can I help you curry him, Walter?” Rudi asked.

“You know how?” the young man said.

Aoife and Liath laughed. “Oh, brother, you put your foot in there,” Aoife said. “This is
Rudi Mackenzie
you're talking to.”

“Aren't all you guys called Mackenzie?” he replied.

His partner winced and tried to whisper something to him as Aoife snorted and looked down her nose. Liath cut in: “I'm Liath
Dunling
Mackenzie,” the younger woman said patiently. “My friend here's Aoife
Barstow
Mackenzie. The little goblin here is Rudi
just-plain-and-simple
Mackenzie—the Chief's son. Like the Chief is Juniper Mackenzie full stop herself herself.”

“Well, excuse me!” the guard said, smiling and making an elaborate bow. He offered the currycomb. “Go right ahead!”

“I can't handle the top parts without something to stand on,” Rudi said. “I bet this fellah here really can canter for miles—look at those legs and the chest.”

Walter looked at him, pale brows rising. “Blockhead's not the fastest horse in town, but he's a stayer,” he said respectfully.

They all talked horses and tack while the work went on. It was nice to talk with the Corvallans, and in a way it was a relief nobody was older than Aoife—even his own mother tended to go on about the old days far too much. Someone bought a jug of sweet, heated clover tea from a passing street vendor, and they passed it around in mannerly fashion, pouring from spout to mouth without touching lips to the tin and giving it back to the seller's little wheeled cart when they were finished. Then the door opened again.

It was Mathilda, by herself; she looked up and waved at a window before walking out with her hands tucked in her armpits. Rudi went over to her.

“You OK?” he said.

“Sure,” she replied with patent falseness. “They said I could come out here while the grown-ups talked. I didn't like the way their voices sounded.”

“Were they yelling?” Rudi asked, frowning.
Mom doesn't yell very often, but it's scary when she does.

Her lip quivered again, but she mastered it. “No. It was all quiet, but I was frightened.”

Oh, that's worse than yelling,
he thought. “I feel bad about it too,” he went on aloud, blinking his own eyes and rubbing at them with the back of his hand. “I wish our folks weren't all mad at each other. It makes me feel rotten, like I'd eaten something bad. If we can be friends, why can't they?”

Mathilda nodded. “Me too. I mean,
we're
never going to be enemies, are we, Rudi?”

“Never! Not for anything, Matti.”

“But if I go back home, we'll never get to see each other again,” she pointed out. “Not for years and years and years, until we're grown-ups ourselves. And there may be a war.”

They stood and looked at each other for a moment, knowing that the quarrels of the adults could do that. Then Mathilda's face lightened.

“We could be
anamchara
. Then we'd never be enemies, not all our lives.”

“Yeah!” Rudi said enthusiastically. Then more seriously: “It's a big deal, being soul-friends, though, Matti. We'd have to share all our secrets, all our lives long, and fight for each other, and all that stuff. If you die in a foreign land, I have to give you your rites, and you for me. Even if our clans are at feud, we have to help each other. It's serious.”

Mathilda nodded. “That's why we should do it. Then nobody could ever make us fight.” Then she hesitated and a tiny frown appeared. “I don't know…my confessor wouldn't yell at me, would he? Mom just now said I shouldn't do anything that would make the Virgin cry.”

Rudi didn't say that no Aspect of the Lady would cry about people swearing friendship; it wouldn't be tactful. But…
Mom says you've always got to be careful when you ask the Mighty Ones for something. They may give it to you.
Decision:
This is a good idea. Really.

“Nah, it's not a witches-and-Christians thing, not really. Not
rún,
not a whadyacallit, a sacred mystery. Mom says that over in Ireland they used to swear the oath of
anamchara
even after they became Christians themselves. You wanna?”

“Then let's do it!”

“You
sure
?”

She nodded vigorously. “We'll have to get away from all these people…how long? Mom said it'd be half an hour until she was through talking.”

“That's plenty of time. And we'll need some stuff. I know!”

He strolled over towards his bodyguards again. “Liath,” he said quietly.

Aoife and the two Corvallans were looking at a hoof and discussing the shoeing; the horse snorted and swished its tail, but it was a good-hearted beast and stood patiently on three legs. Liath stood back a little; she was less outgoing than Aoife, who had enough self-confidence for three ordinary people and always had.