A Meeting at Corvallis (31 page)

“But apparently did nothing about it,” Sandra Arminger put in.

Ah, that was a mistake,
Havel thought. This time the growl from the audience was ugly; Jones was a popular man, and too many people knew him personally for a slander to have much effect.

Astrid rose, and spoke in that beautiful, cool voice: “We Dúnedain Rangers spend our time in the wilderness, fighting bandits and maneaters. Some of us have died fighting them.”

And she didn't mention the orcs of the Dark Lord. That must have taken real discipline!

“We guard caravans”—she named a few Corvallan merchants who'd hired them—“and nobody has complained that we didn't do the job properly. Our work benefits everyone in the Valley, and beyond.”

Havel came to his own feet. “Mr. President, I and my Outfit have always been friendly to this city. We and the Mackenzies and Mount Angel have all found it worthwhile to help the Rangers, the Dúnedain Rangers, in their work. They're doing things we don't have the time for. Leaving aside the bigger issues, we'd like Corvallis to do likewise. It's only fair to chip in, since you're getting the benefits.”

Several of the guards around the rim of the old basketball court began to thump the butts of their glaives on the floor. Someone shouted
Vote!
and others took it up, until the great building echoed and rang with the thunder of the chant:
“Vote! Vote! Vote!”

“Well, we didn't get the alliance we hoped for,” Juniper said.

“No,” Mike Havel replied. “But we will. Not right away, but we will. Ms. Arminger played a weak hand pretty good, but I think she knows it too. Astrid and Eilir got their bunch recognized in Corvallis, and that's a start. Plus I think that codebook made a lot of people real thoughtful. Every bit of weight on our side of the balance counts. And the Protector took a heavy public-relations hit.”

“Not so bad a one as I'd have liked,” Juniper observed. “Alas, would that it were like a story, where you capture the enemy's secret plan and they're undone at a stroke.”

“No, Arminger's bitch played defense very well,” Signe said. “And you saw that bit at the end of the coded sequence—he's read the list.”

Juniper chuckled unkindly; then her voice grew sober. “There's one thing that's bothering me, then, Mike, Signe. If Sandra knows the Corvallans will ally with us eventually…what will her husband do when she tells him?”

Mike Havel looked at his wife. He could tell the same thought was running through both their minds.

Well, shit. He'll strike before that can happen, is what.

Signe scowled over at the Protectorate party; an attendant was draping a spectacular ermine cloak around Sandra's shoulders, a waterfall of shining black-streaked white fur that swung to her ankles. It must be heavy, but there was a coach drawn up to spare her the effort of walking in it; the space immediately outside the entrance was kept clear for the VIPs.

“I wonder what went on there—” Havel began, and then stopped as Tiphaine walked towards the Dúnedain party. “And wouldn't I like to be a fly on someone's head
there
!”

“So,” Astrid said, sneering slightly.
“Bauglannen i gos?”
Which meant “you chickened out, neener neener,” more or less. “Didn't like the thought of that knife duel?”

“Not at all,” Tiphaine said, with a smile of amusement copied from Sandra Arminger, and none the worse for that. “I'm going to kill you, all right. But you haven't
suffered
enough yet.”

She turned on her heel, throwing a final word over her shoulder: “I don't know if I'll be able to bring myself to kill you, in the end—because by then, it's going to be a
relief
.”

Dun Fairfax, Willamette Valley, Oregon
March 5th, 2008/Change Year 9

“W
hoa, there,” Sam Aylward said; he could see his stepdaughter Tamar heading his way down the lane from the Dun, with her pair of little red-and-white oxen following behind pulling a two-wheeled cart. “Dinner's on its way. Steady, steady. Whoa, boys.”

This would be the last furrow; the field was a little under five acres, gently rolling land near the southwest part of his farm and on the boundary line between Dun Fairfax and Dun Carson; he could see plow teams at work over there too, now and then. Four miles to an acre, back and forth with a double-bottom riding plow that left a yard-wide swath of turned earth; they'd started on this field when the sky was just turning gray with dawn. It was an hour past noon now, and he'd driven the two-horse team back and forth the full twenty miles at about the speed of a man walking briskly, with ten-minute rests every hour. The disks ahead of the plow-blades cut into the sod of the lea-pasture with a long shhhhsshsh, and then the shares made a multiple crinkling tink sound beneath it as the thicker roots of the sainfoin parted before the steel.

There was a sweet, sappy smell to the cut ryegrass and clover, beneath the rich earthy-mealy scent of the wet earth turning away from the moldboards in twin curves; the soil was just damp enough to make for easy plowing, without being wet enough to puddle and damage the tilth under hoof and share. Earthworms and grubs moved in the furrows of dark brown dirt, and white-winged birds swooped down to feed with shrill cries. His dogs Garm and Grip were over by the fencerow, watching him work—they'd lost interest in leaping and snapping at the flock some time ago.

I daresay they'd rather be out hunting,
he thought with a tired grin.
Me too, you idle furry bastards!

He reached down and worked the lever that raised the business part of the sulky plow out of contact with the soil, then guided the big blocky-headed roan draught-horses onto the narrow strip of grass beside the fence and the young hawthorn hedge growing up through it, a few yards from the field-gate on the northern side. Then he slid down to the ground with a grunt, worked his shoulders and rubbed at the small of his back; riding the machine was a lot easier than holding the handles of a single-furrow walking plow, but it still wasn't anything like sitting in an armchair, either.

Not to mention the pleat-marks in the skin of your arse from sitting on a kilt,
he thought, rubbing those affected parts too.

His first care was for the horses; he freed them from the traces and let them bend their heads to crop at the grass of the verge. They'd been working since dawn's first red tinge showed over the Cascades, but they weren't sweating much, just enough to make the musky, homey scent strong in his nostrils as he stroked their thick necks, a familiar counterpoint to the cake-rich smell of turned earth. It was a clear midday after several weeks' gentle off-and-on rain, sunny with a high white haze and a few clouds, but the temperature was just on the right side of brisk and perfect for outdoor work. He was glad it wasn't any warmer. You had to be careful not to overheat big horses like these Suffolks; they could keel over on you if you did, and they were still fantastically scarce and valuable. And they were good-hearted beasts, who deserved fair treatment.

Then he turned and called into the field: “Oi, there! Time for dinner! Harry! Miguel!”

The other two men were harrowing the ground he'd plowed, getting the tilth ready; this field was going into oats, and the dark brown soil had a rippled smoothness after the disks had chopped apart the clods and mixed in the last of the grass and clover. They hadn't knocked off just because they saw him finish, which pleased him—doing the work yourself wasn't half as tiring as trying to keep a slacker's nose to it. Neither of these had that problem.

This was getting into the busy part of the year again, after the lull of midwinter. It was time to plow and plant the spring-sown crops, the barley and oats, hops and roots and truck, time for the sheep and cattle to drop their young, time for wool-shearing and time to heat up the long battle with the weeds.

“Oi! Miguel!” Aylward called again. “'arry!”

Miguel Lopez halted the two yoked oxen he'd been leading and unhitched them from the harrow, leaving it where it could take up the work again immediately; he was a dark, stocky man of about thirty who'd arrived last spring as a refugee from the Protectorate, along with his wife and two children. A refugee from the Barony of Gervais in particular, though he'd been born in Jalisco and come north with his parents years before the Change. The younger man out there was Aylward's cousin-by-marriage, son of his wife's youngest aunt.

He kept on, seemingly deaf….

Aylward sighed. “Oh, bugger.” Louder: “All right then, it's time for dinner,
Húrin!
”

Many younger Mackenzies took new names out of the old Celtic myths when they came of age and were sworn as Dedicants of the Old Religion—Harry's sister Jeanette was now named Liath. Harry himself had been hanging around Astrid and Eilir and their gang, so he'd gone the whole hog and picked a label out of the books that lot were crazy for; he waved back at Aylward when he heard the name he'd chosen, and not before. He was a little past eighteen, lanky and strong, with longish hair of a color between light brown and dark yellow, and stubborn enough to make a piece of black walnut root look flexible. He'd probably go off with the Rangers full-time soon, which was a pity since he was a good, solid worker around the farm and handy with tools, but the Dúnedain did valuable scouting and bandit suppression. He'd earned it; he was a fine shot, better than average at fieldcraft and useful with a blade as well.

And Samkin Aylward isn't going to cark at a country lad who wants to go for a soldier. At least
Húrin
wasn't supposed to be some poncing
elf's
name…

“Hi, Dad!” Tamar called as she got closer, waving; she was fourteen just now, a gangly tow-haired girl with a round face much like her stepfather's.

Aylward waved back. Tamar opened the gate and brought her cart through; the red-coated, white-faced oxen were yearlings she'd hand-raised and almost as obedient as dogs, following her without needing to be led. The cart held two big plastic bins of water, a light-metal trough, a couple of bales of fodder for the oxen, and buckets of oat-mash with beans for the horses; the big beasts couldn't live on grass alone when they were doing hard graft like this.

The men and girl occupied themselves watering and feeding the stock. When his team had their muzzles in the buckets and were eating with sloppy, slobbering enthusiasm, the humans washed up themselves and unpacked the lunch baskets: crusty rolls sliced and stuffed with ham and sharp-tasting cheese, pickles, covered bowls of potato salad, sweet nut-bread and a bucket of Dennis Martin Mackenzie's homebrew, which the Aylward household got in trade for their hops and barley. Aylward scooped the thick-walled glass mug full twice with water before he filled it with beer; ale quenched thirst and tasted a hell of a lot better, but the alcohol made it go through you fast. Early training had made him careful about maintaining hydration, and it stuck even in this mild, wet climate.

He never discarded a good habit. They tended to prolong your life.

Tamar ate with the casual voracity of youth; the men with the solid appetite of those who burned six or seven thousand calories a day every day of the year except for the high holidays; Miguel Lopez added the reverence towards food of someone who'd worked nearly as hard and been kept hungry most days to boot since the Change.

Aylward grinned to himself. Miguel had nearly wept when Melissa took the trouble to do up a dinner in the style of his homeland, not just Mexican but specifically Jaliscan, from
tortas ahogadas
to sweet
jericalla
custard. It had been a long time for him; Mrs. Lopez was what the Yanks called an Anglo, in a fit of mislabeling that never failed to amuse the man from Hampshire. Which in this case meant mainly Irish and German, and they'd met after the Change, so she'd never had a chance to learn that style of cooking. A Protectorate peon got enough to keep going, but not much more, and the quality was even lower than the quantity.

“Where's Edain?” he asked Tamar, when the first draught of the dark brew had gone down his throat; school was only four days a week this time of year, with the farming calendar starting to creak into motion. His eldest son wouldn't be willingly inside.

Tamar gave an evil chuckle. “Helping Mom. She roped him into minding Fand and Dick and Mrs. Smith's kids while they turn the cheeses,” she said.

Aylward smiled back, and the other two men laughed; for an active seven-year-old boy on a fine spring day child-minding would be purgatorial.

Miguel looked out over the field as he stretched and worked his shoulders. “Not so bad,” he said with satisfaction in his voice.

“Not 'alf bad,” Aywlard agreed.

Nothing skimped or shirked,
he thought to himself, nodding. They'd put honest sweat into the effort, and hard-won skill, and it showed. The disked field looked as smooth and rich as a cup of chocolate.

“You know what I like about farming?” Miguel went on.

“The lying about late in the morning?” Aylward asked, mock-solemn. “The freedom from worry and care?”

All three men and the girl laughed, but Miguel went on: “It is, what's the word,
straightforward
. My children, I will never have to explain to them what it is their father does far away in some office. With the help of God”—he crossed himself—“we grow the food we eat. This is simple.”

Then he shrugged a little self-consciously, though nobody was disagreeing, and scooped up a mug of the beer. “So,
patrón,
what do we do next?”

Aylward wiped his mouth with the napkin and tossed it back into the basket. “I'll take the team over to the Oak Field and give it a going-over with the spring-tooth cultivator while you two are finishing up the harrowing 'ere,” he said. “Folding the sheep on it last autumn was an easy way to dung the land, but there were too many weed seeds in it for comfort. That's the price of keeping them on rough grazing.”

“Didn't we do that field already?” Miguel asked.

“I want to make certain and sure. It'll be a right cockup if that couch grass comes back on us. Then tomorrow we can get the compost out on the rest of the truck plot and disk it in, and some muck from that old stack by the field-byres. The rootstock on the new cherry orchard looks good, so we can start grafting on the scions in a week or—”

The dark man nodded, listening carefully, frowning in concentration.
Good,
Aylward thought. Miguel wasn't just hardworking and willing; he was an eager learner on the
thinking
part of running a farm, the way you had to juggle time and effort and risk. He was getting ready for the time when he had land of his own. That was why Aylward always explained what had to be done, rather than just giving directions; Tamar was bending an ear as well.

His voice cut off abruptly at the sound of galloping hooves, and everyone reached for the weapons that were always within reach, buckling on their sword belts. He and Húrin strung their longbows and slung their quivers over their backs; Miguel picked up the spear he carried instead, since he had trouble hitting a barn as yet unless he was inside it and the doors were closed. Tamar looked startled, but she readied her own light child's bow and drifted backward a little, ready to jump to any direction her stepfather might give.

“One rider,” Húrin said, cocking his head and using his keen youngster's hearing.

Despite the sobering bite of caution, Aylward grinned at the thought. He'd once caught the lad standing in front of a mirror and pulling his ears up into points with thumb and forefinger.

Harry-Húrin had blushed every time he saw Sam for weeks after.

Not that I'm one to point a finger,
he thought generously.

Back when he was Húrin's age he'd dyed his hair blond because a girl told him it would make him look like Michael Caine, who he'd admired tremendously anyway, having seen the film
Zulu
—often—at an impressionable age. The color had come out more like a bright carrot orange, the girl had dropped him like a hot brick, which was more than she'd ever done with her knickers, and his father had hooted himself red-faced every breakfast for months as the botched mop grew out. Eighteen was the right age to make a proper burke of yourself, and there were worse ways than playing make-believe with your friends.

“Coming fast up the main road from the west,” Húrin went on; there was no nonsense in him when serious matters were at stake.

The rider trotted into view, reined in and around when he saw them in the field, backing up a few yards and then putting his mount at the fence. It cleared ditch and boards and spreading, white-flowered hawthorn and landed with a spurt of damp clods under ironshod hooves, a goodish jump and fine riding. In the saddle was a nondescript young man with long, dark brown hair done in a queue through a silver ring, not a Mackenzie or at least not wearing a kilt; he was dressed instead in jacket and pants of plain green homespun linsey-woolsey, mottled with streaks of brown. A horn-and-sinew horseman's recurve bow rode in a case at his left knee with a round shield slung over it, a quiver over his back was stuffed with gray-fletched arrows, and a good, practical straight sword hung at his broad, brass-studded belt.