A Meeting at Corvallis (74 page)

“Well, you've found someone at last,” she said, taking the other by the hands and giving them a squeeze. “Alas!”

“Yes, I have…can we still be friends? You're not angry?”

“Of course we'll be friends! We always were, for years before we were lovers. And I always said I couldn't be here for more than visits, remember. We were lucky to have what we had; the memory will always be warm.”

Delia grinned in the darkness. “Well, now maybe
I
should be angry! Aren't you sad at all? Disappointed?”

“I'm heartbroken,
mi corazón
. Have they hitched you to the bailiff's son, with his pig face and little curly tail?”

Delia laughed. “As if! I'd be sobbing on your shoulder and asking for comfort if
that
had happened! And you, heartbroken? You've probably got a girl in every village.”

“Only half a dozen,” she said, with some exaggeration. “Boys in one or two,” she went on, and laughed at the other's grimace. “Purist! But tell me who, then. I hope you're not being careless!”

The girl was practically dancing with delight. “You'll never guess!”

“Of course not; that's why I asked.”

Delia leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “Tiphaine…d'Ath!”

Estella felt her eyes go wide in shock, unseen in the darkness. She grabbed the other by the shoulders. “She didn't hurt you?” she asked sharply, then shook her head. “No, evidently not—”

“Oh, Estella, it wasn't like that at all. I practically dragged
her
off!”

A soft whistle. “Dangerous! You couldn't be sure she wouldn't turn you over to the priests!”

“Well, it was a bit scary at first. She
looked
sort of…forbidding, you know? Beautiful, but like a sword blade would look if it walked. But I felt prettier when she looked at
me,
so I took a chance. She's sweet, and was so lonely—her friend who'd been with her forever died last year.”

Yes, killed trying to kidnap Lady Juniper's son,
Estella thought.
And this one succeeded, and left some of our brothers and sisters dead behind her.

Slowly, she went on aloud: “
Querida,
you are taking a big risk here. Think how the soldiers are, think how all the castle people are, like rattlesnakes in a bucket. Because this woman likes to make love with you doesn't mean she loves you.”

“It isn't just that. When we're alone we talk about our lives, and play games—she's teaching me chess—and laugh, and she plays the lute and we sing…”

Estella winced at an unexpected stab of jealousy, as much for the privacy and safety as anything else; it was easier to arrange your life when you had your own castle.
Not that I would have one on a bet!

“Darling, she's an Associate. She has been an Associate since the Change, in the Protector's Household—”

“The consort's.”

“She was still raised to kill people for a living, and take what others grow and make, by threat of death and pain. The Associates are the sword arm of the Church, and the Church burns witches. Nice is not something the Portland Protective Association are very good at; killing and taking, that is what they do. Think what might happen if you two quarreled, or you yourself changed your mind…”

“No, really, she's not like most of them! Not just to me—she's starting a spinning and weaving school for the peon women, with me and Rose and Claire to teach, and she's buying the equipment—and she spent
fifty rose nobles
on cloth, so people wouldn't have to wait until then to have decent clothes, and she's gotten Wielman and the bailiff and Keith the Pig under control so they're not squeezing people nearly so bad, and she keeps the soldiers in line. And hardly anyone's been whipped or put in the stocks unless they really deserved it.”

That's all interesting, but it doesn't necessarily mean she's nice, just
smart
and foresighted
, Estella thought.
Let's not argue. I recognize the tone. This poor girl has fallen hard. I hope she is not hurt too badly, but such is life. We must not let it endanger the Craft…but it could work to our advantage, as well. She will hear things and see things she would not otherwise.

“And she's like an older sister to the Princess Mathilda—Mathilda's nice too—and to Rudi. I gave Rudi the pattern—”

“How?” Estella asked sharply.

Delia giggled. “In some gravy, so nobody else could see—he wouldn't have himself, if he weren't so sharp. We haven't said a word beyond that, but he knows, and it makes him feel better. His poor mother must be so worried, and he's homesick and lonely sometimes, but like I said, Tiphaine treats him like her own family.”

“That will be a relief to Lady Juniper. We can pass it on…never mind how. And if we must, we can have you pass a message to him. The risk, though! He's still not quite ten years old. That's why we don't tell children about the Craft until they're older than that, and able to keep secrets.”

“Not with Rudi. He's a wonderful kid, so brave! And smart too. He's teaching me my letters, well, how to read them better, and he tells lovely stories about how the Mackenzies live. And you can see the Lord and Lady walk with him, all the time, not just at the special times.”

She hesitated. “Can we have an Esbat while your family are here? Since Mom died”—her voice caught for a moment—“we haven't had a High Priestess, and nobody else knows all the things she did, not here or in the other villages. She was teaching me, but I hadn't learned nearly as much as I need. Dad was so sorry we couldn't have a passing rite for her. We couldn't find her books, either.”

“Good!” Estella said. “If you can't find them, the Hounds of God can't either.”

Delia nodded, completely serious for the first time in their meeting.
Excellent,
Estella thought.
She may be eighteen and infatuated to giddiness, but she knows
that
is a matter of life and death.
Aloud, the tinerant went on.

“I'll talk to my parents, and see what we can do. But first you must tell me all about Rudi; where he's kept, and what he does each day. Leave nothing out.” She sensed a hesitation. “This is for the Old Religion, and for the Queen of Witches.”

“Well…OK. I don't suppose it can hurt.”

Near Cherry Grove, Tualatin Valley, Oregon
April 10th, 2008/Change Year 10

Astrid tapped him on the sleeve.
There,
the gesture said.

Alleyne could see it too, the faint shimmering blink of a campfire ahead, wavering through half a mile of forest and brush and a gathering ground-mist that muffled the strong, musty scent of rotting leaves and fir needles and cones. He stroked the soft blond stubble on his chin—shaving while moving fast and secretly through the woods wasn't very practical—and compared the lie of the land about him to the map in his head, then nodded.

Astrid made a sound beneath her teeth, held up two fingers and tapped them to right and left, and half-glimpsed figures spread out and moved forward. The nighted forest was not quite pitch-black, but fairly close to it; they'd left their war cloaks behind with the horses farther up the slope of Mt. Richmond for the sake of speed and quietness. Here the unpeopled mountains that stretched west to Tillamook and the ocean met the cultivated eastern lowlands in a maze of twisting valleys. The one ahead was called Patton—not, he thought, for the general—and held the upper stretches of the Tualatin River. There was a village called Cherry Grove a few miles to their west, lately rebuilt on the pre-Change ruins because there was a good fall of water for a mill. Its fields stretched eastward along the valley this mountain overlooked on either side of the river, and there the contacts they were to meet should be camped. They'd picked the location because the little hamlet on the edge of the mountains had no manor and no garrison to speak of. That made it a little safer, but not much.

So that campfire is them…or they were discovered, and it's an ambush. Well, no time like the present.

Astrid and he eeled forward. The hillside had been logged off recently enough that the trees were only fifty or sixty feet high above them, and there was plenty of bush; even after better than a year gone he was still conscious of how different the sounds were from an English wood at night, sharper and harsher, with more buzzing and clicking of insects. The birds were surprisingly similar, though he missed the nightingales. They ghosted downslope; once a red fox leapt aside in panicked surprise as they passed from tree to tree, and shot off with a crackle of leaves under churning paws. He grinned to himself at that, since it was like meeting an old friend from Hampshire. As if to remind him where he was, from somewhere in the northern darkness came the appalling, rowling screech of a cougar, probably just after it dropped on a passing deer, or perhaps in disappointment after it missed.

They went to their bellies a hundred yards from where woods gave way to the scrubby pasture where the wagons waited; beyond that was a road, and beyond that a field of some sort—probably grain, from the strength of the scent of wet earth. A few dogs lay around the fire, and a pot bubbled above it, and something roasted on a wooden spit close beside it; that was the best way to do small game, and let you catch the drippings in a pan. The smells made his stomach cramp, since they'd had nothing but cheese and waybread today.

A last halt, and Eilir and John came in on either side, quiet and slow. The big man put his mouth next to Alleyne's ear: “Nothing. We've got scouts out on all sides now.”

Astrid smiled and rose.
“Mae Govannen!”
she called.

The figures around the fire rose; one spilled something in his haste, and began an abortive snatch for a hunting bow.

“I hadn't expected them to come for the heavy gypsy quite so much,” John said to him quietly as he passed to get a refill from the pot.

Alleyne made a subdued noise of agreement; the rabbit stew was taking most of his attention, nicely thick with peas and onions, and fresh bread as well. It was true, though. He'd met a few real Rom before the Change, and some since in Gibraltar, and they generally weren't nearly so much like a Romantic-era operetta, all headscarves and earrings…Of course, a few clans of an extremely traditional variety had survived in remote Carpathian valleys, and they'd drifted westward since to get away from ongoing chaos and warfare there, where the die-off hadn't been quite as complete as it had in the lands west of the Elbe.

And this gentleman and his wife are rather obviously ordinary Americans of Mexican and what-they-call-Anglo-here descent,
he thought. Bits of mispronounced Romany notwithstanding…
Is there anybody in this country who
isn't
putting it on?

“Te avel mange bakht drago mange wi te avav po gunoy,”
he said with malice aforethought. And it was true; luck was all they needed, and they were in a bit of a dungheap.
Mind you, we need a great
deal
of luck.

Mr. Maldonado looked slightly panic-stricken, then shrugged, looking trapped by the circle of firelight that wavered on the gaudily painted wagons to either side.

“I'm afraid I have only a little of the old language,” he said, and his wife gave a wry smile.

Eilir winked at him from behind the man's back.
And we're not actually Numenoreans,
she seemed to be saying.
But it's fun, so why not?

Turning back, he caught a twinkle in Astrid's eye; you could never be quite sure…and he remembered King Charles and the smock frocks and Morris dancing. Perhaps it was a seeking after reassurance, given the terrible shock of the Change and its aftermath.

The younger Ms. Maldonado unfolded a map and a sheaf of notes.
She
looked the part; she might have stepped out of a tavern in Gibraltar, in fact, with that creamy olive skin and lush figure, the pouting lower lip—

Astrid elbowed him in the side, and he grinned, a little apologetically. The young woman went on.

“This is the layout of Ath castle; the barracks, the inner Keep, the guest rooms where the princess and Rudi sleep. And I have the patrol and guard schedules.”

“Excellent,” Astrid said. “You must have good sources inside the castle…no, don't tell me, I don't need to know.”

Estella Maldonado shrugged interestingly, with something oddly wry in her smile. “Sources
very
close to the top,” she said.

“Hmmm. We could come in from the west,” Hordle said, tracing one thick finger over the paper. “Around this big lake—”

“Hag Lake,” Estella supplied. “People seldom go there, particularly this early in the year. It's said to be haunted by a hag who cursed a band of Eaters after the Change—”