The Sword of the Lady (14 page)

When he looked back, the Southsiders were rapt; there were tears in some eyes, and some of those were scarred warriors. Back in the Willamette country there was a saying that Mackenzies were a clan, divided into septs, duns, choirs, choruses and soloists, and he was used to praise for his singing from that exacting audience. The Southsiders were more than moved; transported, even.

And sure, you can strike home in a man′s soul—or a woman′s—more easily by telling them stories that speak to their heart than by making arguments to convince their minds. Listening to stories comes naturally to us. Argument you have to study, like sword-work or archery, however much it seems a part of you once you have it learned. Striking home in their souls is what I
need
to do the now.

He went on, his voice falling into the storyteller′s cadence:

″Now Niall was a great warrior . . . fighter . . . bitchin′ tough stud . . . but he had been fostered far from home because of the hatred of his father′s second wife, and he was almost a stranger to the land of his birth. Yet the King must be as a husband to the Lady of the land, for he stands in the God′s place; as She is the Earth, so also Lugh of the Sun—so that folk and mine call Him—is the rain that brings the soil to life in springtime, and the warmth that ripens the harvest. This crone invited Niall to share her fire and her food, which were poor enough, but he being a man well trained in seemly ways did not refuse the hospitality even when she asked him to lie down on the same pallet as she—″

He told most of it and sang parts—the Southsiders had a few simple catches, as much chanted as sung to nothing more complex than the beat of palms on thighs or sticks on rocks, but they′d never heard trained singers before and they hung on every note, often weeping openly or looking half tranced.

By the time the light faded Rudi and Edain had roughed out three more bows, and guided the best of the Southsider makers through the beginnings of enough more to give all the adult warriors one suited to their strength and their length of arm. He noticed one young fellow with a slight limp sitting by himself, hugging his knees. His eyes stared at nothing and lips moved a little as he repeated the tale of how Niall of the Nine Hostages met the Goddess of Midhe and won Her blessing on his kingship, not by his hero′s strength, but by his kindness and pity to one he thought the least and worst of his people.

A woman was crooning to her own baby Edain′s song about the mother and how she tricked the child of the faerie folk into revealing his imposture.

Well, and we′ve given them that wealth, too, the which nobody can take,
Rudi thought.
For what is living, day by day, but living out the story you′re in?

Few stayed up much past dark here, when a burning stick was the best light they had—and that used sparingly, lest it draw enemies. Edain yawned and stretched when he′d emptied his plate the second time, smiling.

″It′s cheerful you are,″ Rudi said.

″Sure, and I′m glad to do some
work
,″ Edain replied. ″Traveling and adventuring are well enough—the things we′ve seen and done, Chief!—and fighting, well, you fight when you have to, not when you wish. Hunting′s work and play at once. But I miss the dun and the fields.″

His eyes grew distant. ″Wheat harvest will be over, but there′s the soft fruit and the apples and the rest of the orchards, and haying, and soon it′ll be time to raise the spuds and get the turnips into the clenches, and put all right for the fall plowing, and there′s always the stock. Or going over to Sutterdown and helping with the grapes there. It makes me fair itch a bit to miss it all, not to mention the Sabbats and Esbats and the Wheel of the Year. I′d be glad even to muck out the dairy, and that on a cold wet day in the Black Months, so.″

″Now, boyo, that′s going far and far!″ Rudi laughed.

He was a warrior by trade, though of course he′d done his share of fieldwork and put his hand to this and that, in the smithy most often. Shoveling compacted manure out onto a cart was one particular chore he didn′t remember fondly; it made getting in the sheaves or even pig butchering pleasant by comparison. He spoke lightly:

″Dun Fairfax has a fine dairy barn, but I miss sitting in your mother′s kitchen more, watching her taking an apple pie out of the oven, and the outrageous fine smell of it, and the taste of it too with a piece of her cheese and a big glass of cold fresh milk.″

When he said it he wished the words back; Edain smiled at the half jest, but Rudi could tell he
was
wishing himself back there, at table with his parents and brother and sisters and the rest of the Aylward household.

″But there′s some
here
glad enough of your presence,″ he said teasingly, to break the moment.

It was true, too. Two Southsider girls were standing behind the barrel-chested bowman, one of them winding a lock of her black hair about her finger and both smiling and giggling when he turned to look. They were considerably cleaner than most of their tribe. Edain had whittled them combs and toothbrushes and shown them the use of the Sweet William that bloomed by the creek a little way from here; you could get a good lather out of the roots, which was why it was also known as soapwort.

And the washing of them was a piece of instruction he probably enjoyed more than trying to turn their menfolk into bowyers,
Rudi thought.

Between constant toil and weather and one child after another—so many died, and they didn′t seem to have any idea how to prevent conception anyway—the Southsider women aged even faster than their men, but these were a few years younger than Edain.

″Ripe as summer strawberries, they are,″ Rudi said; one of them looked at him, and pouted when he shook his head smiling.

″Ah, I′ll be off to my blankets, then, Chief,″ Edain said, brightening considerably as he let himself be led into the shadows with one girl tugging at each hand.

″And to sleep, eventually, eh?″ Rudi called with a grin, and Edain threw a laugh over one shoulder.

Theirs were not a bashful folk. Didn′t the Charge of the Goddess Herself say ″All acts of love and pleasure are My rituals?″ Rudi remained by the embers of the fire himself; there had been plenty of those lingering glances cast in his direction, but there weren′t so many unattached women here he could be sure of avoiding trouble over it. And he hadn′t had the heart for dalliance right now anyway.

The rest of the little tribe rolled themselves into scraps and tatters of pre-Change cloth or crawled between stiff hides; Jake had a nearly intact sleeping bag, which he drew across the sleeping form of his woman and their two living children. Others huddled together, with leaves as extra insulation and protection from the mosquitoes.

At least they don′t have lice,
Rudi thought; probably none of their founders had, and they′d been too isolated to pick them up since.

The sentries ghosted out to take up their positions; the rain had faded away into a close damp night, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with the skill with which the lookouts vanished into the rustling, buzzing darkness. They′d had to learn
that
well, or die horribly. Jake fished a drumstick out of the remnants of the perpetual stew in the communal pot, originally an aluminum trash-can roughly cut down with the jagged edges hammered over, and took a meditative bite.

″And now my friend, you and your folk were to help me with
my
task?″ Rudi said softly. ″I wouldn′t ask it save that need drives me; we
must
have those wagons at the bridge, and soon. The lives of oath-brothers and kin and one very dear to me rest upon it.″

Jake frowned and looked around at his sleeping people. ″You helped us plenty,″ he said. A hesitation. ″You could be the big man here, if you stayed. Plenty of the bitches would like you, even more than the Archer. You could show us lots and lots, make us strong. Strong like your Clan, that you talked about. Show us how to get right with the spooks, too.″

Rudi smiled, but there was real respect in his nod as well as pity.

This man may be a savage and pig-ignorant of a thousand things, but he knows that to be a true Chief is to serve his people′s need,
he thought.
And he′s realizing how great their need is, now that he′s seen a glimpse of the world outside. He′ll give anything he has to aid them, even his own position.

″My friend, it′s honored I am by your words,″ he said, which he found was true. ″But I have my own kin and friends to think of. Also I could not help you as much as you think. Your people′s problem is not only that you lack skills, but that you are too few, and your enemies too many.″

″Yeah.″ Jake′s fist hit the ground. ″There′s lotsa things we could do, if we could settle down an′ not run an′ hide all the time. Mebbe plant corn, even, like the Iowa men, n′ raise cows instead of just killing them. Fix up houses so′s not so many of our littles die in the cold time, learn the making of stuff . . . Can′t do that if the Knifers and the Bone Breakers and the Skull Cookers are always up your ass.″

Rudi nodded; you couldn′t plow and plant if the horizons were always apt to spew out armed men without warning.

″I′ll stay until you′ve men who can make bows,″ he said gently. ″But I must be getting back, you see.″

″Yeah,″ Jake said dully, and crawled under the opened sleeping bag.

Rudi sat for a while watching the fire, his long hands around the scabbard of his sword and his chin resting on one of the crossguards. As he looked into the red-gold glow that wavered over the embers he thought he could see the shape of a sword indeed; the one he and his mother had seen in the
nemed
when Raven came for him, fourteen years ago, after the War of the Eye. The one Ingolf had seen on Nantucket—a great longsword, with a guard like the crescent moon, and a pommel of moon opal held by branching antlers.

Why must it be
there
?
he wondered.
It′s hints and visions and parables I′ve had when I asked why, and the Cutters make war on our people back home with me not there to aid . . . but they also pursue us across mountain and plain and river.
Their
leaders think this journey is a danger to them.

″A penny for your thoughts, Chief,″ Edain said quietly.

Rudi looked over. Edain yawned, but he obviously wasn′t going to
sleep
with local company—he was too wolf-wary for that, in the Wild Lands. Instead he was setting his blanket roll in the usual place, not far from Rudi′s, with Garbh curled up close by. She′d burrowed down into the dry duff that made up the floor of the overhang, and only tufts of her shaggy hair showed, and an ear that flopped over at the top. Though even asleep she was a better sentry than half a dozen men.

″Of home,″ Rudi said.

″Ah, that′s a thought that steals over a man just before sleep, when he′s far away, eh? I can see Dun Fairfax now, and the houses garlanded when we brought in the Queen Sheaf, and my mother standing there to break the first loaf before the altar—″

He stopped. Then with forced cheerfulness: ″But it would be Dun Juniper for you, sure, and the gates swinging wide, and a fine set of cheers, and the Chief Herself Herself there to bless you home.″

Rudi opened his mouth to say,
Dun Juniper, of course
. But it wasn′t his mother′s steading that was really in his thoughts, dear though it was, nestled amid the forest edge beneath the Low Cascades. Nor even all the lands of the Clan, the forests and the little villages and their checkerboard fields along the eastern edge of the Willamette . . .

″That too. But there was more to my thoughts, my friend.″

Edain′s square face looked puzzled, and he scratched at his curly mop of hair. Rudi went on:

″Say we gain this sword on Nantucket, the one Ingolf saw and was told was for me—the Sword of the Lady for the Lady′s Sword.″

″Ah!″ Edain said. ″By Ogma the Honey-Tongued, you know, that never occurred to me! They
are
different words.″

Rudi nodded and murmured the words of the prophecy his mother had spoken when she held him over the altar in the
nemed
at his Wiccaning at the end of the first Change Year:

They weren′t a secret. Wiccaning was a public rite, not even limited to Initiates, and rumors had been spreading up and down the Willamette ever since, and through the whole Columbia Valley. For all he knew, they′d reached south of Ashland and up to the Okanogan.

″But who are the people I′m to be the strong right arm of?″ he went on.

″The Clan Mackenzie of course, and who else might it be?″ Edain said, sounding a little indignant but throttling it down in respect for the sleepers.

″Them to be sure. But them alone? My father, my blood father, was Mike Havel, the Bearkiller lord. Many of my blood kin are there in Larsdalen; Mary and Ritva are my half sisters, which makes Aunt Signe really my aunt, in a sense. And Lady Astrid too, the
Hiril Dúnedain
. And Mathilda is my
anamchara
, my soul sister, and I′ve spent months every year these last fourteen in the Association lands. You and I fought those Haida raiders there and shed our blood for the folk of County Tillamook. I′ve studied at Mount Angel and in Corvallis, and Rancher Brown of the CORA is my mother′s guest-friend and mine, and I′ve shared tobacco with the Three Tribes. You see what I′m after saying?″