The Protector's War (74 page)

“Quite. I felt…a proper burke wearing plate armor, as Sam would say, for the longest time after I'd learned to use it well. As if I were trapped in one of Alleyne's tourneys and couldn't get out, or in one of my childhood daydreams. Now it's quite natural, except when I think about it.”

He offered her an arm with a courtly gesture, and she tucked a hand through it; the forearm under her hand felt as if it had been molded out of hard living rubber.

“Ahhh!” Sam Aylward said, seating himself and taking a first swallow of beer from a crock kept cool in an old plastic trash barrel full of cold springwater. “Dennis Martin Mackenzie, my thanks!”

The big bearded man doffed his bonnet and showed his bald spot in a bow. “Hell, they're your hops and barley, Samuel Aylward Mackenzie. Plus the mountains contributed the water free of charge.”

“But you did the brewing, mate.”

“Pity we don't have any ice, to get it really cold,” Dennis replied, with a malicious twinkle.

Aylward shuddered dramatically. “Bite your tongue, Yank! If I didn't like to
taste
the beer, I could drink ice water cut with vodka.”

Then he looked out at the field of stooked sheaves. “Well, that's done and now we can all relax and lie about eating chockies till next spring.”

He was smiling as he said it, and there were groans from most within earshot; the work of the harvest wouldn't really be over until Mabon, still months away—at which time the fall plowing started anyway. Late-planted winter gardens under mulch would yield a bit through most of the cold season. But at least the
main
crop was in, the breadstuff that was the literal staff of life. Plenty of it was on the long plank tables, in the form of biscuits tapped still hot out of thick clay traveling ovens, and of baskets full of warm round loaves marked with the eight-spoked Wheel of the Year on their crusts.

They went with butter, cheese, fresh salads—everyone gorged on greens this time of year—glazed hams, a great cold roast beef, fried chicken, a noble dish of Sam's apple-cured bacon with wild chanterelle mushrooms, steamed vegetables, a huge pot of baked beans with bits of fat pork standing amid the crumbling brown crust, and for dessert, cream with the first peaches and berries and bowls of dark red Mona cherries, and honey for dipping. Jugs of cold water, milk, Dennie's home brew, cider and wine and chilled herbal tea went down on the planks.

Juniper was suddenly conscious of how ravenous she was, and how good the salty brown smell of the ham was, and that the first new potatoes were waiting, steaming gently as the lids of the pots were removed, beside deep royal purple baby beets…

And I'm aware of the fact that I intend to
not
worry about anything for the rest of the day, starting with letters from the Protector and the negotiations. Work drives out care, but so does sheer willpower.

Everyone waited politely while the Lopez family said their grace, then started passing plates. Juniper took a sampling of side dishes around a slab of the ham, added a dab of the strong homemade mustard before she began to eat, and noticed Nigel Loring dipping a spoon into a crock of equally strong homemade creamy horseradish to put beside thin-sliced rare roast beef.

“Careful,” she said. “It's good, but Melissa makes it hot enough to jump over for luck like a Beltane bonfire.”

“All the better,” he said, nodding up the table.

Melissa sat at the head of the trestle table, with Sam Aylward at her right and an improvised cradle of sheaves and blankets on her left. There was a tender fondness in Loring's face as he saw the other man raising his infant daughter in both hands, chuckling when she grabbed at his face and tiny pink fingers closed on one nostril.

“I always thought Aylward would be a good father,” he said; the buzz of conversation was loud enough that privacy was possible, even in the open air, if you leaned close. “I'm very glad to see him settled.
He
claimed he was married to the SAS, of course, and that
‘roots are for ruddy turnips, sir.' “

“That's hard to imagine, after all these years. Sam seems like a butte or some other natural feature—anything solid and strong—and about as rooted as a man can be and not sprout leaves like the Jack-in-the-Green,” Juniper said.

Then she paused to cut one of the new potatoes across, add a pat of butter and chew blissfully. When she had swallowed: “Of course, the time before the Change seems…unreal a good part of the time.”

“Except when you wake and everything
since
the Change seems like a fading dream, and in a minute you'll hear autos and aircraft and the television,” Loring said quietly.

Juniper nodded. “Less and less often, but it still happens,” she said. “And will until the last of us who were old enough to remember the time before pass on.”

Then she shrugged and smiled. “As for Sam, not a day's gone by since I found him in April of the first Change Year that I haven't thanked Cernunnos for him.”

Loring coughed slightly. Juniper grinned at his blush and went on: “Yes, I'm quite serious about it,” she said. “Really I am, all the way through. Though I'm told I can be surprisingly rational most of the time…”

It's true that most stereotypes have a core of fact in 'em,
she thought with amusement.
So some Englishmen really
do
dread embarrassment more than they do fire and sword! I think before the Change the Lorings were very, very old-fashioned. Now they may be back
in
fashion…who knows? He doesn't talk much about his past, or hasn't until just recently.

Nigel cleared his throat. “We have…they have traditions much like this back in England,” he said. “The harvest supper and even the corn-straw figurines. Done with an Anglican emphasis, of course. The king encouraged it; for that matter, so did I, before we had our little falling-out.”

“You mean before he tried to kill you?” Juniper chuckled and filled her mug with Dennie's brew, then held the tall pitcher over his. “More? Here you go then. I'm not surprised some of it's familiar: Who do you think you Christians stole it all from originally? Or to put it another way, we modern Witches reconstructed—plundered, stole and copied, some say—from the same sources.”

“Pass those creamed potatoes, would you? Ah, reconstruction is one thing, but I don't doubt the whole affair feels a little different since the Change, eh? More serious for most? And we're none of us really
modern
anymore, are we?”

Juniper gave him a considering look. “Well, you're not just a pretty face, are you then?” she said, and enjoyed his blush again. “Or just a strong sword arm. Yes, it's…different now. I suppose you were always Church of England yourself?”

“Nominally, for tradition's sake.” He smiled at himself. “I was a choirboy, if you can believe it.”

They chatted and ate as the sky darkened and the last of sunset's gold faded from the stooked grain and turned ruddy on the mountaintops eastward. Lamps were hung from the branches of the oak tree, and eventually the youngsters down at the foot of the table began a round of songs. Someone brought Juniper her fiddle case; she spent a moment tuning, then joined in as one tune after another was called.

At last something unfamiliar came, and she cocked her head, listening:

Hordle's deep bass and Alleyne's firm baritone sounded through the warm darkness, as everyone listened to catch the unfamiliar words. Sir Nigel unexpectedly joined in, his voice a little rougher than his son's:

She caught the lilt and whistled softly, nodding her head to the beat as she memorized the words, then struck up her fiddle to follow along. Not long after yawns said it was time to go, after a long day of heavy work and a full meal; a good many of the children were already asleep on blankets, and scarcely stirred as they were lifted into the wagons for the short trip home. Their older siblings helped the adults stow the rest of the gear and the remains of the feast, and hitch the reapers for towing. Juniper walked alongside one cart where Tamar and Rudi, Mathilda and young Edain Aylward all lay tumbled amid blankets and straw like exhausted puppies, stirring a little when the vehicle jounced.

The farm lane twisted away eastward like silk ribbon in the night, field and forest murmurous on either side. Ahead she could see the outline of Dun Fairfax's walls, and lights behind them; a few hundred yards to her right Artemis Creek chuckled over its bed, and the roadway beside it was white beneath stars and moon, next to the dark riverside trees.

Nigel Loring was not far away, she noticed, and he'd slung on the heater-shaped shield with the five roses, and his sword. Along with the loose robe, it gave him an oddly Biblical look, or perhaps that of some warrior monk of the Crusades.

Although I doubt he'd do well at Mt. Angel,
she thought whimsically.
Abbot Dmowski is a good enough man, but sadly lacking in a sense of humor, I think. There's a good deal of quiet humor in this man, when he isn't sad.

Alleyne Loring was on the other side of the wagon, also armed and unobtrusively alert. Near him were Astrid Larsson and Eilir, both looking as if they were trying to crowd next to him without making it too obvious.

Not obvious to anyone who's blind, perhaps,
she thought, and suppressed a grin. It wasn't that she didn't sympathize with both girls, but…
The Foam-Born will have their little jokes, and oh, how the young suffer! What storms and stress and follies! And how they hate it when anyone laughs!

John Hordle was not far away, whistling the old tune softly in the mild summer night.
He
didn't have the same air of hidden tension as the others; more one of alert patience, if she read him aright—and she had some confidence in her skill at that. They bid farewell to the Dun Fairfax folk at their own gate and turned north through the winding track that climbed the densely wooded hillside. Within it light vanished save for a few lanterns hooked over spearheads, casting flickering illumination upward into the branches, and once glinting suddenly from eyes beside the trail—a fox or coyote, from their green flash and the swift flight.

Then they came through onto the benchland that held Dun Juniper; stars and moon were almost painfully bright for an instant, silvering the waterfall to her right and the tall white walls of the Mackenzie citadel. The wind blew in her face, cooler now and fir-scented. The horses snorted, knowing their stalls were close; a sentry hailed them quietly, out among the stock in the fenced paddocks. The gates swung open with a groan, and suddenly there was light from the windows of homes and Hall, and hands to help.

Mom?
Eilir signed.

Juniper started from a reverie.
My heart?

Astrid and I thought we might take some of the Dunedain…and Alleyne and his friend…up through the woods after Lughnassadh,
she said, and nodded eastward and north.
These are some boar that have been sniffing around the gardens, and…well, just in case anyone was nosing around who shouldn't.
Her eyes flicked to Mathilda Arminger.

Good idea,
Juniper said.
The crew working on Dun Laurel could use some feeding, if Cernunnos favors you.

Then on impulse, looking down at her son: “Nigel, give me a hand with these two, would you?” Not even the rocking passage through the woods had woken the two nine-year-olds.

“My pleasure,” he said, and seemed to mean it.

“It seems a shame to wake them at all,” Juniper said softly.

“Then don't,” Nigel replied unexpectedly. “They grow so quickly, and very soon they'll be too old to be carried to bed anymore.”

They lifted carefully; Mathilda was considerable weight in her arms, but the Englishman bore her son's solid sixty pounds without evidence of strain. The big loft room was dark but welcoming, warm from the heat soaked into the brick chimney that ran through it from the hearth below, scented with flower sachet, wool and wood and wax; neither child did more than stir and mutter as they were undressed and tucked into the blankets on their futon beds. Nigel Loring paused for a moment, looking down at Rudi Mackenzie. His sword-callused fingers brushed back a lock of tousled hair the color of raw gold.

“I envy you,” he murmured softly. At her look he went on: “Alleyne has grown to be a man any father would be proud of, but sometimes I still miss the boy he was. There was so little time, and I was often away, as a soldier had to be then. Maude and I wanted more children, but—ah, well, forgive an old man's foolishness.”