The Sword of the Lady (19 page)

It was still only a fraction of what had been lost; for a moment his soul ached with the thought of it. Then:

″Life is for the living, though. There′s never an end to what beauty a maker can summon, and we and our descendants just as well as the ancestors. Let′s to work!″

He stowed the painting reverently in the box, and he and Edain heaved it back into place. Then he dismissed it from his mind.

The wagons had been gifted from the Bossman′s store, probably from his arsenals, when Anthony Heasleroad hired Ingolf and his company—Vogeler′s Villains, they′d been called—for the trip to the east coast, and virtually everything in them was cunningly made of stout fireproof metal. Their beds curved up gently at front and rear, and the bottoms and sides were riveted and caulked sheet steel, able to float like a boat when crossing a ford. Frames within held the crates and boxes with the salvage; the wheels were forged and welded steel, with rims as broad as two palms. A tongue twelve feet long protruded from the front axle of each for the first pair of horses; it ended in a crossbar on which was mounted the chains that ran to the rest of the team.

The horse harness was missing, of course—from what Ingolf said, the Cutters had set a fire to force the Villains to abandon the train; they′d unfastened the horses at the last minute and galloped them clear. Luckily the wagons were built to be controlled by someone riding the front left horse, not by complex arrangements of reins. Unluckily, they needed at least eight pair each; and the horses he had available hadn′t been trained for it. Some of them
might
be harness-broke; the wild-men tribes around here did use light two-wheeled carts sometimes, or travois. Most were trained only to the saddle.

And that badly,
he thought.

″This is going to be a riding by the nightmare,″ Edain said cheerfully, looking at the stack of wood and leather the Southsiders had brought along and rubbing his hands. ″What I wouldn′t give for a proper saddler′s workshop now.
Or
a carpenter′s. Or even some drills and spokeshaves, I′m thinkin′.″

Badly cured leather, often little more than rawhide; logs and baulks of ash and hickory, and that was the sum of their materials. They′d both
helped
with harness-maker′s work and done their own minor repairs in the business of farm and field, but neither of them was what a Mackenzie would call expert at it.

″Well, we′ll need . . . call it thirty-two horse collars,″ Rudi said. ″Thank Goibniu Lord of Iron that the trace chains are still sound! We′ll make the collars of ash and pad them.″

″Another bit to entertain the folk at home, when we can find time to write,″ Edain said, grinning.

Rudi laughed. ″We′ll be in Nantucket by the time
that
tale arrives,″ he said. ″They′ll be reading what we wrote from Chenrezi Monastery, in the Valley of the Sun, about now. The Luck of the Clan willing, considering how many hands the letters must go through, so.″

Edain made an invoking sign with his right hand, then clenched both and worked his arms in an unconscious gesture to loosen the muscles before a heavy task.

″Best we measure the horses, first. Then—″

The packet of letters was thick; the messenger from Bend had come over the old Santiam Pass, and down to Dun Juniper in the western foothills as fast as relays of horses would carry him. Sutterdown was the logical first stop . . . but the man was not just a messenger of the Central Oregon Rancher′s Association; he was a retainer of Rancher Brown, an old friend of Juniper Mackenzie. He′d cut across to Dun Juniper, staggered in to lay the saddlebags before her, and then been half carried away to the baths and the guesthouse.

Some of the letters she set aside for forwarding; those from Mary and Ritva Havel, to their mother Signe at the Bearkiller headquarters of Larsdalen, and to the
Hiril Dúnedain
, their commander as Rangers and not so incidentally their aunt Astrid. And of course the sealed report from Father Ignatius to Abbot-Bishop Dmwoski, and Odard Liu′s to his mother and to Sandra Arminger up in Portland. She sighed at that.

″Probably a plea for clemency, poor boy,″ she said; the sympathy in her voice was entirely for the young man.

″I doubt Lady Sandra will send Mary Liu to the headsman. Not until Mathilda is safely back in Association territory, and doesn′t need Odard′s help,″ her handfasted man Nigel Loring said, in an English accent to the manor born.

″House arrest does seem unusually . . . indecisive . . . for Sandra,″ Juniper agreed.

Mathilda had done two letters, one to Sandra and one to her, but she laid hers aside to wait until she′d read the missive from her son.

Rudi′s was in two parts. One an armsman′s report to his Clan Chief, succinct and terse. Even in that there were things that raised her brows: someone else might have discounted the dream vision as a delusion born of the wound fever he′d been suffering while they sheltered in that cave against blizzards and foemen. She did not.

Nor was she surprised to read of the encounters with the Seekers sent from Corwin. Juniper already knew of the Prophet′s reckless abuse of the hidden Powers.

The other was a son′s to his mother, and it was rambling and warm, and interspersed with tales that brought a smile to her lips, and sketches of places and people done by his
anamchara,
Mathilda, and his half sisters—Rudi could draw a map that looked like a professional′s, but that was the limit of his draughtsmanship.

So that′s this Abbot Dorje,
she thought.

An ageless face, wrinkled and grave, but somehow with a boy′s merriment in the eyes, and a finger raised in half-serious admonishment at the unseen artist.

″I′d like to meet him, sure an′ I would,″ she said aloud.

Her mother′s West-Irish Gaeltacht lilt was strong in her voice. She′d long since given it full rein; if her folk were determined to imitate it at least they should have a real model from Achill Island rather than the older generation′s vague memories of Hollywood′s idea of how an Irishman sounded. Though to the youngsters, what had started as half a jest among their parents or grandparents was simply the way they spoke.

″And he thinks well of Rudi, which is a mark in his favor.″

″So does this
Master Hao
,″ Nigel said.

That
sketch was of a face ageless in a different way, hard and square atop a sinewy neck. ″Hmmm. That girl
does
have a talent for the pencil. There′s a man of his hands, and no mistake, as Sam would say.″

Then with a little wonder, and a finger stroking meditatively across the white of his neat mustache:

″Who′d have thought that a Buddhist monastery would end up ruling a lost valley in the wilds of Wyoming? Even if they
were
having a conference in a hotel there when the Change struck.″

Juniper grinned a little impishly; it made the laughter lines beside her leaf green eyes suddenly stand out. There were many; she was his junior by more than a decade, but still fifty-four herself this year, and there was nearly as much gray as fox-red now in the hair that fell to her shoulders. There had still been a little yellow in his white mustache when they met, and for that matter some hair on a head now egg bald.

″And who′d have thought that a clan of
Celts
such as ours—″ she began.

″Pseudo-Celts, darling, inspired by your charisma.″

″—would spring up in Oregon? And the most of it was
their
idea, not mine, the spalpeens!″

″I understand you
did
say they′d have to
live like a Clan, as it was in the old days
,″ Nigel observed; that had been nearly a decade before he arrived.

″I just meant we′d have to pull together! The trappings . . .″

She shrugged helplessly. ″In any case, stranger things have happened.″

″You converting me, for example,″ Nigel pointed out.

She snorted. ″You′re as polite to the Lord and Lady as you were to the Church of England—and not one bit more!″

He smiled and spread hands a little spotted with age. ″Whatever you say, my dear.″

″And it was
whatever you say, Padre,
to the parson, too, eh?″

″Whatever you say, my dear,″ he replied. ″But I assure you my courtesy to the regimental chaplain did not extend
quite
so far as it does with you.″

They both chuckled. Then her face grew grave again.

″It′s the longest we′ve ever been apart, my boy and I,″ Juniper Mackenzie said. ″Rudi left April sixteenth of last year. Sixteen months almost to the day.″

″And now we know where he′s been, old girl,″ Sir Nigel Loring said, putting his hand over hers.

″And that he was wounded near to death!
And
the arrows were cursed, from the description.″

″Infected, at least.
And
we know that he′s recovered and well,″ he went on relentlessly.

She turned her hand and they linked fingers. The midday meal was just cleared away, and the two of them were sitting on the dais at the head of the long trestles while those on kitchen duty cleared away the last of it and took up the tables themselves. A lingering smell of it—cold minced mutton pie, salads, steamed cauliflower, cheese and breads and biscuits—remained, and the acrid scent of her rosehip tea. From the outside came the clatter of looms, the rising-falling hum of spinning wheels, the whirr of treadle-driven sewing machines and the rattling clang of a smith′s hammer, the neigh of a horse. All the sounds of a working day mixed with talk and laughter and snatches of song, or now and then voices raised in argument.

Though they were at war still the land must be tilled, meals cooked, animals cared for, and tools made.

And weapons,
she sighed to herself, remembering Rudi dancing with the blade on the practice field, terrible and beautiful as Lugh come again in splendor and in wrath.
To be sure. That we can′t avoid.

Afternoon sunlight poured in through the windows along the verandah, shafts of it picking out the bright painted carving that ran riot over the smoothed log walls of the Great Hall′s interior, vines and leaves and faces from myth and story; the signs of the Quarters were higher, under the rafters nearly fifteen feet above.

The altar over the hearth on the northern wall held her household′s images of the Lord and Lady as Brigid with her flame and sheaf, and Lugh with his spear and sun disk; Nigel had made those himself when he was courting her, back during the Protector′s War. When he was fresh from England he′d surprised her by how handy he was at all a countryman′s tasks and trades, not just the deadly skills he′d mastered in the SAS and the Blues and Royals and after the Change.

Now she looked into the blue eyes in the weathered face that loved hers line for line, and smiled back.

″I′ll grant that it′s a mercy to learn my son has been wounded
after
he′s recovered. This Chenrezi place seems a good one to heal, and to learn.″

Her mouth quirked in a smile as she looked at
that
letter. It was signed
Rimpoche Tsewang Dorje,
and she murmured some of it aloud:

″Now that is perceptive,″ Sir Nigel murmured. ″I wouldn′t have thought Rudi an easy man to get to know, below the surface.″

Juniper nodded at him. ″Especially perceptive for one of our age, my love. For the Changelings are different from us, do you see.″

″I see it every day, rather!″

She shook her head. ″Different in a certain way, Nigel. They . . . see the world through different eyes. They
think
differently from us; I love them, but it took me long and long to understand them. To them, what they are here″—she touched her forehead—″is less likely to conflict with what they are
here
.″ She touched the back of her skull and went on: ″Rudi is a hero. The terrible strength of him and the only weakness of it is that he never doubts it. Regrets it, a little, sometimes; but he
is
the role the Gods have thrust upon him.″

He nodded slowly. ″The Changelings are all a little less prone to self-examination than we were,″ he acknowledged. ″Well, than most of us were. They accept things. I′m more inclined to that than . . . oh, Sam Aylward.″

″Ah, and it wasn′t only for your looks I married you! Yes, for long and long before the Change people spent more and more of their time examining themselves.″

″
Pride and Prejudice
,″ he said. ″Odd that Rudi never liked Austen.″

″Yes, he said the people in them are well painted but had far too much time on their hands!″ She spread her own hands in a gesture of agreement and resignation. ″But he loves the old stories. As do I, but in a different way. He
is
those men. And this I think Abbot Dorje grasps, if not in exactly those words.″

She returned to the letter:
″Therefore I say that he shall be the better for the trials he has met and shall meet and I would spare him none of them; for unless a man be tested to the utmost, none may know what hidden weakness lies in him; nor may he know his own strength. On his testing and his strength much will turn. Devils seek to rule men; the Gods give us opportunities to rule ourselves, which is infinitely more difficult, and to assist each other upward through the cycles, which is harder still. I think your son may be equal to this task, when his testing is complete.″