But my kids are here. His kids too. Everything isn't gone. Not yet.
The cart creaked to a halt on the terrace that held the house. Signe turned, picked her son up and handed him to Will Hutton. The older man's face was graven too, grief and strength in the brown eyes. They widened a little in surprise as the blond boy was put in his arms. The child's own went around his neck, and the tear-and-snot-streaked face was buried in the crook of it.
That immobilized him as she vaulted up into the cart and stood beside the coffin; she stood for a moment, and then touched two fingers to her lips and bent for a moment to press them to the polished wood.
Then she stood, looking out over the sea of faces below, and filled her lungs.
"Bearkillers!" she shouted. A murmur, then hushed silence again, with a soughing sound like some great beast breathing quietly as it waited.
"Bearkillers, Michael Havel is dead!"
There was a fringe of A-listers along the edge of the great crowd nearest the roadway and the house; nobody grudged them the position today. Many were bandaged; some were on crutches; a few were in wheelchairs, pushed along by friends or kin or retainers. The least she saw anywhere were the grave, shocked faces that wondered: what will become of us now? Some of them wept; a few covered their faces with their hands and sobbed unashamed. Nor were the A-listers the only ones.
I hope you can see this, alskling, wherever you are, she thought, with a moment's wistfulness. They always respected you, but now they know they loved you too.
Then she pushed down tenderness. Mike had fought his fight; hers was still to be won.
"When the Change came, I and my family were flying over mountains. A lot of people died that day. How many didn't die, who were in the air when the machines failed? Michael Havel saved our lives."
She let one hand point for an instant to the man holding her son. "This is Will Hutton. You know him; a strong man, and a wise leader. But Mike Havel rescued him too, and his wife and daughter-rescued them and me and my sister from bandits out to rape and rob and kill."
She looked over the rapt audience, feeling their eyes like a huge wind bearing her up. The real wind blew a strand of her yellow mane into her eyes, and she brushed it aside with memories of terror and helplessness.
Mike taught me. I was never helpless again. I never will be helpless again. Nor will our children.
"Who among all of you didn't he save? He found you here and therestarving, hiding, hiding from Eaters and bandits and warlords, hiding from each other, in basements and culverts and little hollows up in the hills, all of you waiting to die like the rest or get hungry enough to do the forbidden thing. Who brought you together and made you into the Outfit, where nobody's alone and everyone has brothers and sisters who'd die for them? Who was it taught you how to fight and made you strong? Who?"
"Lord Bear," a man said near the front, in an almost conversational tone. Others took it up: "Lord Bear. Lord Bear. Lord Bear!"
Now it was a thunder, echoing off the walls behind them and the great house behind her. The house that had been owned by her blood for more than a hundred years, and that looked out over the land that fed her children, its wheat and fruit and meat the stuff of their bones and blood. She raised a hand again.
"Who was it brought you to this good earth? Who was it found you seed grain and tools and stock? Who gave every family their land, and made fair laws, and kept them, and saw that others kept them too? Who made the Brotherhood of the A-list, so that we'd have guardians always ready and you could plow and reap in peace, knowing you'd keep what you grew and made? Who was always ready to hear a grievance, and give those who needed it a helping hand: or a kick in the ass, if they needed that? Who?"
"Lord Bear! Lord Bear! Lord Bear!" Fists were in the air, and drawn blades, men shouting it like a war cry even as the tears ran down their faces.
"I'm not the only one who lost a husband in this war," she went on more quietly, when the sound had died down to a rumble.
The tone brought that to a new hush, and now they were straining to hear what she said. At the rear there was a mumbling as her words were repeated and passed backward.
"I'm not the only one who has children who will grow up without a father. My daughters, my son, the child I'm carrying beneath my heart right now, they've lost the man who loved them, who held them and told them stories. They're crying for him, like all the other children who lost someone dear to them." Several of her family looked at each other, startled. Well, I wasn't sure I was pregnant again until about last week.
A long sigh went across the crowd, and she spoke into it: "But Mike Havel was special. It isn't just my children who've lost a father. My husband was father to this land, to all the people of the Outfit: landfather, they said in the old days. He was our landfather. When the enemy came from the north with all their numbers to take our homes and make slaves of our children, who led us out to fight them? Who made our plans? Who was in the front of every battle? Who killed the tyrant Arminger with his own hand, and preserved our freedom and our lives?"
She bent and then raised the helmet and its snarling covering over her head in both hands. "When this wild thing came to kill, who stood fearless between the beast and his folk, though its claws tore his face and his own blood poured out on the earth? Who killed the Bear, Bearkillers? Who was the lord who died for his people?"
"LORD BEAR! LORD BEAR! LORD BEAR!"
This time she let the thunder build until her ears rang with it and it pounded at her chest like huge soft hammers, and then let it die away until she replaced the helm on the coffin with gentle reverence.
They're mine, she realized, when she looked at them again. And I'm theirs. I've never felt like this before: did Mike?
She motioned Mary and Ritva up into the cart; Will handed her the boy. The girls stood straight on either side of her; Mike Jr. rode her hip, knuckled an eye and then looked out over the crowd fearlessly. He'd never been a timid boy.
"The Bear Lord is dead. Will you keep faith with the one who gave his life for you? Will you keep faith with the blood that he spilled out for you, the blood that runs in his children? When the time comes they can take up his work. Will you choose one of them to wear the Helm of the Bear Lord in his place?"
The noise wasn't words, not this time, but it was certainly agreement. There was a roaring guttural undertone to it, as welclass="underline" Let anyone who wants to say no I won't run far and fast! She noticed even then that her brother and his wife had their swords drawn, and were shouting as loud as anyone.
Is this what Juniper feels, when she makes magic? Signe let herself smile a little before she continued.
"Bearkillers, with his dying breath the Bear Lord named Will Hutton as his deputy, to rule in his stead until his children came of age and a new Bear Lord could be chosen by you, the free people of the Outfit. You know Will Hutton; a fighting man our enemies and the wild folk fear, and a wise and honest one as well. He was always Mike Havel's strong right hand and close councilor. The Bear Lord put the authority in his hands, and to advise him Mike set me, and my brother Eric, Will's son-in-law, and Luanne his daughter and my sister-in-law, and his wife Angelica, and my father Ken and his wife Pamela. People of the Bearkiller Outfit, is it your will that this be so?"
Will stepped up to stand by her side before the sound of acclamation died. He turned his head slightly to whisper into her ear; they were about the same height. "You might have told me about this first, honeypie."
"And then you might have said no to the arrangements," she said back with a wintry smile. "And this is what Mike wanted: or at least, it's what I think Mike would have wanted."
"And now I can't do otherwise without it lookin' as if I was out to trample down his memory and his kids'. Folk'll remember this day for a good long time, that's certain-sure. What your daddy calls makin' myths. Mike, he did marry him up a smart one, didn't he?"