"-but it's Sam's orders, and Dad's, and Lady Juniper's. You and the princess here get a guard, every hour of the night and day."
Mathilda pouted a little at the title-she'd tried to insist on it when she first arrived at Dun Juniper after her capture last spring, and found that to be a mistake, like talking about the splendors of the palace in Portland or Castle Todenangst. That reminded him of how she'd arrived, and what had followed from that. His fingers rubbed at his side through his jacket, where the giant's sword had wounded him that August night. Mathilda's voice was small as she leaned close and said: "Does it still hurt?"
"Nah," he said, smiling, remembering how she'd sat by his bedside through the long days of pain, reading out loud or playing checkers or just being there. "I heal quick."
"I'm sorry, Rudi."
"Well, you didn't do it, Matti," he replied cheerfully.
"Eddie was always nice before: well, nice to me. And Mack, I thought he was just sort of big and, well, stupid. Dad just sent them to rescue me. He and Mom are scared for me. They didn't mean to hurt you."
"Mack was big and stupid," Rudi said. "And he was a bad man, Matti. He did mean to hurt me." He put an arm around her shoulders. "I know you didn't."
"You want to go and visit Epona?" Mathilda said hopefully.
He hesitated; Epona was the good thing that had happened last summer, the horse that nobody but he could ride: Rudi sighed. There wasn't time, and he didn't have the excuse anymore that the mare would only let him groom or feed her-she'd relaxed a bit about that.
"Oh, come on, let's go get dinner. I'm clemmed," he said instead.
The center of Dun Juniper held the larger, communal buildings; school, bad-weather covenstead, bathhouse, armory, library, stables and workshops, granaries and dairy, brew-house and storehouses. The heart of it was the great Hall. It loomed bright through the thick-falling snow, firelight and lantern light red and yellow through the windows and on the painted designs graven into the logs. The ends of the rafters that supported the second-story galleries were carved into the heads of the Mackenzie totems, Wolf and Bear, Dragon and Tiger and Raven and more; their grinning mouths held chains that ended in lanterns of wrought brass and iron and glass. The high-peaked roof of moss-grown shingles reared above like the back of a green, scaly dragon, and the rafters at each end of it crossed like an X, carved into facing spirals, deasil and widdershins to balance the energies. The two children and their escorts paused on the veranda to stamp and kick the mud and sticky wet snow off their brogans and brush it off their plaids and jackets and caps.
Through the big double doors, and into a blast of light and sound, warmth and smells; woodsmoke, damp wool clothes drying, leather, meat and cabbage cooking, fir and polish and soap, bright paint and carving seeming to move on the walls. The great stone hearth across the room on the north face of the Hall was booming and roaring, and a group around it were laughing and finishing a song as they threw in chunks of timber:
"Oak logs will warm you well, that are old and dry;
Logs of pine will sweetly smell, but the sparks will fly,
Surely you will find
There's none compare with the hardwood logs
That are cut in winter-time, sir!
Holly logs will burn like wax-you can burn them green
Elm logs burn like smoldering flax, with no flames to be seen
Beech logs for wintertime, and Yule logs as well, sir-"
He genuflected to the altar on the mantel and signed the air with the Horns for the Hall's tutelary guardians, and his bodyguards did the same. The long tables were up as well, set in a T this day with the upper bar on the dais at the east end of the Hall, and people were bustling in and out of the doors on either side of the fireplace that led to the kitchens. The western end of the Hall held the great Yule Tree, not yet decorated, but fragrant with promise and Douglas fir sap. Rudi waved to friends as he took off his coat and flat Scots bonnet and plaid, hanging them on pegs; by now Mathilda attracted fewer glares and more smiles than she had right after he got hurt, but she was still a little subdued and stuck close to him. Few dared to be unfriendly when he was around, or when his mother was watching.
One of the glares was unfortunately from Aunt Judy, who hadn't forgotten how her fostern-son Sanjay died last summer.
Well, neither have I, Rudi thought. Everyone had liked Sanjay, who was smart and funny and brave. But it wasn't Matti's fault! And that was a whole year ago, or nearly! Aoife and Dan aren't mean to her! And Uncle Chuck doesn't look at her like that either.
They hung up their bows and quivers and knives in the children's section. Rudi sighed as he watched Dan and Aoife stow their weapons with those of the other grown warriors. Shortswords and dirks and bucklers swung on their belts from oak pegs; spears were racked in gleaming rows with their bright, rune-graven heads high. In pride of place were the great six-foot war bows of orange-hued yew, the terror of the Clan's enemies and the guardians of Mackenzie freedom and honor, each flanked by its well-filled quiver of shafts fletched with the gray goose feathers.
He knew that the time to wield one would come for him, just as his voice would break someday and he'd start being interested in girls as more than friends. But while that was just knowledge without much impact, the yearning for a war bow of his own was a burning need.
Lady of the Ravens, please don't make me wait forever! he thought.
There was some foreign gear there as well, from Lord Bear's territories on the western side of the Willamette Valley; long basket-hiked backswords and short, thick recurve horseman's bows hung up in harp-shaped saddle scabbards. Rudi looked up at the top table; yes, a big, blond young man in his late twenties and a woman a little younger, brown-skinned and frizzy-haired. There were others at the lower tables who must be their escorts, all in pants, and jackets with the red bear's head on the shoulder.
"Hi, Unc' Eric, Auntie Luanne!" he called to the pair, and they waved back over the gathering crowd.
His mother was talking with the Bearkiller couple when he hopped up on the dais arid walked over to make his respects and greet her. She stopped to give him a grin and a hug, then pulled back a little.
"Well, it's sopping you are, mo chroi! " she said, green eyes twinkling.
"Just a little snow, Mom," he replied. He saw Mathilda out of the corner of his eye, a plaintive look on her face, and whispered in his mother's ear.
"And would you like a bit of a hug too, my fostern girl?" Juniper Mackenzie said.
"Ummm: yeah. Thanks."
She got one, and a kiss on the forehead; the Lady of the Mackenzies ruffled both their heads before she sent them off to their end of the high table. Nigel Loring was there at his mother's right hand; he nodded solemnly to Rudi as he passed, then winked. Rudi grinned back at the English guest; besides saving his life last year, and becoming his main tutor in the sword and horsemanship, Sir Nigel was just plain fun. He knew a lot of stories, too.
Those Hall-dwellers on kitchen duty brought out bowls and platters and set them out, then sat themselves. Most families in Dun Juniper had their own hearths, but there were always a fair number eating in the Hall, besides the Barstows, Trethars and others who lived there; guests like the Bearkillers, or people from elsewhere in the Clan's territories come to learn craft skills or to share the holy mysteries or do a hundred types of business. Even a wandering gangrel could find a meal in the Chief's Hall in return for a little wood-chopping or other chores; after all, any such could be the Lord or Lady in disguise. Though it was hard to believe a lot of the time, since they were always smelly and often mad.
"We start to decorate the tree tomorrow," Rudi said. "Nine more days of the Twelve, and then it's Yule."
"Christmas," Mathilda said, nodding. "But the twelve days come after Christmas."
Rudi grinned; he liked explaining things, and the grown-ups had been really careful not to say anything at all against Mathilda's religion, or even tell her much about the Craft. That didn't apply to him, of course; it was one of the few advantages of being a kid.