"Now, why would you be thinking I had something in mind?" he said.
" 'Cause I know guys your age are hard-ons with legs and you always have something in mind."
"Not more than every thirty heartbeats or so. And you're not too old for anything you choose," he said.
Sincerely, since she was short of thirty and comely if you liked women wiry and dark and muscular. Which he did; being nineteen, he liked them almost any way except elderly or unripe or wolverine trap ugly.
"Keep smiling like that and I'll lose my resolve to be good, so I'm off." She paused to rumple Garbh's ears, which the mastiff permitted, having been introduced. "See you later."
Edain shook his head and put the folded bills in his sporran, watching her depart-or at least the part working in her rather tight black leather riding breeches-and sighed.
"Christ, man, how'd you get Iron-ass Gonzales so friendly?" one of the foot soldiers said.
"Not iron, I'd say; just pleasantly squeezable, from the look of things," he said, strolling over to retrieve his ar rows. "Not that I've had the opportunity to test the notion, alas."
"Ah, I always thought she liked girls. Maybe it's your skirt she likes."
"Which would show good taste," Edain said. "For it's true I like both the wearing of the kilts and the kissing of the girls myself."
Which got him more laughs; he snorted and slid the unstrung longbow into the carrying loops.
"No, it's me winsome charm and the archery that wins the ladies, and I don't doubt it'll work here in the big city too."
"You wish. It's pretty good duty otherwise, being stationed here in the capital, but with all the goddamned army swinging dicks around you can't get laid without paying for it, and even that's expensive as fucking-you know what I mean-hell. Two-fifty a day and your keep is good money out in the sticks, someplace like Lewis-ton, but it doesn't go too far here in Boise."
There were half a dozen of the soldiers, and they were all friendly now.
Now that I've earned them all a week's pay or more, he thought.
Most of them came from little farms and villages that didn't sound all that much different from Dun Fairfax, if you allowed for the fact that they were Christians of various sorts-Protestants and Catholics and Mormons, he thought, though he wasn't altogether clear on the dif ferences and none of them seemed to be much bent out of shape about it either. He'd been nervous and out of place in General Thurston's house, but these lads he understood right off.
"Thanks for the tip on the bets," one of them said; he was a towhead named John Gottberg, and the file closer, which meant roughly a corporal. " I heard about the thing where you and your bossman saved the president's life, but most of those donkey dongs were just in from road patrol and hadn't got the word."
He extended his hand towards Garbh-cautiously, which wise men did, with a dog who weighed a hundred and twenty pounds and came up above their waist.
"Friend!" Edain said.
She sniffed politely but didn't radiate anything beyond tolerance.
"She's a bit of a one man dog," Edain said.
"Best kind. Hunting dog?"
"Hunting, guard… raised her from a pup, that I did."
"Nice to see the burro bangers taken down a bit," said a freckle-faced redhead called Kit Mullins, returning to the discomfiture of the cavalry. "Fuckers think they're hot shit 'cause they come from ranches and ride around. We're the backbone of the army, by God. It's us who stand and take it and dish it out when the metal hits the meat."
That made the first one thoughtfuclass="underline" "Maybe Iron-ass really likes your looks; she didn't tell them."
"And maybe she made a bit on side bets," another said.
Edain shook his head. "It's Rudi she'd really like to meet. The Chief has a way with the girls and that's a fact."
"So, this guy Rudi you're traveling with, he's your king or something out west? They say you've got kings and knights and weird shit like that out there."
"No, he's the Chief's tanist," Edain said. "Ummm… by Chief I mean the head of the clan, the Mackenzie herself herself. She presides over the Clan, and he's her… understudy."
"So it's like a king, or what do they call it, a crowned prince?"
"Not in the least! The Chief's the Chief because the clan assembled hailed her-many's the time over the years-at the Beltane festival. And we hailed Rudi, too, as tanist, just now. And we'll hail him as Chief too, when his mother dies or steps down, free and open for all to see, and any benighted ijeet who wants turnips and cowpats thrown at him could stand up and ask for the same."
"So hailing, that's like an election?"
"A bit. Everyone makes speeches and we all argue ourselves blue and we have a show of hands. And then there's games and a lovely great feed, and singing and dancing and music and drinking and sometimes a bit of a punch-up on the sidelines."
"Sounds like quite a party!"
"It is that. It's supposed to be very Celtic, which is what they called clansfolk in the old days. And Beltane bowers… the girls like the blossoms. Puts them in the mood to worship the Goddess, as it were. And speaking of parties, what do you say to a few beers?"
"Hey, mostly, 'Hello, my dear beer!' " Gottberg said.
Edain checked the fletching of the last arrow as he slid it back into the quiver. He caught the glances the squad gave one another, and this time kept his look of innocent friendliness without letting the grin show. They were a lot like the lads back home, which meant they were always ready to put one over on an outsider, friendly or not.
"What do you say we do a little pila practice?" Gott berg went on, elaborately casual. "And low man buys the first two rounds? It's not too different from throw ing a hunting spear… I'll bet you use hunting spears sometimes…"
"Oh, sometimes, but mostly bows. I'm not much with spears… I wouldn't turn down a sporting bet with you lads, though."
They walked over to the pila targets, shapes of tight rolled matting on wooden posts. Those at least resem bled men with shields, which was good. He'd never yet fought an enemy or hunted a beast who was round and colored white and red in concentric circles. They weren't very far away-only about twenty yards-but then the heavy javelins were short-range weapons. The pila were piled in neat tripods with the big oval shields stacked against them and the helmets hung by the chinstraps. The young men put the helmets on and clipped their cheek pieces in place before picking up the shields and javelins.
Good, Edain thought. Practice the way you're going to do it for real, or as close as you can.
Thoughts like that always sounded a bit like his father's voice.
"Two throws each," the file closer said. "Kit, get a couple of spares for Eddie here."
It took a moment for Edain to realize he was an Eddie, locally. While he struggled with the thought, the Boisean noncom took a step forward, shield up. The spear went back and then forward in a long blurred arch. There was a thunk! as it sank through the center of the target and into the wooden pole within. The second matched it, a handbreadth lower down. Both sank as the long iron shanks behind their points bent.
"Now that's clever," Edain said. "So they can't throw them back at you, eh?"
The file closer nodded. "And if it goes into a shield, whoever's holding it has to throw it away or spend time trying to pull the pila out. You want to go next?"
"Oh, I'll wait and see how the rest of your lads do," Edain said innocently.
Or he thought it was innocently; Gottberg was a little older than the rest of his file, a bit older than Edain himself, and shrewd.
Most of them were nearly as good as their corpo ral. When they'd finished the twelve throws, only four spears had missed or glanced off, and most of the ones that hit were solidly planted through the wicker or in the central pole. The Boise soldiers knew their business, and they had the strong limber bodies of well fed young men who'd worked and trained hard all their lives.