"Long story," Saba said. "Part of the peace agreement was that she'd come here for part of the year, and Rudi… Artos… would go north."
He nodded thoughtfully; that sort of mutual exchange of hostages was common enough. The Bossmen of Richland and Ellisworth had a similar arrangement back home, which was a big improvement on calling out your farmers and their following of refugees to burn down barns and chop one another up.
"And the other guy is Sir Odard Liu; he's a knight of the Association-the Portland Protective Association, that's what their top people call themselves-who comes down with her. His father was a nasty piece of work, too; Lady Eilir and Lady Astrid killed him-"
At his inquiring look she amplified: "Lady Eilir is the Chief's eldest child; Lady Astrid is the twins' aunt, their mother's sister and Mike Havel's sister in law, she's the Hiril of the Dunedain Rangers. They're anamchara, soul sisters. Astrid's married to Lord Alleyne, the son of the Chief's husband, Sir Nigel. His son by his first wife back in England, that is… he and the Chief have two daughters. Sorry to dump all this on you!"
He filed away the unfamiliar names and relationships; family was usually the key to understanding politics, which could mean life and death.
"And Odard?"
"Odard's not bad… except that he thinks he's the Lady's own gift to women."
"That's a delusion I've never had," Ingolf said. "I always thought it was more that women are God's gift to an undeserving mankind."
That got him a laugh. He went on: "You've got a mixed lot in here."
"We do," she said pridefully. "The Sheaf and Sickle is famous all through the valley."
She pointed out a few. "Those two are Bearkillers, from over to the west of here; Mike Havel founded their outfit."
A tough-looking pair, with bold challenging eyes.
"See those little blue scars between their brows? That means they're initiates of the A list-sort of like being knights, but they're a lot less likely to be assholes than the ones from the Protectorate, sure. And that's a monk from Mount Angel. Father Ignatius-if there were more like him, I'd think better of Christians. No offense."
"None taken," Ingolf said, sincerely enough.
The cleric was a spare muscular young man in a black hooded robe; Catholic clergy were still thin on the ground back east, but Ingolf would have pegged him for a fighting man, except for the dress. He read from a small book and told a rosary with his left hand, occasionally taking a sip of wine or a bite of a frugal dinner of bread and cheese and smoked fish.
Ingolf listened as Saba spoke, but found his eyes straying to her more and more often, until she laughed at him and finished her brandy.
"See you around, Ingolf Wanderer."
He'd barely turned out the lamp in the small tidy sleep ing room when the door opened again. He reached for the belt with his weapons where it hung from the bed stead, and heard her quiet chuckle in the dark as the scabbard knocked against the wood.
"I'm not that fearsome, am I, Ingolf?" she teased.
"Let's find out," he suggested.
The whiteness of her skin was half glimpsed in the darkness as she slipped out of her robe and under the quilt. Some hours later they lay in a happy tangle, warm while the rain tapped at the west facing window.
Wow, he thought again. They're not shy around here, either!
Suddenly a thought occurred to him. It should have been earlier, but he'd been lulled by the friendly reception. Still, you could never tell…
"Your father isn't going to mind, is he?"
Then he yelped as she tweaked his chest hair, hard. "That's for waiting until now to ask! No, of course not. I'm a grown woman; it's my business who I worship the Goddess with."
He rubbed at his chest and then settled her back on the curve of his shoulder. "Worship is what you call it here? Beats fasting and prayer, I can tell you that!"
" 'All acts of love and pleasure are My rituals,' " she said; it had the sound of someone quoting. Then she chuckled. "And She is well and truly worshipped!"
He smiled himself; that was the oddest compliment a woman had ever given him, but far from the worst.
"And I haven't been with anyone for a year, since Raen died. Time to let him go. You're a strong man, and I think a good one. If you leave, I've had the night and maybe a child-I always wanted more than two. And if you don't leave… well, we'll see, shall we?"
She yawned and stretched and settled herself, with a thigh flung across his; he could feel her breathing slow ing down to the deep regular rhythm of sleep, and his own followed.
Ingolf's dream was the same as always: the screams of his comrades, the terror of the blinding light that pierced hand and eyelid, and the sword, the sword hanging impossibly in the blaze, the Voice tolling in his mind.
When he woke, he thought himself still asleep for an instant, his chest heaving and sweat running down his neck. In a moment more he'd wake to the warm stuffy darkness of the room and find Saba beside him, and they'd go down to breakfast. He'd find what jobs he could do around the inn, or for neighbors, and get to know people before he started asking around. Maybe the Voice would leave him alone for a while.
Then he realized that the long curved dagger raised above him was very real, and threw himself aside with a great hoarse shout. Saba screamed as well, as the razor edge kissed her flank and left a trail of red as it plunged into the quilt and let free a blizzard of goose down.
Thought too swift to notice with his waking mind made him ignore his shete; the long weapon would be deadly awkward in these cramped quarters. Instead he stripped the bowie and tomahawk out of his belt and rolled to the floor, bounding erect with a shoul der roll. There was a full triad of them, three knives glimpsed in the dark, hooded faces covered to the eyes by black half masks. His stones tried to draw up into his belly as the faint light from the window glinted on the sharp metal in their gloved hands. A knife fight was bad enough at any time; knives moved too fast to really see or block well.
A knife fight naked in the dark against three opponents who didn't care if they lived or died…
"The Ascended Masters have called your name, apostate," one of them hissed. "Did you think mountains and ice could save you from the Prophet's judgment?"
Then to Saba, as they spread out and approached: "Silence, pagan whore!"
The speaker tried to backhand her out of the way as she struggled free of the tangled sheets. She caught the arm, heaved and twisted to lock it with a speed and skill that would have been a pleasure to see in better circumstances, and swung the elbow wrong end for ward against the bedstead with all the strength of her arms and weight of her body. The joint broke with an ugly crackling crunch of tendon and bone, like a green branch giving way across your knee. Her hawk-shriek overrode the Cutter's scream of outraged pain:
"Scathach! Scathach!"
The knifeman's ululation at the ruin of his arm was cut off as her foot raked up and kicked him under the jaw with explosive power, toes neatly rolled back to present the ball of her foot. She snatched at the knife as it fell from his nerveless hand.
Ingolf roared and lunged himself; the thrust of the bowie in his left hand rammed into a jacket lined with mail Chapter Two
Sheaf a nd Sickle Inn, Sutterdown,
Willamette Valley, Oregon
Samhain Eve, C Y 22/2020 A.D.
Rudi Mackenzie dreamed.
He saw mountains, but not the mountains of home, green and steep where the Cascades rose above Dun Juniper's walls. These were bare save for a scattering of silvery gray scrub, up great walls of rock and scree to the glaciers floating far above, and he was all alone except for Epona. His senses were sharp; the smell of cold rock and aromatic herbs and old sweat soaked into wool and leather, the rattle of stone under shod hooves, far and faint a baying like wolves, but he knew it was men. The horse's breath came sharp, and there was a sense of overwhelming grief and dread…