Jaine turned to Odard: "You're not a prince either, I guess? You're not as handsome as he is, but you're dressed like a prince."
"I'm a baron," he replied helpfully. "That's sort of like-"
"A wicked feudal oppressor!" Jaine said delightedly, clapping her hands together. "I've read about that in school. Do you have a castle and a dungeon?"
"A castle, a small town, six manors-four held for knight service by my vassals, two in demesne-ten villages and a hunting lodge," Odard said.
"And dungeons? With racks and rats and straw and guys in black hoods and stuff?" she said with gruesome relish.
"No. The High Court of Petition and Redress doesn't like that sort of thing these days. And I'm not all that wicked or oppressive… all my peasants would leave if I were, and then where would I be?"
"Broke, and earning your own living," Rudi said. "And that wouldn't suit you at all, at all, Odard."
And you can't hunt runaways with dogs anymore, he thought.
Odard's father had been an enthusiastic hunter of runaway peons, with a pack of sight hounds trained to kill, and a busy torture chamber. Though to be fair, that sort of thing had been over before Odard's voice broke; it had been part of the settlement at the end of the War of the Eye that anyone could move if they wanted to. It was amazing how the Portland Protective Association's standards of management changed once the implications of "voting with the feet" sank in.
The interrogation continued relentlessly:"What do you do, then, if you're not being wicked and oppressive?"
Odard was looking a little bewildered; children were more strictly kept in the Protectorate. He probably hadn't had much to do with kids in his own household since he was one himself.
"Ah… I keep the garrison up to scratch, drill the mi litia, keep order, collect the taxes, see the demesne farms are managed properly and the tithes paid, preside at ses sions of the court baron, throw out the first baseball of the season…" Odard said.
"Oh," Jaine said. "Boring stuff, like Dad does."
Her brother cleared his throat. "Excuse her," he said. "We don't get that many foreigners here."
"We're all Americans," his mother said soothingly. "Have a canape."
The word was only vaguely familiar to Rudi; evidently it meant things like bits of liver paste and capers and cav iar on crackers. At home Mackenzies would have called it a nibblement; Sandra Arminger referred to them as petit fours or, when she was being obscure, faculty fodder.
Jaine's older sister cut in with a question for the twins: "And you two are elf-friends?"
There were bookcases on one wall of the living room, across from the fireplace. Rudi's eyes flicked in that di rection. Yes, a set of what Aunt Astrid insisted on calling "the histories," and looking well-read.
"Well, we sure would be if there were any elves around to be friends with right now," Ritva said.
"Provided they liked us, " Mary said pedantically. "Which we can't tell, really. Who knows? They might be all snooty and condescending."
Seeing disappointment, Ritva went on: "But we do live in a flet and talk Elvish. Well, Sindarin, not High-Elvish. That's for special occasions."
Both the Thurston sisters looked interested. "Say something in Sindarin!" Shawonda exclaimed.
"Ummm…"
The twins looked at each other, cleared their throats, and sang a few verses instead-they had pleasant sopranos, as well trained as you'd expect in a Dunedain, and they were very good at two-part harmony. Mackenzies liked to sing, but Astrid's Rangers couldn't say, "where's the outhouse?" without a chorus sometimes.
It was Rudi's turn to nearly choke on his wine, and he saw Mathilda flush with annoyance-she had a catlike obsession with propriety, sometimes. It sounded pretty-Elvish always did-but rendered into what Dunedain called the common tongue the song would have gone:
And into that dusty den of sin
Into that harlot's hell
Came a lusty maid who was never afraid,
And her name was Aunt Astrid had pitched an absolute fit when they translated that one, a couple of years ago, and another when they started singing it in taverns as they passed through and rumors started spreading about what the lyrics actually meant.
Songs just didn't get more luridly gross than "The Ballad of Eskimo Nell."
"That's beautiful," Shawonda said, and sighed. "And are you on a quest?"
This one would be prime Ranger bait, back home, Rudi thought. She'd be off to the woods in a flash.
Aunt Astrid's bunch attracted that sort of romantic the way cowpats did flies. To be fair, they did a lot of good work to earn their keep.
"Well, we're not qualified to quest for rings or anything like that," Ritva said solemnly. "We're still young and just finished our ohtar training three years ago. You have to be twenty-one to be a Roquen, a knight. Mostly back home we find lost livestock or children, and track down man-eaters or bandits or fugitives, and guard caravans or explorers going into dangerous country."
"It's sort of like being a town watchman… a policeman, you say here."
"But with more trees and lots and lots of venison."
"And squirrel stew and wild greens."
"We'd like to do a quest, of course."
"We're working our way up from minor things," Mary continued.
"Like questing for Bilbo's pen and inkstand," her sister specified.
"Or Galadriel's tea strainer."
"Or Arwen's hand lotion pump."
"And right now, our klutzy big brother's magic sword-he's always losing things. Dumb-blond syndrome."
"But you're blond. Blond er. His hair is sort of red and blond but yours is just yellow."
"Yeah, but we're girls, which makes up for it."
Shawonda laughed; then her mother pointed through an archway. "You two go help get the first course out."
To Rudi and the others: "I'm sorry, but they're very excited-I know they can be a bit of a trial at times."
"Not at all," Rudi said, as Mathilda and Odard mur mured much less sincere disclaimers. "They remind me of my sisters… my mother's younger daughters, not the Terrible Two here."
"They remind us of us," Mary or Ritva said.
"Now you're getting nasty, " Mathilda said dryly.
"They remind me of my sister," Edain said, and then grinned, suddenly looking a lot less adult than his nineteen years. "But sure, and I won't hold it against them."
Rudi looked at the mantelpiece. There were a few framed pictures there. One showed a much younger General-President Thurston in the uniform of the old American army, standing with his arm around Cecile; she was holding a baby in the crook of one arm. The picture was in color, and it had an archaic sharpness to it.
His brows went up in surprise. "You and your hus band met before the Change, then, Mrs. Thurston… Cecile?"
"Just before-we were married in the spring of 1997," she said. "Martin arrived in a hurry… and he's been that way ever since!"
"But then… I thought General Thurston was sent out of Seattle? You went with him?"
She shook her head and smiled, fond and proud. "No. He came back for me and Martin."
The smile died. "We were hiding in the cellar of the colonel's house. That was after the mutiny, and things were… very bad. The MREs were all gone and I would have had to go out to look for food in a day or two. And there he and Sergeant Anderson were."
Rudi glanced at his friends. They were looking as impressed as he was, even Edain, who was a crucial few years younger. They'd all heard the stories. The only people who got out of most big cities alive after the Change were the ones who ran, and ran fast, before things went totally bad; the only exception they knew was Portland, and there Mathilda's father and his bul lyboys had burned large sections down and driven most of the survivors out to die.