Well, that's not fair or right! he thought, then gave a rueful chuckle. He does look like the young Lugh come again in glory. I look like a farmer who's good with a bow… which is what I am.
"I hope it's not going to be like this all the way to the coast, Chief," he called. "That was just a bit more lively than comfortable."
Chapter Sixteen
Southeastern Oregon
May 15, CY23/2021 A.D.
Two hours after sunset Rudi pushed the beans and salt pork around his plate with the spoon, then made himself eat; you had to, even after a battle. He hadn't had much appetite, but it was unwise a to be careless of Her gifts. The Saints had buried their own dead, and they were very quiet as they went about their chores; the scents of cooking food competed with the faint iron and sewage smell of spilled blood and violent death, despite everyone's efforts at cleaning up.
If they hadn't had so many wounded and been tired beyond exhaustion, it would have been better to move camp a bit. The Seffridge Ranch men had packed their chests of bullion, turned over their horses and were ready to head west anyway, anxious to get back to the CORA territories before the Rovers recovered from the drubbing they'd been handed. It gave the camp a lonely feel, though Bob Brown had said he'd be around to say good-bye.
That's what this trip is going to be, Rudi thought, looking around at the faces of his friends.
Apart from us, it's a series of meetings and partings. A bit like being a ghost, flitting through the life of the land without much touching it.
A voice started up from the Saints' part of the encampment, half chanting in a strong carrying tone:
"… Why am I angry because of mine enemy? Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul. Do not anger again because of mine enemies."
Rudi sighed at the chorus of "Amen!" That was not bad advice, even if it was from a different path than his.
He made himself eat, concentrating on the physical sensations, the smoky taste of the food, the chink of the spoon against the tin plate, the cool slightly metallic tang of the well water in his cup, even the bruises and stiffness and the pain in his right calf, refusing to let his thoughts chase their own tails. The others looked fairly glum too, apart from Ignatius, who had his usual steady calm, and Odard, who was in quiet good spirits apart from the occasional twinge in his swollen, bandaged knee.
He whistled tunefully-Rudi recognized the song, a nice bouncy one called "The Bastard King of England"-as he worked over the edge of his longsword with a hone mounted on a wooden holder. The damascene patterns in the steel shone and rippled in the firelight as he ground down on a spot where the edge had nicked on bone or a piece of harness. Rudi looked over at Mathilda, where she sat beside him with her arms around her knees and her chin on them, staring into the low flicker of the greasewood fire, and put his emptied plate aside.
"Second thoughts about the trip, Matti?" he said qui etly, as he unpinned his plaid and folded it blanketlike around his shoulders; the temperature was dropping fast in the thin air of the high desert.
"No… no, not really," she said, her voice equally low. "It's just… I don't like killing men. I'll do it when I have to, yeah, and I won't get all sick about it like the first time, but I don't like doing it."
With a sniff: "I'm not like Odard."
"Odard doesn't like killing; it's not that he's got a taste for blood. He likes fighting. There's a difference," Rudi observed.
Of course, he thought, I like fighting too. The difference is that I really don't like killing; I'm not indifferent to it, even when it has to be done. I hope I don't ever become so, sure.
"I don't like fighting or killing." Her mouth quirked, and she added: "Despite having had Baroness d'Ath teaching me how all my life."
"Well, you don't like girls the way Tiphaine does, either; some things are just the way the gods make you," he said with something just short of a chuckle.
Mathilda smiled, but there was duty in it as much as amusement. "Really the problem is… well, I'm feeling guilty at how Mom must be feeling."
"Hey, you're Catholic-of course you're feeling guilty," he teased. "You see the advantage of the Old Religion? Praise and blessing, we don't go in for guilt. Or prolonged virginity, either," he added slyly.
This time her grin at the chaffing was genuine. "Licentious pagan!"
"Uptight beadsqueezer!"
"Tree hugger!"
"No, that's the elf wannabes," he said, and they shared a chuckle. "We Mackenzies may worship trees, yes: hug them, no."
"But I really am feeling guilty about hurting Mom this way," Mathilda said, the smile dying away from her face. "She must be going out of her skull. I know she doesn't try to keep me wrapped in padding like an egg… but I know she really has to make herself not do it, too. She's always afraid for me, even if it's just a hunt or a tournament. Now she's got real reasons to be afraid. I could have bought it today, and we'll be taking risks like that for a long time."
"Then why did you do it?" Rudi asked, more to help her than to satisfy his own curiosity; self-knowledge was never wasted.
"I'm… not really sure," Mathilda said; she picked up a stick and prodded at the fire; something crackled, and a trail of sparks drifted upward. After a half minute she went on:
"I mean, yes, I'd miss you like hell, and yes, we're anamchara, so I've got an obligation to you, but I'm heir to the Protectorate and that's a duty too. I think… the real reason I'm guilty about it is I think deep down part of it's that I wanted to punish Mom. Or part of me does, and it sneaks up on me, so I do things that hurt her without really meaning to."
"Oh?" Rudi said. "Well… you know, she's always been pretty good to you, Matti. And to me, for that matter. Even back during the War, when I was a prisoner."
"Yes." She hesitated. "But… Rudi, sometimes I think that she's not a good person, you know? She… I know she's done some. .. questionable things. And a lot of the time, when she does good things she does it because it's… efficient, expedient. Not because it's right. And Dad…"
She shrugged. They didn't talk about her father. He didn't know how much she really knew about Norman Arminger, who'd been a tyrant's tyrant even by the bru tal standards of the first Change Years; how much she knew, how much she knew but didn't let herself know, and how much she'd carefully avoided knowing.
"Matti?"
She looked up, probably not seeing him as more than a dim outline after staring at the red-yellow flicker over the coals for so long.
"OK, I'm not going to run a moral checklist on your parents for you."
Because you'd defend them and then we'd just get into a screaming fight. Once was enough for that. OK, what can I say that's true and tactful both?
Aloud, he went on: "But keep one thing in mind-your mother raised you, you know? And she raised you to think about this stuff and worry about doing the right thing, sure and she did. And you turned out to be a pretty good person. So that's got to count for something, eh?"
The smile she gave him was warm, and a hand followed it; they closed their fingers together for a moment.
"So what you're really afraid of is that you'll end up turning into your mother, right?"
She squeezed his hand again, gratefully. "Yeah, I am. Especially if I'm going to be Protector. Maybe that's what I'm running away from, do you think? I have to do the job, but can I do it and still be me?"
"Yeah, maybe that's what you're afraid of. But you don't need to be, I think." He winked. "I mean, and aren't I your conscience, so? Just the thought of me looking at you with sad-puppy disappointed eyes and my lip starting to tremble and perhaps a tear running down my cheek would keep you on the straight and narrow."