Aloud he went on: "She didn't. The Reverend Dixon just had a heart attack at a… a crucial moment, or so Aunt Judy tells me."
As an aside he said to Frederick: "Aunt Judy's our chief healer, a friend of my mother's from when they were girls."
Then he returned to the subject: "Matti, people do die now and then without someone killing them. Besides, it was before either of us was born. And he was a Baptist, not a Methodist. Or was it a Presbyterian? I've never really understood all the differences."
" Some sort of heretic," Mathilda said.
"Sure, you're bein' a bit narrow-minded there."
"Just orthodox," she said with a sniff.
"And isn't orthodoxy just one's own doxy, and heterodoxy another's doxy?"
Father Ignatius walked on two paces, then choked with laughter and had to be thumped on the back, tried to be stern, and laughed again. Other people joined in at intervals as the ghastliness of the Latinate pun sank in, ending with Edain and Frederick and Ingolf, who had to have it explained since their schooling hadn't included the classics.
Rudi considered making a more elaborate one about the Grand Constable Tiphaine being a very non-hetero-doxy, but decided not to-Ignatius was a bit of a damp blanket where bawdy was concerned. So was Matti, come to that, especially in a cleric's company.
His mother had made a joke once about Tiphaine having an I won't tell, and I'll kill you if you ask policy. Older people seemed to find that funny, for some reason.
"Ummm-" Frederick said.
He's feeling a little like the new wolf in the pack, being a stranger and all, with us knowing one another most of our lives, Rudi thought. Or at least for a year, with Ingolf. He's lonely, too. I would be, in his place!
The younger Thurston went on: "You know, Dad thought you guys, the Mackenzies, were, well, weird."
"We're witches. We are weird," Rudi said. "Or so my mother always says. Meself, I think everyone else is weird, but then I wasn't raised all my younger years among cowans as she was, the sorrow and the pity of it."
"What are cowans?"
Mathilda chuckled, a gurgling sound like her mother's laugh, but warmer somehow; it lit up her tired, dusty face like a light from within.
"Unbelievers," she said. "People with a distorted view of things. Dull, commonplace people with no magic in them who can't hear the music of the world. us, in other words, as far as the witches are concerned."
Frederick gave her a glance and seemed to flush, then gathered himself.
"Ah… Dad always said you guys in Portland were even weirder, but you and Odard seem pretty… well, normal to me."
"You haven't seen the court in Castle Todenangst," Rudi said. "The annual High Tournament, say. It's an improvement on a battle only because the food's better and there are regular rest breaks. That's their idea of fun."
"It's traning," Mathilda said a little defensively. "We use blunt swords and barriers and rebated lances. There's hardly ever more than one or two people killed. And I hadn't noticed you refusing to break a lance or two, Rudi."
"I have to take them down a bit, for their own good," Rudi said. "Knocking them off their horses corrects their humors, me being a mere pagan clansman and all who empties his own slop bucket. Most of the time your noble Associate can't swat a mosquito without getting a troubadour to list its noble lineage and compose an epic on the desperate battle it gave him."
And young Fred's a bit smitten with Mathilda, Rudi thought tolerantly. Which is natural enough. She's a comely lass, my anamchara is, and I've always thought so, and you could warm your hands at her spirit on a cold night. Not to mention other parts, if that were her inclination, which alas it is not.
It might cause problems, but he didn't think so; the young man seemed a sensible sort. And Mathilda had her faith's conviction of the importance of virginity right down in her bones.
A convinced virgin-until-marriage and my two half sisters, Rudi thought. It's a merry time I'm going to have on this trip! Think about anything but sex, Rudi… think of ice and vinegar.
He did, out of curiosity: an image slid spontaneously into his mind-one of a girl he knew named Niamh, naked, blond, lying on a bed and smiling as she raised a glass of iced vinegar and slowly licked the rim…
Oh, by Priapus Himself, I'm twenty-two, how am I to think of anything else? Rudi thought, tugging at the bottom edge of his arming doublet.
Then the image flashed back; this time it was Matti. That was even more disturbing. She wasn't conventionally beautiful, her face more strong-boned and handsome, but he could imagine how those brown eyes would light, and her breath catch as he kissed the hollow at the base of her throat and…
She was laughing at his joke, her head thrown back, that laugh with a gurgling chuckle in it. He gritted his teeth. It looked like he'd have to learn to mortify the flesh, Christian or no.
"Now, if you want weird, try the Dunedain," he said teasingly. "Living in trees and talking that fancy language-"
"I heard that!" Mary-or Ritva-called from a few yards back. "You're just jealous 'cause our traditions are really old! And only some of us live in trees."
"You do," Rudi pointed out.
"It's a flet. And very comfortable in all weathers, and private. And bearproof."
"You want to hear something really weird?" Frederick said, and waved a hand around: "This place used to be what they called a national monument. Dad was always going on about how we had to preserve them for the future."
Afraid he'll offend if he joins in the chaffing, Rudi thought; you had to be really familiar with people to share the game of playful insults. But yes, he's lonely, I'd judge. And of course he's parted from all his family, his mother and his sisters.
Rudi looked around at the arid desolation; the only reason they'd come this way was to throw off possible pursuit, and because they might as well use up fodder too bulky to carry far now that they'd abandoned the wagon.
"Well, there's something to be said for every part of Their world," he said.
The thought of harvest in the fields of home pierced his breast, and the reapers dancing in the Queen Sheaf to the squeal of pipes and rattle of bodhrans, whirling with corn poppies woven in their hair.. .
"And the forest is sacred to the Horned Lord, of course, and very comely. But this is the sort of place only the Mother could love, I'd say."
Rudi was a little relieved when Ingolf spoke; the big man had been nearly silent for too long now:
"Yah, I noticed that sort of thing back home-and all the way East and West, from one side of the continent to the other. You'd see these National Monument signs, and it's never anything that could have been good fields, or orchards or anything. Mind you, the woods can be real pretty-the maples turn colors back in Richland that I'd ride a day to see-and sometimes it's something really impressive, like this mountain carved into faces in the Sioux country, but most of these National Monuments, it's just damn ugly wilderness, rocks and stuff."
"I think they valued wilderness more, then, because there was so little of it and so much settled land," Ignatius said thoughtfully. "Strange…"
"We can all agree on one thing," Mathilda said decisively. "People who grew up before the Change are… weird!"
Everyone laughed agreement; Rudi nodded himself. Even his mother was strange that way sometimes, and you'd run into it like a brick wall you couldn't see.
Mary or Ritva came trotting back from a forward scout. Ritva, he decided as she reined in.
"Water a couple of miles northwest," she said. Her face was grim. "But there's complications."
There were about two dozen of the Mormons at the desolate little spring, refugees twice over, the first time from the Prophet's invasion of New Deseret and now from the United States of Boise. They'd picked their spot well, a declivity at the base of a tall north-facing cliff with a bit of an overhang, and with good water bubbling in a crack in the rock. It ran downhill before vanishing into the coarse black volcanic sand, and that produced a bit of greenery, which their horses needed and were busy stripping. Rudi gave the people a quick appraising glance.