"Fifteen or sixteen," Rudi replied.
A well-treated horse with a good deal of Arab in her breeding could be worked until she was past twenty, but it was true that if he could he'd rather have left her back in the home pasture, bullying the rest of the Dun Juniper horse-herd. Warmbloods tended to break down more easily, too.
"Why did you bring her on a trip like this?"
"She'd start killing people if I left her behind that long," Rudi said.
Frederick laughed, then stopped when he saw nobody else was.
"She's vicious?" he said incredulously. "But I saw you riding her without a bit! Bareback!"
"Not vicious exactly; she just dislikes the most of humankind, the more so if I'm away for long. Which given the way she was treated as a filly isn't surprising. We've been together a long time, since I was about ten, and she still won't let anyone else ride her."
Mathilda rolled her eyes again. "Rudi rode her when nobody else at the Sutterdown Horse Fair could," she said. "It's part of the Wondrous Legend of Rudi Mackenzie, back home." A sigh. "It's true, too. I was there. You wouldn't have any doubt she could be vicious if you'd seen her then."
"Sure, and it's no miracle or magic, just that we're old souls to each other," Rudi said. At Frederick's look: "Knew each other in our past lives, so."
"You, ah-"
"Witches."
"Witches believe we're reborn?"
"Everything is," Rudi said. "How not?" He waved a hand around them. "And doesn't everything die and return; the grass, the trees, the fields? Why not us?"
Mathilda sighed again. "These are people who apologize when they cut down a tree in case it's their long-lost Great-Aunt Gertrude they're planning on repairing the barn with," she said.
"Well, now, no; it's just polite to be grateful," Rudi drawled, mock-aggrieved. "To the tree, for starters. And the fae don't like it if you're rude."
"Well," one of the twins said, "Elves go wait in the Halls of Mandos, generally speaking. But that's not really relevant since there aren't any here in Middle-earth anymore."
"And since the Straight Path is closed," the other went on. "Nowadays if you sail west, you just eventually hit yourself in the butt, coming from the east."
"I've never been very religious," Fred mused. "My family aren't, you know… well, we're Methodists, sort of. I never really thought it was very important. I know that's sort of old-fashioned, but Mom and Dad are… Dad was…"
He rubbed a hand across his face, smearing sweat and dust on his chocolate-colored skin.
"But I think I'm going to have to change my mind, with all the stuff that's happened lately." A weary grin: "Though which type of religion should I start taking seriously?"
"There are many paths and if you walk them rightly, they all go to the same place," Rudi said.
Then he grinned himself: "To be sure, the sensible people go by the Old Religion's road. We have the best festivals, for starters! And the best music, though I grant"-he nodded to Ignatius-"that the Gregorian chant is fine stuff, but ours is merrier. And unlike Catholics we don't have to waste our time on guilt."
Ignatius simply gave an ironic lift of the eyebrows; he wasn't the sort of man to rise to a bait like that. Mathilda glanced sidelong at Rudi and smiled.
"Did he mention the way his mother magically struck a Methodist pastor dead once?"
Well, your mother has struck a fair number of people dead, but by more conventional means, Rudi thought. It was hot and he itched in places he couldn't scratch because they were covered by two layers of leather with steel plates riveted between, and it was a bit of an effort to stay cheerful. INCLUDING your father's pet pope, I suspect. Not that he didn't deserve it, the creature…
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.