"Yeah, I can see what… I'll have to think about that." A grin. "And since I'm going East with you guys, I have a long time to think about it."
Rudi chuckled. "And you're not the only one who'll be thinking. From the old stories, a vanished prince who's fated to return and make things right again may be more powerful than one who's there in the flesh. My mother always said that it's by the thoughts and dreams within their heads that men are governed, as much as by laws or even swords from without."
"Dad said something like that too. The moral is to the physical as three is to one. "
Rudi nodded. "Also she says that no man can harvest a field before it's ripe."
"I'd like to meet your mother. She sounds like a cool lady," Frederick said shyly.
"She is that, and a great lady for all that she hasn't so many airs as some, and fun too."
Mathilda came to sit by Rudi when Nystrup drew the younger Thurston aside; she had a small bunch of yellow wildflowers tucked over her right ear.
"Giving him a pep talk?" she said dryly, not whispering but leaving her voice soft; the tune Odard was playing helped cover it.
Rudi nodded; they were both the children of rulers, and knew the demands of the trade.
"It's a little worried he is, over whether it's good for him to contest with his brother for power. As his father didn't want the succession settled by blood-right, you see."
Matti leaned against his shoulder. "Well, at least he gets a choice! I'm stuck with it. I get to be Protector… and then wonder when Count Stavarov is going to launch a coup and stick a knife in my back, or the House of Jones is going to flounce off in a snit and haul up the draw-bridges on their castles. Or whether the Stavarovs are going to launch a coup and"-she shuddered theatrically-"make me marry Piotr. You wouldn't think that even Alexi Stavarov could have produced a son who's more of a pig than he was, but-"
They both chuckled. "If you can call what he's got a real choice, and not just wittering," Rudi went on. "After all, Matti, you have a choice too. You could run off and be a sailor in Newport, or a nun in Mt. Angel. Or to the Mackenzie lands and take up a croft!" he added slyly.
She thumped his shoulder. "I can just see myself putting out milk for the house-hob… and leaping naked over a bonfire on Beltane!"
"There are Christians in the Clan," he said righteously. And that latter is a rather attractive image, sure.
"Yeah, both of them," Mathilda said in a pawky tone. "But anyway, that's not a real choice. Portland's my home, I can't run out on it. .. Things would go to hell… And what sort of an example would it be, shirking my duties? God called me to a task when He made me heir to the Protectorate."
"That's what I said to young Fred, more or less. Struck him with the force of a sledgehammer, so it did."
"I'm worried enough about coming on this trip. And there's a lot better reason for doing it than just because I don't want to sit around in a cotte-hardi listening to petitions and arguments over who gets seizin of what or whose vassal stole whose sheep."
She put an arm around his waist and leaned her face against his upper arm. Rudi looked down and batted his eyes.
"And here I was thinking it was the sweet charm of me and my beautiful eyelashes that brought you on the journey… yeak! Those bruises still hurt!"
It was getting a bit chilly; he unpinned his plaid and stretched it over their shoulders, blanket-style, and they sat in companionable silence. They'd been doing that since they were little kids… although the weight and warmth and fragrance of her made him a little conscious that they weren't children anymore.
Admittedly a bit of a gamy fragrance, but we have been on the road for weeks, and it's exceedingly female.
Odard had launched into another song; Mary and Ritva sang it, in two-part harmony:
"I hear the horse-hoof thunder in the valley below;
I'm waiting for the angels of Avalon-"
He looked up at Rudi and Mathilda as he finished, then aside to the twins with a charming smile:
"And I'd like to thank whichever of you beautiful ladies was considerate enough to bring along my lute. Perhaps it's not quite so essential as the dried beans, but I'm fond of it."
"It was her idea," Mary and Ritva said in perfect unison, each pointing at the other.
Odard's smile grew a little strained. "All right; thank you to whichever evil, teasing bitch preserved my lute. I'm fond of it."
"She's evil teasing bitch Number One," one of them said, pointing to the other. "And I'm evil teasing bitch Number Two."
"You are not! I'm evil teasing bitch Number Two!"
Ingolf laughed, which did Rudi's heart good to see. The big Easterner extended a hand.
"That's a pretty instrument," he said. "Could I see it for a moment?"
"It's not a guitar," Odard said in warning as he handed it over.
The man from Wisconsin touched his strong battered fingers to the strings with a tender delicacy.
"I know. My mother's sister was a luthier. Aunt Alice loved the oldtimey music. She was a bit touched after the Change-she was in Racine on the day of it, showed up nearly dead at our door in Readstown six months later, never talked about how she came through-but she could make ones almost as fine as this, and play them too. Taught quite a few people."
Odard's instrument had a spruce sounding board with a carving of vines over the sound hole, and touches of mother-of-pearl and rose-wood along the edges of the swelling body. It was actually his second-best lute, of course; you didn't take the finest on a trip like this. Ingolf began strumming.
"You don't have fireflies out here, do you?" he asked. "Not that I've seen, anyway."
"No," one of the twins said. "We've heard of them… bugs that glow?"
"Glowing bugs? Like the stars are little lights in the sky," he said, and his fingers began coaxing out a tune from the six-course instrument, plaintive and sad. "It's a pity you've never seen 'em. There's nothing prettier than fireflies on the edge of a field in a summertime night, with that sweet smell off the corn, and a little mist coming up from the river. Like stars come to earth, winking at you…
"Like the lights I shall never see again
The fireflies come and sing to me
Of trains and towns and friends long gone-"
He had a deep voice, a little hoarse but true; the twins began to sing along after a while, and then some of the Mormons joined in. Most people were happy to learn a new tune, since it was about the only way to increase your stock of music.
"Alice made that one; she surely did love the fireflies, and it was a pleasure to hear her singing while she watched them from the veranda. We kids caught some in a jar once and gave them to her, but she cried until we let them go. She was a bit touched, like I said, but good-hearted."
He passed the lute back to Odard, who gave him a considering look and played another tune. Rudi rested his chin on Mathilda's head while they listened. Yawns signaled the end of the impromptu sing-along.
"Did you bother to take a bath?" he said teasingly, sniffing loudly.
"And on that note!" she replied, and headed off for her bedroll.
Rudi yawned himself and stretched, looking up. The stars grew as his fire-dazzled sight adjusted, even more thickly frosted across the sky than they would be at home; the air of this high desert was thin and dry, and the Belt of the Goddess shone in red and yellow and azure blue. A little away from the fire Ingolf sat looking at the embers, rubbing his hands across his face occasionally. The relaxed pleasure that had shown while he sang was gone.
There's a man who's afraid to sleep, Rudi thought with concern. And he isn't a man to be governed by his fears, usually. I wish I were better at mind healing, or that Mother or Aunt Judy were here!