The light was painfully bright, from lanterns set all around the great rectangular room and hanging from the groined arches of the high ceiling. One wall was lined with cast-iron and tile-and-brick stoves and ovens and grills; the central island and the counters all around were lined with cooks and scullions hard at work, chopping and rolling and setting out arrangements on bright silver platters. The sounds of knives and tenderizing hammers and rolling pins dropped away as flushed, sweating faces turned towards the dark-clad warriors who rushed through the doors.
A small party of Rangers sprinted to the other exit that gave on the main house, tall metal portals with oval glass windows set in them. A man pushed a trolley of empty serving plates through it, then froze with the doors swinging behind him as a sword point pricked him behind the ear. The rest of the Dunedain fanned out to either side of her, arrows on the strings of their drawn bows, the vicious triangular heads motionless.
"Hear me! We have no quarrel with you," Astrid said. "Only with your master."
Her clear soprano filled a sudden silence broken only by the flicker of flames and the sputter of fat dripping on embers. She knew their eyes were all on her sword, the blue light of the lanterns breaking off the honed edge.
And the most of these people will be thralls, not willing servants.
Just then a burly cook cocked back his hand with the cleaver in it. John Hordle had his sword in his right hand, but the left shot out and clamped on the man's fat bull-neck. Fingers like wrought-iron bars drove in, and the man purpled and then went limp. His head hit the brown tile of the floor with an unpleasant thock.
"But we will kill if we must," she added.
Two dozen pairs of eyes followed the point of her sword as if hypnotized. She pointed to another set of doors, these of oak. That led to the day-pantry where supplies were stored for immediate use. It had only the one entrance, and it was windowless, with walls of thick adobe.
"In there. All of you; take that one on the floor, he's not dead-"
She shot a glance at Little John Hordle that said he'd better not be dead.
"And be quiet about it."
They obeyed in a clumsy scramble; despite her demand for quiet, there were crashes as crockery cascaded to the floor and silverware chimed. In a minute they were all tightly packed among the barrels and crates and jars and crocks; she could see some of them crawling up on the emptied shelves. One of her Dunedain shoved the door closed, dropped a wedge and heel-kicked it to seat it tightly. The portal wasn't particularly strong, and the kitchen workers should be able to hammer it down in time, especially since the hinges were on their side. That wouldn't be soon enough to hinder her plan. Everyone waited, their eyes on her…
Except for one who was flicking slices of glazed roast pork loin into his mouth from a plate where they were arranged and chewing with relish.
"John!" she hissed, enraged. "Not now! Great deeds await us!"
"Not bad, roit tasty touch of apple in the glaze, but a bit 'ot. They put chilies in every bloody thing out here."
The sudden wave of fury vanished, and left her balanced and sure. She smiled at him, and turned to her folk. Alleyne poised beside her, shield up and eyes grim.
"Now," she said.
BD forced herself not to take another glass of wine. She didn't usually try to drown anxiety, but her throat was dry and tight, far too tight to try any of the little nibblements going around.
God, these cowboys can pack it away, she thought, watching men who'd downed racks of lamb-ribs and heaped plates of roast beef with all the fixings taking fruit tarts and pastries of pine nuts and honey and cream from the silver salvers.
Not to mention the way they can drink. I'm impressed, and I was in Barony Chehalis for a Stavarov wedding!
Instead she chose a glass of cold herbal tea-not many of those had been taken. She supposed they were kept for the Mormons among the Bossman's followers. Her eyes kept going back to the clock, willing the hands to slow down. The room got more crowded, as the night outside grew colder and more people moved into the heated interior of the house; if anything it was uncomfortably warm here, with fifty or sixty people in the big ballroom besides the great wrought-silver chandelier above with its spendthrift weight of wax candles, and the lamps in their wall-sconces.
Then the doors to the kitchens burst open, and her throat squeezed shut at the shock, even when she'd been expecting it.
"Lacho Calad! Drego Morn!" rang out, and a stunning bull-bellow of: " Every one of you buggers freeze and nobody'll get 'urt!"
The three Dunedain leaders made a beeline for the Bossman and his family, a half dozen more at their heels; they didn't use their swords to kill, but battering shields and the flats of the blades scattered men and women out of their way in a chorus of screams and groans. More Rangers pushed the musicians off their dais and covered the ballroom with drawn bows.
A third party ran to the outside doors and slammed them closed, shooting the bar home in the wrought-steel brackets that looked merely decorative until you realized that they were as thick as a man's wrist. The Bossman's house wasn't exactly a fortress, but those doors were made of heavy oak beam and plank, strapped with iron as useful as it was ornamental, and the hinges were on the inside. The windows were small, high in the exterior walls, and barred by steel grillwork. The Rangers had stout padlocks and chains to fasten the bar in place; nobody was going to open that door soon without sledges and bolt cutters.
The screams and babbling rose to a crescendo; most of the men present were drunk, a fair percentage of the women were too, and nobody had time to think or adjust to the sudden shocking violence. The guards around the perimeter of the room were sober, and they were armored and armed with shetes and glaives, but the Bossman was in the center of the room and they weren't, and it took them crucial seconds to switch their mental settings from ceremonial guard to muscle squad.
There were metal bangles at BD's studded belt. She pulled one of them free, and her wrist did a quick snap-flick-and-roll; that put the blade of the balisong butterfly knife out and the handle that had concealed it in her hand. Two steps took her to Estrellita Peters' side; she threw one arm around the smaller woman to pinion both of hers, and set the knife blade to her throat.
" Don't do anything foolish," she snarled.
Suddenly anyone looking would know why she'd been called La Loba in one of Mexico City's tougher schools forty years ago.
The Bossman's wife jerked very slightly, and a trickle of blood ran down the smooth olive skin of her throat; the scent of the rose-essence perfume she wore was strong this close. Her eyes rolled down towards the knife hand with a reflex like a startled horse, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with her wits, and she froze into immobility.
Her sons noticed almost immediately; their hands went to the silver-hilted daggers they wore, but the elder one, the one with the swordsman's build, stopped and shot out his right hand to his brother's wrist instead.
"Be still, Jorge! She might hurt Mama!"
Carl Peters himself took a little longer to wrench himself out of the initial bewilderment. His hand went to the well-worn hilt of his shete, but then stopped again for an instant as he saw the glitter of the little knife at his wife's throat.
"Kill her, querido! " Estrellita gasped. "She won't dare hurt me!"