Her voice broke for a second; then she cleared her throat and went on doggedly: ?-and those who go in viking to the dead cities must fight often against the troll-men.?
They talked, stumbling over terms occasionally; Ritva and her sister helped when they were at a loss for words, or used them differently. Rangers traveled widely and had to be good at picking up how meanings had drifted in the last generation, and she could speak Spanish and some French as well as English and Sindarin. It was harder with Asgerd, because her speech was speckled with words from old languages Ritva knew only as names, or with French. Not the ancient tongue that Portland?s nobility liked to affect now and then, either, but a quacking nasal local dialect like nothing she?d ever heard before.
Asgerd nodded when she was satisfied.?You?re a bondar, a yeoman?s child, like me, then,? she said to Edain.?Neither rich nor poor, eh??
It seemed to make her easier in her mind if she could place someone by station and kindred. Edain shrugged. ?Right. We?ve got a good farm and we?re well thought of in Dun Fairfax…? ? Dun means village, more or less. Thorpe, you might say,? Ritva put in.
Edain nodded.?In our village. But not great chiefs, no.?
Asgerd sighed.?It seems a rich land though, this Montival. Gardens yielding into November! Stock grazing outside all winter? We have to feed ours hay and turnips and grain five months of the year! And I?ve never tasted those fruits you talked about, grapes and peaches and cherries and apricots and hazelnuts, they?re only old words here.? ?The Willamette?s fine country, and that?s a fact,? Edain said. ?Better than aught I?ve seen on this trip-Iowa was very rich indeed in grain and swine and cattle, sure and it was, but cold in the winter too from the looks of it, and no vineyards to speak of, and not nearly the fruit orchards we have. And flat! And short of timber, the which we are not. The Lord and Lady have blessed us.?
She bristled a little, and he added:?It?s not bad soil here. Those were fine spuds at Eriksgarth, and the stock was good.?
Then he looked around; they were traveling down a small river valley now, narrow between low steep densely forested hills, mostly pine and spruce with an occasional stand of taller white pine, and broadleaf trees along the water. Naked rock showed here and there, through snow and the thin soil beneath. ?Or at least that bit about Eriksgarth wasn?t bad. This here would break a farmer?s heart, it would! And any plow he tried to use on it. Fine timber trees, I grant, but ours stand taller.? ?They say the folk of the old world cut so many here in Norrheim. .. they called it Maine then… that few grow as tall as they might,? Asgerd said.?Or as tall as they will grow by my grandchildren?s time. That?s hard to imagine, but…?
The three westerners nodded at her shrug; they?d all grown up on tales of a world of marvels vanished before they were born. You never knew exactly which were true, and which mere fable, either. Not even the old people agreed on that! ?It would be a good place for a Ranger steading,? Ritva said.?We don?t farm. We keep to the woods and wilderness, mostly, and live by the hunt and what the forest yields. And what we?re given to protect farmers from bandits and beasts,? she added virtuously.?That buys us grain and wine, and cloth and weapons… whatever we can?t make or grow for ourselves.?
Edain snorted.?That, or what merchants pay you for protection of their caravans,? he pointed out. ?They don?t have to hire us,? Mary said. ?No. You just loudly announce that so-and-so isn?t under your protection. The which is to pin a great sodding sign on their backs: Rob This One, eh??
Mary sniffed as her skis hissed rhythmically.?If we didn?t announce it, that would be like cheating the honest ones who pay. Overcharging them, you know? And there?s what we get from the other realms by treaty for bandit hunting and patrolling.?
Edain grinned, enjoying the teasing game:?And what you get by exploring for the good of all, the which so often leads to stores of gold and silver and jewels and other treasure from the old times falling into your hands, somehow, and isn?t that a curious thing, the wonder and the joyous surprise of it!?
Ritva frowned.?It?s traditional,? she said, in a slightly huffy tone.?Dunedain have always done those things. Except for that bit just before the Change when the world got so weird and crowded.?
Edain snickered when her nose went up, and she didn?t go into detail.
Mostly because I don?t think I could go into detail, she thought.
When you were the child and niece of rulers, you grew up knowing how much effort and planning had to go into provisions and equipment, and what a disaster it could be if you didn?t have something essential when and where it was needed. The Histories painted Gondor as normal enough, if a bit seedy and run-down, but they were irritatingly vague on how the original Dunedain had made their livings after the fall of the North Kingdom, much less on how they outfitted their warriors. Supposedly the Rangers of old hadn?t even told people how their labors in the wilderness kept settled folk safe, much less demanded dead-or-alive rewards and head prices for outlaws and a yearly stipend as they did now.
How did they get the price of a meal and a night?s sleep at the Prancing Pony in the Third Age? Barliman Butterbur didn?t strike me as the sort who?d let you run up a big tab.
Where had the Dunedain children and old people lived? Armor was expensive and needed skilled specialists to make and keep up, as well-did they have weapons smiths of their own? For that matter, how had they gotten pipeweed from the Shire? It wasn?t as if the hobbits would give it to you.
They couldn?t all have sponged off Elrond in Imladris, like hairy smelly short-lived poor cousins, she thought. Or hocked ancestral treasures to the dwarves whenever they ran short. Aunt Astrid has enough trouble making the people who owe us money pay up even with a contract! It?s a puzzlement.
Edain?s hiss brought her up; she angled the points of her skis together, snowplowing to a halt and focusing outward. Garbh was standing at point, her body lowered and muzzle locked forward like a compass needle; the cold muffled scent to a human nose, but hers was almost infinitely keener. They all kicked their toes out of the loops and stooped low, motionless, listening. ?Gruck! Gruck!?
That was a raven; a deeper cry than a crow. A black shape flogged itself into the air a little ahead, where a lone spruce leaned over a boulder, then drifted stiff-winged back to its perch, cocking an inquisitive and hopeful eye downward.
Something dead, she thought, as she reached over her shoulder for an arrow. Someone, rather. Garbh wouldn?t act that way for ordinary carrion.
Mary held up two fingers and then tapped them to the left. Edain nodded and ghosted off to the right, with Garbh swinging wide to cover his flank. Asgerd followed man and dog with blade in hand, creditably quiet, the gray steel of the Norrheimer broadsword at one with the brown and white and green of the winter woods. The two Rangers traced a course like drifting mist by drilled habit, from bush to boulder to tree, until they looked through a tangle of reddish wild blueberry canes. Ritva relaxed and let her breathing slow, let her gaze drift a little out of focus for an instant-that was how you could see patterns best, if nothing was moving.