“Stay, Garbh,” Edain said.
The bitch came over to him, sniffed politely at Asgerd’s hand, accepted a ruffling of the ears, then sat down by her master with a thump of tail against packed dirt and leaned her massive barrel-wide head into his thigh. A slight lift of the lip to show fang kept the younger dogs well mannered when they showed an impulse to leap about. They were the get of a sister from Garbh’s litter, and had accepted her authority instantly.
“Edain,” the younger man replied, and: “Sister,” to Asgerd with a casual nod.
And he’s always just taken me as I am, Asgerd thought gratefully. Neither too friendly or hiding behind formal manners, more as if he’d known me from a baby and remembered me sitting on the porch sucking my thumb. Right now I think he wants to talk to his brother, though.
“I’ll go down,” she said. “Your mother may need some help, with the feast preparing.”
“See you in a bit then, mo chroi,” Edain said.
The Aylward brothers squatted side by side with their bows across their knees, looking down at the Dun that was the home where they’d been born.
“That is a fine, fine figure of a woman you’ve found yourself there,” Dick said after an instant, nodding down the trail after Asgerd.
“Or she found me.”
“Stubborn and close-mouthed, though.”
“Ah, you just noticed! Not that any Aylward has ever been such before, cough our da cough. ”
“And when she does talk, it’s always as if she were chanting a tale.”
“She thinks we Mackenzies gabble too much and too quick,” Edain said with a grin. “All her folk talk like that. Something to do with their Gods, d’ye see.”
Dick snorted. “Well, the father always says we talk like… like the stage Irish. What that means perhaps Ogma of the honey tongue knows, but I do not.”
“I’ve heard Lady Juniper say something of the sort,” Edain said, and shrugged.
Their generation was used to finding those who’d been adults before the Change odd, even the most beloved or respected. Then he went on: “How else should Mackenzies talk? We’re Gaels and that’s how we speak. I’ve no complaints about Asgerd; when she does speak, it’s usually something worth the hearing and not just clack for the sake of it. No complaints in general; let Lady Aeval who rules the marriage bed bear witness.”
Dick nodded: “She’s clever and hardworking, too, and not so bad a shot with a bow in her hands; you and she should make some fine comely bairns, which the Mother-of-All grant. But can she cook, brother?”
Edain laughed. “Over a campfire, yes, but we’ve not had our own hearth yet! Her folk do well enough; plain good cooking the most of it, not as subtle as ours, and they’ve less to work with in that grim shiversome icebox they inhabit. Their beer is sad beyond description-no hops-but they make a fine mead and good whiskey and cider and applejack. And they liven up considerable at a feast; no lack of the craic.”
Dick reached into his sporran and pulled out a scone wrapped in a broad dock leaf, breaking it and offering Edain half. He took it, biting into it with relish. It was still faintly warm, with a brown crisp crust on the bottom and a soft steaming interior thickly studded with Bing cherries and hazelnuts, the whole sweet with honey.
“Ah, and on the quest I missed the mother’s cooking something fierce,” he said through the crumbs.
“I don’t hold with foreign food myself,” Dick agreed. “Now, what’s this I hear about an Oenach Mor?”
Edain nodded. “On the fly, so to speak. There will be business to do for the Clan, and it can’t wait, so the levy will be the assembly too, so to say. And sure, they’re collecting the proxies so there’ll be a quorum with the marching host; it’s a war we’re going to, not a ceilidh. Lady Juniper’s been busy with that, Rudi having other things to put his hand to the now.”
Dick’s brows went up. “We’ve already voted for war, and that some time ago.”
“It’s that Rudi… the High King… can’t be tanist anymore.”
His younger brother sat bolt upright and sprayed crumbs; Edain pounded him helpfully on the back. “And why not, by Anwyn’s hounds?”
The Chief always had a tanist, a designated successor in training; it had been Rudi Mackenzie for six years now.
“Because he’s the High King, y’daft burraidh!”
“A blockhead, am I? And why shouldn’t he be Chief in his time, as well as Ard Ri?”
“Because he’s to be High King of all Montival, of which the Clan is only a part, and not the largest part at that. Which means he belongs to all the peoples, not just us. And it would be just a bit of a slap in the face to all the rest if he were to be Chief, the Mackenzie Himself, wouldn’t it now? He’s to be King over them, but that doesn’t put us over them, so.”
“Oh,” Dick said, knotting his rusty brows. “Well, since you put it that way. But who’s to be tanist, then? May the Gods grant the Chief a long life, but…”
“But we all of us pass the Western Gate someday. Well, in strict law we could choose anyone. If I were a betting man, I’d say that Lady Juniper’s middle daughter would be the one to back. A good deal of quiet talk’s been going on with the notable folk in each Dun to that effect, and in Sutterdown. And not just since Rudi returned. The Chief saw the necessity of it as soon as the news that Rudi was to be King came back, and folk took to it so enthusiastic and all.”
“Ah,” Dick said. “Well, I wouldn’t want to choose any outside the Chief’s line anyway, given a choice. There’s Lady Eilir, but she’s with the Rangers. Fiorbhinn’s a likely lass, though.”
Edain shook his head. “She’d do at a pinch; but she’s very young yet, not under the Moon, and besides she’s more for the music and the magic. Maude’s near as old as Rudi was when we hailed him tanist, and she’s clever and good-hearted. She’ll be a steady hand on the reins.”
“The Chief’s a bard, and a priestess of power, and a good Chief too.”
“That she is, but a child can get some of the gifts and not others. Forbye Fiorbhinn doesn’t want it, and does say so with great enthusiasm and determination. Mentions that her first decree would be that everyone must speak in rhyme at all times, and the second that all dishes but ice cream and apple pie be banned. And she’s only half in jest. Maude will do what duty says, regardless.”
“Which is what’s wanted, true enough,” Dick said, and finished his half of the scone.
They both took a swig from Edain’s canteen, poured a little water on the ground and dusted their hands beside the trail. Each dropped a small piece broken off from the scone for the purpose as well.
“Let the spirit of the place take her due. All the rest is yours, little brothers,” Edain murmured, welcoming the insects and birds, then went on: “We had some fine eating in those foreign parts when we guested with great men, but nothing to compare with home to my reckoning. Well, except in Readstown, where Ingolf the Wanderer’s kin dwell along the Kickapoo River; Wisconsin it was called, before the Change. His brother’s wife Wanda is a hearthmistress there, and a brewmistress of note as her kin were before her, even before the Change.”
“Good, she is?”
“Better than good, by the Blessing! Such beer as Lord Gobniu brews in the Land of Summer. And her meat pies would make you weep. Also their sausages are good, and their cheese is very fine, as good as the mother’s or the best from Tillamook.”
“You always did take tender care of your stomach, Edain. You’ll get all you can guzzle tonight,” Dick said, with a smile that was half-sour. “I fair couldn’t stand it the more. A fine fat yearling buck I brought in yesterday, and six rabbits-”
They both absently made the gesture of the Horns to Cernnunos, the Master of the Beasts, to acknowledge that their two-legged kind took of the bounty of the woods only when they walked with His power. Deer swarmed in the forests round about, and even more in the overgrown abandoned fields that still made up most of the Willamette country; not only were they good
eating, but hunting helped protect the crops and gardens from their nibbling scourge. No fence or hedge made by man would keep a deer out, or a rabbit or a fox.
“-and that’s as much as I propose to do. Running about waving their hands in the air, they all are, and screeching. Nerves on end, with the levy and the war and all.”
Edain looked out, listening to his brother’s voice with the ears of the mind.
“It’s not just the womenkind who’ve driven you out on this fine day,” he said. “You’re not one to balk at peeling a few spuds.”
“Well… mind, I’m happy to be in the High King’s Archers. But it’ll be a wee bit odd, not to march with the Dun’s levy.”
Edain laughed and slapped his brother on the shoulder, callused palm echoing on hard muscle.
“If you’re afraid of being too safe… well, lad, we’ll be by the High King’s side. Never a dull moment in battle, I promise you that. That’s not all that’s bothering you, mo bhrathair!”
Dick sighed, a sound like the relaxing of a constraint.
“It’s the father,” he said after a moment, his voice catching a little. “Fair worried I am. He would do too much when we brought in the wheat, and I think he pulled something in his back, though the barbs of the Gae Bolga itself couldn’t drag a word of it out of him, you know how he is.”
“That I do, and I know just what you mean.”
“I’m that afraid he’ll kill himself when the spring-planted barley comes ripe, we’ll be gone to the war and the Dun’ll be shorthanded. If any man with Mackenzie on the end of his name has earned the right to take a rest in the sun, then by Lug Longhand and Ogma and Brigid and the threefold Morrigu and all the Gods of our people, isn’t it him? By hard work and harder fighting both. But will he listen to me, or you, or Tamar, or even the mother?”
“Not a bit will he. Though it hurts our honor as his children that he won’t let us take better care of him.”
Edain closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and shook his head; Garbh looked up and whined slightly at his tone as he went on: “Aye, it’s bitter hard to see the old man fail. You don’t remember him as well as I from when he was in his prime, First Armsman of the Clan for all those years.”
Dick nodded. “And the new little ones, they probably won’t remember him at all.”
Edain’s breath hissed between his teeth; it was all too likely. Seventy years was old; three-score and ten were the years of a man, as the Christians said.
“It karks at his pride that he can’t go with the war-levy, of course. So he does too much else.”
Dick sighed again, in resignation this time.
“Well, at least the mother will have him to fuss at while we’re gone, and her babes and Tamar’s. It’s luck Tamar has one at the breast and can’t answer the levy-call herself, for she’ll be company for them both and keep an eye on him.”
The air of Dun Fairfax was warm and drowsy, heavy with the good cooking smells of baking and roasting and simmering. But the scents subtly differed from what she was used to; more spices and pungent herbs, a broader range than her folk had, and the cooking done more often with sunflower oil or canola and less with butter or lard. Despite her good intentions, Asgerd ducked into the Aylward house through what had once been its double-car garage.
That had been modified to make it a workshop, though rolled bedding was strapped to the walls as well right now; the outer side had a trellis trained with roses, a blaze of color and sweet heavy scent. She had expected it to be empty and give her a spell to nerve herself to plunge into a hardworking crowd who all knew each other from the inside out and she the white crow in the flock. Instead Sam Aylward was sitting at the workbench near the big double doors, before the clamps and spokeshaves, the vices and drawknives and drills.
Run from your fate and you run towards it, she thought to herself.
The old man was fingering the tools neatly racked there, below the bundles of yew staves and hardwood burls. He wore only a kilt, and you could see that he’d been a powerful man once, built much like Edain, but the flesh was gaunt and thinner on the heavy bones now. You could also see the marks of every weapon known to man; knife and sword, spear and arrow and ax, even the round puckered scars left by bullets before the Change-Erik the Strong, King Bjarni’s father, had had some of those that she had seen while her family was visiting at Eriksgarth over the festivals.
Asgerd felt a little awed; hers were a warrior folk who honored courage as the first of the Nine Virtues. And someone, sometime, had used red-hot iron to write in an odd curling script on Sam Aylward’s belly, but the letters trailed off. He looked up sharply when she cleared her throat, his gray eyes searching beneath the white tufted eyebrows.
“Ah, Asgerd. Come on in, my girl.”
His accent was nothing like the usual Mackenzie burble and lilt; it was slower and deeper, sonorous, in a way Edain had told her was from the English lands where he’d grown: he pronounced the last two words as moi guurl.
He saw where her glance had gone. “Yus, that were interrupted. By Sir Nigel, ’im who’s Lady Juniper’s ’usband now, long ago, when I were Edain’s age and he was captain of my SAS company. Glad Oi was of it, and that’s a fact.”
“Hello, good father,” she said, a little formally.
“And ’ello to you too. All’s well up to Dun Juniper?”
She nodded. “The King commanded us to go home.” A ghost of a smile. “Said Edain could throw himself in front of danger later, but for now he’d put his face in the midden and hold it there if he didn’t come down and have the parting feast with his kin.”
Sam Aylward laughed. “Good man, Rudi. Good officer, too, come to that. Sir Nigel taught him well.”
So did you, old man, and you taught Edain well too. But you are the sort who will praise another’s deeds before his own, I think.
Then he turned to the workbench. “Oi’ve summat for you,” the old man said. “Bit of a gift loik. I was meanin’ to wait until the levy left, but per’aps it’s better now.”
“Ah!” Asgerd said as he pulled back a cloth.
The bow was beautiful, a long shallow double curve in and out with the polished yew limbs, orange heartwood and pale sapwood gleaming under varnish and oil. The riser-grip in the center was from a maple burl, its curling grain promising hard rigid strength. The nocks at the ends were elkantler, translucent as amber, and they were carved with gripping beasts in the style of her own people. He must have gone looking for that, consulting some book or Lady Juniper.
Sam grinned as she took it up and held it out, feeling the sweet balance.
“Six foot two, reflex-deflex, and near eighty-five pound even on the tillering frame for the draw. Oi don’t think that’ll overbow you, you’ve bin practicing ’ard. That hickory bow Edain made you out east is a foine piece o’ work, but you’ll be needing two at least, for a long campaign, and mountain-grown yew is best at the last.”
Asgerd swallowed. “Thank you, good father,” she said. “This is lovely work, and a real battle-tool. I will not dishonor it.”
“Oi can still make ’em, just slower loik,” the old man said, and waved away her thanks.
Then he winced and halted the motion.
“Don’t you fuss at me too, girl,” he said sharply as she came forward with a frown on her face.
“I’m not fussing, I’m finding out what’s wrong!” she said sharply, and pressed down on his shoulder.
He winced again, but was silent long enough for her to probe the muscles along the ridges of his spine with ruthless fingers.
“All right, good father,” she said briskly. “On your face. This bench will do.”
“Thank you, girl, but-”
“But nothing. I grew up on a farm too, old man; do you think I’ve never seen a man who’s pulled his back before? And I know what to do. I’ve done it often enough for my father and my brothers!”
The glare turned to a wry nod. “Oi wonder if my boy knows what ’e’s gotten �
��isself into,” he said, and obeyed. “Damned if Oi don’t loik you, girl. You go straight at things.”
“See if you like me so well after I’m finished; this is going to hurt,” she said.
Asgerd looked along the bottles and jars racked behind the workbench. There would be oil, and…
Her nose led her to a small vial. “Wintergreen, good,” she said. “Too strong, though. I’ll mix it with some oil. Now let’s get to work.”
She rolled up the sleeves of her shirt and did. Her father-in-law’s breath caught once or twice, but he made no other sound. When she was finished he sat up cautiously and worked his shoulders while she cleaned her hands on a rag.
“Believe that’s eased it,” he said.
“Now go and rest for a few hours,” she said; when he bridled, she shook a finger in his face. “You wouldn’t overburden a piece of wood, why do you think your spine is any different? Do just as you please, good father, but if you don’t rest now you’ll be stiff as driftwood tomorrow again, and as brittle.”
He laughed softly. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and got up.
The door from the inner house opened, and a faded woman in her fifties with yellow-brown hair liberally streaked with gray came in. She was not in the usual Mackenzie kilt, but in the shift and tartan arsaid that older woman often preferred-an arsaid wrapped around the waist to make a long skirt under a belt, and then one end was thrown over the shoulder and pinned. She was taking off the apron she’d worn over that, and dabbing at a flush of sweat on her face with a corner of it that wasn’t stained or flourcoated.
“Sam?” she said. “Are you all right the now?”
“Better than Oi was, luv,” he said.
His expression made the leathery weathered surface of his face crinkle into a web of wrinkles, but also made it seem younger too as he smiled at his wife. His daughter-in-law could feel the love there, not much spoken but as comfortable as a low fire of coals on a cold day.
The Tears of the Sun tc-5 Page 7
