Farther out were truck gardens, fairly substantial orchards, and a big neatly laid-out farm with fields of varied crops separated by board fences and rows of poplars; a few hundred acres of wheat and barley rippled, yellow streaks showing amid the light green. More recent construction surrounded by fenced paddocks was probably barns, storehouses and workshops; the tall arms of a timber-framed windmill were unmistakable, though the sails were feathered and bare right now. Several well-kept dirt roads led away, east and north and south; they were fairly busy, wheeled traffic and bicyclists and folk on foot.
All in all it looked like a prosperous town, or perhaps a great noble’s estate, except that there were no obvious defenses. Though the twin-towered church could easily be turned into a fort: the chronicle Astrid had written of the Bearkiller journey westward, The Red Book of Larsdalen, said that the bandit lord Iron Rod had done exactly that.
They all gathered at the back of the hillock to see her off, except for the lookouts, of course. Most of that was to take turns examining her from head to toe; you always did that when you could, before a clandestine insertion. Nobody caught everything, and a different pair of eyes was always welcome.
I’ll look less conspicuous without this sword, Ritva Signed, though she’d feel naked without it, too. Straight long swords aren’t much used here, from what we’ve heard.
Ian hadn’t learned the finger-tongue yet, but he understood when she undid her weapons belt, and silently held out his own with the stirrup-hilted curved saber and bowie. Sabers were the second-most-common long weapon in Idaho, after the wider-bladed cutting sword known as a shete. She slipped it out of the sheath and tried the balance; somewhat heavy for her wrist, but the weight wasn’t thrown as far forward as she expected. You could thrust with this, though not as well as with the double-edged blade the Dunedain usually carried.
She buckled the belt, drawing it in to the last notch and working the leather there to make it look used before tucking the tongue in and out, and checked herself over.
Ian was helpful again: “That braid is sort of distinctive too.”
Eilir clucked her tongue in agreement, and Ritva sighed and turned, kneeling and letting her quick fingers undo their own work.
The Ranger fighting braid did what it was supposed to do-keep your hair out of your eyes when you were moving quickly-and it was ornamental, running from brow to nape in a series of intricate tucks and plaits. Unfortunately, nobody else but the Folk of the West used it, as far as she knew. Also it was impossible to keep up all by yourself.
And Mary and I aren’t always together anymore. Good luck with Ingolf, sis, and I still wish I’d won the toss for him. Though Ian is refreshingly nice, I think. I have got to stop being attracted to Bad Boys like Hrolf. They don’t change.
Eilir tapped her on the crown of her head to show it was done; now her wheat-colored hair fell halfway down her back in a single simple braid, tied off with a plain rawhide thong at the end.
None of them were in the special Dunedain field kit right now; they’d packed that away and picked up bits and pieces of local gear to give the right mixed look and plausible little details of craftsmanship and style. Only the wealthy or their close retainers dressed in new or nearly new matched outfits, now that the last reserves of pre-Change salvage had worn out or rotted. Standing out from the patchwork masses was one of the main reasons the upper classes spent lavishly on that look.
Ritva wore stout nondescript boots and doeskin pants and a long pullover linsey-woolsey shirt, a broad-brimmed low-crowned hat and a kerchief around the neck drawn through a leather ring, all none too clean after their long journey. A sheepskin coat worn bald in places was rolled and strapped to the blanket behind her saddle; her recurve in its scabbard by her knee would pass as the type anyone might use, and a quiver and round shield were as much part of outdoor wear as shoes. She had laced leather arm-guards and steerhide gauntlets, though armor would have been going too far.
All in all, she looked like many another thousand cowgirls here in the mountain and range country.
Except where the Cutters run things, she thought with a scowl. They think women in pants are an abomination. But then, they think pretty well everything is an abomination. From the way most of them smell, soap included.
Here in notoriously well-policed Idaho it wasn’t even so very odd that a comely young woman would come into a town by herself. She’d still be noticed; strangers were always noticed. The only places she’d ever been where that wasn’t so were a handful of large cities. And there weren’t more than a handful of large cities in the world a generation after the Change, a world where the overwhelming majority lived in places the size of St. Hilda’s or smaller.
“I’m off to Bree,” she said, and Aunt Astrid chuckled.
“Let’s hope there aren’t any alarming and unexpected delays with your contact.”
St. Hilda’s wasn’t entirely without defenses. A quartet watching some blackcoated Angus in a meadow noticed as she cantered along with a pack-horse on a leading string, and three set arrows to their bows as they legged their horses closer while another drew a shete.
Closer, and she could see that the archers were women, and the man with the shete was a hard-worn thirty and with only two fingers on his mutilated left hand. That could have been an accident in half a dozen trades, but she would bet on a sword-cut. He rode close and checked her over, noting the rolled pup tent, duffel bag and camping gear on her spare horse.
“Your name?” he said, sheathing the blade.
“Jane Cross,” she said, falling into a ranch-country rasp.
It was actually the accent of the Bend country just across the Cascades from the Willamette and Mithrilwood, but it would pass anywhere in the interior in a casual conversation with people expecting a stranger. Local ways of speech had diverged widely in the last generation now that twenty miles was a good day’s journey again and everyone from farther than that a de facto foreigner.
“What’re you doing in these parts?”
“Lookin’ for respectable work and a bunk, before summer’s past, sir. Maybe some place to settle.”
“You don’t look hungry.”
A shrug. “Rabbits ain’t hard to come by, but…”
He nodded understanding. Anyone with the right tools and skills could feed themselves for a while in the wilds in the warm season, though even then it was risky to travel alone. A simple sprain or fall could kill you with nobody there to help. Winter would be deadly. Plus even if there was much empty game-rich land between settlements all of it anywhere near civilization was claimed by somebody, who’d eventually run off a vagrant hanging around the fringes. You had to; neglecting that was how bandit gangs got started.
“How come you’re wanderin’ loose?”
“My Rancher up in the Panhandle country had to let some hands go, what with the war and the taxes. Got no kin there now, my folks is dead and they were from Spokane way back. Don’t know how they’ll manage without us, but-”
She shrugged. The man nodded, a little sympathy softening his hard scarred face.
“You’re not the only one on the road. The good Sisters do what they can, but times is hard hereabouts too. All the younger menfolk gone with the call-up, and fewer hands to do the work and taxes higher than ever so the Ranchers have trouble payin’ the ones they do have.”
She looked at the wounded hand; it was healed, but the mutilation must have been fairly recent from the purple flush still around it. He shrugged. “Damn Protectorate shellbacks got me at Pendleton last year, the knightboys. Anyway, tell ’em up at the convent that Seven-Finger Jack passed you through.”
She nodded respectfully, and walked her horse forward as he reined aside.
Rudi would have left Idaho alone if Martin Thurston hadn’t allied with the CUT and attacked us, she thought. He is a wicked man, a parricide and a bad ruler and he must be put down, but I wish we didn’t have to kill and maim honest farmers and herdsmen to do it. If we can bring al
l these lands into the new High Kingdom and under the King’s Peace, people can live safely by their own firesides and reap what they sow. Now that’s worth fighting for!
“Even worth dying for,” she murmured very quietly to herself. “Though I’d rather not. It’s a fine summer’s day and I’m young yet.”
She rode past a gate. There were tents up in what was usually a pasture, and more in the orchard beyond; their occupants seemed to be mostly women and children. Closer to the main buildings of the abbey several long sheds were under construction, with work-crews pounding earth down between the moveable frames and trimmed logs and shingles waiting to make rafters and roof.
One of the workers looked up and then climbed down the ladder to walk over towards her; Ritva politely dismounted and even more politely hung her saber from the saddle over the bow-scabbard. The greeter was a nun, not much older than Ritva and with her dark robe kirted up to her knees, showing practical denim pants and boots beneath. Her sleeves were rolled back from hands thick with mud, and more splashed on her cheeks and her off-white headdress.
“Seven-Finger Jack said to tell you he’d passed me through,” Ritva said, and gave her cover story again.
“I’m Sister Regina,” the nun said. “Welcome to St. Hilda’s! I’d shake hands, but-”
A laugh, and a wave of a capable-looking muddy paw.
“What can we do to help you, child of God?”
“Ah… I’m looking for a place I can sleep safe and not be bothered ’cause I’m female while I look for work,” she said. “I’m more than willing to pitch in with anything here, too. I can rope and brand, do any sort of ranch job with stock or crops, milk and churn, spin and weave. I’m not afraid of sweat and I’m not picky.” She put on a scowl. “I tried the army, but they’ve got this fool new regulation against women, even if they can pass the tests and volunteer. Didn’t used to be like that in the old General’s time! Not for the cavalry, at least.”
Sister Regina smoothed a scowl of her own with what was obviously an effort of will.
“We live by the Rule of St. Benedict here,” she said, pointedly looking at the worn, sweat-stained hilt of Ritva’s borrowed saber. “We insist on peacefulness. There is no room for quarrels here.”
“I’m peaceful as all get-out, sister, as long as others are peaceful around me. I don’t belong to your Church, though.”
“That makes no difference; you belong to God, as do we all.”
She pointed up the graveled dirt track. “You’re welcome to stable your horses there, and your gear will be safe-you can deposit any money or valuables with the Bursar for safekeeping. We’re crowded, but there will be a place to sleep, and food for you and your beasts.”
“I can pay a little, sister.”
The nun smiled. “We ask nothing, not even many questions. Our houses are the Inns of God, the last refuge of the weak. Help in whatever way you wish or can, when you can. God bless you.”
Ritva pushed on; the place had a hospital, and a big school-apparently one for girls, who all wore an odd archaic pinaforelike uniform. On top of that, it looked to be taking care of a lot of displaced people, cripples and the sick and just plain desperate, the detritus and backwash of war and of a government harsh in its demands and merciless with any sign of dissent.
It took a while to get the attention of the harried sisters in charge without being obtrusive, and all of them looked too junior to trust with her message to the Mother Superior. For that matter, many of the nuns and all of the gray-robed postulants looked younger than her own early twenties.
Supper was served in a long refectory that had been hastily converted from some sort of storehouse, clean but very plain and very crowded indeed, mostly with people who looked as if they had stories worse than the one she was using for cover. It was dim, as well, lit only by pine-splints clamped in metal holders to the walls; that probably meant they were economizing on the fats usually used for lamps, keeping it to cook with or make soap instead.
The food was dark bread, butter and cheese and chipped plastic bowls ladled full of a thick soup of barley and potatoes and other vegetables that tasted as if it had some passing acquaintance with meat-bones on the stock side of its ancestry. There was enough if no more, but the meal would have been more appetizing if it hadn’t been clear that the bathing facilities were being worked in shifts too, and if there had been fewer unhappy children, some of whom needed changing.
When her group was finished eating she helped load bowls and plates and carry them to the kitchens, and volunteered to help wash. That ended up meaning mostly carrying wood to feed the hot-water boiler. There were many hands, but she was taller and stronger than most here. Patience finally got her close to the middle-aged Sister supervising the whole process.
“Hot work, sister,” she said, grinning and wiping her forehead with one sleeve; it was still warm in the building, though cooling rapidly into the clear night air outside. “Hope there’s water enough for a bath?”
“Cold water, I am afraid, child,” the nun said.
“That’ll do fine, in summer,” Ritva said cheerfully. “Like to shake your hand in thanks for you folks’ kindness. Makes me think well of your religion, so to say.”
The nun beamed at her in a tired sort of way. Then her eyes widened very slightly as she felt the scrap of paper in Ritva’s palm. The corner was dark; she seized the Ranger’s hand for a moment, turning it over and examining the calluses before dropping it and casually tucking the folded note into a pocket in her habit. If you knew what you were looking for a person’s hands were one of the best indicators of what they were. Most people had calluses; even clerks usually developed one on their pen finger. The patterns were very distinctive, though.
You got a very particular set from drilling with the sword for hours a day nine days in ten from the time you were six or so. That was one of the things even a really skillful disguise couldn’t completely hide; Ritva had the swordsman’s ring of hardened skin running all the way from the tip of her right index finger around the web of her hand and up to the top of the thumb.
“Sleep well, my child,” the nun said smoothly. “May only good visions visit you.”
Ritva was tired, but she thought she might not have slept all that well even if she hadn’t been waiting. There had been a stress on the visit part of that.
Waiting for arrest, perhaps, she thought mordantly. I’d certainly be more comfortable out under the stars. Praise to the Valar I got the outside place!
The long tent was so old that it smelled of a pre-Change synthetic canvas, much patched over the years with this and that. It was also very crowded and too warm for blankets; all women, or older girls, but no children. Someone not far away had an alarmingly persistent cough, too. She found being confined with that rather more frightening than most straightforward dangers; you couldn’t shoot a germ with arrows or cut it with a sword.
A glimmer of starlight and lighter air, and a hand touched her shoulder.
“Come, my child,” the figure said very softly.
The dark habit disappeared in the moonless light, but the coif gave the face an eerie detached frame. It was the same nun she’d seen in the kitchens. She was glad that the Sisters weren’t so otherworldly that they let more people than absolutely must know a secret.
“I come,” Ritva replied as quietly.
She picked up her boots and followed that beckoning, walking a dozen paces with dew-wet grass soaking through her socks before she could stamp them in to the welcoming leather. The night smelled of green growing things and wetted dust, intensely clean and welcome.
“There’s someone back there with a very bad cough,” she said quietly.
“We know. It’s a chronic pulmonary disease, not tuberculosis. Probably caused by smoke. Unfortunately we can do nothing for her but pray and give morphine when the pain is bad. Beds in the hospital are needed for the treatable sick or the infectious and those closer to death.”
They walked together be
neath the rustling fruit trees of the orchard, the pruned branches just over their heads with green apples showing like the fists of babies. Most of the settlement was dark as well, with only a few lanterns glowing, but the high rose window of the church shone.
As they approached down a narrow lane flanked by poplars, Ritva heard slow solemn music and voices singing. A swelling chorus of women’s voices, rising and then sinking to a background as a single high clear alto rose with an almost unbearable intensity: “Ave Maria, gratia plena
Dominus tecum, virgo serena;
Benedicta tu in mulieribus
Que peperisti pacem hominibus
Et angelis gloria
Et angelis gloria-”
For an instant she shivered with a feeling that was chill down her spine, yet without the slightest hint of threat or malice. It was not her faith, nor was this a way of life that had the slightest attraction for her, but there was a power and clarity in it that could not be denied.
Many paths, she thought. Trite but true.
They came to a small door; the nun unlocked it before them and then secured it behind again. Up a narrow staircase, feeling her way along with one hand on the worn pine of the handrail. Then the kindly glow of lamplight from under a door. The nun made a gesture to stay her and slipped through the door; a moment later after a murmur of voices she returned, beckoned, and then left with a smile.
That’s a little odd, Ritva thought an instant later as she returned the nod. We didn’t exchange more than a few words, but I actually feel as if I knew her.
The chamber within was an office, but there was a neatly made cot in one corner, and a window that probably gave on the interior courtyard when it wasn’t tightly shuttered as it was now. The walls were unplastered brick, and the battered pre-Change metal desk and shelves bore books and account-books and sheaves of indexed letters arranged very neatly. The only touches of color were a portrait of a robed woman with St. Hilda of Whitby beneath it, a Madonna and Child, a beautifully carved modern crucifix and a portrait of the current Pope, Pius XIII, that looked like a woodblock done from a photograph.
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