The Tears of the Sun tc-5

by S. M. Stirling

  It’s even good luck that that detachment of the Sword of the Prophet was leaving when we came in. It made it less likely the gate-guards would search everything. That might have been awkward.

  Instead she stood naked on the concrete floor and poured the first, the most delicious bucket of the hot water over her head. Even in summer, washing with a cloth and basin, or even diving into a stream, just wasn’t the same. As she cleaned herself she chatted with half a dozen other women who were using the same big brick-walled room with its small high windows and drifting wisps of vapor, and smell of soap and steam and hot metal and rock. Outside the palaces of rulers and manors of great nobles she’d never been in a place where there were bathing facilities meant for individual use; it was simply too costly in terms of fuel and laid-on water and labor. The better class of inns had places like this, and analogues were common in villages and steadings and estates.

  Then she lathered up with the strong soap, suds all over and working it into her itchy scalp with vigorous fingertips, then another bucket and a scrub with a woven equivalent of a loofah and a rough washcloth, and more soap and water and then a blissful soak in one of a row of tubs under a sign that read clean out your own bath or pay fifty cents extra. Money wasn’t a problem, but staying in her role was, and she dutifully applied the brush and turned the tin tub over to drain and dry.

  When she had toweled herself she felt that a good part of the long hard drive down from Drumheller had gone down the wastewater drain too, flowing out to water and irrigate the city’s surroundings.

  I’ll bet the oldsters will feel even better, she thought with a slight smile.

  They and the rest of the Dunedain commando would all be arriving at intervals, by twos and threes-lone travelers were rare enough to attract attention, if they came from any distance, even more than large groups. You had to let any suspicion that was aroused die down between parties, too. Infiltration was like hunting; patience was the first necessity.

  In the meantime…

  She pulled on the plain linen robe provided for five cents, pushed her feet into the cord sandals, left a few other orders with the attendant who promised to pass them on. Then she asked directions, which ended with the dread phrase you can’t miss it, and got thoroughly lost.

  The set of buildings was a maze, and many of the corridors had no windows and hadn’t been modernized with skylights, which left them very dim indeed. She would have been much more at home in an unfamiliar benighted forest or mountain canyon, since she’d been a country dweller all her life and a rover of the wilderness nearly as long; in the end she used her nose, moving away from the distinctive slightly musty-dusty scent that marked areas kept weathertight but not much used, and heading back into the occupied portions.

  “Four thirty-two?” a woman carrying two baskets said. “Hey, I’m headed that way. Follow me.”

  Ritva thought that the part of the complex they ended up in had probably been an office building before the Change; it had a dropped ceiling with acoustic tiles, some of which had been replaced over the years with neat squares of polished wood. She noted the fact absently, with the part of her mind that was always concerned with potential escape routes and avenues of attack, and made a note to check the old ducting. There were times it was big enough for people to crawl through, though fortunately or deplorably noisy.

  “Hi!” she said, as she opened the door.

  Ian looked up, but kept to his disguise of being mute and just nodded. Ritva felt a glow of approval; he’d picked up tradecraft very quickly indeed. The Force-it had Royal in its formal title, oddly since none of the Dominions were monarchies-was like the Rangers in that it patrolled against bandits, protected trade routes and put down the messier sorts of crime. Its military role in time of war was more conventional, though, probably because the Dominions had taken less of a beating after the Change than her part of the world. Drumheller and Moose Jaw and Minnedosa were all big, the same order of size as the PPA, they all had strong central governments, and they’d had less in the way of conflict and internal squabbling than the lands of Montival-to-be. The Dunedain did a lot more in the way of clandestine operations.

  Which means we’re a lot better at sneaking.

  When the inn servant had put the baskets on the table, told them where the jakes were (without telling them they couldn’t miss it) and left, he did speak.

  “You must be clean,” he said, a little teasing. “I know that it takes women longer to wash than men-”

  “That’s because we actually wash, and have a better sense of smell,” Ritva said loftily.

  “But forty-five minutes?”

  “I went… exploring.”

  “Ah, you got lost too!”

  They both laughed. Ritva admired the way he did it, wholeheartedly but gracefully, with a hint of shyness.

  Maybe I’m getting over my Big Bad Boys fixation, she thought. By Ever-Young Vana of the Blossoms, I hope so. The bad boys can be a lot of fun, but they wear. Oh, how they wear! I grant Ingolf was big and bad but not a bad boy, but Mary won him. I will never, never let her use her own special lucky coin for something important again.

  Meanwhile Ian was unloading the baskets. “Nice picnic, eh?” he said.

  There was crusty bread, half a dozen types of cured meat, several of cheese, a double-walled crock that kept a savory-smelling ham and bean soup warm, a salad, and a bowl of fruit, along with various accompaniments, a jug of apple juice, and two bottles of a very decent red wine she remembered from her previous trip through.

  “But why not go down… oh, ah?”

  “This is the first time we’ve had any privacy in weeks, and not been exhausted and smelly to boot, right? I thought we should… use it to get better acquainted. The others could start getting in as early as tonight.”

  “Right. Absolutely right. Who wants a crowded common hall anyway?”

  Ritva gave a long slow smile. “And you’ve never done it until you’ve done it in Elvish, believe me.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  COUNTY OF AUREA PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION (FORMERLY CENTRAL WASHINGTON) HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL (FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA) AUGUST 5, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

  B jarni Eriksson, King in Norrheim and often called Ironrede by his people, laughed with delight as he put his new horse through its paces in the warm late-afternoon sunlight. It was dry in this part of Montival, in the rain-shadow of the Cascades, and dust puffed up around its highstepping feet with a peppery scent that mingled with horse and man sweat. The mount was a six-year-old stallion, seventeen hands high and glossy black, long-legged, deep-chested, arched of neck, with nostrils like redrimmed pits. He almost expected it to breathe fire.

  Bjarni had ridden as far back as his memories stretched, and he’d been six at the Change. He could just barely recall bits and pieces of his father’s trek with his followers from Springfield to Aroostook in northern Maine, and the founding of Norrheim, and sitting before his father in the saddle with one powerful arm around him. After that he’d been the son of a great chieftain with a big farm and scot paid by his followers besides, and able to keep a number of horses. He had thought he knew what there was to know, apart from a few specialist tricks.

  He’d never in all his life put foot to stirrup on anything like this, though. Riding the superbly trained animal was as much like dancing as anything he’d experienced before.

  He leaned his weight slightly to the front and clamped his thighs tighter, and the horse started forward as if sensing his very thought. Then there was a rushing speed, and it seemed to float upward over the white board fence. The landing was without breaking stride, and it was scarcely necessary to touch the reins to bring a halt once more.

  It made nothing of his weight, though he was a broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, thick-armed man of medium height, near two hundred pounds of tough muscle and heavy bones, with the large strong hands of a swordsman and woodsman and farmer. The brick-colored hair bound back from his face with a headb
and stuck to the sweat on his neck, and more ran into his short beard; his skin was reddened too, by long exposure to wind and weather and now by the fierce sun of cloudless summer in this part of Montival. The little blue eyes in his snub-nosed, high-cheeked face were calm and steady, a net of wrinkles at their corners even though he had just thirty-one years.

  He looked at the beast’s ears and grinned. It was sweating freely, but an hour spent at everything from galloping to jumping had barely scratched the surface of its energy.

  “You want to run, don’t you, boy?” he said. “Ayuh, you do! Soon, soon.”

  He swung down from the saddle, and ran a hand down its neck; then he reached into a pocket of his breeks and pulled out an apple. The horse plucked it from his palm and crunched it with slobbering pleasure. One of his followers who was horse-wise came to remove the tooled, silver-studded saddle and lead it away for grooming and watering.

  Bjarni was shaking his head as he turned away to the waiting knot of folk at the gate of the paddock. A rolling plain stretched away in all directions. Reaped grain was straw-blond, alfalfa a dusty green, with here and there the darker shade trees and orchards and vineyards around a village, the church steeples and whirling wind-pumps rising above. The fields still under harvest were bright burnished gold that shone with an almost metallic luster as horses or mules hauled the turning creels of the reaping machines through, laying the cut grain in bands lighter-colored than the stubble. Workers followed binding the sheaves and stooking them into pyramids.

  It is a golden land hereabout this time of the year, he thought. Perhaps that’s why they named this shire so.

  Looking at it in August you wouldn’t think there was enough rain to produce a crop, but the ears were heavy in the fields of wheat and barley; for a moment he simply smiled at the comforting beauty of the sight. It made him itch a little too; it seemed unnatural not to pitch in. Many of his men had, from the same feeling and because it was a chance to meet the local women, but he was too busy with the mustering.

  There were pine-clad hills to the north, just visible beyond the walls and towers of Goldendale town and castle. To the north and west a great white peak floated in the distance. Mount Adams, they called it; another like it lay south and west, Mt. Hood, the two framing that side of the world. Even after the long journey from Norrheim in what the old world had called northern Maine he still found his breath taken away sometimes by the scale of the landscapes here in the High West. You’d hardly credit that many days’ travel separated this spot from those high snowfields, or that Hood was on the other shore of the great Columbia itself, in green rainy forest country. Behind Adams was another, even greater.

  The world is wider and more full of wonders than I knew before Artos Mikesson and his questers rode into my garth last Yule, he thought. More dangerous, much stranger, and more beautiful. Yet I would give it all to sit by my own fire again, with Hallberga beside me and our son in my lap while we watched our daughter play.

  He picked a towel off the fence and wiped his face and neck; it was also hot here, though the dryness made it easier to tolerate than a like day back home.

  Not that we have many days like this! And we could use some, come harvest-time.

  “That horse puts my horsemanship to shame. What shall I do with him, Lady Signe?” he asked the woman who’d given it to him. “We Norrheimers aren’t fighters on horseback, like you Bearkillers. We plant our feet with Earth, Thor’s mother, when we make the shield-wall.”

  “Take him home with you after the war, and put him to your mares, Bjarni King,” she said. “And when you see the foals he gets, remember us here. Your folk may need warhorses, someday.”

  She was a tall fair woman a little more than a decade older than him, with the Valknut of Odin around her neck and a set of rough dark clothing; man’s boots and breeches and jacket, though there was certainly a good-looking woman beneath them, and her face was still handsome. He judged that she could use the long single-edged, basket-hilted sword at her belt with some skill.

  This one is a she-wolf, he thought. Shrewd, brave, loyal to her own, but very hard and used to rule, I would say; her man fell and she has striven to take his place while her sons grew. Still, she’s guested and gifted us well, and her people… or some of them… are true folk who follow the Aesir as we do. Well, not exactly as we do, but close enough. And they have many arts I want for Norrheim, and they’re fell fighters, as dangerous as any I’ve seen.

  “I shall name him Vakr,” he said.

  She smiled. “Ah, Hawk, for the horse of Morn who rides out to bring the dawn,” she said. “A good choice.”

  He inclined his head. “You know the ancient tales well, gythja,” he said, giving her the title of Godwoman.

  That could mean either chieftainess or priestess, since either made sacrifice to the Mighty Ones. He had been a godhi himself, when he was merely chief of the Bjornings, his own tribe, and before he became the first king of Norrheim. A chief made offerings; just as he led his folk in war and presided over the folk-moot, the thing, so he stood before the Mighty Ones for them. A king most of all, who must be father to all the land.

  “I’ll breed Vakr to my mares and the colts will be the envy of Norrheim. And others will think it a favor indeed if I let them do likewise.”

  Her nod told him she’d thought of that too; the network of favor and obligation was one a leader had to know how to weave and tug on at need.

  “Those of my folk who are true to the Aesir will hold a blot soon,” she said. “We will give cattle to the Gods for luck and victory in this war, and feast, and drink sumbel to hail the Gods, remember the dead and make boast and oath. You and yours are welcome to share the rite. And the beef!”

  “Many thanks, if you will let me send cattle we find ourselves to be given with yours. It is fitting that you Bearkillers should lead the rite; this is your land, and you know the holy wights who ward it under the high Gods.”

  She smiled, looking much younger for a moment. “This here”-she tapped a boot on the sparse grass beneath them, and a little dust puffed up-“is not ours, exactly. For various values of us and ours. ”

  “Ah, yes,” Bjarni said. “Your pardon if this hard head of mine hasn’t gotten all the details of this realm hammered into it yet.”

  Signe’s smile grew into a grin, a remarkably predatory expression. “The details of who owned what resulted in a lot of skulls getting hammered in my youth, the years after the Change,” she said. “And we’ve yet to pound home the lesson these boundaries are not for our enemies to rearrange now, either.”

  Bjarni gave her the same wolf-grin back, and so did several of his countrymen. The play on words appealed to their sense of humor and his. The world was a place of strife; no less than a wolf pack, a tribe or kingdom had to be ready to fight for its hunting grounds, or to take what its people needed from others, though no man could guarantee triumph in every fight.

  Though my old friend Thor has lent me his might. And the All-Father can give victory where he pleases.

  But even the Gods would go down in wreck at the end, when the horn of Heimdalr blew for the final battle. Then Asa-Loki and the Jotun lords would ride against them to Vigrid plain, on the last morning of the world, when the stars fell from the sky and sea overwhelmed the land. It was for that fight that the High One gathered the spirits of fallen heroes in his hall. A man could strive with all the craft and might and main that was in him, though, and face death undaunted. And so could a woman.

  Signe’s son Mike Mikesson-Mike Havel, using the old system that was still popular here-touched his own backsword.

  “We’ve made a start on showing Boise and the CUT the point of our arguments in this lawsuit,” he said solemnly, though with a twinkle in his sky-colored eyes. “But we’ll still need some cutting remarks to finally convince them our case is stronger.”

  Bjarni laughed aloud. “This cub’s growing fangs, by almighty Thor!” Mike Jr. was just on the cusp of young manhood, perhaps
a little short of eighteen years; already tall and broad-shouldered, with a shock of corncolored hair, and already with a few scars on hands and face to show his words weren’t just an untried youngster’s air and wind. He’d be stronger when he got his full growth, there was still a bit of adolescent lankiness to him, but he was more than strong enough to be dangerous already, and Bjarni judged by the way he moved that he’d been very well taught. Between his brows was a small round mark made by a hot iron; his mother had the same. That was a mark the Bearkillers reserved for their best, what they called the A-list, and it was never granted for anything but proved courage and skill in the arts of war.

  Bjarni turned to Mike’s mother again. “I was near the Bearkiller land, but pressed for time, when I visited Artos Mikesson’s garth at Dun Juniper. When the war is over, I will come guest you a while at your Larsdalen, if you wish it.”

  Her lips thinned a little, but she answered in friendly wise: “Yes, that would be good. Ours is much like the Mackenzie land, but on the other side of the Willamette. Save that the mountains to our west between us and the sea are not as grand as the High Cascades to the east of theirs. My father’s family, the Larssons, held a farm there for long and long, generations before the Change. They did more, but that was the first they took, long ago, when they came west-over-sea from the ancient homelands.”

  “Fine fat soil, then, good pasture and plenty of forest and the Gods of weather are kind to you,” he said. “You are lucky. The valley of the Willamette is some of the best farming land I’ve seen, and I’ve traveled far. Better than Norrheim, and especially better weather.”