Dies the Fire dtf-1
Page 55
“Which isn’t surprising, considering how often we all meet Mr. Spud when it isn’t a festival day,” she muttered to herself. “Mashed, boiled, roasted… “
At least there was plenty in the way of fresh greens and tomatoes, which her mouth still craved, and Diana had managed to make plenty of wine vinegar. Most of it had gone into pickling and preserving, but there was enough for dressing, another taste everyone had sorely missed. Everyone with inclinations to cooking had contributed something; Dennis had produced a lovely baked-bean dish too, smokey and rich with bits of bacon and onion.
The bread was excellent, though less of a novelty now that a two-pound loaf was the basis of everyone’s daily diet; but for today there was cheese-bread as well, and some with caramelized onions in the crust, and varieties done with honey and nuts…
A good old-fashioned Wiccan potluck… but blessed be, no tofu!
It would have been a valuable source of protein, but fortunately the soybean didn’t grow around here. She’d always loathed the bland custard-like dish, no matter what people claimed they could do with seasoning. Eating seasoned tofu was like licking a rubber snail dipped into garlic butter and calling it escargot.
And hard it was to escape tofu, at our gatherings before the Change;you’d think it was sacred.
Full of virtue, she added a single slice of ham and one of roast venison. Another month and they’d be slaughtering more-getting the necessary salt for laying down salt pork was proving difficult-but for now pig meat was short, and they always had to be careful with the deer for fear of hunting out the vicinity. Being cautious with the gifts of the Goddess was more than a principle now, it was necessary.
The second set of fiddlers came on with “Bully of the Bayou”; they were from Sweet Home, refugeed out a month ago when that town broke up in internal fighting. When she got back to the oak tree and the table beside it, she found Sheriff Laughton waiting, along with several of the other guests-ranchers from across the Cascades. They’d come over the mountains in a body, with armed guards from their… Well, I suppose you could call it their retainers, she thought. Anyway, their cowboys and all those people from the towns they’ve taken in.
All the bigger ranches on the eastern slopes were like hamlets themselves now, she’d heard, or at least the ones that didn’t absolutely need power-driven pumps to survive.
And the ranchers like little lords on their properties, getting used to having their own way, she thought. It’ll be a good long while before we know all the things the Change has brought on us.
They were influential men, most in their thirties and forties-the half-year since the Change had not been kind to the elderly anywhere, even in favored areas like theirs.
Mostly lean-looking as if they’d always been lean-and weathered; and not a few were looking distinctly nervous at the tall bushy figure of the Green Man beneath the tree, and the Horns of Plenty and ribbons hung from the branches.
They were all impressed by the feast, though, and by the tall log walls of Dun Juniper, and by the exhibition of massed archery the clan had put on earlier that afternoon.
Everyone can shoot in the general direction of the enemy, and then we have a few like Aylward and Chuck who do marksmanship, and they think all of us can shoot like that. Would that it were so!
“Ah, Lady Juniper, I didn’t want to intrude on your, well:-” Laughton began.
Being polite, she thought. Actually, he’s frightened.
“Don’t worry,” she said soothingly; Laughton was still a little uncertain about what being a member of the clan meant. “This isn’t a religious ceremony, not really. We’ve already had that.”
Searching for a comparison: “It’s just like, oh, having a turkey dinner and giving presents and singing carols at Christmas. Not something secret or barred to outsiders.”
Dennis winked at her. She knew what he was thinking: And it’s good for the mystique of the Witch Queen. Her lips quirked. Scoffer, she thought with affectionate exasperation. Though technically, I am a Witch Queen.
Any High Priestess was automatically, if your coven split off more than a couple of daughters, which hers had-several times over. That didn’t mean all that much, besides prestige and people asking for your advice; the Craft didn’t have popes or ayatollahs or anything resembling them. And of course, you got to put some doodads on your garter…
Or at least it didn’t mean much before the Change, she thought uneasily.
Dennis left and came back with a keg of his beer over one thick shoulder; there were appreciative murmurs from the ranchers, since there hadn’t been much worthy of the name east of the mountains in some time. Eilir bustled about with mugs and glasses, and set up a little spirit-lamp with a big pot of chamomile tea near Juniper’s place.
There were also a number of visitors from little clusters of coveners who’d survived in the mountainous backwoods south of Eugene and some other out-of-the-way spots. They were respectful to a degree that made her blink; granted, the Mackenzies had been able to spare some much needed help there, the difference between life and death in some cases. And her clan were much better off than any of theirs, and for that matter the Singing Moon had had a good reputation for years, still…
Luther Finney grinned at her as he detached himself from the dancing and came over to the table. “Nice spread, Juney. Haven’t had a good barn dance like this in ages, neither.”
“Good to see you can still cut a rug, Luther.” She nodded at him, and his younger companion, before turning to the other guests: “Luther Finney, a member of the University Committee, and Captain Peter Jones, of their militia.”
Handshakes went around; Juniper made small talk-mostly about crops and weather-until the food was finished. Some of the people on kitchen duty came and took away the empties; and at last Sam Aylward gave her a thumbs-up signal from the edge of sight…
“I think the other guests have arrived,” she said, leaning forward to turn up the knob of the table lamp.
Heads came around at a uniform tramp of feet and clash of metal. There were a few gasps when five Bearkillers marched into sight, looking like giants in their long mail hauberks, vambraces, shin guards and armored gauntlets; they had their shields on their arms, and their bowcases and quivers slung over their backs. The sixth was in civil garb, dark cargo-pocket pants and duster and broad-brimmed hat, but he had the red snarling-bear outline embroidered on the left shoulder of his jacket. He also had one of the long straight-bladed, basket-hilted swords at his waist.
“Ma’am,” he said, taking off his hat. “Will Hutton, at your service. Ladies, gentlemen.”
You know, it’s been weeks since I saw a black person, she thought suddenly.
That brought a momentary pang for the thronging many-threaded tapestry of life before the Change; even his accent was nostalgic, a twanging drawl from off the southern plains, Oklahoma or Texas.
“Mr. Hutton,” she said, rising and extending a hand. “Mike Havel told me a great deal about you.”
“Likewise, Lady Juniper,” he said.
His grip had the careful gentleness of a very strong man. And his hand was callused in a way that spoke of hard work long before the Change, battered and a little gnarled-the hands of someone who labored outside in all weathers. Otherwise he was unremarkable, middle-aged and wiry save for broad shoulders… and a steady shrewdness about the eyes.
One of the ranchers blurted: “You’re this Lord Bear we’ve heard about?”
“No, sir, I am not,” Hutton said with dignified politeness, unbuckling his sword belt and handing it to one of the troopers before he sat. “I’m ramrod and second-in-command of our outfit, and I have full authority to negotiate for the Bearkillers.”
“Wait a minute,” another rancher said. “Hutton… didn’t you used to ride roughstock? Saw you at the Pendleton Round-Up back in ‘seventy-five, ‘seventy-six-that was one mean bull.”
Hutton smiled whitely; it made his rather stern, weathered brown face charming.
“I’ve talked to men who bought horses from you.”
That seemed to break the ice. Hutton made a motion with his hand, and one of the armored men took off his helmet. It was the blond young man she’d met with Havel that spring; looking older and tougher now, his beard a little less fuzzy and a recently healed scar on his chin.
“This here is my aide-de-camp”-Hutton pronounced the words as if he’d learned them from a French speaker-“Eric Larsson; our bossman’s going to be married to his elder sister, Signe. We’re headed for the old Larsson place west of the Willamette. He’s engaged to my daughter Luanne.”
The ranchers nodded; they understood blood ties, and that Hutton had made good his claim to be high in the Bearkiller hierarchy. Now that the elaborate panoply of bureaucracy and cities and civilization was gone, such things were beginning to take on their old importance.
Juniper sighed to herself. Oddly sweet, those few days. But not lasting… she set a hand on her stomach… except for the consequences!
“And this is his younger sister, Astrid, who’s here ‘cause she sketches good; she’s got drawings that’ll interest you gentlemen.”
A coltish teenager; you could see Eric’s chiseled Nordic looks in her face, but finer-boned, almost ethereal; and the eyes were remarkable, huge and pale, blue rimmed and streaked with an almost silver color. Her outfit looked a little like something you’d have seen at a RenFaire before the Change, or a Society meeting-Robin Hood gear, but in good-quality leather, and showing signs of hard use. Juniper’s dirk stood at her waist, and a beautifully crafted bow and quiver over her shoulder.
Eric was standing near Juniper. She could hear his sotto voce murmur:
“And with luck, she won’t have put in any unicorns or trolls.”
The girl glared at him, but silently. Her fingers moved in patterns Juniper recognized.
So did Eilir, and she leaned forward from her position behind her mother’s chair and replied: You know the Sign for abortion and bad odor and completely unnecessary person?
Astrid’s white-blond mane tossed as she nodded: I’ve been studying Sign all summer.
From a book, I bet, Eilir replied. You need to know some stuff they don’t print-the Sign for creep and jerk and moron. How come you were studying, though?
Ever since I got this utterly rad dagger from your mom and heard about you guys. Are you really Witches? This is so interesting!
Juniper ignored the byplay-one of the convenient things about a Sign conversation was that you didn’t have to overhear it-and spoke aloud:
“I don’t think your people need to stand there being uncomfortable, Mr. Hutton. There’s plenty to eat and the dancing will go on for hours.”
He nodded to her, and then to Eric. The younger man spoke: “Stand easy-friendly country protocol.”
Hutton relaxed and turned for a moment to put his mug under the spigot: she noticed that he hadn’t eaten or drunk before his men could. The menacing iron statues turned human as they came out from behind the nasal-bars of their helmets, grinning and nudging each other as they moved off to shed their armor; then they headed for the food tables, and any interesting conversations they could strike up-being figures of strangeness and glamour, that ought not to be very difficult.
Eric disarmed too, but came back quickly.
“Sorry we’re a bit late,” Hutton said easily, then took a draught. “My oh my, I’ve missed a good beer! Yeah, we had a little bandit trouble gettin’ over the pass.”
“Serious?” Sam Aylward asked.
“Not for us,” Hutton said with a grim smile.
Chuckles ran around most of the men at the table. Juniper winced inwardly, then spoke herself: “Now, you’ve all heard of the Bearkillers?”
The ranchers nodded; so did Luther Finney and Jones, though their information all came through her. One of the ranchers spoke: “Yeah, we’re in touch with Pendleton, and they’ve done some good work there-honest crowd, from what we hear. Helped keep trouble off their necks while they got the harvest in, was what we heard.”
Another nodded: “And I know Hank Woburn up Grangeville way, in Idaho. Couple of messages passed through with travelin’ folk.”
He looked around. “Remember, I told everyone about it? That thing with the guy who called himself Iron Rod. These Bearkillers, they cleared that up.”
Hutton nodded. “We didn’t plan it that way, not at first, but it turned out that about all we’ve done since the Change is fight, train to fight, and work on our gear. Now we’ve got near two hundred first-rate cavalry, about the only ones around… and war-engines, too; also about the only ones around, outside, Portland. Quite a few folks have tried to tangle with us, and a few of ‘em have regretted it ever since.”
“Only some? What about the others?”
“Dead, mostly.”
That got a real chuckle. “But one thing we’ve noticed, comin’ west. After the Change, the worst problems people had were the work of this Protector fella, over to Portland.
Iron Rod, he was gettin’ help from there direct, and he wasn’t the only one. Things’ve been bad enough, with someone stirring the stewpot.”
Juniper nodded. “We had a fight with a group of his men too, back around Lughnassadh, late July. They tried to move in and build a fort and start demanding taxes and labor from everyone around here. They have moved into a lot of the northern and eastern side of the Willamette-and the Columbia Gorge, you’ll have heard about that.”
She turned to the ranchers. “We’ve been able to help each other a good deal, but you know what a handicap it’s been not to be able to use Highway 20 regularly.”
The man who seemed to be the ranchers’ main spokesman nodded thoughtfully, reaching into the breast pocket of his shirt for tobacco and papers. When she nodded he rolled himself a cigarette and spoke through the smoke:
“Eaters and rustlers and plain old-fashioned bandits. Figured winter’d take care of them, though. Next year we could clear the road of what’s left.”
Ouch, Juniper thought. He means people starving, freezing, dying of typhus, and eating each other.
“Well, you won’t have to worry about them anymore,” Juniper said grimly. “About three weeks ago, nearly a thousand of the Protector’s men came down I-5, turned east and destroyed Lebanon. Destroyed most of it, took over what was left. You can hear firsthand accounts of what they did then.”
“A thousand?”
“Yes. All armored, all well-armed, and with abundant supplies. And-”
She gave a few details of what had happened in Lebanon, and even the tough cattlemen winced.
Hutton nodded: “That’s the type he hires on. We’ve all done some killin’ since the Change when we had to-”
Everyone nodded, matter-of-factly or regretfully.
“- but the Protector, this Arminger, he likes to kill for fun. Figures the Change means he can act like a weasel in a henhouse, and we have to swallow it.”
Several men swore; the one with the cigarette just narrowed his eyes.
Juniper went on: “We and our neighbors got a fair number of refugees from there. The reason you didn’t hear about it was that the Protector’s men sent a big gang east on bicycles, up Route 20, what you might call a bicycle blitzkrieg. They went right through Sweet Home-not much left of it, anyway, between the fighting and the fires-and up the highway across the pass. They pushed as far as east as Echo Creek, not a day’s travel from Springs.”
A rancher stirred. “We heard about that, but not the details. Couldn’t make head nor tail of what we did hear. Figured we’d look into it when things were less busy.”
Juniper nodded to Hutton, and he gestured Astrid forward; he had to add a sharp word before she noticed.
“Now, we’ve been sending scouts through the Cascades since spring, talked with Ms. Juniper’s folks here now and then. She asked us to see what we could see. Here�
�s what the Protector’s boys have put up at Echo Creek.”
Astrid came forward with an artist’s portfolio book, unzipping it and taking out a thick sheaf of drawings, done with pencil and charcoal. There were more amazed oaths.
“What is that?” the rancher asked.
Aylward and Chuck Barstow looked at each other, and Chuck made a gesture; the Englishman answered:
“It’s a castle. Early type, Norman motte-and-bailey; there’s one near where I was born, or at least the mound’s still there if you look. You dig a moat, use the dirt for an earth wall, put a palisade on top of that, and you’ve a bailey. Then do the same thing inside the bailey-only a smaller, much higher mound, with a great tall timber tower on top as well as a palisade; that’s the motte. You can do it fast, with a couple of hundred men working; the Normans used them to tie down territory they’d taken. Each one’s more than a fort-it’s a base for raiding parties, or for collecting tribute and taxes and tolls.”
He pointed to two of the drawings. “The buggers got clever there with the location. See, the eastern one is at the western end of a bridge-so it commands the bridge, and they’ve got this section here that they can take up, like a drawbridge. Same thing mirror image over on the western end of the pass. And they’ve got some refinements added-metal cladding on the tower.”
Hutton nodded: “We could get by easy enough, sneaky-like, but you couldn’t take wagons or big parties that way.
Most of the old-fashioned bandits in between, they got chopped or ran, ‘part from a few we met.”
Juniper let them pass the drawings around and talk out their first fright and indignation.
“We Mackenzies have sources inside Portland-our coreligionists who got trapped there.”
She nodded to another guest, a square-faced blond woman with a teenage daughter; they’d both been quiet, and concentrated on eating.
“This is the Protector’s opening move for what he has planned next year; he wants to cut off the Willamette from the eastern part of the state.”