Prince of Outcasts

by S. M. Stirling

  The other three present had come north with them after Topanga, but they weren’t exactly her followers, though in a sense she was acting as their patron: Meshek ben-Raanan and his large, hairy, silent brother Dov, and their sister Shulamit bat-Raanan. All three were the children of the Shofet—Judge and ruler—of the bnei Yaakov, and it showed in a family likeness of wavy black hair, black eyes and long rather boney proud-nosed, full-lipped faces as well as their camel-hair robes and billowy pantaloons tucked into soft goatskin boots. Meshek and his brother were here to investigate the wide and dangerous world of which his desert-dwelling nomad folk knew much less than they now realized was wise or even safe after their long post-Change isolation. Shulamit was seventeen, and she was here because she’d threatened to stow away or walk if they didn’t take her. They’d believed it, since she’d absconded from their father’s tents without permission in the first place and joined the party heading for Topanga when they were too far along to send her back into the desert alone.

  Usually she was a chatterbox; all through Astoria and the trip up the Columbia she’d been a mass of observations and questions—all intelligent ones, if endless. Todenangst had her quiet and wide-eyed, though.

  Meshek made that graceful gesture his people used, bowing and at the same time touching the fingers of the right hand to brow, lips and heart and then sweeping it down. The wide sleeve of his robe nearly touched the floor.

  “Nisicah,” he said, which was a title that translated as woman of high rank in Ivrit, and was what he’d first called her outside the burning wreck of the cursed castle in the Valley of Death. “My brother will depart now with our first report for our father, if it pleases you. I and Shulamit—”

  He tugged at his full, curly black beard; it was a gesture he used when annoyed, which was frequently where his younger sister was concerned.

  “—will remain here for a time. To observe, perhaps to negotiate.”

  Órlaith nodded and reached into her sporran for an order pad and wrote, then tore it off and handed it to him:

  “This is a quick letter of introduction to Rosh Eyal—”

  “Head Eyal?” Dov asked, which was what the word meant in his language.

  “Chief, elected leader, of the Confederated Kibbutzim of Degania Dalet, has been for a while, and his grandfather . . . well, he’ll tell you. He’s here with some of his people for the Congress of Realms, and I think he’ll be very helpful in getting Dov home. And helpful in general, Seren Meshek. I know him slightly personally and more by reputation and my parents’ opinions; he’s a shrewd and capable man, and a man of honor.”

  “Many thanks, Nisicah,” Meshek said.

  Órlaith smiled. “You got us out of the Mojave alive in high summer, and quickly.”

  “But he made you ride Ben Zona, Princess,” Shualmit said, evidently recovering from her attack of awe.

  Her brothers glared at her, and Órlaith suppressed a smile; it was rarely wise to intrude in a family quarrel, and the bnei Yaakov were clannish to a fault. Ben Zona—the name meant “Son of a Whore”—hadn’t been all that bad. For a camel. Instead she continued to Meshek:

  “And without your bola . . . and Shulamit’s sling . . . things might have gone otherwise on that beach in Topanga. I owe you and your family a debt, son of the Shofet. So does the Heika. House Artos doesn’t forget an enemy or a friend; neither does the Yamato Dynasty. We’ll meet again; until then peace and the blessings of your Lord be upon you, and upon your people and their children, tents and flocks.”

  “And upon you and yours, woman of valor,” Meshek said. “I think my father made the right decision . . . but then, he usually does.”

  The bnei Yaakov might be desert-dwelling herdsmen, but they weren’t in the least intimidated by the elevator; Órlaith had been very impressed by the ingenious gadgets and methods they used to squeeze a decent living out of their savagely arid homeland. Shulamit spun the wheel that flicked up an indicator inside it and rang a bell in the treadmill room far below. As the cage sank out of sight she was craning her neck to try and watch the cable connection through the openwork of the ceiling and pointing out details of the mechanism that rang the chimes to her brothers’ lively interest.

  “Now,” Órlaith said, “if we’re to get ourselves out of sight like a smacked puppy hiding in a woodshed—”

  The rest gave a chorus of realistic whimpers; Macmac put his ears down and glanced around, and Órlaith shook a finger at them before going on:

  “—where should we be going? My mother didn’t say.”

  “Which I think is a test too,” Heuradys said soberly.

  Karl Aylward Mackenzie shrugged as he stood leaning easily on his cased longbow.

  “Dun Juniper, surely!” he said, grinning.

  Sky-blue eyes and sun-faded flaxen brows stood out the more against skin given a deep ruddy tan by the fierce southern sun. Behind him Gwri Beauregard McKenzie shook her head hard enough to rattle the sapphire beads she’d put on the ends of the many thin braids in which she wore her tight-curled black hair. Then she carefully pulled his queue aside by the end of the old bowstring that bound it and slapped him hard on the back of his head.

  “Sure, and for a good bow-captain you’re a dolt betimes, Karl-me-lad,” the young seeress said. “Politics! Think how Herself streaking for the dúthchas after a quarrel with her mother would look when the clack got about!”

  Órlaith nodded as Karl retrieved his bonnet and rubbed his head and his brother Mathun—who looked enough like him to be a twin, though he was nineteen to Karl’s twenty—snickered. Gwri was extremely right.

  “True enough,” Órlaith said. “We can’t make this a matter of Clan and Association! That blood-feud needs to lie still in its grave.”

  The two Dúnedain nodded and sighed regretfully. “The same applies to going to Mithrilwood, I suppose,” Faramir said thoughtfully, a trace of a soft musical accent in his English.

  He had delicate, snub-nosed features and very slightly tilted eyes; it had made him look a bit naive and childlike when they’d started out. He had a good point, too. Mithrilwood—once Silver Falls State Park—had been the first of the Dúnedain staths. Going there would be just another way to revive the memories of the wars against the Association.

  Susan Mika smiled a bit wryly. “I’d invite you all to the makol, that’s far enough away we didn’t lift hair on either side in those old fights, we were too busy with the Square Staters, but I’m not exactly popular at home myself.”

  With a grin she reached up and tugged at her taller companions’ locks in a rough caress: Faramir’s were pale gold and loosely curled, his cousin Malfind’s straight and as black as her own.

  “Though with pretty scalps like this, it woulda been tempting if we’d known you guys existed then!”

  “Right you are, cousin,” Órlaith said to the Rangers. “In fact, since all the delegates are heading to Dún na Síochána where they’ll live in tents or be hot-bunking while they debate at length, somewhere outside the Willamette would be best.”

  The Citadel of Peace—that was what Dún na Síochána meant—was the new capital of the High Kingdom, under off-and-on construction for some years on the old site of Salem, the pre-Change capital of ancient Oregon, picked because it was long-deserted and on neutral ground.

  “Probably best we stay in the Protectorate, at that,” Órlaith said thoughtfully. “So as not to look as if we’re trying to get out from under Mother’s hand, or that we’re rejecting the north-realm. But the Association rules a whacking great load of land.”

  “Not in the Willamette? That rules out my mothers’ place at Montinore Manor on Barony Ath. Besides that being where we, ah, left from.”

  “Ran away from?” Susan Mika filled in helpfully. “Skipped away at night from? What’s that word . . . ?”

  “Absconded?” Morfind Vogeler said.

  Ór
laith gave her a quelling glance. Heuradys went on:

  “Which would be tactless right now.”

  “Right; it would be too much like putting a thumb in Mother’s eye because I was in a snit. To be sure, I am in a snit, but I don’t have to act that way,” Órlaith said, blinking up at the carved plaster arches of the ceiling.

  “A Crown demesne estate would put any castellan I descended on in a difficult position. Not to mention they’d be sending regular reports here.”

  Heuradys nodded. “How about Barony Harfang out east? Diomede—”

  She had two elder brothers: Lioncel de Stafford and Diomede d’Ath.

  “—is over at Castle Campscapell visiting my lord dad and Lioncel. And he takes his garrison there to get ready for the autumn war-games after the harvest, so there’s room and supplies. Far enough away to be properly submissive-and-repentant-looking but not too hard to get back from in a hurry since there’s a rail link. And if anyone asks, I could say I’m visiting my own manors there.”

  “Right you are, Herry. Any objections? We’ll do that, then.”

  She wrote again on the order pad, then beckoned over one of the castle servants dressed in tabard and brimless flowerpot hat who’d been standing motionless waiting for someone to call, looking rather like an old playing card.

  “Goodman”—the name flowed up, probably a fruit of the Sword at her side, and got her an instant of smile in the man’s trained gravity—“Faron. Please take this to the Movements division of the Logistics and Transport offices and have them lay on a six-steed hippomotive train and two passenger cars, nothing fancy. From here to Athana Manor on Barony Harfang, and clear it over the heliograph as a second-priority routing, charged to the Household account.”

  “And have Dame Emilota put up a trunk suitable for a stay in the country; tell her . . .”

  She thought quickly; Dame Emilota had doted on her for years, but the lady-in-waiting of the Crown Princess’ household here would fill seven trunks with festival finery if Órlaith let her, and insist on bringing herself and a couple of tiring-maids as well. She felt a small guilty stab of pleasure that for once she’d be able to deal with her at second-hand. Emilota had all the loyalty in the world and was good at her job, but she was an excruciatingly skilled bore and never shut up.

  “. . . tell her it would anger my mother with me further if it was anything but the basics, and likewise no entourage. Provisions for sixteen from the Household kitchens for the journey.”

  Which meant a lunch, a dinner and a breakfast. A hippomotive could average about twenty miles an hour, so they should cover it in about twenty hours, arriving tomorrow afternoon if they left . . .

  “Have it ready for departure in two hours.”

  Heuradys had been writing herself. “Heliograph this to House Steward Paien at Athana. . . . St. Athana Manor, Goodman. Be a shame to drop in unannounced with sixteen, just when he’s getting the domestic staff back from the fields.”

  The serving-man repeated the instructions, took the discreet tip Heuradys could give where Órlaith couldn’t, bowed, and left at a trot. Just then the faint sound of the carillon atop the elevator drifted up the shaft, icy-cool with something like glassy bells. And someone was singing under it, wordlessly but matching the quick trills without effort or strain. Órlaith grinned, and so did some of the Mackenzies. That would be Aunt Fiorbhinn. And if she was here . . .

  When the door slid open she spread her arms and cried: “Céad míle fáilte, a Máthair Chriona! A hundred thousand welcomes, Grandmother!”

  Juniper Mackenzie grinned back, her wrinkled face old and young at the same time, and her leaf-green eyes crackling.

  “And a hundred thousand more, child! Merry meet!” she said, and they embraced.

  The older woman felt bird-fragile in her arms; the founder of the Clan Mackenzie had always been small and slight, and she was in her mid-seventies now, elderly as the modern world reckoned such things though spry and not stooped; her braided hair had only a few threads of faded fox-red among the silver. She was wearing an arsaid in the Clan’s tartan, over a long bag-sleeved linen léine dyed saffron with an embroidery of jet and black silk at the hems and neck. The staff in her hand was topped by a finial in form of the Triple Moon, waxing and full and waning.

  The clansfolk present all bowed deeply, with the back of their right hands to their foreheads; Faramir and Morfind did the same with palm to heart; Susan made a gesture with extended arm.

  And Droyn is just being polite and probably murmuring prayers in Latin as he bows, poor soul, Órlaith thought, as Juniper raised the staff.

  Juniper Mackenzie was a major reason the Old Faith was strong in the High Kingdom, even if she was given to shouting in moments of exasperation: I am not the Wiccan pope-ess!

  “Blessed be, children,” she said.

  Then softly to Órlaith: “How you favor your father, my golden girl.”

  Fingers gnarled by work and age touched her braids. “And his father, save for the hair; a lovely man, he was, in body and in soul, even though I met him in a time as hard and bitter as rue.”

  Then briskly: “So, Matti has been having a bit of a hissy, then? She always did take herself a trifle too seriously, that girl. I remember her pouting and glaring at me when we first brought her to Dun Juniper. Though since we abducted her on a raid, perhaps that was natural enough.”

  “She’s not over-pleased with me the now, no,” Órlaith said dryly; it was always a bit disconcerting to see her mother through another’s eyes as a stubborn, willful ten-year-old, back during the old wars of her grandparents’ day. “You know what happened? I’d be surprised if you didn’t, of course.”

  “Aye. And I’ll be interested to meet your friend Reiko.”

  Behind her Maude Mackenzie cleared her throat. The current Chief of the Clan and Name sighed and spoke:

  “And yes, Mother, I take things too seriously too. But I have you to tell me when I’m doing it, sure and I do.”

  Aunt Maude had an oval face framed in long loose brown hair; she was in her mid-thirties, and looked older in a sternly handsome way; she was a worrier, and had always been grave—her Sept totem was Badger. She and Talyn Strum Mackenzie of Dun Tàirneanach were in formal Montrose jackets and small-kilts and pinned plaids like Órlaith; Talyn was currently the First Armsman of the Mackenzies, a scar-faced man of middle height in a hard middle age, one who’d fought in the Prophet’s War and still wore the shaven head with a long lock at the rear that had been popular with young Clansmen then, as well as a graying mouse-colored mustache. He stepped over to Karl and shook his hand Mackenzie-fashion, gripping on the wrist.

  “That’s for a job well done, lad,” he said. Then he gave him a cuff across the ear.

  “What was that after being for?”

  “For being an insubordinate little shite, so. Your da said to pass it on.”

  Then he reached out and tweaked his son Tair’s nose. “And that’s from your mother for running off without telling her.”

  Tair clapped his hand to the offended member. “What, no clout, Da?” he managed to say as his eyes watered.

  The First Armsman grinned. “No, for I’ve told your brother Cionaodh to keep back somethin’ fair nasty in the way of mucking out for your triumphant return to the home-place.”

  “By way of a present, so?” Tair said.

  “Aye, for shouldn’t a returning hero have one? That drainage ditch that never seems to keep clear, maybe? Then you can stagger in around dinner for a week or so, covered in high-smelling mud from hair to toe and see how the girls all want to get under your kilt when you tell them of your adventures. You remember it, the twisty one that always turns up rocks?”

  Órlaith could tell Tair did unfondly remember that bit of the Strum family croft by the way his face fell.

  “The narrow twisty one where you can’t get a good swing with
a mattock for the hawthorn hedge that leans over it?” the young man said hollowly.

  “Just that one! Ah, and Lug Longspear witness it’s a wonderful thing how a lad can know his father’s mind!”

  She could also tell that Aunt Fiorbhinn was taking it all in and storing up bits for a song—John had the same habit, only he was more obvious and obnoxious about it. Fiorbhinn was Juniper’s last child, two years after Maude in years but looking six or seven younger, perhaps because she was absolutely not a worrier. Fiorbhinn’s chin was more pointed and her eyes were bigger than Órlaith’s, and they always seemed to have a secret smile in them.

  She was in a long white robe belted with silver plaques and a necklace of golden spiral triskelions, and staff of her own topped by the same symbol. That was the dress and mark of a master-fili, a bard, among Mackenzies; Órlaith knew that for a fact, since it was Fiorbhinn who’d decided they were, and proclaimed that this was the ancient custom of the Gael. And who was to say she was wrong, since her fame and her music traveled far beyond the dùthchas? Although she’d gotten the details of dress from a pre-Change book, an illustrated one that seemed to be a guide to a game centered on pretending to be a gang of bandits who wandered about plundering people and looting tombs.

  Juniper looked over at Morfind and Faramir. “My granddaughter will be taking all you lot off somewhere else,” she said. “I’d be after hoping you realize Mithrilwood is right out of it? Considering how your parents down in Stath Ingolf talked one Edain Aylward Mackenzie out of dragging our golden Princess here back by the ear, as Matti had sent him to do?”

  Faramir actually blushed. Morfind gave Juniper a bold stare, unconsciously touching the scar that trailed down across one cheek. An Eater chief’s axe had struck there in a skirmish with a hidden band of the foe, one lurking after the little battle that killed the High King. Her brother had died then. Faramir’s scars from that fight didn’t show, not on the outside at least.

  “We’d thought of that, Lady Juniper,” he said.