Sunrise Lands c-1

by S. M. Stirling

  Then the raven-masked woman stopped in front of Ingolf, and he had to check to avoid running into her. The dancer's eyes were wide and fixed behind the slits of the mask, holding his locked for a long moment; they were alight with a combination of fear and ecstasy and forgetfulness of self that was not quite like anything he'd ever met before. It made him shiver a little and suppress an impulse to cross himself.

  The rest of her group surrounded him, masked as horse and boar, dragon and wolf and elk. She sang again, swaying and beating counterpoint to the words:

  Stranger, do you have a name?

  Tell us all from whence you came!

  You seem more like god than man Has curse or blessing come to this clan?

  Ingolf wondered for a moment whether he was sup posed to answer, and then she danced away again, lead ing her band with their leaping shadows huge against a wall:

  Samhain!

  Turn away

  Run ye back to the light of day

  Samhain!

  Hope and pray

  All ye meet are the gentle fae.

  When the band had vanished around a corner Ingolf swore quietly and shook himself. Saba smiled at him.

  "Told you," she said merrily.

  He asked a few questions; in his experience, that got you further than talking about yourself, at least to start with, and it never hurt to learn. He found that the odd pleated skirts were kilts and the over-the shoulder blan ket things were called plaids; that the ring around her neck was called a torc and that couples exchanged them when they married; that she was a widow with two chil dren, her man killed on the western coast by Haida raid ers a year ago; that she took turns with wall and gate duty and practiced with arms, above all with the longbow, as all fit adults did here; and that she was the eldest of three sisters, worked at her father's inn, and kept his books on that and a vineyard and fulling-mill the family owned.

  She asked in turn, "What brought you so far from home? We don't hear anything but fourth-hand rumors from that far east."

  "I didn't get on well with my elder brother," he said, which covered a good deal of bitterness. "My father died and my brother became Sheriff of Readstown, and we quarreled. So I joined the Bossman's army, when we Richlanders sent men west to help Marshall against the Sioux."

  For a moment he fell silent amid a wash of memory: the shusssh of arrows over the tilts of the wagons in the dark amid the stale smell of dying campfires, a sudden roaring brabble, thunder of hooves and screams of surprise and pain. The panic-stricken tightness of his grip on the rawhide wound hilt of his shete as he ran half-naked through the night away from his fallen tent, slashing at figures that seemed to spring out of the ground before him, fighting his way towards the horse lines.

  The ugly shock up his arm as the edge cut muscle and cracked bone, the first time and so different from a practice post. Glaring eyes and bared teeth, painted faces and horned headdresses and the long knives in their hands glinting ruddy with the lights of sudden fires. Voices shrieking:

  "Hoo'hay! Hoo'hay! It's a good day to die, Lakota! Kye-eeee-Kye! Hoo'hay!"

  Then the guttural "Hoon! Hoon!" of the blood call as the blades went in, the sick-making butcher's cleaver sound of metal hammering home in flesh, the frenzied screaming of a man scalped alive.

  "That war took longer than anyone thought it would," he said carefully.

  "They usually do," Saba said, with a grim smile.

  "And afterwards I couldn't seem to settle down, somehow. Went east and west, north and south-to the dead cities, often, doing salvage."

  By then they were in the stables attached to her fa ther's inn; the tavern was a rambling two-story affair seemingly knocked together from several pre Change buildings, but the stables were newer, made of beam and plank with brick floors. He liked what he saw of the ac commodation for the beasts, and he was pickier about that than about where he slept himself. Boy and Billy went into stalls, and he rubbed them down carefully, put on dry blankets and saw to the fodder-good timothy-clover hay without any musty smell, a hot cooked mash of oats and beans, and fresh water.

  It looked like the muck was shoveled out regularly, with fresh sawdust and straw laid down; he checked their feet, and made a note to have Bill reshod-the one on his left rear had looked good enough in Bend, but it was a little loose now and definitely getting thin. Pavement wasn't kind to hooves, especially when years of frost and storm had roughened it.

  "You boys rest up. You can take it easy for a while," he said, rubbing Boy's forehead as the horse butted at him. "You both earned it."

  "You know how to look after horses," Saba said with approval, as she and a teenage boy helped him with the tack and the loads from the packsaddle.

  Ingolf grinned. "You have to, if you want the horses to look after you. I had to push these two fellas a lot harder than I liked, but it was that or get stuck in Bend or Sis ters for the winter. I got Boy in the Nebraska country and he's the best all-round horse I've ever had."

  She nodded, handed him a room key with a number on the wooden tag that dangled from it, and pointed to a door.

  "Bathhouse is through there. Bran here will show you the manner of it hereabouts; the stairs on the right past there go to the rooms. Come down those and turn left to get to the main room. See you there-you'll want to wash up before you eat."

  He nodded, though in fact he was so hungry that it was a toss-up. But they seemed a cleanly lot here; so was he, when he had a choice, which sometimes you didn't if you were a wandering man. By the time he stowed his gear in the room and finished his bath-they soaped down and scrubbed with buckets of steaming-hot water poured over the head first here, before getting into the tub to soak-and dressed in his good suit of blue denim jacket and pants and roll necked sweater from the pack saddle, he felt a lot more human and ready to face the Sheaf and Sickle's common room.

  And I'm hungry enough to eat an ox, live.

  Luckily he'd managed to keep clear of nits despite being on the road for weeks, and didn't need to use the special and very smelly soap provided. That did make him hope the beds would be free of biting company, another thing you had to get used to on the road.

  He settled in a booth and Saba brought him a big mug of hot cider, to get the last of the chill out. Her father came with her; he looked formidable still despite the broad streaks of white in his dark beard and the kettle belly under his leather bib apron. His grin showed a full set of teeth and the hairy legs beneath his kilt were like grizzled tree trunks, even though he must have been a man grown and then some at the Change, which was a thing you saw less with every passing year.

  The stories said that in those days people had com monly lived to eighty or a hundred or even more… but then, those stories said a lot of wild things: flying to the moon, talking-machine servants, sword blades made of fiery light, and islands filled with dinosaurs. Nowadays sixty was old, most places he'd seen, and few reached the Bible's threescore and ten.

  "I hear you're from Wisconsin, Mr. Vogeler," Brannigan said, his voice a deep rumble.

  Ingolf noted that he had less of the lilting local accent than his daughter, but there was wonder in his tone as he went on:

  "Wisconsin! Haven't seen anyone from that far east since before the Change-wait, no, there was one, came all the way from upstate New York on a bicycle that first year. Big guy, went up north and became a knight or something. None since, though."

  "We haven't seen many from the West Coast, either, Mr. Mackenzie," Ingolf said.

  Brannigan chuckled; he seemed to be one of the jolly plump innkeepers of song and story. Which was lucky; in Ingolf's broad experience they were just as likely to be skinny po-faced tightwads soured on humanity in general and their customers in particular.

  "Mackenzie is the Clan name, Mr. Vogeler, and there are going on for sixty thousand others! Just Tom will do, anyway."

  "How much do I owe you, Mr. Brannigan… Tom?"

  "Normally, half a silver dollar a day for a man and two horses, not cou
nting drinks. Today and tomorrow, nothing."

  At his puzzlement: "It's Samhain Eve. We set an empty place for a stranger at sunset tonight and tomorrow. A stranger from far away means double luck."

  Brannigan's grin got wider. "You could be a god in disguise, after all!"

  "I thank you kindly." He sipped the cider, and his brows went up. "And I thank you kindly! This is the best cider I've had since I left the Kickapoo country!"

  He smacked his lips meditatively. There were herbs in it, and the scent had a deep fruitiness that was like a memory of September afternoons in the hills of home when the maples blazed. For a moment homesickness seized him, and he was back amid the bee murmurous orchards in April, looking down from a bluff across fields like rolling snow, with petals blowing in drifts over his father's house and onto the stark blue water of the river…

  "Thank you for a taste of home," he said sincerely. "Join me in one? And that I will pay for."

  He'd directed the invitation to both of them. Brannigan shook his head. "Maybe later. Business to attend to," he said.

  A little to Ingolf's surprise, Saba nodded. "I will… if we're not too busy, Dad?"

  "Nope, it's a slow night, everyone's getting ready for tomorrow," Brannigan said.

  Then he made a gesture, index and little finger out stretched, the middle two folded down under the thumb. "Or out defying the fae, the young idiots. See you later, Mr. Vogeler."

  She returned with the platters and some cider of her own, and sat across from him. He grinned and clinked his glass mug against hers, happier still when he saw she meant to eat with him. The odd grace she said over the food didn't put him off; you expected to meet strange customs far from home, and nothing here was as weird-or as nasty-as what he'd seen in the Valley of Paradise among the Prophet's folk.

  "Your health, Saba," he said.

  "And yours, Ingolf. To the Lord, to the Lady, to the Luck of the Clan!"

  He was hungry enough that even with a pretty woman smiling at him the plate was the first priority. Everything that went into the food was something he might have had at his family's board-roast pork with cracklin' gravy, potatoes, carrots and cauliflower and broccoli, applesauce on the side, brown bread and but ter. The details were different; the outer cuts of the pork were crusted with herbs, chopped dried cherries in the gravy, potatoes whipped creamy with dill and garlic and chives, the vegetables steamed rather than boiled, and a fruity red wine to go with it all when his cider was drained.

  Wholly homelike was the wedge of apple pie with whipped cream, and a piece of yellow cheese beside it, sharp and dry and crumbly, just right to cut the rich sweetness of the pie filling and the buttery taste of the crust.

  "Now, that's real cheddar," he said, sighing with con tentment. "We Richlanders make good cheese; it was famous even before the Change, and this matches it. Is it yours?"

  "No," she said. "It's from Tillamook-on the coast northwest of here, in Portland Protective Association country. That's where my man Raen was, trading for it, when the raiders landed."

  "Sorry," he said awkwardly.

  She smiled and sighed and patted his hand. "It's a year ago now, and he's in the Summerlands, waiting to come back… and he helped burn their ships at the water's edge. The Haida carry people off for slaves and steal and burn everything if they get a foothold; the raids are worse every year… Battle luck comes from the Mor rigu; a dozen others of our folk were there that day…"

  She shook off the thought. "That's an interesting name, Ingolf. It sounds like one of ours."

  "It's not usual back on the Kickapoo, either; it's after my grandfather's uncle," Ingolf said. "People used to tease me about it, when I was a kid. What are your children's names, if I may ask? You do have unusual ones here, except for a few like Tom."

  "Ioruath's my boy; he's three," she said; her smile grew broader. "And Emer, my girl, she's just one; never saw her father, poor thing."

  "Pretty names," he said. "But I haven't heard them before."

  "We used to have the same names as most people-some of the older people still do; you know, Tom and John and Mary and David, that kind, like Dad. But a lot of people took other ones after the Change, when we turned back to the Old Religion. Names from the an cient stories that teach us about the Gods. Or they gave names like that to their children-my mother changed to Moira, and she changed me from Sally to Saba."

  "I like Saba better," he said.

  "So do I," she said, and wrinkled her nose at him. "I like Ingolf

  … and nobody will tease you about it here. It isn't silly, like some of the ones they use up in the Protectorate. Odard and Raoul, I ask you!"

  He took a moment to admire the sight of her. She'd switched to just her kilt and shirt and shoes, and everything he could see was just as he liked it; she was broad in the hips and shoulders and narrow in the waist, long legged, with strong round arms and the full bosom of a woman who'd borne and nursed children. Ingolf liked her frank eyes too, and the way she returned his interest without being coy about it.

  He learned that she wove, and embroidered, and played the guitar, liked to hunt and fish in season. There was a small tattoo above the upper curve of her bosom and below the finials of her torc, a miniature strung bow that also suggested the crescent moon.

  "What's that?" he asked, indicating it with his eyes.

  She grinned at him. "Never seen a woman's breasts before, you poor man?" she teased, and laughed with him. Then she touched the tattoo. "That's the Warrior's Mark. I got that when I turned eighteen and passed the tests for the First Levy… the militia, you'd probably call it."

  When she gathered up the empty plates and took them back to the kitchen he watched the sway of her kilt with unfeigned pleasure.

  I could stay here awhile, he thought. I'm not broke by a long shot, and this is where the Voice and the dreams pointed. His mind tried to turn aside, but he forced it back. I'll need a base while I look around for… whoever it is I'm supposed to find.

  The door to the vestibule opened as he mused, and he looked up with the wariness his wandering years had bred. A group came in, three women and two men, all younger than him but not by that much; they all wore longswords and daggers, which they racked by the door. They moved as if they knew how to use them, too.

  He noticed the twin girls first, since they were identi cal and dressed so alike he guessed they worked at it. Both were tall, five-nine or so, with yellow-blond braids down their backs, dressed in dark trousers and boots rather than kilts; when they took off their jackets, they revealed sleeveless jerkins of black leather over their shirts, blazoned with a white tree and seven stars surmounted by a crown.

  The other girl was a year or two older and an inch or so shorter, with brown hair cut shoulder-length and brown eyes and features a little too bold for beauty. She was in pants and a short-sleeved thigh-length tunic of fine-woven wool, forest green, over a full sleeved shirt of indigo dyed linen. The tunic had a slit-pupiled eye wreathed in flame on a black shield woven over her chest, and the same device showed on the buckle of her silver-chain belt; it carried a rosary of worked coral and crucifix opposite a dagger.

  Saba returned with two small glasses of applejack. Ingolf smiled at her, lifted his and tasted cautiously. It was potent but made from good mash, light-crushed and well strained, and aged a couple of years, just right for sipping liquor.

  "Who are those?" he said quietly, nodding to the group as her father bustled over to them.

  VIPs, he decided by himself.

  Tom Brannigan wasn't in the least servile, but there was an indefinable air of respect. Ingolf's eyes narrowed slightly in professional appraisal.

  "The big fella with the bright hair particularly," he said.

  One of the men was in a kilt and was about Ingolf's own height, six-one or a little more; a bit lighter than his own one ninety, he estimated, but not much. Broad shouldered and long-limbed, well muscled but moving like a racehorse, looking like he was about to leap even when completely
still. And strikingly handsome in a way that was almost beautiful without being in the least pretty, down to a cleft in the square chin.

  "Oh, that's Rudi Mackenzie," Saba said, with the tolerant tone of a woman towards a younger man she'd known when he was just hitting his teens. "The Chief's kid."

  Ingolf's eyes flicked to look at hands and wrists, the way the young man held himself and moved. And at the scars that showed when a sleeve of his saffron yellow shirt of linsey-woolsey fell back from a muscular fore arm; there was another along the angle of his jaw. He looked young-probably looked younger than he was; the well-to do didn't age as fast as ordinary folk-but formidable.

  "That's not just a kid," he said. "That's a fighting man. And a very dangerous one, or I miss my bet."

  "Well, yes. He fought with Raen… and very well, by all accounts. Took that cut on his face pulling my man out of the water with a Haida trying to spear him, but it was too late."

  "He's your bossman's son? The heir?"

  "Our Chief's a woman," Saba said. "Juniper Mackenzie, herself herself. But he's her son, right enough-and her tanist."

  At his inquiring glance: "A tanist is… sort of an un derstudy. His father was Mike Havel-Lord Bear, some called him, the head of the Bearkiller Outfit, over west of the river. The twins are Havel's kids too, Rudi's half sisters; their mother's Signe Havel.. . He fathered Rudi with the Chief before he married Signe."

  "Yeah, there's a family resemblance," Ingolf noted.

  High cheekbones and slanted eyes; a trace of Injun there, he thought. The man's eyes were a light change able gray-blue-green, the girls' the bright blue of corn flowers; his hair was worn shoulder-length and there was a strong tinge of copper red in its yellow curls. He looked as if he laughed a lot; right now he was grinning at the innkeeper.

  "Greetings to the Mackenzie!" Brannigan said grandly, then winked and made a sweeping bow. "You honor our humble establishment."

  "Hey, Tom, I'm not the Mackenzie," the young man-Rudi-said, shaking his hand; that lilting accent of Saba's was stronger still with him. "My mother is the Mackenzie. I'm just a Mackenzie, like you and the rest, to be sure."