The Sword of the Lady Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  EPILOGUE

  NOVELS OF THE CHANGE

  ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME

  AGAINST THE TIDE OF YEARS

  ON THE OCEANS OF ETERNITY

  DIES THE FIRE

  THE PROTECTOR′S WAR

  A MEETING AT CORVALLIS

  THE SUNRISE LANDS

  THE SCOURGE OF GOD

  OTHER NOVELS BY S.M. STIRLING

  THE PESHAWAR LANCERS

  CONQUISTADOR

  ROC

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, September 2009

  Copyright © Steven M. Stirling, 2009

  Map by Cortney Skinner

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Stirling, S. M.

  The sword of the lady: a novel of the change/S. M. Stirling.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-13468-9

  1. Regression (Civilization)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3569.T543S96 2009

  813′.54—dc22 2009015863

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER′S NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author′s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The saga continues and grows—for a solitary business, you need a lot of help!

  Thanks to my friends who are also first readers:

  To Steve Brady, for assistance with dialects and British background, and also natural history of all sorts.

  Thanks also to Kier Salmon, for once again helping with the beautiful complexities of the Old Religion, and with local details for Oregon. And for further use of BD!

  To Diana L. Paxson, for help and advice (amounting to virtual collaboration in the Norrheim chapters), and for writing the beautiful ″Westria″ books, among many others. If you liked the Change novels, you′ll probably enjoy the hell out of the Westria books—I certainly did, and they were one of the inspirations for this series; and her Essential Asatru and recommendation of Our Troth were extremely helpful . . . and fascinating reading. To Dale Price, for help with Catholic organization, theology and praxis; and for his entertaining blog, Dyspeptic Mutterings, which can be read at http://dprice.blogspot.com.

  To Brenda Sutton, for multitudinous advice.

  To Will Sanders, for putting me in stitches with Princess Yump ing Yimminy; read his excellent mystery ″Smoke″ for his take on this—unbelievably—real-life character.

  To Melinda Snodgrass, Daniel Abraham, Sage Walker, Emily Mah, Terry England, George R.R. Martin, Walter Jon Williams, Vic Milan, Jan Stirling and Ian Tregellis of Critical Mass, for constant help and advice as the book was under construction. Thanks to John Miller, good friend, writer and scholar, for many useful discussions, for lending me some great books, and for some really, really cool old movies. And to Gail Gerstner-Miller, ditto. Also the steak pie recipe was delicious.

  Special thanks to Heather Alexander, bard and balladeer, for permission to use the lyrics from her beautiful songs, which can be—and should be!—ordered at www.heatherlands.com. Run, do not walk, to do so.

  Thanks again to William Pint and Felicia Dale, for permission to use their music, which can be found at www.pintndale.com, and should be by anyone with an ear and saltwater in their veins. Lyrics of ″The Trawling Trade″ are used by kind permission of the writer, John Conolly, who also wrote the folk classic ″Fiddler′s Green″ (further details on myspace.com/johnconolly). And to Three Weird Sisters—Gwen Knighton, Mary Crowell, Brenda Sutton, and Teresa Powell—whose alternately funny and beautiful music can be found at http://www.threeweirdsis- ters.com

  And to Heather Dale for permission to quote the lyrics of her songs, whose beautiful (and strangely appropriate!) music can be found at www.HeatherDale.com, and is highly recommended. The lyrics are wonderful and the tunes make it even better.

  The ″ancestral epic″ in Chapter Seventeen is actually the opening paragraph of The Broken Sword, a fantasy classic by Poul Anderson. Go out and get it!

  Much overdue thanks to Russell Galen, my agent, who has been an invaluable help and friend for a decade now. By a stunning noncoincidence, my career has shot up like a sapling in this period. We make a good team; not only is he smart as a whip on the business side, but his advice on literary matters and on the conjunction between the two has been spot-on.

  All mistakes, infelicities and errors are of course my own.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE WILD LANDS (FORMERLY ILLINOIS) MIDDLE ILLINOIS RIVER AUGUST 18, CHANGE YEAR 24/2022 AD

  ″Shining pearl within the crimson sky,

  Guide me in the coming night

  Perfect seed within the humble husk,

  Ground my feet in so
il so I may rise

  Patient leaf within the endless pool

  Calm me when the torrent falls

  Gentle wind within the slanting grass

  Bear me ever on until I rest—″

  Rudi Mackenzie and Edain hadn′t been singing the hymn; more of a breathy whisper, though it rang loud in their minds as the moon rose enormous on the horizon, and they′d come down here below the lip of the valley where there was more cover for the rite. Rudi stopped instantly when a stick snapped. The warm sense of communion ghosted away like dust in a desert, and he sank down behind the tangle of wild rose in a motion that was swift but smooth rather than a catch-the-eye jerk.

  Five paces to his right and a little behind him Edain Aylward Mackenzie did the same; his great shaggy half-mastiff bitch Garbh vanished even more completely, belly to the ground, ears cocked and only her black nose moving as it wrinkled. The air wasn′t moving enough to carry scent any distance, but her blocky barrel-shaped head seemed to split as the thin black lips drew back silently from her long yellow fangs.

  The other half of her was probably wolf.

  Both men listened hunter-fashion, with their whole bodies: not straining, but opening themselves to the summer twilight, letting sound and sight and smells and the movement of air on skin flow in until you knew. The evening hush was strong and the hot thick air hazy along the ridge where they lay above the river valley, full of rank odors of flowers and greenery and warm earth damp from yesterday′s thunderstorm. Sweat trickled down Rudi′s flanks beneath the brigantine torso-armor he wore, a corselet of little steel plates riveted between two layers of soft green leather. Something with too many legs bit the back of his left knee below the kilt and above the sock-hose, adding to the prickling itches. The coarse sandy grain of the leather on the riser grip of his longbow drank moisture from the palm of his left hand, growing damp but not slippery, which was the point.

  The steep fall of ground to the river below was a patchy almost-forest. Single stands or clumps of mature pre-Change burr oak and shagbark hickory, black walnut and sugar maple reared above teardrop-shaped surrounds of saplings, where they′d rolled their seed downslope in the decades since the State foresters had stopped coming to prune and tend. The new growth ranged from fresh sprouts to fair-sized trees as old as Rudi, but the canopy wasn′t tall or closely spaced enough to shade out the undergrowth yet, and a dense understory of weeds and scrub was just past its summer prime.

  The open spaces were brushy meadow scattered with white pasture thistle and Queen Anne′s lace, and thickets of four-foot-tall Gaura, its pink flowers a wash of fading color as the deeper scarlet of its leaves turned black with sunset. The faint sweet scent of it became stronger with crushed stems and petals; as the sun dropped lower behind him he could see the tops of the plants swaying in little jerks in half a dozen spots. Once . . . a moment′s stillness . . . twice . . . again . . . another pause . . .

  And there′s no wind, Rudi thought grimly, as his mouth went dry.

  He was only twenty-three, but he′d seen enough violent death to know how easily it could happen to him—know in body and blood, as well as his head. He kept his breaths long and deep and slow to help loosen the tightness in gut and crotch and slow the pounding of blood that were the instinctive response to a sudden deadly threat. Half of transcending fear was making the flesh serve the spirit′s need, instead of letting it command you. And breathing deep could give you a little extra endurance at need. Not much, but every bit counted at the narrow passage. His eyes stayed fixed on the vegetation, and the off-and-on course of the small betraying motions.

  Men crawling on their bellies then, moving a bit at a time and pausing in between. Men or wolves or wild dogs, they all know that trick, but I′d be betting the first.

  Here in the Wild Lands men would most likely attack him on sight, and they′d likely be faster than he afoot, over ground they knew. He glanced over to where Edain waited, a movement of eyes more than head, and got a very slight nod.

  That meant both agreement that they were undetected so far and waiting on you, Chief. Here and now that was both a burden and a comfort; the call was his, but you couldn′t ask for a better man than Edain to have your back for all he was just turned twenty. Rudi moved his right-hand fingers, thumb to each as if counting on them, then turned it palm-up and lifted it a bit, a combination of gestures that meant how many? in Clan war-Sign. Edain′s answer was a tiny shrug; he didn′t have any real idea either.

  So . . . no less than six, possibly about thirty if they′re very good. And they haven′t seen us yet. It′s someone else who′s the expected guest at the feast, and them laying the table and knocking out the bung of the barrel of red salt ale. Someone coming by the track down there along the river; the position they′re in will be invisible from down by the water′s edge.

  The ambush was being set with real skill; he doubted most Mackenzie warriors could have done it better, or even Dúnedain Rangers. He kept his breathing slow and quiet and deep, and his body motionless with a silent wariness that was coiled rather than stiff, ready to explode off the ground if he must. Nothing moved but his eyes, and he flicked them back and forth; a steady fixed gaze was oddly noticeable to the one you were staring at, like brushing a feather over the nape of the neck.

  If it was only six or so savages then he and Edain could probably handle them, not taking into account whoever they were planning on ambushing. The two Mackenzies would have the advantage of surprise, height, good purpose-made armor and weapons rather than crude makeshifts, and skills none of the wild-men could match.

  But there′s also the matter of the rights and wrongs of the thing, so.

  The ones walking into this ambush might be men of deep-dyed wickedness for all he knew, and meeting their fate; this wasn′t his territory, and he wasn′t one to draw the blade on strangers lightly.

  On the other hand, I need friends here—or at least allies. I′ve no time to spare; the lives of my friends depend on it. And at seventh and last, fights are usually about us and them, not rights and wrongs. Needs must when the Fates drive.

  Half in prayer: And if this deed must return on the doer, let it fall on me; it′s my decision, and Edain but follows his chieftain. This is a burden I took up with the sword.

  A warrior′s cold appraisal took over. They could certainly shoot at least three or four each before the enemy came close enough for handstrokes, perhaps more if there were many targets. If it was thirty of them . . . that was a different matter altogether.

  There was a certain brute simplicity to the arithmetic of war. Thirty men weren′t fifteen times stronger than two.

  More like forty or fifty times stronger, he thought unhappily. The advantage grows as the square of the difference, other things being equal.

  Nor was there any absolute certainty of safety whatever when men fought to kill. Sheer luck was involved; if your eye was in the place where a random arrow wanted to go, then it was off to the Summerlands willy nilly. He hadn′t come all the way from the Willamette in Oregon to die in a little skirmish two-thirds of the way to his goal. Too much depended on him.

  Their horses were behind and above them, in the strip of fire-scarred brushy woods where the open prairie met the valley, all loose-tethered, except his mare Epona who was guarding them. He made a low chittering sound between his teeth, something that melded into the natural buzz and twitter and creak of the wilds. That would keep her quiet, even if she scented another horse or heard it neigh. The problem was that it wouldn′t mean anything to Edain′s horse or the pack beast, who were . . .

  Not more than average bright, even for horses. I love horses but Epona aside . . .

  He was glad he′d done so a minute later, when the dull thud-and-clop of hooves sounded on the broken asphalt and dirt of the roadway that followed the Illinois River below. Four men rode into sight, with as manymore packhorses on leading reins—there were bundles over their backs, and from the look of them and the trail of flies those held butch
ered game carcasses strapped up in the hides. Between them and Rudi the brush moved again, and he thought he caught the glint of edged metal through the gloaming of the summer evening. Someone was being a little overeager, or had forgotten to dip the blade of his spear in mud.

  Ambush, sure and I had the right of it, Rudi thought. They′re concentrating on the road down there, and with the sun at their backs to blind anyone looking their way. The which means they can′t see me and Edain easily either, of course.

  From what he′d heard in Iowa the only dwellers here were vicious savages, descendants of city folk who′d lived through the first Change years by eating each other, worse and worse as you went farther east. That had been Ingolf′s opinion too, and Ingolf Vogeler had made his living off salvage expeditions into the dead cities for many years. Journeying halfway across the continent with him had taught Rudi that the man from Wisconsin was usually a good judge.

  On the other hand, Edain and I cannot haul all those wagons of treasure to the Mississippi alone, Rudi mused. From the way things have gone this past week, we can′t even get close to them without help from the folk hereabouts.

  He ducked lower and thoughtfully picked up his sallet helm and set it on his head, with the visor slid up along the low steel dome and locked in place and the sponge and felt lining pressing firmly around brow and temples and the back of his skull. Then he reached over his shoulder to his quiver for a shaft to set on his string. Edain did the same with his open-faced helmet, nocked one arrow and eased out three more from his quiver, holding them between one finger and his bow, a trick for rapid shooting. If they were careful there was little chance the ambushers would notice, and it was well to be ready. Also the dull matt-green surface of the steel was less conspicuous than the raw metallic brightness of his shoulder-length red-blond mane, or even the sun-streaked oak brown of Edain′s curly mop.