The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series) Page 14

  Especially Grandmother Juniper. Whereas the McClintock reveled in it. Ah, well.

  “A hundred thousand welcomes, tae ye and all yours!” Caitlin added, with what seemed like perfectly genuine enthusiasm.

  It is, Órlaith knew with a slight chill. She means it . . . and sure, I can tell that she does. Useful, but I can see now why Da thought the Sword a burden and a danger to the bearer.

  “In the name of the Mother-of-All and the Horned God and all the kindreds o’ land an’ water and sky who dwell wi’ us here,” Caitlin went on.

  One of Diarmuid’s followers handed Caitlin a carved cedarwood platter piled high with little wedges of dark wholemeal bread beside a bowl of salt. His eldest sister Seonag was about twelve, and stood with a frown of grave concentration on her face and a great carved ox-horn in her hands, brimming with red wine, its tip and rim bound in pale gold. Their mother Gormall—who was also High Priestess here, in the usual way—wore a white robe bound with the Triple Cords and carried a carved rowan-wood staff tipped with the waxing and full and waning moons in wrought silver. She signed the plate and horn with it before it was brought forward.

  Órlaith took a piece of the bread and dipped it into the salt in the carved wooden bowl, ate the morsel and took the horn, raising it to the four Quarters before pouring out a small libation, taking a sip of the full strong liquor and passing it on; when it came back she drank the last drops and ceremoniously turned it upside-down. Mackenzies would probably have used mead instead, but the ritual was much the same as that of her father’s birth-folk.

  So were Gormall’s words, more or less: “Holy and peace-holy is the guest beneath our roof and on our land,” she said proudly; she was a gaunt woman in her late forties, with graying dark hair. “Keep ye all the geasa of a’ocht, of sacred guest-right, or suffer the anger of the Keeper of Laws and the Wise One.”

  With the formalities out of the way, Diarmuid’s face was intent as he studied hers.

  “So it’s true, then, Orrey?” he said quietly.

  She nodded, and he bit his lip and shook his head. “Och, he was a man in ten thousand, a hundred thousand,” he said. “We bewailed him here when the courier came, but I’d hoped . . .”

  His mother shook her head as well, in disagreement rather than negation. Her voice was somber:

  “Naen wi’ the Sight could hae doubted it. The Earth’s very self wept and keened him, when his blood lay upon it. It weeps yet, and rages, that the sacred King was slain untimely by the weapons of foreign men, and that his life was spilled on the holy eve of life’s beginnings.”

  Órlaith swallowed and nodded. “I’ve no wish to darken your handfasting,” she said. “Or to strain your stores, it being spring”—the hungry season, farthest from the last harvest and before the earth yielded much in the way of crops or garden stuff—“and you having had your own feast to find these past days.”

  Diarmuid smiled a little. “Nae, we’re well-placed for food-stores this year. The first salmon run was very good, and the wildfowl abundant, thanks be tae Modron, and the wild herds are as thick as I’ve ever seen now that they’re moving up tae the high country.”

  Edain nodded, and flicked the string of his bow with a thumb. “We took two elk and a young boar yesterday. Cernunnos was generous; fair ran into us, they did, and us so many and making enough noise to fright the fae. They’re gralloched and slung over a pair of mules, but I’m thinking they’d do more good in your kitchen than over a campfire, if you don’t mind being offered your own, feartaic.”

  That was both true and tactful. The prime cuts would go on the table tonight and however long the Royal party stayed, and the rest would go into the icehouse and help stretch the household’s supplies for days to come.

  “I don’t mind in the least, master-bowman, ye’ve lang had leave tae hunt oor land,” Diarmuid said. “Enter then, a’, and be welcome; the bath-house is heating and the stoves are ready.”

  • • •

  The bagpipes sounded, overpowering within the little hall as the pipers strutted around the inner side of the hollow square the tables made, their plaids swinging as they paced. Behind them solemn youths and maidens carried the platters—mostly grilled salmon brushed with oil infused with garlic, onions and ginger, baked on cedar planks that still smoked and sputtered aromatically. But they were accompanied by roast boar and elk and a smoked bear-ham, baskets of loaves, vegetables in the wicker containers used to steam them, and salads of wild spring greens and much else. Órlaith found herself sniffing at the scents with interest; they’d been many days with nothing but trail rations.

  “Ith gu leòir!” Diarmuid called.

  The pipers downed their drones, the helpers set their burdens within everyone’s reach between the butter-crocks and wheels of cheese, and sat on the benches themselves; the thirty or so diners said their thanks in their various ways. Órlaith drew the Invoking pentagram over her plate and murmured the Blessing.

  “Eat plenty!” Diarmuid added, translating the ritual cry into the common speech.

  His new wife smiled up at him, and his mother fondly at both of them. The older woman had a wistful look to her, probably because she saw her man in her son, and her own youth in her daughter-in-law. Diarmuid himself beamed around with pride.

  He’d seen the splendors of the north at court and on visits; Órlaith thought the better of him that his standards of judgment remained solidly grounded here in the land that had born and nourished him, in his own heimat.

  Her father had picked up that word from one of his companions on the Quest to Nantucket, a Midwesterner called Ingolf the Wanderer by many. Though she’d mostly known him as Uncle Ingolf, since he was married to her father’s half-sister Mary.

  Heimat meant the little homeland of the heart, the patria chica, small and very dear, the place your kin dwelt in a landscape dense with their stories and deeds and where you expected to lay your ashes in turn and your children after you. This was Diarmuid’s however he named it, the house his father and mother had built, the land they tilled to feed him, the river that had sung him to sleep in his cradle, the nemed where he worshipped with his clansfolk and the hills where he’d hunted and dreamed as a boy.

  That didn’t lessen his loyalty to the High Kingdom; if anything, it strengthened it with the strength he drew from deep-rooted heartstrings. Montival was a mosaic of little homelands within the greater, some very strange indeed, but all rightly and greatly beloved by their dwellers.

  And I don’t really have a heimat, she thought a little sadly.

  She didn’t grudge Diarmuid his contentment, even if her heart was still raw; if anything it was comforting. This . . .

  Normal life, she thought. Just . . . life, with its ordinary sorrows and its sweet common joys as one generation follows another.

  . . . was the reason for the Royal kindred’s powers and its burdens. But she was inclined to see the melancholy side of everything just now, and supposed she would be for the natural term of grief.

  Da was a Mackenzie at seventh and last; the dùthchas was his heart-place, Dun Juniper especially. And Mom is an Associate—for her it’s the core of the Protectorate, the Crown’s demesne land around Portland and Todenangst, castle and manor and village. But I’ve traveled all my life. I love those places but they’re not mine in quite the same way. Because everything is, so nothing is. Not in that special fashion.

  The core of Diarmuid’s house was a rectangular hall with a second-story gallery around it. Many of the wedding guests had tactfully—though reluctantly—departed homeward to leave room for the newcomers. Most of the stripped-down numbers of the Royal party were being feasted in the outbuildings where they’d doss for the night. That left room for the ones seated at the trestle tables if they didn’t mind touching elbows. Diarmuid’s kin and retainers were there, and the core of the Royal party and Reiko and her closest advisors of the Nihonjin guests. The spring night in the mountains was cool enough that the low flickering of the log fire on the h
earth was welcome.

  That and the lanterns on the gallery rails cast uneasy light on pillars carved in the shapes of Gods and heroes, walls covered in pelts of wolf and bear and tiger, or with the horns and skulls of beasts preserved to honor their beauty or bravery, or weapons and shields and a few helms and mail-shirts. Equipment in the corners under the overhang—disassembled looms and spinning-wheels and more—showed that this room was used for crafts as well, though mostly during the short days and long nights of winter when snow and rain and mud bound field and forest. Up on the gallery were shelves with several hundred books, some of tales, more of instruction on everything from magic and ritual to how to compost manure, volumes which the feartaic kept but all the neighborhood could consult.

  Órlaith sat at the head table nearest the hearth, in the seat of honor on Diarmuid’s right. That put Reiko and her advisors within hearing distance despite the buzz of conversation, and the fact that it was in another language made it easier to pick things up from what they said. She heard the Imperial Guard commander mutter:

  “Majesty, how do these people manage to avoid eternal constipation, with all the meat they eat?”

  Her folk don’t seem to be vegetarians, or most of them aren’t, but I’m not surprised they look on red meat as an occasional treat, Órlaith thought.

  Heuradys nodded too when she murmured it in English.

  “Not much land to use for pasture,” she said. “Not surprising that they like seafood, either, if they can’t have big herds and they all live close to saltwater.”

  Órlaith looked at the four Japanese leaders and thought of the others in their party. “Notice they’re none of them what you’d be calling big men?” she said. “They’re very fit and they all seem strong, but not one of the men is as tall as you or I—most of them are shorter than Diarmuid, and he’s middling to our eyes. Reiko is what, five-six? And she looks tallish in their company the way you or I do in Montival.”

  “That might be hereditary, like their looks. Height runs in families, sometimes.”

  “To be sure, though both my grandmothers were short women and I’m after being a bit of a tall poppy. But you know how feeding works.”

  They both did; even in generally prosperous Montival there were places where you could trace the history of the last half-century simply by looking at successive generations—the few tall elderly survivors who’d been near adult at the Change and who came of long lines of the well-fed, their shorter children born to grinding want, and then their children and grandchildren inching—literally—back up. It was largely a matter of how long it had taken each to adapt to the new world.

  Heuradys looked at the Nihonjin. “They’re a bit short but not scrawny. On the other hand, they’re nobles or nobles’ retainers where they come from, right? If they live on those little islands you mentioned, maybe even the gentry are used to eating sparely—enough but only just, and not of rich foods.”

  Reiko was deftly using her chopsticks to free a morsel of the salmon fillet before her while the two Montivallans spoke. She and her followers had all chosen the fish, except for one who’d taken a slice from the haunch of the boar and was eating it with relish.

  “This salmon is excellent, General,” she said to the older man who’d grumbled, and ate the morsel with delicate precision. “Different, but not in the least repulsive. And there is plenty of fiber in this bread.”

  She broke a piece from her loaf and nibbled cautiously. Órlaith noticed she was averting her eyes from most of the feasters. Even Mackenzies considered McClintocks a little rowdy at table, though nothing outright disgusting was going on—the Tennarts were tacksmen, after all; this wasn’t a woodsrunner’s single-room cabin twenty miles from the nearest neighbors. No doubt the woodsrunner would consider Diarmuid a trifle citified and sissy, or awesomely sophisticated, because he used a fork and napkin and didn’t chuck gnawed bones directly to his dog.

  “It’s not entirely different from anpan,” Reiko went on; thanks to the Sword Órlaith knew that meant a sort of bread-like dumpling. “No bean-paste filling, of course, and it’s a little sour, but fine if you make an effort. They are providing us with the best they have; it would be ungracious to quibble.”

  Even Reiko was avoiding the cheese and butter, Órlaith noticed. All of the Nihonjin seemed to find dairy products viscerally repulsive. The dried fruit pastries that ended the meal were well-received. Heuradys leaned forward slightly and spoke to Reiko:

  “One of your men seems a little uncomfortable, Your Majesty. Perhaps it’s the chairs?”

  “Which one?” Reiko said.

  “The younger, handsome one.”

  Órlaith looked herself. One of the Japanese was shifting a little when he didn’t focus on it, as if the wool-stuffed leather cushions were rasping something tender and he had to remind himself to sit still.

  And yes, he’s sort of handsome; sort of dashing in fact, all whipcord and that slightly tousled hair despite the odd haircut, and he’s got a nice smile. Younger than the others, too, and a bit less dour. Altogether more pleasant to look at; I wonder why he’s here with the leadership?

  The rest of Reiko’s close associates reminded Órlaith all too much of her father’s advisors, only more so and all men; rather grim middle-aged men at that, of the sort who’d been irritating her for years by refusing to acknowledge that she wasn’t twelve anymore . . . often without realizing they were doing it, which was doubly irritating. A few still expected her to be playing with dolls and chattering about her new pony or goshawk.

  She hadn’t gone through the butting-heads-with-father stage many teenagers did; that seemed to be more of a thing for boys anyway. She had had her quarrels with her mother, though that was years past, and there had been a while when she found both her parents excruciatingly embarrassing. Which was embarrassing and sad too now that she looked back on it.

  But those old men made her sympathize with the boys’ tantrums at times; and she admired the way Reiko seemed to have hers well in hand.

  “Ah, Ishikawa Goru,” Reiko said, giving him a look.

  Suddenly she laughed a little, holding one hand over her mouth as she did; it was the first time Órlaith had seen her lose her solemnity, and it made her look much younger for an instant. Then she spoke in her much-improved but still somewhat shaky English:

  “I will not tell him that you say. He also thinks he is handsome. But he is one sailor, ship captain is not used to be on horseback long time. Sore, neh? Not . . . not so dignified as he like to be.”

  The three young women shared a chuckle; Ishikawa had caught his name, looked up to see their eyes and smiles on him, started to preen and then winced again as straightening his back rubbed the sensitive portions of his thighs and buttocks the wrong way. Then he smiled ruefully himself.

  Yes, quite a charming smile.

  McClintocks had no greater proportion of drunks among them than most folk, despite what Edain might say, but they did drink deep at a wedding feast—or at a wake. After the wine that went with the food on this special occasion, decanters of brandy and fruit cordials and a smoky, potent whiskey were set out, with bowls of nuts and raisins as accompaniment. Órlaith took a glass of the barley spirit and sipped, welcoming the way it put a slight wall between her and the pain.

  After the first toasts, the Yurok she’d noticed rose and stood before Diarmuid. In the ritual of the place he reached out and the head of the household touched his hand; the buzz of speech died down at the sign that someone was to address them all. From behind the chief table the firelight made his craggy brown face a thing of gullies and mysteries. He looked at Órlaith and raised his hand in a gesture of greeting.

  “Hoyeee,” he said, which meant hello in the Yurok language—though in their own tongue they actually called themselves Puliklah, which meant downstream people.

  She would have known that much without the Sword; the Yurok spoke English among themselves for the most part, but they kept the old language alive for ceremony and s
he’d heard it when her parents brought her there.

  “Hoyeee, Segep,” she said. “Hello, Coyote.”

  She wasn’t sure whether his name was her own memory of that visit a decade ago or supplied by the Lady’s gift. It was actually a nickname. The Downstream People had an elaborate system of taboos on what name could be said where and when and by whom, formal names were often limited to use by close kin, and all of them changed names at least once during their lives. Using the right name was important, because the wrong one or the right one in the wrong context could be a mortal insult, extremely bad luck, or both—

  And I suddenly understand how to use the names, she thought. It’s the Sword, sure and it is.

  “Hoyeee, Sun Hair Tall,” he replied, then dropped back into English: “I remember your visit.”

  “You showed me the sea-otters,” she said.

  And smiled slightly at the sudden image of that tumbling playfulness in the waves. That at least was her own and unaided, and she could suddenly recall how she’d run to her parents jumping with the wonder of it.

  “And . . . ayekwee,” he said: the sorrowing farewell to the dead.

  After a moment of silence he went on: “I came because my sister said it was a . . . wise thing that we meet. She is . . . mahrávaan.”

  Órlaith felt a prickle of alarm as that woman came to stand beside her brother. Literally that term meant One Who Hunts, or Tracker. In English, it was most commonly rendered as shaman. Among the Yurok they were almost always female. She must have hunted true, to be here just when the Crown Princess and her folk passed through. There weren’t any heliograph nets in the McClintock dùthchas, and doubly so in the Yurok land; they’d have had to start before the High King’s party met their foes down in Napa to be here now.