Sunrise Lands Page 9

  “Mom says he got a bunch of people he’d known in the Society together, that first day, Conrad Renfrew and the others . . .”

  Odard and Rudi both nodded; a surprisingly large proportion of survivors had been members of the Society for Creative Anachronism and similar groups, and an even larger share of those had ended up in leader ship positions. Enough so that in these latter days social climbers tended to invent Society parents if they didn’t actually have them. Not just in the Protectorate, though that was where they’d been most influential, because of the Armingers.

  For a while they’d been the only ones with weapons that worked, and who knew how to use them. In a world where you had to fight to take food and fight to keep it, a desperate man with hauberk and helm and shield, a sword and some faint beginning idea of what to do with it, had a big advantage over desperate suburbanites with kitchen knives and shovels. Mathilda went on:

  “. . . and after they’d talked about what was happen ing, and Dad had convinced them things weren’t going to Change back and they had to do what he wanted or they’d all die, he said: ‘What if a man were to take it upon himself to be king?’ ”

  Odard grinned, catching the reference; or maybe he’d heard the story before. Even when Rudi was visiting in Association territory, people tended to avoid certain subjects—after all, his blood father, Mike Havel, and Norman Arminger had fought like bulldogs with a grip for ten years and then killed each other in a spectacular duel between the two armies they led, and his mother, Juniper, hadn’t exactly been friendly with the Armingers either, to put it mildly.

  He racked his brains; he’d read a lot of history, particularly of periods well back before the twentieth century—it was fun, and useful, and his teachers had encouraged him, starting with Juniper. Then the fact jiggled into place, along with a memory of his mother and himself curled up on a couch reading a heavy book with a leather cover.

  Ah. That was what Oliver Cromwell said, when he was thinking of taking the throne of England, after he’d killed Charles the First. He never did, though. He just called himself the Lord Prot . . . well, Annwyn take it, was that where that bastard Arminger got the idea?

  Matti went on: “And Count Conrad . . . well, he wasn’t a count then, of course . . . said, ‘Oh, hell, Norman, we’ll just call you the Lord Protector. You can enter an in sanity plea if the lights come back on, and we’ll blame everything on you.’

  “And Dad laughed and said: ‘Lord Protector? I like it. We’ll call ourselves the Portland Protective Associa tion; it’ll sound more familiar to the non Society people I want to bring in. And if the lights come back on, Conrad, I promise to take the fall.’ ”

  “Odd to think of important things starting by chance, like that,” Odard said meditatively. “Though . . . when you’re reading history, have you noticed how the older stuff seems more real, somehow? The people and the things they say and do, I mean. The closer you get to the Change, the more . . . weird . . . things seem. Except things like the Society; my mother’s always on about that and how her father was king of some territory by right of combat. That sounds more like real life. It’s all the stuff around it that doesn’t. Opinion polls, and computers, and Star Trek . . .”

  “The RenFaires, where my mother sang as a bard, they seem to have been pretty normal,” Rudi agreed. “She’ll be talking about them, and it’s perfectly sensible, and then all of a sudden it’s . . . the other stuff around it, like you said. Thinking about it is like trying to grab a live fish with your fingers; it’s not impossible, exactly, but it’s not worth the effort most of the time. And she sees it on my face, and calls me a Changeling.”

  They both gave chuckles of agreement as they followed the sledge through the four-towered gatehouse; they were Changelings, which was the slang term for people born after the world was remade.

  The gates were wide open—it was the middle of the afternoon and peacetime—but Rudi made a reverence with steepled hands and thumbs on chin to the posts on either side; Lugh with his spear, Brigid with her sheaf and flame. There was a pleasant smell of woodsmoke, cooking, animals, infinitely familiar and welcoming.

  Inside the walls didn’t look as tall, since the bottom twelve feet were built into what had been the sides of the plateau, leaving the inner surface level. The ramparts were lined with small log houses, carved and painted with themes from myth or simple fancy, and in the central area were the buildings that served the dwellers here and the Clan at large: bathhouse, smithy, stables, workshops where every craft from glassblowing to hand printing was practiced and taught, granary, infirmary, bad-weather Covenstead, library and schools and more, divided by graveled lanes.

  Just right, he thought affectionately. Not too big like Sutterdown or, Mother-of All help us, Corvallis; but big enough to be interesting, and the woods and fields right there outside.

  A crowd gathered around the sled with the big fir; most of the households had their own Yule Tree, but this was one for the whole dun and all Mackenzies too. Rudi waved to them all and swung down from Epona’s sad dle; half a dozen youngsters sprang forward to take the bridle, and he picked one the mare had shown some liking—or at least tolerance—for. Another proudly bore off his sword belt and quiver and cased longbow.

  The hall itself was the largest building, its shingled roof rearing over the rest like a dragon’s scaly back, green in patches with moss beneath the thickening coat of snow. The foundation had been that hunting lodge, a big log box on knee high fieldstone. Late in the first Change Year the early Mackenzies had doubled its size by the simple expedient of taking off the roof, adding more squared logs, and then putting the roof back, to give two tall stories and a big loft. A veranda and bal cony ran around three sides, supported by pillars made from whole tree trunks.

  Of course, there had been other modifications. . . . The pillars were carved in running knotwork and elongated stylized animals, then stained and painted with browns and golds and greens—anyone these days would recog nize it as Mackenzie work; this was the original that other duns had copied. At either end the roof rafters crossed one another and rose to face inward in gilded spirals, sunwise and widdershins to balance the energies.

  Where the horizontal beams of the balcony jutted out through the pillars they were carved in the shapes of the Clan’s sept totems, the heads of Wolf and Coyote, Raven and Bear and Tiger; the grinning jaws held chains that supported big lanterns wrought of glass and brass and iron. The wicks within were already lit against winter’s gloom, though it was only a little past noon, and they cast pools of warm yellow across painted wood and trampled snow. There was a reason these were called the Black Months.

  The crowd was already freeing the tree from the sledge; they waited for Rudi, though, as he stepped forward to shoulder the heaviest load at the base.

  “The Holly King grows old!” he shouted gaily. “Soon he will fall to the Oak King, and the Sun will be reborn!”

  One of the twins was back at the other end—it had to be a woman there, of course, and an Initiate.

  “The Crone is carrying Winter’s child,” she called. “But He will be born to marry the Maiden!”

  A dozen shoulders took up the tree between them. Someone swung open the big double doors and they dashed up the stairs and into the hall itself. Inside was a great open space the length and breadth of the build ing, the walls carved and painted into a fantasy of leaf and flower and faces out of tales. A tub of water waited at the western end, with a screw and collar arrange ment for holding the Yule Tree upright. He knelt with a grunt—the sapling was as thick as his thigh at the base, and this was going to be tricky. He guided the cut end into the circle with casual strength, then called, “Now!”

  All the hands on the trunk and the forked poles laid ready for the moment were teenaged at least; it was a privilege to help with this. He put his shoulder to it, boughs scraping past his face, buried in softly aromatic green needles, and pushed, taking the strain carefully as he felt the weight come onto the muscles of
his back and belly—that you were very strong didn’t mean you couldn’t put your back out; he’d seen it happen. Rudi had been around heavy weights and their handling all his life; he could sense when it began to tilt as the others pushed. . . .

  “Easy there—Imrim! Get behind it, man!”

  At last the tree was upright in the bath of water, a perfectly symmetrical shape of glossy dark green, the tip between two rafters and just six inches below the floor boards of the second story. Its scent filled the hall as the warmer air coaxed it out, bringing a breath of the spring woods. He knelt again and swiftly spun the screws until they bit into the thick dark furrowed bark and the wood below, then put on the board cover to keep overcurious kittens or puppies or toddlers from falling in or drinking the water. When he stood again, everyone who’d helped raise it stood in a circle around the tree and joined hands, throwing them up three times and whooping.

  “Well, there it is,” Rudi said to the crowd. “Jack-in-the-Green’s little green Jack.”

  Groans and hoots, and people snatched up twigs and bits of bark that had fallen and pelted him with them. He retreated with his arms over his face, begging for mercy in a falsetto voice; then he sprang forward and grabbed two fourteen-year-olds and caught one under each arm, whirling them around with a back-cracking effort.

  When the horseplay was finished he brushed down his jacket and plaid and went to hang them up, checking that his sword and dirk and bow had been placed properly. They had, of course; he touched the long orange yellow stave of yew with its subtle double curve and black walnut riser in the middle, there among the others. He remembered how he’d longed for a proper war bow of his own when he was a kid, practicing at the butts in the meadows below with the rest of his class—Mackenzie education gave the longbow a high priority.

  Well, now he had it, from the hands of Aylward the Archer himself; his own height and a handspan more, a hundred and twenty pounds of draw, throwing a thirty-two-inch shaft at four to the ounce.

  And it’s just as much fun as I thought it would be!

  He turned and saw his mother over by the hearth on the north wall, where the house altar rested over the great fieldstone fireplace and a low blaze of split wood burned down to embers. She waved to him: come.

  Sir Nigel rose as he watched, and intercepted Sir Odard and Matti. “Come, and I shall thrash you at chess, young man,” he said.

  Rudi caught Mathilda’s eye and gave a slight shake of the head, with an apologetic shrug added to it.

  “I’ll kibitz while Nigel beats Odard,” she said, tak ing it with good enough grace; it wasn’t as if she were a stranger to the concept of a state secret, or ever had been. “And then I shall thrash you, Sir Nigel. If you spot me your bishops.”

  That left only Juniper Mackenzie and Ingolf Vogeler in chairs by the hearth set into the northern wall of the hall. He was looking a lot better than he had; the shadow of the Hunter’s wing wasn’t on his brow anymore, but he was still painfully thin, the skin fallen in on the heavy bones. She tucked up the soft blanket of beige wool that was around him and poured a little more of the hot mead that stayed warm in a nook in the wall of the fireplace. He thanked her with a shy smile that sat oddly on the battered warrior’s face.

  Mom’s like that, Rudi thought proudly. She’s everyone’s mother, if they have a good heart and need it.

  He’d complained about that once, when he was young, and she’d told him . . .

  What was it she said? Yes: “Love isn’t like money—the more you give away the more you get back, and the more you have to give.”

  And then she’d laughed and told him she loved him best of all, and he’d been all right again. He came over to the hearth and drew up a chair to sit, sinking into the leather cushions and enjoying the warmth of the flickering blaze.

  “Glad to meet you when I’m in my right mind, more or less,” Vogeler said, offering a hand. After the shake he looked thoughtfully at Rudi’s long form. “Maybe we could spar a bit, when I’m back on my pins . . . I’d like to take the measure of a man who can take down two of the Prophet’s cutters fighting in his underwear, and not get a scratch.”

  Rudi smiled broadly: “I’d like that, Ingolf. They say it’ll be a while, though.”

  Sparring with the same people all the time could get boring—and dangerous. If you fell into a rut and stopped being surprised now and then you stopped learning.

  The hall was returning to normal for a winter after noon near Yule, which meant people sitting around talk ing or reading or telling stories, having a beer together or making plans and arguing . . . but nobody would disturb the Chief and her son at a conversation, and the buzz in the background actually made them more private.

  There was a plate of sandwiches on the table beside Ingolf, some honey-cured ham with cheese, some roast venison; he’d eaten only one, and one of the dried-cherry scones.

  Ingolf grinned as Rudi picked up a sandwich and raised an eyebrow. “Sure. I keep thinking I’m going to wolf down half a cow, and then I get full. You know how it is when you’re getting over something.”

  He nodded, chewing and savoring the rich strong taste of the deer meat; he did know how it was when you were recovering from a fever or a wound. He’d had one about as bad, and on his gut, before he turned eleven.

  After a moment Juniper spoke softly. “If you’re well enough now, Ingolf Vogeler, it’s your story I would have. Of your own will you’re not to blame for what hap pened, but still one of my people is dead, and I must ex plain to an old friend why his daughter was killed in her own home. Also I am the Mackenzie, and the welfare of land and folk is something the Chief must account for at the last.”

  The easterner licked his lips slightly, took a drink of the mead, and spoke:

  “I’m willing to tell you my story,” he said, his eyes fixed on the distance. “Christ be my witness, I owe you folks my life and more. But it’s . . . just so damned strange.”

  His mouth quirked. “Always told myself I was a practical type. But this has got weird stuff in it . . . would you believe a voice I heard in dreams sent me here?”

  Juniper Mackenzie laughed, a clear peal. “Oh, Ingolf, you’ve come to the one place in all the world for that to be believed—though in truth, I might have thought you wandering in your wits if I hadn’t had independent confirmation of some of it.”

  “And I haven’t had the dream since I arrived. And by God, I’m thankful for that!”

  Juniper nodded. “The Powers are at work here, but it isn’t the first time they’ve touched my life, so ... or Rudi’s.”

  He gave a shy duck of the head. “Well, it’s like this . . . the start’s ordinary enough. After the war with the Sioux, I didn’t want to end up a hired soldier, but there didn’t seem to be much else I could do except get work as a farmhand. Not that I’m above any honest work; sheriffs from the Free Republic of Richland aren’t so high and mighty that we never touch a pitchfork or a plow handle, not like some folk I could name but won’t, like those arrogant bastards over to Marshall.”

  “Not welcome back home?” Rudi asked sympathetically. That would be a terrible thing.

  “Not without more crawling than I could stomach,” Ingolf said grimly. Then his tone became matter of-fact.

  “So some friends and I who’d fought together in the war, we got into the salvage business. Not steel and glass and stuff like everyone gets from the nearest ruins; that’s low-value, and it’s pretty tightly tied up most places too; you can’t just go in and start mining. Not anywhere close enough to market that the cost of hauling wouldn’t kill you.”

  “Yes, we have agreements on who can claim what here, as well,” Juniper said encouragingly. “And there’s more than enough steel and brass and aluminum and so forth, and will be for many an age. So as you say, it’s cheap in most places.”

  Ingolf went on, his voice growing a bit more animated as he relived his great idea:

  “What we went after was really valuable things—gold and silver, j
ewels, artwork that was famous before the Change, watches, machine tools that can be rerigged to run off water power, telescopes and binoculars . . . the sort of thing that’s been worked out of places near to areas that still have people. Well, out east where I come from, that means going farther east, if you want to get somewhere unclaimed. East and south, down into the dead lands, past Chicago. I hear there are villages and farms up in parts of the Appalachians, but in the low lands from the old Illinois line to the Atlantic it’s . . . it’s still real bad.”

  Rudi and his mother nodded. They’d heard the same from California, where a few explorers had gone lately, and similar things about Europe from Nigel and others. Nearly everywhere in thick settled lands the streams of refugees from the great cities had overlapped one an other; they’d eaten the land bare and then died. Except those who took to living off man’s flesh, but that was a losing game in the long run, with the fate of the Kilkenny cats at the end of it. A few of the luckiest lived until the rabbits bred back.

  Some of those little groups of grisly predators barely had speech or fire, since they’d started with feral children run wild during the chaos. They were primitive in a way no human savages had ever been before, without the great store of knowledge and skill real wilderness dwellers had. And they still ate men, when they could.

  “So . . . we’d gotten a few good hauls, better as we went farther east, but the problem was that money . . . well, you can rent a room and buy your beer with cash, but if you want to make a life, you need to have a place where you’re welcome to settle as something more than a laborer, and that’s not so easy. Most places aren’t too open to outsiders buying land, and without you’re pro tected by law all you’ve got is what you can carry in your saddlebags while you fight off all comers, and a man has to sleep sometime.”