One of the Mackenzies leveled his spear and prodded the air six feet in front of the Sutterdown man with a growl. The bright whetted steel and the tone stopped the cleric as if the point had been at his chest. The spearman spoke: "That's Lady Juniper, to you! The Mackenzie gave you your titles! Show some manners, cowan. You're on our land."
Juniper held out her hand soothingly, making a patting motion at the air. "Ray, let's be tactful. Manners work both ways."
Then she turned back to the Sutterdown leadership; as she did so she stripped the glove off her right hand. One of the flaps from a burst blister had been bothering her. She bit it off and spat it aside, then caught the odd looks directed at her.
"We're just finishing up our harvest?" she explained, puzzled. The Sutterdown folk would be too.
"You're harvesting, personally?" Sheriff Laughton said. "Lady Juniper," he added hastily as the guards scowled.
"I'm the clan's leader by the clan's choice," she said shortly. And to Anwyn with your stupid rumors about the Witch Queen.
Aloud she went on: "I'm not their master. Everyone takes a turn at the hard work here. And what brings you here on this fine day, with all your people?"
Dixon took a deep breath. From what she'd heard, he was the driving force who'd held Sutterdown together, persuaded and shamed and tongue-lashed and sometimes outright forced people into cooperating and doing what was necessary; a strong man, if not a good one, and very shrewd. The fact that he was here asking for help showed that.
"We were attacked," he said bluntly. "Not by the ordinary sort of trash, road people and Eaters-we could deal with them. By about a hundred men, organized, with good weapons-much better than ours."
All three flicked their eyes to the improvised militia among the crowd on the road, and then to the near-uniform, purpose-made equipment the Mackenzie warriors carried.
Dixon cleared his throat and continued: "They hit us just before dawn, killed six of our people who tried to resist, ran us out of town. They claim-their leaders claim-to be from Portland and say they've come to settle and govern the area, and they made demands."
"Demanded that we give them a third of our crops, and every family send someone to work for them one day in three!" Sheriff Laughton said indignantly.
The doctor took up the tale: "Said they'll burn the town and all the farms if we don't obey! They say they work for… what was it, the Portland Protective Association? And said their leader is the baron of this area."
"The Protector, that was who they talked about mostly," Dixon said. "Perhaps. ah, we should have taken your warnings about this Protector more seriously. But we didn't expect anything this early in the year."
Neither did I, Juniper thought, feeling an inner chill. But farmers are most vulnerable when the crops are ripe. A band of Eaters would be less of a threat.
Eaters tended to be self-destructive and usually more than half mad, and they also died of disease faster than anyone else, naturally enough-a case of catching whatever you ate had. They were like wildfire: hideously dangerous, but inclined to burn itself out quickly.
"We need your help… Lady Juniper," Dixon said.
The last came out as if he had to force it; for herself, she didn't care, but she couldn't let an outsider scorn or disrespect the clan. Reputation mattered these days; it might be the margin between being left in peace and attacked.
"I'll need to talk this over with my advisors, and put it to the clan's vote," she said. "I'd be inclined to help you, gentlemen; it's what neighbors do, and these people are likely to be a threat to us, too. But the plague… you understand why we've been very isolated since the outbreak."
The doctor spoke: "None of our people have the plague," he said, and the others nodded vigorously. "I swear it."
He looked around. "I can… I can reassure you on that, Lady Juniper. If we could talk privately."
Decision firmed. "That's as it may be. I'll have to ask you to scrub down and change clothing at least, before we can go up to the Hall. Ray, show them where."
They'd got the bathrooms in the old Carson place functioning, if you didn't mind hand-pumping and toting wood for heating.
"It shouldn't take long."
"Yes, Lady Juniper," he said, scowling and signaling them towards the farmhouse with the point of his spear.
"And Ray?"
He looked at her, then flushed and hung his head when she shook an admonishing finger; his face looked very young then.
"Be polite. And see that drinking water's brought out for all these folk and their beasts; they're our neighbors and friends, not our enemies. Aithnitear car?cruat? a friend is known in hardship. Threefold, remember?"
When the Sutterdown men had gone, Juniper turned to her escort; Cynthia had the best horse and was the best rider besides.
"I want… Judy, Chuck, Dennis, Diana, your father, and Sam, ready for a private conference at the Hall, and fast," she said.
She looked out at the fresh refugees. Curse it, these are people who were doing all right until today! They had crops harvested, they were going to make it!
"And tell Diana to throw together what ready food we can spare, load a wagon and have it brought down here- we can push it out to them. Eternal Soup ought to do, and maybe some bread and dried fruit. Git, girl!"
Cynthia left in a thunder of hooves. Juniper spent the time pacing and thinking, and once sent out a rider with more orders. Other members of the clan trickled in to take over making sure that the people of Sutterdown didn't surge past the notional line that marked the boundary, and the scouts went back about their business. One emergency didn't mean that another might not pop up.
When the three Sutterdown leaders came out they were in plain dark sweatsuits, though Dixon still grasped his Bible. The wagon arrived promptly at about the same time; Diana had probably diverted something meant for the harvesters, or a party of herd-watchers.
Juniper turned to the men: "We'd like to leave the food on the road, and then have your people share it out. It's not much, but… "
"Thank you very kindly," Laughton said, sincerely.
After the spring and summer past, giving away food was something people took seriously. Even Dixon nodded. He'd been accused of many things, but never of taking more than his share, or letting anyone under his authority do so either.
"And if you'll follow me?"
They perched in the buckboard, one of the ones her clansfolk had liberated from a tourist attraction; it was odd how long that idea had taken to spread. Juniper took the reins and flicked them on the backs of the team. She took the long way round-the fewer people who knew about the other way up from the back of the old Fairfax place, the better.
She could feel them gawking as she drove past the mill, working now and roofed, although the walls were still going up; past the truck plots and potato fields and watering furrow; past haystacks, past archers practicing on deer-shaped targets and others who used sword and buckler on posts or wooden blades on each other; past a hunter, coming in with a brace of deer slung across the packhorse that walked behind her jaunty bow-crossed shoulder.
The Mackenzie clachan, she thought wryly. I wonder what Great-uncle Earl would think of it now-that respectable small-town banker, who left the place to me, of all people? Or any of the other Mackenzies?
Such a trail of their generations, in the Old Country and the long drift westward over mountain and forest, prairie and river. Bad and wicked, a few, feud-carriers and cattle-lifters. Some heroes-her favorites were the two sisters who'd been lynched in North Carolina for helping the Underground Railroad. A scattering of backwoods granny-witches and cunning-men, as well. Plain dirt farmers, the most of them, down all their patient plowing centuries- living in the homes they built and eating from the fields they tilled, until they laid their toil-worn bodies to rest in earth's embrace.