One of the warehouses was empty save for a few long bundles of steel rebar against one wall, wired together and waiting to be delivered to some smithy or forge, and an assortment of battered practice weapons hung on hooks. Even here the support columns and rafters had been surface carved in a design of stylized leaves and branches, with whimsical faces peering out here and there. An elephant headed godlet sat on a flower in a niche by the door, some protective spirit of commerce.
The dry dirt floor was broad and empty, and a dozen Mackenzies were using it for sparring; this weather was a bit much for even the Clan's longbowmen to practice their archery outside. Eight men and four women were at work, leaping and shouting in the active, foining Mackenzie blade style as they thrust and cut with short swords of padded wood or battle spears with rub ber blades and butt caps. Dull thunk sounds echoed as metal bucklers stopped blows, and occasionally a louder thwack and a yelp as one went home.
Ignatius hung up his sword belt, pulled off his robe and drew his longsword. Beneath the monastic garment he was dressed in plain pants and tunic of undyed hod den gray wool, a bit chilly in this weather, but good for soaking up sweat.
Then he began a series of forms, slowly at first to stretch and warm muscle and tendon, then faster and faster-singlehand, the two-handed style derived from old Japanese models, and then with a shield on his left arm. Soon the cloven air was hissing beneath the sharp steel as it swung in glittering arcs, his sharp barking hai! cutting through the clamor.
"Come for a rest from prayer, Father?" a big Mackenzie with a dark beard said, as the cleric stopped to shake out his arm and take a drink of water from the bucket on one of the wooden pillars.
Ignatius laughed. "It's my duty to keep my skills sharp, Cethern," he said; he knew the man, a wagoner by trade. "Prayer is a monk's rest, our joy."
For a moment he was pierced by longing for the beau tiful ancient discipline of the hours behind Mount Angel's walls, the sound of chant and bells and silence that was like a singing itself as the mind and heart turned wholly towards God.
Take up your cross, he told himself. Each of us must. Give me strength, O Lord, that I may carry mine to heaven ' s gate.
"Still, any skill can be an offering to God," he said to the clansman. "Care for a bout?"
And physical activity helped the mind relax. It would be some time before he could probe deeper into the dangerous mystery of the stranger from out of the east.
DUN JUNIPER,
I'm dreaming, Ingolf Vogeler knew. By moonlight. Three women in dark hooded robes stood at the foot of his bed. The one in the center threw back her cowl; cool light fell across her and touched the silver crescent on her brow and the red hair that tumbled across the shoulders of her robe. She raised her hands, palms open as if to cup the opalescent glow, her lips curved in a smile of infinite compassion. Her voice was soft as she sang; somewhere a bell chimed quietly in time to the tune:
Come to me, Lord and Lady
Heal this spirit, heal this soul
Come to me, Lord and Lady
Mind and body shall be whole!
Beast of the burning sunlight
Sear this wound that pain may cease
Mistress of the silver moonlight
Hold us fast and bring us peace Come to me, Lord and Lady
Mind and body shall be whole!
"Mom?" he murmured weakly, though he knew she wasn't.
A hand touched his forehead. "Always, my darling one. Sleep now, and heal."
Darkness.
Dun Juniper, illamette Valley, Oregon
December 6, CY22/2020 A.D.
"Where am I?" Ingolf asked, as his eyes blinked open.
It's been a while, he knew.
There were vague memories of heat and pain and movement, of struggling for each breath as if his lungs were full of hot sticky syrup, of voices and faces and things half-seen in dreams. His head being raised and something salty spooned into his mouth, of voices chanting and more pain, a deep stabbing ache on his left side.
Everything seemed to be very distant and remote, and he was exhausted, as if he'd worked all day rather than just woken up, but he was more himself this time. He looked at his right hand; it was resting on a clean sheet of beige linen, with a checked blanket of soft wool be neath that and a pillow under his head. His arm was thin, thinner than he could ever remember it being, and his whole body felt heavy, as if his skin had been taken off and replaced by lead.
A face leaned over him. A woman's face, with a thick braid of grizzled black hair and a bold beak of a nose in a strong-boned face that had aged well; there was no re semblance in looks, but she reminded him of his mother. Her hair smelled of some herbal wash; the room of soap and warm fir wood and sweet cedarlike incense.
"You're in Dun Juniper," she said. "I'm a healer; my name is Judy Barstow Mackenzie, and I'm looking after you. You've been very sick; your wound became infected when you were moved, and you developed pneumonia as well and nearly died. We've saved the arm and you will heal. Now drink this."
Her hand came behind his head, and he put his lips to the cup she held. It was chicken broth, hot and good but not too hot to swallow, and as he did he could feel how empty he was within.
"I have to…" He stopped, embarrassed, conscious of his full bladder, and even more of the implications of the heavy cloth pad around his hips like a giant diaper.
She smiled then. "I'm a mother and a healer and fifty two years old; there's nothing that'll surprise me, my lad. Here."
She helped him use a bedpan, and then pulled the blankets back up. "Rest now."
He woke and ate and slept, woke and ate and slept, conscious only of the body's needs.
When he came fully to himself again it was daylight, though dim, and his head was altogether clear, although he still felt no impulse to move. He was in a room not much bigger than the bed; it had a small brick hearth with a little iron door to close on the flame, and a wicker basket of split wood beside it, and a table with jugs and a basin and bottles. Aromatic steam smelling of pine and herbs jetted softly from a kettle on the hearth; a window with four panes of glass let in some light-snow was fall ing against it, but he was comfortably warm, and streaks of moisture trickled down the fogged glass. Bands of carving ran horizontally across walls of smooth fitted plank, leaves and sinuous elongated gripping beasts; the floor was brown tile.
There was a consciousness of potential pain in his left arm, but no actual hurt; he spread and closed his hands several times. The hush of snowfall was in the air, but he could hear faint noises-the familiar thock… thock of an ax splitting wood, the thump of looms, the voices of children playing, the ting… ting… ting
… of someone beating iron in a smithy. By the noise he judged he was in the second story of a building with thick log walls, and one in a settlement of some size but not a city or even a town.
Right across from him on the wall was a picture, made by carving a slab of wood and then painting to bring out the low relief. It was of a woman robed and mantled in blue, but he didn't think it was the Virgin Mary; for one thing she carried a flame in one hand and a sheaf of wheat in the other, and she was standing on stars and wearing the crescent moon as a crown. The carving was very fine; he could see the tenderness in her smile…
More important, his shete and dagger and tomahawk were standing in a bundle beside the door, wrapped about with his weapons belt, although he couldn't have lifted them to save his life right now. His own rosary and crucifix hung from the bedpost. Whatever he was, he wasn't a prisoner here. There was water on the table, but he couldn't reach it. He croaked out a call, and the door opened and a head came in.