"Then let's get going!"
"After you, Chief," Ingolf said with a smile.
Rudi did scowl at him; then they set their faces east ward and walked into the forests and towards the peaks that walled the world.
Chapter Eleven
County Odell,
Hood Valley, Northern Oregon
Portland Protective Association
April 17, CY23/2021 A.D.
"It really is worth coming here for the blossom time," Mathilda Arminger said wistfully, taking a deep breath of the cool morning air. "Too bad we have to leave right away."
This had always been fruit country, and still was; neat orchards mantled the rolling floor of the valley on every side, apple and cherry and pear, a froth of cream and pink and white, the scent as intoxicating as cool wine. Petals fell in drifts from the trees on either side of the road to catch in her hat and hair and the russet-brown suede leather of her jerkin, and there was a deep murmur of bees amid the blossoms.
The great white cone of Mount Hood hung in the sky to the south, looming over the valley that ran north to the Columbia Gorge. The cream of its summit was tinged with a little pink from the rising sun. It looked a bit odd to see the snowpeak there, even though this was far from her first visit to the chancellor's home fief-in Portland and the Willamette you saw the mountain from the west.
The ferroconcrete bulk of Castle Odell on Lenz Butte behind them was two years younger than Mathilda, but the bright white-stucco mass might have loomed there for generations, with banners flying from the high turrets and terraced gardens falling from the outer edge of the moat to the valley floor. Odell Town huddled at its base as if for protection, its churches and dwellings and workshops mostly red-tiled and built since the Change; a half finished cathedral in the fashionable Cypriot Gothic style was already the tallest building in it.
Steep forested hills rose green and blue with distance on either side, and Middle Mountain a few miles south separated the lower valley from the upper. A few fleecy clouds floated overhead, and the air was busy with birds journeying north. The road their horses trod came out through the town's western gate and followed the old Union Pacific. Trains of ox drawn cars went by north ward on the steel rails, mostly with barrels of fruit brandies and cordials, apple vinegar and honey mead; south the return cargoes were grain and wool from the count's vassals in Grass and Tygh valleys.
As the road and rail turned west and then south they passed manors and villages and even a few isolated farms-the latter very rare in Association territory, and a sign of long peace. Peasants cutting hay in a riverside meadow paused to wave their straw hats; a friar on foot told his beads as he walked and raised a hand in blessing as they passed; once a raggedy-gaudy troubadour with a lute slung over his back doffed his cap and bowed as they rode by. A little later a half dozen mounted crossbowmen on road patrol saluted smartly.
And now we have to figure out how to get rid of Lady Catherine, she thought as she returned the gesture with a wave of her riding crop.
As princess she was exempt from most of the usual rules, but Catherine was young-daughter of one of the Countess of Odell's ladies-in-waiting-and took her duties as chaperone seriously, sitting primly on her pal frey in her modest divided skirt and leggings. Her lips were compressed; it had taken a direct order to stop her hauling along a round dozen mounted attendants and guards. Mathilda's own mouth quirked.
Chaperone, indeed! As if I couldn't kick up my heels anytime I wanted! And Odard would be happy to cooperate-he isn't a pest about it, but you can tell. There's no real guard against impurity but determination.
The hills closed in on either side as the way turned south and closed with the Hood River, brawling and leaping white over rocks with spring's snowmelt. A roadside shrine caught her eye, a miniature carved wooden shed above a saint's image. It was a naked man with one hand on his chest and the other holding a cross.
Saint Dismas, she thought, the thief who'd been cruci fied at the side of Jesus. The one who repented, that is. Patron saint of criminals who've gone respectable.
Conrad Renfrew wasn't openly old fashioned, but he had an odd sense of humor she'd noticed sometimes in those who'd been adults before the Change. It was just like him to find a special devotion to that particular member of the calendar.
"Let's stop and ask the saint's help," Mathilda said.
That was always a safe thing to suggest, and in this case she really wanted it as well. They reined in and dismounted; Odard gallantly gave her a hand down, which was sort of superfluous-Catherine was the one who might actually need it. As he did he whispered, "I'll fix her saddle to slip off when she remounts. She couldn't ride a rocking horse bareback and she won't notice until it's too late. Then we can just gallop away and she'll have to walk back to the castle."
Mathilda nodded unhappily; the count wasn't at home, but his lady and his eldest son were, and they'd smell a rat as soon as Catherine got back to town, and couriers would start galloping in every direction and heliograph messages would fly to the outposts all around. It would be touch and go whether she and Odard could make it south to the border before a conroi of lancers caught up to "escort" her home… and there would be hell to pay from her mother.
The three young nobles tied their horses to the hitching rail, dropped a few copper coins in the box and lit the small tapers provided, planting them before the image. Then they knelt on the dense green turf, signing themselves, kissing their crucifixes and taking up their rosaries. Mathilda continued with silent intensity as they all bowed their heads in prayer:
Saint Dismas, patron of the repentant, I am not sure that what I plan to do is right, and I am torn between my duties. I know I should obey my mother, but God has called me to guard the folk. I can see no other way than this to best fulfill my oaths and help my friend in this task, and so do what is best for both our peoples. If I do wrong, misled by my rebellious heart, help me to repent. May God bless this quest and my companions on this road. Saint Dismas, teach me the words to say to Our Lord to gain pardon and the grace of perseverance; and you who are so close to Him now in heaven, as you were during His last moments on earth, pray to Him for me that I shall never again desert Him, but that at the close of my life I may hear from Him the words He addressed to you: "This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise."
As Mathilda stood and brushed off her knees she heard a quick beat of hooves from the northward. She looked up in alarm, a hand going to her sword hilt, but it was a single rider leading a pair of packhorses.
As he came closer she could see that it was a monk with his dark robe kirted up over practical looking deerskin pants and stout riding boots; a telltale chink and shift hinted at a short mail shirt beneath the coarse dark robe. A longsword and dagger hung from his belt, be side a steel crucifix and a rosary of maple-wood beads, and a bowcase and quiver rode at his saddlebow. One of the led horses had a four-foot shield strapped to its packsaddle.
The canvas cover was still on that, but she suspected she knew what it would show: a raven over a cross. And his face was vaguely familiar…
"Knight brother of the Order of the Shield of Saint Benedict," Odard said quietly, agreeing with her unspo ken thought. "Not the worst possible news. He won't be reporting to the Regent, or Cardinal-Archbishop Maxwell. But they're an independent-minded bunch."
Mathilda nodded. The Benedictine monastery at Mount Angel had come through the Change on its own and had been a rallying point for resistance to the Portland Protective Association and its then-schismatic Church. Mount Angel and the Protectorate both sent delegates to the Meeting at Corvallis these days, but there was still a lingering suspicion. And she knew that her mother resented the influence of the Order's mis sions and daughter houses in the interior and the far south.