The rancher's wife smiled as the newcomers loaded their plates with flapjacks and huevos rancheros and bacon and sausage and buttered muffins and toast from the lamp-warmed hot plates on the buffet. There was a-small-jar of maple syrup on the table as well. Rudi used it sparingly; the stuff had to be imported from the Willamette, and he suspected that its presence was in honor of the guests in general and of him specifically.
Everything was still good; he murmured the invocation and pitched in. Mrs. Brown smiled at him.
"You always were a good eater, Rudi. It's a pleasure to see a young man enjoy his food."
He grinned back at her; after crossing the still-frigid Cascades on foot and living mostly on hardtack and jerky while he did it, he certainly was going to enjoy a meal like this. Ingolf and Edain were putting it away with methodical pleasure too.
"It's a pleasure for a young man to eat it, too, Aunt Mabel." Then to the rancher: "I notice Bob isn't here."
Brown nodded at the mention of his eldest son, born before the Change.
"The boy's out getting a horse herd ready to drive east. Saddle-broke, young 'uns four to six. 'Bout a hundred and a bit."
Then he shook his head. "The boy?" He made a tsk sound and gave a rueful chuckle. "I'm gettin' old. Bob has a boy of his own who'll start shavin' in a year or three."
Rudi raised a brow. "Taking a herd east? Boise?"
Brown smiled slowly. "Well, maybe. Maybe not, too. General Thurston in Boise is paying pretty good for saddle-broke four-year-olds…"
"But New Deseret is paying even better?"
"Reckon. Leastways that's what their man promised; their war with this Prophet fella isn't going so well. And the Saints generally keep a bargain once they've made it. Can't always say that about Thurston, if he gets a hair up it about how you're in the way of his restorin' the US of A, which to his way of thinking means truckling to him."
A glint of anger showed through Brown's facade. "And this Prophet bastard out Montana way, he sent a man around not too long ago, tellin' us not to help Deseret, tellin' us like we were his hired hands. Talked trash to some of our people in secret, too, preachin' and tryin' to set them against their Ranchers."
And it's sure Rancher Brown is a bit ticked, if he's sell ing that many horses, potential breeding mares as well as geldings… Rudi thought.
"What did you do?" the young Mackenzie asked, using the plural to mean the leaders of the CORA.
"Told him to stop. When he didn't… well, we give him what he asked for."
"Which was?" Rudi said, willingly playing straight man to the grim oldster.
"He asked for earth and water. Said it was symbolic, a way of acknowledging we'd take his Prophet for bossman and that everythin' here would obey him."
"So you gave him earth and water?"
"Plenty of both down at the bottom of that old well, I'd say. After we dropped him in headfirst."
Odard laughed outright, and made as if to applaud. Everyone else at least smiled, except Mrs. Brown, who winced a little. Rudi didn't find it particularly humorous, but he wasn't unduly shocked either. An ambassador who tried to play politics against his hosts that way for feited protection and could expect to get a spy's treatment. Brown went on:
"After that, we decided we'd sell New Deseret anything they could pay for. The Saints' money spends as good as anyone's; they're good neighbors from all I hear-better than Boise. If they use what we sell 'em to keep this Prophet busy out Montana way, the more power to them."
"And we're heading east, ourselves," Rudi said. What did Aunt Judy say… He remembered, and muttered it: "Gevalt!"
"Figured you were," Brown said. "Even if your sisters didn't say much. Well, I got that letter from your mother, and more I don't need to know."
He nodded towards the twins, who smiled with identical smugness.
One of them said, "We picked up all the gear we'll need in Bend, too. A big wagon, tents, extra weapons, and everything else, paid for out of the Dunedain account at the First National branch there."
"So if you were to head east with the herd…" Brown said delicately. "Well, that would be a help to Bob and the boys, a whole bunch more blades and bows. Comin' back, that won't be so hard; they can move faster."
And we'll be on our way, Rudi thought. A little rest and a good meal brought the excitement bubbling back and forced down homesickness. On our way to the Atlantic!
"It's a favor, and that's a fact," Rudi said, and leaned over to shake Brown's hand again, to seal the bargain this time.
After that the Browns tactfully left. Rudi looked around the knot of his relatives and friends and almost-friends and sighed.
"All right, first things first, then," he said. "You all want to come with me?"
A chorus of nods. Rudi went on:
"We'll be going a long hard dangerous way, then. Someone has to be in charge, and that one is me. This is not some game; I have to get to this Nantucket place. Ingolf I need for a guide, and because he's got the expe rience, sure. Everyone else is there to help us get there and back again. All that means I'm in command, and Ingolf is my number two. Do you understand what I'm saying, now?"
"Yah," Ingolf said. "In rough country, there's got to be discipline, by God." A grin. "And besides, you're young but you learn quick."
The twins nodded-in chorus. By the Threefold Morrigu, am I going to be able to take having them in my sporran for a whole year? Rudi thought ruefully.
Odard shrugged. "You're better qualified for it than me," he said cheerfully. "Ingolf is too. If I'm going to do something this crazy, I want it to work, by Mary and all the saints."
"Good," Rudi said, ignoring his own doubts-half the battle was sounding confident. "The next thing to re member is that everyone pitches in. Nobody's a nobleman on this trip… or we all are, whichever. Right?"
Odard's nod was a little slower still this time; Rudi judged that he hadn't considered all the implications of Adventure, particularly the part about scrubbing out pots with sand and latrine detail.
"And Odard, your man there isn't going to do your share of the chores, either."
The slanted blue eyes blinked at him. "But of course, Rudi."
Castle Todenangst,
Willamette Valley Near Newberg,
Oregon May 6, CY23/2021 A.D.
Juniper Mackenzie spread her hands. "Your message was the first I knew of it, Sandra."
They weren't exactly friends, but then they weren't exactly enemies anymore either, and they had known each other a long time now. She made a gesture.
"By the Ever-Changing One, by the Maiden, the Mother and the Hag, I swear it. May She turn her face and heart from me if I lie. I didn't even suspect it. Nei ther did Rudi, as far as I know-and he doesn't lie to me. According to the message John Brown sent me, Rudi was surprised himself when he showed up at Seffridge Ranch and found Mathilda there, the creature."
Across the polished malachite of the table, the shoulders of Portland's ruler slumped a touch.
"I believe you," she said quietly, and laid her fingers on an open letter. "That's what Mathilda says… and she doesn't lie to me. I almost wish I didn't believe you. Then I'd have someone to be angry with. Besides that little idiot herself!"
Her fist tightened on the lustrous green stone. It was a small fist; they were both petite women. The force behind it was nothing to sneer at, though; Tiphaine d'Ath and Conrad Renfrew flanked her on either side, symbols of the power that awaited that subtle mind's orders.
"And I can't even send an army to bring her back," Sandra said bitterly. "It's too late. Any force big enough would be too slow, and any fast enough would just make her conspicuous without being big enough to protect her."