The Bear Lord was weeping. His voice was hoarse as he folded the boy into an embrace and spoke: "My son, my son!"
And everyone heard that, too, she thought. Oh, Powers, what have You done to us? After a moment: And what song is it that You are playing this time, with us as Your instruments?
"OK, this time you fucked up, Signe. Bad. Really, really bad."
Signe's face was still pale under its honey tan, and she was silent for long moments.
The guesthouse had been a bed-and-breakfast before the Change; even within the new wall, Sutterdown still had plenty of room, and the four-poster bed and flock wallpaper were pretty enough. There wasn't room enough to pace, though, so he went and looked out the window ahead. There was plenty of light in the crowded streets below, even though it was an hour after the late summer sunset-lantern- and candlelight from windows, torches, and southward, on its hilltop, the balefire boomed and danced behind the black outlines of the covenstead's pillars, and he could see figures dance about it under a thutter of drums.
"Mike: Juney said: "
He turned. "Yeah. She thinks Big JuJu made you do it, though only because you wanted to at some level anyway. But you know something, Signe? Smart as she is other times, when that subject comes up Juney is fucking crazy. Like you hadn't noticed? I seem to remember you saying so yourself. And second thing, I don't believe in Big JuJu."
"I'm sorry," she said, in a small voice.
"Sorry doesn't cut it. You tried to kill a kid-my kid, specifically, but there's a matter of principle involved, and you should have noticed that too. I'm telling you now, Signe, that if you want us to stay together, you never, ever try anything even remotely like this again. Got it?"
She nodded, and he went on: "It's late. Let's sleep." A wry quirk of the lips. "The Protector's man is arriving tomorrow, to talk about Arminger's kid."
Chapter Twenty-One
Sutterdown, Willamette Valley, Oregon
August 24th, 2007 AD-Change Year Nine
Juniper received the Protector's ambassador in Sutterdown's town hall, which had once-long before the Change-been a church; the broad high-ceilinged room that had been the nave was usually used for public meetings these days, plus dances and sundry social events; banners and wheat sheaves and horns-of-plenty on the walls remained from the last such. His party carried a flag of truce, and in any event the horse fair itself was peace-holy, sacred to Epona and sanctuary for all but those formally outlawed.
Which Eddie Liu should be. And we're in for a blizzard of formality, Juniper thought. Then: Sacred to Epona:
She shivered slightly at that thought and instead watched Eddie Liu approach, the boots of his party sounding hollow on the hardwood floorboards. Mackenzies with bows across their backs and spears grounded before them waited silent and motionless along either side of the aisle, looking a little strange in the Victorian-era room with its plastered roof and tall arched windows, and a mixed crowd waited behind them. Tom Brannigan sat beside her, and Sam Aylward on the other side; Mike and Signe Havel were at one end of the table, Mathilda Arminger at the other, and the Clan's banner of antlers and moon hung on the wall behind. Conspicuously, the Clan's Bearkiller allies had their sheathed swords lying on the table before them; equally, the ambassadors were unarmed-even Mack, Liu's giant two-legged Doberman, though he could probably pluck a normal man apart. From the crowd behind the Clan's spearmen, she could see Little John Hordle giving the massive figure of the bodyguard a considering glance.
Juniper glanced at the half-dozen following Liu and Mack, tramping stolidly in a column of twos. They were supposedly servants, clerks and attendants, but they all had the broad-shouldered, thick-wristed build of men who swung swords for hours every day, and from their slightly rolling walk they rode just as often. Hard-faced young men, wary and silent, their eyes flicking across the faces around them in unfriendly appraisal. She was reminded of nothing so much as a group of large, silent, hungry and not-very-sweet-natured cats.
Protectorate knights, she thought. Too young to have been among the SCA re-creationists or gangbangers or university students who'd made up Arminger's earliest cadre, but certainly their younger siblings, and those of their friends and retainers.
And more dangerous than the first set, this younger generation. They're not just thugs. Which doesn't mean they aren't thugs, too.
"Lady Juniper, my master Norman Arminger, the Lord Protector of the Portland Protective Association and liege lord of its dependencies, sends his greetings," Eddie Liu said formally. That sort of thing always sounded a little strange in his Brooklyn accent. "I speak in his name and with his voice."
Equally formally, he went to one knee, removed his silver-banded hat and bowed his head, and so did his followers, in unservantlike unison. Several of them also made an unconscious gesture with their left hand and foot, to move nonexistent sword sheaths out of the way. Kneeling was Protectorate protocol, and they had to show the same respect for a foreign head of state that he would for a public audience with the Lord Protector.
"As I speak for the Clan Mackenzie, being Chief of the Clan by the Clan's choice, and I send my greetings to him through you, Baron Liu," Juniper said coldly.
I'd really like to send a spear through the both of you, you little weasel, she thought, but did not let it show.
"I acknowledge you as his ambassador. So long as you and yours don't break my peace, you are safe." She allowed herself a chilly smile. "And if you do break it, I will kill you." Then she leaned forward a little. "All right, my lord of Gervais, what is your message?"
"The Lord Protector wants his daughter back, of course," Liu said. "He sent me because you didn't answer your mail. And he wants me to check on her."
"Returning her is going to take more than a request," Juniper said dryly. The girl's face was white and strained.
"The Lord Protector protests at your breaking the laws of war, and the truce agreed in Change Year Four," Liu went on doggedly.
He ignored the snicker of laughter from the audience, and Havel 's audible snort. So did Juniper.
"I've protested border violations by Protectorate nobles and border commanders rather frequently," she said, and paused for a second to let Not least by you, Eddie Liu, Marchwarden and Baron Gervais come through without the need for words. "But that's ground we've covered before."
To her surprise, Liu nodded. "Yeah, Lady Juniper, the Protector thought you might see it that way. He also wants me to check that Princess Mathilda's all right-that you're treating her right-and to bring some of her stuff. If you're not treating her right, he wants me to warn you that he threatens war."
"He threatens war every time he notices we're still breathing and not taking orders from him," Juniper said. "But despite that, we're still breathing-and still free."
Liu's hand clenched on an absent sword hilt, which was an indication of how long it had been since the Change in itself. Juniper held up a hand to silence the baying laughter of her people, and then indicated Mathilda with it.
"You can see the girl's in good health-we don't harm children. As for how she's treated, she's sleeping in the same room as me and my son, eating at the same table, and not doing anything my son doesn't."
Liu's lips thinned. That wasn't how she was treated at home, of course, but he could scarcely complain now, after the Mackenzie chieftain proclaimed that Mathilda was being handled like her own child.
He ducked his head. "I'd like to talk to the princess myself," he said. "And I've brought some of her things-her favorite horse, some clothes, her cat, and a lady-in-waiting. The Protector won't begin serious negotiations unless you allow her to have her belongings."