They stayed in the river valley for the most part, working their way south and slightly west, despite the deep dark under the trees that blocked most of the moonlight. A little reflected from the rippling surface of the Illinois, enough to use if you were very careful, and if the horses were sure-footed. They rode on the verge of the broken pavement to spare their feet, with only the sound of the hooves to mark their passage. Rudi guessed that the Southsider camp was down by the riverbank, and wasn?t surprised; it would be easier all round, with firewood close to hand, drinking water, cover from prying eyes, and shelter-the higher land around here was mostly open tallgrass prairie.
Epona tossed her head up and snorted. Rudi inhaled deeply; that was the smell of fires and cooking, and the sweetish-rank smell of a camp not strictly kept, wastes and old food and raw hides curing with brains and piss. Evidently nobody had told these folk about using oak tanbark, despite it being all about them. Garbh growled at a chorus of yelping, barking mongrels, until Edain called her sharply to heel. Three more of the Southsider men stepped out from behind trees…
No, Rudi thought, looking at the faces and naked torsos behind the spearheads. One of them is a Southsider woman…
… and leveled their weapons, before crying greetings to Jake, and wailing at the sight of dead Murdy. More came swarming out to pelt them with questions and beat the curs off with sticks and feet; about three score of all ages, and they walked in a crowd around the horses until they passed a tiger?s skull on a pole and reached the fires and the rough corral.
Say a hundred of them in all, half children. Three more-or-less grown women for every two men, or thereabouts, Rudi thought, making a warrior?s quick estimate.
Nobody was much older than his new friend Jake; he doubted more than a handful had been born at the time of the Change.
High casualties?
The mob gazed gape-jawed at Rudi and Edain in their strange gear, pointing and gabbling in a way Mackenzies would think rude. Rudi sat his great black horse with long-limbed grace, the bright red-gold hair falling to his shoulders and his sharp-cut high-cheeked face smiling. Edain was less easy, his strong square face blank; he wouldn?t ask Rudi are you sure? with strangers about…
None of the Southsiders matched Rudi?s height, and none had his companion?s breadth of shoulder or barrel chest. Not a prepossessing lot, but truly friendly, I think.
Rudi winked at a naked toddler with a huge mop of frizzy hair; she ducked behind her mother, herself a girl of no more than sixteen years who cradled a baby on her hip. ?Let these studs have room!? Jake called.?They saves our asses, truth! An? lay on eats! We got Murdy to bury, an? our new friends to show our right n? good ways!?
When the mob surged back towards the camp Jake went on quietly: ?And when we?ve had the eats, you can tell me more of that story of yours. We don?t like the Iowa motherfuckers or their bossman at all . Shoved our pamaws back into this shit with their pitchforks. Keep us here still.?
Rudi nodded gravely; Edain thawed a little, since he too had little use for Iowa?s ruler and liked the whole place less than the older Mackenzie. The Iowa folk had closed the Mississippi bridges in the chaotic months after the Change and patrolled the western shore. .. or they?d have been buried beneath the tidal wave of refugees heading west from Chicago and the other lakeside cities, and north from Saint Louis.
Though now they?ve more land than they can till, he thought, remembering pasture where fields had once been, and at that more grass than the cattle could eat down. They could change their policy, if they would, and both would benefit by it.
There was a hungry smile in Jake?s words:?Anyone?s got a hate against that Bossman bastard, he?s got a word to say here.? ?Sure, and I?d not weep if he were to be done an injury,? Rudi said.?He?s not the worst ruler I?ve ever met, but he?s far from the best-and not the smartest, either, that he is not.?
The smartest of rulers? A toss-up between my mother and Matti?s, that would be; the one wise and good, the other wise and wicked.
He realized with a start that he missed Mathilda?s mother; missed her counsel, and her peculiar way of looking at the world. They?d always gotten on well enough, even when he?d been her husband?s captive during the War of the Eye, but then again you never really knew where you stood with the Spider of the Silver Tower. He did know she loved Mathilda…
I?ve never really understood her, otherwise. She?s a bad person, really, but she?s raised Matti to be a good one, and she was always kind to me, even when she pushed me hard to learn and grow. She?s done great evil, but great good also, if more from policy than inclination; and I think that the good will long outlive her, while the evil will mostly vanish… start to vanish, at least… when Matti takes the throne of Portland and rules the Association. And the more I travel, the more I realize I?ve learned from her, those months every year I lived in the Regent?s Household-things I never could have learned at home. Mother has true wisdom, but it?s not all the wisdom there is. What she stands for is good, but some things can?t be seen from where she stands.
And that was something he could only realize at a distance from them both; as if the knowledge unfolded with the weight of their personalities removed for a while, letting it open like a flower from the bud.
And at home I would never have realized what I knew, he mused, looking westward to where stars shone over the treetops.
Nor learned what I have from others on this journey. Am I journeying to the east, then, or do I travel towards myself? When I meet the man I am becoming… ?Who will Rudi Mackenzie be in himself?? he mused.?Will those I know, know me still??
One thing I do know: I?ll rescue Matti for her own sweet sake.. . but even if she wasn?t dear to me, I?d be downright terrified of failing Lady Sandra Arminger!
TheSwordoftheLady
CHAPTER TWO
The Lord High Chancellor and the Grand Constable of the PPA rode side by side through the harvested field, with their hawks on their wrists and the attendants at a discreet distance behind. A covey of pheasants exploded from the ground ahead of their horses in a cracking flutter of wings.
Both the Associates were in what Portlander fashion decreed for gentlemen engaged in rural pleasures on a summer?s day; turned-down thigh boots with the golden spurs of knighthood on the heels, doeskin breeches, baggy-sleeved linen shirts beneath long T-tunics cinched by broad sword belts of studded and tooled leather, and wraparound sunglasses in gilded frames.
Embroidered heraldic shields on their chests showed their arms. Those of Chancellor Conrad Renfrew-also Count of Odell-were sable, a snow-topped mountain argent on vert; it echoed the towering perfect cone of Mt. Hood, just visible as a tiny silver spike on the eastern horizon. Baroness Tiphaine d?Ath bore sable, a delta or over a Vargent; she wore a discreet livery badge at the brow of her hat as well, her own arms quartered with Sandra Arminger?s in token of vassalage. ?Your turn,? the Count of Odell said, nodding towards the pheasants skimming over the ground. ?Thanks, Conrad,? Tiphaine said.
This was one of the Five Great Fields of her manor of Montinore, and the three hundred acres of brown-blond wheat stubble with clover pushing up below provided plenty of cover. The ring of hawthorn hedge and wide-spaced poplars around it were full of good places for nesting, and even conscientious gleaners didn?t get all the fallen grain that attracted quarry. ?Three gets you five that cock pheasant makes it to the hedge,? the older noble said.