Prince of Outcasts (8 page)

Órlaith could tell Tair did unfondly remember that bit of the Strum family croft by the way his face fell.

“The narrow twisty one where you can't get a good swing with a mattock for the hawthorn hedge that leans over it?” the young man said hollowly.

“Just that one! Ah, and Lug Longspear witness it's a wonderful thing how a lad can know his father's mind!”

She could also tell that Aunt Fiorbhinn was taking it all in and storing up bits for a song—John had the same habit, only he was more obvious and obnoxious about it. Fiorbhinn was Juniper's last child, two years after Maude in years but looking six or seven younger, perhaps because she was absolutely
not
a worrier. Fiorbhinn's chin was more pointed and her eyes were bigger than Órlaith's, and they always seemed to have a secret smile in them.

She was in a long white robe belted with silver plaques and a necklace of golden spiral triskelions, and staff of her own topped by the same symbol. That was the dress and mark of a master-fili, a bard, among Mackenzies; Órlaith knew that for a fact, since it was Fiorbhinn who'd decided they were, and proclaimed that this was the ancient custom of the Gael. And who was to say she was wrong, since her fame and her music traveled far beyond the dùthchas? Although she'd gotten the details of dress from a pre-Change book, an illustrated one that seemed to be a guide to a game centered on pretending to be a gang of bandits who wandered about plundering people and looting tombs.

Juniper looked over at Morfind and Faramir. “My granddaughter will be taking all you lot off somewhere else,” she said. “I'd be after hoping you realize Mithrilwood is right out of it? Considering how your parents down in Stath Ingolf talked one Edain Aylward Mackenzie out of dragging our golden Princess here back by the ear, as Matti had sent him to do?”

Faramir actually blushed. Morfind gave Juniper a bold stare, unconsciously touching the scar that trailed down across one cheek. An Eater chief's axe had struck there in a skirmish with a hidden band of the foe, one lurking after the little battle that killed the High King. Her brother had died then. Faramir's scars from that fight didn't show, not on the outside at least.

“We'd thought of that, Lady Juniper,” he said.

Heuradys stepped in. “We're going to Barony Harfang,” she said tactfully.

“Ah, the Palouse,” Juniper said, and her eyes went distant for an instant.
“Pretty country, bare but pretty, those hills like the swells of the sea gone solid. I remember driving through there one spring, to perform at the Spokane RenFaire.”

Órlaith blinked; she meant driving a
car
, the horseless carriages of the old time. It was a bit of a shock to realize that the living, breathing person in front of you had been an adult when the ancient world fell, when Nature itself changed its contours. There weren't very many left. Fewer still of the giants, the founders and leaders.

Juniper seemed to know the thought, which didn't surprise her granddaughter.

“Back when I was a bard myself, though I didn't go about in a white bedsheet bedecked with tin.”

Fiorbhinn rolled her eyes. “This is my fili's robe, Mother,” she said, obviously long-suffering.

“As I said, girl.”

“And I know you used to wear an arsaid when you performed, the which nobody else between here and Erin did back then!”

“'Twas more of a pleated tartan skirt, really.”

Then they grinned at each other. Juniper went on seriously, to Heuradys d'Ath:

“You look after my son's child. You hear, my lady knight?”

“Always, Lady Juniper,” she said with casual sincerity and a bow. “With all that I have of wit and will and skill from my patron Athana, and my life's blood if I must.”

The others murmured assent.

“And now we'd better go in to be there when Herself comes out, for Matti is stubborn as the White-Horned Bull when she's got a notion, always was.”

The Mackenzie party formed up for their entrance to the throne room. Juniper paused and put her hand on Órlaith's forearm for an instant, her grip bony and strong.

“You cannot fight grief with a sword, my darling one, not even with
that
sword,” she said softly. “Even the Powers themselves cannot. He was
your father, but my son, my sun-bright beautiful boy running with the wind in his hair. Take time to weep, where you're going.”

Then she stood on tiptoe to kiss her on the cheek, and walked on with the silver frow on the end of her staff tapping on the floor.

*   *   *

There wasn't much of a send-off, just a squad of glaivesmen under a squire seeing them out the main gate, bringing their polearms down with a metallic crack on the granite blocks of the big train station's platform. Órlaith returned the salute and stepped into the carriage; there was a shout from the front, a hollow thudding of hooves on the endless belts, a rumbling whine of gearing, and all the people who'd been kneeling got up and waved instead. She waved back out the window, since it wasn't
their
fault things were wretched right now. The long peace had seen many stretches of rail line repaired; by now they stretched very far indeed; in theory and in good weather you could reach the Mississippi. Which was tempting!

Lady bless you, Mother, for that you walk in Her power as all mothers do, but
I
miss Johnnie too! I did not lose him of my own will!

The others settled in—not without some squabbling among the youngsters—and Macmaccon jumped up into the seat beside her and sprawled. He laid his enormous head in her lap with an even louder sigh than hers, albeit his was of pure contentment, and went to sleep, for once not drooling or twitching in his slumbers. The train's two carriages moved north and west away from Todenangst's soaring multicolored bulk and out into the green fields and woodlots and hills and towards the tiny perfect cone of Mount Hood on the far horizon. Her thoughts seemed to be running on rails too as she absently stroked the dog's ears, and on a circular track; that loop was going to end up with her thinking about her father's death again if she didn't watch it.

One reason I'm obsessing about John's fate is that I know he
isn't
dead. If Mother didn't know he wasn't she wouldn't just be angry, she'd . . .

She literally shivered at the thought, and stroked the dog's ears as a countercharm. After a few minutes Heuradys nudged Macmaccon's head
off her lap. He woke, sat, turned and stuck his head out the window into the swift wind of their passage with an expression of idiot slit-eyed bliss and his lips flapping back from his fangs. Then her knight nudged her.

“Here,” she said, offering a flask. “Mom One got a cask of this from the Dowager Duchess on her last birthday. Don't bother with savoring the piquant bouquet, though, Orrey. You need the effect.”

Órlaith took the advice, a brief sniff and then a healthy slug. It was
Poire Guilliame a le Duc
, a pear brandy from the Hood River orchards of the Duchy of Odell, and in this case private stock laid down by the current Duke's father and aged ten years in the barrel. That scar-faced old rogue had known his liquors; cool white fire ran down her throat, followed by an intense pear flavor and scent that flowed up into her sinuses. You couldn't drown anger or grief or even impatience, but you could anesthetize them for a bit, like a surgeon's ether cone.

“Thanks, Herry,” she said, feeling the muscles in her neck relax a little as she handed it back. “That bumped me out of my groove and sure, it wasn't a good one to be in.”

The others were untying the ribbons of the wicker hampers the kitchens had sent along, the ones labeled
Crn. Prns & pty 1st d. luncheon, 16
, and rummaging inside. Happy Mackenzie whoops were accounted for when someone handed her one of the sandwiches made from a crusty split baguette, which was stuffed with thinly sliced
Westfälischer Schinken
: a darkly pungent strong-tasting ham from half-wild swine fed on acorns, dry-cured with sea-salt, brown sugar, allspice, and pepper and then cold-smoked over beech wood and juniper chips for several weeks before being hung in a cellar for two years. It was one of the exports of the Queen of Angels Commonwealth, ruled by the warrior monks of the Order of the Shield of St. Benedict; her father had liked it too. In this case it was combined with bread not long out of the oven, fresh yellow summer butter from Chehalis, aioli mayonnaise, capers, Walla Walla onions and slivers of a sharp Tillamook cheese.

The screeches of the young clansfolk turned to warbles of joy when several tightly-stoppered stoneware jugs in an insulated container of ice
turned out to bear the capering goggle-eyed Mad March Hare mark of Brannigan's Special, a well-known strong ale from Sutterdown in their own dúthchas. Those were soon passed from hand to hand, amid a bellowed version of a song Grandmother Juniper had made in its praise long ago:

“Start seein' things real funny,

And given half a chance—

Hic!

Go swirling around and then tumble down

And the mice on your head will all dance!”

She hadn't thought she was hungry, despite having been too nervous for breakfast; the scent and a bite showed her otherwise, and the impromptu feast made her feel better and less jumpy, along with the bright bitter floral hops and dark malt of the Special. It was vanity to think there was a difference between mind and body. She was on a journey. . . .

What was that saying Da was fond of, the one he heard at Chenrezi Monastery, on the Quest long ago? Yes . . . three set forth seeking fortune. And one found gold; another came on good land, and tilled it. But the third saw sunlight making jewels of the dew. All three went by the same road. Each thought himself the richer.

Heuradys laughed as they unfolded the waxed paper wrapping the dessert that followed: buttery blueberry tarts whose deep amethyst centers were ringed with flaky pastry covered in gold-hued shaved and toasted nuts. Órlaith raised a brow.

“They reminded me of what Mom One said about that low-cut cotte-hardie Countess Stavarov de Chelais wore to the Midsummer masque,” Heuradys said in answer to the unspoken question.

Órlaith tried not to show it in public, but she'd never liked House Stavarov. Officially the Stavarovs had headed a freelance troop of men-at-arms before the Change, when her mother's father had recruited them into the nascent Association. Unofficial sources said
mafiya.
Either term meant
gang of bandits
, basically. House Stavarov had taken longer to outgrow the legacy than most.

“Showing off her family's great tracts of land?” Órlaith said a little snidely.

Countess Stavarov had hair of a deep fawn shade, large melting dark eyes with very long lashes, and she was
very
busty.

“Showing off her assets and those new Tanzanite jewels Count Piotr's salvagers dug out of Seattle. Tanzanite centers two inches across
and
gold fretwork
and
diamonds
and
tourmalines in the surrounds.”

“Delia said something cutting, no doubt,” Órlaith said.

Heuradys' birth mother Countess Delia de Stafford had been a leader of fashion in the Association lands for more than a generation. She also had no time at all for women who were—or far, far worse—pretended to be witless. Which fitted the densely thick Ziaida Dimitrievna Stavarova perfectly since she played kittenish-coquettish as well. By all accounts it had been tiresome when she was a teenager, and now grated horribly even on her toadies and sycophants; Órlaith didn't think she had any actual friends.

Heuradys paused, grinning wider: “Mom One said the look was like a Jersey milker prancing around with a string of blueberry tarts glued to its udder, and Mom Two had just taken a sip of brandy and snarfed it out her nose.”

Órlaith choked slightly on her own mouthful of Brannigan's Special, then swallowed and coughed and whooped.

Heuradys waited considerately until she'd recovered before she continued:

“I hear that when someone repeated it to Ziaida she snapped her fan in half and threw it into the punchbowl and slapped a page and she hasn't worn the necklace since.”

Órlaith found herself laughing until she hiccupped.

Heuradys licked her fingers and went on: “By Hestia of the Hearth, these are good tarts—split another one? They packed too many for us anyway, this basket's full of them and they won't keep.”

“Not with Karl and Mathun eating they didn't pack too many, so let's grab two.”

“Right, they're bottomless pits. And little Suzie's capacity is amazing; I don't know where she puts it all.”

The Latoka girl overheard the remark, popped her head up over the back of her seat and called:

“Hey, it's usually
guys
who say that!” to a roar of laughter. “Ones with delusions of grandeur!”

They passed the dramatic cliffs and woods and waterfalls and vast views of the Columbia Gorge before dinner, leaving them partly in shadow and partly painted crimson by the setting sun, to the oohs and aahs of those who hadn't been this way before. Traffic was heavy on the road that ran beside the railway, and trains of sailing barges and small ships and once a patrol galley centipede-walking upstream thronged the river in the afternoon light. A heliograph signal snapped from the highest tower of a castle on a promontory, actinic-white as the sun faded.

The long twilight was past and the late summer night fell deep by the time they passed Hood River, the river-port for the Duchy of Odell. After that the habitations of human kind were a thin scatter of yellow lights, passing in the distance amid leagues of emptiness beneath a dense frosting of stars. Cards came out when the lamps were lit, or portable fidchell sets. And everyone played or sang in the improvised céilidh that happened wherever Mackenzies had nothing else to do, to which Heuradys' lute and the Dúnedain flutes were a welcome addition, and Droyn had a wonderful baritone that made the windows rattle to his version of “Across the Broad Columbia.” They started with some old favorites: