The Given Sacrifice (12 page)

The rest of the encampment included a corral for draught animals, mainly big mules,
and a thick scattering of bell-tents grouped in threes around a somewhat larger one;
the flag there was the moon and antlers of the Mackenzies. A taller pole in the center
bore the Crowned Mountain and Sword—what the new “kingdom” of Montival used.

Folk gathered around, about half in pants and the rest in the Clan’s kilt. There must
be more than two hundred here all up, but he’d gotten used to crowds since he started
his military service. Though so many strange faces still seemed slightly unnatural,
to someone who’d grown up on a little family ranch where you could go a month or more
at a time without seeing a single outsider and a year without meeting someone from
out of the neighborhood.

Alyssa exchanged salutes just like the one he’d learned in school with a hawk-faced
woman in her thirties with brown hair in the same shortish bob cut.

He looked around.
OK, Bearkiller women in the army wear it that way, like our high-and-tight.

She was dressed in a practical-looking brown uniform that included a basket-hilted
single-edged sword. There was a small blue scar like Alyssa’s between her brows and
what would have been a Captain’s bars in the US Army on her shoulders.

“Don’t tell me. A write-off, right?” the officer said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Did you see any sign of the enemy
before
you totaled it?”

“Nothing, ma’am. I didn’t get that far.”

“How did you manage to pile up your ship?”

“I relied on getting lift somewhere it wasn’t and then I was lower than the terrain
all around me. Then I was lower than the terrain
under
me.”

The officer sighed. “If you had a sane approach to risk management you wouldn’t be
a pilot, Larsson.”

“No excuses, Captain Sanders. Nothing salvageable in my estimation, the terrain’s
not suitable even for mules, you’d have to backpack the wreck out in pieces. Plus
there’s a
really big
dead bear lying next to it.”

A shrug. “It might be worthwhile going after the instruments, later. You’re a good
pilot, Larsson, and they’re harder to produce than gliders. Don’t make a habit of
it, but combat-lossing these things occasionally is a cost of doing business. We’ll
just show some
sisu
and suck it up. Written report including map data by fourteen hundred hours tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am.
Haakaa päälle!
”

“Hack ’em down! The arm?”

“Hairline fracture of the ulna, according to the Mackenzie
fiosaiche
.”

“She’s a qualified field medic,” the officer said—a little reluctantly, Cole thought.

Alyssa nodded. “No need for a plaster cast, just time. I don’t think there was much
of a concussion, none of the symptoms, except that I was woozy for a while. No recurrence
of headaches, or blurred vision or loss of balance. Didn’t even lose any teeth.”

“Right, have our doc take a look when he’s got time but you’re on restricted duty
until the arm heals anyway, four to six weeks if nothing goes wrong. I’ll unload some
of my paperwork on you.”

Alyssa gave an almost imperceptible wince, and the officer returned a slightly disquieting
grin. “I know, you can interrogate your cutie of a POW here. You are now in charge
of that, seconded to Intelligence until you’re fit for unrestricted duty again.”

I’m a cutie?
Cole thought, torn between feeling flattered and insulted.

“He’s technically the Mackenzies’ prisoner, ma’am.”

“I doubt they’ll be competing for the privilege of talking to him.”

“That we will not,” Caillech said. “No offense, Cole Salander.”

Alyssa chuckled. “He’s not going to talk much anyway. Not at first, at least.”

“SOP, we have to jump through the hoops.” She looked at Cole. “Interested in switching
sides? We’ve got a lot of Boiseans on our side now, and Frederick Thurston leads them,
your first ruler’s son.”

Cole shook his head, keeping private doubts off his face. “No, ma’am,” he said. “Captain
Wellman’s always been straight with me, and as long as he says it’s the right side
I’m on it.”

“Fair enough, private. A man’s obligations are his own to judge. You’re between a
rock and a hard place and I don’t envy you that position one little bit. You may change
your mind when you’re further back and get a chance to talk to more of your own folk
who’ve come to different conclusions. Larsson, ask the usual questions, write ’em
down, and we’ll send the report on with him when we have time and personnel to spare
to move him out. Carry on.”

A swatch of Mackenzies had gathered around, along with some of their enormous dogs.
Apart from the haircuts and whether or not they’d painted their faces they looked
more uniform than he’d expected, given their wild neobarb reputation . . . but then,
according to the briefing they wore the kilt and plaid all the time anyway, so this
was probably their ordinary clothes apart from the war-gear. Alter the clothes and
such and keep their mouths shut and they’d pass for his neighbors easily. Nearly all
of them were Changelings of around his age give or take a few years. There were some
adolescents doing chores and standing in back, and a few slightly older ones were
officers, most of whom wore a neck-torc of thin twisted gold.

Right, that’s the Mackenzie equivalent of a wedding ring, only they wear it around
the neck. And there are so many women!
he thought.

Then, after he did a deliberate count:
No, not as many as all that. Well under half the total. It just
looks
like more to my eye, I guess. What the lecture called perception bias. Got to watch
that if you want to make an accurate report.

Talyn and his comrade made
their
report to a big scarred man pushing thirty, with freckles on a ruddy pale face, rust-colored
hair in a queue and one of the torcs around his bull neck. After drawing them aside
out of earshot for a few sharp questions he gave Cole a long look, then turned to
Alyssa.

“Is this one’s word good, Lady?”

Alyssa looked at Cole herself. “Is it?” she said.

He scowled and nodded. A man whose word
wasn’t
good was a toad—no, a worm—and he instinctively resented the question. But to be
fair she wasn’t a neighbor who’d grown up knowing him down to the bootlaces in the
usual way. Dealing with strangers could be hard, without reputation to guide you.
Nobody trusted people they didn’t know the way they did kin and the folks from over
the next creek.

“I break any promises to you, ma’am?” he said.

“No.” She turned to the Mackenzie. “And our acquaintance was brief, but intense, Bow-captain
Luag. I’d say he was honorable but I can’t take oath on it.”

Luag looked to Cole for a long green-eyed moment. “Give us your oath not to fight
nor to try escaping while you’re in this war-camp, and we’ll let you walk free, though
watched. Deny it, and we must keep you bound save when you’re on the latrine, the
which would be uncomfortable and would do your cause no good at all or whatsoever.
Suffer uselessly or not, as you please.”

A pause, and he went on flatly: “If you give your word and break it, then we’ll kill
you sure. As an offering to Lugh Longspear.”

Cole thought carefully while the Clan warriors leaned on their great bows and watched
him, moistening his lips a little as he did. On the one hand, standing orders said
if you were captured you had to escape if possible. On the other, the New UCMJ said
you had to escape
if possible
not
get yourself killed trying
when it wasn’t possible; his chances of that were much better when he was being moved
and was far away from an enemy encampment.

OK, giving a general parole is out, but a temporary one . . . possible.

Especially if he stayed here a couple of days with liberty to walk around he could
probably learn something valuable, and he
was
specifically tasked with getting information about bases like this, so it was aiding
his mission to be able to ask questions and watch things. He could try for a break
when they moved him—they couldn’t spare much effort to guard one prisoner, and in
any army things got looser as you moved away from the sharp end. On the third hand—

“Unless US forces attack this camp,” he said. “If they do, all bets are off.”

There were grins and chuckles at that.
Such a lot of merry lighthearted jokester bastards,
he thought.
Goddammit.
It was probably a lot easier to laugh when you were winning.

The redhead raised an eyebrow. “Or unless the sky fall and crush us, or the sea rise
and drown us, or the world end,” he said sardonically.

“And my parole to last three days from sunset today and no more. After that I’m free
to escape and to do anything necessary to carrying out my duties. And you’re free
to shoot me if I try and if you can.”

A short, crisp but somehow respectful nod. “Good. A man careless of his oath would
likely make fewer conditions, so. Swear then, in the sight of whatever Gods you follow
and on a fighting-man’s honor.”

“I’m a Methodist, I guess . . .” He thought for a moment, then raised his right hand
and swore
so help me God
.

Luag listed the specifics carefully, and drew a sign in the air before finishing:

“So witness all the Gods of my people, and the Mother-of-All in Her form as the Threefold
Morrigú, who loves a warrior’s faithfulness, and the Lord Her consort as Lugh of the
Oaths. You’re free of our camp, but don’t go beyond its bounds—those white wands you
see planted about.”

He hadn’t noticed the peeled sticks, but they were obvious once the bowman’s thick
finger pointed them out.

Luag went on: “What the Bearkillers do is their affair, but I wouldn’t go among them
alone either, if I were you, for all that they’re blood brothers of ours, so to speak.
They’re a suspicious lot about outsiders and quickly fierce with their blades.”

Raising his voice slightly:

“To harm this man is
geasa
so long as he keeps his oath. Watch him close, but put no slight nor insolence on
him while he’s bound helpless by his pledge. Or I will most assuredly kick your arse
until your teeth march out of your mouth like little Bearkiller pikemen on parade,
and you will be mocked by all and the bards will make a tale of it at the next festival
and ill-luck will dog your tracks. This is a war, not a blood feud. Treat him as you
would wish on one of our own if they had the misfortune to fall captive. Understood?”

There was a murmur of assent.

“Then spread the word. About your work the now, Mackenzies.”

“Ah . . . that’s it?” Cole said.

“Is anything more needful?” Talyn said. “Ah, here’s our tent, the which you are welcome
to share. Though we usually sleep under the stars unless it’s raining or much colder
than this. Stow your gear.”

He and Caillech spent a few moments removing each other’s war paint, with a mixture
of flaxseed oil and goose grease that smelled of herbs—sage and rosemary, Cole thought—and
then soap and water. Most of the Mackenzies just nodded at the prisoner and walked
away, going back to working on their gear or shooting at wooden targets and flinging
disks with truly alarming dexterity or sparring or towards some cooking pits where
an agonizingly good smell was drifting with wafts of bluish smoke to remind him that
he’d been working hard on light rations. Others simply napped, played flutes or guitars,
read or wrote letters, played games with dice or cards, or . . .

He blinked, and blushed a little. Soldiering tended to erode your sense of privacy,
but he was used to it being all guys. His army had stopped recruiting women after
the old General died a couple of years ago, and hadn’t had many even then. Cole averted
his eyes.

Bearkillers seemed to do things more or less the way he was used to. The Mackenzies . . .

“They’re sort of informal, aren’t they? But it works for them,” Alyssa said. “
God
knows why.”

“Hup-one-two, and a lance up the arse to keep your back braced straight,” Caillech
said. “The Bearkiller way.”

The two young women stuck out their tongues at each other, and Talyn rolled his eyes.

“I smell that a sounder of wild pig were guided our way by Cernunnos,” he said, rubbing
his hands together. “Rather than the over-stewed muck of infamous memory we get nine
days in ten, when it isn’t jerky and trail mix and dog biscuit instead,
ochone
, the sorrow and black pity of it. Let us prepare for the sacred rite of eating ourselves
full and drinking what’s to be had while we have the chance, for it won’t happen often.”

Cole smiled a little. The general awfulness of military food was something everyone
seemed to have in common, weird or not.

Ca
stle Todenangst, Crown demesne

Portland Protective Association

Willamette Valley near Newburg

High Kingdom of Montival

(formerly western Oregon)

June 15th, Change Year 26/2024 AD

T
he last series of windows came down to the floor, opening out in French doors. Beyond
was a fan-shaped open platform the size of a largish room, held by curved girders
of cast aluminum alloy whose ends reared up into stylized eagle’s heads all around
its rim. Between them along the edge was a border of waist-high marble sheets carved
into fretwork. Not at all coincidentally, they were exactly the right height to lean
on comfortably for a rather short someone named Sandra Arminger.

Most of the balcony was covered by an arched pergola of thin wrought bronze rods thickly
grown with vines, the last of the late-blooming violet-blue Shiro Noda wisteria hanging
in foot-long clusters interwoven with golden Rêve d’Or roses. The heady Noisette perfume
of the roses mingled with the fainter, more delicate scent of the Japanese wisteria.
Hummingbirds flitted among the blossoms like living jewels of ruby and malachite,
and the eyes of several of Sandra’s Persians tracked them with bright wistful interest.

And a low feline chittering of teeth accompanied by a murmur of
ah ahnt ahnt ahnt
, which meant something like:
Chew toy! Chew toy!

“I wonder, was that excessive?” Sandra murmured, looking up. “Roses
and
wisteria? Did I do it just because suddenly I
could
? I’m afraid that happened a fair bit back then. It was as if we were both a little
drunk with possibilities, your father and I. From impecunious academics to gaming
with kingdoms.”

Laughter came from the space beyond the doors, and then the bright tinkle of a metal-strung
cittern, and a woman’s voice raised in song:

“I waited for a sunny day to launch my grand design.

The clouds would loom—

The wind would turn—

It happened every time!

Until at last it struck me:

I should just let it all unfold

The sun is shining somewhere . . .

And fortune loves the bold!”

Mathilda smiled at the sound of Lady Delia de Stafford’s clear alto voice; she supposed
she didn’t
approve
of Delia, but she certainly
liked
her and always had. She turned the smile into one of greeting and nodded to the squire
who stood beside the entrance with a white rod of office in his hand. He’d been chatting
with Lady Jehane Jones de Molalla, her mother’s amanuensis—confidential secretary—a
sleek young woman in a rose-and-gold cotte-hardie and a gold wimple, which set off
her chocolate skin.

“Lady Jehane,” she said, smiling and extending her hand for the kiss of homage. “God
give you good day, Huon,” she went on to the squire.

“And God and the Virgin be with you, Your Majesty,” Huon Liu de Gervais said, bowing
gravely a flourish of the baton in his right hand and the left on the hilt of his
sword.

He was in court dress: Ray-Bans, tight hose, ankle-shoes with upturned toes tipped
with little golden bells, loose shirt of soft linen, doeskin jerkin and a houppelande
coat with long dagged sleeves. And a roll-edged chaperon hat with a broad liripipe
tail hanging to one shoulder; that was a mark of near-adult status as opposed to the
brimless flowerpot style all pages and most squires wore. At sixteen he was young
for it, but he
had
charged with her
menie
at the Horse Heaven Hills when the chivalry of the Association broke the Prophet’s
elite guard.

If he’d been a little older she’d have knighted him on the field, and not because
his elder brother Odard had been one of the companions of the Quest and died for her
on the far cold shores of the Atlantic.

Well, not
only
because of that. Plus his sister Yseult is getting to be really useful in the Household.
No flies on that girl at all, as Mother would say, and she’s been invaluable with
Fred’s sisters. And I like them both.

The colors were the black-lined-scarlet of House Arminger, which suited Huon’s dark
tilt-eyed good looks. She hadn’t had time to put the Household into the High Kingdom’s
forest green and silver yet. . . .

And I’ll still be an Arminger, anyway. That doesn’t change.

“Have you and Lioncel had any time for hawking, Huon?” she said.

Delia’s eldest son and Huon had become fast friends during last year’s campaign; she
knew it roweled him to be here behind the lines while his comrade was mostly off as
the Grand Constable’s squire in the east.

“Yes, my lady,” he said eagerly, looking less solemn—and he was allowed to entitle
her so in an informal setting, since he was her personal liegeman. “We’re going to
have some time to fly tiercels along the river tomorrow, we think. Diomede can come
along—”

Who was Delia’s
younger
son, a page in the household of Countess Anne of Tillamook, and just a little too
junior to take the field as yet at all. And green with envy, though too good-natured
to be a real pest about it.

“The Grand Constable and Lioncel and my lord Rigobert his father have been winning
great honor!”

“So have you, Huon Liu de Gervais,” Mathilda said gently. “For I trust you with my
life, and more, my daughter, the heir of the Kingdom.”

He flushed a little and bowed again as she and Sandra swept past. Her mother was fighting
to keep the smile off her face as she concluded a low-voiced exchange with Jehane
that had the girl packing up her lap-desk and gliding off on some errand.

“He’ll remember that,” Sandra said approvingly, and
sotto voce
.

“It’s
true
,” Mathilda replied, very slightly indignant.

Even though there’s no actual
danger
here—stone smooth as polished glass above and below us, and miles of guards between
here and the gates. It’s one of the few places we can really relax.

“Truth? All the better!” her mother said happily.

She’d practiced good lordship by sheer political calculation all her life.

And if she weren’t my mother, her approval would make me doubt myself, sometimes!
But a ruler must be a good politician too; it’s a
duty
. So many lives and livelihoods depend on it! It’s when politics fail that the swords
come out and homes burn.

The others were sitting around the tables as the dappled shade played across the pale
cream and blue Redondo tiles in patterns that shifted with the breeze. They rose as
Huon announced her, calling out
The High Queen!
and
The Queen Mother!
briskly but without the annoying bellow heralds used sometimes.

The Associate ladies sank in deep curtsies, the skirts of their cotte-hardies spreading
in a display of colors brighter than the flowers overhead and the long sleeves touching
the tile. The combination of their own high rank and the relaxed social setting meant
they didn’t have to kneel. That sort of thing was one reason why sometimes more could
be done during a tea party than at an official council-meeting.

Though this is rather formal dress for a tea party . . . I know, I’ll get Delia to
start drawing up a manual of court etiquette and costume for the High Kingdom. Something
more relaxed than Association protocol. We can call it a political compromise to make
the non-Associates feel more at home.

“Lady Delia, Lady Ermentrude, Lady Anne,” she said—deliberately informal modes, as
she extended her hand again. “Lady Signe.”

Signe Havel gave her a stiff salute with a little frost in it.

No hand-kissing there!
Mathilda thought, as she returned it with a Protectorate-style gesture, right fist
to chest—which looked a little odd when you were wearing a cotte-hardie since it was
usually accompanied by a clash of armored gauntlet on breastplate, but she couldn’t
think of anything more appropriate.

Signe
wasn’t
an Associate, of course. The Lady of the Bearkillers was a handsome blond woman in
her forties, in the plain practical brown uniform her folk wore in the field and with
a basket-hilted backsword leaning against the arm of her chair. She’d never really
forgiven any member of House Arminger for the spectacular and mutually fatal public
duel between Norman Arminger and Mike Havel that had ended the Protector’s War.

“And Virginia! You’re glowing . . . and looking uncomfortable. Believe me, I sympathize.”

Virginia Thurston was in a housedress, of very expensive printed cotton but cut simply,
what a well-to-do woman in Boise would wear though she’d never yet seen the city.
It was a maternity style, though, and she looked every day of her seventh month.

“I feel like I’ve swallowed a pumpkin,” she grumbled; her face was still narrow, framed
by her yellow-brown hair. “And my ankles hurt and I have to pee all the time. Least
I ain’t . . . I’m not puking so much.”

“Don’t worry. It gets better,” Mathilda said.

Delia chuckled. “But not before the birth. And that’s anything but comfortable, let
me tell you. The pumpkin has to come
out
.”

All the mothers present laughed, which meant everyone except Countess Anne, who winced
slightly in sympathy. Juniper Mackenzie was still grinning as she came forward and
hugged Mathilda. Countess Ermentrude blinked slightly, showing that she knew more
of the theory than the practice of Court etiquette. Everyone made allowances for Mackenzie
irreverence, and Juniper was a sovereign herself as Chief of the Clan, albeit one
in vassalage to the High Kingdom now. Plus after the Protector’s War Mathilda had
spent months every year in Dun Juniper with her and her family, just as Rudi had come
north. That made Juniper her second mother as well as mother-in-law.

“My darlin’ foster girl!” she said, and Mathilda squeezed her back through the fine
soft wool of her
arisaid
.

“Your unrecognizably
fat
foster girl!” she murmured into the older woman’s ear.

“Nonsense. Just a few healthy curves; the Maiden becomes Mother.”

Mathilda hugged her again, and felt that little familiar shock that she was so much
taller than the Mackenzie.

She and Mother are about the same height. One of the few things they have in common,
besides their wits. And that you forget it because they both feel bigger in your mind.

Signe’s face turned a little chillier. She’d also never completely forgiven Juniper
Mackenzie for meeting Mike Havel and bearing his son, who was now Mathilda’s husband
and High King. Not just for the usual reasons a woman would, even though that had
been a single night and before Signe had married him, but because Rudi
was
High King, instead of one of
her
children.

The wet-nurse—an Associate herself, a younger collateral of the great Jones family
who were Counts in Mollala and who’d lost her own child not long after birth—brought
Órlaith to Mathilda. Objectively Mathilda’s daughter looked like any three-month-old . . .

But by the holy Mother of God, she’s beautiful!
Mathilda thought.

For a moment the feeling clenched her eyes shut like physical pain. When she opened
them again her daughter was baring her gums in a broad smile and kicking within the
linen smock, reaching for her.

“Órlaith,” she said as she picked the solid little weight up. “My golden princess!”

“
My
granddaughter,” Sandra said.

“
And
mine,” Juniper Mackenzie said.

“But my
only
granddaughter, so far. Your fourth.”

“Give me time, Mom!” Mathilda said.

She was that post-Change rarity, an only child. Juniper had what she thought of as
a more typical middle-of-the-road total of four.

Mathilda kissed her daughter on the forehead and handed her over to Sandra, who gave
a short odd laugh as she took her competently in the crook of an arm. Juniper looked
a question.

“I was just thinking,” Sandra said, “of how often I’ve wondered what the world will
be like when the last of us oldsters have shuffled off to our—literal, as it turns
out—rewards and the Changelings like Mathilda are left to run things without us.”

“And I’ve had the same thought, many a time,” Juniper said. “But?”

“Just now,” Sandra said, tickling the tip of the baby’s nose with one finger as she
smiled and kicked, “it struck me that I should wonder what the world will be like
when
Órlaith’s
generation is in charge . . . people who never knew the people who knew the world
before the Change. When she’s my age it will be . . . Good Lord, it’ll be Change Year
84! Nearly a century! Will they really believe anything about our world by then, except
as myths? And of course
her
children . . .”

Juniper’s face froze for a moment, though the Changelings showed polite incomprehension.
Then she said, slowly:

“It never fails; in a conversation with you, something truly
disquieting
will be said. Now I’ll be having that thought every time I look at a baby, instead
of just enjoying the little ones.
Thank
you, Sandra.”

“You’re welcome, dear Juniper.”

Mathilda sat with a slight snort; talking to Mother
did
keep you on your mental toes, the way sparring with Rudi sharpened your reflexes
with the sword. She arranged the skirts of her cotte-hardie and nodded to the others
as a maidservant offered a tray.

Everyone occupied themselves pouring tea and passing plates of tiny sandwiches and
pastries—potted shrimp and cucumber and deviled chicken and little glazed things with
raspberries and cream. The tea was the real luxury, even more expensive than coffee.
Local equivalents were still experimental, and this was the genuine article, imported
by a profoundly unreliable chain of middlemen through desolate pirate-haunted seas
from the few revived plantations in Asia to Maui in the Kingdom of Hawaii and then
to Astoria. The world was a very large place, these days. Even larger than it had
been in the Jane Austen novels that were so popular among the female nobility, and
which probably helped keep the beverage so prestigious.