The Sword of the Lady

by S. M. Stirling

  ″Ripe as summer strawberries, they are,″ Rudi said; one of them looked at him, and pouted when he shook his head smiling.

  ″Ah, I′ll be off to my blankets, then, Chief,″ Edain said, brightening considerably as he let himself be led into the shadows with one girl tugging at each hand.

  ″And to sleep, eventually, eh?″ Rudi called with a grin, and Edain threw a laugh over one shoulder.

  Theirs were not a bashful folk. Didn′t the Charge of the Goddess Herself say ″All acts of love and pleasure are My rituals?″ Rudi remained by the embers of the fire himself; there had been plenty of those lingering glances cast in his direction, but there weren′t so many unattached women here he could be sure of avoiding trouble over it. And he hadn′t had the heart for dalliance right now anyway.

  What with worry, toil and care. Ah, the merry life of a hero! And it′s pure joy to be the Chief, too; well, I′ve seen that wear on Mother over the years, that I have.

  The rest of the little tribe rolled themselves into scraps and tatters of pre-Change cloth or crawled between stiff hides; Jake had a nearly intact sleeping bag, which he drew across the sleeping form of his woman and their two living children. Others huddled together, with leaves as extra insulation and protection from the mosquitoes.

  At least they don′t have lice, Rudi thought; probably none of their founders had, and they′d been too isolated to pick them up since.

  The sentries ghosted out to take up their positions; the rain had faded away into a close damp night, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with the skill with which the lookouts vanished into the rustling, buzzing darkness. They′d had to learn that well, or die horribly. Jake fished a drumstick out of the remnants of the perpetual stew in the communal pot, originally an aluminum trash-can roughly cut down with the jagged edges hammered over, and took a meditative bite.

  ″And now my friend, you and your folk were to help me with my task?″ Rudi said softly. ″I wouldn′t ask it save that need drives me; we must have those wagons at the bridge, and soon. The lives of oath-brothers and kin and one very dear to me rest upon it.″

  Jake frowned and looked around at his sleeping people. ″You helped us plenty,″ he said. A hesitation. ″You could be the big man here, if you stayed. Plenty of the bitches would like you, even more than the Archer. You could show us lots and lots, make us strong. Strong like your Clan, that you talked about. Show us how to get right with the spooks, too.″

  Rudi smiled, but there was real respect in his nod as well as pity.

  This man may be a savage and pig-ignorant of a thousand things, but he knows that to be a true Chief is to serve his people′s need, he thought. And he′s realizing how great their need is, now that he′s seen a glimpse of the world outside. He′ll give anything he has to aid them, even his own position.

  ″My friend, it′s honored I am by your words,″ he said, which he found was true. ″But I have my own kin and friends to think of. Also I could not help you as much as you think. Your people′s problem is not only that you lack skills, but that you are too few, and your enemies too many.″

  ″Yeah.″ Jake′s fist hit the ground. ″There′s lotsa things we could do, if we could settle down an′ not run an′ hide all the time. Mebbe plant corn, even, like the Iowa men, n′ raise cows instead of just killing them. Fix up houses so′s not so many of our littles die in the cold time, learn the making of stuff . . . Can′t do that if the Knifers and the Bone Breakers and the Skull Cookers are always up your ass.″

  Rudi nodded; you couldn′t plow and plant if the horizons were always apt to spew out armed men without warning.

  ″I′ll stay until you′ve men who can make bows,″ he said gently. ″But I must be getting back, you see.″

  ″Yeah,″ Jake said dully, and crawled under the opened sleeping bag.

  Rudi sat for a while watching the fire, his long hands around the scabbard of his sword and his chin resting on one of the crossguards. As he looked into the red-gold glow that wavered over the embers he thought he could see the shape of a sword indeed; the one he and his mother had seen in the nemed when Raven came for him, fourteen years ago, after the War of the Eye. The one Ingolf had seen on Nantucket—a great longsword, with a guard like the crescent moon, and a pommel of moon opal held by branching antlers.

  Why must it be there? he wondered. It′s hints and visions and parables I′ve had when I asked why, and the Cutters make war on our people back home with me not there to aid . . . but they also pursue us across mountain and plain and river. Their leaders think this journey is a danger to them.

  ″A penny for your thoughts, Chief,″ Edain said quietly.

  Rudi looked over. Edain yawned, but he obviously wasn′t going to sleep with local company—he was too wolf-wary for that, in the Wild Lands. Instead he was setting his blanket roll in the usual place, not far from Rudi′s, with Garbh curled up close by. She′d burrowed down into the dry duff that made up the floor of the overhang, and only tufts of her shaggy hair showed, and an ear that flopped over at the top. Though even asleep she was a better sentry than half a dozen men.

  ″Of home,″ Rudi said.

  ″Ah, that′s a thought that steals over a man just before sleep, when he′s far away, eh? I can see Dun Fairfax now, and the houses garlanded when we brought in the Queen Sheaf, and my mother standing there to break the first loaf before the altar—″

  He stopped. Then with forced cheerfulness: ″But it would be Dun Juniper for you, sure, and the gates swinging wide, and a fine set of cheers, and the Chief Herself Herself there to bless you home.″

  Rudi opened his mouth to say, Dun Juniper, of course. But it wasn′t his mother′s steading that was really in his thoughts, dear though it was, nestled amid the forest edge beneath the Low Cascades. Nor even all the lands of the Clan, the forests and the little villages and their checkerboard fields along the eastern edge of the Willamette . . .

  ″That too. But there was more to my thoughts, my friend.″

  Edain′s square face looked puzzled, and he scratched at his curly mop of hair. Rudi went on:

  ″Say we gain this sword on Nantucket, the one Ingolf saw and was told was for me—the Sword of the Lady for the Lady′s Sword.″

  ″Ah!″ Edain said. ″By Ogma the Honey-Tongued, you know, that never occurred to me! They are different words.″

  Rudi nodded and murmured the words of the prophecy his mother had spoken when she held him over the altar in the nemed at his Wiccaning at the end of the first Change Year:

  ″Sad winter′s child, in this leafless shaw—

  Yet be Son, and Lover, and Hornéd Lord!

  Guardian of my sacred Wood, and Law—

  His people′s strength—and the Lady′s sword!″

  They weren′t a secret. Wiccaning was a public rite, not even limited to Initiates, and rumors had been spreading up and down the Willamette ever since, and through the whole Columbia Valley. For all he knew, they′d reached south of Ashland and up to the Okanogan.

  ″But who are the people I′m to be the strong right arm of?″ he went on.

  ″The Clan Mackenzie of course, and who else might it be?″ Edain said, sounding a little indignant but throttling it down in respect for the sleepers.

  ″Them to be sure. But them alone? My father, my blood father, was Mike Havel, the Bearkiller lord. Many of my blood kin are there in Larsdalen; Mary and Ritva are my half sisters, which makes Aunt Signe really my aunt, in a sense. And Lady Astrid too, the Hiril Dúnedain. And Mathilda is my anamchara, my soul sister, and I′ve spent months every year these last fourteen in the Association lands. You and I fought those Haida raiders there and shed our blood for the folk of County Tillamook. I′ve studied at Mount Angel and in Corvallis, and Rancher Brown of the CORA is my mother′s guest-friend and mine, and I′ve shared tobacco with the Three Tribes. You see what I′m after saying?″

  Edain′s brows knotted. ″That′s a substantial herd of people you′re after being the strength of, Chief.
Peoples, you might say, and each of them a different folk with different ways and names for the Gods.″

  Rudi chuckled a little. His eyes were halfway between turquoise and emerald as he stared into the bed of coals that almost matched the color of his hair. The hot clean scent of burning oak drifted through the dampness of the night air. The shoulder-length mane fell forward, framing the chiseled lines of his face.

  ″A mix-up it is, and no mistake; a mispocha as Aunt Judy would call it. So many peoples and so large a land we don′t even have a name for them all. The lands or the peoples-together, either one.″

  ″Oregon . . . well, Oregon and Washington and Idaho, I suppose . . .″

  Rudi shook his head. ″Those are the names of the old world. They′ve lost their magic, even for our parents, and they never meant much to us; they don′t stir men′s souls or make music in their hearts anymore, they′re not ours. It strikes me that we need a new name for the whole of it, a footing that we can build the walls of our dreams upon.″

  ″You could say the lands of the Corvallis Meeting,″ Edain replied. ″But that would be just a wee bit cumbersome.″

  Rudi nodded. Images tumbled through his head. Masked dancers in the streets of Sutterdown on Samhain Eve; the perfect snowpeak of Mt. Hood; the towers of Castle Todenangst rising over green vineyards and wheat fields gold to the harvest; the Columbia flowing like molten silver between high cliffs with hang gliders dancing in the air above; waterfalls like threads tumbling down from green heights in the mountains; the bells of Mt. Angel calling the monks to prayer on their hilltop aerie; trumpets and splintered lances in a tournament beneath the ruins of Portland; a student hangout in Corvallis and the smell of beer and hamburgers and the sound of sharp young voices arguing the whichness of the wherefore; tall ships spreading their white canvas wings off Astoria amid a storm of gulls, and whales sporting in the gray Pacific waters . . .

  ″Montival,″ he whispered, and the sound had a . . . rightness, like an echo of music heard over the hills by moonlight. ″It′s called Montival. Though the folk there don′t know it yet.″

  He looked up and saw Edain shape the word silently a few times, then nod and look up with a light kindling in his direct gray gaze.

  ″Now, that′s a name with the blessing of the Powers upon it, Chief! Montival. It takes all the names—the Clan and Portland and the Yakima and Corvallis and Bend and the others—and puts them together, without making them any the less each by themselves. And it′s ours, a Changeling name, not handed down.″

  Rudi tapped his fingers on the black tooled leather of his sword scabbard. ″It does have that sound, eh? And this Sword we′re after . . . that could be the symbol for it, do you see? For we go to fetch it through great trials, clansman and Princess and baron, monk and Ranger, and we bring it back through fire and peril to its new home, there to guard the land.″

  Edain nodded slowly. ″The sword of the High King,″ he said, as if testing the sound.

  His words dropped into the noises of the night like a distant horn-call that makes men stop and listen amid the work of field and street.

  ″The High King of Montival.″

  Rudi′s head came up. A complex shudder went through him; he closed his eyes and shook his head.

  ″I′ve no desire for that,″ he said with quiet vehemence. ″Tanist of the Mackenzies and Chief in my turn . . . that would be more than enough.″

  Edain grinned. ″Sure, and if you did want it with an eager craving, you′d not be the man for the job, now would you? But I′ve heard you say to others that the King is the sacrifice that goes consenting.″

  ″If . . . if we needed it,″ Rudi said reluctantly.

  ″And do we not? To deal with the Cutters, if nothing else.″

  ″There′s the Meeting at Corvallis,″ Rudi noted—but his own tone was defensive, and Edain snorted.

  ″Which has something in common with a donkey, does it not? And it′s not so long ago we fought each other in the War of the Eye, and wouldn′t a High King be the one to make sure that doesn′t happen again? But better you than me, Chief. All I want is to have my own croft and roof-tree someday, and a hearth to sit beside on winter evenings.″

  He lay back and gathered his blanket roll about him. Rudi shook his head again, then sighed and did likewise. There was much to do; tomorrow they′d get to work.

  Though getting people to do what′s needful is part of a Chief′s work, he thought. And bashing their heads not the best way of doing so, when another′s to be had. High King, though . . .

  He shuddered again; bad enough to be Chief, even among a folk who mostly governed themselves. To handle a dozen lands, each as likely as not to quarrel with the others, would be a nightmare all his life long.

  But . . . there′s a good deal that needs doing, and perhaps a High King could do it. More happily: And such a man would have to marry Matti, now wouldn′t he? For only as her handfasted man would the Associates accept him.

  His thoughts quieted, and he drifted down into the soft darkness. But the Sword glowed against that velvet, turning as if it fell through stars and shadows, falling out of memory and time towards the hand he stretched up to grasp it.

  As if he remembered wielding it on a stricken field.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DES MOINES CAPITAL, PROVISIONAL REPUBLIC OF IOWA SEPTEMBER 6, CHANGE YEAR 24/2022 AD

  ″A vision of the Blessed Virgin?″

  Father Ignatius, priest and knight-brother of the Order of the Shield of St. Benedict, bowed his tonsured head to the Cardinal-Archbishop of Des Moines as the older man looked up from his written report, and put his hands inside the wide sleeves of his coarse monastic robe. The cleric had read it twice before the comment.

  ″I was honored beyond my worth, Your Eminence,″ he said, with humility in his voice.

  Suddenly his serious young face was lit up from within by a joy that he could feel filling him as candlelight did a glass globe. No detail of the meeting in the cold December mountains above Chenrezi Monastery had left him in the long months since, and neither had the happiness that plucked at his soul like a harpist′s fingers at a string.

  ″What can I do but strive all my life to be worthy of it?″ he said, and only stern control kept the tears from his eyes.

  The Prince of the Church leaned back in his chair, his crimson-sashed cassock rustling; his short-cropped beard and the little left of his hair were white, and his face lined and seamed beneath the red skullcap. The office was plain, as befitted a man of austerity, but it was large and paneled in smooth dark woods; this was the headquarters of the Church in the whole of the upper Mississippi Valley. The view gave on gardens, and not far away the lime-fueled searchlights of the perimeter wall around the old State Capitol where the Heasleroads now ruled.

  ″I must either pity your madness, or struggle against the sin of envy,″ the Cardinal said.

  Ignatius felt a flash of resentment at the skepticism he saw in the probing gaze; who was this hesitant old man to doubt him? There was no time for delay!

  The Princess I am commanded to guard and serve by the Queen of Angels is in need of his help, and he dares to question me?

  Ignatius had learned discipline in hard schools; as a smallholder′s son, and as novice, brother and ordinand at Mt. Angel. Not least he had learned the discipline of the self. He bowed his head a little further; when he raised his face again it was calm, whatever turmoil clenched his soul within. He catalogued the objects within sight, as an aid to self-control. A prie-dieu stood in one corner, and a fine crucifix on the wall behind the desk between two tall open windows, and a photograph—post-Change—of the late Pope on the mahogany surface.

  Ignatius met those eyes for an instant, the haunted indomitable gaze of a survivor who had seen a world die and flinched from nothing as he worked to build anew from the rubble. Then he raised his own eyes for a long moment to the Man upon the Cross, and felt a flush of shame.

  Forgive me, Lord, and help me put down pride
. Always we crucify You, over and over again. Help me find the courage to follow where You lead, to take up my cross and make of all suffering an offering to You.

  The older man sighed and touched strong stubby fingers to his brow. Then he looked at the documents Ignatius had presented with their seals and ribbons; he flicked one of them aside slightly, with a rustle of stiff official paper.

  ″You bring glowing recommendations from the head of your Order, and favorable ones from Cardinal-Archbishop Maxwell in Portland; the more favorable for being slightly grudging. As it happens I knew the Cardinal-Archbishop before the Change; we were young men together in Rome for a time. And of course Badia has kept me informed of the founding and growth of your Order. Nor is the vision without precedent even in recent times; there is St. Maximillian Kolbe . . .″

  Ignatius nodded gravely; he′d studied that when he was a novice. The Virgin had appeared to Kolbe when he was a boy in Poland about a hundred years ago now, offering him a choice between the red crown of martyrdom and the white of purity. He′d chosen both . . . and been sent to Auschwitz for sheltering Jews in his monastery during the great war of the previous century. And died there when he volunteered his own life in place of a younger man with a family.

  The tale was daunting, but strengthening as well. Kolbe had died of thirst and starvation and then poison in that mortal-made antechamber of Hell. And died blessing the men who killed him so slowly and so cruelly, begging them to seek God′s forgiveness for their souls before it was too late. That was what the Faith could make of a man, or a man make of the Faith.

  Can I reach such heights? he asked himself. Then he looked up once more to the Man of Sorrows. Dare I do less? Be ye perfect, He commanded.

  The Cardinal went on: ″And I do not think you are mad, my son. But I am not altogether sure that you are to be envied. You have received a stupendous honor; but from such men much is demanded.″

  ″Thank you for your trust in me, Father,″ Ignatius said; his gaze flicked back to the great carved Rood.