″My thanks, lady!″ Rudi exclaimed. ″Wisdom is the greatest of all gifts!″
He smiled again, and Heidhveig′s mouth turned up in response.
How this one must charm the women! she thought wryly, looking into the sparkling gaze and hearing a few sighs from around her.
Then something moved in her mind, uncoiling from the depths.
Yes, she thought—and knew with a sharp weight of certainty. Yes. This is the one sent to me.
″Par dieu, by Mary Mother and the merciful Saints, I thought I′d never be warm again,″ Odard Liu said.
Rudi grinned at him through the drifting mist of steam. The men of the party were all seated on the pine-board benches that made a half circle around the hearth; occasionally a little door would open, and the attendant would stretch in tongs to drop a new heated rock, clack on the pile. The hot wet scent of the wood was an aromatic blessing in his lungs; he could feel the sweat carrying all impurity out of his body, and the memory of the ice floes′ white grinding death with it.
″I′ve noticed, my lord Gervais, that you complain and complain . . . but sure, you keep going just the same!″
Odard cocked one black brow without opening his eyes, leaning back with his arms along the front of the bench above. The wintertide journey had thinned him down to muscle and gristle and bone, as it had all of them, and he hadn′t had much spare flesh to start with.
″And what else can I do, your Majesty?″ he said. ″Stop? Around here? If I ever get back, wild horses hitched to triple reduction gearing won′t get me out of Barony Gervais.″
″You′d be bored silly in six months,″ Rudi said.
Odard′s voice grew dreamy: ″Bored? I′ll spend my time lying in a hammock under blossoming peach trees or a pergola of roses, looking out over the vineyards, and giving my loyal peasants an encouraging twiddle of my fingers now and then. And eating pineapple pyonnade and composing poetry about my heroic deeds. Pretty girls will fan me in the summer heat and drop peeled grapes in my mouth and sing for me. When winter comes, I′ll go on a fearless quest—as far as the castle solar, where I will read stories about other people′s adventures and sip real coffee with good brandy in it, as a fire crackles in the hearth and the radiator gurgles.″
Ingolf took up the bundle of birch twigs, dipped it into the bucket and flicked water onto the stones. Steam billowed up with a sharp hsssssss, and someone on the upper tier groaned in pleasure—Rudi thought it was Father Ignatius, and nobody could say he wasn′t a hardy man. He′d certainly done a full share of the work, and more than his share of scouting on the long rearguard.
″We′ve got saunas like this in Richland, too,″ Ingolf said. With a grin at Odard: ″After you boil for a while and feel just like a ham, you run out and roll in the snow, or jump into a hole cut in the ice over the river.″
The baron of Gervais shuddered theatrically. ″Saints have mercy! Even the Bearkillers don′t do that.″
″No, really, it feels good,″ Ingolf said. ″You just don′t stay out long enough for your body to lose the heat that′s soaked in.″
″That′s what you do, perhaps,″ Odard said. ″I do not. I′m saving up the heat to hoard like a Corvallis moneylender′s gold in a vault.″
Fred Thurston had been sitting silent, like a statue of old bronze sheen ing with a thin film of oil. Now he stirred:
″These people are Asatruar, aren′t they?″ he said
Mary and Ritva could tell him what they′d learned in their mother′s household, and they′d been able to find him a few books along the way, but he was anxious for the reality of the tales that spoke to his heart. You couldn′t learn much of a faith until you saw how it shaped the souls of those who followed it.
″Yes,″ Rudi said.
Someone sighed; definitely Father Ignatius this time. Since Fred had been a nominal Methodist originally, the Mackenzie didn′t think the priest had much ground for complaint, and went on:
″So I′d judge from what we′ve seen and heard. Probably it spread here the way the Old Religion did from Dun Juniper, because the ones who brought them through the Change followed it.″
Which to be sure is also why nearly everyone around Mt. Angel is a Christian of the Roman rite, he thought. Or why most are in the lands the Association rules. Sigh as you will, Father, but turn about is fair play. Aloud he went on:
″And hospitality is sacred to them as well, of which I′m glad. I was worried to death about Epona, that I was. She′s a little old for travel like this, which would be hard on a horse of half her years. But they′re treating our beasts right royally, as they are us; nice tight barn, blankets, warm mash, clean water and straw, fodder of the best.″
Fred nodded agreement. ″They seem like . . . solid people,″ he said. ″Indeed, the which is what I′d expect. What those Gods they follow value in a man is courage and loyalty, and above all the hardihood of soul to stand and endure and strive, never flinching. Nor would they have come so well through such years—and in a hard place like this—unless they had those things in truth.″
Odard shuddered. ″Oh, the ancestral virtues! Next you′ll say they venerate clean living and hard work.″
″As a matter of fact . . .″ Rudi replied.
Fred snorted, and said: ″How long do you think we′ll stay? I′d like to . . . learn a bit.″
″A week or two at least. We have to learn the lay of the land here, and the road to the coast, and where we can hope to find a vessel, one willing to carry us in this bleak season. And to tell the truth I′d like to leave our horses and a couple of our wounded here, if we can arrange that. Then a dash to the sea, a dash to Nantucket, and back. Though how by the brazen gates of Anwyn we′re to return through that mess we left behind us . . .″
″These folk keep the twelve days of Yule, don′t they?″ Edain said. ″Twelve days of feasting . . . after the trip we′ve had, that would be just about what I could use, so! And we′d not lose much time. We were slowing that last week or so because we were worn, ourselves and our beasts both.″
″It′s lucky we ran into someplace that could put us all up in midwinter,″ Ingolf said thoughtfully. ″As well as being well disposed, I mean. We′ve had to move quick a lot to keep from eating people bare. Of course, we′re supposed to be moving quickly.″
They all laughed; quickly was for short trips. When you had a three-thousand-mile journey one way and the prospect of three thousand miles back, haste lost all meaning. Even for a small picked band a journey of that distance could only be made at walking speed, fifteen miles a day averaged out over the whole, and you′d count yourself lucky to maintain that. They had been lucky, since their stay at the Valley of the Sun had been the only time they′d been stuck in one spot for many months by illness, wounds or weather.
Rudi shook his head and poured a dipperful of water over it, enjoying the cool shock.
″Not just luck; it′s little we′ve found on this journey of either good or bad that′s mere chance in the way most use the term. And we′re moving as quickly as we can while doing what we′re supposed to be doing, of which collecting the Sword is an essential part, but only a part. What did Tsewang Dorje say to me, back at Chenrezi Monastery . . .″
He thought, and the wise wrinkled face appeared in his mind′s eye, amid the pleasant austerity of his chamber:
″Can light exist without shadow?″ he quoted. ″So, I tell you that when you seek to do the will of the gods, and help men rise through the cycles, your very inmost thoughts awaken hosts of enemies that otherwise had slept. As sound awakens echoes, so the pursuit of Wisdom awakens the devil′s guard.″
″I would not put it in just those words, my son, yet the good Abbot is a very wise man, in his way,″ Ignatius said thoughtfully. ″But I would guess that he told you more.″
″That he did. This: But I do say that if you are in league with Gods to learn life and to live it you shall not only find enemies. You shall find help unexpectedly, from strangers who, it may be, k
now not why.″
″A very wise man indeed,″ Ignatius said, swinging his feet down and sitting upright on the bench, his whipcord body dim in the gloom. ″And a holy man, I think. I learned things of great value in the Valley of the Sun; we all did.″
″Even though his is the Way of the Buddha?″ Rudi said, his voice slightly teasing.
The priest spoke with a chuckle in his voice, his narrow dark eyes ironic and a finger tapping the air in mild reproof:
″You know the answer to that, my son; you rolled in enough logic at Mt. Angel for some to rub off. When men differ from the magisterium of Holy Mother Church, they are in error. But when they agree with it . . . why, that simply shows that all truth proceeds from God. We of the Church have it in fullness by revelation in Scripture and from the holy Saints and the Fathers, as well as by reason and moral intuition. But all men can discover some of it, if they truly seek virtue and wisdom, wherever they start the journey. How not? These things come from only one source and it speaks to every heart that listens. So yes, the Rimpoche is a holy man, and so, in my view, was the Buddha—or Plato, for that matter. But how much better would they have been, if only they had the fullness of the Divine Logos to guide them!″
″Well, now, there′s a circular argument, if I ever heard one!″
The priest laughed aloud. ″You can′t win this one, you know . . . your Majesty. Though I′ll have it with you as often as you please.″
″It′s you Christians who think you can argue your way to truth,″ Rudi said, with a grin. ″Right now, to be sure, I′d rather eat. Let′s go sluice off!″
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
NORRHEIM, LAND OF THE BJORNINGS NEAR ERIKSGARTH (FORMERLY AROOSTOOK COUNTY, MAINE) DECEMBER 23, CHANGE YEAR 24/2022 AD
Next afternoon Rudi grinned again as he watched Edain collecting his bets after a round of shooting with the bow—and then handing the winnings out as gifts, each to a different man than the one who′d wagered it.
Sure, and there′s a wisdom of hand and eye, too, he thought.
There was plenty of room for play in the big enclosure that Eriksgarth made—the hall and house of the godhi, smaller dwellings for his carles and their families and the youngsters fostered here to learn, barns and sheds and workshops, all around a court paved with river-smoothed cobbles mostly hidden beneath hard-packed snow. The sky was bright, with traces of high cloud like a white mare′s tail. The air was no more than cold, without the frigid cutting blast that made your face ache; the fresh drifts sparkled like soft-curved masses of diamond dust in the light.
And Epona is looking better, he thought happily. Still a bit of that dry wheeze, but her eyes aren′t as dull. Some quiet and rest and she′ll be fine.
For shooting with the bow they used the bank of a distant potato barn as a target, a curious structure like a long rectangle three-quarters sunken in the ground and with earth berms heaped up against its walls. There were clear fields beyond that, for a quarter-mile of open fenced pastureland until a holy shaw′s trees stood bare-branched around the steep roof-on-roof height of a stave-hof, a temple. A bright glitter caught his eye there, paint on one of the riot of carvings.
The locals were good enough archers in their way, but not up to Mackenzie standards, and certainly not to be set against a champion of the Lughnasadh Games like Edain. The young men he′d defeated laughed and slapped him on the back; then three of them looked at each other, nodded, and each picked up one of the plate-sized wooden targets.
With a shout they threw them high, in a spread that opened like the spines of a fan. Edain′s movements seemed steady, almost leisurely, but the flat snap of the bow sounded three times so quickly that the sound was lost in the hard crack-crack-crack of the points striking home in wood. The last of the targets was still man-height above the ground when the arrow punched it away.
″Fetch, Garbh!″ the younger Mackenzie said.
The big shaggy half mastiff had been sitting in aristocratic indifference, ignoring the stiff-legged wariness of the local beasts as they stalked closer. Now she trotted off, to return and lay the disks at her master′s feet.
″Did you miss?″ one of the Bjornings said; no arrows stood in the wooden circles. ″I thought I heard the strike!″
Edain tossed him one of the disks, skimming it through the air; they were like flat miniature shields a foot across, made from two layers of birch strips glued crossways and rimmed in iron. The Norrheim man held his up and whistled between his teeth, showing the neat round hole punched through near the center of it.
″This is not a little boy who′s come among us!″ he said.
″Ah, it′s the cold steel that wins a battle,″ one of the others grumbled.
Garbh returned with the arrows held gently between her long yellow teeth, lips curled daintily back. The fletching of each had been stripped off as they made passage through the wood, but they were otherwise intact.
″Not with one of those through your eye,″ his friend said thoughtfully. ″And through your shield first. I′d guess you could punch through a byrnie, too, eh?″
″A mail shirt? Yes, with anything like a straight hit, and a nice bodkin. But a solid steel breastplate or lames, now . . . no, not always through that. The surface may glance the point; you need a closer range and a little luck. Enough shafts in the air at once—an arrow storm, we call it—will do the job right enough.″
Edain finshed checking the arrows and slid them over his shoulder into the quiver. He spoke with a little slyness in it:
″You were speakin′ of the cold steel? Well, my Chief there, himself, is a very fair shot, enough to keep me exercised, as it were, but a man of the sword first and foremost. Better at that than I am with a bow, if truth be told, and I′ve fought by his side more than once, in ambuscades, onsets, raids and pitched battles.″
He reached out and took an apple that one of the local men had halfway raised to his mouth, twitching it out of his fingers, tossing it up and catching it. Then he threw it with a sudden hard snap, the plump red fruit a blurred streak through the air.
″Chief!″ he called as it left his hand.
Rudi had been waiting for something of the sort; the contests had all been friendly, but he didn′t think the men of Eriksgarth would have spent this much time with their weapons on the day of a feast if the strangers hadn′t arrived. Though they seemed to love games and tests of skill of all sorts, from chess to wrestling and swordplay, and this gathering was a chance for trials between many from isolated steadings.
The apple was aimed more than arm′s length to Rudi′s left, past what was now his sword hand. That hand flashed across his body and he turned in the packed snow of the yard, granules flying up in arcs from his boots with the speed of the movement. Steel glittered in the cold winter light as he extended in a long lunge, the point an extension of his arm in a play of motion and angle.
Tock.
The point went through the firm flesh of the apple with a surgeon′s delicacy, the edge parallel to the ground so that it stopped the motion without splitting the fruit. He held the lunge for an instant, with a background of amazed oaths, then flicked the longsword′s point upward and twitched his wrist to send the steel in a shimmering arc.
Tock.
This time the apple tumbled towards the ground in two neat halves. Rudi caught them with his other hand, moving like a frog′s tongue after a fly, then wiped the tip of his sword on his sleeve and slid it home. He tossed one half to a grinning Edain as the broad-shouldered bowman sauntered up.
″You almost wasted a good apple, there, boyo,″ he said mildly. ″The which the Goddess of the Blossom-time would not like.″
His half was tart and sweet at the same time as he crunched it; a little harder and more grainy than the breeds they grew back home in the Mackenzie duns or the Yakima lands, but palatable. Edain ate his in three bites, his cheeks bulging for a moment, and his gray eyes taking in the awestruck expressions scattered across the open expanse. Some were frankly gog
gling; everyone here trained to the blade, which meant they had a fair idea of just what combination of speed and control the little demonstration had required.
Now that was more than a bit flashy, Rudi half chided himself. But then, Edain′s only a bit past twenty. And I′m no graybeard yet either! And we wouldn′t have done it before those who weren′t warriors themselves, sure.
″I think it′s the custom here to push a man a bit. To see what′s in him, as it were,″ Edain said.
″The which Mackenzies would never do,″ Rudi said, and they both laughed.
Edain went on: ″They′re a bit doomful here, but for the rest it′s homelike enough; and they get something more lively with some beer in them.″
″That they do!″
″Has it struck you, Chief, that men are not at all unlike dogs . . . especially in the way they greet a stranger?″
As if on cue there was a sudden chorus of snarls; Garbh had one of the Eriksgarth hounds on its back, with her teeth holding its neck ruff. She shook it a little and then stepped back, tense and wary.
″Well, at least we′re not expected to engage in arse-sniffing contests,″ Rudi pointed out, which the dogs were doing at that moment, their tails wagging.
Not far away, Mary Havel—Mary Vogeler, now, Rudi reminded himself—was talking to a big young Bjorning with a battle-ax in his hands. The weapon was a bit unusual; the rear of it was drawn out into the rectangular serrated head of a war hammer. The ax-man looked over at Ingolf, who with Fred Thurston was helping some newcomers unload a roughly butchered moose carcass from their sled, a contribution to the feast and a gift to their chieftain.
The tall Richlander hefted a hindquarter over his back, with no more than a grunt at a weight greater than his whole body.
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