The streets were quiet, and so was the maternity ward-section, rather-of the hospital. Martha was lying in a freshly made bed with the baby in the crook of her arm; she was tired but triumphant, the baby was as crumpled and formless as babies usually were, and Jared Cofflin had the same sledgehammer-between-the-eyes look that he’d had on his wedding day, only more so.
“Congratulations,” Marian said inanely. “Everything went well?”
Coleman was still in his green surgical gown. “For a primigravida in her forties, very smoothly. Nice healthy bouncing eight-pound baby girl,” he said, with a workman’s pride.
“You wouldn’t say smooth if you’d been doing it yourself,” Martha said tartly.
“No indeed,” Marian said emphatically.
“Does it get better the second time?” Martha asked.
“No, can’t say that it does,” the black woman said. “But you sort of expect it more.” And afterward you feel very, very-
“Is there a kitchen in this torture chamber?” Martha asked sharply.
��� hungry.
“You are recovering well,” the doctor said, “Someone will be along with a tray shortly. And if you’ll pardon me���”
Cofflin cleared his throat. “We’ve got a name for her,” he said. “Marian Deer Dancer Cofflin. Hell of a moniker, but it seemed appropriate.”
Alston felt the blood mount to her face, glad that it couldn’t be seen. “Ah���” she said. “Er, ah��� why, thank you, Jared, Martha.” She stopped her feet from shuffling with an effort of will.
“We’d like you and Swindapa to be the godparents, if that’s all right,” Martha went on. “As neither I nor the baby would be here if it weren’t for you. We can have the baptism before you leave.”
Marian looked down at the wrinkle-faced form and stroked one arm with a finger. A tiny hand closed around it, rose-pink against black, the nails perfectly formed miniatures.
“That’s fine,” she said. “Mighty fine. We’ll just have to see that there’s a good world for her to live in, won’t we?
“Ayup,” Cofflin said. “Amen.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
February ��� May, Year 2 A.E.
Daurthunnicar scowled and gripped the arms of the huge carved oak chair. The ruathaurikaz of the Tuattauna folk’s chieftains had stood here for many generations, time enough to accumulate many treasures. The timbers of the hall were carved and painted in the shape of gods and heroes, and they seemed to move slightly in the red-shot firelit dimness like the smoke-darkened wool hangings on the walls. By the wall across from him was a Sun Chariot and horse, cast in bronze and bearing a great golden disk as high as a man, incised with endless looping spirals. The Iraiina had nothing like that. They had never been a wealthy tribe, and they had been plundered of much of what they did have in the lost war on the mainland. The eyes stared at him through the murk, full of holiness and dread.
But we have victory here. The Sun Lord, the Long-Speared Father of the Sky, gives us victory now, he told himself firmly.
The Iraiina rahax scowled at the Tuattauna high chief as he stood before him, and at the other enemy leaders. They bore themselves proudly, for beaten men looking at a foreign chief in their own high seat��� except when their eyes strayed to his son-in-law, where he leaned on his spear beside the throne. Men fear me because Hwalkarz is beside me, he knew. They fear our tribe because Hwalkarz lends it his wizardry and his might. He was not altogether happy with that, not now. What was given could be withdrawn, and if the outlander’s hand was taken back, the Iraiina would have many foes and face much hatred.
When you have the wolf by the ears, you cannot let go, be reminded himself. And had he not bound Hwalkarz to him by the closest of ties? His daughter’s belly swelled with this man’s get, which was more than his witch-wife had ever given him.
True, he’s a wizard. But he was also a warrior beyond compare, a never-failing fountain of wealth, and a giver of deep and crafty redes. Some said he was a god��� And the old stories did tell of times beyond number when gods or half-gods or warrior Mirutha walked among men and took part in their quarrels in man’s shape. It would be a thing of high glory if his grandson was the son of a god. Such a one could make the Iraiina mighty. Such a breed of men could bestride the worlds. If he could not turn the wolf loose, he would wrestle it to the ground, set it to hunting for him.
“You come to hear my word,” Daurthunnicar said to the envoys of the defeated. “That is good. Sky Father has given victory to the Iraiina folk and the tribes who have sworn on the oath-ring with them. It is unlucky to strive against the gods.”
One of the ambassadors answered, speaking boldly. “Sky Father gives no man victory forever,” he said, in the whistling nasal accent his people had. “His favor is fickle.”
The defiance would have been more impressive if melting sleet hadn’t been dripping off the envoy’s beard and hair. Among the tribes of the White Isle it was not the least of grudges against Hwalkarz and the Iraiina that they had broken the old good custom of making war only between spring planting and first frost.
“Sky Father is not so fickle that there will be a steading of the Tuattauna standing whole by next harvest season, if you try to meet us on the raven-feeding field of war,” Daurthunnicar said. “Your warriors’ flesh feeds the Crow Goddess, your gold is on our arms, your cattle roast over our fires, our women wear your cloth, your wives and daughters spread their thighs for the stallion-cocks of our warriors. This is truth.”
The envoys’ fists clenched and they growled in their beards. But their eyes flickered to the iron-mailed line of spearmen who stood unmoving along the wall on either side of the Iraiina chieftain. Hwalkarz had taught them that unnatural stillness, and the arts of riding with footrests, arts of moving their warbands in ways that somehow always left their enemies at a disadvantage. Outside the captured hall rested one of the stone-throwing engines that battered down palisades like the fist of the Horned Man. And in two of the greater battles the sorcerer had struck men and horses dead at five times the reach of a bow, throwing bolts of thunder-death. The sorcerer, or the god?
“We���” The chief of the envoys stopped and ground his teeth. “We will pay tribute for peace. A tenth of our herds, a tenth of our bronze and gold, a tenth of our cloth and of this year’s harvest.”
There was a time when Daurthunnicar would have accounted that triumph and to spare, and taken it gladly. And spent the next year in fear of their revenge, he thought. Instead, he inclined his head slightly toward his son-in-law, holding out a gold-chased drinking horn. A woman scuttled over to fill it with captured mead.
Hwalkarz stepped forward; Daurthunnicar made a gesture, granting him formal leave to speak. When he did he used the Iraiina words with only the slightest trace of an accent. Was that the mark of how they spoke in the halls of the sky?
“You strove against us bravely,” he said, turning his spear and grounding the point in sign of peaceful intent. “It’s no fault of yours if the gods fought against you. And you’re wise to offer us peace. It’s a chief’s duty to safeguard the life of the tribe.”
The envoys relaxed a trifle, knowing that the Iraiina did not intend to grind their faces in the dirt further.
“Of the tribute you would give, we’ll ask only half of a half,” he went on. Their eyes went round in amazement. “That is, if you give your yes to our other offer.”
“Offer?” one said suspiciously. “You’ve beaten us-we acknowledge it, may the Dead Walkers suck your blood and the Night Ones ride your dreams forever. Why do you speak of offers?”
Hwalkarz smiled. Daurthunnicar shivered slightly behind his face. That smile did not mean what an ordinary man’s did.
“The Tuattauna still have most of their warriors,” he said. “If we take your tribute, their axes remain-and may strike at us some other time. So if you remain our foes, better that we grind you into nothingness. What we offer instead is that you become our f
riends.”
“Friends! You take our cattle and horses, burn our steadings, kill our men, force our women, and we should become friends’?”
Hwalkarz’s voice was soothing. “After war, peace may be made. No feud should last forever; else the kin die out and there are no living to make sacrifice for the spirits of the dead. The Iraiina have already made peace with the Zarthani, the Maltarka, many of the eastern tribes. Their chariots fight side by side with ours, and they share in our plunder-and in our new arts of war and making.”
“They are your dogs, you mean, to run at your heel!”
Daurthunnicar could see that the envoys were thoughtful, despite their bold words. He nodded smugly. This was a talking he had heard before, with the other neighbor tribes.
“Who speaks of dogs?” Hwalkarz shrugged. “Speak of wolves, instead.” He touched the fanged wolfs head that shone on the green-enameled steel of his breastplate. They had seen his wolf banner on red fields, and the same emblem was more and more common on Iraiina shields. “The wolves run in a pack, and for each pack there is a leader-but all the pack share in the kill. Run with us, be our pack-brothers, and you will feast richly. More than enough to make up for your losses.”
“Run against who?” the envoy said dubiously.
“Against all who oppose us,” Hwalkarz answered. “In another year, perhaps two, all the tribes of Sky Father’s people in these lands will go to war behind Daurthunnicar, high rahax of the White Isle. Already warriors come by the score from the mainland to join our banners and take meat and mead from our rahax, famous for victory-luck and his open hand to those who pledge loyalty.”
Daurthunnicar felt himself swelling with pride. It was true. He’d received envoys hinting that whole clans might follow, taking land to hold of him and joining the Iraiina folk. A tribe shrank with defeat but grew in victory.
“Then who will we go to war against?” the Tuattauna chief asked.
Hwalkarz’s grin spread. “Against the Earth Folk of the west and north, of course,” he said. “That will be a fat carcass big enough for us all to feast on. And in return for our friendship, we ask only a light tribute-every year-and that you make no war without the consent of our rahax. In return, you will share with us as comrades, and your chieftains will take council with ours.”
Daurthunnicar signaled the waiting women to bring in the food and drink. “Come, feast with us, be guests and peaceholy,” he said. “We will speak more of this.”
This session of the Constitutional Committee’s core group was fairly informal, a dozen people sitting around a table with notepads and plates of cookies, and Swindapa at the foot taking shorthand notes-she’d proved to have a natural talent for that.
Informal, hell, it’s in my living room, Cofflin thought. The Meeting had given him and Martha a former boardinghouse-cum-inn just past the upper end of Broad, where it turned into Gay Street-Marian had given one of her rare full-bore laughs when she heard, he on Gay and she on Main. They’d pulled out the extra bedrooms, except one for guests and another for a nursery, and turned most of the space into offices of a sort. So now I can’t ever get away from the goddam job. He had to admit it was a nice place, and more practical for his work than the old house farther out, which was just too damn far to commute on a bike, especially in winter. There were more fireplaces, too; it was an older house, 1840s, like most in this section of town, and honestly built. Rain beat against the streaked antique glass, and the lilac bushes tapped on them like skeletal ringers. The streets were dark, drizzle falling through chill fog; a good thing nobody had to walk or bike far to get home.
On the other hand, it was just too convenient at times. This meeting around the long dining-room table was going to go on long past the dinnertime it was supposed to end at. On the third hand, with the committee meeting here Martha can go nurse the baby when she has to. Extremely fortunate; the supply of infant formula was strictly limited.
“Look, let’s stop squabbling about details for a minute, shall we?” Cofflin said, washing down a bite of oatmeal cookie with lukewarm sassafras.
Because otherwise I may strangle somebody. The dull roar of argument subsided along the long table.
“Most of you were here for the first meetings we had right after the Event. We worked together well enough when we were figuring out how to avoid starving to death, nearly a year ago. Let’s apply a little of that spirit.”
“Good point, Jared,” Martha said. “Everything we do will have repercussions down the road; look at what happened with the original Convention, back in the 1780s. Let’s stand on their shoulders and perhaps see farther. Concentrate on principles, and on making them clear as crystal.”
“I still say the Meeting should be the final authority,” Macy said stubbornly. “Remember the way Congress got, back up in the twentieth? Say one thing, do another, and their hands always out to whoever would give ‘em the biggest contribution. Let the voters decide themselves.”
“For now, that’s fine,” Ian Arnstein said. “What happens when it gets too big? It’s awkward enough now, when we get a big turnout for a Meeting.”
Oh, please, not more about ancient Greek city-states, please.
“How’s this?” Doreen said. “We set a maximum size for Towns-say when their Meetings have five thousand members. Bigger than that, they have to split into two. Towns elect delegates to a, oh, let’s call it a House of Delegates. With an automatic setup for admitting new Townships. We can put in a formula for how many delegates per voter, say a percentage of the total so the ratio automatically goes up as the number of voters increases. That way the House would always be a manageable size.”
“Okay,” Macy said cautiously. “I can see that. But changes in the constitution should still be referred back to the Meetings. And the Meetings ought to be able to recall their delegates, too.”
“How about a two-thirds majority in two-thirds of the Meetings to approve a change the delegates propose?” Ian said.
“Okay. I can go with that. We need a way for ordinary people to propose changes too��� say, the same two-thirds and two-thirds voting on a petition, what do they call it-”
“Voter initiative, we called��� will call��� would have called it out in California,” Ian said. “Damn, those tenses trip you up. We could use the same formula for a recall.”
Macy nodded. There was a group that generally followed his lead; they gestured agreement as well.
“All right,” Cofflin said, trying hard to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “All in favor?”
Hands went up along the table. He ruled a line through that item on the list before him. His stomach rumbled complainingly; dinner was being long delayed. The smells coming from the kitchen didn’t help.
“Next, the military,” he said. “I move we use the Swiss system, suitably modified.”
Martha frowned. “Does that really need to go into the constitution, dear?” she said. “Couldn’t we just say where the warmaking power lies and then leave the details to the laws?”
“Ayup, the basics do need to go in, I think. How’s this? Everyone registers at eighteen, serves the equivalent of Basic, and does periodic training after that. Meeting-or this House of Delegates, later-has to approve any prolonged call-up, or sending the��� hell, let’s call it the Militia abroad. Details beyond that by legislation.”
“I’m for it, Jared,” Macy said.
Cofflin looked down the table to Marian Alston.
She nodded. “Sound, as our basic defense. We’ll need the Guard for operations abroad, ships and landing parties and so forth. I think that should be at the chief’s discretion, with the Meeting as an overall check. We can’t be too centralized, particularly with communications so slow.”
“All in favor?” He glanced around. “Passed by acclamation. All right, next item, the Declaration of Rights. Let’s see, we got the first seven down last session-religion, speech, assembly, franchise, property, privacy, fair and speedy trial by jury.”
“What about bearing arms?” Macy said.
“Sam, that comes under ‘military service’ up the list, in case you hadn’t noticed. Everyone’s in the militia and they keep the personal weapons issued ‘em at home, unless convicted of a felony. Satisfied?”
“I suppose,” he grumbled. After a moment: “Ayup, Jared, that about covers it.”
“Good. All right, there’s a short codicil after all of ‘em, to make what we mean clear. Like this bit about the freedom of religion not meaning the town can’t put up a creche at Christmas, the speech not including fornicating in the streets, assembly not including rioting, property subject to legal usage, and trial not meaning damnfool stuff like throwing anyone who knows anything off a jury, things like that.”
Joseph Starbuck held up a page, his glasses at the end of his nose. “Phrasing here’s a bit more elegant than that, Jared,” he said dryly.
“Blame Martha.” That brought chuckles. “And Father Gomez, he did most of the religion codicil.”
“Good,” someone farther down the table said. “For a moment there, I was afraid we had a lawyer on the committee.”
There was another chuckle at that. “We’re ahead of the Philadelphia Convention there, at least,” a man said. He’d been a candy-maker before the Event, and still did amazing things with honey and maple sugar now that his chocolate truffles were merely a sadly happy memory. “They were lousy with lawyers.”
“All in favor?” Jared asked. “Passed by acclamation. Next item, the everybody-means-everybody-no-exceptions part of the Declaration of Rights. No abridging citizens’ rights on the grounds of race, religion, origin, gender, or sexual orientation. The codicil covers things for damn fools again, in case we get many down the road. We didn’t put in anything for green-eyed dwarves with two heads, on the assumption you can’t cover all the angles.”
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