The Desert and the Blade

by S. M. Stirling

  As the meal wound down two of the Nihonjin rose and bowed to the older Dúnedain present, politely saying:

  “Gochiso-sama deshita,” as the others nodded and smiled, and Reiko gestured with her fan.

  Those words meant it was a feast, which was literally true besides being good manners. The Nihonjin were a pleasure to be around that way . . . unless they decided you were an enemy, in which case you were in very bad trouble. From what she’d seen and sensed and from the old tales they were capable of a chilling ruthlessness, for all their subtle courtesy.

  Deor and John had been deep in conversation again. Her brother grinned and shook his head, then leaned back and peeled an orange as the ohtar made another round, setting out bowls of nuts and dried fruits and the sweet nut-studded wafers that they called lembas and similar nibblements, and pots of various hot and cold herbal tisaines. She noticed that plenty of the Folk of the West seemed content to stay with the wine on a festive occasion like this, though most of them were pacing themselves and using appropriate foods to cushion the impact. There was precedent in the Histories for reveling. The guards of King Thranduil, for example.

  Though I wouldn’t care to walk about this place tipsy, considering how far it is to the ground.

  “Oh, no, my friend,” John said to the scop as he separated the segments of the orange and popped one into his mouth.

  They were much more common here than farther north, where they were still special treats for Yule and the like. Few of the big citrus orchards had survived to greet the pioneer Montivallan settlers. Unlike the deep-rooted olive and vine they needed human help during the dry summers, and this was the northern edge of their range in any case. But individual trees close enough to water had lived and been brought back into production here and there.

  “Not for my sister,” John went on to Deor. “I don’t sing praise-songs for my own family. You can do chantaire style just as well as I; better right now, and you know it.”

  “Your Highness, I must bow to your command,” Deor said; then he turned and winked at Órlaith.

  When he rose and walked over to the musicians he had the almost-too-steady walk of a man who wasn’t drunk by any manner of means, but was definitely a trifle elevated. Thora shifted over beside John and gave him a friendly prod with an elbow.

  “You’re smart as well as good-looking, eh? He needs a nudge, sometimes, even after all these years. And I’m not qualified to do it when it comes to music.”

  John grinned. “I must be a Prince metaphorically as well as literally,” he said, and grinned wider when she winced at the pun and mimed a clout, one that landed but not hard enough to sting.

  Órlaith felt mildly envious. She had had the impulse to actually give him the proverbial whack on the back of the head more than once.

  Deor bowed to the Dúnedain around the harp and soon they were talking animatedly; one pulled a sheaf of musical notation out of a case at her feet and opened it. The Mist Hills man looked it over and nodded and tapped a page; the Rangers glanced at each other, smiled, and launched into a tune’s opening bars.

  Wait a minute! Órlaith thought; then it died down before she could be sure.

  Most of the hall had glanced over when the sound died. Now Deor raised his hands and smiled. It transformed him. She’d seen him fight, and he’d done it with courage and skill. She’d seen him starkly confronting things of the Otherworld, with knowledgeable determination. But this, making music before an audience, was the thing for which he was made.

  “Friends,” he said, falling into an alliterative half-chanting style. “Comrades of the battlefield, shield-brothers and shield-sisters. Yesterday I fought with you, and our Princess and Prince John, against the savages and the ill-wreaking drymann who drove them on. If we walk among the living today, it is because she wielded well against the sorcerer the Sword the Gods forged, forged for the line of her blood! Many and mighty were the deeds her noble sire did when his fist held the brand wrought by Weyland-smith, but not unworthy are those his heir has done, young though she is.”

  Heuradys snorted very faintly; Órlaith quirked a brow at her. That wasn’t entirely fair, Reiko and she had been nearly as important there at the last, but art and politics were closely intertwined. Sometimes both required . . . simplifying . . . things for the sake of a smooth story-line.

  “Someday I will make a praise-song for her, worthy of that field and all the heroes who locked shields there amid the splintering of spears! But for tonight, I will use the words of another; the troubadour-knight Odard Liu de Gervais, who fell on the shores of the far eastern sea, defending our High King and Queen on the quest of the Lady’s Sword. I have seen his grave, where the folk of Kalksthorpe make offering even to our own day to honor his courage; but what he sang lives yet.”

  Now Órlaith sat bolt-upright, unable to reply when Reiko looked a question. That song she knew, and she’d never thought it would be used for her. It had been composed for her mother when she was younger than Órlaith was now and Lord Odard had loved her hopelessly and served her and his friend Rudi Mackenzie to the death . . .

  He bowed again, waited for the accompaniment to swell, and began—using the smooth melodic modern north-realm style with easy fluency, his strong baritone filling the space effortlessly. She’d never heard a better rendition, as familiar as it was, and even with the high standards of Court for comparison, and he’d made a few changes on the fly that fit the scansion perfectly:

  “The one who’ll rule over our fair land of Montival

  Shall reign just and wisely, and give each a fair ear

  For no truer lady treads on this good earth

  So let the hall ring for the Light of the North!

  Let the hall ring for the Princess of Montival

  Let the hall ring for the Light of the North!

  Lady by grace and Princess by birth

  So let the hall ring for the Light of the North!

  She carries the Sword for the honor of Montival

  Before her in battle our foes flee in fear

  With her inspiration our heroes charge forth

  So let the hall ring for the Light of the North!

  Let the hall ring for the princess of Montival

  Let the hall ring for the Light of the North!”

  He bowed as cheers rang through the hall; it would have rung, if the walls weren’t open, and it was certainly loud. In one or two cases there were even young Rangers standing on the tables to hail her, which wasn’t their usual style at all. When it died down she rose in turn, and her mouth quirked. The Sword had helped her again; he was perfectly sincere and meant what he sang. Which left her few alternatives . . .

  “Deor Godulfson, called the Wide-Faring, it’s no gold ring I’m having to bestow this day,” she said. “But I will not forget this gift, and the greater one of your own making when I hear it. The High One said truly that our deeds alone live forever, but it is words that make them live.”

  Deor came forward and went gracefully to one knee. “Ring-giver, I will ask a greater boon than gold of you. Let me and my oath-sister take a place in your band on this Quest and be of your sworn companions! Our swords and our lives are yours to command.”

  A smile. “And two poets are better than one, they say.”

  She opened her lips slightly and then closed them.

  That’s not a bad idea, at all, at all, she thought. We’ve suffered casualties. They’re both tried fighters—Thora is really impressive and Deor is better than average—and they’ve more experience with travel in different lands than anyone I know. Even Uncle Ingolf. And Deor’s a runemaster; I owe him for more than his song, that I do. He got the Mist Hills men moving and that saved us. They’re a bit older than the rest of us, but not exactly middle-aged yet either, so they should keep up well enough.

  “If what you ask of me is certain hardship and likely death,
Deor Wide-Faring, I cannot deny you. Welcome to our company!”

  Thora stood for an instant. “And there should be someone from the Outfit on this faring, to stand by the blood of the Bear Lord that you bear, Princess,” she said bluntly. “And to avenge my sister of the A-List, Luanne Salander. I drink to her; may she feast with the High One!”

  The hall rang with cheers again, and John rose to thump the singer’s back as he returned to his place. Dúnedain singers joined the harpists and flautists and someone who was performing on what looked like an upright xylophone and sounded like crystal birds giving voice, and the Ranger’s music resumed. It was extremely pleasant on the ear, but all the lyrics were in Sindarin.

  “These people, the . . . Dúnedain? I think you also call them . . . scouts?” Reiko said after she’d shrewdly followed Heuradys’ murmured explanation of what had just happened.

  “Rangers,” Órlaith said, reaching back for a moment to lay a finger on the pommel of the Sword. “The Scouts are another group, and far off eastward, in the Mountains of Yellow Stone, and a curious one. I’ve visited there. The Dúnedain are more widespread, and have their own tongue—”

  She winced slightly and put a hand to her head, though there was no real pain.

  “Problem?” said Heuradys sharply.

  “Pedin edhellen . . . I mean, I just got the Quenya too. That’s two languages the Dúnedain have, Reiko-chan. Sindarin they speak coequal with English in the life of common day. Quenya they use for lore, so fewer of them know it well. Powers, but it’s pretty, though!”

  For a moment the new vocabulary tumbled through her mind like a cascade of images; a green shore where silver waves beat on glittering sands, a tall white tower with walls like lace carved from crystal, a mountain whose top shone like a star, a forest of trees as majestic as redwoods, but with smooth gray bark and leaves of silver and green amid golden flowers.

  Reiko’s regular and almost-delicate face was frowning slightly, as if she searched her own memory:

  “Aren’t those words from stories?” she said suddenly.

  “Ah . . .” Órlaith began.

  Reiko’s face cleared as she smiled with delight. “Yes, I remember Dúnedain from them too, I didn’t recognize it when it was spoken aloud. But I loved those stories! I could read them, you know, even if I was not pronouncing correctly then in . . . ah, in my head. My tutors used them for teaching me English as a child because they were my favorite after the Heike Monogatari. I liked that one very much because it has Tomoe Gozen, Lady Tomoe; Éowyn was much like her . . .”

  John had torn himself from rapt contemplation as a song came to an end to catch the tag-end of the conversation; he made a seated bow and recited, “The sound of the Gion Shoja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind . . .”

  He dropped the bardic tone and said with a smile, “Alas, I cannot recite it to the sound of the biwa in your beautiful language, Majesty.”

  They’d agreed to use first names among themselves, but more formality was necessary for him than for his heir-to-the-Throne and not at all incidentally female sister, at least when he was speaking in front of Reiko’s compatriots. Who were ceremonious even compared to Associate nobles, and fiercely jealous of their Tenno Heika’s dignity.

  “But even in translation it’s a fine tale,” he said, with obvious sincerity; Órlaith could feel it.

  “Gionshoja no kane no koe, Shogyomujo no hibiki ari . . .” Egawa Noboru said, the same opening lines in Nihongo.

  Apart from a few labored words on hunting, it was virtually the first conversation he’d ventured during the banquet, though he’d eaten heartily if courteously.

  Órlaith looked at the squat, brutal-looking commander of the Imperial Guard with a slight surprise. Though she supposed it was less unlikely than his liking for the haiku of Basho, which she’d decided she loved herself now that she could understand them in the original. She also thought he glanced at John with a bit less of the pawky skepticism he’d hidden under impeccable manners before.

  And John’s managed to pay Reiko a compliment that impresses Egawa too, who usually looks at him like a bear protecting her cub, or Macmac protecting me. I would most truly like to clout you from time to time, brother of mine. Charm is all very well, but you take it to excess.

  Reiko inclined her head with a pleased look. “But . . . the Tale of the Heike is real . . . well, it’s a tale about the Genpei War, between the Taira and the Minamoto clans, long ago, and the Genpei War certainly happened, if not everything in the tale. Ancestors of mine were very much involved! These other stories, of the War of the Ring . . . you mean . . . they are true?”

  “Ah . . . opinions differ,” Órlaith said.

  The Montivallan nobles all looked at each other for an instant. Sir Droyn snorted very slightly while holding his wineglass up to a candle-flame, making his opinion plain without being tactless. Órlaith cleared her throat.

  “The Dúnedain certainly think so.”

  She gave a glance over at Faramir and Morfind; they and the Lakota Courier were fast in a head-to-head conversation again. All three of them were short of twenty, after all.

  Says the crone of twenty-one years, she thought, and lowered her voice as she went on:

  “They can get sort of . . . I’d be saying shirty about those who mock it. Okori-yasui, I think your folk would say. And as far as they’re concerned, they are the Folk of the West from the tales, reconstituted, you might say.”

  Her more or less great-aunt Astrid, Mike Havel’s sister-in-law and Luanne’s grandfather’s younger sister, had founded . . .

  Or refounded, in her telling.

  . . . the Dúnedain Rangers together with her anamchara Eilir, grandmother Juniper’s eldest daughter and therefore Órlaith’s own aunt, by blood and without qualification. They’d been about of an age, fourteen or so at the time of the Change, and had become anamchara—oath-sisters and close comrades. Astrid had modeled her group on those tales, which had been her strongest interest before the Change, along with horses and archery. Which had, oddly, been mere hobbies and mere amusements then. The traumatic aftermath of the old world’s fall had turned Astrid’s fascination into an obsession; she’d taken to claiming to be herself a descendant of the heroes they spoke of, the royal line of Númenor.

  That had been back when things were more fluid and little groups had come together around this or that leader, succeeding or failing according to luck and ability . . . even around a pair of teenage girls, one of them lost in waking dreams that suddenly fit the new world rising from the ashes of the old. Even outright lunacy hadn’t been a handicap, as long as it looked as if it would work in a world itself gone mad; hence the rise of the Church Universal and Triumphant and the long wars against the Prophet with whose echoes she’d grown up, as well as much else for good or ill.

  Aunt Eilir and her man John Hordle were still very much alive. Sir Alleyne, Astrid’s consort, had just died last year up in Mithrilwood, the Ranger headquarters in what had once been Silver Falls State Park. He’d been a man she liked, kindly and very able, but . . .

  When Aunt Astrid died, he became the keeper of her dream. And a trifle . . . single-minded about it, so.

  “What is your opinion of the matter, Orrey-chan?” Reiko asked, her bright tilted eyes still sparkling with interest.

  Órlaith winced slightly. Egawa’s eyes gave a very slight twitch every time Reiko or she used the –chan suffix, which could mean several things but in this context was an expression of close friendship, particularly among women. She liked and admired Reiko too, and they had things in common besides the deaths of their fathers on the same day and at the hands of the same enemy. Or even being the daughters of rulers and heirs to t
hrones. But it was harder to be politically and diplomatically . . . vague . . . about her own opinion with a real friend.

  Like its elder sibling love, friendship was a set of obligations willingly assumed, truth and trust among them, not just a pleasure or a feeling. At least it was if you were to be a friend worth having.

  And I suspect Reiko simply hasn’t had any friends before. Not as an adult, at least. Loving relatives and devoted retainers yes, friends no. And it’s not natural for human kind to live without friendship; by the blessing of the Youth I’m rich in that. She’s a bit like a hungry person finally finding a laden table and she needs all that formidable self-mastery not to gobble.

  The stories the Rangers called the Histories and treated as sacred books were set in the lands across the Atlantic, purportedly in a very distant past, even more distant than Arthur or Charlemagne or the Black Prince.

  As stories she’d always loved them too, but . . .

  “I am genuinely in doubt about the matter, Reiko-chan,” she said. “And so was my father. Though he said the Dúnedain could have taken far worse models for their lives.”

  It wasn’t the only case where people were uncertain as to whether pre-Change records were fiction or not, or part-fiction and part-truth. It was simple fact that things had been possible then that weren’t now and vice-versa. If that had happened once, why not before? Nobody but a few old-fashioned diehards gave much credit to the ancients’ cosmology of uniform, eternal natural laws anymore.

  And it was also simple fact that the ancients had been in the habit of writing down fiction in the same forms they used for fact, which made it hard to judge, and also true that tales grew garbled over time. While studying at the university in Corvallis she’d seen six or seven different opinions in the works of pre-Change scholars on how much of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were history and how much fancy, all sounding equally confident as they contradicted each other. Heuradys believed Homer pretty much the way the Dúnedain did their Histories, of course.