All three were wearing swords and had quivers, bowcases and shields slung over their backs. It was time for a little unity-in-diversity pep-talk.
“Montival’s a big place, there’s room in it for anyone,” Feldman said. “I’m from Corvallis . . . well, Newport . . . as you know, and we’re a representative democracy. These two are of the Dúnedain Rangers from Stath Ingolf—”
“Mae govannen,” they said gravely, bowing with their hands on their hearts, then continued in English: “A star shines on the hour of our meeting.”
The two older men and Jared’s son did a double-take.
“And Rider Susan Clever Raccoon. Of the Crown Courier Corps, and the Lakota tunwan, the people of the Seven Council Fires.”
“And the Oglála oyáte too if you want to be picky,” she said cheerfully, then grinned, held up her right hand palm-out and said: “Han. That means hi, basically.”
“And we’ve got an actual monarch along. A Japanese one,” Feldman said. “Sorry if this is a bit of a shock, but there it is.”
“Japanese? People survived there? Who is it, the Emperor in person?”
He watched Feldman’s face. “Wait a minute, you’re saying it is the . . . you’re not fucking with us, are you, Moishe?”
“I’m afraid not, Jared, Kwame. Empress, actually. And her samurai. And they take it very, very seriously; they’re serious people, and you very much don’t want them pissed off at you for her sake. Fortunately they don’t expect foreigners to touch their foreheads to the ground, but a bow would be tactful.”
“Knights and samurai . . . samurai and knights . . . Princes, Princesses . . . Empresses . . . guys in kilts with bad movie brogues . . . fucking elves; I’ve lived too long,” Jared muttered to himself, touching a hand to the side of his head for a moment. “And I’m not even high.”
“Ah . . . I’m very sorry, good sir,” Faramir said politely, inclining his golden-curled head. “We’re not elves. I apologize if there was a misunderstanding.”
Jared looked relieved, until the young Ranger went on: “We’re Númenóreans; descendants of the Folk of the West exiled here to Middle-earth. Friends of the elves.”
“If there were any around,” his cousin Morfind put in. “Not yet, though. They’re welcome anytime as far as we’re concerned but we’re not holding our breaths.”
Kwame looked as if he wanted to clap his hand to his head too, or tear out clumps of hair, but was too disciplined. The youngsters behind them started to chatter excitedly and point out to the Tarshish Queen, until he turned and barked into the rising brabble:
“Quiet! Or go back to your mommies!”
The noise subsided, though not the bright-eyed curiosity. Feldman patted the air soothingly with both hands.
“Look, Jared, Kwame, as I said, all they want is to go through Topanga to the Valley, then through the Valley inland, and maybe pick up some supplies and packhorses, for which they’ll pay handsomely. I’ll be staying here until they get back, and I’m willing to buy a cargo which will give you credit on First National.”
Even if it’s more unsaleable tiles and bricks and bathroom fixtures worth maybe three percent over scrap value. It’s a mitzvah to make peace and anyway the charter terms cover it.
The two Brains looked at each other; Connor leaned forward and whispered urgently to his father. Then the senior man turned back to Feldman.
“Ah . . . normally there wouldn’t be a problem, Moishe. If you vouch for their behavior, we know your word’s good. But . . . right now there may really be a problem.”
Feldman sighed. “Let me hear it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY OF TOPANGA
(FORMERLY TOPANGA CANYON)
CROWN PROVINCE OF WESTRIA
(FORMERLY CALIFORNIA)
HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL
(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)
JULY/FUMIZUKI/CERWETH 24TH
CHANGE YEAR 46/SHOHEI 1/2044 AD
Karl Aylward Mackenzie stood easily with his strung bow in his arms and his right boot up on a block of crumbling concrete at the edge of what had been a road along the coast, not a quarter bowshot from the beach, while Captain Feldman conferred with the local headmen. Or possibly the equivalent of their First Armsman, or some combination of the two. From the looks of things, they weren’t altogether happy with what he was saying.
Behind him the Tarshish Queen’s sailors rested in the longboats that had brought them ashore, ready to leap out and push off and leap back in at a moment’s notice; he grinned a little to himself at the fact that the McClintocks were all still on the ship, doubtless because of their reputation for being rudely hot-tempered. The Princess had said they should be friendly, and friendly they’d look, down to keeping their bonnets on and their helmets slung at their belts. Neither he nor any of the other of the young Mackenzies were going to have a problem getting going quickly if things went into the pot just because they weren’t standing as if they had a pike rammed up the arse.
The armsman was looking at them now and then, calm but narrow-eyed and attentive. He was the one with the fingers gone, and was armored in a rather crudely made back-and-breast and had a helmet of the type oldsters called a Fritz for some reason.
A warrior, that, and a good one in his day, though too old for much in the way of handstrokes now. A commander, then.
His hard intelligent features revealed little, unlike his companion who was looking baffled and vaguely indignant at the same time. Behind the whitebeard was another man, shorter but equally lean and long-faced, obviously his son and looking pretty old too—forty or so, Karl thought, though the way most people’s faces turned to leather under this southern sun might be giving him a few more years. Behind both of them was a set of younger men . . .
Well, nearly all men, he thought, catching a lass’s eye for a moment and winking before she turned her nose up haughtily and looked away.
The younger sort were obviously there to back up their leaders if needs must, having bows or spears in their hands, shortswords at their waists, and many carrying round shields over their backs as well, though he didn’t see any armor to speak of besides arm-guards that might be fashion as much as protection. Some had belt-quivers with little darts as well, which puzzled him until he recognized the tubes like long flutes as blowguns, which was interesting.
Sure, and wasn’t Lady Heuradys’ second mother said to use such now and then? Of course, she was an assassin then . . .
One of the young men started over in his direction. The middle-aged man behind the whitebeard said something which seemed to roll off the younger man’s back . . . and yes, there was a family resemblance there too; grandfather, father and son, then.
He was grinning as he approached, and Karl made a quiet gesture to his clansfolk: be easy, so that there would be no pack-bristle. Just to be sure, he gave a sharp heel to the dogs as well—they’d been quiet but cocking a hairy eye at the local mutts, a couple of whom had drifted back and were making little barking rushes now and then as if to say we’ll run you off our territory whenever we like, you just see if we don’t, despite the fact that the biggest of the skinny sharp-muzzled mongrels was about half the weight of Fenris or Ulf or the Princess’ dog Macmac.
The greathounds’ massive heads turned towards the human stranger as well, but his word restrained them. Macmac looked back over his shoulder to the ship, just to check that Órlaith had nothing to say on the matter. Dogs and men weren’t all that different in their inclinations, though human kind were supposed to be better at mastering them.
Yet if this lad isn’t a young ram exchanging a head-butt with his sire and proclaiming how he’s a grown man the now with each swaggering step, I’ve had never seen one . . . Or been one, come to it, and that recently.
The stranger was a little younger than Karl, or Mathun for that matter; younger per
haps than Faramir or Morfind, who with their Sioux friend were up with the leaders. Too young to raise more than a thin wisp of brown beard on his tanned face, and a trifle shorter than either though broad-shouldered and leanly strong. His torso was bare save for an archer’s bracer of rather crudely tooled leather on his left forearm, a handsome cougar-skin cloak pinned at one shoulder, a necklace made from its teeth and claws, and the hide quiver slung over his back. His bow was a single stave of lemonwood, strung to be ready for action but with no arrow nocked.
Karl cast an expert’s eye on the weapon and decided it was made honestly and with some skill, but with no particular subtlety and more of a hunting tool than a war-bow by the standards he’d been reared in. The grip was simply rawhide thongs wound around the middle, for instance. Save for the size it was the sort of thing you gave a ten-year-old for practice.
“Conan Tillman,” the local youth said, extending his hand. “Hey there. Welcome to Topanga. That’s my dad and granddad over there; he’s Connor Tillman and granddad is Jared, who’s a Brain.”
Though from that flick of his eyes he’d rather be talking to Boudicca or Gwri or Gwenhfar or pretty Rowan, Karl thought with amusement as he took the offered hand.
Which was natural enough, and he completely agreed they were easier on the eye; from the way he’d silently counted them he must be surprised the lasses were so many. Well, customs differed.
And young Conan is after telling us he’s not son of no one in particular.
“Merry met, Conan Tillman of Topanga, and merry part and merry meet again. You’d be named for the ancient king, then?”
“Ummm, the guy in the stories? Nah, my granddad’s dad was called Conan. Maybe he was called for him.”
“A name of might, still. Karl Aylward Mackenzie I am, of the Clan Mackenzie and Dun Fairfax; the totem of my Sept is the Wolf,” Karl said, and shook; there was only a little testing squeeze. “This long lout here with his mouth hanging open and the flies buzzin’ in and out, he’s me little brother Mathun; also a Wolf, but a bit of a mad pup.”
Mathun aimed a slow fist at him, and Karl grinned and rolled his head out of the way before he named the others, and saw the local’s lips moving at the unfamiliar sounds. By now Karl had heard any number of ways of treating English; the clipped staccato of the Association lands, the rasping nasal twang and slurred vowels of the easterners from over the mountains, which came in many different sub-varieties, the growling clotted burr of the McClintocks, and the smooth fluting of the Rangers. He’d been making an effort to tone down the Clan’s musical up-and-down lilt and peculiarities of sentence structure for the stranger’s sake, which he suddenly realized he’d heard his father doing now and then too with cowan, outsiders.
Conan’s accent reminded him of the neutral Corvallis dialect more than anything else.
Moishe Feldman’s, say.
But even flatter, more old-fashioned, and with an odd habit of a rising tone at the end of every sentence, as if they were questions even when they weren’t.
“You guys are from Montival?” Conan said, trying and failing for a casual confidence. “You’ve got a Princess with you?”
“To be sure, though it’s more a matter of her having us along,” Karl said; which tactfully left out the fact that Topanga was also part of the High Kingdom. “Not to mention her brother, Prince John. We’re Mackenzies in service to Crown Princess Órlaith of House Artos, the Lord and Lady bless her, and I’m Bow-Captain of this band.”
Conan’s hazel eyes went a little round. “There’s really a Princess?” he said. “Like in the old stories?”
He peered out at the schooner anchored a hundred and fifty yards offshore, as if he expected gauzy wings and pointed ears, or at least a flowing train. Karl made charitable allowances for backwardness when he went on:
“The very same,” he said. “Warrior princess, mind.”
“Ah . . . no diss meant, but how old is she?”
“Twenty-one summers and a very small bit,” Karl said.
“Must be nice,” Conan muttered, casting a glance back over his shoulder.
“She’s a braw leader and a bonny fighter, and not so stodgy as her elders. Or mine,” Karl said. “Me own da was not overjoyed when I set off on this faring, I can tell you that.”
“Would’ve pulled us back by the ear, that he would, if he’d had his way. But we had ours instead, the which is more enjoyable by a mile and two yards, so!” Mathun said.
Karl pulled a silver flask out of his sporran, one graven with an elongated face surrounded by curling hair, and took a nip.
“Sláinte mhaith! Your good health!”
He held it out; Conan accepted it and sipped.
“Nice! What is it?” he said, examining the engraving on it for a moment before handing it back.
“Brandy from pears, to be sure; I got it at Eryn Muir, the Dúnedain garth. That’s the one where they live in their flets . . . houses set high in the great redwood trees, linked together with bridges.”
Conan’s eyes went wider. “Uh, there really are people like out of those Tolkien guy’s stories? They live in trees? Man, that is, like, so cool. I wish I could see that!”
“Indeed there are, and some of them do, and it was worth a journey of hard weeks to see the same. Your kin have their steading hereabouts?”
That required a moment or two for the meaning of steading to get across, since the local dialect used place or home for that concept, and apparently Topangans said family or bunch rather than kin as well.
“Nah, our place is about halfway up the Canyon . . . that’s north of here a few miles. Granddad came down ’cause the ship from Esmeraldas pulled in and the Brains wanted to talk with them about something, and he brought Dad and me along because hablamos español and he doesn’t much—my mom speaks it. We’re not the only ones of course, but we’re family and we were there. The Esmeraldans’ve got a pretty thick weird accent in their español, but I can talk with ’em, turns out they’re straight enough.”
A scowl. “Though Dad handled the real dickering stuff.”
After a little chat—Conan Tillman was almost pathetically eager to hear about the outside world—
The which I would be too in his place. This place is yokeldom’s very homeland.
—Karl asked: “Did you kill that big cat whose pelt and sharp bitey clawy things you’re wearing yourself?”
Hunting was usually a good way to break the ice.
“Yeah!” Conan said. “He was taking sheep and stuff over on Old Topanga, right out of pens next to houses, and everyone was scared it would be kids next. So I went after him. Lost a good dog when we treed him, God-dammit, but I caught him clean. Behind the left shoulder. At about thirty yards, not a long shot but the angle was tricky and there was brush in the way. He came right down and sort of staggered in a circle for a second and flopped, and I managed to get to him before the dogs tore the hide too much.”
“Ah, that’s needful work, by leave of Cernunnos and Lady Flidais. Warrior’s work, to ward your folk.”
“You’ve got cougars up north?”
“That we do, and their sad ways with sheep are much the same. Also tigers, and we saw lions farther north in Westria, roaring betimes and shaking their manes.”
“Westria?”
“Ah, that’s the new name for what the ancients called California.”
Conan shook his head at the irrelevancy and went back to hunting: “Tigers . . . are they as big as they say?”
“Big enough. The biggest . . . oh, say eleven, twelve feet with another three for the tail. Around the weight of a small pony, or three big men. Mind, most run say two-thirds that, when they’re grown.”
“Whoa!” Conan said. “You’ve hunted them?”
“That I have. Though not alone, that would be foolish. Do you get the lions here yet?”
The
Topangan shook his head. “Nah, not yet—I’ve heard they’ve been spotted up in Simi Valley, that’s northwest of here, and we’re getting more of those weird antelope things that bounce like rubber balls every year, and I hear the ones with the funny horns that don’t need to drink are all over the desert country out east. You never saw that stuff around here when my dad was a kid.”
“Cougar are fierce enough; cunning beasts too, by the Horned One. And was that nice lemonwood popper of yours what you took him with?”
“Yup. Here, have a look.”
Karl took it and drew it; as he’d thought it was a simple self-bow about seventy pounds weight, just on the low edge of being useful for war, though perfectly adequate even for big game. You generally got within a hundred yards for hunting, and the beast kindreds weren’t known for donning plate, or even mail, and rushing at you waving swords with fell intent. He’d seen a sixty-pound bow put a broadhead right through a big bull elk at close range, breaking ribs going in and coming out.
“Not bad,” he said as he eased off—you didn’t release the string unless there was a shaft on it. “Make it yourself?”
“Yup. Well, Dad cut the wood a couple of years ago and roughed the blanks then left it in the attic to dry, but I finished and tillered it. Say, that’s a different way of drawing you’ve got. Can I try on yours?”
Karl had drawn Clan-fashion; drawing inside the bow it was called, starting with the bow down and your feet planted wide and your body leaning forward, then coming back into a slight squat with your arse stuck a bit out, which safeguarded your spine. In between you drew with a twisting heave of your whole body, putting your shoulders and back and belly into it as well as your arms, rather as if you were trying to push two doorposts apart.
He silently handed over the six-foot-six length of yellow mountain yew and black-walnut riser and polished antler tips. A serious Mackenzie bow was usually the user’s height plus half a foot. Conan handled it with careful respect, examining it closely from one end to the other.
The Desert and the Blade Page 45