A Meeting At Corvallis

by S. M. Stirling

  "Wait a minute," Nigel said.

  Juniper looked up. It wasn't the sympathy in his voice that made the cold nausea in her gut subside a little, but the sharp common sense.

  "Would you mind reading that to us again, Lady Juniper?" he said.

  This was semiformal; they were in the third-floor bedroom-loft-office of her Hall, sitting near the north-face hearth that held her personal altar as well, with a mandala and images—a tile plaque of Cernunnos playing the flute, and a blue-robed Lady of the Moon. A low blaze crackled in the small hearth and dispelled some of the damp chill of a spring night. Lanterns cast yellow-red light over bookshelves and desk, filing cabinets and ritual tools, her rolled-up futon and the big vertical loom down at the edge by the dormer windows. The loom held a blanket she was working on, in zigzag stripes of cream white, taupe, cinnamon brown and a darker brown that was almost black, the natural colors of sheep's wool. She was weaving it on two levels, so that her eight-heddle loom could produce a stretch eight feet across; it had been intended for Rudi's bed …

  Sam Aylward was there, and Chuck and Judy Barstow, and Eilir and Astrid and their men.

  And Nigel is mine, she thought, drawing a deep breath. Trust him. She read the report again.

  "The day after her investiture and oath of fealty, Tiphaine d'Ath left Castle Todenangst for her Domain; this caused some surprise. A closed carriage accompanied them, and Rudi Mackenzie and the Princess Mathilda were not seen afterwards in the Castle."

  "And the Princess Mathilda is the operative phrase here, my dear," Nigel said, a hunter's expression on his face. "She knows what close friends the children are. Surely she wouldn't risk her own relationship with her daughter so soon after getting her back. She most certainly would not send her along to a place where Rudi was to be mistreated—if she planned that, she'd separate them."

  And Mom, it was Sandra who announced that Rudi should be treated like a prince, Eilir signed. All the accounts agree on that. She couldn't lose face by reversing herself in secret.

  "You have a point, so," Juniper said slowly, feeling her mind begin to function again. The loss had hit her much harder here at home, where every board and window shouted memories of Rudi. "I thought … this Tiphaine is an assassin, and she hates us so bitterly … "

  "I don't know about that," Alleyne Loring said, brushing the downy yellow mustache on his upper lip with a fingertip. It was a habit he'd acquired from his father, and Juniper found it peculiarly endearing. "I had the impression that she hated Astrid, specifically, and others only in relation to her. Eilir, of course, and myself, and John. Not that she wouldn't be willing to kill anyone she was told to, but that was the personal element."

  Even then, a corner of Juniper's mind noticed something; when the Lorings had arrived in Oregon a year ago, young Alleyne had usually referred to the other Englishman as "Hordle" or "sergeant," for all that they'd been companions since childhood—some peculiar English Frodo/Samwise thing, she supposed. Now it was just "John" …

  Our American egalitarianism at work, I suppose, she thought. Or the Clan Mackenzie's ways.

  She thought for a moment, then asked: "I didn't see much of Tiphaine Rutherton—and particularly not together with Sandra Arminger—or fight her. What's your take?"

  Eilir hesitated, then signed: I think it's some sort of sick guru-chela thing with those two. I got the impression she'd trained her—and Katrina Georges—jor a long time. Not their warrior training, but mental disciplines.

  Astrid nodded. "She was very, very good in the warehouse. Movement as fast as anyone I've ever seen, beautifully fluid, and she was thinking every second—good improvisation and use of externals. And when we talked later, she fooled me completely."

  And me, Eilir said. Sorry, anamchara, but you're not as good at reading people. Astrid nodded, unfazed; that was a truth they both acknowledged. The deaf woman went on: Doesn't the report say that the two of them were taken in by Sandra Arminger right after the Change?

  Juniper nodded. "They were Girl Scouts, oddly enough … I think, given what I've learned of her over the years, that Sandra Arminger delights in her own cleverness. And what better way to mark it than fashioning … shaping … very clever people herself? So that they develop their minds and become formidable in their own right, yet she remains the center of their universe. She would not hesitate to hurt Rudi to suit her own purposes, or even simply to hurt me. But I think Nigel is right; she would not throw an advantage away to gratify cruelty, nor would she ever act on impulse."

  She gave a short, bitter laugh. "And it is my best hope, that my son is in the hands of such a person."

  Alleyne nodded. "What intelligence do we have on this Ath place?"

  Sir Nigel coughed discreetly. "It's the land Arminger tried to buy us with, last year, Alleyne. Ath is the name of the castle he mentioned … a small one, he said, if I recall correctly."

  The younger Loring's eyebrows went up. "They didn't stint young Tiphaine's plate," he observed. "That's better than four thousand acres, and those lovely vineyards, with a big tract of woodland in the Coast Range tacked on."

  Sam Aylward spoke up, startling them all a little: "Roit you are. They're smart enough to reward success. What was that saying the old-time general used, sir?"

  Nigel frowned in thought. Then: "Ah, yes. To command armies, it is sufficient to pay well, punish well and hang well."

  Judy Barstow spoke: "We have some people in the villages near there. A small coven, though the High Priestess died last year. Perhaps we could get information from them, if any are on the castle staff. There's a traveling liaison, a peddler and his family … "

  Aylward took up the thread: "And when we do, we can see about getting young Rudi back—perhaps Mathilda as well."

  Juniper surprised herself by shaking her head: "Not Mathilda. We were wrong to keep her so long. Remember the Threefold Law. And we … " She swallowed and made herself go on. "We needn't be in a desperate hurry. Sandra Arminger would rather corrupt than kill, and she's very patient. She'll need to be; my Rudi isn't one to be corrupted easily!"

  "Right you are, Lady," Aylward said grimly. "But we'd best remember that she isn't the only player at the board. There's her husband."

  Astrid nodded. "The Dunedain Rangers will do all they can to rescue Artos … Rudi," she said.

  Eilir nodded vigorously. Sam Aylward thought for a moment, then nodded himself, with a rueful sigh. "A youngster's job, right enough."

  When all had left, Juniper Mackenzie extinguished the lights and knelt before the altar, hands crossed upon her breast. She took a moment to empty her mind, then opened herself to the night—to the crackle of fire and the smell of fir burning, to the wind that brought the living forests into the room, to the distant murmurs of sound that faded into the creaking, rubbing, crackling stillness of the mountain forests. When she launched her will, it was like a spear—and like the cry of every mother, to the Mother: Save my son!

  Castle Ath, Tualatin Valley, Oregon

  March 15th/16th, 2008/Change Year 9

  "Welcome to your domain of Ath, my lady," the steward said.

  He was middle-aged—in his late thirties—and looked as if he'd be more comfortable in a suit and tie than the tabard and tunic of ceremony, but post-Change clothes were the prestige dress in the Association's territories. His eyes went wide as he recognized the gold chain around her neck and across the breast of her hauberk, made up of linked sets of letters reading PPA; that could only be a gift from the Protector's own hand. Swallowing, he went on: "I am Richard Wielman, the Lord Protector's steward for this domain of Ath these last nine years, and yours as well if you wish."

  "Thank you, Goodman Wielman," Tiphaine Rutherton said as she leaned a hand on her saddlebow.

  A slight smile lit her face as she looked up at the gray bulk of the fortress, sharp against the bright blue sky, and took a deep breath of fresh country scents, cut grass, turned earth, fir-sap, wood smoke, and just enough of horse and manure to add a little
pungency. Then she turned her attention back to Wielman; a good estate steward would make her work a lot easier, and this one had actually been a farm manager before the Change, and knew bookkeeping as well. He'd probably want to keep this job, but there were plenty of landholders who'd snap him up if he left.

  "I examined the Exchequer records at Castle Todenangst, and you appear to have done a fine job. I was particularly pleased with the price you got from those Corvallis merchants for the spring wool clip. I'm sure we'll get along well," she said.

  The man bowed again and babbled thanks, then pulled himself together and introduced his wife and children and the other important staff; Father Peter, the priest; the bailiffs of the three manors, the head stockman and the vintner … All of them looked nervous; the offices on the estate were in her gift now, even the clerical ones if she didn't mind a head-butting session with the local bishop, and she might not want the same men holding them.

  Ath was on a hill not far south of the town of Forest Grove and a little west of old Highway 47, just where the Coast Range began rearing out of the Tualatin Valley in green forest-clad heights, walling off the Pacific. Orchards and groves of filbert and walnut had covered it before the Protector's labor gangs came, and still mantled the lower slopes. The castle itself was of a simple design the Association had put up by the dozens as the vacant lands were resettled, and then handed out to knight and baron; unlike many, it hadn't been enlarged. In the southeast corner of a walled enclosure stood a rectangular tower whose outline was about the size of an ordinary suburban house, but four stories tall; smaller round towers stood at the other three angles, one of them sporting a metal windmill whirling at its peak to keep the reservoir filled. The gate ran in beside the main keep, with portcullis and drawbridge, and a dry moat full of barbed wire and angle iron surrounded the whole; the wall itself was crenellated and half the main keep-tower's height, and it enclosed an acre and a half.

  North and east and south the castle commanded a broad view of land where patches of cloud-shadow drifted over smaragdine brightness in an infinite variety of greens, dappled by occasional squares of red-brown plowed land. It was good to be back from the wild lands and the dead cities, back among the fields that fed mankind. Fingers of higher, tree-clad ridge stretched out into the rolling farmlands; those were busy now with ox-teams and people planting barley and oats and potatoes, and sugar beet for the new factory in Forest Grove.

  My barley, my oats, and my potatoes. My cows, and wheat, and vineyards … my farmers, for that matter, Tiphaine thought.

  It was pleasing and daunting and exciting at the same time. And the Lord

  Protector and Lady Sandra certainly hadn't been cheap about it; there were barons without much more than this, and most ordinary landed knights had a lot less.

  It can be sort of disorienting when you finally get what you've been aiming jor. I'm twenty-three. What do I do now? Do I want to be … oh, Mathilda's right hand and her Grand Constable and bone-breaker when she's Lady Protector?

  On south-facing slopes peach trees were in blossom; sheep grazed beneath on the crimson-clover sod. Swaths of the grassland below the castle walls were bright with yellow daffodils. Down by Carpenter Creek a mile northward, horses and black-coated cattle drifted through the meadows; southeast lay a big block of vineyard drawing square regularity over rumpled land. A hamlet of frame cottages with ditch and bank around it stood on the south side of the roadway that led west to the castle gate, and anxious-looking civilians and their families in their best tabards stood there, waiting to greet her—those would be the castle service staff, most of whom lived outside the wall in normal times. The castle garrison and their families were inside the gate, in the courtyard, the men drawn up in ranks for inspection.

  Or would I rather just sit here and enjoy my life? Get in some hunting and hawking, read a few books, play my lute, drill the troops … maybe find some nice girl and settle down to quasi-clandestine bliss?

  A six-year-old in double tunic and tabard with ribbons in her hair clutched a bouquet of early wildflowers and daffodils eked out with ferns, and what was probably her brother led a pretty, plump and spectacularly well-groomed lamb with a bow around the neck; their parents discreetly pushed them forward.

  The steward grew formal once more, going to one knee for an instant: "Lady, I deliver to you the estate."

  He had a big book of accounts under his arm, and touched it reflexively as he rose. "You have forty-six hundred acres of field, pasture, orchard and vineyard, and pannage and forest rights and rights of venery in the mountains; fishing rights at Henry Hagg Lake; three villages and the castle settlement; two hundred thirty-two families of free tenants, bond tenants and peons, eight hundred and ten souls in all; two gristmills, a sawmill and a fulling mill, a tannery—"

  "Thank you, Goodman," Tiphaine said; that was what you called civilian commoners of just below Associate status. "I did read the accounts. We'll go over them together in the next few days, and I'll be riding around the estate to familiarize myself, and to settle Sir Ivo and Sir Ruffin on their fiefs. Now, I presume my quarters are ready, and those for my guests?"

  She indicated the carriage that followed in her train, a four-horse closed model built before the Change for the tourist trade. These days it was a symbol of wealth and power sufficient to make anyone thoughtful; modern equivalents weren't nearly as comfortable yet unless you had the limitless resources of the Lord Protector or his consort.

  "Yes, my lady, as the message instructed; and we've been preparing a feast. If I may say so, the quarters in the Montinore manor are much more comfortable. I've had what gear I could brought up here as your messenger instructed, and we've been working hard on putting things in order, but the castle is simply … "

  "More suitable in a time of war," she pointed out. "And my guests are Princess Mathilda and Rudi Mackenzie."

  Wielman's eyes bulged. "The princess … here, my lady? And the son of the Witch Queen?" He recovered quickly and bowed, sweeping a hand sideways; it wasn't his place to question her. "Please, my lady, enter and take possession."

  Tiphaine swung down from the saddle, the skirts of her hauberk clashing against the shin-guards. "I'd better accept the bouquet and the lamb first. Wouldn't do to disappoint the moppets."

  At least they don't have a choir, she thought as she jerked her head slightly to the man behind her. She didn't exactly dislike children, but preferred them past the age of reason and in the background at that. When you wanted to play with something, a dog was usually better, and it didn't grow up to be surly and ungrateful.

  Ivo walked his horse forward to hand a wrapped cloth bundle to one of the garrison. The soldier took it and trotted away; a few instants later the cords along the tower's flagstaff worked, and the banner broke out at the top.

  "Sable, a delta or over a V argent," the steward said respectfully, as her new arms took the air over her citadel for the first time, silver and gold and black. "What is the symbolism, my lady?"

  "V for the Virgin Mary, of course," Tiphaine answered gravely.

  I thought Lady Sandra would do herself an injury laughing, she thought. And she suggested a pair of crossed keys with a fist beneath them, middle finger extended, that would be only a little more explicit … going to be lonely leaving the Household. Even more lonely.

  It had been half a year since Katrina died. They'd been together since the day ten years ago when their Girl Scout troop was left in the Cascades by the Change; they'd made it back to Portland together, and together they'd managed to penetrate the Protector's security. He'd wanted to kill when two starving fourteen-year-olds woke him up in the middle of the night and demanded a job, with the bodyguards none the wiser. Lady Sandra had laughed then, too, and said no, that they would be far too useful to waste.

  Always together until Kat went off to rescue the princess.

  Since then she'd learned that you didn't die of loneliness. You even got used to it, and the pain of being abandoned faded to a dull ach
e. The need for revenge didn't, though.

  Well, that's something I know I want to do. Someone else is going to die of my loneliness, and Kat … I know just who.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Castle Ath, Tualatin Valley, Oregon

  March 16th, 2008/Change Year 9

  This is sort of cool," Rudi said. "I like this better than Todenangst already."

  Then he looked over at the girl beside him. "And your folks really didn't want to send you away, you know. They're just busy. That happens with my mom sometimes, and your mom and dad have a lot more to look after."

  Mathilda wiped her forearm over her eyes and smiled. "Yeah, I know. Sometimes it just sucks when your parents have jobs like that, doesn't it?"

  "Oh, tell me," Rudi said. He waved at the huge dappled stretch of countryside. "This is great, though."

  "Well, I think it's even better from the Dark Tower at Castle Todenangst," Mathilda said judiciously. "But this isn't bad."

  "That's the only thing I really don't like about home," Rudi said. "Even from the gatehouse towers, all you can see is the meadow and the mountains. But that's sort of the point—it's hard to get at."

  Mathilda frowned slightly. "Then why do our castles have such great views?"

  "I remember something Sir Nigel said," Rudi said. "Castles aren't just for stopping someone attacking you. They're bases to go out and fight people and control places, and for that you have to see the ground around."

  "We sure can!" she grinned, tapping the heavy tripod-mounted binoculars.

  They'd graced some tourist lookout-point once. Now they were part of a surveillance and message system that linked most of the Protectorate's castles, from here to Walla Walla and north to Puget Sound.

  "Yeah, it's like being a god or an angel or something, with these."