Sunrise Lands

by S. M. Stirling

  * * * *

  DUN JUNIPER,

  WILLAMETTE VALLEY, OREGON

  DECEMBER 1, CY22/2020 A.D.

  I’m dreaming, Ingolf Vogeler knew. By moonlight. Three women in dark hooded robes stood at the foot of his bed. The one in the center threw back her cowl; cool light fell across her and touched the silver crescent on her brow and the red hair that tumbled across the shoulders of her robe. She raised her hands, palms open as if to cup the opalescent glow, her lips curved in a smile of infinite compassion. Her voice was soft as she sang; somewhere a bell chimed quietly in time to the tune:

  Come to me, Lord and Lady

  Heal this spirit, heal this soul

  Come to me, Lord and Lady

  Mind and body shall be whole!

  Beast of the burning sunlight

  Sear this wound that pain may cease

  Mistress of the silver moonlight

  Hold us fast and bring us peace—

  Come to me, Lord and Lady

  Mind and body shall be whole!

  “Mom?” he murmured weakly, though he knew she wasn’t.

  A hand touched his forehead. “Always, my darling one. Sleep now, and heal.”

  Darkness.

  * * * *

  Dun Juniper,

  illamette Valley, Oregon

  December 6, CY22/2020 A.D.

  “Where am I?” Ingolf asked, as his eyes blinked open.

  It’s been a while, he knew.

  There were vague memories of heat and pain and movement, of struggling for each breath as if his lungs were full of hot sticky syrup, of voices and faces and things half-seen in dreams. His head being raised and something salty spooned into his mouth, of voices chanting and more pain, a deep stabbing ache on his left side.

  Everything seemed to be very distant and remote, and he was exhausted, as if he’d worked all day rather than just woken up, but he was more himself this time. He looked at his right hand; it was resting on a clean sheet of beige linen, with a checked blanket of soft wool be neath that and a pillow under his head. His arm was thin, thinner than he could ever remember it being, and his whole body felt heavy, as if his skin had been taken off and replaced by lead.

  A face leaned over him. A woman’s face, with a thick braid of grizzled black hair and a bold beak of a nose in a strong-boned face that had aged well; there was no re semblance in looks, but she reminded him of his mother. Her hair smelled of some herbal wash; the room of soap and warm fir wood and sweet cedarlike incense.

  “You’re in Dun Juniper,” she said. “I’m a healer; my name is Judy Barstow Mackenzie, and I’m looking after you. You’ve been very sick; your wound became infected when you were moved, and you developed pneumonia as well and nearly died. We’ve saved the arm and you will heal. Now drink this.”

  Her hand came behind his head, and he put his lips to the cup she held. It was chicken broth, hot and good but not too hot to swallow, and as he did he could feel how empty he was within.

  “I have to . . .” He stopped, embarrassed, conscious of his full bladder, and even more of the implications of the heavy cloth pad around his hips like a giant diaper.

  She smiled then. “I’m a mother and a healer and fifty two years old; there’s nothing that’ll surprise me, my lad. Here.”

  She helped him use a bedpan, and then pulled the blankets back up. “Rest now.”

  * * * *

  He woke and ate and slept, woke and ate and slept, conscious only of the body’s needs.

  When he came fully to himself again it was daylight, though dim, and his head was altogether clear, although he still felt no impulse to move. He was in a room not much bigger than the bed; it had a small brick hearth with a little iron door to close on the flame, and a wicker basket of split wood beside it, and a table with jugs and a basin and bottles. Aromatic steam smelling of pine and herbs jetted softly from a kettle on the hearth; a window with four panes of glass let in some light—snow was fall ing against it, but he was comfortably warm, and streaks of moisture trickled down the fogged glass. Bands of carving ran horizontally across walls of smooth fitted plank, leaves and sinuous elongated gripping beasts; the floor was brown tile.

  There was a consciousness of potential pain in his left arm, but no actual hurt; he spread and closed his hands several times. The hush of snowfall was in the air, but he could hear faint noises—the familiar thock . . . thock of an ax splitting wood, the thump of looms, the voices of children playing, the ting . . . ting . . . ting . . . of someone beating iron in a smithy. By the noise he judged he was in the second story of a building with thick log walls, and one in a settlement of some size but not a city or even a town.

  Right across from him on the wall was a picture, made by carving a slab of wood and then painting to bring out the low relief. It was of a woman robed and mantled in blue, but he didn’t think it was the Virgin Mary; for one thing she carried a flame in one hand and a sheaf of wheat in the other, and she was standing on stars and wearing the crescent moon as a crown. The carving was very fine; he could see the tenderness in her smile. . . .

  More important, his shete and dagger and tomahawk were standing in a bundle beside the door, wrapped about with his weapons belt, although he couldn’t have lifted them to save his life right now. His own rosary and crucifix hung from the bedpost. Whatever he was, he wasn’t a prisoner here. There was water on the table, but he couldn’t reach it. He croaked out a call, and the door opened and a head came in.

  “Hi!”

  Another woman, much younger than the one he’d seen, but with a look to her as if she were close kin. Around thirty, he thought, but paler and longer-faced, her abundant braided hair a light brown, with a stocky-strong build but not much spare flesh. She was dressed in a kilt and indigo-blue shirt, knee socks and low buckled shoes, with a stethoscope around her neck; there was the same matter of-fact competence in the way she helped him drink, listened to his chest, gave him some sharp tasting medicine in a spoon, then took his temperature with a glass thermometer and compared it to notes on a clipboard at the foot of the bed.

  “Perfectly normal, Mr. Vogeler,” she said. “For three days now, and the wound’s been fully closed for a while. Mother will be pleased; she had to go back in to clean it out, you see. I’m Tamsin Barstow Mackenzie—call me Tamsin. You’ll be able to stand a little in a couple of days.”

  She grinned at him. “And walk as far as the bathroom, with help. Won’t that be nice, sure and it will?”

  “It will! Could I have something to eat now, Miss Tamsin?” he asked. “Lord, I’m hungry!”

  “You are getting better the now!”

  Then he frowned; the lilting accent reminded him: “Ah ... there was a lady, her name was Saba. . . .”

  She put a hand on his shoulder. “Saba Brannigan? I’m afraid ... You fought very well, but she was killed. I’m sorry.”

  Humiliatingly, he felt tears coursing down his cheeks and couldn’t stop them, which told him how weak he still was. Tamsin handed him a square of linen handkerchief and left, long enough for him to compose himself.

  When she returned her mother was with her, and she carried a tray with a bowl of soup and pieces of fine white wheat bread and butter. The soup was chicken again, but this time with pieces of the meat in it, and carrots and noodles; there were herbs he’d never tasted before for seasoning, and he couldn’t remember hav ing anything as good—though that was probably partly because it had been so long. He ate it all, expected to want more, and found that it exactly matched what he could take. While they propped him up by turning a crank under the bed he had a chance to look at his left arm again, knowing what he’d been told.

  His eyebrows went up as he really looked at the thick purple scar. Men rarely recovered from such a serious wound if it mortified. He raised the limb and worked it carefully, wincing slightly. There was a tug and pull when he stretched it, and he’d have trouble lifting a feather, but the range of motion seemed good.

  I’m not cripple
d, he thought, with a rush of relief. Aloud he went on: “That did turn real nasty, ma’am. I’m surprised I lived.”

  “So am I, with the pneumonia. You’d been pushing be yond what your body could bear, but it wasn’t your time,” the older woman said; this time he was alert enough that he noticed a reserve in her tone. The younger looked at her and smiled.

  “Mother stayed up with you for days,” she said.

  Judy shrugged. “It wasn’t your time to make ac counting to the Guardians,” she repeated. “You’ll be on light solids from now on, and your recovery ought to be very rapid. We’ll start a physiotherapy program immediately.”

  When she saw he didn’t know the word, she clarified: “Special exercises for the injured arm. There’s scar tissue—you’ll have to be careful to get full strength back.”

  “I’m most grateful, ma’am,” he said. “To you and your folks. I hope I can do something in return.”

  Her gaze thawed a little. “Well, Mr. Vogeler, we would like you to answer some questions. And I think you’re about strong enough to do that, soon, if not much else.”

  A yell came from somewhere not too far away. Ingolf started and paled; that was a woman crying out in pain. Judy Barstow shook her head. “Right on time,” she said, and walked out.

  Tamsin smiled at him before she followed, seeing the alarm on his face. “Childbirth,” she said, and snorted. “It’s Dechtire Smith. This is her third; she’s strong as a plowhorse with hips like one too, but she always insists on the clinic and pretends she’s dying.”

  “Well . . . it hurts,” he said, relieved it was something so natural. “And it is dangerous.”

  Back home the men all went out and drank applejack when the midwife came, and pretended not to jump every time a shriek rang out. If it was bad enough for a real doctor, they drank more.

  Tamsin nodded. “With two of my own, don’t I know it hurts! But it doesn’t hurt like that, when it goes well. We don’t lose many mothers here, Mr. Vogeler—not one in a thousand. Believe me: that woman’s not happy unless she’s getting sympathy.”

  The brief flare of emotion had tired him, and the soup and bread were making him sleepy. He let his head fall back and slept once more.

  * * * *

  Rudi Mackenzie bent and lifted the end of the Doug las fir onto the sledge, getting some of the sticky aromatic sap on his gloves as he heaved it up. Shouting and laughing, their breath puffing in the cold damp air amid the drifting snowflakes and the mealy scent of them, the others bent and heaved and the whole length was on it, and it was the work of a moment to lash it down.

  He turned and bowed his head a last time to the stump while he rubbed the sap off the leather of his gauntlets; they’d made the usual apology and explanation when they cut it yesterday, which should satisfy Cernunnos. The tree was to represent His member, after all. Then he whistled.

  A tall glossy-black horse brought her head up sharply not far away, where she’d been nosing the snow, more for something to do than from hope of finding anything edible; he could tell she was bored by the whole business. Despite the winter her midnight coat shone, and when she trotted over she seemed to float, barely tapping the earth with her hooves.

  The reins leading to her light hackamore bridle were looped up over the saddlebow. Nobody had used a bit on Epona since they met; Rudi didn’t need one, and it would be futile for anyone else to try. He’d had the horse since she was just under four and he was ten—that made her sixteen now, middle-aged in horse years, but even experienced wranglers usually put her at seven or eight at first sight.

  “Well, you asked to come along,” he said, scolding af fectionately as he stroked her neck and she lipped at his hair. “You get all pissy about me taking someone else out, even your own get, and then I bring you and you sulk because it’s boring.”

  She’d never liked seeing him working with other horses, not even her own daughters Macha Mongruad and Rhiannon. Rudi put a hand on her withers and vaulted into the saddle. He still remembered how proud he’d been the first time he could do that—she was just a hair under seventeen hands. Now it was as easy as climb ing stairs . . . but he’d been able to ride her from the first, when nobody else could.

  “We bring the Yule Tree!” he called. “On to the hall!”

  That got him a cheer; everyone here was young, from his age down to six-year-olds running around pretending to help and pelting one another with snowballs; Mary and Ritva were doing that too, and giggling like the kids they’d been not too long ago. He smiled tolerantly—until one of theirs took him on the back of the head and knocked his bonnet off into a drift. They weren’t kids anymore and they threw hard.

  “Hey, watch that!” he called. “Not while I’m riding Epona!”

  It wasn’t that the big mare wasn’t well trained. She’d spun under him in response to his shift of balance, mov ing as lightly as a deer. The problem was that she was trained for war, and fiercely protective of him besides, and didn’t know the difference between a snowball and a rock meant to kill. He had to check rein her then, and she snorted and shook her head and showed her teeth.

  Epona was a genius of horsekind, but their intelligence was of a different type and order. You had to understand how they saw the world. He grinned at the thought; he was pretty sure that there were times when she thought he was a bumbling idiot who needed constant protection.

  “Well, you were the one who was pining because I didn’t take you out enough,” he scolded her. “Be good!”

  He kicked his right foot free of the stirrup, bent down and retrieved the bonnet. To calm her, he let Epona drop behind the rest of them; Odard and Matti were mounted too, and they all watched the shouting mob lead the two ponies pulling the sled through the snowy woods. A scramble and a push to help the team, and they were on a well kept trail that ran east to Dun Juniper.

  This forest had been Mackenzie land before the Mac kenzies were a Clan, back before the Change; way back, since the family came out from east Tennessee in his mother’s great-great grandfather’s time. Generations ago her great uncle had started to tend and plant here—that was why there were so many oaks, and exotics like black walnuts, though nowadays every dun on this side of the valley spread them from the nuts and acorns. He halted under one walnut that reared a hundred feet above the trail and made a reverence to a small shrine there; it had a stone arch and two rosebushes trained to twine together.

  “This is where they died,” Mathilda said quietly. “Nearly twelve years ago now.”

  Rudi nodded; that had been in March of the last year of the War of the Eye, when Mathilda had been captive here. Her parents had sent a team of warriors to get her back; they had, and taken Rudi too, and killed the two Clan fighters guarding him, Aoife Barstow and Liath Dunling. He made an offering here every year on the anniversary of it, a handful of salt and wheat and a little of his own blood, to their spirits and the spirit of the tree; it had become a symbol to him that he’d be heading north soon, as part of the agreement that had ended the War.

  She crossed herself and brought out her crucifix to kiss. “They fought very bravely, I remember that,” she said gravely. “Holy Mary, Queen of Heaven, intercede for them, and for us all, now and at the hour of our deaths.”

  Odard repeated the gesture; they all sat silent for a moment in respect, then touched their horses into a canter and followed the sled.

  It was already out of the trees, out onto the long lens-shaped stretch of benchland meadow that held Dun Juniper on the south facing slope of the mountain. The snow was knee-deep, with more coming as the weather thickened. Mathilda tilted her head back and stuck out her tongue to catch the flakes on it. Laughing, Rudi did the same; even Odard joined in after a moment. They passed the tannery and bark mill and soap boiling sheds, not in use in this season but still giving off a strong whiff of curing leather and boiled fat. The sled had gotten ahead of them, and they leg-signaled their horses to pick up the pace, until plumes of white flew up from their forefeet.


  Dun Juniper lay at the middle of the oval, hard up against the flank of the mountain, halfway between the tannery at one end and the little waterfall and gristmill at the other. It had been a low plateau once, where his mother’s kin had built a hunting lodge of great squared logs.

  Rudi chuckled under his breath as he looked up at the walls looming through the snow; they were as high and strong as Sutterdown’s, albeit the circuit of them was a lot less. Snow stuck in patches to the rough stucco, hiding the swirling designs of vine and leaf and flowers under the battlements.

  And whenever he saw them, something deep within him said home, wherever he’d been.

  “What’s the joke, Rudi?” Odard asked.

  “I was just remembering something my mother said. She showed up here right after the Change, and met her coven—she’d been in Corvallis; they were in Eugene. And she gave them this little speech, you know, to buck them up because they were all at sea and scared witless with it.”

  The other two nodded; they were all the children of rulers, in one way or another, and they’d grown up with the necessities of leadership. Rudi went on:

  “And she said, ‘It’s a clan we’ll have to be, as it was in the old days. . . .’ ”

  Odard frowned. “What’s funny about that? That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” he said, laughing outright now. “But she didn’t actually mean it, not really. She thought it was, what are they after calling it, a figure of speech. She just meant they’d have to pull together to get through. It was the others who decided to really do that, and she says she pretty well just had to go along with it whenever they came up with something, like calling her Chief or Uncle Denni making the kilts when they found that load of tartan blankets. She says it shows how ‘leading’ means running fast enough to keep ahead of your people.”

  Mathilda joined in the laughter. “Well, my dad did something like that too,” she said.

  Rudi raised an eyebrow, intrigued. She didn’t usually talk about her father much, naturally enough, since ev eryone outside Protectorate territory hated his memory. And a fair number within, too, for all that his tyranny had still saved their lives, or these days more often their parents’ lives.