He got up, tugged her long-handled hatchet free of a piece of cut firewood, and walked across the clearing to a stand of wind-bent spruce.... It took a while of choosing and chopping, then trimming to rough size, shape, and weight.
The light, though, was still fine enough when he came back to the fire. Fine enough, though tinted warm red as the sun sank.
"Here." Baj tossed Nancy a trimmed spruce branch — gluey with sap, sturdy, and curved — a coarse imitation of her sword. The branch he kept was straight, and almost Umber.
He stepped away from the fire. "Now," he said to her, using the phrase the Master had used in the salle, "— come and kill me."
Alacrity was the perfect Warm-time word. Nancy sheathed her sword with alacrity, came to her feet with alacrity, and leaped over the fire and at him with alacrity, the curved stick in her hand.
She struck at him across and backhanded and across again almost too quickly to follow — whack whack whack — and she struck as hard as a wiry man might have. It was startling, and only endless practice over many years of shouted lessons, insults, and bruises allowed Baj to parry in sixte, quarte, and septime, while thinking how fast she was.
Even so, on her seventh or eighth blow, the curved stick glissaded up Baj's length of spruce to hit his fingers for lack of a guard. He riposted then, lunged extended, and struck her hard at the center of her chest as she came in swinging.
"You're dead," he said.
But apparently she was not, since she leaped at him snarling, sharp teeth bared, beating his "blade" aside, hacking with blurring speed, little splinters of spruce flying. It was an assault almost frightening. — Amusing, too, of course, the ferocity in a fairly delicate fox-girl face, its rooster comb of widow-peaked red hair.
Baj went back and back, giving before that furious rush — then suddenly dropped low to his right knee and left hand before her, so the girl lunged almost over him as he struck up hard, driving the end of his fencing stick just beneath her ribs.
"Dead a second time," he said, spinning up and away as she struck at him. "Passata soto. Never lose your temper when you fight."
He heard Richard say, "My, my..."
Her sharp face still a mask of rage, Nancy turned to come at him again — came quickly a few steps... then more slowly as she found she couldn't breathe.
Baj stepped back and back as she followed . .. and began to stumble. He saw her try again to catch her breath, then stand still, a hand at her throat, narrow face pale under that comb of bright hair.
Baj felt a first thread of worry that he'd struck too hard — struck too hard at a girl, and one whose body was not perfectly human. He felt that thread of worry, but while he felt it, a thousand practice afternoons had their way, and he stepped in with no hesitation, lunged, and drove his stick's tip hard where he supposed her heart must be.
"Dead a third time," he said. "Never, never lose your temper when you fight — and if you're hurt, don't just stand there. Back away... back away on guard to give yourself time to recover."
"Fuck you..." Even bent and wheezing-in little breaths, the girl had wind enough for that ancient WT phrase.
"We'll fight every evening," Baj said, surprised to be giving an order, "until you can do to me what I just did to you." Then, after receiving a savage yellow-eyed glance, added, "You're very fast — and strong. You're going to be dangerous with the sword."
That seemed to help. Did not, however, help his sore fingers, where her branch had slid up to strike them. — Discomfort continuing when Richard insisted on chess, took Baj's queen unfairly swiftly by firelight, then destroyed him and left his poor people slaughtered.
"... I noticed," Richard said, tucking the little pieces back into their folding box, "I noticed your boots slowed you a little as you stepped. Once those are mountain-ruined, I'll sew moccasins for you."
"My boots do, so far."
Richard smiled, and tucked the chess set into his pack. " 'So far' is not far at all."
CHAPTER 9
Patience was starving. Her sore belly's only relief was attention taken by the savage ache in her shoulder as she traveled the slope of a mountain in late after-noon.
She'd ground-walked east now for three days... going carefully over stone and scree, carefully past wooded heights so as not to stumble, fall on her slung left arm. She'd had to use her sheathed scimitar for a walking stick — and was wearing the scabbard's brass tip doing it.
So hungry — her gift of Walking-in-air having come at the cost of great appetite — she'd munched fresh pine-needles, chewed unfolding leaves from sapling beeches discovered in mountain draws and ravines . .. and looking for white grubs under fallen timber, had found a few handfuls of mushrooms instead. There'd been occasional run-off down the slopes she'd traveled, so her stomach, full of limestone water, had sloshed and rumbled.
It had been difficult to avoid bad dreams that might have frightened the baby, so her sleep had stayed fitful, full of intentional calm and simple stories, though she'd had no further visits from him....
There'd been a wolverine that watched her from a rock-fall the evening before — no threat unless it lost its temper. And a mother black bear with two cubs the first morning — but digging for marmots so far upwind as not to notice her. Patience had seen no deer, had no way to take one if she had.... How easy it had been, how sure and easy to survey the country from the air. Then, seeing any squirrel, any rabbit, any grazing deer... to stoop down silent with a silent scimitar — though mindful of air-walking's necessary concentration — with only butchering and the cook-fire to accomplish afterward.
Passing time, attempting distraction from the agony of her shoulder's dislocation, she tormented herself by imagining meals — recalling them, happy to remember even mess-hall grub (wonderful old word) served by North Map-Mexico's army decades ago.... Those tin platters heaped with boiled pork and turnips. Turnips poorly peeled, but wonderful. And the army's rich barley loaves. Rich dark barley loaves... soaked in pork-fat gravy.
Patience wondered — so perfect was the recollection — whether some sustenance might not come from memories perfectly complete. If only so, she might reconstruct Boston's slow-cooked beans — simmered, with wild southern honey, in iron pots on bake-shops' great stoves with West Map-Virginia coal bright as sunshine in their bellies. Slow... slow cooking, while the stove's shimmering heat funneled up tall pipes into Boston's streaming icy air, its vaulted frozen heavens of blue ice and shining lamps. So, beans of course, and served with seal, lobster, or chard cakes.... She also remembered — to feed her spirit at least — venison sword-sliced from the air, butchered out still kicking, then its loin-chops and ribs roasted sputtering over southern hardwood, sprinkled with rough salt from the Ocean Atlantic.
Wonderful in recall — if so much simpler than the wedding feast at Island when she was a girl, where victory had lain smoking with bloody beef-steaks on silver platters, glass-grown vegetables of almost every kind, and cane-and-honey sweetened cakes, pastries, and pies of Kingdom apples and far-southern fruit from over the Gulf Entire....
Her mouth filled with the saliva of imagination, Patience labored along, sometimes a little dizzy. If memories could serve, she would starve never. — But ground-walking in the present-now, and through tribal country, she didn't dare to linger even for the hope of a sometime rabbit, possibly snared with dark-blue thread from her clothes, twisted and set looped beneath a springing branch.
A throwing-stick was a perhaps for squirrel — would have been an almost certain, except she was left-handed. "Bad Goddamned luck," she said aloud, omitting even Mountain Jesus. The continual slope she walked along the mountain had her hobbling, with occasional awkward climbs over storm-blown trees and stony outcrops, as well as burrowing through vine tangles, berry bushes not yet bearing.
She had tried twice that day — as she'd tried the days before — to push the rocky ground away beneath and behind her. Tried and failed to clear her mind of grinding pain, so that rising in the air woul
d be simple as taking a breath.... It was almost certain that she would have been able to do it, younger. Then, two — and even three concentrations had been possible for her, at least for short periods. Now, the pain upset all.
She'd failed both times — was frightened after the second attempt, as if to try and fail too often might spoil the talent-piece in her brain forever, and leave her walking the earth as long as she lived.
So she traveled as humans and most Persons did — as she'd done for casual Warm-time miles herself, years before — trudging on the ground, long coat-tails catching in thorn and thicket. Ground-walking really an awkward business, after all — seeming, each step, to lean to a fall... then catch oneself to step again. Clumsy as an only means, and stupid as starving to death, which she seemed likely to do.
Being down-wind had spared her the mother bear's attention two days before — and light-headed, weary, her shoulder burning as if a bright coal were buried in it, Patience found being downwind useful again as, along an uneven slope, she smelled the faintest odor of wood smoke... then its companion odor of men.
She sniffed the air as an animal might — as any Person would — and sifted out three men, perhaps four. Men's pleasant, slightly bitter odor, but no woman's sweet and gluey scent. They were above her on the mountainside, just past its massive turning.
... There were considerations. First, the immediate of staying alive — she was left-handed, but her left arm was slung and useless. She'd have to fight with her right, so not as well. Second, there being at least three of them, there was no chance of killing one and settling in peace to roast and eat him — sad though that disgusting meal would be for her purity, and upsetting to the baby if he sensed it. Third, their odor was steadily stronger; they were coming down-slope. And though they were Sunriser-humans, and could hardly scent at all, they could and would see any trail marked clearly as hers.
She might run along the mountain's scrub and rubble — or down into the thick stands of hemlock, to be hunted through the coming dark, hunted again in the morning. Or she could stand and talk — then fight if that must be.... Best, of course, would be to spurn this difficult earth, and Walk-in-air, with only curious ravens for company.
Patience stood still, closed her eyes — which she shouldn't have had to do — and tilted her head a little to one side... to pour and pour all thought, all consideration out of it, leaving only room for pushing the ground from beneath her.
She felt... she certainly felt the beginning of that wonderful vacancy. .. emptiness enough to fill with a single purpose. But still an edge of Patience Nearly-Lodge Riley stayed anchored, fastened to the fact of an agonized shoulder. No matter what trying — mind-dodging this way and that — there was not the singleness and simplicity of setting her mind against the ground, to refuse it, shove it down and away so she rose into the air.... It would have been done, but the damaged shoulder ached to stay.
Patience felt the mountain stone still firm beneath her boots, and opened her eyes to evening light and trouble.
... Four men, and closer. Tribesmen, by their weather-washed, smoke-stained scent. If they'd been speaking, not hunting, she would already be hearing their voices.
* * *
The Robins' Thoughtful-man, Paul French, occasionally said, "Surprise."
Meaning, of course, that the world, packed with things unknown, was often startling — even discounting the secrets women knew.
The Robins' War-leader, Chad Budnarik, always added, "Response," meaning a man- — who was a man — met surprises with speed, force, and modest good sense.
These sayings were not in Pete Aiken's mind on Wild-plum Mountain, but came to mind on seeing the lady — of Boston unmistakably by her coat, her style, her curved sword and everything.
No one could say that a Pete-led posse didn't swiftly respond. The notion of hunting immediately thrown away, the notion of killing-or-capturing immediately in its place.
So down the mountainside went Pete Aiken; down the mountainside went Lou and Gerald and Gerald's brother, Patrick. The Boston-woman — a sort of Person for sure, who for sure had not walked far in these Robin mountains — did not rise up into the air, but limped and scuttled like a wounded bobcat down to the hemlocks.
"Ours!" Pete called, and led them down — then ducked since Gerald's brother, running behind, had thrown a javelin... sent it hissing barely over everyone's head.
The javelin went nowhere near the Boston-woman, but she ducked away as if it had... and was gone, tucked into the stands of evergreens.
"Never again," Pete said, which was taken to mean he wouldn't go hunting with Gerald's brother, anymore. Pete had his hatchet out — better for tangled fighting — so everyone else gripped theirs, and followed him into the hemlocks, calling, "Yoiks.. . yoiks!," an habitual humorous thing that was called after something seen, then treed or dug into a den — the Robins being usually a light-hearted people.
* * *
Deep in the trees, dark under tree-shadow, Patience stood waiting, wishing for sooner night, her greatcoat's blue blending into shade. She'd drawn her sword, Merriment, whose slim curved blade — forged so raindrops seemed to dance and run along it — had killed for her for more than twenty years. It had been a gift from her mother, presented perhaps as apology. Perhaps as anger, also, at Boston's womb-shaping of her daughter.
With the next birth, her mother had died.
... The Robins seemed a noisy four, young, cheerful, and confident in their mountain country at the corner of old Map-Kentucky. Patience smelled them, heard them coming in, and caught a distant glimpse of one — then another — between shaggy hemlocks. Presentable young men, lean-muscled, with cropped curly beards and mustaches, and already becoming summer-tanned, possessing the gloss and glow that well-fed savages sported while young. They'd be thickly scarred up and down their bare chests and bellies in sinuous feather-and-plumage patterns, to honor their totem.... None would go naked as Sparrows and Thrushes often went. These all would be wearing — as those she'd glimpsed were wearing — the mid-east tribes' leather kilts and strap sandals. The hunt leader likely sporting a headdress of feathers dyed robin's-egg blue.
"Lou! Try in there." That called in fair book-English. Better, at least, than what the tribesmen chattered a Map-State to the south.
One — "Lou"? — was coming ducking through evergreen branches directly toward her .. . perhaps following a faint trail of disturbed foliage.
Regretting her slung left arm, Patience tightened her right-hand's grip on the scimitar's hilt... and slowly raised the blade high, cocked it slightly over her shoulder. The odor of evergreens seemed to grow almost overpowering....
The Robin came on, making more woods-noise than he would have if a deer or armed man were waiting. Or if he were older, and wise.
One of his friends called, a distance through the trees.
The young man, almost certainly "Lou," stepped stooping through the thicket... was close enough to almost touch — and saw her standing nearly beside him as he started to straighten.
As always, in her experience of those moments, Patience felt time's sudden winter, a moment's freezing, slow, and difficult to strike through. The young man — blue eyes startled as a frightened child's — crouched for some purpose, perhaps to leap away, then raise his hatchet or javelin for fighting.
Patience saw, as he saw in their shared instant, that would not be possible. Merriment seized her arm's strength, and the sword whipped down before either of them was quite ready, sliced the young man across his eyes — it seemed to Patience he died to his world then, died blind even before the second... and third thrumming strokes left him spouting, shaking in place without his head, before he toppled.
"Farewell, Lou," Patience said — and almost hidden beneath green hemlock fronds on the forest's floor, the head's mouth trembled as if to answer.
Death, though not noisy, had somehow echoed through the woods, and the other Robins were silent as Patience was silent. Then — as if killing
had given them its direction — they came booming, leaping through greenwood toward their dead friend, while Patience fled.
... Boston had never preached to praise the night; though perhaps the Productive Mothers, in their pens, welcomed darkness to shroud the remembered sight of their odd or ruined children. Still, Patience composed her own prayers for nightfall while she ran, insistant as if she had every right to demand the whole world go rolling faster. She begged the Mountains' Jesus and Kingdom River's Floating One; she offered what she didn't have to Lady Weather — intending to pay that debt later — while every stride, every leap over winter-fallen timber was a knife-thrust into her shoulder.
The three men came after her, tracking fast, bird-calling back and forth to keep their interval. They hadn't paused at Headless Lou.
Only the mountainside's broken country in dimming light, the tangled rough here-and-there of the thick hemlock grove, gave Patience chances to pause... scent the men's quarterings on errant breezes, then scramble in the other direction. Once or twice, she doubled back to almost meet them — so they passed her by WT yards as she crouched panting quietly as she could, mouth open, her eyes closed as if to see was to be seen.
After a while, exhausted — by hunger even more than pain — she become a dreaming girl again, full of wishes. She imagined Sam Monroe had come to stand beside her in the dusk, amused, liking her as he always had through every exasperation. If he were alive, he would come to help her in just that way. Not as a king, but as the war-worn young man she'd met in the Sierra those many years ago. His hard face, kind eyes, the long-sword strapped down his back.
He — and others, if they were alive — would have come to aid her. It seemed unfair that mere death should keep her from her friends.
Night was falling with the last of sunset's shadows, their darker shade amid the hemlocks, but would not come quite soon enough. Patience was running her last run along the top of an embankment choked with toppled great trees — dredged out and thrown down by the mountain's spring flooding years before. The bark was rotting from huge logs piled confused as if the Lady and Lord Winter played there at pickup sticks.
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