Dies The Fire

Chapter Twenty-three

D uke Iron Rod-even he seldom thought of himself as Dave Mondarian anymore-rolled off the woman. She was the new one, taken in the latest raid, but she'd stopped screaming and fighting by now. Pretty, though, and young-eighteen or thereabouts, healthy farm-girl type.

"Get out," he said, yawning and stretching and scratching. "Go do some work."

She'd rolled over onto her side; his broad hand gave a gunshot slap on her butt and she rose obediently, stepping into the briefs and belting on the short bathrobe that was standard wear for the new captures. It made them feel more fearful and obedient; and besides, it was convenient.

"Wait," he said, and stood to piss in the chamber pot. "Take that, too."

"Yes, Duke Iron Rod," she said, and scurried out.

I don't care what the Protector says, Iron Rod thought. Duke's fine, but nobody is going to call me grace.

He heard a smack and yelp from the next room; that was Martha, his old lady from before the Change. She liked to keep the new bitches in line.

"Don't make her spill it!" he shouted, pulling on his black leather pants. "You'll clean it up yourself if she does!"

Gotta get the plumbing working, he thought, as he stamped his feet into the heavy steel-shod boots. Pots smell and they're a pain in the ass.

The problem there was that this place was on top of a hill-it was a lot easier to defend from a height, but without power-driven pumps it was also hard to get water up here. The hand pumps on the first floor worked well enough for drinking and washing water, but not to run the toilets on the upper stories, according to the plumbers. Since they didn't change their tune after he hung one of them off the walls, they were probably telling the truth.

The rooms he'd chosen for his own were in the west corner of St. Hilda's, on the fourth floor; this one still had a window, although there was a pair of heavy steel shutters ready to swing across it and leave only a narrow slit. One of the new crossbows was racked beside it, and bundles of bolts, and a half-dozen short spears for throwing.

He liked standing there, or even better up in one of the bell towers, and looking out over the land that he was making his. A white grin split his face as he thought of that: Even fucking wheat-country looks better when it's your very own private Idaho!

Today he went out into the outer room of this suite; it was fixed up with tables and sofas, as well as more weapons racked on the walls and his armor on a stand. It was full of the good smells of food, too, and his stomach rumbled. Martha had breakfast waiting; a big beefsteak with fried eggs on top, and hash browns and coffee. It all still tasted a little funny, except for the coffee, and the cream in that was different too. He supposed it was because it was all fresh country stuff, right from the farms or the cows.

When he'd wiped his mouth he looked at Martha; she was a tall rawboned woman with faded bleach-blond hair, a couple of years younger than his thirty-eight.

"You gotta get the girls working on keeping this place cleaned up. The doc says we'll all get sick, otherwise, especially the kids."

"Then stop the boys crapping and pissing in corners 'cause they're too lazy to go downstairs or look for a pot!" she said. "Or tell 'em to go live in the stable with the fucking horses!"

He liked the way she stood up to him-had in the old days, too, even after a beating; she'd stabbed him in the foot, once, when he knocked her down, put him on crutches for weeks.

"Yeah, I'll work on that," he said mildly.

It was a warm day, and he didn't bother with a shirt. He did pick up his great sword in its silver-chased leather sheath, buckling it across his back on a harness that left the hilt jutting over his right shoulder ready to his hand. The weapon was a favorite of his, a present from the Protector like a lot of their new gear; it had a winged skull as a pommel, and the two-handed grip and long double-edged blade suited his style. The knife he tucked into its sheath along his boot was an old friend from before the Change, though.

Then he went out into the corridor. "Moose, Hitter," he said to the men on guard, slapping their armored shoulders in passing. "Go get some eats, bros."

They were old-timers from the Devil Dogs; not too bright, but loyal as dogs. Pleased grins lit their faces as they clanked away.

The place did smell a little gamy as he walked down to the staircase. On the floor below, big arched windows looked down from the corridor onto the courtyard. Iron Rod threw one of them open-the air outside was fresher.

The block off to the east had been the church; it had the two towers, and big doors gave in onto it. From the rear, two wings ran back to enclose the court, ending in a smooth curtain wall.

They used the church as the main dining hall these days; his followers were spilling out of it right now, except the ones nursing hangovers. The big hairy men were loud and happy this morning, after a successful raid; he'd have to give them a couple of days off, before he got them working on weapons practice again, and riding. They were good guys, tough and reliable, but most of them weren't what you'd call long on planning.

Iron Rod was; he'd made the Devil Dogs a force to be reckoned with in Seattle's underworld over the last ten years, made those washed-up old geezers in the Angels back off, and the gooks and greasers and niggers respect him. The drug trade was competitive; you didn't stay in business long-or stay breathing-if you couldn't think ahead and figure the angles. He'd come through the automatic-weapons anarchy of the crack epidemic still standing because he thought with something else besides his fists and his balls.

Another man approached along the gallery, and Iron Rod watched him with the same instinctive wariness he would have a brightly patterned snake.

Baron Eddie Liu wasn't one of Duke Iron Rod's gangers. Neither was the huge figure that followed him, dressed in rippling armor made from stainless steel washers on leather, faceless behind a helmet with only a T-slit for vision and carrying a heavy war-hammer over his shoulder. Even among the Devil Dogs he was impressive.

Those two were the ambassadors from Portland, the Protector's men : from what he'd heard, Liu was one of the Protector's roving troubleshooters.

And he's smart, too, he thought, watching the slender figure in the dark silk shirt, black pants and polished boots and fancy chain belt.

But this ain't Portland, Iron Rod thought. This is my turf now.

Then he turned to the archway, raised his fists and bellowed, a guttural lion roar of dominance and aggression. All eyes in the court turned to him. He knew he cut a striking figure; as huge as any of his followers, with thick curly black hair falling down on massive shaggy shoulders and a dense beard spilling down the pelt of his chest.

Unlike most of his men he was flat-bellied, though-had been before the Change, too. Muscle ran over his shoulders and arms like great snakes wrestling with each other; every thick finger bore a heavy gold ring, and two gold hoops dangled from his ears. The face between was high-cheeked, hook-nosed, the eyes brooding and dark.

"Devil Dogs!" he shouted. "Dog-brothers!" That brought a chorus of howls and barks and yipping.

"Devil Dogs rule! We beat these sorry-ass farmers again! We took their food and their cattle and their horses, we burned their barns, we fucked their bitches!"

A roaring cheer went up and echoed off the high stone walls of the courtyard.

"Pretty soon, we'll have Sheriff Woburn hanging from a hook!"

There were half a dozen set in the walls now, between the towers and over the old church doors, taken from a slaughterhouse and mounted in the stone. All were occupied at present, but he'd clear one for Woburn, when they caught him. A wordless howl of hate went up at the sheriff's name, hoarse and strong.

I got a serious jones for Woburn, the Devil Dog chieftain thought. Worst I've had since those pissants ran us out of the Sturgis meet back in '94.

"The prairie is mine! All bow to the Iron Rod!"

A chant went up, falling into a pattern: "Iron Rod! Iron Rod! Duke! Duke! Duke!"

Most of them hadn't known a Duke from a Duchess and thought both were country and western stars, back before the Change. He'd been fuzzy on it himself until the Protector's people explained, but he liked the sound now.

When he turned from the window, Liu and his troll were there, which he liked rather less; so was Feitman, the Devil Dogs' own numbers man, a skinny little dude in black leathers with a shaven head and receding chin. He also carried two knives, and he was as fast with them as anyone Iron Rod had ever seen. The boys respected him, despite the time he spent with ledgers and books, and with computers before the Change.

"We just wanted to say good-bye," Liu said.

He was skinny too; some sort of gook, although he had bright blue eyes. You didn't want to underestimate him, though.

"The Protector's going to be real pleased with the progress you guys are making," he said. "And with the horses, provided we can get them down the river and past the locks."

Iron Rod grunted. Then he spoke: "Something I've been wanting to ask."

Liu made a graceful gesture.

Fag, Iron Rod thought, then shook his head. Nah. He'd made quite an impression on the girls here. And even if he was a fag, he'd still be dangerous as a snake. Watch him careful.

"What I'd like to know is why the Protector is giving us all this help over the past couple of months," Iron Rod went on.

And it had been a lot of help; weapons, armor, some skilled workers and a couple of instructors. Surprisingly, those had been even more useful than the swords and scale shirts; disconcertingly, they'd stayed more afraid of the Protector than of Iron Rod, even behind his walls and among his men.

Most useful of all had been the advice on how to take over this turf, and how to run it afterward.

"He's not exactly giving it all away," Liu said, his left hand on the hilt of his long curved sword-a bao, he'd called it.

"We're getting the cattle and horses-those'll be real useful, and they're sort of scarce west of the Cascades right now. When you're set up here, you'll send men to fight for the Protector on call, like we agreed. And you'll want to buy lots of stuff from Portland; we'll take a rake-off on that."

Iron Rod nodded. "Yeah, yeah, but that's all sort of, what's, the word, theoretical. And does the Protector trust me that much?"

The blue eyes went chilly. "Nobody stiffs the Protector, man," he said, in a flat voice the more menacing for the absence of bluster. "Nobody. Not twice, you hear what I'm saying?"

Iron Rod wasn't afraid of Liu, or his master; he wasn't afraid of much. He was good at calculating the odds, and he blinked as he thought.

"Maybe," he said. "My word's good on a deal, anyway. It's the Protector's angle I'm trying to figure."

Liu looked at him with respect-he'd always been polite, but Iron Rod knew that his appearance made people underestimate his brains. That was useful, but it was still pleasant to see the gook's opinion of him revise itself.

"It's what the Protector calls strategy," he said. "We want to get rid of all the old farts anywhere we can-the sheriffs, the mayors, army commanders, all the types who think they can run things like they did before the Change. Those wussies in Pendleton, they look like they might cause us a lot of trouble in times to come. With you strong here, and you being the Protector's man, we'll have their balls in a vise."

Iron Rod nodded somberly, looking westward. He wasn't worried about Lewiston or Boise; the plague was finishing off what the Change had left. Craigswood and Grangeville he could take care of himself; if he left anything standing there, it would be because it was useful to him. Pendleton-the main center of eastern Oregon's farming and ranching country-hadn't been hit nearly so hard; they were getting their shit together, and it might be a real problem later.

"Yeah," he said. "I can see that. Tell the Protector, anytime he wants to take them on, once we've settled our accounts here-"

He put out a massive hand and slowly clenched it into a fist, as if squeezing a throat.

"First things first," Liu said. "You gotta take care of Woburn, and then build the rest of those little forts, like the Protector said, and get men to put in 'em and keep the farmers working. You know what the Protector says. There are only two ways to live now; farming, and running the farmers. We're working on that back west of the mountains right now."

"Yeah, yeah," Iron Rod said; it was a good idea and he was going to do it, but he didn't like being hectored. "Don't get your balls in a twist, bro. Woburn'll be hanging from a hook pretty soon, and I'll pickle his deputies' heads in vodka before the snow flies."

Liu shuddered. "One good thing about Portland, it doesn't snow much," he said.

The great steel-clad figure behind him rumbled agreement.

"Pansies," Iron Rod said, grinning. He'd been from upstate New York, back when. "Say, one thing-you're Chinese, right?"

"Right. Born in New York, father from Guangzhou- Canton to you round-eyes."

"How come the blue eyes, then?"

Liu grinned back. "Hey, my momma was a Polack. Ain't you never seen West Side Story?"

Oooof, Juniper thought, straightening up for a second and rubbing at her back. Then: "Oooof!" as it twinged her, reminding her she was thirty-thirty-one at next Yule-not eighteen, and that she'd been working from before dawn to after sunup since the grain started coming ripe two weeks ago.

Harvest would come just before I'd be off the heavy-labor list, she thought.

So far all pregnancy had done for her was give her a glow and an extra half-inch on the bust.

It was a hot day; July was turning out to be warm and dry this year in the Willamette, a trial for the gardens but perfect for harvesting fruit and grain. The cool of dawn seemed a long time ago, although they were still two hours short of noon.

Ahead of her the wheat rippled bronze-gold to the fence and its line of trees. Cutting into it was a staggered line of harvesters, each swinging a cradle-a scythe with a set of curving wooden fingers parallel to the blade.

Skriiitch as the steel went forward, and the cut wheat stalks toppled back onto the fingers, four or five times repeated until the cradle was full; shhhhkkkk as the harvester tipped it back and spilled them in a neat bunch on the ground; then over and over again: A dry dusty smell, the sharp rankness of weeds cut along with the stalks, sweat, the slightly mealy scent that was the wheat itself.

Birds burst out of the grain as the blades cut, and insects, and now and then a rabbit or some other small scuttling animal. Cuchulain and a couple of other dogs went for them with a ferocity so intent they didn't even bark; they'd all grasped the fact that they had to supply more of their own food by now, as well as working to guard or hunt.

Each of the dozen harvesters had a gatherer behind him; Chuck Barstow was the first, over on the left-hand end of the line, with Judy following behind him, and Juniper was binding for Sam Aylward at the far right-hand position; those were their two best scythesmen, and it helped to pace the others.

Not to mention pacing the binders, she thought, wheezing a little; the thick-bodied ex-soldier cut like a machine, muscle rippling like living metal beneath skin tanned to the same old-oak color as his hair.

Planted by tractors, cut by hand. The last wheat planted with a tractor this world will see in a long, long time.

The thought went through idly as she scratched and stretched again, feeling the sweat running down her face and flanks and legs.

Aylward also worked in hat, boots, a kilt and nothing else, and looked disgustingly comfortable, relatively speaking. Juniper was running with sweat too, but she wore loose pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a bandana under her broad-brimmed hat; the sun would flay a redhead like her alive if she didn't. Every bit of cloth in contact with her skin was sodden, and it chafed. Unlike some, she didn't find the Willamette's rainy, cloudy winters a trial.

So I bundle up, Lord Sun, despite the heat and the awns sticking to me and itching in every place imaginable including some I'm still shy about scratching in public, she thought. It's very unreasonable of You.

The damned little bits that broke off the heads and floated to stick on your wet skin and work their way under your clothes were called awns, according to Chuck. They were a confounded nuisance any way you took it.

She rubbed at her back again, and looked over her shoulder, mostly to stretch-something went click in her spine, with a slight feeling of relief. Much more of this twenty-acre stretch was reaped than wasn't, and it was the last field-two ox-drawn carts were already traveling across it, with workers pitching up sheaves. The Willamette had surprisingly rainless summers, and you didn't have to leave the sheaves stooked in the field to dry except for the seed grain.

The sight was a little bizarre; the carts themselves were flatbeds, each with two wheels taken from cars and vans, drawn by converted steers under hand-whittled wood yokes.

Juniper shook her head; you had to get used to that sort of contrast, in the first year of the Change. She took a swig of lukewarm water from her canteen, moved her bow and quiver and sword belt forward a dozen paces and Ayl-ward's likewise, and bent to work again.

Grab an armful-sized bundle of stalks as the cradle had left them, move them forward, grab and move, grab and move, until you had enough for a sheaf-a bundle as thick as you could comfortably span with both arms. Then you held it in front of you, grabbed a handful just below the grain ears, bent the straw around the whole bundle at the middle, twisted and tucked the end underneath to hold it: and then you did it all over again, and again.

So this was what the phrase mind-numbing toil was invented for, she thought. I wonder how many others are making that discovery!

At that, most of them were doing about half what the books said an experienced worker could finish in a day. She tried not to think again, mentally humming a song instead. It was easier if you could get into a semitrance state, where time ceased to flow minute-by-minute. Gradually her hands and legs and back seemed to move of their own volition.

A heartbreaking share of the grain in the valley wasn't being harvested at all, going to waste from plague and fear and lawlessness, something that made her stomach twist to think of.

Then someone called out; she stopped in midreach and looked up, shocked to see the sun past the noon mark.

"Blessed be!" she said, and many more voices took it up; there were shouts of sheer joy, and some of the younger harvesters managed an impromptu bit of dancing.

They weren't nearly finished anymore; they were finished. Everyone grouped around her in a circle; she wiped a sleeve over her face and gathered up the last of the wheat. First she tied it off as she had the others; then she went to work shaping it, with legs and arms and a twist of straw for a mouth.

"Hail to the Goddess of the ripened corn!" she said, laughing and exhausted, bowing before the sheaf. "We thank You, Mother-of-All, and the Harvest King who is Your consort."

Later they'd take the dolly back to the Hall; and then there were the rites of Lughnassadh next week, when the Oak King gave way to the Holly. But for now they all admired the Queen Sheaf as it was carried across the field towards the southeast corner and shade on the end of a scythe-shaft.

"Go us!" someone yelled, and everyone took it up for a moment, pumping their fists in the air. "Go us! Mackenzies rule!"

"Do you realize," someone else said reverently, when the chant had died down, "That from now on we can eat bread every day?"

"In the sweat of our brows," Juniper said, grinning and wiping hers.

That got a chorus of groans. But it's true, she thought. And the bread is very, very welcome.

They all picked up their tools and weapons and followed the Sheaf to the southeast corner of the field where an oak and a group of Douglas firs cast a grateful shade. There were four big aluminum or plastic kegs of water on two-by-four X-trestles as well; she drank, washed face and hands, peeled off bandana and shirt, poured several cupfuls over her head, drank again. Heat seemed to radiate away from her, like a red-hot poker cooling, as if her hair was flame in truth.

"Dinner!" someone cried.

Eilir drove the delivery cart, which was one of her chores; two-wheeled, with a single ex-cow-pony between the shafts. The soup came in two cauldrons, one double-walled aluminum, the other thick pottery; both types held the heat well. After they ate, they could help the loaders get as much of the cut wheat as possible out of the fields today.

Congratulations! Eilir signed, as eager hands unloaded. What a beautiful Queen Sheaf! Now we can get back to work on the palisade!

Bits of straw and grass and twigs flew in her direction; she giggled and held her buckler up in front of her face to protect herself from the mock attack before she turned the cart with a deft twitch of the reins and trotted off.

Juniper ambled over and raised the lid on the pottery container, full of Eternal Soup-but a considerably richer variety than spring's.

"Well, blessed be," she said. "Onions, carrots, peas, all still recognizable. Wild mushrooms. Turnips. Potatoes."

There were chunks of mutton, too, not yet boiled down to stock; she addressed them in a tone dripping with sympathy: "Blessed be-is that the G-L-L I see? Greetings, Goddamn Little Lamb! You've gone completely to pieces. I'm so sorry: actually, I'm sort of happy to see you like this!"

Everyone laughed at that; even Sam Aylward smiled, though it looked as if it hurt.

Goddamn Little Lamb was-had been, until day before yesterday-the stupidest of the ewes in the clan's painfully acquired little flock; which was saying something, since they'd discovered that the hardest part of raising sheep was keeping them from killing themselves. They might be near-as-no-matter brainless in every other respect, too stupid to walk through an open gate, but in self-immolation they showed boundless ingenuity.

GLL had come close to taking several inexperienced shepherds with her while she threw herself off high places, nearly hung herself on low-lying branch forks, tried to poison herself on unsuitable vegetation, and finally succeeded in drowning herself as she attempted to reach some floating weeds in the millpond, got bogged in the mud, and sank nearly out of sight. Eilir had gone in with a rope to pull the carcass out:

The good part in herding sheep was that you usually didn't have to slaughter them yourself; all you had to worry about was getting to the body before the coyotes did.

Besides the soup there were baskets of "Oh, smell that smell!" Chuck said, reaching in for the bread under the towel.

The loaves were round, mushroom-shaped as if they'd been raised and baked in flowerpots-mostly because Diana and Andy had found that clay flowerpots did make excellent containers for baking, and there were a lot of them available. The loaves had an eight-spoked pattern cut into their dark-brown tops; the sides and bottoms were honey-brown, with just the right hollow sound when flicked, and the coarse bread made from stone-ground flour was fresh enough that it steamed gently when torn open by eager fingers.

Every bit as good as they baked at MoonDance, Juniper thought happily. A bit crumbly -they were using soft white t winter wheat- but very, very tasty!

There was butter too, now that they'd gotten more milkers; creamy yellow butter in Tupperware containers, strong-tasting and rich-the mill turned a big barrel-churn as well as grindstones. The first cheeses were already curing in the damp chill of the springhouse beside it. Juniper anointed her chunk of loaf with a lavish hand, watching it melt into the coarse brown bread.

People settled down to concentrated munching; it seemed like a long time since this morning's oatmeal and fruit. Juniper felt an inner glow when she went back for a second bowl and realized that there was enough for everyone to eat until they were full, at an ordinary field supper rather than a special occasion.

That hadn't happened much until the last few weeks.

How many times did I get up from a meal with my stomach still clenching, and have to go right back to work? she thought. Far too many. Being that hungry hurts. Goddess Mother-of-All, Lord of the ripened grain, thank You for the gifts of Your bounty!

There was even a basket of fruit, Elberta peaches, their skins blushing red amid the deeper crimson of Bing cherries. She snaffled two of the peaches and a double handful of the cherries; most of the fruit crop was being dried and pressed into blocks or turned into jam or otherwise preserved, but they were so good fresh from the tree. The juice dripped from her chin onto her throat and breasts, but there was no point in being dainty; the bathhouse awaited anyway, and the harvesting crews got first turn.

Chuck looked over at her. "Got one of those deep-wisdom Celtic sayings to lay on us, your Ladyship?" he grinned.

She threw a peach pit back at him. "Indeed and I do. ' Nil aon tintean mar do thintean fein. "

"There's no hearth like your own hearth?" he said. "Hey, no fair, that's not relevant!"

"Close but no cigar," she said, waggling her eyebrows and leering. "This one sounds a lot like that, but it actually means: There's no sore ass like your own sore ass."

That got a universal, rueful chuckle. "Hey, what about a song?" Judy asked.

"Well, I'm not playing today," Juniper said, with a pang. "Not until my hands are in better shape." That brought groans of disappointment, and they sounded heartfelt.

It's different, in a world where all music has to be live, she thought. I'm good, but am I as good as everyone says, these days? Or is it just that there's no competition?

Although Chuck and a few others were gifted amateurs, come to that.

Surprisingly, Sam Aylward produced a wooden flute and began to pipe; Chuck grinned and started to tap a stone on the back of his scythe-blade for accompaniment; someone else beat a little tambourine-shaped hand drum they'd brought along this morning-songs were a lot more usual on the way to work than afterward.

She recognized the tune at once, cleared her throat and began, her strong alto ringing out in the slow, cadenced measure of the song's first verse:

"Let me tell the tale of my father's kin

For his blood runs through my veins No man's been born

Who could best John Barleycorn

For he's suffered many pains!"

Then a little faster:

"They've buried him well beneath the ground

And covered over his head

And these men from the West

Did solemnly attest

That John Barleycorn was dead!

John Barleycorn was dead!

But the warm spring rains

Came a'pouring down

And John Barleycorn arose-"

It was a very old tune, and popular:

"And upon that ground he stood without a sound

Until he began to grow!

And they've hired a man with a knife so sharp

For to cut him through the knees-"

More and more joined her, but then the voices jarred to a sudden halt.

A haunting huu-huu-huu from the west brought heads around; that was the alarm from the mounted sentries, blowing on horns donated by slaughtered cattle. Everyone felt uncomfortably exposed here; the valley floor was dead flat and the road net was still in good shape; with bicycles raiders could strike from anywhere. Horses were faster in a sprint, but men on bicycles could run horses to death over a day or two.

Aylward laid down his flute and rose as smoothly as if he hadn't spent the hours since dawn swinging a twenty-pound cradle scythe, usually with half a sheaf of wheat on it. He picked up his great yellow longbow and strung it the quick, dirty and dangerous medieval way-right foot between string and stave, the horn tip braced against the instep from behind the anklebone, hip against the riser, flex the body back and push the right arm forward and slide the cord up into the nock at the upper tip.

Juniper used the more conservative thigh-over-riser method for her lighter weapon, and then relaxed slightly at the next horn call.

All around her people paused as they reached for jacks and bucklers and spears and quivers.

Huu-huu-huu, huuuuu-huuuuu, repeated twice. Three short and two long meant friendly visitors, not attacking bandits, in the current code.

The sentry rode over the ditch and into the field from the western edge, raising Juniper's brows again; it was Cynthia Carson Mackenzie, with ends of blond hair leaking past the metal-and-leather cheekpieces of her bowl helmet. She was in jack and full fig-longbow and quiver across her back, buckler hooked over the scabbard of the shortsword at her belt, and spear in her right hand. That also held the reins of a second horse.

"Where's Ray?" Juniper asked as she pulled up.

Sentries never operated in groups of less than two, and it was her brother's mount the blond girl was leading, with the stirrups tied up to the saddle. The usual patrol was three, and three threes to make a squad; mystically appropriate, and solidly practical.

"He's with the others," Cynthia said. "We thought you'd better come quick, Lady Juniper. It's Sutterdown-they're here, by our: by the old Carson place."

"Someone from Sutterdown?" she replied.

She took a moment to put her shirt back on; Sutterdown was a straitlaced community these days. Then she slung her quiver over her back on its baldric and thrust her strung bow through the carrying loops beside it before she buckled on her sword and dirk.

"We told them no visitors until the sickness passes out there."

"No, not just visitors. The whole town, and a lot of others. Lady, you'd better come."

"Coming, coming," Juniper said, alarmed. "Sam, get the word out."

Anything out of the ordinary was likely to be a threat. Not while we're getting the grain in, please! she thought, as she put a foot in the stirrup, swung aboard, and took the reins.

Have they gotten hit by the plague, Goddess forfend?

That wouldn't make them up stakes and head for Mackenzie land, though. Nobody let in anyone who might be infected; and anyway, from what she'd heard, Sutter-down had been singularly fortunate-which in turn was fortunate for Clan Mackenzie, since Sutterdown and its associated area neatly blocked off the rest of the Willamette and made a buffer against the Death.

They cut across the laneway opposite, through a field in shaggy pasture with a couple of dozen recently acquired and painfully thin ranch-country Herefords gorging themselves in it, and then along a dirt-surfaced, tree-lined farm lane in grateful shade to the old Carson place.

The laneway from that gave out onto a paved local road; the house was on a slight rise, brick-built, a hundred and twenty years old, and until recently it had been bowered in century-old maples and oaks and ash trees.

Those had been cut down and a square was pegged out about the farmstead, where the ditch, mound and palisade would go when they had time after the harvest. Juniper regretted the trees-they'd been beautiful, and had stood so long-but you couldn't leave cover near someplace you intended to live. In the meantime it was their border post and base for the frontier patrols.

Juniper's eyes widened as she saw the crowd filling the road beyond the house. There were at least a hundred people there, both sexes and all ages, and a round dozen vehicles, horse- or hand-drawn; all of the men and a lot of the women were armed, mostly with improvised weapons of various sorts, spears made from fitting knives to the ends of poles, pruning hooks, axes, machetes, a scattering of bows and crossbows-and Aylward-style longbows they'd bought in the past few months. Few had any body armor, or worthwhile shields.

They also looked thinner and dirtier and more ragged than her clan on average, and a few were bandaged; some of the bandages seeped blood. She recognized individuals from Sutterdown, and the farms about that centered on it.

If they've run into a bandit attack they can't handle, that's bad. That's very bad.

The area between her lands and Sutterdown had been tranquil-by post-Change standards-not least because both communities were fairly well organized, and acted together against reivers and Eaters.

Most of them rested quietly, except for the crying of children. There were five armed Mackenzies strung across the road, spears or bows in their hands. Three of the Sutterdown folk stood arguing with the guards, trying to come closer and then flinching back at shouts of warning. It didn't look like a fight brewing-they wouldn't have brought their families along if they were going to try and run the clan off the disputed Smith land-but she didn't like it at all. They knew about the quarantine regulations; and had their own, for that matter.

"Stand back there, and we'll talk," she called as she reined in; the horse's hooves rang hollow on the asphalt.

Juniper dismounted; no sense in towering over the men waiting for her and putting their backs up even more. Men were strange about things like that, even the best of them-which these weren't.

"Sheriff Laughton," she said, nodding in greeting as polite as you could make without coming close enough to shake hands; he was a middling man of about her own age, in a long leather coat covered with links of light chain sewn on with steel wire.

"Dr. Gianelli." Slight and dark and balding, glaring at her.

"Reverend Dixon." Heavyset before the Change, sagging now, and glaring twice as hard as the doctor, in a black business suit and tie that fit him like a flopping sack. There was a mottled purple look to his face that might be anger, or might be ill health, or both. Judy would have prescribed a regimen of herbs and meditation to control choler, and willow bark to thin the blood.

"We need to talk to you, privately," the preacher said abruptly, stepping forward; he had a Bible in his hand, with a golden cross gleaming on the cover and his finger inside it marking a place.

One of the Mackenzies leveled his spear and prodded the air six feet in front of the Sutterdown man with a growl. The bright whetted steel and the tone stopped the cleric as if the point had been at his chest. The spearman spoke: "That's Lady Juniper, to you! The Mackenzie gave you your titles! Show some manners, cowan. You're on our land."

Juniper held out her hand soothingly, making a patting motion at the air. "Ray, let's be tactful. Manners work both ways."

Then she turned back to the Sutterdown leadership; as she did so she stripped the glove off her right hand. One of the flaps from a burst blister had been bothering her. She bit it off and spat it aside, then caught the odd looks directed at her.

"We're just finishing up our harvest?" she explained, puzzled. The Sutterdown folk would be too.

"You're harvesting, personally?" Sheriff Laughton said. "Lady Juniper," he added hastily as the guards scowled.

"I'm the clan's leader by the clan's choice," she said shortly. And to Anwyn with your stupid rumors about the Witch Queen.

Aloud she went on: "I'm not their master. Everyone takes a turn at the hard work here. And what brings you here on this fine day, with all your people?"

Dixon took a deep breath. From what she'd heard, he was the driving force who'd held Sutterdown together, persuaded and shamed and tongue-lashed and sometimes outright forced people into cooperating and doing what was necessary; a strong man, if not a good one, and very shrewd. The fact that he was here asking for help showed that.

"We were attacked," he said bluntly. "Not by the ordinary sort of trash, road people and Eaters-we could deal with them. By about a hundred men, organized, with good weapons-much better than ours."

All three flicked their eyes to the improvised militia among the crowd on the road, and then to the near-uniform, purpose-made equipment the Mackenzie warriors carried.

Dixon cleared his throat and continued: "They hit us just before dawn, killed six of our people who tried to resist, ran us out of town. They claim-their leaders claim-to be from Portland and say they've come to settle and govern the area, and they made demands."

"Demanded that we give them a third of our crops, and every family send someone to work for them one day in three!" Sheriff Laughton said indignantly.

The doctor took up the tale: "Said they'll burn the town and all the farms if we don't obey! They say they work for: what was it, the Portland Protective Association? And said their leader is the baron of this area."

"The Protector, that was who they talked about mostly," Dixon said. "Perhaps. ah, we should have taken your warnings about this Protector more seriously. But we didn't expect anything this early in the year."

Neither did I, Juniper thought, feeling an inner chill. But farmers are most vulnerable when the crops are ripe. A band of Eaters would be less of a threat.

Eaters tended to be self-destructive and usually more than half mad, and they also died of disease faster than anyone else, naturally enough-a case of catching whatever you ate had. They were like wildfire: hideously dangerous, but inclined to burn itself out quickly.

"We need your help: Lady Juniper," Dixon said.

The last came out as if he had to force it; for herself, she didn't care, but she couldn't let an outsider scorn or disrespect the clan. Reputation mattered these days; it might be the margin between being left in peace and attacked.

"I'll need to talk this over with my advisors, and put it to the clan's vote," she said. "I'd be inclined to help you, gentlemen; it's what neighbors do, and these people are likely to be a threat to us, too. But the plague: you understand why we've been very isolated since the outbreak."

The doctor spoke: "None of our people have the plague," he said, and the others nodded vigorously. "I swear it."

He looked around. "I can: I can reassure you on that, Lady Juniper. If we could talk privately."

Decision firmed. "That's as it may be. I'll have to ask you to scrub down and change clothing at least, before we can go up to the Hall. Ray, show them where."

They'd got the bathrooms in the old Carson place functioning, if you didn't mind hand-pumping and toting wood for heating.

"It shouldn't take long."

"Yes, Lady Juniper," he said, scowling and signaling them towards the farmhouse with the point of his spear.

"And Ray?"

He looked at her, then flushed and hung his head when she shook an admonishing finger; his face looked very young then.

"Be polite. And see that drinking water's brought out for all these folk and their beasts; they're our neighbors and friends, not our enemies. Aithnitear car? cruat? a friend is known in hardship. Threefold, remember?"

When the Sutterdown men had gone, Juniper turned to her escort; Cynthia had the best horse and was the best rider besides.

"I want: Judy, Chuck, Dennis, Diana, your father, and Sam, ready for a private conference at the Hall, and fast," she said.

She looked out at the fresh refugees. Curse it, these are people who were doing all right until today! They had crops harvested, they were going to make it!

"And tell Diana to throw together what ready food we can spare, load a wagon and have it brought down here- we can push it out to them. Eternal Soup ought to do, and maybe some bread and dried fruit. Git, girl!"

Cynthia left in a thunder of hooves. Juniper spent the time pacing and thinking, and once sent out a rider with more orders. Other members of the clan trickled in to take over making sure that the people of Sutterdown didn't surge past the notional line that marked the boundary, and the scouts went back about their business. One emergency didn't mean that another might not pop up.

When the three Sutterdown leaders came out they were in plain dark sweatsuits, though Dixon still grasped his Bible. The wagon arrived promptly at about the same time; Diana had probably diverted something meant for the harvesters, or a party of herd-watchers.

Juniper turned to the men: "We'd like to leave the food on the road, and then have your people share it out. It's not much, but: "

"Thank you very kindly," Laughton said, sincerely.

After the spring and summer past, giving away food was something people took seriously. Even Dixon nodded. He'd been accused of many things, but never of taking more than his share, or letting anyone under his authority do so either.

"And if you'll follow me?"

They perched in the buckboard, one of the ones her clansfolk had liberated from a tourist attraction; it was odd how long that idea had taken to spread. Juniper took the reins and flicked them on the backs of the team. She took the long way round-the fewer people who knew about the other way up from the back of the old Fairfax place, the better.

She could feel them gawking as she drove past the mill, working now and roofed, although the walls were still going up; past the truck plots and potato fields and watering furrow; past haystacks, past archers practicing on deer-shaped targets and others who used sword and buckler on posts or wooden blades on each other; past a hunter, coming in with a brace of deer slung across the packhorse that walked behind her jaunty bow-crossed shoulder.

The Mackenzie clachan, she thought wryly. I wonder what Great-uncle Earl would think of it now – that respectable small-town banker, who left the place to me, of all people? Or any of the other Mackenzies?

Such a trail of their generations, in the Old Country and the long drift westward over mountain and forest, prairie and river. Bad and wicked, a few, feud-carriers and cattle-lifters. Some heroes-her favorites were the two sisters who'd been lynched in North Carolina for helping the Underground Railroad. A scattering of backwoods granny-witches and cunning-men, as well. Plain dirt farmers, the most of them, down all their patient plowing centuries- living in the homes they built and eating from the fields they tilled, until they laid their toil-worn bodies to rest in earth's embrace.

She glanced over her shoulder at the three men from Sutterdown, and felt all those ancestors behind her.

They didn't often walk away from a neighbor's need – and never backed down from bullies!

When they came to the Hall with its half-completed palisade, Laughton burst out:

"How did you get all this done? There aren't that many of you, and I swear nobody could have worked harder than we have!"

The curiosity seemed genuine. Because of that, Juniper answered frankly: "Apart from the favor of Brigid and Cernunnos? Well, mutual help. You people are trying to live mostly with each family on its own, like they did before the Change, but without the machinery and exchange that made that possible."

"We get by," Laughton growled, then flushed and waved a hand around. "Sorry. You obviously do better than 'getting by.'"

Juniper nodded. "Our clan work together and live close, so we can take turns on sentry-go, or support people doing one thing most of the time: or throw nearly everybody at a job that needs doing, like the harvest, with only a few to cook or keep an eye on the children."

"Sounds like communism," Dixon growled.

"It's more like tribalism, Reverend, with a bit of kibbutz thrown in," she said, keeping her voice neutral. "Call it common sense, for now. Things may be different in a few years: or not. And if you'll excuse me a moment, I need to freshen up while my advisors arrive."

She pulled in before the Hall, finished just before the wheat came ripe; Dennis had already started stenciling the designs he wanted to carve into a lot of it, particularly the tall pillars that supported the wraparound second-story gallery and the new roof.

Eilir came out and took the horses.

It's all ready, Mom, she signed, looking at the three men in the wagon with a mixture of curiosity and distaste. Want me to lay out some ceremonial stuff for you? Scare them green, that would!

Thanks, but I'm trying to get them in a mood to cooperate! she replied. A plain brown around-the-house robe: oh, and just for swank, that moon pendant Dennie and Sally made for me.

She dropped to the ground, and winced a little as that jarred into the small of her abused back. It was almost a pity in some ways that they'd reverted to peasant attitudes about early pregnancy. There wouldn't be time for anything but a quick sluice-down, either.

And they're going to make me miss my soak, too, she signed. We old ladies are wont to get irritable and cranky when we miss our soak: Show them up to the room and get 'em the refreshments, my child of spring.

The loft bedroom-office-sanctum was one luxury she'd allowed herself when the Hall was put back together. It still brought her a surge of slightly guilty pleasure as she climbed up the steep staircase from the second-story corridor to join the waiting Sutterdown men.

The attic space under the steep-pitched roof was brightly lit by the dormer windows on two sides and the bigger one in the eaves. Dennis had pitched in to furnish it; there were hanging bookcases, a long trestle table for conferences or paperwork that could be folded out of the way, shelves for her Craft tools and for the neatly rolled futons and bedding that she and Eilir used, and a little iron wood-stove for winter. Her old loom was set up at the far end.

A big desk held a mechanical adding machine they'd salvaged, and a manual typewriter. There were filing cabinets as well, map boards, all the necessities of administration, which she loathed even as she did her share. And a cradle Dennis had made for her, ready for later in the year, carved all over with knotwork and intertwining beasts.

She was amused to see that the Reverend had a reflex Juniper shared, whenever she went into a new house: checking the bookshelves. You could tell from the slight tilt of his head.

The bulging eyes were probably because of the selection, though. Here, besides books like Langer's Grow It!, Livingston's Guide to Edible Plants and Animals, Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living and of course Seymour's Forgotten Arts and Crafts -their most valuable single work-the shelves held references useful to a High Priestess.

Eight Sabbats for Witches -a slightly outdated classic- and the more modern Spellworking for Covens, just for starters. Dixon's face was getting mottled again.

She tried to see the room through the eyes of the Sutterdown men. Judy's cat had managed to get in, for one thing. It was a big black beast with yellow eyes, and it was glaring at Reverend Dixon, who stared back in what he probably didn't know a cat would regard as an insult and challenge.

"Out, Pywackett!" she said, and slung the protesting beast down the stairs, closing the doorway after her.

Then there was a lectern, the top covered with a black cloth that had a golden pentacle-and-circle on it; Dixon would probably guess, rightly, that the square shape beneath was her Book of Shadows. Her personal altar stood below the north-facing window in the eaves, with candlesticks and chalice and ritual tools and small statues of the Lady and Lord. A few prints were pinned up on the log walls, and a ceramic tile she'd bought back in 1986 that showed elk-headed Cernunnos playing on a flute as he skipped through an oakwood surrounded by skyclad dancers:

Well, by the Cauldron and the Wand, if they want to beg our help they're just going to have to take us as we are, she thought, and sat at the head of the table.

Eilir had set out plates of fresh-cut bread, butter, cherry jam and small glasses of mead-they didn't have much yet-along with a big pot of rose-hip tea; she was glad to see that even Dixon had sampled the refreshments.

Because now he's a guest and I can't lose my temper with him.

The food scents went well with the beeswax-paint-and-fresh-wood smell of the building; rather less well with the sweat-and-cows aroma of several of the clansfolk, who'd come straight from the fields without bothering to hit the bathhouse. She hoped they'd remembered to use the wooden boot-scraper at the front door. Keeping clean was hard work these days.

"Let's get going," she said when the last person was seated and the strained attempt at chat ended. "This is one of those no-time-to-waste things, so we'll have to put aside our cherished tradition of talking everything to rags. You're all up to speed on what our neighbors have told me?"

She looked around, checking the nods. "Subject to the voice of the clan assembled, is everyone agreed that if the information proves to be true, we can't tolerate a big bandit gang making its headquarters next to us? Worse, one that tries to set itself up as overlords, and has ties to the Protector in Portland."

Another chorus of nods; everyone had heard a little of what was happening there, and even by the standards of the fifth month after the Change, the stories were gruesome.

"Then the first order of business is what Dr. Gianelli said about guaranteeing against exposure to the plague."

Everyone's ears perked up at that; the silence grew taut.

Gianelli licked his lips. "I said that would have to be in private, Lady Juniper."

She looked at him, her green eyes level under the hood of her robe, which she'd drawn up to cover her damp hair.

"This is private," she said. "These are my advisors. And I'm not a dictator here, unlike some places I could name. Something that important can't stay between the two of us; my people expect to be informed, and listened to, when decisions are made. And I'm not going to expose my clan to the Death on just a hint from you, Doctor."

Gianelli looked down at his hands, then clenched them into fists. He was an olive-skinned man in his thirties; when he went pale the blue-black stubble stood out vividly.

"Streptomycin," he said, still staring at his hands and spitting the word out as if it were a blow.

Judy Barstow gasped. The other Mackenzies looked at each other uncertainly.

"That's an antibiotic, isn't it?" Juniper said.

Judy nodded, a quick hard jerk of the chin. "It's a specific against Yersinia pestis, if it's administered early," she said. "A good prophylactic at low doses, if you take it a couple of days before possible exposure, but it can damage your kidneys if you continue for more than a month. It's also valuable against a lot of other bacteria, and it keeps indefinitely in powdered form at room temperature. We ran out of it two months ago-I could never locate more than a couple of doses."

Her calm broke. "How much have you got!"

Gianelli went on in a monotone: "Bulk powder from my hospital in Albany in sealed packages. Twelve thousand adult doses."

Crack!

Her palm slammed the doctor's head to one side; the arm rose again for a backhand as she leaned far across the table. Sam Aylward had Judy by the shoulders before the second blow could fall, forcing her back into the chair.

"Bastard!" she spat at the Sutterdown doctor, fighting against the great callused hands; there were two red spots on her cheeks, as bright as the print of her palm on his.

"Bastard! I lost one of my patients, one of our children, and you had-you weren't even using it!"

Gianelli looked up again, ignoring the imprint of the hand on his cheek. "It was all I had! It's like food-I can't give it to everyone who needs it, or it'll all be gone in a week, and then everyone will be as bad off as before! The other antibiotics, most of them need refrigeration. I had to save it!"

He buried his head in his hands, and the rigid brace went out of his shoulders. "The hospital: there were so many: so many, and I couldn't do anything, we didn't have any food, and the head of administration killed himself and I took the box and I ran, I ran: "

"Quiet," Juniper said.

She heard what Judy was muttering under her breath- in this context, there was only one reason for calling on Three-Fold Hecate-and reached aside to lay a finger across her lips.

"Don't say that, Maiden," she said, in her High Priestess voice.

That seemed to startle Judy out of her anger somewhat, or at least back to control. "Don't think it, either. Not if you want to stay under my rooftree."

Her eyes flicked across the three men. "As I said, neighbors help each other. We'd all be better off now if we'd cooperated more before. It has to be mutual, though. So if we're going to help you, you have to help us."

"We're willing to share the medicine," Dixon put in.

"Excellent. We'll want enough to protect any of our people who go out to fight, and then half the remainder." Her tone made it clear that the statement wasn't a question or a request.

All three of them nodded; not that they had much choice. Inwardly, she felt a single cold knot relax for the first time since she smelled the death pits outside Salem; with five or six thousand doses, they could stop any plague outbreak among the Mackenzies cold-and possibly protect some other communities she knew of, combined with preventative measures.

"And if we're going to fight and win where you lost, we insist on being in command of our joint muster," she said.

More nods, a bit slower this time, and glances at Aylward and Chuck.

"And good neighbors don't preach hatred against each other."

Now Dixon sat rigid, glaring at her, and the doctor and the sheriff exchanged worried glances. Juniper went on: "We don't cast spells of bane and ruin against you. I'd appreciate it if you'd stop doing so against us, Reverend. Times are difficult enough as it is without wasting effort on counterspells."

Dixon's face went still more blotchy. "I cast no spells!" he spat. "I pray to the living God!"

Juniper took a deep breath. "Let's put it another way: We both believe in the power of prayer. If a group of people get together to chant and ill-wish someone, it has a way of working regardless of the details of the ritual. and then of bouncing back on the ill-wishers, which has already happened to your town, no?"

She raised a hand. "Or let's discuss it in purely secular terms. You're an influential man, ruler as well as priest- and believe me, I've come to understand what that means, however much I didn't want to. If you go on inciting people to regard us as evil Satanists worthy of death, and quoting Exodus 22:18 or Galatians 5:19 as if they applied to us-"

"It is the Word of God-"

Judy slapped the table with a crack like timber breaking and barked: "They're mistranslations, you nitwit, as anyone who knew more Hebrew or Greek than King James's so-called scholars could have told you. M'khasephah means someone who malevolently uses spoken curses to hurt people, which we're specifically forbidden to do by the Wiccan Rede, and pharmakia means a poisoner. If you want to preach against suffering a poisoner to live, go right ahead!"

"Spiritual poison-"

"Shut up!" Juniper said. Then, more calmly: "Whatever the origins of the phrases, keep repeating them and eventually you'll produce a community which hates us and attacks us physically. In which case, why should we fight for one enemy against another?"

Laughton cut in: "We have freedom of religion in Sut-terdown, Ms: Lady Juniper."

"And we Mackenzies do too," she said, nodding towards John Carson. "Our livestock boss here is a Presbyterian. Some of our clan are Witches, some are unbelievers, some are Christians of various sorts."

The latter two a rapidly diminishing proportion, I admit, she didn't say aloud. That would diminish the force of my point.

"We don't call anyone evil because of their faith. There are many roads to the Divine. We'd just like you to promise to reciprocate, as a demonstration of goodwill."

Dixon looked out the windows, then back at her.

"You'll take my promise?" he said, sounding surprised.

"I don't like you," Juniper said bluntly, meeting his eyes. "But I've never heard that your word isn't good."

The silence stretched; then he nodded. Juniper returned the gesture with an inclination of her head.

"Chuck, rumors are probably flying. Tell everyone we'll have a clan meeting after supper to thrash things out, and an Esbat tomorrow night to call for the Lord and Lady's aid, and would welcome any other variety of prayers as well. We'll need all the help we can get."

The moon wouldn't be full or dark for the Esbat, but that wasn't absolutely required, just customary and preferred.

"We'll also send out scouts to get our own information. Sam, handle it, and get us ready." He nodded silently. "John, we'll need pretty well all the saddle-broke horses."

"Not bicycles?" he said.

"No. Horses are faster over the distances we're talking. And a wagon team at least. Diana, Andy, supplies. And whatever we can spare for the Sutterdown folk, until this is over; slaughter some stock if you have to. Judy, as far as getting our people protected against the plague, and for casualty care: "

When she was finished, she leaned over the table to shake hands with the town's three leaders. Dr. Gianelli looked drained, as if he'd had some noxious cyst lanced; Sheriff Laughton was relieved, like a man drowning who'd been thrown a spar. And Dixon, as usual, looked full of suppressed fury.

You did help neighbors. It wasn't necessary to like all of them.