Sunrise Lands

Chapter Sixteen

Southeastern Oregon

May 15, CY23/2021 A.D.

Two hours after sunset Rudi pushed the beans and salt pork around his plate with the spoon, then made himself eat; you had to, even after a battle. He hadn't had much appetite, but it was unwise a to be careless of Her gifts. The Saints had buried their own dead, and they were very quiet as they went about their chores; the scents of cooking food competed with the faint iron and sewage smell of spilled blood and violent death, despite everyone's efforts at cleaning up.

If they hadn't had so many wounded and been tired beyond exhaustion, it would have been better to move camp a bit. The Seffridge Ranch men had packed their chests of bullion, turned over their horses and were ready to head west anyway, anxious to get back to the CORA territories before the Rovers recovered from the drubbing they'd been handed. It gave the camp a lonely feel, though Bob Brown had said he'd be around to say good-bye.

That's what this trip is going to be, Rudi thought, looking around at the faces of his friends.

Apart from us, it's a series of meetings and partings. A bit like being a ghost, flitting through the life of the land without much touching it.

A voice started up from the Saints' part of the encampment, half chanting in a strong carrying tone:

"… Why am I angry because of mine enemy? Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul. Do not anger again because of mine enemies."

Rudi sighed at the chorus of "Amen!" That was not bad advice, even if it was from a different path than his.

He made himself eat, concentrating on the physical sensations, the smoky taste of the food, the chink of the spoon against the tin plate, the cool slightly metallic tang of the well water in his cup, even the bruises and stiffness and the pain in his right calf, refusing to let his thoughts chase their own tails. The others looked fairly glum too, apart from Ignatius, who had his usual steady calm, and Odard, who was in quiet good spirits apart from the occasional twinge in his swollen, bandaged knee.

He whistled tunefully-Rudi recognized the song, a nice bouncy one called "The Bastard King of England"-as he worked over the edge of his longsword with a hone mounted on a wooden holder. The damascene patterns in the steel shone and rippled in the firelight as he ground down on a spot where the edge had nicked on bone or a piece of harness. Rudi looked over at Mathilda, where she sat beside him with her arms around her knees and her chin on them, staring into the low flicker of the greasewood fire, and put his emptied plate aside.

"Second thoughts about the trip, Matti?" he said qui etly, as he unpinned his plaid and folded it blanketlike around his shoulders; the temperature was dropping fast in the thin air of the high desert.

"No… no, not really," she said, her voice equally low. "It's just… I don't like killing men. I'll do it when I have to, yeah, and I won't get all sick about it like the first time, but I don't like doing it."

With a sniff: "I'm not like Odard."

"Odard doesn't like killing; it's not that he's got a taste for blood. He likes fighting. There's a difference," Rudi observed.

Of course, he thought, I like fighting too. The difference is that I really don't like killing; I'm not indifferent to it, even when it has to be done. I hope I don't ever become so, sure.

"I don't like fighting or killing." Her mouth quirked, and she added: "Despite having had Baroness d'Ath teaching me how all my life."

"Well, you don't like girls the way Tiphaine does, either; some things are just the way the gods make you," he said with something just short of a chuckle.

Mathilda smiled, but there was duty in it as much as amusement. "Really the problem is… well, I'm feeling guilty at how Mom must be feeling."

"Hey, you're Catholic-of course you're feeling guilty," he teased. "You see the advantage of the Old Religion? Praise and blessing, we don't go in for guilt. Or prolonged virginity, either," he added slyly.

This time her grin at the chaffing was genuine. "Licentious pagan!"

"Uptight beadsqueezer!"

"Tree hugger!"

"No, that's the elf wannabes," he said, and they shared a chuckle. "We Mackenzies may worship trees, yes: hug them, no."

"But I really am feeling guilty about hurting Mom this way," Mathilda said, the smile dying away from her face. "She must be going out of her skull. I know she doesn't try to keep me wrapped in padding like an egg… but I know she really has to make herself not do it, too. She's always afraid for me, even if it's just a hunt or a tournament. Now she's got real reasons to be afraid. I could have bought it today, and we'll be taking risks like that for a long time."

"Then why did you do it?" Rudi asked, more to help her than to satisfy his own curiosity; self-knowledge was never wasted.

"I'm… not really sure," Mathilda said; she picked up a stick and prodded at the fire; something crackled, and a trail of sparks drifted upward. After a half minute she went on:

"I mean, yes, I'd miss you like hell, and yes, we're anamchara, so I've got an obligation to you, but I'm heir to the Protectorate and that's a duty too. I think… the real reason I'm guilty about it is I think deep down part of it's that I wanted to punish Mom. Or part of me does, and it sneaks up on me, so I do things that hurt her without really meaning to."

"Oh?" Rudi said. "Well… you know, she's always been pretty good to you, Matti. And to me, for that matter. Even back during the War, when I was a prisoner."

"Yes." She hesitated. "But… Rudi, sometimes I think that she's not a good person, you know? She… I know she's done some.. questionable things. And a lot of the time, when she does good things she does it because it's… efficient, expedient. Not because it's right. And Dad…"

She shrugged. They didn't talk about her father. He didn't know how much she really knew about Norman Arminger, who'd been a tyrant's tyrant even by the bru tal standards of the first Change Years; how much she knew, how much she knew but didn't let herself know, and how much she'd carefully avoided knowing.

"Matti?"

She looked up, probably not seeing him as more than a dim outline after staring at the red-yellow flicker over the coals for so long.

"OK, I'm not going to run a moral checklist on your parents for you."

Because you'd defend them and then we'd just get into a screaming fight. Once was enough for that. OK, what can I say that's true and tactful both?

Aloud, he went on: "But keep one thing in mind-your mother raised you, you know? And she raised you to think about this stuff and worry about doing the right thing, sure and she did. And you turned out to be a pretty good person. So that's got to count for something, eh?"

The smile she gave him was warm, and a hand followed it; they closed their fingers together for a moment.

"So what you're really afraid of is that you'll end up turning into your mother, right?"

She squeezed his hand again, gratefully. "Yeah, I am. Especially if I'm going to be Protector. Maybe that's what I'm running away from, do you think? I have to do the job, but can I do it and still be me?"

"Yeah, maybe that's what you're afraid of. But you don't need to be, I think." He winked. "I mean, and aren't I your conscience, so? Just the thought of me looking at you with sad-puppy disappointed eyes and my lip starting to tremble and perhaps a tear running down my cheek would keep you on the straight and narrow."

She freed her hand to punch his shoulder and snorted. " Thanks, Rudi. That makes everything all right… I don't think."

" De nada. I mean, we're anamchara; what are soul friends for? And freeing you of guilt is a lot more fun than giving you funeral rites if you fall in a foreign land."

The snort grew into a real laugh. She opened a bag of dried peach slices and cranberries and walnuts and offered it to him, and they sat in companionable silence for a moment; she leaned against his shoulder, and he spread the plaid around them both.

"I'm feeling a little guilty about my mom, too," he said after a moment.

"Hey! She wanted you to go!"

"No, she knew I had to go; declining an invitation from the Powers is not a good idea. That's not the same thing as wanting me to go at all. She's going to be wor ried every day until she sees me again. So will Dad… my stepfather. And Signe over at Larsdalen will worry about the twins."

Though not much about me, he reflected; his father's widow had never stopped thinking of him as a threat to her own son's inheritance.

"Life's complicated." Mathilda sighed.

"Well, that's an original thought you're having the now."

She poked him in the ribs with a forefinger, hard, then settled back against his shoulder looking across the coals and the ring of light. Outside it, in the darkness be yond the wall of wagons where the piled corpses of the Rovers lay, coyotes snarled and yipped at their feast. A wolf howled somewhere in the distance, scout for a lobo pack; that breed were more wary of men than the song dogs. They and the buzzards would bide their time until the living two-legs left.

Rebecca came over into the circle of firelight. She gave a little start as Edain stepped into it behind her, with his bow in his arms and Garbh at his heels.

"All clear, Chief," he said to Rudi, giving her a studiously absent nod. "Nobody out there but the coyotes."

Rudi grinned at the younger man. "And your hairy brother, a minute ago."

Rebecca sat, curling her feet under her; there were dark circles under her eyes. "His brother?" she said.

"He's a Wolf, so all wolves are his brothers… sort of," Rudi said. "I'm a Raven. It's our septs, the totems."

"Oh," she said, obviously uncomprehending.

"Sort of an initiation thing," Rudi said.

He cocked an eye at Edain where he sat by the fire, pouring himself a cup of the chicory with elaborate un concern; Garbh lay beside him, laying her head on her paws with a long sigh.

"Edain just got told what his sept would be two years ago. Not that anyone ever had much doubt; his dad might as well be Father Wolf himself."

The young woman's eyes lit with real curiosity; a relief from her worries, too. She hugged her knees and looked at the other Mackenzie.

"Told?" she said. "How does that work? Your parents tell you, or something?"

"I got told the usual way," Edain said shortly. "Nothing special. A vision in a dream."

Rudi's voice took on a solemn tone: "Why don't you tell her about it, Edain?" he teased. "It's not polite, getting someone curious and then clamming up."

"Yes, I'd love to hear," Rebecca said.

Edain shot Rudi a look, then sighed and shrugged. Rudi nudged Mathilda as she raised an eyebrow. Sotto voce, he murmured, "This always slays me."

"Well," Edain began. "Well, ah…" He sighed. "It happened like this, pretty well…"

Edain Aylward Mackenzie, as yet of no sept, woke under the tree. He was stiff and chilled despite the cloak wrapped around him, good warm wool from his own family's sheep and his mother's loom.

"Oh, damn all," he said. "I'll have to do this again."

Then he looked up at the tree. It was a Douglas fir, its top a hundred feet above against the gray sky of spring… except that it was a lot taller than that now, a towering column like a living mountain. And so were the rest. And those snow topped peaks over to the east weren't the Cascades. He took a deep breath of air clean and fresh as a Beltane morning, scented with water and rock and familiar fir sap. A jay flitted by, screeching, but farther off in the woods he caught a glimpse of some thing huge and hairy, with legs like pillars and great curled ivory tusks and a trunk raised to trumpet…

"Well, I am dreaming."Though it felt oddly lucid, more real than the usual dream. In fact, it felt more real than waking life. "Now to see what sort of vision I get…"

A wolf came trotting like a gray-brown shadow be tween the great trees, an occasional twig crackling under its pads. Edain accepted that for a moment, until he re alized the great wedge shaped head of the gray beast was on a level with his own, standing. He felt a surge of… not quite alarm, not quite joy… that died before it could do more than tighten the skin over his gut.

The wolf sat down, yawned, and scratched behind one ear with a foot larger than the man's.

"Typical," the huge carnivore said. "Isn't that an Ayl ward all over? Can't imagine important without big. Subtle as a hay fork in the goolies, the lot of you."

The voice sounded normal-deep and a little growly-but the giant wolf wasn't moving its lips; the words just appeared somehow. Edain's mind noticed the detail the way a drowning man's hand flails for a stick. The alternative was gibbering.

"Moving my lips?" it said, though the young man hadn't spoken. "Like this?"

Suddenly the thin black lips did move, peeling back from wet yellow-white teeth that looked to be as long as his fingers, drooling a little… and all of it was inches from his face. The growl beneath the words sounded like it came from the animal's chest, all right. It also sounded like rocks churning when a spring freshet roiled a mountain stream.

The air was cool, but Edain could feel sweat start trickling down his flanks. He kept his face blank, and crossed his arms with a creditable imitation of calm.

Good idea. This way he can't see my hands shaking.

The growling stopped, and a long pink tongue hung out over the fangs. The wolf's ears cocked forward; Edain had an indefinable sense that the amber eyes held approval.

"Moving me lips would be just too bloody stupid, wouldn't it?" the wolf… the Wolf… said. "This isn't being done by fookin' Disney, y' know."

Edain was vaguely aware of what Disney had been-some illustrated books had survived. He hadn't expected Wolf to talk about something pre Change. Come to that, he hadn't expected the Father of Wolves to have an accent like his own father, either. The beast snorted.

"Well, it's your mind and memories we're using, innit? Let's get on with it."

The great black nostrils ran over him, quivering, from head to foot. He felt the warm breath of it on his skin, and the slightly rank doggy odor.

"Right." Wolf pronounced it roit. "There you are, then. You're Wolf sept and I'm your totem."

There was a moment of silence. "Well?" Edain said to fill it. "What now?"

"Now wake up, sod off 'ome, and get back to work. Your dad's got the Three Oak Field to plow and he's not as young as he was once."

"That's it?" Edain said, stung out of wonder to amazed anger as the wolf started to swing away. "I come all this way-"

"You're still under that tree not two miles from Dun Fairfax, you thick little burke-"

"— and it's 'fine, you're a Wolf, now back to the spring plowing'?"

The wolf looked at him. Edain swallowed suddenly. The yellow eyes were like endless wells into times deep beyond deep, ancient with years where the birth and death of trees was like the flicker of autumn leaves in the wind. Suddenly he knew where he was.

This wasn't just a forest. It was the Forest, where the forever trees grew. The wood of the times before, that stood when man first made fire or cracked flint. It tow ered still in the world beyond the world where the shadows of things that had been lingered, casting their own reflections spiraling back into the waking world.

Father Wolf cocked his head to one side. "Bit slow on the uptake, lad, but you're gettin' there," he said in that infinitely familiar Hampshire-and-army drawl. "Now, if you're done, I'm busy."

"Busy?" Edain heard his voice squeak hatefully, something he'd thought he'd shed two years ago. "You're busy?"

The great wolf's nose wrinkled again and he raised his head, as if scenting far-off winds. "Lots of new packs getting started."

A deeper sniff, after a pink tongue the size of a small bath towel swept over the nose.

"Even back in your dad's little island, now that you lot aren't scarfing everyone else's share of dinner. All to the good, that, but.."

Father Wolf sighed; that sound seemed to come from his actual chest. "… but they need looking after. Would you believe it, some of them have been fucking dogs? That's not right nor natural. It's going to be hard graft getting things fixed up proper again without floppy-eared bastards running about holding their tails wrong."

The amber eyes glared at him. "Now you're mine, don't let me hear anything like that about you, boyo."

"No, sir," Edain heard himself say. "Not that way inclined, anyhow."

"Good. Now, like I said, I'm busy, so you can bugger off back. Give my regards to Sam. He doesn't know it, but I've been keeping an eye on him; tell him to remem ber that night on Mount Tumbledown and the Argie with the shovel."

"But aren't you going to… to…"

The yellow eyes met his again. "Look into your eyes while you bury your hands in my ruff and I impart some bloody immortal wisdom that will transform your soul?"

A snort. "My arse. Doesn't work like that, lad. Be thankful you didn't get Coyote. That sneaky little shite would keep you here talking until your fur fell out and you'd be none the wiser for it."

Edain stood, speechless. The wolf sighed again.

"All right. I'll tell you the rules, now that you're Wolf. Hunt clean. Look out for your pack, your mates; stick by your pack leader and back 'im up. Don't go looking for a fight, but fight like a mad bastard for your kin if you have to, and seven times over for the pups and the nursing mothers."

"I already knew all that! That's it?"

"I couldn't tell you unless you knew. What more do you want-'keep your pelt clean and cover your scat'? Or I could piss on your ankles to mark you if you want."

The wolf scratched again, stretched, yawned cavern-ously, then turned to go.

"You'll do, boy. You'll do," he said over his shoulder, and trotted away.

"Wow," Rebecca said, looking at him wide-eyed. "That's… that's some dream!"

"Yes," Edain said moodily, prodding at the fire with a stick. "I get to meet the Father of Wolves, and he's like my dad on a bad day. Bollocks."

She suppressed a chuckle and turned to Rudi. "And you're a Raven, you say? Was it a dream for you?"

Silence fell; she seemed to sense it after a moment, looking from Rudi to Edain and then to Mathilda's slight trace of well-concealed fear.

"No," Rudi said softly, looking inward at his memories. "Raven.. Raven came for me when I was still young. And not in a dream; He came to me by the light of common day."

They all looked up when Ingolf walked back into the circle of firelight; a tension broke that Rudi hadn't no ticed until it was gone. The older man looked grimly satisfied, and Bob Brown was with him.

"Bingo," he said, crouching down to put himself on the same level as the others. "Thought I'd find something like this."

The big easterner had a shete in one hand and a medallion on a leather thong in the other.

"CUT," he said, holding out the blade.

It showed a rayed sun etched into the blade near the hilt. Then he offered the medallion on the palm of one callused hand.

"And CUT."

Mathilda straightened up with a sigh and leaned forward to look; Rudi did likewise. The medallion was marked with the same symbol, in silver and gold on a turquoise background. Rudi took it and tilted it towards the firelight; the workmanship was excellent, with the slivers of semiprecious stone skillfully joined with hair-fine seams, and the surface of the metals rippled and polished.

"The CUT hand these medals out to ranchers and bossmen who give the Prophet earth and water," Ingolf said grimly.

Bob Brown grunted."Wondered how them Rovers got such nice blades. They don't have a smith to bless them selves with-who'd work for 'em out here in Lower-ass end Township of Crotch-scratch County if he could get a bunk at a decent ranch, or in a town like Bend? They don't have enough to buy much gear honestly, either. My father will want to know about this."

Bishop Nystrup came up. "Do you mind if I join you, gentlemen.. and ladies?" he said.

"Sure, and you're always welcome at our fire," Rudi said gently.

The older man was looking ill, as well he might with half the party he'd led west dead or hurt. One of the lat ter was apparently his son, as well; Rudi had the impression his daughter wouldn't be helping out with his work in normal times. The bishop took the medallion in turn and sighed.

"Even here?" he murmured.

"Yeah, even here, Bishop," Ingolf said.

Rudi leaned forward and made his voice firm yet friendly as his mother had taught him, pouring strength into it: "And even here, you'll find that you have more friends than you thought. This Prophet has a gift for the making of enemies. He's made foes of my folk, and we'd barely heard of him before his murderers came on our land, the creature."

"Ours too," Mathilda said decisively.

Odard nodded agreement. "Those, ah"-he stopped and glanced at Father Ignatius-"bad, wicked, depraved people are going to pay for my new poleyns, one way or another."

"And the Dunedain have a quarrel with him as well," the twins said, in chorus.

For once that unanimity seemed unintentional, and they looked at each other with exasperated expressions-identical ones. Then Ritva went on:

"Fighting the current Dark Lord is standard op erating procedure, for us. Dyel! They're like cock roaches-squash one and another one scuttles out of the baseboards."

The Mormon bishop tried to smile. "I thank you, my friends. But nine young people, however valiant and skilled…"

Rudi grinned, a charming expression. "Bishop Nys trup, I think you'll find we're more than a clutch of young wanderers."

His brows went up.

Father Ignatius cleared his throat. "Yes, they are," he said. "Or rather they're a very wellborn and influential group of young wanderers."

Odard preened, slightly but unmistakably. Mathilda shot him a warning glance, then another at Rudi with a question in it, and nodded soberly.

"I'm… heir to an influential position in the Portland Protective Association," she said carefully.

"And I am a knight-brother of the Order of the Sword of Saint Benedict. You may have heard of us," Father Ignatius added.

Rudi drew a deep breath. Sometimes you had to take a risk. "My name is Rudi… Artos… Mackenzie," he said. "And this is-"

"What was it that you wished to say?" Father Ignatius said.

The it is very late was left unspoken. Mathilda swallowed.

"I'd like to confess, Father," she said.

"Now?"

"If it's not too much trouble."

Ignatius looked at her. "There is always time for a soul in distress," he said. "Come then."

He led them to a campfire a little way from the oth ers. Mathilda sat down on one side, hugging her knees. The Benedictine priest sank and sat cross-legged on the other.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."

"When was your last confession?"

"Four weeks ago, in Castle Todenangst, with Father Donnelly. Just before Mass."

"Then you have not been neglecting the sacraments, but it is time."

"I want you to communicate me, Father, if you would."

Mathilda Arminger kept her eyes from the half-seen figure across the campfire from her in the darkness, wishing she had the screen of her familiar confessional booth between them. She waited in awkward silence; at least, it felt awkward on her side, and at first. Then it began to feel peaceful, with the crackling of the flames and the slow upward drift of sparks. When he spoke, it was as if the moment had unfolded itself.

"What are your sins, my child?"

"I killed a man today. Possibly three but certainly at least one. I mean… it was war, and self defense, and they were attacking people who'd never done them harm and I had to stop them or they'd do worse… but I did it. I ended a life and felt it run down my sword. Perhaps I sent a soul to damnation, and anyway there's a family grieving for him-perhaps children with no fa ther. And he probably thought that he was doing what he had to do."

"Yes," Father Ignatius said, nodding.

His voice was… not quite casual, but normal and friendly, without the hieratic tone that some priests had on occasions such as this.

"Do you regret it?" he went on.

"Well, I'm not sure. I think… what's bothering me is that I regret it for my sake rather than his. I mean, it had to be done-but I wish I didn't have to do it. If I want something to be done, shouldn't I be willing to do it with my own hands? But it makes me feel… sort of dirty. I keep seeing his face."

"Good," the priest said. "Taking life can never be wholly blameless, even if it is the least of possible evils we must choose between. That it is ever necessary is a sign of the burden of sin that we bear, that this whole fallen world bears. If you live, you will one day be re quired to weigh lives and deal out death in judgment, as surely as you did today with steel."

"I know, Father. That's part of what's bothering me now."

"It should. But don't become too focused on your own subjective feelings; that is the temptation of a sensitive soul, and it turns self examination to self-indulgence, to scrupulosity. A sin is wrong not because it makes you feel bad-though it should-but because it is wrong."

"What can I do to feel clean again?"

"You can do nothing, but God can, if you let Him. Remember always that God so loved the world-so loved you, not the princess but Mathilda Arminger, the young woman who exists here in this place at this time-that

He gave His only begotten son to suffer and shed His blood and die for you; and for exactly this, to lift the weight of sin from your soul. Turn your thoughts to Him, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and He will take away your burden."

Mathilda felt herself smile. "Thank you, Father. That helps."

"Good. As your penance, say the Five Sorrowful Mys teries. As you do, also fix your mind on the men you slew, and remember also that Our Lord died for them. And remember that He blessed the centurion, knowing what that man's work would be."

A moment's pause, and Ignatius went on. "And the other thing that troubles you, my child?"

Mathilda started, then gripped her will in both hands and went on: "It's Rudi."

That calm waiting silence went on again. A coyote howled in the distance.

At last she said, "I've been having… well, impure thoughts about him. Fairly often. It's happened before, but never like this, not just in passing."

"Ah." This time the hint of a smile. "And have you welcomed these thoughts?"

"Well…" Mathilda forced herself not to wriggle.

It's better and worse than Father Donnelly. Father Ignatius is young enough to understand. And he's a Changeling like me, or nearly. But it's more embarrassing because he is young enough to understand.

"Well, I try not to."

Ignatius nodded. "That is all you can do."

Another pause, and she went on: "It's a bit different now. I mean, we've been like brother and sister all these years, and this… sort of changes things. I don't know why it's just now. I've been, ummm, noticing boys for quite a while! And Rudi's, well, he's a witch; you know how they are. I guess it's because Mom and I talked about us maybe marrying. I'm not sure if I love him, love him that way, but I sure think I could if I let myself. It may be just because we know each other so well. And… well, he's so damn pretty. And I keep imagining us together, you know, not just… well, I keep thinking about children and a life together and stuff."

Ignatius surprised her with a chuckle. "My child, are you confessing to longing to know Rudi Mackenzie in a carnal manner after you marry him?"

"Ummm… sort of. Yes, with the thinking part of me. The other part's just… longing, when I let it."

"Then you have not sinned, not even in intention. It isn't Satan who gives you such feelings, you know. The worst the Deceiver can do is tempt you to misdirect them. He can mar even the highest things, but he creates nothing."

Mathilda blinked in surprise. "But… are you saying that God wants me to marry Rudi?"

"Not at all, my child. That may or may not be pos sible; there are matters of State, which you must con sider as part of the duty your birth has laid on you. That, thankfully, is not a priest's to decide. And there is the difference in faiths, which does concern your spiritual directors. But the desire itself is pure."

"Then what does God want me to do?" she said in frustration.

"He has told you that, Mathilda Arminger. He has said it very plainly: 'Be ye perfect.' "

Mathilda shivered. "I don't have the makings of a saint, Father."

Ignatius's voice turned sharp for an instant: "Oh, yes, you do, my child."

He gestured upward to the dome of stars. "When all this beauty is past and all Creation is a story that has been told, you will endure-either a horror beyond con ception, or a radiance of glory such as we can scarcely begin to imagine. That is the makings that God put in you!"

Mathilda looked upward herself, and then nodded slowly. It was a humbling thought, when you looked at it that way.

"I, well, I've never had a vocation. I thought I did for a while when I was younger, but I didn't, really."

"Not a calling for the life of a religious, no," Ignatius agreed. "But He does not give us each the same cross to bear. Your nature and mine are different, and so we seek Him by different paths, but we are both loved by God and called to His perfection."

"Father, thinking about the perfection of God scares me silly. How can I be perfect, just being… me? It's not just being on the throne someday, though that scares me too. I know that'll always be like a fight in the dark, no matter how hard I try, and I'm afraid of it twisting me and making me someone who can't trust or love any one or anything. But being with Rudi all this time, the things I want, a home, babies, they just don't seem in the same… the same league as, well, perfection."

She made a wry face. "I mean, they feel so animal sometimes. Not in a bad way, but it's a lot like a mare with a foal, or a mother cat with her kittens."

" Now you are verging on the sin of pride! Lying in His mother's arms and nursing was good enough for Our Lord! God has given you these desires-including your desire for Rudi-and He gives us carnal love for a purpose, for mutual delight, to produce children, and the sanctification of the soul. Cast yourself headlong on God's love, begging His grace to help you in the perfection of the nature He gave you. To love another so deeply that we seek union with the beloved, by that to bring an immortal soul into this world and care for and shape it… that is to imitate God Himself in His splendor!"

They waited together for a moment more. "Now make an Act of Contrition, my child, while I pronounce the words of Christ's forgiveness."

While the young priest spoke the words of absolution, Mathilda recited the formula:

"Amen," they finished together, and she signed herself.

She always found confession comforting, and always tried to keep herself mindful of the importance, but it rarely struck her so strongly as it did this night, with the fallen of battle not a thousand yards away and the mem ory of the Death Angel's shadow, Azrael's wing brushing across her eyes.

I'm not sure exactly what I'm sorry for, but I sure feel better, she thought. Thank You, Lord.

Ignatius took his kit from his baggage and they walked a little way into the darkness; others didn't no tice, or looked politely aside if they did. He lifted out the white surplice and red stole and donned them; as he did he seemed to change somehow. Mathilda knelt, and he lifted a wafer from the ciborium. It seemed like a snowy sunrise in the darkness of the wilderness as he raised it.

"Ecce Agnus Dei," he said three times. "Ecce qui tollis peccata mundi. Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takest away the sins of the world."

She took the wafer on her tongue.

"Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam. May the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your soul for everlasting life."