Sunrise Lands

Chapter Nineteen

Boise, Idaho Provisional Capital,

United States Of America

June 11–15, CY23/2021 A.D.

The practice ground occupied the clear space just inside the city wall, paved with blocks of asphalt cut from old roads. It was mostly deserted with sunset only a half hour off. Mostly…

Edain unstrung his bow and held out his hand. Six of his arrows were neatly grouped in the bull's eye and one more had been pushed three inches out by a backdraft; none of the others had come close to matching that. The sight made him a little nostalgic; it had been years since he did much shooting at a beginner's target like that.

"Here!" the Boisean cavalryman who'd proposed the match said, and slapped green bills into his hand.

He did it hard enough to sting, if Edain's hand hadn't been covered with calluses as thick as his own. As it was, there was a dull thock sound.

"Many thanks," Edain said, as several of his comrades followed suit. "And sure, anytime you feel like shooting a few again…"

Garbh rose and came over, looking up in his face and wagging her tail slightly because she sensed his enjoy ment. He'd been raised to know the value of a dollar, mostly because it represented sweat and sore muscles, often his own, and partly because even near Dun Juni per clansfolk didn't use coined money much, still less the paper kind. Bets like this were just for fun, though; found money you could waste without being guilty about it, like a prize for winning a game at a festival.

The infantrymen who'd been watching laughed, slapping one another on the back, which produced a series of tonk sounds as hard palms hit steel armor; then they started collecting their bets from the horsemen of the cavalry troop who'd shot against him, or who'd bet on those who did. It had been natural enough to fall in with them; they were all conscripts doing their term of service, and close enough to his own age.

Their grins were the reverse of the cavalry's sulks. The remaining cavalry woman smiled, though; she was Rosita Gonzales, the sergeant who'd greeted them back on the road. And she'd seen him shoot before, for real, at that.

"Notice I wasn't putting any money on you losing," she said.

"Why am I not surprised, Rosita?" he said, batting his eyelashes theatrically. "Would a lady as brave, beautiful and skilled as yourself be anything but wise? Now, if I could spend some of these fine winnings on a drink for the both of us, that would set the flower crown of spring upon my happiness, so it would."

She snorted laughter. "Yeah, try to butter me up. I'm too old for what you've got in mind, kid! Or you're too young for me."

"Now, why would you be thinking I had something in mind?" he said.

" 'Cause I know guys your age are hard-ons with legs and you always have something in mind."

"Not more than every thirty heartbeats or so. And you're not too old for anything you choose," he said.

Sincerely, since she was short of thirty and comely if you liked women wiry and dark and muscular. Which he did; being nineteen, he liked them almost any way except elderly or unripe or wolverine trap ugly.

"Keep smiling like that and I'll lose my resolve to be good, so I'm off." She paused to rumple Garbh's ears, which the mastiff permitted, having been introduced. "See you later."

Edain shook his head and put the folded bills in his sporran, watching her depart-or at least the part working in her rather tight black leather riding breeches-and sighed.

"Christ, man, how'd you get Iron-ass Gonzales so friendly?" one of the foot soldiers said.

"Not iron, I'd say; just pleasantly squeezable, from the look of things," he said, strolling over to retrieve his ar rows. "Not that I've had the opportunity to test the notion, alas."

"Ah, I always thought she liked girls. Maybe it's your skirt she likes."

"Which would show good taste," Edain said. "For it's true I like both the wearing of the kilts and the kissing of the girls myself."

Which got him more laughs; he snorted and slid the unstrung longbow into the carrying loops.

"No, it's me winsome charm and the archery that wins the ladies, and I don't doubt it'll work here in the big city too."

"You wish. It's pretty good duty otherwise, being stationed here in the capital, but with all the goddamned army swinging dicks around you can't get laid without paying for it, and even that's expensive as fucking-you know what I mean-hell. Two-fifty a day and your keep is good money out in the sticks, someplace like Lewis-ton, but it doesn't go too far here in Boise."

There were half a dozen of the soldiers, and they were all friendly now.

Now that I've earned them all a week's pay or more, he thought.

Most of them came from little farms and villages that didn't sound all that much different from Dun Fairfax, if you allowed for the fact that they were Christians of various sorts-Protestants and Catholics and Mormons, he thought, though he wasn't altogether clear on the dif ferences and none of them seemed to be much bent out of shape about it either. He'd been nervous and out of place in General Thurston's house, but these lads he understood right off.

"Thanks for the tip on the bets," one of them said; he was a towhead named John Gottberg, and the file closer, which meant roughly a corporal. " I heard about the thing where you and your bossman saved the president's life, but most of those donkey dongs were just in from road patrol and hadn't got the word."

He extended his hand towards Garbh-cautiously, which wise men did, with a dog who weighed a hundred and twenty pounds and came up above their waist.

"Friend!" Edain said.

She sniffed politely but didn't radiate anything beyond tolerance.

"She's a bit of a one man dog," Edain said.

"Best kind. Hunting dog?"

"Hunting, guard… raised her from a pup, that I did."

"Nice to see the burro bangers taken down a bit," said a freckle-faced redhead called Kit Mullins, returning to the discomfiture of the cavalry. "Fuckers think they're hot shit 'cause they come from ranches and ride around. We're the backbone of the army, by God. It's us who stand and take it and dish it out when the metal hits the meat."

That made the first one thoughtful: "Maybe Iron-ass really likes your looks; she didn't tell them."

"And maybe she made a bit on side bets," another said.

Edain shook his head. "It's Rudi she'd really like to meet. The Chief has a way with the girls and that's a fact."

"So, this guy Rudi you're traveling with, he's your king or something out west? They say you've got kings and knights and weird shit like that out there."

"No, he's the Chief's tanist," Edain said. "Ummm… by Chief I mean the head of the clan, the Mackenzie herself herself. She presides over the Clan, and he's her… understudy."

"So it's like a king, or what do they call it, a crowned prince?"

"Not in the least! The Chief's the Chief because the clan assembled hailed her-many's the time over the years-at the Beltane festival. And we hailed Rudi, too, as tanist, just now. And we'll hail him as Chief too, when his mother dies or steps down, free and open for all to see, and any benighted ijeet who wants turnips and cowpats thrown at him could stand up and ask for the same."

"So hailing, that's like an election?"

"A bit. Everyone makes speeches and we all argue ourselves blue and we have a show of hands. And then there's games and a lovely great feed, and singing and dancing and music and drinking and sometimes a bit of a punch-up on the sidelines."

"Sounds like quite a party!"

"It is that. It's supposed to be very Celtic, which is what they called clansfolk in the old days. And Beltane bowers… the girls like the blossoms. Puts them in the mood to worship the Goddess, as it were. And speaking of parties, what do you say to a few beers?"

"Hey, mostly, 'Hello, my dear beer!' " Gottberg said.

Edain checked the fletching of the last arrow as he slid it back into the quiver. He caught the glances the squad gave one another, and this time kept his look of innocent friendliness without letting the grin show. They were a lot like the lads back home, which meant they were always ready to put one over on an outsider, friendly or not.

"What do you say we do a little pila practice?" Gott berg went on, elaborately casual. "And low man buys the first two rounds? It's not too different from throw ing a hunting spear… I'll bet you use hunting spears sometimes…"

"Oh, sometimes, but mostly bows. I'm not much with spears… I wouldn't turn down a sporting bet with you lads, though."

They walked over to the pila targets, shapes of tight rolled matting on wooden posts. Those at least resem bled men with shields, which was good. He'd never yet fought an enemy or hunted a beast who was round and colored white and red in concentric circles. They weren't very far away-only about twenty yards-but then the heavy javelins were short-range weapons. The pila were piled in neat tripods with the big oval shields stacked against them and the helmets hung by the chinstraps. The young men put the helmets on and clipped their cheek pieces in place before picking up the shields and javelins.

Good, Edain thought. Practice the way you're going to do it for real, or as close as you can.

Thoughts like that always sounded a bit like his father's voice.

"Two throws each," the file closer said. "Kit, get a couple of spares for Eddie here."

It took a moment for Edain to realize he was an Eddie, locally. While he struggled with the thought, the Boisean noncom took a step forward, shield up. The spear went back and then forward in a long blurred arch. There was a thunk! as it sank through the center of the target and into the wooden pole within. The second matched it, a handbreadth lower down. Both sank as the long iron shanks behind their points bent.

"Now that's clever," Edain said. "So they can't throw them back at you, eh?"

The file closer nodded. "And if it goes into a shield, whoever's holding it has to throw it away or spend time trying to pull the pila out. You want to go next?"

"Oh, I'll wait and see how the rest of your lads do," Edain said innocently.

Or he thought it was innocently; Gottberg was a little older than the rest of his file, a bit older than Edain himself, and shrewd.

Most of them were nearly as good as their corpo ral. When they'd finished the twelve throws, only four spears had missed or glanced off, and most of the ones that hit were solidly planted through the wicker or in the central pole. The Boise soldiers knew their business, and they had the strong limber bodies of well fed young men who'd worked and trained hard all their lives.

They'd most likely all inherited keen eyes and steady hands too; even in fortunate areas like this, not many weaklings had lived through the Change and its aftermath to breed more of their kind.

I can't lose either way, Edain thought. If I'm last man, I buy them more beer and they get talkative. If I'm not, I get more respect

… and they'll be more likely to speak freely, eh? And I hate to lose; so may Cernunnos guide my hand!

He hefted the spear he'd been handed, which had a much dinted shaft and an iron shank that looked as if it had been straightened any number of times. It was a practice weapon; well balanced, but probably a little off center. And it was as heavy as a battle spear, or nearly, which was not meant to be thrown.

"Ground and center, ground and center," he murmured to himself.

Edain was wearing his brigandine, which was fair, but that was a hair less hampering than the cuirass of steel bands and hoops that was their equivalent. He didn't use the solid face front step and-throw method the local men did; that was designed for use with a great twenty-pound shield in your left hand to balance you. Instead he took a half sideways skip forward and put all his body into it with a snapping twist. Throwing something this heavy that far took real effort; his breath hissed out between clenched teeth.

Good!

The throw had the smooth heavy to-light flow that said it was going where it should as it left his hand. It arched higher than the others had… and then his lips moved in a silent curse as it wobbled in flight.

Thunk.

The long pyramidal point of the spear clipped a little twist of osier from the wicker figure's notional head as it went by, and then banged into the asphalt a half dozen yards farther on.

"Not bad," Gottberg said, taking off his helmet and scratching vigorously. "Most newbies can't even get a pila to go that far."

The redhead named Kit looked at him narrowly; he'd be the one buying the first two rounds if Edain wasn't. "I thought you said you only used bows?"

"No, I said I mostly used bows," Edain said, grinning. "Sometimes we use spears-hunting boar in thick country, when you want something heavy at close range. Aren't you glad I didn't put money on it, eh?"

Several of the others laughed. Kit smiled, if a little sourly. "Here," he said. "Try this one-it didn't bend and it's better than those old clunkers from the practice bin."

Edain caught the tossed spear with a smack of palm on wood. It was a better weapon; he could feel it in the swoop and sway as his arm rocked back under the impact. He made a half bow.

"Nar laga Ardwinna do lamh," he said formally.

He didn't speak the old language-only a few schol ars did, and Rudi and his mother and his sisters Fiorb hinn and Maude, of course-but he'd learned a few of the Chief's sayings, as most people in the Clan did.

"May the Huntress never weaken your hand," he repeated in English.

Breathe in, breathe out, and… throw.

Shunk.

This time he speared the target through the inner edge of the shield. Not the best throw-just good enough to win him next to-last place.

Kit sighed. Edain held out his hand. "We're low men on the pole, so let's split those first two rounds," he said.

The redhead shook the outstretched hand. That won him more acceptance than he'd hoped for. The file shed and racked their armor at the gatehouse barracks. Edain did the same with his brigandine and bow and quiver, though it made him feel a bit naked so far from home and among strangers.

"Let's get that beer," Gottberg said. "And something to eat."

"They don't feed you?" Edain asked, surprised. A lord usually did, at least keeping table for his full-time warriors.

"Sorta-kinda." Kit grinned. "It's on the list of Soldier's Superstitions."

At Edain's raised brow he went on: "We all get it on a printed sheet when we're called up, with the rest of the paperwork. It's sort of a list of things soldiers believe. Like, 'It is very unlucky to get a spear in the guts on a Friday.'"

Gottberg went on: "The one he's thinking of is,'When the sun rises in the east, it is a sign that we shall have stew for dinner.' "

"Mystery meat stews with desecrated vegetables. And they say the stuff with it is beer. I say the quartermaster's horse has something bad wrong with its kidneys."

"We'll go to the Fife and Drum instead. That's where a lot of guys go off duty. It's a bit pricey but not too bad and it's all fighting men."

"I'm not much of one for brawling in taverns."

"Oh, they don't brawl there. Because-"

The city of Boise was an orderly, law-abiding place, like the rest of the United States governed from there. People mostly liked it that way, and those who didn't tended to meet the National Police and then either dance the hempen hornpipe on air or spend many sad and stress ful years working under extremely unsympathetic management in the National Infrastructure Reconstruction Battalions.

The Fife and Drum tavern was orderly and law-abiding too, usually, but the National Police didn't go there. Nor did the military police, nor did officers, and it wasn't a place where a civilian would last long either.

The loud raucous sawdust-floored atmosphere re minded Edain of some places he'd seen in Corvallis, stu dent hangouts around the university. The smell was the same-gaslights, cooking food, beer. There was a little more sweat, and the voices were harder, somehow, and there were a lot of battered weapons and hacked shields on the walls, down to one made from a pre-Change traffic sign with a spear that looked like a kitchen knife on a stick beside it.

It was more orderly than those Corvallan pubs, though; off along one wall were a series of booths in which most of the patrons were scarred middle-aged men with quiet gimlet eyes. Some of them were smoking pipes or cigarettes, or chewing wads of tobacco, habits that were nearly extinct elsewhere.

Young soldiers who wanted to fight and break things went to other places, establishments where noncoms didn't go either. They came here when they didn't want their dinners dropped into their laps by the arrival of flying bodies.

"He's all right," Gottberg announced to the room, and the stares at Edain's kilt and general foreignness turned less hostile; Garbh's hair lay back down on her shoulders. "And he's with us. And he's one of the guys that saved the boss."

"Is that Sergeant major Anderson over there?" Edain said with interest as they grabbed a table.

It was big enough for everyone if you didn't mind a little jostling; Garbh lay down at his feet, too disciplined to wander, but letting her nostrils wrinkle with the fascinating mix of scents.

"Yeah, and you don't stare at him. He's Sergeant major Anderson. The top NCO. That makes him a lot more important than most officers."

"Most officers lower than major," Kit said. "Or maybe colonel."

"Oh, I don't know," Gottberg said. "Lieutenants have their uses."

"Yeah, they're useful when it comes to stopping a spear that might've hit someone who works for their living."

"Oh, I dunno," Gottberg repeated thoughtfully. "I mean, the boss's kids, they're both pretty useful. Only what you'd expect, though."

A waitress came out with glasses and big pitchers of beer. Edain sampled his.

"Not bad," he said. "Nice and crisp. A little lighter than they brew it at Dun Juniper, where you eat it with a spoon, but well hopped."

"Hey, traveling the way you do, you must get to see a lot of different types of booze," Kit said enthusiastically.

"Some. More often, it's many different types of bad water."

"Tell me," Gottberg replied. He cast an eye at some of his men. "You can get the galloping shits that way… unless you're careful about purifying the water. Right? "

"Ah, hell, Corp, we never have to do that back home."

"And back home your mama still holds your cock while you pee, right? Jesus, what is this, an army or a nursery school?"

"You're starting to sound like Sergeant-major Anderson, Corp."

"Nah," Gottberg said, but he looked cautiously over his shoulder when he did it. "You haven't heard me talk about how great things were in the old army, have you? You know, the real US Army, where they had real soldiers, with guns."

The young men all laughed, a bit uneasily. The food came out-starting with corn on the cob, a rare treat in the Clan's territories, where maize grew reluctantly. Spareribs in hot sauce followed it, and grilled pork chops with sage and onion stuffing, mounds of fried potatoes, steamed cabbage and carrots, brown bread and butter; plain food and plenty of it, and more beer along with it. Everyone said their varieties of grace-including one that simply went, "Good God, good meat: Good God, let's eat!" — and then all of them dug in with thoughtless voracity.

"Ah, that's better than I've had in a while," Edain said, pushing back his plate and wiping his mouth. "Saving your top man's own table, and that was seasoned with nervousness, for me."

Crackling and crunching and slobbering came from under the table, where Garbh enjoyed the bones; her jaws were more than strong enough to crunch them like stalks of celery, except that they had roast marrow in the center, which explained the ecstatic slurping sounds.

"Apple pie and ice cream all round," Gottberg went on to the plain middle aged waitress. "Hell, Judy, bring the bucket, and make it chocolate!"

Her brows went up. "You boys just win a lottery, or sack the Prophet's palace in Corwin, or what?"

"Nah, we get him in a month or two, and I'll buy a plow team with my share. We won a bet today. Found money and it's burning a hole in my pocket."

More serious work with fork and spoon followed. The talk turned to politics; Edain kept mostly quiet but kept his ears pricked.

"So we replace those useless old farts with another bunch of old farts just a bit younger," Kit said. "Hell with it. Why do we need 'em? And who's going to run against the boss for president? That would be like trying to take God Almighty's job."

That brought a laugh, but one soldier went on seriously: "Well, God bless him, but the boss isn't going to be around forever. I mean, you wouldn't know it the way he keeps up in the field, but he's an old man too-nearly sixty. I mean, sixty… how many people do you know last much past sixty?"

The hard young faces suddenly went a little uncertain. Edain recognized the feeling; people got the same way back home, thinking of what Clan Mackenzie would do without the Mackenzie. She was the Goddess on-Earth, the one who'd brought their parents or their grandpar ents alive through the Change and given their world its shape and meaning.

Still, they had Rudi ready to take over the job…

"We should elect him a new vice president, a younger guy. The boss can have the top job as long as he wants… understand, I've got nothing against Colonel Moore, but…"

"I figure he's OK, but he's as old as the boss. We should elect Captain Martin vice president," Gottberg said firmly, scooping more of the walnut-studded ice cream onto his plate.

It took Edain a moment to remember the ruler of Boise's eldest son; they must mean Martin Thurston. Who was about Rudi's age or a little more, come to think of it.

Gottberg went on: "That way if… well, you know… it'll be like the boss wasn't really gone."

"Yeah," Kit said. His eyes turned a little hooded. "I remember my dad telling me about how the boss found him and Mom and some others hiding out in an old warehouse near Nampa-this was just after the plague, you know, when it all went to hell? — and he said, 'Come with me if you want to live,' and they did. And they got a crop planted in time."

One of the rest of the squad nodded. "And if we pick Captain Martin, then when the boss is gone, we'll have someone closer to our age in charge. Christ, I get so fucking sick of those old geezers who never shut up about things before the Change. It doesn't mean any thing! I'm not talking about the boss, of course. Just the rest of them. Like my old man."

"Yeah," Gottberg said. "If I have to hear another story about how wonderful it was to sell, what did they call 'em, elstronics, for a living I'm gonna puke. Besides… when I get out of the army, I'm going home and then when my father's ready I'll take over the farm. I know that ground-know it through my hands and feet, know what every inch of it can do. I'm the oldest son, so I'll get it when Dad wants to sit by the stove and rest; that's fair, that's right. I figure it's the same with the country-why not?"

Edain ventured a comment: "This Captain Martin of yours, he's had his hands on the plow handles, then?"

Gottberg nodded. "I figure Captain Martin's got to know the Chief's job the same way I know our farm. It's not like he's some goof off; he's been doing jobs for his dad for years now, running a company in the sixth, helping start new villages-he talked the folks up north in Moscow into rejoining the country, too, the way I hear it, even if he was just in charge of the escort on paper."

"Yeah, that's true," Kit said. "And Martin Thur ston's… he understands, you know? Nothing against the boss, but sometimes he doesn't think like us. I've heard Captain Martin talk and I've talked to guys in the sixth regiment. They say you can always go to him with a problem and he'll see you right-he'll stand by a friend no matter what. And he's a young guy, like Joe says, he's got his pecker up, he's got big plans for the country.

Time to do something new, like his dad did when he was young."

"You'll hail him tanist, then?" Edain asked. "Vice president, I mean."

"Well, there's some bullshit rules about it," Kit said. "I don't see why we've always got to get our panties in a twist 'cause of something written way over on the other side of the world back when."

Gottberg put down his spoon, his blue eyes narrow ing. "Fuckin'-A. And those Cutter loonies from Corwin, they tried to kill him-snuck killers into the guard detail! Kill him and the boss and his brother too! I've got nothing against Colonel Moore, but he's even older than the boss, like you say. If those scumbags hadn't been shot in time, we wouldn't have anything of the boss left."

That brought a growl all along the table. Men sitting at others close enough to hear nodded; a couple of them gave Edain a thumbs-up gesture, probably having heard who it was who saved their ruler.

Rudi will be interested to hear this, Edain thought.

Politics lost its charm; someone began to sing. The Boise men didn't have as much training as so many clansfolk would, and it was odd to sing without women's voices, but they had some catchy tunes.

They liked "March of Cambreath," and he did it twice so they could get the words; the "How many of them can we make die?" chorus was really popular. Then they started in on their own war songs. Soon the whole room was hammering mugs and fists on the tables and bellowing:

Edain turned down an invitation to follow them to a sporting house, whatever that was. He didn't know what the conversation had meant, not wholly, but it did give him a bit of a feeling for the place, and Rudi was better than he at putting the bits and pieces together.

"Yeah, that toadsticker you use is dangerous one-on-one," Martin Thurston said. "As long as you've got room to give ground."

Rudi nodded and settled back in the big chair; he felt loose and relaxed after the sparring and the shower. The officer's mess of Boise's citadel was a comfortable place, with leather furniture and good paneling, and a discreet bar. It also stood on the sixth floor of an old high rise, the Williams Office Building, built into the new citadel wall, which gave it a magnificent view of the state capitol-national capitol, according to the residents-when the heavy steel shutters with their arrow slits were drawn back.

There were a few other officers and their guests there, but Martin and Juliet Thurston were getting a deference that was just a shade more than the man's official rank would account for. Particularly from the younger men.

"That saber you used is fairly nimble, too," Rudi said. "You gave me a few uncomfortable moments, if you know what I mean. A more subtle weapon than the shete, I would say."

"Just plain and simple better… as long as you're not trying to clear brush with it. Shetes are so point heavy all you can really do is make like a woodchopper. The easterners dote on the damn things, though, I suppose because their dads used the original-article machetes to get through the Change and the dying time."

"I've a man in our company from the east who uses a shete very well."

"Vogeler? The tall fella? He looks like things would stay down if he hit them with a club, much less any sort of sword."

They grinned at each other, two big men who'd taken each other's measure with the tools of their deadly trade.

Though I have less sense of the man than I would ex pect, Rudi thought, sipping again at his drink. Usually you get a feel for the mind in the head when you test the sword in the hand.

His foster father, Nigel, said that it was hard to lie with a sword.

"Yes, he's got wrists like a bear, anyway," he went on aloud. "Even so, the shete is slow."

"The saber's faster," Martin agreed. "But it's a cav alry weapon. Not suitable for our infantry tactics… and speaking of cavalry, do you have any stallions out of that mare you ride? I'd pay gold for one of them in our stud."

"I can believe it, sure. Unfortunately young Ahearn is in stallion heaven back home, improving the breed throughout the Willamette Valley. And outside the Clan's territories, it's often enough I'm paid in gold indeed."

He raised a brow. "Which makes me sort of an equine pimp, I suppose…"

The young Thurstons joined in the laugh, before Mar tin went on: "Pity. That mare's the best piece of horse flesh I've ever seen… well, we depend mostly on our infantry, and short swords are our weapon of choice for the foot. Though in a one-on-one duel, I'd still take a longer blade. But for fighting in ranks…"

"I know the short blade's dangerous, close in," Rudi said. "Many of my people use them. A line of them, with those big great shields of yours, that would be more dangerous than is comfortable to contemplate."

"Iron discipline and the short sword, that's what makes good heavy infantry," Martin replied. "In fact-"

"Oh, God, honey, you're not going to go into the glory-of-the legions thing again, are you?" his wife said.

"Sorry, darling," the young man said with a quick smile.

Juliet Thurston was… the word sleek came to Rudi's mind. Partly that was the glow of early pregnancy-about four months along, he thought-but most of it was a general catlike smoothness, not least in her long blond hair, and the way she curled into the red leather of the couch. She was pretty otherwise, too, long-limbed and well curved, with an oval face framing bright blue eyes. They seemed guileless.

And they're not, sure, Rudi told himself.

The mess steward came by; she chose a fruit drink of some sort; Rudi and her husband took another whiskey-and-water each. He took a sip. It was good, with a smooth burnished taste he wasn't used to, probably from something else besides barley in the malt.

"Tell me about your mother," Juliet said. "Judging by the little we hear from the far West, she must be quite a lady."

"She is that!" Rudi said enthusiastically.

And I miss her, he thought. I miss everyone.

"She's elected, you say?" Martin asked.

"Hailed, every Beltane," Rudi said. "I suppose some one else could stand and ask for it at the same time, but there wouldn't be much point, and someone might throw things… not sharp or metallic or pointy things, but even so… though now and then a Jack-in-the-green does."

"Jack?" Juliet said.

"Sort of a licensed fool… one of the merrier parts of our religion. A Jack does outrageous things and it doesn't count."

"She didn't mind you standing for… what did you call it? Tanner?" Juliet said.

"Tanist," Rudi said, noting a quick glance between the two. "Much like your vice president, I think."

"Sensible," Martin said. A smile: "Though perhaps sending you haring off across the country in the middle of a war isn't."

Rudi shrugged. "It's necessary."

Juliet sighed. "I wish we didn't have to fight the Corwinites," she said."But we do."

"Since they tried to kill me and Frederick and Dad, yeah," Martin said dryly. "But you're right, honey, that's going to be hard. And not just the fighting. The reports are there's a great big mob of refugees headed this way."

"I hope it won't interfere with mustering your war levy… no, it's mobilization you call it, isn't it?" Rudi said.

Martin nodded crisply. "You'll find that nothing can interfere with our mobilization," he said proudly. "In fact, we're making arrangements for the refugees to help with the harvest, while our reservists are under arms. Speaking of which, I should get going."

"Don't go," Juliet said after her husband had shaken Rudi's hand and walked briskly out. "You were going to tell me about your mother."

"Fascinating," Father Ignatius said sincerely.

He absently wiped the sweat from his forehead; the summer morning was warm.

"How many cubic feet of hydrogen, did you say?" he went on.

"Couple of hundred thousand," the engineer replied. "That's not counting the central hot-air ballonet that we use to help with altitude control."

The Curtis LeMay was nearly three hundred feet long, crowding the arched sheet metal expanse of the hangar, but nearly all of that was the great orca shaped gasbag-from bluntly pointed prow through swelling midsection to the cruciform stabilizer fins at the rear.

The glider and airship field was well north of Boise proper, though it had probably been suburbs before the Change, and the land around showed the snags of burnt out ruins and some trees still living to mark the sites of gardens.

Tawny hills rose northward, fading into blue distance as they climbed towards the forested mountains, with a crest line at about eight thousand feet. An occasional ranch house speckled them. Just south was still a suburb, or at least the outside the-wall residences of wealthy men, often surrounded by barriers of barbed wire or concrete blocks, with gardens and stables around the big houses within.

The field itself had an X of runways as well, and a long ski-ramp launching mechanism with counterweights and hydraulic rams that could snap gliders into the air to catch the updraft over the hills. The winged craft were kept in a series of hangars salvaged from the old municipal airport; a larger one housed the airship and several uninflated balloons. There was a smell of metal and sharp acidic chemicals and paint and shellac, as well as the more usual scents of people and horses and vegetation.

"Do you find that the power to-weight ratio is sufficient, Major Hanks?" the monk asked.

The military engineer looked at him. "You are an unusual young fella," he said.

The Boisean was in his late forties himself, lean and with a crew cut of stiff, grizzled brown hair. Ignatius spread his hands.

"I received a classical education… the pre-Change sciences, or at least some of them," he said.

"Wish more did," Hanks said. "The young guys I get off the farm nowadays, you just can't convince some of them machinery can't be treated like a horse. I guess it comes of growing up without anything more complicated than their mom's sausage grinder."

An orderly came up and gave them both cups of hot herb tea-the stove was well away from this area. Things didn't explode the way they had once, but that didn't mean hydrogen wouldn't burn.

A lot of it catching all at once would burn very hot and very fast.

There were vats alongside the walls of the blimp hangar, where zinc shavings and sulfuric acid combined to generate the lifting gas as needed. Technicians were uncoupling the hoses that ran from those to the gasbag as he watched, coiling them away neatly. Others pulled ropes to open broad slabs of the roof, to make sure none of the gas lingered inside.

Everything about the air base was neat, almost fanatically so, the grounds swept, every piece of wood painted and every metal part polished or oiled or enameled. Ig natius profoundly approved, as a soldier and an engi neer and a monastic as well. Physical things were like time-both belonged ultimately to God; sloth and waste were a form of stealing from Him.

"Well, we've got twelve pedal sets on either side," Hanks said, returning to the cleric's question and pointing upward. "Set up recliner-fashion, that gives you maximum output."

Ignatius nodded, following the finger. The airship had an aluminum-truss keel along the bottom of the shark-like gasbag; that made it semirigid. The gondola below was covered in thin doped fabric, for streamlining, but enough panels were unlaced for maintenance that he could see the spiderweb scantiness of the interior structure as technicians made their final checks and fastened the sheets once again. Idle now, a twelve foot propeller stood at the rear, behind a long wedge of rudder.

"The rudder is worked from a wheel at the prow of the gondola. She carries twenty-four pedalers, and an other six reliefs who act as the deck crew-you can see their positions at the rear there, like a semicircle-plus the captain and second in command."

Ignatius smiled to himself. Hanks had not answered the question. The engineer caught the smile and shrugged.

"Well, in a dead calm, they can get her up to about the speed of a trotting horse."

"And against the wind?"

The engineer shrugged again, and smiled himself, a little bitterly. "You go up or down trying to find a wind going in the right direction. Or anchor and wait it out. Trying to fight a breeze in this thing is like trying to hammer a nail through a board."

Ignatius raised his brows. "Not very difficult, you mean?"

"Only the nail's made out of candle wax."

They shared a chuckle, and Hanks went on: "That's the downside. The upside is that you can stay aloft a lot longer than a glider can. Less speed and control than a glider, but a hell of a lot more than an ordinary balloon. If only we had a goddamned engine…"

Ignatius nodded. He recognized the engineer's bitterness without sharing it. The man had grown up before the Change, and like many such-particularly those who'd worked much with machines-he resented the limitations of the new world with a savage passion.

God must have His reasons for it, Ignatius thought. Though it would have been interesting to have such possibilities open…

He didn't voice the thought; it would be futile, and would serve only to further disturb the middle-aged engineer's soul. Instead he asked a technical question about the gearing. Hanks brightened, and they talked ratios and aspects and hollow-cast driveshafts for a few happy moments.

Outside an observer keeping an eye on the wind sock shouted, "Clear!"

Hanks strode away, and Ignatius stepped back po litely; the ungainly craft had to be brought out quickly, lest a cross wind catch it and smash it up against the edge of the big hangar's doors. The ground crew were all hefty looking young men, and they tallied onto the long metal tube skids beneath the gondola and simply walked the craft out into the open by main force, before hooking a long cable onto a ring at the front of the gondola. It stood bobbing at head height as they tallied on and pulled until the LeMay 's nose was close to the base of a tall metal pole.

"Crew aboard!" Hanks shouted.

Most of the crew were women, which surprised the monk for a moment. Then he took a long look at their builds underneath the gray overalls as they scrambled up the rope ladders. Every one of them was slender and wiry enough to be assembled out of steel cables and springs.

Ah, he thought to himself. Maximum leg strength with minimum overall weight per pound of leg muscle. This is an instance in which a female's relative lack of upper body mass is an advantage rather than a hindrance. Interesting.

Also very interesting to watch; he'd sworn celibacy, but found inner disinterest much more difficult. He sighed and closed his eyes for a second, praying for strength.

"You interested in a ride, padre?" Hanks called.

"Thank you!" he said eagerly. After all, it's not as if I'm deliberately looking.

And while he'd been aloft in balloons and gliders once or twice, he'd never been up in a powered craft. It would be like a little hint of the fabulous days of old. His grandfather had been a helicopter pilot in a place called Vietnam, and the old man had lived through the Change, lived long enough to tell stories of marvels to a young boy then named Karl Bergfried. He had never seen his grand mother, though it was her inheritance that gave the slight umber tone to his skin and the tilt to his dark eyes.

The boat-shaped open gondola dipped and swayed beneath him as he kirted up his robe and climbed care fully into it, stepping onto the aluminum treads of the central catwalk. The crewmen-crew-women-were settling into the seats and pedal sets on either side, strapping themselves in. Their positions left them facing backward, and he noticed that a few wore crucifixes. Not an ounce of spare weight otherwise, though there were clips above each position for a bow and quiver, and a bundled parachute strapped ready.

Hanks sat behind the wheel, his feet on rudder pedals, and a board with control levers and dials beside him.

"Water ballast, emergency valves, ballonet superheat and venting," he said, indicating them. "Altimeter-that's from a small airplane-airspeed indicator, rpm on the propeller shaft, main cell pressure, reserve tank pressure. We can switch the torque on the main shaft to a compressor that takes hydrogen from the lift cells and pumps it into metal tanks just above the keel. It's more economical than venting if we have time."

"Fascinating!" Ignatius said again, his eyes taking the instruments in greedily.

"No, when we hit clear air turbulence, that's fascinating," Hanks said cheerfully. "So what say you strap in too, eh, padre?"

There was a seat on the other side; Ignatius took the suggestion. Hanks turned his head.

"Bosun, drop keel weights three through fifteen!"

The noncom went down the walkway, stopping at every second square of flooring to raise it and flip some thing underneath. Solid thumps sounded from under neath the gondola, and the blimp bobbled very slowly upward until it hung at twice a man's height from the ground.

"Lead ballast," Hank explained. "It counterbalances our fixed weight. We drop some of 'em at the beginning to set basic load for the trip, so we've got neutral buoy ancy at about ground level. The rest are for emergencies, and the side ballast-"

He pointed to aluminum water tanks along the rail.

"— is for ordinary maneuvering. We try to avoid valving gas or dropping ballast as long as we can-hydrogen isn't cheap."

Then, louder: "On superheat!"

One of the crew fiddled with something amidships. There was a thump and a muffled roar as a compressed gas burner went on. That made him itch a little, until he reflected that if it leaked at all, hydrogen leaked up.

And only a mixture with air is really dangerous, he told himself stoutly. And I do have this parachute.

The hot air went up a tube into the central body of the gasbag above. As the hot air ballonet expanded the outer skin creaked a little inside its netting. A sensation of lightness put a grin on Ignatius's usually solemn face; the ground was beginning to slide away beneath them. The anchor cable rose off the ground and ran up the mooring pole; then it dropped away as Hanks pulled a lever.

"All ahead full!"

"All ahead full!" the bosun cried, in an alto roar.

There was a mass grunt as the crew pushed at the ped als, fighting the inertia of the system-it was as light as possible, but Ignatius did a quick mental calculation and realized that it must still mass a fair bit in absolute terms. The big propeller at the rear of the gondola started to turn, slowly at first and then shifting into a flickering circular blur. Wicker and rope creaked and metal com plained as the thrust surged through gondola and keel and pushed the gasbag against the resisting air.

"We're under way!" Ignatius said in delight, feeling the slight but definite force pressing him backward in his seat, and suppressing an impulse to bounce up and down in it.

It was a little like being in a pedal car on a railroad, though the feeling was statelier than that alarmingly fast mode of transport. Buildings sank away to toy size below him, and people to scarcely more than dolls-as marvelous now as the other two times he'd seen it. The air grew cooler…

"Damn! Double damn fucking hell!" Hanks barked.

"What is the problem?" Ignatius asked.

"Wind's out of the east and we're going backward. But we're still rising… yup, that's better. We're getting some forward movement now."

The LeMay turned northeast, struck an updraft and soared, then curved around the city as the crew settled into a steady pumping rhythm.

Looking down, Ignatius was shocked out of his happy technical preoccupation. Roads pointed inward towards Boise from every direction, and they were crowded-crowded with columns of marching troops and baggage wagons. Sunlight glittered off spear points like morning on rippling water, and long plumes of dust rose from herds of stock driven along for provisions; wagon trains lumbered forward on rail and road with their beige canvas tilts strapped over bale and barrel.

White rows of tents were already going up in places, as regiments dug their marching camps. Cavalry patrols cantered about, tying the whole together. His lips pursed silently, and he gave a slow nod. The lack of frantic bus tle in Boise itself had made him think the locals were taking their time about gathering their host.

I was wrong, he thought. Then with a slight smile: Thank you, Lord, for a lesson in humility!

Sometimes the harshest lessons were the most valuable; as a sage had said before the Change, in plea sure God whispered, in logic He spoke, but in pain He shouted.

"Yeah," Hanks said proudly, following his gaze."If the Corwin crazies think they can fuck with us and get away with it, they can think again."