CHAPTER ELEVEN

FREE REPUBLIC OF RICHLAND SHERIFFRY OF READSTOWN (FORMERLY

SOUTHWESTERN WISCONSIN) OCTOBER 8, CHANGE YEAR 24/2022 AD

?Getting close,?Ingolf said, rubbing a hand down the neck of his mount.?Soo, Boy, soo,? he said to the horse.?You?ll get a good feed here, even if you were foaled in Nebraska.?

Rudi Mackenzie nodded, tactfully ignoring the slight hoarseness in the other man?s voice, as if he were choking back unexpected tears; Ingolf?s face was an iron mask locked against a surge of feeling.

A Mackenzie-any who were Changelings, at least-would weep, returning home after so long, Rudi thought. But customs differ from land to land, and so do the stamp they set on our souls. Wouldn?t it be a duller world, if they did not, so?

It was a bright fall afternoon, comfortable but with an underlying nip to it. This was farm-and-forest country, but you could tell that the North Woods started not so far away, and that the Wheel of the Year was turning towards the Crone?s dominion, in a land harsher than Oregon Than Montival, he reminded himself; it was growing natural.

As they rode north along the valley of the Kickapoo from the hamlet at Soldier?s Grove the fields had quickly gone back to scrub and saplings, the usual story of more land than the survivors of the Change had means or reason to till when they no longer used machines to feed cities far away. But for the last hour or two the signs of human habitation had grown thicker again, first the chewed look of land used for rough summer grazing, then fields and the odd farmhouse behind its berm and ditch and barbed wire or palisade.

Often there was a wary twinkle of spearheads from the defenses or a fighting platform built atop an old silo, or the sight of livestock being driven up the slope of the land towards the woods; just what you?d expect from sensible folk when scores of armed strangers passed by. That alarm diminished as they went, until men and a few women came out to watch them pass with no more than a little caution… and weapons in their hands.

Then Ingolf laughed aloud as they came upon a man-high oak stump not far from the road. It was roughly carved into the shape of a naked big-nosed troll, but despite the crude work you could see a look of ineffable self-satisfaction on its face and in the way its hands folded across a swag belly; from the weathering and moss, it was at least a decade old and perhaps more. In Mackenzie or Bearkiller territory Rudi would have thought it a roadside shrine, but he doubted that was the purpose here and looked a question at the Readstown man. ?I did that,? Ingolf said, a chuckle still in his voice.?Well, me and Bert Kuykendall and Carl Heisz and Will Uhe, when we were all about twelve. It?s the spitting image of old Bossman Al, Al Clements. He came up from Richland Center that year, doing a tour of his Sheriffs? homeplaces. We snuck out and worked on it after dark, kept it under a pile of brush until the day, and he went right past it and turned… what?s that color, sort of like purple…? ?Puce,? Mary Havel put in, sharing her man?s good humor. ?Yah, puce. Dad wore out a hickory switch on Bert and Carl and Will, and two more on me for setting a bad example, but it was worth sitting down careful for a while. Surprised Ed didn?t have it cut down; he isn?t… wasn?t… much of a man for a joke.? ?Why didn?t your father do just that and take an ax to it, if he was angry, and it annoyed his overlord?? ?He wouldn?t give Clements the satisfaction. Never liked the man. I think he laughed about it to himself, despite the merry hell he gave all four of us. Dad was a hard man on his sons, but he expected us to push back at him. Wanted it too, I think.? ?Ah, and are you also thinking those three friends of your youth will be there to greet you?? Rudi said.

The smile died.?All dead now. Will put a pitchfork through his foot while he was loading manure that year. He was always a dreamy sort. Got lockjaw, poor bastard.? ?A hard passing,? Rudi said sympathetically, nodding; they?d had drugs for that in the old days, but…

Ingolf shrugged.?What way isn?t? Unless someone hits you on the head with an ax when you?re not expecting it. Bert and Carl volunteered for the Sioux War and left home with me… Bert got an arrow in the eye a couple of weeks later. We weren?t even to Marshall yet and he wasn?t eighteen when it happened-night attack, just dumb bad luck and our not knowing what the fuck we were doing. Carl was bushwhacked by Eaters in Boston, that last salvage trip east my Villains made. But we collected the head-price for him, and piled the ears on his grave.?

Rudi nodded again; he?d have expected no less; Ingolf wasn?t a man to let a comrade go unavenged. ?Ritva, Mary,? he said.?Ride ahead and see to our welcome.?

He reached into his saddlebag and held out a large envelope. ?They?ll have had scouts watching, unless Ed?s let things slip,? Ingolf said.?And odds are someone came ahead when we got off the ship and said who we were and where we were going; they?d have gotten here yesterday, riding fast and switching horses. You can?t drag this many people through the countryside tactfully, but nobody?s looking too upset over us. They must have some idea who we are.? ?To be sure. But I?m thinking it?s best to be formal.? ?With my brother Ed? Yah, you betcha. Always was a stickler.?

The twins reined around; Ritva took the envelope and Mary paused for an instant to reach out and touch Ingolf?s hand before she leaned forward and brought her Arab mare, Rochael, up to a canter with a shift of balance.

Rudi waited for another fifteen minutes of travel amid the stuttering clop of scores of hooves, creak of saddle and harness, grind of wheels and the thud as one rose and fell over a rock in the roadway, then threw up his clenched right fist. The long caravan came slowly to a halt behind him, with a squeal of brakes and a neighing of horses and curses in two languages and several dialects. There were six big wagons there, and nearly a hundred folk.

It?s a migration, not a quest! he thought. The which is a giant flag to attract attention and an inconvenience, so it is. Finding three pounds of food per head per day… it?s a lesson in logistics! Or a pain in the arse. But the Southsiders will be worth their weight in gold farther east-more than worth it, for the savages don?t want to eat gold.

Then aloud:?We?ll await them here. It?s… polite.?

His comrades followed his example as he dismounted, stretching and twisting in relief; it had been a long day in the saddle. Virginia Kane didn?t only twist and reach, but frankly rubbed and kneaded her buttocks. ?I got outta condition in Iowa,? she said.? And on that damn boat. Too much sittin?, not enough ridin?.? ?I wish you wouldn?t do that,? Fred Thurston said to her.?It makes me want to do it too.? ?What, rub your butt? Why not? We ain?t none of us picky about parlor manners, that I noticed.?Cept Odard, and that?s his problem.?

The baron of Gervais bowed and blew her a kiss, which she answered with a raised finger. Fred grinned and replied: ?No, it makes me want to rub yours.? ?Now you?re talkin?, lover boy!?

She unhitched her lariat from the saddle and swatted him on the backside with the coil. ?Let?s go get those remounts bridled and on leading reins; they?ll be skittish?round strange horses. More fun than talking anyhow. ?Specially talkin? to farmers.?

She looked around at the valley that held Readstown.?This country?s too… too crowded with country, you ask me. I feel like I?m stuck in a closet and something?s hidin? behind them hills and trees.? ?You know, Chief, the Rocky Mountains were grand,? Edain said, when she?d dropped back.

They stood with the breeze cuffing at their plaids and ruffling the raven feathers in the clasp of his flat bonnet, the tuft of wolf fur in Edain?s.

The young man of the Wolf totem went on, with a glance at Virginia over his shoulder where she was roping a skittish piebald: ?And the deserts, and the plains-well, the Lord and Lady made all lands beautiful in their own way, but after a while the flatlands had me feelin? like a bug on a tabletop, and someone about to swat me and say sorry, little brother and flick the body off the table with thumb and finger for Garbh to snap up.?

The big shaggy beast rose at the sound of her name and butted her head under his hand. He ruffled her ears absently and went on as she grinned and squirmed and leaned against him: ?This now… It isn?t home, but it?s more homelike than most of what we?ve seen, sure and it is.? ?I had the same buglike feeling on the plains, boyo,? Rudi said. ?It?s all where you?re raised, I suppose. And this is a delight to the eye, and no mistake.?

It was a pleasure to look around, and at the same time it sent a lance of pain up under his ribs. There was no alarm now, so Ingolf?s thought of scouts and messengers preceding them were probably the truth. He saw folk at work in the fields heaving wicker baskets of potatoes onto a wagon, a shepherd with her dogs, a bow across her back and her crook in her hand amid the dun-white flow of her charges, the people of a farmstead laying fresh shingles on their roofs against the coming winter with the raw wood yellow amid the faded brown of the older layers. The tack… tack… of the hammers sounded, faint with distance.

At home they?d be doing those homely tasks too, and hanging Brigid?s crosses from the roof-trees, and making the costumes ready for Samhain… ?It?s a comely place that bred you, Ingolf, that?s a fact,? he said. ?It sure is,? the older man said quietly, a half smile on his battered, bearded face.

He hadn?t seen this land since he left as a boy of nineteen, younger than Edain was now. There was a hungry look in his dark blue eyes as he went on: ?Pretty as I remember, and then some. Fair is the land, fair to the harvest… I thought about this a lot, in some real bad places. Seeing myself riding up this road, in my head, you know??

The track their train of jolting wagons had followed up the winding river was dry brown dirt, and deep-rutted where wheels and hooves had churned it during the rains. The old paved road ran down closer to the Kickapoo except where streamside cliffs forced it away, and it looked as if the water had risen and bitten chunks out of it every other season over the past generation, not to mention the locals mining what remained for asphalt. Little was left but patches overrun by vine and shrub and eager sapling.

They were heading more or less northeast, in the strip of cleared land between the river and rolling hills covered in dense forests. The whole area was like that, from where they?d left the ship at the junction of the Kickapoo and the Wisconsin River; low wooded ridges rising to tablelands, and valleys between, one opening into another with creeks flowing down them like the veins in a leaf.

That much you could have gotten from a map, Rudi thought.

But not the way mist lay along the twisting river in drifts of soft-edged silver over water that was icy crystal between the tree-clad banks. Nor how the hills were a rumpled crimson and blush-red and yellow-gold shout of sugar maple and oak, basswood and birch and hickory, punctuated here and there by the solid dark green of hemlock and pine, or occasionally a stretch of cinnamon-colored bare sandstone. The cool musty-clean scent of the autumn woods mingled with a little tang of hearth smoke and the mealy richness of damp turned earth, and an occasional pungent waft of manure. The sky was aching-blue above, empty save for the lonely honking of a wedge of geese, a string of black dots drifting southward.

The breeze gusted stronger, and a flight of leaves soared towards them from a lone maple like tumbling coins of ruddy copper or a swirl of butterflies fashioned from flame. Ingolf?s lips moved silently for a moment. Then he surprised the Mackenzie by reciting, absently and under his breath, as if to himself: ?Let this be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he long?d to be;

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.?

It wasn?t a poem Rudi had heard before. Though it was lovely, the clansman still made the sign of the Horns against ill luck with his right hand-down on his thigh where it was out of sight from the other man. He?d be melancholy himself, had his wanderings gone on so long before a return that was no true homecoming, but it wasn?t a good idea to speak your own memorial aloud that way.

You never knew when Someone with a whimsical sense of humor was listening.

Well, well, he thought, with a sideways glance at his friend. And it?s often a man will surprise you, even if you?ve been long on the road with him and fought and hunted and worked side by side, yes, and drunk beer and sung and laughed together times beyond counting. ?A fine land indeed,? he repeated aloud instead.?Even better than your tales of it.?

Which was true; Ingolf wasn?t clumsy of tongue, but he wasn?t a bard either, and the land about Readstown deserved one. This country didn?t have the endless fat black earth of Iowa, but there was forest in plenty for game and timber and room for the soul to breathe when you were alone in the wildwood, and fast streams for mills and to delight the eye and ear. Between woods and water was the rolling ground where those of humankind made their own particular and ancient pact with Earth the Mother, one born of sweat and hope, pain and love and a lifetime?s striving.

The fields were edged with post and board fences, cultivated in gently curving strips along the contours, signs of the only wealth that was really real. Pastures within had the seared green color that came after the first frosts, somehow more vivid for being a bit faded. They were dotted with plump white-and-black spotted milch cows with full udders swinging as they walked, black Angus or red-coated Herefords like bricks of flesh, and horses that ranged from ponies to huge hairy-hoofed draught beasts. There were ranked orchards where a few late apples still glowed, and sheep grazed beneath the neatly trimmed trees or fat brown pigs rooted and snuffled after windfalls. The potato fields were lumpy-brown, already dug and looking untidy as they always did; others had the blue-green mist over earth plowed and harrowed smooth that marked winter wheat or barley. Sprawling pumpkins on their vines were vivid orange between rustling brown tripods of Indian corn in stubblefields.

Here and there solid stone-and-brick farmhouses stood with smoke trailing from their chimneys and those of the cottages that huddled near them like chicks about their mother. Silos reared tall as castle towers from a distance, and thatched wheat ricks in their yards like conical huts of gold. Tatters of red paint clung to hip-roofed barns now mostly the brown-gray of weathered plank, once or twice the odd curved sheet-metal shapes the old world had used just before the end.

Rudi sighed; there wasn?t time to admire the view. Right now the inhabitants should be more his concern.

Ritva and Mary came trotting back along the roadway on their dapple-gray Arabs, giving him the peace sign to show their mission had been successful. With them came a party of a dozen locals mounted on strong cobby-nondescript saddle horses of no particular breed. They rode in a creak of leather and hollow thudding clop of shod hooves on soft dirt, grouped around a middle-aged, brown-bearded man who was.. . ?Ed,? Ingolf said quietly, as if to himself.?Still looking constipated full-time, I see.?

Edward Vogeler, Rudi thought as the words confirmed his guess.

And he did look tight-mouthed; not as if he never smiled, but as if he thought three times before he did.

Ogma, whose words fall sweet on the ear as honey on the tongue, lend me Your eloquence. A quarrel we do not need, so. It?s guesting we seek, and open-handed helpfulness.

Rudi gave the group a warrior?s swift instinctive once-over as they reined in, soothing Epona?s snort with a hand on her neck. Four wore short mail shirts and kettle helmets like bluntly pointed hats with drooping brims. All had long horseman?s shetes and bowie knives at their sword belts, with tomahawks thrust through a loop at the rear. Most had quivers and shields on their backs and recurve bows in saddle scabbards at their knees as well. And they looked as if they would no more go riding abroad without the weapons than they would without their rough practical clothes of home-spun wool and leather or their shapeless floppy-brimmed hats and battered billed caps.

The Sheriff?s household retainers and his kin, Rudi judged, as he saw them give him and his followers the same appraisal, like an image in a mirror. What they call?deputies? in these lands.

Not full-time fighting men, but well used to weapons and to working with each other and their lord; probably the core of his war levy, when he called out the land folk, and his right and left hands the rest of the time.

Good practical workmanlike sorts at war, I?d judge, as they would be at felling a tree or hunting a deer or building a house, he thought.

They were big fair men, only half of them old enough to be bearded beyond patchy wisps but nearly all in their full hard-muscled, thick-armed strength; the eyes were light against their weather-beaten tans, hair mostly in various shades of brown and blond and red. Ingolf had told him how this region had been settled by Norski and Deutsch long ago, with a dash of Yankee and Gael, Polaki and Czech and others, all long since melded into a single folk deep-rooted in the land. The way they wore their hair-locks hacked off level with their jaws, beards clipped close-made Rudi suddenly look at his friend again; only now did he realize it was the fashion of his homeland rather than a mere whim.

One of the riders stood out, though he rode towards the rear; he was beardless and ruddy-brown of skin, with high cheeks and long braids confined by a headband, a feather in the band of his broad-brimmed hat and beadwork on the sheath of his bowie. His hair had probably been raven black before it went white and gray, and his face was a net of leathery wrinkles. The Indian nodded gravely to Ingolf as the whole party drew rein and raised his hand in a sign of greeting that the wanderer returned.

The youngest of the Readstown men was about sixteen, with hands and feet a little too big for his gangling height. He looked enough like Ingolf to be his son, save for a mop of yellow hair still streaked with summer?s faded tow white. ?Uncle Ingolf!? he called, grinning as if to split his freckled face.?Remember how you put me on my first pony??

Ingolf blinked.?Mark?? he blurted.?Little Markie? Jesus Christ, but you?ve grown!?

Rudi kept his smile to himself. An exile tended to think that nothing changed in his absence, that home remained like a picture hung on the wall of memory with everything frozen as it was. To think that way below the surface, at least; it would be well to remember that his own homeland was living its own life without him to watch. The thought made his smile die and the longing to ride up the road and see the gates of Dun Juniper even stronger. ?Quiet, son,? the leader of the Readstown men said to the youth. ?Save it for later. This is man talk.?

His voice was gravel-deep and full of the unconscious authority you?d expect in one who wasn?t often contradicted in this remote place.

Then, a little awkwardly, leaning forward with his hands on the pommel of his saddle: ?Hello, Ingolf. Good to see you again.? ?You too, Ed,? Ingolf replied.

There was a moment?s silence, and then he added:?How?s by you? Looks like the harvest was good.? ?Tolerable, around here. Bit of wilt in da alfalfa, lost some sheep to the wolves und a horse with a catamount, but a good year otherwise, so far, touch wood.?

Edward Vogeler, Rudi thought, as the man put a finger to the wood battens on the hilt of his shete.

He?d have guessed so even if they?d met on a city street. The older man might have been his comrade?s image, if you added on fifteen years, gray streaks in the beard and forty pounds; he still looked bear-strong despite the beginnings of a pot that strained against the silver buttons of his bloodred mackinaw jacket and the way his hair had receded from a high forehead lined with worry marks. The only obvious difference was a straighter nose lacking the scar and kink Ingolf?s had, and eyes that were nearer leaf green than dark blue. ?Ah…? Ingolf hesitated again; he was a proud man.?Sorry I was such a cast-iron prick when I left, Ed.?

He seemed surprised when his brother shrugged slightly and replied: ?When you stomped out, you mean? Runs in the family. All us Vogelers are a bunch of damn stubborn squareheads, yah??

His voice had the same flat-voweled rasp that Ingolf?s did, but stronger, not worn down by exposure to other lands. And with a little more of the singsong undertone, plus a tendency to use d instead of th at the beginning of words. He swung down from his horse with a grunt and all his party followed; one of the younger men stepped forward to hold the leader?s reins. ?You?d be Rudi Mackenzie?? Ingolf?s elder brother said, absently fingering a five-pointed star pinned to his coat.?I?m Edward Vogeler, Sheriff of Readstown and head of the local National Guard.?

The Sheriff offered his hand and gave one brief flick of the eyes at the other?s strange clothing. The second glance was one Rudi recognized as well, taking in his height and length of limb and breadth of shoulder, the muscle and thickness of wrist on his arm where the jacket and linsey-woolsey shirt fell back, the scars on hands and face and the use-worn binding on the hilt of his sword, and the fact that it hung from his right hip. A third glance went to Epona where she stood hipshot with her head over Rudi?s right shoulder, nipping at his hair now and then; it had a skilled stockbreeder?s grave respect for her lines. ?Rudi Mackenzie of the Clan Mackenzie indeed, Sheriff Vogeler,? Rudi said, and inclined his head politely.

He took the strong hard hand, squeezing just enough for mutual respect without foolish games. The calluses reminded him of something Ingolf had said, that Sheriffs hereabouts weren?t too proud to put their hand to a plow now and then. ?My sept totem is Raven,? Rudi went on.?Tanist by acclamation of the Clan I am, leader of this troop of traveling mountebanks by the inscrutable whim of the Powers, and glad to meet the kinsman of Ingolf. He?s been a tried friend and right-hand man to me through battle, storm and wilderness, with a quick sword and wise counsel, from the western mountains to your steading. And soon he?ll be my brother-in-law.?

The Sheriff of Readstown checked again, his eyes going wide for an instant at his brother?s grin and nod and Mary?s little wave, then handed Rudi back the letters of introduction he?d sent ahead with his half sisters. They now included one from the new Regency Council of Iowa, urgently requesting all possible help for our good friend and ally Rudi Mackenzie.

The Free Republic of Richland was free, if he understood the local politics, but they wouldn?t want to antagonize mighty Iowa. Richland?s independence suited Des Moines because they would rather not annex its problems; its borders with dangerous bandit-haunted wilderness, and what Iowa?s ruling powers thought of as the bad example of its looser system of ranks. There was one from the Cardinal-Archbishop too; Ingolf had told him his elder brother was Catholic, and notably pious, and the Sheriff bowed his head as Father Ignatius signed the air in blessing.

So that message from the bishop is just as well. Richland as a whole doesn?t care to anger Iowa, but the Bossman of Richland hasn?t the power over his nobles… his Sheriffs and their Farmers… that the Heasleroads have. Or had. And so the Sheriff of Readstown won?t necessarily do his Bossman?s will. Family feuds can be the worst of all. Nor can I absolutely rely on Ingolf?s judgment this time-his brother?s feelings might well have festered like an ulcer since he left. ?Well, youse welcome here,? the Richlander squire said, hooking his thumbs in his sword belt.?Stay a day, stay a month, stay as long as you damn well please,? he went on, in a phrase that was common throughout these lands.

His brows went up as he looked along the length of the wagon train and took in the Southsiders. ?All of you. I?ll have to put your men up in the barn lofts, mostly…?

Then he saw the Southsider women and children.?Uff da! Your men and, uh, the rest,? he added.?I?ll spread?em around a little to my out-farms, if you?re here for more than a day or two.? ?That?s most kind of you, sir,? Rudi said.

And I hope none of the ones playing host to my Southsiders are of an excessive delicacy in matters of feeding and washing.

Aloud:?We can pay our way, Sheriff. Sure and we?ll also be glad to help with anything that needs doing in the way of work. Or fighting, of course.?

Suddenly Edward Vogeler smiled; it looked genuine, if also something he didn?t do very often. ?Hell, Mr. Mackenzie, my brother and I parted on bad terms-he?s probably told you about it, since he?s engaged to your sister.? ?Half sister,? Mary noted pedantically, sotto voce. ?Ah, and to be sure, that was long ago,? Rudi replied diplomatically.?And myself a stranger here.?

With better sense than to intrude on a quarrel between close kin, he did not need to add. ?We were both assholes about it, you betcha,? Edward Vogeler said bluntly.?But I had less excuse, not being nineteen. A man?s supposed to think with his dick and his fists at that age. I was already past thirty with a wife and kids.? ?Yah, yah, something to that,? Ingolf said, after an instant?s pause.?Both ways.? ?So youse?re all my guests while you?re here,? the Sheriff went on.?You?re my brother?s friends… and from what you say, my in-laws, soon enough.? ?I?ll accept the hospitality with gratitude,? Rudi said.?Though I will pay for what we need beyond a normal brief guesting, and what we need to take with us, and for gear and beasts.? ?I won?t say no to that,? Edward Vogeler said, with a firm nod. ?Yah hey, got my Farmers und Refugees to think of. We?ll dicker on that stuff. We can always buy more supplies in from upstream and down, mostly we swap around here so cash money?s always welcome. Gold, that is.?

Rudi nodded and moved-almost imperceptibly-back, removing himself from the older man?s sphere of attention. It was almost like the hunter?s trick of withdrawing into yourself to go unnoticed.

I can tell who he?s itching to talk with, and dreading it the same , he thought. Though he?s a man who takes his responsibilities seriously, I think, and would deal with me alone first if it seemed needful; also careful of his dignity, but he?s not as pompous about it as I expected, from the little Ingolf?s said. Perhaps he?s mellowed, perhaps he?s on his best behavior now… or perhaps an angry young man of nineteen was less of a judge than the Ingolf I?ve known.

The Vogeler brothers shook hands in turn, looking into each other?s faces. Then the older caught the younger in a quick strong embrace; it was short and stiff on both sides. Edward looked away slightly as he stepped back and cleared his throat before he went on: ?Mom?s dead,? he said bluntly.?Two years ago almost to the day; it was pretty quick, Doc Pham never did really know what. But she had time to tell me to make it up with you if you ever came back.? ?Then we?ve got no choice,? Ingolf said.

A moment?s smile.?Yah. Made me promise and threatened to haunt me if I didn?t, you know how Mom was.? ?Was.? Pain flickered across Ingolf?s face.?Damn,? he said softly.?I wanted to introduce her to Mary. She?d have been glad to see me married and settled. Damn and hell.?

Mary Havel stepped to her lover?s side and took his arm. Ingolf drew a deep breath and went on: ?Kathy? Alice?? he said, naming his sisters. ?Fine. Both hitched, and their kids-oh, hell, we?ll catch up once you?re settled in. Aunt Cindy and Wanda and the girls have been cooking up a storm since we got the news and the kitchen?s like… well, I?ve been staying clear of it after I delivered the meat.?

Introductions and busyness took over; it was more than a few minutes before they were under way again through more rolling fields of grain and pasture, truck and orchard, though these were empty of houses. Rudi waited until he had a chance to speak sotto voce himself. ?Well, and you?re looking like a man who?s been gut-punched, my friend,? he said.

Ingolf shook his head.?We spent six months fighting like cats and dogs before I left,? he said.? Just short of fists, and that only because we were afraid we?d kill each other if we started. I?d forgotten we got on well enough, sometimes, for years before then. And family is family. And…? ?And your brother knows this is just a visit, not a homecoming for good and all.? ?Yah, yah. There is that. And hell, he?s right: we were both complete dicks about it after Dad died. I couldn?t stand the way he tried to step into Dad?s shoes with me… and he went all Godalmighty about it too… but damn and hell, he was the Sheriff and he had to show everyone he was bossman here. I guess he was too scared not to be stiff, and he?s not the most flexible man in the world anyway.?

A deep breath.?Still, I?m glad I didn?t show up alone and broke, and glad it?s just a visit, too. Maybe we get along better when we don?t have to get along, you know what I mean? It?ll be… interesting to see what else has changed.? ?And maybe seeing it?s a different place will make it easier for you to leave… really leave,? Mary said from his other side.?To let it go when you ride away.?

Ingolf looked at her and grinned, his worn hard wanderer?s face handsome for an instant.?Another reason I love you: you?re smart.?

Mary sighed with a touch of theater to it.?I?ll just have to settle for marrying you strictly for your looks, I?m afraid, bar melindo,? she said, and they both laughed.

They turned a corner as the road bent elbow-fashion around a clump of woods and could see the…

Not quite a town, Rudi thought, looking at the cluster of buildings half a mile away. Not quite a castle. Not quite a farmstead. Something of all three. ?Ed?s been busy,? Ingolf said, after a long moment, standing in the stirrups and shading his eyes with a hand.?About a quarter of that?s new. And a lot more of the old ruins were still standing when I left. It?s… tidier.?

Readstown proper was about half the size of most Mackenzie duns, perhaps six-score souls in all, including the dozens of children who came tumbling out, wild with excitement over the newcomers. They kept their noise at a distance, though, and the dogs were notably disciplined; there were only a few growls and barks when they?d been called to heel, despite Garbh?s bristling stiff-legged presence. All that was a welcome change from some places they?d stopped on their trek.

There was no curtain wall or palisade around the settlement, not as such, but all the dwellings and workshops at its core had stout fieldstone reinforcement for their first stories, steel shutters with firing slits ready to swing over all the windows, and thick-built covered walkways with loop-holes in their walls linking them together into a series of gated courtyards that would be a hard nut to crack.

For anyone without, say, two hundred men and a siege train, Rudi thought. Give me that many, with mantlets and three or four well-served twenty-four-pounders from Corvallis Ordnance Corporation or the Portland Armory, and I could have it in an afternoon. But they haven?t seen war on that scale here. Yet.

The barns and pens were at some distance, leaving a clear field of fire all around and no shelter for attackers. It was a bit hard to tell what was left over from the old world and what was post-Change; certainly everything had been heavily modified. And more torn down for materials or to get it out of the way, leaving only overgrown foundations and roadways amid small turnout pastures, gardens that included flowers as well as vegetables where lawns had been, and clumps of trees where houses had stood.

At the blank-walled outer face of the largest house of the complex was something he was sure was new, once he realized it wasn?t a silo. It had that shape, save at the top where crenellations barred teeth at heaven; a squat four-story tower of stone and concrete and girder, with the snout of a catapult showing on a round turntable at one upper edge. A pole bore a plain brown flag marked with a bright orange wedge.

The tower?s a good bit younger than Ingolf, or even me, Rudi thought, and murmured a question. ?Yah, Dad built it,? Ingolf said.?Used a silo as the shell and built up around it. Finished it the year he died, the year I left. The catapult?s dual purpose, you can switch out the throwing trough fast; a thousand yards with bolts, five or six hundred with twelve-pound roundshot or incendiaries. This little four-eyed weedy guy from Richland Center built it. Out of old truck parts mostly, the Bossman sent him?round to get all the Sheriffs? places up to scratch. All the ones who?d pay. I watched him do it, watched pretty close.? ?Hmmm,? Rudi said.?Perhaps I was a little hasty in deciding how easily I?d take the place.?

Ingolf nodded without taking umbrage; it was the natural thing for someone in their line of work to think about, seeing a defended steading for the first time. ?That gives me an idea,? Rudi mused.?Do you think you could put one together??

Ingolf blinked at him.?If I had the parts, and a smith and a machinist, yah. Why?? ?A thought. Later, later.?

Not a real fortress overall, he thought silently. But ample for the need.

There was an earth dam and pond to the east where a stream ran down towards the Kickapoo. Two beam-and-plank mills on fieldstone foundations stood there, with big overshot wheels turning merrily. One building gave off the low throbbing notes of millstones grinding flour, and the other a long rrrrrrrrrrrr as a ripsaw went through hard wood; the white water stopped while he glanced that way and the sound died, as someone within closed off the flue gates for the day. Two small churches reared white steeples halfway between there and the hamlet, one Catholic and one Lutheran. A two-story brick building that was probably a schoolhouse for the district stood near them, with an archery range and baseball diamond and football field beside it. Other structures in the distance held the tannery and soap-boiling sheds and similar necessary but smelly trades.

Willing hands bore their animals away to be fed and watered-he had the usual bit of bother convincing Epona that these were friends-and a crowd ushered them through the courtyards. They passed storehouses and weaving sheds, a smithy with its pile of scrap and baskets of charcoal, a combined carpenter?s shop and cooperage in a fragrance of sawdust and sap and varnish and glue, a yeasty-smelling brewery and distillery and cider press, the laundry and the clinic, and all the other dependencies of a great man?s household. He could feel Edain turning like a hound at a scent as they went by a well-equipped bowyer?s workstead, with rows of recurves hanging to dry inside and billets of ashwood ready to be split and smoothed for arrow shafts.

It all seemed well laid out and solidly built, and…

Clean, he thought, sniffing. They?re careful of filth here.

The judgment he made was by a standard no older than he was himself, and a rural one which thought a whiff of horse manure and barn straw perfectly normal, as long as it wasn?t allowed too near the supply of drinking water. The verandah of the main house was close enough to the bakery and kitchens for the smell to make his nose twitch with something as familiar as stables and far more welcome; roasting meat and fresh warm loaves, pies baking and dishes more complex making an intriguing medley.

Mathilda gave a little sigh of pleasure at the aroma. ?I don?t know whether real food is a relief from trail rations, or just makes it harder to go back,? she said.?I can hardly remember what it was like when campfire cuisine was the exception.? ?I?m a good camp cook!? Rudi said, smiling at her.?And Father Ignatius is better.? ?The operative word is camp,? Odard observed dryly.?As in, scorched, raw, stale, monotonous, or all of the above.? ?You?re a lousy camp cook yourself, Odard,? Mathilda observed. ?I never wanted to learn,? he replied.?Why should I? I?m a baron , for God?s sake. It?s not my job.? ?You?re a baron with no servants, just now, or haven?t you noticed in all the time we?ve been on the trail?? Mathilda answered, taking the sting out of it with a smile.?And I?m a Princess without a retinue. Except for you, of course.? ?There?s nothing better than fresh trout done over a campfire on green sticks,? Edain observed, smacking his lips.?Or salmon baked in clay in the embers, with a few?taters beside them. Good enough for a Beltane feast, that is.? ?Trout. Right. And how often have we had that?? Odard said dryly. Edain looked up, counting on his fingers with a thumb.?Four… no, I lie, five times.? ?In the whole trip. And the twins could burn water; their idea of cooking is frying hardtack in the bacon grease, or grilling venison,? Odard said.?Virginia is no better when it?s her turn-stew, flatbread, fried steak, flatbread, stew, fried steak, flatbread. You say you?re tired of steak and stew and flatbread and she looks at you as if she was saying: you?re tired of food? ?Hey, I can fry chicken too!? Virginia said, glaring at him.?And I can make flapjacks and do beans, or eggs if we could get?em. Biscuits, if I had an oven. Fred thinks puttin? salt on the roast is fancy cooking; I?m lookin? after the kitchen when we?re hitched.? ?We could leave it all to the Southsider women now,? Ritva pointed out sweetly.?They?d be glad to burn the water for us.?

Everyone shuddered; Rudi wasn?t a fastidious man, but he?d led the effort to get them to stop spitting in the stewpot for luck before calling everyone to eat. ?Mathilda?s not bad,? he observed.?She set herself to learn, and she did. Dab hand with a pot roast, in fact.?

Mathilda nodded and pointed out:?You?d be better at it if you set your mind to enjoy it, Odard. Then you could do it the way you like. Father Ignatius is a knight-brother of the Order of the Shield, and a scholar, and he doesn?t think it?s beneath his station.?

Ignatius smiled and shrugged.?Christ Himself washed the disciples? feet,? he said.?He poured them wine and broke bread, too. Should I be more proud than God??

Odard nodded reluctantly.?Well, when you put it that way, Father

… though I still prefer a real dinner,? he said.?With someone else putting it in front of me.? ?Then treasure these memories we?re about to acquire, to bring out the next time we?re huddling against a blizzard and gnawing on hardtack and jerky and glad to get it,? Rudi said.

Odard made a face, then turned to the house and swept off his hat as he murmured through a broad smile: ?That?s our lady hostess, I should think. Not quite the way that Mother would put in an appearance back at Castle Gervais, but-?

A woman in her forties bustled out of the house, a full-figured blond with a square handsome middle-aged face and her hair piled on top of her head and escaping in wisps. She wore a belted knee-length dress of good green linen with an embroidered hem-about half the women here favored skirts, the other half the same shapeless linsey-woolsey trousers as the men. There were beaded moccasinlike shoes on her feet, and she wore a long apron that had seen recent use close to a stove or chopping-board or both, and there was a smut of flour across her nose. Other women followed her, and a few boys, all carrying trays and tankards. ?Ed!? she said accusingly.?You told me sunset! Uff da! Nothing?s ready yet! Und dere?s children-you didn?t say there would be children, I?ll have to get-? ?Wanda,? he said-and suddenly the masterful tones of the Richlander border-lord were apologetic.?They pushed hard from Soldier?s Grove, is all. Nobody told me about the kids, either. The scouts just counted the fighters.? ?Ingolf!? she half shouted, and threw herself down the stairs and into the home-come wanderer?s arms.?Mary Mother, you worthless bastard! Not even a letter in the last five years! The earth might have swallowed you and then we heard rumors you were dead!?

Ingolf roared and swept her up in a tight embrace, swinging her around effortlessly and leaving her breathless, but not speechless, when he set her down again and said: ?Mary, my sister-in-law Wanda-Wanda, Mary Havel, my intended.?

That brought a happy shriek and more embraces. The travelers gave their greetings, and their names and nations; Wanda Vogeler?s eyes went a little wide as Odard and Mathilda made their elaborate courtly bows. Wider still as Rudi and Edain put the backs of their clenched fists to their foreheads, stepped back with one foot and bowed in salute to one who was an incarnation of the Mother-whether she knew it or not. ?Merry met to the Mistress of this Hearth and all beneath her roof,? the two clansmen said; Jake of the Southsiders made a clumsy copy of the gesture.?By whatever name you know Them, may the blessings of the Mother-of-all and Her Lord be on rick, cot and tree.?

She didn?t seem to know what to make of Mary and Ritva?s hand-to-heart gesture and murmur of Mae Govannen. She pumped Fred?s hand energetically. ?My stars! You do take me back, Mr. Thurston!? she said.?I haven?t seen a black person since I was a girl in Madison before the Change! And this lady is your intended? Goodness, are those chaps? Like Woody in Toy Story, oh, Lord, how I loved that movie as a little child! And you?d be the Mr. Mackenzie we heard tell of,? she said to Rudi.?And those are your, um, clan?? she said.

Rudi cleared his throat, a little breathless at the rush of words. The Southsiders had learned a great deal beyond and besides how to wear a kilt and plaid, but they were still not the group he?d have chosen to uphold the Clan?s reputation-not yet. Not in a display of seemly manners at a feast, at least. For hunting or fighting a skirmish in the woods, he?d be glad to claim them for anyone to see. ?Ah… not exactly,? he said.?Not just the now; we met upon the way. But they will be, if you take my meaning, and they?re my people now, their welfare my responsibility.? ?Well, they can all use a beer and a snack, I?m sure. Go on, eat! Und the beer?s our own brewing, Reinheitsgebot- style like my grandfather made it.?

Rudi grinned.?That we all could use a bite and a brew is no more than the merest truth, and it?s a haven of warmth and welcome this is, after so long on the cold hard trail.?

He winked and went on:?And yourself the ministering Goddess.?

Wanda smiled back at him; he heard Mathilda snort slightly beside him, and read her thought: he was charming the ladies again.

Well, there?s nothing wrong with charm, is there, acushla? he thought, a little defensively. Even our host looks pleased; I suspect he leaves the being a human being side of his existence to his wife. .. well, he could do worse. From the look and sound of her she?s good at it.

The platters were going around. He didn?t know if the guest cup and bite were a formal rite here as they would be among his people, but he?d found for thousands of miles of walking and riding eastward that sharing food and drink made you a guest indeed where there was any goodwill at all. The food was some strong pungent soft cheese on wedges of dark dense rye bread, its crust dotted with little nutty seeds and the whole warm from the oven and chewy and richly sour-sweet; there were pastries too, their hot flaky crusts buttery, full of grilled venison and onions and potatoes and a faint tang of herbs.

What Aunt Diana -who?d run Dun Juniper?s kitchens since the Change, and a restaurant before that- would call a Cornish pasty, or nearly, he thought happily, as the juices flooded his mouth.

The beer was in a mascar, a tall mug lathe-turned from hard maple wood, with foam dribbling over the edges, and?Oh, my,? Edain said reverently, as he gasped and wiped the back of his other hand across his mouth.?By Goibniu and Braciaca both, and that?s beer, by the blessin?! My thanks again, hearth-mistress!?

Rudi inhaled the bouquet respectfully himself, and then took a deep draught of the mahogany-colored liquid beneath the white foam. Flavors like chocolate and coffee slid across his tongue, acrid and nearly sweet at the same time, with a cool musty bite. ?My friend Timmy Martins Mackenzie, our brewmaster at Dun Juniper, could do no better and on one or two occasions has done worse,? he said, and bowed again.?And more I could not say.? ?Come in, then, come in-let?s get the children something, and you?ll all want good hot baths and soap, and-?

He gratefully surrendered to her bustling efficiency as she organized her household to bear everyone away. They?d be here some time, at least a month, and that was starting to look like a welcome respite.

Perhaps even long enough for letters to get all the way home; they might arrive before Yule.

Thanks to Matti?s little conspiracy, there are things that certain people need to know. And others must be told as well, whether I want to or not. How her mother will take it…

Rudi shuddered.

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