The Sword of the Lady

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

FREE REPUBLIC OF RICHLAND SHERIFFRY OF READSTOWN

(FORMERLY SOUTHWESTERN WISCONSIN) OCTOBER 10, CHANGE YEAR 24/2022 AD

O dard was strumming at his lute and reciting-perhaps trying out a tune to fit the words; he was a part-time troubadour, after all. Mathilda paused outside the window to listen for a moment, with the crisp leaves crunching beneath her feet.

She shook her head and smiled and passed on. Odard tried so hard to be a worldly cynic, and then sometimes he spoiled months of labor with a single unguarded moment. It was then she remembered she was three or four years older than he. 'Though I'm really snooping,' she murmured to herself, and walked on.'But you know, Odard, you're much more likeable when you're not trying.'

People waved in friendly fashion as she strolled through the pasture behind the manor, and past the church and school and football field. It was the tag-end of as fine an autumn day as you could wish for, and there probably wouldn't be anymore like it-shirtsleeve weather in the afternoon, and still comfortable in the jerkin she had on, though she was carrying a cloak over her shoulder. The woods beckoned, and there were no reivers in this neighborhood; she had her sword, but that was automatic precaution.

More to the point, I'm not so damned sore anymore. Amazing what a couple of nights of really good rest will produce! Maybe Rudi's gone for a walk too-haven't seen him or the twins or Ingolf or the others since lunch. It's good to just plain rest for a couple of days, too.

The air was drowsy with autumn, musky with the scent of damp earth and the fallen leaves that rustled softly around her boots. Mathilda sighed, draping the blanket-thick cloak around her shoulders; it had been sultry-warm earlier, but now it was getting on towards full dark, chill enough to raise goose bumps along her strong bare arms. She felt a little tired, but too restless simply to seek supper and bed and sleep, even though she'd walked farther than she intended.

Itchy inside my skin today for some reason, she thought. Homesick, lonely… this is a good place, but it's not my place. I wish I hadn't quarreled with Rudi, if you can call it a quarrel.

She winced a little. She'd asked if he was sleeping with Samantha, and gotten a blunt no and a glare.

It was nothing, anyway, just me being paranoid, but…

Indian Summer here in the Kickapoo Valley had a disheveled beauty not quite like anything back home, full of a sadness that was like a recollection of childhood-not the thing itself, not remembering her father swinging her six-year-old self up on his broad shoulders, but somehow the world itself embodying the feeling the memory brought. The security she'd felt at his effortless strength, the bitterness not just of loss, but loss of that child's innocent trust.

The leaves were still a mantle of old birch gold and maple crimson, lit at their tops with the last light, but mixed with pines here where the valley floor rose in rolling hills, their needles a dark dense green turning black with the coming of night. Glancing behind, she could see the lights of the Sheriff's manor glinting like flickering stars across rail-fenced fields, and then the pale twisting ribbon of the river. Both dropped out of sight as she followed the trail, hoping it would loop around rather than make her retrace her steps. Now and then she stopped, once when a pair of early-rising raccoons stared at her with an insolence that made her chuckle before they waddled along about their nocturnal day.

Then she heard something, not the normal creak and click and buzz of the woods, but faint and far. The cloak fell free as she went to one knee behind a thicket of blackberry canes with her hand on the hilt of her longsword. She ghosted forward, silent now with long-trained caution and skill. Through a narrow cleft where rock broke through pine duff, then a hollow dell where faded straw-colored grass stood shaggy amid tall white oaks and hickories and white ash and younger rowans that looked planted. A broad open space held a fireset, a heap of timber laid crisscross twice a tall man's height amid a circle of earth that had been beaten bare by feet. An altar stood there, rough-hewn from a great boulder, with instruments laid upon it, chalice and blade and book, salt and water.

Her eyes went wide in alarm. And the sound was stronger, sending a prickle down her spine as she sank again behind a clump of hornbeam. She knew that music. The eerie chill of panpipes; a harp playing on the strings of the listener's mind like mist drifting across forested hills in the purple dusk of an autumn gloaming; drums throbbing until it seemed like the pulse of your own blood in temples and throat and between the thighs.

How could she not recognize it, when she had spent so much of every year in her youth among the clansfolk who followed the Old Religion'

The Hymn to Herne the Wild Hunter, she thought. It's time for it-the pagans think he rules the cold season, and grants luck in the hunt.

But when she was staying at Dun Juniper she'd been able to keep to her own room and pray before her prie-dieu when she heard that sound trickle through the night-haunted woods. Now she couldn't, nor even leave without the risk of someone spotting the movement; and these wouldn't be the friends of her childhood, ready to make allowances. Mathilda turned her eyes away. Then, inch by inch, they crept back. She watched half against her will, half with a tightness in her throat that made breath come hard.

The bonfire waited, in the clearing beyond the tattered oaks, beneath the moon and great soft stars. The night was turning crisp, but the two figures that came dancing with torches that made meteor strokes through the darkness were as comfortable in their bare skins as if woodland animals themselves. She recognized Mary and Ritva with a shock of surprise that she knew was foolish-this was their faith, and what matter if they'd found unexpected company for it'

The twins' high clear voices rang: 'Blazing blood on a moonlit night

Firelight glinting, burning bright

We dance and chant and sing delight

Flames, flames, let the Light inspire Nothing tames our Sabbat fire!'

One wore only a garland of flowers white and scarlet about her long wheat-blond hair. The other had a delicately beautiful doe-mask over her face, painted leather and twin slender golden spikes over her brows; around her waist and loins were a belt and strap that held a spray of silver bells on either side that dangled against the smooth hard curve of her hips, and a flaunting white deer's tail behind.

They spiraled inward and then threw the torches high with a last shout, pinwheeling against the sky in a spray of yellow and red sparks.

The dry stacked wood of the fireset was woven with even more flammable straw and pine needles full of resin; it caught with a roar, a tall pillar of hot gold and molten copper that erupted skyward in a shower of flaming glory. Even at this distance the dry clean scent of it cut through the dew-heavy evening smell of the woods, and the light formed a circle that made darkness more absolute beyond; Mathilda blinked against the dazzle.

Out of those cave-dense shadows came the coven and its guests, in a file of men and another of women, barefaced or masked as wolf and badger and bear, raven and coyote and cougar and more. A woman led them, fair-haired, heavy of breast and hip, comely with a full woman's beauty; a headband carrying the Triple Moon was around her brows, and a belt around her waist with the Pentagram hanging from a chain to lie below her navel. She recognized the Vogelers' housekeeper, and wondered distantly if they knew what else she was.

The coven sang as they came, in voices that held merriment and awe and a husky wildness:

All of them put their clenched fists to their brows for an instant to mark where their God's horns sprouted, and shouted: 'Horned One!

Blessed are we children of the Horned One!'

The High Priestess stopped before the altar, made reverence and turned. Arms raised, feet spread in the Stance of Power, she let her palms face the ground, then rise to cup the moonlight. Her voice cried in a high chant that called: 'Song and rite, Herne-ours but Thine, Herne!

Bid us dance; let flesh and bone

Wheel around the sacred Stone Hieee! Hieee! Herne! Herne! Herne!'

The witches lining the edge of the firelight swayed together, faces in-humanly rapt or blankly hidden by the masks; their voices answered as the swaying turned to a spiraling dance, stately and slow at first but growing faster as she watched to match the beat of the cry: 'Heerrrnnne! Heerrrrrnnne!'

The call went on, and on; she realized that the voices were taking it up in relays. The sustained rise and fall of the sound had a savagery to it, an elemental need, and somehow it spread — until it began to ring from the stones beneath her and the sky above and the hills to either side, until her own bones and organs buzzed with it. Her skin tightened until she felt she must burst, as if her very life depended on ripping her clothes away and running to join the celebrants; unconsciously her fingers dug into the thin earth and her body ground against it.

Silence, sudden, jarring, leaving her as breathless-winded as a punch in the gut. The High Priestess spread her arms in welcome, and the coven-folk bent the knee, inclining heads bare but for flowers or grotesquely masked. Then a great voice sang the next verse of the hymn from the circling woods-not far from her. A voice she recognized, but altered as if speaking from some deep well of time, growing as it approached: 'Chant the prayers and work your rite

Burn scented sacred candles day and night

You may leap till dawn to the pounding drums

But you best be ready-'

For a moment the song turned to a huge shout from every one of the worshippers, drowning even the crackle of the need-fire: '-when the Horned God comes!'

It was Rudi who came, naked save for the great stag mask and spreading antlers, the firelight shining upon the long-limbed grace of his body; in his hand was a tall spear tipped by a flame-shaped bronze head. Mathilda shuddered and bit her lip until the pain cut through the haze that seemed to cloud her eyes and fill her brain. Bending, leaping, strutting in rampant maleness, the figure of Herne turned amid the laughter and the dance, feinting with the spear. Its blade touched some of the revelers in the whirling snakelike chains, metal delicate as a kiss. 'You can wake to the sound of the hunting horn

Dance skyclad in the gathering storm

In Solstice time blood runs to the rod!

It's just the coming-'

Rudi-no, Artos — flung his arms high, the blade of the spear glinting like ruddy flame, and as if the gesture had called it forth the worshippers roared: '-of the Horned God!'

He sprang onto the altar. 'He will call you out, make you sweat

Give you a blessing that you'll never forget

So revel in the chase and let your hot blood run'For blessed are we children of the Horned One!

Blessed are we children of the Horned One!'

The Coven answered, swaying forward together, stretching out their hands to the tall shape of the Wild Huntsman: 'We call you forth as we make our way

Waking your power every day

Guide us true in the Hunt this night

And maybe even later-in the Great Rite!'

The masked figure threw back his head and bellowed laughter. 'You can wake to the sound of the hunting horn

Dance skyclad in the gathering storm

So revel in the chase and let your heartbeat run

But you best be ready, pretty-doe one

You best be ready when the Horned God comes!'

The spear lanced out again, as if it were pointing at her. It was impossible, but she knew it was true even if Rudi had no idea she was there; and from the point fire seemed to crinkle every tiny hair on her skin. 'He will call you out, make you sweat

Give you a blessing that you'll never forget

So revel in the chase and let your heartbeat run 'For blessed are we children of the Horned One!

Blessed are we children of the Horned One!'

Even then she didn't quite lose control of herself; she eeled backward with a lifetime's skill before she ran blindly, half sobbing. And when folk about the work of the Sheriff's steading stared at her she made herself walk into the lamplight, smile and nod.

Odard looked up in alarm as she came into the chamber the travelers had been given as their common room. His questions died as she sat. 'Just… play, would you, Odard' Remind me of home.' 'As your Highness commands.'

He bowed deeply and sat, taking up the lute. The clear notes rang in the night, drowning all the sounds of the wildwood where it rested like a great feral beast, beyond the walls and laws and rules of men. 'I wish we were home,' she said at last.

He kept his fingers moving on the lute, and his face averted. 'The problem is, your Highness… I think things may be going badly at home, too.'