Both the Thurston sisters looked interested. “Say something in Sindarin!” Shawonda exclaimed.
“Ummm . . .”
The twins looked at each other, cleared their throats, and sang a few verses instead—they had pleasant sopranos, as well trained as you’d expect in a Dúnedain, and they were very good at two-part harmony. Mackenzies liked to sing, but Astrid’s Rangers couldn’t say, “where’s the outhouse?” without a chorus sometimes.
It was Rudi’s turn to nearly choke on his wine, and he saw Mathilda flush with annoyance—she had a catlike obsession with propriety, sometimes. It sounded pretty—Elvish always did—but rendered into what Dúnedain called the common tongue the song would have gone:
And into that dusty den of sin
Into that harlot’s hell
Came a lusty maid who was never afraid,
And her name was—
Aunt Astrid had pitched an absolute fit when they translated that one, a couple of years ago, and another when they started singing it in taverns as they passed through and rumors started spreading about what the lyrics actually meant.
Songs just didn’t get more luridly gross than “The Ballad of Eskimo Nell.”
“That’s beautiful,” Shawonda said, and sighed. “And are you on a quest?”
This one would be prime Ranger bait, back home, Rudi thought. She’d be off to the woods in a flash.
Aunt Astrid’s bunch attracted that sort of romantic the way cowpats did flies. To be fair, they did a lot of good work to earn their keep.
“Well, we’re not qualified to quest for rings or anything like that,” Ritva said solemnly. “We’re still young and just finished our ohtar training three years ago. You have to be twenty-one to be a Roquen, a knight. Mostly back home we find lost livestock or children, and track down man-eaters or bandits or fugitives, and guard caravans or explorers going into dangerous country.”
“It’s sort of like being a town watchman . . . a policeman, you say here.”
“But with more trees and lots and lots of venison.”
“And squirrel stew and wild greens.”
“We’d like to do a quest, of course.”
“We’re working our way up from minor things,” Mary continued.
“Like questing for Bilbo’s pen and inkstand,” her sister specified.
“Or Galadriel’s tea strainer.”
“Or Arwen’s hand lotion pump.”
“And right now, our klutzy big brother’s magic sword—he’s always losing things. Dumb-blond syndrome.”
“But you’re blond. Blonder. His hair is sort of red and blond but yours is just yellow.”
“Yeah, but we’re girls, which makes up for it.”
Shawonda laughed; then her mother pointed through an archway. “You two go help get the first course out.”
To Rudi and the others: “I’m sorry, but they’re very excited—I know they can be a bit of a trial at times.”
“Not at all,” Rudi said, as Mathilda and Odard mur mured much less sincere disclaimers. “They remind me of my sisters . . . my mother’s younger daughters, not the Terrible Two here.”
“They remind us of us,” Mary or Ritva said.
“Now you’re getting nasty,” Mathilda said dryly.
“They remind me of my sister,” Edain said, and then grinned, suddenly looking a lot less adult than his nineteen years. “But sure, and I won’t hold it against them.”
Rudi looked at the mantelpiece. There were a few framed pictures there. One showed a much younger General-President Thurston in the uniform of the old American army, standing with his arm around Cecile; she was holding a baby in the crook of one arm. The picture was in color, and it had an archaic sharpness to it.
His brows went up in surprise. “You and your hus band met before the Change, then, Mrs. Thurston . . . Cecile?”
“Just before—we were married in the spring of 1997,” she said. “Martin arrived in a hurry . . . and he’s been that way ever since!”
“But then . . . I thought General Thurston was sent out of Seattle? You went with him?”
She shook her head and smiled, fond and proud. “No. He came back for me and Martin.”
The smile died. “We were hiding in the cellar of the colonel’s house. That was after the mutiny, and things were . . . very bad. The MREs were all gone and I would have had to go out to look for food in a day or two. And there he and Sergeant Anderson were.”
Rudi glanced at his friends. They were looking as impressed as he was, even Edain, who was a crucial few years younger. They’d all heard the stories. The only people who got out of most big cities alive after the Change were the ones who ran, and ran fast, before things went totally bad; the only exception they knew was Portland, and there Mathilda’s father and his bul lyboys had burned large sections down and driven most of the survivors out to die.
Going back into the hell of Seattle for someone a full month after the Change must have required a trip all the way around Robin Hood’s barn, and the Horned Lord’s own luck. He mentally revised his one tough bastard estimation of General Thurston upwards a notch.
Then Cecile went on: “And here’s Larry now.”
The front door opened again; Rudi caught the draft of cooler air, and the crash and thump of the sentries. Thurston senior’s voice came, muffled as if he were talking over his shoulder.
“... and have the mobilization orders on my desk for signature by oh nine hundred tomorrow, Major. Staff plan seventeen-C.”
Thurston’s younger son turned at the words, quivering a little like an eager hunting dog; he was just the age to long for his first war. His father visibly forced the scowl off his face as he came in and greeted his guests. Cecile handed him a cocktail of the type Rudi had turned down in favor of wine; in his experience hard liquor just be fore a meal stunned your taste buds. The ruler of Boise looked as if he needed it, though.
He gave them all a nod, then turned to Father Ignatius. “Did you mention you were an engineer, padre?”
The priest signed assent. “We all study the basics, sir,” he said. “The knight brethren are actually more often in command or advisory positions, you see. We have to be able to lay out a fort or build a siege engine. Or plan a town or an irrigation system and pumps.”
“You might like to take a look at some of our stuff while you’re here, then.”
“I’d appreciate it, sir,” the priest said.
He was as calmly polite as always, but Rudi noticed a flare of interest in the dark eyes. Rudi wasn’t surprised that Thurston would know a man’s interests . . . and not surprised that he had no small talk, either.
“It’s a pity we didn’t get more of your missions out here,” the general went on. “We could have used them.”
Ignatius nodded. “But there are others who need it far more,” he said. Then a rare charming smile: “You’ve done too well to need us.”
They went into the dining room and the meal came out: potato and leek soup first, then a rack of lamb—nicely and slightly pink in the center—with a plum-honey garlic glaze, scalloped potatoes and steamed new vegetables. Those were welcome. The salad of early greens was much more so; Rudi forwent the dressing. Traveling usually meant living on a winterlike diet of bread and salted and smoked meats, with vegetables dried or pickled or in jars. It was good to taste seasonal delicacies like fresh tomatoes again. The bread was excellent too, less crumbly than that made from the Willamette’s soft wheat—Portland’s court ate something similar, from flour imported down the Columbia from the Palouse country.
At last the dessert—peach pie—was finished and the younger children sent off with a minimum of protest.
“Excellent dinner,” Odard said courteously, as they moved back to the living room for coffee and liqueurs. “My compliments to the cook.”
“Thank you,” Cecile Thurston said, showing a dimple as she smiled. “You’re looking at her.”
Mathilda looked a little less surprised; but then, she’d
spent part of many years at Dun Juniper, where Rudi’s mother always did her share of the kitchen chores.
“You’re in a bit of a fix,” Thurston said bluntly, when the drinks had been poured. “What the hell were your folks thinking, anyway?”
“A fix? That I knew before I left,” Rudi said wryly. “And if we told you exactly why we were heading east—well, it makes sense in our terms, but I doubt you’d be agreeing.”
Thurston raised an eyebrow.“Heading for Nantucket? Yeah, I’ve gotten some rumors about the place, and if there’s some hint about the Change I sure as hell would like to know. And there was our friend Ingolf’s not-very complete story to add spice. This isn’t the time, though, with the fighting getting worse.”
Rudi spread his hands. “Sir, when would it be this right time? There’s been war and rumor of war from here to the Atlantic since the Change, and I don’t expect it to much improve before I’m old and gray, so.”
“According to my intelligence people, it’s pretty damned bad east of here—the Prophet’s boys beat the Snake River Army—that’s one of New Deseret’s main field forces—east of Pocatello, and it’ll be under siege soon. Then they’ll head for Twin Falls . . . which is entirely too close to my border. There’s fighting down in what used to be Utah, too. It’s all coming apart and there are raiding parties everywhere: Corwinites, deserters from both sides, freelancers and mercenaries and gen eral road-people bandit scum. It’d be a poor payment for saving my life and my boys’ to send you into that.”
The companions exchanged sober glances. “That all went to hell in a handbasket woven lickety split,” Ingolf said. “New Deseret was holding up pretty well when I went through last year.”
Thurston held out a broad palm and turned it as if it were a seesaw on a pivot, at first slowly and then with a snap.
“They spread themselves too thin and let the Cutters get inside their decision curve. Walker—he’s the Prophet’s main commander—is a bastard but a smart one, and he managed to mousetrap a lot of their infantry down south. Sort of a replay of Manzikert . . . a battle about a thousand years ago. He was army before the Change. After that he kept them rocked back on their heels and their coordination broke down. When the balance tips, things go from slow to fast real fast.”
Ingolf gave a grunt and a nod, the sort you did when somebody said something you knew was true by experience. Rudi looked at him.
“Yeah, the general’s right. It’s like fighting one-on-one with someone who’s about as good as you are; you know how that is.”
Rudi made a gesture of acceptance. “Back and forth until someone makes a mistake . . .and they get hurt and then they can’t recover and then it’s all over but the last strike?”
“Yeah, that’s about it, on a bigger scale. If you don’t have a margin for error, error kills you.”
Everyone else in his group signaled agreement. None of them had fought in a real war except Ingolf, but they’d all been in skirmishes and fights on a more personal level.
“Will you help them now, Larry?” Cecile said, surpris ing Rudi a little; she’d been very quiet during most of the dinner, and he’d pegged her as the type who did her consulting in private. “I told you we should have intervened last year.”
“Yeah, I will,” Thurston said absently, looking up at the ceiling. “I’d have done it earlier, if they hadn’t been so damned stubborn.”
“Stubborn as you, Dad?” Frederick Thurston said.
“Just about. I should have softened my terms and they should have realized how deep the shit they were in was earlier. But if I hit the Prophet’s men now, they’ll still be weakened from taking out New Deseret and they won’t have had a chance to consolidate. If we get lucky, we might be able to break them and take Montana and Wyoming too. And this assassination thing will keep the politics simple, thank God. They screwed up and I’m going to . . . ah, take advantage of it.”
Then his eyes snapped back to the present. “But it’s going to be a pain in the ass for you people. I regret that—I owe you seriously—but there’s nothing I can do about it. I do suggest you stick around Boise for at least a little while, to see who jumps where. I’ll let you have the best intelligence I can on developments.”
The conversation went general after that; the Thur stons saw them to the door later. The big central enclo sure of the citadel was only half-darkened; there were crescents burning on the towers around it, and gaslights around the perimeter, and guards walking their rounds. Still, it had the sad slightly chilly horses-and-woodsmoke smell of nighttime in a fortress, and it was easy enough to halt everyone in a place where it was impossible to be overheard.
“Something smells,” Rudi said bluntly.
Nobody looked like they disagreed. “That was the most counterproductive assassination attempt I’ve ever seen or heard of,” Odard said thoughtfully.
“Guaranteed to produce just the wrong results if any thing went pear-shaped,” Edain agreed. “So unless these Cutter people are stupid—”
“They aren’t,” Ingolf said flatly.
“By no means,” Father Ignatius said. “Wicked, and I would say almost worshippers of evil in some senses, but extremely efficiently so for the most part.”
“Then there’s something crooked going on,” one of the twins said. “Someone’s angling for the Boromir Award.”
“By which you mean treachery, in the common tongue,” Mathilda said with heavy patience. “Is it really important to us? We’re just passing through.”
“We want to keep alive while we pass through, or we’ll be staying—six feet under,” Ritva said.
“There is that,” Rudi said. “They were trying to kill us, too. And the assassination . . . it would probably have worked if we weren’t there. But then what would they have gained, with Thurston and his sons dead? They aren’t his heirs anyway, are they?”
“No,” Father Ignatius said. “There’s a vice president, Colonel Moore, who is an old friend of the general’s and beyond suspicion. And a competent man.”
“We need to get a bit of a grip on what’s going on here,” Rudi said. “Since we’re guests . . . or at least it wouldn’t be the wisest thing to leave right now, as it were.”
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 cavalrywoman 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.”