The Sword of the Lady (36 page)

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:

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.