The Protectors war

"Well, yeah," Mathilda Arminger said, deliberately unimpressed. "I saw her when she attacked my train, you know."

There was the trace of a sulk still in her voice; Rudi ignored it; it was only natural to miss her family, when she couldn't go home. Then she went on: "Who's the guy in the fu

"That's the real English baron," Rudi said proudly. "He and my mom rescued Lord Bear."'

"Oh, him," Mathilda said, sticking her hands in her pockets; she was wearing a Clan-style kilt, though in a plain gray guest-weave rather than the Mackenzie tartan, and a baggy sweater.

"Don't be a grouch," Rudi said. "Want to go and see if we can get something in the kitchens? I'm starving and it's a while until di

"OK," Mathilda said. "But why can't you just tell them to give you something?"

"Did your mom and dad let you eat anything you want between meals?" Rudi said; he knew that was wrong, but it sounded like fun too.

"Well: no. I mean, my mom didn't."

Her face crumpled for an instant, then firmed; she shrugged off the sympathetic arm he put around her shoulder.

"She didn't like me hanging around low places and peons, you know."

"Lady bless, hanging around the kitchens is fun," Rudi said. "It's a lot better than arithmetic lessons, that's for sure."

"Yeah, but they make you do stuff. Chores; And that's not what lords and ladies are supposed to do."

"My mom's a Lady," Rudi pointed out reasonably. "And she does chores. That's fun sometimes too. Anyway, it's got to be done."

Mathilda considered this and nodded, looking a little uneasy. "I suppose so. I don't think my mom would like it, though."

"Look-" He glanced around. "Want to know a secret?"

"Yeah!"

"My mom got a letter from your dad." He smiled as her face glowed. "He's going to send someone to talk to my mom about you at the Sutterdown Horse Fair, after Lugh-nassadh. And you can write a letter back. So why don't we go hit the kitchens, like I said?"

After a moment, Mathilda replied, "Maybe they'll have some of those sweet buns with the nuts?"

"And there's some new kittens there," he said.

"I miss my cat Saladin," she said. "But kittens are always fun."

They trotted off through the dispersing crowd. As they went, Mathilda caught sight of the stars-and-tree sigil on Astrid Larsson's tunic.

"Oh, that stuff again," she said. "Doesn't she ever get tired of it? She's a grown-up."

"Don't you like the story?" Rudi asked. "I liked The Hobbit best, but Astrid says that's 'cause I'm still a kid."

"I think I'll still think it's way too long and full of boring stuff when I'm old, even if Dad got the idea for the flag out of it," Mathilda said. She giggled and dropped her voice to a whisper: "Have you heard about the other Ring story?"

"Other story?"

"The one where the hero's called Dildo Bugger?"

Rudi's face twisted in an expression halfway between fascination and disgust. "You've got to be kidding, Matti."

"No, really-"

Dun Fairfax, Willamette Valley, Oregon

July 22nd, 2007 AD-Change Year Nine

"It took me two Harvests to really get the trick of this, even though I already knew how to drive a team," Juniper called over her shoulder; then as she came to the end of the row: "Whoa! Dobbin! Maggie!"

There were two horses pulling the reaper, big platter-hoofed draft beasts with dark brown hides, sweating after a long day working in the hot July sun. They stopped as she called and leaned back against the reins; then she rose and rubbed at her backside for a moment; the metal bicycle-seat of the machine was hard, and muscling the big horses around was real work. Her hands and forearms were sore with day after day of doing it from can to can't, and the long sinews of her legs ached as well.

Eilir waved from the seat of the other reaper, pausing a second. I'll take the last of it! she signed, and Juniper bowed from the waist and waved a hand.

"Be my guest, daughter mine! Too much like hard work for us crones!"

They'd been working their way in from the edges of the field since the dew lifted with no more rest than the horse teams required, and only one ten-foot-wide band of standing grain remained, stretching from east to west along the contour of the hillside. It still wasn't nearly as hard as cutting wheat with twenty pounds of cradle-scythe the way they had their first two harvests, though; she didn't have the height or heft to use one of those. And a reaper could harvest many times the amount a cradler did in a single day, which was a blessing. Summer rainstorms were van-ishingly rare in the Willamette's reliable climate, but you still had to get the wheat and barley and oats in as fast as you could. Too much delay and the grain would start to shatter, drop out of the head and be lost on the ground.

"It took you a while to learn the trick because of the slope?" Nigel Loring asked, straightening as he bound the last sheaf of a row and rubbing at the small of his back for a moment.

"Yes," she said. "You have to be careful on a thirty-degree slant like this, or you keep heading down and the horses get into the wheat-and you only get to practice two weeks in the year. It's a lot easier out on the flat, say over at Dun Carson west of here. More difficult on a hillside for the team, too, but Dobbin and Maggie are good-hearted and willing for all they're young."

She glanced over at him as he stacked a brace of sheaves, heaving one in each hand-and they weighed sixty pounds each. Loring handled the task with an easy economy of motion, bare to the waist and ta

The hillside field they were cutting was one of Sam Aylward's, the last of the Dun Fairfax crop. Eilir's reaper wheeled away as her mother reined in and started to cut the last strip down the center, the long boards of the creel whirling and bending the yellow-gold grain back as the teeth of the cutter-bar snipped it, amid a smell of dust and meal and green juices. Poppies fell as well, like bloodred drops among the gold of the wheat-they were traditional English corn poppies, which seemed to have mysteriously naturalized themselves around here, starting with the Dun Fairfax fields. Juniper suspected Sam's clandestine homesick hand with a few packets of seed salvaged from a garden-supply store rather than natural spread from garden plots, but either way they were pretty.

Birds and insects and small beasts fled the advancing machine as the straw fell onto the moving canvas belt behind the cutting teeth, and an endless belt of wooden tines raked it into a smooth windrow that fell onto the ground behind. Juniper groaned slightly as she stretched again, then jumped down and bent and put her palms against the ground; the wheat stubble was prickly beneath her hands, but shot through with soft young shoots of the clover sown among it. When the small of her back felt relaxed she straightened and twisted until something went click! in her spine, and then bent backward with her hands linked over her head.

And were you watching, good Sir Nigel? she thought with amusement as she opened her eyes. Hard to tell, with that polite poker face of yours. And of course, would I be pleased or a

The reaper left a long row of cut wheat in a snakelike trail over the ground for the workers who bound the grain, a score or better for each machine. Bend and grab a handful, bend and grab a handful, and keep on until you had a bundle as thick as your arms could span. Then take a swatch in each hand, twist it around to hold it, tuck it in, and you had a bound sheaf; eight leaning together in a pyramid made a stook, and they could wait overnight with their heads up out of the dew, ready to be pitched onto a wagon and carted back to Dun Fairfax for threshing. The air was warm and still as they bent to the rhythmic effort, the tips of the trees motionless; it was a relief to have a good excuse simply to watch. She could feel the westering sun beating on her like warm pillows, as the thin homespun linsey-woolsey shirt clung to her body.