The Protectors war

That was one more reason you couldn't live alone on your land; there had to be enough to trade off chores like guard duty that needed doing the clock round.

The laneway between the cottages within was graveled too; chickens pecked about in it until a couple of children shooed them off towards their coop for the night, and ducks and geese came up from the pond for their evening feed-they had a good strong pere

He passed various neighbors with a smile and a nod; Katherine Doors came by from the big pre-Change barn where all the households kept their milch cows along with the communal straining tub, and barrel churn and cream separator; two big plastic buckets of milk rode at either end of a yoke over her shoulders. Several interested cats followed her, noses and tails up as they traced the swaying of the pails and hoped for a spill.

"This is working a treat, Sam, just like you said it would," she called, tapping the fingers of her steadying hand on the smooth garry-oak stave he'd carved for her. "Saves a lot of work."

"You're welcome, Kate," he said.

Everything's relative, he thought silently. Those buckets must weigh eighty pounds, together. But it was saving a good many trips back and forth. At least Dun Fairfax had piped water to everyone's kitchen.

He circled the old two-car garage of the Fairfax house, now a bowyer's workshop and spi

"Can't have that," Aylward said, and gave the dogs a bucket of water each and a brush with an old burlap sack; they laid back ears but submitted to the rough cleaning.

"Dad? What about me?"

"Talk to your mother about that."

Man and girl walked down the brick pathway to the kitchen door, savoring the good cooking odors that came out the opened window, and stamping to get the mud off their soles. The leather went splat on the wet brick and Tamar suddenly started kangaroo-hopping down the path, giggling as she landed, her bow held over her head in both hands, and her brother joined her.

"Boots! Boots, all of you!" his wife Melissa cried, sticking her head out a window; she was a comfortable-looking woman in her late thirties, with a halo of yellow-brown curls just touched with the first gray strands. "I cleaned the floors for Ostara while you were gone and I'm not doing it again!"

Aylward snorted. Wipe yer web feet, ni

"And watch out for the hob's milk!"

His mother had put out a bowl too, come to think of it-ostensibly for the barn cats, though, rather than the house hob, but the moggies around here wouldn't mind who got the credit for emptying it.

" Edam! That kilt was clean this morning! You were supposed to be with your father, not rolling with the pigs! Get to the bathroom and clean up this instant. And don't you 'aw, Mom' me, you little hooligan!"

Melissa's own mother was speaking in the background; Aylward groaned a little inwardly at that. Eleanor was:

Not quite stark raving bonkers, but not quite normal, either, since the Change.

"Why potatoes with the meat again, dear?" she asked Aylward's wife. "Wouldn't some nice steamed rice be pleasant for a change?"

Melissa growled, and he heard something heavy slammed down on a counter.

"Mother! Yes, I'd like to use rice. And coffee and chocolate. But we don't have any! We don't grow any. We don't know anyone who grows any!"

Eleanor's voice went on as if she hadn't spoken: "And all this butter with the vegetables, and cooking with all this cream, it's a little heavy, isn't it? You've got to watch your figure, with the baby coming. It's so difficult to lose weight again afterward."

Tamar glanced at him and rolled her eyes as he waited for a second with his hand on the latch, mouthing silently: Grandma's nutsoid today and it's making Mom nutsoid.

Melissa's voice rose and something slammed on a counter, even harder this time. "I got up at five o'clock this morning to milk the cows, including Kathy's cows because she carried the milk for me. Then I helped make breakfast for eleven people. Then I spent the morning working in a five-acre garden. And collecting eggs and feeding our chickens. Then because I'm pregnant, I got to sit down all afternoon in the garage, weaving so we'd have clothes next winter, and in the intervals I can look after Richie and help get di

He heard the sound of feet rushing off, and Melissa's half-guilty sigh. Tamar and Aylward obediently used the scrapers and brush kept beside the door, then went in and let the spring bang it closed, blinking a little at the bright lamplight and buffing their soles one last time on the interior rug mat. His wife waved from the direction of the stove where she was stirring the soup, and he turned to put his spear in brackets above head-height. His bows hung there too, and the belt with his sword and dirk and buckler, and the rest of the household's weapons-you had to be careful with your killing tools when there were toddlers about.

"Sorry," Melissa said to him over her shoulder from the huge cast-iron woodstove with its attached bread oven and water heater.

It was the envy of Dun Fairfax. Compared to an electric range, it was primitive. Compared to cooking over an open hearth:

"Not your fault she's barmy, luv. She forget the Change 'appened again?" Aylward said.

"She remembers, when she wants to," Melissa said, then made herself relax, with a visible effort. "Sorry if I was sniveling about things. But if I can adjust to this, why can't she? And when she gets like this, it makes me remember, and I don't want to."

"It's all what you're used to. Easier for me, considering the way I was raised."

Melissa laughed. "I should count my blessings, then. Di

He'd knocked down some partitions to make the kitchen larger; it had plenty of room for a table that seated twelve, with benches on either side, a seat at each end for him and his wife and a lantern slung from the roof above. Right now a braided equal-armed straw cross hung not far from it, for the Ostara blessing-the images of the Lord and

Lady over the hearth were year-round. A high chair stood beside one of the seats; Richard Aylward came stumping across the floor, chubby arms outstretched.

"Daaaada!" he caroled. His father swept him up; he wiggled "delightedly, then stretched his arms out to his half sister. "Tama-tamaaar!" Then to the dogs, who stood looking up at him, giving tongue-lolling grins full of the mild benevolence of canines faced with puppies or infants, wagging their tails: "Gri-gri-gri!" which might do for either of their names.

"Well, I can see who you prefer, Dickie," Aywlard said, setting the boy down. "Romp away, then." The two-year-old said his favorite word- No! -and then fell to with a will.