The Protectors war

"I'm: not quite satisfied, but not unhappy either," Aylward said. "Or rather, we'd have nothing to be un'appy about if every dun in our territory were up to this standard. They're still not real soldiers:

"

"But they aren't any kind of soldiers at all," Juniper said gently. "They're farmers, and blacksmiths and carpenters and schoolteachers and weavers, who fight when they have to."

The Englishman nodded. "I grant you that, Lady Juniper. And for that, they're bloody good."

Tamar ran up, with a smile at Juniper, and her stepfather put an arm around her shoulders. "And I'm a farmer who fights when he has to meself, these days."

Juniper ruffled the girl's hair, unstrung her own bow-something you had to be careful with; it could take your nose off if you slipped, or poke out an eye-and walked over to the wagon.

"Long time no see, Laurel," she said, extending a hand.

You look terrible, she didn't add. The other woman was wearing patched jeans-patched with a piece of badly cured hide across the seat, for starters. She didn't quite look like a homeless gangrel, but she wasn't all that far from it either.

"I'm glad to see you, Lady Juniper," Laurel said humbly.

Juniper sighed inwardly at that, and at the tone more than the words. She'd gotten used to people calling her that, or Chief, or the Mackenzie-from some of them, like Aylward or De

Ah, here I am the great Chief, Herself Herself, and I can't so much as tell someone to knock it off and call me Juney.

"Come on, let's get you settled, and then we'll talk."

"So, you were a self-initiated solitary back before the Change?" Juniper said gently.

The four Mackenzies and Laurel Wilson were in the attic loft of the Hall, Juniper's bedchamber when she unrolled the futon now neatly stored beside Rudi's on a shelf, and also her office and workroom, and the place she kept her fiddles and guitars and the big harp. There was a desk, typewriter and adding machine, racks of ring-binders and filing cabinets; being head of even a very decentralized state turned out to involve a lot of paperwork, something she loathed with every fiber of her being. It was also the place where she kept her Craft tools and books, and the site of her private altar, over on the middle of the north wall beneath one of the dormer windows and beside the lectern that had her Book of Shadows under a black cloth. The smell of incense still clung, although the tiny brazier between the figures of the Lord and Lady was empty and clean; around it stood the black-handled athame, a white-handled knife with a curved blade, vials of oils, candles:

The woman sitting across the table from her made a reverent gesture towards it. "I hadn't actually got that far," she said. "We'd just started our Circle but: well, I'd read a lot of the books, though."

"Which books, if I might ask?"

"The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. And Silver Ravenwolf: "

Behind her back Judy Barstow grimaced with clenched teeth and pummeled her temples with the heels of her hands.

"I tried Starhawk, but it was sort of hard to get into."

Judy went pale and made gagging motions, then mimed tearing out hanks of her hair.

Judy! Juniper thought, hard. Be nice!

The Tradition that the Singing Moon belonged to had always insisted on a year-and-a-day of intense instruction before Initiation, and an unbroken line of descent from Initiate to Initiate; in fact, for Wiccans they were traditionalists. They'd bent their rules-they'd had to, after the Change and the huge influx of new believers-but no more than they must. Particularly for those who went on from simple Dedicant status to full Initiation. Still, this wasn't the time to get all sniffy.

The Lord and Lady don't check your ID at the door, if you come with love and trust in your heart.

She managed a flicker of a quelling glare at her former Maiden; Sally Martin did rather better, and covertly nudged her with an elbow. Chuck Barstow kept his face carefully blank.

Be kind, Judy, Juniper thought, projecting a soothing calm. They've managed to survive this long.

"Well, let's stick to the immediate practicalities, Laurel," she said. "You've got: what, eighty people in your group these days?"

The long room had three dormers on either side, and more windows at either end; down at the east end was her big eight-harness loom with its treadles and shuttles, an old friend from before the Change, surrounded by baskets full of skeins of dyed wool yarn. Duplicates of it were working in half the Clan's households, used by her own pupils and the ones they had instructed. A bolt of finished tartan cloth four feet across stood nearby, ready to be taken for fulling. Laurel 's clothes weren't all that ragged, and they were clean, but the leather on the seat of her jeans was the only thing she wore that hadn't been made before the Change.

"About," Laurel said. "We're over the scurvy now-thank you for telling us about the rose hips!-but: it's one thing after another. All our stored fruit going bad was just the last of it; and we spend so much time hiding, and we lost six people the last time the gangs raided us: "

"We'll help," Jumper said soothingly. She looked down at her notes. "I think that your problem is basically a skills shortage and sheer lack of enough numbers to defend yourselves, rather than resources or effort. You've certainly been working hard enough, and you're producing enough food, just, but it's keeping it that's the problem, between bandits and wastage."

Silence stretched. "Well," Juniper said at last, "we're certainly willing to welcome you to our clan, if you'd rather join us than the McClintocks: "

"Oh, thank the Goddess," Laurel said, and her eyes brimmed over. "You've been helping us for years, and I feel so-"

Judy bent to put an arm around her shoulders. Juniper made soothing noises while she smiled to herself; the High Priestess of Wolf-Star wasn't nearly as much of a tartar as you'd think from the way she talked sometimes. Sally handed her a handkerchief and filled her a cup of chamomile tea.

When Laurel could go on, Juniper did as well: "This is going to be a major effort, relocating your people. You do understand you have to move? We can't possibly have an outlier south of Eugene, it's just too far away-and too dangerous."

Not to mention how Corvallis and half a dozen others would howl at our a

Laurel nodded. "It's: well, it's hard to abandon so much work, but it just wasn't working anymore. I thought we'd pull through, after the first year-those seeds you gave us saved us-but now: I think the only reason the bandits haven't killed us all is because they want us to be there to steal from next year."

" Eugene 's a problem," Chuck said, speaking for the first time since the meeting started. "We, all the honest valley communities, are going to have to do something about it. If the scum working out of there ever get a leader, we could be in real trouble: The MacGregors would help, and the McClintocks, and some of the towns and neighborhoods down Ashland way. When the Protectorate isn't distracting us, we'll have to see about an expedition."

Which may not be for years, or in our lifetimes: if the Protectorate doesn't destroy us in the interim, Juniper thought grimly, then brought her mind back to the business at hand.

"This is about the best time of year, the next two months," she said. "We've enough to spare from essential work now to give you a guard to get you safe up here."