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"By the Trickster, so did I when they cornered me! All ready to meet my late blood-father, so I was. And was rescued not by my own efforts but by a god from the machine… or at least, a machine sent by the gods."
She frowned and nodded. "Well, as they were closing in on us… just before Odard's man Alex laid him out with the crossbow butt… he said he loved me."
"Ah," Rudi said, suddenly alert. "And what did you make of that?"
Mathilda made as if to punch him in the chest, then reconsidered; it would be more painful than a playful gesture should.
"None of that question-to-a-question Socratic thing! It's irritating enough when Juniper or Father Ignatius does it! And you're no holy man."
"Well, if you're asking me if he's sincere… I'd have said that Odard was the great love of Odard Liu's life. But he's a man with a great sense of style, too…"
"Meow!" she said. "And declaring his love as a dying act would be stylish?"
Rudi smiled and shrugged.
"It couldn't have been just for advantage," Mathilda said slowly. "We were dead, Rudi. And that hit on the head was the real thing; he's still hurting from it. And when you rescued us… he threw himself under a sword to save me."
"And not even his worst enemy-the which I am not; I like him-would deny that he's a very brave man."
She glanced at him from the corners of her eyes; he could tell she thought he was being a good deal too fair. "Aren't you the least bit jealous? Just a teeny bit?"
"Sure, and I didn't mean to be insulting!"
"You are! Jealous, that is."
Steadily, Rudi went on: "I would be a bit jealous at the least, were I afraid you'd decided you were the love of Odard's life."
"But I'm not of yours," she said quietly. "Am I, Rudi?"
He turned and put a finger under her chin and kissed her. It was gentle-with his face in its present state it couldn't be otherwise-but warm. Not the first time they'd kissed, but…
"Woof!" she said a long moment later.
"Woof indeed," he said, clearing his throat to get the huskiness out of it. Then:
"Matti, I can't fall in love with you, or you with me. We've known each other too long! But the love's there, never doubt it."
"I won't be any man's lover, except my husband's," she said defiantly. "Not even yours, Rudi."
He nodded-she was as constant in her faith as he was in his, and hers put some very odd demands on her.
The problem being that it doesn't mean she dislikes my flirting with her. It just means she's guaranteed to keep saying no. Which may be fine for her, but would leave me walking in a most odd and mirth-provoking way, after a while. I do love her, but I'm not a Christian.
"And were I your handfasted man, there would be no other for me," he said soberly. "But…"
She shook her head and sighed. "But right now, we're going to be ru
And when we get back, there will be matters of State, and of our gods, he thought.
Tears pooled in her eyes; the starlight sparkled in them, and it occurred to him that a man could drown himself there and account it a pleasant passing. He brushed them aside with his thumb.
"Shhhh, don't be sad, anamchara. We're alive, and together, and while those are true we won't be lonely," he said. Then, with a sly edge in his voice: "Frustrated, perhaps…"
This time she did poke a finger into his ribs, and laughed, which he'd wanted. He yelped and they walked back towards the dying embers, a puddle of glowing red in the vast darkness about.
"Time to get some sleep, then," he said, and nodded to the twins; they ghosted off to take first watch.
"I'm… going to do some letters," Mathilda said. "You brought my writing-kit. Maybe Sergeant Gonzalez can deliver them for us, sometime."
"Now, that's a good idea," Rudi said. "But I'll do mine in the morning. We've a very long way to go…"
And farther still to our homecoming, he thought with a stab of longing. And peace and rest.
TheScourgeofGod
CHAPTER TWO
"Yet another of the things I learned after the Change," Juniper Mackenzie said with a rueful chuckle.
She spoke quietly and kept her face grave as the solemn young men and women of the escort fell in with bow and sword and buckler, steel caps on their heads and the moon-and-antlers sigil of the Clan blazoned on the chests of their green brigandines. It was the least she could do, since they'd been called away from field and forge and loom for this.
"My dear?" her husband, Nigel, replied.
He stood trim beside her in kilt and plaid, feathered bo
"When I busked at the RenFaires and Society tournaments in the old days I sang of knights and kings and princes, of battles and captivities and rescues, but never a word about how much time Arthur and Gawain and Lancelot probably spent sitting 'round a table-"
"Round or not," he said, with that slight smile that made his face look young for a moment, like a tow-haired schoolboy from Puck of Pook's Hill bent on mischief.
"-arguing who paid what to whom and who was responsible for doing the other thing. Attending meetings. It's not so much being Chief I mind, or even Goddess-on-Earth, it's being a bureaucrat."
Sir Nigel Loring chuckled; he had been a leader of men before the Change-lieutenant colonel in the Blues and Royals and before that the SAS. Then one of the powers behind the throne after the Change, helping save a remnant of civilization in England before Charles the Mad had driven him into exile.
"And dealing with bumpf," he said, using a rude word for paperwork he'd taught her.
She sighed and quieted her mind as they stood for a moment in the open gateway of the fortress-village that was her home, letting the grateful heat sink into her bones and fill her tired body with an animal contentment.
"There are times I feel old indeed," she said. "Old and overworked." Then: "Well, the job doesn't grow easier for the waiting."
The day was drowsy with warmth as the sun sank towards the thin blue line of the Coast Range on the western horizon; a last few bees buzzed homeward, and a flock of Western bluebirds went over, like a chirring flutter fashioned from bits of living sky. The world was a wonder greater than any magic she'd ever made, and she had her place within it.
Ground and center. War may be coming, but it is n 't here yet. My son is over the mountains among enemies, but no harm's come to him that I know. Plan for the future, yes, but live every moment as if it were forever, because it is. There is only now. Ground and center.. .
She sighed and blinked leaf-green eyes that were a little haunted even in times of joy, for they had witnessed the death of a world.
A few weeks ago the long mountainside meadow below Dun Juniper had been crowded with the tents and bothies of her clansfolk, come for the Lughnasadh rites and the games and socializing that followed-starting with shooting the longbow and on down to prize lambs and enormous hand-reared beets and Little League softball games. Now they bore the tents of outland visitors, and their hobbled horses grazed the lush green meadows; they and their followings were too large to all guest within the dun's walls… and with some, it was more politic to keep them separate.
Largest was the great striped many-peaked pavilion that flew two ba