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CHAPTER TWELVE
Knowledge waits beneath the snows
As flowers wait the spring
Chance some call such meetings
That bear fate as women bear a child From: The Song of Bear and Raven
Attributed to Fiorbhi
"The fever has broken," someone said.
Rudi Mackenzie opened his eyes, conscious of cleanliness and warmth and a faint odor of incense beneath the more familiar hint of woodsmoke… pine of some sort. He was lying in a bed with brown linen sheets and blankets of some lustrous fabric that had the warmth of wool but less weight. Father Ignatius was standing at the foot of his bed, looking less drawn than Rudi remembered and in his dark Benedictine robe; beside him was a shaven-headed man in a saffron-colored wrap that left one shoulder bare, lean and middle-aged and wearing a stethoscope as well. And another man in the same odd dress, but far older-his flat high-cheeked brown face was a mass of wrinkles that nearly swallowed his narrow black eyes when he smiled, which he looked to do often.
The younger shave-head lifted Rudi's head and trickled water into his mouth from a cup with a spout. The young Mackenzie recognized a healer's bedside ma
"I'm very hungry," he said, and was a little shocked at how faint his voice was.
When he tried to move the physician clucked at him, and Father Ignatius shook a finger-but he was smiling, obviously in relief. The shooting pain in Rudi's right shoulder was what stopped him; he looked down and saw that it was bandaged, and the wasted arm strapped across his chest. In a few moments another robed attendant came in, younger still than the physician, with jug ears on either side of his shaved white dome of skull and friendly blue eyes.
He carried a steaming bowl and a kettle and a cup on a tray, and Rudi gratefully accepted the smooth warmth of the bean soup. The tea was stranger, with salty butter added to the herbal infusion, but it made a welcome warmth in his belly, and eased aches he hadn't noticed much until they were gone. When it was finished he felt stronger.
"My thanks for your hospitality," he said.
The room came into clearer focus; the walls were plastered fieldstone, he thought, and undoubtedly whitewashed. One bore a colorful circle of abstract designs, a mandala, but none that his folk used. A small tile stove in a corner kept it comfortable.
"Where am I?"
"You are in the Monastery of Chenrezi, in the Valley of the Sun," the old man said. "Or in the old terminology, in the Rocky Mountains of western Wyoming."
His voice had a trace of another accent under the plains-and-mountain English.
"I am Rimpoche… in your language, teacher… here and my name is Tsewang Dorje. You are our guests, and you must rest and grow well, and your sister likewise."
Rudi's brows went up. Ignatius answered: "Mary was seriously injured fighting the Cutter scouts, but she's on the mend now too, God be thanked. They are excellent physicians here, and we are safe from pursuit for now, thanks to her and Ritva. Everyone else is fine, although Edain and the Princess have been haunting your bedside! What you need most now is food and rest."
The physician spoke: "The infusion will help you sleep and lessen pain. You should sleep as much as possible for the next several days."
Rudi nodded. The abbot smiled again and made a gesture of blessing with the palms of his hands pressed together, and everyone left.
"Thank You for the shelter of your wings, Lady," Rudi said into the silence. "And you, Wanderer."
There were glass windows in the side of the room opposite the mandala; double-glazed and aluminum-framed, obviously salvaged. They gave on a courtyard, where flagstones had been swept clear of snow, and a few trees stood in pots. Folk were at exercise there, some monks or nuns of Chenrezi, others more ordinary-looking, though the older ones who gave instruction all had their heads shaved. All wore practical boots and trousers and jackets, and some had helmets and practice armor of boiled and molded leather.
Must be cold out there, Rudi thought; their breath showed in white plumes, and the bright sunlight had that pale look that went with a hard freeze. From the length of the shadows it was in the afternoon.
Some of them were using quarterstaffs, thrusting and sweeping in unison or sparring with a clatter of wood on wood; others practiced with spears, or halberds, or swords much like the Eastern shete, or arcane weapons that looked like bladed hooks on chains, or bows. A half-dozen pairs drilled in unarmed combat, their movements fluid and sure, throwing and grappling and striking. He recognized some of the techniques, but others were strange to him. The focusing shouts-the exhalation from your center-were loud enough to be heard faintly through the thick walls of his sickroom.
Then a bell sounded, not quite like any he'd heard before, like the birth of an age of bronze in the crisp still air. All the shave-heads bowed to their partners and filed out, two by two, their palms pressed together and their heads bowed as they chanted. The sound lulled Rudi as strongly as the herbs in the tea he'd drunk, and he leaned back against the pillow and let his eyelids droop.
"You're not hungry?" Ingolf said, worried; his spoon halted halfway to his mouth.
Mary Havel was prodding her spoon at the turned-wood bowl that held her soup. Even without the bandage covering her left eye there wouldn't have been a problem in telling her from her sister Ritva's blooming health now. She looked pale, paler than winter could account for even in someone so fair, and her face was gaunt, showing the elegant bones beneath. And she moved slowly, with only a shadow of the fluid grace her sister still had.
"What I need is a steak," she said fretfully. "We've been here for weeks, and I'm not a leaf-eating rabbit. I want a roast chicken! Or a rack of BBQ lamb ribs with a honey-mustard glaze! Or pork chops with sauteed onions… or even venison stew, Lady Varda help us!"
"Stop!" her sister Ritva said. "Venison stew is starting to make my mouth water too!"
She and her sister laughed; at the others' looks, Mary went on: "Back in Mithrilwood, it's the staple diet for winter. We Dunedain have a joke; when the sun rises in the east, it's an omen that we shall have venison stew for di
Ingolf laughed. Odard did as well; then his eyes narrowed, and he rose and left.
Mary smiled with them, but the tug at her eye wound must have hurt a little and the expression died. She'd been very patient with actual pain while she was really ill, but she wasn't a good convalescent.
"This will do," she said resignedly, and mopped up the last of the soup in her bowl with a heel of the loaf.
They were in the refectory the monastery kept for guests, non-novice students and the sick who were well enough to walk. It was a pleasant room, plain but comfortable, and well heated by the sealed stoves. Some of the older monks preferred to sit on cushions or mats, but the rest used benches and chairs, and nobody expected outsiders to do otherwise.
The food's actually pretty good, Ingolf thought, finishing his own. But yah, I could use some roast pork with crackling.
There was potato soup done with barley and onions, hard white cheese grated on it, warm dark bread and butter, pickled cucumbers, hard-boiled eggs and sauerkraut, and dried apples and berries. The young nun who had served it looked at Mary indignantly.
"Besides imposing a karmic burden, food which requires killing animals is u