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"Mine was… a man who did what had to be done," he said.
Odard's mouth quirked. "So was mine." After a hesitation he said:
"You're sort of… fond of Mary, aren't you?"
"Yah," Ingolf said, his gaze turning inward for a moment. "Didn't realize it, really, until she got hurt." He shrugged. "You were there when Saba died… well, I realized when Mary came back that she could get hurt whether or not we were together."
Odard nodded and set a hand on his shoulder for an instant. " I realized that she might not be there to tease," he said. "The twins and I have been sort-of-friends for a long time. But on this little trip, sort of won't do, will it?"
They turned a corner-the monastery was really a series of buildings along the hillside, some pre-Change, some built since or heavily rebuilt, all linked together with covered walkways. From the thickness of the bracing timbers overhead, most of them got buried deep every winter. This time they nearly ran into Mathilda, probably returning from Rudi's bedside.
"Princess," Odard said, with that fu
"Better," she said, and made herself smile. "But still weak; he's sleeping now. That infection nearly killed him… What's that?"
Ingolf offered the basket. "There's still some of the chicken left," he said.
"Mother of God!" she said, and her hand darted in. "Thass so guudf!" she went on, her mouth full of drumstick.
It was good, Ingolf thought. The batter isn't quite like anything I've tasted before.
"Thanks, Ingolf!" she said after she swallowed.
"Thank Baron Liu," Ingolf said. "He's the one who waded through the snow and back to get it."
Little cold drafts trickled around Ingolf's neck as he said it. The stoutly timbered roof over their head was shingled and then covered in thick sod, but even so you could tell that the storm was building.
"That was good of you, Odard," Mathilda said.
He shrugged. "Mary's appetite needs tempting," he said. "And a very good night, Your Highness."
"You must not overstrain yourself," Dorje said.
"Sure, and I thought you Buddhists were given to disciplining the flesh," Rudi Mackenzie said. "Mind you, I haven't met many. And I'd go mad if I had to lie still any longer, the which would do my healing no good whatsoever or at all. I've enjoyed our talks, but I need to move !"
Dorje smiled as they walked slowly down the swept flagstones, their breath showing in white plumes in the cold dry air. Rudi judged he would have been egg-bald even if the monks here didn't shave their heads, and a little stooped, but even erect he would barely have come to the young Mackenzie's breastbone. There was absolutely nothing frail about him, though; he was comfortable as a lynx in the sheepskin robe and saffron over-robe and sandals despite the chill, and he was obviously suiting his pace to the convalescent's capacities. You could still see the shadow of the strong young mountain peasant in him.
The white Stetson hat had seemed a little odd at first, but by now he was used to it; doubtless it was an offering to the spirits of place.
"Here we teach the Middle Way," Dorje said. "When the Buddha first sought enlightenment he attempted fierce austerities of hunger and pain, but he found they did not aid him. The starving man and the glutton are both slaves to their belly's need; if the glutton is worse, it is because he is self-enslaved."
They came to a bench and Rudi lowered himself carefully to it; the wound in his back had stopped draining and was closing, but it was still sore. He thrust aside worry about the shoulder.
And Fiorbhi
The pine-log pillars to their left had little lines and crescents of snow in the irregularities of the polished wood; beyond it was an open court, and in its center the image of a man carrying a white lotus-a wooden carving and none too skillful by Mackenzie standards, but the sincerity of it shone through nonetheless.
The land beyond fell away in terraced slopes to the valley floor below, with bleached barley stubble poking through the snow where the winds had eaten it thin. A frozen river shone like a swordblade in the bright sun, twisting away with a lining of dark willows and leafless cottonwoods. Beyond rose mountains, scattered with pine woods but bare blazing white at their peaks save where the dark rock bones of earth showed through. Smoke rose from a cluster of log cabins and frame houses in the middle distance, and a horseman was riding downward towards them. The snow of the roadway creaked under his horse's hooves, and the clank of a scabbard against a stirrup iron echoed; the whetted steel of his lance-head cast painful-bright blinks.
"I thought Buddhists were pacifists," Rudi said
He took a slow deep breath of air leached of all but the ghosts of scent-a little woodsmoke and pine sap, and a hint of a sharp herbal fragrance-before he went on.
"As a general rule, at least. The which I am not, obviously… though if the world would leave me and mine at peace, sure, I'd oblige them gladly. But if a warrior's presence offends against your faith. .."
"Obviously it does not," Dorje said.
"And I'm afraid that grateful as I am for your help, and your wisdom, you're unlikely to convert me!"
Dorje took the younger man's hand in both of his, turning it over so that the sword calluses showed:
"I have been assured by those wiser than I that a brave man, though he slay, and though he slay his many, is as a god in contrast to the men and women who are restrained from slaying only by cowardice. If the one who will not take life for any reason is higher on the Way than a warrior, then they are lower; just as he who fights for justice and to shield the weak is higher than he who fights for plunder or for pride."
He patted Rudi's hand before he released it. "I do not judge the necessities of your life or the karma you have chosen. But here, at least, you may be at peace for a little time."
It is peaceful here, Rudi mused. It's nice to have time to stop and think for a bit, with all the… external things stripped away!
As he did the sound of a bronze bell came through the cold air, still sounding a little strange; he knew now that it was because it was rung by a log hung beside it in rope slings, rather than by a clapper.
"I was raised to be a warrior, but I've seen enough of war lately that it disgusts me, so. Not so much the fighting, but the… waste of it, the things that are broken that should not be."
"You have chosen a hard path, my son," the monk said. "One that will test your courage; and the risk of pain to yourself and the death of your body are the least of its trials. But be sure, if you have courage it shall certainly be tested; because no quality in this universe goes unused. Walk the Way you have chosen in its fullness; when you have reached its end, you will find that it is the begi
"You don't think killing is the worst of sins, then?" he said curiously.
Dorje sighed. "No; but considered rightly, it is… foolish. It is easy to kill. It is equally easy to destroy glass windows. Any fool can do either. Why is it only the wise who perceive that it is wisdom to let live, when even lunatics can sometimes understand that it is better to open a window than to smash the glass? But this world is mired in illusion, which is folly. As followers of the Way, we deplore the taking of life…"
Then he chuckled, slapping his knees. "Including our own! And more important, we deplore greedy or evil men taking the lives of those who look to us for instruction. There are few surviving pacifists in the world twenty-two years after the Change. A desire for peace does not imply submission to those who chose to be violent as their first resort."
He sighed again. "Yet if men were truly wise… Within our valley here, at least, there is little bloodshed."