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"Dad talked about a government of laws and not of men a lot," Frederick said. "But you know… I've been thinking as we travel, it means a lot what sort of men you have ruling. If they're the wrong people, no matter how good the laws are, they don't do much."
Rudi nodded. "Though good laws can restrain a bad ruler, somewhat, depending of course on the customs of the folk and the badness of the man.
"Or woman," he added after a moment, obviously thinking of someone and just as obviously not wanting to say who.
Mathilda's mother, Fred thought. Who frightens everyone. Even Dad was cautious about her-everyone wanted him to fight Portland over the Palouse, but he agreed to split it with her. But Mathilda's wonderful!
He blushed, and had the uncomfortable feeling that Rudi had followed his thoughts and was amused by them.
Hell, friends have a right to laugh at each other. We've fought side by side, and we are friends. And we've got stuff in common, too. We grew up around rulers. That's something that most of us in this bunch have, and it's… different… to have people who really understand around.
The waitress came back with two mugs of hot cider, pungent with something that smelled of berries. She put Rudi's down and gave him a motherly pat. The glance she gave Fred was anything but; he blushed and reached for some of the bread to mop his plate and ignored her disappointed sigh.
"If you're called to rule, you just have to do the best you can," Rudi said.
"But you need something to guide you," Fred said earnestly, the woman's smile as forgotten as the hunk of barley bread in his hand. "You need… something more than just finding money to pay the soldiers and keep the irrigation canals going and patrols to catch bandits."
"That you do," Rudi said. "Men are ruled by the visions inside their heads as much as by swords or castles or tax gatherers. Sure, and those laws your father mentioned, if they're to be anything at all it's a dream in the hearts of men, not just words on a page."
He sighed and watched the sway of their waitress' hips as she took the empty tray back to the kitchens.
"Not even the Foam-Born Cyprian with a rope tied to it, not right now, ochone, the sorrow and the pity," he murmured to himself, and then turned his eyes back to Fred. "A king is not just a war leader, or a head clerk. He's also a priest, he is; a priest of those Mysteries his people reverence, whatever they call them. And his lady a priestess."
The late dawn of Christmas Eve came bright and cold after a week of storms. Father Ignatius stopped at the top of the ridge and looked down over the roofs of the Chenrezi Monastery, the town below, the mist of driven snow that swirled along the surface of the frozen lake at the mountain's foot, and the distant ruins of a pre-Change settlement. The sky was bleakly clear from the mountain fangs eastward to those behind him; the one gilded with bright sunrise until he had to squint into them, the other still turning from night dark to ruddy pink, but otherwise bone white against cobalt blue.
So simple, so elegant, so… pure, Ignatius thought, inhaling air that smelled of nothing but itself and a little pine.
God is the greatest of artists! How good of Him to give us this world, and the chance to imitate Him by bettering it.
Wryly: If only we did not mar it, and ourselves, so often!
Then the sun rose a little more, and the light was like diamond on the fresh snow, with only a hint of green from the pine trees ahead. He climbed steadily towards them, eyes wide as the crystals sparkled and flew free to glitter in plumes from the branches. His head felt a little light-he'd been fasting for the past day or two, and had taken only a little bread and milk this morning. The light powder was knee-deep, but he had good stout laced boots lined with fleece, and quilted trousers of local make.
After a moment he found the place he wanted, a little clearing with a view down the mountainside and a convenient stump where a lodgepole pine had been pushed over by some storm. Snow hid the trunk, but the splintered base was thigh-high. He drew his sword and drove the point downward into the wood, so that the cross-hilt shape stood black against the sun, and looped his rosary and crucifix about it so that the cross clinked against the steel.
Then he knelt and began to pray, hands folded before him. The familiar words and gestures quieted his mind-which was one of their purposes. Some corner of his mind remembered what Abbot Dmwoski had said to the novices of his class once:
Silent prayer is the highest form. But God gives us a set of steps for a reason-and you must tread every one of them to reach the heights. Better to stay on a step where you can keep your footing until you are ready, than climb too fast and fall. The Adversary can corrupt even prayer, if your pride gives him an opening.
"High is heaven, and holy," he murmured at last, his eyes on the mountain peaks and dazzled by the sun. "Lord, I seek to do Your will. Have I chosen rightly? Subdue my rebellious heart, Lord, which is full of fear and murmuring. I hear rumors of war in the West, of a great battle where my brothers of the Order defended Your Church and Your people from the minions of the Adversary. I have seen diabolism abroad in the land. Where does my duty truly lie? Free me of doubt, I beg. Make me Your instrument!"
Silence stretched like a plucked harp string, and the light poured down the mountains opposite like wine. He stopped the straining of his mind, seeking only to listen.
"Do not fear, brave miles of Christ," a soft voice said, a woman's voice, quiet but with an undertone like a chorus of trumpets. "For He is ever with you."
A shadow fell across him as the one who'd spoken approached, lit by the rising sun. He blinked his eyes in surprise as they adjusted; he'd come here for solitude, and if anyone else was near he would have expected a woodsman or a ski patrol. Then he could see her. It was a woman of…
I ca
She was dressed in a simple belted robe of undyed wool, honestly made but the sort of homespun a peasant's wife would wear, or a village craftsman's, and her hands were work-worn. A long blue mantle rested across her head and shoulders, thrown over one shoulder to frame her features and the waving black hair. The face beneath it was olive-ski
"Under my father's roof, they called me the wished-for child. Miriam, in the tongue of my people."
Then he met her eyes, and cried out, throwing up a hand.
So bright, so bright! Like fire!
Like staring into the heart of some great star, burning in the vastness of space, like the sudden shock of being plunged into its furnace heart and transmuted as elements combined and died. Yet there was no pain in it, only a warmth that penetrated to every atom of his being, as if all that he was shone with it. The Light was knowledge; of his self, that showed him every mistake and sin and ignoble failing that had gone into him… yet the light was still there, and had always been, would always be.
And yet she was the peasant woman he had seen, arms stretched a little toward him with the callused palms of her hands upturned.
"Do not be afraid, Karl Bergfried," she said again, using his baptismal name, and the tenderness in her voice was as overwhelming as the light. "You who have been Father in the spirit to my Son's children."