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Not older, Juniper thought; her friend was her age almost to the day, fifty-three. But as if she's moved through sorrow and beyond it. Well, that's why we keen the dead.
Her own throat was sore with it. There was a release in the cries, as if your spirit was walking partway with the dead, a last look at the beloved before you committed them to Earth's embrace.
A little life came back into Judy's face as she finished; and then she looked around, a question on her face. What now? was as plain as if she'd spoken aloud.
As if in answer, her daughter, Tamsin, and sons, Rowan and Oak, and their mates reached out to touch her, and the grandchildren crowded around with their small bodies leaning against hers.
Life is the answer to life, Juniper thought, and spoke formally:
"Who among his close kin will speak the last words for Chuck Barstow Mackenzie, our brother?"
She was a little surprised when Oak stood forward. He bowed to her and turned to the folk assembled below-everyone in Dun Juniper who wasn't helping prepare the feast for the dead, and many from elsewhere in the Clan's territories as well, and a few from beyond. Chuck had been a well-loved man.
"I was an orphan of the Change," he said. "Younger than my daughter Lutra here."
He touched her head, and the girl turned her tear-streaked face up to him; the fingers were infinitely gentle on her brown hair.
"I don't remember anything much before then-just bits and pieces, and the fear and hunger as we all waited on the school bus and the grown-ups were gone. Chuck took me and my sister Aoife and our foster brother Sanjay off that bus. He and Mother Judy raised us; they're the only parents I know. Chuck was the one who took me out and showed me the stars and told me their names, and the plants and their names and uses, and held me with Mother when I was sick or afraid. He taught me how to hunt, and the rites of the woodland Powers. He taught me how to tend the land, and many others-he was a man of the earth above all, and there are thousands alive today who walk the ridge of the world because he could show them how to coax Earth into yielding Her fruits. He stood by my side when I was made an Initiate of the Mysteries. If I'm a man at all, it's his doing."
There was a long murmur from the assembled crowd. Oak raised his head and went on; tears glistened in his yellow mustache.
"He taught me spear and blade and bow; he fought for us all, and now like my sister and brother before him he's given his body to the earth that feeds me and my children, and his blood to protect them. His last words were Get them out and my mother's name."
The murmur grew louder and then died away again. Oak's voice rose for a long moment into one long wail of grief; then he spoke in words again.
"Lady Juniper, Chief of the Clan, Goddess-on-Earth, hear my oath!"
"I will hear your oath, Oak son of Chuck, whose totem is Wolf," Juniper said steadily. "By what will you swear?"
"I swear by Earth beneath my feet, by Sky above, by the Water in my veins and the Fire that is my life; by Brigid and Lugh and all the gods of my people, by the spirits that watch over the house-hearth and the byre and the field and the forest, and by Father Wolf who walked in my dream. And I call to witness that part of my father's soul that is not in the Summerlands, and the Chief of the Clan, and the folk of the Clan."
He bent down and picked up a pinch of the mingled earth and ash, and drew it across his forehead. When he continued his voice had the raw challenge of a bull elk's:
"Once I keened my father on the field where he fell. Once I have keened him here where we returned his ashes to Earth the Mother. I swear that when I keen him for the third time, it will be when his vengeance is won!"
Then he drew the little Black Knife from his knee-hose, and held out his hand as he pressed the point to the fleshy ball below his thumb. A line of red appeared, and drops fell through the darkening air to fall on the dirt, and a sigh went through the crowd.
"And if I fail in my oath, may Earth shun me, and Sky fall and crush me, and Fire burn me, and the Water of life that is my blood be spilled!"
A long silence fell, as Chuck's other children held out their hands and joined their blood to his.
"So mote it be," Juniper said softly, into the echoing quiet.
TheScourgeofGod
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The hero knows, with every step
The fate to which he walks
Heart-glad he wins release from fear
And with it ransom for his folk From: The Song of Bear and Raven
Attributed to Fiorbhi
The fifty-pound sack of wet sand across his shoulders seemed to be pushing Rudi Mackenzie into the ground like a nail as he ran up the steep south-facing hillside. Sweat ran down his bare flanks despite the cool spring day, and he gloried in the play of muscle as his legs pushed against turf and rock like powerful elastic springs. The air was thin but so clean it made him feel as if he were washing his lungs by breathing it, pushing out all the poisons in his body with his breath and sweat.
Last year's grass was still matted on the ground, but new growth was pushing through it-the pink-tinged white of spring beauties, yellowbells, sagebrush buttercups. When he reached the sloping meadow they made drifts of rose and gold through the new grass; there was a spring, and he set the bag down and used his hand to cup the icy mineral-tasting waters; the snows were still there, only a little higher up the hillside.
Master Hao was the next to the plateau; he found Rudi in a handstand, slowly lowering himself until his nose touched the earth and raising himself to full arm's length again. Sweat outlined the monk's lean ropy muscles, stripped to the same loose pants that Rudi wore. A pole rested across his shoulders, carrying practice weapons and shields on either end, but despite his fifty-odd years he ran with an easy, springy stride that defied the weight of wood and metal and leather. It was as if gravity were a game, and he obeyed its rules only out of courtesy.
Rudi joined him in untying the bundles while the others arrived. Ignatius followed, which surprised him a little, but the warrior-priest had seemed very focused since Yule, even for a knight-brother of the Order. Mathilda came after him, giving Rudi a grin and a thumbs-up; the cleric had been pushing her hard, too. Odard and Frederick Thurston came in the middle, and then Mary and Ritva and Ingolf in a clump-the big Sheriff's son was matching Mary's pace and Ritva was instinctively working the rearguard's position, checking behind her every few seconds.
Master Hao stood scowling with his arms crossed as they stretched and then went through the tumbling and leaping that he considered an indispensable preliminary to training. Rudi had always been agile, but he'd never worked as hard on gymnastics as he had this winter. At last they finished with a long series of ru
At least he's teaching us himself, Rudi thought. That's a compliment, of sorts-he doesn't turn us over to the lesser instructors like begi
"This," Hao said, throwing twin shetes-what he called butterflylongswords-to Ingolf. "This-"
Rudi ended up with a longsword and buckler, to his relief; it was hard enough regaining skills with the hilt of his sword in his left hand, but learning an entirely new weapon like the sickle-blades on chains the monks favored was excruciating. Some of the group had taken to them like ducks to water, though; the twins loved them.