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"No, really, she's not like most of them! Not just to me-she's starting a spi
That's all interesting, but it doesn't necessarily mean she's nice, just smart and foresighted, Estella thought. Let's not argue. I recognize the tone. This poor girl has fallen hard. I hope she is not hurt too badly, but such is life. We must not let it endanger the Craft: but it could work to our advantage, as well. She will hear things and see things she would not otherwise.
"And she's like an older sister to the Princess Mathilda-Mathilda's nice too-and to Rudi. I gave Rudi the pattern-"
"How?" Estella asked sharply.
Delia giggled. "In some gravy, so nobody else could see-he wouldn't have himself, if he weren't so sharp. We haven't said a word beyond that, but he knows, and it makes him feel better. His poor mother must be so worried, and he's homesick and lonely sometimes, but like I said, Tiphaine treats him like her own family.''
"That will be a relief to Lady Juniper. We can pass it on: never mind how. And if we must, we can have you pass a message to him. The risk, though! He's still not quite ten years old. That's why we don't tell children about the Craft until they're older than that, and able to keep secrets."
"Not with Rudi. He's a wonderful kid, so brave! And smart too. He's teaching me my letters, well, how to read them better, and he tells lovely stories about how the Mackenzies live. And you can see the Lord and Lady walk with him, all the time, not just at the special times."
She hesitated. "Can we have an Esbat while your family are here? Since Mom died"-her voice caught for a moment-"we haven't had a High Priestess, and nobody else knows all the things she did, not here or in the other villages. She was teaching me, but I hadn't learned nearly as much as I need. Dad was so sorry we couldn't have a passing rite for her. We couldn't find her books, either."
"Good!" Estella said. "If you can't find them, the Hounds of God can't either."
Delia nodded, completely serious for the first time in their meeting. Excellent, Estella thought. She may be eighteen and infatuated to giddiness, but she knows that is a matter of life and death. Aloud, the tinerant went on.
"I'll talk to my parents, and see what we can do. But first you must tell me all about Rudi; where he's kept, and what he does each day. Leave nothing out." She sensed a hesitation. "This is for the Old Religion, and for the Queen of Witches."
"Well: OK. I don't suppose it can hurt."
Near Cherry Grove, Tualatin Valley, Oregon
April 10th, 2008/Change Year 10
Astrid tapped him on the sleeve. There, the gesture said.
Alleyne could see it too, the faint shimmering blink of a campfire ahead, wavering through half a mile of forest and brush and a gathering ground-mist that muffled the strong, musty scent of rotting leaves and fir needles and cones. He stroked the soft blond stubble on his chin-shaving while moving fast and secretly through the woods wasn't very practical-and compared the lie of the land about him to the map in his head, then nodded.
Astrid made a sound beneath her teeth, held up two fingers and tapped them to right and left, and half-glimpsed figures spread out and moved forward. The nighted forest was not quite pitch-black, but fairly close to it; they'd left their war cloaks behind with the horses further up the slope of Mt. Richmond for the sake of speed and quietness. Here the unpeopled mountains that stretched west to Tillamook and the ocean met the cultivated eastern lowlands in a maze of twisting valleys. The one ahead was called Patton-not, he thought, for the general-and held the upper stretches of the Tualatin River. There was a village called Cherry Grove a few miles to their west, lately rebuilt on the pre-Change ruins because there was a good fall of water for a mill. Its fields stretched eastward along the valley this mountain overlooked on either side of the river, and there the contacts they were to meet should be camped. They'd picked the location because the little hamlet on the edge of the mountains had no manor and no garrison to speak of. That made it a little safer, but not much.
So that campfire is them: or they were discovered, and it's an ambush. Well, no time like the present.
Astrid and he eeled forward. The hillside had been logged off recently enough that the trees were only fifty or sixty feet high above them, and there was plenty of bush; even after better than a year gone he was still conscious of how different the sounds were from an English wood at night, sharper and harsher, with more buzzing and clicking of insects. The birds were surprisingly similar, though he missed the nightingales. They ghosted downslope; once a red fox leapt aside in panicked surprise as they passed from tree to tree, and shot off with a crackle of leaves under churning paws. He gri
They went to their bellies a hundred yards from where woods gave way to the scrubby pasture where the wagons waited; beyond that was a road, and beyond that a field of some sort-probably grain, from the strength of the scent of wet earth. A few dogs lay around the fire, and a pot bubbled above it, and something roasted on a wooden spit close beside it; that was the best way to do small game, and let you catch the drippings in a pan. The smells made his stomach cramp, since they'd had nothing but cheese and waybread today.
A last halt, and Eilir and John came in on either side, quiet and slow. The big man put his mouth next to Alleyne's ear: "Nothing. We've got scouts out on all sides now."
Astrid smiled and rose. "Mae Gova
The figures around the fire rose; one spilled something in his haste, and began an abortive snatch for a hunting bow.
"I hadn't expected them to come it the heavy gypsy quite so much," John said to him quietly as he passed to get a refill from the pot.
Alleyne made a subdued noise of agreement; the rabbit stew was taking most of his attention, nicely thick with peas and onions, and fresh bread as well. It was true, though. He'd met a few real Rom before the Change, and some since in Gibraltar, and they generally weren't nearly so much like a Romantic-era operetta, all headscarves and earrings: Of course, a few clans of an extremely traditional variety had survived in remote Carpathian valleys, and they'd drifted westward since to get away from ongoing chaos and warfare there, where the die-off hadn't been quite as complete as it had in the lands west of the Elbe.
And this gentleman and his wife are rather obviously ordinary Americans of Mexican and what-they-call-Anglo-here descent, he thought. Bits of mispronounced Romany notwithstanding: Is there anybody in this country who isn't putting it on?
"Te auel mange bakht drago mange wi te avav po gunoy," he said with malice aforethought. And it was true; luck was all they needed, and they were in a bit of a dungheap. Mind you, we need a great deal of luck.
Mr. Maldonado looked slightly panic-stricken, then shrugged, looking trapped by the circle of firelight that wavered on the gaudily painted wagons to either side.