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"Yeah," Mathilda answered. "It's sort of: newer, somehow, in the morning. Brighter even when it isn't."
Delia was simply clinging to her saddle-she rode badly, and had been put on a contented old plug that would walk obediently with the other horses- and looked around in awe. He'd been shocked to learn she'd seldom been beyond the edge of the forest, though she'd lived near here since she was his age.
And her a member of a coven! he thought. Of course, we haven't had much chance to talk about that. And she has to keep it real secret. I bet she can't even tell Tiphaine. That must hurt.
He'd always found people in love a bit ridiculous-even Mom and Sir Nigel, who were more sensible about it than most, got all spoony.
But then, I'm too young to really know about it. Never make fun of the Lady's gifts! Bad luck, bad luck, three times three, bad luck. Mock them now, lose them later!
He made a gesture of aversion, the Horns pointed down. They broke out of the tall forest, into what had been a clear-cut before the Change and had burned in a wildfire since; now it was spring meadow like a living carpet before the horses' feet. Tiphaine whistled and pointed for them to turn, and they rode upward, through grass high enough to brush the horsemen's stirrups, full of tall blue lupine and yellow western buttercup. The wind was in their faces, strong with the scent of the forests that rolled from here to the Pacific, when they came over the sharp crest of the hill and into the path of a herd of elk walking the other way.
Rudi and Mathilda whooped to see them, thirty or so big fawn-and-brown animals, and Delia clapped her hands. The crossbowmen whooped on another note, and began to unship their weapons as the herd milled for an instant, then turned and flowed away like a torrent of water downhill, squealing and barking as they went and showing the yellowish patch on their rumps.
"No," Tiphaine d'Ath said. "Not this time of year. They're mostly pregnant females, and ski
"There were a couple of nice fat yearling bucks and does, my lady," the corporal of the crossbowmen grumbled, but slung the weapon again. "There's nothing like fresh elk liver right out of the beast and onto a fire in the woods."
Tiphaine began to neck-rein her horse around, then suddenly stopped with her clenched right fist thrown up for a halt.
"Quiet!" she said sharply.
Everyone fell silent, the loudest sound a wet crunch as a horse bent its neck to tear off a mouthful, and the wind through the trees. Rudi closed his eyes and let his mind go quiet, with nothing to get in the way of his senses: something: no.
"Alan, did you hear anything just then?" she asked, her voice crisp. "A horse, maybe?"
"No, my liege," he said, shaking his head; he was an older man, a year or two past thirty, and a hunter in his spare time.
Tiphaine shrugged. "Maybe a cat walked over my grave." She gri
They rode on through the meadow, and through more forest ranging from saplings to something near old growth, and then the glittering surface of the lake showed through the trees, hundreds of feet below. It was roughly a rectangle, ru
"So, what'll we do first?" Rudi said happily. "Swim, fish?"
"Can I just sit for a while?" Delia said, rubbing her thighs in between unloading folding chairs and pillows. "Sit on something soft that doesn't move, that is. I don't see why you castle people like riding so much, my lady."
The soldiers gri
Tiphaine smiled slightly. "If we're going to swim, we should have a fire ready for when we get out. The water's cold."
They built one a little way up the shore-the soldiers and the varlet had to take turns going well away for their dip, and stand at a distance with their backs turned while Rudi and the others came up out of the water to warm themselves near the fire.
"Why?" Rudi asked, throwing off the towel and reaching for his clothes.
"Because they're men," Mathilda said.
"Well, so am I," Rudi said reasonably.
"No, you're a boy. It's all right until your voice breaks. And they're commoners, even if the warriors are Associates. We're nobles."
"I'm not," Rudi said. "Delia isn't either."
"Well, you're sorta like a noble-I mean, your mom's the Chief of the Mackenzies, right? That's like being a count or something, so you're a viscount."
"No, being Chief is not like being a count!" he said indignantly.
"I know. I said sorta like. And Delia can be here because she's a servant, and a girl."
"Oh. Weird," Rudi said. "You've got some really strange geasa here, Matti. And Delia's here to fish and swim and play with us, isn't she?"
"Oh, no, young lord," Delia said-gri
"Insolent wench," Tiphaine said calmly, following her to the fire.
Rudi finished dressing and galloped his horse up and down the shore with Mathilda by him, then came back to the pier; they hobbled the mounts and threw a Frisbee around for a while before they got out fishing rods and folding chairs. Tiphaine was already there, with a fair-sized trout hanging in the water with a sharpened twig through its gills. The two cast their fly-lures out, and settled down to watch the water as the last shreds of morning mist burned off it, enjoying the plop of occasional fish jumping, the flight of wildfowl over the water and up into the steep green trees:
"So, this is fly-fishing," Delia said, after a few minutes. "When does something happen?"
"Something is happening," Tiphaine said from her recliner, making another cast. "We're fishing."
"It looks a lot like sitting staring at the water to me, my lady," she said. "We could do that at the millpond."
She got a book out of the picnic baskets and began reading aloud, pausing whenever anyone got a bite. Rudi pricked his ears with interest even though she stumbled over a word now and then; it was something like the older old-time stories, and there were even witches in it-though not good ones. And the names:
"Isn't that name a lot like yours, Lady d'Ath?"
"It's the same. When I was entered on the Association rolls I took a new one; a lot of people do that."
"People in the Clan do, too, when they're Initiated."
Tiphaine nodded. "And they had the same custom in the Society, I think, except that back then they kept the old name too. Mine was: Collette, originally. We picked the new ones out of a hat."
"It's a pretty name, my lady," Delia said.
"Yes, Lady Sandra thought so. But the character named that in the book is totally lame; all she does is get raped by a bandit named Joris, have a baby- who eventually kills Joris when it grows up-and then get massacred by some peasants. I would have picked Herudis or better still Lys, but in the book Lys is a witch and that wouldn't be : prudent. I think those books would be on the Index if they weren't favorites of the consort; she even had them reprinted. She named half the younger set in the Household out of them, it's quite a fad."