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Hans shouldered his slightly younger and slightly lighter brother aside and drew a frothing mug, holding it up to the light, sniffing it to make sure no secondary fermentation had spoiled it, and then taking a long draught.
Then he gri
"Lots of practice there!" someone yelled, and there was more laughter as three sisters ranging in age from seventeen to six set out mugs.
Mathilda belched gently while she considered heading towards the table herself. There were some very good-looking things there, and good-smelling; Honigkuchen honey cakes, Elisen gingerbread made with powdered hazelnuts, Pfefferkuchen fragrant with a hoarded package of spices whose like nobody was likely to see for a long time, fluffy Springerle with anise:
No, she thought. I'm real fullfrom di
One thing she remembered well about her father was that he always looked down on people who couldn't discipline themselves. She clutched harder at memories as they faded.
Rudi came back with a slice of cake and sat and nibbled beside her. "This is great!" he said. "I always like visiting the Fi
Epona came over to the edge of the box behind them, drawn by the sound of his voice; the great wedge-shaped black head bent above the wooden railing, and started to gently lip his tumbled red-gold hair. Rudi laughed, and fed her a bit of the cake; she took it from his palm with a delicate twitch of her lips. Mathilda nodded. "And: well, nobody's being mean to me anymore," she said.
The son of the Mackenzie chieftain looked at her as he rubbed a hand along the mare's jaw. "Well, yeah! Duh! geasa. Mom should have done that months ago, you ask me. But she doesn't like to make people do things, even when it's something good." "Why not?" Mathilda asked.
Rudi frowned. "I think it's 'cause people aren't as happy or good when they think you're pushing them around," he said after a hesitation. "Nobody should be a bully. It comes back at you, Mom says, and always when it's the worst time. But sometimes you have to give them a push, if you're the Chief."
Juniper came back to her bale with a mug of the beer in her hand, and sat to drink and blow out a wuff of satisfaction. She caught the last of the words, and nodded.
"You do, sometimes. Just remember that the world has a way of pushing back." She took a long drink of beer the color of old honey and raised her voice: "Now, that's a noble brew, Ted. Wheat beer, isn't it, for all that it's dark?"
Gertrud Fi
"It's Hefe-weizenbock, Juney, yes, half wheat, half barley. My father and brother worked in the Aktienbrauerei Kaufbeuren, and I remember a bit. We experiment, now that we have time for it. It is not perfect, not yet."
"Not far from it, though," Juniper said, smacking her lips slightly, with what Rudi called her Chief-face peering out for a moment. "De
"Not even Abbot Dmwoski gets this formula!" Gertrud said, with a mock-ferocious scowl, shaking a finger. "Much less you heathen witches!" They made signs at each other-the Horns and the Cross-and then raised their mugs, laughing across the barn's floor. Aoife Barstow came up to Juniper as she finished and bent to murmur in her ear. The Mackenzie chieftain nodded, looked around and called a few names. A drummer with the bodhrans under her arms came to sit beside her, and a piper-the uillea
Juniper exchanged a few words with the other musicians and then raised her voice; the buzz of talk instantly dropped away.
"We'll be doing a piece named 'Do
The bodhran drum began, beaten slow but gradually speeding its tempo, and then the pipes behind it. The young man's clear tenor joined as Juniper's fiddle did:
"Do
Do
Mathilda leaned over, looking at the kilted dancers; Aoife was familiar, but the other woman was a little younger, just turned eighteen, with long brown hair in a single braid and an unremarkable round face made pretty by youth and health and happiness. She wore her shirt open a little to show a new tattoo at the base of her throat. That might have been a crescent moon, but it wasn't; it was a strung bow, the Warrior's Mark, a fashion among the younger Mackenzies when they passed the First Armsman's tests and became liable for the Clan's fighting levy, and for duties like this trip escorting the Chief. Sam Aylward himself disapproved of it, as he did painting faces before a fight, but both new customs had spread nonetheless.
Rudi thought it had come from one of the old songs or stories, but he wasn't sure; he was sure he intended to have it done himself, just as soon as he was old enough.
Mathilda whispered in Rudi's ear as the two Mackenzies unsheathed their dirks and held them overhead, the bright metal catching the lantern light; they stood side by side, left hand on hip, weight on that leg and right toe just touching the floor, and they'd put their flat bo
"Liath: I thought her name was Jeanette?" she said. "Doesn't she live at Sam's place?"
"She's his wife's youngest aunt's daughter," Rudi said automatically, leaning forward as the dancers took their first step forward. "Changed her name when she was Initiated just a little while ago-you know, the way a lot of people do, if their birth-name's old-fashioned and silly. Aoife used to be called Mary, I think."
"Oh," Mathilda said. "I think some people do that up north, too. Different stories, though, so the names are different. Arthur and Roland and Ger and Lancelot and Verranger."
Liath and Aoife bowed and twirled and leapt, their feet flashing faster and faster, the sound of them on the worn oak boards of the barn's floor like the skittering throb of the bodhrans themselves, dancing side-by-side, then face-to-face, then back-to-back. The audience clapped to the rhythm and roared out the chorus:
"Come like the white wolf, Do
Here's tae the Chief and to Do
"Oh, no!" Rudi said suddenly, slapping himself on the forehead.
"What?"
"That's what Dan meant about Aoife falling in love again! He was bummed about it too!"
"I thought her boyfriend's name was Co
"Co
"Who cared about that soppy stuff? I was sooooo excited when Sam gave me that bow. A new one! All my own!"
Rudi smiled. "Well, Mom did lay that geasa on all of us, you know. So Sam had to be as nice to you as he was to me. Besides, he likes you. It's hard to tell that with Sam if you don't know him."
"So Co
"Yup. To a cousin of Cynthia Carson, a girl named: named: " He slapped himself on the forehead again. "A girl named Airmed! Her family's got a part of the new vineyard there. I remember it all 'cause Mom yelled at Aoife about it."