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"Yelled at Aoife because Co
"No, 'cause Aoife was so mad she tried to cast a spell to make Airmed's toenails split and her hair fall out and things."
"Can't you witches do that?"
"Well, of course we can, we're just not supposed to, it's against the rules. Besides, Airmed's a witch too. That's really really really not a good idea, putting a hex on another witch. They can tell."
"Oh. Well, so who's Aoife in love with now?"
"Liath, of course," he said impatiently, gesturing towards the dance, and rolled his eyes upward.
"But Liath's a girl too!"
"So?" Rudi said, puzzled. "Sometimes that's the way it happens."
Mathilda looked at him. "But that's against the rules. And it's: icky."
"Why?" Rudi asked, and then nodded as he remembered. "Oh, yeah, it's geasa for you Christians, isn't it?" he said tolerantly. "Like not eating meat in Lent? It's different for us witches."
"But then why was Dan bummed about it?"
" 'Cause Aoife's cool most of the time, but she's a complete pain when she falls for someone, everyone knows that. You weren't around the last time, with Co
"Am I?" Mathilda asked, her voice quiet.
"Are you what?"
"Your best friend."
"Well, duh, why do you think I hang out with you all the time?" he said cheerfully, giving her a punch on the arm. "It's not so Uncle Chuck can have the same boring grown-ups following us around with spears, you know. Or because you're my fostern-sister. You're cool."
They leaned back against the hay bale, sharing their plaids as the night grew a little chilly, and passing the chunk of fruitcake back and forth for the sort of small bites you took when you were full and just eating for the taste. Mathilda felt her eyelids drooping as Juniper sang "Odhche Mbath Leihh," slow and sad and sweet.
Then they came open with a snap, a wariness prickled by a change in the air. Not at anything that was said or done, or any sudden sound at first. Then she noticed a mud-splashed man in leather pants and jacket talking to Edward Fi
"Mathilda, my dear, I have news for you."
"What?" Mathilda said, feeling a sharp stab of fear draining away the good feelings.
"Your mother has come to Corvallis, child. You'll be seeing her tomorrow, or very soon."
Chapter Six
Corvallis, Oregon
January 1lth, 2008/Change Year 9
T he fort on the eastern bank of the Willamette guarded the twin bridges ru
A small stone monument outside the gate listed the names of those who'd died defending the desperately needed crop in that first dreadful year. Lieutenant Sally Chen remembered those days, sometimes much better than she wanted to, late at night; remembered the cramping hunger in her belly as her bones poked through her skin, and the cry of bring out your dead: She'd been a first-year student then, and used a sharpened shovel in the scramble to keep refugees and foragers off the fields of grain and vegetables and the hoarded livestock; helped bring in the harvest too, often with her bare hands or a kitchen knife. She'd also fought in the internal battles, carefully not commemorated, with those who wanted to fall in with the state government in Salem and its insane plan to put all the food in one pot and try to carry everyone through. When that civil war was over-and the plague victims had been buried in mass graves north of the Hewlett-Packard plant-there had been food enough for the survivors in the city and its surrounding territory to keep eating until the next year's crop: just barely.
Beyond the river was a thin strip of settled land about two farms deep, with grainfields and orchards and defended homesteads, and then mostly vacant brush-country to the notional border with the Mackenzie territories along old Highway 99E, and more of that beyond, because the first Clan duns were well east, past the old I-5 interstate. In between were old ruins and new wilderness, growing up worse every year in bramble and weeds and sapling trees save where wildfire preserved grassland; the central core of the Valley had taken the worst damage in the aftermath of the Change, and what people remained still clung to the bordering mountains.
Chen spent much of her time under arms patrolling that budding jungle, keeping it a little less unsafe for traders and travelers, which was less boring than sitting here watching the road, but also less comfortable. Now she sat on a bench in the fort's courtyard across from the open east gate and took a bite of the sandwich her eight-year-old son had brought over from home; smoked pork and sharp-tasting cheese on black bread, with mayo
Pweeeeet!
The whistle of the speaking tube brought her on her feet with a sigh; just standing around in armor all day was work, and unlike the shop you didn't have a pair of shoes or a set of harness to show for it afterwards. She looked up, then walked over to the stand and pulled the cork out of the fu
"What've you got, Hillary?" she shouted into it, then put her ear close to listen.
"Mounted party on the highway, armed-I can see some lanceheads. About twenty riders, with two two-horse wagons. Coming at a walk."
Chen looked out the open gate: nothing there but roadway stretching out into the mist; then she scratched her head under the brim of the helmet with her free hand and took another bite out of the sandwich. Twenty armed riders with only two small vehicles didn't sound like merchants; you'd never make a profit on it. She knew that well, since in civilian life she ran a leatherworking business with her husband and brother and sister-in-law, as the marks of awl and thread and needle on her hands bore witness. They'd taken small shares in several caravans buying hides further to the east, and checked on the costs to make sure the accounting was honest.
Chen looked around the small courtyard that held the winch. The fortress was a solid, square block of stone and concrete about the height of a two-story house, with round towers at the corners and a wet moat without; one of the minor hardships of being stationed here was the everlasting slight stagnant smell, except when the spring freshets from the Willamette changed the water.