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He sketched it in. The details were unfamiliar to them, and what tales had crossed the continent were hopelessly garbled, but the gist of it seemed easy enough to grasp; it was not altogether different from what they or their parents had experienced. ?Lady Juniper!? the seeress said, at one point.?Juniper Mackenzie
… Tell me, boy-she?s short and slight, is she, and with hair brighter red than a fox, green eyes, and a voice like water flowing by moonlight? With a County Mayo brogue she could put on when she wished, that she learned from her mother, and you learned from her?? ?You know my mother?? Rudi said, stopping in an astonishment shared by the others.?You?ve met her??
Then he smiled and slapped his forehead.?Oh! From before the Change?? ?Yes. She used to play with the consort Siobhan ni hEodhusa put together for the Principality of the Mists. It was a great loss to the Kingdom of the West when she moved north again. If anyone lived, she would. But you say that nothing is left in California?? she added wistfully. ?I fear not, except in the most remote mountain parts of the north and east,? Rudi said gently.?It was… very bad there, from what the Dunedain explorers have found of late.? ?So Kalk saw in his vision, before the Change. So my heart said,? she said.?That?s why I and my family moved here, and just in time.?
Then she shook her head and looked shrewdly at Mathilda. ?And your father was Norman Arminger, and your mother Sandra, girl??
Mathilda nodded warily; her parents had collected enemies, and though they hadn?t spoken often of the old world she?d heard rumors enough.
Heidhveig laughed shortly.?And Norman ended up cutting himself out a kingdom from the chaos at the sword?s edge? Why am I not surprised.? ?He was Lord Protector,? Mathilda said.?He died in battle… well, to tell you the truth, he and Rudi?s father killed each other in single combat… when I was ten.? ?Your sires killed each other?? Bjarni said, a brow going up.
Rudi spread his hands:?But not before we?d sworn the oath of anamchara… which made us as soul brother and soul sister.? ?Ah,? the Bjorning said.?Yes, sometimes one duty has more might than another. Also, a fair fight that men chose freely… well, that may end a feud, not start one.?
Mathilda nodded and went on:?My mother… Sandra is Lady Regent now, until I?m of age… twenty-six that is. A few months less than two years from now. She held things together in Portland after he died.? ?Why am I even less surprised at that?? Heidhveig said dryly. ?You, ah, knew them, lady? You were in the Society?? ?You might say that…? she said wryly.?But that was another world-literally. I had another name then. I was another person then, and not just because I was a lot younger.?
Then, softly for a moment:?That world went down in ice and fire and terror, before you two were born. Let all the old feuds die with it. From what you say, Norman and Sandra did great things, deeds terrible and grand, that few others could have accomplished. For good and ill both.?
Farther down the hall, Odard Liu and Ritva Havel were playing their lutes, a crowd of appreciative Bjornings surrounding them-they knew the guitar here, and the harp, but didn?t seem to have many lutists. The baron?s voice rose in a song he?d composed some time ago, but with altered words. Mathilda flushed a little to hear it: ?The ones who rule over our fair land of Montival
They reign just and wisely, without favor or fear
And no truer lady trod on this good earth
So let the hall ring for the Light of the North!
Let the hall ring for the Princess of Montival Let the hall ring for the Light of the North! ?She matches in honor the Prince of our Montival
To all of her subjects she lends a kind ear
Lady by grace, and Princess by birth!
So let the hall ring for the Light of the North!
So let the hall ring for the Princess Mathilda So let the hall ring for the Light of the North! ?She carries a sword for the honor of Montival
Before her in battle our foes flee in fear
With her inspiration our knights will charge forth
So let the hall ring for the Light of the North!
So let the hall ring for the Princess of Montival So let the hall ring for the Light of the North!? ?He thinks he?s a troubadour,? she said apologetically, as cheers greeted the song. ?Well, then he probably is,? Heidhveig said.?I?ve heard far, far worse.? She reached across with the staff and prodded Rudi?s bare knee below the kilt.?Go on, lad, go on.?
Rudi cleared his throat; more than any women he?d met besides his mother and Matti?s, Heidhveig seemed able to make him feel like a boy again without even trying. ?Well, two years ago-two years and a month, it was Samhain Eve, and that an omen in itself-Ingolf here rode into Sutterdown, the Clan?s only town, having as he thought shaken off the Prophet?s men in the passes of the Cascades. They were waiting for him instead, disguised as harmless travelers, and-? ?That?s a wild tale,? Bjarni said when it was finished, shaking his head.?I wouldn?t credit half of it, if it weren?t for the seidhkona. Even so, it?ll take a while to settle my mind around it. How large the world is! How little our share of it seems now, that was so broad yesterday!?
She looked at Rudi:?The Church Universal and Triumphant, eh? I knew a little about them before the Change. They were… strange. .. and obnoxious sometimes… but they didn?t traffic with malevolence or try to turn men into less than beasts. They?ve been corrupted, to serve the enemies of humankind… and of the Gods.? ?Corrupted by who?? Rudi asked.
Bjarni shivered a little, and his wife laid a hand on her belly over the child. ?Asa-Loki,?neath the mountain, chained and raging…? Harberga quoted softly.
Heidhveig nodded.?As good a name as any. And unless they?re stopped, even one as old as I may yet live long enough to see that One riding with a face of poison to Vigrid Plain, on the last morning of the world.?
Father Ignatius nodded crisply and signed himself.?Good will triumph over evil in the end,? he said.?But it doesn?t happen without us working and, yes, fighting for it. Nor is any victory certain until the last days.?
Rudi shivered slightly, staring into the fire where white flames danced over the red glow of the coals. ?I?ve had… visions. Some, I think, of what the world might have been if the Change had not come. Some of what might yet be, if the CUT triumphs. Both… bad. Very bad indeed. And their common feature that men no longer walk the earth, though in some of them things in our shape do. In others, the very soil and air are dead.? ?I?ve seen those too,? Ingolf said, his battered hands clenching on his knees.?Only on Nantucket, though. God… Gods… that was weird! But I saw things in Corwin while I was a prisoner there that were enough to turn your stomach; and things that would make your hair crawl, things that just shouldn?t be. They?ve got plans for the world and I wouldn?t want them to come true. Those breeding pits-? He shuddered. ?Then we must see that they don?t come true,? Mathilda put in.
Bjarni?s big capable hands gripped the arms of his chair. ?I know that the seidhkona?s vision was the truth. Thor?s Hammer, I heard it! I?m a true man; I?ll stand with the Gods-which means with you, Rudi-with all my main and my might. But I can?t call on every fighting man in Norrheim to march a thousand miles and more to battle an enemy they?ve never heard of. They?d hoot me off the Thingstone! And-?
He looked at his wife again; love and pain were at war in the glance they shared.
Rudi nodded.?You can?t leave your steadings and families unguarded. I wouldn?t expect you to.?
Bjarni?s mouth quirked.?The Wanderer is at home everywhere and nowhere; he has all the world of Midgard to ward and all the sons and daughters of Ash and Embla to guide, and more besides. But this?-his gesture took in the hall, and the lands beyond-?is my world, my tribe and folk, the world my father built, the one I want to hand on to my children when I lay my bones beneath the howe. Yes, and watch over afterwards.?