The Sword of the Lady

And after the Southside Freedom Fighters? idea of cooking, this will be very welcome, indeed. Brigid Sheaf-Mistress, how long it?s been since I tasted vegetables or bread!

He tore open a warm roll from one of the baskets and buttered it, the rich yeasty scent of the interior filling his mouth with a rush of hunger-spit; he had to swallow before he could bite into it, for fear of drooling down his good plaid. He followed it with a selection of salad, boiled new potatoes left alone in their own perfection, then a little beef in a cream and herb sauce.

There was an added spice to the food, as well. Right down at the other end of the head table were the red-robed High Seeker from Corwin, and Major Graber of the Sword of the Prophet in the rough blue uniform his service wore beneath armor. The server there was setting out slices from the haunch of a suckling pig, but from their glares neither of the Church Universal and Triumphant?s men was going to enjoy his food.

Rudi looked at the emptied plate before him, added two slices of roast pork with crackling and mashed potatoes and steamed beets, and covered the meat and potatoes with gravy before happily lifting a forkful to his mouth. It was good honest food, fine materials well prepared, if a little blander than the cooks at Dun Juniper would have made it-no herb crust on the meat, for starters, or chives and minced onion with the potatoes. And nothing like the complicated cooking Portland?s nobility favored, where art warred with indigestion.

He chewed blissfully, looking at the Cutters again and nodding good cheer, raising his wineglass to them. Was it his imagination, or did wisps of steam float over the High Seeker?s head? ?Is deacair a bheith ag feadail agus ag ithe mine,? he murmured, sipping the indifferent vintage.

A plump Farmer next to him stopped putting butter on his broccoli and looked at him. ?What?s that?? he said. ?A saying of my mother?s people: It?s hard to whistle and eat at the same time,? Rudi replied, and got a blank look and uncertain smile.?And harder still to swallow when your gut is so tight with rage it aches. Bad for your digestion, that is; bad for your nerves; even worse for your disposition.?

And to be sure, it was better to eat before a fight, within reason, for the bit of added endurance. A prickling ran along the back of his neck as Graber narrowed his cold eyes; even without Ingolf?s warnings he would have suspected that if Bossman proved cooperative about the quest departing, the Cutters would not.

Indeed not. So, eat, but not too much, he thought, waving aside a second round of the serving platter and taking a slice of sour-cherry pie instead.

The Gods were at play tonight, and he one of the pieces they moved on Their board. He dropped a scoop of the ice cream on the pie.

Something sweet, for quick energy. It wouldn?t do to be heavy and slow. ?Right, listen up,? Ingolf Vogeler said.

He looked over the men his friend Jack Heuisink had brought from the family estate, Victrix Farm.

Well, there?s Jack. He doesn?t look like he?s let himself rust.

The heir to Victrix was in his midtwenties, a little shorter than Ingolf-just under six feet-but broad-shouldered and slim-hipped, with cropped dark red hair and a broad snub-nosed face, moving like a lynx. The dozen Heuisink retainers grouped around him in the dimness of the empty warehouse amid the ghostly smells of pine tar and fermented soy and freight more nameless, faces underlit by the blue flame of the alcohol lantern he?d put on an upturned barrel.

The household troops were from Victrix Farm?s National Guard Security Detail; what they called?deputies? back around his own home in the Free Republic of Richland.

And they actually look as if they?ll be useful, not just glorified muscle for keeping the vakis in line, he thought, tapping his sword hand thoughtfully on the plate vambrace on his left forearm.

Jack was a few years younger than the man from Wisconsin; about Rudi?s age, in fact. They?d met when he ran away to join Vogeler?s Villains up north in the Republic of Marshall during the Sioux War, and he?d spent more than a year with the free company Ingolf commanded in that…

Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition exercise in futile butchery and pointless destruction, which ended with the survivors on both sides right where they started, just poorer and less numerous and occasionally missing important body parts, Ingolf thought.

It wasn?t the only war Ingolf had fought in that finished that way, either; about par for the course, in fact. That was one reason he?d gotten out of the hired-soldier business.

But it was sure educational, if you survived. Real educational.

It had given Jack actual combat experience, and the Heuisinks? men were notably tougher-looking than the general run of their kind in Iowa, and almost certainly better trained; their coal-scuttle helmets and mail shirts were carefully browned, and their horse bows and long cavalry shetes looked like they?d seen use. Either Jack had worked them hard, or the Heuisinks had hired men who?d seen border duty beforehand, or both. Probably both.

Most importantly, none of them looked too nervous, just serious and paying careful attention; one was stolidly finishing a ham-and-cheese sandwich and licking a stray squirt of mustard off his fingers as he waited. All of them had given Ingolf a quick professional appraisal; a few had nodded in sober recognition when they met his eyes. Not of who he was, but of what.

And if they are nervous, it?s because they?re not used to cities, not because it?s their first fight, Ingolf thought.

Aloud:?Jack, you?re in tactical command.?

And they know you, so they?re less likely to run screaming if something real bad happens. ?Come fast when I call,? he finished aloud.

Jack nodded; he raised his voice a little when he replied and came to attention and saluted smartly: ?Yes, sir, Captain Vogeler!?

One of his eyes drooped a little in a wink as Vogeler returned the gesture. None of these men knew Ingolf from Adam except possibly in Jack?s war stories, but they?d grown up around the Heuisinks. None of them were going to be much impressed by the fact that he?d been a paid soldier and salvager all his adult life; they certainly wouldn?t give a damn about his birth into a Sheriff?s family in the wilds of Wisconsin, which was desolate dirt-faced yokeldom?s native land to an Iowan. Deference by the master?s son and heir would make them a lot more likely to do what Ingolf told them, which could be crucial.

Christ, I wish I had my old Villains with me, he thought.

Not for the first time, and only partly because they?d all been close comrades whom he missed bitterly even now; that had come from years of serving together, and they?d all known what they were doing and known each other?s capacities.

Or I wish that we were doing this with just Rudi?s bunch. Yah, yah, there?s only ten of us, but at least we?ve been in hairy situations together, and I can be sure they?re all first-class. These guys are strangers, except for Jack. And when I did know him he was a wild youngster, not a married man with kids. Hope he hasn?t changed too much.

Worrying about the mission as a whole kept him from worrying about Mary, too. She was up there on the rooftops right now. Or possibly on her way back already, depending when the Cutters made their move.

Goddamn Edgar Denson and his plan. What was it Doc Pham used to say when someone got too fancy?

The Readstown physician had doubled as a teacher in the hamlet?s school and director of their amateur theatricals. When the stage directions got complex he?d say?Too many notes, Herr Mozart.? That about describes it.

Denson was smart, no two ways about that. But he wasn?t a soldier, not really; he was an intriguer and politician who did some fighting now and then. Certainly not one who?d had years of firsthand experience of how easy it was for the wheels to come off a plan when it met the one the other guy was driving.