John Ringo: Unto the Breach

“Glad to hear it,” Mike said, trying not to gulp.

Katrina was the first Keldara he’d ever met. He’d gotten lost in a snowstorm headed for a ski resort in northern Georgia. Lost, in the middle of a blizzard, damned near out of gas, he’d almost hit a figure struggling down the road. The female, at the time he’d thought her an old woman, was carrying a bundle of sticks and wrapped up against the cold. He’d offered her a lift home and not really seen her face or figure until he entered the House Devlich.

Despite the difference in age, despite all the differences, Mike had to admit there was something that really got him about Katrina. Oh, there was plenty of lust there and a good bit of infatuation on both sides. But Mike hadn’t felt this way about a girl in a long time, if ever. Call it chemistry. In a few more years he’d have to make up his mind what to do about it. In the meantime, he tried very hard to keep his distance. But he wasn’t going to back up just because the girl had closed to a few inches.

“I’ve started working directly with Mother Lenka,” Katrina said, smiling secretly. “She is teaching me much of her magic.”

“Well, you’re the one to do that with,” Mike said, frankly grinning. “You and Lenka are two of a kind.”

Mother Lenka was the Keldara brewmistress. All of the Houses had their own brew but, hands down, Mother Lenka, who like Katrina was of the Devlich Family, was the best of an amazingly good lot.

Lenka was a Russian war-bride, originally from St. Petersburg. A force of nature, she was never willing to describe what role she had been in, exactly, prior to marrying Frederik Devlich and returning to the Valley to live out the rest of her days. Given her foul mouth, generally lewd approach to life and absolute bloody-mindedness, though, Mike was willing to bet she wasn’t displaced aristocracy. The term “whore” came to mind.

But she had carved a niche for herself in the Keldara, a position of respect equivalent to or even higher than the House Mothers.

All of which were reasons Mike had chosen her to run the new brewery. That beer was designed for sale and export. The first batch had just hit the American market and it was receiving rave reviews. Mike wondered what the drinkers would think if they knew the Keldara considered it less than third rate.

“You think so?” Katrina asked, tilting her head to the side. “And is that a compliment or an insult?”

“I think it’s a compliment,” Mike said. “A sort of sideways one. I don’t think that Lenka has had the happiest life.”

“Should life always be happy?” Katrina asked, her eyes still pointed at his face but now looking past him at some other place. “The world is a wheel, cycles upon cycles. Winter and summer, night and dark, good and evil, all spiraling together. Without pain there is no pleasure and without sadness no joy. All of life is a circle of balance on the wheel.” She shook her head and looked at him again. “Sorry. I… I guess… ” She looked down, clearly ashamed. The Keldara were, by and large, a pretty rock-headed lot when it came to philosophy. Katrina was not, by any stretch, considered a “good” Keldara.

Mike liked the Keldara for about a billion reasons. But that particular rock-headedness was not one of them.

“Don’t apologize,” Mike said. “There are some pretty good technical thinkers among the Keldara but I think you’re just about the only true genius. Genius is never easy to live with. Especially in a place like this. I know you want to be Kildaran but if I have my druthers you’ll get shipped off when you’re eighteen to someplace like the Sorbonne or Princeton to get turned into a nice little liberal.”

“Very funny,” Katrina said, shaking her head. “Look at what happened to the last Keldara to go to college.”

“He came back to be the farm manager,” Mike replied.

“I don’t want to get an agronomy degree,” Katrina snapped back, just as fast.

“No, I think you’re more the liberal arts type,” Mike said. “Semiotics, maybe?”

“I’ve read some Foucault,” Katrina said, shrugging. “Not interested. I think one rock dropped on his head would have adjusted the whole concept of relativism.”

“Where in the hell did you get a copy of Foucault?” Mike asked, surprised.

“Out of your library,” Katrina said. “I think it’s Colonel Nielson’s though. It was filled with notes, most of them consisting of foul-mouthed diatribes.”

“Yeah, that’d be Nielson’s,” Mike said, chuckling. The former War College instructor had very little patience with anything that smacked of “baffling with bullshit.” And people had learned not to say words or phrases like “Politically Correct”, “Marxist” or “Trans-National Progressives” around him unless they’d brought a chair, a lunch and some sort of poncho to keep the spittle off.

“Well, then, you can go to Texas A M and hang out with the Aggies,” Mike said. “You should get a kick out of that.”

“I don’t want to go to college,” Katrina said. “I want to be Kildaran. It does not require a college degree. The only training I need is from that blonde witch you brought in from Uzbekistan.”

“Oh, yeah, you two would get on like a house afire. Every been in a house that’s on fire, Katrina?”

“I actually get along just fine with Anastasia,” Katrina said, batting her eyes at him. “Who do you think gave me the book?”

“Katrina!” Father Devlich shouted, striding over. “Quit pestering the Kildar!”

Father Devlich was tall and broad with gray-shot red hair clipped above the ears and off the collar. Practically the definition of “rock-headedness” he had been landed a “daughter” that was his functional opposite. Perhaps it was the reason that he seemed to be perpetually angry.

“It’s quite alright, Father Devlich,” Mike said, smiling at the man. Of all the Fathers, Devlich was, hands down, his least favorite. And the feeling was mutual.

“Kildar,” Father Devlich said, nodding. “It’s just that the Elders are waiting.”

“I will be there momentarily,” Mike said. He was, after all, the fucking Kildar. If he wanted to talk to a pretty girl, the Elders could damned well wait. On the other hand, Father Kulcyanov was in the group and the old soldier didn’t deserve to be ignored. “Katrina, we’ll talk later. But you’re not in the running for Kildaran. That’s final. Not any time soon. So do good work for Mother Lenka. Get your education down, too. Okay?”

“Oh, I will,” Katrina said, licking her lips. “A very broad education, yes?”

“Oh, my God!” Mike said, shaking his head and walking over to the cluster of Elders.

“Katrina, I swear by the Father of All… ” Father Devlich ground out.

“You swear what , Father?” Katrina asked. “That you will beat me? That you will deny me food? That you will have me shunned? That you will cast me out and send me to town? You’ve done all of those but send me to town and the Kildar has forbidden that for any girl of the Keldara. I do my job at the brewery, do it well . And I will be Kildaran, bringing honor to the Family. Be it in a year or ten years, I shall be Kildaran. And as to the Father of All, blessings be upon his eye, you know that I now follow the other way. So cursing me by the Father is a weak threat, Father.”

“Very well,” Father Devlich said. “You feel that you are a woman grown? Then I give you into the hands of Mother Lenka. Let her handle you.”

“I have been for three years, Father, and you know that,” Katrina said. “I have been in the hands of Mother Lenka since I came of age. At this point, I am very close to being her designated Heir, Father. More status to the House, yes?”