S. Stirling - Lord of Mountains

Then he grinned more widely as she pinched his wrist painfully with a hand strengthened steel-hard by years holding the grip of a fifteen-pound knight’s shield.

“You’re incorrigible!”

“No, I’m the improbable bearer of an impossible Sword; nevertheless, I exist! Your mother doesn’t seem worried, by the way,” he murmured to Mathilda.

She kept her head high and step gliding so that she seemed to drift forward in a rustle of silks, as if her feet were motionless, floating a fraction of an inch above the smooth stone paving blocks. It was as much a product of rigorous training as a swordsman’s stance, in its way.

“Mother doesn’t worry about battles,” she said. “Not that way, at least. She picks people to fight them by judging their character and record, she told me once, and gives them everything they need, then sits back and lets them do their work.”

Well, the Powers picked me, but from Sandra’s point of view there’s not much difference, eh?

The chant du Brabant wasn’t fundamentally all that different from a lot of Mackenzie dances; rings and lines of men and women, moving in set patterns to the music, changing places with the rhythm. It was a good deal more complex, though, and involved the participants singing at some points as well as the musicians playing. Rudi had spent months every year in the Association territories after the War of the Eye-what the northerners called the Protector’s War. That had been part of the peace settlement, and it had involved a good deal of the same schooling Mathilda got just as she’d learned Mackenzie ways in her stays at Dun Juniper, but he hadn’t done much Associate-style dancing since reaching his majority, and none since they left on the Quest two years ago.

He closed his eyes for an instant as the ensemble played the first four measures, then opened them and let remembered skills flow back into nerve and muscle as the dance began on the repeat; the lead couple didn’t have to sing, at least, though Matti had given him the cues.

The sprightly tune began again and they started the hand-in-hand advance. That opening phase ended with the company around them, men in the inner ring and women in the outer, circling in opposite directions. The strong male chorus began to the sound of the instruments and the scuff of leather on stone:

The men turned and faced Rudi and Mathilda where the royal couple pivoted beneath the arch of their own joined hands in the center, and as one they stopped and bowed:

For our King!

Rudi blinked; that chorus wasn’t in any of the versions of this piece he’d heard before, though the rhythm and scansion were the same. Each man straightened, took three paces backward and extended a hand as the women passed through, so that now the circles were reversed; the whole ensemble skipped in a complete circuit and then the ladies took up the song:

They stopped and faced inward, and a uniform deep curtsy ran through them as the men circled behind, the wimples and headdresses bowing like wind through a flower-field made of silk and vair and jewels:

For our Queen!

Now the circle broke as it turned inward, into a moving line of male and female dancers linked by their hands. Rudi and Mathilda danced towards them in their turn; as each pair passed, they opened out and spun around the royal couple.

A crashing chord and they all halted and threw up their linked hands:

This time they were facing Rudi and Mathilda in a spaced line, lord and lady alternating. They bowed and curtsied together as Rudi and Mathilda passed through to the head of the line and turned to face them; all hands were linked in a great chain:

For our King!

The voices wove together again:

For our King!

The dance ceased, amid a shout of laughter; the dancers turned and did their bow and curtsy to the musicians, applauding, and then deeper to the royal pair. Rudi smiled as he and Mathilda inclined their heads in return.

Servants brought around trays of hot spiced wine. He took one, and Mathilda did too; they interlinked their arms so that each took a sip from the other’s glass first. Then he turned and raised it to the crowd, the flame dancing on silk and silver and shining eyes.

And in a day and a night, how many of these laughing young lords of the earth will lie stark with their blood draining into the thirsty soil? he thought, and fought to keep his face merry, as they’d expect.

“A fine dance tonight, and the dance of sword and lance to come,” he said, pitching his voice to carry. “So one more cup, seek your beds and sleep untroubled, my lords.”

For I have other business tonight, with the Powers of the land.

“Artos!” someone cried; he thought he recognized Rigobert’s voice. “Artos and Montival!”

“ Artos and Montival! ”

Stonehenge loomed on its knee of land above the steep drop to the river a thousand feet below. Moonlight painted the standing stones, and hoarfrost glittered; the carriages and teams and horses and bicycles were far enough away that their noise and presence were easy to ignore. Beyond the huge spectacle of the cliff-fringed Columbia fell away to where the light made a glimmerpath on the water, seeming to lead beyond the world. Silk banners hung amid the great rough stones tonight; they were written with the names of those who’d fallen in the Prophet’s War, for more than one coven held this place sacred. The local-semi-clandestine-High Priest and Priestess were here, granting her and the others leave to make their plea in the sacred place.

Juniper Mackenzie stopped, the hood of her robe flung back, and planted a staff that bore the Triple Moon itself on its top, waxing and full and waning. The celebrants halted behind her, the cold wind making a ripping sound when it fanned the torches. Sparks flowed past her into the darkness, flying on a scent of burning pine resin.

A very slight smile quirked her lips. What she saw was a replica-and one built by a Quaker named Samuel Hill a bit more than a century ago, ludicrous myths about Stonehenge being a site of human sacrifice making him think the shape appropriate as a memorial for the dead of war; before the Change it had been a tourist attraction more than anything else. He’d had a great many plans for the area, very few of which had come to fruition…but Stonehenge remained, and was a center of ritual and rite and in all likelihood would be for uncounted generations.