S. Stirling - The Given Sacrifice

Then their heads turned. The fluting whistle of the sentries’ call came through the afternoon air, only distinguishable from birds if you knew, and they relaxed as it said our people come.

Mary and Ritva had taken a half dozen of the younger Rangers out, not simply hunting for the pot but to start the familiarization process; really knowing every inch of your territory went with the job. All the hunters had returned, and over the packhorses were. .

“Venison,” Ian said hollowly. “Oh, boy, what a treat. On days in which the sun rises in the east, we Dúnedain Rangers shall have venison for dinner. I’m going to grow antlers this year, I can feel the buds itching.”

“Looks like they got a yearling porker, too, and some turkeys. . and hel -lo, there are visitors.”

A dozen more riders came behind the Ranger party.

“Edain, by Eru! That’s six of the High King’s Archers and-”

Órlaith threw herself off the horse and into his arms, a solid weight of fast-growing teenager.

“Uncle Ingolf!”

• • •

“Sorry the house isn’t fit for company, but we’re doing spring-cleaning,” Ingolf said.

Órlaith laughed as he jerked a thumb at a huge pile of slightly musty-smelling planks and laths that lay not far from the ancient stone building; not far from that was a pile of broken tile, ready to be ground for tempering powder in the new ones that would be made as soon as the kiln was built. The round Dúnedain tents were grouped around their hearth-fires, and they’d pitched their own set-the High King’s Archers had three domed Clan-style bells, and she and Herry had a slightly larger rectangular model. For this trip she’d managed to escape the train of Court servants, all except for a couple of groom-roustabouts and the bowmen.

It had helped that things at Todenangst had been so frantic. Her father had been quietly and wisely sympathetic to her desire to escape, which had been wonderful but less comfort than she’d expected.

Even if your Da is wise and strong and King, he can’t make everything better. I must be getting older, she thought.

There hadn’t been much time to talk with the Rangers, apart from the Alyssa and Cole send their greetings and the youngest is doing fine level. She didn’t know whether to be happy or depressed about that.

They all lay sprawled about the fire, with sparks drifting upward towards the shimmering roof of the oak’s new leaves. Skewers of boar loin dressed with wild garlic were sizzling, and iron Dutch ovens of biscuits stood in a raked-down section of the coals, and a pot of wild greens was bubbling-amole leaves, with another of mashed dock. The smell made her mouth water despite it all; there was nothing like a long day in the saddle to work up an appetite.

Da said that getting tired and using my body would help. Hard work keeps sorrow at bay until you’re strong enough to deal with it. He was right. . again.

Maccon laid his huge gruesome head in her lap and rolled his eyes up at her, and she rubbed his graying chops. He was getting old. . she had that on the brain right now.

“Yes, you’ll all get even more ,” she said, leaning back against her saddle; two of his latest crop of puppies were a little farther from the fire, tall lanky shaggy young beasts named the MacMaccons. “Like you haven’t been gorging on guts.”

She was in a kilt and plaid again, which was a relief-the long deathbed wait in Castle Todenangst had all been in Associate formal women’s dress, for which at thirteen she was now just old enough. She hadn’t complained under the circumstances, but enough was enough.

She sighed. You could travel a thousand miles, but you couldn’t run away from your thoughts; her father had told her that, too. She turned to Ingolf instead.

“It’s good to see you again, Unc’,” she said. Then, peering closer: “Are you going bald? I can see firelight on your scalp. ”

There was a roar of laughter around the fire, which surprised her; Mary Vogeler was laughing harder than any. Ingolf ran one big battered hand over his head, which was indeed getting a bit thinly thatched, though there wasn’t much gray in it.

“Male-pattern baldness runs in my family,” he said ruefully. “Dad, my older brother. . damned if I’m going to grow a middle-aged Vogeler beer gut, though.”

Heuradys nudged her with the toe of her boot; she was looking quite dashing in her squire’s hunting outfit, with a Montero hat sporting a peacock feather tilted back on her bobbed mahogany hair; she had the knack of doing that even after hard travel through the wilderness. Unfairly, she’d shot up and filled out over the last couple of years, while Órlaith still had the build of a tall gawky plank. The two years between them still made a lot of difference.

“Ah, the comfort there’s to be had in the voices of the young!” Edain said, grinning and taking a swig from a jug covered in straw that was doing the rounds. “Fair makes a man spring about like a goat, his youth renewed, it does not.”

“Edain, you’re ten years younger than me,” Ingolf said, and smiled himself in a mock-nasty way. “Just you wait .”

“What brings you down this way?” Ian said.

“Oh. . I wanted to get out of. . of the places I’m usually in,” she said. Then she blurted: “Nona died. My. . the Queen Mother,” she said in a rush.

There were exclamations, but nobody among the Dúnedain knew her Nona Sandra the way she did. Sandra Arminger had been feared, and hated, and widely respected; she’d also been loved, but that mainly by people she was closer to.

“We’d heard that she was ill, of course,” Ritva said.

A slightly awkward silence fell, and Órlaith continued doggedly. “We. . there was some warning, but it came on fast and the end. I was there. . ”

Memory took her back. The smell of incense, the murmur of chanted prayer in the background. John crying silently, tears trickling down his face from still brown eyes; Maria and Lorcan had said their good-byes and then been ushered out, they were too young yet to understand. Sandra had smiled and managed to squeeze Órlaith’s hand. They were all waiting as the gaslamps flickered, watching the slow rise and fall of the sheet over her breast, and the glisten of the holy oil on her eyelids.

Then her eyes fluttered open. They seemed to be seeing something . When she spoke, her voice was very quiet but clear, perfectly ordinary:

“Norman, we have to talk.”

Órlaith squeezed her eyes shut on the memory: “And then she died,” she whispered. “She was just gone, and I realized how alive she’d always been. There was always this crackle around her. Like somewhere thoughts were coming out like sparks from a burning pine log.”

When she opened her eyes again, the others were looking at her a little oddly: it was not the time you’d expect her to leave the family to go on a ramble. All those close to the fire were kin to her or the next thing to it, and old companions of her father on the Quest who’d helped raise her on and off.

“I wouldn’t go attend the funeral mass,” she blurted. “I mean, I wouldn’t take Communion at it. I won’t, anymore, I should never have been confirmed. I’ve decided I’m of the Old Religion. I know we’re allowed to see it as. . as you know, another form of the same thing, so we can do the ceremonies if we need to, but I won’t . I won’t deceive Mom. John’s a good Catholic, but I’ll never be. We had a big fight about it-mostly me yelling and her being so quiet. So I had to, to get away.”

Edain reached over and put a hand on her back for a moment. “That’s hard, my Golden Princess. Matti your mother I’ve known all my life, and she’s a good Queen and an even better friend and a true comrade, but at seventh and last she’s cowan, and. . that means there are things she does not ken.”