S. Stirling - The Given Sacrifice

Órlaith nodded, scrubbing at her eyes.

“Oh, I don’t know, Órry,” Heuradys said, putting her arm around her shoulders. “My lady mother’s a witch and I’ve had some really awkward moments with her, too.”

“You have?” Órlaith asked.

“Yes, by the Gray-Eyed! Just a few months ago I had to sit her down and tell her something she really didn’t want to hear. She wasn’t happy about it, either, any more than your mother was.”

“You did ?” Órlaith said; she couldn’t imagine the calmly cheerful Lady Delia de Stafford getting all coldly miserable the way her own mother had. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Sort of embarrassing, really. It was a family council at Montinore Manor back on Barony Ath, when I was back for the Twelve Days. . Yule. . and it was just me and her and Auntie Tiph-”

She stopped and glared at Ian, who was chortling. “What exactly is funny? I haven’t got to that part yet, unless you think my whole family is funny, Lord Ian?”

“Anyone calling Lady Death her auntie , that’s funny. Sorry, sorry.”

“Well, I don’t call her Lady Death, you know. And my lord my father Count Rigobert was there, he spends that season with us mostly,” she went on quellingly. “You see, my lady mother had been throwing nice girls from her coven my way since I turned fifteen, and I just had to tell her Mom, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I really like boys better. ”

“What did she say?” Órlaith asked, startled into intense interest.

“She sort of looked at me. . you know how mothers do, like you’re still about four. . and put her hand on mine and said in this amazingly irritating calm voice: ‘Darling, isn’t it possible this is just a phase you’re going through?’ ”

Heuradys smiled ruefully at the ring of grins. “And my lord my father and Auntie Tiph didn’t help.”

“Did they get upset too?” Órlaith asked.

“No, they laughed. I mean, really laughed-I thought my lord my father was going to hurt himself. So Mom and I both got mad at them, which made them laugh even harder. I’ve never seen Auntie Tiph break up that way, not even when she heard about Sir Boleslav trying to drink a whole bottle of vodka standing in a castle window and the moat had been drained, and my lord my father was staggering when he got up and left. I think he told Sir Julio because then I could hear him laughing after a while.”

Ingolf shook his head and grinned and seemed to be searching his memory.

Ritva frowned a little. “It’s sort of funny. . I mean, most Associates are such strong Catholics and they’re really odd about things like that, so I can see, you know, some other mother doing things just like that if it were the other way ’round, or screaming and fainting. . but why was it that funny?”

“I asked my lord my father and he just said I was far too young to understand-and so was my mother, a little too young. So it must be some pre-Change thing. You forget he’s not a Changeling sometimes because he’s so. . not a fuddy-duddy. Even Auntie Tiph isn’t a Changeling, not all the way-she was as old at the Change as you are now, Órry. But my lady mother was just a kid, younger than my sister Yolande.”

The story seemed to break the awkwardness, and everyone pitched into dinner. Órlaith found her appetite was right back, and when you were sharp-set wild boar was absolutely scrumptious, rich but stronger-tasting than domestic pork. There wasn’t any butter for the biscuits, but the drippings did fine, and then her aunts Mary and Ritva got out their mandolin and flute.

Much later in the tent, she reached across to the other cot and squeezed Heuradys’ hand in the darkness, the calluses matching her own.

“Thanks, Herry. You’ve been a real brick.”

“Hey, I’m going to be your liege-sworn knight someday, Órry.”

“I know. But it’s even better to have a friend. ’night.”

Dun Juniper, Dùthchas of the Clan Mackenzie

(formerly western Oregon)

High Kingdom of Montival

(Formerly western North America)

Beltane Eve, Change Year 42/2040 AD

Órlaith almost missed her step in the dance as she checked the bower she’d built out of the corner of her eye.

The nemed of Dun Juniper was a place whose name woke awe across the High Kingdom, the Sacred Wood. A circle of ancient oaks stood on a knee of land on the side of the mountain, many planted long ago with their successors in all stages of growth, a ring of smooth brown trunks like hundred-foot pillars and a continuous band of intermingled branches above bright-with-the-green new leaves. The path upward to the plateau was steep, winding back and forth through the dense green fir-woods, but it was filled tonight-not only with visitors from all over the Clan’s dùthchas, but others from across Montival and even a few from beyond it.

For this was the center of the Old Faith in the world the Change had made, and its mistress was Goddess-on-Earth.

Tonight the great trees of the circle were bound together with chains of woven flowers, budding roses, wood hyacinths and lilies of the valley, pansies and impatiens and larkspur. Torches burned in the wrought-iron holders at the four Quarters, and fire flickered before the shaped boulder that was the altar. They beckoned and glittered through the cool dampness and the thickness of the hillside firs. It was a gathering, a party really. . but there was something of otherness about this place, even on a quiet day alone. Tonight that feeling was raw and strong, the focused belief of the multitude like a weight stretching thin the walls of the world.

Órlaith shivered a little in spite of the thick white wool robe she wore, feeling goose bumps against the fabric.

Old Sybil Leek said it: Let those who would dance through the woods skyclad. I have too much respect for my own skin!

Her feet swayed and moved to the rhythm that turned the dancer’s torches in the long line down the hillside. The ancient dancing style the Mackenzies practiced had various and sundry purposes; keeping you warm while on the trail to the nemed was certainly one of them. Another was the way the rhythm took you beyond yourself, until it seemed to settle into bone and breath and heartbeat.

Fiorbhinn Mackenzie was May Queen. She sang greeting to flute and bohdrán as she danced, her silver and crystal-embroidered robe like a glitter on dew-starred grass between the two balefires at the entrance to the plateau; the only other sound was the rippling of the fire as it ate the fir-wood, and the wind soughing in the tops of the trees. Her hands were upraised, and her great pale eyes full of the moonlight; long blond hair swept down past the shoulders of her robe mingled with wreaths of white meadowsweet and blue hyacinth.

The procession whirled by on either side, each dancer like notes of the song:

“Moon rise and star fall

Fire burn and night wind call

Drum beat the wild song

That heart sings at summer’s dawn!”

The robed procession wound its way into the clearing, a spiral around the great circle of the nemed . Juniper Mackenzie was present with her consort Nigel Loring, seated in a pair of carved chairs whose backs echoed the twin ravens at the top of her staff and the corvine beak of his mask, each wrapped in a thick cloak. Her lined face was smiling, but this time for the first Beltane since the Change she was not presiding over the celebrations. That was for her daughter and successor Maude who now had the Triple Moon on her brow, no longer tanist but the Mackenzie Herself. She’d said she didn’t intend to dodder into her grave as Chief, the time had come when the Clan needed a Changeling at its head, and Maude could always come to her parents for advice. .