All the hands on the trunk and the forked poles laid ready for the moment were teenaged at least; it was a privilege to help with this. He put his shoulder to it, boughs scraping past his face, buried in softly aromatic green needles, and pushed, taking the strain carefully as he felt the weight come onto the muscles of his back and belly-that you were very strong didn't mean you couldn't put your back out; he'd seen it happen. Rudi had been around heavy weights and their handling all his life; he could sense when it began to tilt as the others pushed…

"Easy there- Imrim! Get behind it, man!"

At last the tree was upright in the bath of water, a perfectly symmetrical shape of glossy dark green, the tip between two rafters and just six inches below the floor boards of the second story. Its scent filled the hall as the warmer air coaxed it out, bringing a breath of the spring woods. He knelt again and swiftly spun the screws until they bit into the thick dark furrowed bark and the wood below, then put on the board cover to keep overcurious kittens or puppies or toddlers from falling in or drinking the water. When he stood again, everyone who'd helped raise it stood in a circle around the tree and joined hands, throwing them up three times and whooping.

"Well, there it is," Rudi said to the crowd. "Jack-in-the-Green's little green Jack."

Groans and hoots, and people snatched up twigs and bits of bark that had fallen and pelted him with them. He retreated with his arms over his face, begging for mercy in a falsetto voice; then he sprang forward and grabbed two fourteen-year-olds and caught one under each arm, whirling them around with a back-cracking effort.

When the horseplay was finished he brushed down his jacket and plaid and went to hang them up, checking that his sword and dirk and bow had been placed properly. They had, of course; he touched the long orange yellow stave of yew with its subtle double curve and black walnut riser in the middle, there among the others. He remembered how he'd longed for a proper war bow of his own when he was a kid, practicing at the butts in the meadows below with the rest of his class-Mackenzie education gave the longbow a high priority.

Well, now he had it, from the hands of Aylward the Archer himself; his own height and a handspan more, a hundred and twenty pounds of draw, throwing a thirty-two-inch shaft at four to the ounce.

And it's just as much fun as I thought it would be!

He turned and saw his mother over by the hearth on the north wall, where the house altar rested over the great fieldstone fireplace and a low blaze of split wood burned down to embers. She waved to him: come .

Sir Nigel rose as he watched, and intercepted Sir Odard and Matti. "Come, and I shall thrash you at chess, young man," he said.

Rudi caught Mathilda's eye and gave a slight shake of the head, with an apologetic shrug added to it.

"I'll kibitz while Nigel beats Odard," she said, tak ing it with good enough grace; it wasn't as if she were a stranger to the concept of a state secret, or ever had been. "And then I shall thrash you, Sir Nigel. If you spot me your bishops."

That left only Juniper Mackenzie and Ingolf Vogeler in chairs by the hearth set into the northern wall of the hall. He was looking a lot better than he had; the shadow of the Hunter's wing wasn't on his brow anymore, but he was still painfully thin, the skin fallen in on the heavy bones. She tucked up the soft blanket of beige wool that was around him and poured a little more of the hot mead that stayed warm in a nook in the wall of the fireplace. He thanked her with a shy smile that sat oddly on the battered warrior's face.

Mom's like that, Rudi thought proudly. She's everyone's mother, if they have a good heart and need it.

He'd complained about that once, when he was young, and she'd told him…

What was it she said? Yes: "Love isn't like money-the more you give away the more you get back, and the more you have to give."

And then she'd laughed and told him she loved him best of all, and he'd been all right again. He came over to the hearth and drew up a chair to sit, sinking into the leather cushions and enjoying the warmth of the flickering blaze.

"Glad to meet you when I'm in my right mind, more or less," Vogeler said, offering a hand. After the shake he looked thoughtfully at Rudi's long form. "Maybe we could spar a bit, when I'm back on my pins… I'd like to take the measure of a man who can take down two of the Prophet's cutters fighting in his underwear, and not get a scratch."

Rudi smiled broadly: "I'd like that, Ingolf. They say it'll be a while, though."

Sparring with the same people all the time could get boring-and dangerous. If you fell into a rut and stopped being surprised now and then you stopped learning.

The hall was returning to normal for a winter after noon near Yule, which meant people sitting around talk ing or reading or telling stories, having a beer together or making plans and arguing… but nobody would disturb the Chief and her son at a conversation, and the buzz in the background actually made them more private.

There was a plate of sandwiches on the table beside Ingolf, some honey-cured ham with cheese, some roast venison; he'd eaten only one, and one of the dried-cherry scones.

Ingolf grinned as Rudi picked up a sandwich and raised an eyebrow. "Sure. I keep thinking I'm going to wolf down half a cow, and then I get full. You know how it is when you're getting over something."

He nodded, chewing and savoring the rich strong taste of the deer meat; he did know how it was when you were recovering from a fever or a wound. He'd had one about as bad, and on his gut, before he turned eleven.

After a moment Juniper spoke softly. "If you're well enough now, Ingolf Vogeler, it's your story I would have. Of your own will you're not to blame for what hap pened, but still one of my people is dead, and I must ex plain to an old friend why his daughter was killed in her own home. Also I am the Mackenzie, and the welfare of land and folk is something the Chief must account for at the last."

The easterner licked his lips slightly, took a drink of the mead, and spoke:

"I'm willing to tell you my story," he said, his eyes fixed on the distance. "Christ be my witness, I owe you folks my life and more. But it's… just so damned strange."

His mouth quirked. "Always told myself I was a practical type. But this has got weird stuff in it… would you believe a voice I heard in dreams sent me here?"

Juniper Mackenzie laughed, a clear peal. "Oh, Ingolf, you've come to the one place in all the world for that to be believed-though in truth, I might have thought you wandering in your wits if I hadn't had independent confirmation of some of it."

"And I haven't had the dream since I arrived. And by God, I'm thankful for that!"

Juniper nodded. "The Powers are at work here, but it isn't the first time they've touched my life, so… or Rudi's."

He gave a shy duck of the head. "Well, it's like this… the start's ordinary enough. After the war with the Sioux, I didn't want to end up a hired soldier, but there didn't seem to be much else I could do except get work as a farmhand. Not that I'm above any honest work; sheriffs from the Free Republic of Richland aren't so high and mighty that we never touch a pitchfork or a plow handle, not like some folk I could name but won't, like those arrogant bastards over to Marshall."

"Not welcome back home?" Rudi asked sympathetically. That would be a terrible thing.

"Not without more crawling than I could stomach," Ingolf said grimly. Then his tone became matter of-fact.

"So some friends and I who'd fought together in the war, we got into the salvage business. Not steel and glass and stuff like everyone gets from the nearest ruins; that's low-value, and it's pretty tightly tied up most places too; you can't just go in and start mining. Not anywhere close enough to market that the cost of hauling wouldn't kill you."