From what he?d heard, most of the folk of the old world had been utterly helpless when the Change came and the machines stopped, country-folk and farmers only a little less than townsmen. In some places enough skills had been found or pieced together to build life new on old foundations; the Clan Mackenzie had been luckier than most, since many of its founders had been lovers of the ancient arts. Close to the great cities it had been worst of all. There tens of millions were left without food or water; everything went down in a doomed scramble to keep alive an hour at a time, and plague ran through the surging masses like wildfire through dry grass.
From the Mississippi to the east coast, where the cities had been thickest, little remained but bands like these-and Rudi seemed to have been fortunate indeed in the ones he met.
Luck of that sort is only to be expected, if you?re fated to dree a hero?s weird, he thought with an inward grin, half at himself, half defiant mockery at the Powers. It?s one of the compensations for the fear and danger and general misery and the prospect of an early death. You?re lucky until you aren?t, so to say. ?They was all littles, the pamaws,?cept old Jake, he was my pa, and Tuk?n Samul?s,? Jake said.?He brought everyone out and hid?em till the New Year. He was a good one, old Jake the sailor man. Dead a long time now, though; he?s a good spook? Spirit-guardian, Rudi translated mentally.
– ?for all of us Southside studs n? bitches.?
Men and women, his mind added.
It was going to be a strain talking, until he learned a bit of this dialect. He?d heard many on his trip across the continent, but none quite so strange except those that weren?t English at all.
They stayed in the river valley for the most part, working their way south and slightly west, despite the deep dark under the trees that blocked most of the moonlight. A little reflected from the rippling surface of the Illinois, enough to use if you were very careful, and if the horses were sure-footed. They rode on the verge of the broken pavement to spare their feet, with only the sound of the hooves to mark their passage. Rudi guessed that the Southsider camp was down by the riverbank, and wasn?t surprised; it would be easier all round, with firewood close to hand, drinking water, cover from prying eyes, and shelter-the higher land around here was mostly open tallgrass prairie.
Epona tossed her head up and snorted. Rudi inhaled deeply; that was the smell of fires and cooking, and the sweetish-rank smell of a camp not strictly kept, wastes and old food and raw hides curing with brains and piss. Evidently nobody had told these folk about using oak tanbark, despite it being all about them. Garbh growled at a chorus of yelping, barking mongrels, until Edain called her sharply to heel. Three more of the Southsider men stepped out from behind trees…
No, Rudi thought, looking at the faces and naked torsos behind the spearheads. One of them is a Southsider woman…
… and leveled their weapons, before crying greetings to Jake, and wailing at the sight of dead Murdy. More came swarming out to pelt them with questions and beat the curs off with sticks and feet; about three score of all ages, and they walked in a crowd around the horses until they passed a tiger?s skull on a pole and reached the fires and the rough corral.
Say a hundred of them in all, half children. Three more-or-less grown women for every two men, or thereabouts, Rudi thought, making a warrior?s quick estimate.
Nobody was much older than his new friend Jake; he doubted more than a handful had been born at the time of the Change.
High casualties?
The mob gazed gape-jawed at Rudi and Edain in their strange gear, pointing and gabbling in a way Mackenzies would think rude. Rudi sat his great black horse with long-limbed grace, the bright red-gold hair falling to his shoulders and his sharp-cut high-cheeked face smiling. Edain was less easy, his strong square face blank; he wouldn?t ask Rudi are you sure? with strangers about…
None of the Southsiders matched Rudi?s height, and none had his companion?s breadth of shoulder or barrel chest. Not a prepossessing lot, but truly friendly, I think.
Rudi winked at a naked toddler with a huge mop of frizzy hair; she ducked behind her mother, herself a girl of no more than sixteen years who cradled a baby on her hip. ?Let these studs have room!? Jake called.?They saves our asses, truth! An? lay on eats! We got Murdy to bury, an? our new friends to show our right n? good ways!?
When the mob surged back towards the camp Jake went on quietly: ?And when we?ve had the eats, you can tell me more of that story of yours. We don?t like the Iowa motherfuckers or their bossman at all . Shoved our pamaws back into this shit with their pitchforks. Keep us here still.?
Rudi nodded gravely; Edain thawed a little, since he too had little use for Iowa?s ruler and liked the whole place less than the older Mackenzie. The Iowa folk had closed the Mississippi bridges in the chaotic months after the Change and patrolled the western shore. .. or they?d have been buried beneath the tidal wave of refugees heading west from Chicago and the other lakeside cities, and north from Saint Louis.
Though now they?ve more land than they can till, he thought, remembering pasture where fields had once been, and at that more grass than the cattle could eat down. They could change their policy, if they would, and both would benefit by it.
There was a hungry smile in Jake?s words:?Anyone?s got a hate against that Bossman bastard, he?s got a word to say here.? ?Sure, and I?d not weep if he were to be done an injury,? Rudi said.?He?s not the worst ruler I?ve ever met, but he?s far from the best-and not the smartest, either, that he is not.?
The smartest of rulers? A toss-up between my mother and Matti?s, that would be; the one wise and good, the other wise and wicked.
He realized with a start that he missed Mathilda?s mother; missed her counsel, and her peculiar way of looking at the world. They?d always gotten on well enough, even when he?d been her husband?s captive during the War of the Eye, but then again you never really knew where you stood with the Spider of the Silver Tower. He did know she loved Mathilda…
I?ve never really understood her, otherwise. She?s a bad person, really, but she?s raised Matti to be a good one, and she was always kind to me, even when she pushed me hard to learn and grow. She?s done great evil, but great good also, if more from policy than inclination; and I think that the good will long outlive her, while the evil will mostly vanish… start to vanish, at least… when Matti takes the throne of Portland and rules the Association. And the more I travel, the more I realize I?ve learned from her, those months every year I lived in the Regent?s Household-things I never could have learned at home. Mother has true wisdom, but it?s not all the wisdom there is. What she stands for is good, but some things can?t be seen from where she stands.
And that was something he could only realize at a distance from them both; as if the knowledge unfolded with the weight of their personalities removed for a while, letting it open like a flower from the bud.
And at home I would never have realized what I knew, he mused, looking westward to where stars shone over the treetops.
Nor learned what I have from others on this journey. Am I journeying to the east, then, or do I travel towards myself? When I meet the man I am becoming… ?Who will Rudi Mackenzie be in himself?? he mused.?Will those I know, know me still??
One thing I do know: I?ll rescue Matti for her own sweet sake.. . but even if she wasn?t dear to me, I?d be downright terrified of failing Lady Sandra Arminger!
TheSwordoftheLady