148
Lady
Lady Rosalina Linda Savanna Escobar took a deep breath. Spring was coming; the storm that had ravaged the forest’s edge was a piece of it arrived early – only that warmth mixed with cold gave birth to the spinning columns of wind. But the day’s air had a bite to it; despite the brilliant sunshine, there was no warmth.
“Señora, riders come.”
Rosalina smiled. “The banners?”
“Earl FitzWin, Señora.”
“Escort me – I will ascend the tower and wait.”
“Señora!”
“There are no whirlwinds today, no great clouds with lightning. I have breakfasted, so I shall not faint. Now, must I lead myself?”
The House Guard junior officer, a file leader, turned and led, praying no harm would come to his Lady while she was in his care. To his relief, they met another guard as he led around a corner through what would be a wall and into what would be – and already served as – a corridor.
“Sir! Decurion Felipe is coming.” He glanced at Lady Escobar. “Señoritas Maritza and Lucita declared their mistress wishes them...” His voice trailed off in confusion, faced with the one person who could confirm or deny.
The matriarch of House Escobar smiled the young guardsman. “I believe they are correct – I would like them with me. I shall invite Decurion Felipe to escort me, and my lady attendants shall provide company.” Both members of the House Guard with her look relieved; her Amazons made them nervous. She was content with that; it meant her privacy was a bit more private. More than content, she was pleased that since the exploits of her few on the day Osvaldo faced and slew the objectionable Captain Alonzo, her two veterans had raised the number of incognito female warriors to two dozen – and rising. Ten would be coming with her – ten of the new ones; twelve counting Maritza and Lucita. So she stood smiling benevolently until the decurion arrived, trailing behind her two ladies of mayhem, and offered her arm.
“Señora, the tower is not finished”, the officer cautioned.
“It has not fallen. It survived the storm”, she pointed out. “Do you fear my lady attendants will damage it?” Lucita and Maritza guffawed; Felipe sighed and stepped out.
The tower was less finished than she would have guessed; much of their four-floor climb was on steps that looked outward through structural arches and inward on less. Having begun, she pressed onward, determined. Unlike the rest, the top was complete: stairs rose to a stone terrace with six wooden posts supporting a roof overhead. The battlement was navel-high, with heavy boards in slots reaching nearly to eye level. Despite her knowledge of what the whirlwinds had wrought, Rosalina gasped at the sight of a gash through woods substantial enough to be a small forest. But Maritza drew her attention eastward from there.
Blue-dominated banners looked like Lord Rigel’s. What made it certain was the horses; they didn’t at all move like the work horses of the Refuge. Two for three, Rigel had told Osvaldo he’d trade – and she had nine dozen waiting to go north. With only a few days to gather them, she’d been pressed for resources, but the prospect of six dozen beautiful war steeds had energized her. She might even get one for herself, to ride north...
“Someone’s riding from the castle with a banner”, Tanner observed. “Time for me to go look commanding.”
“At least you shouldn’t have to be commanding, this time”, Rita called after him, thinking of the advance he’d led the year before, leading the First and Fifth through a hallway they filled with bodies to clamber over as they went. Not all of those Celts were still riflemen; she knew of two who had post-traumatic stress disorder so severe they just stopped functioning at the sight of blood. Not for the first time, she wished there was a Healer’s talent for the mind.
“It was the Fifth, wasn’t it?” she asked Rigel.
“Fifth? What? Oh – last year, with Osvaldo. Um.... yeah, the First and the Fifth. Frak, that was bloody!” The lord of his realm shuddered. “I don’t ever want to have to do that again with people.”
But you look forward to it, with the Others, don’t you, my lord and friend Rigel? his Wise Woman thought.
Though is that from the sword you wear, or from the Snatcher? or both? Sometimes she and Ryan had nearly convinced themselves that the Others were the problem the Snatcher needed them to solve, but it never stuck. “We don’t
know enough”, he’d half-yell, making it a curse, and they’d be back to asking questions.
Rigel’s thoughts had moved on. “Gabina can’t have reached San Tesifón and brought anyone back yet, could she?” There was only one person who could really answer that.
Austin shook his head. “No way. Titanium and I could do it if Hedraing or someone rode along, but Titie’s daughter? and no Druid? Not.”
Rita pulled out her telescope and took a look. “Nice threads. This isn’t just a construction site, not with a welcome committee that nicely dressed. I see a banner bearer, and two others.” She passed the scope to Rigel, who had no comment, since he saw the same thing.
“Now there’s a banner on top of the – no, they’re just getting ready with it”, Austin decided. “They stretched it out, but didn’t raise it.”
“They’ll wait until we’ve met the riders”, Rita guessed. So they did, keeping an eye on the tower.
“That’s a serious tower”, Austin commented when they’d closed half the distance to the banner party. “Nine floors is up there!”
“It’s got gaps to let the wind through”, Rita joked.
“Pulling a Devon”, Rigel responded. “Even then” – he shook his head slowly – “they’ve done this in like six months. The place is bigger than Cavern Hold.”
“Not bigger than the whole cavern, though”, Rita estimated. “I’d say they’ve decided this is the way north from the lakes – that citadel at the edge, and now this.”
“We didn’t exactly hunt for the most efficient route, when we visited”, Rigel reminded them. “We didn’t even know where we were going.”
“And we do now?” Rita teased.
“You’re s’posed to be a wise woman, not a wise ass”, Rigel fired back with a chuckle. Rita’s laugh lightened spirits, peeling away unnoticed tension. The mood was still light when they met the banner bearer and the rider on his right advanced to meet them. Acting on impulse, Rita handed the telescope to Austin.
“Señor Rigel, don Fitzwin, I bring greetings from House Escobar. Be welcome in these lands.”
The rider on the left had been waiting, and now came forward. “Don Rigel, I bring greetings from Señor Cristobal Valentín Buenaventura de Logroño. Be welcome in these his lands.” He bowed briefly. “With regret I must say my lord is not here to greet you, for he takes council with don Aguilar in Pueblo Francisco. Word of your coming is on its way” – Rigel sensed some disturbance behind him, and Rita moving to do something, and a frown on the messenger’s face, but he kept his focus on what he was hearing – “by separate messenger, though I say that amazing horse and its rider shall pass far ahead of him.”
“I understand”, Rigel replied. “Duty calls, and we go.” His grin was twisted. “Sometimes lords are the least free of men.”
“Rigel.” Austin he might have ignored; Rita was different; Rigel lifted a finger to signify “wait a moment”, and turned. Rita was holding the telescope, an odd look on her face. “That wasn’t a generic welcome – the head of House Escobar is up there.”
Despite the liberated society he’d grown to adulthood in, Rigel didn’t make the connection. Heads of Houses were lords, but why wouldn’t Rita just say it was Osvaldo? Then he remembered the delegation sent north to be sure there were no Escobars there – because the Council wouldn’t declare Osvaldo
Lord Escobar until they were sure. So.... “Lady Rosalina?!”
Rita nodded. “That’s the House banner, but it’s got a white lily edged and highlighted in silver – the device for a Lady. The stem crosses the whole shield, which means ruling lady.”
When Rigel turned forward again, both messengers were smiling. “Señor Rigel, Señora Sabia, other notables”, the first messenger began, “Lady Escobar wished to surprise you.” He shrugged. “She will be disappointed. Even so, it is my duty to ride with the de Logroño bannerman, back to the castle.”
“Oh, she surprised us”, Rita assured him. “Finding the head of House Escobar out here is plenty of surprise.” She looked up at the tower, at the figure she hadn’t told Rigel about. “Though if she’d really wanted a surprise, she should have kept her banner off the top.”
The messenger grinned wanly. “Sometimes ladies are the least free of all”, he pronounced. “Protocol dictates, and so things go.”
Rita laughed softly; Rigel looked mildly amused, and gave a slight nod of respect for the messenger’s way of serving his own thoughts back to him. “Lead on, noble three. We accept your hospitality.
“And as we go, tell me”, she said to the de Logroño messenger, “why is House Logroño out in this wilderness?”
Lady Rosalina looked fabulous under the light of the improvised banquet hall ceiling where polished wood panels helped spread the light from hanging lamps. Above the wooden ceiling, itself hanging from great A-frame stands, stonework rose in the same fashion Devon had used in Cavern Castle: enough for structure, the rest to be filled in as needed. Devon had hidden his empty spaces well enough the rest hadn’t had a clue; these were blocked only where necessary to keep in warmth. Rigel liked the wooden ceiling effect, though he would have liked it better if the lighting didn’t produce smoke, soot, and stink. Maybe with all the Yankee engineer-uity, electricity might be in their near future.
“There just wasn’t trust”, Rosalina was saying. “Cristobal was a hero, a villain, a fool, but mostly the son of a mother who had used and betrayed her own lord. He was useless, even to himself.” She glanced at the seat where the young de Logroño would have been. “At Council, he was about as helpful as that chair, and paid as much attention. Osvaldo kept trying to change things.” She shook her head. “Mainly he made it worse. One day don Manuel was angry and said ‘They could serve you better in the wilderness!’ Osvaldo took it seriously, spoke with Cristobal, agreed on this, and here they are.”
Rita coughed politely. “That skips past a lot, I’m sure.”
Lady Rosalina laughed. “Yes. The Regent released funds to resettle any poor who wished lands of their own, and had building skills. Cristobal bought all the stone stockpiled by certain local quarries where the lords keep men working steadily, regardless of sales. Most of it is already in this pile. By pieces, the de Logroño possessions are sold.” Her eyes sparkled. “House Escobar now owns six, which adjoined House holdings.” A sigh followed. “I negotiate for three more, but Cristobal is stubborn.”
“You’re short on funds?” Rita inquired.
“Funds I may reach, yes”, the Lady admitted. “I had hoped....”
Rigel chose bluntness; he was better at it anyway. “We have almost no gold, Señora. Our wealth is in horses and rifles and people.” His sudden grin surprised her. “We’re working on getting your cousins to the north to part with theirs.”
“Honestly?” she inquired.
“Well, we’re selling things and they buy them, so it’s kind of honest. But we can make things they can’t, so in a way it isn’t fair.”
She stared at him for a moment. “And will you offer to sell these things to us?”
“Next trip”, Rita assured her. “The only question is how many wagons we can get away from all the work projects. You’re not the only ones building new castles.”
That brought a frown. “Refuge needs wagons also. Sell them here as well; you need not take them back.”
“I have a better idea”, Austin announced. From the look on Rigel’s face he knew it had better be a good one. “We don’t sell the wagons, we form a company that hauls things, and charge people to haul. That way anyone who needs them will have a chance. Bring some of the good ones”, he added, catching Rigel’s eye, “and people will really want to hire them.”
“Ones with leaf springs?” Rigel asked. “Yeah, those would be in demand! But better than that – we could sell coaches.” The discussion took off, then, covering a range of products.
Tanner cut in during a pause. “You’re missing the thing they really need down here”, he asserted. “Wood. They need wagons because they’re running out of lumber to make more. Half of what you’ve talked about, they need because they need wood.
“Build big clumsy wood-haulers, and just bring lumber.” Rigel turned to look at his usually-quiet friend, a smile growing slowly. Lady Rosalina caught his eyes, also smiling.
Rita broke the pleasant reverie. “Sell the wood, and re-use the metal parts. But the caravans of lumber will need something else.” Rigel knew she was thinking,
I leave the problem as an exercise for the student. Lady Escobar was frowning in concentration, and he knew his face mirrored hers. Tanner, with experience in moving men, supplies, and gear, saw it first.
“Gravel – we’re going to need gravel. Every few lumber hauler will need a big wagon of gravel. First, to even up bad spots. Then – no, wait”, he though out loud, “we don’t have a route marked. So Scouts have to go first and choose a good path. Then wagons to set up” – he laughed, loudly – “Ryan will want semaphore towers! So the Scouts mark a path” – he trace a line on the tabletop with a finger – “and mark it”. Dry nuts dropped along the line. “Gravel wagons come with workers to smooth the path.” He pinched off a piece of bread and moved it from nut to nut. “Then we set up Ryan’s semaphores – that’s what the first lumber haulers will do, just bring lumber to build the towers and the cabins . Those will show any trouble with the road; more gravel goes down.” Tanner abandoned his improvised model and looked at Rigel. “The castles will get more supplies. But how are they supposed to pay?”
Anaph was ready with a partial answer. “There are new creatures on the savanna. The castles can trade meat for supplies.”
“At first”, Rita agreed. “‘New creatures’ – would those be the ones Hedraing changed?”
The chief Druid nodded. “They jump out from the rest. I... sent energies to their patterns, so all the offspring from these males, even from the females of the original kind, will be all theirs.” He looked thoughtfully at the meat on his plate. “I don’t know if they’re really different species, but it’s a start. If we get close to any, I want to study their patterns, then work with Hedraing to change more.” He turned to Lady Escobar. “But heavy hunting of the ordinary deer will help them.”
“Lessening the competition”, Rita explained, not sure it was necessary. “But Anaph, there are millions of deer out there – will the hundreds the castles kill make a difference?”
“Thousands”, Lady Escobar disagreed. “If the savanna” – the word was uneasy on her lips – “castles have meat to sell, it will be bought. There is no hunting in Refuge.”
Anaph perked up. “There are animals still? Are they different than beyond?”
Lady Escobar looked at him, trying to fathom his interest, but shook her head. “Some animals, yes. And different? The hills deer are darker, and dodge faster. Their horns spread more sideways, not as high.”
“The trees here hang lower”, Rita remembered. “That’s a decent adaptation. If they’re really deer, if they got Snatched, too, they haven’t been here long enough. So – Rigel, I’ll bet they’re in every large group of hills out here!”
“So the British would have them”, he mused. “That’s worth learning.” Suddenly he laughed. “The colors Hedraing gave those others – Anaph, change a lot of them: we can sell skins to the Brits!”
“And so can we”, the head of House Escobar pointed out.
Anaph stomped a foot. “Not for three years! If Hedraing and I and other Druids change enough, we might have a thousand of each then, and
then you can hunt. First, let them become many, and strong.”
Suddenly what she’d been hearing sank in, and Lady Escobar dropped her fork. “I thought you spoke of breeding – you mean you... alter the animals from what God made? How can you
dare!?”
Tanner jumped in with a reply, one that thoroughly shattered Rigel’s lingering “fundamentalist idiot” view of him. “My lady, you have seen the rain?” She nodded. “The rain falls, and the vine drinks it. The sun warms the vine, and it makes fruit. From the fruit, men squeeze juice. And what do they make from the juice?”
“Wine”, she replied, wondering at this simple lesson.
“And what did our Lord in Cana of Galilee, at a wedding?” Tanner asked softly.
“Made water to wine....” Rosalina set her fork down carefully, certain another surprise was coming.
As he continued, Rigel thought Tanner would have made an excellent preacher. He didn’t talk just with words, he used his voice in volume and inflection and tone, he used his lips and eyebrows, even his ears and tongue, he used shoulders and neck and hands, and his words came alive. “He didn’t do anything new at Cana”, Tanner expounded. “He did something he does every year, wherever men have vines; he takes water and makes wine.” Tanner gave her a moment to absorb that before shifting gears.
“You thought of breeding animals. That makes something different from the way God made them. Over time, animals change anyway – they’re not all the same, and the young are like their parents. If some animals get stuck off by themselves, the young will be like those parents. The rest of the herd will keep being like each other. But a small set of parents doesn’t have all the characteristics of the herd, so the new little herd will turn different.”
“Just like when the herdsmen take only horses with more speed, to get a faster horse”, his primary audience agreed.
Tanner nodded. “So changing animals and making them different is something God does all the time, just like turning water to wine. Our Lord skipped the middle part, and changed it directly. Our Druids skip the middle part, and change animals directly. There’s no offense to God.”
Rigel let out breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, as he saw the tension leave Lady Escobar. Rita patted his thigh under the table. She knew what he was thinking: it was bad enough dealing with religious idiocy up north; having more, down here, would be too much.
“I would say, ‘You are not our Lord’. yet you have shown that our breeders do the same, and the animals do the same without our hand. How you skip the slow part”, she said to Anaph, “I do not know. I know only tales of Druids. But hear this”, she said fervently, “many of those tales are not friendly. Those told by the priests are almost never friendly.”
Tanner was laughing. “Lady, I thought that way. Then Druids started singing the great Creed.” Pain rose in his eyes. “I was a fool, and had to learn the hard way. I struck a brother, and nearly killed him. Thus my hands are the hands which swung the lash, which drove the nails, which raised the Cross.” He turned to look at Anaph. “Never have I seen a Druid do harm without cause. They serve Life, under the Lord of Life, and will not harm any life except at need.” His eyes went back to Lady Rosalina. “If I’m still His servant, so are they – and better ones, I think.” Rigel wanted to cry; this was not the Tanner who’d been such a pain in the ass on their beginning trek for survival.
Tanner seemed to sense it. “I thought I’d been born again back then, Rigel. Now I have been. I thought all the crap was out of my life and Jesus was on the throne, but it was a lie – there was lots of crap, and Jesus doesn’t move in on a throne. I’d just stuffed it in the attic and fooled myself.
“He doesn’t want it in the attic. He doesn’t come to hide stuff, but to shine a light on it. His light means we can look at ourselves and see all the crap in our lives and not be overwhelmed by it.” He grinned wryly. “We fool ourselves a lot – most of what’s in our hearts is crap. Inviting Jesus in doesn’t get rid of the crap, it just makes it not count against us. It’s our job to clean up the crap. We’re redeemed, not transmogrified.”
Lady Escobar mouthed the word without comprehension. “You talk like the priests, yet not. Perhaps....” She bit her lower lip.
“Perhaps he should keep quiet?” Rigel inquired, his voice dangerous. “Just shut up and let the priests have their say?” He shook his head without taking his eyes from the Lady. “No, I think the priests ought to listen. Maybe if they had complete copies of the Bible, they’d know more.”
“Rigel, enough”, Rita scolded sharply. “Don’t work at starting a religious war, please! I think you made your point. Lady Rosalina, none of our people is going to shut up about what he, or she, believes. Where we’re from, we’ve learned that people who fight wars for religion turn into the most evil people possible. You know about the Inquisition, and you have your mild version – but when people fight over religion, they do things that make the Inquisition look like children teasing each other. Our people figured out that the way to peace is to let everyone believe as he wishes, and talk about it as he pleases. It’s called religious freedom, and you’re going to have to get used to it.”
After a long pause that made Rigel increasingly nervous, Lady Escobar responded. “My husband once spoke of religious freedom. He didn’t use those words; he spoke of being free of priests to whom where a man’s hand rested at the end of the sign of the cross was more important than how heavy the taxes rested on the people, or who found it more important to dig out a man’s private life than to dig out greed among their ranks.” Noticing a smile tugging at Rigel’s lips, she continued. “If he had used the term, he’d have said religious freedom is freedom from prying priests, freedom to skip Mass when need arose, freedom to pray as his heart directed and not some book.
“Yet you mean more – freedom to serve God without priests, but with Druids.” She shook her head. “This, I think, is too much for me. Osvaldo might grasp it, but for me there is no God found outside the Church.”
“But if priests wished to flay me and drive me out?” Anaph asked softly, gently. “What then?”
No one expected the response: Rosalina Escobar suddenly stood, shoving her plate back, spilling wine. She stood a moment gripping the table edge, then turned and walked to stare into the nearest of the open fires heating the space. Rita went to work finishing her own meal, her example followed shortly by the rest.
Anaph ate, but slowly, his concentration elsewhere. There was abundant life in the stones around them; quarried long ago and stored outside, living things had permeated what humans considered solid rock. There was life in the ground beneath, and outside, for though the builders had set the foundations deep, much of the floor rested on earth fill. There was life all around, outdoors, and inside a great deal of life. He drew on it lightly, and summoned the additional energies only those with the idhrûd spark could command. Reaching to his staff, which rested against the nearest pillar, he drew more, and bringing from memory the patterns he wanted, he wove.
Troubled, Rosalina stared into the flames. She had eloquent testimony from Major Tanner that a Druid served the Lord of Life, and that had to be the Holy Spirit, for so the Creed said. But this Anaph wore no cross, and what sort of Christian... not priest, but leader, like a religious Brother in the stories, failed to wear a cross? She thought of asking him to speak the Creed, but could not Lucifer, the great deceiver himself, speak the words? Yet even were he not a Christian.... Here the words of her dead husband, Francisco Imanuel, came to her: “What authority is given them to offer a man for ridicule, to lash him naked through the streets, to bring him ruin because they determine him to be wicked?” She’d gone over the other thoughts, around and around, countless times; this ended the whirlwind in her mind, and she pondered it long.
Her ponderings were interrupted – had she moved closer to the fire, or was the room warmer? Warmer, she decided; her back seemed warmer as well, and the fire itself seemed no hotter. She drew in a breath, welcoming the warmth – and found that the air was less acrid, less biting, as though the lamps and fires burned cleaner. Suspicion struck. As she turned slowly, she saw Anaph smiling at her, then Rita beckoning her closer.
“He is Lord of all things, living and unliving”, Anaph remarked conversationally. “But here is a secret: all things are living, because He is God of the living, and not of the dead.” Rita wasn’t sure that passage was meant to say that, but she wasn’t sure Anaph was entirely wrong, either. “In Life is energy, and the energy of Life can be bidden to aid life. As we are living, is there fault in bidding Life’s energies to aid our life – making a warmer space, with purer air?”
“‘The Lord God gave the world into the hands of men, to command it”, Tanner interjected. “One man commands by the strength of his arm, another by the shrewdness of his wit. Anaph commands by this gift given by the Holy Spirit, given to aid life.”
Rosalina sighed. “I cannot encompass this with my mind. Yet I know you, lord Rigel, would countenance no wickedness within your household, and I believe you, Major Tanner, have a good and steadfast heart. Lady Rita, I cannot imagine you would abide wickedness any more than you abide foolishness.” Her gaze fell on Austin. “And if God’s grace enfolds such as you and Miguel, who seem to me so alien – and I am certain it does”, she assured Austin, “then, as you do these things in His name, I am content to trust all of you in this” – she laughed, a musical sound – “even as I trust the priests that when our Lord borrows their lips to say, “This is My Body”, it is truly so.”
Rigel started to speak but Rita shushed him. “She’s gathering thoughts”, she whispered into his ear. The feel of it as her nose bumped it made her wish, for just a moment, that her long-time friend would set aside “Rigel’s Rule” for a night and enjoy himself with his faithful squire Austin.
“I believe it is our Lord’s own body, but I have never seen it. I see bread, and I taste bread, and my teeth tell me it is bread. Here, friend Anaph, you tell me there are energies filling the air, but I do not see them – I see air, and I smell air, and if I wave my hand” – she did, vigorously – “I feel naught but air. Are these the same, the presence of our Lord’s body and the presence of these energies?” She shrugged. “I do not know. But I know those who say they do know, for each, and it is enough for me that
you understand, and that you say it is so.
“So, Anaph, should a hundred priests pursue you, I would not permit them to offer you for ridicule, or lash you through the streets, or to bring any ruin on you for being what they call ‘wicked’.” Her thoughts, and the direction of her words, shifted.
“When I was small, my mother sang me a song about the niño Jesus.” She smiled. “I will not torture you with it, but it was a song of how the little boy loved all things, for they were things made through Him, and he could not do other than love everything that had come into being by His hand, because He was love, and is love. How is it love, when one called to stand in His place offers ridicule rather than guidance? How is it love, when people called by His name bestow punishment instead of aid? These things I have asked, along with my beloved Francisco Imanuel. I think he understood much more than I... but he is gone from me; I no longer have his thoughts to sing with mine.”
“Those are some excellent thoughts you do have, Lady Rosalina”, Tanner assured her, standing and reaching out a hand. After a brief hesitation, she took it. “You speak better of our Lord than many priests, and you know the core, the heart, of it. My mother taught me a song about love, but it bounced off my heart. I can tell your mother’s song didn’t.” He released her hand; she seemed almost reluctant to let go.
“I have a question, though: just how would you keep such priests from bothering Anaph?”
“I have a different question”, Rita intruded. “With the way your church works, how do you even have priests like that?”
A caustic laugh began the response. “Lords have their favorite priests. When a lord is harsh and cruel, he attracts priests who are harsh and cruel. The First Priest has charge of the church, but the lords have ways to balk him.”
“That’s another benefit of freedom of religion”, Rita said. “It means lords can’t tell the church what to do – and if they try, they’re in trouble with the law.”
Rigel cleared his throat. “Look, this has been good, but there are some things I’d like to talk about besides theology. I think it’s time for dessert – can we make it time for some questions?”
But, it kinda sounds like it! 
One Count down for the "Count"! 
