time in the Clan’s territories before the Quest, and made friends there despite his faith. And despite not being of the Old Religion…
Despite being cowan, as most of us would say
, Rudi thought.
…Ignatius didn’t find their ways alarming. Rudi had rarely met a cowan who didn’t find that this particular tune made them uneasy, but the monk was apparently one of them.
Samhain!
Turn away
Run ye back to the light of day
Samhain!
Hope and pray
All ye meet are the gentle fae.
The bagpipers marched with the drones of the instruments bristling over their shoulders. The archers behind were all pushing their bicyclesup the slope—modern models, with solid tires of salvaged rubber. Their bows and quivers and knocked-down swine-feathers showed over their backs, fastened to the rings and loops in the green leather surface of the brigantine jacks; most had their bonnets on and the helmets hung from their sword belts as well, and a swinging rattle went by beneath the music. More gear was slung around the cycles, which was part of the reason for using them, that and the fact that you could cover about four times as much ground per day as on foot and keep it up longer than a horse could.
The slope was easy enough to let the Clan’s warriors sing, a tune with a haunting dying fall in it:
Burn the fields and dry the corn
Feel the breath of winter born
Stow the grain ’gainst season’s flood
Spill the last of the livestock’s blood
Samhain!
Turn away
Run ye back to the light of day
Samhain!
Hope and pray
All ye meet are the gentle fae.
Riding at the front of the Mackenzie host was its First Armsman, Oak Barstow Mackenzie, a big man in his thirties with his yellow hair in a queue down his back, wrapped in an old bowstring in the Clan fashion. He raised a hand in salute, touching the tuft of wolf-fur in the clasp of his bonnet. Spears jutted up from here and there in the ranks, bearing the sigils of Duns and the outlines of the sept totems—wolf and bear, raven and elk, dragon and fox and more.
Let the feasting now begin
Careful who you welcome in!
The table’s set with a stranger’s place
Don’t stare openly at his face—
Samhain!
Turn away
Run ye back to the light of day
Samhain!
Hope and pray
All ye meet are the gentle fae.
The Mackenzies didn’t stop to cheer, though many flourished their weapons. The Clan wasn’t much for military formality beyond what was necessary to the task; Bearkiller snap and polish had always struck them as mildly ridiculous, and the ostentatious chivalric pageant of the Association was something they usually mocked. But too many of them knew him personally, at least a man or woman from each Dun, and all of them had too much pride to break stride before the High King who was the son of their Chief.
And Samhain was close; the feast for the dead and the ancestors, when their spirits and the beings of the Otherworld both walked, and were invited in for good or ill:
Stranger, do you have a name?
Tell us all from whence you came!
You seem more like God than man—
Has curse or blessing come to this Clan?
“They wait for you to lead them to battle, Your Majesty,” Ignatius said. “It’s a heavy burden.”
“
There go my people,
” Rudi said, quoting a favorite saying of his mother’s. “
I must hurry to get ahead of them, for I am their leader.
”
They mounted their horses, waiting for a break in the road traffic.
“Yet leadership has something else to it,” Ignatius said. “To be a true King is to be touched by something beyond the human. By the finger of God, as David was when he danced before the Tabernacle of the Lord.”
“Beyond, beneath, and yet always kin to it,” Rudi said softly. “For the lord and the land and the folk are
one
. I may lead them to battle, and thechroniclers may record this or that stroke as mine…yet how much of that is illusion? Such a mighty thing, a battle like this; so many tens of thousands, such courage and fear,
Despite being cowan, as most of us would say
, Rudi thought.
…Ignatius didn’t find their ways alarming. Rudi had rarely met a cowan who didn’t find that this particular tune made them uneasy, but the monk was apparently one of them.
Samhain!
Turn away
Run ye back to the light of day
Samhain!
Hope and pray
All ye meet are the gentle fae.
The bagpipers marched with the drones of the instruments bristling over their shoulders. The archers behind were all pushing their bicyclesup the slope—modern models, with solid tires of salvaged rubber. Their bows and quivers and knocked-down swine-feathers showed over their backs, fastened to the rings and loops in the green leather surface of the brigantine jacks; most had their bonnets on and the helmets hung from their sword belts as well, and a swinging rattle went by beneath the music. More gear was slung around the cycles, which was part of the reason for using them, that and the fact that you could cover about four times as much ground per day as on foot and keep it up longer than a horse could.
The slope was easy enough to let the Clan’s warriors sing, a tune with a haunting dying fall in it:
Burn the fields and dry the corn
Feel the breath of winter born
Stow the grain ’gainst season’s flood
Spill the last of the livestock’s blood
Samhain!
Turn away
Run ye back to the light of day
Samhain!
Hope and pray
All ye meet are the gentle fae.
Riding at the front of the Mackenzie host was its First Armsman, Oak Barstow Mackenzie, a big man in his thirties with his yellow hair in a queue down his back, wrapped in an old bowstring in the Clan fashion. He raised a hand in salute, touching the tuft of wolf-fur in the clasp of his bonnet. Spears jutted up from here and there in the ranks, bearing the sigils of Duns and the outlines of the sept totems—wolf and bear, raven and elk, dragon and fox and more.
Let the feasting now begin
Careful who you welcome in!
The table’s set with a stranger’s place
Don’t stare openly at his face—
Samhain!
Turn away
Run ye back to the light of day
Samhain!
Hope and pray
All ye meet are the gentle fae.
The Mackenzies didn’t stop to cheer, though many flourished their weapons. The Clan wasn’t much for military formality beyond what was necessary to the task; Bearkiller snap and polish had always struck them as mildly ridiculous, and the ostentatious chivalric pageant of the Association was something they usually mocked. But too many of them knew him personally, at least a man or woman from each Dun, and all of them had too much pride to break stride before the High King who was the son of their Chief.
And Samhain was close; the feast for the dead and the ancestors, when their spirits and the beings of the Otherworld both walked, and were invited in for good or ill:
Stranger, do you have a name?
Tell us all from whence you came!
You seem more like God than man—
Has curse or blessing come to this Clan?
“They wait for you to lead them to battle, Your Majesty,” Ignatius said. “It’s a heavy burden.”
“
There go my people,
” Rudi said, quoting a favorite saying of his mother’s. “
I must hurry to get ahead of them, for I am their leader.
”
They mounted their horses, waiting for a break in the road traffic.
“Yet leadership has something else to it,” Ignatius said. “To be a true King is to be touched by something beyond the human. By the finger of God, as David was when he danced before the Tabernacle of the Lord.”
“Beyond, beneath, and yet always kin to it,” Rudi said softly. “For the lord and the land and the folk are
one
. I may lead them to battle, and thechroniclers may record this or that stroke as mine…yet how much of that is illusion? Such a mighty thing, a battle like this; so many tens of thousands, such courage and fear,
Similar Books
