The Scourge of God

DUN JUNIPER, THE FIELD OF FLOWERS OCTOBER 31, CY 23/2021 AD

Juniper Mackenzie had planted flowers here on the slopes below the plateau many years ago, when this had been her winter retreat between the festivals and tournaments at which she busked for her living. Her great-uncle's grandfather had planted the gnarled apple trees, when this had been a working farm and the Mackenzie kin fresh from the Oregon Trail and the hills of East Tennessee. Even in the hungry days right after the Change they'd tended it, and in the years since the place of beauty had grown.

Now the flower beds and rosebushes spread along the slope to either side of the Dun's gates, the flowering vines climbing the stucco halfway to the frieze of painted blossoms and half-hidden faces below the parapet. Most of the blossoms were past now; a few faded slashes of color clung amid careful mulch and pruning, brought out by the old gold light of sunset on a day that had dawned with rain and was ending with a clear sky. There was a silty smell of damp turned earth and the musky scent of leaves and straw undergoing the slow decay of autumn.

And so many of them Chuck did the planting of, and we planned it together, the Chief of the Mackenzies thought.

Chuck had been Lord of the Harvest long before he was First Armsman. She remembered his face, that first year, when they started to dig the potatoes he'd planted.

And he scoured the Valley for seeds and cuttings for this garden so that we might have beauty as well as food, when he had the time between the ten thousand thousand other things… Thirty-two years I knew you, Chuck; more than half my life. Even before you married Judy you were a friend, and afterwards like the brother I never had, and you were there at my hand in all we built.

The meadows below the flowers were crowded. The voices of her people rang out, ending the ceremony:

"We all come from the Wise One

And to her we shall return

Like a waning moon,

Shining on the winter snow;

We all come from the Maiden-"

Judy Barstow Mackenzie took the urn with her man's ashes as the song ended and walked down the rows of the garden, pouring them on the damp soil; her sons and daughters followed, spading the gray powder into the rich brown dirt. Beneath the hoodlike fold of the arsaid drawn over her head Judy's face looked…

Not older, Juniper thought; her friend was her age almost to the day, fifty-three. But as if she's moved through sorrow and beyond it. Well, that's why we keen the dead.

Her own throat was sore with it. There was a release in the cries, as if your spirit was walking partway with the dead, a last look at the beloved before you committed them to Earth's embrace.

A little life came back into Judy's face as she finished; and then she looked around, a question on her face. What now? was as plain as if she'd spoken aloud.

As if in answer, her daughter, Tamsin, and sons, Rowan and Oak, and their mates reached out to touch her, and the grandchildren crowded around with their small bodies leaning against hers.

Life is the answer to life, Juniper thought, and spoke formally:

"Who among his close kin will speak the last words for Chuck Barstow Mackenzie, our brother?"

She was a little surprised when Oak stood forward. He bowed to her and turned to the folk assembled below-everyone in Dun Juniper who wasn't helping prepare the feast for the dead, and many from elsewhere in the Clan's territories as well, and a few from beyond. Chuck had been a well-loved man.

"I was an orphan of the Change," he said. "Younger than my daughter Lutra here."

He touched her head, and the girl turned her tear-streaked face up to him; the fingers were infinitely gentle on her brown hair.

"I don't remember anything much before then-just bits and pieces, and the fear and hunger as we all waited on the school bus and the grown-ups were gone. Chuck took me and my sister Aoife and our foster brother Sanjay off that bus. He and Mother Judy raised us; they're the only parents I know. Chuck was the one who took me out and showed me the stars and told me their names, and the plants and their names and uses, and held me with Mother when I was sick or afraid. He taught me how to hunt, and the rites of the woodland Powers. He taught me how to tend the land, and many others-he was a man of the earth above all, and there are thousands alive today who walk the ridge of the world because he could show them how to coax Earth into yielding Her fruits. He stood by my side when I was made an Initiate of the Mysteries. If I'm a man at all, it's his doing."

There was a long murmur from the assembled crowd. Oak raised his head and went on; tears glistened in his yellow mustache.

"He taught me spear and blade and bow; he fought for us all, and now like my sister and brother before him he's given his body to the earth that feeds me and my children, and his blood to protect them. His last words were Get them out and my mother's name."

The murmur grew louder and then died away again. Oak's voice rose for a long moment into one long wail of grief; then he spoke in words again.

"Lady Juniper, Chief of the Clan, Goddess-on-Earth, hear my oath!"

"I will hear your oath, Oak son of Chuck, whose totem is Wolf," Juniper said steadily. "By what will you swear?"

"I swear by Earth beneath my feet, by Sky above, by the Water in my veins and the Fire that is my life; by Brigid and Lugh and all the gods of my people, by the spirits that watch over the house-hearth and the byre and the field and the forest, and by Father Wolf who walked in my dream. And I call to witness that part of my father's soul that is not in the Summerlands, and the Chief of the Clan, and the folk of the Clan."

He bent down and picked up a pinch of the mingled earth and ash, and drew it across his forehead. When he continued his voice had the raw challenge of a bull elk's:

"Once I keened my father on the field where he fell. Once I have keened him here where we returned his ashes to Earth the Mother. I swear that when I keen him for the third time, it will be when his vengeance is won!"

Then he drew the little Black Knife from his knee-hose, and held out his hand as he pressed the point to the fleshy ball below his thumb. A line of red appeared, and drops fell through the darkening air to fall on the dirt, and a sigh went through the crowd.

"And if I fail in my oath, may Earth shun me, and Sky fall and crush me, and Fire burn me, and the Water of life that is my blood be spilled!"

A long silence fell, as Chuck's other children held out their hands and joined their blood to his.

"So mote it be," Juniper said softly, into the echoing quiet.

TheScourgeofGod