Gotta go, Rudi thought reluctantly, though he wouldn't have minded lingering a bit; smithing fascinated him, and the making of weapons in particular. But someday I'm going to learn that stuff.

He couldn't do it as a living-Mom had other plans, and people would disapprove, and what he really wanted was to be First Armsman of the Clan someday-but there wasn't any reason he couldn't help out the master smith when he was a bit older and big enough to be useful. Everyone said he had clever hands, and he was already good at making little things, harness straps and carvings and pottery.

In the open roadway between the stables and the infirmary the air was sharper, with the cool, damp bite of early spring, though the day was fair. Rudi felt his blood flow faster as he took a deep breath, and when the prickle of sweat on his skin went chill he was glad of the plaid.

Aoife still fusses, he grumbled to himself.

Under the usual smells was a spicy-sharp one from a two-wheeled cart near the infirmary doors, drawn by a pair of oxen; Aunt Judy was there, wearing a long, stained bib-apron and inspecting bundles of dried herbs and bark, and talking with a man he recognized as a healer from a dun down on the southern border of the Clan's lands.

"Hi, Mom!" Aoife called; the situation was too casual for merry met. "How's it going?"

"Hello, Aoife. Hi to you too, Liath-still keeping bad company, I see," Judy Barstow Mackenzie said. "I'm just checking the willow bark and tansy Frank brought in. If you two don't have anything to do, we'll be chopping and steeping and distilling, the children could watch: "

Aoife grinned. "I'm a warrior on Clan business, Mom, orders from Dad-the-Second-Armsman no less," she said. "Taking the sprouts out for some exercise counts as part of the job, since they can't go alone."

"Clan business," Judy sniffed, and put her hands on her hips. Rudi smiled to see it; his mom used exactly the same gesture. She and Judy had been friends forever. "Meaning you get to laze about snogging with your girlfriend while everyone else works."

It was strange to think of them as young like him and Matti, running around and playing.

"Snogging?" Mathilda said, sotto voce.

"Snogging. Liplocking," Rudi answered with an innocent look, and somewhat louder, watching the tips of Liath's ears turn red-she hadn't taken off her flat bonnet and put the helmet on yet. "Smooching."

Then Aunt Judy grinned, even at Matti. She wasn't what you could call easy with the girl yet, but she was trying.

"I'd like to help you with the herbs again," Matti said. "Could I do that later?"

"Sure," Judy said. "I think you've got a talent for the healing arts. Drop by after dinner, and I'll show you how we make the willow-bark extract."

Rudi gave his mother's best friend a big grin. She was trying. She snorted at him, then winked and pushed Epona's head away when the mare came up and nuzzled at the herbs on the cart-or rather began to; that way the horse knew enough not to try a nibble, and she saved her fingers. Then they led their horses out onto the graveled roadway that ran all around the oval interior of Dun Juniper, in front of the log cottages and workshops built up against the inside of the wall, turning right towards the gate and the tall green roof of the Hall. Cold wind ruffled the puddles from yesterday's rain; they were gray with rock-dust from the pavement. They walked through snatches of conversation, the thump of looms and the hammering of a gang doing repairs on one of the heavy ladders that ran up between the cottages to the fighting platform, the tippty-tap-tap chingl-tappy-tap-tap of a typewriter, through gaggles of younger children running and yelling and playing, and faintly the sound of a work-song from a group kneading bread in the Hall kitchens. A sharp scent of fennel and sausage and garlic meant someone was making pizza.

Smells good, Rudi thought, and took a handful of dried plums from his pouch, offering them to the others. Mathilda took one; the two warriors shook their heads.

Early flowers bloomed in the narrow strip of garden that each house had on either side of the path leading up to the doorways, mostly crocus in lavender-blue and gold. Many householders were touching up the paint on the carvings that rioted over the little houses as well, making them bright for Ostara with proud defiance. The northern foe might be at the doorstep, their sons and daughters and brothers out with the First Levy, but he wasn't going to stop anyone from showing their best for the Lord and Lady!

Rudi waved at friends as they went by. You didn't ride inside the walls without good reason, since anything from a chicken to a toddler might dart mindlessly under the hooves, even now with Dun Juniper a lot less busy than usual; nearly a hundred people had gone with the levy, and there was a subdued, waiting feel to the rest, even as they went about the day's work. He could hear a ritual going on in the covenstead, even though it was still only a few hours past noon, and feel the pulse of power in the air as folk called on the Mighty Ones to aid their kin.

"Just going out for some exercise," Aoife called up to the guards on the gate-tower; Uncle Dennis was in charge there today, one of the older folk filling in with so many of the youngest and strongest gone.

"Well, that should be OK," he said, leaning on his great ax. "Be careful, though. We don't have as many scouts out as usual. Don't go past the lookout station."

The tunnel through the gatehouse was dark; that made Rudi blink as they came through into sunlight once more. Dun Juniper faced southward, and lay at the midpoint of a sloping ledge that ran east and west on the mountainside, an island of rolling meadow amid the steep forests; it was half a mile wide here in the middle, and tapered in either direction to make a rough lens shape. The little plateau that held the dun gave him a view of it, the rolling green and the occasional warm brown of plowed earth, the fences and hedges and the white dots of sheep, the red-coated white-faced cattle, then the tips of the fir trees downslope, and the hills in the blue distance beyond. You couldn't see the valley below that held Dun Fairfax, or the road leading out westward into the Willamette. North and east peaks floated white and perfect against the dusky blue of the sky; it was full of birds as the spring migration got under way, great white pelicans, ducks, geese, snow swans: and then a burst of panic sent wings in every direction as a bald eagle wheeled above.

The day was mild for March-just warm enough to sweat if you were working yourself hard, just on the cool side of comfortable if you were standing still. The sky was canyons of blue and white as they halted on the small paved square outside the gate, broken, fluffy white shapes hanging like cloud castles in the infinite blue over the low green mountains southward. The first camas were out in the meadows, small blue eyes blinking at him from among the fresh green, and the first tiny white blossoms of the hawthorn on the young hedges; the cool, sweet scent was in the spring air, along with new grass and the intense fir sap of the stirring trees in the woods around. Rudi waved back at the gate guards, and called out another greeting to some clansfolk planting gladiolas and dahlias in the flower-gardens down at the base of the plateau. More were pruning and grafting in the orchards that would soon froth in pink and white billows.

They mounted and walked their horses down the slope to the level, then cantered eastward; Epona whickered, and a stallion paced along beside them behind a board fence for a while. Cattle and sheep in the next paddock raised incurious heads for an instant, then went back to cropping at the fresh grass. They drew rein at the eastern head of the benchland meadow, by the pool and waterfall. The graveled, graded dirt road stretched west behind them the full mile of open country; ahead of them it turned sharply right-southward-running down through the woods with the flow of Artemis Creek. That was the main wagon road to Dun Fairfax, turning in a U to head west again on the lower level, and out into the Willamette Valley proper.