The Sea Peoples(59)
On the other, looking brave in public and being a symbol like a banner was part of her basic function in life; the Gods knew she probably wasn’t going to be making any military decisions today, having an embarrassment of seasoned professionals along. It was rather like being a junior officer: they looked inspiring for the troops while the sergeants did the work. Except that she didn’t have to perform a secondary function of stopping spearpoints meant for someone who actually did things.
Heuradys seemed to sense her thoughts. “Mom Two said that having people looking at her all the time was one of the hardest things she had to learn when she moved from being your grandma Sandra’s solitary black-ops specialist to field commands. She’d spent all that time hiding and now she had to perform in public. Doing the technical side of things wasn’t hard, she had good teachers and a natural talent for it; what she hadn’t counted on was a second career as an actress, she said.”
“Whereas I was born to the role,” órlaith said softly, and slapped her shoulder—which in plate was rather like giving an affectionate pat to a giant lobster. “Ah, but it’s good to have someone I can bitch and whine to, Herry.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it whining, bitch,” she said, in equally quiet tones, and they both laughed. “Not really. Not quite. Though I imagine a lot of peasants and fishermen and blacksmiths might think so.”
“A ruler of the ancient Americans . . . I think it was one of the ones carved into that mountain in the Lakota territory . . . said that the definition of whining was talking about a problem without proposing a solution.”
“One of the Four Big Wasicu Guys of the Hˉe Sápa, as Suzie says. Except there is no solution here, so you might as well bitch and whine— Excuse me: muse aloud upon the philosophical ironies of your situation.”
órlaith’s hand went to the pommel of the Sword of the Lady, as the topsails of the enemy fleet grew larger against the low green horizon of Oahu. She thought she could scent danger coming down the landward breeze, along with an increasing smell of nasty smoke; pillars of black bending towards them showed where the enemy had been methodically destroying buildings and workshops and ships.
“I think it’s probably still a better situation than John’s,” she said grimly. “Only my body’s in danger.”
Heuradys glanced aside; Reiko was a few steps off, and talking to King Kalaˉkaua, which given the differences in their versions of English required intense concentration.
“You’re thinking of—”
Reiko’s brother, who had been burned to ash when the Grasscutter sensed his corruption. Or when Amaterasu-oˉmikami did so Herself, which was even more alarming when you thought about it.
órlaith swallowed and nodded. “Not exactly. But Da . . . told me once of using the Sword to heal the mind of a magus of the Church Universal and Triumphant, back during the Prophet’s War.”
Heuradys’ brows went up. “It didn’t work?”
“Yes, it did work, in a manner of speaking. When it took out the parts of his mind that had been corrupted, it turned him into a child again, in the body of a man in his middle years—a child who could never grow. It scourged out all the parts of him that had been tainted by the Power behind the CUT, and those were most of what makes you . . . you.”
Her liege knight winced. “A painless death is almost better.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
BETWEEN WAKING WORLD AND SHADOW
“We need to know who that man is, and where he dwells,” Deor said as they came down from the third floor.
Pip smiled. “I think I know how, too,” she said.
Deor’s eyes went a little wide as she knocked on the armorer’s door.
“Good day,” she said as they came through to the chime of the bell above the door, falling back into an exaggerated version of her mother’s dulcet tones, without the underlying hint of Townsville dialect she usually had. “Please forgive my intrusion. I am Miss Philippa Balwyn-Abercrombie. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Hawberk, Miss Hawberk.”
The older man looked up, stood, and bowed politely, taking Pip’s hand in an abbreviated gesture that wasn’t quite kissing it but was visibly one that had evolved from it. His daughter was sitting on the workbench beside him, and he had been comforting her. He was visibly composing himself in a flash as he made his own introductions, and she finished dabbing at her eyes and tucked away her handkerchief.
My goodness, Pip thought. The fabled stiff upper lip swinging into operation. But he’s badly off balance.
He cleared his throat. “Good day, Miss Balwyn . . . Balwyn-Abercrombie? A relation of the Herefordshire Balwyns, by any chance?”
You could see that he wished the words back as soon as he’d spoken them. Pip thought they must have been reflex, a flashback to the life he’d led before he came here fleeing scandal.
“Remotely. My branch of the family moved to Australia some time ago.”
At least the Abercrombies had, in the 1860s. Assuming that had happened in this odd version of history, or cycle of the universe, or whatever it was. Deor might understand it fully, if he wasn’t just putting on the Wise Sage, but Pip didn’t pretend to. She suspected that it couldn’t really be reduced to simple declarative sentences anyway, which bothered her sharp but practical mind.