A Meeting At Corvallis

thought he'd be dead somewhere, and then seeing him here, a father three times over no less—gave me a
turn, it did."
"Which is why you've been hanging about down here at Dun Fairfax, catching up with your old
mate," Aylward said with heavy sarcasm. "And not doing your best to chat up Lady Juniper's daughter,
eh?"
"And studying Sign until the brains ran out of his ears to do it," Chuck Barstow added. "Eilir's
charmed. Though not as charmed as she was with young Alleyne."
"Don't know what the 'ell you grizzled old farts are talking about," Hordle said. "I was just being
friendly, like."
"Hullo, Sam." A woman nodded to the men as she drove half a dozen Jersey milkers towards the old
Fairfax barn, which held the cream separator and barrel-churn and the precious galvanized milk-tins all
the households used.
"Kate," he replied.
A man did likewise as he pushed a wheelbarrow of straw and manure, steaming slightly in the damp
chill, in the other direction. More greetings came from children who played whooping running games until
their parents collared them for chores, and a couple called from where they made repairs to a roof,
tapping home nails to hold on fresh shingles.
"Quite the squire, eh, Samkin?" Hordle asked, a teasing note in his voice, and Barstow laughed.
"No, I'm not," Aylward said shortly. "I've got a good farm and some help with it, like more than one
here. If you want squires, you'll have to go and apply at the Bearkillers. Bad enough I ended up running
the ruddy army, after swearing I'd die a sergeant."
"Running the ruddy war-levy of the Clan Mackenzie," Chuck said, and smiled at Sam's snort.
Men and dogs walked in companionable silence out through the blockhouse and narrow gate, waving
answer to the sentry's hail, then down the farm road that ran southward from Dun Fairfax; Aylward and
Chuck made a gesture of reverence at the grave of the Fairfaxes not far distant, and Hordle nodded
respectfully. A pair of ravens flew up from the gravestone, probably attracted by the offerings of milk and
bread that some left there—which was ironic, since the old farmer and his wife had been Mormons,
who'd bought the farm not long before the Change as a retirement place.
The settlement was in a valley that thrust into the foothills of the mountains and opened out westward
towards the plain of the southern Willamette. The snowpeaks of the High Cascades were hidden by
cloud, but the lower slopes rose north and south and east, shaggy with Douglas fir and western hemlock
and the odd broadleaf oak or maple; drifts of mist trailed from the tops of the tall trees. There was a
scent of damp earth as they walked past rolling fields, plowland and pasture and orchard, until they
reached the road that followed Artemis Creek west out towards the plain.
That was blocked by a flood of off-white sheep for a moment, parting around the men like river
water around rocks; the heavy, slightly greasy scent of them was strong, and their breath steamed in the
damp, chill air. The man who watched the combined flocks of the Dun Fairfax families waved to
Aylward, who made an exasperated sound and then waited as he came up, his collie at his heels. He
wore sword and dirk as well, had his bow in the loops beside his quiver and a heavy ashwood
shepherd's crook in his hands.
"Anything, Larry?" Aylward said to the man who'd once owned a bookstore.
"Took a shot at a coyote skulking around, but I missed," he said. His face was irregular and shrewd,
with a tuft of chin-beard, what people meant when they said full of character.
Then the crook darted out and fell around the neck of a ewe who'd decided to head down towards
Artemis Creek.
"Back there, unless you want to hit the stewpot early, you brainless lump of fuzzy suet!" he said
wearily, then went on to the men: "Otherwise, just another day with the damned sheep. Lord and Lady,
but they're boring! It could be worse; I could be herding turkeys. Anyway, I wanted to talk about the
Yule rites, if you had a minute, Sam."
"I'm a bit busy just now, Larry," Aylward said. "Later. And I'm only a Dedi-cant, any rate."
As they walked on past the sheep Chuck grinned. "And there's a sore point," he said to Hordle.