“Or the PPA outweighed all the other powers before we proclaimed Montival,” Mathilda murmured. “If you look at it in terms of everything from the Pacific to the Sioux country and not just as far as the Rockies, then the Association is cut down to size . . . and people may learn to relax about it a little.”

Rudi chuckled. Their minds did tend to run alike. He’d heard that longmarried couples were often so. They’d been wed about one turning of the Moon, but he supposed being friends from childhood as well as lovers now hastened the process. Plus both being the children of rulers, and extremely shrewd ones.

“But we have to win the war to make that more than a claim,” he said, and kissed her. The touch was soft and sweet, and he murmured: “In the meantime, your wearing a kilt does have its merits . . .”

“Eeek! Rudi!”

He stopped, a little unwillingly even though he’d been playing.

“But we have permission from the Gods themselves now,” he said, teasing. “Yours in particular, since we were married in a Catholic church.”

“Not in the open air. Someone might come by! I am Catholic, remember, not a witch-girl.”

“Nobody’s coming by, not with Edain and a score of the High King’s Archers on guard.”

“And they’re too close!”

He sighed dramatically. “Alas, it’s right you are; their silent presence just out of sight would make for a little constraint?”

“Just a little!”

They rose, brushing bits of grass and the odd leaf off each other; Rudi put on his flat Scots bonnet with the spray of raven feathers in its clasp. There was a clump of meadowsweet growing half a pace away; he made a sign of apology and murmured: “Let us share your beauty for a while, little sisters,” as he bent and plucked them and wove a garland. “My thanks to you and Her.”

“There,” he said, setting the lacy cream-white flowers on her head, binding the long seal-brown hair that fell past her shoulders. “Queen of the Meadow to crown my Queen.”

She kissed him again, and the sweet almond smell of the flowers encompassed them both.

“Duty calls,” she said a moment later.

“In a shrill unpleasant voice,” he agreed mournfully.

Reflex as deep as instinct made them reach for their sheathed swords where they leaned against the tree with the belts wound around the tooled black leather of the scabbards; you didn’t go a step without steel in reach. Rudi felt a slight sudden cold shock as he touched his and swung the belt around his waist, doubling it and tucking the tongue under and settling the weight on his right hip with a twitch.

He’d borne the Sword of the Lady for more than a year now, since that memorable day on Nantucket, and it still made the little hairs prickle along his spine every time he put his flesh to it anew. It was quiet today, or as much as the Sword ever was. There were times a casual eye might have mistaken it for an ordinary weapon of extraordinary quality. The form was that of a knight’s weapon, a yard of straight two-edged tapering blade with a slightly crescent-shaped guard and a double-lobed hilt of black staghorn. He gripped it and drew it slightly, enough for a handspan to gleam above the silver of the chape. Steel, at first glance. Then you could see the rippling, curling marks on it weren’t damascene work. They drew the eye inward, every pattern repeating, down and down and down, as if it were a window through the world.