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Alban, as had many of her original cadets—they’d been over two-thirds male, which had upset the gender balance back on Nantucket considerably, in the beginning. She’d been relieved when so many war brides turned up.
    Not that I could have complained even if I’d disapproved, she thought with an inner smile, glancing at her partner as she stroked the nose of her horse. Seein’ as I did pretty much the same.
    “How is Amentdwran, Wayne?” Swindapa asked.
    ’Dapa remembers him, too, Alston thought. Not from any particular effort, but the Grandmothers made a science of memory; they’d had to, with an astronomy-based religion and no way to store information except in living brains.
    “Fine, fine—expecting again, that’ll be number four, after the twins. But come on in out of the wet, for God’s sake! No, my people will take care of the horses.”
    Two came at a run, agog at seeing the living legends; they bobbed heads and made the Fiernan gesture of reverence. touching brow and heart and groin, then led the horses around to a laneway at one side of the building. Alston cocked an eye at her escort, but the Marine noncom had her squad well in hand—they’d taken their rifles and gear first, and she was telling off one to go check that the stabling was all right. It would be, but you had to make sure. Horses were equipment, and if you took care of your equipment, it took care of you.
    “The deer’s yours, Mr. Merrithew,” Alston said, indicating it with a lift of her chin. “Dumb beast walked right out in front of us yesterday and stood there in plain sight of God and radar.”
    “Well, I’ll take that, but the rest is on the house,” he said, and raised a hand to forestall protest. “The skipper doesn’t pay in any place I own. And Pete!” An eight-year-old boy came up, face struggling between awe and delight; the café-au-lait skin and loose-curled hair left no doubt who his father was, in this world of palefaces. “Run up to the Manager’s house and tell them all who’s here!”
    They walked through into the main room of the Eagle And Moon, shedding rain slickers in the hallway and feeling their bodies relax in the grateful warmth. That also brought out the odors of wet wool and leather and horse sweat and everything else that went with a week’s hard travel and camps too muddy and wet and cold to do much washing. Marian Alston-Kurlelo wrinkled her nose slightly; there was no point in being squeamish in the field, but she liked to be clean when she could, especially in civilized surroundings like these.
    She looked around; the inn was whitewashed plaster on the inside, with flame-wrapped logs crackling and booming in an open fireplace, and a less decorative but more effective cast-iron heating stove burning coal in a corner. A long bar with a brass rail stood on one side, swinging doors let a clatter and the savory smell of roasting meat and onions and fresh-baked bread in from the kitchens, and a polished beechwood staircase with a fancifully carved balustrade led upward. Coal-oil lamps were hung from oak rafters, bright woven blankets on the walls along with knicknacks that included crossed bronze-headed spears over the mantel, and a sheathed short sword modeled on a Roman gladius and made from a car’s leaf spring. They hadn’t had many firearms, that first year ...
    “Kept my ol’ Ginsu,” Merrithew said, slapping the sword affectionately. “Okay, Sergeant, you and your squad, the beds’re up the stairs thattaway, bedding, robes and towels, bathroom’s at the end of the corridor.”
    “Very well, Sergeant; carry on,” Swindapa said; her responsibility, as Alston’s aide-de-camp.
    All to the best, Alston thought. Ritter’s air of hard competence tended to turn to blushes and stammering when addressing the commodore directly—there were drawbacks to being a living legend.
    “Settle your people in, and then dismissed to quarters until reveille tomorrow,” Swindapa went