by SM Stirling
Halldor went to one knee, and Artos stepped back smiling very slightly. He and his party faded away, to leave the Norrheimers to settle their own affairs. A man in a long mail hauberk rode up and slid from the saddle with the ease of one who’d lived on horseback.
“Mr. Mackenzie?” he said, extending a hand. “I’m Avery McGillvery, the Rancher here. Many thanks! Your sister gave us just enough warning—she’s in our infirmary, resting.”
“Ah, and that’s good news!” Artos said. He felt something inside him thaw.
“And then you showed up just in time. They’d have been over the wall in another ten minutes.”
Inspector Rollins came up, grinning as well. “A and B troops are nearly here,” he said. “Another four hundred men.”
“So, the Force is with us!” Artos said.
The Rancher and the Inspector laughed. Artos and his party looked at them in surprise.
CHAPTER TWENTY
DOMINION OF DRUMHELLER
(FORMERLY PROVINCE OF ALBERTA)
JUNE 3, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
Ritva opened her eyes and winced as pain speared into both. A hand was under her head, and held a glass of water to her lips; it was well water, cold and good, and she swallowed it and let her head fall back. A light shone in both her eyes, candle-flame reflected from a mirror in a little box. She was in some sort of big open room, a long whitewashed rectangle with a high ceiling of beams and planks, a school or a church or something of that order. There was a slight smell of blood, and a stronger one of medicines and antiseptic.
“Hi, sis! It’s the day after the battle, if you need to know. We’re visiting the wounded. You count, sorta.”
Mary was grinning down at her—a few scratches on her face and hands, bruises, the white mark a helmet’s padding made across your forehead. Her eye patch had a new silk ribbon, and her hair was back in a neat fighting braid, and she was in formal Dúnedain black with the crowned tree and seven stars on her sleeveless doeskin jerkin. She held up a helmet, a plain sallet which after a moment Ritva recognized as her own; it had a crack in the crown and Mary stuck the tip of her little finger through it.
“You keep getting banged up like this, people will be able to tell us apart!” she said, wiggling the finger again.
They smiled at each other wordlessly. Rudi’s face moved into view. “And how are you feeling?”
Ritva made a mental effort—her head ached and he was a little blurry around the edges—and switched to English.
“I feel,” she said, “as if someone shot me in the leg and the shoulder and then hit me over the head with an ax. But you ought to see the shape he’s in.”
“Worse than yours, though you’ll have to stay here for a bit and heal. They’re good people, and much taken with you.”
A groan came from the bed beside her. She looked over; it was Ian Kovalevsky, and the doctor was changing the dressing on his buttock. Rudi chuckled, and for a moment he was the brother she’d known all her life.
“Now there’s an unfortunate,” he said.
“Why?” Ritva asked. “It’s an honorable wound and no worse than mine.”
Kovalevsky groaned again, and the doctor—she was a short slim middle-aged woman in a green tunic and cap and trousers, brown-skinned and gray-haired, with a bird’s fine-boned grace—said in a pleasant chirping singsong accent: “Shut up, babyish boy. There are many more injured than you, oh yes indeed.”
Two younger women helped her, dressed in outfits of the same color and cut and sporting the same stethoscopes around their necks: they were obviously her daughters, and equally obviously their father had been someone who looked more like the Constable.
“It’s not the pain,” the young redcoat said.
Rudi laughed. “No. It’s the thought of being . . . what’s your name, lad?”
“Kovalevsky, sir.”
“Being Half-Ass Kovalevsky or something of the sort for the rest of his mortal days.”
“They wouldn’t . . .” Ritva started, then thought; she knew young men, including Dúnedain. “They would. Even his friends.”
“Especially his friends,” Artos amplified, and the injured man nodded mournfully into his pillow.
“And how am I supposed to show off the scars?” he asked. “Moon everyone?”
“Men,” Ritva and Mary said simultaneously.
The doctor and her helpers pronounced the same curse in almost the same breath. Ritva’s brother laughed—heartlessly, she thought—as the young man hid his head in the pillow.
“And my sister, Dr. . . .”
“Dr. Padmi Nirasha,” the woman said, and then looked surprised and pleased as he pressed his palms together before his face and bowed slightly.
“The leg and shoulder wounds are muscle damage and need only time and perhaps some physiotherapy to heal properly, given her excellent physical condition. The blood loss was not too serious, so we used only saline drip. I have disinfected and debrided. There was a concussion also. That is never to be taken lightly, no, no. But recovery is progressing. Strict bed rest for at least the rest of the week is indicated.”
“That’s good to hear,” another voice said; Avery McGillvery. “Your warning saved us, Ms. Havel.”
“And she should be allowed to rest,” the doctor said tartly. “Even by a tyrant and oppressor such as yourself, Rancher, if I, a mere captive put to hard labor may say so.”
He grinned at her. “Going to burn the place down again, Padmi?”
“I think of it every day! Now remove your large carcass out, and leave my patients in peace!”
Ritva felt her eyelids fluttering; she was very tired. Rudi held his arms up and spread, palms skyward, and Mary joined in the gesture. They both chanted softly as she drifted away:
“Come to me, Lord and Lady
Heal this body, heal this soul;
Come to me, Lord and Lady
Mind and body shall be whole!
Beast of the burning sunlight
Sear this wound that pain may cease;
Mistress of the silver moonlight
Hold us fast and bring us peace!”
Father Ignatius and Mathilda waited for him outside the schoolhouse-turned-infirmary. He nodded at them and they relaxed in relief; they and the Rancher strolled out the gate. People were busy with repairs; the bodies were all gone, and the dead horses, but flies still buzzed over the places where blood had soaked the soil, and the faint smell was unmistakable. A group of Cutter prisoners was working over near the wrecked warehouse, helping put back what they’d destroyed. A tent town had sprung up on the banks of the little lake to house the troops; the Norrheimers, the First Richland, and the newly arrived redcoat bands. Cowboys were driving in herds to the complex of corrals, to be slaughtered for the feast to come, and neighbors had arrived as well with help and supplies.
Artos looked at the faces of those they passed. He’d seen the like before; there was sorrow for those who’d lost kin and friends, but the relief and joy outweighed it. They knew what a Cutter victory would have meant. There were always costs to a fight when you won, but fighting and losing was far worse. This wasn’t the first time these people had been on the receiving end of a raid, and they knew how the world worked.
The Rancher seemed to be searching for words: “So, Mr. Mackenzie . . . your family is Scottish?”
Artos glanced down at his kilt, recognizing a conversational icebreaker:
“My mother’s mother was Irish; from Oileán Acla, Achill Island. And she married an American named Mackenzie who was Scots mainly, with some German and a wee bit of Cherokee and traces of this and that. My blood father was half Finn, with the rest split between Swedish and Anishinabe . . . Ojibwa. My foster father’s English.”
“Scots and English, myself . . . a little Ukrainian and Blackfoot.”
Artos offered a harmless question in turn. “What was that about your excellent doctor indulging in arson?”
A short snort of laughter, and the Rancher wa
ved a hand towards the ruins of the old house by the lake.
“She was part of . . . with, at least . . . the gang that did that. People from Calgary, summer of the first Change Year. Not really bad, most of them, just hungry and desperate, trying to take a place where they could feed themselves. My father broke the gang up, but he let some stay if they could work for their keep, and a lot of ’em turned out pretty good; they and their kids are half the people on the Anchor Bar Seven now. Padmi spent a month or so shoveling and pounding earth before she’d tell anyone she was a doctor. She still claims it’s forced labor and she’ll burn the place over our heads someday. I don’t know if it started as a joke, but . . .”
Artos laughed; it was a better ending to the story than most from those times.
“It’s sorry I am that you’ve taken damage and loss from my coming, and yourself so hospitable and helpful,” he said bluntly. “I can’t bring back the dead or heal the injured, but I can compensate for material losses.”
“I haven’t taken damage from you, Mr. Mackenzie; you and your sister saved us. My people and I have taken loss and damage from the Cutters. No need for payments.”
“Ah, well, you should be knowing that it’s Iowa’s money, and none of my own. And Iowa has more money than is good for them, or at least for their neighbors, so you’d be doing a good deed by taking it. A little financial letting of blood to correct the humors.”
“Oh, in that case . . .” he said, and they both chuckled. Then grimly: “And this isn’t the first time we’ve fought the Cutters, though it’s the worst so far.”
“Ah, now that’s what we need to speak of.”
“Well . . . I’m not the Premier.”
Father Ignatius bowed his tonsured head. “No, Captain McGillvery, but you are a man of great influence here, most prominent of the Ranchers in the southern portion of this Dominion. They will listen carefully to you, and your government will listen in turn to them all. And we have no time to spend in consultations with Premier Mah in Drumheller. We know that she has agreed to declare war on the Cutters, but not how vigorously she will prosecute it.”
“My mother . . . the Lady Regent Sandra of the Portland Protective Association . . . told me that Premier Mah was very able, but a little too cautious sometimes,” Mathilda added. “Too inclined to hedge her bets.”
Artos could see Oh, that Princess Mathilda run through McGillvery’s mind. Here in Drumheller they had to have dealings with the PPA; not particularly friendly ones, though there hadn’t been war beyond the odd border scuffle since Norman Arminger had died. That meant they knew at least a little of what went on farther south in the rest of Montival as well. Mt. Angel had daughter houses here, and the Order of the Shield of St. Benedict was well thought of.
“Well, for what it’s worth, Mr. Mackenzie, I’m in favor of settling Corwin’s hash once and for all.”
“That’s the immediate task,” Artos said. “Though I’ve a horrible suspicion that it will be but a battle in a longer war.”
“Of course . . . what exactly do you intend to do with Montana after you get rid of the Cutters? After we all do, that is. If it’s left alone it’ll be chaos, then bandits and anarchy, or warlords. But Drumheller certainly doesn’t want to annex it. Enough of those people have ended up here anyway.”
“Our plan is to incorporate it in the High Kingdom of Montival, for precisely those reasons.”
“Er, that’ll cause . . . concerns.”
“It’s my thought we should speak a little of how the High Kingdom and the Dominion had best arrange their affairs both during the war and after it. For we’ll have a border to your southward, as well, should things go well.”
“You’re not inviting us to join, I hope?” McGillvery said. “The, um, High Kingdom, that is.”
Artos grinned. “No. Though I’d not turn you down did you wish to. Yet I don’t anticipate you will. You’ve a well-governed and not-so-little realm here. All you really want of your neighbors is peace, and perhaps trade, eh?”
The man nodded in relief, and the discussion between the four of them was brisk. It turned into something like a procession, as McGillvery toured the camps of the various contingents, formally inviting them to the victory feast—most of which would be conducted in the open or under tents, but officers and a select few others were bidden within the Anchor Bar Seven’s homeplace walls. That in turn led to a few impromptu speeches by commanders to their men:
“And I know what great fighters you are,” Bjarni went on to his assembled band, standing on a massive barrel that gurgled hopefully with good Canuk ale. “You showed it yesterday, against these Cutter swine who’re supposed to be so fierce.”
A roar of approval greeted him. His men hadn’t packed fancy clothes along, though they were combed and trimmed and had their arm-rings on. The bearded faces looked up into the torchlight, cheerful with the expectation of the feast—particularly at the prospect of unlimited fat, tender young beef. Cow-beasts were mostly working oxen or for dairy back in Norrheim, where they had to be fed in barns on hay and grain and roots five months of the year. They weren’t slaughtered until they were good for nothing else, except on special occasions or when a chief was feeling lavish.
And McGillvery’s looking a little apprehensive. They are a wee bit rough in appearance, I will grant.
“But I also know what a bunch of drunken, brawling, rutting horn-dog arslings you turn into the moment someone waves the bung from a barrel under your noses,” the Norrheimer said flatteringly.
That brought laughter; he cut it off with a motion of his hand.
“Drink your fill and eat your fill, gamble and arm-wrestle and sing, boast and have riddle-games and swap lies with your friends and our allies,” he went on. “But remember that we’re guests here, with a guest’s obligations. If you misbehave it touches the kingdom’s honor and my own. No fights, or at least no steel. And keep your hands off any woman who isn’t willing—and if you’re in doubt, she’s not. Any who disgrace us I’ll send to the High One with a rope and a spear! Now go enjoy yourselves, and have a taste of Valhöll, for you earned it!”
Artos smiled and turned to his own smaller war band. His close companions didn’t need any such advice, but the Southsiders and Norrheimers picked up along the way might. Customs and standards differed.
“It’s proud I am of you, my hearts, every man and every woman, for you’ve been all that a lord might wish in his companions,” he said. “But my friend Bjarni’s advice is good. Do remember that looking too often into the bottle is not an excuse for violations of hospitality. Also remember, those of you who haven’t seen Montival yet, that if a man forces a woman, we Mackenzies bury him—alive—at a crossroads with a spear in the dirt above his coffin, to turn aside the wrath of the Mother and appease the Earth Powers.”
“Ah . . . you actually do that?” McGillvery said, as they walked on.
“Such a stuffy death,” Ignatius murmured, which Mathilda seemed to find amusing for some reason.
“To be sure, we do,” Artos said. “You hang men, in the same circumstances, I believe.”
“Well . . . yes, these days we do. My father says they just put them in a prison in the old days.”
“Odd.” Artos shrugged. “Very odd, to make honest folk pay to support the wicked.”
McGillvery shrugged as well. “Didn’t even make them work, according to the old man,” he said.
The Rancher was about a decade older than the Mackenzie, which meant his first real memories were of the years just after the Change. Those had been times with even less room for waste than nowadays.
All was nearly ready for the feast when a scout rode in and hauled his lathered horse to a halt before the Rancher; the beast’s sweat smelled musky-strong in the cooling evening air, and its eyes rolled white against shadow.
“Sioux, sir, a big bunch of ’em heading this way. They’ve got a peace flag up, though.”
McGillvery looked alarmed, and Artos grinned as he spoke:
“I think I know who those are.”
At the Rancher’s questioning look, he went on: “You may remember that I said few of the enemy would cross the border into the CUT’s territories alive?”
McGillvery whistled softly. “You do like to arrange things neatly, don’t you, Mr. Mackenzie?”
“I find it saves trouble,” Artos said gravely.
“I’ll go tell them to put a few more head on the grills,” the Rancher said. “Not the first time the Lakota have ever eaten Anchor Bar Seven beef, but it’s probably the first time I’ve given them any. And I’d better warn everyone. Wouldn’t want any misunderstandings.”
Ignatius and Mathilda sent him odd looks as well; the more so when the Sioux war-party rode up a little later, just as the sun was finally slipping below the western horizon. The civilians and the various forces made a broad corridor for them; there were around three hundred, with many horses driven behind them, and fresh scalps on their shields or spears or belts. They all wore light shirts of good riveted mail, and two scorpions bounced along at the rear with their packhorses, Iowan-made like the armor. As Red Leaf had said, when it rained soup a sensible man took off his hat and replaced it with a bucket.
Their leader reined in and raised a hand in the peace sign; he had red paint striped with black on his forehead, eagle quills at the back of his steel cap, strings of hollow bone cylinders across his chest, and his long brown braids were bound in quillwork and fur thongs.
“Hau, Rudi,” he said as he slid from his horse like a seal from a rock. “Father,” to Ignatius. And: “Hau, wigopa,” to Mathilda; which meant hiya, pretty girl, more or less. It was brotherly . . . also more or less.
“Hau, blotáhuŋ ka,” Artos said, as they touched fists; it meant Greetings, war-chief.
Then he continued in the same tongue: “I see it has been a good day, a day when the Sun shone on the hawk and on the quarry. The knives and arrowheads of your brave ones are red; you have taken many horses, many scalps.”
“No shit, Sherlo—” Rick Mat’o Yamni—Three Bears—began boastfully; then he did a sudden double take that set his braids swinging.