Turner cleared his throat, ignoring the mutter of quiet conversation around him:
“Lady Sandra, I was always interested in seizing any chance of peace,” he said with a creditable attempt at dignity. “Unfortunately, your late husband was not a man with whom any real accommodation could be reached. I found that out to my regret. But I’m not ashamed that I tried to find a way to a negotiated settlement.”
Not bad, Rudi thought. Or to put it another way, you thought Norman was going to win the war that was obviously coming then and wanted to be on the winning side. You’re too clever to try any such thing with the CUT, though, having seen what their word’s worth. It won’t hurt to make everyone think you might do just that.
He went on aloud: “I hope you’re not suggesting we negotiate with the Prophet Sethaz, Professor.”
“Well…no, Your Majesty,” the Corvallan merchant prince said. “But we’ve already made great sacrifices in this war. Next year’s crop will be light even if the weather’s perfect.”
There were concerned nods at that; it was a valid point. Far too many strong young hands and backs had been under arms when they should have been plowing and sowing the fall wheat and barley, and far too many teams of oxen and horses had been hauling supplies or catapults instead of plows or reapers. And parts of the kingdom had been fought over instead of cultivated, including many of the richest grainlands north of the Columbia, which hadn’t been planted at all. The herds had suffered, too—all the politics in the world couldn’t make cattle and sheep breed or grow faster.
Nobody who’d grown up since the Change took the land’s yield for granted. Those who’d lived through it…well, he’d known some of them who couldn’t help compulsively hoarding pieces of bread in odd places until they went hard and moldy. Less extreme cases of obsession with food were too common to note.
“Sure, and we’ll survive without famine, or even much dearth, if we all pull together,” Rudi said, smiling. His face went stark an instant. “As I’ve promised many who’ve suffered most, we will all help. Montival is a great and wide land, and much of it hasn’t been harmed.”
“Our allies…the strong allies who Your Majesty has so brilliantly brought to our side…surely they can take more of the burden now…” Turner said.
Eric Larsson and Signe Havel, the Bearkiller leaders, made identical grunts of derision; the near-unison wasn’t surprising, considering they were fraternal twins. Eric actually coughed a little biscuit into his second bowl of soup. He rapped on the table with the steel fist that had replaced his left hand after it was smashed by a Cutter war hammer fighting east of the mountains during the Pendleton campaign, a big scar-faced blond man in his early forties, with a look of ageless strength.
There was neither liking nor respect in the glance he gave Turner. The Outfit had always resented the way the city-state used them as a buffer during the wars against the Association and then skimped on help as well. They’d been founded by Mike Havel, who was Rudi’s blood-father, common knowledge though never officially acknowledged. Havel had been honest, and not a man of blood by his own choice, but iron-willed and at need a very hard man indeed. From his example the Bearkillers had inherited a ferocious straightforwardness to the way they approached the world. It was something which made them very good friends…as long as you were faithful in return.
“Yeah, right. Professor—” Eric made it a term of contempt “— you may have noticed our High King managed to persuade the Iowans and the others to march into Montana, fight the CUT and then to just fucking go home. Rather than deciding, hey, don’t we deserve some of this territory for our trouble?”
“The CUT helped there,” Rudi said mildly. “What with their killing the bossman of Iowa and encouraging a revolt in Des Moines. Matti managed the politics of it, sure and she did; and she made a good friend of Anthony Heasleroad’s wife.”
“Kate needed help and appreciated it,” Mathilda said modestly. “Besides, they’ve got their own internal disputes in the Midwest and a lot of the Iowan nobility…Farmers and Sheriffs, they call them…don’t want their central government to have the sort of power a bigger standing army would mean, so they’d just as soon keep Iowa within its borders after the war. It’s not as if they’re short of land—they’ve got far more good black earth than they can cultivate. All that was obvious once I’d investigated a little and talked to the principals. The way we worked it they could say they wanted a clean exit strategy because they were altruistic.”
Her mother beamed pride at her and made a little silent delighted clapping motion. Rudi winced slightly at the sight. He admired Mathilda’s political talents—and relied on them—but her mother…
There are people whose approval fills you with disquiet.
Eric nodded agreement, but went on: “We leave them to do all the heavy lifting from now on, and remember they haven’t seen us do any fighting at all, and how long do you think they’ll stick to that unless they do see it? They’re helping us fight this war, but it’s our war. We’re the ones the CUT invaded. It won’t stay our war if we don’t follow up with an invasion of the enemy’s heartland.”
“And if it isn’t our war, we don’t get to shape the peace,” Signe said.
Rick Three Bears was glaring too. “And the Seven Council Fires were promised the protection of Montival when we agreed to join the kingdom,” he said. “You know, we Lakota get sort of antsy when you white-eyes break treaties. Leaving us with our asses swinging in the breeze out on the makol—the high plains—would bring what you might call some bad memories to mind. We agreed to fight with the League of Des Moines and let them base forces in our territory and fix up the railroads because we were promised we wouldn’t be left alone to face them afterwards. We’re relying on you to help us against them after the Cutters are out of the way. To fight with us against the Farmers from the square states, if it’s ever necessary.”
“God forbid,” Sandra Arminger said unctuously, and crossed herself with ostentatious piety. “But in that event, the Association will of course be behind the High King to the last lance and the last rose noble coin. We place our resources unquestioningly at His Majesty’s disposal for the remainder of this war and for the establishment of the kingdom.”
There were winces up and down the table. Nobody wanted the Protectorate to have a hammerlock on the new kingdom. It had too much land, wealth and power for anyone else’s peace of mind as it was.
“So do we,” Juniper Mackenzie said. “Sure, and isn’t this the fulfillment of the vision I had when I held Rudi over the altar in my Nemed and gave him the name of Artos? The Clan stands by the Lady’s Sword, who guards Her sacred wood and Her law.”
“Us too,” Eric said.
Signe nodded—not enthusiastically, as she’d never liked him much, but with grim determination.
“And the Order of the Shield of St. Benedict,” Ignatius said. “In this I speak for the Abbot-Bishop.”
More winces; the Mackenzies and the Bearkillers and the warrior-monks had been the core of the resistance to Norman Arminger. If you threw them in with the Protectorate, they completely outweighed everyone else put together. The other Corvallans were glaring at Turner now, for isolating them.
“No treaties will be broken,” Rudi said decisively. “Nor will any other promises I’ve given; to the New Deseret men who are still fighting, for example, or to those of the Thurston family and their followers who’ve come over to us and fought by our side at great and constant risk. I’ve given my word on that, and bound it to the line of my blood by the Sword of the Lady.”
There was a long thoughtful pause at that; even Turner gave the crystal pommel behind Rudi’s shoulder a considering look. The second course came, a hearty dish of horseradish-crusted roasted venison, with seasoned grilled potatoes, late asparagus and a winter salad of pickled vegetables, accompanied by warm breads. Rudi took a bite of the meat, chewed with enjoyment, and waited; you should never interrupt an enemy when they were making a mistake.
“Keeping large armies in the field will cause a lot of hardship,” Turner went on doggedly after a moment. “If the enemy can’t defeat us, it’s not so…so urgent any more.”
He wouldn’t have accomplished all he has if he wasn’t stubborn, Rudi thought. I can use this man to the kingdom’s good; he’s very able, not to mention very rich and very influential with his equivalents elsewhere. I just have to make it plain that it’s to his advantage to help me and very much the opposite if he sets his will against mine. I don’t have to like him, or he me; I’m a warrior and he’s a merchant and that quarrel is as old as wolf and dog. When you have to move manure, you use a dungfork.
The banker continued: “We’ve all made sacrifices—”
“Oh, yeah,” Eric drawled.
Signe elbowed him in the ribs. “Corvallis has made sacrifices,” she said. “If their Sixth Regiment hadn’t held at the Horse Heaven Hills…we wouldn’t be here. Unless we were forting up. We had to win that battle; our army would have come apart, and every contingent would have gone home to make a last stand if we’d lost.”
“That’s true,” Rudi agreed. “They stood, and died where they stood. I couldn’t give them any help for far too long. They bought me time, the which on a battlefield is a gift more precious than rubies. Bought it with their blood and lives. I’m going to have We Stood embroidered on their standard. And presented by Peter Jones, if he lives.”
Edward Finney laughed again, without mirth; several of his kin had carried pikes or crossbows with that regiment. “Yeah, Corvallis has made sacrifices. One of my sons-in-law took an arrow through the throat there. That’s three young kids without a father. But that sacrifices doesn’t include all of us in Corvallis, if you know what I mean.”
Turner flushed. “My children aren’t of service age. I’ve financed two whole battalions’ worth of equipment out of my own pocket besides paying my taxes, and taken in and employed hundreds of refugees from the Bend country!” he said.
“Putting them to work in those factories you have interests in, you mean,” Finney said. “The ones you were always bitching about being short of labor for in peacetime.”
“You have refugees working on your farm!”
Another grunt of sour laughter from the landsman. He began to count on his fingers:
“Yeah. I’ve got…let’s see…three nursing mothers and their babies, six kids under twelve and their moms, two amputees, and a guy who’s older than I am and still has screaming nightmares about the Change and isn’t too tightly wrapped when he’s awake either…wets himself sometimes…and the rest of their families are all away fighting. Anyone who can walk can tend one of those water-powered spinning machines you’ve got filling those fat government contracts, Turner; no wonder you’re not anxious to get the enemy out of Bend so they can go back to their ranches! Farming isn’t like that. My refugees aren’t even doing enough work to meet the cost of their food; they can’t, even though they push themselves hard. My sons—and a daughter—are with the army and I’m back on the farm trying to make bricks without straw and Gert’s milking cows again until she has to put her hands in bowls of ice water for an hour before she can sleep, which I doubt your wife is.”
“My wife is chief accountant for the First National Bank,” Turner said huffily. “First National is crucial to the war effort.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that makes her wake up crying when she turns over. So I want to get this war finished. Finished as quickly as can be while doing it right. And we need to put it on record that we’re part of the kingdom. Which, now that Rudi…that Artos the High King just beat the Cutters, is going to be pretty damn popular back home, Turner.”
“I’m sure everyone will make their fair contribution,” Rudi said, and added to himself: Provided they have no choice, some of them.
“But,” he went on, “deciding such matters is for Montival as a whole; and I myself am the symbol and agent of that unity, together with the Queen. Hence we need an acknowledgment of what the High King’s rights and duties are; and a ceremony of acknowledgment. Of allegiance.”
That produced a lot of talking. Most of it was positive, but unfortunately positive in a dozen separate ways. Everyone had his own ideas of what a coronation ceremony entailed, which was precisely what he and his closest advisors had anticipated. He cleared his throat.
“Brothers, sisters, I obviously can’t satisfy you all! And sure, satisfying one of you would offend others—if I were to have the Cardinal-Archbishop of Portland crown me as the sole ceremony…I don’t think Corvallis would enjoy it.”
“We have separation of Church and State in Corvallis,” Turner said, and Finney nodded solemn agreement. “They do in Bend, too, and a couple of other places.”
“Your Majesty, I’m afraid that’s doubly true of the United States…of Boise,” Fredrick Thurston said, making a concession; most of that country would have added of America, for all that it ruled only a chunk of old Idaho and a few bits adjacent. “The whole concept of hereditary monarchy is going to be a tough sell without getting religion into the mix. Any hint of an establishment of religion would be a gift to…to the present regime.”
Meaning, your late elder brother’s henchmen, Rudi thought compassionately. He tried to kill you too, and then to blame you for your father’s death. His closest followers cannot turn back, not when they went along with that. And they’ve probably discovered that their bargain with the Prophet was the sort of deal a house-cat makes with a coyote.
The tall, dark young man spoke politely but firmly. Rudi and he were good friends—they’d gone all the way to the Atlantic together and back after his father’s murder. He’d always been brave as you could wish in a fight, but the High King was glad to see that the last traces of youthful diffidence had faded. Being head of a taut little army of twenty thousand men rather than a refugee living by charity was adding powerfully to his self-confidence.
“The Clan wouldn’t approve either, boyo!” Juniper Mackenzie said, grinning. “And we don’t have separation of covenstead and anything whatsoever.”
“You have to have a Catholic coronation ceremony, Rudi,” Mathilda said, her brows knotted in thought. “I don’t think there’s any alternative there.”
“Indeed, and I wouldn’t deny it,” Rudi said cheerfully. “I’ve no objection at all.”
He thought Ignatius winced slightly. Applying the holy oil to the brow of a pagan King was going to stretch his faith’s standards a little, though it wouldn’t be the first time. His Church had a very long history and had learned the value of patience a very long time ago.
I feel some sympathy, my friend, he thought. But only some!
From the way the other man’s shrewd dark eyes looked at him under a raised brow, he thought the cleric understood him perfectly. They’d been in each other’s company for years now and in circumstances that revealed the soul. He went on more seriously:
“So since I can’t choose one, I’ll choose all,” Rudi said, which had everyone blinking at him, except those who’d been in on it. “After the war I’ll made the rounds and go through everyone’s chosen ceremony. Religious, secular or a mix, just as they please. For each land…each little homeland of the heart; and in those I will be the suppliant, the suitor courting favor from the spirits of place and their folk. Which in some places, Boise for one, may be more like making a treaty.”
“Well…that will take a while,” someone said.
“Arra, I’ll need to get to know every district and they me, anyway,” Rudi said. “But for the present we need one ceremony that is for the whole of Montival and an acknowledgment of the same when it’s over. And that ceremony is between the High King and Queen and the realm as a whole.”
Turner remained silent, which Rudi deliberately took for assent, nodding as if pleased…which he was, more or less. The Grand Constable of the PPA mopped her plate of the last of the juices of the rare venison, ate the heel of bread, poured herself more of the red Pinot Noir—it was
from her own estates, Montinore Manor to be precise—and spoke:
“Whereupon you can get back to the real business at hand. Your Majesty. They lost three, four to our one at the Horse Heaven Hills, and it was even worse for them during the pursuit, but they can afford it better. And the League of Des Moines isn’t going to get much farther out on the High Plains until snowmelt. The weather there…”
“Ah, you farmers are all wussies,” Rick Three Bears said.
Rudi grinned at her. He liked Tiphaine d’Ath, very much as you might a tiger that you were sure was on your side; she’d been a big part of his training in the arts of war, from handling a sword to deploying a regiment. But though very able, she was also very…
Focused, he thought. Tightly focused on one set of problems, which is a good thing for a specialist, but a ruler can’t afford too much of it. I have the Sword of the Lady, but chopping folk up is not the universal answer to the problems of kingcraft, essential though it may be at times.
“A King is more than a war-leader, needful though that is,” Rudi Mackenzie said. “You could do that as well as I.”
“No, I couldn’t,” d’Ath said flatly. “I’m a better than competent general, but you have a gift for it—the way both of us do for the sword-in-hand. And I can lead professionals because they respect my record and I frighten them, but you can spend five minutes with a bunch of levied peasants fresh from the plow who’ve just been handed their first pikes and are scared out of their wits, and they’ll be ready to storm Olympus. And they’ll expect to win, which they may very well do because they expect it.”
“Perhaps,” Rudi said, though he was uncomfortably certain she was more-or-less right.
It wasn’t a power he was altogether happy with, though he used it.
“War is only part of a King’s trade. And he’s more than an administrator, too,” he added to Chancellor Ignatius.
“That he is,” Juniper Mackenzie said. “For the King is the land and—”
Lord of Mountains: A Novel of the Change Page 26