The Sword of the Lady c-3

by S. M. Stirling

  A slight smell of incense from the funeral mass lingered, under the autumnal smells of burning leaves and cut grass and the wild silty smell of the river not far distant. The Cardinal-Archbishop of Des Moines was here, and he wasn?t quite adding his blessing to the proceedings… but then again, you couldn?t say he wasn?t either, and he was in full fig of vestments and miter and crozier. Father Ignatius stood just behind his right shoulder, in plain Benedictine robes, but leaning forward occasionally to murmur a word in his ear, to the evident frustration of his own entourage. ?Then isn?t a compromise that spares this rich land from death and burning a good thing?? Rudi asked.?You?ve been long at peace, and I?ve seen war; an ugly thing, and a war of brothers is uglier yet. Not the ugliest of all things, true, but to be avoided if you can do so with honor.?

  Troops stood in double columns, down on either side of the strip of red carpet that led to the cathedral?s doors. Half were State Police, looking professional and tough in their polished mail but rather subdued beneath the stiff discipline; the ruler they?d upheld and the commander they?d hated and feared and adored both gone at once.

  The other half were Farmers? and Sheriffs? retainers, more motley in their gear but solemn with the occasion, and with Jack Heuisink and Ingolf Vogeler at either end to bully-damn them into order; the fact that the younger man was on crutches seemed to make it easier for him if anything.

  Behind the dais stood Jake sunna Jake and his followers. Rudi suppressed a chuckle at the sight; Edain had managed to get them into kilts of something quite similar to the Mackenzie tartan, at which they?d been wildly enthusiastic, and reasonable body armor, which they liked even better, and civilized barbers had shave faces and trim hair, which they?d liked very little. He?d even found flat Scots-style bonnets. They leaned on their hickory longbows, grinning like so many timber wolves contemplating a flock of sheep. Their pose wasn?t even the rough Clan approximation of standing to attention, but they were quiet enough-they were hunters, after all.

  Abel sighed.?I?ve been compromising since the Change for just that reason. Because I had to do it. It would be nice to get my own way for once-and I?m right, goddammit. We should be a democracy again, before people forget that there was such a thing.?

  A roll of drums and a blare of trumpets sounded. Kate Heasleroad came through the doors of the cathedral, from where she had stood vigil before her husband?s coffin. With her was the nursemaid, and in her arms young Tommie, quiet but with his face wet with uncomprehending tears.

  And he?ll never know his father, Rudi thought with a pang.

  He?d met his own blood-sire quite a few times, but not enough to know him; there had always been the matter of Signe Havel, Mike?s wife, and he hadn?t been officially acknowledged as the Bear Lord?s son until after the man?s death.

  Still, all things considered, little Tommie?s orphaning may be for the best; even love can ruin you, if it?s done wrongly, a difficult feat but one his father would certainly have pulled off. I was lucky. A boy could do far worse than have the story of Mike Havel to pattern himself on, and the living Nigel Loring to show him daily what it is to be a man. Not to mention the likes of Chuck Barstow and Sam Aylward. ?Legends change, Colonel Heuisink,? Rudi said to his companion. ?One will do as well as another, as long as people-the lords and the folk both-hold to them truly, love the story they tell and try to live rightly by them. It?s when people betray the dreams they have together that they bring real sorrow upon a land.?

  Heuisink gave him a long look.?Yeah, legends change. But you youngsters… especially you youngsters, you and your friends, make me wonder. Like I wonder about my sons, but more so.?

  Kate wasn?t quite dressed in a cotte-hardi either, or wearing a crown, though she?d wanted to. Mathilda had talked her out of that; both would be too alien here, for now. But her long gown and the tiara in her hair were stately enough, and the expression on her face was stern and remote as she looked out over the crowd.

  And the half of being a Queen is to look like a Queen. For what is rank, but people?s belief that you hold it? ?Wonder what?? Rudi said. ?About living by our legends. People have always done that. The trouble with you?-he smiled wryly-?the trouble with the younger generation, is that they?re living in legends. Being eaten by them, maybe. Does that make you more human than we oldsters were, or less? Certainly it makes you different. It?s like you don?t live by them, you live them out. Act them out, without noticing you do. You don?t. .. talk to yourselves inside your heads as much as we did.?

  Rudi frowned, then nodded with slow respect.?You?re not the first I?ve heard say something of the sort,? he replied thoughtfully.?But few have put it so neatly. To be frank, from my side it seems that you of the ancient world often hardly lived at all, just watched yourself living.?

  They stared at each other in perfect mutual incomprehension for a moment. Then Rudi grinned. ?Mostly it?s: And you Changelings are weird, the lot of you!? he said.

  Heuisink laughed ruefully. The arc of open garden before the great church held several hundred prominent Sheriffs and wealthy or influential Farmers, mayors and National Guard commanders; men of consequence from all over the Provisional Republic, summoned by the semaphore-telegraph net, and brought here as fast as light railcars could travel-which was forty miles an hour or even better, with relays working the pedals. Beyond the fence and a line of spearmen the hill and the streets beyond were crowded with the burghers and commons of Dubuque-sleek traders and brokers and shipowners, solid shopkeepers and skilled craftsmen, ragged day laborers who had nothing to sell but the strength of their arms.

  Kate waited for a long second, just long enough for quiet to fall, and not quite long enough for the murmurs to grow again. Then she raised a hand; the bugles blew once more, and the warriors beat blades on their shields, or stamped the steel-shod butts of their weapons down on the pavement, or flourished their bows. When the harsh martial noise stopped, the silence could have been cut with a knife. ?Sheriffs, Farmers and people of the Provisional Republic of Iowa,? she said into it.?Anthony Heasleroad, my husband, your Bossman, is dead. Murdered by foreigners who he gave hospitality as his guests, murdered on Iowan land by agents of the cultist madman of Corwin. Will you let this stand? Will we let our leader be murdered by savages from Montana? Will Iowa, proud Iowa, our home, the last home of American civilization, let this stand? Can they do this to us?? ?Oh, now that?s clever,? Rudi murmured softly.?You are your mother?s daughter, Matti; I wouldn?t have thought of it so quickly, perhaps. Us is a powerful word, and it?s a sorry excuse for a man who isn?t moved by the pull of shared blood. It?s no accident we of humankind took wolves to share our hearths and work and to guard our children, for we too are creatures of the pack.?

  The surprised grumble from the audience turned into a sudden roar: ?No! No! No!?

  Abel Heuisink?s generation-long feud with the Bossman?s family was forgotten for a moment as he shouted with the others. Fists rammed into the air, and the soldiers shouted with the rest, landholders? retainers and State Police together, until their officers cursed and cuffed them into quiet. The men of note took longer to subside, and the vast crowd of ordinary folk beyond longer still; their voices were like a great beast?s snarl in a nighted forest.

  Rudi felt a little prickle up his spine at the sound. He kept a tactful silence himself; he was a foreigner here too, and he judged the temper of the time not overly friendly to outsiders. ?What do we say to these murderers? What is our answer?? Kate called. ?War!? a voice called, and others joined it:?War! War!?

  Abel Heuisink started and half turned. A little way beyond amid the notables was a knot of younger men, the sons and in a few instances the grandsons of the oldsters around them-Odard Liu in the midst of them, and the closest to him all the men he?d made his cronies. They had started the call, but others took it up. ?War! War! War!? The chant spread, and then the commons joined in, like a thousandfold echo of Pacific surf upon basalt cliffs: ?WAR! WAR! WAR!?

  Rudi blinked a little in surprise when the hoarse bellow cut off
at Kate?s gesture, quiet rippling out from the dais to the edge of sight. She turned and held out her arms, and the nursemaid set her son in them. ?My boy?s father is dead,? she said.?And all the promise of a new generation that went with him, a generation born since the Change and tempered in these times of trial.?

  Rudi grinned to himself. He hadn?t come across a single land in his travels where the younger generation weren?t itching to take over from their elders, the more so because they were impatient with habits of mind born before the Change. A few of the notables were past sixty, like Abel Heuisink, but most were a generation or so younger and accompanied by grown children who were learning the family business of ruling at first hand by example and observation the way most trades were passed on now. Those were the ones shouting the loudest…

  The crowd of townsfolk beyond were mostly those who?d been born since the old world died, or at least didn?t remember it well.

  Kate went on:?But his son lives-named for the man who saved us all when the Change came. Gentlemen, Sheriffs, Farmers and people of our great Provisional Republic, I cannot protect my son alone.?

  She held the boy over her head in a sudden gesture. ?I need your help. Will you promise that help? Can I depend on you? Will you give me the wisdom of your counsel, the strength of your arms, the courage of your loyal hearts??

  The bellow that answered her was enough to make the glass in the cathedral?s great windows rattle audibly. Glancing aside Rudi could see doubt on many faces, but others shone, exalted… and even the doubters were looking around them and reckoning odds, and then mostly joining in. A corner of his mouth twisted up.

  Matti?s mother had used that tactic shamelessly among the Associates in the months that followed Norman Arminger?s death at the end of the War of the Eye, trotting her daughter around like an icon. She hadn?t been the only one to use the method in those days, either. Sandra had employed more vivid words than those Mathilda was putting in Kate?s mouth, but even then the Associates had been used to the concept of dynastic loyalty. These Iowans had to be led gently, into things they felt already but had no set form of words to express. ?Farmers, Sheriffs, and people; I will do nothing unconstitutional. The Assembly and the State Senate must be consulted. But will you swear, here and now, to uphold my son?s rights against this enemy from beyond our borders??

  Which makes no sense if you think about it-the only threat to young Tommie?s position right now is from his fellow countrymen-but few of these folk are thinking much right now, Rudi knew. And by the time they might, they?ll be committed. She?s made her son, vengeance for his father and the insulted dignity and honor of Iowa one and the same thing. And that honor their own.

  The people bellowed approval. So did some of the notables, particularly the younger ones. The rest took it up with a half-second?s lag.

  Kate Heasleroad glared at Abel Heuisink as he pushed his son?s wheelchair through the door. The conference room was large; the long oval of the mahogany table was enough for a score of seats, but it stretched beyond that to tall windows that showed the hilly streets of Dubuque and a glimpse of the Mississippi beyond that. A pot on a sideboard gave off the rich smell of real coffee, only slightly cut with chicory, and a tray of pastries rested beside it; the scent mingled with city smoke and the cut grass of the lawn outside. Nobody had bothered with the amenities yet. The former Bossman?s wife hadn?t even sat down, and her guards bristled behind her. ?You?re not taking what belongs to my son, Colonel!? she snapped.

  The elder Heuisink shrugged.?I can?t take what you think belongs to your son, Kate,? he said.?You just fixed it that way, you and your friends.?

  Rudi kept his face calm, but there was a grin behind it at the expression on the face of the Bossman?s widow. Then it turned shrewd; she stared at the spare seamed face of the older man, and she nodded slowly. The armed men behind her relaxed infinitesimally, sensing that it wouldn?t come to blades and blood on the parquet floor, not just yet. Some of the politicians did too, and others looked at each other in puzzlement. ?Thank him for pointing it out,? he went on, and nodded to Rudi. ?Though I like to think I?d have thought of it. But that might have taken too long, and a day?s a long time in politics. Especially politics conducted with sharp pointed things.? ?You?re serious,? she said.?But you?ve been an enemy of ours forever. Matti said you would be reasonable, but-? ?I was an opponent, not an enemy, but leave that aside. Iowa has an enemy now, and we can?t afford to fight among ourselves. I didn?t kill your husband, Kate. I tried as hard as I could to stop it. Hell, Jack here got himself busted up fighting for you, remember.?

  The younger Heuisink nodded, then winced and touched his bandages; the splinted leg was outstretched on a support rigged to the pre-Change wheelchair. Kate looked at Mathilda, who stood cradling her bandaged arm and tight-strapped ribs. The very slight nod she got seemed to relax her a little further. ?That?s true, Colonel… Abel,? she said.?What do you have to propose?? ?A coalition, and you as…?

  This time the elder Heuisink looked at Mathilda himself. ?Kate will be Regent until her son?s majority,? Mathilda Arminger said.?I?m familiar with arrangements like that. A Regency with you, Colonel Heuisink as… well, might as well call it Chancellor. And offices and hon ors divided between your factions… parties, you call them… according to a mutually satisfactory plan. Or equally unsatisfactory plan; there isn?t enough land and offices to satisfy all the claimants, and never will be. With a war coming, you?re going to need your unity.?

  Young Tom Jr. murmured and turned in his mother?s arms. She stood and handed him to his nursemaid.?Take him away, Annette,? she said. ?It?s time for his nap and we have business to discuss.? ?So we?ve got a war on our hands,? the elder Heuisink said, several hours later.?At least it isn?t a civil war.?

  Mellow evening light came through tall windows. He passed a cup of the coffee to Rudi; they were alone in the room now.

  Rudi shrugged, sipping at it and nibbling a cookie rich with walnuts. Sitting in a room full of politicians and helping keep their mutual fears, hatreds and spiteful greeds from boiling over was work, just as sure as skinning a cow or pitching sheaves onto a wagon.

  Unfortunately it didn?t give you the honest weariness that real labor did. His stomach felt sour, and the muscles of his neck stiff and tense, in addition to the fading but still sharp pain of bruises and cuts. ?Not this year, I think,? he said.?It?s too close to winter.?

  The Iowan landholder nodded; the season of mud was coming, and the blizzards after that. Iowa?s railroads and roads were vastly better than most, but that could do only so much for moving and supplying armies inside the Provisional Republic?s boundaries, and nothing outside them.

  And besides which, the preparations to build an army will take time. But not an hour of my time here in Iowa and over the river has been wasted, mad though it drove me to stay when the Sword calls ahead. For now I?ve found allies here, and powerful ones with armies at their commands, bound to me by both honor and policy. When I return, those bonds will be iron chains for the curbing of Corwin and the Cutters.

  The Mackenzie went on aloud: ?And Corwin?s domains are far away, though they may move local allies against you. But next year, almost certainly, in my judgment. Fortunately it?ll be a war against a foreign foe, not amongst yourselves, and Iowa is very strong.? ?Not as strong as you might think,? Heuisink said grimly.?Tom Heasleroad was always more concerned with a possible coup than he was with making the National Guard… the army… effective. The units are un derstrength and scattered, and a lot of the officers are more concerned with lining their pockets than anything else. Plus the National Guard Reserve-the farm militia-is a joke and a bad joke at that, on most of the Farms. Barely even police, much less soldiers.?

  Rudi blinked.?That?s, ummm, less clever than I?d have expected, from the man?s reputation, which was that he was no fool, whatever else his failings. Ni neart go cur le cheile.?

  At the older man?s puzzled look he rendered the Gaelic into English: ?No unity, no strength.? ?No, it was very clever indeed,? Abel Heuisink
said.?From Tom?s point of view, if not the whole State?s. He was always most worried that someone would do to him what he and John Denson… and I, I was in on it too, let?s be honest… did to the Governor right after the Change. Killed him and took over, no point in weasling about it.?

  Rudi looked at him.?But that was necessary, wasn?t it?? ?I thought so. Tom too, but he wanted to do it and I was reluctant. But do it once, and get away with it, and there?s always the chance someone else will give it a try. For reasons they think are good. Possibly just a little worse than the ones you had. And after that another, and another, until it?s just for whatever they can grab, for no better reason than they think they?ve got a tougher bunch of thugs. We did what we had to do, but we broke things doing it. Broke barriers.?

  Rudi nodded.?And that?s another reason you should keep your promise to Kate… to the Regent,? he said.?Not that I doubt your honor, Colonel. But for the good of your land, too. Iowa is strong.. . if it can learn to use that strength, the which requires years of good lordship. And while I wouldn?t wish a war for the purpose, still fighting one together against outsiders who deserve it can be a powerful bond.?

  Heuisink looked a little surprised, and the Mackenzie went on: ?Men will bow to a naked sword; but that makes your back feel very naked too, and everyone has to sleep sometime. They need a story as well, a story that tells them the ruler has a right to rule, and tells the ruler how to rule: by right, and not by whim.? ?Well, Tony certainly didn?t know that one.? ?No, he didn?t… and you?ll notice that he?s become somewhat dead the now. Such a tale is no fancy; it?s as needful as air if men are to live together as men, not like crabs in a bucket devouring each other. The which is not a good thing! You may not like the House of Heasleroad, sir, but here they are. They did bring Iowa through the Change. And this Heasleroad heir is very young indeed, and need have no feud with you, you and yours being guiltless of his father?s death. If you?re Chancellor, and his mother the Regent is your friend, you?ll have a hand in the shaping of him. And of this land.?