Sandra Arminger's small left hand closed on the arm of the chair; she made it relax, but there was something in her eyes, like a red spark moving in the depths.
"I'm less ambitious than Norman was," she said carefully. "And I know when to stop. My primary goal is to pass his inheritance on to my daughter, intact."
"That's probably even true. However, you're also just as vindictive as he was, if far more subtle. I'm not going to rely on your loving kindness and better nature, so."
Sandra gave a small snort of laughter. "Granted. I don't have a better nature. So?"
"So, we—the Mackenzies, and I'm sure we can persuade everyone else—will recognize you as Regent of the Association, against the time of your daughter's majority, which will be when she's twenty-six. We will even help you enforce it against any noble who disputes your claim—we need a single authority to deal with, not a mass of robber barons raiding as the whim takes them."
"But," Sandra said. "There's always a 'but.'"
"There are conditions. Several of them, in fact."
At her raised eyebrow, Juniper went on: "First, you must withdraw from the territories in the Pendleton area you occupied last year. We'll agree not to occupy them either."
A sigh. "We've already ordered the garrisons there to withdraw; we needed the men. And with so many nobles and even heirs dead, there isn't the demand for new fiefs any more. Agreed. They're a bunch of hicks and boors out there anyway."
"Next, you have to renounce any claim on our lands and recognize all the free communities as equals. Peace on the border."
"Agreed," Sandra said at once. "You have won this war, after all. I warn you that Norman couldn't control what every baron did in detail, and I won't be able to do so either, but I will try."
"And promises are worth their weight in gold," Juniper said; she was a little surprised when Sandra chuckled and made a gesture of acknowledgment.
"And you will decree, and have the decree read in every domain, castle, manor and village, that any resident of the Protectorate is now free to leave, now or at any time in the future, without bond or let, taking their personal property with them."
"Ah." Sandra Arminger closed her eyes for an instant. "Now, that's the big one. That would be difficult to sell to the barons."
"Better lose some than lose all," Juniper said ruthlessly. "Not all would go; I imagine a lot of the free tenants and even some of the bond-tenants would stay. They've put their lives into that land, after all, and leaving would mean starting over again penniless, without land or stock. They can't carry their farms on their backs. But you'll have to stop squeezing the rest so hard, and that's a fact, and get rid of those iron collars, if you want any of your peons to remain. They're already penniless and abused to boot, the which they wouldn't be in the south."
"Which means we'd have to cut back on the army," Sandra observed. "We couldn't afford it any more."
"Exactly, unless your nobles preferred to sacrifice their standard of living." Sandra made a rueful twist of the lips that wasn't quite a smile, and Juniper went on: "That is how we can trust your word; you won't have that great standing army hanging over our heads like a hammer anymore. I suggest you settle the ordinary soldiers on farms and call them a militia—or whatever piece of old- world foolishness you choose to hang on it, fiefs-in-ordinary or whatever suits your fancy."
Sandra's left eyebrow went up again, and she silently looked at Juniper's kilt and plaid and the raven-feathers in the clasp of her flat Scots bonnet. Juniper fought down a smile.
And if she weren't a cruel, murderous bitch who's evil to the painted toenails I could like this woman, sure. She had an uncomfortable feeling that the other could read the thought, as well.
"Anything else?" the consort—now the Regent—said.
"There's to be a yearly meeting of all the communities, to consider grievances and settle disputes."
"Where?" Sandra asked curiously.
"Corvallis. They're further from you and have fewer feuds. Also, later people from south of there may wish to join."
Sandra nodded thoughtfully, looking at the dignitaries scattered around the field outside the pavilion. Turner and Kowalski were there with a clutch of other Corvallan magnates. Juniper could see the calculations of political advantage going through the other woman's brain.
But two can play at that game, my lady Regent. Any number can, in fact. It's not my favorite sport, the game of thrones, but I like it better than the game of swords.
Sandra nodded. "Agreed. A … oh, God, let's not call it a United Nations, shall we? That would doom things from the start."
"We could simply call it the Meeting."
"A yearly Meeting at Corvallis, agreed. And that's all?"
"By no means. There's the matter of Mathilda."
Sandra Arminger went very still. She took another sip of the coffee and put the cup on the folding table with its surface of mother-of-pearl and gold.
"Yes?" she said, her voice full of pride and danger. "There's something about my daughter you don't like?"
Juniper smiled; it wasn't even an unkindly expression. "On the contrary. She's a sweet girl, and nobody's fool, and we agree without dispute she's to be your heir. So much do we all love her that we'd insist on her company, for, shall we say, six months of the year."
Sandra's basilisk glare went blank and opaque; Juniper could see twisting pathways behind the dark brown eyes, like one of those old Escher prints, and felt dizzy for an instant. To help the process of thought along she gently pointed out: "And Rudi is very fond of her, so. And she of him."
The pathways were joined by gears, meshing in silent smoothness. Sandra smiled, a somewhat alarming expression.
"There is that. It would be cruel to part the children, and I'm quite fond of Rudi, as well."
Which I think is even true, Juniper said to herself.
"Two months, though, not six. Her name is Mathilda, not Persephone."
Juniper forced down a startled chuckle. "Five," she said.
"Three."
"Four."
"Agreed, four," Sandra said. "Provided, of course, that Rudi spends four months with us."
She held up a hand to stop Juniper's startled retort. "I can't agree to anything that will make most of my barons … or their widows, now … abandon me. Letting their laborers leave at will is bad enough. If I send my daughter as a hostage without you doing the same, it's a symbol of humiliation and defeat, and it will be the straw that breaks the back of their pride. You have to give them a gesture of respect and hope."
Juniper sat and wrestled with herself. She knew that Sandra Arminger was enjoying every moment of her internal torment, which made her end it the sooner: "Done. Mathilda will come to us at Mabon and stay until Yule; Rudi will return with her and come back to us at Ostara. And when they're old enough, they can visit as they please, of course."
"Whittled it down to a bit under three months, when you had to wear the other shoe, eh?" Sandra said. Then: "Agreed. And each to bring a suite of no more than six with them. No religious pressure on either."
"Oh, agreed."
Sandra finished her coffee and said musingly: "I'll send Tiphaine d'Ath and her little friend the witch along with Mathilda. They'll enjoy that, and I've wanted to poke Pope Leo in the eye for some time now, not to mention trim back his pretensions a bit … "
She extended a hand. Juniper took it and they gave one firm shake before releasing. A murmur rose from the crowd outside, and the two women looked at each other.
Juniper sighed. "Now we have to make them think it was their own idea."
"Just so. Strange, isn't it, that it's always more difficult to talk people out of killing each other than into it?"
Larsdalen, Willamette Valley, Oregon
September 6th, 2008/Change Year 10
The funeral cortege made its slow way up from the gate of Larsdalen, the pennants of the lancer escort and the manes of the horses fluttering in the warm wind from the east, a wind that
smelled of baked earth and drying grass as much as wood smoke or massed humanity. Michael Havel's body rested on the flat bed of a two-wheeled wagon drawn by four glossy horses; his charger followed behind, boots reversed in the stirrups. The brown-and-scarlet flag of the Outfit was draped over the coffin, and his unsheathed sword and bear-headed helm rested on it. Silence ran under the sough of the wind, under the crunch of gravel beneath feet and hooves, despite the huge crowd gathered; every adult of the Outfit who could come had, and many had brought their older children to see the passing of the first Bear Lord.
The day was cruelly bright on the white and yellow of the great house and on the gardens, but the lawns were covered right to the edges of the flower-banks that trembled in sheets of gold and purple. To the edges, but not beyond, for Bearkillers were an orderly and disciplined folk, and today they came to mourn. Flowers brought from their own homes flew out to land beneath the horses' hooves, roses and peonies and rhododendrons, until the destriers seemed to tread on a carpet or a spring meadow. Hats came off in a wave as the coffin passed by behind its escort of mounted A-listers led by the dead man's brother-in-law, and heads bowed. They remained that way in respect as the family passed behind: the dead man's wife and children, his sister-in-law, Ken Larsson and the rest.
Signe walked behind the cart, Mike Jr.'s hand in hers; the boy was sobbing quietly in hopeless bewilderment, knowing that something very bad had happened, and that he couldn't bawl the way he needed to or ask: When's Daddy coming home? Mary and Ritva were old enough to understand; their tears were more silent, but more bitter. Signe herself walked like an iron statue from a Viking myth, in A-lister panoply but with the crest of the helmet under her right arm dyed black. Today you could see what she would be like when the last of her youth left her.
He's gone, she thought.
The knowledge was there, but her mind couldn't really take it in. Ten years, and suddenly he's gone. He's gone. He'll never smile at me that way again, mostly on one side of his mouth, and I'll never look over in the morning and find him rubbing his face the way he always did right after he woke up. None of it, ever again.
She remembered his eyes, that first time when he'd walked into the room in the airport: cool and polite and showing no sign that he was mentally undressing her, which she'd known damned well he was. Cute, but a spoiled rich kid had been visible if you knew how to read men, which she had even then. It had driven her wild … and then the terror when the Piper Chieftain's engines had cut out, and the way his face had turned to a slab of granite as he wrestled with the controls.
He's gone. Forever.
Her son's small hand tugged at hers, and she looked down. His hair was hers, white now; it would be corn gold when he grew. But the eyes were his father's, slanted and gray as Lake Superior water on an overcast day, and so were the promise of cheekbones and small square chin.
But my kids are here. His kids too. Everything isn't gone. Not yet.
The cart creaked to a halt on the terrace that held the house. Signe turned, picked her son up and handed him to Will Hutton. The older man's face was graven too, grief and strength in the brown eyes. They widened a little in surprise as the blond boy was put in his arms. The child's own went around his neck, and the tear-and-snot-streaked face was buried in the crook of it.
That immobilized him as she vaulted up into the cart and stood beside the coffin; she stood for a moment, and then touched two fingers to her lips and bent for a moment to press them to the polished wood.
Then she stood, looking out over the sea of faces below, and filled her lungs.
"Bearkillers!" she shouted. A murmur, then hushed silence again, with a soughing sound like some great beast breathing quietly as it waited.
"Bearkillers, Michael Havel is dead!"
There was a fringe of A-listers along the edge of the great crowd nearest the roadway and the house; nobody grudged them the position today. Many were bandaged; some were on crutches; a few were in wheelchairs, pushed along by friends or kin or retainers. The least she saw anywhere were the grave, shocked faces that wondered: what will become of us now? Some of them wept; a few covered their faces with their hands and sobbed unashamed. Nor were the A-listers the only ones.
I hope you can see this, alskling, wherever you are, she thought, with a moment's wistfulness. They always respected you, but now they know they loved you too.
Then she pushed down tenderness. Mike had fought his fight; hers was still to be won.
"When the Change came, I and my family were flying over mountains. A lot of people died that day. How many didn't die, who were in the air when the machines failed? Michael Havel saved our lives."
She let one hand point for an instant to the man holding her son. "This is Will Hutton. You know him; a strong man, and a wise leader. But Mike Havel rescued him too, and his wife and daughter—rescued them and me and my sister from bandits out to rape and rob and kill."
She looked over the rapt audience, feeling their eyes like a huge wind bearing her up. The real wind blew a strand of her yellow mane into her eyes, and she brushed it aside with memories of terror and helplessness.
Mike taught me. I was never helpless again. I never will be helpless again. Nor will our children.
"Who among all of you didn't he save? He found you here and there— starving, hiding, hiding from Eaters and bandits and warlords, hiding from each other, in basements and culverts and little hollows up in the hills, all of you waiting to die like the rest or get hungry enough to do the forbidden thing. Who brought you together and made you into the Outfit, where nobody's alone and everyone has brothers and sisters who'd die for them? Who was it taught you how to fight and made you strong? Who?"
"Lord Bear," a man said near the front, in an almost conversational tone. Others took it up: "Lord Bear. Lord Bear. Lord Bear!"
Now it was a thunder, echoing off the walls behind them and the great house behind her. The house that had been owned by her blood for more than a hundred years, and that looked out over the land that fed her children, its wheat and fruit and meat the stuff of their bones and blood. She raised a hand again.
"Who was it brought you to this good earth? Who was it found you seed grain and tools and stock? Who gave every family their land, and made fair laws, and kept them, and saw that others kept them too? Who made the Brotherhood of the A-list, so that we'd have guardians always ready and you could plow and reap in peace, knowing you'd keep what you grew and made? Who was always ready to hear a grievance, and give those who needed it a helping hand … or a kick in the ass, if they needed that? Who?"
"Lord Bear! Lord Bear! Lord Bear!" Fists were in the air, and drawn blades, men shouting it like a war cry even as the tears ran down their faces.
"I'm not the only one who lost a husband in this war," she went on more quietly, when the sound had died down to a rumble.
The tone brought that to a new hush, and now they were straining to hear what she said. At the rear there was a mumbling as her words were repeated and passed backward.
"I'm not the only one who has children who will grow up without a father. My daughters, my son, the child I'm carrying beneath my heart right now, they've lost the man who loved them, who held them and told them stories. They're crying for him, like all the other children who lost someone dear to them." Several of her family looked at each other, startled. Well, I wasn't sure I was pregnant again until about last week.
A long sigh went across the crowd, and she spoke into it: "But Mike Havel was special. It isn't just my children who've lost a father. My husband was father to this land, to all the people of the Outfit … landfather, they said in the old days. He was our landfather. When the enemy came from the north with all their numbers to take our homes and make slaves of our children, who led us out to fight them? Who made our plans? Who was in the front of every battle? Who killed the tyrant Arminger with his own hand, and preserved our freedom and our lives?"
She bent and then raised the helmet and its snarling coveri
ng over her head in both hands. "When this wild thing came to kill, who stood fearless between the beast and his folk, though its claws tore his face and his own blood poured out on the earth? Who killed the Bear, Bearkillers? Who was the lord who died for his people?"
"LORD BEAR! LORD BEAR! LORD BEAR!"
This time she let the thunder build until her ears rang with it and it pounded at her chest like huge soft hammers, and then let it die away until she replaced the helm on the coffin with gentle reverence.
They're mine, she realized, when she looked at them again. And I'm theirs. I've never felt like this before … did Mike?
She motioned Mary and Ritva up into the cart; Will handed her the boy. The girls stood straight on either side of her; Mike Jr. rode her hip, knuckled an eye and then looked out over the crowd fearlessly. He'd never been a timid boy.
"The Bear Lord is dead. Will you keep faith with the one who gave his life for you? Will you keep faith with the blood that he spilled out for you, the blood that runs in his children? When the time comes they can take up his work. Will you choose one of them to wear the Helm of the Bear Lord in his place?"
The noise wasn't words, not this time, but it was certainly agreement. There was a roaring guttural undertone to it, as well: Let anyone who wants to say no I won't run far and fast! She noticed even then that her brother and his wife had their swords drawn, and were shouting as loud as anyone.
Is this what Juniper feels, when she makes magic? Signe let herself smile a little before she continued.
"Bearkillers, with his dying breath the Bear Lord named Will Hutton as his deputy, to rule in his stead until his children came of age and a new Bear Lord could be chosen by you, the free people of the Outfit. You know Will Hutton; a fighting man our enemies and the wild folk fear, and a wise and honest one as well. He was always Mike Havel's strong right hand and close councilor. The Bear Lord put the authority in his hands, and to advise him Mike set me, and my brother Eric, Will's son-in-law, and Luanne his daughter and my sister-in-law, and his wife Angelica, and my father Ken and his wife Pamela. People of the Bearkiller Outfit, is it your will that this be so?"
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