The Protector's War

by S. M. Stirling

  "Yes. The problem with that, of course, was that we couldn't tell anyone whatsoever about what we'd done."

  Willamette Valley, Near Portland May 10th, 2007 AD—Change Year Nine

  "No," Captain Nobbes said.

  "No, what?" Arminger replied.

  "No, you can't keep it," Nobbes said stubbornly. "You promised we'd dispose of it, and sport, that's just what you must do, like it or not."

  The Protector flung up one hand. The column halted, the clatter of hooves on asphalt or crunching on gravel slowly dying. The road ran westward, through farmland and then a patch of woods; the mountains of the Coast Range stood blue at the edge of sight, and in the middle distance the towers of a castle squatted on a hilltop. The column had shrunk with every fort and post they passed as they came westward; Loring guessed that Arminger was anxious to have the precious cargo that rested in the two mule carts under lock, key and guard as soon as possible, and in an out-of-the-way place at that.

  Probably he'll spend some time biting his fingernails over

  whether the most trustworthy guards are really all that trustworthy, Loring thought. Such a fuss…

  Arminger turned in his saddle to stare at the Tasmanian. "You're either a very innocent soul, or very, very foolish," he said, his voice flat and metallic. "To paraphrase Elizabeth. 'Must is not a word to use to princes.'"

  Nobbes went pale. Loring almost winced in sympathy; the man hadn't developed the right reflexes, and it was suddenly coming home to him that the safe, democratic rule-of-law Commonwealth of Tasmania was very much the exception this ninth year of the Change—and that unlike King Charles, the Lord Protector didn't give a tinker's damn about diplomatic immunity.

  I wish I could have warned him… but that's why we've been kept separated…

  The moment stretched. Nigel cleared his throat. "I'm sure Captain Nobbes will come to see the necessities of your position as the guarantor against anarchy in this area, Lord Protector," he said heartily. "Certainly the material's yours, and I for one would be happy to show your men how to use the"—entirely useless—"weapons properly. They aren't anything for the untrained to get their hands on, eh, what?"

  Am I putting it on a trifle thick? Loring asked himself.

  Arminger was evidently wondering the same thing; he shot Loring a considering look. Alleyne was smiling broadly too, and Hordle laughed coarsely.

  "Looks like the job prospects is better 'ere than Tasmania, Cap'n. Sorry."

  Nobbes began to sputter incoherently, going pale and then flushing red; Arminger smiled at the sight. He had just begun to laugh when a shout from the east brought all heads around. Hooves pounded in the gravel by the side of the road, the tirrup-tirrup-tirrup of a gallop; the shoulder was a safer place to ride, if you were pushing a horse fast for any distance.

  The rider had a sword and dagger at his belt, but he was unarmored otherwise and his horse had a good deal of Thoroughbred in it. Foam streaked its sides, and sweat soaked the khaki jacket the horseman wore, the smell of both rank as he reined in. Loring recognized the uniform of Arminger's court couriers, an elite corps used only for the most urgent messages. Arminger did too, and he kneed his own mount aside, over the roadside ditch and into the field so that the courier and he could talk unheard. The messenger's mount stood with its head down, panting like a bellows. That helped cover the sound of the men's voices.

  At least until Arminger stood in the stirrups and shouted: "Who? They lost who? I'll have that bastard's head, baron or not—"

  Then he sank back, shuddering, and visibly took a moment to master himself. After an instant he turned back and called to the commander of his guard; they spoke for a moment in low tones, and then orders rang out. Three-quarters of the escort turned and brought their horses up to a trot eastward, with Arminger at their head. The commander turned to the troop leader of the remainder before he followed: "There's been a raid out east; those devil-worshipping rebels and bandits, they're over the frontier. Get this stuff and the foreigners to the castle. Fast."

  "But, my lord—"

  "Shut up and do it! The Englishman knows how to handle the… special material." Even now, he used the code name, which was commendable attention to security, as he pointed at the elder Loring. "Get it and them to Castle Tonquin, now, and get it all there safe."

  "Yessir!"

  The guard commander's horse gave a squeal of protest as he wrenched its head around and spurred into a gallop after Arminger. Loring waited until the man was a safe hundred yards distant, then spoke calmly: "Well, Sergeant, it shouldn't be too difficult to get the… special materials where they belong. But with the escort whittled down like this, we should show extra care. The Lord Protector would be very upset if anything happened to it."

  The troop sergeant was a man in his midtwenties, broad-faced and muscular, with a short-cropped yellow beard. He looked tough enough, and from what Loring had observed in the past fortnight, disciplined to a fault—and near to panic at the Protector's sudden rage and even more sud-den disappearance. The sound of an authoritative voice from a man who'd been close to the ruler and visibly treated with respect made him give an audible sigh of relief.

  That'll teach Arminger to discourage initiative among his noncommissioned officers, Loring thought, as he dismounted. God knows what I'd do if someone like Sam Ayl-ward were in charge. Die, most likely… of course, that could still happen, so put your shoulder to the wheel, old boy.

  Alleyne and he were in their suits of plate within a few minutes. Nobbes was staring at him, blinking, then nodding slowly.

  About time, Loring thought, keeping his face relaxed and nodding back. Don't be so bloody thick, man!

  "Keep your eyes on the woods, Sergeant," Loring said. "I don't like the look of them. It seems like natural ambush country for rebels or bandits to me." He used the same phrase as the man's commander with malice aforethought and the noncom jerked slightly, probably thinking precisely what would happen to him if anyone took the cargo in the two mule carts. "In fact… why don't you hand out their cutlasses to these men?"

  The Tasmanians' arms were in one of the mule wagons, along with the protective suits. Only a half-dozen of the Pride's crew accompanied them, but every little bit helped. Nobbes helped hand out the blades, and had a chance to murmur a few words as he did. Arminger's man was conscientious; he scanned the wooded area ahead carefully, and kept his men spaced correctly along each edge of the road, while the sailors marched closer to the carts. The shade of the trees closed over the narrow two-lane road, and for a moment there was peace, green-tinted, alive with birdsong, white oxeye daisies and blue-sailors blossoming by the roadside. The overhanging branches would make the lances awkward…

  I almost hate to do this, Loring thought.

  "Sergeant," he said.

  "Sir?" the man said, turning; then his eyes started to go wide.

  The dagger in Nigel's left hand darted upward, taking him under the angle of the jaw; he toppled backward with a thin shriek through clenched teeth, dead before he struck the ground in a clash and clatter of mail. Loring reached across him even as he fell, wrenching the man's lance out of its saddle scabbard as the horse leapt aside in panic and broke into a gallop over the fields. He whirled it overhead in the same movement, stopping the long pole with a wrenching effort and thrusting overarm with desperate speed. It struck between the shoulder blades of another of the escort; he screamed in surprise as the point broke through the mail links and cracked his spine.

  Two, he thought.

  His right hand swept to his sword hilt and the left twitched the shield down from his back and his forearm went through the loops. He left the visor up for the moment; the visibility was more important than protection in this sort of fight. An arrow from Hordle's longbow went by Pommers's nose with a whhhfft of cloven air and struck a man's leg with a hard nasty crack. At point-blank range it punched through the hauberk, through the man's thigh and the saddle beneath and went deep into the barrel of the horse beneath. T
he animal went wild, bucking and bugling as the rider screamed, then slipping on the asphalt and going over with a crash.

  Three.

  Alleyne's sword flashed, a glittering horizontal blur, first silver and then red as the point slashed beneath the splayed nasal of one Norman helmet. The man-at-arms dropped his sword and screamed, clapping his hands to his face.

  Four…

  And then the Tasmanians poured into the melee, their cutlasses flashing. Nigel held one man-at-arms off with his shield and another with his sword; a blade thumped painfully into the plate coulter over his elbow, but the man's horse went down with a scream an instant later. A moment's chaos, and the Protector's men were down as well—except for one pair who wrenched their mounts around and spurred them westward.

  "Hordle!" Loring shouted. "Those two!"

  The big man dropped his sword and snatched up his bow again. Both the riders had their long kite-shaped shields over their backs; the first arrow sank into one of them with a sharp crack. The man galloped on, then slowly slid left and toppled out of the saddle; one foot turned in the stirrup and the body bounced along behind the horse for a dozen yards before the animal stopped, turning its head to push at the dangling weight. The other man-at-arms bent low over his horse's neck and hammered his spurs home; an arrow stuck at an angle into the shield on his back, and it might have wounded him as well but he seemed none the worse for it. Hordle swore mildly, raising his bow for a dropping shot; it struck a branch and spun off, sparkling as the shaft pinwheeled into a patch of sunlight. An instant later the rider was out of sight around a curve, the drumbeat of hooves fading in the distance.

  "That's torn it," Alleyne Loring said. "Get those horses! We'd—"

  He stopped, astonished, as the Tasmanians collected their dead and wounded, loaded them on the carts and started off westward at a trot.

  He looked at his father. Nigel shrugged, and took a pair of the reins that Hordle handed to him. "For some reason, Captain Nobbes doesn't seem to trust us anymore," he said. "I suggest we head directly south, and quickly!"

  Crossing Tavern, Willamette Valley, Oregon May 14th, 2007 AD—Change Year Nine

  "And that's how you ended up outside that porno store just when Crusher Bailey's men were about to overrun us," Mike Havel said.

  Then he wiped his lips with a napkin and threw the linen cloth down on the table. "Juney, you'd better sign me up," he said. When she looked a question at him: "You must be right. There aren't any coincidences. Or entirely too many. Your Lord and Lady must be running the show. You realize what that message to Arminger must have been, right?"

  She looked back at him and began to laugh. One by one, the others around the table joined in; even Signe grinned like a she-wolf.

  "Only hearing you'd captured his darling daughter would have made him go apeshit like that," she said, inclining her head in tribute. "We couldn't have coordinated anything like that in a thousand years."

  "Jolly good show!" Nigel Loring said, with the slightest tinge of irony in his tone. "You'll forgive me, ladies, gentlemen… but at the present, I'm somewhat concerned with my personal future, and my son's, and Sergeant Hordle's."

  Mike made an expansive gesture. "After tweaking Arminger's nose like that, you've got a bunk with the Bearkillers as long as you want," he said. "And we can always use a good fighting man; one who's a trained officer can write his own ticket, within reason. Certainly land if you want it."

  Sam Aylward cleared his throat. "You might want to come visit us before deciding on what you want, sir," he said. "I'd like you to meet the missus, at least."

  "Indeed, Sir Nigel," Juniper said. "There's room at my Hall, sure. And you know… I seriously don't believe in coincidences." She grinned happily at the three Englishmen. "I don't think you came here by accident… and I don't think you've played out the game, yet."

  Nigel Loring's mouth quirked a little; he wasn't used to being beamed at in quite that open a way. Then his smile grew, almost involuntarily.

  "It's a tempting offer," he said.

  Signe Havel tapped her fork on her plate. "Unless you're still thinking of sailing away," she added.

  Nigel Loring's smile died. "No, indeed," he said. "I'd have done my best to get him out if they hadn't gone off on their own, but I'm afraid Captain Nobbes isn't in a position to offer asylum to anyone. Not anymore."

  Castle Morgul, near Portland, Willamette Valley May 14th, 2007—Change Year Nine

  Nobbes's scream was high and shrill; Norman Arminger would have called it inhuman, if the past decade hadn't taught him the remarkable range of the human voice. The Tasmanian captain was on the vertical rack, limbs stretched out in an X in padded clamps that allowed the maximum tension to be applied without tearing off a wrist or ankle too soon.

  The Lord Protector lounged back in the padded chair, his boots up—it was a leather-covered recliner, salvaged from an expensive home in the western suburbs of Portland where some information-company executive had used it to enjoy the movies on his brand-new DVD player.

  I wonder if they really would have replaced videotape? Arminger thought.

  The recliner did look a little out of place in the dungeon, but then the dungeon itself was a bit of a compromise between his mental image of the Platonic ideal of underground prisons and what was practical, which had its limits even in the Changed world.

  A castle required strong foundations, even one made from cast ferroconcrete, and that meant cellars and underground storage were easy to arrange. Small tables on either side of the chair held a bottle of white wine, a glass, and a selection of small pastries made with honey and nuts. He had considered lighting with torches, but they were just too flickery and smoky; the standard alcohol lanterns hanging from the groined archwork of the ceiling cast a suitably low blue glow. The walls were plain gray concrete, but held plenty of racks for tools and instruments; the floor led to a grating-covered drain. There were air ducts at the corners, carefully made just too small for a human being to crawl through. The concrete was slightly damp with condensation, but several glowing charcoal braziers kept it comfortably warm; bits of pine resin covered the scents of sweat and fear and old blood. Filthy straw infested with bugs and rats was lacking even in the corridors of cells about, but then experience had proven typhus was no respecter of persons. Nakedness on cold wet stone was an adequate substitute for keeping his prisoners in the right state of mind.

  The attendants were thoroughly traditional, though, besides the two men-at-arms by the door: stocky men bare to the waist, wearing black leather hoods with eyeholes, and pants of the same material. Sandra wasn't here today; she knew his mood was dangerously taut right now with worry.

  The scream died away to a mumbling whimper, and then silence.

  "Give him another quarter turn," Arminger said, sipping at the wine.

  "He's fainted, my lord," one of the technicians said.

  "Well, revive him, then!" Arminger snapped.

  The technicians slacked the tension slightly, and followed that up with several buckets of cold water. Nobbes came awake enough to try and catch some of that in his mouth, licking up the drops and then screaming again when he sucked a little into his lungs and had to cough and racked himself. Arminger waited until something approaching consciousness returned to the haunted eyes.

  "I swear I don't know anything about anyone kidnapping your daughter, oh, God, I don't know! Water, please, water."

  Arminger nodded reluctantly. "All right, let's move on to my nerve gas. You didn't have time to destroy it, so you must have hidden it somewhere. I'll find it eventually, but I want it now, and not just that lousy little bottle I tested. So tell me."

  After a moment's silence, the lord of Portland went on: "Look at the wall."

  Nobbes did, when one of the technicians knotted his fingers in the Tasmanian sailor's hair and wrenched his head around.

  "There are a number of interesting little tools there. Some are sharp. Some are heavy. Some can be made red-hot. And some
can be heavy and hot and sharp. So…" He turned his eyes to the technician. "A dose of the hook, I think. Not the barbed one, and just the inner thigh, this time."

  When the screams had died down to sobbing, he went on: "Now, tell me where my nerve gas is."

  "Buh… buh…"

  Arminger made a gesture with one finger, and a sponge soaked in water and vinegar was held to the prisoner's lips. When he was coherent again he raised his head.

  "But if I tell you, you'll just kill me, you bastard!"

  Arminger smiled and nodded. "Yes, I will, after checking to be sure you're not fibbing. And when you realize that's the upside of the bargain for you, you'll talk. Another quarter turn there."

  Several hours later Arminger walked out of the interrogation room and down a corridor with a long row of cells on either side—he'd found that keeping the prisoners within hearing distance of the interrogations was useful for softening-up, and besides, there was a certain aesthetic balance to it. Hands gripped the bars and eyes glared, but he was safely beyond reach, and a brace of guards followed. Captain Nobbes had gone before, on a gurney with a doctor and nurses in attendance. It wouldn't do for him to die prematurely, after all.

  "What about us, you bastard?" one of the crewmen of the Pride of St. Helens called.

  "Shut up, fuckface!" the guard snarled, lashing at his fingers.

  "No, no, that's a legitimate question," Arminger said, as the prisoner staggered back from the bars, clutching at his injured hand. "I think… yes, I think that when my daughter returns, I'll hold a tournament. We'll have jousts, and a melee, and bear-baiting, and then something new. You're all going to volunteer to fight a pair of tigers, with knives. Knives for you, not the tigers, that is. I think twenty-to-one is fair odds. If any of you survive, I'll even let you live. The salvage and construction gangs can always use new hands. Simple food, an outdoor life, and healthy manual labor."

  More curses followed; the prisoners probably thought they had nothing to lose. They were wrong about that, and the ones who wept, or lay curled up and hugging themselves were wiser. What he'd probably do to them all if his daughter didn't return soon would make fighting a four-hundred-pound Bengal starved and tortured into madness seem quite desirable.