The one who'd asked first was a brave man. "What if we refuse?" he said.
One of Arminger's brows rose. "Refuse to fight?" he said.
"Of course! Why should we give you a free show, you manky pervo?"
"Well, if you don't fight, the audience will be disappointed." He smiled slowly. "But I don't think the tigers will mind at all."
The local baron had vacated the great hall—he spent most of his time at a nearby pre-Change mansion anyway—and Sandra Arminger waited, pacing nervously back and forth in front of the hearth. Guardsmen stood like iron statues down the wall, their spears glinting dully in the gloom.
"Well?" she said sharply, after waving her attendants out of earshot;
"Nothing about Mathilda," he said. "I didn't expect there'd been any conspiracy there, anyway. It looks like serendipity; she and Molalla's son just happened to be where the Mackenzies were raiding—they'd decided to come home that day on the spur of the moment, no way to anticipate it. And the Mackenzies won't hurt her, you know that."
"They won't hurt her body. I want her back, Norman!"
He made a soothing gesture. "So do I, my love. So do I; very badly indeed. But we'll have to be extremely careful. A botched attempt could result in her being hurt. At the least, we'll have to wait for them to drop their guard and relax a bit."
She bit her lip, eyes troubled, then nodded sharply; less in agreement than recognition there was nothing immediate they could do. That knowledge made him swallow a bubble of acid-tasting anger, but there wasn't. Not yet.
But when the time comes… he thought, and saw her perfect agreement.
"What about the VX?" she said, forcing herself to attend to business.
Arminger smiled sourly: "We'll still have to confirm the location he gave us, but I finally managed to persuade him."
She raised an eyebrow and he went on: "You might say I made him an offer he couldn't survive."
Chapter Eighteen
Larsdalen, Willamette Valley, Oregon
May 16th, 2007 AD—Change Year Nine
You haven't built much in the way of forts over in Britain?" Mike Havel said politely, as they rode under the Larsdalen gate.
"More a matter of refurbishing old ones," Nigel Loring said, running a shrewd eye over the stonework. "Mass concrete, really, isn't it?"
"Built like Hoover Dam, but around a framework of I-beams," Havel agreed. "I don't suppose you did need to start from scratch, much, over there."
"If there is one thing England isn't short of, it's castles—or Ireland or the Continent either," Loring agreed. "Most of them in nice strategic locations, as well."
Havel shook his head. "Strange to think Britain did so well."
Loring's mouth quirked and he ran his forefinger over his mustache. "More a matter of Britain doing very badly and everyone else in the vicinity doing even worse, actually. Once we restored order, there wasn't much actual fighting. Not in mainland Britain, because there wasn't anyone left to fight. We've had to do a bit of sword work on the Continent, and against the Moors. And in Ireland—a bad business, that, and I can't see any end to it."
Havel surprised him by laughing aloud. "Christ Jesus, you Brits are getting back to your roots," he said. "What's next, fighting the Spanish Armada?"
"Well… in point of fact, old boy, we're colonizing Spain ourselves. From Gibraltar, you see. It was empty, and it was that or let the Moors have it…"
Havel's laugh grew. "Another empire 'acquired in a fit of absence of mind'?" he asked, surprising the Englishman.
"To be absolutely honest, that phrase always struck me as a bit silly-clever, if you know what I mean. Presence of mind, rather; profit and preaching, philanthropy and plunder, pinching a bit of land for those not welcome at home, and incidentally keeping the bloody Frogs out. Doubtless it'll be the same this time, although now the French aren't a problem, eh? Now, they had bad luck… I'm a bit surprised you came up with the quotation."
"Got it from my father-in-law; I think you'll like him. Anyway, it hasn't been so straightforward here. Things are less… compact. Not as easy for someone to come out on top quickly."
Havel answered the salute of the gate detachment, and then waved to the crowd beyond; it was several hundred strong, and in everything from farmhand's overalls to A-lister armor. Loring cocked an eye at the reaction; not as loud as the cheers Arminger had received, but he judged it to be a good deal more authentic. Havel rose in the stirrups to address the crowd.
"Well, Crusher Bailey isn't going to be troubling the northern marches anymore," he said. "Last time I saw him, he was dancing on air with some crows waiting for lunch after the performance." That raised another cheer, louder and with a savage edge to it. "We had a brush with the Protector's men too, and they came away sorry and sore."
The cheer turned into a snarl; evidently the Protector was unpopular here. The snarl turned into a chant, with fists and swords brandished above it:
"Lord Bear! Lord Bear! Lord Bear! Hakkaa paalle!"
"All right, cut it out! No biggie! Everyone get back to what you were doing, for Christ's sake!"
And he doesn't need to wallow in it, the way Arminger did, either, Loring thought.
With the Pride of St. Helens thoroughly lost, it seemed Oregon was where he would stay—and his son, and John
Hordle—unless they felt like an overland trek. Once the adrenaline rush of escape was over, that had been depress-ingly certain. Finding that some of the Lord Protector's enemies were better company was reassuring. And, of course… His mouth quirked.
"Que?" Havel asked.
"Oh." Didn't think my musing was that obvious. "I was just thinking that if I had to land in the middle of a war at my advanced age, at least it's one I could feel enthusiastic about."
Havel smiled, a crooked expression. "I'm glad you ended up in it too, Sir Nigel. There aren't many people whose judgment on a man I'll take at more or less face value, but Sam Aylward is one of them, and he says you're very capable and… 'fly' is the way he puts it."
The newcomers dismounted, and grooms led the horses away; Bearkillers and Mackenzies mingled, talking with friends and relations, or being led away to the bunkhouses for visitors. Two girls came running, their blond braids bouncing as they leapt at Mike Havel; he staggered slightly under their combined nine-year-old weights and then turned with one under each arm, the skirts of his hauberk flying. Nigel blinked for a moment; they were identical, and if one hadn't had a scratch on the cheek he couldn't have told which was which from one second to the next as the Bearkiller lord whirled about.
"Mom! Dad!" they squealed; Signe Havel stood with her hands on her hips and laughed.
"Mary, Ritva, if you can leave off trying to murder your old man, there are guests to meet," Mike said.
Loring hid a smile as he gravely shook hands with both; so did Alleyne, and had the effect he usually did on females.
I can't quite understand it, the elder Loring thought, watching them blink and beam at his son. Granted, he's taller than I was at his age, and a good deal more handsome… perhaps it's the smile? He must have gotten it from Maude.
Then he watched their eyes go wide as they looked up and up and up at John Hordle. The big young man laughed like boulders rumbling as his huge paw engulfed their small hands, then knelt.
"Want a ride, young misses?" he grinned; they hopped on his shoulders, sitting easily with their arms around his sallet helm, and he and Alleyne followed the rest of the party up to the great brick house.
Mike Havel started to follow, when a voice checked him:
"Lord Bear!"
The crowd had dispersed, except for a few. One was a determined-looking young woman of about twenty with a man only a little older standing off to one side, obviously trying to look as if he wasn't with her. The occasional angry glares they exchanged argued for a close relationship.
"Lord Bear, I've got a petition."
Havel paused. "It can't wait until tomorrow? Dinner's ready… oh, all r
ight. You're Yvonne Hawkins, aren't you?" he said to the girl. "Work in the dairy?"
She had an open-air prettiness, work-worn hands, dark hair in braids down past her shoulders, and she wore a sweater and denim skirt and broguelike shoes.
"Yes, Lord Bear," she said, ducking her head. "Milking, and on the separator. My folks farm on Lord and Lady Hutton's land. I've got a complaint."
The Bearkiller chieftain suppressed an impatient snort—Loring thought it unlikely the girl would notice—and set himself, with the air of a man who does something necessary but unpleasant.
"Why didn't you take it to Angelica, or Will?"
"Well… it's a complaint against an A-lister, and he's not serving in their household, Lord Bear. And…" She twisted in embarrassment.
"And people like to go to the top," Havel said.
True, Loring thought. More to it than that, I think. At a guess, she thinks you'd be less eager to judge her about something.
"OK, you're a member of the Outfit, you've got a right to appeal to me, so spit it out," Havel went on. He'd banished his air of impatience, and waited with all his attention on her face.
She flushed and looked around, then steeled herself.
"He"—she pointed—"promised to marry me. Now I'm pregnant and he won't. I wouldn't have… well, you know, my lord. Not unless I thought we were getting married."
Havel turned on one heel towards the man, stripping off his mail-backed gauntlets. "OK, Morrison, now you. Did you make a promise to Ms. Hawkins here? And you're the father?" The young man hesitated, then nodded twice.
Havel went on, with a chilly glare: "That was smart. Lying to Ms. Hawkins would be bad. Lying to me would be stupid."
He didn't add fatally stupid. From the way young Morrison's tanned face went pale as he nodded again it wasn't necessary, but he kept his eyes level. He was a big blond youngster in his early twenties, with the enlarged wrists and corded forearms of a swordsman, and a small dark scar between his brows.
"OK, there's no law here against being a fink," Havel began, and the girl's face fell. "But there is a regulation against dishonorable behavior among A-listers, in case you hadn't noticed; we've got more privileges than other people, and more obligations, too. Breaking promises is right up there with things we're not supposed to do; and that does not mean just promises to other A-listers and their families, in case the regs aren't clear… and they are. Any explanation, Morrison?"
"My lord, I… I just didn't want to get married yet," the younger man said helplessly. "It's not—I don't have a holding of my own yet, I'm still doing household service with my brother Karl, and—"
"Well, you should have thought of that, shouldn't you?" Havel said. "Christ Jesus, son, do I have to tell you where babies come from? Or what to do about it if you're not angling to reproduce yet?"
The girl flushed more deeply; Morrison shuffled his feet. "We did," he said. "I mean, we were careful but… it just didn't work, and then Yvonne wouldn't listen to me at all when I said how difficult things were."
Loring stroked his mustache, smiling to himself. Barrier contraceptives still worked, but they were a good deal more cumbersome than the vanished Pill, and a bit less reliable.
"He wanted to get rid of the baby!" she snapped. At Havel's raised brow: "I won't. It's not right. I'm Catholic."
As are the Huttons, I understand, Loring thought.
Havel pointed at Morrison again. "You?" Then: "Speak up, I can't hear you, Morrison!"
"The Old Religion, sir."
There seem to be a good many of them about, here, Loring thought.
He wasn't altogether surprised; accidents of survival in the period right after the Change had left odder imbalances in the lands he'd seen—most of the few people left in Spain spoke Basque, for example. It all depended on who lived; a single charismatic leader or small group could be very influential. Witness His Majesty in England—or for that matter, Colonel Sir Nigel Loring.
Havel's grin was less pleasant to see this time. "And what exactly do you think Juney—I mean, the Mackenzie, would say about the way you've been acting? Something about a threefold rule?"
Morrison winced again, and this time there seemed to be more in the way of genuine fear in his expression. Loring's eyebrows rose. The Mackenzie leader had seemed a mild sort to him, without any of the hard-man menace you could sense under Michael Havel's rough good humor. And her authority here in Bearkiller territory would be religious, not secular, from what he understood.
A lady with unsuspected depths, he thought. Hmmm. For a woman to emerge as a leader in times like these…A lady with very considerable depths, I should think. Besides her obvious charm, of course.
"OK, it's your kid, and you promised to help look after it, so you owe the young lady big-time, one way or another," Havel said briskly. "That's my judgment. You can appeal to the A-list assembled, Brother Morrison, if you think I'm overtreading your rights. I wouldn't advise it, seeing as Brother Hutton would be speaking for Ms. Hawkins, and if I know Will, he and Angelica would be somewhere between furious and ripshit. With you, not her."
Morrison shook his head this time, emphatically. "I'll accept your judgment, Lord Bear."
"Ms. Hawkins, do you still want to marry this man? He's not a bad sort, just young and using his head for a helmet rack and not much else."
She hesitated a moment. "Yes, my lord Bear. He's… I'm angry with him, but I still love him."
He grinned again, in more friendly wise than before. "Smart girl. Not everyone can keep the difference between being angry with someone and not liking them straight in their heads. What about you, Brother Morrison?"
"Yes, my lord. Definitely."
Havel's expression softened. He thumped a hand down on the young man's shoulder. "Good." Then he leaned closer, and spoke softly; Loring could make it out, but he didn't think that the girl could. "And just between me and thee, Brother, I was going to assign her a third of your income for the next eighteen years if you said no. Glad you got smart."
He shook his head as the youngsters walked away; as they did, the two figures grew closer. "Christ Jesus, I didn't expect this sort of thing would be part of the job."
"Stranger things have happened," Loring said reminis-cently. "There are times an officer has to be a father to his men. And at Tilford—well, you wouldn't be interested in an old man's maunderings."
"You can learn by listening, or by getting whacked between the eyes with a two-by-four. I always found listening easier. Right now, let's go get dinner." He grinned. "You haven't met Mike Jr. yet; he's still in a high chair. But feeding him, thank God, is something I can still unload on Signe and the nanny."
He shrugged again, this time the sort of gesture a man made before settling down to a heavy task. "And tomorrow, it's back to work."
The map room of Larsdalen had been a sun porch before the Change, with half its roof of glass, and tall windows on two sides. The leaders of the Bearkillers and their allies sat at a long table with the glass behind them and the maps before; the military apprentices had set out spirit lamps with pots of herbal tea and platters of oatmeal cookies studded with raisins, then left before the serious talking began. The evening sun gave excellent natural light; the maps looked as if they'd been drawn by hand post-Change, but by experts, and they showed the Pacific Northwest in considerable detail at half a dozen different scales. Nigel Loring appreciated the skill that had gone into them, and their value. Knowing what was where, which roads were passable…
"Everyone who hasn't met him, this is Sir Nigel Loring; he's given the Protector's nose a good hard yank; details are sort of classified. Sam Aylward knew him before the Change, and vouches for him. He was an SAS colonel then, and apparently ran the whole British army afterward, until he had a falling-out with the government there. Sir Nigel, this is Major Jones of the Corvallis University Militia," Havel said.
The soldier was a slender, strong man in his thirties, in a green uniform that looked as if it was designed to be
worn under armor, and glasses held on with a rubber strap. The map indicated that Corvallis lay south of the Bearkiller territories, and that it ruled a broad swath between the Williamette River and the Pacific.
"And Councilor Edward Finney of the agriculture faculty there."
The councilor was a square-built man of about.Loring's age; his hand was square as well, callused and strong. "I'm actually just a farmer," he said. "Air force before the Change—logistics specialist; my dad owned a farm near town, and I got out, got back there. Pete, here, was a teaching assistant in the history department, and in the SCA. The university, or part of it, ended up running things in our area… long story."
"Ed's an old friend, too," Juniper said. "I knew his father well before the Change and we worked together afterward."
"I wish we could say we represent Corvallis," Finney said, nodding. "But we're only quasi-official here."
"We represent some of Corvallis," the younger man in green said sourly. "The part that takes the Protector seriously."
Havel snorted softly. Loring looked over to Sam Ayl-ward; the stocky noncom nodded slightly. Right, Loring thought. A city-state run by committees… which means there'll be plenty who won't acknowledge a problem until it comes and bites them on the arse. Still, they can't be totally shambolic, or they wouldn't be alive now.
"Sir Nigel's brought us a good deal of information about the Protector's capacities and intentions," Havel said. A grin: "Partly because the Protector didn't intend that he'd ever get loose to tell anyone about it, and indulged his taste for monologuing about the details of his own greatness. Sir Nigel, over to you."
Nigel rose, cleared his throat, and began to recite: numbers, estimates, appraisals of men and weapons that he'd seen. He didn't need to look at the notes he'd made, but Signe Havel occasionally glanced down at her copies. When he finished, the faces of the Corvallans were longer than they'd been.
"Told you, Pete, Eddie," Havel said.
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