A Meeting at Corvallis (17 page)

He was the sort who could be a crowd all on his own, a short, stocky balding man with a glossy brown beard going gray. He'd been winery manager at Larsdalen from the mid-nineties until the fifth Change Year, and had taken over as steward of the Bearkiller properties here partly because it ministered to his second passion, food.

“It's the Unspeakable Antipodean,” Signe said with a mixture of sarcasm and goodwill. Zeppelt's Australian drawl was as rasping as ever. “Hi, Zeppo.”

“Still a bit of a figjam, eh?” he laughed back at her. “And grinning like a big blond shot fox, my Lady Signe is.”

“Dinner's ready, I hope?”

“Fair dinkum, no fear,” Zeppelt said. “On the bloody table, and it's grouse tucker.”

“Did you ever talk like that in Oz?” Havel said curiously, dismounting and tossing the reins to a groom.

“Why, that would have been superfluous considering the cultural context, would it not?” Zeppelt answered in dulcet tones.

Bathed, fed and sitting around the table as the children were sent yawning to their bedroom, the adults relaxed over nuts, cheese, fruitcake and wine. A low blaze in the small fireplace made the room comfortable by Change Year nine standards, which meant in the mid-sixties.

“Great job, Hugo, but Christ Jesus, I may grow gills,” Havel said. “I liked the smoked salmon cooked in cream and dill. And I always was partial to a good Dungeness crab. Can't get them in our territory; I wish
we
had a railway to the coast. Or a port at all.”

“Why do you think I asked to get sent down here?” the Australian said, belching contentedly. “Chance to get a bog in with something besides roast and spuds. Those crabs're bonzer when you stir-fry them with scallions and ginger, aren't they? Got to get them fresh, though. They ship them in from Newport on the railway in saltwater tanks with little fans worked by the wheels to keep it circulating. The sea's full of them these days, so they're cheap even so.”

“What about the rest of your job?” Signe asked, a little sharply; Havel could feel her putting on her CIA hat.

“Oh, everyone here thinks old Hugo's just a harmless larrikin who doesn't know Christmas from Bourke Street,” Zeppelt said, giving her a thumbs-up. “They talk around me like I was cactus. I'll give you the drum, all right; the good oil, deadset.”

“And?” she said.

“Someone's spreading money. Someone who doesn't like the Bearkillers,
or
our kiltie friends eastward,” he said, his face going serious. “They're no galahs, either. Going at it subtle, about how we're blocking trade, that sort of thing. How much everyone would make, if they had the railway through to Portland back up and running.”

Peter Jones grunted. “I didn't know that,” he said. “I'm not surprised, though. You think it's Portland putting a spoon in our stewpot?”

“Nar,” the Australian said. “I'd be gobsmacked if it were. Someone local, I'd say, but with an eye cocked north.”

Signe nibbled at a cracker covered in blue-veined cheese, and sipped at a Rogue River zinfandel. “According to my sources—”

My spies,
Havel thought affectionately.

“—Kowalski and Turner were in Portland last month. Officially they were looking into getting their wool shipments from Pendleton going again now that the war there's over. Which I'd be more ready to believe if half the sheep out that way weren't dead.”

Havel grinned mirthlessly. That four-sided civil war had let the Protector's men in, which gave him the Columbia valley as far east as the old Idaho border and cut the remaining independents in eastern Washington off from the Association's enemies in Oregon unless they went around by way of Boise. It would take years for Arminger's people to get the area subdued and producing, not least because they were at daggers drawn—literally—over who would get what, but when he did it would be a nasty accession of strength. And in the short run, it gave the Protector some experienced light cavalry from the victorious faction he'd backed.

“But Turner and Kowalski had several meetings with Arminger,” she went on. “And his wife, and Grand Constable Renfrew, and a couple of priestly bureaucratic types. From the Chancery, officially, but I smell Holy Office. Not exactly what you'd expect for trade talks. Arminger usually hands those off. This had the scent of something political.”

She wrinkled her nose to show what sort of scent. Jones winced.

“Hell, that's a pretty serious accusation,” he said. “I don't like either of them, but that doesn't make them traitors, necessarily.”

Havel tossed a couple of nutmeats into his mouth. “It doesn't mean they aren't, either,” he said. “Signe's reading of both of them is that they'd do anything for enough money. I trust her judgment; that type're a closed book to me. Arminger I can understand—he's sort of like me, only with megalomania and bloodlust where his ethics ought to be. Businessmen I never did grok, and that means I can't really tell a good one from a bad one.”

“They wouldn't want Arminger taking over,” Jones said. “In his territory he and his bullyboys squeeze people like them a lot harder than the Faculty Senate, with tolls and what-not. And I can't see either of them getting a title or setting up as barons.”

“Yeah, that's bugging me, too,” Havel said. “Money means more here than in Portland territory, the way the Association is set up. Land and castles and men-at-arms count for more up there, at seventh and last. So you'd expect your budding Rockefellers to keep arm's length from the Lord Protector. But something doesn't smell right. You know anything else they've been up to?”

When Jones hesitated, he went on: “Come on, Pete, this is Mike Havel talking. You know I've got nothing against Corvallis. You and I've worked together for years.”

“Well…they've been active in this ‘select militia' proposal,” the Corvallan said slowly. “You heard about that?”

“Yup. Paying volunteers to drill more often and do things like garrison and patrol work. It makes a certain amount of sense, from Corvallis' point of view. Calling out
our
militia is a royal pain in the ass too, what with the lost work, but we need everyone who can walk and carry a crossbow. You've got what, thirty-two thousand people? To our twenty thousand. That gives you more of a margin. Especially since we and the Mackenzies are between you and the main threat.”

“That's what they're saying,” Jones agreed. “What I
hear
is that they'd like the select militia to
replace
the present setup eventually. And have individual Faculties sponsor battalions, or possibly individuals do it. It's got some appeal. Drill isn't popular; we've had peace—more or less—for the past couple of years. And there are people who'd like the extra money, too, particularly ones whose work isn't steady year-round, so they're selling it as a sort of income-spreading measure as well. I don't like it, though. It smells to me like those Economics Faculty types trying to put one over on the rest of us, somehow.”

Havel grunted again, turning an eye on Signe. She shook her head. “This is where Dad would come in useful,” she said. “There's probably some historical analogy…he and Arminger have read a lot of the same books, you know?”

Jones hesitated. “What exactly did you want to talk to the Senate about?” he said, and then went on: “And to quote you, this is Pete Jones, you know I've got nothing against the Bearkillers, and we've worked together for years.”

“OK, couple of things. First, we want the informal alliance made formal—we want to be able to count on Corvallis when Arminger goes for us and the Mackenzies and Mount Angel. A straightforward promise to treat an attack on us as an attack on you, the way the three northern Outfits have agreed. That might actually scare him off and we could avoid the war altogether. I could use those seven thousand militia of yours
real
bad.”

“Ouch,” Jones said, shaking his head. “You know me, Mike,
I'm
all for it. But a lot of people would rather pretend it's your fight and not ours.”

Havel's fist hit the table, and a bottle of Chardonnay wavered. “Well, Christ Jesus, that's the problem! For years now he's been needling and probing and pushing, and we've been bleeding to keep you guys safe!”

Jones spread his hands. “You don't have to convince
me,
Mike! He blames it all on his barons, or on bandits, or on you for fighting back when you get attacked.” A hesitation. “You might have a better chance if you'd agree to let us refurbish the railway through your territory to McMinnville.”

“Not a chance, in the present situation,” Havel said.

“The trade would do the Bearkillers good, as well as Corvallis and Portland,” Jones argued. “That's not a zero-sum game.”

“It would strengthen him more than us. The bastard squeezes his farmers as hard as he can, and he uses it to keep what amounts to a standing army. If I call out every booger and ass-wipe, I can put twenty-five hundred in the field, but only three hundred and fifty of them are A-listers; the Mackenzies can raise about the same, all infantry, and Dmwoski has about fifteen hundred, a tenth of them mounted. Say five hundred more from here and there, and some people from the Bend country. Arminger can field
ten thousand
full-time fighting men, a quarter of them knights and men-at-arms, and he's had enough time and cadre to train them properly by now. That means he outnumbers all three of the northern outfits put together by three to two, and a
lot
more than that in cavalry, eight or nine to one. Those heavy lancers are hanging over us like a sledgehammer and his logistics problems are the only thing that's keeping us from being squashed—”

He picked up a walnut between the thumb and first two fingers of his right hand, his sword hand, and pressed. The shell cracked and fragments scattered across the white linen tablecloth.

“—like that. So no way am I going to give him a rail net to take over and support his men with when he invades us.”

The Corvallan militia officer winced. “All right, that's the first item. What's the rest?”

“Different view of a similar problem. The Valley's getting to have bandits the way a dead rabbit has blowfly maggots. It's worse than it was a couple of years ago, if anything.”

“More to steal,” Eric put in, contemplating another slice of fruitcake; he'd been mostly silent until now. “Coyotes go up and down with the rabbits. Same-same with bandits and honest folk.”

Havel nodded. “OK, the problem there is that they hang out in places where there aren't too many people, which these days is most places. We've got millions of acres of forest in the mountains on both sides of the Valley, and lots of swamp and new brush country right in it, not to mention places like the ruins of Salem or Eugene. The roads are still pretty good, so they can get around, hit and run and get away. And I'd swear Arminger's giving help to some of the gangs on the sly to keep us distracted, but leave that aside for now. The problem is catching them so we can hang or chop them.”

Luanne nodded. “They keep running over a border when they're chased,” she said. “We and the Mackenzies and Mount Angel, we're all pretty good about hot pursuit, but that's limited. And—no offense, Pete—Corvallis is almost as bad as the Protectorate about letting us follow up across your frontiers. By the time we've notified your people and waited for you to take over, the bad guys have disappeared.”

Havel leaned forward. “Ideally, what we need is to all get together, burn out pestholes like the ruins of Eugene, and then sweep the whole Valley, every little island in every marsh, every patch of woods, and the Coast Range and the Cascades too, hang or gut every outlaw, and patrol to keep things clean.”

Jones laughed unwillingly. “Good luck, Mike,” he said. “You and a couple of divisions, hey?”

“Yeah, that's not going to happen anytime soon. So what we need is a force that can go anywhere—bandit chasers, caravan guards, road patrollers. And we've got one. The Rangers.”

Jones laughed again, this time at the statement. “You mean Astrid and Eilir's little pointy-eared Elvish Scout troop?” he said. “I mean, Christ, Mike, I know Astrid's your sister-in-law, but have you ever
listened
to her? She makes the Mackenzie herself herself sound like the Spirit of Pure Reason.”

“They're all grown up now, Pete. You know I don't bullshit about stuff like this. They're good, playing dress-up or not. They've already handled a couple of gangs that were giving us real trouble, and we—we and Juney Mackenzie and Dmwoski—have handed them that forest around the old Silver Falls State Park. What they've got in mind is places like that up and down the edges of the Valley; not good farmland, but livable, sort of a disconnected nation of, oh, call it crime-fighters and who-do-you-call types. And we've all three agreed to pay 'em, food and weapons and cloth and a little cash. You know I'm pretty tight with a dollar—or a sack of wheat. So's Dmwoski, and Juney's bunch don't like voting taxes on themselves any more than your Senate does.”