A Meeting at Corvallis (81 page)

She lifted a hand. “I am not saying this is very likely, or that fleeing your homes is not a counsel of desperation.”

Those old enough to remember the times before the Change also remember the dying times just after it,
she thought. She did herself, and the early Clan had been far more fortunate than most.
They remember the bandits and the Eaters, and the raw terror of starvation. On the other hand…

“In another ten years, or twenty, doing
anything
will be much harder,” she said.

They nodded. The farmer stroked his beard. “Yeah. My own grown kids hate the castle-folk, right enough. But they don't…the old world isn't
real
to them; they get bits from movies or TV confused with what really happened, Captain Kirk with President Clinton, and things like elections aren't even fairy tales. They don't hate them the
way
I do. And the bastards don't let us have schools. I try to teach the kids in the evenings, but it isn't the same.”

Juniper sighed. “I can only ask for your help, not require it,” she said. “You must consult your hearts and each other.”

A woman with burning eyes spoke: “My village
will
rise, as soon as we hear the knightboys've marched. We're just not going to put up with it any more! Rapes, beatings, never enough to eat, working every day until we drop down with exhaustion! They don't even obey their
own
laws, and those are bad enough!”

“Mine
won't
rise,” another said. “We…I remember my youngest dying in the first Change Year, and sneaking away to bury her so nobody would dig the body up to
eat
it. Things are bad but my children are alive…and I have a grandkid born this year.”

“We've got to work together!”

“We
can't
work together, not when we've got to sneak around, and…well, you know as well as I do. Some people tell the Associates things—or the priests, it's the same thing.”

“Please!” Juniper said, and the budding argument died. “As I said, it's your decision. We will try to give as much help as we can, whatever you decide to do.”

Astrid exchanged a few words with Eilir in Sign, then spoke herself: “We Dúnedain Rangers will help smuggle more arms to those who wish them. We moved much captured equipment from Mount Angel up into the hills after the battle there this spring. If you want it, talk to us afterwards—individually, to reduce risks. And we're too few to be of much use in the great battles, so we'll be able to send small parties north to guide fugitives, and do as much as we can to protect them. We've done that before, on a small scale. Perhaps we can do it now on a greater one.”

Juniper leaned back and let the talk proceed. Her gaze stole to the altar, and the figures there; the Mother was a simple, stylized shape in a blue robe, but the Lord was shown with Coyote's grinning face. She closed her eyes a moment in prayer; wishing for the cunning of the one, and the compassion of the other.

Because I must lead all my people out to war,
she thought.
Help me!

Somewhere out in the burgeoning wilderness beyond Dun Laurel's walls and fields, a coyote howled in truth…or was it a wolf?

Castle Todenangst, Willamette Valley, Oregon
August 30th, 2008/Change Year 10

Norman Arminger looked down from the Dark Tower and smiled with pride at the iron might his word had called into being. He knew he must be doll-tiny on the balcony to the vast host stretching along the east-west roadway to the north of the castle, but the roar of sound that greeted his upraised fist was stunning even at this distance. Blocks of gray-mailed troops stretched to either side across the rolling countryside, a long glitter of summer morning sun on their spears and lanceheads, flashing from the colors of banners and painted shields, blinking as bright on the river behind them as it did on edged metal. The surging wash of voices gradually focused into a chant rippling across miles:
“War! War! WAR! WAR!”

The smile was still on his face as he turned from the little balcony and into the War Council's chamber. Armored nobles and officers waited around the great teak map table, helms under their arms or on the wood as they looked down, memorizing the last details of their tasks. The black-mailed knights of his personal guard stood around the walls of the big semicircular room, motionless as ever. And the Grand Constable was stuffing some papers into a leather pouch.

All but the guards turned towards him and bowed; he waved a hand in permission, and the groups began to break up and file out. Renfrew waited for the last.

“We're about as ready as we could be,” he said when they were alone except for the guards. “Ninety-two hundred of our own men, twelve hundred from the Duchy of Pendleton, and a siege train that'll make any wall sit up and take notice…except Mount Angel, of course; we'll have to starve that out.”

“Glad to see you happy about it, Conrad,” Arminger said jovially.

“I'm not, my lord Protector; any victory will be at heavy cost. But if we're going to do it, this is the way to do it. They'll have about our numbers, with the contingent Corvallis sent, but our men are superior in a stand-up fight, in my opinion. If we break their main army, it'll split up—it's a coalition, an alliance. Then we can reduce them one by one.”

“Exactly,” Arminger said, thumping him on one mail-clad shoulder; it was like whacking a balk of seasoned hardwood.

“There is one thing,” Renfrew went on, and Arminger felt his smile die a little. “We've been receiving reports of internal disorder. Attacks on supply wagons, even a few cases of arson—tithe barns and manors torched in the night. Perhaps some of the light cavalry—”

“Conrad, Conrad, that's why we build all those castles—even if they're ferroconcrete instead of real stone. Nothing a few farmers or
Rangers
can do can really hurt us. You were the one talking about concentration of force. I'm not going to detach any troops until we've beaten the main enemy army and laid Mount Angel under tight siege.”

“Yes, my lord Protector. That was the strategy I called for this spring.”

The shaven head bent and the hideously scarred face was hidden for a moment. One thing he'd always found a little irritating was how the white keloid masses made it hard to read the Grand Constable's expressions, and his voice was very controlled. They were silent save for the rustle and clink of their armor as they walked over to the elevators.

Arminger grinned to himself as the operator cranked the doors closed and pulled the cord that ran through floor and ceiling, ringing bells far below where convicts waited in a giant circular treadmill. The lurch and then the smooth counterweighted descent were like something out of the old world. His amusement was at a memory; the first time he'd ridden the elevator, Sandra had concealed a couple of musicians on the roof over his head and had them do a creditable imitation of elevator music from pre-Change days, Glen Campbell's “Wichita Lineman.” He'd nearly jumped out of his skin….

Renfrew snorted laughter when he mentioned it, though of course he'd been in on the joke beforehand.

“It's the look on your face I'm remembering, Norman,” he said.

The exit was in the ground-floor chamber, a great circular space used for dances and speeches, cocktail parties and meetings of the House of Peers, with the Eye set into the floor in mosaic. Today it echoed to the tramp of the guards as they fell in and followed him out onto the broad semicircle of steps facing the inner courtyard. The castle staff drawn up there cheered him; Pope Leo and the clergy were down at the castle's main gate, waiting for
their
moment, smells and bells at the ready. What halted him was Sandra in her light cart, and the closed four-horse carriage that would take Mathilda away for the duration.

She left her mother's side and began to run to him, then stopped and came on at a pace of stately dignity. Arminger composed his face to the same solemnity, hiding the burst of pride he felt.
My little girl's growing up,
he thought.
Soon she'll be a great lady, another Eleanor…or Mathilda.
That thought was prideful itself, but a little painful as well; soon she wouldn't be a little girl, either, and that perfect trust would be gone.

Mathilda went down formally on one knee for an instant, taking his hand and kissing it. “God give you victory, my lord father,” she said; but she kept hold of the hand as she rose, and walked at his side as he came over to her mother.

Who may be a little irrational wanting to send Mathilda farther from the fighting than Castle Todenangst; this is the strongest hold in the realm,
he thought. He looked into the brown eyes of his wife, as always seeming secretly amused.
On the other hand, maybe she isn't. Best to trust Sandra's instincts.

He shoved aside the memory of a time a few months ago when he
hadn't
trusted her instincts. That had been a screwup…and the sight of the Baronet d'Ath heading the escort that would take his daughter west brought those memories forcibly back. Perhaps Sandra had made that appointment to rub his face in it…but he'd earned a little of that. And Ath was sufficiently distant to be away from the main action in this war, which would be on the eastern side of the Valley, and its seigneur could be trusted not to take too much advantage of having the heir to the Protectorate behind her drawbridge.

Unlike, for example, Alexi. Or Jabar, who still cherishes hopes for his son I've decided to frustrate.

“Lady d'Ath,” he said, as she too knelt and kissed his hand. Like all her gestures, it was impeccably smooth. “We give you a great trust. It is good of you to volunteer for it, sacrificing glory and advancement in this war for the benefit of the Association.”

Her smile surprised him a little. “Caring for the princess is a pleasure, not a duty, my lord Protector,” she said; her voice wasn't quite the cool falling-water sound he remembered from past years; it had more resonance in it, somehow. “And I'm content with the good estate you've given me. Let others have their chance at glory and reward now. I've taken a new motto for my House of Ath:
What I have, I hold.
”

He nodded, beginning to turn away.

Conrad spoke: “I wish we had your
menie
with us, d'Ath. They've improved drastically since you took the fief.”

“Despite the losses,” Sandra cut in; yes, she was needling him a bit.

“Dad, Mom, why can't I come along too?” Mathilda said suddenly. “Mom's going. With Lady Tiphaine to guard me, I'd be safe behind the army. If I'm going to…I'm going to have to go to war, someday, right?”

Arminger laughed aloud, and repressed an impulse to tousle the reddish-brown hair above the fearless hazel eyes.

“Yes, you will, Mathilda, but not quite yet. For now, you have to do as your mother and I say. And when I win this war, I'll bring you back the world for a toy!”

Her stiff decorum broke for a moment, and she threw her arms around his armored chest. “Just bring yourself back, Daddy!”

Field of the Cloth of Gold, Willamette Valley, Oregon
September 3rd, 2008/Change Year 10

“F
olks, we got a problem,” Mike Havel said. “We've got to step back and look at the bigger picture instead of getting caught up in the details.”

He looked around the table under the awning. Abbot Dmwoski was silently telling his beads. Apart from that, the leaders were looking at him with nothing more than a raised eyebrow or two; none of them were what you'd call the nervous sort.

“Well, we've got a murtherin' great battle to win,” Sam Aylward said after a moment.

“No, that's not it. We've got a great murdering battle to fight, and that's the problem.”

Havel took a deep breath and pointed northward, across the rolling plain, blond stubblefields and pasture drowsing under the August sun, the stems of the cut wheat glittering in a manner that had already given the former Elliot Prairie north of Mount Angel its nickname with the thousands assembled there. The enemy encampment was just on the edge of sight; mounted scouts from both sides patrolled the empty fields between, adding their mite of dust to the smells of dirt and not-very-clean bodies, frying onions and hay and sweating horses, smoke and leather, sun-heated canvas and oil and metal. He waved aside some flies; no way to avoid them, with so much livestock in one spot.

“Arminger's
there,
with just over ten thousand men. We're
here,
with just over ten thousand too.”

He pointed skyward. “He's got aerial recon, and we don't, so we're not going to turn somersaults and come down on both his flanks at once; this army doesn't have enough unit articulation or triple-C to do that sort of thing anyway. This is going to be a slugging match, toe-to-toe, last man standing wins. We've got more infantry and it's better, but he's still got about twenty-five hundred knights and men-at-arms, plus the light horse, and they outnumber our cavalry by six, seven to one. So we're talking our pikemen…and pikewomen…walking forward with a rain of napalm bombs landing on their heads, to say nothing of the dartcasters and crossbows, and then facing the men-at-arms.”

“We've beaten his cavalry before,” Eric Larsson said defensively.

“Yeah, brother-in-law of mine, we have, when we managed to make him or whatever goon was in charge do something spectacularly stupid. Or when they underestimated what riding forward into an arrowstorm from our Mackenzie friends was like. That's not going to happen here; for one thing, Renfrew's in charge of that army and he's not stupid. The monks and the Clan made him retreat last time, but nobody's ever managed to sucker punch him. All Arminger has to do is walk up to us and start hitting us with a hammer, and he's a pretty good hammer-hammer general; Conrad Renfrew's better.”

He drew in another breath. “I figure if we
win,
we're going to be real lucky to leave here with six thousand people still breathing—and a lot of those'll be crippled for life, burned, legs and arms ending up on a pile outside a surgeon's tent. If we lose…”

Havel shrugged and smiled his crooked smile. “Well, we don't have to do a count on that because we will be so totally fucked it isn't fucking funny.”

Dmwoski frowned, but nodded. Nigel Loring snorted, but did likewise. “You have some idea, my Lord Bear,” he said in that excruciatingly cultured English voice.

It went a little oddly with the kilt and plaid he was wearing today; that was probably a lot more comfortable than the armor most of the rest were in.

Havel nodded gravely and answered: “Yeah, I do. A lot of those barons and knights out there would rather be home, fighting the Jacks…why were they called Jacks? Never mind. They've got an uprising behind them and from what the Dúnedain say it's getting worse every day. The only reason they're not completely baboon-ass about it is because their families are in nice safe castles, but they're spooked. They want to fight us and get it over with and go home and unload some whup-ass on the revolting peasants. What's holding them here? Norman Arminger, is who. He's bossed them so long they can't imagine not obeying him, not really.”

“You're saying that Arminger is the
Association's
weakness,” Alleyne Loring said thoughtfully.

“Yup. He's what makes it an offensive force instead of a bunch of quarreling gangbangers in armor with delusions of chivalry. Remove him—”

“Sandra Arminger is smarter than her husband,” Juniper objected.

“And Conrad Renfrew is a better general,” Signe said.

“Yes. But
neither of them is the Lord Protector
. He's the one with the…”

He hesitated, looking for a word, and Nigel Loring smoothed his mustache with one finger. “The
baraka,
the charisma. He's their founder. Their creator, in a way. You think we should assassinate him, then?”

The Englishman looked at his son, at John Hordle, at Eilir and Astrid sitting as leaders of the Dúnedain Rangers.

“Oh, God, no. Not an assassination. Sticking a knife in his back would be the one thing that would rally them all behind Sandra as Regent and Renfrew as warlord; they'd rule with Arminger's ghost as their false front, which would be just like fighting him only without the hang-ups that cripple him.”

“Ah,” Juniper said, her green eyes going wider. “You want to kill his
myth,
not just the man. I should have thought of that. It's hidden depths you have, Mike. But how?”

“Bingo, Juney. As to how…so, we're agreed he's
their
weakness. Now, what's
Arminger's
big weakness?”

“Sweet young girls?” someone said, and there was a chuckle.

Havel smiled himself, but shook his head. “Norman Arminger's big problem is that inside the big bad warlord is a suburban geek weenie,” he said. “I thought so when I first met him a bit more than ten years ago—he reminded me of a D& D freak and would-be badass whose nose I broke behind the bleachers in high school. When his inner pimply geek takes over, he's the dumbest really smart man you'll meet in many a long mile.”

He nodded at a banner standing in the rear of the pavilion, captured during the last week's skirmishing, the black-and-scarlet folds hanging limp.

“I mean, the
Eye of Sauron
? The
Dark
Tower? Give me a break! Look at the way he took the Association's setup out of his favorite books—and I mean the storybooks, too, not just the history ones he'd claim he used. He didn't put in all that pseudo-medieval Camelot-from-Hell crap because it was a useful way to build his power; you can tell because he put in the parts that weaken him, too, not just what he needed to please the Society types. He put it in because deep inside the warlord is the professor and deep inside
him
is the pimple-popper who thought Knights in Armor were
so cool
. The same guy who couldn't get a date until his freshman year and hated all the girls who turned him down, so he still likes raping teenagers; every new victim is revenge on the ones who laughed at him and his hard-on. And so the Association he's built has one great big juicy weakness we can exploit—a way we can make him walk with open eyes into a trap, because if he doesn't the cracks he engineered into his own system would split it wide open. He can't change it now, not now that it's had time to set, not overnight.”

His eyes went to the bear-topped helm standing with his armor on its rack. “That's the problem with calling in a myth. It may start out as an obedient little doggie, but pretty soon you've got the wolf by the ears.”

“What precisely are you saying now?” Juniper asked; Signe's eyes were wide with the same alarm.

Mike Havel smiled a hungry smile.

“My lord Protector, an enemy envoy under a white pennant wishes to speak with you,” the knight said. “It's a man of high rank.”

Norman Arminger looked up from the map table and finished his coffee; unlike most he preferred it just on the hot side of lukewarm and always had. The smell reminded him of the Tasmanians who'd brought the first beans this part of the world had seen since the Change. That was a pleasant memory, particularly the way they'd died…

He wished now he hadn't added the big map of the Association's territory, the one with red pins for Jack uprisings; that looked unpleasantly like a case of measles, and he could see every nobleman's teeth set on edge when they came into the tent and glanced at it.

But it'll be over soon. The monks and those crazy pseudo-Celts and the Bearkillers and Corvallans can't keep that hodgepodge of a non-army together for more than another week or two, and unlike the Conqueror or Roger I, I don't have to worry about mine starving or dying of typhus.
They
have to come out and attack
us.
We'll crush them so completely we'll be able to go home, put the Jacks down once and for all and then sweep to the gates of Corvallis before the year's over.

“My lord?”

He shook his head and forced his mind to quiet. “A man of rank? Who?”

“Lord Eric Larsson, sir. He comes with a white pennant and asks leave to address you.”

A prickle of anticipation ran down Arminger's spine. Silence fell within the command tent; Sandra folded the file she was reading and sat up on the lounger, and the Grand Constable stopped talking to the supply officer. Half a dozen barons whispered to each other, a rising ripple of sound until Arminger raised a hand.

He looked out at the sunlit fields, smiling at a world golden and ripe; the command tent was on a low rise, the closest thing to a hill this flat farmland had.

This has to be a desperation move on their behalf,
he thought.
And if it's the Bear Lord's brother-in-law, I'd better make it a public audience for maximum effect.

“Admit him under promise of safe-conduct,” he said, turning and walking to the chair behind the big table.

It was light, a thing of straps and cunning hinges, but broad enough that he could lounge arrogantly with his chin on the thumb and forefinger-knuckle of one hand. A rising murmur came from the great camp outside as the A-lister with the tall scarlet crest on his helmet rode through the lanes between the tents. Everyone knew who the Bear Lord's brother-in-law was…

Which means I have to be very careful,
he reminded himself.
There are things our knights take seriously, particularly the younger generation. Charming, but sometimes inconvenient. Who'd have thought it would take on so quickly?

The younger man drew rein outside the command pavilion and dismounted, hanging his helm on the saddlebow of the horse. Arminger made a single spare gesture, and the guards at the entrance uncrossed their spears and braced erect.

Formidable,
he thought, reading the man through the war harness with practiced ease; it wasn't much different from an Association man-at-arm's gear, anyway.

Six-three, a bit taller than me, and a hundred and ninety, just a little lighter. Trained to a hair, in his late twenties…at his peak or close to it. I wouldn't care to fight him, but luckily I don't have to. He'd be an interesting match at a half-time game. A few starving wolves, perhaps, and him fighting them naked.

He had a gauntlet in one hand. Arminger's brows went up; and suddenly Sandra was at his side, leaning over slightly to whisper in his ear, her voice a sibilant hiss:
“Kill him! Tell them to
kill
him! Don't let him say another word—kill him
now!”

“Don't be absurd,” he said quietly, and she choked off her words with a bitter sound like a frustrated spitting cat. “Kill him with the whole camp watching? I'd lose so much face I'd never recover.”

Men were crowding around the perimeter of the command pavilion's circle of space now; they didn't push against the guards, but they were pointing and murmuring. Many looked delighted at the break in the boredom; many, especially the young knights, looked exalted. The yellow horse waited on dancing feet, its hide gleaming like polished bronze, and it attracted its share of admiration in a camp where the pursuit of horseflesh was a common obsession.

Arminger made another gesture. The guardian knights wheeled aside, and Eric strode up the stretch of crimson carpet. He halted on the other side of the table with an impeccable bow—low enough to acknowledge he was greeting a sovereign.

“Lord Protector Arminger,” he said crisply.

“My lord Eric Larsson,” Arminger replied.
Most of our nobility acknowledge A-listers as our equivalents,
he thought.
Can't hurt to do the same. It'll all be very theoretical soon, anyway.
“Has your master reconsidered my offer? What message does the Bear Lord send to me?”

As he spoke, he suddenly wished that he hadn't let his taste for archaic vocabulary betray him. He might have known that a Larsson would have a solid education in the classics. Eric's face showed a little of his sudden glee, but that was to be expected in someone still young.