Lord of Mountains: A Novel of the Change Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lord of Mountains

  Lord of Mountains

  A NOVEL OF THE CHANGE

  S. M. STIRLING

  A ROC BOOK

  ALSO BY S. M. STIRLING

  NOVELS OF THE CHANGE

  ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME

  AGAINST THE TIDE OF YEARS

  ON THE OCEANS OF ETERNITY

  DIES THE FIRE

  THE PROTECTOR’S WAR

  A MEETING AT CORVALLIS

  THE SUNRISE LANDS

  THE SCOURGE OF GOD

  THE SWORD OF THE LADY

  THE HIGH KING OF MONTIVAL

  THE TEARS OF THE SUN

  NOVELS OF THE SHADOWSPAWN

  A TAINT IN THE BLOOD

  THE COUNCIL OF SHADOWS

  OTHER NOVELS BY S. M. STIRLING

  THE PESHAWAR LANCERS

  CONQUISTADOR

  ROC

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

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  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632,

  New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue,

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, September 2012

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © S. M. Stirling, 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Stirling, S. M.

  Lord of mountains: a novel of the Change/S. M. Stirling.

  p. cm.—(Change series)

  ISBN: 978-1-101-60509-7

  1. Regression (Civilization)—Fiction. 2. Imaginary wars and battles—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3569.T543L67 2012

  813’.54—dc23 2012001976

  Set in Weiss Medium

  Printed in the United States of America

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  To Jan, forever

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  More, but not enough.

  Thanks to my friends who are also first readers:

  To Steve Brady, for assistance with dialects and British background, and also natural history of all sorts.

  Thanks also to Kier Salmon, insufficiently credited collaborator, for once again helping with the beautiful complexities of the Old Religion, and with…well, all sorts of stuff! Sometimes I feel guilty about not paying her.

  To Diana L. Paxson, for help and advice, and for writing the beautiful Westria books, among many others. If you liked the Change novels, you’ll probably enjoy the hell out of the Westria books—I certainly did, and they were one of the inspirations for this series; and her Essential Ásatrú and recommendation of Our Troth were extremely helpful…and fascinating reading.

  To Dale Price, help with Catholic organization, theology and praxis.

  To Brenda Sutton, for multitudinous advice.

  To Melinda Snodgrass, George R. R. Martin, Walter Jon Williams, John Miller, Vic Milan, Jan Stirling, Matt Reiten and Ian Tregellis of Critical Mass, for constant help and advice as the book was under construction.

  Thanks to John Miller, good friend, writer and scholar, for many useful discussions, for loaning me some great books, and for some really, really cool old movies.

  Special thanks to Heather Alexander, bard and balladeer, for permission to use the lyrics from her beautiful songs, which can be—and should be!—ordered at www.heatherlands.com. Run, do not walk, to do so.

  Thanks again to William Pint and Felicia Dale, for permission to use their music, which can be found at www.pintndale.com and should be, for anyone with an ear and salt water in their veins.

  And to Three Weird Sisters—Gwen Knighton, Mary Crowell, Brenda Sutton and Teresa Powell—whose alternately funny and beautiful music can be found at www.threeweirdsisters.com.

  And to Heather Dale for permission to quote the lyrics of her songs, whose beautiful (and strangely appropriate!) music can be found at www.HeatherDale.com, and is highly recommended. The lyrics are wonderful and the tunes make it even better.

  To S. J. Tucker for permission to use the lyrics of her beautiful songs, which can be found at www.skinnywhitechick.com, and should be.

  Thanks again to Russell Galen, my agent, who has been an invaluable help and friend for a decade now, and never more than in these difficult times.

  All mistakes, infelicities and errors are of course my own.

  PROLOGUE

  THE HIGH KING’S HOST

  HORSE HEAVEN HILLS

  (FORMERLY SOUTH-CENTRAL WASHINGTON)

  HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

  (FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

  OCTOBER 28TH, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

  “He is coming!” Rudi whispered again.

  Then he shook himself and let his hand fall from the crystal pommel of the Sword. His helmet was already slung from the high pommel of the war-saddle, and the wind cuffed at his long red-blond hair, giving an illusion of coolness as it dried the sweat bred in the rage and heat of battle.

  “Where? When?” Mathilda said sharply, her strong-featured face frowning a little under the raised visor of her own sallet.

  It was a bright autumn noon, and the rolling hills showed a ghostly tinge of green under their summer’s cloak of golden sun-dried grass; the first of the autumn rains had already fallen. It would have been a fair day, except for the thick drifts of dead men and horses on and around the hill where his rearguard ha
d made their stand. Most of them were enemy—horse-archers from the wilds of Montana, men of the Church Universal and Triumphant. But more than enough were Montivalans; they’d held hard, the Yakima pike and crossbow regiments and the Association cavalry, and he’d arrived at just the right moment with another thousand lancers to be the hammer to their anvil.

  “Soon,” he said to his High Queen looking eastward. “Not today; not tomorrow. But soon. The Prophet Sethaz will be here and ready.”

  Above them a glider turned in a greater circle with a glitter of aluminum and Plexiglas; one of his, a pre-Change craft that needed no engine to fly, catapult-launched over the Columbia cliffs and riding the updrafts like a great-winged bird. His eyes turned grimly to the wheeling circle of living carrion-eaters below the human machine, ravens and buzzards tilting lower as the living humans withdrew. Comrade or foe, all the dead waited for them alike.

  She nodded, following his thought. They’d been friends—anamchara, oath-bound kin of the soul—from the age of ten, though their parents had been at war then; and they’d been from Montival all across the continent to Nantucket and back together. Though they’d only been handfasted a bit more than a month, their minds operated with the sort of smooth unison he’d seen in couples forty years their senior.

  Tiphaine d’Ath, Grand Constable of the Association, looked exhausted but grimly satisfied. He’d given her the task of delaying the enemy onset, and she’d managed a fighting retreat all the way from Walla Walla without letting the enemy trap her force.

  And as is the usual case, I shall reward her good work with more work.

  “Lady d’Ath, your field force is hereby dissolved with accolades for good service; I wanted you to screen us while we massed and you’ve done just that. The arrière-ban of the PPA has mustered and you’re in command of that, of course. You’ll deploy the Association foot to the right wing of our position and the chivalry will be part of our general reserve.”

  “Forward base is at Goldendale, Your Majesty?” she said.

  “Yes, and our field hospitals and supplies will stage out of there. Mathilda has been overseeing our buildup in the area. Matti, you’d better brief the Grand Constable.”

  She nodded and d’Ath scrubbed at a spray of blood across her long stark-boned face.

  “I’ll get there and see about slotting people in, then,” the Grand Constable said. “Her Majesty can brief me on the way back.”

  Rudi nodded. “I’ll be there by dawn tomorrow; we’ll have everything up within two days except the rearguard. There’s enough forward to hold, but I don’t expect the onset until then.”

  She nodded back. “They’ll want to have everything in place; they have the advantage of numbers, after all.”

  The High King of Montival grinned starkly. “Yes. And we’ll see what we can do about that.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  COUNTY OF AUREA

  (FORMERLY CENTRAL WASHINGTON)

  HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

  (FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

  OCTOBER 30TH, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

  Rudi had been inclined to think the final ball a waste of time and resources, one of the peacocking Associate habits that he had to put up with for the sake of harmony and which the north-realm nobles insisted upon even on the eve of battle. And perhaps there was an element of sheer vanity in it.

  But on second thought, who should say how a man prepares his innermost self to die? Or a woman, sure. They have to be here, and the most of their ladies too, for they’re working in the field hospitals or managing the supplies or something of that sort, waiting for their lovers and brothers to be brought back on their shields. The only real burden is that they’ve brought their party clothes…garb, they call it…along this far; and we’re close to the river. There’s a certain mad gallantry to it, a defiance of fate; my foster father says the Duke of Wellington’s officers did the same on the eve of Waterloo.

  Torches and fires of pinewood in iron cages and strings of softly glowing paper lanterns lit the interior of Castle Goldendale’s bailey-court, the broad paved expanse at the heart of the inner keep. The Great Hall and the Chapel and the quarters of the seneschal and his officers surrounded it in an irregular circuit of roofs and balconies, spires and pointed-arch windows; candles glowed in the church, through the rich colors of stained glass wrought in saints and angels.

  Mathilda and some others had had their Mass there, though most of the host had used household chaplains and field priests in the encampments. A lingering scent of incense mingled with burning conifer sap and the cool night air. Sparks drifted heavenward.

  The narrower slits of the solars and guard-rooms in the high round towers of the keep were bars of yellow against the half-glimpsed soaring heights, as much sensed as seen where their dark bulk blocked out the stars. Folk more humble crowded some of them; the castle staff, maidservants and men-at-arms, watching the gaudy flower-petal brightness below as a show arranged for their entertainment.

  Black-armored spearmen of the Protector’s Guard stood at intervals around the enclosure, motionless as statues of gleaming dark metal, with the visors of their sallet helms down and leaving nothing to be seen but an occasional glint of eyes behind the vision-slits, the gleam echoing the yellow and scarlet of the Lidless Eye on shields like four-foot elongated teardrops. Kilted longbowmen of the High King’s Archers shared the duty—and honor—with their great yew bows in the crooks of their arms.

  The walls enclosed the sound of the players as well, shawm and lute and recorder and viol, the sweet tinkle and buzz and fluting notes of Portlander court music. The tune ended, and the dancers turned and bowed or curtsied to politely applaud the musicians on their dais; several of them had the jeweled dagger that denoted Associate status or even the golden spurs of chivalry on their heels, for a troubadour might be a gentleman by Protectorate standards. The tale of the dance would be woven into that of the battle to come, for they’d be fighting in it too.

  “Five minutes,” the Mistress of the Revels said; she was Dame Lilianth of Kalama, who did something administrative for the Grand Constable most of the time. “Then The Knights of Portland, gentlemen, chevaliers, demoiselles and ladies.”

  Her shrewd eyes took in the situation, and she made an almost imperceptible gesture; everyone except the two nobles with whom he’d been talking business withdrew enough to give a degree of privacy as Mathilda came up to him.

  She was wearing a dark chocolate cotte-hardie with tight sleeves that showed rounds of her pale flesh between each button and a headdress with two low peaks in warm dark gold silk and pearls. It made a striking contrast to the tone of her sleek brown hair where it showed at the sides in elaborate braided coils, and she was laughing as she extended a hand to him.

  “I need a partner for this one, darling,” Mathilda said as he caught it in his and raised it to his lips. “And if you won’t dance with me, it’ll have to be Tiph here, and that would be a scandal.”

  “Delia can make me dance in public, but only at home on our own barony and when she’s not nine months pregnant,” Tiphaine d’Ath said. “Besides, how did our Lady Regent put it…”

  She nodded towards the spot where the Lady Regent and a few other dowagers and lords with a good deal of gray in their hair sat, with pages offering tiny crystal glasses of liqueurs or brandy snifters on trays.

  “…ah! Modern Protectorate culture doesn’t handle gender confusion well. Which reminds me, since it’s from her private stash I could use another cognac. Lioncel…no, serve His Majesty first.”

  A tow-haired young squire slid forward noiselessly and poured for them both. Lady Death, as she was commonly known, was dressed to fit her nickname tonight; her tight hose were onyxine black, as was the sleeveless neck-to-thigh jerkin of soft chamois, fastened up the front to the throat with ties of black silk and jet. Her soft Court shoes were chamois as well, and the toes turned up—moderately. The loose black knee-length houppelande over-robe had buttons of some dark mottled tr
opical wood so hard it seemed metallic carved like black roses, and a collar open at the front and ear-high behind; the lower hem was dagged, and so were the turned-back sleeves that hung almost as low, showing a dark forest-green lining. Only the links of her belt and the buckles at the ankles of her shoes showed brighter colors.

  “I wear hose and houppelande fairly often too, Tiph,” the High Queen replied.

  “Yes, but not at formal dances, Matti…Your Majesty,” Tiphaine said. “Delia has to arrange it carefully even at Montinore Manor, or people end up turning and bonking heads and knocking each other over when they should be switching line, trying to figure out where I fit.”

  “Now you’re drawing the long bow!” Mathilda laughed. “Young gentlewomen learn who’s on the right and left by dancing with each other.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Tiphaine shrugged, deadpan. “I spent my teenage years as your mother’s assassin.”

  Mathilda gave a chuckle that was half a wince; that was a joke, and the more effective for being literally true, which was how Tiphaine’s rare excursions into humor usually worked.

  “Half the time in a youngster’s dancing class it’s all girls anyway,” Mathilda said.

  “Yes, but it would be fun if it all seized up like that, wouldn’t it?” Tiphaine said, her face expressionless as she sipped her brandy.

  Sure and the prospect of a battle relaxes her, Rudi thought, amused. I’ve rarely seen her so whimsical.

  “I would be honored to dance with you if all else fails, Your Majesty,” Rigobert de Stafford, Baron Forest Grove, said gallantly with a low bow, sweeping off his round chaperon hat with its rolled brim and dangling liripipe tail.

  “Yes, but you’d outshine me totally, my lord Forest Grove,” Matti said with a smile and a little mock-curtsy in return.

  “Or, since he’s wearing a skirt, I could dance with His Majesty…”

  “In your dreams, Rigobert,” Rudi said genially. “And it’s a kilt. Calling it a skirt has been known to turn Mackenzies berserk.”