The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change Page 4

  He knew it too, from the moment’s flash of reckless fighting-man’s grin; it sat a little oddly on a face that was still nearly a boy’s. That she still saw as a boy’s, unless she made herself look at him as a stranger might.

  “Someone has to do it, Sister Havel . . . Mom.”

  She groaned a little with relief as the last of the war-harness was removed, and a junior took it away clanking in a canvas sack to be cleaned and have the dents hammered out. Mike Jr. went to the door and returned with a tray.

  “Eat, ma’am,” he said again.

  He placed it in front of her; a slab of rare prime rib, some fried potatoes, pickled vegetables and a half-loaf of bread and butter on the side, with a wedge of dried-apple pie and cheese to follow. Winter food, but good.

  Mike stood at parade rest with his hands behind his back and his eyes fixed on the far wall.

  “You’re in the field,” he said. “You don’t know when you’ll get another chance at a hot meal. Never pass that up.”

  “At ease,” she replied.

  The smells tickled at her nostrils, and she took up a fork and dipped a chunk of potato in the spicy Bend-style ketchup and pointed with it before she put it in her mouth.

  “Sit.”

  He relaxed then—Bearkiller discipline bit deep—and sat in the chair across from her. The suite was comfortable by modern standards, which meant there was a blaze going in the fireplace and you only needed a sweater despite the chill early-spring night of the high desert.

  “So ...” he said. The order had put him back in pupil mode, which meant he could ask questions. “What the hell are we going to do now?”

  “Fight,” Signe said succinctly.

  The first bite had made her ravenous; there had been nothing but field rations for the past week, and not always that. She ate with slow care anyway. He was right; this might be the last chance for a good long while. It was something Mike Sr. had always said too. He’d probably gotten it from her, though. He hadn’t been old enough to remember his father, not really. For him the first Bear Lord was something put together out of stories, and out of the shape his life had left in the world he helped to make.

  “Mom, you were right out there. If we go at them straight-up, well, they’ll know they’ve been in a fight, but then it’s pork chops at Odin’s All Night Diner for us until Ragnarok.”

  “We have to fight. A delaying action at least. Evacuating this bunch of range-country anarchists is going to be a nightmare, especially considering how late they’ve left it. We have to cover them . . . us and the rest. I hope the PPA can send some help but that’s iffy. Boise is pressing them hard, even with the castles.”

  “Time,” Mike Jr. said soberly. “We have to play for time. Until Rudi gets here.”

  Her mouth twisted slightly. If he hadn’t been so self-controlled, Mike Jr. would have sighed in exasperation. She caught it anyway, of course.

  I am his mother, after all!

  And she had that odd floating feeling you had when you were very tired, or sometimes very drunk; as if you were perfectly lucid but some part of your brain was missing. The part that decided what to say and what to leave out.

  “Don’t worry,” she said dryly, tearing a chunk off the bread and buttering it. “I’m not going to let it get in the way of business.”

  “I didn’t think you would, ma’am.”

  Signe swallowed and chuckled. “The hell you didn’t. You’re growing up now—you’re old enough to be told things—but you’re not forty yet. I don’t know if emotions get weaker as you get older, or you just get better at controlling them. That’s supposed to be part of growing up.”

  His expression was perfectly calm, but it radiated: I am grown up!

  No, you’re not, she thought. You’re getting there, you’ve fought and seen blood shed and you’re not a virgin anymore either, but there’s a lot more to it. I want you to live long enough to be an adult. I want to see your children. And there’s not a damned thing I can do about it except to try to win this war, or at least not lose it.

  Aloud: “But one way or another I’ve got it covered. Hey, Brother Havel—what matters most, what you’re feeling, or getting the job done?”

  He snorted; there was only one answer to that, for a Bearkiller of the A-list. For a Havel. A hesitation, then:

  “You know, Mom, I like Rudi . . . Artos, I suppose, now . . . fine. Always did.”

  Signe nodded, mopped the plate and began on the pie. “You’re his brother . . . half brother. He’s blood kin to you.”

  “And a hell of a man.” Another hesitation. “I, well, I always thought he had something of Dad in him.”

  “Yes, he is, and yes, he does. Even as a kid, you could see what he was going to grow into; Mike was proud of him, though he didn’t say much about it. But to me he was also always a reminder of your father straying. And don’t let either ‘get over it’ or ‘that was before you two were married’ go through your mind. You’re going to find that you don’t get over things that easily; feelings become a habit, after a while, and they’re hard to kick. Even when you’re tired of them. And the other part . . . all that shows is that you’re a man. Or male, at least. Which I suppose is for the best.”

  He managed to suppress the infuriatingly smug smile until she gave a weary grin.

  “Artos is . . . well, if we have to rely on somebody, he’s the one I’d pick, ma’am. Plus that Sword thing. Whatever.”

  Signe nodded. That was business, and the appraisal was accurate, of the man and of the situation. She’d manage to smile and cheer at the coronation of Artos the First, if they won. Life hurt, and then it hurt some more, and then you died. What mattered was that you did what you had to do without sniveling about it.

  And if we don’t win, we’ll be too dead to care.

  “Bath,” she said. “Sleep. Work tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  NANTUCKET ISLAND

  FEBRUARY 23, CHANGE YEAR 24/2023 AD

  Rudi grinned to himself, catching Mary Vogeler’s glare at her husband from the corner of his eye. All his party were assembled to greet the little armada that had brought the Sea-Land tribe from their village a bit west of here. Their boats were drawn up on the shore, eight craft shaped like long whaleboats, each with a single gaff-rigged mast a third of the way back from the prow. They’d carried a score of men and rather more women from the village farther west along the narrow island’s coast.

  One of the women had headed straight for Ingolf, beaming and waving. More than the damp chill salt wind flushed Mary’s pale cheeks red, and her single blue eye snapped. Ingolf spread his hands.

  “Honey, that was more than a year before we even met,” he said desperately. “He’s nearly three, for . . . ah, Manwë’s sake.”

  The young woman of the Sea-Land folk held her child—and Ingolf’s—by the hand and beamed at them both; the toddler beamed too, showing gaps in his grin, and waved his free arm. The resemblance was unmistakable, down to the dark blue eyes, though the plumply pretty mother was half-Indian, her cheekbones high and hair raven-black. Her little tribe were mostly similar mixtures in varying degrees, offspring of the time-displaced inhabitants of this ancient Nantucket mixed with a party of refugees from Innsmouth just after the Change.

  “Well, introduce us,” Mary said, crossing her arms.

  “Ummm . . . this is, ah, I think it means Dove,” Ingolf said tightly. “She’s, ah, the daughter of the chief here. The guy Rudi’s talking to. That’s her mother interpreting.”

  The woman touched a gray feather woven into one braid; it had a tinge of pink along its edge.

  “Doh-uv,” she said carefully, and then repeated it in her own tongue.

  The language was like nothing any of the questers save Ingolf had ever heard, but you could pick out English words in it, like plums in a Yule cake. Nor did the situation need much in the way of detail to be obvious.

  Mary snorted, dug a stiffened finger into her man’s ribs, then relented and
went down on one knee. The boy came forward fearlessly and returned her hug. Ingolf put a hand on his head, smiling a little, a wondering expression on his face as he saw himself there.

  “You don’t think ...” he said slowly. “Or at least I didn’t ...”

  “. . . when you’re passing through and having fun along the way that there might be consequences?” Mary said, and snorted again. “Men!”

  And to be sure, my brother-in-law has been a wanderer for many a year. Best not to mention that right now! Rudi thought. They’ll be easier when we’re gone and have left this little reminder behind.

  The warriors stood gravely impassive, lean strong-armed muscular men; the hair was shaved off the sides of their heads, stiffened into a roach above and braided into a queue behind. They wore leggings and breechclouts, mostly covered by well-sewn jackets of sealskin or rabbit pelts or woven mohair adorned with shell beads—a few pair of Angora goats had come with the mainland refugees—and soft boots of folded and sewn leather turned fur side in laced up their calves with thongs. Their weapons were harpoons, spear-throwers for the darts held across their backs in hide quivers and knives and hatchets at their belts, but they’d obviously come in peace.

  For that matter, those are tools of the hunt rather than made just for man-killing , Rudi thought. Though doubtless they’d be stout fighters at need. Ingolf said they’d beaten off raids by Eaters from the mainland. Nor do timid men hunt whale in boats like those!

  The women wore leggings too, but under knee-length tunic-dresses, and their hair was mostly in long braids. They smiled and spoke and signed as they unloaded bundles from the craft; smoked and salted fish, jerked goat meat, sacks of cornmeal and beans and potatoes, dried vegetables and edible seaweed, and the carcasses of deer and rabbits along with baskets of scallops. Rudi gave a mental sigh of relief; that would ease his band’s logistical problems considerably. His mouth watered a little at the thought, the more so as the women briskly stoked up the fires and went to work.

  He nodded gravely to the chief of the Sea-Landers, in a gesture that was almost a bow.

  “My thanks to you, Kills Orca,” he said sincerely to the stocky, deep-chested older man.

  These people weren’t poor, as his generation judged such things; their goods were well made if simple, and they didn’t look as if they went hungry often. He didn’t suppose they would starve because they were feeding his folk from their winter stores, though they numbered half as many as the whole tribe; but this food was something they would not have as a reserve against ill fortune, and it had been won with sweat and effort and sometimes danger.

  The first scents of roasting venison made his stomach rumble; it had been a while since he’d had fresh meat, and the mainlanders who brought the Sea-Land tribe seed corn and spuds had apparently also had garlic and herbs along.

  Kills Orca was what the man’s wife translated the name as; she was about his age, in her forties, and her gray-streaked braids had been yellow once. Her English came fluently, though a bit halting and mushy with lost teeth; she’d been nearly a woman grown at the Change, and now showed every one of the hard years and many children.

  “Strong Man”—she indicated Ingolf and went on as her husband spoke in his own sonorous tongue—“saved our son Frank . . . High Wave . . . when this was a place of bad magic. Now you’ve made that go away, so our homes are safe. You are friends. Friends help each other.”

  “Indeed they do,” Rudi said gravely.

  “Threefold return,” Mary said unexpectedly.

  “For good or ill,” Ritva added. “Ingolf’s getting it, and we as well.”

  Rudi nodded; that was the way the world worked . . . though it could be a very long time indeed before the Powers reckoned up the balance.

  “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” Ignatius said; which was another way of putting the same thing.

  “Tell Kills Orca that I hope he will accept these gifts from us,” Rudi said, making a gesture with his open hand.

  They were lavish, thanks to the Gisandu’s helpful cargo of salvage from the dead cities. Stainless-steel blades for knives and spearheads, hatchets and axes, fishhooks and imperishable nylon cords and nets, woodworking tools, hoes and pitchforks and trowels, pots and pans and mirrors, cloth found sound in sealed locations.

  He was fairly sure the locals would have extended the same hospitality even if he’d had nothing to offer, though the men looked pleased and the women enthusiastic. And . . . Graber’s men were helping the Sea-Land women unload the boats, and exchanging smiles. Kills Orca didn’t seem to mind. Ingolf had mentioned that the tribe had tried to get him to stay, the first time he’d come here. These Sea-Land folk were perilously few, in a world where they had no kin for neighbors; in need of men to work and fight, and of fresh blood to father children not dangerously closely related to their future mates. They didn’t seem to have any prejudices about those who looked different from themselves either, which put them a step up on some folk he’d met.

  The major started towards his men, or former men; Rudi caught his eye and shook his head slightly.

  “You’ve made your choice, and they shall make theirs,” he murmured to himself.

  The words wouldn’t carry, but they didn’t need to. The officer of the Sword of the Prophet was nobody’s fool. He nodded in return, turned and stalked off along the beach, with his left hand making occasional movements as if to rest on the pommel of a shete that wasn’t there and his little tuft of chin-beard bristling.

  “That may solve one problem,” Mathilda said.

  She looked over to where the ex-High Seeker was doggedly dragging a long piece of driftwood towards the fires. Her eyes narrowed; he knew she found the five-year-old in the man’s body disturbing in a way that went below words. The more so because the child in the man wasn’t merely lost. You could see hints of a sunny-natured boy named Dalan, brave and willing. And you knew what had happened to him.

  “Perhaps him too?” she said hopefully. “There would be worse ways for him to make amends. Father Ignatius thinks he’ll . . . mentally age . . . enough to do a man’s work. Eventually.”

  Rudi thought, then shook his head, though he’d have been just as glad to see the last of the man as she.

  “No. I have the feeling he may be . . . useful.”

  Ignatius nodded. “Nor would it be safe to leave him alone, I think. He is vulnerable. The malice of the Adversary has been defeated here, but not destroyed.”

  “No indeed,” Rudi said softly, his hand caressing the hilt of the Sword. “Not yet.”

  “Bows out, y’lazy beggars!” Edain Aylward said.

  “Shouldn’t we be getting aboard?” Hrolf Homersson asked, nodding towards the refitted Gisandu where she rested at her anchors with furled sails.

  He was one of the Norrheimers they’d picked up at Eriksgarth to replace casualties; a very big man with a braid in his brown beard, whose favorite weapon was a four-foot ax with a war-hammer’s serrated shape on the side opposite the broad blade. He handled it like a willow switch.

  “We’ve a few hours yet till sundown,” Edain said, and grinned. “And what better way to spend them than practice with the bow? We’re off on the morning tide tomorrow.”

  He heard muffled groans, and a voice that muttered: Sleep? Food? Beer? from the background, and he didn’t try to see who. It was the sort of cold, dank day in the Black Months when your thoughts turned naturally to a chair and a crackling fire; and hot cider, and apples and nuts roasting on the hob while you worked on a bit of harness and yarned with your friends and smelled supper cooking.

  “So back to work!” he said, putting a sergeant-major’s snap into it that he’d learned from his father.

  It worked, too. He paced up and down the line, his own longbow in the crook of his arm, watching critically.

  Asgerd Karlsdottir was off a farm near Eriksgarth too, tall and lithe, with the ends of hacked-off hair the color of fresh honey sticking out from under her knit cap; she’d been trying
stubbornly to use the longbow he’d tossed her, but her string-arm gave a betraying quiver at full extension.

  “This stave’s too heavy for me,” she said bluntly, glaring at him. “I’m over-bowed.”

  “No, you’re not,” he said. “I made that one with Ritva in mind, and you’re as tall, and near as strong. You’re drawing from outside the bow, sure and y’are. That’s the problem.”

  Another glare, raw and belligerent. He’d noticed that Norrheimers were touchy, and she had extra reason—her affianced man had been killed by tribes allied to the Cutters. She was here because she’d taken a vow before the Gods of Norrheim, what her folk called a bragarfull , to take ten lives for his one, or die in the attempt, and sworn service to Rudi for the accomplishing of it. Edain intended to see that she did so and lived.

  It would be an offense against the Lady of the Blossom-time to let a lass that fair die unwed.

  “What does that mean?” she said. “Outside the bow?”

  “Gather ’round, ye infants!” he said.

  They did; the Norrheimers and the men of the Southside Freedom Fighters—who’d been savages in the Wild Lands of Illinois, until the chief and he had picked them up last year. The Southsiders nudged each other. They found the asatruar folk of what had been northern Maine a bit heedless and arrogant. Also they’d had him drilling and bully-damning them into shape considerably longer.

  “The folk who taught you archery were hunters before the Change,” he said. “Or they learned from such.”

  “So?” Ulfhild said.

  She was the sole other woman in the war band the original questers were building, dark and built like a barrel, and she’d been having the same problem. The Norrheimers were good shots; their people depended on wild meat for a good bit of their diet. But they weren’t battle-archers as the Clan thought of it, and they tended to think of fighting as mainly an affair of cold steel at arm’s length.

  He’d seen fights won where the enemy never got to within twenty yards of a longbow harrow-formation, and that was the way he liked it best. Against horsemen particularly, which the Cutters mostly were in their home ranges.