Sunrise Lands c-1 Page 5

  A tall man with a limp came through behind the soldiers; he was in riding breeches and a coat of Harris tweed, with a plain sword belt around it and an equally plain longsword whose hilt had sweat stained rawhide bindings. The man was near Nigel's own mid-sixties, countenance scored by years and turned ruddy by a youth spent under the unmer ciful sun of the hot countries. He still had a full thatch of hair, white with some gray, and his hard scarred face was dominated by a great beak of a nose above a wide thin-lipped gash of mouth and a knobby chin; the little finger on his left hand was missing. His eyes were dark green, level and watchful, marksman's eyes.

  "Good God, " Nigel said, still quietly. "Tony Knolles!"

  The last time they'd seen each other had been more than a decade ago, over lowered lances. Charles had still been king then, and Knolles still a strong supporter…

  "Nigel!"

  The aquiline face split in a smile-not much of one, but a great ear to ear grin if you knew the man, who made Nigel Loring look like an excitable Latin. Nigel stepped forward, hand outstretched; they gripped with sword callused strength and each searched the other man's face. Nigel was suddenly conscious of how he'd gone egg-bald himself except for a fringe and his mus tache, and white haired except for a few fading streaks of yellow. For the rest he was still trim and upright, even if things creaked and moved more slowly nowadays.

  "Good God, Tony!" After a moment of struggling to find words: "And a count, no less!"

  "His Majesty was badly advised enough to do me that honor."

  Nigel shook his head again, hauling his wits together by main force. "My dear, an old friend and comrade in arms, Tony Knolles, who saved my life many times."

  "And only tried to kill him once," Knolles said, bowing over her hand. "Lady Juniper."

  "My husband has told me a good deal of you, Lord Anthony," she said. With an impish smile: "Both the good and the bad of it, sure."

  Two small figures came through the crowd. Nigel went on:

  "Our eldest daughter, Maude."

  At twelve Maude was already nearly as tall as her mother's five foot-and a-bit, slender and all limbs and hands and feet, her hair a darker red, her eyes blue as Nigel's. She curtsied, solemn in her green shirt, silver buckled shoes, kilt and plaid and feathered Scots bon net. Knolles winced slightly; Maude had been the name of Nigel's first wife, Alleyne's mother. She'd been killed by the Icelandic mercenaries holding the Lorings prisoner on Charles's orders, during the rescue and escape.

  "And Fiorbhinn, our youngest," he said.

  "Hello, Lord Anthony." The eight year old had her mother's leaf-green eyes; her long hair was the yellow white color of ripe wheat. She gave the English emissary's hand a confident shake.

  "Fiorbhinn means Truesweet," she went on, with a wide white smile. "It's the name of a famous harp. I can play the harp already! And Mom says I have perfect pitch. She knows 'cause she does too."

  Nigel smiled, watching Knolles blink, and knowing that that hard-souled man of war was instantly made a slave for life.

  The visitor cleared his throat. "And this is my son Robert, Lady Juniper. Robert, your godfather."

  The guard commander in the suit of plate slid the visor of his sallet up. The face within was Knolles's own, minus forty-odd years and with the nose shrunk to more human proportions, though paler and freckled and with a lock of raven hair hanging down on the forehead.

  Nigel shook his hand after he made his bow to Juniper-carefully, which you had to do when the other man was wearing an articulated steel gauntlet; he marveled a little, remembering the gangly child he'd known… Where did the years go?

  Down into the West without returning, he thought, and added aloud, "I hope your mother's well? She was expecting when I… ah… left England."

  "Mother is very well, thank you, Sir Nigel," he said, with a charming smile of his own. "And I have two younger sisters and a brother now. My brother's name is Nigel, by the way."

  "Ah…" Knolles senior pulled himself together. "My credentials?"

  Nigel saved him from embarrassment with a quick flick of the eyes, and he presented the ribbon-bound documents to Juniper.

  She took them gravely. "Be welcome here as my guests and the guests of Clan Mackenzie, Lord Count, Lord Robert. Welcome as the voice of your king, and still more for yourself."

  Then, raising her voice slightly to take in the whole party and the lookers-on: "Well, if you good people would like to share dinner, there's just time to get freshened up."

  She clapped her hands as the watching crowd buzzed. "The Clan has guests from afar, bringing luck beneath our roof on Samhain's holy eve! Rooms for them! Hot water and soap! See to their horses! And tell the cooks dinner is going to be very welcome!"

  ****

  Nigel saw Knolles blink as the bagpipers paced around the inner side of the tables, the wild skirling sound filling the great room. Below, knives flashed as a roast pig-a yearling, with an apple in its mouth-and a smoking side of beef were reduced to manageable proportions. The other dishes came in with a proud procession of polished salvers.

  When the musicians had marched out of the room-to shed their instruments and scurry back in for the meal-Juniper Mackenzie rose to her feet and lifted the silver-mouthed horn from its rest before her to make the invocation and libation:

  Harvest Lord who dies for the ripened grain Corn Mother who births the fertile field Blessed be those who share this bounty;

  And blessed the mortals who toiled with

  You Their hands helping Earth to bring forth life.

  Then she poured out a portion into a bowl and raised the horn high: "To the Lord, to the Lady, to the Luck of the Clan- drink hail !"

  "Wassail!"

  Fifty voices roared reply as she drank; Nigel took a sip of his wine. Knolles senior and junior did the same, and then looked down at their glasses with identical surprised respect.

  "And to the Clan's guests, come across the sea from the lands of our ancestors-may there always be peace and friendship between usdrink hail!"

  "Wassail!"

  As she sat, Knolles leaned close to whisper in Nigel's ear: "Whatever else I expected, it wasn't to find you playing at king of the Picts, old boy."

  Nigel looked down at his ruffled shirt, jacket, kilt, plaid pinned at his shoulder with a brooch of silver knotwork and turquoise.

  "More the prince consort of the pseudo-Celts, I'm afraid. Make no mistake, Tony, Juniper is the Chief, not I. I'm one of her military advisors-armsmen, we say-in my official capacity, and that's all."

  Juniper leaned forward to look around him at the Count of Azay, mock indignation in her tone.

  "Pseudo-Celts, is it? I'll have you know my mother was born on Achill Island in the Gaeltacht, no less. And my father was an American of Scots descent… mostly Scots. So… nil anon sceal eile agam ."

  Nigel knew that his old friend could understand the Gaelic: there's no other story, translated literally. He also knew that Knolles had learned the language for the same reason he had; the Provos had used it as a sort of code.

  Both the Englishmen had commanded small and extremely clandestine SAS teams in Ulster during the Troubles, mostly in South Armagh-and occasionally, highly illegally and unofficially, across the Irish border. By her sly grin Juniper was recalling exactly the same thing, and by his snort Knolles had realized that she knew, and knew that he knew.

  She went on: "And you're probably wondering-"

  Then she dropped impishly into a creditable imita tion of the upper-class public school-cum-officer's-mess drawl that was the native dialect of Nigel and his friend both:

  "Are all these people utterly barking mad?"

  "Not in the least," Knolles said, obviously lying stoutly.

  "The kilts weren't my idea," she said. "Honest. And the rest of it

  … sort of grew, like Topsy."

  Nigel saw the other man's reserve crack a little; Juni per had that effect on people. There was a creak of dry amusement in Knolles's voice when he spoke:


  "I did have thoughts along those lines in Portland… those bizarre castles! The titles, and the way they dress and speak! Were they all struck on the head at birth by copies of Ivanhoe? Although the regent, Lady Sandra… she was disconcerting, to say the least, and impressive, in a rather terrifying way. Still, how did all that happen?"

  Knolles's voice was a little plaintive by the end. Nigel chuckled.

  "The man who founded the Association was a history professor, you see-a medieval specialist-and one of those re-creationist Johnnies, like Alleyne. The most charitable explanation is that the Change sent him mad."

  "Or that he was always an evil weasel of a man and the Change gave him the opportunity to show it," Juni per said. "It caused no end of trouble, and it didn't die with him."

  "Ah, re-creationists," Knolles said. "Very useful some of them were in England as instructors, as you'll recall, Nigel. Where is young Alleyne?"

  "Uncle Alleyne is married to Aunt Astrid," Maude Loring said from the other side of her mother.

  Juniper amplified: "Astrid is Signe Havel's younger sister, the widow of the Bearkiller lord… the people over on the western side of the Willamette, between the Association and Corvallis. Astrid is Lady of the Dunedain Rangers, with my daughter Eilir."

  Maude's grave face suddenly broke out in a smile as she abandoned the struggle to be adult for a moment.

  "If you think we ' re weird, Lord Count, you should meet them. They live in the woods, and they speak Elvish to each other. All the time. "

  Knolles blinked, obviously wondering if his leg was being pulled. Nigel gave him a grave shake of the head: It's quite true, old chap. Aloud he added:

  "Although Alleyne acts as a moderating influence and so does my stepdaughter Eilir. She's married to John Hordle now. You'll remember Hordle-SAS just before the Change, promoted to battalion sergeant major just before we… left… England."

  "Ah, yes. Big chappie, carried a bastard longsword," Knolles said.

  Then he harrumphed diplomatically before going on; Hordle had also put an arrow through one of Knolles's men during Nigel's escape.

  "Ah, well, considering all that's gone on back Home, we're not in a position to judge. Have you been following events out there at all, Nigel?"

  "In outline; news does travel, if slowly, and Abbot Dmwoski forwards some of the Church's reports to us. I know Charles died-"

  "Hallgerda killed him when he finally refused to disinherit his older sons in favor of her brood, though it was never proved," Knolles said flatly.

  His knobby fist clenched. "And then tried to seize power herself. Colonel Buttesthorn and I and a few others put a stop to that. And put William on the throne."

  "We heard that he'd beaten the Moors. Good show, that."

  Though to most here, it didn't matter much more than hearing how Prince Piotr of Belgorod and Hetman Bohdan of the All Great Kuban Cossack Host defeated the Tartars outside Astrakhan last year, Loring thought. How one's horizons shrink…

  Knolles nodded. "We and a coalition beat them-the Norlanders, the Umbrian League, the Kingdom of Sicily, the Republic of Shannon-we even had ships and men from the Cypriot Greeks. Defeated them at sea off the Canaries, then burned out the nests they'd established along the coast of Morocco, then chased them south and gave them a damned good drubbing at home. There's been the odd dustup with Berber raiders from the Atlas since, but nothing significant."

  The fierce hawklike green eyes kindled. "Mind you, about six years ago I was with a party exploring the ruins of Marrakech, and-"

  "And we heard that William called a new Parliament," Nigel said dryly.

  Knolles flushed; it was for advocating that move that Nigel and his wife, Maude, had been put under arrest by Charles the Mad and his Icelandic ice queen in the first place, while Knolles had still been satisfied with the Emergency Regulations.

  "Yes, yes, yes, you were right, you were right, you were bloody well right, Nigel. And we've set up a new House of Lords along the old lines," Knolles went on. "Quite old…"

  "Not altogether the way our ancestors did it, I hope!" Nigel said.

  "Very much in the manner our grandfathers would recognize. Things have worked out quite nicely since. The capital's still in Winchester, the Icelanders and Faeroese are settling in and marrying out, their grandchildren will be English to the bone-"

  His son grinned and made a gesture towards his own chest; his mother's name was Dagmar, and she'd come from Torshavn along with a flood of others from the northern isles in the earliest Change Years.

  "-and we've resettled Britain-thinly-as far as the Midlands, and made a good start on the Continent."

  "That's quick work!" Nigel said.

  "Well, you can't move for tripping over the next generation, that's true; everyone's breeding like damned rabbits. And we've been getting a steady trickle of immigrants from the east Baltic, and from Ireland, too-easier since we're all bloody beadsqueezers again. No offense," he said hastily to Juniper.

  "None taken," she said, laughing. "I was raised Catholic myself, of course, but"-she waved a hand around-"you might say it didn't entirely take."

  "There's understatement of positively English proportions," Nigel said.

  "You've corrupted me with your Sassenach ways, my love. Sure, and I can feel my upper lip stiffening the now."

  Knolles went on: "And we've agreed to divide things with the Norlanders along the old German border, and with the Umbrian League along the old Italian one… that's a trifle theoretical, when all we've got is a few out posts along the coasts and rivers. It'll be centuries before we're back to even the medieval era's numbers."

  Nigel nodded. He'd helped develop the initial ap praisal and plans, and had led expeditions to feel out that vast eerie wilderness.

  "That's where the 'King of Greater Britain' and 'Emperor of the West' come in?"

  "The imperial title was the late Pope Benedict's idea," Knolles said. "He and the archbishop sprang it on William at the coronation, after the Moorish War, in 2010."

  "Rather the way his predecessor did with Charlemagne?" Nigel mused.

  "Precisely. Benedict was there for the Church reunion talks, you see. They both preached a Crusade…"

  "And the coronation was with your connivance, Father," Robert Knolles said.

  Knolles senior harrumphed and poked his fork at a slice of roast beef, cut a piece, administered horserad ish and took a bite. He coughed slightly after that-the sauce was nuclear strength. Then he continued:

  "Ah… well, that brings us to the reason for the visit, Nigel. We didn't know your situation here in any detail, you see, except that you and Alleyne had landed on your feet as might be expected of Lorings, and His Majesty is deeply grateful for your saving his life-"

  "Several times," Robert Knolles put in, unabashed when his father gave him a quelling glance. " And setting up the contacts that put him on the throne instead of his late unlamented stepmother when the time came."

  " Late unlamented?" Loring asked, with an arched brow.

  The elder Knolles continued: "She shuffled off eight months ago, from the effects of house arrest, idleness, curdled venom and lashings of strong drink. And His Majesty has asked me to inform you that it pleases him to offer you… well, he's made you an earl, you see. Earl of Bristol. With the estates appertaining thereunto, as well as your family land at Tilford, of course."

  Nigel felt his jaw drop, and closed it with an effort of will. "Good God."

  "He'd like you to return; earnestly requests it, in fact, and sent a ship we really can't spare all the way here to fetch you. Confidentially, he'd also like you to have min isterial rank with a roving commission, and both Houses concur."

  "Father is one of the top nobs of the Tories, these days," Robert added. "And note that His Majesty hasn't given you a continental title, godfather, nor the proverbial 'estate in France.' Good English farms, fully tenanted."

  At Nigel's raised brow, the young man amplified: "In England 'an estate in France
' is a synonym for 'dubious gift,' or 'white elephant,' these days, sir-land that gives you a position in society and then prevents you from keeping it up. Father repented and came over to the side of the righteous, but rather late."

  Knolles snorted. "Nonsense. The land at Azay is first rate; better climate than anywhere in England proper, and there are the vineyards-"

  "Bushy, overgrown vineyards, half-dead…"

  "-and the chateau-"

  "The ruins of the chateau."

  "Ruins? Nonsense; it never really caught on fire… not completely… and half the roof was still intact. It just… well, it needed a spot of work."

  "And still does, I rather think, Father… work for my grandchildren."

  "Silence, whelp. In any case, Nigel, I've got a belt, a sword and an ermine cloak for you, and a bally great parchment to go with it. Thing's festooned with enough seals and ribbons for a publican's license, too."

  Nigel began to laugh, quietly at first, then wholeheartedly. Mopping at an eye with his napkin, he replied, "I'm truly sorry to disappoint King William, and you, Tony, but my life is here now. Not to mention my wife, and my daughters; and my son, and his children-a grand son and two granddaughters, so far. This is where we'll leave our bones. Give His Majesty my regrets and my best wishes for a long and prosperous reign. I thought the lad would turn out well."

  He turned his head to meet Juniper's bright green eyes for an instant; they crinkled in the face that loved his line for line, and their hands linked fingers beneath the covering tablecloth.

  "Not tempted by the prospect of being Countess Juniper, my dear?"

  "Chief's bad enough. I'd scandalize your William's court, that's beyond doubting."

  Knolles sighed. "I thought that was the reply I'd get, as soon as I walked in. Your stepson warned me; we met outside the gates. Remarkable young fellow, even on brief acquaintance. Usually one feels an impulse to kick a man with good looks of that order, but I didn't this time."