The High King of Montival

by SM Stirling

  “Jackie? How’s she taking it?”

  “Hard, what would you expect? She moved back to her folks over in Forest Grove a couple of weeks ago, wit’ da kids. But when a woman marries a man thirty years older, what can she expect?”

  Wanda made a stifled gesture, as if she’d prevented herself from slapping her husband upside the head only by an act of will. Ingolf gave a silent woof of relief, even though it made him feel a little guilty; Pierre Walks Quiet had married one of the abundant widows and started a second family here after he drifted in from the North Woods early in the Change years, on the run from one of the grisly little massacres that had punctuated those times. He’d ended up as timber-runner and game manager for Ingolf’s father, who had an eye for ability, and he’d taught woodcraft to the Sheriff’s children too.

  That his wife had moved out meant Ingolf wouldn’t have to tell her and the children about the old Indian’s death personally. Though there were far worse ways to go; he’d died with his face to an enemy worth fighting, knowing he’d won, and he’d gone quickly and without much pain. Nobody lived forever, and seventy-odd was a good long time these days.

  “He died up in the north country,” Ingolf said somberly. “On the Superior shore this side of Duluth, a few weeks after we left, fighting the Cutters and their local converts among the wild-men. And a couple of the Southsiders died too, and Odard later . . . long story.”

  And damn, I miss Odard. Which is crazy because I didn’t like him much, or he me. He was too full of himself even after he’ d gotten over some stuff and he was a lot fonder of being Heap Big Baron than he should have been, and he liked needling people too much, and thought he was smarter than he was, and . . . but he was a good man to have at your back. I wish we still had him.

  Mary squeezed his hand; he knew she missed the Baron of Gervais too, although the Havel sisters had had a half-joking, half-serious running feud with him most of their lives. It was amazing how you could get to knowing what was in a woman’s head if you were together long enough. He never had been before.

  And I like it.

  Ed nodded, and Wanda went around and pushed them all indoors.

  “In! We don’t talk out on the step wit’ family, here, like you were road-people begging for a handout. We will sit like civilized folk, under a roof. Und I will get youse some lunch, you look hungry.”

  The main house seemed to be a bit crowded, probably the officers of the troops outside, who’d be of Farmer and Sheriff families and expected to put up with the local boss. People were rushing up and down the stairs with towels and bedding and rolled-up futons and blankets and pairs of boots. After the travelers had washed—the house had running water—the four of them settled in the breakfast room, which was cheerfully well lit through big windows that looked in on a courtyard, set with pine and maple furniture handmade by Readstown’s own carpenters, with rag rugs on the floor before the empty swept fireplace and a few pictures and photographs on the walls. There was a faint smell of woodsmoke, inevitable in a building heated with stoves and hearths, and of dried wildflowers in jars on the mantel.

  The courtyard was one Wanda used for her herb garden, some espaliered fruit trees against the walls and a selection of rosebushes, with flagstone paths and a few benches and some wrens and bluebirds squabbling around a feeder. That interior orientation was what allowed the big windows, though there were steel shutters with loopholes for shooting ready to be slammed home, and racks for crossbows and quivers of bolts. Mild scents of flowers and turned earth drifted in through the opened panes, and the trowel-work in the raised beds was as neat as a snake’s scales. Wanda attended to that herself, saying she found it soothing. Right now several of her children were playing, tumbling over each other much like the puppies who were helping them at it. Though little Jenny was lying in a cradle, being still at the stick-everything-in-your-mouth stage.

  “Let me guess about the troops,” Ingolf said.

  By then they’d been seated and a girl from the nearby kitchens came in with a tray of kielbasa and blutwurst and liverwurst and three types of cheese, rye and wheat bread, pickles and tall steins of turned maple-wood full of Wanda’s foaming Schwarzbier.

  “Thank you, Wilma,” Wanda said with a smile, and promptly loaded plates. “You two missed lunch. Eat!”

  Ingolf took a deep draught of the dark-colored beer, savoring the almost bitter flavor like coffee-and-chocolate, wiped foam off his mustache and beard with a napkin, and saw Mary still swallowing blissfully. There wasn’t much conversation until they’d graduated to oatmeal cookies studded with walnuts and a big pot of chicory coffee with beet-sugar and cream on the side.

  Ed ruffled the ears of a large nondescript dog that sat with its head in his lap, tail thumping the floor.

  “The Bossman over in Richland is getting a volunteer force together?” Ingolf went on. “Not just Readstown? And that outside is our contingent?”

  “Yah, cavalry only, all volunteers like you guessed, to join up with Iowa. We’re figuring on three or four thousand all up, from what Richland Center tells me, say five or six regiments; the ones you saw are us, Forest Grove and Franklin, Ross, Viola, a couple of others. Another four thousand each from Fargo and Marshall. Everyone’s pretty hot to trot about the Cutters, now that what happened in Dubuque has gotten around.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Everyone who matters, and everyone in Iowa. All the Bossmen round about for sure, young Bill Clements here und Dan Rassmusen in Fargo and Greg Johanson in Marshall and Carl Mayer in Nebraska and Andy Hickock in Kirksville and even whatshisname, McIvery, down in Concordia—”

  “What used to be Kansas and northern Missouri,” Ingolf explained to Mary; she’d have seen old-world maps, but she wouldn’t be familiar with the modern political boundaries.

  “—so it’s not just Iowa,” Ed continued. “Having those lunatics knock off one of their own has the Bossmen all antsy, and I don’t blame them wanting to put a stop to it either. The bastards tried to kill Tony Heasleroad’s family, too. That’s going off the reservation.”

  “Any more trouble since?”

  “A bit. Assassinations, riots, Cutter agents stirring up the city rabble and hobos and such against the authorities; more of that in Iowa, but dey’re the biggest anyway, hey? We’ve all agreed to outlaw the Cutters and send men, and the Sheriffs here in Richland voted to support the Bossman on it by t’ree to one. Iowa and Nebraska are kicking in the main army, especially the infantry and artillery and engineers, but everyone’s sending cavalry. Figure they’re going to need all they can get, up there on the high plains and in Montana.”

  “Yah hey, you betcha they will. That’s how the Sioux kept running rings around us in the war . . . that war—”

  The Sioux War had been his first serious conflict, when he’d left home as a volunteer in the force Richland sent to help Fargo and Marshall. Looking back, it had been educational, if also deeply stupid and pointless.

  “—they could move faster. This is going to be on a different scale, though. And hopefully the Sioux will be on our side, or at least neutral.”

  Says Ingolf Vogeler aka Iron Bear, he thought, a little bemused. Never thought I’d be a blood brother of the Lakota, after I spent all that time fighting them.

  “Yah,” Ed said. “But since it’s all volunteers and not a regular National Guard call-up . . .”

  “. . . it’s also a complete cluster . . .” Ingolf paused and remembered Wanda was present. “Cluster-frack. Und who’s you got bossing da troop I saw outside?”

  Home a couple of hours und I start already talking da Deepest Cheesehead again, he thought, hearing himself begin to turn the “th” sounds to “d.”

  Though he’d never lost the flat hard vowels and hint of singsong in the years of his wandering. For that matter, unless memory was fooling him it had gotten a bit stronger here since he left.

  Of course, everyone wants to sound like they’ve lived here forever. It’s . . . what did Father Ignatiu
s call it? The prestige dialect. If you can’t be a Farmer, you can at least sound like one.

  Ed went on: “Will Kohler’s commanding, for now. Brevet National Guard rank of Major, got the Bossman to confirm dat.”

  Ingolf nodded; Will Kohler was about forty, the local drill instructor, and his father had held the job before him—and before the Change he’d run a martial arts club, and been in the old American military before that. As Sheriff, Ed Vogeler was in charge of the county’s militia and maintained a force of Deputies, who were the closest thing to a standing military force the local government had as well as police and first-responders and much else, but Kohler handled most of the training and organization.

  Then the wording his brother had used struck him and he spoke sharply:

  “For now?”

  “Ah . . .”

  The Sheriff coughed. Wanda spoke:

  “A lot of the people who have cavalry training and whose families can spare them in da working season are Farmers’ sons, or even Sheriffs’. Und—”

  “And Will Kohler isn’t,” Ingolf said. “Yah, yah. They’ll be young and full of beans, too. Average age under twenty-one and even dumber than I was then. What was it you said last autumn, Ed?”

  His brother coughed again and looked at his wife. “Ah . . . at nineteen a man is supposed to think with his fists and his balls.”

  Wanda laughed ruefully, but the problem was serious. Here in rough-and-ready Richland where everyone put his hand to the work of the season class divisions weren’t as strong as in wealthier and more sophisticated parts of the Midwest. But the division between Farmer and Refugee was there, and stronger in the younger generation.

  With exceptions, of course.

  Wanda’s family had run a microbrewery in Madison, and had arrived in Readstown with a wagonload of tools and hop-seed pulled by some big draught horses; nobody thought it odd that she’d ended up marrying the Sheriff’s eldest son. Others had had useful skills, been blacksmiths or carpenters or bowyers or whatever. Nor was William Kohler exactly a Refugee, even if his father was originally from Racine.

  But he isn’t from a local Farmer’s family, either, Ingolf thought unhappily. No feedstore cap in his closet.

  Talking to Mathilda and her friends had given him more tools to think about how it worked.

  A lot of the volunteers are sons of . . . Matti’ d say manor-holding knights and barons. That’s what they are for all practical purposes, though they don’t know it yet. And Will’s just a paid soldier, a noncom. Except that he really knows what he’s doing and they don’t, and damn it that ought to count for more.

  He caught Mary’s eye. He could read what she thought, too, by now:

  Since when does ought mean that much?

  Ingolf sighed. “Yeah, if I hadn’t been Dad ’s son, God knows I wouldn’t have gotten a command right away in the Sioux War; and God also knows I was pretty useless until I learned by doing. So Will can’t lick them into shape? I’m a bit surprised.”

  “Oh, he’s kicked some of their sorry young asses,” Ed said. “While I handled their folks. And the ones from right hereabouts know him. The worst of the rest left und the rest have learned, dey are volunteers. But they’re not happy about it. That’s why they need a Sheriff’s son in charge.”

  Ingolf put his cookie and his coffee cup down abruptly. “Wait a minute, Ed! I’m working for Rudi . . . Artos . . . now! And he’s as busy as a centipede in an ass-kicking contest, and it’s getting worse. He can’t spare me.”

  Ed nodded, smiling. “And this army we’re all raising is going to be fighting the people who’re after him!”

  Ingolf sighed, and rubbed his hand over his short-cropped brown beard, feeling the tug as his calluses caught and wondering when the first gray hairs would show. His elder brother had plenty, and he was starting to sympathize with him as well. It felt odd, after so many years of being a resentful exile.

  “And when’s Rudi arriving? The whole bunch going to be with him?” the elder Vogeler went on.

  “Ah . . . just him and just a flying visit. Time’s pressing. And we’ve got about a battalion with us; call it five hundred.”

  Ed ’s brows went up. “More wild-men like the Southsiders? They’ve learned a lot, but dey’re still sort of rough at da edges.”

  Ingolf shook his head. “No, no, there’s civilization in northern Maine. Farms und such, at least, couple of towns, a government. They’ve done pretty well.”

  “Yah, Yankees then.”

  “Ah . . . not exactly, Ed. Let’s just say that since our family’re square-heads, it’s going to be sort of like meeting some real old stories.”

  The original Vogelers had been from Lower Saxony, though they’d married the usual local mixtures in the eighteen decades since; other varieties of Deutsch, plenty of Norski, some Polak and Czech, even Yankee and Irish.

  Ed frowned. “Thought it was all Yankees and Frenchmen there in Maine.”

  “Dere’s some Svenska, couple of places named New Sweden and Stockholm and such. Settled back in Civil War times, a little after we Vogelers arrived here in the Kickapoo country. But mostly it’s . . . there was this guy named Erik, who started out in Massachusetts, and he . . . it’s a long story, that’s what it is. Five hundred good fighting men, though. Rudi has a gift for making strong friends.”

  He took out his pipe, and his brother filled his own and pushed over fragrant shredded tobacco in a container made from a section of polished curly maple, and a lighter. Mary ostentatiously coughed and looked revolted as he filled it, tamped it down with a horny thumb and spun the lighter’s wheel and held the flame to the bowl.

  Figure I don’t indulge often enough for you to really get upset, darling, he thought.

  There was no point in saying it, and the smoking habit had largely died out in Montival. Wisconsin had been tobacco-growing country before the Change, though, and had kept it up. In the old days they’d believed that smoking was bad for you, but there were so many other things that could, would and did kill you now that people didn’t care. Mary simply disliked the smell and made no bones about it.

  Not much use in pointing out that that guy Strider smoked a pipe, either, and Gandalf. And all the furry-foot brigade lit up at the drop of a match.

  He wasn’t afraid a pipe now and then would kill him. As far as he could tell, a lot of the old Americans had been quivering daisies who thought they’d live forever if only they were careful enough, as if life was worth living that way. Some of them had believed eating butter was bad for you, of all things.

  “By the way, Ed, what’s Mark doing all dressed up like he’s off to da wars?” he said instead.

  Mary’s eye rolled. “Because he is off to the wars, alae, duh!”

  “Ensign Vogeler of the First Volunteer Cavalry?” Ingolf asked incredulously. Mark’s his son, but . . . “That’s for real, he’s not just dressing up until they leave?”

  Wanda glared at her husband, and Ed puffed furiously on his pipe. They both had the look a long-married couple got who’d chased an argument around in circles long enough that they’d stopped, if only because biting each other on the buttocks was the sole way to continue.

  Ed’s tone was defensive: “Look, he is off to da wars. He threatened to run away und join up as a paid-soldier trooper somewhere if I didn’t let him, and he meant it. What am I supposed to do wit’ him, throw him in jail for da next six months? I don’t have enough pull outside Richland to stop someone hiring him.”

  Ingolf opened his mouth to say You betcha you should put his butt in jail and paddle it too and closed it again; what Mark threatened was more or less what his uncle Ingolf had done after his grandfather died. Ingolf and Ed had spent six months butting heads before the call for volunteers to fight the Sioux came down from Richland, and he’d leapt at the chance.

  “Yah,” his brother went on, reading his hesitation; he wasn’t stupid about people when he bothered to pay attention. “If I locked him up, he’d leave when he got out
and never come back. A man has to know what he can do wit’ his sons, and what he can’t. Dad would push us too hard, sometimes.”

  I nearly didn’t come back. Wouldn’t have, except for the thing on Nantucket and the way that worked out; I’d have gone on being mad at you until I died, because it’d become a habit. And I’d never have seen Wanda again, or met my younger nieces or nephews, or remembered Mark as anything but a little kid.

  He couldn’t even tell the boy this war was an exercise in mutual stupidity like the fracas with the Sioux. He could say it was a stupid thing for a very young man to do when he had a perfectly good reason for staying home, but that was like saying that the world would be a better place if everyone followed the Golden Rule.

  Which is true, but deeply fucking useless, because it’s never going to happen.

  “Ed . . . I’m not sure this is a great idea. Want me to try and talk Mark out of it?”

  Ed sighed. “You can try, but he reminds me of you at that age. Or me. He’s getting to da stage where your old man is so stupid the whole world can’t bear it. Or anyone older if they cross him. Yelling didn’t work, even Wanda crying didn’t work for long, and he’s too old to put over my knee.”

  “I hear you. Butting at everything like a young ram in the spring, eh?”

  “Right. Und he’ll be better off wit’ you. Hell, he’s not that much younger than you were when you pulled the same stunt.”

  “Two years. That’s nothing for you or me now, but seventeen to nineteen’s a big jump. He’s got his growth but his bones haven’t knit and he’s not as strong as he’ll be in two years, or as fast. He’s just not damn-well ready yet but he thinks he is. It’s dangerous enough when you are ready.”

  “No, he’s not ready!” Wanda cut in. “Uff da! He’s still a child.”

  Of course, he’ll always be your firstborn baby boy, Wanda. Ingolf knew mothers thought that way. But you’re right. Just now he’s a kid who thinks he’s a man.

  “Yah yah, Wanda, OK!” Ed said desperately. “But he will run off if I don’t let him go! Can you talk him out of it, woman? What’m I supposed to do, break his legs?”