Rudi Mackenzie smiled wryly as he came forward and sat across from him.
“I don’t like it either, Fred. And neither of us likes fighting battles, but you do as you must, not as you would. You must have seen it with your father; I certainly did with Mother, by Nuada of the Silver Hand who favors Kings! It may mean dying for the people. . . .”
Fred ran a hand over his hair, which was cut short in a cap of soft black rings. “I think I’d actually prefer that, sometimes.”
“We’re all going to die sometime, to be sure. More often ruling well means we have to do things like shaking hands and breaking bread with men we’d rather put facedown in a dungheap with a boot to the back of their necks. The which hand-shaking and bread-breaking is nearly as unpleasant as death and wears harder on the soul.”
Fred grinned in weary agreement and kneaded the back of his neck. “Thor with me, this sort of thing wears you out worse than a march in armor. And that’s an attractive image. The manure pile and the boot and his face, that is.”
Rudi nodded. “And you can wash muck off your boot, but it’s harder to get clean of that sort.”
He jerked his head towards the entrance, the long copper-gold hair swirling about his shoulders. Fred sighed and nodded.
“Should I have been more . . . tactful?”
“No, you were about right, I’d say. He’d smell a trap if you were all hail-fellow-well-met and inviting him to sit down for a yarn and a tankard of beer with a slap on the back in good fellowship. And he’d despise you if he thought it was genuine. Best to make it a matter of business and advantage on both sides.”
The king and his ally were both big young men only a year apart in age, with similar broad-shouldered, long-limbed builds, both with the smooth graceful movements of those raised to the sword and the tensile wariness of those who’d also lived by it in lands beyond law. In other ways they differed. The younger son of Boise’s first ruler had bluntly handsome broad features and skin of a pale toast color, legacy of his sire’s part-African blood.
“Well, it is to our mutual advantage,” Fred said. “And he does have some virtues. He’s smart enough to treat his men well enough that they’ll follow him. Especially now that he’s leading them in the direction they want to go.”
“That always makes it easier, to be sure,” Rudi said.
The High King’s eyes were a changeable blue-green-gray, brighter by contrast now as the setting sun turned the big command tent into a cave of umber gloom. He wore the pleated kilt of a Mackenzie in the Clan’s green-brown tartan, with a plaid pinned at his shoulder over a loose-sleeved saffron-colored linen shirt cinched at wrists and throat with drawstrings.
A sword hung at his right side from a broad belt, in shape a knight’s long cut-and-thrust weapon with a shallow-curved crescent guard and a double-lobed hilt of black staghorn inlaid with silver knotwork. Its pommel was a globe cradled in a web of antlers, at first glance a perfect sphere of moon-opal. Then if you looked closer it was like crystal, and within it curves that drew the vision deeper and deeper—
Fred’s eyes flicked aside from it, though he was a brave man, and not just about physical danger.
“Was Roberts telling the truth?” he asked.
Rudi’s hand fell to the pommel in a gesture that had become habit. “What do you think?” he asked.
I try to keep from being too dependent on this, Fred. You should too. The more so as neither I nor the Sword will be with you whenever you might need them.
“That he was reasonably sincere, and he’ll keep his word—as long as he still thinks we’re the winning side,” Fred said.
Rudi flipped up his hands in a gesture of agreement. “See, you don’t need the Sword of the Lady to tell you that.”
Fred looked at it again, obviously forcing himself a little.
“That thing is useful. It had better be, after we went through hell and high water to get it—”
Rudi chuckled; that was uncomfortably close to being literally true.
“But . . . better you than me, Rudi! I can judge men pretty well, I think, but it would be sort of stressful to know what I read was true. And I’d hate to be incapable of half-believing some little white lie.”
Rudi laughed; he’d been born late in the first Change Year, but there were already a few faint lines beside his eyes that showed he was a man who laughed often.
“My sentiments exactly and in precise measure, Fred. But I’m stuck with it; worse, my children after me.”
Fred’s smile died quickly. “Speaking of an inheritance . . . what I really hate about making deals with Roberts and the others who backed Martin after he killed Dad is that he gave them land, land from the public reserve that should have been kept for division into more family farms. Dad always said yeomen are the bedrock.”
“More than they deserve, sure and it is,” Rudi said. “Though finding folk to work it for them . . . that’ll be another matter.”
Land—who held it, and on what terms; who worked it, and how; and for whose benefit besides their own—was what most of modern politics, and much of modern life for that matter, were about.
“They deserve what Martin got, what you gave him,” Fred said.
Which had been the Sword through the gut. Though at the last that had been a mercy, freeing his soul even as he died.
Fred’s face hardened as he spoke. Rudi reflected that the younger man normally wasn’t much of a hater, which was a very good thing in a ruler for more than one reason. But Fred had hated his elder brother Martin, for parricide and killing their father’s dream of a restored United States and allying Boise with the malignancy that was the Church Universal and Triumphant.
Possibly most of all for killing the love they must have felt once, he thought sympathetically. I have no brothers, but of my sisters I am most fond.
Fred went on: “And I have some ideas about tax policy on unused land. . . .”
A cough at the entranceway brought their heads around with a caution ground in by short but extremely eventful lifetimes. Hands relaxed from weapons as they saw who stood there, a young man of middling height but broad-shouldered and thick-armed, with a square face and oak-colored brown curls beneath his Scots bonnet.
“Merry meet, Edain,” Rudi said to his guard-captain.
Edain Aylward Mackenzie put down the trays of food he was carrying. They looked a little incongruous with the outfit of the High King’s Archers anyway. That was the Mackenzie kilt and plaid and the green brigandine the Clan’s warriors usually wore, though the outer layer of leather bore the Crowned Mountain of Montival rather than the Mackenzie crescent moon cradled in antlers. He had shortsword and buckler at his belt, a dirk, and a sgian-dubh tucked into his knee-hose.
Across his back was a quiver of gray-fletched arrows, with a great yellow yew longbow thrust through the carrying loops on its side. The Mackenzies were a people of the bow, and old Sam Aylward their first teacher had been known as Aylward the Archer in his time. His son bore that nickname these days, for very good reason.
Right now he prodded a thick callused finger at the food. “Merry meet, and merry part, Chief; and you, Fred. Now eat, both of you.”
Rudi blinked in surprise. “Arra, and is it that time already?”
“It’s sunset,” Edain said.
Then with a show of thought, tapping a thumb on his chin: “It happens nearly every day in these parts, and then most often it grows dark!”
“And how would I remember such things without you to remind me, blood-brother?” Rudi grinned.
Edain snorted. “The Lord and Lady may know, but I don’t even ken how I got you to Nantucket and back alive. I’m here because Fred’s batman came to me near weeping, Not now they tell me, not now, we’re too busy . . . and to think a crew of fancy cooks have toiled and moiled all the day to whip up this feast for you, sure and they did like Lughnasadh come early, what with the well-basted roast suckling pig with the honey-garlic glaze and the spiced meat pies with their fragrant
flaky crusts and the succulent fresh-picked asparagus and steamed sweet peas and glazed carrots and stuffed eggplant and four types of bread hot from the oven and sweet butter and the cakes and ices and whipped cream and all!”
Rudi chuckled; the food consisted of two bowls containing chunks of mutton stewed with dried beans and desiccated vegetables, a stack of tortillas and a block of ration-issue cheese the size, shape and consistency of a cake of soap. It was the same food anyone in the US of Boise contingent would be eating tonight, officer or enlisted.
“Sit, man,” he said to Edain, as he pulled the little knife out of his sock-hose and shaved rock-hard dry cheese onto the bowls of stew. “There’s work to be done and I’ll need you to hear and speak. You’ve eaten?”
“Aye, Chief. Asgerd saw to it.”
Fred uncorked a wine bottle and poured three glasses as Edain unhooked his baldric and hung the longbow and quiver from a peg on one of the tent poles.
“You should have gotten Asgerd pregnant, the way Rudi and I did our wives,” the Boisean said, then looked at his King.
“And I won’t have to envy you much longer, Rudi. I wouldn’t have your job on a bet, but that, yeah. To hold our daughter—”
The longing was naked in his face for an instant, and the remembered joy in Rudi’s own.
“Son,” Rudi said absently. “For you two it’ll be a son, first.”
All three men looked at his hand on the pommel of the Sword.
“You’re going to name him Lawrence,” Rudi went on. “And Dirk after Virginia’s grandfather. He’ll go by Dirk, mostly . . . sorry! I should have left you to find that out; it comes on me unawares, betimes.”
Fred’s face unfroze. “Well, in the old days they had machines . . . x-sounds, did they call them? To tell you ahead of time.” His smile grew wide. “A son! Our son!”
Then he laughed. There was a silver hammer on a chain around his neck; he touched his jacket over the spot where it lay.
“Son or daughter, Freya knows it’s the only way I was going to stop Virginia coming on campaign with me,” he said. “Freya keep her and our kid both safe, too.”
“They’re a fierce lot in the Powder River country,” Rudi acknowledged, drawing the Invoking pentagram over his bowl of stew. “Hail and thanks to the Mother-of-All who births the harvest, to the Lord who dies for the ripened corn, and thanks to the mortals who toiled with Them,” he went on, before taking up the first spoonful.
The Powder River plains in old Wyoming were where Fred had first met his spouse, when she stumbled into their camp on the run from the followers of the Church Universal and Triumphant who’d taken her family’s ranch. She’d ended going to Nantucket and back with the Quest.
Fred hammer-signed his bowl, murmured: “Hail, all-giving Earth,” and went on: “And Mathilda’s meek and retiring, Rudi, yeah, right, she certainly wouldn’t be here even if she hadn’t gotten knocked up. And I’ve never seen her charging over a barricade into a mess of Saloum corsairs right beside you, shield up, visor down and sword swinging and screaming Haro, Portland! Holy Mary for Portland! at the top of her lungs.”
He tasted the stew. “Damn you, Edain, you actually made me hungry as hell with that description and now I have to eat this.”
Rudi chewed and swallowed. It was . . . fuel, slightly enlivened by the chilies some camp cook had dropped in to disguise the fact that the contributing sheep had probably died of old age. He’d eaten much worse, and the tortillas were even palatable when fresh; he rolled one, dipped it in the stew to spoon some up, and took a bite before he spoke:
“Matti fights from duty and necessity. Virginia actually likes it. The fighting, I should be saying, not the killing as such, though to be frank she also minds that less than you or I.”
“Yeah,” Fred acknowledged. “And she’s got a powerful hate on for the Cutters, and just between me and thee, Rudi, sometimes she doesn’t grasp the difference between leading a country and owning a ranch, not deep down. At least this way she’s got a chance to get to know Mom and my sisters better. And Mom will do anything she has to with a grandchild to protect, even keep Virginia in line.”
“And if Asgerd’s not blessed by the Mother-of-All yet, it’s not for want of trying on our part,” Edain said cheerfully. “And there’ll be time enough.”
Like Fred he’d met his wife on the Quest. Asgerd Karlsdottir had been born in what was once northern Maine, and was now the Kingdom of Norrheim. Edain had come away from their time there with a new wife. Fred had found a faith, one that spoke to his soul as his family’s nominal Methodism never had.
Rudi used the half-eaten tortilla to gesture. “Look you, we just took . . . what, a tenth of Boise’s remaining strength this last hour? And without an arrow or swordstroke, and it was the fraction of it blocking our way at that. Took it from their line of battle and added it to ours.”
“Yeah,” Fred nodded, soberly. “I’ve got as many men as the junta has now, infantry at least, and mine want to fight. Or at least to get the job done so they can go back to their farms without worrying about the Cutters threatening their families.”
Rudi nodded, but it wasn’t completely a gesture of agreement. “I want to pick up the pieces without killing any more of your people. Corwin is the real enemy.”
“Damn right. It’s not their fault Martin screwed them over and got them on the CUT’s side.”
“True, but morals aside . . . two things a king can never have enough of: one is money, and the other is good troops. And good soldiers will get you gold more often than gold will get you good soldiers, as my foster-father Sir Nigel is fond of saying. I want those men fighting for us.”
“But we have to hammer past Boise as fast as we can,” Fred said; he’d been trained in Boise’s staff schools, where playing devil’s advocate was a standard technique. “Before the passes are snowed in again and while there’s still grazing. Otherwise the League of Des Moines and the Canuks will get to Corwin before we do. And you . . . we . . . Montival . . . don’t want that.”
“No, though the Lakota will be with them, and they’re part of Montival now, keeping our spoon in that stewpot across the Rockies. Also our allies may not get to Corwin this year, being naturally less eager than we; if they tie down the bulk of the Prophet’s men on the high plains, I’ll be satisfied. But when Corwin falls, the war is over bar the mopping up.”
“When being the operative word,” Fred observed dryly.
“Exactly. Fighting into next year means fields unplanted or unharvested, and there’s been too much of that already.”
“So . . . ‘if it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly,’” Fred quoted.
Rudi nodded, barring his teeth in what was not quite a smile. That was from Macbeth, and that tale of ambition and treachery and death seasoned with ill-wreaking magic was all too apposite.
“The city of Boise itself . . . that may be tricky. Your father built strong walls and gates.”
“Not if they’re opened from the inside.”
“That would be . . . difficult.”
Fred hesitated, obviously reluctant. “There’s . . . a way. Dad told me about it. I’m pretty certain that he told Martin, too . . . but I don’t know who Martin told.”
“Ah, so?” Rudi said softly. “Now that is most interesting. If . . . those Powers . . . thought to ask him, he would have told. Told anything. But they have a weakness; they don’t like the world of matter. They might not have.”
“And anyway, the fortifications . . . it’s the men that count, in the end. But the number of officers coming over to us is slowing down. Even though the writing’s on the wall.”
Rudi nodded grimly. “The Cutters can compel men’s minds, if given even the slightest opening. Notice how bitter Roberts was against the CUT? Somethin’ they did frightened him badly, and he’s a bold bad man. We need to bring as many waverers to our side as we can while they still own their own souls. That’ll be easiest if they’re facing you in p
articular rather than Montival in general, not least because they know the common soldiers will hesitate to fight their own. That may well have turned the Horse Heaven Hills fight in our favor.”
Fred mopped his bowl with a tortilla and chewed on it thoughtfully. When his mouth was clear:
“There are a lot of Cutter horse-archers still loose; if I run into them . . . there’s nothing like some plate-armored lancers riding barded destriers on your flanks to give you peace of mind. Say what you like about the Associates, they can fight. I won’t be sorry to have the Grand Constable leading them either, she may not be the most charming person on earth—”
“An acquired taste, yet worth the effort.”
“—but she knows her trade and then some.”
“Very true indeed, and I’ll be glad when she’s back. But the propaganda the enemy is putting out paints me as lusting to divide Idaho into fiefs for my supporters and build castles on it, the way my black spalpeen of a dead father-in-law did with the lands he took in his day . . . which admittedly was a great whacking amount of territory, which now sprouts noblemen and castles like toadstools after rain.”
“Yeah, if I ride in trailing a menie of armored Associate lancers with pennants streaming and gold spurs gleaming it’ll make that look sorta convincing,” Fred acknowledged. “Dad never slugged it out with Portland, but for a long time everyone expected that to happen, and there were some pretty bloody skirmishes before we split the Palouse with them. What’s your plan?”
“I’ll use them at need, but I’d like to keep the chivalry of the PPA in reserve as far as I can, until we’re east of Boise into lands where there’s no memory of the wars against the Association. Or of the days when Norman Arminger was the . . . what was the phrase . . . the big bad.”
Fred frowned. “I see your point. And they can be an arrogant bunch, and come across as even more arrogant than they are, to people who aren’t used to their, ah, ways. But from a strictly military point of view—”
“War is the means, Fred. Victory is the end, and that’s always about politics. We need to separate the remaining Boise troops in the field against us from the Cutters; the Grand Constable and the barons can trample them underhoof in finest feudal style with my hearty cheers. So I want air reconnaissance as far as Boise itself. For that we need good launching sites, say in those mountains southeast of here for a start—”
The Given Sacrifice Page 2
