The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change (18 page)

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Authors: S. M. Stirling

Tags: #Fiction - Science Fiction, #Alternative histories (Fiction), #American Science Fiction And Fantasy, #Alternative History, #General, #Regression (Civilization), #Science Fiction, #Science Fiction - General, #Dystopias, #Fiction

BOOK: The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change
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“And then Ingolf Vogeler showed up at Sutterdown a little over two years ago now, telling us what he found on Nantucket . . . and you know the story of
that
. What happened on Imbolc was that Rudi—think of him as Artos now—reached Nantucket,
found
the Sword of the Lady in the World beyond the world, returned and drew it in the light of common day. And at that moment Earth’s foundations shook, as they had not since the Change itself.”
“So, he’s got the Sword and he’s coming home, and he’s pissed?”
Juniper nodded; her leaf-green eyes looked beyond the wall for a moment.
“The Sun Lord comes, the son of Bear and Raven
,” she said softly.
“Lugh of the Long Hand comes again, in His splendor and His wrath.”
Silence closed down for a moment. Nobody who heard her could doubt her perfect sincerity . . . and she judged that
nobody
here was altogether ruling out the literal truth of what she said, either. She went on more matter-of-factly:
“And in the meantime, the Cutters have been somewhat weakened. And all we who stand against them strengthened. At least as far as their ill-wishing and malignant abuse of the Powers are concerned.”
Sandra sighed and rested her chin on one small fist. “I must admit that . . . that was a real problem.”
Tiphaine nodded from behind her. “We lost castles in ways that just couldn’t be accounted for,” she said. “Lost more than we could afford; we’d been relying on our strongholds to delay them. But now apparently we can play that game too.”
She inclined her head towards the Mackenzie chief: “Lady Juniper here bagged us an entire battalion of Boise’s troops just last week.”
“That was you?” Red Leaf looked at her, surprised. “I heard they surrendered, which is news ’cause they’re tough bastards generally, but . . . you
hexed
them or something?”
Juniper winced and rubbed the fingertips of her right hand over her forehead. “I cast troubles into their dreams, and they’ll be none the worse for it. Eventually. Most of them. I wouldn’t have done it if there hadn’t been a High Seeker out of Corwin with them, because there’s a price to be paid for that. And I do
not
wish to discuss it, so.”
“But we must,” Sandra said. “If these things are possible now—”
“They were
always
possible!” Juniper snapped. “Magic is . . . not a matter of clicking your heels and having boulders fall upward. It’s a thing of mind and soul and will. I will admit—” she said reluctantly. “I will admit that things have become . . . easier since the Change. And much easier since Imbolc. The Veil is thinner. Something . . . or someone . . . moved through me; it’s not the first time, but it was the most disturbing. The which is linked to Rudi bringing the Sword. A new thing has come into the world.”
“Indisputably so,” Sandra said. “It’s disturbing, as you say, but I’m not going to deny the evidence of my senses.
That
would be irrational. Though I’ve tried prayer and it doesn’t seem to do any more for me than it ever did.”
“Of course it doesn’t!” Juniper said sharply. “You don’t believe in anything; you pray to nothing for something and you get . . . nothing!”
“Is
nothing
sacred?” Sandra murmured.
Juniper made an impatient gesture; then she spoke very softly. “This frightens me, Sandra. More than it does you. I really know the implications, and you don’t. We’re not talking about a better breed of catapults or . . . or D&D hit levels. We’ve always walked with our legends. But what happens if our legends start to walk with
us
? What will the world be then? Will the Powers burst the everyday asunder in their contentions?”
“At least we’re not at a disadvantage in . . . non-material terms anymore,” Tiphaine said. “Which just leaves the fact that we’re badly outnumbered.”
“Yeah,” Red Leaf said, visibly putting other things aside. “OK, I’ve seen enough here to know you guys can put up a stiff fight. But as matters stand, Corwin and Boise between them have you beat in the next couple of years, right?”
“It’s not inevitable,” Tiphaine said. “But when you’re fighting someone who can replace losses and you can’t—” A shrug. “It’s the way to bet. Particularly if they don’t make any big mistakes or take big risks, and so far they haven’t. Grinding forward costs, but they can do it if they’re prepared to pay the butcher’s bill. They’ve already overrun most of our part of the Palouse, and even more south of the Columbia.”
“And having disposed of us, the Cutters will turn on you,” Sandra pointed out.
“Possibly,” Red Leaf said. “Or maybe Corwin and Boise will have it out and whoever’s left standing won’t have any attention left to pay to us. They’re partners now; that won’t last forever.”
“If this were merely a war of men, that might be so,” Juniper said. “But Corwin has no partners. It has only prey. The CUT is an infection that spreads like mold through bread.”
Silence stretched. “OK, you got something there, too,” Red Leaf said. “But we fought them once before and we got beat. Not whipped, but beat.”
“With us on your side, the odds would be much better,” Tiphaine said. “You could bring, what, fifteen thousand men into the field?”
“Ten to fifteen if they’re going to be away from home for a while,” Red Leaf said. “But—”
“But they’re all light cavalry, horse-archers,” Tiphaine said. “No siege train, no infantry and no logistics beyond foraging and what they can carry in their saddlebags or drive along on the hoof. Plus they all need grazing for three horses each.”
“Yeah,” the Indian said. “Most of the Cutters fight that way too, Ranchers and their cowboys, but they’ve got drilled infantry, and they’ve got the Sword of the Prophet—regular troops. Not tin-plated like you guys in the Association here, but more punch than our riders in a stand-up fight. And they’ve got forts. With Boise on their side they’ve got another big tough army,
lots
of forts, and field artillery, too—how they square that with the crazy religious thing about no gears or machinery, God only knows. We don’t have a ban on machinery, but we just don’t run to that war-engine stuff. It doesn’t go with moving around the way we do. And we’ve had some painful experience with it.”
“We
do
have field artillery and a siege train,” Tiphaine pointed out. “Taking all of . . . Montival . . . as a whole, we’ve got a
great deal
of field artillery; we and the Bearkillers and the Corvallans make some of the best. And we have relatively recent experience at using it. Mostly on each other, back a decade and change.”
“Yeah, but you’re on the other side of them from us. It’s our guys who’d have to ride into the teeth of bolts and round shot and balls of napalm at three times bow-range without being able to hit back, or try climbing stone walls on ladders while the people inside pumped flaming canola oil on them. Not good.”
Sandra almost purred as she held a hand out to Lady Jehane. The amanuensis slid a folder from an accordion file and pushed it under her liege-lady’s fingers. It was correspondence, on heavy parchment-like paper, thick with official letterheads and seals.
“As it turns out, something can be done about that. You’re aware of what happened in Iowa while Mathilda and Rudi . . . Artos . . . were passing through?”
Three Bears spoke: “The Cutters who were chasing Rudi, and some of their local butt-monkeys, managed to kill the Bossman of Iowa while they were trying to get at Rudi and his friends. While they were his guests. The Iowans are totally ripshit and aren’t going to calm down anytime soon. But how did
you
guys find out?”
His father glanced at him; Sandra chuckled a little, a warm comfortable sound.
“No, it’s a good question. We have a route of communications
around
the Cutters now.”
“Through the Dominions?” Red Leaf asked sharply.
“Exactly.”
The Dominions of Drumheller, Moose Jaw and Minnedosa spanned what had once been the prairie provinces of central Canada from west to east. They had settled governments, and a scattered semblance of civilized life in farm and ranch and small town, as far north as the Peace River country. Drumheller abutted on the lands ruled by the Prophet, and also had a border with Montival, through the Association’s holdings in what had been British Columbia.
“How come?” Red Leaf asked. “They’ve always been pretty isolationist. I thought the Cutters had ’em spooked, Drumheller in particular.”
“They’ve reconsidered,” Sandra said. “Or possibly simply considered where they’ll be when Corwin and Boise have destroyed us.”
“Or where they’ll be if
we
win and they’re surrounded by hostile neighbors they refused to help,” Juniper pointed out. “I think Iowa helped persuade them.”
Sandra gave her a considering glance and murmured: “Dear Juniper, occasionally you remind me that honesty isn’t
necessarily
linked to stupidity.”
Louder, to the two Sioux: “And these letters are from the new Regency Council of the Provisional Republic of Iowa. In the names of the Regent, Lady Catherine Heasleroad, speaking for her son Thomas who is the heir to the Bossmanship, and the Chancellor, Abel Heuisink, for the rest of Iowa’s government. Both speaking for
the Sheriffs, Farmers and People of Iowa
, as they rather quaintly put it; or
Barons, Knights and Commons
, in our terminology. Offering a very substantial military force, from Iowa and the neighboring states. Fargo, Marshall, Richland, Nebraska, Concordia, Kirksville. They’ll be abundantly well equipped and as numerous as the supply situation permits; that’s the most densely populated part of the whole continent from Guatemala to Alaska now.”
“The logistics are pretty good, too,” Tiphaine put in. “If the railroads were put back into commission—and they also have plenty of labor and good engineers, and even rolling mills for light rail—”
The two Sioux sat bolt upright; Red Leaf choked slightly on a mouthful of coffee and clashed the priceless Sèvres cup down in its saucer.
“Now, wait a minute! We fought the Square Staters too, over the Red River Valley, for years. No
way
are we letting them get that sort of foothold on Lakota land. Railways and forts . . . where the hell have I heard
that
song before? Iowa alone outnumbers us something like ten to one. We held them off because they
didn’t
have any way of supporting armies on foot out in the short-grass country. Nobody was all that organized back then, anyway, but that’s changed too. People know what they can do now, and how to do it.”
Juniper nodded sympathetically. “Well, now, my dear, we have thought of that. Your fear is that having come to help you, the Iowans may decide to outstay their welcome and help themselves, to whatever they please?”
“Damn right!”
“Well, then, think on this; if
we
go down, then not only will Corwin eventually turn on you, but you’ll be caught between two millstones: the Cutters’ empire, and Iowa and its allies. Alternatively, the Iowans could decide to fight their way through you to get at Corwin. Which would leave you after the war with no friends and no bargaining power at all.”
It wasn’t a pleasant thought and she could see both of the Lakota mulling it over. The High Plains were a sparse hard land where the Mother’s gifts were given grudgingly; they could yield a decent living if the folk there had many acres per head and used the scanty grass and water skillfully, but they couldn’t support the great farms and towns possible to the east or west. Not in the world after the Change.
Ogma of the Honey Tongue, lend us your eloquence! For we are speaking for our lands and homes and folk.
She felt an impulse to reach out and shake sense into Red Leaf and his son . . . which would do no good whatsoever, of course.
“But,” Sandra said, raising one finger, “there is an alternative. One which will assure that the Iowans go home after the war.”
“Provided we win, of course,” Tiphaine qualified.
Sandra nodded. “Operating on that assumption, yes, Baroness d’Ath, since we’ll be too dead to care if we lose. Your Lakota country is drier than the Midwesterners like, anyway; they have land enough to feed twenty or thirty times their number lying idle inside their own boundaries, and more vacant to the east and south down the Mississippi Valley when they’ve brought all that under the plow. It’s one acre after another around there, fat black soil and well-watered, the best farmland in the world.”
“Yeah,” Red Leaf said. “They don’t
need
our territory. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t
want
it if they were
standing
on it.”
He frowned, looking as stubborn as a bull bison, and as dangerous, almost ready to bellow out a challenge to the world and charge heedlessly. Then he took a deep breath:
“So, what’s your plan?”
Sandra made a graceful gesture. “You know Rudi’s to be High King in Montival?”
“Yeah. Whatever the hell a High King is, as opposed to just plain King or President or Bossman or whatever.”
Juniper took up the story: “An Ard Rí . . . a High King . . . isn’t an Emperor or Bossman or anything like it. We haven’t settled all the details of the thing, but you may notice there are many peoples out here, with many ways of doing and living that have grown up since the Change, their own laws and ways and Gods.”

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