The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change (60 page)

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Authors: S. M. Stirling

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BOOK: The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change
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He called and talked to the man, who responded in a quick mixture of English and Lakota that Artos would have had trouble following a year ago. When his follower had led Graber and Dalan away he shook himself and shivered again. His finger wobbled a bit as if he didn’t dare point directly at the sheathed Sword.
“Man, oh, man, that is one fucking
scary
Wakĥáŋ artifact you got there!”
“My friend, you don’t know the half of it.”
Three Bears fumbled at his belt, rolled a cigarette, and touched it to the flame of a flint-and-steel lighter. He drew and handed it to Artos.
“You sure you can handle it?” he said.
Artos let the smoke out through his nostrils; for once it wasn’t just something to be endured for ceremony’s sake.
“No, I’m not sure,” he said, handing the little burning cylinder back. “Not at all. But I have to do it anyway!”
“Better you than me, dude.”
“And don’t I wish it was anyone but me! There’s one thing I
am
sure of.”
“Which is?”
“That as soon as I can I’m going to put this”—he slapped the hilt of the Sword—“in an honored place on the wall, and not touch it unless driven by sheer stark necessity. It’s dangerous, that it is; more dangerous to my enemies, which is why I bear it, but . . . it’s too
real
for the world, I think. It threatens to break the fabric of things just by
being
, and unravel the story of our lives, as if it were an anchor of cast crucible steel dropped into a world made of gossamer. And we the butterflies among the threads, so.”
“Dude, watch me shudder.”
He did, and drew on the cigarette until the ember underlit his high-cheeked, proud-nosed face.
“I’m just glad you’re on our side.”
“Frankly, so am I. And now I suggest we eat, drink and be merry. For tomorrow—”
“We ride like hell with hemorrhoids, yeah. I better tell my boys not to get too deep into the firewater and forget they’re guests.”
“There’s a fair bit of that advice going around tonight, I think.” Artos laughed. “And much-needed.”
His own gaze went westward, towards the high peaks his mind’s eye knew were there. What was happening beyond the Rockies now? Then he shook his head, and turned towards the lanterns that burned bright all along the walls of the Anchor Bar Seven. Mathilda would be waiting.
He smiled at the thought, and stepped out more quickly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CROWSNEST PASS
BORDER, DOMINION OF DRUMHELLER /HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL
(FORMERLY BORDER OF ALBERTA AND BRITISH COLUMBIA)
JUNE 7, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
 
 
 
“H
ome,” Mathilda breathed.
“Home,” Artos said, then laughed and shouted:
“Home,”
He stood in the stirrups, and Epona reared beneath him. The Sword flashed free—
Shock.
The moment stretched, and he
saw
.
Mounted warriors fought on a grassy plain that rolled upward towards forested mountains, their swords glinting in the bright sunlight. A white road lined with poplars smoked dust as a long train of wagons passed, leaving the powder heavy on the fresh green leaves of the trees and the yellowing grain behind. A couple made love in a haymow beneath the roof of a barn whose rafters were carved in sinuous running knotwork. A big dog and a five-year-old wearing nothing but a kilt and his own gold curls stamped and romped gleefully along the edge of a pond and ducks avalanched into the sky. A man with silvery stubble on his cheeks crouched in a dark stinking alley and clutched a bottle, whispering a name as he sobbed and rocked. A woman squinted as she leaned into the tiller of a gaff-rigged fishing boat; dolphins broached from the whitecapped waves around her as she called sharply:
Haul away and sheet her home!
A smith took a piece from the coals between his tongs and considered its white-red glow as he reached for his hammer. A tiger woke in a den on the slopes of a snow-topped mountain and lifted its head from huge paws, yawning, stretching until its claws slid free, its red tongue curling over ivory daggers . . .
“Rudi, where were you?” Mathilda asked, her face anxious.
He looked at the blade and smiled at her; he blinked against what he recognized with astonishment were tears.
“I was . . .
everywhere
. Everywhere in this land of ours, Matti, acushla, and I was the folk and the trees and the beasts and the land itself. Oh, and it’s beautiful, our Montival, a land fit for Gods and giants and heroes!”
“I hope we can make it a good land to live in,” she said soberly, still darting a cautious glance at the Sword. “For just plain people.”
“It’s not all bad, what the Sword does,” he said gently. “And we shall do just that, so.”
Then he laughed again as he sheathed it. “And right now, we’re riding up to Castle Corbec. We’re
home
, Matti, the two of us, and summer is coming, and the harvest of our hopes.”
Mountains lifted all around them, thickly forested with lodgepole pine and Douglas fir and clumps of aspen. Hills rolled down to the road bright with green grass, and a cool wind blew from the naked granite teeth of the heights, clean and scented with conifer-sap; snow glittered on the higher peaks. In the near distance a herd of elk took fright and leapt over the remains of a ruined fence, heading higher into the hills. Then they came over a rise, and the border fort was before them.
To the right of the roadway was a long blue lake that lapped against cliffs northward, and to the left the land rose rapidly. Ahead the highway crossed an arm of the water on a pre-Change bridge at one narrow spot where the flood turned emerald-green. Castle Corbec reared on a hill just before it, faced in hard pale mountain stone over its concrete and baring fangs of crenellation at heaven with water on two sides and a moat around; southward a waterfall brawled down a mountainside, thread-tiny in the distance.
“Looking as if it had been there forever and not just fifteen years, so it does,” he said.
Twin round towers with pointed roofs flanked the gatehouse, and flying from the spike atop one was . . .
“Arra,
that’s
even quicker work,” Artos said.
It was the green-silver-blue flag of Montival, the crowned mountain and the Sword, in pride of place above the other banners.
“That’s my mom,” Mathilda said proudly. “Bet you there’s thousands more like it all over the kingdom now, and not just in Association territory.”
“
The kingdom.
It’s starting to seem real to me, and there’s no escaping it. We dreamed a new name for a new country, and by the time we return everyone’s accepted it!”
“They were afraid,” she said, with the cool certainty that made you remember she was her mother’s daughter. “And frightened people grasp at things. They’re more ready to change.”
He looked back. The troops followed in a long column twisting eastward and downslope; lanceheads and spears glittered, and bright banners flew, but most of the colors were dark—leather, oiled gray mail, green or gray cloth or undyed linsey-woolsey, only here or there a glimpse of scarlet and blue and gold. Edain rose with a clod of earth crumbling between his fingers, and Garbh sniffed curiously at it. Most of his close companions were looking upward at the banners as well.
“It’s not just like riding up the lane to Dun Fairfax in the Clan’s territory,” Edain said, grinning. “But then again, it’s not entirely unlike, either, is it not, Chief? Though I’d give a good deal to see my family now, that I would.”
“Not entirely unlike, no. And I suspect there’s a few gathered to welcome us.”
A party was waiting for him under a pavilion not far from the gates. His breath came quicker as they approached, and he turned aside from the main road. A quick twitch of two fingers brought Mark Vogeler to his side.
“My compliments to Colonel Vogeler and Inspector . . .”
No, he’s promoted in time of war, when his redcoats become warriors rather than keepers of the peace
.
“. . . General Rollins, I should say. The men are to camp on the open ground before the castle gates and picket the horses by the lake; there’s firewood and hearths prepared and food and fodder will be sent out. We’re expected.”
“Yessir!”
The young man had acquired a scar on his chin in the fight at the Anchor Bar Seven, but still had that reckless smile. He thundered away, and for a moment Artos could be Rudi Mackenzie again. He pressed his legs to Epona’s flanks, and she wheeled and went up the little lane with gravel spurting from beneath her hooves, his plaid fluttering in the wind. Yes, a slight figure with gray-streaked red hair dressed in saffron-dyed long tunic and wrapped arsaid. The Lady Regent near her, and many another.
Epona reared again, and he laughed joyously. Then he slid to the ground . . .
And the whole assembly went to their knees. He stopped, shocked. Mathilda was beside him, and he could hear the chiding in her voice as she murmured, though it was warm and fond:
“You’re the
High King
, Rudi! What did you expect, a slap on the back and a mug of ale?”
“Rise, my friends,” he said.
They did, and his blue-green-gray eyes met his mother’s tearbrimming leaf-green ones.
She looks older
, he thought.
More than two years older
. Then:
Anwyn’s hounds take protocol!
With a roar he snatched her up as she rose, whirling her slight weight around and up in a circle.
“
Mo ghaol, mo ghràdh, is m’ fheudail thu, mo mhacan àlainn ceutach thu!
” she called, between laughter and sobs. “My love, my dear, my treasure, my fair and beautiful son!
Céad mile fáilte!
A hundred thousand welcomes, my son!”
A few looked shocked at the informality when he’d put her down and kissed her on the forehead; more were smiling at him.
“My friends,” he called, his arm around her shoulders. “I’ve returned.
We
have returned; and there’s much to do, a war to win, a kingdom to forge. But for a brief while, let us be men and women who’ve returned to their kin after long absence and even more worry and care. Yet one thing first.”
He squeezed his mother’s shoulders and released her, then turned to Mathilda. Their eyes locked, and he went down on one knee. Her hands went between his.
“Mathilda, we can have the great ceremonies later and the grand occasions. But will you wed me, heart of my heart,
anamchara
, and be my love and my other self, and I yours? This very day, on the soil of our own land, and with our good friend and comrade Father Ignatius to speak the words for us and our kin and friends to witness?”
“
Yes!
”
That did not surprise him, though he could feel his heart leap at it.
Behind her, though, Sandra Arminger put her hands to her face and wept tears of relief and joy, and
that
shocked him even in his moment of happiness. He’d known her since he was ten, and he didn’t think she’d ever made such a public display of emotion in all that time.
 
 
Sam Aylward looked at his son for a long silent moment as the nobles passed by towards the castle drawbridge; the square face that was so much like his, older now by more than two years but still so young, so young . . .
Full-grown now, though
, the Englishman thought.
Got a few scars there, and on his ’ands, that I can see. Twenty-one, by God! Just a hair taller nor me; and a hair thinner, maybe, the very last of the puppyfat gone. Looks ’ard enough to spit bullets; looks like I did when I yomped me way to Mt. Tumblehome. And if I were meeting him for the first time, knowing nothing, I’ d say to meself: Samkin, be careful with this one, for he wouldn’t start a fight but he might be the one to end it.
The younger Aylward had his Scots bonnet in his hand; he started to twist it between his fingers, and then forced himself to stop, took a deep breath and spoke:
“Well, Da . . . well, I’m back.”
Samkin Aylward reached out and rested a hand on his son’s shoulder, squeezing a little. Garbh butted her head under his other hand, and he ruffled her ears absently.
“That you are; your mother sends her love, and your sisters, and they’ll be glad to see you when you can be spared. And you’ve gone a long way to get back ’ere, eh?”
He nodded a little, looking at the taut quick strength of his son that made him feel every one of his sixty-six years.
“You’ll do, lad. You’ll do.”
They exchanged a quick fierce embrace. He turned his eyes to the tall honey-haired girl who walked beside Edain.
Bit of all right, that. Looks strong for her weight, too; this one’s seen the elephant. And sensible, I’d say from first impressions. No nonsense there.

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