The Protector's War (63 page)

She turned to the two children. “Is Chaka here your friend?” she said.

Mathilda stood proudly. “Yes!” she said. “I won't let you hurt him—and he's the son of my father's handfast man.”

Juniper hid a quirk of her lips. That was another word that the younger generation could use without the feeling of playacting she suspected even Arminger felt.

“He doesn't look well, and a hit on the head is always chancy,” she said. “It would be best for him to rest quietly, not be thrown over a saddle hog-tied. Will you give your oath not to escape or try to escape or give away our position, if I let him go? Leave him here for his father's men to find, that is.”

The girl's eyes narrowed. Even at her age, a lifetime being brought up at Arminger's court would have bred wariness. “Why don't you let me go too?”

“You're not a fool, my girl. Neither am I. Make up your mind and do it fast.”

“Father said you were a tricky one, too,” she said, surprising Juniper. Then she turned: “Father Rodriquez! Bring your Bible, quickly.”

Eilir, Astrid,
she signed, while the swift ceremony was done.
You'll each take ten archers, the wounded, and all the horses we've got, and half these refugees each. Get over the border as fast as you can; they'll be on our trail and we'll be loud and conspicuous. Eilir, you take the girl, and I wouldn't be expecting perfect trust from her just yet, promise or no. Questions? No? Then move!

Sam Aylward already had the main column forming up. Juniper swung into the saddle, and waved to acknowledge their cheer as a shout ran down their ranks, marked by bows tossed into the air and caught with flourishes. Someone struck up the pipes, which was safe enough just now, and the rest began to sing as they swung out. Sam cocked an ironic eye at her as the old Jacobite song—highly modified—roared out.

Well, people need songs,
she thought defensively.
And it's a great tune!

Their clansfolk were happy with their victory, and some of the locals looked positively uplifted as the chorus sounded:

Crossing Tavern, Willamette Valley, Oregon

May 12th, 2007 AD—Change Year Nine

 

“…and the rest of us headed west, dodging when we could and fighting when we couldn't,” Juniper finished. “Eilir and Astrid both got their groups over the border to Mt. Angel—the good baron pulled out the usual patrols to look for us, you see. I suspect he wasn't looking forward to telling Arminger why his dear little Chaka was set free, while Princess Mathilda was taken prisoner.”

“That messenger, back when we were arranging for Crusher Bailey's last barn dance?” Havel said.

Juniper nodded. “Little Miss Arminger is now safely ensconced in Dun Juniper, with a good many watchful eyes on her. And leading everyone a merry chase, from the report. Now we have to figure out what to
do
with her.”

“That was really quite clever,” Signe said. “Making her swear an oath like that—not that Daddy would care, mind you.”

Juniper nodded respectfully. “A game you grow up playing and play all your days isn't a game. It's your life,” she said.

“Will he care we've got his kid?” Havel said. “Much, I mean. He'll know we're not going to pull out her toenails or anything like that.”

“He'll
know
that, but I doubt he'll
believe
it, down in his gut,” Juniper said shrewdly. “Since he wouldn't be so…squeamish…himself. And she's his
only
legitimate child. He's invested a very great deal of himself in being the founder of a dynasty and all that foolishness.”

 

Arvand Sarian had
not
given Lord Bear and his lady the same cramped room they'd shared with Kendricks the night before. Havel didn't know or care if this was actually Sarian's own bedroom; it was fairly spacious, looked on an interior courtyard of the ramshackle building, and had a good clean king-sized bed.

Which is sort of ironic, when you think about it,
he mused, leaning back against the pillows with his hands behind his head, unconsciously checking that the belt with his dagger and backsword hung just far enough away for an easy draw.

The room also had an armoire with a good tilting mirror. Signe Havel sat at it, brushing out her long hair and looking thoughtful as the lavender-scented candle flickered beside her.

“I wonder if it would be worth the trouble of dyeing it back to my natural color?” she mused, then glanced at him expectantly in the lookingglass.

“By the way,” Havel said. “I'm
very, very
sorry. I screwed up. I'll never do anything like that again. Our kids are my sole heirs and I'll announce it whenever you want…that's eight hundred and seventy-two.”

Signe smiled at him over her shoulder. “I'm holding out for one thousand even, but you're only a couple of months short of it,” she said. Then, thoughtfully: “I wish we were the ones holding Princess Mathilda.”

She used the title with less irony than he could have, but the thought was worth considering. He gave it a full fifteen seconds before he replied: “By Jesus,
I
don't! Worrying about Arminger's special-ops people swinging down the chimney every goddamned night with knives between their teeth isn't my idea of a quiet life. Yeah, it's an advantage having her on the whole, but the Mackenzies did the raid and we didn't, so they earned it. I don't think we could have done it.”

Signe smiled again; this time there was a twinkle of mischief in her bright blue eyes, if it wasn't just the candlelight.

“My darling, you are very intelligent, but there are times I doubt how far you look ahead. Let's put it this way. How old is Mathilda Arminger?”

Havel frowned. “Born late in Change Year One, wasn't she? Come to think of it, Sandra Arminger must have been pregnant when I met them that—what was it—April.”

Which had been just before he met Juniper Mackenzie and fathered young Rudi. He winced slightly as Signe let him know she remembered with a glance.

“Mathilda's going on nine; it was unplanned and delivery was by C-section, as you'd know if you'd just read those briefing papers I do at such vast expense of time and trouble. Now, who has a nine-year-old
son
that we know?”

He stared at her, then snorted laughter. “Maybe I am an idiot, but I can't see Juney doing anything like…well, shit, you know her,
alskling.
The strongest argument in favor of the Old Religion I can think of is that someone that lacking in personal ambition ended up ruling a quarter of the Willamette—the gods must have been giving her a boost on the QV.”

Signe hesitated, and then nodded reluctantly: “Yeah, honey, I admit
she
might not think of it. But a fair number of
other
people might. Arminger or his wife, for example. I suspect that's why his little bitch was over where she was. Molalla is one of his strongest supporters—or was, before this. A get-the-kids-acquainted visit, I'd guess.” A moment of thoughtful silence, then: “Why do you think Arminger hasn't come right out and called himself King Norman the First?”

“Ummm…because it would sound so fucking stupid?” Havel said, chuckling. “I mean, unless he wanted people making Elvis jokes behind his back.
The Protector is…in the building!
Same reason I didn't call myself the Boss and get the Springsteen snickers. Not all his backers were those Society weirdos who like that sort of thing; a lot of them couldn't stomach him. Plenty of others already think all that pseudomedieval crap he goes in for is evidence of his not being the most stable chair at the table as it is.”

“
Grimy arsre,
cried the kettle to the pot, my sweet
Lord Bear.
”

“Hey, that was Astrid!”

“But Mike, there aren't that many people around who were even adults when the Change hit—and people over forty were a
lot
less likely to make it through alive. If you ask people the same age as my demented little sister, or the ones who're younger, most of them have never heard of Elvis or Springsteen. They
have
heard of the Lord Protector, and sweetie, they don't think
he's
funny at all. Hell, darling, most of them don't even think
Astrid
is funny, which is funny it-self and scary too. By the time Mathilda Arminger and Rudi Mackenzie and the twins are our ages…much less Mike Junior…”

“Ehhhh.” Havel tried to follow the thought.

And I think that was a polite way of telling me I'm a middle-aged fuddy-duddy stuck in a pre-Change mental rut.
Aloud, he went on: “Look, Arminger would never put up with Rudi Mackenzie as king of Portland after him—or even, what did they call it, prince consort.”

“Yes,” Signe said patiently. “But let's look at the alternatives here. Let's say we do really, really well in the war we all know is coming—I mean, God, we're fighting it now, more or less, whenever the Protector feels like it, because if we don't win we'll be too dead to care—so, if we win as big as we can possibly do, are we going to flatten the Protectorate?”

“Not unless they break up hopelessly from the inside,” Havel said ruefully. “Too many men-at-arms and too many castles. If we could knock off Arminger in the process, though, or make them turn on him—”

“Then they'd need a figurehead,” Signe said. “Depends when and how it happens, of course, but…so whoever gets the hand of the little princess might well pick up a big chunk of Arminger's power with it. If it were Rudi, that would make better than half the Valley. Not real comfortable for the Outfit, eh?”

Havel nodded. “But
alskling,
to get to that point we have to
beat
the Lord Protector
first,
” he said reasonably. “And we're a long, long way from there right now. Long-term alternatives are all well and good, but you've gotta prioritize. If you don't make it through the next six months, six years is sort of moot.”

She sighed, nodded, and came to join him. A long moment later: “
Ouch
! That's a bruise!”

“Sorry,” he said. “That's the problem with making out when we've both been in a sword fight. Too much like rubbing wounds on wounds…
ouch!
Hey, you did that on purpose.”

“Damn right I did, darling. Now let's think about this…”

 

“I'm dreaming, aren't I?” Juniper Mackenzie asked.

“Of course you are, darlin' girl,” her mother said. “There! Isn't it just ready, now?”

The plain suburban kitchen was just as she remembered it, down to the chipped white enamel of the old Maytag four-burner gas stove and the crayon drawings she'd made in sixth grade clipped onto the refrigerator with magnets, and the mixing bowls soaking in the sink. Her father's galoshes were by the screen door; it was spring, from the look of the lilac bush outside the window, but a gray, rainy, western Oregon day whose raw chill wind swung the seats of the swing in the middle of the little backyard.

She
knew
this house, the white frame Victorian in the Hackleman District on Elsworth and Seventh. A modest two-bedroom, not quite shabby, the water damage in the upper rear corner of the ceiling from the windstorm back in October of '62 neatly repaired by her father's own clever hands—it hadn't been when her parents bought the house in 1968, the year of her birth, which had cut the price to something they could afford. It even smelled the same: waxed linoleum and a sachet of dried lavender and the peculiar smell of the mutton-based shepherd's pie her mother made, overlaid with the good scent of the raisin-studded soda bread she was lifting out with her oven mitts. The same print of a Madonna and Child taken from a Church calender in 1982, the same checked tablecloth…

Mary Mackenzie was in her late thirties, as she'd looked a year or two before the accident, wearing an apron over a plain housedress, the first gray strands in her fiery molten-copper hair…

Just like mine,
Juniper thought, looking down at herself.

The homespun saffron shirt and patterned kilt should have looked out of place; with the curious logic of dreams somehow they didn't, not even the dirk with its carved bone hilt and the
sgian dubh
in her boot top. Neither did Nigel Loring sitting across from her, smiling as he dropped the little perforated silver ball full of tea leaves into the pot on the end of its chain.