The High King of Montival

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

FREE REPUBLIC OF RICHLAND

SHERIFFRY OF READSTOWN (FORMERLY SOUTHWESTERN WISCONSIN)

MAY 10, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

“He’s dead?”

Artos nodded.

“Yes, he is, Otter. In a battle with the Cutters.”

Jake sunna Jake’s woman had taken that beast’s name for her own here, while she’d stayed the winter. She was groomed now, her brown hair sleek, and wearing a Richlander-style woolen dress and good shoes with a silver Triple Moon pendant around her neck. It was as if she’d never squatted barefoot in rags and half-cured rabbit skins; he could tell she’d been looking forward to impressing her man. Now her eyes rolled up and she started to buckle; Samantha, the Vogelers’ housekeeper, caught her by one arm. A low wail escaped her lips, not too loud but continuous.

Artos waited for a single hopeless moment; he didn’t know her well enough to embrace her, and-

Then he drew the Sword sheath and all and held it between them with his hand just below the guard. That put the antler-embraced crystal of the Sword’s pommel between their eyes, so that they saw each other through it. The Southsider woman staggered, her dark face losing the rubbery slackness that had washed over it. After a moment tears trickled from the corners of her eyes, but the stare remained steady. It was his own face he could feel going white, as if spikes of ice had been driven into his chest and would never let go.

Dying must be like this. Or losing something that is beyond bearing.

“He was a brave man and died well, face to the foe,” Artos said, after a moment that seemed to stretch forever, and put a hand on her shoulder. “You and your children will always have my protection, as my own kin, for he was my brother. You shall be lady of Dun Jake. Now go and keen him, as I did.”

Tuk and Samul, the dead man’s half brothers and near-identical save that one was dark brown and the other pale-fair, moved to support her. Artos staggered as they left, his hand fumbling a little as he slid the scabbard back into the sword-throg that hung from his belt on three buckled straps. On the second try he managed it, and saw how shocked Mathilda’s face was.

To be sure, I’m not clumsy for the most part, he thought. Aloud:

“It’s all right, mo chroi, my heart. I’m. . I’m not hurt in body.”

He leaned against a tree, and took long deep breaths. In, hold, out. . as he’d been taught, the body helped govern the mind and spirit, for they were one. In, hold, out. .

“What did you do, Rudi, you idiot!” she said, hugging him fiercely.

That helped as well. Another deep breath, and:

“I ate her grief.” A quirk of the mouth. “Or some of it, at least. The first blow of loss. Swear you’ll outlive me, my heart. . or no, perhaps I’d be cruel to ask that of you, for I’ve never felt any single thing half so bitter. Not broken bones or cut flesh or fear of death.”

The pain receded a little as he spoke, but he sensed it would never be entirely gone. He’d grieved for Jake himself after the fight on the ice, as for a loyal friend and comrade.

“But this is entirely different,” he said, hearing his own voice shake.

As he straightened he fought for an awareness of the day, the noon sun overhead and its warmth on his bonnet and the plaid across his shoulders, Mathilda’s solid comfort and the clean scent of her hair, somewhere a horse neighing, somewhere a girl singing “Barbara Allen” and a spinning wheel moaning with a rising-falling note. The life of Readstown and the First Volunteer Cavalry was going on. As Jake’s woman and the sons she had made with him did; life was the answer to life, and death and loss were part of that never-ending story.

Know joy, there in the Summerlands, Jake sunna Jake. I wish you’d lived, and that we’ d been friends all a long lifetime, and sat together to feel the sun on our aching bones and watch our great-grandchildren draw their first bows. But that wasn’t your fate. Or mine either, and I know that for a fact. I wish I didn’t know what I’m condemning Matti to, and that is also a fact.

“You ate her grief?” Mathilda said, a little white about the lips. “That’s. . that’s terrible, Rudi!”

“It is,” he agreed hoarsely. “But a grief shared is lessened, just as a joy shared is doubled. And Jake came with us because I asked him. I was his chief; isn’t it for me to comfort his darlings, just as it is to see to their welfare? If the Sword lets me do that more directly than words alone can accomplish, why, that’s a mixed blessing but still a blessing.”

Mathilda held her silence, but he could feel her radiating skepticism. He shrugged; the work of the day wasn’t going to wait on his feelings, or hers for that matter.

“Let’s to it.”

Ingolf and Will Kohler were waiting for him in the flat meadow where the First was camped; Ed Vogeler too, and his son, and Wanda and some of her household workers not far off setting up trestle tables. A fair scattering of families-siblings, parents, lovers, or simple spectators-were waiting there beyond the weathered board fence. They weren’t that far from the complex of interlinked and outlying buildings that made up Readstown, after all. Nor were these Richlanders much given to formality, even in war.

“Let’s see them put through their paces, then,” he said when he was near the little party of commanders.

Kohler nodded at him in friendly wise; they’d met and sparred-literally-on the quest’s passage through this land last fall. He was a blocky muscular man a few years older than Ingolf, about four inches shorter than Artos’ six-two, but nearly as broad in the shoulders and with a swordsman’s thick wrists. His dark yellow hair was cropped rather shorter than the Readstown custom, and he’d have been handsome save for the fact that the tip of his nose was missing. Unlike most local men he was clean-shaven as well, which showed a chin like a lump of granite.

“Colonel Vogeler?” he asked formally, looking to Ingolf to confirm the order.

“Carry on, Major,” Ingolf said.

“Ensign, sound fall in,” Kohler said.

Mark Vogeler put his trumpet to his lips and blew the call. There was a concerted rush from the tents towards the horse-lines and a grabbing of saddles and tack. Of course they’d been expecting this, but nevertheless they were all standing in ranks by the heads of their mounts and ready to ride in a fairly commendable five minutes or so. All equipped as Ingolf’s young nephew was, and as was common for cavalry in this part of the world; they didn’t have heavy horse, though every fourth man had a light lance as well as bow and blade. The gear was approximately uniform, differing mainly in that some had scale-mail shirts rather than chain-mail ones, but the clothes were not; most were roughly practical, the sort of thing a man wore for a hunting trip, but he saw one pair of tight red trousers with gold piping on the seams, and several horsehair crests on helms, and plenty of tooled leather on saddles and tack and gear.

“Set them to it.”

The volunteers formed into columns of fours and rode a circuit, leaping obstacles of fence-poles and bales of hay; for a wonder, nobody fell off. Then they gave a show of arms, shooting into plank-and-braided-straw targets with their saddle bows at the gallop, slicing tossed apples with their shetes, picking tent pegs out of the ground with the points of spears. They concluded by forming into two groups and charging each other. That ended up in a melee, and several did finish on the ground clutching sore heads or minor wounds; three had to be carried off and wouldn’t be going on campaign anytime this year. Then they drew up for inspection again, and he went over them one more time when they’d been dismissed to their tents.

“More discipline than most rancher levies back home,” Mathilda observed quietly.

“Yes, my heart, but that’s like saying drier than the Pacific or uglier than meadows of camas in spring.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said briskly, when their troop-leaders were in front of him.

They straightened with their helmets tucked under their left arms; from the looks out of the corner of their eyes they’d heard something of him, and the Sword drew glances as well. That and the effort of following his Mackenzie lilt made them pay close attention. Mathilda got a few glances as well, in her titanium hauberk and coif and sallet, with the long shield slung across her back blazoned with the Lidless Eye.

“First, let me say what I like. Your troopers are strong and fit, they seem to ride well and have some idea of how to handle their weapons individually. They also have some idea of drill and maneuver; though how well they’ll remember it in a real engagement remains to be seen. And they’re fully equipped. Their gear is excellent, of its kind. So are their horses.”

Smiles were beginning to break out; the troop-leaders weren’t much older than their men, and from what Ingolf had said they’d been chosen for birth and cockerel pride and willingness to take on the burdens of the office more than anything else. He made a chopping gesture.

“Oh, and one more thing: I’ve no doubt whatsoever that they’re mostly brave as lions. With that I have exhausted the tale of their military virtues, so I have. They’re raw. Green as new spring grass dribbling down a sheep’s arse. The brave stupid ones will die, and the unlucky. The brave, lucky and clever ones may survive long enough to learn enough to be useful.”

He turned to Ingolf and Kohler. “Speaking of gear, there’s too much by about half.”

“Oh, criminy, yah,” the Readstown drill instructor said. “And believe me, we’ve been combing it out for a week already.”

Artos nodded. “Essentials only, discard the rest, no more than one two-wheel cart for every twenty men. No camp followers, and no servants. They can do their own chores. And lose the plumes and brightwork, and brown all the metal that’s been polished, the sorrowful waste of it. I don’t want anything that draws the eye. These aren’t knights who do nothing but charge. I want them able to scout and skirmish as well, and for that visibility is a drawback. Understood?”

Kohler grinned like something you came across in a wood. At night when you least wanted to, and after hearing several howls.

“Your Majesty, I understand you perfectly. I think we’re going to get along just fine. I’ll have ’em upside right by sundown.”

“Good. Dismissed, then.”

Raising his voice slightly: “Say your good-byes; we leave at dawn tomorrow and I expect to be at the landing before noon rolls around again.”

The meeting broke up; a band with a tuba and accordion was warming up near the tables, and the friends-and-relatives crowd began to mingle with the young volunteers peacocking in their brand-new gear. A long banner went up between two poles: Readstown Sends Her Best.

Artos looked them over. The youngsters were eager, their younger siblings and the contemporaries stuck at home with the endless round of chores openly envious. The older men here to see sons and younger brothers off were more somber and many headed for the racks of barrels that held beer and cider and applejack and whiskey; they’d seen the elephant themselves, mostly. In the years after the Change, or in the case of a few in distant lands before it, with weapons entirely different but dangers much the same. The younger women were flirting and laughing with the warriors and ignoring the burning glares of those not going.

Feast the fighting-men, dance and sing and send them off to war with kisses on their lips, Artos thought.

Their mothers and elder sisters tried for gaiety but their eyes were full of worry. They had seen their men ride out to fight before; they knew this was no game, and that there was no room for glory in the grave.

For the moment they all avoided Artos, still jittery from the rough side of his tongue. The battered brown-bearded face of his brother-in-law grinned.

“That’ll teach ’em. They think they’re hot shit and they’re half right.”

“It’s to be hoped they’ll learn.”

“You really want to take ’em along? We could pick up a battalion in Iowa, probably, and it would save a little time.”

“It’s only a little time. They’ll do; and nothing we could get in Iowa would be much more experienced. The longer you’ve got them under your eye, the better. Plus they know you, and your family, and me to some extent. Very few in Iowa saw much of us.”

“Fargo and Marshall have more combat-trained troops, and they’re on our route.”

“But I’m even more of a stranger there than in Iowa; they’re not going to give me men because I look so dashing in my kilt, to be sure. And there’s good material in these young men if they can be hammered a wee bit. . Colonel. Do you have time for that with all the rest you’ll have to do?”

“No, but I have time enough for Major Kohler here to use me as a scarecrow and boogeyman, hey? Good commanding officer, badassed second-in-command. It should work.”

“My thoughts exactly. The boats will be waiting and we should be in Dubuque before the end of the week and Des Moines not long after. A crowded journey, to be sure.”

Then he turned his eye on Mark Vogeler. The young man’s smile died at the cold blue-green gaze; the expression on Mathilda’s face was just as bleak.

“You wish to enlist in this enterprise?” Artos said.

“Uh. . yessir, Your Majesty.”

“So.”

Artos looked him up and down, ignoring his flush. The boy’s father suppressed a smile, and his mother looked up and then away again, helping to remove the cloths that covered trays of food and stacks of wooden plates. She was well within earshot. . but also a wise lady and concerned for her son.

“Now listen to me, boy. Ingolf is my comrade by shared peril and hardship, and my brother by marriage; your family is kin to mine through that. Also your father is my host and benefactor, and so we are tied by bonds of guest-friendship and honor and alliance.”

A pause, and then he barked: “And that is why I haven’t sent you back to play soldiers with a stick behind the barn.”

The youngster flushed more deeply, until his fair freckled skin was beet-red, but he kept his stiff brace. Artos hid his approval; controlling your temper was hardest at that age, just as that was the time when it was hardest for a male to think of anything but girls, or calculate a risk without insane disregard for reason and probability. He undid his sword belt and handed it to Mathilda, along with his bonnet, and unpinned his plaid from the brooch of silver knotwork at his shoulder. The warm spring breeze cuffed at his long copper-gold hair, but he had a headband to confine it. Apart from that he wore only his shirt and kilt, knee-hose and shoes.

“Can you obey orders, boyo?”

A stiff nod. “Sir, yessir!”

“Good. Here’s one. Kill me-or do your best.”

Blank bewilderment met him. “You’re in armor and you have a blade by your side and a shield ready for your arm. Do your best to kill me, boy, or I swear I’ll paddle your backside with the flat of your shete here in front of all who know you until you run bawling for your momma.”

Slowly Mark slid the blade out of its sheath, and the round shield with its brown surface broken by an orange wedge onto his left arm and then up under his eyes. He was frowning a little now, really thinking; Artos allowed himself a slight nod. The shete came up into the overhead point-forward-and-down position these easterners favored. It was the type of weapon you’d find horsemen using from the Rockies as far east as civilization went, based on the old tool whose worn-down name it had taken, but lengthened and slightly curved, sharpened all along the outer edge and a few inches back from the point on the other.

Like most this had a circular disk-shaped guard and the hilt was canted against the curve of the blade; the whole thing had a look as if the agricultural tool side of its ancestry had had a brief fling with the sort of Chinese dao-saber found in the ruins of martial arts stores. At least in the mind of the smith who made it. The weapon was of fine steel, and sharpened to a good working edge too. Young Mark would be as tall as his uncle or father someday, and was nearly there now; that meant thirty inches of sharp steel in his hand already had an uncomfortably long reach.

He frowned again, moved his feet to set himself, and then cut backhand and forehand hard and fast. Air whistled around the steel.

Obeying orders, at least; he’s not pulling it, Artos thought, as he swayed his torso aside and let the cuts sail by, moving without apparent haste and his hands clasped behind his back. That would have killed me, right enough.

The boy stumbled as the blade met air; then he recovered with an unconscious snarl and thrust directly for Artos’ breast in an extended lunge.

Smack!

The calloused palms of the Mackenzie’s large, shapely hands slapped together on the flat of the blade at its broadest section, just behind the point. The Readstown lad stood goggling for an instant, and Artos shoved his hands sharply forward with a flicking motion. The brass pommel of the shete smacked into Mark’s face.

“My dothse!” he cried in a pained voice, clapping his hand to the organ.

Blood leaked between his fingers. Artos heard his mother give a gasp, and his father and uncle what sounded like smothered chortles. He dropped the youngster’s shete, bounced the hilt off his foot to flick it head-high and snatched it out of the air. Almost in the same instant he dropped and pivoted on his left foot, his right shin raking out horizontally. It took the boy across the back of the knees, hard. He flipped into the air under the impact and landed on his shoulders and neck and head, driven stunning hard by the leverage and the forty-pound weight of mail shirt and shield. The breath went out of him in a bubbling wheeze, and again when Artos’ boot slammed down on the shield and pinned his arm against his chest under it. The stamp wasn’t hard enough to crack bone, but it was painful.

The shete moved in a graceful curve and dimpled the skin under Mark’s chin, where the Midwestern-style mail shirt gave no protection. The young man grew very still, despite the blood running down over his nose and upper lip and sticking to his pathetic attempt at a mustache.

“Now, think on this; a man in a pleated skirt just took away the sword of your armored self, killed you with it twice. . and stamped the life out of you into the bargain. What’s the lesson of this?”

“Dat I’m not’s gud’s you,” the boy wheezed, holding his nose and glaring.

Artos withdrew his foot and the blade. “No, it’s that you’re not good enough to be a fighting-man, not yet. There are ten thousand men and more, and more than a few women-one of them your uncle’s wife-who could have done the same, or at least killed you in a more straightforward fashion. Up, boy!”

Mark stood and braced his shoulders back. Artos grinned.

“You’re no coward, at least. But guts without brains are soon spilled to be meat for coyotes and crows, lad. Understood?”

A quick nod, and Artos went on:

“So if you’re to be worth your food in my army, it’s as what my Bearkiller relatives call a military apprentice. I’m making you your uncle’s aide. That means you carry his messages, do his errands, pitch his tent, care for his gear-and your own-currycomb his horses, make up the fire and cook the rations and whatever else he can find for you to do, the which may include emptying the honeybucket. You do it with your mouth shut, your eyes and ears open to fill your empty head, and willingly. If he tells you to run like a rabbit or jump like a frog, you do that. Is that clear?”

“Yeth, thir!”

Artos leaned closer; the smile went out of his face, and one knuckle prodded painfully into the teenager’s sore chest.

“And at the first sign of insubordination, the first whine, the first complaint, the first stupid buck-in-spring prank to prove what a big brave bold man you are, I will send you back home in your drawers, tied to a donkey with your face towards its rump.”

He leaned closer still. “And don’t smile, because that’s the truth of it and I swear it so by my mother’s head and by all the Gods and by the oath of my people. Do you think I’m jokin’, boyo?”

“No thir!”

“Understood?”

“Yeth, thir!”

“Good.” He relaxed and offered the shete hilt-first, spinning it so the blade lay along his forearm. “Go see to that nose. It’s not broken, eh?”

“I doan dink so, thir.”

“Scoot then, lad! And as long as you remember your promise, we’ll all get along fine.”

He turned away and let his grin grow; Ingolf returned it. Ed Vogeler waited until his son was out of earshot-barely-before bellowing laughter.

“Some things a father can’t do. Thanks, Rudi. It’s a load off my mind.”

“I took some of the piss and vinegar out of him, Ed. And he could grow into a fighting-man to match the best. But he’s young yet, and I can’t put him in a barrel made of steel plate-”

A nod. “Ingolf explained that, und in goddamned detail. I still feel better about it.”

“Men are weird,” Mathilda said with feeling, and Wanda nodded emphatically.

“But. . I feel better too,” she said to Ingolf and Artos.

Her assistants finished removing the covers, and the civilians-and the troops, once they’d gotten out of their gear and freshened up-crowded around.

Mary came up. “Enjoy it while you can, boys,” she muttered, as she took a plate. “It’s hardtack and stewed mule soon enough.”

“Exactly what I plan to do,” Artos said.

Now that the focus of work was gone he felt that cold emptiness in his middle again; one way to fill it was with food. Body and spirit were one. You could work from the one to the other. He loaded his plate with slices of cured ham, cold roast beef, pickles, dabs of mustard and horseradish, chicken, potato salad, spring greens, rye bread with butter, pumpernickel and white loaf, and half a dozen kinds of cheese, and added a mug of a dark bitter beer. The dried-apple and cherry pies and pastries tempted him back again.

“How are they?” he asked his half sister. “Otter in particular and the Southsiders in general.”

Ritva was off ahead of them all; as much to avoid Hrolf Homersson, he suspected, as because scouting was her specialty.

“Otter’s asleep. I got her to take some lettuce-cake tea. I talked things over with Samantha-”

Who was the Vogelers’ housekeeper, and unofficially and semiclandestinely a priestess of the Old Religion, which had a small presence here. It wasn’t identical to what Mackenzies practiced, nor yet to the eccentric Dunedain version, but there was a basic similarity. He’d put the Southsider civilians in her charge when he left for the east. It was more easeful for Mathilda if Mary dealt with her, rather than him.

“-and they’ve learned a lot. The Vogelers helped by getting them put out to live with people who knew crafts, and they learned a lot by just doing the work of the season, too. Plus she was running a Moon School for them.”

“They can follow along later, when the war is won,” Artos said.

Or stay here and make a life, if we die instead, went unspoken between them.