The High King of Montival

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

NEAR DES MOINES

CAPITAL, PROVISIONAL REPUBLIC OF IOWA

MAY 15, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

When I was just a young warrior and at most tanist to Mother, I went on a quest for a magic sword and saw wonders and terrors, Artos thought. Now I’m to be a High King, and I spend most of my time in meetings. Meetings! So much for glory.

Mathilda seemed to read his thoughts. She leaned over and whispered in his ear:

“Mother likes meetings. She even likes reading and annotating reports.”

Artos stifled a groan, and took a glass off a passing tray held by a servant in archaic white coat and black bow tie. It was corn whiskey with water and, evidence of wealth and high civilization, ice.

Good of its kind, he thought, as the half-sweet, half-sour liquid bit at his tongue and slid down his throat. But by each and every face of the Lord and Lady, there’s a whole long list of things I’ d rather be doing!

He had Mathilda with him here in the big pavilion-style tent, with its drowsy-making scent of warm canvas. She was colorful and majestic in her cotehardie and wimple with its net of gold and rubies; she and black-robed Father Ignatius were present as advisors. Ingolf and Mary were off elsewhere being invaluable, seeing that things didn’t go to wrack and ruin in his absence. Ritva was present partly as Rudi’s follower, but also because she was the niece of the Lady of the Rangers, with the seven stars and tree on her doublet; Fred because of whose son he was, proud in the old-fashioned green dress uniform of Boise’s army, Virginia on his arm in the copper-riveted blue denim jeans, tooled boots and belt, white cotton shirt and silk neckerchief of a western Rancher. They were all looking a little grim, and hiding it well. Their mission would be much helped or hindered by what took place here.

Bjarni was King of Norrheim, of course, and so a sovereign ally, hiding his awe at the sheer size of Des Moines under a stiff dignity, and carefully refraining from mentioning the number of folk in his homeland when he spoke to local panjandrums. John Red Leaf and Rick Three Bears were in full ceremonial fig, including a sweeping bonnet of eagle feathers for the elder Sioux; he looked years older than Rudi remembered him, but that was probably largely exhaustion. Even his son, a man of Artos’ own age and reared in the saddle, was keeping going by main effort and sheer will.

Red Leaf has come a long way, and very fast, to get here in time. Especially when he had to spend days talking to his own people’s governing Council as well. That drains a man almost as much as twelve hours in the saddle, though in a different way.

“I’m going to sleep for a week when this is over,” he muttered to Artos. “And getting the folks back home to agree to this was even harder than the traveling.”

Artos nodded. I wish we’d had more time to talk, but time is the one thing we lack here. I felt like I was dawdling all the way to Readstown, but we couldn’t go any faster. Fortunately we’ve better prospects for speed from now on. .

“Though we’re getting closer to the enemy, as well,” he murmured.

Mathilda’s brows went up; she’d found time to pluck them. “I thought you said the Sword blocked their vision of you?”

“The vision of their adepts,” Artos said quietly. “It does nothing whatsoever to hinder plain mortal spies using the eyes in their heads and passing messages to men riding horses back westward. We’re not going through their territory this time, but we will be skirting it.”

The Bossmen of the Midwestern realms were here too, or in the case of distant Concordia and Kirksville their heirs were, accompanied by senior advisors; the young men looked serious with their burden of responsibility. Abel Heuisink and Kate Heasleroad represented Iowa, the richest and most populous and powerful nation on the continent. The man was in his sixties but trim and erect, with only a fringe of cropped white hair around a bald dome and clear eyes bright blue in a seamed, tanned face. He wore the usual formal blue bib overalls and billed cap of a Hawkeye landed gentleman; Kate, the Regent, was a little younger than Mathilda, a tall willowy brunette, and dressed in an imitation of her cotehardie. The two young women had become good friends during the quest’s brief, eventful stay in Iowa last year; Mathilda’s political instincts had been instrumental in helping Kate secure her infant son’s position when her husband was killed by the Cutters. She had also been rather taken with Mathilda’s little talks on the virtues of hereditary monarchy. Which was what Iowa already had been before they arrived, her first Bossman being the sort of proverbial lucky adventurer who founded a dynasty, but without much of the terminology, techniques or attitudes that made it work smoothly.

And Ingolf and I were helpful in reconciling the Heuisinks to the arrangement, despite their being leaders of the opposition, and for making Abel Chancellor to cement the alliance. I will not be informing her that Dalan and Graber are with us! I’m glad to see they haven’t fallen out again. . but a foreign foe will have that effect. The which the both of them know very well.

Abel Heuisink whispered to Kate, and she cleared her throat. An attendant rang a bell, and the aides and assistants stepped back. The principals gathered around a table shaped like an elongated oval and sat-or at least everyone but Artos did. There were startled looks at the Iowans as he went to the position at the head of the table, and more as he drew the scabbarded Sword from the frog at his belt and laid it on the polished maple before his place.

He’d dressed for the occasion in the ceremonial version of Mackenzie gear that he’d left here in Des Moines last year; a fine tartan kilt and knee-hose with the little sgian dubh tucked into it, polished brogans, tight green Montrose jacket with its double row of silver buttons and froth of lace at cuffs and throat, and the long plaid caught at the shoulder with a knotwork brooch and a tasseled fringe on its ankle-length trail. A broad black leather belt with a massive worked buckle cinched his waist and held his badger-fur sporran at the front and the dirk on his left hip, and a spray of raven feathers rose from the Triple Moon clasp on his tam-o’-shanter.

With his six foot two of narrow-waisted, broad-shouldered, longlimbed height he made a striking figure; the more with the jewel-cut handsomeness of his cleft-chinned face, framed by the red-gold of his hair and given gravity beyond his years by the scars. He paused for a moment to let everyone look-a King had to be something of an actor as well-then inclined his head a little to the bewildered dignitaries. Dress and titles had altered less here in the Midwest than elsewhere, though that was changing. He gave a silent plea to Brigid for wisdom, to Ogma of the Honey Tongue for the skill to express it, and to the Mother of this earth with her gift of sovereignty for permission to speak. Then he began:

“In the name of the Divine by all the names we call Them, be welcome, friends and allies. I am Artos, High King in Montival in the west; on the old maps, that would be Oregon and Washington and British Columbia, for a start. The government of the great Provisional Republic of Iowa has asked me to preside at this meeting.”

There was a low murmur as rulers leaned back to listen to the whispers of their advisors. He let it die, and continued with a slight bleak smile.

“With me you see those”-some of those, but let’s not complicate matters-“who accompanied me to Nantucket. There we found the source of the Change, and were granted visions. . and the Sword of the Lady.”

The looks were dubious, until he laid his hand on the hilt. Then there was a. .

Shock, he thought. Yet there’s nothing physical, and no one could swear that anything happened at all.

. . followed by a deep quietness. Awe, he thought, and perhaps some fear, as well as confusion in plenty.

“We are gathered here to meet the menace of Corwin’s black evil, of the Prophet Sethaz and the Church Universal and Triumphant,” he went on. “And his ally in Boise. With me are many who have suffered from that evil, and who can bring their strength to oppose it as well. Not least-”

His eyes flicked aside, and Fred rose, standing at parade rest with a face that might have been carved from dark polished wood.

“-Frederick Thurston.”

Another murmur, and he raised a hand for silence as Fred sat again.

“Yes, the son of General-President Lawrence Thurston, and his rightful heir. Unlike the murdering parricide and usurper who currently holds that city and realm, who conspired with the Prophet to kill his own father.”

Some of the Bossmen glanced at each other, or whispered eagerly with their advisors. Others sat with faces that might have been cast metal. None looked particularly surprised. Nobody who took or held power in these times needed to have a map drawn to show them where that could lead. He nodded to acknowledge it and went on:

“Now, you’ll be wondering what I bring to this alliance that mighty Iowa gives me precedence here-besides a fancy Sword and a strange costume, that is.”

A few flickering smiles. He nodded gravely and went on:

“I bring forty thousand men to the field in the High West. And more from other parts of my realm.”

The Bossmen of northern Fargo and Marshall had been giving Red Leaf an occasional hard look. Now the lord of Fargo spoke.

Dan Rassmusen, Artos reminded himself. Thin, a bit older than Ingolf, and a dangerous man if I’ve ever seen one. He fought the Sioux as a general for his older brother, and succeeded to the bossmanship four years ago in a neat little coup after the brother died, according to Matti. . who is never wrong on such matters. Ignatius thinks him a capable man, but bad.

“Where, exactly, is Montival, Mr. Mackenzie? Yah, I’d like to know where these troops are coming from, also exactly.”

He was whipcord and sinew, with cropped yellow hair, a short beard showing the first silver threads and cold gray eyes. Two fingers were missing from his left hand. Judging from his glares at the Sioux, Artos suspected he knew exactly who’d removed them.

The Mackenzie met the northerner’s gaze for a moment. “Well, my lord Bossman, what concerns the two of us is where the eastern border of Montival runs, does it not? For my realm stretches from there to the Pacific shores. And for that. . well, better to show than tell.”

He drew the Sword. This time the shock was definite and palpable, if still nothing that a camera or the machines of the old world would have recorded. The Fargo Bossman looked at it, winced a little, and then forced his eyes back to the gleaming length that seemed to draw in the sunlight from outside the pavilion’s shadow until it blazed like the sun itself. Beads of sweat appeared on his tanned brow, and he was visibly compelling his breath to a slow even rhythm.

“What the hell...” he muttered.

His hands clenched on the arms of his chair, and he was far from the only one. Somewhere a dry sob sounded, under a chorus of gasps.

Artos took four steps backward, reversed the Sword and thrust it downward. Eyes widened as it sank ten inches into the fitted oak-wood planks of the pavilion’s floor with no more effort or sound than it would have made piercing so much water. Red Leaf rose, levering himself up against the arms of his chair with a slight grunt; he was fit for a man his age, but he was also well into his middle years, and he’d been pushing himself very hard indeed. Then he came to face Artos across the Sword, looking directly into his eyes.

“Hope I’m doing the right thing,” he muttered. “Hope I talked everyone into doing the right thing.”

Then he sank to his knees. His calloused hands reached out and clasped the antler-embraced crystal pommel of the Sword, and his eyes went wide in amazement.

“Damn,” he whispered. “And I didn’t think anything weirder than the Change could happen.”

Artos reached out and laid his hands around the Indian’s. For a moment he felt a wrenching disorientation, as if he was Red Leaf rather than himself, and staring at himself; then he was:

A man in a breechclout who raced his horse up a stretch of grass, shaking his Henry rifle over his head, shrieking Hoon! Hoon! in savage exultation as the blue-clad troopers fell before the warriors who swarmed about.

A man creeping on hands and knees through tall grass towards a herd of buffalo with spear-thrower in hand and dart clenched between his teeth.

A man who stood and lifted a hand in respect as the mammoth blundered belly-deep into the tundra bog and his tribesmen closed in around its wounded majesty.

A man who drew a flint knife and sang the high wailing chant of his death-song as the sabertooth flattened its ears and slunk closer. .

And he knew what Red Leaf saw, what the Sioux chief was for instants that rang by like lifetimes:

A tall rangy man in buckskins with a flintlock in the crook of his arm, striding westward through a forest whose trees were like cathedral pillars.

A man raven-haired and high-cheeked, a hunter gliding beneath black pines on skis whose toes kicked up powder that glittered like diamonds.

A man blond and cold-eyed, dressed in mail sark and boar-crested helm, who leapt from the bow of a war-boat grounded by a burning village with a sword in his hand and a grin like a hunting wolf.

A man naked but for patterns in blue woad, his lime-dyed hair wild around his face as he ran out along the pole of the chariot between the galloping horses, shaking his spear and screaming defiance at the advancing legion beneath its eagle standard. .

More, for both of them. Men plowing and planting and building, hunting and herding, fighting and falling, men looking on a woman’s face with sudden astonished wonder, men leading children out beneath the night sky to name the stars for them, dancing joy-drunk in worship of their Gods or weeping in despair, singing as they brought in their harvest or starving in years of black disaster, men laughing, sobbing, dying. Back, back, until two who had the look of close kin stood dressed in hooded leather parkas and leggings by the shores of a lake that one day others would name Baikal. They embraced and spoke, and the words of a tongue long dead when the pyramids rose echoed down twice ten millennia:

“All the kindly spirits go with you, my brother.”

“All the kindly spirits stay with you, my brother.”

One man stood and watched with the tears trickling down his bearded face as the other turned to lead the sundered half of their clan eastward towards the rising sun-

Artos’ eyes blinked, and it had all passed in an instant. His voice was steady as he spoke:

“Whapa Sa, Red Leaf of the Oglalla and the Lakota nation, in whose name do you speak?”

The Sioux had only a few seconds more to collect himself; Artos nodded very slightly in respect for his wit and strength of will as he mastered his confusion at the sudden vision:

“I am Red Leaf of the Kiyuska tiyospaye of the Oglalla and the Lakota tunwan, and I speak for the Seven Council Fires of my people by their free consent.”

“What oath do the Seven Council Fires swear to me? And what shall I swear to them?”

“The Seven Council Fires offer their allegiance to the High King of Montival, their aid and advice in peace and the service of their riders in war. In return they ask good lordship and fair justice as with his other subjects, that they may hold their lands forever untroubled by any enemies and live by their own law and custom, under the protection of the High King’s Sword. So long as he keeps faith with us, and his heirs after him, we will keep faith with him and them; this we swear by the spirits of our ancestors, by the Earth beneath us and the Sky above, and all the Wakha? Tha?ka and by our own honor.”

Artos’ rich baritone filled the pavilion:

“And this oath do I hear, and swear in turn: I, Artos, son of Michael, son of Juniper; son of Bear, son of Raven, and High King in Montival. I swear that while they keep faith with me, in my realm the people of the Seven Council Fires shall hold their lands freely forever, and their own laws and Gods. None shall trouble them, or settle within their boundaries without their leave which they may give or withhold by sovereign right according to their own custom. This right I shall defend with all my strength against all men, failing not while I live; and also to them I shall give good lordship and fair justice as my subjects, respecting all right and law. I swear this oath by all spirits of Earth and Sky, of Water and Fire; by the Lord and Lady and by the Sword that They have given me, forged in the World beyond the world. May they and the Sword witness it. To this oath I bind my successors in the line of my blood forever, until the sky fall and crush us, or the sea rise and drown us, or the world end. So mote it be.”

A flash seemed to run through his flesh, and he was conscious for an instant of every vein in his body, every nerve, until it seemed he could see the very coiled matrix at the heart of each cell. Then it passed, and Red Leaf rose and put a hand on his shoulder. He returned the gesture, and the Sioux spoke quietly:

“You realize you’re going to have to spend six months touring around the makol repeating that with bells, whistles, chanunpa pipes and sweetgrass as soon as this war’s over, don’t you, kilt-boy. . I mean, Your Majesty.”

“That I will, and enjoy most of it. But let’s win the war first; time’s a-wastin’.”

He drew the Sword from the planks and sheathed it, conscious of a collective exhalation of breath from everyone within sight. This time he sat in the chair at the head of the table, adjusting his plaid as he did.

“Most of you gentlemen and ladies know the capabilities of the Sioux. Who have just, as you saw, joined themselves to the High Kingdom of Montival. Whose eastern border you now know, Bossman Rassmusen.”

The lord of Fargo looked as if he’d bitten into a very green apple. “We never accepted that border as final after-”

Artos held up a hand palm out to keep Red Leaf and his son from interrupting, which they were obviously boiling ready to do:

“You signed a treaty with the Seven Council Fires. . which now means with me. . and the border was about what it had been before the fighting started, was it not? I will see to it that the Lakota don’t trouble you, and the border will be open for trade. Do you have any objection to that?”

The man looked as if he most assuredly did, but he shook his head. Artos went on:

“Now, I won’t presume to comment on the military strategy of the campaign here, beyond the most general terms; you shall advance west, my forces-”

About which I know absolutely bugger-all, but let’s not become bogged down in details, for all love.

“-move to the east and we crush the enemy between us. Sure, and it would be foolish to try for more; under modern conditions the distances are just too large for close coordination. I shall lead in the west, the great Provisional Republic shall lead here in the east.”

He inclined his head towards Kate Heasleroad, and she returned the gesture with regal calm; Abel Heuisink was fighting down a grin.

“One point I do wish to make. The territories controlled by our enemies are part of the High Kingdom of Montival, and even if they don’t know it the dwellers are my subjects, albeit some are in arms against me. This war is against the Cutter cult, and the regime of Martin Thurston. It is not. . and I would like to repeat that, not. . against the lands or peoples they hold in subjection. I know that wars kill people and break things, nor can a great and numerous host act like so many pilgrims to a holy shrine. War means fighting, and fighting means killing and destruction. But I will have pledges that there will be no unpunished killings of civilians, or arson or rape; that in short there will be no wanton destruction or plunder beyond military necessity. These are my people.”

Abel Heuisink spoke: “I might add that Iowa fully agrees with our ally on that point. We want to beat armies, overthrow the men who’ve threatened us, and go home, not get locked up fighting peoples.”

“We are avenging my husband, the father of my son, and securing all our lands and peoples against an enemy who have shown themselves to be utterly unscrupulous and insatiable,” Kate Heasleroad added. “Iowa has no territorial ambitions in this conflict.”

Artos nodded. Which means nobody else should get big eyes either, he thought. And I will not have to start my reign with too many of my new subjects cursing my name.

Aloud he went on: “And even purely from a military point of view, keep in mind that not everyone will fight for the Prophet or the Boise usurper. . but that anyone will fight for their home and family.”

There was general agreement, if a little grudging in some cases. Rassmusen spoke again:

“Just one thing more. . Your Majesty.” The tone was absolutely polite, but Artos thought he detected more than a little irony. “Just how do we in Fargo. . and Marshall, and Nebraska. . know we’re not fighting to replace one threat on our borders with another? It’s easy enough for Richland and Iowa and Kirksville to talk; we stand between them and the High Plains and have since the Change. The Sioux gave us a lot of trouble even with this Corwin cult causing problems to their west and distracting them, and obviously they’d be even more of a menace with you and, ah, Montival behind them.”

“Security …” Artos grinned disarmingly. “Apart from my word, that is?”

His voice was calmly friendly, but the Fargo Bossman was a man of broad experience. He looked a little alarmed, and his pale eyes flicked to the Sword again.

“Nobody doubts your word, Your Majesty. But you’re not immortal. Men die, and not always of old age. Policies change too. Geography doesn’t. Suddenly I’ve got a neighbor that’s over a thousand miles wide, instead of a couple of hundred, and I’m concerned about my grandchildren.”

Artos nodded; that was a point. “To my word, you’ll have to add common sense. Montival has, will have when this war is won-”

If this war is won, but let’s be cheerful in public:

“-no more people than Iowa, or only slightly more. Dwelling sparsely in a land many, many times larger; and we have all of old California to the south of us when we need ground for expansion, as you Midwesterners have the empty parts of the Mississippi valley and the lands east of the river.”

“In the long term, though, your great-grandson, say, might get big eyes.”

Artos shrugged. “The Prophet Sethaz has big eyes right now, the creature; and Boise aspires to reunite the whole continent.”

“Yah, yah, but-well, you have a point.”

“The point being that a hypothetical threat in seventy years is no match for a very real one right now,” Father Ignatius observed dryly. “As a wise man said, in the long run we’re all dead. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

Artos nodded. “Montival’s center of gravity lies very far to the west, west of Corwin. Defending the Lakota territories we could do, at great cost and effort; fighting east of there would be a nightmare, against foes at least as strong defending their own homes and with their source of reinforcement and supply close to hand. As you said, lord Bossman, geography doesn’t change. Geography in the form of soil and rainfall dictate that the High Plains will be thinly peopled, and will have mountains between them and the lands of the Pacific coast. Montival will be loose-knit by necessity, as well as inclination, and the Sioux territories will be a buffer. Now, to business.”

The Chancellor cleared his throat, looked at Kate Heasleroad, and spoke:

“Iowa will contribute fifteen thousand cavalry, thirty-five thousand infantry, a hundred batteries of field artillery, and engineers, support troops and siege train in proportion,” he said. “They’re already mobilized. We’re also prepared to supply rations, fodder and replacement horses for the other contingents while they’re in the field.”

Generous, Artos thought. Though they can afford it.

He felt more than saw Matti nod slightly beside him. She scribbled on her pad and tilted it so that he could see without being too obvious about it:

And it establishes Iowa as primus inter pares here. Worth it for the long-term effect on the balance of power from their point of view. If they convince everyone of how strong they are, they won’t have to fight to prove it. It’ll show off the advantages of their central location, too. Abel and Kate want Iowa to be the power that settles disputes and holds the scales, but they don’t want to take anyone over.

Kate nodded at her Chancellor’s words. “I might add that the Dominions to our north, all three of them, have agreed to declare war on Corwin provided that we all do so.”

“Right away?” the Bossman of Marshall said.

“No, but just as soon as our forces actually take the field and cross the border, so that they can’t be left swinging in the breeze.”

“About time the Canuks got their thumbs out,” someone muttered. “Sometimes I think that they think we’re hardly better than the Cutters.”

“I don’t insist they love or trust us as long as they’re with us,” Kate went on. “And for their own good solid self-interested reasons.”

Mathilda beamed at her, proud and fond, and Artos blinked a moment as he saw Sandra Arminger’s face peering out through hers. They said that you should get to know a woman’s mother before you married her, because she was your fate in twenty years, but. .

Kate went on: “And I can’t answer as to how many troops that means, but it does secure our northern flank and it can’t hurt.”

There was a murmur of approval. Bill Clements of Richland cleared his throat and spoke:

“Richland, Marshall and Fargo will each contribute a brigade of four thousand cavalry, and their support services and horse artillery. The troops are already moving, and we can discuss command responsibility when they get here.”

And I’m glad that’s Kate and Abel’s job and none of mine, Artos thought.

Mathilda scribbled again:

Clements is happy that the younger brother of one of his Sheriffs is your brother-in-law. It gives him a link to Montival, which means he has an ally on the other side of Fargo and Marshall, which both outweigh Richland badly. They’ve never actually fought but it’s come close, and Richland has had a border war with that smaller realm, Ellsworth I think it’s called. That’s why they’re not here.

He nodded. Carl Mayer of Nebraska rose in turn. “We’ll kick in twenty thousand men, half mounted. Concordia and Kirksville will put theirs under our command; five thousand more total. Twenty-five thousand men. We’re already working on reconditioning the railways, have been for months now. We can push them across Wyoming to the Rockies as soon as the troops can protect the working parties.”

Artos heard Bjarni grunt slightly, as if someone had punched him in the gut and he was hiding the impact. The number of soldiers promised here was more than the whole of his people, men and women and children together, and these rulers were casually talking of campaigns across distances nearly as great as those between Iowa and Maine. In the abstract, he sympathized; he’d been stunned by the dense populations here when he came through last year as well.

Bjarni was probably asking himself why he’d bothered to bring his little battalion at all. . and then reflecting that it was for honor’s sake, and also because while Syfrid of the Hrossings was here, back home the new kingdom was being consolidated by his wife and his uncle Ranulf, who was also commander of his hird, his guardsmen. Not to mention the prestige he’d bring back, and the loyalty and tales of the men of all the Norrheimer tribes who’d have fought and fared so widely under his command.

Though the most remarkable thing of all about the Midwest is that even with all these people hereabouts, still they till but a fraction of the land, and it so fine and fertile-only a tenth even here in Iowa where there was no famine and there are as many folk now as there were in the year of the Change. Still less is put to use elsewhere, where things were so much worse in the terrible years.

He’d seen that when he’d come through last year, and again this spring; each farm in Iowa with its farmhouse-manor and dependent Vaki village was an island of fields and tended pastures, surrounded by lush vastness going back to tallgrass prairie hardly used at all, or to burgeoning marshland. That tiny share of the land produced such abundance that even the poor and lowly ate their fill here every day as well, albeit it might be corn bread and fatback rather than steak and asparagus.

Yet before the Change it was cultivated fields to the horizon everywhere around here, and every inch of this lovely black soil under the plow, and each farm worked by a single family. To say three hundred million is one thing; to see the soil that fed that host in the ancient world, and with so little human labor, is another altogether!

Regent Catherine Heasleroad took the salute of the march-past gravely, proud in her not-quite-Montival-style court dress on the bunting-draped stand. Her right hand was over her heart as the last of the regiments went by with an earthquake rumble of boots and a ripple of pikes, a flutter of banners and barks of Eyes right! Behind her a nursemaid held her son, who was quiet enough with the wide-eyed curiosity of a dry and well-fed infant.

Not bad, Artos thought as he considered the troops. They’ve been at work.

It was a warm bright day, humid as it often was hereabouts, and there were plenty of red faces in the ranks going past, but nobody looked out of condition or ready to faint. The recruits had been big hard-muscled young farm laborers for the most part before they were called to war, well used to outdoor labor and handling stock.

And the gear is certainly splendid.

Half the footmen carried sixteen-foot pikes; they’d been converted to the knockdown Montivallan model, so much easier to handle on the march. The rest had crossbows with built-in cranks, and prods made from old automobile leaf-springs. That wasn’t much different from the way many went to war in Montival, but here every man had half-armor; steel back-and-breasts, tassets to protect the thighs, greaves and vambraces and mail sleeves. The smell of coal smoke seeped out of Des Moines, and it was stronger still within the ferroconcrete ramparts of the city wall, where the foundries and forges and workshops were; their capacity to turn out equipment in mass and quickly was astonishing.

As if to punctuate the thought, a train came in sight from one of the gates, pulled by sixteen pairs of big brown oxen leaning into their yokes and keeping the trek-chain tight. The rail-wagons behind were heaped high with fresh-cast round shot in boxes, neatly marked as six, twelve or twenty-four pounds weight; more crates held four-foot catapult bolts, or bundles of the smaller forged-steel type that could be thrown to create bee-swarms, or bundles of arrows. The Iowan Bossmen had built up their armories with paranoid persistence. Even the bicycles resting in endless rows beside the tents were more than half of post-Change manufacture. That meant they were heavier and cruder than the ancient world’s models, but they were perfectly functional for the brawny plowboys who made up the army.

Most of the horsemen were light cavalry, bow-and-shete troops much like Ingolf’s Richlanders save for details. There were experimental units of lancers armed cap-a-pie on barded mounts, but those had been put together since the party from Montival came by last year and described the PPA’s chivalry. He didn’t have much confidence in them. It took a long time to make a man-at-arms who could fight knight-fashion, and training his horses was nearly as much time and trouble.

Their field artillery is fearsome, though, and there’s the Dagda’s own lot of it. Plus the combat engineers, the railroad battalions, the medical corps, the signalers. . all very formidable. Corwin has awakened a sleeping giant here, one they might have lulled to harmless drowsiness for many years yet if they hadn’t been so heedless in their pursuit of me.

A cold certainty filled him; that compared to the threat of the Sword, even this army was as nothing. That was why the Prophet Sethaz had been willing to let all the threads of his intrigues here tangle and break in an effort to kill Artos before he reached Nantucket.

The which he did not do, though not for lack of trying. And now I come for you, ill-wreaker, and on that day you perish. There’s a time for mercy, and a time when mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

“You’ve whipped them into shape,” he said to the Iowan rulers. “Much better than they were last year, I think.”

Abel Heuisink shrugged. “We’ve all been working hard. It’s doing Iowa good to have something to do together, come to that. We spent far too many years bickering with each other.”

Artos smiled wryly at what it was politic to leave unsaid. Thomas Heasleroad, the first Bossman of Iowa and the father of Kate’s late unlamented husband, had seized power in a coup during the confusion right after the Change and ruled with an iron fist. He’d been a tyrant’s tyrant very much in the mode of Mathilda’s father back home, if less given to picturesque trappings. Perhaps nothing else could have brought this land through so undamaged; granted that Iowa had been fantastically rich in food, still it had taken swift, ruthless action by a man with a clear vision and a willingness to smash all opposition in blood to make the transition without famine and plague.

Certainly even here in the Midwest nobody else had so little damage; most lost their bigger cities and a chunk of the countryside near them.

Unfortunately such a man didn’t turn from lion to lamb when the crisis was past, nor cease to play games of intimidation and divide-and-rule, nor had he raised his son Anthony to be any better. The second Heasleroad had won Kate’s love, but then he was the father of her infant son. Everyone else had regarded him with loathing tempered by fear of the State Patrol-which meant Secret Police; even those who backed him for reasons of realpolitik and self-interest had detested him as a man. His martyred memory was much more popular as a symbol of Iowa’s affronted pride than the living ruler had ever been.

“It’s a pity that unity here requires a war,” Artos said tactfully. “But on the other hand, we’ve no choice but to fight that war, so you might as well get some lasting gain from it along the way, eh?”

And how many likely lads will be down in the dirt with a spearhead through their guts before it’s over? How many homesteads burnt, livestock slaughtered, tools broken, how many children going cold and hungry? The Gods made men so that they fight now and then, but. . it’s not so much those like me I mind. I’m a warrior by trade, and I chose to take up the sword-and the Sword. It’s my own choice, and one I make again every day. The most of those who die will be levied by their lords, dragged from the plow willy-nilly, or just caught in the passing of the armies. So we’d best get it over with as quick as we can, and with as little damage as may be.

Abel nodded; Kate sighed, then did the same. He suspected that they were thinking much the same thoughts, and he felt better for it. Some of the Bossmen he’d met. . well, you didn’t get to choose your allies any more than you did your relatives; he was going to end up with Sandra Arminger as his mother-in-law, for example. And even more disturbing, the ghost of Norman Arminger as his father-in-law.

Leading a band into battle, my blade in my hand and my chances no better than theirs, that was one thing. This moving armies like pieces on a chessboard is another, and one far less to my liking. But some men take to it as if it were a bowl of nuts and berries and cream.

The camp stretched out around them-endless rows of tents in a half dozen styles, picket-lines and horse corrals, more rows of wagons with their draught poles neatly aligned, pyramids of boxes and barrels of hardtack and beans and salt pork and spare gear stacked twenty feet high. .

And men. Swarming, marching, heaving loads onto and off of carts and railcars from the half-dozen newly laid spur lines, bicycling as individuals and in squads and companies and battalions. Out on the open ground that in peacetime served as pasture for the herds of Des Moines and cleared ground for the murder-machines on the city wall more columns and blocks drilled, the sun sparking off armor and honed metal. Lines of crossbowmen advanced, knelt, fired their weapons in a series of deep sharp tung sounds and worked the cranks. Forests of pikes crossed, countermarched, lifted and fell to the calls of bugle and drum. .

The army of the League of Des Moines was enough to make the hair bristle up under your bonnet. Artos kept a calm front, but he had been staggered by its size as well. In all, more than sixty thousand men were camped here already. He mentioned that, and Abel shrugged.

“Plus what the Sioux can kick in. Though technically the Lakota are your men, now, Rudi. . Artos.”

“Twelve thousand men,” Red Leaf said. “That’s as much as we can spare and still cover our frontier. But they’re the best light cavalry anywhere, and mostly combat-experienced.”

Unlike your plowboys and the Farmer and Sheriff scions went unspoken.

“We can help you with supply; extra bows, arrows, mail shirts, helmets, and things like horseshoes,” Kate put in helpfully, topping him neatly.

Red Leaf nodded. “I gotta say, though, this is impressive. Just the numbers. I haven’t seen this many people all together since the Change, and that’s just the army, not the city. That’s just ff. . damn amazing.”

“It’s not full mobilization,” Heuisink said, jerking his head at the camp. “If we called up all the militia, we could field somewhere over a hundred thousand. More if we had time to train the Unorganized National Guard reserve. We’ve got a program in hand to give everyone some training but that’s for the future. Then if we really had to we could raise a quarter million. That’s not counting any allies. Iowa’s the biggest dog in the pack but we’re only about a quarter to a third of the total population of the Midwest. . nobody knows exactly, we’re the only people who do a real census.”

For an instant Red Leaf looked as though he’d swallowed something sour. Artos nodded soberly. Sandra Arminger had a mania for collecting numbers-statistics, they’d called it in the ancient world-and the Dunedain Rangers had sent explorers very far afield; both estimated that there were between fifteen and twenty million human beings between what had been Guatemala and the high Arctic, halfway through the third decade of the Change Years. Around half of them lived in Iowa and its immediate neighbors; over a tenth in Iowa alone. A rough rule of thumb was that a well-organized farming community could put a tenth of its total numbers into the field in time of war; more if the war was short and close to home.

Potentially the Midwestern bossmandoms could raise a million troops.

“But this is about as many as we can reliably feed out west, providing we get the railways repaired,” Heuisink said. “I have to admit the Nebraskans have been working hard at that and they’re well organized for once, and we’ve been helping. Even so, after a certain point the horses pulling grain eat everything they started out with. That point comes later on steel rails than it does on roads, but eventually you get there anyway.”

That admission made the Sioux look a little less unhappy, but not much. If you had an enemy who could shrug off the loss of whole armies as great as any you could field, and simply replace them with new ones just as large, the end of any struggle became rather predictable. Artos remembered things he’d read and that Sir Nigel had told him about Rome.

“Now it’s time for the State banquet,” Kate said firmly.

Mathilda laughed at the look on Artos’ face. “Enjoy it while you can, darling,” she said. “We’re going to be traveling very fast indeed as soon as they get those treadmill railcarts for the horses ready.”

“Hippomotives,” Abel said and looked at him. “Which will be by day after tomorrow, the engineers say. I’m a little puzzled why you’re taking any troops. It’d be faster still if you and your friends just went hell-for-leather, and you said you need to get back as soon as possible.”

“Partly to make it more difficult to overrun us with a raiding party, and even more the politics, my friend,” Artos said. The which Matti advised me on. “They’re expecting me, back home. Me and the Sword of the Lady.”

He touched the crystal pommel.

“And they’ll be glad to hear of the mighty host you’ve raised to their aid. But a mighty host a thousand miles away is one thing, and soldiers there to see and smell another; a sampling will be. . reassuring, so it will. And I’m making sure that word gets there quickly enough.”

“I’m not altogether certain it’s appropriate to start a whacking great war by stuffing yourself and listening to music, much less speeches,” Artos said.

The banquet was in the throne room of the Bossman’s palace in Des Moines-that wasn’t precisely what they called it, but it was what they meant. A great dome soared above in a fantasy of rare woods and columns, and the floor tiles of colored marbles swept in a circle around an oculus in the middle of the chamber, itself edged with a railing of gilt brass and wrought iron. The banquet tables were arranged in a larger ring around the oculus, and the Regent’s seat was back to the throne at the base of the great staircase that swept upward between two tall bronze statues of robed maidens holding lanterns.

Those glowed as the gas flames heated their incandescent mantles. The scent gave a faint tang beneath the odors of the roast suckling pigs, glazed hams, turkeys, barons of beef or buffalo or elk, lamb and veal, platters of smoked sturgeon, potatoes whipped with cream and scallions and garlic or scalloped or au gratin, tender asparagus, salads of greens and nuts and bloodred tomatoes, hot breads and a dozen more dishes. More lights of the same sort flared and hissed on the huge cut-crystal chandeliers above, and a spendthrift extravagance of fine beeswax candles burned on the tables, glittering on glassware and polished silver and gold and fine cloth. All the wealth and power of Iowa were here, the Sheriffs and richer Farmers, the National Guard generals and the industrialists of the city.

Most of the younger women were in local imitations of the cotehardie Mathilda had introduced and Kate taken up last year, a blaze of brilliant color and jeweled bands around gauzy, elaborately folded wimples and wrists and waists. A rather smaller proportion of the young men were in parti-colored hose and doublet and houppelandes with trailing dagged sleeves, but there was a fair number nonetheless. The sight gave him a moment’s sorrow for Odard. Matti glanced at him and he touched her hand, knowing she shared it; the young Baron of Gervais had delighted in that peacock display. Some of them looked as if they’d plundered the same books the PPA and its Society ancestors had referenced, with a wild disregard for mixing periods.

“At least Mother keeps the Associates to the fourteenth century, mostly,” she sighed.

“Little did you know what you did when you entranced Kate with your tales of court at Portland and Castle Todenangst,” he said to her. “I hear they’ve taken to tournaments, too.”

Matti grinned. “I never really did like the cotehardie. At least I don’t have to wear one here in summer.”

The older folk stuck to dresses and the bib overalls that were gentleman’s garb here, or even to the archaic suit and tie, though the greenish formal uniforms of the Iowa National Guard were common as well.

Servants in bow ties and white jackets swept away the last of the food and set out delicate desserts of pastries and ice cream, and the priceless rarity of coffee only slightly stretched with chicory. Artos sighed within; now would come the speeches. Iowans loved after-dinner speakers even more than Associates or the Faculty Senate down in Corvallis, if that were possible. You could tell none of them made offerings to Ogma the Honey-Tongued or Brigid, who was the patroness of eloquence and rhetoric, either. Mackenzies loved argument and debate, but at least they mostly did it well.

“Get used to this, Rudi,” Mathilda said. “A King’s life has a lot of ceremony.”

He sighed openly. “You know, acushla, there’s many a thing I want to do as High King, starting with winning this war but not ending there. Things that need doing, and I think I can do them well-more of them with you to back me, and our friends. But it bewilders and amazes me that so many wish to have such a job as a job. I’d rather work in a sawmill. I’d sleep better and my digestion wouldn’t suffer, so it wouldn’t.”

Mathilda chuckled and began to reply. Then she stiffened, staring at the side of a towering silver basket full of colorful fruits. Her hand darted out and seized a porcelain coffeepot and whipped it over her shoulder.

“Assassins!” she screamed, in the same instant-not in fear, but at maximum volume to cut through the buzz of white noise.

A real scream sounded. .

Artos rose and turned before the first syllables were out of Matti’s mouth, pushing off with one foot against a table leg and swaying his torso aside. A nine-inch curved blade flashed by, brushing his ear with cold fire; he wasn’t sure whether it had been aimed at him or Mathilda, but he was sure that the bow tie and white tuxedo coat weren’t the man’s real uniform. Not that it mattered, and half the killer’s face was covered in scalding-hot coffee. The bladed palm of his own left hand whipped down into the shoulder of the assassin’s knife arm, striking with a dull axlike sound as bone and cartilage snapped. In the same instant his knee pistoned up into the man’s crotch. He was wearing a cup beneath his trousers, but that still brought a shrill shriek.

Artos turned instantly, leaving the first assailant. Mathilda was handicapped by the cotehardie, but in seconds she had the man efficiently facedown on the table with his functional arm in a paralysis hold and his own kill-dagger pricking behind one ear. He heaved and screamed in rage despite the agony until she reversed the weapon and rapped him behind one ear with scientific precision.

Artos had his own problems. The whole head table was dissolving into a chaos of screams and flashing knives.

Mary and Ingolf were back to back in front of Abel Heuisink, who was clutching at a spreading red stain on his side and stamping at something out of sight on the floor as if on a scorpion. Ingolf had another of the false waiters by the wrist and had disarmed him by the straightforward method of squeezing and twisting until the bones broke with a tooth-grating crackle, while he used the captive arm to whip the man forward into a crunching head butt. He could see Virginia Thurston, nee Kane, taking down another with a spectacular leaping kick with one hand braced on the table; she’d insisted on wearing the gold-riveted blue jeans that were formal wear in her native Wyoming.

Fred was nearly as fast, but he’d been delayed by snatching at a saber hilt that wasn’t there. Iowa was a civilized realm, where men didn’t carry swords or fighting-knives to a state dinner. Father Ignatius was on his feet, one hand wrenching the rope belt of his black robe free; from the way it whipped through the air as he sidled in front of Mathilda the knot at the end had a lead core. Artos snatched a cover off a plate and dove to his right towards the Regent of Iowa with desperate speed, thrusting it out like a buckler between her and the Cutter. The dagger there clanged against the antique silver, but that left him draped across the table and off balance.

Kate Heasleroad was as helpless as he, sprawled backward and pinned by the royal clothing, but she scrabbled and kicked furiously, and the heavy skirt took the first stab of the dagger. Artos scissored his legs and came erect in time to catch the man under the jaw with the heel of his palm. He wasn’t set for the full bone-shattering power the blow could deliver, but it jarred through his arm and shoved the smaller man back on his heels. He was vaguely conscious that Bjarni had closed with the only other assassin, taking a stab in the belly that the mail vest under his shirt turned, then grabbing him in a bear hug and squeezing, squeezing. .

The last man was back on the balls of his feet, knife held out and point down with his thumb on the pommel, an expert’s grip that could stab or back-slash with rattlesnake speed. Artos stripped the little sgian dubh out of his knee-sock. Perhaps thirty seconds had passed since Mathilda saw the first man’s reflection in the silver before her and saved them all, and the guards were closing in at last-there weren’t as many of them in the throne room as there had been in mad Anthony Heasleroad’s day.

There was the briefest pause as the knife-man’s eyes locked on his.

“Don’t do it, man,” Artos said. “Surrender and I’ll pledge your life.”

The blue gaze narrowed, and the knife-point began to move. Artos looked into the face of desperate courage, and killed it.

Then he stepped back, and the mail-clad guards rushed in. Ignatius straightened and spoke, steady and controlled but loud:

“Everyone, please remain calm. Don’t try to leave, everyone must be questioned.”

The cool good sense cut through the room; most of the guests weren’t sure what had happened anyway, except that it was bad. Kate Heasleroad stepped forward with her eyes flashing:

“Captain Dietrich!” she snapped.

The commander of the State Patrol stepped forward in his turn; he was a young man with a clipped blond mustache. Turnover in the security corps had been rapid after last year’s change of regime, not to mention that the head of his service had died in the turmoil.

“Ma’am?” he said, standing ramrod straight and obviously wishing his vital functions would cease.

“Chancellor Heuisink is wounded. Get a physician. And take control of the surviving assassins. I want a full debriefing by no later than tomorrow. Interrogate them. Break them, do you understand me?”

And last year she was a gentle, shy, retiring girl, Artos thought, as his breathing slowed. He exchanged a glance with Mathilda, his wry smile saying, Well, you helped her hatch as plain as words, then spoke:

“I think the Sword could help with that, Lady Regent, and make the process swifter and less bloody all ’round.”

Many hours later he buried his head in the curve of Mathilda’s neck; they were alone at last. She stroked his hair, careful of the bandage over his ear.

“I’m tired of this, Matti,” he said. “It’s been years now; fighting and running, now them running and still more fighting. I’m tired of seeing brave men die; tired of killing them. I want to make us a home, and wake up beside you every day, and take our children on visits to their grandmothers. I want it to stop.”

“My poor darling-”