S. Stirling - A Meeting At Corvallis

Renfrew snorted laughter when he mentioned it, though of course he'd been in on the joke beforehand.

"It's the look on your face I'm remembering, Norman," he said.

The exit was in the ground-floor chamber, a great circular space used for dances and speeches, cocktail parties and meetings of the House of Peers, with the Eye set into the floor in mosaic. Today it echoed to the tramp of the guards as they fell in and followed him out onto the broad semicircle of steps facing the inner courtyard. The castle staff drawn up there cheered him; Pope Leo and the clergy were down at the castle's main gate, waiting for their moment, smells and bells at the ready. What halted him was Sandra in her light cart, and the closed four-horse carriage that would take Mathilda away for the duration.

She left her mother's side and began to run to him, then stopped and came on at a pace of stately dignity. Arminger composed his face to the same solemnity, hiding the burst of pride he felt. My little girl's growing up, he thought. Soon she'll be a great lady, another Eleanor: or Mathilda. That thought was prideful itself, but a little painful as well; soon she wouldn't be a little girl, either, and that perfect trust would be gone.

Mathilda went down formally on one knee for an instant, taking his hand and kissing it. "God give you victory, my lord father," she said; but she kept hold of the hand as she rose, and walked at his side as he came over to her mother.

Who may be a little irrational wanting to send Mathilda farther from the fighting than Castle Todenangst, this is the strongest hold in the realm, he thought. He looked into the brown eyes of his wife, as always seeming secretly amused. On the other hand, maybe she isn't. Best to trust Sandra's instincts.

He shoved aside the memory of a time a few months ago when he hadn't trusted her instincts. That had been a screw-up: and the sight of the Baronet d'Ath heading the escort that would take his daughter west brought those memories forcibly back. Perhaps Sandra had made that appointment to rub his face in it: but he'd earned a little of that. And Ath was sufficiently distant to be away from the main action in this war, which would be on the eastern side of the Valley, and its seigneur could be trusted not to take too much advantage of having the heir to the Protectorate behind her drawbridge.

Unlike, for example, Alexi. Or Jabar, who still cherishes hopes for his son I've decided to frustrate.

"Lady d'Ath," he said, as she too knelt and kissed his hand. Like all her gestures, it was impeccably smooth. "We give you a great trust. It is good of you to volunteer for it, sacrificing glory and advancement in this war for the benefit of the Association."

Her smile surprised him a little. "Caring for the princess is a pleasure, not a duty, my lord Protector," she said; her voice wasn't quite the cool falling-water sound he remembered from past years; it had more resonance in it, somehow. "And I'm content with the good estate you've given me. Let others have their chance at glory and reward now. I've taken a new motto for my House of Ath: What I have, I hold."

He nodded, beginning to turn away.

Conrad spoke: "I wish we had your menie with us, d'Ath. They've improved drastically since you took the fief."

"Despite the losses," Sandra cut in yes, she was needling him a bit.

"Dad, Mom, why can't I come along too?" Mathilda said suddenly. "Mom's going. With Lady Tiphaine to guard me, I'd be safe behind the army. If I'm going to: I'm going to have to go to war, someday, right?"

Arminger laughed aloud, and repressed an impulse to tousle the reddish-brown hair above the fearless hazel eyes.

"Yes, you will, Mathilda, but not quite yet. For now, you have to do as your mother and I say. And when I win this war, I'll bring you back the world for a toy!"

Her stiff decorum broke for a moment, and she threw her arms around his armored chest. "Just bring yourself back, Daddy!"

Field of the Cloth of Gold, Willamette Valley, Oregon

September 3rd, 2008/Change Year 10

"F olks, we got a problem," Mike Havel said. "We've got to step back and look at the bigger picture instead of getting caught up in the details."

He looked around the table under the awning. Abbot Dmwoski was silently telling his beads. Apart from that, the leaders were looking at him with nothing more than a raised eyebrow or two; none of them were what you'd call the nervous sort.

"Well, we've got a murtherin' great battle to win," Sam Aywlard said after a moment.

"No, that's not it. We've got a great murdering battle to fight, and that's the problem."

Havel took a deep breath and pointed northward, across the rolling plain, blond stubblefields and pasture drowsing under the August sun, the stems of the cut wheat glittering in a manner that had already given the former Elliot Prairie north of Mount Angel its nickname with the thousands assembled there. The enemy encampment was just on the edge of sight; mounted scouts from both sides patrolled the empty fields between, adding their mite of dust to the smells of dirt and not-very-clean bodies, frying onions and hay and sweating horses, smoke and leather, sun-heated canvas and oil and metal. He waved aside some flies; no way to avoid them, with so much livestock in one spot.

"Arminger's there, with just over ten thousand men. We're here, with just over ten thousand too."

He pointed skyward. "He's got aerial recon, and we don't, so we're not going to turn somersaults and come down on both his flanks at once; this army doesn't have enough unit articulation or triple-C to do that sort of thing anyway. This is going to be a slugging match, toe-to-toe, last man standing wins. We've got more infantry and it's better, but he's still got about twenty-five hundred knights and men-at-arms, plus the light horse, and they outnumber our cavalry by six, seven to one. So we're talking our pikemen: and pike-women: walking forward with a rain of napalm bombs landing on their heads, to say nothing of the dartcasters and crossbows, and then facing the men-at-arms."

"We've beaten his cavalry before," Eric Larsson said defensively.

"Yeah, brother-in-law of mine, we have, when we managed to make him or whatever goon was in charge do something spectacularly stupid. Or when they underestimated what riding forward into an arrowstorm from our Mackenzie friends was like. That's not going to happen here; for one thing, Renfrew's in charge of that army and he's not stupid. The monks and the Clan made him retreat last time, but nobody's ever managed to sucker punch him. All Arminger has to do is walk up to us and start hitting us with a hammer, and he's a pretty good hammer-hammer general; Conrad Renfrew's better."

He drew in another breath. "I figure if we win, we're going to be real lucky to leave here with six thousand people still breathing-and a lot of those'll be crippled for life, burned, legs and arms ending up on a pile outside a surgeon's tent. If we lose: "

Havel shrugged and smiled his crooked smile. "Well, we don't have to do a count on that because we will be so totally fucked it isn't fucking funny."

Dmwoski frowned, but nodded. Nigel Loring snorted, but did likewise. "You have some idea, my Lord Bear," he said in that excruciatingly cultured English voice.

It went a little oddly with the kilt and plaid he was wearing today; that was probably a lot more comfortable than the armor most of the rest were in.

Havel nodded gravely and answered: "Yeah, I do. A lot of those barons and knights out there would rather be home, fighting the Jacks : why were they called Jacks? Never mind. They've got an uprising behind them and from what the Dunedain say it's getting worse every day. The only reason they're not completely baboon-ass about it is because their families are in nice safe castles, but they're spooked. They want to fight us and get it over with and go home and unload some whup-ass on the revolting peasants. What's holding them here? Norman Arminger, is who. He's bossed them so long they can't imagine not obeying him, not really."