S. Stirling - The Scourge of God

" Emperor is more what Martin has in mind, probably," Odard said, tuning the lute which someone had brought along from the Conestoga. "I got those vibrations off him"-he plucked the strings-"and we talked a few times. He was extremely interested in the balance of power out West, in the realms of the Meeting at Corvallis. I don't think he's going to settle down to quietly rule what he has now."

"He couldn't," Frederick said. "Too risky."

They all looked at him. "Dad… OK, Dad ruled with a hard hand, and it was an awfully long time before he decided to hold national elections. But he didn't want to be king; he really wanted to restore the United States. That's one reason he waited-electing a government from just part of one State would be like an admission of failure. It really ate at him. He thought everyone would rally round once he got going and it didn't happen. A lot of our people wanted, want, to put the country back together too. Especially the army officers. If my.. if Martin is going to hold on to the Presidency, make it into something like being a king, or an emperor-"

He nodded to Odard.

"— then he has to make some progress on reunification."

"Conquering other realms," Mathilda said-but musingly rather than a sharp-toned correction, simply translating the young man's words into the terms the others would think in. "An emperor is a king of kings, after all. If he conquers widely, it'll make his claim to the throne solid."

"OK, if you want to call it that," Frederick said. "That's more or less what I meant. Nothing succeeds like success."

Mary and Ritva came back to sit on their haunches with their arms wrapped around their knees.

"Like Saruman and Sauron in the Histories," one of them said thoughtfully. "Both want to conquer and rule. Our side can probably use that."

"Our side?" Frederick said; not bitterly this time, but with a genuine humor in the curve of his full mouth. "All nine of us?" He glanced at the Mormon leader. "Well, with all due respect, all thirty of us?"

"You're after forgetting," Rudi said gently. "We here are not just travelers from over the mountains. What we know, we can send to our homelands-and there, our parents are people of importance, with the power to bind and loose."

"And I'm not just in charge of twenty-one fugitives," Nystrup said. "There are other Deseret units still in the field."

Kindled, he looked at Rudi. "With you to help us-"

"In passing only," Rudi said, his voice still gentle, but with an implacable determination behind it. "This isn't an affair of greedy warlords only. Those are like bindweed or couch grass; it's the work of the season to uproot them. There's more to it. The Powers are at work here, and we the song they sing."

"Soup's on!" Rebecca said.

Nystrup seemed to be glad of the interruption. He stood and faced his people, folding his arms across his chest and bowing his head with closed eyes:

"Heavenly Father, we are grateful for this food which Thou knowest we needed badly, and for the generosity of Rudi and his friends. We ask Thee to bless them and watch over them as they journey East, that they may always find sustenance provided for them, as they have so generously given to us, and we ask that Brother Rudi complete his quest safely. We also ask Thee to bless this food that it may nourish and strengthen us, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

The nine comrades had remained respectfully silent during the Mormon ceremony; now they took their bowls, said their own forms of grace and fell to with the healthy voracity of hard-worked youth. The stew was thick and filling, fuel more than food, the sort of thing you ate without noticing the ingredients. The refugee-guerillas devoured theirs with careful speed; one or two gobbled, but the rest swallowed every spoonful as if it were a sacrament. Rudi hadn't met many Latter-day Saints before, apart from the ones who bought Rancher Brown's horses-Mormons were thin on the ground in the Willamette country-but they seemed to be a mannerly folk; and these ones were very hungry.

Rudi took his bowl and a bannock and sat beside Frederick, who was prodding at his food with a spoon and looking out over the dusk-darkened plain to the north and the distant purple line of the mountains.

"All a bit of a burden, isn't it?" he said kindly.

" Tell me!" Frederick replied. Then, lowering his voice: "You know, I wonder if I should be the one to fight Martin, eventually."

"Why?" Rudi asked, surprised. There was no luck in turning aside from a fate the Powers had laid on you.

"Well… the whole reason he quarreled with Dad-turned traitor, eventually-was that he thought being Dad's son gave him some sort of special right. He wanted to be a king. I don't."

Rudi nodded. "Well, you've a point there. But think on this; if not you, who? Isn't it better you than him? And it isn't you who'd pay the price of a noble renunciation; it would be your people, who need someone they know to lead them."

"Urrr."

"And also, what Martin wants is to be a tyrant, someone who takes power by lies and force and rules for himself alone, or his own kin alone."

Although… he looked at Matti. That's a precise description of your father, and you will rule well. Many a kingdom starts with a pirate, or a lucky soldier. Of course, he didn't have the raising of you all to himself, Matti. Nor did Sandra. My own mother's fine hand is in the making, there, too.

He went on: "A tyrant's not the same thing as a king, sure and it isn't. A good king… a good king is father to the land. What his people are together, their living past and the line of their blood for ages yet to come, their land that they've fought and died for and the sweat they've shed on it every day, and the way their songs and stories and being are woven into it, all that… he stands for it in the flesh. And he leads them not just in war and lawmaking, but in the rites that give meaning to life, that make them a people. My folk hailed me as my mother's tanist of their own will; who am I to tell them no? Perhaps yours will hail you. Perhaps not. But if they do, isn't it your duty to answer their call and serve their need?"

"Yeah, I can see what… I'll have to think about that." A grin. "And since I'm going East with you guys, I have a long time to think about it."

Rudi chuckled. "And you're not the only one who'll be thinking. From the old stories, a vanished prince who's fated to return and make things right again may be more powerful than one who's there in the flesh. My mother always said that it's by the thoughts and dreams within their heads that men are governed, as much as by laws or even swords from without."

"Dad said something like that too. The moral is to the physical as three is to one. "

Rudi nodded. "Also she says that no man can harvest a field before it's ripe."

"I'd like to meet your mother. She sounds like a cool lady," Frederick said shyly.

"She is that, and a great lady for all that she hasn't so many airs as some, and fun too."

Mathilda came to sit by Rudi when Nystrup drew the younger Thurston aside; she had a small bunch of yellow wildflowers tucked over her right ear.

"Giving him a pep talk?" she said dryly, not whispering but leaving her voice soft; the tune Odard was playing helped cover it.

Rudi nodded; they were both the children of rulers, and knew the demands of the trade.

"It's a little worried he is, over whether it's good for him to contest with his brother for power. As his father didn't want the succession settled by blood-right, you see."

Matti leaned against his shoulder. "Well, at least he gets a choice! I'm stuck with it. I get to be Protector… and then wonder when Count Stavarov is going to launch a coup and stick a knife in my back, or the House of Jones is going to flounce off in a snit and haul up the draw-bridges on their castles. Or whether the Stavarovs are going to launch a coup and"-she shuddered theatrically-"make me marry Piotr. You wouldn't think that even Alexi Stavarov could have produced a son who's more of a pig than he was, but-"