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."
"You're saying that Arminger is the Association's weakness," Alleyne Loring said thoughtfully.
"Yup. He's what makes it an offensive force instead of a bunch of quarreling gangbangers in armor with delusions of chivalry. Remove him-"
"Sandra Arminger is smarter than her husband," Juniper objected.
"And Conrad Renfrew is a better general," Signe said.
"Yes. But neither of them is the Lord Protector. He's the one with the: "
He hesitated, looking for a word, and Nigel Loring smoothed his mustache with one finger. "The baraka, the charisma. He's their founder. Their creator, in a way. You think we should assassinate him, then?"
The Englishman looked at his son, at John Hordle, at Eilir and Astrid sitting as leaders of the Dunedain Rangers.
"Oh, God, no. Not an assassination. Sticking a knife in his back would be the one thing that would rally them all behind Sandra as Regent and Renfrew as warlord; they'd rule with Arminger's ghost as their false front, which would be just like fighting him only without the hang-ups that cripple him."
"Ah," Juniper said, her green eyes going wider. "You want to kill his myth, not just the man. I should have thought of that. It's hidden depths you have, Mike. But how?"
"Bingo, Juney. As to how: so, we're agreed he's their weakness. Now, what's Arminger's big weakness?"
"Sweet young girls?" someone said, and there was a chuckle.
Havel smiled himself, but shook his head. "Norman Arminger's big problem is that inside the big bad warlord is a suburban geek weenie," he said. "I thought so when I first met him a bit more than ten years ago-he reminded me of a D amp;D freak and would-be badass whose nose I broke behind the bleachers in high school. When his inner pimply geek takes over, he's the dumbest really smart man you'll meet in many a long mile."
He nodded at a banner standing in the rear of the pavilion, captured during the last week's skirmishing, the black-and-scarlet folds hanging limp.
"I mean, the Eye of Sauron? The Dark Tower? Give me a break! Look at the way he took the Association's setup out of his favorite books-and I mean the storybooks, too, not just the history ones he'd claim he used. He didn't put in all that pseudo-medieval Camelot-from-Hell crap because it was a useful way to build his power; you can tell because he put in the parts that weaken him, too, not just what he needed to please the Society types. He put it in because deep inside the warlord is the professor and deep inside him is the pimple-popper who thought Knights in Armor were so cool. The same guy who couldn't get a date until his freshman year and hated all the girls who turned him down, so he still likes raping teenagers; every new victim is revenge on the ones who laughed at him and his hard-on. And so the Association he's built has one great big juicy weakness we can exploit-a way we can make him walk with open eyes into a trap, because if he doesn't the cracks he engineered into his own system would split it wide open. He can't change it now, not now that it's had time to set, not overnight."
His eyes went to the bear-topped helm standing with his armor on its rack. "That's the problem with calling in a myth. It may start out as an obedient little doggie, but pretty soon you've got the wolf by the ears."
"What precisely are you saying now?" Juniper asked; Signe's eyes were wide with the same alarm.
Mike Havel smiled a hungry smile.
"My lord Protector, an enemy envoy under a white pennant wishes to speak with you," the knight said. "It's a man of high rank."
Norman Arminger looked up from the map table and finished his coffee; unlike most he preferred it just on the hot side of lukewarm and always had. The smell reminded him of the Tasmanians who'd brought the first beans this part of the world had seen since the Change. That was a pleasant memory, particularly the way they'd died:
He wished now he hadn't added the big map of the Association's territory, the one with red pins for Jack uprisings; that looked unpleasantly like a case of measles, and he could see every nobleman's teeth set on edge when they came into the tent and glanced at it.
But it'll be over soon. The monks and those crazy pseudo-Celts and the Bearkillers and Corvallans can't keep that hodgepodge of a non-army together for more than another week or two, and unlike the Conqueror or Roger I, I don't have to worry about mine starving or dying of typhus. They have to come out and attack us. We'll crush them so completely we'll be able to go home, put the Jacks down once and for all and then sweep to the gates of Corvallis before the year's over.
"My lord?"
He shook his head and forced his mind to quiet. "A man of rank? Who?"
"Lord Eric Larsson, sir. He comes with a white pennant and asks leave to address you."
A prickle of anticipation ran down Arminger's spine. Silence fell within the command tent; Sandra folded the file she was reading and sat up on the lounger, and the Grand Constable stopped talking to the supply officer. Half a dozen barons whispered to each other, a rising ripple of sound until Arminger raised a hand.
He looked out at the sunlit fields, smiling at a world golden and ripe; the command tent was on a low rise, the closest thing to a hill this flat farmland had.
This has to be a desperation move on their behalf, he thought. And if it's the Bear Lord's brother-in-law, I'd better make it a public audience jor maximum effect.
"Admit him under promise of safe-conduct," he said, turning and walking to the chair behind the big table.
It was light, a thing of straps and cunning hinges, but broad enough that he could lounge arrogantly with his chin on the thumb and forefinger-knuckle of one hand. A rising murmur came from the great camp outside as the A-lister with the tall scarlet crest on his helmet rode through the lanes between the tents. Everyone knew who the Bear Lord's brother-in-law was:
Which means I have to be very careful, he reminded himself. There are things our knights take seriously, particularly the younger generation. Charming, but sometimes inconvenient. Who'd have thought it would take on so quickly?
The younger man drew rein outside the command pavilion and dismounted, hanging his helm on the saddlebow of the horse. Arminger made a single spare gesture, and the guards at the entrance uncrossed their spears and braced erect.
Formidable, he thought, reading the man through the war harness with practiced ease; it wasn't much different from an Association man-at-arm's gear, anyway.
Six-three, a bit taller than me, and a hundred and ninety, just a little lighter. Trained to a hair, in his late twenties: at his peak or close to it. I wouldn't care to fight him, but luckily I don't have to. He'd be an interesting match at a half-time game. A few starving wolves, perhaps, and him fighting them naked.