Signe was close. The consort nodded to her. "We're both widowed today," she said. "Let's see if we can keep too many more from sharing the condition."
The tall, blond, young woman in armor looked down her straight nose. "My husband was a great and good man," she said coldly, then stopped herself with an obvious effort.
Sandra nodded, the black mourning ribbons fluttering on her white headdress and framing cold pride. "And mine was a monster. But that, Lady Signe, doesn't mean I loved him any less than you did yours. And now if you'll excuse me: "
She swept into the command pavilion as if it were a gazebo in the grounds of Castle Todenangst, waiting an instant while the servant unfolded a chair and small side table and set out refreshments, even pouring coffee from a thermos.
Juniper followed and sat across from her, studying the face and form she'd never seen so close before. The Protector's widow sat half-turned in her chair; sunlight from outside the pavilion and through the striped cloth made the pale colors of her cotte-hardi and headdress glow in the dimness inside the tent, the mourning ribbons like shadows across the brilliant white, a subdued glitter of lapis and silver from the buttons. The air smelled of hot canvas and crushed grass and coffee; Sandra sipped, apparently as relaxed as she'd have been in a castle solar, and picked up one of the little watercress sandwiches with the crusts cut off, nibbling.
"Well," the Chief of the Mackenzies said at last, into that silence and Sandra's slight catlike smile. "What do you have to say for yourself, then?"
"That I protected your son, when my husband would have killed him," she said promptly, and the smile grew slightly. "Several times, in fact."
Juniper winced slightly. True enough and there's no getting around it. Stilclass="underline"
"You're not a good person at all, really, are you?" she asked, genuine curiosity in her voice.
"No, I'm not," Sandra agreed, and shrugged. "And you are, and yet you won anyway. Unfathomable are the works of God." A pause. "And many are the marvels, yet none so marvelous as humankind."
"You agree we've won?"
Another shrug. "Well, somewhat. A chunk of our army has melted away. What's left isn't big enough to fight you, the Grand Constable tells me, although it would cost you many lives to overrun us and we could probably get away even if you tried. Besides, how long will your farmers stay here, when there's work to do at home? They came to stop us invading their land, and that's: no longer on the program."
Juniper looked aside. Conrad Renfrew was standing like an armored fireplug in the open. Eric Larsson was not far away, glaring at him. The Association's general looked at him, shrugged and walked over. The younger man bristled like a wolf at a stranger on his pack's territory, then nodded reluctantly and answered whatever it was the count said.
Sandra went on: "But the Grand Constable is loyal to me: and Princess Mathilda. It's quite extraordinary, but he has no wish to be Lord Protector himself."
"Ah, but some others do."
"But they can't agree on a candidate, and none of them alone has anything like the strength of the combined loyalists. We can all go home, haul up our drawbridges, and wait-the harvest is in the storehouses behind our walls and gates. And in a little while, after you're tired of sitting outside the moat and making rude gestures, you'll have to go home to your farms and villages too, before we taunt you once again."
Her face was calm but her eyes twinkled; Juniper fought down an answering smile as Sandra went on.
"For that matter, if you split your army up to watch castles, Conrad tells me there are things he could do which might reverse the whole result. And Pope Leo is still talking about a Crusade, you know. He has quite a popular following."
Juniper smiled herself, grimly. She was prepared for that, and there was an edge in her tone when she replied: "But speaking of farmers, before we have to go home we can pay your farmers a visit. We don't have to take castles. All we have to do is take the farmers who want to go with us: and then you can set your men-at-arms to plowing your fields, and follow along with a bag of wheat slung around your neck, sowing the good earth yourselves."
The wimpled head nodded. "There is that. But if you really wanted to do that, you wouldn't be talking to me now, would you?"
Juniper sighed. "We can't make you tear down your castles. We can't occupy your territories and make you reform that dreadful system you've established. We can wreck you, but only with much loss of precious life and a risk of the same to ourselves, and what was left of you would still be a deadly threat. We can't cross the Columbia at all, and much of your strength is there these days. Yet we can't just let you put the Protectorate back together as it was, either- you're smarter than your late, unlamented husband, bad cess to him, the creature. You wouldn't make the same mistakes."
Sandra Arminger's small left hand closed on the arm of the chair; she made it relax, but there was something in her eyes, like a red spark moving in the depths.
"I'm less ambitious than Norman was," she said carefully. "And I know when to stop. My primary goal is to pass his inheritance on to my daughter, intact."
"That's probably even true. However, you're also just as vindictive as he was, if far more subtle. I'm not going to rely on your loving kindness and better nature, so."
Sandra gave a small snort of laughter. "Granted. I don't have a better nature. So?"
"So, we-the Mackenzies, and I'm sure we can persuade everyone else-will recognize you as Regent of the Association, against the time of your daughter's majority, which will be when she's twenty-six. We will even help you enforce it against any noble who disputes your claim-we need a single authority to deal with, not a mass of robber barons raiding as the whim takes them."
"But," Sandra said. "There's always a 'but.'"
"There are conditions. Several of them, in fact."
At her raised eyebrow, Juniper went on: "First, you must withdraw from the territories in the Pendleton area you occupied last year. We'll agree not to occupy them either."
A sigh. "We've already ordered the garrisons there to withdraw; we needed the men. And with so many nobles and even heirs dead, there isn't the demand for new fiefs any more. Agreed. They're a bunch of hicks and boors out there anyway."
"Next, you have to renounce any claim on our lands and recognize all the free communities as equals. Peace on the border."
"Agreed," Sandra said at once. "You have won this war, after all. I warn you that Norman couldn't control what every baron did in detail, and I won't be able to do so either, but I will try."
"And promises are worth their weight in gold," Juniper said; she was a little surprised when Sandra chuckled and made a gesture of acknowledgment.
"And you will decree, and have the decree read in every domain, castle, manor and village, that any resident of the Protectorate is now free to leave, now or at any time in the future, without bond or let, taking their personal property with them."
"Ah." Sandra Arminger closed her eyes for an instant. "Now, that's the big one. That would be difficult to sell to the barons."
"Better lose some than lose all," Juniper said ruthlessly. "Not all would go; I imagine a lot of the free tenants and even some of the bond-tenants would stay. They've put their lives into that land, after all, and leaving would mean starting over again penniless, without land or stock. They can't carry their farms on their backs. But you'll have to stop squeezing the rest so hard, and that's a fact, and get rid of those iron collars, if you want any of your peons to remain. They're already penniless and abused to boot, the which they wouldn't be in the south."
"Which means we'd have to cut back on the army," Sandra observed. "We couldn't afford it any more."