He picked up a walnut between the thumb and first two fingers of his right hand, his sword hand, and pressed. The shell cracked and fragments scattered across the white linen tablecloth.
"-like that. So no way am I going to give him a rail net to take over and support his men with when he invades us."
The Corvallan militia officer winced. "All right, that's the first item. What's the rest?"
"Different view of a similar problem. The Valley's getting to have bandits the way a dead rabbit has blowfly maggots. It's worse than it was a couple of years ago, if anything."
"More to steal," Eric put in, contemplating another slice of fruitcake; he'd been mostly silent until now. "Coyotes go up and down with the rabbits. Same-same with bandits and honest folk."
Havel nodded. "OK, the problem there is that they hang out in places where there aren't too many people, which these days is most places. We've got millions of acres of forest in the mountains on both sides of the Valley, and lots of swamp and new brush country right in it, not to mention places like the ruins of Salem or Eugene. The roads are still pretty good, so they can get around, hit and run and get away. And I'd swear Arminger's giving help to some of the gangs on the sly to keep us distracted, but leave that aside for now. The problem is catching them so we can hang or chop them."
Luanne nodded. "They keep running over a border when they're chased," she said. "We and the Mackenzies and Mount Angel, we're all pretty good about hot pursuit, but that's limited. And-no offense, Pete-Corvallis is almost as bad as the Protectorate about letting us follow up across your frontiers. By the time we've notified your people and waited for you to take over, the bad guys have disappeared."
Havel leaned forward. "Ideally, what we need is to all get together, burn out pestholes like the ruins of Eugene, and then sweep the whole Valley, every little island in every marsh, every patch of woods, and the Coast Range and the Cascades too, hang or gut every outlaw, and patrol to keep things clean."
Jones laughed unwillingly. "Good luck, Mike," he said. "You and a couple of divisions, hey?"
"Yeah, that's not going to happen anytime soon. So what we need is a force that can go anywhere-bandit chasers, caravan guards, road patrollers. And we've got one. The Rangers."
Jones laughed again, this time at the statement. "You mean Astrid and Eilir's little pointy-eared Elvish Scout troop?" he said. "I mean, Christ, Mike, I know Astrid's your sister-in-law, but have you ever listened to her? She makes the Mackenzie herself herself sound like the Spirit of Pure Reason."
"They're all grown up now, Pete. You know I don't bullshit about stuff like this. They're good, playing dress-up or not. They've already handled a couple of gangs that were giving us real trouble, and we-we and Juney Mackenzie and Dmwoski-have handed them that forest around the old Silver Falls State Park. What they've got in mind is places like that up and down the edges of the Valley; not good farmland, but livable, sort of a disconnected nation of, oh, call it crime-fighters and who-do-you-call types. And we've all three agreed to pay 'em, food and weapons and cloth and a little cash. You know I'm pretty tight with a dollar-or a sack of wheat. So's Dmwoski, and Juney's bunch don't like voting taxes on themselves any more than your Senate does."
Jones' eyebrows went up. "That's going to take some selling if you want Corvallis in on it," he said. "Extraterritoriality, didn't they call it? I can hear the lawyers now, screaming about how we've only just got the rule of law back and this would mean foreigners with the right of high justice on our own soil, and what if they decide some farmer out hunting is an outlaw and chop him? Hell, these days the goddamned shysters complain when we string a bandit up, out on patrol; I hoped they'd die out with the Change, but no luck, they're like cockroaches. And the Faculty Senate squeezes the pennies like they came out of their own pockets: which they do, a lot of the time."
Signe leaned forward. "Some traders from here are already hiring the Dunedain," she said. "For escort work as far south as Reading, and east over the Cascades into the Bend country and as far as Boise, as escorts. They can be sure they won't get robbed by their own guards that way, and that the Rangers know their business, even if they keep name-dropping in Sindarin and striking poses like a Hildebrandt cover illustration. Being reliable means they get top dollar."
"Which merchants, exactly?" Jones asked.
She gave names; the Corvallan's eyebrows went higher still.
"Well," he said, "maybe we can do something along those lines. It might be a good idea to start with that. It's not likely to put backs up the way the railroad and Arminger will."
Havel rose and nodded. "Talk to you again later, then. Give our regards to Nancy and the kids."
One of the house staff they'd brought down from Larsdalen came in after the Corvallan had left. "Luanne, Signe, the rooms are ready. And the juniors are asleep." She smiled. "They claim they're keeping count of the stories they've missed and they'll want them all, with interest, when we're back home."
"Thanks, Jolene," Signe said, and patted her mouth to hide a delicate yawn. "I'm bushed. Time to turn in."
"I'm sure," Luanne said, and made a rude noise; her sister-in-law returned it with a gesture.
Mike Havel snaffled a three-quarters-full bottle of pinot gris and two glasses off the dinner table, getting a glare from a kitchen worker who didn't like the perquisites being infringed. Their bedroom was on the third floor; Signe went first, and Havel laughed softly as he admired the view. At twenty-eight and after two pregnancies she was a bit fuller-figured than she had been when they met the day of the Change, but it was just as firm in the skirt of fine dress wool.
Riding and sword work do wonders for a woman's figure, he mused happily. Who'da thunk it?
"What's that in aid of?" Signe asked, looking over her shoulder.
"I was remembering the first time I really noticed your ass," he said. "When you were climbing into my Piper Chieftain, Change Day, remember? Those hip-hugger jeans you had on: man!"
She snorted in mock indignation, sky blue eyes alight. "I remember thinking you were a rude, crude jerk and were probably looking at my butt," she said. "And I was right, wasn't-hey!"
She yelped and jumped. Havel waggled eyebrows and fingers, leering. "I've got a license now, alskling. And the bedroom's that way."
"I was right!" she said, and put an arm around his waist as they came up to the landing. "On all three counts."
South Corvallis, Finney Farm, Oregon
January 11th, 2008/Change Year 9
"I miss Luther," Juniper Mackenzie said quietly as she walked with the farm's master, looking to where her wagon stood beneath an oak.
It was nearly sunset under a sky the color of wet concrete, with spatters of rain now and then, feeling cold-as if it wanted to be snow, but didn't quite have the nerve. She wore a hooded gray winter cloak of wool woven with the grease still in, and her host had a rain-slicker over a homemade parka. The damp chill made her tuck her hands under her plaid; the air held the earthy smell of wet soil from a field of winter wheat beyond the pasture, and woodsmoke from the houses. Drops spattered on the puddles the wind ruffled, and gravel crunched under their shoes.
"Seeing it there takes me back. Before the Change I'd come every year just before the County Fair started up Corvallis way, and pick up the wagon and horses, and they were always spotless and shining. I think he kept Cagney and Lacey more for the fun of it than for what I could afford to pay to board them."