A murmur went through the crowd. Juniper Mackenzie raised her hand-. "Point of order, Mr. President. Mathilda Arminger isn't being held prisoner. She's being treated exactly as my own son; in fact, I laid a geasa to that effect on the whole Clan, which means-"
"I studied anthropology, Lady Juniper," Franks said, dryly. "Nevertheless, you are preventing her from going home, are you not? And you did seize her by force? In the course of a raid on Association territory?"
"We did that, and set free over a hundred folk who fled under our protection," Juniper said stoutly. "Some of them have settled here. The raid was launched in retaliation for repeated violations of the truce between the Clan and the Portland Protective Association. The sworn testimonials are before you, Mr. President. Mathilda fell into our hands by accident, if you believe in accidents. She's a lovely child and it has been a pleasure to guest her."
Franks turned his eyes on Sandra Arminger. She rose to reply. "We categorically deny any intentional violations. There may have been criminals using our territory-are there no bandits based on yours? In fact, many of the alleged 'violations' of Mackenzie territory were in fact cases where our forces tried to pursue criminals-"
"Escaping serfs, you mean!"
"Lady Juniper, please let Lady Sandra finish."
"-pursue criminals over very nebulous borders in uninhabited territory. Only to be viciously set upon!"
Thomas raised a hand. "I don't think that in particular is any business of ours," he said. "Nor is this the place to hash out your differences. Lord Bear?"
Havel rose. "Short form, we agree with Juney: Lady Juniper. The Protector's men probe and snip at us whenever they get the chance and they do it with his knowledge and encouragement. As for criminals, we're perfectly ready to cooperate with anyone to put them down. We just don't include poor bastards with iron collars on their necks in the deal. Any of them who make it onto our land are free men and women and they're going to stay that way."
Another murmur went through the great hall. Franks sighed and nodded to Sandra Arminger. "Mr. President, as you said there's no point in hashing over these stale allegations. More to the point, I wish to make a personal appeaclass="underline" I want my daughter back."
The President winced slightly, and then glared at Juniper Mackenzie. He couldn't afford to alienate the Clan; too much Corvallan trade went that way, both with the Mackenzies and over the mountains via Route 20 through their land. On the other hand, that put him in a cleft stick; if he pleaded diplomatic immunity for Juniper and her party, he risked Portland's anger.
"Mr. President, we're perfectly willing to return Mathilda to her parents," Juniper said. "As part of a general peace, to be sure."
"We're already at peace!" Sandra snapped.
"You had an odd way of showing it, sending assassins to Sutterdown Horse Fair and attacking my camp in the night, killing my people and wounding my own son near to death!"
"Parents are entitled to rescue their children from kidnappers-"
"Ladies!" Franks said; that had the advantage of fitting both the old etiquette and the new. "Lady Juniper, what do you mean by a general peace? Don't you have a treaty with the Association? We do, and we've been reasonably satisfied with it."
"With all respect, Mr. President, you don't have a frontier with the Protectorate. We do, and we've not had six months without an incident-which is one way of describing some lad down with a crossbow bolt through his belly, or houses burned or stock stolen. What we want is an agreement that doesn't depend on Norman Arminger's word or the goodwill of his barons, the which are worthless and nonexistent respectively."
"I protest!" That was Lord Carl. "Mr. President, is a friendly power to be insulted before you?"
Havel stood again. "Norman Arminger is no man's friend," he said; the Protectorate baron flushed. "So what we're proposing-and Abbot Dmwoski concurs-is that we need a general agreement on collective security. Everyone agrees to treat any attack on any one of the Willamette Valley outfits as an attack on all and to send their forces to repel it."
He grinned. "We're perfectly willing to have everyone gang up on us if we invade the Protectorate. It would help if some of the rulers around here weren't murderous warlord bastards-"
Lord Carl shot to his feet. "And the Bearkillers are a democracy, Lord Bear?" He bore down on the title with sardonic relish.
"Hey, we're ready to elect a House of Commons if you do," Havel said. "In fact, we're thinking of doing it anyway."
"Thoughts are worth their weight in gold," the Protectorate noble said.
"OK, how's this: we'll let anyone in Bearkiller territory who wants to move to the Protectorate do it-they can if they want to, we don't go around sticking iron dog-collars on people-and you do the same on your own side of the border. We'll call it 'voting with their feet.' Let's see who's got how many people after a couple of years. Hell, a fifth of our farmers are refugees from that shitheap you guys run."
The baron flushed; the penalties for a peon or bond-tenant trying to leave an Association fief were fairly gruesome, assuming they survived recapture.
Sandra Arminger intervened, her voice full of sorrow: "Then you're holding my child to political ransom?" she said.
Juniper's eyes narrowed. "I prefer to think of it as rescuing her from an unwholesome environment," she snapped.
Sandra's lips tightened, the more so as laughter rose in the background. She turned to the dais. "Mr. President, I appeal to Corvallan law."
"Yes, there are matters of law involved," Franks said. "Now: Lady Astrid? You represent an independent state now, I understand?"
"Mae govannen, lords of the city. I speak for the Dunedain Rangers. We hold Mithrilwood in trust for all honest folk; we fight evildoers and dangerous beasts, and we guard caravans, and we fight the minions of the Lidless Eye. Who are in league with bandits and evildoers."
Sandra rose, swift and graceful. "Mr. President, do we have to listen to someone who's so obviously mentally: challenged? This isn't the Third Age of Middle-earth, after all."
That got a laugh too. Mike Havel cocked his head at the sound; judging by that, he thought there was probably a claque at the heart of it, paid to guffaw at the crucial places. Not that it wasn't funny, when you thought about it.
"No," Astrid said calmly. "This isn't the Third Age."
Hmmm. I notice she's not denying it's Middle-earth. Still, I suppose in a sense it is.
"But," she went on, smiling very slightly, "good and ill have not changed since then, and it is the part of every one of us to discern them, whether in the Silver Wood or here in your city, Mr. President."
Beside him Havel heard his wife choke slightly, and whisper: "Oh, Jesus, you: you little dork!"
"Then you might explain the boxes full of heads," Sandra Arminger said dryly.
"Those were bandits," Astrid said simply. "They attacked us in Mithrilwood; they were led and guided by Sir Jason Mortimer. Unfortunately, he's dead now too."
"Very unfortunately," Sandra said, her voice pawky. "Or fortunately, if he had a different story to tell. The severed heads aren't inclined to speak much either. This is hearsay-"
Franks cut in. "And this isn't a court, Lady Sandra."
"He's dead, all right," Astrid said. "We were keeping him to speak here, and an assassin came in the night, over the roof; clad all in black, so we didn't see her face, but she was very quick, and we did hear her voice." Her eyes went to the relaxed shape behind the Protectorate's table. "The voice of that woman there. Where were you on the night Jason Mortimer died, Tiphaine Ruther-ton?"