But a third of his life-everything beyond that last tag end of childhood- had been spent in the Changed world. That was where he'd become a man and a lord of men, a husband and a father, not to mention a warrior of fearsome repute. Things like rockets, asteroids and nuclear weapons were real to him, in a detached and intellectual fashion, instead of not-particularly-interesting myths the way they were to those a bit younger, but they didn't really matter. Not the way a horse with splints did, or an attack of brucellosis in the cattle, or getting a good clear shot at a deer with his bow, or how well a line of pike-men kept alignment while advancing over rough ground. Luanne had the same detachment, only more so; she was a bit younger, and she'd been brought up deep-country-rural on her family's Texas horse ranch or traveling around the country to deliver stock. To both of them it was natural to exist in this world, where the Willamette Valley and a few days' travel about it were all that really counted.
The thought ran through her mind in an instant; she turned and met Nigel Loring's eyes, and knew that the thought was shared.
"We adapted," he murmured. Unspoken was: Those who couldn't are dead. "But never completely."
"No, never completely," she replied in the same undertone. "Although dean cronan cupla barrai agus cuirfidh me breagriocht air:
"
His involuntary chuckle helped her shake the gloom off; in Erse, she'd just said if you hum a few bars, I can fake it. Looking into his eyes, she knew she'd lifted his mood as well, and that was a pleasure in itself.
Glancing around her Hall, she made it come real again with a mental effort. The younger Larssons had finished chuckling over their own joke.
"Well, whatever or Whoever caused the Change, I doubt they did it so we would be done in by celestial debris," Juniper said.
"They could certainly have finished us off without doing anything so elaborate," Nigel confirmed.
"Moving back to practicalities, what did your father say about our : guest, Luanne?" Juniper asked.
Will Hutton was at least as intelligent as Kenneth Larsson; he had much less formal education, but he made up for it with a good deal more focus.
"Pretty much the same thing as my honorable father-in-law, for once," Luanne said. "Not to sweat it, basically. And believe me, after Reuben got killed by the Protector's men last year"-that was her foster-brother, adopted after the Change-"Dad was as angry at Arminger as anyone."
"I don't know precisely what we can make of Matti's being here. Still, the Lord and Lady wouldn't send us an opportunity if there weren't some way to use it."
She reached for the horn again. The wine was made by Tom Brannigan over in Sutterdown, the Clan Mackenzie's only real town, further west in the Valley; Tom owned a vineyard, and was a brewmaster and vintner besides being mayor and High Priest of the coven there. The drink had a pleasant scent like cherries and violets, and a smooth, earthy taste just tart enough to accompany the rich savor of the grilled venison. There was an art to drinking from a horn without spilling half the contents on your face, as well.
"But," she went on, after she'd rolled a sip around her mouth, "do consider what happens if he doesn't manage to beat us. Say that we beat him. Are we going to destroy the Portland Protective Association utterly, root and branch?"
"Nope," Luanne said. "Signe and Mike've thought about that. Even if we beat them in the field, we could only wreck ourselves trying to dig em out. Too many of those damn castles; too many knights and men-at-arms. And it's just too damned big. Portland rules more people than there are in all the rest of the northwest outfits put together."
From her other side Sir Nigel Loring nodded and spoke. "And while the man is a tyrant of tyrants, I saw last year that his obsession with feudalism means that you can't destroy that kingdom of his by chopping off the head. It's decentralized, and he built that into its bones. If it split up, the parts would be nearly as troublesome."
"Yeah," Luanne said. "Plus the way he recruited his lords. All those gangers; and the Society types who stuck with him may have been the roughnecks, but they're tough ones, not to mention the men who've worked their way up out of the ruck. Now they all have families and want to keep what they've gained for their children. Winkling every one of them out of his manor: "
"And there are limits to what we can do by encouraging the common folk to snipe at his barons," Juniper said regretfully. "Especially now that things there have had a chance to settle down. I have hopes for that, sure, and contacts there-but the farmers can't hope to rise up against his new-made knights unless they have more help than it seems likely we can offer. We have a network of informants and sympathizers there, but I can't ask them to take up arms if all it gets them is dead, so."
"Guns are great equalizers," Loring agreed. "Guerilla warfare isn't impossible without firearms and explosives, but it's: much harder to pull off."
"Not as many force multipliers, Mike says," Eric added. "Plus it's harder and takes longer to learn to use the weapons we've got."
"So," Juniper said. "Let's be optimistic. Say that Norman and Sandra Arminger are sent off to the Summerlands to make accounting for what they've done and select an appropriate reincarnation."
"I'd prefer a nice, fiery, eternal hell for 'em, Juney," Eric said, more than a trace of grimness in his voice.
"I confess the thought is tempting but that's not my mythos. So then, hy-pothetically speaking, they're off to choose their reward or punishment: "
They all shot a glance at Mathilda; she was laughing, with a forkful of beets halfway to her mouth, as one of the other children told a story; Chuck and Judy's Tamsin, born three years before the Change.
"I don't think they'll wait ten years, and then take back a Princess Mathilda who's a Mackenzie in all but name to rule them," Loring said. "The thought is tempting, my dear, but I fear it's not likely."
"Not exactly that, no," Juniper said. "And trying to deliberately shape her outright, that would be: futile, as well as unkind. She's a proud little thing, and no fool-I've known her for half a year, which is quite a while for a child that age. Best to just: leave her be, and treat her like any other, and wait to see what opportunity offers."
Chapter Two
Portland, Oregon
December 12th, 2007/Change Year 9
T he presence room had been built for intimate conferences when the library was remodeled into the Lord Protector's city palace. It was small and comfortable, with a new fireplace flickering, Oriental rugs glowing on the floor, and walls lined with well-filled bookshelves and good pictures-mostly old masters, including a couple of Maxfield Parrish originals scavenged from as far away as the ruins of San Francisco, plus a fine modern carving of Christ Crucified done half life-size. Rain beat against the night-dark windows, but within was warmth and the light of gasoline lanterns; those were a rarity these days, but brighter than the natural oils or alcohol that were the alternative. The maids in their uniforms-a white tabard over a black t-tunic and a long, loose undertunic down to the ankles, and silver-chain collars around their necks-set out trays of small pastries with the unthinkable luxury of real coffee as well, in a Sevres pot suspended over a spirit lantern on the mahogany table.
"Leave us," Arminger said, leaning back in the leather-upholstered chair.
They bobbed curtseys and scuttled out. The guards followed at his nod, with a stamp of boots and crash of metal.
Arminger grinned to himself as he watched the two Corvallans, a tall, horse-faced blond woman and a short, thickset brunet man, twitch their noses at the scent from the coffeepot. Master Turner was a fixer and backer of budding enterprises, a sort of neo-medieval equivalent of a venture capitalist and the closest thing Corvallis had to a banker; closer every year as trade and handicraft flourished. Mistress Kowalski had made handlooms and spinning wheels before the Change for the handicraft market and still did-in a large workshop with dozens of employees-renting the equipment out to poor families, supplying the raw materials, and taking payment in thread and cloth. In Europe in the old days they'd called it the putting-out system; evidently she'd reinvented it on her own initiative. The two had joint interests in flocks of sheep out on shares with farmers, and in mills for breaking flax and finishing cloth.