"The circumstances here were rather exceptional," he said. "I saw that the population had to be reduced, and quickly, or everyone would die. So I and my associates-the Portland Protective Association-seized whatever bulk foodstuffs we could before they were wasted or lost. Forty percent of American wheat exports to Asia went through Portland . The amount in the pipeline was considerable, and we took over elevators, trains stalled on the tracks into the city, ships in port and in the Columbia. And then we, mmm: encouraged the surplus population to leave and shift for themselves; with that, there was enough to keep more than thirty thousand people alive for a year.
After about six months we began to expand into the countryside round about, most of which was as you say a dead zone-dead from Seattle in the north as far south as Eugene, except for some enclaves of: troublesome bandits and cultists on the fringes. You can imagine the difficulties-lack of tools, lack of skills: "
"Remarkable that you've accomplished this much," Nobbes said, his voice neutral.
Well, you Tasmanians had a good deal of luck, with the Bass Strait to protect you, Loring observed to himself, slightly irritated by the unspoken distaste.
The thought made him feel a little more sympathetic to Arminger than his first impression had left him, and he had to admit that the man had been scrupulously polite. Portland 's ruler was a tall man in his middle forties with a square chin and knob-strong cheekbones, light-brown hair falling to his shoulders, dressed casually in loose black trousers tucked into high boots, crimson jacket, a dagged hood with long liripipe, and a broad-brimmed hat with a peacock feather tucked into the band. A dagger and double-edged longsword swung from his belt, the hilt a surprisingly plain affair of steel crossguard and worn, sweat-stained leather-cord grip. He looked fully capable of using it effectively, too. For now he held the reins in his left hand, and a peregrine falcon in hood and jesses on his gauntleted right wrist.
Nobbes evidently felt the silence as they came out into settled country; Arminger was the sort of man who could use quiet as a weapon, and Nobbes one of the more numerous variety made nervous by it.
"This reminds me of parts of Tasmania," he said, speaking rather loudly to carry over the rumbling thunder of hooves. "Near Launceston, and up the Tamar. Even to all the people in the fields, and my, didn't all those yobbos from the towns complain!"
"You seem to have made a remarkable recovery, though," Arminger said. "We lost nine in ten or more of our population, and you?"
"We were hungry, but lucky with it-no famine at all, ah, my lord Protector," Nobbes said. "But we've found a number of islands that did as well as Tasmania-the South Island in New Zealand, they've got nearly a million survivors, and Prince Edward Island in Canada with over a hundred thousand; Bornholm and Gotland in the Baltic; no famine there either. And many more that did worse than that but well compared to nearby mainlands- Fyn, Sicily, Crete, Cyprus. And Iceland held out for a year, before the British evacuated them."
"Logical," Arminger replied. "Most of the farming countryside in the advanced countries produced huge surpluses of food for people far away. Even with the massive drop in productivity after the Change there was enough for the few residents and they could readjust in time-unless they were overrun by starving refugees. Islands that weren't too built up would be safe from that, just as the far interior was here- Idaho, for instance. Or at least an island could defend its borders."
He went on, like a genial host: "I've been told the landscape here is like England, too, Sir Nigel," he said to Loring.
"More like parts of France," Loring said. "The Loire Valley, Anjou orTouraine: near Bourgueil, for example. Except that you can't see mountains from there, of course. Perhaps more like the Dordogne country, as far as the view of the middle distance: larger scale, of course."
Arminger looked pleased. "Yes, now that you mention it, this does look a little like parts of France. I visited Tours as a student, long ago: how is France doing?"
"It's empty, save for the dead," the Englishman said flatly. "The king sent a mission through a few years ago to salvage works of art and take a survey, and I was in command of the escort. We've planted a few outposts on the Norman coast, and at the mouths of the Loire and Gironde. Everything else is scrub thicket reverting to forest, with the odd pocket of neosavages, no more than ten or twenty thousand in all."
"Pity," Arminger said. "It was a beautiful country, don't you agree, my sweet?"
His wife looked up from her accounts in the open carriage; Sandra Arminger was a woman in her thirties, brunette but with something fox-faced about her, and clever dark eyes.
"It was overpriced and they never did learn about changing their underwear regularly," she said. "The food was good-as long as you didn't think too much about the kitchen or what was under the chef's fingernails."
"Think of the art, and the chateaux, and the scenery," said Arminger.
"Think of the bad-mannered waiters, and the drivers all intent on killing you."
"Philistine."
"Romantic."
The lord of Portland turned to his guests again: "We're past Beaverton, out of what used to be called the Silicon Forest. Now it's the New Forest. I'm keeping it and the big parks west of town as a hunting preserve: "
Loring gave an involuntary snort of laughter. "A hunting preserve called the New Forest? I say, you're following Norman precedent rather closely, what?"
Arminger's grin was charming. "Touche!"
His wife spoke: "Your family is of Norman origin, isn't it, Sir Nigel?"
"Remotely," he said. "But yes, there was a Loring in the Conqueror's train-a miles, or household knight. He was rewarded with land in Hampshire, which stayed in the family: until last year, in fact."
"Remarkable," Arminger said; his enthusiasm seemed genuine. "Unique, perhaps?"
"Rare, but not quite unique. There were the Berkeleys -descendants of Eadnoth the Staller, a Saxon nobleman who went over to the Conqueror and was killed in 1068. His descendants held land in the West Country right down to the Change, which I'm sorry to say they didn't survive."
"I'm sure you could tell us a great deal of interest about the Old World," Sandra Arminger said.
"I'm merely a soldier, my lady," Sir Nigel demurred. "A straightforward type, I'm afraid. You probably know a good deal more of history and matters of state than I."
"Not all that straightforward," she said thoughtfully. "Despite the charmingly boyish smile-your son has it too."
"The smile?" he said, feeling a prickle of apprehension as Arminger raised an eyebrow and looked between his wife and his guest.
"The charm, and the hidden depths, I think," she said, and returned to her account books.
Arminger nodded, the considering look still in his eyes as he went on: "We're entering the farming part of Washington County now. Thank God the Change didn't wait a few more years, or this would have been built-up too."
Arminger was genial enough; until you remembered that at a word his men would cut you down, or drag you off for worse. Or you thought of the sick, brutalized eyes of the labor gangs in Portland, and the weeping sores under the iron neck rings.
Nigel Loring cast an appraising eye on the escort. A dozen were mounted crossbowmen, with mail vests, simple conical helmets, knife and short sword at their waists, small round shields over their backs. Another dozen were what Arminger called his men-at-arms: equipped Norman-style in knee-length hauberks, big kite-shaped shields and nose-guarded helms, but with plate vambraces and greaves on their forearms and shins added, equipped with longsword and eleven-foot lance. All of them seemed tough, fit, probably good with their weapons, and well-mounted-they were certainly expert horsemen, as was their master, and good at riding in formation to boot. The escort's commander had the plume on his helm and little gilded spurs on his boots that he'd been told marked knightly status.