The Protectors war

"Shut up, fuckface!" the guard snarled, lashing at his fingers.

"No, no, that's a legitimate question," Arminger said, as the prisoner staggered back from the bars, clutching at his injured hand. "I think: yes, I think that when my daughter returns, I'll hold a tournament. We'll have jousts, and a melee, and bear-baiting, and then something new. You're all going to volunteer to fight a pair of tigers, with knives. Knives for you, not the tigers, that is. I think twenty-to-one is fair odds. If any of you survive, I'll even let you live. The salvage and construction gangs can always use new hands. Simple food, an outdoor life, and healthy manual labor."

More curses followed; the prisoners probably thought they had nothing to lose. They were wrong about that, and the ones who wept, or lay curled up and hugging themselves were wiser. What he'd probably do to them all if his daughter didn't return soon would make fighting a four-hundred-pound Bengal starved and tortured into madness seem quite desirable.

The one who'd asked first was a brave man. "What if we refuse?" he said.

One of Arminger's brows rose. "Refuse to fight?" he said.

"Of course! Why should we give you a free show, you manky pervo?"

"Well, if you don't fight, the audience will be disappointed." He smiled slowly. "But I don't think the tigers will mind at all."

The local baron had vacated the great hall-he spent most of his time at a nearby pre-Change mansion anyway-and Sandra Arminger waited, pacing nervously back and forth in front of the hearth. Guardsmen stood like iron statues down the wall, their spears glinting dully in the gloom.

"Well?" she said sharply, after waving her attendants out of earshot;

"Nothing about Mathilda," he said. "I didn't expect there'd been any conspiracy there, anyway. It looks like serendipity; she and Molalla's son just happened to be where the Mackenzies were raiding-they'd decided to come home that day on the spur of the moment, no way to anticipate it. And the Mackenzies won't hurt her, you know that."

"They won't hurt her body. I want her back, Norman!"

He made a soothing gesture. "So do I, my love. So do I; very badly indeed. But we'll have to be extremely careful. A botched attempt could result in her being hurt. At the least, we'll have to wait for them to drop their guard and relax a bit."

She bit her lip, eyes troubled, then nodded sharply; less in agreement than recognition there was nothing immediate they could do. That knowledge made him swallow a bubble of acid-tasting anger, but there wasn't. Not yet.

But when the time comes: he thought, and saw her perfect agreement.

"What about the VX?" she said, forcing herself to attend to business.

Arminger smiled sourly: "We'll still have to confirm the location he gave us, but I finally managed to persuade him."

She raised an eyebrow and he went on: "You might say I made him an offer he couldn't survive."

Chapter Eighteen

Larsdalen, Willamette Valley, Oregon

May 16th, 2007 AD-Change Year Nine

"You haven't built much in the way of forts over in Britain?" Mike Havel said politely, as they rode under the Larsdalen gate.

"More a matter of refurbishing old ones," Nigel Loring said, ru

"Built like Hoover Dam, but around a framework of I-beams," Havel agreed. "I don't suppose you did need to start from scratch, much, over there."

"If there is one thing England isn't short of, it's castles-or Ireland or the Continent either," Loring agreed. "Most of them in nice strategic locations, as well."

Havel shook his head. "Strange to think Britain did so well."

Loring's mouth quirked and he ran his forefinger over his mustache. "More a matter of Britain doing very badly and everyone else in the vicinity doing even worse, actually. Once we restored order, there wasn't much actual fighting. Not in mainland Britain, because there wasn't anyone left to fight. We've had to do a bit of sword work on the Continent, and against the Moors. And in Ireland -a bad business, that, and I can't see any end to it."

Havel surprised him by laughing aloud. "Christ Jesus, you Brits are getting back to your roots," he said. "What's next, fighting the Spanish Armada?"

"Well: in point of fact, old boy, we're colonizing Spain ourselves. From Gibraltar, you see. It was empty, and it was that or let the Moors have it: "

Havel 's laugh grew. "Another empire 'acquired in a fit of absence of mind'?" he asked, surprising the Englishman.

"To be absolutely honest, that phrase always struck me as a bit silly-clever, if you know what I mean. Presence of mind, rather; profit and preaching, philanthropy and plunder, pinching a bit of land for those not welcome at home, and incidentally keeping the bloody Frogs out. Doubtless it'll be the same this time, although now the French aren't a problem, eh? Now, they had bad luck: I'm a bit surprised you came up with the quotation."

"Got it from my father-in-law; I think you'll like him. Anyway, it hasn't been so straightforward here. Things are less: compact. Not as easy for someone to come out on top quickly."

Havel answered the salute of the gate detachment, and then waved to the crowd beyond; it was several hundred strong, and in everything from farmhand's overalls to A-lister armor. Loring cocked an eye at the reaction; not as loud as the cheers Arminger had received, but he judged it to be a good deal more authentic. Havel rose in the stirrups to address the crowd.

"Well, Crusher Bailey isn't going to be troubling the northern marches anymore," he said. "Last time I saw him, he was dancing on air with some crows waiting for lunch after the performance." That raised another cheer, louder and with a savage edge to it. "We had a brush with the Protector's men too, and they came away sorry and sore."

The cheer turned into a snarl; evidently the Protector was unpopular here. The snarl turned into a chant, with fists and swords brandished above it:

"Lord Bear! Lord Bear! Lord Bear! Hakkaa paalle!"

"All right, cut it out! No biggie! Everyone get back to what you were doing, for Christ's sake!"

And he doesn't need to wallow in it, the way Arminger did, either, Loring thought.

With the Pride of St. Helens thoroughly lost, it seemed Oregon was where he would stay-and his son, and John

Hordle-unless they felt like an overland trek. Once the adrenaline rush of escape was over, that had been depress-ingly certain. Finding that some of the Lord Protector's enemies were better company was reassuring. And, of course: His mouth quirked.

"Que?" Havel asked.

"Oh." Didn't think my musing was that obvious. "I was just thinking that if I had to land in the middle of a war at my advanced age, at least it's one I could feel enthusiastic about."

Havel smiled, a crooked expression. "I'm glad you ended up in it too, Sir Nigel. There aren't many people whose judgment on a man I'll take at more or less face value, but Sam Aylward is one of them, and he says you're very capable and: 'fly' is the way he puts it."

The newcomers dismounted, and grooms led the horses away; Bearkillers and Mackenzies mingled, talking with friends and relations, or being led away to the bunkhouses for visitors. Two girls came ru

"Mom! Dad!" they squealed; Signe Havel stood with her hands on her hips and laughed.