The Protectors war

Nigel reached for a canvas duffel bag; it held the rest of his armor. But Hordle was before him.

"I'll take that, sir," the giant said, and took them both, besides the war saddles, hefting the two-hundred-pound total without visible effort, despite his own gear.

Nigel and Alleyne followed, eyes wary in the dark and hands on their sword hilts. The front of the Ca

The door to that had survived; Buttesthorn and his men had been hard at work there, as they saw when they let the section of blackout curtain fall to hide their entrance and turned up the lantern. The rubble had been pushed back from a section of stone-flagged floor, and any cracks in the mostly intact rear and side walls had been roughly patched with mud and planks, from the inside. Three aluminum canoes waited, with bundles of gear neatly packed and trussed beside them. Trail food, extra arrows, two more longbows-Nigel and his son were both excellent shots, but neither could bend Hordle's monster stave-sleeping bags, clothing, fishhooks, lines:

There was also a little spirit stove. Hordle grunted appreciation and lit it as he rummaged through the sack of supplies they'd brought from Jamaica Farm.

"Right, I knew that Gudrun was a kind-'earted girl. Pity we couldn't stay a little longer, but needs must. Sausages: bacon: bread: butter: onions: tomatoes: spuds: mushrooms, even! We can do a proper fry-up. Fair scrammed, I am. It'll be salt horse and Old Weevil's wedding cake on the Pride of St. Helens, I'll wager. Ah! She put in four bottles of Scarecrow Best Bitter, all the way from Arreton; it must be love. Bob'll be livid."

"I'll take first watch outside, then," Alleyne said. "Give me a shout when it's ready, Hordle."

Sir Nigel sat, unlacing the bag with the rest of his suit, going over the pieces-pauldron and vambrace, spaulder and sabaton and greave-checking for nicks in the enamel, flexing the leather backing and straps and buckles. The armor didn't need nearly as much maintenance as the medieval originals. They'd used some of those in the first year or two, taken from museums and country houses; after that the armorers had rigged water-powered hydraulic presses to stamp copies out of sheet metal salvaged from warehouses and factories. The Lorings' suits were of the best, and the nickel-chrome-vanadium alloy was much, much stronger than the rather soft medieval steel; besides that it didn't corrode easily, if at all. Still, it was best to take no chances, and it was as important as ever to keep the leather supple.

And the homely, familiar task let his mind wander while he kept it on impersonal things.

He looked around the ruined pub; how long would it be until this was a town again? At least it would happen; there had been times in the first Change Year when he feared it would all collapse, that England would be totally wrecked as most of Europe and the Middle East had been, beyond hope of recovery. There was an England again, however tiny and impoverished; and at least he could comfort himself that he'd played some part in building it. Perhaps in laying the foundations of a new age of greatness. The Irish might have had the starring role this time if they hadn't indulged their taste for bashing in each other's heads so wholeheartedly, but as things were old England had the field to herself:

And how will they think of these years, in that age to come?

When this was a pub again, or housed a weaver or a merchant or a blacksmith, how would the chronicles fit this age into the long, long vista of the island story? Beside the Black Death, he supposed, or the Viking invasions; a great catastrophe, long ago, which ushered in a new age. But there would be none of his blood in it, for the first time in many centuries. There had been Lorings at Tilford before the first stones of Woburn Abbey were laid, although for a time the land had passed through a female line before the name returned through marriage to a distant cousin.

Lorings had carried their blazon of five roses to Crecy and Agincourt; one had gone ashore at Cadiz in the first Elizabeth's time, beating a drum in the surf as his men put King Philip's Armada stores to the torch-and drank up an amazing cargo of sherry found on the beach. A scion of the house had died under Rupert's ba

Maude:

The wound was still raw, but it didn't scrape at his whole mind quite as much, now. The first pain had subsided just enough to let him feel lesser hurts.

The fact of the matter is that we were very happy, these last few years, politics aside-if Alleyne had settled down and produced some grandchildren, it would have been perfect.

He wouldn't have chosen the Change-no sane man would-but:

To be completely honest, I'm more at home in an England of farmers and squires and parsons than one of cities and motorways and the Internet, he acknowledged ruefully. If it weren't for the: eccentricities: of the king: a dozen hitch of Shires couldn't have dragged me out of the country again.

Maybe I should have taken the offer of Gibraltar, he thought, accepting a plate from Hordle with a word of thanks, and begi

Gibraltar wasn't quite an island, but the only co

I might have accepted if I were a bit younger-and then I wouldn't have been involved in politics here and Maude would be alive. There was a hint of a title, too: I'd have retired quietly in another decade-and all that was Queen Hallgerda being cu

Alleyne returned from his watch at Hordle's soft-voiced imitation of a barn owl. The archer loaded another plate with eggs, sausage, fried potatoes and buttered bread.

"I'll take this over to Jock and send him back when he's finished," he said.

Alleyne smiled-a charming expression that reminded Nigel forcefully of his wife for a moment. "Excellent fry-up, Sergeant."

"I take a good bit of feeding, sir," Hordle said. "So it pays to do it right. Maybe a bite to eat will cheer up that mournful Jock git. I think the ruins put him off, like."

"You were always the best field cook I knew. Something Sam Aylward didn't teach us, eh?"

"Christ, no, sir. Samkin could burn water. I swear a can of bully beef tasted worse if he opened it."

"I'll relieve you in four hours, then."

The two Lorings settled down in comforting silence for a moment as Nigel prepared to take his own turn; the younger man had a thick hardcover book out. It was his copy of the Fellowship of the Ring, of course, a signed edition salvaged from Oxford in CY2. He'd brought along all three volumes.