The Protectors war

"Maude," he said softly, turning to see her sitting up and alert, her white face framed in dark hair. "Something's happening. We'd best take precautions."

She nodded briskly, swung out of bed and began to dress. They had had twenty-two years together before the Change and eight since, and neither needed many words to know the other's mind. He quickly slipped into his colonel's undress uniform-that was the post-Change version, designed to be worn under armor or as fatigues, tough and practical and with grommets of chain mail under the armpits, to cover the weak spots in a suit of plate. This set was clean, but there were stains from blood and sweat and the rust that wore off even the best-kept armor. His wife looked a question at him as he felt behind the frame of an eighteenth-century painting of a London scene and took out the di

He slipped the blade up the right sleeve of his jacket. She dressed then herself, in riding breeches and tweed jacket-they were allowed exercise, though always separately and under heavy guard. King Charles had made their confinement comfortable enough, probably the result of guilt and reluctance. Queen Hallgerda hadn't managed to talk him into throwing the pair into a dungeon or sending them to the headsman's ax-not quite yet.

But she will do it, given enough time to convince him it's for the good of the realm. Damn the woman!

"What do you suppose is happening?" Maude said calmly.

"Not quite sure, old girl, but I think it's a rescue attempt," he said, his voice equally serene.

Although I feel more nervous than I have in thirty years, he thought. It's a trifle different when the wife's along too.

"I don't suppose: " Maude said.

Sir Nigel shook his head. "If His Majesty was going to give us the chop for asking about Parliament and elections and lifting the Emergency Powers Act once too often, the Varangians would handle it without needing to sneak about through the shrubbery. Light the candle, please. If it's friends come to call, we should make sure they know we're in. Then give me a spot of help with the furniture."

She nodded calmly; he felt a stab of pride as she picked up a lighter and flicked it alive, then went around the room touching the flame to candlewicks and the rapeseed-oil lanterns, as calmly as if they were back home at Tilford. Mellow golden light filled the room, touching the chinois-erie of the wallpaper, the pictures and mirrors in their ornate frames, and the pale plaster scrollwork medallions on the ceiling. It was a melancholy sight, in its way; the detritus of a thrice-lost world, the elegant symmetries of the Age of Reason filtered through the Age of Steam and his own twentieth century. The current situation was more suited to an older, darker period-the Wars of the Roses, perhaps, or even the stony roads of Merlin's time.

A few seconds sufficed to force a mixture of wood splinters and candle wax into the keyhole; then he shoved wedges made from shims worked out of the interiors of tables and settees under the doors. Together they dragged a massive desk over and tipped it up against the frame, lodging the edge against the pediment above and bracing smaller items in the remaining space. It had all been pla

"That should hold them for a little while," he said, as a shout from the other side asked what they were doing.

Maude nodded, she was a strong-featured woman of fifty, two years younger than he, and three inches taller than his own five foot five. It went unspoken between them that the Varangian commander almost certainly had orders to see that they didn't survive any rescue attempt.

"If you could detach this table leg for me, darling?" she asked politely.

He nodded, braced a foot against the frame and wrenched the mahogany loose, working it back and forth so that the pegs wouldn't squeal when they broke. Sir Nigel was a small man, but nobody who'd seen him exert himself thought he was weak. Maude smiled and hefted the curved hardwood.

"Makes me nostalgic, rather." At his glance and raised eyebrow, she explained: "About the size and weight of the hockey stick I used back at Cheltenham as a girl."

She took a good grip on it and waited; Sir Nigel took the opportunity to use the splendid bathroom one last time. He'd rather have had his armor with him, but unlike a suit of plate, the cloth uniform did have a button-up fly, and a functioning loo wasn't all that common these days. He might as well have one last chance at decent English plumbing.

As he returned a horn sounded, dunting and snarling in the night-not the brass instrument the regular forces used, but the oxhorn trumpet the Special Icelandic Detachment affected. The clash of steel sounded, rapidly coming closer, and men's voices shouting-and then a few screaming in pain.

Nigel Loring smiled slightly. "And they wouldn't tell us where Alleyne was," he said dryly, feeling another glow of pride-for his son, this time.

"I rather think we know, now," she said.

"Right on schedule," Alleyne Loring said. "Good old Major Buttesthorn."

They approached the great Georgian country house from the west. The long stretch of grass was being used to graze the garrison's horses and working oxen since the Basin Pond provided a natural watering point, and large dark shapes shied and moved aside as they trotted forward. A sudden clash of steel sounded faintly from over Woburn Abbey's high roof, and then the snarl of a signal horn. Hordle gri

But not all of them-and if the rescue party wanted Sir Nigel and Lady Maude out alive, they had to move quickly. For that matter, the garrison commander would probably send a detachment out here as soon as he collected his wits. Hit them fast when they weren't looking, and put the boot in hard while they were still wondering about the first time:

"That's the window," Alleyne said, pointing.

"Just like the drawings, sir," Hordle said.

The abbey was built like a giant uneven H, with the short arms and the Corinthian facade in the middle of the co

Hordle took a blunt-headed arrow from his quiver; it had a small slip of paper fastened to it with a bit of elastic. He drew carefully, well under full extension, and shot. The arrow hissed away, and an instant later he was rewarded with a tinkle of breaking glass.

The arrow smashed the windowpane and flicked across the room to dent the plaster. Nigel Loring winced slightly at how narrowly it had missed a painting by Nebot; his wife was already unfastening the message.

" 'Stand clear and pick up the string from the next,' " she read. "But dear, we can't climb down even if they do have a rope attached. The bars: "

Whhhptt.

The first shot hit the bars and bounced back. The second landed in the room trailing a thin cord, and Maude Loring began to haul it in hand over hand, a pile of it growing at her feet.