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Havel gri
Sarian did, but seemed a little surprised that Havel had. "Yes?"
"You're going to build it, and I'll see you get a loan if you need it. I may be a warlord, Sarian, but I'm not a stupid one."
"Hard man, your Havel," John Hordle said.
He leaned back in the booth with the glass beer stein looking like a teacup in his massive fist. Aylward took a swallow of his own while casting a discreet eye around; nobody was near enough to overhear them, as the Crossing Tavern bustled with the effort of feeding so many-most of them outside around their campfires. There was laughter from the booths around them, and snatches of song from the camp; the strange fruit dangling from the old oak hadn't dampened spirits for long. People had gotten tougher-grained since the Change, and nobody was going to miss Bailey's crew much. Some of those passing by paused to spit on the bodies.
"Not exactly mine," Aylward said. He held up a hand. "I'm Lady Juniper's Armsman now: run her militia, pretty well; not to mention she saved me life right back after the Change. And her territory is where I've settled for good and all, Joh
Hordle nodded in his turn. Aylward's quirked smile said: Looks like we still understand each other, mate.
There was little left of the hulking awkward youth who'd listened to Aylward's stories in the taproom of the Pied Merlin. Hordle had still been young when they last met nearly a decade ago; very young to leave ordinary regimental service and pass the almost insanely rigorous SAS tests, but he'd shown promise. Now he was a man grown; not yet thirty, but with a matter-of-fact confidence. He also had an interesting collection of scars on face and hands and arms, when you had time to look-none from bullets, but a fair number of the thin white puckered lines you got from blades.
"As to our Lord Bear," Aylward went on, "he's a bad enemy but a good man to have at your back if he's your friend, and that's a fact. Now do some ruddy talking, John. Any news on my sisters?"
He'd had two still living when he left England ten years ago. He blew out his cheeks in relief when Hordle smiled and nodded: "We got 'em both out, and their families," he said. "Even with the Change, Sir Nigel wasn't going to for-get, eh?"
"Bless 'im," Aylward said, raising his mug.
And I'll wager he got Hordle's kin out too, and the families of any other troops he had under his command. One reason Sir Nigel had been an effective commander had been a thorough understanding that loyalty had to run both ways.
"I've 'ad nine years of wondering what went on back in the old country. What happened to Lady Maude, for starters?"
"Killed when we broke Sir Nigel out of Woburn Abbey," he said.
"What the ruddy hell: no, I'll let you get on with it."
Hordle finished his stein and filled it again from the jug on the table; then he took a small loaf out of the basket beside it, tore it apart and began to eat it.
"Get on with the rest, then," Aylward said after a moment.
"Ten years in a word, Samkin?" Hordle said, cheeks bulging as he chewed meditatively.
"Ten thousand for a day, unless you've changed."
"Right, then: the Change happened-I was dead asleep in barracks when it did, first thing I knew besides the light and headache was gettin' rousted out at four o' bleedin' clock to stand on a street corner with an SA80 even more useless than it was when bullets worked. Well, it had a bayonet. Day Two they gave us halberds and pikes from the Tower and turned the Tin Bellies up in their fancy kit."
"Must've been bad, in London."
"Bad? Mate, you've no idea-we scarpered early, morning of Day Three, and there was fire and smoke from one horizon to another already, and crowds in the streets, and when the water went off, and then: The politicians had no bloody idea what to do."
"Now isn't that a super sodding surprise."
Hordle nodded. "But Sir Nigel and the Household Cavalry got the queen out to the Isle of Wight; she died that winter, poor lady, of grief and overwork-wouldn't take a crumb extra. And when we left London Sir Nigel had notice sent to officers he trusted, to use the islands as rally points-Wight, Man, Anglesey, Arran: he could see what would happen if things didn't go back the way they'd been, and that the rally points would need defending."
Aylward nodded. And smart enough to figure things wouldn't change back, he thought. And hard enough to see what had to be done. If they hadn't defended those islands, they'd have been overrun and eaten out, which is what I thought had happened.
"Blair was supposed to follow along when the civilians finally started taking it serious-like, by the last message we got out of London, but he never did-the riots were bad by then, and the food had run out."
"Bet it had. Small loss with Blair, is what I think. I never did like the bugger's greasy great smile-you could wring the man out and do a proper fry-up with the oil."
"No argument then or now, Samkin. And that's probably exactly what happened to 'im."
They laughed grimly, and Aylward went on: "What about the prince?"
"Sir Nigel took an SAS team to Sandringham to fetch him; we used the back roads and rejoined at the coast-quite a gypsy caravan by then, the prince'd been thinking, like, and he had us sweep up all the horses and livestock we could; seed grain from Highgrove too, and tools, and some farmers he knew. And we towed a bloody great grain ship out of Southampton on the tide, with sodding rowboats: Christ, talk about hard graft!"
He shuddered at the memory and tilted his mug back.
"Isle o' Wight, eh? Might have guessed that. How many lived?" Aylward said.
"Of our folk? Three hundred fifty thousand; Jocks, Taffies an' all. Two-thirds of that on Wight."
"I'm not surprised," Aylward said, wincing a little despite himself; that was one in two hundred of the British population. Better than he'd expected, in fact. Still:
"Six hundred thousand by now, though."
"That's fast work with the dollies even for you, John!"
Hordle snorted laughter and shook his head: "We brought in a lot of foreigners from Iceland and the Faeroes, you see. They lasted out the first year at home on sheep and fish, but they were up against it by then, and proper glad of a place to go, and we needed the hands something fierce by then to get the crop in: "
"Sir Nigel said something about the prince getting eccentric."
Hordle gri
"Gotten short-spoken in your dotage," Aylward said. "What happened once you got here, then?"
"Ah, well, Sir Nigel would be the one to tell about that."
"Now," Havel said an hour later, "we have time to talk, by Christ Jesus."
The Englishmen were around the table, Juniper Mackenzie with them; the Bearkiller leaders flanked Havel; everyone was slightly damp from the baths. The room was private-Arvand Sarian's people had laid it, lit the lanterns and brought the food: lentil soup, fresh bread, butter, spring salads, kebabs of chicken and lamb and garlic-rich yogurt on the side, platters of smoking pork ribs with a hot red sauce, French fries, roast vegetables. They'd also set out jugs of wine and water, cider and beer.