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Arminger controlled his fury with an effort of will that brought a bead of sweat to his forehead; the smell of it was a faint, rank musk. "Corvallis was supposed to be neutralized," he said in a flat voice. "Alexis report is pretty clear that he had the Bearkillers back on their heels until that happened.''
Sandra spoke for the first time, her voice like cool water. "We did have the Faculty Senate neutralized. What happened was that the Corvallans who wanted to fight us just strapped on their armor and jumped on the bicycles and started pedaling north. Unorthodox, illegal, unconstitutional: but there you are."
Renfrew slapped the table, a gunshot sound as his palm struck dense, oily wood only a little harder. "Yeah. Precisely. Which happened because we tried to take away the buffer between them and us. Made our protestations of peaceful intent look pretty much like complete bullshit, didn't it? OK, yeah, they always were bullshit, but did we have to make that entirely plain to the most wishful wishful thinker? And all that effort we put into cultivating Turner and Kowalski? They'll be lucky not to get lynched, and there goes years of work."
Arminger jerked to his feet, a move with none of his usual feline gracefulness. Then he stalked over to the tall, narrow window, looking down across the lands that acknowledged him ruler. His hands writhed together behind his back, but when he turned at last his face was calm.
"What do you recommend?" he said. He turned his head slightly. "Both of you."
"That we pull in our horns," the Grand Constable said promptly. "Inside our own borders we've got enough manpower still to fight off anything the other side can throw at us, easy. We're bigger and we've got interior lines and strong fortifications-which is why we've been squeezing so hard from the first to get the damn castles built. In a year or two we can convince the Corvallans that we're really just little lambs, baaa-lambs, and that they should sell us the rope we use to hang them; they're almost as gullible that way as people were before the Change. Then we attack the Free Cities League, and digest it, and then we see what's possible next. You're not going to conquer the world all at once, Norman. But if we stick out our dicks again right now, and if we have a couple of inches trimmed off again, like Alexi did or even worse the way Emiliano did, God alone knows what might happen. The Free Cities might have a slap at us, for starters. And a lot of our farmers would rise the minute they thought we were losing our grip."
Sandra nodded. "That'll be true until the last people who grew up before the Change die. And we do have to worry about the Free Cities, darling."
Arminger looked at his wife. She spread her hands on the table. "My dear, they're quiet now because we frightened the daylights out of them last year and broke down a lot of their irrigation canals, not because they love us. The problem with that is what happens if they stop being afraid of us. Which is true more generally, too, you see."
"I hate to say-" Renfrew began. "No, let's be honest. I love to say 'I told you so,' and I told you we could forget about the Willamette for a while and take the Yakima, because the Free Cities League was isolated from anyone else- they're too far away for Boise to support them effectively. That would have given us a base to take the rest of the Palouse country, which is good wheat-land. I know you've got a hard-on for the kilties and Mike Havel, Norman, but let's not get irrational about this."
Suddenly Arminger smiled; it was an amused, rueful expression. "I do tend to get obsessive," he said. "And they've been driving me absolutely mad for years now; the more so as things have gone so well everywhere else. I confess to a very strong desire to see them suffer, and that's one of the perks of being the overlord, isn't it? All right, we'll make up some face-saving thing about the Grand Constable 'saving the host' and stand on the defensive, at least until after harvest. Then we'll see. We can talk a little at di
Silence fell with the lord of the Association gone. After a long minute Sandra Arminger tapped the papers before her into neat piles. "Well, that was easier than I thought it would be," she said in a tone as neutral as the spring sunlight.
Conrad Renfrew nodded. "Norman's being reasonable."
Their eyes met, with a common, unstated disquiet.
In the corridor outside, Norman Arminger snapped his fingers. A messenger in black livery knelt.
"Find Sir Joris Stein," Arminger said calmly. "Tell him to attend me in the Salle d'Armes of the Dark Tower guardroom, immediately."
The Mackenzies would be celebrating. Time for them to feel a little grief.
The Silver Tower looked west from Castle Todenangst's keep; the pearly granite that sheathed it had come from a number of banks in Portland and Vancouver and Oregon City.
In popular slang, it was known as the Spider's Lair. Sandra Arminger thought that extremely amusing; in fact, Tiphaine wouldn't have been surprised if the consort hadn't started the necessary rumors herself. She took a deep breath and walked past the guards at the arched entranceway, nodding to their stamp and crash of metal since she was in civilian garb.
My first time as a member of the nobility, she thought. Granted, the lowest rank of the nobility, but it's still a big change. And don't forget who got it for you.
The same gray-and-silver theme was continued within, when you came to the upper chambers that were Sandra Arminger's private quarters; off-white marble floors, silvery silk hangings with the occasional tapestry for contrast, cool restraint in the furniture, only the Oriental rugs providing a blaze of colors-there was an experimental workshop in Oregon City which was patiently laboring to duplicate the best Isfahans for her. The air smelled slightly of jasmine and sandalwood; from the opened windows she could hear the evening sounds of the great fortress-palace, guards tramping, faint music in the distance, wind flapping a ba
Gaslights kept the interior light, and recessed hot-water radiators made it pleasant despite the chill of the spring night.
And the only problem is the damned cats, Tiphaine Rutherton thought, quietly nudging one aside as it tried to chew on her boot; she was mildly allergic to them, but nobody dissed the consort's felines.
I wish she'd drown the nasty pug-faced Persian monstrosities. And they always shed on your clothes when you're wearing black. Well, not my problem anymore.
She bowed deeply, and one small, elegant hand gave her leave to sit.
"My husband, Lady d'Ath, is a very capable man," Sandra Arminger said after a moment's silence, leaning back in her chair on the other side of the table and stroking a blue-eyed cat curled up in her lap. "Very forethoughtful, in many respects-did you know he had a plan of this castle made before the Change? However, like even the greatest men, he has a few weaknesses."
Tiphaine Rutherton bowed her head, a slight, silent gesture. A servant slipped forward noiselessly and filled her cup with herbal tea. She'd really have preferred wine, and it was late enough-after eight and after di