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Unlike, for example, Alexi. Or Jabar, who still cherishes hopes for his son I've decided to frustrate.
"Lady d'Ath," he said, as she too knelt and kissed his hand. Like all her gestures, it was impeccably smooth. "We give you a great trust. It is good of you to volunteer for it, sacrificing glory and advancement in this war for the benefit of the Association."
Her smile surprised him a little. "Caring for the princess is a pleasure, not a duty, my lord Protector," she said; her voice wasn't quite the cool falling-water sound he remembered from past years; it had more resonance in it, somehow. "And I'm content with the good estate you've given me. Let others have their chance at glory and reward now. I've taken a new motto for my House of Ath: What I have, I hold."
He nodded, begi
Conrad spoke: "I wish we had your menie with us, d'Ath. They've improved drastically since you took the fief."
"Despite the losses," Sandra cut in yes, she was needling him a bit.
"Dad, Mom, why can't I come along too?" Mathilda said suddenly. "Mom's going. With Lady Tiphaine to guard me, I'd be safe behind the army. If I'm going to: I'm going to have to go to war, someday, right?"
Arminger laughed aloud, and repressed an impulse to tousle the reddish-brown hair above the fearless hazel eyes.
"Yes, you will, Mathilda, but not quite yet. For now, you have to do as your mother and I say. And when I win this war, I'll bring you back the world for a toy!"
Her stiff decorum broke for a moment, and she threw her arms around his armored chest. "Just bring yourself back, Daddy!"
Chapter Twenty-Two
Field of the Cloth of Gold, Willamette Valley, Oregon
September 3rd, 2008/Change Year 10
"F olks, we got a problem," Mike Havel said. "We've got to step back and look at the bigger picture instead of getting caught up in the details."
He looked around the table under the awning. Abbot Dmwoski was silently telling his beads. Apart from that, the leaders were looking at him with nothing more than a raised eyebrow or two; none of them were what you'd call the nervous sort.
"Well, we've got a murtherin' great battle to win," Sam Aywlard said after a moment.
"No, that's not it. We've got a great murdering battle to fight, and that's the problem."
Havel took a deep breath and pointed northward, across the rolling plain, blond stubblefields and pasture drowsing under the August sun, the stems of the cut wheat glittering in a ma
"Arminger's there, with just over ten thousand men. We're here, with just over ten thousand too."
He pointed skyward. "He's got aerial recon, and we don't, so we're not going to turn somersaults and come down on both his flanks at once; this army doesn't have enough unit articulation or triple-C to do that sort of thing anyway. This is going to be a slugging match, toe-to-toe, last man standing wins. We've got more infantry and it's better, but he's still got about twenty-five hundred knights and men-at-arms, plus the light horse, and they outnumber our cavalry by six, seven to one. So we're talking our pikemen: and pike-women: walking forward with a rain of napalm bombs landing on their heads, to say nothing of the dartcasters and crossbows, and then facing the men-at-arms."
"We've beaten his cavalry before," Eric Larsson said defensively.
"Yeah, brother-in-law of mine, we have, when we managed to make him or whatever goon was in charge do something spectacularly stupid. Or when they underestimated what riding forward into an arrowstorm from our Mackenzie friends was like. That's not going to happen here; for one thing, Renfrew's in charge of that army and he's not stupid. The monks and the Clan made him retreat last time, but nobody's ever managed to sucker punch him. All Arminger has to do is walk up to us and start hitting us with a hammer, and he's a pretty good hammer-hammer general; Conrad Renfrew's better."
He drew in another breath. "I figure if we win, we're going to be real lucky to leave here with six thousand people still breathing-and a lot of those'll be crippled for life, burned, legs and arms ending up on a pile outside a surgeon's tent. If we lose: "
Havel shrugged and smiled his crooked smile. "Well, we don't have to do a count on that because we will be so totally fucked it isn't fucking fu
Dmwoski frowned, but nodded. Nigel Loring snorted, but did likewise. "You have some idea, my Lord Bear," he said in that excruciatingly cultured English voice.
It went a little oddly with the kilt and plaid he was wearing today; that was probably a lot more comfortable than the armor most of the rest were in.
Havel nodded gravely and answered: "Yeah, I do. A lot of those barons and knights out there would rather be home, fighting the Jacks : why were they called Jacks? Never mind. They've got an uprising behind them and from what the Dunedain say it's getting worse every day. The only reason they're not completely baboon-ass about it is because their families are in nice safe castles, but they're spooked. They want to fight us and get it over with and go home and unload some whup-ass on the revolting peasants. What's holding them here? Norman Arminger, is who. He's bossed them so long they can't imagine not obeying him, not really."
"You're saying that Arminger is the Association's weakness," Alleyne Loring said thoughtfully.
"Yup. He's what makes it an offensive force instead of a bunch of quarreling gangbangers in armor with delusions of chivalry. Remove him-"
"Sandra Arminger is smarter than her husband," Juniper objected.
"And Conrad Renfrew is a better general," Signe said.
"Yes. But neither of them is the Lord Protector. He's the one with the: "
He hesitated, looking for a word, and Nigel Loring smoothed his mustache with one finger. "The baraka, the charisma. He's their founder. Their creator, in a way. You think we should assassinate him, then?"
The Englishman looked at his son, at John Hordle, at Eilir and Astrid sitting as leaders of the Dunedain Rangers.
"Oh, God, no. Not an assassination. Sticking a knife in his back would be the one thing that would rally them all behind Sandra as Regent and Renfrew as warlord; they'd rule with Arminger's ghost as their false front, which would be just like fighting him only without the hang-ups that cripple him."
"Ah," Juniper said, her green eyes going wider. "You want to kill his myth, not just the man. I should have thought of that. It's hidden depths you have, Mike. But how?"
"Bingo, Juney. As to how: so, we're agreed he's their weakness. Now, what's Arminger's big weakness?"
"Sweet young girls?" someone said, and there was a chuckle.
Havel smiled himself, but shook his head. "Norman Arminger's big problem is that inside the big bad warlord is a suburban geek weenie," he said. "I thought so when I first met him a bit more than ten years ago-he reminded me of a D amp;D freak and would-be badass whose nose I broke behind the bleachers in high school. When his i
He nodded at a ba