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"I mean, the Eye of Sauron? The Dark Tower? Give me a break! Look at the way he took the Association's setup out of his favorite books-and I mean the storybooks, too, not just the history ones he'd claim he used. He didn't put in all that pseudo-medieval Camelot-from-Hell crap because it was a useful way to build his power; you can tell because he put in the parts that weaken him, too, not just what he needed to please the Society types. He put it in because deep inside the warlord is the professor and deep inside him is the pimple-popper who thought Knights in Armor were so cool. The same guy who couldn't get a date until his freshman year and hated all the girls who turned him down, so he still likes raping teenagers; every new victim is revenge on the ones who laughed at him and his hard-on. And so the Association he's built has one great big juicy weakness we can exploit-a way we can make him walk with open eyes into a trap, because if he doesn't the cracks he engineered into his own system would split it wide open. He can't change it now, not now that it's had time to set, not overnight."
His eyes went to the bear-topped helm standing with his armor on its rack. "That's the problem with calling in a myth. It may start out as an obedient little doggie, but pretty soon you've got the wolf by the ears."
"What precisely are you saying now?" Juniper asked; Signe's eyes were wide with the same alarm.
Mike Havel smiled a hungry smile.
"My lord Protector, an enemy envoy under a white pe
Norman Arminger looked up from the map table and finished his coffee; unlike most he preferred it just on the hot side of lukewarm and always had. The smell reminded him of the Tasmanians who'd brought the first beans this part of the world had seen since the Change. That was a pleasant memory, particularly the way they'd died:
He wished now he hadn't added the big map of the Association's territory, the one with red pins for Jack uprisings; that looked unpleasantly like a case of measles, and he could see every nobleman's teeth set on edge when they came into the tent and glanced at it.
But it'll be over soon. The monks and those crazy pseudo-Celts and the Bearkillers and Corvallans can't keep that hodgepodge of a non-army together for more than another week or two, and unlike the Conqueror or Roger I, I don't have to worry about mine starving or dying of typhus. They have to come out and attack us. We'll crush them so completely we'll be able to go home, put the Jacks down once and for all and then sweep to the gates of Corvallis before the year's over.
"My lord?"
He shook his head and forced his mind to quiet. "A man of rank? Who?"
"Lord Eric Larsson, sir. He comes with a white pe
A prickle of anticipation ran down Arminger's spine. Silence fell within the command tent; Sandra folded the file she was reading and sat up on the lounger, and the Grand Constable stopped talking to the supply officer. Half a dozen barons whispered to each other, a rising ripple of sound until Arminger raised a hand.
He looked out at the sunlit fields, smiling at a world golden and ripe; the command tent was on a low rise, the closest thing to a hill this flat farmland had.
This has to be a desperation move on their behalf, he thought. And if it's the Bear Lord's brother-in-law, I'd better make it a public audience jor maximum effect.
"Admit him under promise of safe-conduct," he said, turning and walking to the chair behind the big table.
It was light, a thing of straps and cu
Which means I have to be very careful, he reminded himself. There are things our knights take seriously, particularly the younger generation. Charming, but sometimes inconvenient. Who'd have thought it would take on so quickly?
The younger man drew rein outside the command pavilion and dismounted, hanging his helm on the saddlebow of the horse. Arminger made a single spare gesture, and the guards at the entrance uncrossed their spears and braced erect.
Formidable, he thought, reading the man through the war harness with practiced ease; it wasn't much different from an Association man-at-arm's gear, anyway.
Six-three, a bit taller than me, and a hundred and ninety, just a little lighter. Trained to a hair, in his late twenties: at his peak or close to it. I wouldn't care to fight him, but luckily I don't have to. He'd be an interesting match at a half-time game. A few starving wolves, perhaps, and him fighting them naked.
He had a gauntlet in one hand. Arminger's brows went up; and suddenly Sandra was at his side, leaning over slightly to whisper in his ear, her voice a sibilant hiss: "Kill him! Tell them to kill him! Don't let him say another word – kill him now!"
"Don't be absurd," he said quietly, and she choked off her words with a bitter sound like a frustrated spitting cat. "Kill him with the whole camp watching? I'd lose so much face I'd never recover."
Men were crowding around the perimeter of the command pavilion's circle of space now; they didn't push against the guards, but they were pointing and murmuring. Many looked delighted at the break in the boredom; many, especially the young knights, looked exalted. The yellow horse waited on dancing feet, its hide gleaming like polished bronze, and it attracted its share of admiration in a camp where the pursuit of horseflesh was a common obsession.
Arminger made another gesture. The guardian knights wheeled aside, and Eric strode up the stretch of crimson carpet. He halted on the other side of the table with an impeccable bow-low enough to acknowledge he was greeting a sovereign.
"Lord Protector Arminger," he said crisply.
"My lord Eric Larsson," Arminger replied. Most of our nobility acknowledge A-listers as our equivalents, he thought. Can't hurt to do the same. It'll all be very theoretical soon, anyway. "Has your master reconsidered my offer? What message does the Bear Lord send to me?"
As he spoke, he suddenly wished that he hadn't let his taste for archaic vocabulary betray him. He might have known that a Larsson would have a solid education in the classics. Eric's face showed a little of his sudden glee, but that was to be expected in someone still young.
"What does the Bear Lord send unto you? Defiance," the emissary said. "Add unto this, contempt, and slight regard."
And he hurled the gauntlet down on the table. Unit markers went flying from the surface of the map, some of them striking Arminger in the face. Almost, for an instant, he did what his wife was still silently willing he should. When he spoke he slowly stood upright, forcing his teeth apart.
"Be glad you're an ambassador, boy. I can't kill you now. When the battle comes, there will be no such restrictions."
Larsson smiled. "You refuse the challenge?"
"Sovereigns don't accept challenges from their inferiors. Tell your master that."
One yellow eyebrow went up. "Oh, my lord Protector, it isn't my challenge." He raised his voice: "The Bear Lord calls the Lord Protector to account for his many crimes, and will meet him between the armies tomorrow in single combat, with any weapons the Lord Protector may choose, to the death."
Norman Arminger felt his face go gray. It wasn't fear-fear of ordinary physical danger was not one of his weaknesses. It was the realization:
I can't say no, he thought, thinking of the young lion eyes on him. Not here, not now, not with all my men assembled and with the uprising back home. They'll accept anything but what looks like cowardice. The old gangers as much so as the new crop of knights, for only slightly different reasons.