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Sandra went tsk.?Which means it is full of contumacious Canuks with bows, Conrad, who really wouldn?t appreciate our handing it out in fiefs over their heads.? ?We did just that in plenty of other places.? ?That was in the first Change Years. We were dealing with terrified hungry refugees who?d do anything for help and had nowhere to turn. It?s different now. Things have… jelled. In any case, that?s for another day, provided that we survive the present war. Read! There?s something rather interesting after they left Iowa.?
She could tell when he came to the part on the boat. ?They hailed him High King?? Conrad of Odell spluttered. His skin turned red under the thick white keloid.? Mathilda hailed him as High King of… what the hell is Montival?? ?Everything, evidently,? Tiphaine d?Ath said crisply.?Everything from here to Idaho, down to California and north to the limits of Association territory, I imagine, at least. Perhaps California too, if we ever get the Westria Project going. Hmmm. Montival is actually not a bad name, now that the old State boundaries are so meaningless.? ?Goddammit, she?s giving it all away, the-?
Sandra cleared her throat:?Conrad, we?re old friends, but I think you?re about to say something on the order of dumb little twat about my daughter Princess Mathilda, the heir to Portland. Don?t. It would be rude as well as inaccurate.? ?All right, I won?t,? he said, a tun of a man in black velvet and gold and heraldic colors, with the sweat of anger on his bald dome. He rubbed it with a hand like a spade before mastering himself and going on:?But why, why, why did you raise her to be such a… such a.. .? ? Romantic is the word you?re looking for, Conrad,? Tiphaine said. ?But she?s not, really. She?s hardheaded enough, in modern terms. Changeling terms. She?s just… good.?
The smile grew a little broader.?Not something any of us three have to worry about.? ?And I raised her to be that because I want to build something for her that will last,? Sandra said.?Remember what Napoleon said to Talley rand.?
Tiphaine thought for a moment and then nodded. Conrad stopped in midrant and looked at her before he spoke, in the tone used with quotations: ?Look at the bayonets of my Imperial Guards, how they gleam in serried ranks! With such men, I can do anything!?
Sandra smiled and completed the anecdote with the diplomat?s reply: ? Yes, sire. You can do anything with such bayonets… except sit on them. Evil has a short half-life, Conrad. Only a man like Norman-and a woman like me-could have built the Association, given what the times were like at the Change. To make it a living thing that survives us all… I?ve found that other methods are necessary. And to really consolidate it needs someone like my Mathilda.? ?But she?s giving away our sovereignty! Sandra-having the Corvallis Meeting always looking over our shoulders since the Protector?s War is bad enough, but this!?
Tiphaine sat silent, a considering frown on her face. Sandra stroked the Persian cat on her lap with one hand, and waggled a finger at her Chancellor with the other. ?Conrad, Conrad, Conrad,? she said-or almost purred, with the smile of a cat contemplating a mouse squeaking under its paw.?You don?t think I?ve gone soft, do you? You?re not looking at the big picture!? ?I?m not?? he said. ?Of course not. You?re thinking in pre-Change terms.?
Sandra held up one soft, well-manicured, not-quite-plump hand; her eyelids drooped in an expression of purely political but still sensual enjoyment. ?Here we have the High King, Rudi-or Artos the First, as his enthusiastic young friends hailed him. When this message gets about, half the nobles in the Association will be crying him hail as well-? ?Three-quarters of those under thirty,? Tiphaine put in. ?True. And all the burghers and peasants. All the Clan Mackenzie, of course; though dear Juniper will find some way to feel anguished and guilty about it. Witch Queen or not, you can tell she was raised Irish Catholic! And all the Rangers will swoon. Well, not Alleyne Loring or his pet troll Hordle, but certainly Eilir, she?s Rudi?s half sister after all. And most of all the Lady of the Dunedain.? ?They?ll start dry-humping and creaming their hose in every flet ,? Tiphaine said, with a slight stark smile.?Astrid particularly, you?re right about that, my lady. The demented bitch may get pregnant again just from contemplating the coronation ceremony.?
Sandra nodded.?It?s precisely the sort of romantic froth they adore. The Bearkillers… well, many of them will be enthusiastic too, if not dear Signe. Rudi is the son of their precious Bear Lord, after all. And isn?t it pleasant to think of Signe striding about kicking the Larsdalen furniture and thinking of how her own dear little lad Mike Jr. should have it, but never will, because he?s been done out by his bastard half brother Rudi again?? ?The woman can certainly nurse a grudge,? Tiphaine said.
You?re speaking with unconscious irony, my dear, Sandra thought affectionately, as she nodded agreement to her protege. Or as the kettle said to the pot: My, how sadly sooty and grimy is your backside!
She added aloud in a meditative tone:?I think that she?s never really been able to get over that little premarital infidelity of Havel?s with Juniper because it only happened once. That and Rudi being his spitting image, with three inches and strawberry blond hair added.? ?Are you saying that there?s nothing we can do to stop this High King of Montival nonsense?? Conrad said. ? We couldn?t stop it if we tried. But if we throw the Throne?s weight behind the notion, even the independents like Corvallis and the Yakima League whose rulers don?t have any blood link to either the Havels or the Armingers will fall in line. Every single power represented in the Corvallis Meeting. Especially given how frightened they are over the war with Boise and Corwin, and the way the previous messages and all those songs and stories dear Juniper?s spread have primed them. If things go well with the war-?
One of Tiphaine?s brows raised: Sandra interpreted that as well, there?s deranged optimism for you. She continued: ?-we might even get Idaho included at the end. That rescue of young Frederick Thurston-splendid mythmaking! It couldn?t have been better if it were a lie made up by one of our hired troubadours, and the cream of the jest is that it?s true.? ?Support it?? Conrad goggled.?Why should we? Hell, Sandra, we created this country. Did we do it so Juniper?s brat could rule all we built up? What…?
He paused, and used the most desperate argument.?What would Norman think? Rudi… he?s damned smart and damned tough and damned likeable with it, but he?s the son of the man who killed your husband, and his mother was our second-worst enemy all through the wars. You and God and anyone who was within hearing knows I had my arguments with Norman Arminger. But you and he and I made the Association.? ?Yes. And what did we make, Conrad? A nation? A country?? ?Well-yes.? ?Well-no. We made a feudal kingdom, Conrad. Which isn?t at all the same thing.?
He frowned.?That?s terminology. Yes, you and I were in the Society, and Norman took it all very seriously but-? ?No, it?s not just terminology. You?re showing your age, Conrad. Think like a feudal noble for a moment, not an executive; think the way the younger generation thinks all the time and you do half the time, for example when you were arranging the marriages of your sons. Think about family. If Rudi becomes the High King, he rules Montival-presumably as a loose federation of autonomous realms; that is what a High King does, after all, as opposed to an Emperor. The Association territories would be self-governing, but part of Montival.? ?That?s the problem! Not that I don?t like Rudi, but-? ?No, that?s not the problem, that?s the solution, my dear old friend. It?s the solution to the problem that I… and you… and Norman, before the Protector?s War… have been struggling with since the Change. The problem being that Mike Havel and Juniper and the damned Yakima League and those greed-mongering pedant anachronisms in Corvallis wouldn?t submit to the Throne. To House Arminger.? ?What do you mean?? he said, baffled. ?The High King of Montival must have a High Queen. And if she is none other than my daughter-and bear in mind that she?s also Norman?s daughter and only child-then one of her children becomes the High King in turn. Or High Queen regnant, to be sure. Then that means that my grandchild-and Norman?s grandchild too, don?t forget that part- rules the whole west side of the continent, as well as being Lord Protector of the Portland Protective Association. Which is what Norman and I wanted to begin with, and the son of the man who killed him is handing it to us on a golden platter!?