Conrad nodded, as if reading her mind. "We're mak ing a mint off the salt-works on the coast and the Columbia tolls, too. Basic population has more than recovered from all those laborers who left after the Protector's war."
They both scowled slightly; of all the conditions im posed after the Portland Protective Association's quali fied sort of defeat in what everyone else called the War of the Eye, the one allowing peons to leave without pay ing their unpayable debts had hurt hardest. Everyone had a lot more land than farmers to till it, even now. Peo ple were wealth in the most fundamental sense, strong hands and backs to work and fight.
"Between natural increase and immigration from the more chaotic areas like Pendleton, which unfortunately goes to the other realms as well as to us, and the fifty thousand left in the Palouse when we annexed it-"
Sandra smiled her cat smile, and Tiphaine d'Ath nodded, and Renfrew grinned. It had even been voluntary.
At least, it was voluntary on the part of the collection of sheriffs and strong-arm types who took over there after the Change, she thought. And their sons.
They'd been unable to compose their own feuds-not least because of the Association's subtle pot-stirring-and had been left in the end with a choice between the neofeudalism of the PPA and the iron-fisted centralized autocracy of the United States of Boise under General President Thurston. Now the Free Cities of the Yakima League were surrounded by Protectorate territory on three sides, too, and could be squeezed, as long as she was subtle and indirect about it.
Conrad went on as she mused: "-we're up to about four hundred thousand people all told. Portland-the-city's nearly as big as Corvallis now."
Sandra shifted her gaze to Tiphaine; the military was her responsibility. She'd been Conrad's deputy there for years, before getting the top command last year when the Count of Odell decided to concentrate on his chancellor hat.
"The sons of the knights we lost in the war are grown now, or mostly," the Grand Constable said.
Which was fortunate. It took years to train a mounted lancer; the best had to be virtually born at it.
"What with that and new creations, when we call out the ban and the select militia, we can field twenty thousand men and keep them in the field as long as we need. A thousand knights, four thousand men-at-arms, a couple of thousand good light cavalry-horse archers, mainly-and the rest infantry. Half crossbowmen, who finally all have modern rapid fire models, and the rest spearmen. I think we should raise some pike units like the Bearkillers and Corvallans, but that would take a lot of retraining time."
Tiphaine and Conrad started an argument about the relative merits of eighteen-foot pikes versus spear-and shield; Sandra ignored it while she thought. She'd never pretended to be a soldier of any sort, any more than she was an engineer. You found people who knew what they were doing and left them to do it… provided you also found ones you could trust.
"-admit the phalanx has an advantage on open ground but pikemen are too specialized for my taste. Spearmen are more flexible, and-" Conrad said.
Sandra cleared her throat. "The big picture, please. Proceed, Tiphaine. And if we're pressed?"
"In an emergency? Forty thousand if we call the arriere ban for a defensive war, though of course those won't all be as well trained and it would be awkward during the harvest. The castles in our core territories are all in good shape, the armories and emergency food stores are full, we've got reserves of trained destriers to replace horses lost in the field, the river fleet on the Co lumbia is fully ready, and we've finally got the field artillery up to spec as well as the siege train."
"Problems?"
"The Palouse. We haven't had time to get it castel lated properly yet, so it's vulnerable in a way the rest of our territory isn't. The strongholds there are mostly earthwork and timber, motte-and-bailey at best. The local lords can't afford to rebuild right away. Also the roads there are lousy-the fools haven't even been fill ing in the potholes or keeping bridges from washing out, and the railroads are a wreck. But if we try to make them repair twenty-two years of neglect overnight, they'd be bankrupt. Except that they'd revolt first, of course."
"I presume we have the necessary plans ready to fix the situation?"
"Of course, my liege; we started on that before the an nexation. It's simply a matter of money… a very great deal of money."
"How much?"
Tiphaine named a figure, and Sandra winced slightly. Then she held up a finger.
"Conrad. Do you think you can get the Lords to ap prove a special subsidy for infrastructure improvements in the Palouse, along the new eastern border at least?"
The stocky man winced in turn. The Association's landholders didn't like paying even the standard as sessments, and an extra one would cost him political capital-which was to say soft-soaping, bribing and threatening.
"Yes, if you think it's worth the trouble. And it will cause trouble," he warned.
"Twist the necessary arms-I have some files you'll find useful. It'll keep the new lordships in the east sweet if we loan them the money and supply engineers and materials. I could pay it out of the Privy Purse, but I prefer to keep that for unforeseen emergencies."
Renfrew gathered up his papers. "I'd best get on to it; young Lord Chaka will see sense, I think. His mother will help. Stavarov will cause problems but I can talk him 'round if I offer some of his people land…" He raised an eyebrow at her.
"By all means, but bargain hard. I want to keep as much of the vacant areas of the Palouse in the Throne's demesne as I can. Granting land is a lot easier than get ting it back, unless there's a convenient case of escheat for treason."
He nodded and made a formal bow, kissing her ex tended hand and grinning like something carved on a waterspout. "Farewell for the nonce, Sandra, you evil bitch."
"That's 'my sovereign liege-lady and regent of the Association' evil bitch to you, Conrad."
Laughing, he bowed again and turned to go. Sandra pulled at a tasseled cord; the door opened smoothly and showed the corridor outside, with the guards standing to attention; their mail gleamed with a gray oiled sheen as they brought their spears to the salute.
When the door closed again, Sandra stood, gently stirring a cat out of her lap. "Come," she said to Tiphaine.
The warrior-woman helped her into a long robe of white ermine, and they walked out onto a balcony, closing the sliding glass doors behind them. The day was bright and sunny for January in the Willamette, with only a few drifts of high cloud; you could just see Mount Hood's white cone to the east, over the battlements. Above it a glider swooped, its long slim wings dark against the aching blue of the sky.
The two women's breath smoked as they looked down into a flagged hexagonal courtyard twenty feet below. It was overlooked by two stories of barracks and storerooms on all sides as well as the Silver Tower. Todenangst was full of things like that, unexpected crannies and vantage points. She'd put most of them into the plans herself; Norman had been much more… straightforward… and not nearly as fond of Peake's work as she.
"They say this castle had a man's bones in it for every ton of concrete poured," she said, with a nostalgic smile for the grand adventure of those early years.
Sometimes I think we got away with it only because nobody could believe how crazy we were.
Tiphaine nodded; she'd been newly come to the house hold then, and barely fourteen. "I remember a bit of it; they used to throw the bodies into the mix, sometimes. You kept telling the Lord Protector it could wait until we had the farms fully up and running again, and he said it could wait, but he just didn't want to, he wanted his castle and he wanted it now."
"Poor Norman, that was his great fault. He was in too much of a hurry to realize his dreams; it killed him in the end, as much as Havel did. If only he'd known how to wait, he'd be alive today… and we'd have it all. I miss him."