Sandra almost purred as she held a hand out to Lady Jehane. The amanuensis slid a folder from an accordion file and pushed it under her liege-lady’s fingers. It was correspondence, on heavy parchment-like paper, thick with official letterheads and seals.
“As it turns out, something can be done about that. You’re aware of what happened in Iowa while Mathilda and Rudi. . Artos. . were passing through?”
Three Bears spoke: “The Cutters who were chasing Rudi, and some of their local butt-monkeys, managed to kill the Bossman of Iowa while they were trying to get at Rudi and his friends. While they were his guests. The Iowans are totally ripshit and aren’t going to calm down anytime soon. But how did you guys find out?”
His father glanced at him; Sandra chuckled a little, a warm comfortable sound.
“No, it’s a good question. We have a route of communications around the Cutters now.”
“Through the Dominions?” Red Leaf asked sharply.
“Exactly.”
The Dominions of Drumheller, Moose Jaw and Minnedosa spanned what had once been the prairie provinces of central Canada from west to east. They had settled governments, and a scattered semblance of civilized life in farm and ranch and small town, as far north as the Peace River country. Drumheller abutted on the lands ruled by the Prophet, and also had a border with Montival, through the Association’s holdings in what had been British Columbia.
“How come?” Red Leaf asked. “They’ve always been pretty isolationist. I thought the Cutters had ’em spooked, Drumheller in particular.”
“They’ve reconsidered,” Sandra said. “Or possibly simply considered where they’ll be when Corwin and Boise have destroyed us.”
“Or where they’ll be if we win and they’re surrounded by hostile neighbors they refused to help,” Juniper pointed out. “I think Iowa helped persuade them.”
Sandra gave her a considering glance and murmured: “Dear Juniper, occasionally you remind me that honesty isn’t necessarily linked to stupidity.”
Louder, to the two Sioux: “And these letters are from the new Regency Council of the Provisional Republic of Iowa. In the names of the Regent, Lady Catherine Heasleroad, speaking for her son Thomas who is the heir to the Bossmanship, and the Chancellor, Abel Heuisink, for the rest of Iowa’s government. Both speaking for the Sheriffs, Farmers and People of Iowa, as they rather quaintly put it; or Barons, Knights and Commons, in our terminology. Offering a very substantial military force, from Iowa and the neighboring states. Fargo, Marshall, Richland, Nebraska, Concordia, Kirksville. They’ll be abundantly well equipped and as numerous as the supply situation permits; that’s the most densely populated part of the whole continent from Guatemala to Alaska now.”
“The logistics are pretty good, too,” Tiphaine put in. “If the railroads were put back into commission-and they also have plenty of labor and good engineers, and even rolling mills for light rail-”
The two Sioux sat bolt upright; Red Leaf choked slightly on a mouthful of coffee and clashed the priceless Sevres cup down in its saucer.
“Now, wait a minute! We fought the Square Staters too, over the Red River Valley, for years. No way are we letting them get that sort of foothold on Lakota land. Railways and forts. . where the hell have I heard that song before? Iowa alone outnumbers us something like ten to one. We held them off because they didn’t have any way of supporting armies on foot out in the short-grass country. Nobody was all that organized back then, anyway, but that’s changed too. People know what they can do now, and how to do it.”
Juniper nodded sympathetically. “Well, now, my dear, we have thought of that. Your fear is that having come to help you, the Iowans may decide to outstay their welcome and help themselves, to whatever they please?”
“Damn right!”
“Well, then, think on this; if we go down, then not only will Corwin eventually turn on you, but you’ll be caught between two millstones: the Cutters’ empire, and Iowa and its allies. Alternatively, the Iowans could decide to fight their way through you to get at Corwin. Which would leave you after the war with no friends and no bargaining power at all.”
It wasn’t a pleasant thought and she could see both of the Lakota mulling it over. The High Plains were a sparse hard land where the Mother’s gifts were given grudgingly; they could yield a decent living if the folk there had many acres per head and used the scanty grass and water skillfully, but they couldn’t support the great farms and towns possible to the east or west. Not in the world after the Change.
Ogma of the Honey Tongue, lend us your eloquence! For we are speaking for our lands and homes and folk.
She felt an impulse to reach out and shake sense into Red Leaf and his son. . which would do no good whatsoever, of course.
“But,” Sandra said, raising one finger, “there is an alternative. One which will assure that the Iowans go home after the war.”
“Provided we win, of course,” Tiphaine qualified.
Sandra nodded. “Operating on that assumption, yes, Baroness d’Ath, since we’ll be too dead to care if we lose. Your Lakota country is drier than the Midwesterners like, anyway; they have land enough to feed twenty or thirty times their number lying idle inside their own boundaries, and more vacant to the east and south down the Mississippi Valley when they’ve brought all that under the plow. It’s one acre after another around there, fat black soil and well-watered, the best farmland in the world.”
“Yeah,” Red Leaf said. “They don’t need our territory. That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t want it if they were standing on it.”
He frowned, looking as stubborn as a bull bison, and as dangerous, almost ready to bellow out a challenge to the world and charge heedlessly. Then he took a deep breath:
“So, what’s your plan?”
Sandra made a graceful gesture. “You know Rudi’s to be High King in Montival?”
“Yeah. Whatever the hell a High King is, as opposed to just plain King or President or Bossman or whatever.”
Juniper took up the story: “An Ard Ri. . a High King. . isn’t an Emperor or Bossman or anything like it. We haven’t settled all the details of the thing, but you may notice there are many peoples out here, with many ways of doing and living that have grown up since the Change, their own laws and ways and Gods.”
Red Leaf’s dark eyes narrowed above his high cheekbones.
“So?”
“A High King will. . so to speak. . reign over the whole of Montival lightly, more than rule it. All the peoples. . city-states, clans, the Association, the monks at Mt. Angel, the Faculty Senate in Corvallis, and others besides. . will keep their own laws and govern themselves. Each will guarantee the borders of the others and aid them if they’re attacked, under the High King’s direction.”
“Nobody gets to settle on our land without our permission,” Red Leaf said bluntly. “That’s non-negotiable. We learned that lesson real good.”
“Precisely. Nobody to touch so much as a blade of grass without your leave,” Sandra said soothingly.
“Free trade, of course,” Juniper put in; she wasn’t going to sweeten the pot with bad treacle. “The Ard Ri won’t have a big standing army, only a guard, but everyone is to send contingents when needed, and there’ll be a tax-not much of a one, but to be paid-and the High King’s court will hear disputes between communities, or their members. You can consult the Three Tribes Confederation of Warm Springs if you like, and see that we around here keep our word. And while nobody is compelled to take anyone in, everyone is to be free to leave where he is, and most places welcome any pair of hands that go with a willingness to work, since land is so much more abundant than people to till it. Which means no slavery or serfdom anywhere, unless it’s truly voluntary-which would take away the whole point of such.”