Artos looked at the faces of those they passed. He’d seen the like before; there was sorrow for those who’d lost kin and friends, but the relief and joy outweighed it. They knew what a Cutter victory would have meant. There were always costs to a fight when you won, but fighting and losing was far worse. This wasn’t the first time these people had been on the receiving end of a raid, and they knew how the world worked.
The Rancher seemed to be searching for words: “So, Mr. Mackenzie. . your family is Scottish?”
Artos glanced down at his kilt, recognizing a conversational icebreaker:
“My mother’s mother was Irish; from Oilean Acla, Achill Island. And she married an American named Mackenzie who was Scots mainly, with some German and a wee bit of Cherokee and traces of this and that. My blood father was half Finn, with the rest split between Swedish and Anishinabe. . Ojibwa. My foster father’s English.”
“Scots and English, myself. . a little Ukrainian and Blackfoot.”
Artos offered a harmless question in turn. “What was that about your excellent doctor indulging in arson?”
A short snort of laughter, and the Rancher waved a hand towards the ruins of the old house by the lake.
“She was part of. . with, at least. . the gang that did that. People from Calgary, summer of the first Change Year. Not really bad, most of them, just hungry and desperate, trying to take a place where they could feed themselves. My father broke the gang up, but he let some stay if they could work for their keep, and a lot of ’em turned out pretty good; they and their kids are half the people on the Anchor Bar Seven now. Padmi spent a month or so shoveling and pounding earth before she’d tell anyone she was a doctor. She still claims it’s forced labor and she’ll burn the place over our heads someday. I don’t know if it started as a joke, but. .”
Artos laughed; it was a better ending to the story than most from those times.
“It’s sorry I am that you’ve taken damage and loss from my coming, and yourself so hospitable and helpful,” he said bluntly. “I can’t bring back the dead or heal the injured, but I can compensate for material losses.”
“I haven’t taken damage from you, Mr. Mackenzie; you and your sister saved us. My people and I have taken loss and damage from the Cutters. No need for payments.”
“Ah, well, you should be knowing that it’s Iowa’s money, and none of my own. And Iowa has more money than is good for them, or at least for their neighbors, so you’d be doing a good deed by taking it. A little financial letting of blood to correct the humors.”
“Oh, in that case. .” he said, and they both chuckled. Then grimly: “And this isn’t the first time we’ve fought the Cutters, though it’s the worst so far.”
“Ah, now that’s what we need to speak of.”
“Well. . I’m not the Premier.”
Father Ignatius bowed his tonsured head. “No, Captain McGillvery, but you are a man of great influence here, most prominent of the Ranchers in the southern portion of this Dominion. They will listen carefully to you, and your government will listen in turn to them all. And we have no time to spend in consultations with Premier Mah in Drumheller. We know that she has agreed to declare war on the Cutters, but not how vigorously she will prosecute it.”
“My mother. . the Lady Regent Sandra of the Portland Protective Association. . told me that Premier Mah was very able, but a little too cautious sometimes,” Mathilda added. “Too inclined to hedge her bets.”
Artos could see Oh, that Princess Mathilda run through McGillvery’s mind. Here in Drumheller they had to have dealings with the PPA; not particularly friendly ones, though there hadn’t been war beyond the odd border scuffle since Norman Arminger had died. That meant they knew at least a little of what went on farther south in the rest of Montival as well. Mt. Angel had daughter houses here, and the Order of the Shield of St. Benedict was well thought of.
“Well, for what it’s worth, Mr. Mackenzie, I’m in favor of settling Corwin’s hash once and for all.”
“That’s the immediate task,” Artos said. “Though I’ve a horrible suspicion that it will be but a battle in a longer war.”
“Of course. . what exactly do you intend to do with Montana after you get rid of the Cutters? After we all do, that is. If it’s left alone it’ll be chaos, then bandits and anarchy, or warlords. But Drumheller certainly doesn’t want to annex it. Enough of those people have ended up here anyway.”
“Our plan is to incorporate it in the High Kingdom of Montival, for precisely those reasons.”
“Er, that’ll cause. . concerns.”
“It’s my thought we should speak a little of how the High Kingdom and the Dominion had best arrange their affairs both during the war and after it. For we’ll have a border to your southward, as well, should things go well.”
“You’re not inviting us to join, I hope?” McGillvery said. “The, um, High Kingdom, that is.”
Artos grinned. “No. Though I’d not turn you down did you wish to. Yet I don’t anticipate you will. You’ve a well-governed and not-so-little realm here. All you really want of your neighbors is peace, and perhaps trade, eh?”
The man nodded in relief, and the discussion between the four of them was brisk. It turned into something like a procession, as McGillvery toured the camps of the various contingents, formally inviting them to the victory feast-most of which would be conducted in the open or under tents, but officers and a select few others were bidden within the Anchor Bar Seven’s homeplace walls. That in turn led to a few impromptu speeches by commanders to their men:
“And I know what great fighters you are,” Bjarni went on to his assembled band, standing on a massive barrel that gurgled hopefully with good Canuk ale. “You showed it yesterday, against these Cutter swine who’re supposed to be so fierce.”
A roar of approval greeted him. His men hadn’t packed fancy clothes along, though they were combed and trimmed and had their arm-rings on. The bearded faces looked up into the torchlight, cheerful with the expectation of the feast-particularly at the prospect of unlimited fat, tender young beef. Cow-beasts were mostly working oxen or for dairy back in Norrheim, where they had to be fed in barns on hay and grain and roots five months of the year. They weren’t slaughtered until they were good for nothing else, except on special occasions or when a chief was feeling lavish.
And McGillvery’s looking a little apprehensive. They are a wee bit rough in appearance, I will grant.
“But I also know what a bunch of drunken, brawling, rutting horn-dog arslings you turn into the moment someone waves the bung from a barrel under your noses,” the Norrheimer said flatteringly.
That brought laughter; he cut it off with a motion of his hand.
“Drink your fill and eat your fill, gamble and arm-wrestle and sing, boast and have riddle-games and swap lies with your friends and our allies,” he went on. “But remember that we’re guests here, with a guest’s obligations. If you misbehave it touches the kingdom’s honor and my own. No fights, or at least no steel. And keep your hands off any woman who isn’t willing-and if you’re in doubt, she’s not. Any who disgrace us I’ll send to the High One with a rope and a spear! Now go enjoy yourselves, and have a taste of Valholl, for you earned it!”
Artos smiled and turned to his own smaller war band. His close companions didn’t need any such advice, but the Southsiders and Norrheimers picked up along the way might. Customs and standards differed.
“It’s proud I am of you, my hearts, every man and every woman, for you’ve been all that a lord might wish in his companions,” he said. “But my friend Bjarni’s advice is good. Do remember that looking too often into the bottle is not an excuse for violations of hospitality. Also remember, those of you who haven’t seen Montival yet, that if a man forces a woman, we Mackenzies bury him-alive-at a crossroads with a spear in the dirt above his coffin, to turn aside the wrath of the Mother and appease the Earth Powers.”