The Protectors war

Chapter Fifteen

Crossing Tavern, Willamette Valley, Oregon

May 13th, 2007 AD-Change Year Nine

"So that's why they are all stirred up, Juney," Mike Havel chuckled. "Tweaking him, as you said back at our conference. We thought it would be the perfect time to clean out Crusher Bailey, with the Protector himself doing something up the Columbia, and his reserve cavalry all east over the river. Either they've got a lot more cavalry than we thought, or our English friends here are more important than we thought. Perhaps we'd better hear from them before you fill us in on the details of how you got from Table Rock to the Willamette."

Juniper nodded. It had taken only half an hour, spaced out between bites; the good food was welcome after a week of riding, fighting, and snatching meals catch-as-catch-can.

"I'm curious too, to be sure," she said. "And poor Sam's fair bursting."

Sam Aylward grinned his thanks at her-he'd been smiling a good deal since he saw Sir Nigel and the others. He'd spoken of the Lorings, but not often, probably because memories of home were too painful when he thought everyone he knew dead.

"I might as well make the introductions," he said. "Sir Nigel was my CO in the SAS for quite some time, and we were neighbors before that. Tilford Manor's not far from Crooksbury and my father's farm-where it was before he sold up, that is."

"Two of the least successful agricultural enterprises in Hampshire," Nigel Loring said, with a slight self-depreciating smile. "Aylward's father and I were in a sort of race to see who could drag out the agonizing process of bankruptcy longest. I won, but then I had my munificent officer's wages to offset the yearly losses, and I had more assets to borrow against. No, I lie-we did make a clear profit, twice. 1974 and 1987."

I think I like this little Englishman, Juniper thought, smiling back. And if he had a hand in the making of Sam Aylward, he must be some considerable sort of a man.

"And this great lump of a gallybagger here, his father ran the Pied Merlin," Aylward went on. "And he's a second cousin of sorts. Bad blood coming out there, inbreeding: "

"Led me astray with tales of soldiering on his visits home, Sam did," John Hordle said, beaming. "Lies, lies, nothing but lies!"

"The more fool you to believe them, then," Alyward said. He turned to the younger Loring: "And you must have been just down from Sandhurst when things Changed, sir."

"I was, and it was luckier than I thought at the time. But Father was more at the center of things."

The elder Loring took up the story, eventually summing up: ": quite an efficiently managed coup and purge, and we'd been very reluctant to openly confront His Majesty. If it hadn't been for the Tasmanian ship being in port and willing to take us into exile: well, the king might have allowed me and mine to retire to Tilford Manor eventually. On the other hand, he might not have, after the queen had been at him for a while. I'm afraid we'd all become deplorably case-hardened by then. We took Captain Nobbes's offer and sailed from King's Lynn -"

"Ah," Mike Havel said. "And you pulled into Portland in: what, early March? Sorry if I'm cutting you short, it's very interesting and I'd appreciate the whole story when there's time, but we do have immediate local problems with your former host there." A crooked smile. "As did you, I understand."

"Their ship got in the first week of March," Signe said. "But the Protector kept it under very tight security."

"Yes; the Pride of St. Helens was on a world survey voyage, you see."

Juniper leaned forward as well. Aylward felt his ears prick; this wasn't just a matter of far-off things long ago. It affected his new home, and his family and people.

Loring went on: "Well, at first everything went quite well. I can't say that I liked this Arminger chappie even on first acquaintance, but I didn't take against him at once the way poor Captain Nobbes did, we'd seen plenty of worse rulers thrown up by the Change: and when I did realize there was no dealing with him, I flatter myself I didn't show it. Then it became obvious that he was delaying our departure for some reason: "

Portland Protectorate, Willamette Valley, Oregon

April 6th, 2007 AD-Change Year Nine

It was a fine bright spring day as the Protector and his guests rode out from Portland, westward to a manor that he'd suggested as quarters for their visit. The burnt-out suburbs were almost behind them now, although for most of the trip you'd scarcely suspect humans had ever lived there anyway, save for the road itself.

Tall trees left standing before the Change reared among saplings already twice man-height, above a tangled mat of vegetation, vines and brambles and hedges gone wild into shaggy walls; forest had gone even further towards reclaiming the abundant pre-Change parks and natural corridors. It was all washed by recent rain, intensely green, starred with flowers, swarming with insects and loud with songbirds. There was game trace of everything from rabbit to elk and boar, and even emu-plus one astonishing set of pugmarks that were unmistakably tiger, although nothing beyond butterflies and birds showed itself with so many carriages and riders on the pavement. The sound of their hooves rumbled and echoed as the road wound between hills crowned with tall firs.

Reminds me of parts of England, Nigel Loring thought-of the thorn jungles and spreading woodland that had taken over where resettlement hadn't reached, right down to the descendants of game-farm escapees haunting the new wilderness. Like those hippo in, of all things, the Fens. Only an occasional snag of wall or stretch of concrete or asphalt showed the hand of man, or a creeper-grown lamppost.

" Portland 's virtually the only large city we've seen that isn't completely deserted," Captain Nobbes said, turning in the saddle to look behind them at the skyscrapers, and at the unearthly white cone of Mt. Hood floating against the eastern horizon. "Partial destruction is very rare."

"I'm not surprised," the overlord of the Protectorate said. "From my scouts' reports, it's certainly the only one in western North America of any size that isn't empty of anything but bones-usually gnawed bones."

Nobbes nodded. "We've been around the world, and anything that had a population of over a quarter million is dead, and has a dead zone around it. The bigger the city, the bigger the dead zone-and in places where they overlap, there's nothing left. Most of Europe west of the Vistula, both sides of the Mediterranean, pretty well all the Middle East, Turkey, Japan, Korea, eastern China: Well, there's Singapore , but that was a special case-they all moved out in an organized mass."

Lord Protector Arminger-Nigel Loring assumed that was a bit of a joke-nodded graciously.

"The circumstances here were rather exceptional," he said. "I saw that the population had to be reduced, and quickly, or everyone would die. So I and my associates-the Portland Protective Association-seized whatever bulk foodstuffs we could before they were wasted or lost. Forty percent of American wheat exports to Asia went through Portland . The amount in the pipeline was considerable, and we took over elevators, trains stalled on the tracks into the city, ships in port and in the Columbia. And then we, mmm: encouraged the surplus population to leave and shift for themselves; with that, there was enough to keep more than thirty thousand people alive for a year.

After about six months we began to expand into the countryside round about, most of which was as you say a dead zone-dead from Seattle in the north as far south as Eugene, except for some enclaves of: troublesome bandits and cultists on the fringes. You can imagine the difficulties-lack of tools, lack of skills: "

"Remarkable that you've accomplished this much," Nobbes said, his voice neutral.

Well, you Tasmanians had a good deal of luck, with the Bass Strait to protect you, Loring observed to himself, slightly irritated by the unspoken distaste.

The thought made him feel a little more sympathetic to Arminger than his first impression had left him, and he had to admit that the man had been scrupulously polite. Portland 's ruler was a tall man in his middle forties with a square chin and knob-strong cheekbones, light-brown hair falling to his shoulders, dressed casually in loose black trousers tucked into high boots, crimson jacket, a dagged hood with long liripipe, and a broad-brimmed hat with a peacock feather tucked into the band. A dagger and double-edged longsword swung from his belt, the hilt a surprisingly plain affair of steel crossguard and worn, sweat-stained leather-cord grip. He looked fully capable of using it effectively, too. For now he held the reins in his left hand, and a peregrine falcon in hood and jesses on his gauntleted right wrist.

Nobbes evidently felt the silence as they came out into settled country; Arminger was the sort of man who could use quiet as a weapon, and Nobbes one of the more numerous variety made nervous by it.

"This reminds me of parts of Tasmania," he said, speaking rather loudly to carry over the rumbling thunder of hooves. "Near Launceston, and up the Tamar. Even to all the people in the fields, and my, didn't all those yobbos from the towns complain!"

"You seem to have made a remarkable recovery, though," Arminger said. "We lost nine in ten or more of our population, and you?"

"We were hungry, but lucky with it-no famine at all, ah, my lord Protector," Nobbes said. "But we've found a number of islands that did as well as Tasmania-the South Island in New Zealand, they've got nearly a million survivors, and Prince Edward Island in Canada with over a hundred thousand; Bornholm and Gotland in the Baltic; no famine there either. And many more that did worse than that but well compared to nearby mainlands- Fyn, Sicily, Crete, Cyprus. And Iceland held out for a year, before the British evacuated them."

"Logical," Arminger replied. "Most of the farming countryside in the advanced countries produced huge surpluses of food for people far away. Even with the massive drop in productivity after the Change there was enough for the few residents and they could readjust in time-unless they were overrun by starving refugees. Islands that weren't too built up would be safe from that, just as the far interior was here- Idaho, for instance. Or at least an island could defend its borders."

He went on, like a genial host: "I've been told the landscape here is like England, too, Sir Nigel," he said to Loring.

"More like parts of France," Loring said. "The Loire Valley, Anjou orTouraine: near Bourgueil, for example. Except that you can't see mountains from there, of course. Perhaps more like the Dordogne country, as far as the view of the middle distance: larger scale, of course."

Arminger looked pleased. "Yes, now that you mention it, this does look a little like parts of France. I visited Tours as a student, long ago: how is France doing?"

"It's empty, save for the dead," the Englishman said flatly. "The king sent a mission through a few years ago to salvage works of art and take a survey, and I was in command of the escort. We've planted a few outposts on the Norman coast, and at the mouths of the Loire and Gironde. Everything else is scrub thicket reverting to forest, with the odd pocket of neosavages, no more than ten or twenty thousand in all."

"Pity," Arminger said. "It was a beautiful country, don't you agree, my sweet?"

His wife looked up from her accounts in the open carriage; Sandra Arminger was a woman in her thirties, brunette but with something fox-faced about her, and clever dark eyes.

"It was overpriced and they never did learn about changing their underwear regularly," she said. "The food was good-as long as you didn't think too much about the kitchen or what was under the chef's fingernails."

"Think of the art, and the chateaux, and the scenery," said Arminger.

"Think of the bad-mannered waiters, and the drivers all intent on killing you."

"Philistine."

"Romantic."

The lord of Portland turned to his guests again: "We're past Beaverton, out of what used to be called the Silicon Forest. Now it's the New Forest. I'm keeping it and the big parks west of town as a hunting preserve: "

Loring gave an involuntary snort of laughter. "A hunting preserve called the New Forest? I say, you're following Norman precedent rather closely, what?"

Arminger's grin was charming. "Touche!"

His wife spoke: "Your family is of Norman origin, isn't it, Sir Nigel?"

"Remotely," he said. "But yes, there was a Loring in the Conqueror's train-a miles, or household knight. He was rewarded with land in Hampshire, which stayed in the family: until last year, in fact."

"Remarkable," Arminger said; his enthusiasm seemed genuine. "Unique, perhaps?"

"Rare, but not quite unique. There were the Berkeleys -descendants of Eadnoth the Staller, a Saxon nobleman who went over to the Conqueror and was killed in 1068. His descendants held land in the West Country right down to the Change, which I'm sorry to say they didn't survive."

"I'm sure you could tell us a great deal of interest about the Old World," Sandra Arminger said.

"I'm merely a soldier, my lady," Sir Nigel demurred. "A straightforward type, I'm afraid. You probably know a good deal more of history and matters of state than I."

"Not all that straightforward," she said thoughtfully. "Despite the charmingly boyish smile-your son has it too."

"The smile?" he said, feeling a prickle of apprehension as Arminger raised an eyebrow and looked between his wife and his guest.

"The charm, and the hidden depths, I think," she said, and returned to her account books.

Arminger nodded, the considering look still in his eyes as he went on: "We're entering the farming part of Washington County now. Thank God the Change didn't wait a few more years, or this would have been built-up too."

Arminger was genial enough; until you remembered that at a word his men would cut you down, or drag you off for worse. Or you thought of the sick, brutalized eyes of the labor gangs in Portland, and the weeping sores under the iron neck rings.

Nigel Loring cast an appraising eye on the escort. A dozen were mounted crossbowmen, with mail vests, simple conical helmets, knife and short sword at their waists, small round shields over their backs. Another dozen were what Arminger called his men-at-arms: equipped Norman-style in knee-length hauberks, big kite-shaped shields and nose-guarded helms, but with plate vambraces and greaves on their forearms and shins added, equipped with longsword and eleven-foot lance. All of them seemed tough, fit, probably good with their weapons, and well-mounted-they were certainly expert horsemen, as was their master, and good at riding in formation to boot. The escort's commander had the plume on his helm and little gilded spurs on his boots that he'd been told marked knightly status.

It seems Charles isn't the only one given to romantic terminology, Loring thought, stroking his mustache to hide a smile; he was a baronet himself, after all. Still, I've seen stranger things since the Change. And Arminger here was one of those Society chappies. The medieval reenactment group had offshoots and equivalents in Britain, and a fair number of those had ended up on the Isle of Wight; his own son had been involved with them since his teens. Very useful they were, as instructors. I do wish they hadn't given Charles so many ideas.

Sandra Arminger rode along in an open carriage, reading through some files. Servants jogged along behind on nags, but the mounts of the armed men and the guests were superb, spirited but beautifully trained-the tall yellow hunter he'd been given was a joy to ride, and he hadn't been able to resist naming it Pommers after his favorite horse back home:

No. Back in England, he told himself sternly. England will never be your home again. You'll have to carve yourself a new home somewhere-land for the Lorings to hold, and I suspect by the sword.

Nigel took a deep breath. The air was fresh, a little warmer than Hampshire would be in April, with an intense green scent. Now that they were out of the overgrown ruins the landscape was gently rolling; steeper ridges in forest of oaks and firs, the hillsides and valleys between a patchwork of greens-pasture with clover and trefoil blooming red among the grass, young grain, a pink froth of cherry blossom scenting the air, hillside vineyards putting out shoots and leaves. There were blue-flowered flax, and hemp and beets as well; cattle and sheep grazed in substantial herds, overseen by herdsmen on foot with slings and simple spears.

But no scattered farmsteads except ruins. Odd, that.

From what he remembered, villages weren't common in the United States, not in the European sense of farmers and farmworkers living clustered together, but that was what he saw here. Homes were tightly grouped at crossroads or near a stream, several dozen in every clump, ranging from modest comfort to mere shacks. The villages were slung along laneways with an open square at the middle, each house surrounded by kitchen gardens and sheds. Every cluster was bounded by a fence of palings with a gate and watchman's house, and each had a church, a larger-than-usual home functioning as a tavern, a smithy and sometimes a water mill. There was usually a larger building some distance from the hamlet, surrounding by a ditch, earthwork bank, concrete or fieldstone-and-concrete wall, and tower; from the look of it each of those was the center of a separate farm, and a large one at that.

It did look rather like some rural parts of England, save that it was more systematic, more consistent, and the village homes were less varied-whether substantial or squalid, most of them looked as if they'd been knocked together since the Change out of salvaged materials. Children and a few women were busy around the hamlets, caring for small stock and weeding in the gardens, or looking after toddlers and infants; he recognized the moan of spinning wheels and the rhythmic clattering thump of looms as well, and several times the distinctive sound of wooden hammers in water-powered mills fulling woolen cloth. Most adults were in the fields, largely weeding at this season when the spring planting was complete. There were a few horse-drawn machines helping, particularly around the fortified manors, but mostly it was hoes, and workers kneeling or stooping to use trowels or their bare hands.

Hmmm, he thought, judging the density and the spacing. One or two square miles per village, on average; call it a hundred people per square mile. Most of the territory this Lord Protector claims to control must be empty, or he'd have a million subjects, not the hundred and fifty thousand he boasts about. Islands of cultivation in a sea of wilderness, probably.

The field workers looked up at the sound of hooves; some in rags with iron collars about their necks, some drably but warmly dressed. Loring could see expressions ranging from naked fear to cultivated blankness when they saw the long black banner flapping from its cross-staff. Frenzied cheers burst out, and smiles more artificial than anything he'd seen in Madame Tussaud's as a boy down from Winchester College. As it came closer they dropped to their knees, still cheering, then bent their necks in silence until the standard had gone past; the whole procedure was repeated in reverse as Arminger's party drew away.

I wonder if anyone dares spit or curse when he's out of sight? Loring thought.

Nobody who'd experienced the frightened court at Os-borne House in the days of the madness of King Charles could miss the smell of tyranny when it sweated out of the very earth beneath his feet.

No, probably they don't dare. Charles was never as bad as this.

Still:

And the field layouts are interesting, too. Big fields, but I'd say they're worked in strips, from the markings in the crops. Like the old open-field system, except with clover-lays instead of fallow. Demesne home farm around those fortified manor houses. It's not like England; it's like a dream of medieval Europe in general: like something out of a book, in fact.

And twice that morning they passed genuine forts, like some demented modernist version of a medieval castle, done in frowning gray ferroconcrete with gangs of plasterers working to cover them in stucco, and complete to the pointed circular roofs over the towers and the wet moats grown up in waterlilies.

Just then one of the servants, a lean, dark-bearded man in a leather jerkin, rode up and pointed.

"Heron, my lord!"

Arminger looked up, and he grinned as he reined in and unhooded the falcon; the column halted as he did. The bird saw the prey and mantled, feathers splayed and wings spread as it crouched, then launched itself into the air with a sweet chime of bells and a fierce skreeek! Loring strained his eyes. The heron was high already, traveling from north to south; it broke even further skyward when it saw the peregrine's upward rush. He'd never practiced falconry himself; foxhunting was his sport, and since the Change he'd taken up pursuing boar. This did have a certain excitement.

"She rings, my lord Protector!" the servant-who must be the falconer-cried. The falcon was circling, rising in an upward gyre. "She's going to get above him! I told you that was the finest peregrine in the mews."

"No, she's way below. Ten rose crowns she's not going to get altitude on him, Herb," Arminger said with a grin.

The falconer paled, beneath a short-trimmed black beard. "My lord, I'm a poor man. I couldn't pay that."

"Well, then, let's bet a kick in the ass against the kitchen girl you've been sniffing around," the lord of Portland said. "She's yours if-"

"She stoops!" someone cried. "The falcon stoops!"

The tiny dots merged. "She binds!" the falconer said. "She's bound, all right!"

The dot grew, until it showed as two birds tumbling around their common center of gravity, the peregrine's talons locked in the heron's body. Then the falcon released its giant white prey and ringed again, climbing for a second strike. It climbed almost to the edge of visibility as the heron flapped heavily for a forested ridge, then stooped again-falling like a guided missile; they could all see a burst of white feathers as it struck, and then killer and victim tumbled together to the ground. The falconer ran out into the pasture to the north of the road, twirling his lure, and returned with the falcon on his wrist, tearing at gobbets of meat he fed it and then submitting meekly to the hood. The big white bird dangled from his free hand by the feet, its wing tips brushing the ground despite his attempts to hold it high.

"Annie's yours," Arminger said. "That's her name, isn't it?"

"Yes, Lord Protector," the falconer said.

"You want to marry her? She's a bondservant, isn't she? Peon?"

"Yes both times, Lord Protector." A flush this time. "And I do want to marry her. She's willing, too."

"Well, I'll pay her debt," Arminger said. "Can't have the household staff marrying beneath themselves. And you get the ten rose crowns, too-call it a wedding gift. Take the heron over to that village; give it to the priest with my compliments."

He waved away the thanks. The rest of the day passed in inconsequential chat-or seemingly so; Loring noted how skillfully Arminger drew out bits of information.

But not as cunning as he thinks he is, he thought. Or perhaps he was once, but having nobody to tell him no for the last nine years has blunted his edge. His wife's even better; she does it without letting you know what she's about.

Towards evening they passed through a pleasant small town, tree-shaded streets full of Victorian-era homes; the more pleasant because it lacked most of the usual fringe of ruined strip malls and abandoned, burnt-out subdivisions.

The hills around were dense with tall fir, and the trees within the town included "Those are sequoias, are they not?" Alleyne Loring asked, looking up at the thick columns that towered one hundred fifty feet over their heads. "I didn't think they were native to this area. I saw some in California, long ago, in Yosemite." A quirking smile. "I was more interested in Disneyland, at the time."

"They're not native," Sandra Arminger said. "Planted from seed a little over a hundred and twenty years ago."

"There seem to be a good many people about here," Sir Nigel's son observed, his blue eyes alert. The streets didn't exactly bustle, but more than half the homes seemed to be occupied.

"We're resurrecting the Pacific University here," Sandra said. "The library survived, and even some of the staff. Structured on a new basis, of course, with a charter from the Protector. We can't live on pre-Change training forever. We need a supply of younger professionals; engineers, accountants, priests. And to put some cultural polish on the scions of our baronage; you may have noticed that many of them are rather rough diamonds. I do wish you'd consider staying, Sir Nigel-it would raise the whole tone. Ah, here's the turnoff."

Arminger dropped back from Captain Nobbes to ride beside Nigel Loring. "It's an interesting place," he said. "Built by a Montana mining king back in the nineteenth century. Redone as the center of a vineyard estate in the 1980s."

"Pinot noir, I expect?" Sir Nigel said.

His tastes in wine had always been conservative. Like most other things about me, he thought ruefully. But I have heard of Oregon 's pinot noirs. There weren't all that many places which did really well with the great Burgundian red-wine grape.

"Yes, and a pinot gris that went very well with seafood. Also a very nice crisp gewurztraminer, an off-dry Riesling and a very nice Muller-Thurgau. I always rather coveted the place, in a daydreaming sort of way, and had it taken in hand when we resettled this area in the fall of the first

Change Year; there are three knight's-fees' worth of land attached to it, plus the woodlot and forest; two large villages and two gristmills, and I built a small castle nearby as a stronghold for the fief-you'll see why I didn't put a wall around the house itself. It's convenient to our new university town, near a working rail line to Portland, and the hunting's spectacular-everything from rabbit to tiger, with the Coast Range close. But it's too far west to be really handy, held by me directly, so I've never been able to spend as much time here as I'd like. A pity; my daughter loves the place."

I doubt that it's all that awkward for you, Loring thought. It's a day's travel on horseback, and railroads aren't any faster than the horses pulling them these days, but with a handcart you can do forty or fifty miles an hour. They'd used them in England, in regions with enough people to keep the tracks clear; they were the fastest form of land travel in the Changed world. You're just making the bribe more credible, my lord Protector. And a succulent one it is; land enough for me, my son, and a good farm for Hordle as well.

If they were trying to buy him, at least they weren't trying to do it on the cheap. They turned in past ivy-grown stone gateposts, under tall century-old oaks; the evening sun dazzled him for an instant as he looked down a long allee of the great trees, sinking into the heights of the Coast Range. Vineyards lay on left, and a squarish building that was probably the winery; horses grazed to the right; beyond them was plowland and pasture where the sunset cast long shadows. Closer he could see that the center of the estate was a great white-painted house, with two tall pillars supporting the portico.

Not excessively grand by British country-house standards, even with the more recent wings added and the post-Change dependencies and stables. To begin with it was wooden, not stone or brick; but the gardens were very lovely; wildflowers thick in the lawns, and roses as good as any he'd seen back home-back in England.

Oh, he's a clever one, is our lord Protector, Loring thought. Even on short acquaintance knows what sort of bribe to offer me. I wonder if Nobbes has noticed? He's a well-meaning man but not very acute, unless I've wasted six months' observation at close quarters.

"Very nice," Captain Nobbes said.

"The chef here is marvelous," Sandra Arminger said as servants ran out to take their horses, and the captain of the guard led his men away. "And the wines are very good as well."

As long as there's nothing in the glass but wine, Loring thought. It would be a fine place to live, Lord Protector, if it weren't in your kingdom.

Crossing Tavern, Willamette Valley, Oregon

May 13th, 2007 AD-Change Year Nine

"Yeah, he's smart enough to know that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar," Havel said judicously. "He just can't resist pulling the wings off, though. Two questions, Sir Nigel: Why did you turn him down, and what did he really want?"

Loring stroked his mustache. "My dear young fellow, credit me with some brains at least. 'Out of the frying pan, into the fire' didn't appeal to me! I'd seen entirely too much of how the Lord Protector ran his little kingdom to accept his offer, however tempting. Compared to him, even His Majesty's worst: eccentricities: were rather mild. And bore hardest on the commanderies and their officers, not ordinary people. He never tried to clap ballygreat iron dog collars on the commons."

John Hordle looked to where his longbow rested in a corner. "Charlie may live to regret making everyone keep a bow and practice with it, sir," he said. "If he ever did incline that way, that is." Aylward smiled grimly and nodded.

Loring went on, catching the ex-SAS man's eye: "As to why, I think it was snobbery. His barons and knights are, as his wife said, something of a bunch of rough diamonds-the reenactors being the best of the bunch, and a minority. He probably wanted a genuine English baronet, however reduced in circumstances, as a: trophy, as it were."

I know that look, Aylward thought. It means, more, later, and privately. Aloud, he said, "That's him to the inch, sir."

Something in his voice made several others look at him sharply-Lady Juniper first, then Signe Havel, then her husband. Imperceptible nods went around the table as the leaders agreed.

Juniper Mackenzie's smile was genuine enough when she spoke: "Then perhaps we'd better fill you in on what we did once we were inside the Protector's border."

But her foot kicked Aylward in the ankle, ever so lightly.