The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change (21 page)

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Authors: S. M. Stirling

Tags: #Fiction - Science Fiction, #Alternative histories (Fiction), #American Science Fiction And Fantasy, #Alternative History, #General, #Regression (Civilization), #Science Fiction, #Science Fiction - General, #Dystopias, #Fiction

BOOK: The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change
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Abdou smiled slightly, the inclination of his head acknowledgment of things that need not be spoken.
“My great lord is gracious beyond my due.”
“I will be the judge of what is due; so take this gift of me,” Bjarni said.
He reached up his thick arm and took a gold arm-ring, graven in sinuous abstract patterns, leaning forward and holding it out.
“As a mark that you may come in peace to Norrheim to trade, if you will. Let no more blood come between us, but guest-friendship instead.”
The Moor came forward and took the heavy ring with a graceful gesture; Artos reflected that he knew how to accept like a gentleman. He’d also obviously practiced a store of more formal English for this.
“My lord is generous as well as gracious!” he said. “May Allah, the Merciful, the Lovingkind, reward him according to his deeds.”
“And this for your son, who fought bravely in his first pitched battle, so far from his home and kin; he has shed his blood on the soil of Norrheim, and that of my enemies.”
He held out another, and the young man stepped forward, repeating his father’s gesture with a dignity more self-conscious.
Still, he carries it off well for a youngster,
Artos thought.
He’ll be formidable when he has his father’s years.
The elder Moor spoke: “If I come to these waters again, only in peace I shall be. And my son Ahmed ibn Abdou after me. Also I shall speak of peace between his land and mine with the Emir, though I am not ruler in Dakar. This I swear by God and His Prophet, on my hope of Paradise and on my honor before my shipmates and my kin.”
His son bowed beside him, his face still a little stiff with the stitched scar that ran from ear to chin, a mark he bore with more pride than pain. Artos hid his smile; you could see the lad taking in the alien wonders of the hall and the bare-faced beauties, storing up tales he’d be telling
his
grandchildren about hairy barbarians he’d fought in a far land, and shameless golden-haired viragos of the frozen northlands. The Moors backed, bowed again, and then trooped out as courteous and graceful as cats. He nodded; they couldn’t really join the feast, being theoretically forbidden strong drink, and unwilling to eat many of the local foods in theory and practice both. There would be more goodwill this way. Perhaps there would be peace between their breed and the Norrheimers, perhaps not, but in either case it would be the normal friendship or enmity of men and men’s concerns, the things of common day.
And not that thing which speaks through the CUT and its like. I did a better deed than I knew when I rescued Kalksthorpe from the corsairs, and them from the man who misled them.
A buzz went down the long benches; comment, and approval in the main. Bjarni waited until it ran down; he’d been handing out golden rings for the past three days, reward and gifts of honor both.
What the ancient world called medals, eh?
Artos leaned over to speak softly to Harberga. “He’s a stout warrior, your man, and a cunning war-chief, and careful of his honor. But he’s careful of the honor of others as well, no hothead who reaches for his sword as his first resort, no lover of blood. And he knows the strength of his folk is best built by their labors in peace, not by glory or plunder, so a wise King serves them by standing as the shield that lets each reap what he sows. What a praise-song my mother could have made for him!”
Harberga turned her head slightly to answer him. “From what I hear, you could have had the throne as easily as him, if you’d stretched out your hand for it.”
Artos shrugged. “This is your land, and I have my own,” he said.
Which is the truth, and more polite than saying I wouldn’t have Norrheim on a bet!
There was a stark beauty here, but he wanted to be
home
. For a moment he was standing looking through mountain mists at the glowing checkerboard of the Willamette country gold to the harvest, and the pain of it was like cold steel in his chest. He wanted to be
home
, to hear the speech and see the ways of his own folk in his own land.
I wouldn’t have great Iowa itself in exchange, much less this frigid remoteness.
Then he forced lightness into his voice:
“In Montival I must be High King, for the land’s sake and to do the will of the Powers. Given my own way I’d stay at home and farm and hunt with no thought for anything but the harvest and the Wheel of the Year.”
She snorted slightly. “Wyrd may weave many things for you, aetheling, but to sit peacefully in your hall is not the Orløg which will rule your days, I think. And I think you praise my Bjarni—praise him truthfully, mind you—by giving him the virtues you hope for in yourself.”
Mathilda hugged his other arm with hers for a moment; he turned his fingers to interleave with hers as she spoke:
“And he has what he hopes for. He will be a great King, and make Montival great in turn!”
Harberga looked across him at her and smiled at the passionate belief in the younger woman’s voice, but with a little sadness in the expression.
“He will,” she said. “And you will have to share your man with a throne all the days of your lives together, sister. As will I, now. Power will be a cold and thankless third head on your pillow.”
Mathilda smiled a little and shook her head. “He was born to be a King; it will complete him. And my father and mother were rulers before me, and his before him as well. It’s . . . it’s the family trade on both sides.”
By then the hall was quiet again, and Bjarni’s voice rang through it:
“The true folk have hailed me.
I am King!
Does any man here dispute it?”
His eyes scanned the benches, cold and considering, lingering on each
godhi
who headed one of the Norrheimer tribes. Silence enough this time that the crackle of burning wood was the loudest sound.
“We have yet to hammer out all the metes and bounds of what it means to be King in Norrheim. But one thing is not in dispute; it is for the King to call the folk to war, and to lead them against foreign enemies.”
Farther down the hall someone cried him hail as victor. He flung up a hand.
“No! What’s the saying of the High One:
Call no man lucky till he’s dead?
So we shouldn’t call any King victorious until the war is over. And this war is not. We have won a victory, in a battle greater than any my father fought in the land-taking. But the Bekwa were only the point of a spear in another’s hands.”
“The
trollkjerring
,
”
someone said.
“Yes. And he was one of many, in the service of their ruler far to the west, in what the old world called Montana.”
“The wolf gapes ever at the gates of the Gods . . .” murmured Heidhveig.
Bjarni nodded respectfully. “True, holy seidhkona. So we have won a victory, but not a war. If we sit here eating roast pork and guzzling beer and telling each other how brave we were, other armies will come against us in the end, ones we will have no hope of defeating. Led by sorcerers. I will not leave to my children work I feared to do myself! My blood brother Artos Mikesson, High King in Montival, goes west to fight that war. Are we of Norrheim such cowards, such nithings, that we will let him go fight it alone and without any help of ours, after he and his sworn band aided us? I tell you now, that if the kingdom will not help him, then I will—my word binds me, sworn in this hall on the Oath-Swine of the Bjornings. And a King’s public oath is laid in the Well of Wyrd and binds the fate of all his people.”
A murmur, and then Ingleif of the Hundings rose. “Lord, you are King. Your honor no man doubts and your words do you credit. Much of what you say is true, though these are strange matters; but I will not dispute what the holy seidhkona says of the Gods’ wishes for true folk. Yet we cannot march the levy of Norrheim across the whole wide world! It’s not to be thought of. There are our homes to guard, and we can’t take that many men out of the fields for long or everyone will go hungry. We haven’t settled the term of a war-levy, but it won’t be years at one time.”
What exactly does Bjarni have in mind?
Artos thought, slightly alarmed.
Fred’s thought gives us a way . . . but I can’t haul an
army
all the way through the dead lands to the Mississippi! Getting a substantial force from Iowa to the theater of war will be hard enough.
Bjarni stood with the thumb of his right hand hooked through the broad belt that cinched his waist; the buckle was a gold-and-jet dragonhead, and the sinuous designs tooled into the black leather made it a serpent like
Jörmungandr
, the World Snake that Thor lifted. Harberga’s hands had woven the crimson wool of his coat, and embroidered it with curving gripping beasts in gold and silver thread along collar and cuffs and hems. His shoulder-length hair was held back by a golden band. He looked every inch the King now.
Syfrid of the Hrossings rose as Ingleif sat. “As
godhi
Ingleif says, our King is a man of honor. And as our King says, his oath to the . . . valiant stranger . . . Artos Mikesson . . . binds the fate of the kingdom and the folk. Even in a matter so distant as wars a world away.”
“It does,” Bjarni said, his voice hard. “For the lord and the land and the folk are
one
.
”
“But Ingleif is also right. We cannot march a war-levy that far. What is needed is a picked band of strong fighters. And who better to lead it than our victorious young King? The more so as we already have an heir.”
Harberga’s face might have been carved from fine-grained birch-wood, but her breath hissed out. Bjarni smiled slightly as he nodded.
“You were always a right-hand man to my father,
godhi
of the Hrossings, and for your wisdom as well as the blows of your ax. What better way for Norrheim to show its united strength than to send its best to fight the common foe of men and Gods?”
Carrying off the King you hailed against your will, and his strongest supporters
, Artos thought, glancing at Syfrid casually.
And leaving you as much time as you need to do whatever you wish here at home; or if Bjarni were not to return . . . well, much may happen before a babe grows to a man’s strength.
Bjarni’s grin made Syfrid blink. “And that band must include men of every tribe. And their chiefs, when those are noted men of war . . . such as yourself, Syfrid Jerrysson.”
There was another pause. This time the buzz held an ever-so-slight undertone of amusement, though nobody dared smile to Syfrid’s thunderous face. He couldn’t possibly refuse, not without branding himself a coward among this warrior folk, or treacherous and so hated of their Gods—Gods who valued a man’s sworn oath above all else.
Is the Hrossing so simple?
Rudi thought.
I’d thought him a cunning man, and a bad foe.
Evidently he thought loudly. Mathilda still had his hand; she leaned close to whisper in his ear.
“No, Rudi, he’s not stupid. But he’s no genius either, and he was a man in his prime when Bjarni was still a little boy of six, in the year of the Change.”
“Ah,” Artos said.
That explains it. Bjarni is a lad to him still, not a man of thirty with children of his own. Not in his inner heart. And so he underestimated him, expecting rashness and vainglory. There is a lesson I will remember well. And another that I learned long ago; my Matti has wits enough for both of us.
CHAPTER NINE
NORRHEIM, LAND OF THE BJORNINGS
ERIKSGARTH (FORMERLY AROOSTOOK COUNTY, MAINE)
MARCH 29, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
 
 
 
T
he crowd stirred. It was a raw day, gray-overcast but much warmer even at dawn than it had been on the day of the battle. A few lanterns shed yellow light, and torches smoked and guttered and paled as the glow behind the clouds strengthened. The tall carved rune-stone that fronted the grave-mound glinted, where flecks of mica ran through the granite; for the negotiations had been finished, and the King’s powers drawn, and he had dared the night-long vigil atop his father’s howe.
Then Bjarni strode down the slope of dead winter-grass, with the bloody hide of the horse he’d sacrificed at sundown wrapped around him like a cloak and its face-mask above his own head. Beneath he was naked save for a loincloth, but he didn’t seem mortally chilled. Heidhveig paced beside him, her long staff thumping the turf. When he came to the level ground Artos could see his eyes. Normally they were shrewd and forthright, the gaze of a strong-willed man who was a good friend and a dangerous foe. Now they were . . .
“Something else,” he whispered, inclining his head in acknowledgment and awe and a little . . .
Fear
, he thought.
Fear of what I see in my own future. For though I’m called High King now, the thing itself can only be done in my own land. And there too it will be a first time, and we must feel our way towards the rightness of it. I’m glad to have witnessed this, though it’s only a hint of how Montival must be courted.

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