The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change - By S. M. Stirling

To Diana Paxson, fellow bard

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Yet more!

Thanks to my friends who are also first readers:

To Steve Brady, for assistance with dialects and British background, and also natural history of all sorts.

Thanks also to Kier Salmon, for once again helping with the beautiful complexities of the Old Religion, and with . . . well, all sorts of stuff!

To Diana L. Paxson, for help and advice, and for writing the beautiful Westria books, among many others. If you like the Change novels, you’ll probably enjoy the hell out of the Westria books—I certainly did, and they were one of the inspirations for this series; and her Essential Asatru and recommendation of Our Troth were extremely helpful . . . and fascinating reading.

To Dale Price, for help with Catholic organization, theology and praxis; and for his entertaining blog, Dyspeptic Mutterings, which can be read at http://dprice.blogspot.com/.

To Brenda Sutton, for multitudinous advice.

To Melinda Snodgrass, Emily Mah, Terry England, George R. R. Martin, Walter Jon Williams, Vic Milan, Jan Stirling and Ian Tregellis of Critical Mass, for constant help and advice as the book was under construction.

Thanks to John Miller, good friend, writer and scholar, for many useful discussions, for loaning me some great books, and for some really, really cool old movies.

Special thanks to Heather Alexander, bard and balladeer, for permission to use the lyrics from her beautiful songs which can be—and should be!—ordered at www.heatherlands.com. Run, do not walk, to do so.

Thanks again to William Pint and Felicia Dale for permission to use their music, which can be found at http://members.aol.com/pintndale/ and should be, for anyone with an ear and salt water in their veins.

And to Three Weird Sisters—Gwen Knighton, Mary Crowell, Brenda Sutton and Teresa Powell—whose alternately funny and beautiful music can be found at www.threeweirdsisters.com/.

And to Heather Dale for permission to quote the lyrics of her songs, whose beautiful (and strangely appropriate!) music can be found at www.HeatherDale.com and is highly recommended. The lyrics are wonderful and the tunes make it even better. Thanks to S. J. “Sooj” Tucker for permission to use the lyrics of her beautiful songs, which can be found at www.skinnywhitechick.com, and should be.

Thanks again to Russell Galen, my agent, who has been an invaluable help and friend for a decade now, and never more than in these difficult times.

All mistakes, infelicities and errors are of course my own.

CHAPTER ONE

NANTUCKET ISLAND

IMBOLC, FEBRUARY 18,

CHANGE YEAR 24/2023 AD

“Where did it all go?” Mathilda Arminger said. “There were roads and houses! Now it’s just trees. They’re old trees too; you can see that, even if the sea-wind has stunted them.”

“Why are you asking me?” Rudi Mackenzie said, with studied reason in his tones.

The which always drives you crazy and makes your eyes sparkle fetchingly, anamchara mine, he thought.

“You’re the one with the magic sword!”

Mathilda caught the twinkle in his own eye and stuck out her tongue at him. They laughed, a quiet, relieved sound; it was good to have nothing but a mystery troubling them, as opposed to homicidal strangers. Rudi let his hand fall to the hilt of the weapon slung at his right hip. The pommel shaped of moon-crystal held in antlers gave him a slight cool shock as his calloused palm touched it, less a physical sensation than a mental one . . . or possibly spiritual.

“What does it feel like?” Mathilda asked, subdued again.

“To hold it?”

She nodded, and he went on: “It’s . . . hard to describe; that it is. Not as much of a shock as the first time; I grow used to it, but . . . It’s as if my thoughts themselves were faster somehow. More sure. More themselves. You know how you think, If I do a certain thing, that might happen, or the other thing, or, then again, perhaps this? And your wit and experience give you an idea of each, and how likely they are? Well, when I do that now it’s as if little mummers were making a play of it in my head, and I know what’s most likely. It’s . . . disconcerting; that it is.”

“It would be,” she said seriously. “Useful! But, well, Rudi, if you could really see what would happen whenever you did something, would you have any freedom of choice at all? After all, you’d always know the best thing to do!”

He laughed a little, but there was less amusement in it this time.

“Sure. Don’t folk choose to do things even if they know it’s folly and the result will be black disaster? And