The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change - By S. M. Stirling Page 0,52

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 Rí 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.”

“And in return you get our backing if anyone tries to attack you,” Tiphaine pointed out. “The Association’s knights, the Mackenzie archers, engineers and pikemen from Corvallis or the Yakima League. We are most assuredly not interested in anything to the east of you but we’re willing to push the border that far, and help hold it. As part of Montival you’d have enough weight behind you that even Iowa would have to think three times before tangling with you.”

“And we could have our reservation as long as the grass grew and the sun shines,” Red Leaf said dryly; his voice was skeptical but not utterly hostile.

Juniper shrugged. “If you call everything you’ve got now a reservation ,” she said. “And that’s what . . . half the Dakotas and chunks of Wyoming and Montana and Colorado and a bit of Nebraska? Which is more land and more people than ever you had in the old days.”

“Including . . . ah . . . volunteers,” Sandra observed. “There are more of you than there are Mackenzies.”

“Which means you’d also be a fairly big element in the High Kingdom as a whole,” Tiphaine said. “Not least in the number of troops you could field. Nobody would be in a position to bully you, even if they were so inclined.”

“What about Boise? And New Deseret?” Red Leaf asked. “They’re between us and you as well as the Cutters.”

Sandra steepled her fingers and raised her eyes slightly. “You may have noticed that the late General-President of the United States of Boise had more than one son. The elder killed his father and usurped his position. The younger . . . you met. Traveling with Mathilda and, um, Artos.”

“Oh, ho,” Red Leaf said, and gave her an admiring look. “Well, yeah, that’s a definite possibility. You think Boise may come apart over that?”

“That and their alliance with Corwin, which we understand is not popular. Martin Thurston is trying his best to pin the blame on his brother, but the true story has been circulating . . . aided by us. And New Deseret is desperate, what’s left of it. We’ve been helping their guerrillas in the occupied territories as we can. They’re very . . . upright people. Usually gratitude is worth its weight in gold, but they actually seem to practice it. Marvelous are the works of God.”

Red Leaf nodded and rubbed his hands together; the heavy stockman’s calluses bred of rope and rein, lance and shete, went scritch against each other.

“OK, whoa, this is going to take a bit more thinking. I can’t commit all of us to this. Some of it sounds good, but I’m not going to say yes or no yet, and it’s above my pay