The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change - By S. M. Stirling Page 0,65

clumsily knitted sweater, to the latter’s visible embarrassment.

“Enough waiting, the which I hate,” he grumbled. “I’ve a war to fight and a throne to win. Let’s go.”

“We’re not really waiting. We’re getting ready to move fast,” Ingolf pointed out. “We’ll save the time ten times over.”

“I know that,” Artos said. “I said I hated it, not that I wouldn’t do it, sure.”

“The cherries will be blossoming at home,” Mathilda said wistfully. “And the apricots, and then the apples. Buds breaking in the vineyards, meadowsweet in the pastures . . .”

That they will, Artos thought. And the grass bright tender green by now, and the spring lambs butting at the udder, and folk making ready the Beltane bonfires. Ostara the promise, Beltane the fulfillment, the Black Months well past and life running strong like sap in flowers. A time for weddings and beginnings and begettings.

Grimly: And the time of war. Another two months, and the Cascade passes will be open enough for armies.

“I’m sorry to miss the rest of the sugaring time,” Bjarni said. “It’s the best part of the mud season.”

Artos nodded, and belched slightly. Breakfast had been endless stacks of pancakes made from buckwheat flour, studded with dried blueberries and slathered with the maple syrup, besides bacon and fried potatoes. Forest loomed in the middle distance, and he could see sledges moving amid the maples. The work of the land didn’t wait, and it was doubly urgent here in a land where the world lay so long locked in the Holly King’s grip before He yielded to the Oak Lord.

“We couldn’t have done the job any faster anyway,” Fred said. “They’ve got good woodworkers here and some fine smiths, but it was complicated and there’s very little in the way of machine tools.”

Ignatius looked up from checking a frame. “All that we needed were a few rollers to groove wheel attachments.”

Fred nodded: “I’m a bit surprised there were even enough stored bicycles; I thought that would be the bottleneck.”

Ingolf sucked at a skinned knuckle and grinned. “It was fun to do some hands-on work with machinery again.”

“My father and his chiefs salvaged a lot of the cycles,” Bjarni said. “They’re handy enough in summertime, and the parts can be made into a dozen sorts of useful machines for winnowing and grinding and pumping and chopping.”

Artos slapped his hands on the shoulders of Fred and Ingolf where they stood beside him. It was an accomplishment, and it was also always a pleasure to see those who really knew what they were doing at a task.

“Good work!” he said. “Very good work, my friends!”

“We had plenty of good help,” Fred said. “We couldn’t really have done it without Father Ignatius, either.”

The cleric made a final check of wheel bearing-boxes, waved and went back to his infinitely patient examination and reexamination.

“He’s a real engineer,” Fred said.

“You had the concept, my son,” he said without looking up. “And a good deal of the details. After that, it was merely a matter of execution. And I have worked on railroad equipment occasionally since I was a novice. Only permanent types, granted, but this is a logical extrapolation.”

The first cart lifted easily in the hands of those who would pedal it. Four bicycles were at the front, locked into a frame of seasoned springy ashwood held together by bolts; a V of saw-blade was held out on two arms in front, to cut light growth. A like set of bicycles made up the rear, divided from the first by the flat load-bearing section. The flanged wheels on the cycles went onto the rusted steel of the rails with a hard clunk sound. Then they loaded it; the bed between was a mat of strong resilient wickerwork, and on it they lashed the small tent the men would share, food enough for two weeks, and their camp gear, spare weapons and the rest of their needs. It was far more than they could have carried on their backs, or on a bicycle even on smooth well-tended highways.

The which are rare in this part of the world. The Norrheimers are too few, too scattered and each little garth of them too self-sufficient to spend much time keeping roads repaired; it would be too much labor for too little return.

Fred went forward, and took out his stopwatch. Mary Vogeler bent one ironic eye on his seriousness, but she and her sister responded with disciplined speed when he barked:

“Team One!” he called. “Remember to keep your interval . .