She wouldn't have dared to do that once, she thought, tucking a lock of her graying brown hair back under her headdress; the silver-and-platinum band around it chinked softly.

Aloud: "Isn't it interesting that this Prophet fellow was prepared to send assassins all the way to Mackenzie country? And isn't it even more interesting that they knew this Vogeler was heading there? What do we know about these people? Refresh my memory; I've had more pressing business lately."

"It's a father-son team running a cult," Tiphaine said, speaking without consulting the notes in the folders be fore her. "Our sources aren't certain if the son is natural, or adoptive and the natural son of the woman who ran the cult before the Change."

"The Church Universal and Triumphant, yes?"

"Yes, my lady. Generally known as the Cutters, or at least their musclemen are, or the Corwinites, from their headquarters. It's in the country just north of the old Yellowstone National Park. They were there before the Change, and already had a couple of rungs missing from their ladders if you ask me, but the Prophet moved in and took them over with a group of followers in late 'ninety eight and added a lot of new stuff."

"He's not native there?"

"Rumor has it he was in California on the day of the Change itself. He'd been blowing up scientists in the eighties and nineties-had a major hate on for technology-and he was in jail in Sacramento. He escaped in the confusion, felt that God had personally answered his requests with the Change, and headed for Montana. That he got there does say something about his survival skills."

They all nodded thoughtfully; California had been a charnel house as bad as anywhere on the globe, that day when the lights went out.. . and the water stopped coming through the pipes that kept nearly two-score million alive in a natural desert. Not one in a thousand had lived through it, the ones who'd run early and fast; reports said there were places where the desiccated corpses still lay three deep on the edges of the Mohave, despite a generation of sun and wind and crows and coyotes.

Dead as LA, went the proverb.

Tiphaine went on: "The new management of the CUT started small just after the Change, but they've been expanding recently, both by straightforward conquest and by conversion; they cover most of what was Montana by now, and chunks elsewhere. If they take over you con vert or die, so it snowballs. I've looked into the theology. They're. .."

Her tone remained flatly unemotional as she paused for a moment to search for the appropriate phrase and then resumed: "... mad as Tom O'Bedlam. Living on a different planet. Fucking bughouse nuts."

"Yes, I've perused it a bit, too," Sandra said. "Even stranger than the late unlamented Pope Leo here. Sort of a mishmash of Christianity and Buddhism and every lunatic and charlatan from Madame Blavatsky on, with an explanation of why God sent the Change, too-floods having been tried before, as it were. And they're getting uncomfortably close, if they win this war with New Deseret. I wish we had access to this easterner Vogeler who was involved. The Mackenzies didn't exactly brief Mathilda on it."

Conrad's brows went up; when the scars on his face moved, he looked more like a gargoyle than ever. "The CUT are a bit far away to worry about, surely?"

"That's the time to worry. Knowledge is power. And now that we've absorbed the Palouse-"

"The western half of it," Tiphaine said, with pedantic accuracy.

"-there's only Boise and Deseret between us and them."

Conrad shrugged massive shoulders. "You're the sovereign. They're basically a bunch of sheep shaggers, though. And they think anything with gears in it is sacrilegious, don't they?"

"Yes, but you should read more widely in history, dear Conrad. There are any number of cults which've caused no end of trouble, though their first followers were few and poor. Especially when they preach salvation at the sword's edge. In the event of trouble, how are we placed?"

She knew most of the answer, but it never hurt to go over the facts again. Conrad's blue eyes took on a slightly abstracted look. He'd been an accountant by trade before the Change, as well as a fellow member of the Society for Creative Anachronism and a close friend of Norman and Sandra Arminger.

"The treasury's got a full year's revenue on hand in cash, our paper is trading at par and we can borrow at excellent rates if we have to-the customs and excise taxes are blossoming nicely with the way trade's picked up. It would be even better if it weren't for the Haida raiders and plain-and-simple pirate scum all over the Pacific basin."

"The pirates we'll have to leave to the naval powers like Tasmania, but for the Haida we need a Warden of the Coast. But who to appoint Marchwarden? Piotr has the most lands in that direction, but. .."

"But I wouldn't appoint him to supervise an orgy at the Slut and Brew," Conrad said.

Tiphaine nodded. "There's Juhel Strangeways, Lord de Netarts. He's competent, and even fairly honest. And he already has County Tillamook in ward, for Lady Anne. It'll be-"

"Five years until she reaches her majority," the regent said.

"By then, he could have the place organized. He already dealt with that Haida raid, October before last."

"A matter in which our Rudi had a hand," Sandra said thoughtfully, stroking the cat in her lap. "He attracts trouble as sparks fly upward, that boy."

"Coincidence?" Conrad rumbled.

"I'm far too paranoid to believe in coincidence, Count Odell."

The other two smiled. "Neither do I," the man said, and Tiphaine nodded. "De Netarts, for Marchwarden of the West, then?"

Sandra nodded, and he went on: "The basic mesne tithes are coming in without too much trouble as well; it's easier now that we don't have to split them with the Church."

Sandra smiled like a cat. That had been one of the many reasons she'd unobtrusively arranged for Pope Leo to shuffle off his mortal coil, and for Portland's Church to be reunited with Rome-or rather with the Umbrian hill-town of Badia, which was where the Swiss Guard had escorted the remnant of the Vatican when Rome went under.

Poor Norman, he did so want a pope of his own in true medieval style, and Bishop Rule was just the sort of madman to suit the role, once he'd decided that God considered everything since about June 15, 1297, a mis take. Of course, the Change was some evidence for that.. . on the whole, though, Pope Log is preferable to Pope Stork.

Despite the occasional tussle with Benedict and his successor Pius XIII over things like the nomination of bishops, and despite how useful a tame inquisition had been. One sane pope six months away was far easier to deal with than an all-too-active lunatic in Portland, and it had made reconciliation of a sort possible with Mount Angel and the other so called Free Catholic bishoprics. Mount Angel's mutant order of warrior Benedictines was becoming uncomfortably influential, through its budding university and with its daughter settlements helping the more badly battered areas get on their feet again.

Stalin had meant mockery when he asked how many divisions the pope had, but in the end his bewildered successors had found it didn't matter; and men at arms and castles could come into the same category. At sev enth and last men were ruled from within their heads by ideas as much as by clubs from without, and a careful ruler kept it in mind. The Church of Rome had outlasted any number of systems that looked stronger than iron at the time, and had ridden out many storms that claimed to be the wave of the future; she was wise with years, and infinitely patient, and bided her time.

Best to take advantage of that, for herself and her daughter and her daughter's children to come, rather than trying to build dams against it.

Conrad nodded, as if reading her mind. "We're mak ing a mint off the salt-works on the coast and the Columbia tolls, too. Basic population has more than recovered from all those laborers who left after the Protector's war."

They both scowled slightly; of all the conditions im posed after the Portland Protective Association's quali fied sort of defeat in what everyone else called the War of the Eye, the one allowing peons to leave without pay ing their unpayable debts had hurt hardest. Everyone had a lot more land than farmers to till it, even now. Peo ple were wealth in the most fundamental sense, strong hands and backs to work and fight.

"Between natural increase and immigration from the more chaotic areas like Pendleton, which unfortunately goes to the other realms as well as to us, and the fifty thousand left in the Palouse when we annexed it-"

Sandra smiled her cat smile, and Tiphaine d'Ath nodded, and Renfrew grinned. It had even been voluntary.

At least, it was voluntary on the part of the collection of sheriffs and strong-arm types who took over there after the Change, she thought. And their sons.

They'd been unable to compose their own feuds-not least because of the Association's subtle pot-stirring-and had been left in the end with a choice between the neofeudalism of the PPA and the iron-fisted centralized autocracy of the United States of Boise under General President Thurston. Now the Free Cities of the Yakima League were surrounded by Protectorate territory on three sides, too, and could be squeezed, as long as she was subtle and indirect about it.

Conrad went on as she mused: "-we're up to about four hundred thousand people all told. Portland-the-city's nearly as big as Corvallis now."

Sandra shifted her gaze to Tiphaine; the military was her responsibility. She'd been Conrad's deputy there for years, before getting the top command last year when the Count of Odell decided to concentrate on his chancellor hat.

"The sons of the knights we lost in the war are grown now, or mostly," the Grand Constable said.

Which was fortunate. It took years to train a mounted lancer; the best had to be virtually born at it.

"What with that and new creations, when we call out the ban and the select militia, we can field twenty thousand men and keep them in the field as long as we need. A thousand knights, four thousand men-at-arms, a couple of thousand good light cavalry-horse archers, mainly-and the rest infantry. Half crossbowmen, who finally all have modern rapid fire models, and the rest spearmen. I think we should raise some pike units like the Bearkillers and Corvallans, but that would take a lot of retraining time."

Tiphaine and Conrad started an argument about the relative merits of eighteen-foot pikes versus spear-and shield; Sandra ignored it while she thought. She'd never pretended to be a soldier of any sort, any more than she was an engineer. You found people who knew what they were doing and left them to do it... provided you also found ones you could trust.

"-admit the phalanx has an advantage on open ground but pikemen are too specialized for my taste. Spearmen are more flexible, and-" Conrad said.

Sandra cleared her throat. "The big picture, please. Proceed, Tiphaine. And if we're pressed?"

"In an emergency? Forty thousand if we call the arriere ban for a defensive war, though of course those won't all be as well trained and it would be awkward during the harvest. The castles in our core territories are all in good shape, the armories and emergency food stores are full, we've got reserves of trained destriers to replace horses lost in the field, the river fleet on the Co lumbia is fully ready, and we've finally got the field artillery up to spec as well as the siege train."

"Problems?"

"The Palouse. We haven't had time to get it castel lated properly yet, so it's vulnerable in a way the rest of our territory isn't. The strongholds there are mostly earthwork and timber, motte-and-bailey at best. The local lords can't afford to rebuild right away. Also the roads there are lousy-the fools haven't even been fill ing in the potholes or keeping bridges from washing out, and the railroads are a wreck. But if we try to make them repair twenty-two years of neglect overnight, they'd be bankrupt. Except that they'd revolt first, of course."

"I presume we have the necessary plans ready to fix the situation?"

"Of course, my liege; we started on that before the an nexation. It's simply a matter of money... a very great deal of money."

"How much?"

Tiphaine named a figure, and Sandra winced slightly. Then she held up a finger.

"Conrad. Do you think you can get the Lords to ap prove a special subsidy for infrastructure improvements in the Palouse, along the new eastern border at least?"

The stocky man winced in turn. The Association's landholders didn't like paying even the standard as sessments, and an extra one would cost him political capital-which was to say soft-soaping, bribing and threatening.

"Yes, if you think it's worth the trouble. And it will cause trouble," he warned.

"Twist the necessary arms-I have some files you'll find useful. It'll keep the new lordships in the east sweet if we loan them the money and supply engineers and materials. I could pay it out of the Privy Purse, but I prefer to keep that for unforeseen emergencies."

Renfrew gathered up his papers. "I'd best get on to it; young Lord Chaka will see sense, I think. His mother will help. Stavarov will cause problems but I can talk him 'round if I offer some of his people land..." He raised an eyebrow at her.

"By all means, but bargain hard. I want to keep as much of the vacant areas of the Palouse in the Throne's demesne as I can. Granting land is a lot easier than get ting it back, unless there's a convenient case of escheat for treason."

He nodded and made a formal bow, kissing her ex tended hand and grinning like something carved on a waterspout. "Farewell for the nonce, Sandra, you evil bitch."

"That's 'my sovereign liege-lady and regent of the Association' evil bitch to you, Conrad."

Laughing, he bowed again and turned to go. Sandra pulled at a tasseled cord; the door opened smoothly and showed the corridor outside, with the guards standing to attention; their mail gleamed with a gray oiled sheen as they brought their spears to the salute.

When the door closed again, Sandra stood, gently stirring a cat out of her lap. "Come," she said to Tiphaine.

The warrior-woman helped her into a long robe of white ermine, and they walked out onto a balcony, closing the sliding glass doors behind them. The day was bright and sunny for January in the Willamette, with only a few drifts of high cloud; you could just see Mount Hood's white cone to the east, over the battlements. Above it a glider swooped, its long slim wings dark against the aching blue of the sky.

The two women's breath smoked as they looked down into a flagged hexagonal courtyard twenty feet below. It was overlooked by two stories of barracks and storerooms on all sides as well as the Silver Tower. Todenangst was full of things like that, unexpected crannies and vantage points. She'd put most of them into the plans herself; Norman had been much more... straightforward... and not nearly as fond of Peake's work as she.

"They say this castle had a man's bones in it for every ton of concrete poured," she said, with a nostalgic smile for the grand adventure of those early years.

Sometimes I think we got away with it only because nobody could believe how crazy we were.

Tiphaine nodded; she'd been newly come to the house hold then, and barely fourteen. "I remember a bit of it; they used to throw the bodies into the mix, sometimes. You kept telling the Lord Protector it could wait until we had the farms fully up and running again, and he said it could wait, but he just didn't want to, he wanted his castle and he wanted it now."

"Poor Norman, that was his great fault. He was in too much of a hurry to realize his dreams; it killed him in the end, as much as Havel did. If only he'd known how to wait, he'd be alive today... and we'd have it all. I miss him."

The courtyard below was one where her private guard exercised. Rudi and Mathilda were there now, in Protectorate-style armor, based on early medieval models; she was resting for a moment, watching him take on three knights of the household. Odard called the start with a flourish of his white-painted wand: "Kumite!"

The knights spread out; Rudi waited for a moment, smiling faintly. Then he leapt, so quickly that it wasn't even a blur, more as if he stretched out impossibly for a second. A flat crack sounded as he slammed into the closest of them, one big kite-shaped shield slapping into another, Rudi's tucked close into his left shoulder in perfect form. The knight was knocked flying with both feet off the ground, to land flat on his back with seventy pounds of armor and gear to drive the wind out of him. His sword pinwheeled through the air to land with a dull clang.

Rudi whirled before knight or blade landed, caught a sword on his own shield and cut backhanded into the side of the second's helmet with a crashing bonnnggg, and met the third blade-to-blade before he could strike himself. The knight was good-the household took only the best, and trained rigorously-but he seemed to be moving like a slo mo scene in the movies in the old days, while Rudi wasn't.

Or he moves like that tiger we had at the baiting, the one they matched against the bison bull. So much power, and so fast...

After a flurry impossible for an untrained eye to fol low, the Portlander stopped and looked down at the rounded point of the blunt practice sword just inside the split skirt of his mail hauberk and prodding at the leather of his breeches. In a real fight it would have ham-strung him and opened the femoral artery.

He swore admiringly and stepped back, letting the point of his own blade drop to the earth and his shield dangle from the guige, the diagonal strap around his neck. He and the young Mackenzie high-fived each other as the other two clambered groaning to their feet, grinning ruefully.

"He's very good indeed, isn't he?" Sandra asked.

"Yes, my lady," Tiphaine replied, without taking her cold gray eyes from the scene below. "When my team took him back in the War, he was ten-and he cut a grown man badly with his knife and would have killed another if he hadn't had a mail lined jacket on. Now... You know what the pagans say of him?"

Sandra nodded, smiling. "That his secret name is Artos, and that he's the chosen Sword of the Lady? Yes? There was the prophecy at his birth, and that thing with the raven right after the war, at his mother's wedding. That was a wonderful touch, if Juniper stage-managed it."

Tiphaine shuddered slightly at the memory. She had been there, although not in the front rank, and she tried not to remember it... because when she did the all sufficient cynicism her mentor had taught her was shaken. The rumors hadn't lost in the telling over the years, either. Instead she hung on to her clinical detachment as she went on: "Well, he's so far up the bell curve that I'm tempted to believe it myself, sometimes. It's not natural -and I helped train him these past twelve years, on his visits."

"I do believe in his legend," Sandra said, then chuckled quietly at Tiphaine's raised brow. "Oh, not the pagan gods; they're as much a myth as Jehovah or the Risen Christ, whatever dear Juniper thinks. Myths are lies; but I believe in the power of myths the way I believe in rocks... rulers have had the various pantheons carry ing water for them since the first con man met the first sucker, and priestcraft was born. That was long enough ago that they were probably both walking on their knuckles."

Mathilda took up her shield and walked out to face Rudi. The mail hauberk she wore rippled in smooth gray white, a treasure that had taken a team of experts more than a year to make from double coils of titanium wire.

"And my daughter?" Sandra asked.

Tiphaine pursed her lips; her duties had included the warlike part of the Princess's education since the girl turned nine. She also knew that Sandra Arminger hated inaccurate information with a passion.

"It's a disadvantage being a woman, of course, even if it's not as much of one as our macho idiots think. The Princess is... very good, enough to hold her own on most battlefields. About as good as Odard, say. That means she's better than him in natural talent, since he has an extra twenty odd pounds of muscle on his upper body. And she really works at it. But she's not in the same class as Rudi. Not in mine, either, frankly. She's fast, far faster than average, and very strong for her weight... but Rudi's faster than that."

Sir Odard was standing ready again with the referee's white baton. He waited until they faced off, then brought it down sharply and shouted, "Kumite!"

Tiphaine hesitated for a moment, then went on: "He's faster than me-and I've lost only a hair off my best speed so far."

Tiphaine was a little past thirty five, and she'd been an up-and-coming junior gymnast before the Change, only out of the running for future Olympics because she was too tall. Sandra had rescued her and seen the possibilities...

"And he's strong even for his size; he can lift and toss twice his own body weight, even in a full hauberk. I've got a lot more experience, which makes up for it... so far."

"Interesting," Sandra said, narrowing her eyes. "Of course, Mathilda will be ruling, not fighting with her own hands. She only has to be good enough to win respect among, as you so accurately put it, our macho idiots. Iron on their shirts, iron between the ears."

Tiphaine chuckled slightly, which was the equivalent of a belly laugh for her.

"And the joke is?" Sandra Arminger said; normally the remark would have won only a slight narrowing of the eyes in amusement.

"Here we are in the Land of the Iron Shirted Ma chos, and the people making the decisions at the top are nearly all women. You, my lady, me... Mary Liu, the Dowager Baronesses of Dayton and Molalla. And Juniper Mackenzie and Signe Havel, down south."

Sandra's own laughter was warm and genuine. "Well, not so surprising, Lady d'Ath, Grand Constable of the Association. So many of the first generation of the male upper nobility got themselves killed, one way or another."

"That happens in this business," Tiphaine replied, tap ping at the long hilt of her own blade. "You have to be smart and lucky to die old-which our distinguished chancellor looks to be doing. I probably won't," she added clinically. "Too many people hate me and more will before it's over. You should start grooming possible replacements."

Mathilda and Rudi were circling, the big round topped kite shaped shields up under their eyes, longswords held over their heads hilt forward. Mathilda attacked first, boring in with a fixed snarl visible even from above and through the bars of the practice helmet.

"Haro, Portland! Holy Mary for Portland!"

"Morrigu! Morrigu! Blackwing!"