Maude's grave face suddenly broke out in a smile as she abandoned the struggle to be adult for a moment.

"If you think we ' re weird, Lord Count, you should meet them. They live in the woods, and they speak Elvish to each other. All the time. "

Knolles blinked, obviously wondering if his leg was being pulled. Nigel gave him a grave shake of the head: It's quite true, old chap. Aloud he added: "Although Alleyne acts as a moderating influence and so does my stepdaughter Eilir. She's married to John Hordle now. You'll remember Hordle-SAS just before the Change, promoted to battalion sergeant major just before we... left... England."

"Ah, yes. Big chappie, carried a bastard longsword," Knolles said.

Then he harrumphed diplomatically before going on; Hordle had also put an arrow through one of Knolles's men during Nigel's escape.

"Ah, well, considering all that's gone on back Home, we're not in a position to judge. Have you been following events out there at all, Nigel?"

"In outline; news does travel, if slowly, and Abbot Dmwoski forwards some of the Church's reports to us. I know Charles died-"

"Hallgerda killed him when he finally refused to disinherit his older sons in favor of her brood, though it was never proved," Knolles said flatly.

His knobby fist clenched. "And then tried to seize power herself. Colonel Buttesthorn and I and a few others put a stop to that. And put William on the throne."

"We heard that he'd beaten the Moors. Good show, that."

Though to most here, it didn't matter much more than hearing how Prince Piotr of Belgorod and Hetman Bohdan of the All Great Kuban Cossack Host defeated the Tartars outside Astrakhan last year, Loring thought. How one's horizons shrink...

Knolles nodded. "We and a coalition beat them-the Norlanders, the Umbrian League, the Kingdom of Sicily, the Republic of Shannon-we even had ships and men from the Cypriot Greeks. Defeated them at sea off the Canaries, then burned out the nests they'd established along the coast of Morocco, then chased them south and gave them a damned good drubbing at home. There's been the odd dustup with Berber raiders from the Atlas since, but nothing significant."

The fierce hawklike green eyes kindled. "Mind you, about six years ago I was with a party exploring the ruins of Marrakech, and-"

"And we heard that William called a new Parliament," Nigel said dryly.

Knolles flushed; it was for advocating that move that Nigel and his wife, Maude, had been put under arrest by Charles the Mad and his Icelandic ice queen in the first place, while Knolles had still been satisfied with the Emergency Regulations.

"Yes, yes, yes, you were right, you were right, you were bloody well right, Nigel. And we've set up a new House of Lords along the old lines," Knolles went on. "Quite old..."

"Not altogether the way our ancestors did it, I hope!" Nigel said.

"Very much in the manner our grandfathers would recognize. Things have worked out quite nicely since. The capital's still in Winchester, the Icelanders and Faeroese are settling in and marrying out, their grandchildren will be English to the bone-"

His son grinned and made a gesture towards his own chest; his mother's name was Dagmar, and she'd come from Torshavn along with a flood of others from the northern isles in the earliest Change Years.

"-and we've resettled Britain-thinly-as far as the Midlands, and made a good start on the Continent."

"That's quick work!" Nigel said.

"Well, you can't move for tripping over the next generation, that's true; everyone's breeding like damned rabbits. And we've been getting a steady trickle of immigrants from the east Baltic, and from Ireland, too-easier since we're all bloody beadsqueezers again. No offense," he said hastily to Juniper.

"None taken," she said, laughing. "I was raised Catholic myself, of course, but"-she waved a hand around-"you might say it didn't entirely take."

"There's understatement of positively English proportions," Nigel said.

"You've corrupted me with your Sassenach ways, my love. Sure, and I can feel my upper lip stiffening the now."

Knolles went on: "And we've agreed to divide things with the Norlanders along the old German border, and with the Umbrian League along the old Italian one... that's a trifle theoretical, when all we've got is a few out posts along the coasts and rivers. It'll be centuries before we're back to even the medieval era's numbers."

Nigel nodded. He'd helped develop the initial ap praisal and plans, and had led expeditions to feel out that vast eerie wilderness.

"That's where the 'King of Greater Britain' and 'Emperor of the West' come in?"

"The imperial title was the late Pope Benedict's idea," Knolles said. "He and the archbishop sprang it on William at the coronation, after the Moorish War, in 2010."

"Rather the way his predecessor did with Charlemagne?" Nigel mused.

"Precisely. Benedict was there for the Church reunion talks, you see. They both preached a Crusade..."

"And the coronation was with your connivance, Father," Robert Knolles said.

Knolles senior harrumphed and poked his fork at a slice of roast beef, cut a piece, administered horserad ish and took a bite. He coughed slightly after that-the sauce was nuclear strength. Then he continued: "Ah... well, that brings us to the reason for the visit, Nigel. We didn't know your situation here in any detail, you see, except that you and Alleyne had landed on your feet as might be expected of Lorings, and His Majesty is deeply grateful for your saving his life-"

"Several times," Robert Knolles put in, unabashed when his father gave him a quelling glance. " And setting up the contacts that put him on the throne instead of his late unlamented stepmother when the time came."

" Late unlamented?" Loring asked, with an arched brow.

The elder Knolles continued: "She shuffled off eight months ago, from the effects of house arrest, idleness, curdled venom and lashings of strong drink. And His Majesty has asked me to inform you that it pleases him to offer you... well, he's made you an earl, you see. Earl of Bristol. With the estates appertaining thereunto, as well as your family land at Tilford, of course."

Nigel felt his jaw drop, and closed it with an effort of will. "Good God."

"He'd like you to return; earnestly requests it, in fact, and sent a ship we really can't spare all the way here to fetch you. Confidentially, he'd also like you to have min isterial rank with a roving commission, and both Houses concur."

"Father is one of the top nobs of the Tories, these days," Robert added. "And note that His Majesty hasn't given you a continental title, godfather, nor the proverbial 'estate in France.' Good English farms, fully tenanted."

At Nigel's raised brow, the young man amplified: "In England 'an estate in France' is a synonym for 'dubious gift,' or 'white elephant,' these days, sir-land that gives you a position in society and then prevents you from keeping it up. Father repented and came over to the side of the righteous, but rather late."

Knolles snorted. "Nonsense. The land at Azay is first rate; better climate than anywhere in England proper, and there are the vineyards-"

"Bushy, overgrown vineyards, half-dead..."

"-and the chateau-"

"The ruins of the chateau."

"Ruins? Nonsense; it never really caught on fire... not completely... and half the roof was still intact. It just... well, it needed a spot of work."

"And still does, I rather think, Father... work for my grandchildren."

"Silence, whelp. In any case, Nigel, I've got a belt, a sword and an ermine cloak for you, and a bally great parchment to go with it. Thing's festooned with enough seals and ribbons for a publican's license, too."

Nigel began to laugh, quietly at first, then wholeheartedly. Mopping at an eye with his napkin, he replied, "I'm truly sorry to disappoint King William, and you, Tony, but my life is here now. Not to mention my wife, and my daughters; and my son, and his children-a grand son and two granddaughters, so far. This is where we'll leave our bones. Give His Majesty my regrets and my best wishes for a long and prosperous reign. I thought the lad would turn out well."

He turned his head to meet Juniper's bright green eyes for an instant; they crinkled in the face that loved his line for line, and their hands linked fingers beneath the covering tablecloth.

"Not tempted by the prospect of being Countess Juniper, my dear?"

"Chief's bad enough. I'd scandalize your William's court, that's beyond doubting."

Knolles sighed. "I thought that was the reply I'd get, as soon as I walked in. Your stepson warned me; we met outside the gates. Remarkable young fellow, even on brief acquaintance. Usually one feels an impulse to kick a man with good looks of that order, but I didn't this time."

"Remarkable young scamp," Juniper said. "He didn't warn us you were here, the creature."

Knolles hesitated. "There is one thing more, Nigel. And Lady Juniper. You haven't had much contact with the Atlantic coast of North America, have you?"

"None at all; we know more about East Asia, or even the Indian Ocean countries," Juniper said. "Scarcely even rumors from east of the Mississippi." She winced slightly. "Just enough to know that it was. .. very bad there. As bad as California, or what Nigel tells of Europe, or mainland Britain."

Knolles nodded somberly. Nobody who had lived through the Change as an adult would ever be quite free of those memories. It had been worst of all in the hyper-developed zones.

"On the American mainland, yes, it was very bad. But some islands did much better. Prince Edward Island best of all; rather as the Isle of Wight or Orkney did in relation to Britain. After the, ah, after King William came to the throne, they established close ties with the old coun try-in fact, they've MPs in Parliament at Winchester now, and seats in the Lords."

"William isn't repeating George the Third's mistakes, eh?" Nigel said, savoring the joke.

Though it wasn't like Anthony Knolles to waffle around a subject. The other Englishman cleared his throat.

"Among the places they've landed... or tried to... is Nantucket."

He shot a glance at them from under shaggy brows to see if the name of the island off southern New England meant anything to them. They both looked back soberly.

"Then the rumors were true?" Juniper asked softly. "I've talked to those who were listening or watching the news services, right at the time of the Change. To some who were listening while they flew a plane over moun tains, sure! The reports were of something extraordinary going on there on Nantucket, just before..."

All three nodded. The flash of light that wasn't really light-even the blind had seen it-and the intolerable spike of pain felt by every creature on Earth advanced enough to have a spinal cord. And then the world was Changed; explosives no longer exploded, electricity wouldn't flow in metal wires, combustion engines si lently died, nuclear reactors sat and glowed below their meltdown temperatures until the isotopes decayed and became inert. A civilization built on high-energy tech nologies writhed and died as well. There had been little time then for anything but sheer survival, but in all the years since no slightest hint had been found to account for the why of it.

Eventually a few scientists had measured the effects with what crude equipment could be cobbled together within the new limits; all they'd found was how eerily the Change was tailored, to make a generator impossible but leave nerves functioning as they always had. .. and that beyond the immediate vicinity of Earth everything seemed to be proceeding as normal. You couldn't even prove that the Change hadn't happened before. Prior to gunpowder, who would have known? Most of human ity put it down to the will of God, or gods, or the devil; a stubborn minority held out for inscrutably powerful aliens from outer space or another dimension.

"A dome of lights miles high and miles across, and the water boiling around the edge of it, yes," Knolles said in a flat matter-of fact tone. "Multicolored lights, crawling over it like lightning... that's quite definite. We've collected hundreds of testimonies, and found some eyewitness records written down right afterwards, even a photograph or two. I do not believe it is a coin cidence such a thing happened just seconds before the Change."

"So what did they find there, your Bluenose explorers?" Juniper asked.

Nigel could feel the pulse beat faster in the hand he held, and his own matching it. This wasn't just a rumor, that was proof... though of what, only the Powers could say.

Juniper went on: "Not the dome of lights, still there-that we would have heard of. They'd have heard of that in Tibet, sure!"

Knolles turned to his son. The young officer was in the red coated dress uniform into which he'd changed when he shed his armor, but he'd also brought a small rectan gular box pierced with holes from the diplomatic party's baggage. Nigel had assumed it was a gift of some sort.

Now he brought it up from the floor, and folded back the covers around it. A soft crooo-cruuuu came from it, and behind wire mesh strutted a bird, cocking its head at the light and looking with interest at a piece of bread nearby.

Juniper's breath was the first to catch. She'd been a student of the wilds all her life, long before the Change, and had read widely then and since about the life of other lands and times.

It was an unremarkable bird at first glance; a long-tailed pigeon with a bluish-gray head, the back and wings mottled gray with black patches, paler underparts blush red at the throat and fading to rosy cream. The only thing startling about it was the bright red eyes... .

Juniper made a small choked sound, putting her hand to her torc as if the twisted gold were throttling her. Her eyes went wide as she turned to Nigel.

"Do... do you..." she stuttered, something he'd never heard before, her eyes so wide the white showed all around the pale green iris.

"Yes, my dear," he said quietly, and pushed a crust into the cage.

Then he began to smile, joy and awe struggling with natural reserve as the bird pecked. "It's a passenger pigeon."

"What is it, my dear?" Nigel asked sleepily.

"I don't know," Juniper Mackenzie said, sitting up in the bed and reaching for her robe. "But-"

A fist knocked on the door; she turned up the bedside lamp and hurried over. Nigel was on his feet, hand resting inconspicuously on the hilt of the longsword. When she threw open the door a man stood there, white-faced and stuttering.

Nigel's hand closed on the rawhide and-wire binding of the sword hilt. He knew the signs of raw terror.

"Lady Juniper! Sir Nigel! There's been a fight at the Sheaf and Sickle, terrible bad. Folk hurt and killed!"

Sheaf and Sickle Inn, Sutterdown, Willamette Valley, Oregon Samhain Eve, CY22/2020 A.D.

Juniper Mackenzie pushed through the door into the familiar taproom of the Sheaf and Sickle, the armsmen at her heels; Nigel was outside, seeing to the circuit of the town walls lest any killers still at large try to es cape. She let out a quiet breath of relief at the sight of Rudi standing beside a table where a healer worked; the twins and Mathilda and Odard were nearby, and all five were unhurt. The smells of blood and violent death were there, mingling horribly with the familiar homey scent of the place.

"Well?" she said. "It's a slaughter this is, of my people on my land, and I'd know the meaning of it! It's the Mor rigu and the Wild Huntsman we're dealing with tonight, and no mistake."

Rudi nodded and gave her an account, succinct and neat as his tutors in the arts of war had taught him; she gasped at his account of Saba's death. His mouth tight ened as anger drove the grue of horror out of him. Up stairs Tom and Moira and their close kin were keening their daughter; the muffled sound of the shrieks rose to a crescendo, then died away into rhythmic moans, laden with unutterable grief, before rising again.

"I'm a warrior by trade," Rudi said bitterly. "Saba wasn't. She shouldn't have had to fight her last fight alone. First I couldn't save her husband, and then this... May she forgive me, and speak kindly of me to the Guardians."

"She's with her Raen in the Summerlands, and with all her beloveds," Juniper said quietly, putting an arm around him for a moment.

"I know, Mother. It doesn't make me feel any better, much less her children."

"It isn't meant to," Juniper said, a little sternness in her voice. "That's why we keen over the dead; grief is for the living."

He nodded; they couldn't even do that, not being close enough in blood.

"I'm glad we came here, though," he said. "It would have been worse if we'd stayed at Raven House. These dirt were already here, waiting to strike; they might have gotten away over the town wall."

They glanced aside. The healer's lips were pursed in disapproval as she worked at the big dining table; far too many of the inn's guests were milling about and babbling nearby, despite its still being hours to dawn. A stranger was helping her, a monastic in a black Benedictine robe, with the loose sleeves pinned back up to his shoulders.

Most of the rest weren't making themselves useful. Some of the outlanders had even had the nerve to try to demand service from the staff. Rudi looked at Juniper, and she nodded slightly; he made a chopping gesture to his friends.

The twins pushed the crowd back-once by the simple expedient of seizing a man by the elbows and pitching him four feet into the air, to land mostly on his head-and then drew their swords and stood like slender black and silver statues with the points resting on an invisible line across the room, and Odard and Mathilda beside them. Nobody stepped over it; after a moment a few neighbors came to stand around them, glowering at the strangers. Some of the wiser foreigners headed back to their rooms.

That gave them space and time to go view the bodies of the assassins, laid out on tarpaulins. Juniper had never become entirely inured to the sight of violent death, but she could make herself ignore the wounds and the tumbled diminished look of a corpse when she must.

"This is a strange thing, and you're right, my darling one; these weren't bandits; they're too well fed and they've the look of trained men."

"They were," he said grimly. "Well trained, at that."

"Nor was this any random killing, despite the wealth yonder stranger has in his baggage. Some ruler is behind this-and not one we're familiar with."