The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change by S. M. Stirling Page B

leaning on her raven-headed staff until Artos came through. Gundridh was riding on his shoulders, yelling shrilly and waving his flat raven-plumed Scots bonnet in the air, and the same frank grin she remembered was on his face. It died as he swung the child down and faced her, bowing his bright head for an instant.
    “Merry met again, Lady Heidhveig,” he said gravely, and put the back of his right fist to his forehead for a moment.
    She met his blue-green gaze and then bowed herself, more deeply.
    “ Come heil , Artos King,” she said, using the formal greeting from the old tongue.
    Some buried fragment of her wondered what the young woman she’d been a lifetime and an age ago in Berkeley would have thought if she could have seen this moment. The rest of her was entirely grave.
    His mouth quirked a little. “Not King in this land,” he said.
    “But King indeed,” she said. “You’ve changed.”
    A matter-of-fact nod, and the soft burring lilt went on:
    “That I have, Lady. For a man must suit himself to the work fate and the Powers give him. I led a band of friends to find the Sword. Find it I did; and now I must raise a host, win a war, and found a kingdom!”
    “Hopefully you won’t need to fight a dragon as well,” she said dryly.
    “That too, Lady. That too—though not one with scales or wings, perhaps.”
    They bustled him and his folk back to her house; the talk went on through the afternoon and into the early dark. By then the dinner trestles had been set up, and besides her own family others were drifting in to hear the tale, and of course you couldn’t refuse hospitality. She winced slightly at the expense as plate after plate of basted ribs and sizzling pork chops came out, piles of sausage and platters of French fries and round rye loaves and butter.
    This wasn’t the mead-hall of a godhi , a ring-giving drighten chief; it was just a big house. A godhi was expected to be openhanded to all comers, but he had his own lands and the scot from his yeoman followers to supply the means. And this had been a hard winter in Kalksthorpe, with their losses from the attack; late winter and spring were the hungry times in Norrheim anyway. Her family’s share of the corsair ship’s cargo would help, but in a country as thinly peopled as theirs it would take time to translate it into things they could eat and use.
    Her mouth quirked a little. She’d loved the old stories even before she came to the old Gods, but the people in them had seemed a little crazed for booty at times. It wasn’t until you’d lived in something like their world that you understood how thin the margin could be between comfort and desperation, and how important it was to build up a reserve. Nor would anyone who’d survived the first Change Year ever take food for granted again.
    Though most of her neighbors were at least bringing along a dish, fish casseroles, a ham, loaves, butter, cheese. Another thing you learned in these times was how much you depended on other folk, for all that Norrheimers boasted of their independence. Artos-Rudi and his companions tore into the dinner with the thoughtless voracity of the young and active who’d also been on short commons for some time.
    “The winds were against us much of the time,” Artos finished. “With the ship so crowded we were weary and no mistake, by the time we made the Greyflood! And hungry!”
    A hammering came at the front of the house. The buzz of conversation died down. The lanterns and candles guttered in the sudden draught; someone had pushed through the inner vestibule before the outer door closed, spilling heat. Her heart hammered, almost painfully.
    She didn’t recognize the man; from the cut of his clothes he came from far inland, in the farmlands where most of the Norrheimers dwelt. He was young, just old enough for a downy show of brown whiskers on his cheeks and chin, the hood of his parka thrown back to show longish hair held by a leather headband. Youngster he