The Protector's War by S. M. Stirling Read Free Book Online

Jamaiiica Farm.”
    â€œOach, aye, indeed,” the redhead said. “And it is often on Skye I felt the hankering for just such a smock frock as this, so English I was. Archie MacDonald, at yer sairvice, sair.” His voice had a soft West Highland lilt, almost Irish save for the rolled R’s.
    â€œJá,” Gunnar Halldorsson put in, naming himself as well. “Me too. Studying marine engineering in Reykjavik, sometimes I felt naked without a smock.” His thick-fingered hand tented the coarse linen away from his body. “In memory of my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother carried off by Vikings in the year 900, ha? So, the hat too.” He flicked thumb and forefinger against one of the bull horns.
    Bob fished in his pockets and came out with a cigarette made from a twist of paper, snapping open his lighter.
    â€œThe smocks, I don’ make no trouble, I say, fine. Easy to make and clean. The ‘thatch on every roof’ order, it don’ bother me—thatch on me Jamaica Farm to start wit’ anyway. But when decree straight from Highgrove say we have to learn de morris dancing …” He took a long drag on the short, fat smoke. “Then I say to de king, ‘Charlie, mon, you kiss my fine royal Rasta ass!’”
    â€œAnd when my land is cleared, he can kiss mine,” the Icelander said, grinning. “Remember, we start on it this year.”
    â€œAnd on mine,” the Scot reminded him. “In the meantime, t’waur better we get these gentlemen under cover. The old south barn, until sunset; that’ll rest the horses, the which will do them hairm.”
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    The barn had been one of the outbuildings of Wavendon Manor; the rather undistinguished manor house itself had burned not long after the Change. The floor below was loose-box stabling, now holding their mounts, and an open space where lay a horse-powered threshing machine—remade to ancient patterns since the Change—disassembled for maintenance after the recently completed harvest. Chickens and turkeys wandered in to peck at odd grains on the floor; families of swallows flitted through the openings under the eaves, to and from their mud-built nests.
    The second floor held mountains of loose hay over rafters and an open slat-work of boards, and the fugitives had bedded down in the middle of it, invisible unless someone climbed up the ladder and poked around with considerable determination. The hay made a deep soft bed, sweet-smelling with clover, well-cured and hardly prickly at all; the loft was dark and warm, with slits of hot light moving through the gloom. From where he’d set his horse blanket he could see out between the boards towards the farmyard, and with only a little movement over the edge of the hay down into the ground floor.
    Sir Nigel long ago acquired the soldier’s ability to sleep whenever he had the opportunity, in circumstances far less comfortable than this. When he awoke it was an hour past noon, and his hand was already on the wire-and-leather-wrapped hilt of his sword as he sat up. The bright metal came free of the sheath with a hiss of steel on wood and leather greased with graphite and neat’s-foot oil. Alleyne was already awake and armed. The bleak lines newly graven in his son’s face made Nigel wince slightly; losing one’s mother was hard enough in the natural run of things…
    Then the younger Loring shook his head slightly and nodded towards the ladder. Hordle woke on his own a moment later, his soft rasping snore cutting off instantly as he reached for the great hand-and-a-half blade that lay beside him.
    Nigel looked through the fringe of hay. A girl was climbing the ladder with a large basket over one arm. She was the one he’d seen feeding the poultry, and was rather obviously the farmer’s daughter, with skin the color of milky tea and dark hair that tumbled in loose curls beneath a kerchief. The