A Meeting at Corvallis by S. M. Stirling

the books; he’s not goofy over living it all out. He’s a pretty regular guy, once you get past that Jeeves-old-chap-fetch-me-a-biscuit accent. But liking the books’ll help him keep her from doing a swan dive into the deep end. Christ Jesus knows nobody else ever had much luck at that! Foreign prince—well, son of a baronet—exotic, great warrior. It’s a natural! And I get a first-rate fighting man on my side, too; he can king it off in the woods with her in between wars. Win-win situation.”
    â€œYou haven’t said anything about it to her.”
    â€œChrist, no! That’d be the best way to spoil things.”
    â€œWell, maybe you’re learning after all,” Signe said, and touched an ear when he started to reply.
    They were leaning together and speaking quietly, and the rumbling clatter of hooves, the crash of boots and the thrrrrip-thrrrrip-thrrrrip of the marching drum covered it. Still, she was right. Another time would be better for chewing over family matters.
    Not that there’s much difference between family stuff and politics anymore, he thought. Or between either and the military side of things.
    â€œAaron wants to visit Corvallis and see if he can get more medical supplies,” Signe went on.
    â€œAaron just wants to find a cute young thing,” Havel answered. Aaron Rothman was chief physician of Larsdalen; he was very competent, but had his quirks. “He’s been itching for some social life since his last boyfriend left him.”
    â€œThat’s because you’re the unrequited love of his life, darling. You did save him from the cannibals.”
    Havel laughed. “Saved all of him but his left foot,” he said, which was literally true; that band of Eaters had gone in for slow-motion butchery to keep the meat from spoiling.
    The road curved westward towards the distant Coast Range, dark green slopes whose tops were covered in gray mist that merged into the low clouds. The broad, shallow valley on either side was a patchwork of dormant bare-fingered orchards, peach and apple and cherry, with fleecy white sheep grazing beneath the trees, grainfields showing wet red-brown dirt between the blue-green shoots of the winter wheat, and pasture dotted with Garry oaks and grazing cattle. Workers and herdsmen waved at the troops as they passed, but this close to Larsdalen there weren’t any of the usual walled hamlets or fortified A-Lister steadings that dotted the other settled parts of the Outfit’s lands; the folk who tilled these lands dwelt inside the Bearkiller citadel. Horsemen and plodding wagons and bicyclists swerved to the side of the road to let the troops pass, and gave cheerful greetings to their friends and relatives as they did.
    He took a deep, satisfied breath; he was fairly happy with the way the exercise had gone, and happier still with the way the half-dormant farmlands promised good crops next year. And the way that his folk all looked well fed and warmly clad in new homespun, drab wadmal, or wool and linen and linsey-woolsey colored in yellows and browns, greens and blues, by the dyes they’d learned to make from bark and herbs and leaves. The air was heavy with the musty smell of damp earth and vegetable decay; this season in the Willamette Valley was more like a prolonged autumn with an occasional cold snap than the brutal Siberian winters of the Lake Superior country where he’d been raised. He’d always liked autumn best of the four seasons, although he missed the dry, cold, white snow-months that followed. Sometimes he’d gone on week-long trips then, cutting school and setting off through the birch woods on skis, with a bedroll and rifle on his back…
    The valley narrowed as it rose towards the crest of the Eola Hills, where they broke in a steep slope towards the lowlands around the little town of Rickreall. Orchards gave way to vineyards spindly and bare, with a few red-gold leaves still