The Protector's War by S. M. Stirling

nose, never fear, but this grand alliance you’ve been wanting won’t happen soon.”
    Havel gave a snort of unwilling laughter. “Ah, the hell with it, Juney, I’d rather subvert the bastard than kill his grunts too. I just don’t know if we can. Anyway, we’ve been talking politics for days. Now I’ve got some gunpowder to test.”
    The other visiting dignitaries formed up, in no particular order: Abbot Dmowski from Mt. Angel in his brown Benedictine robe; a group of selfappointed SCA nobility from just east of there; Finney and Jones from the Corvallis Faculty Senate a raggle-taggle of the smaller communities. He sighed and put on the helmet he’d carried tucked under one arm; it was a plain steel bowl with a riveted nasal strip in front, hinged cheek guards and a leather-lined chain-mail aventail behind to protect the neck. This particular one had a tanned bear’s head mounted on it, the snarling muzzle shading his eyes.
    His wife Signe came up on his right side, ignoring Juniper’s friendly nod. She flicked at the capelike fall of fur that spread back from the bear head, to settle it on his mailed shoulders. Even though he’d killed the bear himself—with a spear, right after the Change—he still felt mildly ridiculous wearing it; it had been Signe’s younger sister Astrid Larsson who came up with the idea.
    The first of her crimes against common sense, he grumbled inwardly. But not the last.
    The crowd below cheered at the sight of the ceremonial helm, and started chanting; some drew swords and waved them in the air to the beat of the words.
    â€œLord Bear! Lord Bear! Lord Bear!”
    â€œYou deserve it, O Lord Bear,” Signe Havel said, smiling at his tightly controlled embarrassment. “And so do I—I was shooting arrows into it while you shish kebabed its liver, remember? Sort of our first date…”
    â€œI remember it better than I like,” he said, with a smile that drew up one corner of his mouth.
    He touched a finger to the scar that ran up across his forehead from the corner of his left eye, remembering the hoarse roaring that sprayed blood and saliva in his face, the blurring slap of the great paw and the glancing touch of one claw tip, agony and black unconsciousness coming up to strike him like the ground itself.
    Just an inch closer, and there’d’ve gone my face and eyes.
    â€œLet’s get on with it,” he went on, his voice a little rougher, letting his left hand fall back to its natural position on the hilt of his backsword.
    She put on a helmet that sported a crest of yellow horsehair from brow to nape, almost the same color as her own wheat blond mane. An attendant handed her a small metal tray with half a dozen smoldering pine splints on it, and they stepped out. The skirts of their knee-length chain hauberks clashed musically against the steel splints of their shin guards, and the plate of the vambraces on their forearms met with a dull tink as they linked hands, his right to her left.
    Their path led down the broad staircase that led from the upper garden to the great lawn where the ceremony would be held, between banks of Excel early lilac already showing a froth of lavender blossom. Militia with sixteen-foot pikes lined the route, their mail shirts and kettle helmets polished for dignity’s sake. The crowd was hundreds strong and good-natured, cheering as they saw the leaders, ready for the barbeque and games and entertainments that would follow throughout the day—it seemed a little odd that they’d turned the memorial day of humanity’s worst disaster into a holiday, but things had turned out that way. It was a brilliant spring morning, the air washed to crystal by yesterday’s rain, and cool.
    Around sixty , he thought. Perfect .
    The flower banks nearer the house were just starting to bloom—sheets of crocus gold and blue, rhododendrons like cool fire in white and pink