Read The High King of Montival: A Novel of the Change for Free Online Page A

his brother . . . half brother. He’s blood kin to you.”
    “And a hell of a man.” Another hesitation. “I, well, I always thought he had something of Dad in him.”
    “Yes, he is, and yes, he does. Even as a kid, you could see what he was going to grow into; Mike was proud of him, though he didn’t say much about it. But to me he was also always a reminder of your father straying. And don’t let either ‘get over it’ or ‘that was before you two were married’ go through your mind. You’re going to find that you don’t get over things that easily; feelings become a habit, after a while, and they’re hard to kick. Even when you’re tired of them. And the other part . . . all that shows is that you’re a man. Or male, at least. Which I suppose is for the best.”
    He managed to suppress the infuriatingly smug smile until she gave a weary grin.
    “Artos is . . . well, if we have to rely on somebody, he’s the one I’d pick, ma’am. Plus that Sword thing. Whatever.”
    Signe nodded. That was business, and the appraisal was accurate, of the man and of the situation. She’d manage to smile and cheer at the coronation of Artos the First, if they won. Life hurt, and then it hurt some more, and then you died. What mattered was that you did what you had to do without sniveling about it.
    And if we don’t win, we’ll be too dead to care.
    “Bath,” she said. “Sleep. Work tomorrow.”

CHAPTER THREE

    NANTUCKET ISLAND
FEBRUARY 23, CHANGE YEAR 24/2023 AD
     
     
     
    R udi grinned to himself, catching Mary Vogeler’s glare at her husband from the corner of his eye. All his party were assembled to greet the little armada that had brought the Sea-Land tribe from their village a bit west of here. Their boats were drawn up on the shore, eight craft shaped like long whaleboats, each with a single gaff-rigged mast a third of the way back from the prow. They’d carried a score of men and rather more women from the village farther west along the narrow island’s coast.
    One of the women had headed straight for Ingolf, beaming and waving. More than the damp chill salt wind flushed Mary’s pale cheeks red, and her single blue eye snapped. Ingolf spread his hands.
    “Honey, that was more than a year before we even met , ” he said desperately. “He’s nearly three , for . . . ah, Manwë’s sake.”
    The young woman of the Sea-Land folk held her child—and Ingolf’s—by the hand and beamed at them both; the toddler beamed too, showing gaps in his grin, and waved his free arm. The resemblance was unmistakable, down to the dark blue eyes, though the plumply pretty mother was half-Indian, her cheekbones high and hair raven-black. Her little tribe were mostly similar mixtures in varying degrees, offspring of the time-displaced inhabitants of this ancient Nantucket mixed with a party of refugees from Innsmouth just after the Change.
    “Well, introduce us , ” Mary said, crossing her arms.
    “Ummm . . . this is, ah, I think it means Dove , ” Ingolf said tightly. “She’s, ah, the daughter of the chief here. The guy Rudi’s talking to. That’s her mother interpreting.”
    The woman touched a gray feather woven into one braid; it had a tinge of pink along its edge.
    “Doh-uv,” she said carefully, and then repeated it in her own tongue.
    The language was like nothing any of the questers save Ingolf had ever heard, but you could pick out English words in it, like plums in a Yule cake. Nor did the situation need much in the way of detail to be obvious.
    Mary snorted, dug a stiffened finger into her man’s ribs, then relented and went down on one knee. The boy came forward fearlessly and returned her hug. Ingolf put a hand on his head, smiling a little, a wondering expression on his face as he saw himself there.
    “You don’t think ...” he said slowly. “Or at least I didn’t ...”
    “. . . when you’re passing through and having fun along the way that there might be consequences?” Mary said, and