PREFACE
PREFACE
From the diary of Albert Hamilton, Baron of Greensward:
One problem with keeping a diary, that I hadn’t realized when I started it. You have to live through every bad thing three times: once when it happens, once when you write it down and once when you read it back before starting the next entry.
Haven hasn’t been a garden spot since well before the Imperials pulled out, but bad things didn’t come in quite such large bunches before the Saurons. Today we had a review of the supply situation. It looks as if our luck is about to run out.
Specifcally, it looks as if we may have to start turning refugees away related to people who have already sworn allegiance to us. Not immediate family, but sisters and cousins and aunts—and some of our liegemen do reckon them up in dozens.
If we take them all in, we’ll be horribly vulnerable to any loss of crops or food storage—and the Saurons have been known to ask for tribute in foodstuffs. If we start turning away refugees to whom our liegemen have obligations, what will they think of their obligations to us?
Damned if I know.
John had one proposal. He suggested that we take in the older people, the children and the casualties, if the able-bodied will join the resistance.
I asked him if he expected Gary Cummings to feed, clothe and arm them, or were they going to fight Saurons barehanded, naked and starving? John flushed and replied that we could spare basic clothing, rations and equipment. I said doing that would deplete our supplies as fast as taking the people in, and probably cost us our weapons.
With everybody who was there and Mattie so close to term, I couldn’t face a confrontation with my grandson. However, there’s no doubt about it. John wants to go baldheaded for the Saurons, even if that means bringing down Whitehall.
I want to save Whitehall, even though its survival probably won’t make a difference. The Saurons have already done so much damage to Haven that we’ll still need help to rebuild, even if every last one of those genetically-engineered monsters dropped dead tomorrow!
I don’t like it, but I can live with it. John can’t live with it. If we have a public confrontation, I may not be able to live with him.
Brigadier Cummings won’t take him in against my wishes, but there are other resistance leaders not so scrupulous. If John leaves—no, I won’t write that down.
I also won’t quarrel with John. Part of the strength of House Hamilton has come from the barons and their heirs always getting along, even if one or both had a few quirks. That tradition is older than the Saurons, and it will still rule Whitehall when the Saurons are dust.
Maybe it will even help turn them into that dust….