The commoners were nodding enthusiastically. She thought she saw signs of hidden stomach cramps among some of the nobles, though not the Count, and the Countess was beaming and nodding herself. The Association had conquered as far and fast as it had because its leaders had quickly grasped the consequences of the Change, equipped their forces with effective gear based on pre-gunpowder weapons and armor, and given them at least some training from their own experience as hobbyists. That expansion had slowed and then stopped when the PPA ran into others who’d had variations on the same idea and time to recover from the shock of the Change and implement it. A lot of the nobles here were survivors of encounters with massed Mackenzie longbowmen or Bearkiller lancers or Corvallan or Yakiman pike-hedges, or the children and younger siblings of those who hadn’t survived the experience. She let them take the full force of her glacier-colored eyes for a moment.

There was still a good deal of indigestion at the thought of letting too many of the lower classes have weapons which could penetrate the armor of a knight.

“This program will be implemented immediately and fully. So the High King in his wisdom has decreed,” she said.

Which settles that, her glance said. Or I will settle you.

The silver notches in the hilt of the long sword that was in Lioncel’s arms once more reinforced the message. When the civilians and the clerics had left, the staff came in and removed the lower table. Lioncel and Armand set up the map easel in its place, and a baron tried again while they were at it:

“My lady Grand Constable, are you sure about the crossbows—”

“Yes, my lord. I am. More to the point the Lady Regent, Her Majesty Mathilda, and His Majesty Artos the First are sure. Any questions?”

He subsided and she went to the map, drawing her dagger to use as a pointer.

“Everything I said to the good burghers was true. What I didn’t dwell on—this sort of thing is how we’re supposed to earn our keep, my lords—is that we estimate that the enemy are still going to be coming straight at us with between one hundred thousand and one hundred twenty thousand men.”

Grunts of frank dismay at the numbers, which were horrific; even a generation after the Change, the far interior was still much more densely populated than the areas towards the coast where the big cities had been, and that translated into more fighting men. She was, within limits, glad that nobody here was gasconading about wading ankle-deep in enemy blood. But then these men had been on the front line for more than a year now. She nodded, a crisp gesture of acknowledgement: