Lord of Mountains: A Novel of the Change

by S. M. Stirling

  The problem was that their mother hadn’t just been arrested and executed for treason; she had been guilty as the proverbial Dragon of Sin itself, in league with the Church Universal and Triumphant, and so had his uncle Sir Guelf been. They’d both died for it, and nearly taken House Liu down with them; he and his sister had spent a lot of time under arrest and parole, not to mention constant suspicion. It hadn’t been any fun at all.

  That’s over by now, thank God and His Mother, but I’m still feeling…prickly…over it.

  The High King and the Queen had been generous to a fault since they got back from the Quest. He was a royal squire now, a post a lot of young noblemen would kill for, and Yseult was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen; she’d been promised a dowry of manors from the Crown demesne, and it had been made known the High King and Queen would stand godparents to any children either had, a priceless cadeau. All that made them a lot less of a pair of lepers socially. It still hadn’t stopped suspicious glances out of the corners of eyes.

  He wondered if anything would, except the passage of more time than he liked to think about.

  “Huon!”

  The High Queen’s voice snapped him out of his reverie. He left his tethered horse and strode briskly into the tent, sweeping off his brimless squire’s flowerpot hat and bowing before standing to attention.

  “Your Majesty,” he said.

  Mathilda Arminger had been a kindly mistress to him in the month of his service, but she was all business in the field. Which was just what you wanted, of course. Nobody who’d met her was going to tease him about being a woman’s squire.

  “You’re going here,” she said, tucking a lock of her dark-brown hair back into place with one finger, then tracing a path on the map.

  He watched closely as she tapped four points in the high country north of the town and Crown castle of Goldendale.

  “There are posts here…here…here and here.”

  He memorized the locations; map-reading and knowing terrain were skills a nobleman had to master. She handed him four envelopes with the Crown seal.

  “You’re to take these messages to the commanders at each; they’re just signal and scout detachments. Take any reply — written or verbal, they won’t be urgent or they would have used their heliographs.”

  “Your Majesty?”

  That was Tiphaine d’Ath, in her cool inflectionless voice. “Sending him alone is almost completely safe. Remember what we have Ogier nosing around up that way for.”

  The High Queen smiled, her strong, slightly irregular face lighting for a second. She was in her mid-twenties, a decade and a half younger than d’Ath, but tired enough by the labors of the last few days that you could see what she’d look like in middle-age when the freshness of youth was gone. Indomitable, like weathered rock.

  “Good point, my lady Grand Constable,” she said with a nod. “Which is not the same as absolutely completely safe.”

  D’Ath raised her voice in turn: “Lioncel!”

  The blond youngster seemed to appear magically. “My lady?”

  “Her Majesty’s squire is carrying dispatches to the posts north of the city. Accompany him, under his orders. Both of you keep a sharp lookout. If you see any sign of enemy activity, get out immediately and report it to Castle Goldendale. It’s not likely, but the unlikely happens sometimes.”

  “Yes, my lady!”

  Huon inclined his head. “When and where shall we rejoin, Your Majesty?”

  Mathilda looked at her watch.

  “Nine fifteen. We’re moving out to Castle Maryhill down on the Columbia in a couple of hours, once we get this cleared up. Rejoin there by no later than sundown, we’ll be moving east at dawn.”

  “And you have a new sister,” d’Ath said to Lioncel, handing over a parcel and a sealed note on lavender-colored paper. “Her name is Yolande. Your lady mother sent this for you with the courier.”

  “Thank you, my lady! That’s wonderful news!”

  Huon suppressed a pang of envy; his mother probably wouldn’t have sent the parcel. Even before she turned strange. Certainly not just before or after an accouchement.

  So much for unnatural mothers, he thought a little sourly, seeing Lioncel’s unaffected delight.

  Both the squires bent their knee and turned about smartly. Both were smiling as they left; a day spent dashing about was a lot more exciting than standing and watching the grass grow. And they had all day to do it in, plenty of time. He suspected it was partly a test of his land-navigation skills, too; he hadn’t been given a map.

  “Congratulations,” Huon said. “Sisters can be fun; Yseult and I get along really well.”

  “Thanks, but she’s older than you, isn’t she?”

  “Two years,” Huon said. “It was Odard, then Yseult, then me. Then my father was killed in the Protector’s War, so I was the last, that’s why it’s such a small family.”

  “You’re the youngest, but I’m the oldest in ours. Little Heuradys is still toddling and drooling, and when they’re babies they’re about as interesting as a lump of dough and not nearly as cute as puppies. Plus a puppy doesn’t take years to housebreak, as Lady d’Ath says. I’m happy for my lady my mother, though; she always wanted two sons and two daughters. A matched set, she called it.”

  “Don’t worry now, they’ll both be old enough for you to be worrying about their suitors in no time!”

  They unhitched their fast coursers from the picket line, vaulted into the saddle and cantered off northward, turning west along a rutted lane bordered with London plane trees to avoid the city wall, riding off onto the verge now and then to dodge the odd cart or wagon and once sweeping off their hats and bowing in the saddle as a lady went by on her palfrey, with maids and guards in attendance. She nodded back at them and smiled regally, teeth white against her brown face.

  Lioncel had stuffed the package in a saddlebag after sniffing hopefully at it.

  “My lady my mother is always sending me stuff,” he said. “Little things, but it’s usually stuff I really need as well as being cool.”

  He slit the note open with his dagger, a thin-bladed misericorde, and read it. Huon caught a slight waft of scent, some cool floral fragrance, maybe verbena.

  “Oh good, thanks be to the Virgin. The accouchement went easily—like a watermelon seed, she says, and they’re both doing well. Lady Valentine Renfrew was there at Montinore with her—the Countess of Odell—they’re old friends. And the Renfrew daughters were there, all three; they’re nice girls. It must have been a lot of comfort to Mom. And them. It’s hard on women, waiting, when there’s war.”

  “Bearing children is like battle,” Huon said, which was a cliché but had the advantage of being true. “You’re lucky to have three brothers and sisters.”

  The smile ended as Lioncel read the end of the note, and Huon could see a flush spread up to the other boy’s ears, along with an audible grinding of teeth.

  “Oh, sweet Saints, Dolores sends her regards!” he muttered angrily under his breath, and started to crumple the letter before he smoothed it out and tucked it into a pocket in his trews.

  “Ah…who’s Dolores?” Huon asked.

  They were thoroughly alone. The only sounds were the creak of saddle leather, the dull hollow clop of hooves on dirt, and the wind in the trees. Yellow-brown leaves fell around them, and a flight of starlings went by. Through town would be the most direct route, but impossibly crowded and slow. The witches-hat tops of the town’s towers and the taller ones of the castle on its northern fringe edged by, with the green slopes of the low mountains behind. You could see the peaks of Adams and Ranier from here, and sometimes the cone of Mt. Hood southward and west.

  Lioncel’s face had relaxed a little. “A girl,” he said ruefully. “A really pretty girl. Friendly, too.”

  Well, at least it is a girl, Huon thought. “Your leman?” he said.

  Lioncel was distinctly young to have a recognized lady-love and he wasn’t wearing a favor-ribbon on his arm,
either, just a plain mail shirt and surcoat.

  “Ah…no,” he replied, and his mouth quirked, apparently halfway between humor and embarrassment. “She’s a servant girl at Montinore manor house. Part-time, boon-work, you know. Her father’s a blacksmith, and her mother’s a midwife.”

  Huon nodded; he did. All peasant families on a manor owed labor-service as part of the rent for their holdings. Usually the skilled upper house-servants were full-time retainers who moved with the nobles they served from manor to castle to court, but the routine scrubbing, potato-peeling and fetch-and-carry was done by young women from the nearest estate village, fulfilling part of their kin’s obligations. It wasn’t as hard as working in the demesne fields and there were other advantages.

  But Lioncel was rather too young to have an acknowledged mistress, either. Even if his parents were very indulgent.

  “And…well, Mom…my lady mother…caught us in a linen closet,” Lioncel went on doggedly.

  “Ouch,” Huon said sympathetically, trying to imagine his mother’s reaction…even when she’d been herself. “Trouble?”

  “Well, no. I mean, Dolores was nice about it. She didn’t try to pretend I’d made her do it which could have gotten me into trouble and her out of it; my lady my mother and Baroness d’Ath are both really strict about good lordship. Mom laughed at first, but…then she teased me about it. She’s still at it, and that was months and months ago.”

  “Oh, ouch, ouch,” Huon said sympathetically. “Totally ouch.”

  And I mean it. It would be bad enough having a brother tease you about something like that. Having your mother do it…you’d want to turn into a vole and crawl into a tunnel and never come out.

  “And then Lady d’Ath just looked at me and said that if Dolores’d gotten pregnant, the compensation money would have come out my allowance for the next three million years. And then I had to confess it to Father Lailard and got this unbelievable penance. And I didn’t even get that far! I just had my hand under her outer tunic! And Dad…my lord my father…he killed himself laughing.”

  Huon laughed himself, but slapped the younger squire on the shoulder to show it wasn’t unkindly meant.

  “They probably think embarrassing you is the best way to keep you on the straight and narrow,” he said.

  Lioncel laughed too after a moment. They fell silent as they turned off the rural lane and through a gap in the row of trees onto a trail that meandered through rocky grassland northward. The mountains were much closer now, and they were leaving the settled zone where people were omnipresent. Which meant…

  “Time to arm up,” Huon said.

  They both stuffed their hats in the saddlebags and put on their helmets, coalscuttle sallets with flared neck-guards, but the lighter open-face type without visors. The felt and leather pads closed around his head. He’d adjusted them carefully, but you still got a headache if you wore it all day; though that was better than getting your brains spattered by a mace. The chin-cup and straps had to be just right too, so he swiveled and tossed his head to make sure everything was firm without being too tight. They half-drew their swords and daggers and re-seated them with a slight hiss of steel on wood and leather greased with neatsfoot oil. Lioncel slipped the crossbow off his back, worked the lever set in the forestock to cock it and clipped a quarrel in the firing groove. Huon preferred a saddlebow, and he pulled the horn-and-sinew recurve out of the boiled-leather scabbard at his knee and set an arrow on the string.

  They were coming up through meadows to the Little Klickitat River and a thick scattering of trees along it, big cottonwoods and willows, pale-barked white alder, the odd elm or beech someone had planted since the Change and a thick understory of bush and saplings. Their trail led down to the water and up the other side, and from the tracks was made mostly by cattle and sheep. The water was shallow, gravel and riffles showing as often as pools, but the rainy season had started in the Simcoes to the north and it was rising from its summer lows.

  “You first,” Huon said; it was his mission, so he was in charge. “Cover! Move!”

  Lioncel crossed as Huon brought up his bow and covered him, eyes flickering along the edge of the riverside woods for any telltale sign of movement. There wasn’t any, save for a badger trundling off with a ground squirrel in its jaws, and the usual birds, including a bald eagle perching on a lightning-killed pine and ignoring them. Once he was across the blond boy turned his horse right and dropped the reins on the mount’s neck. The well-trained animal stood stock-still, not even bending its head to crop at the green grass that grew in clumps by the river’s side.

  “Cover!” Lioncel called, bringing the crossbow up to his shoulder. “Move!”

  It was a heavy weapon for someone the young squire’s age, but he kept it steady. Huon let his weight shift forward slightly, and Dancer walked into the water, placing his feet carefully and raising his knees high. He wasn’t using a knight’s saddle, which cut you off from contact with the horse for the sake of locking you into a standing position. This was a light pad type, and of course he’d trained in all the equestrian arts under experts since he was old enough to walk.

  The water was still low; at the deepest spot it came up to the bottom of his stirrups, and he could feel cool wet on his woolen trews where splashed drops hit. He smiled as the horse muscled its way up the slope on the other side. This was a lot more fun than waiting around the tent.

  Beyond was a savannah with scattered lodgepole pine and rather shrubby Garry oaks, probably stinted communal common-pasture for whatever manor held this area. Then they were into the hills with the pines thick around them, steep trails—steep enough to make them dismount and lead the horses at times—and jays scolding, squirrels running up the tall trunks in gray chattering streaks, bright sunlight spearing down. The air smelled a bit damper here and full of the sweet scent of the wood. Once Dancer shied a little; a tree nearby bore long parallel gouges and there was scat on the ground by it.

  “Cougar,” Huon said, pointing at the gray hairs caught in the bark, and Lioncel nodded.

  “Not nearly big enough for tiger and that’s the wrong color,” he said.

  “Lots of deer sign too, and elk, I think.”

  “And sage hen and grouse. There’d be good hawking here, and some most excellent hunting. But no boar,” Lioncel added.

  “We get lots of boar near Gervais,” Huon said animatedly. “In the marsh along the river, mostly. I’m looking forward to that when I’m older!”

  “Me too. Ours are in the Coast Range forests, except that my lady d’Ath says they spend every night in our vineyards and gardens, eating.”

  They shared a nod at that. Swine were smart; their wild cousins were wickedly intelligent, making nothing of fences in their raids on crops, and they hated men. Hunting them was part of a lord’s obligation to protect his lands and dependents, as well as fine risky sport and a useful source of meat and hides. Lioncel went on enthusiastically:

  “My lord my father took one that weighed five hundred pounds last year! Lady d’Ath got one nearly as big that afternoon too, I was her spear-bearer. Dad let me have a tusk.”

  He rummaged in his belt pouch and proudly brought out nearly six inches of polished ivory threat, like a curved dagger. Huon whistled appreciatively and handled it for a moment.

  “I’m going to have it worked into a hilt for a hunting knife when I get the time,” Lioncel added.

  “That will be cool.”

  Neither of them had the years or heft for hunting boar yet; you took the beasts by getting in their way when they charged and letting them spit themselves on a broad-bladed spear. One with a crossguard forged into the base of the socket, so the prey couldn’t run up the shaft and rip you open with their tusks. Usually the nobles waited while dogs and beaters flushed them out of thickets, though some preferred a lone stalk. The boars came out on their own fairly frequently too, like huge black projectiles shot from a catapult and armored in bone and gristle. Some thought them nearly as da
ngerous game as tiger or bear, and every year a few reckless or unlucky men or ones stupid enough to go hunting drunk were killed.

  That’s how a troubadour gets rid of an inconvenient character if it isn’t time for a battle or duel, Huon thought. ‘Ripped up by the boar.’

  They swapped hunting stories for a while and discussed horses and hawks and hounds. Hoof-beats carried farther than quiet voices, so it didn’t make them any more conspicuous. Then they fell silent as Huon held up a hand, looking around; he could feel eyes on them. It was a relief when two crossbowmen stepped out from behind trees and demanded the password; he’d begun to think he must have missed the trail. The grim graying man-at-arms in command of the outpost took the sealed envelope with a salute and grunted:

  “My thanks, young sir.”

  Meaning, get lost, kid, Huon thought, returning the gesture and nodding gravely in reply.

  He didn’t mind, since he was fully aware of how young he must look to the scarred veteran. Being a squire was supposed to teach noblemen humility, among other things.

  “No return message,” the man added.

  The next two were the same. The last had something different; only one soldier on guard, to start with. When they pushed their horses through a screen of brush into a sloping meadow of ten or fifteen acres Huon’s eyebrows went up as he saw why. His bow did for a second too; there were about twenty men there in the gear that Boise’s light cavalry wore. Just leather breeches and mail shirts, but unmistakable in detail, along with their helmets—sort of an understated sallet they called a Fritz, which together with the stars-and-stripes flag emblem were their inheritance from the ancient world.

  But they were disarmed and dismounted, under the guard of the outpost’s complement and a couple of conroi of men-at-arms led by a knight Huon recognized. None of the enemy were wounded, so they hadn’t been captured in the course of ordinary fighting. That probably meant they’d come over of their own wills. Being a royal squire meant you heard things; among others, that a lot of people in the United States of Boise weren’t happy with their General-President Martin Thurston, especially now that the story of how he’d murdered his own father to take over the position had gotten around.