The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series)

by S. M. Stirling

  “The last time Hiril Eilir visited, she said that Hiril Astrid would have loved it,” Ioreth said; the note of pride was in her voice again, and Susan recognized the names of the Dúnedain founders.

  When they were on the planks of the walkway Ioreth jerked a cord and the lift sank away with a mechanical whine. The cranks freewheeled, but the bottom struck the stone rest below with only a muffled thudding sound, cushioned by a matt of shredded redwood bark.

  Half a dozen children a few years either side of six ran past playing some game, giving a little pause in mid-stride to bob their heads to the doctor. As they walked on another—about twelve this time, in practical mottled hunting gear with a light bow over her shoulder—nodded to Ioreth, gave Susan a curious glance, then tossed a coiled rope over the edge, swung herself over and slid away downward. Ioreth stopped to pull the rope up and coil it again and hang it from a wooden hook, apparently a chore everyone did if they passed one.

  Susan could see some of the other walkways clearly from here. The passages were busy without being crowded, here a man carrying a wicker basket of white-feathered chickens, there a woman with a bundle of spearshafts over her shoulder and a serious expression, or a young girl with flowers in her hair, a frown and a hot pot held between two pads. Woodsmoke drifted from under the conical tops of the tile chimneys, and cooking-smells made her stomach rumble to remind her that it had been a long time since breakfast and that lunch had been hard-tack and jerky in the saddle. Families and groups were eating at tables on their verandahs, laughing and talking; it made her feel a little lonely.

  The music of some stringed instrument sounded in the distance, and a song rang. More and more of the parties took it up, until the words were plain:

  “So leave the fire and come with me

  To walk beside the dreaming sea—”

  They turned onto a shorter branch walkway that ended at the verandah gate of one of the flets, flanked by two structures that turned out to be nest-boxes for a colony of purple martins. A cat was sitting looking at the birdhouses with the tip of its tail twitching slowly and steadily, obviously trying to figure out how to get around the sloped wicker barriers, until it darted away as they walked up.

  “This is ohtar housing,” Ioreth said. “For young warriors who don’t have a family dwelling here. North is twelve o’clock, right here. Jakes are at three o’clock, bathhouse at eight, the kitchen and common dining area at nine. You’re assigned to seven, and Morfind is in ten. Faramir will be there soon if he isn’t already—his mother and father have a flet here, but they’re out with a patrol right now. I’ll let them know you’re coming if you want to wash up first.”

  “Thanks, ma’am,” Susan said sincerely; a courier or a herder or hunter spent a lot of time being grimy and smelly, but she’d grown up washing when she could. “See you later, maybe.”

  “Certainly,” Ioreth said, making the hand-to-heart gesture again before she left. “It’s been a pleasure.”

  Round housing plans didn’t confuse Susan either, the way they would have many people. These days Lakota used tipis for ceremony, and built permanent structures in rammed earth for their few small towns and to store bulky goods at selected spots along their seasonal migration paths. Most of the time they lived in ger, a type of circular lattice-work tent with double-layered felt walls and conical tops. An exchange student from Mongolia who’d been a friend of her grandfather’s at SDU in 1998 had shown him how to make them, and they’d spread like wildfire afterwards since they were simple to make and maintain from available materials and suited the harsh climate perfectly. They were easy to move around either knocked down or on wheeled platforms, too. Even the biggest weren’t as large as this flet, but the principle was the same, and at the summer hunt and festivals thousands might be parked near each other.

  Number Seven had a number 7 carved into the plank doorway, and two glass windows to either side of it. Inside was a compact room shaped like a wedge of cheese with the point bitten off. There was a bed across the inner wall with brackets that showed it could be converted to multiple bunks, a cupboard, a table and chair and a lamp on a bracket, and a shelf with some books. She didn’t even recognize the alphabet in the three fat leather-bound volumes, but from the illustrations it was from what the Dúnedain called The Histories, sort of like the way you’d find a copy of the Book of Mormon nearly anywhere you stopped in New Deseret. Graceful carvings ran around the edges of the furniture, and in bands under the ceiling. It looked comfortable, especially for summer, and even on a cold wet day it would beat hell out of a lot of barracks that she’d seen.

  A bell sounded, but she couldn’t see where for a moment. Then a bump under the floor accompanied it, and she realized that the inset bronze ring marked a trapdoor. When she opened it a pulley-and-basket arrangement with a rope loop running to the ground was revealed, loaded with her kit; when she’d heaved that out onto the floor she could see Ioreth’s son waving from far beneath.

  She waved back and spent a few moments arranging things. When she had two remounts she usually put a light saddle pack like this on one and switched things around when she transferred her gear to a fresh horse. Thirty pounds didn’t burden a good animal of the sort the Courier Corps used, and it made her life a lot easier. After she’d thought for a moment, she decided to wear her good clothes once she’d used the bathhouse.

  It was gear from home, a bleached deerskin tunic with fringes and beadwork, leggings likewise fringed and strap-up moccasins decorated with colored porcupine quills. Her work involved taking hospitality fairly often, and while she had to maintain the credit of the Royal Household you couldn’t possibly carry sets of dinner-guest garb in all the dozens—possibly hundreds—of different local styles current in Montival.

  Anyone who didn’t like Lakota formal dress could do that other thing. For that matter, this was pretty much men’s fancy dress back home, except for the blue-and-red yoke of beadwork and elk teeth over the shoulders, and so were the two feathers she pinned over one ear when she re-did her long braids. Anyone who objected to that could do the other thing too, and she wasn’t going to drag a three-skin robe around. When she came out of the bathhouse wearing the garb—the facilities were much better than nothing but she suspected that something more elaborate was down on the ground at the nearby creek—she walked around the verandah to where Number Ten should be, holding the dispatch in her hand with the High Kingdom’s seal—the Sword of the Lady and a crown—prominently displayed.

  The flet was largely empty, which she’d expected from what Ioreth had said about everyone being out; if it hadn’t been, she’d have suggested a stroll out on one of the walkways to get a little privacy.

  The two she was after were sitting at their table on the verandah; or rather Faramir Kovalevsky was. His cousin was doing a handstand on the railing, with her legs extended and ankles crossed in the air, lowering herself slowly until her forehead touched the carved wood and then pushing up again until her arms were straight. When Susan came in sight she flipped up in the air and did a back-summersault with a nonchalance that made the young Lakota woman blink, given the seventy-foot drop at her back, and landed lightly on the balls of her feet. She was wearing soft loose trousers and elf-boots, but not the shirt-tunic, and the knit sports bra showed the long lean muscle rippling on her torso and arms. The face above it would have been striking except for the long red-purple mark of a fresh deep scar that wound from just beside her nose to her left ear.

  It’s a badge of honor, Susan reminded herself, as they made the introductions.

  Faramir smiled. Whoa, cutie! the Courier thought, then made herself turn objective.

  They’re both actually sort of cute, in a wašicu sort of way, she thought.

  Not that she had anything in particular against wašicu; it wasn’t like the old days. Nobody pushed the Lakota around anymore; the last to try had been the Prophet’s killers before she was born, and that hadn’t ended well at all . . . for them.

  Her f
ather’s ger had a ceremonial war-shirt in it with twelve scalps from that time.

  And it didn’t do to be prejudiced. For that matter, her own maternal grandmother had been a green-eyed redhead. People had moved around a lot right after the Change. There were sure-’nuff Lakota who looked pretty much like Faramir, though usually not among the most prominent families.

  Though he’s looking sort of grim underneath the smile and that cut makes it hard to read her expressions.

  The table was actually more distracting right now, with an elegantly turned maple-wood tureen of steaming mushroom and ham soup, a cold raised venison pie, a salad of wild greens, fried potatoes, a round loaf of fresh white bread, butter and soft cheese and a pile of blackberry tarts with whipped cream and some things she didn’t recognize.

  When the meal was finished—it was the first time she’d eaten olives, and they were pretty good—the Dúnedain both looked through her message. They spoke together briefly in Sindarin, then Faramir squinted his blue-gray eyes at her.

  “Basically, this”—his hand touched the stiff paper with the broken seal, where the message was written in the same odd-looking script as the books in her room—“says that you speak for the Crown Princess. So, speak, guest.”

  His English had a slight accent to her ear, fluid and a bit singsong, though it was obviously his other native language. He probably thought hers was a nasal drawl, and their word-choices were noticeably different.

  And yeah, no question that’s what it says. What the Crown Princess said to me was that I was supposed to evaluate you two. She knows you but wanted an outsider’s appraisal. My appraisal is that . . .

  “OK, there are two ways to interpret your report about the fight here last month,” she said. “One . . .

  “Is that we’re crazy,” Morfind said flatly. “Or making excuses for screwing up with that Haida.”

  The scar turned redder when she flushed. Susan held up a hand.

  “Yeah. The other is that you saw exactly what you said you saw. Princess Órlaith sorta inclines to that interpretation which frankly scares the shit out of me . . . and I don’t scare all that easy.”

  “Us too,” Faramir said, and Morfind unconsciously touched the long bone-hilted knife at her belt.

  Susan continued: “So fill me in on what happened afterwards. That news hadn’t all gotten north yet when I left.”

  The Ranger cousins looked at each other. Faramir went on neutrally:

  “We found the enemy ship run into an inlet up north, around Côf en-Amlug . . . Drake’s Bay.”

  “We meaning the Rangers of Stath Ingolf,” Morfind put in; Susan got the impression she liked precision. “We as in Faramir and I were in the infirmary.”

  Faramir nodded. “As far as we can tell, what happened was that the ship just barely made shore. It’s not a Haida orca, but it’s the same as the ones the High King’s party found in the Bay, except it wasn’t on fire. This one didn’t make it that far. Out of food, out of water, missing a mast, and it came ashore hard and broke its back. Stripped of pretty well all its gear.”

  “But with some bones split for the marrow on the beach,” Morfind added grimly.

  Susan signed agreement. Wendigo weren’t part of her people’s legends but she was familiar with the concept. Faramir continued:

  “Then someone from the ship went south and made contact with the Eaters . . . my guess is the skaga, because they didn’t eat him before he could try to talk, and that would take supernatural intervention. They sent parties to sneak through Ithilien and bring back the crew.”

  “And we stumbled on the last bunch,” Morfind said, a note of bitterness in her tone. “Faramir and my brother and me.”

  “But there the trail vanishes,” Faramir said. “The yrch bands south of here are boiling like a pot left on the fire, though. It’d take a big force to find out exactly what happened.”

  “You may get that,” Susan said. “I had dispatches from the Marshal’s office and the Chancellor and the High Queen to Hîr Ingolf. I don’t know what’s in them, but your uncle . . . and your father . . .”

  She nodded to Faramir and his cousin in turn.

  “. . . looked sort of satisfied. Looked downright scary, in fact. So I think it must have been news about reinforcements.”

  The cousins looked at each other again. Then Morfind leaned forward with her elbows on the table and her chin on her thumbs.

  “But that’s not why the Princess sent you to us,” she said softly. “Not with personal dispatches and a personal message through you. Is it?”

  Susan licked her lips. She’d loved the High King and she wanted revenge for him, but these two burned.

  “No,” she said. “The Princess . . . and her, um . . . guest. They think they know what this is all about. First thing you’ve got to do is swear not to speak a word of it, whatever you decide to do.”

  Another of those glances, and then they made their oaths. Susan was satisfied; Órlaith said their word was good, and she ought to know. Her own impression was likewise, for what it was worth. Faramir poured their glasses full again from the clay carafe of wine.

  “You’re not just talking to us about this, are you?”

  “Oh, Hell, no,” she said.

  Susan was more used to beer and whiskey—they were what was available where she’d been born, though fermented mare’s milk was more common still. The same friend of the family who’d shown people how to make ger had introduced airag, once her grandfather had talked him out of trying to ride a horse back to Ulan Bator and he’d settled down on the makol and married her great-aunt instead. Wine was nice, though. This one had an agreeable fruity aftertaste. She wasn’t more than slightly elevated, since she never did that among even the most friendly strangers, but she was a little relaxed.

  “I’ve made a bunch of stops. You’re last. You want in?”

  The young Dúnedain man said something softly in Sindarin, and his cousin nodded strongly. Susan raised a brow.

  “In the Common tongue . . . I may not live while the slayer of my kinsman walks beneath the stars.”

  Susan threw back her head, laughed, and said something in Lakota. The Rangers looked at her coldly, until she spoke again:

  “That’s one of our sayings. And in Common English, it means exactly the same fucking thing, you know?”

  They relaxed, and she went on. “The High King was my uncle by adoption, and he was there for me when I really needed it. I figure I’m due a piece of this. The Princess invites you to the dinner. And I think you want a slice of the meat too, right?”

  The two Dúnedain began to grin: this time it looked wholly sincere, though perhaps not very nice. She returned the expression as if in a mirror and tossed off the glass.

  “Here’s what’s been happening,” she said.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Barony Ath, Tualatin Valley

  (Formerly northwestern Oregon)

  High Kingdom of Montival

  (Formerly western North America)

  June 12–14th, Change Year 46/2044 AD

  Órlaith sat and chewed on the end of her pen and blinked at the paper her hostess had dropped into the tangle of notes. On the High Kingdom’s stationery, signed:

  Baroness d’Ath, Lord Marshal of the High King’s Hosts, and sealed with her Vee-and-Delta.

  The text essentially read: All requests by the bearer are authorized, and shall be carried out immediately without question or attempt to refer to the chain of command for confirmation.

  That would be very useful, when it was obeyed. She suspected that would be much less often than she’d prefer; bureaucracies double-checked things the way rabbits ran in zigzags when a hawk was after them, by reflex. Military bureaucracies were sometimes an exception . . . but on the other hand, sometimes they weren’t. Heuradys’ official mother rose from the table.

  “And no, don’t tell me what you hooligans plan to do with it,” she said. “I don’t want to know. When I got authorizations like that in t
he old days, people didn’t want to know, either.”

  A formal bow of farewell. “Your Highness . . . Your Highness . . . Your Majesty . . . my appalling offspring . . .”

  The Sword of the Lady rested on the table before the heir to the Kingdom, looking so normal against the burnished surface of the black walnut. Deep within her, there was a feeling like a bronze bell sounding a mellow note.

  Truth.

  “I’m going hawking,” Tiphaine said. “You infants carry on. What I don’t know, I can’t be duty bound to tell.”

  Órlaith looked around the table at her . . .

  Co-conspirators, she thought; herself, John, Heuradys, Reiko.

  They were using an out-of-the-way conference room. Ruling at any level seemed to involve a lot of sitting around and talking, and this was just a pleasant chamber with a window overlooking gardens and a distant view of fields and, on the edge of vision on a fine summer’s day, Mt. Hood. The normal sounds of everyday life came through it, along with the sweet smell of cut grass, birdsong, a horse snorting, the whirr of a push-operated lawnmower, the slow steady tock . . . tock . . . tock . . . of someone splitting wood with an axe. John fingered his lute—it was actually soothing when he did it like that, and it was good cover. People made music together all the time.

  “All right, there’s going to be a lot of people who’d say that we’re crazy,” she said. “Too young to think straight. Or too pagan and witchy, in my case.”

  John grinned and strummed and sang lightly:

  “Guinnevere drew pentagrams

  Like yours, mi’lady like yours

  Late at night when she thought

  That no one was watching at all . . .”