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

by S. M. Stirling

  Heuradys snorted and sat down. “Well, there’s always a place for you in the scrap-metal trade if monarchy palls,” she said. “Although I’d miss the happy times throwing chunks of pipe at you, Orrey.”

  Órlaith snorted back and pushed the visor up with the edge of the shield, breathing deep and letting the wind cool the hot sweat running down her face. The visor was a smooth curve of top-pivoted brushed steel across her face, but the lower edge was drawn down into a point that suggested an eagle’s beak and reached to the level of her chin, and the whole helm above it was scored with thin lines inlaid with gold in the shape of feathers. The decoration suggested her totem bird without in the least detracting from function, nor did the sprays of real eagle feathers at either temple.

  And there’s no harm in a little style. Plus your retainers need to be able to tell who you are at a glance, the which is not easy in full plate.

  She grinned at the lad as she ducked out of the guige strap and dropped the point of the shield to the planks. He took it and proudly bore the four-foot teardrop shape over to the bench around the poop deck. Doubtless he was imagining himself a page.

  The cool wind also felt good as it found the gaps in the flexible back-and-breast of overlapping steel lames she was wearing, along with sallet helm and vambraces on her forearms and armored gauntlets. Out here on the Pacific it was always cool, which made it perfect for the hard physical labor of working in armor; at that, half-armor like this was vastly better than a full suit of plate.

  It isn’t the weight that’s the problem, it’s the way it holds what your body exudes against your skin, and it’s not just the sweat.

  If it weren’t for crossbows and longbows and catapults and pikes and glaives and war-hammers and Lochaber axes, and most of all if it weren’t for heat exhaustion, men-at-arms armored cap-a-pie would be invincible.

  And where we’re heading, a suit of plate complete would be a sentence of death, not long delayed. Mind you, in winter armor also manages to be miserably cold. Da always said that was a miracle . . .

  She and Heuradys and Reiko and Luanne Salander were taking the privileges of rank and using the part of the poop-deck between the wheel and the stern rail for practice; Sir Aleaume and Droyn were down below, working with the men-at-arms until the space was clear.

  Nobody would object anyway, she thought. But I’m using the Sword. They’re not even wishing they could object.

  It was never really possible to believe the Sword was just a sword. A lot depended on what the circumstances were—why the wielder had drawn it—but there was . . .

  . . . sort of a shock feeling, so, when you do draw it, even for practice.

  As if it was too solid for the world, too real. She’d grown up around it, and she was the offspring of the pair who’d mingled their blood on the blade before they thrust it into the rock of Montival’s bones at Lost Lake, during the Kingmaking. In her hand it felt right, but still rather . . . alarming. Heuradys treated it like something very dangerous that she knew well; Luanne was a little more alarmed, but hid it well. Everyone else sort of avoided it, deliberately or otherwise, except for Reiko’s intent glances.

  Even the way it looked as a physical . . . or sort-of physical . . . object could disturb. Right now in the bright sunlight it sparkled. Not the way polished steel did, though it was similar at first glance. There was something of the way a diamond glittered as well, and something altogether other. It was beautiful, but nothing like a creation of human hands. Reiko was looking at it with a brooding expression in her narrow eyes.

  Nobody in Nihon today knew what Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi looked like. Nobody had actually seen it in well over a thousand years, except for the Shinto priests at the Atsuta Shrine charged with its care, and they had all died with the Change. Even while it rested there, Emperors were merely presented with a wrapped bundle said to contain it. The weapon might have been lost and recovered several times, depending on which epic poems or legends you believed.

  And they’ve no earthly idea how it ended up here, though I have my suspicions, Órlaith thought. Right now, my Sword helps keep the deck clear for our work.

  You had to keep it up if you were a warrior by trade, which she was among other things; if you didn’t spend sheer sweating effort nearly every day you lost speed and, just as crucially, endurance. That was quite literally a matter of life and death, and not only for yourself. If you were a liability you endangered your friends as well. Even a general leading armies had to be ready to fight with their own hands, in the modern world—her father certainly had, even in the great battles of the Prophet’s War, much less on the Quest before that—and right now she commanded the equivalent of about one understrength company.

  And while I don’t think hitting people will be the whole of this, certainly some bashing will be involved. So, work.

  People in their trade usually found the whole process interesting as well, and treated it as something of a sport and tried out variations. She mentioned that, and Heuradys laughed aloud.

  “Might as well be sex,” she said.

  Órlaith chuckled too, but . . .

  At that, the itchy discontented way you feel after going without pushing yourself physically for a few days does feel a bit like that particular need. Worse for men, I think, poor creatures.

  Luanne picked up the basket of sliced copper, touched a finger in wonder to the liquid-smooth surface of one of the cuts, then swore mildly when the edge of the metal sliced into her skin a little. Fortunately that was on a callus, but she dropped the bisected tube back among the others hastily.

  She was a friend and a relative-by-courtesy; she was the granddaughter of Eric Larsson, the man who’d been brother to the woman who married Mike Havel after he fathered Rudi Mackenzie in a very brief if fruitful encounter with Juniper Mackenzie while on a scouting trip to the Willamette a few months after the Change. Signe Havel-née-Larsson had never entirely gotten over that. Mainly because none of her children with Mike Havel, the first Bear Lord, ended up as High King of Montival. Most of the rest of her family were happy enough with it, including Mike Jr., the current wearer of the Bear Helm, who’d never made a secret of the fact that he was perfectly satisfied with what he had. The High King and Queen and their family had guested with Eric Larsson and his descendants often, and vice versa, and she’d always gotten on well with them.

  With Uncle Mike too, for that matter; he is my father’s half-brother, after all, and kin is kin.

  Still, Luanne hadn’t been around the Sword as much as Heuradys. She affected an elaborate nonchalance.

  “I knew that thing was sharp, but it’s really sharp, isn’t it?” she said. “I mean, it’s absurdly sharp with a deeply absurd sharpness.”

  Órlaith nodded. “It’s a magic sword, Luey,” she said dryly. “It’s . . .”

  She pulled out a yellow hair that had wisped free of the coif under her helm, tossed it up and let the following breeze flick it against the upraised edge of the Sword. It parted cleanly, drifting on down past the wheel. No battle blade was ever honed to anything remotely approaching that. Even if you could get it that sharp it would make the edge impossibly fragile for something made to slam full-force into meat and bone, much less hard leather, wood and occasionally metal.

  “Like an obsidian razor. But nothing harms it. Nothing. Nothing dulls it, nothing chips it, nothing sticks to it. You could pound it against a boulder all day long and you’d have the Sword and a heap of diced gravel. And if you dip it in oil it doesn’t get greasy. My . . . father . . .”

  She took a deep breath, remembering his endless patience from her first faltering grip on the hilt of a miniature wooden practice-blade.

  “. . . said that it took him most of the trip back from Nantucket to begin to grasp what it could do just as a sword, just as a battle-tool. You need some different reflexes to get the most out of it. And it may give you the gift of tongues and of telling falsehood from truth, but it doesn’t suddenly give you extra swordsmanship poin
ts. Or invulnerability.”

  They all nodded soberly. Not wrecking your own weapon was one of essential points of learning the sword, and even work-of-fine-art swords from master-smiths were surprisingly delicate. Fighting with a sword that couldn’t be damaged, even if you weren’t at all invulnerable yourself, would be profoundly different.

  “This is quite heavy,” Reiko said, hefting the shield by the grip below the middle of the upper curve.

  “About fifteen pounds,” Órlaith agreed. “Larch plywood covered in bison-hide boiled in wax and then thin sheet steel. Concave so you can tuck your shoulder into it.”

  Fifteen pounds was around seven times what a sword weighed; the Sword of the Lady was slightly but definitely lighter than a normal weapon of the same dimensions, a bit under two pounds. Just heavy enough to give a blow conviction, but allowing a little extra speed and longer before you tired.

  And sure, it’s lighter for me than it was for Da. When I hefted it then, it was a bit over two, maybe two and a half. Plus I’d swear it’s become just a little smaller overall the now, sized for me and not him.

  Heuradys took the shield and began checking it over, tugging at the enarme, the loop you put your forearm through and the grip higher up and the section of rubber padding between where the forearm rested. The whole arrangement left your arm nearly but not quite parallel to the long axis of the shield. The inverted-teardrop form was about four feet long, as broad as your shoulders at the top and tapering to a blunt point below; on horseback it covered you from shoulder to shoe. In the olden days its predecessors had shrunk and then gone out of use when plate armor came in, but in modern times there were a lot more, and worse, missile weapons around than there had been in the age of Louis the Spider and the Wars of the Roses.

  “You can tell a knight because he’s slightly lopsided,” Heuradys said, working her left arm to emphasize the point.

  Her left deltoid and trapezius were very slightly larger, despite the fact that she used several routines designed to balance you.

  “We Bearkillers use a smaller round shield,” Luanne said. “Not nearly as clumsy.”

  She rolled hers over so that Reiko could compare them; it was a concave disk about a yard across, with the snarling face-on bear’s head of the Outfit on its sheet-metal face.

  “Same construction, pretty much, but you have to remember to move it now and then. It’s perfectly adequate if you’re quick.”

  Heuradys shrugged. “Girl, you can use that little soup-plate when someone’s coming galloping at you with the weight of a man-at-arms and barded destrier all concentrated behind a lance-point. I’ll take the kite shield anytime!”

  Órlaith took the hilt of the Sword in both hands as they bickered amiably and began a set with flourish-cuts. It was a hand-and-a-half weapon, what some called a bastard longsword, with a double-lobed hilt of black staghorn and silver that let it be used comfortably either one- or two-handed. She did the forms as much to loosen up as anything; when you carried a kite-shield the style was very tight and contained, the shield battering or levering a path clear for the blade, working over the top as often as to the side.

  She ran through the guards that made up the starting-positions and the strikes and blocks that flowed from them: the Ox, the Plow, the Fool, the Roof, and the Tail. Then she finished by short-gripping the Sword and using it for a savage flurry of stepping thrusts to her imaginary opponent’s face/throat/belly/groin, blade punching in and out like the needle in a treadle-worked sewing machine. That sort of close-in finishing blow could actually penetrate armor even with a normal weapon. Reiko came half-erect with a gasp of alarm, probably expecting to see her fingers patter down on the deck when she clamped her left hand in its gauntlet on the midpoint of the blade.

  “It’s all right,” Órlaith said when she’d finished.

  She took off that gauntlet and bounced the blade on the skin of her palm. The impact felt like that of a metal ruler.

  “It’s a magical magic sword, Reiko. It won’t cut or harm me—or anyone of the Royal kin.”

  Reiko’s eyes turned narrow. “What happens if someone . . . else touch it? Not of your blood?”

  Órlaith winced a little.

  “Nothing good. Though how bad depends on their intentions. If it’s just someone heedless or stupid, or a child, say, they get an overwhelming impulse to drop it. Otherwise . . .”

  Heuradys spoke: “I’d been at Court three years and thought I was the toughest new-minted junior squire on the block when I saw . . . someone try to steal the Sword. It . . . well, let’s put it this way: I heaved my cookies all over a very valuable pre-Change Persian rug.”

  “Cookies?” Reiko said. “Heave?”

  “Puked. Vomited. Queen Mother Sandra was quite annoyed. About the rug, that is. Up until then I’d wondered why there was such a light guard on the Sword when the High King or Queen weren’t bearing it. After that . . . I didn’t.”

  Órlaith sheathed the weapon and sat down beside her knight; a weight was gone from the world.

  “All yours, Reiko.”

  The three Montivallans watched Reiko practicing with her katana, the edge of the blade flickering as she danced with the steel, sure-footed on the moving deck in her kegutsu, leather slipper-like shoes.

  That’s right, Órlaith thought. She has lots of practice at sea. Da loved sailing, but Ma gets seasick something fierce the first few days.

  The crowded waters about Newport were well behind them now and there were no other sails in sight, only the faint dim line of the Montivallan coast off to the left, dreaming under the morning sun. South of here was nothing but the odd fishing village, and even those faded out as you went down towards Westria province until you reached the mouth of the Klamath.

  Port, she reminded herself. Left is port when you’re facing towards the bows.

  The sky was blue and cloudless, a summer’s sky. The wind came from the northwest, cool and strong and steady and smelling very different from the brackish longshore scent. There was nothing in it but a quarter of a planet worth of ocean, down from the northern ice, and every breath felt as if your lungs were being laundered and delivered back fresh and clean.

  “I thought Reiko might be a little light for serious work,” Órlaith said. “But—”

  “Says the big blond horse of a woman,” Luanne jeered pleasantly; she was the shortest of the three at five-eight and a bit.

  Then she leaned her elbows back on the bulwark and looked overside at the long shallow trough where the water curled away from the side of the ship.

  “Damn, but sailing’s fun. Like being on a galloping horse but less work.”

  The long spars of the gaff sails were swung out to the . . .

  Port, Órlaith reminded herself again. Not left, port. And the wind’s from . . . the wind is broad on the starboard quarter, not just hitting us from behind and to the right.

  . . . to the portside, out over the rails. The canvas was in taut smooth curves, and the square topsails were set on the main and foremast as well at slightly different angles, a geometry of off-white-against-blue above crossed with the almost-black tarred hemp of the rigging. You could feel the wind’s great hand pushing the ship over, pushing it along, and if you put your own palm to the standing rigging it hummed with a subliminal note of power as it transferred the thrust to the hull.

  Ships . . . ships felt alive.

  “I don’t think Reiko’s too fragile for hard work,” Heuradys said.

  “Certainly when she hits you with a practice blade in the salle you feel it!” Órlaith said . . . with feeling.

  “The Japanese are none of them what you’d call big, but they all seem to manage,” Heuradys agreed. “And Reiko’s taller than half of them, so relatively speaking she’s less of a runt than you, Luey.”

  Luanne gave a small shudder. “That one who grabbed me on the train was a shortie, but he felt like he was made out of cables attached to high-geared winches,” she said. “I’m sort of glad Egawa came
along! I would have had to hurt him to make him let go . . . not that he didn’t deserve it, acting like an asshole that way, but it would have been undiplomatic. Mind you, Egawa did hurt him, which of course was OK because it was their own chain of command. Hurt him about as bad as you can without doing lasting damage.”

  Heuradys chuckled. “He’s built like a horse. Granted he’s built like a short horse, but I still wouldn’t want him to hit me. Even less so with something sharp or pointy or both.”

  They all nodded. Other things being equal reach and weight, thickness of bone and sheer mass of muscle were advantages; that was one important reason women fighters were a minority even among folk like Mackenzies who didn’t make much of a distinction between the sexes, pregnancy and infants being the other main cause. Fortunately other things often weren’t equal, which was why they weren’t all that uncommon either. Except where custom strongly disapproved, and there were usually a few even there. Those who made a success of it tended to be bigger than average for their gender and very, very good.

  “She’s certainly got first-rate situational awareness,” Órlaith said. “And the way the deck’s moving doesn’t affect her blade placement at all, does it now? Like a surgeon, she is.”

  The waves came from the same direction as the wind, long smooth swells a blue deep enough to be almost purple, each with a crest of white foam. The bow of the Tarshish Queen rose to each of them as it overtook, then sank again as the whitecap hissed by along the big schooner’s flanks, adding to its own wake and sending spindrift flying down the deck to put the taste of salt on her lips. Then the ship seemed to be scudding downhill, her own foam breaking back from the bows. There was a long slow fore-and-aft pitch to the motion, but not much roll, and there were only a few human forms draped over the leeward rail.