A Meeting At Corvallis

by S. M. Stirling

  I guess I've got rock-star charisma and my own groupies now. In the last months before the Change she'd had a desperate crush on Melissa Etheridge, and long involved fantasies about saving her from a stalker or a speeding truck. Is that a hickey on my neck? Yup. At least it's the only one that'll show when I'm dressed. I think I like this girl. Shy, she ain't.

  She took another drink of water, and then after considering the taste of the stuff in the glass she reached for her toothbrush. She needed it badly and with mouthwash to follow; either that or a corpse-eating plague rat had died in the pipes some time ago. Most of the furnishings in the lord's quarters of Castle Ath were very sketchy, because the Protector had used Montinore manor house when he visited the area, but the bathrooms had been installed during the original construction as the labor-gangs went from site to site, with fittings salvaged from luxury homes in the Portland area. This was all marble tile and creamy whiteness and faucets of polished bronze, big fluffy towels on racks of rare hardwood and etched glass panels around the shower stall. Someone had put scented soap out, as well as a wide range of toiletries; there was even pre-Change toilet paper, or a good imitation. And there was hot water on tap, as much as she wanted all to herself, something only a fief-holder could have these days.

  Should I invite Delia in for a shower? Regretfully—and cautiously—she shook her head. Not enough time. I need to sweat the poisons out soonest, anyway.

  She still felt a little more human as she returned to the bedroom drying her hair on a towel. Delia was up, pulling on her second tunic and belting it, which looked interesting as she stretched and bent.

  I must he recovering. Youth, health, lots of exercise and no vices, that's the ticket. Well, no vices except pouring cherry brandy on top of pinot noir sometimes.

  Tiphaine's smile had less of a wince in it this time. "Sorry we don't have time for a snuggle, Delia, but you'd better run before people see too much. You're a sweet girl, and I don't want you getting in trouble."

  The young woman came over and embraced her; the kiss was even more interesting than the view and went on for a while.

  "Father Peter's not a sheet-sniffer like some. He doesn't notice stuff unless you make him. Besides, I know you'll protect me, my lady Tiphaine."

  Nobles, even the few gay ones, didn't end up before an ecclesiastical morals court very often; the military caste wasn't going to let the Church get that much power. Still, not very often wasn't the same thing as not ever …

  "Sweetie, my power here is vast and my liege-lady's power in the realm is vaster still, but the Hounds of God are no joke, and they and Father Peter work for the same boss, and the Hounds are sheet-sniffers. Keep that lovely mouth shut about this and everything will be fine, OK?"

  "Until next time?"

  "Right. Now scoot!"

  Tiphaine opened the door and checked the corridor both ways before the girl slipped out; it was windowless and very dark. There were a couple of empty rooms on this floor and no resident servants or established routine as yet, and it wouldn't be much trouble for Delia to slip out looking as if she was dusting or fetching or something. Then she dressed herself, rummaging in the unfamiliar closets and their mostly new contents for a familiar drill outfit of quilted tunic in coarse gray patched linen, and scuffed black buckskin pants stained with white patches of sweat-salt. After that she stamped her feet into her boots, and buckled padded leather support straps on her wrists.

  The temptation to tidy up before she left was strong—she was compulsively neat, and hated leaving Delia personal things to the care of others. That was an eccentricity she could get away with, when those quarters were one small chamber or less wherever the Lady Sandra was in residence, which was all even a fairly prominent member of the Household could expect. But picking up after herself would be perilously close to drogeance, here at home in her own fief. The temptation to shower first was even stronger, but she pushed it down.

  Got to punish myself for carelessness, she thought, buckling on her sword belt and walking down the stairs, left hand automatically on the hilt to keep the chape on the end of the scabbard from bumping on the stone. Besides, I'd just be getting all sweaty again right away.

  She'd been right about it being early; things had been put to right a bit the night before, but the morning cleanup in the hall was just getting started. She walked out, blinking at the increasing brightness and returning her own nod and salute to the clank and crash as the gate guards slapped spears against shields.

  Note to self; get all the shields repainted, soon. My arms, Quartered with Lady Sandra's.

  The day outside was just on the brisk side of cool, with the smell of dew on dusty concrete and dustier gravel still strong, but there were no clouds in the sky and it felt like it would be a perfect spring day when the sun was a little higher and dispelled the shadows within the courtyard. A scent of old smoke from the bonfires lingered, but the scorched circles had been swept up, and the firepits outside the kitchens were being shoveled clear as she watched, the ashes carted away in big plastic trash barrels for leaching into lye and making soap. A train of two-wheeled oxcarts dumped loads of split firewood there— boon-work dues, by the way the drivers turned around at once and got going towards their own affairs—and scullions began to stack the billets against the kitchen walls. Birds pecked at the ground, and flew up in swirls when someone came too close, particularly when it was one of the patrolling cats. She'd given orders that none of those were allowed over the inner drawbridge into the tower, and her sinuses already felt better than they ever had in the Household.

  Wielman the steward was bustling towards the Keep gate with a crew, looking nervous as a man herding cats, probably because it was a scratch gang and he was doing two men's jobs; or possibly nervous because he now had a superior resident full-time, and one with enough time to keep a close eye on him. He stopped when she turned towards him, obviously anxious to get to work but unable to dodge a conversation, and his laborers halted behind him in a wave of curtseys and bows.

  Delia needed time and distraction to get clear … which was a pain in the ass; nobody except a very strict priest would so much as blink at a tenant-girl slipping out of a male nobleman's room in the morning, except for an admiring chuckle.

  "Splendid welcoming feast last night," she said. Then she smiled slightly. "Haven't enjoyed myself so much in months."

  "Thank you, my lady. We're all at sixes and sevens, of course, with so little notice of your arrival—you should have a domestic steward or a butler here at the castle, if you're going to take up residence, so I can concentrate on my own work where my offices and the records are. I can move some people up from Montinore and my wife has a young cousin who'd suit."

  "Do that," Tiphaine said. "I leave it in your capable hands, Goodman."

  Meaning, don't bother me with details, and yes, getting jobs for your relations is a legitimate perk, as long as they don't screw up too badly.

  Aloud she went on, lest he get too enthusiastic: "Just enough staff that I can offer suitable hospitality: the cook we had last night will do fine, some assistants, and as many cleaners and maids and such as are needed to keep things tidy. Some of them can commute up from the manor until winter at least, it's only two miles by bicycle. Or you could hire some of the soldiers' wives."

  "Very well, my lady, but the Protector and his guests always brought their own body servants on visits," he went on. "Do you have an, ah, valet, or lady's maid who'll be arriving? Or should I find someone suitable from the domain?"

  Tiphaine shook her head. "I don't need someone to hand me a towel or comb my hair."

  Some people thought that was a status symbol; she considered it a waste of scarce labor. A tenant-in-chief who was a mere baronet could get away with that much informality, though a baron couldn't. She'd need a squire or two eventually, of course, but that was something entirely different. Squires were apprentice knights, and supposed to be of good family. Which so far meant related to someone lucky enough to ge
t into the Association early on. She had Katrina's elder brother's kids in mind for that, particularly since he'd been killed out east last year fighting the cowboys and they didn't have a landed inheritance.

  "Ummm—" The steward cleared his throat and seemed, without actually doing it, to glance discreetly aside as he lowered his voice. "But surely you'll at least need someone to look after your wardrobe full-time, my lady? The more since you'll have, ah, two sets. Repairs, replacements, cleaning … I was thinking of the miller's daughter from Montinore village; her name is Delia. She's an excellent needlewoman by hand or sewing machine, she can weave figured work on the loom, and she's used to household ways and manners. She could use the valet's room that gives off the lord's chamber."

  Tiphaine gave him a cool, considering glance, tapping her fingers on her sword hilt, head tilted to one side.

  Clever. Dangerously so, she decided, her eyes narrowing and lips thinning into an expression that had been the very last thing a number of men ever saw, starting in her fourteenth year. This time it said: I'll know exactly who's responsible for any rumors.

  She'd get in trouble if she just had the men-at-arms hang him for no particular reason; fines from the Court of Petition and Redress, penances from the Church … Casual killing had gone out of style since the wild early years, at least where middle-class types like Wielman were concerned. But when you added all that together she wouldn't have nearly as much trouble as he would, dangling from a noose on the gallows down the road and putting on a dinner party for the crows and ravens until his bones dropped off one by one.

  One part of taking reasonable precautions was thoroughly intimidating any subordinate who even dreamed of knuckling his way up the greasy pole by a threat of outing her.

  So much went by in a flicker as she kept up the stare. A few seconds later a little sweat showed on Wielman's forehead, and he dropped his eyes.

  Good, now you know better than to try and blackmail me.

  "You're right," she said. "She'd be very suitable. See to it. Deduct an adult's boon-work from her family's dues and put her on the rolls as a free retainer. I'm going to start spinning and and weaving classes for the peon women later this year; she could handle that, and possibly her sisters as well. Set up a loom-room here in the castle or down in Montinore when you get the time, and see about ordering more spinning wheels and equipment—locally if you can, in Forest Grove if you can't, in Portland as a last resort. And in the meantime, send to market for some cloth, and we'll make a start—enough to keep us going until we get production ramped up. I'm not going to have my workers looking like scarecrows. Delia can oversee the sewing, too."

  Putting Delia in charge of those projects would be a sensible thing to do even if they didn't get along otherwise.

  But I think I'm going to really like that girl, and not just when I'm in a state of lustful, drunken horniness; she's cheeky as a sparrow, she's not afraid of the priests, and she made me want to laugh even when I had a hangover. Plus she's awesome cute, and I think she likes me, not just the career prospects.

  As he bowed his head and turned to go with a murmured of course, my lady, Tiphaine contemplated the square of raked, rolled gravel in front of the barracks with less than enthusiasm; it held a dozen upright oak posts six feet tall, resting in metal sleeves set into the ground, and climbing frames, some of them dangling knotted ropes. Then she went into the salle d'armes; Ath wasn't big enough to have separate ones for different ranks. The one it did have occupied the ground floor of part of the barracks block built against the west side of the court, opposite the tower-keep and the gate. Inside was a big, bare room with a wooden floor, rolled mats against the walls, some gymnastic equipment, weights, a few Nautilus machines and mirrors on one wall, with a corkboard on another carrying a map of the castle and the patrol paths around it, and a duty roster.

  People slightly older than herself told her that dojos had been like this before the Change. She didn't remember, since she hadn't studied the martial arts then, though she'd been a state-level gymnast and track-and-fielder in middle school. Today she began with a series of stretching exercises and kata.

  Now I know what it's going to be like to he seventy, and arthritic, she thought after a moment. But she gritted her teeth and persisted, then did a routine on the parallel bars and vaulting horse, and some tumbling on the mats, stopping now and then to drink from the water fountain.

  After the sweat started and joints and tendons loosened a bit she ducked into the ready room and picked up a blunt practice sword and heavy wicker training shield—a middling-sized four-foot shield, since she was tall for a woman and about average for a man. Then she went back outside, setting the shield's bandolier-like guige strap around her neck. That took part of the weight, and she could use it to sling the kite-shaped defense over her back with a quick readjustment.

  Tiphaine took stance in front of one of the six-foot posts, left foot advanced, left fist up under her chin, which put the upper arc of the shield just under her eyes and the point at about knee level; the convex triangle almost completely covered her body. The sword went up overhead, hilt forward.

  "Ya-hi!" she shouted from the bottom of her lungs, and attacked. "Haro!"

  A chip of tough oak flicked out, even though the practice sword had neither point nor edge. It was also a lot heavier than her real blade, but that was all to the good—a woman had to work harder to build upper-body strength, and train harder to maintain it, one of life's manifold injustices. Eighty minutes later she stepped back and let the rounded tip of the sword fall to the ground, propping the hilt against her body and working her hand and shaking it. Every impact on the unyielding hardwood jarred back into her wrist and arm, and the hand felt as if someone had driven a wagon loaded with bricks over it; she was breathing deeply but not panting, and her sodden clothes clung as if she'd waded through a river.

  The experience was familiar, and pleasant enough normally; she'd done at least as much and usually much more six days in seven since her fourteenth year. In Lady Sandra's Household, she'd usually done hours of classwork afterwards, too; the consort insisted on her personal retainers getting book-learning as well.

  While she caught her breath she looked around, and found the castle had thoroughly come to life. Two men-at-arms and a double pair of crossbowmen trotted out through the main gate on routine patrol against bandits, lances in rest and crossbows across backs; spearmen and more crossbowmen paced their rounds on the fighting platform, or watched from the towers. Bread was baking in the kitchens, and the rich, earthy smell made her acutely aware of being famished. Iron rang on iron in the smithy, and a grinding wheel made a tooth-gritting sound as it bit into metal. Carpenters' hammers knocked; children and dogs ran about, and mothers called to them from the windows of their apartments. Two girls with broad straw hats and skirts kirted up carried a load of laundry in through the gates between them in a big wicker basket with handles on either side, and a wagon full of cut fodder followed. The doors of the chapel were open, and Father Peter's housekeeper swept it out, giving Tiphaine a curtsey as she noticed her gaze. She was a buxom young woman with caf-au-lait skin set off by the—expensive—saffron of her tunics and headdress, which made the new overlord of Ath wonder slightly about the priest's lack of interest in sheets …

  And a number of the garrison were working out; many of them looked more the worse for wear than she'd felt when she woke. Tiphaine had only a vague throb of headache now, and a hot shower and breakfast would cure that. One of the diligent ones was Sir Ivo.

  "Hi," she said as he stepped back and rested his blade over one shoulder; he'd put his hauberk on for the drill, which was conscientious of him. "Where's Ruffin?"

  The young knight grinned at her and pointed the sword towards the second story of the barracks. The two and their lemans had slept there in cubicles usually occupied by the senior married men-at-arms, since Mathilda and Rudi were in the keep's guest suite; everyone had bumped the one below him out of their quarters, unt
il a couple of rankers ended up on hay in the stables.

  "Maybe the arm's still bothering him. But I doubt it. They got thin partitions up there, my lady," he said. "It sounded like he and Joyce were celebrating again."

  "Christ Jesus, I hope for her sake he brushed his teeth first," Tiphaine said, and they both laughed; you didn't get dainty in the field.

  Then she looked critically at the garrison troops at practice. "You know, Ivo, the men-at-arms weren't half bad hand-to-hand, and the infantry's drill is OK and none of them are really fat, but some sure got tired 'way too fast. That'll get you killed as easily as not knowing the counters when it's for real—no rest breaks. We need to schedule more aerobic conditioning and sweat them hard."

  "Yeah, no dispute, my lady. But remember a lot of them have been out here in the ass-end of nowhere since the castle was built."

  "This isn't the ass-end of nowhere. Barony Chehalis is."

  Ruffin chuckled; neither of them liked the Stavarovs. "OK, this is within wiping distance of the ass-end of nowhere. It's too far north to skirmish with Bearkillers most times, and too far west for Mount Angel or the Mackenzies, and too far south for a levy against the Yakima towns. And these guys, they're old men. Some of them are thirty, or even more."

  The remark made perfect sense in their trade. Endurance got harder to keep up after your twenties, but there was more to it than that. Men who'd come to the warrior's life as adults after the Change were rarely really first-rate by the standards of the generation who'd trained since puberty.

  "They're what we've got and I want their stamina built up," she said. "I'll run 'em up and down the stairs to the walls in armor for a couple of hours every second day. Any of the footmen who can't take it, we'll give early retirement. And find some tenant's kid to train as a replacement. There's always some who don't want to spend the rest of their life staring up the ass of a plow-ox. Also, I want to get them working on unconventional stuff, not just fighting in ranks. Mackenzies are too damned good at sneaking around."