A Meeting At Corvallis

by S. M. Stirling

  "Tell me," he said fervently. "We'll have to check on the ones settled on the manors with me and Ruffin, too. Likely they're worse than this bunch and spend most of their time farming their fiefs-in-sergeantry."

  He paused, and almost shuffled his feet. "Ah, my lady, I want to say thanks again, for giving Debbie and me our chance. I'd have been glad to get something east of the mountains, even, much less prime land like this. Sorry if I was, you know, a bit of an asshole to start with."

  "You got over resenting the position I pee in, Sir Ivo," she said, slapping him on the arm with the flat of the practice blade. "Joris didn't get over it and you may notice he's not here."

  Despite the fact that he could take you or Ruffin, easy, she did not add. You two I can trust. Joris … I'd trust him to win in a fang-in-ass competition with a rattler.

  Aloud she went on: "And hell, I've been known to do a convincing imitation of the aforesaid orifice myself, from time to time. Hello!"

  That was prompted by the appearance of Rudi Mackenzie and Princess Mathilda. They were in children's versions of practice gear, padded gambesons of thick, quilted linen and small helmets with barred face-shields and boiled-leather protectors on elbows and knees. A ripple of silence followed in their wake as they walked through the gates and over to the practice ground, and a ripple of curtsies and bows for Mathilda's rank. In a way it was a damned nuisance to have them here while she was trying to settle in and get a feel for the place; in another it was a tremendous honor and responsibility, of course.

  That's Lady Sandra for you. Do well, and you get rewards—and more work. I've learned a lot from her, not least how to handle people. And of course, it's not only more work, hut a chance to get in good with the heir, and it must he part of her plans for Mathilda, too. Wheels within wheels within wheels.

  The two had shields and swords suited for their size as well, from the armorers at Castle Todenangst; except for the size and the lack of point or edge on the blades, they were better gear than many knights could command. Tiphaine and her vassal leaned on the hilts of their weapons and watched. Boy and girl did their stretches, then began practicing strikes and counters on the air.

  "Hey, not bad," Ivo said quietly to her. "The Protector's kid is good, but the kiltie brat is better. He's got the right instincts, too—just throws the switch and goes for it. I mean, he'd have killed me dead with that dirk if the jacket hadn't been lined with mail on the torso. And Ruffin's shield-arm still isn't quite right."

  Tiphaine grinned, and spoke in the same undertone as she watched: "The princess is pretty good, though. A good friend of mine"—the grief echoed, but a little less strongly each time—"was tutoring her before she was kidnapped last year, and I dropped in on it now and then. She was promising then and it looks like she kept it up."

  "Yeah," Ivo said critically as they switched to sparring.

  Both the adults leaned a little closer; that was both more interesting and more dangerous, hence requiring more supervision. Tiphaine pursed her lips. Neither showed much of the usual childish awkwardness or beginner flailing— most kids couldn't free-spar with any profit until they were a year or two older than these, not having enough hand-eye coordination. What they were doing was very basic, of course, and the blows were still light, but they were moving beautifully; she'd seen plenty of trainees of twelve or thirteen who did no better. Mathilda had made serious progress since the raid that kidnapped her, rather than going back, and she suspected trying to keep up with Rudi was part of that.

  The male knight nodded and confirmed her unspoken judgment: "It's not that Mackenzie sword-and-buckler stuff, or Bearkiller targe-and-backsword. Someone's been teaching them both our style, or something close to it."

  "That'd be the Englishmen," Tiphaine said. "The Lorings. I saw them work out last year when they were staying with the Household. They're good, both of them; the young one was really good."

  "Yeah—watch it, kid! Careful with the princess!"

  Mathilda staggered, wobbling loose-jointed after a strong backhand cut went boonnggk across the side of her practice helmet.

  Rudi Mackenzie waved acknowledgment, then went over to his partner and steadied her, his own blade under his left arm.

  "You OK, Matti?"

  "Sure. Wow! I didn't see that coming!"

  "You gotta remember how the helmet blocks things in the corner of your eye," Rudi said. "Sir Nigel taught me this trick on how to keep moving your head—want to see it?"

  "That's enough for the morning," Tiphaine broke in firmly. "Time for a shower and breakfast. At your ages too much is as bad as not enough. You can overstrain your bones and tendons."

  The children nodded obediently, and helped each other out of the gear and bundled it up neatly. Mathilda looked at her guilelessly. "Could you give us some lessons, Lady d'Ath?"

  Tiphaine grinned back, more genial than most who knew her a little would have thought likely. "I think I could squeeze that in, Princess, for you and your friend there. Now let's go get cleaned up."

  * * * *

  It certainly beats washing with river water scooped up in a helmet, and half the army copping a look, she thought a few minutes later, looking around at the bathroom of her suite with unbleared eyes as she stripped off the sodden practice outfit and turned up the wall-lamp. What's this?

  This turned out to be liquid soap scented with lavender and rosemary. Unlimited hot water of their very own was a luxury that few enjoyed these days, which was why most places had some sort of communal bathhouse; Tiphaine soaked until the last tension left her neck muscles and then walked back out into her bedchamber wrapped in a big fluffy towel.

  It had been thoroughly cleaned up while she was under the spray, and the rest of her baggage unpacked. Her field armor stood on a stand in one corner, and her parade set beside it, very similar except that the hauberk and coif were made from burnished stainless-steel wire, and the helm and vam-braces and greaves from chrome-plated metal—harder to work, and thus fiendishly expensive. There were fresh sheets and a new coverlet on the big four-poster bed, a set of riding clothes laid out, and fresh sachets of dried flowers scented the air. A fire was laid ready to light in the swept and scrubbed hearth of the fireplace, and the glass wall-lamps had full reservoirs; right now the tall, narrow window/arrow-slits provided enough light, unless you wanted to read.

  Her pictures had also been set out by the bedside. There was a small silver-framed one of her parents and brother, whose whole neighborhood had vanished in one of the first great fires before she got back to Portland. And a fold-out set of three of her and Katrina; one in their Girl Scout uniforms, another taken not long after they entered Lady Sandra's Household, still looking like they had ten pounds between them and starving to death, and a last one six years old, of them both in hauberk and helm, when they'd turned eighteen and been sworn onto the Household rolls as full members and Associates of the PPA. They looked very solemn in that, with their arms around each other's shoulders.

  Or so she'd thought, when an expressionless Lady Sandra took the picture, with the very last priceless frame of Zeiss film for the camera. In fact Katrina was holding two fingers up in rabbit-ears behind Tiphaine's helmeted head.

  And nobody told me until it was developed!

  Someone had also left a golden daffodil on the pillow, with a red ribbon around it tied in the shape of a heart, and another in front of the pictures. Tiphaine picked up the one on the pillow, clipped the stem with her dagger, tucked it behind one ear, and went down into the Hall, smiling quietly to herself and tucking the knot into a pouch at her waist.

  I really think I am going to like that girl.

  Ruffin and his Joyce had joined the party there, and Ivo and Debbie; they were deep in wedding plans, and Mathilda was listening raptly; the two women rose to give Tiphaine a curtsey before diving in again. Rudi looked frankly bored, and was focusing on his food. She didn't blame him. Debbie was an amiable ditz, in her opinion, but at least smart enough that you didn't alwa
ys want to gag her with her wimple after five minutes of conversation. Joyce was good-natured and loyal and had cheerfully put up with the hardships court and camp held for the leman of a man-at-arms, and was admittedly eye-stopping, sexpot gorgeous in a big-eyed, big-hair, buxom way that had never appealed to Tiphaine. She supposed the woman was very attractive overall, if you weren't put off your feed by the very thought of having sex with someone whose IQ was about the same as a large dog's.

  Say a golden retriever, hut with the added disadvantage of being able to talk and doing it nonstop, mostly about the puppies—pardon me, children—she wants. How on earth does Ruffin stand it? Ah, well, breeders … somebody has to do it, she thought indulgently, and returned their greeting with a nod.

  Everyone gave an odd glance at the flower behind her ear, which was not the sort of gesture she usually went in for, but nobody commented as she took the high central seat and a servant brought her breakfast from the dishes kept warm over spirit-lamps on a sideboard; four eggs, a dozen rashers of bacon, fried green pickled tomatoes, hash browns and toast.

  They're good sorts, Ivo and Ruffin, she thought. It didn't even occur to them they could dump their girls and find better matches, now that they've got manors in fief. And I can trust them to back me come what may. Lady Sandra knows how to pick 'em.

  She sat down and began eating with growing enthusiasm; the cook had heard that she liked her eggs over easy but the whites weren't liquid; the bacon was Canadian-style; the hash browns had bits of chili and onion; and best of all her stomach had settled back to normal. Even the chatter wasn't too bad, if you unfocused your ears and just heard it as a happy babble, like a mountain brook.

  "We'll get you two settled in today and show you to your fiefs," she said to the knights, mopping at a yolk with some toast. "And you can swear me homage on Sunday after morning mass. Then we get busy. Sitting on the veranda watching the tenants work isn't on the schedule, and hunting can wait until after wine-harvest. You've got competent bailiffs, and your good ladies can see to setting up housekeeping and finding cooks and shopping for household gear on their own."

  They nodded; Ruffin gave a mock-theatrical groan and then winked at Joyce, who bounced up and down in glee at the thought of being turned loose in the vast warehouses of salvaged luxuries the Association kept for its elite. Several of the nearby males paused to look over at the results of the bouncing, even confined in a cotte-hardi.

  Christ have mercy, Tiphaine thought; one of the few things she and Katrina had disagreed about was whether shopping was fun in itself, or just more fun than standing naked in a hailstorm while juggling live squid.

  That switched the conversation from weddings to home improvement; Tiphaine did her best to blur it into background noise, and signaled the servant for another plate. The manors they'd be swearing service for had been in the Protector's demesne since the area was resettled in late fall of the first Change Year, and the spring of the second. That meant a good bailiff, probably picked originally because they knew something about raising food. Norman Arminger had raked the survivors for such from the day he announced his Protectorate, and sent out raiding parties to capture/rescue as many farmers as he could before they were eaten out by the refugees, or just eaten plain and simple, so they could instruct the ignorant urban survivors who made up most of the labor pool and future peasantry—that was one reason for the simple system of five fields per village. But the manor houses themselves would be bare inside, empty and waiting.

  When her plate was empty likewise, Tiphaine cleared her throat and spoke: "Yes, Joyce, you can probably get a gold chandelier and a swinging love seat and a four-poster."

  The younger woman recognized the tone and fell silent, still smiling. Tiphaine went on: "Ivo, Ruffin, what I want is to get the menie in order. Right now what we've got is sorta-kinda good enough to keep one of the Grand Constable's inspectors from blowing through the roof and ordering floggings all 'round. Just. Sorta-kinda is not good enough for me. Next time the ban is called, the Domain of Ath is going to put the sixty best-trained fighting-men in the Association at my horse's tail if we have to kill them all to do it."

  They nodded enthusiastically, being men who took their profession seriously. "Is that why the Lord Protector picked this fief for you, my lady?" Ivo asked. "He knew you'd slap the garrison into shape and do it quick?"

  "That was probably one of the reasons," Tiphaine said judiciously. "Believe me, there's always more than one reason behind the Protector's decisions, and at least four behind Lady Sandra's."

  "Can Rudi and I come along on the ride, Lady d'Ath?" Mathilda asked.

  She'd either learned or inherited her mother's way of making a request sound like an exquisitely polite but definite command nobody could dream of disobeying. Unlike her mother she didn't have the might of the Protectorate to back it up … yet, but she would someday, which was a good thing to keep in mind. Rudi said nothing, nibbling on a piece of toast and doing his best to be beatifically uninvolved. Tiphaine looked at him narrowly.

  Well, it would be the best way to keep an eye on him, she thought. He did promise, and I think he takes it seriously. Plus keeping him cooped up and going stir-crazy would be the best way I know to make him mad enough to try and run. Of course, he also wants to get to know the area in case he gets a chance to escape within the wording of that realllllly careful promise. But I can't turn Mathilda down without a good reason, and it'd make trouble to make him stay here if she went.

  "Sure," she said.

  Mathilda clapped her hands. Rudi smiled, and the gray-green eyes glowed in the shadowed dimness of the tower's hall.

  Chapter Twenty

  Near Dallas, Willamette Valley, Oregon

  April 2nd, 2008/Change Year 10

  "Thanks," Michael Havel said, gripping Alleyne Loring's hand. "Christ Jesus, but I wish I was going with you!"

  The little party of Dunedain and Bearkillers waited in the gathering shadows beneath the edge of the trees, some already mounted, some holding their mounts' reins. Westward the sun sank over the Coast Range, casting their shadows towards the croplands. Eastward a strategic hamlet stood a mile away, behind its ditch and mound and stone-and-concrete wall, with an A-lister's fortified steading not far off, within mutual supporting distance. As he shook hands with the Bearkiller lord Alleyne saw a bright blink of light from those walls as a militiaman's steel caught the dying light. The rich smell of plowed earth came on the wind, mingling with the fresh fir-sap scent of the great forests westward, and the horse-leather-wool-oiled-metal scent that meant action.

  "We'll get him back, sir," Alleyne said, giving a squeeze back.

  The word came naturally; this was a man you had to respect, even if he was a bit of a rough diamond. His wife, on the other hand, was a stunner—not better-looking than Astrid, which wouldn't be humanly possible, but more human. Her blue eyes were steady on his as she nodded; then she stepped forward and gave him a hug, which was pleasant enough even though she was wearing a mail hauberk. Like the rest of the Rangers, the young Englishman was in mottled camouflage-patterned clothing of green and brown, with a brig-andine covered in the same material, and a war cloak rolled behind his saddle. They all carried sword and bow, but this mission could only be done by stealth and speed, not hammer blows.

  "I pray to God you do," Signe Havel said sincerely. "And take care of my little sister, too." She looked at the others. "All of you take care."

  Havel went on: "I wish you could take more supplies, but you're right to limit the load. Still, it's better than a hundred and fifty miles by the paths you're going to be following, and the mountains can be cold and wet this time of year."

  There were a dozen of them, and only half as many pack horses, beside the riding animals. Alleyne smiled. "By now I've spent enough time in your Ore-gonian forests to feel quite at home, I assure you."

  "Yeah, well, the Coast Range isn't quite the same as Silver Falls," he said.

  Astrid stirred where she stood contemplating
the sunset. "That's Taur-i-Mithril, or in the Common Speech—"

  "—Silver Falls State Park," Havel said, smiling his crooked smile. "You take care too, Sis. Get the kid, and get out."

  "We will," she said, and Eilir and John Hordle nodded. "And it's time to go. We want to get as far as we can before moonset."

  Havel nodded. Alleyne swung into the saddle and turned his mount westward, touching it into a fast walk and bending his head as they passed beneath the branches of the oak at the head of the trail. A last look showed him Michael Havel staring after him, and pounding his right fist into the hollow of his other palm.

  Village of Montinore, Tualatin Valley, Oregon

  April 8th, 2008/Change Year 10

  "Come and hear!" Estella Maldonado said. "Come and buy! Come and laugh!" She circled the wagon dancing and rattled the tambourine in the air as her mother played her fiddle from the driver's seat, and her brothers juggled cups and eggs and daggers, flinging them high to catch the evening sun. They were slender, dark-haired, olive-skinned young men, dressed gitano-style in dark pants and baggy shirts, boots and spangled vests, with kerchiefs bound around their hair and big gold hoop earrings, and daggers—just barely of legal size— thrust through their sashes. She was younger—twenty to their twenty-two and -three—and wore a silk kerchief herself, but her strong black hair flowed waist-long behind it; a flounced scarlet skirt swung around her calves as she swayed her hips, and a red bodice thrust her full bosom up into the low-cut, embroidered white blouse, enough to show an enticing amount without quite bringing down the wrath of some village priest. Her jewelry was gaudy and abundant and quite genuine; it was a convenient way to store the family assets … and fun.

  "Come and buy! Come and laugh! Come one, come all, people of Montinore Manor!"

  The tinerant wagon—the legal term for its owners was licensed itinerant—was a simple box with a curved sheet-metal roof, but gaudily painted. Light trucks had furnished the wheels and springs; four red-and-white oxen drew it. Right now they were lying down and chewing their cuds unconcernedly while her father walked around the vehicle and unfolded the sides. Another much like it followed; that was their sleeping quarters and for baggage, with the family's one horse hitched behind the door in the rear, and a tin chimney through the roof.