SEPTEMBER 21, CHANGE YEAR 23/2021 AD
Tiphaine d’Ath woke to the sound of a little bell tinkling, and made the hand on the hilt of the sheathed dagger under her pillow relax. It was a little dangerous to wake her up directly when she’d been in the field, though even unconscious she knew Delia’s touch. She could tell Delia was not in the bed, though. At seven months gone she was a significant weight, dipping even a really good pre-Change mattress like this one.
She sighed, rubbing one hand over her eyes. Candles and two alcohol lanterns lit the room and she couldn’t tell what time it was, or for a moment where she really was. Her eyelids were a little crusted with sleep, but they didn’t burn as badly as they had when she’d collapsed into bed whenever-itwas before. She’d had a vicious migraine yesterday too, the usual one you got if you wore a helm all day with the inside padding tight around your head and were clouted a couple of times to boot, but by now it was down to a slight throb. She could still feel every overstretched tendon, bruise, wrench and minor abrasion and nick.
Long dismal experience told her that getting up and moving would warm the injured muscles and make her feel a little better. The rest needed willow extract and time; more time than it used to, at that. Her sword hand and wrist in particular felt as if someone had driven a laden wagon over them. Her page Lioncel de Stafford was standing by the bed, muffling the little bell he’d rung and looking disgustingly young—which he couldn’t help, at twelve—and fresh and blond and rested.
She sat up, running her fingers through her own tangle of pale hair and then spreading her hands out and looking at them:
God, did I go to bed without even washing? Yes, apparently I did, that’s dried blood under my nails. Delia is a saint. At least this nightshirt is clean, or was before someone put it on me.
“I’m awake, brat, you can put the bell away. Are your mother and father here? What time is it?”
“Yes, my lady. No, my lady. Six fifteen in the morning, my lady. A train arrived with a number of badly wounded men from Hermiston at four a.m. Dowager Molalla and the train master sent for help.”
Tiphaine frowned. Shit, what went wrong now? Did they take a slap at Hermiston? The way I had it set up we should have fed them their livers if they did and the Viscount knows his business.
She tossed the covers back. I usually wake up when Delia gets out of bed; I must have been really wiped this time, as well as getting older.
This was Delia’s room, and she could have told that at a glance even if she hadn’t woken up here often enough before; pale pastel colors, controlled and elegant froufrou around the canopy of the four-poster, a spectacular tapestry on one wall showing a mountain scene that looked as if it were taken from a Maxfield Parrish poster and probably had been. Some books, a dressing table that looked as if you needed a seven-year apprenticeship and an examination before a panel of guildmasters to handle all the stuff, an embroidery frame, a fretwork door leading to a clothes closet nearly as large as the bedroom.
There was a gentle scent of sachets and bouquets of roses and rhododendrons, and—
“Oh, God, coffee,” she said.
About one ship a year came in from the Big Island of Hawaii to Astoria or Newport, with coffee as part of its cargo. There were definite perks to being a baron and Grand Constable.
Lioncel brought it from a wheeled tray; it already had the cream and two spoons of sugar she liked. She drank, yawned, swallowed the paper of bitter powdered willow bark extract he handed her, drank more of the coffee and thought as her brain lurched back into motion. Barony d’Ath’s town house was smaller and several blocks away.
Right, memory working now. I got in well after dark last night and there was still blood drying in places all over my armor. I was punch-drunk, thirty hours in the saddle and skirmishes and no sleep.
Lord Rigobert de Stafford, Baron Forest Grove and Marchwarden of the South, had been waiting at Union station. He’d slapped her on the back, told her that everything was in hand and bundled her exhausted form into his pedicab and sent her to his town house and his wife: her lover, Delia. Who had poured several glasses of something sweet down her throat and gotten her into this room, nightshirt and bed, and then darkness had walked up and clubbed her unconscious when she was halfway to the pillow.
Yes, the bathroom was the door to the left. She glanced back at the bed, shaking her head minutely in surprise. Getting the seven-month pregnant Delia out of bed usually involved her bouncing and squirming around. They had made a game of it for all of her pregnancies. Today Delia had managed to get herself up and out of the room without waking her.
If I was that dead asleep, I really did need Rigobert to take over last night, she thought as she ran the water into the basin, washing her hands. Well, that is one of the things a second-in-command is for.
Bits of brown flake circled around the marble of the sink as she scrubbed at her hands; her shield-hand knuckles were badly skinned, which meant she’d lost the shield and hit someone or something very hard with her gauntleted fist. Someone; a glimpse returned to her, near-darkness, a bearded snarling face and the crumble of bone under the steel and leather as she struck again and again. Hand-to-hand combat usually ended up as a plain old-fashioned beat-down at some point, and plate armor was surprisingly useful for that, too.
She called through the slightly ajar door: “Lioncel, have any messages come for me?”
“Yes, my lady. Five or six dispatch wallets. But my Lord my father said that he was taking them back to Customs House for your staff and Dame Lilianth to sort and you could deal with them later when, ah, when you were firing on all cylinders again, whatever that means. No more have come since.”
“Officious. Your father is officious, Lioncel. Where’s Diomede?”
“Yes, my lady. Sleeping, my lady. He’ll be up soon. We switch off at noon, today. And you really should take a shower.”
“You’re officious, too, Lioncel.”
Tiphaine suppressed a small smile. Lioncel had been well trained by her previous pages when they were promoted to squire. But he was still her son in all ways that mattered; it occasionally showed up in little details and matters of attitude and tricks of speech. And she did need the shower which the gravity-fed water system allowed here. She was becoming aware of how badly she needed it; whatever washing she’d done last night had been fairly sketchy.
“What will my lady wear, today?” asked Lioncel beyond the door.
“Working clothes, Lioncel; trews and T-tunic. Court garb is suspended until further notice.”
The bathroom was large too; in some ways Delia enjoyed being a noble more than she did. Tiphaine did an abbreviated stretching routine, then ducked into the etched-glass enclosure, turned on the hot water to just short of scalding and stretched some more, grabbing the flower-scented soap. Delia no longer made the stuff with her own hands as she’d done when it was an experiment; the little factory she had established in Forest Grove four years ago was in full production, along with the lavender plantings and rose-plantation. Both baronies made a fair sum off selling it; everyone grew wheat and a lot of manors had a winery, but really first-class soap was getting harder to find. Demand for this had been brisk once the pre-Change stockpiles ran out and it became obvious how much better it was than the sandpaper most amateur soap-boilers were turning out. Managing things like that came under a Châtelaine’s duties, which was one reason why it was a demanding job.
Stiff muscles relaxed and some of the soreness washed out with the massage of the pounding hot water, and the sting as scabs came loose reminded her of where to dab iodine when she got out. Her scalp especially felt much better with accumulated battle filth scrubbed out and the last of the nagging headache gave up the ghost as the neck-muscles unclenched.
She toweled off and pulled on the modern underbriefs and linen . . . bra. As usual, she grimaced at that. The death of the last elastic sports bra had been an occasion for genuine mourning. No matter how brief or what fancy name they w
ere given, or whether they laced up the front like these or not, it was still stays, basically. You did not want things to bounce and swing when you were fighting.
Lioncel had her clothes laid out. Black trews in a soft linen twill, plain white shirt with a keyhole neck; black chamois jerkin with an inconspicuous mesh-mail lining; a T-tunic in a dark charcoal with silver and black embroidery at the collar and hem, and her arms quartered with the Lidless Eye on the chest. The thin kidskin gloves stung as she eased them on, since the insides had been dusted with disinfectant powder. Plain black suede halfboots with the symbolic golden prick-spurs and a black leather belt, and then a chaperon hat completed the outfit.
“And the number two sword, my lady?” Lioncel asked.
“Yes, number two,” she said.
She had six nearly identical ones, beside the Grand Constable’s sword of state for formal occasions—which had an equally functional blade, despite the jeweled pommel and ivory-and-silver-wire hilt. The one she’d come in with last night would be off to the armorer for repairs and sharpening and disassembly to make sure none of the blood was still under the cross-hilt guard or down the tang starting rust. She touched the double-lobed hilt and the dimpled bone and bindings were smoothly firm; when she half drew it the edge was just right, knife-sharp but not honed so razor-thin it would turn easily the first time it hit bone or armor. The metal was layer-forged alloy steel, the wavy patterns of its surface gleaming under a very light coating of neatsfoot oil, and it slid back into the sheath with precisely the right very slight resistance. She would have been shocked if it hadn’t been perfect, but you always checked your own weapons.
“What’s the motto, Lioncel?”
“Take care of your gear, and your gear will take care of you, my lady. The one time you’re careless is the time it will kill you.”
She tossed the sword on the bed and sat, and Lioncel finished drying her hair with warm fluffy towels and then carefully brushed it out. Tiphaine would have rather gone down with wet hair, or done it herself. It was the job of her page. That Lioncel took pride in it argued well for his character.
When he approved, they went down to the breakfast nook where Rigobert’s staff had laid out bread, butter, cheese, jam, platters of sausages and bacon and scrambled eggs and more coffee, plus a large bowl of oatmeal cooked with apples for Lioncel to start with. Tiphaine let Lioncel pour her coffee; an Associate learned to command by learning to serve.
First Armand and Radomar, teaching me how to accept service; now Lioncel and Diomede. And I can’t steal one tittle of what they consider their job without them raising a very, very polite ruckus.
“Thank you, Lioncel. Please sit and eat, yourself.”
This was her usual command when eating alone and her pages had learned to eat with her; however, they always sat after they had served her. Tiphaine shook her head in private amusement at the size of the portions she had to eat these days. A Bearkiller doctor she’d enjoyed talking with a few times had worked out that a knight actually burned off nearly half again as many calories as a peasant on average.
Government by pro athlete, had been the way he’d defined the PPA’s neofeudalism.
And the last few weeks in camp had been short enough rations that she ate with gusto.
“Aunt?”
Tiphaine nodded; the keyword told her this was Lioncel to Tiphaine, not a page to his knight.
“Yes, Lioncel?”
“Aunt, how bad is the situation?”
Tiphaine sighed as she met the serious pale blue eyes.
Looking more and more like Rigobert every day . . . and me, since Rigobert and I have similar coloring and builds. He’s going to be tall, too . . . which both of us also are.
“It’s bad, Lioncel.”
She bit off a piece of bread and Tillamook cheese and stared at the ticking grandfather clock against the far wall of the room for a moment, composing her thoughts. He was old enough to be a squire soon; nearly old enough to be treated like an embryonic adult, by modern standards. Certainly old enough to get the unvarnished truth.
“The expression I like to use is cluster-fuck. It’s very rude and describes the situation to a T. It also means that more than one thing went wrong at once, and the things that went wrong each made the other things worse than they would have been by themselves. We did very well to get out of it without being wrecked beyond recovery.”
“What’s it called when everything goes wrong at once?”
“Dead and defeated.”
A flash of fear shadowed the boy’s eyes for an instant. His jaw clenched. “That means really bad things to Mom and Diomede and the baby she’s going to have, doesn’t it?”
Tiphaine nodded. Not fear for himself. Lioncel would have been considered insanely courageous, or pathologically fearless in the old days. Today, the rest of the pages at court know better than to tease or harass him. It’s not just that I’m known to kill anybody threatening my family. Lioncel is shaping up to be a really solid, mean fighter, himself and there’s no backing down in him.
“Lioncel de Stafford.”
He looked up at her, blue eyes meeting gray.
“This is what we’re for, boy. We put ourselves in the front line between danger and those we love, those who look to us for protection. There will always be some danger or threat, because that’s the way human beings work. This is why we have the lands and the castles and power and deference from the commons. It’s the price we pay, not just the danger but the responsibility and worry and the knowledge that everything turns on our making the right decisions, and it’s what being an Associate and a noble means.”
Also it means we were a very successful gang of strong-arm artists back when, right after the Change, but it’s not just a protection racket anymore. Things change. Kings start as lucky pirates, and wolves graduate into guard-dogs. The myths they used to tie everything together were stronger than Norman or even Sandra suspected and the stories speeded up the process quite a bit.
The boy looked down at his plate and visibly put the worry aside.
“Will you be going to the War Office this morning, my lady Grand Constable?”
“Yes, boy. Order the pedicab when you’re done with breakfast, please. You’ll come with me. Tell Diomede that he’ll come down with my lunch, your lunch, and his lunch from the kitchens here.”
Because I swear I’ve lost seven or eight pounds in the last two weeks and I was lean to start with; anything I lose is muscle and I need it all. Grandmother told me once when I was about six that her father used to eat sandwiches with lard for filling and I just thought it was gross. But he was a lumberjack. He needed them.
“We’ll share it and he will stay. You go home then, and study. I heard something about geometry difficulties.”
“Yes, my lady. Why do I have to study geometry? It’s boring; all those lines and arcs and sines and cosines and problems.”
Tiphaine gave him a hard look. “That’s an important skill. Numbers are how you analyze the world; they’re how you to do siegecraft for war, construction and surveying for peace; fight legal battles; aim a catapult . . . If you can’t do it, or at least understand it, you’re helpless in the hands of those who can, like lacking a hand or a foot or an eye. Hasn’t your tutor explained the applications to you, boy?”
He shook his head, brightening up quite a bit. “It’s good for things? Like sword training?”
Tiphaine growled. “I’ll talk to the man tonight; remind me. Right now, finish your breakfast.”
She sipped her cup of coffee, pausing to admire the delicate rose flower pattern on the cup. She knew Delia had picked it out from the large warehouses the PPA kept for Associates when she’d married Rigobert, and she’d been working with a group of noblewomen and guildsmen here who were trying to get a bone-china works going in Portland for when the plunder ran out. This porcelain had blue roses. The set at Montinore Manor had yellow roses.
And my town house has plain brown dishes because I picked
them before I wangled Delia into the office of Châtelaine of Ath and she dove with headfirst glee into Patronness of the Arts and Leader of Fashion mode.
The proprieties required Delia to stay in the Forest Grove town house when visiting Portland, mostly; and it was large enough for the nursery. The d’Ath town house on Cedar Street had been picked out before she realized she would turn into a family woman with a spouse who entertained during the Court season in the city, so it was comfortable enough but rather small and out of the way. All three used it for flying visits when they didn’t have time for the panoply of service and state.
I suppose I could request another town house, there are plenty on minimal-maintenance, there’s still less than forty thousand people inside the walls of Portland and only a few hundred in this neighborhood, but I’ll let Diomede do that when he’s married and old enough to need it. Probably we should get a residence in Newberg, as well. Assuming we win the war, of course.
She put the cup down, stood and slid the scabbarded sword into the frow-sling that hung from her belt and walked briskly out to the porch, nodding as servants curtsied or bowed. Outside she returned the fist-to-chest salute of the squire in half-armor commanding a squad of six crossbowmen on guard outside.
“Will you require an escort, my lady Grand Constable?” he said.
“No, I think I can survive in Portland, Jeffries,” she said.
Lioncel was just coming around the corner of the street, perched on the back of the pedicab Rigobert kept for town work, with the de Stafford arms displayed on the side: Gules a domed Tower Argent surmounted by a Pennon Or in base a Lion passant guardant of the last.
That was a heraldic joke, if you knew how to read it, rather like her own but a bit less blatant and, she had to admit, more witty.
She glanced up at the white-pillared portico of the residence, then looked east towards the heart of present Portland, squinting a little into the sunrise. This was an extramural suburb, literally so these days—better than half a mile outside the city walls. Behind her rose the densely wooded West Hills, green and purple shadows in the light of dawn. Those had been parks and exclusive residential neighborhoods before the Change, and it was all part of the New Forest now; you could smell the fresh greenness of it, and the sky was thick with birdsong. That was Crown demesne under special forest law, and permission to hunt there or an invitation to parties at the royal retreat in the Japanese Gardens was a mark of great favor.
The Tears of the Sun Page 23