The Given Sacrifice

by S. M. Stirling

  He was shaping well, though, now that he’d gotten over homesickness. Lioncel gave him a discreet wink and a thumbs-up when the job was done, and got a brief broad smile in exchange.

  The plates held the remains of a lunch of cold spiced pork loin, a long loaf of white bread, sharp Tillamook cheese, sweet butter, a green salad and fruit tarts; the sort of plain good fare Tiphaine d’Ath preferred even at court. At a gesture, Tasin poured her another glass of watered wine and one for the squire and left the carafe. The pages made a little procession as they took the plates out to hand off to the castle staff; they were eyeing the uneaten blueberry tarts too, since those were their lawful prerogative . . . though as he remembered it the staff would get them as often as not.

  One of the points of page service was to teach young noblemen humility, learning to obey among strangers before they commanded at home. And that good things didn’t simply appear by magic when you waved your hand.

  “Lioncel, attend,” Tiphaine said.

  They were about as alone as you ever got at court. A tinkle came from a wind chime near the windows, and one of the interior walls of the big room was mostly bookshelves and map-racks, with a trophy of crude spears taken in some skirmish long ago crossed over a shield made from a battered-looking STOP sign above the swept and empty hearth. The furniture was understated and strongly built, mostly rubbed oak lightly carved and brown tooled leather held by brass rivets; a tapestry showed Castle Ath across a landscape of forest and vineyard and huntsmen bringing in boars, and the rugs were patterned with birds twining through vines.

  The decor suited the Grand Constable perfectly, down to the hunting trophies—a stuffed boar’s head, tiger and bear-skins—but she wouldn’t have bothered about it herself. His mother had furnished the place, part of her duties as Châtelaine. In effect, general manager of the whole civilian side of the barony, from interior decoration to keeping the reeves and bailiffs honest and arranging apprenticeships for deserving youngsters. In the last few years he’d started to realize just how much work that involved, something that had taken a while not least because his mother always made it look either effortless or enjoyable. And how not only the baron’s interests but the comfort and livelihoods of hundreds of families depended on it.

  “My lady?” he said.

  “Time for a little question-and-answer, boy.”

  It had also been just recently that he really realized what it meant that Lady Delia de Stafford lived with the Grand Constable, and that his father was perfectly content with the arrangement. It hadn’t made all that much difference, though he was a good Catholic himself. They were the people he’d grown up around, after all, the ones he knew and loved.

  His liege jerked her thumb towards a stool. Lioncel de Stafford was a dutiful young man. He bowed and sank down with a perfectly genuine expression of alert interest. Squirehood involved a lot of lectures, if your liege was conscientious; it was the aristocracy’s equivalent of apprenticeship. His liege-lady was always worth listening to and didn’t just talk because she liked the sound of her own voice.

  “What did you gather from all that?” she said, inclining her head towards the door the Lord Chancellor had used.

  Tiphaine had always been kind enough to Delia’s children, but the Grand Constable wasn’t a woman who had much use for youngsters. As he got older she was paying more and more attention to him, which was intriguing and disturbing in about equal measure. They were a long way from equals; he didn’t know if they ever would be that, since she was terrifyingly capable at all of a noble’s skills save some of the social ones. But he’d put his foot on the bottom rung.

  “That some of the great families are starting to bicker and complain, my lady. Even though the war isn’t over!” Lioncel said, trying to keep the heat out of his voice.

  He’d had a ringside seat the last few years, old enough to no longer assume victory was automatic, and things had often looked . . .

  Very bad indeed, he thought. Before the Quest returned with the High King and the Sword . . . very bad.

  “We won the decisive battle at the Horse Heaven Hills, and Rudi killed Martin Thurston to put the brandied cherry on the whipped cream,” Tiphaine said in a cool even voice, wine-cup between her long fingers. “That leads to . . . premature relaxation. Mistaking are winning for having won.”

  “Last year the enemy were winning, and look what happened to them. The Prophet isn’t dead yet! Are these people stupid?” Lioncel burst out. “My lady,” he added hastily.

  “Some of them are. The rest . . . just arrogant and shortsighted and obsessed with who’s getting precedence. And in love with their own supreme awesomeness, particularly since it was a classic chivalric bull-at-a-gate charge with the lance that finished off the battle, like something out of a chanson. They tend to forget the rest.”

  Lioncel looked down at his glass. He’d always loved the songs and still did, and the great charge had been like one of the chansons about Arthur or Charlemagne and their paladins come to life.

  When eight thousand lances crested the ridge in a blaze of steel and plumes and rearing destriers . . . and then the oliphants screamed the charge à l’outrance . . .

  It would be a thing of pride for the rest of his life to have taken part, even in a junior squire’s place behind the line . . . but he’d seen enough of real war now to realize that the troubadours tended to dwell on a very narrow part of it.

  And to leave out things like what a man looks like after a conroi’s worth of barded destriers have galloped over him. Or maybe it was a man and a horse to start with, I couldn’t tell for sure in a single glance.

  Tiphaine raised one pale brow, as if she was following his thoughts.

  “When we were desperate, politics got damped down,” she said. “Now, not so much.”

  “Yes, my lady,” Lioncel said. He thought for a moment, then: “Still, it’s better to have the problems of victory than those of defeat.”

  She gave a thin small smile. “True. You’re learning, boy.”

  And high politics is a lot less boring than classes in feudal law, he thought.

  Then she handed him the vellum folio that the Lord Chancellor had given her.

  “Your lady mother will be handling most of this, but give me your take.”

  He picked it up and read. The snowy material of split lambskin smoothed with pumice and lime was reserved for the most important documents, ones that went into the permanent record for reference and had lots of brightly illuminated capitals. The text was bilingual in English and Law French, which he could follow after a fashion, even done in the distinctive littera parisiensis Fraktur typeface of the Chancellery of the Association. It included a map and references to the cadastral land survey.

  The familiar forms leapt out at him; every nobleman took a keen interest in land grants. There was going to be a new entry in the next edition of Fiefs of the Portland Protective Association: Tenants in Chief, Vassals, Vavasours and Fiefs-minor in Sergeantry.

  His eyebrows went up and he stopped himself from whistling softly with a conscious effort at the acreage listed.

  The signatures were Conradius Odeliae Comes, Dominus Cancellarius Consociationis Defensivae Portlandensis and Mathilda, Dei Gratia Princeps Regina Montivalae et Domina Defensor Consociationis Defensivae Portlandensis, complete with all three privy seals in red wax over ribbons.

  That translated as Conrad, Count of Odell, Lord Chancellor of the Portland Protective Association and Mathilda, by the Grace of God—

  And marriage to Rudi Mackenzie, Artos the First, of course.

  —High Queen of Montival and Lady Protector—

  That in her own hereditary right.

  —of the PPA.

  “That’s . . . that’s a very generous fief you’ve been granted, my lady. Much bigger than the Barony of Ath! Congratulations!”

  His warm glow of delight was entirely unselfish; Lioncel was heir only to Barony Forest Grove. As adopted son of the Grand Constable his younge
r brother Diomede would inherit the title and lands of Barony Ath, the original fief in the Tualatin Valley west of Portland and the new grant too. His sister Heuradys was an adopted daughter of d’Ath, too, for similar reasons; it left House Stafford and House d’Ath each with one son to inherit and one daughter to dower, a perfect set for succession purposes.

  Tiphaine nodded, her long regular face tilting a little to watch his, her ice-colored eyes considering as they met his bright blue. They looked enough alike in face and feature and build as well as coloring to be close blood kin, though they weren’t.

  “Not quite as generous as it looks at first glance, boy,” she said. “It’s in the Palouse out east, not the Willamette.”

  Lioncel frowned. He’d been too young then to really follow things, but . . .

  “Didn’t we—the Association—split the Palouse with old President-General Lawrence Thurston of Boise just before the war, my lady?”

  “Right, and a couple of armies have passed that way since, so the only other living claimants are pronghorns and prairie dogs. Good wheat and sheep land, though; it’s near a rail line when we get that fixed, and there’s water enough given work and money. By the time Diomede’s my age, it’ll be valuable.”

  “Their Majesties are generous,” Lioncel said, thinking hard. “But you certainly deserve it, my lady. You’ve been a, ah, a pillar of the dynasty”—that had started with her working as an assassin for Lady Sandra, early on. Right after the Change, during the Foundation Wars, when she was only a little older than he was now—“since the beginning!” he concluded, tactfully.

  She’d also been a duelist in the Crown’s interest, and still had a chest full of expired lettres de cachet signed “Sandra Arminger” and inscribed with the dreaded phrase: the bearer has done what has been done by my authority, and for the good of the State.

  “And you commanded the rearguard on the retreat from Walla Walla last year, and led the charge at the Horse Heaven Hills. A good lord rewards his most faithful vassals with land. It’s the only wealth that’s really real.”

  My lady wants me to pick something out here. What is it? What am I missing?

  “OK, Lioncel, look at it as if you were on the throne. What’s the reason not to spill land grants wholesale like candied nuts out of a piñata?”

  “Ummm . . . well, God isn’t making any more land, my lady. Fiefs are hereditary so it’s a lot easier to give it out than to get it back into the Crown demesne.”

  “Right. Now, specifics: Sandra Arminger already sponsored me into the Association in the first place, knighted me with her own hands, and gave me everything I have. She was your mother’s sponsor too. And I was one of Mathilda’s tutors for a long time. I . . . and your parents . . . owe everything to her family.”

  “Well, yes, my lady. Put that way, House Arminger have been extremely generous already.”

  “So even if you didn’t know me personally, can you imagine me not being loyal to the Crown?”

  “Ah . . . put that way, no, my lady. It’s sort of proverbial, in fact.”

  They call you the Lady Regent’s Stiletto, actually. Or just Lady Death. Which is a pun on d’Ath, but they mean it.

  “And apart from the fact that I want to be loyal, there’s the additional fact that I’m disliked by the Church, and hated by a lot of lay nobles whose relatives I’ve killed. I’ve been generously rewarded with land and office, and I . . . and your parents . . . need the Crown’s ongoing protection. Why give me more?”

  “Well . . . it’s good lordship to reward service with an open hand,” Lioncel said, beginning to sweat slightly. “It’s not supposed to be a bribe, after all. It’s recognition, it bestows honor, not just revenues.”

  “True, and with Matilda . . . and Rudi . . . good lordship means a lot. They like me personally too, oddly enough, and more understandably they like Delia . . . your lady mother.”

  “Ah . . .” Greatly daring, Lioncel cleared his throat. “My lady? Do you like the High King?”

  He’d seen them working together, but his liege wasn’t a demonstrative person. He was fairly sure that she regarded the High Queen as something like a younger sister, but he couldn’t tell with Rudi Mackenzie. The ice-gray eyes considered him, and there was a very slight nod of approval.

  “Yes, I do,” she said. “And as you may have learned by now, I’m not given to easy likings.”

  He nodded. A couple of hours would be enough to learn that, much less a lifetime. It took him an instant more to realize that Tiphaine was making a dry joke.

  As if I were a grown man, he thought with a mixture of pride and, oddly, a faint sadness.

  “More importantly, we . . . respect each other. While he was living up here part-time—”

  That had been part of the peace settlement after the Protector’s War; the Mackenzie heir had come north, and Mathilda Arminger had spent time every year in Dun Juniper.

  “—I helped teach him the sword, among other things. You’d be too young to recall most of that, and mainly it was at court, not Ath.”

  Lioncel nodded; he had vague memories of visits, no more. Tiphaine’s face went a little distant, as if looking into time.

  “He’s really extremely good. Mathilda always tried her hardest and she’s better than average. But Rudi . . . he’s a natural, and he soaked up technique like a dry sponge does water. The only man I ever sparred with as fast as I was. A bit faster, now; he’s at his peak and I’m a little past mine. And even experts usually can’t strike full force without losing either speed or precision. I can, but so can Rudi . . . and he’s extremely strong.”

  Another pause, and Lioncel nodded soberly. He’d had glimpses of the High King fighting with his own hands during the tag end of the great battle, the savage scrimmage around Martin Thurston’s banner, and it had been . . .

  Frightening, he decided. Even on that field of wholesale butchery, even if you’d been raised among swordmasters. Like some pagan God of war come to life.

  “Most men remember grudges; Rudi never forgets anyone who does him a good turn,” Tiphaine went on. “And he always returns loyalty. That was obvious even when I first met him, when he was younger than Diomede is now.”

  Her eyes met his. “You’ll start out with his favor, for my sake and your parents’, but to keep it, you’ll have to earn it. Never forget that.”

  “I won’t, my lady,” Lioncel said seriously.

  “Good. Because when he has to be, the High King is . . . well, you’ve heard the saying: Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent? He won’t spare himself in the kingdom’s service, and he won’t spare you, either. Which brings us back to the grant. What’s the realpolitik reason? Remember that that usually coincides with good lordship, if you’re thinking long-term. The higher your rank, the more careful you have to be about decisions, because the easier it is to break things.”

  He resisted an impulse to adjust the collar of his jerkin, suddenly grown a little tight.

  “Ah . . . well, that grant, it’s just idle land right now, not settled manors. No annual revenues, no knights or sergeants owing service. The Crown will get the Royal mesne tithes without having to pay anything upfront if we develop and settle it, full tithes since we’re tenants-in-chief. And we’ll have to see to the roads and rails and patrols at our own expense, too, which means more trade and the dues on that. What did they say in the old days . . . all gain, no pain?”

  Tiphaine almost smiled, which startled him a little. She went on:

  “Good points, but those are basically reasons to grant the land to someone, eventually, not necessarily to me and Rigobert right now. Speaking of whom, my lord your father is getting an identical tract next to this”—she flicked a finger at the parchment—“which means we’ll be neighbors out there, too. On the same terms, just the names and map changed. So?”

  “And because it’s important to be seen to reward good service? That’s a big part of a lord’s repute and good name, and that’s part of what makes people
eager to take service with you and do their best, and ready to stick with you if things go badly.”

  “Another point. I actually am grateful, too . . . not least because this means I can reward some of my landless followers.”

  She visibly took pity on him.

  “Lady Sandra used to grill me like this, and she did it to Matti, too. The less obvious part is about your generation of House Ath and House Stafford.”

  Lioncel blinked a little, startled. Then he nodded slowly. It made sense that the Crown would start thinking about him . . . though it was a bit . . .

  Nerve-wracking. Exciting, though, too. Someday not too long from now I’ll be someone who does important things.

  Tiphaine spoke, echoing his thoughts closely enough to startle:

  “Rigobert and I will be out of the picture in a few decades, but you’ll be in your prime when Crown Princess Órlaith is as old as you are now, and Diomede not long after. This means the Crown thinks you and your brother will likely be assets for her. Plus . . . take a look at the tenures those manors are held under.”

  He reread the document, frowning in concentration; this did involve questions of feudal law.

  “Ummm. Parts of it . . . three manors out of twenty . . . are held in free and common socage, not just by knight-service and tallages like the rest.”

  That was unusual and meant they could be alienated, unlike ordinary land held in fief by a tenant-in-chief, which descended undivided by primogeniture whether held in demesne or subinfeudated. It didn’t escheat to the Crown in default of natural heirs, either.

  A light dawned. “Those parts in socage are an inheritance for Heuradys and Yolande!” he said delightedly.

  His young sisters were a bit more than two and less than a year old respectively. When he had thought of it at all he’d expected that they’d be dowered by charges on the revenues of the baronies of Forest Grove and Ath, sunk in government bonds or town properties or the like.