Silence fell in a circle of the busy, bustling scene. Tiphaine looked around, her pale gray eyes cool and considering. Then she turned to the two men, facing Armand first; he was the elder, after all.
“I dub thee knight,” she said, and the flat of the blade rang on his armored shoulder. “I dub thee knight,” as she flipped it to strike the other side and then sheathed it.
Then: “Receive the collee. ”
That was a slap on both cheeks, delivered forehand and backhand; it was supposed to cement the moment in your mind, and she gave it in the traditional style, a hard smacking buffet both ways. Knighting in the field was traditional too, and if anything, more prestigious. Armand was fighting down a grin as he drew his own sword and presented it across his palms. Tiphaine held it up and kissed the cross the hilt made before returning it.
“Take this sword, Sir Armand de Georges, knight of the Association
… and the High Kingdom of Montival. Draw it to uphold the Crown, Holy Church, your own honor and your oaths to your liege, and to protect the weak as chivalry demands.”
“I will, my lady and liege. Before God and the Virgin I swear.”
“Then rise a knight! And I welcome you to the worshipful company of that most honorable estate.”
She repeated it for Rodard; when they were both on their feet she waved aside their thanks.
“It was overdue. The spurs and the vigil and the calligraphy on parchment can wait. Style yourselves household knights of Barony Ath and your stipends are doubled. We can discuss fiefs and manors after the war.”
That made their ears prick a little, beneath very well-schooled calm; they were loyal, but naturally ambitious. All noblemen lusted after land, herself included. She added, “Not to mention the marriages Lady Delia has been thinking of arranging for you, in loco parentis. Dismissed.”
There was a little alarm on their faces as well, when they turned away. Then she nodded to Rigobert.
“One more thing. Lioncel de Stafford! Attend me!”
The page dashed up; he was one of a brace of six she had running messages, all about as old as pages got and by modern standards eligible to be taken on campaign; his younger brother Diomede was eleven, and still serving in an ally’s castle on the far-off Pacific coast. Delia’s oldest child took after his father in looks, fair and blue-eyed, tall already at fourteen and from his hands and feet going to be even taller. He was wearing a light mail shirt, a steel cap, a sword and a buckler, with a crossbow slung over his back. Pages weren’t expected to fight, but you couldn’t rely on the enemy to observe the niceties, especially when fighting the Church Universal and Triumphant. Who were either bugfuck crazy, possessed by demons, or both.
Probably both, when it comes to their leadership. And I thought the Change was the weirdest thing that could ever happen. Never say ever.
“Lioncel de Stafford,” Tiphaine said formally; she usually called him Lioncel or you or boy!
He bowed deeply with the standard graceful sweep of right hand, uncovered and drew himself up in sudden conjecture, visibly suppressing an impulse to give his hair an emergency comb; it was in what was once more literally a pageboy bob and considerably tousled by a day of wind and dust and hard scrambling work. She wore her hair that way herself, since going the full monty to a bowl-cut would be more of a thumb in the eye to the clergy than was wise, even for her.
“Let this company witness your words,” she said.
Everyone in her menie, her fighting-tail of personal retainers, knew the answers, and of course the boy’s father and his following did too, but it had to be spoken aloud for the record.
“What are your years?”
Lioncel swallowed, going a little pale as what was happening sank in. “I will be fourteen years come the Feast of Saints Crispus and Gaius, my lady.”
Which was October fourth; she remembered it herself because it was Lioncel’s birthday, but the Church calendar was the natural set of references to his generation of Associate. He was conventionally pious, despite his mother being a secret witch and Tiphaine having been, until recently, an even more secret atheist.
“Fourteen would do, and October’s close enough in wartime. What is your birth?”
“Ah… I am the son of a belted knight, born in wedlock to a gentlewoman Associate of noble blood, my lady.”
“What is your service?”
“I, ah, I have served as page in your household, and for a year in that of the Baron de Netarts who is Marchwarden of the Coast, before returning to you this summer, my lady. I have been under instruction as a page since I was six years old, learning courtesy and good service.”
“Is it your will to take service with me as squire, your parents having given their consent?”
“Y- yes, my lady!”
She ignored the sudden crack in his voice that had him blushing crimson, and spoke to carry again: “On this day, I have chosen to take Lioncel de Stafford as my squire, deeming him of good character and sufficiently instructed in the knowledge suitable to his years. Does any here know of an impediment to this oath?”
Silence, and she went on: “Kneel!”
She drew her sword and planted it point-down. Lioncel hesitated for an instant, then set his hands on the quillions; she clasped hers around his and looked down into his eyes. The fingers felt a little chill beneath hers despite the hot day; he hadn’t been expecting this.
“The path of chivalry is a long one, and the honor of knighthood not easily won. Are you willing to devote yourself to this cause?”
“I am.” The boy’s voice rang, strong and steady now.
“Then repeat after me: Here I do swear- ”
“Here do I swear-”
“-by mouth and by hand”
“-it is my intent to become a knight”
“-to learn by service”
“-to act always with honor”
“-and as the guardian of the honor”
“-of the knight I serve”
“-to obey my knight and my knight’s teaching”
“-that I may learn skill and courtesy”
“-to follow always the virtues”
“-of faith and hope”
“-charity and justice”
“-of prudence, temperance and strength.”
“So I swear.”
The boy’s face was shining as he finished. Tiphaine replied, “In return for your service, and your devotion to chivalry, I swear to teach you what I can, and to find instruction for you in what I cannot. I will furnish you with arms, horse and gear as needful and see to your honorable maintenance as befits your station. You shall be my vassal in arms and my pupil, and your service is not menial or infamous. As my honor reflects upon you, so does your honor reflect upon me. Whoso deals ill with you deals also ill with me, and at their peril.”
She released his hands, wiped the point of her sword carefully on one sleeve before sheathing it and pulled a badge with her arms out of a pouch. Then she pinned it to his cap before she drew him up by his shoulders and exchanged the ritual kiss on both cheeks.
“By wearing my badge, you declare your service to me, and my sponsorship of you.”
Rigobert was beaming with fond pride; Tiphaine drew him and the broadly grinning Lioncel aside, and the other baron hugged his son. Lioncel returned the gesture, then faced Tiphaine proudly; now he was forcing himself not to finger the badge in his cap that marked his acknowledged exit from childhood and into the intermediate status of a youth.
“Lioncel, do you know why I took your oath as squire today?”
“Ah… no, my lady.”
“First, you deserve it. In peacetime, I’d have waited another year, but we’re at war. That leads to the second reason. You are your father’s heir, but your younger brother Diomede is my son and heir by adoption, and the Barony of Ath, title and lands, go to him and the heirs of his body.”
Lioncel nodded; he’d already started his study of feudal law-the Association’s system was based on twe
lfth-century England under the Anglo-Norman kings, as modified by the peace treaty at the end of the Protector’s War and more subtly by Sandra Arminger in her term as Regent since. A nobleman needed some acquaintance with it, if he weren’t to be helpless in the hands of his advisers.
“Nothing is certain in war. Your father and I may both fall in battle. I don’t expect it, but it could happen.”
Lioncel nodded gravely; even as a youngster the son of a knightly house did not hide from the facts of life and death. He had been raised with the knowledge that war was the nobility’s trade and avocation, and death by the sword their accepted fate. One that might come calling at any moment to exact the price of their privileges.
“If we did, your mother would take seisin of Barony Forest Grove by dower right until you came of age, in trust for you and your sister, and would have a third of the mesne tithes as widow’s portion for her lifetime after you came of age and took seisin in your own right; that’s settled law. But Diomede’s position would be… ambiguous, and so would Delia’s with regard to Ath and its revenues. Your lady mother would need your support because she has no formal right to Ath from me except through Diomede and that’s uncertain. Technically Diomede is my son, but of course I’m not married to her so she can’t claim seisin by dower right if I die or the widow’s portion of the revenues. Dower descends from the husband, it doesn’t rise from the child.”
Dammit, she thought. Norman and his obsessions! Not to mention the Thomas a Becket fixation a lot of the clergy have developed. Why on earth couldn’t Delia and I get married? We have been for all practical purposes for a decade and a half!
Aloud she continued: “It’s a nice point of law and some Chancellery clerk or worse still some Churchman might start a suit alleging Diomede was an orphan in need of wardship and that she had no standing to claim ward over him since a child can’t have two legal mothers. The thing could be tied up in the courts for years with the land going to ruin. A page is a child; being a squire doesn’t mean you’re of age but it does give you a foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. It proves that you’re old enough to take a legally binding oath of vassalage, so you can’t be completely ignored. And as elder brother, you do then have certain rights where a minor sibling and the sibling’s inheritance is concerned, and your mother through you since you’d be automatically under her ward as a widowed mother of a minor heir. Understand?”
He frowned, pale brows knotting in his tanned young face. “Yes, my lady, I think so. God and your patron saints protect you and my lord my father, but if the worst should happen, I will be my mother’s strong right arm and my brother’s shield and prove their rights against any who deny them. I swear it before God and the Virgin and my patron saint, St. Michael of the Lance.”
He crossed himself and she nodded.
“Good. In the meantime, you’re the most junior of my squires instead of the oldest page in the household. And you’re not going to be old enough to fight as a man-at-arms for another five years or so, is that clear?”
A nod, and she went on: “Sir Rodard will find you enough work to do, esquire of House Ath. Hop! ”
“Thanks, my lady,” Rigobert said as the boy raced off. “I should have thought of something like that. I still find myself thinking like an uncle rather than a father sometimes, and as for being a husband. .. And there are other times I have to remind myself I really am a feudal lord, not just playing at it.”
Tiphaine gave a faint snort; she was a crucial near-decade younger and that sort of feeling hit her less often, but…
“Tell me. My highest ambition in Middle School was going to the Olympics as a gymnast. Until the world ended, when not starving to death, and not getting raped, butchered and eaten by cannibals or not catching the Black Death soon came to the fore.”
“I knew you were a complete jockette, but I’ll bet you wore black and red flannel shirts, too,” Rigobert said with a grin. “Flannel shirts and a white A-shirt underneath, and skate shoes?”
“Oh, incessantly; with a trucker’s hat, no less. I think the thirteen-year-old boys hated me because I looked more like a thirteen-year-old boy than they did.”
“Not a mullet. Please, God, tell me you didn’t have a mullet.”
“Mother wouldn’t let me, but that would have come in a couple of years. And when I turned twelve I realized I was desperately in love with Melissa Etheridge and put a great big poster of her on the inside of my locker door and played her music twenty-four/seven on my Walkman.”
Rigobert laughed, and Tiphaine smiled thinly. She’d never lost herself in laughter easily, not when she was sober at least, and for her being thoroughly disinhibited was usually a bad idea. She envied him that easy laugh a little. It was odd to realize she couldn’t have had this conversation with Delia either; not because they didn’t share everything, but because the younger woman simply didn’t have the referents to understand it without a lot of backing and filling. She’d grown up a miller’s daughter on Montinore Manor and hadn’t even learned to read until her late teens. Tiphaine shook her head as memories opened like the door to a dusty cupboard.
“I was a complete caricature of a baby-dyke-in-training and didn’t even realize it until I caught myself in the middle of a daydream of rescuing Melissa from a stalker and then smooching her passionately. .. my family didn’t talk about things like that so I didn’t even really understand the names my beloved classmates were calling me. I did know they weren’t well meant, you bet I did.”
“Was it possible to be that naive in 1998?”
“For a while, if you were a lonely introspective only child of a single mother who was extremely religious, with no friends except your gymnastics coach. And she was terrified of being hit with ‘inappropriate conduct’ accusations by a hysterical parent. Everyone knew before I did, except my mother and she was deep in denial.”
“Wasn’t as much of a problem for me,” Rigobert said, with a reminiscent smile. “It might have been hellish if I were swish, but-”
“Yeah, you’re even more butch than I am,” Tiphaine said sardonically. “Football star, right?”
“Not dumb enough for football. Basketball, track and field, karate, and fencing club. I was such a model of blazing macho hotness even the straight guys wanted me,” Rigobert said. “Ah, high school, the amount of action I-”
“Now you’re boasting… wait a minute, do you realize our speech patterns just lost twenty-five years?”
The other baron shook his head. “You’re right. Best not to dwell on the past… it was just seeing Lioncel looking so damned young. And looking so much the way I did at that age… though I’m pretty sure he’s straight, come to that.”
“He is,” Tiphaine said definitely.
A conversation about stumbling upon him and a servant girl in a linen closet back at Montinore Manor came to mind; Delia had found it hilarious and she’d thought it rather embarrassing.
“Lioncel’s greatest ambition is to be a gallant knight and a good baron, and I think he’s going to achieve it,” she said instead.
“He’s a fine boy, all three of us can be proud of him, but… they scare me, sometimes, the Changelings. No offense.”
“None taken. I’m a borderline case anyway. I can remember the old world, bits and pieces, particularly the last couple of years before the Change. I simply don’t, usually, unless it comes up the way it did just now. The last twenty-three years or so have been a lot more fun than my childhood anyway, on the whole.”
“It’s Changelings raised by Changelings who really give me that odd feeling, and Delia’s seven years younger than you; she is a Changeling and no mistake. From time to time I look back on the way we set things up in the early years and think… what have we done? ”
Tiphaine’s expression went colder than usual. “We all did what we had to do, in those days,” she said, very softly. “All of us. Everybody did what they had to, or they died, like ninety-five percent of the human race.”
Rigobert
inclined his head in silent agreement, memories of his own moving behind his eyes. Anyone old enough to really remember the first Change Years and the great dying knew that expression, from the inside as well as from their mirror; it would die only when the last of them were gone.
“Not quite what I meant. I was thinking of the Association’s trappings in particular,” he said more lightly after a moment. “We all went along with it and now… now it’s just the way people around here live.”
“Norman did that,” Tiphaine observed. “God help us if he’d been obsessed with first-century Rome or Chin Dynasty China or the Old South. Or been an old-fashioned Red with a man-crush on Stalin.”
“And if Norman hadn’t existed, we’d probably all three have been dead these twenty-five years now and the children wouldn’t have been born, so done is done and probably for the best.” Rigobert sighed. “ We can’t complain, seeing we not only made it into the small minority who survived but came out very much on top of the heap. I try to do right by the peasants on my manors, but being a baron is much more pleasant.”
“Except when we’re doing the hard parts.”
Rigobert smiled. “No, sometimes then too, don’t you find? Sometimes especially then.”
COUNTY OF THE EASTERMARK BARONY OF TUCANNON PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION (FORMERLY SOUTHEASTERN WASHINGTON) HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL (FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA) AUGUST 18, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
“Gotcha!” Ingolf said as his force came in out of the westering sun.
From here, several miles out on the high plains leading from the mountains down to Dayton, the valley with the sheep looked different; the rugged peaks in the background seemed closer, and the whole thing more closed off. And you could see most of it was rolling, not a steep V down to the little creek. The shepherdesses had fled in well-simulated terror, scattering their sheep artfully as they went, and the Boise cavalry had spread out to get the flock under control.
The Tears of the Sun tc-5 Page 35
