Emberverse 08: The Tears of the Sun

by S. M. Stirling

  In fact, we look enough alike to be brother and sister. Rigobert might actually have been a tolerable sibling, unless he was a lot less bearable as a teenager.

  The thought was oddly wistful; she’d been an only child.

  A few of the less experienced or more naive staff officers and messengers in the group around her looked surprised that he dared to bandy words with the Grand Constable, who had a reputation for a cold, distant masterfulness. Tiphaine’s mouth quirked a little more as she jerked her head slightly and the circle around them widened to allow more privacy.

  Or to put it differently, I have a reputation for being a murderous evil reptilian unnatural bitch who’s inhumanly good with a sword and under the Lady Regent’s protection, she thought. Rigobert’s a special case, though.

  She looked at her watch, a self-winding mechanical model from the old world.

  “Not for about another fifteen or twenty minutes, my lord, assuming he’s punctual. We got the encampment settled just a bit faster than I anticipated and told him we would.”

  “Any news from Delia?” he asked.

  “A letter just in,” she said, fishing it out from where she’d tucked it into her thigh boot. “She’s well, Diomede sends his love and wishes he were here and not in Tillamook, where incidentally he’s going to stay if I have to tell Baron de Netarts to chain him to a dungeon wall, Heuradys has learned to say ‘no’, and our beloved Delia herself feels like an overripe watermelon about to split, she says. Also she sends greetings to my beloved beard.”

  “I’m her beard, she’s mine,” de Stafford laughed as he took it and read it eagerly.

  Her Châtelaine and lover of fifteen years, Delia de Stafford, was married to Lord Rigobert. The Barony of Forest Grove was the next tenant-in-chief holding north of her manors, and its lord had about as much erotic interest in women as Lady Delia de Stafford did in men, which was even less than Tiphaine did. Fathering Delia’s children had involved what passed for hightech medicine these days, namely a pre-Change turkey baster.

  “Ah, I see Countess Odell has arrived for the accouchement, with her girls. That will be a comfort,” he said happily. “To them both. Valentinne will worry less about Conrad and her sons with something else to occupy her time and Delia will feel better with company and mothering, she’s always been a social sort and makes friends easily.”

  So do you, Rigobert, she thought. Including people like me, who really aren’t easy to be friendly with.

  “I hope it’s a daughter,” he went on. “Delia does so want a matched set of four, Lioncel, Diomede, Heuradys and . . .”

  He glanced at her with a raised eyebrow.

  “Yolande if it’s a girl, Rigobert for a boy, we thought,” Tiphaine said.

  The Lady Regent had arranged the marriage a little after the War of the Eye and not long after Tiphaine was given the title and estates of Ath as grounding for a rising succession of military commands. It was one of Sandra’s classic kill-three-ducks-with-one-bolt political rim shot maneuvers, at one swell foop turning Delia from Tiphaine’s plebeian and clandestine girlfriend into a noblewoman eligible for a post such as Châtelaine of a baron’s household, giving public cover to Tiphaine, Delia and Rigobert all three against sheet-sniffing clerics and similar vermin, and giving Sandra a valuable two-way source on the distaff side of the nobility’s gossip-and-intrigue pipeline.

  She’d sized Delia up quickly, and foreseen that her spectacular looks, fashion sense, personality and organizing skills would make her a star of the castle and manor house feast, hunt dinner, ball and masque circuit in jig time with a little discreet patronage. The social order hadn’t jelled as hard then, either; it would have been a bit more difficult to bring off in the increasingly Changeling-dominated present, the time of the second generation’s flowering.

  “You’d name the boy Rigobert? Why thank you!” Delia’s husband replied sincerely, with a winning smile. “I’m flattered.”

  But the Baron of Forest Grove genuinely liked Delia; they had become close friends, and he had been a good if slightly long-distance father to the children she insisted on. He was also extremely capable, and not only in the straightforward head-bashing style of most Association nobles; he’d been a junior spook of some sort for some agency that didn’t officially exist before the Change, as well as an SCA fighter, and valuable enough that Norman Arminger had put aside his—literally—medieval prejudices on the subject of gay people to make use of him.

  Odd. In retrospect as an adult rather than a creeped-out and perpetually seething-angry teenager, I don’t think Norman really hated us, not in the visceral loathing sense.

  Rigobert folded the letter, handed it back, and then raised a brow at her expression.

  “Just thinking of Norman,” she explained.

  “My sympathies, my lady. I hope you recover quickly and don’t lose lunch.”

  He raised the canteen in another toast. “May his bigoted, sadistic, rotten soul roast in Hell to the cheers of his innumerable victims,” he went on—quietly—and drank.

  She took the canteen and sipped herself. “Though to be fair, as far as the bigotry goes I think he just thought he should hate queers because he was such a fucking Period Nazi purist Society geek, killer psychopath academic subdivision. Sort of like wearing hose and houppelande. He was playing a role twenty-four/seven. And he scared me, frankly.”

  “Me too. Not much of a difference on the receiving end whether he was sincere or not,” he said a little sourly. “What was that ancient Greek saying? The boys throw stones at the frogs in sport, but the frogs die in earnest? When Norman cut someone dead, he didn’t do it metaphorically. Usually it involved him laughing hard with blood up to his elbows. I’ve never met a man who enjoyed killing more and I’ve known some ripe evil throat-cutting bastards in my time. Been one myself, at need.”

  “True. But you have to grant that at least he didn’t have any racial prejudices. Gender yes. Us, yes. Race, no.”

  Which was true; about one in five of the Association’s nobility were what the old world would have called members of a visible minority, as opposed to about one in twenty-five of the general population. Not that anyone gave a damn about that sort of thing anymore; things like class, kin and religion were vastly more important now.

  “That’s probably only because William the Bastard and King Roger II of the Two Sicilies didn’t have racial prejudices either,” Rigobert said sardonically. “Hanging around Sandra so long has made you inhumanly rational, my lady.”

  “It is catching, my lord Forest Grove,” she admitted. “Though as far as excess rationality goes, remember that Sandra truly loved Norman.”

  To herself: And he had it in for gay men much more than women, which makes it easier for me to be objective. But that’s standard. It’s even authentically medieval, from what I’ve read; without a dick involved somehow it wasn’t real sex, or not real enough to be a serious sin, even a perverted variety, back during the Reign of the Penis.

  “Oh, well, I got a happy marriage out of it in the end,” Rigobert said lightly. More seriously: “And the kids, which I find in retrospect I wouldn’t want to have missed.”

  “Me too. And I was never a rug-rat fan either; as usual when Delia insists on something, she turns out to be right.”

  She sighed slightly. “How long are we going to be haunted by Norman’s ghost?”

  “Up until about the time Rudi and Mathilda’s eldest takes the throne,” Rigobert said. “And he or she will be Norman’s grandchild.”

  He drained the canteen and tossed it to a page. “So may the Lord Protector get an occasional day off from the furnace. He did some good too, even if unintentionally.”

  The arrangement had started as pure and rather resented protective coloration as far as she was concerned, but it had eventually made Tiphaine and Rigobert . . .

  I think you could say friends, she thought. Though I don’t have many, never did, except for Sandra and Conrad and that’s a liege-vassal thing too
. Certainly we’re colleagues and close allies. He’s fun to go hunting and hawking with, too, and I’ve had some very pleasant times just hanging out with him and Delia and the children and sometimes his current boyfriend. It’s only taken fifteen years for us to reach the stage of exchanging BFF confidences. Delia must be mellowing me at last.

  “Which reminds me,” she said to him. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, when there was time. There won’t be any unless I make the time, so . . . Rigobert, stand witness for me, would you? Since we’re waiting for the Count anyway.”

  “At your command, my lady,” he said, doffing his Montero and bowing slightly; they were of roughly equal status as nobles, but her appointed Crown office as Grand Constable was higher than his as Marchwarden of the peaceful southern flank of the Association.

  She glanced around and called sharply: “Armand! Rodard! Attend me!”

  The most senior of her squires looked up from the papers in their hands, handed them over to clerks and then hurried over, bowing formally and standing at the Association equivalent of parade rest, with their left hands on their sword-hilts and their right tucked behind their backs. Both were dark-haired boldly handsome young men in their twenties, with slightly hooded blue eyes . . . and nephews of Katrina Georges, Tiphaine’s first lover, who’d been killed in the run-up to the Protector’s War fifteen years ago. The parents hadn’t long survived the Change, but thanks to Katrina and Tiphaine their children had. She’d handled their training as pages and squires since her own knighting.

  “Kneel!” Tiphaine said.

  They did, going down on one knee with their eyes wide. Tiphaine drew her long sword and tossed it a little to settle the grip. The gesture attracted more attention; as a baron and as commander of the Association’s armies she had the right of the High Justice twice over. There were probably some people here who knew her only by reputation and thought she was going to start beheading with her own hands. Though that sort of thing wasn’t done as much these days.

  When she spoke, it was pitched to carry beyond her bubble of privacy. “Esquires, knights, and all gentles of the Association who are within hearing of my voice. Know that these men are of good birth and Associates of the PPA. For some years they have served me as esquires, and have proven valiant in battle, faithful in service—”

  And extremely efficient in some covert ops work, but let’s not break the flow. “—and skillful and courteous in those arts and graces which become gentlefolk. I am therefore minded to dub them knights, which is my right as their liege-lady, as baron and tenant-in-chief, as Grand Constable of the Association and as myself one who wears the golden spurs and belt of knighthood. Do any here dispute my right or know of an impediment in these men? If so speak now, or hold your peace thereafter, for you may be called to court under oath as witnesses of this ceremony.”

  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 collée.”

  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!”

  Sh
e 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.