The Given Sacrifice c-7

by S. M. Stirling

  “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 younger 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. E
ven 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.

  Actual manors in their own names would improve their prospects considerably, whether they wanted to marry, go into the Church, or make some other choice. Right now the “manors” were each just big chunks of rolling bunchgrass, but his sisters were very young.

  Wait a minute, if my lord my father got a grant like this, a hell of a lot goes to me, too, he thought for the first time.

  Which meant raising him as well as Diomede into the top rank of tenant-in-chief barons; there were Counts with less, though not many. That was a distant enough prospect to seem pretty theoretical, but it was agreeable enough too.

  “Right,” Tiphaine said. “And-”

  She stopped, cocking her head as if to listen. “That’s odd. . did you hear that owl? Sounded like a big Harfang.”

  Lioncel looked at her blankly; he knew all the birds of prey well, from hawking and hunting.

  “Owl, my lady? It’s the middle of the afternoon!”

  It was, and a bright one in early summer; the sunlight was a thick glowing bar across the table, patterned where the Gothic stone tracery of the window cut it, and even the corners of the room showed a bit of glitter on the metallic threads of the tapestries.

  “That does make an owl unlikely, eh?” Tiphaine said. “And you’ve got youngster’s ears.”

  He’d rarely seen her indecisive. For a moment her face went utterly still, and she touched her right hand to the base of her throat; she wore an owl pendant there lately, he remembered.

  Then her eyes opened and she looked upward, crossing her arms and tapping her fingers thoughtfully.

  “So, logically. .” she murmured. Then, oddly: “Thanks!”

  The next floor was the Lady Regent’s. . no, now the Queen Mother’s. . chambers; some sort of do was on for this afternoon, ostensibly a tea party, with the High Queen and his own mother and a clutch of countesses settling privately what would be supposedly debated publicly later. Tiphaine didn’t raise her voice-she rarely did-but there was a crispness to it when she spoke.

  “Tell Sir Armand and Sir Rodard to turn out the menie, everyone on hand right now. Then arm me, half armor, no more.”

  Putting on a suit of plate complete took about fifteen minutes with expert help, and couldn’t be done alone at all.

  “Move, boy!”

  He did. Nobody stopped him to ask for explanations, just started doing what was needed. And by the time he dashed back with the flexible plate cuirass of lames in his arms and the other equipment slung around him Tiphaine had already tossed her houppelande aside and hung her sword belt over the back of the chair. The steel would be a little loose without the padded arming doublet beneath, but he latched it quickly and stood by to hand her the articulated steel gauntlets, sallet helm and the four-foot knight’s shield shaped like an elongated teardrop with its arms of sable, a Delta Or upon a V Argent.

  “What are we going to do, my lady?” he asked, proud that his voice was steady.

  “Head straight in, yelling alarm and murder,” she said absently.

  “That will. . look strange, my lady.”

  She shrugged to settle the harness, and put both hands up on the sallet’s low dome to press the broad-tailed flared helmet with her palms so that its circuit of internal pads were snug in exactly the right place before she buckled the chin-cup. The visor was down. Without a bevoir attached to the breastplate her mouth and chin showed beneath, and the long narrow blankness of the vision slit in the smooth curve gave a look of merciless detachment and power to her glance.

  The armor the menie of Ath wore wasn’t black like the harness of the Protector’s Guard, because that color sucked up heat in the sun and sometimes stood out against a background. It wasn’t white-bare and brightly polished-like that of many baronial fighting-tails, either, because that was even more conspicuous.

  Instead it was a pale neutral gray like her eyes, the finish very slightly roughened so that it wouldn’t glint,
though in fact you rarely tried to hide in plate. Lady Death was meticulous about details.

  Mom is that way too, Lioncel realized suddenly. Only she does it about other things.

  “It’ll look very strange, my lady,” he added, and didn’t go on to say: Charging into the Queen Mother’s quarters with drawn sword and armed men at your back.

  “Lioncel, have you heard the saying that you can do wonders if you don’t care about who gets the credit?”

  “Yes, my lady. My lord my father is fond of that one.”

  She smiled, a chill stark expression. “Well, you can do even more if you don’t give a damn how crazy it makes you look.”

  As she spoke he went down on one knee and buckled the sword belt around her waist while she pulled on her gauntlets; that took three extra holes on the belt in armor, and he tucked the tongue neatly beneath. Then she drew the sword, a yard of tapering watermarked cross-hilted steel. That slid the honed edge within an inch of his ear, but it didn’t occur to him to flinch. Tiphaine d’Ath’s sword went exactly where she wanted it to go, neither more nor less. He’d seen her flick flies out of the air, neatly bisected with a twitch of the wrist, something he still couldn’t do in practice.

  With the curved top of her shield she knocked the visor of her sallet up. His own vision disappeared for an instant as he pulled his light mail shirt over his head; when he settled the familiar weight and belted on his own sword the two household knights were there.

  “Lioncel, get your helmet on,” she said. “And stay behind the shields when we move.”

  “What’s up, my lady?” Rodard said as he strode briskly in, blinking at the naked sword, his brother Armand at his heels. “I have six men-at-arms including us-”

  All knights were men-at-arms, full-armored and capable of fighting as lancers on horseback among their other skills. Not all men-at-arms were knights, though most hoped to be some day.

  “-and as many more of spearmen and crossbowmen. I could recall men from other duties or rustle up some more from the Lord Chancellor’s household-”