"Do you like it?" Mathilda asked as they came back into the sunlight.
"It's really something," Rudi repeated sincerely.
Inwardly, he shivered slightly, feeling something of the demonic, driving will that had reared these stony heights amid the death of a world. Mathilda leaned over and gave his hand a squeeze; he returned it gratefully for an instant.
On the inside the wall was about half the forty-foot height it had been at the moat's edge, which meant that the lower half backed against the cut-away hill. They'd done the same at Dun Juniper and other places; he knew that was sound technique.
The outer wall isn't as high as Mount Angel, but it goes further around: he thought. It's pretty big, bigger than home or Larsdalen. Not nearly as big as Corvallis, though.
He remembered to look for the things Sam Aylward and Nigel Loring had taught him.
Good location. This is the high ground for long catapult range all around. Probably lots of water inside – the mountains over there to dawn-ward would mean powerful springs and good wells. Good communications. And it dominates the passage between the Parrett Mountains and the Dundee Hills, and the bridge where we came across the Willamette.
Houses and sheds, workshops and barracks and stables and shops lined the inside of the wall's circuit. At their doorsteps was a broad asphalt-paved street lined with trees, and on the inner edge of that was another row of buildings built into the hill so that the rear windows of the two-story buildings were at ground level. Above rose steep hillside, terraced with smooth stonework retaining walls, scattered with flowerbanks-a few already in bloom, crocus and narcissus-lawns and trimmed bushes, fountains shooting water high and white above carved stone salvaged from dead mansions- I was right about the water. They must have plenty. -and benches and pergolas. Nothing was substantial enough to give anyone on the slope much cover; every inch of it and the inner side of the walls and the ground outside could be swept from the battlements above.
A single road switchbacked up the northern face to the keep's entrance. Trumpets brayed triumphantly as they rode through; this time the roadway turned right in a deep cutting inside the gate-towers, and then left again before it reached the surface; that meant the walls must have the hill backing them for fifty feet up or better; the hooves of their party clattered in a din of harsh echoes until they came to the light once more.
The courtyard within was huge, better than an acre, but the walls and the towers at the corners still placed much of it in shadow this early in the morning. It was paved with patterns of colored brick, scattered with planters, and buildings were set against the walls around all sides of it; towers rose at the four corners, seeming to reach for the scattered clouds above. One flank was a great church covered in white marble, with stained-glass windows; the central rose showed the stern, bearded face of Christ Pantocrator sitting in judgment. The right seemed to be living quarters; along the south was a great feasting hall with strips of window alternating with tile-sheathed concrete piers in its wall. And there must be another courtyard beyond, with the great black tower on its southern edge.
More knights stood with their lances before them on either side, to make a passage through the crowds from the gateway to the stepped terrace at the hall's flank. Rudi firmed his mouth and dismounted; grooms hurried to take the horses.
Two thrones stood before the doors of the hall, under a striped awning. To either side was a crowd brilliant with dyed and embroidered cloth, jewels on fingers and around necks and on the hilts of daggers, wrapped headdresses: most of them women in cotte-hardis, or priests in robes, and one standing beside the larger throne in a gorgeous outfit of gold and white, with a tall mitre on his head and a crook in his hands. Some noblemen were there too, in civilian garb or the mail and leather of war, but:
Yeah, Rudi thought, taking a deep breath. But most of the men are off fighting against us. That camp outside is just part of them.
Two figures sat on the thrones. Sandra, Mathilda's mother, in pearl and dove gray and silver. And her father, warlike in black save for the gold headband, his harsh face unreadable. He was a big man; a bit bigger than Mike Havel, a little smaller than Uncle Eric, but built like either of them-strong hands, thick wrists, broad shoulders, long legs. A swordsman's build.
Rudi lifted his chin and met the man's eyes as the party tramped forward, ignoring the murmurs from the nobles on either side. The air was still; he tossed back his hair; there was a chilly feeling in his stomach, like he'd drunk too much cold water right after exercising, and the vague sensation of needing to pee. Some of the women were cooing as he passed; more called greetings to Mathilda, who smiled and waved: though not as enthusiastically as she had outside.
They halted ten paces from the dais, at the line of knights who rested unsheathed swords on their shoulders and stook like iron statues between the ruling pair and the world. At a gesture from the man they moved aside, and Mathilda suddenly gave a squeal and dashed forward.
"Daddy! Daddy!" she caroled, and burst into tears as he rose and swept her into his arms, whirling her around and holding her high, then kissing the top of her head as she gripped him like a fireman's pole.
The crowd burst into cheers, many of them waving handkerchiefs in the air.
The trumpets at the gates sounded again, and even a few of the guardian knights smiled for a moment; the noise was a deafening thunder of echoes in the great stone space. When her father put her down at last, Mathilda selfconsciously drew herself together.
"I'm so glad to be home, Mom, Dad," she said, wiping her eyes, and went to stand beside her mother.
Sandra Arminger smiled as well when she embraced her daughter, and sat holding the girl's hand, but there was an enigmatic calm in her eyes as they flickered coolly over Rudi's face.
Norman Arminger turned back, and Tiphaine went to one knee in a rustling clash of chain-mail armor, bowing her head. So did the rest of the party; Rudi knelt as well, taking off his new hat. It was only polite.
"Tiphaine Rutherton, for this rescue of my daughter and heir-"
There was a slight ripple through the crowd, a murmur like a sigh. Mathilda's eyes went a little wider. Yeah, he hadn't said she was his heir, not out loud, Rudi remembered.
"-there would be few rewards too great."
For the first time Sandra spoke aloud, her voice cool and amused. "I suspect rank, gold and land would be a good start, Norman," she said. "Don't stint."
Arminger threw back his head and laughed. "Indeed, and I won't. Approach," he went on, drawing his sword. "Rank first."Sandra Arminger rose as well as the woman in armor ascended the steps to the dais and knelt again on the last of them. The Lord Protector bowed slightly to his consort and offered her the weapon, holding it across one forearm hilt foremost-carefully. Rudi could tell it was a real sword, with an edge that would slice open your hand like a butcher knife if you pressed your flesh against it. The guard was a simple crossbar of scarred steel, the pommel a brass ball and the long hilt was wound with braided leather cord.
It wobbled ever so slightly as Sandra took the grip in one small hand. She added the other, turning and raising the blade, only a slight tightening of her mouth showing the strain. A ray of sunlight broke through cloud and made the steel shimmer; Rudi felt a prickling even then.
Something brushed the back of my neck, he thought. Or Someone.
It also gilded the kneeling woman's pale hair. The flat of the blade descended in a slap on Tiphaine's mail-clad right shoulder, hard enough to make the sword vibrate in a slight nnnngggg harmonic.