Or would I rather just sit here and enjoy my life? Get in some hunting and hawking, read a few books, play my lute, drill the troops : maybe find some nice girl and settle down to quasi-clandestine bliss?
A six-year-old in double tunic and tabard with ribbons in her hair clutched a bouquet of early wildflowers and daffodils eked out with ferns, and what was probably her brother led a pretty, plump and spectacularly well-groomed lamb with a bow around the neck; their parents discreetly pushed them forward.
The steward grew formal once more, going to one knee for an instant: "Lady, I deliver to you the estate."
He had a big book of accounts under his arm, and touched it reflexively as he rose. "You have forty-six hundred acres of field, pasture, orchard and vineyard, and pannage and forest rights and rights of venery in the mountains; fishing rights at Henry Hagg Lake; three villages and the castle settlement; two hundred thirty-two families of free tenants, bond tenants and peons, eight hundred and ten souls in all; two gristmills, a sawmill and a fulling mill, a tannery-"
"Thank you, Goodman," Tiphaine said; that was what you called civilian commoners of just below Associate status. "I did read the accounts. We'll go over them together in the next few days, and I'll be riding around the estate to familiarize myself, and to settle Sir Ivo and Sir Ruffin on their fiefs. Now, I presume my quarters are ready, and those for my guests?"
She indicated the carriage that followed in her train, a four-horse closed model built before the Change for the tourist trade. These days it was a symbol of wealth and power sufficient to make anyone thoughtful; modern equivalents weren't nearly as comfortable yet unless you had the limitless resources of the Lord Protector or his consort.
"Yes, my lady, as the message instructed; and we've been preparing a feast. If I may say so, the quarters in the Montinore manor are much more comfortable. I've had what gear I could brought up here as your messenger instructed, and we've been working hard on putting things in order, but the castle is simply: "
"More suitable in a time of war," she pointed out. "And my guests are Princess Mathilda and Rudi Mackenzie."
Wielman's eyes bulged. "The princess: here, my lady? And the son of the Witch Queen?" He recovered quickly and bowed, sweeping a hand sideways; it wasn't his place to question her. "Please, my lady, enter and take possession."
Tiphaine swung down from the saddle, the skirts of her hauberk clashing against the shin-guards. "I'd better accept the bouquet and the lamb first. Wouldn't do to disappoint the moppets."
At least they don't have a choir, she thought as she jerked her head slightly to the man behind her. She didn't exactly dislike children, but preferred them past the age of reason and in the background at that. When you wanted to play with something, a dog was usually better, and it didn't grow up to be surly and ungrateful.
Ivo walked his horse forward to hand a wrapped cloth bundle to one of the garrison. The soldier took it and trotted away; a few instants later the cords along the tower's flagstaff worked, and the banner broke out at the top.
"Sable, a delta or over a V argent," the steward said respectfully, as her new arms took the air over her citadel for the first time, silver and gold and black. "What is the symbolism, my lady?"
"V for the Virgin Mary, of course," Tiphaine answered gravely.
I thought Lady Sandra would do herself an injury laughing, she thought. And she suggested a pair of crossed keys with a fist beneath them, middle finger extended, that would be only a little more explicit: going to be lonely leaving the Household. Even more lonely.
It had been half a year since Katrina died. They'd been together since the day ten years ago when their Girl Scout troop was left in the Cascades by the Change; they'd made it back to Portland together, and together they'd managed to penetrate the Protector's security. He'd wanted to kill when two starving fourteen-year-olds woke him up in the middle of the night and demanded a job, with the bodyguards none the wiser. Lady Sandra had laughed then, too, and said no, that they would be far too useful to waste.
Always together until Kat went off to rescue the princess.
Since then she'd learned that you didn't die of loneliness. You even got used to it, and the pain of being abandoned faded to a dull ache. The need for revenge didn't, though.
Well, that's something I know I want to do. Someone else is going to die of my loneliness, and Kat: I know just who.
Chapter Nineteen
Castle Ath, Tualatin Valley, Oregon
March 16th, 2008/Change Year 9
T his is sort of cool," Rudi said. "I like this better than Todenangst already."
Then he looked over at the girl beside him. "And your folks really didn't want to send you away, you know. They're just busy. That happens with my mom sometimes, and your mom and dad have a lot more to look after."
Mathilda wiped her forearm over her eyes and smiled. "Yeah, I know. Sometimes it just sucks when your parents have jobs like that, doesn't it?"
"Oh, tell me," Rudi said. He waved at the huge dappled stretch of countryside. "This is great, though."
"Well, I think it's even better from the Dark Tower at Castle Todenangst," Mathilda said judiciously. "But this isn't bad."
"That's the only thing I really don't like about home," Rudi said. "Even from the gatehouse towers, all you can see is the meadow and the mountains. But that's sort of the point-it's hard to get at."
Mathilda frowned slightly. "Then why do our castles have such great views?"
"I remember something Sir Nigel said," Rudi said. "Castles aren't just for stopping someone attacking you. They're bases to go out and fight people and control places, and for that you have to see the ground around."
"We sure can!" she grinned, tapping the heavy tripod-mounted binoculars.
They'd graced some tourist lookout-point once. Now they were part of a surveillance and message system that linked most of the Protectorate's castles, from here to Walla Walla and north to Puget Sound.
"Yeah, it's like being a god or an angel or something, with these."
They had a box to stand on, which let them reach the eyepieces, and a helper-what they called a varlet here-to move the tripod around for them.
The forty feet of the tower and the two hundred and fifty of the hill gave a splendid view of a countryside that was subtly different from what he was used to, looking like a painting tinted with old gold as the sun dipped towards the Coast Range westward. He could see two villages from here, with their houses and barns, worksheds and mills, surrounded by truck plots. Further out each had a set of five large fields; winter wheat, spring oats or barley, roots like turnips or potatoes, and two in clover for grazing and hay. Strips within each marked family holdings; there were meadows beside the rivers, and the vineyards and orchards mostly where pre-Change convenience had put them; manor houses had a big farm attached, the demesne. The main roads were well kept; potholes patched with asphalt, gravel and grading maintained on the smaller ones.
A train of ox-drawn wagons loaded with unknown boxes and sacks passed in the middle distance, heading south towards the railway stop there. Heading north was a troop of half a dozen horsemen; he looked through the glasses and saw it was a knight in bright tunic and tooled leather with golden spurs on his heels and a peregrine on his wrist. Beside him was a lady riding with divided skirts and embroidered leggings showing beneath, as gaudy and as haughty, bearing a goshawk; as he watched she unhooded it and the bird mantled, wings splayed for an instant before it leapt skyward in a torrent of strokes.