The workers who had been at it since dawn weren't homelike at all; glum and quiet, though they'd stopped to eat the morning meal, a score of scarecrow figures-even those who owned better clothes now didn't wear them for field work. Many wore pre-Change clothing, ranging from rags to overalls still fairly intact, if frequently patched. They stopped and rose and bowed or curtsied at the sight of the lady of Ath and her party, leaving a litter of spades and hoes and buckets where they'd been sitting.
Rudi winced at the look they gave the well-dressed riders and the armored men behind them; he recognized hopeless fear and throttled anger, and something like dull awe among the teenagers, and even the young children brought along so their parents could mind them as they worked. A few looked excited at the break in routine-except for a couple still at their mothers' breasts, of course. One ginger-haired, pug-nosed young man of about twenty was rather cleaner than most and much better dressed, in modern Portlander linsey-woolsey breeches and shirt, t-tunic and knit cap; he had a broad smile that didn't reach his eyes as he swept the cap off and bowed, and his nostrils showed like caves.
Tiphaine reined in and turned her white courser aside; Rudi noted how its hooves sank silently in the soft turned earth once they were off the packed dirt and gravel of the roadway, and how much deeper the destriers of the mail-clad men-at-arms did as they followed; the crossbowmen spread out behind them in a semicircle, leaving him and Mathilda and Delia to peer between. A couple of short spears and the bow allowed free-tenants-no stave longer than four feet, no pull heavier than thirty pounds-leaned against one of the carts. That and farm tools would do against coyotes, dog packs and sneak thieves; there were no bandit gangs within striking distance, and tigers would rarely attack a group of humans, though they were dangerous to lone travelers in the wild. A few bundles or backpacks lay there as well, one with the heel of a loaf sticking out of the cloth wrapping, another with a dead rabbit beside it, probably shot on the way to work in the gloaming before dawn and intended for lunch. It wouldn't go far among twenty.
"This field is demesne land," Tiphaine said, in that water-over-smooth-rocks tone. "And these are tenants doing boon-work, aren't they? And you're Keith Anton, son of the Montinore bailiff?"
He nodded and bowed profoundly, cap in hand. "Yes, my lady," he said, the same fixed smile on his face. "I'm overseeing the planting of this field for you."
"Then stop grinning and hand me up a bowl of that and a spoon," she said crisply, flicking the riding crop she held in her right hand towards the cauldron.
The young man looked surprised, but he ran to obey. "Not bad oatmeal porridge," she said, handing it back to him after a considering mouthful. "There's some milk in there."
One of the fieldworkers, an older man with a graying brown beard, spoke: "There wasn't before you got here, miss. Uh, my liege."
A man-at-arms sitting his mount behind her stirred, and lifted the butt of his eleven-foot lance from the ring riveted to his right stirrup-iron.
"Watch your manners, dog!" he barked, the voice blurred and menacing through the mail coif whose flap covered his mouth; only his eyes showed, dark and angry on either side of the helmet's nasal bar. "And keep your place!"
Tiphaine held out a hand in a soothing gesture as the farmers cringed. "Easy, Bors, easy. His village hasn't had a resident lord. They're old-fashioned. You can't expect them to know modern manners yet."
She turned her face back to the tenant-farmer, who was looking as if he wished the earth would swallow him, or as if he wished very much he'd kept his mouth shut.
"You don't say my liege: " Tiphaine paused and raised a brow.
"Uh, S-s-steve Collins, mmm, Lady Tiphaine. Bond-tenant."
"-to me, Collins," she went on, and used the crop to point around at the armed men behind her. "They say 'my liege,' and their families do. They're Association warriors and my vassals, my menie, my fighting-tail. You bond-tenants just say 'Lady Tiphaine' or 'my lady d'Ath,' or 'your worship.' I prefer 'my lady,' plain and simple. Now go on."
The man licked his lips; he had glasses on, clumsily patched where one earpiece had broken, the hinge replaced by a lump of sugar-pine gum. "Uh: I hold sixteen acres on Montinore, and my due is three days a week on the demesne, and this is the first month in the last ten years we haven't done our boon-work hungry. It used to be just oatmeal and water and salt, and only two bowls of it in a damn long day at that. Anything extra you brought yourself. Now it's better and we can get seconds. I think this: Keith: and his father had some sort of deal cooked with the steward, Wielman, to keep what we should have gotten, until you came and they were too scared. Thanks, uh, my lady d'Ath."
"You're welcome, Collins." She turned to the bailiffs son. "I'm not going to ask too many questions about what happened before I took seizin of the fief," she said carefully. "But the law says that peons, and tenants doing boon-work, are entitled to be fed twice a day when they're working demesne land, fed 'full and sufficient' meals."
He bobbed his reddish-sandy head and his hands made unconscious washing motions around each other.
"Yes, your: my lady. You can see, there's plenty for everyone here, good and hot, and a barrel of clean water. And a break at nine for breakfast and an hour for dinner at one-thirty, and a rest every couple of hours, and nobody kept past the time you can tell a white thread from a black."
She nodded. "That's all very well, Goodman, but men aren't horses; you can't expect them to work all day on oats. I don't want a harvest-home feast laid on every day An anonymous snort said that the harvest feast hadn't been much to talk about, either. Tiphaine ignored it.
"-but there should be soup or stew for midday, lentils or beans or barley with vegetables and some meat in it for the taste-sausage, or salt pork, or chicken. And a two-pound loaf of whole meal for each grown worker, and butter and cheese. And some beer; enough for a pint or two each. It's your family's responsibility to organize things like that; it's what you give for the reduced dues. See that it's done starting tomorrow. Draw on the Montinore manor storehouses as needed."
"You should check on whether he does it, my lady," Delia called suddenly from the rear. "He'd skin a louse for the hide, that one, and his dad's no better."
Keith Anton evidently hadn't realized who it was behind the iron wall of the men-at-arms and under her broad-brimmed straw hat; he went white as he recognized her, flushed, started to say something, then looked at the ground again, crushing the cap between strong, calloused fingers.
"Look at me, man," Tiphaine said quietly. When he did: "Do not let me hear that I've been disobeyed, or you'll get a whipping and a day in the stocks, with your father beside you. Steal from me and it'll be worse. Understood?"
"Yes, my lady d'Ath. I'd never disobey my overlord, your worship."
"No, I don't suppose you would," Tiphaine said.
She lifted her voice slightly to take in the other workers, who stood staring at her wide-eyed. "Now listen to me; I'm your overlord, not your mother, or a priest. But I intend that the law shall be followed-to the inch. Tattletales who waste my time will go away sorry and sore, but whoever has a legitimate grievance can come and tell me about it. Understood?"
There was a mutter of agreement and bobbing nods. Rudi thought a few of the smiles were even genuine this time.