The room had been remade in Association style with a tapestry on either side of the fireplace, but there were bookshelves flanking the bow window that looked out over a winter-sere garden and a huge oak where a few dry yellow leaves yet clung; lilacs tapped their bare fingers on the glass. A long table of some polished reddish wood ran down the center of the room, with pens and ink, writing paper and blotting paper and little silver cups of fine sand to dust across a page when you were finished writing. Fire crackled in the hearth, shedding grateful warmth on the raw winter's day; the room held the scent of burning fir and of wax and polish and a sachet of dried roses on the mantel. Astrid was suddenly conscious that her boots might have been a little cleaner after tramping through the streets and mud earlier that day, and that it had been two days in the saddle since her last cold-water bath or change of underwear.
"Do be seated," Sandra said, stripping off her fur-lined gloves.
Astrid ground her teeth; she hadn't planned on asking for permission. The maidservant handed the gloves and heavy traveling cloak to another and then took three steps backward and stood waiting, with her hands folded in front of her with fingers linked, and her eyes cast down. Briefly, Astrid wondered why the girl didn't run for it; perhaps she had family back up in the Protectorate, or possibly Sandra Arminger was smart enough to treat her personal staff well.
Probably, not possibly. Don't underestimate an enemy!
The servant pulled humble obscurity over herself like a cloak of invisibility. The woman in the dark tunic and breeches didn't; behind her ruler's right shoulder she stood silent and immobile with her hands folded inside the wide sleeves of her black tunic, pale eyes looking nowhere in particular: and she was as easy to ignore as a spearpoint pointed at your nose. All four of them gave her a single long, considering glance and then stopped looking at her, but Astrid could tell everyone kept her location in mind.
Refreshments were offered and-politely-declined. Sandra Arminger warmed her hands on a goblet of mulled wine that smelled of expensive spices. She did look tired, and not only because she was fifteen years older than Astrid. There were dark circles under those piercing eyes, and she sighed in relief as she sank back in the comfortable cushioned chair; she wore no jewelry apart from the silver-link band around her linen headdress, and a simple chain bracelet bearing an odd-looking coin.
"I always enjoyed Society events before the Change," the consort of Portland's ruler said. "But there are times when I miss being able to slop around in sweats: not to mention just getting into a car and going somewhere, especially after a trip like this. God alone knows what it'll be like when the roads and bridges have washed and worn away. But I know you youngsters aren't interested in hearing us decrepit fogies talk about the good old days."
She held out a hand, palm-down over the table. The maidservant took a book from the shelves and slid it forward under her fingers. It had a black-leather binding, and gilt-stamp letters on the spine beneath the Lidless Eye. They read: Fiefs of the Portland Protective Association: Tenants in Chief, Vassals, Vavasours and Fiefs-minor in Sergeantry. That meant among other things that the maidservant wasn't just a maidservant; she could read at least, which a lot of people her age in the Association's territories couldn't. Sandra flipped the book open, then turned two pages over to find precisely the entry she wanted.
"The mesne tithes from Sir Jason's manor of Loiston-"
She raised a brow at them, and they all nodded to show they were familiar with the Association's terminology. Mesne tithes were what a fief-holder paid his own overlord for seizin of the land, part of which would be passed on to the Lord Protector by the tenant-in-chief.
"-amount to eight hundred silver dollars yearly, or fifty-seven rose nobles in gold," she went on, running a finger down a list of figures. "That's notional, money of account. Most of it is paid in kind, and he's assessed to maintain three crossbowmen, three spearmen and two mounted men-at-arms for the war-levy of Barony Gervais. Besides his own service in arms and eighty days castle garrison duty for a man-at-arms and three footmen annually in time of peace, and the usual boon-work from his tenants for roads, bridges and fortifications."
She looked up at Astrid and raised a brow. The younger woman made herself refrain from licking her lips by an effort of will, feeling more than a little rushed. She'd expected to come into these talks with all the advantages. It wasn't working out quite like that, somehow.
"We'll turn him over when his steward sends us five years' yield," the Lady of the Dunedain replied curtly. "In cash or equivalents in cloth, horses, tools and provisions of types and quantities to be agreed. We won't release him until the ransom is paid in full."
"Five years' mesne tithes?" Sandra said. "Oh, come now. The standard ransom in the Protectorate is two, for men captured in a private quarrel, and this was private war, not one between realms."
"I'm not interested in how you pay each other off," she replied firmly. "Five years."
Sandra put her elbows on the arms of her chair, steepling her fingers together and tapping them gently on her lips. That let the brow of her wimple shadow her face while she thought.
"How's this, then," she said after a moment. "Make it two and a half years, and I'll pay the entire sum to you in cash right away. That'll save you a good deal of trouble, and spare you Sir Jason's company, which frankly I always found tedious myself."
Silence ran heavy for a moment. Then Astrid went on: "We wanted to make the ransom heavy to send a message," she said. "We don't want your yrch trespassing on our land. Three and a half years."
Sandra laughed softly. "My dear girl-" At Astrid's expression, she modified that: "My dear Roquen Astrid, I don't intend to make him a gift of the money. Rest assured that he'll pay back every barley grain of it. If it's any comfort to you, the humiliation of paying me will be even greater. Shall we say three years?"
"We should have taken his head with the scum he hired," Alleyne said, his voice quiet and cold. "That would teach others not to attack us on our own ground."
Sandra sipped at her goblet. "You killed his brother-in-law and liege-lord," she pointed out. "It's only natural for him to be a bit ticked."
I killed his brother-in-law and liege lord, Eilir signed. While he was trying to kidnap or kill my brother Rudi on our own land. Rising thrust that cut the femoral artery, not to mention the testicles. He should have worn a metal cup under the hauberk.
Sandra's eyes flicked to Astrid and she made a questioning hmmmm? Astrid translated the Sign without being in the least convinced of the Portlander's ignorance. Sandra shrugged.
"Well, well, at that point you'd already kidnapped my daughter on my own land, and Eddie: Baron Liu: was trying to get her back, with your brother as a wergild," Sandra said, and for a moment something showed behind her eyes.
Then she smiled charmingly. "These chains of grievances go in both directions. For example, you also killed Katrina Georges, Mathilda's tutor who I sent along to be with her in her captivity."
"That was me, actually," Astrid said. "I shot her in the back with a broadhead after we Dunedain disposed of your ambush party. She was killing a Mackenzie with a sword at the time, as I recall. Some tutor."
"She was Mathilda's physical-education tutor," Sandra chuckled, and the glacier eyes of the young woman behind her chair shifted to Astrid, going slightly wider and then narrowing. Arminger's wife went on: "And Tiphaine Rutherton here was a good friend of Katrina's; they were both members of my Household from shortly after the Change. I don't doubt she'd like to pay you back for killing her friend. Wouldn't you, Tiphaine?"
"Yes, my liege," Rutherton said, her voice as unemotional as water running over polished stones. Heat radiated from it. "Very much, in fact."