"-admit the phalanx has an advantage on open ground but pikemen are too specialized for my taste. Spearmen are more flexible, and-" Conrad said.
Sandra cleared her throat. "The big picture, please. Proceed, Tiphaine. And if we're pressed?"
"In an emergency? Forty thousand if we call the arriere ban for a defensive war, though of course those won't all be as well trained and it would be awkward during the harvest. The castles in our core territories are all in good shape, the armories and emergency food stores are full, we've got reserves of trained destriers to replace horses lost in the field, the river fleet on the Co lumbia is fully ready, and we've finally got the field artillery up to spec as well as the siege train."
"Problems?"
"The Palouse. We haven't had time to get it castel lated properly yet, so it's vulnerable in a way the rest of our territory isn't. The strongholds there are mostly earthwork and timber, motte-and-bailey at best. The local lords can't afford to rebuild right away. Also the roads there are lousy-the fools haven't even been fill ing in the potholes or keeping bridges from washing out, and the railroads are a wreck. But if we try to make them repair twenty-two years of neglect overnight, they'd be bankrupt. Except that they'd revolt first, of course."
"I presume we have the necessary plans ready to fix the situation?"
"Of course, my liege; we started on that before the an nexation. It's simply a matter of money… a very great deal of money."
"How much?"
Tiphaine named a figure, and Sandra winced slightly. Then she held up a finger.
"Conrad. Do you think you can get the Lords to ap prove a special subsidy for infrastructure improvements in the Palouse, along the new eastern border at least?"
The stocky man winced in turn. The Association's landholders didn't like paying even the standard as sessments, and an extra one would cost him political capital-which was to say soft-soaping, bribing and threatening.
"Yes, if you think it's worth the trouble. And it will cause trouble," he warned.
"Twist the necessary arms-I have some files you'll find useful. It'll keep the new lordships in the east sweet if we loan them the money and supply engineers and materials. I could pay it out of the Privy Purse, but I prefer to keep that for unforeseen emergencies."
Renfrew gathered up his papers. "I'd best get on to it; young Lord Chaka will see sense, I think. His mother will help. Stavarov will cause problems but I can talk him 'round if I offer some of his people land…" He raised an eyebrow at her.
"By all means, but bargain hard. I want to keep as much of the vacant areas of the Palouse in the Throne's demesne as I can. Granting land is a lot easier than get ting it back, unless there's a convenient case of escheat for treason."
He nodded and made a formal bow, kissing her ex tended hand and grinning like something carved on a waterspout. "Farewell for the nonce, Sandra, you evil bitch."
"That's 'my sovereign liege-lady and regent of the Association' evil bitch to you, Conrad."
Laughing, he bowed again and turned to go. Sandra pulled at a tasseled cord; the door opened smoothly and showed the corridor outside, with the guards standing to attention; their mail gleamed with a gray oiled sheen as they brought their spears to the salute.
When the door closed again, Sandra stood, gently stirring a cat out of her lap. "Come," she said to Tiphaine.
The warrior-woman helped her into a long robe of white ermine, and they walked out onto a balcony, closing the sliding glass doors behind them. The day was bright and sunny for January in the Willamette, with only a few drifts of high cloud; you could just see Mount Hood's white cone to the east, over the battlements. Above it a glider swooped, its long slim wings dark against the aching blue of the sky.
The two women's breath smoked as they looked down into a flagged hexagonal courtyard twenty feet below. It was overlooked by two stories of barracks and storerooms on all sides as well as the Silver Tower. Todenangst was full of things like that, unexpected crannies and vantage points. She'd put most of them into the plans herself; Norman had been much more… straightforward… and not nearly as fond of Peake's work as she.
"They say this castle had a man's bones in it for every ton of concrete poured," she said, with a nostalgic smile for the grand adventure of those early years.
Sometimes I think we got away with it only because nobody could believe how crazy we were.
Tiphaine nodded; she'd been newly come to the house hold then, and barely fourteen. "I remember a bit of it; they used to throw the bodies into the mix, sometimes. You kept telling the Lord Protector it could wait until we had the farms fully up and running again, and he said it could wait, but he just didn't want to, he wanted his castle and he wanted it now."
"Poor Norman, that was his great fault. He was in too much of a hurry to realize his dreams; it killed him in the end, as much as Havel did. If only he'd known how to wait, he'd be alive today… and we'd have it all. I miss him."
The courtyard below was one where her private guard exercised. Rudi and Mathilda were there now, in Protectorate-style armor, based on early medieval models; she was resting for a moment, watching him take on three knights of the household. Odard called the start with a flourish of his white-painted wand:
"Kumite!"
The knights spread out; Rudi waited for a moment, smiling faintly. Then he leapt, so quickly that it wasn't even a blur, more as if he stretched out impossibly for a second. A flat crack sounded as he slammed into the closest of them, one big kite-shaped shield slapping into another, Rudi's tucked close into his left shoulder in perfect form. The knight was knocked flying with both feet off the ground, to land flat on his back with seventy pounds of armor and gear to drive the wind out of him. His sword pinwheeled through the air to land with a dull clang.
Rudi whirled before knight or blade landed, caught a sword on his own shield and cut backhanded into the side of the second's helmet with a crashing bonnnggg, and met the third blade-to-blade before he could strike himself. The knight was good-the household took only the best, and trained rigorously-but he seemed to be moving like a slo mo scene in the movies in the old days, while Rudi wasn't.
Or he moves like that tiger we had at the baiting, the one they matched against the bison bull. So much power, and so fast…
After a flurry impossible for an untrained eye to fol low, the Portlander stopped and looked down at the rounded point of the blunt practice sword just inside the split skirt of his mail hauberk and prodding at the leather of his breeches. In a real fight it would have ham-strung him and opened the femoral artery.
He swore admiringly and stepped back, letting the point of his own blade drop to the earth and his shield dangle from the guige, the diagonal strap around his neck. He and the young Mackenzie high-fived each other as the other two clambered groaning to their feet, grinning ruefully.
"He's very good indeed, isn't he?" Sandra asked.
"Yes, my lady," Tiphaine replied, without taking her cold gray eyes from the scene below. "When my team took him back in the War, he was ten-and he cut a grown man badly with his knife and would have killed another if he hadn't had a mail lined jacket on. Now… You know what the pagans say of him?"
Sandra nodded, smiling. "That his secret name is Artos, and that he's the chosen Sword of the Lady? Yes? There was the prophecy at his birth, and that thing with the raven right after the war, at his mother's wedding. That was a wonderful touch, if Juniper stage-managed it."
Tiphaine shuddered slightly at the memory. She had been there, although not in the front rank, and she tried not to remember it… because when she did the all sufficient cynicism her mentor had taught her was shaken. The rumors hadn't lost in the telling over the years, either. Instead she hung on to her clinical detachment as she went on: