“It’s wonderful that the news from the east is so good,” Delia said. “Not only more victories, but so far bloodless ones. Well, mostly bloodless. As far as our blood goes.”
“Thanks to Fred! Ah, General Thurston,” Virginia Thurston-née Kane-said. “President Thurston, soon.”
“He’s certainly done a wonderful job,” Mathilda said.
And truthfully again! she thought, and went on:
“We both saw what he could do on the Quest.”
Though we also saw him grow up a lot getting there and back again. Or at least I did. You never saw him in his father’s shadow.
Delia’s eight-month-old daughter Yolande was with her, and a very active toddler named Heuradys in a lace-fringed shift and mob cap controlling unruly mahogany hair, both playing quietly to one side under the direction of a nanny. Though Heuradys had apparently learned the word no and liked using it with lordly insouciance. Mathilda chuckled at the sight, not least because of the names.
Yolande and Heuradys, Lioncel and Diomede. . all of Delia’s children were named from a set of books her mother had always liked, set in a skewed version of France seven hundred years ago. Mathilda liked them too; they were far more realistic than most pre-Change fiction, even Austen or Mallory. They fitted in perfectly with the archaic-French naming pattern the PPA nobility mostly favored anyway; Spanish was the second choice. The Grand Constable, Tiphaine d’Ath, had taken her Associate name from them too, long before, when Sandra had taken her under her wing and recognized her. . unique. . talents.
The Countess Anne of Tillamook looked at the children wistfully. She was in her twenties and handsomely strong-faced, a pale blonde with sea-green eyes; and she ruled that coastal holding by her own hereditary right as her father’s heir, as yet without a consort. She was more or less betrothed to Ogier, the youngest son of Count Renfrew of Odell. Young Sir Ogier was with the host, of course; another thing to resent about the war was the way it delayed things you were looking forward to.
The other noblewoman was Countess Ermentrude of Walla Walla, a slim dark-haired willowy woman in her mid-twenties, still looking a little uncertain in this company but hiding it well. By birth she was from County Dawson on the Association’s far northern border, and her husband’s holding-the County Palatine of the Eastermark, centered on the great fortress-city of Walla Walla-was on the PPA’s far frontier eastward, what had been the border march with Boise before the war. Neither she nor the young Count Palatine, Felipe de Aguirre-Smith, had been much at court, beyond the essentials.
She was making a strong effort to be gracious to Delia, too; the last year had given her and her spouse good personal as well as military reasons to be grateful to Tiphaine d’Ath and Rigobert. And Ermentrude herself had won considerable troubadour-spread fame by commanding the defense of the city of Walla Walla during its siege by the enemy, while the Count led his vassals in the field with the High King. She’d commanded the all-important political side at least, which included keeping the city’s guilds and her lord’s war-captains in order, and that despite being heavily pregnant at the time.
It’s breaking out all over, Mathilda thought whimsically. Well, replenish the earth and all that. At least this miserable war is cementing a lot of new relationships between the noble houses who support the Crown. Delia and Anne and Ermentrude between them have connections all over the Association, and their opinions really matter on the manor-house grapevine telegraph. If they’re all pulling in the same direction, it’ll make things a lot easier.
Signe looked down at the heir to the crown of Montival and chuckled as she tickled her, a little unexpectedly. . but she was a mother as well as a political leader, of course.
“They’re so cute at that age,” she said. “They have to be, or we’d strangle them. After two sets of twins and a singleton I should know.” She looked around. “Aren’t the Thurston kids here at Todenangst? Fred’s sisters?”
“Shawonda and Jaine? They’re at their lessons with my lady-in-waiting, Yseult Liu,” Mathilda said.
“Studying falconry, was what I heard,” Juniper said. “Diomede is giving them a tour of the mews.”
Delia smiled fondly at the mention of her younger son. “Diomede is just getting to the age when showing off to girls is something a boy likes,” she observed.
Mathilda nodded. “I’m keeping them close for security reasons, but this is going to be a bit boring for teenagers, they’re good friends of Yseult, and. .”
“You don’t want them too closely identified with Court,” Signe said; she was a politician too, after all. A wolfish grin. “Especially with Associate court stuff.”
Sandra nodded coolly and sipped at her tea; partly in recognition, partly an unspoken tsk, tsk. She would never have said that aloud at a public gathering, even a small one like this. Not that she’d give Signe any notice of it, either.
Mathilda could read her thought: those with wit enough will realize, and why point out to the gullible and dim what they can’t see for themselves? Part of being clever is not needing to prove it all the time.
Juniper snorted and rolled her eyes.
“They’re nice kids,” Virginia said. “And their Mom is one smart lady.”
Everyone nodded and took a sip of their tea. Anne of Tillamook had been visibly waiting to speak, but she deferred gracefully to Ermentrude. The flat, slightly drawn-out vowels of the Peace River country were still audible in her voice as she spoke slowly:
“Thank you for inviting me, Your Majesty. I’ve written, but it’s always better to speak face-to-face if you can. And Felipe. . well, he’s very busy with leading the County’s contingent in the field, of course. The thing is. .”
She took a deep breath. “I’ve been touring all the areas of the County Palatine the enemy overran, helping with the reconstruction. It’ll be years. . we lost so much livestock and equipment. Though we’re not actually facing famine thanks to what you’ve shipped in. And the damage to the manor houses and villages was very bad. . the castles held, almost all of them, but. .
Her calm broke a little. “A generation of work wrecked in a year!”
“I said after the Horse Heaven Hills that the Association looks after its own,” Mathilda said. “We’ve already sent a good deal.”
Everyone nodded. About a quarter of the Protectorate’s manors had been damaged in the war, ranging from cattle raid level to burned to the ground. Castles were nearly invulnerable if well provisioned and strongly held-that was the whole point-but villages and manor houses were easy meat to an enemy who held the open country. The untouched ones farther west had agreed to doubled mesne tithes and even better had mostly actually paid them, with no more than a token amount of grumbling. That was over and above the lawful reliefs they owed in war anyway and the lost labor when the full levy was called out, and it was going to hurt. That response had made her proud to be an Associate and an Arminger.
“We’re grateful. But?” Ermentrude said. “Your Majesty, I can hear the but in your voice. My father always said that but is the killer.”
Mathilda sighed. “Have you seen the reports from south of the Columbia? The CORA territories?”
She pronounced the acronym in the usual way, as if it were a woman’s name. Technically it stood for the Central Oregon Rancher’s Association, the ad hoc group that had gotten the area west of the Cascades through the first years of the Change down there.