He wore half-armor like the two-score mounted crossbowmen, and a peaked Montero cap with a long curling feather at one side, what she?d have called a Robin Hood hat in her youth. The dozen lancers nearby were in full fig, armored cap-a-pie on barded destriers, blazing steel statues with their visors down and eyes invisible behind the narrow vision slits. The men-at-arms would be feeling like buns in a bake oven right now, combined with a sauna. She?d experienced it often enough, and would again unless the enemy were civilized enough to fight only in cool weather.
Though oddly enough, when the weather?s really cold, full armor doesn?t give you any warmth at all. ?My lady Grand Constable,? he said after a moment?s scrutiny for form?s sake.?My lord Chancellor. You are recognized and may pass.?
Grooms took the horses as they dismounted, and the hunt servants brought up their count of pheasant and duck, quail and rabbit, for the semiritual inspection.
They are, indeed, very dead, Tiphaine thought with a trace of whimsy as she looked at the limp, bloodied forms and prodded one with a gloved finger. And someone should eat them very soon in this warm weather.
She went on aloud as Conrad handed his hawk and perching glove to his falconer:?The game to good Father Mendoza, with my compliments.?
She nodded towards the steeple of the village church a mile westward across the great common field, rising above trees and red-tiled roofs, with the Coast Range green-blue beyond it. They?d give the parish priest, his household and some of the ill or indigent a couple of good dinners.
Slyly:?And tell him that my lord the Count of Odell has graciously donated five rose nobles for the almshouse fund.? ?Gold? I didn?t say anything about?three gets you five? in gold ,? Conrad said, alarmed; that was a month?s wage for a mounted man-at-arms. ?Even for someone who started out as an accountant you are such a cheapskate, Conrad. You?ve got the whole Hood River Valley in your fief, for God?s sake. And two toll bridges. And a chartered town to tax. I?m a lowly baroness with a few manors. Show some class.?
She stripped off her gauntlet and held it out. He unwillingly dropped the little dime-sized coins inside; she folded the long cuff over and into the wrist, then tossed it into the game basket. ?Go,? she said.
The varlet gulped thankfully and jogged away. Listening to the higher nobility exchanging badinage wasn?t comfortable for someone that low on the food chain, though it would probably make excellent gossip at the village taverns, crowded as they were with the entourages of the visitors.
The pavilion was Sandra?s, and hence in exquisite taste-heavy oiled silk striped white and blue on a hidden framework of galvanized poles. Bullion tassels all around the edges were woven with glass strips that chimed lightly when they touched. Rugs covered the ground, glowing with designs of flowers and vines in wine red and green and blue. A light folding table and chairs of carved reddish wood stood within; it was quite private, and even the men-at-arms and crossbowmen of the Protector?s Guard were at a discreet distance.
Tiphaine removed her round roll-brimmed noble?s hat with the broad trailing tail and joined Conrad in two elaborate leg-and-hand-flourish bows to the pair of noblewomen within. One was Delia de Stafford, blue-eyed and black-haired and delicately beautiful and thirty to her own thirty-eight, and dressed in a daring new mode she?d pioneered for semiformal occasions away from court. It was based on what commoner women wore; a long light under-tunic and knee-length over-tunic, but with gauzy silks and lots of lace making it a fantasy in white and lavender instead of utilitarian plainness. A belt of old woven gold held a jewel-hilted ceremonial dagger to show that she was an Associate, and the equally symbolic ring of silver keys that marked her as Chatelaine of Barony d?Ath.
The other was Sandra Arminger, Lady Regent of the PPA, in a conservative pearl gray and white cotte-hardi and a silk headdress confined in a net of platinum and diamonds. To her Tiphaine and Conrad added a bend of the right knee that touched the carpet for an instant.
Although technically I should curtsey, she thought. It looks ridiculous in pants, though. ?My liege lady and Regent,? she said. And:?My lady Delia.? ?If you two are finally finished slaughtering harmless birds and quite small animals we can get to work,? Sandra Arminger said.
She folded the Weekly Trumpet she?d been reading-it was turned either to the crossword puzzle or to an article headlined:?Feudalism: God?s Will Or Just Common Sense??-and tossed the newspaper on top of two illustrated magazines, Tournaments Illuminated and The Associate?s Town and Castle Journal. Then she extended her hand to both of them in turn for the ritual kiss of homage. ?The social cover story for this is a bit of hawking,? Conrad of Odell pointed out.?It helps to actually do some hawking.?
Tiphaine nodded, standing hipshot at catlike ease with her left hand on the hilt of her longsword. A falconry party was something you could invite only chosen people to, without offending anyone-or at least without giving them formal reason to be offended, as exclusion from a Council meeting would. Even if everyone knew it was really a political conclave before the Council. ?Though we?ll miss the boar hunting this year, with the war,? she said with a sigh, looking westward.
Montinore village was in the foreground, just across the road and railway that led south to Newburg; beyond that was the white manor house, the fields and hilly vineyards and orchards of her demesne, and then the stark square tower and walls of Castle Ath on its height, ferroconcrete covered in pale stucco, like a fortress in a picture book with banners streaming from the turrets.
After that started the great forests of the Coast Range, mile after mile of quiet umber shade. She thought of the quick belling of hounds through the glades in the chill October air, and the quarry at bay beneath a half-fallen fir tree… ?Fighting with pigs?? Sandra said, sipping at a glass of scented herbal tisane that tinkled with ice.?In freezing mud? While it?s raining? This is recreation?? ?It?s not quite as much fun as hot sweaty sex,? Conrad acknowledged.?But in the right season you can do it more often, or at least for longer.? ?Speak for yourself, Odell,? Tiphaine said with an expression that had the shadow of a wolf?s grin behind it.?Not all of us have your limitations.?
Delia smothered a chuckle, and Sandra sighed. ?Children, children. Oh, sit down, Tiph,? she went on, tucking a lock of graying brown hair back under her wimple.?You do tend to.. . loom over one.? ?My lady Regent is… a dimensionally challenged person,? Tiphaine said; Sandra was five-two, and still slight in her fifty-fourth year.?I was fourteen when you took me and Kat into the Household and I was already taller than you. I can?t help looming.? ?You can?t help being a big blond horse of a woman, you mean, d?Ath,? Conrad said.?That?s why you?d never have made it to the Olympics.?
She nodded, although she had a whipcord-and-steel length of limb that made her look quite slender at first glance. The Olympics had been her dream before the Change, but…
But in fact I was already too tall and still growing. Gymnasts were all munchkins, like muscular little steroidal pixies. I?d have ended up a Phys Ed teacher or a girls? basketball coach or something. Or, maybe if I?d switched to track and field?Whereas I just cast a welcome shade,? Conrad continued smugly, slapping dust off his blocky torso.
His chair creaked a little as he sat. The Chancellor of the Portland Protective Association was no taller than Tiphaine-around five-ten-but he?d always been shaped like a fireplug made of bone and muscle. Now that he was past fifty and not taking the field anymore he?d added some solid flesh to that, and he grunted with relief as he sat, running one spatulate hand over the shaven dome of his bullet-shaped head. ?That?s one way of saying I?m getting fat, Odell.?
Tiphaine sat with more than her usual leopard grace and crossed ankle over knee. Conrad grunted again as he reached to take a handful of shelled hazelnuts and walnuts from a Venetian glass bowl on the table, salvage from some museum. ?You too shall be in your fifties sometime, my lady Grand Constable,? he said, tossing one of the nutmeats into his mouth.?In precisely twelve years, in fact.? ?Possibly, my lord Chancellor,? Tiphaine said. In the unlikely event someone doesn?t kill me first.?But I don?t think the years shall weigh quite so heavily on me as they do on you.?