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My barley, my oats, and my potatoes. My cows, and wheat, and vineyards: my farmers, for that matter, Tiphaine thought.
It was pleasing and daunting and exciting at the same time. And the Lord
Protector and Lady Sandra certainly hadn't been cheap about it; there were barons without much more than this, and most ordinary landed knights had a lot less.
It can be sort of disorienting when you finally get what you've been aiming jor. I'm twenty-three. What do I do now? Do I want to be: oh, Mathilda's right hand and her Grand Constable and bone-breaker when she's Lady Protector?
On south-facing slopes peach trees were in blossom; sheep grazed beneath on the crimson-clover sod. Swaths of the grassland below the castle walls were bright with yellow daffodils. Down by Carpenter Creek a mile northward, horses and black-coated cattle drifted through the meadows; southeast lay a big block of vineyard drawing square regularity over rumpled land. A hamlet of frame cottages with ditch and bank around it stood on the south side of the roadway that led west to the castle gate, and anxious-looking civilians and their families in their best tabards stood there, waiting to greet her-those would be the castle service staff, most of whom lived outside the wall in normal times. The castle garrison and their families were inside the gate, in the courtyard, the men drawn up in ranks for inspection.
Or would I rather just sit here and enjoy my life? Get in some hunting and hawking, read a few books, play my lute, drill the troops : maybe find some nice girl and settle down to quasi-clandestine bliss?
A six-year-old in double tunic and tabard with ribbons in her hair clutched a bouquet of early wildflowers and daffodils eked out with ferns, and what was probably her brother led a pretty, plump and spectacularly well-groomed lamb with a bow around the neck; their parents discreetly pushed them forward.
The steward grew formal once more, going to one knee for an instant: "Lady, I deliver to you the estate."
He had a big book of accounts under his arm, and touched it reflexively as he rose. "You have forty-six hundred acres of field, pasture, orchard and vineyard, and pa
"Thank you, Goodman," Tiphaine said; that was what you called civilian commoners of just below Associate status. "I did read the accounts. We'll go over them together in the next few days, and I'll be riding around the estate to familiarize myself, and to settle Sir Ivo and Sir Ruffin on their fiefs. Now, I presume my quarters are ready, and those for my guests?"
She indicated the carriage that followed in her train, a four-horse closed model built before the Change for the tourist trade. These days it was a symbol of wealth and power sufficient to make anyone thoughtful; modern equivalents weren't nearly as comfortable yet unless you had the limitless resources of the Lord Protector or his consort.
"Yes, my lady, as the message instructed; and we've been preparing a feast. If I may say so, the quarters in the Montinore manor are much more comfortable. I've had what gear I could brought up here as your messenger instructed, and we've been working hard on putting things in order, but the castle is simply: "
"More suitable in a time of war," she pointed out. "And my guests are Princess Mathilda and Rudi Mackenzie."
Wielman's eyes bulged. "The princess: here, my lady? And the son of the Witch Queen?" He recovered quickly and bowed, sweeping a hand sideways; it wasn't his place to question her. "Please, my lady, enter and take possession."
Tiphaine swung down from the saddle, the skirts of her hauberk clashing against the shin-guards. "I'd better accept the bouquet and the lamb first. Wouldn't do to disappoint the moppets."
At least they don't have a choir, she thought as she jerked her head slightly to the man behind her. She didn't exactly dislike children, but preferred them past the age of reason and in the background at that. When you wanted to play with something, a dog was usually better, and it didn't grow up to be surly and ungrateful.
Ivo walked his horse forward to hand a wrapped cloth bundle to one of the garrison. The soldier took it and trotted away; a few instants later the cords along the tower's flagstaff worked, and the ba
"Sable, a delta or over a V argent," the steward said respectfully, as her new arms took the air over her citadel for the first time, silver and gold and black. "What is the symbolism, my lady?"
"V for the Virgin Mary, of course," Tiphaine answered gravely.
I thought Lady Sandra would do herself an injury laughing, she thought. And she suggested a pair of crossed keys with a fist beneath them, middle finger extended, that would be only a little more explicit: going to be lonely leaving the Household. Even more lonely.
It had been half a year since Katrina died. They'd been together since the day ten years ago when their Girl Scout troop was left in the Cascades by the Change; they'd made it back to Portland together, and together they'd managed to penetrate the Protector's security. He'd wanted to kill when two starving fourteen-year-olds woke him up in the middle of the night and demanded a job, with the bodyguards none the wiser. Lady Sandra had laughed then, too, and said no, that they would be far too useful to waste.
Always together until Kat went off to rescue the princess.
Since then she'd learned that you didn't die of loneliness. You even got used to it, and the pain of being abandoned faded to a dull ache. The need for revenge didn't, though.
Well, that's something I know I want to do. Someone else is going to die of my loneliness, and Kat: I know just who.
Chapter Nineteen
Castle Ath, Tualatin Valley, Oregon
March 16th, 2008/Change Year 9
T his is sort of cool," Rudi said. "I like this better than Todenangst already."
Then he looked over at the girl beside him. "And your folks really didn't want to send you away, you know. They're just busy. That happens with my mom sometimes, and your mom and dad have a lot more to look after."
Mathilda wiped her forearm over her eyes and smiled. "Yeah, I know. Sometimes it just sucks when your parents have jobs like that, doesn't it?"
"Oh, tell me," Rudi said. He waved at the huge dappled stretch of countryside. "This is great, though."
"Well, I think it's even better from the Dark Tower at Castle Todenangst," Mathilda said judiciously. "But this isn't bad."
"That's the only thing I really don't like about home," Rudi said. "Even from the gatehouse towers, all you can see is the meadow and the mountains. But that's sort of the point-it's hard to get at."
Mathilda frowned slightly. "Then why do our castles have such great views?"
"I remember something Sir Nigel said," Rudi said. "Castles aren't just for stopping someone attacking you. They're bases to go out and fight people and control places, and for that you have to see the ground around."
"We sure can!" she gri
They'd graced some tourist lookout-point once. Now they were part of a surveillance and message system that linked most of the Protectorate's castles, from here to Walla Walla and north to Puget Sound.
"Yeah, it's like being a god or an angel or something, with these."
They had a box to stand on, which let them reach the eyepieces, and a helper-what they called a varlet here-to move the tripod around for them.