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The remark made perfect sense in their trade. Endurance got harder to keep up after your twenties, but there was more to it than that. Men who'd come to the warrior's life as adults after the Change were rarely really first-rate by the standards of the generation who'd trained since puberty.
"They're what we've got and I want their stamina built up," she said. "I'll run 'em up and down the stairs to the walls in armor for a couple of hours every second day. Any of the footmen who can't take it, we'll give early retirement. And find some tenant's kid to train as a replacement. There's always some who don't want to spend the rest of their life staring up the ass of a plow-ox. Also, I want to get them working on unconventional stuff, not just fighting in ranks. Mackenzies are too damned good at sneaking around."
"Tell me," he said fervently. "We'll have to check on the ones settled on the manors with me and Ruffin, too. Likely they're worse than this bunch and spend most of their time farming their fiefs-in-sergeantry."
He paused, and almost shuffled his feet. "Ah, my lady, I want to say thanks again, for giving Debbie and me our chance. I'd have been glad to get something east of the mountains, even, much less prime land like this. Sorry if I was, you know, a bit of an asshole to start with."
"You got over resenting the position I pee in, Sir Ivo," she said, slapping him on the arm with the flat of the practice blade. "Joris didn't get over it and you may notice he's not here."
Despite the fact that he could take you or Ruffin, easy, she did not add. You two I can trust. Joris: I'd trust him to win in a fang-in-ass competition with a rattler.
Aloud she went on: "And hell, I've been known to do a convincing imitation of the aforesaid orifice myself, from time to time. Hel lo!"
That was prompted by the appearance of Rudi Mackenzie and Princess Mathilda. They were in children's versions of practice gear, padded gambesons of thick, quilted linen and small helmets with barred face-shields and boiled-leather protectors on elbows and knees. A ripple of silence followed in their wake as they walked through the gates and over to the practice ground, and a ripple of curtsies and bows for Mathilda's rank. In a way it was a damned nuisance to have them here while she was trying to settle in and get a feel for the place; in another it was a tremendous honor and responsibility, of course.
That's Lady Sandra for you. Do well, and you get rewards – and more work. I've learned a lot from her, not least how to handle people. And of course, it's not only more work, hut a chance to get in good with the heir, and it must he part of her plans for Mathilda, too. Wheels within wheels within wheels.
The two had shields and swords suited for their size as well, from the armorers at Castle Todenangst; except for the size and the lack of point or edge on the blades, they were better gear than many knights could command. Tiphaine and her vassal leaned on the hilts of their weapons and watched. Boy and girl did their stretches, then began practicing strikes and counters on the air.
"Hey, not bad," Ivo said quietly to her. "The Protector's kid is good, but the kiltie brat is better. He's got the right instincts, too-just throws the switch and goes for it. I mean, he'd have killed me dead with that dirk if the jacket hadn't been lined with mail on the torso. And Ruffin's shield-arm still isn't quite right."
Tiphaine gri
"Yeah," Ivo said critically as they switched to sparring.
Both the adults leaned a little closer; that was both more interesting and more dangerous, hence requiring more supervision. Tiphaine pursed her lips. Neither showed much of the usual childish awkwardness or begi
The male knight nodded and confirmed her unspoken judgment: "It's not that Mackenzie sword-and-buckler stuff, or Bearkiller targe-and-backsword. Someone's been teaching them both our style, or something close to it."
"That'd be the Englishmen," Tiphaine said. "The Lorings. I saw them work out last year when they were staying with the Household. They're good, both of them; the young one was really good."
"Yeah-watch it, kid! Careful with the princess!"
Mathilda staggered, wobbling loose-jointed after a strong backhand cut went boo
Rudi Mackenzie waved acknowledgment, then went over to his partner and steadied her, his own blade under his left arm.
"You OK, Matti?"
"Sure. Wow! I didn't see that coming!"
"You gotta remember how the helmet blocks things in the corner of your eye," Rudi said. "Sir Nigel taught me this trick on how to keep moving your head-want to see it?"
"That's enough for the morning," Tiphaine broke in firmly. "Time for a shower and breakfast. At your ages too much is as bad as not enough. You can overstrain your bones and tendons."
The children nodded obediently, and helped each other out of the gear and bundled it up neatly. Mathilda looked at her guilelessly. "Could you give us some lessons, Lady d'Ath?"
Tiphaine gri
It certainly beats washing with river water scooped up in a helmet, and half the army copping a look, she thought a few minutes later, looking around at the bathroom of her suite with unbleared eyes as she stripped off the sodden practice outfit and turned up the wall-lamp. What's this?
This turned out to be liquid soap scented with lavender and rosemary. Unlimited hot water of their very own was a luxury that few enjoyed these days, which was why most places had some sort of communal bathhouse; Tiphaine soaked until the last tension left her neck muscles and then walked back out into her bedchamber wrapped in a big fluffy towel.
It had been thoroughly cleaned up while she was under the spray, and the rest of her baggage unpacked. Her field armor stood on a stand in one corner, and her parade set beside it, very similar except that the hauberk and coif were made from burnished stainless-steel wire, and the helm and vam-braces and greaves from chrome-plated metal-harder to work, and thus fiendishly expensive. There were fresh sheets and a new coverlet on the big four-poster bed, a set of riding clothes laid out, and fresh sachets of dried flowers scented the air. A fire was laid ready to light in the swept and scrubbed hearth of the fireplace, and the glass wall-lamps had full reservoirs; right now the tall, narrow window/arrow-slits provided enough light, unless you wanted to read.
Her pictures had also been set out by the bedside. There was a small silver-framed one of her parents and brother, whose whole neighborhood had vanished in one of the first great fires before she got back to Portland. And a fold-out set of three of her and Katrina; one in their Girl Scout uniforms, another taken not long after they entered Lady Sandra's Household, still looking like they had ten pounds between them and starving to death, and a last one six years old, of them both in hauberk and helm, when they'd turned eighteen and been sworn onto the Household rolls as full members and Associates of the PPA. They looked very solemn in that, with their arms around each other's shoulders.