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Other than size Montinore village was similar to hundreds of others in Portland's territories, which was no accident; they were built to a standard pattern out of the Lord Protector's history books. The church was brick, and a few of the free-tenant houses were pre-Change, ordinary frame structures covered in clapboard. Others had been moved here, hauled with ox-teams or disassembled and rebuilt. The peon cottages were all new-built from salvaged materials, one room and a loft, with a toolshed and chicken coop attached. Each house was on its own garden plot, a long narrow rectangle stretching back from the road; the tenant farmhouses had barns and byres attached on their larger allotments. There was a mill here, built on a water-furrow from a dam on the creek a few hundred yards away; the wheel wasn't turning right now. The bailiff's house stood near it, and the miller's, the two best in the village with the priest's cottage right behind.
"Come buy!" Estella shouted again. "Come buy!"
Suddenly an off-duty soldier grabbed her around the waist from behind, hands groping at her breasts. "I'll buy!" he said, laughing.
You think that's fu
Fortunately he wasn't wearing his hauberk, which would make it easier to reach behind and grab so: and then he howled and let her go.
"That would be renting," she said sweetly, as he bent and rubbed at himself and laughed-it had been more of a playful tweak than a real wrench-and-twist. "Ask someone else, soldier, and don't believe all the stories you hear about tinerant girls."
Then the steward was there holding his white staff, with the fat bailiff in tow; she let the tambourine fall silent along with the fiddle. Both were looking more sour-faced than usual, and the bailiff's even more loathsome son looked more like a sulky boar than he had the time before.
"You have your permit?" Wielman said.
Her father bowed-the whole family did, except for Estella and her mother, who curtsied. Then he produced the stamped, signed authorization they had for travel and petty trade; it was countersigned by a bishop and several priests, all of them deceived by the ostentatious piety of the Maldonado family. Such permits were something the PPA gave out only grudgingly, and only because they knew that otherwise swapping and barter would go on underground.
Which they do anyway, Estella thought. Along with a good deal else, by the Lord and Lady!
"You can stay four days and nights," he said at last, after checking that the signatures were up-to-date and taking the bag of "gifts" her father offered, along with the regulation fee; the bailiff got another. "We have a new lord: lady: here, so be careful. I don't have the right of the High Justice, but she does."
And nobody would care if she used it on tinerant trash, Estella thought, grim behind her smile.
Later that night Estella walked away from the bonfire where a sudden ah from the gathered crowd said her brother Carlos had swallowed the sword. They had done well today, in coin and in supplies and barter-the miller had sold them three bolts of the lovely woolen twill that his daughters wove and two great sacks of shelled filberts in return for a set of big metalworker's files salvaged from the ruins of Olympia, and they'd picked up enough flour, spuds and flitches of bacon and hams to last for two weeks in trade for sundries. Tomorrow they would start repairing pots and making shoes:
And speaking of the miller and his daughter, she thought with a smile. It will be good to see Delia again. I could use cheering up, and she is fun.
Delia waited behind the millrace scaffolding, where deep shadow made the night even blacker, and the fires and noise were comfortably distant; if anyone noticed she'd gone from the crowd around the wagon, they'd suspect the reason, though hopefully not the person, for she'd cheerfully flirted with half a dozen, including the undiscouraged soldier. Water gurgled by overhead, making the spring night chilly and damper than elsewhere, with a scent of wet earth and soaked wood; Estella pulled her shawl over her shoulders.
But she can get us in the mill, which has a nice comfortable pile of grain sacks, she thought with a warm glow of anticipation.
They exchanged the murmured recognition signals, as much to cater to the younger woman's sense of drama as from real need-both had been raised witches-and the ritual kiss of greeting; both were tailored to be meaningless to someone outside the hidden Coven network. When she tried for a real kiss, though:
Estella laughed ruefully at the dodge; a relationship conducted at month-long intervals just didn't have a long shelf life.
"Well, you've found someone at last," she said, taking the other by the hands and giving them a squeeze. "Alas!"
"Yes, I have: can we still be friends? You're not angry?"
"Of course we'll be friends! We always were, for years before we were lovers. And I always said I couldn't be here for more than visits, remember. We were lucky to have what we had; the memory will always be warm."
Delia gri
"I'm heartbroken, mi coraz n. Have they hitched you to the bailiff's son, with his pig face and little curly tail?"
Delia laughed. "As if! I'd be sobbing on your shoulder and asking for comfort if that had happened! And you, heartbroken? You've probably got a girl in every village."
"Only half a dozen," she said, with some exaggeration. "Boys in one or two," she went on, and laughed at the other's grimace. "Purist! But tell me who, then. I hope you're not being careless!"
The girl was practically dancing with delight. "You'll never guess!"
"Of course not; that's why I asked."
Delia leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "Tiphaine: d'Ath!"
Estella felt her eyes go wide in shock, unseen in the darkness. She grabbed the other by the shoulders:
"She didn't hurt you?" she asked sharply, then shook her head. "No, evidently not-"
"Oh, Estella, it wasn't like that at all. I practically dragged her off!"
A soft whistle. "Dangerous! You couldn't be sure she wouldn't turn you over to the priests!"
"Well, it was a bit scary at first. She looked sort of: forbidding, you know? Beautiful, but like a sword blade would look if it walked. But I felt prettier when she looked at me, so I took a chance. She's sweet, and was so lonely-her friend who'd been with her forever died last year."
Yes, killed trying to kidnap Lady Juniper's son, Estella thought. And this one succeeded, and left some of our brothers and sisters dead behind her.
Slowly, she went on aloud: "Querida, you are taking a big risk here. Think how the soldiers are, think how all the castle people are, like rattlesnakes in a bucket. Because this woman likes to make love with you doesn't mean she loves you."
"It isn't just that. When we're alone we talk about our lives, and play games-she's teaching me chess-and laugh, and she plays the lute and we sing: "
Estella winced at an unexpected stab of jealousy, as much for the privacy and safety as anything else; it was easier to arrange your life when you had your own castle. Not that I would have one on a bet!
"Darling, she's an Associate. She has been an Associate since the Change, in the Protector's Household-"
"The consort's."
"She was still raised to kill people for a living, and take what others grow and make, by threat of death and pain. The Associates are the sword arm of the Church, and the Church burns witches. Nice is not something the Portland Protective Association are very good at; killing and taking, that is what they do. Think what might happen if you two quarreled, or you yourself changed your mind: "