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"Uh, S-s-steve Collins, mmm, Lady Tiphaine. Bond-tenant."
"-to me, Collins," she went on, and used the crop to point around at the armed men behind her. "They say 'my liege,' and their families do. They're Association warriors and my vassals, my menie, my fighting-tail. You bond-tenants just say 'Lady Tiphaine' or 'my lady d'Ath,' or 'your worship.' I prefer 'my lady,' plain and simple. Now go on."
The man licked his lips; he had glasses on, clumsily patched where one earpiece had broken, the hinge replaced by a lump of sugar-pine gum. "Uh: I hold sixteen acres on Montinore, and my due is three days a week on the demesne, and this is the first month in the last ten years we haven't done our boon-work hungry. It used to be just oatmeal and water and salt, and only two bowls of it in a damn long day at that. Anything extra you brought yourself. Now it's better and we can get seconds. I think this: Keith: and his father had some sort of deal cooked with the steward, Wielman, to keep what we should have gotten, until you came and they were too scared. Thanks, uh, my lady d'Ath."
"You're welcome, Collins." She turned to the bailiffs son. "I'm not going to ask too many questions about what happened before I took seizin of the fief," she said carefully. "But the law says that peons, and tenants doing boon-work, are entitled to be fed twice a day when they're working demesne land, fed 'full and sufficient' meals."
He bobbed his reddish-sandy head and his hands made unconscious washing motions around each other.
"Yes, your: my lady. You can see, there's plenty for everyone here, good and hot, and a barrel of clean water. And a break at nine for breakfast and an hour for di
She nodded. "That's all very well, Goodman, but men aren't horses; you can't expect them to work all day on oats. I don't want a harvest-home feast laid on every day An anonymous snort said that the harvest feast hadn't been much to talk about, either. Tiphaine ignored it.
"-but there should be soup or stew for midday, lentils or beans or barley with vegetables and some meat in it for the taste-sausage, or salt pork, or chicken. And a two-pound loaf of whole meal for each grown worker, and butter and cheese. And some beer; enough for a pint or two each. It's your family's responsibility to organize things like that; it's what you give for the reduced dues. See that it's done starting tomorrow. Draw on the Montinore manor storehouses as needed."
"You should check on whether he does it, my lady," Delia called suddenly from the rear. "He'd skin a louse for the hide, that one, and his dad's no better."
Keith Anton evidently hadn't realized who it was behind the iron wall of the men-at-arms and under her broad-brimmed straw hat; he went white as he recognized her, flushed, started to say something, then looked at the ground again, crushing the cap between strong, calloused fingers.
"Look at me, man," Tiphaine said quietly. When he did: "Do not let me hear that I've been disobeyed, or you'll get a whipping and a day in the stocks, with your father beside you. Steal from me and it'll be worse. Understood?"
"Yes, my lady d'Ath. I'd never disobey my overlord, your worship."
"No, I don't suppose you would," Tiphaine said.
She lifted her voice slightly to take in the other workers, who stood staring at her wide-eyed. "Now listen to me; I'm your overlord, not your mother, or a priest. But I intend that the law shall be followed-to the inch. Tattletales who waste my time will go away sorry and sore, but whoever has a legitimate grievance can come and tell me about it. Understood?"
There was a mutter of agreement and bobbing nods. Rudi thought a few of the smiles were even genuine this time.
The party moved on; two crossbowmen riding well ahead, then Lady Tiphaine, then the two men-at-arms, Bors and Fayard-Association people tended to have strange names, he'd found, something about an old Society custom-then him and Matti and Delia, and then the varlet with the packhorses, and two more crossbowmen bringing up the rear.
Delia was beaming-she rode with the children, of course, and was theoretically there to serve them, for propriety's sake by local custom. She called out: "My lady!" Tiphaine turned in the saddle. "I thought you said you were evil?"
"I didn't say I was stupid, girl," she replied, gri
"When my lady said she'd give us good lordship, she meant it, your highness!" Delia said happily to Mathilda, who liked her. "Things are going to be a lot better here now! We needed a real lord, one who could keep people like Keith and his father and the steward honest."
Mathilda nodded agreement. "My mom and dad can pick them," she said proudly. "My mom raised Lady Tiphaine in her own Household, you know."
When the others looked at him, Rudi said carefully: "She's certainly very smart. She knows what she's doing."
Which had the advantage of being truth that wouldn't hurt anyone's feelings, particularly not people he liked like Matti, and Delia was nice too, and a Witch here where it was a hard and dangerous thing to be. But:
Who's going to keep a lord honest if they don't want to be? People shouldn't have to cringe like that. It's not right, he thought, remembering the raucous assemblies of the Clan. Nobody's scared when Mom talks to them: not like that, at least. And they shouldn't have to lick someone's hand like a frightened dog just for not being treated badly. Tiphaine isn't as bad as she could be, but she shouldn't be able to do that. The Law should be above everyone.
Tiphaine looked over her shoulder again and gave him a raised eyebrow and a quirking smile. She'd heard, even two horses away and with all the clatter, and she'd known what he meant. Rudi made a small thumb-to-nose gesture and she shook an admonishing finger at him, then turned back.
The plowed field gave way to a meadow with forested hills rising on either side, like lobes stretching down towards the creek; he shook off gloom as he and Mathilda and Delia laughed at the antics of the lambs. Then they turned southward-left-onto the forest tracks. At first there were abundant signs of humankind, stumps and woodchips, the tracks of oxcarts and horses, an old gravel-pit overgrown with brush and half-full of water green with algae, and a four-by-four light truck abandoned ten years ago, overgrown. Birds exploded out of the rusted hulk's broken windows as they passed, small and blue-headed with mauve underparts.
Nobody was there right now, and soon the scented green twilight glow of untouched deep woods closed around them, mostly tall second-growth Douglas fir, grand fir and western hemlock in rough-barked brown columns seventy feet high and better, their branches meeting overhead. He could see off a fair distance, though there was undergrowth; yew with its orange sapwood showing through gaps in the loose purplish bark, the delicately contorted branches of vine maple, nodding sword fern taller than he was; bushy Indian plum with its bunches of hanging white flowers, yellow violets and fawn lily with its golden core and rose pink blossoms. Insects darted through, their wings catching in an occasional slanting ray of sunlight, dragonflies soaring among them like glittering cobalt blue flying wolves; a squirrel ran like a streak of living silver-gray up a tree trunk and around it, then peered back at him, chattering anger.
Sorry, little brother, just passing through, he thought. Peace between us now.
Aloud to Mathilda, he went on: "You know, it's odd how you can tell morning sunlight from afternoon even in thick forest. Even if you don't know which way east or west is."