Chapter Eighteen

Castle Todenangst, Willamette Valley, Oregon

March 10th, 2008/Change Year 9

N orman Arminger had wanted to hold a full meeting of the War Council, in a presence room where he would sit on a throne of sable granite and gold. Sandra had talked him into using this chamber, high in the Dark Tower but much more informal, with a window that looked down over the gardens outside the keep, and plain except for the carpet, table and chairs: and the black stone of the walls. Those were partly covered in maps. Only three sat there; herself, the Lord Protector of the Association, and its Grand Constable. Fresh spring air poured through, smelling of cut grass; the scent mingled with that of the rhododendrons in their shallow bowl in the center of the table, but it was not enough to cut the curdled psychic stink of rage and fear under the arched groinwork of the chamber's ceiling.

"What I did," Conrad Renfrew said, "was bring my troops back intact and pick up a thousand or so of Emiliano's, including a lot of his knights and men-at-arms. Thus preventing a defeat from turning into an absolutely catastrophic defeat that would have left us open to invasion or revolt."

Arminger gripped the arms of his chair. "Conrad, you told me that you didn't think the Mackenzies could get around north of you."

"No, I didn't think they could do that," the Count of Odell said. "Not over those trails. Bold move. Very risky. It paid off, for them."

"Which means that while you were standing looking at Sutterdown they got around behind you and ass-fucked you!" Arminger snarled; his fist hit the table surface with a dull thudding sound-it was four inches of solid teak.

Renfrew's hideously scarred face was calm, the blue eyes impassive. "That's one way of looking at it," he said. "Or you could say that I'm the only commander you sent out this spring who didn't get his army either beaten up like Alexi or completely wrecked like Emiliano."

"That's my lord, when you address me," Arminger grated.

Ever so slightly, Sandra's eyes rolled towards the ceiling. Renfrew shook his shaven head.

"No, here with just us three it's Norman from me to you, Norman," he said. "Look, I've been carrying water for you since the day of the Change, when you and Sandra came bopping in and talked me around. You didn't make me Grand Constable because I was a complete fucking idiot, did you? So try listening to me for once. Try listening to this."

The Grand Constable was in military dress but not armor; black leather pants, shirt, and a black tunic with his own arms on it inside the outline of a heraldic shield-sable, a snow-topped mountain argent and vert. He reached inside the neck of the baggy woolen garment and produced a sheet of paper. The calluses on his fingers scratched on it as he spread it out.

"This is the minutes of the Council of War, back in February. We're leaving our left flank open for sixty miles, quote unquote. We're attacking three ways at once, thus carefully throwing away the advantage of superior numbers, quote unquote. We should have Alexi stand on the defensive and tie up the Bearkillers without getting the Corvallans hot and bothered, and invest Mount Angel with six thousand men, even if it takes a year, quote unquote. Because then it wouldn't matter what the God-damned kilties did. Instead you got greedy, and yeah, we got collectively ass-fucked. The above is the voice of the only man on the Council with the balls to tell you what you need to know, Norman."

Arminger controlled his fury with an effort of will that brought a bead of sweat to his forehead; the smell of it was a faint, rank musk. "Corvallis was supposed to be neutralized," he said in a flat voice. "Alexis report is pretty clear that he had the Bearkillers back on their heels until that happened.''

Sandra spoke for the first time, her voice like cool water. "We did have the Faculty Senate neutralized. What happened was that the Corvallans who wanted to fight us just strapped on their armor and jumped on the bicycles and started pedaling north. Unorthodox, illegal, unconstitutional: but there you are."

Renfrew slapped the table, a gunshot sound as his palm struck dense, oily wood only a little harder. "Yeah. Precisely. Which happened because we tried to take away the buffer between them and us. Made our protestations of peaceful intent look pretty much like complete bullshit, didn't it? OK, yeah, they always were bullshit, but did we have to make that entirely plain to the most wishful wishful thinker? And all that effort we put into cultivating Turner and Kowalski? They'll be lucky not to get lynched, and there goes years of work."

Arminger jerked to his feet, a move with none of his usual feline gracefulness. Then he stalked over to the tall, narrow window, looking down across the lands that acknowledged him ruler. His hands writhed together behind his back, but when he turned at last his face was calm.

"What do you recommend?" he said. He turned his head slightly. "Both of you."

"That we pull in our horns," the Grand Constable said promptly. "Inside our own borders we've got enough manpower still to fight off anything the other side can throw at us, easy. We're bigger and we've got interior lines and strong fortifications-which is why we've been squeezing so hard from the first to get the damn castles built. In a year or two we can convince the Corvallans that we're really just little lambs, baaa-lambs, and that they should sell us the rope we use to hang them; they're almost as gullible that way as people were before the Change. Then we attack the Free Cities League, and digest it, and then we see what's possible next. You're not going to conquer the world all at once, Norman. But if we stick out our dicks again right now, and if we have a couple of inches trimmed off again, like Alexi did or even worse the way Emiliano did, God alone knows what might happen. The Free Cities might have a slap at us, for starters. And a lot of our farmers would rise the minute they thought we were losing our grip."

Sandra nodded. "That'll be true until the last people who grew up before the Change die. And we do have to worry about the Free Cities, darling."

Arminger looked at his wife. She spread her hands on the table. "My dear, they're quiet now because we frightened the daylights out of them last year and broke down a lot of their irrigation canals, not because they love us. The problem with that is what happens if they stop being afraid of us. Which is true more generally, too, you see."

"I hate to say-" Renfrew began. "No, let's be honest. I love to say 'I told you so,' and I told you we could forget about the Willamette for a while and take the Yakima, because the Free Cities League was isolated from anyone else- they're too far away for Boise to support them effectively. That would have given us a base to take the rest of the Palouse country, which is good wheat-land. I know you've got a hard-on for the kilties and Mike Havel, Norman, but let's not get irrational about this."

Suddenly Arminger smiled; it was an amused, rueful expression. "I do tend to get obsessive," he said. "And they've been driving me absolutely mad for years now; the more so as things have gone so well everywhere else. I confess to a very strong desire to see them suffer, and that's one of the perks of being the overlord, isn't it? All right, we'll make up some face-saving thing about the Grand Constable 'saving the host' and stand on the defensive, at least until after harvest. Then we'll see. We can talk a little at dinner tonight, Conrad. Right now I'm going to go to the sparring room and hit things for a while. Better still, I'll hit people."

Silence fell with the lord of the Association gone. After a long minute Sandra Arminger tapped the papers before her into neat piles. "Well, that was easier than I thought it would be," she said in a tone as neutral as the spring sunlight.

Conrad Renfrew nodded. "Norman's being reasonable."

Their eyes met, with a common, unstated disquiet.


****

In the corridor outside, Norman Arminger snapped his fingers. A messenger in black livery knelt.

"Find Sir Joris Stein," Arminger said calmly. "Tell him to attend me in the Salle d'Armes of the Dark Tower guardroom, immediately."

The Mackenzies would be celebrating. Time for them to feel a little grief.


****

The Silver Tower looked west from Castle Todenangst's keep; the pearly granite that sheathed it had come from a number of banks in Portland and Vancouver and Oregon City.

In popular slang, it was known as the Spider's Lair. Sandra Arminger thought that extremely amusing; in fact, Tiphaine wouldn't have been surprised if the consort hadn't started the necessary rumors herself. She took a deep breath and walked past the guards at the arched entranceway, nodding to their stamp and crash of metal since she was in civilian garb.

My first time as a member of the nobility, she thought. Granted, the lowest rank of the nobility, but it's still a big change. And don't forget who got it for you.

The same gray-and-silver theme was continued within, when you came to the upper chambers that were Sandra Arminger's private quarters; off-white marble floors, silvery silk hangings with the occasional tapestry for contrast, cool restraint in the furniture, only the Oriental rugs providing a blaze of colors-there was an experimental workshop in Oregon City which was patiently laboring to duplicate the best Isfahans for her. The air smelled slightly of jasmine and sandalwood; from the opened windows she could hear the evening sounds of the great fortress-palace, guards tramping, faint music in the distance, wind flapping a banner, the skree-skree-skree of a hawk in the mews.

Gaslights kept the interior light, and recessed hot-water radiators made it pleasant despite the chill of the spring night.

And the only problem is the damned cats, Tiphaine Rutherton thought, quietly nudging one aside as it tried to chew on her boot; she was mildly allergic to them, but nobody dissed the consort's felines.

I wish she'd drown the nasty pug-faced Persian monstrosities. And they always shed on your clothes when you're wearing black. Well, not my problem anymore.

She bowed deeply, and one small, elegant hand gave her leave to sit.

"My husband, Lady d'Ath, is a very capable man," Sandra Arminger said after a moment's silence, leaning back in her chair on the other side of the table and stroking a blue-eyed cat curled up in her lap. "Very forethoughtful, in many respects-did you know he had a plan of this castle made before the Change? However, like even the greatest men, he has a few weaknesses."

Tiphaine Rutherton bowed her head, a slight, silent gesture. A servant slipped forward noiselessly and filled her cup with herbal tea. She'd really have preferred wine, and it was late enough-after eight and after dinner-but admittedly they needed clear heads for a task so delicate that nothing could be said explicitly even in strict privacy. She also knew that there was no point in speculating until her liege gave her more information; trying to get ahead of the consort in a guessing game was a short route to gibbering madness or a very nasty shock, or both.

Instead she let her mind drift, passively ready to absorb information or act suddenly and without hesitation, otherwise free-associating. She spared the servant a glance; it was the same girl they'd taken to Corvallis back in January, and it was typical of Lady Sandra that even a trusted operative like Tiphaine wasn't entirely sure what her capabilities were or what she was tasked with besides pouring tea, except that it was much more than that. It no longer felt like disloyalty to notice that the girl was extremely pretty; she'd sworn vengeance for Katrina Georges, not eternal celibacy.

One of Norman Arminger's "weaknesses" was shagging anything that moved, as long as it was in its teens, female, and good-looking, like this one. In the old days he'd certainly had dozens of them running around in extremely skimpy outfits; she could remember the tail end of that, before the consort and the Church talked him out of it, amid the general settling down after the wild years. That wasn't a reputation that hurt him with most of the Association warriors, quite the contrary-being a "real three-ball man" was an advantage with them, if not with Pope Leo.

Pigs, she thought, hiding a slight sneer; but it had never been a matter of much concern to her and Kat, since the Lady Sandra protected her Household quite thoroughly.

Rumor also said that the consort helped hold them down for him on occasion. She found the image rather disturbing; it was odd to imagine the Lady Sandra involved in anything so sweaty and: complex.

And I'm fairly certain she has absolutely no interest in women, Tiphaine thought; she and Kat had both had a mild, Platonic knight-and-fair-lady crush on her for much of their teens, and she'd made it gently but unmistakably clear that it had better stay that way. She seems to like them better than men as daytime company, though.

Sandra's lips turned up. "I trained you well," she said. "Waiting patiently for me to say too much, are you?"

Tiphaine chuckled, as her mind snapped automatically back to the here and now. "Actually, my liege, I was just noticing the slight differences in the way you speak to me now that I've been ennobled. It's much more subtle than the way most of the court has reacted."

"Bravo!" Sandra said, her eyes sparkling, and made as if to clap. "Although on occasion a flood of words can be a disguise as efficient as silence. In any case, take a look at these."

She used one finger to slide a folder across the table. It had the Eye stamped on the cover, and was bound with black ribbon. The blond woman opened it, and flipped rapidly through typewritten pages and hand-drawn maps. As she did, her pale brows rose further and further. When she'd finished she closed the file and spent a moment running the data through her mind, and considering implications.

"I gather that the official announcement of setbacks in the grand Crusade of Unification was a bit of an understatement," she said dryly.

Sandra snapped her fingers, and the servant-girl slid forward again, taking the file away and locking it in a cabinet disguised with a birch wainscot. She laid the key before Sandra and stepped back; the ruler picked it up and toyed with the little metal shape as she spoke, her eyes focused somewhere far away.

"This war is over," she said flatly. "Bungled into wreck. It was bad enough that those Corvallan 'volunteers' saved the Bear Lord, but losing our second Marchwarden of the South in the space of a year is embarrassing. Emiliano: what's the warrior expression? Screwed the pooch? I'm afraid 'looks good with an arrow through the head' is becoming a qualification for that job."

Tiphaine's lips compressed to hide the chuckle that almost startled out of her.

Sandra nodded and went on: "The Grand Constable managed to save most of our forces, but the net result is that we're back where we started, with no territorial gains or plunder to compensate for our losses-including, unfortunately, many knights and members of significant families. The Lord Protector is: annoyed."

"And your policy, my liege?"

"To avoid throwing good money after bad. As I said, my husband is a very capable man, and very determined; he wouldn't be where he is otherwise. Unfortunately he's also stubborn, which is the flip side. And he's extraordinarily vindictive. So am I, of course, but it's less : personal, shall we say. I make a point of not letting it interfere with serious matters."

Tiphaine nodded soberly. She'd heard nothing that she hadn't figured out for herself, parts of it long ago, but the fact that Lady Sandra was willing to tell her, and in so many words, was an important fact in itself.

"So what do you want me to do, liege-lady?" she said.

Sandra smiled wryly. "I want you to keep my options open," she said. "By taking up that little property of yours; it needs the fief-holder's foot, as the saying goes. And I'd like you to entertain some guests there. No need to have daily propinquity give dear Norman ideas. Or His Holiness."

Dun Juniper, Willamette Valley, Oregon

March 11th, 2008/Change Year 9

"O Goddess gentle and strong, protect him," Juniper said, feeling the blood drain from her face, tasting the acrid sourness of vomit at the back of her throat, smelling her own fear-sweat. "I hadn't thought Sandra hated me so much, or would be willing to torment a child."

"Wait a minute," Nigel said.

Juniper looked up. It wasn't the sympathy in his voice that made the cold nausea in her gut subside a little, but the sharp common sense.

"Would you mind reading that to us again, Lady Juniper?" he said.

This was semiformal; they were in the third-floor bedroom-loft-office of her Hall, sitting near the north-face hearth that held her personal altar as well, with a mandala and images-a tile plaque of Cernunnos playing the flute, and a blue-robed Lady of the Moon. A low blaze crackled in the small hearth and dispelled some of the damp chill of a spring night. Lanterns cast yellow-red light over bookshelves and desk, filing cabinets and ritual tools, her rolled-up futon and the big vertical loom down at the edge by the dormer windows. The loom held a blanket she was working on, in zigzag stripes of cream white, taupe, cinnamon brown and a darker brown that was almost black, the natural colors of sheep's wool. She was weaving it on two levels, so that her eight-heddle loom could produce a stretch eight feet across; it had been intended for Rudi's bed:

Sam Aylward was there, and Chuck and Judy Barstow, and Eilir and Astrid and their men.

And Nigel is mine, she thought, drawing a deep breath. Trust him. She read the report again.

"The day after her investiture and oath of fealty, Tiphaine d'Ath left Castle Todenangst for her Domain; this caused some surprise. A closed carriage accompanied them, and Rudi Mackenzie and the Princess Mathilda were not seen afterwards in the Castle."

"And the Princess Mathilda is the operative phrase here, my dear," Nigel said, a hunter's expression on his face. "She knows what close friends the children are. Surely she wouldn't risk her own relationship with her daughter so soon after getting her back. She most certainly would not send her along to a place where Rudi was to be mistreated-if she planned that, she'd separate them."

And Mom, it was Sandra who announced that Rudi should be treated like a prince, Eilir signed. All the accounts agree on that. She couldn't lose face by reversing herself in secret.

"You have a point, so," Juniper said slowly, feeling her mind begin to function again. The loss had hit her much harder here at home, where every board and window shouted memories of Rudi. "I thought: this Tiphaine is an assassin, and she hates us so bitterly:

"

"I don't know about that," Alleyne Loring said, brushing the downy yellow mustache on his upper lip with a fingertip. It was a habit he'd acquired from his father, and Juniper found it peculiarly endearing. "I had the impression that she hated Astrid, specifically, and others only in relation to her. Eilir, of course, and myself, and John. Not that she wouldn't be willing to kill anyone she was told to, but that was the personal element."

Even then, a corner of Juniper's mind noticed something; when the Lorings had arrived in Oregon a year ago, young Alleyne had usually referred to the other Englishman as "Hordle" or "sergeant," for all that they'd been companions since childhood-some peculiar English Frodo/Samwise thing, she supposed. Now it was just "John":

Our American egalitarianism at work, I suppose, she thought. Or the Clan Mackenzie's ways.

She thought for a moment, then asked: "I didn't see much of Tiphaine Rutherton-and particularly not together with Sandra Arminger-or fight her. What's your take?"

Eilir hesitated, then signed: I think it's some sort of sick guru-chela thing with those two. I got the impression she'd trained her – and Katrina Georges – jor a long time. Not their warrior training, but mental disciplines.

Astrid nodded. "She was very, very good in the warehouse. Movement as fast as anyone I've ever seen, beautifully fluid, and she was thinking every second-good improvisation and use of externals. And when we talked later, she fooled me completely."

And me, Eilir said. Sorry, anamchara, but you're not as good at reading people. Astrid nodded, unfazed; that was a truth they both acknowledged. The deaf woman went on: Doesn't the report say that the two of them were taken in by Sandra Arminger right after the Change?

Juniper nodded. "They were Girl Scouts, oddly enough: I think, given what I've learned of her over the years, that Sandra Arminger delights in her own cleverness. And what better way to mark it than fashioning: shaping: very clever people herself? So that they develop their minds and become formidable in their own right, yet she remains the center of their universe. She would not hesitate to hurt Rudi to suit her own purposes, or even simply to hurt me. But I think Nigel is right; she would not throw an advantage away to gratify cruelty, nor would she ever act on impulse."

She gave a short, bitter laugh. "And it is my best hope, that my son is in the hands of such a person."

Alleyne nodded. "What intelligence do we have on this Ath place?"

Sir Nigel coughed discreetly. "It's the land Arminger tried to buy us with, last year, Alleyne. Ath is the name of the castle he mentioned: a small one, he said, if I recall correctly."

The younger Loring's eyebrows went up. "They didn't stint young Tiphaine's plate," he observed. "That's better than four thousand acres, and those lovely vineyards, with a big tract of woodland in the Coast Range tacked on."

Sam Aylward spoke up, startling them all a little: "Roit you are. They're smart enough to reward success. What was that saying the old-time general used, sir?"

Nigel frowned in thought. Then: "Ah, yes. To command armies, it is sufficient to pay well, punish well and hang well."

Judy Barstow spoke: "We have some people in the villages near there. A small coven, though the High Priestess died last year. Perhaps we could get information from them, if any are on the castle staff. There's a traveling liaison, a peddler and his family: "

Aylward took up the thread: "And when we do, we can see about getting young Rudi back-perhaps Mathilda as well."

Juniper surprised herself by shaking her head: "Not Mathilda. We were wrong to keep her so long. Remember the Threefold Law. And we: " She swallowed and made herself go on. "We needn't be in a desperate hurry. Sandra Arminger would rather corrupt than kill, and she's very patient. She'll need to be; my Rudi isn't one to be corrupted easily!"

"Right you are, Lady," Aylward said grimly. "But we'd best remember that she isn't the only player at the board. There's her husband."

Astrid nodded. "The Dunedain Rangers will do all they can to rescue Artos: Rudi," she said.

Eilir nodded vigorously. Sam Aylward thought for a moment, then nodded himself, with a rueful sigh. "A youngster's job, right enough."

When all had left, Juniper Mackenzie extinguished the lights and knelt before the altar, hands crossed upon her breast. She took a moment to empty her mind, then opened herself to the night-to the crackle of fire and the smell of fir burning, to the wind that brought the living forests into the room, to the distant murmurs of sound that faded into the creaking, rubbing, crackling stillness of the mountain forests. When she launched her will, it was like a spear-and like the cry of every mother, to the Mother: Save my son!

Castle Ath, Tualatin Valley, Oregon

March 15th/16th, 2008/Change Year 9

"Welcome to your domain of Ath, my lady," the steward said.

He was middle-aged-in his late thirties-and looked as if he'd be more comfortable in a suit and tie than the tabard and tunic of ceremony, but post-Change clothes were the prestige dress in the Association's territories. His eyes went wide as he recognized the gold chain around her neck and across the breast of her hauberk, made up of linked sets of letters reading PPA; that could only be a gift from the Protector's own hand. Swallowing, he went on: "I am Richard Wielman, the Lord Protector's steward for this domain of Ath these last nine years, and yours as well if you wish."

"Thank you, Goodman Wielman," Tiphaine Rutherton said as she leaned a hand on her saddlebow.

A slight smile lit her face as she looked up at the gray bulk of the fortress, sharp against the bright blue sky, and took a deep breath of fresh country scents, cut grass, turned earth, fir-sap, wood smoke, and just enough of horse and manure to add a little pungency. Then she turned her attention back to Wielman; a good estate steward would make her work a lot easier, and this one had actually been a farm manager before the Change, and knew bookkeeping as well. He'd probably want to keep this job, but there were plenty of landholders who'd snap him up if he left.

"I examined the Exchequer records at Castle Todenangst, and you appear to have done a fine job. I was particularly pleased with the price you got from those Corvallis merchants for the spring wool clip. I'm sure we'll get along well," she said.

The man bowed again and babbled thanks, then pulled himself together and introduced his wife and children and the other important staff; Father Peter, the priest; the bailiffs of the three manors, the head stockman and the vintner: All of them looked nervous; the offices on the estate were in her gift now, even the clerical ones if she didn't mind a head-butting session with the local bishop, and she might not want the same men holding them.

Ath was on a hill not far south of the town of Forest Grove and a little west of old Highway 47, just where the Coast Range began rearing out of the Tualatin Valley in green forest-clad heights, walling off the Pacific. Orchards and groves of filbert and walnut had covered it before the Protector's labor gangs came, and still mantled the lower slopes. The castle itself was of a simple design the Association had put up by the dozens as the vacant lands were resettled, and then handed out to knight and baron; unlike many, it hadn't been enlarged. In the southeast corner of a walled enclosure stood a rectangular tower whose outline was about the size of an ordinary suburban house, but four stories tall; smaller round towers stood at the other three angles, one of them sporting a metal windmill whirling at its peak to keep the reservoir filled. The gate ran in beside the main keep, with portcullis and drawbridge, and a dry moat full of barbed wire and angle iron surrounded the whole; the wall itself was crenellated and half the main keep-tower's height, and it enclosed an acre and a half.

North and east and south the castle commanded a broad view of land where patches of cloud-shadow drifted over smaragdine brightness in an infinite variety of greens, dappled by occasional squares of red-brown plowed land. It was good to be back from the wild lands and the dead cities, back among the fields that fed mankind. Fingers of higher, tree-clad ridge stretched out into the rolling farmlands; those were busy now with ox-teams and people planting barley and oats and potatoes, and sugar beet for the new factory in Forest Grove.

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 pannage and forest rights and rights of venery in the mountains; fishing rights at Henry Hagg Lake; three villages and the castle settlement; two hundred thirty-two families of free tenants, bond tenants and peons, eight hundred and ten souls in all; two gristmills, a sawmill and a fulling mill, a tannery-"

"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 banner broke out at the top.

"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.

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