S. Stirling - A Meeting At Corvallis

Tiphaine reined in and turned her white courser aside; Rudi noted how its hooves sank silently in the soft turned earth once they were off the packed dirt and gravel of the roadway, and how much deeper the destriers of the mail-clad men-at-arms did as they followed; the crossbowmen spread out behind them in a semicircle, leaving him and Mathilda and Delia to peer between. A couple of short spears and the bow allowed free-tenants-no stave longer than four feet, no pull heavier than thirty pounds-leaned against one of the carts. That and farm tools would do against coyotes, dog packs and sneak thieves; there were no bandit gangs within striking distance, and tigers would rarely attack a group of humans, though they were dangerous to lone travelers in the wild. A few bundles or backpacks lay there as well, one with the heel of a loaf sticking out of the cloth wrapping, another with a dead rabbit beside it, probably shot on the way to work in the gloaming before dawn and intended for lunch. It wouldn't go far among twenty.

"This field is demesne land," Tiphaine said, in that water-over-smooth-rocks tone. "And these are tenants doing boon-work, aren't they? And you're Keith Anton, son of the Montinore bailiff?"

He nodded and bowed profoundly, cap in hand. "Yes, my lady," he said, the same fixed smile on his face. "I'm overseeing the planting of this field for you."

"Then stop grinning and hand me up a bowl of that and a spoon," she said crisply, flicking the riding crop she held in her right hand towards the cauldron.

The young man looked surprised, but he ran to obey. "Not bad oatmeal porridge," she said, handing it back to him after a considering mouthful. "There's some milk in there."

One of the fieldworkers, an older man with a graying brown beard, spoke: "There wasn't before you got here, miss. Uh, my liege."

A man-at-arms sitting his mount behind her stirred, and lifted the butt of his eleven-foot lance from the ring riveted to his right stirrup-iron.

"Watch your manners, dog!" he barked, the voice blurred and menacing through the mail coif whose flap covered his mouth; only his eyes showed, dark and angry on either side of the helmet's nasal bar. "And keep your place!"

Tiphaine held out a hand in a soothing gesture as the farmers cringed. "Easy, Bors, easy. His village hasn't had a resident lord. They're old-fashioned. You can't expect them to know modern manners yet."

She turned her face back to the tenant-farmer, who was looking as if he wished the earth would swallow him, or as if he wished very much he'd kept his mouth shut.

"You don't say my liege: " Tiphaine paused and raised a brow.

"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 dinner at one-thirty, and a rest every couple of hours, and nobody kept past the time you can tell a white thread from a black."

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, grinning for a moment before she turned back to the front again; it made her rather stern face light up and look younger than her twenty-four years.

"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: