S. Stirling - The Given Sacrifice

She gave a thin small smile. “True. You’re learning, boy.”

And high politics is a lot less boring than classes in feudal law, he thought.

Then she handed him the vellum folio that the Lord Chancellor had given her.

“Your lady mother will be handling most of this, but give me your take.”

He picked it up and read. The snowy material of split lambskin smoothed with pumice and lime was reserved for the most important documents, ones that went into the permanent record for reference and had lots of brightly illuminated capitals. The text was bilingual in English and Law French, which he could follow after a fashion, even done in the distinctive littera parisiensis Fraktur typeface of the Chancellery of the Association. It included a map and references to the cadastral land survey.

The familiar forms leapt out at him; every nobleman took a keen interest in land grants. There was going to be a new entry in the next edition of Fiefs of the Portland Protective Association: Tenants in Chief, Vassals, Vavasours and Fiefs-minor in Sergeantry.

His eyebrows went up and he stopped himself from whistling softly with a conscious effort at the acreage listed.

The signatures were Conradius Odeliae Comes, Dominus Cancellarius Consociationis Defensivae Portlandensis and Mathilda, Dei Gratia Princeps Regina Montivalae et Domina Defensor Consociationis Defensivae Portlandensis , complete with all three privy seals in red wax over ribbons.

That translated as Conrad, Count of Odell, Lord Chancellor of the Portland Protective Association and Mathilda, by the Grace of God-

And marriage to Rudi Mackenzie, Artos the First, of course.

— High Queen of Montival and Lady Protector-

That in her own hereditary right.

— of the PPA.

“That’s. . that’s a very generous fief you’ve been granted, my lady. Much bigger than the Barony of Ath! Congratulations!”

His warm glow of delight was entirely unselfish; Lioncel was heir only to Barony Forest Grove. As adopted son of the Grand Constable his younger brother Diomede would inherit the title and lands of Barony Ath, the original fief in the Tualatin Valley west of Portland and the new grant too. His sister Heuradys was an adopted daughter of d’Ath, too, for similar reasons; it left House Stafford and House d’Ath each with one son to inherit and one daughter to dower, a perfect set for succession purposes.

Tiphaine nodded, her long regular face tilting a little to watch his, her ice-colored eyes considering as they met his bright blue. They looked enough alike in face and feature and build as well as coloring to be close blood kin, though they weren’t.

“Not quite as generous as it looks at first glance, boy,” she said. “It’s in the Palouse out east, not the Willamette.”

Lioncel frowned. He’d been too young then to really follow things, but. .

“Didn’t we-the Association-split the Palouse with old President-General Lawrence Thurston of Boise just before the war, my lady?”

“Right, and a couple of armies have passed that way since, so the only other living claimants are pronghorns and prairie dogs. Good wheat and sheep land, though; it’s near a rail line when we get that fixed, and there’s water enough given work and money. By the time Diomede’s my age, it’ll be valuable.”

“Their Majesties are generous,” Lioncel said, thinking hard. “But you certainly deserve it, my lady. You’ve been a, ah, a pillar of the dynasty”-that had started with her working as an assassin for Lady Sandra, early on. Right after the Change, during the Foundation Wars, when she was only a little older than he was now-“since the beginning!” he concluded, tactfully.

She’d also been a duelist in the Crown’s interest, and still had a chest full of expired lettres de cachet signed “Sandra Arminger” and inscribed with the dreaded phrase: the bearer has done what has been done by my authority, and for the good of the State.

“And you commanded the rearguard on the retreat from Walla Walla last year, and led the charge at the Horse Heaven Hills. A good lord rewards his most faithful vassals with land. It’s the only wealth that’s really real.”

My lady wants me to pick something out here. What is it? What am I missing?

“OK, Lioncel, look at it as if you were on the throne. What’s the reason not to spill land grants wholesale like candied nuts out of a piñata?”

“Ummm. . well, God isn’t making any more land, my lady. Fiefs are hereditary so it’s a lot easier to give it out than to get it back into the Crown demesne.”

“Right. Now, specifics: Sandra Arminger already sponsored me into the Association in the first place, knighted me with her own hands, and gave me everything I have. She was your mother’s sponsor too. And I was one of Mathilda’s tutors for a long time. I. . and your parents. . owe everything to her family.”

“Well, yes, my lady. Put that way, House Arminger have been extremely generous already.”

“So even if you didn’t know me personally, can you imagine me not being loyal to the Crown?”

“Ah. . put that way, no, my lady. It’s sort of proverbial, in fact.”

They call you the Lady Regent’s Stiletto, actually. Or just Lady Death. Which is a pun on d’Ath, but they mean it.

“And apart from the fact that I want to be loyal, there’s the additional fact that I’m disliked by the Church, and hated by a lot of lay nobles whose relatives I’ve killed. I’ve been generously rewarded with land and office, and I. . and your parents. . need the Crown’s ongoing protection. Why give me more?”

“Well. . it’s good lordship to reward service with an open hand,” Lioncel said, beginning to sweat slightly. “It’s not supposed to be a bribe , after all. It’s recognition , it bestows honor, not just revenues.”

“True, and with Matilda. . and Rudi. . good lordship means a lot. They like me personally too, oddly enough, and more understandably they like Delia. . your lady mother.”

“Ah. .” Greatly daring, Lioncel cleared his throat. “My lady? Do you like the High King?”

He’d seen them working together, but his liege wasn’t a demonstrative person. He was fairly sure that she regarded the High Queen as something like a younger sister, but he couldn’t tell with Rudi Mackenzie. The ice-gray eyes considered him, and there was a very slight nod of approval.

“Yes, I do,” she said. “And as you may have learned by now, I’m not given to easy likings.”

He nodded. A couple of hours would be enough to learn that , much less a lifetime. It took him an instant more to realize that Tiphaine was making a dry joke.

As if I were a grown man, he thought with a mixture of pride and, oddly, a faint sadness.

“More importantly, we. . respect each other. While he was living up here part-time-”

That had been part of the peace settlement after the Protector’s War; the Mackenzie heir had come north, and Mathilda Arminger had spent time every year in Dun Juniper.

“-I helped teach him the sword, among other things. You’d be too young to recall most of that, and mainly it was at court, not Ath.”

Lioncel nodded; he had vague memories of visits, no more. Tiphaine’s face went a little distant, as if looking into time.

“He’s really extremely good. Mathilda always tried her hardest and she’s better than average. But Rudi. . he’s a natural, and he soaked up technique like a dry sponge does water. The only man I ever sparred with as fast as I was. A bit faster, now; he’s at his peak and I’m a little past mine. And even experts usually can’t strike full force without losing either speed or precision. I can, but so can Rudi. . and he’s extremely strong.”