S. Stirling - The Given Sacrifice

Another pause, and Lioncel nodded soberly. He’d had glimpses of the High King fighting with his own hands during the tag end of the great battle, the savage scrimmage around Martin Thurston’s banner, and it had been. .

Frightening , he decided. Even on that field of wholesale butchery, even if you’d been raised among swordmasters. Like some pagan God of war come to life.

“Most men remember grudges; Rudi never forgets anyone who does him a good turn,” Tiphaine went on. “And he always returns loyalty. That was obvious even when I first met him, when he was younger than Diomede is now.”

Her eyes met his. “You’ll start out with his favor, for my sake and your parents’, but to keep it, you’ll have to earn it. Never forget that.”

“I won’t, my lady,” Lioncel said seriously.

“Good. Because when he has to be, the High King is. . well, you’ve heard the saying: Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent? He won’t spare himself in the kingdom’s service, and he won’t spare you , either. Which brings us back to the grant. What’s the realpolitik reason? Remember that that usually coincides with good lordship, if you’re thinking long-term. The higher your rank, the more careful you have to be about decisions, because the easier it is to break things.”

He resisted an impulse to adjust the collar of his jerkin, suddenly grown a little tight.

“Ah. . well, that grant, it’s just idle land right now, not settled manors. No annual revenues, no knights or sergeants owing service. The Crown will get the Royal mesne tithes without having to pay anything upfront if we develop and settle it, full tithes since we’re tenants-in-chief. And we’ll have to see to the roads and rails and patrols at our own expense, too, which means more trade and the dues on that. What did they say in the old days. . all gain, no pain?”

Tiphaine almost smiled, which startled him a little. She went on:

“Good points, but those are basically reasons to grant the land to someone , eventually, not necessarily to me and Rigobert right now. Speaking of whom, my lord your father is getting an identical tract next to this”-she flicked a finger at the parchment-“which means we’ll be neighbors out there, too. On the same terms, just the names and map changed. So?”

“And because it’s important to be seen to reward good service? That’s a big part of a lord’s repute and good name, and that’s part of what makes people eager to take service with you and do their best, and ready to stick with you if things go badly.”

“Another point. I actually am grateful, too. . not least because this means I can reward some of my landless followers.”

She visibly took pity on him.

“Lady Sandra used to grill me like this, and she did it to Matti, too. The less obvious part is about your generation of House Ath and House Stafford.”

Lioncel blinked a little, startled. Then he nodded slowly. It made sense that the Crown would start thinking about him. . though it was a bit. .

Nerve-wracking. Exciting, though, too. Someday not too long from now I’ll be someone who does important things.

Tiphaine spoke, echoing his thoughts closely enough to startle:

“Rigobert and I will be out of the picture in a few decades, but you’ll be in your prime when Crown Princess Órlaith is as old as you are now, and Diomede not long after. This means the Crown thinks you and your brother will likely be assets for her . Plus. . take a look at the tenures those manors are held under.”

He reread the document, frowning in concentration; this did involve questions of feudal law.

“Ummm. Parts of it. . three manors out of twenty. . are held in free and common socage, not just by knight-service and tallages like the rest.”

That was unusual and meant they could be alienated, unlike ordinary land held in fief by a tenant-in-chief, which descended undivided by primogeniture whether held in demesne or subinfeudated. It didn’t escheat to the Crown in default of natural heirs, either.

A light dawned. “Those parts in socage are an inheritance for Heuradys and Yolande!” he said delightedly.

His young sisters were a bit more than two and less than a year old respectively. When he had thought of it at all he’d expected that they’d be dowered by charges on the revenues of the baronies of Forest Grove and Ath, sunk in government bonds or town properties or the like.

Actual manors in their own names would improve their prospects considerably, whether they wanted to marry, go into the Church, or make some other choice. Right now the “manors” were each just big chunks of rolling bunchgrass, but his sisters were very young.

Wait a minute, if my lord my father got a grant like this, a hell of a lot goes to me , too, he thought for the first time.

Which meant raising him as well as Diomede into the top rank of tenant-in-chief barons; there were Counts with less, though not many. That was a distant enough prospect to seem pretty theoretical, but it was agreeable enough too.

“Right,” Tiphaine said. “And-”

She stopped, cocking her head as if to listen. “That’s odd. . did you hear that owl? Sounded like a big Harfang.”

Lioncel looked at her blankly; he knew all the birds of prey well, from hawking and hunting.

“Owl, my lady? It’s the middle of the afternoon!”

It was, and a bright one in early summer; the sunlight was a thick glowing bar across the table, patterned where the Gothic stone tracery of the window cut it, and even the corners of the room showed a bit of glitter on the metallic threads of the tapestries.

“That does make an owl unlikely, eh?” Tiphaine said. “And you’ve got youngster’s ears.”

He’d rarely seen her indecisive. For a moment her face went utterly still, and she touched her right hand to the base of her throat; she wore an owl pendant there lately, he remembered.

Then her eyes opened and she looked upward, crossing her arms and tapping her fingers thoughtfully.

“So, logically. .” she murmured. Then, oddly: “Thanks!”

The next floor was the Lady Regent’s. . no, now the Queen Mother’s. . chambers; some sort of do was on for this afternoon, ostensibly a tea party, with the High Queen and his own mother and a clutch of countesses settling privately what would be supposedly debated publicly later. Tiphaine didn’t raise her voice-she rarely did-but there was a crispness to it when she spoke.

“Tell Sir Armand and Sir Rodard to turn out the menie , everyone on hand right now. Then arm me, half armor, no more.”

Putting on a suit of plate complete took about fifteen minutes with expert help, and couldn’t be done alone at all.

“ Move , boy!”

He did. Nobody stopped him to ask for explanations, just started doing what was needed. And by the time he dashed back with the flexible plate cuirass of lames in his arms and the other equipment slung around him Tiphaine had already tossed her houppelande aside and hung her sword belt over the back of the chair. The steel would be a little loose without the padded arming doublet beneath, but he latched it quickly and stood by to hand her the articulated steel gauntlets, sallet helm and the four-foot knight’s shield shaped like an elongated teardrop with its arms of sable, a Delta Or upon a V Argent.

“What are we going to do, my lady?” he asked, proud that his voice was steady.

“Head straight in, yelling alarm and murder,” she said absently.

“That will. . look strange, my lady.”

She shrugged to settle the harness, and put both hands up on the sallet’s low dome to press the broad-tailed flared helmet with her palms so that its circuit of internal pads were snug in exactly the right place before she buckled the chin-cup. The visor was down. Without a bevoir attached to the breastplate her mouth and chin showed beneath, and the long narrow blankness of the vision slit in the smooth curve gave a look of merciless detachment and power to her glance.