S. Stirling - The Given Sacrifice

The railcar swayed and clacked. It was just like a nice room on wheels, there were chairs and sofas, rugs with flowers and vines, and a table where they’d had lunch, and where she sat with picture books and coloring books and did her lessons with Dame Emelina. There were ten more cars in the train, including the one with the little beds that folded down, which she liked.

“Will Heuradys and Yolande be there when we get to Lady Tiphaine’s manor?”

“Yes, they will; and their father, and their mother.”

“Oh, good,” Órlaith said.

She could feel her father’s deep chuckle through his tunic-he was wearing shirt and jerkin and breeks and a T-tunic, the way people did up here, rather than a kilt the way he did down in the Mackenzie lands.

“Indeed, and it’s good for you to have some your own age to play with.”

“They’re nice, but they’re not my age. Well, Heuradys isn’t. She’s older.”

“Not so much.”

“Two whole years older,” she said. “And don’t say it isn’t important. It is, and Heuradys thinks so too.”

He laughed, his beard tickling her neck. “To be sure, darlin’ girl, that’s the third of a lifetime, isn’t it? I was forgetting.”

“I like their Mom, though. Tell me a story. Tell me how you snuck into Boise and opened the gate!”

“I and some others. Well, if you must, though you’ve heard it before.”

“I want to know all the stories! I need to hear it a lot so I’ll remember all the parts. You have the best stories, anyway.”

“It’s my life, darlin’ girl, but I suspect it’s your story the now.”

She wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but she settled back to hear his voice.

“There we were, sitting outside Boise, and no way of getting through the walls. Well, now, if you can’t go through, you must go around; but there’s no way around a city wall, for the wall itself goes around. And if you can’t go through, and you can’t go around, you must go over or under. Men holding a wall watch for you to try over -so, we thought, what about under? Now, Fred’s father-”

• • •

Rudi set Órlaith down and sent her to Dame Emelina as the whine of the locomotive’s gearing died, more conspicuous by its absence for a moment. Mathilda’s lady-in-waiting and tirewoman appeared as if by magic to tidy her up as the train coasted into the village of St. Athena-theoretically named for a virgin martyr who’d died in Thrace about seventeen hundred years ago, though Rudi had his doubts; the other train of the Royal party was already there, having put on a sprint, and the two-score of the High King’s Archers were already double-timing over to line up before he got down and stand in ranks with their longbows in their arms. Through the window he heard Edain say:

“Now, let’s show these haughty northern lords that we know how to. . Talyn, for Lugh of the Long Hand’s own sake, try to look like you didn’t spend the afternoon muckin’ out a byre, man!”

Mathilda yawned a little as she checked that her habit was tidy and let the tirewoman redo her braids and put them up under the broad-brimmed hat and scarf.

“How are you feeling, my love?” he said.

“Worn out, but no worse.” She crossed herself and made a gesture of steepling her hands. “But thanking God and the Virgin that the morning sickness is over,” she said; she was pious, but not sanctimonious. “Though why they call it morning sickness. .”

“A wishful hope, perhaps,” he said, making the sign of the Horns.

He was thankful to the Mother as Brigid, she Who watched over childbirth, and as Matti’s blue-mantled patron too that her births had all been-relatively-easy, with no complications. Hopefully this one would be too, and he had reason to so hope. . but no certainty.

Dame Emelina had the children in hand; literally, with a hand to each. He gave her a friendly nod. She had dark freckles across skin a few shades lighter, handsome full features and keen black eyes; she’d been Órlaith’s wet-nurse, having lost her own babe about the time Mathilda was brought to bed, but she’d also been a scholar of sorts before her husband-a belted knight and an Associate, but the third-son-of-a-second-son variety-was killed at the Horse Heaven Hills.

Between her own good birth and years of being Órlaith’s wet-nurse it had been possible to appoint her to the governess position without offending any of the great houses in the old Protectorate who’d have schemed to get the job for protégés or daughters unlikely to do it with half her skill or devotion. They’d put out that Matti was deeply attached to her, which was simply true. Sandra had arranged the whole thing to start with, and that triple-play was like her.

“There will probably be a chorus of children and a bouquet,” he said.

“I’ll bear up,” Mathilda said as she took his arm. “Let’s not disappoint the audience.”

“And my mother says a travelling bard’s job was hard back before the Change,” he said. “Always putting on a show. At least nobody gave her a second glance when she was driving her wagon around the Willamette between performances!”

He’d sent instructions for minimal ceremony, and he knew the Grand Constable shared his sentiments on that sort of thing most exactly. Her Châtelaine. . not necessarily so much, but she would do her best.

A cheer went up as they descended from the train; varlets were bustling about, unloading gear down to Órlaith’s pony, and Maccon in a basket-quite a substantial one, for the young beast had huge ears and paws already. A bright eye and pulsing black nose were visible through the wicker, wiggling with the desire to get out and smell and taste and acquire new admirers. This was an informal visit-up here in the Protectorate he generally used the full fig of a Crown visitation only on nobles he didn’t trust, that being a polite way to use up resources they might otherwise put to mischief. They couldn’t even complain, since it was an honor.

D’Ath was there, leaning on a stick, and Lady Delia with a lacy parasol protecting her creamy skin. Rigobert de Stafford was too, his bowl-cut blond hair and short dense beard showing a little more nearly invisible gray as he doffed his chaperon hat. So was his current partner, Sir Julio Alvarez de Soto, a slim handsome swarthy man in his thirties, quiet and dangerous-looking in dark country-gentry clothes that contrasted with Rigobert’s peacock fashionability of blue velvet, black satin and crimson linings on the sleeves of his houppelande. He still had the lean erect broad-shouldered build to carry it off, though, and Rudi hadn’t the slightest doubt that when he didn’t he’d switch to something more appropriate.

That’s six years they’ve been together, since the tag end of the war, so perhaps Rigobert is settling down in middle-age.

He hoped so; he liked the Baron of Forest Grove, both as a man and a valuable servant of the Crown, and had sensed a loneliness under his good humor and active social life.

Lord Maugis de Grimmond, Baron of Tucannon, was there too, and his wife Lady Helissent, and their son Aleaume, now a likely-looking lad of twelve just home for a holiday from page service in Walla Walla to Lord Maugis’ overlord Count Felipe.

And taking after his mother, save for that rusty-nail hair-which is to the good because Maugis is, frankly, a homely man. It’s also a very good thing they haven’t far to come from Grimmond-on-the-Wold, which keeps this all looking completely casual and social, which it is, only not totally.

Mathilda made a gesture-hand palm-down and then turned up, which was Associate court etiquette for don’t kneel . The noblemen and women responded with deep sweeping bows and curtsies respectively, except for the Grand Constable who bowed as well. The assembled commons behind the gentlefolk knelt anyway, several hundred of them in their best Sunday-go-to-Church outfits, splashes of embroidery on hems and necks, bright printed wimples for the women. The village priest signed the air.