very northernmost baronies.
Barony Dawson, up on our border with the Dominion of Drumheller. Not to mention our border with trackless wilderness stretching to the Arctic Circle. Yes, she met Felipe while she was a lady-in-waiting at court just before the war started. Her parents were locals who’d taken over Dawson before we arrived and decided getting a title and giving Norman a smooch on the hand were a better bargain than trying to fight us. They did well in that war with the Drumhellers.
Sandra had always encouraged marriages between distant fiefs and lordly families of different backgrounds, to keep the PPA’s elite united. In fact, it was one reason why noble houses were strongly encouraged-required, practically speaking-to send some of their scions to Portland and Todenangst and the university at Forest Grove for a few years to mingle with their peers of the same ages.
The abbess spoke, unexpectedly; she’d been silent except when something relevant to her Order’s area of operation had come up, and she and her attendant had been dining sparely on the salad and the excellent local bread, drinking water rather than the equally excellent local wines.
“The Lady Countess fails to note that most of those cattle were donated to our clinics and the public soup kitchens we and the regular clergy have established for the displaced,” she said.
I don’t think that’s brown-nosing, she really likes her, Tiphaine decided. Evidently Ermentrude takes her duties seriously.
A lord’s wife was supposed to be the one who organized welfare measures in the lord’s fief; it was a real and demanding job, if done properly. Unofficially she was also supposed to be the voice whispering in his ear that tempered justice with mercy. Delia certainly worked hard at both in Ath and Forest Grove.
The plates were cleared, and then the servants set out platters of pastries and pots of monstrously expensive real coffee, moderately expensive sugar made from locally grown beets, and thick cream and decanters of brandy and discreetly retired. Tiphaine approved as she bit into an apricot tart. Far too many people assumed that servants didn’t have ears, though Sandra had never made that mistake, and had any number of them on her clandestine payroll. Everyone looked up as she rapped a knife against a wineglass.
“All right, my lords and ladies, goodmen and goodwomen.”
Public speaking had always been something that she loathed, but she was fairly good at it by now.
“I’m going to say a few words for all of you, and then I’m afraid there will be a private consultation with your lord and his barons and war-captains. I’m absolutely sure that all of you are loyal, but it’s a simple fact that the more widely information is spread the more likely it is to leak.”
She stood with her fingertips on the table and slowly looked them all in the eye. Most of their faces were neutral, politely attentive; everyone at this table was a politician, in their way.
Including me, she thought. Dammit.
“First, I bring you the greetings of our High King, Artos the First, and the High Queen Mathilda, our own Princess of House Arminger.”
There was a murmur of pleasure, mostly genuine from the expressions. The Associates were generally happy that the grandchild of the Lord Protector would end up ruling the whole shebang, albeit by marriage rather than conquest. The dynasty was popular these days, far more so than it had been in Norman’s time. For that matter, a lot of people still thought of him with gratitude. Commoners might be pleased for that reason-they were, after all, alive because of what he’d done-or because the next High King wouldn’t wholly be the scion of House Arminger. Plenty still remembered just how heavy his hand could be, too.
“Next, I have intelligence to share with you concerning the larger course of this war. As of a month ago, the armies of the Lakota nation
… now part of the High Kingdom… and our allies of the League of Des Moines and the three Dominions have crossed the borders of the territories held by the Church Universal and Triumphant. Those armies are more than ninety thousand men strong, horse, foot and artillery, and they are converging on Corwin, the Prophet’s capital in the Valley of Paradise. They’ve already won several engagements. Taken together, we-the alliance against the Prophet and Boise-now have superior numbers. That changes our long-term prospects rather substantially.”
This time the pleasure verged on delight. Tiphaine held up one long hand.
“And the CUT has withdrawn some of the troops they were massing in Boise’s territories to attack us, taken them back across the Rockies to the Bitterroot country and the High Plains while the passes are still open. We think that shifting forces around to compensate for the new eastern front is the reason we haven’t seen a full-scale attack yet this summer. However, that attack will come, and very soon. The Prophet has not taken all his men out to face the threat from the east and north, and Boise is ignoring it altogether.”
“That’s bad strategy,” one of de Aguirre’s barons said, a forty-something man with a scarred face that looked as if it had been adzed out of a stump, and very cold eyes. “Dividing their forces in the face of converging attacks? They’re risking being weak everywhere. They’d be better advised to defend against us and throw everything they have east. Or the other way ’round, of course, my lady.”
The abbess spoke again: “The CUT are diabolists. They serve the Adversary, the lord of Evil. And the ultimate definition of Evil is futility. It may appear strong for a time, but in the end it destroys itself.”
That brought a moment of uneasy silence; the archbishop looked a little annoyed that she had beaten him to the punch, but not as if he disagreed. Tiphaine was glad she had. He would have been far more long-winded and less accurate.
Someone said: “We’d be a lot better off if Castle Campscapell hadn’t fallen last year.”
Tiphaine nodded; that had been at the old town of Pomeroy, and it had plugged the area between the northern slopes of the Blue Mountains and the deep canyon of the Snake River. Men had opened the gates of Campscapell and then killed themselves rather unpleasantly, for no reason anyone had been able to find, except that a red-robed magus of the CUT had stood there laughing as they did.
“We would. That was… whatever it is that the CUT does. Or did. Note that since this spring-when Artos took the Sword of the Lady in his hand and drew it by the light of common day-nothing similar has happened. And our holy men and women have rooted out a great deal of the CUT’s evil since then.”
The archbishop nodded. He had a soft plump face-a rarity these days-but his hazel eyes were extremely shrewd.
“Our exorcists have been busy. The compulsions their devils lay on the CUT’s followers are foul, but we have detected many, and even cured some,” he said.
“As important, no more castles have fallen… mysteriously,” Tiphaine said; the thought of such things still offended her tidy soul and bleakly practical mind. “That doesn’t mean they can’t be stormed or undermined or battered down by trebuchets. The High King directs me to tell you that the defense of this city, and of the strongholds of the Eastermark more generally, are absolutely essential to his larger strategy for victory in this war. You must hold and the whole Kingdom will do its best to see that you do.”
“Artos!” someone shouted. “Artos and Montival!”
The others took it up; Tiphaine waited it out. High morale was important, and besides she agreed.
“The High King is mustering the whole strength of the Kingdom farther down the Columbia, and I’ve brought out a considerable force. I’ll consult with your good Count as to the disposition of our field army here. What I’d like to talk to you about is your role in defending your own homes.”
“We’ll fight, my lady Grand Constable,” one of the Guildmasters said in a growl. “We’re not noble Associates, but by God and the Virgin and St. Amand our patron, we’ll fight for our homes and our children and our city.”
He bowed in his seat to de Aguirre and the archbishop. “And for the good lord who leads us, as his father did before him, and for Holy Church.”
“Stoutly spoken!” she said. “I’ve brought out considerable equipment for you all, including fortress model catapults and flame-throwers stripped from the western castles, and their crews and ammunition.”
Happy surprise showed at that; she winced slightly at the struggle it had taken. One or two instances had required walking the lord of the keep through the gates with a steel point held encouragingly close to his kidneys to remind him of his obligations as a vassal.
“And we’ve unloaded four thousand extra crossbows from the Portland armories.”
That brought a puzzled silence. “My lady… that’s more than our militias can use,” one baron pointed out. “Considerably more.”
Tiphaine nodded. “My thought exactly, but the High King showed me different. Now, we all know it takes a long time to train a soldier. Years for a man-at-arms, or a horse-archer, or for that matter a Mackenzie
