How solemn the younger generation are about it all! They live it. Tiph and I have known these children since they were crawling and dribbling, but the ritual is part of being grown-up to them.
“Is your father still determined to take the field himself?” Sandra asked.
“Of course, my lady Regent,” Erard said, looking slightly astonished. “Where else would the Count of Odell be at this hour of peril, unless it was sword in hand at the head of his men, foremost in your host?”
“He has always been House Arminger’s greatest support, my strong right arm,” Sandra said with a sigh. “Where else indeed?”
Because at seventh and last, he’s a male idiot, after all, she thought, as the whole family fairly beamed with pride. They never really grow up, even the smartest ones. Even poor Norman could be led around by his pride. Led to his death, at the last.
The young viscount hesitated, then asked, presuming a little on long friendship: “Your Grace, is it true that the High King and the Princess Mathilda have returned and are wed, with a great army at their back?”
The Prophet and President-General Thurston undoubtedly know the strength of the League of Des Moines to the last man and pike, she thought. There’s no harm in encouraging people here by telling them the same things. Don’t make things secret just for secrecy’s sake, Sandra! That way lies madness.
She paused for a second, then decided and spoke: “It’s true that the High King is in Montival once more; and the former Princess Mathilda is now Her Highness, Mathilda, High Queen of Montival. Though of course we haven’t had the coronation yet, that will have to wait a little.”
That brought exclamations of delight, and she went on: “They’re hurrying south with a substantial force of troops, from our allies to the east and from the Okanogan baronies. And their diplomacy has secured a very much larger army to attack the enemy on their eastern border; over eighty thousand men are marching on Corwin, according to our latest news.”
We can fight wars across continents again instead of merely with our immediate neighbors, Sandra thought. Oh, hurrah for the light of returning civilization!
“And the Sword?” Deonisia asked breathlessly. “My lady?”
And there’s no point in pretending that the Sword isn’t what it undoubtedly is.
“The Sword of the Lady is…”
Terrifying, she thought. Like a myth, something out of the Chansons de Geste or Wagner, but actually there to be seen and touched. Putting me at serious risk of terminal worldview collapse.
Aloud she completed the sentence: “… all that rumor spoke of, and more. Forged in Heaven for the hand of our High King Artos, like Durendal and Curtana and Joyeuse.”
The siblings all smiled and glanced at each other. “That’s very good hearing, Your Grace,” Erard said. “God be praised, and Holy Mary who watches over the Association… I mean, Montival… and the Princess… High Queen… Mathilda!”
“God be praised indeed. And His mother and all the bright company of the saints,” she said, and joined in crossing herself.
With perhaps a sliver less sheer pleasure at her own hypocrisy than the gesture usually gave her, since it turned out from all the evidence that there really was something to it. It was hard, to be stripped of the cold comforts of her simple atheistic faith in middle-age. The more so as the evidence seemed to lead to the conclusion that all the religions were true, including the ones that flatly contradicted each other.
My head hurts when I try to reconcile that with… with anything! It’s one thing to be an atheist, and another to be a flat earth atheist. But whatever else is true, it’s also true that human beings can no more live without politics than they can without air. Politics I can handle.
“Now if you’ll excuse me…”
She walked through the vestibule; there were no ushers or ladies-in-waiting or other such vermin around at present. This would be a family matter; she and Tiphaine counted more-or-less in that category. As she paused under the open pointed-arch doorway of the solar’s light-filled outer room she heard two voices singing; Conrad’s growling bass, and Valentinne’s light wavering soprano under the tinkling of a lute. Sandra recognized the music and words instantly: it was an old minstrel’s tune from the Society days before the Change, but seldom sung as wholeheartedly back then as she heard it now.
It’s The Old Duke, she thought. Well, I knew this was a forlorn hope.
She paused for an instant, looking through and seeing Conrad’s shaven dome beside Valentinne’s silver- streaked light brown: “I laugh at those who call me old
Who think my age their best defense;
For often fall the young and bold
Who fail to laud experience.
My sword and I are much the same:
Our actions swift and sure…
Each scar I wear, each graying hair
The life I gave to her.”
Sandra felt a slight pang at the sight. There had been no one for her, not since Norman died… the politics were impossible… and they’d never had quite that sort of relationship anyway. The pair went on: “Throughout my life I’ve led my men
Where Crown and Prince command
And always does my Lady tend
To children, hearth and land.
My wife and I are much the same:
Our actions swift and sure…
A husband fair, a home to share
The life I gave to her.”
They started a little as she came into the room. She inclined her head, then gestured Valentinne to continue playing. She did, and Sandra sang the next verse by herself, with a few modifications: she was a contralto, and her voice was larger than you’d expect from someone several inches below average height: “To those who thought our lack of sons
Would end my Norman’s line
I laugh and toast my daughter
Who upon her throne shall shine.
My child and I are much the same:
Our actions swift and sure…
A privilege rare, a crown to bear
The life I gave to her.”
Conrad grinned at her, the hideous old white scars knotting on his face, and all three finished together: “So every passing year preserves
Familiar rhythms and the new
And through it all I lead and serve
With joy-as I was born to do.
My land and I are much the same:
Our spirits swift and sure…
Each oath I swear, each shouldered care
The life I give to her.”
“It’s good to see you again, old friend,” she said to Conrad, taking both his hands for an instant.
“And you too, Tina,” she went on, exchanging a kiss on both cheeks.
Valentinne was in her early forties, twelve years younger than Conrad. The Countess of Odell was of average height, with the beginnings of a double chin and warm green-flecked brown eyes that were usually happy and a little distracted; there were faint paint-stains on her fingers, from the art whose results hung on walls and stood on the big easel beneath the eastern window of the solar: it was a redoing of her classic Raoul of Ger and the Easterlings.
“You haven’t been able to talk him out of this folly, and convince him he’d be more useful here?” Sandra said. “He’s my Chancellor, after all!”
