God, did I go to bed without even washing? Yes, apparently I did, that’s dried blood under my nails. Delia is a saint. At least this nightshirt is clean, or was before someone put it on me.
“I’m awake, brat, you can put the bell away. Are your mother and father here? What time is it?”
“Yes, my lady. No, my lady. Six fifteen in the morning, my lady. A train arrived with a number of badly wounded men from Hermiston at four a.m. Dowager Molalla and the train master sent for help.”
Tiphaine frowned. Shit, what went wrong now? Did they take a slap at Hermiston? The way I had it set up we should have fed them their livers if they did and the Viscount knows his business.
She tossed the covers back. I usually wake up when Delia gets out of bed; I must have been really wiped this time, as well as getting older.
This was Delia’s room, and she could have told that at a glance even if she hadn’t woken up here often enough before; pale pastel colors, controlled and elegant froufrou around the canopy of the four-poster, a spectacular tapestry on one wall showing a mountain scene that looked as if it were taken from a Maxfield Parrish poster and probably had been. Some books, a dressing table that looked as if you needed a seven-year apprenticeship and an examination before a panel of guildmasters to handle all the stuff, an embroidery frame, a fretwork door leading to a clothes closet nearly as large as the bedroom.
There was a gentle scent of sachets and bouquets of roses and rhododendrons, and-
“Oh, God, coffee,” she said.
About one ship a year came in from the Big Island of Hawaii to Astoria or Newport, with coffee as part of its cargo. There were definite perks to being a baron and Grand Constable.
Lioncel brought it from a wheeled tray; it already had the cream and two spoons of sugar she liked. She drank, yawned, swallowed the paper of bitter powdered willow bark extract he handed her, drank more of the coffee and thought as her brain lurched back into motion. Barony d’Ath’s town house was smaller and several blocks away.
Right, memory working now. I got in well after dark last night and there was still blood drying in places all over my armor. I was punch-drunk, thirty hours in the saddle and skirmishes and no sleep.
Lord Rigobert de Stafford, Baron Forest Grove and Marchwarden of the South, had been waiting at Union station. He’d slapped her on the back, told her that everything was in hand and bundled her exhausted form into his pedicab and sent her to his town house and his wife: her lover, Delia. Who had poured several glasses of something sweet down her throat and gotten her into this room, nightshirt and bed, and then darkness had walked up and clubbed her unconscious when she was halfway to the pillow.
Yes, the bathroom was the door to the left. She glanced back at the bed, shaking her head minutely in surprise. Getting the seven-month pregnant Delia out of bed usually involved her bouncing and squirming around. They had made a game of it for all of her pregnancies. Today Delia had managed to get herself up and out of the room without waking her.
If I was that dead asleep, I really did need Rigobert to take over last night, she thought as she ran the water into the basin, washing her hands. Well, that is one of the things a second-in-command is for.
Bits of brown flake circled around the marble of the sink as she scrubbed at her hands; her shield-hand knuckles were badly skinned, which meant she’d lost the shield and hit someone or something very hard with her gauntleted fist. Someone; a glimpse returned to her, near-darkness, a bearded snarling face and the crumble of bone under the steel and leather as she struck again and again. Hand-to-hand combat usually ended up as a plain old-fashioned beat-down at some point, and plate armor was surprisingly useful for that, too.
She called through the slightly ajar door: “Lioncel, have any messages come for me?”
“Yes, my lady. Five or six dispatch wallets. But my Lord my father said that he was taking them back to Customs House for your staff and Dame Lilianth to sort and you could deal with them later when, ah, when you were firing on all cylinders again, whatever that means. No more have come since.”
“ Officious. Your father is officious, Lioncel. Where’s Diomede?”
“Yes, my lady. Sleeping, my lady. He’ll be up soon. We switch off at noon, today. And you really should take a shower.”
“You’re officious, too, Lioncel.”
Tiphaine suppressed a small smile. Lioncel had been well trained by her previous pages when they were promoted to squire. But he was still her son in all ways that mattered; it occasionally showed up in little details and matters of attitude and tricks of speech. And she did need the shower which the gravity-fed water system allowed here. She was becoming aware of how badly she needed it; whatever washing she’d done last night had been fairly sketchy.
“What will my lady wear, today?” asked Lioncel beyond the door.
“Working clothes, Lioncel; trews and T-tunic. Court garb is suspended until further notice.”
The bathroom was large too; in some ways Delia enjoyed being a noble more than she did. Tiphaine did an abbreviated stretching routine, then ducked into the etched-glass enclosure, turned on the hot water to just short of scalding and stretched some more, grabbing the flower-scented soap. Delia no longer made the stuff with her own hands as she’d done when it was an experiment; the little factory she had established in Forest Grove four years ago was in full production, along with the lavender plantings and rose-plantation. Both baronies made a fair sum off selling it; everyone grew wheat and a lot of manors had a winery, but really first-class soap was getting harder to find. Demand for this had been brisk once the pre-Change stockpiles ran out and it became obvious how much better it was than the sandpaper most amateur soap-boilers were turning out. Managing things like that came under a Chatelaine’s duties, which was one reason why it was a demanding job.
Stiff muscles relaxed and some of the soreness washed out with the massage of the pounding hot water, and the sting as scabs came loose reminded her of where to dab iodine when she got out. Her scalp especially felt much better with accumulated battle filth scrubbed out and the last of the nagging headache gave up the ghost as the neck-muscles unclenched.
She toweled off and pulled on the modern underbriefs and linen.. . bra. As usual, she grimaced at that. The death of the last elastic sports bra had been an occasion for genuine mourning. No matter how brief or what fancy name they were given, or whether they laced up the front like these or not, it was still stays, basically. You did not want things to bounce and swing when you were fighting.
Lioncel had her clothes laid out. Black trews in a soft linen twill, plain white shirt with a keyhole neck; black chamois jerkin with an inconspicuous mesh-mail lining; a T-tunic in a dark charcoal with silver and black embroidery at the collar and hem, and her arms quartered with the Lidless Eye on the chest. The thin kidskin gloves stung as she eased them on, since the insides had been dusted with disinfectant powder. Plain black suede halfboots with the symbolic golden prick-spurs and a black leather belt, and then a chaperon hat completed the outfit.
“And the number two sword, my lady?” Lioncel asked.
“Yes, number two,” she said.
She had six nearly identical ones, beside the Grand Constable’s sword of state for formal occasions-which had an equally functional blade, despite the jeweled pommel and ivory-and-silver-wire hilt. The one she’d come in with last night would be off to the armorer for repairs and sharpening and disassembly to make sure none of the blood was still under the cross-hilt guard or down the tang starting rust. She touched the double-lobed hilt and the dimpled bone and bindings were smoothly firm; when she half drew it the edge was just right, knife-sharp but not honed so razor-thin it would turn easily the first time it hit bone or armor. The metal was layer-forged alloy steel, the wavy patterns of its surface gleaming under a very light coating of neatsfoot oil, and it slid back into the sheath with precisely the right very slight resistance. She would have been shocked if it hadn’t been perfect, but you always checked your own weapons.
“What’s the motto, Lioncel?”
“Take care of your gear, and your gear will take care of you, my lady. The one time you’re careless is the time it will kill you.”
She tossed the sword on the bed and sat, and Lioncel finished drying her hair with warm fluffy towels and then carefully brushed it out. Tiphaine would have rather gone down with wet hair, or done it herself. It was the job of her page. That Lioncel took pride in it argued well for his character.
When he approved, they went down to the breakfast nook where Rigobert’s staff had laid out bread, butter, cheese, jam, platters of sausages and bacon and scrambled eggs and more coffee, plus a large bowl of oatmeal cooked with apples for Lioncel to start with. Tiphaine let Lioncel pour her coffee; an Associate learned to command by learning to serve.
