Hao looked, intent. “Your route?”
He traced it. “Dunedain explorers have covered most of this area south of Ashland, from a bit west of here to the ocean and down into California, and this should be the least troublesome-the distance is about three hundred miles as the crow flies. About seventy to a hundred more as we’ll be traveling, mostly along the old Route 140, but in summer and with plenty of horses, I wouldn’t say it’s too hard. A bit strenuous, perhaps. Seventy to a hundred miles a day.”
Ian unconsciously rubbed at his buttocks. Ritva nodded, but then she looked at the face of the Lord of the Folk of the West. Something like this was just what he needed right now.
CHARTERED CITY OF GOLDENDALE COUNTY OF AUREA PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION (FORMERLY CENTRAL WASHINGTON) HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL (FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA) AUGUST 25, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
“Oh, by Saint Bernadette, that’s awful!” Yseult Liu said, at the end of the story of the escape from Boise.
The Thurston girls looked at her solemnly, as they rolled the bandages and she contemplated their story of treachery and exile. They had a table to themselves in the city guildhall; apart from that, they were all doing pretty much the same work, making neat bundles of the clean linen. Nearly all the workers were women, but there was everything from gentlewomen to laborers’ daughters here, supervised by the experts from the Sisters of Compassion. It was hot and stuffy despite the size of the room and the high ceiling and the tall open windows, and her hands felt a little sore from the frequent dips into disinfectant.
The bandages went onto wheeled trays that others pushed around, taken off to the ones who’d sterilize them in autoclaves, seal and label them and then pack them for shipment to the warehouses where they awaited the need.
Soon, Yseult thought with a slight shiver. The Grand Constable is already fighting in the east. It’s getting closer. Huon will be there soon.
“Uh… yeah,” Shawonda said. “The Cutters are awful. They… they sort of warp things around them. Like contagious miserable badness. It’s scary!”
Yseult nodded vigorously, though she didn’t add the thoughts about demonic influences that naturally occurred to her. She wasn’t under any illusions about why it had been suggested that she take the Thurston daughters under her wing. It was a first installment on her future status as lady-in-waiting to the High Queen, even if she still wore her oblate’s robe and worked at a medical task.
Mathilda’s feeling out what I can do and how well I can do it. Which is exactly what she’s supposed to do. And maybe Shawonda and Janie will be ladies-in-waiting with me… which would be fun, I think.
A whistle sounded. “Shift change!” the guildmistress of the weavers who was overseeing the whole affair called.
Everyone rose and filed out; Shawonda blew out her cheeks in relief as they went into the courtyard. The walls on either side gave shade, along with tall cottonwoods, and there was a garden-at least, a fountain in the center and several banks of flowers in raised beds between gravel walkway. The building was new since the Change; there hadn’t been anything in the little town suitable for meetings of craft and merchant guilds and the Lord Mayor and Council of Aldermen and the Confraternities.
The Crown had subsidized it, as part of the Regent’s Compassionate Feudalization program. She’d heard the High Queen sigh over that term; then she’d acknowledged that it was perfectly sensible to give people positive incentives to act the way you wanted them to. Hence the three stories of stuccoed ferroconcrete gothic tracery around them, with the arched gateway that gave out onto the main square. They all drank from the cool water that sprang down in streams from the central spindle of the fountain and shook out their hands, laughing.
Yseult exchanged curtsies with others of those streaming out of the workroom; going first and sinking deeper to ladies of higher rank, returning those of her inferiors, and nodding and smiling instead when it was a non- Associate woman. The Thurstons looked on, a little puzzled at the ritual of precedence; she thought that Shawonda at least sensed that she was seeing the steps of a dance she didn’t know.
Janie spoke as they walked back towards the castle; that took them along the town square, which was nearly packed, slowing their walk as they dodged around clumps of soldiers and clerks and clerics, craftsmen and peasants and laborers.
“You look a little like your brother,” the younger Thurston girl said. “I liked him a lot. He made me laugh and he was so… so elegant.”
The children’s trousers attracted some eyes, but there were enough folk from outside the Association present that it would pass even in this little backland quasi-city-she could see three Mackenzie kilts and a couple of Bearkiller outfits at a glance, plus someone who was probably from Corvallis. There were political reasons for them not to wholly adopt Association ways.
Her oblate’s robe was plain, but it got more deference and effort to let them through than an escort of crossbowmen might have, though she still had to navigate carefully around porters and the preoccupied. It took her a moment before she realized that Janie meant Odard, not Huon; time dulled grief, and it had been months now since she learned of his death.
“And he was so handsome,” Shawonda nodded, her eyes looking a little dreamy for a moment. “Not as handsome as Rudi… I mean the High King… but really cool. He had such beautiful manners, he made you feel special. ”
The elder Thurston girl had a round face; she wasn’t overweight, a little gaunt if anything, but that seemed to be the way her bones went. Her sister was much prettier and she thought always would be, though still a child rather than a maiden.
And they’re the sisters of a ruler, of course, so it won’t matter that much for them, Yseult thought. They’re both clever, which is more important.
“Thank you,” Yseult said. “He was a gallant knight and a good man and a wonderful brother… except when he was being a jerk; you know how brothers are sometimes.”
They both nodded, and she went on: “He saved our family after.. . well, after what my mother did.”
“Like our brother Martin,” Shawonda said bitterly.
Janie took her hand consolingly. “It’s good to see Fred again, though, isn’t it?”
“Yes!”
They passed a knot of men-at-arms drinking outside a tavern that had spilled out to encroach on the way with trestle tables; they ignored the girls, sitting with their arming doublets half unlaced and intent on the tail end of a song: “Now gracious God may save our King,
His people all well-willing,
Give his arms success at ending,
That we with mirth may safely sing”
And then the tune turned to a shout as fists pounded hard enough to make the tankards and baskets of bread jump: “Deo gratias, Montivalia!
Redde pro victoria!”
The castle gate was even more crowded than the town; they barely crept in along the chained-off pedestrian edge of the drawbridge, but the squire who commanded the guard knew her face.
“My lady Liu,” he said, thumping fist to breastplate and bowing his head. Then he turned and called, “Make way for the Lady Liu and her guests! In the High Queen’s name!”
Nobody recognized the Thurstons yet, and it was uncertain how they fit into the Table of Ranks anyway; Yseult had decided that they were princesses, but wasn’t going to insist on full state just now. The soldiers thumped the butts of their guisarmes as well, then used the shafts to open a lane for them, and Yseult nodded in reply. Another sign that she was being eased into her new status; and that she was shining in the light of Huon’s reflected glory. It was certainly more agreeable that being a pariah under suspicion, but…
No, I must avoid bitterness. I have become cynical and reluctant to trust. My confessor is right; these are tasks I must work on. And these are nice girls who have suffered badly. My mother betrayed us, but at least she didn’t kill our father, as their brother did. Take up your cross, Yseult Liu.
“It’s good of you to volunteer to work so soon after such a terrible journey,” she said, as they climbed the
