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Authors: S. M. Stirling
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Tillamook cheese, sweet butter, a green salad and fruit tarts; the sort
of plain good fare Tiphaine d’Ath preferred even at court. At a gesture, Tasin poured
her another glass of watered wine and one for the squire and left the carafe. The
pages made a little procession as they took the plates out to hand off to the castle
staff; they were eyeing the uneaten blueberry tarts too, since those were their lawful
prerogative . . . though as he remembered it the staff would get them as often as
not.
One of the points of page service was to teach young noblemen humility, learning to
obey among strangers before they commanded at home. And that good things didn’t simply
appear by magic when you waved your hand.
“Lioncel, attend,” Tiphaine said.
They were about as alone as you ever got at court. A tinkle came from a wind chime
near the windows, and one of the interior walls of the big room was mostly bookshelves
and map-racks, with a trophy of crude spears taken in some skirmish long ago crossed
over a shield made from a battered-looking
STOP
sign above the swept and empty hearth. The furniture was understated and strongly
built, mostly rubbed oak lightly carved and brown tooled leather held by brass rivets;
a tapestry showed Castle Ath across a landscape of forest and vineyard and huntsmen
bringing in boars, and the rugs were patterned with birds twining through vines.
The decor suited the Grand Constable perfectly, down to the hunting trophies—a stuffed
boar’s head, tiger and bear-skins—but she wouldn’t have bothered about it herself.
His mother had furnished the place, part of her duties as Châtelaine. In effect, general
manager of the whole civilian side of the barony, from interior decoration to keeping
the reeves and bailiffs honest and arranging apprenticeships for deserving youngsters.
In the last few years he’d started to realize just how much
work
that involved, something that had taken a while not least because his mother always
made it look either effortless or enjoyable. And how not only the baron’s interests
but the comfort and livelihoods of hundreds of families depended on it.
“My lady?” he said.
“Time for a little question-and-answer, boy.”
It had also been just recently that he really realized what it meant that Lady Delia
de Stafford lived with the Grand Constable, and that his father was perfectly content
with the arrangement. It hadn’t made all that much difference, though he was a good
Catholic himself. They were the people he’d grown up around, after all, the ones he
knew and loved.
His liege jerked her thumb towards a stool. Lioncel de Stafford was a dutiful young
man. He bowed and sank down with a perfectly genuine expression of alert interest.
Squirehood involved a lot of lectures, if your liege was conscientious; it was the
aristocracy’s equivalent of apprenticeship. His liege-lady was always worth listening
to and didn’t just talk because she liked the sound of her own voice.
“What did you gather from all that?” she said, inclining her head towards the door
the Lord Chancellor had used.
Tiphaine had always been kind enough to Delia’s children, but the Grand Constable
wasn’t a woman who had much use for youngsters. As he got older she was paying more
and more attention to him, which was intriguing and disturbing in about equal measure.
They were a long way from equals; he didn’t know if they ever would be that, since
she was terrifyingly capable at all of a noble’s skills save some of the social ones.
But he’d put his foot on the bottom rung.
“That some of the great families are starting to bicker and complain, my lady. Even
though the war isn’t over!” Lioncel said, trying to keep the heat out of his voice.
He’d had a ringside seat the last few years, old enough to no longer assume victory
was automatic, and things had often looked . . .
Very bad indeed,
he
of plain good fare Tiphaine d’Ath preferred even at court. At a gesture, Tasin poured
her another glass of watered wine and one for the squire and left the carafe. The
pages made a little procession as they took the plates out to hand off to the castle
staff; they were eyeing the uneaten blueberry tarts too, since those were their lawful
prerogative . . . though as he remembered it the staff would get them as often as
not.
One of the points of page service was to teach young noblemen humility, learning to
obey among strangers before they commanded at home. And that good things didn’t simply
appear by magic when you waved your hand.
“Lioncel, attend,” Tiphaine said.
They were about as alone as you ever got at court. A tinkle came from a wind chime
near the windows, and one of the interior walls of the big room was mostly bookshelves
and map-racks, with a trophy of crude spears taken in some skirmish long ago crossed
over a shield made from a battered-looking
STOP
sign above the swept and empty hearth. The furniture was understated and strongly
built, mostly rubbed oak lightly carved and brown tooled leather held by brass rivets;
a tapestry showed Castle Ath across a landscape of forest and vineyard and huntsmen
bringing in boars, and the rugs were patterned with birds twining through vines.
The decor suited the Grand Constable perfectly, down to the hunting trophies—a stuffed
boar’s head, tiger and bear-skins—but she wouldn’t have bothered about it herself.
His mother had furnished the place, part of her duties as Châtelaine. In effect, general
manager of the whole civilian side of the barony, from interior decoration to keeping
the reeves and bailiffs honest and arranging apprenticeships for deserving youngsters.
In the last few years he’d started to realize just how much
work
that involved, something that had taken a while not least because his mother always
made it look either effortless or enjoyable. And how not only the baron’s interests
but the comfort and livelihoods of hundreds of families depended on it.
“My lady?” he said.
“Time for a little question-and-answer, boy.”
It had also been just recently that he really realized what it meant that Lady Delia
de Stafford lived with the Grand Constable, and that his father was perfectly content
with the arrangement. It hadn’t made all that much difference, though he was a good
Catholic himself. They were the people he’d grown up around, after all, the ones he
knew and loved.
His liege jerked her thumb towards a stool. Lioncel de Stafford was a dutiful young
man. He bowed and sank down with a perfectly genuine expression of alert interest.
Squirehood involved a lot of lectures, if your liege was conscientious; it was the
aristocracy’s equivalent of apprenticeship. His liege-lady was always worth listening
to and didn’t just talk because she liked the sound of her own voice.
“What did you gather from all that?” she said, inclining her head towards the door
the Lord Chancellor had used.
Tiphaine had always been kind enough to Delia’s children, but the Grand Constable
wasn’t a woman who had much use for youngsters. As he got older she was paying more
and more attention to him, which was intriguing and disturbing in about equal measure.
They were a long way from equals; he didn’t know if they ever would be that, since
she was terrifyingly capable at all of a noble’s skills save some of the social ones.
But he’d put his foot on the bottom rung.
“That some of the great families are starting to bicker and complain, my lady. Even
though the war isn’t over!” Lioncel said, trying to keep the heat out of his voice.
He’d had a ringside seat the last few years, old enough to no longer assume victory
was automatic, and things had often looked . . .
Very bad indeed,
he
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