Read Online The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series) by S. M. Stirling - Free Book Online

is over, Princess,” he said. “And once we’ve talked to the foreigners.”
    He scowled a little at that. Órlaith laid a hand on his arm below the short mail sleeve, where it was corded with muscle and scars.
    “It’s not their fault, my old wolf,” she said. “And they suffered a like misfortune. We have a common enemy, at the very least.”
    He drew a deep breath. “Yes. Yes. I saw the one who did it—”
    And you put three clothyard arrows through him in less than three breaths,
Heuradys thought.
    The commander of the guard regiment was known as Aylward
the
Archer for good reason.
    I’d heard about you doing things like that in the
chansons
about the old wars, but I’d thought they were exaggerated. And the dead man didn’t stop moving. I’d
hoped
that
those
stories were exaggerated too, but apparently not.
    “—and he was like a magus of the Church Universal and Triumphant; I haven’t seen the like since Corwin fell in the Prophet’s War, nor missed it, but it’s not something you forget. It was fated that your da would not live to see his beard go gray. It’s not just Fiorbhinn’s songs. The Chief told me so, long ago on the Quest. And not a month past, just before we came south . . . he told me he’d dreamed of wading across a river, and seeing blood flowing by his feet from the clothes an old woman beat on the rocks.”
    Heuradys shuddered very slightly, and she and Órlaith made the sign of the Horns with their left hands. The scarred archer did so too; they all knew what it meant to see the Washer at the Ford in your dreams. The knight shared a look with her liege-lady, and saw she also knew why the High King had spoken no word of it to anyone else but his trusted lifelong comrade: he’d wanted Órlaith to have the joy of their last time together on this journey, not to blight it with pain come before its season. The Princess’ eyes closed again, then opened as her face set.
    Edain gave a crooked smile. “So don’t worry, lass . . . Princess . . . I’ll keep an open mind with these strangers.” Thoughtfully: “They’re bonny fighters, and that’s a fact. So let’s go break bread with them this spring morn. And speak of the fine red revenge the both of us will be having, to brew bale-wind for the chieftains we’ve both lost.”
    A dozen of the Archers were drawn up a tactful twelve paces behind the folding camp table, in brigantine and short mail sleeves and kilts, withtheir longbows cradled in their arms; equally tactfully, they were wearing their flat Scots bonnets rather than their helms, with the raven-feathers of the High King’s sept-totem in the badges. A man-at-arms in a full suit of armory-issue plate held the banner of Montival. You couldn’t tell much when the visor of the sallet helm was down and he wasn’t wearing a tabard with his own arms, but Heuradys knew it was Sir Aleaume de Grimmond, commander of the mounted guards on this expedition and son of the Grand Constable of the Association, Baron Maugis de Grimmond. He’d probably taken the duty so he could keep a close eye on the Crown Princess without openly violating orders to be inconspicuous and tactful. To be fair, the foreigners wouldn’t know him from Prometheus.
    A similar number of the Japanese followed their Empress; the equipment wasn’t quite what Heuradys recalled from pictures of ancient samurai in the
gusoku
armor of the sixteenth century, but closely similar—lamellae and plates mostly laced together, and flared helmets much like northern sallets but larger. The surfaces shone with exotic combinations of colored lacquer in liquid brilliance, and the man in charge of the detachment had a flag on a short pole in a holder on his back with writing in spiky script and a visor shaped like a grimacing face complete with mustache.
    The overall effect wasn’t frivolous at all, despite its vividness and touches of fancy like crests set on the brow of the helmets.
    More like a collection of giant