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Book: The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series) by S. M. Stirling
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Authors: S. M. Stirling
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killer wasps,
she thought, remembering the brief battle.
When the Montivallans showed up and pitched into the enemy’s rear these folk had risen from the ruins where they sheltered and charged instantly with a uniform scream of
Tennoheika banzai!
When they hit, it had been like a many-legged mincing machine flinging sprays of blood and body-parts in every direction. She swallowed a little at the memory; she’d trained for war since her childhood and to live and die by the sword was her inheritance, but that had been her first real combat. There hadn’t been time to be queasy about it then, but the memory was a bit . . . unpleasant . . . even now. At the same time she couldn’t help but wonder how they’d fare against Associate knights or Bearkiller cataphracts or Boisean legionnaires. . . .
The armored men halted and bowed; the Archers responded by tapping their bows to their brows and the standard-bearer thumped his gauntlet to his breastplate and ducked his head. The three walking forward were in civil garb, the men on either side in plain dark short kimonos with round embroidered
kamon
symbols on either side of the chest that her education said corresponded to heraldic blazons, and
hakama
—broad loose trousers of striped fabric with pleats, almost like a divided skirt. Heuradys carefully hid a grin; in the north-realm, in the territories of the Portland Protective Association, something very similar was the usual dress for ladies when traveling on horseback.
The ones who don’t scandalize the respectable by wearing breeks or hose, like me,
she thought.
It was known as a riding habit, but the original inspiration had been precisely the sort of clothing she was seeing now, and Delia de Stafford had made it
the thing
. Her birth mother had always been a leader of fashion and had a huge library on the history of textiles and costume worldwide. There weren’t many people in Montival who had several walk-in closets full of classic kimonos simply because they were interesting, but Lady Delia was one.
The young woman called Reiko—evidently Japanese royalty didn’t have a surname, though apparently you didn’t call them by name either—was wearing a longer kimono of very dark blue silk, dyed with tiny dots in black and paler blue that made patterns that might be either clouds or dragons, and with golden
kamon
badges in the form of a stylized chrysanthemum. She was within a few years of Heuradys or her liege, give or take, though shorter, and under a studied formality of movement walked with the cat-grace of someone who could wield a mean
naginata
, which the knight knew was true from personal observation.
When she took off the shallow bowl-like straw hat she was wearing the face beneath was marked by grief and probably lack of sleep, but strikingly regular from high cheekbones down to rosebud mouth, small straight nose and narrow cleft chin. Not quite delicate, the bones were too pronounced, but verging on it; her long black hair was parted in the middle over the forehead and then gathered at the nape into a wovenknot, with two long gold-headed ebony pins. There was an indefinable air of taut, controlled thought to her as well. Altogether it was an attractive face, and strong.
Exotic, too
, the knight thought.
Striking.
Heuradys didn’t have the slightest erotic interest in women—which had been disappointing to at least one of her mothers and which her father Count Rigobert liked to say with a chuckle she’d gotten from him—but she could appreciate the ensemble aesthetically.
All three of the strangers had broad sashes around their waists, tied at the back and with long katana and short
wakizashi
thrust through it on the left, the blades nearly parallel to the ground. Their left hands rested on the sheaths in a way that must be utterly unconscious, thumbs lightly pressed against the guards in a gesture that made it possible to flick the blade forward in an instant, an aid to the draw-and-strike
she thought, remembering the brief battle.
When the Montivallans showed up and pitched into the enemy’s rear these folk had risen from the ruins where they sheltered and charged instantly with a uniform scream of
Tennoheika banzai!
When they hit, it had been like a many-legged mincing machine flinging sprays of blood and body-parts in every direction. She swallowed a little at the memory; she’d trained for war since her childhood and to live and die by the sword was her inheritance, but that had been her first real combat. There hadn’t been time to be queasy about it then, but the memory was a bit . . . unpleasant . . . even now. At the same time she couldn’t help but wonder how they’d fare against Associate knights or Bearkiller cataphracts or Boisean legionnaires. . . .
The armored men halted and bowed; the Archers responded by tapping their bows to their brows and the standard-bearer thumped his gauntlet to his breastplate and ducked his head. The three walking forward were in civil garb, the men on either side in plain dark short kimonos with round embroidered
kamon
symbols on either side of the chest that her education said corresponded to heraldic blazons, and
hakama
—broad loose trousers of striped fabric with pleats, almost like a divided skirt. Heuradys carefully hid a grin; in the north-realm, in the territories of the Portland Protective Association, something very similar was the usual dress for ladies when traveling on horseback.
The ones who don’t scandalize the respectable by wearing breeks or hose, like me,
she thought.
It was known as a riding habit, but the original inspiration had been precisely the sort of clothing she was seeing now, and Delia de Stafford had made it
the thing
. Her birth mother had always been a leader of fashion and had a huge library on the history of textiles and costume worldwide. There weren’t many people in Montival who had several walk-in closets full of classic kimonos simply because they were interesting, but Lady Delia was one.
The young woman called Reiko—evidently Japanese royalty didn’t have a surname, though apparently you didn’t call them by name either—was wearing a longer kimono of very dark blue silk, dyed with tiny dots in black and paler blue that made patterns that might be either clouds or dragons, and with golden
kamon
badges in the form of a stylized chrysanthemum. She was within a few years of Heuradys or her liege, give or take, though shorter, and under a studied formality of movement walked with the cat-grace of someone who could wield a mean
naginata
, which the knight knew was true from personal observation.
When she took off the shallow bowl-like straw hat she was wearing the face beneath was marked by grief and probably lack of sleep, but strikingly regular from high cheekbones down to rosebud mouth, small straight nose and narrow cleft chin. Not quite delicate, the bones were too pronounced, but verging on it; her long black hair was parted in the middle over the forehead and then gathered at the nape into a wovenknot, with two long gold-headed ebony pins. There was an indefinable air of taut, controlled thought to her as well. Altogether it was an attractive face, and strong.
Exotic, too
, the knight thought.
Striking.
Heuradys didn’t have the slightest erotic interest in women—which had been disappointing to at least one of her mothers and which her father Count Rigobert liked to say with a chuckle she’d gotten from him—but she could appreciate the ensemble aesthetically.
All three of the strangers had broad sashes around their waists, tied at the back and with long katana and short
wakizashi
thrust through it on the left, the blades nearly parallel to the ground. Their left hands rested on the sheaths in a way that must be utterly unconscious, thumbs lightly pressed against the guards in a gesture that made it possible to flick the blade forward in an instant, an aid to the draw-and-strike
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