A Meeting at Corvallis (72 page)

People slightly older than herself told her that dojos had been like this before the Change. She didn't remember, since she hadn't studied the martial arts then, though she'd been a state-level gymnast and track-and-fielder in middle school. Today she began with a series of stretching exercises and
kata
.

Now I know what it's going to be like to be seventy, and arthritic,
she thought after a moment. But she gritted her teeth and persisted, then did a routine on the parallel bars and vaulting horse, and some tumbling on the mats, stopping now and then to drink from the water fountain.

After the sweat started and joints and tendons loosened a bit she ducked into the ready room and picked up a blunt practice sword and heavy wicker training shield—a middling-sized four-foot shield, since she was tall for a woman and about average for a man. Then she went back outside, setting the shield's bandolier-like
guige
strap around her neck. That took part of the weight, and she could use it to sling the kite-shaped defense over her back with a quick readjustment.

Tiphaine took stance in front of one of the six-foot posts, left foot advanced, left fist up under her chin, which put the upper arc of the shield just under her eyes and the point at about knee level; the convex triangle almost completely covered her body. The sword went up overhead, hilt forward.

“Ya-
hi!
” she shouted from the bottom of her lungs, and attacked.
“Haro!”

A chip of tough oak flicked out, even though the practice sword had neither point nor edge. It was also a lot heavier than her real blade, but that was all to the good—a woman had to work harder to build upper-body strength, and train harder to maintain it, one of life's manifold injustices. Eighty minutes later she stepped back and let the rounded tip of the sword fall to the ground, propping the hilt against her body and working her hand and shaking it. Every impact on the unyielding hardwood jarred back into her wrist and arm, and the hand felt as if someone had driven a wagon loaded with bricks over it; she was breathing deeply but not panting, and her sodden clothes clung as if she'd waded through a river.

The experience was familiar, and pleasant enough normally; she'd done at least as much and usually much more six days in seven since her fourteenth year. In Lady Sandra's Household, she'd usually done hours of classwork afterwards, too; the consort insisted on her personal retainers getting book-learning as well.

While she caught her breath she looked around, and found the castle had thoroughly come to life. Two men-at-arms and a double pair of crossbowmen trotted out through the main gate on routine patrol against bandits, lances in rest and crossbows across backs; spearmen and more crossbowmen paced their rounds on the fighting platform, or watched from the towers. Bread was baking in the kitchens, and the rich, earthy smell made her acutely aware of being famished. Iron rang on iron in the smithy, and a grinding wheel made a tooth-gritting sound as it bit into metal. Carpenters' hammers knocked; children and dogs ran about, and mothers called to them from the windows of their apartments. Two girls with broad straw hats and skirts kirted up carried a load of laundry in through the gates between them in a big wicker basket with handles on either side, and a wagon full of cut fodder followed. The doors of the chapel were open, and Father Peter's housekeeper swept it out, giving Tiphaine a curtsey as she noticed her gaze. She was a buxom young woman with café-au-lait skin set off by the—expensive—saffron of her tunics and headdress, which made the new overlord of Ath wonder slightly about the priest's lack of interest in sheets…

And a number of the garrison were working out; many of them looked more the worse for wear than she'd felt when she woke. Tiphaine had only a vague throb of headache now, and a hot shower and breakfast would cure that. One of the diligent ones was Sir Ivo.

“Hi,” she said as he stepped back and rested his blade over one shoulder; he'd put his hauberk on for the drill, which was conscientious of him. “Where's Ruffin?”

The young knight grinned at her and pointed the sword towards the second story of the barracks. The two and their lemans had slept there in cubicles usually occupied by the senior married men-at-arms, since Mathilda and Rudi were in the keep's guest suite; everyone had bumped the one below him out of their quarters, until a couple of rankers ended up on hay in the stables.

“Maybe the arm's still bothering him. But I doubt it. They got thin partitions up there, my lady,” he said. “It sounded like he and Joyce were celebrating
again
.”

“Christ Jesus, I hope for her sake he brushed his teeth first,” Tiphaine said, and they both laughed; you didn't get dainty in the field.

Then she looked critically at the garrison troops at practice. “You know, Ivo, the men-at-arms weren't half bad hand-to-hand, and the infantry's drill is OK and none of them are really fat, but some sure got tired 'way too fast. That'll get you killed as easily as not knowing the counters when it's for real—no rest breaks. We need to schedule more aerobic conditioning and sweat them hard.”

“Yeah, no dispute, my lady. But remember a lot of them have been out here in the ass-end of nowhere since the castle was built.”

“This isn't the ass-end of nowhere. Barony Chehalis is.”

Ruffin chuckled; neither of them liked the Stavarovs. “OK, this is within wiping distance of the ass-end of nowhere. It's too far north to skirmish with Bearkillers most times, and too far west for Mount Angel or the Mackenzies, and too far south for a levy against the Yakima towns. And these guys, they're old men. Some of them are thirty, or even more.”

The remark made perfect sense in their trade. Endurance got harder to keep up after your twenties, but there was more to it than that. Men who'd come to the warrior's life as adults after the Change were rarely really first-rate by the standards of the generation who'd trained since puberty.

“They're what we've got and I want their stamina built up,” she said. “I'll run 'em up and down the stairs to the walls in armor for a couple of hours every second day. Any of the footmen who can't take it, we'll give early retirement. And find some tenant's kid to train as a replacement. There's always some who don't want to spend the rest of their life staring up the ass of a plow-ox. Also, I want to get them working on unconventional stuff, not just fighting in ranks. Mackenzies are too damned good at sneaking around.”

“
Tell
me,” he said fervently. “We'll have to check on the ones settled on the manors with me and Ruffin, too. Likely they're worse than this bunch and spend most of their time farming their fiefs-in-sergeantry.”

He paused, and almost shuffled his feet. “Ah, my lady, I want to say thanks again, for giving Debbie and me our chance. I'd have been glad to get something east of the mountains, even, much less prime land like this. Sorry if I was, you know, a bit of an asshole to start with.”

“You got over resenting the position I pee in, Sir Ivo,” she said, slapping him on the arm with the flat of the practice blade. “Joris didn't get over it and you may notice
he's
not here.”

Despite the fact that he could take you
or
Ruffin, easy,
she did not add.
You two I can trust. Joris…I'd trust
him
to win in a fang-in-ass competition with a rattler.

Aloud she went on: “And hell, I've been known to do a convincing imitation of the aforesaid orifice myself, from time to time.
Hel
lo!”

That was prompted by the appearance of Rudi Mackenzie and Princess Mathilda. They were in children's versions of practice gear, padded gambesons of thick, quilted linen and small helmets with barred face-shields and boiled-leather protectors on elbows and knees. A ripple of silence followed in their wake as they walked through the gates and over to the practice ground, and a ripple of curtsies and bows for Mathilda's rank. In a way it was a damned nuisance to have them here while she was trying to settle in and get a feel for the place; in another it was a tremendous honor and responsibility, of course.

That's Lady Sandra for you. Do well, and you get rewards—and more work. I've learned a lot from her, not least how to handle people. And of course, it's not only more work, but a chance to get in good with the heir, and it must be part of her plans for Mathilda, too. Wheels within wheels within wheels.

The two had shields and swords suited for their size as well, from the armorers at Castle Todenangst; except for the size and the lack of point or edge on the blades, they were better gear than many knights could command. Tiphaine and her vassal leaned on the hilts of their weapons and watched. Boy and girl did their stretches, then began practicing strikes and counters on the air.

“Hey, not bad,” Ivo said quietly to her. “The Protector's kid is good, but the kiltie brat is better. He's got the right instincts, too—just throws the switch and goes for it. I mean, he'd have killed me dead with that dirk if the jacket hadn't been lined with mail on the torso. And Ruffin's shield-arm still isn't quite right.”

Tiphaine grinned, and spoke in the same undertone as she watched: “The princess is pretty good, though. A good friend of mine”—the grief echoed, but a little less strongly each time—“was tutoring her before she was kidnapped last year, and I dropped in on it now and then. She was promising then and it looks like she kept it up.”

“Yeah,” Ivo said critically as they switched to sparring.

Both the adults leaned a little closer; that was both more interesting and more dangerous, hence requiring more supervision. Tiphaine pursed her lips. Neither showed much of the usual childish awkwardness or beginner flailing—most kids couldn't free-spar with any profit until they were a year or two older than these, not having enough hand-eye coordination. What they were doing was very basic, of course, and the blows were still light, but they were moving beautifully; she'd seen plenty of trainees of twelve or thirteen who did no better. Mathilda had made serious progress since the raid that kidnapped her, rather than going back, and she suspected trying to keep up with Rudi was part of that.

The male knight nodded and confirmed her unspoken judgment: “It's not that Mackenzie sword-and-buckler stuff, or Bearkiller targe-and-backsword. Someone's been teaching them both our style, or something close to it.”

“That'd be the Englishmen,” Tiphaine said. “The Lorings. I saw them work out last year when they were staying with the Household. They're good, both of them; the young one was
really
good.”

“Yeah—watch it, kid! Careful with the princess!”

Mathilda staggered, wobbling loose-jointed after a strong backhand cut went
boonnggk
across the side of her practice helmet.

Rudi Mackenzie waved acknowledgment, then went over to his partner and steadied her, his own blade under his left arm.

“You OK, Matti?”

“Sure. Wow! I didn't see
that
coming!”

“You gotta remember how the helmet blocks things in the corner of your eye,” Rudi said. “Sir Nigel taught me this trick on how to keep moving your head—want to see it?”

“That's enough for the morning,” Tiphaine broke in firmly. “Time for a shower and breakfast. At your ages too much is as bad as not enough. You can overstrain your bones and tendons.”

The children nodded obediently, and helped each other out of the gear and bundled it up neatly. Mathilda looked at her guilelessly. “Could you give us some lessons, Lady d'Ath?”

Tiphaine grinned back, more genial than most who knew her a little would have thought likely. “I think I could squeeze that in, Princess, for you and your friend there. Now let's go get cleaned up.”

It certainly beats washing with river water scooped up in a helmet, and half the army copping a look,
she thought a few minutes later, looking around at the bathroom of her suite with unbleared eyes as she stripped off the sodden practice outfit and turned up the wall-lamp.
What's this?

This
turned out to be liquid soap scented with lavender and rosemary. Unlimited hot water of their very own was a luxury that few enjoyed these days, which was why most places had some sort of communal bathhouse; Tiphaine soaked until the last tension left her neck muscles and then walked back out into her bedchamber wrapped in a big fluffy towel.

It had been thoroughly cleaned up while she was under the spray, and the rest of her baggage unpacked. Her field armor stood on a stand in one corner, and her parade set beside it, very similar except that the hauberk and coif were made from burnished stainless-steel wire, and the helm and vambraces and greaves from chrome-plated metal—harder to work, and thus fiendishly expensive. There were fresh sheets and a new coverlet on the big four-poster bed, a set of riding clothes laid out, and fresh sachets of dried flowers scented the air. A fire was laid ready to light in the swept and scrubbed hearth of the fireplace, and the glass wall-lamps had full reservoirs; right now the tall, narrow window/arrow-slits provided enough light, unless you wanted to read.