Tales of Downfall and Rebirth (3 page)

Lord Rigobert de Stafford, Count of Campscapell, was noted for dressing elegantly, as well as having been a famous warrior in his day. Lady Delia de Stafford had been a leader of Associate women's fashion for decades and a legendary beauty. Though her other, adoptive mother . . .

“Tiphaine d'Ath giving a damn about clothes? Pigs will fly, lead will float, water will burn . . .” Órlaith said.

“With my lady my mother as her Châtelaine she doesn't have to. Mom sees that it all happens without her noticing.”

She was getting some
curious
glances too. Few Portlander aristocrats attended Oregon State University even now; they tended to go to the Protectorate's own college in Forest Grove, or to Mount Angel. And what she was wearing was emphatically male clothing up north, and women knights were rare. Not hen's-teeth rare, but uncommon, more than one in a hundred but much less than one in ten even now.

The waitress bustled up holding two mugs and balancing plates on her arms with an acrobat's ease. She was young and slim and darkly pretty, about their age, and in Corvallis wasn't necessarily poor; there was a tradition here of people from respectable backgrounds working at humble tasks while they were young. Ways of thinking about rank varied even more than local styles of dress in Montival's many lands, from the Clan Mackenzie—which, apart from the Chief didn't
have
much distinction of rank—to the Protectorate, which had a great and intricately detailed deal of it, to Corvallis, where there was a bewildering combination of money and academic status. Understanding such things first-hand was one reason she'd been spending time living in as many communities as possible. Lately Órlaith had been doing some of that living on her own; her parents worried, but they were also determined not to raise her completely enclosed in a bubble of State.

“One bacon cheeseburger done medium-rare with onion and pickled tomato, side of onion rings, one beer-battered fish and chips, two pumpkin pie with whipped cream,” the server said.

“Ah, Demeter of the Shining Hair be thanked, I'm
starving
,” Heuradys said to her cheerfully, touching a finger to the foam to flick a tiny drop aside as a libation to the face of the Mother she had named. “My gratitude, O servant of the Good Goddess.”

She tossed a small silver coin in the air and added: “No change.”

The server snapped it up neatly as a trout rising to a fly; it was nearly half again the bill. The lordly unconcern with pennies was typical enough of the northern nobility, but most Associates would have crossed themselves and used the prayer that started
Bless us O Lord through these thy gifts
, they being largely Catholics. The server caught the gesture and phrase, looked at Heuradys sharply, and then turned her eyes to catch the arms embroidered on her jerkin in a small heraldic shield over the heart.

There were a hundred and seventy-odd barons in the Protectorate and several thousand knights with their own blazons, but the d'Ath arms of sable, a Delta Or on a V Argent, were distinctive and well known even outside the lands where heraldry prevailed. Tiphaine d'Ath had been Grand Constable of the Association during the Prophet's War back around the founding of Montival, and Marshall of the High King's Host for the last decade. The latter position had involved a lot of traveling outside the Association lands.

Heuradys went on to Órlaith as she applied mustard:

“I like the way they've done this, with the onion slice in the cheese so it melts in and caramelizes.”

She shrugged her coat over the back of the chair, tied back her sleeves and tucked the brown linen napkin into the neck of her jerkin—even the daughter of a Count, a Countess and a Baroness wouldn't risk that much imported silk—and took an enormous but careful bite, mumbling something on the order of
damn that's good
through it.

“I told you it was the best student hangout in the city. But you just like the name of the place,” Órlaith said; she'd sent a message up the heliograph line to Forest Grove yesterday.

“I've always liked the word ‘toad.' It has a . . . resonance. Toad . . . toad . . . toad.”

Órlaith chuckled: “Remember that first winter you were at Court, we were staying at Dun Juniper that Yule, and Grannie Juniper told
The Wind in the Willows
to all the kids in the Hall? You went around muttering
toad, toad, toad
for days and hopping now and then. I liked Badger and Rattie better,” she added reminiscently.

“All right, but
toad
is still a noble word,” Heuradys said. “And Toad of Toad Hall was a knight-errant.”

“I thought he was a self-absorbed idiot with his head in the clouds, that I did.”

“What I said. Even if he was from England and not La Mancha. But I meant it about the food. I caught the Portland-Corvallis train at Forest Grove and they stopped for lunch so-called just north of Larsdalen, while they switched the horses. The soup was vile
and
still too hot when they blew the all-aboard whistle. I think they just dump it back into the vat and sell it over again to the next lot of captives.”

“It's a scam the West Valley Railway Company runs, that it is, the black disgrace of the world,” Órlaith agreed; she had a Mackenzie lilt to her speech, though not as strong as some. “Fell and evil sorcery: they wave a potato over boiling water while chanting
chickenchickenchicken
and call it soup.”

Órlaith made the Invoking pentagram over her own plate and recited the Mackenzie blessing:

Harvest Lord who dies for the ripened grain—

Corn Mother who births the fertile field—

Blessed be those who share this bounty;

And blessed be the mortals who toiled with You

Their hands helping Earth to bring forth life.

She dug in. The Willamette River swarmed with sturgeon ten feet long or better and weighing hundreds of pounds each, and the Hopping Toad's cook—she owned the place and ran it with her children and grandchildren—did them a treat. The flesh under the thick crunchy brown batter was moistly firm and almost meaty, much less fragile and flaky than most fish. They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, if you could call not contributing to the background roar that.

“Good to have you back, Herry,” Órlaith said at last.

“Nice to be back, Orrey. I know the last thing you needed while you were winning hearts in Corvallis playing student was an Associate knight hovering in the background.”

“Truth. They make a great noise about how cosmopolitan and sophisticated they are here, but they can be as parochial as any dun in the dùthchas or manor up north, that they can. Or Mormon village or back-country ranch over the mountains, even.”

They chatted for a while, Heuradys filling in the latest doings in the north and greetings from her mothers, father, siblings, numerous nieces and nephews, and all their connections. After a while Órlaith chased down the last of the Hopping Toad's own proprietary spicy ketchup with a final fry, took the first forkful of pumpkin pie and held it before her lips in anticipation while she watched her friend thread her way back to the jakes.

I wish there was someone I could bet with,
she thought, as the young knight passed a table where they had a platter of thirst-inducing fish tacos and a whole tall gallon pitcher of Dean's Downfall between them, a dark amber brew that was dangerously smooth and fatally easy to drink fast, especially when a jalapeno hit your tongue.

She grinned while she waited, remembering the first time she'd come in here on a crowded night. Nobody with any sense whatsoever tried it with the staff—you did
not
want
La Abuela
Montoya coming out of the kitchen with a frying pan in hand—but with an anonymous out-of-towner there was always some arsehole with one too many in them who thought they could pat or pinch . . .

A confused flurry of movement, a yelp . . .

Yup, she dislocated his thumb when he grabbed,
she thought, taking the bite of pie and suppressing a giggle—she was getting too old for those.
Just precisely the same move that I used, so it is. Now is that a
different
arsehole, or the same one showing an inability to learn from experience? To be sure, Herry has an outstanding rump and the hose show it off.

The similarity wasn't an accident. Heuradys had spent a lot of time over the last eight or nine years at the High King's court, as a page and then a squire; she and Órlaith had had the same unarmed combat instructors. She hadn't even paused in her stride as her left hand did a quick grab-lock-twist-pull on the man's right; the perpetrator yelled loud enough to carry over the background while two of his friends—possibly his friends, they were laughing—held him down and a third popped the thumb back into place, which would reduce the pain from
agonizing
to merely
bad
. Just putting a dislocation back didn't make it all better, of course. The overstretched tendons still had to heal, which could take weeks if you were lucky.

When Heuradys came out again the server who'd waited on their table stopped to talk to her for a moment, smiling and standing with a sort of three-quarter-on hipshot posture. Órlaith couldn't hear what was said—that would have been impossible at five feet, much less thirty. The body language was fairly unmistakable, and more so when the server wound up and tried to deliver a roundhouse slap to the face. The Associate simply pivoted and pulled her head out of the way, then administered a gentle two-fingered nudge to a precisely calculated spot on the back that sent the other woman staggering while she slid past and returned to the table.

“And what was
that
after being about?” Órlaith said innocently, looking at her friend's exasperated expression.

“That insolent churl grabbed my—”

“No, I meant the slap that did not hit, but which was meant with all her heart, so.”

“The Three Spinners and their pervy sense of humor. Mostly people get slapped for
making
propositions, not politely declining to meet someone after the tavern closes. Why, why,
why
do people always assume I'm interested in girls that way?”

Órlaith snickered unsympathetically.
Turnabout is fair play.

“Because of your scandalous choice in clothing? Hose on a woman . . . why, it's unnatural, so it is!”

Heuradys groaned. “Oh, I expect that sort of bullshit up in the Protectorate . . .”

Órlaith nodded. She'd run into the same assumption herself in the north-realm, though it didn't bother her nearly as much.

“But here?” Heuradys went on disconsolately. “The only skirts you see here are on Mackenzies and McClintocks of both sexes.”

“Some Corvallan women wear them on formal occasions; forbye they know that people in the Protectorate
don't
regard it that way. And don't be calling the kilt a
skirt
, woman, if you want to get out of here alive,” Órlaith said. “And then there's your parents, all three of them, the which is not much of a secret. I think the lass recognized your blazon and her mind sprang into bed, also to a conclusion, so.”

“
That's
not hereditary,” Heuradys grumbled. “Nor obligatory just because you're entitled to wear the d'Ath arms. And my lady-mother and Auntie Tiph are the most absurdly monogamous people I know, anyway—all One True Love for them; I doubt there was ever any picking up barmaids.”

“That we remember. But you can never tell about parents; they start out as folk younger than us, you know. And now we'll have to worry about her spitting in the beer. You should have agreed to meet her.”

“Hey! Some sacrifices I'm not going to make even to get my liege-lady guaranteed un-spat-in Guaranteed Tenure. Anyway, isn't that a philosophical puzzle . . . you know, like the tree in the forest with nobody to hear? Is there spit in your beer if you don't see it put there?”

Órlaith waited until her friend was drinking before replying: “I didn't say you actually had to
show up
. We could bolt before your virtue was threatened.”

Heuradys choked, sprayed a little beer onto her empty plate, coughed and then wheezed: “No fair!”

“Now you teasing me is funny, but me teasing you . . .”

“Oh, all right,” Heuradys said, and laughed as well.

They both stopped when a tall young man in student garb who looked as if he played the local head-butting game forced his way through the crowd to stand by their table, looming over them in a halo of curly dark hair and beard. The man with the injured thumb trailed him, and one or two others—it was difficult to tell in the dense-packed gloom who was with whom. The waitress who'd tried to slap Heuradys was hovering behind them, looking amused but a little frightened as well.

“Yes, goodman?” Heuradys said politely, since his glare was directed at her, laying down her fork and glancing up at him.

Or
reasonably
politely; that was how a noble who was being formal but not ultra-snooty addressed a commoner in the north-realm. The young man was already scowling and clenching his fists. Now he ground his bared teeth in a way that would have been audible in most places. Órlaith carefully laid her hands flat on the table, and brought her right foot forward with the ball pressed firmly to the floor and her knee cocked. It just looked like an interested position, but you could come out of it like a released catapult spring if you had to.

Out of the corner of her eye Órlaith saw two people dressed like Mackenzies who'd been sitting and very slowly sipping one mug of Sophomore each all evening and playing a desultory game of fidhcheall. Now they put the mugs down and packed up the board and pieces on the table between them. They actually
were
Mackenzies, named Dobharchú and Sionnach—Otter and Fox respectively—but they were also members of the High King's Archers, the Crown's premier guard regiment. The Archers provided plainclothes bodyguards for her; they were under orders to be as inconspicuous as possible and do what she told them, but they'd interpret that in light of their first priority, which was keeping her safe. Dobharchú fished in her sporran as Órlaith watched and then kept that hand in her lap, which meant she'd put on her weighted brass knucks.