Prince of Outcasts (15 page)

B
ARONY
H
ARFANG

C
OUNTY
OF
C
AMPSCAPELL

(F
ORMERLY
EASTERN
W
ASHINGTON
S
TATE
)

H
IGH
K
INGDOM
OF
M
ONTIVAL

(F
ORMERLY
WESTERN
N
ORTH
A
MERICA
)

S
EPTEMBER
16
TH

C
HANGE
Y
EAR
46/2044 AD

T
he Great Hall of the manor held most of the central arm of the building's E-shaped layout. Archways on either side were filled with French doors now open to the cooling evening breeze and the musky scent of roses and the lemony tang of verbena, and wet stone from the fountains. A gallery ran all around it at second-floor level, shadowy now but lively in the winter months.

Órlaith looked up at it and grinned for a moment; on one memorable occasion she and Herry had hidden up there and eavesdropped on their elders discussing matters of weight . . . including whether one Heuradys d'Ath should be allowed to take the first steps on the path of knighthood. The smile died quickly; John had been along on that visit, a four-year-old running about with a gap-toothed smile that could melt even a sister's heart.

Above that were the great man-thick ponderosa-pine timbers of the hammer-beam ceiling, whence hung wrought-metal chandeliers on long chains and captured banners stirring among shadows that obscured the
rips and narrow holes and faded crusty red-brown stains. The yellow-and-red sunburst of the CUT was prominent among them, trophies of the great charge that broke the Prophet's guardsmen at the Horse Heaven Hills.

Heuradys' eyes were on the banners too, and apparently her thoughts followed the same track.

“I've been told that after the charge Mom Two found a bunch of the Prophet's men eyeing her, when everything was mixed up and she and her menie were between them and the way out,” the knight said, love and pride in her voice. “She drew her sword and looked at them and then said: I am Grand Constable Tiphaine d'Ath. And you are
in my way
.”

It was a multipurpose room, in many ways the heart of the estate; the Court Baron met here, and it was where dances and masques happened when they weren't out in the gardens, where ceremonies were held and public announcements made. This evening it was put to the most common use, though. This was where everyone who slept under the manor roof from nobles to garden-boys and laundresses would take the main evening meal, save only the actual kitchen-staff; that was old Association custom, with the ceremonial golden saltcellar marking the transition from the gentry on the dais at the upper table before the hearth to the commons at the trestle tables below. With the Baroness and her Châtelaine on their other estate in the West and her heir Diomede and his lady and their principal fighting tail and personal attendants all gone, even the guests didn't make it look fully occupied. Not even including the extra dozen who'd just arrived.

Alan Thurston was waiting in a circle of space, since nobody quite knew what to make of him, leaning one shoulder against the wall and reading a small book bound in sandy-buff-colored leather. He looked up and smiled as Órlaith and her knight came through the doors at the base of the Hall, closing the book and slipping it into a pocket in his jacket. She caught part of the title as he did: -
rial Dynasty of America
—

That didn't make much of an impact, because Alan Thurston was possibly the most beautiful man she'd ever seen, discounting her father.
Enough that looking at him made her feel a little winded for a moment. He was just a hair above her own height, perhaps six feet, broad in the shoulders but tapering to lean hips and long trimly muscular legs shown off by the tight blue linen jeans and the tooled riding boots that were de rigueur for a Boisean rancher. The hair that curled past his ears was a shade of dark honey-brown sun-streaked with something on the verge of gold, and his eyes were large and a sage green rimmed with a darker color, seeming to flicker with some secret jest. His features were very regular but not aquiline, nose straight and slightly flared, high cheekbones tapering down to a square chin with a cleft, full lips smiling and showing very white, even teeth.

His father had probably looked a lot like Sir Droyn—his uncle Frederick Thurston certainly did, with thirty years added—but Alan evidently favored his mother, and his complexion had a creamy olive tint just on the pale side of very light brown, a little darker with sun on his face than on his neck where a neatly folded silk bandana rested. His short blue jacket had copper studs and worked silver buttons and was open to reveal how his shirt of imported cotton clung to the lean sculpted muscle of chest and stomach. There was a plain gold ring in his left earlobe.

There was someone at home there, too, you could see that. Thought flickered in his eyes, and a feeling that laughter did too.

Beside her, Heuradys made a small quiet wordless
oooooh
sound, which Órlaith understood perfectly.

And he moves well. Graceful, and trained to the sword. Sure, and he probably dances well too. And he doesn't wear that ugly short crop most Boisean men do; I do like a man with nice hair. The sort that feels like living silk when you run your fingers . . . stop that!

“Your Highness,” he said, his voice holding a slight eastern twang under an educated man's diction. “Such a pleasure, and pardon the imposition. My lady Heuradys, my thanks and that of my men for your hospitality.”

“Though it isn't actually the first time we've met, Your Highness,” he said, following her lead towards the dais.

Órlaith lost half a step as she racked the Sword in the stand behind the chairs on the dais. That was true . . . or at least the man believed it.

“It isn't?” she said.

“So my mother tells me. You were about a year old at the time, and your mother Her Majesty was carrying you in her arms, and my mother the same with me. It was during the tail-end of the war, of course. Just before she and my brother, ah, retired to Hali Lake Ranch. As a matter of fact, that was when she got the name for our land-grant; from some things she found in the libraries at Todenangst. She said your grandmother . . . the Lady Regent Sandra, the Queen Mother . . . was quite a collector.”

“That she was, to be sure,” Órlaith said.

“She and my mother corresponded occasionally, and the Queen Mother loaned her books.”

The which must have been a comfort in that remote place,
Órlaith thought; Juliet Thurston had grown up in Boise, a major city with an active cultural life.
But it's more compassion than I'd have expected from Nonni.

Her grandmother Sandra had shocked her once by remarking that pity was how suffering became a communicable disease, quoting some ancient philosopher she'd liked.

She put him on her right at the high table, with Heuradys cheerfully moving a seat farther away; he
was
royalty, of a sort, if of a fallen line. As they sat her liege knight caught her eye behind the man's back, cocked an eyebrow and made a gesture with thumb and forefinger, as if flipping a coin to decide who got a prize. Órlaith answered with a gesture of her own, involving the middle finger, and they grinned at each other for an instant before gravely assuming their seats.

Droyn was on her left in Associate dress, beyond him were the Dúnedain cousins, in the long loose-sleeved robe that Rangers wore for social occasions; his was black silk with cable-work in bullion around the hems and in two bands down the front, hers dark indigo linen worked with silver thread and turquoise beads in the forms of fantastic birds. Between them Susan Clever Raccoon wore a bleached deerskin tunic with a blue-
and-red yoke of beadwork and elk teeth over the shoulders and beadwork elsewhere, fringes along the seams, and leggings likewise fringed above strap-up moccasins decorated with colored porcupine quills. Two eagle feathers were thrust in the long braids on either side of her head.

The plump, jolly-looking House chaplain in his cassock rose and said the Catholic grace, ending by crossing himself as those of his faith in the room did likewise and murmured along with him:

“Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we receive from Thy bounty, though Christ our Lord, Amen.”

Heuradys made her small offering to Hestia the hearth-Goddess, and Órlaith and the Mackenzies drew the Pentagram over their plates and the invocation that ended with . . .
their hands helping Earth bring forth life
. Faramir and Morfind put their hands to their hearts and bent their heads to the westward; in the silence of their minds the form of words would be:

To Númenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be.

Susan Mika murmured something that started with:
Ate Wankantanka, Mitawa ki
; thanks to the Sword Órlaith spoke fluent Lakota—several dialects of it, in fact—but as usual when she was at a social occasion she made a slight practiced effort and didn't mentally translate that and tried not to focus on the truthfulness of what anyone was saying.

You had to be cautious about the Sword's gifts; her father had said that if you didn't restrain yourself you'd become impossible for ordinary people to be around with any degree of comfort or even liking.

When you could say to someone
how do you feel about me
and know exactly how true the answer was, for instance. There were reasons her parents laughed bitterly when they heard of someone envying them the right to bear the Lady's gift. And it explained why they'd trained themselves to be extremely honest with each other without allowing it to hurt.

“One thing I'm looking forward to when I get to the coast is tasting fresh seafood,” Alan said lightly. “We're not much for fish on our home-range.”

She'd notice that he just bent his head while the others said their
various thank-prayers, rather than joining in or hammer-signing his plate. The main branch of the Thurstons offered to the Aesir, which was a major reason that branch of the Old Faith had spread widely in Boise's domains these last decades; they were popular rulers, both from the war and from Fred's firm and just hand since. A substantial majority were still Christian though, many of them Latter-day Saints, and Protestants outnumbered Catholics among the remainder, in vivid contrast to the near-monopoly of the Church in the Association lands.

She was curious, but didn't ask. By Boisean standards that would be rude if he didn't bring up the subject first. Their tradition was that religion wasn't a matter strangers had any right to ask about. And that those in power should be strictly neutral, as far as their public acts went; they were like that in Corvallis too.

“Apart from trout,” he qualified. “We've got plenty of trout, and bass. Smoked and salted ocean-fish we see occasionally, and potted shrimp or canned salmon or sardines, but it isn't the same. Or so my grandmother said when she visited.”

“No, it isn't,” Órlaith answered, smiling at the fondness in his voice and eyes as he mentioned her.

Yes, Cecile would have visited there, even if she didn't mention it. He and his brother are her grandchildren, even if she repudiated his father and never liked Juliet.

“She said fresh oysters were like kissing the ocean on the lips,” he chuckled. “Which she says my grandfather Lawrence said to her while they were courting—dating, they said in the old days, didn't they?”

She'd met Cecile Thurston, and liked her, though there was a deep well of sadness in her that left her wholly only when she was with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. After the war she'd busied herself with good works, too; most notably in the chaos and despair of Nakamtu, where the fall of the Church Universal and Triumphant had left a gaping void in the hearts and souls of the folk as well as hunger in their bellies. Órlaith's parents had been glad of that, and had funneled a good deal of the Kingdom's aid through her. As her father said, they remembered
him
there with a sword in his hand against a background lit
by burning roof-trees. He'd added that some wounds healed faster if you didn't poke at them.

“Well, there's seafood in plenty in Portland and Astoria,” Heuradys said. “If we're out there the same time I can point you to some good places; or we could ask you over to the d'Ath townhouse. Nancy, she's our cook there, can do things with lobster you wouldn't believe.”

I'd invite him myself, but that wouldn't be politic. Not without consulting Mother,
Órlaith thought.
And she still grinds her teeth whenever the subject of Martin Thurston comes up. Sigh . . .

“I'll hold you to that, Lady Heuradys,” he said genially, not seeming to notice that Órlaith hadn't issued any invitation.

Then he leaned a little closer and murmured to Órlaith: “I understand perfectly, Your Highness.”

Oh, sweet Brigid, he even smells nice,
she thought in exasperation.
And he's perceptive and sensitive, too.

Aloud he added:

“Though this looks very fine,” as the food was borne in.

Everyone in an Associate lord's household ate in the same room, but of course not on the same fare. Down below the salt they were getting baskets of still-warm maslin loaves—half wheat, half barley—set beside butter and rounds of cheese. There were crocks of white bean and ham soup, roasts of pork and mutton with gravy, steamed cabbage and carrots and peas and green beans and heaps of fried potato, along with locally-made catsup and pickles. For after there were pies put out to cool on a sideboard, apple and cherry and rhubarb and peach. It was good plain food and plenty of it, much like what a minor knight would have daily or a well-to-do peasant on Sunday. Plus there was a cask of small beer in its carved X-shaped wooden stand from which anyone could draw.