The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series) (51 page)

Reiko’s eyes turned narrow. “What happens if someone . . . else touch it? Not of your blood?”

Órlaith winced a little.

“Nothing good. Though how bad depends on their intentions. If it’s just someone heedless or stupid, or a child, say, they get an overwhelming impulse to drop it. Otherwise . . .”

Heuradys spoke: “I’d been at Court three years and thought I was the toughest new-minted junior squire on the block when I saw . . . someone try to steal the Sword. It . . . well, let’s put it this way: I heaved my cookies all over a very valuable pre-Change Persian rug.”

“Cookies?” Reiko said. “Heave?”

“Puked. Vomited. Queen Mother Sandra was quite annoyed. About the rug, that is. Up until then I’d wondered why there was such a light guard on the Sword when the High King or Queen weren’t bearing it. After that . . . I didn’t.”

Órlaith sheathed the weapon and sat down beside her knight; a weight was gone from the world.

“All yours, Reiko.”

The three Montivallans watched Reiko practicing with her katana, the edge of the blade flickering as she danced with the steel, sure-footed on the moving deck in her
kegutsu
, leather slipper-like shoes.

That’s right,
Órlaith thought.
She has lots of practice at sea. Da loved sailing, but Ma gets seasick something fierce the first few days.

The crowded waters about Newport were well behind them now and there were no other sails in sight, only the faint dim line of the Montivallan coast off to the left, dreaming under the morning sun. South of here was nothing but the odd fishing village, and even those faded out as you went down towards Westria province until you reached the mouth of the Klamath.

Port,
she reminded herself.
Left is port when you’re facing towards the bows.

The sky was blue and cloudless, a summer’s sky. The wind came from the northwest, cool and strong and steady and smelling very different from the brackish longshore scent. There was nothing in it but a quarter of a planet worth of ocean, down from the northern ice, and every breath felt as if your lungs were being laundered and delivered back fresh and clean.

“I thought Reiko might be a little light for serious work,” Órlaith said. “But—”

“Says the big blond horse of a woman,” Luanne jeered pleasantly; she was the shortest of the three at five-eight and a bit.

Then she leaned her elbows back on the bulwark and looked overside at the long shallow trough where the water curled away from the side of the ship.

“Damn, but sailing’s fun. Like being on a galloping horse but less work.”

The long spars of the gaff sails were swung out to the . . .

Port,
Órlaith reminded herself again.
Not left, port
.
And the wind’s from . . . the wind is broad on the starboard quarter, not just hitting us from behind and to the right.

. . . to the portside, out over the rails. The canvas was in taut smooth curves, and the square topsails were set on the main and foremast as well at slightly different angles, a geometry of off-white-against-blue above crossed with the almost-black tarred hemp of the rigging. You could feel the wind’s great hand pushing the ship over, pushing it along, and if you put your own palm to the standing rigging it hummed with a subliminal note of power as it transferred the thrust to the hull.

Ships . . . ships felt
alive.

“I don’t think Reiko’s too fragile for hard work,” Heuradys said.

“Certainly when she hits you with a practice blade in the
salle
you feel it!” Órlaith said . . . with feeling.

“The Japanese are none of them what you’d call big, but they all seem to manage,” Heuradys agreed. “And Reiko’s taller than half of them, so relatively speaking she’s less of a runt than you, Luey.”

Luanne gave a small shudder. “That one who grabbed me on the train was a shortie, but he felt like he was made out of cables attached to high-geared winches,” she said. “I’m sort of glad Egawa came along! I would have had to hurt him to make him let go . . . not that he didn’t deserve it, acting like an asshole that way, but it would have been undiplomatic. Mind you, Egawa
did
hurt him, which of course was OK because it was their own chain of command. Hurt him about as bad as you can without doing lasting damage.”

Heuradys chuckled. “
He’s
built like a horse. Granted he’s built like a
short
horse, but I still wouldn’t want him to hit me. Even less so with something sharp or pointy or both.”

They all nodded. Other things being equal reach and weight, thickness of bone and sheer mass of muscle were advantages; that was one important reason women fighters were a minority even among folk like Mackenzies who didn’t make much of a distinction between the sexes, pregnancy and infants being the other main cause. Fortunately other things often
weren’t
equal, which was why they weren’t all that
un
common either. Except where custom strongly disapproved, and there were usually a few even there. Those who made a success of it tended to be bigger than average for their gender and very, very good.

“She’s certainly got first-rate situational awareness,” Órlaith said. “And the way the deck’s moving doesn’t affect her blade placement at all, does it now? Like a surgeon, she is.”

The waves came from the same direction as the wind, long smooth swells a blue deep enough to be almost purple, each with a crest of white foam. The bow of the
Tarshish Queen
rose to each of them as it overtook, then sank again as the whitecap hissed by along the big schooner’s flanks, adding to its own wake and sending spindrift flying down the deck to put the taste of salt on her lips. Then the ship seemed to be scudding downhill, her own foam breaking back from the bows. There was a long slow fore-and-aft pitch to the motion, but not much roll, and there were only a few human forms draped over the leeward rail.

Captain Feldman stood by the wheel in his brass-buttoned blue coat and, appropriately, sailor’s cap, his arms crossed. Ishikawa Goru and one of his men were spelling the usual watch on the wheel, his eyes darting occasionally to the sails, the waves and the compass card in the binnacle before the helm.

The regular pair who’d have taken the wheel this watch otherwise—one hand stood on either side of the big spoked wooden circle—were watching
them
, and so was the captain-owner. Feldman caught her eye and gave a slight nod, but Órlaith wasn’t surprised. The Japanese naval officer wasn’t moving much, but he and his countryman still gave the impression of men dancing . . . or doing any complex physical task once it was so intimately familiar that it was graven into nerve and muscle.

And Goru looks happy, too,
she thought.
There are few pleasures greater than practicing a useful skill you love and do well. And he doesn’t have the sort of stone face that Egawa has, or even Reiko a lot of the time.

Flags streamed from each mast, blowing off to . . . port; the ship was going faster than the waves but more slowly than the wind that propelled it. The house flag of Feldman And Sons streamed from the mainmast, a stylized ship rendered in a few black strokes on pale blue, headed up into the sky; the blue-white-green Crowned Mountain and Sword national ensign of Montival flew from the place of honor at the mizzen; the orange-on-brown anthropomorphic beaver’s head of Corvallis from the foremast.

Luanne Salander grinned at it. “My granddad Eric always said ol’ Benny the Beaver looks
dorky beyond words
. Apparently before the Change it was a bit of a joke.”

Heuradys spoke softly: “Right now it’s a bit of a joke too, but tact, girl, tact. People have died for that flag. And
my
parents were among those who killed a fair number of them, something I’d rather not bring to the minds of the crew of this ship while I’m on it. Your people never fought Corvallis, but please remember mine
did
.”

Bearkillers and Corvallans had been allies for a long time—since the wars against the Association began, not long after the Change, in fact. In all that time the Bearkillers hadn’t stopped saying that the Corvallans were prone to showing up a day late and a rose noble short in anything serious and being greedy, conceited and sneaky to boot. The Corvallans hadn’t stopped thinking, and sometimes speaking, of Bearkillers as arrogant, brutish killer rubes, either.

Both sides had a distinct point. It hadn’t helped that the Outfit’s territories had been between the city-state’s anvil and the hammer of the Protectorate in the old days, either. All that passed for ancient history now, but it was living history as well.

And making cracks about how stupid someone’s flag looks is
not
tact, Herry’s right about that. Especially when you’re on
their
ship. Benny the Beaver goes a lot of rough places these days. Am I only three years older than Luanne? Or . . . well, I remember thinking that I don’t have a
heimat
back when we were at Diarmuid’s. There are advantages as well as drawbacks. You get more perspective, that you do.

“That quick-draw thing is interesting,” Luanne went on . . . more tactfully . . . nodding towards Reiko. “I’m not absolutely sure how useful it’d be most of the time unless you were planning on suddenly topping someone’s head at a dinner party, but it sure is pretty.”

Reiko was in the ready position again, kneeling with her left hand on the scabbard of her katana where it was thrust through her sash edge-up.

She drew with that hand this time, and thrust straight backward in the same motion. Then the blade flicked back as she rose with a smoothness that looked as if invisible cords were pulling her erect, up into the two-hand overhead position, down with a stamp and an
isa!
of controlled effort . . .

“Not too academic,” Órlaith said critically. “I’d always thought of
iaijutsu
as something in a book, but that’s the real thing. You can tell, under all the differences of detail.”

“Right,” Heuradys said. “Sort of like the difference between Society training before the Change and the way we do it now.”

Luanne snorted. “The way my grandfather tells it, the Outfit picked up their basic style from the ARMA—the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts, my great-aunt Pam was a member, the first Bear Lord found her up in Idaho of all places and she established the sword training program. And they were
way
more realistic to start with than the Society. Less dancing and prancing, more slashing and stabbing.”

“Maybe to start with, but that’s ancient history,” Heuradys said. “I don’t think there’s
anyone
anywhere on
earth
more . . . realistic . . . about fighting than Auntie Tiph.”

“Well, yeah. Point. I’ve only met her a couple of times and she’s
scary
.”

Most people who’d spent a lot of time in a
salle
had tried their hand a little at the
nihon
style. As the texts described it, at least, but it wasn’t a living tradition here except in a few out-of-the-way places. Seeing it used by people who actually knew it well was fascinating.

Heuradys nodded at Reiko. “Yes, you can see she’s used it for real. More battle experience than us, I’d say.”

“That wouldn’t be difficult, Herry,” Órlaith said dryly. “We’ve had one real fight between us, and that lasted about ten minutes.”

I can mention it now without wanting to fall into a puddle and greep,
she thought somberly.
Though it’s there, back in my head. If I keep running fast enough, I’ll stay ahead of it.

Luanne Salander was the youngest of the four of them. “And I’m a combat virgin,” she sighed.

“It’s a lot less fun to lose than the other kind,” Heuradys said soberly.

“Speak for yourself, you never slept with Edgar I’m-in-a-hurry Cumbreson,” the Bearkiller said dryly, and they all chuckled. “Or at least I hope you haven’t, for your sake.”

“I thought you Catholic girls didn’t?” Heuradys said.

“Oh, we do, we’re just supposed to feel guilty about it afterwards. And
let’s put it this way: the penance my confessor set me was
more fun
than sex with Eddie. Saints, but my repentance was sincere!”

“Ouch, ouch,” Heuradys said.

“That too.”

“
Ouch.
Well, you’ll have Prince John along on this trip.”

“Dreamy, I will admit.”

Órlaith shuddered. “Oh, euw.”

The others jeered at her. Heuradys went on: “Unless he’d deteriorated since he was sixteen, no complaints there.”

Luanne laughed. “You
didn’t
.”

“Oh, yes, I did. No penance was more fun than him, I assure you. Poor boy, I was the only eligible female he knew who wanted to jump his bones and who he was
sure
didn’t have ulterior motives.”

“A sixteen-year-old virgin
boy
and he
cared
about that? I may have to take another look.”

“He’s sensitive, yes. Sings well, too.”

Órlaith made a retching sound. “Might you be after switching the subject from the largely imaginary charms of my little brother?”

“In hose you can see he’s got a really nice tight pair of . . . oh, all right, Orrey,” Heuradys said, chuckling.

Then she sobered and watched narrow-eyed as Reiko went through a turn-cut-cut-block-turn-strike flurry.

“She’s quick. I couldn’t say if she’s as quick as you or I, Herry,” Órlaith said, “since she’s not pushing it, but she’s very definitely fast and smooth.”

She’d been taught by those who knew from experience that a real expert—someone with first-class gear and lifelong first-class training—could drive down most battlefields killing at every second step, because most of what they’d be meeting was levied farmers blundering through half-remembered drills.

Until you run into another expert, of course. Or just run out of luck with the crossbow bolts and arrows. Or some prisoner has a holdout knife . . . oh, Da!

A long breath and a resolute focus kept the sudden wave of emotion at bay.

Luanne was going over her backsword. Órlaith thought she’d been
surprised at how fast things rusted in salt air; few Bearkillers went to sea. She finished wiping the slightly oily cloth down the blade, checked the edge—you didn’t want to hone it unless it was necessary, oversharpening was always a temptation—and slid it home. A-listers used a more complex blade than the Associate longsword, basket-hilted and with an edge along one side and about a third of the reverse as well.