The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series) (6 page)

Heuradys shuddered very slightly, and she and Órlaith made the sign of the Horns with their left hands. The scarred archer did so too; they all knew what it meant to see the Washer at the Ford in your dreams. The knight shared a look with her liege-lady, and saw she also knew why the High King had spoken no word of it to anyone else but his trusted lifelong comrade: he’d wanted Órlaith to have the joy of their last time together on this journey, not to blight it with pain come before its season. The Princess’ eyes closed again, then opened as her face set.

Edain gave a crooked smile. “So don’t worry, lass . . . Princess . . . I’ll keep an open mind with these strangers.” Thoughtfully: “They’re bonny fighters, and that’s a fact. So let’s go break bread with them this spring morn. And speak of the fine red revenge the both of us will be having, to brew bale-wind for the chieftains we’ve both lost.”

A dozen of the Archers were drawn up a tactful twelve paces behind the folding camp table, in brigantine and short mail sleeves and kilts, with
their longbows cradled in their arms; equally tactfully, they were wearing their flat Scots bonnets rather than their helms, with the raven-feathers of the High King’s sept-totem in the badges. A man-at-arms in a full suit of armory-issue plate held the banner of Montival. You couldn’t tell much when the visor of the sallet helm was down and he wasn’t wearing a tabard with his own arms, but Heuradys knew it was Sir Aleaume de Grimmond, commander of the mounted guards on this expedition and son of the Grand Constable of the Association, Baron Maugis de Grimmond. He’d probably taken the duty so he could keep a close eye on the Crown Princess without openly violating orders to be inconspicuous and tactful. To be fair, the foreigners wouldn’t know him from Prometheus.

A similar number of the Japanese followed their Empress; the equipment wasn’t quite what Heuradys recalled from pictures of ancient samurai in the
gusoku
armor of the sixteenth century, but closely similar—lamellae and plates mostly laced together, and flared helmets much like northern sallets but larger. The surfaces shone with exotic combinations of colored lacquer in liquid brilliance, and the man in charge of the detachment had a flag on a short pole in a holder on his back with writing in spiky script and a visor shaped like a grimacing face complete with mustache.

The overall effect wasn’t frivolous at all, despite its vividness and touches of fancy like crests set on the brow of the helmets.

More like a collection of giant 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 woven
knot, 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 technique that could give you a crucial extra fraction of a second.

These are serious people,
she thought soberly.

That term too was a legacy of the Foundation Wars in the early days of the Association. Besides his fellow-members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, the first Lord Protector had recruited what were euphemistically referred to in the heavily mythologized chronicles of family history kept by noble houses as
freelance men-at-arms
, to help him hold and extend the power he’d seized in the chaos.

In areas of Montival outside the north-realm she’d heard the same men referred to as
gangsters
and
thugs
. They’d mostly taken up Society ways with the enthusiasm of converts, but the traffic hadn’t all been one way.

Órlaith and Reiko bowed—at moderate angles, simultaneously, with their hands before their thighs and to exactly the same degree; the two male Japanese bowed with their hands to their sides, and rather more deeply towards the Montivallan leader. Heuradys exchanged a glance with Edain, and then they both made the gestures of respect they were accustomed to—Edain bowing slightly with the back of his right hand to his forehead, Heuradys sweeping off her chaperon with a flourish and making a leg. That was safer than trying to fathom the depths of a system of etiquette they didn’t know well.

The Japanese hesitated at the sight of the chairs; she got the impression they knew about them but didn’t use them much at home. Heuradys drew out Órlaith’s and held it for her, a motion which one of Reiko’s attendants copied; they were utilitarian collapsible canvas-and-aluminum models. The three Nihonjin removed their sheathed swords and laid them on the table before they sat—on their right sides, and with the curved cutting-edges in.

Ah,
Heuradys thought.
That would make them
hard
to draw quickly. Probably a gesture of courtesy or trust.

The three Montivallans unbuckled their sword-belts and hung them across the backs of their chairs before they sat. That was polite too. And wearing a sword sitting down was plain uncomfortable; they were always catching in things, especially the long knight’s weapon.

Heuradys studied the three across the table carefully. Even the friendliest negotiation was a battle of wits, a matter of controlling the exchange of information. She suspected that her side had one advantage here, at least at first. People of that East Asian physique weren’t common in Montival, especially unmixed, but they weren’t vanishingly rare either. Sir Aleaume’s mother was one-quarter Japanese by descent for instance, a legacy of her grandparents back before the Change. From what she’d seen and heard, the newcomers had never before met anyone who wasn’t of their own physical type before they landed on these shores. Probably that made it more difficult for them to read the more subtle expressions, piled on top of differences in custom and body-language.

One of the male Japanese looked as if he were a few years either way of sixty, with a lean impassive face and a slightly hooked nose; she guessed that the bare strip up his pate to the topknot at the rear was mostly natural by now.

A fighting-man in his day,
she guessed.
But more of an advisor now, or senior administrator, probably both.

The other man was about Edain’s age and stocky-strong, with a formidable collection of scars and a weathered complexion, the sort you got from being outside all the time regardless of weather—warriors and
peasants both looked like that, and she didn’t think this man had spent his life growing rice. He and Edain were appraising each other, and after a second gave a very slight nod of mutual recognition.

This one’s a man of the sword—a commander, I’d judge, and tough enough to chew iron and crap caltrops, as the saying goes.

Sharing a meal was a gesture of welcome almost everywhere. Varlets came forward with plates and a basket of maslin penny loaves, the rough one-pound ration issue made from mixed flour of barley and wheat. The strangers looked very slightly apprehensive, then showed equally well-hidden pleased surprise when they were presented with bowls of noodles in broth and plates with a grilled trout each.

Relieved that they don’t have to pretend to enjoy revolting barbarian swill,
Heuradys thought, amused behind an impassive face.
Nice touch, Orrey.

Not too difficult either. Fish swarmed in the Napa river and its tributaries, and with a civil settlement at hand finding pasta wasn’t difficult. For that matter, it was where the risen bread was coming from; in the field you mostly made do with tortillas unless there was a chuckwagon along. But the Crown Princess was being . . . tactful . . . again. The foreigners each brought out a little lacquered case and set their chopsticks on a rest built into it, the sharp-tapered points to the left.

Well, well, Orrey’s really getting benefit from the Sword,
she thought.

The Japanese pressed their hands together before their faces and murmured something, then sat impassively; Reiko drew a folding metal fan from her sash, probably a habitual gesture, but the edges glittered like razors. Órlaith and the Empress introduced their companions—Heuradys caught the words
bushi
and
samurai
, terms which had been part of her military education, and shaped the names
Koyama Akira
and
Egawa Noboru
to fix them in her memory.

Right, surname first, I remember that. And only family and very close friends use the personal name.

They all sat, and the Japanese laid pads and writing-sticks before them.

And this is going to be a bit of a strain,
the knight realized.
Well, at least the breakfast looks good.

“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.”

Órlaith signed her plate with the Invoking pentagram as they murmured the Blessing, and she and Edain dropped a crumb of the bread. Heuradys flicked a drop of her hot herb tea aside as a libation. Órlaith would have offered the Nihonjin real tea if there had been any to be had, but it was an expensive luxury in her kingdom, imported or grown on a few experimental plantations, not the sort of thing you dragged along on a trip through wilderness.

“Is that a religious ceremony, Your Highness?” Koyama said slowly and carefully, pronouncing each word distinctly.

Órlaith nodded, her lips quirking in a slight smile. They
knew
she spoke Japanese like someone who’d been born among them, but it seemed hard for them to
grasp
.

“You may speak normally. I think you will find I speak your language reasonably well,” she said.

His face was entirely expressionless as he looked at her chin. The habit of avoiding direct eye contact after a first glance was a little disconcerting, but she copied it. They were also avoiding watching the Montivallans wield knife and fork on their bacon, scrambled eggs and fried potatoes, which they seemed to find mildly revolting.

“You speak it perfectly, in fact,” Koyama said. “Even with the same distinct regional accent as myself or the Majesty, and with post-Change Court diction. Which is remarkable. I understand it is due to that . . . sacred weapon?”

They were stealing occasional glances at the Sword of the Lady; slung across the back of the chair, the crystal antler-cradled pommel was just visible. She nodded and continued: