“Thanks, Jock,” she said, her eyes still on the reports. “Julius, move the main convoy to the base of the pass. Thanks.” The former company notary, now functioning as something like an imperial chancellor, was also the keeper of Kronmir’s master map, an enormous and not terribly accurate rendering of the whole of the Nova and Antica Terra in Kronmir’s own hand, with hundreds of small pins and flags to indicate … almost everything: herds of bullocks, water sources, the known location of imperial couriers, either birds or people; some untagged pins of which only Kronmir and Syr Alcaeus had known the meanings. But before he’d left, he’d instructed her in its use, and now she used the messages to move the pins, or that’s how she saw it. She and Julius, and Michael and Gabriel, and Alcaeus back in Liviapolis, were the only ones fully privy to the meanings of the flags; Kronmir had begged her not to commit any of it to parchment or paper.
Jock knocked on the solar’s outer door. Master Julius nodded at her and dropped the curtain over the map, and the empress casually closed the heavy leather folder that held the day’s uncoded imperial courier messages. Kaitlin was the closest thing she had to a friend; Clarissa de Chartres was one of her closest allies.
Kronmir had said “no one” and Blanche knew he meant it.
Clarissa entered first with two ladies; one the fierce-faced older woman who’d attended her before, the other young, blond, pretty, and eager; she curtsied so deeply that Blanche was afraid she’d fall on her face.
“The Demoiselle Isabella,” Clarissa said.
“The Duke of Mitla is dead,” Blanche said.
Clarissa shook her head. “I am so envious of your … servants,” she said.
Blanche shrugged prettily. “It may have been disease,” she said.
“The will of God perhaps?” Clarissa asked. She smiled.
“The will of Gabriel Muriens?” Kaitlin said. “Honestly, I’ve put up with three years of him and he generally gets his way.”
Clarissa looked at her hands in her lap and smiled again.
“You know, you could be a veritable demon from hell and that innocent face would confound us,” Blanche said to Clarissa, who raised her eyes and laughed.
“I know,” she said. “No one ever imagines I have a bad thought.”
Kaitlin shook her head. “Unfair,” she said. “I apparently look like I’m nothing but bad thoughts.”
“What brings you two at this difficult hour?” Blanche asked.
“The smell of quaveh,” Kaitlin said. “And pregnancy. And because today we have our sword lesson with Michael and I’m to remind you, Majesty.”
“Send me Michael when you have time,” Blanche said. She was still getting used to sending for people as opposed to going for them in person, an action that caused chaos among everyone’s servants.
“And I brought young Beatrice to … serve you,” Clarissa said. “Using men-at-arms as maids may well have its charms, but I thought you might like a girl.”
Blanche looked at the enthusiastic young woman who was kneeling before her.
“Really?” she said a little distantly.
“I would be the best serving lady ever,” the young woman said.
Blanche made a face. In her head she thought, Young woman, I was myself the best serving woman ever. “I’m not sure I need a—”
“Blanche,” Kaitlin said.
Clarissa de Sartres straightened as if Kaitlin had uttered a blasphemy.
“Blanche, it took me months to get used to it. Just do it. You can’t dress by yourself; you just slow everyone down. Really, you need two ladies and a couple of maids.” She shrugged.
Blanche looked at Kaitlin.
Clarissa looked out the window.
Kaitlin looked at the Queen of Arles. “We weren’t born to this,” she said. “I can do laundry better than your laundry maid.”
“And I can sew and iron better than your staff,” Blanche said.
Clarissa burst out laughing. It was not a ladylike laugh, but a snorting, gurgling laugh.
“I can sew, too,” Clarissa said, snorting and wiping away tears of laughter. “I wanted to be a nun,” she admitted.
The other two woman looked amazed.
“I was never going to be a nun.” Kaitlin laughed. “Imagine, a Lantorn nun? I’d ha’e been the laugh of the place.”
Blanche looked down at Beatrice. “I suppose I must try you, demoiselle.”
The young woman’s back straightened. Her smile grew, if anything, broader.
“How are you at hair?” Blanche asked, playing with a strand of her own.
Beatrice giggled.
Blanche turned to Kaitlin. “Let’s have the swords. Whenever the Lord Michael is available.”
“You outrank him,” Kaitlin said. “You could just order him to come.”
Clarissa made a noise of disgust. “You can’t really order anyone ever,” she said. “This is the first rule of giving orders, I think.”
“What do you mean?” Kaitlin asked.
Clarissa raised a perfectly curved eyebrow. “I mean that when you snap an order at a servant, they resent it; if you request the same in gracious language, they resent it less, but ultimately, they do your bidding of their own free will because you are paying them, not because they love you. And likewise, when you snap an order at a great lord, he, too, resents it; when you ask graciously, he resents it less …”
Blanche laughed. “And when you provide his daughter with a juicy marriage, he remembers why he should obey you?”
Clarissa smiled. All three of them were of an age; all three had seen a great deal of life in a very short time.
“No one was ever particularly nice to me when I was serving,” Kaitlin said. And then, a little dreamily, “Well, of course, Michael was.”
“And look where that got you,” Blanche said, patting her friend’s tummy.
“You’re a fine one to talk,” Kaitlin said.
Clarissa looked out the window.
Blanche inclined her head to the Queen of Arles. “I think we’ll come to you for lessons, Your Grace. I have a feeling you’ve had all the training we lack.”
“I wouldn’t mind improving my ironing,” Clarissa said. “Although my real ambition is to write books.”
“Ugh,” said Kaitlin in distaste.
“Ooh,” said Blanche, pierced with interest. “What kind of books?”
“I never really learned to read,” Kaitlin admitted. “Michael taught me, but it’s work.”
Clarissa smiled shyly. “I write some poetry,” she said. “And some glosses on religious works.” She got up suddenly.
“Would you like sword lessons, Your Grace?” Blanche asked.
Clarissa stopped. “Yes,” she said. “My constable … treats me like a woman.” She shrugged.
“Aye,” Blanche said. “It’s an occupational hazard.”
Clarissa suddenly spat, “I find it tiresome.”
Kaitlin laughed. “Honey, we all find it tiresome.” She got up, favoured her back, and then stretched like a long-limbed cat. “Never mind. I’ll fetch Michael, and we’ll have some fun.”
Blanche looked at Master Julius, whose quill was moving very quickly. He met her eye and mouthed two words.
“Lord Michael is drilling the Arelat Levy,” Blanche said.
“I should have known that,” Clarissa said.
“Me, too,” Kaitlin said. “He’s my husband.”
“Let’s say two hours,” Blanche said graciously.
Both ladies nodded and left her to her solar with her new “lady.” Outside the solar, Clarissa stopped dead in the corridor and barked a short, odd laugh.
Kaitlin paused behind one of Clarissa’s ladies. “Your Grace?” she asked.
Clarissa looked back at Kaitlin. “Think of how she dismissed us,” the Queen of Arles said. “She is a quick learner.”
“There’s nothing very difficult about using a sword,” Michael said with hearty reassurance. He was already tired, and he wasn’t sure that gi
ving sword lessons for ladies was what he ought to be doing.
On the other hand, he was looking forward to seeing his wife for an entire hour.
His wife, Kaitlin, as well as the Queen of Arles, Clarissa; the Empress of Man, Blanche; and her maid Beatrice all stood before him on a heavily flagged courtyard. There were ill-concealed faces at every window.
The four women all held arming swords.
“I know,” Blanche said. “I’ve killed a man and a couple of bogglins.”
All the women laughed.
Michael smiled. “Right,” he said. “And that’s the point, really. The part I can’t teach you is the real part: getting the job done. Any way you do it, if you live and the other bastard dies, is the best way.”
“This is definitely not what my constable taught,” Clarissa muttered.
“Nonetheless, ladies, there are some ways that are better and some that are worse. Let’s just start with how to hold a sword.” He proceeded to demonstrate; he showed them how to hold the sword like a hammer, how to hold it like a fishing rod, how to hold it with a thumb on the flat of the blade.
“Now, Your Grace …” he said to Blanche.
Blanche nodded her head graciously. “My lord,” she said. “I would like to propose, as I really do wish to learn this, and as it takes so very long to say our titles and so little time to say our names, that for the duration of these lessons, we all refer to each other by our baptismal names.”
Michael laughed. “You know, Blanche,” he said, “in my whole life of training to arms, my master never referred to me as anything but ‘you idiot.’”
“I draw the line at ‘idiot,’” Blanche said. “I’ll accept ‘you incompetent ninny.’”
“Duly noted,” Michael said. “Now, if you could take the sword in your hand properly and strike the pell?”
The pell in question was a large stake of hardwood planted deeply in the courtyard, with a crisscross of marks showing that Clarissa’s men-at-arms, at least those who had survived the siege, practiced regularly.
“Don’t you teach us a guard and a cut first?” Clarissa asked.
“No,” Michael said. “See if you can find it for yourself.”
“Jesus,” muttered Kaitlin.
Blanche strolled up to the pole, stopped with the sword behind her, held out like a tail, and then snapped the blade forward in a flat cut at the pole, just above waist height.
The sword cut deeply into the hard wood and a chip the size of a woman’s hand shot away. The sword was stuck and Blanche started to lever it out, and Michael put a hand over hers.
“Whoa!” he said, as if she were an awkward horse. “Someone has strong arms. Nice cut, Blanche. I pity the bogglins. But only take the blade out on the same line you put it in. Otherwise you use up a lot of blades.” He took his hand away and she worked the blade out gently, and got it free.
Beatrice stepped up. Unlike the other three women, she was dressed in a kirtle and overgown, where they were in men’s hose, and in moving, she caught the sword point in her overgown. She shook her head. “Sorry.” She made a face. “I’m clumsy,” she said.
“I doubt it,” Michael said. “Take some cuts.”
Beatrice was interested in the idea of having her thumb on the flat of the blade, and she stood there, her tongue between her teeth, playing with the feel of the sword in her hand. “I could cut myself very easily,” she said.
“Nothing to worry about,” Michael said.
She cut at the post. Her thumb grip kept the point low, and her blow was at waist height—not particularly hard, but neat. Before anyone could say anything, she stepped back and cut again, this time with one foot passing forward, and a small chip flew.
“Very nice,” Michael said. “Now try another grip,” Michael said.
Beatrice cut a third time, this time laying the naked blade on her shoulder and cutting so close to her own ear that Clarissa winced. But she turned her hand in making the cut and the flat of the sword bounced harmlessly off the pell. Michael turned the sword in her hand so that the edge fell on her shoulder.
“Now I really could cut myself,” she said.
Michael shrugged. “Swords are dangerous.”
She cut, and her sword made a satisfying thunk into the wood. She beamed with pleasure. “Ahh,” she said.
Michael smiled. “Next?”
Beatrice looked at the empress, who seemed satisfied. She grinned. “I could do this all day,” she said.
Kaitlin nodded. “I want a turn, Beatrice,” she said, as if they were on a playground.
She stepped up, took a distance, and cut, her blade rising above her head and cutting down into the pell. Like Blanche, she stuck the sword so deeply that she needed help and leverage to remove it.
“Again,” Michael said. He used a different tone of voice with Kaitlin. “Someone has cut a lot of firewood.”
“My brothers were lazy.” She frowned. “And my sisters, too, come to that.”
She cut again, this time starting on her shoulder, then passing back and rising to above her rounded waist and cutting flat. She hit just above her former angled cut and a large chip of wood flew away.
Michael shook his head. “Weak women,” he said. “Where are they when you need them? The poor post has to last out the week, ladies.”
For an hour, he cycled them through, allowing them to cut from any angle, any position.
“Aren’t you going to teach us guards?” Blanche asked.
Clarissa smiled. “I think I know a dozen,” she said.
“Not for a while,” Michael said. “I have two early goals for all of you: to feel comfortable striking, and to feel comfortable drawing, which we’ll do tomorrow. I’m a heretic; I find that if people use a sword regularly, they develop their own guards based on their own bodies.” He flourished his own sword, drawing it, rolling it over the back of his hand and catching it. “That is all the time we have today.”
All four women looked dashed. For Blanche, this meant a return to the stacks of vellum awaiting her; for Kaitlin, the loss of her husband to drilling troops; for the new Queen of Arles, the end of the best hour she’d had in four months.
“I wish this would go on forever,” she said. “I want to become a master!”
Michael waved to Robin, his squire. “Robin will be happy to guide you in further cutting,” he said. “The empress, that is, Blanche and I have to go through the morning reports.”
As if this was an official cue, all of them turned and bowed or curtsied to Blanche, who inclined her head with regal dignity. She didn’t even smile.
She only sighed. “Beatrice,” she said. “You may have another half-hour if you wish it.” She held out her hand, Michael took it, and they went up to the scriptorum together. On the stairs, she said, “That was … so much fun.”
“I’d like all of you to be able to draw and kill anything that threatens you. I can’t imagine any of you forced into protracted sword fights, but against an assassin …” Michael let his words trail off.
Blanche nodded. “Not to mention various bogglins, wardens, and other creatures of the Wild coming through my tent.”
Michael shuddered, remembering the fighting at Gilson’s Hole, when they had come within a hair’s breadth of losing the queen, her son, and Blanche. “By Saint George, I hope not.”
Blanche stepped off the steep steps at the top of the tower. “By Saint Mary Magdalene and all the saints, I hope it is as you pray,” she said. “But this time, if it happens again, I will be ready, and I will be in maille, at least.”
“You are pregnant,” Michael said quietly.
“Kaitlin told you?” Blanche asked. “Too early to say for sure. But yes, I would guess as much.” She smiled. “In fact, I’m very sure. But nothing that will incommode me in the next, say, thirty days.”
“I have trouble imagining anything that would incommode you, Your Grace,” Michael said. He grinned.
She grinned back. “Good,” she said, and pushed
open the door to the solar. Inside stood two androgynous young people in the black-and-white clothing of imperial messengers. There was also a bird on Master Julius’s fist and another on a perch. Julius held out a tiny scroll and she seized it, her heart suddenly hammering in her chest.
She didn’t breathe a moment as she read …
…. and then she flushed. “They have finished the Necromancer,” Blanche said aloud, her eyes on the vellum before her. “They will be on the way here. There’s orders for food.”
Michael was reading another message. “And you know where to find food? Here? In Arles?”
“I do,” Blanche said. “There is a convoy coming over the mountains. I intend to send Comnena and the Scholae to bring it in. Just in case.”
Michael nodded.
Blanche handed him her message. It was in code, and he sat down, began to figure the day’s code, and looked up at her. “You can read the code?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“It changes every day!” he protested.
She shrugged. “It is only a little mental book-keeping,” she muttered. “Like tracking laundry marks.”
He whistled.
Master Julius spoke very quietly, as if they were in church. “She saves us hours sometimes,” he said.
Michael nodded. “So that’s why he married you,” he said. “A genius cryptologist.”
Blanche glared at him. “I’m sure that was at the forefront of his mind,” she said.
Scrolls were read, passed back and forth, read again. The clerks began to copy them fair in plain text.
“But do you need a guard on the convoy?” Michael asked. “We seem to be in charge of the whole countryside.” He shrugged. “A forty-league ride in either direction is no small thing, Your Grace.”
Blanche glanced at Michael. “Julius, clear the room,” she said. “Just the three of us, please.”
“Ma’am,” he said, and shooed the messengers and secretaries out. The messengers took the birds; Blanche patted each of them in turn.
When the room was clear, she walked around it, looked out each of the arrow slits, and then opened the curtains on the master map.
“Michael, Master Julius,” she said. “Kronmir had a theory that the Patriarch was not a servant of the Necromancer, but of a third, or is it fourth, power.” She looked at Master Julius for confirmation. The notary nodded.