Lord of Mountains: A Novel of the Change by S. M. Stirling Read Free Book Online Page B

Boise’s light cavalry wore. Just leather breeches and mail shirts, but unmistakable in detail, along with their helmets—sort of an understated sallet they called a Fritz, which together with the stars-and-stripes flag emblem were their inheritance from the ancient world.
    But they were disarmed and dismounted, under the guard of the outpost’s complement and a couple of
conroi
of men-at-arms led by a knight Huon recognized. None of the enemy were wounded, so they hadn’t been captured in the course of ordinary fighting. That probably meantthey’d come over of their own wills. Being a royal squire meant you heard things; among others, that a lot of people in the United States of Boise weren’t happy with their General-President Martin Thurston, especially now that the story of how he’d murdered his own father to take over the position had gotten around.
    Especially now that his own wife and own mother and own sisters escaped with the aid of the Dúnedain and are telling the truth to everyone. Not to mention his brother Frederick is the High King’s friend and one of the Companions of the Quest, so there’s someone for soldiers to go over to. Boise will be part of the High Kingdom too, and under the High King’s peace!
    “Sir Ogier!” Huon said, dismounting and saluting; high politics weren’t his affair yet, but that didn’t stop him thinking.
    The young knight looked up; he’d been a royal squire too, until the High Queen gave him the accolade on the field of honor not long ago, and was still a fairly junior household commander of the High Queen’s
menie
. He was a little over two years older than Huon and around six feet, probably his full height though he was still lanky with late adolescence; his hair was a very dark brown-yellow, like barley, and there was a spray of acne across his cheeks and nose—something Huon had been spared so far. His smile was genuine and warm beneath the raised visor; they’d served together, after all. And though Ogier of House Renfrew was a son of the Count of Odell, one of the great Peers of the Association, he was the
youngest
son, with two elder brothers, not to mention three sisters who’d be needing dowries.
    “Good to see you again, Huon,” he said, taking the dispatch, looking at the address and handing it over to the signal detachment commander. “And you too, Lioncel.”
    “I noticed you’d been sent on a mission, Sir Ogier,” Huon said.
    The knight nodded. “I was out meeting these fellows, they slipped a message across the lines that they wanted to switch sides, and Her Majesty thought a man of rank should meet them, being tactful and so forth.”
    A snort. “And thirty lancers with me, to make sure they were honest about it.”
    He turned his head to Lioncel: “Any news from your brother?”
    “Not lately, Sir Ogier,” the blond youth said. Then he grinned: “But my lady my mother is delivered of a daughter, who’ll be christened Yolande. Your lady mother the Countess and the ladies your sisters were there at Montinore manor for the accouchement.”
    “Excellent!” Ogier said; he seemed to be happy with the world today. To Huon: “Lioncel’s little brother Diomede is paging it with Countess Anne in Tillamook off on the Pacific shore.”
    “Don’t let him hear you say
little
brother, Sir Ogier,” Lioncel said, grinning.
    It was all part of the network of fosterage and service that tied the great houses together. There had also been persistent talk of a marriage between the Countess-regnant of Tillamook, or the County on the Edge of the World, as it was also known, and Count Conrad Renfrew’s youngest son. Marriage was another part of the network.
    He went on to Huon: “I just got this from Her Grace.”
    He tapped a knot of ribbons in Tillamook’s colors on his shoulder, gray and green and silver around an embroidered rose. Wearing a lady’s favor wasn’t precisely a pledge of marriage, that depended on circumstances. But it did entitle