The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series) by S. M. Stirling Read Free Book Online Page B

subliminal instant; that sort of calculation was as natural as instinct.
    “Droyn, Her Highness isn’t to be troubled with matters of precedence and Household organization yet. Grief aside, there are high matters of State that demand her full attention.”
    He frowned. “Yes, my lady. Everything’s all ahoo, but . . . yes. We can improvise and work around. We’ll leave the High King’s tent and trappings with the baggage we’re having sent on, and leave most of the staff with them. The . . . the High King wasn’t traveling with much state anyway.”
    Heuradys nodded; Rudi Mackenzie had been a knight but not an Associate despite being married to one, and he’d always retained theinformality of the Clan’s chieftains when he could. The north-realm’s ideas of how to show the consequence due to rank weren’t popular in the greater part of Montival outside the Protectorate, anyway. They were a legacy of the Association’s precursor, the Society for Creative Anachronism, a pre-Change brotherhood. Who’d practiced them, and the other arts of chivalry . . . as far as she could tell from what her adoptive mother had let fall in private moments, simply as a pastime. They were deadly serious matters to their descendants, most of whom didn’t think of the centuries between modern times and the days of Charlemagne and Arthur and the Black Prince as important . . . or even very real.
    A tradition had to start somewhere, and enough belief made it as real as a rock.
    “So we can . . . ease things in,” Droyn said.
    “Good idea,” she said.
    She was relieved that he was thinking along the same lines. Being the son of a Count didn’t guarantee you weren’t a natural-born damned fool. On the other hand, it didn’t mean you necessarily were, either. She’d dealt with her share of well-and-high-born idiots, though they were rarer than in the general population. Foolish or timid people just hadn’t survived the Darwinian process that had produced the Associate nobility’s survivors in the first generation, and there hadn’t been enough time for much regression to the mean.
    “Select a minimum number of varlets to handle this tent and Her Highness’ baggage. Young and strong ones and good riders, because we want to make all speed we can north. It wouldn’t hurt if they at least knew which end of the sword goes where, just in case.”
    “Guard relays?”
    “Sir Aleaume will handle that as usual, under Captain Edain’s direction; they’ll set the rosters. I’ve consulted with both. Just remember that we do
not
want to start formally treating the Crown Princess as if she were her father, or as if she’d been crowned High Queen Regnant. High Queen Mathilda wouldn’t get
very
upset, but a lot of other people
would
. Starting with Her Highness, which we do not want!”
    “St. Michael and the Virgin, no!” Droyn said, crossing himself.
    “Glad you understand that. We’ll be taking most of the horses to use as remounts at least as far as White Mountain; the carts can wait here for more to arrive. So no gear that won’t fit on a pack-saddle. I’ll coordinate with Sir Aleaume, but I think I can rely on you to be inconspicuous and still get things done? The Household has to keep as much off of Her Highness’ shoulders as we can, right now.”
    His clenched fist in its armored gauntlet clashed on his articulated breastplate again. “My lady!”
    “And one final matter.”
    She turned to a steel box about two feet on a side, turned the key in the lock and opened it. Within rested a vase twenty inches high, a tulip-shape of sleek silver-colored glass with a design of reeds and flowers that made you think of warm early-summer days beneath the shade of a riverside willow-tree. It had been intended as a gift from Dun Barstow to the High King because of its beauty, an ancient thing found in the ruins of a mansion in Napa. Now it held his ashes.
    And there wasn’t anything left
but
ashes,
she thought with a