His concern was more or less abstract, a warrior’s curiosity about his craft. All the people who wore plate in this war were on his side.

“Fifty pounds or a bit less for a suit in her size,” Rudi agreed. “More than mail, but not so very much more. And it’s nearly as flexible as one of your hauberks. The weight’s well distributed by tying and buckling it to the point strings on the arming doublet and breeches instead of hanging everything from the shoulders. And it’s much better protection from arrows and bolts than mail. The way it traps heat is the worst drawback; you get tired faster, and you can sweat yourself into a faint if you’re not careful. That’s why she was wearing it, probably. You have to keep yourself accustomed to the heat and constriction. Forbye it’s good exercise.”

“Still, wearing it and moving quickly needs strength. You have many strong shield-maids here.”

Bjarni looked surprised when the others chuckled.

“Everyone else here does, except the PPA,” Rudi explained. “Tiphaine and . . . perhaps fifty or sixty others all told. Including my Matti! Their custom doesn’t hold with it. Nor their God, or at least so say many of their priests; it takes great skill and even more strength of will to break those barriers. She’s an exception. I told you how we Mackenzies captured Mathilda on a raid during the War of the Eye, when we were both around ten?”

Bjarni nodded, and Rudi continued: “Well, Tiphaine—she was knighted and ennobled for it and granted the fief of Ath—snatched her back that spring, with a small picked band. And myself, the both of us being not twice bowshot from the gates of Dun Juniper when she struck, the which was ingenious and bold. She got us back out of the Mackenzie dùthchas to Castle Todenangst with cloth yard arrows raining about her ears, too, which was not merely bold but skill of a miraculous degree—even on foot the Clan’s warriors can push a pursuit like wolves on the track of an elk and run horses to death. Lady Sandra stashed the both of us at Castle Ath for some time . . . which is where I began learning swordplay from her.”

“She’s good with a blade?” Bjarni said, his own hand dropping unconsciously to the hilt of his broadsword. “I thought she might be, from the grip she gave and the pattern of calluses on her hand.”

“I first beat her sparring when I was twenty-one, and didn’t again for some time,” he said soberly. “I’ve never crossed blades with anyone faster in all my travels. As swift as I, and more nimble. I have more reach and I’m much stronger, of course, but her blade-art is complete.”