Thankfully the day’s heat was fading anyway now that the stars were out and she could escape the interminable banquet in the Great Hall below.

Where eyes bugged at this outfit, for various reasons. I suspect a lot of the women were taking careful notes!

The solar of Castle Goldendale was most of the way up the dojon tower of the keep and four sets of high arched windows marked the center of each wall, all open now and letting in a very pleasant cooling breeze. One corner of the big square room had a fireplace, empty and swept and garnished with bouquets of roses and dahlias and geraniums now; the other held the spiral staircase. The walls were pale plaster carved in spiderwork Gothic low-relief patterns and the floor was mosaic tile, light blue with a border of green and yellow flowering vines. A few colorful modern rugs were scattered across it.

Westward the new-risen moon shone on distant snow peaks, like a dream of cool peace in the purple night. Below the lights of the little town were coming on, the warm glow of lanterns and candles, the evening bells from the cathedral and the other churches—there were six, in a town of four thousand, plus a chapel that the other varieties of Christian used in rotation, a small synagogue and a once-clandestine and now merely inconspicuous covenstead.

Outside the walls with their pacing sentries were the tented camps of the gathering armies. They were there to protect the town, of course, but she couldn’t blame the citizens and the local fief-holders from feeling nervous at having so many armed men around, and right in the middle of harvest at that.

“Hose and houppelande, please, mesdames,” she said, when they’d gotten her down to her underwear.

Another chemise, plain this time, then the tight hose of bias-cut linen; she’d gotten used to pants on the Quest, and she’d always been able to get away with practical dress more than most noblewomen, because of her birth and training. Right now she had a reasonable excuse, too. A plain set of shirt, jerkin and loose houppelande coat was a lot more comfortable than anything else respectable for someone of her rank, and she would be on campaign soon.

Though an arming doublet and suit of plate is actually more uncomfortable than a cote-hardie, hard though that would be to believe if I hadn’t experienced both. Which is something not many people have done.

At least she didn’t have to feel morally uncomfortable about kicking someone out of their quarters. County Aurea was Crown demesne land, and Castle Goldendale was held by an appointed seneschal rather than as an autonomous fief; it had been built as a headquarters and strongpoint during the wars against the Free Cities of the Yakima League to the north.