The abbess spoke, unexpectedly; she’d been silent except when something relevant to her Order’s area of operation had come up, and she and her attendant had been dining sparely on the salad and the excellent local bread, drinking water rather than the equally excellent local wines.

“The Lady Countess fails to note that most of those cattle were donated to our clinics and the public soup kitchens we and the regular clergy have established for the displaced,” she said.

I don’t think that’s brown-nosing, she really likes her, Tiphaine decided. Evidently Ermentrude takes her duties seriously.

A lord’s wife was supposed to be the one who organized welfare measures in the lord’s fief; it was a real and demanding job, if done properly. Unofficially she was also supposed to be the voice whispering in his ear that tempered justice with mercy. Delia certainly worked hard at both in Ath and Forest Grove.

The plates were cleared, and then the servants set out platters of pastries and pots of monstrously expensive real coffee, moderately expensive sugar made from locally grown beets, and thick cream and decanters of brandy and discreetly retired. Tiphaine approved as she bit into an apricot tart. Far too many people assumed that servants didn’t have ears, though Sandra had never made that mistake, and had any number of them on her clandestine payroll. Everyone looked up as she rapped a knife against a wineglass.

“All right, my lords and ladies, goodmen and goodwomen.”

Public speaking had always been something that she loathed, but she was fairly good at it by now.

“I’m going to say a few words for all of you, and then I’m afraid there will be a private consultation with your lord and his barons and war-captains. I’m absolutely sure that all of you are loyal, but it’s a simple fact that the more widely information is spread the more likely it is to leak.”

She stood with her fingertips on the table and slowly looked them all in the eye. Most of their faces were neutral, politely attentive; everyone at this table was a politician, in their way.

Including me, she thought. Dammit.

“First, I bring you the greetings of our High King, Artos the First, and the High Queen Mathilda, our own Princess of House Arminger.”

There was a murmur of pleasure, mostly genuine from the expressions. The Associates were generally happy that the grandchild of the Lord Protector would end up ruling the whole shebang, albeit by marriage rather than conquest. The dynasty was popular these days, far more so than it had been in Norman’s time. For that matter, a lot of people still thought of him with gratitude. Commoners might be pleased for that reason—they were, after all, alive because of what he’d done—or because the next High King wouldn’t wholly be the scion of House Arminger. Plenty still remembered just how heavy his hand could be, too.