“You probably won’t be able to,” Tiphaine said bluntly. “The Kingdom will see that your people don’t starve, and you can plant more spring acreage next year. It’ll be settled by then.”

One way or another, she did not add aloud.

“If we have the seed grain and oxen and horses,” de Aguirre said.

“The Kingdom will help there too,” Tiphaine said firmly. “I have the High King’s word on that, by the way. Everyone’s going to contribute to help rebuild the damaged areas, my lord. If anyone suffers, then we’re all going to do it together. Mutual help is what a Kingdom means.”

The gloomy young nobleman perked up a little. “It’s good to remember we’re a kingdom now,” he said. “And that we have a King. A High King!”

Then he crossed himself. “And the Sword we’ve heard of . . .”

“Quite real, and everything the tales say,” Tiphaine said, copying the gesture. “Everything and more.”

“Then with a Sword granted from the hand of the Queen of Heaven—I’ve heard of Father Ignatius’ vision of her too—we have the certainty of God’s favor! And with that, what need we fear?”

Rudi—Artos—has become our Lucky Rabbit’s Foot, she thought. Poor bastard, he doesn’t dare lose anything substantial, now. He’s what’s keeping our morale up, or at least his legend is. But it’s a young legend, and still fragile. Well, no, it’s not just a legend. The Sword is real.

“We’ve been given a chance, and deliverance from the CUT’s . . . magic, sorcery, Jedi mind-tricks, whatever they were. The rest we have to do ourselves, and be ready to sweat and bleed for it,” Tiphaine said. “God expects us to work for His favor, my lord.”

Or Someone does, she thought, conscious of the owl amulet around her neck beneath the breastplate and arming doublet.

Tiphaine’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the City Palace of the Counts Palatine of the Eastermark. Someone who knew her very well would have read a detached amusement in the expression.

The Palace had been the Marcus Whitman Hotel before the Change; a three-stepped pile twelve stories tall at the highest point, built of brickfaced concrete in the 1920s’ version of a vaguely Renaissance style. Education in Sandra Arminger’s household had included a full course of actual history rather than the Society mythology turned from play into deadly seriousness which passed for it in the PPA territories most of the time. The Lady Regent herself had spent time seeing that her particular protégés really understood it, too.