“My lady d’Ath, House Arminger and the Protectorate are very well served in their Grand Constable. House Artos and the High Kingdom of Montival will be as well.”

“It needed doing, your grace,” she said with a shrug. “I was there, and I did it.”

He exchanged another glance with his wife.

“My lady Grand Constable, I cannot repay your aid with gifts, but I would give you one, if I might, as a symbol of our regard and a pledge of future friendship between our Houses. We spoke of my hunting lodge of High Halleck, in the mountains—my mother had it built and named it.”

Tiphaine inclined her head. “I was thinking just a little earlier of asking for the loan of it,” she said. “When the war is over.”

He shook his head. “Not a loan. I . . . we would gift it to you, my lady, lodge and land and forest right. In free socage, not asking vassalage, of course.”

Tiphaine put down the brandy snifter and made her mouth not drop open. House de Aguirre didn’t do things by halves!

Sandra would be pleased. And Rudi and Mathilda would, too. I’ve certainly nailed down the Eastermark politically, the way they wanted. But I don’t think . . . I’m Grand Constable, accepting a princely gift like that might . . .

She stood and bowed in return. “My lord, my lady, my office forbids that I accept such a gift in my own person.”

Felipe began to frown slightly, but Ermentrude touched his sleeve and spoke, “But you have an heir, I believe, Lady d’Ath?”

“Yes. My adopted son, Diomede. Born to Lord Rigobert and his wife Lady Delia.”

“Second son,” Rigobert said helpfully.

Which gave a perfectly reasonable excuse for his welcoming a son taking the name of another House; it solved the inheritance problem rather neatly. Arrangements of that sort weren’t at all uncommon, where a fief-holder had no heir of the body.

Count Felipe’s face cleared, and he beamed. “Which enables me to express my gratitude to you both,” he said. “I must insist.”

Gisarme-butts stamped in the corridor outside. Rigobert opened the door, and the Mother Superior of the Walla Walla abbey swept in. She made a curtsy: “My lord Count?” she said. “I came as quickly as possible.”

Tiphaine stood. “I leave you in very capable hands, your Grace,” she said.

She and de Stafford shook the nobleman’s hand and bowed over Ermentrude’s.

“And that is that,” she murmured, as they walked back through the family quarters.

Bewildered work crews were already tearing up the bloodstained parquetry. The Baron of Forest Grove nodded approval.

“Except for winning the war, of course,” he said. “And now we have to manage a fighting retreat for the High King.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY

ARMY HQ
THE HIGH KING’S HOST
HORSE HEAVEN HILLS
(FORMERLY SOUTH-CENTRAL WASHINGTON)
HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL
(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)
OCTOBER 28, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD