CASTLE ODELL, COUNTY OF ODELL
(FORMERLY NORTHERN OREGON)
PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION
HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL
(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)
JULY 31, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

Castle Odell was small compared to the great fortress-palace of Todenangst, but substantial compared to anything else built in the PPA’s territories since the Change; towers and curtain-walls and rearing central keep beneath bright banners. Conrad Renfrew had started it in the second Change Year, right after he was granted the fief to hold as tenant-in-chief, direct vassal of the Crown.

After he’d conquered it for the Association, Sandra Arminger thought.

The carriage of the Lady Regent of the PPA rolled past the tents of the levy’s encampment and men gaped or gathered to cheer as the black-and-gold coach and its escort of men-at-arms and mounted crossbowmen of the Protector’s Guard swept by. More bowed and then waved and called greetings in the town.

Though considering who was in charge before, it’s no wonder he’s always been popular here. Not something that you could say about all our new lords. Mind you, Lady Valentinne had a good deal to do with it, starting with being native to the place. Tina mellowed him, which caused problems with Norman if not with me. He was still angry about the accident and the scars in those days, and she helped him deal with that.

His engineers had used Lenz Butte as the base, rising nearly two hundred feet over the rolling surface of the valley; the little red-tiled town of Odell clung to its base to the east by the road and railway, dwarfed by the castle and the newly completed Cypriot-Gothic cathedral. The slopes below the white-stuccoed ferroconcrete ramparts were terraced gardens. Just now they were a blaze of roses, the scent full and sweet in the warm drowsy summer air through the open windows of the carriage. The clatter of her escorts’ hooves came through as well, then the hollow drumming on the drawbridge; trumpets rang from the gatehouse, and they passed into its gloom beneath the arched ceiling that held the murder-holes and portcullis and out into light once more.

“This is a bit private, Jehane,” she said to her amanuensis as the driver pulled up with a whoa. “It’ll be easier to tell the Lord High Chancellor to act his age and stop being an idiot if it’s all in the family. Keep going on the précis of those reports.”

“Yes, my lady. The Castellan here is currently Lord Ramón Gómez González, Baron de Mosier, his family are vassals to House Renfrew. Arms, Gules, a castle of three towers argent, in base a key fessways the ward to the sinister or. His wife is Lady Gussalen of House O’Brian, and they just had their first boy. Named Bertrand. He’s taking the field with the rest of the arrière-ban, and Lord Akers, Baron de Parkdale succeeds him as Castellan then.”