Free The Given Sacrifice by S. M. Stirling

Congratulations!”
    His warm glow of delight was entirely unselfish; Lioncel was heir only to Barony Forest
     Grove. As adopted son of the Grand Constable his younger brother Diomede would inherit
     the title and lands of Barony Ath, the original fief in the Tualatin Valley west of
     Portland and the new grant too. His sister Heuradys was an adopted daughter of d’Ath,
     too, for similar reasons; it left House Stafford and House d’Ath each with one son
     to inherit and one daughter to dower, a perfect set for succession purposes.
    Tiphaine nodded, her long regular face tilting a little to watch his, her ice-colored
     eyes considering as they met his bright blue. They looked enough alike in face and
     feature and build as well as coloring to be close blood kin, though they weren’t.
    “Not quite as generous as it looks at first glance, boy,” she said. “It’s in the Palouse
     out east, not the Willamette.”
    Lioncel frowned. He’d been too young then to really follow things, but . . .
    “Didn’t we—the Association—split the Palouse with old President-General Lawrence Thurston
     of Boise just before the war, my lady?”
    “Right, and a couple of armies have passed that way since, so the only other living
     claimants are pronghorns and prairie dogs. Good wheat and sheep land, though; it’s
     near a rail line when we get that fixed, and there’s water enough given work and money.
     By the time Diomede’s my age, it’ll be valuable.”
    “Their Majesties are generous,” Lioncel said, thinking hard. “But you certainly deserve
     it, my lady. You’ve been a, ah, a pillar of the dynasty”—that had started with her
     working as an assassin for Lady Sandra, early on. Right after the Change, during the
     Foundation Wars, when she was only a little older than he was now—“since the beginning!”
     he concluded, tactfully.
    She’d also been a duelist in the Crown’s interest, and still had a chest full of expired
lettres de cachet
signed “Sandra Arminger” and inscribed with the dreaded phrase:
the bearer has done what has been done by my authority, and for the good of the State.
    “And you commanded the rearguard on the retreat from Walla Walla last year, and led
     the charge at the Horse Heaven Hills. A good lord rewards his most faithful vassals
     with land. It’s the only wealth that’s really real.”
    My lady wants me to pick something out here. What is it? What am I missing?
    “OK, Lioncel, look at it as if
you
were on the throne. What’s the reason
not
to spill land grants wholesale like candied nuts out of a piñata?”
    “Ummm . . . well, God isn’t making any more land, my lady. Fiefs are hereditary so
     it’s a lot easier to give it out than to get it back into the Crown demesne.”
    “Right. Now, specifics: Sandra Arminger already sponsored me into the Association
     in the first place, knighted me with her own hands, and gave me everything I have.
     She was your mother’s sponsor too. And I was one of Mathilda’s tutors for a long time.
     I . . . and your parents . . . owe everything to her family.”
    “Well, yes, my lady. Put that way, House Arminger have been extremely generous already.”
    “So even if you didn’t know me personally, can you imagine me
not
being loyal to the Crown?”
    “Ah . . . put that way, no, my lady. It’s sort of proverbial, in fact.”
    They call you the Lady Regent’s Stiletto, actually. Or just Lady Death. Which is a
     pun on d’Ath, but they mean it.
    “And apart from the fact that I
want
to be loyal, there’s the additional fact that I’m disliked by the Church, and hated
     by a lot of lay nobles whose relatives I’ve killed. I’ve been generously rewarded
     with land and office, and I . . . and your parents . . . need the Crown’s ongoing
     protection. Why give me more?”
    “Well . . . it’s good lordship to reward service with an open hand,” Lioncel said,
     beginning to sweat slightly. “It’s not