Free The Given Sacrifice by S. M. Stirling Page B

gain, no pain?”
    Tiphaine almost smiled, which startled him a little. She went on:
    “Good points, but those are basically reasons to grant the land to
someone
, eventually, not necessarily to me and Rigobert right now. Speaking of whom, my lord
     your father is getting an identical tract next to this”—she flicked a finger at the
     parchment—“which means we’ll be neighbors out there, too. On the same terms, just
     the names and map changed. So?”
    “And because it’s important to be
seen
to reward good service? That’s a big part of a lord’s repute and good name, and that’s
     part of what makes people eager to take service with you and do their best, and ready
     to stick with you if things go badly.”
    “Another point. I actually am grateful, too . . . not least because this means I can
     reward some of
my
landless followers.”
    She visibly took pity on him.
    “Lady Sandra used to grill me like this, and she did it to Matti, too. The less obvious
     part is about
your
generation of House Ath and House Stafford.”
    Lioncel blinked a little, startled. Then he nodded slowly. It made sense that the
     Crown would start thinking about him . . . though it was a bit . . .
    Nerve-wracking. Exciting, though, too. Someday not too long from now
I’ll
be someone who does important things.
    Tiphaine spoke, echoing his thoughts closely enough to startle:
    “Rigobert and I will be out of the picture in a few decades, but you’ll be in your
     prime when Crown Princess Órlaith is as old as you are now, and Diomede not long after.
     This means the Crown thinks you and your brother will likely be assets for
her
. Plus . . . take a look at the tenures those manors are held under.”
    He reread the document, frowning in concentration; this
did
involve questions of feudal law.
    “Ummm. Parts of it . . . three manors out of twenty . . . are held in free and common
     socage, not just by knight-service and tallages like the rest.”
    That was unusual and meant they could be alienated, unlike ordinary land held in fief
     by a tenant-in-chief, which descended undivided by primogeniture whether held in demesne
     or subinfeudated. It didn’t escheat to the Crown in default of natural heirs, either.
    A light dawned. “Those parts in socage are an inheritance for Heuradys and Yolande!”
     he said delightedly.
    His young sisters were a bit more than two and less than a year old respectively.
     When he had thought of it at all he’d expected that they’d be dowered by charges on
     the revenues of the baronies of Forest Grove and Ath, sunk in government bonds or
     town properties or the like.
    Actual manors in their own names would improve their prospects considerably, whether
     they wanted to marry, go into the Church, or make some other choice. Right now the
     “manors” were each just big chunks of rolling bunchgrass, but his sisters were very
     young.
    Wait a minute, if my lord my father got a grant like this, a hell of a lot goes to
me
, too,
he thought for the first time.
    Which meant raising him as well as Diomede into the top rank of tenant-in-chief barons;
     there were Counts with less, though not many. That was a distant enough prospect to
     seem pretty theoretical, but it was agreeable enough too.
    “Right,” Tiphaine said. “And—”
    She stopped, cocking her head as if to listen. “That’s odd . . . did you hear that
     owl? Sounded like a big Harfang.”
    Lioncel looked at her blankly; he knew all the birds of prey well, from hawking and
     hunting.
    “Owl, my lady? It’s the middle of the afternoon!”
    It was, and a bright one in early summer; the sunlight was a thick glowing bar across
     the table, patterned where the Gothic stone tracery of the window cut it, and even
     the corners of the room showed a bit of glitter on the metallic threads of the tapestries.
    “That does make an owl unlikely, eh?” Tiphaine said. “And you’ve got youngster’s ears.”
    He’d rarely seen