Free The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series) by S. M. Stirling

issue made from mixed flour of barley and wheat. The strangers looked very slightly apprehensive, then showed equally well-hidden pleased surprise when they were presented with bowls of noodles in broth and plates with a grilled trout each.
    Relieved that they don’t have to pretend to enjoy revolting barbarian swill,
Heuradys thought, amused behind an impassive face.
Nice touch, Orrey.
    Not too difficult either. Fish swarmed in the Napa river and its tributaries, and with a civil settlement at hand finding pasta wasn’t difficult. For that matter, it was where the risen bread was coming from; in the field you mostly made do with tortillas unless there was a chuckwagon along. But the Crown Princess was being . . . tactful . . . again. The foreigners each brought out a little lacquered case and set their chopsticks on a rest built into it, the sharp-tapered points to the left.
    Well, well, Orrey’s really getting benefit from the Sword,
she thought.
    The Japanese pressed their hands together before their faces and murmured something, then sat impassively; Reiko drew a folding metal fan from her sash, probably a habitual gesture, but the edges glittered like razors. Órlaith and the Empress introduced their companions—Heuradys caught the words
bushi
and
samurai
, terms which had been part of her military education, and shaped the names
Koyama Akira
and
Egawa Noboru
to fix them in her memory.
    Right, surname first, I remember that. And only family and very close friends use the personal name.
    They all sat, and the Japanese laid pads and writing-sticks before them.
    And this is going to be a bit of a strain,
the knight realized.
Well, at least the breakfast looks good.
    “Harvest Lord who dies for the ripened grain—
    Corn Mother who births the fertile field—
    Blessed be those who share this bounty;
    And blessed be the mortals who toiled with You
    Their hands helping Earth to bring forth life.”
    Órlaith signed her plate with the Invoking pentagram as they murmured the Blessing, and she and Edain dropped a crumb of the bread. Heuradys flicked a drop of her hot herb tea aside as a libation. Órlaith would have offered the Nihonjin real tea if there had been any to be had, but it was an expensive luxury in her kingdom, imported or grown on a few experimental plantations, not the sort of thing you dragged along on a trip through wilderness.
    “Is that a religious ceremony, Your Highness?” Koyama said slowly and carefully, pronouncing each word distinctly.
    Órlaith nodded, her lips quirking in a slight smile. They
knew
she spoke Japanese like someone who’d been born among them, but it seemed hard for them to
grasp
.
    “You may speak normally. I think you will find I speak your language reasonably well,” she said.
    His face was entirely expressionless as he looked at her chin. The habit of avoiding direct eye contact after a first glance was a little disconcerting, but she copied it. They were also avoiding watching the Montivallans wield knife and fork on their bacon, scrambled eggs and fried potatoes, which they seemed to find mildly revolting.
    “You speak it perfectly, in fact,” Koyama said. “Even with the same distinct regional accent as myself or the Majesty, and with post-Change Court diction. Which is remarkable. I understand it is due to that . . . sacred weapon?”
    They were stealing occasional glances at the Sword of the Lady; slung across the back of the chair, the crystal antler-cradled pommel was just visible. She nodded and continued:
    “The Sword of the Lady. And yes, this is a religious ceremony, a minorrite. We give thanks to the Earth Mother and the dying and reborn Lord, and an offering to the . . .”
    She dropped into her own language for the term before she explained it in theirs:
    “. . . the
aes dana.
The spirits of place.
Kami
, I think you would say. My religion believes that each place and thing has a spirit, parts of the greater Gods but also distinct, as They