Free Prince of Outcasts by S. M. Stirling

drowning it in cream.”
    From the look on his face he had something unpleasant in mind for their pursuer and John heartily approved; he’d already come to hate the lookout’s morning call of
sail ho to sternward
!
    And it’s not natural we can’t shake him, too,
he thought.
I wish the Sword of the Lady was here. And Órlaith to carry it. It would be a relief to have her being bossy! I wonder what she’s been doing?

CHAPTER FOUR
    C ASTLE T ODENANGST , C ROWN D EMESNE
    P ORTLAND P ROTECTIVE A SSOCIATION
    (F ORMERLY NORTHERN O REGON )
    H IGH K INGDOM OF M ONTIVAL
    (F ORMERLY WESTERN N ORTH A MERICA )
    S EPTEMBER 15 TH
    C HANGE Y EAR 46/2044 AD
    T he audience chamber gave out onto a D-shaped antechamber occupying part of the north side of this level of the tower, lit by pointed-arch windows through the thickness of the outer tower wall. This high up they could be large, and there was none of the funeral gloom you usually associated with castles. Crossbowmen raised their weapons to the present as Órlaith came through and a stream of Delegates came out behind her. The mild humid warmth of a Willamette summer came in through the open panes, carrying scents of woodsmoke and greenery and flowers, to mingle with the stone and beeswax scents of the building. The silver-gray tile of the wall was divided by thin upright panels of stylized ceramic vines and flowers and birds in blue and crimson and green; niches held the fruits of her maternal grandmother’s expeditions and patronage—here a celadon vase made in old China, there a blue-robed, gold-crowned modern Madonna with a soft secret smile as she gazed down at the Child in her arms.
    â€œPhew,” Órlaith murmured as they turned left and walked brisklytowards the elevators and her waiting followers. “That was bad, Herry. Not as bad as I feared, worse than I hoped.”
    â€œSort of like life that way,” Heuradys said dryly. “But look at it like this, my heroic but fretful liege: Reiko got her sword, she’s getting the alliance she needs and which in the long run
we
need, John’s alive, and in a bit less than five years you’re going to be High Queen.”
    â€œI’ll be a High Queen with a reputation for reckless indiscipline,” she said gloomily.
    â€œNo, that would have been if we’d screwed up. Right now you’re a Crown Princess with a reputation for being smart and daring enough to bring off impossible stuff. Sort of like your dad! Or your mother, before she got all stodgy.”
    â€œNo, she was always a stickler for rules and procedures, from what I hear. She just loved Da so much she took off after him anyway.”
    â€œAh, I hadn’t thought of it that way! Still, while it’s not a perfect result, I’d give it a nice solid as-good-as-can-be-reasonably-expected.”
    Ã“rlaith stopped for a moment and lowered her voice still more. “Remember the beach in Topanga? For John . . . death isn’t the worst thing that can happen.”
    Heuradys winced slightly. Reiko had met
her
brother there, a brother long-lost and thought to be dead for more than half a decade . . . and he’d been a tortured slave of the sorcerer-lords of the enemy who’d broken his soul in captivity. She’d tricked him into taking the Grass-Cutting Sword in his hands and drawing it, and in a single instant it had quite literally burned him to a thin drift of ash before she seized it back and used it to call upon her Ancestress and crush the Korean ships.
    That was . . . alarming. It gives me an idea of how it must be for others around the Sword of the Lady.
    â€œThere’s absolutely nothing we can do about that right now, Orrey. Except win this war we’re starting.”
    â€œThey started it,” Órlaith said and made a vexed sound. She shook her head. “It’s odd how you can love someone and they you, and the two of you still just