Free The Sword of the Lady by S. M. Stirling Page B

lute around and strummed. His fingers teased out a stately tune, one of his own.
    Oh, no! Mathilda thought. Not that one!
    The chamber group had fallen silent. His smile was half warm and half a teasing pleasure in her embarrassment as he sang a chorus in a pleasant tenor:
     
    ″So let the Hall ring for the Light of the North!
    For the Princess Mathilda—the Light of the North!″
    ″Odard, I still haven′t forgiven you for composing that,″ she said, and rapped his knuckles with her fan.
    He grinned unrepentantly as he shook the hand and then went on: ″I was just telling these good fellows about the High Tournament of the Association.″
    ″Great stuff!″ one of them said enthusiastically. ″We have Reserve drills and National Guard muster days at the county fairs, but nothing that fancy. It sounds like a hell of a lot of fun!″
    ″Not when you′re smacked right off your horse and knocked silly and you throw up inside a closed helm and they have to unharness you with bolt cutters,″ Mathilda said with feeling. ″ Or when a horse breaks something and screams until they put it down. I always hate that part.″
    ″Girls compete?″ Kate said, interested.
    ″The Princess is a special case, to be sure,″ Odard said smoothly. ″And of course the current Grand Constable of the Association—Lady Tiphaine, Baroness d′Ath. Apart from them, no, not very often. Though one young lady is always crowned Queen of Love and Beauty by the winner.″
    Mathilda choked back a gurgling laugh. Two years ago Tiphaine d′Ath had won, and the Grand Constable had ridden up to the stands and dropped the crown from the point of her lance into the lap of her lady-in-waiting Delia de Stafford. At which the local bishop had nearly choked on the blessing, since everyone knew about Tiphaine and Delia.
    That was wicked of her. Funny, yes, but wicked.
    Though nobody spoke about it, unless they wanted to face Baroness d′Ath in a duel, which wasn′t anything a sane human being would do unless they were tired of life. Mathilda sighed a little, struck by sudden homesickness.
    In the unlikely event that I ever win a tournament —
    She knew herself to be fair to middling at best despite a lifetime′s coaching by experts, without the supernal speed and skill that d′Ath used to compensate for men′s greater raw strength.
    —I′m going to crown myself Queen of Love and Beauty and nobody else! Or maybe I could crown Rudi King of Love and Beauty . . . all the warrior saints witness he′s beautiful . . .
    Odard went on, diplomatically ignoring her sudden flush:
    ″I′m surprised you don′t have tournaments here . . . weren′t there any Society people in Iowa? In most places which survived at all they did very well.″
    A new voice broke in: ″Oh, there were some here in Des Moines. Dad said he found them very useful as instructors, the craftsmen and the fighters at least—the rest were . . . sort of flaky. He didn′t want anything to do with all that ceremonial they liked so much.″
    Mathilda concealed a start. That was the Bossman, just breaking away from the people she didn′t want him talking to—the emissaries from Corwin in Montana, the red-robed and shaven-skulled priest of the Church Universal and Triumphant, and the hard-eyed officer of the Sword of the Prophet who′d been pursuing them ever since they left Oregon. Anthony Heasleroad saw her glare at them and motioned them away. Being here on sufferance themselves they went, not without glares of their own.
    ″Dad always said you could afford to have people curse you in private, but not laugh.″
    Pride stiffened Mathilda′s spine, and she sank in the formal curtsey her tutors had drilled into her in girlhood. When she spoke her voice was cool courtesy:
    ″I′m sure your father was a very able man, my lord Bossman,″ she said. ″But so was mine; Portland lives, when all the other great cities on the West Coast died. And I assure you nobody laughed when he was