Stirling, S. M. - Emberverse - 13 - Prince of Outcasts by Stirling S. M

Author:Stirling, S. M. [Stirling, S. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-07-18T09:59:27+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BARONY HARFANG

COUNTY OF CAMPSCAPELL

(FORMERLY EASTERN WASHINGTON STATE)

HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

SEPTEMBER 20TH

CHANGE YEAR 46/2044 AD

“Oh, stop smiling like that,” Órlaith said, half-serious in her irritation.

Heuradys extended her face forward, slitted her eyes and smiled again, this time in self-caricature as if she were a cat basking in the mellow golden afternoon sunlight of a long autumn day.

The Harris’s hawk on her gauntlet bated slightly, extending its wings and turning its hooded head with an air of what-are-you-doing? The courser she was riding shifted slightly too.

Órlaith felt the talons of her own hawk tighten through the thick supple leather of the gauntlet.

“Looks aren’t everything,” she replied. “And pay attention to your hawk. Macmac, stay.”

The weather had broken; it was fall now, days in the seventies, nights crisp. The first rains had fallen, harbinger of the wet months of winter, and a ghost of green went over the yellow-brown hills around them. It was perfectly comfortable, even warm with a coat, but you could smell the cold coming somehow. An odor like damp leaves and the taste of springwater. Macmacon sat obediently, his eyes on the brush and his nose wrinkling. The breeze was from their backs, which wouldn’t matter much since the quarry they were after were birds and didn’t have a sense of scent to speak of.

“Looks aren’t everything,” Heuradys said. “But combined with charm and wit and being a good dancer and having a nice sense of humor . . . then good cheekbones and shoulders and a nice tight butt don’t hurt at all. Help quite a bit, in fact.”

“Oh, that’s right, rub it in,” Órlaith said gloomily.

Dust smoked off the fields southward, tiny plumes in the distance. Teams of big draught horses were drawing the three-furrow riding plows and disk-harrows and seed-drills along the curving contour-strips, turning under the previous year’s close-mown alfalfa or sweet clover to plant the winter wheat and barley; the massive and costly equipment was owned jointly with the demesne and used on each peasant’s strips in turns drawn by lot. Birds followed the plowmen, attracted by the insects thrown up—or the seed grain in other spots, but children with slingshots and noisemakers deterred them there, as well as scarecrows. It was hard work, but not quite the round-the-clock scramble of harvest, since the planting would go on for a month yet.

Heuradys sent her an apologetic glance. “Sorry, Orrey. I tease too much sometimes.”

“That you do, and I your liege, the black shame and disgrace of the world it is.”

The hunting-party were well outside the fenced and hedged inner core of the manor, though this area was part of the stinted commons and regularly grazed. A long snaking swale ran between the hills, and a generation ago horse-drawn scrapers had shaped the light soil to turn it into a series of earth dams and ponds; ponds for about two thirds of the year, and thicker patches of green grass and reeds the rest, and some water was showing through the vegetation now from last night’s rain, like little glints of silver in moving green.

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