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anyway and felt the edge
     of his smaller knife, the one he used for general camp work, including skinning. Special
     Forces were supposed to live off the land in the field—they were known as
snake eaters
for that reason—but right now he didn’t have to settle for reptile meat anyway.
    “We won’t starve today; pity the rest will go to waste and we can’t take the hide,
     but the coyotes have to eat too. Bear tastes like pork.”
    “I always thought it was a little gamy unless you soak it in vinegar a while,” she
     said. “Or beer.”
    The pilot started to smile, then winced as scabs pulled. “Not a feast at Larsdalen
     or Todenangst,” she said. “But sort of . . . fitting.”

CHAPTER THREE
    Castle Todenangst, Crown demesne
    Portland Protective Association
    Willamette Valley near Newburg
    (formerly western Oregon)
    High Kingdom of Montival
    (western North America)
    June 15th, Change Year 26/2024 AD
    S quire Lioncel de Stafford’s muscles still ached very slightly from the morning’s run
     in armor up and down the endless flights of stairs, with a shield on his left arm
     and a weighted wooden practice sword in his fist. Just enough that it felt good standing
     at parade rest behind the Grand Constable’s chair, where she sat with the document-and-plate-laden
     table between her and the Lord Chancellor of the Association, Conrad Renfrew, Count
     of Odell.
    The Silver Tower had the exotic luxury of a functioning elevator, powered by convicts
     on a treadmill in the dungeons, but Baroness Tiphaine d’Ath didn’t believe in letting
     her
menie
go soft merely because they were stationed at HQ for a week.
    She’d led the run, of course.
    A confidential secretary from the Chancellor’s office took notes in shorthand, with
     an occasional
no, not that!
to halt the pen about to render permanent an embarrassingly frank opinion about some
     exalted personage. One of the Count’s squires stood behind his wheelchair, and the
     Grand Constable’s pages were serving a working lunch when they weren’t standing silently
     against the far wall out of earshot; still, it was a sign of the trust attached to
     Lioncel’s position that he was present as the two most powerful officials of the Association
     conferred in private.
    Just now Tiphaine tapped one finger on a note signed in crimson ink:
    ���Sandra’s gotten a complaint from the Seneschal’s wife at Castle Oliver and passed
     it on to me with a flag for action after consulting you, Conrad.”
    Both the nobles lifted their eyes slightly at the mention of Sandra Arminger, formerly
     Lady Regent of the Association and now Queen Mother. There was nothing above this
     level save her apartments, the crenellations, cisterns, a heliograph station, a detachment
     of the Protector’s Guard and the roof. The Queen Mother was doing pretty much the
     same work that she had as Lady Regent, and from the same places.
    Lioncel carefully didn’t look up. Lately she’d actually been noticing one Lioncel
     de Stafford a little beyond the pat-on-the-head level. Not in a bad way, but it could
     be alarming when things shifted like that.
    “Castle Oliver . . . middle of the Okanagan . . . barony held in Crown demesne . . .
     twenty-two manors, the castle and a lot of grazing and woodland. The Seneschal would
     be Sir Symo Herrera,” the Chancellor said. “His wife . . . Lady Aicelena of the Chelan
     Dennisons. Aicelena’s running the place while Sir Symo’s away, the usual.”
    Conrad of Odell was nearly sixty and built like a squat muscular toad, with a face
     that would have looked coarse-featured and rugged even if it hadn’t been terribly
     burned long ago. A bit gaunt now, without the spare flesh he’d had before the Battle
     of the Horse Heaven Hills last year. He’d been smacked off his destrier there and
     suffered a hairline fracture of the pelvis. He was out of traction, but still wearing
     a long embroidered robe with wide sleeves, informal