"Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River (V1.0)HTM" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Mitchell)
BOOK TWO OF THE SNOWFALL TRILOGY By MITCHELL SMITH
Version 1.0 Copyright © 2003 by Mitchell Smith ISBN: 0-765-34058-5
Concern
has been expressed by the National Science Foundation that possible alterations
of Jupiter's orbit, following successive major cometary impacts, may affect the
earth's orbit — slightly, but
still decisively — and so change the annual patterns of our planetary
weather. Associated Press, May 16, 2006 Article
in
Had
this latest — and most severe
— ice-age taken an age to arrive, instead of only decades, enough
preparation might have been possible to spare those hundreds of millions who
froze in the north... those hundreds of millions who starved in the south.
Might have spared us, as well, four — now almost five — barbaric
centuries, with what remains of civilization learned, like our language, from
those relatively few books surviving. New
Harvard Yard,
Introduction To
the Kipchak Prince and Khan Evgeny Toghrul, Lord of Grass, Ruler Perfect of the
Bering Strait Traversed, the Map-Pacific Coast, Map-California — and, lately,
Conqueror of Map-Texas to the Guadalupe River and beyond. Greetings
from Neckless Peter, old man and librarian, who years ago, having been taken captive
from my Gardens Town by naked savages
— Border Roamers serving with
your father's subsidiary forces — was privileged to tutor a brilliant boy in
what we know of Warm-times gone, and their wisdom. This
boy has become you, my lord — and I, your recently assigned ambassador and
agent to North Map-Mexico, take this opportunity to tell you that I quit. 'I
quit.' Is it any wonder we get not only our written and spoken language from
the books of centuries past, but even its casual slang — so
neat, so pointed, so appropriate? I
am, of course, aware that your strangler's bowstring awaits any who disappoint
you, and can only hope that a thousand miles of distance — and
perhaps some slight regard you might still hold for your elderly tutor — will
prevent a determined attempt at murder. In
any case, I can now say what I felt it unwise to mention to you before — so
as not to increase an already understandable arrogance —
which is that you were by far the most extraordinary intelligence I had
ever encountered or ever expected to encounter, and as such were a joy to
teach. I have not forgotten and will never forget sitting by the Meadow
Fountain at Caravanserai with a quiet, slender boy whose eyes, black, glossy,
steady as a spider's and slightly slanted beneath the folds of their lids,
drank from the pages of every copybook I presented to him. Your
first question to me: What had happened to the countless thousands of Warm-time
books now lost to us? You'd asked, and been saddened by my answer:
"Burned, libraries of them, almost all those not eaten by centuries of
winters. Burned with all knowledge of their miracles of learning —
perfect medicines, the making of black bang-powder, the secrets of
flying machines and laboring machines and thoughtful machines, as well as
endless wonderful intricate tales.... Almost all the books burned for warmth as
their peoples' world collapsed beneath weather, and they and their children
froze." Yours
proved to be a genius clear and encompassing as flowing water. And now, of
course, driven by a ferocity that impressed even your late and quite ferocious
father, that intelligence is causing our ice-weighted world to tremble, so only
Middle Kingdom, and of course Do
you remember the afternoon we read of Ancient-Alexander's life and conquests?
We read it together in a spectacular copybook, a treasure copied from an
original found in the ruins of We
read of Ancient-Alexander, and you diagramed his battles with squid ink on wide
sheets of the court's perfect paper. You refought those conflicts in your mind,
your quill moving here and there... and finally decided how the Persian center
might have been more suitably arrayed. "Clumsy
forces," you said of the Persians and their Greek allies, but gathered
them together on your paper, set them in odd echelon... then waited for
Ancient-Alexander and his Companions to make the inevitable charge. "He
would have beaten me at the Granicus," you said, "but at Issus, I
would have destroyed him. There would have been no Gaugamela." And
satisfied, you let the white sheets of paper, swarming with the inked lines and
arrows of battles never to be fought, slip from your lap to the grass. I
will not forget those afternoons, lord, nor your love of Warm-time poetry —
particularly the New England lady's. I could not stop for Death, so
he kindly stopped for me... (How sad that those Map-Boston people have
fallen to growing beasts in women's bellies.) Remembering
our rich days, why then do I quit you? And for the service of an upstart
Captain-General of North Map-Mexico, Small-Sam Monroe, to whose camp you sent
me as ambassador and spy? First,
I leave your service for his because I loved his Second-mother, Catania Olsen,
as a friend, and because Small-Sam was born at Gardens, my home, when it was
still tree green and full of families and fine weaving, all under the rule of
the last great Garden Lady, Mary Bongiorno. So, I choose my future in honor of
my past. Second,
I leave your service for his because while Small-Sam Monroe is a war-captain,
and successful at it, I think he will not be only a war-captain,
determined as you are to devour all our cold-struck continent, and so cause a
barbarous age to become even more so. You
will be interested to hear that when I mentioned my intention to Monroe — to
leave your service for his — he insisted I first complete the task for
which you sent me, and forward to you a complete history, description, and
report of the current essential military and economic matters of his
overlordship. This report to be carried sealed and unread by him or any man of
his, and delivered along with his personal apology for depriving you of an
amusing servant.... I'm not sure why 'amusing.' He
also refused to accept any report I might have made to him concerning you or
the Khanate. I
believe you would like Sam Monroe — the 'Small-Sam,' I understand, has gone out
of usage since his victories. He is a very interesting young man — your
age, as it happens, within a year or two. He possesses a sort of informed,
stony common sense, an interesting contrast to your brilliance. I
will miss you, my lord. You were an incomparable student… though I have felt
more and more that I failed you as a teacher, to have left you with nothing but
the determination to enforce your will across our world. Once
your servant, but no longer such... Neckless
Peter Wilson
KINGDOM RIVER CHAPTER 1
The
ravens had come to This'll Do. Sam
Monroe, Captain-General of North Map-Mexico
— and commander of the army that,
before this, had been called Never-Defeated
— frightened birds here and there
as he walked among the dead. A messenger-pigeon
had reached Better-Weather, and he'd come, down with headquarters' Heavy
Cavalry, come quickly, but still arriving two days too late. Troopers of the
Second Regiment of Light Cavalry lay scattered through high grass for almost a
Warm-time mile down the valley from Please Pass. Sam
Monroe walked through tall brown stems still brittle from last night's frost.
Death had come in Patchy-fool Autumn, the eight-week summer ended two weeks
before. Dead troopers lay here and there, almost hidden in the grass except
where low mounds of the slain showed
— Light Cavalry's
hide-and-chainmail hauberks hacked by the imperial cataphracts' battle axes. More
than three hundred dead within sight of his encampment on the near hill, and
dozens more lying out of sight to the east, where the village stood, ridden
down as they'd spurred away. It seemed to Sam Monroe there would certainly be
at least four hundred dead, when totaled. Though
the villagers had been spared the empire's usual rapes and murders, valuable
squash and pumpkin fields had been trampled, their last harvest destroyed.
Farms had been burned or battered — pine-plank buildings feathered with the
cataphracts' arrows, doors smashed in, the furnishings axed for campfires. The
valley fields were quiet now, excepting only a raven's occasional croaking,
only the dawn wind's murmuring through the grass. A cold wind, almost freezing,
with Daughter Summer dead. Sam's soldiers believed Lady Weather would be
weeping sleety tears for her, as Lord Winter came walking south from the Wall. The
imperials' commander had already recovered his killed and wounded, taken them
back south through the pass, heading farther south of the Sierra Oriental to
what would certainly be a triumph in Mexico City for the Empire's first victory
against the North. Not
a great battle — only a clash of cavalry along a mountain
border. But Sam Monroe's army had lost it. The charm of always winning was
broken. The
Heavy Cavalrymen not digging john-trench, tending horses, or guying tents, were
watching from the hill as he walked through the grass from corpse to corpse;
Sam could feel them watching.... He knew so many of the dead. A small army was
full of familiar faces — even though the chill afternoons had still
been warm enough to spoil these, begin to swell them with rot in the army's
brown wool and leather. He
knew a number of these troopers — and all the officers, of course. He'd saluted
them in battle many times as they'd poured past him to trumpet calls in a flood
of fast horses, shining steel, and banners. Sam
walked through the grass, visiting this one… then another. The women were the
worst. If it hadn't been for the women, he would not be weeping. They lay,
slender bones broken, soft skin sliced, faces — some still beautiful —
astonished at their deaths. Where bright helmets had been beaten away, gleaming
drifts of long hair, black, red, and golden, lay in broken grass. He
visited the dead for a Warm-time hour, then went back up the hill as the picks
and shovels were brought down to bury them. Two
Heavy Cavalry corporals were posted as guards just beyond ear-shot of his tent
(wonderful Warm-time phrase, 'ear-shot'). They saluted as he passed. Sam saw
Margaret had brought his breakfast to a camp table by the tent's entrance. "Sir,
please eat." She stood watching him. "Done is done." A favorite
saying of hers. "The
wounded?" "Mercies
found the last of them, eleven WT miles east. They've started bringing them
in." She saw the question in his face. "Fifty-three, sir. And Ned
Flores. He lost a hand… left hand." Sam
sat at the table. The breakfast was scrambled chicken eggs, goat sausage, and tortillas
— almost a Warm-time breakfast out of the old copybooks, except the sausage
would have been pig, the tortillas toasted bread with spotted-cow
butter. "You
have to eat." He
took a sip of hot chocolate. "Thank you, Margaret." Margaret
turned and marched away, her boots crunching on the last of morning's frost,
her rapier's length swinging at her side. Margaret
Mosten, old enough to be an older sister, always served his breakfasts. Always
served every meal. She would come riding up to his horse, on campaign, with
jerk-goat or crab apples for his lunch. Boiled water, safe from tiny
bad-things, for his leather bottle. No food came to him, but from Oswald-cook
by her hand. Her
predecessor, Elder Mosten, smelling something odd in chili, had tasted Sam's
dinner once along the northern border by Renosa, then convulsed and died. "To
you — only through me," his eldest daughter, Margaret, had said, then
resigned her captaincy in Light Infantry, and come to Sam's camp to take charge
of it with a much harder hand than her father's had been. Though
that fatal chili's cook had hung, Margaret had ridden back to Renosa, inquired
more strictly, and left four more hanging in the square — the cook's wife for
shared guilt, and three others for carelessness in preparation and service. "That
many," Sam had said to her when she returned, "and no more." "The
cook and his wife were for that dinner;" Margaret Mosten had answered him,
"the others were for our dessert." So,
as with many of his followers, the burden of her loyalty leaned against Sam
Monroe, weighed upon him, and tended to make him a short-tempered young man,
everywhere but the battlefield. He could
take bites of the breakfast tortilla, but the sausage and eggs were
impossible. He must not — could not — vomit by his tent for the army to see. "Too
young," they'd say. "What is Sam, twenty-six, twenty-seven? Too
young, after all, for a grown man's work. All that winning must have been
luck." And
Sam Monroe would have agreed it had been luck — the good fortune of
having the Empire's old, incompetent generals for enemies; the good fortune of
having fine soldiers to fight for him; and what had seemed the good fortune of
being born with battle-sense. But
battle-sense had led to victories; victories had led to ruling. And ruling had
proved a crueler field than any battleground, and weightier duty. It
seemed to Sam, as he tried to eat a bite of eggs, that his will, which he had
so far managed to extend to any necessary situation — as if a much older,
grimmer, and absolutely competent person stood within him — that his will, his
purposes, had turned him into that someone else, a man he would never
have liked and didn't like now. The
proof lay beneath the hill, in dead grass. But
even that grim and forceful person had not come forth this morning to eat goat
sausage and eggs. Margaret
came back, her sturdy bootsteps quieter; the light frost was melting under the
morning sun. "Sir...."
With official business, "sir" was all the Captain-General required.
Sam had early decided that honorifics promoted pride and stupidity; he had the
south's imperial examples. "The
brothers," Margaret Mosten said. "Lord
Jesus." He ate a bite of sausage to show he could, then took deep breaths
to quiet his belly. The Rascobs had to be spoken with, but a little later would
have been better. "Will they wait?" "No,"
Margaret said. "And it would hurt them to be told to." That
was it for the sausage. Sam took another deep breath and put down his two-tine
fork — silver, a spoil from God-Help-Us. "I'll see them." "You
should finish your eggs." "Margaret,
I don't want to finish the eggs. Now, send them up." Odd, when he thought
about it. Why 'send them up'? The camp was on high ground, but level.
His tent was only 'up' because he gave the orders. Different
bootsteps, stomping. The Rascobs appeared side by side and saluted — a fashion
that had settled in the army after the early days in the Sierra. It was
something all soldiers apparently loved to do. The
brigadiers, Jaime and Elvin Rascob, were twins, scarred and elderly at
fifty-eight — both tall, gray-haired, gray-eyed, baked brown and eroded by
weather. Elvin was dying of tuberculosis, caused by poison plants too small to
see, so he wore a blue bandanna over mouth and nose as if he were still a young
mountain bandit and sheep-stealer. "We
just rode in." Jaime Rascob's face was flushed with rage. "And saw
what comes of sending Light Cavalry where infantry should have gone." "Told
you, Sam," Elvin said, the south's blue cotton fluttering at his mouth.
"Heavy Infantry to hold the pass — Light Infantry to come down the hills
on them. Would have trapped those imperials, maybe killed them all. Told you."
Dying, Elvin was losing courtesy. "Ned
thought he could deal with them." Sam stuck his fork in the eggs and left
it there. "Ned
Flores is a fool kid-goat — a Light-Cavalry colonel! What the fuck does he know
about infantry situations?" Courtesy lost entirely. "It
was your fault, sir." Jaime's face still red as a rooster's comb. "Yes,
it was my fault." Sam looked up at two angry old men — angry, and dear to
him. "Scouts reported only a few hundred imperials, and from the careful
way they came, with no great force behind them. So, it seemed to me that Light
Cavalry, with room to run east if they had to, could handle their heavies
without our infantry to lever against. I was wrong." "Three
hundred dead," Jaime Rascob said. "That's
incorrect. It will be nearly four hundred." "Goodness
to Godness Agnes..." Elvin, through his bandanna — certainly a Warm-time
copybook phrase. "Almost three out of every four troopers dead. And we told
you!" "Elvin
— " "Jaime,
I'm just saying what everybody knows." A statement definite, and with the
weight of years as well, since he and his brother were each old enough to have
been their commander's grandfather. Squinting
in morning sunlight, Sam pushed his breakfast plate a little away. The smell
was troubling. A mistake.
He noticed the colonels noticing; an exchange of glances. He picked up his
fork, ate a bite of eggs, then another. Took a sip of chocolate. "Do we
know the cataphracts' commander?" "Voss
says it was likely one of the new ones, probably Rodriguez." Jaime didn't
sound convinced, though the Empire, slow at everything, had begun to allow
promising younger officers commands. Michi Rodriguez was one of those
'Jaguars.' "Whoever,"
Jaime said, "he whipped Flores with just six hundred heavy horse." "Less." "Not
less, Elvin," his brother said.
"Three squadrons, at least." Elvin
didn't argue. Any argument with Jaime Rascob ended only after a long while. "Still
a damn shame." Elvin cleared his throat behind the bandanna. "We
could have bottled them in Please Pass, maybe killed them all." Sam
chewed a bite of sausage and managed to swallow it. "My decision to
let them come through. My decision to send only Light Cavalry down to
deal with them. My fault." The breakfast was hopeless — one more
bite and he would be sick for all the camp to see. The young
Captain-General, who'd never failed, vomiting his breakfast while troopers
rotted in the mountain grass. "You
got too big for your bitches," Elvin said, certainly not the correct
Warm-time phrase. The old man took little care with them, rarely got them
right. "It's
a mistake I won't make again." Sam took a sip of chocolate. A smell of
spoiling was rising from the valley. "We
can't win every fight, Elvin." Jaime gave his brother a shut-up look. "For
sure not campaigning like this!" Elvin coughed a spatter of blood into his
kerchief, turned, and marched away into the camp. His brother sighed, and
followed him. Sam
turned on his camp stool to watch them go. Two tough old men. Both wore heavy
double-edged broadswords scab-barded aslant down their backs, the swords' long
grips wound with silver wire. Elvin stumbled slightly on the uneven ground.
Half a year ago, Portia-doctor had reported he was dying. She'd heard bad
sounds in his lungs when she'd thumped him. It
had been a difficult examination. Elvin had thumped her in return, then
attempted a kiss. "He's
just a boy," she'd said to Sam, "in an old man's body." "Then
he's younger than I am, Doctor." "Yes,
sir. In many ways younger than you are." Portia-doctor
had apprenticed in medicine under Catania Olsen, which said everything in North
Map-Mexico — and south in the Empire as well. Portia had learned as much as
that dear physician, four Warm-time medical copybooks, and seven years of hard
experience could teach. She'd
been pretty those years ago, a sturdy young woman with dark brown hair and eyes
to match. Now, the army work and civilian work had worn her. And losing Catania
to plague at Los Palominos had worn her more. Howell
Voss, commanding the Heavy Cavalry, called her "the noble Portia,"
looked for her in any group or meeting, and was thought by a thoughtful few to
have been in love with her for some time. "Why
doesn't he just tell her so?" Sam had once asked his Second-mother, after
an officers' evening asado. "Because,"
Catania Olsen had said, tightening her mare's saddle girth, "because
Howell has lost an eye, and fears being blind and a burden. And because he
believes that Portia is very fine and good, and that he is not." ...Sam
sat and watched the Rascob brothers walk away down
the tent lines. The other, grimmer Sam Monroe inside him began to consider
inevitable replacements for the two of them, certainly following Elvin's death.
Jaime's replacement, then, would of course destroy him. 'Fools
do top with crowns, and so bid friends farewell.' A copied Warm-time line, and very old. The
Captain-General of North Map-Mexico pushed his breakfast plate a little farther
away, took a deep breath to calm his stomach, and sat at his camp table with
his eyes closed, not caring to watch the Sierra's shadows — lying across
a wide, meadowed valley lightly salted with flocks of sheep — slowly shorten as
the sun rose higher. Bootsteps.
No one in the army seemed to walk lightly. "You didn't finish your
eggs." "No.
I've had enough, Margaret." "Oswald-cook
goes to some trouble with your eggs. Herbs." "Oh,
for Weather's sake." The Captain-General picked up his fork,
reached over, and took another bite of eggs. "Sir,
there's no winning forever. You don't have to be perfect." It was a burden-sharing
she often practiced. At first, it had annoyed him. Margaret
stood in bright, chill morning light, watching him eat two more bites of egg.
"They had room to run." "Yes
— if they'd run, instead of fighting." Sam put his fork down a
little more than firmly. Margaret took the plate, and went away. It
was a great relief; he was tired of people talking to him. He stood to go into
his tent… get away from distant murmurs and the troops' eyes, their unspoken
concern — concern for him, as if he were the party injured. They were wearing
him away like constant running water. Wearing that lucky youngster, Small-Sam,
away — and so revealing more and more of the present Sam Monroe. Someday, they
might be sorry…. He
pulled the tent flap back — then let it fall, turned, and walked out into the
camp, stepping on his morning shadow as he went. The
mercy-tent was the largest the army raised — but not large enough, now. Wounded
lay in a row by the entrance — silent as
was the army's pride, though Sam saw some mouths open for cries unvoiced. He
went to those first, and knelt by stained raw-wool blankets. He knew many. He
spoke to them in turn, and most — those in least agony — could listen, even make reassuring faces to
comfort him. Two of them tried to make jokes. "...
Sir, didn't think it was possible for a trooper to outrun her horse. But by
Mountain Jesus, I was scared enough and did it." "Mavis,
you were just charging to the rear." That oldest of cavalry witticisms. Trooper
Mavis Drew had been cut across the belly. The wound was bandaged tight to keep
things in. Sam
kissed her on the forehead, and went on down the line. Those who could see,
seemed glad to see him. "Where's
Colonel Flores?" The
mercy-medic, a bearded older man, and tired, pointed to the tent entrance.
"Inside, down to the left." "He'll
live?" "Live
one-handed," the medic said. The
tent was filled with sunshine glow through canvas woven of the Empire's
southern cotton, filled with that light and a soft, multiple hum of agony, the
army's silence-in-suffering fallen away. Portia-doctor was with someone, bent
over, doing something that made the person's breath catch and catch again. Sam
went down the narrow aisle to the left, and saw, at the end of a row, Ned
Flores lying slight on a folding cot. His left arm was out on the blanket, the
wrist a fat wad of white bandage spotted with red. The
man in the cot beside his was snoring softly, unconscious. "Sorry,
Sam. Not quite as planned." Barely Ned's voice, rusty as an old man's, and
from what seemed an aged face — no longer a young hawk's, handsome,
high-beaked, and cruel. His youth had gone with his wound, and losing. Monroe
knelt beside the cot. "No, not quite as planned, Ned. At
least three hundred more dead and wounded than planned." He kept his voice
low, "I sent you down here to lose a battle — to lose maybe forty or fifty
of our people, then break off and run." "Right...
right." "That
was only between us, Ned. I thought you understood why it was necessary to lose
at least a skirmish." "I
know. Necessary…" "Our
army's always won — never lost — and that's become dangerous. Even more so,
now, with the Khan moving on Middle Kingdom. I didn't want him to think us a
serious threat, and I didn't want the shock of our first lost battle, my first
lost battle, to occur when we couldn't afford it. I thought you
understood that." "Yes."
A long pause, eyes closed. "Like cow-sore vaccination against the
pops." "Then"
— careful to speak softly — "then
why the fuck didn't you order the regiment disengaged after the first
melee? Behind you was all the room in the world to run!" "Well...
tell you, Sam. Seemed to me... we had a chance to beat the bastards."
Apparently great effort required to get that said. "Ned,
you did not have a chance to beat them — almost seven hundred imperial
cataphracts met in a pass at such close quarters? And you weren't sent down here
to beat them!" "My
fault." Flores seemed to doze, then woke with a start. Sam
stood. "Yes. And my fault for trusting you to obey orders." "I
know... I lost all those people." "Yes,
and deserved to lose more than a hand, Ned. You deserved to lose your
head." "You...
can have it." Sam
bent over him. "Ned, we've been friends since we were boys on the
mountain. But if that order to lose, lose and run, hadn't been only between us
— and have to remain only between us — I would have you tried and hanged
for disobedience." "Don't
doubt it, Sam," Ned Flores said. "And what a relief... that would
be."
CHAPTER 2
To
the Great Khan and Lord of Grass: Neckless
Peter Wilson, elderly and once your servant and ambassador, submits and conveys
this report of information concerning the history, winning, and holding of
North Map-Mexico by the young Captain-General Small-Sam Monroe — by whose order
this is forwarded sealed from all eyes but yours, Great Lord. Twenty-seven
years ago, a band of fugitive Trappers — driven south from the mountains and
ice-wall of Map-Colorado by the Cree — stopped to rest at Gardens, the town in
forest and of forest. Their
notable persons were Jack Monroe, that mythic fighting man; Catania Olsen, a
physician; Joan Richardson, an Amazon; and Tattooed Newton, to be revealed
errant third son to the ruler of Middle Kingdom. Within
the year, Jack Monroe was dead — in tales, murdered by a bear jealous of his
strength. Within this time also, Newton, with Dangerous-Joan Richardson,
returned to the Boxcars' Middle Kingdom, where he came in time to his
inheritance. On his death, years later — while arranging a reasonable agreement
in Map-Kentucky — Dangerous-Joan was left to rule as Dowager Queen, and remains
so today, aged, but no less dangerous. As
these storied ones met their fates, so Catania Olsen, caring for an orphaned
Trapper baby, Small-Sam Monroe, traveled down to North Map-Mexico, and into the
Sierra Oriental. In
the Sierra, after killing two men — one having attempted rape, the other
having tried to steal her goat — Catania Olsen became physician to the savages
and bandits of the mountains, and came to be loved by them. Her
adopted son, Small-Sam, grew to manhood in those harsh and freezing altitudes —
a world largely peopled, as all North Map-Mexico had been, by North Americans
driven south centuries before, as the cold came down. So their language was and
is book-English, their ways also informed by those surviving copies of
Warm-time books. The
original, the Beautiful Language, now is only spoken in the Empire of Map
South-Mexico and Guatemala — and, one assumes, in the continent of wilderness
below. Twenty-two
years passed after Doctor Olsen's arrival. Then, the Empire's Duke Alphonso da
Carvahal attempted a reconquest of their lost northern territories. This went
badly. In a
series of attacks along the western flank of the Sierra Oriental, Carvahal
lost battle after battle — never, as the Warm-time saying had it, 'getting his
ducks in a row.' In
these battles, the men and women of North Map-Mexico lost two leaders slain. A
third, a very young man, was elected for lack of better. This was Small-Sam
Monroe, and at the town God-Help-Us, he attacked the imperial forces by night,
and defeated them. Then he sent all the common-soldier prisoners south, alive
and whole, at the plea of his Second-mother, Catania Olsen, whose name is still
praised as a saint's for mercy in South Map-Mexico and Guatemala. The
duke and his officers were disemboweled. So
successful as a war leader that no man cared to stand against him in rule,
young Small-Sam found himself acclaimed Captain-General of all the provinces of
North Map-Mexico — as they still are named in the Beautiful Language, Baja
California Norte, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Nuevo Leon, now
united. He
was urged to invade the south as the south had invaded the north, and so
destroy the Empire. He refused, on consideration of that ancient stability
better left preserved. Now
twenty-seven years old — though looking older — Sam Monroe rules south from the
Bravo down into both Sierras, and east from the Gulf of California and
Ocean Pacific to the Great Gulf Entire. He
enforces lightly in rule and taxes — but holds the towns, villages, mountains
and fields of these fractious and turbulent people as with a fine noose, which
lies slack unless tugged against. He
is respected and popular, but treated with caution, since his reasons for violence
are often not anticipated by ordinary men. Small-Sam
Monroe — 'Sam' to his friends and near-equals, 'Sir' to all others — is stocky,
sandy-haired, and exceptionally powerful and active. It is said in his army
that few can match him with the sword. He carries what is called a 'bastard' —
that is, a weapon a little lighter than a two-handed sword, with a grip called
a 'hand and a half.' This weapon, I understand, is a rain-pattern blade, forged
and folded many times from the empire's rare 'wootz' steel. And — which I think
of some interest — though the important
fighting men and women of this country follow the barbarian tradition of naming
their swords, Monroe hasn't done so. A modesty availing not, since his officers
and men christened the weapon 'Nameless.' So the great, in small ways as in
large, are denned by those they rule. Monroe's
face, square and harsh-featured, is marked by weather, war, and cares of state.
His eyes are very clear, a dark hazel, his lashes almost long as a girl's.
Commanding an army whose men are often mustached and bearded, he shaves his
face clean — as do most of his senior officers and administrators, likely in
imitation. The
Captain-General's intelligence, like his vision, is clear, direct, devouring of
subjects of interest, and dismissive of others. He is alert, profoundly
practical, and unafraid. He works harder than any of his servants, though all,
whether soldiers or administrators, are hard and constant workers. Finally
— and this may be unimportant, may simply reflect the pressures of great power
on a young man less than hungry for it — finally, it seems to me that Small-Sam
Monroe is not happy. Important
administrators: Charles Ketch — an
exceptionally tall, stooped man in his fifties, once a prosperous valley farmer,
then first Chief of Supply… and now Chief Executive, North Map-Mexico. What
Monroe commands, Charles Ketch effects —
and stands, it seems, somewhat in the role of father to the much younger
man. Eric
Lauder — current Chief of Supply, a man in his thirties, squat, bearded, bald,
lively and humorous. Lauder, besides commanding the army's supply train, is
also the edge of the secret civil sword… collecting information, dispensing any
necessary covert deaths. (He has informed me, in the pleasantest way, that he
considers my resignation from your service likely a clumsy ruse, and that I
remain under his eye.) Margaret
Mosten, Secretary. Mosten, an officer's widow —
and herself an ex-officer of Light Infantry — administers Monroe's
quarters and camps, and commands his personal guard. A sturdy blonde in her
thirties, apparently easygoing and amiable, Mosten is both more efficient and
more formidable than she appears. (I was told by a muleteer that on one
occasion she personally escorted two drunken armed trespassers — found in the
camp at night — to the perimeter guard post, where she cut their throats. A
warning as well, apparently, to the guards who had not discovered and prevented
them.) Margaret
Mosten decides who sees the Captain-General, but doesn't appear to abuse her
position. Her relationship to Monroe seems to have always been that of a
friend, not a lover. Military
Commanders: Almost elderly, and
ranked brigadiers in the old Warm-time style, Jaime and Elvin Rascob have
functioned as Monroe's senior commanders. These brothers, often in disagreement
with each other — and occasionally with Monroe as well — nevertheless have a
strikingly successful record in war. Their staff, field officers, and
subordinate commanders hold these old men in great esteem. My impression is
that the two brothers, together, have made one very formidable general. It may
prove important, therefore, that Elvin Rascob is ill of tiny plants in his
lungs — certainly the Warm-time TB — and is dying. Ned
Flores, Colonel, commands the Light Cavalry regiments. A restless young man —
violent and charming — Flores is a childhood friend of Monroe's, his closest
friend. Though apparently only the image of a perfect dashing commander of
light horse, this officer, as many of Monroe's people, reveals more depth on
examination. He is responsible, more than any other, for reviving the game of
chess in this territory — where checkers had been the board game of choice —
and more often than not beats Monroe at it. He more often than not beats me as
well, and crows like a child at his triumphs. Howell
Voss, Colonel, commands the Heavy Cavalry. Colonel Voss, like Eric Lauder, is
often amusing. He is also large and handsome — though missing his left eye —
and is a favorite with women. (The eye was lost in a duel with an angry
husband.) Howell Voss is occasionally subdued, 'blue' as Warm-times had it, and
then stays alone in his tent. He plays the banjar very well indeed... and is
said to be suicidally brave in battle. Phillip
Butler, Colonel, commands the Heavy Infantry. An older man, gray-bearded,
small, silent, and eccentric — he always has tiny dogs about him; he puts them
in his jacket pockets — Colonel Butler
was the mayor of Tijuana-City before the South invaded. It's said by Monroe's
people, certainly an exaggeration, that Butler has never made a tactical
mistake on a battlefield. He is regarded as an extraordinary soldier, having
become, as it were, a Regular among inspired amateurs. His pikemen and
crossbowmen love him, though he can be a harsh commander; they treat him like
an irritable old uncle. Charmian
Loomis, Colonel, commands the light Infantry. A tall, thin, awkward-seeming
young woman, with light blue eyes and a bony — and, it seems to me, quite plain
— face, she commands the elite of Monroe's army. ('Elite,' lord, may be found
in Copy-Webster's. Bottom shelf on the right as you enter the library. I
believe the word may have been Warm-time Canadian in origin.) ... This officer,
a woman with no family, quite silent, and who appears to offer little in any
social situation — I've met her several times — is by reputation a demonic
figure in battle, with quite extraordinary skill in controlling a force
designed after all to be mobile, occasionally fragmented, and self-directing to
a considerable degree. Monroe occasionally calls her 'Joan,' I suspect in
reference to some Warm-time figure he has read of. All others call her
'Colonel.' In
summary, it is my civilian impression that these officers, and those they
command, represent considerable military talent — experienced, highly
disciplined, confident, and aggressive. I believe you would enjoy their
company, if matters were otherwise, and would certainly then find them useful
to employ. As
to Sam Monroe. His Second-mother's
death — while fighting an outbreak of flea-plague in the township of Los
Palominos three years ago — has left him with no family. (I must add that I
mourn that most tender of physicians still, and deeply regret not seeing her
again.) The
Captain-General's occasional women are companions as well as lovers and, I
understand, come and go as tasks and places come and go. He is very generous to
them, and to his dose friends and officers — but only once. An important gift
is given — a prosperous farm, or wide sheepland, or large herd of fine
riding-horses — but after that, nothing
ever but army wages. So men and women who continue to serve him, do so because
they wish to, expecting no further reward. His
army is relatively small, but as I understand it is a 'balanced force,'
composed of five fairly equal elements: Supply; Light Cavalry; Heavy Cavalry;
Light Infantry; Heavy Infantry. Monroe has stated, in my hearing, that his
Light Cavalry, while very good, is not quite a match for the Khanate's, that
his Heavy Cavalry, while excellent, is not quite as formidable as the Empire's
best, and that his Heavy Infantry, though solid, is not quite the instrument
that Middle Kingdom fields. His Light Infantry, however — men and women of the Sierra
— Monroe believes to be the finest of our world. It
is the balance of these forces he considers crucial. That, and the
strategy and tactics of their use. I'm told he has said, 'These are the edged
tools for fashioning victory, as a carpenter fettles a table.' (For 'fettle,'
Great Khan, see my monograph on Warm-time Words Unusual.) The
Captain-General's sigil — and, by adoption, the army's banner — is a black
scorpion on a field of gold. Though a far-south creature, it is appropriately
ominous. While the enlisted men among their prisoners are very well treated, captured
enemy officers are invariably beheaded — or, if they are senior, disemboweled.
This, apparently, a brutal remainder of these people's desperate days of revolt
against the Empire. FORCES,
IF AT FULL ESTABLISHMENT: Supply:
Two thousand men and women. Five
hundred draft horses. Five hundred pack mules. Wheeled wagons. Drays. Sledges. Light
Cavalry: Two regiments — each, one
thousand men and women. Remounts. Heavy
Cavalry: Two regiments — each, one
thousand men and a small number of women. Remounts. Light
Infantry: Two regiments — each one
thousand men and women. Heavy
Infantry: Two regiments — each one
thousand men and a small number of women. The
fighting formations above are to some extent based on Warm-time copybook
models. (See that most valuable Kipling, Rudy. Back shelves, Great Lord,
and perfectly alphabetical.) All the army is uniformed in plain dark-brown wool
or leather, black cloaks, and black boots — high-topped in the cavalry, cut low
for the infantry. In
each cavalry regiment, one hundred persons serve as farriers, armorers, remount
herders and fodderers. The nine hundred fighting men and women are divided into
three squadrons, first, second, and third. Each squadron then divided further
into three troops of one hundred, A, B, and C. The
infantry regiments are each made up of two battalions of four hundred men and
women, the battalions then being divided into four companies. The two extra
companies in each regiment are assigned special duty as engineer-laborers,
assault formations, headquarters detachment, scouts, and cooks. It
should be noted that while the other units often consist of both full-time paid
regulars and veteran reservists serving annual duty, Supply is always fully maintained.
And noted also, that the structure of 'Supply' includes the army's
intelligence, police, and security functions as well as its field medical
personnel. Originally
organized by Catania Olsen, the army's medical service is also available to any
citizens nearby and in need, a useful component of Monroe's administration,
which still tends to be a government-in-the-saddle, to be found alongside units
of the army as often as in their capital, the undistinguished small town of
Better-Weather, south of Chihuahua City. Finally,
I understand there exists a competent volunteer militia of well-armed men and
women organized in each of the five states — and in each, numbering
approximately a thousand — intended as the cadre around which a much greater
force of irregulars would be organized at need. Since almost all men, and many
women, go habitually armed in this country, with weapons play and archery their
habit, this irregular force would likely prove formidable. Military
History: Elements of the army have fought
five major battles, seventeen to nineteen minor battles and skirmishes. They
have, until very recently, never been defeated. This single loss — and only two
days ago — has been of more than three hundred Light Cavalry from a regiment
unwisely sent down unsupported to meet a weightier imperial force venturing
north. An extremely unusual misjudgment by Monroe, and something of a shock to
his army, perhaps more disturbing than the casualties resulting from it. In
this battle, Ned Flores lost his left hand, but is expected to survive. A
note of interest: Monroe's army is required to submit payment vouchers for any
food, fodder, or materiel requisitioned, and the soldiers' behavior on maneuver
or campaign is strictly governed. By this, the army's popularity with the
people — and Monroe's popularity as well — is preserved. The
army is known for fighting in silence. No cheers, shouts, or battle cries. No
sounds but infantry bugles or cavalry trumpets, then the clash of arms when the
enemy is met. And
no crying out after, not even by the wounded, a custom apparently descending
from the silence and sudden ambushes of mountain banditry, once a principal
occupation here. Commerce:
North Map-Mexico is an agricultural
and stock-raising area. With a seven-week summer so far south of the ice-wall,
they grow cabbage, kale, broccoli, and onions... and trade with the Empire for
the tomatoes, planted potatoes, yams, cotton-wool, tobacco and corn grown
farther south. Livestock
are sheep, goats, chicken-birds, and to a lesser extent, pigs and spotted
cattle. For
trade, as well as convenience, the Empire's silver peso and copper penny
are allowed to circulate as North Map-Mexico's currency. Intentions:
Sam Monroe's probable long-term
intention: a reasonable and well-administered peace — with local officials now
elected every five years by those locals they rule. Territorial defense being
sustained by a compact, capable, and veteran army, with the east and west Sierras
flanking any invading force. My
Opinion: If placed under sufficient
pressure — as for instance by the Khanate — Monroe will certainly seek alliance
with either the Empire or Middle Kingdom... and more likely the latter. All New
Englanders are despised here, perhaps in some cases unfairly, because of those
ruling few who use their minds' rare talents — for warming themselves, and
walking-in-the-air — also to make
monsters in women's wombs. On occasion, people of this territory have galloped
after the few fliers that appear —
chasing those individuals by relays for many Warm-time miles — until the
New Englander wearies or loses attention, and descends or falls... to be seized
and burned alive. Monroe
has put an end to that rough sport. Finally,
my lord Khan, a personal note. I had thought that Trapper cooking was shocking,
and Caravanserai's little better —
mutton, mare's milk, and more mutton. I did not know when I was
well-off. Broccoli and goat-gut sausage... I'll say no more. To
you by my hand only — and otherwise unseen. Neckless
Peter Wilson
CHAPTER 3
Dieter
Mayaguez, nine years old, heard singing in the sky. The sun dazzled him when he
looked up. His sheep shifted to left and right down the steep hill pasture as a
shadow that might have been an eagle's came out of the sun and raced up along
the grass. Dieter
saw, a sling's throw high in the air, a girl wrapped in a long dark-blue coat,
singing as she sailed along the rise of the hill's slope. She flew sitting
upright, yellow-booted legs crossed beneath her. A curl-brimmed, blue hat was
secured with black ribbons tied in a bow under her chin. She
held something across her lap, and flew slowly, steadily over him and away, her
coat's cloth ruffling as she went higher… then higher, to cross the ridge. Dieter
could still hear her singing. It was a song he didn't know. 'Mairzy
doats.... dozy doats....' Excited,
he did a little dance in frost-browned grass. — Certainly a Boston person! He
would tell everybody, though only his mother would believe him. People were
always saying they saw Boston people, and usually were lying. Now he really had
seen one, but only his mother would say it must be true. The
sheep — so stupid — baaa'd and began to scatter. Dieter yelled, ran to circle
them and hold the ram. If his father had given him the dogs for high pasture,
he wouldn't have to be running after the fools. A
shadow came out of the sun — and he thought for a moment it was the singing
girl come back. But this was a much bigger shadow.... Patience
Nearly-Lodge Riley, her song ended, settled into herself and Walked-in-air over
the hills — that 'pushing the ground away and behind' that fools called flying,
as if fine-family New Englanders were birds with wings. True
wings, an occa's, were following her, carrying her strapped baggage-packs and
Webster's basket. An occa stupid as all of them, but still an impressive result
of mind-work on some debtor woman's fetus. Cambridge-made in Cambridge
Laboratory, Harvard Yard.... Patience
closed her eyes a moment to better feel the slopes and outcroppings a hundred or
so Warm-time feet beneath her. She felt them rumble and bump, rough as she went
over. But so much soldier, so much better than the Gulf's shifting surface had
been, its waves wobbling below her as she went. That had been uneasy traveling
— as had the whole several weeks of air-walking south from Boston Town, when
sailing a packet down and around and up into the Gulf would have been easier. "Safer,
too," her Uncle Niles had said. "But you will go the difficult way,
and air-walk — or, by Frozen Jesus, ground-walk — every mile south. It'll be good for you,
Patience, knock some of the Lodge-Riley hoity-toity out of you." Her
Uncle Niles loved her, just the same. She was his favorite niece. And
it had been good for her, those weeks of air-walking. The first weeks
were on the ice-sheet, then off it and down over warmer snowfields and sedge
willow, past caribou ranches and little towns. Air-walking, and when her mind
grew tired, ground-walking. Then, the occa, too baggage-burdened for her to
ride, had circled overhead, hooting and honking as she strode along. She'd
hunted for herself and the occa when the smoked seal was eaten up, swooping —
while remaining mindful of the ground she kept away — to snip the heads off
wild turkeys or ptarmigan with her scimitar, to hack the necks of deer. Then
landing, settling into snowy woods, she'd gathered dry branches for her fire,
started it with her flint and steel... then butchered the meat out while the
occa landed, loomed beside her, hobbling on knees — and what would have been
elbows, otherwise — and poked at her with its long jaw, whining for bird or
venison bones and bowels. In
all those weeks, Patience had been troubled only three times. An ice-fisher had
refused to exchange her smallest silver coin for a meal, so she'd had to take
two char from him — but only sliced him lightly, so as not to cripple, since
property rights were sacred. Later,
while ground-walking through lower Map-Pennsylvania, well south of the ice-wall,
she'd been chased up a tree by a hungry black bear. Too startled, too suddenly
set upon, to push the ground away for rising in the air, she'd risen from the
tree limbs soon enough and left the bear snuffling, clinging halfway up its
climb to reach her. Patience
had been troubled those two times, and one time more. Deep in Map-Alabama,
almost to the Gulf, she'd fluttered down to kill a woman who'd thrown a stone
and almost struck her as she sailed over a hedge of holly. ….
The hill ridge thumped beneath her in her mind, and Patience thought-stepped...
thought-stepped down the western slope, the wind chilly at her hat's brim,
lightly buffeting her face. Her face, charming, absolutely pretty by the
judgment of everyone who knew her, was reddened, roughened by the weather of
travel. But the inherited bit in the brain, that with training allowed a
talented few New Englanders — and the very rare exceptions from other places —
to air-walk and also keep warm on the ice, was no use in smoothing one's complexion.
It seemed unfair. Before
her, across a wide valley to the west, rose mountains harsher than the
Map-Smokies had been. The Sierra. A cold wind flowed down from them, and
Patience thought heat and caused it to warm her ears, her gloved
fingers... the tip of her nose. She
sailed on, out over the valley — sitting properly upright, her sheathed
scimitar held across her lap. It was her joy, a present from her mother on her
sixteenth birthday — two years ago, now — and a true Peabody of a thousand
doublings and hammerings. She called it 'Merriment,' since it had antic curling
patterns flowing in the surface of its steel, and also a modest, amusing style
of slicing. She'd killed Teresa Bondi with it in a duel, and Tessie's parents
had never forgiven her, said she was cruel, a spoiled brat, and bad. Patience
looked back and saw the occa laboring far behind. It appeared to be holding
something in its long jaw. She
stopped in the air — a difficult thing to do — and sat waiting for it, rocking
slightly in the mountains' breeze. The occa shied and swung on great leathery
wings, with the foot-long toothed jaw and bald knob of its idiot head turned
away as if not to see her. It did have something in its mouth. Patience,
impatient, whistled it over, and it slowly sidled toward her through the air,
its long bat arms and long bat fingers — supporting a skin-membrane's wingspan
of almost thirty Warm-time feet — fiddling with wind currents as it came. Patience
whistled again, made a furious face — and the creature came swiftly flapping
through the air to her, wind-burned and whining, its wings buffeting alongside.
Her baggage duffels and Webster's basket were strapped to its humped back. A
sheep's leg hung bleeding from its jaws. Patience
leaned to rap it sharply on the head with her scab-barded sword, and dipped a
sudden few feet as her concentration faltered, so she had to recover.
"Drop!... Drop!" The creature was getting too fat for good
flying as it was. The
occa muttered what was almost a word. "Drop
it!" The
sheep's leg fell away through the air. The occa bent its awkward head to watch
it go. "Now,"
Patience said, "you fucking fly. And keep up!"
* *
* "Signals
say company's coming!" Margaret Mosten's round pleasant face appeared
beside the tent flap. "From the Say-so mirror, far south slope." Sam
sat up. "What sort of company?" "Wings."
Margaret seemed not to notice the leather vodka flask lying on the floor beside
the cot, the squeezed rind of lime from far south. "Some Boston flier,
presumably. With winged item following."
. "From
McAllen." "Likely;
they've been wanting to send someone down." Margaret watched him with
concern. She'd never mentioned his drinking, never would. But twice — when
traveling, not on campaign — he'd drunk from his saddle-flask to find the vodka
and lime juice gone, replaced with water. Sam
swung off the cot. "What a pain in the ass." It was a Warm-time
phrase out of copied books almost five hundred years old, a phrase that had
become popular in the army. Too popular, so rankers were now forbidden to use
it in reference to orders. Sam
stooped to pick up his sword belt... and had to steady himself, which Margaret
appeared not to notice. "Where?" "Michael
Sergeant-Major is waving the thing in to the football pitch." "Alright."
Looping the belted sword over his right shoulder to rest aslant down his back,
he followed Margaret out into an afternoon he found too bright for comfort, and
cold with Lady Weather's commencing fall into Lord Winter's arms. The
camp was seething like cooking Brunswick at the flier's coming, but soldiers
settled down along Sam's way, sensitive as girls to their commander's mood —
many recalling duty elsewhere. Football,
the army's sport even in marching camps of war — though some said it was old
Warm-time rugby, really — had been marked to be played just south of
horse-lines on a stretch of meadow softened by cold-killed grass. The field,
already enclosed by dismounted heavy cavalry, had been cleared of all except
Michael Sergeant-Major, Margaret Mosten's man, who stood in the center of it
waving a troop banner for a landing mark. Sam
saw a formed file of the Heavies' horse-archer squadron had arrows to their
longbows. The bows, their lower arms curved short for horseback shooting, were
half-raised, arrows nocked. He nodded that way. "Whose orders?" "Mine,"
Margaret Mosten said. "Quiver
those arrows." He walked out onto the football field, looked up, and saw a
figure high against the blaze of the sun. Didn't have to come out of the
sun. Making an entrance. "The
thing's above." Margaret had come out to him. She was carrying one of the
Heavy Infantry's crossbows, wound, cocked, and quarreled. "My privilege,
sir," she said, as he noticed it. "Look there...." High
above the small human figure sailing down to them in silhouette — perhaps a
woman, perhaps not — a larger thing wheeled and flapped. Soldiers
murmured at the edges of the field. "Silence!" Their
commander's mood confirmed, murmuring ceased. In
that quiet, the soft sound of cloth breezing could be heard. In dark-blue
greatcoat and dark-blue hat, the Boston person — certainly a woman — sailed down, sailed down…
and settled with no stumble on the ground. She held, sheathed in her right
hand, a slender curved scimitar, and was smiling. "Mountain
Jesus," Margaret Mosten said. "She's a baby." "Clever."
Sam smiled to match the visitor's, and went to meet her. He was still drunk,
and would have to be careful. The
woman — the girl — had a white face, wind-roughened but beautiful, oval as an
egg. Black hair was drawn tightly back under the blue curl-brimmed hat, and her
eyes were also black, dark as licorice chews. Sam noticed her gloved hands were
fine, but what could be seen of a slender wrist was corded with sword-practice
muscle. The
girl was smiling at him as if they were old friends — apparently knew him from description. "I
thought I had another day or two to walk to Better-Weather, but then I saw your
camp, and said to myself, 'Ah — there's been fighting! So surely there the
Captain-General will be.' " She made a little curtsy as a lady might have
done south, in the Emperor's court, then took a fold of heavy white parchment
from her coat, and handed it to him. "I'm
instructed to serve the Lord Small-Sam Monroe as the voice of New England, at
his pleasure of course. Ambassadress." The girl dwelt on the final
s's and made a sudden face of glee. "From
McAllen?" "No,
lord. Second-cousin Louis is superseded. I come down from Harvard Yard directly
to you… Poor old Cousin Louis; he'll be furious." She spoke a very elegant
book-English. "I
see." There
was a spatter of dried blood down her long blue coat. She
saw him notice it. "Travel stains of the travel weary — I walked all the
way down." Walked,
Sam thought, and walked in the
air.... Still, from Boston-in-the-Ice to North Map-Mexico — alone and in
however many weeks — was remarkable. And New England's first mistake, to let
him know she was remarkable. They should have sent her by ship. He
read — in black squid ink on fine-scraped hide — the submission of Patience
Nearly-Lodge Riley's service as go-between (and Voice of the Cambridge Faculty
and Town Meeting) to 'the person Small-Sam Monroe, presently Captain-General of
North Map-Mexico'…. The 'presently' being a good touch. "Am
I accepted?" She had a girl's fluting voice, as free of vibration as a
child's. "For
the present." 'The present' being a good touch. "Then,
my baggage?" the ambassadress pointed up into the air. "So, soon I
will be out of my stained coat." "Call
the thing down," Sam said, and raised his voice to the troops. "Stand
still, and keep silent!" The shouting hurt his head. The
girl looked up, put two fingers into her mouth, and whistled as loud as he'd
ever heard it done. That hurt his head, too. From
high… high above, came a distant hooting, a mournful, uneasy sound. The troops
shifted in the sunshine, and sergeants called them to order. They were looking
up at what slowly circled down, sweep by sweep on great wings, making its low
worried noises. Sam didn't
look up. Margaret Mosten watched the Boston girl. Slow
sweeps, slow descending, so the girl put her head back and whistled again.
Sam's head throbbed. Fucking vodka — and the wrong day to have drunk
it. Then
the thing came swooping in, wings sighing… the sighs turning to thumps of air
as it beat the hilltop's wind to slow… hang almost stationary over their heads
in heavy flappings, and finally — as the girl stamped her booted foot and
pointed at the ground — come down in a collapse and folding of great bat's
wings. It folded them once, then again, so it fell forward on what should have
been elbows, and crouched huge, hunched, and puffing from exertion or
uneasiness. Its body was pale and freckled — smooth skin, no fur — its neck
long, wattled, and odd. But it was the head made the troops murmur, no matter
what the sergeants ordered. Sam
stayed standing close by an effort, and looked at a toothed thin-lipped jaw
almost long as a man's arm, a round bare bulge of skull with human ears, and
eyes a suffering woman's tragic and beautiful blue. A pair of little shrunken
breasts dangled from the creature's chest. The
Boston girl went to the thing, made soothing puh-puh noises to it, and
began to unbuckle its heavy harness. The wide leather straps were difficult to
deal with, stiff with wetting and drying. Sam
stepped beside her — heard Margaret grunt behind him — and leaned against the thing's flank, warm
and massive as a charger's, to work a big buckle free. The creature smelled of
human sweat, its skin smooth from crease to crease, and damp with the effort of
flying. "What
have you done?" he said, not a question he would have asked without the
vodka. But
the girl understood him. "Oh"
— she patted its hide — "we make these... Persons from beginning babies,
inside tribeswomen, or New England ladies who won't be responsible, fall into
bad habits, and don't pay their debts." She tugged a second strap loose,
then stepped aside so Sam could lift two heavy duffels and a shrouded wicker
basket down from the thing's hunched back. Something
rustled in the basket. "Weather
be kind..." Michael Sergeant-Major came and shouldered Sam aside, bent to
pick up the baggage. "Sir, where do you want these?" There was sweat
on the sergeant-major's forehead. "Set
a tent for the lady. East camp, beside Neckless Peter's, I think. Tent and
marquee, camp furniture." "Canvased
tub-bath," Margaret said. "Canvased toilet pit." Sam
turned away, and the Boston girl came with him in quick little steps alongside,
the long blue coat whispering. She smelled of nothing but the stone and ice of
the high mountain air she'd walked through. "How
are we to keep that sad thing, lady?" "Call
me Patience, please, Lord Monroe; since we'll be camp-mates. I don't
keep her; I send her home." "Home…
And it goes all that distance back?" "Oh,
yes. Its mother is there. It will wander a few weeks… but get to home hutch at
last." "Its
mother?" "Occas
always rest in their mothers' care." "Nailed
Jesus…" "May
I change the subject — and ask, are you always so sad at your soldiers'
dying?" Sam
stopped. "What did you say?" The
girl smiled up at him, her right hand resting at her side, casually on the grip
of her scimitar. "I thought you must be sad for the soldiers I saw being
buried below me, to be drunk so early in the day. It proves a tender
heart." Margaret
had come up behind them. "You mind your fucking manners," she said to
the Boston girl, "or we'll kick your ass right out of here. Who are you to
dare — " "Let
it go, Margaret," Sam said. Then, to the girl: "Still,
not a bad idea to mind your manners, Patience... or I will kick your ass
right out of here." "Oh,
dear. I apologize." The girl curtsied first to him, then to Margaret.
"It will take us a while to learn to know each other better." She snapped
her fingers at Michael Sergeant-Major, and he led her away, bent beneath the
weight of her baggage and basket. When
she was a distance gone, Sam began to laugh. It hurt his head, but was worth it
for the pleasure of first laughter since coming down to This'll Do. "Nothing
funny there," Margaret Mosten said. "Wouldn't
want her for a daughter, Margaret?" "Sir,
I would take a quirt to her if she were." "Mmm…
It's interesting that the New England people sent us such a distraction. I
wonder, to distract us from what?" "If
necessary," Margaret said, " 'distractions' can have regrettable
accidents. And that blood on the coat — 'travel stains.' " "Yes…
See that people are careful with her. She carries to fight left-handed or with
both hands. And there're parry-marks on the hilt of that scimitar — but no
scars on her face, no scars on her sword arm when she reached up to undo the
thing's harness." Salutes from the two cavalrymen guarding his tent. One
of them had eased the chain catches on his breastplate slightly. "Johnson
Fass." "Sir!"
A more rigid attention by Corporal Fass. "Getting
too fat for that cuirass?" "No,
sir." Hurried fumbling to tighten the catches. "If
we had a sudden alarm, Corporal, and you mounted to fight with that steel
hanging loose on your chest, then one good cut across it with a saber or
battle-ax would break your ribs like pick-up sticks." "Won't
happen again, sir." Sam
walked on. The young commander had spoken — unheard, of course, by the hundreds
of dead buried beneath the hill. He wondered how many such disasters it would
take, before the corporals stopped saluting.... "About
our guest, Margaret; I want people mindful that if she kills someone, I can
only send her away. And if someone kills her, it means difficulty with
Boston. So, no attempted love-making, no insults exchanged, no discourtesies,
no duels on duty or on leave. Let the officers know that's an
order." "Too
bad," Margaret said, "because it's going to be a temptation. What the
fuck do those New Englanders have in mind, sending us a girl like that?" Sam
stopped by his tent's entrance. "What they first had in mind, was to make
us wonder what they had in mind." "Right." "And
Margaret, I thank you for not mentioning it was a bad beginning, for her to
find me drunk.... Now, I need some sleep. And Lady Weather keep the Second
Regiment's dead from visiting my dreams." He
put back the tent's entrance flap, and ducked in. Margaret
started to say, "They would never — they loved you," but Sam was gone
inside. And just as well, she thought. My foolish mouth would have
hurt him more.
*
* *
No
lost cavalry troopers came to his dreaming. Sam
dreamed of being a boy again in their mountain hut... and his Second-mother,
Catania, was reading to him from an old copybook traded out of the south for
twenty sheep hides. She read to him often, fearing he might take to the
mountains' signs and tribe-talk instead of book-English. "'...
There were a few foreign families come to the prairie, Germans, Baits,
Hungarians. But they were not felt as foreign as they might have been in cities
or small farming towns, since all of us had come to the prairie as foreigners
to it, so in Western-accented English or Eastern English or Southern English
— or in English hardly English at all — we made do together, and were
Americans. In
time, we were to master the rough grasses, the black earth beneath, though it
cost us all our lives to do it. The sky we never mastered. We were too small,
too low. We were beneath its notice. ...
One Sunday, we took the wagon the long, rutted road to church, and in church,
in the last row of benches, I saw for the first time a sturdy, small, blond
little girl, her hair in braids. She was wearing a flour-sack dress with little
blue blossoms on it — not as nice
a dress as my sister's — and she was to become my friend.'" His
Second-mother stopped reading then, and put the top-sewn copybook away. Her
eyes, in the dream, were the gray he remembered; the scar down her cheek as
savage; her hair was white as winter. "What
happens?" Sam asked her. "Sweetheart,
always the same things happen," his Second-mother said. "Happiness is
found… then it is lost… then perhaps found again. And the finding, the losing,
and the perhaps, is the story." ...Sam
woke, saying, "Wait!" aloud — though for what, he wasn't
certain. A
voice from outside and a courteous distance said, "Sir…?" Sounded
like Corporal Fass. Sam
called, "Just a dream, Corporal," and got up off his cot. There
was no more time for mourning, for considering his stupidity in sending a man
like Ned Flores to lose a fight. No time for more vodka. The young
Captain-General, that almost-never-defeated commander, must get back to
work. Ned
wouldn't much mind the missing hand. He'd have a bright steel hook made,
to wear and flourish with a piratical air, like the corsairs in that most
wonderful of children's Warm-time copybooks. Sam
stepped outside the tent. Afternoon, and the morning wasted. "Fass!" What
in hell was the other man's name? "Sir?" "Colonel
Voss to report to me." "Sir." "The
Rascobs as well." "Sir
— the brigadiers rode out of camp a while ago. Rode north." And
no good-byes. The old men were still angry. And were about to be made much
angrier.
CHAPTER 4
"Chancellor
Razumov, have you read this?" The Lord of Grass, at ease on a window couch
in the Saffron Room of Lesser Audience, shook sheets of poor paper gently, the
slight breeze disturbing the prairie hawk that perched on his other forearm. "Yes,
my lord." The chancellor, very fat, still made an easy half-bow of
continued attention. Tiny bells tinkled down the closure of his yellow robe. "And
your opinion of our fugitive librarian's report?" "Accurate,
from what we know otherwise. It describes minor — though formidable — rule,
ruler, and ruled. Certainly to be taken into account as they lie along the
Khanate's southern flank, and might disturb your movement against Middle
Kingdom. Still… perhaps not so formidable, lord, since the librarian writes
they've lost a skirmish to the Empire, apparently just before his message left
their camp. A Light-Cavalry matter, but still a loss." "Yes...
Perhaps a loss, perhaps not." The Lord of Grass exchanged glances with his
hawk. The open window's autumn sunlight, dappled through figured fine-cotton
curtains, seemed to stir across them in a chill breeze. "Certainly
a defeat, my lord, according to accounts, according to the Boston people as
well." "A
defeat, but perhaps not a loss. Tell me, Razumov, how best does one
prepare winners to continue winning?" "By
the victories themselves, lord." "Oh,
no. Victory's lessons are few — but defeat's are many. Something we might well
keep in mind.... I believe our commonsensical Captain-General of North
Map-Mexico has deliberately made a false demonstration to us of his apparent
limitations in command... and at the same time has taught a hard lesson
to his army, particularly his Light Cavalry — our principal arm, by no
coincidence. He has taught them a painful first lesson in the uncertainties of
war." "An
expensive lesson, surely. We understand there were heavy losses." "And
so, all the more effective." The hawk shifted on the Grass Lord's arm.
"Though, since the loss was so heavy, I suspect it will be quickly
followed by a triumph in revenge." "But
lord, is the young man that clever?" "Perhaps
not, Razumov. Perhaps only that sensible.... This damned bird has shit on my
sleeve."
*
* *
An
Entry…. As I have been appointed the
role of historian, librarian, and informational to the young Captain-General, I
feel it behooves me — what a Warm-time word! 'Behoove.' Its dictionary
definition, of course — but also perhaps as in shoeing a horse, preparing for
an action, a journey? So much we will never know.... Still,
as occasional historian of Lord Monroe's rule, it behooves me to make my
entries on our army's inferior paper, then bind the note-books myself. Clumsy.
Clumsy work. There
came a scratching at my tent-flap fairly soon after the New Englander's descent
— a sight (seen over the ranks of uneasy soldiers) to remember. It was all
childhood's horror stories come to life, though concluding as only a small girl
swaggering with a sword. Her huge Made-beast left there, crouched and moaning,
apparently resting from its long flight. A
scratching at my tent-flap, as if a kept cat wished in — then the Boston girl's
quite pretty face peeping past the canvas cloth. She had set her large blue hat
aside. "Are
you doing something private?" she said. "Something you wouldn't want
anyone to see?" "Not
that private," I told her. "Come in." She
ducked inside, very small in a voluminous coat — a coat freshly unpacked, by
the even creases in it, and made of dark-blue woolen cloth, finely woven and
heavy, though not the equal of what Gardens used to weave. I've seen no cloth
of that quality anywhere else. The
young woman sat on the edge of my cot — perched there, her booted,
blue-trousered legs crossed like a boy's — and settled her scimitar across her
lap as if it were a pet. "Neckless
Peter. Is that correct?" "Peter
Wilson — but yes, my friends call me Neckless Peter. 'Neckless' since my neck
is short — though originally 'Neck-lace' because I wore the gold
necklace of Librarian in Gardens. The nick-name was given me by a friend; I
keep it in her memory." "I
know 'nick-names'; we called a friend Piss-poor Penelope, just for the three
p's in a row. And you're the intelligent person here, aren't you? Little and
old, but intelligent?" "I
suppose that's true." "Isn't
it wonderful?" She made a child's face of wonder. "I'm little and
intelligent, too! Though I'm not old. So we can be friends, and find out things
from each other. Try to hide things... then find them out." "I
don't doubt it, though I'm not told North Map-Mexico's secrets." "Oh,
you and I will discover them." She gave me that steady fresh regard —
knowledgeable and innocent at once — that children bestow on their elders. And
I saw that she was dangerous, certainly — would not have been sent, otherwise —
but also, that she might be mad. "You're
thinking something about me." "Yes." "You
think I'm very strange. Perhaps with a bird in my head?" "Yes." "And
has it occurred to you, small, old, and intelligent one, that I might not be
strange? That's it's you people of the warmer places, you who haven't learned
to live in ice without being swaddled and farting in furs, who haven't learned
to do even simple things with your thoughts, that you are the sad and strange
ones?" "Yes,
it has occurred to me." "Then
let me confirm it — it's the fact." "Perhaps." "'Perhaps.'
'Perhaps' is the curse of intelligence." "…Perhaps." She'd
spoken like a clever child, but now laughed like a woman, richly, and in deeper
voice. She laughed, then recovered in near hiccups. "Now" — she
settled herself comfortably — "is the young Monroe, our Captain-General, a
war-lord perfect, despite his losses here?" "No." "The
Kipchak Khan, Toghrul, whom you betrayed — is that a painful word?" "Only
a little." "He
is believed in Boston to be a war-lord perfect, and almost certain to win,
moving against Middle Kingdom." "Mmmm." "You
don't believe that?" "I
believe that war is too imperfect for a perfect master." Again
that steady regard. She ran a small white finger slowly back and forth along
her saber's sheath, thinking. Then she nodded. "You are intelligent — but
are you cruel? You wouldn't hurt me, would you? Use intelligence against me,
who am only a girl, and pretty?" "I
think... you would be difficult to injure." She
grinned, was up off my cot, bent and kissed my forehead, then sat back down
again. She'd smelled of cool air, and nothing else. "Let's
tell our stories — but only the truth; it's too early for lies. Yes? May I call
you NP? Short for Neckless Peter?" "I
suppose so. And I suppose I must call you... Impatience." "I
like that. My Uncle Niles would agree it was just." "Your
Uncle Niles... ?" "Ah,
you want my story first." "Why
not?" "Hmmm."
She sat at ease, thinking... her smooth, oval, nearly childish face changing in
swift reflection of the memories she was choosing. Her face seemed to me not an
ambassador's — an ambassadress's — but
an emissary's, perhaps. "...
Well, I was born to a fine family, only slightly beneath the finest.
Cambridge-born in Boston Township. I was taught the past and present. I read
and write and configure the mathematics... within reason." "Within
what reason, Impatience?" "Within
the quadratics, but not fluxions." "Do
you have Newton's work? The mathematician, I mean, not the dead River
King." She
smiled at me. "Why, NP, you just came to life!" "Do
you have it — and original, complete?" "No.
We, like all the world, are only copybook people, though there are rumors of a
great library where the ancient campus was, by old Harvard Yard." "Under
the ice...." "Under
a mile of ice." She toyed with her saber. "Someday... someday,
since you will be my friend, perhaps you could come to Boston, help us
excavate, search for it. Someday perhaps become librarian for those endless
shelves of Warm-time books, waiting now in cold and darkness with all their
secrets." "Secrets...." "The
secret of flying to the moon. The secret of the so-tiny bad things that make
sickness happen — though Boston already knows some of that secret. The secrets
of waves of radio, of black boom-powder..." She leaned closer. "NP,
the pupils of your eyes just changed the littlest bit! Have you been
naughty?" "I
don't — " "Have
you found... could you have found, in the Great Khan's fine library, the
making-means of boom-powder?" "No." "No?"
The predatory attention of a teasing child. "You didn't discover the
method mentioned — perhaps unbind the book to take that page away and write
another in its place? .... Then burned that taken-away page?" "No."
This 'no' spoken, I believe, fairly convincingly. "Well,
I won't mention even the possibility to the Captain-General or his officers.
I'm afraid of what they might do to such a little old man, to have that secret
out of him." "I
know no such secret." "Well,
of course I believe you. I believe you, NP — though Boston suspects that several
scholars, over the centuries, have found the making-means of boom-powder...
then burned those pages, rather than accomplish even more mischief in a
mischievous world, than sharp steel has done." "I
said, I know no such secret." "Even
if you did," she reached to pat my knee "even so, I would never
betray you, NP — as you must never betray me. In any case, Boston prefers that
secret remain secret, so the city not be overrun by any crowd of fools trained
with tubes and flint-sparkers for its use. The present state of affairs suits
superior talents very well." "I
do not know the method." "As
you say. — You see? We're friends, NP, and would have been friends as children,
except you would have been too old." "And
you, too dangerous a child." "I
was.... You know, I killed a friend. I sliced her with Merriment, and sometimes
I feel sorry for it. I miss Teresa. I'm glad I killed her — but I miss
her." "Yes….
Which of us isn't partly a child, who still wants everything?" "She
called me All-Irish. I wouldn't have killed her except for that." "I
understand. A serious matter." "Well,
you think it's funny, NP — but it isn't funny in Boston." Someone
spurred by my tent, close enough so the cloth billowed slightly as the rider
passed. "And so, Impatience, you all live on the ice?" "No.
Only trash lives on the ice. We live in the ice. Boston is in the
ice, and of the ice." "But
I'd heard there were great buildings..." "Yes,
and ice is what we make them of. We carve beneath-buildings — and very big —
all white white white, or clear as water. I thought you people knew how
we lived in the ice." "The
city?" "All
frozen fine. We have an opera theater and a prison. We have our college, of
course, our town-meeting hall, and places where other things are done, secret
and not so secret. We are civilized people, NP. We have churches to
these people's Mountain Jesus and Kingdom River's Rafting one, and to our
Frozen Jesus, as well as chapels for every other Possible Great, so Lady
Weather is sung to, also. There is nothing Boston doesn't have!" "I
see. Houses?" "Apartments.
Gracious, don't you know what apartments are?" Apparently startled by such
ignorance. "From
copybooks, I do, yes." "Well,
that's what we have! My mother's apartment is almost on the Common. My Uncle Niles
— a true Lodge — lives on the Common. He has eleven rooms, not counting
the unmentionable." "The
unmentionable would be... the toilet?" This
strange girl nodded Yes, apparently embarrassed to speak it. "But
how... how does everyone keep warm?" "'Everyone'
doesn't keep warm, NP. People of good birth, people with the right piece in
their heads, keep themselves warm — warm enough that a cloth coat will
always do. The Less Fortunate go around in fat fur boots, and wrapped in furs,
and complaining. But they have furs; the Trash-up-top hunt furs for
them. I had friends who had to wear furs." "A
city of ice..." She
tapped my knee gently with the tip of her sword's scabbard. "Wouldn't you
like to see it? I think you would. You'd love Boston — and we could hunt
for the Harvard library together!" "Perhaps
one day, Impatience." She
stuck her tongue out at me. A rude child. "But you're old. You may not
have enough days to get to that 'one day.' " "Time
will tell." "Oh,
I know that saying. That's a Warm-time saying." "Yes." "Now..."
She settled back on my cot, tucked my pillow under her armpit for support.
"Now, I want to hear your story." "But
you haven't finished yours. How, for example, you came to be an
ambassadress." "Oh,
my Uncle Niles likes me, so I was made diplomat to North Map-Mexico and here I
am.... Do you want to hear the oldest song?" "The
oldest song?" She
slid to her feet — supple as a deep-southern snake — dropped her scimitar onto my cot, struck a
sudden pose, and astonished me with a prancing, impudent little dance, back and
forth, her arms crossed at her breasts. And she sang. "
'Ohhh... I wish I was in Boston, or some other seaport
town...!'" Quick little kicking steps back and forth along my tent's
narrow aisle. "'I've sailed out there and everywhere... I've
been the whole world round...!'" There
were two more verses — their simple ringing melody sung out in a clear soprano,
and danced to with no trace of self-consciousness at all. There was great charm
in it... charm I found an uneasy decoration for what might lie beneath. She
came to the end suddenly as she'd started — and sat back on my cot, placid,
breathing evenly as if there'd been no song, no vigorous dance. "Now,
NP, how did you come to be a slave of the Grass Lord Khan? Is he a pleasant young
man — or cruel?" I
was still digesting the performance, her singing echoing in my ears. "His
father's Border Roamers came into our forest. Too many to drive away." "Then
killed your people, surely." "Yes,
in the fighting... and after the fighting was over. But I was Librarian, and
pushed one of them off the library's walk when he tore a copybook for pleasure,
to watch the white leaves fall so far to the ground." "A
very high library, then?" "Yes.
We built in trees, and of trees, and they loved us." "Well
done to kill a fool! But NP, why didn't they throw you after him?" "I
think I amused them. I think his being killed by me amused them. Then one of
the Khan's officers came and ordered the library sent west to Caravanserai —
and me with it." "I
would never be a slave." The Boston girl made a face and shook her head.
"I'm almost a Lodge — I am a Nearly-Lodge Riley." For
emphasis, she slid a few inches of her sword's bright steel free of its
sheath... then slid it shut. "You
have not met the young Khan." "If
I did, he would like me for my spirit and beauty. He would never harm someone
so pretty and intelligent!" This strange little creature then swooned down
along my cot's pillow like a romantic child. "He would fall in love... and
I would be his queen." I
was startled, charmed afresh — then, as she lay there, her saber cuddled, I saw
in those handsome black eyes (eyes dark as the Khan's, in fact) a gleaming
amusement, beneath which seemed to lie dreadful energy, incapable of
weariness.... Something struck me, then, and though I've never been certain,
could never be certain, it occurred to me that the New Englanders might have
made with their minds more subtle monsters than those that groaned and flapped
great wings — might have made these more intricate others out of their own
unborn and beloved children.... There
were sudden trumpets then, and stirring in the camp. The
Boston girl was instantly up and off the cot — smiled good-bye — and was gone.
The tent-flap, swinging closed, stroked the vanishing curve of her sword's
sheath. She left, as formidable people do, an emptiness behind her, as if the
earth had nothing to offer in her place. A
sergeant was shouting. The ground shook slightly to the hooves of heavy horses. I
followed outside in time to wave an armored trooper to slow. He sat his sidling
impatient charger, a roan already becoming shaggy with winter coat, and gave me
a courteous moment. "Are
we breaking camp?" "No,
sir." "Then
what are we doing?" "What
we're told," he said, smiled, nodded, and spurred away. ...
The camp's tumult finally done — an expedition apparently suddenly undertaken,
and most of the soldiers gone with it — I wandered the hill-top, asked
questions of those few left behind, was given no answers, and returned to my
tent for a nap. It did occur to me that trouble might have come to the northern
border while the army's commander was occupied here…. That trouble, of course,
would be of my previous master's making, with the appearance of horse-tail
banners, and horse archers with angled eyes. I
had, I suppose, convinced myself that my unimportant defection would be
pardoned, if the Grass Lord ever met me again. But that conviction proved
fragile as smoke when I tried to sleep in the quiet of an almost empty camp,
and I realized that I would certainly be casually strangled by my student —
Evgeny Toghrul being not a bad loser, but no loser at all. Not even of elderly
librarians. I
slept at last, dreamed of perfect painless poisons milked from lovely vines —
droplets certain to provide ease and freedom's easy end. I dreamed of dark
doses through the afternoon, could taste them... then woke to early evening. I
drew a cloak over my shoulders against the chill, and trudged over an
encampment scored by horses' shod hooves, dappled with their manure, to a
lamp-lit mess tent almost deserted. The
walking wounded, unfit to ride, had been left behind — left behind to cook supper, as well, a grim
portent. A corporal I knew, called Leith, was limping among the pans and great
kettles, blood spotting her bandages, while she spooned and stirred this and
that, exchanging obscenities with two soldiers still staggering from injuries. Portia-doctor,
darkly handsome in a stained brown robe, and seeming weary, sat eating at a
bench-table in the big tent's back left corner — and I was interested to see
the Boston girl sitting across from her. The girl's tin platter was piled with
the army's dreadful Brunswick slumgul, stew enough for two hungry men. This
evening, apparently, boiled goat and halved turnips. Patience
saw me, nodded me over… and was well into her supper when I came from the
serving kettles to join them. I
bent to kiss the doctor's cheek, a privilege — and sensible precaution — of
age, and sat beside her to watch Patience Nearly-Lodge Riley eat. It seemed
important eating. Portia-doctor
smiled. "Fuel after flying, I believe." And I saw that of course she
must be right. Patience
nodded, swallowed a large bite, and said, "Nothing comes of nothing. — Where have the soldiers gone? People won't
tell me." "South,"
Portia-doctor said, and poked at a piece of goat with a two-tine fork.
"South through the mountains, to hunt down the cataphracts." "Good
God." Perhaps my favorite Warm-time phrase. "Can they catch them,
three days gone?" "Probably."
The doctor ate her piece of goat. "The imperials will be leisurely, have
no reason to hurry." "Impatience,
I thought you would have followed the soldiers south." "I
would have, NP. I wanted to see fighting, but they refused me permission —
cited my safety and that sort of shit. The Big One-eye wouldn't lend me a horse
to follow them." More spoonfuls of turnip eaten. "Ah
— Voss. Howell Voss." "Yes,
the Big One-eye. But I'm going to get a riding horse of my own — buy it out of
my expense fund. Then, fuck him, I'll go where I want!" "But
you could have Walked-in-air." Patience
had very good table-manners; she finished chewing, and swallowed before she
answered. "NP, I'm not a stupids' witch. I have just come over two thousand
Warm-time miles. And I've stopped traveling, and said to myself, 'I'm here.
I've arrived.'" "And
therefore?" Portia-doctor, interested in this phenomenon. "Therefore,
Doctor, if I air-walk again too soon, my head might ache, and I might
fall." "So,
a rest." "Yes,
a few weeks, then I'll be able to say to myself, 'Now, I'm going. I'm
going somewhere else. Then I'll do it, and my head won't ache, and I
won't fall." "I
see." "The
piece in the brain doesn't like to be hurried, Doctor. One thing at a time is
what it likes, with a long rest between." She demolished a last piece of
goat meat, then attacked the rest of her turnips — which, frankly, were barely
edible. "And
your beast?" "The
occa's risen and gone north. I had to kick her to get her up and going; they
depend on you, then they want to stay. She'll wander awhile, but end with her
mother." Salt sprinkled on turnips. "They're better than pigeons, for
going back where they come from." I
tried the most promising piece of goat. "And how are the wounded,
Doctor?" Portia
turned those sad brown eyes to me, eyes into which too much of others'
suffering had reflected. "We've saved some — saved some of those for
sitting, blind or legless, to beg in town squares." "An
army doctor is, I suppose, something of a contradiction." "Yes,
'something of a contradiction,'" Portia said, and smiled — was almost
beautiful when she smiled. Then she took up her platter, stood, and was gone. "Is
it true," Patience said, "that Big One-eye likes her?" "Howell
Voss? Where did you hear that?" "I
scented it from him while he was telling me I couldn't follow. He talked to me,
but looked at her for a moment when she walked by. Then, he smelled of sad
desiring — as you did, NP, when I mentioned the ancient Harvard
library." More
Boston tinkering, apparently, and for sense of smell! "Impatience,
I believe we'll all be happier with you if you don't sniff around us like an
eager hound." "Well,
then..." A slight pout. "Then I'll keep it to myself, what I discover
that way." "Please
do." "Why
aren't you eating?" "They
have not peeled the turnips." She
smiled. "Do you know the Warm-time word 'eccentric'?" "There
is nothing eccentric about wanting turnips peeled." "How
are your teeth?" Patience showed me her small white teeth in illustration. "I
still have my teeth." "Here."
She reached over quickly, took my platter, and began to peel the halved turnips
on it. She'd reached very quickly, and she peeled very quickly, so the blade of
her knife flashed and flickered. "Now, eat them. They're good for
you." I
ate them, and could only hope they were good for me, since they were good for
nothing else. I do not imagine there is any more reliable sign of civilization
than food that is a pleasure to eat, not simply grim forage. In Gardens, we had
bird stews flavored with little forest friends…. Having
finished my slight platter as the Boston girl finished her weighty one —
Corporal Leith had limped over and snatched the tin dishes up, muttering — I walked
with Patience out into darkness and a cold wind come down from the mountains. "Isn't
this an adventure, NP?" "If
it ends well." Stepping carefully to avoid horse manure. "Oh,
adventures are ends in themselves." "And
what is it you want here, Impatience — besides adventure?" "Want?
Here, I want to watch warlords' grand clockwork tick, whir, and turn — have you
ever seen wind-up clockwork?" "No.
Read of those time-pieces, of course." "We
have a large weight-wind-up clock at the entrance to Ice-clear Justice, though
it keeps uncertain time.... What I wish, is what Boston wishes, NP. I wish for
perfection, as Boston wishes for perfection — and we will have it, or make it,
so the sun is satisfied at last and comes to us as it did before, hot as fire." "I
see...." But I didn't, then.
CHAPTER 5
Colonel
Rodriguez had come from Indian people — and wasn't ashamed of it. He'd never
kissed a man's ass because that man was pale under sunshine, and could grow a
fine mustache. His
mother had told him that good comes to those who wait for it, and Colonel
Rodriguez — though not yet forty — had waited out several such officers, milky
as girls, who spoke only the Beautiful Language, not Nahua, and knew
women at court. The northern bandits had worn those men out, or killed them
— and the Emperor, who knew truth when
evil men permitted him to see it, saw the value in officers such as Michi
Rodriguez, and gave him at last his regiment. And
see the result — with only three squadrons brought north! Victory. The
troopers had celebrated every evening since the battle. Six slow marches riding
south through the passes, the men dancing in camp every evening — and drinking aguardiente
they were forbidden to have with them. Easier to find a cavalryman's soul
than his hidden leather bottle. Victory.
A first victory. Now, the court ladies would coo and flutter… then moan,
lie back and raise their lace skirts in dark, secret rooms smelling of the oils
of flowers, so that a hero might do as he pleased, and so please them. Perhaps...
Though perhaps only smile and murmur behind their fans. 'See the little Indio…
watch our brown hero try to manage both his chocolate cup and cake plate.
See him spill crumbs on his uniform, perhaps a drop or two of chocolate as
well....' But
either way — a victory. The Indian colonel would come with his regiment to The
City, and the Emperor would see he brought a battle won, as his banner. "Something
shone, high in the mountains." Tomas Reyes, a milk-face but a decent
fellow, had spurred up alongside on that showy gray — a trumpet-horse color. "What
something?" "Colonel,
I don't know. Two of the men saw it." "Bandits.
Curious shepherds." "I
don't know, sir. Should we arm a squadron?" Rodriguez
considered. It was the cataphract problem. — Well, there were two cataphract
problems. One was the size of horse required to carry both the heavy chain-mail
that guarded its own chest and flanks, and a man wearing that same
chain-mail draped and belted from helmet to boot. So,
the proper horse was one problem; the full suit of mail was itself the other
problem. No man, not even a very strong man, wished to wear it day and night. Bandits,
probably, high in the mountains above the pass. A spear-tip or sword-blade
flashing an instant in the sun. Too far south, too many days south, now, for
any interference by the northerners. They wouldn't have more than a few hundred
Light Cavalry left at This'll Do. Would have been busy for a day or so just
burying their dead. And wouldn't have had time to bring more than... say, a
headquarters' detachment down through Please Pass to follow. "Unlikely,"
Rodriguez said. "Sir?" "I
said, 'Unlikely.' But just in case" — a favorite Warm-time phrase of his
father's — "just in case, have Third Squadron fall out and arm." "Sir."
Captain Reyes saluted with a cadet-school flourish, showed off with a rearing
turn, and galloped back along the files. Fair enough, the man was a fine
horseman — unlike, say, a certain nearly-plump Indian, who nevertheless had won
a victory. Almost
a sand-glass later by the sun's shadow across the narrow pass, and deep into an
afternoon now truly warm, his guidon-bearer, Julio Gomez, saw steel glittering
on the steep mountainside above them — and properly called it out. There
was, as Rodriguez had quickly discovered, a sadness nesting amid the pleasures
of command. It was the sadness of knowing — knowing more than his officers and
men. Knowing unpleasant things they did not yet know. — Such as realizing immediately that this
second conveniently revealed sparkle of steel was deliberate, meant to provoke
him to action, and so, was no affair of bandits, but a military matter. Which
therefore meant that some of the northerners had followed him down. And
since no local commander would have taken the remarkable risk, after a lost
battle, of pursuing days deep into imperial country — certainly riding day and
night to do so, certainly killing horses to do so — and with what must be a
modest force of the few troops at hand, it meant as well that this northern
commander was probably the commander, Monroe himself. Rodriguez
felt chilled and hot at once. Chilled, because such determination, such an
extraordinary pursuit of several days south, was frankly a surprise, and
disturbing. But hot as well, at the notion of doubling a triumph and bringing
to Mexico City not one victory, but two. And the head of Sam Monroe. He
stood in his stirrups, turned, and called for Captain Reyes. It was going to
be... it was going to be all right. This pass, Boca Chica, was narrow,
its sides much too steep for cavalry to come down on his flanks. So, whether
the northerners maneuvered in front of him as the pass widened, or tried to
attack from the rear, the result would be the same. His people would hammer
them, ride them down. The
colonel saw Captain Reyes cantering to him for orders... and felt the early
autumn wind's caress as a promise of victory.
* *
*
"He's
armed a squadron — no, he's arming all his people down there." On the
mountainside, Howell Voss sat slumped on a sweated horse, a remount. He'd left
his wonderful Adelante wind-broken and dying two days back, as they'd left
other horses his troopers had ridden to death on the fast chase south through
these mountains. A brutal cost in fine animals. They had no fresh mounts left. Beside
him, Sam Monroe sat his horse, a weary sore-backed bay, looked down the
mountainside's steep slope, and said, "Perfect." In
the narrow defile below, the cataphracts were lifting their heavy folds of
chain-mail from the pack-horses' duffels, shaking them out, wrestling into
them, fastening latches and buckles. Then, weighty, lumbering to their chargers
to dress them in oiled jingling steel skirts. "
'Perfect'? I don't see how this is going to get done at all." Voss leaned
from his saddle to spit thirst's cotton. His empty eye-socket itched, as always
when sweat ran into it under the patch. "We've got only Headquarters'
Heavies, that's two hundred and fifty of my troopers — and what's left of Ned's
Lights fit to fight, another two, three hundred." "Yes." "Sam,
there are maybe seven hundred cataphracts down there." "Seven
hundred and fourteen." "Our
people are tired, and our horses — the ones we have left — are even tireder
from chasing these imperials for almost a fucking Warm-time week." "So?" "Sir,
go down there, I'd say we're asking for another cavalry disaster." Sam
smiled at him. "That's what I'd say, too, Howell, where cavalry's
concerned. But what we have down there, to quote old Elvin, is 'an infantry
situation.' " "We're
not infantry." Sam
swung off his horse. "Ah — but we're going to be."
*
* *
"Pass
begins to widen up ahead," Rodriguez said, "past the next turn of
rock." Captain Reyes stood in his stirrups to look. "Scouts
out, sir?" "To
report what, Captain ? That the pass widens slightly past the turn, as we know
it widens ? That the enemy has come down and is waiting, as they surely
are?.... Now, I want our formations shaken out into ranks three deep across
this Boca, wall to wall. Third Squadron to reverse order and hold in
place farther back up the pass to cover the rear. If any of the northern
cavalry — and it must be cavalry to have caught up with us — if any have
followed down the pass, Davila is to immediately charge and strike them." "Yes,
sir." "He
is not to wait for my command." "Understood." "If
most, or all their force, has come from the hills and is waiting before us —
Mother Mary, please make it so — we will charge them in march order. First
Squadron, then Second in support, if there's anyone left to ride over." "Yes,
sir." "Pass
those orders — and see they are understood, Tomas." "I
will!" A fine salute — and another sample of horsemanship as he turned and
galloped away on the gray.... Man was a pleasant fellow, but really an ass. Soon
enough, another rider came up. Major Moro — practically elderly, and would
never be more than a major. Very dark, too, well named Moro. "Am
I to suppose, Colonel, that this time Reyes got an order right? My squadron
remains as marching, and first for the charge if the cabrons come down
to meet us?" "That
is exactly right," Rodriguez said. "And be careful of your language,
Major. The angels may be watching us, now." Major
Moro made a face. "It is those things from the north the angels need to
watch, and carry their filthy souls away!" "Absolutely."
Rodriguez crossed himself to seal that truth. "The orders are as given.
Now, get back to your men." Moro
saluted and was gone. The
pass was turning… opening. Two long bow-shots, now — no more. Rodriguez
held up his right hand. First Squadron's trumpeter immediately blew three
short, rising notes — and the colonel heard, behind him, more than two troops
of heavy-armored cavalry spur to the trot, horses' hooves beginning a rhythmic
hammer, draped chain-mail making soft music as they came. Proud
of them, he said to himself, certain
such pride was forgivable. The pass was turning. Turning. An edge, a sliver of
open grassland was becoming visible past the mountain's slope. Steel sparkled
against that hint of green. Rodriguez
reined Salsa far to the right — his guidon-bearer, Gomez, following — to clear
Moro's men for the charge. Called
commands.... Then First Squadron began to wheel in stately turn to the left,
ranks in good order as the pivot files slowed. It swung ponderously out into
the pass's mouth; Salsa, champing his bit, was shouldered into the Boca's rough
wall as the right-flank ranks rode by. No
mounted troopers were waiting at the pass's narrow entrance. No horses. Only
big, bearded men — and what seemed to be a few women — in polished
cuirasses, black-plumed steel
helmets, brown wool, leather, and black thigh-boots. Two long rows of
these people, all holding short, square shields grounded, and gripping
twelve-foot lances like pikemen, heavy straight sabers sheathed at their sides. There
were two more ranks behind them. Those, Light Cavalry — men, and many more of
their godless northern women — in
hauberks, and armed with lighter lances, curved sabers. And
all on foot, drawn up as infantry. Clever,
if they're up to it... don't miss
having horses under them. Rodriguez wanted a moment to think, to consider
the situation, but Major Moro was not a thinker. First Squadron's trumpeter
sounded two bright notes, then a long silver third — and more than two hundred huge horses sprang
from the trot to the gallop, kicking stones, sending red dirt flying. They
launched themselves and their riders as one, so chain-mail shook and rang like
bells above the drumroll of hooves. As they passed, Rodriguez smelled coppery
dust, horse sweat, oiled steel. The
first rank of cataphracts leaned to the right in their saddles, lifting their
battle-axes free. And as if in a dance agreed upon, the northerners' long
lances swung down in response into a glittering needled hedge, the men crouched
low behind them, shields braced. For
a few moments that seemed more than moments, the space of air and light between
the gallopers and those waiting ranks contracted, grew shadowy... then
collapsed as the ground jarred and shook. They
came together in a great splintering crash that smothered trumpet calls. Bright
steel shone through roiling red dust, and horses screamed — not men, not yet,
though the cataphracts' own furious armored weight drove them to impalement,
even through their draperies of chain-mail. Their battle-axes, flailing down
right and left, struck with the solid sound of woodsmen's axes into ripe wood —
or rang skidding off shields set slanting. A
black charger — all Moro's squadron rode blacks — exploded out of confusion
riderless, bucked and raced away, kicking at its dragging entrails as it went.
Under red dust, horsemen spurred in, shouting as they hacked with heavy axes,
while the northerners, fighting silent, caught these men and mounts on ranked
lance points that rose and fell in rippling lines. "Column!"
Rodriguez shouted for that fool, Reyes. "Second Squadron to form
column!" "Yes,
sir!" And there Reyes was. A fine horseman. "Second
Squadron into column — and advance!" There was an extraordinary amount of
dust now... clouds of it, hard to shout through. "Sir!"
Reyes turned his horse — and seemed to meet an arrow come down out of nowhere,
that rang off his chest's steel and whined away. "Look!" He pointed
up. Rodriguez
looked up and saw infantry — no, more fucking dismounted cavalry, Light Cavalry
by their mail shirts — high on the steep slopes of the Boca. Not many,
perhaps thirty of them on each side, but they were using bows — those
fucking longbows with the short lower limb. Barefoot, too — most of them he
could see — to keep from stumbling and falling into the pass. Using
their bows — as I should have had
each squadron's archers deploy to do. Too late now. Rodriguez waved Reyes
away. "Into column! Column!" "Sir!"
Reyes spurred — and galloped into another arrow. This one took him in the belly
by worst chance, just where the heavy fall of mail divided at his saddle-bow. Dead.
Rodriguez looked to see the captain
fall, but he didn't. He rode bent over his saddle like an old woman — his fine
seat gone in agony — but galloped out to Major Ticotin. Second Squadron was
shouted slowly out of extended line… slowly into column of ten. "Receive
these!" Colonel Rodriguez called to the enemy as he rode, intending to go
in with Ticotin. "Receive these, you fuckers!" He had no need to see
what had happened to Moro's troopers. His ears told him. At the mouth of the
pass, under the screams of dying horses, sounded the bright swift hammering of
steel... the sobbing, grunting, barely caught breaths of men gutted on the
pikes the northerners had made of their long lances. "Well,
you're very clever!" Rodriguez, galloping to Second Squadron's guidon,
addressed Sam Monroe. "Now, let's see you stop cataphracts in
column!" "You
are not going in with us. Absolutely not!" Major Ticotin looked
furious, face pale above his beard. Dust was drifting around them like red fog.
"You are staying back, Colonel!" "I'm
going in with you!" There
was a squealing sound — a damned pig somehow mixed up in this — and Rodriguez
saw Captain Reyes off a way, saw him quite clearly leaning far back in his
saddle, plucking at something. — The arrow shaft, of course, sticking out of
his belly. He was making the sound. "Your
ass is staying back!" Major Ticotin reached over with the blade of his
saber and sliced through Rodriguez's reins. Almost took his hand off. "You're
under arrest!" Rodriguez laughed at having said something so stupid. He
tried to turn Salsa to follow with knees alone, then climbed down to catch the
reins and knot them together. Second
Squadron poured past him like a river. Chestnut horses. Trumpets... trumpets. He
found the rein ends — goddamn horse circling around — knotted them, and swung up into the saddle,
grunting with the jingling weight of his armor, just as Second Squadron, at
full gallop, struck the center of the northerners' line. Struck
it, broke it, and thundered through. I have him. I have him — thank you, Mother of
God. "Reyes!" ... No Reyes. Reyes was gone. Rodriguez
spurred back up the pass. A long bow-shot down the defile, Third Squadron still
waited, facing north, where now no enemy would come. "Orders! Gomez!"
His guidon-bearer, not very intelligent, seemed startled to be transmitting
orders in place of Captain Reyes. "Go
to Major Davila. Third Squadron to reverse front, and advance! Now, you
idiot!" Gomez
hauled his horse's head around and kicked the animal into a gallop as Rodriguez
watched him go — watched for a moment to be certain an arrow didn't come down
to Gomez, cancel the order. Worse rider than I am. Really a ridiculous
figure... bouncing on the goddamn saddle as if he were fucking it. No
arrow for Gomez. It seemed to Rodriguez that fewer arrows were coming down.
Harder to mark targets, now, through the dust — and thank God's Mother for it.
He turned Salsa back to the noise of fighting, cantered that way… and heard
trumpet calls behind him. Third Squadron would be reversing files. Rodriguez
rode to the fighting — glanced back, and saw Gomez galloping down the pass to
catch up... saw Third Squadron reforming. The noise of fighting ahead was
extraordinary — crashes of metal, shrieks of injured horses echoing off the Boca's
narrow walls as if the devil had sent a band from hell to serenade the
dying. Through
a haze of dust, Rodriguez saw that the northerners' line was certainly broken.
Ticotin's men had driven deep into their center, so the long ranks of
dismounted lancers were swinging away to either side of the breach like cantina
doors, their dead dotting the dirt and grass behind them. Swinging
away... so Second Squadron, galloping in, cheering, ax blades flashing through
red dust, rode deeper between the northerners' ranks. The noise was
terrific, the clangor, and thunderous sound of the chargers' hooves. Then,
louder, answering thunder sounded behind him, behind and high above. Rodriguez
turned in his saddle, but there was only clear blue sky over the pass's rim,
and Third Squadron now in motion, starting down the pass at a steady trot. "Sir...
Sir!" Gomez rode up, shouting, miming listening, his hand cupping
his ear. Rodriguez thought he meant that odd sound of thunder — then heard a
trumpet call out of the fighting, an imperial call. The rally. Why? Rodriguez
spurred Salsa to a gallop, drew his saber, and rode into the hammered dust of
fighting, his guidon-bearer still calling after him. There
was, he thought, as he leaned to strike one of their wounded cuirassiers
staggering past — there was an odd satisfaction in seeing the difficulty. The ranks
of northerners, that had swung so wide apart at Second Squadron's charge, were
now slowly swinging shut to enclose it. Remarkable, such a maneuver, and
accomplished by dismounted cavalry. Fine officers.... The
rally sounded again, Ticotin trying to keep his horsemen together — to drive
deeper yet, break the trap's jaws.... It would not work. Rodriguez
longed to charge into the fight. He felt that he could ride into the battle,
gallop over the battle like an angel, and save his men. He spurred Salsa
closer to the fighting, and rode against a file of men, bearded, covered with
dust, clumsy in their high boots. One saw him, turned, and presented a
lance-point. Rodriguez parried it aside, cut down at the man, struck something
— perhaps only the lance shaft — and that man and all of them were gone,
swallowed in clouds of dust, shouted commands, confusion. Dust
was in the colonel's mouth, but a breeze had come and bannered red haze aside
to show clearly how Ticotin's troopers were dying, as if a great carnivorous
plant — its petals treacherously open — now closed bright thorns upon them from
either side. More
thunder behind him — odd sliding thunder. Gomez, that idiot, was shouting
again.... Ticotin was stuck in shit and would not get out, but Third Squadron was
coming. Rodriguez turned in his saddle to wave them on and into a gallop.
They'd be in time… but barely. He
turned to see their bannered ranks now spurring into the gallop — and saw, a
moment later, the mountainsides coming down into the pass. The
steep slopes to right and left were suddenly brown and gray rivers of bounding,
rolling, skidding boulders. A torrent of stone was coming down in landslides,
great granite monuments tilting, toppling to swell those catastrophic currents. Of
course. The Light Cavalry archers had stopped shooting only to climb to the
ridges… begin those slides of stone. The
sound was beyond sound; it buffeted Rodriguez like blows. Salsa shied and
reared away. He
controlled the horse — had time to see Davila and his trumpeter, at the head of
Third Squadron, both staring up like astonished children as the mountainsides
fell upon them. Avalanches of rock, a flood of stone, flowed and thundered down
into the narrow pass and over the horsemen. Here and there bright steel wavered
for an instant, ranks of men and horses screamed — and were gone, vanished
beneath tons of rumbling granite that seemed to come down forever, while dust
billowed, eddied in the air. ...
Perhaps forty, perhaps fifty men and horses — saved by miracles — staggered here
and there as the last showers of stone, the last great boulders skipped,
crashed, rolled and settled. Several of these horses had broken legs dangling.
Many of the men, dust-coated, swaying in their saddles, were shouting warnings
— as if what had already happened was
only about to happen. Rodriguez
heard a trumpet call — a call unknown to him —
back at the entrance to the pass. He turned Salsa's head and rode that
way. Gomez reined up beside him. "How?" he said. "How?"
— as if their ranks were equal. The
destroyed men were still shouting behind them. There were also screams, but not
many. Rodriguez
smiled at his guidon-bearer as if they were old friends, the best of friends
riding together. "How? By my misjudgment, and the northerners' commendable
initiative." "Ah..."
Gomez nodded, apparently satisfied. At
the mouth of the pass, now only those northerners stood — though there were
slight disturbances within their ranks as the last of Ticotin's men were
pierced with lances or dragged from their big horses to be hacked to death. "Yes,"
Rodriguez said aloud, and meant he'd been right before, to wish to ride into
the fighting. "Go with God," he said to his guidon-bearer — drove in
his spurs, and galloped out of the pass toward the ranks of his enemies. He felt
very well, really quite well... though he was saddened to hear Gomez following,
riding behind him. Well, the man was a fool... always had been.
*
* *
The
fighting dust had settled, so the southern sun shone richly to warm the men and
horses still alive. Now, near silence lay as if there'd been no noise in these
mountains, no shouting, no trumpets, no hammering steel on steel in Boca
Chica Pass. It
was a familiar quiet, the stillness after battle. Sam Monroe closed his eyes,
eased his muscles to enjoy it. He was sitting on a dead horse, its skirts of
chain-mail dark with blood and shit. Its rider lay with it; he'd been caught
with a leg under the animal when it fell, and had been killed there. Sam
hadn't drawn his sword through most of the fighting. He might have; he'd met
several of their horsemen in the battle's dust and fury. It had been odd —
perfect Warm-time word. Odd. He'd
ridden here and there, watching his men maneuver — and so well, obedient to their officers and
sergeants as if they'd been veteran infantry, never cavalry at all. Wonderful,
really, and all the more appreciated when a man simply rode — his worried
trumpeter reining behind — as if terrible noise, dust, savage struggles, and
the screams of hurt horses and dying men had nothing to do with him at all. He'd
met two cataphracts. They'd spurred at him, then passed, never striking — as if
he were a person separate from the fighting. At the battle's end, one imperial,
galloping blind out of clouds of dust, had come swinging his battle-ax. Sam
had swayed to the side and away from the ax's stroke — drawing sword as he did — then straightened
in his saddle to slash the cataphract just under his helmet's nasal. And as the
injured man reined past, spitting teeth and blood, Sam struck again, a back-stroke
and much harder, to the nape. Though the chain-mail there caught the sword's
edge, the blow's force broke the man's neck, and his charger trotted him away
dying, his head rolling this way and that. ...
Sam opened his eyes to hoofbeats as Howell Voss rode up, looking furious. An
ax, that must have been swung very hard, had chopped his helmet's steel,
snicked off the tip of his left ear. Voss, bareheaded now, was holding his
bandanna to it. "Howell….
Lucky for the helmet." "I
know it." Blood still ran down Voss's wrist. "You want their
colonel's head to take back?" "No,
don't disturb their colonel. Leave him lying with his troopers." There was
a spray of blood across Sam's hauberk. "You
hurt?" "Not
anymore," Sam said. Just the sort
of vainglorious phrase the army would like, with a defeat so thoroughly
revenged. The sort of phrase that seemed to come to him more and more easily. Small
black shadows printed across the battlefield. The ravens had come to Boca
Chica. "We
have two hundred and eighteen prisoners, Sam — we finished the worst wounded.
Nine of the prisoners are officers." "Behead
those officers. And please tell them I regret the necessity." "...
Yes, sir." A battle-made gentleman himself — his mother a tavern
prostitute, his father a passing mystery — Voss had a soft spot for officers. "Someone
else can do it, Howell." "I'll
do it." "Okay."
That strange Warm-time word 'okay.' Yet everyone seemed to know what it meant,
without explanation. "We'll let the troopers go. Leave them twenty of
their horses for the wounded, and a few bows and battle-axes in case bandits
come down on them." "As
you say." Voss saluted, and started to turn his mount away. "And
Howell..." "Sir?" "Sorry
about the ear." Voss
smiled. And when he smiled — the handsome horse-face with its eye-patch
suddenly creased and looking kind — Sam understood what women saw in him.
"It's just a fucking ear, Sam. And I've still got most of it." "True.
And, Howell, it was very well done of your people — very well done for cavalry to maneuver
so decisively on foot." "Your
idea, sir." "Ideas
are easy, Colonel. But shaping horsemen into infantry formations in the middle
of a fight, is not easy." "The
people paid attention — and I was lucky." "That,
too." Sam held out his hand, and Howell leaned down to take it.
"Thank you." I weld them to me. Sam watched Howell ride away,
holding the bandanna to his injured ear. As I hammer, polish, and sharpen
all my tools and instruments... Howell
Voss would be the man to take the Rascob brothers' place. — Ned Flores had a
sense for horses and distance and country. And both old Butler and Charmian
were wonderful infantry commanders.... But here at the pass, Howell had turned
from commanding Heavy Cavalry and Light, to commanding them as
unaccustomed infantry. And he'd done it perfectly, as Sam had stood aside —
needing only the hint that the imperials would likely come, the second time, in
column. "Good!"
Howell had said. "I'll let 'em in — then re-form, and swing the doors
shut." The important word in that, of course, had been 'Good!' That
swift-reasoned eagerness. So,
a decision taken — and old Jaime and Elvin Rascob both now ghosts, though they
didn't know it. It would also be useful — certainly sweet Second-mother Catania
would have agreed — to manage Howell and Portia-doctor together at last, so
Voss's loneliness didn't end by crippling him as a commander. New
instrument prepared; old instruments discarded. And instruments for what? The
peace, and peace of mind, of two hundred thousand North Map-Mexico farmers,
shepherds, tradesmen? Was that sufficient reason for the cataphracts dying here
at Boca Chica? How
much difference would it make if the Emperor came back up to rule the north? If
the Khan came down to rule it? Careless rule, or cruel — how much of a
difference? Enough to be worth the deaths at This'll Do, then Boca Chica... and
all the deaths in the years before? No
difference now to fourteen Light Cavalry, caught on the slopes by their own
avalanche. No
difference to the one hundred and eighty-three troopers killed playing infantry
against the cataphracts. The
soft sunny day was fading, laying long shadows across beaten grass, across dead
men and dead horses. A fading day, but still warm so far south.... Sam took a drink
of water from his canteen. He imagined it was vodka — imagined so well that he
could taste the lime juice squeezed into it. Flies
had blanketed the dead horse he sat on, and veiled the pinned cataphract's
ruined face. This crawling, speckled drapery rose clouding when Sam stood to
walk away, and drifted humming along with his first few steps, as if he might
be dead as well.
CHAPTER 6
"Am
I clever, Razumov?" "Very,
my lord." "And
you will have the courage to warn me when I'm not?... Should that ever happen." "I
will try to find the courage, lord." "Good
answer." The Lord of Grass was in his garden — a summer garden now past
the end of its delicate temporary blossoming of sweet peas, pansies, and
bluebonnets. The sweet peas were already gone, the bluebonnets and pansies
withering in Lord Winter's earliest winds.... The garden and its paths were at
the center of a small city of yurts, tents, buildings and pavilions set on
gently rolling prairie, a few Warm-time miles north of the mound of Old
Map-Lubbock. There
had been, not opposition, but complaints at moving Caravanserai from Los
Angeles to the mid Map-Texas prairie, only eighteen horseback days south of the
Wall of Ice. However, after one complaint too many on the subject had cost
Colonel Sergei Pol his breath, there was an agreeable acceptance. From
his childhood, Toghrul had been fond of flowers. "Of course," he'd
told his father, when that silent Khan had raised an eyebrow on finding his
only son digging in the dirt with a serving fork, "of course, we cannot
have the best Warm-time blossoms. None of their hollyhocks, lilacs, dahlias,
roses." His
father had watched Toghrul at work for a while, then grunted and strolled away,
seeming neither surprised nor disappointed. Silence
had been the Great Khan's weapon. Silence — slow, dark, deep as drowning water.
In conference, from the time he was a child, Toghrul had watched his father's
silence slowly fill with other men's talk — their arguments, defiances,
explanations... and finally, their submissions. Their pleas. The
Khan, a short man, nearly wide as he was tall, would sit listening until at
last the others came to silence also. Then, he spoke. Toghrul's
was a different way, from boyhood. He chatted with those who chatted with him,
was quick in humor and appreciative of humor in others, so it came each time as
the grimmest shock when pleasant conversation ended pleasantly... and the
stranglers stepped, yawning, from behind their curtain. The
Lord of Grass bent to examine a dying bluebonnet. "How I wish for
roses." "We
can get them, lord, from the south." "Yes,
Michael, we can get them from the south. They will arrive... then die as soon
as our north winds touch them. I would rather not have them at all, than lose
them." "They
might be kept in warm little houses, with windows of flat glass." "Michael,
I'm aware the coarse queen of Middle Kingdom keeps her vegetables and flowers
alive in those sorts of houses, even after summer's over. But the notion of
captive roses doesn't please me." "No,
my lord; I take your point. And if we find a painter to paint the most
beautiful roses for you?" "Razumov...
Razumov. I would rather not have roses, than pretend to have them." The
chancellor bowed, and left the subject prettily. "The blossom of good
judgment, however, is yours, Great Khan, since the Captain-General Monroe has
followed his lesson of defeat with a triumph in revenge." "Yes."
The Khan swung his horse-whip to behead a windburned bluebonnet. "A mercy,
it was too pale a shade of blue.... Yes, a thoughtful Captain-General. He was
clever, and I was clever concerning him. Now, I believe we'd better send just
enough bad weather to see what shelter he runs to." Yuri
Chimuk — an older man, large, flat-faced, and badly scarred — had followed
along on the flower tour, silent. Chimuk had been an officer under the old
Khan, and had seen enough death on the ice from Vladivostok to Map-Anchorage —
and in slightly warmer country farther and farther south as the years went by —
to have lost any fear of it. The old general was one of the few men Toghrul
knew, who weren't afraid of him. "Your
thoughts, Yuri?" "Lord,
our serious men are occupied commencing your campaign against Middle Kingdom.
Since Manu Four-Horsetails is useless as tits on a bull, send him down to peck
along the Map-Bravo. He's capable of that, at least." Manu
Ek-Tam was the old man's grandson, the apple, as Warm-times had had it, of his
eye — and already a very formidable commander at twenty-four, having completed,
it must be said, an exceptional campaign in Map-Nevada. "Five
thousand cavalry might be too heavy a peck, Yuri. I don't want North Mexico
disturbed to war, just when we're striking east. The river people will be
troublesome enough." "Manu
shouldn't be commanding five thousand; he's not capable. Give him a
thousand, lord." "So
few? You don't want him killed, do you, old man?" "It
would be a relief to be rid of him." "...
Umm. We'll say two thousand. Send some of Crusan's people down from
Map-Fort Stockton to reinforce Manu. And remind your grandson, Yuri — pecks,
harassment, not an invasion." Yuri
Chimuk got down on his hands and knees — something he'd been excused from doing
years before, but persisted in as an odd independence. "What the Khan has
ordered, I will perform." When
the old man stood and stomped away, Toghrul watched him go, absently switching
the top of his right boot with the horse-whip. "Your thoughts, Michael
Razumov." "First,
why wake a sleeping dog, my lord? And..." "
'And'?" "And,
second, Yuri Chimuk loves his grandson even more than he loves you." "Well...
first, the North-Mexican dog must be wakened sometime. And I need to
know whether, when kicked, he will run yelping south to the Empire, or east, to
Middle Kingdom.... Second, as to Yuri's love for his grandson, it is only
required that he blame himself for that brilliant and ambitious young
officer's death, when — as it must — that occurs. We have room, after all, for
only one genius of war." "Is
this in my hands, lord?" "Not
yet." The Khan leaned over a pansy. "Look, Michael, look at this
brave little face. A tiny golden roaring lion, pictured in a Warm-time
book." "It
is charming." "Do
you love me, Michael? You loved me when I was a boy, I know. I used
to watch you, watching me." "I
did love you, my lord, and still do. Being aware that that remains entirely
beside the point." The
Khan laughed, and bent to stroke the little pansy flower. "You are full of
good answers, today." "And,
I regret to say, a question, lord." "Yes?"
The Khan stood. "Map
— Los Angeles and Map-San Diego — " "The
Blue Sky damn them both. What now?" "Complaints,
Great Khan. Ships do not arrive from the Empire with goods we've already paid
for. Buk Szerzinski complains particularly, saying he has a Map-Pacific supply
depot with no supplies of lumber, rope, grain, barrels of citrus juice,
slaves, steel, or horses. All things to be needed by your generals as Lord
Winter comes, and fighting increases in Map-Missouri." "The
problem being silver money?" "Absolutely,
lord. Money is the cause. The Empire accepts our silver, but discounts it
against their gold. Szerzinski, and Paul Klebb in Map-Los Angeles, both claim
they pay the full price agreed upon, only to have the dirty lying bank of Mexico
City discount its worth, so barely half of what was bought is delivered
north." The
Khan ran his whip's slim lash through his fingers. "Those two are not
lying, stealing from me?" "They're
not nearly brave enough for that, lord. And my men have examined the
transactions." "So,
the Emperor comes to agreements; his orders are sent — but the dirty bank decides. A matter of
civilization versus — wonderful
Warm-time word, 'versus' — a crowd of savages galloping around in the chilly
north." "Precisely,
Great Lord." "Fucking
clever currency exchanges and shifting values —
gold up, silver down. How are we simple, honorable warriors to
comprehend its principles?" "Just
so." The
Khan stooped to touch another surviving pansy, one black and gold. "Well, Michael,
since we have the savage name, we might as well play the savage game. I will
not be caught short at Middle Kingdom's river." "Your
command?" "Arrest
the… five most important members of the Imperial Order of Merchants and Factors
in both Map-Los Angeles and Map-San Diego. Pour molten gold down their throats.
Then ship the corpses to Mexico City, with the note, 'Herewith, lading payments
in gold — as apparently preferred. Complete deliveries expected soonest.'
" "Perfect,
lord." "Sufficient,
let us hope…. Anything else this evening?" "Only
a last question, if permitted." "Yes?" "As
to your intention, lord, of going east to Map-Missouri to command
personally." "Oh,
I'll wait until Murad Dur and Andrei Shapilov begin to make mistakes, which
will likely be soon enough." "Then
I have nothing further worth your attention, Great Khan." Michael Razumov
went to his hands and knees, then touched his forehead to the gravel of the
Cat's-Eye Path. He was a fat man, and it was awkward for him. ...
Toghrul had often considered relieving his chancellor of the necessity, but
each time, a voice — his father's, perhaps —
had murmured caution. He liked Michael Razumov, and almost trusted him.
Reason enough to keep him on all fours. When
Toghrul was alone — but for twenty troopers of the Guard's Regiment pacing here
and there — he said his farewell to the dying flowers... which had wanted
nothing from him but sheep shit and water. Then he walked the Turquoise Path to
his great yurt of oiled yellow silk, spangled with silver... set its entrance
cloth aside, and stepped into the smell and smoke of cooking sausage. His
wife, and the slave named Eleanor, were preparing dinner at the yurt's center
stove. — The caravanserai cooked and served for hundreds... thousands, if need
be. But Toghrul had learned to avoid those kettles of boiled mutton with
southern rice and peppers, though he would poke and fork at the food on
occasions of state. The old Khan had loved that sort of cooking. His
wife looked up from cluttered pots and pans, through smoke rising to the
ceiling's small Sky's eye. "What today, sweet lord?" "Oh,
Ladu, the tedious usual — causing fear and giving orders." He tossed his
horse-whip onto a divan, then sat while Eleanor wrestled his boots off. Eleanor
was a handsome woman with braided hair the color of autumn grass. Once, she had
looked into Toghrul's eyes in the way a woman might gaze at a man while
offering, while considering possibilities, advantages. Toghrul
had then had Chang-doctor remove her left eye — it had been done under southern
poppy syrup — with no explanation offered. But Eleanor had understood, and
Toghrul's wife had understood. So now, the slave offered no more impudent
glances of that sort, and seemed content. "We
have pig sausage and onions and shortbread cake. Will those help?" His
wife smiled. "They
will certainly help." Where
the old Khan had mounted any pretty female oddment the armies found — enjoying
the novelty, apparently — Toghrul, after some experiment, had decided on a
traditional wife. Ladu, a Chukchi, somewhat squat and a little plump, had been
chosen from the daughters of several senior officers — officers safely dead in
battle, so dynastic entanglements were avoided. Toghrul
often considered that choice his best proof of good judgment, since Ladu had
not found him frightening, then had come to care for him. One morning, waking
beside her and watching that round, unremarkable face still soft in sleep, her
short little ice-weather nose, the deep folds over slanted eyes closed in
dreaming, he'd been startled to find that he loved her. This still surprised
and amused him. It warmed him too, in a minor way, on winter rides,
campaigning…. Only sons were missing — or had been. Ladu's little belly had
been swelling for months, and properly, according to Chang-doctor. So
now, of course, there were expectations of a son. The staff had expectations…
the chiefs and generals, also. Toghrul could disappoint them, and they would
bear it…. Ladu could not. She, and old Chimuk, were the only ones who never stood
before him without anticipating a possible dreadful blow. That fear, its wary
distancing, was certainly tedious, certainly made ruling more difficult, but
Toghrul had found no way to remove it, since it was what the clans, the troops,
expected and had always expected. In that sense only, he was the ruled and they
the rulers. They were certain to be afraid of him; and what they required, he
must perform. ...
Ladu and Eleanor set hammered brass platters on the green carpet, a campaign
spoil, and one of the last of its kind, with wonderful figures of racing
blue-gray dogs woven into it. Toghrul slid off the divan and sat cross-legged
to eat. The women stood by the stove, watching him, his appetite their reward. "Delicious!"
The sausage was wonderful. Bless the pig herd, though many of his men —
those still worshiping Old Maybe —
wouldn't go near the animals, certainly wouldn't eat their flesh. Both
women had nodded, smiling at his 'Delicious!' The Great Khan, He Who Is Feared
and Lord of Grass, had paid for his supper.
* *
*
"They're
inside, came down yesterday." Margaret Mosten, by torchlight, motioned to
Sam's tent. "Charles
and Eric?" "Yes,
sir." "No
quarters of their own?" "They
wanted to speak with you." "Nailed
Jesus...." Sam swung down off his horse. Not his horse — Handsome
was dead, left in the mountains, south. This was a nameless hard-mouthed brute,
one of the imperials' big chargers.... They'd ridden back north by slow marches
— more than a Warm-time week — the last returning days hungry, and all but the
wounded taking turns on foot. "Sir"
— Margaret's eyes shone in the pine-knot's flaring — "what a wonderful thing." She'd
been left behind to mind the camp. "Killing
their people, did not bring ours back to life." Sam walked sore and
stiff-legged to the tent's entrance, put back the flap, and stepped into
lamplight. Charles
Ketch, tall, gray, seeming weary of the weight of administration, sat hunched
on Sam's locker. Eric Lauder, livelier, alert, perched cross-legged on the cot.
A checker-board was propped between them. In age, they might almost have been
father and son, but in no other way. "Make
yourselves at home." "Ah"
— Eric jumped a piece and took it off the board — "the conquering hero
comes." Sam
swung his scabbarded sword's harness from his back, set the weapon by the head
of the cot, and shrugged off his cloak. "Get off my bed, Eric. I'm
tired." "Are
you hurt?" "No.
I avoided the fighting." Sam waited while Lauder stood and lifted the
checker-board away. "Been injured in my pride, of course." He sat on
the cot, then lay down and stretched out, boots and all. It felt wonderful to
be out of the saddle. "You
seem to have made the best of a bad blunder." Eric emptied the checkers
into their narrow wooden box. "I
was winning that game," Charles, annoyed. "You owe me five pesos." "Would
have owed — had you won." "I
suppose the best of a bad blunder." Sam thought of sitting up to take his
boots off. It seemed too great a task. "Yes."
Eric set the board against the tent wall. "But what sort of blunder was
it?" "A
serious one — sending Ned Flores and a half-regiment to do a larger force's
work." The tent's lamp smelled of New England's expensive whale oil, and
seemed too bright. Sam closed his eyes for a moment. "And
what 'work' was that, Sam?" "The
work of winning a fight here, Eric." "Winning
a fight?" Eric sat on the locker
beside Charles, nudged him to shift over. "You know, there is nothing more
stupid than keeping a secret from your chief of intelligence." "Except,"
Charles said, and winked at Sam, "telling him all of them." "I
made a mistake, Eric, doing something that was necessary. I was clumsy, and it
cost us good people." Sam sat up to take off his boots. "What I could
do to retrieve the situation has been done. Now change the subject." "Fine,"
Eric said. "What subject shall we change to?" Smiling, his voice
pleasant, softer than before, his dark eyes darker than his trimmed beard, he
was very angry. "Sleep." "Before
sleep, Sam" — Charles leaned forward — "there are questions in the
army. Not complaints; more surprise than anything." "Charles,
the army is to be told this: We fought a battle, lost it — learned — then
fought again and won. We will likely fight more battles, and may lose another,
then fight again and win. Only children are allowed to win every time.
That's what the army is to be told. Any officer with more questions, can come
to me with them." Charles
sat on the locker, looking at him. "...Alright." "A
good answer," Eric said. "The fucking army thinks it's Mountain Jesus
come down from his tree." "Anything
else?" "Yes.
Sam, there's serious fighting now, in the north. The Kipchak patrols are
already in Map-Arkansas — and probably up into Map-Missouri as well; going to
be trying for the river fairly soon. The major clans — Eagles, Foxes, Skies,
and Spring Flowers — all gathered into tumans. It's to be winter war, no
question.... Merchants we talk to, say Middle Kingdom is spending gold in
preparation, particularly on their fleet. Frontier companies of their West-bank
army are already skirmishing." "No
surprises there. Anything else?" "Yes." "Eric,"
Charles said, "it can wait." "No,
it can't." "Rumors,
Sam." "Not
rumors, Charles," Eric said. "First informationals." "Alright."
Sam felt sick to his stomach — from being so tired, he supposed. "Let's
hear it." "Pigeon
news from Texas, Twelve-mile," Eric said, almost whispering. "Our
Secret-person there tells us a regiment, under Vladimir Crusan, rode out of
Map-Fort Stockton yesterday. Riding south to Map-Alpine, then probably down to
the Bravo. Also indications that another regiment is coming south to join
him." Sam
sat up straighter, rubbed the back of his neck to stay alert. "That's
interesting. You'd think they'd be too busy to trouble us. He has Seventh Tuman?" "The
Ninth," Eric said. "And I think the idea is to remind us to keep out
of their business." "What
do we know of Crusan?" "Only
half-Kipchak," Charles said. "A good, steady commander, but not the
independent type." "Crusan
is a good cavalryman." Eric frowned, considering. "But we don't think
— my people don't think — he's up to commanding more than the Ninth." "Coming
down at full strength?" "Apparently,
Sam. One regiment… so, Warm-time's give-or-take, a thousand horse archers. And
if, as seems likely, he joins with another detached regiment on the border,
that would make about two thousand men." '"Maneuvers? Blooding recruits for the campaign against
Middle Kingdom?" "That's
possible, Sam." Charles stood, stooping slightly under the tent's canvas.
"But more likely just to keep us out of it, since we flank them to the
south." "Which"
— Eric smiled — "makes them a little nervous. Pigeons have been coming in
from my people, Map-California on east. The Kipchaks are being careful to stay
well north of our border while they move their supplies through Map-Texas, mule
and wagon-freight from the coast.... They're having some difficulty getting
goods out of South Map-California — we don't know why — but they're still
gathering remounts at Map-Fort Stockton, Map-Big Spring, Map-Abilene." "Supplies
for more than a year's campaigning, Eric?" "No,
Sam. Not for more than a year." "So,
the Khan expects to beat the Boxcars, take their whole river kingdom, in Lord
Winter's season." "That's
right," Eric said. "And I'd say he can do it." "Not
easily." Charles shook his head. He looked tired as Sam felt. Looked his
age, stooped, graying. "He'll have to whip their West-bank army, then
campaign up and down the Map-Mississippi once it's frozen to easy going for
cavalry. And even if he destroys their fleet, he still has to deal with the
East-bank army." "Alright,
not easily," Eric said. "It's a big mouthful, but the Khan has a big
appetite. And in any case, these regiments coming south are a different matter.
They're just for us — a little reminder." "If
they're coming down, yes." Sam
could smell himself in the tent's closeness. Horse sweat and his sweat.
"But when — and if — the Kipchaks
break the Kingdom, control the river, it will give the Khan all the West, give
him the Gulf Entire.... Then we come next." "He
might not be able to do it at all." Charles pursed his lips, considering
the Khan's difficulties. "Kingdom's West-bank army is what, now, fifteen thousand
regulars? All heavy infantry. And they're only the first Boxcars he'll
meet." Sam
saw Charles trying to talk things better, take some of the decision-weight from
him. It didn't help. The conversation, repeating the heart of many
conversations, seemed dream talk, difficult to stay awake for. "Charles,
the Kipchaks can do it, if Lord Winter helps them and freezes the river fast. I
think I could do it with the Khan's forces — and if I could do it, it's damn
sure Toghrul can…. Now, Eric, this attack on our border. You
believe those people are coming down — or you know?" "I
know they rode south. And I'd say they'll cross the Bravo above
Map-Chihuahua." "Coming
down west of the Bend. Alright, I accept that — and on your head be it." Lauder
smiled. "Sam… what an unpleasant phrase." "Two
thousand wouldn't do to come against us seriously, and Crusan apparently not
the commander to try it. Still, it makes sense, if only as an exercise, to act
as if it were a serious threat." Sam thought a moment longer. "Charles,
see to it all border towns and posts in the area are notified of possible
trouble. They're to prepare their people to leave and march south up into the
hills if the order comes, or considerable forces of Khanate cavalry are
scouted. And by 'considerable,' I mean horsetails maneuvering in more than one
area, in near-regimental strength. Then — and only then — they are to
burn any standing crops, destroy any animals they can't take with them." "Good."
Lauder struck a fist into his other
palm. "Sam,
it's premature," Charles said, "even as a preliminary order. The
Khan's people are not even near the border." "Better
too early than too late. And if Eric's wrong about this, we'll cut his
pay." "If
I'm wrong, you can keep my pay." Lauder stood up. "Well, keep
a month of it, anyway." "
— Also, Charles..." Sam lost the thought for a moment from weariness, then
recalled it. "Also, all militia captains in Chihuahua are to be prepared
to act against light-cavalry raiders. By harassing only, cutting off straggling
small units, then retreating to broken or high ground. They are not to engage
in any considerable battle — and if that order is disregarded, I will
hang the captain responsible, win or lose." "Alright,
Sam." Charles sighed, resigned. His sighs, it seemed to Sam, more and more
frequent. "But even this — if it proves to be for nothing — is going to
cost us tax money we can't afford to lose. Crops burned, sheep and cattle
killed or taken." "If
it proves to be for nothing, Charles, we've at least got Eric's pay. These
orders are to be sent without delay. Riders tonight, birds in the
morning." "Yes,
sir." Definitely displeased. "And,
Sam," Lauder said, "while you're still awake..." "I'm
not awake." "Do
we have an answer for the merchant Philip Golvin?" "Oh,
shit." Sam lay back down, felt sore muscles settle in relief. "Unavoidable.
I'm sorry." "Eric,
is there any question he speaks for the Queen?" "None.
Golvin factors goods for Island, for river traffic generally, and acts
as an unofficial emissary. Queen Joan has used him before. Sent him all the way
to Boston, once — apparently he didn't care for the journey. Went by ship
across the Gulf, then up into the Map-Atlantic, sea-sick all the way." "Sam,"
Charles said, "she definitely wants a visit from you." "Wants
more than that," Lauder said. "Queen Joan's getting old, has only a
daughter — and ruling those barely-reformed cannibals can't be a pleasure. Two
armies, for Weather's sake! West-bank and East-bank, and the men and officers
of each kept absolutely separate!" "Good
reason for that," Sam said. What sort of hint did it need to be, when a
man lay stretched on his cot, to leave him alone to sleep? "But
only a king's reason, Sam, to hold power balanced between them. And there's the
Fleet." "Still,
Eric," Charles said, "the lady manages, keeps the throne. And with
the King dead, now, for seven years." "Charles,
I don't say she isn't formidable — Middle Kingdom's formidable — I'm just
saying she's looking for someone to hold the throne for her daughter, when
she's gone…. Looking for someone, Sam, who isn't one of their river
lords, isn't a general in either army. Queen Joan has a bookish
daughter, and no sons. She needs a son-in-law who won't cut her throat — or force her to cut his." "What
a prospect. 'Bookish daughter' and a cut throat." Sam closed his eyes
against the lamplight. "I doubt very much that the Queen is serious about
my marrying her daughter. She's presenting the possibility, so I'll send
troops to the Kingdom, help them against the Khan." "More
likely," Charles said. Eric
smiled. "Still, a possibility may become... probable." "Worse,"
Sam said, eyes still closed. "Necessary. Now, I'm tired, and I would
appreciate being left alone." "Alright."
Eric stood. "Alright... but this girl the Boston people have sent — " "It'll
wait. Now, if you two will put out that lamp and leave, you will make me very
happy.'' "In
the morning" — Charles leaned to blow out the hanging lantern — "back
to Better-Weather?" Sam
spoke into darkness. "Yes, we'll go, if the wounded can bear traveling.
There's nothing useful at this camp but the dirt my dead are buried in." ...
He lay, feeling too weary to sleep. Heard Charles and Eric murmuring, walking
away. Lauder already, apparently, with a good notion what had been intended
down here, what had gone wrong with Ned Flores and his people. Eric
was a razor with a slippery handle — bad temper and arrogance his weaknesses as
chief of intelligence.... Charles, as administrator, hampered in a different
way. His fault lay in fondness for Small-Sam Monroe, young enough to have
been his son. And that, of course, the more serious weakness, leading to errors
in judgment too subtle to be seen until suddenly damaging. Fierceness
and fondness... vulnerabilities balanced fairly enough between the two men most
important to North Map-Mexico. Most important beside the young Captain-General,
of course. And
now, it seemed the Khan was sending regiments south. A quick decision,
probably, taken the last few days. It was interesting to study the Kipchak's
Map-Nevada campaigns — see the pattern of them, far-ranging, swift,
gather-and-strike, gather-and-strike. A herding pattern, a hunting pattern
also, formed by generations lived in great empty spaces. A people, and
an army, in motion. All cavalry. They
wouldn't care for close, tangled places. Wouldn't care for high, broken
country, either. Now,
it seemed the Khan had decided, in the guise of two regiments, to greet and
become acquainted with North Map-Mexico's Captain-General — as a wrestler might
gently grip an opponent's arm, begin to try his strength and balance….
Toghrul perhaps grown weary of being locked into the western prairie, his way
east blocked by Middle Kingdom and its great river. A river, according to the
little librarian, Peter, much greater —
with even short summers' meltings of a continent of ice and snow — than
it had been as the Warm-time Mississippi. The
Khan might have difficulty campaigning against that kingdom while leaving his
underbelly exposed the whole winding length of the Bravo border. So, he was
sending — gently at first — to see how the metal of North Map-Mexico rang when
struck. A touch, and a warning. And
why was that news so welcome? So good to hear? Why seemed so rich with
opportunity? The answer came like certain music as Sam began to drift to
sleep... came as dreamed trumpet calls, sounding, Duty, duty, duty. What
trumpet call did not? ...Had
he taken his damn boots off? Couldn't remember.
CHAPTER 7
Martha
had washed herself, and her hair — drawn it up into a loose knot and pinned
it, then combed and finger-curled a long ringlet in front of each ear.
Charlotte Garfield had told her that her long hair, dark as planting
ground, was her best feature. "Only feature," Charlotte's
sister had said, and had neighed in fun at Martha's size. Though
clean, her hair done, Martha was scrubbing homespun small-clothes — just
discovered dirty beneath her father's bed — in the tub on the dog-trot, when
she glimpsed metal shining through the trees. She took her hands off the
rippled board, shook hot water and lye suds from her fingers, and watched that
shining become soldiers marching up along the River Road. There
was a short double-file of men, East-bank soldiers armored throat to belly with
green-enameled strips of steel across their chests... lighter steel strips down
their thighs, sewn to the front of thick leather trousers. An officer was
marching in front, and so must be a lieutenant. Lieutenants marched with their
men, and never rode. Martha
watched them through the trees — her wet, reddened hands chilled by the
early-winter air. Many soldiers traveled the River Road, now, because of
fighting in Map-Missouri.... Though that was the West-bank army, fighting over
there. She'd heard that army wore blue steel. As
Martha watched, the lieutenant and his men reached the cabin path — then turned
neatly and marched up it. They were coming to her father's house, something
soldiers had never done before. These were crossbowmen — heavy windlass bows
and quarrel bundles strapped to their packs, short-swords and daggers at their
belts. Long, green-dyed woolen cloaks, rolled tight, were carried over their
left shoulders. "Daddy!"
She thought surely William Bovey had
died after all, and they were coming to take her to hang. Her
father came to the door, said, "What is it?" Then saw what it was. More
than three Warm-time weeks before, Big William Bovey and two other large men
had come out to the cabin, angry over a deal for a four-horse wagon team, and
begun to beat Edward Jackson with sticks and their fists. It had seemed to
Martha they were killing her father. She'd
run into the farry shed, taken up a medium hammer, and come out and brained
William Bovey. Then she'd beaten his friends so bones were broken, and they'd
run. Bovey,
a corner of his brain tucked back in, had been asleep ever since at his aunt's
house up in Stoneville. It was the opinion of Randall-doctor that he would
never wake up. "No
death done," the magistrate had said, "and some excuse for the
fighting on both sides, since Edward Jackson is a horse-dealer and cheat. Yet
his daughter, only seventeen, had reason to fear for his life." The
magistrate, who chewed birch gum, had spit a wad of it into a brown clay jar on
his table. "All parties are now ordered to both peace and quiet under the
Queen's Law. Nothing will save any who break either." And
that had been that. Until now. "Run!"
her father said — too late, as the old man was usually too late. Martha
stood waiting, drying her hands on her apron, and wished for her mother. ...
The lieutenant was young, but not handsome, a freckled carrot-top in
green-steel strap armor. His face was shaved clean, like all soldiers'. He
swung up the path to the door-yard, and his men marched behind him — twelve of
them and all in step, their steel and leather creaking, till he put up his left
hand to halt them. "Well
— " Though slender, the lieutenant had a deep voice. "Well,
Honey-sweet, you're certainly big enough." His breath steamed slightly in
the morning air. "You are Ordinary Mattie Jackson?" "What
do you want here?" Martha wished her father would say something. The
lieutenant smiled, and looked handsomer when he did. He had one dot tattooed on
his left cheek, two on his right. "It's not what I want… not what
the captain wants... not what the major wants… not even what the colonel
wants." A
big man behind the lieutenant — a sergeant, he seemed to be — was smiling in a
friendly way. The sergeant was bigger than Martha, as a man should be. "No,"
the lieutenant said, "it appears to be a matter of what Island wants.
And Island's wishes are our commands." "You
leave us alone." The
lieutenant shook his head, still smiling. Martha's
father said nothing. Edward Jackson was worse than having no father at all. "Get
what things you can carry," the lieutenant said, not in an unpleasant way.
"You're coming with us." "Is
William Bovey dead?" "I
don't know any William Bovey, though I wish him well. I do know that you are
ordered to come with us. So, get your whatevers; put your shoes on — if you
have shoes — and do it fairly quickly." "No,"
Martha said, and couldn't imagine why she'd said it. The big sergeant, standing
behind his lieutenant, frowned at her and shook his head. "Ralph,
be still," the lieutenant said, though he couldn't have seen what his
sergeant was doing. "Now, Mattie — it is Mattie?" "Martha." "Martha.
Right. Now listen, even though it may
cost my men some injuries" — his soldiers smiled — "I will have you
subdued, bound, and carried with us as baggage, if necessary. Don't make it
necessary." "But...
why?" "Orders." Her
father still said nothing, just stood in the doorway silent as a stick.
Suddenly, Martha felt she wished to go with the soldiers. It was a
strange feeling, as if she'd eaten something spoiled. She
turned to Edward Jackson and said, "You're not my father, anymore."
Then she went into the cabin to get her best linen dress, her sheepskin cloak,
her private possibles (a bone comb, clean underdrawers and stockings folded in
a leather sack), and her shoes — one patched at the toe, but good worked
leather that laced up over her ankles. ...They
walked south — the soldiers marched, she walked — through the rest of the day. Martha had
started out beside the lieutenant, possibles sack on her hip, her cloak, like theirs,
rolled and tied over her shoulder — but he'd gestured her behind him with his
thumb, so she'd stepped back to walk beside the sergeant, Ralph, the one who'd
frowned and shook his head at her. He was even taller than she was, and wider. It
had always seemed to Martha, when she'd seen them in parade at Stoneville, that
soldiers marched slowly. But now, going with them, she found they moved along
in a surprising way. It was a steady never-stopping going, nothing like a
stroll or amble, that ate up time and Warm-time miles until her legs ached and
she began to stumble. Ralph-sergeant
took her left arm, then, to steady her. He smelled of sweat, and of leather and
oiled steel. They
camped at dark, but lit no fire, though frost had filtered down. The soldiers
drank from tarred-wood canteens — the sergeant let her drink from his — and
chewed dry strips of meat. He
gave her some of that as well.... Then the soldiers went into the woods to shit,
came out, and lay down in dead grass in their long woolen cloaks as if they
were under a roof and behind house walls — the lieutenant, too. Only one man
was left standing under the trees, watching, with a quarrel in his crossbow as
if this was enemy country. The
sergeant had stood guard, yards away and his back turned, while Martha did her
necessary behind a tree. Then he'd cut evergreen branches for her to lie on....
She supposed her ringlets had straightened some from walking and sweating, so
she had no good feature, now. And
that was the first day, traveling. The
second day, they rose before dawn, ate dried meat and drank water. Then the
soldiers brought river water up in a little iron pot, made a small fire to heat
it, and shaved their faces with their knives, the lieutenant first. After that,
they went marching again. No one spoke to Martha — or spoke among themselves,
either — except the lieutenant once said, "Pick up the pace," and
they did, marching faster down the middle of the River Road, crunching through
shallow, ice-skimmed puddles with everyone they met standing aside to let them
pass. They went faster, but Martha kept up, her cloak flapping at her calves.
It had became a pleasure to her to march with soldiers, to leave where she'd
always been to go to someplace new, someplace that would be a surprise, with a
surprising reason for coming to it. Even
so, sometimes a dread came rising that she might be being taken where an
example would be made of girls who hammered men. But Martha swallowed those
fears like little frozen lumps, managed to keep them down, and decided not to
ask again where she was bound, or why, for fear of the answer. Instead,
she gave herself up to marching, and often could see the river on their right,
flashing gray-white through stands of trees along the bank. Its icy current —
still fed by Daughter Summer's melt, far upstream at the Wall — was too wide to
see across, and milky with stone dust washed from the great glacier in
Map-Ohio. Several
times, she saw barges and oared boats far out from the shore, still summer-fit
this far down the river, sailing with black-and-orange flags and banners
fluttering in the river's wind. Martha's
legs were aching in the worst way by the time they came to Landing in the
afternoon. Landing was the farthest from her home — the farthest south — she'd
ever been. The Ya-zoo River came to Kingdom River there — though her father had
said it was the other way round, and Kingdom had grown over to Yazoo as
blessing and welcome. Her father had brought horses down for the fair, that
time, and she'd come with him, riding Shirley. Some rough river-boys had made
fun of her. But
now, though hard Ordinaries — wagoneers, sailors, warehousemen, and
keel-boaters — stood drinking outside whorehouses and dens with their girls or
pretty-boys all down the muddy road to Rivers-come-together, none had a word to
call to hurt her feelings. They were quiet as the soldiers marched by — still
in step through mud, horse-shit, and wagon ruts... then past a summer storage
yard of huge racks of ships' skates and runners, long beams whose heavy bright
blades gleamed greased and sharpened for winter-fitting. They
marched past loads of stacked lumber, sheep hides, sides of beef, pig, and
goat… sacks of coal from Map-West Virgina, crates of warm-frame cabbages,
onions, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower... barrels of pickles, brine kraut,
smoked and salted river char. The
docks were even busier, noisier. Martha hadn't remembered everything being so
large, loud, and confusing. The soldiers marched past starters shouting and
flicking their slim blacksnakes at sweat-slaves trotting pokes of last potatoes
up the ramps of two big pole-boats painted dark blue. Martha could spell out
the letters on the company flags. Jessup's Line.... A herd of spotted
cattle was being run down to a black barge, forty or fifty of the animals,
driven by rust-colored dogs and three men with long sticks to prod them. Martha
had had a dog named Parker, when she was a little girl, a coon-hound with a
blind left eye. Because of the eye, she'd been able to buy him with fifteen
buckets of blueberries — no softs and no
stems. Only two days' picking.... Those
herding the spotted cattle, though, were different dogs, squat, barky, and
quick. Interesting to watch work. Martha thought it had been worth such hard
marching to come to Landing, with so much to see. And smell, too; the docks had
the rich stink of the Rivers-come-together running beneath them, dirty
float-ice, rotting mud, and fish guts.... Someone was playing a pluck-piano;
she could hear the quick, twanging notes up the road behind them as a den door
opened. "Some
moments for beer, sir?" The first thing Ralph-sergeant had said since
morning. "No,"
the lieutenant said, and led them to a dock at the far left, calling,
"Clear the way!" to a work gang of skinny tribes-women, naked, with
fox-mask tattoos covering their faces. They were smeared with pig-fat against
the cold wind the river brought down.... The women stood aside as the soldiers
marched out onto the planking, the wide boards booming beneath their boots. One
— thin, and with teeth missing — stuck her tongue out at them. Two of the
others called out to the soldiers together, in an up-river language that
sounded like sticks rattling. It wasn't Book, wasn't even near book-English.
Martha couldn't understand a single word. A
ruined barge was sunk along the left dockside, so only its rails and pole-walk
showed above swirling water. Gray sea-birds — come all the way up from the Gulf
Entire, Martha supposed — strutted and pecked along the railings. The birds had
pale yellow eyes, crueler than crows'. There
was a wonder floating at the end of the dock — a galley beautiful as the circus
boat that once came down from Cairo. But this one was painted all red as fresh
blood, not striped green and yellow, and there was no music coming from it. A
long red banner hung from the mast, stirring a little in the breeze. The
galley had one bank of oars, just above where the iron skate-beam fittings ran
— and a red sail, though that was bundled tight to a second mast slanting low
over the deck, reaching almost from the front of the boat to the back. A
lateeno, Martha's father would have called it. The
lieutenant marched his men and Martha right up a ramp and onto the red galley.
Everything there was the same bright red, or brass this-and-thats so bright in
the sunshine they hurt her eyes. A line of men sat low on rowing benches along
each side. They were naked as the tribeswomen had been, but with steel collars
on their necks, and none of them looked up. "You're
late!" A soldier, standing on a high place at the back of the boat, had
called that. This soldier wore a short-sword on a wide gold-worked belt. A long
green-wool cloak, fastened in gold at his throat, billowed slightly in the river
wind. His chest was armored in green-enameled steel, but with pieces of gold
hanging from short green ribbons there. "Late,"
he called again, as they came along
the deck. He was much older than the lieutenant, and had an unpleasant face,
made more unpleasant because his lower lip had been hurt, part of it cut away
so his teeth showed there. He had five blue dots tattooed on each cheek. ...
Martha had never seen a Ten-dot man before. Never seen more than a Six-dot, and
that was the Baron Elliot, and she'd seen him only once at the Ice-boat races. "I'm
at fault, milord," the lieutenant said, "and have no excuses." "No
excuse, is not excuse enough," the Bad-lip Lord said. "So, three
months pig-herding on Fayette Banks, for you and your slow men." "Yes,
sir." "And
this" — Bad-lip pointed at Martha — "this Ordinary is the object of
the exercise?" "Yes,
sir." "You,
Big-girl — sit up here out of the way, and rest. We have cranberry juice; would
you like some of that?" "Yes,
thank you." Martha came and sat on a little step below where he was
standing. She wrapped her cloak around her and thought, too late, she should
have said "milord." The
Bad-lip Lord leaned down and gripped her shoulder. "Some muscle there. Did
the soldiers treat you with respect and kindness?" "Yes,
they did... milord." Martha thought of saying "especially
Ralph-sergeant," but didn't. The
Bad-lip Lord nodded, then called, "Captain! South, to Island — at the
courier beat!" "At
your orders, milord." A black man in a long brown cloak was standing back
by a sailor at the wheel. "Loose! Loose and haul!" Then,
barefoot sailors Martha hadn't noticed were running here and there untying
ropes. The whole boat swung out into the river, dipping, rolling slightly. And
so suddenly that she jumped a little, a deep drum went boom boom. Then boom
boom again, and the rowers' long oars came out, flashed first dry then wet
as they struck the water all together, and the boat started away like a
frightened horse. They were surging, hissing over the water, gray birds flying
with them, circling the long crimson banner that unfurled, coiled, and weaved
in the wind. Martha could hear it snapping, rumpling. A
boy in white pants and white jacket came running to her, knelt down, and held
out a blown-glass cup — glass so clear she could see the juice in it perfectly,
juice the same blood-red as the boat. Martha
thought of asking the boy why she was going where she was going, then decided
not. She
had heard that Kingdom's rowers were whipped — and this was certainly a Queen's
boat — but no soldier whipped the red boat's rowers. Still, they worked their
oars like farming horses in summer furrows. She could feel the boat's heave...
and heave at each stoke they pulled together. The red sail was still
furled… the wind blowing cold upriver, into their faces. It
seemed odd to be sailing in a summer-fitted boat through still-wet early-winter
water. Martha had imagined one day traveling on a winter-fit's slanting deck as
the ship skated hissing over the river's ice on angled long steel runners...
lifting, tilting as the wind caught its sails, so it almost flew, banners and
wind-ribbons curling and snapping through the air. But
this was still a summer-fit, with rowers. She wondered what work the rowers
would be put to, with Lord Winter already striding down to bathe in the river,
and freeze it. The
juice — cranberry juice — in the beautiful glass, was sweet and bitter at once.
Martha'd never tasted it before, and didn't know if she was supposed to finish
it all, or only sip, and leave the rest. She looked up to see if the Bad-lip
Lord was watching, and he was. "It's
for you, Ordinary. Drink it." So
she did. The juice grew sweeter with each swallow, and she hoped it was a
River-omen of sweeter things to come. The
west bank was too far away to be seen. She'd never seen it, though her father
had when he'd worked fishing. But they were staying close enough to the east
side of the river that sometimes she could see a piling-dock there, its house
or warehouse high above the water, back under the trees. Then, a log house… and
a while later, another. Martha
saw little eel-skiffs as they passed. The men crewing them stood, balancing,
and bowed as the red boat, the long red banner, went sweeping by. She sat
holding the pretty glass in her lap, concerned it might tip over and break if
she set it down on the deck. The deck was as clean as a worn washboard. The
lieutenant and his men were standing in the front of the boat. She could see
them, see Ralph-sergeant past the great mast, its long, furled red sail. He
turned his head, talking with another soldier... saw her looking, and smiled at
her. Martha supposed the wind had completed the ruin of her ringlets. They
passed more log houses... then a lord's strong-hold. It rose above the river's
bank, three gray stone towers within gray stone walls, all higher than a man
could throw a rock — almost high as a crossbow quarrel might reach. Two ladies
were standing on a little carved-wood porch, halfway up the middle tower, their
hands tucked into fur muffs. Their hair was combed up off their necks and
coiled; Martha saw gold combs glinting. They were wearing woolen gowns, paneled
— perhaps in linen. One's dress was dyed soft blue and gold, the other's
darker. The ladies, standing so high, seemed perfect little dolls, dolls made
for children like their own. Both
together, they dipped behind the little porch's carved railing, curtsying as
the blood-red boat went by. Martha
imagined their brothers, their husbands, in the hold. Tall, handsome men with
clean hands and several-dot tattoos —
and their father, scarred, bearded, brave as a bear. All the men very
big, but kind, so that nothing more than a mouse in their wardrobe had ever
frightened the doll-ladies, or ever could. Martha
waved up to them, but the blood-red boat had passed down the river, and the
ladies didn't seem to see. A
while later, after a ferry had sailed past them, borne upstream on the wind —
its passengers had stood, crowded, to bow to the Queen's boat — Martha grew
restless, and shifted where she sat. "Need
relief?" The Bad-lip Lord hadn't moved from where he stood in all the
traveling. He'd
looked down to ask the question, and when Martha didn't answer, made an
impatient face. "Do you need to piss, girl?" His breath smoked
slightly in the cold. "...Yes,
lord." The
Bad-lip Lord muttered, "Rafting Jesus..." and lifted the
forefinger of his right hand. The boy in the white jacket, who had been
squatting by the rail, stood and came running. "Bring
this girl and a piss-pot together in the captain's cabin." The Bad-lip
Lord looked back at the Brown-cloak Captain. "With your permission, of
course." "Does
me honor," the Captain said, and he and the Bad-lip Lord both smiled. ...Relieved
— a word that seemed so much nicer than 'pissed-out' — Martha had come to sit on
her step again, her sheepskin cloak tucked tight around her against the wind.
She watched the river run down with them, sometimes seeming to flow faster than
the rowers could labor, though the drum kept beating like a heart, so steady
that she forgot it from time to time. Now,
the river — great gray pieces of raft ice drifting by — was crowded with more and more ships and
fisher-boats, rowed barges, and poled barges along the shore, so there were
masts and long oars and banners and house flags of all colors wherever she
looked. Sometimes,
as the wind blew this way or that, Martha could hear men singing on other ships
as they passed — Gulf sailors and river-boatmen singing as they rowed or worked
their lines. These men didn't interrupt their labor to bow to the Queen's boat,
but only paused a moment to cup their right hands to their ears, to show they
listened for any command. The
river had become alive with people and boats. Along the shore were more holds,
more stone walls and towers, and wide two-storied timber docks on square stone
pilings set marching out into the current. Slaves — still naked though Daughter
Summer had died — were working on them, stowing and transferring the goods come
in, the cargoes going out. Her father had called slaves 'the Ordinaries' bane'
and said they took fish and honey from free men's mouths…. A band was playing
on some pleasure boat, horns and flutes. There
seemed more to see than Jordan-Jesus could have noticed, though he was a river
god, with all drops of water for his eyes. The
sun's egg had sunk west to almost touch the water when the Brown-cloak Captain
said, "Passing Vicksburg bluff." Martha looked over and could just
see a line of green and perhaps a fortress, east, high along the bank. Soon
after, the Captain said, "Island." And Martha saw, downstream, and
far, far out into the current, what seemed a great walled town rising
from the river, its stone gray and gold in early evening light. Amazed,
she clapped her hands — thought it might be magic — and looked up to see if the Bad-lip Lord was
also astonished. She pointed it out to him. He
looked there, nodded, and said, "Island." It
was a place Martha'd heard of all her life, but had never thought to see. She swayed
where she sat, then swayed again as the rowers' slow steady beat shifted, and
the blood-red boat swung farther from the shore. They were going out and out
where the great town grew from white water. After
a while, she saw fewer boats, fewer sailing ships.... And later, almost none,
but huge tarred barrels floating, with signal masts on them flying flags of
different colors. Martha noticed that what ships there were, steered by those
flags and no other way. Now,
she could see the town was made of walls and towers, all built on hills of
heaped boulders, each larger than a house. Everything was heaved up and up out
of the river, so the cold current foamed white and struck in waves against the
stone. "Two
hundred years of granite rock brought down from the Wall's lap by ice-boat and
wet-boat, with a good man lost to the savages for every Warm-time ton."
The Bad-lip Lord was looking at the distant walls and towers. "And those
tons dropped into the river there to make the kings' island." "What
a wonderful thing!" "Do
you think so, Ordinary? Clever, certainly...." A
horn sounded, deep and distant as a pasture bull's crying out. Martha looked
that way and saw, over the ship's red rail, another ship just as blood-scarlet
but much larger, with two rows of oars on a side. It was coming toward them so
fast that it carved white water with its black iron ram. Ranks of oars flashed,
rose, beat, and fell, seeming only to touch the river's skin as it came,
banners streaming from its masts, gulls wavering in the river wind above it. The
deep horn sounded again, calling to them. It was the most wonderful thing.
Martha stood and stepped to the low rail — though no one had said she could —
to see it better. She could hear drumbeats, now, even the soft spanking as its
oars struck the river. It was coming terribly fast, and it was very big. There
were men... men in ranks standing along the two decks, one above the other.
These were soldiers, and each man's armor was enameled in halves, helmet to
hip, left side blue, right side green. "Soldiers," she said. "Marines,"
said the Brown-cloak Captain — and shouted, "Still... oars... to heave
to!" There
were machine things on the great ship coming to them — things like giant
hunting bows, but lying on their sides and fastened to timbers — and fire was
burning in bronze braziers alongside them. Martha
clapped her hands and jumped a little up and down. It was worth everything to
have come to see such a ship. Beside it, all the other river boats were
nothing. Another
horn sounded behind her. She turned and saw, much farther away, two more of the
great ships, both blood-red and flying blood-red banners. "Three
of them!" "Three
of the Fleet's two hundred and more," the Bad-lip Lord said. "Now,
sit down, girl, before you fall overboard." Martha
sat on her step again, but still could see as the great ship came to them,
drums rolling and thundering so the gulls' cries sounded like music above it. It
came almost to smash into them, so Martha held up her arm to ward it — then
swung suddenly sideways in spray and clashing currents. Spaced along its hull,
the iron fittings for its winter runners were massive as great tree-stumps… and
as it turned, rows of white oars rose dripping, folding up together so it
loomed over, high as a riverside cliff, blood-red and ranked with two-color
soldiers. The ship was named in dark metal at its bow. QS Painful. At
once a long, narrow wooden bridge fell from beside a mast, came swinging
humming down through the air and crashed across the rail paces from Martha and
the Bad-lip Lord. Soldiers
— marines — came running the steep planking with battle-axes in their hands,
and two officers — their helmets striped blue, green, and gold — came running
with them, short-swords drawn, and all jumping to the deck so it shook under Martha's
feet. One
of the officers, the bigger one, stopped near her and called out, "Who
comes toward Island? And why?" His
sword was shaped like a butcher's knife, but bigger. "I
come," the Bad-lip Lord said. "Sayre. And on the Queen's
business." "And
come properly? With nothing and no one hidden on this ship?" "Properly.
Nothing hidden." The
officer unfastened a little latch at his throat, and took his helmet off. He
had four blue dots on one cheek, three on the other, and a round pleasant face spoiled
by eyes with no color.... It seemed to Martha the helmet must be uncomfortable.
None of the soldiers who'd brought her to Landing had worn their helmets.
They'd kept them strapped to their packs. "Afternoon,
milord." The officer bowed a little. "Afternoon,
Conway — how does your father do?" "Dying." "Sickness...
a sad end for an admiral." "Yes,
sir. He would have chosen otherwise." Martha
saw the marines with axes going here and there about the boat. Some of them
went downstairs, under the deck. The other officer was talking to three
sailors; they stood barefoot before him, their heads down. "We'll
look through, and question — but quickly. Won't delay you, milord." "Better
not. I'm bringing Her Majesty a present... of a sort." The
officer looked down at Martha, and raised an eyebrow. "Don't ask,"
said the Bad-lip Lord.
CHAPTER 8
"This
vessal to the Iron Gate," the big officer had said, speaking to the
Brown-cloak Captain in a different voice than he'd used in conversation with
the Bad-lip Lord. " — To the Iron Gate, directly and in order, otherwise
at your peril." "Understood,"
the Captain had said, "and will be conformed to." And,
after the officers marched the marines back up their ramp, the great two-decked
ship had lunged away, its ranks of oars striking all together, its drums
sounding slower beats, its trumpet a different call. Soon,
Martha saw much closer the cliffs of gray stone, the river's milky rapids
foaming against them. Along those stone walls, another boat came in order
behind them... then a second one, and a third, so there were four in line.
Martha stood to see them better, and was told to sit down. Then
there was slow steady rowing into the river's wind, Island's gray wall, on
their right, seeming endless as they passed — and high, so the gulls looked
like snowflakes along the spaced stone teeth at its top. "Big,"
she said. "Very
big." The second thing the boat's captain had said to her. "More'n a
Warm-time mile long; near a mile wide. An' got more people on it than live on
Isle Baton Rouge — well, damn near." He turned, talked with the sailor at
the wheel, then turned back. "Milord, looks like a stuff-boat ahead of us
for the gate." "Pass
them out of line," the Bad-lip Lord said. "Queen's business." The
Captain cupped his hands to his mouth and called, "Row up! Row
up!" Martha heard their drum go rum-a-dum, rum-a-dum, rum-a-dum. The
boat surged, surged… then swung left and slowly overtook a big barge that
smelled of sheep and sheep shit. A
fat man in boots and a hooded raw-wool smock stood by the barge's steering oar,
two rivermen behind him gripping its long loom. The boat's great cockpit was
crowded with sheep's backs, sheep's puzzled black faces. — As they drew
alongside, the fat man made a nasty fuck-finger at them and yelled, "Get
back, you bottom-holes!" "That's
Peter Jaffrey," the Captain said. "I know him. Probably drunk." The
Bad-lip Lord frowned. "Drunk or not, he should know a Queen's red ship
when he sees one." He went to stand at the rail, and gave the barge
captain a hard look across the distance of river. Martha saw the fat man's
mouth, which had been open, suddenly shut, and he made a bow, then cupped his
right ear for any command. "Not
a bad guy," the Captain said, using a Warm-time word. "Lost his
little boy to throat-pox years ago. Only son." When
the Bad-lip Lord smiled, it made his lip look worse. "Alright, Crawford.
But you might suggest the wisdom of courtesy to him when you meet again." "I
will, milord." They
swept on past the barge, then steered in again, closer to the wall. Martha,
looking ahead through the boat's rigging, saw Ralph-sergeant near the bow,
talking, laughing with another soldier — and beyond them, a great tower of gray
stone standing out into the river. The
boat swung out to pass the tower's base where the river's flow curled against
it like goat's cream. Chunk ice bobbed there, striking the granite. Beyond,
there was a great stone gateway, wide as a meadow and arched over high in the
air with what seemed a spiderweb of iron... the span of a bridge where Martha
saw tiny soldiers looking over. Harsh wind blew through the gateway, and a
river current seethed into it. They turned with that tide — the red boat
leaning, pitching — and ran on into the harbor, oars lifting, then falling to
splash in foam... which became quieter water. They
were in a made pond-lake, oars now barely stroking, with walls rising high
around them like the eastern mountains Martha had heard of, where Boston's
creatures hunted. She saw a row of long gray wharves with boats and great ships
tied to them, and sweat-slaves working,
loading and unloading.... Even in this deep harbor, the current swirled,
complaining. There were slow whirlpools, and the river's icy wind gusted here and
there, trapped by stone. A
file of marines stood in order on a far dock as the red boat rowed slowly in.
The Captain said something to his wheelman, and Martha felt the boat slowly
turning toward those men. She had gotten used to that lifting, sliding motion,
and thought she might become a barge-woman, being so at ease riding a wet-water
ship. They
drifted in, the oars folding up and back like a bird's wings... and the red
boat struck fat canvas cushions at the stone dockside with a squeak and three
thumps. The sailors heaved out heavy lines; three wharfers caught them and
cleated them in. "Up."
The Bad-lip Lord gestured Martha after him, as the gangplank was sliding out
and down. She
had no time to smile good-bye to Ralph-sergeant — needed to nearly run down to the dock, her
possibles-sack flapping at her hip, to keep up with the Bad-lip Lord. The file
of marines, who had struck their two-color breastplates with armored fists to
greet him, now followed, marching very fast. The harbor and docks were quickly
left behind. Their bootsteps echoed off stone walls, stone steps, echoed down
passages under overhangs masoned from great blocks of granite. Down those
passages... then others, and turnings left and right and left again. In
shadowed places, Martha sometimes saw, through narrow slits, a flash of steel
in lantern light. Other
marines — more than a hundred in blue and green — came marching toward them down a way just
wide enough, and passed so close as their officer called out,
"Milord," and touched his breastplate, that Martha heard their
armor's little clicks and slidings, smelled sweat and oil and sour birch-gum
chew. Then they were gone, leaving only the fading sounds of their boots
striking stone all together. The
Bad-lip Lord led on, striding so Martha had to trot to keep up, the file of
marines trotting to keep up with her. They came to broad stone stairs, and went
right up them past many people coming down, who smiled and nodded to the
Bad-lip Lord. One of the men said, "Later," to him as they went by.
All these men and women were rich beyond doubt — wore linen, velvet, and thick
fur robes that blew against their fine boots in the wind. The men belted heavy
short-swords; the women wore long, sheathed daggers in wide, jeweled sashes,
and every one looked a lord or lady, except for several Ordinary women in brown
wool, following their mistresses as tote-maids. Martha-
stopped to do a stoop-curtsy to a group of no-question Extraordinaries, so as
not to get into trouble, but the Bad-lip Lord took her arm and pulled her on up
the steps. "Move!" he said. Two
of those women smiled at him and called, "Sayre...!" But he
didn't answer. When one lady's fur robe blew a little open, Martha saw she wore
a wide skirt embroidered with yellow thread and paneled in blue, perhaps silk
from the south.... They hurried on through four high-ceilinged rooms, one after
the other. There were people in all of them, the same kind of people as on the
stairs outside, any one of them looking richer than a mayor.... Then the
Bad-lip Lord led down steep steps and into a long runnel of curved stone
courses — the first tunnel Martha had ever been in, though she'd heard of them.
The marines' boots, as they followed, sounded like the red ship's rowing-drum.
The wind blew bitter after them along the stone, whining like a puppy. They
came out of that darkness into daylight, then through a wide iron-barred gate
into a great sunny garden in a gray stone square. But the garden, the whole
space of plantings, was an inside-outside! The ceiling, wider than any other
ceiling Martha had seen, was made of pieces of clear glass set in frames of
metal. It was all held up by iron posts three times the height of a man, and as
many as trees in a crab-apple orchard. There seemed to be at least a Warm-time
acre under it, with rows of broccoli and cabbage, and what looked like onions
planted at the distant edge. "Vegetables..." The
Bad-lip Lord made a face, said, "Flooding Jesus..." and walked even
faster, but she kept up. They
walked through that wonderful garden along a graveled path — the file of
marines still coming behind them — went out another door, then turned and
turned down a twisted staircase to a stone walkway, and into another
glass-roofed garden. They were going so fast now, they were almost running. It
seemed to Martha there was no end to Island, no end to gray stone and the cold
smell of stone. No end to icy river wind, to soldiers — marines — and Extraordinaries in jewels and
fine furs. No end to women who smiled at the Bad-lip Lord as if he was alone,
with no up-river girl, big as a plow horse, trotting behind him in a wrinkled
homespun dress, a greasy sheepskin, and muddy shoes. Martha
had begun excited by so much size and strangeness, so many new people — likely
more than in Cairo, and she hadn't yet seen them all. She'd been excited, but
now began to feel a little sick to her stomach with too much newness and
hurrying. She missed her mother as if she was still a little girl, and her
mother was alive and feeding the chicken-birds in the yard. The
Bad-lip Lord stopped at last, at the top of broad stairs where two guards — who
must be soldiers, Martha supposed, and not marines, since one wore East-bank's
all-green armor, the other West-bank's blue — stood to each side of iron double
doors painted red as blood. Behind her, the marines stopped all together with a
stamp stamp. "Her
Majesty in audience?" "Yes,
milord," the guard in green steel. "At the Little Chamber." "Shit...."
The Bad-lip Lord spun on his heel and went back down the steps two at a time,
with Martha and the marines hurrying after. He opened a door made of squares of
glass, and hurried down a black-stone walk through a roofed garden of flowers.
The garden light wavered like water across rows of marigold blossoms, roses,
and another sort of flower with a cup of red and yellow on a slender stalk. The
Bad-lip Lord led them running up a narrow staircase to other iron doors painted
blood-red and guarded by two soldiers as the first had been, one in blue armor,
the other in green. "Still in audience?" "Yes,
milord," the blue-steel soldier said. He reached to turn down a heavy
latch, which looked to Martha to be made of gold, and swung the
left-side door open to perfumed air, bright oil-lamps shining… and many people. The
Bad-lip Lord went in — then stepped out again, took Martha's arm, and pulled
her inside with him. It
was a narrow room, its walls painted scarlet, with many old flags, banners, and
lit chain-lamps hanging down from a ceiling shining with gold. At least it
looked to Martha like gold — though there seemed too much of it for even a
Queen's Island. The gold, or whatever bright metal it was, was hammered into
shapes, possibly stories. Things flew among golden clouds up
there — things like birds, but with
stiff straight wings — and there were buildings appearing taller than
buildings were made, taller even than fortress towers.... A
woman was laughing, down at the end of the room. Behind
all these people, who looked warmed by red paint and lamplight, Martha stood
with the Bad-Lip Lord beside her. He was tall as she was, no more or less. A
steel edge of his breastplate's hinged shoulder-guard touched her arm…. There
were so many men and women crowding, they made the narrow room seem smaller.
The most surprising thing was there was no stink of old sweat or foot-wraps —
none at all — as if everyone had come fresh from a summer washtub bath, their
clothes just off a summer line. A
few of these people were talking with each other, but softly. Martha saw not
one man who wasn't dressed richly, not a single lady who wouldn't have put any
rich wife of Cairo to shame for her finery. Several had blue panels sewn into
their long skirts. A few had green. The
woman at the end of the room laughed again — she was a loud laugher. Being
taller than most, Martha could see it was a lady dressed in red velvet, sitting
one step up on a big black-enameled chair, her head back, laughing careless as
a man. She was holding a short spear in her left hand; its narrow steel head
shone in lamplight.... Martha thought this must be the Queen, to be so loud
amid grand people. The
woman stopped laughing, and said, "Fuck them and forget them is the rule
for you, Gregory. You're not deep enough for love!" She had a strong alto voice,
like a temple singer's; it rang down the room. The
person she was talking to was tall, mustached, and seemed to Martha beautiful
as a story prince. His long, soft copper hair lay loose, and he was dressed all
in velvets, coat and tight trousers made in autumn greens and golds. " —
And that very shallowness, ma'am, I've confessed to Lady Constance, and asked
her pardon. It's her brothers who concern me. They, apparently, believe in
true love and marriage. In fact, they're insisting on it. Marriage, or my
head." People
standing near Martha laughed — but not the Bad-lip Lord beside her. "Well,
you naughty man." The Queen was smiling. "You can tell the
fierce Lords Cullin that I would be displeased to be deprived of your
company." "Thank
you, Kindness," the tall lord said, and bowed graceful as a harvest
dancer. "Um-hmm.
Now, go and get into more mischief." The Queen shooed him away, then
looked down the length of the room and called out loud as a band horn,
"You! Tall one! You must be the strong-girl. Ordinary... Martha, isn't
it?" Martha
looked around as if another Martha must be there. "Answer
her!" a woman said. Martha
nodded and said, "Yes," but too softly to be heard. "You
come closer. Come closer to me!" Queen Joan's voice seemed younger than
she was. The
Bad-lip Lord took Martha's possibles-sack and rolled cloak from her. A hand —
she didn't know whose — shoved at her back, "and she stumbled, then walked
down the room as people stepped aside. She felt everyone looking; their looks
seemed to touch her. A woman said something softly, and laughed. They'd be
looking at her shoes, the poor leather, and the mud. Looking at her hair… her
ugly, ugly dress. A big stupid up-river girl, in an ugly dress. She
stopped almost at the step and made a bow, then began to get down on her hands
and knees, in case bowing wasn't enough. "Stay
standing, girl. We're not Grass Barbarians here; a bow or curtsy will always
do." The Queen, though sitting, looked to be tall as a man if she stood,
and had a man's hard blue eyes set in a long heavy-jawed face. Six dots were
tattooed on her left cheek, six on her right. There was a scar on her pale
forehead, one on her chin, and another at the left corner of her mouth. Martha
bowed again, very deeply, then straightened up. She saw the Queen was smiling,
and supposed she'd bowed wrong after all.... Queen Joan's hair, its dark red
threaded and streaked with iron gray, had been braided, then the long braids
coiled like slender snakes crowning her head. There were many, many jewels —
little red stones, blue and green stones, and strange bright stones clear as
water — pinned to her braids here and there, and fastened to her deep-red robe
in intricate patterns, so she seemed to shine and glitter in the lamp-light as
she sat. "No,
no," the Queen said, still smiling, "you bowed very well.... And the
shining stones you see, ice-looking, are diamonds. They are old as the world,
and change never." Martha
understood the Queen had read her mind by reading her face, and supposed that
was a skill all kings and queens must have. "Now."
Queen Joan leaned down from her throne, and held out her right hand. "Now,
since you are so large, and supposed to be strong and a bone-breaker, come take
my hand in yours, Martha-girl... and try your best to break my bones." But
Martha just stood and shook her head no. Her heart was beating hard as
the boat's drum had sounded. "No — I'd hurt you." But
the Queen didn't seem to understand 'No.' She didn't appear to have even heard
it. She held out her hand. Martha
reached up and took it — hoping that gripping firmly might be enough. The
Queen's hand was white and long-fingered, warm as if fresh from hot-water
washing. They
held hands like friends, for a moment. Then, slowly... slowly the Queen's grip
tightened. The long fingers seemed to slide around Martha's hand as if they
were growing, and the Queen's grip, terribly strong, tightened and tightened as
though Martha's hand wasn't there at all. It
was uncomfortable. It hurt... then hurt worse — and Martha, frightened, began
to squeeze back. Her hand was losing feeling; it seemed separate from her, and
she had the dreadful imagining that the Queen was going to crush it, break its
bones. Martha tried to keep that from happening — gripped against that
happening with all her strength. Suddenly,
there was no pain, no terrible pressure — only the Queen's long white hand
lying relaxed in hers. "Strong
enough, Large-Martha." The Queen took her hand away, and sat back on her
enameled throne. "And no tears. You do please me." Some
people in the room said, softly and together, "And should be always pleased...." "You're
seventeen years old?" "Yes...
Queen," Martha said, though 'Queen' didn't seem enough to call her. "I'm
told — by those I almost trust — that you beat three strong men down with a
smith's hammer. Is that so?" "...I
did. I did, Queen — but none of them died. I'm sure none of them has
died!" "Don't
be frightened. I don't care if all of them have died." People
laughed at that. "But
you did it, Martha? And you did it alone?" "Yes.
They were hurting Pa." "Mmm…
And did you enjoy what you did with the hammer?" Martha
looked around her for a friend — but she had no friends here, as she'd had none
at home. Her hands were shaking, and she put them behind her so the Queen
wouldn't see. "—I
don't ask questions twice." "I
didn't want to... but I was angry." "Alright.
Good. And I understand your mother died of insect fever years ago?" "Yes...
Majestic Person." Queen
Joan laughed. It seemed to Martha she had good teeth for a woman her age, teeth
strong as her grip. "Please, please don't ever repeat that
'Majestic Person.' I'm manured with enough titles." A
man in the room laughed. "Michael,
don't you dare!" The
man laughed again, and said, "The court won't use it, ma'am. We
promise." There
was a murmur of promises. "So,
Large-Martha," the Queen said, then said nothing more for a while, but
only sat looking into Martha's eyes as if there was a secret there she must
find out.... Then, she nodded. "So, you have no mother. And, I'm told, not
much of a daddy. But what if I promise to be nearly a mother to you, if
you will come and live with me? If you will serve me, stay by me always, and
guard me with your life until the evening I lie, a very old lady, dying in my
bed?" It
was such a strange thing to hear, that Martha waited for someone to explain it
to her. It seemed the Queen could not have meant 'guard,' since there were
soldiers standing against the room's walls, and a soldier in blue-enameled
armor standing on one side of the throne, a green-armored soldier on the other. "Yes,
I have guards, Large-Martha, but they are men. And there are occasions
when even a queen must be with women only. I'm tired of having to guard myself
at such times... lying in my bath, sitting on my toilet-pot with an assag across
my lap." She tapped her short-spear's butt against the stone floor, and
raised her head and her voice. " — And if it were not in the River Book
that soldiers must be men, I'd have women soldiers, as The Monroe has in
North Map-Mexico.... Proper in that, at least, though our currents might, were
matters different, have flowed to drown that boy — as they will the
fucking Kipchak Khan! I knew Small-Sam when he was a baby, carried him tucked
in his blanket… wiped his ass." Silence in the Red Room. The
Queen looked down at Martha. "Now, girl, you give me an answer — and make
that answer yes." Martha said, "Yes, ma'am." The
Queen smiled and sat back on her throne. "Oh, there's a sweetheart. My Newton would have said you'd make a
Trapper-girl. A great compliment… Lord Sayre!" "Ma'am?" "See
that the Master teaches my constant companion, Martha, neater fighting than
with a smith's hammer." "You
have in mind... the sword, ma'am?" Martha
knew the man's voice without turning to see him. It was the Bad-lip Lord. "Mmm...
no. I
have in mind... a
light, long-handled
double-headed ax. Blade and spike-point, I think." "Yes,
ma'am." "But
not too light — something
suitable to her size and strength. Rollins is to forge the ax-head from a cake
of the Emperor's gift, hammer that steel to tears, as if for me." "Yes,
ma'am." "No
plate armor. Only best fine-mesh mail to rise from thigh to shoulder, then
fasten turtle at her gown's neck — oh, I'll see you have such pretty dresses,
child!... And a long knife, same steel and straight-bladed for strike or throw.
A knife, no lady's frail whittler." "I'll
see to it." The
Queen raised her head and called out, "Now, she is mine… and no longer
an Ordinary!" Then she spun the javelin she gripped in her left hand, and
held the shaft down to Martha. "Take this, Strong-girl — then come up and
stand behind my throne, to give your life for mine." Martha
reached up to take the spear, and felt as she'd felt the motion of the river,
when the red boat had heaved and pitched with its rowers' labor. Now,
everything seemed to shift beneath her in just that way — and she would have
been sure she was dreaming but for the rich colors of everything, the strange
voices… and the Queen's eyes. "—
I said, 'Come up.'" Martha
climbed the step, her knees shaking, and the soldier in green armor turned
aside to let her pass. She stood behind the throne, her breath coming so short
she was afraid she might faint, and had to lean on the spear's smooth shaft....
Over the Queen's jeweled braids, Martha looked out on people in velvet, fine
leathers, feathers and fur, wearing daggers, short-swords, and gold. Most of
the men's and women's faces were tattooed in dots across their cheeks — some
faces soft, some fierce, but none with pleasant eyes. "Are
you where you should be?" The Queen did not turn her head to look. She was
wearing the perfume of a flower Martha didn't know. "...Yes,"
Martha said. "I am."
CHAPTER 9
"I
keep my pay!" Eric
Lauder had lathered a fine paint pony, and called as he rode down to the column
in early evening, five Warm-time miles from Better-Weather. Charmian
Loomis rode just behind him — bone thin, taller than Lauder, and awkward in her
saddle. Her long black hair, always loose as a child's, never tied or ribboned,
bannered behind her. She rode in the army's brown wool and tanned leather, and
wore Light Infantry's chain-mail hauberk with a colonel's gold C pinned at her
right shoulder. A rapier hung to the left of her saddle-bow. Howell
Voss, then Carlo Petersen and his captain, Franklin, reined aside for them. "...
I keep my pay, Sam." Eric was short of breath as if he'd been doing the
galloping. "Two regiments. They crossed the Bravo together, day before
yesterday, assembled in the brakes east of Ojinaga. Their outriders caught and
killed two of my men, but not the third." A
cloud shadow, as if in memorial for the two, drifted over on chill wind. The
sun, throughout the day, had been hiding in shame at the Daughter's death. Charmian
Loomis climbed off her horse, said nothing. "Have
those border people obeyed my orders, Eric?" "Yes,
sir, they have. I've pigeoned with Serrano — " "Paul
Serrano?" "Yes,
and Macklin. Our people are already out of Presidio, and we're clearing every
village and hacienda from Ahumada past the Bend to Boquillas." The
pinto stretched his neck to nip Sam's big black, and Sam turned his horse — the
imperial charger now named Difficult — a little away to avoid a reprisal.
"And John Macklin understands my orders about fighting?" "He
does. Cut throats, but no set battles." "And
the Old Men?" "Sam…
the brothers are not pleased." Howell
Voss slapped a fly on his horse's neck. "For Weather's sake..." "Howell,
let it go. The brigadiers are owed a part in this. Eric, where's Charles?" "In
town. None of my business, but people in Sonora aren't paying their
taxes." "They
will." Sam swung off his horse, relieved to be out of the saddle. More
than a year ago — almost two years ago — an imperial Light Cavalryman had sabered
him across the small of the back in a stupid scrambling fight below Hidalgo del
Parral. His mail had turned the cut, but still some soreness there came and
went. "Now... all of you get down. We're going to talk a little
campaigning." The
others dismounted, then stood or squatted, holding their horses' reins. "Howell,
Carlo, call your officers up here. All of them. Is there any dirt to draw
on?" Voss
drew his saber, sliced frost-burned turf, then bent and tore it away to clear a
patch of ground. Major Petersen, bulky as a bear and awkward out of the saddle,
went to speak to his banner-bearer, and the man rode away down the column. Sam
sat on his heels, waiting for the others to come up the road. "Eric, we
have the wounded with us. They stay in Better-Weather; Portia-doctor and her
people stay there with them." "How's
Ned?" "No
rot in the stump. He'll do well enough... already up and walking a little. The
wounded stay, and Jaime and Elvin stay as well." "The
Old Men won't like that." "Eric,
I know they won't like it.... I want all Butler's Heavy Infantry
concentrated here, every unit, all reserves. Then, if they have to — if this
Kipchak raid proves not to be harassment, but more serious — Phil can move
either east or west to the mountains to hold any major force moving down. The
old men can command that move, assemble any militia forces to join." "Understood."
Lauder was writing with a charcoal point on a fold of poor brown paper. Sam
waited as officers rode in from the column, waited until they'd gotten off
their horses and gathered close. He stood so they could see him better. "Orders….
Our cavalry's going north. All our cavalry — and reserves — will move up into
Map-Texas east of the Bend, while the Khan's people move down across our
border to the west of it. We strike up — as they strike down." Someone
said, "Lady Weather, be kind." More
officers rode up. The last, the rear guard's lieutenant, swung off his horse
and knelt behind Captain Wykeman, reins draped over his shoulder. "Going
up into Texas," Captain Franklin said to them. "All the
cavalry." An
officer said, "Jumping Jesus!" — a Warm-time phrase that would have
gotten his great-grandfather burned by his neighbors. "Now...."
Drawing his belt knife, Sam went to a knee and sketched with the blade's point
the great southern angle of the Bravo's Bend. "The Bend." Eric
and the officers nodded. "The
Kipchaks, about two thousand of them, have come down a long ride, many from
Map-Fort Stockton, and seem to intend raiding into Chihuahua, west of the
Bend." Someone
was arguing with a woman down the road. "Nailed
Jesus," Major Petersen said, "it's that fucking Boston girl." Sam
stuck his knife in the dirt, stood, and turned in time to see the girl — very
small on one of the captured imperial chargers — reach out and hit his
trumpeter, Kenneth, with her sheathed saber. Kenneth took the blow on a raised
arm as his horse shied away. The girl was yelling, "I go where I wish to
go!" and seemed prepared to hit him again. Sam
walked through the officers and down the road, the troopers in his way reining
their horses aside. The girl saw him coming, her small face white under the
wide-brimmed blue hat. "Get
down," Sam said. "What?" "Get
down, or I'll pull you down." "Not
so..." Patience slid a little steel out of her sword's scabbard. "If
you draw, I'll take you off that horse and whip you here in the road, before
everyone." He slid his quirt's loop off his wrist.... It was one of those
odd moments, coming more and more frequently for him, when anger and laughter
seemed to coil around each other to become one thing. Sam was careful not to
smile. A
pale mask stared down, wrinkled in fury, the girl's small teeth showing like an
angry grain-store cat's. "—
And you'd deserve it, Ambassadress, for such improper and unladylike behavior." Slowly,
slowly the small face relaxed to its usual smooth perfection. "And beating
a True Emissary of Boston Town is a gentlemanly thing to do?" "Only
to recall her to her duty." Patience
sighed, swung a leg over the saddle, and slid down to the ground. "That
man tried to stop me going where I wished to go. I wanted to come listen to
your conference." "No."
Sam turned and walked back up the column. Grinning troopers watched him pass. The
girl called after him. "Unkind...!" "What
did you say to her?" Howell was smiling. "I
said, 'No.'" Sam knelt, picked up his knife. "Now, these troops the
Khan is sending south..." He drew their route with the point of the blade.
"Sending about two thousand men west of the Bend to test us, so we'll let
them test our militia bands, our deserted border villages, our empty
pastures and fields. And while they're doing it, we're going to take all four
thousand of our cavalry — plus militia horsemen and volunteers — east of
the Bend" — he drew the curving line of march — "and north into
Texas, to take and burn Map-Fort Stockton." Silence.
Then someone whistled two notes. "That's
at least three days, Sam, riding up into Texas." Carlo Petersen, an older
man and sturdy as a tree trunk, had Ned Flores' command. "That's
right, Carlo." "Leaving
just local militia to hold them in the west?" "Leaving
local militia to trouble them in the west, with our Light Infantry
reserved in the hills.... Charmian, your people are not to engage unless
absolutely necessary. The whole point is to keep them busy, give them work and
wear, but not a battle. Should be good practice for our people, thanks
to Toghrul Khan." "Hard
practice," Captain Wykeman said. "
— Jaime and Elvin will stay here with the Heavy Infantry, so the brothers will
be in charge strategically. But Phil Butler will be in tactical command." "Uh-oh."
The previous whistler, a lieutenant named Carol Dunfey. "—
I'll inform Jaime and Elvin that the infantry only moves on Phil's
orders." "Sam,"
Petersen said, "are you saying the Old Men are out?" "No.
They're up. In overall command — but not battlefield." Nods.
Those close enough, were looking at the outline of the Bend cut into the
ground. "Howell,"
Sam said, "will command the cavalry campaigning into Texas — as their
general." The
officers stared at Voss. "And
not you, Sam?" Petersen, bulky, rosy and round-faced, looked like a
startled baby. An aggressive baby, saber-scarred. "No.
— Howell." Voss
stood at ease. Not surprised. Sam saw he'd expected the command might come to
him. "Well,
in that case," Eric said, "I should go north with him." "No,
Eric. You'll be more useful here." "Sam,
I'll need to be up there." "You
need to do as you're told." There
was a moment of silence... silence enough that the wind could be heard, and the
nickering of restless horses down the column. "...
As you order, sir. I stay in Better-Weather." "Phil
and the Brothers will have to know what's happening in Texas, Eric. Your people
will pigeon down to you, and you will keep the Old Men and Colonel Butler
informed. It shouldn't be necessary for you personally to go out in the kitchen
to taste the soup." "You're
right, sir. I apologize." Charmian
Loomis leaned over to look at the drawing again, nodded, then straightened and
walked to her horse… mounted, and rode away. "It's
clever, Sam." Howell stood staring down at the dirt drawing as if it might
change. "But the Kipchak's clever, too, and we'll be raiding deep into his
country. If he realizes, and sends more people across and south of us..." "Then,
Howell, you'll learn to like mare's milk." Smiles
at that. They seemed willing
enough, even after This'll Do. Sam
supposed there might come a time, after other losses, when they would no longer
be willing. Eric
stood. "Good plan." His pinto backed a little, tugged at its rein. Sam
got to his feet with a small grunt of effort. "Good as long as it's only
ours. I want you to ensure that, Eric. If there are any people you're uncertain
of — bought agents, particularly east of the Bend — I don't want them sending
pigeons to Caravanserai as Howell rides past." "We
know of five. I've left them because we know them." "Don't
leave them any longer." "Yes,
sir." The
others were up, gathering their horses' reins. "And
all you officers," Sam said, "keep in mind that your lives and your
troopers' lives depend on these plans being held in silence." He bent,
scored his diagram to nonsense with his dagger's point. Murmurs
of agreement. "In
silence, gentlemen and ladies. I'll hang the officer who makes this
known by word or note or indication. Drunk or sober." A
perfect silence then, as if they were practicing. What
did it mean? Sam climbed into the
saddle for the last stretch to Better-Weather. What did it mean that a man
was most at ease, felt truly comfortable, only when planning battles? He
spurred his horse — well-named Difficult — out in front of the column. Kenneth
came trotting after him, the trumpeter seeming untroubled by having been struck
by an angry ambassadress. And what did it mean that others were also more at
ease, were also only truly comfortable with a man when he was planning battles?
The younger officers' faces had only been pleased at the notion of war. Was the
Captain-General becoming only a Captain-General, with nothing else left
of him at all? "More
than likely," Sam said. The
trumpeter said, "Sir?" An
early-winter rain had followed the column for the last few Warm-time miles.
Now, it caught them, dark, cold, and driving, seething in swift puddles under
the black's hooves. What plans he'd made in dirt with his dagger, then erased,
were gone now under mud and water.
*
* *
Better-Weather's
fortress, built of granite blocks four years before, squatted gray in dawn's
cloudy light amid the town's scattered wood and adobe houses, liveries, small
manufactories, and inns. Three-storied, deep-moated by Liana Creek, and shaped
a square, it enclosed a large, grassed siege-yard for sheep, a roofed swinery
for boar, and runs for chicken-birds. Charles
Ketch's office was off the courtyard, at the northwest corner of the third
floor. Its four tall windows were barred with thick, greased steel, and armored
men and women of Butler's Heavy Infantry mounted hall guard in six-hour shifts.
These sentries, recruited deaf and dumb, had calmed their watch-mastiffs — and
grinning, apparently pleased with news of Boca Chica, saluted Sam past. "...
Sam, Sonora doesn't pay. Tax payments denied by three separate
pigeon-notes. Two, day before yesterday. One, yesterday afternoon." "Late,
you mean, Charles." Sitting on a three-legged stool with his scabbarded
bastard-sword across his lap, Sam straightened to ease his back, and wished
he'd had a hot bath in the laundry before coming upstairs and down the hall to
duty. Wished he'd had a second cup of chocolate at breakfast. "No,
sir. Withheld. Stewart claims they need their money for their roads,
this year — says an elected governer should have that decision." Charles —
looking, it seemed to Sam, older each time he saw him — sat with his desktop
and the floor around him piled with papers, paper scraps, twine-knotted bundles
of papers, and wooden boxes of the tiny rolled notes of pigeon-carries. His
copy of The Book of jew Jesus — a very old and precious copy concerning
the first Jesus known — rested like a thick battlement of sewn binding and time-browned
paper in front of him. Eric
Lauder had once said to Sam, "Charles thinks the truth hides in that
Warm-time Bible like a bird in a bush. He puts his ear to it for little chirps
and twitters of sweetness... kindness." "Charles,
you're sure he's serious about withholding the province's taxes? He's picked a
very bad time for it." "Yes,
I know." Ketch's
office, gloomy in a cold and clouding morning, was packed to its rafters with
narrow crates of bound volumes containing the records of what each year had
brought to the provinces of North Map-Mexico. Reports of gold or silver earned
or spent, of diseases — animal and human — of good crops or bad, of crimes and
hangings. Bitter complaints and boasts of success. Everything carefully entered
on paper from Crucero Mill. All
news came to Better-Weather, and came fairly swiftly — by messenger, by pigeon — or several were
made sorry for slowness. Rumors came as well, and were always stacked in seven
boxes at the end of the highest shelf — hard to get to, and so the more
carefully considered before setting in place. "Our
memories are all in my paper-work," Charles Ketch had once said to Sam.
And each short summer, when Lady Weather's daughter had wed the sun, he cleaned
out his office, transferred all the crates to storage down the hall, and
ordered new boxes built for the memories of the new year. "Oh,"
Sam had said to him, "I still keep a few memories in my head." Charles
had smiled and reached out, as he often did, to grip Sam's arm, as if to be
certain he was still present, young, and strong. "Very
worst time for refusal." Sam leaned forward to pour a clay cup of water
from the fat little pitcher on Ketch's desk. "What makes Stewart think he
can get away with it?" "A
habit of making important decisions. It's the risk with governers: the tendency
to independence. They are elected." "Elected
with my permission, Charles." "Easy
for them to forget that, after two or three years in office." Charles took
a pinch of snuff, but didn't sneeze. No
one smoked the Empire's tobacco in Ketch's office — there were never flames
there that might cause fire, not even lamps at dark, so all reading and
copy-work was done by daylight. No
flame, so no heat through the nine months of hard winter. There were leaded
panes of clear glass in the windows, so the wind, at least, could not come in. "And
this is your worst news for me, Charles?" "Yes
— except for the Kipchaks coming down, of course." "You're
mistaken." Sam stretched his legs out. His right spur scraped the stone
flooring. "This tax thing is much more serious than two thousand horse
archers." Charles
smiled. Approval... fondness. "Yes. That's right, of course. Stewart's is
just the first of an endless succession of conflicts between Better-Weather and
the governers elected locally. Each province will challenge you, sooner or
later. Roads, mutton prices, wool prices, cabbage prices. You'll need certain
taxes, and they'll wish to make them uncertain, to use the money locally, if
only to insure their reelections. Stewart, and Sonora, are only the
beginning." "And
you've done... what?" "Nothing,
Sam. It's too important for a decision of mine." "Then
you advise... what?" Charles
sighed, seemed embattled behind his stacks of paper, his massive copy of The
Book. "Sam, you can have any recalcitrant governer removed from
office, or killed. But that would mean always having them removed or
killed at any serious disagreement. Taxes being the most serious — " "Aside
from recruitment." "All
right, aside from recruitment." "Which
would be the next refusal, Charles." "Yes,
which might very well be the next refusal." "And
your advice?" "What
I think we need to do, is limit their time in office. Make it law that a person
can be elected only once as governer in each province. Then there'd be no
building of little lordships to break us apart — or at least it would become
less likely." Charles's voice from gathering shade, as rain came down
outside. "Yes.
My fault for not thinking of this before." "Our
fault." Sam considered
Patricio Stewart. Big, bulky man with direct blue eyes and a bad temper. Broken
nose, possibly because of his bad temper. For some reason, wore his long
black hair in pigtails, held with silver clips. "Alright."
The stool had been doing Sam's back no good. He stood up, leaned on his
scabbarded sword. An aching back at twenty-seven; he'd be a bent old man, no
doubt about it. "Alright. We'll issue that order of a single term only,
for governer of any province." "Still
five years?" "Yes.
Still a five-year term, once elected against all comers. But one term
only." "And
if the other governers object? Follow Stewart?" "Charles,
I won't kill them; they were elected by their people. And I won't kill Stewart,
for the same reason." The rain swept like a slow broom down the windows,
dimming the daylight so Ketch, behind his desk, seemed to fade with it.
"Instead, when this happens, I'll kill the person most important in
supporting their independence." "...
I see." "Might
be Eric talking?" Charles
shrugged. "Eric has his uses." "Who
is Stewart's most important friend in this tax thing? Who stands behind him in
Sonora?" "...
His wife's father, I believe. A formidable man, Johnson Neal. I know him,
raises spotted cattle." "Have
Neal arrested, Charles. See that he's tried for treason in the tax matter. For
plotting to destroy our unity... possibly in the Khan's pay, or the Emperor's.
Then hang him." In
deepening shadows, Charles had become a ghost. "And if the magistrate
makes some difficulty, Sam?" "Choose
a magistrate who won't. This is to be done at once. And the same magistrate is
to issue a judgment referring to payment of provincial taxes as duty
inescapable." "That's...
that should be effective." "Also,
find a discontented priest of
Mountain Jesus, a man who may have had problems with Stewart's people over
shares of altar gifts, distributions... whatever. Bound to be one. Advise the
man to preach, publicly and often, proper obedience to Better-Weather. Three
gold spikes will be sent, later, to be driven into any temple tree he
wishes." The
ghost sat silent. "—
And all a legal and administrative matter, Charles, and your responsibility.
Neither Eric nor the army are to have anything to do with it....
Understood?" "Meaning,
I suppose, that I tend to avoid unpleasant necessities?" "Meaning
that, Charles — and that it should be seen as a matter of law, not of my
will and my soldiers." "I'll
see to it." "Quickly,
in the next few days, so send fast pigeons. We're going to need that money....
Oh, and once the taxes are received — and all in coin, not kind — spare what we
can for road-work in Sonora. Build a bridge, and name it after Stewart. A
modest bridge." "Yes...."
The spectral Charles Ketch seemed to smile. "Really very sensible, I
suppose." "But
sad for Johnson Neal's daughter?" "Yes." "Only
if she's stupid, Charles." Sam slung his sword on his back. "If she's
clever, she'll know her father hanged in her husband's place." "Then,
let's hope she's clever.... And the matter of remounts for this... excursion up
into Texas?" Sam
paused at the office door. "Every damn horse in Nuevo Leon, if necessary.
Have your people pay their price and bring them in. If it has four legs and can
carry a man, Howell is to have it." "May
have to pay with script." "Get
them in, Charles." "Yes,
sir." "I
want the first draft corralled in Ocampo in four days. The second, three days
later in La Babia." "Sam
— I'll need more time, just a few days more." "Charles,
I don't have the time to give you. First and Second Regiments of Heavies and
Second Regiment of Lights, reinforced, will be there; Howell is picking them up
as he goes." "The
reserves?" "Every
trooper." "Nailed
Jesus. How are we going to pay them? We have no plans for calling up the
reserves, Sam, except for war. For war, they'd wait for their money. This will
be thousands of gold pesos every day!" "This,
Charles, is war's beginning." "Dear
Weather..." "And
what money we don't have later, I'll borrow from the Emperor." "Oh,
of course! Would you tell me why Rosario e Vega would agree to pay our
army?" "Oh,
I think he'd prefer to, Charles, rather than see it coining down through Zacatecas
to pay him a visit." Ketch
laughed, laughter from darkness, over the sound of rain. "Might work, at
that.... Alright. The remounts will be there, Sam. At Ocampo and La Babia. But
it will cost us a fortune, and make enemies in Nuevo Leon." "Any
rancher who objects to parting with his horses, Charles, is welcome to go with
them up to Map-Fort Stockton." "Understood."
*
* *
...In
the corridor, two big soldiers with curved body-shields at rest, short-swords
drawn, stood spaced down the passage a few yards apart. In greased boots and
horse-hide trousers, with straps of oiled steel body-armor from shoulder to
hip, they stood still as if frozen, their faces obscure behind helmet nasals. A
watch-mastiff's rising — and Sam's shadow, thrown by sconced lamplight along
the walls — alerted both deaf-mutes as he came, and their helmets turned toward
him smoothly as Warm-time machinery must have done. The
first guard was a woman — taller than Sam was, and wider. She made a comic
face, wiggled her eyebrows at him as he passed her great grumbling dog, so he
went smiling past the second soldier to the stairs.
CHAPTER 10
Martha
was lost. Almost two weeks in the Queen's chambers had taught her nothing of
Island's directions, passages, and endless ups and downs. The
Queen's chambers were the whole top of North Tower, three great whitewashed
drum-round rooms, one above the other. The lowest was guarded on narrow left-winding
stone steps by six soldiers, three in green-enameled steel, and three in blue.
Very polite soldiers, who'd nodded and smiled at Martha every time she went up
or down. They'd
smiled and nodded, but never spoke to her, and all six unsheathed their swords
each time the iron doors opened at the top or bottom of the stairs. They drew
their swords… watched her coming to them, up or down, then sheathed their
swords, smiled and nodded. In.
those few days, Martha'd learned that tower. Queen's chambers above, guardroom
below, kitchen and pantry below that... then down more winding steps to the
scrub-laundry, with its water barrels, kettles, stone tubs, and ever-hot iron
stove. The laundress was Mary Po, a big silent scrubber with hands ruined by
lye and hot water; there were no nails on her fingers. The girl Walda helped
her, and ironed the Queen's robes and woven linen with flat polished stones hot
from the Franklin, so the room smelled of cloth heated to nearly scorching. There
were all those levels of the Queen's tower, and places deeper still, down
steeper steps through little iron doors. Darker places, where Martha was not
permitted. The green-steel Guard captain, Noel Purse, had ordered her not, her
first day. "Guests,
down there," he'd said. "Her Majesty's important guests, resting in
chambers beneath. And that will never be your business." "Yes,
sir," Martha'd answered as if she were a soldier, since she felt like a
soldier, though a girl, and was armed with her spear as a guard herself. Down
there, someone must have heard the captain talking to her, because the faintest
howling began, so she supposed one of the guests had brought his dog-pet with
him. — But later, when she mentioned the dog-pet to Maid Ulla, Ulla had made a
child's warning face and told her it was people, and the Queen would visit
them, but never let them out. So,
there was no dog-pet under the tower. At
first — perhaps because she was tired — Martha had thought she might be
dreaming of the Queen's chambers, dreaming and drifting through them as she
sometimes drifted in dreams. The huge round rooms, their stone walls
lime-washed snowy white, were draped in great soft sheets of orange cloth and
gray cloth, purple, rose, sky-blue and pinewood green, so there was color
everywhere. Some cloths hung against the walls, and others fell across from
round alder rafters to divide one place from another — so each great room was
like a house with smaller rooms within it. There
were those richly colored cloth curtains, and woven tapestries of war, of
hunting, of handsome Extraordinaries playing banjars, flutes, and drums among
flowers in glass-ceilinged gardens. Then others of the same people kissing and
fucking, and also summer wet-ships and winter ice-ships sailing the river
through the three seasons…. The tower chambers always bright with many hanging
lamps, and sometimes sunlight shining through stone-slit windows sealed with
glass very close to clear. There
was also see-through southern gauze — which Martha'd heard of but never seen —
that hung here and there like smoke, and stroked her as she walked through it
behind Queen Joan. All almost a dream, and seeming more so since the women
— Ulla, fat Orrie, and the great ladies
who waited on the Queen — stepping quietly on the carpets, appeared as if by
magic when a curtain was suddenly pulled aside. So
the Queen's daughter, Princess Rachel, once appeared for breakfast with her
mother — a princess seeming to Martha more serious than the story ones. Tall,
dark-eyed, dark-haired, face too strong-boned for beauty, she'd stalked through
drapery unsmiling. But introduced, had taken both Martha's hands with gentle
courtesy, and said, "Welcome to our household." Though
later, buttering muffins with her mother at table by the solar's iron stove,
she'd glanced at Martha — standing nearby with her spear — raised an eyebrow,
and murmured, "Mother...." "What?...
What?" The
Princess had sighed, and said, "Never mind." Ulla
told Martha that Princess Rachel lived in a different tower, came to breakfast
rarely, and the black stains on her fingers were writing-ink. ...
As the Princess had come to breakfast, so other great ladies came to visit
through the days. Some brought their children, others little dog-pets to play
with — but none stayed long. The Queen preferred privacy. In these wonderful,
cushioned, quiet rooms, only she was harsh and noisy, striding here and there,
making rough jokes and criticizing her women's sewing as they sat at the long
table in the gauze-curtain room, doing fine stitchery in linen kerchiefs, and
on the Empire's white cotton underthings. Martha
had touched and dirtied a kerchief her second afternoon, and been sent down to
the laundry for a bath. "With lye soap!" the Queen had called. — "I'll have no pig to guard me!" So,
in a stone tub, with Mary Po pouring buckets of hot water, and the ironing
girl, Walda, scrubbing with a bristle brush, Martha was made clean enough to
touch Jordan Jesus' altar cloth. Then she was dressed in heavy sandals and
fresh linen, in underclothes and overdress, with long sleeves like almost a
lady — though one who would soon wear padded fine-mesh mail under her gown.
That had been fitted-for, but not yet finished. When
done, her hair dried at the laundry hearth and pinned up, a finger ringlet
before each ear, Martha took her spear, went up the many stone steps — smiled
at the six soldiers as they smiled at her — and climbed past them to the Queen. "Better,"
Queen Joan said, looking her up and down. "You'll never be a pretty girl,
but 'handsome' may be. possible in time, though a fairly large 'handsome.' The
ringlets, the ringlets have their charm." And Martha, now so clean, was
invited to sit beside the Queen at a mother-of-pearl table, to sort old
earrings for keepers and pairs. "Trumpery
crap, most of these." The Queen's long fingers sorted and shifted,
flicking silver and gold, bright stones and stones softly-rich this way and
that. "Those I had from my sweet Newton, I know and keep — what are you
doing?" "Separating
the plain hoops." "Well…
the silver; put those aside." "Yes,
ma'am." The
Queen began to hum as she worked, then said, "What do you think of
these?" "They're
very pretty." "Yes.
I thought so too, many years ago. Now, of course, I know better — and so they
are spoiled for me." She began to hum again, fingers deft among the
jewels. "I do not remember the names of half the men who gave me these...
made flowery fucking speeches, bowing, asking Newton's permission to gift me
this or that. Once, my sweetheart smiled at Liam Murphy — Lord Murphy's gone, of course. Whole family's
gone, and a daughter eaten. Newton smiled at him and said, 'You may give my
lady what you please. As it pleases her, it pleases me… though doesn't turn me
from my way.' " The
Queen set green studs aside. "Poor Liam should have listened more closely....
Do you think of men, Martha?" "...
No." The
Queen stopped sorting. "Martha, you're going to be with me for many years.
You've just told me a lie. Never, ever, lie to me again about anything." "I'm
sorry. I do think of men, sometimes." "And
in particular? The truth, now." "Well,
I liked Ralph-sergeant." The
Queen found a little gold lump, with no pin or clasp. "Trash.... You liked
Ralph-sergeant. And who is he?" "A
soldier. He came to get me at my father's house." "And
why did you like this soldier?" "He
was big — bigger than me. And he was kind." "Ah…
'kind.' I have many large sergeants in my armies, East-bank and West, but I
hope not too many that are kind.... Do you have a match for the
turquoise?" "No,
ma'am." "Of
course not; that would be too fucking lucky. How am I to get a turquoise to
match with that Kipchak squatting on Map-Arizona? This is a useless
earring." "You
could give it to Lord Pretty." "Yes,
Gregory'd wear it. Damn fool…." Through
the following days, Martha had learned the attendant ladies' names and titles,
learned the servants' names: Ulla, Francis, Orrie, and Sojink — a tiny Missouri
tribeswoman with filed teeth and a bluebird tattoo across her face.... Martha'd
learned the cloth-draped spaces of Upper Solar and Lower, and where Queen Joan
slept by a window in the high chamber, curtained in cloudy gray. She'd learned
also to stay very near the Queen, just to her right and a little back, the
spear always in her hand. Still,
Martha could go up and down the tower, and visit as she wished — but never for
very long. That was decided when the Queen was choosing a robe for Wintering
the Gardens, and didn't care for the velvet that fat Orrie showed her. She
said, "Everything from that clothes-press smells of river mold! Orrie,
take them all down to the laundry to be cleaned and pressed again. Martha, help
her, and stay there to see it properly done." "No,
ma'am." The
Queen stood very still, then said, "What did you say?" Seeming
startled, as if there'd been a birdsong she'd never heard before. Fat Orrie was
panting like a puppy. Martha
said, "No, ma'am. I won't go down with the laundry, and stay there." Then,
though the Queen's face didn't change, she put her hand on her dagger's pommel.
That knife was a soldier's weapon, long-bladed and heavy enough to weight her
jeweled sash. "I'm
here to guard you, ma'am," Martha said, though she was frightened. "I
can't guard you if I'm sitting waiting in the laundry." The
Queen turned her head as if she were listening to voices… then took her hand off
her dagger. "Yes, that was a proper 'No, ma'am' from you. You'll
help Orrie take the laundry down — then
come right up again to be near me." "Yes,
ma'am." "But,
Martha," the Queen said, "don't become too free with noes." ...And Martha had been careful not to. She'd shut her
mouth and opened her eyes and ears through her first days, and learned the
solar chambers, the tower and its people, very well, except for the deep places
below. But now, with another place to be at mid-day by the glass exactly, she
was lost and wandering Island like a pony loose. After
she'd asked directions of two people — people who seemed Ordinaries, and not
too great to answer — then asked a third in a granite passage along her way,
Martha climbed, at last and late, two flights of stairs in the South Tower...
tapped on a narrow oak door, received no reply, then slowly opened it onto a
wide sunny room. It was very bright with windows. The floor, polished white
marble streaked with brown, was puddled here and there by something spilled.
Smelled like a lamp's Boston oil. A
man was standing by a long oak rack of weapons. He was short and seemed
massively fat, big around as a cabbage barrel. He wore low boots, loose tan
trousers, and a yellow shirt, and though he appeared to be only in his middle
years, his hair — cut evenly in a circle
just above his ears — was dappled gray. A bowl-cut, they'd called that in
Stoneville. "You're
the Queen's Martha, I suppose. I'm Master Butter-boy." He set a slender
sword into the rack. "Don't come late to my class again." Master
Butter-boy had a pleasant deep voice, sounded to Martha like a good glee
singer. His eyes were dull green, and small. She
closed the door behind her, and set her spear leaning against the wall. The
streaks and spills of oil made the marble floor slippery. "I couldn't find
the way, Master." "You
have no master now, only the Queen for mistress. 'Sir' will do."
Butter-boy strolled a few steps nearer, moving like a pole-boater, with an easy
rolling gait. He stood looking at her —
and Martha saw he wasn't fat, only very wide, and thick with muscle.
Scars were carved into his round face, and three blue dots were tattooed on
each cheek. Thinner white scars laced his heavy forearms. " — You are the
Queen's, and no other's. You might keep that in mind when some try you for this
or that favor, or attempt to command you." "Yes,
sir." "And
you say you couldn't find your way here?" "Yes.
I went to West Tower." Master
Butter-boy gave her a hard look. "Then learn your way. Learn Island
well enough to run its passages blind. Because on some dark night of trouble,
you may have to. We are at war, though many here don't yet seem to
realize it." "Yes,
sir." "Mmm….
Well, you've got size, if it doesn't slow you. None easier to butcher than Large-an'-slows.
And thank the River you don't carry big teats — very much in the way, fighting
hand to hand. No big teats, and no balls to guard, either.... Your age?" "Seventeen,
sir." "Better
and better. Youth makes the third fighting gift. No comment? We stand silent? —
though I hope, not stupid." Butter-boy smiled, drew a small knife from his
belt, and threw it at her spinning. Martha
thought of ducking away, but there was no time. Thought of catching the knife
by its handle, but that seemed unlikely. She swung her hand as the knife came
whirling, and slapped it to the side to clatter across the floor. Her palm was
cut a little. "Did
you think of catching it?" "Yes,
sir." "Then
why didn't you try?" "I
think I thought… better a cut, than chance the point coming in." Master
Butter-boy smiled. "You and I, Martha Queen's-Companion — may I call you
Martha?" "Yes,
sir." "Well,
Martha, you and I are going to settle in very well when it comes to
murder." He walked over to pick up his knife. "You do know that all
killing is murder, though often for worthwhile reasons?" "….
I suppose so." "She
'supposes so.' " Butter-boy began to sheathe his knife, then spun and
threw it at Martha again, but underhanded, with a swift shoveling motion. Since
it wasn't spinning this time, Martha thought she might catch the knife's handle
as it came — stepped a little to the right, reached out, and just barely
managed to. Then, for no particular reason, it seemed reasonable to immediately
throw it back. "...
I can't tell you, Martha," Master Butter-boy said, "how pleased I am
with you already." They were at the weapons racks, putting yellow ointment
on their cuts. "You are the season's surprise!" "Thank
you, sir." "Now
— not to waste instruction time..." Butter-boy put the ointment pot back
on a shelf, considered a moment along the racks, then chose a plain,
long-bladed, double-edged dagger. "Ah, is there any creation as honest as
an honest weapon? No, there is not." Master
Butter-boy stepped out onto slippery marble. "Difficult to be sure of your
footing on this. Deliberately difficult. Did you think I'd spilled oil come all
the way from Map-New England — rendered out of whatever sea beasts — in
carelessness?" "I
wasn't sure, sir." "Well,
I didn't. Learn to fight on treacherous footing, and firm footing comes as a
gift." In illustration, Butter-boy began to stride, the long dagger's
needle point balanced on his thumbnail. Suddenly he slipped, slid, and tripped
stumbling across the floor. But the weapon went with him perfectly, didn't sway
as he mis-stepped and staggered, didn't threaten to tumble and fall. It seemed
to have grown, become rooted, where it stood on his thumb. "The
knife… the knife... the knife." Master Butter-boy jumped suddenly forward,
then sideways, then high-stepped back and back on the oiled marble — very light
on his feet, it seemed to Martha, for so wide a man. The dagger stayed with him
as if they were partners in a dance. "Listen,"
he said, always moving — turning in circles now. "Every steel weapon,
sword to ax, flowers from the knife and its discipline of timing, force, and
distance to strike. The swinging ax, the parrying sword, are only children of
the knife. Never despise it — though there are fools who do, until its blade
slides between their ribs." He flipped the dagger off his thumbnail,
caught it casually by the grip, and stood easy. "Some
courtiers — you know that word? It's a Warm-time word, and means those who
linger in a king or queen's court. Some of those will stare at your ax, which I
understand is being fettled for you, and consider it your first weapon in
protection of the Queen. They will think of the ax — perhaps one or two plan
for the ax — and forget the long knife entirely. See to it you do
not." "Yes,
sir." "And
always remember this: Your weapons, if across a room and out of reach, are no
weapons at all, but only a source of amusement for those butchering you, then
your Queen." "I
understand." "Never,
never, never go unarmed." "I
won't." "And
never unarmored. Always at least fine
chain-mail over a padded shift to protect your breast, your belly — and your
back, above all." "Yes,
sir. They're making it." "Now,
Martha, choose a knife from our weapons stand, and come see if you can cut off
some portion of me — keeping in mind there are no dulled instruments here,
bleeding being the best teacher."
*
* *
"The
Queen is among her pickles." The East-bank soldier, steel armor-straps
enameled to gleaming jade, stepped aside to let Master Butter pass into storage
— household storage, not the great, dark, echoing chambers beneath Island's
inner keep, stacked with barrels of crab-apple, barley, pickle-beets and
onions, salt beef, salt mutton, salt pork, and salt cabbage. Here,
in Household, were small rooms of special cooked and jarred far-south fruits,
condiments, compotes, and particular meats — boiled and poured into clamp-lid
crocks, then sealed with wax, so they almost always lasted more than a year.
Though sometimes not, and burst with hard sounds and messes. Butter
walked down the narrow stone corridor, his shoulders wide enough to often brush
the walls. He heard the Queen muttering, ahead and off to the left, in the
pickling room…. One of her dear things, pickles. Apparently they hadn't had
them in the savage mountain world she'd been born to, so she ordered foods
pickled that most had never thought to. Broccoli, carrots, cauliflower. The
court had taken to these, so every gathering and ball saw bowls of pickles
along the sideboards, with the smoked meat, honey candy, hard-cooked eggs and
hot barley rolls. The salting prompting thirst, of course…. Butter stepped to
the left. "So,
Master Butter…?" Queen Joan, in ropes of freshwater pearls over a gown of
soft imperial cloth — dark blue, with dark-blue lambskin boots to match — was
shaking a great blown-glass jar of the tiniest gherkins, finding treacherous
sediment. "Look at this sad shit," she said — the Warm-time phrase so
apt — and held the jar up to a deep arrow-slit through the tower's stone, so
daylight might aid lamplight. Master
Butter straightened from a bow. "Susan-preserver is getting old." "We're
all getting old, Butter. But not all of us careless." "She's
very old." "Then
let her get her trembling ass off my island. Let her hobble back where she came
from." The Queen shook the gherkin jar again. Peered into it. "…. So?
What of my Large-Martha; is there prowess there?" "Your
Large-Martha will do, Majesty — when she learns Island, and always to be a
little early rather than late. Should do better than some who call themselves
fighting men. She has size and strength, but more important, quickness. A big
man, stronger and just as fast, could likely beat her down, but not easily. She
doesn't mind bleeding." "But
can she learn to fight, Master Butter? — fight serious men and sudden,
not just bumpkin Ordinaries brawling in her father's yard." "I'm
sure so." "And
you're 'sure so'... why?" "Most
men and women, Queen, if steel or any trouble comes suddenly, throw their heads
back in startlement — and so, of course, lose a moment to defend themselves.
This Martha does not. She lowers her head to look closer, to watch what
comes and how it comes." "Hmm...
And once she's trained, could you kill her in a fight?" "Oh,
yes, Majesty, though not easily. But I can kill anyone." "Well,
Master Butter, I've known two men you couldn't have killed." "…
Ah, the King, of course. Very strong. Was very strong." "My
Newton, yes. And another... I don't think you'd find me easy, either, though
I'm not what I was." "I
would cut my throat before that contest, My Dearest Majesty." The
Queen set the gherkin jar down on its shelf with a clack that almost
broke it. "Then you're an ass, and impertinent in your affection!" "My
apologies, Queen. But of course, I'm mad." "Yes,
so Paul-doctor says. He says you hear unpleasant voices, but so far manage to
disagree with them. And you are useful as master of arms." Master
Butter bowed. "Now,
get out of my sight. Hone my guardian-girl to a fine edge, but do not come
private into my presence again for a year." "A
year, Majesty," Master Butter said, " — a year is not so long a
time." And bowed himself out of the Chamber of Pickles.
CHAPTER 11
Webster
was furious from long imprisonment. Patience had kept him basketed by day,
allowed only the shortest night flights for exercise. He bit her thumb to the
bone when she reached in with a piece of lunch's mess-kettle mutton, then
huddled stoic as she shook his basket — cursing while little drops of her blood
flew — then threw it onto the tent's canvas floor and kicked it under the cot. Sleety
early-evening rain came in a gust, as if Lady Weather were angry also. "Very
well," Webster said from under there, speaking in a thin, weedy little
croak that someone unfamiliar might not have recognized as speech. "Very...
well." It
sounded like a threat, but was surrender. Patience
held her thumb down a moment to bleed it, then insisted that bleeding stop.
Even so, it took a while. Webster's teeth, though few and small — a baby's milk
teeth in fact — were capable, as he'd proved on a robin once. When
the thumb stopped dripping, Patience wasn't angry anymore, and went to hands
and knees. Under the cot, through the basket's woven willow strips, pale blue
eyes — the right, wandering — looked out at her. "Very well." Almost
a whisper. "Are
you hurt?" She meant his wings. "No." "Oh,
thank Who Comes," Patience said, reached in, and rolled the basket out
while the Mailman scrambled to stay upright. No bitten thumb was worth damaging
its wings. More expensive than any two or three occas, this was an embryo
halted and kept halted at four months in the womb, while what were becoming
arms, wrists, and fingers were encouraged to shape wing-struts instead, and
anchorages of muscle were enlarged in the breastbone. All mind-managed,
observed through slender glass tubes stuck inside a tribeswoman's belly. Delicate
work, not to be compared to the easier earlier interventions that almost always
produced an occa — delicate work, and often unsuccessful. No apartment on the
Common cost as much as one of these wonders. And this — she'd named him
Webster, since he spoke so well, had forty-three words — this was Township
property, not hers. She
set his basket on the cot, and unlatched the lid; Webster tried that
constantly, but the method was beyond him, his fingertips too tiny. She took
the lid off, and reached in to stroke and lift him out. He was withered, very
small — a double handful — and brown as an old leaf, his round bald head the
heaviest thing about him. He smelled of milky shit, and had left little slender
yellow turds in his folded bedding. "You
bad boy… making messes." And he was a boy, or would have been; there was
the tiniest pinch of spoiled cock and balls nested at his bottom. Webster
was still angry, said none of his words while Patience unfolded one of his
comfort cloths and wiped him. She reached up to set him against the tent-pole,
where he clung with skin wings and little nearly-legs wrapped around the wood,
while she took the messed cloths from his basket and folded two fresh ones in. "Want
cheese?" Patience smacked her lips to demonstrate how wonderful the cheese
would be. Webster
stared down from the tent-pole — little left blue eye looking straight at her,
the other drifting away. "Cheese?"
Patience dug for the crock in her duffel. Table scraps were often fed Mailmen —
little meat pieces they could munch and gum to slurry — but farmer's white
cheese was recommended, mashed with goat's milk if possible. Both things
produced south of the ice, and very expensive. "Oooh,
look at this… look at this!" She held a caked forefinger up to him.
"If you bite, I'll make you sorry." 'Make
you sorry' was a phrase all Mailmen were taught in training — when occasionally
they were made sorry for flapping off the glacier flyway from Cambridge
to New Haven and back again. Webster apparently recalled it. He closed his
eyes, opened his mouth… and Patience felt eager wetness and heat, the rhythmic
tickle of his little tongue as he licked and sucked the clots from her finger. Five
loaded fingertips later, Webster burped and said, "Fly?" — his first
courteous word since their fight. "Yes."
Patience lifted him down and set him on her shoulder, which he clutched with
fanned translucent amber wings. " — To Map-McAllen." Webster
understood 'McAllen' at least, and nodded. He had — as all completed Mailmen had — a perfect map
stuck in his understanding by weeks and weeks of careful feeding of treats for
remembering, weeks and weeks of careful scorching with candle flames for
forgetting, say, where Map-Charleston, or Map-St. Louis, or Map-Philadelphia,
or Map-Amarillo were, and their direction either way and any way. Scorching, as
well, for forgetting the how-to-get-theres of much smaller places. All to
fashion a messenger so superior to silly pigeons, who could only return where
they came from. "Not
sunshine." Webster was a coward, and frightened of hawks. "No,"
Patience said. "Moonlight." And turned her head to him for a puppy
kiss. He didn't kiss very well... really only licked little licks. The
near-frozen rain peppered the tent's canvas as Patience sat on her cot, and
using her small silvered-glass mirror for backing, while Webster watched from
her shoulder, wrote a tiny note in tiny printing on a tiny strip of best-milled
white paper.
fm
better-weather, dear cousin louis, voss and 4000 cav going probably north to be
bad in probably texas. now send webster back, yrs, p.
She
reread it as Webster crawled down to the blanket beside her and thrust out a
fragile little leg. It barely had a knee, had toes too small to count. It
seems probable, Patience thought.
She'd heard the word 'north' spoken by a trooper in horse-lines. And a farrier
cursing over the lack of replacement shoes for Voss until Boquillas del Carmen.
So… probable. She
gently wrapped the strip of paper around Webster's leg — there were tiny soft bones in it — then
looked in the covers for the piece of string she'd had ready to fasten the
message on. She found the string on her pillow… and found also that she'd
changed her mind. "Why,"
she said to the Mailman, "should we make my so-old Cousin Louis look wise
in Map-McAllen? Why let him interfere with my camp's campaigning? Though it
would serve a certain rude ruler right, who threatened to pull me off my horse
and hit me with a whip…. Still, what could be more foolish than helping foolish
Louis rise to Faculty, when he'll deny us credit?" Webster
watched her from the blanket. "
'Oh,' he'll say, 'I knew it before, that cavalry coming up.' His so-old wife
will agree. And you know, Webster, if Monroe's people lose severely in Texas,
there will soon be no North Map-Mexico. And with no North Map-Mexico, no need
for an ambassadress to it." Patience
unwrapped the note from the Mailman's leg, tucked the paper into her mouth,
chewed thoroughly, and swallowed. "Instead, let's adopt the Warm-time
attitude of wait-and-see." "'Wait
and see,'" Webster said, his voice thin as the piece of string, though he
had no idea what those words meant. He had suckled his white cheese too
greedily, and proved it by burping a mouthful up.
*
* *
Howell
Voss, having restrung the banjar with true cat-gut — two silver pesos a coil, shipped from
Imperial Trading & Market in Cabo — leaned back on his cot and played a
tuning chord, Warm-time G. Or so it was assumed. He'd long had the suspicion
that ancient tuning was slightly different from the present's — different
enough so the music said to have been theirs, notated as theirs in surviving
copy-works, now probably sounded somewhat off. He
twisted his pegs, plucked... twisted his pegs again, and was in modern tune at
least. He'd
just taken a singing-breath, when someone scratched at his tent-flap. "I
heard you tuning," Ned Flores said, stooping to come in out of gathering
darkness. He wore an ice-spangled army blanket as poncho, and was pale as a
weary girl. "— Thought I'd better interrupt before the camp
suffered." "You
might remember that wasn't your sword hand you lost." "No."
Flores dropped the blanket, gently kicked open a folding camp chair, and sat.
"But you wouldn't duel an officer for an act of mercy." Voss
sighed and set the banjar down. "Truly refined taste is so rare.... And
how is that wound? Should you be up and walking?" "Well,
after five days in a mercy wagon with a fresh-sewn stump, I'm glad to be up. As
for this," holding out a thickly bandaged left wrist, " — not, by the
way, as comic as your fresh-trimmed ear — I'm told I can have something made,
and strapped on." "What
something?" "Your
Portia says, a hook." "The
doctor's not 'my Portia.' But I think a hook would do." The sleet was
rattling, coming down harder. "I've
been considering tempered steel, Howell, forged from knife stock a flat inch
and a quarter wide by a quarter inch thick — in-curving to a wicked fish-hook
point. And, and its outer edge filed and sharpened." "The
whole outside curve of the hook?" "Hollow
ground to a razor edge. Hook in, slash out." "Mountain
Jesus. You'll have to be careful with that thing, Ned." "Others...
will have to be careful of it. I don't suppose you intend to share any tobacco.
You're getting damned rude, Howell — or should I say 'General'?" "A
curtsy will do." Howell dug in a trouser pocket, tossed a half-plug over.
"Don't take it all. That's Finest." Ned
bit off a chew. "Oh, of course it is; it only smells like dog shit.
Who sells you this stuff?" He tossed the remainder back. "Maurice." "Maurice,
the Thief of Reynosa?" "He
was acquitted. And that was about mules; the store was not involved." Ned
tucked the chew into his cheek. "Remind me, Howell..." he leaned far
back in the camp chair, paged the tent-flap aside with his bandaged stump, and
spit over his shoulder out into the rain. "Remind me to play pickup sticks
with you again. For money." "Yes,
I will — and what the fuck happened at This'll Do?" "What's
the Warm-time for it? Got... 'too big for my britches.' " "Elvin
always gets that wrong." Howell bent to pick up the banjar. "Please
don't. I'm an invalid." "Healing
music." Howell commenced soft strumming. "So, what happened at
This'll Do?" Ned
shifted his chew. "Absolute dog shit.... Well, nothing as wonderful as the
Boca Chica thing, from what I hear. Our Sam standing aside to watch you
make an ass of yourself — which, by some
miracle, you did not." "Which
— by some miracle, Ned — I did not." Howell struck a chord, then lightly
muffled it with his fingers. Struck... muffled. Struck... muffled. "At
This'll Do, I thought.... Howell, I thought there was a very good chance to
beat those people." "You
did?" "And
I would have, if they'd had the usual old fart commanding them." "But
they didn't; I know. He gave us a hard time. Rodriguez, one of the new
ones." "So"
— Ned leaned back to spit again — "a lot of our people killed. All my
fault." "Ned..."
Howell plucked out a soft fandang rhythm. "What in the world were
you doing down there at all? And with only half a regiment of Lights? Why would
Sam send you? We could have waited for those people to come up, get into real
trouble." "Oh,
both of us thought it seemed a good idea." "At
the time." "Yes.
Seemed a good idea at the time." "Mmm...." "Change
of subject from my command blunders, Howell.... I'm interested in going up into
Texas with you. Map-Fort Stockton." "No." "No?" "If
you were four weeks better healed, Ned, you wouldn't have to ask. I'd have
asked for you." "I
can sit a horse." "Not
for a three-day ride north, and then a fight. You're not going." "I'm
not going...." "No,
you're not." "And
if Sam says I am?" "You're
not going." "Well...
play me a tune on that fucking thing, if you're going to sit there with
it." Howell
bent his head to the instrument, watched his large hands as if they were
another's, and picked out a swift, soft, twanging melody. "That's
not... not terribly offensive." Ned, grown paler, leaned back to spit the
chewing tobacco out. "'Camp
Ground Racers,' supposedly," Howell said. "But I doubt it." Ned
sat back with his eyes closed, listening. "Ned?" "I'm
not dead. Though I'm sure I look it." Howell
stopped playing, set his instrument aside. "Come use my cot. Lie down for
a while." "Tell
you something funny, Howell..." "Come
on, lie down." "Tell
you something funny." Eyes still closed. "I have — had — always assumed I'd be next in line.
Take command under Sam. Take command if anything happened to him. Always
assumed it would be me." "Ned
— " "And
of course, that very assumption demonstrated I would never be any such thing.
But I didn't see it." "Stop
the horseshit, and lie down." "I
don't know how it happened." Ned sat up, looked across the tent as if
there were distance there. "When Sam and I were kids, I led, more often
than not. Then, when we got older — when
the fighting started — I don't know how it happened. Just... after a while,
people were coming to Sam and saying, 'What now?' " "Ned
— " "They
asked him. They didn't ask me. And that fucking This'll Do thing
is beside the point. I've made damn few mistakes in seven, eight years
fighting. I've been a hell of a commander. Better than you, Howell, Light Cavalry
ranging." "That's
true." "It
wasn't that I made mistakes. It was just that people didn't come to me and say,
'What now?' " "Come
on." Howell got up, took Ned's good arm. "Come on. Lie down and get
some rest." Ned
stood, and staggered. "Lie down, or fall down. Not ready for Map-Fort
Stockton, after all...."
*
* *
Coming
back from john-trench in gusting sleet — and regretting he hadn't moved into
his rooms at the fort, after all — Sam heard music, banjar playing from Howell
Voss's tent on officers' row. Bright music; surprising how lightly those big
fingers strummed.... It was a temptation to walk over, sit laughing, listening
to sleety rain and music, while talking army. Three years ago, even two years
ago, he would have done it. But the distance of governing had grown between
them, or seemed to have, which made the same difference. Voices
over there. Ned; certainly off his cot too soon after wagoning in. —
Interesting that loneliness was never mentioned in the old tales of kings,
presidents, generals and heroes. Those men and women somehow told as sufficient
of themselves, and never, after crapping, walking alone under freezing rain. Going
down tent lines to the third set-up, his boots scuffing through ice-skimmed
puddles, Sam heard- another conversation — one-sided conversation, it sounded.
He scratched at the canvas flap. "May I enter?" "Oh,
Weather..." Unbuttoning canvas. Then the Boston girl's sleek head, white
face. "It's the leader of all!" It was difficult to find her pupils
in eyes so dark. The wind spattered her face with tiny flecks of ice. "A
freezing 'leader of all.'" "A
moment." More unbuttoning, then the flap drawn aside. "Ice-rain!" For
a moment, Sam saw no one who could have said it. Then the girl's little
creature moved down the tent-pole, opened its mouth, and said again, "Ice-rain!" It
was the first time Sam had seen the thing — known to all the camp, of course,
despite some effort to conceal it — as more than shadowy motion in its basket.
More, proved unpleasant. "Webster
loves ice-rain," Patience said, closing the entrance flap behind them.
"He loves what hawks hate." "But
you haven't sent him flying." Sam brushed meltwater off his cloak. "Not
yet." She stood, observing him. "Are you going to fight the Kipchaks
now, or wait? Fight seriously, I mean, not these little scootings back and
forth across the border." "Well...
I would prefer the little scootings back and forth." "Please
sit; my tent is your tent.... So, you are going to fight him seriously —
and would have to be allied with Middle Kingdom." Sam
lifted his sword's harness from his back, then shrugged his cloak off and laid
it along the tent's canvas floor. He sat on the girl's cot, the sword upright
before him, resting his folded hands on its pommel. "We're discussing the
possibility, Ambassadress." The
girl clapped her hands together. "It's going to be a war!" Couldn't
have seemed more pleased. "I
would appreciate it — the army would appreciate it — if you could delay a
report of that possibility. Delay it... three weeks? Four?" "And
why should I do that, Captain-General?" "Well,
you've already delayed sending your…?" "Mailman.
Webster is a Mailman." "Ah...
well, you haven't yet sent him to report our cavalry's preparations to go
north. And there was no disguising that from someone already in camp." Patience
stared at him, head slightly turned. Perfect pale little face. Perfect teeth.
"I haven't sent him — for my own reasons." "Then
might you also… pause, before reporting the possibility of a larger movement
to the Boston people in Map-McAllen? Again, for your own reasons." The
Boston girl smiled. It seemed to Sam to be a smile in layers, like a bridal
cake — but one baked in sweet and bitter layers. "You believe that pride is
my fault? Wishing to be ambassadress to greater and greater?" "I
hope so." "But,
milord, New England doesn't want you winning — you and that fierce Queen —
against the so-brilliant and, I believe, very handsome young Khan." No
smile now. "I
know. But New England — Boston — is going to be disappointed, and will have to
await a later occasion. If I live, and the Kingdom fights with us, Toghrul will
probably lose." "And
you say that — why?" "Because
he's certain of victory... and victory's never certain." Sam stood with
his sword in his hand, bent to pick up his cloak, and swung it to his
shoulders. "Also, the Khan enjoys war. I don't. His enjoyment is a
weakness." "I
see." "And,
in exchange for three or four weeks of silence — your little friend not flying
to Map-McAllen — you can come with our army to the River war, and see
everything. You can come and hover above the dying, like Lady Weather." "Mmmm..."
Patience thrust out her lower lip like a child. "You are a bad man, to
tempt me." Her
little monster toed the tent-pole where he clung, and called, "Weather." ...
Outside, in darkness, Sam trudged a
long diagonal of freezing mud behind the Boston girl's tent, over to the next
setup's small, canvased toilet trench. A Light Infantry corporal, one of
Margaret's Headquarters people, sat behind the screen, balanced on the
poop-pole and peering through a little gap in the rigged canvas. A great horned
owl, huge golden eyes furious under soaked feathers, shifted on his right wrist
with a soft jingle of jess-bells. The
corporal stood up. "Sir." "Sorry
to stick you with this duty, Barney. She probably won't be sending her creature
tonight. Probably won't be sending him at all." "If
she does, sir, Elliot'll hear it fly, and go kill it." The
owl, Elliot, hissed softly at its name, and fluffed its feathers. "Who
has the daytime, now?" "Elmer
Page, sir. Civilian. He's got a hunting red-tail." "Okay.
In the morning, tell Citizen Page that his help is much appreciated. — And
Corporal, remind him politely to keep silent about it." "Sir." Sam
walked down to the tent. Finding the entrance flap unbuttoned, he set it aside,
said, "May I?" and ducked in. "Milord."
Neckless Peter, in a hooded brown robe too big for him, stood up from behind a
small camp desk. "Sit,"
Sam said, set his sword against the tent's wall, and let his cloak fold to the
floor. "What are you reading?" "Please…"
The old man gestured to his cot. "I was writing, sir. A record... a memoir
of our doings." "Well..."
Sam sat on Peter's cot, and stretched to ease his back. "Well, if you're
troubling to do that, you may as well write the truth. No use wasting the work
on inaccuracies." "The
truth, sir. Yes." "Sit,
Peter. Sit. And let me thank you for the use of your toilet trench. An
inconvenience, but necessary." "I
understand. And the watchers have courteously stood aside for my necessities." "Still,
my thanks.... We're going to have a dinner, Peter, at the fort. In... oh, about
a glass. I'd like you to come over. Any guard will direct you to officers' mess
— one of those all too appropriate Warm-time names." "Yes,
sir." "Peter,
smile for me. You're not on the menu." The
little man smiled. "But perhaps your officers would prefer I not
come." "My
officers' preferences, I think, we can set aside in favor of good advice from
you. And, by the way, I won't permit questions about Toghrul Khan that might
offend your honor as his teacher." The
little man sat looking at Sam — a librarian's regard, as if Sam were a copybook
that might prove interesting. "There are… there are two things that
may prove useful, and that Toghrul would not mind my telling you." "Yes...?" "First,
I've seen that you and your people — officers and soldiers — are friends." "Not
always, Peter. But usually, yes." "Toghrul
Khan has no friends." "Mmm….
A disadvantage, when friends might be needed. An advantage, when friends might
be lost." "That's
so, of course, sir. And second, I believe you are sometimes afraid. The Khan,
however, is afraid of nothing and no one." "Now
that's very useful. Very much worth knowing." "Yes,
so it seemed to me." "Then..."
Sam bent to pick up his cloak, stood to fasten its catch at his throat.
"We'll see you at dinner?" The
old man got up from behind his desk. "Yes, milord." "'Sir.'
Or 'Sam,' if you prefer." "Sir." "And
bring an appetite, Peter. It'll be army food, but plenty." "I
will." "By
the way" — Sam paused at the tent's entrance — "since you're now in
our councils. I'm sending Howell Voss north, with all our cavalry assembled.
North into Texas. First, as a counterblow to the Khan's harassment across the
Bravo to the west.... And second, for a more important reason." "Heavens,"
Neckless Peter said — a perfect use of that wonderful old word. "A
'counterblow.' Toghrul will find that... interesting." "So
I hope," Sam said, set the tent-flap aside with his scab-barded sword, and
ducked out into sleet become snow.
*
* *
An
Entry — which, I suppose, must be
only a footnote to my history of North Map-Mexico and its Captain-General. In his
person, the young man represents his land and people so well that that alone
may be his guarantee of command. Young, strong — certainly ferocious, but
never, I think, wantonly, carelessly. A fierce shepherd of the mountain
shepherds' country. He
sat on the edge of my cot, and the light of my lamp went to him so he seemed
outlined, vibrating with energy to be released as, supposedly, did the internal
engines of wheel-cars on Warm-times' hard black roads. A
sturdy, broad-shouldered young man, sandy hair cropped short and shaved at his
neck — looking very much like a countryman come to a fair to wrestle for
prizes. A prosperous young countryman though marked by harsh weather, dressed
in good cloth, soft leathers, fine boots. His forearms thick as posts, his
large hands as fat with muscle as most men's fists. He
sat, elbows on his knees, and spoke to me — welcomed me, really, into his close
company. A closeness likely to cause me difficulties with Eric Lauder.... What
marked him commander? The light that seemed to go to him was surely only my
attention. So, his calm... yes. A readiness to act — certainly that; when he
wears his long sword, its grip hovers over his right shoulder like an odd
impatient demon, close enough to whisper in his ear. It seems
to me, considering, that the marker of his command lies in the great division,
a canyon's space, between the young man as plainly seen — intelligent,
forthright, absolutely capable — and the
infinitely subtle expression in his eyes. Eyes the color of those semiprecious
stones comprised of mixtures of light brown, light green, and light yellow,
seen sometimes in streams run down from the mountains of Map-California. In
his eyes was nothing forthright or simple, but rather complication, inquiry,
examination… and an odd affection — perhaps for me, perhaps for everyone. When
he left, I sat as one sits after reading an important copybook, of which only a
portion has been understood.
CHAPTER 12
"Get
that damn rat off the meat!" Elvin,
quick for a dying old man, picked up a roll and threw it down the table. It
missed Butler's dog — a yapping single-handful — and hit Sam as he was carving.
The mutton seemed tenderer than usual, and had little bits of pepper stuck in
it here and there. Oswald-cook grown enamored of southern spices, after cooking
a thousand dull kettles of Brunswick slumgul. "Don't
hurt my Poppy!" Phillip Butler wore ground-glass imperial spectacles held
to his eyes on thin, twisted wires that curled behind his ears. He looked over
the spectacles more often than through them. Short, gray-bearded, he seemed
more a children's tutor than a colonel of Heavy Infantry. Poppy
scurried down the table with a mutton scrap in tiny jaws, jumped a platter, and
leaped down into Butler's lap. "There, Candy-lamb," the colonel said,
looking still wearied by the five-day ride from Hermosillo Camp to
Better-Weather. "What's
this about Howell going up into Texas," he'd said to Sam that afternoon,
"and what nonsense are you up to, sir?" "Serious
nonsense, Phil." Sam stooped,
found the roll on the floor, then threw it back, sidearm. The brothers leaned
apart so the roll flew between them, and Sam went back to carving mutton —
cutting Ned's portion into small pieces, for one-handed eating. Oswald-cook had
put many little peppers in the meat.... Sam handed the loaded pewter
plates to Margaret to pass down the long, narrow table. They were eating in a
room of stone walls; ground floor in the fort, therefore no windows. Around
the table were all those close to him — except Portia-doctor, still with the
wounded at Clinic, and Charmian, already gone west to annoy the Khan's people
come over the border. Margaret
sat to his left, looking somewhat harried, preoccupied. Below her, Howell,
looming eye-patched over his plate. Then Phil Butler, then Ned, eating
one-handed and looking grim. The Rascob brothers at the end of the table, backs
to the iron stove — called a Franklin, after some Warm-time person. And up the
other side, Eric, who seemed annoyed, then Charles, then the little librarian,
shy and silent, on Sam's right. His
friends, and only family... though there'd been others through the years. From
the Sierra, and later. Paul Ortiz... Lucy... John Ott. All dead. Paul killed at
Tonichi. Lucy caught by imperials, raped, then burned to death tied to the
Jesus tree in the temple at Malpais. And John Ott lost for nothing, wasted for
what had seemed a useful notion. "I'm
glad I'm dying," Elvin said through his bandanna, as if he'd mind-read
Sam's thoughts. "Better death, than these fucking dinners with those
dogs!" Jaime
elbowed him. "Be quiet." "Don't
tell me to be quiet." Elvin, his plate arrived, settled to mutton and
potatoes, tucking forkfuls under a flap of bandanna to prove his good appetite. The
plates went round. Sam sliced and served, Margaret passed... and with thanks to
Lady Weather or Mountain Jesus by those who cared to give it, they ate spiced
mutton, broken potatoes with mutton gravy, and broccoli steamed with garlic.
They ate this main course quickly and in silence, from campaign habit... then
took second helpings for the same reason. Margaret
got up from the table-bench twice to go round, pour barley beer for them. She
bent beside Elvin to whisper in his ear. "You don't have to eat what you
don't want, Old Sweetheart." "Mind
your own business," Elvin said, then put down his knife and two-tine fork
— like all their mess silver, a spoil from God-Help-Us. "I've had enough.
Those little rats of Phil's have spoiled my appetite, running around the damn
table." "You
can have some custard, El," Jaime said. "You
have some fucking custard." ...
When — after the last of mutton, almost the last of potatoes and broccoli — the
custard bowl was passed with a cruet of honey, conversation came round with it. "Anything
at the races, Howell?" Charles and Howell both placed long-running wagers
on the races at El Sauz — though betting only with civilians. "I won on Barbershears, Charles. I'm sorry,
pigeon said Snowflake didn't show." "Surprise
me," Charles said. "Amaze me. A horse with three first
finishes — and for me, no show." Ned
was eating a dish of chicken-egg custard with his left wrist's bandaged stump
held carefully away from the table's edge. "Lesson, Charles — don't bet on
white horses. Does anybody here know of any white horse winning consistently?
There's something wrong with their bones… more white a horse has on his hide,
the more easily broken down." "Silver,"
the little librarian said, the first thing he'd said at dinner. "What?" "The
Warm-time horse," Neckless Peter said. "Hi-yo Silver was
extraordinary." "Oh….
Well, Warm-times." Ned poured honey on his dish. "Different
breeding." Sam
listened to horse talk for a while, then set his beer-jack down, pushed his
custard dish aside. "I'm sorry," he said, "to break the rule of
no war conversation at mess." There
were several small sounds of metal on oak, as knives and forks were put down.
The duller taps of horn spoons.... Margaret stood and went to the dining-room
door, by the weapons rack. "Empty
corridor," she said, "except for two of Charles' silent people on
guard. One dog. Louis." "Louis?" "The
dog, Sam. Name's Louis." "Okay....
What's said here, is not repeated." Sam waited for nods. "You all
know that Howell's going north into Map-Texas." "With
all the cavalry we've got." "That's
right, Ned. Picking up the divisions on his way. Every mount, every man and
woman." "And
if he loses those people? — Excuse me, Howell. But what if all those people are
lost?" "Then,
Ned," Sam said, "we go for a swim in Sewer Creek. So Howell is
ordered not to lose those people." "Takes
care of that," Howell said, and cut a small chew of tobacco. "
— Also Howell, when you reach Map-Fort Stockton, kill what fighting men you
can, of course, and any women who fight beside them, but otherwise, harm no
women or children." "That's
tender, Sam." Howell tucked the tobacco into his lower lip. "Tender….
But why?" "Because,
in the future, I want the Khan's troopers fighting only for him, not for their
families' lives." "Good
policy," the little librarian said, then closed his mouth when the others
looked at him. "But
bad policy" — Eric drummed his fingers on the table — "bad policy to have one here who was the
Khan's... and still may be." "My
Second-mother, Catania," Sam said, "found Neckless Peter to be a good
friend, and honest. Is there anyone now in North Map-Mexico with better
judgment in these matters?" Sam
waited through what Warm-time copybooks called 'a pregnant pause.' A small gray
moth, alive past its season, fluttered at a hanging lamp. "...
None I know of," Eric said. "Librarian, I apologize." "Unnecessary,"
Neckless Peter said. "A chief of intelligence should act the part." "Okay.
Charles, any problem with the staging of remounts — any problem with payments, with moving the
herds up the line?" "Lots
of problems, Sam. Lots of angry ranchers. But your horses will be there,
Howell." "Eric?" "Sam,
fodder's already wagoned and waiting. Hay and grain at Ocampo and La Babia.
Rations, horseshoes, spare tack, sheepskin blankets for the horses. Sheepskin
mitts, cloaks, overboots, and sleep-sacks for the troopers. Ten of Portia's
people mounted to accompany with medical kits and horse stretchers." "All
costing an absolute fortune," Charles said. "And
only the first expense, Charles." "Meaning
what, Sam?" "Meaning
that Howell and the cavalry are not coming back south.... Meaning that during
the next two to three Warm-time weeks — presuming the Kipchaks intend nothing
serious west of the Bend — during the next two to three weeks, all the
army, all reserves, and selected militia companies, will gather to march
north over the border, up the Gulf coast into Map West-Louisiana, then north
again into Map-Arkansas and the Hills-Ozark." Sam
finished speaking into a silence that seemed deep as dark water. "….
My God Almighty." An oath from Jaime Rascob that would have called
for burning, a few decades before. Another
silence, then, until Phil Butler broke it. "About time." Butler had a
rusty voice. "If the Khan takes the Kingdom, we're next. There's no doubt
about that." One of his tiny dogs — not Poppy — climbed up onto his left
shoulder like a cat. "Yes," Eric said. "I suppose… about time.
But surely after the winter would be better." "After
the winter," Elvin Rascob said,
"with the Kipchaks already campaigned down that frozen river, Middle
Kingdom would be dead as me." "Right,"
Howell said. "He'll go up into Map-Missouri now, take a river port — and
as the Mississippi freezes, send his tumans down the ice. Split the
Kingdom, East-bank from West... and the whole thing will be in his hands." "And
then," Jaime said, "he'd come for us." Lamplight
seemed to waver slightly in Sam's sight, move to the rhythm of his heartbeat.
Relief... relief and a deep breath no one must see him draw. These men, and
Margaret, might have said, "No. No war. We won't have it unless we're
invaded. The army won't have it. The people won't have it!"... They might
have said so, knowing he would never stand, take his sword from the rack, and
walk out to gather loyal soldiers, order the hangman to stretch and grease his
ropes. "Once
in the Hills-Ozark," Sam said, "we'll threaten the Khan's lines of
supply and communication with Caravanserai, and with his ports on the Ocean
Pacific. Very long lines of supply. Everything for his army will have to
come through broken country just north of us." Sam picked up the carving
knife, stroked its edge across mutton bones on the serving platter. "He
will not be able to let that stand. He'll have to turn from the Kingdom's river
to strike us." Howell
nodded. "And when he turns..." "We
fight him, and hope Middle Kingdom strikes the rest of his army, in the north,
at the same time." "Their
armies are supposed to be good enough," Ned said, "and if, as we hear
from Eric, those warships are truly capable, skating around on the ice..." "My
people have reported on those ships, Ned. And what they report is so." "No
offense meant, Eric. But we would be depending on those people. What's
the guarantee of their fighting hard enough in the north to tie down half the
Khan's army?" "As
yet — none." Sam tapped the carving knife's point on his plate. A soft
ringing sound. "But it makes good sense for them to do it. Together, we'd
have the Kipchaks in a toothed spring-trap, with jaws even Toghrul might not be
able to break." "If
you can persuade the Boxcars — and then, as Ned says, depend on
them." Eric smiled. "And they've always been slow at war. Strong, but
slow. Two armies, Left- and Right-bank —
always kept separate — and the Fleet, and the river lords,
don't make for quick response." "Ah..."
Butler stroked a dog. "But if Middle Kingdom will move, we can play
kickball with him. Toghrul campaigns north to the river, is heavily engaged —
then has to turn south to us, while hoping the rest of his army still holds in
the north. We've given him two chances to lose." "Yes,"
Sam said. "The Kingdom to his front, and us coming up his ass right across
his lines of supply. We'll see how Kipchak tumans enjoy campaigning with
enemies north and south of them. We'll see how they enjoy fighting us in
hills and forest, our kind of country. And they'll have to fight us, or
winter-starve." Sam examined lamplight gleaming down the carving knife's
blade. "Which reminds me; our dear Catania said there were likely still
the old Trappers, though only a few, in North Map-Texas. Perhaps, Eric, if you
sent a person riding far north now, to ask in her name and mine, they might
sled down to interfere with those supply lines here and there. Teach the
Kipchaks lessons in deep-snow fighting." "That
can be done." "All
very nice," Ned said, "if Lord Winter and Lady Weather cooperate.
Nice, if everything goes perfectly." "Almost
perfectly will do, Ned." Sam put
the carving knife down. "I know no other way to beat him." "He
could withdraw early," Howell said. "Take his losses… plan to deal
with us next year. And after that, go back to the Kingdom." "He
could," Sam said, "if his pride can bear a thousand-mile retreat, his
tribesmen swallow it. And after that, he'd find us and Middle Kingdom firmly
allied, and the more ready to deal with him.... Truth is, the Khan has made a
mistake. He's sent a small force against us, thinking we'll be concerned about
our border, and will only deal with that — for instance, by return-raiding up
to Map-Fort Stockton — while he passes us by in his campaign against the
Kingdom. I don't think it will occur to Toghrul that Map-Fort Stockton might be
only cover for positioning Howell's cavalry to screen our army as it
moves north past the Gulf and up through Map-Louisiana and Map-Arkansas." "That
is nice." Ned blew gently on his bandaged stump, as if to cool
it." "So
I hope," Sam said. "The Khan's made a serious mistake, but I doubt
he'll make another. Our time against him is now... or never." Consideration
to that was given in silence around the table. It seemed to Sam to have become
an evening of silences. "I
agree," Jaime said, and Elvin grunted behind his bandanna. "Yes,"
Ned said. "We go for the son of a bitch." "Keeping
in mind," Howell said, "that if the Boxcars aren't with us, don't
fight in the north — then we are fucked, and the Kipchaks will chase us all the
way to Map-Mexico City." "Phil?" Butler
sighed, and bent to set a dog on the floor. "Seems an opportunity to me,
Sam. Man spreads his legs — your pardon, Margaret — why not kick him in the
nuts?" "Still"
— Charles shook his head — "still... organizing this in a matter of days.
And paying for winter campaigning, Sam. The whole army, for Nailed
Jesus' sake!" "I
know, Charles. I know. But we couldn't prepare properly for war without the
Khan knowing it. It's important he feels free to move east to invade the
Kingdom, commit most of his forces to it." "And
will our soldiers appreciate this short notice, Sam, when they're freezing,
starving in winter hills?" "What
they will appreciate, Charles, will be those supplies that you and Eric see
come up to them, at whatever cost." "And
if — even supplied, even aided by the Boxcars — the army loses this war?" "...
Then, Charles, I suppose some young officer will gather new cavalry —
draft-horse cavalry, wind-broken cavalry — and skirmish over the foothills
while new infantry gathers in the Sierra." Sam smiled. "Old-man
infantry, young-boy infantry, girl infantry, thief-and-bandit infantry. And our
people will raid out of those mountains, and suffer the Kipchaks' raids, while
the Khan Toghrul grows old and dies. And while his son lives, and his son's
son, until finally a weakling rules at Caravanserai, and the Khanate breaks
apart. Then, our people will come down from the mountains, and make North
Map-Mexico again." The
evening's fourth silence. "Well..."
Charles stared down at his plate, as if the future might be read in mutton
bones and remnant potato. "It will mean no relief of taxes. Not for
years." "And,
speaking of taxes," Sam said, "any pigeon from Sonora?" "The
tax thing?" Lauder made a note with charcoal pencil on a fold of paper. "What
tax thing?" Howell said. "None
of the army's business," Charles said. "Well,
that's rude." Howell shifted his tobacco chew, leaned to spit into his
saucer. "He's
right," Sam said. "A civil matter. The governer had been encouraged,
by his friends, to withhold payment of taxes to Better-Weather." "An
uncivil matter, as it happens," Charles said. "There was... some
opposition." "How
bad?" "Four
of Klaus Munk's reeve men were killed at Neal's home, day before yesterday. His
vaqueros fought for him." "And?" "Munk
arrested Neal, is bringing him to court with three of his men." "And?" "He'll
be found guilty by Magistrate Caminillo, and sentenced to death." "The
vaqueros?" Ned said. "Will
also be sentenced to death, Ned." Charles glanced at Sam. "We can't
have cow-herds killing law officers." "Just,"
Sam said, "as we can't have people not paying their taxes. You did well,
Charles. Sorry I had to give you the job." Eric
reached over, patted Charles's arm — an unusual gesture for a man who didn't
care to touch or be touched. "My sort of work." "No,
Eric," Sam said. "It had to be a civil matter, and straightforward. —
Make certain the matter's finished, Charles. See that Magistrate Caminillo
understands, no mercy." "Who
the hell is Caminillo?" Howell said. "I don't even know the
name." "He
was a hide dealer," Charles said. "Elected judgment-man in Nogales,
then Ciudad Juarez. The old governer, Cohen, suggested him for magistrate.
Called him honest, and no coward." "Duels
before he robed?" Howell smiled. "Probably fewer than Cohen's." "None,
actually," Charles said. "I believe Caminillo was challenged twice
for his judgments, but refused to duel. Sought those men out, and beat them
with a ball-stick. He's quite highly regarded out there." "Well
and good," Sam said — a very old copybook phrase. "But see he does
what has to be done." "I
said I'll do it." Disapproval,
and anger. Sam let it be. Losing an old friend to these necessities. But
it's only fair — been losing myself to them for some time. "One
thing's sure, Sam," Eric said. "You've made an enemy of the
governer." "There's
something surer than that. Governer Stewart has made an enemy of me." For
a few moments, there was no sound but the stove's fire dying. No fear.
Please don't let me find fear in my friends' faces.... "...
Jaime," Elvin said, "pass me some of that custard. What in the world
did Oswald-cook put in the mutton? Tasted like fucking pepper soup!" "Sam,"
— Howell spit tobacco juice onto his saucer — "Map-Louisiana and
Map-Arkansas are both Boxcar states." "Howell,"
Margaret said, beside him, "where's your spit-cup?" "I've
put civilization behind me, Trade-honey.... Sam, we'll be crossing the
Kingdom's territory most of the way north." "Yes
— but with the Kipchaks already striking to their river up in Map-Missouri, I
don't think the Boxcars will mind. I think they'll be pleased to see our army
coming." "And
if they mind, Sam?" Sam
smiled. "Tough titty." It was one of Warm-time's oldest military
sayings. "More
beer, anyone?" Margaret lifted the clay pitcher. "There's
not enough beer for this," Ned said, and the others smiled. Sam
felt the tautness in the room slacken. There was a turn at the table, a turn
from worry to work to be done. There was also — he'd felt it many times before
— an odd feeling of relief from the others. They'd been commanded, commanded to
a grave but reasonable risk, and there seemed to be subtle enjoyment in that
for them…. For them, not for their commander. "So,
Sam," Phil Butler said, "who does what?" "Howell
leaves day after tomorrow, picks up the cavalry as he goes. Elvin and Jaime
order the army assembled — with the regular militia companies of
Coahuila and Nuevo Leon. You two are in charge until the forces are brought
together here at Better-Weather.... Phil, once that's done, you command the
army's movement north, taking Portia-doctor and the medical people. Charmian
and the western militias will still be busy playing games with those Kipchak
units come down west of the Bend. She and her light infantry will be the last
to join you." "Join
you," Ned said, "if she isn't enjoying herself too much." "Ned,
you'll be well enough by then to scrape together what few mounts Howell hasn't
taken. You'll command rear-guard cavalry scout as the army moves north." "Alright,
Sam. And once we're in Map-Arkansas?" "Howell
should already have come east from Map-Fort Stockton, brought the main body of
cavalry there to join you." Sam paused a moment. "... And in the
Hills-Ozark, Howell commands the army. You, Ned — and Phil and Charmian — serve
under him." "Howell,
Sam?" Phil Butler said.
"Not you?" "I...
will be visiting the Kingdom." The
fifth silence. Sam supposed Charles would be first to break it. "No!
Absolutely not!" Charles hit the table with his fist. "Sam... they'll
cut your throat for you, no matter the Queen knew dear Catania, no matter she knew
you when you were a baby. I'm the one who should go." "Queen
Joan won't cut my throat." "If
she doesn't," Ned said, "the generals and river lords will." "And
cook and eat you, besides." Jaime shook his head. "It's
the Queen," Eric said, "who wants this meeting. Asked for it." "Don't
do it, Sam." Ned cradled the stump of his wrist. "You're not fucking
immortal, no matter what you think. They'll kill you — or keep you under stone
until you rot." "They
might want to, Ned, but they won't. They need us." "They
may not need us, Sam. They can fight the Khan and maybe beat him without
us. And New England will help them." "A
point," Eric said. "Sam, our Light Cavalryman has a point. I doubt if
the West-bank generals or East-bank generals —
let alone two or three hundred river lords — consider us ideal
allies." "Perhaps
not ideal, Eric. Still, it can't be comfortable for the Kingdom with the Khan
to the west, savages and tribesmen north, and New England breeding
Mountain-Jesus-knows-what to the east." "True...
and, of course, we also need them." "Yes,
we do, unless we want to face the Kipchaks alone once Middle Kingdom goes down
— and then have to conduct a fighting retreat south through the mountains,
where the Empire's army will certainly be waiting for us." Neckless
Peter cleared his throat. "I believe New England will not help the
Boxcar Kingdom. I felt so when they sent the girl, Patience. New England wants
them to lose. Wants us to lose." "Us?"
Eric smiled. "Eric,"
Sam said, "that's enough." "Boston
wants the Kipchaks winning?" Ned looked better with impatient color in his
face. "Horseshit, old man. That would leave the Khan ruling all the
civilized river-country!" "Yes,
Colonel. But the Khan isn't civilized, and his people aren't civilized.
He orders, and they obey. They have no Warm-time law. No law but his
word." "You
might ask the governor of Sonora about laws and words and obedience,
Librarian." Charles took a sip of beer. "Charles,"
Sam said. Certainly a friend beginning to be lost. "That's almost
the same, but only almost. If the state reeve had refused to arrest, if the
magistrate now refuses to convict, I'll have to come to some
accommodation." No
answer from Charles Ketch. "To
hell with Stewart and Sonora," Ned said. "Eric — this visit to Middle
Kingdom. This was your idea?" "The
Queen's idea, Ned," Sam said. "And she wouldn't want the visit just
to toss me in the river. She's looking for what help we can give them." "Looking
for more than that," Charles said. "More?"
Howell spit into his saucer. "There's
a bride-groom question." Eric smiled. "Her daughter." "Wedding
bells with the Princess Rachel?"
Ned grinned and thumped his wrist-stump on the table. "Ow! Weather
damn this thing!" "An
engagement, perhaps," Sam said. "I doubt the Queen really intends a wedding." "Look,
Sam," Howell said, "your plan makes good sense. But that will make no
difference if Middle Kingdom doesn't agree, doesn't care to listen to you. The
Boxcars don't like our holding the Gulf's west coast. They don't like us
freeing serfs that run south. They don't like North Map-Mexico having an army,
and especially not a good army. And they don't like you ruling down here
with no dots on your face." "Still,
the Queen needs us." "And
afterward, Sam, if she no longer needs us?" "By
that time, the Princess Rachel and I may be engaged — if a serious engagement was ever intended.
It's likely a notion of the Queen's to keep the river lords unbalanced." "Right,"
Eric said. Neckless
Peter said, "Probably." "And
it's possible" — Sam smiled — "that the Queen will grow fond of
me." "Oh,
how not, boy?" Elvin said through his bandanna. "And you such
a charmer!" He found a strip of mutton fat on his brother's plate, and
threw it down the table. Missed Sam, and hit Margaret on her shirt's shoulder. "That's
my fucking red southern-cotton!" She kicked her bench back and jumped up.
"If you weren't dying, Elvin, I'd kill you. I've got to get warm water on
this." She went out into the hall. "Louis, get down." "But
Sam," Charles said, "engaged? Is it necessary?" "I
think it's going to be." "Nailed
Jesus." Jaime picked up a fork, toyed with it. "Nailed Jesus, Sam.
Engaged… then married into those people?" "Cannibals."
Ned rested his wrist stump on the table. "Used
to be cannibals, Ned." "Sam,"
Howell said, "you talk of the Princess and the Queen. But the river lords,
the generals, the admirals of the Fleet — will they 'grow fond' of you?" "Perhaps
they'll learn to seem so.... And, another matter. Phil, forgive me, but the
Boston girl goes north with the army." "You're
joking." "No,
Phil, I'm not. A price of her silence, her not at least trying to inform
Map-McAllen that you're coming over the border." "Sam,"
Eric being patient, "her silence could have been assured otherwise. And
her little flying-thing gone the same way." "Eric,
I think we have enough on our plate without murdering Boston's ambassador, and
her pet." "As
I understand it," Neckless Peter said, "New England would likely
regret the Mailman as much as the lady. The creatures are very expensive." "There
you are, Eric — both too expensive to murder." "I
hope, Sam, they won't prove too expensive kept alive." "A
concern for another day. So, Phil, arrange a small guard detachment for her,
see to her comfort and supplies. And apparently she's a killing lady; watch
that that scimitar doesn't get her into more trouble than she can get out
of." Butler
took off his imperial spectacles, polished them with a linen napkin, "This
must be punishment for sin." "Punishment
for bringing those damn dogs to dinner," Elvin said. "Have we more
business here? I have to pee." "Louis,
get down...." Margaret came in
from the hall. "And let me tell another old dog that he's very lucky that
stain seemed to come out. I hope it came out." She settled onto her bench. "I
wasn't throwing at you." "Elvin,"
Jaime said, "just be quiet." "Don't
tell me to be quiet. — Baja." "What?" "Jaime,
Baja militia should be ready to move east with Sonora's, if Charmian has
trouble with those Kipchaks come down." "I
think Charmian and Chihuahua can handle them. But alright; we'll pigeon Oso.
Tell him to stop fucking his sheep and get his people assembled." "What
about New England?" Howell spit into his saucer again, winked at
Margaret. "As
I said" — Neckless Peter no longer so shy — "Boston wishes the
Kingdom defeated." "And
why would New England want the Khan to win, Librarian?" Ned took a swallow
of beer. "How does that help them?" "They
want it, Colonel, because the Kipchaks are a fragile force — " "Right.
Only thirty, forty thousand cavalry." "Still
fragile, Ned," Sam said, "in time. The Khan will die someday, and his
son, or his successor, is unlikely to be as formidable. But their Khan is all
the Kipchaks have. Without Toghrul, or another like him, they're only separate
tribes of shepherds and raiders." "That's
true enough." Howell bent to spit in his saucer again, but Margaret
reached over and snatched it away. "Well, for Weather's sake! Women in
trousers… never a good thing —
oof!" "Now,
children," Phil said. "She
has an elbow like an ax! — Give me the damn dish." "Spit
in your fucking pocket," Margaret said. "A
brute with tits." "You
two finished?" Sam said. "... I think Peter's right, and New England
takes the long view. Middle Kingdom, if it survives, will certainly grow to
threaten Boston in time. The Kingdom is a book-civilization; formidable even
under weak rule. New England would certainly prefer, in the future, to deal
with the Kipchaks." Eric
nodded. "It does make sense that Boston would like to see us and Middle-Kingdom
go down. Also, considering the future, most of Map-East America is wooded,
close country. Some mountains also, apparently. Kipchak horsemen wouldn't be as
comfortable campaigning there." "And,"
Charles said, "whatever womb-things the New Englanders are mind-making are
likely to enjoy dark woods." "Can
we leave the future alone?" Elvin said. "Sam is going off to the
Kingdom — likely get his throat cut — and we're to kick the Khan in the ass.
Now, if there's nothing else, I need to get out of here, or piss under the
table!" Sam
smiled. "Only this: Charles holds here as administrator — with Eric, in
case one or two governers see a chance for independence with the army gone
north.... Eric, failure to produce supplies, or nonpayment of taxes, is to
be regarded as treason. Charles knows how I want such cases handled." "Understood." "Also,
Neckless Peter is to act as adviser to both of you. And is to be consulted on all
important matters." "…
Very well." "Okay.
Then there is no more business at mess. — I leave in two days, and I'll want a
written plan of action from each of you before I go. We'll work on supply and
reinforcement matters tonight… troop movements, dispositions, and objectives
tomorrow and tomorrow night." "Not
enough time." "Howell,
it will have to be enough time. I leave day after tomorrow." Sam shoved
his bench-seat back and stood. "Good dinner. Margaret, please thank
Oswald-cook. The little peppers in the meat were… interesting. I'll be leaving
for the coast; you'll be coming with me — and a small escort." "How
small, sir?" "Four
or five presentable men." "Not
enough, Sam." "Ned,
four or five are enough. I don't want the Boxcars to think I'm afraid of
them." "Still,"
Eric said, "not enough." "Sir,
you're a head of state!" "Yes,
Peter, I am. The head of a minor state, coming to make great demands on
Middle Kingdom for cooperation in war. I think going modestly will better serve
the purpose. — Margaret, only four or five presentable men come with us. Men
only, the Kingdom doesn't approve of women soldiers." "Margaret's
a woman soldier," Howell said — and was elbowed again. "Margaret,"
Sam said, "will be an exception, and a useful lesson to them." "You
don't want us going up with the army?" Jaime said. "Stupid
question," Elvin muttered through his bandanna. "No,
Jaime. You two don't go up. If this ends badly, take the people into the Sierra
and find a wiser Captain-General." Sam took his sword from the weapons
rack, and walked out. They heard him say, "Louis," then
murmured talk to the mastiff about behavior. "'Into
the Sierra.'" Howell made a face. "I can see myself, an old man
eating goat hooves and setting ambushes." "He
will not come back," Jaime said. "Shut
your mouth." Elvin, looking tired, sat with his eyes closed. "Perhaps
he'll come back," the little librarian said, "but not the same. A
Captain-General is one thing. A future king, is another."
* * * Neckless
Peter, carrying a lamp, was skirting frozen puddles to the tent lines when Eric
Lauder caught up with him. They walked side by side though gusts of bitter
wind, so Lauder had to lean close, raise his voice a little. "Your
opinion, Librarian?" "If
one thing goes wrong, all goes wrong." "Yes
— but if all goes right?" "Ah...
Then, it seems to me, Toghrul will be destroyed, and Middle Kingdom will have
our Captain-General for husband to their princess — and likely, heir to their
throne." "Then
to be our king, as well." "Yes." "And
should the Khan be destroyed — regrets?" "I
will have regrets. He was a wonderful boy. And his mind… you know the Empire's
fine-cut gems?" "Yes." "So,
Toghrul's mind." Peter
slipped a little on ice, and Lauder took his arm. "But this fine mind
seems interested only in war, conquests." "Of
course, to battle boredom — the cancer of all conquerors." "Not
our reluctant Sam." They'd come to Peter's tent. "No.
His sickness is sadness at what must be done." "Well..."
Eric patted the frosted shoulder of Peter's cloak. "Well, welcome to us,
Wisdom." Peter
called after as Lauder walked away. "And am I now trusted?" Eric
turned and smiled. "By all but me," he said, and went into the dark.
CHAPTER 13
Sam,
his farewells said in camp at Better-Weather — farewells only by-the-way in the
hustle and hurry of the army's business — rode along the frozen path to meet
Margaret and the others, come from south stables. They and the baggage waiting
on the road leading to Saltillo, then Montemorelos... and finally the port of
Carboneras on the Gulf Entire. Howell
already gone to La Babia to join the First Division of Cavalry, then move
north. Ned gone, too — west to gather what spavins were left, gather Charmian
and the Light Infantry as well — allowing any surviving squadrons of Kipchaks
there free rein to plunder and burn vacant farms and fields. Phil
Butler, circumferenced by little dogs — was that a correct use of the Warm-time
word, 'circumference'? Phil would be muttering in his tent, peering over
copy-maps many centuries old, showing ways to go to many places nowhere now.
His captains would be scratching at the tent-flap to ask questions, only to be
told he'd answer when he damn well pleased, and meanwhile, get out! The
brothers still the irascible center of it all; the gathering army's every
problem coming to them. And almost every problem solved.... Sam
was tired — sleepy, really. Last evening, he'd gone down for a hot-water bath
in the laundry at the fort, and found Ned there, submerged in the deep stone
tank, all but his bandaged stump. He'd held that up out of the steaming water….
They hadn't spoken of war or the campaign at all. Hadn't even mentioned it,
splashing, scrubbing with lye soap. They'd spoken of old sheep stealings,
recalled boyhood friends. Remembered, laughing, Catania coming up one morning
to north pasture, where they'd folded two fine stolen rams — Catania walking up
the mountain with a slender peeled pine branch in her hand. When she'd seen
them, higher, poised to run away, she'd called, "Stand still." And
they had. She'd walked up the slope to them, loosed their belts as they stood,
then yanked their sheepskin trousers down. And as they still stood, not moving,
not avoiding, she'd whipped them until their legs and asses were striped, and
bleeding here and there. "Steal,"
Catania'd said, tossing the pine branch aside, "steal — and pay the thieving bill." Then she'd
said, "In these times, those who are men find better things to do." That
night, sore and stiff-legged, they'd taken the rams back down the mountain to
Macleary's place — and the next day, went west to serve under Gary Jeunesse,
fighting the Empire's soldiers. Sam
and Ned had recalled and laughed… claimed scars still from the whipping. Ned's
mother had been long dead then, and it had seemed to Sam at the time that while
he might have run after the first few blows, Ned never would, so hungry for a
mother's attention, even though punishment. They'd
laughed, splashed, and not spoken of the war at all. Sam
— for some reason never at ease in fortress chambers — had dried, dressed, went out the postern
gate, and trudged over frozen mud to his tent, finding Margaret there amid
possibles, garments, and a large cedar chest. "What's
this?" "A
clothes chest." "We'll
leave it. Duffels will do." "Sir
— Sam, you're going to a kingdom, a queen's court! They'll expect you to look
like a Captain-General. It will hurt us if you look otherwise." "No." "Why?
We have gold and silver, jewels and jeweled weapons. We're not savages." "Why?
Because, Margaret, they will have more gold, more silver, more and finer
jewelry, furs, and velvets. If we try to meet them on that field, we will seem
savages." "Alright….
Alright. What do you want me to pack? Just tell me and I'll do it." "Don't
be angry." "Sam,
I'm not angry. What do you want me to pack? I don't give a damn how I look
before those ladies." "We
pack as if for campaigning. New woolens, warm and clean. Good cloaks, ponchos.
Best-quality leathers and good boots. Plain fine-steel weapons, plain
fine-steel armor — showing signs of use." "Going
too far the other way...." "Yes,
it would be, so I'll take one set of rich cloak-and-clothes for ceremony, and
each of us will also wear a ring from the treasury — one of the imperials' we
took at God-Help-Us. Gold, with a considerable stone." "So,
at least something." "And
a matching bracelet for you." Margaret
gave Sam a wife-look. "And that's to bribe me to silence about appearing
in Middle Kingdom looking like a file of lost troopers?" "That's
right. Margaret, it's our army standing behind us that they'll see. We dress to
remind them of that army." "Well,
I'm not going to argue with you. I'm tired of arguing." She dropped the
chest's lid closed with a thump. "Good.
Finish packing, then go to Charles' people and wrestle that treasury jewelry
from their grip. They'll want a signed receipt." "They'll
want several receipts." Margaret
gone unsatisfied, Sam had lain on his cot, holding a vodka flask for company —
and found, oddly, that even holding it helped. He'd
tried to sleep, but only planned dispositions in Map-Arkansas. On the border,
really, between North Map-Arkansas and Map-Missouri. He'd seen, as he lay
there, how quickly the Khan was certain to act when he realized what they'd
done. Toghrul wouldn't hesitate, wouldn't consider — he'd turn back from
Kingdom's river and attack. There would be no delay. By
then, Howell must have brought the army up into place. In proper country
— steep, but not too steep, and wooded. There'd be barely time to prepare for
the blow.... Sam
had lain awake long glass-hours, the war's possible futures folding and
unfolding like one of the decorated screens the Empire's ladies were said to
love, colorful with signs, secrets, and portraits of their families and lovers
intertwined with painted flowers. He'd
risen before dawn in cold and darkness, set his flask aside, draped his cloak,
and strapped his sword on his back. Then walked icy ground to north stables and
the brute imperial charger from Boca Chica — Difficult. The stableman,
Corporal Brice, had tacked the big animal up — kneeing the horse's belly to
burp air out of him for the cinch — stood aside while Sam mounted, then reached
up to touch his knee. "Good luck, General." "Jake
— you people, the army, are my luck." …
Sam saw the camino from the ridge. Six people mounted, with four packhorses on
lead, were waiting at the roadside, their cloaks blowing in a cold wind. The
rising sun threw their shadows sideways. — As he'd seen the riders, they'd seen
him, and watched as he spurred down the slope. When
he trotted up, Margaret heeled her horse to meet him... seemed troubled. "Sir
— " "What
is it?" Sam said, then looked past her at the others. A lieutenant of
Light Cavalry, and three sergeants — one each, apparently, from Heavy Infantry,
Light Infantry, Heavy Cavalry. The army's four divisions represented…. There was
also a grinning civilian, very fat in a stained red-wool cloak, holding the
packhorses' lead. Undoubtedly one of Eric's dubious people, acting as cook,
hostler, strangler on occasion…. Sam
knew the lieutenant. And two of the sergeants. "Margaret,
what in the fuck did you think you were doing? I said, 'presentable'!" "Sir,
the brothers, and Eric, and Phil Butler — they all insisted." "They
ordered these men here?" "Yes,
sir, ordered them with you as escort." "I
gave you a different order, Margaret. And I want it obeyed." "...
Sam, I agree with them." He
reined Difficult past her. "You men get back to camp." The
young lieutenant of Light Cavalry saluted him. "Sir, wish we could, but
we've been promised hanging if we don't travel with you." The lieutenant, Pedro
Darry, was wearing a marten cloak as costly as a farm. Son of one of the
richest merchants in North Map-Mexico, handsome and spoiled, he'd ornamented
the Emperor's court in Mexico City while serving as a factor for his father,
before destroying two marriages and running one of the husbands through in a
duel. "I
see, promised hanging…. Then go back and be hanged, Lieutenant. And take
these other men with you." "Please,
sir — if we swear to be presentable?" Red-haired, green-eyed, and
slender, with a pale and elegant face, Darry smiled winningly while managing a
restless gray racer. "No,"
Sam said. The lieutenant, sent back north in disgrace, had managed to fight
three more duels in the last four years —
while on leave, so permitted though not approved of — and had killed all
three men, Pedro being not only a spoiled son of a bitch, but an accomplished
swordsman…. And, to do him justice, one of Ned Flores' favorite troop
commanders. "Sir,
if we swear word-of-honor? Otherwise, well… I'll have to resign my commission,
and these men desert, so we can follow after you." "Might
be useful, sir." Margaret, behind Sam — and meaning, of course, Darry's
skills at court as well as with the sword. His looks... his manner. Not the
sort of young man to be considered a back-country barbarian — as another young
North Mexican surely would be, ruler or not. And
it was possible that the three sergeants — professionally expressionless, and
sitting their saddles at attention — though not presentable, and
obviously chosen for ferocity, might also prove useful as visible reminders of
the army they represented…. Sam knew David Mays, a silent, squatly massive
Heavy Infantryman with a face like a fighting dog's, a man avoided even by those
considered dangerous themselves. Sam knew him, and Sergeant Henry Burke,
a tall, lank, hunch-shouldered Heavy Cavalryman. Burke was known for his savage
temper — and the ability, on a sufficient bet, to bend his knees, reach both
arms under a horse's belly, and lift the animal slightly off the ground…
holding it there for a count of five. Sam
didn't recognize the third sergeant — a Light Infantryman, lean and boyish, so
pale a blond his hair looked white, his eyes a very light gray. He carried a
longbow on his back, a short-sword on his belt. "Name?" "Wilkey,
sir. Company of Scouts." He
smiled at Sam, seemed perfectly relaxed and at ease, containing none of the
fury the other two sergeants carried locked within them — and for that reason,
was perhaps the most dangerous of the three. Sam
looked past him. " — And you?" The
fat man saluted badly, with a flourish. "Ansel Carey, milord. Cook,
hostler, rough-medic, and... what you will." 'What
you will' Sam supposed, included any necessary murders, though the man wore no
weapons… Phil, Eric, and the others must have enjoyed choosing these guards and
companions. A dandy and duelist, three dangerous sergeants, and a servant with
certain skills. And, of course, Margaret Mosten. On consideration, a useful
party... though not perfectly presentable. "Darry..." "Sir?" "If
you cause any trouble in the Kingdom — any problems with women, any
embarrassment at all — you will wish to Lady Weather you hadn't." "Understood,
sir." "And
the same for you men! If trouble comes, it had better come to you, not from
you." "Sir." "Sir." "Sir." "Master
Carey?" "Hear
an' obey, milord." "
'Sir' will do." Sam hauled Difficult's head around, and spurred the
charger down the road and into its customary punishing trot. Four days, at
least, to the Gulf Entire, with a boat pigeoned to wait for them. Then, a
two-day crossing to the mouth of Kingdom River... and what welcome the Kingdom
chose.
* * *
It
was odd to ride where no mountains rose in the distance… oddly calming,
dreamlike, as if riding might continue forever. Howell
turned in his saddle, as he'd done before, to confirm that more than four
thousand cavalry rode behind him, raising no dust on the prairie's frozen grass
and ground. Carlo Petersen at the front of First Brigade, with his trumpeter
and the banner-bearer — the great flag restless in the breeze, its black
scorpion threatening on a field of gold… though scorpions were deep-south
creatures. The only scorpion Howell'd seen had been in a glass bottle, looking
furious. Petersen,
then the banner, then three brigades coming after, side by side in long, long
columns of ten — regiments broken into squadrons, then troops, then companies.
Light horse, Heavies, and militia troops as well. The horse-archer companies
deployed Warm-time miles east and west. And deployed the same distance behind
them. But
ahead, only two scouts rode, nearly out of sight in high, frost-killed grass,
and out of sight completely when they rode down the other sides of long soft
swells of land. Howell
would have preferred no scouts before him, nothing but distance with no
stopping place, no purpose but going. After
almost four days over the border, guided by an iron-needle compass and two
ancient Warm-time copy-maps — an Exxon (mysterious word) and half a BP
(mysterious initials) — they were
fifteen, perhaps twenty miles south of Fort Stockton. He could, of course,
choose to ride wide around it, lead on north and north to the Wall. Perhaps
ride up onto the ice itself — there must be canyons, melt-slopes that horses
could manage. Then all four thousand and more might ride over endless ice to
the turning tip of the world, until they slowed… and slowed… and the horses
froze, the riders were frozen fast in their saddles. An army of steel and ice —
shining in sunlight or coated in blizzard white — that could not harm or be
harmed, could not lose or win. In
nearly four days riding north in absolute command, a command that might end
with the destruction of all the army's cavalry, Howell had begun to learn the
lessons he'd seen traced on Sam Monroe's face. Sadness, and necessity. All
these people following behind the banner, behind Howell Voss — sole commander,
and responsible. It
took much of the pleasure out of war. Not, of course, all the pleasure. He
heard grass-muffled hoofbeats coming up behind him. A cuirassier drew up on his
right, hard-reining a big bay. "From Colonel Petersen, sir." Howell
recognized the man, but couldn't remember his name — then did. "You're one
of the Jays — Terrence." "Yes,
sir." The corporal pleased as a child to be recognized. How was it
possible not to take advantage of the innocence of soldiers? Jay
wrestled his bay to keep it close. "Sir, the colonel suggests holding the
column here. Cold camp." "Cold
camp, yes, Corporal — but not here. Tell Colonel Petersen" — as new a
colonel as Howell was a general — "tell him I've changed my mind, decided
to move closer. Tell him I want to be able to take the Kipchaks in darkness, a
glass before dawn. They're horse archers; no need to give them good
shooting-light." Corporal
Jay hesitated, digesting his message. "In the dark before dawn. Yes,
sir." As
he started to rein away, Howell said, "And be easy with your mount,
Trooper. Later, you'll want all the go he's got." "Yes,
sir." The corporal, carefully slack-reined, cantered away back to the
Heavy's column, and Howell noticed some chaff rising where the big horse went.
I want a light snow — very light, but enough to weight this dead
grass. A prayer, he supposed, but asked of what Great? Lord Jesus? — still,
the shepherds thought, hanging spiked to a pinon pine somewhere in North
Map-Mexico's mountains. The shepherds, and the bandits there, thought he might
be found someday and rescued, taken down and brought to Portia-doctor for
healing.... In the Sierra, they used to think Catania-doctor could certainly
heal Mountain Jesus when he was found — and the man or woman who found him made
Ice-melter in reward, and ruler of a new-warmed world. No
use now, though, for a new-made general — come north into enemy country — to
pray to Lord Jesus, fastened in early Warm-times to his pinon and left there
asking why, and saying, 'Please not.' Portia...
Portia. If we were together now, and some savage stuck a blade point in my only
eye — or a piece of this dry chaff was blown into it — you would have a blind
oaf stumbling after you, mumbling love, and asking where his cup might be,
since there was still some chocolate in it. A burden added to a thousand others
wearing you away. Sam
might have earned you, might be sufficient. No one else. …What
Great, then, to send us a very light snow? Lady Weather? The Kipchaks' Blue Sky
brought snow or clearing, but undependably. Some savages worshiped one of the
old All-makers, a Great too busy doing — and often doing badly — to listen to
any prayer. And the white-skin tribesmen up by the ice-wall, their red-skin
shamans and chiefs, called to the Rain-bird for weather they wanted, which
seemed to make as much sense as any. Howell
closed his eye as he rode, picturing the Rain-bird in his mind. He saw it
flying. Not big as a mountain — only large as a small lake, green and blue as
that same lake in Daughter Summer. Its wings rising and falling, all wind and
breezes blown from those wings…. They
camped at sunset. Cold camp. But though there'd been no snow, neither had
Kipchak horsemen — though four had been met — escaped to warn Map-Fort
Stockton. Howell
walked the high-grass swales in failing light, his boots crunching, breaking
dead stems. He chewed mutton jerky and talked with the troopers — all of them
cheery, all apparently pleased to be in the Khan's country, and readying for
battle.... Howell joked with them, especially with the women — the lean Lights
in their fine mail and leather, smiling, girlish, some sharpening their curved
sabers with spit-stones, and the fewer bulky older women serving in the
Heavies, ponderous in cuirass, with long, scabbarded straight sabers, and
helmets hinged with neck and face guards. The perfect images of war, but for
cooing altos as they groomed their big horses. Howell
chewed the last of the jerky as he walked the lines. He found Carlo Petersen
sitting in deep grass, playing checkers with his captain, Feldman. "Not
for money, sir," Petersen said, as he and the captain stood. In the army,
only equal ranks could play for money, horses, or land. All could play for
sheep. "Who
do you have out, Carlo?" "Same
as the march screen, sir. But rested." "Send
riders to them. Remind them they're to avoid the enemy tonight, as before, but
kill any they can't avoid or take prisoner. No Kipchak is to ride out
from Fort Stockton, then back to it." "Still
retire before force, though?" "Yes,
still retire before company strength or more. Send a galloper, and fall back on
us." "Yes,
sir. Billy, see to it." "Yes,
sir," the captain said, saluted, and trotted away, acorn helmet under his
arm, mail hauberk jingling. "We
hit them in the morning, dark, and no trumpets?" "Yes.
I know, Carlo, that there'll be some confusion, even going in brigades-in-line.
But the Kipchaks will be even more confused. I don't want whatever garrison is
there, to have the chance to hold fortifications or buildings against us. I
want them surprised and scattered.... I'll be with Second Brigade. Make
certain, certain that your officers know to keep contact with our people
to their right and left — no gaps, darkness or not." "Not
easy." Howell
said nothing, and Petersen grinned. "Okay, I'll remind 'em. — Do we take
prisoners? Major Clay supposed not." "We'll
take no fighters prisoner, Carlo, but if your troopers catch a coward — or wise
man — running, then that's a Kipchak I'd like to speak with. And remember, by
Sam's order, women and children are not to be harmed in any way." "Yes,
sir. And you'll be with the Second." "Right.
First Brigade's yours, Carlo. I'll be trying to hold Reese back." Petersen
laughed. Willard Reese was more than forty years old — a moody man, cautious as
an infantryman before he was engaged, then almost insanely aggressive.
Fighting, the man foamed at the mouth. Howell
returned Petersen's salute — Sam was right, the saluting had certainly set in —
and walked on in the last of sunset light. The western horizon was colored rich
as a deep-south orange, though the air was weighty with Lord Winter's early
cold. He
kicked through dead grass, wishing Ned were commanding at least the First
Brigade's Light Cavalry. Not that Carlo Petersen wasn't a fine officer, and a
driver. Only he lacked that instinct (wonderful Warm-time word) that told an
officer — not that something had gone wrong — but that something was about to
go wrong. Ned
had that — or used to, before This'll Do. And Sheba Tate, Third Brigade, had
it. No need, this evening, to find Major Tate on the right flank, advise
her.... A
group of horse archers called to Howell as he walked past. "There he is —
a general!" they called, and laughed, delighted as he gave them the
so-ancient finger. A tribal sign, but one all people seemed to know. Valuable
men… and only men, those troopers. No women could draw longbows on horseback,
the six-foot bows looking so odd and awkward with their long upper arms and
short, deep-curved lowers. Valuable men, who could outshoot even the Khan's
cavalry — once they'd spent a young lifetime learning to work their longbows at
a gallop — shooting fast to either side or to the back, over the horses'
cruppers. If he had more of them, if they didn't take years to train... If Ned
had had more than two files of archers with him in the south, they might at
least have covered his retreat. Howell
found a place as night came down, thick frost-killed grass in a fold between
slight rises, with no tethered horses, no murmuring soldiers. It
was cold and growing colder, Lord Winter strolling down from the Wall.... It
was supposed to be hot in summer, deep south in the Empire — hot enough in
those weeks to burn and kill a man lost under the sun. Probably true,
considering the Warm-time vegetables they grew with no warming beds, no
flat-glass frames… but still difficult to imagine. Howell
decided to sleep for only three sand-glass hours. He'd wake then, though no one
tapped his shoulder. The little librarian, Neckless Peter, claimed these hours
were not quite the old Warm-time hours. Perhaps… perhaps not, though twelve of
them still made a day, though a dark day in winter. What did the poem say? Winter,
that turns in snow like a tiger. Howell
spread his wool cloak on brittle grass… Phil had seen one of those snow tigers.
'Big as a pony,' he'd said, 'all yellow and black so he looked on fire.' A
tiger in the reed brakes along the Bravo, likely come down hunting wild spotted
cattle. Something to see. Howell
unbuckled his scabbarded long-sword, drew it, then lay down with the blade
beside him and gathered the cloak around them both. A one-eyed soldier, and his
cold, slender, sharp-tongued wife.
* * *
Sam
had seen the Gulf many times before — had seen the wide Pacific Sea as well —
but never lost his wonder at such lovely water, that seemed to beg traveling
over. Lovely even now, gray, rough, hummed across by an icy wind.... As a boy,
he'd dreamed of sailing in a fishing schooner across the Pacific, sailing to
islands with sweet Warm-time names… sailing on and on, living his life over
water. Coming to his death there, finally. His
Second-mother, Catania, had told him of the great wind-sailors of Warm-times,
that she'd read of in Or the White Whale. And the great machine-engine
sailors, later. The Queen Elizabeth… the Harry Truman. Perhaps
from those stories, from that imagining, great water had always been a pleasure
to him, though he'd never been out for more than a few sand-glasses in small
boats.... It had occurred to him, the last few years, that small coastal navies
— east on the Gulf and west on the ocean
— might be a means to secure North Map-Mexico's water rights. Might be a means
to transport troops north and south as well. Not
a subject to bring up at Queen Joan's
court. But a temptation. The Kipchaks had conquered a long western coast — a
coast vulnerable to attacks by sea. Horsemen who'd come by riding across from
Map-Siberia to the Alaskan ice, the Kipchaks used curses and charms to protect
themselves from open water, running water. Thought them full of devils. No
question that navies, even small navies, were a temptation.... What if he
mentioned to merchants, to fishermen at Carboneras — and across the country at
La Paz — that some ship-won plunder might become legal plunder? That flags of
Warm-time piracy might become flags of profit if taken from the Kipchaks' coast
of Map-California in the west... if taken from the Empire's coast, south, along
the Gulf. With, of course, government paid its share and fee for licensing such
ventures, shares that might lesson reliance on taxes raised by reluctant
governers. It
was a notion.... "Dust,"
Margaret said. Young
Sergeant Wilkey called, "Dust." A
troop of welcome was riding out of Carboneras. Fifteen, twenty people, their
mounts raising dry-sand dust, even in the cold. Sam knew who, without seeing
them. The mayor. Town councillors. District militia commander — that would be
Ed Pell, very competent, a harsh disciplinarian who had, perhaps, too many
close relatives serving in the militia companies. The local garrison commander
would be Major Allen Chavez, an older man who didn't care much for Ed Pell. Pigeons,
of course, had had to come so a boat would be held for them. But pigeons would
have flown in any case. It had proven a great annoyance that pigeons flew to warn
of his coming on every occasion, no matter what he ordered to the contrary. An
annoyance to set beside many others. "It'll
be the mayor," Margaret said. "Mark Danilo. And local city people,
couple of their wives. Ed Pell will be with them; his cousins, too. And Major
Allen Chavez and his officers. Trooper escort." "Right,"
Sam said. "Let's ride to meet them and get this over with, then down to
the docks. I want to be on the water well before evening." "Boat's
the Cormorant," Margaret said.... It took a while to reach the Cormorant,
though Sam — by refusing to rein in
— forced his welcome to be one of conversation moving at the trot. They rode
past people lining narrow streets of low adobe houses... past occasional taller
mansions of red and yellow brick, where men, women, and little children stood
by wrought-iron gates, calling out, applauding in the old style. Pigeons had
certainly flown — and as certainly flown to New Orleans as well, then up
Kingdom River to its ruler's island. A
crowd, and more applause, at El Centra. A priest of Edgewater Jesus stood off
to the side, watching with two of the Weather's ladies. Sam
reined Difficult slowly through the people to them, swung down from the saddle,
bowed, then took their hands in turn and bowed again. Great applause, and a
smile on the oldest Weather-lady's pale, crumpled face, framed in her purple
hood.... Purple, Sam supposed, for storm clouds. It hadn't occurred to him
before. Remounted,
he moved steadily along. Flowers sailed through the air, little red summer
flowers from some magnate's glass-windowed garden. The expense that must be.... What
was that wonderful line from a poem or acted-play? — translated from the Beautiful Language in one
of the Empire's copybooks, though it had seemed perfectly at home in
book-English: 'Is it not passing brave to be a king, and ride in triumph
through Persepolis?' Passing
brave — as long as there were flowers thrown, not stones, not crossbow
quarrels. And those, important flowers in this province, little messengers that
no hard feelings remained over the dead at This'll Do. Once
out of the market square, Ed Pell wished to speak privately. Margaret, not Sam,
regretted there wasn't time — reducing Pell slightly, as intended, and pleasing
Major Chavez and his officers, also as intended. ...
The caravan of welcome turned away at last by the dock gates, Sam and the
others rode out on echoing tarred planking over shallow gray Gulf-water flecked
with small shards of floating ice. A beamy fishing schooner lay waiting one
dock-finger over, and they dismounted and led their horses to it. A
large two-masted boat, painted a near-midnight color, the Cormorant's name
was painted along its bow, the last letter becoming a black eye over a black
beak. As they led their horses to the ramp, a gull, silver-white with dark wing
tips, sailed by and shit neatly as it went. An
elderly man with a large nose and red woolen cap appeared above them at the
rail, turned his head, and called hoarsely, "Cap — it's the big
cheese!" "You
watch your fucking mouth!" Margaret called up to him, and the old sailor
smiled down, toothless, and blew her a kiss.
CHAPTER 14
The
Lily Chamber of Large Audience was a single great room — a room and a wooden building, all of itself.
The chamber, quite lovely, was painted in lily colors of white and gold, and
had a wide hearth on each of its four sides. The huge logs that burned beneath
those brick chimneys had been wheeled and dragged five hundred Warm-time miles
from the mountains of Map-Arizona. And still, it seemed to Toghrul Khan, gave
less heat in commencing winter than the fat little metal stove in any yurt. The
room was cold enough to keep cut meat sound… but the four fires did give warmth
to the chamber's painted ivories and golds, and so an impression of comfort. The
odors of much of the audience — sweat, smeared sheep fat, and mare's-milk
fartings — made an unpleasant counterpoint. The
audience subject for today — traditionally a Please-and-Thank-You, with wishes
that Blue Sky turn trouble away — was not, however, lightning, grazing land,
floodwater, or sheep scrapie, the tribesmen's traditional concerns. The subject
today was salary… payment... wages. There
had been, over the past few years, more and more interest by the fighting men
in money — as opposed to gifts of flocks, horse herds, honors. Razumov had
noticed it early, and warned it would increase. "A penalty of
civilization, lord, and reward of conquest. The old ways now being seen as
'old ways.'" Sadly
true — and having to be dealt with by such audiences as this, in which little
bags of silver coin, minted in Map-Oakland, were handed out to officers whose
only interest should be in service to their lord. There was no question how the
old Khan, his father, would have dealt with these more and more frequent
requests for currency. He would have picked an officer past his prime, and
ordered silver spikes driven into his skull, as a lesson on the perils of
greed. It
was in the midst of distribution — a rank of rewarded men bowing over their
clutched little bags of metal before him, while he smiled and smiled (the
watching crowd hissing in approval) —
that Toghrul became aware of a disturbance at the doors. Two
men had pushed in past the guards, then immediately had fallen to their hands
and knees and begun the long crawl down the center aisle toward his cushioned
dais. An excess of debasement, and a very bad sign. The
rank of officers glanced behind them at the crawlers, bowed once more, and got
out of the way. No
more hissing approvals. Only silence. Toghrul
waited while the two fools came toward him, baby fashion, crawling more slowly
the closer they came. Watching them, copybook Achilles-and-the-Tortoise
occurred to him. He
waited, then beckoned them on to finally rest before him, still on hands and knees.
They'd come dirty from long riding. He knew one — a minor officer of supply,
with Ikbal Crusan's tuman. The other was just a soldier. "Great,
Great Lord — " The officer of supply. Serious
trouble, if it required two 'greats' as introduction. Toghrul sat silent. His
father would have approved. "Map-Fort
Stockton… O Khan, live forever." The sweating officer was Kipchak, the
steppe still in his face. Toghrul
waited. "The...
the North Map-Mexicans have come up and destroyed it, lord!" Ah,
a fact at last, though likely faulty. Murmurs in the Lily Chamber. "And
with what forces did they accomplish this?" More
groveling. Both men had their faces on the carpet. "It seemed… three or
four thousand riders, lord. Heavy and Light. They came from southeast, in the dark
before morning." Listening,
a flush — an absolute flush of pleasure, of amusement — rose in Toghrul so he
couldn't help smiling, then chuckling at such a surprise, a blow struck as
clever as one of his own! An interesting event, and at last an interesting
enemy. The joys of complications arising…. "So,
I'm to understand that this Captain-General, this Small-Sam Monroe, seeing us
striking to the south — west of the border Bend — has taken the opportunity to
strike north at us from east of it!" Silence
from the grovelers... well, a little nod from the officer. A nod into the
carpet. "And
the place is destroyed?" "Yes,
lord." The Nodder. "Burned and destroyed and all the men
killed." "Only
the men?" "I
believe only the men, lord — the seven or eight hundred left behind as guards,
herdsmen, and storekeepers." A pause. "I believe the women and
children were spared." "You
believe, or you saw?" "I
saw... a little." "And
you — soldier — what did you see?" But
the soldier seemed to have seen nothing, and only burrowed into the carpet, his
ass in the air. "The
horses?" The
Nodder murmured, "Gone, lord." "Almost
two thousand — four herds of fine horses gone, taken? Driven away?" A
nod. There were strands of drool on the carpet. "But
you weren't killed… and you were mounted?" A
nod, but a reluctant nod. "Why
then didn't you send... this one... with the report? Why not, yourself, have
followed those clever thieves, made certain of their route of retreat? Then you
might have become a wind ghost, cut throats in the night to unsettle them, and
so secured at least a little of my honor." "I...
lord, I didn't think." "You
didn't? Your head was at fault for not thinking?" Barely
a nod. "Well
then, your head's proved of little use to you. You'll do much better without
it." Toghrul lifted his right hand, made a little spilling motion — and
four guardsmen, two from each side of the dais, jumped down on the Nodder like
swineherds on a shoat, and bound his hands behind him. They lifted him up, and
trotted away with him down the chamber's aisle while the officers, chiefs, and
important men of audience fell aside as if the pops were carried there in rot
and puss and buboes. The Nodder made no sound, going, seemed almost asleep with
terror. The
soldier remained silent on the carpet. "Soldier..." Toghrul waited patiently until a grimy,
teary face rose from warp-and-weft. "Soldier, your Khan would never punish
a man for obeying his officer's orders, even if the officer has proved a fool
and coward. Go then, and report to the commander of the camp for rest, rations,
and honorable assignment." The
teary face, astonished, then turned to a lover's, looked up rich with affection
and gratitude. There was a subdued murmur of approval at such generous and
lordly justice. The
soldier, turning, began to crawl aside, but Toghrul smiled, gestured him up
onto his feet, and waved him away into the rest of his life. There
was an odor of urine; the carpet would have to be cleaned. There was no denying
blood. Thought
on a throne was well enough; thought in a summer garden well enough. Thought on
a cushion couch with a dear wife by one's side, also well enough. — But none
the equal, for a Kipchak, of horseback consideration. Consideration, this
sunny, clear, and cold afternoon, of the morning's information: the surprising
counterstroke from North Map-Mexico. A counterstroke absolutely Monroe's in
conception, though Razumov's people — and an after-the-fact pigeon from the
Boston creatures in Map-McAllen — suggested the immediate commander was Colonel
(now General) Voss, apparently a very competent officer. Banjar player, also,
according to Old Peter's farewell report. Monroe, it seemed, had gone to Middle
Kingdom. Toghrul
whipped his stallion's withers, lifting Lively to a lope out into Texas prairie
endless as an ocean. A frozen ocean now, brown and yellow with frost-burned
grass. He rode as if he flew as New Englanders sometimes flew, and smiled again
at what Monroe had managed. Very much — oh, very much what he might have
done himself. An enemy, a thief, puts his head into a yurt's entrance,
intending mischief. What better response, what more humorous response, than to
wriggle under the yurt's fabric at the back, circle round, and kick the fellow
in the ass? So,
the Captain-General apparently possessed imagination, and certainly a sense of
humor. He also now possessed two thousand fine horses, which would remount his
cavalry handsomely, and likely help pay the expenses of the expedition. Well
done, and more than worth killing him for. Worth killing Voss and many of his
people, too, for laughing, as they must be, at a Khan's discomfiture. But how
sad that the only interesting person in the West must be done away with.... Toghrul
reined Lively to the left to avoid a deep runoff ditch half-hidden in the
grass. A trace of short summer's melt. ...
And of course, the North Mexicans would not go into Blue Sky alone. There were
others, a troublesome few of a ruler's own, that in time must join them. Manu
Ek-Tam, that so-brilliant young officer. And two or three of his dear friends.
All brilliant young officers, perfect at everything but keeping silent. Was
there any spy or agent so effective as kumiss in revealing disloyalty, arrogant
ambition? Disrespect? So,
the treacherous cut their throats with their own tongues. And
the Uighur tuman, of course. Foolish, grumbling tribesmen, needing to be worn
away by enemy lances — as, in the past, the Cuman and Kirghiz had been. So, an
army of many differences, many purposes, was shaped and whittled into an army
with one purpose only. Obedience. But
was any great man ever brought down except by those closest to him? The
generals, the ministers, the great of Caravanserai with their velvet tents,
musicians, women, and fuck boys — it had been many months since one of these
was peeled and stuck on a stake". — Now see the result of forbearance.
Murmurs, judgments made, requirements of the Khan's wife that she
produce a boy. Expectations
impudent in themselves. The
sheriff of the camps was just such an impertinent man. Who, after all, would
miss him? Who miss the lesson he presented, perched screeching on a stake? All
so tedious. Was it impossible men could be ruled by reason? Old copybooks
claimed, improbably, it had been done — by which they certainly meant not by
reason at all, but greed, and its parceled fulfillments.... Sul
Niluk, a Guardsman galloping a hundred Warm-time yards away, whistled and
pointed. Toghrul saw movement ahead at the side of a slight rise, a stirring
through the grasses' tall ruined stems. Jack
the rabbit. And up and away he bounded, already mottling snowy into his winter
coat. Toghrul, spurring from a canter to the gallop, lifted his left arm so his
hawk's jesses jingled. Reaching over, he tugged the bird's yellow velvet hood
away and launched him into the air. The
prairie hawk spiraled high, saw the rabbit going, and slid after it as if the
air were ice. Toghrul pulled Lively in to watch. Jack
the rabbit jinked swiftly here and there, going away. Not even wings could
carve those sudden angles after him, and the hawk didn't attempt it. It flew,
it sailed straight to a place just past the runner — suddenly stooped, and
struck as Jack came fleeing to it, sure as if there'd been an appointment. The
rabbit screamed — Toghrul had heard two children screaming just so at Map-Sacramento,
when his father took it. He'd been no older than the children, but much safer,
sitting on his pony in the midst of the Guard. The children had been put into
fires, held there with spears while they blistered and shrieked, burning. The
old Khan hadn't been cruel, only very practical, and people frightened by
frightful things were easier to manage. A sort of applied reason, after
all. Sul
Niluk rode on to bend from the saddle and lift the hawk hissing from its prey,
a tuft of fur already bleeding in its beak. Sul bent down again, picked up the
rabbit as well, tucked it in his saddle-bag, then rode back to bring Toghrul
his hawk. ...
And by winter's end, with the campaign against Middle Kingdom completed, then,
in just such a way as the hawk's — as
Monroe defended his border with quick and clever little strokes and dodges — in
just such a way the tumans would sail over the grasslands to meet him where,
sooner or later, he was certain to go. When
that was accomplished, of course, the world would become a little less
interesting.
* * *
Well-balanced,
her laced, low boots as firmly planted as flooring brushed with oil allowed,
Martha grunted with the apparent effort of an ax-swing that was not. Master Butter
accepted it for fact, raised a swift sword-parry against it — and was, by
surprise, backstroked across the face with her ax's heavy handle. He
staggered away, calling, "Wonderful!" in a goose's honk, since she'd
broken his nose. Martha
came after him fast, mimed a finishing stroke across his belly, then set her ax
aside, said, "Oh, poor Sir," and went to him with her yellow
handkerchief to stop the bleeding. Master
Butter set his sword into the rack, pinched and tugged at the bridge of his
snub nose to painfully straighten it, and said, "Owww!" Then
he took her handkerchief and held it to his nostrils. "No one has had as
much blood out of me in months — and that was a West-bank captain quick as a
cat." "I'm
sorry." "You
would be sorry, if you hadn't so correctly followed to kill me. Never,
never let an opponent recover, whether in duel or war. If someone is worth
fighting with fist and foot, they're worth kicking unconscious. If they're
worth fighting with sharp steel, they're worth killing. Always fight to
finish." "Yes,
sir." "I
think now 'Butter-boy' will do. It was a hurtful nickname — you know those
Warm-time words, 'nick-name'?" "Yes." "Sit
down... sit on the bench; I'll get some vodka. Practice is over today; I'm
bleeding like a pig." The handkerchief to his nose, he went to the table,
picked up a blue-glazed bottle, pulled its stopper, took several long swallows,
then brought it back and sat beside her. "I have no cups; I apologize....
Well, I took the nick-name they'd used to hurt me, and made it my True-name. Master
Butter-boy. One deals with insults as one deals with any opponent who
possesses a long and punishing reach. You close as soon as possible, grapple
him to you — then use the knife." He took another long drink from his blue
bottle, then offered it to her. "No,
thank you. Is your nose alright?" "It'll
be alright, Martha. A good lesson, though, for both of us. Should only the
mildest corrective injury be required, the nose is as good a thing to strike as
any other. In a more serious case, involving weapons, you will keep in mind
that a person struck hard on the nose is blinded for an instant" "'Blinded
for an instant….'" "Yes."
Master Butter took another swallow. "After which, of course, more will
have to be done. Never strike a first blow without having prepared a
second. Each stroke, each slash, is an introduction for the next... and I am
ruining your handkerchief." "It
will wash." "I
hope it will." Master Butter sighed, then took the cloth away and examined
it. "And how do you go on in court, Martha?" "Oh...
I mind my own business." "Well,
that may do for a year or so, but not forever. You're with the Queen day and
night; that's too close for some lords' comfort… some generals' comfort, too.
And what makes great men — and women — uncomfortable, is sooner or later set
aside." "The
Queen will keep me safe," Martha said, "as I will keep her safe, for
certain." "
'For certain.' " Master Butter threw his head back and laughed. "You are
young." Then he said, "By the way, a very good time to reach over
and cut someone's throat — while they're laughing." "Yes,
sir." "For
certain..." Master Butter sighed, and took a deep drink from his blue
bottle. "Still, properly said. Our Queen is a wonder, but wonders may grow
careless. You may not. Particularly not with this war to the west, since
it has certainly occurred to the horse savages that our Queen presents an
obstacle." "I
won't be careless." "See
to it.... So, you two deal well enough together — must, for good guarding. And
the Queen's daughter?" He handed over the vodka bottle. "I
like Princess Rachel. I don't know if she likes me or not, but she's
kind." Martha held the vodka bottle, but didn't drink. Her father had
given her tastes of potato vodka, but she hadn't liked it. "Sons
and daughters, daughters and sons." Master Butter took his bottle back,
displayed it. "Map-Louisiana work. Enamel-ware." He sipped, set it
down on the floor beside him, then sat silent for a long while, looking at
Martha, blinking slowly like a wood owl. Martha
sat, her fine new ax resting across her lap, its head's blade bright as
silvered glass and sharp enough to shave down from her forearm. The head's
spike, on the reverse, was a slightly curved claw, coming to a needle's point.
The Queen's own Weapon-smith had made it, and engraved an ancient Warm-time
saying on the side of the ax's steel. Deadlier than the male. "...
My father," Master Butter said after a while, "was Lawrence, Baron
Memphis, which does make me a 'sir,' by courtesy. Sir Edward. He was Memphis,
but not a brute... would eat no talking meat." Master Butter was silent
for a time, seemed distracted in liquor. Then
he said, "My brother, Terry, the present baron, loved our father and still
honors his memory. My brother was not squatly fat, heard no voices,
had no falling fits — and has no great talent for killing, either. He
sends me an allowance, and, of course, as one of Island's household, I have my
servant, my rooms, my place in the hall at meals. No one treats me with
disrespect. Those who aren't afraid, are sorry for me.... I mention this, as
I'm considering you for a friend." "I
see...." "
— Not, I hasten to add, a lover. I have whores for the one thing, and have
given my Forever-love to another." He took the handkerchief away, examined
blood spots on it, then pressed it against his nostrils again. "My love,
comic as it must seem to those few who know of it, is for Her Majesty alone. So
it has been from the moment I stood beside my father on the pier of Silver
Gate, and saw her first come ashore to Island beside Newton Second-Son — the
River rest His Majesty." He
blew his nose gently. "She was tall, looked like a beautiful bitch wolf,
and though frightened by the noise and crowds and newness, was too brave to
show it.... And a foolish fat boy, despised for his falling fits, saw her, lost
his heart, and never got it back." Martha
sat silent beside him. "This...
quiet of yours, is the reason I consider you for friendship, Martha. Knowing
that a friend would never repeat what I've just told you for commons' casual
amusement. Very few at court would dare laugh to my face — but many when my
back is turned." "I
won't tell anyone." "Thank
you.... And that was very nice work with the ax. Most forget an ax has a heavy
handle, and see only the blade and spike — as I did, to my shame. That stroke
was very nice, and followed quite properly by the belly cut." "But
your poor nose..." "Yes.
You've made a friend of me — but an enemy of my nose." Master Butter
laughed a goose's honk. "My dear, I think the Queen chose better than she
knew."
CHAPTER 15
Sam
had occasionally seen Kingdom warships at a distance, rigged for the Gulf's
summer wet and ponderously tacking offshore, great white seashells of sail taut
with wind — or their ranks of oars out, flashing yellow in sunlight. Banners
streaming from their masts. And
in winter, once, riding high along the coast with a file of troopers, he had
heard a great hissing, like some monstrous southern snake's — and seen one of
the Kingdom's great ships, driven before the wind, skating the Gulf's ice on
huge, bright steel runners. But
to have seen at a distance was not the same as seeing close when the Cormorant,
intercepted under a storm-darkened sky by a Kingdom cutter at the river's
mouth, was held rocking in the tide while a warship came drum-thundering,
oar-thrashing down upon them. "Nailed
Jesus," Margaret said, as it came. After
a shouted interchange over gusting breezes, they were invited to board by
clambering up the great ship's side on a dripping rope ladder, as it heaved and
rolled in the delta's swell. The ship's name was worked in bronze at its bow:
QS Naughty. Their
packs and baggage followed them, knotted to slender ropes — 'whips,' by the
orders given — and drawn up to the ship's deck by silent sailors, working
barefoot in the bitter wind. Heavier tackle was rigged, cable and belly bands,
to haul the kicking horses up one by one to the warship's deck, then to be
chivied into a large shelter of heavy canvas and taut-stretched cord, made in
moments. "Your
people, sir, to remain on this section of deck — and wander nowhere else."
A pleasant officer in Middle Kingdom's naval-gray cloak, jacket, and trousers —
and young, a boy no more than fourteen or so, his dark hair cropped short. A
blue dot tattooed on each cheek, a heavy curved knife at his belt, he swayed to
the ship's motion as Sam and his North Mexicans staggered. "My
men," Sam said, "and Master Carey, will stay where you put them, with
our packs and gear. They're to receive refreshment. My officers come with
me." "Sir,
the captain's orders — " "Belay
those orders, Fitz." A very small man strolled down the deck, stepping
without looking over fixtures, lashings, and coiled lines. This man — with hard
black eyes, a weather-creased face tattooed with three dots on one cheek, four
on the other — wore frosted silver moons
on his gray cloak's shoulder straps. "Captain."
The boy officer saluted himself away. "Milord."
The small captain bowed to Sam, raised his voice against the wind. "Ralph
Owen. I have the honor to command this Queen's ship. You are welcome aboard —
and your officers, of course, stay with you." Sam
saw the man's surprise, noticing Margaret Mosten. "A lady..." "It's
our custom." Sam smiled. "Captain Mosten has commanded light infantry
in several battles. Presently, she acts as my aide and executive." "Ah..." "And
I'll introduce Lieutenant Pedro Darry." Pedro
stepped forward, snapped to attention. "Captain Owen. A pleasure,
sir." "Darry…
Darry," the captain said, ushering Sam and the others down the
deck. "I believe I know the name." "My
father, Elmer, has been to Island twice, I think, sir. On business." "Oh,
yes," the captain said. "Heard him spoken of." "Admiral
Reynolds had become a friend, I believe, sir. And an associate in developing
larger milling saws." "Planks."
Captain Owen nodded, moving them along. "Planks and sawn members; that's
it. The admiral mentioned that to my brother some time ago." Margaret,
stepping around a large metal obstruction left on the deck for some naval
reason, raised an eyebrow at Sam as they went, at Pedro's already proving
useful. The
captain's cabin, arrived at through odors of sawn wood, paint, damp canvas, and
old sweat, was reached by a dim, narrow passage, then up a steep and even
narrower stair. Its door was guarded by a large soldier — a marine, Sam
supposed — in hoop armor enameled half-green, half-blue, from helmet to hip.
The marine struck the butt of a pole-ax on the deck, then stepped aside. Ushered
in by the captain — out of shadow into light — Sam saw a room painted all
white, fine as those described in Warm-time copybooks of sea travel, sea
fighting. Spacious enough, though low overhead under massive beams, with
crossed short-bladed sabers and two painted pictures on its side walls — one of
a fleet of ships on winter ice, the other a yellow boat in stormy waters. The
room was furnished with a woven blue carpet, a wide wood cabinet on the wall
across, and round-back chairs at a polished fir-wood table bolted to the deck. There
were six large, wonderfully clear pane-glass windows across the cabin's back
wall. Against two of them, big wooden machines, fitted with heavy windlasses
and long steel bows set horizontal, were drawn up and fastened to thick
ring-bolts with heavy rope and tackle. Past
these, Sam saw the river through the window glass; its current, surface
roughened by the wind, streaked dark and silver in cloud-shadowed light. The
cabin was a chamber fine enough — as the warship was massive and complex — to
put a provincial in his place. Sam had a moment's admiration for the Khan, for
the perfect confidence necessary to assault this Kingdom. The
small captain waited while an elderly sailor in gray shirt and gray trousers —
come silent through some trap or door —
took the visitors' unbuckled long-swords, sabers, and rapiers, and then
the cloaks to hang beside them on pegs along the near wall.
"Please..." Owen gestured to his beautiful table, and when they were
seated, took a chair across from them. Seated,
Sam thought, just in time, as the ship suddenly rolled steeply to the right...
then seemed to swing half-around, timbers groaning as they took the strain. "I
can offer you berry juice," the captain said, "imperial coffee, or
imperial chocolate. No vodka or barley whisk, I'm sorry to say. Queen's ships
carry no liquors." "Juice
would be appreciated," Sam said. "And my men?" "Are
being attended to, milord." "
'Sir' will do, Captain. I don't require 'milord'ing." "As
you wish… sir." Captain Owen smiled, and sat silent while the old sailor
padded in through what seemed a pantry door with four silver mugs on a fine
brass tray. He set the tray on the table, and handed the mugs round. To Sam
first, then — with only momentary
hesitation — to Margaret, then Darry, and his captain last. Sam
had heard that sailors toasted sitting, so he stayed put and only raised his
mug. "To the Queen." "To
the Queen." "The
Queen." The
juice was blackberry. Sam had tasted it before, but never served hot as coffee.
"... Wonderfully good." "You'll
be my guests at supper, of course. We'll have a two-day run up to Island,
milord — " "
'Sir.' " Sam smiled. "Sir.
Two days up to Island. The Fleet had
been noticed, some time ago, of the possibility of your coming, though
not how or when." "Events
determined," Sam said, "as they must in your Service." "Truer
words never," the small captain said, and looked as pleasant as a narrow
and ferocious face allowed. He reminded Sam of the champion Sonora jockey,
Monte Williams, a bane of Charlie Ketch's betting-luck. "The ship's
honored to receive you, sir, and you'll honor me by using my cabin." "No,
Captain Owen; I won't displace you on your own ship. But if other officers will
be kind enough to make room for us, it would be appreciated." "...
Of course, sir, if you prefer." The old
sailor came back from the pantry with a silver platter of what seemed to be
large honey cookies. "Do
try these," the captain said. "Peter claims to be a baker,
though some doubt it." "An'
haven't I baked goods for you since ever?" the old sailor said to him. "An'
taught you stem from stern when your nose was still runnin'?" He set
the platter firmly down, and padded out. "There
you have years of shipping together," Captain Owen said, "from when I
was a boy. And in battles and Gulf hurricanes. After such a time, you see
friendship has overcome discipline." "And
should in that case," Sam said, "or an officer's no officer." They
sat silent for a while, sipping steaming berry juice… Sleet came lancing across
the great stern windows, and as if discomfited by it, the ship seemed to swing
and swing away. Sam was glad to be sitting; he had a vision of himself
stumbling across the uncertain deck, perhaps vomiting, to sailors' amusement. And
having imagined that, he saw himself, Margaret, and Darry, as this veteran
little captain must see them… Three young people, Margaret the oldest, but
still three young people. Soldiers — scarred, though not by passing
years — and all wearing tanned-sheepskin tunics, brown woolen trousers, riding
boots, and hauberks of light chain-mail. Pedro
Darry, of course, also sporting his own gold hair-clips, gold broach, and
jeweled rings, leaving Sam and Margaret comparatively unadorned, though she'd
insisted on a wide silver and sapphire bracelet for Sam's sword arm — an
imperial piece, acquired from the duke's baggage at God-Help-Us — and a massive
signet ring as well, onyx scorpion on an oval of gold. Which
decorations, of course, might only add a certain barbarous air.... So, three
provincial soldiers sitting at the captain's table, young enough to be his
children — and ignorant as children, both of sea war and the complications of
Middle Kingdom. But still representing a land, a people, and a veteran army. The
captain would be making judgments, and likely others in Middle Kingdom would tend
to judge the same as he. So, if a certain simplicity was bound to seem obvious
to such people, then why not be simple — and certain. Let them grasp
directness, feel its edge. Sam
set the silver mug down; it slid a little on the tabletop with the ship's
motion. "I won't pretend not to be impressed, Captain. Impressed by this
ship, and the Kingdom it represents. You seem a formidable Service, the more so
since we have no experience of navies whatsoever. My people are mountain people
— though we've learned to fight where we have to." Captain
Owen put his own drink down. "Good of you to say, sir. And from what we
hear, your army fights very well on any field.... We also do well enough, and
are going to do better, patrol the Ocean Atlantic in force — as we now patrol
the Gulf and Carib Islands." "My
father," Lieutenant Darry said, "spoke of the great expense of the
Fleet, Captain." Owen
nodded. "And he was right. We are expensive. Good timber, imperial cotton
and manila for sails and rigging. Long-leaf tempered steel for the catapults
and mules." "And
of course, your people," Sam said. "Yes,
sir. The largest expense. Our rowers are serfs, but serfs must be fed, and well
fed, to row a warship. Our sailors have River Freedom of course, and must be
paid, as the marines are paid." "Furs
and hide," Margaret said. "Why
yes, lady — excuse me, Captain. Exactly; we can't winter-dress our
people only in woven wool. It soaks in spray and freezes. We use sealskin cloaks
when we can get them, other leathers when not. Those, usually oiled." "So,"
Sam said, "without supplies from Mexico City on the one hand, and Boston
on the other, your Fleet might find itself in difficulty." Owen
smiled. "That's absolutely right, sir. Of course, in that case, the
Empire's coastwise traffic in the Gulf, and New England's coastwise
traffic down Ocean Atlantic, might also find themselves in... difficulty." "Still,
you'd always need a year or two of supplies laid up." "We
would indeed," Captain Owen said, still smiling. "Try the
cookies." "I
already have, sir," Darry said, chewing. "Damn good." "Smart
soldier." A voice from behind
the pantry door. Darry
hesitated a moment, thrown off stride. "Very good cookies... It occurs to
me, Captain, that my father might be interested in providing your fleet with
sheepskins. We wear them in the army — warm, light, and well greased with the
animal's own fat." "Hmm...
But a sufficient number of those skins?" "Captain,"
Sam said, "we have many more sheep than people. Your supply vessels could
pick up the shipments from our Gulf coast. And, of course, that source would
lessen your fleet's dependence on New England's sealskin." Owen
nodded. "That's of interest, milord — sir. I'll mention it to my admiral. We
do lose a number of sailors to frostbite, and a sailor with fingers and toes
gone is no longer a sailor." The
ship suddenly heaved forward, then heaved again, so they swayed in their seats. "What's
that?" Margaret gripped the arms of her chair. "They're
rowing, Captain?" "Yes,
sir," Owen said, as the ship seemed to rise slightly and heave forward
again. "We've turned upriver and upwind. This is to the beat of
Lose-no-time. For the rowers' stroke speeds, there's Loiter, Keep-station,
Lose-no-time, Pursuit, and Battle-and-board." The
ship surged... surged... surged. Sam seemed to feel the great effort through
his bones — the rowers' strength straining at the long oars to drive forward
this monument of oak and fir, of supplies, gear, and tackle, of men and steel. "Captain,
how long can they do this work?" "Oh...
at this beat, sir, a glass-hour and a half, before relief. At Battle-and-board,
of course, a much shorter time." "And
years of service?" "Ten
years would be the usual, though there are men rowing who've been with her
for... fifteen, sixteen years. Of course, those started young." "Changes
with Lord Winter?" "Oh,
when we rig to skate, sir, rowers are transferred to the Carib, and coasts
south. No ice there." "And
if," Darry said, "or when, they break down in service, sir?" "Well,
Lieutenant... that depends on the original reason for assignment." The
captain took a cookie. "If they're indentured serfs, they're put to
lighter duty, longshore labor and so forth. That's routine for many of them in
any case, when the ice comes down. But if assignment was for a criminal or
treasonous matter, then, with the sentence no longer in abeyance, it's carried
out." "So,"
Margaret said, "a man may row your ships for fifteen years, and when he
can row no longer — " "Hanged.
Burned. Whatever his original sentence. It's hard, ma'am — sorry, Captain
— but the Fleet is a hard mistress, even for those who aren't serfs, and who
don't row. And the custom does insure that those who are criminals, lean into
their looms." "And,"
Sam said, "in the Ocean Atlantic?" "Ah...
in those waters, sir, we've found oars of little use. Water's too rough, waves
too high. Out there, a man must sail his ship." The captain
finished his cookie as Sam reached to try one. The
cookie was soft, crumbling, rich with honey... and something else.
"Spotted-cow butter, and what flower spice?" Margaret
took one and tasted. "Rosemary... ?" "Southern
sunflower seed!" From behind the
pantry door. "Ground fine!" Sam
raised his voice. "Delicious!" And received a possibly pleased grunt
in response. "Old
Peter," the captain said, "used to bake certain savages taken in
fights off Island Cuba. It was the beginning of his cookery." "Better
the cookies, sir," Margaret, chewing hers. "Yes….
That's becoming the general opinion. Though there are old captains who still
hold to celebration roasts on long voyages. I served under one, Jerry Newland.
'Old school,' as the copybooks say. Newland's father had filed teeth. Codger
came aboard once to visit... had a smile one remembered. Map-Louisiana
family." "It
seems," Sam said, "that the ships become villages to your people,
with village memories." "Oh,
that's exactly so, sir. They do become our worlds, so much that after months on
the water, particularly if there's been fighting — pirates always, of course,
and imperial ships from time to time, though those not officially —
" "We
meet them much the same, Captain. Fighting, sometimes very serious fighting,
but not war declared. Mexico City is... cautious." "Right,
sir. Absolutely. And after such cruises, it does often seem the land is less actual
than the river, gulf, or ocean, and home a poor substitute for a ship of
war." "Promotion?"
Margaret said. Owen
smiled. "Ah, Captain, the fundamental military question. Promotion is as always,
everywhere. Merit, to a point. Influence, to a point. And luck, above
all." He took another cookie, and called out, "This is a good batch,
Pete." "Not
speakin' to you." Muffled, from the pantry. The
captain grinned and ate his cookie. It
occurred to Sam that just this sort of man would be required to found coastal
fleets for North Map-Mexico. Now, having met Ralph Owen, he saw that fishermen
wouldn't do. Would do for corsairs, certainly, but not for naval
officers. That would require men like this one, persuaded somehow from the
Kingdom's service or the Emperor's.... It was something to consider. Captain
Owen leaned back in his chair. "I doubt if Admiral Reuven would garrote
me, sir, if I mentioned some news pigeoned in to New Orleans yesterday. Not Kingdom
news, after all." "Yes?" "I
understand you sent a force up into Texas, or so the Boston people at
Map-McAllen claim." "Yes." "You
may not have heard what has been reported." "We
haven't." "Ah.
Two days ago — this only by McAllen's pigeon, of course — your people are said
to have taken and burned Map-Fort Stockton." "Weather!"
Margaret said, and hit the tabletop
with her fist. "Took,
burned... killed many hundreds in the garrison, and, according to the McAllen
people — who, I suppose, can be trusted in this — came away driving well over a
thousand of the savages' remounts." "By
the Nailed Jesus!" Darry stood up, then sat down. "On
Kingdom River, Lieutenant," Owen said, "we thank Jesus Floating. He
rules here, as much as any Great can." "Sorry,
sir." "Oh,
no offense taken." "Losses,
Captain?" Sam saw Howell for a moment, trotting through the dust at Boca
Chica, holding a bandanna to his ear. "Apparently
too few, sir, to burden a pigeon with." "I'm
in your debt, Captain, for the pleasure of that news." Now, Howell
— ride east. And ride fast. "Courtesy
to a guest, sir." "And
news that is your Kingdom's news? If I may ask, how goes the fighting in
Map-Missouri?" "Oh,
the little I know would only bore you, sir." Captain Owen held out the
cookie platter. "Another?"
*
* *
Sam
woke to a change. The ship was moving differently… the rowers' rhythm slightly
slower, as if even effort must drowse so near the morning. There was slower
surging, a lower pitch to the groaning music of the ship's hull and fittings —
and less of that wallowing side to side that had almost sickened him at supper. He'd
gone to bed in the first-officer's cubby — more closet than room — and somewhat
stifled, had regretted the captain's cabin. Now, with the ship rolling only a
little, he could still reach out from the narrow, swinging cot to touch each
side wall, alternately. As he swayed one way, then the other, a hanging tin
lantern sent shadows after him — its little wick burning as his night-light
privilege, in a ship where any fire but the galley's was usually forbidden. Sam
lay awake for a while, then tossing aside his canvas cover — blankets
apparently considered softening influences in Kingdom's Fleet — swung his legs out,
managed a get-down rather than a fall-down, and staggered about the cubby,
dressing. Finally, bracing himself to buckle his sword's scabbard down his
back, he considered the unhandiness of long-swords in ships' close quarters. The
lamp blown out, the cubby's curtain — pulled open — brushed a heavy shoulder. Sergeant Mays,
standing at ease in full armor, dagger, and short-sword as the ship shifted,
turned his helmeted mastiff head and said, "Mornin', sir." "Morning,
Sergeant." Comforted by such formidable night-watch, Sam jostled down the
swaying corridor and climbed a dark ladder-stair to the next, the big
infantryman behind him. They managed down a slowly pitching passage to a
hatchway — and out into near dawn, and a
gentle freezing wind over a deck sheeted with ice. "Footin',
sir." Mays stepped close behind, hobnails crunching. Sam,
passing two sailors at the ship's great steering wheel, reached the right-side
— starboard — rail, got a grip, and the sergeant stood away. There were
serried small waves on the river — what
North Mexico fishermen called 'chop' — and swirls of dark current here and
there. Leaning over the rail's thick oak banister, Sam saw the two ranks of
long yellow oar-looms rise all together... pause... then dip like birds' beaks
into wind-roughened water. Dip… bow slightly with the strain of the stroke,
then splash up and out together. Pause… then dip again. He
could hear what sounded like wooden blocks struck together to keep the rowers'
time. A hollow, almost musical note. "Morning,
sir!" Sam
turned, looked up to the high stern deck — apparently, and rather comically,
called the 'poop' — and saw Captain Owen, in a tarred canvas cloak too big for
him. The captain stood with one of his officers behind a low railing that ran
across that higher deck, with entries only for two narrow accommodation
ladders. "Morning,
Captain...!" Sam's breath drifted in frost for a moment, then was whisked
away on the wind. He
turned to the river again, and saw no shore, even with dawn streaking the
eastern horizon pollen-yellow. No shore, no margin, only the odor of fresh
water and ice coming on the wind. Only that, its smaller waves, and what seemed
a tidal race, marked it different to a landsman from the Gulf Entire. Sam could
see two distant lights — ship's lanterns, each far enough away to seem only
glimmers, like dying sparks risen from a campfire. Somewhere
to the east, likely already passed in the night, the old New Orleans — of so
many copybook tales — lay, as most ancient river cities, long drowned. Owen's
first officer had claimed at supper that a church bell tolled in its sunken
tower there, and could be heard as deep currents swung the bronze…. The town
now called New Orleans, seemed to be one of the Fleet's headquarters and
harbors, so was barely spoken of. "Sam...."
Margaret came and stood by him, yawning, her cloak's hood drawn up against the
cold, its dark wool pearled with mist-droplets. "Others
up?" "Roused
or rousing, sir. Short sleeping seems the rule on these ships." "Hmm.
Look at this river, Margaret. Big with summer melt off the ice. According to
Neckless Peter, at least three times, maybe four times, what it was before the
cold came down. So the cities on it now, all named for flooded Warm-time towns
that had been near, aren't really the old Map-places. According to a ship's
officer, aren't called 'Map' at all." "Why
not 'New' this or that?" "I
don't know. Perhaps concerned their Floating Jesus might object." "It's
a perfect prairie for the Khan's tumans, sir, once it freezes." "A
prairie for them from the north, as it freezes." "Sam..."
Margaret put her gloved hand over his bare hand on the rail, as if to warm it.
An unusual touching, for her. "Sam, I know... we know what you intend to
do. And you can do it, no matter how big the fucking river is." Sam
smiled. "Without my vodka?" "With
or without it, Sam." She took her hand away. "These Boxcars
seem to be a formidable people, but they're like the Kipchaks, full of pride
and horseshit. Both are ripe for a kick in the ass." "And
I'm the boot?" "You're
the boot, Sam. You, and the rest of us sheep-stealers." Margaret glanced
behind them, saw only Sergeant Mays, standing weighty on the deck. "...We
have interesting news. Master Carey shared beer with the cooks in the galley
last night, and helped with pots and pans. Ship's gossip is that Jefferson
City, Map-Missouri, has been taken by the Khan's general, Andrei Shapilov. And
every man in the garrison there killed. Three... four thousand of the West-bank
army." "Weather....
But I knew, knew there was something.
There was more on the captain's mind than cookies." "Jefferson
City might wake them." "Wake
some, Margaret. And send others deeper to sleep." Sam lifted his hands
from the rail, blew on them to warm his fingers. "— But I'd guess, not the
Queen."
CHAPTER 16
"My
regiments…!" Queen
Joan had cried this out several times through three days and nights, but not as
if requiring comfort. And even men and women who ordinarily weren't wary of
her, hadn't dared offer it. It seemed
to Martha that the Queen's rage, like a lightning stroke near a bee tree, had
set the hive of Island humming. Officers
of both bank armies — very senior and important men, usually seen allied at
court — were suddenly absent. And very different officers, lower-ranked,
harsh-faced, and grim, suddenly appeared to take up posts, positions,
responsibilities… work they never seemed to rest from. So,
in only three days and three nights, Martha saw what queens were for. "A
poor time," the Queen said, holding a green velvet gown out at arm's
length to see what window light did to it. "A poor time for that puppy
Captain-General to decide to come calling." "But
you invited him…." "Martha,
don't use my past actions against me. I might have invited him — and I might
not." Distant
trumpets and drums, preparing welcome at the Silver Gate, sang softly through
the tower's stone. "The
young jackass." The green velvet was dropped to the floor. "I'd look
like some pricey whore, rowing up to Celebration. Well" — she smiled at
Martha — "perhaps more like the whore's mother, along for
bargaining." "No,
ma'am. The whore herself, and beautiful." The
Queen, at the wardrobe, turned with a look. "So, I'm flattered and put in
my place at once. I've come to suspect, girl, you've a brain along with your
muscles." She rummaged, disturbing pressed gowns. "Probably should
have you whipped…. What about this?" A long dress striped black and
silver. "Seems...
gaudy, ma'am." "
'Seems gaudy, ma'am'! Well, what then?" "The
dark blood-red." "Hmm.
Worn several times before." "And
worn well, Majesty." The
Queen found the gown and hauled it out. "Pressed, at least. I'm amazed
it's cleaned and pressed. Lazy bitches...." She held it up to the light,
then held the dress to her and went to stand before her long mirror's almost
perfect silvered glass. "That
fucking stupid Merwin dog," she said, examining her reflection. Martha had
heard her say it before, referring to General Eli Merwin, dead with his men at
Map-Jefferson City. The Queen had written and sent a letter to the Khan's
general, Shapilov, thanking him for ridding her of a fool. Queen
Joan turned a little to the left, a little to the right. "I suppose it
might do." "Do
nicely, ma'am," Martha said, and with Fat Orrie, began to dress her. "Well,
this Small-Sam Monroe deserves no better. Get it on me. The black shoes — I'll
freeze — and only jet for jewelry, as mourning for my poor dead soldiers."
Cascades of band music now drifted into the tower. "Who in Lady Weather's
name do those people think they're greeting? Jesus come rafting
by?" "We
need to hurry, ma'am." "Don't
rush me." With both hands, the Queen lifted the Helmet of Joy from its
silver stand and settled its weight carefully on her head. "Terrible for
my hair..." Then
the Queen was rushed, though apologetically, by Martha, her waiting
women, and finally the chamberlain, Brady, come panting up the tower stairs in
as much temper as he dared to show. "For
the — ! Ma'am, we have a head of state now landing!" "Calm
yourself, old man." The Queen made a last pass before her mirror. Then,
satisfied with red and black, led out and down the flights of stairs, her
soldiers saluting as she passed. Princess
Rachel, wearing a simple, long, white-wool gown, with a thick goat's-hair shawl
paneled in blue and green — and with only one lady in company — was waiting for
them at the tower door. Her dark-brown hair was ribboned down her back in thick
braids. "Dressing
to be plain?" the Queen said. "Fear rape, do you?" The
Princess didn't seem to hear, took her mother's hand and kissed it, then
stepped back beside Martha as they walked down the long north staircase, past
the glass Flower House. The Princess's lady — a blue-stocking named Erica
DeVane — waved good fortune as they went. Martha
had seen Island's Silver Gate — had become familiar with almost all of Island,
as Master Butter had advised her — but
never with nine or ten thousand people, Ordinary and Extraordinary,
packing its cut-stone landings and docks. Men, women, and children, all dressed
for holiday, and so many that she saw stirs here and there where someone,
shoved by crowding, had fallen into the harbor and had to be fished out before
the icy water killed them. The
Queen's throne had been perched on the wide first-flight landing of the Gate's
middle staircase. She settled into it, warmed by an ermine cape and lap robe,
and crowned with the Helmet of Joy, its thirteen human hearts — shiveled knots
bound in fine gold netting — dangling, swinging in the bitter wind. Deep
drums rumbled as a warship — Martha thought she saw the name Haughty as
it turned — swung in to tie at Central Finger. "Well-handled,"
the Queen said. "But certainly with more important duties... better things
to do." Martha could hardly hear her over the band music. One dull-voiced
instrument in there sounded very like a plow-horse farting. As
she watched past the Queen's heavy helmet of hearts, gold, and yellow diamonds,
Martha saw the warship put out a broad bow-gangway, as if a great sea beast had
stuck out its tongue. A
little group of six appeared there, and the crowd cheered all together, a
tremendous almost solid weight of sound, so even the bands seemed silenced.
Martha thought the Queen said, "My, such enthusiasm." And she must
have said something, because Martha saw Princess Rachel, now standing beside
her mother, smile. The
little group came down the gangway, cloaks blowing in the river wind. They
marched up the dock to the harbor steps with one man walking slightly ahead,
then climbed the stairs between lines of soldiers, to shouts and tossed women's
favors of bright kerchiefs and painted paper flowers. In
an almost-hush of cheering between one blared march and another, Martha heard
the chamberlain say, "Seem pleased to see the man." "Jefferson
City," the Queen said, "has frightened them. So they look to even
improbable friends." She said something more, but the bands had struck up
Warm-time's 'Semper Fidelis' — or its fair copy — and Martha couldn't hear her. But
the bands and crowd quieted as the group climbed closer to the Queen. "For
God's sake, Brady… he's a boy." "Twenty-seven
years old, ma'am. And experienced." "Experienced,
my ass." The Queen ruffled her ermine cape and loops of jet beads.
"Experienced at hanging sheep thieves —
which he was himself, once." "But
is no longer, ma'am." Martha noticed the chamberlain had kept his voice
low, apparently to encourage the Queen to do the same. "Is
to me; I changed his shit rags. Very noisy baby..." The Queen was drowned
out by a last blare of music with cymbals and rumbling drums, as North
Map-Mexico came up the last steps. Monroe
— bare-headed, well dressed in dun velvet, with silver on his arm and a fine
ring on his finger — seemed handsome to Martha, in a way. Broad-shouldered, a
little shorter than she was, he looked tough and tired, like any young officer
who'd seen fighting. He was wearing only a fine cloth cloak — dark brown as
imperial chocolate — against the cold, and was armed with a long-sword down his
back, even coming to greet the Queen. He looked strong to Martha. Long arms and
big hands. I'd have to close with him. Short-grip the ax, stay inside the
swing of his sword. And quickly, quickly. He
stood at the foot of the throne. His people had stopped well back. To Martha,
almost all of them — the soldiers, the woman, too — looked Ordinary, but dire
fighters. Only one, a tall young man in black velvet, and very handsome as the
court judged handsomeness, seemed well-born though not dotted. The
music having crashed to a stop, the Queen raised her voice over crowd noise.
"How very welcome you are, Captain-General, to Middle Kingdom — and
in time for our Lord Winter's Festival!" "I
look forward to it, Majesty." A young man's light-baritone, raised to be
clearly heard. He sounded a little hoarse, to Martha. Perhaps from shouting
battle orders. "Look forward to it... and with heartfelt thanks for your
kind invitation to visit your great and beautiful river country." "Your
pleasure, Lord Monroe, is our pleasure!" Martha
supposed the Queen was smiling, to show how pleased she was. "
— And we hope your visit with us will be the longest possible, so we may come
to know one another... as our people and yours may come to know one
another." Monroe
bowed to the Queen, then turned a little to bow to Princess Rachel. Not, it
seemed to Martha, really graceful bows. They were too... casual. She supposed
he wasn't used to it. "Your Majesty's welcome reflects your own
graciousness, kindness." Martha
thought Queen Joan must still be smiling, but heard her mutter, "Is this
shit-pup making fun of me?" "No,
no." A murmur from Chamberlain Brady. "All in form." The
Queen stood up. "Then come, welcome guest, and those you've brought with
you, to rest in comfort from your journey!" "Should
say more, ma'am." Brady's murmur. "Fuck
that," said the Queen, stepped down from her throne, and offered Monroe
her arm. He was smiling — Martha supposed he'd heard the 'Fuck that' — took her
arm, and swung a slow half-circle with her as the crowd began a rhythmic
clapping, loud, and with shouts. Following
the Queen close as they climbed the steps — the Princess had dropped back to
walk beside the chamberlain — Martha
glanced over her shoulder to be sure Monroe's five fighters were coming well
behind. Then she set herself to watching those bowing as they went by, those
clapping and cheering in the crowd, watching for anyone a little too tense for
the occasion. They
passed Master Butter as they climbed to the second Grand-flight's landing. He
was standing with Lord Vitelli's man, Packard — blew an almost-hidden kiss to
the Queen, then winked at Martha as she went by. "In
the old days," the Queen said to Monroe, raising her voice through the
crowd's noise, "Chamberlain Brady would have welcomed you naked, or nearly
naked, with the 'My Sunshine' dance." "Really?"
Their guest looked over his shoulder. "Chamberlain, I'm sorry to have
missed it." "Just
as well, milord. Not what I used to be, prancing." "Oh,"
Monroe said, "I imagine you still step lightly enough." Martha
heard the Queen's little grunt of humor through the cheers and shouts around
them, and there came a shower of perfumed paper flowers, tiny twisted
petition-papers, and candies wrapped in beaten silver foil. Ordinaries
in the crowd were shouting, "Mother! River-mother!" and
grinning at the Queen like — as she always said — the great fools they were.
* *
*
"Thank
Mountain Jesus that's over." "The
Jesus here floats, sir," Margaret said. "But Weather, this place is
big!" "Oh,
I'd say these rooms are proper," Darry said, "a suite commensurate
with rank." "I
think Margaret meant Island, Lieutenant, though these rooms aren't
nothing." Chamberlain
Brady had led them a long way, commenting to Sam on the warmth of the people's
greeting, and mentioning the banquet of welcome at sunset. They'd come a great
distance through granite passageways and up granite stairways, to this 'suite.' First,
a high-ceilinged entrance chamber with a long, beautifully-carved table set in
it — and woven tapestries along the walls, with scenes of men and women hunting
animals Sam had never seen or heard of, dream animals from copybooks.... There
was this great room, warmed by two corner Franklins with fires rumbling in
them, and lit by lanterns hanging from its ceiling on silver chains. Then, on
both sides of a wide hallway — its walls decorated with painted pictures of
river people at common tasks — were six more rooms. The first was a small
laundry room with both bath and wash-tubs. On the stove were kettles of hot
water, already steaming. The other five were sleeping chambers, each very fine,
with polished wood furniture, beds with duck-feather mattresses and pillows,
and flower drawings on fine paper on every wall. These
rooms, also, each held a stove burning. And the last chamber, largest and most
beautiful — with two glassed arrow-slit windows cut through yard-thick stone —
was warmed by two stoves. "This
is all to impress us," Margaret said, and making a face of not being
impressed, joined Sam and Darry sitting at the entrance room's big table. The
three sergeants stood at ease along the near wall. Behind and above them, a
woven hunting party of people wearing feathered cloaks rode after a six-legged
elk. "Well,
it impresses me," Sam said, "to afford such warmth and comfort
in this huge heap of stone in winter. Island does impress me, as that warship
did. Great wealth, and great power — and they make it plain." Master
Carey came in with two liveried servants carrying the last of the baggage...
and saw it stowed. His and the sergeants' gear in the two bed-rooms nearest the
entrance. The lieutenant's in the next. Then Margaret Mosten's. Then Sam's. "We
should have brought finer things to wear," Margaret said.. "No,
we shouldn't," Sam said. "Decoration won't win us anything,
here." He waited for the last of Island's servants to leave and close the
door behind him. "Now, first, remember that what we say in these rooms may
be overheard, stone walls or not." "Right,"
Margaret said. "This
is what I want done...." He paused to pick an apple from a silver bowl. "Apple
should be tasted, sir." Carey, come to stand with the sergeants. "Oh,
I don't think I'll be poisoned today. That would be a little abrupt." Sam
took a bite and chewed. "It's sweet. Wonderful, a sweet apple….
Now, Sergeants Burke, Mays, and Wilkey, you'll take Lieutenant Darry's orders
as to guard-mount. But there is always to be a man on duty at the entrance,
here. And, I suppose, I should have someone with me." "No
'suppose' about it, sir," Margaret said. "You will damn well have
one of the sergeants, or me, with you at all times." "Alright
— one of the men. Margaret, you headquarter here, but wander often enough to
keep an eye on all of us, and on any change in our position with these
people." "Yes,
sir." "Lieutenant..." "Sir?"
Darry sitting handsomely alert, left hand resting on his saber's hilt. A hilt,
Sam noticed, sporting gold wire on the grip. "Since,
Lieutenant, you're a very social fellow, you will be a very social
fellow here. Get out and around in the court. Cultivate companions-in-mischief.
I want to know who's important, and who's not. I want to know what they think
of the war — and of us." "I
understand, sir." "And,
Pedro, limit your amusements to those that do not require duels." "Goes
without saying, sir." "Um-mm.
And, Master Carey, you're to do whatever it was Eric Lauder instructed you to
do — once you've told me exactly what those instructions were." "Yes,
milord — sir. Really, only to guard you, particularly against long-acting
poisons, and to... deal with any river people who might threaten you or our
mission here." "Carey,
you will 'deal' with no one without my direct order. Is that clear?" "Very
well, sir. Ask you, first." "Yes....
Now, all of you," — the sergeants came to attention to indicate attention
— "all of you, remember why we're here. We are not here to make
friends; I think that's unlikely in any case. We're here to offer the Boxcars
help that they already need, and will need more of when the Khan joins his
army." Sam finished the apple, found no place to put the core. Carey
came around the table and took it away. "Thank
you.... As to official matters, I think Her Majesty will let me wait at least a
day or two, and possibly more, before we meet in any private way. To put me in
my place." "She
seems damn rude." "Margaret,
watch your tongue." "Sorry,
Sam.... But she does." "The
Queen is exactly as my Second-mother described her. Older, but the same. A
fierce lady — and one, now, with great burdens, which probably include the
people of her court." "Those,
my business, sir?" "Your
business, Pedro.... All of us need to remember that as this Kingdom manages
against Toghrul Khan, so North Map-Mexico will have to manage. We need these
people as much as they need us. Keep it in mind." Nods
and "Yes, sir's." "Master
Carey," Margaret said, "the horses brought ashore and cared
for?" "Yes,
Captain. Stabled and fed." "And
how are we to be fed?" "Banquet
tonight for milord and officers, and otherwise, according to the kitchens, as
we please. Meals brought up to us, or served in Island's Middle-hall, still
called 'The King's.' Milord and officers have places held at south high table
there, servants and men-at-arms, places at south low." "Hours?" "All
hours, Captain." It seemed
to Sam that Better-Weather's imposition of Ansel Carey — and Darry and the
sergeants — was proving to have been good sense. "Most times," he
said, "we'll eat publicly. Roosting up here would not be helpful. We need
to see, and be seen." "As
to tonight's banquet, and attending what they call Extraordinaries, sir,"
Carey said, "I'm told that presently there is still no Boston ambassador
at Island. The Queen ordered him out last year, as we knew — quite a scene, I
understand. She threw a cabbage at him in one of their glass
growing-houses." "I'll
try to avoid cabbages," Sam said. "As
for the rest, sir, no ambassador from the Khan, of course. Left, weeks ago. The
others will be court officials, river lords, generals, commanders, courtiers
and so forth. And their wives." "
'And their wives,' " Margaret said, still apparently regretting finery.
*
* *
"Thank
Lady Weather, that's over." The Queen, weary from the Welcome-banquet, and
half-submerged in scanty lye-soap suds in the great silver tub, rested with her
eyes closed. Steam scented with imperial perfume rose around her. It had taken
Orrie, Ulla, and a nameless tower servant, two trips up from the laundry with
pails of boiling water to fill the tub. Martha,
ringlets ruined by wet heat, knelt to scrub the Queen's long back — a back
softened here and there by age, but still showing ropes of muscle down her
spine. And there were scars, though not the many that showed on her front — puckered
white beside her mouth, across her left breast, her belly, her left shoulder...
and a bad one pitted into her right thigh. Her wrists and forearms, like Master
Butter's, seemed decorated with scars' pale threads and ribbons. "It
seemed to go well, ma'am. And the dancing." Though Martha had been struck,
above all, by the Welcome-banquet's food, as if the Kingdom offered endless
spotted-cattle roasts, baked pigs, geese, and goats, fried chicken-birds,
pigeons, and candied partridges to overawe the North Mexican lord. All those
foods, and many tables of others. The
evening's bright occasion, and its music, had pleased Martha very much — though
after, something pleased her more. Climbing the solar tower's entrance steps
behind the Queen, she'd noticed by torchlight a large soldier in green-enameled
armor, who'd winked and smiled at her while standing sergeant of the guard. "Dancing,"
the Queen said, talkative after
considerable imperial wine. "The usual strutting and sweating. Not a man
of them could leap over a high fire." "Lord
Patterson paid attention to you." "Lord
Pretty would pay attention to anything with a hole between its legs — and
crowned, all the better. Still, at least Gregory can dance, there's some sense
of rhythm there." "Yes,"
Martha said, distracted — and to her own surprise, bent and kissed the Queen on
her temple. "What
are you doing? Don't be impertinent." "It...
it is a thank-you." "A
thanks for what, Country-girl?" The Queen surfaced a long leg, looked at
her toes. "A
thanks for sending for Ralph-sergeant." "Oh....
Well, 'kind' soldiers aren't good for anything but standing at my
stairs. Another useless mouth to feed at Island. The expense of this manure
pile is outrageous — thieves, every damned one of them. Sutlers, fucking cooks
and clothiers... Do you know, I don't dare look at the stable bills? You would
suppose the Kingdom would receive gift-privilege from these merchant hogs — oh,
no. Overprice and thievery!" "I
could visit them, with Master Butter." The
Queen laughed, half-turned in the tub to hit Martha on the shoulder with a
soapy fist. "No, no. My people and I play many games, Trade-honey, and
your ax would break the rules." "Then
we won't," Martha said, and used a soft cloth to rinse. The Queen's torso
had a fierce history, but her nape, revealed under pinned-up hair, was tender
as a child's. Standing
with care, then stepping out into wide southern-cotton toweling, the Queen left
wet footprints on the carpet, so a woven snow-tiger grew a damp mustache.
Martha hugged and gathered her in cloth — felt a sweetness of care and
attending as she stroked the Queen dry over softness here, hard muscle there. Swaddled,
the Queen turned and turned as Orrie took wet cloth from Martha, replaced it
with dry. ...
Burnished, smelling of flowers from the bath, the Queen sat on an ivory stool —
the ivory once the teeth of a Boston sea-beast called the walrut, or perhaps
sea walnut. She sat slumped while Martha unpinned and brushed out her hair,
long, with weaves of gray running through the red. Martha
brushed with slow easy strokes of boar bristle so as not to tug or tangle. "Now
listen," the Queen said, her head moving slightly under the brush.
"This sergeant of yours — Orrie, leave us." "Yes,
Majesty." Orrie, very fat and usually a stately walker, always seemed to
scuttle away relieved when dismissed. "Ma'am,
he isn't really my sergeant." "And
may never be, Martha, and then never more than a lover. Don't talk to me about men.
But this sergeant of yours, if it should come to love, it still cannot come
to marriage and children as long as I'm alive — ouch." "Sorry,
ma'am." "I
must and will be first. My life always above his and yours. Not because
I'm such an Extraordinary, but because my life is the peoples', and they have
no one else…. Though it's also true that I enjoy being queen. I don't deny
it." "I
understand." "Perhaps
you understand, girl, and perhaps you don't — how many strokes is that?" "Forty-three,
I think." "
'You think.' Alright, forty more…. What I was saying to you about coming first,
about the necessity of it? I have one child, a resentful daughter only two
years older than you, who misses her father still, and believes me a brute
bitch who hasn't even wept to lose him." "I
know better, ma'am." "Yes,
you heard me wake crying for my Newton on End-of-Summer Night, after our Jordan
Jesus rafted down. You heard that, and you've heard my dream groaning. And
likely heard my grunts playing stink-finger under the covers, rather than have
some tall man come up to give me shaking joys — then take advantage for it....
You've heard, Martha, and so are closer to me than my daughter ever has been,
or ever will be. And who are you? Only a strong child, really, and otherwise no
one at all. Rachel will never believe how I love her... wouldn't credit
it." "I
know you love her." "She's
all I have of Newton. And more, Rachel was a charming child — easy with that
fucking brush — and she was so intelligent that people made the River-sign,
hearing her conversation." "I
believe it. And she's pretty." "How
many is that?" "Seventy...
I think." "Oh,
for Weather's sake, Martha, learn how to fucking count." The Queen
stood, shook her hair out, put her hands back for the sleeves of her
night-robe, then shrugged it comfortable as Martha wrapped the fine green cloth
around her, then tied its soft belt bow. "Pretty? Well, if not truly
pretty, then Rachel's handsome enough, I suppose." Queen Joan raised her
arms high and stretched like a man, joints cracking. Then she stepped a little
jigging dance, shook her arms out as wrestlers did to ease their muscles,
before she strolled relaxed to the little silver bucket, tucked up the hem of
her night-robe, and squatted. "But.
But. This Kingdom is crueler than my mountains ever were, Martha.
Crueler than the tribesmen who came down. Well named the River Kingdom,
uncaring, cold, and made of killing currents as the river is." There was
faint musical drumming as she peed. "And full of men and women who once
ate talking meat. Still do, sometimes.... This is what my daughter will someday
rule, and I don't believe that she can do it." "She
has your blood." The
Queen tucked a tuft of cotton wool to her crotch, wiped herself. "But has
not had my life. Hasn't seen what I've seen, hasn't fought as I've
fought, hasn't learned what I've had to learn. Let me tell you, when my Newton
was killed in Map-Kentucky coming to a fair agreement, I came this close,"
— the Queen held up her thumb and forefinger, almost touching — "this close to being weighted with iron
and thrown into the river…. Where's my nail-knife?" Martha
found it in the toilet cabinet's second sliding drawer. "Here,
ma'am." The
Queen, quite limber, crossed a leg over a knee and commenced trimming her
toenails. "Came very close, then, to going into the river. So, I fucked
one man as if I'd secretly loved him always — then had his throat cut. And murdered
two more before I felt free of that weight of iron chain." She bent
closer, peering to examine a neatened nail. "A woman, a sister to one of
those men, was thrown from her window in South Tower as a reassurance to me.
Her uncle did it, Martha, for fear I would destroy their family, even the
babies." Those
toes finished, the Queen crossed her other leg and began trimming. The little
knife-blade twinkled in lamplight as she worked. "I'm
sorry," Martha said. "Sorry?
Sorry for what, girl? For necessity?" "For
you." "Well,
you're a fond fool." Paring with quick turns of her strong wrist, the
Queen ended with her little toe… then stood up off the silver bucket and shook
down her robe's skirt. "Those who think we're more than beasts, should
study their toenails." She handed Martha the little knife. "It goes
in the top sliding drawer. Now... what else?" "Brushing
your teeth, ma'am." "The
hell with it.... Did you know the Warm-time hell was hot?" "Yes,
ma'am." "I
always thought that was strange.... Where are my slippers?" "By
the bed." "Not
the woolen slippers — the sheepskins." "I'll
look for them." "Oh,
never mind." The Queen seemed to swim away through gray gauze curtains to
her bed-nook. "Between Ulla and that fat Orrie, nothing is ever where it
should be. I should have them whipped...." Martha, following, had to brush
a drift of fine cloth from the ax handle behind her shoulder. Queen
Joan sat on the edge of her bed and began rearranging her pillows — which she
did every night. The maids had found no way to place them to please her. She
plumped a goose-feather one, tossed it to the head of the bed. "You see,
Martha, Rachel would not be capable of what I did. She pretends to fierceness,
but break a bird's neck before her and she goes pale as cheese." Another
pillow tossed after the first; a cushion picked up and tested with a punch.
"And I cannot live forever." "Then
she needs a fierce husband, ma'am." "Oh,
yes. Memphis, or Sayre, or Johnson — who's a monster — or Lord Allen, or Eddie
Cline. My Newton despised Cline and so do I. Or Giamatti, or one
of the Coopers, who have hated me and mine forever." Pillows
and cushions arranged, the Queen crawled into bed on all fours, like a child,
then tucked herself under the covers and drew them up to her throat. "And
all of these people, Martha — chieftains, lords-barons, lords-earls, generals,
admirals and so forth and so forth — every one of them keeping at least five or
six hundred sworn-men on their hold lands, all trained and armed and excused
service in my armies." She
sat half up, elbowed an unsatisfactory pillow into place. "... Their
'River Rights.' River Rights, my ass! And not one of them — well,
possibly Sayre, possibly Michael Cooper — but otherwise not one of them could
hold this kingdom, keep its people from under the hooves of those fucking
Kipchaks." The Queen lay down again, tugged the covers to her chin.
"Those savages are breaking my West-bank army!" Martha
saw there were tears in the Queen's eyes. It was frightening to see, and ran
goose-bumps up her arms. "I
cannot imagine," the Queen said, staring up into the bed's umbrella of
pearly gauze, "I cannot imagine what possessed those Texas
jackasses. And I saw them in the grassland just before. I saw them! What
possessed those idiots to campaign in open prairie against the Kipchaks, and
with all their forces? Was there no Map-Lubbock, no Map-Amarillo to fortify? No
notion of fucking reserves?" She wiped her eyes with the hem of the sheet.
"Are my slippers by the bed?" "The
wool slippers?" "Any
damn slippers." "Yes,
ma'am. Beside the bed." "—
They rode out singing hymns, were quilled with arrows like porcupines, and have
left my kingdom naked!" The Queen thrashed under her covers. "I need
a husband for my girl! Hopefully, one who won't kill me for the crown." "A
Boston person?" "Oh,
certainly, and introduce one of those half-mad oddities to the lords, the
armies, the merchants and Guilds of Ordinaries as my son-in-law and heir? He
would live as long as I would, then… perhaps a week, unless he flew away like
some fucking bat." "Then,
if no one else will do, why not the North Map-Mexico lord?" The
Queen sighed and closed her eyes. "Martha, you're a young fool; it's a
waste of time talking to you. You've seen him. Monroe is a boy — sturdy
enough, clever enough — but what has he done? Beaten those southerners, those
imperial idiots? That's as difficult as beating a carpet to clean it. That, and
only the raid north by his man, Voss… The river lords would cook and eat
Monroe, and the Blue generals and Green generals would gnaw the bones." "He
seems fiercer than that." "And
if so, then fierce enough to take the throne from me!" The Queen opened
her eyes, looked at Martha in an unpleasant way. "I won't be forced to
have him!" "But
Princess Rachel — " "Rachel
doesn't know. She is a child. This is the Throne's business, and she
will marry and fuck and bear children for the one I accept!... The woolen ones?" "Yes.
I can get the sheepskins — " "Oh,
never mind." The Queen seemed older lying down, her long, graying hair
spread on her pillow. Older, and weary. "... Still, perhaps a long
engagement. Long enough for his soldiers to be useful against the Khan. If that
suits Boy Monroe, I suppose it may suit me. Time enough, afterward; engagements
are often broken…. But the same baby who peed down my furs? Floating Jesus." The
Queen lay quiet then, and Martha smoothed her covers… tucked them at her
throat. "Sleep sweet, Majestic Person." The
Queen smiled at that, then sighed. "Oh, Martha. You know, I still have
trouble forgiving my Newton — going off to Map-Kentucky to win a battle, and
die doing it. He left these lords and generals to me, and they press and press
against my power, and watch for me to stumble as I grow older. They all wait to
see if I forget a name, a river law, or some common word. They bribed my maids
so their doctors could examine my shit, see if I have bleeding in the turds —
can you believe that?" "Your
shit is stronger than most men's muscle, ma'am." The
Queen threw her head back on her pillows and laughed. "Oh, that's very
good — and true. But for how many more years, Martha? How many more years...
?" "I'll
deal with the chamber-maids." "Hmm?
Oh, those. Those two have been under the river's skin for more than a year,
dear. Without their tongues." The Queen turned on her side, and lay
looking through Martha into memory. "Michael Cooper came to me at the
time, muttering something about summary executions without notice given to the
Queen's Council, and I said, 'Lord Cooper, I had to silence them before they
damaged the reputations of great men, even placing some in jeopardy of
treason.' That shut his catfish mouth." Martha
reached up to the hanging lamp... lowered its wick till the flame went out.
"Then there's nothing for you now to dream of, ma'am, but pretty birds and
pretty places." After
a moment, the Queen's voice sounded out of darkness. "The only things I
wish to dream of, Martha, are the Trapper mountains, and the Trapper
days...."
* *
*
Sam
woke to a savage wind — Lord Winter's serious wind — whining past stone walls like a great dog
begging to be let in. There was a sandy shush and rattle in it as well.
Hard-driven sleet and snow. Strange
he'd been dreaming of summer. Summer in the fourth week, when it was perfect in
the fields of August, leaf-green everywhere, so winter seemed only a story that
might not be repeated. He
reached under thick wool blankets to touch his long dagger's hilt. Sergeant
Wilkey would be sleeping at the room's door. Carey'd wanted the man in the
room, had gone round the walls under the tapestries, looking for any secret
entrance. The
fat man's ways were Eric's. Secret, sly, often useful... often ineffective. The
Queen wouldn't send a killer to his room, certainly not before she'd heard him
out, and likely not after. His death would be no advantage to her now, though
it might be later, once — if — the Kipchaks were beaten. Now, she'd make him
wait a few days, then be dismissive, just short of insult. It would be
interesting to see how Queen Joan ruled and decided. Interesting to see how she
managed a court that might kill her on a notion... how she managed a people who
still occasionally ate people. The
duck-feather bed was too soft; it was hurting his back. Sam
got up with his dagger, tugged the blankets with him, and padded through the
dark to a carpet near a stove's dimming coals. He rolled himself in wool, felt
the support of cut stone stacked deep beneath him, and went to sleep... hoping
for more dreams of summer.
CHAPTER 17
After
days of wandering, walking through glassed gardens, examining walls,
fortifications, the great stone-built entrance harbors — the Silver, the Gold,
the Bronze, the Iron — his inspections never seeming to disturb the officers
and men guarding those places, Sam had seen enough of Island. It
lay, a mountain of snowy, wind-struck stone in an ice-flowed river, and seemed
to him about as useful as any natural mountain might have been. A great
redoubt, no question, and would be very expensive to reduce — but by that time,
with an enemy having won to its walls, the war would already be lost. It seemed
a poor substitute for a veteran field army, well led, an army not divided into
East-bank and West, with a fleet uncomfortable with both of them. After
those inspections, Sam saw what Toghrul had seen, even though far away at
Caravanserai in Map-West Texas. The Khan had seen — had sensed — the Kingdom as
a giant, but bound in chains of long habit and regulation, often slow, awkward,
and shambling.... All a hunting call to the Kipchaks, so numerous, so neatly
swift, so wonderfully well-commanded. And,
of course, that very instinct, that eagerness, had exposed them. Toghrul had
paid no heed — after his one warning attack south — to an enemy left behind
him. As a wolf pack, chasing elk, might run by a bowman waiting in a snowy
wood, with nothing but glances and a snarl as they passed. But
then, the bowman might follow, so that on a final field, the pack in battle
with a furious great bull elk, arrows came whistling from behind. These
notions were confirmed for Sam as he walked the grand stone corridors of
Island, whose high ceilings stirred and eddied with lantern smoke and the smoke
of torches, which flowed to any outlet of air like a gray ghost of the great
river sliding past them. ...
During meals in an echoing dining-hall of granite and oak beams, huge as a
roofed landscape, the Boxcars — Extraordinaries, of course, at the high tables
— were courteous enough. They asked polite and apparently interested questions
about North Mexico — its longer summers, its sources of labor, what beasts
there were to hunt. Then chatted of hunting, of old campaigns against the
tribes. Nothing was said about the Kipchaks. Pleasant
conversations, as by hosts to somewhat dubious guests, and all accompanied by
very good food — cow roasts, stuffed geese, cabbage boiled or chopped cold —
all meats spiced, carefully cooked, and sauced with gravies a little rich for Sam's
stomach. And at every meal, even with breakfast's chicken eggs, fish, or
pig-slices, various sorts of pickles and candied imperial fruits were served,
with jellied berries from the river's thickets. In
that hall, only breakfast was eaten without music to listen to. Banjar men, a
shaman-drummer from some backwoods tribe, and a blind woman with a harp were
the orchestra — or more properly, a Warm-time 'band' that strummed and drummed
and plucked to ease the later dining down. Courteous
and perhaps a little careful dealing with Sam and Margaret Mosten, the Boxcars
seemed more than courteous to Pedro Darry, the lieutenant having become a
favorite with the younger men — and possibly some older wives — so he laughed
and joked with the Kingdom people as if born on the river. Sam
had been glanced at by a number of the Boxcar women, and found himself, a night
or two, dreaming of jeweled and furred beauties... particularly one, smoothly
plump, with fiery red hair. She was apparently of some notable tribal family allied
to the Kingdom, since her small white teeth were filed to neat points. Sam
dreamed of her, but would have sought no introduction, even if there'd been the
time, and this the occasion for it. None of the high-table ladies came to dine
without cold-eyed husbands, brothers, or a hot-eyed lover, as escort. At
ease with Pedro, these richly dressed men and women — their cheeks dotted with blue tattooing —
remained more guarded with Sam, though friendly enough, smiling as they
suggested second helpings of this or that. They appeared to wait for their
Queen's decision on him, not caring to be caught wrong-footed. The
great tables, so piled with food being busily served by Red-liveries, seemed to
Sam a hint of the Queen's contempt for the courtiers' greed. He grew used to
their soft, slurred speech — and sudden
eruptions of temper down a table's polished hardwood when enough vodka or
barley-whisk was drunk. They all, men and women, came to meals armed — their
children also armed with ornate little daggers — but never drew in argument. "Carey
says the tables here are all the Queen's," Margaret had said when Sam
mentioned it, "with everyone her guests. No one draws steel on her or
hers." Queen
Joan had joined the diners only twice, for mid-meals, while Sam and his
officers were eating there. She'd seemed to enjoy herself at the north table,
and ate very well — particularly a pudding of preserved fruits — but paid no
attention to the North Mexicans. On
one of those occasions, the more than three hundred Ordinaries lining the low
tables had raised their beer jacks to her, swayed in place, and sung a song,
'Mammy, How I Love You.' The
high tables hadn't joined in the singing, and the Queen had stood to shout the
Ordinaries to silence — "Stop that damned noise!" — which had
seemed to please the singers very much. Sam saw they loved her, and were her
strength against the generals, admirals, and lords of the river. On
the fifth morning, at a breakfast of imperial coffee, slice-cut barley bread,
cheese, eggs, and a sort of sausage, a servant in the Queen's blood-red livery
came easing along the wall, past the high tables' seated diners. Margaret
Mosten slid her bench-chair back a little as the man came, and hooked her
little finger in her rapier's guard to loosen the blade in its scabbard. "Oh,
I'd say no trouble there." Darry, on Sam's other side, reached for another
slice-cut of bread. "Some errand...." The
errand ended at Sam's place. "Milord."
The servant had a murmuring, messenger's voice. "Her Majesty is pleased to
give you audience.... If you'll follow me." "About
time," Margaret said, and stood. "Only
the Captain-General," the servant said. Even
so, when Sam walked after the man down the hall's long center aisle — watched,
it seemed, by every eye — and Sergeant Wilkey left his place at a low table to
come with him, the servant said nothing. It
was, as usual on Island, a long walk.... The servant finally stood aside at a
narrow door, opened it, and bowed Sam and the sergeant into a large, bare stone
room. There were dark double-doors at its other side, and a single heavy,
carved chair as furniture. The high ceiling, vaulted gray granite, echoed their
bootsteps. There was no stove. Sergeant
Wilkey stayed standing by the narrow door, his longbow now strung. He'd taken
three battle-arrows from his quiver and held them alongside the bow's grip with
a curled finger, to be handy.... Sam walked to the middle of the room and sat
in the carved chair, stretching his legs. He breathed out a faint cloud of
frost, and wished for another mug of coffee. What was expensive and rare at
Better-Weather — though so much closer to the Empire — seemed lightly come-by
on Kingdom's river. Goods and gold by water shipping, he supposed. How fine
would made-roads have to be, to equal that ease…? After
a while, footsteps, a latch's turning, and the double doors swung open across
the room. The Queen's armswoman, Martha, stepped through first. She was wearing
a heavy, green-paneled woolen gown, the dress's hem reaching just to her low
boots, not long enough to trip her. Sam saw the handle of her ax just over her
right shoulder, and a gray glint of fine mail beneath a wrist's cuff. He'd seen
bigger young women, but not many. Queen
Joan came behind her, almost as tall as her fighting girl, though slender. She
was dressed like a copybook queen, with an ermine wrap over sky-blue velvet
laced and looped with pearls. She wore blue-dyed deerskin slippers, and a
narrow crown of leaves of gold. Princess
Rachel, behind her, was nearly as tall, but plainly dressed in a gown the color
of stone. Her long dark hair was down, bound only once by a slender silver
chain. Sam
stood, bowed to the Queen and her daughter, though not deeply, then stepped
back. Queen
Joan sat, her armswoman standing behind her — and watching Sergeant Wilkey.
Princess Rachel stood beside. "It
occurs to me..." The Queen had a voice that seemed younger than she was, a
voice unlined, with no age in it. "It occurs to me... do you know the tale
of the Gordian knot? It's a Warm-time tale." "I
know it," Sam said. "Then
tell me, Captain-General — who was Small-Sam and peed down my front on occasion
— tell me why I shouldn't cut one of my Kingdom's possible knots, by cutting
your throat? Pigeons informed me this morning that you're no longer a guest,
but an invader, with your foot soldiers marching up through West
Map-Louisiana... your cavalry come, or coming, east into Map-Arkansas to join
them there." Silence
and stillness by the narrow door, where Sergeant Wilkey stood with his longbow. "If
I'd asked your permission," — Sam smiled —
"you would have denied it. My army is crossing Kingdom territory,
and intends to fight on it in North Map-Arkansas, South Map-Missouri — but
fight the Khan Toghrul, not Boxcars." "So
you say. But with your throat cut, you'd say no more, issue no commands, invade
no one." Sam
took a moment before answering."...I think you won't kill me, Queen, for
two reasons: Your war with the Khan has already begun badly, and I doubt you
want war with North Map-Mexico as well. Kill me, and you'll certainly have it.
And also..." "Also?" "My
Second-mother, Catania." Queen
Joan sat and stared at Sam, her face bleached pale as bone. "Well... Well,
you have a ruler's guts at least, to use her name to me, to assume I honor her
memory so much." "I
don't know what memories you honor, Queen — I only know she honored
yours." "You
young dog... to use my own heart against me." "What
weapon more worthy than your heart, Queen?" Queen
Joan stared at him; she didn't seem to need to blink. "I have courtiers —
ass kissers — who speak to me in just that way." "No,
you don't. Those people fear you, and they lie. I'm as likely to bite your ass
as kiss it." The
Queen glanced over at her daughter. "Rachel, what do you think of
him?" "He
is... a change, I suppose." The
Queen looked back at Sam. "Let me tell you something, clever young
Captain-General of minor importance — let me tell you that if I were even five
years younger, and had a different sort of daughter, I'd put you under the
river.... Yes, and then weep for sweet Catania's memory." Sam
nodded. "But you're not younger, Queen. You need help against the Khan.
And you don't have a daughter fierce enough to follow you in this
kingdom." "I'm
here," Princess Rachel said. "Don't speak as if I were not." "I
apologize, Princess." "But
you are not here, Rachel." The Queen spoke without looking at her
daughter. "You're only present. To be here, you would have had to do more
than read and write in your book tower. Do more than tame song-birds. More than
conversations and philosophies and letters and studies of this and that. You
have not earned being here." "Then
I will not be missed." Princess Rachel left her mother's side and walked
out through the double doors. The doors remained open, so her footsteps could be
heard down the hall as she went. "I'm
sorry," Sam said, "that the Princess was upset." "Too
fucking easily upset. My Newton wanted a boy. I gave him a girl — and am
punished for it." "A
princess may become a queen." "Some
may…. Listen, Small-Sam Monroe, you care for your North Mexico, and hope to
save it by joining us against the savages. All this perfectly understood, and
sensible. Be assured, if I hadn't thought you might be useful to us in just
that way, I would never have asked your visit, never offered the possibility of
engagement to my daughter." "Always
more improbable than probable." "Yet
here you are, Small-Sam. And apparently intend to make the 'improbable'
a fact!" "Yes,
I do." "We're
not in that much trouble. We're a civilized kingdom — well, coming to be
civilized — while you lead only border tag-ends, roosting on land stolen from
the Emperor. Land that any more formidable emperor will soon take back." "Queen,
if you didn't need me, if you didn't need my army... if you had any man to keep
your daughter safe, we wouldn't be talking. I'd be dead, or gone." "Still
a possibility." "Not
since Map-Jefferson City." Queen
Joan sat watching Sam for almost a full glass-minute, then said, "You're
fortunate that so many of my ghosts stand beside you." "I
know it." Queen
Joan rose, her armswoman looming behind her. The Queen was tall; she looked
slightly down at Sam, her eyes the flat blue of sky reflected in polished
metal. "You have my permission to try to persuade Rachel. And also my
permission to... advise our commanders in all campaigns where your people will
also be engaged." She considered him for a moment. "And I do hope
that some foolish treachery of yours, some starving ambition, won't make it
necessary to kill you." "Poison,"
Sam said, "would be the only way with a chance to keep my army from your
river, then your island. An absolutely convincing illness. And even
then..." "Oh,"
— the Queen smiled — "you know the old copybook phrase 'Where there's a
will, there's a way'?" "I
know it. And I depend on it." The
Queen walked away, laughing, her armswoman striding to cover her back. Sam
heard bootsteps behind him, the faint music of oiled mail. "Well,
Sergeant?" "Seems
thin ice, sir." "Yes.
Thin ice... over deep water."
* *
*
The
Queen — with Martha nearly beside her, only a half-step back — strolled down
the Corridor of Battles. Banners along the walls, some only woven memories,
moth-eaten and frail as insect-gauze, billowed slightly in the faint breeze of
their passing. The Queen, as always in this corridor, paused beneath the flag
of battle Bowling Green — this great cloth, its years recent, still gleamed in
white silk and gold thread, its only crimson a tear of loss, sewn at its
center. The
Queen whispered to herself, as she always did under that banner. Whispered to
herself, or perhaps the killed King… then walked on. "So,
Martha, now what do you think of our sturdy young Captain-General
?" "I
think you should be careful, ma'am." "Mmm.
You think he might — if, for example, he and Rachel become engaged to
marry — perhaps take advantage afterward, set me aside? Kill me?" "He
might, if he thought it best. Set you aside, I mean. But — " "
'But?' " "He
wouldn't kill you, ma'am." "And
why not, girl?" "Same
reason you won't kill him." "Clever
Martha.... The past weighs on both of us like a fallen tree. And I see Catania,
smiling at me."
CHAPTER 18
There
were two guards at the door to the West Tower solar. A chamber, as Sam had
found — Sergeant Burke clanking up behind him — reached after a steep seventy-two-step
climb from the tower gate. As usual at Island, one of the guards was armored in
blue-enameled steel-hoop, the other, in green. Also as usual, both were armed
with shield and short-sword for handiness in close quarters.... They were keeping
an eye on Sergeant Burke. "No
entrance here, milord." Green-armor. "Announce
me," Sam said. "Cannot
do it, sir." Green again. "Announce
me," Sam said, "or stand aside." There
were few moments more interesting to a commander, than those spent waiting to
see if a questionable order would be obeyed. After
those interesting few moments, Blue-armor turned and knocked gently on the
iron-bound oak door. Sam had found no flimsy entranceway on Island, except on
the glass greenhouses. Any enemy army reaching Kingdom's capital would find
difficult barricades at every turn, on every landing, and before every room. The
door latch turned, thick oak and iron swung open, and Princess Rachel stood
impatient in her slate-gray gown. She held a small copybook in one hand, a steel-nib
pen in the other. "I'm
occupied, milord." Looking down at him a little, since she was slightly
taller. "And I believe our conversation was just completed at my mother's
audience." "I've
come to apologize again for that... clumsiness, Princess." "You
spoke your mind." "Carelessly."
Sam tried a smile past a guard's steel shoulder. "As
I said, milord, I'm occupied." "And
since I am not, Princess, I've taken a guest's liberty to visit." Impatience
and annoyance. "Very well." She stepped aside as he came in,
then swung the door closed behind him. Sam saw, as if he still stood outside on
the landing, the look exchanged by the three soldiers. This
solar was no lady's retirement, with cushions, harps, embroidery frames, little
dogs, game-boards and so forth. It was a library and copying room, circled with
shelves and copybook stacks, copy stands, and a flat-topped work-desk beneath
the north window…. Only thick carpets — spiraled tribal work, Roamer patterns
woven in greens, golds, and rust reds, with dreamed creatures chasing down the
edges — relieved the room's simplicity. The light was good, a bright, cool
reading light from four great windows spaced around the chamber — the only
windows Sam had noticed at Island that were not narrow and iron-barred. There
was no scent of perfume — the Princess apparently didn't use it. The only odors
were of fine laid paper and best black sea-squid ink. Princess
Rachel stood silent, watching him, pen and copybook in hand. She had her
mother's lean height and length of bone, but what must have been her father's
features, blunt, brown-eyed, with wide cheekbones. A handsome face, in its way. "Forgive
me, Princess, for intruding, but it's proved necessary." Sam walked over
to a shelf, read copybook titles on fine sewn top-bindings. "Otherwise,
you'll continue avoiding me all over Island, and I'm sorry to say we don't have
the time for it.... Martian Chronicles. I've heard of Dreaming Bradbury,
but not read him. I have read one copybook supposedly by G. Wolfe. Some
argument whether it's really a dream of his. Might have been written of our
time, in some ways." Sam
glanced over at her, saw no welcome in her face. "The View from
Pompey's Head..." "We
have two of Basso's." Grudging, but a response. Sam supposed this princess
could not not speak of books. "Haven't
read him." "We
have that — and the Light Infantry Ball." "Really?
Well, light infantry, at least, is a subject I know something about." Sam
looked for an empty chair; there seemed to be copybooks or copy paper stacked
on everything. It was a room Neckless Peter would have loved. "Not
that sort of light infantry." "Oh?
What sort is it?" A
little color in those pale cheeks. "It... it is about social relationships
before and during the very ancient Civil War." "The
Map-America civil war?" "Yes,"
the Princess said, and certainly wished him gone. "Not
much use of light infantry there. Skirmishers, scouts, that sort of thing. Of
course, the bang-powder bullets must have influenced all their tactics…. Have
you read the Right Badge of Courage!" "
'Red.' " Definitely blushing —
and of course, very shy. What else could she have grown to be with such a
mother? "
'Red'?" "
'Red' Badge of Courage." "Really?
You're sure?" Sam set a stack of paper on the floor and sat on an uncomfortable
little stool set against the wall by the bookshelf. "I've seen the
copybook. Book-English, though traded from Mexico City." The
Princess opened her mouth to say she was sure, then must have noticed something
in his face. "….But you knew it. You knew that was wrong." Sam
smiled at her. "Yes, I did. There is no 'Right' Badge of Courage."
He leaned back, stretched his legs out, and crossed his boots at the ankle. His
sword-hilt tapped the wall behind him. Shouldn't have worn his sword. It was a
mistake to have come up to her chamber armed, a long bastard blade slanted down
his back. Think first, was the rule at Island. "I
apologize, Rachel." The Princess blinked at the familiarity. A formal
court, they held. "I shouldn't have come to your chamber armed." A
little smile. "I didn't consider your sword rudeness, milord." She
went behind her work desk, and sat looking out at him over a low barrier of
copybooks — as Charles Ketch so often did. Gentle people finding refuge behind
written walls. "— Everyone goes armed at Island." "You
don't, I've noticed. Not even a lady's dagger." "I
have guards." "You
have guards, yes — each man from armies kept deliberately separate. West-bank
and East. Guards commanded by ambitious generals. West-bank generals… East-bank
generals." "It
has worked for us very well." "And
will, until the day a really formidable general joins the River armies
together. Perhaps is forced to join them to meet the sort of threat that, for
instance, the Kipchak Khan is posing now. That general will be king — and all
the more easily if those who ruled are dead." "I
don't think... I don't think you need concern yourself with that, milord." "Oh,
but I do. You see, Princess, the government of Middle Kingdom depends not only
on the strict separation of your two armies, not only on the Fleet as a third
force. It depends on a ruler being strong enough to maintain them in
balance." "You
being such a ruler, of course." "Your
mother being such a ruler." "Then
you had better discuss your ambitions with my mother." An angry face over
the stack of copybooks. Now, Sam could see her father in her. "I
wish... Rachel, I wish we'd had the time to know one another better. If there'd
been a year or more for visits, so we didn't meet now as strangers, and all
this so... awkward." No
answer from the Princess. Her pale face, dark eyes, seemed to float above
stacked white paper. "
— But, lacking that time, shall we have plain speaking?" "Very
well, milord. Plain speaking." She touched the papers before her. "My
interests are my books and those people also interested in books and learning.
Ours is an ignorant age — and forgive me, but you're an example of it. A
provincial war-lord, who seems to wish to be a king! And assumes… assumes that
everyone will fall in with those wishes!" There
was quiet, then, almost restful. Sam saw one of the river gulls, come up from
the Gulf Entire, sail close past the room's south window. Its shadow marked a
white wall for an instant as it passed. "You're
mistaken about my wishes, Rachel. Only an ass wishes to rule anyone. As only a
coward... avoids necessity. — You know,
I drink too much." He saw her a little disconcerted. "I have to be
careful, at dinner and so forth here. I have to be careful not to drink too
much — but not drink so little that it's noticed I have to be careful. I
drink... to rest for a while from what I'm becoming." Sam waited to see if
the gull would fly back, leave another quick shadow of its passing. "I'm
becoming... an instrument, a tool for the work my people set me. And I saw the
same in your mother, when I first met her, then again this morning. I saw that
burden in her eyes." The
Princess listened, her head cocked slightly to one side, as if to hear him
better. "Of
course, I knew the Queen, in a way, before I came to Island. My Second-mother
mentioned Joan Richardson often, admiring her courage, and always spoke of her
with love. As she spoke of your father. — You would have liked my
Second-mother, Catania. I was told my First-mother was beautiful, but Catania
was brave. She was the sort of person we all would wish to be." The
Princess looked down, cleared her throat. "You suggested we speak plainly.
I didn't mean to be rude to you, milord." "Rachel,
my name is Sam Monroe. I am not your 'lord,' and never will be. But I hope, in
time, to become your friend." Still
looking down at her desk-top, as if solutions had been inscribed there.
"My mother is Queen. I have no interest in being one — in being like her." "Thank
every Jesus for that! As to your becoming queen, it's surprising how little
choice we have in these matters. I won two, three battles after older
commanders had been killed. Before that, I'd been a shepherd — and
occasionally, a sheep thief and near bandit. I was very young, and very
foolish…. Then, because better men were dead, I was looked to when
unpleasant decisions had to be made. I made just enough decisions rightly, to
trap myself into becoming Captain-General of North Map-Mexico — a slightly
ridiculous title." "Not
ridiculous." "You're
too kind. But that's really all I am, a very good military commander, and a
fairly good ruler otherwise. Though I probably use force, sometimes, when force
is not quite necessary.... I also used to read a good deal; my Second-mother
saw to that. She was afraid I'd pick up poor book-English, or the mountain
tribes' signs and chatter. So, I've read, though now I have little time for
reading — and by the way, you must meet Neckless Peter, our librarian and informational.
The old man was the Khan's tutor, and he'd love this room." "I'm
to understand, then, that you are a decent provincial war-lord, and
fairly well read." "Exactly."
Sam's back was hurting. He got up from the stool and walked over to the north
window. The window's glass was very fine, some of the clearest he'd seen, each
square pane bright as a mirror. The Kingdom people did wonders with glass.... "Well,
milord — Sir Monroe — you are trying to persuade the wrong person. I am not the
Queen. Put it another way: I can say no. I'm not interested in marriage;
certainly not with you." Sam
saw gulls spiraling down past the tower. It was the view the Boston girl would
have had, Walking-in-air. He was struck by what a strange people those New
Englanders must be, to have — at least a few of them — such a gift, and treat
it only as utility.... Beneath the gulls, the river Mississippi lay many miles
wide, its current, beaten silver, reflecting the mid-day's winter sun like the
oval yolk of the Rain-bird's egg. "You
misunderstand me." Sam turned back from wonderful airiness to the
chamber's circling stone space. "I wasn't trying to persuade you,
Princess. I was explaining the necessity. You cannot say no." "I
think I can." Princess Rachel stood up behind her desk — was certainly a little taller — and started
to the door. "And you are leaving." "Don't... do that." Sam stayed where he was, saw her
hesitate. "If you call your guards in, my sergeant and I might have to
kill them. It would be a bad beginning." The
Princess stood still. "
— A lesson, Princess. Power lies along the edge of the nearest blade, and the
best. If it were not for the Queen's rule, my sergeant and I could kill your
two guards. Then I might beat you — bend you over that desk, rape you, force
you to marriage. I've known men who would do it. I've seen men at this
court who would do it." Sam reached over his right shoulder, slid the long
sword's blade a few inches up out of its scabbard… then slid it back. "You
see, Rachel, this solar is no sanctuary at all, and never has been. Your safety
has rested — since your father's death — in the hands of a tired lady, now
growing old. A lady who goes to bed with fear and deep decisions every night of
her life, so that you, and others like you, do not have to." "My
mother — " "Rachel,
the Queen has said I might try to persuade you. And when a Queen says 'try' —
as when I say 'try' — what is meant is, get it done." "You
lie! She wouldn't do that." "I'm
sure she wouldn't, ordinarily. She'd wish you married into one of the great
River families, I suppose, since you seem not up to ruling more than
book-shelves. But you might say Toghrul Khan has been our marriage-broker,
Rachel. The arranger of our engagement at least, from the time your mother
received pigeons confirming that Seventh and Eighth tumans had taken
your West-bank army's garrison at Map-Jefferson City, and killed them all. —
How many was it? Three thousand... four thousand men? And, of course, the women
and children." A
silent Princess then, standing still as if savage dogs surrounded her, the blue
dots on her cheekbones like spattered ink. "
— Which also was the reason she wasn't as angry as she might have been, hearing
that my army had come up into Map-Louisiana." "My
mother doesn't confide her reasons to me." "No.
Why should she, Rachel?" Sam walked to the west window. That view was of
Island's stone keeps, then the river. The coast of Map-Louisiana too far away
to be seen. "Why should she? You're no part of her ruling." He turned
back to the room. "She's a woman bearing responsibility for many hundreds
of thousands of lives, in a kingdom still occasionally cannibal. And now, the
Khan, a very great and merciless commander, is coming to your river." "She
never asks me for help!" "Should
she have to?" "You
heard her. I wasn't 'here' — only 'present.' " "And
was she right, or wrong? You allowed yourself to be only 'present,' walked away
and came up here to your tower, where — it seems to me — you use books as
walls, instead of ladders." Definitely
her father's daughter. Anger took her like a man, made her silent and still,
except for her eyes. "You do not know me. And you do not know my
mother." "As
women? No. But as present and future rulers, Rachel, I know you both very well,
being one of those odd creatures myself. A creature whose army the Kingdom
needs, a creature who might make a son-in-law who will not murder the
Queen for the throne," — Sam smiled — "even with what is bound to be
great provocation. A son-in-law also capable of dealing with the river lords,
the Kingdom's East and West-bank armies, and the Fleet." "And
you — of course — are capable of all that." "No,
not without you. Without you, without an engagement to marry you, Rachel, I remain
only the provincial war-lord you named me, and unable to unite the Kingdom's
armies with mine. Unable to command them." "I
will not do it." The Princess
walked back to her desk, and sat, seeming less secure behind her paperwork
walls. "Now, you've said what you have to say. Please leave me." "Rachel,
your people and mine need my sword." Sam smiled at her, hoped she
saw kindness in it. "And, sadly, where my sword goes... so do I." "I
would be no help in any of that." Perhaps there were tears in her eyes.
"I'm happiest with copybooks. I enjoy... quiet." She tried a small
smile. "I am not like my mother." Sam
glanced out the south window for the gull, and saw several a bow-shot away,
riding cold wind. "I understand. You would be happy in some peaceful house.
Perhaps with a peaceful man, but certainly with as many copybooks as could be
gathered or lent from here or there... and visitors whose interests reached
beyond present wars, present politics. You'd wish to correspond with others of
like mind from Boston to the Pacific Coast — not all Kipchaks, I understand,
gallop and shoot arrows — and from Mexico City, as well. Perhaps learn the
Beautiful Language...." "Yes.
That's very much what I'd like." "Then
let me tell you, Rachel, what I'd like.... There's a farm in the hills
past Villa Ocampo. It's a place — we measure in Warm-time acres — a farm of
about six hundred acres. A sheep farm, with more summer grazing higher in the
hills. And there's hunting. Partridge and deer, of course. Brown bear...
wolves. There's a fieldstone house on the place, with a little wall around it,
and a garden and orchard. We have just enough summer, most years, for crab
apples." The
Princess listened and watched him, as a wary young mare might watch from spring
pasture. Ready to wheel and run. "
— A man named Patterson owns the farm I'm speaking of. Important sheep-runner,
Albert Patterson. And I believe he'd sell the place to me. There's no
guarantee, of course — we hold a citizen's property as part of lawful liberty —
but I believe he might sell, if I met his price." Sam smiled at her.
"That is what I'd like, and like to do." "Milord
— " "So
now, Rachel, we know what we'd wish our lives to be. But, since neither of us
is a fool, I think we also know the lives we will have." "Your
obligations are yours only." "Yes
— as yours will be to continue the decency of your mother's rule here! Decent,
at least, compared to what it had been, with men eating men for dinner, and the
river lords seizing anything they couldn't eat." "My...
my mother rules and wishes to rule. I don't." "Your
mother will soon be old, Rachel. She won't be able to shelter your people much
longer from the river lords and the generals of East-bank and West. She won't
be able to shelter you from men who would take you, or simply cut your throat,
in consideration of the throne." "And
you have no consideration of the throne?" "I
don't want the fucking thing." Sam saw her wince at the word.
Gently brought up... too gently brought up. "I don't have a choice! You
and I have no choices. The thousands of men and women on your river, and
down in my North Mexico — many of them better people than we are, Princess
— depend on us to do what we're supposed to do. Their children depend on
it." "I will decide my duty." She stood; her
white fists struck the top of the desk before her, hitting the wood hard. Three
long sheets of paper sifted to the floor. "I will decide — not you." Sam
went to the door, so angry he felt his hands trembling. Angry at this stubborn
girl, striking against a trap already closed upon her. Angry at himself... at
this great pile of rocks filled with fools. He
turned at the door. "There is no 'I will' for you, Rachel — and none for me. The Queen sees to that. The
Kipchak Khan sees to that. Boston, and the Emperor in Mexico City see to that.
And the actions of some of our own people, fallen so far from Warm-times, also
leave us no 'I will.' " She
stood staring at him as if he were some grim wizard, flown from New England on
a storm. Sam saw tears in those dark eyes, saw the knowledge of her lost
freedom in them — perhaps the same
freedom her father was said to have regretted — and felt great pity for her. "So,
my dear," — and why not? Perhaps, in time, she might even become his
'dear' — "like it or not, you will have to replace that pen with a dagger.
And as for me, my farm will be the camps... my flock, soldiers." He swung
the oak door open, smiled at her, and hoped she saw affection in it.
"Welcome, Princess, to our engagement — and almost certainly, endless
troubles." He stepped out and closed the door behind him. Sergeant
Burke, lounging by the guards, spit tobacco juice out into the stairwell and
came to a fine attention with a clank of his saber's scabbard.
"Congratulations, sir!" "Fuck
off, Sergeant," Sam said, pleasing Burke — and, he supposed, the two
Island men as well — since soldiers liked nothing better than fond curses.
CHAPTER 19
"I
believe you're to be congratulated, Monroe." Lord Sayre stepped across West
Keep's ground corridor, smiling at Sam like an old friend. "I say it,
since you've come from the lady's solar without cat scratches." The wound
at Sayre's mouth left lower teeth showing unpleasantly when he smiled, an
effect apparently useful to the man. Sam
took the offered hand — a strong hand. "Since you're so... well informed
and first with congratulations, except for my sergeant — I suppose I'd better
be wary of you." Lord
Sayre laughed. "Always a good idea." He glanced over Sam's shoulder,
where Sergeant Burke stood watching. " — And your sergeant, there, also a
good idea." Sam
turned to Burke. "Henry, this is Lord William Sayre. Pass the word to the
others. Lord Sayre can come to me at any time, his reasons his own." "Sir." "This...
hasty engagement, with marriage possibly to follow, is going to be so
interesting." Sayre walked beside Sam down the corridor, their boots
silent on deep carpets, ringing on stretches of stone. "Too bad the war's
confusing issues. You know, I'd thought I might have the throne myself, in
time." "You
wouldn't have been suited to it, milord. Slightly too honorable, from what I've
heard." "'Slightly.'
Mmm, that's possible.... Do you play chess, Monroe?" "No.
My friend, Ned Flores, plays a strong game, but I've never really advanced past
checkers." "And
I understand Colonel Flores will be playing one-handed, now?" "Island
seems always well-informed." They were walking through a huge room paneled
with wood streaked rust and red. Its ceiling, worked in hammered copper and
gold, was two stories high — so high that Sam could make out few details in an
elaborately carved narrative, apparently of love and loss.... By a polished
granite fireplace, one of the few he'd seen without an iron Franklin fronting
it, a group of men and women dressed in furs, and velvets in every color, were
laughing at some notion or remark. The jewels down their weapon scabbards
sparkled in the fire's light. "Island
well-informed? Informed about such as your Colonel Flores, you bet, since our
strength is not in cavalry." "Wonderful
Warm-time phrase, 'You bet.' " "Yes...
and your checkers game, Monroe." Sayre opened the left of double doors,
and ushered Sam through into a long hall he'd seen before. It was decorated
with musical instruments of every different kind, hanging on the walls, or, if
very large, resting on polished stands. " — A game fairly successful, it
seems. You jump a few pieces, and are crowned." Sayre struck a light chord
on an ivory banjar as they passed. "A
move isn't the game," Sam said. Near
the hallway's end, rested what seemed a fair copy of the ancient Warm-time
piano, massive as a spotted bull, but gleaming black. "Meanwhile..."
Sayre, who seemed musical, stepped over to strike a chord on the instrument's
narrow keys with both his hands together — a loud crashing sound, but
beautiful. "Meanwhile, the Queen still rules." "A
very long meanwhile, I hope. I've had enough of ruling to know the stink
of its necessities. And, speaking of necessities, Sayre, I've noticed Island
doesn't seem much alarmed at having lost Map-Jefferson City. Not much alarmed
at the Khan's certain taking of all Map-Missouri soon — and the river, I'm
told, already freezing north of Cairo." "Ah,
well... war." Sayre left the perhaps-piano, which, as they walked
away, still sounded softly down the corridor as if reminding of times lost.
"Monroe, we're always fighting wars. We have over thirty thousand veteran
regulars, taking both bank armies together. Pikemen, crossbowmen. They've never
been terribly impressed by horsemen. You know the Warm-time phrase, 'Whoever
saw a dead cavalryman?' " Behind
them, Sergeant Burke cleared his throat, his boot-steps, spurs jingling, even
more definite. "I've
seen them," Sam said. "And horseback raiders are one thing, the
Khan's tumans are another. Thousands of light and heavy horse, under
perfect discipline, with fast supply trains and bridging-and-siege engineers
behind them." "Mmm...
Jefferson City making your point, I suppose." "I
hope so, for the Kingdom's sake. Once the Map-Texans were beaten at Cut'n
Shoot? The old Khan had their bones collected and ground-up to enrich horse
feed." "Yes....
A word of advice?" "Of
course." Ahead, polished dark wood, gleaming uncarpeted, ran to the West
Keep steps. "It
occurs to me, Monroe, it might be useful for you to speak with Peter
Bailey." "Retired
from East-bank army, isn't he?" "Ah
— done your informational! Yes, retired, but still our grand old man. Still the
best general in either army, in my opinion. If the King had had him up in
Map-Kentucky, the King would still be alive.... Bailey's here at Island now,
over in East Tower, come for a law-case on some leased estate land." A
small marble statue of a crouching cat was set on a greenstone stand along the
corridor wall. Sayre paused and ran a forefinger along the carving before
walking on. "Jemima Patch's work.... As to General Bailey, the old man
doesn't care for me, which you may consider a recommendation; he's not a man
for the court. But if I were you — a provincial commander of note, and possibly
soon to be a prince — I'd speak with him." Sayre hesitated, seemed to
have more to say. "Yes…?" "Well,
with no intent to offend... most of Middle Kingdom, Monroe, will not find
you an impressive heir to the throne. You're pretty much a savage as far as the
River's concerned, a no-dot nobody. But Bailey was a great fighting man — both
armies loved him, though the Fleet did not. His support would be worth more
than regiments to you." "Sounds
like good advice," Sam said. They'd come to the Keep's stairs. "And
if the old man bites me, I'll let him know it was your idea of amusement, and I
only an innocent and honorable young soldier." "Ah…
checkers." Sayre smiled, bowed, then strolled away. "Your
impressions, Sergeant." "Good
man at your side, sir. Risky, at your back." "Fair
enough," Sam said.... And why not to East Tower, now, to see the old man?
A long walk, then likely steep stairs. There was no place at Island reached
without climbing many steps.
* *
*
With
Henry Burke slouching behind him like some great carnivorous stork in armor —
and after two inquiries of the way-Sam climbed a last flight of stone stairs,
went down an icy corridor, and found the door to Bailey's rooms. He
knocked... knocked harder, and wasn't answered. Sergeant
Burke eased past, and hit the door hard enough to shake it in the jamb. Muffled
curses from inside. A bolt slid back, and an old man with shaving soap on his
face, looked out at them. He was barefoot, and wearing a deep-green belted
robe, spotted here and there with grease. "Oh…
it's you." He stood back from the door. "You
expected me, sir?" Sam walked into the room, gestured for Burke to wait
outside. The
general, bulky, but bent with age, went back to shaving at a enameled basin of
hot water on a stand also holding a small, polished-metal mirror. There were
suds and splashes on the stone floor by his meaty, white, bare feet. The
old man gripped a long razor in a knob-knuckled hand, peered into the small
reflecter, and began to scrape his cheek. "Expected to be annoyed by some
fool," he said, "since the Khan took Jeff City." He paused for
delicate work along his upper lip. The razor's blade flashed in firelight.
"Damn woman remarked my stubble this morning. Carping old bitch...." A
small iron stove didn't seem to warm the room. Perhaps couldn't; the stone
ceiling looked to be three men high. "This
fool, sir, is Sam Monroe." The
old man held his razor away, and smiled. "I know which fool you are, milord."
Bailey's eyes, sunk in wrinkles as some far-south lizard's, were an almost
topaz yellow. He recommenced shaving. "I used to have a servant for this
chore — you know Warm-time 'chore'?" "Yes.
Very apt, sir." "Mmm....
I used to have a servant, before spending every fucking piece of silver
I have to settle with a land thief named Edgar Crosby!" "I've
heard of some court case." Sam noticed a faint odor of urine from the old
man's chamber-pot. "Not
a 'case.' A crime. I'd intended Highbank for my granddaughter. Now,
little Agnes will be a fucking pauper!" "And
if I promise to see to it, sir, that in the future, little Agnes doesn't become
a pauper, can we talk about this war?" Sam swung his scabbarded sword off
his back, and sat, without invitation, in the nearest of two fat, velveted
armchairs facing the futile stove. Bailey
rinsed his razor. "And Crosby's head?" "Your
Master Crosby's head — and all our heads — may be used as buzkash balls
by the Khan's horsemen, if this kingdom doesn't come fully awake." General
Bailey grunted, then concentrated on finishing shaving, flicking suds from his
razor onto the floor's stone. He had four tattooed dots on one cheek, five on
the other. "And from me — retired, aged, forgetful — you wish?" "Some
sensible advice." "Oh,
that. Do you intend to try to command this war for us?" "The
Queen, so far, allows only that I 'advise' Kingdom's forces." "Ah….
And you intend to press that small authority as far as it will go?" "Yes,
I do, sir, since my people also stand under threat. The Queen is a great lady,
and a fighter, but not a war planner." Bailey
rinsed his razor, folded it, and set it on the basin's edge. He mopped his face
with a white woven-cloth towel. "I found your campaigns very interesting.
The Boston people at Map-McAllen, for reasons of their own, reported them to us
in detail. I suspect that demonstrated competence is why you are not at the
bottom of the river. Apparently it's thought you might prove useful." The
old man sat in the other armchair, lifted his bare feet onto a worn ottoman,
and settled with a grunt, staring into the Franklin's small fire. "Who
suggested you come see me?" "Sayre." "Ah...
that oh, so clever man. Too fucking clever." "A
soldier, though." "Yes,
a soldier, if you keep an eye on him." The old man shifted slightly in his
chair. "Your campaigns. The night thing at — God-Help-Us' "Yes." "Really
not bad. Better than not bad." "I
was lucky." "Of
course. And lucky in the men — and women, by Lady Weather! — that fought for
you. Did seem to me… and of course I wasn't there. But hearing of it, it did
seem to me you spent your people a little too freely. Might have substituted
maneuver for slaughter — certainly in the initial assault. It can be more useful
to confuse an enemy, than kill a few more of them." "...
Yes, you're right, sir. I thought of strong left-flanking, get them half-turned
from me, but I was afraid the cavalry might just charge away into the night…
turn up weeks later in Map-Guadalajara." The
old man's laugh ended with a liquid cough. "And by Jesus they might have,
at that. I've found cavalry... not quite trustworthy." "I've
learned to trust them. And since I'm presently looking at a pair of
flat, obviously-infantry feet, I'll dismiss an ignorant observation." Bailey
smiled and wiggled his toes. "Oh, no insult intended. All your people seem
to know their business." "Yes,
they do." The
old man stroked his cheeks, evaluating his shave. "Stupid woman..."
He turned from watching the fire to look at Sam, an examination as coolly
interested as an elderly cat's. "And just what do you, as a young
commander of rather limited experience — no experience on the river at all —
just what do you think needs to be done?" "Sir,
I think what's left of the West-bank army should be behind fortifications —
dug-ditch and palisade, if that's the best they can do — until the river
freezes, and they join East-bank army. Your General Pomeroy needs to stop
sticking his neck out for the Kipchaks to chop. No more half-assed marching and
countermarching." "Hmm.
Miles Pomeroy has had the fever-malaria for years. It makes him short-tempered,
restless. I doubt he'll take that 'advice' to heart. Though I also doubt that
fortification will win the war." "It
will stop losing it, while East-bank army gets its thumb out of its ass
and moves west across the ice. The Fleet should be sailing north right now,
ready to rig its runners to join them. The river's already freezing at St.
Louis — " "It's
freezing below Lemay. — And this combination of forces will, of course, terrify
Toghrul." "It
will keep his generals and half his army busy in the north, sir." "While...
?" "While
my army marches up through Map-Arkansas, threatening his lines of supply… then
waits in good defensive country." Bailey
pursed his lips and made soft kissing sounds. "Well, young man, my
information is — and I still receive some information, some useful
pigeons — my information is that the Khan has already reached his people in the
north, taken command from Shapilov. Which means your army had better move fast,
or they'll be too late." "They'll
move fast. They should be well into Map-Louisiana now, with the cavalry coming
east from Map-Fort Stockton to join them." "Better
be. A great deal seems to depend on your General Voss." "He's
a dependable man, sir." "So,
with your army coming up West-bank from the south… which the Khan probably
knows already — " "I
think not. The cavalry, coming east, should screen the army's march for at
least a week or so." "Very
well, Monroe, let's say that's true — " "We'll
have my army coming up the west bank, and your East-bank army crossing the ice
in the north, supported by the Fleet. The Khan will find himself between two
immediately threatening forces — and will have no choice but to divide his army
to deal with them. He won't have time to attack one with all he has, then turn
to face the other." "He
may try to make the time." "Not
with his supply-lines threatened north of the Map-Ozarks, sir. No fodder; no
remounts; no replacements. Time will be against him." The
old man sighed. "From your lips, to the ears of Floating Jesus." "And
Mountain Jesus as well, General." "Well...
it's a very young strategy, Monroe. With many ifs." "It's
the only one, sir, I think has any chance at all." "Mmm....
So, the Khan, once he realizes he's blundered by campaigning with an enemy left
behind to cut his lines of supply, must send troops south to at least dislodge
that enemy. But he must also leave forces in the north, to hold the
river ice against the Fleet, and East-bank army." "Yes." "So
he will send, or go south himself, to meet... you? I assume you intend to
command that battle." "Yes,
sir." Bailey
put his head back and closed his eyes as if beginning a nap. "And what
chance do you give this strategy, young man?" "The
only chance we've got, sir." "Well,
that's fair enough. A soldier's answer, at any rate." Still with his eyes
closed. " — Of course, if he beats you, destroys your army without taking
heavy losses, he'll use your own plan in reverse." "Yes,
if he won with light losses, he'd hook to the riverbank there, let his northern
forces keep our northern forces busy until the river freezes down to
him. Then he'd send his tumans out onto the ice to take Island." "And
the Kingdom." "Yes.
And the Kingdom. — But he won't have light losses, General. Win or lose,
I promise we will ruin him in the fight. So Kingdom will still have a better
than even chance against the rest of his army, in the north." Bailey
opened his eyes. "A fair-enough promise. Well, you have a notion, milord.
And I like it — there's a nice, nasty unfairness to it. But it will depend, of
course, on our people and your people fighting as one, though so
many Warm-time miles apart." "Yes." "To
deal with which difficulty, I suppose, I'm being recruited, though so old, and
now impoverished." "There
would be pay." "Um-hmm.
Same nasty odor of taking advantage — always a sign of solid strategy." "Horseshit,"
Sam said. "You'd have been very angry if you hadn't been asked to help by someone." A
sideways yellow glance. "And
speaking of 'someone,' what does Her Majesty think of your 'advising' Kingdom's
men?" "She
dislikes it extremely, and wouldn't have allowed even that if she had a better
choice — and didn't need my army." Bailey
smiled. He had two teeth missing. "She is a remarkable woman. A better
queen, in some ways, than Newton was a king. His heart was never really in it;
he found us... a sad lot. And that Kentucky business, an absolute mess. General
Ryan, and his so-faithful tribal allies!" The old man seemed to dream for
a few moments, then roused. "So, you 'advise.' I doubt such grudging
approval by Her Majesty will be enough." "The
Queen has allowed my engagement to Princess Rachel." The
general sat up. "Has she? Well... that might make a difference. And
the girl will have you?" "I
believe she will, though reluctantly." "Ah.
'Reluctantly.' 'Advise' and 'reluctantly.' Son, you're going to be very lucky
to keep your head — even forgetting Toghrul and his Kipchaks." "I
know it." Bailey
hauled himself out of his chair, padded to the Franklin, and struck the hot
stove-pipe with his fist. A small belch of ash and smoke came from the fire.
"Fucking thing.... If the Kipchaks had not taken Map-Jefferson City
— " "I
know. In that way, Toghrul works for me." "He'll
work against you, when he finds he has to take half his army down to
Map-Arkansas." The general's robe was dusted with ash. "Think you can
beat him?" "If
he fights my fight — yes." "And
your fight will be?" "Wait
for him in broken, wooded country, hills with some height to them. On perhaps a
seven-to-eight-hundred-acre front, cut by narrow hollows. And all under Lord
Winter's snow." "Map-Ozarks." "Yes." Bailey
tapped the stove-pipe again, absently. "So, you leave him no room for
sweeping cavalry maneuvers.... He'll break his command into smaller units, try
to work them along the ridges into your formations." "I
would, in his place." "And,
of course, he'll dismount most of his people — have them come against you on
foot." "So
I hope, sir." "He'll
still have numbers on you, even with only half his army with him." "Yes." Thinking,
Bailey touched the stove-pipe again, left his fingers on it too long. "Ow!
Damn thing. It seem cold in here to you?" "It
is cold." Sam demonstrated by blowing a faint cloud of breath. "You
need a bigger stove." "What
I need," the old man said, "are twenty fewer years and two thousand
pieces of silver. You'll meet him on the ridges?" "Cavalry
waits along the ridges, in reserve. His dismounted men will have to
attack up snowy hillsides; the Light Infantry will fight them as they climb the
slopes. The Heavy Infantry will be waiting when — if — they reach the
crests." "Umm.
Of course, the Khan will soon know of your army, and approximately where it
will stand. There'll be no surprises for him, then." "Yes,
but it seems to me, no choices either. He'll have to come to us." "Alright."
Bailey dusted ash off his hands. "I'll do what I can, milord. As you
'advise.' But everything depends on your people marching north from West
Map-Louisiana. If that army doesn't move north, doesn't threaten
the Kipchaks' line of supply, there'll be very little either you or I
can do." "Understood.
And Howell Voss should join them with the cavalry at any time; possibly already
has." "Let's
hope so. What I can do, now, is pigeon to suggest strictly defensive formations
to West-bank army in the south. Pomeroy will listen; he's not an idiot. It
seems to me that Cotton is already doing the best he can in the north, at St.
Louis." "I
think so. I'd be very grateful for that pigeon, sir. And East-bank army?" "Ah...
my old command. Mark Aiken will do as he's ordered, and there's the rub. Know
that phrase?" "I
believe I've heard it, sir. Very apt." "Well,
there is the rub. Aiken will require orders, since moving even toward
West bank is contrary to founding regulations. 'Advice' won't do — not even
from me. He will move only at the Queen's command, or by the Queen's warrant.
Won't do more, won't do less.... I'd say that up till now, no one has ordered
him to do anything, other than local defense situations. Still, once he's told
what to do, Aiken will move, and quickly, and be glad to." The old man
began to pace back and forth in front of the stove. It was slow pacing, with a
limp. "We're… you must understand, Monroe, that we're an aggressive
military. Defense is a poor doctrine for us. You know the Warm-time
'doctrine'?" "I
do, yes. Sir, the Kipchaks want to be attacked. They hope for it, as a
knife fighter wishes for a clumsy thrust to counter for his kill. What they don't
want, is delay, and a mobile and determined defense." "Oh,
I understand very well." Pacing away, the old man spoke that to a wall and
glassed arrow-slit. "But what you must understand, young man," —
limping back, now — "is that by being aggressive, the Kingdom's
forces have been very effective at controlling the river and six Map-states.
Dealing for the most part, of course, with savages, tribesmen and so forth.
Now, they're being asked to meet a military at least as formidable as ours —
and commanded, I regret to say, by a genius of war." "And
the division of the army into East and West-bank commands?" The
old man stopped pacing. "Oh, that began as a sensible precaution on the
part of our kings. Did you know it used to be a death-penalty offense for an
officer of one bank army ever to cross the river... ever to have a close
relationship with an officer from the opposite bank?" "I'd
heard that." "And
heard correctly. It was all a matter of careful balances — and now, of course, has become a weakness. It
had occurred to no one, myself included, that it might be wise for both bank
armies to cooperate against the Kipchaks, moving back and forth across
the river to threaten his forces' flanks." "Must
be done now, sir." Sam stood, buckled his sword harness... reached over
his shoulder to touch the weapon's hilt. "Yes.
Now it must be done, milord. And the Fleet won't like it. They've always been
pleased to deal with a divided army. But East-bank was my old command,
and I believe Mark Aiken will at least prepare to move, if I convince him that
a direct order will be coming. Then he'll be able to get his regiments out onto
the ice with no delay." "That
is... better than I'd hoped for, sir. I owe you a great debt." "You
keep that in mind, young man. I believe you mentioned… pay?" Bailey
stooped for a small piece of firewood at the stove's rack, tossed it into the
flames. "I'll
see to it, General…. And I think I've taken enough of your time." "Oh,
nothing but time, now. Time, and a little widow — quite old, of course — but
enough of a bitch to be interesting." "The
suggester of shaving?" "The
very one." He walked Sam to the door. "Remember, milord, your people
have to be in place — and soon." "I
know it." "And
the other matter — " "
— Is Kingdom's fleet." "That's
right. If our fleet doesn't get north, and onto the ice to slice through those tumans'
formations..." "Any
influence with the admirals, sir?" The
old man smiled. "Why, yes. The admirals are very much like sea-whales —
they snort and wallow, roll and blow. And they hate my guts. That's always
influence of a sort, if properly applied." Sam
paused at the door. "My thanks again, sir, for your help." "You
haven't got anything to thank me for, yet." The old man put a hand
on Sam's shoulder. "When you can do a little better than 'advise,' you
might take it upon yourself to see Lenihan. He's supposed to be
coordinating command, here." "I
will. And I wish you could be fighting with me." Bailey
shook his head. "You are young. I can't tell you how grateful I am
that I won't be fighting beside you. What's the copybook phrase? 'Scared
to death'? I was scared to death, every battle I fought." "I
doubt it," Sam said, and swung the door open. Sergeant Burke came to
attention. "What's
your name, Sergeant?" Bailey bent a yellow eye on him. A
more rigid attention. "Burke, sir!" "Well,
Sergeant Burke, watch this boy's back." "Sir!"
Followed by a very snappy salute — now, it seemed to Sam, as much a part of his
soldiers as their belly-buttons. ...
There was no temptation as great as inaction. Sam stood weary in the corridor's
cold, drafty gray stone, Sergeant Burke standing silent behind him, and wished
for rest, solitude, an end to persuading strangers. An end to maneuvers of
words, as wearing as a battle in this great smoky warren of wind and rock. The
sergeant cleared his throat. And as if that had been a signal to march, Sam
marched. It
would be the chamberlain's office, next — undoubtedly a mile away through
freezing granite halls and stairways — to attempt to persuade that clever fat
man to, in turn, try to persuade the Queen to loosen her grip, only slightly,
on power. It
seemed unlikely — as everything on the river seemed unlikely, dreams flowing
down in the current's ice with their Floating Jesus, so Sam felt he might
wander Island forever.
*
* *
Rodney
Sewell had come down-river from Cooper Estate just two days before. Sent for to
come quickly, he'd landed still wearing the family's livery, but changed in the
dock shed to brown smock and sack trousers. A
preparation under-cook had been willing enough, for a bare handful of copper,
to provide a place for a tall, shabby, ginger-haired stranger to sleep, deep in
the kitchen cellars. Willing enough, if chicken-birds were properly gutted,
potatoes peeled, and onions sliced by the basketful. The
people called him Ginger, since Sewell never offered his name, and were
impressed by his gutting chicken-birds like a wonder. But though he always
washed that mess off at the pump before the scullions' meals were served, and
was quiet and decently mannered, the pot girls avoided him. Perhaps he washed
too well, as if his hands — large, and long-fingered — had more important
things to do. Also,
his first day working, he'd responded in an unpleasant way to the teasing any
new kitchener was bound to expect. He'd stared at them, and was so oddly silent
— while the gutting knife worked on, worked faster, its greasy blade flashing
through flesh — that the teasing stopped. Lunchtime
on his third day, Sewell had strolled past the serving trays for a suite of
Tower rooms. Strolled so near that the meat cook, Mr. Harris — in conversation
with a fat servant belonging to those rooms — had cursed him and waved him back
to his work. Hours
later, after filleting a deep basketfull of fishes to rest in ice as dinner
preparation, Sewell ambled by the trays again. One held sliced carrots, turnip
crisps, and pickled mussels. Sewell hesitated there, saw the idiot scrubber
watching him, and walked away. He went through the second kitchen and down the
cellar corridor to the turning for barrel preserves, and the jakes. The
storage there, shadowy and damp, extended from the corridor on either side down
long, narrow aisles, walled by high stacks of barrels with more barrels packed
behind them. All smelling sour with tons of brined cabbage — Warm-times' 'sour
kraut' — some of it five, six years old. Sewell had never had a taste for it. Down
each dark aisle, hacked cabbages and huge open barrels — some half-filled, some
crusted with salt shipped up from the Gulf Entire — stood beside long,
knife-scored work tables. Sewell
had come to the end of storage, had the door to the jakes in sight, when
something very heavy draped itself across his back and shoulders. It staggered
him, with surprise as much as anything, but Sewell was quick, had always been
very quick and strong. He would have had his gutting knife out, except that two
fat legs had wrapped themselves around him, so his arms were pinned to his
sides. The
knotted cord that whipped around his neck was inevitable, though Sewell did
everything that could and should be done. He tried to scream — just too late —
so made only a soft croaking sound. He bent, and bucked into a somersault to
smash the strangler to the stone floor. Then he got to his feet — a difficult
thing to do — and drove backward with great strength into a side aisle and a
work table's heavy, seasoned edge. With
luck, the oak might have broken the strangler's spine, but hadn't. Whoever, he
was a sturdy man, and he'd shifted a little just in time. Even so, given only
one good breath — only one — Sewell felt anything might be possible. But
no breath was given, and Sewell thrashed and staggered this way and that down
the narrow aisle, kicked and arched his back, writhed to work his arms, his
hands, free of those fat legs locked around him. It was difficult to do with no
breathing.... Soon it became impossible, and he knelt on the stone — that great
weight still clinging, bearing on him. The cord buried deep in Sewell's neck seemed
now made of diamonds, it sparkled so in his mind. He felt little things
breaking in the back of his eyes from brightness. He
was lying down, face pressed to cool stone, and had no idea how that had
happened, where the time had gone. He could feel a thing in his chest
trembling. He was warm in the seat of his pants.... Ansel
Carey, whistling a song his father had taught him, went up the aisle to the
corridor, looked left and right, then came back to haul the corpse onto the
work table, and go through its pockets. He found a gutting knife, another
little blade hiding strapped to the right ankle, twenty-seven coins — copper, silver, and gold — and a tiny
blown-glass bottle with a string-wound stopper. There was a thimbleful of ashy
powder in it, that smelled like toasted almonds. He
tossed everything but the money into a brine barrel at the end of the work
table, then slid the corpse that way. With grunts of effort, he doubled it
over, lifted it... and stuffed it down into the big barrel butt first, so the
feet and black, swollen face came together at the top, awash in pickling. "Unappetizing,"
Master Carey said, fitted the oak lid down tight, then used a mallet to set the
top hoop.... While he labored — rolling the barrel to the back of the narrow
aisle, then, with the aid of a plank as lever, hoisting it level by level, deep
into the storage stacks — he decided the matter had been, after all, too slight
to have mentioned beforehand, orders or not. And too squalid to report now, to
a young Captain-General with more important matters on his mind.
CHAPTER 20
"Sir,
what is the matter with these fools? As you suggested, whenever I'm out
of these damned rooms, I've been having 'casual' conversations with a number of
civilians and middle-rank officials — and those older officers who'll speak to
a woman soldier without smirking — and none seem very interested in the
Kipchaks." Sam
saw a tired Margaret Mosten sitting across from him at their suite's great
table — as she undoubtedly saw a weary Sam Monroe. "The matter, Margaret,
is they simply don't believe the threat is great. This afternoon, Chamberlain
Brady dismissed the Khan with a wave of his hand. These people are not
convinced this war requires that they let some war-lord from nowhere — " "A
no-dot war-lord, sir." Lieutenant Darry, still eating at supper's
end, paused in forking up a baked apple. "That's
right, Pedro. A no-dot war-lord." The
long table supported the remains of food brought up under covered silver salvers
by four servants in the Queen's blood-red livery. Servants accompanied from the
kitchens by an untrusting Master Carey… who'd then uncovered platters of salt
ham, broccoli and fresh onions, a roasted duck, potatoes creamed to pudding in
spotted-cattle milk, and spiced baked apples — tasting them at random while the
food cooled, the meats congealed. Now,
supper over, Carey — who remained mysteriously fat, since he never sat to eat —
was collecting Island's silverware. The Chief of Kitchens, a tyrant laired deep
in Island's cellar warren, counted all returned silverware, even from the
Queen's table. "...
But, do they think Toghrul Khan is just going to go away?" "Margaret,
except for some of the officers the Queen has just brought to Island, the
Boxcars think he's basically only a more formidable tribesman. And they've
dealt with tribesmen and tooth-filers many times." "But
they lost Map-Jefferson City!" "
'A fluke,' is how the chamberlain described that. I got the impression he
thought the Queen was making too much of it." "The
court tends to agree, sir." Darry poured himself more berry brandy. The
lieutenant, though slender, seemed to have an extraordinary capacity — was
always hungry, and never seemed drunk. "People I speak to, some of them
officers of the better regiments, regard this war as... well, a career
opportunity. Except for those like Stilwell or Brainard, who have estates to
inherit." "Fucking
overdecorated roosters." Margaret made a face. It seemed to Sam she hadn't
yet forgiven him for her boots, leathers, and mail, in a court where the women
— and men — dressed like furred and velveted song-birds. "Well,
Captain, they're frivolous… and they aren't." Pedro twirled his silver
goblet; those were counted in the kitchens, too. "Most of them have fought
tribesmen. And if not, fought each other in duels. I feel... really, I feel
quite at home. Though, of course, they are a little rough." "A
little rough?" Sam considered some brandy, then decided not. "Well,
sir, Jerry Brainard has killed a man who questioned his family recipe. A
question of palms." "Palms?"
Margaret said. "Yes,
Captain. Palms. Girl's palms — of course hardly done at all, now. But the
question was whether to cattle-butter them before broiling, or after." "Lady
Weather..." "And
which," Sam said, "did the Brainards favor?" "Oh,
Jerry said, 'Before.' Before, absolutely. Keeps 'em plump; keeps 'em from
drying out on the grill." "These
people," Margaret said, "deserve the Kipchaks." "But
our people don't," Sam said, "and Toghrul will see to it that as the
Kingdom goes, so will they." "True." "And
speaking of deserving, I've seen no Jesus priests, no ladies of Lady Weather at
Island." "No,
sir," Darry said. "I understand the Queen doesn't allow it, doesn't
allow them to stay. She sends them back where they came from with silver
pieces. Says to do good — and stay gone." "Making
enemies, Pedro?" Margaret said. "Don't
think so, Captain. I'm told she gives a lot of silver. And the winter
festivals, very elaborate, supposed to be wonderful to see. Canceled this year,
of course." "Master
Carey," Sam said, "do we have a healthy pigeon?" "Two,
sir. Only two since Hector died on the Naughty. Couldn' stand the
motion." Ansel Carey kept the birds in his room, and expressed to them the
only tenderness Sam had seen from him. "Leave
the silverware; let the Queen's people count it when they come for the
platters." "What
message, Sam?" "To
Howell and Ned, Margaret, through Better-Weather. Howell's probably joined by
now, and Eric can relay dispatch-riders up to them. I want them moving north
fast as possible. Forward elements should already be out of West
Louisiana." "Sam,
they know that." Margaret had carved the supper meat, and was
cleaning ham juice from her long dagger's blade with a red woven-cloth napkin.
"They don't need to be reminded... if a galloper could even catch up to
them." "Well,
they may not need a reminder if they get it — but they might have needed it, if
they don't." "Sam,
that doesn't make any sense at all." "Does
to me," Darry said, and pushed his dessert plate away. The lieutenant
tilted his heavy chair back and sat at ease, gleaming boots crossed at the
ankles. "Precious Miss Murphy's Law. What may be fucked up — your pardon,
Captain Mosten — will be fucked up. So, better a pigeon, to be sure." "My
thinking," Sam said. "And it's possible that Howell... even that both
of them have been killed." "Nothing,"
Margaret said, and got up from the table. "Nothing could kill both of
those men. I don't think Ned is killable." "Did
lose his hand," Darry said. Master
Carey's room was down the corridor. Sam could hear him murmuring to the
pigeons, apparently making his selection. "Speaking
of hands, Pedro; you've had more than a week dealing them out at the
card-tables at court. And, I understand, have been successful. What news?" "Master
Carey exaggerates, sir. Just fun cards, small stakes; never enough to make
anyone angry. Also, no involvement with any lady having serious
connections." "That's
a comfort. Go on." "Well,
sir..." Darry brought his chair forward, sat at attention. "Well, sir
— this is no court, in the sense of the Emperor's court at Map-Mexico
City. It's... really more like chieftains gathering at a tribal longhouse in
the mountains, or north, along the ice-wall. Though the longhouse in this case
is stone, and miles each way." Darry paused, considering. "It isn't
that there aren't manners here, sir, and decent precedence — there are.
But it's all damn shallow." "Meaning,"
Margaret Mosten said, "keep a sergeant with you, Sam." "Yes,"
Darry said. "Absolutely. Not that murdering you would be undertaken
lightly, sir." "Glad
to hear it." "But
it wouldn't be, well, regarded as... memorable." "And
no fucking consideration as to what might happen then?" Margaret leaned
over the table like a storm. "With the Kingdom at war, and our army
marching into Map-Arkansas?" "Ah,
but you see, Captain, the people who are the considering sort, wouldn't be the
ones who killed our Captain-General." He smiled at Sam in encouragement. "One
or more of the sergeants," Margaret said, "and either Pedro or
me in any public gathering." Darry
nodded. "We have no dots on our faces, sir, is what it comes down to. We
aren't Boxcars." "Neither
was the Queen." Sam reconsidered the berry brandy, poured the barest taste
into his glass and drank it... breathed its stinging sweetness in and out. "No,
but she is now, sir. She was married to their king — and, I understand,
murdered to hold her own once he was gone." "Watch
your tongue, Pedro. Even stone walls can grow ears." "Oh
— oh, nothing out of the way in that sort of killing, of course, sir!"
Darry said. "Admirable, really. An admirable lady… who having been a
tribeswoman herself, knew what needed to be done." "I'd
leave the subject, Pedro.... Margaret, will you go and persuade
Ansel to part with a fucking pigeon. I'd like to get that message sent. And
Pedro, you might keep in mind that those people at Island who do 'consider'
before they act, might consider it useful to put one of my people into the
river, as an indication we're not wanted here, long-term." "I
suppose that's true!" Darry seemed startled at the notion. "So,
if you find even your charm suddenly overvalued by new friends, a new
lady, you might be careful what dark corner you're invited to." "I
keep an eye on him, milord." Master Carey carried in a bird basket, with
Margaret marching behind him. "I've been Sancho to his Panzo, or
whatever... keep close to any fun, or lady." "Tediously
so," said Lieutenant Darry. "It was a question, sir, but I chose our
Louella." Carey set the basket on the table. "She's small, but swift.
And spirited — flies so hawks can kiss
her ass." Louella
set a bright black eye to the basket weaving, examined them. "Sir,"
Margaret said, "it would be a mistake. They'll think you have no
confidence in them. They'll start looking over their shoulders for more messages." "Good
point, sir," Darry said. "Still, there's Miss Murphy's Law...." "Pedro,"
Margaret said, "be quiet." Sam
closed his eyes for a moment... saw Howell in camp, unrolling the bird's tiny
message-paper and reading it. Then saying, "Well, for Weather's sake. What
the fuck's the matter with Sam?" "Alright…
Take the bird back, Ansel." There
were two very hard knocks on the suite's heavy door. It opened partway, and
Sergeant Mays leaned in. "Her Majesty an' the ax-girl to see you,
sir." Master
Carey snatched up Louella's basket, and waddled swiftly back to his room as the
Queen, in a long wolf-fur cloak, came in past Sergeant Mays, her armswoman
behind her. "Where's
that fat man off to?" Sam
stood with Margaret and Darry, and bowed. "Honored to welcome you, ma'am….
Carey's our schemer, spy, and supply person. Secrecy's a custom with him, so he
snatched our pigeon away." "One
of your Master Lauder's people, I suppose?" "I'm
sure of it." "This
habit," — the Queen stood in the middle of the room — "this habit you have of being so
directly honest as to insult those you speak to, I find very unpleasant." "I
apologize, Queen. I do it to unsettle those older and cleverer than I am." "And
that's exactly what I mean — that sort of thing you just said." 299 "Perhaps
I should try a little lying. Will you sit, ma'am? Have wine... berry
brandy?" Queen
Joan shook her head, then was silent, as if she'd forgotten why she'd come. Her
ax-girl watched Sergeant Mays, since he stood closest to them. "What
is it, ma'am?" Sam said. "What's happened?" "...
Nothing. Nothing's 'happened,' Monroe. I visit where I choose, when I
choose." Sam saw, by the hanging lanterns' warm light, that the Queen was
pale as cotton sheeting. "They're
on the river?" "Our
difficulties," the Queen said, "our... difficulties are still our concern." "They've
taken St. Louis." The Queen
made a sound in her throat, and clawed her fingers as if she were about to
fight. Then, spreading her arms wide, her long wolf cloak swinging open, she
began a slow-stepping dance of fury. Her ropes of pearls swaying with her furs,
she turned in drifts of flower scent, eyes rolled back, teeth bared to bite.
She danced in paces her ax-girl mirrored to stay within reach. "I'll
kill... that fucking Kipchak. Every person, everything he loves, I'll kill.
I'll skin his wife, his child — I hear there's to be a child. I'll skin
that baby slowly, for him to see — and
his horses, skin his horses alive before I skin him, roll him screaming
in salt, and serve him roasted!" It
was a promise frightening to see danced and almost sung. Sam noticed Sergeant
Mays stand back a step, and saw that Margaret had closed her eyes, as if the
Queen were a fire burning too close. When
Queen Joan stood still and silent, Sam went to her and took her hands while the
armswoman watched. "Give me your warrant, dear." "...
I am not your 'dear.' " But she let him hold her hands. "Give
me your warrant to assist you in this war, to command, so our armies can fight
together." "So
you can prepare to take my throne — boy?" She pulled her hands
away. "I
swear to uphold you on your throne, Queen — uphold your rule against any
and all. I swear it on the memory of my Second-mother.... And will hold to
it," — he smiled — "no matter how inconvenient." "Never,"
the Queen said. " — Never." She turned and walked out. Her
ax-girl, following, glanced back to be certain of no surprise, then closed the
door behind them. "What
do we do?" Margaret said into silence. "Sam, what do we do,
now?" "What
do we do... ?" Sam took a deep breath. "What I do is keep
trying to persuade the generals and admirals here to cooperate with our
army." "Won't
do it, sir, without her." Carey, out of his room like a mountain marmot,
appearing in the hall. "Boxcars think we're shit, sir." "Sad,"
Pedro Darry said, "but true." An ancient phrase. "Then
fuck 'em," said Sergeant Mays. "No.
We need these people." Sam reached for the brandy, noticed Margaret
Mosten's glance, and set the crystal jug aside. "I'll go to the river
lords, tomorrow — " The
chamber's door swung open again, and Queen Joan's ax-girl stepped in. "Her
Majesty," she said. The
Queen stood in the doorway. "I've... changed my mind." She stared at
them a few moments, then said, "Dear God." One of Warm-times'
shortest sayings.
*
* *
After
an early breakfast delivered to their rooms — the roast pork, boiled eggs, oat
pudding, and honey rolls all first nibbled for safety's sake by Master Carey —
Sam, with Sergeant Wilkey pacing behind him, longbow down his back, coursed
through Island's passages to East Tower's stairs, cubbies, and chambers, until
a serving man nodded to "General Lenihan" and pointed them to offices
at the end of a lamp-lit hall. No guard was posted there. Wilkey
opened the oak door and stood aside as Sam walked in. Three soldiers, clerks,
stood writing at stands beneath hanging five-flame oil lamps. They were wearing
West-bank army's blue wool, but no weapons, no armor. They set their pens down
as Sam and Wilkey came in. "Brigadier
Lenihan," Sam said. "I understand he's executive for plans and
coordination — dealing with both bank armies?" "And
you are?" The tallest clerk, a sergeant. "He's
'Milord Monroe' to you," Wilkey said pleasantly. "Now, see him in to
your general." The
clerk said, "Sorry, sir — milord," trotted to an inner office door,
knocked, opened it, and said, "Lord Monroe to see you, sir." There
was a grumble from inside. Sam walked past the clerk into a smaller space that
reminded him of Charles' cramped office at Better-Weather, though more brightly
lit. A stocky man with cold gray eyes and several days' growth of beard,
wearing West-bank army's blue, stood from behind a desk piled with maps and
message sheets. He had three tattooed dots on his left cheek, four on the
other. "General
Lenihan, I believe we have some business." "Sir
— milord — I hardly think so." Lenihan's voice was hoarse with fatigue.
"And, while I wouldn't wish to be rude, I must say I don't have the time
for it." The brigadier looked down at his desk-top. "There are orders
to be copied, orders to be sent. In short, sir, I have a war on my hands — at
least portions of it." "I
see you do. And how does your war go, General?" "That,
sir, with all respect, is something I couldn't discuss with you. Perhaps the
chamberlain's office..." Lenihan, impatient, glanced down and shifted some
papers. Sam shoved
a stack of documents aside, then sat on the edge of the desk, one booted foot
on the floor. "The Queen has allowed me to be what help I can in this war,
Lenihan. So it's by her warrant and authority, as well as mine, that I suggest
you drop this pose of 'responsible officer weary of interfering idiots' — and
prepare to take my orders." The
general's face flushed. "I would need a written order, signed by
the Queen, to do any such — " Sam
lunged across the desk, took Lenihan's throat in his right hand, and drove the
man back against the wall. The brigadier was strong, struggled, and reached for
his belted dagger. Sam covered that hand with his left to keep the blade
sheathed — and heard Wilkey, behind him, draw his sword. "Put
up, Sergeant!" The sword whispered back into its scabbard. Lenihan,
who couldn't breathe, fought hard. His chair went over with a clatter; a fat
folder slid from the desk. He struck with a heavy fist at Sam's head and belly,
tried for his balls. Then plucked and tore at the strangling hand, to wrench it
free. The
office door opened. "Mind
your own business," Wilkey said behind Sam, and kicked the door shut. The
general, though a tough man, was beginning to soften with lack of air. The
punches and kicks slowly became random. Sam saw in the man's eyes the astounded
realization this might be death — come so oddly, so suddenly, in an office of
all things, and at the hand of a titled stranger young enough to be his son. Sam
let him go, and the general slid down the wall to one knee, took long, gasping
breaths — then staggered up with his dagger drawn. Sam,
arms crossed, sat back on the desk edge, watching him... taking no notice of
the knife. "You…
young dog!" A furious brigadier, and even hoarser now. There were
tentative knocks on the office door. "Get
away from there!" Sergeant Wilkey said. There were no more knocks. Sam
was careful not to smile. "I apologize, Lenihan. I was hasty — but I
needed to get your attention. We simply don't have time to waste with
nonsense." He picked a paper off the desk-top, then another, and glanced
over them. "Floating Jesus!" Pleased to have remembered the
River's Great. "You people are moving units of East-bank army to cover
these fucking towns!" "That's
right!" The general was still gripping his dagger. "The Kipchaks are
raiding across the ice, up-river. They're burning East-bank towns. Killing
everyone in them. Children... everyone!" "Of
course they are, General." Sam set the papers down. "Haven't you
wondered why? — The Kipchaks like children. They have children of their
own. So they must have a reason to be crossing the river up there, attacking
those towns, and killing your people — including the little children." "You...
put your hands on me." Lenihan sheathed his dagger. "Yes,
I did. And if you don't begin to think, instead of sitting passing
papers like turds, I'll put my hands on you again. Is that plain enough for
you, General?" Scowling
silence. "The
Kipchaks want you people to break up your East-bank army. Shapilov, and
now the Khan, want that army dissolved into little garrisons guarding civilians
who should be moving back off the river into the forests. What the Khan doesn't
want, is that army united into a single force that might cross the river
ice against him!" Sam shook his head. "Lenihan, you and your people
at Island have been doing the Kipchaks' work for them." "We
have not." "Yes,
you have. And it must stop. We don't have time for mistakes this
serious. So far, you've been dealing with the Khan's generals. But now, Toghrul
has taken command. Another blunder like this, he'll tear your throats
out." Sam stood up off the desk. "You people are not dealing with
tribesmen and savages any longer, warriors who don't know discipline. You're
facing a great mechanical of war — do you understand? A veteran horse-army that
can move fifty Warm-time miles a day, and fight a battle that evening. All
commanded by a man more intelligent than both of us together." Sam
stood off the desk, and went to the door. "So, we do things right,
General, and do them quickly and in cooperation — my people coming up into Map-Arkansas, and
yours north, on the river ice. We do things right... or your head and my
head and the Queen's head will end piled with thousands of others, here in your
great courtyard." "I...
don't know." "Yes,
you do know, Lenihan.... Now, by right of the Queen's warrant to me, you
will inform General DeVane of East-bank army, General Parker of West-bank army,
the two senior admirals at Island — Pearce and Hopkins — and the River Lords
Sayre and Cooper, that their presence is commanded this afternoon in the
Queen's council chamber at... two glasses. Each may bring one aide. And General
Bailey may choose to attend, or not." Lenihan
looked even wearier than before. "I will... inform them, milord." "'Sir,'
will do; we don't have time for 'milord's. But you will do more than inform
them, Lenihan. You will see to it that those officers and lords are present
— if necessary, escorted and under arrest." "...
Yes, sir." "What's
your first name?" "Patrick." "Two
more matters, Patrick. You're to post a guard at your corridor door. Also, put
your clerks up on charges, for not supporting their officer with more than
timid tapping while he was being assaulted." A
grudging first smile from the general. "Sir." "See
you at two, Pat," Sam said, and left the office, Wilkey following.
*
* *
Ned
Flores, weary, stood by a hasty nighttime fire, his steel hook reflecting the
flames' red. "Howell, we're not moving fast enough." "We're
moving as fast as won't exhaust the men and break down the horses." Howell
spit tobacco-juice hissing into the fire. "Won't do us any good, Ned, to
ruin the army moving it." "Speaking
of which, we should be nearing the Kipchaks' supply lines soon." "Yes." "What
do you want done when we hit them?" "Take
what we can use, give the rest to the local tribesmen." "And
the escort?" "Kill
them all." ' "Okay….
My men have had no trouble with the savages —
called Bluebirds, apparently. And they'll like any plunder we can give
them. No trouble with the Bluebirds — but we got some cold looks from those
West-bank scouts, couple of days ago." "We're
just passing through, Ned. We won't give them any trouble, and there aren't
enough of them down here to give us any trouble. If the drum calls coming down
the river are true, the Kipchaks pretty much wrecked West-bank army up at St.
Louis." Howell kicked a brand back into the flames. "Also, I intend
to look to those river people for food and fodder as we go north to the
Map-Missouri line, in case Charles can't get supplies up to us fast enough. So,
let's not kill any of the soldiers they have left." "Right....
It's really upsetting." "What?" "That
you're actually thinking, Howell. It's difficult to get used to." "You
insubordinate asshole. You're lucky you're wearing that nasty thing." Flores
raised his hook and kissed it. "Don't insult my Alice." "Alice?" "Why
not? Remember Alice Rodriguez? Cold, curved, and dangerous?" "...
Oh, Mountain Jesus. Hadn't thought of her for years. Well, take 'Alice' — and
your regiment — and move off north. Smartly, Ned. We'll night-march six
glass-hours." "General,"
— Flores saluted with the middle finger of his good hand — "consider it
done." With
Ned mounted and spurred off through falling snow, calling for his trumpeter,
Howell stood warming his hands at the failing fire, watching down the hillside
to the defile where Phil Butler's Heavy Infantry battalions were marching north
in moonlight. Marching in good spirits, apparently, since they were singing
"Gringo the Russians, Oh" as they swung along. Odd, how falling snow
muffled sound. "General?"
Roberto Collins reining in his horse — and looking too young to be a captain on
the staff. "Last units, sir, except for Colonel Loomis's rear guard." "All
right. Orders." "Sir." "Colonel
Loomis to deploy three companies of Lights as tail-end charlies. Double-time
the others up to flank us, deploying lightly to the east, heavily to the west.
We'll be approaching the Kipchaks' lines of supply, coming from Map-Texas to
north on the river. Tell her I want no surprises." "Sir." "And
Roberto, make sure Charmian understands that her people are to stand no
engagement. If there's a problem, they're to skirmish, then fall back on the
main body." "Yes,
sir." And Collins was off at a gallop through deepening snow. Young, it
seemed to Howell, young for a staff officer. And where had "tail-end
charlies" come from? Some copybook.... "Big
One-eye!" Blue-coated scimitar at her belt, Patience Nearly-Lodge Riley
came to the fire's coals — small boots stomping through the snow — and tilted
her hat's brim back from a face perfectly white, hair black as blindness.
"I could send Webster to our Captain-General at their island. He would
find him, if you have a message, or need his advice." "I
don't have a message, don't need Sam's advice, and would appreciate your
staying with the baggage train where you belong. Colonel Butler put you there,
Lady, and you're to stay." "Only
until fighting. I was promised to
hover over a battle like Lady Weather, picking out this one or that one for
best luck or bad." "Right....
Well, until that battle, please get your Boston butt back to baggage. We are responsible
for you." "And
I so appreciate your protection." The girl smiled up at him, her small,
white right hand resting on her sword's pommel. "The Captain-General —
he'll be coming soon to fight the battle?" "Can't
be soon enough. Now, if you'll just get back where you belong. We have a night
march — " "You
haven't visited dear Portia-doctor at all, One-eye, not a single time in this
hasty travel north. Don't you think she would like a visit from you?"
Another smile with that. "Likely
as much as I'm enjoying this one," Howell said. "Go back where you
belong — or be tied and taken." Patience
made a comic grimace of terror... paused… seemed to drift a little up into the
air, then swept away, long coat flapping softly as she sailed over hillside
drifts of moonlit snow, and left the snow unblemished.
CHAPTER 21
The Queen's
Room of Conference, a high-ceilinged stone box, had been arranged for
discomfort. This to encourage short conferences, and little in the way of
comment or advice to her from anyone. No attempt had been made to cushion that
fact, or the straight-back wooden chairs ranged around a circular too-wide
table, so everyone had to call their conversation. No refreshments were
provided. There
was a small stove in a distant corner, with a small fire in it, and the thick,
blurred glass of four arrow-slits down the room had been opened just enough for
a steady, bitter little breeze to enter, and fans of powder snow. Introductions
had been made. Sam had noticed few friendly glances. His
chair had diagnosed his bad back at once, and was making it worse. Only
the Queen, bundled in lynx and wolverine, with her ax-girl standing behind her,
sat in comfort on a minor throne plumped with pillows. Her daughter sat to her
right, then Brady, the chamberlain. Then Generals Parker, DeVane, Lenihan — and
Bailey, just arrived, his greenwool uniform as food-stained as his chamber-robe
had been.... Then Sam, at the foot, and on around to two admirals, Hopkins and
Pearce, wearing storm-gray — both exactly the ocean whales Bailey had
described, so Sam had had to be careful not to grin when introduced. Then,
sitting side by side, though with careful space kept between them, Lords Sayre
and Cooper. Cooper, almost elderly, and just returned to Island from up-river,
sat tall, thin, and slightly bent in gray velvet and gray fur — looking, Sam
thought, like a friendly grandfather, though perhaps a grandfather very close
with money. The
last person around the table, sitting to the Queen's left, was a
moneyman, Harvey Sloan, treasurer, looking more of a tavern tough than a
book-keeper. Each
of these men had brought an officer or aide, and those — holding folios of fine paper, ink bottles,
and steel-nib pens in narrow boxes — sat in more of the uncomfortable chairs,
behind their principals and well back from the table. Margaret Mosten sat behind
Sam, and Pedro Darry tended the cloakroom by the chamber entrance — though,
since the room was near freezing, no coats or cloaks had been handed over. Harvey
Sloan had just spoken for peace — for discussions toward it, at least, with
payments of silver promised for the Khan's withdrawal. "Harvey,"
the Queen said, "the Khan Toghrul is not some nose-ringed savage down off
the ice at Map-Illinois. We won't buy him with beads or banjars or silver
pieces." "How
does it harm us, Majesty, to try? He can only say no. And if he should
say yes, we have bought a year or more to become stronger." "Harvey,
for Jesus' sake use your head for more than a fucking abacus! He would say no,
because he doesn't want us to have a year to grow stronger!" "Sloan,"
General DeVane. "Sloan, this is not a money matter." "Well,
it will swiftly become so, General! Wars are fought with money as well as
soldiers, and the financial affairs of the Kingdom remain uncertain, since I'm
not allowed a central bank — which we sorely need to regulate the currency.
Warm-times had one, I understand, and so should we! And also, land taxes have
been in arrears four years running. So, how is this war to be paid for?" The
chamberlain, Brady, called across the table, softly as he could and be heard,
"We also still have a treasury surplus — or am I mistaken?" "If
there's a time to spend," Sam said, speaking up, "it's when a knife
is at your throat." "Oh,
understood, milord." The treasurer smiled. "But perhaps in your...
realm, barter still holds a place. In Middle Kingdom, it's cold cash, silver or
gold." "And
mostly in mine, as well." Sam smiled back. "Though sheep and stock
are occasionally traded…. When our Charles Ketch posed the same question to me
that you bring to the table, Treasurer, I told him what I now tell you: Spend
the fucking money. And if more is needed later, the Emperor will provide
it." "The
Emperor?" General DeVane again. The general, slightly fat, was an
amiable-looking man, except for his eyes. They were dead black as dug
coal-rock. "Now why should Rosario e Vega send any treasure to your
people, or ours?" "Because,
General, once we win this war he will either send us gold and silver, if we
need it, or we will go down to South Map-Mexico and ask again." Both
admirals said, "Piracy!" speaking almost together, and seemed pleased
with the notion. DeVane
said nothing, only stared at Sam a moment, then nodded. Pedro had mentioned
that the DeVanes of Baton Rouge still ate talking meat at festivals…. "Well,"
Sloan said, "that may be, then. This is now." "Harvey,"
the Queen said, "shut up." As
if a voice in his head had said, "Keep Harvey Sloan," Sam determined
to do it, whenever that choice was his. A Charles Ketch, but tougher, slower to
back off where income and outgo were concerned. "Monroe..."
General Parker, uniformed in blue wool, was a strikingly handsome man, tall,
with clear blue eyes and perfectly graying hair perfectly trimmed.
"Monroe, I confess to some puzzlement why you, rather than Her Majesty,
called this meeting, for which senior officers were threatened with arrest for
non-attendance. I'm curious where you found the authority for that — and
why now you're in council on matters concerning Middle Kingdom, particularly
since no announcement has been made appointing you to command of anything." "I'll
make that announcement, General." Princess Rachel spoke quietly, and did
not look at Sam. "Lord Monroe and I have agreed on an engagement to
marriage. Also, he has my mother's warrant to pursue this war as commander,
whenever his own forces are involved." "Which,"
the Queen said, "will be in every important decision. If I thought,
Parker, this occasionally annoying young man was a fool, he would already be on
his way down-river with my foot up his ass." Sam
saw Rachel begin to smile, then stop. She said, "Are matters now clear to
you, General?" "Absolutely
clear, Highness." He turned to Sam with a slight bow. "Milord." "Generals,"
Sam said, "Admirals and Lords, Chamberlain, Master Sloan — I'm well aware
it can't be comfortable to have a stranger come up from the south and stick his
nose into what was only your business. I do it for two reasons. First, what
happens to Middle Kingdom in this war will determine what happens to North
Map-Mexico. And second, I have found no one better qualified for the work. I
am, if you'll permit me, not 'Extraordinary' in anything but battle. There,
though no Toghrul Khan, I am very competent." "And
better be." General Bailey shifted in his seat. "Joan, these damn
chairs..." "Want
a cushion?" The Queen seemed concerned. "You being so old and
frail." "I
see you have cushions...." "Peter,
I'm the Queen. Of course I have cushions. Now, do you have anything to
contribute here beyond complaints about your backside?" "What
I have to contribute, is congratulations to our young commander on the
performance of his army, since he is apparently too modest to announce it.
Word, likely from creek fishermen out of Map-El Dorado, was pigeoned from one
of Her Majesty's ships off Greenville, and received here a little more than a glass-hour
ago. It appears his man, Voss, has brought their cavalry divisions east
to join North Mexico's army near Bossier City. That force is moving north as we
speak, and will soon be within striking distance of the Khan's only lines of
supply and reinforcement." "Good
news," DeVane said, "if it's followed by more good news." "My
army will be where it's supposed to be — and without delay," Sam said.
"Losing St. Louis leaves us little time." "You
have great confidence in your people." The smaller admiral, Hopkins, had
lost the tip of his nose in some engagement. "I
have the same, Admiral, that you must have in your veteran captains. But my
army can only threaten from the south, until both the Fleet and
East-bank army are on the ice below St. Louis.... Then, as the Kipchaks face a
fresh force attacking in the north, across the river, so they will also face an
advance severing their lines of supply in the south. The Khan will have to
divide his army and fight both of us at once, unless he chooses an harassed retreat
of almost a thousand Warm-time miles to West Map-Texas... likely never to
return." "From
your lips, to Weather's wind." General Lenihan frowned. "But the
Fleet seems to me to be in question. East-bank army will move; Aiken already
has skirmishers out on the ice. But no pigeon has mentioned ships of the line
sailing up to meet him. And unless there are warships skating through those tumans
with scorpions and pitch-throwers, the East-bank army will be swamped just
as the West-bankers were." "It
will be news to the army, I'm sure," Admiral Hopkins said, "that
warships must be careened to fit with runners. This can be done by the crews,
but cannot be done properly in less than a day." "If
this had been planned... had been started earlier — " "Lenihan,"
— the larger admiral, Pearce, seemed to swell in his seat — "if the Fleet
had been advised earlier, you would have seen ships rigged earlier. We
can do only what we're told to do at the time. We hadn't expected West-bank
army to lose St. Louis!" "And
where were their reinforcements? Where was the fucking Fleet — down in
the Gulf playing grab-ass with some row-boat pirates!" "Am
I to take that as personal, Lenihan? As a personal remark?" "You
are not, Admiral!" Sam had thought the Queen would interfere, then
saw she was watching him, waiting. "There will be nothing personal
in these discussions. We have no time for it. If any officer feels offended, he
is free to come complain to me... then regret it." Silence. "Admirals,
at least sixty warships are to be ice-rigged within the next five days, or
there will be more energetic admirals commanding
them.... And general officers will keep
their mouths
shut about Fleet matters — of which they are largely ignorant — and prepare to
support Aiken's East-bank army with any and all personnel and supplies they
require." "Sir,
we do not commingle — " "I
understand, Parker, that it hasn't been the custom to transfer troops and
equipment from one bank army to the other, though it appears that General
Lenihan has been making an attempt at coordination. Still, I know that
complete separation of the bank armies has been the rule — and when we win this
war, if Middle Kingdom is more comfortable with that situation, it may be
reinstated. Now, however, it no longer holds." There
was a little stir around the table. Muttering. "I
will have any supply or maintenance officer, or officer commanding, who
withholds troops or equipment or rations from any engaged unit of either bank
army, court-martialed, convicted, and hanged.... To which end, from this
meeting onward, the generals provost-marshal in both armies are united into one
command — to be armored in red — under whichever officer is senior, to enforce
this order without hesitation.... There will be no appeals from his judgment." There
were soft scratching sounds back from the table as notes were made. "No.
Absolutely not!" DeVane shoved his chair back and stood. "I won't —
" "General,"
Sam said, speaking quietly, "I'd hate to lose you; I understand you're a fighting
officer. But the Queen and I will have obedience. Unless you sit down, sir,
you will command nothing in this war but a labor battalion." "Floating
Jesus..." DeVane hesitated, then sat down. "Thank
you, General, for yielding to necessity." "And
what... necessity, Monroe, do
you find for us?" Lords Sayre and Cooper both looked only politely
interested. "Contribution
of those goods and household fighting-men you and the other river lords can
spare, short of ruin." "Plain
speaking." Michael Cooper looked at Sam as pleasantly as an old uncle
might. "I do wonder, though — your pardon, Majesty — I do wonder whether
this apparent emergency might be being used to take our rights away, and leave
us helpless before the future's crown." "Milord,"
Sam said, "I'm sure that any ruler, except Her Majesty, would find you too
formidable to attempt any such thing." Lord
Cooper smiled. "Nicely said. But why am I not comforted?" "Why,
because you are alert to your interest, sir." "As
I am, Monroe," Sayre said. "Yes
— both alert to your interests, as all river lords will be. Which is why I have
no doubt at all that the units of East-bank army — now concentrating above
Girardeau — will receive drafts of five hundred men-at-arms from every major
estate on the river. And have no doubt also that six hundred barrels of barley
grain, six hundred crates of dug potatoes, and two hundred crates of iced
chicken-birds or fish will be delivered immediately from each estate — or proof
positive shown why that cannot be done.... The estate that withholds,
will be fined in acres forfeit to the Crown — and those acres never
returned." Silence. "
— And this, milords, not punitive, but absolutely in your families' interests,
since, should he win, the Khan will take care to destroy you and yours.
Despite, by the way, any secret assurances his... emissaries… may have made to
the contrary. Unlike Her Majesty, Toghrul will never allow the existence of any
independence." "So,"
Sayre said, "you grant us this... benefit." "Yes,
milord. And in addition — since the river lords are to be so generous — neither
the Crown nor the armies, nor the Fleet, nor the people-Ordinary, will demand
their heads for treason." "...
Such favors," Lord Cooper said. "How will we ever repay them?" "I
dread discovering that, sir," Sam said, to some amusement around
the table. "And now, gentlemen, if Her Majesty and Princess Rachel will
bear with us, we have the tedious professional questions of Warm-times' logistics
— timing, transport, and supply." A stir of staff officers and aides,
rustling paper turned to fresh pages. "Leaving aside my army, since
supplies, remounts, and reserves should already be coming behind it, how can we
get onto the river ice south of Lemay 'fustest with the mostest'?" Smiles
at that around the table. No soldier, no sailor, but knew that fine Warm-time
phrase. ...
Three hours later, a stack of written orders in various scribbles — dire and
demanding news to executive officers, supply officers, field commanders, ships'
captains, civilian sutlers, shipyard owners, and the accomplished of many
guilds — stood before the Queen. She
put her hand on top of the stack, riffled through the pages with her thumb.
"Well-enough. Not too much nonsense here." Then she stood, and
everyone stood with her. "But drive your people, drive them,
gentlemen — otherwise the Kipchaks will use this paper to wipe their
asses." The
Queen turned to go, but the Princess stood waiting until Sam came to her and
offered his arm. "...
Thank you, Rachel." "For
yielding," the Princess said, "to necessity?" And they followed
the Queen and her ax-girl out of the Room of Conference. ...
Lord Cooper walked back to the small stove, stood warming his hands as Sayre
came to join him while their people were at the table, making certain of
hand-copies. "Cold...." "Yes.
She won't have this chamber heated." "And
your opinion, Cooper?" "My
opinion... My opinion is that we have no choice but to give our men and our
goods, while giving is in fashion." "Obviously.
I meant, your opinion." "Oh.
Well, we certainly have a king in all but future's crowning. Then — unless he
dies before — it will be... bend." "We're
bending already," said Lord Sayre.
* *
*
"I'm
sick of walls." "Mother
— " "Sick
of them!" The Queen was examining short spears, two assags, peering close
at the grain of their hickory shafts, flicking their gleaming heads'
razor-edged steel to hear it ring. Martha,
on orders, was packing leather duffels with warm woolens and boots, harsh
furs... and, in a separate case, two light, nasaled pot-helms — one with gold
fluting at its crown — and two long,
heavy, chain-mail burnies, both very fine, custom-fitted, and with each of
their thousands of tiny rivets welded, not simply hammered home. "Mother..."
Princess Rachel, upset as Martha'd never seen her, reached out to touch the
Queen's hand — and had hers impatiently batted away. "Mother, listen to
me. You have men whose business is going to battles, and seeing, and reporting
back. You are needed here, not up on the ice." "Oh,
the boy-Monroe is busy enough, here. And Brady, pompous old fool." "You're
going because you want to, Mother — and no thought to the Kingdom or
anyone else!" "And
you care for the Kingdom?" "I
do, and I care for you." "And
showed it never!" "Mother,
that's not so.... You are not easy to deal with." "Then
stop dealing with me. — Martha, what the fuck are you doing over there? Get us packed." "Taking
your old knife, Majesty?" "I'm
carrying my old knife, yes. That's Trapper steel — best steel. I only
wish I could take my bow, but this draw-shoulder won't bear it anymore."
The Queen struck her shoulder with her fist, as punishment. "Mother
— " "Rachel,
if you don't stop bothering me over this, I'll lose my temper." "Then
lose your fucking temper, you selfish old bitch!" Princess Rachel's
face was flushed red. "You don't know who loves you, who cares for
you!" Martha
stopped packing and stood still. She sensed, throughout the tower chambers,
others standing still. There was silence enough for the wind to be heard very
clearly, hissing round the tower's stone. "Now..."
the Queen said. "Now, Daughter, you begin to please me — and don't spoil
it with crying. I'd better not see a single tear." "You
won't," the Princess said, though it sounded to Martha as if tears were
waiting. "Comb-honey,"
the Queen said, and set her spears aside, "you should know I loved your
father, and mourn him every day. And love you the same.... But this is no
season for a queen to hide in her tower. Our people need to see me on
the ice." "But
not fighting." "Certainly
won't, if I can help it. I don't care to make a spectacle of myself. A silly
old woman, stiff in the joints." "You
are not." Princess Rachel went to her mother like a child. The Queen
seemed startled, then opened her arms. A hand, strong and long-fingered,
scarred from battles long ago, stroked her daughter's hair. Martha
left the packing and left the room. She was certainly allowed tears, if the
Queen didn't see them.
CHAPTER 22
"May
I congratulate you, Great Lord?" General Shapilov — tall, a lean rack of
bones — knelt on thick carpet in a camp yurt fairly large, and well-warmed by a
folding stove. "After my fumbling, you plucked this St. Louis like a ripe
blueberry." Shapilov
had a habit of admitting blame at once — apparently thought that protection.
Toghrul found the habit was becoming tiresome. "I
plucked it by using my head, General, instead of wasting men and horses
fighting through these unpleasantly crowded streets and structures. Surely... surely,
Shapilov, it occurred to you that a river port would find survival
difficult if its waterfront were taken and blockaded. All that was required was
a thrust from the north down along the riverbank, then a single tuman dismounted
to hold it." "Now,
I see it, lord." "Hide
your face from me." Toghrul said it pleasantly, with no bluster, no
bullying. "I am not pleased with you." General
Shapilov fell forward and pressed his face to the blue carpet — a really fine
many-knot imperial. He said something, a muffled something. A mumbled offer of
suicide? Toghrul
sighed. "It's a notion. Perhaps another time." Were
those sobs? Certainly sounded like sobs. And perfectly, perfectly illustrative
of the difficulties in absolute rule. Here was a fairly competent senior
officer — but he could only be fairly competent, or he might become
dangerous... well, troublesome. Yuri Chimuc's grandson, the so-brilliant young
Manu Ek-Tam, would have had this dirty and unpleasant city in three days. He
would have gone to their river-front at once, like a wolf leaping. More than
competent. Too much so. Soon he would have to suffer a hero's death down in
South Map-Texas, and be wasted. General
Shapilov now lay silent, slack as if fucked — which in a way, of course, he had
been. "Get
up. And get out." A sort
of bony scurrying then, as he backed out on all fours. Surprising he hadn't
backed into the stove. Amusing, of course, but also deadly serious. To be a
khan meant that no else must be found also fit to be a khan — which left
only limited servants, limited generals, so the ruler must do every truly
important thing himself. An
odd and potentially disastrous structure, really. And, considering oddness —
though not yet disaster — what in the Blue Sky's world was happening with the
idiots of Supply? Surely it was simple enough to haul a very-important hundred
sledded wagons east through the wilds of North Map-Arkansas and up into
Map-Missouri to the army. Then what explanation for them not yet arriving?
Unlikely they'd been attacked by crows or coyotes.... Pigeons
from Chang-doctor say Ladu keeps the child safe in her belly, and is well, no
damned complications. — What did it mean when a Kipchak khan, campaigning,
found his wife's unremarkable face, her remarkable bright black eyes, in every
inked map, every diagrammed plan of attack... ?
* *
*
Margaret
had left General Lenihan's office — they dealt surprisingly well with each
other, at least on the subject of possible supply runs to the west bank, if needed
by North Map-Mexico's army. They'd dealt with each other on that subject by
Lenihan saying, "Never." and "No chance." and Margaret
saying, "Horseshit, sir." Then gone on from there. The
general, a widower, had seemed slightly bemused by a fighting officer with
breasts. It was an advantage Margaret had been happy to take advantage of. Sergeant
Mays, massive and still, stood waiting for her in the corridor.
"Princess," he said to her. Fresh
from Lenihan's ambivalence — wonderful Warm-time word — Margaret thought for an
antic instant that the sergeant was declaring affection, then followed his
glance down the hall to see Princess Rachel, an older Boxcar lady, and a large
sergeant in green armor. Margaret
went to them, managed an awkward bow — looking, she thought, a little
ridiculous with a long, sheathed rapier poking out behind her — and said,
"May I be of help?" Princess
Rachel — ordinarily pale, very composed — was flushed and restless, her hands
finding no place to be still. "I'm looking — Captain, I would like to
speak with Lord Monroe." "I
believe he's on the wall, Princess. On the west wall, perhaps below the tower
there." "Very
well. Very well." The Princess turned, hesitated — and Margaret lied and
said, "I'm going to him now. May I escort you?" "Yes,
please. Lady Claire, I won't need you." "But
Rachel, you can't — you have no cloak, for one thing." "She
has mine," Margaret said, swung off her cloak, and draped it over the
Princess's shoulders. A tall young woman —
taller than Margaret by two or three inches. "Still,"
the lady said, "you shouldn't — " "I
have — what's your name, Sergeant?" "Ralph,
ma'am." "I
have Ralph-sergeant here — and after all, Claire, I am engaged to the
Captain-General; I think I'll be safe enough with him." The
older lady made a little clucking sound. "Claire..." It
seemed to Margaret that that 'Claire' had sounded almost in the Queen's voice.
Lady Claire, apparently feeling so as well, ducked into a curtsy and left them. ...
The cold struck with ice-knives as they stepped from a stone embrasure onto the
broad, paved crest of west wall. Its massive tower rose high above them as they
went leaning into the river wind. Margaret's face and hands went quickly numb,
so she unbuttoned her jerkin and tucked her sword-hand in against her belly to
stay useful. "You
must go back." The Princess's voice was snatched from her by a whining
gust. "No cloak...." "Refreshing!"
Margaret had to almost shout, and the Princess smiled, so they might have been
friends on an adventure. They
bent to the wind, the big sergeant trudging behind them, and passed great
springals and catapults, all covered in waxed cotton canvas and squatting in
their redoubts like patient beasts. It seemed to Margaret a hard wall to take,
so massive and high above the river. Only Light Infantry, up from small boats
on a dark night, would have any chance at all. And with the garrison alerted,
might expect half those people lost, even winning, and with the rest of
west-fortifications still to seize.... Not that it couldn't be done. Not that
the Kipchaks couldn't do it, once the river froze down to Island. But the doing
would kill thousands of them. Margaret
began to think they'd come up for nothing but frozen fingers and toes, then saw
Sam standing with another man by the wall's granite crenellations a bow-shot away,
their cloaks billowing in the wind. Seeing Margaret's party, the men came to
meet them, Sam in leather and mail, the other in blued-steel breast-and-back.
Margaret saw the Boxcar was the West-bank general, Parker, tall, handsome,
coldly adamant as the wall he walked on. "Princess...."
Both men bowed. It
seemed to Margaret that Sam was doing the bowing thing better, less stiff at
it. But he was looking older. Grown older in just these last weeks. Sam
raised his voice; the freezing wind was buffeting them like the greeting of a
large, friendly dog. "The general and I were judging drift ice." "I
see." The wind had struck Princess Rachel's face white and mottled red,
drawn tears to her eyes. "The Queen... my mother has left Island!" "This
morning. Yes, I know." Sam glanced at Margaret. "Get under
cover." "I'm
fine. Not frozen yet." They were all almost shouting over the wind's moan
and whuffle. "She's
sailing north." Perhaps wind-tears in the Princess's eyes, perhaps not.
"And for no good reason! No good reason at all." "Well,
perhaps to be with her people," Sam said, "when they fight." "It's
ridiculous! It's ridiculous… she's needed here." "Rachel."
Sam put his arm around her — the first time Margaret had seen him do that.
"Rachel, I know you're afraid for her. And so am I. But she's doing what
she must." He smiled. "I won't say she isn't also enjoying
herself." "That
is what's so... stupid." "No
doubt." Sam held her a moment longer, then took his arm away. Done
perfectly, it seemed to Margaret.... The cold was making the bones in her face
ache. "
— And while we're here turning to iced cream, Rachel, I must tell you I'll be
leaving soon also. For the west bank, and inland to my army. The Khan will know
by now that something's wrong in North Map-Arkansas. He'll be bringing part of
his army down to deal with it." "You're
going...." "Yes."
A harder gust shoved at them. "You'll rule at Island for your mother,
Rachel. You'll rule as she would," — he smiled — "but perhaps with an
easier temper." "I'm...
I can't." "Tell
me, General," Sam almost shouting over the wind, "can she rule — and
the armies behind her?" "On
my honor," Parker said, handsome even with iced eyebrows. "Sergeant?" The
big sergeant seemed surprised to be asked. ".., Yes, sir!" "There,
Rachel," Sam said. "What more could you ask? And in any case, both
the Queen and I will be back very soon to embarrass you." "You
don't... embarrass me." "Very
kind.... Captain Mosten, you'll be staying with the Princess. You'll be her
right arm — do you understand?" "But
I should be with you." "Every
time, Margaret — except this time. I'll miss you, but your most important work
is here, with Rachel. If more muscle should be needed in Island, you'll have
Pedro, Noel Purse and the tower guards, and Mays, Carey, and Burke. I'll be
taking Wilkey with me.... And listen to Ansel Carey, Margaret; he has a nose
for trouble." Margaret
was going to argue, but Sam seemed too tired to argue with. "Yes,
sir." "But
what... my lord, what do I need to do?" "Rachel,
do what seems sensible to help in this war — and to maintain your power so that
you can help in this war. Do what seems sensible, do it quickly, and let
no one stand in your way." The
wind had slackened so that 'no one... stand in your way' echoed a little from
the stone. ...
Warmer at last — at least not freezing — Margaret breathed on her fingers as
the sergeant led them back down the battlement's covered steps... the narrow
stairway winding down with a wall to its left, to leave invaders unshielded as
they came. "Your
cloak," the Princess said. "
— Is where it belongs," Margaret said. "We don't need you chilled and
sick." The
Princess said nothing down another flight of steps, until they reached a
landing. "You would rather have gone with him." "It's
shocking, how little all armies care for 'rathers.' " "A
lesson for me?" "I
didn't intend that, Princess." "No,
but a lesson all the same. And since we will be together, please call me
Rachel." "Margaret,"
said Margaret.
CHAPTER 23
Dearborn
was regarded in the service as a soft captain. Was nicknamed 'Daisy' because of
it. Daisy Dearborn. But
— rowers sent south — a day and night of sleepless effort by captain, officers,
and crew to haul the skate-rigged Queen's ship Mischief up onto the
river ice, had worn away Dearborn's softness. A man he'd noticed slacking at
the forward winch, now lay manacled in the bilge, whipped, and discussing the
matter with the rats. A
day and a night of brutal labor — all in a near-blizzard of wind and
hard-driven snow. But at last this morning, with winches working block and
tackle fore and aft, and men up on the ice with grapnels (thank
Jesus-Floating for Bosun Hiram Cate), she was up and skating, sails slatting in
quartering winds as the deck-crew stowed pulleys, winch bars, and two miles of
ice-crusted cable, rope, and cord. The
cost had been the whipping, a broken arm, four various broken fingers, and a
thumb pinched off. Sprains, aches, bruises, and fingernails torn away —
uncounted. Not
for the first time — though more and more, lately — Captain Dearborn was
considering himself old for active service. And while considering it, stepping
down the narrow starboard ladder from a poop deck crowded by two big scorpions
and their stacks of massive steel-tipped javelins, he found some confirmation
in the lookout's yodel from a raven's-nest barely visible itself, high in
swirling snow. "Deck
there! Somethin off to the southwest." "Horse-riders?" "...
Sir?" "Horse-riders?" "A
sled... sir." A
sled? Dearborn and Jim Neal, his
first officer — who should have been trimming sail — both went to the starboard
rail. Peering through ice-rimed boarder netting, they saw, sliding out of
clouds of blowing snow, a sight that confirmed the Fleet's oldest tradition.
Comes always something worse. "Mother
of God," said Neal, appealing to the most ancient Great. It
was a huge sled — gilded, painted blood-red, and drawn by a blanketed six-horse
team shod with spiked iron. Furred and fur-hooded, a bulky groom rode postilion
on the left lead. And a red banner, ranked with twelve gold dots, curled and
spanked in the wind. Captain
Dearborn said, "Oh, no. Oh, no." A
trumpet spoke up from the sled as if the 'no' had been noted. Then a woman's
voice, just as loud. "Is this the fucking Ill News!" "No!
No, ma'am!" Dearborn shouted in relief. "We're Mischief...
Your Majesty?" There
was conversation down on the sled, hard to hear over the wind. Then, something
easy to hear. "We'll
board this one! You — you up there! Lower some fucking ladder or whatever. I'm
coming up!" "Oh,
my God...." Lieutenant Neal's second prayer. Apparently too little, and
too late.
* * *
At
four glass-hours after the center of the night, the river below the Bronze Gate
was black as running ground-oil, and brought a black wind with it. Sam,
with Sergeant Wilkey nimbler after him, managed from the dock-finger into a
narrow sailing boat, then past a low cabin to the bow. He found it an
advantage, in that sort of scramble, having his sword strapped down his back,
rather than tangling and tripping him…. The boat shifted, as even within a
stone harbor, ice came nudging, scraping against its hull. The
two crewmen — both River-men — loosed the lines, came aboard neatly, and
sheeted in the single sail. General
DeVane, standing beside Lenihan and two other officers high on the wharf — and
seeming even plumper, cloak-wrapped in torchlight — called out softly,
"Good hunting, milord." Already
seized by the current, the boat was swinging out into the harbor pool, rocking
a little as a crewman took the tiller. It drifted… then, caught by the wind,
its sail bellied taut, bucked into low waves and tapping ice-shards as it
carved away west, out onto the river. Island
— a dark mountain except where specks of lamplight shone through granite
casemates and arrow-slits — loomed behind them for nearly a glass-hour, till
swallowed by the night. For
glass-hours after, Sam sat at the boat's bow, enjoying freezing spray and wind
gusts. He would have been pleased by anything taking him from the Boxcars'
palace. Taking him from inescapable scheming, persuading, and threatening.
Taking him from admirals, generals, and river lords.... He rode the river's
sinuous courses, taking deep breaths of night air, no matter that it bit his
lungs and made them ache. He yearned for his army like a lover — an army, and a
home to him — and knew he would lose that simplicity, whether the coming battle
was lost or won. A
secret, of course, that Queen Joan already knew. That the Khan already knew.
"Victories," Sam said aloud, "but triumph never." "Sir?"
The sergeant barely visible by the small cabin behind him, "I
was talking to the river, Wilkey." "Sir." Behind
them... dawn's first light.
* *
*
Martha
had always thought battles, however frightening, must at least be interesting.
It was disappointing to discover that wasn't so, at least wasn't so yet. Certainly
not as interesting as Ralph-sergeant — after saying no special word to her
since he'd come — suddenly stepping from his post on the tower stairs as Martha
and the Queen were leaving, taking Martha by the arm, then hugging her as if
she'd given him leave. His armor and her mail had been pressed hard between
them when, though startled, she'd hugged him back. Then
he'd taken his helmet off, and kissed her. The
Queen, a few steps lower, had looked back and said, "Martha, for Christ's sake,"
— referring to the first Jesus —
"this is not the time for it!" Though
it had seemed to Martha the perfect time for it.... The battle
had been going on — the Queen had been assured by Captain Dearborn — for a day
and a night, as reported by little ice-boats hissing along fast as birds. But a
battle scattered over miles and miles of river ice, so only faint formations — looking, it seemed to Martha, like spilled
ground pepper on a glittering field — appeared and disappeared, and left no
trace. Except once, when the Mischief, rumbling along fast as a fast
horse could gallop, its great skates leaving plumes of ice-powder behind, sliced
its way over sheets of frozen blood and frosted slaughtered Kipchak men and
horses that crunched and thumped beneath the ship's blades as its tons sailed
over them. "Well
done!" the Queen had shouted, and danced on the narrow poop. She'd hit
Captain Dearborn on the arm with her fist. "Well fucking done!" as if
the Mischief had killed those horse-riders. The
captain had said, "So far, ma'am, matters do seem to go our way." He
appeared to be a cautious man. Too
cautious. By the next morning, the Queen had noticed. Martha
followed her up from breakfast — oat cakes and hot apple juice brought to the
captain's cabin. The main deck was ice-slippery, but the Queen, wrapped in a
lynx cloak, a slender circlet of gold at her brow, stomped over it sure-footed,
past coiled lines and awkward devices. Ship's officers bowed as she went past;
crewmen stood aside. She climbed the narrow ladder up through the poop-deck's
railing, to where the captain was standing, observing the set of the sails. "Captain...."
The frost clouding from Queen Joan's
breath seemed like smoke from a story dragon's. "Ma'am?" "Don't
you 'ma'am' me! I want to know what messages, what orders you and your yellow
dogs have been passing back and forth to those packets. Have you — have you dared
to keep me back from my soldiers? Keep this fucking boat — ship, whatever —
back from the fighting?" "I
do... I do as I'm ordered, Your Majesty." Martha thought Captain Dearborn
looked pale. The Mischief hit a low ice-reef, and he had to reach to the
rail for balance, but the Queen stood as if she were nailed to the deck. "Give
me a better answer," she said, no longer shouting, and put her hand on her
knife. "It
was felt…. Admiral Hopkins feels that Your Majesty, while viewing aspects of —
" "I'm
losing patience," the Queen said, in a very pleasant way. "He
felt... you should not be put in danger." "And
ordered so?" "Yes,
ma'am — Your Majesty. Lord Monroe had also asked special care for you." Then
the story dragon was on the poop, roaring, and a steel fang out and brandished.
Martha stepped away. The captain clutched the rail. Below,
the Mischief's main deck seemed frozen as the river, and all the men
stood as still, until slowly... slowly the Queen grew calm and quiet, took a
deep breath, and sheathed her knife. "Now
you listen to me," she said to Captain Dearborn. "You turn this
fucking boat in whatever direction is needful to get to my soldiers — and my brave
sailors — who are fighting." "Yes,
ma'am. As you command." Captain Dearborn ran down the poop's steep ladder
quickly as a boy, shouting orders as he went, so sailors raced to do this or
that, and climbed to shift the sails.... It seemed to Martha as if the ship,
that had been drowsing, now sprang awake. The Mischief leaned and leaned
with its swollen canvas, until the great port-side steering skate lifted from
the frozen river. And in a long, curving reach, the great ship took course to
the northwest, running angled to the wind. It
was the fastest that Martha had gone anywhere. And
remained the fastest into a sunny middle of the day. The Queen, leaning on the
port rail, was eating a cold sausage and one of the ship's brittle biscuits —
Martha had already finished hers — when the lookout called, "Deck
there! More dead'ns!" And a moment later: "Nothin' she can't
run over." The Mischief
skated from perfect ice, bright as snow-dusted mirrors, onto a field of the
dead... its massive blades cracking shallow sheets of frozen blood, rumbling,
jolting first over heaps of fallen fur-cloaked men, and horses — then one...
then another rank of East-bank infantry slain, their burnished green armor
beautiful in sunshine. This armor bent and broke as the ship sped over. The
Queen stared out over the rail. "My boys," she said — then turned and called, "Stop! Stop! One
moved! Captain, stop, there are wounded there still alive!" "No,
ma'am," Dearborn said. "We cannot. Those men are frozen already —
stuck hard in blood and ice. We'd be hours getting any aboard, and very few to
live." "My
boys... my boys." The Queen was weeping, tears odd down a furious face. "Del..."
she said, a name Martha didn't know. The Mischief,
which knew no regrets, no losses, sailed on over the dead and dying at
great speed, only shrugging where they'd fallen thick. Though
no officer, no sailor, said so, there was relief as the ship left that field,
and sketched its way again over ice bare of anything. The
Queen turned from the rail, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "Martha,
we'll go below, and you'll arm me." "Majesty,"
Dearborn said, "I swear not necessary!" "Then,"
the Queen said, "I will be disappointed." ...
They ran and ran into afternoon, the sails handled for the wind, and saw dead
here and there. The Queen, cloaked in her lynx, the ends of a blood-red scarf
flowing with the wind, stood on the Mischief's high poop full-armed in
mail, leather, and boots, her light steel helmet hanging by its laces down her
back. She watched near the scorpions with two assags in her hand, her long
Trapper knife at her belt. And though standing at the ship's stern, she seemed
a figurehead of war. They
heard the battle before the raven's-nest saw it. There was a sound as if
distant different songs, sung by many people, were echoing over the ice. Dearborn
called an order, and sailors climbed fast to set a triangular canvas. "Staysail,"
he said to Martha as they watched the sailors work above them, the winter sun
blazing over their shoulders. "Ship!"
the lookout called, and as they
sailed into those battle sounds — coming clearer, harsher now on a bitter wind
— a ship appeared on the ice horizon. Mischief approached fast off what
Martha had learned was starboard, and soon they could see that the ship was not
a ship any longer. Once, judging from the massive side-skates and smaller steering
blades still boomed out for a turn, it had been Mischief's size. Now it
lay burned to the ice, stuck in a lake melted by fire then frozen again, its
charred timbers and charcoaled masts absolutely black against a world so white.
Many smaller things, the size of persons, had burned with the ship. And others,
dead men and dead horses, unburned, sprinkled the ice around it. First
Officer Neal stared as they passed. "It's the Chancy." "Perhaps
not, Jim," the captain said. "I
know the ship. Steer-skates always rigged elbow off the beams...." Neal
turned away and went down the ladder to the main deck. "Has
a brother on her," Dearborn said. "... Had a brother on her.
Younger brother." Now,
as if the burned Chancy had been an introduction, they could see the
battle. It
stretched, like a great shifting black-and-gray serpent, as far as could be
seen from the Mischief's decks. More than a mile… almost two miles away,
huge rectangles of bannered infantry in East-bank's green armor formed and
reformed on the ice — nine, ten of them, and each, it seemed to Martha, made of
maybe a thousand men. These formations stood offset, some slowly turning,
wheeling ponderous as barges — but barges in a flood of horsemen that shifted
and flowed about them as if to wear their ranks away as fast water wore stone.
The distant infantry seemed coated by a sort of glittering fur, that Martha
thought must be bristling pikes — and long, swift shadows fleeted away from
them over the ice. "What
are the shadows?" Martha said. "Bolts
volleyed from their crossbows." The Queen set one of her assags against
the rail, and stretched to ease her muscles. "If you have to pee, dear, do
it now." "I
don't have to." "A
lot of Kipchaks," Dearborn said, looking out over the ice.
"Thousands." "But
not thirty thousand," said the Queen. "The fucking Khan has gone
south, and taken half his savages with him!" Martha
heard a trumpet, and saw another great ship skating, sailing fast enough to
port to draw even with the Mischief. Though far across the ice, the men
aboard her must have seen the Queen's banner at the mast-head. Tiny figures
waved from her rigging. Martha heard them cheering. "The
Ill Wind." Captain Dearborn smiled. "Old Teddy
Pelham...." The
Queen stood clear at the poop's port rail, raised an assag's gleaming head, and
waved the weapon in great sweeping strokes. The cheers came even clearer then.
And Martha saw, past that ship, another... then a third came skating to run
side by side across miles of ice. And more ships, and more distant, came sailing
up and abreast, port and starboard, until there were warships skating in a
massive line of stripe-painted hulls and hard-bellied white heights of sails,
sun-flashing skates and bright banners. Drums, drums were thundering along the
line of great ships stretching so far to the left and right that they
diminished into distant, seeming-toys, bright as jewelry. "My
darlings," the Queen said — the first time Martha'd heard that copybook
word used. "My Fleet!" Captain
Dearborn said, "Ladies, step away," and called, "Fighting
stands! .... Fighting stands!" That
cry was taken up by officers, bosuns, and rattling shaman drums — and the Mischief's
decks, which had looked to Martha busy enough before, suddenly stirred as
ground wasps stirred in summer's last week. Sailors snatched pole-arms and axes
from chain-loops at the masts, as marines, in band armor enameled half-blue,
half-green, marched to their places along the rail, or climbed rope ladders to
the fighting tops, and the huge crossbows waiting there. Sailors
came jostling up the two narrow ladders to the poop, saying, "Pardon...
pardon," as they shouldered Martha and the Queen aside, then bent to
winches and began to wind the two scorpions' giant steel bows slowly back...
and back, the machines' captains calling, "Faster — faster!" Two
men unfolded tall, hinged mantelets — stood the heavy rectangles of linden-wood
in four places to shield the scorpions' crews — then fastened them by thick
steel hooks to thicker steel rings set into Mischief's deck. "Back
from these bows!" One of the machine captains hustled Martha and the Queen
forward, past the mantelets and against the poop's railing, paying no attention
to majesty. Martha saw the Queen enjoyed it, and went where she was told,
perhaps pleased by moments of not being a queen at all. She
and Martha stood watching as the great steel arcs were drawn back to a final
solid clack, so the machines lay fully cocked — both already loaded with
five slender steel javelins, each a little longer than a man was tall. Now
the noise of battle, no longer odd and distant, sounded near, hammered from
shouts and screaming. Martha
was looking down the line of ships, racing, trailing long plumes of powdered
ice behind their runners — and saw men galloping small horses right between Mischief
and the nearest ship, the Ill News, but going in the other
direction. Twenty, perhaps thirty horsemen, galloping over the ice. "Look!"
Martha called — and the Queen and one of the sailors looked — but the riders
were gone, and no one seemed to have noticed, or shot at them. "Kipchaks,"
Martha said. "I saw them." "More
where those came from," the sailor said, and pointed forward along the
port rail. The Queen and Martha leaned out to see along the ship's side. The
ice lying a distance before the Mischief's bow was not white, but as
deep a stirring gray as storm clouds. Horsemen. The
ship jolted, then ran on, and Martha saw a great ball of blazing pitch heave up
from the Mischief's bow catapult, and rise… rise into the air. "Bow
chaser," a sailor said, and his machine's captain said, "Be silent
for orders." Martha
watched through tangles of rigging as the burning thing went. It seemed to arc
away like a rainbow, though with no color but hot fire. Then, very slowly, it
fell... and fell out of sight. Men were cheering at the Mischief's bow. The
Queen unfastened her long lynx cloak, and spun the fur away, out over the ice
as the Mischief skated. "To Floating Jesus," she said, then
loosened her long Trapper knife in its sheath, and twirled the shaft of an
assag over her fingers. "Ma'am."
Martha was breathless as if she'd been running. "Please... you should go
below." The
Queen just looked at her, and smiled. Martha
sighed, unfastened her cloak, draped it over the poop's low railing, and
reached over her right shoulder to lift her ax from its scabbard. "You're
a good girl." The Queen looked comfortable in her chain-mail. Comfortable
leaning on a spear's shaft. Her blue eyes, narrowed in the wind, seemed to
Martha a tribesman's, some warrior down from the ice-wall. Which, of course,
was really so. " — A good girl," the Queen said. "I'm... fond of
you." "And
so you should be! She's a wonder with that ax." Master Butter, his cloak's fur hood thrown back,
climbed the last ladder rungs to the poop, and bowed. "... Just your
humble postilion, Majesty — with a flatter purse after paying boatmen to follow
your galley north, and a sore ass from that damn sled horse's
back." Butter stood squatly massive in heavy mail, belting two straight
swords, one long, one short. The wind had reddened his round cheeks. "You...." The Queen turned a cold look. "You have
no business here. You were ordered — " "I
know. You said to keep away for a year, my dear." Master Butter glanced
around the poop's deck, narrowed by the great scorpions and their warding
mantelets. "But this year has proven exceptionally short, so I came to
keep you company." "Company
I don't want. Stay away as you were fucking told to stay. At least... at
least go elsewhere on the boat!" "Of
course, Majesty, as soon as possible." Master Butter went to the rail,
leaned over, and looked toward the bow. "Dearborn's going to ram
them!" "I
won't tell you again — " But the Queen said no more as Master Butter
turned, caught her and Martha in his arms — left and right — lifted them, and
drove them back behind a mantelet as a snake-hiss of arrows came. One cracked
into the mantelet's linden, humming, its bright head just peeping through. "A
sort of punctuation," Master Butter said of the arrow, and let the Queen
and Martha go as the Mischief's crew roared a cheer. The great ship
seemed to leap ahead, borne by hard-gusting wind — then crashed, shuddering,
driving up and into a low hill of impacts, horse screams and men's screams, the
multiplied faint crackle of breaking bones. Blood
jetted onto the snow along Mischief's hull as she drove on and over,
huge skate-runners slicing packed cavalry that then was knifed aside, fanning
in a fur-lumped blood-red skirt as the ship sailed through them. And
as the Mischief — so every other warship of the racing line. The
scorpions began their slow-paced slamming from the poop — noise loud enough to
hurt Martha's ears — and at each release of those mighty bows, five steel
javelins whipped whining away over the ice, to flash like magic through drifts
of mounted Kipchaks the battle-ships had shrugged aside. The
mast-head's smaller scorpions, the heavier machines along the main-deck rails,
the chasers at the bow — all hurled steel, clustered stone, or molten pitch as
the ship skated on, its massive blades brisk on bloody ice, then muffled,
crunching where they met men and horses. The
Queen shoved clear of Master Butter and went to the rail for a better view.
Kipchak arrows still came, but sighing, failing with distance. Butter
stepped to the Queen's left. Martha to her right. "Joan
— " Master Butter leaned to shield her. "Edward,
I have to see." The Queen pushed at Martha. "Girl, get behind those
things." Meaning the mantelets, apparently. "No,
ma'am," Martha said, and stayed close to keep the Queen's right side safe. A
single horseman galloped past the other way, just beneath their rail. He looked
up — showing a young face and black hair in several braids — drew a short bow,
and shot it as Master Butter reached to hold his hand in front of the Queen's throat.
But wherever that boy's arrow went, it came not to them. "Oh,
for my bow," the Queen said. Orders
were shouted amid other shouts, and the Mischief leaned, skating...
leaned more, and took a wide curving course north and easterly. The long line of
warships to port and starboard, each fluttering bright little signal flags,
leaned as she'd leaned, and raced with her into the turn. "Ah,
my Fleet, my dear ones...." The Queen turned almost a girl's face,
beaming. "Martha, do you see them?" "Yes,
ma'am," Martha said, though she winced as a crushed horse shrieked beneath
them. She'd wondered about battle, found it dull... then found it dreadful.
Now, she hated it — hated more than
anything the slaughter of horses, who never meant harm to anyone. "We're
cutting the Khan's people off from West-bank." First Officer Neal stood
just behind them; Martha hadn't noticed him come up. An arrow, or falling
tackle, had cut Neal across the forehead, and blood had run down into his left
eye. "These seem to be their right-wing regiments." He pointed out
across the ice, where drifts of gray maneuvered in bright afternoon light.
"Another pass — and they'll have to run farther east." "And
the army?" The Queen shaded her eyes to look north. "Where's Aiken —
where is he?" "West,
ma'am." Neal pointed almost behind them. "West — and from the signals we're passed, doing very
well." "Then
Lady Weather bless that man! — And we chase?" "We
chase," Neal said, and smiled. His left eye-socket was full of blood. A
wind gust suddenly thudded into the sails above them, rattled the tackle and
gear aloft so Martha was startled, and ducked a little. "And
you," the Queen said to Neal, and raised her voice to be heard above the
wind, the harsh swift sliding of the Mischief's skates, " — you've
lost your young brother on that Chancy ship?" "Yes,
ma'am." "Officer
Neal," the Queen said, and seemed to Martha to become even more a queen,
"I will see that boy is remembered... as I will see you and all your
family remembered, and favored by the Crown." Neal
bowed, and when he straightened, Martha saw tears of blood run from his eye. A
trumpet called from forward, and Neal was gone and down the ladder to the deck. "If
we can win this day," the Queen said, her breath frosting, "and
Small-Sam ruins the Khan in the south, then, dear Floating Jesus, I will
let the bishop come to Island and stay." "Don't
offer too much," Master Butter said, and the Queen laughed and hit
his shoulder with her fist. The Mischief
lifted slightly off its starboard skates, buoyed by richer wind — and
racing where distant Kipchak divisions labored to work west, passed nearly a
regiment of horsemen scattered in ragged squadrons here and there, fugitives on
the field of ice as the battle-line sailed on. The
scorpion crews practiced at those, cutting a number down as Mischief passed
them swiftly by. But still, arrows followed, coming… then falling like weary
birds to rest in deck or rigging, and sometimes in a sailor. The
ship ran quieter now, no shouts, only a single scream by someone wounded.
Orders were given quietly, in speaking voices, so Mischief, though
sailing so fast, seemed to Martha to be resting, taking long breaths of the
cold west wind that sang in its rigging. Marines,
here and there, fired their heavy crossbows out into the air — crack-twang
— to ease them from cocked tension, the bolts vanishing at an horizon of ice
beneath gray sky. "Your
Majesty," Captain Dearborn called up from the wheel, "no one injured
there?" Master
Butter glanced back at the scorpion-crews; their captains shook their heads.
"No one hurt up here!" Butter called, and Martha heard the captain
say, "Lucky." Then,
with hardly a pause, as if that 'Lucky' had called bad luck, the man high in
the raven's-nest screamed, "Lead! LEAD!" The Queen stretched
out over the rail to see, Master Butter holding one of her arms, Martha the
other, to keep her on the ship. "Water,"
the Queen said, looking forward along the hull. "A stretch of lead
water." Martha
heard Captain Dearborn shout, "Way starboard! Strike those fucking
sails!" And the ship leaned to the right... tilting farther and
farther, its main deck foaming with crewmen like a pot of soup boiled over. Men
ran like squirrels in the rigging. Others worked with knives along the belaying
rail, so lines whipped free — and heavy crosstrees, their stays sliced, fell
smashing, the great sails collapsed. Awkward
on the tilting deck, Martha leaned out beside the Queen. She could just see a
widening crack in the river's ice —
black, and spidering across the Mischief's course. The
ship ground and bucked into its steep turn, swinging hard... hard to starboard,
long clouds of powdered iced streaming away from its steering blades on the
wind. Master Butter shouted, "Get hold!" Behind them, one of the
scorpions' great bows broke its tackle and swung free to smash the right-side
rail. The Mischief
seemed to balance for a moment, like a person running the top of rough
fencing. It felt strange to Martha, as if she were balancing, she and the ship
together. Then the warship fell. Water
thundered up along the port side in a spray that fanned away and as high as the
raven's-nest, and the Mischief splintered itself along the open edge of
the ice — then struck and stopped still. All else
kept flying. The tops of the masts split loose and sailed forward. Weapons,
gear, and men sailed also... flew through the crowded air like birds, and broke
when they struck. Every
grip was lost. The Queen, Master Butter, and Martha were pitched together into
the poop's cross-deck rail — and would have been injured, but that rolled
hammocks had been packed there to shelter the helmsmen, just beneath, from
arrows. Only the fat canvas, and their mail, saved them broken bones.
CHAPTER 24
There
were a few moments of silence, except for crashes and clatter as things came to
rest. And a sort of sobbing as Mischief's great timbers twisted out of
true. "Up!"
Master Butter stood, then heaved the
women onto their feet. "My
assags..." The Queen bent to retrieve one spear from coils of fallen rough
brown rope. Martha found her ax still gripped in her hand. The
ship rested once more on the ice. But — her back broken as she'd struck the
lead, then crashed across it — she lay with her great stern tilted high in the
air, like a sleeping child's bottom, her bow fallen, collapsed. An
officer was shouting orders — Neal, not the captain — and men began to stir,
but many didn't. "The
pinnace!" "Sir....
Somebody help — " "Shut
up and die, Weather damn you!" Neal. "Hiram-bosun, rig the pinnace
out! Cut that crap away and get her out. Her Majesty — " "Oh,
Jesus! Sir, sir, Master Cate is dead!" "I'm
not leaving here," the Queen said, then called down to the ruined deck,
"I'm not leaving!" "Ma'am,"
Neal called back, "you'll do as you're damn well told!" Other
officers, petty officers, were calling orders. Martha had never heard such
cursing, not even from horse dealers or teamsters at Stoneville Fair. "Edward,"
the Queen said to Master Butter, "go down there and tell that young fool
I'm staying with them. No need to go skating away nowhere because there's been
an accident!" "My
dear," Master Butter said, "those stray Kipchaks we passed — and
butchered some, passing? I believe they'll now be coming to call. So yes, you
are leaving — and quickly." "How
bad?" First Officer Neal had
spoken quietly, well down the steep-sloping deck and through the sounds of men
at desperate work, but Martha heard him. It was the only question being asked. A
person said, "Sprung and split." "
— But she'll skate!" "No,
sir," the person said. "Wouldn' make not a mile. Fall all to
kindlin'." The
Queen — her second spear found under a fallen spar's fold of sail — stood,
seeming to listen to other than the Mischief’s voices. Then she said,
"So, no pinnace and scurrying away. —
Neal!" They
heard his "Ma'am…" as he half-climbed the main deck's rise, stepping
over wreckage his men labored on. He
came up the narrow port-side ladder, his left eye still plugged with blood.
"Ma'am?" "The
captain?" "Captain's
dead, ma'am. Skull broken when we struck." "And
no pinnace." "No,
ma'am. Launch also smashed — I knew that, soon as I stood up." "I
see.... And the chances of another ship coming?" "Oh,
another ship will come, ma'am; a lookout certainly saw us wreck." Neal
paused, stared out over the ice, one-eyed, where the Fleet had gone. "But
the line was sweeping east on the wind. Ships'll have to tack and tack again to
get back to us." "How
long?" Master Butter said. "Sir...
ma'am, I believe a glass-hour at least." "And
probably more?" "Yes,
ma'am. Probably more." Neal glanced at the scorpions' crews. "You
people get down on main deck. Your pieces won't depress at this angle to do any
good at all." "Leave
'em?" A sailor put his hand on a massive machine as if it were a family
dog. "Yes,
Freddy," Neal said, "leave 'em. All of you go on down, now." Below,
an officer called, "I said, rig out more boarding net, Carson! Are you
fucking deaf? …. Leave that. Leave it! The man's dead." "Company
coming?" Master Butter said. "...
Why yes," Neal said, "I believe so, sir. Ma'am, you'd do better
below, where the marines might hold the hatches." "Might?"
The Queen smiled at him. "No. I like it here. Now, get back to your
people, Captain Neal." Neal
bowed, then turned for the ladder to follow the scorpion crews down — looking,
it seemed to Martha, pleased as if the Mischief still sailed and was
sound under his promotion. "Captain
Neal," the Queen called after him, "I expect this ship, though
ruined, still to kill the Kingdom's enemies." "Oh,
we will do that, ma'am," Neal said, and was gone to the deck. "...
Children," the Queen said. "They're all children." She looked at
Martha and Master Butter. "And my doing, that both of you are here."
She reached a cold strong hand to Martha's cheek. "Another child…. And
you, Edward, you foolish man." "Only
an old friend, my dear — who would be no place else on earth." ...
There was no longer a raven's-nest, so it was from some lower perch a sailor
shouted. "The fuckers is comin'! Comin' west by west!" Martha
went to the back of the poop — edging past the mantelets, then between the
scorpions — to look out from the stern, now reared so high. She saw only ice
behind them at first, then darker places that seemed to move from side to side
as much as forward through late afternoon's sun-shadows. She stood watching
until, as if her watching made it so, those darker places became groups of
riders.... Soon, she could make out single horsemen among them, coming swarming
like late-summer bees. Dozens. A hundred... perhaps two hundred, skirting the
end of the water lead as they rode. Then, many more. Their right arms were
moving oddly, and Martha saw they were whipping their horses on. She heard a
war horn's mournful note. Battle
whistles shrilled down the Mischief's sloping deck. A drum rattled.
Sailors and marines — those with no bones broken in the wreck, or at least no
crippling injury — took up their battle-standings. Martha
went back to the Queen, and said, "They're coming," feeling foolish,
since of course they were coming. But
the Queen only nodded, and said, "Infuriating, the things I have left
undone..." "Not
a bad place to fight, though." Master Butter paced the poop deck.
"Considerable slope, and fairly narrow… crowded with machinery. They can't
climb to us up the hull, stuck this high in the air, so our backsides will be
safe enough. May take arrows, of course, once they have the main deck, if they
get up into the rigging..." "If
there were only one ladder coming up here..." "Yes,
dear, but there are two, and twenty feet apart. When they come up both, we
won't be able to hold them." Butter stepped out a space... backing between
the tall mantelets, the two scorpions. "Just here, I think." The
Queen walked up the tilted deck. "Yes. Wide enough," she said,
"but not too wide." It
seemed to Martha they were only interested, not frightened as she was
frightened. The
Queen said, "Shit," and the back of her left hand was bleeding.
Arrows murmured past them and snapped into timber. Two thumped into rolled hammocks,
and men shouted below. The Queen looked at her hand. "Nothing," she
said, and flicked the blood away. "Most of the fools are shooting blind up
to this deck." Hoofbeats
clattered down the ice along the ship's side. Shouts and orders along the main
deck below. Deep twanging music from crossbows, heavier crashes from the Mischief's
machinery still able to bear. "So,
our company's come." Master Butter rubbed his hands together. "Three
can stand here, though no room for more — a space, what, ten... eleven feet
across? Just over three feet for each of us to hold." He nodded.
"Mantelets forward on both sides to funnel them onto our blades, while —
let's hope — catching their shafts.... And these scorpions, beside and
behind us, each a mess of gears and cable, timbers and steel." He smiled
at Martha. "Could it be better, my student?" "Better
not to be here," Martha said. An arrow hummed high over her head. "Sensible
Martha," the Queen said. "But really, this place is so high, so good,
we might hold it a glass-hour." Martha
saw many Kipchaks out on the ice... riding, circling in like hearth smoke
swirling to an opened door. "Would
that we could," Master Butter said, and was difficult to hear over rising
noise. Shouts, and the ship's crashing war-machinery. "Martha, you will
fight at the Queen's right side; I'll be on her left. Keep two things in mind.
It's cold, and will grow colder, so consider your grip on your ax — might want
to thong the handle to your wrist. And, remember you have a dagger as
well. I don't want to see that knife sleeping in its sheath." "Yes,
sir." "Orders
for me, also, Edward?" "No,
my dear. You need no one to tell you how to fight. But knot that scarf tighter;
don't leave the ends loose for someone to seize." Men
bayed like hounds along the Mischief's slanted hull, and Martha looked
over the poop-deck rail and saw gray-furred Kipchaks in the boarder nettings
down at the bow. They'd climbed to that lowest place… were slashing at the
netting with short, curved swords. As she watched, ranks of marines turned from
the ship's rails, and their crossbow bolts — fired almost together — emptied
the nets of nearly all those men, as if with magic. But
then the nets were full again — being sliced apart by more horsemen, by many
more, climbing up shouting. It
seemed to Martha like a dream — so odd and wild and unexpected — unreal as a
dream, so she might simply fly away into the air and dream of something else. "If,"
the Queen said, "if I'm down, disarmed, and it seems I'll be taken —
" "Kill
you?" Butter smiled. "I won't do it — and Martha won't do it. So,
Queen, don't go down, don't fumble. I've understood Trappers were dire
fighters, and I expect to see a sample of it." "You
had better hope, Edward," the Queen said, knotting her scarf tight around
her throat, "with this fucking impudence of yours, you had better hope these
savages kill us." "I
rely on it, sweetheart," Master Butter said, and seemed to Martha happier
than she'd ever seen him. The
marines fired another volley — and again almost cleared the nets. Martha could
hear a ripple of smack-smack-smack as the bolts struck. It had grown
very cold; she saw her breath frosting in the air. Her hands were cold; her
left hand was shaking. She put it on her dagger's hilt and held on hard. "Soon,
now," Master Butter said. "And there'll be blood freezing on this
decking, ladies. So mind your footing; let's have no comic pratfalls." Martha'd
never heard 'pratfalls,' but she knew what he meant. The
marines fired another volley — but arrows had been killing them, and their
fewer bolts didn't sweep the netting clear. It hung in tangles along both sides
of the Mischief's bow, and Kipchaks were coming through it, howling war
cries. Someone
called an order, the marines drew short swords all together, and that same person
— it wasn't Captain Neal — called another order. Then the marines marched down
to the bow as if there was no hurry, and struck the tribesmen all together.
Martha heard the musical sounds she and Master Butter made, practicing with
steel — but this was much louder and many more, and there were screams. Sailors
shouted and went running down with axes and pikes, following the marines. The
whole forward part of the ship seemed to Martha to become like the river's
wind-waves and whirlpools, but made of fighting men, with the marines in ranks
like sand-bars in the current, flooded with furred fighters. There was terrible
noise over the ringing steel, as if animals were killing children. Martha
turned away to look at anything else, and saw herds of horses wandering out on
the ice, with only a few Kipchaks to keep them. Their riders had come to the Mischief. "Gauntlets
and helms," Master Butter said. He sounded just as he had at their
lessons. "Draw, and guard." He drew his long sword from its sheath. A
heavy sword, Martha saw — only a few inches of its top edge sharpened. The
Queen, standing between them, settled her helmet, pulled on her mail gauntlets.
"Rachel," she said, as if her daughter were with them, " — how
will you do?" Then, driving the point of one assag into the deck to rest
within reach, she spun the shaft of the other in her right hand for a
comfortable grip, and drew her Trapper knife with her left. Ready, she stood
relaxed — so at ease, it seemed to Martha she looked younger. Martha
pulled her gauntlets from her belt, let her ax hang from its thong as she
tugged them on, then fitted her helmet. She could feel her heart thumping...
thumping. "And
what are you to remember, Martha?" "My
knife, sir." "That's
right," said Master Butter. There was a change in the noise below them; it
had come closer, risen up the slanting main deck. "What
I will remember," the Queen said, "while I remember, are my
dear friends beside me." Martha
stepped forward and could see, over the poop's rail, more Kipchaks swarming,
fighting with sailors up the sloping deck. She saw no marines still standing. The
horsemen, smaller, stockier than the sailors, yelped to each other as they
came. They reached the helm's wheel, just below and out of sight from where she
stood. Martha
heard sounds that drove her back to her place beside the Queen. She drew her
dagger so as not to forget it, held it low at her left side.... It still
startled her, after such fearful waiting, when one of the Kipchaks — an older
man with a gray mustache, his round wind-burned face framed in a dark fur hood
— stepped up off the port-side ladder, and started toward them. He looked
serious, but not angry, and was holding a short, curved sword running bright
drops of blood. It
seemed to Martha that this man intended to say something — another tribesman
had come up the ladder behind him — but
the Queen stepped out in two long strides and stuck her assag's blade into the
man's belly. He looked amazed, turned as if to walk away... then seemed to melt
down to the deck. "First
blood," said the Queen — and the second Kipchak came howling. Martha
was sure Master Butter killed that one, though she didn't see it. She was sure
because she'd heard the sudden thrum of a sword-blade whipped through
air, and the man's shout stop. Then two... and a third horseman came running
from the starboard ladder and her ax met one before she even thought about it.
She stuck the other with her dagger and didn't know what happened to him,
because the third man was on her, shoving, and swinging a sword. She
was surprised he wasn't stronger than she was — and perhaps he was surprised,
too, since he guarded against the ax but forgot the dagger. Master Butter had
been right about the knife. Something
hit her left side, and Martha thought she was hurt — more Kipchaks were coming
up both ladders — but she glanced over and it was the Queen, wrestling, cutting
a man's throat. He hit Martha, trying to dodge away, and left warm stuff on her
neck and shoulder. Blood. Don't slip… don't slip! Two more men came and
ran into her, tried to knock her down, struggling to get sword-points in. Then
she used the ax — second time she'd used it. She'd lost her temper. Another man
— or one of those two, maybe, was still standing in front of her. His jaw was
hacked and hanging down so his tongue was out in squirting blood. Martha
supposed she'd done it. A very strong man edged past a mantelet, cut her hard
at her right hip, and drove her, drove her back into a scorpion. This man was
much stronger than she was. She smelled his breath, fresh as a child's, as he
grappled with her, working to get his sword's edge across her throat. Martha
crouched suddenly, so he'd think she'd fallen down — then stuck her dagger hard
as she could into his nuts, and wrenched, wrenched at the blade with all
her might to draw it up into his belly. The dagger blade was caught — then
sliced its way free and ran up into him. The
man made a terrible noise, and she was able to pull away from him. He'd been
very strong. Martha was standing against the curve of a scorpion's bow;
couldn't remember how she got there. She hacked her ax's spike into another
man's shoulder as he struck at her — used that to haul him off-balance — then
turned the ax's handle to chop its blade into his eyes, and was surprised at
how easily she'd done it. He made a mewing sound, like a kitten, and stumbled
away. Blinded, he bumped into a mantelet's edge. Someone
limped across and thrust a spear into the blind man's back, so he screamed and
fell down. Martha smelled shit, and supposed it was from him. She saw it was
the Queen who'd done it. Her beautiful helmet was off — its lacing broken — and
strands of her long hair, red and gray and red again with blood, were down past
her shoulders. Martha
looked around as if she were waking up, and saw no more horsemen coming at
them, though several — they had the oddest slanting eyes — still stood down the
narrow way, at the head of the ladders. There were six... seven men lying still
on the deck, one man sitting up, and two men crawling. The wind was making
bright red puddles stream and run along the deck. The blood crinkled, freezing
as it ran. There
were noises from below... shouts and cheering. Martha saw things thrown high in
the air from the main deck. She thought they were hats, then saw they were
heads. "So
far, so good," Master Butter said — a copybook phrase so perfect it
sounded just made up. He was leaning on his long sword's point, his short-sword
in his left hand. Three of the men lay before him, two piled across each other,
looking like killed animals with their furs rumpled and soaked with blood.
"Well enough, so far, since it seems we're only an afterthought, up
here." Martha
saw they'd all had been pushed back against the scorpions' rigs and timbers.
The Kipchaks had forced them back there, fighting. There
was stinging in Martha's left arm. She looked down and saw the mail sleeve had
been sliced open, and her forearm, too. She didn't remember that happening at
all. Blood was running dripping, and she could see a piece of polished bone
deep in there.... It looked dreadful, but only stung her as if wasps were at
it, didn't hurt as much as her hip. But that hand hung empty and white, and her
dagger was gone. "Floating
Jesus." The Queen tugged her long scarf off, bound it around
Martha's arm, and knotted it tight. The
few Kipchaks at the ladders only stood watching. It seemed to Martha they were
all — the tribesmen, too — very tired already, though only sudden time had
passed. Then,
one of the horsemen shouted something to the others, and they came running — so
the Queen had to snatch her second assag from where it stood on the deck, her
other apparently lost, stuck in some man's bones.... Everything
seemed to go slowly and strangely, so Martha felt she almost knew the name of
the next man who attacked her —
slashing, slashing — he became so closely familiar, his face almost a
friend's, though twisted with effort, fear, and rage. She guarded and struck
with her ax, missing her left arm and her dagger. Then that man went away or
was down, which was just as well, since she was feeling sick. A fever's
dream-sickness, it felt like. Tribesmen were standing by the ladders, blood on
their furs. She
heard the Queen say, "Probably better on their horses. Cree would have
chopped these people to pieces." "No
doubt." Master Butter, at the Queen's other side, sounded out of breath.
"Embarrassing… but I've been taken in the belly, dear. I thought the son
of a bitch was dead… Martha?" "Yes?"
Martha saw Master Butter was standing hunched as an old man. "My...
last lesson. Man worth killing once... is worth killing twice." "Yes,"
Martha said, "I will." She
heard Master Butter catch his breath and say, "And how do you, my
dear?" "Still
standing, Edward." The Queen sounded oddly pleased, though Martha saw she
was trembling, and had been cut hard across the side of her face. Strands of
her long hair, come down, were stiff with freezing blood. " — Still
standing, though bleeding like a pig... and my knee cut by some fucker so it
flops." She turned to look at Martha, and smiled. "Dear girl?" "I'm
with you." Martha looked down to be sure she still held her ax. "I'm
with you." Then, though feeling so sick, she footed a corpse away for room
to fight as the Kipchaks shouted and came again, now more of them pouring up
the ladderways from left and right, all steel and fur, frost trailing from
their mouths like smoke. Martha
called, "Ralph," as if her sergeant might come to her, his
armor green as spring leaves.
CHAPTER 25
"Good?...
Sufficient?" The
Khan Toghrul, lying at cushioned ease in his camp yurt by lamplight, scattered
a few more grains of feed down the front of his yellow over-robe, and watched a
small blue-and-white pigeon strut on his chest, pecking. He felt the little
steps the bird took as it fed. Apparently
sufficient feed for this bird of best luck — a pigeon to live, from now on, a
life of reward and no message flights where birds of prey might strike it down,
the Sky's winter storms freeze it in flight. A lucky bird, a bird that had brought
luck, the news of a baby boy. A boy... and an end to uneasiness in certain
Uighur and Russian chieftains. Men who, so mistakenly, thought the succession
their business. But
politics — wonderful Warm-time word — the usual political triumph didn't
occasion joy. Not the joy that had a Khan lying cooing to a pigeon, sprinkling
pinches of seed for it on his breast. A boy — Bajazet, for the old Khan — and
reported healthy as his mother was healthy. There was no pretending the wife's
life wasn't dear as the child's, or nearly. This fondness for her a weakness,
no question, and as a weakness, best admitted to. Toghrul
blew gently to ruffle the bird's feathers, and the pigeon glanced at him,
startled. "Only
fondness," the Khan said to it, cupped the pigeon gently in both hands...
then got up, crossed piled carpets to a small cage-roost, and ushered the bird
in. "Soon, once we're finished here, a silver cage for you. A silver cage,
but big, with room to fly." Toghrul
closed the roost's little wooden door. Happiness a danger in itself, a sort of
drunkenness, so that everyone seemed a friend and all seemed possible. As,
of course, it seemed impossible that an experienced commander — granted
Shapilov had not been a vital intellect — still it seemed impossible that an
experienced commander, left with his dispositions in the north carefully
ordered, and careful warnings given of the River's ice-ships, their strengths
and limitations... that the man would still prove fool enough to keep tumans
in mass formations, unwieldy, and perfect prey for those vessels. Fortunately
for him, the ass had died in his own disaster —
where, supposedly and by third-hand information come just this evening,
the Kingdom's so-rude Queen had also died. That news, as copybooks had it,
likely 'too good to be true.' So,
even the happiest of men, of fathers, was left with work to do. A catastrophe —
with truly catastrophic losses — to be balanced now by victory.... Toghrul went
to his yurt's entrance, paged heavy felt hangings aside, and stepped into
darkness and a freezing wind that made the guard-mount's torch flames flutter. "Senior
officers," he said. "Great
Lord." The officer stationed there went to only one knee in the snow — the
Guard Regiment's privilege — then rose and ran for the commanders' camp. The
other sentries stood still, eyes front. "Uncomfortable,"
Toghrul said to them. "This damp cold, here. Not like our prairie
air." And it was uncomfortably dank amid deep-snowed stands of hardwood
trees and thorn-bush thickets, on ground that always sloped away down tangled
draws. The
guards seemed to have stopped breathing, apparently frightened by being spoken
to. And, of course, they didn't answer him. Stupid creatures.... Toghrul stepped
back through the curtains, went to the near brazier to warm his hands, then
bent to warm his face. He opened his eyes to the coals' bright blazing till
they watered as though he wept. Bajazet.
A name chosen before the boy was conceived. A name both ancient and noble....
What lessons must the boy be taught ? Weapons and war, of course. And should be
given treacherous ponies, difficult horses as he grew older, so distrust became
natural to him, despite his father's love. He must be given young companions, as
well — of good blood, but none quite his equal. One boy might be stronger,
another more clever, a third luckier or more handsome. But none as strong and
clever and lucky…. The best of virtues must be his: endurance,
unswerving purpose, patience — and cruelty, of course, that tedious necessity.
He would have to be taken from his mother early — by four, perhaps by five — or
Ladu's gentleness would suit him only for defeat. So,
treacherous ponies for the boy, and difficult horses. But not dangerous.... "As
you commanded, lord." The
four trooped in, breathless, bowing. Murad Dur — and three competent
nonentities, interchangeable brutes with at least veteran notions of giving and
obeying orders. "Oh,
Lord of Grass, and now — father," Dur led the others in more bowing. "So,"
Toghrul said, foolishly pleased, "good fortune follows ill." "Still,"
Murad said, and bent his head so his face — harsh, hook-nosed, very like a
red-tailed hawk's — was shadowed by a hanging lamp. "Still… some illness
lingers." The
other three said nothing, stood dripping melting snow onto the carpets. "So?" "Sled
savages, lord." "Sleds?" "As
reported, Great Lord. Savages — though only a very few. Archers from North
Map-Texas, driving dog-sleds over deep snow, attacked a remount herd. Eight hundred
horses." "Go
on." "The
remounts were dispersed and lost, Great Khan. Herders were killed, and the Lord
Chimuk was... also killed. An arrow struck his throat." It
was surprising what a shock that was. For a moment, Toghrul couldn't catch his
breath.... Old Chimuk, killed by some Sky-cursed savage. Yuri had seemed one of
those men who couldn't be killed by any enemy. In how many battles had that old
man fought? From Siber Gate, across and down to Map-New Juneau... Map-Portland.
Years of battles. And now, an arrow through his throat in this stupid
wilderness. "Were
all the herd-guards killed?" "Most,
Great Lord." "Kill the rest of them," Toghrul said. "Their throats to be cut for
the cowards they are." "As
you order, lord." Not
caring to be stared at after such news, Toghrul turned back to the brazier and
stood holding his hands to the warmth, thinking. What was that wonderful
copybook saying? It's an ill wind that blows no good. Yes, really a
perfect old saying, since now, with his grandfather gone, there would be no
powerful person troubled by the unfortunate death of that so-brilliant young
commander Manu Ek-Tam — presently demonstrating his talent by chasing sheep in
North Map-Mexico. An
ill wind... Certainly including the
clever North Map-Mexican rabbit — that had run, jinking here and there as the
hawk went stooping — but was now revealed to be a wolf. Wolf enough, at least,
to have snarled some sense into the Kingdom's cannibals, so they'd actually
concentrated for battle in the north.... Silence
from the four commanders. It occurred to Toghrul that those silences — so
usual, so proper — might occasionally have deprived him of useful information. "Very
well." He went to his couch, sat, and settled amid cushions, booted legs
crossed, his sheathed sword across his lap. "Very well. As put so
perfectly by the ancients: 'To business.' We have a lost battle in the north —
but not a lost war. It requires only to finish the clever young Captain-General
in these hills — I think of him as younger, though apparently we're close to
the same age." Toghrul considered having his generals sit, then decided
not. "
— If this Lord Monroe is beaten quickly enough, then we have time left to march
east to the cannibals' river, and campaign north up the ice — instead of
south, down it. The result would be the same, and Shapilov's defeat only
incidental." Murad
Dur nodded, apparently understood. The other three generals — perhaps only
careful to appear stupid — stood stolid as posts. Toghrul
paused, considered reviewing good news — beside the birth of his son — pigeoned
from Caravanserai, then decided not. It might be considered weakness, an
attempt to obscure the disaster below St. Louis. Good news from Map-Los
Angeles; payments in silver now perfectly acceptable to the Empire…. Good news
from Map-Fort Stockton; herds being replaced through bitter snows. Good news,
but not good enough. "It's
an interesting problem, really." Toghrul smiled. "An interesting
problem. By day after tomorrow, Third Tuman will have joined us. And certainly
by that time, the Captain-General will have joined his army. We will have a
competent — say, very competent — commander, whose army has taken a defensive
position just south of us, in broken hills. His intention will be to hold those
draws, slopes, and wooded ridges against our tumans. Hold the slopes with his
Light Infantry, of course, the crests with his Heavy Infantry, the ridges, with
his cavalry. Short charges through deep snow, brush, and so forth, to keep us off
the heights." "Great
Lord..." "Yes,
Murad?" "Isn't
it possible that Monroe is already with his army?" "Murad...
Murad. Have your scouts reported yet that the soldiers of that army —
usually proud of silence — have begun to sing, to strike their cooking kettles,
to joke while performing sentry duties? Any such welcoming celebration?" "Ah...
of course," said Murad Dur. Toghrul
waited for any additional comment, response. The three wooden generals seemed
less worried, now, perhaps even interested…. But was it, perhaps, not the best
notion to have Manu Four-Horsetails killed? Should even dangerous talent be
allowed for its usefulness? No question, that officer would have been valuable
here, if his arrogance could have been borne..... " — So, certainly the enemy will have made those
dispositions. Object? To bleed our people in country they don't care
for, and in which it's difficult to maneuver to effect. Monroe will assume
we're much too subtle to simply go slaughtering in direct attack at his center.
He'll expect something of our steppe and prairie way — sudden sweeps, brisk
flanking, and staggered assaults into the resultant confusion. I believe he'll
expect those maneuvers — or at least as near them as this rough country
allows." Nods.
The wooden three were capable of nods, at least. Not entirely simple. "
— Since, however, I'm not inclined to do as an opponent expects, we will do the
opposite. His object is to bleed us. My solution, since flanking would find the
same country east and west, with no advantage... my solution is to bleed
— and win, bleeding. The last thing this North Mexican will expect from us is a
stupid and direct frontal assault on foot, heedless of losses." Toghrul
tried another smile. "After all, long winters in warm yurts breed
replacements soon enough." And,
by the Sky, at last one smile in return. Murad, of course. Intelligent, and not
afraid — sad to consider that these very virtues might, in time, make him
dangerous. "To
continue. We dismount the tumans, so our clever Captain-General fights, not
horse archers, but archers as woods' hunters first, then infantry in assault.
And, of course, we'll have to mount a very convincing — though necessarily
shallow — attack on... the western flank, to persuade Monroe to weaken his
center to oppose it. This false attack is to be driven home as if all the army
came behind it. Officers are to spend their men for that effect — and, if
necessary, spend themselves." Toghrul
clapped his hands. "A solution certainly not perfect, but probably
sufficient." And
no general said otherwise. At
the handclap, a guard had come through the yurt's entrance. "My lord
wishes?" "Your
lord wishes roast lamb with the Empire's golden raisins, dishes of soft cheese
and dried plums, kumiss and vodka for himself and his generals." The
guard bowed. "Oh,
and music. Is Arpad in the camp?" "His
squadron's in, lord." Murad Dur. "Then
we'll have the captain and his oud — and any decent drummer." The
guard bowed and went away. "Sit."
Toghrul gestured the generals to the carpet. "I'll draw our dispositions
in lamb gravy, while we enjoy an evening's pleasure — before tomorrow's pleasure."
And got smiles at last from all of them, properly, since they were being
honored by his presence at a meal. The
commanders sat carefully cross-legged, their boots tucked under so no dirty
sole was exposed as Toghrul joined them. They leaned a little back and away
from him as he sat opposite, since no honor was without peril. ...
A reminder that Bajazet would need to know more than how to frighten such
fools. More than knowledge of horses and archery. There must be a tutor for the
boy. But who? Would it be possible, once the North Mexicans were broken, would
it be possible to forgive an old man his treachery? And if Neckless Peter
Wilson were forgiven, and became the boy's teacher, what lessons would
be taught? An aging man's cautious consideration of every point of view, so
decisions came slowly, if at all? Bajazet — while certain to be a delight —
might not be gifted with sight so perfectly clear that argument evolved swiftly
into action.... The
commanders were sitting silent until spoken to, as was proper, eyes lowered so
as not to offend. ….
So, a tutor for Bajazet, certainly. But an old man who'd insulted his master by
refusing service? Worse, who'd taken service with an enemy. A dilemma. It was a
tremendous responsibility, raising a boy. And all the more, raising him to be
lord of everything he saw, everything his horse rode over…. The
yurt's thick entrance-curtain was paged aside, and four servants filed in. They
carried a tray of silver cups, a pitcher of warm kumiss, and polished brass
bowls of dried fruit, scented herbs, and rose-water. Toghrul could only hope
his opposites might wash hands undoubtedly dirty, before the lamb arrived.
*
* *
Sam
came ashore in bitter dark before dawn, from a freezing river already streaked
and stiffening with ice, so the boatmen, as they'd done off and on for two days
and nights, had had to batter and break thin shelves of it, sailing, then
rowing, to reach the appointed West-bank beach. Sam,
then Wilkey, despite their protests, were lifted and carried ashore like cargo
bales, the rivermen splashing, cursing, stomping crackling edge-ice. Carried,
deposited… and left. Wilkey
held a boatman's woolen smock as he started away. "Is this the fucking
place?" "An'
how would you know if it wasn'?" the boatman said, and pulled loose — but
managed a bow to Sam. "Sir, here's North Map-Arkansas, an' jus' the spot
away to your people. We didn' fail you." "I
never thought you would," Sam said, gave the man silver... then stood with
Wilkey to watch the boat pull away. 'The
fucking place' looked to be just that, as much as a fading moon, cloud-buried,
could show. A narrow, frozen bar of beach, then a steep bank with dark trees
and tangle thick along its top, all bending to the river's wind. "We'll
get off this shelf." Sam led the way up sliding sand, gripping frozen
roots and brittle vines to climb.... At the top, he got a good grip, hauled
himself up and over onto all fours — and
found six pairs of shaggy moccasins waiting. The savages, pale as the dead in
dark-gray light, were tall, thin men. Five were carrying steel-blade tomahawks,
and one, the tallest, a long-handled, stone-headed club. Sam
heard Wilkey, coming up behind him, say, "Shit," and was
considering a lunge to one side to clear .his sword, when someone laughed. "Not
the most dignified entrance, for a Captain-General! And… bride-groom?" "Ned
— you son-of-a-bitch." A perfect use of the copybook phrase. Ned
slid down from a dappled horse, and walked out into the last of moonlight to
offer Sam a hand to stand. "You're in one piece, anyway. They didn't kill
you. — Sergeant." "Sir."
Wilkey stood watching the savages. "Don't
be troubled by my Bluebird friends. I'm a favorite of theirs, for some reason
I'd rather not know." The
tallest of his friends, the man with the stone-headed club, smiled and said in
fair book-English, "Ned man, is a merry man." The Bluebird's teeth were
filed. "Very
merry, now," Ned said, smiling.
"Our song-birds, here, came from their camps last evening with wonderful
news. News, I suppose, drummed all the way down the river, from tribe to
tribe." "Wonderful?" "We
— well, the Kingdom's people — have won, Sam! A victory in the north,
fighting all day yesterday — and according to Toothy, here, right on through
the night. He says the drums say, 'A so-cold dying on the ice for the horse
riders.' " "If
it's true... if it's true." Sam felt relief rise in his throat,
painful as sickness. "Oh,
my friends here don't lie, Sam. Don't think they know how, actually. — Great
thieves, of course, steal anything not chained to a tree. Understand they like
to bake children in pits in the ground…. Reason I haven't accepted invitations
to dine." Ned went back into the brush, came out with four more horses on
lead. "Didn't know if more might be coming with you. Sure you recognize
your favorite." The
imperial charger, Difficult, night-black and looking big as a house, tried to
bite Ned's shoulder. "Behave
yourself." Sam took the halter. "So Toghrul is coming down with only
half an army, Ned — thanks to the Boxcars. Lady Weather bless Hopkins and
Aiken!" "Friends?" "Well,
a winning admiral, and a winning general — which makes them our
friends." "And
Toghrul is not 'coming,' Sam. He's here. Arrived with his first elements
yesterday. Man seems to be in a great hurry." "But
he hasn't attacked?" Sam went to Difficult's left side, tugged the stirrup
strap down, hopped in the snow to get his boot up, and swung into the saddle.
The charger sidled, began a buck, and blew noisy flatulent breaths. "What
a brute," Ned said, and was on his horse simply as taking a step. " —
No. Still settling in just north of us when I rode out to meet you. Fourth day
I've ridden up and down the bank, hoping to their Floating Jesus this was the
place meant. No real notion when you'd be coming, only word sent over from a
Kingdom ketch." "Supposed
to be a one-day sail here. Became more than two, with the ice." "Yes.
A possibility Toothy mentioned. Not much the Bluebirds don't follow on the
river. Have to — the Boxcars hunt them, now and then…. Sergeant, mount
up." ...
Then, a long morning's ride through deepening snow. They climbed slow-rising
slopes west of the river, horses bucketing through deep drifts — the white lap
of Lord Winter — as the Bluebirds paced them, drifting in and out of sight
through bare-limb trees and snow-drifted bramble, jogging along, never seeming
to tire. "Good
men," Sam said. "Yes,"
— Ned smiled, riding beside him — "but risky at dinner." "I
see that. What news from home, Ned?" "One
piece of very bad news, Sam, pigeoned up a couple of weeks ago." "Yes?" "Elvin...
The old brigadier's dead, back home. Died in his sleep of that fucking disease." "Elvin
dead…." "Yes,
sir. Jaime's still doing organizational work down there." "Mountain
Jesus." "Does
seem wrong, doesn't it, Sam? Old man was meant to die fighting." A dusting
of new snow was falling. Nothing much. It barely sifted in Sam's sight, then
vanished. "Jaime won't live long, now Elvin's gone." "I
suppose that's right," Ned said. "So there was that message, a while
ago — then, last few days, three separate gallopers come all the way up from
the Bravo — killed a couple of horses doing it." "Saying?" "First
one was from Charles: 'All going to copybook hell-in-a-handbasket. Trouble with
the provinces. Trouble with money. There isn't any money. Imperative you
return soon as possible!'... Then, the second, from Eric: 'Enemy agents
cropping up, possible rebellion planned in Sonora, paid for by the empire.
Imperative you return as soon as possible!' " "And
the third?" "Oh,
the third — and last — was from the little librarian. Four words: 'Nothing
important happening here.' " Sam
smiled, still thinking of Elvin. Remembering him throwing the dinner roll. "A
sensible old librarian," Ned said, "Neckless Peter." "Yes.
A sensible man." As
they climbed a steep slope through cold clear light — come far enough that the
river, when it could be seen those miles behind them, was only patches of
bright glitter in the rising sun — Sam heard bird calls, but calls from the
birds of the Sierra. The tall savages trotting alongside laughed,
imitated those calls perfectly… and Light Infantry — from Kearn's Company, by
their bandannas — stepped out to meet them. ...
Sam had said to the Princess, 'My farm will be the camps; my flock, soldiers.'
Saying it, of course, as a measure of loss —
which now was proved a lie, since he found himself truly happy in dark,
wooded hill-country, deep-snowed and freezing. Happy that a ferocious arid
brilliant war-lord had come south to oppose him. Happy in the warmth, the trust
of more than ten thousand soldiers, men and women who greeted him now from
regiment to regiment with stew-kettle drums and singing. They enclosed him like
a warm cloak of fur… fur with fine steel mail woven through it. 'My flock…
soldiers.' He prayed to the Lady, riding through them, for those who would die
by his decisions. ...
Most of the rest of the day was spent learning the ground — riding rounds down
deep, snowed gullies, then up their wooded, steep reverses — and in greetings,
embraces by officers and their scarred sergeants, shy as girls. Wilkey had gone
back to his company, reluctant to leave Sam guarded by only a half-dozen. From
one height, Howell pointing, Sam could see over bare treetops to the Kipchak
camp — sprawled, as his army was sprawled, across country too rough for regularity.
An imperial far-looking glass cold against his eye, he thought he made out the
Khan's yurt, bulky and bannered in a town of lesser shelters. By fire smokes,
by men's movements across white snow, by horse lines that could be seen, the
camp looked to hold perhaps twelve, perhaps fifteen thousand men. "All
Greats," Sam said, his breath frost-clouding, "bless the Boxcars and
their Queen." "Yes."
Howell took the glass. He began, by old habit, to put it to his black-patched
socket, then held it to his right eye and peered out across the hills. "Or
we'd have thirty thousand of the fuckers to fight." Sam
had been… not startled, perhaps saddened to have noticed Howell, Ned, Phil
Butler, and the others seeming older now than when he'd left them only weeks
before. He supposed that he looked older, too, the price of large matters being
dealt with. Howell
slid the glass shut into itself and handed it back. "How do you want to go
about this, Sam?" "To
begin with, let's get warmer." ...
Sitting on his locker, Sam envied Toghrul the big yurt. His canvas tent was
cramped, packed with commanders sitting on his cot or camp-stools, with their
silent second-in-commands: Carlo Petersen, Horacio Duran, Teddy Baker and
Michael Elman, standing or kneeling behind them. And all smelling of sweat,
leather, horse, and oiled steel. It was not a restful space, though warm enough
now, with crowding. "First,
I want to thank Phil, and the army, for a brilliant march up through
Map-Louisiana, Map-Arkansas." "I
had to hurry, Sam." Butler had brought only one dog on campaign;
rat-sized, brown-spotted, it peered from his parka's pocket. " — That
Boston girl was impossible. One more week, I'd have hanged her." "No,"
Howell said, "I'd have hanged her." "A
wonderful march of infantry," Sam said, "and, Howell, a perfect move
east. Not a trooper lost coming over from Map-Fort Stockton." "Luck,
Sam." "No.
Not luck. Charmian, how was the Bend border when you pulled your people
out?" "Busy."
Charmian Loomis had a rich, sweet singer's voice, sounding oddly from someone
so lean, dark, and grim. "They had a very good commander come down with
them — not Cru-san; better than Crusan. If he'd had a couple of thousand more
people, it would have been a problem." "But
as it was?" Colonel
Loomis considered. "As it was, it was… busy, but not a problem. We killed
them at night, usually. And left… oh, perhaps eleven, twelve hundred still
riding that whole territory, trampling farmers' starting-frames. Just good
practice for our people down there." "
'Good practice,' " Ned said. "You terrifying creature." Colonel
Loomis smiled at him — a rare event for her. She'd always seemed to like Ned,
so much her opposite in every way but soldiering. Sam had wondered, as had others,
if there might be a match there, someday. An odd match, to be sure. Lightness
and darkness. "This
is my first day back. Tell me about the Khan." "Sir,
his dispositions — " "I
know how his army lies, Charmian; I've seen it, seen your map. I meant… what do
your people feel about that army." "They're
careless," Charmian said. "Careless?" "Yes,
sir — as if they have no doubt they'll win. Their patrolling is alert, but not
aggressive." "Right,"
Ned said. "They don't push. Just run regular patrols, keep in touch with
our people." "And
on our flanks?" "Nothing
much. More... a little more activity at the base of our main ridge, Sam." "Just
a little more," Charmian said. "We've got high ground here, running
up to all five ridges, though the west ridge is lowest. They seem interested in
Main Ridge, and the rise to the left of it, but they're still willing to let my
people hold those slopes. No contesting." "No
contesting…. And nothing much on the flanks at all." "That's
right, Sam," Howell said. "And it's strange, because he brought those
people south like a rock slide. Came down through Map-Missouri very fast." "They
overran two of my patrols." Ned tapped the curve of his steel hook against
the tent's pole. "Killed them." "So,"
Sam said, "in a hurry, then; but now... not in such a hurry." "I'd
say," — Butler had his little dog out on his lap, was stroking it —
"I'd say he intends to move very decisively. Whatever feints he may or may
not use, he'll drive his main attack all the way. Don't think he means to toy with
us at all, no two or three days counter-marching for advantage." Howell
nodded. "I agree." "Flanking,"
Sam said, "has always been their way." "A
good reason for him not to do it," Ned said. "Good reason for him to
go for the center." "He
already lost," Butler scratching his little dog's belly, " — or his
general lost, that battle in the north. First really serious defeat for them.
Bound to take that into account, dealing with us." "Yes,"
Sam said. "So, a decisive move, not a drawn-out piecemeal battle that
might leave some of our army intact, even losing. It's a temptation to attack him
— last thing he'd expect, an attack tonight." Some
apprehension in his officers' faces. "
— But this position is so perfect for defense." Sam smiled at their
relief. "Now, if he goes for our flank, it will be a hook to our left.
Attacking to our right, he takes a chance of being caught between us and a
possible sortie by Kingdom troops from the river. So, if it's flanking, it will
be to the west." "Country
over there's not much different, Sam." Ned shook his head. "No
advantage for horsemen." "But
less chance of a disaster for him, than in a direct engagement up the
middle." "Less
chance of a decisive victory for him, too," Howell said. "I think he
intends to wipe us out, then go for the river down here and ride north into the
Kingdom. Bluebirds say it's freezing fast." "Yes,"
Sam said, " — it is. But win or lose, we won't leave him enough men
alive to do Jack Shit." "I've
read that one," Ned said. "That's a good one. 'Jack Shit.' That's
very good." "So..."
Butler put his dog back into his parka pocket, and stood. "How do you want
us?" Sam
sat silent, eyes closed, picturing the army as it lay across wooded hills and hollows.
Picturing the draws, wooded and deep in snow, stretching away north to the
Kipchak army.... For Toghrul to attack there, to come directly at him that way,
was to sacrifice his men in the hope of swift and overwhelming victory. Taking
a great, almost desperate, chance. In
'his mind's eye' — wonderful old phrase — Sam saw them coming. Dismounted, of
course. At least, he would dismount them. Thousands of short, tough men with
hard-hitting bows and curved yataghans. But not trained infantry, not
really comfortable off their horses…. And all remembering that half their tumans
now lay dead, north on the river's ice. "I
think... a flank attack to the west is more likely. He can always regain his
balance, if he's beaten trying that." "My
people stay in the center?" "Yes,
Phil, Heavy Infantry stays on the center ridges. And no reserves. Bring
everything up on the line." "I
disapprove of that." "And
very sensibly. But do as you're told." Butler
sighed, and strolled out into the snow, Duran behind him. They could hear him
shouting for a dispatch-rider to take orders. "Is there a fucking man
on a horse?!" "Speaking
of men on horses," Ned said, "where do you want the cavalry?" "I
want them — want you — to do two things at once." "Nothing
new." "I
want the Heavies high on the west ridges, ready to oppose any flanking attack
successful enough to threaten our center. I want the Lights positioned, in
company and squadron strength, as reaction forces to charge any breach that
forms elsewhere along our line — and also prepared to chase when we win. Then,
as many Kipchaks as possible are to be ridden down and killed. The Khan is to
be hunted and killed." "Toghrul
killed..." Ned breathed on his hook, polished it with his bandanna.
"Right." "Sam,"
Howell said, "who opposes his flank attack directly?" "I
do," Charmian said, and got up and left, Teddy Baker following. "I
wish she wouldn't do that," Howell said. "Damn woman always just
walks out. No fucking further planning... no coordination." "I
know," Sam said. "It's annoying." "But,
Sam — only light infantry?" "Yes." "That's...
You're sacrificing them." "Yes." "Best
we have!" Sam
sat looking at him. "Howell,"
Ned said, "it's because they're the best we have." Howell
stood, seemed to wish to pace, but found no room for it. "Still wrong, to
sacrifice Charmian like that. If her people go under, she'll go under with
them…. Hard to forgive, Sam." "Howell,"
Sam said, "these things are impossible to forgive. I thought you
understood that." "...
Alright. Alright, where do you want me?" "Highest
hill, back of Butler. Best place to command from, if something happens to
me." "And
you'll be where?" "He'll
be with Charmian, Howell." Ned stood and stretched. "Now,
let's get out of here, and leave him in peace." Sam stood
— his back feeling better, standing — and put his hands on their shoulders as
he walked them out into falling snow, Petersen and Elman trailing after.
"Listen, both of you; there is another order. Live." "That's
it?" Ned smiled. "I'd already decided to." "It
may be too much trouble." Howell reached up to rest his hand over Sam's
for a moment. Their
boots crunched in the snow. "Once the people are in place," Sam said,
"which is going to take time, with the Light Infantry completing a march
to the west — once they're in place, no fires, no noise. I'll be along to
review dispositions, make any adjustments to our lines." Ned and Howell
swung up onto their horses. " — Feed the people at least a little hot
food, as much Brunswick as Oswald-cook can send up from the field kitchens,
then give them a few hours' sleep. But they're to be in position at
least two glass-hours before dawn.... I'd come with the last of night — and so
will he." "Good
to have you back," Ned said, saluted with his bright hook, then turned his
horse and rode away, Elman spurring after him. "Sam…"
Howell held his big charger still, Petersen just mounted beside him.
"Don't do anything stupid. We've got ten thousand swords on these hills —
we don't need yours." "And
won't have it, if I have the choice." "I
hold you to that," Howell said, "on your honor." "On
my honor." Sam
walked back into his tent, past a smiling Corporal Fass, on guard — a tent, now
he was alone in it, no warmer than the evening. 'On my honor,’ he'd said.
Certainly the least of his concerns — to strike or be struck at with sharpened
steel. It would be... such a relief to have only that to consider, and not his
thousands of soldiers here, not the hundreds of thousands of men and women in
North Map-Mexico, waiting to hear whether they would live free and at peace —
or in a desperate resistance of several generations against the Kipchak tumans. And
would be such a relief, also, not to have to consider Rachel — and those
hundreds of thousands more — waiting along the river for him to win their war,
or lose it. Sam
sat on a camp-stool, spread Charmian's map on the cot, and bent in yellow
lamplight to study neat notes inked at its edges, fine lines drawn curving with
hills' slopes and rises. "Corporal." "Sir?" "If
they carry up stew, please bring me a bowl." "Yes,
sir. I can go back to the kettles and get it." "No.
But if they bring it up to the lines, I'll have some." "Yes,
sir." Sam
leaned closer, saw the pen's crosshatching of indicated forest thicken to the
west, showing awkward country… then much more awkward. And if the Khan did
flank to the right, instead, taking the chance of being trapped against the
river? The country east was a little more open… bore thinner forest. But
the snow had drifted that much deeper there — slow traveling when he'd come
that way, and by tomorrow, even more difficult. It didn't seem a likely line of
attack, with all their nice maneuvers slowed to lumbering. Also,
the east flank offered no surprise. The army, camped higher, would see the
Kipchaks coming miles away, and all the better as they came over snow, in
daylight or moonlight. Charmian's
fine map made the Khan's choice for any flanking clear. 'She'll go
under,' Howell had said. 'If her people go under, she'll go under with them.' And
so, of course, she would. How old was Charmian? Twenty-eight? No, certainly
thirty, at least. There was gray in her hair — as in all their hair. They were
all dyed a beginning gray by blunders, however rare, grim enough to stain
anything. ...
This was a time, if Margaret were here, that she'd nudge the vodka flask out of
sight. Wasted effort. There wasn't vodka enough on earth to drown this difficulty. Did
fine Warm-time Caesar, did fine Napoleon or Lee dream of leaving their tents
before battle, of walking away into the night, free of any expectations? So
their armies and their people and the future would no longer know of them at
all, leaving only a fading mystery to their puzzled, aging soldiers. Howell
had done a very good job, settled like the banner's scorpion on several rough
hills, claws and stinger poised and ready. But was there another way than
flanking to shift this ten-thousand-soldier scorpion, send it scuttling
sideways, then back... and back, until the Kipchak boot came finally down? Assault
to the front. Possible, though not Toghrul's style at all — which, as Ned had
said, argued for it. And would have made some sense if he still had a whole
army, instead of only half. Here — with, probably, neither force withholding
reserves — to lose in a frontal assault would be to lose utterly. It seemed
unlikely Toghrul would accept that gamble. Seemed unlikely…. Sam
folded Charmian's map — really fine paper, imperial stuff — stood, and tucked
it into his belt's wide pouch. To arm, or not yet? ... Not yet. He
turned down the lamp's wick, unslung his sword, and lay down on the cot with
the weapon beside him. The cot seemed more comfortable than Island's feather
bed had been. Probably spoiled for comfort, by soldiering... Sam dreamed
of Rachel, tall, dark-eyed, her father in her face. They were in her solar
tower. Sergeant Burke was there with them, sitting reading a copybook, tracing
the words with his finger, moving his lips as he read. Sam was explaining to
Rachel the difference between the Ancient American Civil War — Red-Badge of
Courage — and the wars he'd fought in North Map-Mexico. "In those
ancient battles," he said to her, "few screams were heard, because of
the noise of tremendous bangs of black powder. Cannon. Muskets. So those were
the noises heard during their battles. Very few screams, until the fighting was
over." Rachel
agreed it was probably so, but Burke said, "Sir." Sam
said, "What?" both in the dream and waking. "Sir…."
Corporal Fass. "Lady to see you, sir. Told her you were asleep." "Alright...
alright." Sam rolled off the cot, turned the lamp's wick up. "I've
brought stew," the Boston girl said, the shoulders of her blue coat dusted
with snow, " — and news. Wasn't that kind?" "Very
kind." Sam took the bowl from her. "Please… sit." Standing to
one side of the hanging lamp, he dipped a horn spoon into the steaming
Brunswick, took a sip. Patience
settled onto the cot, her scimitar across her lap, and smiled up at him. She
seemed as she always seemed, rested, lively, interested. "You don't think
I might have poisoned it?" "I
don't care," Sam said, and took another spoonful. "Poor
old Louis, in Map-McAllen, would have wanted me to poison it. Boston would have
said, 'Well done.' " "If
the Khan wins, you won't need the poison." The stew was very hot. Some
solder must have run from back of the hill, run through the dark with the yoked
buckets slopping. "If
the Khan wins," Patience thoughtful, "I do think he will fall in love
with me. He can't be used to someone as pretty and clever." "Probably
not." Sam blew on his spoonful. "You said, 'stew — and news.' " "Yes,
and you're the first to hear it. I came to you first of all. A Mailman flew
here just a little while ago; he must have hunted the camp like a night-jar to
find me — I heard him calling. A really nasty thing; I asked his name, and he
said, 'Fuck you.' Webster hates him and tried to bite, but still, he's the
first to ever bring me news " The
Brunswick had cooled enough to eat. "And that is?" "The
battle north — on the river ice?" "Yes.
Won, thank Lady Weather." "And
will you thank her that there the Queen was killed? The nasty Mailman brought
the note — news down from Baton Rouge by pigeon, then up from Map-McAllen to
here." "…
Killed?" "Yes,
killed. Her ship broke, and the Kipchaks swarmed over." ...
Then, sitting puzzled on the cot, Patience reached up to take the stew bowl
from him, and said, "Weeping.... How does that feel to do?"
CHAPTER 26
As
clouds sailed over a setting semi-moon, the regiment called Dear-to-the-Wind
filtered through trees and frozen underbrush. Stocky men in fur cloaks, felt
trousers, and felt boots, they managed fairly quietly through deep snow,
carrying strung bows. The bow-staves were short and curved as yataghan blades
were curved, both, some said, to honor that same crescent moon that rode
through Great Sky above them. ...
Lieutenant Francisco Doyle, always insubordinate, didn't hesitate to lean close
to his colonel and whisper in her ear. "Get back out of here, ma'am. Get
up the hill." It
was not a suggestion most would have cared to make to Colonel Loomis. Charmian
shrugged him away and ignored it. One of the Kipchaks, scouting, stepping
shuffling through a drift, was coming close to the evergreen overhang where she
and Doyle stood in darkness. Doyle,
really a brave young man, was considering another whisper when his colonel
strode suddenly out into the snow, her moon-shadow stretching lean and swift
beside her. She flicked her rapier's bright blade to set the startled
tribesman's half-drawn bow aside, then thrust him through the throat. The
man convulsed, dropped his bow, and clawed at the blade's razor edges, arching
back and back to get a breath for screaming. But the blade point stayed in him.
The colonel, as if dancing, accompanied him as he lurched away, still slicing
frantic fingers along the steel. Their
shadows pranced over the snow while the bowman managed a sound at last, a soft
squealing that ended as he fell, in liquid fart and stink. Arrows
— one, then another, whistled past into the woods, and Doyle saw hundreds of
Kipchaks now coming on foot through the trees downslope, kicking through the
snow in ragged ranks. Some shooting as they came, but most with yataghans out,
steel flashing in moonlight. There were no war cries, yet, or shouted orders. A
second rank of many more hundreds was emerging from the trees behind them. Colonel
Loomis, wiping her blade, paced across the hillside a little higher, with Doyle
hurrying behind, arrows flirting past them through moonlight and shadow. As
they went, a thousand of her men and women — waiting buried or half-buried in
fallen-branch rambles, in clearing drifts, on snowy slopes — stirred slightly,
so she could mark their places as she passed. At
the line's west, anchor end, more than half around the hill, Colonel Loomis
stopped and looked back across the moonlit breast of the slope. To Doyle, she
seemed — in a shifting wind that blew snow-powder swirling — a copybook witch,
so tall, angle-faced, and fierce, her long black hair sailing free… her sword's
sharp, slender yard the brightest part of her. She
stood waiting and watching, until soon the first screams were heard with the snap
of light crossbows, the harder twang of the tribesmen's weapons. Then,
like anticipated music, the clash of steel rang through the night, and Kipchak
war horns sounded their deep, bellowing notes. ...
Sam spurred Difficult up the main-ridge rise, through wet snowflakes barely
visible in the dimness before dawn. His trumpeter, Kenneth, followed, and six
horse archers, at Howell's insistence, paced along. Arrows nocked to the
strings of their odd longbows, they trotted guard in shifting order beside,
before, and behind him. To the west, the uneven voices of battle sounded,
softened by falling snow. Both
regiments of heavy cavalry were standing dismounted, each trooper by his horse,
in long ghost rows along the ridges, their armor dimly lit to gleaming here and
there by wind-blown torches. Two thousand big men — with a number of big women
— waited in silence, but for the stamping of impatient chargers. Sam
found Howell, torch-lit, beneath the scorpion banner — and stayed mounted so the people near enough
could see him. "It's
slippery, Sam." Howell looked up at him, squinting snowflakes away from
his good eye. "Falling footing." Sam
leaned from the saddle to answer. "Footing enough for down-slope charges.
If men and horses fall then, they fall into the enemy." "True." "Where's
Carlo?" "Down
the line." "He
knows to move without your order?" A
nod. "If the Kipchaks get through." "Right.
If the Light Infantry breaks on our left flank, Howell, they'll fall back up
these slopes. If that happens, if you see it's happening — " "Charge
as they clear." "No.
If Charmian's people start breaking, start backing up the ridges,
you and Carlo are to take both regiments — at the charge — down those slopes
and into the Kipchaks. That's my order, and that's what you will do." "We'd
be riding our own people down!" "Yes,
Howell, you would. You'd have to go over them to strike the Kipchaks as soon as
possible, as hard as possible, to give Phil time to pull out of the center and
march his people west." "Dear
Jesus..." "Howell,
am I right in this — or wrong?" "...
You're right." "Then
be sure Carlo also understands that order." Howell
nodded, and they both listened to the battle sounds, west. No cheering, of
course, from their people, only shouted commands, shouts of warning. The
Kipchaks were noisier fighters, calling battle cries, war horns sounding their
mournful notes.... Still, there was in that dull, shifting roar, a sort of
music to commanders, and they heard in it no advantage yet, either way. "Holding,"
Howell said. "And
probably will." Sam reached down, shook Howell's hand, and found
reassurance in that grinding grip. ...
Beside being a painful trotter, and uncertain in response, Difficult almost
always lunged out a start — did so now, only touched by the spurs, so Sam had a
moment's vision of being dumped into the snow in front of his soldiers, the
battle's loss beginning with that comic humiliation. But he found his balance,
settled the beast smartly between the ears with the butt of his quirt, and
managed to ride along ranks of cavalry... then down the far-western slopes in a
reasonable way, with Kenneth following. Three of the horse archers rode before
them, three behind. As
if they'd entered a different country deep in the draw, dawn-light darkened
almost to night again, and the battle's sound grew louder, so that screams of
dying men and women, grunts of effort for savage blows, and officers' shouted
orders all became individual under countless strokes of steel on steel. Sam
rode to angle across the hillsides, and soon, high in a rise's deep shadow, he
looked down and saw a roiling motion beneath him, as if the dark forest below
the hillsides had come alive, writhing like one of the great far-southern
serpents, coiling up and up to reach the dawn's light. The noise rose terrific
with clashing steel, shouts, the Kipchaks' yelping battle cries. Sam could hear
the tribesmen's bowstrings twang — and as if hearing made fact, one of his
flanking guards grunted and fell, white fletching at the side of his chest. Another
dismounted to him, as the four still mounted bent their longbows, shooting down
into shadow. Kipchak arrows hummed around them, and the escort's sergeant, a
man named McGee, rode to crack Difficult across the hindquarters with his
bow-stave. The charger leaped forward and bounded across the slope like a deer,
Sam only a bundle hanging on. He'd
found nothing more unusual in battle than laughter. On campaign, of course, and
even in maneuver under threat. But rarely in the heart of slaughter. Now, Sam
was treated to that sound as he saw, in dawn's light, Charmian Loomis — with
two officers, and blood down her side — leaning on the staff of a battle
pennant and laughing at him amid a flickering sleet of arrows. "Never
saw a man so eager!" she called to him. "Damn near flew down
the line!" Sam
wrestled Difficult to a skidding halt, swung down — and resisted temptation to
draw and take off the animal's head. McGee'd followed, and Sam tossed him the
charger's reins as the other bowmen rode up. "And
what are you doing on the line?" He had to shout. "You're the
fucking commander here!" "Came
down to listen to the fighting." "You
get your ass up on the ridge!" And to the officers standing by, both
crouching a little as if arrow flights were pressing them down: "Get her out
of here!" Charmian
grinned. "Listen...." An arrow passed almost between them, a slight
disturbance in the air. "Your
wound — " "I've
had worse." Still smiling, a happy woman in battle. "Listen, something's
wrong with the fighting here." Supporting herself a little on her rapier's
springing blade, she turned, slightly stiffly, to look back down the slope. The
light was good enough, now, for Sam to see clearly the tide of Kipchaks coming
against the supple, almost silent formations of Light Infantry all along this hillside
and another beyond it. The dismounted tribesmen attacking in a surf of
slaughter... then slowly, slowly easing back down the slopes to gather and come
again. Between
these advances and withdrawals, men and women fought stranded on the snow in
sudden knots, wrestling at knife-point, slashing with swords and yataghans. But
Sam saw it was the short Kipchak bows that were hurting his people most. The
Light Infantry crossbowmen were overmatched. "See?"
Charmian pointed with her rapier's blade. "We need to keep close!"
As if to prove it, an arrow came whisking past her throat, touched her long
hair like a lover fleeting past. "And we can keep close, and hold
them. They hit us and hit us hard — " "But
they're not pushing your people back." "Right.
There's no weight to this attack." A
surprising smacking sound, and the younger officer — Sam hadn't known his name
— pitched down into the snow with an arrow in the side of his neck, just
beneath his helmet's edge. The officer grunted, kicked at the snow, and died. "Oh…
Bobby." Charmian bent to stroke the dead man's back, then straightened.
"They're coming at us as if they meant it — " "
— But with no army coming behind them." Now, listening, Sam could hear a
fragility in the Kipchaks' shouts and war cries, their lowing battle horns. Two
thousand men, perhaps more, attacking along the slopes. But not with ten
thousand coming behind them…. Mistake… mistake. I've made a very bad
mistake. He
turned and shouted to his trumpeter. "Kenneth! Ride to the center!
Tell Phil Butler they're coming at him after all! — And he's to refuse! Refuse and fall back
slowly, in order!" "Comin'
at him... to refuse an' fall back slow, in order." "Ride!
Ride!" As
the trumpeter spurred away, Sam pointed at the bowman sergeant. "McGee —
to General Voss and Colonel Flores! The Khan's main attack is to the
center! They're to withdraw cavalry formations as his people come in — we'll
let them push us back. Light
Infantry will then attack his right flank from here. All cavalry — all cavalry
to move east now, into position to attack his left flank as it
exposes!" "Voss
an' Flores." The sergeant already reining his horse away. "Comin' at
the center — we're lettin' 'em push in so their flanks get bare — then Lights
hit his right, Cav goes east, gets set to hit his left!" And he was off,
his horse spurning snow across the slope. As
the man rode, Sam gripped Charmian by an arm he hoped unwounded, and tugged her
up-hill. "Come on — come on! Get out of this! And put your fucking helmet
on!" "I
can't see with the thing." She looked back, called down-slope, "Manuel!...
To your left!" Sam
thought he saw an officer there look up. "Shit!"
Charmian yanked her arm free and was off, limping awkwardly down the hillside as
twenty or thirty Kipchaks hacked their way up into the Infantry's line — then
broke it. "Charmian...!"
She was gone and at them. Sam drew and ran down after her… heard his bowmen
yelling, "No!" He saw more Lights coming along the slope to
reinforce as he galloped down the hill, snow flying. Charmian
had gone for the nearest, a big Kipchak in black furs. Sam saw the man's face,
a mask of rage and effort as he struck at her. Then
it was not fighting, but killing. Charmian
caught his curved blade coming across — picked it out of the air with her
rapier's tip, guided it sliding to the right, and thrust the long, slim blade
of her left-hand dagger into his belly. Two
more stomped up through the snow at her, and Sam yelled, "On the
left!" ducked low and swung a two-handed cut across the first man's leg.
He felt the sword's grip kick as the blade hacked through boot-top and bone —
then yanked the steel free to spin the other way and thrust, one-handed, into
the second man's armpit as he raised his yataghan to strike. The
crippled one slashed at Sam from the snow and caught him lightly at the thigh —
a touch below his hauberk — with the so-familiar icy stroke of steel, then
burning. Sam
drove his point into that man's mouth — felt his blade break teeth, then slide through
delicate stuff in a spurt of blood to split the spine. Joy
came to him as he freed his blade, joy at the wonderful simplicity of action,
and he and Charmian, on guard for any others, shared an instant's glance of
pleasure. Then
his mounted bowmen, and a storm of Light Infantry from above, struck the two of
them and the advancing Kipchaks together, knocking Charmian down and sending
Sam sprawling. Furious officers and men stood over them — "Stupid… stupid fuckers!" — picked them up,
and listening to no orders, showing no respect for rank, hauled them up the
hill. Loosed
near the ridge, his sword wiped and sheathed, Sam looked back and saw the
Kipchaks once more in shallow retreat... then gathering to charge up the slope
again. The base of the hill was thick with their formations — by squadrons, as
if they were mounted. The dead and dying lay scattered across the snowy slope,
streaks and pools of bright red gleaming under the rising sun. The hillside
breeze brought the coppery smell of spilled blood, the stink of the dyings'
shit.... There were great concentrations of tribesmen, and driving activity
along the base of the hills. But no massive movement coming on through the
forest beyond. No trembling of tangled foliage, no glimpses of columns followed
by more columns marching toward them through the snow. "Busy,"
Charmian said, catching her breath beside him. She staggered a step.
"Busy..." "Now,
you stay the fuck out of that line!" "Yes,
sir." Sam
glanced down, saw where his leather trousers were slit a few inches at his
right thigh, and felt a little blood sliding warm to his knee. "Sir,"
a bowman said, "you're hurt." Sam
waved him to silence as flights of arrows whistled up the slopes, and the
Kipchaks shouted and came again, charging higher… higher on the hillsides,
their battle lines extending half a Warm-time mile. "Charmian,
can you hold them?" He had to lean close, almost shout in her ear; the
noise was terrific. "Yes,
I can hold them — unless we're wrong, and they're strongly reinforced." "They
won't be. I've made my mistake for the day." "I
can hold them. And if they bleed a little more, and I commit every man
and woman — and the wounded still walking — I can drive them!" "Not
yet." Sam ducked — thought an arrow had come near him. "Not yet. Wait
for a galloper with the word. We need him to come deep into the center, uncover
both his flanks while he thinks we're breaking." "Understood."
Charmian turned to yell across the slope. "Catherine! What the fuck
are you waiting for? Crossbows front, for Christ's sake!" The last,
a phrase once forbidden. "Stupid bitch," Charmian muttered, standing
bent a little to the right to favor her wounded side, " — looking around
with her thumb up her ass! Made her a fucking captain and I can damn well
unmake her. I could have used Margaret here…." She
turned back. "Sam — I know what you want. Now please go away; I don't have
time for you." She limped off over the snow, calling, "Where is
Second Battalion? We're replacing in echelon here. We're supposed to be
replacing in echelon along the fucking line! Where are they?" "Can
I help you, sir?" The bowman had brought Difficult to mount. "No."
Though Sam wished he had the help, struggling aboard the beast. His leg held
the stinging tingle of injury... and the fucking horse kept sidling away.
"Will you hold this animal still?" A Kipchak arrow moaned
past. They were fighting higher on the slope, now. Sam could hear the sword
blows, like camp-axes chopping soft wood. But screams followed these.
*
* *
He heard
trumpets as he rode fast, east along the ridges, four bowmen riding behind him.
He saw, in morning sunlight, the armored columns of Heavy Cavalry, the spaced
squadrons of Lights, already slowly shifting along the heights, beginning to
shake out into line of march, their banners leading east. "Thank
you, Howell, for getting them moving." "Sir?"
A bowman spurred up alongside. "Nothing...."
As if a deck of pasteboard playing cards — but these for fortune-telling —
cascaded in his mind, Sam saw on each, as it flashed by, a different problem,
or an opportunity already lost to him. Great or small, it made no difference as
they dealt.... Lieutenant Gerald Kyle carried vodka with him, and lied about it
— what now, to keep him from misjudging and killing his company? Man should
have been replaced.... Thousands of crossbow bolts needed to be greased for
this wet winter weather. Had that been done? Company officers' responsibility.
Had it been done?... Fodder clean? No mold or mildew to sicken the
horses. Might have spoken to Ned, might have checked to be sure.... When the
cavalry swung in to flank the Kipchaks to the east, had it been made clear they
were to hook in — hook in after, to hold the tribesmen while the infantry
marched back from their false retreat to finish them? Fucking cavalry always
galloping off into nowhere, and full of excuses afterward. Had that hooking-in
been made clear? Difficult
— not so bad a horse. Stupid, stubborn, but strong for this kind of uneven
going. Steep going…. And for Weather's sake, promote Jack Parilla! Poor man a
captain for years — always a hard fighter, always took care of his men. No
fool, and ready for more rank. Overlooked, a good man overlooked, and no
complaint about it, either…. Sonora — what was it about those people? Where the
fuck did they think those taxes went? Having to build that
son-of-a-bitch Stewart a bridge! ... Should have at least shown Rachel how much
he liked her, that he thought her an interesting woman. And good-looking,
really. Should have told her that…. Some
of the cavalry saw Sam riding by, shouted and raised their lances in salute. As
he passed a second column of Heavies, three horsemen broke through their
formation and came galloping after him. One carried the army's banner on a
stirrup-staff — the great black scorpion on a field of gold — cloth rippling in
the wind of his riding so the creature seemed to crawl and threaten. All three
were coming fast through a light snowfall. "Sir!
Sir!" One of them was a captain Sam knew. Collins — Roberto Collins. "Sir," — Collins
rode up beside him — "General Voss's compliments." The captain a
little breathless. "He says you are to keep the fucking banner with you,
sir! So people can find you, sir! And you are to have me and Lieutenant Miranda
with you. Also additional escort, sir!" From
the captain's mouth, to fact. As they rode up a rough draw to the Middle Ridge,
the horses slowing with the climb, a half-dozen more mounted bowmen — Sam saw
Sergeant McGee leading them — came riding to join. So, it was with a thundering
tail of twelve men and one woman, the large Lieutenant Miranda, that Sam kicked
Difficult through a last deep drift to lunge out along the iron ranks of
Butler's Heavy Infantry. As
they heard Sam's party coming, every second man of the nearest company's rear
file had reverse-stepped together, lowering fourteen-foot pikes. "Platoon,
put... up!" The pikes rose all together. The men stepped back into
ranks. "Phil
— or Horatio!" Sam called to their officer. "General's
down-slope, sir! One rise over!" Sam
was reining Difficult in when the charger suddenly shied away, sidestepping
through frozen crust. Sam steadied him, looked for the cause, and saw something
high in the filtered sunlight... a shadow coming down with the snow. Someone
behind him called out. Sam
blinked snowflakes away, and the Boston girl sailed down and down to him out of
sunlight and snow flurry, her open dark-blue coat spread like wings. "Over
there!" She pointed north with her drawn scimitar, struck the snow,
stumbled, and went to a knee. "Short walkings...." She got to her
feet. "They make me weary." Sam
saw blood on her blade. "The
savages shot arrows at me!" Her pale, perfect face twisted in fury, and
she stomped a little circle in the snow. Sam was reminded, for a moment, of the
Queen's raging at Island.... Patience flourished her sword; little crimson
drops flew from its curved edge. "I took one's hand — then backstroked to
his throat!" "Be
quiet," Sam said. "Now, take a breath... and tell me what you
saw." "Oh,
those fools are coming." "Here
— here, to our center?" "Yes."
Patience nodded. "I saw them in the forest. All of them — well, almost
all. I think there are a few over there," — the scimitar swung west. "And even fewer
over there," — her blade flashed toward the river. "Sir...."
Horacio Duran, shoving the escorts' mounts aside. "Colonel." Duran,
blocky as a tree stump in dull steel-strap armor, came to Sam's stirrup with
his helmet under his arm. "General's received your orders, sir. Resist as
we retire — not making it too easy for them." "Right,
Colonel, and have your rear ranks guide." "We'll
keep in formation, sir." Duran smiled, though he had a face unfitted for
it. " — But with occasional cries of panic and despair." Sam
leaned down to thump Duran's armored shoulder with his fist. "Perfect.
They'll be coming soon." "Coming
now, sir. We've seen birds and deer clearing out of those woods." "Good,"
Sam said. "I'll want some
daylight left, to finish them." At which vainglory, he was slightly
saddened to see Lieutenant-Colonel Duran smile again… hear pleased murmurs from
his escort. Birds
were flying almost over them — a doom of crows, cawing. Sam supposed it would
be crows, in these hills — not ravens — who would come to take the eyes of the
dead. He saluted
Duran — it had become, after all, the army's habit — was briskly saluted in
return, and reined Difficult around. It was time for the Captain-General to get
out of his soldiers' way. "Wait!
Take me up!" Patience sheathed her scimitar and came floundering through
the snow. "I'm tired of walking." Meaning, apparently, traveling in
the air. Sam
reined in, seeing himself parading before his troops with this odd creature
riding pillion behind him. Then Patience, with a boost from Duran, was on the
charger's rump and settled. Seemed almost no shift of weight at all... and as
he kicked Difficult through falling snow along the ridge, no odor either. No
lady's perfume, no woman's warm scent. He might have had a doll behind him, or
a child's snow-person. Patience
gripped his waist, leaned her head against his cloaked and chain-mailed back.
"I have a headache," she said, as they went bounding. Difficult's
only virtue, strength. As
they rode, the banner-bearer and escort spurring after, a sound like distant
storm-wind, like a change in Lady Weather's wishes, seemed to come rising the
long wooded slopes behind them. Barely heard… then slowly, slowly heard more
clearly... until, in a rolling thunderclap — with flights of winter birds
across the sky — the storm became the voice of an attacking army, its war horns
a chorus, as if wild bulls bellowed from the woods. "Oh-oh."
A child's exclamation in almost a
child's soprano, and Sam felt Patience turning back to look — though nothing
would be seen but the backs of serried ranks of Phil Butler's two thousand
pikemen and crossbowmen, draped like a segmented steel-link chain across the
ridges and hollows…. Sam closed his eyes as he rode, seeing them standing ready
to receive, as ten thousand Kipchaks came boiling out of the forest, surging up
the slopes in tides of steel and arrows. Difficult
tripped on a branch in the snow, and Sam hauled him up on the reins. Along the
ridge-line, the snow grew thinner, and he urged the charger to a gallop, heard
his escort coming up behind. Troops were cheering as he passed — squadrons of
Light Cavalry riding east. He saw a pennon through falling snow. Second
Regiment, Elman's people. Good officer, but mad for fighting, and perhaps not
the best second-in-command for Ned. Two madmen.... There
was a sound like a great steel door slamming. The falling snow seemed to swirl
with the impact of it. The center was being hit with everything that Toghrul
had. Thank God — that oldest thanks of
all — thank God for Chairman's sharp ears and battle sense, her call to him to listen.
It had given him just time enough. May have given him just time
enough.... The
smash and roar of engagement sounding behind him, Sam rode along Main Ridge to
be certain all the cavalry had shifted east. So difficult, to leave commanders
alone in a battle, to depend on them to do what had to be done. It was hard to
see how the Khan managed without a Howell Voss, a Ned Flores. Without a Phil
Butler, a Charmian, and all their officers. Toghrul must be an extraordinary
man to depend, really, only on himself. Must be lonely.... Sam
reined up, reached behind him to give Patience an arm to dismount. "Now,
go down that south slope. Stay with Portia-doctor and her people." "I
will," Patience said, "but only to rest to go back again. They shot
arrows at me!" And she trudged off into the snow. "Comin'
up!" One of the mounted bowmen. An
officer galloping, chasing the banner... then drew up in a spray of snow, and
saluted. A lieutenant, very young — what was his name? Carlton… Carter? Boy was
crying, or snow was melting down his face. "Sir
— Colonel Duran regrets to report..." Tears, they were tears.
"General Butler has been killed, sir. At the very first engagement. An
arrow struck him." Carter.
Boy's name was Carter. "... Thank the colonel for his report, Lieutenant.
He assumes command, of course — and is to retreat his regiments as previously
ordered." "Sir." "
— The dog," Sam said. "His little dog." "We
have the dog safe, sir." A weeping lieutenant — nothing new in war. Sam
saluted, and the boy turned his horse and was gone north, back to the center of
the line, where companies, battalions, regiments of Heavy Infantry stood
killing with long needle-pointed pikes, killing with hissing crossbow volleys —
as ten thousand grim shepherds with slanting eyes came swarming up the
hillsides. Phil
Butler would be out of all that, lying safe behind the ranks in a warm woolen
army blanket, his imperial spectacles folded and tucked into his parka
pocket.... Horacio Duran would now be wearing the yoke of responsibility. He'd
be here and there and everywhere, shouting orders, watching for the time to
begin to back away. Then more orders, and galloping back and forth to keep the
formations steady as the Kipchaks yelped their battle cries and came on,
certain they were winning. Sam
spurred Difficult south, imagining Phil had only been wounded, and Carter had
said, 'Injured, sir. Seems not too serious.' If Carter had only said that, then
Phil would be alive, fondly cursing his soldiers as they hustled him to the rear.
Odd that a single arrow could carry a friend so suddenly away, that there was
no time for goodbye…. Unfair. Unfair. Sam
saw Heavy Cavalry where there should have been none. Saw two troops… three,
through the light snowfall. Three troops standing in a defile. Standing! He
spurred that way, down a steep dip, then rode up the column with his people
behind him — took an officer by the cloak and hauled him half out of his
saddle. "What are you people doing?" Startled
face behind a helmet's basket visor. "Cover reserve, sir! In case of
retreat." Sam
shook him hard. "There is no fucking reserve held today, you
jackass! No retreat! We lose, they'll follow and kill us all!" "Orders,
sir!" Fool almost shouting, as if Sam were deaf. " — Orders." "Whose
orders?" Shake, shake. The man's
cloak tore a little. Lieutenant
Miranda, very large, had heeled her horse alongside. Her saber was drawn. "Major
d'Angelo's orders." Major
d'Angelo... decent officer. "The major was mistaken. Orders are no reserves.
Everyone to the line!" Nods
from Torn-cloak. "Now,
you get your ass and these troopers east at a fucking gallop! You understand
me? Join General Voss's people to attack on that flank." More
nods. Sam shoved the man upright in his saddle. " — Move!" Sam
stayed to watch them go — go galloping, as Lieutenant Miranda sheathed her
saber, backed her big horse…. Three troops of Heavy Cavalry almost lost to the
attack. Have to speak to d'Angelo. A little less attention to the usual ways of
doing things; a little more attention to fucking immediate orders! "Who
was that officer?" A question asked of the snowy air. "Captain
Hooper, sir," said Captain Collins, behind him. " — Good man."
Which recommendation, in the face of his commander's anger, also recommended
Roberto Collins. Sam
felt tired as if he'd stayed with the Lights to the west, been fighting all
this time.... He turned Difficult's head, kicked him back up onto the ridge,
and looked for a place to stand on the hilltop. Now, unless disaster came, he
would be only a watcher, avoiding the dangerous confusions of casual
interference. Separate from his soldiers as if he were sleeping far south in
Better-Weather, or eating roast pork at the high tables in Island's hall. Now,
he would be a ghost of war, all a commander's directions given. As the Boston
girl had done, he could only hover over, his sword blooded once, and watch
below him for a battle won. A battlefield ghost, perhaps to be joined by Phil
Butler, and many more. It
seemed to Sam he already heard a different music sung from the northern slopes,
the higher-pitched chorus of fighting men seeing a triumph before them. Duran
would be beginning to coax his men back... back. But slowly, Horacio, and in formation
for the love of Mountain Jesus. Sam
found a sensible place, high enough to see all the center below and before him,
and at least some of the distant hillsides left and right. Difficult seemed
pleased to be rested from snow-galloping. He and the other horses stood blowing
and farting. Comical beasts, really…. "McGee." "Sir?"
The sergeant kicked his mount alongside. "Sergeant,
take your bowmen off to the east. Join Colonel Flores, or any Light squadron
you come to, and go in with them. They'll be moving now, need every archer they
can get." A
sudden roar from the northern slopes, as if snow-tigers had come to fight. Sam
saw the first ranks of Heavy Infantry retreating... falling back toward him,
some men running this way, over the first ridge. "Runnin'!"
McGee said. But
as they watched, the scatter of running men slowed as retreating formations
overtook them. They stepped back into ranks, waited... and broke to run again,
making another show of flight. "That's
okay," said Sergeant McGee. "Sergeant
— take your people and move off." "Musn'
leave you, sir." Then, more definitely: "Won't do it." "Yes,
you will, Jim." How had he remembered this man's first name? After
a silent moment, the sergeant said, "Shit...." Then turned and
called, "We're goin' east. So kick it!" As
the bowmen rode away, Captain Collins drew his saber and came up on Sam's left
side, Lieutenant Miranda did the same on his right. The three of them — with
the banner-bearer stoic behind — sat their horses and watched the Heavy
Infantry of North Map-Mexico, never before defeated, slowly driven crumbling
back along the ridgelines, seeming just short of desperate flight. Sitting
his horse in safety, Sam closed his eyes, imagining every sword slash, every
hissing arrow come by merciful magic to strike him instead of a soldier. So
that he, who commanded suffering, received it. Lieutenant
Miranda murmured beside him, and he opened his eyes to see the Kipchak
horse-tails rising on the ridge, hear the war horns' dark music triumphant. "Come
on... come on." Sam felt the oddest flash of sympathy, of sadness
for Toghrul, as if he were a friend. The Khan's looming defeat would have been
a victory instead, if Sam had held to his blunder only a little longer. Now,
the tumans lunging deeper into disaster, the Heavy Infantry stepping
back and back to draw them in, Toghrul — like Sam, a young man chained to
authority — would likely end the day destroyed.
*
* *
It
was remarkably like riding up a shallow river in rapids, though these currents
were tumultuous with gray fur, drawn bows, and steel. Mounted, of course, with
only his hundred of the Guard mounted with him, Toghrul spurred Lively on in
the midst of the tumans' assault. An
oddity, this attack on foot, but an oddity that was succeeding. They had
already struck the first of North Mexico's lines of heavy infantry, and despite
desperate — if fairly ineffective — resistance, were driving them back up their
slopes to destruction…. Future use of infantry was perhaps something to be
considered, with the forests, hills, all the broken country to be encountered
east of Kingdom's river, should the New Englanders continue arrogant.
Infantry... A
roar of cheering up ahead. Through fading snowfall, Toghrul saw the horse-tails
of First and Third Tumans on the ridge. He and his Guards rode among the second
— which began to run. More than five thousand men racing, flooding up
snow-drifted slopes to join the thousands driving into the enemy's center. Toghrul
spurred on, his Guardsmen swinging whips to win a way through rushing ranks of
soldiers, the nagaikas' cracking lashes heard even over war cries, over
the sounds of battle as the North Mexican infantry fell back into the hills in
retreat. Once
on the heights, the tumans would divide, strike east and west along the
ridge-lines to complete the victory. Then, Shapilov's foolish loss in the north
forgotten, the subjugation of Middle Kingdom would become inevitable. His
center destroyed — in only Warm-time minutes, now — Monroe would, of course, dream of flanking
movements. But dream too late... too late to reposition troops, to reorganize
his army. There would be no time for it. There
was a sound to the east…. Toghrul rose in his stirrups to hear better over the
noise of the advance. Something there at the left flank — from the left
flank. There
was... something. A trembling in the air. A sound from the eastern slopes as if
a great barrel of stones were rolling…. Cavalry. Toghrul
shouted, "Cavalry!" Sul Niluk, at the head of the escort,
heard him as other Guardsmen heard him — and all turned to stare east. Out
of a fading curtain of falling snow, blowing, drifting with the wind… movement.
Shifting movement on the hillsides' snow-draped brush and bramble. Gray gleams
of steel, and the rumbling noise louder and louder. Then
a grand choir of trumpets — and horsemen, banners, a host of three... four
thousand riding in an armored tide a half-mile wide across the slopes,
thundering down on tumans dismounted. The men scrambling — so slow on foot —
crowding, surging away to avoid that avalanche of cavalry, its trumpets blaring
like the cries of monstrous beasts. Then
bugles answering from the west. Toghrul looked to the right, saw nothing yet,
but heard the bugles. That would be their Light Infantry coining, of course.
And commanded by a woman, of all absurdities. There...
there. The first formations coming at the ran to swing the western gate
shut upon him... some sunshine coming with them, shining on their steel. His
Guardsmen were shouting... the dismounted men, thousands of them, also slowing
their advance on the hillsides, calling, crying out as they saw death come
riding from the east... running from the west. "Rally!"
Toghrul howled it, and hurt his throat. "Rally and fall back!" Hopeless...
hopeless. Monroe
had dreamed of flanking after all, and dreamed in time. His Heavy Infantry's
so-convincing retreat would now end as a blocking wall of pikes and crossbows
at the last high ridge, to hold the dismounted Kipchak army as it was flanked,
slaughtered, then hunted as those still alive fled north.... Really fine
generalship. An interesting man. Toghrul's
Guardsmen had reined to face the cavalry attack, to hold it for the instants he
would need to gallop free. Everything was perfectly clear, went very slowly,
could be seen in each detail. Sound, though, seemed muffled, so that trumpet
calls, men's screams, and the rumbling shock of hoofbeats were like distant
music. He saw the pennants' colors perfectly... noticed an officer in the first
rank of those horsemen, brown uniform, black cloak streaming as he rode, a
shining steel hook for a hand. Toghrul
reined Lively around, blessing the animal, and spurred away as his escort of
one hundred wheeled to guard. His standard-bearer had turned to stay with him —
but reined his horse left, rather than right, so Lively lunged shouldering into
it. Caught off-balance, the man's horse stumbled in the rush and went down as
if it had taken an arrow. Lively,
stepping over the fallen horse, was kicked and his left fore broken. Toghrul
picked him up on the reins and heeled him staggering away, three-legged, as the
hundred of the Guard — tangled by fugitive soldiers into disarray — were struck
at a gallop by a surf of cavalry. The Guards and their mounts were hurled
aside, ridden down, driven back and back in a tumble of flesh, bone, and steel. This
great breaking wave of frantic thrashing beasts, of dead and dying men, caught
Lively and drove him under. Toghrul
had an instant to try to kick free of the stirrups — leap for his life in a desperate scramble,
then run, run… And, of course, look ridiculous in the attempt. He
stayed in his saddle, called only, "My son..."
*
* *
Sam
had noticed before, that the near silence at a battle's end seemed loud as the
fighting had been. This end of the day sounded only with distant trumpets
calling the chase, with orders spoken nearby, with conversations and the rasp
of grave-digging, the hollow chock of axes cutting campfire wood. And an
occasional muffled scream as the parade of wounded was carried on plank hurdles
over snowy slopes, then down the main-ridge reverse to the medical tents, and
Portia-doctor's people. The
remnant Kipchaks were scattering north, pursued by Light Cavalry. They would
ride, killing those people, until their horses foundered. Poor
savages. Only shepherd tribesmen now, without their brilliant Lord of Grass — and
hunted by every people they'd conquered before. It would be years before the
Kipchaks were an army again — if ever. Victory.
Its first taste, chilled imperial wine — its second, rotting blood. "General
Voss comin', sir." Corporal Fass — alive and on tent-guard as usual....
More than could be said for Sergeant Wilkey, that quietly dangerous young man.
Assuming Sam might have some special affection for him, Charmian had sent a
word of regret that he'd been killed. A
people whose bravest men and women died in wars to defend them... after years
and years of such losses, might a country of mountain lions became a country of
sheep? Howell
was riding a strange horse — his charger must have been killed in the fighting.
A tired horse, and a tired man climbing off it. "Thank
you," — Sam took his hand — "for Map-Fort Stockton, and for
here." "Sam,
don't thank me for giving orders, and I won't thank you for it. Our people did
the dying, enough so Lady Weather let us win." Voss — left eye already
lost, its socket hidden under his black patch — had nearly lost the right. A
blade-point had struck his cheek just beneath; a run of blood was clotted down
his face.... But it seemed one eye was enough to reveal sorrow. "Tell
me, Howell." "Phil..." "I
know Phil's dead. Dead in the first engagement. Horacio sent a runner when it
happened. He's got Phil's little dog...." Howell
made a face like a punished child's. "And Carlo." "Carlo….
All right. Go on." "Teddy
Baker, Fred Halloway, Michelle Serrano, Willard Reese... and a number of junior
officers." "A
number..." "Two
hundred and eleven, Sam." "By
the dear Lady.... Certain?" "As
reported. Still could be more — or less. A few may turn up, might only have
been wounded." "Soldiers?" "Sam,
it's too soon to say; still calling rolls. Likely at least three
thousand killed or wounded. A number of companies don't seem to exist, now.
Fourth Battalion of Lights is gone, but for twenty or thirty people. — And
Oswald-cook is dead. Apparently heard 'No reserves,' and brought his people up
on the line as the center fell back. Fought with cleavers and kitchen knives,
some of them." "Kitchen
knives…. Elvin would have been relieved. No more experiments for dinner." "Southern
peppers stuck in everything..." Howell tried a smile. "Who
else?" Howell
stopped smiling. "Who
else?" "Ned." "You're
— you don't know that. He could be anywhere out there!" "Sam,
they found him. Sword cuts. Elman saw him fighting in the charge, surrounded by
those people.... Found the Kipchak Khan a little farther on. Fucker had been
trampled — his own people rode over him." "Yes….
One of Horacio's officers, Frank Clay, told me they'd found Toghrul dead." "Ned
was maybe a bow-shot away from him. Going to kill the son-of-a-bitch, I
suppose, and there were just too many to ride through." "...
Howell, I gave him that order. I said, 'The Khan is to be killed.' " "A
proper order, Sam — and Ned and his people drove the Kipchaks over their own
commander." For a
while, they stood and said nothing. It had become a beautiful day, no
snowflakes falling. The evening sun shone warm as egg-yolk through clear, cold
air. The blood in Sam's right boot had turned to icy slush. By
the greatest effort, he managed not to recall a single day of the numberless
days he and Ned had spent together in the Sierra. Laughing — always
laughing about something... usually mischief, sheep stealing, trying to lure
ranchers' lean, tough daughters out into the moonlight. Always some… nonsense. "There'd
better be two worlds," he said to Howell. "There'd better be a
place with open gates, for all the ones we've lost." "If
not," — Howell managed a smile — "we'll take the army and break those
gates down." He saluted, and went to mount his tired horse. A lucky man,
not to have been blinded by that wound….
* * *
At
dark, by a campfire built high of hardwood — as, Sam supposed, a sort of
victory beacon — his commanders, senior officers surviving, many limping and
bloodied in battered armor, stood around him on the high-ridge hilltop like
monuments to war's triumphs and disasters. Some were drawing deep, exhausted
breaths, as if still uncertain of their next. The
Boston girl, Patience — no longer looking quite so young — knelt in the fire's
light, polishing her scimitar's slender steel. "Sam…"
Howell had cleaned the dried blood from his face, and looked only weary.
"Sam, what do we do now?" The
campfire roared softly, its smoke rising into deeper night. "We
bury our dead," Sam said, looking into the flames. He held Phil's little
dog, trembling in a fold of his cloak. "Then ride to the river, to
celebrate a wedding."
* * *
The
elderly Bishop of the Presence of Floating Jesus — a man habitually bulky and
full in flesh — stood a little shrunken in his Shades-of-water robe, on which
many little jeweled fish were sewn, mouths open to sing adoration of the Lord. Old
Queen Joan had been the bishop's casual enemy for years — supposedly he'd bored
her; she'd certainly refused him residence at Island. But her death,
nevertheless, had struck him such a surprising blow that these new matters,
these over-settings of what had once been so, had worn him severely, and made
what was real seem unreal. True,
the sun shone into the eight-week summer; true, the river's wind blew richly
through the stone of Island — he felt his robe-hem ruffle to it — and true, men
and women wed. But
standing on the wide balcony of North Tower, he faced not only the familiar —
he'd known the Princess Rachel since she'd been a child — but the unfamiliar as
well, a stocky North Mexican war-chief, supposedly soon to be the King.... His
officers, still battle-lame, crowded the chamber beyond, alongside great river
lords — and one of the Boston creatures as well. The
sun shone, and the river's wind blew, but all else seemed a dream, and his
reading of the marriage vows — 'fidelity to flow,' and so forth — unreal as the
rest. But
he ended at last, and the Princess was gathered — cream lace crushed, diadem
tilted awry — into her husband's arms and kissed with rather coarse energy, and
apparent affection. Then a great rolling roar, an avalanche of shouts, welled
from the crowds packing the wide landings, staircases, and distant broad, paved
squares of Island — though many still wore blood-red in mourning for the Queen
they'd loved. The granite rang, hundreds of hanging, ribboned decorations swung
to that thunder, and the banners, pennants, and flags flying from every tower,
flying from every ship in the near gate-harbor, seemed to ripple out also in
celebration, as if with the river's blessing. Still,
the bishop felt he dreamed... until the bridegroom, smiling like a boy, reached
out to take his hand — and woke him with an iron grip, eased to gentleness.
THE
END
Twenty
years later, treachery abounds. Boston-town
must be destroyed. Toghrul Khan's son will strike at New England's frozen
heart.
MOONRISE Available
from Forge Books in April 2004
Sam
Monroe became the Achieving King. He and Queen Rachel had one born son, Newton,
and one adopted, Bajazet, born the son of Toghrul Khan and sent for safekeeping
into enemy hands. Now, two decades later, King and Queen are dead, drowned in
what appears to be a boating accident. Chaos looms over Middle Kingdom in this
excerpt from chapter One of Moonrise.
His
weapon was the only thing of value Bajazet had with him under the frozen log.
And if he hadn't already been up and dressed for before-dawn's hunt breakfast
when men in Cooper livery came kicking through the lodge doors, he would have
had to flee naked out the upstairs window and down the wooden fire-ladder
— Old Noel Purse shouting Run… Run! amid
the noise of steel on steel, breakfast tables toppling, the screams of dying
men. Bajazet
felt anger at himself — even more than at Gareth Cooper — for carelessness in
not considering what opportunity must have been seen after the king's death,
with Sam and Rachel's son, Newton, only nineteen, and kinder than most at
Island. A kind and thoughtful prince. Too kind... too thoughtful. The king had
held the river lords down, the Sayres, DeVanes… and Coopers. Had held New
England to caution as well. Boston and its Made-creatures stepped lightly in
country of the King's Rule. Newton
should have caught up those reins at his crowning, set the bit hard at once —
with his adopted brother, son of Toghrul Khan, to help him. But Newton had been
young, thoughtful, and kind. And his brother had gone hunting. And
now, was hunted… and deserved to be.
* *
*
He
was walking, hurrying, hooded cloak wrapped tight against the wind, before he
was clear in his purpose. Still, it seemed certain the way he'd come was the
way to go... go quickly as he could, back through frozen tangle as darkness
began to grow deeper. Gareth Cooper — no doubt crowned King Gareth now —
new king, by treachery, and with only one child. One son and heir. Bajazet
would not have been important enough for the king to come kill him… but perhaps
too important for some liveried captain's responsibility. Who better, then, to
deal with the last of family business, than the king's only son? It
certainly seemed possible, even likely. Bajazet trotted back through the woods
as if cold and hunger were sufficient sustenance. He traveled as certain of
direction as if back-tracking the lingering scent of his own terror the day
before. No
doubt young Mark Cooper's people has scrubbed the blood from the dining-room
flooring, washed it off white plaster walls, mopped it from the stair risers
where Purse's men had stood and died to give Bajazet his moments running. Mark
Cooper — playmate since childhood, lazy and amiable even as a little boy. Could
Mark have always been called a friend? Yes.
*
* *
Pausing
at the edge of the lodge clearing, Bajazet stood shadowed under the
branch-broken crescent moon, and took deep recovering breaths. He was shivering
with weariness and cold. There seemed to be no sentries posted, except for two
men standing a distance to the left, talking, but the lodge-front's wide
half-log steps. No reason for many guards to be posted, after all…. Bajazet
walked cloaked into camp as if he were a forester with ordinary business there
— had perhaps been out to John trench, and was coming back to coarse blanket
and pack pillow. Though the two men at the lodge's steps, if they'd noticed,
might have wondered why he strolled around to the back of the building, where
no fires burned. There,
Bajazet threw back the cloak's hood, managed his scab-barded rapier back out of
his way, and climbed the fire-ladder back up the way he'd come, a coward fleeing,
the morning before. The climb — a dozen rungs up a simple ladder — was
surprisingly difficult; he had to stop once to rest, and hung there, very
tired. The
window was swung closed, its leaded squares of glass giving blurred vision down
an empty corridor lit by two whale-oil lamps hung to ceiling gooks by fine
brass chains. Odd, that he'd never noticed such detail. It all seemed new, as
if he'd left the memory of it behind as he fled. Bajazet
drew his dagger, slid the ling, slender blade between window frame and jamb...
and forced it. The window squeaked and swung wide. He threw a leg over and was
in, stood in indoor warmth for a moment, smelled roast meat, and suddenly felt
sick. The heat seemed furnace heat, so he swayed, wanting to lie down. He closed
his eyes, breathed deep… and seemed a little better. Then, his eyes open, he
walked as through a dream down the long corridor to his chamber. And, as he
lifted the door-latch, felt certain as Floating-Jesus who he would find. He
stepped in and closed the door behind him. Mark Cooper, awake in this small
hour as if by appointment, stood startled before the sideboard and a tray of
food, barefoot in a bed-robe of velveted maroon. "...
Baj!... Thank Lady Weather! I thought these idiots might have killed
you." Great relief on young Mark's face. "I just got out here, late,
and put a stop to it. No reason for you to be involved in this at all."
Mark took a step forward, then a step back as Bajazet came to him. "... My
father. My father has ordered things — " "Newton?" A
nod from sad Mark Cooper. "I'm just so sorry, Baj. Dad… I never thought
he'd do something like this!" "Pedro,
and the others?" "Well...
I don't know about all of them. But Darry killed three of our people — my
father's men. It was all just a real tragedy. He shook his head.
"Terrible…." Perhaps
it was hunger that so sharpened a person's ears. Bajazet heard Mark's voice
subtly uncertain — almost true, but not quite. Cooper's eyes, still the mild
blue of his childhood, had shifted, just so slightly, toward the door — for
escape, for what help might come to him if he had time to shout. Bajazet
saw the food on the side-board was still steaming slightly, brought up not long
ago. A hot meal now seemed as good a reason as revenge. As good a reason as
leaving Gareth Cooper with no heir to his stolen throne. "You'll
be safe, Baj." The heir, frightened and barefoot in his bed-robe.
"Really. I promise, absolutely." "And
will also bring Newton back to life?" Bajazet drew the left-hand dagger as
he reached to cover Mark's mouth with his right hand, stepped in, and thrust
him deep, three swift times with rapid, soft, punching sounds — into the gut,
the liver, and through the heart. Mark
stood on his toes with the long blade still in him, arching away, squealing into
the muffling hand like a girl in her pleasure. He fell forward, staring,
slumped into Bajazet… clutched his cloak, and seemed to slip down forever as
the steel slid out of him. He settled onto the floor, grunting, turned on his
side with urine staining his robe, and took slow steps there as if walking
through a tilted world. Then liquid caught and rattled in his throat. Bajazet,
staggering as if his dagger had turned to strike at him, as if the whole of the
last day and night had turned to strike at him, stumbled to the side-board, and
wiped his blade carefully on a fine linen napkin. He sheathed it, then took up
slices of venison from a serving platter, folded them together dripping gravy
and red juices, and crammed them into his mouth. Chewing seemed to take too
long; he bolted the meat like a hunting dog, drank barley beer from a small
silver pitcher only to aid in swallowing… then gathered and swallowed more
venison, gravy running down his fingers, spattering on fine figured wood and
linen. Tears also; he cried as he hate, and supposed it was because he was
still young, and though he'd injured men in foolish duels, had never killed a
man before. As
Mark Cooper was certainly killed, since now he was still and silent, and
smelled of shit. "I
hope you lied to me, about being sorry," Bajazet said. There was the
strongest urge to lie down on the cot, the room so warm with its little stove
in the corner. The strongest urge to sleep, so that waking later might prove
all to be a dream, and Noel Purse come in and say, "Are we hunting, Baj ?
Or sleeping the fucking day away?" It
seemed stupid to stand, but he did. Stupid to search his own locker for his
small leather pack, with its flint-and-steel, spare shirt, ball of useful
rawhide cord... and yesterday-morning's hunter's ration of pemmican,
river-biscuit, and little round of hard cheese. A canteen. And take what else? After
thinking for what seemed a long time — Mark lying patient on the floor —
Bajazet also chose his recurved bow and a quiver of fine broadhead shafts,
shouldered them, then cautiously opened the door to no voices from below… and
only soft snoring from another chamber. He stepped into the corridor, closed
the door behind him, and walked what seemed a long way to the familiar
window... clambered out to the familiar fire-ladder, then climbed carefully
down. More burdened now... and less. Bajazet,
belly overfull to aching, strolled through firelit darkness — waved once to the
two men still talking, standing casual guard by the lodge's entrance. Two
dead men, soon enough, when the king came to the lodge and asked who had stood
watch while his son was murdered. Two days, it might take, to come up from
Island. Bajazet would have at least that advantage. He
walked on, walked out of camp, ducked into forest and was gone.
BOOK TWO OF THE SNOWFALL TRILOGY By MITCHELL SMITH
Version 1.0 Copyright © 2003 by Mitchell Smith ISBN: 0-765-34058-5
Concern
has been expressed by the National Science Foundation that possible alterations
of Jupiter's orbit, following successive major cometary impacts, may affect the
earth's orbit — slightly, but
still decisively — and so change the annual patterns of our planetary
weather. Associated Press, May 16, 2006 Article
in
Had
this latest — and most severe
— ice-age taken an age to arrive, instead of only decades, enough
preparation might have been possible to spare those hundreds of millions who
froze in the north... those hundreds of millions who starved in the south.
Might have spared us, as well, four — now almost five — barbaric
centuries, with what remains of civilization learned, like our language, from
those relatively few books surviving. New
Harvard Yard,
Introduction To
the Kipchak Prince and Khan Evgeny Toghrul, Lord of Grass, Ruler Perfect of the
Bering Strait Traversed, the Map-Pacific Coast, Map-California — and, lately,
Conqueror of Map-Texas to the Guadalupe River and beyond. Greetings
from Neckless Peter, old man and librarian, who years ago, having been taken captive
from my Gardens Town by naked savages
— Border Roamers serving with
your father's subsidiary forces — was privileged to tutor a brilliant boy in
what we know of Warm-times gone, and their wisdom. This
boy has become you, my lord — and I, your recently assigned ambassador and
agent to North Map-Mexico, take this opportunity to tell you that I quit. 'I
quit.' Is it any wonder we get not only our written and spoken language from
the books of centuries past, but even its casual slang — so
neat, so pointed, so appropriate? I
am, of course, aware that your strangler's bowstring awaits any who disappoint
you, and can only hope that a thousand miles of distance — and
perhaps some slight regard you might still hold for your elderly tutor — will
prevent a determined attempt at murder. In
any case, I can now say what I felt it unwise to mention to you before — so
as not to increase an already understandable arrogance —
which is that you were by far the most extraordinary intelligence I had
ever encountered or ever expected to encounter, and as such were a joy to
teach. I have not forgotten and will never forget sitting by the Meadow
Fountain at Caravanserai with a quiet, slender boy whose eyes, black, glossy,
steady as a spider's and slightly slanted beneath the folds of their lids,
drank from the pages of every copybook I presented to him. Your
first question to me: What had happened to the countless thousands of Warm-time
books now lost to us? You'd asked, and been saddened by my answer:
"Burned, libraries of them, almost all those not eaten by centuries of
winters. Burned with all knowledge of their miracles of learning —
perfect medicines, the making of black bang-powder, the secrets of
flying machines and laboring machines and thoughtful machines, as well as
endless wonderful intricate tales.... Almost all the books burned for warmth as
their peoples' world collapsed beneath weather, and they and their children
froze." Yours
proved to be a genius clear and encompassing as flowing water. And now, of
course, driven by a ferocity that impressed even your late and quite ferocious
father, that intelligence is causing our ice-weighted world to tremble, so only
Middle Kingdom, and of course Do
you remember the afternoon we read of Ancient-Alexander's life and conquests?
We read it together in a spectacular copybook, a treasure copied from an
original found in the ruins of We
read of Ancient-Alexander, and you diagramed his battles with squid ink on wide
sheets of the court's perfect paper. You refought those conflicts in your mind,
your quill moving here and there... and finally decided how the Persian center
might have been more suitably arrayed. "Clumsy
forces," you said of the Persians and their Greek allies, but gathered
them together on your paper, set them in odd echelon... then waited for
Ancient-Alexander and his Companions to make the inevitable charge. "He
would have beaten me at the Granicus," you said, "but at Issus, I
would have destroyed him. There would have been no Gaugamela." And
satisfied, you let the white sheets of paper, swarming with the inked lines and
arrows of battles never to be fought, slip from your lap to the grass. I
will not forget those afternoons, lord, nor your love of Warm-time poetry —
particularly the New England lady's. I could not stop for Death, so
he kindly stopped for me... (How sad that those Map-Boston people have
fallen to growing beasts in women's bellies.) Remembering
our rich days, why then do I quit you? And for the service of an upstart
Captain-General of North Map-Mexico, Small-Sam Monroe, to whose camp you sent
me as ambassador and spy? First,
I leave your service for his because I loved his Second-mother, Catania Olsen,
as a friend, and because Small-Sam was born at Gardens, my home, when it was
still tree green and full of families and fine weaving, all under the rule of
the last great Garden Lady, Mary Bongiorno. So, I choose my future in honor of
my past. Second,
I leave your service for his because while Small-Sam Monroe is a war-captain,
and successful at it, I think he will not be only a war-captain,
determined as you are to devour all our cold-struck continent, and so cause a
barbarous age to become even more so. You
will be interested to hear that when I mentioned my intention to Monroe — to
leave your service for his — he insisted I first complete the task for
which you sent me, and forward to you a complete history, description, and
report of the current essential military and economic matters of his
overlordship. This report to be carried sealed and unread by him or any man of
his, and delivered along with his personal apology for depriving you of an
amusing servant.... I'm not sure why 'amusing.' He
also refused to accept any report I might have made to him concerning you or
the Khanate. I
believe you would like Sam Monroe — the 'Small-Sam,' I understand, has gone out
of usage since his victories. He is a very interesting young man — your
age, as it happens, within a year or two. He possesses a sort of informed,
stony common sense, an interesting contrast to your brilliance. I
will miss you, my lord. You were an incomparable student… though I have felt
more and more that I failed you as a teacher, to have left you with nothing but
the determination to enforce your will across our world. Once
your servant, but no longer such... Neckless
Peter Wilson
KINGDOM RIVER CHAPTER 1
The
ravens had come to This'll Do. Sam
Monroe, Captain-General of North Map-Mexico
— and commander of the army that,
before this, had been called Never-Defeated
— frightened birds here and there
as he walked among the dead. A messenger-pigeon
had reached Better-Weather, and he'd come, down with headquarters' Heavy
Cavalry, come quickly, but still arriving two days too late. Troopers of the
Second Regiment of Light Cavalry lay scattered through high grass for almost a
Warm-time mile down the valley from Please Pass. Sam
Monroe walked through tall brown stems still brittle from last night's frost.
Death had come in Patchy-fool Autumn, the eight-week summer ended two weeks
before. Dead troopers lay here and there, almost hidden in the grass except
where low mounds of the slain showed
— Light Cavalry's
hide-and-chainmail hauberks hacked by the imperial cataphracts' battle axes. More
than three hundred dead within sight of his encampment on the near hill, and
dozens more lying out of sight to the east, where the village stood, ridden
down as they'd spurred away. It seemed to Sam Monroe there would certainly be
at least four hundred dead, when totaled. Though
the villagers had been spared the empire's usual rapes and murders, valuable
squash and pumpkin fields had been trampled, their last harvest destroyed.
Farms had been burned or battered — pine-plank buildings feathered with the
cataphracts' arrows, doors smashed in, the furnishings axed for campfires. The
valley fields were quiet now, excepting only a raven's occasional croaking,
only the dawn wind's murmuring through the grass. A cold wind, almost freezing,
with Daughter Summer dead. Sam's soldiers believed Lady Weather would be
weeping sleety tears for her, as Lord Winter came walking south from the Wall. The
imperials' commander had already recovered his killed and wounded, taken them
back south through the pass, heading farther south of the Sierra Oriental to
what would certainly be a triumph in Mexico City for the Empire's first victory
against the North. Not
a great battle — only a clash of cavalry along a mountain
border. But Sam Monroe's army had lost it. The charm of always winning was
broken. The
Heavy Cavalrymen not digging john-trench, tending horses, or guying tents, were
watching from the hill as he walked through the grass from corpse to corpse;
Sam could feel them watching.... He knew so many of the dead. A small army was
full of familiar faces — even though the chill afternoons had still
been warm enough to spoil these, begin to swell them with rot in the army's
brown wool and leather. He
knew a number of these troopers — and all the officers, of course. He'd saluted
them in battle many times as they'd poured past him to trumpet calls in a flood
of fast horses, shining steel, and banners. Sam
walked through the grass, visiting this one… then another. The women were the
worst. If it hadn't been for the women, he would not be weeping. They lay,
slender bones broken, soft skin sliced, faces — some still beautiful —
astonished at their deaths. Where bright helmets had been beaten away, gleaming
drifts of long hair, black, red, and golden, lay in broken grass. He
visited the dead for a Warm-time hour, then went back up the hill as the picks
and shovels were brought down to bury them. Two
Heavy Cavalry corporals were posted as guards just beyond ear-shot of his tent
(wonderful Warm-time phrase, 'ear-shot'). They saluted as he passed. Sam saw
Margaret had brought his breakfast to a camp table by the tent's entrance. "Sir,
please eat." She stood watching him. "Done is done." A favorite
saying of hers. "The
wounded?" "Mercies
found the last of them, eleven WT miles east. They've started bringing them
in." She saw the question in his face. "Fifty-three, sir. And Ned
Flores. He lost a hand… left hand." Sam
sat at the table. The breakfast was scrambled chicken eggs, goat sausage, and tortillas
— almost a Warm-time breakfast out of the old copybooks, except the sausage
would have been pig, the tortillas toasted bread with spotted-cow
butter. "You
have to eat." He
took a sip of hot chocolate. "Thank you, Margaret." Margaret
turned and marched away, her boots crunching on the last of morning's frost,
her rapier's length swinging at her side. Margaret
Mosten, old enough to be an older sister, always served his breakfasts. Always
served every meal. She would come riding up to his horse, on campaign, with
jerk-goat or crab apples for his lunch. Boiled water, safe from tiny
bad-things, for his leather bottle. No food came to him, but from Oswald-cook
by her hand. Her
predecessor, Elder Mosten, smelling something odd in chili, had tasted Sam's
dinner once along the northern border by Renosa, then convulsed and died. "To
you — only through me," his eldest daughter, Margaret, had said, then
resigned her captaincy in Light Infantry, and come to Sam's camp to take charge
of it with a much harder hand than her father's had been. Though
that fatal chili's cook had hung, Margaret had ridden back to Renosa, inquired
more strictly, and left four more hanging in the square — the cook's wife for
shared guilt, and three others for carelessness in preparation and service. "That
many," Sam had said to her when she returned, "and no more." "The
cook and his wife were for that dinner;" Margaret Mosten had answered him,
"the others were for our dessert." So,
as with many of his followers, the burden of her loyalty leaned against Sam
Monroe, weighed upon him, and tended to make him a short-tempered young man,
everywhere but the battlefield. He could
take bites of the breakfast tortilla, but the sausage and eggs were
impossible. He must not — could not — vomit by his tent for the army to see. "Too
young," they'd say. "What is Sam, twenty-six, twenty-seven? Too
young, after all, for a grown man's work. All that winning must have been
luck." And
Sam Monroe would have agreed it had been luck — the good fortune of
having the Empire's old, incompetent generals for enemies; the good fortune of
having fine soldiers to fight for him; and what had seemed the good fortune of
being born with battle-sense. But
battle-sense had led to victories; victories had led to ruling. And ruling had
proved a crueler field than any battleground, and weightier duty. It
seemed to Sam, as he tried to eat a bite of eggs, that his will, which he had
so far managed to extend to any necessary situation — as if a much older,
grimmer, and absolutely competent person stood within him — that his will, his
purposes, had turned him into that someone else, a man he would never
have liked and didn't like now. The
proof lay beneath the hill, in dead grass. But
even that grim and forceful person had not come forth this morning to eat goat
sausage and eggs. Margaret
came back, her sturdy bootsteps quieter; the light frost was melting under the
morning sun. "Sir...."
With official business, "sir" was all the Captain-General required.
Sam had early decided that honorifics promoted pride and stupidity; he had the
south's imperial examples. "The
brothers," Margaret Mosten said. "Lord
Jesus." He ate a bite of sausage to show he could, then took deep breaths
to quiet his belly. The Rascobs had to be spoken with, but a little later would
have been better. "Will they wait?" "No,"
Margaret said. "And it would hurt them to be told to." That
was it for the sausage. Sam took another deep breath and put down his two-tine
fork — silver, a spoil from God-Help-Us. "I'll see them." "You
should finish your eggs." "Margaret,
I don't want to finish the eggs. Now, send them up." Odd, when he thought
about it. Why 'send them up'? The camp was on high ground, but level.
His tent was only 'up' because he gave the orders. Different
bootsteps, stomping. The Rascobs appeared side by side and saluted — a fashion
that had settled in the army after the early days in the Sierra. It was
something all soldiers apparently loved to do. The
brigadiers, Jaime and Elvin Rascob, were twins, scarred and elderly at
fifty-eight — both tall, gray-haired, gray-eyed, baked brown and eroded by
weather. Elvin was dying of tuberculosis, caused by poison plants too small to
see, so he wore a blue bandanna over mouth and nose as if he were still a young
mountain bandit and sheep-stealer. "We
just rode in." Jaime Rascob's face was flushed with rage. "And saw
what comes of sending Light Cavalry where infantry should have gone." "Told
you, Sam," Elvin said, the south's blue cotton fluttering at his mouth.
"Heavy Infantry to hold the pass — Light Infantry to come down the hills
on them. Would have trapped those imperials, maybe killed them all. Told you."
Dying, Elvin was losing courtesy. "Ned
thought he could deal with them." Sam stuck his fork in the eggs and left
it there. "Ned
Flores is a fool kid-goat — a Light-Cavalry colonel! What the fuck does he know
about infantry situations?" Courtesy lost entirely. "It
was your fault, sir." Jaime's face still red as a rooster's comb. "Yes,
it was my fault." Sam looked up at two angry old men — angry, and dear to
him. "Scouts reported only a few hundred imperials, and from the careful
way they came, with no great force behind them. So, it seemed to me that Light
Cavalry, with room to run east if they had to, could handle their heavies
without our infantry to lever against. I was wrong." "Three
hundred dead," Jaime Rascob said. "That's
incorrect. It will be nearly four hundred." "Goodness
to Godness Agnes..." Elvin, through his bandanna — certainly a Warm-time
copybook phrase. "Almost three out of every four troopers dead. And we told
you!" "Elvin
— " "Jaime,
I'm just saying what everybody knows." A statement definite, and with the
weight of years as well, since he and his brother were each old enough to have
been their commander's grandfather. Squinting
in morning sunlight, Sam pushed his breakfast plate a little away. The smell
was troubling. A mistake.
He noticed the colonels noticing; an exchange of glances. He picked up his
fork, ate a bite of eggs, then another. Took a sip of chocolate. "Do we
know the cataphracts' commander?" "Voss
says it was likely one of the new ones, probably Rodriguez." Jaime didn't
sound convinced, though the Empire, slow at everything, had begun to allow
promising younger officers commands. Michi Rodriguez was one of those
'Jaguars.' "Whoever,"
Jaime said, "he whipped Flores with just six hundred heavy horse." "Less." "Not
less, Elvin," his brother said.
"Three squadrons, at least." Elvin
didn't argue. Any argument with Jaime Rascob ended only after a long while. "Still
a damn shame." Elvin cleared his throat behind the bandanna. "We
could have bottled them in Please Pass, maybe killed them all." Sam
chewed a bite of sausage and managed to swallow it. "My decision to
let them come through. My decision to send only Light Cavalry down to
deal with them. My fault." The breakfast was hopeless — one more
bite and he would be sick for all the camp to see. The young
Captain-General, who'd never failed, vomiting his breakfast while troopers
rotted in the mountain grass. "You
got too big for your bitches," Elvin said, certainly not the correct
Warm-time phrase. The old man took little care with them, rarely got them
right. "It's
a mistake I won't make again." Sam took a sip of chocolate. A smell of
spoiling was rising from the valley. "We
can't win every fight, Elvin." Jaime gave his brother a shut-up look. "For
sure not campaigning like this!" Elvin coughed a spatter of blood into his
kerchief, turned, and marched away into the camp. His brother sighed, and
followed him. Sam
turned on his camp stool to watch them go. Two tough old men. Both wore heavy
double-edged broadswords scab-barded aslant down their backs, the swords' long
grips wound with silver wire. Elvin stumbled slightly on the uneven ground.
Half a year ago, Portia-doctor had reported he was dying. She'd heard bad
sounds in his lungs when she'd thumped him. It
had been a difficult examination. Elvin had thumped her in return, then
attempted a kiss. "He's
just a boy," she'd said to Sam, "in an old man's body." "Then
he's younger than I am, Doctor." "Yes,
sir. In many ways younger than you are." Portia-doctor
had apprenticed in medicine under Catania Olsen, which said everything in North
Map-Mexico — and south in the Empire as well. Portia had learned as much as
that dear physician, four Warm-time medical copybooks, and seven years of hard
experience could teach. She'd
been pretty those years ago, a sturdy young woman with dark brown hair and eyes
to match. Now, the army work and civilian work had worn her. And losing Catania
to plague at Los Palominos had worn her more. Howell
Voss, commanding the Heavy Cavalry, called her "the noble Portia,"
looked for her in any group or meeting, and was thought by a thoughtful few to
have been in love with her for some time. "Why
doesn't he just tell her so?" Sam had once asked his Second-mother, after
an officers' evening asado. "Because,"
Catania Olsen had said, tightening her mare's saddle girth, "because
Howell has lost an eye, and fears being blind and a burden. And because he
believes that Portia is very fine and good, and that he is not." ...Sam
sat and watched the Rascob brothers walk away down
the tent lines. The other, grimmer Sam Monroe inside him began to consider
inevitable replacements for the two of them, certainly following Elvin's death.
Jaime's replacement, then, would of course destroy him. 'Fools
do top with crowns, and so bid friends farewell.' A copied Warm-time line, and very old. The
Captain-General of North Map-Mexico pushed his breakfast plate a little farther
away, took a deep breath to calm his stomach, and sat at his camp table with
his eyes closed, not caring to watch the Sierra's shadows — lying across
a wide, meadowed valley lightly salted with flocks of sheep — slowly shorten as
the sun rose higher. Bootsteps.
No one in the army seemed to walk lightly. "You didn't finish your
eggs." "No.
I've had enough, Margaret." "Oswald-cook
goes to some trouble with your eggs. Herbs." "Oh,
for Weather's sake." The Captain-General picked up his fork,
reached over, and took another bite of eggs. "Sir,
there's no winning forever. You don't have to be perfect." It was a burden-sharing
she often practiced. At first, it had annoyed him. Margaret
stood in bright, chill morning light, watching him eat two more bites of egg.
"They had room to run." "Yes
— if they'd run, instead of fighting." Sam put his fork down a
little more than firmly. Margaret took the plate, and went away. It
was a great relief; he was tired of people talking to him. He stood to go into
his tent… get away from distant murmurs and the troops' eyes, their unspoken
concern — concern for him, as if he were the party injured. They were wearing
him away like constant running water. Wearing that lucky youngster, Small-Sam,
away — and so revealing more and more of the present Sam Monroe. Someday, they
might be sorry…. He
pulled the tent flap back — then let it fall, turned, and walked out into the
camp, stepping on his morning shadow as he went. The
mercy-tent was the largest the army raised — but not large enough, now. Wounded
lay in a row by the entrance — silent as
was the army's pride, though Sam saw some mouths open for cries unvoiced. He
went to those first, and knelt by stained raw-wool blankets. He knew many. He
spoke to them in turn, and most — those in least agony — could listen, even make reassuring faces to
comfort him. Two of them tried to make jokes. "...
Sir, didn't think it was possible for a trooper to outrun her horse. But by
Mountain Jesus, I was scared enough and did it." "Mavis,
you were just charging to the rear." That oldest of cavalry witticisms. Trooper
Mavis Drew had been cut across the belly. The wound was bandaged tight to keep
things in. Sam
kissed her on the forehead, and went on down the line. Those who could see,
seemed glad to see him. "Where's
Colonel Flores?" The
mercy-medic, a bearded older man, and tired, pointed to the tent entrance.
"Inside, down to the left." "He'll
live?" "Live
one-handed," the medic said. The
tent was filled with sunshine glow through canvas woven of the Empire's
southern cotton, filled with that light and a soft, multiple hum of agony, the
army's silence-in-suffering fallen away. Portia-doctor was with someone, bent
over, doing something that made the person's breath catch and catch again. Sam
went down the narrow aisle to the left, and saw, at the end of a row, Ned
Flores lying slight on a folding cot. His left arm was out on the blanket, the
wrist a fat wad of white bandage spotted with red. The
man in the cot beside his was snoring softly, unconscious. "Sorry,
Sam. Not quite as planned." Barely Ned's voice, rusty as an old man's, and
from what seemed an aged face — no longer a young hawk's, handsome,
high-beaked, and cruel. His youth had gone with his wound, and losing. Monroe
knelt beside the cot. "No, not quite as planned, Ned. At
least three hundred more dead and wounded than planned." He kept his voice
low, "I sent you down here to lose a battle — to lose maybe forty or fifty
of our people, then break off and run." "Right...
right." "That
was only between us, Ned. I thought you understood why it was necessary to lose
at least a skirmish." "I
know. Necessary…" "Our
army's always won — never lost — and that's become dangerous. Even more so,
now, with the Khan moving on Middle Kingdom. I didn't want him to think us a
serious threat, and I didn't want the shock of our first lost battle, my first
lost battle, to occur when we couldn't afford it. I thought you
understood that." "Yes."
A long pause, eyes closed. "Like cow-sore vaccination against the
pops." "Then"
— careful to speak softly — "then
why the fuck didn't you order the regiment disengaged after the first
melee? Behind you was all the room in the world to run!" "Well...
tell you, Sam. Seemed to me... we had a chance to beat the bastards."
Apparently great effort required to get that said. "Ned,
you did not have a chance to beat them — almost seven hundred imperial
cataphracts met in a pass at such close quarters? And you weren't sent down here
to beat them!" "My
fault." Flores seemed to doze, then woke with a start. Sam
stood. "Yes. And my fault for trusting you to obey orders." "I
know... I lost all those people." "Yes,
and deserved to lose more than a hand, Ned. You deserved to lose your
head." "You...
can have it." Sam
bent over him. "Ned, we've been friends since we were boys on the
mountain. But if that order to lose, lose and run, hadn't been only between us
— and have to remain only between us — I would have you tried and hanged
for disobedience." "Don't
doubt it, Sam," Ned Flores said. "And what a relief... that would
be."
CHAPTER 2
To
the Great Khan and Lord of Grass: Neckless
Peter Wilson, elderly and once your servant and ambassador, submits and conveys
this report of information concerning the history, winning, and holding of
North Map-Mexico by the young Captain-General Small-Sam Monroe — by whose order
this is forwarded sealed from all eyes but yours, Great Lord. Twenty-seven
years ago, a band of fugitive Trappers — driven south from the mountains and
ice-wall of Map-Colorado by the Cree — stopped to rest at Gardens, the town in
forest and of forest. Their
notable persons were Jack Monroe, that mythic fighting man; Catania Olsen, a
physician; Joan Richardson, an Amazon; and Tattooed Newton, to be revealed
errant third son to the ruler of Middle Kingdom. Within
the year, Jack Monroe was dead — in tales, murdered by a bear jealous of his
strength. Within this time also, Newton, with Dangerous-Joan Richardson,
returned to the Boxcars' Middle Kingdom, where he came in time to his
inheritance. On his death, years later — while arranging a reasonable agreement
in Map-Kentucky — Dangerous-Joan was left to rule as Dowager Queen, and remains
so today, aged, but no less dangerous. As
these storied ones met their fates, so Catania Olsen, caring for an orphaned
Trapper baby, Small-Sam Monroe, traveled down to North Map-Mexico, and into the
Sierra Oriental. In
the Sierra, after killing two men — one having attempted rape, the other
having tried to steal her goat — Catania Olsen became physician to the savages
and bandits of the mountains, and came to be loved by them. Her
adopted son, Small-Sam, grew to manhood in those harsh and freezing altitudes —
a world largely peopled, as all North Map-Mexico had been, by North Americans
driven south centuries before, as the cold came down. So their language was and
is book-English, their ways also informed by those surviving copies of
Warm-time books. The
original, the Beautiful Language, now is only spoken in the Empire of Map
South-Mexico and Guatemala — and, one assumes, in the continent of wilderness
below. Twenty-two
years passed after Doctor Olsen's arrival. Then, the Empire's Duke Alphonso da
Carvahal attempted a reconquest of their lost northern territories. This went
badly. In a
series of attacks along the western flank of the Sierra Oriental, Carvahal
lost battle after battle — never, as the Warm-time saying had it, 'getting his
ducks in a row.' In
these battles, the men and women of North Map-Mexico lost two leaders slain. A
third, a very young man, was elected for lack of better. This was Small-Sam
Monroe, and at the town God-Help-Us, he attacked the imperial forces by night,
and defeated them. Then he sent all the common-soldier prisoners south, alive
and whole, at the plea of his Second-mother, Catania Olsen, whose name is still
praised as a saint's for mercy in South Map-Mexico and Guatemala. The
duke and his officers were disemboweled. So
successful as a war leader that no man cared to stand against him in rule,
young Small-Sam found himself acclaimed Captain-General of all the provinces of
North Map-Mexico — as they still are named in the Beautiful Language, Baja
California Norte, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Nuevo Leon, now
united. He
was urged to invade the south as the south had invaded the north, and so
destroy the Empire. He refused, on consideration of that ancient stability
better left preserved. Now
twenty-seven years old — though looking older — Sam Monroe rules south from the
Bravo down into both Sierras, and east from the Gulf of California and
Ocean Pacific to the Great Gulf Entire. He
enforces lightly in rule and taxes — but holds the towns, villages, mountains
and fields of these fractious and turbulent people as with a fine noose, which
lies slack unless tugged against. He
is respected and popular, but treated with caution, since his reasons for violence
are often not anticipated by ordinary men. Small-Sam
Monroe — 'Sam' to his friends and near-equals, 'Sir' to all others — is stocky,
sandy-haired, and exceptionally powerful and active. It is said in his army
that few can match him with the sword. He carries what is called a 'bastard' —
that is, a weapon a little lighter than a two-handed sword, with a grip called
a 'hand and a half.' This weapon, I understand, is a rain-pattern blade, forged
and folded many times from the empire's rare 'wootz' steel. And — which I think
of some interest — though the important
fighting men and women of this country follow the barbarian tradition of naming
their swords, Monroe hasn't done so. A modesty availing not, since his officers
and men christened the weapon 'Nameless.' So the great, in small ways as in
large, are denned by those they rule. Monroe's
face, square and harsh-featured, is marked by weather, war, and cares of state.
His eyes are very clear, a dark hazel, his lashes almost long as a girl's.
Commanding an army whose men are often mustached and bearded, he shaves his
face clean — as do most of his senior officers and administrators, likely in
imitation. The
Captain-General's intelligence, like his vision, is clear, direct, devouring of
subjects of interest, and dismissive of others. He is alert, profoundly
practical, and unafraid. He works harder than any of his servants, though all,
whether soldiers or administrators, are hard and constant workers. Finally
— and this may be unimportant, may simply reflect the pressures of great power
on a young man less than hungry for it — finally, it seems to me that Small-Sam
Monroe is not happy. Important
administrators: Charles Ketch — an
exceptionally tall, stooped man in his fifties, once a prosperous valley farmer,
then first Chief of Supply… and now Chief Executive, North Map-Mexico. What
Monroe commands, Charles Ketch effects —
and stands, it seems, somewhat in the role of father to the much younger
man. Eric
Lauder — current Chief of Supply, a man in his thirties, squat, bearded, bald,
lively and humorous. Lauder, besides commanding the army's supply train, is
also the edge of the secret civil sword… collecting information, dispensing any
necessary covert deaths. (He has informed me, in the pleasantest way, that he
considers my resignation from your service likely a clumsy ruse, and that I
remain under his eye.) Margaret
Mosten, Secretary. Mosten, an officer's widow —
and herself an ex-officer of Light Infantry — administers Monroe's
quarters and camps, and commands his personal guard. A sturdy blonde in her
thirties, apparently easygoing and amiable, Mosten is both more efficient and
more formidable than she appears. (I was told by a muleteer that on one
occasion she personally escorted two drunken armed trespassers — found in the
camp at night — to the perimeter guard post, where she cut their throats. A
warning as well, apparently, to the guards who had not discovered and prevented
them.) Margaret
Mosten decides who sees the Captain-General, but doesn't appear to abuse her
position. Her relationship to Monroe seems to have always been that of a
friend, not a lover. Military
Commanders: Almost elderly, and
ranked brigadiers in the old Warm-time style, Jaime and Elvin Rascob have
functioned as Monroe's senior commanders. These brothers, often in disagreement
with each other — and occasionally with Monroe as well — nevertheless have a
strikingly successful record in war. Their staff, field officers, and
subordinate commanders hold these old men in great esteem. My impression is
that the two brothers, together, have made one very formidable general. It may
prove important, therefore, that Elvin Rascob is ill of tiny plants in his
lungs — certainly the Warm-time TB — and is dying. Ned
Flores, Colonel, commands the Light Cavalry regiments. A restless young man —
violent and charming — Flores is a childhood friend of Monroe's, his closest
friend. Though apparently only the image of a perfect dashing commander of
light horse, this officer, as many of Monroe's people, reveals more depth on
examination. He is responsible, more than any other, for reviving the game of
chess in this territory — where checkers had been the board game of choice —
and more often than not beats Monroe at it. He more often than not beats me as
well, and crows like a child at his triumphs. Howell
Voss, Colonel, commands the Heavy Cavalry. Colonel Voss, like Eric Lauder, is
often amusing. He is also large and handsome — though missing his left eye —
and is a favorite with women. (The eye was lost in a duel with an angry
husband.) Howell Voss is occasionally subdued, 'blue' as Warm-times had it, and
then stays alone in his tent. He plays the banjar very well indeed... and is
said to be suicidally brave in battle. Phillip
Butler, Colonel, commands the Heavy Infantry. An older man, gray-bearded,
small, silent, and eccentric — he always has tiny dogs about him; he puts them
in his jacket pockets — Colonel Butler
was the mayor of Tijuana-City before the South invaded. It's said by Monroe's
people, certainly an exaggeration, that Butler has never made a tactical
mistake on a battlefield. He is regarded as an extraordinary soldier, having
become, as it were, a Regular among inspired amateurs. His pikemen and
crossbowmen love him, though he can be a harsh commander; they treat him like
an irritable old uncle. Charmian
Loomis, Colonel, commands the light Infantry. A tall, thin, awkward-seeming
young woman, with light blue eyes and a bony — and, it seems to me, quite plain
— face, she commands the elite of Monroe's army. ('Elite,' lord, may be found
in Copy-Webster's. Bottom shelf on the right as you enter the library. I
believe the word may have been Warm-time Canadian in origin.) ... This officer,
a woman with no family, quite silent, and who appears to offer little in any
social situation — I've met her several times — is by reputation a demonic
figure in battle, with quite extraordinary skill in controlling a force
designed after all to be mobile, occasionally fragmented, and self-directing to
a considerable degree. Monroe occasionally calls her 'Joan,' I suspect in
reference to some Warm-time figure he has read of. All others call her
'Colonel.' In
summary, it is my civilian impression that these officers, and those they
command, represent considerable military talent — experienced, highly
disciplined, confident, and aggressive. I believe you would enjoy their
company, if matters were otherwise, and would certainly then find them useful
to employ. As
to Sam Monroe. His Second-mother's
death — while fighting an outbreak of flea-plague in the township of Los
Palominos three years ago — has left him with no family. (I must add that I
mourn that most tender of physicians still, and deeply regret not seeing her
again.) The
Captain-General's occasional women are companions as well as lovers and, I
understand, come and go as tasks and places come and go. He is very generous to
them, and to his dose friends and officers — but only once. An important gift
is given — a prosperous farm, or wide sheepland, or large herd of fine
riding-horses — but after that, nothing
ever but army wages. So men and women who continue to serve him, do so because
they wish to, expecting no further reward. His
army is relatively small, but as I understand it is a 'balanced force,'
composed of five fairly equal elements: Supply; Light Cavalry; Heavy Cavalry;
Light Infantry; Heavy Infantry. Monroe has stated, in my hearing, that his
Light Cavalry, while very good, is not quite a match for the Khanate's, that
his Heavy Cavalry, while excellent, is not quite as formidable as the Empire's
best, and that his Heavy Infantry, though solid, is not quite the instrument
that Middle Kingdom fields. His Light Infantry, however — men and women of the Sierra
— Monroe believes to be the finest of our world. It
is the balance of these forces he considers crucial. That, and the
strategy and tactics of their use. I'm told he has said, 'These are the edged
tools for fashioning victory, as a carpenter fettles a table.' (For 'fettle,'
Great Khan, see my monograph on Warm-time Words Unusual.) The
Captain-General's sigil — and, by adoption, the army's banner — is a black
scorpion on a field of gold. Though a far-south creature, it is appropriately
ominous. While the enlisted men among their prisoners are very well treated, captured
enemy officers are invariably beheaded — or, if they are senior, disemboweled.
This, apparently, a brutal remainder of these people's desperate days of revolt
against the Empire. FORCES,
IF AT FULL ESTABLISHMENT: Supply:
Two thousand men and women. Five
hundred draft horses. Five hundred pack mules. Wheeled wagons. Drays. Sledges. Light
Cavalry: Two regiments — each, one
thousand men and women. Remounts. Heavy
Cavalry: Two regiments — each, one
thousand men and a small number of women. Remounts. Light
Infantry: Two regiments — each one
thousand men and women. Heavy
Infantry: Two regiments — each one
thousand men and a small number of women. The
fighting formations above are to some extent based on Warm-time copybook
models. (See that most valuable Kipling, Rudy. Back shelves, Great Lord,
and perfectly alphabetical.) All the army is uniformed in plain dark-brown wool
or leather, black cloaks, and black boots — high-topped in the cavalry, cut low
for the infantry. In
each cavalry regiment, one hundred persons serve as farriers, armorers, remount
herders and fodderers. The nine hundred fighting men and women are divided into
three squadrons, first, second, and third. Each squadron then divided further
into three troops of one hundred, A, B, and C. The
infantry regiments are each made up of two battalions of four hundred men and
women, the battalions then being divided into four companies. The two extra
companies in each regiment are assigned special duty as engineer-laborers,
assault formations, headquarters detachment, scouts, and cooks. It
should be noted that while the other units often consist of both full-time paid
regulars and veteran reservists serving annual duty, Supply is always fully maintained.
And noted also, that the structure of 'Supply' includes the army's
intelligence, police, and security functions as well as its field medical
personnel. Originally
organized by Catania Olsen, the army's medical service is also available to any
citizens nearby and in need, a useful component of Monroe's administration,
which still tends to be a government-in-the-saddle, to be found alongside units
of the army as often as in their capital, the undistinguished small town of
Better-Weather, south of Chihuahua City. Finally,
I understand there exists a competent volunteer militia of well-armed men and
women organized in each of the five states — and in each, numbering
approximately a thousand — intended as the cadre around which a much greater
force of irregulars would be organized at need. Since almost all men, and many
women, go habitually armed in this country, with weapons play and archery their
habit, this irregular force would likely prove formidable. Military
History: Elements of the army have fought
five major battles, seventeen to nineteen minor battles and skirmishes. They
have, until very recently, never been defeated. This single loss — and only two
days ago — has been of more than three hundred Light Cavalry from a regiment
unwisely sent down unsupported to meet a weightier imperial force venturing
north. An extremely unusual misjudgment by Monroe, and something of a shock to
his army, perhaps more disturbing than the casualties resulting from it. In
this battle, Ned Flores lost his left hand, but is expected to survive. A
note of interest: Monroe's army is required to submit payment vouchers for any
food, fodder, or materiel requisitioned, and the soldiers' behavior on maneuver
or campaign is strictly governed. By this, the army's popularity with the
people — and Monroe's popularity as well — is preserved. The
army is known for fighting in silence. No cheers, shouts, or battle cries. No
sounds but infantry bugles or cavalry trumpets, then the clash of arms when the
enemy is met. And
no crying out after, not even by the wounded, a custom apparently descending
from the silence and sudden ambushes of mountain banditry, once a principal
occupation here. Commerce:
North Map-Mexico is an agricultural
and stock-raising area. With a seven-week summer so far south of the ice-wall,
they grow cabbage, kale, broccoli, and onions... and trade with the Empire for
the tomatoes, planted potatoes, yams, cotton-wool, tobacco and corn grown
farther south. Livestock
are sheep, goats, chicken-birds, and to a lesser extent, pigs and spotted
cattle. For
trade, as well as convenience, the Empire's silver peso and copper penny
are allowed to circulate as North Map-Mexico's currency. Intentions:
Sam Monroe's probable long-term
intention: a reasonable and well-administered peace — with local officials now
elected every five years by those locals they rule. Territorial defense being
sustained by a compact, capable, and veteran army, with the east and west Sierras
flanking any invading force. My
Opinion: If placed under sufficient
pressure — as for instance by the Khanate — Monroe will certainly seek alliance
with either the Empire or Middle Kingdom... and more likely the latter. All New
Englanders are despised here, perhaps in some cases unfairly, because of those
ruling few who use their minds' rare talents — for warming themselves, and
walking-in-the-air — also to make
monsters in women's wombs. On occasion, people of this territory have galloped
after the few fliers that appear —
chasing those individuals by relays for many Warm-time miles — until the
New Englander wearies or loses attention, and descends or falls... to be seized
and burned alive. Monroe
has put an end to that rough sport. Finally,
my lord Khan, a personal note. I had thought that Trapper cooking was shocking,
and Caravanserai's little better —
mutton, mare's milk, and more mutton. I did not know when I was
well-off. Broccoli and goat-gut sausage... I'll say no more. To
you by my hand only — and otherwise unseen. Neckless
Peter Wilson
CHAPTER 3
Dieter
Mayaguez, nine years old, heard singing in the sky. The sun dazzled him when he
looked up. His sheep shifted to left and right down the steep hill pasture as a
shadow that might have been an eagle's came out of the sun and raced up along
the grass. Dieter
saw, a sling's throw high in the air, a girl wrapped in a long dark-blue coat,
singing as she sailed along the rise of the hill's slope. She flew sitting
upright, yellow-booted legs crossed beneath her. A curl-brimmed, blue hat was
secured with black ribbons tied in a bow under her chin. She
held something across her lap, and flew slowly, steadily over him and away, her
coat's cloth ruffling as she went higher… then higher, to cross the ridge. Dieter
could still hear her singing. It was a song he didn't know. 'Mairzy
doats.... dozy doats....' Excited,
he did a little dance in frost-browned grass. — Certainly a Boston person! He
would tell everybody, though only his mother would believe him. People were
always saying they saw Boston people, and usually were lying. Now he really had
seen one, but only his mother would say it must be true. The
sheep — so stupid — baaa'd and began to scatter. Dieter yelled, ran to circle
them and hold the ram. If his father had given him the dogs for high pasture,
he wouldn't have to be running after the fools. A
shadow came out of the sun — and he thought for a moment it was the singing
girl come back. But this was a much bigger shadow.... Patience
Nearly-Lodge Riley, her song ended, settled into herself and Walked-in-air over
the hills — that 'pushing the ground away and behind' that fools called flying,
as if fine-family New Englanders were birds with wings. True
wings, an occa's, were following her, carrying her strapped baggage-packs and
Webster's basket. An occa stupid as all of them, but still an impressive result
of mind-work on some debtor woman's fetus. Cambridge-made in Cambridge
Laboratory, Harvard Yard.... Patience
closed her eyes a moment to better feel the slopes and outcroppings a hundred or
so Warm-time feet beneath her. She felt them rumble and bump, rough as she went
over. But so much soldier, so much better than the Gulf's shifting surface had
been, its waves wobbling below her as she went. That had been uneasy traveling
— as had the whole several weeks of air-walking south from Boston Town, when
sailing a packet down and around and up into the Gulf would have been easier. "Safer,
too," her Uncle Niles had said. "But you will go the difficult way,
and air-walk — or, by Frozen Jesus, ground-walk — every mile south. It'll be good for you,
Patience, knock some of the Lodge-Riley hoity-toity out of you." Her
Uncle Niles loved her, just the same. She was his favorite niece. And
it had been good for her, those weeks of air-walking. The first weeks
were on the ice-sheet, then off it and down over warmer snowfields and sedge
willow, past caribou ranches and little towns. Air-walking, and when her mind
grew tired, ground-walking. Then, the occa, too baggage-burdened for her to
ride, had circled overhead, hooting and honking as she strode along. She'd
hunted for herself and the occa when the smoked seal was eaten up, swooping —
while remaining mindful of the ground she kept away — to snip the heads off
wild turkeys or ptarmigan with her scimitar, to hack the necks of deer. Then
landing, settling into snowy woods, she'd gathered dry branches for her fire,
started it with her flint and steel... then butchered the meat out while the
occa landed, loomed beside her, hobbling on knees — and what would have been
elbows, otherwise — and poked at her with its long jaw, whining for bird or
venison bones and bowels. In
all those weeks, Patience had been troubled only three times. An ice-fisher had
refused to exchange her smallest silver coin for a meal, so she'd had to take
two char from him — but only sliced him lightly, so as not to cripple, since
property rights were sacred. Later,
while ground-walking through lower Map-Pennsylvania, well south of the ice-wall,
she'd been chased up a tree by a hungry black bear. Too startled, too suddenly
set upon, to push the ground away for rising in the air, she'd risen from the
tree limbs soon enough and left the bear snuffling, clinging halfway up its
climb to reach her. Patience
had been troubled those two times, and one time more. Deep in Map-Alabama,
almost to the Gulf, she'd fluttered down to kill a woman who'd thrown a stone
and almost struck her as she sailed over a hedge of holly. ….
The hill ridge thumped beneath her in her mind, and Patience thought-stepped...
thought-stepped down the western slope, the wind chilly at her hat's brim,
lightly buffeting her face. Her face, charming, absolutely pretty by the
judgment of everyone who knew her, was reddened, roughened by the weather of
travel. But the inherited bit in the brain, that with training allowed a
talented few New Englanders — and the very rare exceptions from other places —
to air-walk and also keep warm on the ice, was no use in smoothing one's complexion.
It seemed unfair. Before
her, across a wide valley to the west, rose mountains harsher than the
Map-Smokies had been. The Sierra. A cold wind flowed down from them, and
Patience thought heat and caused it to warm her ears, her gloved
fingers... the tip of her nose. She
sailed on, out over the valley — sitting properly upright, her sheathed
scimitar held across her lap. It was her joy, a present from her mother on her
sixteenth birthday — two years ago, now — and a true Peabody of a thousand
doublings and hammerings. She called it 'Merriment,' since it had antic curling
patterns flowing in the surface of its steel, and also a modest, amusing style
of slicing. She'd killed Teresa Bondi with it in a duel, and Tessie's parents
had never forgiven her, said she was cruel, a spoiled brat, and bad. Patience
looked back and saw the occa laboring far behind. It appeared to be holding
something in its long jaw. She
stopped in the air — a difficult thing to do — and sat waiting for it, rocking
slightly in the mountains' breeze. The occa shied and swung on great leathery
wings, with the foot-long toothed jaw and bald knob of its idiot head turned
away as if not to see her. It did have something in its mouth. Patience,
impatient, whistled it over, and it slowly sidled toward her through the air,
its long bat arms and long bat fingers — supporting a skin-membrane's wingspan
of almost thirty Warm-time feet — fiddling with wind currents as it came. Patience
whistled again, made a furious face — and the creature came swiftly flapping
through the air to her, wind-burned and whining, its wings buffeting alongside.
Her baggage duffels and Webster's basket were strapped to its humped back. A
sheep's leg hung bleeding from its jaws. Patience
leaned to rap it sharply on the head with her scab-barded sword, and dipped a
sudden few feet as her concentration faltered, so she had to recover.
"Drop!... Drop!" The creature was getting too fat for good
flying as it was. The
occa muttered what was almost a word. "Drop
it!" The
sheep's leg fell away through the air. The occa bent its awkward head to watch
it go. "Now,"
Patience said, "you fucking fly. And keep up!"
* *
* "Signals
say company's coming!" Margaret Mosten's round pleasant face appeared
beside the tent flap. "From the Say-so mirror, far south slope." Sam
sat up. "What sort of company?" "Wings."
Margaret seemed not to notice the leather vodka flask lying on the floor beside
the cot, the squeezed rind of lime from far south. "Some Boston flier,
presumably. With winged item following."
. "From
McAllen." "Likely;
they've been wanting to send someone down." Margaret watched him with
concern. She'd never mentioned his drinking, never would. But twice — when
traveling, not on campaign — he'd drunk from his saddle-flask to find the vodka
and lime juice gone, replaced with water. Sam
swung off the cot. "What a pain in the ass." It was a Warm-time
phrase out of copied books almost five hundred years old, a phrase that had
become popular in the army. Too popular, so rankers were now forbidden to use
it in reference to orders. Sam
stooped to pick up his sword belt... and had to steady himself, which Margaret
appeared not to notice. "Where?" "Michael
Sergeant-Major is waving the thing in to the football pitch." "Alright."
Looping the belted sword over his right shoulder to rest aslant down his back,
he followed Margaret out into an afternoon he found too bright for comfort, and
cold with Lady Weather's commencing fall into Lord Winter's arms. The
camp was seething like cooking Brunswick at the flier's coming, but soldiers
settled down along Sam's way, sensitive as girls to their commander's mood —
many recalling duty elsewhere. Football,
the army's sport even in marching camps of war — though some said it was old
Warm-time rugby, really — had been marked to be played just south of
horse-lines on a stretch of meadow softened by cold-killed grass. The field,
already enclosed by dismounted heavy cavalry, had been cleared of all except
Michael Sergeant-Major, Margaret Mosten's man, who stood in the center of it
waving a troop banner for a landing mark. Sam
saw a formed file of the Heavies' horse-archer squadron had arrows to their
longbows. The bows, their lower arms curved short for horseback shooting, were
half-raised, arrows nocked. He nodded that way. "Whose orders?" "Mine,"
Margaret Mosten said. "Quiver
those arrows." He walked out onto the football field, looked up, and saw a
figure high against the blaze of the sun. Didn't have to come out of the
sun. Making an entrance. "The
thing's above." Margaret had come out to him. She was carrying one of the
Heavy Infantry's crossbows, wound, cocked, and quarreled. "My privilege,
sir," she said, as he noticed it. "Look there...." High
above the small human figure sailing down to them in silhouette — perhaps a
woman, perhaps not — a larger thing wheeled and flapped. Soldiers
murmured at the edges of the field. "Silence!" Their
commander's mood confirmed, murmuring ceased. In
that quiet, the soft sound of cloth breezing could be heard. In dark-blue
greatcoat and dark-blue hat, the Boston person — certainly a woman — sailed down, sailed down…
and settled with no stumble on the ground. She held, sheathed in her right
hand, a slender curved scimitar, and was smiling. "Mountain
Jesus," Margaret Mosten said. "She's a baby." "Clever."
Sam smiled to match the visitor's, and went to meet her. He was still drunk,
and would have to be careful. The
woman — the girl — had a white face, wind-roughened but beautiful, oval as an
egg. Black hair was drawn tightly back under the blue curl-brimmed hat, and her
eyes were also black, dark as licorice chews. Sam noticed her gloved hands were
fine, but what could be seen of a slender wrist was corded with sword-practice
muscle. The
girl was smiling at him as if they were old friends — apparently knew him from description. "I
thought I had another day or two to walk to Better-Weather, but then I saw your
camp, and said to myself, 'Ah — there's been fighting! So surely there the
Captain-General will be.' " She made a little curtsy as a lady might have
done south, in the Emperor's court, then took a fold of heavy white parchment
from her coat, and handed it to him. "I'm
instructed to serve the Lord Small-Sam Monroe as the voice of New England, at
his pleasure of course. Ambassadress." The girl dwelt on the final
s's and made a sudden face of glee. "From
McAllen?" "No,
lord. Second-cousin Louis is superseded. I come down from Harvard Yard directly
to you… Poor old Cousin Louis; he'll be furious." She spoke a very elegant
book-English. "I
see." There
was a spatter of dried blood down her long blue coat. She
saw him notice it. "Travel stains of the travel weary — I walked all the
way down." Walked,
Sam thought, and walked in the
air.... Still, from Boston-in-the-Ice to North Map-Mexico — alone and in
however many weeks — was remarkable. And New England's first mistake, to let
him know she was remarkable. They should have sent her by ship. He
read — in black squid ink on fine-scraped hide — the submission of Patience
Nearly-Lodge Riley's service as go-between (and Voice of the Cambridge Faculty
and Town Meeting) to 'the person Small-Sam Monroe, presently Captain-General of
North Map-Mexico'…. The 'presently' being a good touch. "Am
I accepted?" She had a girl's fluting voice, as free of vibration as a
child's. "For
the present." 'The present' being a good touch. "Then,
my baggage?" the ambassadress pointed up into the air. "So, soon I
will be out of my stained coat." "Call
the thing down," Sam said, and raised his voice to the troops. "Stand
still, and keep silent!" The shouting hurt his head. The
girl looked up, put two fingers into her mouth, and whistled as loud as he'd
ever heard it done. That hurt his head, too. From
high… high above, came a distant hooting, a mournful, uneasy sound. The troops
shifted in the sunshine, and sergeants called them to order. They were looking
up at what slowly circled down, sweep by sweep on great wings, making its low
worried noises. Sam didn't
look up. Margaret Mosten watched the Boston girl. Slow
sweeps, slow descending, so the girl put her head back and whistled again.
Sam's head throbbed. Fucking vodka — and the wrong day to have drunk
it. Then
the thing came swooping in, wings sighing… the sighs turning to thumps of air
as it beat the hilltop's wind to slow… hang almost stationary over their heads
in heavy flappings, and finally — as the girl stamped her booted foot and
pointed at the ground — come down in a collapse and folding of great bat's
wings. It folded them once, then again, so it fell forward on what should have
been elbows, and crouched huge, hunched, and puffing from exertion or
uneasiness. Its body was pale and freckled — smooth skin, no fur — its neck
long, wattled, and odd. But it was the head made the troops murmur, no matter
what the sergeants ordered. Sam
stayed standing close by an effort, and looked at a toothed thin-lipped jaw
almost long as a man's arm, a round bare bulge of skull with human ears, and
eyes a suffering woman's tragic and beautiful blue. A pair of little shrunken
breasts dangled from the creature's chest. The
Boston girl went to the thing, made soothing puh-puh noises to it, and
began to unbuckle its heavy harness. The wide leather straps were difficult to
deal with, stiff with wetting and drying. Sam
stepped beside her — heard Margaret grunt behind him — and leaned against the thing's flank, warm
and massive as a charger's, to work a big buckle free. The creature smelled of
human sweat, its skin smooth from crease to crease, and damp with the effort of
flying. "What
have you done?" he said, not a question he would have asked without the
vodka. But
the girl understood him. "Oh"
— she patted its hide — "we make these... Persons from beginning babies,
inside tribeswomen, or New England ladies who won't be responsible, fall into
bad habits, and don't pay their debts." She tugged a second strap loose,
then stepped aside so Sam could lift two heavy duffels and a shrouded wicker
basket down from the thing's hunched back. Something
rustled in the basket. "Weather
be kind..." Michael Sergeant-Major came and shouldered Sam aside, bent to
pick up the baggage. "Sir, where do you want these?" There was sweat
on the sergeant-major's forehead. "Set
a tent for the lady. East camp, beside Neckless Peter's, I think. Tent and
marquee, camp furniture." "Canvased
tub-bath," Margaret said. "Canvased toilet pit." Sam
turned away, and the Boston girl came with him in quick little steps alongside,
the long blue coat whispering. She smelled of nothing but the stone and ice of
the high mountain air she'd walked through. "How
are we to keep that sad thing, lady?" "Call
me Patience, please, Lord Monroe; since we'll be camp-mates. I don't
keep her; I send her home." "Home…
And it goes all that distance back?" "Oh,
yes. Its mother is there. It will wander a few weeks… but get to home hutch at
last." "Its
mother?" "Occas
always rest in their mothers' care." "Nailed
Jesus…" "May
I change the subject — and ask, are you always so sad at your soldiers'
dying?" Sam
stopped. "What did you say?" The
girl smiled up at him, her right hand resting at her side, casually on the grip
of her scimitar. "I thought you must be sad for the soldiers I saw being
buried below me, to be drunk so early in the day. It proves a tender
heart." Margaret
had come up behind them. "You mind your fucking manners," she said to
the Boston girl, "or we'll kick your ass right out of here. Who are you to
dare — " "Let
it go, Margaret," Sam said. Then, to the girl: "Still,
not a bad idea to mind your manners, Patience... or I will kick your ass
right out of here." "Oh,
dear. I apologize." The girl curtsied first to him, then to Margaret.
"It will take us a while to learn to know each other better." She snapped
her fingers at Michael Sergeant-Major, and he led her away, bent beneath the
weight of her baggage and basket. When
she was a distance gone, Sam began to laugh. It hurt his head, but was worth it
for the pleasure of first laughter since coming down to This'll Do. "Nothing
funny there," Margaret Mosten said. "Wouldn't
want her for a daughter, Margaret?" "Sir,
I would take a quirt to her if she were." "Mmm…
It's interesting that the New England people sent us such a distraction. I
wonder, to distract us from what?" "If
necessary," Margaret said, " 'distractions' can have regrettable
accidents. And that blood on the coat — 'travel stains.' " "Yes…
See that people are careful with her. She carries to fight left-handed or with
both hands. And there're parry-marks on the hilt of that scimitar — but no
scars on her face, no scars on her sword arm when she reached up to undo the
thing's harness." Salutes from the two cavalrymen guarding his tent. One
of them had eased the chain catches on his breastplate slightly. "Johnson
Fass." "Sir!"
A more rigid attention by Corporal Fass. "Getting
too fat for that cuirass?" "No,
sir." Hurried fumbling to tighten the catches. "If
we had a sudden alarm, Corporal, and you mounted to fight with that steel
hanging loose on your chest, then one good cut across it with a saber or
battle-ax would break your ribs like pick-up sticks." "Won't
happen again, sir." Sam
walked on. The young commander had spoken — unheard, of course, by the hundreds
of dead buried beneath the hill. He wondered how many such disasters it would
take, before the corporals stopped saluting.... "About
our guest, Margaret; I want people mindful that if she kills someone, I can
only send her away. And if someone kills her, it means difficulty with
Boston. So, no attempted love-making, no insults exchanged, no discourtesies,
no duels on duty or on leave. Let the officers know that's an
order." "Too
bad," Margaret said, "because it's going to be a temptation. What the
fuck do those New Englanders have in mind, sending us a girl like that?" Sam
stopped by his tent's entrance. "What they first had in mind, was to make
us wonder what they had in mind." "Right." "And
Margaret, I thank you for not mentioning it was a bad beginning, for her to
find me drunk.... Now, I need some sleep. And Lady Weather keep the Second
Regiment's dead from visiting my dreams." He
put back the tent's entrance flap, and ducked in. Margaret
started to say, "They would never — they loved you," but Sam was gone
inside. And just as well, she thought. My foolish mouth would have
hurt him more.
*
* *
No
lost cavalry troopers came to his dreaming. Sam
dreamed of being a boy again in their mountain hut... and his Second-mother,
Catania, was reading to him from an old copybook traded out of the south for
twenty sheep hides. She read to him often, fearing he might take to the
mountains' signs and tribe-talk instead of book-English. "'...
There were a few foreign families come to the prairie, Germans, Baits,
Hungarians. But they were not felt as foreign as they might have been in cities
or small farming towns, since all of us had come to the prairie as foreigners
to it, so in Western-accented English or Eastern English or Southern English
— or in English hardly English at all — we made do together, and were
Americans. In
time, we were to master the rough grasses, the black earth beneath, though it
cost us all our lives to do it. The sky we never mastered. We were too small,
too low. We were beneath its notice. ...
One Sunday, we took the wagon the long, rutted road to church, and in church,
in the last row of benches, I saw for the first time a sturdy, small, blond
little girl, her hair in braids. She was wearing a flour-sack dress with little
blue blossoms on it — not as nice
a dress as my sister's — and she was to become my friend.'" His
Second-mother stopped reading then, and put the top-sewn copybook away. Her
eyes, in the dream, were the gray he remembered; the scar down her cheek as
savage; her hair was white as winter. "What
happens?" Sam asked her. "Sweetheart,
always the same things happen," his Second-mother said. "Happiness is
found… then it is lost… then perhaps found again. And the finding, the losing,
and the perhaps, is the story." ...Sam
woke, saying, "Wait!" aloud — though for what, he wasn't
certain. A
voice from outside and a courteous distance said, "Sir…?" Sounded
like Corporal Fass. Sam
called, "Just a dream, Corporal," and got up off his cot. There
was no more time for mourning, for considering his stupidity in sending a man
like Ned Flores to lose a fight. No time for more vodka. The young
Captain-General, that almost-never-defeated commander, must get back to
work. Ned
wouldn't much mind the missing hand. He'd have a bright steel hook made,
to wear and flourish with a piratical air, like the corsairs in that most
wonderful of children's Warm-time copybooks. Sam
stepped outside the tent. Afternoon, and the morning wasted. "Fass!" What
in hell was the other man's name? "Sir?" "Colonel
Voss to report to me." "Sir." "The
Rascobs as well." "Sir
— the brigadiers rode out of camp a while ago. Rode north." And
no good-byes. The old men were still angry. And were about to be made much
angrier.
CHAPTER 4
"Chancellor
Razumov, have you read this?" The Lord of Grass, at ease on a window couch
in the Saffron Room of Lesser Audience, shook sheets of poor paper gently, the
slight breeze disturbing the prairie hawk that perched on his other forearm. "Yes,
my lord." The chancellor, very fat, still made an easy half-bow of
continued attention. Tiny bells tinkled down the closure of his yellow robe. "And
your opinion of our fugitive librarian's report?" "Accurate,
from what we know otherwise. It describes minor — though formidable — rule,
ruler, and ruled. Certainly to be taken into account as they lie along the
Khanate's southern flank, and might disturb your movement against Middle
Kingdom. Still… perhaps not so formidable, lord, since the librarian writes
they've lost a skirmish to the Empire, apparently just before his message left
their camp. A Light-Cavalry matter, but still a loss." "Yes...
Perhaps a loss, perhaps not." The Lord of Grass exchanged glances with his
hawk. The open window's autumn sunlight, dappled through figured fine-cotton
curtains, seemed to stir across them in a chill breeze. "Certainly
a defeat, my lord, according to accounts, according to the Boston people as
well." "A
defeat, but perhaps not a loss. Tell me, Razumov, how best does one
prepare winners to continue winning?" "By
the victories themselves, lord." "Oh,
no. Victory's lessons are few — but defeat's are many. Something we might well
keep in mind.... I believe our commonsensical Captain-General of North
Map-Mexico has deliberately made a false demonstration to us of his apparent
limitations in command... and at the same time has taught a hard lesson
to his army, particularly his Light Cavalry — our principal arm, by no
coincidence. He has taught them a painful first lesson in the uncertainties of
war." "An
expensive lesson, surely. We understand there were heavy losses." "And
so, all the more effective." The hawk shifted on the Grass Lord's arm.
"Though, since the loss was so heavy, I suspect it will be quickly
followed by a triumph in revenge." "But
lord, is the young man that clever?" "Perhaps
not, Razumov. Perhaps only that sensible.... This damned bird has shit on my
sleeve."
*
* *
An
Entry…. As I have been appointed the
role of historian, librarian, and informational to the young Captain-General, I
feel it behooves me — what a Warm-time word! 'Behoove.' Its dictionary
definition, of course — but also perhaps as in shoeing a horse, preparing for
an action, a journey? So much we will never know.... Still,
as occasional historian of Lord Monroe's rule, it behooves me to make my
entries on our army's inferior paper, then bind the note-books myself. Clumsy.
Clumsy work. There
came a scratching at my tent-flap fairly soon after the New Englander's descent
— a sight (seen over the ranks of uneasy soldiers) to remember. It was all
childhood's horror stories come to life, though concluding as only a small girl
swaggering with a sword. Her huge Made-beast left there, crouched and moaning,
apparently resting from its long flight. A
scratching at my tent-flap, as if a kept cat wished in — then the Boston girl's
quite pretty face peeping past the canvas cloth. She had set her large blue hat
aside. "Are
you doing something private?" she said. "Something you wouldn't want
anyone to see?" "Not
that private," I told her. "Come in." She
ducked inside, very small in a voluminous coat — a coat freshly unpacked, by
the even creases in it, and made of dark-blue woolen cloth, finely woven and
heavy, though not the equal of what Gardens used to weave. I've seen no cloth
of that quality anywhere else. The
young woman sat on the edge of my cot — perched there, her booted,
blue-trousered legs crossed like a boy's — and settled her scimitar across her
lap as if it were a pet. "Neckless
Peter. Is that correct?" "Peter
Wilson — but yes, my friends call me Neckless Peter. 'Neckless' since my neck
is short — though originally 'Neck-lace' because I wore the gold
necklace of Librarian in Gardens. The nick-name was given me by a friend; I
keep it in her memory." "I
know 'nick-names'; we called a friend Piss-poor Penelope, just for the three
p's in a row. And you're the intelligent person here, aren't you? Little and
old, but intelligent?" "I
suppose that's true." "Isn't
it wonderful?" She made a child's face of wonder. "I'm little and
intelligent, too! Though I'm not old. So we can be friends, and find out things
from each other. Try to hide things... then find them out." "I
don't doubt it, though I'm not told North Map-Mexico's secrets." "Oh,
you and I will discover them." She gave me that steady fresh regard —
knowledgeable and innocent at once — that children bestow on their elders. And
I saw that she was dangerous, certainly — would not have been sent, otherwise —
but also, that she might be mad. "You're
thinking something about me." "Yes." "You
think I'm very strange. Perhaps with a bird in my head?" "Yes." "And
has it occurred to you, small, old, and intelligent one, that I might not be
strange? That's it's you people of the warmer places, you who haven't learned
to live in ice without being swaddled and farting in furs, who haven't learned
to do even simple things with your thoughts, that you are the sad and strange
ones?" "Yes,
it has occurred to me." "Then
let me confirm it — it's the fact." "Perhaps." "'Perhaps.'
'Perhaps' is the curse of intelligence." "…Perhaps." She'd
spoken like a clever child, but now laughed like a woman, richly, and in deeper
voice. She laughed, then recovered in near hiccups. "Now" — she
settled herself comfortably — "is the young Monroe, our Captain-General, a
war-lord perfect, despite his losses here?" "No." "The
Kipchak Khan, Toghrul, whom you betrayed — is that a painful word?" "Only
a little." "He
is believed in Boston to be a war-lord perfect, and almost certain to win,
moving against Middle Kingdom." "Mmmm." "You
don't believe that?" "I
believe that war is too imperfect for a perfect master." Again
that steady regard. She ran a small white finger slowly back and forth along
her saber's sheath, thinking. Then she nodded. "You are intelligent — but
are you cruel? You wouldn't hurt me, would you? Use intelligence against me,
who am only a girl, and pretty?" "I
think... you would be difficult to injure." She
grinned, was up off my cot, bent and kissed my forehead, then sat back down
again. She'd smelled of cool air, and nothing else. "Let's
tell our stories — but only the truth; it's too early for lies. Yes? May I call
you NP? Short for Neckless Peter?" "I
suppose so. And I suppose I must call you... Impatience." "I
like that. My Uncle Niles would agree it was just." "Your
Uncle Niles... ?" "Ah,
you want my story first." "Why
not?" "Hmmm."
She sat at ease, thinking... her smooth, oval, nearly childish face changing in
swift reflection of the memories she was choosing. Her face seemed to me not an
ambassador's — an ambassadress's — but
an emissary's, perhaps. "...
Well, I was born to a fine family, only slightly beneath the finest.
Cambridge-born in Boston Township. I was taught the past and present. I read
and write and configure the mathematics... within reason." "Within
what reason, Impatience?" "Within
the quadratics, but not fluxions." "Do
you have Newton's work? The mathematician, I mean, not the dead River
King." She
smiled at me. "Why, NP, you just came to life!" "Do
you have it — and original, complete?" "No.
We, like all the world, are only copybook people, though there are rumors of a
great library where the ancient campus was, by old Harvard Yard." "Under
the ice...." "Under
a mile of ice." She toyed with her saber. "Someday... someday,
since you will be my friend, perhaps you could come to Boston, help us
excavate, search for it. Someday perhaps become librarian for those endless
shelves of Warm-time books, waiting now in cold and darkness with all their
secrets." "Secrets...." "The
secret of flying to the moon. The secret of the so-tiny bad things that make
sickness happen — though Boston already knows some of that secret. The secrets
of waves of radio, of black boom-powder..." She leaned closer. "NP,
the pupils of your eyes just changed the littlest bit! Have you been
naughty?" "I
don't — " "Have
you found... could you have found, in the Great Khan's fine library, the
making-means of boom-powder?" "No." "No?"
The predatory attention of a teasing child. "You didn't discover the
method mentioned — perhaps unbind the book to take that page away and write
another in its place? .... Then burned that taken-away page?" "No."
This 'no' spoken, I believe, fairly convincingly. "Well,
I won't mention even the possibility to the Captain-General or his officers.
I'm afraid of what they might do to such a little old man, to have that secret
out of him." "I
know no such secret." "Well,
of course I believe you. I believe you, NP — though Boston suspects that several
scholars, over the centuries, have found the making-means of boom-powder...
then burned those pages, rather than accomplish even more mischief in a
mischievous world, than sharp steel has done." "I
said, I know no such secret." "Even
if you did," she reached to pat my knee "even so, I would never
betray you, NP — as you must never betray me. In any case, Boston prefers that
secret remain secret, so the city not be overrun by any crowd of fools trained
with tubes and flint-sparkers for its use. The present state of affairs suits
superior talents very well." "I
do not know the method." "As
you say. — You see? We're friends, NP, and would have been friends as children,
except you would have been too old." "And
you, too dangerous a child." "I
was.... You know, I killed a friend. I sliced her with Merriment, and sometimes
I feel sorry for it. I miss Teresa. I'm glad I killed her — but I miss
her." "Yes….
Which of us isn't partly a child, who still wants everything?" "She
called me All-Irish. I wouldn't have killed her except for that." "I
understand. A serious matter." "Well,
you think it's funny, NP — but it isn't funny in Boston." Someone
spurred by my tent, close enough so the cloth billowed slightly as the rider
passed. "And so, Impatience, you all live on the ice?" "No.
Only trash lives on the ice. We live in the ice. Boston is in the
ice, and of the ice." "But
I'd heard there were great buildings..." "Yes,
and ice is what we make them of. We carve beneath-buildings — and very big —
all white white white, or clear as water. I thought you people knew how
we lived in the ice." "The
city?" "All
frozen fine. We have an opera theater and a prison. We have our college, of
course, our town-meeting hall, and places where other things are done, secret
and not so secret. We are civilized people, NP. We have churches to
these people's Mountain Jesus and Kingdom River's Rafting one, and to our
Frozen Jesus, as well as chapels for every other Possible Great, so Lady
Weather is sung to, also. There is nothing Boston doesn't have!" "I
see. Houses?" "Apartments.
Gracious, don't you know what apartments are?" Apparently startled by such
ignorance. "From
copybooks, I do, yes." "Well,
that's what we have! My mother's apartment is almost on the Common. My Uncle Niles
— a true Lodge — lives on the Common. He has eleven rooms, not counting
the unmentionable." "The
unmentionable would be... the toilet?" This
strange girl nodded Yes, apparently embarrassed to speak it. "But
how... how does everyone keep warm?" "'Everyone'
doesn't keep warm, NP. People of good birth, people with the right piece in
their heads, keep themselves warm — warm enough that a cloth coat will
always do. The Less Fortunate go around in fat fur boots, and wrapped in furs,
and complaining. But they have furs; the Trash-up-top hunt furs for
them. I had friends who had to wear furs." "A
city of ice..." She
tapped my knee gently with the tip of her sword's scabbard. "Wouldn't you
like to see it? I think you would. You'd love Boston — and we could hunt
for the Harvard library together!" "Perhaps
one day, Impatience." She
stuck her tongue out at me. A rude child. "But you're old. You may not
have enough days to get to that 'one day.' " "Time
will tell." "Oh,
I know that saying. That's a Warm-time saying." "Yes." "Now..."
She settled back on my cot, tucked my pillow under her armpit for support.
"Now, I want to hear your story." "But
you haven't finished yours. How, for example, you came to be an
ambassadress." "Oh,
my Uncle Niles likes me, so I was made diplomat to North Map-Mexico and here I
am.... Do you want to hear the oldest song?" "The
oldest song?" She
slid to her feet — supple as a deep-southern snake — dropped her scimitar onto my cot, struck a
sudden pose, and astonished me with a prancing, impudent little dance, back and
forth, her arms crossed at her breasts. And she sang. "
'Ohhh... I wish I was in Boston, or some other seaport
town...!'" Quick little kicking steps back and forth along my tent's
narrow aisle. "'I've sailed out there and everywhere... I've
been the whole world round...!'" There
were two more verses — their simple ringing melody sung out in a clear soprano,
and danced to with no trace of self-consciousness at all. There was great charm
in it... charm I found an uneasy decoration for what might lie beneath. She
came to the end suddenly as she'd started — and sat back on my cot, placid,
breathing evenly as if there'd been no song, no vigorous dance. "Now,
NP, how did you come to be a slave of the Grass Lord Khan? Is he a pleasant young
man — or cruel?" I
was still digesting the performance, her singing echoing in my ears. "His
father's Border Roamers came into our forest. Too many to drive away." "Then
killed your people, surely." "Yes,
in the fighting... and after the fighting was over. But I was Librarian, and
pushed one of them off the library's walk when he tore a copybook for pleasure,
to watch the white leaves fall so far to the ground." "A
very high library, then?" "Yes.
We built in trees, and of trees, and they loved us." "Well
done to kill a fool! But NP, why didn't they throw you after him?" "I
think I amused them. I think his being killed by me amused them. Then one of
the Khan's officers came and ordered the library sent west to Caravanserai —
and me with it." "I
would never be a slave." The Boston girl made a face and shook her head.
"I'm almost a Lodge — I am a Nearly-Lodge Riley." For
emphasis, she slid a few inches of her sword's bright steel free of its
sheath... then slid it shut. "You
have not met the young Khan." "If
I did, he would like me for my spirit and beauty. He would never harm someone
so pretty and intelligent!" This strange little creature then swooned down
along my cot's pillow like a romantic child. "He would fall in love... and
I would be his queen." I
was startled, charmed afresh — then, as she lay there, her saber cuddled, I saw
in those handsome black eyes (eyes dark as the Khan's, in fact) a gleaming
amusement, beneath which seemed to lie dreadful energy, incapable of
weariness.... Something struck me, then, and though I've never been certain,
could never be certain, it occurred to me that the New Englanders might have
made with their minds more subtle monsters than those that groaned and flapped
great wings — might have made these more intricate others out of their own
unborn and beloved children.... There
were sudden trumpets then, and stirring in the camp. The
Boston girl was instantly up and off the cot — smiled good-bye — and was gone.
The tent-flap, swinging closed, stroked the vanishing curve of her sword's
sheath. She left, as formidable people do, an emptiness behind her, as if the
earth had nothing to offer in her place. A
sergeant was shouting. The ground shook slightly to the hooves of heavy horses. I
followed outside in time to wave an armored trooper to slow. He sat his sidling
impatient charger, a roan already becoming shaggy with winter coat, and gave me
a courteous moment. "Are
we breaking camp?" "No,
sir." "Then
what are we doing?" "What
we're told," he said, smiled, nodded, and spurred away. ...
The camp's tumult finally done — an expedition apparently suddenly undertaken,
and most of the soldiers gone with it — I wandered the hill-top, asked
questions of those few left behind, was given no answers, and returned to my
tent for a nap. It did occur to me that trouble might have come to the northern
border while the army's commander was occupied here…. That trouble, of course,
would be of my previous master's making, with the appearance of horse-tail
banners, and horse archers with angled eyes. I
had, I suppose, convinced myself that my unimportant defection would be
pardoned, if the Grass Lord ever met me again. But that conviction proved
fragile as smoke when I tried to sleep in the quiet of an almost empty camp,
and I realized that I would certainly be casually strangled by my student —
Evgeny Toghrul being not a bad loser, but no loser at all. Not even of elderly
librarians. I
slept at last, dreamed of perfect painless poisons milked from lovely vines —
droplets certain to provide ease and freedom's easy end. I dreamed of dark
doses through the afternoon, could taste them... then woke to early evening. I
drew a cloak over my shoulders against the chill, and trudged over an
encampment scored by horses' shod hooves, dappled with their manure, to a
lamp-lit mess tent almost deserted. The
walking wounded, unfit to ride, had been left behind — left behind to cook supper, as well, a grim
portent. A corporal I knew, called Leith, was limping among the pans and great
kettles, blood spotting her bandages, while she spooned and stirred this and
that, exchanging obscenities with two soldiers still staggering from injuries. Portia-doctor,
darkly handsome in a stained brown robe, and seeming weary, sat eating at a
bench-table in the big tent's back left corner — and I was interested to see
the Boston girl sitting across from her. The girl's tin platter was piled with
the army's dreadful Brunswick slumgul, stew enough for two hungry men. This
evening, apparently, boiled goat and halved turnips. Patience
saw me, nodded me over… and was well into her supper when I came from the
serving kettles to join them. I
bent to kiss the doctor's cheek, a privilege — and sensible precaution — of
age, and sat beside her to watch Patience Nearly-Lodge Riley eat. It seemed
important eating. Portia-doctor
smiled. "Fuel after flying, I believe." And I saw that of course she
must be right. Patience
nodded, swallowed a large bite, and said, "Nothing comes of nothing. — Where have the soldiers gone? People won't
tell me." "South,"
Portia-doctor said, and poked at a piece of goat with a two-tine fork.
"South through the mountains, to hunt down the cataphracts." "Good
God." Perhaps my favorite Warm-time phrase. "Can they catch them,
three days gone?" "Probably."
The doctor ate her piece of goat. "The imperials will be leisurely, have
no reason to hurry." "Impatience,
I thought you would have followed the soldiers south." "I
would have, NP. I wanted to see fighting, but they refused me permission —
cited my safety and that sort of shit. The Big One-eye wouldn't lend me a horse
to follow them." More spoonfuls of turnip eaten. "Ah
— Voss. Howell Voss." "Yes,
the Big One-eye. But I'm going to get a riding horse of my own — buy it out of
my expense fund. Then, fuck him, I'll go where I want!" "But
you could have Walked-in-air." Patience
had very good table-manners; she finished chewing, and swallowed before she
answered. "NP, I'm not a stupids' witch. I have just come over two thousand
Warm-time miles. And I've stopped traveling, and said to myself, 'I'm here.
I've arrived.'" "And
therefore?" Portia-doctor, interested in this phenomenon. "Therefore,
Doctor, if I air-walk again too soon, my head might ache, and I might
fall." "So,
a rest." "Yes,
a few weeks, then I'll be able to say to myself, 'Now, I'm going. I'm
going somewhere else. Then I'll do it, and my head won't ache, and I
won't fall." "I
see." "The
piece in the brain doesn't like to be hurried, Doctor. One thing at a time is
what it likes, with a long rest between." She demolished a last piece of
goat meat, then attacked the rest of her turnips — which, frankly, were barely
edible. "And
your beast?" "The
occa's risen and gone north. I had to kick her to get her up and going; they
depend on you, then they want to stay. She'll wander awhile, but end with her
mother." Salt sprinkled on turnips. "They're better than pigeons, for
going back where they come from." I
tried the most promising piece of goat. "And how are the wounded,
Doctor?" Portia
turned those sad brown eyes to me, eyes into which too much of others'
suffering had reflected. "We've saved some — saved some of those for
sitting, blind or legless, to beg in town squares." "An
army doctor is, I suppose, something of a contradiction." "Yes,
'something of a contradiction,'" Portia said, and smiled — was almost
beautiful when she smiled. Then she took up her platter, stood, and was gone. "Is
it true," Patience said, "that Big One-eye likes her?" "Howell
Voss? Where did you hear that?" "I
scented it from him while he was telling me I couldn't follow. He talked to me,
but looked at her for a moment when she walked by. Then, he smelled of sad
desiring — as you did, NP, when I mentioned the ancient Harvard
library." More
Boston tinkering, apparently, and for sense of smell! "Impatience,
I believe we'll all be happier with you if you don't sniff around us like an
eager hound." "Well,
then..." A slight pout. "Then I'll keep it to myself, what I discover
that way." "Please
do." "Why
aren't you eating?" "They
have not peeled the turnips." She
smiled. "Do you know the Warm-time word 'eccentric'?" "There
is nothing eccentric about wanting turnips peeled." "How
are your teeth?" Patience showed me her small white teeth in illustration. "I
still have my teeth." "Here."
She reached over quickly, took my platter, and began to peel the halved turnips
on it. She'd reached very quickly, and she peeled very quickly, so the blade of
her knife flashed and flickered. "Now, eat them. They're good for
you." I
ate them, and could only hope they were good for me, since they were good for
nothing else. I do not imagine there is any more reliable sign of civilization
than food that is a pleasure to eat, not simply grim forage. In Gardens, we had
bird stews flavored with little forest friends…. Having
finished my slight platter as the Boston girl finished her weighty one —
Corporal Leith had limped over and snatched the tin dishes up, muttering — I walked
with Patience out into darkness and a cold wind come down from the mountains. "Isn't
this an adventure, NP?" "If
it ends well." Stepping carefully to avoid horse manure. "Oh,
adventures are ends in themselves." "And
what is it you want here, Impatience — besides adventure?" "Want?
Here, I want to watch warlords' grand clockwork tick, whir, and turn — have you
ever seen wind-up clockwork?" "No.
Read of those time-pieces, of course." "We
have a large weight-wind-up clock at the entrance to Ice-clear Justice, though
it keeps uncertain time.... What I wish, is what Boston wishes, NP. I wish for
perfection, as Boston wishes for perfection — and we will have it, or make it,
so the sun is satisfied at last and comes to us as it did before, hot as fire." "I
see...." But I didn't, then.
CHAPTER 5
Colonel
Rodriguez had come from Indian people — and wasn't ashamed of it. He'd never
kissed a man's ass because that man was pale under sunshine, and could grow a
fine mustache. His
mother had told him that good comes to those who wait for it, and Colonel
Rodriguez — though not yet forty — had waited out several such officers, milky
as girls, who spoke only the Beautiful Language, not Nahua, and knew
women at court. The northern bandits had worn those men out, or killed them
— and the Emperor, who knew truth when
evil men permitted him to see it, saw the value in officers such as Michi
Rodriguez, and gave him at last his regiment. And
see the result — with only three squadrons brought north! Victory. The
troopers had celebrated every evening since the battle. Six slow marches riding
south through the passes, the men dancing in camp every evening — and drinking aguardiente
they were forbidden to have with them. Easier to find a cavalryman's soul
than his hidden leather bottle. Victory.
A first victory. Now, the court ladies would coo and flutter… then moan,
lie back and raise their lace skirts in dark, secret rooms smelling of the oils
of flowers, so that a hero might do as he pleased, and so please them. Perhaps...
Though perhaps only smile and murmur behind their fans. 'See the little Indio…
watch our brown hero try to manage both his chocolate cup and cake plate.
See him spill crumbs on his uniform, perhaps a drop or two of chocolate as
well....' But
either way — a victory. The Indian colonel would come with his regiment to The
City, and the Emperor would see he brought a battle won, as his banner. "Something
shone, high in the mountains." Tomas Reyes, a milk-face but a decent
fellow, had spurred up alongside on that showy gray — a trumpet-horse color. "What
something?" "Colonel,
I don't know. Two of the men saw it." "Bandits.
Curious shepherds." "I
don't know, sir. Should we arm a squadron?" Rodriguez
considered. It was the cataphract problem. — Well, there were two cataphract
problems. One was the size of horse required to carry both the heavy chain-mail
that guarded its own chest and flanks, and a man wearing that same
chain-mail draped and belted from helmet to boot. So,
the proper horse was one problem; the full suit of mail was itself the other
problem. No man, not even a very strong man, wished to wear it day and night. Bandits,
probably, high in the mountains above the pass. A spear-tip or sword-blade
flashing an instant in the sun. Too far south, too many days south, now, for
any interference by the northerners. They wouldn't have more than a few hundred
Light Cavalry left at This'll Do. Would have been busy for a day or so just
burying their dead. And wouldn't have had time to bring more than... say, a
headquarters' detachment down through Please Pass to follow. "Unlikely,"
Rodriguez said. "Sir?" "I
said, 'Unlikely.' But just in case" — a favorite Warm-time phrase of his
father's — "just in case, have Third Squadron fall out and arm." "Sir."
Captain Reyes saluted with a cadet-school flourish, showed off with a rearing
turn, and galloped back along the files. Fair enough, the man was a fine
horseman — unlike, say, a certain nearly-plump Indian, who nevertheless had won
a victory. Almost
a sand-glass later by the sun's shadow across the narrow pass, and deep into an
afternoon now truly warm, his guidon-bearer, Julio Gomez, saw steel glittering
on the steep mountainside above them — and properly called it out. There
was, as Rodriguez had quickly discovered, a sadness nesting amid the pleasures
of command. It was the sadness of knowing — knowing more than his officers and
men. Knowing unpleasant things they did not yet know. — Such as realizing immediately that this
second conveniently revealed sparkle of steel was deliberate, meant to provoke
him to action, and so, was no affair of bandits, but a military matter. Which
therefore meant that some of the northerners had followed him down. And
since no local commander would have taken the remarkable risk, after a lost
battle, of pursuing days deep into imperial country — certainly riding day and
night to do so, certainly killing horses to do so — and with what must be a
modest force of the few troops at hand, it meant as well that this northern
commander was probably the commander, Monroe himself. Rodriguez
felt chilled and hot at once. Chilled, because such determination, such an
extraordinary pursuit of several days south, was frankly a surprise, and
disturbing. But hot as well, at the notion of doubling a triumph and bringing
to Mexico City not one victory, but two. And the head of Sam Monroe. He
stood in his stirrups, turned, and called for Captain Reyes. It was going to
be... it was going to be all right. This pass, Boca Chica, was narrow,
its sides much too steep for cavalry to come down on his flanks. So, whether
the northerners maneuvered in front of him as the pass widened, or tried to
attack from the rear, the result would be the same. His people would hammer
them, ride them down. The
colonel saw Captain Reyes cantering to him for orders... and felt the early
autumn wind's caress as a promise of victory.
* *
*
"He's
armed a squadron — no, he's arming all his people down there." On the
mountainside, Howell Voss sat slumped on a sweated horse, a remount. He'd left
his wonderful Adelante wind-broken and dying two days back, as they'd left
other horses his troopers had ridden to death on the fast chase south through
these mountains. A brutal cost in fine animals. They had no fresh mounts left. Beside
him, Sam Monroe sat his horse, a weary sore-backed bay, looked down the
mountainside's steep slope, and said, "Perfect." In
the narrow defile below, the cataphracts were lifting their heavy folds of
chain-mail from the pack-horses' duffels, shaking them out, wrestling into
them, fastening latches and buckles. Then, weighty, lumbering to their chargers
to dress them in oiled jingling steel skirts. "
'Perfect'? I don't see how this is going to get done at all." Voss leaned
from his saddle to spit thirst's cotton. His empty eye-socket itched, as always
when sweat ran into it under the patch. "We've got only Headquarters'
Heavies, that's two hundred and fifty of my troopers — and what's left of Ned's
Lights fit to fight, another two, three hundred." "Yes." "Sam,
there are maybe seven hundred cataphracts down there." "Seven
hundred and fourteen." "Our
people are tired, and our horses — the ones we have left — are even tireder
from chasing these imperials for almost a fucking Warm-time week." "So?" "Sir,
go down there, I'd say we're asking for another cavalry disaster." Sam
smiled at him. "That's what I'd say, too, Howell, where cavalry's
concerned. But what we have down there, to quote old Elvin, is 'an infantry
situation.' " "We're
not infantry." Sam
swung off his horse. "Ah — but we're going to be."
*
* *
"Pass
begins to widen up ahead," Rodriguez said, "past the next turn of
rock." Captain Reyes stood in his stirrups to look. "Scouts
out, sir?" "To
report what, Captain ? That the pass widens slightly past the turn, as we know
it widens ? That the enemy has come down and is waiting, as they surely
are?.... Now, I want our formations shaken out into ranks three deep across
this Boca, wall to wall. Third Squadron to reverse order and hold in
place farther back up the pass to cover the rear. If any of the northern
cavalry — and it must be cavalry to have caught up with us — if any have
followed down the pass, Davila is to immediately charge and strike them." "Yes,
sir." "He
is not to wait for my command." "Understood." "If
most, or all their force, has come from the hills and is waiting before us —
Mother Mary, please make it so — we will charge them in march order. First
Squadron, then Second in support, if there's anyone left to ride over." "Yes,
sir." "Pass
those orders — and see they are understood, Tomas." "I
will!" A fine salute — and another sample of horsemanship as he turned and
galloped away on the gray.... Man was a pleasant fellow, but really an ass. Soon
enough, another rider came up. Major Moro — practically elderly, and would
never be more than a major. Very dark, too, well named Moro. "Am
I to suppose, Colonel, that this time Reyes got an order right? My squadron
remains as marching, and first for the charge if the cabrons come down
to meet us?" "That
is exactly right," Rodriguez said. "And be careful of your language,
Major. The angels may be watching us, now." Major
Moro made a face. "It is those things from the north the angels need to
watch, and carry their filthy souls away!" "Absolutely."
Rodriguez crossed himself to seal that truth. "The orders are as given.
Now, get back to your men." Moro
saluted and was gone. The
pass was turning… opening. Two long bow-shots, now — no more. Rodriguez
held up his right hand. First Squadron's trumpeter immediately blew three
short, rising notes — and the colonel heard, behind him, more than two troops
of heavy-armored cavalry spur to the trot, horses' hooves beginning a rhythmic
hammer, draped chain-mail making soft music as they came. Proud
of them, he said to himself, certain
such pride was forgivable. The pass was turning. Turning. An edge, a sliver of
open grassland was becoming visible past the mountain's slope. Steel sparkled
against that hint of green. Rodriguez
reined Salsa far to the right — his guidon-bearer, Gomez, following — to clear
Moro's men for the charge. Called
commands.... Then First Squadron began to wheel in stately turn to the left,
ranks in good order as the pivot files slowed. It swung ponderously out into
the pass's mouth; Salsa, champing his bit, was shouldered into the Boca's rough
wall as the right-flank ranks rode by. No
mounted troopers were waiting at the pass's narrow entrance. No horses. Only
big, bearded men — and what seemed to be a few women — in polished
cuirasses, black-plumed steel
helmets, brown wool, leather, and black thigh-boots. Two long rows of
these people, all holding short, square shields grounded, and gripping
twelve-foot lances like pikemen, heavy straight sabers sheathed at their sides. There
were two more ranks behind them. Those, Light Cavalry — men, and many more of
their godless northern women — in
hauberks, and armed with lighter lances, curved sabers. And
all on foot, drawn up as infantry. Clever,
if they're up to it... don't miss
having horses under them. Rodriguez wanted a moment to think, to consider
the situation, but Major Moro was not a thinker. First Squadron's trumpeter
sounded two bright notes, then a long silver third — and more than two hundred huge horses sprang
from the trot to the gallop, kicking stones, sending red dirt flying. They
launched themselves and their riders as one, so chain-mail shook and rang like
bells above the drumroll of hooves. As they passed, Rodriguez smelled coppery
dust, horse sweat, oiled steel. The
first rank of cataphracts leaned to the right in their saddles, lifting their
battle-axes free. And as if in a dance agreed upon, the northerners' long
lances swung down in response into a glittering needled hedge, the men crouched
low behind them, shields braced. For
a few moments that seemed more than moments, the space of air and light between
the gallopers and those waiting ranks contracted, grew shadowy... then
collapsed as the ground jarred and shook. They
came together in a great splintering crash that smothered trumpet calls. Bright
steel shone through roiling red dust, and horses screamed — not men, not yet,
though the cataphracts' own furious armored weight drove them to impalement,
even through their draperies of chain-mail. Their battle-axes, flailing down
right and left, struck with the solid sound of woodsmen's axes into ripe wood —
or rang skidding off shields set slanting. A
black charger — all Moro's squadron rode blacks — exploded out of confusion
riderless, bucked and raced away, kicking at its dragging entrails as it went.
Under red dust, horsemen spurred in, shouting as they hacked with heavy axes,
while the northerners, fighting silent, caught these men and mounts on ranked
lance points that rose and fell in rippling lines. "Column!"
Rodriguez shouted for that fool, Reyes. "Second Squadron to form
column!" "Yes,
sir!" And there Reyes was. A fine horseman. "Second
Squadron into column — and advance!" There was an extraordinary amount of
dust now... clouds of it, hard to shout through. "Sir!"
Reyes turned his horse — and seemed to meet an arrow come down out of nowhere,
that rang off his chest's steel and whined away. "Look!" He pointed
up. Rodriguez
looked up and saw infantry — no, more fucking dismounted cavalry, Light Cavalry
by their mail shirts — high on the steep slopes of the Boca. Not many,
perhaps thirty of them on each side, but they were using bows — those
fucking longbows with the short lower limb. Barefoot, too — most of them he
could see — to keep from stumbling and falling into the pass. Using
their bows — as I should have had
each squadron's archers deploy to do. Too late now. Rodriguez waved Reyes
away. "Into column! Column!" "Sir!"
Reyes spurred — and galloped into another arrow. This one took him in the belly
by worst chance, just where the heavy fall of mail divided at his saddle-bow. Dead.
Rodriguez looked to see the captain
fall, but he didn't. He rode bent over his saddle like an old woman — his fine
seat gone in agony — but galloped out to Major Ticotin. Second Squadron was
shouted slowly out of extended line… slowly into column of ten. "Receive
these!" Colonel Rodriguez called to the enemy as he rode, intending to go
in with Ticotin. "Receive these, you fuckers!" He had no need to see
what had happened to Moro's troopers. His ears told him. At the mouth of the
pass, under the screams of dying horses, sounded the bright swift hammering of
steel... the sobbing, grunting, barely caught breaths of men gutted on the
pikes the northerners had made of their long lances. "Well,
you're very clever!" Rodriguez, galloping to Second Squadron's guidon,
addressed Sam Monroe. "Now, let's see you stop cataphracts in
column!" "You
are not going in with us. Absolutely not!" Major Ticotin looked
furious, face pale above his beard. Dust was drifting around them like red fog.
"You are staying back, Colonel!" "I'm
going in with you!" There
was a squealing sound — a damned pig somehow mixed up in this — and Rodriguez
saw Captain Reyes off a way, saw him quite clearly leaning far back in his
saddle, plucking at something. — The arrow shaft, of course, sticking out of
his belly. He was making the sound. "Your
ass is staying back!" Major Ticotin reached over with the blade of his
saber and sliced through Rodriguez's reins. Almost took his hand off. "You're
under arrest!" Rodriguez laughed at having said something so stupid. He
tried to turn Salsa to follow with knees alone, then climbed down to catch the
reins and knot them together. Second
Squadron poured past him like a river. Chestnut horses. Trumpets... trumpets. He
found the rein ends — goddamn horse circling around — knotted them, and swung up into the saddle,
grunting with the jingling weight of his armor, just as Second Squadron, at
full gallop, struck the center of the northerners' line. Struck
it, broke it, and thundered through. I have him. I have him — thank you, Mother of
God. "Reyes!" ... No Reyes. Reyes was gone. Rodriguez
spurred back up the pass. A long bow-shot down the defile, Third Squadron still
waited, facing north, where now no enemy would come. "Orders! Gomez!"
His guidon-bearer, not very intelligent, seemed startled to be transmitting
orders in place of Captain Reyes. "Go
to Major Davila. Third Squadron to reverse front, and advance! Now, you
idiot!" Gomez
hauled his horse's head around and kicked the animal into a gallop as Rodriguez
watched him go — watched for a moment to be certain an arrow didn't come down
to Gomez, cancel the order. Worse rider than I am. Really a ridiculous
figure... bouncing on the goddamn saddle as if he were fucking it. No
arrow for Gomez. It seemed to Rodriguez that fewer arrows were coming down.
Harder to mark targets, now, through the dust — and thank God's Mother for it.
He turned Salsa back to the noise of fighting, cantered that way… and heard
trumpet calls behind him. Third Squadron would be reversing files. Rodriguez
rode to the fighting — glanced back, and saw Gomez galloping down the pass to
catch up... saw Third Squadron reforming. The noise of fighting ahead was
extraordinary — crashes of metal, shrieks of injured horses echoing off the Boca's
narrow walls as if the devil had sent a band from hell to serenade the
dying. Through
a haze of dust, Rodriguez saw that the northerners' line was certainly broken.
Ticotin's men had driven deep into their center, so the long ranks of
dismounted lancers were swinging away to either side of the breach like cantina
doors, their dead dotting the dirt and grass behind them. Swinging
away... so Second Squadron, galloping in, cheering, ax blades flashing through
red dust, rode deeper between the northerners' ranks. The noise was
terrific, the clangor, and thunderous sound of the chargers' hooves. Then,
louder, answering thunder sounded behind him, behind and high above. Rodriguez
turned in his saddle, but there was only clear blue sky over the pass's rim,
and Third Squadron now in motion, starting down the pass at a steady trot. "Sir...
Sir!" Gomez rode up, shouting, miming listening, his hand cupping
his ear. Rodriguez thought he meant that odd sound of thunder — then heard a
trumpet call out of the fighting, an imperial call. The rally. Why? Rodriguez
spurred Salsa to a gallop, drew his saber, and rode into the hammered dust of
fighting, his guidon-bearer still calling after him. There
was, he thought, as he leaned to strike one of their wounded cuirassiers
staggering past — there was an odd satisfaction in seeing the difficulty. The ranks
of northerners, that had swung so wide apart at Second Squadron's charge, were
now slowly swinging shut to enclose it. Remarkable, such a maneuver, and
accomplished by dismounted cavalry. Fine officers.... The
rally sounded again, Ticotin trying to keep his horsemen together — to drive
deeper yet, break the trap's jaws.... It would not work. Rodriguez
longed to charge into the fight. He felt that he could ride into the battle,
gallop over the battle like an angel, and save his men. He spurred Salsa
closer to the fighting, and rode against a file of men, bearded, covered with
dust, clumsy in their high boots. One saw him, turned, and presented a
lance-point. Rodriguez parried it aside, cut down at the man, struck something
— perhaps only the lance shaft — and that man and all of them were gone,
swallowed in clouds of dust, shouted commands, confusion. Dust
was in the colonel's mouth, but a breeze had come and bannered red haze aside
to show clearly how Ticotin's troopers were dying, as if a great carnivorous
plant — its petals treacherously open — now closed bright thorns upon them from
either side. More
thunder behind him — odd sliding thunder. Gomez, that idiot, was shouting
again.... Ticotin was stuck in shit and would not get out, but Third Squadron was
coming. Rodriguez turned in his saddle to wave them on and into a gallop.
They'd be in time… but barely. He
turned to see their bannered ranks now spurring into the gallop — and saw, a
moment later, the mountainsides coming down into the pass. The
steep slopes to right and left were suddenly brown and gray rivers of bounding,
rolling, skidding boulders. A torrent of stone was coming down in landslides,
great granite monuments tilting, toppling to swell those catastrophic currents. Of
course. The Light Cavalry archers had stopped shooting only to climb to the
ridges… begin those slides of stone. The
sound was beyond sound; it buffeted Rodriguez like blows. Salsa shied and
reared away. He
controlled the horse — had time to see Davila and his trumpeter, at the head of
Third Squadron, both staring up like astonished children as the mountainsides
fell upon them. Avalanches of rock, a flood of stone, flowed and thundered down
into the narrow pass and over the horsemen. Here and there bright steel wavered
for an instant, ranks of men and horses screamed — and were gone, vanished
beneath tons of rumbling granite that seemed to come down forever, while dust
billowed, eddied in the air. ...
Perhaps forty, perhaps fifty men and horses — saved by miracles — staggered here
and there as the last showers of stone, the last great boulders skipped,
crashed, rolled and settled. Several of these horses had broken legs dangling.
Many of the men, dust-coated, swaying in their saddles, were shouting warnings
— as if what had already happened was
only about to happen. Rodriguez
heard a trumpet call — a call unknown to him —
back at the entrance to the pass. He turned Salsa's head and rode that
way. Gomez reined up beside him. "How?" he said. "How?"
— as if their ranks were equal. The
destroyed men were still shouting behind them. There were also screams, but not
many. Rodriguez
smiled at his guidon-bearer as if they were old friends, the best of friends
riding together. "How? By my misjudgment, and the northerners' commendable
initiative." "Ah..."
Gomez nodded, apparently satisfied. At
the mouth of the pass, now only those northerners stood — though there were
slight disturbances within their ranks as the last of Ticotin's men were
pierced with lances or dragged from their big horses to be hacked to death. "Yes,"
Rodriguez said aloud, and meant he'd been right before, to wish to ride into
the fighting. "Go with God," he said to his guidon-bearer — drove in
his spurs, and galloped out of the pass toward the ranks of his enemies. He felt
very well, really quite well... though he was saddened to hear Gomez following,
riding behind him. Well, the man was a fool... always had been.
*
* *
The
fighting dust had settled, so the southern sun shone richly to warm the men and
horses still alive. Now, near silence lay as if there'd been no noise in these
mountains, no shouting, no trumpets, no hammering steel on steel in Boca
Chica Pass. It
was a familiar quiet, the stillness after battle. Sam Monroe closed his eyes,
eased his muscles to enjoy it. He was sitting on a dead horse, its skirts of
chain-mail dark with blood and shit. Its rider lay with it; he'd been caught
with a leg under the animal when it fell, and had been killed there. Sam
hadn't drawn his sword through most of the fighting. He might have; he'd met
several of their horsemen in the battle's dust and fury. It had been odd —
perfect Warm-time word. Odd. He'd
ridden here and there, watching his men maneuver — and so well, obedient to their officers and
sergeants as if they'd been veteran infantry, never cavalry at all. Wonderful,
really, and all the more appreciated when a man simply rode — his worried
trumpeter reining behind — as if terrible noise, dust, savage struggles, and
the screams of hurt horses and dying men had nothing to do with him at all. He'd
met two cataphracts. They'd spurred at him, then passed, never striking — as if
he were a person separate from the fighting. At the battle's end, one imperial,
galloping blind out of clouds of dust, had come swinging his battle-ax. Sam
had swayed to the side and away from the ax's stroke — drawing sword as he did — then straightened
in his saddle to slash the cataphract just under his helmet's nasal. And as the
injured man reined past, spitting teeth and blood, Sam struck again, a back-stroke
and much harder, to the nape. Though the chain-mail there caught the sword's
edge, the blow's force broke the man's neck, and his charger trotted him away
dying, his head rolling this way and that. ...
Sam opened his eyes to hoofbeats as Howell Voss rode up, looking furious. An
ax, that must have been swung very hard, had chopped his helmet's steel,
snicked off the tip of his left ear. Voss, bareheaded now, was holding his
bandanna to it. "Howell….
Lucky for the helmet." "I
know it." Blood still ran down Voss's wrist. "You want their
colonel's head to take back?" "No,
don't disturb their colonel. Leave him lying with his troopers." There was
a spray of blood across Sam's hauberk. "You
hurt?" "Not
anymore," Sam said. Just the sort
of vainglorious phrase the army would like, with a defeat so thoroughly
revenged. The sort of phrase that seemed to come to him more and more easily. Small
black shadows printed across the battlefield. The ravens had come to Boca
Chica. "We
have two hundred and eighteen prisoners, Sam — we finished the worst wounded.
Nine of the prisoners are officers." "Behead
those officers. And please tell them I regret the necessity." "...
Yes, sir." A battle-made gentleman himself — his mother a tavern
prostitute, his father a passing mystery — Voss had a soft spot for officers. "Someone
else can do it, Howell." "I'll
do it." "Okay."
That strange Warm-time word 'okay.' Yet everyone seemed to know what it meant,
without explanation. "We'll let the troopers go. Leave them twenty of
their horses for the wounded, and a few bows and battle-axes in case bandits
come down on them." "As
you say." Voss saluted, and started to turn his mount away. "And
Howell..." "Sir?" "Sorry
about the ear." Voss
smiled. And when he smiled — the handsome horse-face with its eye-patch
suddenly creased and looking kind — Sam understood what women saw in him.
"It's just a fucking ear, Sam. And I've still got most of it." "True.
And, Howell, it was very well done of your people — very well done for cavalry to maneuver
so decisively on foot." "Your
idea, sir." "Ideas
are easy, Colonel. But shaping horsemen into infantry formations in the middle
of a fight, is not easy." "The
people paid attention — and I was lucky." "That,
too." Sam held out his hand, and Howell leaned down to take it.
"Thank you." I weld them to me. Sam watched Howell ride away,
holding the bandanna to his injured ear. As I hammer, polish, and sharpen
all my tools and instruments... Howell
Voss would be the man to take the Rascob brothers' place. — Ned Flores had a
sense for horses and distance and country. And both old Butler and Charmian
were wonderful infantry commanders.... But here at the pass, Howell had turned
from commanding Heavy Cavalry and Light, to commanding them as
unaccustomed infantry. And he'd done it perfectly, as Sam had stood aside —
needing only the hint that the imperials would likely come, the second time, in
column. "Good!"
Howell had said. "I'll let 'em in — then re-form, and swing the doors
shut." The important word in that, of course, had been 'Good!' That
swift-reasoned eagerness. So,
a decision taken — and old Jaime and Elvin Rascob both now ghosts, though they
didn't know it. It would also be useful — certainly sweet Second-mother Catania
would have agreed — to manage Howell and Portia-doctor together at last, so
Voss's loneliness didn't end by crippling him as a commander. New
instrument prepared; old instruments discarded. And instruments for what? The
peace, and peace of mind, of two hundred thousand North Map-Mexico farmers,
shepherds, tradesmen? Was that sufficient reason for the cataphracts dying here
at Boca Chica? How
much difference would it make if the Emperor came back up to rule the north? If
the Khan came down to rule it? Careless rule, or cruel — how much of a
difference? Enough to be worth the deaths at This'll Do, then Boca Chica... and
all the deaths in the years before? No
difference now to fourteen Light Cavalry, caught on the slopes by their own
avalanche. No
difference to the one hundred and eighty-three troopers killed playing infantry
against the cataphracts. The
soft sunny day was fading, laying long shadows across beaten grass, across dead
men and dead horses. A fading day, but still warm so far south.... Sam took a drink
of water from his canteen. He imagined it was vodka — imagined so well that he
could taste the lime juice squeezed into it. Flies
had blanketed the dead horse he sat on, and veiled the pinned cataphract's
ruined face. This crawling, speckled drapery rose clouding when Sam stood to
walk away, and drifted humming along with his first few steps, as if he might
be dead as well.
CHAPTER 6
"Am
I clever, Razumov?" "Very,
my lord." "And
you will have the courage to warn me when I'm not?... Should that ever happen." "I
will try to find the courage, lord." "Good
answer." The Lord of Grass was in his garden — a summer garden now past
the end of its delicate temporary blossoming of sweet peas, pansies, and
bluebonnets. The sweet peas were already gone, the bluebonnets and pansies
withering in Lord Winter's earliest winds.... The garden and its paths were at
the center of a small city of yurts, tents, buildings and pavilions set on
gently rolling prairie, a few Warm-time miles north of the mound of Old
Map-Lubbock. There
had been, not opposition, but complaints at moving Caravanserai from Los
Angeles to the mid Map-Texas prairie, only eighteen horseback days south of the
Wall of Ice. However, after one complaint too many on the subject had cost
Colonel Sergei Pol his breath, there was an agreeable acceptance. From
his childhood, Toghrul had been fond of flowers. "Of course," he'd
told his father, when that silent Khan had raised an eyebrow on finding his
only son digging in the dirt with a serving fork, "of course, we cannot
have the best Warm-time blossoms. None of their hollyhocks, lilacs, dahlias,
roses." His
father had watched Toghrul at work for a while, then grunted and strolled away,
seeming neither surprised nor disappointed. Silence
had been the Great Khan's weapon. Silence — slow, dark, deep as drowning water.
In conference, from the time he was a child, Toghrul had watched his father's
silence slowly fill with other men's talk — their arguments, defiances,
explanations... and finally, their submissions. Their pleas. The
Khan, a short man, nearly wide as he was tall, would sit listening until at
last the others came to silence also. Then, he spoke. Toghrul's
was a different way, from boyhood. He chatted with those who chatted with him,
was quick in humor and appreciative of humor in others, so it came each time as
the grimmest shock when pleasant conversation ended pleasantly... and the
stranglers stepped, yawning, from behind their curtain. The
Lord of Grass bent to examine a dying bluebonnet. "How I wish for
roses." "We
can get them, lord, from the south." "Yes,
Michael, we can get them from the south. They will arrive... then die as soon
as our north winds touch them. I would rather not have them at all, than lose
them." "They
might be kept in warm little houses, with windows of flat glass." "Michael,
I'm aware the coarse queen of Middle Kingdom keeps her vegetables and flowers
alive in those sorts of houses, even after summer's over. But the notion of
captive roses doesn't please me." "No,
my lord; I take your point. And if we find a painter to paint the most
beautiful roses for you?" "Razumov...
Razumov. I would rather not have roses, than pretend to have them." The
chancellor bowed, and left the subject prettily. "The blossom of good
judgment, however, is yours, Great Khan, since the Captain-General Monroe has
followed his lesson of defeat with a triumph in revenge." "Yes."
The Khan swung his horse-whip to behead a windburned bluebonnet. "A mercy,
it was too pale a shade of blue.... Yes, a thoughtful Captain-General. He was
clever, and I was clever concerning him. Now, I believe we'd better send just
enough bad weather to see what shelter he runs to." Yuri
Chimuk — an older man, large, flat-faced, and badly scarred — had followed
along on the flower tour, silent. Chimuk had been an officer under the old
Khan, and had seen enough death on the ice from Vladivostok to Map-Anchorage —
and in slightly warmer country farther and farther south as the years went by —
to have lost any fear of it. The old general was one of the few men Toghrul
knew, who weren't afraid of him. "Your
thoughts, Yuri?" "Lord,
our serious men are occupied commencing your campaign against Middle Kingdom.
Since Manu Four-Horsetails is useless as tits on a bull, send him down to peck
along the Map-Bravo. He's capable of that, at least." Manu
Ek-Tam was the old man's grandson, the apple, as Warm-times had had it, of his
eye — and already a very formidable commander at twenty-four, having completed,
it must be said, an exceptional campaign in Map-Nevada. "Five
thousand cavalry might be too heavy a peck, Yuri. I don't want North Mexico
disturbed to war, just when we're striking east. The river people will be
troublesome enough." "Manu
shouldn't be commanding five thousand; he's not capable. Give him a
thousand, lord." "So
few? You don't want him killed, do you, old man?" "It
would be a relief to be rid of him." "...
Umm. We'll say two thousand. Send some of Crusan's people down from
Map-Fort Stockton to reinforce Manu. And remind your grandson, Yuri — pecks,
harassment, not an invasion." Yuri
Chimuk got down on his hands and knees — something he'd been excused from doing
years before, but persisted in as an odd independence. "What the Khan has
ordered, I will perform." When
the old man stood and stomped away, Toghrul watched him go, absently switching
the top of his right boot with the horse-whip. "Your thoughts, Michael
Razumov." "First,
why wake a sleeping dog, my lord? And..." "
'And'?" "And,
second, Yuri Chimuk loves his grandson even more than he loves you." "Well...
first, the North-Mexican dog must be wakened sometime. And I need to
know whether, when kicked, he will run yelping south to the Empire, or east, to
Middle Kingdom.... Second, as to Yuri's love for his grandson, it is only
required that he blame himself for that brilliant and ambitious young
officer's death, when — as it must — that occurs. We have room, after all, for
only one genius of war." "Is
this in my hands, lord?" "Not
yet." The Khan leaned over a pansy. "Look, Michael, look at this
brave little face. A tiny golden roaring lion, pictured in a Warm-time
book." "It
is charming." "Do
you love me, Michael? You loved me when I was a boy, I know. I used
to watch you, watching me." "I
did love you, my lord, and still do. Being aware that that remains entirely
beside the point." The
Khan laughed, and bent to stroke the little pansy flower. "You are full of
good answers, today." "And,
I regret to say, a question, lord." "Yes?"
The Khan stood. "Map
— Los Angeles and Map-San Diego — " "The
Blue Sky damn them both. What now?" "Complaints,
Great Khan. Ships do not arrive from the Empire with goods we've already paid
for. Buk Szerzinski complains particularly, saying he has a Map-Pacific supply
depot with no supplies of lumber, rope, grain, barrels of citrus juice,
slaves, steel, or horses. All things to be needed by your generals as Lord
Winter comes, and fighting increases in Map-Missouri." "The
problem being silver money?" "Absolutely,
lord. Money is the cause. The Empire accepts our silver, but discounts it
against their gold. Szerzinski, and Paul Klebb in Map-Los Angeles, both claim
they pay the full price agreed upon, only to have the dirty lying bank of Mexico
City discount its worth, so barely half of what was bought is delivered
north." The
Khan ran his whip's slim lash through his fingers. "Those two are not
lying, stealing from me?" "They're
not nearly brave enough for that, lord. And my men have examined the
transactions." "So,
the Emperor comes to agreements; his orders are sent — but the dirty bank decides. A matter of
civilization versus — wonderful
Warm-time word, 'versus' — a crowd of savages galloping around in the chilly
north." "Precisely,
Great Lord." "Fucking
clever currency exchanges and shifting values —
gold up, silver down. How are we simple, honorable warriors to
comprehend its principles?" "Just
so." The
Khan stooped to touch another surviving pansy, one black and gold. "Well, Michael,
since we have the savage name, we might as well play the savage game. I will
not be caught short at Middle Kingdom's river." "Your
command?" "Arrest
the… five most important members of the Imperial Order of Merchants and Factors
in both Map-Los Angeles and Map-San Diego. Pour molten gold down their throats.
Then ship the corpses to Mexico City, with the note, 'Herewith, lading payments
in gold — as apparently preferred. Complete deliveries expected soonest.'
" "Perfect,
lord." "Sufficient,
let us hope…. Anything else this evening?" "Only
a last question, if permitted." "Yes?" "As
to your intention, lord, of going east to Map-Missouri to command
personally." "Oh,
I'll wait until Murad Dur and Andrei Shapilov begin to make mistakes, which
will likely be soon enough." "Then
I have nothing further worth your attention, Great Khan." Michael Razumov
went to his hands and knees, then touched his forehead to the gravel of the
Cat's-Eye Path. He was a fat man, and it was awkward for him. ...
Toghrul had often considered relieving his chancellor of the necessity, but
each time, a voice — his father's, perhaps —
had murmured caution. He liked Michael Razumov, and almost trusted him.
Reason enough to keep him on all fours. When
Toghrul was alone — but for twenty troopers of the Guard's Regiment pacing here
and there — he said his farewell to the dying flowers... which had wanted
nothing from him but sheep shit and water. Then he walked the Turquoise Path to
his great yurt of oiled yellow silk, spangled with silver... set its entrance
cloth aside, and stepped into the smell and smoke of cooking sausage. His
wife, and the slave named Eleanor, were preparing dinner at the yurt's center
stove. — The caravanserai cooked and served for hundreds... thousands, if need
be. But Toghrul had learned to avoid those kettles of boiled mutton with
southern rice and peppers, though he would poke and fork at the food on
occasions of state. The old Khan had loved that sort of cooking. His
wife looked up from cluttered pots and pans, through smoke rising to the
ceiling's small Sky's eye. "What today, sweet lord?" "Oh,
Ladu, the tedious usual — causing fear and giving orders." He tossed his
horse-whip onto a divan, then sat while Eleanor wrestled his boots off. Eleanor
was a handsome woman with braided hair the color of autumn grass. Once, she had
looked into Toghrul's eyes in the way a woman might gaze at a man while
offering, while considering possibilities, advantages. Toghrul
had then had Chang-doctor remove her left eye — it had been done under southern
poppy syrup — with no explanation offered. But Eleanor had understood, and
Toghrul's wife had understood. So now, the slave offered no more impudent
glances of that sort, and seemed content. "We
have pig sausage and onions and shortbread cake. Will those help?" His
wife smiled. "They
will certainly help." Where
the old Khan had mounted any pretty female oddment the armies found — enjoying
the novelty, apparently — Toghrul, after some experiment, had decided on a
traditional wife. Ladu, a Chukchi, somewhat squat and a little plump, had been
chosen from the daughters of several senior officers — officers safely dead in
battle, so dynastic entanglements were avoided. Toghrul
often considered that choice his best proof of good judgment, since Ladu had
not found him frightening, then had come to care for him. One morning, waking
beside her and watching that round, unremarkable face still soft in sleep, her
short little ice-weather nose, the deep folds over slanted eyes closed in
dreaming, he'd been startled to find that he loved her. This still surprised
and amused him. It warmed him too, in a minor way, on winter rides,
campaigning…. Only sons were missing — or had been. Ladu's little belly had
been swelling for months, and properly, according to Chang-doctor. So
now, of course, there were expectations of a son. The staff had expectations…
the chiefs and generals, also. Toghrul could disappoint them, and they would
bear it…. Ladu could not. She, and old Chimuk, were the only ones who never stood
before him without anticipating a possible dreadful blow. That fear, its wary
distancing, was certainly tedious, certainly made ruling more difficult, but
Toghrul had found no way to remove it, since it was what the clans, the troops,
expected and had always expected. In that sense only, he was the ruled and they
the rulers. They were certain to be afraid of him; and what they required, he
must perform. ...
Ladu and Eleanor set hammered brass platters on the green carpet, a campaign
spoil, and one of the last of its kind, with wonderful figures of racing
blue-gray dogs woven into it. Toghrul slid off the divan and sat cross-legged
to eat. The women stood by the stove, watching him, his appetite their reward. "Delicious!"
The sausage was wonderful. Bless the pig herd, though many of his men —
those still worshiping Old Maybe —
wouldn't go near the animals, certainly wouldn't eat their flesh. Both
women had nodded, smiling at his 'Delicious!' The Great Khan, He Who Is Feared
and Lord of Grass, had paid for his supper.
* *
*
"They're
inside, came down yesterday." Margaret Mosten, by torchlight, motioned to
Sam's tent. "Charles
and Eric?" "Yes,
sir." "No
quarters of their own?" "They
wanted to speak with you." "Nailed
Jesus...." Sam swung down off his horse. Not his horse — Handsome
was dead, left in the mountains, south. This was a nameless hard-mouthed brute,
one of the imperials' big chargers.... They'd ridden back north by slow marches
— more than a Warm-time week — the last returning days hungry, and all but the
wounded taking turns on foot. "Sir"
— Margaret's eyes shone in the pine-knot's flaring — "what a wonderful thing." She'd
been left behind to mind the camp. "Killing
their people, did not bring ours back to life." Sam walked sore and
stiff-legged to the tent's entrance, put back the flap, and stepped into
lamplight. Charles
Ketch, tall, gray, seeming weary of the weight of administration, sat hunched
on Sam's locker. Eric Lauder, livelier, alert, perched cross-legged on the cot.
A checker-board was propped between them. In age, they might almost have been
father and son, but in no other way. "Make
yourselves at home." "Ah"
— Eric jumped a piece and took it off the board — "the conquering hero
comes." Sam
swung his scabbarded sword's harness from his back, set the weapon by the head
of the cot, and shrugged off his cloak. "Get off my bed, Eric. I'm
tired." "Are
you hurt?" "No.
I avoided the fighting." Sam waited while Lauder stood and lifted the
checker-board away. "Been injured in my pride, of course." He sat on
the cot, then lay down and stretched out, boots and all. It felt wonderful to
be out of the saddle. "You
seem to have made the best of a bad blunder." Eric emptied the checkers
into their narrow wooden box. "I
was winning that game," Charles, annoyed. "You owe me five pesos." "Would
have owed — had you won." "I
suppose the best of a bad blunder." Sam thought of sitting up to take his
boots off. It seemed too great a task. "Yes."
Eric set the board against the tent wall. "But what sort of blunder was
it?" "A
serious one — sending Ned Flores and a half-regiment to do a larger force's
work." The tent's lamp smelled of New England's expensive whale oil, and
seemed too bright. Sam closed his eyes for a moment. "And
what 'work' was that, Sam?" "The
work of winning a fight here, Eric." "Winning
a fight?" Eric sat on the locker
beside Charles, nudged him to shift over. "You know, there is nothing more
stupid than keeping a secret from your chief of intelligence." "Except,"
Charles said, and winked at Sam, "telling him all of them." "I
made a mistake, Eric, doing something that was necessary. I was clumsy, and it
cost us good people." Sam sat up to take off his boots. "What I could
do to retrieve the situation has been done. Now change the subject." "Fine,"
Eric said. "What subject shall we change to?" Smiling, his voice
pleasant, softer than before, his dark eyes darker than his trimmed beard, he
was very angry. "Sleep." "Before
sleep, Sam" — Charles leaned forward — "there are questions in the
army. Not complaints; more surprise than anything." "Charles,
the army is to be told this: We fought a battle, lost it — learned — then
fought again and won. We will likely fight more battles, and may lose another,
then fight again and win. Only children are allowed to win every time.
That's what the army is to be told. Any officer with more questions, can come
to me with them." Charles
sat on the locker, looking at him. "...Alright." "A
good answer," Eric said. "The fucking army thinks it's Mountain Jesus
come down from his tree." "Anything
else?" "Yes.
Sam, there's serious fighting now, in the north. The Kipchak patrols are
already in Map-Arkansas — and probably up into Map-Missouri as well; going to
be trying for the river fairly soon. The major clans — Eagles, Foxes, Skies,
and Spring Flowers — all gathered into tumans. It's to be winter war, no
question.... Merchants we talk to, say Middle Kingdom is spending gold in
preparation, particularly on their fleet. Frontier companies of their West-bank
army are already skirmishing." "No
surprises there. Anything else?" "Yes." "Eric,"
Charles said, "it can wait." "No,
it can't." "Rumors,
Sam." "Not
rumors, Charles," Eric said. "First informationals." "Alright."
Sam felt sick to his stomach — from being so tired, he supposed. "Let's
hear it." "Pigeon
news from Texas, Twelve-mile," Eric said, almost whispering. "Our
Secret-person there tells us a regiment, under Vladimir Crusan, rode out of
Map-Fort Stockton yesterday. Riding south to Map-Alpine, then probably down to
the Bravo. Also indications that another regiment is coming south to join
him." Sam
sat up straighter, rubbed the back of his neck to stay alert. "That's
interesting. You'd think they'd be too busy to trouble us. He has Seventh Tuman?" "The
Ninth," Eric said. "And I think the idea is to remind us to keep out
of their business." "What
do we know of Crusan?" "Only
half-Kipchak," Charles said. "A good, steady commander, but not the
independent type." "Crusan
is a good cavalryman." Eric frowned, considering. "But we don't think
— my people don't think — he's up to commanding more than the Ninth." "Coming
down at full strength?" "Apparently,
Sam. One regiment… so, Warm-time's give-or-take, a thousand horse archers. And
if, as seems likely, he joins with another detached regiment on the border,
that would make about two thousand men." '"Maneuvers? Blooding recruits for the campaign against
Middle Kingdom?" "That's
possible, Sam." Charles stood, stooping slightly under the tent's canvas.
"But more likely just to keep us out of it, since we flank them to the
south." "Which"
— Eric smiled — "makes them a little nervous. Pigeons have been coming in
from my people, Map-California on east. The Kipchaks are being careful to stay
well north of our border while they move their supplies through Map-Texas, mule
and wagon-freight from the coast.... They're having some difficulty getting
goods out of South Map-California — we don't know why — but they're still
gathering remounts at Map-Fort Stockton, Map-Big Spring, Map-Abilene." "Supplies
for more than a year's campaigning, Eric?" "No,
Sam. Not for more than a year." "So,
the Khan expects to beat the Boxcars, take their whole river kingdom, in Lord
Winter's season." "That's
right," Eric said. "And I'd say he can do it." "Not
easily." Charles shook his head. He looked tired as Sam felt. Looked his
age, stooped, graying. "He'll have to whip their West-bank army, then
campaign up and down the Map-Mississippi once it's frozen to easy going for
cavalry. And even if he destroys their fleet, he still has to deal with the
East-bank army." "Alright,
not easily," Eric said. "It's a big mouthful, but the Khan has a big
appetite. And in any case, these regiments coming south are a different matter.
They're just for us — a little reminder." "If
they're coming down, yes." Sam
could smell himself in the tent's closeness. Horse sweat and his sweat.
"But when — and if — the Kipchaks
break the Kingdom, control the river, it will give the Khan all the West, give
him the Gulf Entire.... Then we come next." "He
might not be able to do it at all." Charles pursed his lips, considering
the Khan's difficulties. "Kingdom's West-bank army is what, now, fifteen thousand
regulars? All heavy infantry. And they're only the first Boxcars he'll
meet." Sam
saw Charles trying to talk things better, take some of the decision-weight from
him. It didn't help. The conversation, repeating the heart of many
conversations, seemed dream talk, difficult to stay awake for. "Charles,
the Kipchaks can do it, if Lord Winter helps them and freezes the river fast. I
think I could do it with the Khan's forces — and if I could do it, it's damn
sure Toghrul can…. Now, Eric, this attack on our border. You
believe those people are coming down — or you know?" "I
know they rode south. And I'd say they'll cross the Bravo above
Map-Chihuahua." "Coming
down west of the Bend. Alright, I accept that — and on your head be it." Lauder
smiled. "Sam… what an unpleasant phrase." "Two
thousand wouldn't do to come against us seriously, and Crusan apparently not
the commander to try it. Still, it makes sense, if only as an exercise, to act
as if it were a serious threat." Sam thought a moment longer. "Charles,
see to it all border towns and posts in the area are notified of possible
trouble. They're to prepare their people to leave and march south up into the
hills if the order comes, or considerable forces of Khanate cavalry are
scouted. And by 'considerable,' I mean horsetails maneuvering in more than one
area, in near-regimental strength. Then — and only then — they are to
burn any standing crops, destroy any animals they can't take with them." "Good."
Lauder struck a fist into his other
palm. "Sam,
it's premature," Charles said, "even as a preliminary order. The
Khan's people are not even near the border." "Better
too early than too late. And if Eric's wrong about this, we'll cut his
pay." "If
I'm wrong, you can keep my pay." Lauder stood up. "Well, keep
a month of it, anyway." "
— Also, Charles..." Sam lost the thought for a moment from weariness, then
recalled it. "Also, all militia captains in Chihuahua are to be prepared
to act against light-cavalry raiders. By harassing only, cutting off straggling
small units, then retreating to broken or high ground. They are not to engage
in any considerable battle — and if that order is disregarded, I will
hang the captain responsible, win or lose." "Alright,
Sam." Charles sighed, resigned. His sighs, it seemed to Sam, more and more
frequent. "But even this — if it proves to be for nothing — is going to
cost us tax money we can't afford to lose. Crops burned, sheep and cattle
killed or taken." "If
it proves to be for nothing, Charles, we've at least got Eric's pay. These
orders are to be sent without delay. Riders tonight, birds in the
morning." "Yes,
sir." Definitely displeased. "And,
Sam," Lauder said, "while you're still awake..." "I'm
not awake." "Do
we have an answer for the merchant Philip Golvin?" "Oh,
shit." Sam lay back down, felt sore muscles settle in relief. "Unavoidable.
I'm sorry." "Eric,
is there any question he speaks for the Queen?" "None.
Golvin factors goods for Island, for river traffic generally, and acts
as an unofficial emissary. Queen Joan has used him before. Sent him all the way
to Boston, once — apparently he didn't care for the journey. Went by ship
across the Gulf, then up into the Map-Atlantic, sea-sick all the way." "Sam,"
Charles said, "she definitely wants a visit from you." "Wants
more than that," Lauder said. "Queen Joan's getting old, has only a
daughter — and ruling those barely-reformed cannibals can't be a pleasure. Two
armies, for Weather's sake! West-bank and East-bank, and the men and officers
of each kept absolutely separate!" "Good
reason for that," Sam said. What sort of hint did it need to be, when a
man lay stretched on his cot, to leave him alone to sleep? "But
only a king's reason, Sam, to hold power balanced between them. And there's the
Fleet." "Still,
Eric," Charles said, "the lady manages, keeps the throne. And with
the King dead, now, for seven years." "Charles,
I don't say she isn't formidable — Middle Kingdom's formidable — I'm just
saying she's looking for someone to hold the throne for her daughter, when
she's gone…. Looking for someone, Sam, who isn't one of their river
lords, isn't a general in either army. Queen Joan has a bookish
daughter, and no sons. She needs a son-in-law who won't cut her throat — or force her to cut his." "What
a prospect. 'Bookish daughter' and a cut throat." Sam closed his eyes
against the lamplight. "I doubt very much that the Queen is serious about
my marrying her daughter. She's presenting the possibility, so I'll send
troops to the Kingdom, help them against the Khan." "More
likely," Charles said. Eric
smiled. "Still, a possibility may become... probable." "Worse,"
Sam said, eyes still closed. "Necessary. Now, I'm tired, and I would
appreciate being left alone." "Alright."
Eric stood. "Alright... but this girl the Boston people have sent — " "It'll
wait. Now, if you two will put out that lamp and leave, you will make me very
happy.'' "In
the morning" — Charles leaned to blow out the hanging lantern — "back
to Better-Weather?" Sam
spoke into darkness. "Yes, we'll go, if the wounded can bear traveling.
There's nothing useful at this camp but the dirt my dead are buried in." ...
He lay, feeling too weary to sleep. Heard Charles and Eric murmuring, walking
away. Lauder already, apparently, with a good notion what had been intended
down here, what had gone wrong with Ned Flores and his people. Eric
was a razor with a slippery handle — bad temper and arrogance his weaknesses as
chief of intelligence.... Charles, as administrator, hampered in a different
way. His fault lay in fondness for Small-Sam Monroe, young enough to have
been his son. And that, of course, the more serious weakness, leading to errors
in judgment too subtle to be seen until suddenly damaging. Fierceness
and fondness... vulnerabilities balanced fairly enough between the two men most
important to North Map-Mexico. Most important beside the young Captain-General,
of course. And
now, it seemed the Khan was sending regiments south. A quick decision,
probably, taken the last few days. It was interesting to study the Kipchak's
Map-Nevada campaigns — see the pattern of them, far-ranging, swift,
gather-and-strike, gather-and-strike. A herding pattern, a hunting pattern
also, formed by generations lived in great empty spaces. A people, and
an army, in motion. All cavalry. They
wouldn't care for close, tangled places. Wouldn't care for high, broken
country, either. Now,
it seemed the Khan had decided, in the guise of two regiments, to greet and
become acquainted with North Map-Mexico's Captain-General — as a wrestler might
gently grip an opponent's arm, begin to try his strength and balance….
Toghrul perhaps grown weary of being locked into the western prairie, his way
east blocked by Middle Kingdom and its great river. A river, according to the
little librarian, Peter, much greater —
with even short summers' meltings of a continent of ice and snow — than
it had been as the Warm-time Mississippi. The
Khan might have difficulty campaigning against that kingdom while leaving his
underbelly exposed the whole winding length of the Bravo border. So, he was
sending — gently at first — to see how the metal of North Map-Mexico rang when
struck. A touch, and a warning. And
why was that news so welcome? So good to hear? Why seemed so rich with
opportunity? The answer came like certain music as Sam began to drift to
sleep... came as dreamed trumpet calls, sounding, Duty, duty, duty. What
trumpet call did not? ...Had
he taken his damn boots off? Couldn't remember.
CHAPTER 7
Martha
had washed herself, and her hair — drawn it up into a loose knot and pinned
it, then combed and finger-curled a long ringlet in front of each ear.
Charlotte Garfield had told her that her long hair, dark as planting
ground, was her best feature. "Only feature," Charlotte's
sister had said, and had neighed in fun at Martha's size. Though
clean, her hair done, Martha was scrubbing homespun small-clothes — just
discovered dirty beneath her father's bed — in the tub on the dog-trot, when
she glimpsed metal shining through the trees. She took her hands off the
rippled board, shook hot water and lye suds from her fingers, and watched that
shining become soldiers marching up along the River Road. There
was a short double-file of men, East-bank soldiers armored throat to belly with
green-enameled strips of steel across their chests... lighter steel strips down
their thighs, sewn to the front of thick leather trousers. An officer was
marching in front, and so must be a lieutenant. Lieutenants marched with their
men, and never rode. Martha
watched them through the trees — her wet, reddened hands chilled by the
early-winter air. Many soldiers traveled the River Road, now, because of
fighting in Map-Missouri.... Though that was the West-bank army, fighting over
there. She'd heard that army wore blue steel. As
Martha watched, the lieutenant and his men reached the cabin path — then turned
neatly and marched up it. They were coming to her father's house, something
soldiers had never done before. These were crossbowmen — heavy windlass bows
and quarrel bundles strapped to their packs, short-swords and daggers at their
belts. Long, green-dyed woolen cloaks, rolled tight, were carried over their
left shoulders. "Daddy!"
She thought surely William Bovey had
died after all, and they were coming to take her to hang. Her
father came to the door, said, "What is it?" Then saw what it was. More
than three Warm-time weeks before, Big William Bovey and two other large men
had come out to the cabin, angry over a deal for a four-horse wagon team, and
begun to beat Edward Jackson with sticks and their fists. It had seemed to
Martha they were killing her father. She'd
run into the farry shed, taken up a medium hammer, and come out and brained
William Bovey. Then she'd beaten his friends so bones were broken, and they'd
run. Bovey,
a corner of his brain tucked back in, had been asleep ever since at his aunt's
house up in Stoneville. It was the opinion of Randall-doctor that he would
never wake up. "No
death done," the magistrate had said, "and some excuse for the
fighting on both sides, since Edward Jackson is a horse-dealer and cheat. Yet
his daughter, only seventeen, had reason to fear for his life." The
magistrate, who chewed birch gum, had spit a wad of it into a brown clay jar on
his table. "All parties are now ordered to both peace and quiet under the
Queen's Law. Nothing will save any who break either." And
that had been that. Until now. "Run!"
her father said — too late, as the old man was usually too late. Martha
stood waiting, drying her hands on her apron, and wished for her mother. ...
The lieutenant was young, but not handsome, a freckled carrot-top in
green-steel strap armor. His face was shaved clean, like all soldiers'. He
swung up the path to the door-yard, and his men marched behind him — twelve of
them and all in step, their steel and leather creaking, till he put up his left
hand to halt them. "Well
— " Though slender, the lieutenant had a deep voice. "Well,
Honey-sweet, you're certainly big enough." His breath steamed slightly in
the morning air. "You are Ordinary Mattie Jackson?" "What
do you want here?" Martha wished her father would say something. The
lieutenant smiled, and looked handsomer when he did. He had one dot tattooed on
his left cheek, two on his right. "It's not what I want… not what
the captain wants... not what the major wants… not even what the colonel
wants." A
big man behind the lieutenant — a sergeant, he seemed to be — was smiling in a
friendly way. The sergeant was bigger than Martha, as a man should be. "No,"
the lieutenant said, "it appears to be a matter of what Island wants.
And Island's wishes are our commands." "You
leave us alone." The
lieutenant shook his head, still smiling. Martha's
father said nothing. Edward Jackson was worse than having no father at all. "Get
what things you can carry," the lieutenant said, not in an unpleasant way.
"You're coming with us." "Is
William Bovey dead?" "I
don't know any William Bovey, though I wish him well. I do know that you are
ordered to come with us. So, get your whatevers; put your shoes on — if you
have shoes — and do it fairly quickly." "No,"
Martha said, and couldn't imagine why she'd said it. The big sergeant, standing
behind his lieutenant, frowned at her and shook his head. "Ralph,
be still," the lieutenant said, though he couldn't have seen what his
sergeant was doing. "Now, Mattie — it is Mattie?" "Martha." "Martha.
Right. Now listen, even though it may
cost my men some injuries" — his soldiers smiled — "I will have you
subdued, bound, and carried with us as baggage, if necessary. Don't make it
necessary." "But...
why?" "Orders." Her
father still said nothing, just stood in the doorway silent as a stick.
Suddenly, Martha felt she wished to go with the soldiers. It was a
strange feeling, as if she'd eaten something spoiled. She
turned to Edward Jackson and said, "You're not my father, anymore."
Then she went into the cabin to get her best linen dress, her sheepskin cloak,
her private possibles (a bone comb, clean underdrawers and stockings folded in
a leather sack), and her shoes — one patched at the toe, but good worked
leather that laced up over her ankles. ...They
walked south — the soldiers marched, she walked — through the rest of the day. Martha had
started out beside the lieutenant, possibles sack on her hip, her cloak, like theirs,
rolled and tied over her shoulder — but he'd gestured her behind him with his
thumb, so she'd stepped back to walk beside the sergeant, Ralph, the one who'd
frowned and shook his head at her. He was even taller than she was, and wider. It
had always seemed to Martha, when she'd seen them in parade at Stoneville, that
soldiers marched slowly. But now, going with them, she found they moved along
in a surprising way. It was a steady never-stopping going, nothing like a
stroll or amble, that ate up time and Warm-time miles until her legs ached and
she began to stumble. Ralph-sergeant
took her left arm, then, to steady her. He smelled of sweat, and of leather and
oiled steel. They
camped at dark, but lit no fire, though frost had filtered down. The soldiers
drank from tarred-wood canteens — the sergeant let her drink from his — and
chewed dry strips of meat. He
gave her some of that as well.... Then the soldiers went into the woods to shit,
came out, and lay down in dead grass in their long woolen cloaks as if they
were under a roof and behind house walls — the lieutenant, too. Only one man
was left standing under the trees, watching, with a quarrel in his crossbow as
if this was enemy country. The
sergeant had stood guard, yards away and his back turned, while Martha did her
necessary behind a tree. Then he'd cut evergreen branches for her to lie on....
She supposed her ringlets had straightened some from walking and sweating, so
she had no good feature, now. And
that was the first day, traveling. The
second day, they rose before dawn, ate dried meat and drank water. Then the
soldiers brought river water up in a little iron pot, made a small fire to heat
it, and shaved their faces with their knives, the lieutenant first. After that,
they went marching again. No one spoke to Martha — or spoke among themselves,
either — except the lieutenant once said, "Pick up the pace," and
they did, marching faster down the middle of the River Road, crunching through
shallow, ice-skimmed puddles with everyone they met standing aside to let them
pass. They went faster, but Martha kept up, her cloak flapping at her calves.
It had became a pleasure to her to march with soldiers, to leave where she'd
always been to go to someplace new, someplace that would be a surprise, with a
surprising reason for coming to it. Even
so, sometimes a dread came rising that she might be being taken where an
example would be made of girls who hammered men. But Martha swallowed those
fears like little frozen lumps, managed to keep them down, and decided not to
ask again where she was bound, or why, for fear of the answer. Instead,
she gave herself up to marching, and often could see the river on their right,
flashing gray-white through stands of trees along the bank. Its icy current —
still fed by Daughter Summer's melt, far upstream at the Wall — was too wide to
see across, and milky with stone dust washed from the great glacier in
Map-Ohio. Several
times, she saw barges and oared boats far out from the shore, still summer-fit
this far down the river, sailing with black-and-orange flags and banners
fluttering in the river's wind. Martha's
legs were aching in the worst way by the time they came to Landing in the
afternoon. Landing was the farthest from her home — the farthest south — she'd
ever been. The Ya-zoo River came to Kingdom River there — though her father had
said it was the other way round, and Kingdom had grown over to Yazoo as
blessing and welcome. Her father had brought horses down for the fair, that
time, and she'd come with him, riding Shirley. Some rough river-boys had made
fun of her. But
now, though hard Ordinaries — wagoneers, sailors, warehousemen, and
keel-boaters — stood drinking outside whorehouses and dens with their girls or
pretty-boys all down the muddy road to Rivers-come-together, none had a word to
call to hurt her feelings. They were quiet as the soldiers marched by — still
in step through mud, horse-shit, and wagon ruts... then past a summer storage
yard of huge racks of ships' skates and runners, long beams whose heavy bright
blades gleamed greased and sharpened for winter-fitting. They
marched past loads of stacked lumber, sheep hides, sides of beef, pig, and
goat… sacks of coal from Map-West Virgina, crates of warm-frame cabbages,
onions, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower... barrels of pickles, brine kraut,
smoked and salted river char. The
docks were even busier, noisier. Martha hadn't remembered everything being so
large, loud, and confusing. The soldiers marched past starters shouting and
flicking their slim blacksnakes at sweat-slaves trotting pokes of last potatoes
up the ramps of two big pole-boats painted dark blue. Martha could spell out
the letters on the company flags. Jessup's Line.... A herd of spotted
cattle was being run down to a black barge, forty or fifty of the animals,
driven by rust-colored dogs and three men with long sticks to prod them. Martha
had had a dog named Parker, when she was a little girl, a coon-hound with a
blind left eye. Because of the eye, she'd been able to buy him with fifteen
buckets of blueberries — no softs and no
stems. Only two days' picking.... Those
herding the spotted cattle, though, were different dogs, squat, barky, and
quick. Interesting to watch work. Martha thought it had been worth such hard
marching to come to Landing, with so much to see. And smell, too; the docks had
the rich stink of the Rivers-come-together running beneath them, dirty
float-ice, rotting mud, and fish guts.... Someone was playing a pluck-piano;
she could hear the quick, twanging notes up the road behind them as a den door
opened. "Some
moments for beer, sir?" The first thing Ralph-sergeant had said since
morning. "No,"
the lieutenant said, and led them to a dock at the far left, calling,
"Clear the way!" to a work gang of skinny tribes-women, naked, with
fox-mask tattoos covering their faces. They were smeared with pig-fat against
the cold wind the river brought down.... The women stood aside as the soldiers
marched out onto the planking, the wide boards booming beneath their boots. One
— thin, and with teeth missing — stuck her tongue out at them. Two of the
others called out to the soldiers together, in an up-river language that
sounded like sticks rattling. It wasn't Book, wasn't even near book-English.
Martha couldn't understand a single word. A
ruined barge was sunk along the left dockside, so only its rails and pole-walk
showed above swirling water. Gray sea-birds — come all the way up from the Gulf
Entire, Martha supposed — strutted and pecked along the railings. The birds had
pale yellow eyes, crueler than crows'. There
was a wonder floating at the end of the dock — a galley beautiful as the circus
boat that once came down from Cairo. But this one was painted all red as fresh
blood, not striped green and yellow, and there was no music coming from it. A
long red banner hung from the mast, stirring a little in the breeze. The
galley had one bank of oars, just above where the iron skate-beam fittings ran
— and a red sail, though that was bundled tight to a second mast slanting low
over the deck, reaching almost from the front of the boat to the back. A
lateeno, Martha's father would have called it. The
lieutenant marched his men and Martha right up a ramp and onto the red galley.
Everything there was the same bright red, or brass this-and-thats so bright in
the sunshine they hurt her eyes. A line of men sat low on rowing benches along
each side. They were naked as the tribeswomen had been, but with steel collars
on their necks, and none of them looked up. "You're
late!" A soldier, standing on a high place at the back of the boat, had
called that. This soldier wore a short-sword on a wide gold-worked belt. A long
green-wool cloak, fastened in gold at his throat, billowed slightly in the river
wind. His chest was armored in green-enameled steel, but with pieces of gold
hanging from short green ribbons there. "Late,"
he called again, as they came along
the deck. He was much older than the lieutenant, and had an unpleasant face,
made more unpleasant because his lower lip had been hurt, part of it cut away
so his teeth showed there. He had five blue dots tattooed on each cheek. ...
Martha had never seen a Ten-dot man before. Never seen more than a Six-dot, and
that was the Baron Elliot, and she'd seen him only once at the Ice-boat races. "I'm
at fault, milord," the lieutenant said, "and have no excuses." "No
excuse, is not excuse enough," the Bad-lip Lord said. "So, three
months pig-herding on Fayette Banks, for you and your slow men." "Yes,
sir." "And
this" — Bad-lip pointed at Martha — "this Ordinary is the object of
the exercise?" "Yes,
sir." "You,
Big-girl — sit up here out of the way, and rest. We have cranberry juice; would
you like some of that?" "Yes,
thank you." Martha came and sat on a little step below where he was
standing. She wrapped her cloak around her and thought, too late, she should
have said "milord." The
Bad-lip Lord leaned down and gripped her shoulder. "Some muscle there. Did
the soldiers treat you with respect and kindness?" "Yes,
they did... milord." Martha thought of saying "especially
Ralph-sergeant," but didn't. The
Bad-lip Lord nodded, then called, "Captain! South, to Island — at the
courier beat!" "At
your orders, milord." A black man in a long brown cloak was standing back
by a sailor at the wheel. "Loose! Loose and haul!" Then,
barefoot sailors Martha hadn't noticed were running here and there untying
ropes. The whole boat swung out into the river, dipping, rolling slightly. And
so suddenly that she jumped a little, a deep drum went boom boom. Then boom
boom again, and the rowers' long oars came out, flashed first dry then wet
as they struck the water all together, and the boat started away like a
frightened horse. They were surging, hissing over the water, gray birds flying
with them, circling the long crimson banner that unfurled, coiled, and weaved
in the wind. Martha could hear it snapping, rumpling. A
boy in white pants and white jacket came running to her, knelt down, and held
out a blown-glass cup — glass so clear she could see the juice in it perfectly,
juice the same blood-red as the boat. Martha
thought of asking the boy why she was going where she was going, then decided
not. She
had heard that Kingdom's rowers were whipped — and this was certainly a Queen's
boat — but no soldier whipped the red boat's rowers. Still, they worked their
oars like farming horses in summer furrows. She could feel the boat's heave...
and heave at each stoke they pulled together. The red sail was still
furled… the wind blowing cold upriver, into their faces. It
seemed odd to be sailing in a summer-fitted boat through still-wet early-winter
water. Martha had imagined one day traveling on a winter-fit's slanting deck as
the ship skated hissing over the river's ice on angled long steel runners...
lifting, tilting as the wind caught its sails, so it almost flew, banners and
wind-ribbons curling and snapping through the air. But
this was still a summer-fit, with rowers. She wondered what work the rowers
would be put to, with Lord Winter already striding down to bathe in the river,
and freeze it. The
juice — cranberry juice — in the beautiful glass, was sweet and bitter at once.
Martha'd never tasted it before, and didn't know if she was supposed to finish
it all, or only sip, and leave the rest. She looked up to see if the Bad-lip
Lord was watching, and he was. "It's
for you, Ordinary. Drink it." So
she did. The juice grew sweeter with each swallow, and she hoped it was a
River-omen of sweeter things to come. The
west bank was too far away to be seen. She'd never seen it, though her father
had when he'd worked fishing. But they were staying close enough to the east
side of the river that sometimes she could see a piling-dock there, its house
or warehouse high above the water, back under the trees. Then, a log house… and
a while later, another. Martha
saw little eel-skiffs as they passed. The men crewing them stood, balancing,
and bowed as the red boat, the long red banner, went sweeping by. She sat
holding the pretty glass in her lap, concerned it might tip over and break if
she set it down on the deck. The deck was as clean as a worn washboard. The
lieutenant and his men were standing in the front of the boat. She could see
them, see Ralph-sergeant past the great mast, its long, furled red sail. He
turned his head, talking with another soldier... saw her looking, and smiled at
her. Martha supposed the wind had completed the ruin of her ringlets. They
passed more log houses... then a lord's strong-hold. It rose above the river's
bank, three gray stone towers within gray stone walls, all higher than a man
could throw a rock — almost high as a crossbow quarrel might reach. Two ladies
were standing on a little carved-wood porch, halfway up the middle tower, their
hands tucked into fur muffs. Their hair was combed up off their necks and
coiled; Martha saw gold combs glinting. They were wearing woolen gowns, paneled
— perhaps in linen. One's dress was dyed soft blue and gold, the other's
darker. The ladies, standing so high, seemed perfect little dolls, dolls made
for children like their own. Both
together, they dipped behind the little porch's carved railing, curtsying as
the blood-red boat went by. Martha
imagined their brothers, their husbands, in the hold. Tall, handsome men with
clean hands and several-dot tattoos —
and their father, scarred, bearded, brave as a bear. All the men very
big, but kind, so that nothing more than a mouse in their wardrobe had ever
frightened the doll-ladies, or ever could. Martha
waved up to them, but the blood-red boat had passed down the river, and the
ladies didn't seem to see. A
while later, after a ferry had sailed past them, borne upstream on the wind —
its passengers had stood, crowded, to bow to the Queen's boat — Martha grew
restless, and shifted where she sat. "Need
relief?" The Bad-lip Lord hadn't moved from where he stood in all the
traveling. He'd
looked down to ask the question, and when Martha didn't answer, made an
impatient face. "Do you need to piss, girl?" His breath smoked
slightly in the cold. "...Yes,
lord." The
Bad-lip Lord muttered, "Rafting Jesus..." and lifted the
forefinger of his right hand. The boy in the white jacket, who had been
squatting by the rail, stood and came running. "Bring
this girl and a piss-pot together in the captain's cabin." The Bad-lip
Lord looked back at the Brown-cloak Captain. "With your permission, of
course." "Does
me honor," the Captain said, and he and the Bad-lip Lord both smiled. ...Relieved
— a word that seemed so much nicer than 'pissed-out' — Martha had come to sit on
her step again, her sheepskin cloak tucked tight around her against the wind.
She watched the river run down with them, sometimes seeming to flow faster than
the rowers could labor, though the drum kept beating like a heart, so steady
that she forgot it from time to time. Now,
the river — great gray pieces of raft ice drifting by — was crowded with more and more ships and
fisher-boats, rowed barges, and poled barges along the shore, so there were
masts and long oars and banners and house flags of all colors wherever she
looked. Sometimes,
as the wind blew this way or that, Martha could hear men singing on other ships
as they passed — Gulf sailors and river-boatmen singing as they rowed or worked
their lines. These men didn't interrupt their labor to bow to the Queen's boat,
but only paused a moment to cup their right hands to their ears, to show they
listened for any command. The
river had become alive with people and boats. Along the shore were more holds,
more stone walls and towers, and wide two-storied timber docks on square stone
pilings set marching out into the current. Slaves — still naked though Daughter
Summer had died — were working on them, stowing and transferring the goods come
in, the cargoes going out. Her father had called slaves 'the Ordinaries' bane'
and said they took fish and honey from free men's mouths…. A band was playing
on some pleasure boat, horns and flutes. There
seemed more to see than Jordan-Jesus could have noticed, though he was a river
god, with all drops of water for his eyes. The
sun's egg had sunk west to almost touch the water when the Brown-cloak Captain
said, "Passing Vicksburg bluff." Martha looked over and could just
see a line of green and perhaps a fortress, east, high along the bank. Soon
after, the Captain said, "Island." And Martha saw, downstream, and
far, far out into the current, what seemed a great walled town rising
from the river, its stone gray and gold in early evening light. Amazed,
she clapped her hands — thought it might be magic — and looked up to see if the Bad-lip Lord was
also astonished. She pointed it out to him. He
looked there, nodded, and said, "Island." It
was a place Martha'd heard of all her life, but had never thought to see. She swayed
where she sat, then swayed again as the rowers' slow steady beat shifted, and
the blood-red boat swung farther from the shore. They were going out and out
where the great town grew from white water. After
a while, she saw fewer boats, fewer sailing ships.... And later, almost none,
but huge tarred barrels floating, with signal masts on them flying flags of
different colors. Martha noticed that what ships there were, steered by those
flags and no other way. Now,
she could see the town was made of walls and towers, all built on hills of
heaped boulders, each larger than a house. Everything was heaved up and up out
of the river, so the cold current foamed white and struck in waves against the
stone. "Two
hundred years of granite rock brought down from the Wall's lap by ice-boat and
wet-boat, with a good man lost to the savages for every Warm-time ton."
The Bad-lip Lord was looking at the distant walls and towers. "And those
tons dropped into the river there to make the kings' island." "What
a wonderful thing!" "Do
you think so, Ordinary? Clever, certainly...." A
horn sounded, deep and distant as a pasture bull's crying out. Martha looked
that way and saw, over the ship's red rail, another ship just as blood-scarlet
but much larger, with two rows of oars on a side. It was coming toward them so
fast that it carved white water with its black iron ram. Ranks of oars flashed,
rose, beat, and fell, seeming only to touch the river's skin as it came,
banners streaming from its masts, gulls wavering in the river wind above it. The
deep horn sounded again, calling to them. It was the most wonderful thing.
Martha stood and stepped to the low rail — though no one had said she could —
to see it better. She could hear drumbeats, now, even the soft spanking as its
oars struck the river. It was coming terribly fast, and it was very big. There
were men... men in ranks standing along the two decks, one above the other.
These were soldiers, and each man's armor was enameled in halves, helmet to
hip, left side blue, right side green. "Soldiers," she said. "Marines,"
said the Brown-cloak Captain — and shouted, "Still... oars... to heave
to!" There
were machine things on the great ship coming to them — things like giant
hunting bows, but lying on their sides and fastened to timbers — and fire was
burning in bronze braziers alongside them. Martha
clapped her hands and jumped a little up and down. It was worth everything to
have come to see such a ship. Beside it, all the other river boats were
nothing. Another
horn sounded behind her. She turned and saw, much farther away, two more of the
great ships, both blood-red and flying blood-red banners. "Three
of them!" "Three
of the Fleet's two hundred and more," the Bad-lip Lord said. "Now,
sit down, girl, before you fall overboard." Martha
sat on her step again, but still could see as the great ship came to them,
drums rolling and thundering so the gulls' cries sounded like music above it. It
came almost to smash into them, so Martha held up her arm to ward it — then
swung suddenly sideways in spray and clashing currents. Spaced along its hull,
the iron fittings for its winter runners were massive as great tree-stumps… and
as it turned, rows of white oars rose dripping, folding up together so it
loomed over, high as a riverside cliff, blood-red and ranked with two-color
soldiers. The ship was named in dark metal at its bow. QS Painful. At
once a long, narrow wooden bridge fell from beside a mast, came swinging
humming down through the air and crashed across the rail paces from Martha and
the Bad-lip Lord. Soldiers
— marines — came running the steep planking with battle-axes in their hands,
and two officers — their helmets striped blue, green, and gold — came running
with them, short-swords drawn, and all jumping to the deck so it shook under Martha's
feet. One
of the officers, the bigger one, stopped near her and called out, "Who
comes toward Island? And why?" His
sword was shaped like a butcher's knife, but bigger. "I
come," the Bad-lip Lord said. "Sayre. And on the Queen's
business." "And
come properly? With nothing and no one hidden on this ship?" "Properly.
Nothing hidden." The
officer unfastened a little latch at his throat, and took his helmet off. He
had four blue dots on one cheek, three on the other, and a round pleasant face spoiled
by eyes with no color.... It seemed to Martha the helmet must be uncomfortable.
None of the soldiers who'd brought her to Landing had worn their helmets.
They'd kept them strapped to their packs. "Afternoon,
milord." The officer bowed a little. "Afternoon,
Conway — how does your father do?" "Dying." "Sickness...
a sad end for an admiral." "Yes,
sir. He would have chosen otherwise." Martha
saw the marines with axes going here and there about the boat. Some of them
went downstairs, under the deck. The other officer was talking to three
sailors; they stood barefoot before him, their heads down. "We'll
look through, and question — but quickly. Won't delay you, milord." "Better
not. I'm bringing Her Majesty a present... of a sort." The
officer looked down at Martha, and raised an eyebrow. "Don't ask,"
said the Bad-lip Lord.
CHAPTER 8
"This
vessal to the Iron Gate," the big officer had said, speaking to the
Brown-cloak Captain in a different voice than he'd used in conversation with
the Bad-lip Lord. " — To the Iron Gate, directly and in order, otherwise
at your peril." "Understood,"
the Captain had said, "and will be conformed to." And,
after the officers marched the marines back up their ramp, the great two-decked
ship had lunged away, its ranks of oars striking all together, its drums
sounding slower beats, its trumpet a different call. Soon,
Martha saw much closer the cliffs of gray stone, the river's milky rapids
foaming against them. Along those stone walls, another boat came in order
behind them... then a second one, and a third, so there were four in line.
Martha stood to see them better, and was told to sit down. Then
there was slow steady rowing into the river's wind, Island's gray wall, on
their right, seeming endless as they passed — and high, so the gulls looked
like snowflakes along the spaced stone teeth at its top. "Big,"
she said. "Very
big." The second thing the boat's captain had said to her. "More'n a
Warm-time mile long; near a mile wide. An' got more people on it than live on
Isle Baton Rouge — well, damn near." He turned, talked with the sailor at
the wheel, then turned back. "Milord, looks like a stuff-boat ahead of us
for the gate." "Pass
them out of line," the Bad-lip Lord said. "Queen's business." The
Captain cupped his hands to his mouth and called, "Row up! Row
up!" Martha heard their drum go rum-a-dum, rum-a-dum, rum-a-dum. The
boat surged, surged… then swung left and slowly overtook a big barge that
smelled of sheep and sheep shit. A
fat man in boots and a hooded raw-wool smock stood by the barge's steering oar,
two rivermen behind him gripping its long loom. The boat's great cockpit was
crowded with sheep's backs, sheep's puzzled black faces. — As they drew
alongside, the fat man made a nasty fuck-finger at them and yelled, "Get
back, you bottom-holes!" "That's
Peter Jaffrey," the Captain said. "I know him. Probably drunk." The
Bad-lip Lord frowned. "Drunk or not, he should know a Queen's red ship
when he sees one." He went to stand at the rail, and gave the barge
captain a hard look across the distance of river. Martha saw the fat man's
mouth, which had been open, suddenly shut, and he made a bow, then cupped his
right ear for any command. "Not
a bad guy," the Captain said, using a Warm-time word. "Lost his
little boy to throat-pox years ago. Only son." When
the Bad-lip Lord smiled, it made his lip look worse. "Alright, Crawford.
But you might suggest the wisdom of courtesy to him when you meet again." "I
will, milord." They
swept on past the barge, then steered in again, closer to the wall. Martha,
looking ahead through the boat's rigging, saw Ralph-sergeant near the bow,
talking, laughing with another soldier — and beyond them, a great tower of gray
stone standing out into the river. The
boat swung out to pass the tower's base where the river's flow curled against
it like goat's cream. Chunk ice bobbed there, striking the granite. Beyond,
there was a great stone gateway, wide as a meadow and arched over high in the
air with what seemed a spiderweb of iron... the span of a bridge where Martha
saw tiny soldiers looking over. Harsh wind blew through the gateway, and a
river current seethed into it. They turned with that tide — the red boat
leaning, pitching — and ran on into the harbor, oars lifting, then falling to
splash in foam... which became quieter water. They
were in a made pond-lake, oars now barely stroking, with walls rising high
around them like the eastern mountains Martha had heard of, where Boston's
creatures hunted. She saw a row of long gray wharves with boats and great ships
tied to them, and sweat-slaves working,
loading and unloading.... Even in this deep harbor, the current swirled,
complaining. There were slow whirlpools, and the river's icy wind gusted here and
there, trapped by stone. A
file of marines stood in order on a far dock as the red boat rowed slowly in.
The Captain said something to his wheelman, and Martha felt the boat slowly
turning toward those men. She had gotten used to that lifting, sliding motion,
and thought she might become a barge-woman, being so at ease riding a wet-water
ship. They
drifted in, the oars folding up and back like a bird's wings... and the red
boat struck fat canvas cushions at the stone dockside with a squeak and three
thumps. The sailors heaved out heavy lines; three wharfers caught them and
cleated them in. "Up."
The Bad-lip Lord gestured Martha after him, as the gangplank was sliding out
and down. She
had no time to smile good-bye to Ralph-sergeant — needed to nearly run down to the dock, her
possibles-sack flapping at her hip, to keep up with the Bad-lip Lord. The file
of marines, who had struck their two-color breastplates with armored fists to
greet him, now followed, marching very fast. The harbor and docks were quickly
left behind. Their bootsteps echoed off stone walls, stone steps, echoed down
passages under overhangs masoned from great blocks of granite. Down those
passages... then others, and turnings left and right and left again. In
shadowed places, Martha sometimes saw, through narrow slits, a flash of steel
in lantern light. Other
marines — more than a hundred in blue and green — came marching toward them down a way just
wide enough, and passed so close as their officer called out,
"Milord," and touched his breastplate, that Martha heard their
armor's little clicks and slidings, smelled sweat and oil and sour birch-gum
chew. Then they were gone, leaving only the fading sounds of their boots
striking stone all together. The
Bad-lip Lord led on, striding so Martha had to trot to keep up, the file of
marines trotting to keep up with her. They came to broad stone stairs, and went
right up them past many people coming down, who smiled and nodded to the
Bad-lip Lord. One of the men said, "Later," to him as they went by.
All these men and women were rich beyond doubt — wore linen, velvet, and thick
fur robes that blew against their fine boots in the wind. The men belted heavy
short-swords; the women wore long, sheathed daggers in wide, jeweled sashes,
and every one looked a lord or lady, except for several Ordinary women in brown
wool, following their mistresses as tote-maids. Martha-
stopped to do a stoop-curtsy to a group of no-question Extraordinaries, so as
not to get into trouble, but the Bad-lip Lord took her arm and pulled her on up
the steps. "Move!" he said. Two
of those women smiled at him and called, "Sayre...!" But he
didn't answer. When one lady's fur robe blew a little open, Martha saw she wore
a wide skirt embroidered with yellow thread and paneled in blue, perhaps silk
from the south.... They hurried on through four high-ceilinged rooms, one after
the other. There were people in all of them, the same kind of people as on the
stairs outside, any one of them looking richer than a mayor.... Then the
Bad-lip Lord led down steep steps and into a long runnel of curved stone
courses — the first tunnel Martha had ever been in, though she'd heard of them.
The marines' boots, as they followed, sounded like the red ship's rowing-drum.
The wind blew bitter after them along the stone, whining like a puppy. They
came out of that darkness into daylight, then through a wide iron-barred gate
into a great sunny garden in a gray stone square. But the garden, the whole
space of plantings, was an inside-outside! The ceiling, wider than any other
ceiling Martha had seen, was made of pieces of clear glass set in frames of
metal. It was all held up by iron posts three times the height of a man, and as
many as trees in a crab-apple orchard. There seemed to be at least a Warm-time
acre under it, with rows of broccoli and cabbage, and what looked like onions
planted at the distant edge. "Vegetables..." The
Bad-lip Lord made a face, said, "Flooding Jesus..." and walked even
faster, but she kept up. They
walked through that wonderful garden along a graveled path — the file of
marines still coming behind them — went out another door, then turned and
turned down a twisted staircase to a stone walkway, and into another
glass-roofed garden. They were going so fast now, they were almost running. It
seemed to Martha there was no end to Island, no end to gray stone and the cold
smell of stone. No end to icy river wind, to soldiers — marines — and Extraordinaries in jewels and
fine furs. No end to women who smiled at the Bad-lip Lord as if he was alone,
with no up-river girl, big as a plow horse, trotting behind him in a wrinkled
homespun dress, a greasy sheepskin, and muddy shoes. Martha
had begun excited by so much size and strangeness, so many new people — likely
more than in Cairo, and she hadn't yet seen them all. She'd been excited, but
now began to feel a little sick to her stomach with too much newness and
hurrying. She missed her mother as if she was still a little girl, and her
mother was alive and feeding the chicken-birds in the yard. The
Bad-lip Lord stopped at last, at the top of broad stairs where two guards — who
must be soldiers, Martha supposed, and not marines, since one wore East-bank's
all-green armor, the other West-bank's blue — stood to each side of iron double
doors painted red as blood. Behind her, the marines stopped all together with a
stamp stamp. "Her
Majesty in audience?" "Yes,
milord," the guard in green steel. "At the Little Chamber." "Shit...."
The Bad-lip Lord spun on his heel and went back down the steps two at a time,
with Martha and the marines hurrying after. He opened a door made of squares of
glass, and hurried down a black-stone walk through a roofed garden of flowers.
The garden light wavered like water across rows of marigold blossoms, roses,
and another sort of flower with a cup of red and yellow on a slender stalk. The
Bad-lip Lord led them running up a narrow staircase to other iron doors painted
blood-red and guarded by two soldiers as the first had been, one in blue armor,
the other in green. "Still in audience?" "Yes,
milord," the blue-steel soldier said. He reached to turn down a heavy
latch, which looked to Martha to be made of gold, and swung the
left-side door open to perfumed air, bright oil-lamps shining… and many people. The
Bad-lip Lord went in — then stepped out again, took Martha's arm, and pulled
her inside with him. It
was a narrow room, its walls painted scarlet, with many old flags, banners, and
lit chain-lamps hanging down from a ceiling shining with gold. At least it
looked to Martha like gold — though there seemed too much of it for even a
Queen's Island. The gold, or whatever bright metal it was, was hammered into
shapes, possibly stories. Things flew among golden clouds up
there — things like birds, but with
stiff straight wings — and there were buildings appearing taller than
buildings were made, taller even than fortress towers.... A
woman was laughing, down at the end of the room. Behind
all these people, who looked warmed by red paint and lamplight, Martha stood
with the Bad-Lip Lord beside her. He was tall as she was, no more or less. A
steel edge of his breastplate's hinged shoulder-guard touched her arm…. There
were so many men and women crowding, they made the narrow room seem smaller.
The most surprising thing was there was no stink of old sweat or foot-wraps —
none at all — as if everyone had come fresh from a summer washtub bath, their
clothes just off a summer line. A
few of these people were talking with each other, but softly. Martha saw not
one man who wasn't dressed richly, not a single lady who wouldn't have put any
rich wife of Cairo to shame for her finery. Several had blue panels sewn into
their long skirts. A few had green. The
woman at the end of the room laughed again — she was a loud laugher. Being
taller than most, Martha could see it was a lady dressed in red velvet, sitting
one step up on a big black-enameled chair, her head back, laughing careless as
a man. She was holding a short spear in her left hand; its narrow steel head
shone in lamplight.... Martha thought this must be the Queen, to be so loud
amid grand people. The
woman stopped laughing, and said, "Fuck them and forget them is the rule
for you, Gregory. You're not deep enough for love!" She had a strong alto voice,
like a temple singer's; it rang down the room. The
person she was talking to was tall, mustached, and seemed to Martha beautiful
as a story prince. His long, soft copper hair lay loose, and he was dressed all
in velvets, coat and tight trousers made in autumn greens and golds. " —
And that very shallowness, ma'am, I've confessed to Lady Constance, and asked
her pardon. It's her brothers who concern me. They, apparently, believe in
true love and marriage. In fact, they're insisting on it. Marriage, or my
head." People
standing near Martha laughed — but not the Bad-lip Lord beside her. "Well,
you naughty man." The Queen was smiling. "You can tell the
fierce Lords Cullin that I would be displeased to be deprived of your
company." "Thank
you, Kindness," the tall lord said, and bowed graceful as a harvest
dancer. "Um-hmm.
Now, go and get into more mischief." The Queen shooed him away, then
looked down the length of the room and called out loud as a band horn,
"You! Tall one! You must be the strong-girl. Ordinary... Martha, isn't
it?" Martha
looked around as if another Martha must be there. "Answer
her!" a woman said. Martha
nodded and said, "Yes," but too softly to be heard. "You
come closer. Come closer to me!" Queen Joan's voice seemed younger than
she was. The
Bad-lip Lord took Martha's possibles-sack and rolled cloak from her. A hand —
she didn't know whose — shoved at her back, "and she stumbled, then walked
down the room as people stepped aside. She felt everyone looking; their looks
seemed to touch her. A woman said something softly, and laughed. They'd be
looking at her shoes, the poor leather, and the mud. Looking at her hair… her
ugly, ugly dress. A big stupid up-river girl, in an ugly dress. She
stopped almost at the step and made a bow, then began to get down on her hands
and knees, in case bowing wasn't enough. "Stay
standing, girl. We're not Grass Barbarians here; a bow or curtsy will always
do." The Queen, though sitting, looked to be tall as a man if she stood,
and had a man's hard blue eyes set in a long heavy-jawed face. Six dots were
tattooed on her left cheek, six on her right. There was a scar on her pale
forehead, one on her chin, and another at the left corner of her mouth. Martha
bowed again, very deeply, then straightened up. She saw the Queen was smiling,
and supposed she'd bowed wrong after all.... Queen Joan's hair, its dark red
threaded and streaked with iron gray, had been braided, then the long braids
coiled like slender snakes crowning her head. There were many, many jewels —
little red stones, blue and green stones, and strange bright stones clear as
water — pinned to her braids here and there, and fastened to her deep-red robe
in intricate patterns, so she seemed to shine and glitter in the lamp-light as
she sat. "No,
no," the Queen said, still smiling, "you bowed very well.... And the
shining stones you see, ice-looking, are diamonds. They are old as the world,
and change never." Martha
understood the Queen had read her mind by reading her face, and supposed that
was a skill all kings and queens must have. "Now."
Queen Joan leaned down from her throne, and held out her right hand. "Now,
since you are so large, and supposed to be strong and a bone-breaker, come take
my hand in yours, Martha-girl... and try your best to break my bones." But
Martha just stood and shook her head no. Her heart was beating hard as
the boat's drum had sounded. "No — I'd hurt you." But
the Queen didn't seem to understand 'No.' She didn't appear to have even heard
it. She held out her hand. Martha
reached up and took it — hoping that gripping firmly might be enough. The
Queen's hand was white and long-fingered, warm as if fresh from hot-water
washing. They
held hands like friends, for a moment. Then, slowly... slowly the Queen's grip
tightened. The long fingers seemed to slide around Martha's hand as if they
were growing, and the Queen's grip, terribly strong, tightened and tightened as
though Martha's hand wasn't there at all. It
was uncomfortable. It hurt... then hurt worse — and Martha, frightened, began
to squeeze back. Her hand was losing feeling; it seemed separate from her, and
she had the dreadful imagining that the Queen was going to crush it, break its
bones. Martha tried to keep that from happening — gripped against that
happening with all her strength. Suddenly,
there was no pain, no terrible pressure — only the Queen's long white hand
lying relaxed in hers. "Strong
enough, Large-Martha." The Queen took her hand away, and sat back on her
enameled throne. "And no tears. You do please me." Some
people in the room said, softly and together, "And should be always pleased...." "You're
seventeen years old?" "Yes...
Queen," Martha said, though 'Queen' didn't seem enough to call her. "I'm
told — by those I almost trust — that you beat three strong men down with a
smith's hammer. Is that so?" "...I
did. I did, Queen — but none of them died. I'm sure none of them has
died!" "Don't
be frightened. I don't care if all of them have died." People
laughed at that. "But
you did it, Martha? And you did it alone?" "Yes.
They were hurting Pa." "Mmm…
And did you enjoy what you did with the hammer?" Martha
looked around her for a friend — but she had no friends here, as she'd had none
at home. Her hands were shaking, and she put them behind her so the Queen
wouldn't see. "—I
don't ask questions twice." "I
didn't want to... but I was angry." "Alright.
Good. And I understand your mother died of insect fever years ago?" "Yes...
Majestic Person." Queen
Joan laughed. It seemed to Martha she had good teeth for a woman her age, teeth
strong as her grip. "Please, please don't ever repeat that
'Majestic Person.' I'm manured with enough titles." A
man in the room laughed. "Michael,
don't you dare!" The
man laughed again, and said, "The court won't use it, ma'am. We
promise." There
was a murmur of promises. "So,
Large-Martha," the Queen said, then said nothing more for a while, but
only sat looking into Martha's eyes as if there was a secret there she must
find out.... Then, she nodded. "So, you have no mother. And, I'm told, not
much of a daddy. But what if I promise to be nearly a mother to you, if
you will come and live with me? If you will serve me, stay by me always, and
guard me with your life until the evening I lie, a very old lady, dying in my
bed?" It
was such a strange thing to hear, that Martha waited for someone to explain it
to her. It seemed the Queen could not have meant 'guard,' since there were
soldiers standing against the room's walls, and a soldier in blue-enameled
armor standing on one side of the throne, a green-armored soldier on the other. "Yes,
I have guards, Large-Martha, but they are men. And there are occasions
when even a queen must be with women only. I'm tired of having to guard myself
at such times... lying in my bath, sitting on my toilet-pot with an assag across
my lap." She tapped her short-spear's butt against the stone floor, and
raised her head and her voice. " — And if it were not in the River Book
that soldiers must be men, I'd have women soldiers, as The Monroe has in
North Map-Mexico.... Proper in that, at least, though our currents might, were
matters different, have flowed to drown that boy — as they will the
fucking Kipchak Khan! I knew Small-Sam when he was a baby, carried him tucked
in his blanket… wiped his ass." Silence in the Red Room. The
Queen looked down at Martha. "Now, girl, you give me an answer — and make
that answer yes." Martha said, "Yes, ma'am." The
Queen smiled and sat back on her throne. "Oh, there's a sweetheart. My Newton would have said you'd make a
Trapper-girl. A great compliment… Lord Sayre!" "Ma'am?" "See
that the Master teaches my constant companion, Martha, neater fighting than
with a smith's hammer." "You
have in mind... the sword, ma'am?" Martha
knew the man's voice without turning to see him. It was the Bad-lip Lord. "Mmm...
no. I
have in mind... a
light, long-handled
double-headed ax. Blade and spike-point, I think." "Yes,
ma'am." "But
not too light — something
suitable to her size and strength. Rollins is to forge the ax-head from a cake
of the Emperor's gift, hammer that steel to tears, as if for me." "Yes,
ma'am." "No
plate armor. Only best fine-mesh mail to rise from thigh to shoulder, then
fasten turtle at her gown's neck — oh, I'll see you have such pretty dresses,
child!... And a long knife, same steel and straight-bladed for strike or throw.
A knife, no lady's frail whittler." "I'll
see to it." The
Queen raised her head and called out, "Now, she is mine… and no longer
an Ordinary!" Then she spun the javelin she gripped in her left hand, and
held the shaft down to Martha. "Take this, Strong-girl — then come up and
stand behind my throne, to give your life for mine." Martha
reached up to take the spear, and felt as she'd felt the motion of the river,
when the red boat had heaved and pitched with its rowers' labor. Now,
everything seemed to shift beneath her in just that way — and she would have
been sure she was dreaming but for the rich colors of everything, the strange
voices… and the Queen's eyes. "—
I said, 'Come up.'" Martha
climbed the step, her knees shaking, and the soldier in green armor turned
aside to let her pass. She stood behind the throne, her breath coming so short
she was afraid she might faint, and had to lean on the spear's smooth shaft....
Over the Queen's jeweled braids, Martha looked out on people in velvet, fine
leathers, feathers and fur, wearing daggers, short-swords, and gold. Most of
the men's and women's faces were tattooed in dots across their cheeks — some
faces soft, some fierce, but none with pleasant eyes. "Are
you where you should be?" The Queen did not turn her head to look. She was
wearing the perfume of a flower Martha didn't know. "...Yes,"
Martha said. "I am."
CHAPTER 9
"I
keep my pay!" Eric
Lauder had lathered a fine paint pony, and called as he rode down to the column
in early evening, five Warm-time miles from Better-Weather. Charmian
Loomis rode just behind him — bone thin, taller than Lauder, and awkward in her
saddle. Her long black hair, always loose as a child's, never tied or ribboned,
bannered behind her. She rode in the army's brown wool and tanned leather, and
wore Light Infantry's chain-mail hauberk with a colonel's gold C pinned at her
right shoulder. A rapier hung to the left of her saddle-bow. Howell
Voss, then Carlo Petersen and his captain, Franklin, reined aside for them. "...
I keep my pay, Sam." Eric was short of breath as if he'd been doing the
galloping. "Two regiments. They crossed the Bravo together, day before
yesterday, assembled in the brakes east of Ojinaga. Their outriders caught and
killed two of my men, but not the third." A
cloud shadow, as if in memorial for the two, drifted over on chill wind. The
sun, throughout the day, had been hiding in shame at the Daughter's death. Charmian
Loomis climbed off her horse, said nothing. "Have
those border people obeyed my orders, Eric?" "Yes,
sir, they have. I've pigeoned with Serrano — " "Paul
Serrano?" "Yes,
and Macklin. Our people are already out of Presidio, and we're clearing every
village and hacienda from Ahumada past the Bend to Boquillas." The
pinto stretched his neck to nip Sam's big black, and Sam turned his horse — the
imperial charger now named Difficult — a little away to avoid a reprisal.
"And John Macklin understands my orders about fighting?" "He
does. Cut throats, but no set battles." "And
the Old Men?" "Sam…
the brothers are not pleased." Howell
Voss slapped a fly on his horse's neck. "For Weather's sake..." "Howell,
let it go. The brigadiers are owed a part in this. Eric, where's Charles?" "In
town. None of my business, but people in Sonora aren't paying their
taxes." "They
will." Sam swung off his horse, relieved to be out of the saddle. More
than a year ago — almost two years ago — an imperial Light Cavalryman had sabered
him across the small of the back in a stupid scrambling fight below Hidalgo del
Parral. His mail had turned the cut, but still some soreness there came and
went. "Now... all of you get down. We're going to talk a little
campaigning." The
others dismounted, then stood or squatted, holding their horses' reins. "Howell,
Carlo, call your officers up here. All of them. Is there any dirt to draw
on?" Voss
drew his saber, sliced frost-burned turf, then bent and tore it away to clear a
patch of ground. Major Petersen, bulky as a bear and awkward out of the saddle,
went to speak to his banner-bearer, and the man rode away down the column. Sam
sat on his heels, waiting for the others to come up the road. "Eric, we
have the wounded with us. They stay in Better-Weather; Portia-doctor and her
people stay there with them." "How's
Ned?" "No
rot in the stump. He'll do well enough... already up and walking a little. The
wounded stay, and Jaime and Elvin stay as well." "The
Old Men won't like that." "Eric,
I know they won't like it.... I want all Butler's Heavy Infantry
concentrated here, every unit, all reserves. Then, if they have to — if this
Kipchak raid proves not to be harassment, but more serious — Phil can move
either east or west to the mountains to hold any major force moving down. The
old men can command that move, assemble any militia forces to join." "Understood."
Lauder was writing with a charcoal point on a fold of poor brown paper. Sam
waited as officers rode in from the column, waited until they'd gotten off
their horses and gathered close. He stood so they could see him better. "Orders….
Our cavalry's going north. All our cavalry — and reserves — will move up into
Map-Texas east of the Bend, while the Khan's people move down across our
border to the west of it. We strike up — as they strike down." Someone
said, "Lady Weather, be kind." More
officers rode up. The last, the rear guard's lieutenant, swung off his horse
and knelt behind Captain Wykeman, reins draped over his shoulder. "Going
up into Texas," Captain Franklin said to them. "All the
cavalry." An
officer said, "Jumping Jesus!" — a Warm-time phrase that would have
gotten his great-grandfather burned by his neighbors. "Now...."
Drawing his belt knife, Sam went to a knee and sketched with the blade's point
the great southern angle of the Bravo's Bend. "The Bend." Eric
and the officers nodded. "The
Kipchaks, about two thousand of them, have come down a long ride, many from
Map-Fort Stockton, and seem to intend raiding into Chihuahua, west of the
Bend." Someone
was arguing with a woman down the road. "Nailed
Jesus," Major Petersen said, "it's that fucking Boston girl." Sam
stuck his knife in the dirt, stood, and turned in time to see the girl — very
small on one of the captured imperial chargers — reach out and hit his
trumpeter, Kenneth, with her sheathed saber. Kenneth took the blow on a raised
arm as his horse shied away. The girl was yelling, "I go where I wish to
go!" and seemed prepared to hit him again. Sam
walked through the officers and down the road, the troopers in his way reining
their horses aside. The girl saw him coming, her small face white under the
wide-brimmed blue hat. "Get
down," Sam said. "What?" "Get
down, or I'll pull you down." "Not
so..." Patience slid a little steel out of her sword's scabbard. "If
you draw, I'll take you off that horse and whip you here in the road, before
everyone." He slid his quirt's loop off his wrist.... It was one of those
odd moments, coming more and more frequently for him, when anger and laughter
seemed to coil around each other to become one thing. Sam was careful not to
smile. A
pale mask stared down, wrinkled in fury, the girl's small teeth showing like an
angry grain-store cat's. "—
And you'd deserve it, Ambassadress, for such improper and unladylike behavior." Slowly,
slowly the small face relaxed to its usual smooth perfection. "And beating
a True Emissary of Boston Town is a gentlemanly thing to do?" "Only
to recall her to her duty." Patience
sighed, swung a leg over the saddle, and slid down to the ground. "That
man tried to stop me going where I wished to go. I wanted to come listen to
your conference." "No."
Sam turned and walked back up the column. Grinning troopers watched him pass. The
girl called after him. "Unkind...!" "What
did you say to her?" Howell was smiling. "I
said, 'No.'" Sam knelt, picked up his knife. "Now, these troops the
Khan is sending south..." He drew their route with the point of the blade.
"Sending about two thousand men west of the Bend to test us, so we'll let
them test our militia bands, our deserted border villages, our empty
pastures and fields. And while they're doing it, we're going to take all four
thousand of our cavalry — plus militia horsemen and volunteers — east of
the Bend" — he drew the curving line of march — "and north into
Texas, to take and burn Map-Fort Stockton." Silence.
Then someone whistled two notes. "That's
at least three days, Sam, riding up into Texas." Carlo Petersen, an older
man and sturdy as a tree trunk, had Ned Flores' command. "That's
right, Carlo." "Leaving
just local militia to hold them in the west?" "Leaving
local militia to trouble them in the west, with our Light Infantry
reserved in the hills.... Charmian, your people are not to engage unless
absolutely necessary. The whole point is to keep them busy, give them work and
wear, but not a battle. Should be good practice for our people, thanks
to Toghrul Khan." "Hard
practice," Captain Wykeman said. "
— Jaime and Elvin will stay here with the Heavy Infantry, so the brothers will
be in charge strategically. But Phil Butler will be in tactical command." "Uh-oh."
The previous whistler, a lieutenant named Carol Dunfey. "—
I'll inform Jaime and Elvin that the infantry only moves on Phil's
orders." "Sam,"
Petersen said, "are you saying the Old Men are out?" "No.
They're up. In overall command — but not battlefield." Nods.
Those close enough, were looking at the outline of the Bend cut into the
ground. "Howell,"
Sam said, "will command the cavalry campaigning into Texas — as their
general." The
officers stared at Voss. "And
not you, Sam?" Petersen, bulky, rosy and round-faced, looked like a
startled baby. An aggressive baby, saber-scarred. "No.
— Howell." Voss
stood at ease. Not surprised. Sam saw he'd expected the command might come to
him. "Well,
in that case," Eric said, "I should go north with him." "No,
Eric. You'll be more useful here." "Sam,
I'll need to be up there." "You
need to do as you're told." There
was a moment of silence... silence enough that the wind could be heard, and the
nickering of restless horses down the column. "...
As you order, sir. I stay in Better-Weather." "Phil
and the Brothers will have to know what's happening in Texas, Eric. Your people
will pigeon down to you, and you will keep the Old Men and Colonel Butler
informed. It shouldn't be necessary for you personally to go out in the kitchen
to taste the soup." "You're
right, sir. I apologize." Charmian
Loomis leaned over to look at the drawing again, nodded, then straightened and
walked to her horse… mounted, and rode away. "It's
clever, Sam." Howell stood staring down at the dirt drawing as if it might
change. "But the Kipchak's clever, too, and we'll be raiding deep into his
country. If he realizes, and sends more people across and south of us..." "Then,
Howell, you'll learn to like mare's milk." Smiles
at that. They seemed willing
enough, even after This'll Do. Sam
supposed there might come a time, after other losses, when they would no longer
be willing. Eric
stood. "Good plan." His pinto backed a little, tugged at its rein. Sam
got to his feet with a small grunt of effort. "Good as long as it's only
ours. I want you to ensure that, Eric. If there are any people you're uncertain
of — bought agents, particularly east of the Bend — I don't want them sending
pigeons to Caravanserai as Howell rides past." "We
know of five. I've left them because we know them." "Don't
leave them any longer." "Yes,
sir." The
others were up, gathering their horses' reins. "And
all you officers," Sam said, "keep in mind that your lives and your
troopers' lives depend on these plans being held in silence." He bent,
scored his diagram to nonsense with his dagger's point. Murmurs
of agreement. "In
silence, gentlemen and ladies. I'll hang the officer who makes this
known by word or note or indication. Drunk or sober." A
perfect silence then, as if they were practicing. What
did it mean? Sam climbed into the
saddle for the last stretch to Better-Weather. What did it mean that a man
was most at ease, felt truly comfortable, only when planning battles? He
spurred his horse — well-named Difficult — out in front of the column. Kenneth
came trotting after him, the trumpeter seeming untroubled by having been struck
by an angry ambassadress. And what did it mean that others were also more at
ease, were also only truly comfortable with a man when he was planning battles?
The younger officers' faces had only been pleased at the notion of war. Was the
Captain-General becoming only a Captain-General, with nothing else left
of him at all? "More
than likely," Sam said. The
trumpeter said, "Sir?" An
early-winter rain had followed the column for the last few Warm-time miles.
Now, it caught them, dark, cold, and driving, seething in swift puddles under
the black's hooves. What plans he'd made in dirt with his dagger, then erased,
were gone now under mud and water.
*
* *
Better-Weather's
fortress, built of granite blocks four years before, squatted gray in dawn's
cloudy light amid the town's scattered wood and adobe houses, liveries, small
manufactories, and inns. Three-storied, deep-moated by Liana Creek, and shaped
a square, it enclosed a large, grassed siege-yard for sheep, a roofed swinery
for boar, and runs for chicken-birds. Charles
Ketch's office was off the courtyard, at the northwest corner of the third
floor. Its four tall windows were barred with thick, greased steel, and armored
men and women of Butler's Heavy Infantry mounted hall guard in six-hour shifts.
These sentries, recruited deaf and dumb, had calmed their watch-mastiffs — and
grinning, apparently pleased with news of Boca Chica, saluted Sam past. "...
Sam, Sonora doesn't pay. Tax payments denied by three separate
pigeon-notes. Two, day before yesterday. One, yesterday afternoon." "Late,
you mean, Charles." Sitting on a three-legged stool with his scabbarded
bastard-sword across his lap, Sam straightened to ease his back, and wished
he'd had a hot bath in the laundry before coming upstairs and down the hall to
duty. Wished he'd had a second cup of chocolate at breakfast. "No,
sir. Withheld. Stewart claims they need their money for their roads,
this year — says an elected governer should have that decision." Charles —
looking, it seemed to Sam, older each time he saw him — sat with his desktop
and the floor around him piled with papers, paper scraps, twine-knotted bundles
of papers, and wooden boxes of the tiny rolled notes of pigeon-carries. His
copy of The Book of jew Jesus — a very old and precious copy concerning
the first Jesus known — rested like a thick battlement of sewn binding and time-browned
paper in front of him. Eric
Lauder had once said to Sam, "Charles thinks the truth hides in that
Warm-time Bible like a bird in a bush. He puts his ear to it for little chirps
and twitters of sweetness... kindness." "Charles,
you're sure he's serious about withholding the province's taxes? He's picked a
very bad time for it." "Yes,
I know." Ketch's
office, gloomy in a cold and clouding morning, was packed to its rafters with
narrow crates of bound volumes containing the records of what each year had
brought to the provinces of North Map-Mexico. Reports of gold or silver earned
or spent, of diseases — animal and human — of good crops or bad, of crimes and
hangings. Bitter complaints and boasts of success. Everything carefully entered
on paper from Crucero Mill. All
news came to Better-Weather, and came fairly swiftly — by messenger, by pigeon — or several were
made sorry for slowness. Rumors came as well, and were always stacked in seven
boxes at the end of the highest shelf — hard to get to, and so the more
carefully considered before setting in place. "Our
memories are all in my paper-work," Charles Ketch had once said to Sam.
And each short summer, when Lady Weather's daughter had wed the sun, he cleaned
out his office, transferred all the crates to storage down the hall, and
ordered new boxes built for the memories of the new year. "Oh,"
Sam had said to him, "I still keep a few memories in my head." Charles
had smiled and reached out, as he often did, to grip Sam's arm, as if to be
certain he was still present, young, and strong. "Very
worst time for refusal." Sam leaned forward to pour a clay cup of water
from the fat little pitcher on Ketch's desk. "What makes Stewart think he
can get away with it?" "A
habit of making important decisions. It's the risk with governers: the tendency
to independence. They are elected." "Elected
with my permission, Charles." "Easy
for them to forget that, after two or three years in office." Charles took
a pinch of snuff, but didn't sneeze. No
one smoked the Empire's tobacco in Ketch's office — there were never flames
there that might cause fire, not even lamps at dark, so all reading and
copy-work was done by daylight. No
flame, so no heat through the nine months of hard winter. There were leaded
panes of clear glass in the windows, so the wind, at least, could not come in. "And
this is your worst news for me, Charles?" "Yes
— except for the Kipchaks coming down, of course." "You're
mistaken." Sam stretched his legs out. His right spur scraped the stone
flooring. "This tax thing is much more serious than two thousand horse
archers." Charles
smiled. Approval... fondness. "Yes. That's right, of course. Stewart's is
just the first of an endless succession of conflicts between Better-Weather and
the governers elected locally. Each province will challenge you, sooner or
later. Roads, mutton prices, wool prices, cabbage prices. You'll need certain
taxes, and they'll wish to make them uncertain, to use the money locally, if
only to insure their reelections. Stewart, and Sonora, are only the
beginning." "And
you've done... what?" "Nothing,
Sam. It's too important for a decision of mine." "Then
you advise... what?" Charles
sighed, seemed embattled behind his stacks of paper, his massive copy of The
Book. "Sam, you can have any recalcitrant governer removed from
office, or killed. But that would mean always having them removed or
killed at any serious disagreement. Taxes being the most serious — " "Aside
from recruitment." "All
right, aside from recruitment." "Which
would be the next refusal, Charles." "Yes,
which might very well be the next refusal." "And
your advice?" "What
I think we need to do, is limit their time in office. Make it law that a person
can be elected only once as governer in each province. Then there'd be no
building of little lordships to break us apart — or at least it would become
less likely." Charles's voice from gathering shade, as rain came down
outside. "Yes.
My fault for not thinking of this before." "Our
fault." Sam considered
Patricio Stewart. Big, bulky man with direct blue eyes and a bad temper. Broken
nose, possibly because of his bad temper. For some reason, wore his long
black hair in pigtails, held with silver clips. "Alright."
The stool had been doing Sam's back no good. He stood up, leaned on his
scabbarded sword. An aching back at twenty-seven; he'd be a bent old man, no
doubt about it. "Alright. We'll issue that order of a single term only,
for governer of any province." "Still
five years?" "Yes.
Still a five-year term, once elected against all comers. But one term
only." "And
if the other governers object? Follow Stewart?" "Charles,
I won't kill them; they were elected by their people. And I won't kill Stewart,
for the same reason." The rain swept like a slow broom down the windows,
dimming the daylight so Ketch, behind his desk, seemed to fade with it.
"Instead, when this happens, I'll kill the person most important in
supporting their independence." "...
I see." "Might
be Eric talking?" Charles
shrugged. "Eric has his uses." "Who
is Stewart's most important friend in this tax thing? Who stands behind him in
Sonora?" "...
His wife's father, I believe. A formidable man, Johnson Neal. I know him,
raises spotted cattle." "Have
Neal arrested, Charles. See that he's tried for treason in the tax matter. For
plotting to destroy our unity... possibly in the Khan's pay, or the Emperor's.
Then hang him." In
deepening shadows, Charles had become a ghost. "And if the magistrate
makes some difficulty, Sam?" "Choose
a magistrate who won't. This is to be done at once. And the same magistrate is
to issue a judgment referring to payment of provincial taxes as duty
inescapable." "That's...
that should be effective." "Also,
find a discontented priest of
Mountain Jesus, a man who may have had problems with Stewart's people over
shares of altar gifts, distributions... whatever. Bound to be one. Advise the
man to preach, publicly and often, proper obedience to Better-Weather. Three
gold spikes will be sent, later, to be driven into any temple tree he
wishes." The
ghost sat silent. "—
And all a legal and administrative matter, Charles, and your responsibility.
Neither Eric nor the army are to have anything to do with it....
Understood?" "Meaning,
I suppose, that I tend to avoid unpleasant necessities?" "Meaning
that, Charles — and that it should be seen as a matter of law, not of my
will and my soldiers." "I'll
see to it." "Quickly,
in the next few days, so send fast pigeons. We're going to need that money....
Oh, and once the taxes are received — and all in coin, not kind — spare what we
can for road-work in Sonora. Build a bridge, and name it after Stewart. A
modest bridge." "Yes...."
The spectral Charles Ketch seemed to smile. "Really very sensible, I
suppose." "But
sad for Johnson Neal's daughter?" "Yes." "Only
if she's stupid, Charles." Sam slung his sword on his back. "If she's
clever, she'll know her father hanged in her husband's place." "Then,
let's hope she's clever.... And the matter of remounts for this... excursion up
into Texas?" Sam
paused at the office door. "Every damn horse in Nuevo Leon, if necessary.
Have your people pay their price and bring them in. If it has four legs and can
carry a man, Howell is to have it." "May
have to pay with script." "Get
them in, Charles." "Yes,
sir." "I
want the first draft corralled in Ocampo in four days. The second, three days
later in La Babia." "Sam
— I'll need more time, just a few days more." "Charles,
I don't have the time to give you. First and Second Regiments of Heavies and
Second Regiment of Lights, reinforced, will be there; Howell is picking them up
as he goes." "The
reserves?" "Every
trooper." "Nailed
Jesus. How are we going to pay them? We have no plans for calling up the
reserves, Sam, except for war. For war, they'd wait for their money. This will
be thousands of gold pesos every day!" "This,
Charles, is war's beginning." "Dear
Weather..." "And
what money we don't have later, I'll borrow from the Emperor." "Oh,
of course! Would you tell me why Rosario e Vega would agree to pay our
army?" "Oh,
I think he'd prefer to, Charles, rather than see it coining down through Zacatecas
to pay him a visit." Ketch
laughed, laughter from darkness, over the sound of rain. "Might work, at
that.... Alright. The remounts will be there, Sam. At Ocampo and La Babia. But
it will cost us a fortune, and make enemies in Nuevo Leon." "Any
rancher who objects to parting with his horses, Charles, is welcome to go with
them up to Map-Fort Stockton." "Understood."
*
* *
...In
the corridor, two big soldiers with curved body-shields at rest, short-swords
drawn, stood spaced down the passage a few yards apart. In greased boots and
horse-hide trousers, with straps of oiled steel body-armor from shoulder to
hip, they stood still as if frozen, their faces obscure behind helmet nasals. A
watch-mastiff's rising — and Sam's shadow, thrown by sconced lamplight along
the walls — alerted both deaf-mutes as he came, and their helmets turned toward
him smoothly as Warm-time machinery must have done. The
first guard was a woman — taller than Sam was, and wider. She made a comic
face, wiggled her eyebrows at him as he passed her great grumbling dog, so he
went smiling past the second soldier to the stairs.
CHAPTER 10
Martha
was lost. Almost two weeks in the Queen's chambers had taught her nothing of
Island's directions, passages, and endless ups and downs. The
Queen's chambers were the whole top of North Tower, three great whitewashed
drum-round rooms, one above the other. The lowest was guarded on narrow left-winding
stone steps by six soldiers, three in green-enameled steel, and three in blue.
Very polite soldiers, who'd nodded and smiled at Martha every time she went up
or down. They'd
smiled and nodded, but never spoke to her, and all six unsheathed their swords
each time the iron doors opened at the top or bottom of the stairs. They drew
their swords… watched her coming to them, up or down, then sheathed their
swords, smiled and nodded. In.
those few days, Martha'd learned that tower. Queen's chambers above, guardroom
below, kitchen and pantry below that... then down more winding steps to the
scrub-laundry, with its water barrels, kettles, stone tubs, and ever-hot iron
stove. The laundress was Mary Po, a big silent scrubber with hands ruined by
lye and hot water; there were no nails on her fingers. The girl Walda helped
her, and ironed the Queen's robes and woven linen with flat polished stones hot
from the Franklin, so the room smelled of cloth heated to nearly scorching. There
were all those levels of the Queen's tower, and places deeper still, down
steeper steps through little iron doors. Darker places, where Martha was not
permitted. The green-steel Guard captain, Noel Purse, had ordered her not, her
first day. "Guests,
down there," he'd said. "Her Majesty's important guests, resting in
chambers beneath. And that will never be your business." "Yes,
sir," Martha'd answered as if she were a soldier, since she felt like a
soldier, though a girl, and was armed with her spear as a guard herself. Down
there, someone must have heard the captain talking to her, because the faintest
howling began, so she supposed one of the guests had brought his dog-pet with
him. — But later, when she mentioned the dog-pet to Maid Ulla, Ulla had made a
child's warning face and told her it was people, and the Queen would visit
them, but never let them out. So,
there was no dog-pet under the tower. At
first — perhaps because she was tired — Martha had thought she might be
dreaming of the Queen's chambers, dreaming and drifting through them as she
sometimes drifted in dreams. The huge round rooms, their stone walls
lime-washed snowy white, were draped in great soft sheets of orange cloth and
gray cloth, purple, rose, sky-blue and pinewood green, so there was color
everywhere. Some cloths hung against the walls, and others fell across from
round alder rafters to divide one place from another — so each great room was
like a house with smaller rooms within it. There
were those richly colored cloth curtains, and woven tapestries of war, of
hunting, of handsome Extraordinaries playing banjars, flutes, and drums among
flowers in glass-ceilinged gardens. Then others of the same people kissing and
fucking, and also summer wet-ships and winter ice-ships sailing the river
through the three seasons…. The tower chambers always bright with many hanging
lamps, and sometimes sunlight shining through stone-slit windows sealed with
glass very close to clear. There
was also see-through southern gauze — which Martha'd heard of but never seen —
that hung here and there like smoke, and stroked her as she walked through it
behind Queen Joan. All almost a dream, and seeming more so since the women
— Ulla, fat Orrie, and the great ladies
who waited on the Queen — stepping quietly on the carpets, appeared as if by
magic when a curtain was suddenly pulled aside. So
the Queen's daughter, Princess Rachel, once appeared for breakfast with her
mother — a princess seeming to Martha more serious than the story ones. Tall,
dark-eyed, dark-haired, face too strong-boned for beauty, she'd stalked through
drapery unsmiling. But introduced, had taken both Martha's hands with gentle
courtesy, and said, "Welcome to our household." Though
later, buttering muffins with her mother at table by the solar's iron stove,
she'd glanced at Martha — standing nearby with her spear — raised an eyebrow,
and murmured, "Mother...." "What?...
What?" The
Princess had sighed, and said, "Never mind." Ulla
told Martha that Princess Rachel lived in a different tower, came to breakfast
rarely, and the black stains on her fingers were writing-ink. ...
As the Princess had come to breakfast, so other great ladies came to visit
through the days. Some brought their children, others little dog-pets to play
with — but none stayed long. The Queen preferred privacy. In these wonderful,
cushioned, quiet rooms, only she was harsh and noisy, striding here and there,
making rough jokes and criticizing her women's sewing as they sat at the long
table in the gauze-curtain room, doing fine stitchery in linen kerchiefs, and
on the Empire's white cotton underthings. Martha
had touched and dirtied a kerchief her second afternoon, and been sent down to
the laundry for a bath. "With lye soap!" the Queen had called. — "I'll have no pig to guard me!" So,
in a stone tub, with Mary Po pouring buckets of hot water, and the ironing
girl, Walda, scrubbing with a bristle brush, Martha was made clean enough to
touch Jordan Jesus' altar cloth. Then she was dressed in heavy sandals and
fresh linen, in underclothes and overdress, with long sleeves like almost a
lady — though one who would soon wear padded fine-mesh mail under her gown.
That had been fitted-for, but not yet finished. When
done, her hair dried at the laundry hearth and pinned up, a finger ringlet
before each ear, Martha took her spear, went up the many stone steps — smiled
at the six soldiers as they smiled at her — and climbed past them to the Queen. "Better,"
Queen Joan said, looking her up and down. "You'll never be a pretty girl,
but 'handsome' may be. possible in time, though a fairly large 'handsome.' The
ringlets, the ringlets have their charm." And Martha, now so clean, was
invited to sit beside the Queen at a mother-of-pearl table, to sort old
earrings for keepers and pairs. "Trumpery
crap, most of these." The Queen's long fingers sorted and shifted,
flicking silver and gold, bright stones and stones softly-rich this way and
that. "Those I had from my sweet Newton, I know and keep — what are you
doing?" "Separating
the plain hoops." "Well…
the silver; put those aside." "Yes,
ma'am." The
Queen began to hum as she worked, then said, "What do you think of
these?" "They're
very pretty." "Yes.
I thought so too, many years ago. Now, of course, I know better — and so they
are spoiled for me." She began to hum again, fingers deft among the
jewels. "I do not remember the names of half the men who gave me these...
made flowery fucking speeches, bowing, asking Newton's permission to gift me
this or that. Once, my sweetheart smiled at Liam Murphy — Lord Murphy's gone, of course. Whole family's
gone, and a daughter eaten. Newton smiled at him and said, 'You may give my
lady what you please. As it pleases her, it pleases me… though doesn't turn me
from my way.' " The
Queen set green studs aside. "Poor Liam should have listened more closely....
Do you think of men, Martha?" "...
No." The
Queen stopped sorting. "Martha, you're going to be with me for many years.
You've just told me a lie. Never, ever, lie to me again about anything." "I'm
sorry. I do think of men, sometimes." "And
in particular? The truth, now." "Well,
I liked Ralph-sergeant." The
Queen found a little gold lump, with no pin or clasp. "Trash.... You liked
Ralph-sergeant. And who is he?" "A
soldier. He came to get me at my father's house." "And
why did you like this soldier?" "He
was big — bigger than me. And he was kind." "Ah…
'kind.' I have many large sergeants in my armies, East-bank and West, but I
hope not too many that are kind.... Do you have a match for the
turquoise?" "No,
ma'am." "Of
course not; that would be too fucking lucky. How am I to get a turquoise to
match with that Kipchak squatting on Map-Arizona? This is a useless
earring." "You
could give it to Lord Pretty." "Yes,
Gregory'd wear it. Damn fool…." Through
the following days, Martha had learned the attendant ladies' names and titles,
learned the servants' names: Ulla, Francis, Orrie, and Sojink — a tiny Missouri
tribeswoman with filed teeth and a bluebird tattoo across her face.... Martha'd
learned the cloth-draped spaces of Upper Solar and Lower, and where Queen Joan
slept by a window in the high chamber, curtained in cloudy gray. She'd learned
also to stay very near the Queen, just to her right and a little back, the
spear always in her hand. Still,
Martha could go up and down the tower, and visit as she wished — but never for
very long. That was decided when the Queen was choosing a robe for Wintering
the Gardens, and didn't care for the velvet that fat Orrie showed her. She
said, "Everything from that clothes-press smells of river mold! Orrie,
take them all down to the laundry to be cleaned and pressed again. Martha, help
her, and stay there to see it properly done." "No,
ma'am." The
Queen stood very still, then said, "What did you say?" Seeming
startled, as if there'd been a birdsong she'd never heard before. Fat Orrie was
panting like a puppy. Martha
said, "No, ma'am. I won't go down with the laundry, and stay there." Then,
though the Queen's face didn't change, she put her hand on her dagger's pommel.
That knife was a soldier's weapon, long-bladed and heavy enough to weight her
jeweled sash. "I'm
here to guard you, ma'am," Martha said, though she was frightened. "I
can't guard you if I'm sitting waiting in the laundry." The
Queen turned her head as if she were listening to voices… then took her hand off
her dagger. "Yes, that was a proper 'No, ma'am' from you. You'll
help Orrie take the laundry down — then
come right up again to be near me." "Yes,
ma'am." "But,
Martha," the Queen said, "don't become too free with noes." ...And Martha had been careful not to. She'd shut her
mouth and opened her eyes and ears through her first days, and learned the
solar chambers, the tower and its people, very well, except for the deep places
below. But now, with another place to be at mid-day by the glass exactly, she
was lost and wandering Island like a pony loose. After
she'd asked directions of two people — people who seemed Ordinaries, and not
too great to answer — then asked a third in a granite passage along her way,
Martha climbed, at last and late, two flights of stairs in the South Tower...
tapped on a narrow oak door, received no reply, then slowly opened it onto a
wide sunny room. It was very bright with windows. The floor, polished white
marble streaked with brown, was puddled here and there by something spilled.
Smelled like a lamp's Boston oil. A
man was standing by a long oak rack of weapons. He was short and seemed
massively fat, big around as a cabbage barrel. He wore low boots, loose tan
trousers, and a yellow shirt, and though he appeared to be only in his middle
years, his hair — cut evenly in a circle
just above his ears — was dappled gray. A bowl-cut, they'd called that in
Stoneville. "You're
the Queen's Martha, I suppose. I'm Master Butter-boy." He set a slender
sword into the rack. "Don't come late to my class again." Master
Butter-boy had a pleasant deep voice, sounded to Martha like a good glee
singer. His eyes were dull green, and small. She
closed the door behind her, and set her spear leaning against the wall. The
streaks and spills of oil made the marble floor slippery. "I couldn't find
the way, Master." "You
have no master now, only the Queen for mistress. 'Sir' will do."
Butter-boy strolled a few steps nearer, moving like a pole-boater, with an easy
rolling gait. He stood looking at her —
and Martha saw he wasn't fat, only very wide, and thick with muscle.
Scars were carved into his round face, and three blue dots were tattooed on
each cheek. Thinner white scars laced his heavy forearms. " — You are the
Queen's, and no other's. You might keep that in mind when some try you for this
or that favor, or attempt to command you." "Yes,
sir." "And
you say you couldn't find your way here?" "Yes.
I went to West Tower." Master
Butter-boy gave her a hard look. "Then learn your way. Learn Island
well enough to run its passages blind. Because on some dark night of trouble,
you may have to. We are at war, though many here don't yet seem to
realize it." "Yes,
sir." "Mmm….
Well, you've got size, if it doesn't slow you. None easier to butcher than Large-an'-slows.
And thank the River you don't carry big teats — very much in the way, fighting
hand to hand. No big teats, and no balls to guard, either.... Your age?" "Seventeen,
sir." "Better
and better. Youth makes the third fighting gift. No comment? We stand silent? —
though I hope, not stupid." Butter-boy smiled, drew a small knife from his
belt, and threw it at her spinning. Martha
thought of ducking away, but there was no time. Thought of catching the knife
by its handle, but that seemed unlikely. She swung her hand as the knife came
whirling, and slapped it to the side to clatter across the floor. Her palm was
cut a little. "Did
you think of catching it?" "Yes,
sir." "Then
why didn't you try?" "I
think I thought… better a cut, than chance the point coming in." Master
Butter-boy smiled. "You and I, Martha Queen's-Companion — may I call you
Martha?" "Yes,
sir." "Well,
Martha, you and I are going to settle in very well when it comes to
murder." He walked over to pick up his knife. "You do know that all
killing is murder, though often for worthwhile reasons?" "….
I suppose so." "She
'supposes so.' " Butter-boy began to sheathe his knife, then spun and
threw it at Martha again, but underhanded, with a swift shoveling motion. Since
it wasn't spinning this time, Martha thought she might catch the knife's handle
as it came — stepped a little to the right, reached out, and just barely
managed to. Then, for no particular reason, it seemed reasonable to immediately
throw it back. "...
I can't tell you, Martha," Master Butter-boy said, "how pleased I am
with you already." They were at the weapons racks, putting yellow ointment
on their cuts. "You are the season's surprise!" "Thank
you, sir." "Now
— not to waste instruction time..." Butter-boy put the ointment pot back
on a shelf, considered a moment along the racks, then chose a plain,
long-bladed, double-edged dagger. "Ah, is there any creation as honest as
an honest weapon? No, there is not." Master
Butter-boy stepped out onto slippery marble. "Difficult to be sure of your
footing on this. Deliberately difficult. Did you think I'd spilled oil come all
the way from Map-New England — rendered out of whatever sea beasts — in
carelessness?" "I
wasn't sure, sir." "Well,
I didn't. Learn to fight on treacherous footing, and firm footing comes as a
gift." In illustration, Butter-boy began to stride, the long dagger's
needle point balanced on his thumbnail. Suddenly he slipped, slid, and tripped
stumbling across the floor. But the weapon went with him perfectly, didn't sway
as he mis-stepped and staggered, didn't threaten to tumble and fall. It seemed
to have grown, become rooted, where it stood on his thumb. "The
knife… the knife... the knife." Master Butter-boy jumped suddenly forward,
then sideways, then high-stepped back and back on the oiled marble — very light
on his feet, it seemed to Martha, for so wide a man. The dagger stayed with him
as if they were partners in a dance. "Listen,"
he said, always moving — turning in circles now. "Every steel weapon,
sword to ax, flowers from the knife and its discipline of timing, force, and
distance to strike. The swinging ax, the parrying sword, are only children of
the knife. Never despise it — though there are fools who do, until its blade
slides between their ribs." He flipped the dagger off his thumbnail,
caught it casually by the grip, and stood easy. "Some
courtiers — you know that word? It's a Warm-time word, and means those who
linger in a king or queen's court. Some of those will stare at your ax, which I
understand is being fettled for you, and consider it your first weapon in
protection of the Queen. They will think of the ax — perhaps one or two plan
for the ax — and forget the long knife entirely. See to it you do
not." "Yes,
sir." "And
always remember this: Your weapons, if across a room and out of reach, are no
weapons at all, but only a source of amusement for those butchering you, then
your Queen." "I
understand." "Never,
never, never go unarmed." "I
won't." "And
never unarmored. Always at least fine
chain-mail over a padded shift to protect your breast, your belly — and your
back, above all." "Yes,
sir. They're making it." "Now,
Martha, choose a knife from our weapons stand, and come see if you can cut off
some portion of me — keeping in mind there are no dulled instruments here,
bleeding being the best teacher."
*
* *
"The
Queen is among her pickles." The East-bank soldier, steel armor-straps
enameled to gleaming jade, stepped aside to let Master Butter pass into storage
— household storage, not the great, dark, echoing chambers beneath Island's
inner keep, stacked with barrels of crab-apple, barley, pickle-beets and
onions, salt beef, salt mutton, salt pork, and salt cabbage. Here,
in Household, were small rooms of special cooked and jarred far-south fruits,
condiments, compotes, and particular meats — boiled and poured into clamp-lid
crocks, then sealed with wax, so they almost always lasted more than a year.
Though sometimes not, and burst with hard sounds and messes. Butter
walked down the narrow stone corridor, his shoulders wide enough to often brush
the walls. He heard the Queen muttering, ahead and off to the left, in the
pickling room…. One of her dear things, pickles. Apparently they hadn't had
them in the savage mountain world she'd been born to, so she ordered foods
pickled that most had never thought to. Broccoli, carrots, cauliflower. The
court had taken to these, so every gathering and ball saw bowls of pickles
along the sideboards, with the smoked meat, honey candy, hard-cooked eggs and
hot barley rolls. The salting prompting thirst, of course…. Butter stepped to
the left. "So,
Master Butter…?" Queen Joan, in ropes of freshwater pearls over a gown of
soft imperial cloth — dark blue, with dark-blue lambskin boots to match — was
shaking a great blown-glass jar of the tiniest gherkins, finding treacherous
sediment. "Look at this sad shit," she said — the Warm-time phrase so
apt — and held the jar up to a deep arrow-slit through the tower's stone, so
daylight might aid lamplight. Master
Butter straightened from a bow. "Susan-preserver is getting old." "We're
all getting old, Butter. But not all of us careless." "She's
very old." "Then
let her get her trembling ass off my island. Let her hobble back where she came
from." The Queen shook the gherkin jar again. Peered into it. "…. So?
What of my Large-Martha; is there prowess there?" "Your
Large-Martha will do, Majesty — when she learns Island, and always to be a
little early rather than late. Should do better than some who call themselves
fighting men. She has size and strength, but more important, quickness. A big
man, stronger and just as fast, could likely beat her down, but not easily. She
doesn't mind bleeding." "But
can she learn to fight, Master Butter? — fight serious men and sudden,
not just bumpkin Ordinaries brawling in her father's yard." "I'm
sure so." "And
you're 'sure so'... why?" "Most
men and women, Queen, if steel or any trouble comes suddenly, throw their heads
back in startlement — and so, of course, lose a moment to defend themselves.
This Martha does not. She lowers her head to look closer, to watch what
comes and how it comes." "Hmm...
And once she's trained, could you kill her in a fight?" "Oh,
yes, Majesty, though not easily. But I can kill anyone." "Well,
Master Butter, I've known two men you couldn't have killed." "…
Ah, the King, of course. Very strong. Was very strong." "My
Newton, yes. And another... I don't think you'd find me easy, either, though
I'm not what I was." "I
would cut my throat before that contest, My Dearest Majesty." The
Queen set the gherkin jar down on its shelf with a clack that almost
broke it. "Then you're an ass, and impertinent in your affection!" "My
apologies, Queen. But of course, I'm mad." "Yes,
so Paul-doctor says. He says you hear unpleasant voices, but so far manage to
disagree with them. And you are useful as master of arms." Master
Butter bowed. "Now,
get out of my sight. Hone my guardian-girl to a fine edge, but do not come
private into my presence again for a year." "A
year, Majesty," Master Butter said, " — a year is not so long a
time." And bowed himself out of the Chamber of Pickles.
CHAPTER 11
Webster
was furious from long imprisonment. Patience had kept him basketed by day,
allowed only the shortest night flights for exercise. He bit her thumb to the
bone when she reached in with a piece of lunch's mess-kettle mutton, then
huddled stoic as she shook his basket — cursing while little drops of her blood
flew — then threw it onto the tent's canvas floor and kicked it under the cot. Sleety
early-evening rain came in a gust, as if Lady Weather were angry also. "Very
well," Webster said from under there, speaking in a thin, weedy little
croak that someone unfamiliar might not have recognized as speech. "Very...
well." It
sounded like a threat, but was surrender. Patience
held her thumb down a moment to bleed it, then insisted that bleeding stop.
Even so, it took a while. Webster's teeth, though few and small — a baby's milk
teeth in fact — were capable, as he'd proved on a robin once. When
the thumb stopped dripping, Patience wasn't angry anymore, and went to hands
and knees. Under the cot, through the basket's woven willow strips, pale blue
eyes — the right, wandering — looked out at her. "Very well." Almost
a whisper. "Are
you hurt?" She meant his wings. "No." "Oh,
thank Who Comes," Patience said, reached in, and rolled the basket out
while the Mailman scrambled to stay upright. No bitten thumb was worth damaging
its wings. More expensive than any two or three occas, this was an embryo
halted and kept halted at four months in the womb, while what were becoming
arms, wrists, and fingers were encouraged to shape wing-struts instead, and
anchorages of muscle were enlarged in the breastbone. All mind-managed,
observed through slender glass tubes stuck inside a tribeswoman's belly. Delicate
work, not to be compared to the easier earlier interventions that almost always
produced an occa — delicate work, and often unsuccessful. No apartment on the
Common cost as much as one of these wonders. And this — she'd named him
Webster, since he spoke so well, had forty-three words — this was Township
property, not hers. She
set his basket on the cot, and unlatched the lid; Webster tried that
constantly, but the method was beyond him, his fingertips too tiny. She took
the lid off, and reached in to stroke and lift him out. He was withered, very
small — a double handful — and brown as an old leaf, his round bald head the
heaviest thing about him. He smelled of milky shit, and had left little slender
yellow turds in his folded bedding. "You
bad boy… making messes." And he was a boy, or would have been; there was
the tiniest pinch of spoiled cock and balls nested at his bottom. Webster
was still angry, said none of his words while Patience unfolded one of his
comfort cloths and wiped him. She reached up to set him against the tent-pole,
where he clung with skin wings and little nearly-legs wrapped around the wood,
while she took the messed cloths from his basket and folded two fresh ones in. "Want
cheese?" Patience smacked her lips to demonstrate how wonderful the cheese
would be. Webster
stared down from the tent-pole — little left blue eye looking straight at her,
the other drifting away. "Cheese?"
Patience dug for the crock in her duffel. Table scraps were often fed Mailmen —
little meat pieces they could munch and gum to slurry — but farmer's white
cheese was recommended, mashed with goat's milk if possible. Both things
produced south of the ice, and very expensive. "Oooh,
look at this… look at this!" She held a caked forefinger up to him.
"If you bite, I'll make you sorry." 'Make
you sorry' was a phrase all Mailmen were taught in training — when occasionally
they were made sorry for flapping off the glacier flyway from Cambridge
to New Haven and back again. Webster apparently recalled it. He closed his
eyes, opened his mouth… and Patience felt eager wetness and heat, the rhythmic
tickle of his little tongue as he licked and sucked the clots from her finger. Five
loaded fingertips later, Webster burped and said, "Fly?" — his first
courteous word since their fight. "Yes."
Patience lifted him down and set him on her shoulder, which he clutched with
fanned translucent amber wings. " — To Map-McAllen." Webster
understood 'McAllen' at least, and nodded. He had — as all completed Mailmen had — a perfect map
stuck in his understanding by weeks and weeks of careful feeding of treats for
remembering, weeks and weeks of careful scorching with candle flames for
forgetting, say, where Map-Charleston, or Map-St. Louis, or Map-Philadelphia,
or Map-Amarillo were, and their direction either way and any way. Scorching, as
well, for forgetting the how-to-get-theres of much smaller places. All to
fashion a messenger so superior to silly pigeons, who could only return where
they came from. "Not
sunshine." Webster was a coward, and frightened of hawks. "No,"
Patience said. "Moonlight." And turned her head to him for a puppy
kiss. He didn't kiss very well... really only licked little licks. The
near-frozen rain peppered the tent's canvas as Patience sat on her cot, and
using her small silvered-glass mirror for backing, while Webster watched from
her shoulder, wrote a tiny note in tiny printing on a tiny strip of best-milled
white paper.
fm
better-weather, dear cousin louis, voss and 4000 cav going probably north to be
bad in probably texas. now send webster back, yrs, p.
She
reread it as Webster crawled down to the blanket beside her and thrust out a
fragile little leg. It barely had a knee, had toes too small to count. It
seems probable, Patience thought.
She'd heard the word 'north' spoken by a trooper in horse-lines. And a farrier
cursing over the lack of replacement shoes for Voss until Boquillas del Carmen.
So… probable. She
gently wrapped the strip of paper around Webster's leg — there were tiny soft bones in it — then
looked in the covers for the piece of string she'd had ready to fasten the
message on. She found the string on her pillow… and found also that she'd
changed her mind. "Why,"
she said to the Mailman, "should we make my so-old Cousin Louis look wise
in Map-McAllen? Why let him interfere with my camp's campaigning? Though it
would serve a certain rude ruler right, who threatened to pull me off my horse
and hit me with a whip…. Still, what could be more foolish than helping foolish
Louis rise to Faculty, when he'll deny us credit?" Webster
watched her from the blanket. "
'Oh,' he'll say, 'I knew it before, that cavalry coming up.' His so-old wife
will agree. And you know, Webster, if Monroe's people lose severely in Texas,
there will soon be no North Map-Mexico. And with no North Map-Mexico, no need
for an ambassadress to it." Patience
unwrapped the note from the Mailman's leg, tucked the paper into her mouth,
chewed thoroughly, and swallowed. "Instead, let's adopt the Warm-time
attitude of wait-and-see." "'Wait
and see,'" Webster said, his voice thin as the piece of string, though he
had no idea what those words meant. He had suckled his white cheese too
greedily, and proved it by burping a mouthful up.
*
* *
Howell
Voss, having restrung the banjar with true cat-gut — two silver pesos a coil, shipped from
Imperial Trading & Market in Cabo — leaned back on his cot and played a
tuning chord, Warm-time G. Or so it was assumed. He'd long had the suspicion
that ancient tuning was slightly different from the present's — different
enough so the music said to have been theirs, notated as theirs in surviving
copy-works, now probably sounded somewhat off. He
twisted his pegs, plucked... twisted his pegs again, and was in modern tune at
least. He'd
just taken a singing-breath, when someone scratched at his tent-flap. "I
heard you tuning," Ned Flores said, stooping to come in out of gathering
darkness. He wore an ice-spangled army blanket as poncho, and was pale as a
weary girl. "— Thought I'd better interrupt before the camp
suffered." "You
might remember that wasn't your sword hand you lost." "No."
Flores dropped the blanket, gently kicked open a folding camp chair, and sat.
"But you wouldn't duel an officer for an act of mercy." Voss
sighed and set the banjar down. "Truly refined taste is so rare.... And
how is that wound? Should you be up and walking?" "Well,
after five days in a mercy wagon with a fresh-sewn stump, I'm glad to be up. As
for this," holding out a thickly bandaged left wrist, " — not, by the
way, as comic as your fresh-trimmed ear — I'm told I can have something made,
and strapped on." "What
something?" "Your
Portia says, a hook." "The
doctor's not 'my Portia.' But I think a hook would do." The sleet was
rattling, coming down harder. "I've
been considering tempered steel, Howell, forged from knife stock a flat inch
and a quarter wide by a quarter inch thick — in-curving to a wicked fish-hook
point. And, and its outer edge filed and sharpened." "The
whole outside curve of the hook?" "Hollow
ground to a razor edge. Hook in, slash out." "Mountain
Jesus. You'll have to be careful with that thing, Ned." "Others...
will have to be careful of it. I don't suppose you intend to share any tobacco.
You're getting damned rude, Howell — or should I say 'General'?" "A
curtsy will do." Howell dug in a trouser pocket, tossed a half-plug over.
"Don't take it all. That's Finest." Ned
bit off a chew. "Oh, of course it is; it only smells like dog shit.
Who sells you this stuff?" He tossed the remainder back. "Maurice." "Maurice,
the Thief of Reynosa?" "He
was acquitted. And that was about mules; the store was not involved." Ned
tucked the chew into his cheek. "Remind me, Howell..." he leaned far
back in the camp chair, paged the tent-flap aside with his bandaged stump, and
spit over his shoulder out into the rain. "Remind me to play pickup sticks
with you again. For money." "Yes,
I will — and what the fuck happened at This'll Do?" "What's
the Warm-time for it? Got... 'too big for my britches.' " "Elvin
always gets that wrong." Howell bent to pick up the banjar. "Please
don't. I'm an invalid." "Healing
music." Howell commenced soft strumming. "So, what happened at
This'll Do?" Ned
shifted his chew. "Absolute dog shit.... Well, nothing as wonderful as the
Boca Chica thing, from what I hear. Our Sam standing aside to watch you
make an ass of yourself — which, by some
miracle, you did not." "Which
— by some miracle, Ned — I did not." Howell struck a chord, then lightly
muffled it with his fingers. Struck... muffled. Struck... muffled. "At
This'll Do, I thought.... Howell, I thought there was a very good chance to
beat those people." "You
did?" "And
I would have, if they'd had the usual old fart commanding them." "But
they didn't; I know. He gave us a hard time. Rodriguez, one of the new
ones." "So"
— Ned leaned back to spit again — "a lot of our people killed. All my
fault." "Ned..."
Howell plucked out a soft fandang rhythm. "What in the world were
you doing down there at all? And with only half a regiment of Lights? Why would
Sam send you? We could have waited for those people to come up, get into real
trouble." "Oh,
both of us thought it seemed a good idea." "At
the time." "Yes.
Seemed a good idea at the time." "Mmm...." "Change
of subject from my command blunders, Howell.... I'm interested in going up into
Texas with you. Map-Fort Stockton." "No." "No?" "If
you were four weeks better healed, Ned, you wouldn't have to ask. I'd have
asked for you." "I
can sit a horse." "Not
for a three-day ride north, and then a fight. You're not going." "I'm
not going...." "No,
you're not." "And
if Sam says I am?" "You're
not going." "Well...
play me a tune on that fucking thing, if you're going to sit there with
it." Howell
bent his head to the instrument, watched his large hands as if they were
another's, and picked out a swift, soft, twanging melody. "That's
not... not terribly offensive." Ned, grown paler, leaned back to spit the
chewing tobacco out. "'Camp
Ground Racers,' supposedly," Howell said. "But I doubt it." Ned
sat back with his eyes closed, listening. "Ned?" "I'm
not dead. Though I'm sure I look it." Howell
stopped playing, set his instrument aside. "Come use my cot. Lie down for
a while." "Tell
you something funny, Howell..." "Come
on, lie down." "Tell
you something funny." Eyes still closed. "I have — had — always assumed I'd be next in line.
Take command under Sam. Take command if anything happened to him. Always
assumed it would be me." "Ned
— " "And
of course, that very assumption demonstrated I would never be any such thing.
But I didn't see it." "Stop
the horseshit, and lie down." "I
don't know how it happened." Ned sat up, looked across the tent as if
there were distance there. "When Sam and I were kids, I led, more often
than not. Then, when we got older — when
the fighting started — I don't know how it happened. Just... after a while,
people were coming to Sam and saying, 'What now?' " "Ned
— " "They
asked him. They didn't ask me. And that fucking This'll Do thing
is beside the point. I've made damn few mistakes in seven, eight years
fighting. I've been a hell of a commander. Better than you, Howell, Light Cavalry
ranging." "That's
true." "It
wasn't that I made mistakes. It was just that people didn't come to me and say,
'What now?' " "Come
on." Howell got up, took Ned's good arm. "Come on. Lie down and get
some rest." Ned
stood, and staggered. "Lie down, or fall down. Not ready for Map-Fort
Stockton, after all...."
*
* *
Coming
back from john-trench in gusting sleet — and regretting he hadn't moved into
his rooms at the fort, after all — Sam heard music, banjar playing from Howell
Voss's tent on officers' row. Bright music; surprising how lightly those big
fingers strummed.... It was a temptation to walk over, sit laughing, listening
to sleety rain and music, while talking army. Three years ago, even two years
ago, he would have done it. But the distance of governing had grown between
them, or seemed to have, which made the same difference. Voices
over there. Ned; certainly off his cot too soon after wagoning in. —
Interesting that loneliness was never mentioned in the old tales of kings,
presidents, generals and heroes. Those men and women somehow told as sufficient
of themselves, and never, after crapping, walking alone under freezing rain. Going
down tent lines to the third set-up, his boots scuffing through ice-skimmed
puddles, Sam heard- another conversation — one-sided conversation, it sounded.
He scratched at the canvas flap. "May I enter?" "Oh,
Weather..." Unbuttoning canvas. Then the Boston girl's sleek head, white
face. "It's the leader of all!" It was difficult to find her pupils
in eyes so dark. The wind spattered her face with tiny flecks of ice. "A
freezing 'leader of all.'" "A
moment." More unbuttoning, then the flap drawn aside. "Ice-rain!" For
a moment, Sam saw no one who could have said it. Then the girl's little
creature moved down the tent-pole, opened its mouth, and said again, "Ice-rain!" It
was the first time Sam had seen the thing — known to all the camp, of course,
despite some effort to conceal it — as more than shadowy motion in its basket.
More, proved unpleasant. "Webster
loves ice-rain," Patience said, closing the entrance flap behind them.
"He loves what hawks hate." "But
you haven't sent him flying." Sam brushed meltwater off his cloak. "Not
yet." She stood, observing him. "Are you going to fight the Kipchaks
now, or wait? Fight seriously, I mean, not these little scootings back and
forth across the border." "Well...
I would prefer the little scootings back and forth." "Please
sit; my tent is your tent.... So, you are going to fight him seriously —
and would have to be allied with Middle Kingdom." Sam
lifted his sword's harness from his back, then shrugged his cloak off and laid
it along the tent's canvas floor. He sat on the girl's cot, the sword upright
before him, resting his folded hands on its pommel. "We're discussing the
possibility, Ambassadress." The
girl clapped her hands together. "It's going to be a war!" Couldn't
have seemed more pleased. "I
would appreciate it — the army would appreciate it — if you could delay a
report of that possibility. Delay it... three weeks? Four?" "And
why should I do that, Captain-General?" "Well,
you've already delayed sending your…?" "Mailman.
Webster is a Mailman." "Ah...
well, you haven't yet sent him to report our cavalry's preparations to go
north. And there was no disguising that from someone already in camp." Patience
stared at him, head slightly turned. Perfect pale little face. Perfect teeth.
"I haven't sent him — for my own reasons." "Then
might you also… pause, before reporting the possibility of a larger movement
to the Boston people in Map-McAllen? Again, for your own reasons." The
Boston girl smiled. It seemed to Sam to be a smile in layers, like a bridal
cake — but one baked in sweet and bitter layers. "You believe that pride is
my fault? Wishing to be ambassadress to greater and greater?" "I
hope so." "But,
milord, New England doesn't want you winning — you and that fierce Queen —
against the so-brilliant and, I believe, very handsome young Khan." No
smile now. "I
know. But New England — Boston — is going to be disappointed, and will have to
await a later occasion. If I live, and the Kingdom fights with us, Toghrul will
probably lose." "And
you say that — why?" "Because
he's certain of victory... and victory's never certain." Sam stood with
his sword in his hand, bent to pick up his cloak, and swung it to his
shoulders. "Also, the Khan enjoys war. I don't. His enjoyment is a
weakness." "I
see." "And,
in exchange for three or four weeks of silence — your little friend not flying
to Map-McAllen — you can come with our army to the River war, and see
everything. You can come and hover above the dying, like Lady Weather." "Mmmm..."
Patience thrust out her lower lip like a child. "You are a bad man, to
tempt me." Her
little monster toed the tent-pole where he clung, and called, "Weather." ...
Outside, in darkness, Sam trudged a
long diagonal of freezing mud behind the Boston girl's tent, over to the next
setup's small, canvased toilet trench. A Light Infantry corporal, one of
Margaret's Headquarters people, sat behind the screen, balanced on the
poop-pole and peering through a little gap in the rigged canvas. A great horned
owl, huge golden eyes furious under soaked feathers, shifted on his right wrist
with a soft jingle of jess-bells. The
corporal stood up. "Sir." "Sorry
to stick you with this duty, Barney. She probably won't be sending her creature
tonight. Probably won't be sending him at all." "If
she does, sir, Elliot'll hear it fly, and go kill it." The
owl, Elliot, hissed softly at its name, and fluffed its feathers. "Who
has the daytime, now?" "Elmer
Page, sir. Civilian. He's got a hunting red-tail." "Okay.
In the morning, tell Citizen Page that his help is much appreciated. — And
Corporal, remind him politely to keep silent about it." "Sir." Sam
walked down to the tent. Finding the entrance flap unbuttoned, he set it aside,
said, "May I?" and ducked in. "Milord."
Neckless Peter, in a hooded brown robe too big for him, stood up from behind a
small camp desk. "Sit,"
Sam said, set his sword against the tent's wall, and let his cloak fold to the
floor. "What are you reading?" "Please…"
The old man gestured to his cot. "I was writing, sir. A record... a memoir
of our doings." "Well..."
Sam sat on Peter's cot, and stretched to ease his back. "Well, if you're
troubling to do that, you may as well write the truth. No use wasting the work
on inaccuracies." "The
truth, sir. Yes." "Sit,
Peter. Sit. And let me thank you for the use of your toilet trench. An
inconvenience, but necessary." "I
understand. And the watchers have courteously stood aside for my necessities." "Still,
my thanks.... We're going to have a dinner, Peter, at the fort. In... oh, about
a glass. I'd like you to come over. Any guard will direct you to officers' mess
— one of those all too appropriate Warm-time names." "Yes,
sir." "Peter,
smile for me. You're not on the menu." The
little man smiled. "But perhaps your officers would prefer I not
come." "My
officers' preferences, I think, we can set aside in favor of good advice from
you. And, by the way, I won't permit questions about Toghrul Khan that might
offend your honor as his teacher." The
little man sat looking at Sam — a librarian's regard, as if Sam were a copybook
that might prove interesting. "There are… there are two things that
may prove useful, and that Toghrul would not mind my telling you." "Yes...?" "First,
I've seen that you and your people — officers and soldiers — are friends." "Not
always, Peter. But usually, yes." "Toghrul
Khan has no friends." "Mmm….
A disadvantage, when friends might be needed. An advantage, when friends might
be lost." "That's
so, of course, sir. And second, I believe you are sometimes afraid. The Khan,
however, is afraid of nothing and no one." "Now
that's very useful. Very much worth knowing." "Yes,
so it seemed to me." "Then..."
Sam bent to pick up his cloak, stood to fasten its catch at his throat.
"We'll see you at dinner?" The
old man got up from behind his desk. "Yes, milord." "'Sir.'
Or 'Sam,' if you prefer." "Sir." "And
bring an appetite, Peter. It'll be army food, but plenty." "I
will." "By
the way" — Sam paused at the tent's entrance — "since you're now in
our councils. I'm sending Howell Voss north, with all our cavalry assembled.
North into Texas. First, as a counterblow to the Khan's harassment across the
Bravo to the west.... And second, for a more important reason." "Heavens,"
Neckless Peter said — a perfect use of that wonderful old word. "A
'counterblow.' Toghrul will find that... interesting." "So
I hope," Sam said, set the tent-flap aside with his scab-barded sword, and
ducked out into sleet become snow.
*
* *
An
Entry — which, I suppose, must be
only a footnote to my history of North Map-Mexico and its Captain-General. In his
person, the young man represents his land and people so well that that alone
may be his guarantee of command. Young, strong — certainly ferocious, but
never, I think, wantonly, carelessly. A fierce shepherd of the mountain
shepherds' country. He
sat on the edge of my cot, and the light of my lamp went to him so he seemed
outlined, vibrating with energy to be released as, supposedly, did the internal
engines of wheel-cars on Warm-times' hard black roads. A
sturdy, broad-shouldered young man, sandy hair cropped short and shaved at his
neck — looking very much like a countryman come to a fair to wrestle for
prizes. A prosperous young countryman though marked by harsh weather, dressed
in good cloth, soft leathers, fine boots. His forearms thick as posts, his
large hands as fat with muscle as most men's fists. He
sat, elbows on his knees, and spoke to me — welcomed me, really, into his close
company. A closeness likely to cause me difficulties with Eric Lauder.... What
marked him commander? The light that seemed to go to him was surely only my
attention. So, his calm... yes. A readiness to act — certainly that; when he
wears his long sword, its grip hovers over his right shoulder like an odd
impatient demon, close enough to whisper in his ear. It seems
to me, considering, that the marker of his command lies in the great division,
a canyon's space, between the young man as plainly seen — intelligent,
forthright, absolutely capable — and the
infinitely subtle expression in his eyes. Eyes the color of those semiprecious
stones comprised of mixtures of light brown, light green, and light yellow,
seen sometimes in streams run down from the mountains of Map-California. In
his eyes was nothing forthright or simple, but rather complication, inquiry,
examination… and an odd affection — perhaps for me, perhaps for everyone. When
he left, I sat as one sits after reading an important copybook, of which only a
portion has been understood.
CHAPTER 12
"Get
that damn rat off the meat!" Elvin,
quick for a dying old man, picked up a roll and threw it down the table. It
missed Butler's dog — a yapping single-handful — and hit Sam as he was carving.
The mutton seemed tenderer than usual, and had little bits of pepper stuck in
it here and there. Oswald-cook grown enamored of southern spices, after cooking
a thousand dull kettles of Brunswick slumgul. "Don't
hurt my Poppy!" Phillip Butler wore ground-glass imperial spectacles held
to his eyes on thin, twisted wires that curled behind his ears. He looked over
the spectacles more often than through them. Short, gray-bearded, he seemed
more a children's tutor than a colonel of Heavy Infantry. Poppy
scurried down the table with a mutton scrap in tiny jaws, jumped a platter, and
leaped down into Butler's lap. "There, Candy-lamb," the colonel said,
looking still wearied by the five-day ride from Hermosillo Camp to
Better-Weather. "What's
this about Howell going up into Texas," he'd said to Sam that afternoon,
"and what nonsense are you up to, sir?" "Serious
nonsense, Phil." Sam stooped,
found the roll on the floor, then threw it back, sidearm. The brothers leaned
apart so the roll flew between them, and Sam went back to carving mutton —
cutting Ned's portion into small pieces, for one-handed eating. Oswald-cook had
put many little peppers in the meat.... Sam handed the loaded pewter
plates to Margaret to pass down the long, narrow table. They were eating in a
room of stone walls; ground floor in the fort, therefore no windows. Around
the table were all those close to him — except Portia-doctor, still with the
wounded at Clinic, and Charmian, already gone west to annoy the Khan's people
come over the border. Margaret
sat to his left, looking somewhat harried, preoccupied. Below her, Howell,
looming eye-patched over his plate. Then Phil Butler, then Ned, eating
one-handed and looking grim. The Rascob brothers at the end of the table, backs
to the iron stove — called a Franklin, after some Warm-time person. And up the
other side, Eric, who seemed annoyed, then Charles, then the little librarian,
shy and silent, on Sam's right. His
friends, and only family... though there'd been others through the years. From
the Sierra, and later. Paul Ortiz... Lucy... John Ott. All dead. Paul killed at
Tonichi. Lucy caught by imperials, raped, then burned to death tied to the
Jesus tree in the temple at Malpais. And John Ott lost for nothing, wasted for
what had seemed a useful notion. "I'm
glad I'm dying," Elvin said through his bandanna, as if he'd mind-read
Sam's thoughts. "Better death, than these fucking dinners with those
dogs!" Jaime
elbowed him. "Be quiet." "Don't
tell me to be quiet." Elvin, his plate arrived, settled to mutton and
potatoes, tucking forkfuls under a flap of bandanna to prove his good appetite. The
plates went round. Sam sliced and served, Margaret passed... and with thanks to
Lady Weather or Mountain Jesus by those who cared to give it, they ate spiced
mutton, broken potatoes with mutton gravy, and broccoli steamed with garlic.
They ate this main course quickly and in silence, from campaign habit... then
took second helpings for the same reason. Margaret
got up from the table-bench twice to go round, pour barley beer for them. She
bent beside Elvin to whisper in his ear. "You don't have to eat what you
don't want, Old Sweetheart." "Mind
your own business," Elvin said, then put down his knife and two-tine fork
— like all their mess silver, a spoil from God-Help-Us. "I've had enough.
Those little rats of Phil's have spoiled my appetite, running around the damn
table." "You
can have some custard, El," Jaime said. "You
have some fucking custard." ...
When — after the last of mutton, almost the last of potatoes and broccoli — the
custard bowl was passed with a cruet of honey, conversation came round with it. "Anything
at the races, Howell?" Charles and Howell both placed long-running wagers
on the races at El Sauz — though betting only with civilians. "I won on Barbershears, Charles. I'm sorry,
pigeon said Snowflake didn't show." "Surprise
me," Charles said. "Amaze me. A horse with three first
finishes — and for me, no show." Ned
was eating a dish of chicken-egg custard with his left wrist's bandaged stump
held carefully away from the table's edge. "Lesson, Charles — don't bet on
white horses. Does anybody here know of any white horse winning consistently?
There's something wrong with their bones… more white a horse has on his hide,
the more easily broken down." "Silver,"
the little librarian said, the first thing he'd said at dinner. "What?" "The
Warm-time horse," Neckless Peter said. "Hi-yo Silver was
extraordinary." "Oh….
Well, Warm-times." Ned poured honey on his dish. "Different
breeding." Sam
listened to horse talk for a while, then set his beer-jack down, pushed his
custard dish aside. "I'm sorry," he said, "to break the rule of
no war conversation at mess." There
were several small sounds of metal on oak, as knives and forks were put down.
The duller taps of horn spoons.... Margaret stood and went to the dining-room
door, by the weapons rack. "Empty
corridor," she said, "except for two of Charles' silent people on
guard. One dog. Louis." "Louis?" "The
dog, Sam. Name's Louis." "Okay....
What's said here, is not repeated." Sam waited for nods. "You all
know that Howell's going north into Map-Texas." "With
all the cavalry we've got." "That's
right, Ned. Picking up the divisions on his way. Every mount, every man and
woman." "And
if he loses those people? — Excuse me, Howell. But what if all those people are
lost?" "Then,
Ned," Sam said, "we go for a swim in Sewer Creek. So Howell is
ordered not to lose those people." "Takes
care of that," Howell said, and cut a small chew of tobacco. "
— Also Howell, when you reach Map-Fort Stockton, kill what fighting men you
can, of course, and any women who fight beside them, but otherwise, harm no
women or children." "That's
tender, Sam." Howell tucked the tobacco into his lower lip. "Tender….
But why?" "Because,
in the future, I want the Khan's troopers fighting only for him, not for their
families' lives." "Good
policy," the little librarian said, then closed his mouth when the others
looked at him. "But
bad policy" — Eric drummed his fingers on the table — "bad policy to have one here who was the
Khan's... and still may be." "My
Second-mother, Catania," Sam said, "found Neckless Peter to be a good
friend, and honest. Is there anyone now in North Map-Mexico with better
judgment in these matters?" Sam
waited through what Warm-time copybooks called 'a pregnant pause.' A small gray
moth, alive past its season, fluttered at a hanging lamp. "...
None I know of," Eric said. "Librarian, I apologize." "Unnecessary,"
Neckless Peter said. "A chief of intelligence should act the part." "Okay.
Charles, any problem with the staging of remounts — any problem with payments, with moving the
herds up the line?" "Lots
of problems, Sam. Lots of angry ranchers. But your horses will be there,
Howell." "Eric?" "Sam,
fodder's already wagoned and waiting. Hay and grain at Ocampo and La Babia.
Rations, horseshoes, spare tack, sheepskin blankets for the horses. Sheepskin
mitts, cloaks, overboots, and sleep-sacks for the troopers. Ten of Portia's
people mounted to accompany with medical kits and horse stretchers." "All
costing an absolute fortune," Charles said. "And
only the first expense, Charles." "Meaning
what, Sam?" "Meaning
that Howell and the cavalry are not coming back south.... Meaning that during
the next two to three Warm-time weeks — presuming the Kipchaks intend nothing
serious west of the Bend — during the next two to three weeks, all the
army, all reserves, and selected militia companies, will gather to march
north over the border, up the Gulf coast into Map West-Louisiana, then north
again into Map-Arkansas and the Hills-Ozark." Sam
finished speaking into a silence that seemed deep as dark water. "….
My God Almighty." An oath from Jaime Rascob that would have called
for burning, a few decades before. Another
silence, then, until Phil Butler broke it. "About time." Butler had a
rusty voice. "If the Khan takes the Kingdom, we're next. There's no doubt
about that." One of his tiny dogs — not Poppy — climbed up onto his left
shoulder like a cat. "Yes," Eric said. "I suppose… about time.
But surely after the winter would be better." "After
the winter," Elvin Rascob said,
"with the Kipchaks already campaigned down that frozen river, Middle
Kingdom would be dead as me." "Right,"
Howell said. "He'll go up into Map-Missouri now, take a river port — and
as the Mississippi freezes, send his tumans down the ice. Split the
Kingdom, East-bank from West... and the whole thing will be in his hands." "And
then," Jaime said, "he'd come for us." Lamplight
seemed to waver slightly in Sam's sight, move to the rhythm of his heartbeat.
Relief... relief and a deep breath no one must see him draw. These men, and
Margaret, might have said, "No. No war. We won't have it unless we're
invaded. The army won't have it. The people won't have it!"... They might
have said so, knowing he would never stand, take his sword from the rack, and
walk out to gather loyal soldiers, order the hangman to stretch and grease his
ropes. "Once
in the Hills-Ozark," Sam said, "we'll threaten the Khan's lines of
supply and communication with Caravanserai, and with his ports on the Ocean
Pacific. Very long lines of supply. Everything for his army will have to
come through broken country just north of us." Sam picked up the carving
knife, stroked its edge across mutton bones on the serving platter. "He
will not be able to let that stand. He'll have to turn from the Kingdom's river
to strike us." Howell
nodded. "And when he turns..." "We
fight him, and hope Middle Kingdom strikes the rest of his army, in the north,
at the same time." "Their
armies are supposed to be good enough," Ned said, "and if, as we hear
from Eric, those warships are truly capable, skating around on the ice..." "My
people have reported on those ships, Ned. And what they report is so." "No
offense meant, Eric. But we would be depending on those people. What's
the guarantee of their fighting hard enough in the north to tie down half the
Khan's army?" "As
yet — none." Sam tapped the carving knife's point on his plate. A soft
ringing sound. "But it makes good sense for them to do it. Together, we'd
have the Kipchaks in a toothed spring-trap, with jaws even Toghrul might not be
able to break." "If
you can persuade the Boxcars — and then, as Ned says, depend on
them." Eric smiled. "And they've always been slow at war. Strong, but
slow. Two armies, Left- and Right-bank —
always kept separate — and the Fleet, and the river lords,
don't make for quick response." "Ah..."
Butler stroked a dog. "But if Middle Kingdom will move, we can play
kickball with him. Toghrul campaigns north to the river, is heavily engaged —
then has to turn south to us, while hoping the rest of his army still holds in
the north. We've given him two chances to lose." "Yes,"
Sam said. "The Kingdom to his front, and us coming up his ass right across
his lines of supply. We'll see how Kipchak tumans enjoy campaigning with
enemies north and south of them. We'll see how they enjoy fighting us in
hills and forest, our kind of country. And they'll have to fight us, or
winter-starve." Sam examined lamplight gleaming down the carving knife's
blade. "Which reminds me; our dear Catania said there were likely still
the old Trappers, though only a few, in North Map-Texas. Perhaps, Eric, if you
sent a person riding far north now, to ask in her name and mine, they might
sled down to interfere with those supply lines here and there. Teach the
Kipchaks lessons in deep-snow fighting." "That
can be done." "All
very nice," Ned said, "if Lord Winter and Lady Weather cooperate.
Nice, if everything goes perfectly." "Almost
perfectly will do, Ned." Sam put
the carving knife down. "I know no other way to beat him." "He
could withdraw early," Howell said. "Take his losses… plan to deal
with us next year. And after that, go back to the Kingdom." "He
could," Sam said, "if his pride can bear a thousand-mile retreat, his
tribesmen swallow it. And after that, he'd find us and Middle Kingdom firmly
allied, and the more ready to deal with him.... Truth is, the Khan has made a
mistake. He's sent a small force against us, thinking we'll be concerned about
our border, and will only deal with that — for instance, by return-raiding up
to Map-Fort Stockton — while he passes us by in his campaign against the
Kingdom. I don't think it will occur to Toghrul that Map-Fort Stockton might be
only cover for positioning Howell's cavalry to screen our army as it
moves north past the Gulf and up through Map-Louisiana and Map-Arkansas." "That
is nice." Ned blew gently on his bandaged stump, as if to cool
it." "So
I hope," Sam said. "The Khan's made a serious mistake, but I doubt
he'll make another. Our time against him is now... or never." Consideration
to that was given in silence around the table. It seemed to Sam to have become
an evening of silences. "I
agree," Jaime said, and Elvin grunted behind his bandanna. "Yes,"
Ned said. "We go for the son of a bitch." "Keeping
in mind," Howell said, "that if the Boxcars aren't with us, don't
fight in the north — then we are fucked, and the Kipchaks will chase us all the
way to Map-Mexico City." "Phil?" Butler
sighed, and bent to set a dog on the floor. "Seems an opportunity to me,
Sam. Man spreads his legs — your pardon, Margaret — why not kick him in the
nuts?" "Still"
— Charles shook his head — "still... organizing this in a matter of days.
And paying for winter campaigning, Sam. The whole army, for Nailed
Jesus' sake!" "I
know, Charles. I know. But we couldn't prepare properly for war without the
Khan knowing it. It's important he feels free to move east to invade the
Kingdom, commit most of his forces to it." "And
will our soldiers appreciate this short notice, Sam, when they're freezing,
starving in winter hills?" "What
they will appreciate, Charles, will be those supplies that you and Eric see
come up to them, at whatever cost." "And
if — even supplied, even aided by the Boxcars — the army loses this war?" "...
Then, Charles, I suppose some young officer will gather new cavalry —
draft-horse cavalry, wind-broken cavalry — and skirmish over the foothills
while new infantry gathers in the Sierra." Sam smiled. "Old-man
infantry, young-boy infantry, girl infantry, thief-and-bandit infantry. And our
people will raid out of those mountains, and suffer the Kipchaks' raids, while
the Khan Toghrul grows old and dies. And while his son lives, and his son's
son, until finally a weakling rules at Caravanserai, and the Khanate breaks
apart. Then, our people will come down from the mountains, and make North
Map-Mexico again." The
evening's fourth silence. "Well..."
Charles stared down at his plate, as if the future might be read in mutton
bones and remnant potato. "It will mean no relief of taxes. Not for
years." "And,
speaking of taxes," Sam said, "any pigeon from Sonora?" "The
tax thing?" Lauder made a note with charcoal pencil on a fold of paper. "What
tax thing?" Howell said. "None
of the army's business," Charles said. "Well,
that's rude." Howell shifted his tobacco chew, leaned to spit into his
saucer. "He's
right," Sam said. "A civil matter. The governer had been encouraged,
by his friends, to withhold payment of taxes to Better-Weather." "An
uncivil matter, as it happens," Charles said. "There was... some
opposition." "How
bad?" "Four
of Klaus Munk's reeve men were killed at Neal's home, day before yesterday. His
vaqueros fought for him." "And?" "Munk
arrested Neal, is bringing him to court with three of his men." "And?" "He'll
be found guilty by Magistrate Caminillo, and sentenced to death." "The
vaqueros?" Ned said. "Will
also be sentenced to death, Ned." Charles glanced at Sam. "We can't
have cow-herds killing law officers." "Just,"
Sam said, "as we can't have people not paying their taxes. You did well,
Charles. Sorry I had to give you the job." Eric
reached over, patted Charles's arm — an unusual gesture for a man who didn't
care to touch or be touched. "My sort of work." "No,
Eric," Sam said. "It had to be a civil matter, and straightforward. —
Make certain the matter's finished, Charles. See that Magistrate Caminillo
understands, no mercy." "Who
the hell is Caminillo?" Howell said. "I don't even know the
name." "He
was a hide dealer," Charles said. "Elected judgment-man in Nogales,
then Ciudad Juarez. The old governer, Cohen, suggested him for magistrate.
Called him honest, and no coward." "Duels
before he robed?" Howell smiled. "Probably fewer than Cohen's." "None,
actually," Charles said. "I believe Caminillo was challenged twice
for his judgments, but refused to duel. Sought those men out, and beat them
with a ball-stick. He's quite highly regarded out there." "Well
and good," Sam said — a very old copybook phrase. "But see he does
what has to be done." "I
said I'll do it." Disapproval,
and anger. Sam let it be. Losing an old friend to these necessities. But
it's only fair — been losing myself to them for some time. "One
thing's sure, Sam," Eric said. "You've made an enemy of the
governer." "There's
something surer than that. Governer Stewart has made an enemy of me." For
a few moments, there was no sound but the stove's fire dying. No fear.
Please don't let me find fear in my friends' faces.... "...
Jaime," Elvin said, "pass me some of that custard. What in the world
did Oswald-cook put in the mutton? Tasted like fucking pepper soup!" "Sam,"
— Howell spit tobacco juice onto his saucer — "Map-Louisiana and
Map-Arkansas are both Boxcar states." "Howell,"
Margaret said, beside him, "where's your spit-cup?" "I've
put civilization behind me, Trade-honey.... Sam, we'll be crossing the
Kingdom's territory most of the way north." "Yes
— but with the Kipchaks already striking to their river up in Map-Missouri, I
don't think the Boxcars will mind. I think they'll be pleased to see our army
coming." "And
if they mind, Sam?" Sam
smiled. "Tough titty." It was one of Warm-time's oldest military
sayings. "More
beer, anyone?" Margaret lifted the clay pitcher. "There's
not enough beer for this," Ned said, and the others smiled. Sam
felt the tautness in the room slacken. There was a turn at the table, a turn
from worry to work to be done. There was also — he'd felt it many times before
— an odd feeling of relief from the others. They'd been commanded, commanded to
a grave but reasonable risk, and there seemed to be subtle enjoyment in that
for them…. For them, not for their commander. "So,
Sam," Phil Butler said, "who does what?" "Howell
leaves day after tomorrow, picks up the cavalry as he goes. Elvin and Jaime
order the army assembled — with the regular militia companies of
Coahuila and Nuevo Leon. You two are in charge until the forces are brought
together here at Better-Weather.... Phil, once that's done, you command the
army's movement north, taking Portia-doctor and the medical people. Charmian
and the western militias will still be busy playing games with those Kipchak
units come down west of the Bend. She and her light infantry will be the last
to join you." "Join
you," Ned said, "if she isn't enjoying herself too much." "Ned,
you'll be well enough by then to scrape together what few mounts Howell hasn't
taken. You'll command rear-guard cavalry scout as the army moves north." "Alright,
Sam. And once we're in Map-Arkansas?" "Howell
should already have come east from Map-Fort Stockton, brought the main body of
cavalry there to join you." Sam paused a moment. "... And in the
Hills-Ozark, Howell commands the army. You, Ned — and Phil and Charmian — serve
under him." "Howell,
Sam?" Phil Butler said.
"Not you?" "I...
will be visiting the Kingdom." The
fifth silence. Sam supposed Charles would be first to break it. "No!
Absolutely not!" Charles hit the table with his fist. "Sam... they'll
cut your throat for you, no matter the Queen knew dear Catania, no matter she knew
you when you were a baby. I'm the one who should go." "Queen
Joan won't cut my throat." "If
she doesn't," Ned said, "the generals and river lords will." "And
cook and eat you, besides." Jaime shook his head. "It's
the Queen," Eric said, "who wants this meeting. Asked for it." "Don't
do it, Sam." Ned cradled the stump of his wrist. "You're not fucking
immortal, no matter what you think. They'll kill you — or keep you under stone
until you rot." "They
might want to, Ned, but they won't. They need us." "They
may not need us, Sam. They can fight the Khan and maybe beat him without
us. And New England will help them." "A
point," Eric said. "Sam, our Light Cavalryman has a point. I doubt if
the West-bank generals or East-bank generals —
let alone two or three hundred river lords — consider us ideal
allies." "Perhaps
not ideal, Eric. Still, it can't be comfortable for the Kingdom with the Khan
to the west, savages and tribesmen north, and New England breeding
Mountain-Jesus-knows-what to the east." "True...
and, of course, we also need them." "Yes,
we do, unless we want to face the Kipchaks alone once Middle Kingdom goes down
— and then have to conduct a fighting retreat south through the mountains,
where the Empire's army will certainly be waiting for us." Neckless
Peter cleared his throat. "I believe New England will not help the
Boxcar Kingdom. I felt so when they sent the girl, Patience. New England wants
them to lose. Wants us to lose." "Us?"
Eric smiled. "Eric,"
Sam said, "that's enough." "Boston
wants the Kipchaks winning?" Ned looked better with impatient color in his
face. "Horseshit, old man. That would leave the Khan ruling all the
civilized river-country!" "Yes,
Colonel. But the Khan isn't civilized, and his people aren't civilized.
He orders, and they obey. They have no Warm-time law. No law but his
word." "You
might ask the governor of Sonora about laws and words and obedience,
Librarian." Charles took a sip of beer. "Charles,"
Sam said. Certainly a friend beginning to be lost. "That's almost
the same, but only almost. If the state reeve had refused to arrest, if the
magistrate now refuses to convict, I'll have to come to some
accommodation." No
answer from Charles Ketch. "To
hell with Stewart and Sonora," Ned said. "Eric — this visit to Middle
Kingdom. This was your idea?" "The
Queen's idea, Ned," Sam said. "And she wouldn't want the visit just
to toss me in the river. She's looking for what help we can give them." "Looking
for more than that," Charles said. "More?"
Howell spit into his saucer. "There's
a bride-groom question." Eric smiled. "Her daughter." "Wedding
bells with the Princess Rachel?"
Ned grinned and thumped his wrist-stump on the table. "Ow! Weather
damn this thing!" "An
engagement, perhaps," Sam said. "I doubt the Queen really intends a wedding." "Look,
Sam," Howell said, "your plan makes good sense. But that will make no
difference if Middle Kingdom doesn't agree, doesn't care to listen to you. The
Boxcars don't like our holding the Gulf's west coast. They don't like us
freeing serfs that run south. They don't like North Map-Mexico having an army,
and especially not a good army. And they don't like you ruling down here
with no dots on your face." "Still,
the Queen needs us." "And
afterward, Sam, if she no longer needs us?" "By
that time, the Princess Rachel and I may be engaged — if a serious engagement was ever intended.
It's likely a notion of the Queen's to keep the river lords unbalanced." "Right,"
Eric said. Neckless
Peter said, "Probably." "And
it's possible" — Sam smiled — "that the Queen will grow fond of
me." "Oh,
how not, boy?" Elvin said through his bandanna. "And you such
a charmer!" He found a strip of mutton fat on his brother's plate, and
threw it down the table. Missed Sam, and hit Margaret on her shirt's shoulder. "That's
my fucking red southern-cotton!" She kicked her bench back and jumped up.
"If you weren't dying, Elvin, I'd kill you. I've got to get warm water on
this." She went out into the hall. "Louis, get down." "But
Sam," Charles said, "engaged? Is it necessary?" "I
think it's going to be." "Nailed
Jesus." Jaime picked up a fork, toyed with it. "Nailed Jesus, Sam.
Engaged… then married into those people?" "Cannibals."
Ned rested his wrist stump on the table. "Used
to be cannibals, Ned." "Sam,"
Howell said, "you talk of the Princess and the Queen. But the river lords,
the generals, the admirals of the Fleet — will they 'grow fond' of you?" "Perhaps
they'll learn to seem so.... And, another matter. Phil, forgive me, but the
Boston girl goes north with the army." "You're
joking." "No,
Phil, I'm not. A price of her silence, her not at least trying to inform
Map-McAllen that you're coming over the border." "Sam,"
Eric being patient, "her silence could have been assured otherwise. And
her little flying-thing gone the same way." "Eric,
I think we have enough on our plate without murdering Boston's ambassador, and
her pet." "As
I understand it," Neckless Peter said, "New England would likely
regret the Mailman as much as the lady. The creatures are very expensive." "There
you are, Eric — both too expensive to murder." "I
hope, Sam, they won't prove too expensive kept alive." "A
concern for another day. So, Phil, arrange a small guard detachment for her,
see to her comfort and supplies. And apparently she's a killing lady; watch
that that scimitar doesn't get her into more trouble than she can get out
of." Butler
took off his imperial spectacles, polished them with a linen napkin, "This
must be punishment for sin." "Punishment
for bringing those damn dogs to dinner," Elvin said. "Have we more
business here? I have to pee." "Louis,
get down...." Margaret came in
from the hall. "And let me tell another old dog that he's very lucky that
stain seemed to come out. I hope it came out." She settled onto her bench. "I
wasn't throwing at you." "Elvin,"
Jaime said, "just be quiet." "Don't
tell me to be quiet. — Baja." "What?" "Jaime,
Baja militia should be ready to move east with Sonora's, if Charmian has
trouble with those Kipchaks come down." "I
think Charmian and Chihuahua can handle them. But alright; we'll pigeon Oso.
Tell him to stop fucking his sheep and get his people assembled." "What
about New England?" Howell spit into his saucer again, winked at
Margaret. "As
I said" — Neckless Peter no longer so shy — "Boston wishes the
Kingdom defeated." "And
why would New England want the Khan to win, Librarian?" Ned took a swallow
of beer. "How does that help them?" "They
want it, Colonel, because the Kipchaks are a fragile force — " "Right.
Only thirty, forty thousand cavalry." "Still
fragile, Ned," Sam said, "in time. The Khan will die someday, and his
son, or his successor, is unlikely to be as formidable. But their Khan is all
the Kipchaks have. Without Toghrul, or another like him, they're only separate
tribes of shepherds and raiders." "That's
true enough." Howell bent to spit in his saucer again, but Margaret
reached over and snatched it away. "Well, for Weather's sake! Women in
trousers… never a good thing —
oof!" "Now,
children," Phil said. "She
has an elbow like an ax! — Give me the damn dish." "Spit
in your fucking pocket," Margaret said. "A
brute with tits." "You
two finished?" Sam said. "... I think Peter's right, and New England
takes the long view. Middle Kingdom, if it survives, will certainly grow to
threaten Boston in time. The Kingdom is a book-civilization; formidable even
under weak rule. New England would certainly prefer, in the future, to deal
with the Kipchaks." Eric
nodded. "It does make sense that Boston would like to see us and Middle-Kingdom
go down. Also, considering the future, most of Map-East America is wooded,
close country. Some mountains also, apparently. Kipchak horsemen wouldn't be as
comfortable campaigning there." "And,"
Charles said, "whatever womb-things the New Englanders are mind-making are
likely to enjoy dark woods." "Can
we leave the future alone?" Elvin said. "Sam is going off to the
Kingdom — likely get his throat cut — and we're to kick the Khan in the ass.
Now, if there's nothing else, I need to get out of here, or piss under the
table!" Sam
smiled. "Only this: Charles holds here as administrator — with Eric, in
case one or two governers see a chance for independence with the army gone
north.... Eric, failure to produce supplies, or nonpayment of taxes, is to
be regarded as treason. Charles knows how I want such cases handled." "Understood." "Also,
Neckless Peter is to act as adviser to both of you. And is to be consulted on all
important matters." "…
Very well." "Okay.
Then there is no more business at mess. — I leave in two days, and I'll want a
written plan of action from each of you before I go. We'll work on supply and
reinforcement matters tonight… troop movements, dispositions, and objectives
tomorrow and tomorrow night." "Not
enough time." "Howell,
it will have to be enough time. I leave day after tomorrow." Sam shoved
his bench-seat back and stood. "Good dinner. Margaret, please thank
Oswald-cook. The little peppers in the meat were… interesting. I'll be leaving
for the coast; you'll be coming with me — and a small escort." "How
small, sir?" "Four
or five presentable men." "Not
enough, Sam." "Ned,
four or five are enough. I don't want the Boxcars to think I'm afraid of
them." "Still,"
Eric said, "not enough." "Sir,
you're a head of state!" "Yes,
Peter, I am. The head of a minor state, coming to make great demands on
Middle Kingdom for cooperation in war. I think going modestly will better serve
the purpose. — Margaret, only four or five presentable men come with us. Men
only, the Kingdom doesn't approve of women soldiers." "Margaret's
a woman soldier," Howell said — and was elbowed again. "Margaret,"
Sam said, "will be an exception, and a useful lesson to them." "You
don't want us going up with the army?" Jaime said. "Stupid
question," Elvin muttered through his bandanna. "No,
Jaime. You two don't go up. If this ends badly, take the people into the Sierra
and find a wiser Captain-General." Sam took his sword from the weapons
rack, and walked out. They heard him say, "Louis," then
murmured talk to the mastiff about behavior. "'Into
the Sierra.'" Howell made a face. "I can see myself, an old man
eating goat hooves and setting ambushes." "He
will not come back," Jaime said. "Shut
your mouth." Elvin, looking tired, sat with his eyes closed. "Perhaps
he'll come back," the little librarian said, "but not the same. A
Captain-General is one thing. A future king, is another."
* * * Neckless
Peter, carrying a lamp, was skirting frozen puddles to the tent lines when Eric
Lauder caught up with him. They walked side by side though gusts of bitter
wind, so Lauder had to lean close, raise his voice a little. "Your
opinion, Librarian?" "If
one thing goes wrong, all goes wrong." "Yes
— but if all goes right?" "Ah...
Then, it seems to me, Toghrul will be destroyed, and Middle Kingdom will have
our Captain-General for husband to their princess — and likely, heir to their
throne." "Then
to be our king, as well." "Yes." "And
should the Khan be destroyed — regrets?" "I
will have regrets. He was a wonderful boy. And his mind… you know the Empire's
fine-cut gems?" "Yes." "So,
Toghrul's mind." Peter
slipped a little on ice, and Lauder took his arm. "But this fine mind
seems interested only in war, conquests." "Of
course, to battle boredom — the cancer of all conquerors." "Not
our reluctant Sam." They'd come to Peter's tent. "No.
His sickness is sadness at what must be done." "Well..."
Eric patted the frosted shoulder of Peter's cloak. "Well, welcome to us,
Wisdom." Peter
called after as Lauder walked away. "And am I now trusted?" Eric
turned and smiled. "By all but me," he said, and went into the dark.
CHAPTER 13
Sam,
his farewells said in camp at Better-Weather — farewells only by-the-way in the
hustle and hurry of the army's business — rode along the frozen path to meet
Margaret and the others, come from south stables. They and the baggage waiting
on the road leading to Saltillo, then Montemorelos... and finally the port of
Carboneras on the Gulf Entire. Howell
already gone to La Babia to join the First Division of Cavalry, then move
north. Ned gone, too — west to gather what spavins were left, gather Charmian
and the Light Infantry as well — allowing any surviving squadrons of Kipchaks
there free rein to plunder and burn vacant farms and fields. Phil
Butler, circumferenced by little dogs — was that a correct use of the Warm-time
word, 'circumference'? Phil would be muttering in his tent, peering over
copy-maps many centuries old, showing ways to go to many places nowhere now.
His captains would be scratching at the tent-flap to ask questions, only to be
told he'd answer when he damn well pleased, and meanwhile, get out! The
brothers still the irascible center of it all; the gathering army's every
problem coming to them. And almost every problem solved.... Sam
was tired — sleepy, really. Last evening, he'd gone down for a hot-water bath
in the laundry at the fort, and found Ned there, submerged in the deep stone
tank, all but his bandaged stump. He'd held that up out of the steaming water….
They hadn't spoken of war or the campaign at all. Hadn't even mentioned it,
splashing, scrubbing with lye soap. They'd spoken of old sheep stealings,
recalled boyhood friends. Remembered, laughing, Catania coming up one morning
to north pasture, where they'd folded two fine stolen rams — Catania walking up
the mountain with a slender peeled pine branch in her hand. When she'd seen
them, higher, poised to run away, she'd called, "Stand still." And
they had. She'd walked up the slope to them, loosed their belts as they stood,
then yanked their sheepskin trousers down. And as they still stood, not moving,
not avoiding, she'd whipped them until their legs and asses were striped, and
bleeding here and there. "Steal,"
Catania'd said, tossing the pine branch aside, "steal — and pay the thieving bill." Then she'd
said, "In these times, those who are men find better things to do." That
night, sore and stiff-legged, they'd taken the rams back down the mountain to
Macleary's place — and the next day, went west to serve under Gary Jeunesse,
fighting the Empire's soldiers. Sam
and Ned had recalled and laughed… claimed scars still from the whipping. Ned's
mother had been long dead then, and it had seemed to Sam at the time that while
he might have run after the first few blows, Ned never would, so hungry for a
mother's attention, even though punishment. They'd
laughed, splashed, and not spoken of the war at all. Sam
— for some reason never at ease in fortress chambers — had dried, dressed, went out the postern
gate, and trudged over frozen mud to his tent, finding Margaret there amid
possibles, garments, and a large cedar chest. "What's
this?" "A
clothes chest." "We'll
leave it. Duffels will do." "Sir
— Sam, you're going to a kingdom, a queen's court! They'll expect you to look
like a Captain-General. It will hurt us if you look otherwise." "No." "Why?
We have gold and silver, jewels and jeweled weapons. We're not savages." "Why?
Because, Margaret, they will have more gold, more silver, more and finer
jewelry, furs, and velvets. If we try to meet them on that field, we will seem
savages." "Alright….
Alright. What do you want me to pack? Just tell me and I'll do it." "Don't
be angry." "Sam,
I'm not angry. What do you want me to pack? I don't give a damn how I look
before those ladies." "We
pack as if for campaigning. New woolens, warm and clean. Good cloaks, ponchos.
Best-quality leathers and good boots. Plain fine-steel weapons, plain
fine-steel armor — showing signs of use." "Going
too far the other way...." "Yes,
it would be, so I'll take one set of rich cloak-and-clothes for ceremony, and
each of us will also wear a ring from the treasury — one of the imperials' we
took at God-Help-Us. Gold, with a considerable stone." "So,
at least something." "And
a matching bracelet for you." Margaret
gave Sam a wife-look. "And that's to bribe me to silence about appearing
in Middle Kingdom looking like a file of lost troopers?" "That's
right. Margaret, it's our army standing behind us that they'll see. We dress to
remind them of that army." "Well,
I'm not going to argue with you. I'm tired of arguing." She dropped the
chest's lid closed with a thump. "Good.
Finish packing, then go to Charles' people and wrestle that treasury jewelry
from their grip. They'll want a signed receipt." "They'll
want several receipts." Margaret
gone unsatisfied, Sam had lain on his cot, holding a vodka flask for company —
and found, oddly, that even holding it helped. He'd
tried to sleep, but only planned dispositions in Map-Arkansas. On the border,
really, between North Map-Arkansas and Map-Missouri. He'd seen, as he lay
there, how quickly the Khan was certain to act when he realized what they'd
done. Toghrul wouldn't hesitate, wouldn't consider — he'd turn back from
Kingdom's river and attack. There would be no delay. By
then, Howell must have brought the army up into place. In proper country
— steep, but not too steep, and wooded. There'd be barely time to prepare for
the blow.... Sam
had lain awake long glass-hours, the war's possible futures folding and
unfolding like one of the decorated screens the Empire's ladies were said to
love, colorful with signs, secrets, and portraits of their families and lovers
intertwined with painted flowers. He'd
risen before dawn in cold and darkness, set his flask aside, draped his cloak,
and strapped his sword on his back. Then walked icy ground to north stables and
the brute imperial charger from Boca Chica — Difficult. The stableman,
Corporal Brice, had tacked the big animal up — kneeing the horse's belly to
burp air out of him for the cinch — stood aside while Sam mounted, then reached
up to touch his knee. "Good luck, General." "Jake
— you people, the army, are my luck." …
Sam saw the camino from the ridge. Six people mounted, with four packhorses on
lead, were waiting at the roadside, their cloaks blowing in a cold wind. The
rising sun threw their shadows sideways. — As he'd seen the riders, they'd seen
him, and watched as he spurred down the slope. When
he trotted up, Margaret heeled her horse to meet him... seemed troubled. "Sir
— " "What
is it?" Sam said, then looked past her at the others. A lieutenant of
Light Cavalry, and three sergeants — one each, apparently, from Heavy Infantry,
Light Infantry, Heavy Cavalry. The army's four divisions represented…. There was
also a grinning civilian, very fat in a stained red-wool cloak, holding the
packhorses' lead. Undoubtedly one of Eric's dubious people, acting as cook,
hostler, strangler on occasion…. Sam
knew the lieutenant. And two of the sergeants. "Margaret,
what in the fuck did you think you were doing? I said, 'presentable'!" "Sir,
the brothers, and Eric, and Phil Butler — they all insisted." "They
ordered these men here?" "Yes,
sir, ordered them with you as escort." "I
gave you a different order, Margaret. And I want it obeyed." "...
Sam, I agree with them." He
reined Difficult past her. "You men get back to camp." The
young lieutenant of Light Cavalry saluted him. "Sir, wish we could, but
we've been promised hanging if we don't travel with you." The lieutenant, Pedro
Darry, was wearing a marten cloak as costly as a farm. Son of one of the
richest merchants in North Map-Mexico, handsome and spoiled, he'd ornamented
the Emperor's court in Mexico City while serving as a factor for his father,
before destroying two marriages and running one of the husbands through in a
duel. "I
see, promised hanging…. Then go back and be hanged, Lieutenant. And take
these other men with you." "Please,
sir — if we swear to be presentable?" Red-haired, green-eyed, and
slender, with a pale and elegant face, Darry smiled winningly while managing a
restless gray racer. "No,"
Sam said. The lieutenant, sent back north in disgrace, had managed to fight
three more duels in the last four years —
while on leave, so permitted though not approved of — and had killed all
three men, Pedro being not only a spoiled son of a bitch, but an accomplished
swordsman…. And, to do him justice, one of Ned Flores' favorite troop
commanders. "Sir,
if we swear word-of-honor? Otherwise, well… I'll have to resign my commission,
and these men desert, so we can follow after you." "Might
be useful, sir." Margaret, behind Sam — and meaning, of course, Darry's
skills at court as well as with the sword. His looks... his manner. Not the
sort of young man to be considered a back-country barbarian — as another young
North Mexican surely would be, ruler or not. And
it was possible that the three sergeants — professionally expressionless, and
sitting their saddles at attention — though not presentable, and
obviously chosen for ferocity, might also prove useful as visible reminders of
the army they represented…. Sam knew David Mays, a silent, squatly massive
Heavy Infantryman with a face like a fighting dog's, a man avoided even by those
considered dangerous themselves. Sam knew him, and Sergeant Henry Burke,
a tall, lank, hunch-shouldered Heavy Cavalryman. Burke was known for his savage
temper — and the ability, on a sufficient bet, to bend his knees, reach both
arms under a horse's belly, and lift the animal slightly off the ground…
holding it there for a count of five. Sam
didn't recognize the third sergeant — a Light Infantryman, lean and boyish, so
pale a blond his hair looked white, his eyes a very light gray. He carried a
longbow on his back, a short-sword on his belt. "Name?" "Wilkey,
sir. Company of Scouts." He
smiled at Sam, seemed perfectly relaxed and at ease, containing none of the
fury the other two sergeants carried locked within them — and for that reason,
was perhaps the most dangerous of the three. Sam
looked past him. " — And you?" The
fat man saluted badly, with a flourish. "Ansel Carey, milord. Cook,
hostler, rough-medic, and... what you will." 'What
you will' Sam supposed, included any necessary murders, though the man wore no
weapons… Phil, Eric, and the others must have enjoyed choosing these guards and
companions. A dandy and duelist, three dangerous sergeants, and a servant with
certain skills. And, of course, Margaret Mosten. On consideration, a useful
party... though not perfectly presentable. "Darry..." "Sir?" "If
you cause any trouble in the Kingdom — any problems with women, any
embarrassment at all — you will wish to Lady Weather you hadn't." "Understood,
sir." "And
the same for you men! If trouble comes, it had better come to you, not from
you." "Sir." "Sir." "Sir." "Master
Carey?" "Hear
an' obey, milord." "
'Sir' will do." Sam hauled Difficult's head around, and spurred the
charger down the road and into its customary punishing trot. Four days, at
least, to the Gulf Entire, with a boat pigeoned to wait for them. Then, a
two-day crossing to the mouth of Kingdom River... and what welcome the Kingdom
chose.
* * *
It
was odd to ride where no mountains rose in the distance… oddly calming,
dreamlike, as if riding might continue forever. Howell
turned in his saddle, as he'd done before, to confirm that more than four
thousand cavalry rode behind him, raising no dust on the prairie's frozen grass
and ground. Carlo Petersen at the front of First Brigade, with his trumpeter
and the banner-bearer — the great flag restless in the breeze, its black
scorpion threatening on a field of gold… though scorpions were deep-south
creatures. The only scorpion Howell'd seen had been in a glass bottle, looking
furious. Petersen,
then the banner, then three brigades coming after, side by side in long, long
columns of ten — regiments broken into squadrons, then troops, then companies.
Light horse, Heavies, and militia troops as well. The horse-archer companies
deployed Warm-time miles east and west. And deployed the same distance behind
them. But
ahead, only two scouts rode, nearly out of sight in high, frost-killed grass,
and out of sight completely when they rode down the other sides of long soft
swells of land. Howell
would have preferred no scouts before him, nothing but distance with no
stopping place, no purpose but going. After
almost four days over the border, guided by an iron-needle compass and two
ancient Warm-time copy-maps — an Exxon (mysterious word) and half a BP
(mysterious initials) — they were
fifteen, perhaps twenty miles south of Fort Stockton. He could, of course,
choose to ride wide around it, lead on north and north to the Wall. Perhaps
ride up onto the ice itself — there must be canyons, melt-slopes that horses
could manage. Then all four thousand and more might ride over endless ice to
the turning tip of the world, until they slowed… and slowed… and the horses
froze, the riders were frozen fast in their saddles. An army of steel and ice —
shining in sunlight or coated in blizzard white — that could not harm or be
harmed, could not lose or win. In
nearly four days riding north in absolute command, a command that might end
with the destruction of all the army's cavalry, Howell had begun to learn the
lessons he'd seen traced on Sam Monroe's face. Sadness, and necessity. All
these people following behind the banner, behind Howell Voss — sole commander,
and responsible. It
took much of the pleasure out of war. Not, of course, all the pleasure. He
heard grass-muffled hoofbeats coming up behind him. A cuirassier drew up on his
right, hard-reining a big bay. "From Colonel Petersen, sir." Howell
recognized the man, but couldn't remember his name — then did. "You're one
of the Jays — Terrence." "Yes,
sir." The corporal pleased as a child to be recognized. How was it
possible not to take advantage of the innocence of soldiers? Jay
wrestled his bay to keep it close. "Sir, the colonel suggests holding the
column here. Cold camp." "Cold
camp, yes, Corporal — but not here. Tell Colonel Petersen" — as new a
colonel as Howell was a general — "tell him I've changed my mind, decided
to move closer. Tell him I want to be able to take the Kipchaks in darkness, a
glass before dawn. They're horse archers; no need to give them good
shooting-light." Corporal
Jay hesitated, digesting his message. "In the dark before dawn. Yes,
sir." As
he started to rein away, Howell said, "And be easy with your mount,
Trooper. Later, you'll want all the go he's got." "Yes,
sir." The corporal, carefully slack-reined, cantered away back to the
Heavy's column, and Howell noticed some chaff rising where the big horse went.
I want a light snow — very light, but enough to weight this dead
grass. A prayer, he supposed, but asked of what Great? Lord Jesus? — still,
the shepherds thought, hanging spiked to a pinon pine somewhere in North
Map-Mexico's mountains. The shepherds, and the bandits there, thought he might
be found someday and rescued, taken down and brought to Portia-doctor for
healing.... In the Sierra, they used to think Catania-doctor could certainly
heal Mountain Jesus when he was found — and the man or woman who found him made
Ice-melter in reward, and ruler of a new-warmed world. No
use now, though, for a new-made general — come north into enemy country — to
pray to Lord Jesus, fastened in early Warm-times to his pinon and left there
asking why, and saying, 'Please not.' Portia...
Portia. If we were together now, and some savage stuck a blade point in my only
eye — or a piece of this dry chaff was blown into it — you would have a blind
oaf stumbling after you, mumbling love, and asking where his cup might be,
since there was still some chocolate in it. A burden added to a thousand others
wearing you away. Sam
might have earned you, might be sufficient. No one else. …What
Great, then, to send us a very light snow? Lady Weather? The Kipchaks' Blue Sky
brought snow or clearing, but undependably. Some savages worshiped one of the
old All-makers, a Great too busy doing — and often doing badly — to listen to
any prayer. And the white-skin tribesmen up by the ice-wall, their red-skin
shamans and chiefs, called to the Rain-bird for weather they wanted, which
seemed to make as much sense as any. Howell
closed his eye as he rode, picturing the Rain-bird in his mind. He saw it
flying. Not big as a mountain — only large as a small lake, green and blue as
that same lake in Daughter Summer. Its wings rising and falling, all wind and
breezes blown from those wings…. They
camped at sunset. Cold camp. But though there'd been no snow, neither had
Kipchak horsemen — though four had been met — escaped to warn Map-Fort
Stockton. Howell
walked the high-grass swales in failing light, his boots crunching, breaking
dead stems. He chewed mutton jerky and talked with the troopers — all of them
cheery, all apparently pleased to be in the Khan's country, and readying for
battle.... Howell joked with them, especially with the women — the lean Lights
in their fine mail and leather, smiling, girlish, some sharpening their curved
sabers with spit-stones, and the fewer bulky older women serving in the
Heavies, ponderous in cuirass, with long, scabbarded straight sabers, and
helmets hinged with neck and face guards. The perfect images of war, but for
cooing altos as they groomed their big horses. Howell
chewed the last of the jerky as he walked the lines. He found Carlo Petersen
sitting in deep grass, playing checkers with his captain, Feldman. "Not
for money, sir," Petersen said, as he and the captain stood. In the army,
only equal ranks could play for money, horses, or land. All could play for
sheep. "Who
do you have out, Carlo?" "Same
as the march screen, sir. But rested." "Send
riders to them. Remind them they're to avoid the enemy tonight, as before, but
kill any they can't avoid or take prisoner. No Kipchak is to ride out
from Fort Stockton, then back to it." "Still
retire before force, though?" "Yes,
still retire before company strength or more. Send a galloper, and fall back on
us." "Yes,
sir. Billy, see to it." "Yes,
sir," the captain said, saluted, and trotted away, acorn helmet under his
arm, mail hauberk jingling. "We
hit them in the morning, dark, and no trumpets?" "Yes.
I know, Carlo, that there'll be some confusion, even going in brigades-in-line.
But the Kipchaks will be even more confused. I don't want whatever garrison is
there, to have the chance to hold fortifications or buildings against us. I
want them surprised and scattered.... I'll be with Second Brigade. Make
certain, certain that your officers know to keep contact with our people
to their right and left — no gaps, darkness or not." "Not
easy." Howell
said nothing, and Petersen grinned. "Okay, I'll remind 'em. — Do we take
prisoners? Major Clay supposed not." "We'll
take no fighters prisoner, Carlo, but if your troopers catch a coward — or wise
man — running, then that's a Kipchak I'd like to speak with. And remember, by
Sam's order, women and children are not to be harmed in any way." "Yes,
sir. And you'll be with the Second." "Right.
First Brigade's yours, Carlo. I'll be trying to hold Reese back." Petersen
laughed. Willard Reese was more than forty years old — a moody man, cautious as
an infantryman before he was engaged, then almost insanely aggressive.
Fighting, the man foamed at the mouth. Howell
returned Petersen's salute — Sam was right, the saluting had certainly set in —
and walked on in the last of sunset light. The western horizon was colored rich
as a deep-south orange, though the air was weighty with Lord Winter's early
cold. He
kicked through dead grass, wishing Ned were commanding at least the First
Brigade's Light Cavalry. Not that Carlo Petersen wasn't a fine officer, and a
driver. Only he lacked that instinct (wonderful Warm-time word) that told an
officer — not that something had gone wrong — but that something was about to
go wrong. Ned
had that — or used to, before This'll Do. And Sheba Tate, Third Brigade, had
it. No need, this evening, to find Major Tate on the right flank, advise
her.... A
group of horse archers called to Howell as he walked past. "There he is —
a general!" they called, and laughed, delighted as he gave them the
so-ancient finger. A tribal sign, but one all people seemed to know. Valuable
men… and only men, those troopers. No women could draw longbows on horseback,
the six-foot bows looking so odd and awkward with their long upper arms and
short, deep-curved lowers. Valuable men, who could outshoot even the Khan's
cavalry — once they'd spent a young lifetime learning to work their longbows at
a gallop — shooting fast to either side or to the back, over the horses'
cruppers. If he had more of them, if they didn't take years to train... If Ned
had had more than two files of archers with him in the south, they might at
least have covered his retreat. Howell
found a place as night came down, thick frost-killed grass in a fold between
slight rises, with no tethered horses, no murmuring soldiers. It
was cold and growing colder, Lord Winter strolling down from the Wall.... It
was supposed to be hot in summer, deep south in the Empire — hot enough in
those weeks to burn and kill a man lost under the sun. Probably true,
considering the Warm-time vegetables they grew with no warming beds, no
flat-glass frames… but still difficult to imagine. Howell
decided to sleep for only three sand-glass hours. He'd wake then, though no one
tapped his shoulder. The little librarian, Neckless Peter, claimed these hours
were not quite the old Warm-time hours. Perhaps… perhaps not, though twelve of
them still made a day, though a dark day in winter. What did the poem say? Winter,
that turns in snow like a tiger. Howell
spread his wool cloak on brittle grass… Phil had seen one of those snow tigers.
'Big as a pony,' he'd said, 'all yellow and black so he looked on fire.' A
tiger in the reed brakes along the Bravo, likely come down hunting wild spotted
cattle. Something to see. Howell
unbuckled his scabbarded long-sword, drew it, then lay down with the blade
beside him and gathered the cloak around them both. A one-eyed soldier, and his
cold, slender, sharp-tongued wife.
* * *
Sam
had seen the Gulf many times before — had seen the wide Pacific Sea as well —
but never lost his wonder at such lovely water, that seemed to beg traveling
over. Lovely even now, gray, rough, hummed across by an icy wind.... As a boy,
he'd dreamed of sailing in a fishing schooner across the Pacific, sailing to
islands with sweet Warm-time names… sailing on and on, living his life over
water. Coming to his death there, finally. His
Second-mother, Catania, had told him of the great wind-sailors of Warm-times,
that she'd read of in Or the White Whale. And the great machine-engine
sailors, later. The Queen Elizabeth… the Harry Truman. Perhaps
from those stories, from that imagining, great water had always been a pleasure
to him, though he'd never been out for more than a few sand-glasses in small
boats.... It had occurred to him, the last few years, that small coastal navies
— east on the Gulf and west on the ocean
— might be a means to secure North Map-Mexico's water rights. Might be a means
to transport troops north and south as well. Not
a subject to bring up at Queen Joan's
court. But a temptation. The Kipchaks had conquered a long western coast — a
coast vulnerable to attacks by sea. Horsemen who'd come by riding across from
Map-Siberia to the Alaskan ice, the Kipchaks used curses and charms to protect
themselves from open water, running water. Thought them full of devils. No
question that navies, even small navies, were a temptation.... What if he
mentioned to merchants, to fishermen at Carboneras — and across the country at
La Paz — that some ship-won plunder might become legal plunder? That flags of
Warm-time piracy might become flags of profit if taken from the Kipchaks' coast
of Map-California in the west... if taken from the Empire's coast, south, along
the Gulf. With, of course, government paid its share and fee for licensing such
ventures, shares that might lesson reliance on taxes raised by reluctant
governers. It
was a notion.... "Dust,"
Margaret said. Young
Sergeant Wilkey called, "Dust." A
troop of welcome was riding out of Carboneras. Fifteen, twenty people, their
mounts raising dry-sand dust, even in the cold. Sam knew who, without seeing
them. The mayor. Town councillors. District militia commander — that would be
Ed Pell, very competent, a harsh disciplinarian who had, perhaps, too many
close relatives serving in the militia companies. The local garrison commander
would be Major Allen Chavez, an older man who didn't care much for Ed Pell. Pigeons,
of course, had had to come so a boat would be held for them. But pigeons would
have flown in any case. It had proven a great annoyance that pigeons flew to warn
of his coming on every occasion, no matter what he ordered to the contrary. An
annoyance to set beside many others. "It'll
be the mayor," Margaret said. "Mark Danilo. And local city people,
couple of their wives. Ed Pell will be with them; his cousins, too. And Major
Allen Chavez and his officers. Trooper escort." "Right,"
Sam said. "Let's ride to meet them and get this over with, then down to
the docks. I want to be on the water well before evening." "Boat's
the Cormorant," Margaret said.... It took a while to reach the Cormorant,
though Sam — by refusing to rein in
— forced his welcome to be one of conversation moving at the trot. They rode
past people lining narrow streets of low adobe houses... past occasional taller
mansions of red and yellow brick, where men, women, and little children stood
by wrought-iron gates, calling out, applauding in the old style. Pigeons had
certainly flown — and as certainly flown to New Orleans as well, then up
Kingdom River to its ruler's island. A
crowd, and more applause, at El Centra. A priest of Edgewater Jesus stood off
to the side, watching with two of the Weather's ladies. Sam
reined Difficult slowly through the people to them, swung down from the saddle,
bowed, then took their hands in turn and bowed again. Great applause, and a
smile on the oldest Weather-lady's pale, crumpled face, framed in her purple
hood.... Purple, Sam supposed, for storm clouds. It hadn't occurred to him
before. Remounted,
he moved steadily along. Flowers sailed through the air, little red summer
flowers from some magnate's glass-windowed garden. The expense that must be.... What
was that wonderful line from a poem or acted-play? — translated from the Beautiful Language in one
of the Empire's copybooks, though it had seemed perfectly at home in
book-English: 'Is it not passing brave to be a king, and ride in triumph
through Persepolis?' Passing
brave — as long as there were flowers thrown, not stones, not crossbow
quarrels. And those, important flowers in this province, little messengers that
no hard feelings remained over the dead at This'll Do. Once
out of the market square, Ed Pell wished to speak privately. Margaret, not Sam,
regretted there wasn't time — reducing Pell slightly, as intended, and pleasing
Major Chavez and his officers, also as intended. ...
The caravan of welcome turned away at last by the dock gates, Sam and the
others rode out on echoing tarred planking over shallow gray Gulf-water flecked
with small shards of floating ice. A beamy fishing schooner lay waiting one
dock-finger over, and they dismounted and led their horses to it. A
large two-masted boat, painted a near-midnight color, the Cormorant's name
was painted along its bow, the last letter becoming a black eye over a black
beak. As they led their horses to the ramp, a gull, silver-white with dark wing
tips, sailed by and shit neatly as it went. An
elderly man with a large nose and red woolen cap appeared above them at the
rail, turned his head, and called hoarsely, "Cap — it's the big
cheese!" "You
watch your fucking mouth!" Margaret called up to him, and the old sailor
smiled down, toothless, and blew her a kiss.
CHAPTER 14
The
Lily Chamber of Large Audience was a single great room — a room and a wooden building, all of itself.
The chamber, quite lovely, was painted in lily colors of white and gold, and
had a wide hearth on each of its four sides. The huge logs that burned beneath
those brick chimneys had been wheeled and dragged five hundred Warm-time miles
from the mountains of Map-Arizona. And still, it seemed to Toghrul Khan, gave
less heat in commencing winter than the fat little metal stove in any yurt. The
room was cold enough to keep cut meat sound… but the four fires did give warmth
to the chamber's painted ivories and golds, and so an impression of comfort. The
odors of much of the audience — sweat, smeared sheep fat, and mare's-milk
fartings — made an unpleasant counterpoint. The
audience subject for today — traditionally a Please-and-Thank-You, with wishes
that Blue Sky turn trouble away — was not, however, lightning, grazing land,
floodwater, or sheep scrapie, the tribesmen's traditional concerns. The subject
today was salary… payment... wages. There
had been, over the past few years, more and more interest by the fighting men
in money — as opposed to gifts of flocks, horse herds, honors. Razumov had
noticed it early, and warned it would increase. "A penalty of
civilization, lord, and reward of conquest. The old ways now being seen as
'old ways.'" Sadly
true — and having to be dealt with by such audiences as this, in which little
bags of silver coin, minted in Map-Oakland, were handed out to officers whose
only interest should be in service to their lord. There was no question how the
old Khan, his father, would have dealt with these more and more frequent
requests for currency. He would have picked an officer past his prime, and
ordered silver spikes driven into his skull, as a lesson on the perils of
greed. It
was in the midst of distribution — a rank of rewarded men bowing over their
clutched little bags of metal before him, while he smiled and smiled (the
watching crowd hissing in approval) —
that Toghrul became aware of a disturbance at the doors. Two
men had pushed in past the guards, then immediately had fallen to their hands
and knees and begun the long crawl down the center aisle toward his cushioned
dais. An excess of debasement, and a very bad sign. The
rank of officers glanced behind them at the crawlers, bowed once more, and got
out of the way. No
more hissing approvals. Only silence. Toghrul
waited while the two fools came toward him, baby fashion, crawling more slowly
the closer they came. Watching them, copybook Achilles-and-the-Tortoise
occurred to him. He
waited, then beckoned them on to finally rest before him, still on hands and knees.
They'd come dirty from long riding. He knew one — a minor officer of supply,
with Ikbal Crusan's tuman. The other was just a soldier. "Great,
Great Lord — " The officer of supply. Serious
trouble, if it required two 'greats' as introduction. Toghrul sat silent. His
father would have approved. "Map-Fort
Stockton… O Khan, live forever." The sweating officer was Kipchak, the
steppe still in his face. Toghrul
waited. "The...
the North Map-Mexicans have come up and destroyed it, lord!" Ah,
a fact at last, though likely faulty. Murmurs in the Lily Chamber. "And
with what forces did they accomplish this?" More
groveling. Both men had their faces on the carpet. "It seemed… three or
four thousand riders, lord. Heavy and Light. They came from southeast, in the dark
before morning." Listening,
a flush — an absolute flush of pleasure, of amusement — rose in Toghrul so he
couldn't help smiling, then chuckling at such a surprise, a blow struck as
clever as one of his own! An interesting event, and at last an interesting
enemy. The joys of complications arising…. "So,
I'm to understand that this Captain-General, this Small-Sam Monroe, seeing us
striking to the south — west of the border Bend — has taken the opportunity to
strike north at us from east of it!" Silence
from the grovelers... well, a little nod from the officer. A nod into the
carpet. "And
the place is destroyed?" "Yes,
lord." The Nodder. "Burned and destroyed and all the men
killed." "Only
the men?" "I
believe only the men, lord — the seven or eight hundred left behind as guards,
herdsmen, and storekeepers." A pause. "I believe the women and
children were spared." "You
believe, or you saw?" "I
saw... a little." "And
you — soldier — what did you see?" But
the soldier seemed to have seen nothing, and only burrowed into the carpet, his
ass in the air. "The
horses?" The
Nodder murmured, "Gone, lord." "Almost
two thousand — four herds of fine horses gone, taken? Driven away?" A
nod. There were strands of drool on the carpet. "But
you weren't killed… and you were mounted?" A
nod, but a reluctant nod. "Why
then didn't you send... this one... with the report? Why not, yourself, have
followed those clever thieves, made certain of their route of retreat? Then you
might have become a wind ghost, cut throats in the night to unsettle them, and
so secured at least a little of my honor." "I...
lord, I didn't think." "You
didn't? Your head was at fault for not thinking?" Barely
a nod. "Well
then, your head's proved of little use to you. You'll do much better without
it." Toghrul lifted his right hand, made a little spilling motion — and
four guardsmen, two from each side of the dais, jumped down on the Nodder like
swineherds on a shoat, and bound his hands behind him. They lifted him up, and
trotted away with him down the chamber's aisle while the officers, chiefs, and
important men of audience fell aside as if the pops were carried there in rot
and puss and buboes. The Nodder made no sound, going, seemed almost asleep with
terror. The
soldier remained silent on the carpet. "Soldier..." Toghrul waited patiently until a grimy,
teary face rose from warp-and-weft. "Soldier, your Khan would never punish
a man for obeying his officer's orders, even if the officer has proved a fool
and coward. Go then, and report to the commander of the camp for rest, rations,
and honorable assignment." The
teary face, astonished, then turned to a lover's, looked up rich with affection
and gratitude. There was a subdued murmur of approval at such generous and
lordly justice. The
soldier, turning, began to crawl aside, but Toghrul smiled, gestured him up
onto his feet, and waved him away into the rest of his life. There
was an odor of urine; the carpet would have to be cleaned. There was no denying
blood. Thought
on a throne was well enough; thought in a summer garden well enough. Thought on
a cushion couch with a dear wife by one's side, also well enough. — But none
the equal, for a Kipchak, of horseback consideration. Consideration, this
sunny, clear, and cold afternoon, of the morning's information: the surprising
counterstroke from North Map-Mexico. A counterstroke absolutely Monroe's in
conception, though Razumov's people — and an after-the-fact pigeon from the
Boston creatures in Map-McAllen — suggested the immediate commander was Colonel
(now General) Voss, apparently a very competent officer. Banjar player, also,
according to Old Peter's farewell report. Monroe, it seemed, had gone to Middle
Kingdom. Toghrul
whipped his stallion's withers, lifting Lively to a lope out into Texas prairie
endless as an ocean. A frozen ocean now, brown and yellow with frost-burned
grass. He rode as if he flew as New Englanders sometimes flew, and smiled again
at what Monroe had managed. Very much — oh, very much what he might have
done himself. An enemy, a thief, puts his head into a yurt's entrance,
intending mischief. What better response, what more humorous response, than to
wriggle under the yurt's fabric at the back, circle round, and kick the fellow
in the ass? So,
the Captain-General apparently possessed imagination, and certainly a sense of
humor. He also now possessed two thousand fine horses, which would remount his
cavalry handsomely, and likely help pay the expenses of the expedition. Well
done, and more than worth killing him for. Worth killing Voss and many of his
people, too, for laughing, as they must be, at a Khan's discomfiture. But how
sad that the only interesting person in the West must be done away with.... Toghrul
reined Lively to the left to avoid a deep runoff ditch half-hidden in the
grass. A trace of short summer's melt. ...
And of course, the North Mexicans would not go into Blue Sky alone. There were
others, a troublesome few of a ruler's own, that in time must join them. Manu
Ek-Tam, that so-brilliant young officer. And two or three of his dear friends.
All brilliant young officers, perfect at everything but keeping silent. Was
there any spy or agent so effective as kumiss in revealing disloyalty, arrogant
ambition? Disrespect? So,
the treacherous cut their throats with their own tongues. And
the Uighur tuman, of course. Foolish, grumbling tribesmen, needing to be worn
away by enemy lances — as, in the past, the Cuman and Kirghiz had been. So, an
army of many differences, many purposes, was shaped and whittled into an army
with one purpose only. Obedience. But
was any great man ever brought down except by those closest to him? The
generals, the ministers, the great of Caravanserai with their velvet tents,
musicians, women, and fuck boys — it had been many months since one of these
was peeled and stuck on a stake". — Now see the result of forbearance.
Murmurs, judgments made, requirements of the Khan's wife that she
produce a boy. Expectations
impudent in themselves. The
sheriff of the camps was just such an impertinent man. Who, after all, would
miss him? Who miss the lesson he presented, perched screeching on a stake? All
so tedious. Was it impossible men could be ruled by reason? Old copybooks
claimed, improbably, it had been done — by which they certainly meant not by
reason at all, but greed, and its parceled fulfillments.... Sul
Niluk, a Guardsman galloping a hundred Warm-time yards away, whistled and
pointed. Toghrul saw movement ahead at the side of a slight rise, a stirring
through the grasses' tall ruined stems. Jack
the rabbit. And up and away he bounded, already mottling snowy into his winter
coat. Toghrul, spurring from a canter to the gallop, lifted his left arm so his
hawk's jesses jingled. Reaching over, he tugged the bird's yellow velvet hood
away and launched him into the air. The
prairie hawk spiraled high, saw the rabbit going, and slid after it as if the
air were ice. Toghrul pulled Lively in to watch. Jack
the rabbit jinked swiftly here and there, going away. Not even wings could
carve those sudden angles after him, and the hawk didn't attempt it. It flew,
it sailed straight to a place just past the runner — suddenly stooped, and
struck as Jack came fleeing to it, sure as if there'd been an appointment. The
rabbit screamed — Toghrul had heard two children screaming just so at Map-Sacramento,
when his father took it. He'd been no older than the children, but much safer,
sitting on his pony in the midst of the Guard. The children had been put into
fires, held there with spears while they blistered and shrieked, burning. The
old Khan hadn't been cruel, only very practical, and people frightened by
frightful things were easier to manage. A sort of applied reason, after
all. Sul
Niluk rode on to bend from the saddle and lift the hawk hissing from its prey,
a tuft of fur already bleeding in its beak. Sul bent down again, picked up the
rabbit as well, tucked it in his saddle-bag, then rode back to bring Toghrul
his hawk. ...
And by winter's end, with the campaign against Middle Kingdom completed, then,
in just such a way as the hawk's — as
Monroe defended his border with quick and clever little strokes and dodges — in
just such a way the tumans would sail over the grasslands to meet him where,
sooner or later, he was certain to go. When
that was accomplished, of course, the world would become a little less
interesting.
* * *
Well-balanced,
her laced, low boots as firmly planted as flooring brushed with oil allowed,
Martha grunted with the apparent effort of an ax-swing that was not. Master Butter
accepted it for fact, raised a swift sword-parry against it — and was, by
surprise, backstroked across the face with her ax's heavy handle. He
staggered away, calling, "Wonderful!" in a goose's honk, since she'd
broken his nose. Martha
came after him fast, mimed a finishing stroke across his belly, then set her ax
aside, said, "Oh, poor Sir," and went to him with her yellow
handkerchief to stop the bleeding. Master
Butter set his sword into the rack, pinched and tugged at the bridge of his
snub nose to painfully straighten it, and said, "Owww!" Then
he took her handkerchief and held it to his nostrils. "No one has had as
much blood out of me in months — and that was a West-bank captain quick as a
cat." "I'm
sorry." "You
would be sorry, if you hadn't so correctly followed to kill me. Never,
never let an opponent recover, whether in duel or war. If someone is worth
fighting with fist and foot, they're worth kicking unconscious. If they're
worth fighting with sharp steel, they're worth killing. Always fight to
finish." "Yes,
sir." "I
think now 'Butter-boy' will do. It was a hurtful nickname — you know those
Warm-time words, 'nick-name'?" "Yes." "Sit
down... sit on the bench; I'll get some vodka. Practice is over today; I'm
bleeding like a pig." The handkerchief to his nose, he went to the table,
picked up a blue-glazed bottle, pulled its stopper, took several long swallows,
then brought it back and sat beside her. "I have no cups; I apologize....
Well, I took the nick-name they'd used to hurt me, and made it my True-name. Master
Butter-boy. One deals with insults as one deals with any opponent who
possesses a long and punishing reach. You close as soon as possible, grapple
him to you — then use the knife." He took another long drink from his blue
bottle, then offered it to her. "No,
thank you. Is your nose alright?" "It'll
be alright, Martha. A good lesson, though, for both of us. Should only the
mildest corrective injury be required, the nose is as good a thing to strike as
any other. In a more serious case, involving weapons, you will keep in mind
that a person struck hard on the nose is blinded for an instant" "'Blinded
for an instant….'" "Yes."
Master Butter took another swallow. "After which, of course, more will
have to be done. Never strike a first blow without having prepared a
second. Each stroke, each slash, is an introduction for the next... and I am
ruining your handkerchief." "It
will wash." "I
hope it will." Master Butter sighed, then took the cloth away and examined
it. "And how do you go on in court, Martha?" "Oh...
I mind my own business." "Well,
that may do for a year or so, but not forever. You're with the Queen day and
night; that's too close for some lords' comfort… some generals' comfort, too.
And what makes great men — and women — uncomfortable, is sooner or later set
aside." "The
Queen will keep me safe," Martha said, "as I will keep her safe, for
certain." "
'For certain.' " Master Butter threw his head back and laughed. "You are
young." Then he said, "By the way, a very good time to reach over
and cut someone's throat — while they're laughing." "Yes,
sir." "For
certain..." Master Butter sighed, and took a deep drink from his blue
bottle. "Still, properly said. Our Queen is a wonder, but wonders may grow
careless. You may not. Particularly not with this war to the west, since
it has certainly occurred to the horse savages that our Queen presents an
obstacle." "I
won't be careless." "See
to it.... So, you two deal well enough together — must, for good guarding. And
the Queen's daughter?" He handed over the vodka bottle. "I
like Princess Rachel. I don't know if she likes me or not, but she's
kind." Martha held the vodka bottle, but didn't drink. Her father had
given her tastes of potato vodka, but she hadn't liked it. "Sons
and daughters, daughters and sons." Master Butter took his bottle back,
displayed it. "Map-Louisiana work. Enamel-ware." He sipped, set it
down on the floor beside him, then sat silent for a long while, looking at
Martha, blinking slowly like a wood owl. Martha
sat, her fine new ax resting across her lap, its head's blade bright as
silvered glass and sharp enough to shave down from her forearm. The head's
spike, on the reverse, was a slightly curved claw, coming to a needle's point.
The Queen's own Weapon-smith had made it, and engraved an ancient Warm-time
saying on the side of the ax's steel. Deadlier than the male. "...
My father," Master Butter said after a while, "was Lawrence, Baron
Memphis, which does make me a 'sir,' by courtesy. Sir Edward. He was Memphis,
but not a brute... would eat no talking meat." Master Butter was silent
for a time, seemed distracted in liquor. Then
he said, "My brother, Terry, the present baron, loved our father and still
honors his memory. My brother was not squatly fat, heard no voices,
had no falling fits — and has no great talent for killing, either. He
sends me an allowance, and, of course, as one of Island's household, I have my
servant, my rooms, my place in the hall at meals. No one treats me with
disrespect. Those who aren't afraid, are sorry for me.... I mention this, as
I'm considering you for a friend." "I
see...." "
— Not, I hasten to add, a lover. I have whores for the one thing, and have
given my Forever-love to another." He took the handkerchief away, examined
blood spots on it, then pressed it against his nostrils again. "My love,
comic as it must seem to those few who know of it, is for Her Majesty alone. So
it has been from the moment I stood beside my father on the pier of Silver
Gate, and saw her first come ashore to Island beside Newton Second-Son — the
River rest His Majesty." He
blew his nose gently. "She was tall, looked like a beautiful bitch wolf,
and though frightened by the noise and crowds and newness, was too brave to
show it.... And a foolish fat boy, despised for his falling fits, saw her, lost
his heart, and never got it back." Martha
sat silent beside him. "This...
quiet of yours, is the reason I consider you for friendship, Martha. Knowing
that a friend would never repeat what I've just told you for commons' casual
amusement. Very few at court would dare laugh to my face — but many when my
back is turned." "I
won't tell anyone." "Thank
you.... And that was very nice work with the ax. Most forget an ax has a heavy
handle, and see only the blade and spike — as I did, to my shame. That stroke
was very nice, and followed quite properly by the belly cut." "But
your poor nose..." "Yes.
You've made a friend of me — but an enemy of my nose." Master Butter
laughed a goose's honk. "My dear, I think the Queen chose better than she
knew."
CHAPTER 15
Sam
had occasionally seen Kingdom warships at a distance, rigged for the Gulf's
summer wet and ponderously tacking offshore, great white seashells of sail taut
with wind — or their ranks of oars out, flashing yellow in sunlight. Banners
streaming from their masts. And
in winter, once, riding high along the coast with a file of troopers, he had
heard a great hissing, like some monstrous southern snake's — and seen one of
the Kingdom's great ships, driven before the wind, skating the Gulf's ice on
huge, bright steel runners. But
to have seen at a distance was not the same as seeing close when the Cormorant,
intercepted under a storm-darkened sky by a Kingdom cutter at the river's
mouth, was held rocking in the tide while a warship came drum-thundering,
oar-thrashing down upon them. "Nailed
Jesus," Margaret said, as it came. After
a shouted interchange over gusting breezes, they were invited to board by
clambering up the great ship's side on a dripping rope ladder, as it heaved and
rolled in the delta's swell. The ship's name was worked in bronze at its bow:
QS Naughty. Their
packs and baggage followed them, knotted to slender ropes — 'whips,' by the
orders given — and drawn up to the ship's deck by silent sailors, working
barefoot in the bitter wind. Heavier tackle was rigged, cable and belly bands,
to haul the kicking horses up one by one to the warship's deck, then to be
chivied into a large shelter of heavy canvas and taut-stretched cord, made in
moments. "Your
people, sir, to remain on this section of deck — and wander nowhere else."
A pleasant officer in Middle Kingdom's naval-gray cloak, jacket, and trousers —
and young, a boy no more than fourteen or so, his dark hair cropped short. A
blue dot tattooed on each cheek, a heavy curved knife at his belt, he swayed to
the ship's motion as Sam and his North Mexicans staggered. "My
men," Sam said, "and Master Carey, will stay where you put them, with
our packs and gear. They're to receive refreshment. My officers come with
me." "Sir,
the captain's orders — " "Belay
those orders, Fitz." A very small man strolled down the deck, stepping
without looking over fixtures, lashings, and coiled lines. This man — with hard
black eyes, a weather-creased face tattooed with three dots on one cheek, four
on the other — wore frosted silver moons
on his gray cloak's shoulder straps. "Captain."
The boy officer saluted himself away. "Milord."
The small captain bowed to Sam, raised his voice against the wind. "Ralph
Owen. I have the honor to command this Queen's ship. You are welcome aboard —
and your officers, of course, stay with you." Sam
saw the man's surprise, noticing Margaret Mosten. "A lady..." "It's
our custom." Sam smiled. "Captain Mosten has commanded light infantry
in several battles. Presently, she acts as my aide and executive." "Ah..." "And
I'll introduce Lieutenant Pedro Darry." Pedro
stepped forward, snapped to attention. "Captain Owen. A pleasure,
sir." "Darry…
Darry," the captain said, ushering Sam and the others down the
deck. "I believe I know the name." "My
father, Elmer, has been to Island twice, I think, sir. On business." "Oh,
yes," the captain said. "Heard him spoken of." "Admiral
Reynolds had become a friend, I believe, sir. And an associate in developing
larger milling saws." "Planks."
Captain Owen nodded, moving them along. "Planks and sawn members; that's
it. The admiral mentioned that to my brother some time ago." Margaret,
stepping around a large metal obstruction left on the deck for some naval
reason, raised an eyebrow at Sam as they went, at Pedro's already proving
useful. The
captain's cabin, arrived at through odors of sawn wood, paint, damp canvas, and
old sweat, was reached by a dim, narrow passage, then up a steep and even
narrower stair. Its door was guarded by a large soldier — a marine, Sam
supposed — in hoop armor enameled half-green, half-blue, from helmet to hip.
The marine struck the butt of a pole-ax on the deck, then stepped aside. Ushered
in by the captain — out of shadow into light — Sam saw a room painted all
white, fine as those described in Warm-time copybooks of sea travel, sea
fighting. Spacious enough, though low overhead under massive beams, with
crossed short-bladed sabers and two painted pictures on its side walls — one of
a fleet of ships on winter ice, the other a yellow boat in stormy waters. The
room was furnished with a woven blue carpet, a wide wood cabinet on the wall
across, and round-back chairs at a polished fir-wood table bolted to the deck. There
were six large, wonderfully clear pane-glass windows across the cabin's back
wall. Against two of them, big wooden machines, fitted with heavy windlasses
and long steel bows set horizontal, were drawn up and fastened to thick
ring-bolts with heavy rope and tackle. Past
these, Sam saw the river through the window glass; its current, surface
roughened by the wind, streaked dark and silver in cloud-shadowed light. The
cabin was a chamber fine enough — as the warship was massive and complex — to
put a provincial in his place. Sam had a moment's admiration for the Khan, for
the perfect confidence necessary to assault this Kingdom. The
small captain waited while an elderly sailor in gray shirt and gray trousers —
come silent through some trap or door —
took the visitors' unbuckled long-swords, sabers, and rapiers, and then
the cloaks to hang beside them on pegs along the near wall.
"Please..." Owen gestured to his beautiful table, and when they were
seated, took a chair across from them. Seated,
Sam thought, just in time, as the ship suddenly rolled steeply to the right...
then seemed to swing half-around, timbers groaning as they took the strain. "I
can offer you berry juice," the captain said, "imperial coffee, or
imperial chocolate. No vodka or barley whisk, I'm sorry to say. Queen's ships
carry no liquors." "Juice
would be appreciated," Sam said. "And my men?" "Are
being attended to, milord." "
'Sir' will do, Captain. I don't require 'milord'ing." "As
you wish… sir." Captain Owen smiled, and sat silent while the old sailor
padded in through what seemed a pantry door with four silver mugs on a fine
brass tray. He set the tray on the table, and handed the mugs round. To Sam
first, then — with only momentary
hesitation — to Margaret, then Darry, and his captain last. Sam
had heard that sailors toasted sitting, so he stayed put and only raised his
mug. "To the Queen." "To
the Queen." "The
Queen." The
juice was blackberry. Sam had tasted it before, but never served hot as coffee.
"... Wonderfully good." "You'll
be my guests at supper, of course. We'll have a two-day run up to Island,
milord — " "
'Sir.' " Sam smiled. "Sir.
Two days up to Island. The Fleet had
been noticed, some time ago, of the possibility of your coming, though
not how or when." "Events
determined," Sam said, "as they must in your Service." "Truer
words never," the small captain said, and looked as pleasant as a narrow
and ferocious face allowed. He reminded Sam of the champion Sonora jockey,
Monte Williams, a bane of Charlie Ketch's betting-luck. "The ship's
honored to receive you, sir, and you'll honor me by using my cabin." "No,
Captain Owen; I won't displace you on your own ship. But if other officers will
be kind enough to make room for us, it would be appreciated." "...
Of course, sir, if you prefer." The old
sailor came back from the pantry with a silver platter of what seemed to be
large honey cookies. "Do
try these," the captain said. "Peter claims to be a baker,
though some doubt it." "An'
haven't I baked goods for you since ever?" the old sailor said to him. "An'
taught you stem from stern when your nose was still runnin'?" He set
the platter firmly down, and padded out. "There
you have years of shipping together," Captain Owen said, "from when I
was a boy. And in battles and Gulf hurricanes. After such a time, you see
friendship has overcome discipline." "And
should in that case," Sam said, "or an officer's no officer." They
sat silent for a while, sipping steaming berry juice… Sleet came lancing across
the great stern windows, and as if discomfited by it, the ship seemed to swing
and swing away. Sam was glad to be sitting; he had a vision of himself
stumbling across the uncertain deck, perhaps vomiting, to sailors' amusement. And
having imagined that, he saw himself, Margaret, and Darry, as this veteran
little captain must see them… Three young people, Margaret the oldest, but
still three young people. Soldiers — scarred, though not by passing
years — and all wearing tanned-sheepskin tunics, brown woolen trousers, riding
boots, and hauberks of light chain-mail. Pedro
Darry, of course, also sporting his own gold hair-clips, gold broach, and
jeweled rings, leaving Sam and Margaret comparatively unadorned, though she'd
insisted on a wide silver and sapphire bracelet for Sam's sword arm — an
imperial piece, acquired from the duke's baggage at God-Help-Us — and a massive
signet ring as well, onyx scorpion on an oval of gold. Which
decorations, of course, might only add a certain barbarous air.... So, three
provincial soldiers sitting at the captain's table, young enough to be his
children — and ignorant as children, both of sea war and the complications of
Middle Kingdom. But still representing a land, a people, and a veteran army. The
captain would be making judgments, and likely others in Middle Kingdom would tend
to judge the same as he. So, if a certain simplicity was bound to seem obvious
to such people, then why not be simple — and certain. Let them grasp
directness, feel its edge. Sam
set the silver mug down; it slid a little on the tabletop with the ship's
motion. "I won't pretend not to be impressed, Captain. Impressed by this
ship, and the Kingdom it represents. You seem a formidable Service, the more so
since we have no experience of navies whatsoever. My people are mountain people
— though we've learned to fight where we have to." Captain
Owen put his own drink down. "Good of you to say, sir. And from what we
hear, your army fights very well on any field.... We also do well enough, and
are going to do better, patrol the Ocean Atlantic in force — as we now patrol
the Gulf and Carib Islands." "My
father," Lieutenant Darry said, "spoke of the great expense of the
Fleet, Captain." Owen
nodded. "And he was right. We are expensive. Good timber, imperial cotton
and manila for sails and rigging. Long-leaf tempered steel for the catapults
and mules." "And
of course, your people," Sam said. "Yes,
sir. The largest expense. Our rowers are serfs, but serfs must be fed, and well
fed, to row a warship. Our sailors have River Freedom of course, and must be
paid, as the marines are paid." "Furs
and hide," Margaret said. "Why
yes, lady — excuse me, Captain. Exactly; we can't winter-dress our
people only in woven wool. It soaks in spray and freezes. We use sealskin cloaks
when we can get them, other leathers when not. Those, usually oiled." "So,"
Sam said, "without supplies from Mexico City on the one hand, and Boston
on the other, your Fleet might find itself in difficulty." Owen
smiled. "That's absolutely right, sir. Of course, in that case, the
Empire's coastwise traffic in the Gulf, and New England's coastwise
traffic down Ocean Atlantic, might also find themselves in... difficulty." "Still,
you'd always need a year or two of supplies laid up." "We
would indeed," Captain Owen said, still smiling. "Try the
cookies." "I
already have, sir," Darry said, chewing. "Damn good." "Smart
soldier." A voice from behind
the pantry door. Darry
hesitated a moment, thrown off stride. "Very good cookies... It occurs to
me, Captain, that my father might be interested in providing your fleet with
sheepskins. We wear them in the army — warm, light, and well greased with the
animal's own fat." "Hmm...
But a sufficient number of those skins?" "Captain,"
Sam said, "we have many more sheep than people. Your supply vessels could
pick up the shipments from our Gulf coast. And, of course, that source would
lessen your fleet's dependence on New England's sealskin." Owen
nodded. "That's of interest, milord — sir. I'll mention it to my admiral. We
do lose a number of sailors to frostbite, and a sailor with fingers and toes
gone is no longer a sailor." The
ship suddenly heaved forward, then heaved again, so they swayed in their seats. "What's
that?" Margaret gripped the arms of her chair. "They're
rowing, Captain?" "Yes,
sir," Owen said, as the ship seemed to rise slightly and heave forward
again. "We've turned upriver and upwind. This is to the beat of
Lose-no-time. For the rowers' stroke speeds, there's Loiter, Keep-station,
Lose-no-time, Pursuit, and Battle-and-board." The
ship surged... surged... surged. Sam seemed to feel the great effort through
his bones — the rowers' strength straining at the long oars to drive forward
this monument of oak and fir, of supplies, gear, and tackle, of men and steel. "Captain,
how long can they do this work?" "Oh...
at this beat, sir, a glass-hour and a half, before relief. At Battle-and-board,
of course, a much shorter time." "And
years of service?" "Ten
years would be the usual, though there are men rowing who've been with her
for... fifteen, sixteen years. Of course, those started young." "Changes
with Lord Winter?" "Oh,
when we rig to skate, sir, rowers are transferred to the Carib, and coasts
south. No ice there." "And
if," Darry said, "or when, they break down in service, sir?" "Well,
Lieutenant... that depends on the original reason for assignment." The
captain took a cookie. "If they're indentured serfs, they're put to
lighter duty, longshore labor and so forth. That's routine for many of them in
any case, when the ice comes down. But if assignment was for a criminal or
treasonous matter, then, with the sentence no longer in abeyance, it's carried
out." "So,"
Margaret said, "a man may row your ships for fifteen years, and when he
can row no longer — " "Hanged.
Burned. Whatever his original sentence. It's hard, ma'am — sorry, Captain
— but the Fleet is a hard mistress, even for those who aren't serfs, and who
don't row. And the custom does insure that those who are criminals, lean into
their looms." "And,"
Sam said, "in the Ocean Atlantic?" "Ah...
in those waters, sir, we've found oars of little use. Water's too rough, waves
too high. Out there, a man must sail his ship." The captain
finished his cookie as Sam reached to try one. The
cookie was soft, crumbling, rich with honey... and something else.
"Spotted-cow butter, and what flower spice?" Margaret
took one and tasted. "Rosemary... ?" "Southern
sunflower seed!" From behind the
pantry door. "Ground fine!" Sam
raised his voice. "Delicious!" And received a possibly pleased grunt
in response. "Old
Peter," the captain said, "used to bake certain savages taken in
fights off Island Cuba. It was the beginning of his cookery." "Better
the cookies, sir," Margaret, chewing hers. "Yes….
That's becoming the general opinion. Though there are old captains who still
hold to celebration roasts on long voyages. I served under one, Jerry Newland.
'Old school,' as the copybooks say. Newland's father had filed teeth. Codger
came aboard once to visit... had a smile one remembered. Map-Louisiana
family." "It
seems," Sam said, "that the ships become villages to your people,
with village memories." "Oh,
that's exactly so, sir. They do become our worlds, so much that after months on
the water, particularly if there's been fighting — pirates always, of course,
and imperial ships from time to time, though those not officially —
" "We
meet them much the same, Captain. Fighting, sometimes very serious fighting,
but not war declared. Mexico City is... cautious." "Right,
sir. Absolutely. And after such cruises, it does often seem the land is less actual
than the river, gulf, or ocean, and home a poor substitute for a ship of
war." "Promotion?"
Margaret said. Owen
smiled. "Ah, Captain, the fundamental military question. Promotion is as always,
everywhere. Merit, to a point. Influence, to a point. And luck, above
all." He took another cookie, and called out, "This is a good batch,
Pete." "Not
speakin' to you." Muffled, from the pantry. The
captain grinned and ate his cookie. It
occurred to Sam that just this sort of man would be required to found coastal
fleets for North Map-Mexico. Now, having met Ralph Owen, he saw that fishermen
wouldn't do. Would do for corsairs, certainly, but not for naval
officers. That would require men like this one, persuaded somehow from the
Kingdom's service or the Emperor's.... It was something to consider. Captain
Owen leaned back in his chair. "I doubt if Admiral Reuven would garrote
me, sir, if I mentioned some news pigeoned in to New Orleans yesterday. Not Kingdom
news, after all." "Yes?" "I
understand you sent a force up into Texas, or so the Boston people at
Map-McAllen claim." "Yes." "You
may not have heard what has been reported." "We
haven't." "Ah.
Two days ago — this only by McAllen's pigeon, of course — your people are said
to have taken and burned Map-Fort Stockton." "Weather!"
Margaret said, and hit the tabletop
with her fist. "Took,
burned... killed many hundreds in the garrison, and, according to the McAllen
people — who, I suppose, can be trusted in this — came away driving well over a
thousand of the savages' remounts." "By
the Nailed Jesus!" Darry stood up, then sat down. "On
Kingdom River, Lieutenant," Owen said, "we thank Jesus Floating. He
rules here, as much as any Great can." "Sorry,
sir." "Oh,
no offense taken." "Losses,
Captain?" Sam saw Howell for a moment, trotting through the dust at Boca
Chica, holding a bandanna to his ear. "Apparently
too few, sir, to burden a pigeon with." "I'm
in your debt, Captain, for the pleasure of that news." Now, Howell
— ride east. And ride fast. "Courtesy
to a guest, sir." "And
news that is your Kingdom's news? If I may ask, how goes the fighting in
Map-Missouri?" "Oh,
the little I know would only bore you, sir." Captain Owen held out the
cookie platter. "Another?"
*
* *
Sam
woke to a change. The ship was moving differently… the rowers' rhythm slightly
slower, as if even effort must drowse so near the morning. There was slower
surging, a lower pitch to the groaning music of the ship's hull and fittings —
and less of that wallowing side to side that had almost sickened him at supper. He'd
gone to bed in the first-officer's cubby — more closet than room — and somewhat
stifled, had regretted the captain's cabin. Now, with the ship rolling only a
little, he could still reach out from the narrow, swinging cot to touch each
side wall, alternately. As he swayed one way, then the other, a hanging tin
lantern sent shadows after him — its little wick burning as his night-light
privilege, in a ship where any fire but the galley's was usually forbidden. Sam
lay awake for a while, then tossing aside his canvas cover — blankets
apparently considered softening influences in Kingdom's Fleet — swung his legs out,
managed a get-down rather than a fall-down, and staggered about the cubby,
dressing. Finally, bracing himself to buckle his sword's scabbard down his
back, he considered the unhandiness of long-swords in ships' close quarters. The
lamp blown out, the cubby's curtain — pulled open — brushed a heavy shoulder. Sergeant Mays,
standing at ease in full armor, dagger, and short-sword as the ship shifted,
turned his helmeted mastiff head and said, "Mornin', sir." "Morning,
Sergeant." Comforted by such formidable night-watch, Sam jostled down the
swaying corridor and climbed a dark ladder-stair to the next, the big
infantryman behind him. They managed down a slowly pitching passage to a
hatchway — and out into near dawn, and a
gentle freezing wind over a deck sheeted with ice. "Footin',
sir." Mays stepped close behind, hobnails crunching. Sam,
passing two sailors at the ship's great steering wheel, reached the right-side
— starboard — rail, got a grip, and the sergeant stood away. There were
serried small waves on the river — what
North Mexico fishermen called 'chop' — and swirls of dark current here and
there. Leaning over the rail's thick oak banister, Sam saw the two ranks of
long yellow oar-looms rise all together... pause... then dip like birds' beaks
into wind-roughened water. Dip… bow slightly with the strain of the stroke,
then splash up and out together. Pause… then dip again. He
could hear what sounded like wooden blocks struck together to keep the rowers'
time. A hollow, almost musical note. "Morning,
sir!" Sam
turned, looked up to the high stern deck — apparently, and rather comically,
called the 'poop' — and saw Captain Owen, in a tarred canvas cloak too big for
him. The captain stood with one of his officers behind a low railing that ran
across that higher deck, with entries only for two narrow accommodation
ladders. "Morning,
Captain...!" Sam's breath drifted in frost for a moment, then was whisked
away on the wind. He
turned to the river again, and saw no shore, even with dawn streaking the
eastern horizon pollen-yellow. No shore, no margin, only the odor of fresh
water and ice coming on the wind. Only that, its smaller waves, and what seemed
a tidal race, marked it different to a landsman from the Gulf Entire. Sam could
see two distant lights — ship's lanterns, each far enough away to seem only
glimmers, like dying sparks risen from a campfire. Somewhere
to the east, likely already passed in the night, the old New Orleans — of so
many copybook tales — lay, as most ancient river cities, long drowned. Owen's
first officer had claimed at supper that a church bell tolled in its sunken
tower there, and could be heard as deep currents swung the bronze…. The town
now called New Orleans, seemed to be one of the Fleet's headquarters and
harbors, so was barely spoken of. "Sam...."
Margaret came and stood by him, yawning, her cloak's hood drawn up against the
cold, its dark wool pearled with mist-droplets. "Others
up?" "Roused
or rousing, sir. Short sleeping seems the rule on these ships." "Hmm.
Look at this river, Margaret. Big with summer melt off the ice. According to
Neckless Peter, at least three times, maybe four times, what it was before the
cold came down. So the cities on it now, all named for flooded Warm-time towns
that had been near, aren't really the old Map-places. According to a ship's
officer, aren't called 'Map' at all." "Why
not 'New' this or that?" "I
don't know. Perhaps concerned their Floating Jesus might object." "It's
a perfect prairie for the Khan's tumans, sir, once it freezes." "A
prairie for them from the north, as it freezes." "Sam..."
Margaret put her gloved hand over his bare hand on the rail, as if to warm it.
An unusual touching, for her. "Sam, I know... we know what you intend to
do. And you can do it, no matter how big the fucking river is." Sam
smiled. "Without my vodka?" "With
or without it, Sam." She took her hand away. "These Boxcars
seem to be a formidable people, but they're like the Kipchaks, full of pride
and horseshit. Both are ripe for a kick in the ass." "And
I'm the boot?" "You're
the boot, Sam. You, and the rest of us sheep-stealers." Margaret glanced
behind them, saw only Sergeant Mays, standing weighty on the deck. "...We
have interesting news. Master Carey shared beer with the cooks in the galley
last night, and helped with pots and pans. Ship's gossip is that Jefferson
City, Map-Missouri, has been taken by the Khan's general, Andrei Shapilov. And
every man in the garrison there killed. Three... four thousand of the West-bank
army." "Weather....
But I knew, knew there was something.
There was more on the captain's mind than cookies." "Jefferson
City might wake them." "Wake
some, Margaret. And send others deeper to sleep." Sam lifted his hands
from the rail, blew on them to warm his fingers. "— But I'd guess, not the
Queen."
CHAPTER 16
"My
regiments…!" Queen
Joan had cried this out several times through three days and nights, but not as
if requiring comfort. And even men and women who ordinarily weren't wary of
her, hadn't dared offer it. It seemed
to Martha that the Queen's rage, like a lightning stroke near a bee tree, had
set the hive of Island humming. Officers
of both bank armies — very senior and important men, usually seen allied at
court — were suddenly absent. And very different officers, lower-ranked,
harsh-faced, and grim, suddenly appeared to take up posts, positions,
responsibilities… work they never seemed to rest from. So,
in only three days and three nights, Martha saw what queens were for. "A
poor time," the Queen said, holding a green velvet gown out at arm's
length to see what window light did to it. "A poor time for that puppy
Captain-General to decide to come calling." "But
you invited him…." "Martha,
don't use my past actions against me. I might have invited him — and I might
not." Distant
trumpets and drums, preparing welcome at the Silver Gate, sang softly through
the tower's stone. "The
young jackass." The green velvet was dropped to the floor. "I'd look
like some pricey whore, rowing up to Celebration. Well" — she smiled at
Martha — "perhaps more like the whore's mother, along for
bargaining." "No,
ma'am. The whore herself, and beautiful." The
Queen, at the wardrobe, turned with a look. "So, I'm flattered and put in
my place at once. I've come to suspect, girl, you've a brain along with your
muscles." She rummaged, disturbing pressed gowns. "Probably should
have you whipped…. What about this?" A long dress striped black and
silver. "Seems...
gaudy, ma'am." "
'Seems gaudy, ma'am'! Well, what then?" "The
dark blood-red." "Hmm.
Worn several times before." "And
worn well, Majesty." The
Queen found the gown and hauled it out. "Pressed, at least. I'm amazed
it's cleaned and pressed. Lazy bitches...." She held it up to the light,
then held the dress to her and went to stand before her long mirror's almost
perfect silvered glass. "That
fucking stupid Merwin dog," she said, examining her reflection. Martha had
heard her say it before, referring to General Eli Merwin, dead with his men at
Map-Jefferson City. The Queen had written and sent a letter to the Khan's
general, Shapilov, thanking him for ridding her of a fool. Queen
Joan turned a little to the left, a little to the right. "I suppose it
might do." "Do
nicely, ma'am," Martha said, and with Fat Orrie, began to dress her. "Well,
this Small-Sam Monroe deserves no better. Get it on me. The black shoes — I'll
freeze — and only jet for jewelry, as mourning for my poor dead soldiers."
Cascades of band music now drifted into the tower. "Who in Lady Weather's
name do those people think they're greeting? Jesus come rafting
by?" "We
need to hurry, ma'am." "Don't
rush me." With both hands, the Queen lifted the Helmet of Joy from its
silver stand and settled its weight carefully on her head. "Terrible for
my hair..." Then
the Queen was rushed, though apologetically, by Martha, her waiting
women, and finally the chamberlain, Brady, come panting up the tower stairs in
as much temper as he dared to show. "For
the — ! Ma'am, we have a head of state now landing!" "Calm
yourself, old man." The Queen made a last pass before her mirror. Then,
satisfied with red and black, led out and down the flights of stairs, her
soldiers saluting as she passed. Princess
Rachel, wearing a simple, long, white-wool gown, with a thick goat's-hair shawl
paneled in blue and green — and with only one lady in company — was waiting for
them at the tower door. Her dark-brown hair was ribboned down her back in thick
braids. "Dressing
to be plain?" the Queen said. "Fear rape, do you?" The
Princess didn't seem to hear, took her mother's hand and kissed it, then
stepped back beside Martha as they walked down the long north staircase, past
the glass Flower House. The Princess's lady — a blue-stocking named Erica
DeVane — waved good fortune as they went. Martha
had seen Island's Silver Gate — had become familiar with almost all of Island,
as Master Butter had advised her — but
never with nine or ten thousand people, Ordinary and Extraordinary,
packing its cut-stone landings and docks. Men, women, and children, all dressed
for holiday, and so many that she saw stirs here and there where someone,
shoved by crowding, had fallen into the harbor and had to be fished out before
the icy water killed them. The
Queen's throne had been perched on the wide first-flight landing of the Gate's
middle staircase. She settled into it, warmed by an ermine cape and lap robe,
and crowned with the Helmet of Joy, its thirteen human hearts — shiveled knots
bound in fine gold netting — dangling, swinging in the bitter wind. Deep
drums rumbled as a warship — Martha thought she saw the name Haughty as
it turned — swung in to tie at Central Finger. "Well-handled,"
the Queen said. "But certainly with more important duties... better things
to do." Martha could hardly hear her over the band music. One dull-voiced
instrument in there sounded very like a plow-horse farting. As
she watched past the Queen's heavy helmet of hearts, gold, and yellow diamonds,
Martha saw the warship put out a broad bow-gangway, as if a great sea beast had
stuck out its tongue. A
little group of six appeared there, and the crowd cheered all together, a
tremendous almost solid weight of sound, so even the bands seemed silenced.
Martha thought the Queen said, "My, such enthusiasm." And she must
have said something, because Martha saw Princess Rachel, now standing beside
her mother, smile. The
little group came down the gangway, cloaks blowing in the river wind. They
marched up the dock to the harbor steps with one man walking slightly ahead,
then climbed the stairs between lines of soldiers, to shouts and tossed women's
favors of bright kerchiefs and painted paper flowers. In
an almost-hush of cheering between one blared march and another, Martha heard
the chamberlain say, "Seem pleased to see the man." "Jefferson
City," the Queen said, "has frightened them. So they look to even
improbable friends." She said something more, but the bands had struck up
Warm-time's 'Semper Fidelis' — or its fair copy — and Martha couldn't hear her. But
the bands and crowd quieted as the group climbed closer to the Queen. "For
God's sake, Brady… he's a boy." "Twenty-seven
years old, ma'am. And experienced." "Experienced,
my ass." The Queen ruffled her ermine cape and loops of jet beads.
"Experienced at hanging sheep thieves —
which he was himself, once." "But
is no longer, ma'am." Martha noticed the chamberlain had kept his voice
low, apparently to encourage the Queen to do the same. "Is
to me; I changed his shit rags. Very noisy baby..." The Queen was drowned
out by a last blare of music with cymbals and rumbling drums, as North
Map-Mexico came up the last steps. Monroe
— bare-headed, well dressed in dun velvet, with silver on his arm and a fine
ring on his finger — seemed handsome to Martha, in a way. Broad-shouldered, a
little shorter than she was, he looked tough and tired, like any young officer
who'd seen fighting. He was wearing only a fine cloth cloak — dark brown as
imperial chocolate — against the cold, and was armed with a long-sword down his
back, even coming to greet the Queen. He looked strong to Martha. Long arms and
big hands. I'd have to close with him. Short-grip the ax, stay inside the
swing of his sword. And quickly, quickly. He
stood at the foot of the throne. His people had stopped well back. To Martha,
almost all of them — the soldiers, the woman, too — looked Ordinary, but dire
fighters. Only one, a tall young man in black velvet, and very handsome as the
court judged handsomeness, seemed well-born though not dotted. The
music having crashed to a stop, the Queen raised her voice over crowd noise.
"How very welcome you are, Captain-General, to Middle Kingdom — and
in time for our Lord Winter's Festival!" "I
look forward to it, Majesty." A young man's light-baritone, raised to be
clearly heard. He sounded a little hoarse, to Martha. Perhaps from shouting
battle orders. "Look forward to it... and with heartfelt thanks for your
kind invitation to visit your great and beautiful river country." "Your
pleasure, Lord Monroe, is our pleasure!" Martha
supposed the Queen was smiling, to show how pleased she was. "
— And we hope your visit with us will be the longest possible, so we may come
to know one another... as our people and yours may come to know one
another." Monroe
bowed to the Queen, then turned a little to bow to Princess Rachel. Not, it
seemed to Martha, really graceful bows. They were too... casual. She supposed
he wasn't used to it. "Your Majesty's welcome reflects your own
graciousness, kindness." Martha
thought Queen Joan must still be smiling, but heard her mutter, "Is this
shit-pup making fun of me?" "No,
no." A murmur from Chamberlain Brady. "All in form." The
Queen stood up. "Then come, welcome guest, and those you've brought with
you, to rest in comfort from your journey!" "Should
say more, ma'am." Brady's murmur. "Fuck
that," said the Queen, stepped down from her throne, and offered Monroe
her arm. He was smiling — Martha supposed he'd heard the 'Fuck that' — took her
arm, and swung a slow half-circle with her as the crowd began a rhythmic
clapping, loud, and with shouts. Following
the Queen close as they climbed the steps — the Princess had dropped back to
walk beside the chamberlain — Martha
glanced over her shoulder to be sure Monroe's five fighters were coming well
behind. Then she set herself to watching those bowing as they went by, those
clapping and cheering in the crowd, watching for anyone a little too tense for
the occasion. They
passed Master Butter as they climbed to the second Grand-flight's landing. He
was standing with Lord Vitelli's man, Packard — blew an almost-hidden kiss to
the Queen, then winked at Martha as she went by. "In
the old days," the Queen said to Monroe, raising her voice through the
crowd's noise, "Chamberlain Brady would have welcomed you naked, or nearly
naked, with the 'My Sunshine' dance." "Really?"
Their guest looked over his shoulder. "Chamberlain, I'm sorry to have
missed it." "Just
as well, milord. Not what I used to be, prancing." "Oh,"
Monroe said, "I imagine you still step lightly enough." Martha
heard the Queen's little grunt of humor through the cheers and shouts around
them, and there came a shower of perfumed paper flowers, tiny twisted
petition-papers, and candies wrapped in beaten silver foil. Ordinaries
in the crowd were shouting, "Mother! River-mother!" and
grinning at the Queen like — as she always said — the great fools they were.
* *
*
"Thank
Mountain Jesus that's over." "The
Jesus here floats, sir," Margaret said. "But Weather, this place is
big!" "Oh,
I'd say these rooms are proper," Darry said, "a suite commensurate
with rank." "I
think Margaret meant Island, Lieutenant, though these rooms aren't
nothing." Chamberlain
Brady had led them a long way, commenting to Sam on the warmth of the people's
greeting, and mentioning the banquet of welcome at sunset. They'd come a great
distance through granite passageways and up granite stairways, to this 'suite.' First,
a high-ceilinged entrance chamber with a long, beautifully-carved table set in
it — and woven tapestries along the walls, with scenes of men and women hunting
animals Sam had never seen or heard of, dream animals from copybooks.... There
was this great room, warmed by two corner Franklins with fires rumbling in
them, and lit by lanterns hanging from its ceiling on silver chains. Then, on
both sides of a wide hallway — its walls decorated with painted pictures of
river people at common tasks — were six more rooms. The first was a small
laundry room with both bath and wash-tubs. On the stove were kettles of hot
water, already steaming. The other five were sleeping chambers, each very fine,
with polished wood furniture, beds with duck-feather mattresses and pillows,
and flower drawings on fine paper on every wall. These
rooms, also, each held a stove burning. And the last chamber, largest and most
beautiful — with two glassed arrow-slit windows cut through yard-thick stone —
was warmed by two stoves. "This
is all to impress us," Margaret said, and making a face of not being
impressed, joined Sam and Darry sitting at the entrance room's big table. The
three sergeants stood at ease along the near wall. Behind and above them, a
woven hunting party of people wearing feathered cloaks rode after a six-legged
elk. "Well,
it impresses me," Sam said, "to afford such warmth and comfort
in this huge heap of stone in winter. Island does impress me, as that warship
did. Great wealth, and great power — and they make it plain." Master
Carey came in with two liveried servants carrying the last of the baggage...
and saw it stowed. His and the sergeants' gear in the two bed-rooms nearest the
entrance. The lieutenant's in the next. Then Margaret Mosten's. Then Sam's. "We
should have brought finer things to wear," Margaret said.. "No,
we shouldn't," Sam said. "Decoration won't win us anything,
here." He waited for the last of Island's servants to leave and close the
door behind him. "Now, first, remember that what we say in these rooms may
be overheard, stone walls or not." "Right,"
Margaret said. "This
is what I want done...." He paused to pick an apple from a silver bowl. "Apple
should be tasted, sir." Carey, come to stand with the sergeants. "Oh,
I don't think I'll be poisoned today. That would be a little abrupt." Sam
took a bite and chewed. "It's sweet. Wonderful, a sweet apple….
Now, Sergeants Burke, Mays, and Wilkey, you'll take Lieutenant Darry's orders
as to guard-mount. But there is always to be a man on duty at the entrance,
here. And, I suppose, I should have someone with me." "No
'suppose' about it, sir," Margaret said. "You will damn well have
one of the sergeants, or me, with you at all times." "Alright
— one of the men. Margaret, you headquarter here, but wander often enough to
keep an eye on all of us, and on any change in our position with these
people." "Yes,
sir." "Lieutenant..." "Sir?"
Darry sitting handsomely alert, left hand resting on his saber's hilt. A hilt,
Sam noticed, sporting gold wire on the grip. "Since,
Lieutenant, you're a very social fellow, you will be a very social
fellow here. Get out and around in the court. Cultivate companions-in-mischief.
I want to know who's important, and who's not. I want to know what they think
of the war — and of us." "I
understand, sir." "And,
Pedro, limit your amusements to those that do not require duels." "Goes
without saying, sir." "Um-mm.
And, Master Carey, you're to do whatever it was Eric Lauder instructed you to
do — once you've told me exactly what those instructions were." "Yes,
milord — sir. Really, only to guard you, particularly against long-acting
poisons, and to... deal with any river people who might threaten you or our
mission here." "Carey,
you will 'deal' with no one without my direct order. Is that clear?" "Very
well, sir. Ask you, first." "Yes....
Now, all of you," — the sergeants came to attention to indicate attention
— "all of you, remember why we're here. We are not here to make
friends; I think that's unlikely in any case. We're here to offer the Boxcars
help that they already need, and will need more of when the Khan joins his
army." Sam finished the apple, found no place to put the core. Carey
came around the table and took it away. "Thank
you.... As to official matters, I think Her Majesty will let me wait at least a
day or two, and possibly more, before we meet in any private way. To put me in
my place." "She
seems damn rude." "Margaret,
watch your tongue." "Sorry,
Sam.... But she does." "The
Queen is exactly as my Second-mother described her. Older, but the same. A
fierce lady — and one, now, with great burdens, which probably include the
people of her court." "Those,
my business, sir?" "Your
business, Pedro.... All of us need to remember that as this Kingdom manages
against Toghrul Khan, so North Map-Mexico will have to manage. We need these
people as much as they need us. Keep it in mind." Nods
and "Yes, sir's." "Master
Carey," Margaret said, "the horses brought ashore and cared
for?" "Yes,
Captain. Stabled and fed." "And
how are we to be fed?" "Banquet
tonight for milord and officers, and otherwise, according to the kitchens, as
we please. Meals brought up to us, or served in Island's Middle-hall, still
called 'The King's.' Milord and officers have places held at south high table
there, servants and men-at-arms, places at south low." "Hours?" "All
hours, Captain." It seemed
to Sam that Better-Weather's imposition of Ansel Carey — and Darry and the
sergeants — was proving to have been good sense. "Most times," he
said, "we'll eat publicly. Roosting up here would not be helpful. We need
to see, and be seen." "As
to tonight's banquet, and attending what they call Extraordinaries, sir,"
Carey said, "I'm told that presently there is still no Boston ambassador
at Island. The Queen ordered him out last year, as we knew — quite a scene, I
understand. She threw a cabbage at him in one of their glass
growing-houses." "I'll
try to avoid cabbages," Sam said. "As
for the rest, sir, no ambassador from the Khan, of course. Left, weeks ago. The
others will be court officials, river lords, generals, commanders, courtiers
and so forth. And their wives." "
'And their wives,' " Margaret said, still apparently regretting finery.
*
* *
"Thank
Lady Weather, that's over." The Queen, weary from the Welcome-banquet, and
half-submerged in scanty lye-soap suds in the great silver tub, rested with her
eyes closed. Steam scented with imperial perfume rose around her. It had taken
Orrie, Ulla, and a nameless tower servant, two trips up from the laundry with
pails of boiling water to fill the tub. Martha,
ringlets ruined by wet heat, knelt to scrub the Queen's long back — a back
softened here and there by age, but still showing ropes of muscle down her
spine. And there were scars, though not the many that showed on her front — puckered
white beside her mouth, across her left breast, her belly, her left shoulder...
and a bad one pitted into her right thigh. Her wrists and forearms, like Master
Butter's, seemed decorated with scars' pale threads and ribbons. "It
seemed to go well, ma'am. And the dancing." Though Martha had been struck,
above all, by the Welcome-banquet's food, as if the Kingdom offered endless
spotted-cattle roasts, baked pigs, geese, and goats, fried chicken-birds,
pigeons, and candied partridges to overawe the North Mexican lord. All those
foods, and many tables of others. The
evening's bright occasion, and its music, had pleased Martha very much — though
after, something pleased her more. Climbing the solar tower's entrance steps
behind the Queen, she'd noticed by torchlight a large soldier in green-enameled
armor, who'd winked and smiled at her while standing sergeant of the guard. "Dancing,"
the Queen said, talkative after
considerable imperial wine. "The usual strutting and sweating. Not a man
of them could leap over a high fire." "Lord
Patterson paid attention to you." "Lord
Pretty would pay attention to anything with a hole between its legs — and
crowned, all the better. Still, at least Gregory can dance, there's some sense
of rhythm there." "Yes,"
Martha said, distracted — and to her own surprise, bent and kissed the Queen on
her temple. "What
are you doing? Don't be impertinent." "It...
it is a thank-you." "A
thanks for what, Country-girl?" The Queen surfaced a long leg, looked at
her toes. "A
thanks for sending for Ralph-sergeant." "Oh....
Well, 'kind' soldiers aren't good for anything but standing at my
stairs. Another useless mouth to feed at Island. The expense of this manure
pile is outrageous — thieves, every damned one of them. Sutlers, fucking cooks
and clothiers... Do you know, I don't dare look at the stable bills? You would
suppose the Kingdom would receive gift-privilege from these merchant hogs — oh,
no. Overprice and thievery!" "I
could visit them, with Master Butter." The
Queen laughed, half-turned in the tub to hit Martha on the shoulder with a
soapy fist. "No, no. My people and I play many games, Trade-honey, and
your ax would break the rules." "Then
we won't," Martha said, and used a soft cloth to rinse. The Queen's torso
had a fierce history, but her nape, revealed under pinned-up hair, was tender
as a child's. Standing
with care, then stepping out into wide southern-cotton toweling, the Queen left
wet footprints on the carpet, so a woven snow-tiger grew a damp mustache.
Martha hugged and gathered her in cloth — felt a sweetness of care and
attending as she stroked the Queen dry over softness here, hard muscle there. Swaddled,
the Queen turned and turned as Orrie took wet cloth from Martha, replaced it
with dry. ...
Burnished, smelling of flowers from the bath, the Queen sat on an ivory stool —
the ivory once the teeth of a Boston sea-beast called the walrut, or perhaps
sea walnut. She sat slumped while Martha unpinned and brushed out her hair,
long, with weaves of gray running through the red. Martha
brushed with slow easy strokes of boar bristle so as not to tug or tangle. "Now
listen," the Queen said, her head moving slightly under the brush.
"This sergeant of yours — Orrie, leave us." "Yes,
Majesty." Orrie, very fat and usually a stately walker, always seemed to
scuttle away relieved when dismissed. "Ma'am,
he isn't really my sergeant." "And
may never be, Martha, and then never more than a lover. Don't talk to me about men.
But this sergeant of yours, if it should come to love, it still cannot come
to marriage and children as long as I'm alive — ouch." "Sorry,
ma'am." "I
must and will be first. My life always above his and yours. Not because
I'm such an Extraordinary, but because my life is the peoples', and they have
no one else…. Though it's also true that I enjoy being queen. I don't deny
it." "I
understand." "Perhaps
you understand, girl, and perhaps you don't — how many strokes is that?" "Forty-three,
I think." "
'You think.' Alright, forty more…. What I was saying to you about coming first,
about the necessity of it? I have one child, a resentful daughter only two
years older than you, who misses her father still, and believes me a brute
bitch who hasn't even wept to lose him." "I
know better, ma'am." "Yes,
you heard me wake crying for my Newton on End-of-Summer Night, after our Jordan
Jesus rafted down. You heard that, and you've heard my dream groaning. And
likely heard my grunts playing stink-finger under the covers, rather than have
some tall man come up to give me shaking joys — then take advantage for it....
You've heard, Martha, and so are closer to me than my daughter ever has been,
or ever will be. And who are you? Only a strong child, really, and otherwise no
one at all. Rachel will never believe how I love her... wouldn't credit
it." "I
know you love her." "She's
all I have of Newton. And more, Rachel was a charming child — easy with that
fucking brush — and she was so intelligent that people made the River-sign,
hearing her conversation." "I
believe it. And she's pretty." "How
many is that?" "Seventy...
I think." "Oh,
for Weather's sake, Martha, learn how to fucking count." The Queen
stood, shook her hair out, put her hands back for the sleeves of her
night-robe, then shrugged it comfortable as Martha wrapped the fine green cloth
around her, then tied its soft belt bow. "Pretty? Well, if not truly
pretty, then Rachel's handsome enough, I suppose." Queen Joan raised her
arms high and stretched like a man, joints cracking. Then she stepped a little
jigging dance, shook her arms out as wrestlers did to ease their muscles,
before she strolled relaxed to the little silver bucket, tucked up the hem of
her night-robe, and squatted. "But.
But. This Kingdom is crueler than my mountains ever were, Martha.
Crueler than the tribesmen who came down. Well named the River Kingdom,
uncaring, cold, and made of killing currents as the river is." There was
faint musical drumming as she peed. "And full of men and women who once
ate talking meat. Still do, sometimes.... This is what my daughter will someday
rule, and I don't believe that she can do it." "She
has your blood." The
Queen tucked a tuft of cotton wool to her crotch, wiped herself. "But has
not had my life. Hasn't seen what I've seen, hasn't fought as I've
fought, hasn't learned what I've had to learn. Let me tell you, when my Newton
was killed in Map-Kentucky coming to a fair agreement, I came this close,"
— the Queen held up her thumb and forefinger, almost touching — "this close to being weighted with iron
and thrown into the river…. Where's my nail-knife?" Martha
found it in the toilet cabinet's second sliding drawer. "Here,
ma'am." The
Queen, quite limber, crossed a leg over a knee and commenced trimming her
toenails. "Came very close, then, to going into the river. So, I fucked
one man as if I'd secretly loved him always — then had his throat cut. And murdered
two more before I felt free of that weight of iron chain." She bent
closer, peering to examine a neatened nail. "A woman, a sister to one of
those men, was thrown from her window in South Tower as a reassurance to me.
Her uncle did it, Martha, for fear I would destroy their family, even the
babies." Those
toes finished, the Queen crossed her other leg and began trimming. The little
knife-blade twinkled in lamplight as she worked. "I'm
sorry," Martha said. "Sorry?
Sorry for what, girl? For necessity?" "For
you." "Well,
you're a fond fool." Paring with quick turns of her strong wrist, the
Queen ended with her little toe… then stood up off the silver bucket and shook
down her robe's skirt. "Those who think we're more than beasts, should
study their toenails." She handed Martha the little knife. "It goes
in the top sliding drawer. Now... what else?" "Brushing
your teeth, ma'am." "The
hell with it.... Did you know the Warm-time hell was hot?" "Yes,
ma'am." "I
always thought that was strange.... Where are my slippers?" "By
the bed." "Not
the woolen slippers — the sheepskins." "I'll
look for them." "Oh,
never mind." The Queen seemed to swim away through gray gauze curtains to
her bed-nook. "Between Ulla and that fat Orrie, nothing is ever where it
should be. I should have them whipped...." Martha, following, had to brush
a drift of fine cloth from the ax handle behind her shoulder. Queen
Joan sat on the edge of her bed and began rearranging her pillows — which she
did every night. The maids had found no way to place them to please her. She
plumped a goose-feather one, tossed it to the head of the bed. "You see,
Martha, Rachel would not be capable of what I did. She pretends to fierceness,
but break a bird's neck before her and she goes pale as cheese." Another
pillow tossed after the first; a cushion picked up and tested with a punch.
"And I cannot live forever." "Then
she needs a fierce husband, ma'am." "Oh,
yes. Memphis, or Sayre, or Johnson — who's a monster — or Lord Allen, or Eddie
Cline. My Newton despised Cline and so do I. Or Giamatti, or one
of the Coopers, who have hated me and mine forever." Pillows
and cushions arranged, the Queen crawled into bed on all fours, like a child,
then tucked herself under the covers and drew them up to her throat. "And
all of these people, Martha — chieftains, lords-barons, lords-earls, generals,
admirals and so forth and so forth — every one of them keeping at least five or
six hundred sworn-men on their hold lands, all trained and armed and excused
service in my armies." She
sat half up, elbowed an unsatisfactory pillow into place. "... Their
'River Rights.' River Rights, my ass! And not one of them — well,
possibly Sayre, possibly Michael Cooper — but otherwise not one of them could
hold this kingdom, keep its people from under the hooves of those fucking
Kipchaks." The Queen lay down again, tugged the covers to her chin.
"Those savages are breaking my West-bank army!" Martha
saw there were tears in the Queen's eyes. It was frightening to see, and ran
goose-bumps up her arms. "I
cannot imagine," the Queen said, staring up into the bed's umbrella of
pearly gauze, "I cannot imagine what possessed those Texas
jackasses. And I saw them in the grassland just before. I saw them! What
possessed those idiots to campaign in open prairie against the Kipchaks, and
with all their forces? Was there no Map-Lubbock, no Map-Amarillo to fortify? No
notion of fucking reserves?" She wiped her eyes with the hem of the sheet.
"Are my slippers by the bed?" "The
wool slippers?" "Any
damn slippers." "Yes,
ma'am. Beside the bed." "—
They rode out singing hymns, were quilled with arrows like porcupines, and have
left my kingdom naked!" The Queen thrashed under her covers. "I need
a husband for my girl! Hopefully, one who won't kill me for the crown." "A
Boston person?" "Oh,
certainly, and introduce one of those half-mad oddities to the lords, the
armies, the merchants and Guilds of Ordinaries as my son-in-law and heir? He
would live as long as I would, then… perhaps a week, unless he flew away like
some fucking bat." "Then,
if no one else will do, why not the North Map-Mexico lord?" The
Queen sighed and closed her eyes. "Martha, you're a young fool; it's a
waste of time talking to you. You've seen him. Monroe is a boy — sturdy
enough, clever enough — but what has he done? Beaten those southerners, those
imperial idiots? That's as difficult as beating a carpet to clean it. That, and
only the raid north by his man, Voss… The river lords would cook and eat
Monroe, and the Blue generals and Green generals would gnaw the bones." "He
seems fiercer than that." "And
if so, then fierce enough to take the throne from me!" The Queen opened
her eyes, looked at Martha in an unpleasant way. "I won't be forced to
have him!" "But
Princess Rachel — " "Rachel
doesn't know. She is a child. This is the Throne's business, and she
will marry and fuck and bear children for the one I accept!... The woolen ones?" "Yes.
I can get the sheepskins — " "Oh,
never mind." The Queen seemed older lying down, her long, graying hair
spread on her pillow. Older, and weary. "... Still, perhaps a long
engagement. Long enough for his soldiers to be useful against the Khan. If that
suits Boy Monroe, I suppose it may suit me. Time enough, afterward; engagements
are often broken…. But the same baby who peed down my furs? Floating Jesus." The
Queen lay quiet then, and Martha smoothed her covers… tucked them at her
throat. "Sleep sweet, Majestic Person." The
Queen smiled at that, then sighed. "Oh, Martha. You know, I still have
trouble forgiving my Newton — going off to Map-Kentucky to win a battle, and
die doing it. He left these lords and generals to me, and they press and press
against my power, and watch for me to stumble as I grow older. They all wait to
see if I forget a name, a river law, or some common word. They bribed my maids
so their doctors could examine my shit, see if I have bleeding in the turds —
can you believe that?" "Your
shit is stronger than most men's muscle, ma'am." The
Queen threw her head back on her pillows and laughed. "Oh, that's very
good — and true. But for how many more years, Martha? How many more years...
?" "I'll
deal with the chamber-maids." "Hmm?
Oh, those. Those two have been under the river's skin for more than a year,
dear. Without their tongues." The Queen turned on her side, and lay
looking through Martha into memory. "Michael Cooper came to me at the
time, muttering something about summary executions without notice given to the
Queen's Council, and I said, 'Lord Cooper, I had to silence them before they
damaged the reputations of great men, even placing some in jeopardy of
treason.' That shut his catfish mouth." Martha
reached up to the hanging lamp... lowered its wick till the flame went out.
"Then there's nothing for you now to dream of, ma'am, but pretty birds and
pretty places." After
a moment, the Queen's voice sounded out of darkness. "The only things I
wish to dream of, Martha, are the Trapper mountains, and the Trapper
days...."
* *
*
Sam
woke to a savage wind — Lord Winter's serious wind — whining past stone walls like a great dog
begging to be let in. There was a sandy shush and rattle in it as well.
Hard-driven sleet and snow. Strange
he'd been dreaming of summer. Summer in the fourth week, when it was perfect in
the fields of August, leaf-green everywhere, so winter seemed only a story that
might not be repeated. He
reached under thick wool blankets to touch his long dagger's hilt. Sergeant
Wilkey would be sleeping at the room's door. Carey'd wanted the man in the
room, had gone round the walls under the tapestries, looking for any secret
entrance. The
fat man's ways were Eric's. Secret, sly, often useful... often ineffective. The
Queen wouldn't send a killer to his room, certainly not before she'd heard him
out, and likely not after. His death would be no advantage to her now, though
it might be later, once — if — the Kipchaks were beaten. Now, she'd make him
wait a few days, then be dismissive, just short of insult. It would be
interesting to see how Queen Joan ruled and decided. Interesting to see how she
managed a court that might kill her on a notion... how she managed a people who
still occasionally ate people. The
duck-feather bed was too soft; it was hurting his back. Sam
got up with his dagger, tugged the blankets with him, and padded through the
dark to a carpet near a stove's dimming coals. He rolled himself in wool, felt
the support of cut stone stacked deep beneath him, and went to sleep... hoping
for more dreams of summer.
CHAPTER 17
After
days of wandering, walking through glassed gardens, examining walls,
fortifications, the great stone-built entrance harbors — the Silver, the Gold,
the Bronze, the Iron — his inspections never seeming to disturb the officers
and men guarding those places, Sam had seen enough of Island. It
lay, a mountain of snowy, wind-struck stone in an ice-flowed river, and seemed
to him about as useful as any natural mountain might have been. A great
redoubt, no question, and would be very expensive to reduce — but by that time,
with an enemy having won to its walls, the war would already be lost. It seemed
a poor substitute for a veteran field army, well led, an army not divided into
East-bank and West, with a fleet uncomfortable with both of them. After
those inspections, Sam saw what Toghrul had seen, even though far away at
Caravanserai in Map-West Texas. The Khan had seen — had sensed — the Kingdom as
a giant, but bound in chains of long habit and regulation, often slow, awkward,
and shambling.... All a hunting call to the Kipchaks, so numerous, so neatly
swift, so wonderfully well-commanded. And,
of course, that very instinct, that eagerness, had exposed them. Toghrul had
paid no heed — after his one warning attack south — to an enemy left behind
him. As a wolf pack, chasing elk, might run by a bowman waiting in a snowy
wood, with nothing but glances and a snarl as they passed. But
then, the bowman might follow, so that on a final field, the pack in battle
with a furious great bull elk, arrows came whistling from behind. These
notions were confirmed for Sam as he walked the grand stone corridors of
Island, whose high ceilings stirred and eddied with lantern smoke and the smoke
of torches, which flowed to any outlet of air like a gray ghost of the great
river sliding past them. ...
During meals in an echoing dining-hall of granite and oak beams, huge as a
roofed landscape, the Boxcars — Extraordinaries, of course, at the high tables
— were courteous enough. They asked polite and apparently interested questions
about North Mexico — its longer summers, its sources of labor, what beasts
there were to hunt. Then chatted of hunting, of old campaigns against the
tribes. Nothing was said about the Kipchaks. Pleasant
conversations, as by hosts to somewhat dubious guests, and all accompanied by
very good food — cow roasts, stuffed geese, cabbage boiled or chopped cold —
all meats spiced, carefully cooked, and sauced with gravies a little rich for Sam's
stomach. And at every meal, even with breakfast's chicken eggs, fish, or
pig-slices, various sorts of pickles and candied imperial fruits were served,
with jellied berries from the river's thickets. In
that hall, only breakfast was eaten without music to listen to. Banjar men, a
shaman-drummer from some backwoods tribe, and a blind woman with a harp were
the orchestra — or more properly, a Warm-time 'band' that strummed and drummed
and plucked to ease the later dining down. Courteous
and perhaps a little careful dealing with Sam and Margaret Mosten, the Boxcars
seemed more than courteous to Pedro Darry, the lieutenant having become a
favorite with the younger men — and possibly some older wives — so he laughed
and joked with the Kingdom people as if born on the river. Sam
had been glanced at by a number of the Boxcar women, and found himself, a night
or two, dreaming of jeweled and furred beauties... particularly one, smoothly
plump, with fiery red hair. She was apparently of some notable tribal family allied
to the Kingdom, since her small white teeth were filed to neat points. Sam
dreamed of her, but would have sought no introduction, even if there'd been the
time, and this the occasion for it. None of the high-table ladies came to dine
without cold-eyed husbands, brothers, or a hot-eyed lover, as escort. At
ease with Pedro, these richly dressed men and women — their cheeks dotted with blue tattooing —
remained more guarded with Sam, though friendly enough, smiling as they
suggested second helpings of this or that. They appeared to wait for their
Queen's decision on him, not caring to be caught wrong-footed. The
great tables, so piled with food being busily served by Red-liveries, seemed to
Sam a hint of the Queen's contempt for the courtiers' greed. He grew used to
their soft, slurred speech — and sudden
eruptions of temper down a table's polished hardwood when enough vodka or
barley-whisk was drunk. They all, men and women, came to meals armed — their
children also armed with ornate little daggers — but never drew in argument. "Carey
says the tables here are all the Queen's," Margaret had said when Sam
mentioned it, "with everyone her guests. No one draws steel on her or
hers." Queen
Joan had joined the diners only twice, for mid-meals, while Sam and his
officers were eating there. She'd seemed to enjoy herself at the north table,
and ate very well — particularly a pudding of preserved fruits — but paid no
attention to the North Mexicans. On
one of those occasions, the more than three hundred Ordinaries lining the low
tables had raised their beer jacks to her, swayed in place, and sung a song,
'Mammy, How I Love You.' The
high tables hadn't joined in the singing, and the Queen had stood to shout the
Ordinaries to silence — "Stop that damned noise!" — which had
seemed to please the singers very much. Sam saw they loved her, and were her
strength against the generals, admirals, and lords of the river. On
the fifth morning, at a breakfast of imperial coffee, slice-cut barley bread,
cheese, eggs, and a sort of sausage, a servant in the Queen's blood-red livery
came easing along the wall, past the high tables' seated diners. Margaret
Mosten slid her bench-chair back a little as the man came, and hooked her
little finger in her rapier's guard to loosen the blade in its scabbard. "Oh,
I'd say no trouble there." Darry, on Sam's other side, reached for another
slice-cut of bread. "Some errand...." The
errand ended at Sam's place. "Milord."
The servant had a murmuring, messenger's voice. "Her Majesty is pleased to
give you audience.... If you'll follow me." "About
time," Margaret said, and stood. "Only
the Captain-General," the servant said. Even
so, when Sam walked after the man down the hall's long center aisle — watched,
it seemed, by every eye — and Sergeant Wilkey left his place at a low table to
come with him, the servant said nothing. It
was, as usual on Island, a long walk.... The servant finally stood aside at a
narrow door, opened it, and bowed Sam and the sergeant into a large, bare stone
room. There were dark double-doors at its other side, and a single heavy,
carved chair as furniture. The high ceiling, vaulted gray granite, echoed their
bootsteps. There was no stove. Sergeant
Wilkey stayed standing by the narrow door, his longbow now strung. He'd taken
three battle-arrows from his quiver and held them alongside the bow's grip with
a curled finger, to be handy.... Sam walked to the middle of the room and sat
in the carved chair, stretching his legs. He breathed out a faint cloud of
frost, and wished for another mug of coffee. What was expensive and rare at
Better-Weather — though so much closer to the Empire — seemed lightly come-by
on Kingdom's river. Goods and gold by water shipping, he supposed. How fine
would made-roads have to be, to equal that ease…? After
a while, footsteps, a latch's turning, and the double doors swung open across
the room. The Queen's armswoman, Martha, stepped through first. She was wearing
a heavy, green-paneled woolen gown, the dress's hem reaching just to her low
boots, not long enough to trip her. Sam saw the handle of her ax just over her
right shoulder, and a gray glint of fine mail beneath a wrist's cuff. He'd seen
bigger young women, but not many. Queen
Joan came behind her, almost as tall as her fighting girl, though slender. She
was dressed like a copybook queen, with an ermine wrap over sky-blue velvet
laced and looped with pearls. She wore blue-dyed deerskin slippers, and a
narrow crown of leaves of gold. Princess
Rachel, behind her, was nearly as tall, but plainly dressed in a gown the color
of stone. Her long dark hair was down, bound only once by a slender silver
chain. Sam
stood, bowed to the Queen and her daughter, though not deeply, then stepped
back. Queen
Joan sat, her armswoman standing behind her — and watching Sergeant Wilkey.
Princess Rachel stood beside. "It
occurs to me..." The Queen had a voice that seemed younger than she was, a
voice unlined, with no age in it. "It occurs to me... do you know the tale
of the Gordian knot? It's a Warm-time tale." "I
know it," Sam said. "Then
tell me, Captain-General — who was Small-Sam and peed down my front on occasion
— tell me why I shouldn't cut one of my Kingdom's possible knots, by cutting
your throat? Pigeons informed me this morning that you're no longer a guest,
but an invader, with your foot soldiers marching up through West
Map-Louisiana... your cavalry come, or coming, east into Map-Arkansas to join
them there." Silence
and stillness by the narrow door, where Sergeant Wilkey stood with his longbow. "If
I'd asked your permission," — Sam smiled —
"you would have denied it. My army is crossing Kingdom territory,
and intends to fight on it in North Map-Arkansas, South Map-Missouri — but
fight the Khan Toghrul, not Boxcars." "So
you say. But with your throat cut, you'd say no more, issue no commands, invade
no one." Sam
took a moment before answering."...I think you won't kill me, Queen, for
two reasons: Your war with the Khan has already begun badly, and I doubt you
want war with North Map-Mexico as well. Kill me, and you'll certainly have it.
And also..." "Also?" "My
Second-mother, Catania." Queen
Joan sat and stared at Sam, her face bleached pale as bone. "Well... Well,
you have a ruler's guts at least, to use her name to me, to assume I honor her
memory so much." "I
don't know what memories you honor, Queen — I only know she honored
yours." "You
young dog... to use my own heart against me." "What
weapon more worthy than your heart, Queen?" Queen
Joan stared at him; she didn't seem to need to blink. "I have courtiers —
ass kissers — who speak to me in just that way." "No,
you don't. Those people fear you, and they lie. I'm as likely to bite your ass
as kiss it." The
Queen glanced over at her daughter. "Rachel, what do you think of
him?" "He
is... a change, I suppose." The
Queen looked back at Sam. "Let me tell you something, clever young
Captain-General of minor importance — let me tell you that if I were even five
years younger, and had a different sort of daughter, I'd put you under the
river.... Yes, and then weep for sweet Catania's memory." Sam
nodded. "But you're not younger, Queen. You need help against the Khan.
And you don't have a daughter fierce enough to follow you in this
kingdom." "I'm
here," Princess Rachel said. "Don't speak as if I were not." "I
apologize, Princess." "But
you are not here, Rachel." The Queen spoke without looking at her
daughter. "You're only present. To be here, you would have had to do more
than read and write in your book tower. Do more than tame song-birds. More than
conversations and philosophies and letters and studies of this and that. You
have not earned being here." "Then
I will not be missed." Princess Rachel left her mother's side and walked
out through the double doors. The doors remained open, so her footsteps could be
heard down the hall as she went. "I'm
sorry," Sam said, "that the Princess was upset." "Too
fucking easily upset. My Newton wanted a boy. I gave him a girl — and am
punished for it." "A
princess may become a queen." "Some
may…. Listen, Small-Sam Monroe, you care for your North Mexico, and hope to
save it by joining us against the savages. All this perfectly understood, and
sensible. Be assured, if I hadn't thought you might be useful to us in just
that way, I would never have asked your visit, never offered the possibility of
engagement to my daughter." "Always
more improbable than probable." "Yet
here you are, Small-Sam. And apparently intend to make the 'improbable'
a fact!" "Yes,
I do." "We're
not in that much trouble. We're a civilized kingdom — well, coming to be
civilized — while you lead only border tag-ends, roosting on land stolen from
the Emperor. Land that any more formidable emperor will soon take back." "Queen,
if you didn't need me, if you didn't need my army... if you had any man to keep
your daughter safe, we wouldn't be talking. I'd be dead, or gone." "Still
a possibility." "Not
since Map-Jefferson City." Queen
Joan sat watching Sam for almost a full glass-minute, then said, "You're
fortunate that so many of my ghosts stand beside you." "I
know it." Queen
Joan rose, her armswoman looming behind her. The Queen was tall; she looked
slightly down at Sam, her eyes the flat blue of sky reflected in polished
metal. "You have my permission to try to persuade Rachel. And also my
permission to... advise our commanders in all campaigns where your people will
also be engaged." She considered him for a moment. "And I do hope
that some foolish treachery of yours, some starving ambition, won't make it
necessary to kill you." "Poison,"
Sam said, "would be the only way with a chance to keep my army from your
river, then your island. An absolutely convincing illness. And even
then..." "Oh,"
— the Queen smiled — "you know the old copybook phrase 'Where there's a
will, there's a way'?" "I
know it. And I depend on it." The
Queen walked away, laughing, her armswoman striding to cover her back. Sam
heard bootsteps behind him, the faint music of oiled mail. "Well,
Sergeant?" "Seems
thin ice, sir." "Yes.
Thin ice... over deep water."
* *
*
The
Queen — with Martha nearly beside her, only a half-step back — strolled down
the Corridor of Battles. Banners along the walls, some only woven memories,
moth-eaten and frail as insect-gauze, billowed slightly in the faint breeze of
their passing. The Queen, as always in this corridor, paused beneath the flag
of battle Bowling Green — this great cloth, its years recent, still gleamed in
white silk and gold thread, its only crimson a tear of loss, sewn at its
center. The
Queen whispered to herself, as she always did under that banner. Whispered to
herself, or perhaps the killed King… then walked on. "So,
Martha, now what do you think of our sturdy young Captain-General
?" "I
think you should be careful, ma'am." "Mmm.
You think he might — if, for example, he and Rachel become engaged to
marry — perhaps take advantage afterward, set me aside? Kill me?" "He
might, if he thought it best. Set you aside, I mean. But — " "
'But?' " "He
wouldn't kill you, ma'am." "And
why not, girl?" "Same
reason you won't kill him." "Clever
Martha.... The past weighs on both of us like a fallen tree. And I see Catania,
smiling at me."
CHAPTER 18
There
were two guards at the door to the West Tower solar. A chamber, as Sam had
found — Sergeant Burke clanking up behind him — reached after a steep seventy-two-step
climb from the tower gate. As usual at Island, one of the guards was armored in
blue-enameled steel-hoop, the other, in green. Also as usual, both were armed
with shield and short-sword for handiness in close quarters.... They were keeping
an eye on Sergeant Burke. "No
entrance here, milord." Green-armor. "Announce
me," Sam said. "Cannot
do it, sir." Green again. "Announce
me," Sam said, "or stand aside." There
were few moments more interesting to a commander, than those spent waiting to
see if a questionable order would be obeyed. After
those interesting few moments, Blue-armor turned and knocked gently on the
iron-bound oak door. Sam had found no flimsy entranceway on Island, except on
the glass greenhouses. Any enemy army reaching Kingdom's capital would find
difficult barricades at every turn, on every landing, and before every room. The
door latch turned, thick oak and iron swung open, and Princess Rachel stood
impatient in her slate-gray gown. She held a small copybook in one hand, a steel-nib
pen in the other. "I'm
occupied, milord." Looking down at him a little, since she was slightly
taller. "And I believe our conversation was just completed at my mother's
audience." "I've
come to apologize again for that... clumsiness, Princess." "You
spoke your mind." "Carelessly."
Sam tried a smile past a guard's steel shoulder. "As
I said, milord, I'm occupied." "And
since I am not, Princess, I've taken a guest's liberty to visit." Impatience
and annoyance. "Very well." She stepped aside as he came in,
then swung the door closed behind him. Sam saw, as if he still stood outside on
the landing, the look exchanged by the three soldiers. This
solar was no lady's retirement, with cushions, harps, embroidery frames, little
dogs, game-boards and so forth. It was a library and copying room, circled with
shelves and copybook stacks, copy stands, and a flat-topped work-desk beneath
the north window…. Only thick carpets — spiraled tribal work, Roamer patterns
woven in greens, golds, and rust reds, with dreamed creatures chasing down the
edges — relieved the room's simplicity. The light was good, a bright, cool
reading light from four great windows spaced around the chamber — the only
windows Sam had noticed at Island that were not narrow and iron-barred. There
was no scent of perfume — the Princess apparently didn't use it. The only odors
were of fine laid paper and best black sea-squid ink. Princess
Rachel stood silent, watching him, pen and copybook in hand. She had her
mother's lean height and length of bone, but what must have been her father's
features, blunt, brown-eyed, with wide cheekbones. A handsome face, in its way. "Forgive
me, Princess, for intruding, but it's proved necessary." Sam walked over
to a shelf, read copybook titles on fine sewn top-bindings. "Otherwise,
you'll continue avoiding me all over Island, and I'm sorry to say we don't have
the time for it.... Martian Chronicles. I've heard of Dreaming Bradbury,
but not read him. I have read one copybook supposedly by G. Wolfe. Some
argument whether it's really a dream of his. Might have been written of our
time, in some ways." Sam
glanced over at her, saw no welcome in her face. "The View from
Pompey's Head..." "We
have two of Basso's." Grudging, but a response. Sam supposed this princess
could not not speak of books. "Haven't
read him." "We
have that — and the Light Infantry Ball." "Really?
Well, light infantry, at least, is a subject I know something about." Sam
looked for an empty chair; there seemed to be copybooks or copy paper stacked
on everything. It was a room Neckless Peter would have loved. "Not
that sort of light infantry." "Oh?
What sort is it?" A
little color in those pale cheeks. "It... it is about social relationships
before and during the very ancient Civil War." "The
Map-America civil war?" "Yes,"
the Princess said, and certainly wished him gone. "Not
much use of light infantry there. Skirmishers, scouts, that sort of thing. Of
course, the bang-powder bullets must have influenced all their tactics…. Have
you read the Right Badge of Courage!" "
'Red.' " Definitely blushing —
and of course, very shy. What else could she have grown to be with such a
mother? "
'Red'?" "
'Red' Badge of Courage." "Really?
You're sure?" Sam set a stack of paper on the floor and sat on an uncomfortable
little stool set against the wall by the bookshelf. "I've seen the
copybook. Book-English, though traded from Mexico City." The
Princess opened her mouth to say she was sure, then must have noticed something
in his face. "….But you knew it. You knew that was wrong." Sam
smiled at her. "Yes, I did. There is no 'Right' Badge of Courage."
He leaned back, stretched his legs out, and crossed his boots at the ankle. His
sword-hilt tapped the wall behind him. Shouldn't have worn his sword. It was a
mistake to have come up to her chamber armed, a long bastard blade slanted down
his back. Think first, was the rule at Island. "I
apologize, Rachel." The Princess blinked at the familiarity. A formal
court, they held. "I shouldn't have come to your chamber armed." A
little smile. "I didn't consider your sword rudeness, milord." She
went behind her work desk, and sat looking out at him over a low barrier of
copybooks — as Charles Ketch so often did. Gentle people finding refuge behind
written walls. "— Everyone goes armed at Island." "You
don't, I've noticed. Not even a lady's dagger." "I
have guards." "You
have guards, yes — each man from armies kept deliberately separate. West-bank
and East. Guards commanded by ambitious generals. West-bank generals… East-bank
generals." "It
has worked for us very well." "And
will, until the day a really formidable general joins the River armies
together. Perhaps is forced to join them to meet the sort of threat that, for
instance, the Kipchak Khan is posing now. That general will be king — and all
the more easily if those who ruled are dead." "I
don't think... I don't think you need concern yourself with that, milord." "Oh,
but I do. You see, Princess, the government of Middle Kingdom depends not only
on the strict separation of your two armies, not only on the Fleet as a third
force. It depends on a ruler being strong enough to maintain them in
balance." "You
being such a ruler, of course." "Your
mother being such a ruler." "Then
you had better discuss your ambitions with my mother." An angry face over
the stack of copybooks. Now, Sam could see her father in her. "I
wish... Rachel, I wish we'd had the time to know one another better. If there'd
been a year or more for visits, so we didn't meet now as strangers, and all
this so... awkward." No
answer from the Princess. Her pale face, dark eyes, seemed to float above
stacked white paper. "
— But, lacking that time, shall we have plain speaking?" "Very
well, milord. Plain speaking." She touched the papers before her. "My
interests are my books and those people also interested in books and learning.
Ours is an ignorant age — and forgive me, but you're an example of it. A
provincial war-lord, who seems to wish to be a king! And assumes… assumes that
everyone will fall in with those wishes!" There
was quiet, then, almost restful. Sam saw one of the river gulls, come up from
the Gulf Entire, sail close past the room's south window. Its shadow marked a
white wall for an instant as it passed. "You're
mistaken about my wishes, Rachel. Only an ass wishes to rule anyone. As only a
coward... avoids necessity. — You know,
I drink too much." He saw her a little disconcerted. "I have to be
careful, at dinner and so forth here. I have to be careful not to drink too
much — but not drink so little that it's noticed I have to be careful. I
drink... to rest for a while from what I'm becoming." Sam waited to see if
the gull would fly back, leave another quick shadow of its passing. "I'm
becoming... an instrument, a tool for the work my people set me. And I saw the
same in your mother, when I first met her, then again this morning. I saw that
burden in her eyes." The
Princess listened, her head cocked slightly to one side, as if to hear him
better. "Of
course, I knew the Queen, in a way, before I came to Island. My Second-mother
mentioned Joan Richardson often, admiring her courage, and always spoke of her
with love. As she spoke of your father. — You would have liked my
Second-mother, Catania. I was told my First-mother was beautiful, but Catania
was brave. She was the sort of person we all would wish to be." The
Princess looked down, cleared her throat. "You suggested we speak plainly.
I didn't mean to be rude to you, milord." "Rachel,
my name is Sam Monroe. I am not your 'lord,' and never will be. But I hope, in
time, to become your friend." Still
looking down at her desk-top, as if solutions had been inscribed there.
"My mother is Queen. I have no interest in being one — in being like her." "Thank
every Jesus for that! As to your becoming queen, it's surprising how little
choice we have in these matters. I won two, three battles after older
commanders had been killed. Before that, I'd been a shepherd — and
occasionally, a sheep thief and near bandit. I was very young, and very
foolish…. Then, because better men were dead, I was looked to when
unpleasant decisions had to be made. I made just enough decisions rightly, to
trap myself into becoming Captain-General of North Map-Mexico — a slightly
ridiculous title." "Not
ridiculous." "You're
too kind. But that's really all I am, a very good military commander, and a
fairly good ruler otherwise. Though I probably use force, sometimes, when force
is not quite necessary.... I also used to read a good deal; my Second-mother
saw to that. She was afraid I'd pick up poor book-English, or the mountain
tribes' signs and chatter. So, I've read, though now I have little time for
reading — and by the way, you must meet Neckless Peter, our librarian and informational.
The old man was the Khan's tutor, and he'd love this room." "I'm
to understand, then, that you are a decent provincial war-lord, and
fairly well read." "Exactly."
Sam's back was hurting. He got up from the stool and walked over to the north
window. The window's glass was very fine, some of the clearest he'd seen, each
square pane bright as a mirror. The Kingdom people did wonders with glass.... "Well,
milord — Sir Monroe — you are trying to persuade the wrong person. I am not the
Queen. Put it another way: I can say no. I'm not interested in marriage;
certainly not with you." Sam
saw gulls spiraling down past the tower. It was the view the Boston girl would
have had, Walking-in-air. He was struck by what a strange people those New
Englanders must be, to have — at least a few of them — such a gift, and treat
it only as utility.... Beneath the gulls, the river Mississippi lay many miles
wide, its current, beaten silver, reflecting the mid-day's winter sun like the
oval yolk of the Rain-bird's egg. "You
misunderstand me." Sam turned back from wonderful airiness to the
chamber's circling stone space. "I wasn't trying to persuade you,
Princess. I was explaining the necessity. You cannot say no." "I
think I can." Princess Rachel stood up behind her desk — was certainly a little taller — and started
to the door. "And you are leaving." "Don't... do that." Sam stayed where he was, saw her
hesitate. "If you call your guards in, my sergeant and I might have to
kill them. It would be a bad beginning." The
Princess stood still. "
— A lesson, Princess. Power lies along the edge of the nearest blade, and the
best. If it were not for the Queen's rule, my sergeant and I could kill your
two guards. Then I might beat you — bend you over that desk, rape you, force
you to marriage. I've known men who would do it. I've seen men at this
court who would do it." Sam reached over his right shoulder, slid the long
sword's blade a few inches up out of its scabbard… then slid it back. "You
see, Rachel, this solar is no sanctuary at all, and never has been. Your safety
has rested — since your father's death — in the hands of a tired lady, now
growing old. A lady who goes to bed with fear and deep decisions every night of
her life, so that you, and others like you, do not have to." "My
mother — " "Rachel,
the Queen has said I might try to persuade you. And when a Queen says 'try' —
as when I say 'try' — what is meant is, get it done." "You
lie! She wouldn't do that." "I'm
sure she wouldn't, ordinarily. She'd wish you married into one of the great
River families, I suppose, since you seem not up to ruling more than
book-shelves. But you might say Toghrul Khan has been our marriage-broker,
Rachel. The arranger of our engagement at least, from the time your mother
received pigeons confirming that Seventh and Eighth tumans had taken
your West-bank army's garrison at Map-Jefferson City, and killed them all. —
How many was it? Three thousand... four thousand men? And, of course, the women
and children." A
silent Princess then, standing still as if savage dogs surrounded her, the blue
dots on her cheekbones like spattered ink. "
— Which also was the reason she wasn't as angry as she might have been, hearing
that my army had come up into Map-Louisiana." "My
mother doesn't confide her reasons to me." "No.
Why should she, Rachel?" Sam walked to the west window. That view was of
Island's stone keeps, then the river. The coast of Map-Louisiana too far away
to be seen. "Why should she? You're no part of her ruling." He turned
back to the room. "She's a woman bearing responsibility for many hundreds
of thousands of lives, in a kingdom still occasionally cannibal. And now, the
Khan, a very great and merciless commander, is coming to your river." "She
never asks me for help!" "Should
she have to?" "You
heard her. I wasn't 'here' — only 'present.' " "And
was she right, or wrong? You allowed yourself to be only 'present,' walked away
and came up here to your tower, where — it seems to me — you use books as
walls, instead of ladders." Definitely
her father's daughter. Anger took her like a man, made her silent and still,
except for her eyes. "You do not know me. And you do not know my
mother." "As
women? No. But as present and future rulers, Rachel, I know you both very well,
being one of those odd creatures myself. A creature whose army the Kingdom
needs, a creature who might make a son-in-law who will not murder the
Queen for the throne," — Sam smiled — "even with what is bound to be
great provocation. A son-in-law also capable of dealing with the river lords,
the Kingdom's East and West-bank armies, and the Fleet." "And
you — of course — are capable of all that." "No,
not without you. Without you, without an engagement to marry you, Rachel, I remain
only the provincial war-lord you named me, and unable to unite the Kingdom's
armies with mine. Unable to command them." "I
will not do it." The Princess
walked back to her desk, and sat, seeming less secure behind her paperwork
walls. "Now, you've said what you have to say. Please leave me." "Rachel,
your people and mine need my sword." Sam smiled at her, hoped she
saw kindness in it. "And, sadly, where my sword goes... so do I." "I
would be no help in any of that." Perhaps there were tears in her eyes.
"I'm happiest with copybooks. I enjoy... quiet." She tried a small
smile. "I am not like my mother." Sam
glanced out the south window for the gull, and saw several a bow-shot away,
riding cold wind. "I understand. You would be happy in some peaceful house.
Perhaps with a peaceful man, but certainly with as many copybooks as could be
gathered or lent from here or there... and visitors whose interests reached
beyond present wars, present politics. You'd wish to correspond with others of
like mind from Boston to the Pacific Coast — not all Kipchaks, I understand,
gallop and shoot arrows — and from Mexico City, as well. Perhaps learn the
Beautiful Language...." "Yes.
That's very much what I'd like." "Then
let me tell you, Rachel, what I'd like.... There's a farm in the hills
past Villa Ocampo. It's a place — we measure in Warm-time acres — a farm of
about six hundred acres. A sheep farm, with more summer grazing higher in the
hills. And there's hunting. Partridge and deer, of course. Brown bear...
wolves. There's a fieldstone house on the place, with a little wall around it,
and a garden and orchard. We have just enough summer, most years, for crab
apples." The
Princess listened and watched him, as a wary young mare might watch from spring
pasture. Ready to wheel and run. "
— A man named Patterson owns the farm I'm speaking of. Important sheep-runner,
Albert Patterson. And I believe he'd sell the place to me. There's no
guarantee, of course — we hold a citizen's property as part of lawful liberty —
but I believe he might sell, if I met his price." Sam smiled at her.
"That is what I'd like, and like to do." "Milord
— " "So
now, Rachel, we know what we'd wish our lives to be. But, since neither of us
is a fool, I think we also know the lives we will have." "Your
obligations are yours only." "Yes
— as yours will be to continue the decency of your mother's rule here! Decent,
at least, compared to what it had been, with men eating men for dinner, and the
river lords seizing anything they couldn't eat." "My...
my mother rules and wishes to rule. I don't." "Your
mother will soon be old, Rachel. She won't be able to shelter your people much
longer from the river lords and the generals of East-bank and West. She won't
be able to shelter you from men who would take you, or simply cut your throat,
in consideration of the throne." "And
you have no consideration of the throne?" "I
don't want the fucking thing." Sam saw her wince at the word.
Gently brought up... too gently brought up. "I don't have a choice! You
and I have no choices. The thousands of men and women on your river, and
down in my North Mexico — many of them better people than we are, Princess
— depend on us to do what we're supposed to do. Their children depend on
it." "I will decide my duty." She stood; her
white fists struck the top of the desk before her, hitting the wood hard. Three
long sheets of paper sifted to the floor. "I will decide — not you." Sam
went to the door, so angry he felt his hands trembling. Angry at this stubborn
girl, striking against a trap already closed upon her. Angry at himself... at
this great pile of rocks filled with fools. He
turned at the door. "There is no 'I will' for you, Rachel — and none for me. The Queen sees to that. The
Kipchak Khan sees to that. Boston, and the Emperor in Mexico City see to that.
And the actions of some of our own people, fallen so far from Warm-times, also
leave us no 'I will.' " She
stood staring at him as if he were some grim wizard, flown from New England on
a storm. Sam saw tears in those dark eyes, saw the knowledge of her lost
freedom in them — perhaps the same
freedom her father was said to have regretted — and felt great pity for her. "So,
my dear," — and why not? Perhaps, in time, she might even become his
'dear' — "like it or not, you will have to replace that pen with a dagger.
And as for me, my farm will be the camps... my flock, soldiers." He swung
the oak door open, smiled at her, and hoped she saw affection in it.
"Welcome, Princess, to our engagement — and almost certainly, endless
troubles." He stepped out and closed the door behind him. Sergeant
Burke, lounging by the guards, spit tobacco juice out into the stairwell and
came to a fine attention with a clank of his saber's scabbard.
"Congratulations, sir!" "Fuck
off, Sergeant," Sam said, pleasing Burke — and, he supposed, the two
Island men as well — since soldiers liked nothing better than fond curses.
CHAPTER 19
"I
believe you're to be congratulated, Monroe." Lord Sayre stepped across West
Keep's ground corridor, smiling at Sam like an old friend. "I say it,
since you've come from the lady's solar without cat scratches." The wound
at Sayre's mouth left lower teeth showing unpleasantly when he smiled, an
effect apparently useful to the man. Sam
took the offered hand — a strong hand. "Since you're so... well informed
and first with congratulations, except for my sergeant — I suppose I'd better
be wary of you." Lord
Sayre laughed. "Always a good idea." He glanced over Sam's shoulder,
where Sergeant Burke stood watching. " — And your sergeant, there, also a
good idea." Sam
turned to Burke. "Henry, this is Lord William Sayre. Pass the word to the
others. Lord Sayre can come to me at any time, his reasons his own." "Sir." "This...
hasty engagement, with marriage possibly to follow, is going to be so
interesting." Sayre walked beside Sam down the corridor, their boots
silent on deep carpets, ringing on stretches of stone. "Too bad the war's
confusing issues. You know, I'd thought I might have the throne myself, in
time." "You
wouldn't have been suited to it, milord. Slightly too honorable, from what I've
heard." "'Slightly.'
Mmm, that's possible.... Do you play chess, Monroe?" "No.
My friend, Ned Flores, plays a strong game, but I've never really advanced past
checkers." "And
I understand Colonel Flores will be playing one-handed, now?" "Island
seems always well-informed." They were walking through a huge room paneled
with wood streaked rust and red. Its ceiling, worked in hammered copper and
gold, was two stories high — so high that Sam could make out few details in an
elaborately carved narrative, apparently of love and loss.... By a polished
granite fireplace, one of the few he'd seen without an iron Franklin fronting
it, a group of men and women dressed in furs, and velvets in every color, were
laughing at some notion or remark. The jewels down their weapon scabbards
sparkled in the fire's light. "Island
well-informed? Informed about such as your Colonel Flores, you bet, since our
strength is not in cavalry." "Wonderful
Warm-time phrase, 'You bet.' " "Yes...
and your checkers game, Monroe." Sayre opened the left of double doors,
and ushered Sam through into a long hall he'd seen before. It was decorated
with musical instruments of every different kind, hanging on the walls, or, if
very large, resting on polished stands. " — A game fairly successful, it
seems. You jump a few pieces, and are crowned." Sayre struck a light chord
on an ivory banjar as they passed. "A
move isn't the game," Sam said. Near
the hallway's end, rested what seemed a fair copy of the ancient Warm-time
piano, massive as a spotted bull, but gleaming black. "Meanwhile..."
Sayre, who seemed musical, stepped over to strike a chord on the instrument's
narrow keys with both his hands together — a loud crashing sound, but
beautiful. "Meanwhile, the Queen still rules." "A
very long meanwhile, I hope. I've had enough of ruling to know the stink
of its necessities. And, speaking of necessities, Sayre, I've noticed Island
doesn't seem much alarmed at having lost Map-Jefferson City. Not much alarmed
at the Khan's certain taking of all Map-Missouri soon — and the river, I'm
told, already freezing north of Cairo." "Ah,
well... war." Sayre left the perhaps-piano, which, as they walked
away, still sounded softly down the corridor as if reminding of times lost.
"Monroe, we're always fighting wars. We have over thirty thousand veteran
regulars, taking both bank armies together. Pikemen, crossbowmen. They've never
been terribly impressed by horsemen. You know the Warm-time phrase, 'Whoever
saw a dead cavalryman?' " Behind
them, Sergeant Burke cleared his throat, his boot-steps, spurs jingling, even
more definite. "I've
seen them," Sam said. "And horseback raiders are one thing, the
Khan's tumans are another. Thousands of light and heavy horse, under
perfect discipline, with fast supply trains and bridging-and-siege engineers
behind them." "Mmm...
Jefferson City making your point, I suppose." "I
hope so, for the Kingdom's sake. Once the Map-Texans were beaten at Cut'n
Shoot? The old Khan had their bones collected and ground-up to enrich horse
feed." "Yes....
A word of advice?" "Of
course." Ahead, polished dark wood, gleaming uncarpeted, ran to the West
Keep steps. "It
occurs to me, Monroe, it might be useful for you to speak with Peter
Bailey." "Retired
from East-bank army, isn't he?" "Ah
— done your informational! Yes, retired, but still our grand old man. Still the
best general in either army, in my opinion. If the King had had him up in
Map-Kentucky, the King would still be alive.... Bailey's here at Island now,
over in East Tower, come for a law-case on some leased estate land." A
small marble statue of a crouching cat was set on a greenstone stand along the
corridor wall. Sayre paused and ran a forefinger along the carving before
walking on. "Jemima Patch's work.... As to General Bailey, the old man
doesn't care for me, which you may consider a recommendation; he's not a man
for the court. But if I were you — a provincial commander of note, and possibly
soon to be a prince — I'd speak with him." Sayre hesitated, seemed to
have more to say. "Yes…?" "Well,
with no intent to offend... most of Middle Kingdom, Monroe, will not find
you an impressive heir to the throne. You're pretty much a savage as far as the
River's concerned, a no-dot nobody. But Bailey was a great fighting man — both
armies loved him, though the Fleet did not. His support would be worth more
than regiments to you." "Sounds
like good advice," Sam said. They'd come to the Keep's stairs. "And
if the old man bites me, I'll let him know it was your idea of amusement, and I
only an innocent and honorable young soldier." "Ah…
checkers." Sayre smiled, bowed, then strolled away. "Your
impressions, Sergeant." "Good
man at your side, sir. Risky, at your back." "Fair
enough," Sam said.... And why not to East Tower, now, to see the old man?
A long walk, then likely steep stairs. There was no place at Island reached
without climbing many steps.
* *
*
With
Henry Burke slouching behind him like some great carnivorous stork in armor —
and after two inquiries of the way-Sam climbed a last flight of stone stairs,
went down an icy corridor, and found the door to Bailey's rooms. He
knocked... knocked harder, and wasn't answered. Sergeant
Burke eased past, and hit the door hard enough to shake it in the jamb. Muffled
curses from inside. A bolt slid back, and an old man with shaving soap on his
face, looked out at them. He was barefoot, and wearing a deep-green belted
robe, spotted here and there with grease. "Oh…
it's you." He stood back from the door. "You
expected me, sir?" Sam walked into the room, gestured for Burke to wait
outside. The
general, bulky, but bent with age, went back to shaving at a enameled basin of
hot water on a stand also holding a small, polished-metal mirror. There were
suds and splashes on the stone floor by his meaty, white, bare feet. The
old man gripped a long razor in a knob-knuckled hand, peered into the small
reflecter, and began to scrape his cheek. "Expected to be annoyed by some
fool," he said, "since the Khan took Jeff City." He paused for
delicate work along his upper lip. The razor's blade flashed in firelight.
"Damn woman remarked my stubble this morning. Carping old bitch...." A
small iron stove didn't seem to warm the room. Perhaps couldn't; the stone
ceiling looked to be three men high. "This
fool, sir, is Sam Monroe." The
old man held his razor away, and smiled. "I know which fool you are, milord."
Bailey's eyes, sunk in wrinkles as some far-south lizard's, were an almost
topaz yellow. He recommenced shaving. "I used to have a servant for this
chore — you know Warm-time 'chore'?" "Yes.
Very apt, sir." "Mmm....
I used to have a servant, before spending every fucking piece of silver
I have to settle with a land thief named Edgar Crosby!" "I've
heard of some court case." Sam noticed a faint odor of urine from the old
man's chamber-pot. "Not
a 'case.' A crime. I'd intended Highbank for my granddaughter. Now,
little Agnes will be a fucking pauper!" "And
if I promise to see to it, sir, that in the future, little Agnes doesn't become
a pauper, can we talk about this war?" Sam swung his scabbarded sword off
his back, and sat, without invitation, in the nearest of two fat, velveted
armchairs facing the futile stove. Bailey
rinsed his razor. "And Crosby's head?" "Your
Master Crosby's head — and all our heads — may be used as buzkash balls
by the Khan's horsemen, if this kingdom doesn't come fully awake." General
Bailey grunted, then concentrated on finishing shaving, flicking suds from his
razor onto the floor's stone. He had four tattooed dots on one cheek, five on
the other. "And from me — retired, aged, forgetful — you wish?" "Some
sensible advice." "Oh,
that. Do you intend to try to command this war for us?" "The
Queen, so far, allows only that I 'advise' Kingdom's forces." "Ah….
And you intend to press that small authority as far as it will go?" "Yes,
I do, sir, since my people also stand under threat. The Queen is a great lady,
and a fighter, but not a war planner." Bailey
rinsed his razor, folded it, and set it on the basin's edge. He mopped his face
with a white woven-cloth towel. "I found your campaigns very interesting.
The Boston people at Map-McAllen, for reasons of their own, reported them to us
in detail. I suspect that demonstrated competence is why you are not at the
bottom of the river. Apparently it's thought you might prove useful." The
old man sat in the other armchair, lifted his bare feet onto a worn ottoman,
and settled with a grunt, staring into the Franklin's small fire. "Who
suggested you come see me?" "Sayre." "Ah...
that oh, so clever man. Too fucking clever." "A
soldier, though." "Yes,
a soldier, if you keep an eye on him." The old man shifted slightly in his
chair. "Your campaigns. The night thing at — God-Help-Us' "Yes." "Really
not bad. Better than not bad." "I
was lucky." "Of
course. And lucky in the men — and women, by Lady Weather! — that fought for
you. Did seem to me… and of course I wasn't there. But hearing of it, it did
seem to me you spent your people a little too freely. Might have substituted
maneuver for slaughter — certainly in the initial assault. It can be more useful
to confuse an enemy, than kill a few more of them." "...
Yes, you're right, sir. I thought of strong left-flanking, get them half-turned
from me, but I was afraid the cavalry might just charge away into the night…
turn up weeks later in Map-Guadalajara." The
old man's laugh ended with a liquid cough. "And by Jesus they might have,
at that. I've found cavalry... not quite trustworthy." "I've
learned to trust them. And since I'm presently looking at a pair of
flat, obviously-infantry feet, I'll dismiss an ignorant observation." Bailey
smiled and wiggled his toes. "Oh, no insult intended. All your people seem
to know their business." "Yes,
they do." The
old man stroked his cheeks, evaluating his shave. "Stupid woman..."
He turned from watching the fire to look at Sam, an examination as coolly
interested as an elderly cat's. "And just what do you, as a young
commander of rather limited experience — no experience on the river at all —
just what do you think needs to be done?" "Sir,
I think what's left of the West-bank army should be behind fortifications —
dug-ditch and palisade, if that's the best they can do — until the river
freezes, and they join East-bank army. Your General Pomeroy needs to stop
sticking his neck out for the Kipchaks to chop. No more half-assed marching and
countermarching." "Hmm.
Miles Pomeroy has had the fever-malaria for years. It makes him short-tempered,
restless. I doubt he'll take that 'advice' to heart. Though I also doubt that
fortification will win the war." "It
will stop losing it, while East-bank army gets its thumb out of its ass
and moves west across the ice. The Fleet should be sailing north right now,
ready to rig its runners to join them. The river's already freezing at St.
Louis — " "It's
freezing below Lemay. — And this combination of forces will, of course, terrify
Toghrul." "It
will keep his generals and half his army busy in the north, sir." "While...
?" "While
my army marches up through Map-Arkansas, threatening his lines of supply… then
waits in good defensive country." Bailey
pursed his lips and made soft kissing sounds. "Well, young man, my
information is — and I still receive some information, some useful
pigeons — my information is that the Khan has already reached his people in the
north, taken command from Shapilov. Which means your army had better move fast,
or they'll be too late." "They'll
move fast. They should be well into Map-Louisiana now, with the cavalry coming
east from Map-Fort Stockton to join them." "Better
be. A great deal seems to depend on your General Voss." "He's
a dependable man, sir." "So,
with your army coming up West-bank from the south… which the Khan probably
knows already — " "I
think not. The cavalry, coming east, should screen the army's march for at
least a week or so." "Very
well, Monroe, let's say that's true — " "We'll
have my army coming up the west bank, and your East-bank army crossing the ice
in the north, supported by the Fleet. The Khan will find himself between two
immediately threatening forces — and will have no choice but to divide his army
to deal with them. He won't have time to attack one with all he has, then turn
to face the other." "He
may try to make the time." "Not
with his supply-lines threatened north of the Map-Ozarks, sir. No fodder; no
remounts; no replacements. Time will be against him." The
old man sighed. "From your lips, to the ears of Floating Jesus." "And
Mountain Jesus as well, General." "Well...
it's a very young strategy, Monroe. With many ifs." "It's
the only one, sir, I think has any chance at all." "Mmm....
So, the Khan, once he realizes he's blundered by campaigning with an enemy left
behind to cut his lines of supply, must send troops south to at least dislodge
that enemy. But he must also leave forces in the north, to hold the
river ice against the Fleet, and East-bank army." "Yes." "So
he will send, or go south himself, to meet... you? I assume you intend to
command that battle." "Yes,
sir." Bailey
put his head back and closed his eyes as if beginning a nap. "And what
chance do you give this strategy, young man?" "The
only chance we've got, sir." "Well,
that's fair enough. A soldier's answer, at any rate." Still with his eyes
closed. " — Of course, if he beats you, destroys your army without taking
heavy losses, he'll use your own plan in reverse." "Yes,
if he won with light losses, he'd hook to the riverbank there, let his northern
forces keep our northern forces busy until the river freezes down to
him. Then he'd send his tumans out onto the ice to take Island." "And
the Kingdom." "Yes.
And the Kingdom. — But he won't have light losses, General. Win or lose,
I promise we will ruin him in the fight. So Kingdom will still have a better
than even chance against the rest of his army, in the north." Bailey
opened his eyes. "A fair-enough promise. Well, you have a notion, milord.
And I like it — there's a nice, nasty unfairness to it. But it will depend, of
course, on our people and your people fighting as one, though so
many Warm-time miles apart." "Yes." "To
deal with which difficulty, I suppose, I'm being recruited, though so old, and
now impoverished." "There
would be pay." "Um-hmm.
Same nasty odor of taking advantage — always a sign of solid strategy." "Horseshit,"
Sam said. "You'd have been very angry if you hadn't been asked to help by someone." A
sideways yellow glance. "And
speaking of 'someone,' what does Her Majesty think of your 'advising' Kingdom's
men?" "She
dislikes it extremely, and wouldn't have allowed even that if she had a better
choice — and didn't need my army." Bailey
smiled. He had two teeth missing. "She is a remarkable woman. A better
queen, in some ways, than Newton was a king. His heart was never really in it;
he found us... a sad lot. And that Kentucky business, an absolute mess. General
Ryan, and his so-faithful tribal allies!" The old man seemed to dream for
a few moments, then roused. "So, you 'advise.' I doubt such grudging
approval by Her Majesty will be enough." "The
Queen has allowed my engagement to Princess Rachel." The
general sat up. "Has she? Well... that might make a difference. And
the girl will have you?" "I
believe she will, though reluctantly." "Ah.
'Reluctantly.' 'Advise' and 'reluctantly.' Son, you're going to be very lucky
to keep your head — even forgetting Toghrul and his Kipchaks." "I
know it." Bailey
hauled himself out of his chair, padded to the Franklin, and struck the hot
stove-pipe with his fist. A small belch of ash and smoke came from the fire.
"Fucking thing.... If the Kipchaks had not taken Map-Jefferson City
— " "I
know. In that way, Toghrul works for me." "He'll
work against you, when he finds he has to take half his army down to
Map-Arkansas." The general's robe was dusted with ash. "Think you can
beat him?" "If
he fights my fight — yes." "And
your fight will be?" "Wait
for him in broken, wooded country, hills with some height to them. On perhaps a
seven-to-eight-hundred-acre front, cut by narrow hollows. And all under Lord
Winter's snow." "Map-Ozarks." "Yes." Bailey
tapped the stove-pipe again, absently. "So, you leave him no room for
sweeping cavalry maneuvers.... He'll break his command into smaller units, try
to work them along the ridges into your formations." "I
would, in his place." "And,
of course, he'll dismount most of his people — have them come against you on
foot." "So
I hope, sir." "He'll
still have numbers on you, even with only half his army with him." "Yes." Thinking,
Bailey touched the stove-pipe again, left his fingers on it too long. "Ow!
Damn thing. It seem cold in here to you?" "It
is cold." Sam demonstrated by blowing a faint cloud of breath. "You
need a bigger stove." "What
I need," the old man said, "are twenty fewer years and two thousand
pieces of silver. You'll meet him on the ridges?" "Cavalry
waits along the ridges, in reserve. His dismounted men will have to
attack up snowy hillsides; the Light Infantry will fight them as they climb the
slopes. The Heavy Infantry will be waiting when — if — they reach the
crests." "Umm.
Of course, the Khan will soon know of your army, and approximately where it
will stand. There'll be no surprises for him, then." "Yes,
but it seems to me, no choices either. He'll have to come to us." "Alright."
Bailey dusted ash off his hands. "I'll do what I can, milord. As you
'advise.' But everything depends on your people marching north from West
Map-Louisiana. If that army doesn't move north, doesn't threaten
the Kipchaks' line of supply, there'll be very little either you or I
can do." "Understood.
And Howell Voss should join them with the cavalry at any time; possibly already
has." "Let's
hope so. What I can do, now, is pigeon to suggest strictly defensive formations
to West-bank army in the south. Pomeroy will listen; he's not an idiot. It
seems to me that Cotton is already doing the best he can in the north, at St.
Louis." "I
think so. I'd be very grateful for that pigeon, sir. And East-bank army?" "Ah...
my old command. Mark Aiken will do as he's ordered, and there's the rub. Know
that phrase?" "I
believe I've heard it, sir. Very apt." "Well,
there is the rub. Aiken will require orders, since moving even toward
West bank is contrary to founding regulations. 'Advice' won't do — not even
from me. He will move only at the Queen's command, or by the Queen's warrant.
Won't do more, won't do less.... I'd say that up till now, no one has ordered
him to do anything, other than local defense situations. Still, once he's told
what to do, Aiken will move, and quickly, and be glad to." The old man
began to pace back and forth in front of the stove. It was slow pacing, with a
limp. "We're… you must understand, Monroe, that we're an aggressive
military. Defense is a poor doctrine for us. You know the Warm-time
'doctrine'?" "I
do, yes. Sir, the Kipchaks want to be attacked. They hope for it, as a
knife fighter wishes for a clumsy thrust to counter for his kill. What they don't
want, is delay, and a mobile and determined defense." "Oh,
I understand very well." Pacing away, the old man spoke that to a wall and
glassed arrow-slit. "But what you must understand, young man," —
limping back, now — "is that by being aggressive, the Kingdom's
forces have been very effective at controlling the river and six Map-states.
Dealing for the most part, of course, with savages, tribesmen and so forth.
Now, they're being asked to meet a military at least as formidable as ours —
and commanded, I regret to say, by a genius of war." "And
the division of the army into East and West-bank commands?" The
old man stopped pacing. "Oh, that began as a sensible precaution on the
part of our kings. Did you know it used to be a death-penalty offense for an
officer of one bank army ever to cross the river... ever to have a close
relationship with an officer from the opposite bank?" "I'd
heard that." "And
heard correctly. It was all a matter of careful balances — and now, of course, has become a weakness. It
had occurred to no one, myself included, that it might be wise for both bank
armies to cooperate against the Kipchaks, moving back and forth across
the river to threaten his forces' flanks." "Must
be done now, sir." Sam stood, buckled his sword harness... reached over
his shoulder to touch the weapon's hilt. "Yes.
Now it must be done, milord. And the Fleet won't like it. They've always been
pleased to deal with a divided army. But East-bank was my old command,
and I believe Mark Aiken will at least prepare to move, if I convince him that
a direct order will be coming. Then he'll be able to get his regiments out onto
the ice with no delay." "That
is... better than I'd hoped for, sir. I owe you a great debt." "You
keep that in mind, young man. I believe you mentioned… pay?" Bailey
stooped for a small piece of firewood at the stove's rack, tossed it into the
flames. "I'll
see to it, General…. And I think I've taken enough of your time." "Oh,
nothing but time, now. Time, and a little widow — quite old, of course — but
enough of a bitch to be interesting." "The
suggester of shaving?" "The
very one." He walked Sam to the door. "Remember, milord, your people
have to be in place — and soon." "I
know it." "And
the other matter — " "
— Is Kingdom's fleet." "That's
right. If our fleet doesn't get north, and onto the ice to slice through those tumans'
formations..." "Any
influence with the admirals, sir?" The
old man smiled. "Why, yes. The admirals are very much like sea-whales —
they snort and wallow, roll and blow. And they hate my guts. That's always
influence of a sort, if properly applied." Sam
paused at the door. "My thanks again, sir, for your help." "You
haven't got anything to thank me for, yet." The old man put a hand
on Sam's shoulder. "When you can do a little better than 'advise,' you
might take it upon yourself to see Lenihan. He's supposed to be
coordinating command, here." "I
will. And I wish you could be fighting with me." Bailey
shook his head. "You are young. I can't tell you how grateful I am
that I won't be fighting beside you. What's the copybook phrase? 'Scared
to death'? I was scared to death, every battle I fought." "I
doubt it," Sam said, and swung the door open. Sergeant Burke came to
attention. "What's
your name, Sergeant?" Bailey bent a yellow eye on him. A
more rigid attention. "Burke, sir!" "Well,
Sergeant Burke, watch this boy's back." "Sir!"
Followed by a very snappy salute — now, it seemed to Sam, as much a part of his
soldiers as their belly-buttons. ...
There was no temptation as great as inaction. Sam stood weary in the corridor's
cold, drafty gray stone, Sergeant Burke standing silent behind him, and wished
for rest, solitude, an end to persuading strangers. An end to maneuvers of
words, as wearing as a battle in this great smoky warren of wind and rock. The
sergeant cleared his throat. And as if that had been a signal to march, Sam
marched. It
would be the chamberlain's office, next — undoubtedly a mile away through
freezing granite halls and stairways — to attempt to persuade that clever fat
man to, in turn, try to persuade the Queen to loosen her grip, only slightly,
on power. It
seemed unlikely — as everything on the river seemed unlikely, dreams flowing
down in the current's ice with their Floating Jesus, so Sam felt he might
wander Island forever.
*
* *
Rodney
Sewell had come down-river from Cooper Estate just two days before. Sent for to
come quickly, he'd landed still wearing the family's livery, but changed in the
dock shed to brown smock and sack trousers. A
preparation under-cook had been willing enough, for a bare handful of copper,
to provide a place for a tall, shabby, ginger-haired stranger to sleep, deep in
the kitchen cellars. Willing enough, if chicken-birds were properly gutted,
potatoes peeled, and onions sliced by the basketful. The
people called him Ginger, since Sewell never offered his name, and were
impressed by his gutting chicken-birds like a wonder. But though he always
washed that mess off at the pump before the scullions' meals were served, and
was quiet and decently mannered, the pot girls avoided him. Perhaps he washed
too well, as if his hands — large, and long-fingered — had more important
things to do. Also,
his first day working, he'd responded in an unpleasant way to the teasing any
new kitchener was bound to expect. He'd stared at them, and was so oddly silent
— while the gutting knife worked on, worked faster, its greasy blade flashing
through flesh — that the teasing stopped. Lunchtime
on his third day, Sewell had strolled past the serving trays for a suite of
Tower rooms. Strolled so near that the meat cook, Mr. Harris — in conversation
with a fat servant belonging to those rooms — had cursed him and waved him back
to his work. Hours
later, after filleting a deep basketfull of fishes to rest in ice as dinner
preparation, Sewell ambled by the trays again. One held sliced carrots, turnip
crisps, and pickled mussels. Sewell hesitated there, saw the idiot scrubber
watching him, and walked away. He went through the second kitchen and down the
cellar corridor to the turning for barrel preserves, and the jakes. The
storage there, shadowy and damp, extended from the corridor on either side down
long, narrow aisles, walled by high stacks of barrels with more barrels packed
behind them. All smelling sour with tons of brined cabbage — Warm-times' 'sour
kraut' — some of it five, six years old. Sewell had never had a taste for it. Down
each dark aisle, hacked cabbages and huge open barrels — some half-filled, some
crusted with salt shipped up from the Gulf Entire — stood beside long,
knife-scored work tables. Sewell
had come to the end of storage, had the door to the jakes in sight, when
something very heavy draped itself across his back and shoulders. It staggered
him, with surprise as much as anything, but Sewell was quick, had always been
very quick and strong. He would have had his gutting knife out, except that two
fat legs had wrapped themselves around him, so his arms were pinned to his
sides. The
knotted cord that whipped around his neck was inevitable, though Sewell did
everything that could and should be done. He tried to scream — just too late —
so made only a soft croaking sound. He bent, and bucked into a somersault to
smash the strangler to the stone floor. Then he got to his feet — a difficult
thing to do — and drove backward with great strength into a side aisle and a
work table's heavy, seasoned edge. With
luck, the oak might have broken the strangler's spine, but hadn't. Whoever, he
was a sturdy man, and he'd shifted a little just in time. Even so, given only
one good breath — only one — Sewell felt anything might be possible. But
no breath was given, and Sewell thrashed and staggered this way and that down
the narrow aisle, kicked and arched his back, writhed to work his arms, his
hands, free of those fat legs locked around him. It was difficult to do with no
breathing.... Soon it became impossible, and he knelt on the stone — that great
weight still clinging, bearing on him. The cord buried deep in Sewell's neck seemed
now made of diamonds, it sparkled so in his mind. He felt little things
breaking in the back of his eyes from brightness. He
was lying down, face pressed to cool stone, and had no idea how that had
happened, where the time had gone. He could feel a thing in his chest
trembling. He was warm in the seat of his pants.... Ansel
Carey, whistling a song his father had taught him, went up the aisle to the
corridor, looked left and right, then came back to haul the corpse onto the
work table, and go through its pockets. He found a gutting knife, another
little blade hiding strapped to the right ankle, twenty-seven coins — copper, silver, and gold — and a tiny
blown-glass bottle with a string-wound stopper. There was a thimbleful of ashy
powder in it, that smelled like toasted almonds. He
tossed everything but the money into a brine barrel at the end of the work
table, then slid the corpse that way. With grunts of effort, he doubled it
over, lifted it... and stuffed it down into the big barrel butt first, so the
feet and black, swollen face came together at the top, awash in pickling. "Unappetizing,"
Master Carey said, fitted the oak lid down tight, then used a mallet to set the
top hoop.... While he labored — rolling the barrel to the back of the narrow
aisle, then, with the aid of a plank as lever, hoisting it level by level, deep
into the storage stacks — he decided the matter had been, after all, too slight
to have mentioned beforehand, orders or not. And too squalid to report now, to
a young Captain-General with more important matters on his mind.
CHAPTER 20
"Sir,
what is the matter with these fools? As you suggested, whenever I'm out
of these damned rooms, I've been having 'casual' conversations with a number of
civilians and middle-rank officials — and those older officers who'll speak to
a woman soldier without smirking — and none seem very interested in the
Kipchaks." Sam
saw a tired Margaret Mosten sitting across from him at their suite's great
table — as she undoubtedly saw a weary Sam Monroe. "The matter, Margaret,
is they simply don't believe the threat is great. This afternoon, Chamberlain
Brady dismissed the Khan with a wave of his hand. These people are not
convinced this war requires that they let some war-lord from nowhere — " "A
no-dot war-lord, sir." Lieutenant Darry, still eating at supper's
end, paused in forking up a baked apple. "That's
right, Pedro. A no-dot war-lord." The
long table supported the remains of food brought up under covered silver salvers
by four servants in the Queen's blood-red livery. Servants accompanied from the
kitchens by an untrusting Master Carey… who'd then uncovered platters of salt
ham, broccoli and fresh onions, a roasted duck, potatoes creamed to pudding in
spotted-cattle milk, and spiced baked apples — tasting them at random while the
food cooled, the meats congealed. Now,
supper over, Carey — who remained mysteriously fat, since he never sat to eat —
was collecting Island's silverware. The Chief of Kitchens, a tyrant laired deep
in Island's cellar warren, counted all returned silverware, even from the
Queen's table. "...
But, do they think Toghrul Khan is just going to go away?" "Margaret,
except for some of the officers the Queen has just brought to Island, the
Boxcars think he's basically only a more formidable tribesman. And they've
dealt with tribesmen and tooth-filers many times." "But
they lost Map-Jefferson City!" "
'A fluke,' is how the chamberlain described that. I got the impression he
thought the Queen was making too much of it." "The
court tends to agree, sir." Darry poured himself more berry brandy. The
lieutenant, though slender, seemed to have an extraordinary capacity — was
always hungry, and never seemed drunk. "People I speak to, some of them
officers of the better regiments, regard this war as... well, a career
opportunity. Except for those like Stilwell or Brainard, who have estates to
inherit." "Fucking
overdecorated roosters." Margaret made a face. It seemed to Sam she hadn't
yet forgiven him for her boots, leathers, and mail, in a court where the women
— and men — dressed like furred and velveted song-birds. "Well,
Captain, they're frivolous… and they aren't." Pedro twirled his silver
goblet; those were counted in the kitchens, too. "Most of them have fought
tribesmen. And if not, fought each other in duels. I feel... really, I feel
quite at home. Though, of course, they are a little rough." "A
little rough?" Sam considered some brandy, then decided not. "Well,
sir, Jerry Brainard has killed a man who questioned his family recipe. A
question of palms." "Palms?"
Margaret said. "Yes,
Captain. Palms. Girl's palms — of course hardly done at all, now. But the
question was whether to cattle-butter them before broiling, or after." "Lady
Weather..." "And
which," Sam said, "did the Brainards favor?" "Oh,
Jerry said, 'Before.' Before, absolutely. Keeps 'em plump; keeps 'em from
drying out on the grill." "These
people," Margaret said, "deserve the Kipchaks." "But
our people don't," Sam said, "and Toghrul will see to it that as the
Kingdom goes, so will they." "True." "And
speaking of deserving, I've seen no Jesus priests, no ladies of Lady Weather at
Island." "No,
sir," Darry said. "I understand the Queen doesn't allow it, doesn't
allow them to stay. She sends them back where they came from with silver
pieces. Says to do good — and stay gone." "Making
enemies, Pedro?" Margaret said. "Don't
think so, Captain. I'm told she gives a lot of silver. And the winter
festivals, very elaborate, supposed to be wonderful to see. Canceled this year,
of course." "Master
Carey," Sam said, "do we have a healthy pigeon?" "Two,
sir. Only two since Hector died on the Naughty. Couldn' stand the
motion." Ansel Carey kept the birds in his room, and expressed to them the
only tenderness Sam had seen from him. "Leave
the silverware; let the Queen's people count it when they come for the
platters." "What
message, Sam?" "To
Howell and Ned, Margaret, through Better-Weather. Howell's probably joined by
now, and Eric can relay dispatch-riders up to them. I want them moving north
fast as possible. Forward elements should already be out of West
Louisiana." "Sam,
they know that." Margaret had carved the supper meat, and was
cleaning ham juice from her long dagger's blade with a red woven-cloth napkin.
"They don't need to be reminded... if a galloper could even catch up to
them." "Well,
they may not need a reminder if they get it — but they might have needed it, if
they don't." "Sam,
that doesn't make any sense at all." "Does
to me," Darry said, and pushed his dessert plate away. The lieutenant
tilted his heavy chair back and sat at ease, gleaming boots crossed at the
ankles. "Precious Miss Murphy's Law. What may be fucked up — your pardon,
Captain Mosten — will be fucked up. So, better a pigeon, to be sure." "My
thinking," Sam said. "And it's possible that Howell... even that both
of them have been killed." "Nothing,"
Margaret said, and got up from the table. "Nothing could kill both of
those men. I don't think Ned is killable." "Did
lose his hand," Darry said. Master
Carey's room was down the corridor. Sam could hear him murmuring to the
pigeons, apparently making his selection. "Speaking
of hands, Pedro; you've had more than a week dealing them out at the
card-tables at court. And, I understand, have been successful. What news?" "Master
Carey exaggerates, sir. Just fun cards, small stakes; never enough to make
anyone angry. Also, no involvement with any lady having serious
connections." "That's
a comfort. Go on." "Well,
sir..." Darry brought his chair forward, sat at attention. "Well, sir
— this is no court, in the sense of the Emperor's court at Map-Mexico
City. It's... really more like chieftains gathering at a tribal longhouse in
the mountains, or north, along the ice-wall. Though the longhouse in this case
is stone, and miles each way." Darry paused, considering. "It isn't
that there aren't manners here, sir, and decent precedence — there are.
But it's all damn shallow." "Meaning,"
Margaret Mosten said, "keep a sergeant with you, Sam." "Yes,"
Darry said. "Absolutely. Not that murdering you would be undertaken
lightly, sir." "Glad
to hear it." "But
it wouldn't be, well, regarded as... memorable." "And
no fucking consideration as to what might happen then?" Margaret leaned
over the table like a storm. "With the Kingdom at war, and our army
marching into Map-Arkansas?" "Ah,
but you see, Captain, the people who are the considering sort, wouldn't be the
ones who killed our Captain-General." He smiled at Sam in encouragement. "One
or more of the sergeants," Margaret said, "and either Pedro or
me in any public gathering." Darry
nodded. "We have no dots on our faces, sir, is what it comes down to. We
aren't Boxcars." "Neither
was the Queen." Sam reconsidered the berry brandy, poured the barest taste
into his glass and drank it... breathed its stinging sweetness in and out. "No,
but she is now, sir. She was married to their king — and, I understand,
murdered to hold her own once he was gone." "Watch
your tongue, Pedro. Even stone walls can grow ears." "Oh
— oh, nothing out of the way in that sort of killing, of course, sir!"
Darry said. "Admirable, really. An admirable lady… who having been a
tribeswoman herself, knew what needed to be done." "I'd
leave the subject, Pedro.... Margaret, will you go and persuade
Ansel to part with a fucking pigeon. I'd like to get that message sent. And
Pedro, you might keep in mind that those people at Island who do 'consider'
before they act, might consider it useful to put one of my people into the
river, as an indication we're not wanted here, long-term." "I
suppose that's true!" Darry seemed startled at the notion. "So,
if you find even your charm suddenly overvalued by new friends, a new
lady, you might be careful what dark corner you're invited to." "I
keep an eye on him, milord." Master Carey carried in a bird basket, with
Margaret marching behind him. "I've been Sancho to his Panzo, or
whatever... keep close to any fun, or lady." "Tediously
so," said Lieutenant Darry. "It was a question, sir, but I chose our
Louella." Carey set the basket on the table. "She's small, but swift.
And spirited — flies so hawks can kiss
her ass." Louella
set a bright black eye to the basket weaving, examined them. "Sir,"
Margaret said, "it would be a mistake. They'll think you have no
confidence in them. They'll start looking over their shoulders for more messages." "Good
point, sir," Darry said. "Still, there's Miss Murphy's Law...." "Pedro,"
Margaret said, "be quiet." Sam
closed his eyes for a moment... saw Howell in camp, unrolling the bird's tiny
message-paper and reading it. Then saying, "Well, for Weather's sake. What
the fuck's the matter with Sam?" "Alright…
Take the bird back, Ansel." There
were two very hard knocks on the suite's heavy door. It opened partway, and
Sergeant Mays leaned in. "Her Majesty an' the ax-girl to see you,
sir." Master
Carey snatched up Louella's basket, and waddled swiftly back to his room as the
Queen, in a long wolf-fur cloak, came in past Sergeant Mays, her armswoman
behind her. "Where's
that fat man off to?" Sam
stood with Margaret and Darry, and bowed. "Honored to welcome you, ma'am….
Carey's our schemer, spy, and supply person. Secrecy's a custom with him, so he
snatched our pigeon away." "One
of your Master Lauder's people, I suppose?" "I'm
sure of it." "This
habit," — the Queen stood in the middle of the room — "this habit you have of being so
directly honest as to insult those you speak to, I find very unpleasant." "I
apologize, Queen. I do it to unsettle those older and cleverer than I am." "And
that's exactly what I mean — that sort of thing you just said." 299 "Perhaps
I should try a little lying. Will you sit, ma'am? Have wine... berry
brandy?" Queen
Joan shook her head, then was silent, as if she'd forgotten why she'd come. Her
ax-girl watched Sergeant Mays, since he stood closest to them. "What
is it, ma'am?" Sam said. "What's happened?" "...
Nothing. Nothing's 'happened,' Monroe. I visit where I choose, when I
choose." Sam saw, by the hanging lanterns' warm light, that the Queen was
pale as cotton sheeting. "They're
on the river?" "Our
difficulties," the Queen said, "our... difficulties are still our concern." "They've
taken St. Louis." The Queen
made a sound in her throat, and clawed her fingers as if she were about to
fight. Then, spreading her arms wide, her long wolf cloak swinging open, she
began a slow-stepping dance of fury. Her ropes of pearls swaying with her furs,
she turned in drifts of flower scent, eyes rolled back, teeth bared to bite.
She danced in paces her ax-girl mirrored to stay within reach. "I'll
kill... that fucking Kipchak. Every person, everything he loves, I'll kill.
I'll skin his wife, his child — I hear there's to be a child. I'll skin
that baby slowly, for him to see — and
his horses, skin his horses alive before I skin him, roll him screaming
in salt, and serve him roasted!" It
was a promise frightening to see danced and almost sung. Sam noticed Sergeant
Mays stand back a step, and saw that Margaret had closed her eyes, as if the
Queen were a fire burning too close. When
Queen Joan stood still and silent, Sam went to her and took her hands while the
armswoman watched. "Give me your warrant, dear." "...
I am not your 'dear.' " But she let him hold her hands. "Give
me your warrant to assist you in this war, to command, so our armies can fight
together." "So
you can prepare to take my throne — boy?" She pulled her hands
away. "I
swear to uphold you on your throne, Queen — uphold your rule against any
and all. I swear it on the memory of my Second-mother.... And will hold to
it," — he smiled — "no matter how inconvenient." "Never,"
the Queen said. " — Never." She turned and walked out. Her
ax-girl, following, glanced back to be certain of no surprise, then closed the
door behind them. "What
do we do?" Margaret said into silence. "Sam, what do we do,
now?" "What
do we do... ?" Sam took a deep breath. "What I do is keep
trying to persuade the generals and admirals here to cooperate with our
army." "Won't
do it, sir, without her." Carey, out of his room like a mountain marmot,
appearing in the hall. "Boxcars think we're shit, sir." "Sad,"
Pedro Darry said, "but true." An ancient phrase. "Then
fuck 'em," said Sergeant Mays. "No.
We need these people." Sam reached for the brandy, noticed Margaret
Mosten's glance, and set the crystal jug aside. "I'll go to the river
lords, tomorrow — " The
chamber's door swung open again, and Queen Joan's ax-girl stepped in. "Her
Majesty," she said. The
Queen stood in the doorway. "I've... changed my mind." She stared at
them a few moments, then said, "Dear God." One of Warm-times'
shortest sayings.
*
* *
After
an early breakfast delivered to their rooms — the roast pork, boiled eggs, oat
pudding, and honey rolls all first nibbled for safety's sake by Master Carey —
Sam, with Sergeant Wilkey pacing behind him, longbow down his back, coursed
through Island's passages to East Tower's stairs, cubbies, and chambers, until
a serving man nodded to "General Lenihan" and pointed them to offices
at the end of a lamp-lit hall. No guard was posted there. Wilkey
opened the oak door and stood aside as Sam walked in. Three soldiers, clerks,
stood writing at stands beneath hanging five-flame oil lamps. They were wearing
West-bank army's blue wool, but no weapons, no armor. They set their pens down
as Sam and Wilkey came in. "Brigadier
Lenihan," Sam said. "I understand he's executive for plans and
coordination — dealing with both bank armies?" "And
you are?" The tallest clerk, a sergeant. "He's
'Milord Monroe' to you," Wilkey said pleasantly. "Now, see him in to
your general." The
clerk said, "Sorry, sir — milord," trotted to an inner office door,
knocked, opened it, and said, "Lord Monroe to see you, sir." There
was a grumble from inside. Sam walked past the clerk into a smaller space that
reminded him of Charles' cramped office at Better-Weather, though more brightly
lit. A stocky man with cold gray eyes and several days' growth of beard,
wearing West-bank army's blue, stood from behind a desk piled with maps and
message sheets. He had three tattooed dots on his left cheek, four on the
other. "General
Lenihan, I believe we have some business." "Sir
— milord — I hardly think so." Lenihan's voice was hoarse with fatigue.
"And, while I wouldn't wish to be rude, I must say I don't have the time
for it." The brigadier looked down at his desk-top. "There are orders
to be copied, orders to be sent. In short, sir, I have a war on my hands — at
least portions of it." "I
see you do. And how does your war go, General?" "That,
sir, with all respect, is something I couldn't discuss with you. Perhaps the
chamberlain's office..." Lenihan, impatient, glanced down and shifted some
papers. Sam shoved
a stack of documents aside, then sat on the edge of the desk, one booted foot
on the floor. "The Queen has allowed me to be what help I can in this war,
Lenihan. So it's by her warrant and authority, as well as mine, that I suggest
you drop this pose of 'responsible officer weary of interfering idiots' — and
prepare to take my orders." The
general's face flushed. "I would need a written order, signed by
the Queen, to do any such — " Sam
lunged across the desk, took Lenihan's throat in his right hand, and drove the
man back against the wall. The brigadier was strong, struggled, and reached for
his belted dagger. Sam covered that hand with his left to keep the blade
sheathed — and heard Wilkey, behind him, draw his sword. "Put
up, Sergeant!" The sword whispered back into its scabbard. Lenihan,
who couldn't breathe, fought hard. His chair went over with a clatter; a fat
folder slid from the desk. He struck with a heavy fist at Sam's head and belly,
tried for his balls. Then plucked and tore at the strangling hand, to wrench it
free. The
office door opened. "Mind
your own business," Wilkey said behind Sam, and kicked the door shut. The
general, though a tough man, was beginning to soften with lack of air. The
punches and kicks slowly became random. Sam saw in the man's eyes the astounded
realization this might be death — come so oddly, so suddenly, in an office of
all things, and at the hand of a titled stranger young enough to be his son. Sam
let him go, and the general slid down the wall to one knee, took long, gasping
breaths — then staggered up with his dagger drawn. Sam,
arms crossed, sat back on the desk edge, watching him... taking no notice of
the knife. "You…
young dog!" A furious brigadier, and even hoarser now. There were
tentative knocks on the office door. "Get
away from there!" Sergeant Wilkey said. There were no more knocks. Sam
was careful not to smile. "I apologize, Lenihan. I was hasty — but I
needed to get your attention. We simply don't have time to waste with
nonsense." He picked a paper off the desk-top, then another, and glanced
over them. "Floating Jesus!" Pleased to have remembered the
River's Great. "You people are moving units of East-bank army to cover
these fucking towns!" "That's
right!" The general was still gripping his dagger. "The Kipchaks are
raiding across the ice, up-river. They're burning East-bank towns. Killing
everyone in them. Children... everyone!" "Of
course they are, General." Sam set the papers down. "Haven't you
wondered why? — The Kipchaks like children. They have children of their
own. So they must have a reason to be crossing the river up there, attacking
those towns, and killing your people — including the little children." "You...
put your hands on me." Lenihan sheathed his dagger. "Yes,
I did. And if you don't begin to think, instead of sitting passing
papers like turds, I'll put my hands on you again. Is that plain enough for
you, General?" Scowling
silence. "The
Kipchaks want you people to break up your East-bank army. Shapilov, and
now the Khan, want that army dissolved into little garrisons guarding civilians
who should be moving back off the river into the forests. What the Khan doesn't
want, is that army united into a single force that might cross the river
ice against him!" Sam shook his head. "Lenihan, you and your people
at Island have been doing the Kipchaks' work for them." "We
have not." "Yes,
you have. And it must stop. We don't have time for mistakes this
serious. So far, you've been dealing with the Khan's generals. But now, Toghrul
has taken command. Another blunder like this, he'll tear your throats
out." Sam stood up off the desk. "You people are not dealing with
tribesmen and savages any longer, warriors who don't know discipline. You're
facing a great mechanical of war — do you understand? A veteran horse-army that
can move fifty Warm-time miles a day, and fight a battle that evening. All
commanded by a man more intelligent than both of us together." Sam
stood off the desk, and went to the door. "So, we do things right,
General, and do them quickly and in cooperation — my people coming up into Map-Arkansas, and
yours north, on the river ice. We do things right... or your head and my
head and the Queen's head will end piled with thousands of others, here in your
great courtyard." "I...
don't know." "Yes,
you do know, Lenihan.... Now, by right of the Queen's warrant to me, you
will inform General DeVane of East-bank army, General Parker of West-bank army,
the two senior admirals at Island — Pearce and Hopkins — and the River Lords
Sayre and Cooper, that their presence is commanded this afternoon in the
Queen's council chamber at... two glasses. Each may bring one aide. And General
Bailey may choose to attend, or not." Lenihan
looked even wearier than before. "I will... inform them, milord." "'Sir,'
will do; we don't have time for 'milord's. But you will do more than inform
them, Lenihan. You will see to it that those officers and lords are present
— if necessary, escorted and under arrest." "...
Yes, sir." "What's
your first name?" "Patrick." "Two
more matters, Patrick. You're to post a guard at your corridor door. Also, put
your clerks up on charges, for not supporting their officer with more than
timid tapping while he was being assaulted." A
grudging first smile from the general. "Sir." "See
you at two, Pat," Sam said, and left the office, Wilkey following.
*
* *
Ned
Flores, weary, stood by a hasty nighttime fire, his steel hook reflecting the
flames' red. "Howell, we're not moving fast enough." "We're
moving as fast as won't exhaust the men and break down the horses." Howell
spit tobacco-juice hissing into the fire. "Won't do us any good, Ned, to
ruin the army moving it." "Speaking
of which, we should be nearing the Kipchaks' supply lines soon." "Yes." "What
do you want done when we hit them?" "Take
what we can use, give the rest to the local tribesmen." "And
the escort?" "Kill
them all." ' "Okay….
My men have had no trouble with the savages —
called Bluebirds, apparently. And they'll like any plunder we can give
them. No trouble with the Bluebirds — but we got some cold looks from those
West-bank scouts, couple of days ago." "We're
just passing through, Ned. We won't give them any trouble, and there aren't
enough of them down here to give us any trouble. If the drum calls coming down
the river are true, the Kipchaks pretty much wrecked West-bank army up at St.
Louis." Howell kicked a brand back into the flames. "Also, I intend
to look to those river people for food and fodder as we go north to the
Map-Missouri line, in case Charles can't get supplies up to us fast enough. So,
let's not kill any of the soldiers they have left." "Right....
It's really upsetting." "What?" "That
you're actually thinking, Howell. It's difficult to get used to." "You
insubordinate asshole. You're lucky you're wearing that nasty thing." Flores
raised his hook and kissed it. "Don't insult my Alice." "Alice?" "Why
not? Remember Alice Rodriguez? Cold, curved, and dangerous?" "...
Oh, Mountain Jesus. Hadn't thought of her for years. Well, take 'Alice' — and
your regiment — and move off north. Smartly, Ned. We'll night-march six
glass-hours." "General,"
— Flores saluted with the middle finger of his good hand — "consider it
done." With
Ned mounted and spurred off through falling snow, calling for his trumpeter,
Howell stood warming his hands at the failing fire, watching down the hillside
to the defile where Phil Butler's Heavy Infantry battalions were marching north
in moonlight. Marching in good spirits, apparently, since they were singing
"Gringo the Russians, Oh" as they swung along. Odd, how falling snow
muffled sound. "General?"
Roberto Collins reining in his horse — and looking too young to be a captain on
the staff. "Last units, sir, except for Colonel Loomis's rear guard." "All
right. Orders." "Sir." "Colonel
Loomis to deploy three companies of Lights as tail-end charlies. Double-time
the others up to flank us, deploying lightly to the east, heavily to the west.
We'll be approaching the Kipchaks' lines of supply, coming from Map-Texas to
north on the river. Tell her I want no surprises." "Sir." "And
Roberto, make sure Charmian understands that her people are to stand no
engagement. If there's a problem, they're to skirmish, then fall back on the
main body." "Yes,
sir." And Collins was off at a gallop through deepening snow. Young, it
seemed to Howell, young for a staff officer. And where had "tail-end
charlies" come from? Some copybook.... "Big
One-eye!" Blue-coated scimitar at her belt, Patience Nearly-Lodge Riley
came to the fire's coals — small boots stomping through the snow — and tilted
her hat's brim back from a face perfectly white, hair black as blindness.
"I could send Webster to our Captain-General at their island. He would
find him, if you have a message, or need his advice." "I
don't have a message, don't need Sam's advice, and would appreciate your
staying with the baggage train where you belong. Colonel Butler put you there,
Lady, and you're to stay." "Only
until fighting. I was promised to
hover over a battle like Lady Weather, picking out this one or that one for
best luck or bad." "Right....
Well, until that battle, please get your Boston butt back to baggage. We are responsible
for you." "And
I so appreciate your protection." The girl smiled up at him, her small,
white right hand resting on her sword's pommel. "The Captain-General —
he'll be coming soon to fight the battle?" "Can't
be soon enough. Now, if you'll just get back where you belong. We have a night
march — " "You
haven't visited dear Portia-doctor at all, One-eye, not a single time in this
hasty travel north. Don't you think she would like a visit from you?"
Another smile with that. "Likely
as much as I'm enjoying this one," Howell said. "Go back where you
belong — or be tied and taken." Patience
made a comic grimace of terror... paused… seemed to drift a little up into the
air, then swept away, long coat flapping softly as she sailed over hillside
drifts of moonlit snow, and left the snow unblemished.
CHAPTER 21
The Queen's
Room of Conference, a high-ceilinged stone box, had been arranged for
discomfort. This to encourage short conferences, and little in the way of
comment or advice to her from anyone. No attempt had been made to cushion that
fact, or the straight-back wooden chairs ranged around a circular too-wide
table, so everyone had to call their conversation. No refreshments were
provided. There
was a small stove in a distant corner, with a small fire in it, and the thick,
blurred glass of four arrow-slits down the room had been opened just enough for
a steady, bitter little breeze to enter, and fans of powder snow. Introductions
had been made. Sam had noticed few friendly glances. His
chair had diagnosed his bad back at once, and was making it worse. Only
the Queen, bundled in lynx and wolverine, with her ax-girl standing behind her,
sat in comfort on a minor throne plumped with pillows. Her daughter sat to her
right, then Brady, the chamberlain. Then Generals Parker, DeVane, Lenihan — and
Bailey, just arrived, his greenwool uniform as food-stained as his chamber-robe
had been.... Then Sam, at the foot, and on around to two admirals, Hopkins and
Pearce, wearing storm-gray — both exactly the ocean whales Bailey had
described, so Sam had had to be careful not to grin when introduced. Then,
sitting side by side, though with careful space kept between them, Lords Sayre
and Cooper. Cooper, almost elderly, and just returned to Island from up-river,
sat tall, thin, and slightly bent in gray velvet and gray fur — looking, Sam
thought, like a friendly grandfather, though perhaps a grandfather very close
with money. The
last person around the table, sitting to the Queen's left, was a
moneyman, Harvey Sloan, treasurer, looking more of a tavern tough than a
book-keeper. Each
of these men had brought an officer or aide, and those — holding folios of fine paper, ink bottles,
and steel-nib pens in narrow boxes — sat in more of the uncomfortable chairs,
behind their principals and well back from the table. Margaret Mosten sat behind
Sam, and Pedro Darry tended the cloakroom by the chamber entrance — though,
since the room was near freezing, no coats or cloaks had been handed over. Harvey
Sloan had just spoken for peace — for discussions toward it, at least, with
payments of silver promised for the Khan's withdrawal. "Harvey,"
the Queen said, "the Khan Toghrul is not some nose-ringed savage down off
the ice at Map-Illinois. We won't buy him with beads or banjars or silver
pieces." "How
does it harm us, Majesty, to try? He can only say no. And if he should
say yes, we have bought a year or more to become stronger." "Harvey,
for Jesus' sake use your head for more than a fucking abacus! He would say no,
because he doesn't want us to have a year to grow stronger!" "Sloan,"
General DeVane. "Sloan, this is not a money matter." "Well,
it will swiftly become so, General! Wars are fought with money as well as
soldiers, and the financial affairs of the Kingdom remain uncertain, since I'm
not allowed a central bank — which we sorely need to regulate the currency.
Warm-times had one, I understand, and so should we! And also, land taxes have
been in arrears four years running. So, how is this war to be paid for?" The
chamberlain, Brady, called across the table, softly as he could and be heard,
"We also still have a treasury surplus — or am I mistaken?" "If
there's a time to spend," Sam said, speaking up, "it's when a knife
is at your throat." "Oh,
understood, milord." The treasurer smiled. "But perhaps in your...
realm, barter still holds a place. In Middle Kingdom, it's cold cash, silver or
gold." "And
mostly in mine, as well." Sam smiled back. "Though sheep and stock
are occasionally traded…. When our Charles Ketch posed the same question to me
that you bring to the table, Treasurer, I told him what I now tell you: Spend
the fucking money. And if more is needed later, the Emperor will provide
it." "The
Emperor?" General DeVane again. The general, slightly fat, was an
amiable-looking man, except for his eyes. They were dead black as dug
coal-rock. "Now why should Rosario e Vega send any treasure to your
people, or ours?" "Because,
General, once we win this war he will either send us gold and silver, if we
need it, or we will go down to South Map-Mexico and ask again." Both
admirals said, "Piracy!" speaking almost together, and seemed pleased
with the notion. DeVane
said nothing, only stared at Sam a moment, then nodded. Pedro had mentioned
that the DeVanes of Baton Rouge still ate talking meat at festivals…. "Well,"
Sloan said, "that may be, then. This is now." "Harvey,"
the Queen said, "shut up." As
if a voice in his head had said, "Keep Harvey Sloan," Sam determined
to do it, whenever that choice was his. A Charles Ketch, but tougher, slower to
back off where income and outgo were concerned. "Monroe..."
General Parker, uniformed in blue wool, was a strikingly handsome man, tall,
with clear blue eyes and perfectly graying hair perfectly trimmed.
"Monroe, I confess to some puzzlement why you, rather than Her Majesty,
called this meeting, for which senior officers were threatened with arrest for
non-attendance. I'm curious where you found the authority for that — and
why now you're in council on matters concerning Middle Kingdom, particularly
since no announcement has been made appointing you to command of anything." "I'll
make that announcement, General." Princess Rachel spoke quietly, and did
not look at Sam. "Lord Monroe and I have agreed on an engagement to
marriage. Also, he has my mother's warrant to pursue this war as commander,
whenever his own forces are involved." "Which,"
the Queen said, "will be in every important decision. If I thought,
Parker, this occasionally annoying young man was a fool, he would already be on
his way down-river with my foot up his ass." Sam
saw Rachel begin to smile, then stop. She said, "Are matters now clear to
you, General?" "Absolutely
clear, Highness." He turned to Sam with a slight bow. "Milord." "Generals,"
Sam said, "Admirals and Lords, Chamberlain, Master Sloan — I'm well aware
it can't be comfortable to have a stranger come up from the south and stick his
nose into what was only your business. I do it for two reasons. First, what
happens to Middle Kingdom in this war will determine what happens to North
Map-Mexico. And second, I have found no one better qualified for the work. I
am, if you'll permit me, not 'Extraordinary' in anything but battle. There,
though no Toghrul Khan, I am very competent." "And
better be." General Bailey shifted in his seat. "Joan, these damn
chairs..." "Want
a cushion?" The Queen seemed concerned. "You being so old and
frail." "I
see you have cushions...." "Peter,
I'm the Queen. Of course I have cushions. Now, do you have anything to
contribute here beyond complaints about your backside?" "What
I have to contribute, is congratulations to our young commander on the
performance of his army, since he is apparently too modest to announce it.
Word, likely from creek fishermen out of Map-El Dorado, was pigeoned from one
of Her Majesty's ships off Greenville, and received here a little more than a glass-hour
ago. It appears his man, Voss, has brought their cavalry divisions east
to join North Mexico's army near Bossier City. That force is moving north as we
speak, and will soon be within striking distance of the Khan's only lines of
supply and reinforcement." "Good
news," DeVane said, "if it's followed by more good news." "My
army will be where it's supposed to be — and without delay," Sam said.
"Losing St. Louis leaves us little time." "You
have great confidence in your people." The smaller admiral, Hopkins, had
lost the tip of his nose in some engagement. "I
have the same, Admiral, that you must have in your veteran captains. But my
army can only threaten from the south, until both the Fleet and
East-bank army are on the ice below St. Louis.... Then, as the Kipchaks face a
fresh force attacking in the north, across the river, so they will also face an
advance severing their lines of supply in the south. The Khan will have to
divide his army and fight both of us at once, unless he chooses an harassed retreat
of almost a thousand Warm-time miles to West Map-Texas... likely never to
return." "From
your lips, to Weather's wind." General Lenihan frowned. "But the
Fleet seems to me to be in question. East-bank army will move; Aiken already
has skirmishers out on the ice. But no pigeon has mentioned ships of the line
sailing up to meet him. And unless there are warships skating through those tumans
with scorpions and pitch-throwers, the East-bank army will be swamped just
as the West-bankers were." "It
will be news to the army, I'm sure," Admiral Hopkins said, "that
warships must be careened to fit with runners. This can be done by the crews,
but cannot be done properly in less than a day." "If
this had been planned... had been started earlier — " "Lenihan,"
— the larger admiral, Pearce, seemed to swell in his seat — "if the Fleet
had been advised earlier, you would have seen ships rigged earlier. We
can do only what we're told to do at the time. We hadn't expected West-bank
army to lose St. Louis!" "And
where were their reinforcements? Where was the fucking Fleet — down in
the Gulf playing grab-ass with some row-boat pirates!" "Am
I to take that as personal, Lenihan? As a personal remark?" "You
are not, Admiral!" Sam had thought the Queen would interfere, then
saw she was watching him, waiting. "There will be nothing personal
in these discussions. We have no time for it. If any officer feels offended, he
is free to come complain to me... then regret it." Silence. "Admirals,
at least sixty warships are to be ice-rigged within the next five days, or
there will be more energetic admirals commanding
them.... And general officers will keep
their mouths
shut about Fleet matters — of which they are largely ignorant — and prepare to
support Aiken's East-bank army with any and all personnel and supplies they
require." "Sir,
we do not commingle — " "I
understand, Parker, that it hasn't been the custom to transfer troops and
equipment from one bank army to the other, though it appears that General
Lenihan has been making an attempt at coordination. Still, I know that
complete separation of the bank armies has been the rule — and when we win this
war, if Middle Kingdom is more comfortable with that situation, it may be
reinstated. Now, however, it no longer holds." There
was a little stir around the table. Muttering. "I
will have any supply or maintenance officer, or officer commanding, who
withholds troops or equipment or rations from any engaged unit of either bank
army, court-martialed, convicted, and hanged.... To which end, from this
meeting onward, the generals provost-marshal in both armies are united into one
command — to be armored in red — under whichever officer is senior, to enforce
this order without hesitation.... There will be no appeals from his judgment." There
were soft scratching sounds back from the table as notes were made. "No.
Absolutely not!" DeVane shoved his chair back and stood. "I won't —
" "General,"
Sam said, speaking quietly, "I'd hate to lose you; I understand you're a fighting
officer. But the Queen and I will have obedience. Unless you sit down, sir,
you will command nothing in this war but a labor battalion." "Floating
Jesus..." DeVane hesitated, then sat down. "Thank
you, General, for yielding to necessity." "And
what... necessity, Monroe, do
you find for us?" Lords Sayre and Cooper both looked only politely
interested. "Contribution
of those goods and household fighting-men you and the other river lords can
spare, short of ruin." "Plain
speaking." Michael Cooper looked at Sam as pleasantly as an old uncle
might. "I do wonder, though — your pardon, Majesty — I do wonder whether
this apparent emergency might be being used to take our rights away, and leave
us helpless before the future's crown." "Milord,"
Sam said, "I'm sure that any ruler, except Her Majesty, would find you too
formidable to attempt any such thing." Lord
Cooper smiled. "Nicely said. But why am I not comforted?" "Why,
because you are alert to your interest, sir." "As
I am, Monroe," Sayre said. "Yes
— both alert to your interests, as all river lords will be. Which is why I have
no doubt at all that the units of East-bank army — now concentrating above
Girardeau — will receive drafts of five hundred men-at-arms from every major
estate on the river. And have no doubt also that six hundred barrels of barley
grain, six hundred crates of dug potatoes, and two hundred crates of iced
chicken-birds or fish will be delivered immediately from each estate — or proof
positive shown why that cannot be done.... The estate that withholds,
will be fined in acres forfeit to the Crown — and those acres never
returned." Silence. "
— And this, milords, not punitive, but absolutely in your families' interests,
since, should he win, the Khan will take care to destroy you and yours.
Despite, by the way, any secret assurances his... emissaries… may have made to
the contrary. Unlike Her Majesty, Toghrul will never allow the existence of any
independence." "So,"
Sayre said, "you grant us this... benefit." "Yes,
milord. And in addition — since the river lords are to be so generous — neither
the Crown nor the armies, nor the Fleet, nor the people-Ordinary, will demand
their heads for treason." "...
Such favors," Lord Cooper said. "How will we ever repay them?" "I
dread discovering that, sir," Sam said, to some amusement around
the table. "And now, gentlemen, if Her Majesty and Princess Rachel will
bear with us, we have the tedious professional questions of Warm-times' logistics
— timing, transport, and supply." A stir of staff officers and aides,
rustling paper turned to fresh pages. "Leaving aside my army, since
supplies, remounts, and reserves should already be coming behind it, how can we
get onto the river ice south of Lemay 'fustest with the mostest'?" Smiles
at that around the table. No soldier, no sailor, but knew that fine Warm-time
phrase. ...
Three hours later, a stack of written orders in various scribbles — dire and
demanding news to executive officers, supply officers, field commanders, ships'
captains, civilian sutlers, shipyard owners, and the accomplished of many
guilds — stood before the Queen. She
put her hand on top of the stack, riffled through the pages with her thumb.
"Well-enough. Not too much nonsense here." Then she stood, and
everyone stood with her. "But drive your people, drive them,
gentlemen — otherwise the Kipchaks will use this paper to wipe their
asses." The
Queen turned to go, but the Princess stood waiting until Sam came to her and
offered his arm. "...
Thank you, Rachel." "For
yielding," the Princess said, "to necessity?" And they followed
the Queen and her ax-girl out of the Room of Conference. ...
Lord Cooper walked back to the small stove, stood warming his hands as Sayre
came to join him while their people were at the table, making certain of
hand-copies. "Cold...." "Yes.
She won't have this chamber heated." "And
your opinion, Cooper?" "My
opinion... My opinion is that we have no choice but to give our men and our
goods, while giving is in fashion." "Obviously.
I meant, your opinion." "Oh.
Well, we certainly have a king in all but future's crowning. Then — unless he
dies before — it will be... bend." "We're
bending already," said Lord Sayre.
* *
*
"I'm
sick of walls." "Mother
— " "Sick
of them!" The Queen was examining short spears, two assags, peering close
at the grain of their hickory shafts, flicking their gleaming heads'
razor-edged steel to hear it ring. Martha,
on orders, was packing leather duffels with warm woolens and boots, harsh
furs... and, in a separate case, two light, nasaled pot-helms — one with gold
fluting at its crown — and two long,
heavy, chain-mail burnies, both very fine, custom-fitted, and with each of
their thousands of tiny rivets welded, not simply hammered home. "Mother..."
Princess Rachel, upset as Martha'd never seen her, reached out to touch the
Queen's hand — and had hers impatiently batted away. "Mother, listen to
me. You have men whose business is going to battles, and seeing, and reporting
back. You are needed here, not up on the ice." "Oh,
the boy-Monroe is busy enough, here. And Brady, pompous old fool." "You're
going because you want to, Mother — and no thought to the Kingdom or
anyone else!" "And
you care for the Kingdom?" "I
do, and I care for you." "And
showed it never!" "Mother,
that's not so.... You are not easy to deal with." "Then
stop dealing with me. — Martha, what the fuck are you doing over there? Get us packed." "Taking
your old knife, Majesty?" "I'm
carrying my old knife, yes. That's Trapper steel — best steel. I only
wish I could take my bow, but this draw-shoulder won't bear it anymore."
The Queen struck her shoulder with her fist, as punishment. "Mother
— " "Rachel,
if you don't stop bothering me over this, I'll lose my temper." "Then
lose your fucking temper, you selfish old bitch!" Princess Rachel's
face was flushed red. "You don't know who loves you, who cares for
you!" Martha
stopped packing and stood still. She sensed, throughout the tower chambers,
others standing still. There was silence enough for the wind to be heard very
clearly, hissing round the tower's stone. "Now..."
the Queen said. "Now, Daughter, you begin to please me — and don't spoil
it with crying. I'd better not see a single tear." "You
won't," the Princess said, though it sounded to Martha as if tears were
waiting. "Comb-honey,"
the Queen said, and set her spears aside, "you should know I loved your
father, and mourn him every day. And love you the same.... But this is no
season for a queen to hide in her tower. Our people need to see me on
the ice." "But
not fighting." "Certainly
won't, if I can help it. I don't care to make a spectacle of myself. A silly
old woman, stiff in the joints." "You
are not." Princess Rachel went to her mother like a child. The Queen
seemed startled, then opened her arms. A hand, strong and long-fingered,
scarred from battles long ago, stroked her daughter's hair. Martha
left the packing and left the room. She was certainly allowed tears, if the
Queen didn't see them.
CHAPTER 22
"May
I congratulate you, Great Lord?" General Shapilov — tall, a lean rack of
bones — knelt on thick carpet in a camp yurt fairly large, and well-warmed by a
folding stove. "After my fumbling, you plucked this St. Louis like a ripe
blueberry." Shapilov
had a habit of admitting blame at once — apparently thought that protection.
Toghrul found the habit was becoming tiresome. "I
plucked it by using my head, General, instead of wasting men and horses
fighting through these unpleasantly crowded streets and structures. Surely... surely,
Shapilov, it occurred to you that a river port would find survival
difficult if its waterfront were taken and blockaded. All that was required was
a thrust from the north down along the riverbank, then a single tuman dismounted
to hold it." "Now,
I see it, lord." "Hide
your face from me." Toghrul said it pleasantly, with no bluster, no
bullying. "I am not pleased with you." General
Shapilov fell forward and pressed his face to the blue carpet — a really fine
many-knot imperial. He said something, a muffled something. A mumbled offer of
suicide? Toghrul
sighed. "It's a notion. Perhaps another time." Were
those sobs? Certainly sounded like sobs. And perfectly, perfectly illustrative
of the difficulties in absolute rule. Here was a fairly competent senior
officer — but he could only be fairly competent, or he might become
dangerous... well, troublesome. Yuri Chimuc's grandson, the so-brilliant young
Manu Ek-Tam, would have had this dirty and unpleasant city in three days. He
would have gone to their river-front at once, like a wolf leaping. More than
competent. Too much so. Soon he would have to suffer a hero's death down in
South Map-Texas, and be wasted. General
Shapilov now lay silent, slack as if fucked — which in a way, of course, he had
been. "Get
up. And get out." A sort
of bony scurrying then, as he backed out on all fours. Surprising he hadn't
backed into the stove. Amusing, of course, but also deadly serious. To be a
khan meant that no else must be found also fit to be a khan — which left
only limited servants, limited generals, so the ruler must do every truly
important thing himself. An
odd and potentially disastrous structure, really. And, considering oddness —
though not yet disaster — what in the Blue Sky's world was happening with the
idiots of Supply? Surely it was simple enough to haul a very-important hundred
sledded wagons east through the wilds of North Map-Arkansas and up into
Map-Missouri to the army. Then what explanation for them not yet arriving?
Unlikely they'd been attacked by crows or coyotes.... Pigeons
from Chang-doctor say Ladu keeps the child safe in her belly, and is well, no
damned complications. — What did it mean when a Kipchak khan, campaigning,
found his wife's unremarkable face, her remarkable bright black eyes, in every
inked map, every diagrammed plan of attack... ?
* *
*
Margaret
had left General Lenihan's office — they dealt surprisingly well with each
other, at least on the subject of possible supply runs to the west bank, if needed
by North Map-Mexico's army. They'd dealt with each other on that subject by
Lenihan saying, "Never." and "No chance." and Margaret
saying, "Horseshit, sir." Then gone on from there. The
general, a widower, had seemed slightly bemused by a fighting officer with
breasts. It was an advantage Margaret had been happy to take advantage of. Sergeant
Mays, massive and still, stood waiting for her in the corridor.
"Princess," he said to her. Fresh
from Lenihan's ambivalence — wonderful Warm-time word — Margaret thought for an
antic instant that the sergeant was declaring affection, then followed his
glance down the hall to see Princess Rachel, an older Boxcar lady, and a large
sergeant in green armor. Margaret
went to them, managed an awkward bow — looking, she thought, a little
ridiculous with a long, sheathed rapier poking out behind her — and said,
"May I be of help?" Princess
Rachel — ordinarily pale, very composed — was flushed and restless, her hands
finding no place to be still. "I'm looking — Captain, I would like to
speak with Lord Monroe." "I
believe he's on the wall, Princess. On the west wall, perhaps below the tower
there." "Very
well. Very well." The Princess turned, hesitated — and Margaret lied and
said, "I'm going to him now. May I escort you?" "Yes,
please. Lady Claire, I won't need you." "But
Rachel, you can't — you have no cloak, for one thing." "She
has mine," Margaret said, swung off her cloak, and draped it over the
Princess's shoulders. A tall young woman —
taller than Margaret by two or three inches. "Still,"
the lady said, "you shouldn't — " "I
have — what's your name, Sergeant?" "Ralph,
ma'am." "I
have Ralph-sergeant here — and after all, Claire, I am engaged to the
Captain-General; I think I'll be safe enough with him." The
older lady made a little clucking sound. "Claire..." It
seemed to Margaret that that 'Claire' had sounded almost in the Queen's voice.
Lady Claire, apparently feeling so as well, ducked into a curtsy and left them. ...
The cold struck with ice-knives as they stepped from a stone embrasure onto the
broad, paved crest of west wall. Its massive tower rose high above them as they
went leaning into the river wind. Margaret's face and hands went quickly numb,
so she unbuttoned her jerkin and tucked her sword-hand in against her belly to
stay useful. "You
must go back." The Princess's voice was snatched from her by a whining
gust. "No cloak...." "Refreshing!"
Margaret had to almost shout, and the Princess smiled, so they might have been
friends on an adventure. They
bent to the wind, the big sergeant trudging behind them, and passed great
springals and catapults, all covered in waxed cotton canvas and squatting in
their redoubts like patient beasts. It seemed to Margaret a hard wall to take,
so massive and high above the river. Only Light Infantry, up from small boats
on a dark night, would have any chance at all. And with the garrison alerted,
might expect half those people lost, even winning, and with the rest of
west-fortifications still to seize.... Not that it couldn't be done. Not that
the Kipchaks couldn't do it, once the river froze down to Island. But the doing
would kill thousands of them. Margaret
began to think they'd come up for nothing but frozen fingers and toes, then saw
Sam standing with another man by the wall's granite crenellations a bow-shot away,
their cloaks billowing in the wind. Seeing Margaret's party, the men came to
meet them, Sam in leather and mail, the other in blued-steel breast-and-back.
Margaret saw the Boxcar was the West-bank general, Parker, tall, handsome,
coldly adamant as the wall he walked on. "Princess...."
Both men bowed. It
seemed to Margaret that Sam was doing the bowing thing better, less stiff at
it. But he was looking older. Grown older in just these last weeks. Sam
raised his voice; the freezing wind was buffeting them like the greeting of a
large, friendly dog. "The general and I were judging drift ice." "I
see." The wind had struck Princess Rachel's face white and mottled red,
drawn tears to her eyes. "The Queen... my mother has left Island!" "This
morning. Yes, I know." Sam glanced at Margaret. "Get under
cover." "I'm
fine. Not frozen yet." They were all almost shouting over the wind's moan
and whuffle. "She's
sailing north." Perhaps wind-tears in the Princess's eyes, perhaps not.
"And for no good reason! No good reason at all." "Well,
perhaps to be with her people," Sam said, "when they fight." "It's
ridiculous! It's ridiculous… she's needed here." "Rachel."
Sam put his arm around her — the first time Margaret had seen him do that.
"Rachel, I know you're afraid for her. And so am I. But she's doing what
she must." He smiled. "I won't say she isn't also enjoying
herself." "That
is what's so... stupid." "No
doubt." Sam held her a moment longer, then took his arm away. Done
perfectly, it seemed to Margaret.... The cold was making the bones in her face
ache. "
— And while we're here turning to iced cream, Rachel, I must tell you I'll be
leaving soon also. For the west bank, and inland to my army. The Khan will know
by now that something's wrong in North Map-Arkansas. He'll be bringing part of
his army down to deal with it." "You're
going...." "Yes."
A harder gust shoved at them. "You'll rule at Island for your mother,
Rachel. You'll rule as she would," — he smiled — "but perhaps with an
easier temper." "I'm...
I can't." "Tell
me, General," Sam almost shouting over the wind, "can she rule — and
the armies behind her?" "On
my honor," Parker said, handsome even with iced eyebrows. "Sergeant?" The
big sergeant seemed surprised to be asked. ".., Yes, sir!" "There,
Rachel," Sam said. "What more could you ask? And in any case, both
the Queen and I will be back very soon to embarrass you." "You
don't... embarrass me." "Very
kind.... Captain Mosten, you'll be staying with the Princess. You'll be her
right arm — do you understand?" "But
I should be with you." "Every
time, Margaret — except this time. I'll miss you, but your most important work
is here, with Rachel. If more muscle should be needed in Island, you'll have
Pedro, Noel Purse and the tower guards, and Mays, Carey, and Burke. I'll be
taking Wilkey with me.... And listen to Ansel Carey, Margaret; he has a nose
for trouble." Margaret
was going to argue, but Sam seemed too tired to argue with. "Yes,
sir." "But
what... my lord, what do I need to do?" "Rachel,
do what seems sensible to help in this war — and to maintain your power so that
you can help in this war. Do what seems sensible, do it quickly, and let
no one stand in your way." The
wind had slackened so that 'no one... stand in your way' echoed a little from
the stone. ...
Warmer at last — at least not freezing — Margaret breathed on her fingers as
the sergeant led them back down the battlement's covered steps... the narrow
stairway winding down with a wall to its left, to leave invaders unshielded as
they came. "Your
cloak," the Princess said. "
— Is where it belongs," Margaret said. "We don't need you chilled and
sick." The
Princess said nothing down another flight of steps, until they reached a
landing. "You would rather have gone with him." "It's
shocking, how little all armies care for 'rathers.' " "A
lesson for me?" "I
didn't intend that, Princess." "No,
but a lesson all the same. And since we will be together, please call me
Rachel." "Margaret,"
said Margaret.
CHAPTER 23
Dearborn
was regarded in the service as a soft captain. Was nicknamed 'Daisy' because of
it. Daisy Dearborn. But
— rowers sent south — a day and night of sleepless effort by captain, officers,
and crew to haul the skate-rigged Queen's ship Mischief up onto the
river ice, had worn away Dearborn's softness. A man he'd noticed slacking at
the forward winch, now lay manacled in the bilge, whipped, and discussing the
matter with the rats. A
day and a night of brutal labor — all in a near-blizzard of wind and
hard-driven snow. But at last this morning, with winches working block and
tackle fore and aft, and men up on the ice with grapnels (thank
Jesus-Floating for Bosun Hiram Cate), she was up and skating, sails slatting in
quartering winds as the deck-crew stowed pulleys, winch bars, and two miles of
ice-crusted cable, rope, and cord. The
cost had been the whipping, a broken arm, four various broken fingers, and a
thumb pinched off. Sprains, aches, bruises, and fingernails torn away —
uncounted. Not
for the first time — though more and more, lately — Captain Dearborn was
considering himself old for active service. And while considering it, stepping
down the narrow starboard ladder from a poop deck crowded by two big scorpions
and their stacks of massive steel-tipped javelins, he found some confirmation
in the lookout's yodel from a raven's-nest barely visible itself, high in
swirling snow. "Deck
there! Somethin off to the southwest." "Horse-riders?" "...
Sir?" "Horse-riders?" "A
sled... sir." A
sled? Dearborn and Jim Neal, his
first officer — who should have been trimming sail — both went to the starboard
rail. Peering through ice-rimed boarder netting, they saw, sliding out of
clouds of blowing snow, a sight that confirmed the Fleet's oldest tradition.
Comes always something worse. "Mother
of God," said Neal, appealing to the most ancient Great. It
was a huge sled — gilded, painted blood-red, and drawn by a blanketed six-horse
team shod with spiked iron. Furred and fur-hooded, a bulky groom rode postilion
on the left lead. And a red banner, ranked with twelve gold dots, curled and
spanked in the wind. Captain
Dearborn said, "Oh, no. Oh, no." A
trumpet spoke up from the sled as if the 'no' had been noted. Then a woman's
voice, just as loud. "Is this the fucking Ill News!" "No!
No, ma'am!" Dearborn shouted in relief. "We're Mischief...
Your Majesty?" There
was conversation down on the sled, hard to hear over the wind. Then, something
easy to hear. "We'll
board this one! You — you up there! Lower some fucking ladder or whatever. I'm
coming up!" "Oh,
my God...." Lieutenant Neal's second prayer. Apparently too little, and
too late.
* * *
At
four glass-hours after the center of the night, the river below the Bronze Gate
was black as running ground-oil, and brought a black wind with it. Sam,
with Sergeant Wilkey nimbler after him, managed from the dock-finger into a
narrow sailing boat, then past a low cabin to the bow. He found it an
advantage, in that sort of scramble, having his sword strapped down his back,
rather than tangling and tripping him…. The boat shifted, as even within a
stone harbor, ice came nudging, scraping against its hull. The
two crewmen — both River-men — loosed the lines, came aboard neatly, and
sheeted in the single sail. General
DeVane, standing beside Lenihan and two other officers high on the wharf — and
seeming even plumper, cloak-wrapped in torchlight — called out softly,
"Good hunting, milord." Already
seized by the current, the boat was swinging out into the harbor pool, rocking
a little as a crewman took the tiller. It drifted… then, caught by the wind,
its sail bellied taut, bucked into low waves and tapping ice-shards as it
carved away west, out onto the river. Island
— a dark mountain except where specks of lamplight shone through granite
casemates and arrow-slits — loomed behind them for nearly a glass-hour, till
swallowed by the night. For
glass-hours after, Sam sat at the boat's bow, enjoying freezing spray and wind
gusts. He would have been pleased by anything taking him from the Boxcars'
palace. Taking him from inescapable scheming, persuading, and threatening.
Taking him from admirals, generals, and river lords.... He rode the river's
sinuous courses, taking deep breaths of night air, no matter that it bit his
lungs and made them ache. He yearned for his army like a lover — an army, and a
home to him — and knew he would lose that simplicity, whether the coming battle
was lost or won. A
secret, of course, that Queen Joan already knew. That the Khan already knew.
"Victories," Sam said aloud, "but triumph never." "Sir?"
The sergeant barely visible by the small cabin behind him, "I
was talking to the river, Wilkey." "Sir." Behind
them... dawn's first light.
* *
*
Martha
had always thought battles, however frightening, must at least be interesting.
It was disappointing to discover that wasn't so, at least wasn't so yet. Certainly
not as interesting as Ralph-sergeant — after saying no special word to her
since he'd come — suddenly stepping from his post on the tower stairs as Martha
and the Queen were leaving, taking Martha by the arm, then hugging her as if
she'd given him leave. His armor and her mail had been pressed hard between
them when, though startled, she'd hugged him back. Then
he'd taken his helmet off, and kissed her. The
Queen, a few steps lower, had looked back and said, "Martha, for Christ's sake,"
— referring to the first Jesus —
"this is not the time for it!" Though
it had seemed to Martha the perfect time for it.... The battle
had been going on — the Queen had been assured by Captain Dearborn — for a day
and a night, as reported by little ice-boats hissing along fast as birds. But a
battle scattered over miles and miles of river ice, so only faint formations — looking, it seemed to Martha, like spilled
ground pepper on a glittering field — appeared and disappeared, and left no
trace. Except once, when the Mischief, rumbling along fast as a fast
horse could gallop, its great skates leaving plumes of ice-powder behind, sliced
its way over sheets of frozen blood and frosted slaughtered Kipchak men and
horses that crunched and thumped beneath the ship's blades as its tons sailed
over them. "Well
done!" the Queen had shouted, and danced on the narrow poop. She'd hit
Captain Dearborn on the arm with her fist. "Well fucking done!" as if
the Mischief had killed those horse-riders. The
captain had said, "So far, ma'am, matters do seem to go our way." He
appeared to be a cautious man. Too
cautious. By the next morning, the Queen had noticed. Martha
followed her up from breakfast — oat cakes and hot apple juice brought to the
captain's cabin. The main deck was ice-slippery, but the Queen, wrapped in a
lynx cloak, a slender circlet of gold at her brow, stomped over it sure-footed,
past coiled lines and awkward devices. Ship's officers bowed as she went past;
crewmen stood aside. She climbed the narrow ladder up through the poop-deck's
railing, to where the captain was standing, observing the set of the sails. "Captain...."
The frost clouding from Queen Joan's
breath seemed like smoke from a story dragon's. "Ma'am?" "Don't
you 'ma'am' me! I want to know what messages, what orders you and your yellow
dogs have been passing back and forth to those packets. Have you — have you dared
to keep me back from my soldiers? Keep this fucking boat — ship, whatever —
back from the fighting?" "I
do... I do as I'm ordered, Your Majesty." Martha thought Captain Dearborn
looked pale. The Mischief hit a low ice-reef, and he had to reach to the
rail for balance, but the Queen stood as if she were nailed to the deck. "Give
me a better answer," she said, no longer shouting, and put her hand on her
knife. "It
was felt…. Admiral Hopkins feels that Your Majesty, while viewing aspects of —
" "I'm
losing patience," the Queen said, in a very pleasant way. "He
felt... you should not be put in danger." "And
ordered so?" "Yes,
ma'am — Your Majesty. Lord Monroe had also asked special care for you." Then
the story dragon was on the poop, roaring, and a steel fang out and brandished.
Martha stepped away. The captain clutched the rail. Below,
the Mischief's main deck seemed frozen as the river, and all the men
stood as still, until slowly... slowly the Queen grew calm and quiet, took a
deep breath, and sheathed her knife. "Now
you listen to me," she said to Captain Dearborn. "You turn this
fucking boat in whatever direction is needful to get to my soldiers — and my brave
sailors — who are fighting." "Yes,
ma'am. As you command." Captain Dearborn ran down the poop's steep ladder
quickly as a boy, shouting orders as he went, so sailors raced to do this or
that, and climbed to shift the sails.... It seemed to Martha as if the ship,
that had been drowsing, now sprang awake. The Mischief leaned and leaned
with its swollen canvas, until the great port-side steering skate lifted from
the frozen river. And in a long, curving reach, the great ship took course to
the northwest, running angled to the wind. It
was the fastest that Martha had gone anywhere. And
remained the fastest into a sunny middle of the day. The Queen, leaning on the
port rail, was eating a cold sausage and one of the ship's brittle biscuits —
Martha had already finished hers — when the lookout called, "Deck
there! More dead'ns!" And a moment later: "Nothin' she can't
run over." The Mischief
skated from perfect ice, bright as snow-dusted mirrors, onto a field of the
dead... its massive blades cracking shallow sheets of frozen blood, rumbling,
jolting first over heaps of fallen fur-cloaked men, and horses — then one...
then another rank of East-bank infantry slain, their burnished green armor
beautiful in sunshine. This armor bent and broke as the ship sped over. The
Queen stared out over the rail. "My boys," she said — then turned and called, "Stop! Stop! One
moved! Captain, stop, there are wounded there still alive!" "No,
ma'am," Dearborn said. "We cannot. Those men are frozen already —
stuck hard in blood and ice. We'd be hours getting any aboard, and very few to
live." "My
boys... my boys." The Queen was weeping, tears odd down a furious face. "Del..."
she said, a name Martha didn't know. The Mischief,
which knew no regrets, no losses, sailed on over the dead and dying at
great speed, only shrugging where they'd fallen thick. Though
no officer, no sailor, said so, there was relief as the ship left that field,
and sketched its way again over ice bare of anything. The
Queen turned from the rail, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "Martha,
we'll go below, and you'll arm me." "Majesty,"
Dearborn said, "I swear not necessary!" "Then,"
the Queen said, "I will be disappointed." ...
They ran and ran into afternoon, the sails handled for the wind, and saw dead
here and there. The Queen, cloaked in her lynx, the ends of a blood-red scarf
flowing with the wind, stood on the Mischief's high poop full-armed in
mail, leather, and boots, her light steel helmet hanging by its laces down her
back. She watched near the scorpions with two assags in her hand, her long
Trapper knife at her belt. And though standing at the ship's stern, she seemed
a figurehead of war. They
heard the battle before the raven's-nest saw it. There was a sound as if
distant different songs, sung by many people, were echoing over the ice. Dearborn
called an order, and sailors climbed fast to set a triangular canvas. "Staysail,"
he said to Martha as they watched the sailors work above them, the winter sun
blazing over their shoulders. "Ship!"
the lookout called, and as they
sailed into those battle sounds — coming clearer, harsher now on a bitter wind
— a ship appeared on the ice horizon. Mischief approached fast off what
Martha had learned was starboard, and soon they could see that the ship was not
a ship any longer. Once, judging from the massive side-skates and smaller steering
blades still boomed out for a turn, it had been Mischief's size. Now it
lay burned to the ice, stuck in a lake melted by fire then frozen again, its
charred timbers and charcoaled masts absolutely black against a world so white.
Many smaller things, the size of persons, had burned with the ship. And others,
dead men and dead horses, unburned, sprinkled the ice around it. First
Officer Neal stared as they passed. "It's the Chancy." "Perhaps
not, Jim," the captain said. "I
know the ship. Steer-skates always rigged elbow off the beams...." Neal
turned away and went down the ladder to the main deck. "Has
a brother on her," Dearborn said. "... Had a brother on her.
Younger brother." Now,
as if the burned Chancy had been an introduction, they could see the
battle. It
stretched, like a great shifting black-and-gray serpent, as far as could be
seen from the Mischief's decks. More than a mile… almost two miles away,
huge rectangles of bannered infantry in East-bank's green armor formed and
reformed on the ice — nine, ten of them, and each, it seemed to Martha, made of
maybe a thousand men. These formations stood offset, some slowly turning,
wheeling ponderous as barges — but barges in a flood of horsemen that shifted
and flowed about them as if to wear their ranks away as fast water wore stone.
The distant infantry seemed coated by a sort of glittering fur, that Martha
thought must be bristling pikes — and long, swift shadows fleeted away from
them over the ice. "What
are the shadows?" Martha said. "Bolts
volleyed from their crossbows." The Queen set one of her assags against
the rail, and stretched to ease her muscles. "If you have to pee, dear, do
it now." "I
don't have to." "A
lot of Kipchaks," Dearborn said, looking out over the ice.
"Thousands." "But
not thirty thousand," said the Queen. "The fucking Khan has gone
south, and taken half his savages with him!" Martha
heard a trumpet, and saw another great ship skating, sailing fast enough to
port to draw even with the Mischief. Though far across the ice, the men
aboard her must have seen the Queen's banner at the mast-head. Tiny figures
waved from her rigging. Martha heard them cheering. "The
Ill Wind." Captain Dearborn smiled. "Old Teddy
Pelham...." The
Queen stood clear at the poop's port rail, raised an assag's gleaming head, and
waved the weapon in great sweeping strokes. The cheers came even clearer then.
And Martha saw, past that ship, another... then a third came skating to run
side by side across miles of ice. And more ships, and more distant, came sailing
up and abreast, port and starboard, until there were warships skating in a
massive line of stripe-painted hulls and hard-bellied white heights of sails,
sun-flashing skates and bright banners. Drums, drums were thundering along the
line of great ships stretching so far to the left and right that they
diminished into distant, seeming-toys, bright as jewelry. "My
darlings," the Queen said — the first time Martha'd heard that copybook
word used. "My Fleet!" Captain
Dearborn said, "Ladies, step away," and called, "Fighting
stands! .... Fighting stands!" That
cry was taken up by officers, bosuns, and rattling shaman drums — and the Mischief's
decks, which had looked to Martha busy enough before, suddenly stirred as
ground wasps stirred in summer's last week. Sailors snatched pole-arms and axes
from chain-loops at the masts, as marines, in band armor enameled half-blue,
half-green, marched to their places along the rail, or climbed rope ladders to
the fighting tops, and the huge crossbows waiting there. Sailors
came jostling up the two narrow ladders to the poop, saying, "Pardon...
pardon," as they shouldered Martha and the Queen aside, then bent to
winches and began to wind the two scorpions' giant steel bows slowly back...
and back, the machines' captains calling, "Faster — faster!" Two
men unfolded tall, hinged mantelets — stood the heavy rectangles of linden-wood
in four places to shield the scorpions' crews — then fastened them by thick
steel hooks to thicker steel rings set into Mischief's deck. "Back
from these bows!" One of the machine captains hustled Martha and the Queen
forward, past the mantelets and against the poop's railing, paying no attention
to majesty. Martha saw the Queen enjoyed it, and went where she was told,
perhaps pleased by moments of not being a queen at all. She
and Martha stood watching as the great steel arcs were drawn back to a final
solid clack, so the machines lay fully cocked — both already loaded with
five slender steel javelins, each a little longer than a man was tall. Now
the noise of battle, no longer odd and distant, sounded near, hammered from
shouts and screaming. Martha
was looking down the line of ships, racing, trailing long plumes of powdered
ice behind their runners — and saw men galloping small horses right between Mischief
and the nearest ship, the Ill News, but going in the other
direction. Twenty, perhaps thirty horsemen, galloping over the ice. "Look!"
Martha called — and the Queen and one of the sailors looked — but the riders
were gone, and no one seemed to have noticed, or shot at them. "Kipchaks,"
Martha said. "I saw them." "More
where those came from," the sailor said, and pointed forward along the
port rail. The Queen and Martha leaned out to see along the ship's side. The
ice lying a distance before the Mischief's bow was not white, but as
deep a stirring gray as storm clouds. Horsemen. The
ship jolted, then ran on, and Martha saw a great ball of blazing pitch heave up
from the Mischief's bow catapult, and rise… rise into the air. "Bow
chaser," a sailor said, and his machine's captain said, "Be silent
for orders." Martha
watched through tangles of rigging as the burning thing went. It seemed to arc
away like a rainbow, though with no color but hot fire. Then, very slowly, it
fell... and fell out of sight. Men were cheering at the Mischief's bow. The
Queen unfastened her long lynx cloak, and spun the fur away, out over the ice
as the Mischief skated. "To Floating Jesus," she said, then
loosened her long Trapper knife in its sheath, and twirled the shaft of an
assag over her fingers. "Ma'am."
Martha was breathless as if she'd been running. "Please... you should go
below." The
Queen just looked at her, and smiled. Martha
sighed, unfastened her cloak, draped it over the poop's low railing, and
reached over her right shoulder to lift her ax from its scabbard. "You're
a good girl." The Queen looked comfortable in her chain-mail. Comfortable
leaning on a spear's shaft. Her blue eyes, narrowed in the wind, seemed to
Martha a tribesman's, some warrior down from the ice-wall. Which, of course,
was really so. " — A good girl," the Queen said. "I'm... fond of
you." "And
so you should be! She's a wonder with that ax." Master Butter, his cloak's fur hood thrown back,
climbed the last ladder rungs to the poop, and bowed. "... Just your
humble postilion, Majesty — with a flatter purse after paying boatmen to follow
your galley north, and a sore ass from that damn sled horse's
back." Butter stood squatly massive in heavy mail, belting two straight
swords, one long, one short. The wind had reddened his round cheeks. "You...." The Queen turned a cold look. "You have
no business here. You were ordered — " "I
know. You said to keep away for a year, my dear." Master Butter glanced
around the poop's deck, narrowed by the great scorpions and their warding
mantelets. "But this year has proven exceptionally short, so I came to
keep you company." "Company
I don't want. Stay away as you were fucking told to stay. At least... at
least go elsewhere on the boat!" "Of
course, Majesty, as soon as possible." Master Butter went to the rail,
leaned over, and looked toward the bow. "Dearborn's going to ram
them!" "I
won't tell you again — " But the Queen said no more as Master Butter
turned, caught her and Martha in his arms — left and right — lifted them, and
drove them back behind a mantelet as a snake-hiss of arrows came. One cracked
into the mantelet's linden, humming, its bright head just peeping through. "A
sort of punctuation," Master Butter said of the arrow, and let the Queen
and Martha go as the Mischief's crew roared a cheer. The great ship
seemed to leap ahead, borne by hard-gusting wind — then crashed, shuddering,
driving up and into a low hill of impacts, horse screams and men's screams, the
multiplied faint crackle of breaking bones. Blood
jetted onto the snow along Mischief's hull as she drove on and over,
huge skate-runners slicing packed cavalry that then was knifed aside, fanning
in a fur-lumped blood-red skirt as the ship sailed through them. And
as the Mischief — so every other warship of the racing line. The
scorpions began their slow-paced slamming from the poop — noise loud enough to
hurt Martha's ears — and at each release of those mighty bows, five steel
javelins whipped whining away over the ice, to flash like magic through drifts
of mounted Kipchaks the battle-ships had shrugged aside. The
mast-head's smaller scorpions, the heavier machines along the main-deck rails,
the chasers at the bow — all hurled steel, clustered stone, or molten pitch as
the ship skated on, its massive blades brisk on bloody ice, then muffled,
crunching where they met men and horses. The
Queen shoved clear of Master Butter and went to the rail for a better view.
Kipchak arrows still came, but sighing, failing with distance. Butter
stepped to the Queen's left. Martha to her right. "Joan
— " Master Butter leaned to shield her. "Edward,
I have to see." The Queen pushed at Martha. "Girl, get behind those
things." Meaning the mantelets, apparently. "No,
ma'am," Martha said, and stayed close to keep the Queen's right side safe. A
single horseman galloped past the other way, just beneath their rail. He looked
up — showing a young face and black hair in several braids — drew a short bow,
and shot it as Master Butter reached to hold his hand in front of the Queen's throat.
But wherever that boy's arrow went, it came not to them. "Oh,
for my bow," the Queen said. Orders
were shouted amid other shouts, and the Mischief leaned, skating...
leaned more, and took a wide curving course north and easterly. The long line of
warships to port and starboard, each fluttering bright little signal flags,
leaned as she'd leaned, and raced with her into the turn. "Ah,
my Fleet, my dear ones...." The Queen turned almost a girl's face,
beaming. "Martha, do you see them?" "Yes,
ma'am," Martha said, though she winced as a crushed horse shrieked beneath
them. She'd wondered about battle, found it dull... then found it dreadful.
Now, she hated it — hated more than
anything the slaughter of horses, who never meant harm to anyone. "We're
cutting the Khan's people off from West-bank." First Officer Neal stood
just behind them; Martha hadn't noticed him come up. An arrow, or falling
tackle, had cut Neal across the forehead, and blood had run down into his left
eye. "These seem to be their right-wing regiments." He pointed out
across the ice, where drifts of gray maneuvered in bright afternoon light.
"Another pass — and they'll have to run farther east." "And
the army?" The Queen shaded her eyes to look north. "Where's Aiken —
where is he?" "West,
ma'am." Neal pointed almost behind them. "West — and from the signals we're passed, doing very
well." "Then
Lady Weather bless that man! — And we chase?" "We
chase," Neal said, and smiled. His left eye-socket was full of blood. A
wind gust suddenly thudded into the sails above them, rattled the tackle and
gear aloft so Martha was startled, and ducked a little. "And
you," the Queen said to Neal, and raised her voice to be heard above the
wind, the harsh swift sliding of the Mischief's skates, " — you've
lost your young brother on that Chancy ship?" "Yes,
ma'am." "Officer
Neal," the Queen said, and seemed to Martha to become even more a queen,
"I will see that boy is remembered... as I will see you and all your
family remembered, and favored by the Crown." Neal
bowed, and when he straightened, Martha saw tears of blood run from his eye. A
trumpet called from forward, and Neal was gone and down the ladder to the deck. "If
we can win this day," the Queen said, her breath frosting, "and
Small-Sam ruins the Khan in the south, then, dear Floating Jesus, I will
let the bishop come to Island and stay." "Don't
offer too much," Master Butter said, and the Queen laughed and hit
his shoulder with her fist. The Mischief
lifted slightly off its starboard skates, buoyed by richer wind — and
racing where distant Kipchak divisions labored to work west, passed nearly a
regiment of horsemen scattered in ragged squadrons here and there, fugitives on
the field of ice as the battle-line sailed on. The
scorpion crews practiced at those, cutting a number down as Mischief passed
them swiftly by. But still, arrows followed, coming… then falling like weary
birds to rest in deck or rigging, and sometimes in a sailor. The
ship ran quieter now, no shouts, only a single scream by someone wounded.
Orders were given quietly, in speaking voices, so Mischief, though
sailing so fast, seemed to Martha to be resting, taking long breaths of the
cold west wind that sang in its rigging. Marines,
here and there, fired their heavy crossbows out into the air — crack-twang
— to ease them from cocked tension, the bolts vanishing at an horizon of ice
beneath gray sky. "Your
Majesty," Captain Dearborn called up from the wheel, "no one injured
there?" Master
Butter glanced back at the scorpion-crews; their captains shook their heads.
"No one hurt up here!" Butter called, and Martha heard the captain
say, "Lucky." Then,
with hardly a pause, as if that 'Lucky' had called bad luck, the man high in
the raven's-nest screamed, "Lead! LEAD!" The Queen stretched
out over the rail to see, Master Butter holding one of her arms, Martha the
other, to keep her on the ship. "Water,"
the Queen said, looking forward along the hull. "A stretch of lead
water." Martha
heard Captain Dearborn shout, "Way starboard! Strike those fucking
sails!" And the ship leaned to the right... tilting farther and
farther, its main deck foaming with crewmen like a pot of soup boiled over. Men
ran like squirrels in the rigging. Others worked with knives along the belaying
rail, so lines whipped free — and heavy crosstrees, their stays sliced, fell
smashing, the great sails collapsed. Awkward
on the tilting deck, Martha leaned out beside the Queen. She could just see a
widening crack in the river's ice —
black, and spidering across the Mischief's course. The
ship ground and bucked into its steep turn, swinging hard... hard to starboard,
long clouds of powdered iced streaming away from its steering blades on the
wind. Master Butter shouted, "Get hold!" Behind them, one of the
scorpions' great bows broke its tackle and swung free to smash the right-side
rail. The Mischief
seemed to balance for a moment, like a person running the top of rough
fencing. It felt strange to Martha, as if she were balancing, she and the ship
together. Then the warship fell. Water
thundered up along the port side in a spray that fanned away and as high as the
raven's-nest, and the Mischief splintered itself along the open edge of
the ice — then struck and stopped still. All else
kept flying. The tops of the masts split loose and sailed forward. Weapons,
gear, and men sailed also... flew through the crowded air like birds, and broke
when they struck. Every
grip was lost. The Queen, Master Butter, and Martha were pitched together into
the poop's cross-deck rail — and would have been injured, but that rolled
hammocks had been packed there to shelter the helmsmen, just beneath, from
arrows. Only the fat canvas, and their mail, saved them broken bones.
CHAPTER 24
There
were a few moments of silence, except for crashes and clatter as things came to
rest. And a sort of sobbing as Mischief's great timbers twisted out of
true. "Up!"
Master Butter stood, then heaved the
women onto their feet. "My
assags..." The Queen bent to retrieve one spear from coils of fallen rough
brown rope. Martha found her ax still gripped in her hand. The
ship rested once more on the ice. But — her back broken as she'd struck the
lead, then crashed across it — she lay with her great stern tilted high in the
air, like a sleeping child's bottom, her bow fallen, collapsed. An
officer was shouting orders — Neal, not the captain — and men began to stir,
but many didn't. "The
pinnace!" "Sir....
Somebody help — " "Shut
up and die, Weather damn you!" Neal. "Hiram-bosun, rig the pinnace
out! Cut that crap away and get her out. Her Majesty — " "Oh,
Jesus! Sir, sir, Master Cate is dead!" "I'm
not leaving here," the Queen said, then called down to the ruined deck,
"I'm not leaving!" "Ma'am,"
Neal called back, "you'll do as you're damn well told!" Other
officers, petty officers, were calling orders. Martha had never heard such
cursing, not even from horse dealers or teamsters at Stoneville Fair. "Edward,"
the Queen said to Master Butter, "go down there and tell that young fool
I'm staying with them. No need to go skating away nowhere because there's been
an accident!" "My
dear," Master Butter said, "those stray Kipchaks we passed — and
butchered some, passing? I believe they'll now be coming to call. So yes, you
are leaving — and quickly." "How
bad?" First Officer Neal had
spoken quietly, well down the steep-sloping deck and through the sounds of men
at desperate work, but Martha heard him. It was the only question being asked. A
person said, "Sprung and split." "
— But she'll skate!" "No,
sir," the person said. "Wouldn' make not a mile. Fall all to
kindlin'." The
Queen — her second spear found under a fallen spar's fold of sail — stood,
seeming to listen to other than the Mischief’s voices. Then she said,
"So, no pinnace and scurrying away. —
Neal!" They
heard his "Ma'am…" as he half-climbed the main deck's rise, stepping
over wreckage his men labored on. He
came up the narrow port-side ladder, his left eye still plugged with blood.
"Ma'am?" "The
captain?" "Captain's
dead, ma'am. Skull broken when we struck." "And
no pinnace." "No,
ma'am. Launch also smashed — I knew that, soon as I stood up." "I
see.... And the chances of another ship coming?" "Oh,
another ship will come, ma'am; a lookout certainly saw us wreck." Neal
paused, stared out over the ice, one-eyed, where the Fleet had gone. "But
the line was sweeping east on the wind. Ships'll have to tack and tack again to
get back to us." "How
long?" Master Butter said. "Sir...
ma'am, I believe a glass-hour at least." "And
probably more?" "Yes,
ma'am. Probably more." Neal glanced at the scorpions' crews. "You
people get down on main deck. Your pieces won't depress at this angle to do any
good at all." "Leave
'em?" A sailor put his hand on a massive machine as if it were a family
dog. "Yes,
Freddy," Neal said, "leave 'em. All of you go on down, now." Below,
an officer called, "I said, rig out more boarding net, Carson! Are you
fucking deaf? …. Leave that. Leave it! The man's dead." "Company
coming?" Master Butter said. "...
Why yes," Neal said, "I believe so, sir. Ma'am, you'd do better
below, where the marines might hold the hatches." "Might?"
The Queen smiled at him. "No. I like it here. Now, get back to your
people, Captain Neal." Neal
bowed, then turned for the ladder to follow the scorpion crews down — looking,
it seemed to Martha, pleased as if the Mischief still sailed and was
sound under his promotion. "Captain
Neal," the Queen called after him, "I expect this ship, though
ruined, still to kill the Kingdom's enemies." "Oh,
we will do that, ma'am," Neal said, and was gone to the deck. "...
Children," the Queen said. "They're all children." She looked at
Martha and Master Butter. "And my doing, that both of you are here."
She reached a cold strong hand to Martha's cheek. "Another child…. And
you, Edward, you foolish man." "Only
an old friend, my dear — who would be no place else on earth." ...
There was no longer a raven's-nest, so it was from some lower perch a sailor
shouted. "The fuckers is comin'! Comin' west by west!" Martha
went to the back of the poop — edging past the mantelets, then between the
scorpions — to look out from the stern, now reared so high. She saw only ice
behind them at first, then darker places that seemed to move from side to side
as much as forward through late afternoon's sun-shadows. She stood watching
until, as if her watching made it so, those darker places became groups of
riders.... Soon, she could make out single horsemen among them, coming swarming
like late-summer bees. Dozens. A hundred... perhaps two hundred, skirting the
end of the water lead as they rode. Then, many more. Their right arms were
moving oddly, and Martha saw they were whipping their horses on. She heard a
war horn's mournful note. Battle
whistles shrilled down the Mischief's sloping deck. A drum rattled.
Sailors and marines — those with no bones broken in the wreck, or at least no
crippling injury — took up their battle-standings. Martha
went back to the Queen, and said, "They're coming," feeling foolish,
since of course they were coming. But
the Queen only nodded, and said, "Infuriating, the things I have left
undone..." "Not
a bad place to fight, though." Master Butter paced the poop deck.
"Considerable slope, and fairly narrow… crowded with machinery. They can't
climb to us up the hull, stuck this high in the air, so our backsides will be
safe enough. May take arrows, of course, once they have the main deck, if they
get up into the rigging..." "If
there were only one ladder coming up here..." "Yes,
dear, but there are two, and twenty feet apart. When they come up both, we
won't be able to hold them." Butter stepped out a space... backing between
the tall mantelets, the two scorpions. "Just here, I think." The
Queen walked up the tilted deck. "Yes. Wide enough," she said,
"but not too wide." It
seemed to Martha they were only interested, not frightened as she was
frightened. The
Queen said, "Shit," and the back of her left hand was bleeding.
Arrows murmured past them and snapped into timber. Two thumped into rolled hammocks,
and men shouted below. The Queen looked at her hand. "Nothing," she
said, and flicked the blood away. "Most of the fools are shooting blind up
to this deck." Hoofbeats
clattered down the ice along the ship's side. Shouts and orders along the main
deck below. Deep twanging music from crossbows, heavier crashes from the Mischief's
machinery still able to bear. "So,
our company's come." Master Butter rubbed his hands together. "Three
can stand here, though no room for more — a space, what, ten... eleven feet
across? Just over three feet for each of us to hold." He nodded.
"Mantelets forward on both sides to funnel them onto our blades, while —
let's hope — catching their shafts.... And these scorpions, beside and
behind us, each a mess of gears and cable, timbers and steel." He smiled
at Martha. "Could it be better, my student?" "Better
not to be here," Martha said. An arrow hummed high over her head. "Sensible
Martha," the Queen said. "But really, this place is so high, so good,
we might hold it a glass-hour." Martha
saw many Kipchaks out on the ice... riding, circling in like hearth smoke
swirling to an opened door. "Would
that we could," Master Butter said, and was difficult to hear over rising
noise. Shouts, and the ship's crashing war-machinery. "Martha, you will
fight at the Queen's right side; I'll be on her left. Keep two things in mind.
It's cold, and will grow colder, so consider your grip on your ax — might want
to thong the handle to your wrist. And, remember you have a dagger as
well. I don't want to see that knife sleeping in its sheath." "Yes,
sir." "Orders
for me, also, Edward?" "No,
my dear. You need no one to tell you how to fight. But knot that scarf tighter;
don't leave the ends loose for someone to seize." Men
bayed like hounds along the Mischief's slanted hull, and Martha looked
over the poop-deck rail and saw gray-furred Kipchaks in the boarder nettings
down at the bow. They'd climbed to that lowest place… were slashing at the
netting with short, curved swords. As she watched, ranks of marines turned from
the ship's rails, and their crossbow bolts — fired almost together — emptied
the nets of nearly all those men, as if with magic. But
then the nets were full again — being sliced apart by more horsemen, by many
more, climbing up shouting. It
seemed to Martha like a dream — so odd and wild and unexpected — unreal as a
dream, so she might simply fly away into the air and dream of something else. "If,"
the Queen said, "if I'm down, disarmed, and it seems I'll be taken —
" "Kill
you?" Butter smiled. "I won't do it — and Martha won't do it. So,
Queen, don't go down, don't fumble. I've understood Trappers were dire
fighters, and I expect to see a sample of it." "You
had better hope, Edward," the Queen said, knotting her scarf tight around
her throat, "with this fucking impudence of yours, you had better hope these
savages kill us." "I
rely on it, sweetheart," Master Butter said, and seemed to Martha happier
than she'd ever seen him. The
marines fired another volley — and again almost cleared the nets. Martha could
hear a ripple of smack-smack-smack as the bolts struck. It had grown
very cold; she saw her breath frosting in the air. Her hands were cold; her
left hand was shaking. She put it on her dagger's hilt and held on hard. "Soon,
now," Master Butter said. "And there'll be blood freezing on this
decking, ladies. So mind your footing; let's have no comic pratfalls." Martha'd
never heard 'pratfalls,' but she knew what he meant. The
marines fired another volley — but arrows had been killing them, and their
fewer bolts didn't sweep the netting clear. It hung in tangles along both sides
of the Mischief's bow, and Kipchaks were coming through it, howling war
cries. Someone
called an order, the marines drew short swords all together, and that same person
— it wasn't Captain Neal — called another order. Then the marines marched down
to the bow as if there was no hurry, and struck the tribesmen all together.
Martha heard the musical sounds she and Master Butter made, practicing with
steel — but this was much louder and many more, and there were screams. Sailors
shouted and went running down with axes and pikes, following the marines. The
whole forward part of the ship seemed to Martha to become like the river's
wind-waves and whirlpools, but made of fighting men, with the marines in ranks
like sand-bars in the current, flooded with furred fighters. There was terrible
noise over the ringing steel, as if animals were killing children. Martha
turned away to look at anything else, and saw herds of horses wandering out on
the ice, with only a few Kipchaks to keep them. Their riders had come to the Mischief. "Gauntlets
and helms," Master Butter said. He sounded just as he had at their
lessons. "Draw, and guard." He drew his long sword from its sheath. A
heavy sword, Martha saw — only a few inches of its top edge sharpened. The
Queen, standing between them, settled her helmet, pulled on her mail gauntlets.
"Rachel," she said, as if her daughter were with them, " — how
will you do?" Then, driving the point of one assag into the deck to rest
within reach, she spun the shaft of the other in her right hand for a
comfortable grip, and drew her Trapper knife with her left. Ready, she stood
relaxed — so at ease, it seemed to Martha she looked younger. Martha
pulled her gauntlets from her belt, let her ax hang from its thong as she
tugged them on, then fitted her helmet. She could feel her heart thumping...
thumping. "And
what are you to remember, Martha?" "My
knife, sir." "That's
right," said Master Butter. There was a change in the noise below them; it
had come closer, risen up the slanting main deck. "What
I will remember," the Queen said, "while I remember, are my
dear friends beside me." Martha
stepped forward and could see, over the poop's rail, more Kipchaks swarming,
fighting with sailors up the sloping deck. She saw no marines still standing. The
horsemen, smaller, stockier than the sailors, yelped to each other as they
came. They reached the helm's wheel, just below and out of sight from where she
stood. Martha
heard sounds that drove her back to her place beside the Queen. She drew her
dagger so as not to forget it, held it low at her left side.... It still
startled her, after such fearful waiting, when one of the Kipchaks — an older
man with a gray mustache, his round wind-burned face framed in a dark fur hood
— stepped up off the port-side ladder, and started toward them. He looked
serious, but not angry, and was holding a short, curved sword running bright
drops of blood. It
seemed to Martha that this man intended to say something — another tribesman
had come up the ladder behind him — but
the Queen stepped out in two long strides and stuck her assag's blade into the
man's belly. He looked amazed, turned as if to walk away... then seemed to melt
down to the deck. "First
blood," said the Queen — and the second Kipchak came howling. Martha
was sure Master Butter killed that one, though she didn't see it. She was sure
because she'd heard the sudden thrum of a sword-blade whipped through
air, and the man's shout stop. Then two... and a third horseman came running
from the starboard ladder and her ax met one before she even thought about it.
She stuck the other with her dagger and didn't know what happened to him,
because the third man was on her, shoving, and swinging a sword. She
was surprised he wasn't stronger than she was — and perhaps he was surprised,
too, since he guarded against the ax but forgot the dagger. Master Butter had
been right about the knife. Something
hit her left side, and Martha thought she was hurt — more Kipchaks were coming
up both ladders — but she glanced over and it was the Queen, wrestling, cutting
a man's throat. He hit Martha, trying to dodge away, and left warm stuff on her
neck and shoulder. Blood. Don't slip… don't slip! Two more men came and
ran into her, tried to knock her down, struggling to get sword-points in. Then
she used the ax — second time she'd used it. She'd lost her temper. Another man
— or one of those two, maybe, was still standing in front of her. His jaw was
hacked and hanging down so his tongue was out in squirting blood. Martha
supposed she'd done it. A very strong man edged past a mantelet, cut her hard
at her right hip, and drove her, drove her back into a scorpion. This man was
much stronger than she was. She smelled his breath, fresh as a child's, as he
grappled with her, working to get his sword's edge across her throat. Martha
crouched suddenly, so he'd think she'd fallen down — then stuck her dagger hard
as she could into his nuts, and wrenched, wrenched at the blade with all
her might to draw it up into his belly. The dagger blade was caught — then
sliced its way free and ran up into him. The
man made a terrible noise, and she was able to pull away from him. He'd been
very strong. Martha was standing against the curve of a scorpion's bow;
couldn't remember how she got there. She hacked her ax's spike into another
man's shoulder as he struck at her — used that to haul him off-balance — then
turned the ax's handle to chop its blade into his eyes, and was surprised at
how easily she'd done it. He made a mewing sound, like a kitten, and stumbled
away. Blinded, he bumped into a mantelet's edge. Someone
limped across and thrust a spear into the blind man's back, so he screamed and
fell down. Martha smelled shit, and supposed it was from him. She saw it was
the Queen who'd done it. Her beautiful helmet was off — its lacing broken — and
strands of her long hair, red and gray and red again with blood, were down past
her shoulders. Martha
looked around as if she were waking up, and saw no more horsemen coming at
them, though several — they had the oddest slanting eyes — still stood down the
narrow way, at the head of the ladders. There were six... seven men lying still
on the deck, one man sitting up, and two men crawling. The wind was making
bright red puddles stream and run along the deck. The blood crinkled, freezing
as it ran. There
were noises from below... shouts and cheering. Martha saw things thrown high in
the air from the main deck. She thought they were hats, then saw they were
heads. "So
far, so good," Master Butter said — a copybook phrase so perfect it
sounded just made up. He was leaning on his long sword's point, his short-sword
in his left hand. Three of the men lay before him, two piled across each other,
looking like killed animals with their furs rumpled and soaked with blood.
"Well enough, so far, since it seems we're only an afterthought, up
here." Martha
saw they'd all had been pushed back against the scorpions' rigs and timbers.
The Kipchaks had forced them back there, fighting. There
was stinging in Martha's left arm. She looked down and saw the mail sleeve had
been sliced open, and her forearm, too. She didn't remember that happening at
all. Blood was running dripping, and she could see a piece of polished bone
deep in there.... It looked dreadful, but only stung her as if wasps were at
it, didn't hurt as much as her hip. But that hand hung empty and white, and her
dagger was gone. "Floating
Jesus." The Queen tugged her long scarf off, bound it around
Martha's arm, and knotted it tight. The
few Kipchaks at the ladders only stood watching. It seemed to Martha they were
all — the tribesmen, too — very tired already, though only sudden time had
passed. Then,
one of the horsemen shouted something to the others, and they came running — so
the Queen had to snatch her second assag from where it stood on the deck, her
other apparently lost, stuck in some man's bones.... Everything
seemed to go slowly and strangely, so Martha felt she almost knew the name of
the next man who attacked her —
slashing, slashing — he became so closely familiar, his face almost a
friend's, though twisted with effort, fear, and rage. She guarded and struck
with her ax, missing her left arm and her dagger. Then that man went away or
was down, which was just as well, since she was feeling sick. A fever's
dream-sickness, it felt like. Tribesmen were standing by the ladders, blood on
their furs. She
heard the Queen say, "Probably better on their horses. Cree would have
chopped these people to pieces." "No
doubt." Master Butter, at the Queen's other side, sounded out of breath.
"Embarrassing… but I've been taken in the belly, dear. I thought the son
of a bitch was dead… Martha?" "Yes?"
Martha saw Master Butter was standing hunched as an old man. "My...
last lesson. Man worth killing once... is worth killing twice." "Yes,"
Martha said, "I will." She
heard Master Butter catch his breath and say, "And how do you, my
dear?" "Still
standing, Edward." The Queen sounded oddly pleased, though Martha saw she
was trembling, and had been cut hard across the side of her face. Strands of
her long hair, come down, were stiff with freezing blood. " — Still
standing, though bleeding like a pig... and my knee cut by some fucker so it
flops." She turned to look at Martha, and smiled. "Dear girl?" "I'm
with you." Martha looked down to be sure she still held her ax. "I'm
with you." Then, though feeling so sick, she footed a corpse away for room
to fight as the Kipchaks shouted and came again, now more of them pouring up
the ladderways from left and right, all steel and fur, frost trailing from
their mouths like smoke. Martha
called, "Ralph," as if her sergeant might come to her, his
armor green as spring leaves.
CHAPTER 25
"Good?...
Sufficient?" The
Khan Toghrul, lying at cushioned ease in his camp yurt by lamplight, scattered
a few more grains of feed down the front of his yellow over-robe, and watched a
small blue-and-white pigeon strut on his chest, pecking. He felt the little
steps the bird took as it fed. Apparently
sufficient feed for this bird of best luck — a pigeon to live, from now on, a
life of reward and no message flights where birds of prey might strike it down,
the Sky's winter storms freeze it in flight. A lucky bird, a bird that had brought
luck, the news of a baby boy. A boy... and an end to uneasiness in certain
Uighur and Russian chieftains. Men who, so mistakenly, thought the succession
their business. But
politics — wonderful Warm-time word — the usual political triumph didn't
occasion joy. Not the joy that had a Khan lying cooing to a pigeon, sprinkling
pinches of seed for it on his breast. A boy — Bajazet, for the old Khan — and
reported healthy as his mother was healthy. There was no pretending the wife's
life wasn't dear as the child's, or nearly. This fondness for her a weakness,
no question, and as a weakness, best admitted to. Toghrul
blew gently to ruffle the bird's feathers, and the pigeon glanced at him,
startled. "Only
fondness," the Khan said to it, cupped the pigeon gently in both hands...
then got up, crossed piled carpets to a small cage-roost, and ushered the bird
in. "Soon, once we're finished here, a silver cage for you. A silver cage,
but big, with room to fly." Toghrul
closed the roost's little wooden door. Happiness a danger in itself, a sort of
drunkenness, so that everyone seemed a friend and all seemed possible. As,
of course, it seemed impossible that an experienced commander — granted
Shapilov had not been a vital intellect — still it seemed impossible that an
experienced commander, left with his dispositions in the north carefully
ordered, and careful warnings given of the River's ice-ships, their strengths
and limitations... that the man would still prove fool enough to keep tumans
in mass formations, unwieldy, and perfect prey for those vessels. Fortunately
for him, the ass had died in his own disaster —
where, supposedly and by third-hand information come just this evening,
the Kingdom's so-rude Queen had also died. That news, as copybooks had it,
likely 'too good to be true.' So,
even the happiest of men, of fathers, was left with work to do. A catastrophe —
with truly catastrophic losses — to be balanced now by victory.... Toghrul went
to his yurt's entrance, paged heavy felt hangings aside, and stepped into
darkness and a freezing wind that made the guard-mount's torch flames flutter. "Senior
officers," he said. "Great
Lord." The officer stationed there went to only one knee in the snow — the
Guard Regiment's privilege — then rose and ran for the commanders' camp. The
other sentries stood still, eyes front. "Uncomfortable,"
Toghrul said to them. "This damp cold, here. Not like our prairie
air." And it was uncomfortably dank amid deep-snowed stands of hardwood
trees and thorn-bush thickets, on ground that always sloped away down tangled
draws. The
guards seemed to have stopped breathing, apparently frightened by being spoken
to. And, of course, they didn't answer him. Stupid creatures.... Toghrul stepped
back through the curtains, went to the near brazier to warm his hands, then
bent to warm his face. He opened his eyes to the coals' bright blazing till
they watered as though he wept. Bajazet.
A name chosen before the boy was conceived. A name both ancient and noble....
What lessons must the boy be taught ? Weapons and war, of course. And should be
given treacherous ponies, difficult horses as he grew older, so distrust became
natural to him, despite his father's love. He must be given young companions, as
well — of good blood, but none quite his equal. One boy might be stronger,
another more clever, a third luckier or more handsome. But none as strong and
clever and lucky…. The best of virtues must be his: endurance,
unswerving purpose, patience — and cruelty, of course, that tedious necessity.
He would have to be taken from his mother early — by four, perhaps by five — or
Ladu's gentleness would suit him only for defeat. So,
treacherous ponies for the boy, and difficult horses. But not dangerous.... "As
you commanded, lord." The
four trooped in, breathless, bowing. Murad Dur — and three competent
nonentities, interchangeable brutes with at least veteran notions of giving and
obeying orders. "Oh,
Lord of Grass, and now — father," Dur led the others in more bowing. "So,"
Toghrul said, foolishly pleased, "good fortune follows ill." "Still,"
Murad said, and bent his head so his face — harsh, hook-nosed, very like a
red-tailed hawk's — was shadowed by a hanging lamp. "Still… some illness
lingers." The
other three said nothing, stood dripping melting snow onto the carpets. "So?" "Sled
savages, lord." "Sleds?" "As
reported, Great Lord. Savages — though only a very few. Archers from North
Map-Texas, driving dog-sleds over deep snow, attacked a remount herd. Eight hundred
horses." "Go
on." "The
remounts were dispersed and lost, Great Khan. Herders were killed, and the Lord
Chimuk was... also killed. An arrow struck his throat." It
was surprising what a shock that was. For a moment, Toghrul couldn't catch his
breath.... Old Chimuk, killed by some Sky-cursed savage. Yuri had seemed one of
those men who couldn't be killed by any enemy. In how many battles had that old
man fought? From Siber Gate, across and down to Map-New Juneau... Map-Portland.
Years of battles. And now, an arrow through his throat in this stupid
wilderness. "Were
all the herd-guards killed?" "Most,
Great Lord." "Kill the rest of them," Toghrul said. "Their throats to be cut for
the cowards they are." "As
you order, lord." Not
caring to be stared at after such news, Toghrul turned back to the brazier and
stood holding his hands to the warmth, thinking. What was that wonderful
copybook saying? It's an ill wind that blows no good. Yes, really a
perfect old saying, since now, with his grandfather gone, there would be no
powerful person troubled by the unfortunate death of that so-brilliant young
commander Manu Ek-Tam — presently demonstrating his talent by chasing sheep in
North Map-Mexico. An
ill wind... Certainly including the
clever North Map-Mexican rabbit — that had run, jinking here and there as the
hawk went stooping — but was now revealed to be a wolf. Wolf enough, at least,
to have snarled some sense into the Kingdom's cannibals, so they'd actually
concentrated for battle in the north.... Silence
from the four commanders. It occurred to Toghrul that those silences — so
usual, so proper — might occasionally have deprived him of useful information. "Very
well." He went to his couch, sat, and settled amid cushions, booted legs
crossed, his sheathed sword across his lap. "Very well. As put so
perfectly by the ancients: 'To business.' We have a lost battle in the north —
but not a lost war. It requires only to finish the clever young Captain-General
in these hills — I think of him as younger, though apparently we're close to
the same age." Toghrul considered having his generals sit, then decided
not. "
— If this Lord Monroe is beaten quickly enough, then we have time left to march
east to the cannibals' river, and campaign north up the ice — instead of
south, down it. The result would be the same, and Shapilov's defeat only
incidental." Murad
Dur nodded, apparently understood. The other three generals — perhaps only
careful to appear stupid — stood stolid as posts. Toghrul
paused, considered reviewing good news — beside the birth of his son — pigeoned
from Caravanserai, then decided not. It might be considered weakness, an
attempt to obscure the disaster below St. Louis. Good news from Map-Los
Angeles; payments in silver now perfectly acceptable to the Empire…. Good news
from Map-Fort Stockton; herds being replaced through bitter snows. Good news,
but not good enough. "It's
an interesting problem, really." Toghrul smiled. "An interesting
problem. By day after tomorrow, Third Tuman will have joined us. And certainly
by that time, the Captain-General will have joined his army. We will have a
competent — say, very competent — commander, whose army has taken a defensive
position just south of us, in broken hills. His intention will be to hold those
draws, slopes, and wooded ridges against our tumans. Hold the slopes with his
Light Infantry, of course, the crests with his Heavy Infantry, the ridges, with
his cavalry. Short charges through deep snow, brush, and so forth, to keep us off
the heights." "Great
Lord..." "Yes,
Murad?" "Isn't
it possible that Monroe is already with his army?" "Murad...
Murad. Have your scouts reported yet that the soldiers of that army —
usually proud of silence — have begun to sing, to strike their cooking kettles,
to joke while performing sentry duties? Any such welcoming celebration?" "Ah...
of course," said Murad Dur. Toghrul
waited for any additional comment, response. The three wooden generals seemed
less worried, now, perhaps even interested…. But was it, perhaps, not the best
notion to have Manu Four-Horsetails killed? Should even dangerous talent be
allowed for its usefulness? No question, that officer would have been valuable
here, if his arrogance could have been borne..... " — So, certainly the enemy will have made those
dispositions. Object? To bleed our people in country they don't care
for, and in which it's difficult to maneuver to effect. Monroe will assume
we're much too subtle to simply go slaughtering in direct attack at his center.
He'll expect something of our steppe and prairie way — sudden sweeps, brisk
flanking, and staggered assaults into the resultant confusion. I believe he'll
expect those maneuvers — or at least as near them as this rough country
allows." Nods.
The wooden three were capable of nods, at least. Not entirely simple. "
— Since, however, I'm not inclined to do as an opponent expects, we will do the
opposite. His object is to bleed us. My solution, since flanking would find the
same country east and west, with no advantage... my solution is to bleed
— and win, bleeding. The last thing this North Mexican will expect from us is a
stupid and direct frontal assault on foot, heedless of losses." Toghrul
tried another smile. "After all, long winters in warm yurts breed
replacements soon enough." And,
by the Sky, at last one smile in return. Murad, of course. Intelligent, and not
afraid — sad to consider that these very virtues might, in time, make him
dangerous. "To
continue. We dismount the tumans, so our clever Captain-General fights, not
horse archers, but archers as woods' hunters first, then infantry in assault.
And, of course, we'll have to mount a very convincing — though necessarily
shallow — attack on... the western flank, to persuade Monroe to weaken his
center to oppose it. This false attack is to be driven home as if all the army
came behind it. Officers are to spend their men for that effect — and, if
necessary, spend themselves." Toghrul
clapped his hands. "A solution certainly not perfect, but probably
sufficient." And
no general said otherwise. At
the handclap, a guard had come through the yurt's entrance. "My lord
wishes?" "Your
lord wishes roast lamb with the Empire's golden raisins, dishes of soft cheese
and dried plums, kumiss and vodka for himself and his generals." The
guard bowed. "Oh,
and music. Is Arpad in the camp?" "His
squadron's in, lord." Murad Dur. "Then
we'll have the captain and his oud — and any decent drummer." The
guard bowed and went away. "Sit."
Toghrul gestured the generals to the carpet. "I'll draw our dispositions
in lamb gravy, while we enjoy an evening's pleasure — before tomorrow's pleasure."
And got smiles at last from all of them, properly, since they were being
honored by his presence at a meal. The
commanders sat carefully cross-legged, their boots tucked under so no dirty
sole was exposed as Toghrul joined them. They leaned a little back and away
from him as he sat opposite, since no honor was without peril. ...
A reminder that Bajazet would need to know more than how to frighten such
fools. More than knowledge of horses and archery. There must be a tutor for the
boy. But who? Would it be possible, once the North Mexicans were broken, would
it be possible to forgive an old man his treachery? And if Neckless Peter
Wilson were forgiven, and became the boy's teacher, what lessons would
be taught? An aging man's cautious consideration of every point of view, so
decisions came slowly, if at all? Bajazet — while certain to be a delight —
might not be gifted with sight so perfectly clear that argument evolved swiftly
into action.... The
commanders were sitting silent until spoken to, as was proper, eyes lowered so
as not to offend. ….
So, a tutor for Bajazet, certainly. But an old man who'd insulted his master by
refusing service? Worse, who'd taken service with an enemy. A dilemma. It was a
tremendous responsibility, raising a boy. And all the more, raising him to be
lord of everything he saw, everything his horse rode over…. The
yurt's thick entrance-curtain was paged aside, and four servants filed in. They
carried a tray of silver cups, a pitcher of warm kumiss, and polished brass
bowls of dried fruit, scented herbs, and rose-water. Toghrul could only hope
his opposites might wash hands undoubtedly dirty, before the lamb arrived.
*
* *
Sam
came ashore in bitter dark before dawn, from a freezing river already streaked
and stiffening with ice, so the boatmen, as they'd done off and on for two days
and nights, had had to batter and break thin shelves of it, sailing, then
rowing, to reach the appointed West-bank beach. Sam,
then Wilkey, despite their protests, were lifted and carried ashore like cargo
bales, the rivermen splashing, cursing, stomping crackling edge-ice. Carried,
deposited… and left. Wilkey
held a boatman's woolen smock as he started away. "Is this the fucking
place?" "An'
how would you know if it wasn'?" the boatman said, and pulled loose — but
managed a bow to Sam. "Sir, here's North Map-Arkansas, an' jus' the spot
away to your people. We didn' fail you." "I
never thought you would," Sam said, gave the man silver... then stood with
Wilkey to watch the boat pull away. 'The
fucking place' looked to be just that, as much as a fading moon, cloud-buried,
could show. A narrow, frozen bar of beach, then a steep bank with dark trees
and tangle thick along its top, all bending to the river's wind. "We'll
get off this shelf." Sam led the way up sliding sand, gripping frozen
roots and brittle vines to climb.... At the top, he got a good grip, hauled
himself up and over onto all fours — and
found six pairs of shaggy moccasins waiting. The savages, pale as the dead in
dark-gray light, were tall, thin men. Five were carrying steel-blade tomahawks,
and one, the tallest, a long-handled, stone-headed club. Sam
heard Wilkey, coming up behind him, say, "Shit," and was
considering a lunge to one side to clear .his sword, when someone laughed. "Not
the most dignified entrance, for a Captain-General! And… bride-groom?" "Ned
— you son-of-a-bitch." A perfect use of the copybook phrase. Ned
slid down from a dappled horse, and walked out into the last of moonlight to
offer Sam a hand to stand. "You're in one piece, anyway. They didn't kill
you. — Sergeant." "Sir."
Wilkey stood watching the savages. "Don't
be troubled by my Bluebird friends. I'm a favorite of theirs, for some reason
I'd rather not know." The
tallest of his friends, the man with the stone-headed club, smiled and said in
fair book-English, "Ned man, is a merry man." The Bluebird's teeth were
filed. "Very
merry, now," Ned said, smiling.
"Our song-birds, here, came from their camps last evening with wonderful
news. News, I suppose, drummed all the way down the river, from tribe to
tribe." "Wonderful?" "We
— well, the Kingdom's people — have won, Sam! A victory in the north,
fighting all day yesterday — and according to Toothy, here, right on through
the night. He says the drums say, 'A so-cold dying on the ice for the horse
riders.' " "If
it's true... if it's true." Sam felt relief rise in his throat,
painful as sickness. "Oh,
my friends here don't lie, Sam. Don't think they know how, actually. — Great
thieves, of course, steal anything not chained to a tree. Understand they like
to bake children in pits in the ground…. Reason I haven't accepted invitations
to dine." Ned went back into the brush, came out with four more horses on
lead. "Didn't know if more might be coming with you. Sure you recognize
your favorite." The
imperial charger, Difficult, night-black and looking big as a house, tried to
bite Ned's shoulder. "Behave
yourself." Sam took the halter. "So Toghrul is coming down with only
half an army, Ned — thanks to the Boxcars. Lady Weather bless Hopkins and
Aiken!" "Friends?" "Well,
a winning admiral, and a winning general — which makes them our
friends." "And
Toghrul is not 'coming,' Sam. He's here. Arrived with his first elements
yesterday. Man seems to be in a great hurry." "But
he hasn't attacked?" Sam went to Difficult's left side, tugged the stirrup
strap down, hopped in the snow to get his boot up, and swung into the saddle.
The charger sidled, began a buck, and blew noisy flatulent breaths. "What
a brute," Ned said, and was on his horse simply as taking a step. " —
No. Still settling in just north of us when I rode out to meet you. Fourth day
I've ridden up and down the bank, hoping to their Floating Jesus this was the
place meant. No real notion when you'd be coming, only word sent over from a
Kingdom ketch." "Supposed
to be a one-day sail here. Became more than two, with the ice." "Yes.
A possibility Toothy mentioned. Not much the Bluebirds don't follow on the
river. Have to — the Boxcars hunt them, now and then…. Sergeant, mount
up." ...
Then, a long morning's ride through deepening snow. They climbed slow-rising
slopes west of the river, horses bucketing through deep drifts — the white lap
of Lord Winter — as the Bluebirds paced them, drifting in and out of sight
through bare-limb trees and snow-drifted bramble, jogging along, never seeming
to tire. "Good
men," Sam said. "Yes,"
— Ned smiled, riding beside him — "but risky at dinner." "I
see that. What news from home, Ned?" "One
piece of very bad news, Sam, pigeoned up a couple of weeks ago." "Yes?" "Elvin...
The old brigadier's dead, back home. Died in his sleep of that fucking disease." "Elvin
dead…." "Yes,
sir. Jaime's still doing organizational work down there." "Mountain
Jesus." "Does
seem wrong, doesn't it, Sam? Old man was meant to die fighting." A dusting
of new snow was falling. Nothing much. It barely sifted in Sam's sight, then
vanished. "Jaime won't live long, now Elvin's gone." "I
suppose that's right," Ned said. "So there was that message, a while
ago — then, last few days, three separate gallopers come all the way up from
the Bravo — killed a couple of horses doing it." "Saying?" "First
one was from Charles: 'All going to copybook hell-in-a-handbasket. Trouble with
the provinces. Trouble with money. There isn't any money. Imperative you
return soon as possible!'... Then, the second, from Eric: 'Enemy agents
cropping up, possible rebellion planned in Sonora, paid for by the empire.
Imperative you return as soon as possible!' " "And
the third?" "Oh,
the third — and last — was from the little librarian. Four words: 'Nothing
important happening here.' " Sam
smiled, still thinking of Elvin. Remembering him throwing the dinner roll. "A
sensible old librarian," Ned said, "Neckless Peter." "Yes.
A sensible man." As
they climbed a steep slope through cold clear light — come far enough that the
river, when it could be seen those miles behind them, was only patches of
bright glitter in the rising sun — Sam heard bird calls, but calls from the
birds of the Sierra. The tall savages trotting alongside laughed,
imitated those calls perfectly… and Light Infantry — from Kearn's Company, by
their bandannas — stepped out to meet them. ...
Sam had said to the Princess, 'My farm will be the camps; my flock, soldiers.'
Saying it, of course, as a measure of loss —
which now was proved a lie, since he found himself truly happy in dark,
wooded hill-country, deep-snowed and freezing. Happy that a ferocious arid
brilliant war-lord had come south to oppose him. Happy in the warmth, the trust
of more than ten thousand soldiers, men and women who greeted him now from
regiment to regiment with stew-kettle drums and singing. They enclosed him like
a warm cloak of fur… fur with fine steel mail woven through it. 'My flock…
soldiers.' He prayed to the Lady, riding through them, for those who would die
by his decisions. ...
Most of the rest of the day was spent learning the ground — riding rounds down
deep, snowed gullies, then up their wooded, steep reverses — and in greetings,
embraces by officers and their scarred sergeants, shy as girls. Wilkey had gone
back to his company, reluctant to leave Sam guarded by only a half-dozen. From
one height, Howell pointing, Sam could see over bare treetops to the Kipchak
camp — sprawled, as his army was sprawled, across country too rough for regularity.
An imperial far-looking glass cold against his eye, he thought he made out the
Khan's yurt, bulky and bannered in a town of lesser shelters. By fire smokes,
by men's movements across white snow, by horse lines that could be seen, the
camp looked to hold perhaps twelve, perhaps fifteen thousand men. "All
Greats," Sam said, his breath frost-clouding, "bless the Boxcars and
their Queen." "Yes."
Howell took the glass. He began, by old habit, to put it to his black-patched
socket, then held it to his right eye and peered out across the hills. "Or
we'd have thirty thousand of the fuckers to fight." Sam
had been… not startled, perhaps saddened to have noticed Howell, Ned, Phil
Butler, and the others seeming older now than when he'd left them only weeks
before. He supposed that he looked older, too, the price of large matters being
dealt with. Howell
slid the glass shut into itself and handed it back. "How do you want to go
about this, Sam?" "To
begin with, let's get warmer." ...
Sitting on his locker, Sam envied Toghrul the big yurt. His canvas tent was
cramped, packed with commanders sitting on his cot or camp-stools, with their
silent second-in-commands: Carlo Petersen, Horacio Duran, Teddy Baker and
Michael Elman, standing or kneeling behind them. And all smelling of sweat,
leather, horse, and oiled steel. It was not a restful space, though warm enough
now, with crowding. "First,
I want to thank Phil, and the army, for a brilliant march up through
Map-Louisiana, Map-Arkansas." "I
had to hurry, Sam." Butler had brought only one dog on campaign;
rat-sized, brown-spotted, it peered from his parka's pocket. " — That
Boston girl was impossible. One more week, I'd have hanged her." "No,"
Howell said, "I'd have hanged her." "A
wonderful march of infantry," Sam said, "and, Howell, a perfect move
east. Not a trooper lost coming over from Map-Fort Stockton." "Luck,
Sam." "No.
Not luck. Charmian, how was the Bend border when you pulled your people
out?" "Busy."
Charmian Loomis had a rich, sweet singer's voice, sounding oddly from someone
so lean, dark, and grim. "They had a very good commander come down with
them — not Cru-san; better than Crusan. If he'd had a couple of thousand more
people, it would have been a problem." "But
as it was?" Colonel
Loomis considered. "As it was, it was… busy, but not a problem. We killed
them at night, usually. And left… oh, perhaps eleven, twelve hundred still
riding that whole territory, trampling farmers' starting-frames. Just good
practice for our people down there." "
'Good practice,' " Ned said. "You terrifying creature." Colonel
Loomis smiled at him — a rare event for her. She'd always seemed to like Ned,
so much her opposite in every way but soldiering. Sam had wondered, as had others,
if there might be a match there, someday. An odd match, to be sure. Lightness
and darkness. "This
is my first day back. Tell me about the Khan." "Sir,
his dispositions — " "I
know how his army lies, Charmian; I've seen it, seen your map. I meant… what do
your people feel about that army." "They're
careless," Charmian said. "Careless?" "Yes,
sir — as if they have no doubt they'll win. Their patrolling is alert, but not
aggressive." "Right,"
Ned said. "They don't push. Just run regular patrols, keep in touch with
our people." "And
on our flanks?" "Nothing
much. More... a little more activity at the base of our main ridge, Sam." "Just
a little more," Charmian said. "We've got high ground here, running
up to all five ridges, though the west ridge is lowest. They seem interested in
Main Ridge, and the rise to the left of it, but they're still willing to let my
people hold those slopes. No contesting." "No
contesting…. And nothing much on the flanks at all." "That's
right, Sam," Howell said. "And it's strange, because he brought those
people south like a rock slide. Came down through Map-Missouri very fast." "They
overran two of my patrols." Ned tapped the curve of his steel hook against
the tent's pole. "Killed them." "So,"
Sam said, "in a hurry, then; but now... not in such a hurry." "I'd
say," — Butler had his little dog out on his lap, was stroking it —
"I'd say he intends to move very decisively. Whatever feints he may or may
not use, he'll drive his main attack all the way. Don't think he means to toy with
us at all, no two or three days counter-marching for advantage." Howell
nodded. "I agree." "Flanking,"
Sam said, "has always been their way." "A
good reason for him not to do it," Ned said. "Good reason for him to
go for the center." "He
already lost," Butler scratching his little dog's belly, " — or his
general lost, that battle in the north. First really serious defeat for them.
Bound to take that into account, dealing with us." "Yes,"
Sam said. "So, a decisive move, not a drawn-out piecemeal battle that
might leave some of our army intact, even losing. It's a temptation to attack him
— last thing he'd expect, an attack tonight." Some
apprehension in his officers' faces. "
— But this position is so perfect for defense." Sam smiled at their
relief. "Now, if he goes for our flank, it will be a hook to our left.
Attacking to our right, he takes a chance of being caught between us and a
possible sortie by Kingdom troops from the river. So, if it's flanking, it will
be to the west." "Country
over there's not much different, Sam." Ned shook his head. "No
advantage for horsemen." "But
less chance of a disaster for him, than in a direct engagement up the
middle." "Less
chance of a decisive victory for him, too," Howell said. "I think he
intends to wipe us out, then go for the river down here and ride north into the
Kingdom. Bluebirds say it's freezing fast." "Yes,"
Sam said, " — it is. But win or lose, we won't leave him enough men
alive to do Jack Shit." "I've
read that one," Ned said. "That's a good one. 'Jack Shit.' That's
very good." "So..."
Butler put his dog back into his parka pocket, and stood. "How do you want
us?" Sam
sat silent, eyes closed, picturing the army as it lay across wooded hills and hollows.
Picturing the draws, wooded and deep in snow, stretching away north to the
Kipchak army.... For Toghrul to attack there, to come directly at him that way,
was to sacrifice his men in the hope of swift and overwhelming victory. Taking
a great, almost desperate, chance. In
'his mind's eye' — wonderful old phrase — Sam saw them coming. Dismounted, of
course. At least, he would dismount them. Thousands of short, tough men with
hard-hitting bows and curved yataghans. But not trained infantry, not
really comfortable off their horses…. And all remembering that half their tumans
now lay dead, north on the river's ice. "I
think... a flank attack to the west is more likely. He can always regain his
balance, if he's beaten trying that." "My
people stay in the center?" "Yes,
Phil, Heavy Infantry stays on the center ridges. And no reserves. Bring
everything up on the line." "I
disapprove of that." "And
very sensibly. But do as you're told." Butler
sighed, and strolled out into the snow, Duran behind him. They could hear him
shouting for a dispatch-rider to take orders. "Is there a fucking man
on a horse?!" "Speaking
of men on horses," Ned said, "where do you want the cavalry?" "I
want them — want you — to do two things at once." "Nothing
new." "I
want the Heavies high on the west ridges, ready to oppose any flanking attack
successful enough to threaten our center. I want the Lights positioned, in
company and squadron strength, as reaction forces to charge any breach that
forms elsewhere along our line — and also prepared to chase when we win. Then,
as many Kipchaks as possible are to be ridden down and killed. The Khan is to
be hunted and killed." "Toghrul
killed..." Ned breathed on his hook, polished it with his bandanna.
"Right." "Sam,"
Howell said, "who opposes his flank attack directly?" "I
do," Charmian said, and got up and left, Teddy Baker following. "I
wish she wouldn't do that," Howell said. "Damn woman always just
walks out. No fucking further planning... no coordination." "I
know," Sam said. "It's annoying." "But,
Sam — only light infantry?" "Yes." "That's...
You're sacrificing them." "Yes." "Best
we have!" Sam
sat looking at him. "Howell,"
Ned said, "it's because they're the best we have." Howell
stood, seemed to wish to pace, but found no room for it. "Still wrong, to
sacrifice Charmian like that. If her people go under, she'll go under with
them…. Hard to forgive, Sam." "Howell,"
Sam said, "these things are impossible to forgive. I thought you
understood that." "...
Alright. Alright, where do you want me?" "Highest
hill, back of Butler. Best place to command from, if something happens to
me." "And
you'll be where?" "He'll
be with Charmian, Howell." Ned stood and stretched. "Now,
let's get out of here, and leave him in peace." Sam stood
— his back feeling better, standing — and put his hands on their shoulders as
he walked them out into falling snow, Petersen and Elman trailing after.
"Listen, both of you; there is another order. Live." "That's
it?" Ned smiled. "I'd already decided to." "It
may be too much trouble." Howell reached up to rest his hand over Sam's
for a moment. Their
boots crunched in the snow. "Once the people are in place," Sam said,
"which is going to take time, with the Light Infantry completing a march
to the west — once they're in place, no fires, no noise. I'll be along to
review dispositions, make any adjustments to our lines." Ned and Howell
swung up onto their horses. " — Feed the people at least a little hot
food, as much Brunswick as Oswald-cook can send up from the field kitchens,
then give them a few hours' sleep. But they're to be in position at
least two glass-hours before dawn.... I'd come with the last of night — and so
will he." "Good
to have you back," Ned said, saluted with his bright hook, then turned his
horse and rode away, Elman spurring after him. "Sam…"
Howell held his big charger still, Petersen just mounted beside him.
"Don't do anything stupid. We've got ten thousand swords on these hills —
we don't need yours." "And
won't have it, if I have the choice." "I
hold you to that," Howell said, "on your honor." "On
my honor." Sam
walked back into his tent, past a smiling Corporal Fass, on guard — a tent, now
he was alone in it, no warmer than the evening. 'On my honor,’ he'd said.
Certainly the least of his concerns — to strike or be struck at with sharpened
steel. It would be... such a relief to have only that to consider, and not his
thousands of soldiers here, not the hundreds of thousands of men and women in
North Map-Mexico, waiting to hear whether they would live free and at peace —
or in a desperate resistance of several generations against the Kipchak tumans. And
would be such a relief, also, not to have to consider Rachel — and those
hundreds of thousands more — waiting along the river for him to win their war,
or lose it. Sam
sat on a camp-stool, spread Charmian's map on the cot, and bent in yellow
lamplight to study neat notes inked at its edges, fine lines drawn curving with
hills' slopes and rises. "Corporal." "Sir?" "If
they carry up stew, please bring me a bowl." "Yes,
sir. I can go back to the kettles and get it." "No.
But if they bring it up to the lines, I'll have some." "Yes,
sir." Sam
leaned closer, saw the pen's crosshatching of indicated forest thicken to the
west, showing awkward country… then much more awkward. And if the Khan did
flank to the right, instead, taking the chance of being trapped against the
river? The country east was a little more open… bore thinner forest. But
the snow had drifted that much deeper there — slow traveling when he'd come
that way, and by tomorrow, even more difficult. It didn't seem a likely line of
attack, with all their nice maneuvers slowed to lumbering. Also,
the east flank offered no surprise. The army, camped higher, would see the
Kipchaks coming miles away, and all the better as they came over snow, in
daylight or moonlight. Charmian's
fine map made the Khan's choice for any flanking clear. 'She'll go
under,' Howell had said. 'If her people go under, she'll go under with them.' And
so, of course, she would. How old was Charmian? Twenty-eight? No, certainly
thirty, at least. There was gray in her hair — as in all their hair. They were
all dyed a beginning gray by blunders, however rare, grim enough to stain
anything. ...
This was a time, if Margaret were here, that she'd nudge the vodka flask out of
sight. Wasted effort. There wasn't vodka enough on earth to drown this difficulty. Did
fine Warm-time Caesar, did fine Napoleon or Lee dream of leaving their tents
before battle, of walking away into the night, free of any expectations? So
their armies and their people and the future would no longer know of them at
all, leaving only a fading mystery to their puzzled, aging soldiers. Howell
had done a very good job, settled like the banner's scorpion on several rough
hills, claws and stinger poised and ready. But was there another way than
flanking to shift this ten-thousand-soldier scorpion, send it scuttling
sideways, then back... and back, until the Kipchak boot came finally down? Assault
to the front. Possible, though not Toghrul's style at all — which, as Ned had
said, argued for it. And would have made some sense if he still had a whole
army, instead of only half. Here — with, probably, neither force withholding
reserves — to lose in a frontal assault would be to lose utterly. It seemed
unlikely Toghrul would accept that gamble. Seemed unlikely…. Sam
folded Charmian's map — really fine paper, imperial stuff — stood, and tucked
it into his belt's wide pouch. To arm, or not yet? ... Not yet. He
turned down the lamp's wick, unslung his sword, and lay down on the cot with
the weapon beside him. The cot seemed more comfortable than Island's feather
bed had been. Probably spoiled for comfort, by soldiering... Sam dreamed
of Rachel, tall, dark-eyed, her father in her face. They were in her solar
tower. Sergeant Burke was there with them, sitting reading a copybook, tracing
the words with his finger, moving his lips as he read. Sam was explaining to
Rachel the difference between the Ancient American Civil War — Red-Badge of
Courage — and the wars he'd fought in North Map-Mexico. "In those
ancient battles," he said to her, "few screams were heard, because of
the noise of tremendous bangs of black powder. Cannon. Muskets. So those were
the noises heard during their battles. Very few screams, until the fighting was
over." Rachel
agreed it was probably so, but Burke said, "Sir." Sam
said, "What?" both in the dream and waking. "Sir…."
Corporal Fass. "Lady to see you, sir. Told her you were asleep." "Alright...
alright." Sam rolled off the cot, turned the lamp's wick up. "I've
brought stew," the Boston girl said, the shoulders of her blue coat dusted
with snow, " — and news. Wasn't that kind?" "Very
kind." Sam took the bowl from her. "Please… sit." Standing to
one side of the hanging lamp, he dipped a horn spoon into the steaming
Brunswick, took a sip. Patience
settled onto the cot, her scimitar across her lap, and smiled up at him. She
seemed as she always seemed, rested, lively, interested. "You don't think
I might have poisoned it?" "I
don't care," Sam said, and took another spoonful. "Poor
old Louis, in Map-McAllen, would have wanted me to poison it. Boston would have
said, 'Well done.' " "If
the Khan wins, you won't need the poison." The stew was very hot. Some
solder must have run from back of the hill, run through the dark with the yoked
buckets slopping. "If
the Khan wins," Patience thoughtful, "I do think he will fall in love
with me. He can't be used to someone as pretty and clever." "Probably
not." Sam blew on his spoonful. "You said, 'stew — and news.' " "Yes,
and you're the first to hear it. I came to you first of all. A Mailman flew
here just a little while ago; he must have hunted the camp like a night-jar to
find me — I heard him calling. A really nasty thing; I asked his name, and he
said, 'Fuck you.' Webster hates him and tried to bite, but still, he's the
first to ever bring me news " The
Brunswick had cooled enough to eat. "And that is?" "The
battle north — on the river ice?" "Yes.
Won, thank Lady Weather." "And
will you thank her that there the Queen was killed? The nasty Mailman brought
the note — news down from Baton Rouge by pigeon, then up from Map-McAllen to
here." "…
Killed?" "Yes,
killed. Her ship broke, and the Kipchaks swarmed over." ...
Then, sitting puzzled on the cot, Patience reached up to take the stew bowl
from him, and said, "Weeping.... How does that feel to do?"
CHAPTER 26
As
clouds sailed over a setting semi-moon, the regiment called Dear-to-the-Wind
filtered through trees and frozen underbrush. Stocky men in fur cloaks, felt
trousers, and felt boots, they managed fairly quietly through deep snow,
carrying strung bows. The bow-staves were short and curved as yataghan blades
were curved, both, some said, to honor that same crescent moon that rode
through Great Sky above them. ...
Lieutenant Francisco Doyle, always insubordinate, didn't hesitate to lean close
to his colonel and whisper in her ear. "Get back out of here, ma'am. Get
up the hill." It
was not a suggestion most would have cared to make to Colonel Loomis. Charmian
shrugged him away and ignored it. One of the Kipchaks, scouting, stepping
shuffling through a drift, was coming close to the evergreen overhang where she
and Doyle stood in darkness. Doyle,
really a brave young man, was considering another whisper when his colonel
strode suddenly out into the snow, her moon-shadow stretching lean and swift
beside her. She flicked her rapier's bright blade to set the startled
tribesman's half-drawn bow aside, then thrust him through the throat. The
man convulsed, dropped his bow, and clawed at the blade's razor edges, arching
back and back to get a breath for screaming. But the blade point stayed in him.
The colonel, as if dancing, accompanied him as he lurched away, still slicing
frantic fingers along the steel. Their
shadows pranced over the snow while the bowman managed a sound at last, a soft
squealing that ended as he fell, in liquid fart and stink. Arrows
— one, then another, whistled past into the woods, and Doyle saw hundreds of
Kipchaks now coming on foot through the trees downslope, kicking through the
snow in ragged ranks. Some shooting as they came, but most with yataghans out,
steel flashing in moonlight. There were no war cries, yet, or shouted orders. A
second rank of many more hundreds was emerging from the trees behind them. Colonel
Loomis, wiping her blade, paced across the hillside a little higher, with Doyle
hurrying behind, arrows flirting past them through moonlight and shadow. As
they went, a thousand of her men and women — waiting buried or half-buried in
fallen-branch rambles, in clearing drifts, on snowy slopes — stirred slightly,
so she could mark their places as she passed. At
the line's west, anchor end, more than half around the hill, Colonel Loomis
stopped and looked back across the moonlit breast of the slope. To Doyle, she
seemed — in a shifting wind that blew snow-powder swirling — a copybook witch,
so tall, angle-faced, and fierce, her long black hair sailing free… her sword's
sharp, slender yard the brightest part of her. She
stood waiting and watching, until soon the first screams were heard with the snap
of light crossbows, the harder twang of the tribesmen's weapons. Then,
like anticipated music, the clash of steel rang through the night, and Kipchak
war horns sounded their deep, bellowing notes. ...
Sam spurred Difficult up the main-ridge rise, through wet snowflakes barely
visible in the dimness before dawn. His trumpeter, Kenneth, followed, and six
horse archers, at Howell's insistence, paced along. Arrows nocked to the
strings of their odd longbows, they trotted guard in shifting order beside,
before, and behind him. To the west, the uneven voices of battle sounded,
softened by falling snow. Both
regiments of heavy cavalry were standing dismounted, each trooper by his horse,
in long ghost rows along the ridges, their armor dimly lit to gleaming here and
there by wind-blown torches. Two thousand big men — with a number of big women
— waited in silence, but for the stamping of impatient chargers. Sam
found Howell, torch-lit, beneath the scorpion banner — and stayed mounted so the people near enough
could see him. "It's
slippery, Sam." Howell looked up at him, squinting snowflakes away from
his good eye. "Falling footing." Sam
leaned from the saddle to answer. "Footing enough for down-slope charges.
If men and horses fall then, they fall into the enemy." "True." "Where's
Carlo?" "Down
the line." "He
knows to move without your order?" A
nod. "If the Kipchaks get through." "Right.
If the Light Infantry breaks on our left flank, Howell, they'll fall back up
these slopes. If that happens, if you see it's happening — " "Charge
as they clear." "No.
If Charmian's people start breaking, start backing up the ridges,
you and Carlo are to take both regiments — at the charge — down those slopes
and into the Kipchaks. That's my order, and that's what you will do." "We'd
be riding our own people down!" "Yes,
Howell, you would. You'd have to go over them to strike the Kipchaks as soon as
possible, as hard as possible, to give Phil time to pull out of the center and
march his people west." "Dear
Jesus..." "Howell,
am I right in this — or wrong?" "...
You're right." "Then
be sure Carlo also understands that order." Howell
nodded, and they both listened to the battle sounds, west. No cheering, of
course, from their people, only shouted commands, shouts of warning. The
Kipchaks were noisier fighters, calling battle cries, war horns sounding their
mournful notes.... Still, there was in that dull, shifting roar, a sort of
music to commanders, and they heard in it no advantage yet, either way. "Holding,"
Howell said. "And
probably will." Sam reached down, shook Howell's hand, and found
reassurance in that grinding grip. ...
Beside being a painful trotter, and uncertain in response, Difficult almost
always lunged out a start — did so now, only touched by the spurs, so Sam had a
moment's vision of being dumped into the snow in front of his soldiers, the
battle's loss beginning with that comic humiliation. But he found his balance,
settled the beast smartly between the ears with the butt of his quirt, and
managed to ride along ranks of cavalry... then down the far-western slopes in a
reasonable way, with Kenneth following. Three of the horse archers rode before
them, three behind. As
if they'd entered a different country deep in the draw, dawn-light darkened
almost to night again, and the battle's sound grew louder, so that screams of
dying men and women, grunts of effort for savage blows, and officers' shouted
orders all became individual under countless strokes of steel on steel. Sam
rode to angle across the hillsides, and soon, high in a rise's deep shadow, he
looked down and saw a roiling motion beneath him, as if the dark forest below
the hillsides had come alive, writhing like one of the great far-southern
serpents, coiling up and up to reach the dawn's light. The noise rose terrific
with clashing steel, shouts, the Kipchaks' yelping battle cries. Sam could hear
the tribesmen's bowstrings twang — and as if hearing made fact, one of his
flanking guards grunted and fell, white fletching at the side of his chest. Another
dismounted to him, as the four still mounted bent their longbows, shooting down
into shadow. Kipchak arrows hummed around them, and the escort's sergeant, a
man named McGee, rode to crack Difficult across the hindquarters with his
bow-stave. The charger leaped forward and bounded across the slope like a deer,
Sam only a bundle hanging on. He'd
found nothing more unusual in battle than laughter. On campaign, of course, and
even in maneuver under threat. But rarely in the heart of slaughter. Now, Sam
was treated to that sound as he saw, in dawn's light, Charmian Loomis — with
two officers, and blood down her side — leaning on the staff of a battle
pennant and laughing at him amid a flickering sleet of arrows. "Never
saw a man so eager!" she called to him. "Damn near flew down
the line!" Sam
wrestled Difficult to a skidding halt, swung down — and resisted temptation to
draw and take off the animal's head. McGee'd followed, and Sam tossed him the
charger's reins as the other bowmen rode up. "And
what are you doing on the line?" He had to shout. "You're the
fucking commander here!" "Came
down to listen to the fighting." "You
get your ass up on the ridge!" And to the officers standing by, both
crouching a little as if arrow flights were pressing them down: "Get her out
of here!" Charmian
grinned. "Listen...." An arrow passed almost between them, a slight
disturbance in the air. "Your
wound — " "I've
had worse." Still smiling, a happy woman in battle. "Listen, something's
wrong with the fighting here." Supporting herself a little on her rapier's
springing blade, she turned, slightly stiffly, to look back down the slope. The
light was good enough, now, for Sam to see clearly the tide of Kipchaks coming
against the supple, almost silent formations of Light Infantry all along this hillside
and another beyond it. The dismounted tribesmen attacking in a surf of
slaughter... then slowly, slowly easing back down the slopes to gather and come
again. Between
these advances and withdrawals, men and women fought stranded on the snow in
sudden knots, wrestling at knife-point, slashing with swords and yataghans. But
Sam saw it was the short Kipchak bows that were hurting his people most. The
Light Infantry crossbowmen were overmatched. "See?"
Charmian pointed with her rapier's blade. "We need to keep close!"
As if to prove it, an arrow came whisking past her throat, touched her long
hair like a lover fleeting past. "And we can keep close, and hold
them. They hit us and hit us hard — " "But
they're not pushing your people back." "Right.
There's no weight to this attack." A
surprising smacking sound, and the younger officer — Sam hadn't known his name
— pitched down into the snow with an arrow in the side of his neck, just
beneath his helmet's edge. The officer grunted, kicked at the snow, and died. "Oh…
Bobby." Charmian bent to stroke the dead man's back, then straightened.
"They're coming at us as if they meant it — " "
— But with no army coming behind them." Now, listening, Sam could hear a
fragility in the Kipchaks' shouts and war cries, their lowing battle horns. Two
thousand men, perhaps more, attacking along the slopes. But not with ten
thousand coming behind them…. Mistake… mistake. I've made a very bad
mistake. He
turned and shouted to his trumpeter. "Kenneth! Ride to the center!
Tell Phil Butler they're coming at him after all! — And he's to refuse! Refuse and fall back
slowly, in order!" "Comin'
at him... to refuse an' fall back slow, in order." "Ride!
Ride!" As
the trumpeter spurred away, Sam pointed at the bowman sergeant. "McGee —
to General Voss and Colonel Flores! The Khan's main attack is to the
center! They're to withdraw cavalry formations as his people come in — we'll
let them push us back. Light
Infantry will then attack his right flank from here. All cavalry — all cavalry
to move east now, into position to attack his left flank as it
exposes!" "Voss
an' Flores." The sergeant already reining his horse away. "Comin' at
the center — we're lettin' 'em push in so their flanks get bare — then Lights
hit his right, Cav goes east, gets set to hit his left!" And he was off,
his horse spurning snow across the slope. As
the man rode, Sam gripped Charmian by an arm he hoped unwounded, and tugged her
up-hill. "Come on — come on! Get out of this! And put your fucking helmet
on!" "I
can't see with the thing." She looked back, called down-slope, "Manuel!...
To your left!" Sam
thought he saw an officer there look up. "Shit!"
Charmian yanked her arm free and was off, limping awkwardly down the hillside as
twenty or thirty Kipchaks hacked their way up into the Infantry's line — then
broke it. "Charmian...!"
She was gone and at them. Sam drew and ran down after her… heard his bowmen
yelling, "No!" He saw more Lights coming along the slope to
reinforce as he galloped down the hill, snow flying. Charmian
had gone for the nearest, a big Kipchak in black furs. Sam saw the man's face,
a mask of rage and effort as he struck at her. Then
it was not fighting, but killing. Charmian
caught his curved blade coming across — picked it out of the air with her
rapier's tip, guided it sliding to the right, and thrust the long, slim blade
of her left-hand dagger into his belly. Two
more stomped up through the snow at her, and Sam yelled, "On the
left!" ducked low and swung a two-handed cut across the first man's leg.
He felt the sword's grip kick as the blade hacked through boot-top and bone —
then yanked the steel free to spin the other way and thrust, one-handed, into
the second man's armpit as he raised his yataghan to strike. The
crippled one slashed at Sam from the snow and caught him lightly at the thigh —
a touch below his hauberk — with the so-familiar icy stroke of steel, then
burning. Sam
drove his point into that man's mouth — felt his blade break teeth, then slide through
delicate stuff in a spurt of blood to split the spine. Joy
came to him as he freed his blade, joy at the wonderful simplicity of action,
and he and Charmian, on guard for any others, shared an instant's glance of
pleasure. Then
his mounted bowmen, and a storm of Light Infantry from above, struck the two of
them and the advancing Kipchaks together, knocking Charmian down and sending
Sam sprawling. Furious officers and men stood over them — "Stupid… stupid fuckers!" — picked them up,
and listening to no orders, showing no respect for rank, hauled them up the
hill. Loosed
near the ridge, his sword wiped and sheathed, Sam looked back and saw the
Kipchaks once more in shallow retreat... then gathering to charge up the slope
again. The base of the hill was thick with their formations — by squadrons, as
if they were mounted. The dead and dying lay scattered across the snowy slope,
streaks and pools of bright red gleaming under the rising sun. The hillside
breeze brought the coppery smell of spilled blood, the stink of the dyings'
shit.... There were great concentrations of tribesmen, and driving activity
along the base of the hills. But no massive movement coming on through the
forest beyond. No trembling of tangled foliage, no glimpses of columns followed
by more columns marching toward them through the snow. "Busy,"
Charmian said, catching her breath beside him. She staggered a step.
"Busy..." "Now,
you stay the fuck out of that line!" "Yes,
sir." Sam
glanced down, saw where his leather trousers were slit a few inches at his
right thigh, and felt a little blood sliding warm to his knee. "Sir,"
a bowman said, "you're hurt." Sam
waved him to silence as flights of arrows whistled up the slopes, and the
Kipchaks shouted and came again, charging higher… higher on the hillsides,
their battle lines extending half a Warm-time mile. "Charmian,
can you hold them?" He had to lean close, almost shout in her ear; the
noise was terrific. "Yes,
I can hold them — unless we're wrong, and they're strongly reinforced." "They
won't be. I've made my mistake for the day." "I
can hold them. And if they bleed a little more, and I commit every man
and woman — and the wounded still walking — I can drive them!" "Not
yet." Sam ducked — thought an arrow had come near him. "Not yet. Wait
for a galloper with the word. We need him to come deep into the center, uncover
both his flanks while he thinks we're breaking." "Understood."
Charmian turned to yell across the slope. "Catherine! What the fuck
are you waiting for? Crossbows front, for Christ's sake!" The last,
a phrase once forbidden. "Stupid bitch," Charmian muttered, standing
bent a little to the right to favor her wounded side, " — looking around
with her thumb up her ass! Made her a fucking captain and I can damn well
unmake her. I could have used Margaret here…." She
turned back. "Sam — I know what you want. Now please go away; I don't have
time for you." She limped off over the snow, calling, "Where is
Second Battalion? We're replacing in echelon here. We're supposed to be
replacing in echelon along the fucking line! Where are they?" "Can
I help you, sir?" The bowman had brought Difficult to mount. "No."
Though Sam wished he had the help, struggling aboard the beast. His leg held
the stinging tingle of injury... and the fucking horse kept sidling away.
"Will you hold this animal still?" A Kipchak arrow moaned
past. They were fighting higher on the slope, now. Sam could hear the sword
blows, like camp-axes chopping soft wood. But screams followed these.
*
* *
He heard
trumpets as he rode fast, east along the ridges, four bowmen riding behind him.
He saw, in morning sunlight, the armored columns of Heavy Cavalry, the spaced
squadrons of Lights, already slowly shifting along the heights, beginning to
shake out into line of march, their banners leading east. "Thank
you, Howell, for getting them moving." "Sir?"
A bowman spurred up alongside. "Nothing...."
As if a deck of pasteboard playing cards — but these for fortune-telling —
cascaded in his mind, Sam saw on each, as it flashed by, a different problem,
or an opportunity already lost to him. Great or small, it made no difference as
they dealt.... Lieutenant Gerald Kyle carried vodka with him, and lied about it
— what now, to keep him from misjudging and killing his company? Man should
have been replaced.... Thousands of crossbow bolts needed to be greased for
this wet winter weather. Had that been done? Company officers' responsibility.
Had it been done?... Fodder clean? No mold or mildew to sicken the
horses. Might have spoken to Ned, might have checked to be sure.... When the
cavalry swung in to flank the Kipchaks to the east, had it been made clear they
were to hook in — hook in after, to hold the tribesmen while the infantry
marched back from their false retreat to finish them? Fucking cavalry always
galloping off into nowhere, and full of excuses afterward. Had that hooking-in
been made clear? Difficult
— not so bad a horse. Stupid, stubborn, but strong for this kind of uneven
going. Steep going…. And for Weather's sake, promote Jack Parilla! Poor man a
captain for years — always a hard fighter, always took care of his men. No
fool, and ready for more rank. Overlooked, a good man overlooked, and no
complaint about it, either…. Sonora — what was it about those people? Where the
fuck did they think those taxes went? Having to build that
son-of-a-bitch Stewart a bridge! ... Should have at least shown Rachel how much
he liked her, that he thought her an interesting woman. And good-looking,
really. Should have told her that…. Some
of the cavalry saw Sam riding by, shouted and raised their lances in salute. As
he passed a second column of Heavies, three horsemen broke through their
formation and came galloping after him. One carried the army's banner on a
stirrup-staff — the great black scorpion on a field of gold — cloth rippling in
the wind of his riding so the creature seemed to crawl and threaten. All three
were coming fast through a light snowfall. "Sir!
Sir!" One of them was a captain Sam knew. Collins — Roberto Collins. "Sir," — Collins
rode up beside him — "General Voss's compliments." The captain a
little breathless. "He says you are to keep the fucking banner with you,
sir! So people can find you, sir! And you are to have me and Lieutenant Miranda
with you. Also additional escort, sir!" From
the captain's mouth, to fact. As they rode up a rough draw to the Middle Ridge,
the horses slowing with the climb, a half-dozen more mounted bowmen — Sam saw
Sergeant McGee leading them — came riding to join. So, it was with a thundering
tail of twelve men and one woman, the large Lieutenant Miranda, that Sam kicked
Difficult through a last deep drift to lunge out along the iron ranks of
Butler's Heavy Infantry. As
they heard Sam's party coming, every second man of the nearest company's rear
file had reverse-stepped together, lowering fourteen-foot pikes. "Platoon,
put... up!" The pikes rose all together. The men stepped back into
ranks. "Phil
— or Horatio!" Sam called to their officer. "General's
down-slope, sir! One rise over!" Sam
was reining Difficult in when the charger suddenly shied away, sidestepping
through frozen crust. Sam steadied him, looked for the cause, and saw something
high in the filtered sunlight... a shadow coming down with the snow. Someone
behind him called out. Sam
blinked snowflakes away, and the Boston girl sailed down and down to him out of
sunlight and snow flurry, her open dark-blue coat spread like wings. "Over
there!" She pointed north with her drawn scimitar, struck the snow,
stumbled, and went to a knee. "Short walkings...." She got to her
feet. "They make me weary." Sam
saw blood on her blade. "The
savages shot arrows at me!" Her pale, perfect face twisted in fury, and
she stomped a little circle in the snow. Sam was reminded, for a moment, of the
Queen's raging at Island.... Patience flourished her sword; little crimson
drops flew from its curved edge. "I took one's hand — then backstroked to
his throat!" "Be
quiet," Sam said. "Now, take a breath... and tell me what you
saw." "Oh,
those fools are coming." "Here
— here, to our center?" "Yes."
Patience nodded. "I saw them in the forest. All of them — well, almost
all. I think there are a few over there," — the scimitar swung west. "And even fewer
over there," — her blade flashed toward the river. "Sir...."
Horacio Duran, shoving the escorts' mounts aside. "Colonel." Duran,
blocky as a tree stump in dull steel-strap armor, came to Sam's stirrup with
his helmet under his arm. "General's received your orders, sir. Resist as
we retire — not making it too easy for them." "Right,
Colonel, and have your rear ranks guide." "We'll
keep in formation, sir." Duran smiled, though he had a face unfitted for
it. " — But with occasional cries of panic and despair." Sam
leaned down to thump Duran's armored shoulder with his fist. "Perfect.
They'll be coming soon." "Coming
now, sir. We've seen birds and deer clearing out of those woods." "Good,"
Sam said. "I'll want some
daylight left, to finish them." At which vainglory, he was slightly
saddened to see Lieutenant-Colonel Duran smile again… hear pleased murmurs from
his escort. Birds
were flying almost over them — a doom of crows, cawing. Sam supposed it would
be crows, in these hills — not ravens — who would come to take the eyes of the
dead. He saluted
Duran — it had become, after all, the army's habit — was briskly saluted in
return, and reined Difficult around. It was time for the Captain-General to get
out of his soldiers' way. "Wait!
Take me up!" Patience sheathed her scimitar and came floundering through
the snow. "I'm tired of walking." Meaning, apparently, traveling in
the air. Sam
reined in, seeing himself parading before his troops with this odd creature
riding pillion behind him. Then Patience, with a boost from Duran, was on the
charger's rump and settled. Seemed almost no shift of weight at all... and as
he kicked Difficult through falling snow along the ridge, no odor either. No
lady's perfume, no woman's warm scent. He might have had a doll behind him, or
a child's snow-person. Patience
gripped his waist, leaned her head against his cloaked and chain-mailed back.
"I have a headache," she said, as they went bounding. Difficult's
only virtue, strength. As
they rode, the banner-bearer and escort spurring after, a sound like distant
storm-wind, like a change in Lady Weather's wishes, seemed to come rising the
long wooded slopes behind them. Barely heard… then slowly, slowly heard more
clearly... until, in a rolling thunderclap — with flights of winter birds
across the sky — the storm became the voice of an attacking army, its war horns
a chorus, as if wild bulls bellowed from the woods. "Oh-oh."
A child's exclamation in almost a
child's soprano, and Sam felt Patience turning back to look — though nothing
would be seen but the backs of serried ranks of Phil Butler's two thousand
pikemen and crossbowmen, draped like a segmented steel-link chain across the
ridges and hollows…. Sam closed his eyes as he rode, seeing them standing ready
to receive, as ten thousand Kipchaks came boiling out of the forest, surging up
the slopes in tides of steel and arrows. Difficult
tripped on a branch in the snow, and Sam hauled him up on the reins. Along the
ridge-line, the snow grew thinner, and he urged the charger to a gallop, heard
his escort coming up behind. Troops were cheering as he passed — squadrons of
Light Cavalry riding east. He saw a pennon through falling snow. Second
Regiment, Elman's people. Good officer, but mad for fighting, and perhaps not
the best second-in-command for Ned. Two madmen.... There
was a sound like a great steel door slamming. The falling snow seemed to swirl
with the impact of it. The center was being hit with everything that Toghrul
had. Thank God — that oldest thanks of
all — thank God for Chairman's sharp ears and battle sense, her call to him to listen.
It had given him just time enough. May have given him just time
enough.... The
smash and roar of engagement sounding behind him, Sam rode along Main Ridge to
be certain all the cavalry had shifted east. So difficult, to leave commanders
alone in a battle, to depend on them to do what had to be done. It was hard to
see how the Khan managed without a Howell Voss, a Ned Flores. Without a Phil
Butler, a Charmian, and all their officers. Toghrul must be an extraordinary
man to depend, really, only on himself. Must be lonely.... Sam
reined up, reached behind him to give Patience an arm to dismount. "Now,
go down that south slope. Stay with Portia-doctor and her people." "I
will," Patience said, "but only to rest to go back again. They shot
arrows at me!" And she trudged off into the snow. "Comin'
up!" One of the mounted bowmen. An
officer galloping, chasing the banner... then drew up in a spray of snow, and
saluted. A lieutenant, very young — what was his name? Carlton… Carter? Boy was
crying, or snow was melting down his face. "Sir
— Colonel Duran regrets to report..." Tears, they were tears.
"General Butler has been killed, sir. At the very first engagement. An
arrow struck him." Carter.
Boy's name was Carter. "... Thank the colonel for his report, Lieutenant.
He assumes command, of course — and is to retreat his regiments as previously
ordered." "Sir." "
— The dog," Sam said. "His little dog." "We
have the dog safe, sir." A weeping lieutenant — nothing new in war. Sam
saluted, and the boy turned his horse and was gone north, back to the center of
the line, where companies, battalions, regiments of Heavy Infantry stood
killing with long needle-pointed pikes, killing with hissing crossbow volleys —
as ten thousand grim shepherds with slanting eyes came swarming up the
hillsides. Phil
Butler would be out of all that, lying safe behind the ranks in a warm woolen
army blanket, his imperial spectacles folded and tucked into his parka
pocket.... Horacio Duran would now be wearing the yoke of responsibility. He'd
be here and there and everywhere, shouting orders, watching for the time to
begin to back away. Then more orders, and galloping back and forth to keep the
formations steady as the Kipchaks yelped their battle cries and came on,
certain they were winning. Sam
spurred Difficult south, imagining Phil had only been wounded, and Carter had
said, 'Injured, sir. Seems not too serious.' If Carter had only said that, then
Phil would be alive, fondly cursing his soldiers as they hustled him to the rear.
Odd that a single arrow could carry a friend so suddenly away, that there was
no time for goodbye…. Unfair. Unfair. Sam
saw Heavy Cavalry where there should have been none. Saw two troops… three,
through the light snowfall. Three troops standing in a defile. Standing! He
spurred that way, down a steep dip, then rode up the column with his people
behind him — took an officer by the cloak and hauled him half out of his
saddle. "What are you people doing?" Startled
face behind a helmet's basket visor. "Cover reserve, sir! In case of
retreat." Sam
shook him hard. "There is no fucking reserve held today, you
jackass! No retreat! We lose, they'll follow and kill us all!" "Orders,
sir!" Fool almost shouting, as if Sam were deaf. " — Orders." "Whose
orders?" Shake, shake. The man's
cloak tore a little. Lieutenant
Miranda, very large, had heeled her horse alongside. Her saber was drawn. "Major
d'Angelo's orders." Major
d'Angelo... decent officer. "The major was mistaken. Orders are no reserves.
Everyone to the line!" Nods
from Torn-cloak. "Now,
you get your ass and these troopers east at a fucking gallop! You understand
me? Join General Voss's people to attack on that flank." More
nods. Sam shoved the man upright in his saddle. " — Move!" Sam
stayed to watch them go — go galloping, as Lieutenant Miranda sheathed her
saber, backed her big horse…. Three troops of Heavy Cavalry almost lost to the
attack. Have to speak to d'Angelo. A little less attention to the usual ways of
doing things; a little more attention to fucking immediate orders! "Who
was that officer?" A question asked of the snowy air. "Captain
Hooper, sir," said Captain Collins, behind him. " — Good man."
Which recommendation, in the face of his commander's anger, also recommended
Roberto Collins. Sam
felt tired as if he'd stayed with the Lights to the west, been fighting all
this time.... He turned Difficult's head, kicked him back up onto the ridge,
and looked for a place to stand on the hilltop. Now, unless disaster came, he
would be only a watcher, avoiding the dangerous confusions of casual
interference. Separate from his soldiers as if he were sleeping far south in
Better-Weather, or eating roast pork at the high tables in Island's hall. Now,
he would be a ghost of war, all a commander's directions given. As the Boston
girl had done, he could only hover over, his sword blooded once, and watch
below him for a battle won. A battlefield ghost, perhaps to be joined by Phil
Butler, and many more. It
seemed to Sam he already heard a different music sung from the northern slopes,
the higher-pitched chorus of fighting men seeing a triumph before them. Duran
would be beginning to coax his men back... back. But slowly, Horacio, and in formation
for the love of Mountain Jesus. Sam
found a sensible place, high enough to see all the center below and before him,
and at least some of the distant hillsides left and right. Difficult seemed
pleased to be rested from snow-galloping. He and the other horses stood blowing
and farting. Comical beasts, really…. "McGee." "Sir?"
The sergeant kicked his mount alongside. "Sergeant,
take your bowmen off to the east. Join Colonel Flores, or any Light squadron
you come to, and go in with them. They'll be moving now, need every archer they
can get." A
sudden roar from the northern slopes, as if snow-tigers had come to fight. Sam
saw the first ranks of Heavy Infantry retreating... falling back toward him,
some men running this way, over the first ridge. "Runnin'!"
McGee said. But
as they watched, the scatter of running men slowed as retreating formations
overtook them. They stepped back into ranks, waited... and broke to run again,
making another show of flight. "That's
okay," said Sergeant McGee. "Sergeant
— take your people and move off." "Musn'
leave you, sir." Then, more definitely: "Won't do it." "Yes,
you will, Jim." How had he remembered this man's first name? After
a silent moment, the sergeant said, "Shit...." Then turned and
called, "We're goin' east. So kick it!" As
the bowmen rode away, Captain Collins drew his saber and came up on Sam's left
side, Lieutenant Miranda did the same on his right. The three of them — with
the banner-bearer stoic behind — sat their horses and watched the Heavy
Infantry of North Map-Mexico, never before defeated, slowly driven crumbling
back along the ridgelines, seeming just short of desperate flight. Sitting
his horse in safety, Sam closed his eyes, imagining every sword slash, every
hissing arrow come by merciful magic to strike him instead of a soldier. So
that he, who commanded suffering, received it. Lieutenant
Miranda murmured beside him, and he opened his eyes to see the Kipchak
horse-tails rising on the ridge, hear the war horns' dark music triumphant. "Come
on... come on." Sam felt the oddest flash of sympathy, of sadness
for Toghrul, as if he were a friend. The Khan's looming defeat would have been
a victory instead, if Sam had held to his blunder only a little longer. Now,
the tumans lunging deeper into disaster, the Heavy Infantry stepping
back and back to draw them in, Toghrul — like Sam, a young man chained to
authority — would likely end the day destroyed.
*
* *
It
was remarkably like riding up a shallow river in rapids, though these currents
were tumultuous with gray fur, drawn bows, and steel. Mounted, of course, with
only his hundred of the Guard mounted with him, Toghrul spurred Lively on in
the midst of the tumans' assault. An
oddity, this attack on foot, but an oddity that was succeeding. They had
already struck the first of North Mexico's lines of heavy infantry, and despite
desperate — if fairly ineffective — resistance, were driving them back up their
slopes to destruction…. Future use of infantry was perhaps something to be
considered, with the forests, hills, all the broken country to be encountered
east of Kingdom's river, should the New Englanders continue arrogant.
Infantry... A
roar of cheering up ahead. Through fading snowfall, Toghrul saw the horse-tails
of First and Third Tumans on the ridge. He and his Guards rode among the second
— which began to run. More than five thousand men racing, flooding up
snow-drifted slopes to join the thousands driving into the enemy's center. Toghrul
spurred on, his Guardsmen swinging whips to win a way through rushing ranks of
soldiers, the nagaikas' cracking lashes heard even over war cries, over
the sounds of battle as the North Mexican infantry fell back into the hills in
retreat. Once
on the heights, the tumans would divide, strike east and west along the
ridge-lines to complete the victory. Then, Shapilov's foolish loss in the north
forgotten, the subjugation of Middle Kingdom would become inevitable. His
center destroyed — in only Warm-time minutes, now — Monroe would, of course, dream of flanking
movements. But dream too late... too late to reposition troops, to reorganize
his army. There would be no time for it. There
was a sound to the east…. Toghrul rose in his stirrups to hear better over the
noise of the advance. Something there at the left flank — from the left
flank. There
was... something. A trembling in the air. A sound from the eastern slopes as if
a great barrel of stones were rolling…. Cavalry. Toghrul
shouted, "Cavalry!" Sul Niluk, at the head of the escort,
heard him as other Guardsmen heard him — and all turned to stare east. Out
of a fading curtain of falling snow, blowing, drifting with the wind… movement.
Shifting movement on the hillsides' snow-draped brush and bramble. Gray gleams
of steel, and the rumbling noise louder and louder. Then
a grand choir of trumpets — and horsemen, banners, a host of three... four
thousand riding in an armored tide a half-mile wide across the slopes,
thundering down on tumans dismounted. The men scrambling — so slow on foot —
crowding, surging away to avoid that avalanche of cavalry, its trumpets blaring
like the cries of monstrous beasts. Then
bugles answering from the west. Toghrul looked to the right, saw nothing yet,
but heard the bugles. That would be their Light Infantry coining, of course.
And commanded by a woman, of all absurdities. There...
there. The first formations coming at the ran to swing the western gate
shut upon him... some sunshine coming with them, shining on their steel. His
Guardsmen were shouting... the dismounted men, thousands of them, also slowing
their advance on the hillsides, calling, crying out as they saw death come
riding from the east... running from the west. "Rally!"
Toghrul howled it, and hurt his throat. "Rally and fall back!" Hopeless...
hopeless. Monroe
had dreamed of flanking after all, and dreamed in time. His Heavy Infantry's
so-convincing retreat would now end as a blocking wall of pikes and crossbows
at the last high ridge, to hold the dismounted Kipchak army as it was flanked,
slaughtered, then hunted as those still alive fled north.... Really fine
generalship. An interesting man. Toghrul's
Guardsmen had reined to face the cavalry attack, to hold it for the instants he
would need to gallop free. Everything was perfectly clear, went very slowly,
could be seen in each detail. Sound, though, seemed muffled, so that trumpet
calls, men's screams, and the rumbling shock of hoofbeats were like distant
music. He saw the pennants' colors perfectly... noticed an officer in the first
rank of those horsemen, brown uniform, black cloak streaming as he rode, a
shining steel hook for a hand. Toghrul
reined Lively around, blessing the animal, and spurred away as his escort of
one hundred wheeled to guard. His standard-bearer had turned to stay with him —
but reined his horse left, rather than right, so Lively lunged shouldering into
it. Caught off-balance, the man's horse stumbled in the rush and went down as
if it had taken an arrow. Lively,
stepping over the fallen horse, was kicked and his left fore broken. Toghrul
picked him up on the reins and heeled him staggering away, three-legged, as the
hundred of the Guard — tangled by fugitive soldiers into disarray — were struck
at a gallop by a surf of cavalry. The Guards and their mounts were hurled
aside, ridden down, driven back and back in a tumble of flesh, bone, and steel. This
great breaking wave of frantic thrashing beasts, of dead and dying men, caught
Lively and drove him under. Toghrul
had an instant to try to kick free of the stirrups — leap for his life in a desperate scramble,
then run, run… And, of course, look ridiculous in the attempt. He
stayed in his saddle, called only, "My son..."
*
* *
Sam
had noticed before, that the near silence at a battle's end seemed loud as the
fighting had been. This end of the day sounded only with distant trumpets
calling the chase, with orders spoken nearby, with conversations and the rasp
of grave-digging, the hollow chock of axes cutting campfire wood. And an
occasional muffled scream as the parade of wounded was carried on plank hurdles
over snowy slopes, then down the main-ridge reverse to the medical tents, and
Portia-doctor's people. The
remnant Kipchaks were scattering north, pursued by Light Cavalry. They would
ride, killing those people, until their horses foundered. Poor
savages. Only shepherd tribesmen now, without their brilliant Lord of Grass — and
hunted by every people they'd conquered before. It would be years before the
Kipchaks were an army again — if ever. Victory.
Its first taste, chilled imperial wine — its second, rotting blood. "General
Voss comin', sir." Corporal Fass — alive and on tent-guard as usual....
More than could be said for Sergeant Wilkey, that quietly dangerous young man.
Assuming Sam might have some special affection for him, Charmian had sent a
word of regret that he'd been killed. A
people whose bravest men and women died in wars to defend them... after years
and years of such losses, might a country of mountain lions became a country of
sheep? Howell
was riding a strange horse — his charger must have been killed in the fighting.
A tired horse, and a tired man climbing off it. "Thank
you," — Sam took his hand — "for Map-Fort Stockton, and for
here." "Sam,
don't thank me for giving orders, and I won't thank you for it. Our people did
the dying, enough so Lady Weather let us win." Voss — left eye already
lost, its socket hidden under his black patch — had nearly lost the right. A
blade-point had struck his cheek just beneath; a run of blood was clotted down
his face.... But it seemed one eye was enough to reveal sorrow. "Tell
me, Howell." "Phil..." "I
know Phil's dead. Dead in the first engagement. Horacio sent a runner when it
happened. He's got Phil's little dog...." Howell
made a face like a punished child's. "And Carlo." "Carlo….
All right. Go on." "Teddy
Baker, Fred Halloway, Michelle Serrano, Willard Reese... and a number of junior
officers." "A
number..." "Two
hundred and eleven, Sam." "By
the dear Lady.... Certain?" "As
reported. Still could be more — or less. A few may turn up, might only have
been wounded." "Soldiers?" "Sam,
it's too soon to say; still calling rolls. Likely at least three
thousand killed or wounded. A number of companies don't seem to exist, now.
Fourth Battalion of Lights is gone, but for twenty or thirty people. — And
Oswald-cook is dead. Apparently heard 'No reserves,' and brought his people up
on the line as the center fell back. Fought with cleavers and kitchen knives,
some of them." "Kitchen
knives…. Elvin would have been relieved. No more experiments for dinner." "Southern
peppers stuck in everything..." Howell tried a smile. "Who
else?" Howell
stopped smiling. "Who
else?" "Ned." "You're
— you don't know that. He could be anywhere out there!" "Sam,
they found him. Sword cuts. Elman saw him fighting in the charge, surrounded by
those people.... Found the Kipchak Khan a little farther on. Fucker had been
trampled — his own people rode over him." "Yes….
One of Horacio's officers, Frank Clay, told me they'd found Toghrul dead." "Ned
was maybe a bow-shot away from him. Going to kill the son-of-a-bitch, I
suppose, and there were just too many to ride through." "...
Howell, I gave him that order. I said, 'The Khan is to be killed.' " "A
proper order, Sam — and Ned and his people drove the Kipchaks over their own
commander." For a
while, they stood and said nothing. It had become a beautiful day, no
snowflakes falling. The evening sun shone warm as egg-yolk through clear, cold
air. The blood in Sam's right boot had turned to icy slush. By
the greatest effort, he managed not to recall a single day of the numberless
days he and Ned had spent together in the Sierra. Laughing — always
laughing about something... usually mischief, sheep stealing, trying to lure
ranchers' lean, tough daughters out into the moonlight. Always some… nonsense. "There'd
better be two worlds," he said to Howell. "There'd better be a
place with open gates, for all the ones we've lost." "If
not," — Howell managed a smile — "we'll take the army and break those
gates down." He saluted, and went to mount his tired horse. A lucky man,
not to have been blinded by that wound….
* * *
At
dark, by a campfire built high of hardwood — as, Sam supposed, a sort of
victory beacon — his commanders, senior officers surviving, many limping and
bloodied in battered armor, stood around him on the high-ridge hilltop like
monuments to war's triumphs and disasters. Some were drawing deep, exhausted
breaths, as if still uncertain of their next. The
Boston girl, Patience — no longer looking quite so young — knelt in the fire's
light, polishing her scimitar's slender steel. "Sam…"
Howell had cleaned the dried blood from his face, and looked only weary.
"Sam, what do we do now?" The
campfire roared softly, its smoke rising into deeper night. "We
bury our dead," Sam said, looking into the flames. He held Phil's little
dog, trembling in a fold of his cloak. "Then ride to the river, to
celebrate a wedding."
* * *
The
elderly Bishop of the Presence of Floating Jesus — a man habitually bulky and
full in flesh — stood a little shrunken in his Shades-of-water robe, on which
many little jeweled fish were sewn, mouths open to sing adoration of the Lord. Old
Queen Joan had been the bishop's casual enemy for years — supposedly he'd bored
her; she'd certainly refused him residence at Island. But her death,
nevertheless, had struck him such a surprising blow that these new matters,
these over-settings of what had once been so, had worn him severely, and made
what was real seem unreal. True,
the sun shone into the eight-week summer; true, the river's wind blew richly
through the stone of Island — he felt his robe-hem ruffle to it — and true, men
and women wed. But
standing on the wide balcony of North Tower, he faced not only the familiar —
he'd known the Princess Rachel since she'd been a child — but the unfamiliar as
well, a stocky North Mexican war-chief, supposedly soon to be the King.... His
officers, still battle-lame, crowded the chamber beyond, alongside great river
lords — and one of the Boston creatures as well. The
sun shone, and the river's wind blew, but all else seemed a dream, and his
reading of the marriage vows — 'fidelity to flow,' and so forth — unreal as the
rest. But
he ended at last, and the Princess was gathered — cream lace crushed, diadem
tilted awry — into her husband's arms and kissed with rather coarse energy, and
apparent affection. Then a great rolling roar, an avalanche of shouts, welled
from the crowds packing the wide landings, staircases, and distant broad, paved
squares of Island — though many still wore blood-red in mourning for the Queen
they'd loved. The granite rang, hundreds of hanging, ribboned decorations swung
to that thunder, and the banners, pennants, and flags flying from every tower,
flying from every ship in the near gate-harbor, seemed to ripple out also in
celebration, as if with the river's blessing. Still,
the bishop felt he dreamed... until the bridegroom, smiling like a boy, reached
out to take his hand — and woke him with an iron grip, eased to gentleness.
THE
END
Twenty
years later, treachery abounds. Boston-town
must be destroyed. Toghrul Khan's son will strike at New England's frozen
heart.
MOONRISE Available
from Forge Books in April 2004
Sam
Monroe became the Achieving King. He and Queen Rachel had one born son, Newton,
and one adopted, Bajazet, born the son of Toghrul Khan and sent for safekeeping
into enemy hands. Now, two decades later, King and Queen are dead, drowned in
what appears to be a boating accident. Chaos looms over Middle Kingdom in this
excerpt from chapter One of Moonrise.
His
weapon was the only thing of value Bajazet had with him under the frozen log.
And if he hadn't already been up and dressed for before-dawn's hunt breakfast
when men in Cooper livery came kicking through the lodge doors, he would have
had to flee naked out the upstairs window and down the wooden fire-ladder
— Old Noel Purse shouting Run… Run! amid
the noise of steel on steel, breakfast tables toppling, the screams of dying
men. Bajazet
felt anger at himself — even more than at Gareth Cooper — for carelessness in
not considering what opportunity must have been seen after the king's death,
with Sam and Rachel's son, Newton, only nineteen, and kinder than most at
Island. A kind and thoughtful prince. Too kind... too thoughtful. The king had
held the river lords down, the Sayres, DeVanes… and Coopers. Had held New
England to caution as well. Boston and its Made-creatures stepped lightly in
country of the King's Rule. Newton
should have caught up those reins at his crowning, set the bit hard at once —
with his adopted brother, son of Toghrul Khan, to help him. But Newton had been
young, thoughtful, and kind. And his brother had gone hunting. And
now, was hunted… and deserved to be.
* *
*
He
was walking, hurrying, hooded cloak wrapped tight against the wind, before he
was clear in his purpose. Still, it seemed certain the way he'd come was the
way to go... go quickly as he could, back through frozen tangle as darkness
began to grow deeper. Gareth Cooper — no doubt crowned King Gareth now —
new king, by treachery, and with only one child. One son and heir. Bajazet
would not have been important enough for the king to come kill him… but perhaps
too important for some liveried captain's responsibility. Who better, then, to
deal with the last of family business, than the king's only son? It
certainly seemed possible, even likely. Bajazet trotted back through the woods
as if cold and hunger were sufficient sustenance. He traveled as certain of
direction as if back-tracking the lingering scent of his own terror the day
before. No
doubt young Mark Cooper's people has scrubbed the blood from the dining-room
flooring, washed it off white plaster walls, mopped it from the stair risers
where Purse's men had stood and died to give Bajazet his moments running. Mark
Cooper — playmate since childhood, lazy and amiable even as a little boy. Could
Mark have always been called a friend? Yes.
*
* *
Pausing
at the edge of the lodge clearing, Bajazet stood shadowed under the
branch-broken crescent moon, and took deep recovering breaths. He was shivering
with weariness and cold. There seemed to be no sentries posted, except for two
men standing a distance to the left, talking, but the lodge-front's wide
half-log steps. No reason for many guards to be posted, after all…. Bajazet
walked cloaked into camp as if he were a forester with ordinary business there
— had perhaps been out to John trench, and was coming back to coarse blanket
and pack pillow. Though the two men at the lodge's steps, if they'd noticed,
might have wondered why he strolled around to the back of the building, where
no fires burned. There,
Bajazet threw back the cloak's hood, managed his scab-barded rapier back out of
his way, and climbed the fire-ladder back up the way he'd come, a coward fleeing,
the morning before. The climb — a dozen rungs up a simple ladder — was
surprisingly difficult; he had to stop once to rest, and hung there, very
tired. The
window was swung closed, its leaded squares of glass giving blurred vision down
an empty corridor lit by two whale-oil lamps hung to ceiling gooks by fine
brass chains. Odd, that he'd never noticed such detail. It all seemed new, as
if he'd left the memory of it behind as he fled. Bajazet
drew his dagger, slid the ling, slender blade between window frame and jamb...
and forced it. The window squeaked and swung wide. He threw a leg over and was
in, stood in indoor warmth for a moment, smelled roast meat, and suddenly felt
sick. The heat seemed furnace heat, so he swayed, wanting to lie down. He closed
his eyes, breathed deep… and seemed a little better. Then, his eyes open, he
walked as through a dream down the long corridor to his chamber. And, as he
lifted the door-latch, felt certain as Floating-Jesus who he would find. He
stepped in and closed the door behind him. Mark Cooper, awake in this small
hour as if by appointment, stood startled before the sideboard and a tray of
food, barefoot in a bed-robe of velveted maroon. "...
Baj!... Thank Lady Weather! I thought these idiots might have killed
you." Great relief on young Mark's face. "I just got out here, late,
and put a stop to it. No reason for you to be involved in this at all."
Mark took a step forward, then a step back as Bajazet came to him. "... My
father. My father has ordered things — " "Newton?" A
nod from sad Mark Cooper. "I'm just so sorry, Baj. Dad… I never thought
he'd do something like this!" "Pedro,
and the others?" "Well...
I don't know about all of them. But Darry killed three of our people — my
father's men. It was all just a real tragedy. He shook his head.
"Terrible…." Perhaps
it was hunger that so sharpened a person's ears. Bajazet heard Mark's voice
subtly uncertain — almost true, but not quite. Cooper's eyes, still the mild
blue of his childhood, had shifted, just so slightly, toward the door — for
escape, for what help might come to him if he had time to shout. Bajazet
saw the food on the side-board was still steaming slightly, brought up not long
ago. A hot meal now seemed as good a reason as revenge. As good a reason as
leaving Gareth Cooper with no heir to his stolen throne. "You'll
be safe, Baj." The heir, frightened and barefoot in his bed-robe.
"Really. I promise, absolutely." "And
will also bring Newton back to life?" Bajazet drew the left-hand dagger as
he reached to cover Mark's mouth with his right hand, stepped in, and thrust
him deep, three swift times with rapid, soft, punching sounds — into the gut,
the liver, and through the heart. Mark
stood on his toes with the long blade still in him, arching away, squealing into
the muffling hand like a girl in her pleasure. He fell forward, staring,
slumped into Bajazet… clutched his cloak, and seemed to slip down forever as
the steel slid out of him. He settled onto the floor, grunting, turned on his
side with urine staining his robe, and took slow steps there as if walking
through a tilted world. Then liquid caught and rattled in his throat. Bajazet,
staggering as if his dagger had turned to strike at him, as if the whole of the
last day and night had turned to strike at him, stumbled to the side-board, and
wiped his blade carefully on a fine linen napkin. He sheathed it, then took up
slices of venison from a serving platter, folded them together dripping gravy
and red juices, and crammed them into his mouth. Chewing seemed to take too
long; he bolted the meat like a hunting dog, drank barley beer from a small
silver pitcher only to aid in swallowing… then gathered and swallowed more
venison, gravy running down his fingers, spattering on fine figured wood and
linen. Tears also; he cried as he hate, and supposed it was because he was
still young, and though he'd injured men in foolish duels, had never killed a
man before. As
Mark Cooper was certainly killed, since now he was still and silent, and
smelled of shit. "I
hope you lied to me, about being sorry," Bajazet said. There was the
strongest urge to lie down on the cot, the room so warm with its little stove
in the corner. The strongest urge to sleep, so that waking later might prove
all to be a dream, and Noel Purse come in and say, "Are we hunting, Baj ?
Or sleeping the fucking day away?" It
seemed stupid to stand, but he did. Stupid to search his own locker for his
small leather pack, with its flint-and-steel, spare shirt, ball of useful
rawhide cord... and yesterday-morning's hunter's ration of pemmican,
river-biscuit, and little round of hard cheese. A canteen. And take what else? After
thinking for what seemed a long time — Mark lying patient on the floor —
Bajazet also chose his recurved bow and a quiver of fine broadhead shafts,
shouldered them, then cautiously opened the door to no voices from below… and
only soft snoring from another chamber. He stepped into the corridor, closed
the door behind him, and walked what seemed a long way to the familiar
window... clambered out to the familiar fire-ladder, then climbed carefully
down. More burdened now... and less. Bajazet,
belly overfull to aching, strolled through firelit darkness — waved once to the
two men still talking, standing casual guard by the lodge's entrance. Two
dead men, soon enough, when the king came to the lodge and asked who had stood
watch while his son was murdered. Two days, it might take, to come up from
Island. Bajazet would have at least that advantage. He
walked on, walked out of camp, ducked into forest and was gone. |
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