Kingdom River

by Mitchell Smith

  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 somethi
ng 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.