Kingdom River

by Mitchell Smith

  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.