Moonrise

by Mitchell Smith

  MOONRISE

  Book Three of the Snowfall Trilogy

  BY

  MITCHELL SMITH

  Copyright © 2004 by Mitchell Smith

  ISBN 0-765-34059-3

  Version 1.0

  My Lord lives still, in his son — the child with strangers, but alive.

  Last words of Michael Razumov, Khanate Chancellor, at his execution

  Do the seasons warm? Perhaps a very little, though the wall of ice still stands across the continent, the seas lie shrunken, and Lord Winter rules more than eight Warm-time months each year.

  If Warm-times do come again, I will not see them, since I am dying, and so leaving the service of the Achieving King. And, after all, I have seen enough. I cannot believe in the Shadow World, though I wish to, for there my friends would be waiting for me. My dear Catania, and Newton — sad, reluctant ruler. Dangerous Jack Monroe... my Gardens Lady Bongiorno, and the late great Queen of Kingdom River. They have seemed too grand, too vivid for death's idiot emptiness.

  I have not been so grand, so vivid. Still, I will miss my breakfasts.

  Note found in the desk of Neckless Peter Wilson, Lord Librarian at island. Filed in the daily Book by Her Honor, the Lady Portia-doctor.

  Introduction

  Knowledge of one's self — a study often unrewarding as a southern songbird's battering at its own reflection. Futile as complaining of cold in a world gone to cold for six hundred years, thanks to treacherous Jupiter's altered orbit.

  I have seen persons cry, of course, and found it odd.... No longer. Imagine my startlement, imagine the sudden pain in my eyes as tears, hot tears in my rooms carved from ice, came welling at the news that Small-Sam Monroe, an old — May I call him friend? I believe I may. — When news came to me that he and his queen had perished in a storm on the Gulf Entire. Their ship, aptly named Unfortunate, had foundered.

  I had seen him last — he was not yet called the Achieving King — almost twenty years before. Only his first great victories were behind him. Still to come were the campaigns against Manu Ek-Tam in Map-California, and the organizing of the Great Rule of North Map-Mexico, Middle Kingdom, and the West.... Young, stocky, and strong, with beautiful eyes in a fighting man's grim face, he'd kissed me good-bye (our only kiss), and helped me up onto the occa's back — a stupid and inferior occa, sent up by my Second-cousin Louis from Map-McAllen.

  The Made-beast had been sent to save me weeks of Walking-in-air back to New England — to which, I'd thought then, I'd been so foolishly recalled. Thought that, and wrongly, since my order home was to an appointment of infinitely greater honor than even that of Ambassadress to a Kingdom certain to grow greater.

  The occa had grunted, groaned, flapped up from Island's East battlement into the freezing river wind... then sailed its first wide ascending spiral. It was the last I saw of Sam Monroe, looking up in the company of his officers, all still dressed in their wedding finery, leathers, jewels, and velvets, their veteran sword-scored armor polished to shining.

  I have been to weddings, since — Boston taking contractual matters very seriously and in celebration, so we march through frozen Cambridge singing — but have been to no such wedding as Sam Monroe's and his Princess Rachel, where sadness and joy were so mingled that the ceremony seemed the very mirror of our lives.

  From Early Years, the Memoirs of Patience (Nearly-Lodge) Riley

  Property of Boston Township Public Library.

  Removal or disfigurement is a CAPITAL OFFENSE.

  CHAPTER 1

  Someone chased with a sense of humor.

  A hunting horn winded along the river's bank. The hoofbeats following those notes came cracking through the last of Lord Winter's fading snow and puddle ice, fell softer over mud. Someone called — perhaps a name, perhaps an order.

  These were Heavy Cavalry reservists, unsuited to rough-country chasing, which was certainly why Bajazet was still alive, light Cavalry, light Infantry, would have filtered here and there until they had him.

  It was a blessing of both Blue Sky and Lady Weather to have gifted him with terror enough to smother sorrow, so he could lie trembling beneath a frozen log, fallen to rot years before, thinking more of staying alive than remembering the king, his Second-father, and his Second-mother, Queen Rachel. Remembering Newton — named for a royal grandfather — and his brother in all but blood.

  It seemed to Bajazet, lying hunched in puddled ice under frozen wood, that the true world had been taken from him, with only this desperate dreamed one left. And the taking accomplished in only a day. He heard the hunting horn again... but distant.

  Newton, a year younger, but bigger, stronger, kinder — older in every important way — had seemed indestructible as the king had seemed indestructible. Prince Newton, only nineteen years old, but already with endless hours spent in tedious councils, and study with ancient Wilson, while Bajazet, even quite young, was amusing himself in Natchez brothels... also amusing himself puncturing, though not murdering, less accomplished swordsmen — husbands, for the most part. This, until the king, one day, came into the salle, gestured the bowing Master aside, chose two fighting rapiers from the rack... tossed one to Bajazet — and attacked to wound or kill him.

  They'd fought across the slippery oil-puddled floor, until the king parried a desperate thrust in quarte, reposted... and, during what had seemed recovery, reversed and ran Bajazet through the left shoulder. Then, the king had stepped in to disarm — breaking Bajazet's right wrist — and while stepping out, had kicked him in the groin so he fell, curled in three agonies.

  Portia-doctor had done wonders with a short slender iron rod, heated to only dull red. Then done more wonders with a wrist-splint, and very gradual exercise — Queen Rachel coming, anxious, to stroke Bajazet's forehead, leave imperial chocolate candies, and a kitten for company. Newton coming to make jokes . .. play checkers and chess. So that after the so-short summer, Bajazet — then barely eighteen, after all — had been left with only rapier memories, and an occasional ache in his left shoulder. The wrist was good as ever.

  Healed, he'd encountered the king in the West Glass Garden. Sam Monroe had smiled. "Lessons learned, Baj ?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And what lessons were they?"

  "... That there is always someone better. And only luck prevents the meeting."

  "And?"

  "Dueling is one thing. Fighting is another."

  "... And?"

  "A decisive blow may be struck in retreat."

  "And...?"

  "Pain is too important to be suffered or inflicted without good cause."

  Then, the king had gathered Bajazet into his arms as if he were still a child, and hugged him hard before letting him go. Strong arms, and the scent of leather and chewing tobacco. "Your First-father," the king had said, "— the Lord Toghrul, would have been proud of you."

  And on the first day of Lord Winter's festival, the king had given Bajazet a sword — a rapier made by Guild-master Rollins himself, its blade (of imperial wootz steel) folded and hammered again until even Rollins had lost count of the doing, so the slender double-edge, slightly sharper than a barber's best razor, and needle pointed, could with great effort be bent into a curve — to then spring humming, perfectly straight. The sword's grip was wound with twisted silver wire, its coiled guard forged of simple steel. A fighting instrument, its only decoration a cursive along the base of the blade — with good cause.

  This weapon, its belted black-leather scabbard matched with that for a long left-hand dagger as finely made, 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 windo
w 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.

  Naked, Bajazet would himself have died in the icy day he'd been hunted through East-bank woods. But, up early for pig sausage and fried chicken-eggs when treachery came calling, he'd snatched up his sword-belt, then run in imperial cotton under-things, buckskin jerkin and trousers, wool stockings, fine half-boots, and a pocket knife with a folding blade. A long wool cloak as well — plucking that from a wall peg the only thoughtful act of a frantic scurry down the corridor from his chamber to the window and its fire-ladder, while a few brave men bled for him below. His only thoughtful act...

  If he'd always been alone in the world — unknown, unknowing First-father or Second-father — he would not be weeping now, for shame. Shame at imagining what Toghrul Khan, what Sam Monroe would have thought of him scrambling along the hall, breathless as a girl, then half-falling down the ladder to run into the woods — the formidable duelist, the dangerous boy, proved only a Lord of Cowards, and a fool.

  Old Noel Purse had said, "Better not," at the notion of going to the hunting camp. Had said, "Better not," but hadn't explained. Bajazet had assumed it was thought unseemly, with the king and

  Queen Rachel lost for only months.... But his brother — crowned

  Newton-the-Second only weeks before — had said, "Nonsense; I know you loved them," and turned back to a desk half-buried in paper-work.

  "Can't I be of some help...?" had been Bajazet's only and casual offer.

  Newton had turned again to smile at him. "And I'll need your help, Baj. I'd be a fool to waste the son of Toghrul Khan.... But for now, one of us at least should be without care. So go hunting, for the both of us."

  It was... unbearable to remember. As the royal family's affectionate adoption of a baby boy — sent by the Kipchak chancellor to save him from Manu Ek-Tam, the would-be khan — as that was unbearable to remember. All memories that could be ended by simply standing up out of mud and ice from under a rotting log, and shouting until green-armored cavalrymen heard him and came riding. Then, out sword, and an end to it.

  Only anger prevented him. 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 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 stepping 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 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. It didn't occur to Bajazet to even wonder if Newton were still alive. Cooper and his friends — known also as friends of Boston — would have made no such blunder. As they must also have considered Newton's brother, and found him worthy of at least casual killing.

  ... He lay beneath his icy log into the evening, and made no noise, though his nose ran from weeping, his empty stomach muttered as glass-hours went by. Lying huddled there, Bajazet found that the rapier thrust, broken wrist, and bruised balls of almost two years before, had been no pain at all compared to the loss of loved ones.

  Daylight faded slowly to nearly dark, so he lay safer though aching with cold, heard no hunting horns, and dreamed an uneasy dream of being warm and fed. A celebration, a shifting remembrance of Tom MacAffee's welcome dinner, Boston's Ambassador sent to Island after years of none, and bad feelings.... The food at Bajazet's place, set on hammered silver, was lamb-chops, roasted carrots, and potatoes. He saw this clearly, and seemed to eat, but — distracted by MacAffee's laughter — somehow never quite chewed and swallowed, though he tried to keep his mind to it. In his dream, he did consider how clever Boston had been to send a fat and cheery man to represent so frozen and grim a state, its nastiness born in palaces of ice.

  Bajazet dreamed, but was filled by no dream food, warmed not at all by the six great iron Franklins rumbling down the dining hall. He did watch the king and Queen Rachel, and stole glances at Newton, sitting beside him, with great attention, as if to be certain of remembering them, though his dream offered no reason for it.

  ... From the colors and confusion of that lamp-lit banquet, Bajazet woke — trembling with cold, sick with hunger — to the odor of leaf-mold, wet wood, and soaked snow. The evening wind, come with fading light, hissed in the trees. That wind mentioned death as it passed over, so — with lying still and dying the alternative — he rolled stiffly out onto frozen mud, sheathed rapier tangling his legs, and tugged folds of his cloak free of skim-ice. He managed up onto all fours, crawled a little way cramped and sore as if badly beaten... then, grunting like an old man with the effort, staggered to his feet to stand hunched, shivering in darkness.

  "What...?" Bajazet asked aloud, as if his First and Second fathers both lived, and stood under the trees, listening. They listened, perhaps, but didn't answer him.

  What should be done? What could be done, but run or die — and more likely run then die?

  His First-father would likely have said, "Surprise is the mother of victories." But what surprise was possible, now? The hunters would hunt again in morning light — and be surprised only by how long it had taken to catch and kill him.

  "Lessons learned?" His Second-father had asked in the Glass Garden.

  Among the answers: a decisive blow may be struck in retreat.

  Feeling faint, Bajazet leaned against a birch for strength, and felt that unless he attempted something, sorrow and shame would kill him, sure as the cavalrymen. He would fail, and wish to fail, and the horsemen or the cold would catch him. — Why not, instead of certain losing, at least attend his fathers' lessons?

  "Something," he said to the tree. "Something surprising... and attempted by a man in retreat." He'd called himself a man, to the birch, and supposed now he would have to be one while he lasted, and no longer only a young prince, the king's ward, and in so many ways still a boy.

  He stroked the tree's sheeted bark as if the birch were a friend, and cared for him. "Good-bye," he said to it, imagined a poem about the dignity of its stillness, so superior to mens' foolish motions... then found the dog star through the birch's branches, and began to walk west, back toward the river, the way he'd come. It seemed a strange and foolish thing to do, to pay a debt of honor owed only to the dead, and himself.

  * * *

  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 swiftly crowned King Gareth now — was a tall, slender man, as his father had been, stooped, prone to illness and not strong, though Coopers had always been strong enough in purpose. A reedy man, whose wife had died of crab-cancer years before.... Now, a new king — by treachery — and with only one child. One son and heir to prove a dynasty to the river lords and other magnates of the Great Rule along the Mississippi, south into North Map-Mexico, and west to the Ocean Pacific.

  Bajazet, barely twenty years old and an improbable successor, would not have been important enough for the king to come kill him... but perhaps slightly 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, trusting in the first hints of cloudy moonlight for his footing, trotted back through the woods as if cold and hunger were sufficient sustenence. He traveled as certain of direction as if back-tracking the lingering scent of his own terror the day before. Moving fast, ducking through tangles, then running full out where occasional clearings widened to shallo
w snow and wind-burned grasses, he traveled due west through evening into deeper night, short-cutting all the meandering ways he'd fled — and cowered here and there to hide.

  In this forest, standing back from the river's east bank, there was only one place — the Lodge — suited to house a new Prince of the Rule as he directed a hunt.... No doubt young Mark Cooper's people had 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 — a playmate since childhood, plumper than most of his family, lazy, and amiable even as a little boy. Seeming lazy and amiable, cautious of a fierce father... an even fiercer grandfather while that unpleasant old man had lived.

  Could Mark have always been called a friend? Yes.

  * * *

  After what must have been at least six glass-hours of woods-running, of dodging sudden trees, scrambling over fallen logs... of exhausted stumbles, scrapes and scratches from frozen branches as he'd shoved and wrestled through to the next clearing, Bajazet smelled at last the smoke of camp.

  And as he came nearer, heard horses whinny... heard the quieting noise and banter of troopers — the last of their patrols long since ridden in, their mounts grained and tended. The men, now also fed, would be settling into sleep at the fires, weary after riding the long day, and into night.

  Bajazet paused at the edge of the lodge clearing, 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, by the lodge front's wide half-log steps. No reason for many guards to be posted, after all…. A hound was yodeling in the kennels, interested in these stranger cavalrymen come to camp.