Moonrise

by Mitchell Smith

  "You have slant eyes," speaking while astride him, bending down to observe. "Yes," Bajazet had said. "All Kipchak — except Ancient Wilson says my grandmother was a capture from Bakersfield in Map-California."

  "Funny eyes," Gwendolyn had said, and leaned lower to kiss them.

  Love, of course. He'd loved her, and loved no other, though fucking where he could. Some whores, of course — and court ladies too — had smiled and passed him by. "You're a pretty boy," Lady Bennet had said to him, "but grown men have a sadness to them that I care for. And besides, my Walter might have you killed — adopted prince, or not."

  "What am I to do?" He'd asked Newton — a seventeen-year-old's question to a wiser sixteen-year-old. "I love her."

  Newton had thought for an afternoon, then found Bajazet on the foot-ball field. "Talk to our mother."

  So grotesque a suggestion, that Bajazet had gone to Ancient Lord Peter Wilson immediately for a better notion. The old man had been napping in a library niche — woke, listened to the inquiry, and said, "Speak to the queen about it."

  So, in an agony of embarrassment, Bajazet had gone to Queen Rachel's study the next morning — lingering outside her door while a guardsman watched, amused — then, invited in, had "spilled" as Warm-times had had it. Had "spilled his guts."

  "Ah..." Queen Rachel had held a little gray dog on her lap, stroking it. "The Up-river girl — Gwen?"

  "Gwendolyn," Bajazet had said, deeply mortified. Apparently a person's life was not his own.

  "I understand she's very pretty, Baj."

  "...Yes."

  "But isn't she... professional?"

  "That makes —" Bajazet had intended to say, "makes no difference," but couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't care to see pity in the queen's eyes. See Poor boy there.

  "Though, of course," the queen said, "— regarding love, that makes no difference."

  "No."

  "It's so sad, Baj, that while it makes no difference where love is concerned..." The little dog had turned on its back to have its belly scratched. "It's so sad that it makes a great deal of difference where happiness is concerned."

  Bajazet had said nothing. He'd seen wisdom coming, and no way to avoid it.

  "Would your pretty Up-river girl be happy here at court? Would she be happy as the ladies turned their backs on her? As men stared her through the rooms?"

  "We —"

  "Would she be happy knowing she was hurting you? Was injuring you in your world, so you would always be thought a fool and cock-thinker, instead of a serious man?" The little dog had grunted with pleasure. Scratch... scratch. "Would she be happy, knowing her children would be subjects of laughter, would come to her, weeping?"

  "I don't know."

  The queen had put the little dog down. "Never lie to me, Baj, for I held you in my arms as a baby, and would die for you as I would die for Newton. Besides, lying makes men smaller. It's a coward's trick."

  "I suppose... I do know."

  "Of course you know — and knew before you came to me — that if you love this girl, you will of course protect her from any sorrow that you can. Even at your own cost." The queen had stood. "Now, we will think how best to make your pretty girl both safe, and happy in her life."

  And so they had. It became a sort of delicious plot between them, and Bajazet saw the subtle powers of the Crown, even in so small a matter. And by doing secret good for Gwendolyn behind curtain after curtain of the queen's influence, she, who had been only a pretty and tender little whore, became at first one thing better — a very lucky whore who won the First Melt lottery. Then a second thing better as she was invited by the sisterhood of Lady Weather to erase the old, and write the new in good works. And finally — when Bajazet was past eighteen — asked to become an ambitious young magistrate's wife, she ended respectable, safe, and a mother.

  "Go," the queen had said to him, summer bowling on the south lawn at Island. "Go back to visit Who-was-your Gwendolyn, and see if your love and care for her is proved."

  Bajazet had gone, seen, and found Gwen still fond of him, but gently, distantly, and very happy in her husband, baby, and home.

  He'd sailed back down to Island, climbed the North Tower's steps to the queen's solar, and knelt to thank her.

  "Mine the advice, Baj," she'd said, raising him up. "But yours the decision."

  Bajazet loved the king — had always loved him. But loved the queen even more.

  ... Standing by the little stream Confusion, he found he'd had a few more tears to shed, after all, and wiped them from a grimy face with grimy hands. Then turned east again, and jogged away toward distant softly rounded hills, rising to greater hills — mountains — beyond.

  * * *

  Three days later, the pemmican, biscuit, and small round of cheese long since eaten, Bajazet bent retching nothing but sourness where the course of Confusion divided — a slighter, foaming little creek come down from eastern hills to join. He'd munched alder buds the night before, and scraped the tender inner bark of a birch for thin sweet jelly.

  One of these had knotted his stomach, so he'd walked bent as an old man all morning, making barely a mile over tangled deadfall and windfall while keeping to the small stream's course. The little river had become a friend to him, and Bajazet, who now had no other friend, was afraid to leave it to follow the lesser fork that ran up into the first hills he'd come to.

  He'd dreamed, last night, of the Vosses. And in the dream they'd appeared armored from a stand of trees with crowding companies of smiling soldiers, absolutely loyal... and bringing a buttered loaf and stove-heated blanket as well.

  He tried to vomit again, wiped his mouth, and stood straight with an effort. His small pack — only the canteen, flint and steel, and rawhide cord in it, now — still seemed to weigh his back, the bow and quiver also heavier. The rapier, more and more, was in his way.

  He knelt in leaf-mold... looked into the stream's swift shallow ice-water. He'd seen fish the day before, had tried to hand-catch them — which he'd seen Ted Atcheson do — and failed. Then he'd thought of a willow branch, rawhide string, a little carved-wood hook, and a dug worm for bait. But the staying there to fish, and waiting... waiting, became impossible. Every minute would have been a gift to the pursuing traitor-king — and now, the king pursued. Cavalry trumpets had sounded from the west the day before.

  Food... woods-meat and game. What had seemed simple, easy enjoyment — hunting with foresters, grooms, guards and friends under the horn's music.. . galloping fields and forest edges behind coursing hounds, when it appeared (and was true enough) that driven deer and wild boar had appointments to meet the king's ward and Second-son — all had proved a different matter alone, on foot, and starving.

  What use a fine rapier on rabbit tracks in the last of Lord Winter's snow? — or a beautiful bow where only dubious mushrooms, birch bark, and alder buds were found.

  A huntsman had once told Bajazet that a man could catch any grazing creature by steady tracking, steady walking-after, day and night, until the beast grew so weary as to stand, head hanging, to have its throat cut. A tale well enough, that even might be true if the man were fed good meals as he followed, and had a savage's eye for tracking.

  But no one had come to Bajazet in the forest with spotted-cow soup steaming in a panniken, a half loaf of oat bread to soak in it. And no one had offered to show him the broken twig, the turned clod, the tree bark touched to indicate a fat young buck — frightened by distant trumpets — had traveled just that way, and only moments before.

  Savages... These eastern woods had been home to the Redbirds — most gone, now, whittled away many years ago by Middle-Kingdom's East-bank army. And other tribes driven from the wider Mississippi's flooded flatlands back into the forest, then hunted there, as well, to prove and temper regiments' recruits, their fresh formations... until only the Map-Appalachian hills and mountains offered refuge.

  The old queen was said to have reined that in; King Sam had put a stop to it. But
too late for the Redbirds. Now, only bands of Sparrows stooged these woods, and occasional Thrushes down from Map-Kentucky, teeth filed sharp, but settling no lowland villages, presenting no chiefs to discuss matters with anyone.... Discussing matters with Kingdoms and Khanates, States and City-towns, had long proved unfortunate for all the tribes.

  Bajazet had been told the tribesmen used to take children, when they could, from settlements back from the river. Adopted the strong, killed and ate the weak. "True," a sheriff's sergeant had said, when asked. "But not frequent, now, young sir."

  "Not frequent." For the last days, Bajazet had traveled frightened at the notion of meeting savages, as he was frightened of being caught by Cooper's soldiers.... Now, though the troopers still concerned him, the hill-tribes didn't. Dazed with hunger, he'd formed what seemed a sensible plan to run from their encountered scouts — shooting as he fled — then circle back to find a dead savage, retrieve his arrow, and carve steaks from the man.

  He could smell those steaks smoking on green branches over hot hardwood coals. And why not? That meat had been a long tradition on the river — still supposedly practiced now, though only by some old families at festivals.

  Kneeling at the bank's edge, Bajazet bent to thrust his face down into the water — was shocked by its chill, but wakened too, and saw in glimmering reflection the face of a gaunt young man, dark-eyed, stubble-bearded beneath the ten dots tattooed across his cheeks — five dots on the left, five on the right — his long dark hair tied into a pony's tail with a knotted leather string.

  Men had — only a week before — bent their backs before those tattooed dots, lowered their eyes and voices, waited to hear what the king's Second-son might wish to have done....

  Bajazet considered sleeping by the stream, though there was still daylight. His belly ached; his bones ached with weariness. An hour at practice swordplay, a few hours riding, an evening of dancing at Greeting Parties, or strolling here and there on Island or at the short-summer residence in Memphis — these had proved poor preparation for days of fear, woods-running, and starvation.

  "I'm in trouble...." It seemed reasonable to say that aloud. But only seemed reasonable, since the remark appeared to wake trumpets — and Bajazet heard, for the second time, the king's men coming. Two trumpets that began to call back and forth far down the valley like bright-voiced angels. The troopers were well behind him still, miles behind — but their trumpet calls had caught him.

  It would be Light Cavalry, now, not liveried bravos or a persuaded file of local reserve Heavies. It would be a troop, perhaps two, of regulars. — And no shame to them, after all. The Achieving King was dead. His queen was dead. His First-son and heir was dead. There was a new king, now, and orders were always orders....

  The trumpets, which should have signaled so grim, affected Bajazet in a different way, as if they sang encouragement, reminded him of the real and waking world, where weariness and hunger were not unusual.

  He stood fairly erect, struck his sore stomach with his fist to put it in its place, and started walking east and up the high run's slope. Up into the first of hills.... If he met no edible Thrush savage on the way, perhaps he might string his bow at last, and wait in the hills for a cavalryman to cook and carve.

  That notion made him smile; his first smile since Noel Purse, amid the clamor of steel below, had shouted, "Run."

  ...With evening, Lady Weather came sweeping into the foothills on a strong south wind, as if to introduce her Daughter, Summer, not yet come to stay. The treetops bowed and curtsied to it, whispering in breezes, roaring when the gusts came booming.

  Weary to stumbling, his cloak bannering about him in the wind, Bajazet climbed a thicket slope, searching for a place to lie to sleep. He felt, as if a soft insistant pressing at his back, those who came behind him. He seemed to sense under his boots the beat of horses' hooves, the soft, swift, moccasined tread of foresters and woods-scouts running before. They would be fed, warmed at fine fires, and made furious with the king's fury, their strength growing with his rage and impatience.

  What other end, then, could there be, than the prey captured? But a fighting prey — like bear or wolf or boar — that might still take a huntsman with him when he went.

  Climbing the crest of the rise, he saw the eastern hills, under dark wind-driven clouds, heaving up like great soft breasts — strange to the eyes as they were tiring to the legs of a young man raised on a river. Bajazet noticed an eagle's nest almost above him, ragged black, swaying in blown bare branches high at the top of a tall yellow birch.

  He bent to brace his hands on his knees to rest a moment, take breaths from the climb — then, as he stood, saw the nest more clearly.

  For a moment, so high, it did seem an eagle's nest... and with an eagle's white head showing. Then the white head moved, and the nest stirred — and the head was a woman's, her long white hair streaming on the wind, and the nest the gathered folds of a dark-blue coat that she now spread like wings in the gusts.

  The woman looked down at him, seemed to be smiling from her height — then, as if the gale had picked her up, as if Lady Weather had lifted her, she rose from the branches — buffeted, swaying in the air — then sailed out and out across the treetops, her greatcoat billowing... and away into darkening evening.

  Bajazet stood staring as she went. He had seen Boston's Ambassador, MacAffee, Walk-in-air, though only once, when that pleasant fat man had been drank at Festival.... This woman had been another New Englander, one of their very few with the talent-piece in their brains to push the ground away beneath and behind them, so they seemed to fly as birds flew.

  Wonderful, just the same, though the white-haired woman almost certainly scouted for the king — known to be likely Boston's creature. She would circle back west, find Gareth Cooper and his troopers, then tell the distance and point the way, smiling.

  He should have braced the bow and put an arrow into her — tried the shot, anyway, if she'd stayed for it. How many should haves, would haves, could haves, can a person afford, running for his life?... Not many.

  She'd seemed to smile at him, looking down from that height.... It was odd how cruel smiles could be, grimmer than any frown.

  Bajazet gave Warm-times' traditional finger to the air she'd traveled, called out "Kiss my ass!"— quoting directly from those ancient people's copybooks — then trotted heavily down the rise's wooded reverse, to make at least a ran till full dark.

  …. Two mornings later, he woke, stood, and fainted after a dark dream of a weeping infant — its body swollen huge — lying naked but for a blanket diaper in a cave of glittering ice. A little mother, blue-coated, was attempting to comfort it with caring murmurs, little strokes and partings at its massive belly.

  The dream, the child's cries, rang in Bajazet's head like a cracked bell, and he crawled down to the splashing steep little creek, drank ice-water, and ate a bunch of new grass just sprouting on the shallow bank.

  Then he got to his feet, went back to gather his weapons and goods, and ate a little spring beetle off a tree. There was no taste to it, only slight crunching.

  He was surprised to find he could walk, though starving, could keep climbing the wooded gradual slopes the creek-branch ran through. — Though he walked poorly, bumping into trees he must have seen, then forgotten. He said, "Excuse me," to one tree he struck fairly hard with his shoulder, trying to move it aside. An apology that made him laugh, though probably it had been just as well to be polite. He was not in a situation to make more enemies.

  "Absolutely not," Bajazet said aloud, against his own rule, and was perfectly clear in his mind. Hungry, but perfectly clear in his mind. The encounter with the tree seemed to have helped. And in that clarity, he walked a little better, not staggering, and made sure to travel up-hill, and not down.

  At noon, seeing squirrels play through an oak above him, he strung his bow — with some difficulty, since the recurve drew eighty Warm-time pounds. Truth of the matter (a nice old copybook phrase) truth
of the matter, it had always been too heavy for him.... He set a broadhead to the string — should have used a blunt-tip, but had none — blinked to clear his vision, drew short and trembling, and hoped for luck.

  No luck. A missed squirrel, and a lost arrow, the broadhead stuck deep in a thick branch half a hundred feet up. He could not afford lost arrows.

  Bajazet pretended he'd killed the squirrel, even mimed skinning it as he walked along... mimed roasting it over a small fire, his fingers fluttering for the flames. Then he bit, chewed as if there were hot meat in his mouth, and swallowed.

  "And so much for imagination," he said, forgetting sensible silence entirely.... As he passed trees, looking for other beetles on their bark, leaves flashed their lighter green with a chill breeze come through. — Then the air vibrated to a man's agonized shriek. Loud... loud, and just though the woods.

  Bajazet froze in shock, fumbled his bow off his shoulder, knelt to brace it, then slid an arrow from his quiver, and trembling, set it to the string.

  The man shrieked again — drew in a loud whooping breath for another scream. All in a voice that might have been an animal's, but was not. It was a sound Bajazet had never heard before.

  He began to back away... back away. His legs appeared to do that without his asking. Just beyond, the man still shrieked; the trees seemed to shiver with it.

  Bajazet half turned to run — then found he feared ignorance even more, the not knowing what might follow and come upon him. Perhaps come upon him in the night.... So it seemed he was too frightened even to run. And at least now there would be light to shoot by.

  There were no more screams.

  He took a shaky breath, then began to walk forward slowly through the trees, walked as if in nightmare, bow half drawn. The daylight seemed to have grown brighter, so every detail appeared perfectly clear.