He could hurry along, but only twisted slightly to the left, like a very old man with swollen joints. If he didn't turn that way, his side knifed him and took his breath.
He tripped, fell to his hands and knees in icy water, then heaved himself up again and stumbled on. A comic figure, no doubt... and a person who seemed to have fled out of himself and his life into a more restful valley, where Boston-made children with foxes' tails came yelping to pace him along. They were curious little things, and came so close he could see each one very clearly, leaping beside him. And there were gray-feathered birds calling his name. He would have answered, but couldn't spare the breath, since — in the other, previous place — running remained very important... though the reasons for it were unclear.
Though it was true he ran, now, at less than a trot. A shamble, really, and was making poor progress. The problem was breathing; there wasn't enough air. And also the ribs there on his left side. There were other things... complaints, though he couldn't remember them, and none bothered him as much as his legs' cramped agony. That was the most bothersome thing....
He fell again, and with icy water splashing, it came to him freshly that this was a question of being caught and killed.
He got his feet — oh, how difficult that was — knowing the Made-children, the discussing birds, had been imagination. And a trumpet call agreed; the trumpet sang out, Reality!
Feeling oddly better, Bajazet stood looking behind him, and saw streaming down the last of a gentler slope, and out into the valley, a troop of fine cavalry — pennants streaming, chain-mail sparkling in the last of mountain light, then shading to soft silver in mountain shadow. Foresters, clinging to stirrup leathers, ran bounding beside.
The hounds, weary, were barely leading the king's big gray. Bajazet could see the dulled gleam of the Helmet of Joy — and thought, even at such distance, he made out the king's white face under its nodding weight of gold and jewelry... the spinning confusion of its dangling dried hearts.
Bajazet turned away, and was astounded to find himself running again — hobbling, at least — along the frail creek's bed. Running, though so very poorly, and as clear in his mind as if he studied meter for a poem... though now, a poem never to be written. What would its subject have been? — Certainly only one, the subject all poems nested in their bowels. You have wasted time, that will never come again.
He stopped and stood swaying, taking deep agonized breaths, the creek's small water stroking his boots. Then turning carefully, because of his ribs, he drew rapier and dagger.
Eleven dogs. He could count them as they came splashing down the shallow stream. How sad, that such simple sweetness as theirs should be turned sour.... Of course, the same might be said of the cavalrymen. Dogs and soldiers, their honor taken for the use of clever men. Men with much to answer for....
Now he saw the king's face clearly — and saw the king, coming galloping, see his. A glance shared by two of the blood of clever men, users of decent dogs and honest soldiers. The king's fury certainly in his face — but that other, also.
Bajazet supposed even this shallow water would slow him, fighting — as time now seemed to slow to single echoing heartbeats, with all motions ponderous though seen wonderfully clearly. But he liked the idea of dying in running water, as if the little creek might drift some streamers of his blood away to a sort of safety.
A man — an officer — had ridden up beside the king. Cooper gestured him sharply back and spurred along the creek, shouting. The dogs came leaping before him, seemed pleased with the water, soothing to worn pads.
Bajazet braced himself as heartbeats and time suddenly moved much faster — saw the first dog who'd reach him, and drifted the rapier's point that way. "Don't forget the dagger." The Master'd told him that many times, advice handed down from the Master. "Don't be so fucking sword-proud!"
First dog's here. Lean into your steel.
The dog — a red-hound bitch — was up and in the air when a javelin came hissing, and saved her from the rapier's point.
Bajazet stood amid a storm of spears sleeting from left and right as the dogs died — were struck, pierced, knocked kicking in agony along the creek. Not one hound, not one had come to him... nor any javelin, either.
He was left standing alive amid screaming dying dogs as the king reined in, stallion skidding in a sheet of shallow water.... And tufts, tops, and branches of the valley's greening brush — having been fastened to conceal and decorate a thousand painted men — rose in long green waves that rolled like surf down upon the king and his cavalry.
CHAPTER 5
Bajazet stood rooted in riffling water, saw the chain-mailed troop deploy to a single shouted order, dividing its double column to left and right — and on a single order after, charge to either side to meet the ambush directly.
It was instantly and perfectly done. Something in Bajazet approved of it — and caused him to take a few steps toward the fighting as if these were still his country's troopers, and his place with them, the long hunt forgotten.
A lean man with a scraggled beard — naked but for a necklace of withered human fingers, and with feather-patterned tattoos beneath the gleam of smeared animal fat — stepped into the creek and held the shaft of a short stabbing-spear across Bajazet's chest to halt him.
The man, who seemed a Sparrow tribesmen, smiled. What teeth he had were filed to points. "Stand still," he said, in book-English with a throaty rattle to it."— to avoid an accident."
Bajazet stood still, his drawn rapier and dagger drooping in his hands as vase-weary flowers might. The smiling man paid no attention to them.
The troopers had charged, struck the tribesmen pouring down... and were foundering in that flood of spears, broad-axes, bush-knives, and hatchets hurled spinning.
The tribesmen killed horses first, then the riders as they sank — sabers slashing — into the warriors' tattooed currents.
The officers and foresters had gathered around the king, were attempting to escort him back down the valley. But they melted... melted under a storm of steel that wore them away one by one, though lacing the tribesmen with blood. — Bajazet could still see the king, see the king's gray destrier in that shambles. He thought Cooper had his longsword out... was striking with it.
There were, no doubt, good reasons for Bajazet to have watched the end, to have seen the River's men, the River's new king — a traitor beyond question — brought down and butchered. But those reasons were apparently not good enough. He closed his eyes, stood blind, and only listened to the slowly fading sounds of shouts, shrieks of agony, the silvery ring of fighting-steel.... And, after a long while, silence except for distant quiet conversation, and a wounded man begging for his mother.
... When he opened his eyes, the warning tribesman was gone, and Bajazet's legs — strong enough to have carried him many miles of forest and hills for many days — now became too weak to stand on, and he sat by the stream in sparse, damp spring grass, feeling sick with relief at this rescue — if it was to be a rescue. The hill tribes had no cause to love him for his own sake — perhaps less cause to love him for either of his fathers'.
The morning — its sky's clear vibrating blue barely streaked with yesterday's clouds — seemed extraordinarily important, its every detail perfectly etched, its breeze the perfection of air. He was, perhaps, to live... and so young, possibly live for years. He bowed his head in his hands and breathed... breathed, felt his heart stroking gently in his chest as if making him promises . .. promises of a future.
Gentle fingers touched, stroked the side of his face. "Poor, tired... tired prince," the Made-girl, Nancy, said.
Bajazet raised his head, and saw the narrow valley lying thick with dead and dying. A slaughtered horse, a black, dammed the little stream so it murmured, trickling to left and right.
"Not hurt with any new hurt?" The Made-girl knelt beside him, narrow head tilted in inquiry, watching him with lemon-yellow eyes.
"I have no new hurts," Bajazet sai
d, and though his side ached, and he felt many sore scrapes and deep bruises from falling down the mountainside, told the truth.
... Unsteady, he got to his feet, and fumbled to sheathe steel in a valley where all steel was streaked with blood and other matter. Then he followed Nancy up into the valley's brush, past drifts of tribesmen — all already summer-naked to please Lady Weather's daughter, their greased furs left piled in distant village huts. White-skinned, brown-skinned, and black, some were leaping in celebration, whirling, chirping and trilling their totems' calls. Tall men with grease-plaited hair, feather-tattooed, they seemed starved of everything but ropy muscle, restless movement, and scarred ferocity. They smelled of wood smoke.
Guided up the valley's northern slope to a small clearing almost private with budding thicket, Bajazet saw his gift blanket once again, lying unrolled on the ground — went to it, and fell onto its thick leaf-scattered warmth. Then the world and all its sorrows seemed to roll away beneath him, so both screams of a tortured prisoner, and shouts of celebration, faded into sleep.
* * *
... He woke in cool misty morning — wakened by calls below, along the valley's little stream. He'd slept yesterday's noon, afternoon, and all the night away.
"Oh, for a great bow." A deep, deep voice. The big Made-man, Richard, stood massive past Bajazet's blanket, staring down the valley toward the calls, the shouting. Seen from behind, Richard might have been a festival bear, dressed in huge shirt and pantaloons, and trained perhaps to dance slow measures. "A great bow," he said.
Bajazet saw the boy — Errol? — also standing, watching... and got up himself, though slowly and with difficulty, he was so sore and stiff. His left side was very tender — ribs badly bruised, but apparently not broken — and his arm hurt, where the girl had bitten him.
All this pain, of course, spoke of life and living, so Bajazet felt wonderfully well.
Standing, staring down the valley, he saw an oddness. Spears were fountaining up... hundreds of them being thrown high in the air. Some the short, stabbing assags, others — light javelins — being hurled remarkably high.
"There," Richard rumbled, and Bajazet saw a fluttering thing sailing up the valley's air. A cloak or coat was flapping in the wind. Sheaves of spears, and a few hurled hatchets, rose to meet it... almost reached .. . then fell short.
The Made-girl, Nancy, came running through a shrub tangle — bounding through it, really, beast-blood perhaps revealed in that light, swift, ease of movement. "The Boston person — from the River!" She took Bajazet's jerkin hem and hauled at him. "Come! Come and hide!"
He went with her a few steps, then stopped despite her tugging. A woods-wise man might conceal himself in this thick scrub from anyone on the ground, even from troopers on horseback — as the tribesmen had shown — but not from a creature flying over.
"No use," he said, and the girl let go. "And I doubt he cares to search for me."
And that seemed so, for the flying person — though not, supposedly, flying, but rather spurning the ground away and behind him by the trick of a talent-piece in his brain — that person patrolled up the valley, then back down it again, apparently observing the scattered ruin of the king's troopers. The ruin of the king.... And all the way up and back, the futile spears rose to almost catch him.
"Oh," Richard said again, "— oh, for a great bow."
And, as if the sailor had heard and taken notice, he swerved up the valley's northern slope in a long, slow, curving path through the air.... Bajazet could clearly see, even at the distance, the long dark-blue coat-tails flapping in the slow wind of passage... the broad-brim blue hat set firmly on the man's head.
"I know him," he said. "Tom MacAffee. Ambassador from New England."
"Yes," Nancy said, "we know of him. All-Irish, and sent from Boston to be cruel." She made a face, which made her face seem odder. "— He is who helped your foolish new king to be a king."
"And how would you know this?"
"We know because a Boston Person told us so — and we know because the king expected this MacAffee to help hunting you from high, and was angry he was late coming up-river.... The officers said that in camp." The Made-girl cupped a small ear, an ear like any girl's, to illustrate listening. "— So their soldiers heard and said it also. From the soldiers, to the foresters. From the foresters, to the sweat-slaves — and those spoke of it when shoveling shit along John trench, while a half-breed Sparrow listened." The girl's lip lifted from a white canine. "We are not all as foolish as princes."
Bajazet had already begun to set this oddity straight — had his mouth open to do it — when he recalled Noel Purse, years before, on a Westfield hunt, advising him and Newton how to go on with the ladies. "Don't argue with 'em. You do, an' lose — you lose. You do an' win — still, you lose."
Newton had looked concerned at this bad news. "But Guard-Captain, there has to be a way..."
"Oh, there is, Prince — agree."
With this grim advice, Newton and Bajazet had ridden thoughtful through Westfield woods, wild boar forgotten.
"Well," Bajazet said to the Made-girl, "— at times, I have been foolish."
Noel Purse was instantly proved correct. Nancy smiled, looking almost pretty. "Oh, as princes go, I suppose you're better than most." That slight lisp there on all the s's.
Richard began to pace heavily a few steps to the left, then to the right. Bajazet had seen caged snow-tigers, caged bears, pace in just that way at Island, though not muttering, "Has Mountain Jesus no lightning for that Boston thing?"
Again, it seemed as if the man Walking-in-air had heard — for suddenly as he'd swerved across the valley, he turned his curving course to fly almost directly to them.
"Beneath the blanket!" Nancy yanking at Bajazet's jerkin again.
He pulled free of her — tired of being tugged at, handled, dealt with. "I won't hide beneath a blanket — and doubt there's any need to." It was wonderful what salvation and a good night's sleep accomplished, even for the very sore and starving.
Ambassador MacAffee appeared to be surveying the ground as he came. Bajazet saw his hat tilt as he stared down left, then right. A single spear — thrown very hard — came suddenly up and nearly to him, so he seemed to hop in the air like a magical rabbit, and the javelin flew under.
Hands clapped in appreciation of the throw, or the avoidance. Bajazet saw the boy — Errol — standing back by the little clearing's edge. He was watching the Boston man with almost an idiot's attention, mouth slack... half open.
Then the Ambassador to Middle Kingdom, the cheerful and merry Master MacAffee — swung over them like a kite .. . hovered a moment, then a moment more. A light, curved scimitar was sheathed at his belt. Bajazet saw the man's ruddy face under the blue hat's broad brim... the ruddy face, and bright-blue eyes visible even at that height.
Bajazet saw — was seen — and received a sudden look of fury, instantly smoothed to smiling. Boston's ambassador sagged in the air for an instant, apparently having lost concentration, then rose and hovered over.
"Good morning, Prince!" he called, rocking a little in the morning breeze. "I so regret my lateness. I see you've survived politics — and found friends... of a sort."
Now regretting his bow, left lying by the blanket unstrung, Bajazet considered what the Made-girl had mentioned, and shouted, "You seem to have lost your friend, MacAffee!"
The ambassador, hanging high in the air, the rising sun bright over his left shoulder, confirmed that with an amused shrug, and called down, "Oh, Boston can always find friends who wish a crown. They sprout like spring onions along your river!"
"Then they will go as this traitor king has gone!" Bajazet's heart was pounding so he seemed to shake with it. "— As you will go, you fat dog, if you come down!"
MacAffee shook his head, smiled — then suddenly swung around in a swift half circle that made Bajazet dizzy to watch. He'd drawn his scimitar; sunlight glowed along the curved steel.
Tribesmen were shouting aga
in, along the valley's little stream.
Bajazet turned... and saw a distant motion through the air — but no hundreds of futile javelins rising toward it, no hurled hatchets. It might have been the ancient American totem-eagle sailing, white-headed, wings spread. Then the sun caught dark blue, the wings of an open greatcoat, and long white hair streaming.
What flew — or Walked-in-air — swerved nearer .. . nearer... then near, coat billowing in the wind, and Bajazet saw it was the Boston-woman who'd watched him from a tree.
She called something, but the breeze took it away.
"Exile!" Master MacAffee shouted at her. "— Condemned by town council!" And drifted sideways through the air — sliding toward her, first slowly, then faster.
"He'll kill her!" The Made-girl, Nancy, slid her hatchet from her belt — leaned far back, then threw it with a harsh grunt of effort. It spun thrumming, and surprisingly high... but still short and behind the ambassador as he went sailing. "He'll kill our friend!"
"No use," Richard said.
The Boston woman — sitting erect, legs crossed — flew to meet the ambassador, her paper-white hair bannering out behind her. She wore black boots, blue trousers, and white blouse beneath her open blue coat — and seemed, from Bajazet's sun-dazzled sight of her, to be smiling. She lifted a slim-bladed scimitar from her lap — and struck MacAffee's stroke clanging aside as they came together.
Then the air sang with sharp steel's music as they turned and turned together like mating hawks, but winged in blue. Tribesmen were running up from the creek, calling to each other as they came — until there was a growing crowd shifting Warm-time yards this way and that, beneath the fighters in the air.
Bajazet, jostled by wiry naked men smelling of smoke, roasted horse meat, and dried blood, still could hear faint grunts of effort above him. The scimitars wove bright ribbons of motion to ring ring ring... while both air-walkers dipped and fell to rise again.
Bajazet saw the woman fought with a two-hand grip, and she spun full around, sometimes — first one way, then the reverse as she struck.... Whirled one way again as he watched, began to turn back — then didn't, so MacAffee, anticipating, guarding wrong, was suddenly back-slashed across the belly, flew staggering back and back in the sun's glare, a dark silhouette that seemed to bow... bow deeply... then slowly somersaulted forward.
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