Kingdom River Page 12

"Going up into Texas," Captain Franklin said to them. "All the cavalry."

  An officer said, "Jumping Jesus!" — a Warm-time phrase that would have gotten his great-grandfather burned by his neighbors.

  "Now...." Drawing his belt knife, Sam went to a knee and sketched with the blade's point the great southern angle of the Bravo's Bend. "The Bend."

  Eric and the officers nodded.

  "The Kipchaks, about two thousand of them, have come down a long ride, many from Map-Fort Stockton, and seem to intend raiding into Chihuahua, west of the Bend."

  Someone was arguing with a woman down the road.

  "Nailed Jesus," Major Petersen said, "it's that fucking Boston girl."

  Sam stuck his knife in the dirt, stood, and turned in time to see the girl — very small on one of the captured imperial chargers — reach out and hit his trumpeter, Kenneth, with her sheathed saber. Kenneth took the blow on a raised arm as his horse shied away. The girl was yelling, "I go where I wish to go!" and seemed prepared to hit him again.

  Sam walked through the officers and down the road, the troopers in his way reining their horses aside. The girl saw him coming, her small face white under the wide-brimmed blue hat.

  "Get down," Sam said.

  "What?"

  "Get down, or I'll pull you down."

  "Not so..." Patience slid a little steel out of her sword's scabbard.

  "If you draw, I'll take you off that horse and whip you here in the road, before everyone." He slid his quirt's loop off his wrist.... It was one of those odd moments, coming more and more frequently for him, when anger and laughter seemed to coil around each other to become one thing. Sam was careful not to smile.

  A pale mask stared down, wrinkled in fury, the girl's small teeth showing like an angry grain-store cat's.

  "— And you'd deserve it, Ambassadress, for such improper and unladylike behavior."

  Slowly, slowly the small face relaxed to its usual smooth perfection. "And beating a True Emissary of Boston Town is a gentlemanly thing to do?"

  "Only to recall her to her duty."

  Patience sighed, swung a leg over the saddle, and slid down to the ground. "That man tried to stop me going where I wished to go. I wanted to come listen to your conference."

  "No." Sam turned and walked back up the column. Grinning troopers watched him pass.

  The girl called after him. "Unkind...!"

  "What did you say to her?" Howell was smiling.

  "I said, 'No.'" Sam knelt, picked up his knife. "Now, these troops the Khan is sending south..." He drew their route with the point of the blade. "Sending about two thousand men west of the Bend to test us, so we'll let them test our militia bands, our deserted border villages, our empty pastures and fields. And while they're doing it, we're going to take all four thousand of our cavalry — plus militia horsemen and volunteers — east of the Bend" — he drew the curving line of march — "and north into Texas, to take and burn Map-Fort Stockton."

  Silence. Then someone whistled two notes.

  "That's at least three days, Sam, riding up into Texas." Carlo Petersen, an older man and sturdy as a tree trunk, had Ned Flores' command.

  "That's right, Carlo."

  "Leaving just local militia to hold them in the west?"

  "Leaving local militia to trouble them in the west, with our Light Infantry reserved in the hills.... Charmian, your people are not to engage unless absolutely necessary. The whole point is to keep them busy, give them work and wear, but not a battle. Should be good practice for our people, thanks to Toghrul Khan."

  "Hard practice," Captain Wykeman said.

  " — Jaime and Elvin will stay here with the Heavy Infantry, so the brothers will be in charge strategically. But Phil Butler will be in tactical command."

  "Uh-oh." The previous whistler, a lieutenant named Carol Dunfey.

  "— I'll inform Jaime and Elvin that the infantry only moves on Phil's orders."

  "Sam," Petersen said, "are you saying the Old Men are out?"

  "No. They're up. In overall command — but not battlefield."

  Nods. Those close enough, were looking at the outline of the Bend cut into the ground.

  "Howell," Sam said, "will command the cavalry campaigning into Texas — as their general."

  The officers stared at Voss.

  "And not you, Sam?" Petersen, bulky, rosy and round-faced, looked like a startled baby. An aggressive baby, saber-scarred.

  "No. — Howell."

  Voss stood at ease. Not surprised. Sam saw he'd expected the command might come to him.

  "Well, in that case," Eric said, "I should go north with him."

  "No, Eric. You'll be more useful here."

  "Sam, I'll need to be up there."

  "You need to do as you're told."

  There was a moment of silence... silence enough that the wind could be heard, and the nickering of restless horses down the column.

  "... As you order, sir. I stay in Better-Weather."

  "Phil and the Brothers will have to know what's happening in Texas, Eric. Your people will pigeon down to you, and you will keep the Old Men and Colonel Butler informed. It shouldn't be necessary for you personally to go out in the kitchen to taste the soup."

  "You're right, sir. I apologize."

  Charmian Loomis leaned over to look at the drawing again, nodded, then straightened and walked to her horse… mounted, and rode away.

  "It's clever, Sam." Howell stood staring down at the dirt drawing as if it might change. "But the Kipchak's clever, too, and we'll be raiding deep into his country. If he realizes, and sends more people across and south of us..."

  "Then, Howell, you'll learn to like mare's milk."

  Smiles at that. They seemed willing enough, even after This'll Do. Sam supposed there might come a time, after other losses, when they would no longer be willing.

  Eric stood. "Good plan." His pinto backed a little, tugged at its rein.

  Sam got to his feet with a small grunt of effort. "Good as long as it's only ours. I want you to ensure that, Eric. If there are any people you're uncertain of — bought agents, particularly east of the Bend — I don't want them sending pigeons to Caravanserai as Howell rides past."

  "We know of five. I've left them because we know them."

  "Don't leave them any longer."

  "Yes, sir."

  The others were up, gathering their horses' reins.

  "And all you officers," Sam said, "keep in mind that your lives and your troopers' lives depend on these plans being held in silence." He bent, scored his diagram to nonsense with his dagger's point.

  Murmurs of agreement.

  "In silence, gentlemen and ladies. I'll hang the officer who makes this known by word or note or indication. Drunk or sober."

  A perfect silence then, as if they were practicing.

  What did it mean? Sam climbed into the saddle for the last stretch to Better-Weather. What did it mean that a man was most at ease, felt truly comfortable, only when planning battles? He spurred his horse — well-named Difficult — out in front of the column. Kenneth came trotting after him, the trumpeter seeming untroubled by having been struck by an angry ambassadress. And what did it mean that others were also more at ease, were also only truly comfortable with a man when he was planning battles? The younger officers' faces had only been pleased at the notion of war. Was the Captain-General becoming only a Captain-General, with nothing else left of him at all?

  "More than likely," Sam said.

  The trumpeter said, "Sir?"

  An early-winter rain had followed the column for the last few Warm-time miles. Now, it caught them, dark, cold, and driving, seething in swift puddles under the black's hooves. What plans he'd made in dirt with his dagger, then erased, were gone now under mud and water.

  * * *

  Better-Weather's fortress, built of granite blocks four years before, squatted gray in dawn's cloudy light amid the town's scattered wood and adobe houses, liveries, small manufactories, and inn
s. Three-storied, deep-moated by Liana Creek, and shaped a square, it enclosed a large, grassed siege-yard for sheep, a roofed swinery for boar, and runs for chicken-birds.

  Charles Ketch's office was off the courtyard, at the northwest corner of the third floor. Its four tall windows were barred with thick, greased steel, and armored men and women of Butler's Heavy Infantry mounted hall guard in six-hour shifts. These sentries, recruited deaf and dumb, had calmed their watch-mastiffs — and grinning, apparently pleased with news of Boca Chica, saluted Sam past.

  "... Sam, Sonora doesn't pay. Tax payments denied by three separate pigeon-notes. Two, day before yesterday. One, yesterday afternoon."

  "Late, you mean, Charles." Sitting on a three-legged stool with his scabbarded bastard-sword across his lap, Sam straightened to ease his back, and wished he'd had a hot bath in the laundry before coming upstairs and down the hall to duty. Wished he'd had a second cup of chocolate at breakfast.

  "No, sir. Withheld. Stewart claims they need their money for their roads, this year — says an elected governer should have that decision." Charles — looking, it seemed to Sam, older each time he saw him — sat with his desktop and the floor around him piled with papers, paper scraps, twine-knotted bundles of papers, and wooden boxes of the tiny rolled notes of pigeon-carries. His copy of The Book of jew Jesus — a very old and precious copy concerning the first Jesus known — rested like a thick battlement of sewn binding and time-browned paper in front of him.

  Eric Lauder had once said to Sam, "Charles thinks the truth hides in that Warm-time Bible like a bird in a bush. He puts his ear to it for little chirps and twitters of sweetness... kindness."

  "Charles, you're sure he's serious about withholding the province's taxes? He's picked a very bad time for it."

  "Yes, I know."

  Ketch's office, gloomy in a cold and clouding morning, was packed to its rafters with narrow crates of bound volumes containing the records of what each year had brought to the provinces of North Map-Mexico. Reports of gold or silver earned or spent, of diseases — animal and human — of good crops or bad, of crimes and hangings. Bitter complaints and boasts of success. Everything carefully entered on paper from Crucero Mill.

  All news came to Better-Weather, and came fairly swiftly — by messenger, by pigeon — or several were made sorry for slowness. Rumors came as well, and were always stacked in seven boxes at the end of the highest shelf — hard to get to, and so the more carefully considered before setting in place.

  "Our memories are all in my paper-work," Charles Ketch had once said to Sam. And each short summer, when Lady Weather's daughter had wed the sun, he cleaned out his office, transferred all the crates to storage down the hall, and ordered new boxes built for the memories of the new year.

  "Oh," Sam had said to him, "I still keep a few memories in my head."

  Charles had smiled and reached out, as he often did, to grip Sam's arm, as if to be certain he was still present, young, and strong.

  "Very worst time for refusal." Sam leaned forward to pour a clay cup of water from the fat little pitcher on Ketch's desk. "What makes Stewart think he can get away with it?"

  "A habit of making important decisions. It's the risk with governers: the tendency to independence. They are elected."

  "Elected with my permission, Charles."

  "Easy for them to forget that, after two or three years in office." Charles took a pinch of snuff, but didn't sneeze.

  No one smoked the Empire's tobacco in Ketch's office — there were never flames there that might cause fire, not even lamps at dark, so all reading and copy-work was done by daylight.

  No flame, so no heat through the nine months of hard winter. There were leaded panes of clear glass in the windows, so the wind, at least, could not come in.

  "And this is your worst news for me, Charles?"

  "Yes — except for the Kipchaks coming down, of course."

  "You're mistaken." Sam stretched his legs out. His right spur scraped the stone flooring. "This tax thing is much more serious than two thousand horse archers."

  Charles smiled. Approval... fondness. "Yes. That's right, of course. Stewart's is just the first of an endless succession of conflicts between Better-Weather and the governers elected locally. Each province will challenge you, sooner or later. Roads, mutton prices, wool prices, cabbage prices. You'll need certain taxes, and they'll wish to make them uncertain, to use the money locally, if only to insure their reelections. Stewart, and Sonora, are only the beginning."

  "And you've done... what?"

  "Nothing, Sam. It's too important for a decision of mine."

  "Then you advise... what?"

  Charles sighed, seemed embattled behind his stacks of paper, his massive copy of The Book. "Sam, you can have any recalcitrant governer removed from office, or killed. But that would mean always having them removed or killed at any serious disagreement. Taxes being the most serious — "

  "Aside from recruitment."

  "All right, aside from recruitment."

  "Which would be the next refusal, Charles."

  "Yes, which might very well be the next refusal."

  "And your advice?"

  "What I think we need to do, is limit their time in office. Make it law that a person can be elected only once as governer in each province. Then there'd be no building of little lordships to break us apart — or at least it would become less likely." Charles's voice from gathering shade, as rain came down outside.

  "Yes. My fault for not thinking of this before."

  "Our fault."

  Sam considered Patricio Stewart. Big, bulky man with direct blue eyes and a bad temper. Broken nose, possibly because of his bad temper. For some reason, wore his long black hair in pigtails, held with silver clips.

  "Alright." The stool had been doing Sam's back no good. He stood up, leaned on his scabbarded sword. An aching back at twenty-seven; he'd be a bent old man, no doubt about it. "Alright. We'll issue that order of a single term only, for governer of any province."

  "Still five years?"

  "Yes. Still a five-year term, once elected against all comers. But one term only."

  "And if the other governers object? Follow Stewart?"

  "Charles, I won't kill them; they were elected by their people. And I won't kill Stewart, for the same reason." The rain swept like a slow broom down the windows, dimming the daylight so Ketch, behind his desk, seemed to fade with it. "Instead, when this happens, I'll kill the person most important in supporting their independence."

  "... I see."

  "Might be Eric talking?"

  Charles shrugged. "Eric has his uses."

  "Who is Stewart's most important friend in this tax thing? Who stands behind him in Sonora?"

  "... His wife's father, I believe. A formidable man, Johnson Neal. I know him, raises spotted cattle."

  "Have Neal arrested, Charles. See that he's tried for treason in the tax matter. For plotting to destroy our unity... possibly in the Khan's pay, or the Emperor's. Then hang him."

  In deepening shadows, Charles had become a ghost. "And if the magistrate makes some difficulty, Sam?"

  "Choose a magistrate who won't. This is to be done at once. And the same magistrate is to issue a judgment referring to payment of provincial taxes as duty inescapable."

  "That's... that should be effective."

  "Also, find a discontented priest of Mountain Jesus, a man who may have had problems with Stewart's people over shares of altar gifts, distributions... whatever. Bound to be one. Advise the man to preach, publicly and often, proper obedience to Better-Weather. Three gold spikes will be sent, later, to be driven into any temple tree he wishes."

  The ghost sat silent.

  "— And all a legal and administrative matter, Charles, and your responsibility. Neither Eric nor the army are to have anything to do with it.... Understood?"

  "Meaning, I suppose, that I tend to avoid unpleasant necessities?"

  "Meaning that, Charles — and tha
t it should be seen as a matter of law, not of my will and my soldiers."

  "I'll see to it."

  "Quickly, in the next few days, so send fast pigeons. We're going to need that money.... Oh, and once the taxes are received — and all in coin, not kind — spare what we can for road-work in Sonora. Build a bridge, and name it after Stewart. A modest bridge."

  "Yes...." The spectral Charles Ketch seemed to smile. "Really very sensible, I suppose."

  "But sad for Johnson Neal's daughter?"

  "Yes."

  "Only if she's stupid, Charles." Sam slung his sword on his back. "If she's clever, she'll know her father hanged in her husband's place."

  "Then, let's hope she's clever.... And the matter of remounts for this... excursion up into Texas?"

  Sam paused at the office door. "Every damn horse in Nuevo Leon, if necessary. Have your people pay their price and bring them in. If it has four legs and can carry a man, Howell is to have it."

  "May have to pay with script."

  "Get them in, Charles."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I want the first draft corralled in Ocampo in four days. The second, three days later in La Babia."

  "Sam — I'll need more time, just a few days more."

  "Charles, I don't have the time to give you. First and Second Regiments of Heavies and Second Regiment of Lights, reinforced, will be there; Howell is picking them up as he goes."

  "The reserves?"

  "Every trooper."

  "Nailed Jesus. How are we going to pay them? We have no plans for calling up the reserves, Sam, except for war. For war, they'd wait for their money. This will be thousands of gold pesos every day!"

  "This, Charles, is war's beginning."

  "Dear Weather..."

  "And what money we don't have later, I'll borrow from the Emperor."

  "Oh, of course! Would you tell me why Rosario e Vega would agree to pay our army?"

  "Oh, I think he'd prefer to, Charles, rather than see it coining down through Zacatecas to pay him a visit."

  Ketch laughed, laughter from darkness, over the sound of rain. "Might work, at that.... Alright. The remounts will be there, Sam. At Ocampo and La Babia. But it will cost us a fortune, and make enemies in Nuevo Leon."

  "Any rancher who objects to parting with his horses, Charles, is welcome to go with them up to Map-Fort Stockton."