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  The rank of officers glanced behind them at the crawlers, bowed once more, and got out of the way.

  No more hissing approvals. Only silence.

  Toghrul waited while the two fools came toward him, baby fashion, crawling more slowly the closer they came. Watching them, copybook Achilles-and-the-Tortoise occurred to him.

  He waited, then beckoned them on to finally rest before him, still on hands and knees. They'd come dirty from long riding. He knew one — a minor officer of supply, with Ikbal Crusan's tuman. The other was just a soldier.

  "Great, Great Lord — " The officer of supply.

  Serious trouble, if it required two 'greats' as introduction. Toghrul sat silent. His father would have approved.

  "Map-Fort Stockton… O Khan, live forever." The sweating officer was Kipchak, the steppe still in his face.

  Toghrul waited.

  "The... the North Map-Mexicans have come up and destroyed it, lord!"

  Ah, a fact at last, though likely faulty. Murmurs in the Lily Chamber.

  "And with what forces did they accomplish this?"

  More groveling. Both men had their faces on the carpet. "It seemed… three or four thousand riders, lord. Heavy and Light. They came from southeast, in the dark before morning."

  Listening, a flush — an absolute flush of pleasure, of amusement — rose in Toghrul so he couldn't help smiling, then chuckling at such a surprise, a blow struck as clever as one of his own! An interesting event, and at last an interesting enemy. The joys of complications arising….

  "So, I'm to understand that this Captain-General, this Small-Sam Monroe, seeing us striking to the south — west of the border Bend — has taken the opportunity to strike north at us from east of it!"

  Silence from the grovelers... well, a little nod from the officer. A nod into the carpet.

  "And the place is destroyed?"

  "Yes, lord." The Nodder. "Burned and destroyed and all the men killed."

  "Only the men?"

  "I believe only the men, lord — the seven or eight hundred left behind as guards, herdsmen, and storekeepers." A pause. "I believe the women and children were spared."

  "You believe, or you saw?"

  "I saw... a little."

  "And you — soldier — what did you see?"

  But the soldier seemed to have seen nothing, and only burrowed into the carpet, his ass in the air.

  "The horses?"

  The Nodder murmured, "Gone, lord."

  "Almost two thousand — four herds of fine horses gone, taken? Driven away?"

  A nod. There were strands of drool on the carpet.

  "But you weren't killed… and you were mounted?"

  A nod, but a reluctant nod.

  "Why then didn't you send... this one... with the report? Why not, yourself, have followed those clever thieves, made certain of their route of retreat? Then you might have become a wind ghost, cut throats in the night to unsettle them, and so secured at least a little of my honor."

  "I... lord, I didn't think."

  "You didn't? Your head was at fault for not thinking?"

  Barely a nod.

  "Well then, your head's proved of little use to you. You'll do much better without it." Toghrul lifted his right hand, made a little spilling motion — and four guardsmen, two from each side of the dais, jumped down on the Nodder like swineherds on a shoat, and bound his hands behind him. They lifted him up, and trotted away with him down the chamber's aisle while the officers, chiefs, and important men of audience fell aside as if the pops were carried there in rot and puss and buboes. The Nodder made no sound, going, seemed almost asleep with terror.

  The soldier remained silent on the carpet.

  "Soldier..." Toghrul waited patiently until a grimy, teary face rose from warp-and-weft. "Soldier, your Khan would never punish a man for obeying his officer's orders, even if the officer has proved a fool and coward. Go then, and report to the commander of the camp for rest, rations, and honorable assignment."

  The teary face, astonished, then turned to a lover's, looked up rich with affection and gratitude. There was a subdued murmur of approval at such generous and lordly justice.

  The soldier, turning, began to crawl aside, but Toghrul smiled, gestured him up onto his feet, and waved him away into the rest of his life.

  There was an odor of urine; the carpet would have to be cleaned. There was no denying blood.

  Thought on a throne was well enough; thought in a summer garden well enough. Thought on a cushion couch with a dear wife by one's side, also well enough. — But none the equal, for a Kipchak, of horseback consideration. Consideration, this sunny, clear, and cold afternoon, of the morning's information: the surprising counterstroke from North Map-Mexico. A counterstroke absolutely Monroe's in conception, though Razumov's people — and an after-the-fact pigeon from the Boston creatures in Map-McAllen — suggested the immediate commander was Colonel (now General) Voss, apparently a very competent officer. Banjar player, also, according to Old Peter's farewell report. Monroe, it seemed, had gone to Middle Kingdom.

  Toghrul whipped his stallion's withers, lifting Lively to a lope out into Texas prairie endless as an ocean. A frozen ocean now, brown and yellow with frost-burned grass. He rode as if he flew as New Englanders sometimes flew, and smiled again at what Monroe had managed. Very much — oh, very much what he might have done himself. An enemy, a thief, puts his head into a yurt's entrance, intending mischief. What better response, what more humorous response, than to wriggle under the yurt's fabric at the back, circle round, and kick the fellow in the ass?

  So, the Captain-General apparently possessed imagination, and certainly a sense of humor. He also now possessed two thousand fine horses, which would remount his cavalry handsomely, and likely help pay the expenses of the expedition.

  Well done, and more than worth killing him for. Worth killing Voss and many of his people, too, for laughing, as they must be, at a Khan's discomfiture. But how sad that the only interesting person in the West must be done away with....

  Toghrul reined Lively to the left to avoid a deep runoff ditch half-hidden in the grass. A trace of short summer's melt.

  ... And of course, the North Mexicans would not go into Blue Sky alone. There were others, a troublesome few of a ruler's own, that in time must join them. Manu Ek-Tam, that so-brilliant young officer. And two or three of his dear friends. All brilliant young officers, perfect at everything but keeping silent. Was there any spy or agent so effective as kumiss in revealing disloyalty, arrogant ambition? Disrespect?

  So, the treacherous cut their throats with their own tongues.

  And the Uighur tuman, of course. Foolish, grumbling tribesmen, needing to be worn away by enemy lances — as, in the past, the Cuman and Kirghiz had been. So, an army of many differences, many purposes, was shaped and whittled into an army with one purpose only. Obedience.

  But was any great man ever brought down except by those closest to him? The generals, the ministers, the great of Caravanserai with their velvet tents, musicians, women, and fuck boys — it had been many months since one of these was peeled and stuck on a stake". — Now see the result of forbearance. Murmurs, judgments made, requirements of the Khan's wife that she produce a boy.

  Expectations impudent in themselves.

  The sheriff of the camps was just such an impertinent man. Who, after all, would miss him? Who miss the lesson he presented, perched screeching on a stake?

  All so tedious. Was it impossible men could be ruled by reason? Old copybooks claimed, improbably, it had been done — by which they certainly meant not by reason at all, but greed, and its parceled fulfillments....

  Sul Niluk, a Guardsman galloping a hundred Warm-time yards away, whistled and pointed. Toghrul saw movement ahead at the side of a slight rise, a stirring through the grasses' tall ruined stems.

  Jack the rabbit. And up and away he bounded, already mottling snowy into his winter coat. Toghrul, spurring from a canter to the gallop, lifted his left ar
m so his hawk's jesses jingled. Reaching over, he tugged the bird's yellow velvet hood away and launched him into the air.

  The prairie hawk spiraled high, saw the rabbit going, and slid after it as if the air were ice. Toghrul pulled Lively in to watch.

  Jack the rabbit jinked swiftly here and there, going away. Not even wings could carve those sudden angles after him, and the hawk didn't attempt it. It flew, it sailed straight to a place just past the runner — suddenly stooped, and struck as Jack came fleeing to it, sure as if there'd been an appointment.

  The rabbit screamed — Toghrul had heard two children screaming just so at Map-Sacramento, when his father took it. He'd been no older than the children, but much safer, sitting on his pony in the midst of the Guard. The children had been put into fires, held there with spears while they blistered and shrieked, burning. The old Khan hadn't been cruel, only very practical, and people frightened by frightful things were easier to manage. A sort of applied reason, after all.

  Sul Niluk rode on to bend from the saddle and lift the hawk hissing from its prey, a tuft of fur already bleeding in its beak. Sul bent down again, picked up the rabbit as well, tucked it in his saddle-bag, then rode back to bring Toghrul his hawk.

  ... And by winter's end, with the campaign against Middle Kingdom completed, then, in just such a way as the hawk's — as Monroe defended his border with quick and clever little strokes and dodges — in just such a way the tumans would sail over the grasslands to meet him where, sooner or later, he was certain to go.

  When that was accomplished, of course, the world would become a little less interesting.

  * * *

  Well-balanced, her laced, low boots as firmly planted as flooring brushed with oil allowed, Martha grunted with the apparent effort of an ax-swing that was not. Master Butter accepted it for fact, raised a swift sword-parry against it — and was, by surprise, backstroked across the face with her ax's heavy handle.

  He staggered away, calling, "Wonderful!" in a goose's honk, since she'd broken his nose.

  Martha came after him fast, mimed a finishing stroke across his belly, then set her ax aside, said, "Oh, poor Sir," and went to him with her yellow handkerchief to stop the bleeding.

  Master Butter set his sword into the rack, pinched and tugged at the bridge of his snub nose to painfully straighten it, and said, "Owww!" Then he took her handkerchief and held it to his nostrils. "No one has had as much blood out of me in months — and that was a West-bank captain quick as a cat."

  "I'm sorry."

  "You would be sorry, if you hadn't so correctly followed to kill me. Never, never let an opponent recover, whether in duel or war. If someone is worth fighting with fist and foot, they're worth kicking unconscious. If they're worth fighting with sharp steel, they're worth killing. Always fight to finish."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I think now 'Butter-boy' will do. It was a hurtful nickname — you know those Warm-time words, 'nick-name'?"

  "Yes."

  "Sit down... sit on the bench; I'll get some vodka. Practice is over today; I'm bleeding like a pig." The handkerchief to his nose, he went to the table, picked up a blue-glazed bottle, pulled its stopper, took several long swallows, then brought it back and sat beside her. "I have no cups; I apologize.... Well, I took the nick-name they'd used to hurt me, and made it my True-name. Master Butter-boy. One deals with insults as one deals with any opponent who possesses a long and punishing reach. You close as soon as possible, grapple him to you — then use the knife." He took another long drink from his blue bottle, then offered it to her.

  "No, thank you. Is your nose alright?"

  "It'll be alright, Martha. A good lesson, though, for both of us. Should only the mildest corrective injury be required, the nose is as good a thing to strike as any other. In a more serious case, involving weapons, you will keep in mind that a person struck hard on the nose is blinded for an instant"

  "'Blinded for an instant….'"

  "Yes." Master Butter took another swallow. "After which, of course, more will have to be done. Never strike a first blow without having prepared a second. Each stroke, each slash, is an introduction for the next... and I am ruining your handkerchief."

  "It will wash."

  "I hope it will." Master Butter sighed, then took the cloth away and examined it. "And how do you go on in court, Martha?"

  "Oh... I mind my own business."

  "Well, that may do for a year or so, but not forever. You're with the Queen day and night; that's too close for some lords' comfort… some generals' comfort, too. And what makes great men — and women — uncomfortable, is sooner or later set aside."

  "The Queen will keep me safe," Martha said, "as I will keep her safe, for certain."

  " 'For certain.' " Master Butter threw his head back and laughed. "You are young." Then he said, "By the way, a very good time to reach over and cut someone's throat — while they're laughing."

  "Yes, sir."

  "For certain..." Master Butter sighed, and took a deep drink from his blue bottle. "Still, properly said. Our Queen is a wonder, but wonders may grow careless. You may not. Particularly not with this war to the west, since it has certainly occurred to the horse savages that our Queen presents an obstacle."

  "I won't be careless."

  "See to it.... So, you two deal well enough together — must, for good guarding. And the Queen's daughter?" He handed over the vodka bottle.

  "I like Princess Rachel. I don't know if she likes me or not, but she's kind." Martha held the vodka bottle, but didn't drink. Her father had given her tastes of potato vodka, but she hadn't liked it.

  "Sons and daughters, daughters and sons." Master Butter took his bottle back, displayed it. "Map-Louisiana work. Enamel-ware." He sipped, set it down on the floor beside him, then sat silent for a long while, looking at Martha, blinking slowly like a wood owl.

  Martha sat, her fine new ax resting across her lap, its head's blade bright as silvered glass and sharp enough to shave down from her forearm. The head's spike, on the reverse, was a slightly curved claw, coming to a needle's point. The Queen's own Weapon-smith had made it, and engraved an ancient Warm-time saying on the side of the ax's steel. Deadlier than the male.

  "... My father," Master Butter said after a while, "was Lawrence, Baron Memphis, which does make me a 'sir,' by courtesy. Sir Edward. He was Memphis, but not a brute... would eat no talking meat." Master Butter was silent for a time, seemed distracted in liquor.

  Then he said, "My brother, Terry, the present baron, loved our father and still honors his memory. My brother was not squatly fat, heard no voices, had no falling fits — and has no great talent for killing, either. He sends me an allowance, and, of course, as one of Island's household, I have my servant, my rooms, my place in the hall at meals. No one treats me with disrespect. Those who aren't afraid, are sorry for me.... I mention this, as I'm considering you for a friend."

  "I see...."

  " — Not, I hasten to add, a lover. I have whores for the one thing, and have given my Forever-love to another." He took the handkerchief away, examined blood spots on it, then pressed it against his nostrils again. "My love, comic as it must seem to those few who know of it, is for Her Majesty alone. So it has been from the moment I stood beside my father on the pier of Silver Gate, and saw her first come ashore to Island beside Newton Second-Son — the River rest His Majesty."

  He blew his nose gently. "She was tall, looked like a beautiful bitch wolf, and though frightened by the noise and crowds and newness, was too brave to show it.... And a foolish fat boy, despised for his falling fits, saw her, lost his heart, and never got it back."

  Martha sat silent beside him.

  "This... quiet of yours, is the reason I consider you for friendship, Martha. Knowing that a friend would never repeat what I've just told you for commons' casual amusement. Very few at court would dare laugh to my face — but many when my back is turned."

  "I won't tell anyone."

  "Thank you.... And
that was very nice work with the ax. Most forget an ax has a heavy handle, and see only the blade and spike — as I did, to my shame. That stroke was very nice, and followed quite properly by the belly cut."

  "But your poor nose..."

  "Yes. You've made a friend of me — but an enemy of my nose." Master Butter laughed a goose's honk. "My dear, I think the Queen chose better than she knew."

  CHAPTER 15

  Sam had occasionally seen Kingdom warships at a distance, rigged for the Gulf's summer wet and ponderously tacking offshore, great white seashells of sail taut with wind — or their ranks of oars out, flashing yellow in sunlight. Banners streaming from their masts.

  And in winter, once, riding high along the coast with a file of troopers, he had heard a great hissing, like some monstrous southern snake's — and seen one of the Kingdom's great ships, driven before the wind, skating the Gulf's ice on huge, bright steel runners.

  But to have seen at a distance was not the same as seeing close when the Cormorant, intercepted under a storm-darkened sky by a Kingdom cutter at the river's mouth, was held rocking in the tide while a warship came drum-thundering, oar-thrashing down upon them.

  "Nailed Jesus," Margaret said, as it came.

  After a shouted interchange over gusting breezes, they were invited to board by clambering up the great ship's side on a dripping rope ladder, as it heaved and rolled in the delta's swell. The ship's name was worked in bronze at its bow: QS Naughty.

  Their packs and baggage followed them, knotted to slender ropes — 'whips,' by the orders given — and drawn up to the ship's deck by silent sailors, working barefoot in the bitter wind. Heavier tackle was rigged, cable and belly bands, to haul the kicking horses up one by one to the warship's deck, then to be chivied into a large shelter of heavy canvas and taut-stretched cord, made in moments.

  "Your people, sir, to remain on this section of deck — and wander nowhere else." A pleasant officer in Middle Kingdom's naval-gray cloak, jacket, and trousers — and young, a boy no more than fourteen or so, his dark hair cropped short. A blue dot tattooed on each cheek, a heavy curved knife at his belt, he swayed to the ship's motion as Sam and his North Mexicans staggered.