Kingdom River Read online

"No 'suppose' about it, sir," Margaret said. "You will damn well have one of the sergeants, or me, with you at all times."

  "Alright — one of the men. Margaret, you headquarter here, but wander often enough to keep an eye on all of us, and on any change in our position with these people."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Lieutenant..."

  "Sir?" Darry sitting handsomely alert, left hand resting on his saber's hilt. A hilt, Sam noticed, sporting gold wire on the

  grip.

  "Since, Lieutenant, you're a very social fellow, you will be a very social fellow here. Get out and around in the court. Cultivate companions-in-mischief. I want to know who's important, and who's not. I want to know what they think of the war — and of us."

  "I understand, sir."

  "And, Pedro, limit your amusements to those that do not require duels."

  "Goes without saying, sir."

  "Um-mm. And, Master Carey, you're to do whatever it was Eric Lauder instructed you to do — once you've told me exactly what those instructions were."

  "Yes, milord — sir. Really, only to guard you, particularly against long-acting poisons, and to... deal with any river people who might threaten you or our mission here."

  "Carey, you will 'deal' with no one without my direct order. Is that clear?"

  "Very well, sir. Ask you, first."

  "Yes.... Now, all of you," — the sergeants came to attention to indicate attention — "all of you, remember why we're here. We are not here to make friends; I think that's unlikely in any case. We're here to offer the Boxcars help that they already need, and will need more of when the Khan joins his army." Sam finished the apple, found no place to put the core.

  Carey came around the table and took it away.

  "Thank you.... As to official matters, I think Her Majesty will let me wait at least a day or two, and possibly more, before we meet in any private way. To put me in my place."

  "She seems damn rude."

  "Margaret, watch your tongue."

  "Sorry, Sam.... But she does."

  "The Queen is exactly as my Second-mother described her. Older, but the same. A fierce lady — and one, now, with great burdens, which probably include the people of her court."

  "Those, my business, sir?"

  "Your business, Pedro.... All of us need to remember that as this Kingdom manages against Toghrul Khan, so North Map-Mexico will have to manage. We need these people as much as they need us. Keep it in mind."

  Nods and "Yes, sir's."

  "Master Carey," Margaret said, "the horses brought ashore and cared for?"

  "Yes, Captain. Stabled and fed."

  "And how are we to be fed?"

  "Banquet tonight for milord and officers, and otherwise, according to the kitchens, as we please. Meals brought up to us, or served in Island's Middle-hall, still called 'The King's.' Milord and officers have places held at south high table there, servants and men-at-arms, places at south low."

  "Hours?"

  "All hours, Captain."

  It seemed to Sam that Better-Weather's imposition of Ansel Carey — and Darry and the sergeants — was proving to have been good sense. "Most times," he said, "we'll eat publicly. Roosting up here would not be helpful. We need to see, and be seen."

  "As to tonight's banquet, and attending what they call Extraordinaries, sir," Carey said, "I'm told that presently there is still no Boston ambassador at Island. The Queen ordered him out last year, as we knew — quite a scene, I understand. She threw a cabbage at him in one of their glass growing-houses."

  "I'll try to avoid cabbages," Sam said.

  "As for the rest, sir, no ambassador from the Khan, of course. Left, weeks ago. The others will be court officials, river lords, generals, commanders, courtiers and so forth. And their wives."

  " 'And their wives,' " Margaret said, still apparently regretting finery.

  * * *

  "Thank Lady Weather, that's over." The Queen, weary from the Welcome-banquet, and half-submerged in scanty lye-soap suds in the great silver tub, rested with her eyes closed. Steam scented with imperial perfume rose around her. It had taken Orrie, Ulla, and a nameless tower servant, two trips up from the laundry with pails of boiling water to fill the tub.

  Martha, ringlets ruined by wet heat, knelt to scrub the Queen's long back — a back softened here and there by age, but still showing ropes of muscle down her spine. And there were scars, though not the many that showed on her front — puckered white beside her mouth, across her left breast, her belly, her left shoulder... and a bad one pitted into her right thigh. Her wrists and forearms, like Master Butter's, seemed decorated with scars' pale threads and ribbons.

  "It seemed to go well, ma'am. And the dancing." Though Martha had been struck, above all, by the Welcome-banquet's food, as if the Kingdom offered endless spotted-cattle roasts, baked pigs, geese, and goats, fried chicken-birds, pigeons, and candied partridges to overawe the North Mexican lord. All those foods, and many tables of others.

  The evening's bright occasion, and its music, had pleased Martha very much — though after, something pleased her more. Climbing the solar tower's entrance steps behind the Queen, she'd noticed by torchlight a large soldier in green-enameled armor, who'd winked and smiled at her while standing sergeant of the guard.

  "Dancing," the Queen said, talkative after considerable imperial wine. "The usual strutting and sweating. Not a man of them could leap over a high fire."

  "Lord Patterson paid attention to you."

  "Lord Pretty would pay attention to anything with a hole between its legs — and crowned, all the better. Still, at least Gregory can dance, there's some sense of rhythm there."

  "Yes," Martha said, distracted — and to her own surprise, bent and kissed the Queen on her temple.

  "What are you doing? Don't be impertinent."

  "It... it is a thank-you."

  "A thanks for what, Country-girl?" The Queen surfaced a long leg, looked at her toes.

  "A thanks for sending for Ralph-sergeant."

  "Oh.... Well, 'kind' soldiers aren't good for anything but standing at my stairs. Another useless mouth to feed at Island. The expense of this manure pile is outrageous — thieves, every damned one of them. Sutlers, fucking cooks and clothiers... Do you know, I don't dare look at the stable bills? You would suppose the Kingdom would receive gift-privilege from these merchant hogs — oh, no. Overprice and thievery!"

  "I could visit them, with Master Butter."

  The Queen laughed, half-turned in the tub to hit Martha on the shoulder with a soapy fist. "No, no. My people and I play many games, Trade-honey, and your ax would break the rules."

  "Then we won't," Martha said, and used a soft cloth to rinse. The Queen's torso had a fierce history, but her nape, revealed under pinned-up hair, was tender as a child's.

  Standing with care, then stepping out into wide southern-cotton toweling, the Queen left wet footprints on the carpet, so a woven snow-tiger grew a damp mustache. Martha hugged and gathered her in cloth — felt a sweetness of care and attending as she stroked the Queen dry over softness here, hard muscle there.

  Swaddled, the Queen turned and turned as Orrie took wet cloth from Martha, replaced it with dry.

  ... Burnished, smelling of flowers from the bath, the Queen sat on an ivory stool — the ivory once the teeth of a Boston sea-beast called the walrut, or perhaps sea walnut. She sat slumped while Martha unpinned and brushed out her hair, long, with weaves of gray running through the red.

  Martha brushed with slow easy strokes of boar bristle so as not to tug or tangle.

  "Now listen," the Queen said, her head moving slightly under the brush. "This sergeant of yours — Orrie, leave us."

  "Yes, Majesty." Orrie, very fat and usually a stately walker, always seemed to scuttle away relieved when dismissed.

  "Ma'am, he isn't really my sergeant."

  "And may never be, Martha, and then never more than a lover. Don't talk to me about men. But this sergeant of yours, if it shou
ld come to love, it still cannot come to marriage and children as long as I'm alive — ouch."

  "Sorry, ma'am."

  "I must and will be first. My life always above his and yours. Not because I'm such an Extraordinary, but because my life is the peoples', and they have no one else…. Though it's also true that I enjoy being queen. I don't deny it."

  "I understand."

  "Perhaps you understand, girl, and perhaps you don't — how many strokes is that?"

  "Forty-three, I think."

  " 'You think.' Alright, forty more…. What I was saying to you about coming first, about the necessity of it? I have one child, a resentful daughter only two years older than you, who misses her father still, and believes me a brute bitch who hasn't even wept to lose him."

  "I know better, ma'am."

  "Yes, you heard me wake crying for my Newton on End-of-Summer Night, after our Jordan Jesus rafted down. You heard that, and you've heard my dream groaning. And likely heard my grunts playing stink-finger under the covers, rather than have some tall man come up to give me shaking joys — then take advantage for it.... You've heard, Martha, and so are closer to me than my daughter ever has been, or ever will be. And who are you? Only a strong child, really, and otherwise no one at all. Rachel will never believe how I love her... wouldn't credit it."

  "I know you love her."

  "She's all I have of Newton. And more, Rachel was a charming child — easy with that fucking brush — and she was so intelligent that people made the River-sign, hearing her conversation."

  "I believe it. And she's pretty."

  "How many is that?"

  "Seventy... I think."

  "Oh, for Weather's sake, Martha, learn how to fucking count." The Queen stood, shook her hair out, put her hands back for the sleeves of her night-robe, then shrugged it comfortable as Martha wrapped the fine green cloth around her, then tied its soft belt bow. "Pretty? Well, if not truly pretty, then Rachel's handsome enough, I suppose." Queen Joan raised her arms high and stretched like a man, joints cracking. Then she stepped a little jigging dance, shook her arms out as wrestlers did to ease their muscles, before she strolled relaxed to the little silver bucket, tucked up the hem of her night-robe, and squatted.

  "But. But. This Kingdom is crueler than my mountains ever were, Martha. Crueler than the tribesmen who came down. Well named the River Kingdom, uncaring, cold, and made of killing currents as the river is." There was faint musical drumming as she peed. "And full of men and women who once ate talking meat. Still do, sometimes.... This is what my daughter will someday rule, and I don't believe that she can do it."

  "She has your blood."

  The Queen tucked a tuft of cotton wool to her crotch, wiped herself. "But has not had my life. Hasn't seen what I've seen, hasn't fought as I've fought, hasn't learned what I've had to learn. Let me tell you, when my Newton was killed in Map-Kentucky coming to a fair agreement, I came this close," — the Queen held up her thumb and forefinger, almost touching — "this close to being weighted with iron and thrown into the river…. Where's my nail-knife?"

  Martha found it in the toilet cabinet's second sliding drawer. "Here, ma'am."

  The Queen, quite limber, crossed a leg over a knee and commenced trimming her toenails. "Came very close, then, to going into the river. So, I fucked one man as if I'd secretly loved him always — then had his throat cut. And murdered two more before I felt free of that weight of iron chain." She bent closer, peering to examine a neatened nail. "A woman, a sister to one of those men, was thrown from her window in South Tower as a reassurance to me. Her uncle did it, Martha, for fear I would destroy their family, even the babies."

  Those toes finished, the Queen crossed her other leg and began trimming. The little knife-blade twinkled in lamplight as she worked.

  "I'm sorry," Martha said.

  "Sorry? Sorry for what, girl? For necessity?"

  "For you."

  "Well, you're a fond fool." Paring with quick turns of her strong wrist, the Queen ended with her little toe… then stood up off the silver bucket and shook down her robe's skirt. "Those who think we're more than beasts, should study their toenails." She handed Martha the little knife. "It goes in the top sliding drawer. Now... what else?"

  "Brushing your teeth, ma'am."

  "The hell with it.... Did you know the Warm-time hell was hot?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "I always thought that was strange.... Where are my slippers?"

  "By the bed."

  "Not the woolen slippers — the sheepskins."

  "I'll look for them."

  "Oh, never mind." The Queen seemed to swim away through gray gauze curtains to her bed-nook. "Between Ulla and that fat Orrie, nothing is ever where it should be. I should have them whipped...." Martha, following, had to brush a drift of fine cloth from the ax handle behind her shoulder.

  Queen Joan sat on the edge of her bed and began rearranging her pillows — which she did every night. The maids had found no way to place them to please her.

  She plumped a goose-feather one, tossed it to the head of the bed. "You see, Martha, Rachel would not be capable of what I did. She pretends to fierceness, but break a bird's neck before her and she goes pale as cheese." Another pillow tossed after the first; a cushion picked up and tested with a punch. "And I cannot live forever."

  "Then she needs a fierce husband, ma'am."

  "Oh, yes. Memphis, or Sayre, or Johnson — who's a monster — or Lord Allen, or Eddie Cline. My Newton despised Cline and so do I. Or Giamatti, or one of the Coopers, who have hated me and mine forever."

  Pillows and cushions arranged, the Queen crawled into bed on all fours, like a child, then tucked herself under the covers and drew them up to her throat. "And all of these people, Martha — chieftains, lords-barons, lords-earls, generals, admirals and so forth and so forth — every one of them keeping at least five or six hundred sworn-men on their hold lands, all trained and armed and excused service in my armies."

  She sat half up, elbowed an unsatisfactory pillow into place. "... Their 'River Rights.' River Rights, my ass! And not one of them — well, possibly Sayre, possibly Michael Cooper — but otherwise not one of them could hold this kingdom, keep its people from under the hooves of those fucking Kipchaks." The Queen lay down again, tugged the covers to her chin. "Those savages are breaking my West-bank army!"

  Martha saw there were tears in the Queen's eyes. It was frightening to see, and ran goose-bumps up her arms.

  "I cannot imagine," the Queen said, staring up into the bed's umbrella of pearly gauze, "I cannot imagine what possessed those Texas jackasses. And I saw them in the grassland just before. I saw them! What possessed those idiots to campaign in open prairie against the Kipchaks, and with all their forces? Was there no Map-Lubbock, no Map-Amarillo to fortify? No notion of fucking reserves?" She wiped her eyes with the hem of the sheet. "Are my slippers by the bed?"

  "The wool slippers?"

  "Any damn slippers."

  "Yes, ma'am. Beside the bed."

  "— They rode out singing hymns, were quilled with arrows like porcupines, and have left my kingdom naked!" The Queen thrashed under her covers. "I need a husband for my girl! Hopefully, one who won't kill me for the crown."

  "A Boston person?"

  "Oh, certainly, and introduce one of those half-mad oddities to the lords, the armies, the merchants and Guilds of Ordinaries as my son-in-law and heir? He would live as long as I would, then… perhaps a week, unless he flew away like some fucking bat."

  "Then, if no one else will do, why not the North Map-Mexico lord?"

  The Queen sighed and closed her eyes. "Martha, you're a young fool; it's a waste of time talking to you. You've seen him. Monroe is a boy — sturdy enough, clever enough — but what has he done? Beaten those southerners, those imperial idiots? That's as difficult as beating a carpet to clean it. That, and only the raid north by his man, Voss… The river lords would cook and eat Monroe, and the Blue generals and Green generals would gnaw
the bones."

  "He seems fiercer than that."

  "And if so, then fierce enough to take the throne from me!" The Queen opened her eyes, looked at Martha in an unpleasant way. "I won't be forced to have him!"

  "But Princess Rachel — "

  "Rachel doesn't know. She is a child. This is the Throne's business, and she will marry and fuck and bear children for the one I accept!... The woolen ones?"

  "Yes. I can get the sheepskins — "

  "Oh, never mind." The Queen seemed older lying down, her long, graying hair spread on her pillow. Older, and weary. "... Still, perhaps a long engagement. Long enough for his soldiers to be useful against the Khan. If that suits Boy Monroe, I suppose it may suit me. Time enough, afterward; engagements are often broken…. But the same baby who peed down my furs? Floating Jesus."

  The Queen lay quiet then, and Martha smoothed her covers… tucked them at her throat. "Sleep sweet, Majestic Person."

  The Queen smiled at that, then sighed. "Oh, Martha. You know, I still have trouble forgiving my Newton — going off to Map-Kentucky to win a battle, and die doing it. He left these lords and generals to me, and they press and press against my power, and watch for me to stumble as I grow older. They all wait to see if I forget a name, a river law, or some common word. They bribed my maids so their doctors could examine my shit, see if I have bleeding in the turds — can you believe that?"

  "Your shit is stronger than most men's muscle, ma'am."

  The Queen threw her head back on her pillows and laughed. "Oh, that's very good — and true. But for how many more years, Martha? How many more years... ?"

  "I'll deal with the chamber-maids."

  "Hmm? Oh, those. Those two have been under the river's skin for more than a year, dear. Without their tongues." The Queen turned on her side, and lay looking through Martha into memory. "Michael Cooper came to me at the time, muttering something about summary executions without notice given to the Queen's Council, and I said, 'Lord Cooper, I had to silence them before they damaged the reputations of great men, even placing some in jeopardy of treason.' That shut his catfish mouth."

  Martha reached up to the hanging lamp... lowered its wick till the flame went out. "Then there's nothing for you now to dream of, ma'am, but pretty birds and pretty places."