Kingdom River Page 24

  "You spoke your mind."

  "Carelessly." Sam tried a smile past a guard's steel shoulder.

  "As I said, milord, I'm occupied."

  "And since I am not, Princess, I've taken a guest's liberty to visit."

  Impatience and annoyance. "Very well." She stepped aside as he came in, then swung the door closed behind him. Sam saw, as if he still stood outside on the landing, the look exchanged by the three soldiers.

  This solar was no lady's retirement, with cushions, harps, embroidery frames, little dogs, game-boards and so forth. It was a library and copying room, circled with shelves and copybook stacks, copy stands, and a flat-topped work-desk beneath the north window…. Only thick carpets — spiraled tribal work, Roamer patterns woven in greens, golds, and rust reds, with dreamed creatures chasing down the edges — relieved the room's simplicity. The light was good, a bright, cool reading light from four great windows spaced around the chamber — the only windows Sam had noticed at Island that were not narrow and iron-barred.

  There was no scent of perfume — the Princess apparently didn't use it. The only odors were of fine laid paper and best black sea-squid ink.

  Princess Rachel stood silent, watching him, pen and copybook in hand. She had her mother's lean height and length of bone, but what must have been her father's features, blunt, brown-eyed, with wide cheekbones. A handsome face, in its way.

  "Forgive me, Princess, for intruding, but it's proved necessary." Sam walked over to a shelf, read copybook titles on fine sewn top-bindings. "Otherwise, you'll continue avoiding me all over Island, and I'm sorry to say we don't have the time for it.... Martian Chronicles. I've heard of Dreaming Bradbury, but not read him. I have read one copybook supposedly by G. Wolfe. Some argument whether it's really a dream of his. Might have been written of our time, in some ways."

  Sam glanced over at her, saw no welcome in her face. "The View from Pompey's Head..."

  "We have two of Basso's." Grudging, but a response. Sam supposed this princess could not not speak of books.

  "Haven't read him."

  "We have that — and the Light Infantry Ball."

  "Really? Well, light infantry, at least, is a subject I know something about." Sam looked for an empty chair; there seemed to be copybooks or copy paper stacked on everything. It was a room Neckless Peter would have loved.

  "Not that sort of light infantry."

  "Oh? What sort is it?"

  A little color in those pale cheeks. "It... it is about social relationships before and during the very ancient Civil War."

  "The Map-America civil war?"

  "Yes," the Princess said, and certainly wished him gone.

  "Not much use of light infantry there. Skirmishers, scouts, that sort of thing. Of course, the bang-powder bullets must have influenced all their tactics…. Have you read the Right Badge of Courage!"

  " 'Red.' " Definitely blushing — and of course, very shy. What else could she have grown to be with such a mother?

  " 'Red'?"

  " 'Red' Badge of Courage."

  "Really? You're sure?" Sam set a stack of paper on the floor and sat on an uncomfortable little stool set against the wall by the bookshelf. "I've seen the copybook. Book-English, though traded from Mexico City."

  The Princess opened her mouth to say she was sure, then must have noticed something in his face. "….But you knew it. You knew that was wrong."

  Sam smiled at her. "Yes, I did. There is no 'Right' Badge of Courage." He leaned back, stretched his legs out, and crossed his boots at the ankle. His sword-hilt tapped the wall behind him. Shouldn't have worn his sword. It was a mistake to have come up to her chamber armed, a long bastard blade slanted down his back. Think first, was the rule at Island.

  "I apologize, Rachel." The Princess blinked at the familiarity. A formal court, they held. "I shouldn't have come to your chamber armed."

  A little smile. "I didn't consider your sword rudeness, milord." She went behind her work desk, and sat looking out at him over a low barrier of copybooks — as Charles Ketch so often did. Gentle people finding refuge behind written walls. "— Everyone goes armed at Island."

  "You don't, I've noticed. Not even a lady's dagger."

  "I have guards."

  "You have guards, yes — each man from armies kept deliberately separate. West-bank and East. Guards commanded by ambitious generals. West-bank generals… East-bank generals."

  "It has worked for us very well."

  "And will, until the day a really formidable general joins the River armies together. Perhaps is forced to join them to meet the sort of threat that, for instance, the Kipchak Khan is posing now. That general will be king — and all the more easily if those who ruled are dead."

  "I don't think... I don't think you need concern yourself with that, milord."

  "Oh, but I do. You see, Princess, the government of Middle Kingdom depends not only on the strict separation of your two armies, not only on the Fleet as a third force. It depends on a ruler being strong enough to maintain them in balance."

  "You being such a ruler, of course."

  "Your mother being such a ruler."

  "Then you had better discuss your ambitions with my mother." An angry face over the stack of copybooks. Now, Sam could see her father in her.

  "I wish... Rachel, I wish we'd had the time to know one another better. If there'd been a year or more for visits, so we didn't meet now as strangers, and all this so... awkward."

  No answer from the Princess. Her pale face, dark eyes, seemed to float above stacked white paper.

  " — But, lacking that time, shall we have plain speaking?"

  "Very well, milord. Plain speaking." She touched the papers before her. "My interests are my books and those people also interested in books and learning. Ours is an ignorant age — and forgive me, but you're an example of it. A provincial war-lord, who seems to wish to be a king! And assumes… assumes that everyone will fall in with those wishes!"

  There was quiet, then, almost restful. Sam saw one of the river gulls, come up from the Gulf Entire, sail close past the room's south window. Its shadow marked a white wall for an instant as it passed.

  "You're mistaken about my wishes, Rachel. Only an ass wishes to rule anyone. As only a coward... avoids necessity. — You know, I drink too much." He saw her a little disconcerted. "I have to be careful, at dinner and so forth here. I have to be careful not to drink too much — but not drink so little that it's noticed I have to be careful. I drink... to rest for a while from what I'm becoming." Sam waited to see if the gull would fly back, leave another quick shadow of its passing. "I'm becoming... an instrument, a tool for the work my people set me. And I saw the same in your mother, when I first met her, then again this morning. I saw that burden in her eyes."

  The Princess listened, her head cocked slightly to one side, as if to hear him better.

  "Of course, I knew the Queen, in a way, before I came to Island. My Second-mother mentioned Joan Richardson often, admiring her courage, and always spoke of her with love. As she spoke of your father. — You would have liked my Second-mother, Catania. I was told my First-mother was beautiful, but Catania was brave. She was the sort of person we all would wish to be."

  The Princess looked down, cleared her throat. "You suggested we speak plainly. I didn't mean to be rude to you, milord."

  "Rachel, my name is Sam Monroe. I am not your 'lord,' and never will be. But I hope, in time, to become your friend."

  Still looking down at her desk-top, as if solutions had been inscribed there. "My mother is Queen. I have no interest in being one — in being like her."

  "Thank every Jesus for that! As to your becoming queen, it's surprising how little choice we have in these matters. I won two, three battles after older commanders had been killed. Before that, I'd been a shepherd — and occasionally, a sheep thief and near bandit. I was very young, and very foolish…. Then, because better men were dead, I was looked to when unpleasant decisions had to be made. I made j
ust enough decisions rightly, to trap myself into becoming Captain-General of North Map-Mexico — a slightly ridiculous title."

  "Not ridiculous."

  "You're too kind. But that's really all I am, a very good military commander, and a fairly good ruler otherwise. Though I probably use force, sometimes, when force is not quite necessary.... I also used to read a good deal; my Second-mother saw to that. She was afraid I'd pick up poor book-English, or the mountain tribes' signs and chatter. So, I've read, though now I have little time for reading — and by the way, you must meet Neckless Peter, our librarian and informational. The old man was the Khan's tutor, and he'd love this room."

  "I'm to understand, then, that you are a decent provincial war-lord, and fairly well read."

  "Exactly." Sam's back was hurting. He got up from the stool and walked over to the north window. The window's glass was very fine, some of the clearest he'd seen, each square pane bright as a mirror. The Kingdom people did wonders with glass....

  "Well, milord — Sir Monroe — you are trying to persuade the wrong person. I am not the Queen. Put it another way: I can say no. I'm not interested in marriage; certainly not with you."

  Sam saw gulls spiraling down past the tower. It was the view the Boston girl would have had, Walking-in-air. He was struck by what a strange people those New Englanders must be, to have — at least a few of them — such a gift, and treat it only as utility.... Beneath the gulls, the river Mississippi lay many miles wide, its current, beaten silver, reflecting the mid-day's winter sun like the oval yolk of the Rain-bird's egg.

  "You misunderstand me." Sam turned back from wonderful airiness to the chamber's circling stone space. "I wasn't trying to persuade you, Princess. I was explaining the necessity. You cannot say no."

  "I think I can." Princess Rachel stood up behind her desk — was certainly a little taller — and started to the door. "And you are leaving."

  "Don't... do that." Sam stayed where he was, saw her hesitate. "If you call your guards in, my sergeant and I might have to kill them. It would be a bad beginning."

  The Princess stood still.

  " — A lesson, Princess. Power lies along the edge of the nearest blade, and the best. If it were not for the Queen's rule, my sergeant and I could kill your two guards. Then I might beat you — bend you over that desk, rape you, force you to marriage. I've known men who would do it. I've seen men at this court who would do it." Sam reached over his right shoulder, slid the long sword's blade a few inches up out of its scabbard… then slid it back. "You see, Rachel, this solar is no sanctuary at all, and never has been. Your safety has rested — since your father's death — in the hands of a tired lady, now growing old. A lady who goes to bed with fear and deep decisions every night of her life, so that you, and others like you, do not have to."

  "My mother — "

  "Rachel, the Queen has said I might try to persuade you. And when a Queen says 'try' — as when I say 'try' — what is meant is, get it done."

  "You lie! She wouldn't do that."

  "I'm sure she wouldn't, ordinarily. She'd wish you married into one of the great River families, I suppose, since you seem not up to ruling more than book-shelves. But you might say Toghrul Khan has been our marriage-broker, Rachel. The arranger of our engagement at least, from the time your mother received pigeons confirming that Seventh and Eighth tumans had taken your West-bank army's garrison at Map-Jefferson City, and killed them all. — How many was it? Three thousand... four thousand men? And, of course, the women and children."

  A silent Princess then, standing still as if savage dogs surrounded her, the blue dots on her cheekbones like spattered ink.

  " — Which also was the reason she wasn't as angry as she might have been, hearing that my army had come up into Map-Louisiana."

  "My mother doesn't confide her reasons to me."

  "No. Why should she, Rachel?" Sam walked to the west window. That view was of Island's stone keeps, then the river. The coast of Map-Louisiana too far away to be seen. "Why should she? You're no part of her ruling." He turned back to the room. "She's a woman bearing responsibility for many hundreds of thousands of lives, in a kingdom still occasionally cannibal. And now, the Khan, a very great and merciless commander, is coming to your river."

  "She never asks me for help!"

  "Should she have to?"

  "You heard her. I wasn't 'here' — only 'present.' "

  "And was she right, or wrong? You allowed yourself to be only 'present,' walked away and came up here to your tower, where — it seems to me — you use books as walls, instead of ladders."

  Definitely her father's daughter. Anger took her like a man, made her silent and still, except for her eyes. "You do not know me. And you do not know my mother."

  "As women? No. But as present and future rulers, Rachel, I know you both very well, being one of those odd creatures myself. A creature whose army the Kingdom needs, a creature who might make a son-in-law who will not murder the Queen for the throne," — Sam smiled — "even with what is bound to be great provocation. A son-in-law also capable of dealing with the river lords, the Kingdom's East and West-bank armies, and the Fleet."

  "And you — of course — are capable of all that."

  "No, not without you. Without you, without an engagement to marry you, Rachel, I remain only the provincial war-lord you named me, and unable to unite the Kingdom's armies with mine. Unable to command them."

  "I will not do it." The Princess walked back to her desk, and sat, seeming less secure behind her paperwork walls. "Now, you've said what you have to say. Please leave me."

  "Rachel, your people and mine need my sword." Sam smiled at her, hoped she saw kindness in it. "And, sadly, where my sword goes... so do I."

  "I would be no help in any of that." Perhaps there were tears in her eyes. "I'm happiest with copybooks. I enjoy... quiet." She tried a small smile. "I am not like my mother."

  Sam glanced out the south window for the gull, and saw several a bow-shot away, riding cold wind. "I understand. You would be happy in some peaceful house. Perhaps with a peaceful man, but certainly with as many copybooks as could be gathered or lent from here or there... and visitors whose interests reached beyond present wars, present politics. You'd wish to correspond with others of like mind from Boston to the Pacific Coast — not all Kipchaks, I understand, gallop and shoot arrows — and from Mexico City, as well. Perhaps learn the Beautiful Language...."

  "Yes. That's very much what I'd like."

  "Then let me tell you, Rachel, what I'd like.... There's a farm in the hills past Villa Ocampo. It's a place — we measure in Warm-time acres — a farm of about six hundred acres. A sheep farm, with more summer grazing higher in the hills. And there's hunting. Partridge and deer, of course. Brown bear... wolves. There's a fieldstone house on the place, with a little wall around it, and a garden and orchard. We have just enough summer, most years, for crab apples."

  The Princess listened and watched him, as a wary young mare might watch from spring pasture. Ready to wheel and run.

  " — A man named Patterson owns the farm I'm speaking of. Important sheep-runner, Albert Patterson. And I believe he'd sell the place to me. There's no guarantee, of course — we hold a citizen's property as part of lawful liberty — but I believe he might sell, if I met his price." Sam smiled at her. "That is what I'd like, and like to do."

  "Milord — "

  "So now, Rachel, we know what we'd wish our lives to be. But, since neither of us is a fool, I think we also know the lives we will have."

  "Your obligations are yours only."

  "Yes — as yours will be to continue the decency of your mother's rule here! Decent, at least, compared to what it had been, with men eating men for dinner, and the river lords seizing anything they couldn't eat."

  "My... my mother rules and wishes to rule. I don't."

  "Your mother will soon be old, Rachel. She won't be able to shelter your people much longer from the river lords and the generals of East-bank
and West. She won't be able to shelter you from men who would take you, or simply cut your throat, in consideration of the throne."

  "And you have no consideration of the throne?"

  "I don't want the fucking thing." Sam saw her wince at the word. Gently brought up... too gently brought up. "I don't have a choice! You and I have no choices. The thousands of men and women on your river, and down in my North Mexico — many of them better people than we are, Princess — depend on us to do what we're supposed to do. Their children depend on it."

  "I will decide my duty." She stood; her white fists struck the top of the desk before her, hitting the wood hard. Three long sheets of paper sifted to the floor. "I will decide — not you."

  Sam went to the door, so angry he felt his hands trembling. Angry at this stubborn girl, striking against a trap already closed upon her. Angry at himself... at this great pile of rocks filled with fools.

  He turned at the door. "There is no 'I will' for you, Rachel — and none for me. The Queen sees to that. The Kipchak Khan sees to that. Boston, and the Emperor in Mexico City see to that. And the actions of some of our own people, fallen so far from Warm-times, also leave us no 'I will.' "

  She stood staring at him as if he were some grim wizard, flown from New England on a storm. Sam saw tears in those dark eyes, saw the knowledge of her lost freedom in them — perhaps the same freedom her father was said to have regretted — and felt great pity for her.

  "So, my dear," — and why not? Perhaps, in time, she might even become his 'dear' — "like it or not, you will have to replace that pen with a dagger. And as for me, my farm will be the camps... my flock, soldiers." He swung the oak door open, smiled at her, and hoped she saw affection in it. "Welcome, Princess, to our engagement — and almost certainly, endless troubles." He stepped out and closed the door behind him.

  Sergeant Burke, lounging by the guards, spit tobacco juice out into the stairwell and came to a fine attention with a clank of his saber's scabbard. "Congratulations, sir!"

  "Fuck off, Sergeant," Sam said, pleasing Burke — and, he supposed, the two Island men as well — since soldiers liked nothing better than fond curses.