Sam, his farewells said in camp at Better-Weather – farewells only by-the-way in the hustle and hurry of the army's business – rode along the frozen path to meet Margaret and the others, come from south stables. They and the baggage waiting on the road leading to Saltillo, then Montemorelos… and finally the port of Carboneras on the Gulf Entire.
Howell already gone to La Babia to join the First Division of Cavalry, then move north. Ned gone, too – west to gather what spavins were left, gather Charmian and the Light Infantry as well – allowing any surviving squadrons of Kipchaks there free rein to plunder and burn vacant farms and fields.
Phil Butler, circumferenced by little dogs – was that a correct use of the Warm-time word, 'circumference'? Phil would be muttering in his tent, peering over copy-maps many centuries old, showing ways to go to many places nowhere now. His captains would be scratching at the tent-flap to ask questions, only to be told he'd answer when he damn well pleased, and meanwhile, get out!
The brothers still the irascible center of it all; the gathering army's every problem coming to them. And almost every problem solved…
Sam was tired – sleepy, really. Last evening, he'd gone down for a hot-water bath in the laundry at the fort, and found Ned there, submerged in the deep stone tank, all but his bandaged stump. He'd held that up out of the steaming water… They hadn't spoken of war or the campaign at all. Hadn't even mentioned it, splashing, scrubbing with lye soap. They'd spoken of old sheep stealings, recalled boyhood friends. Remembered, laughing, Catania coming up one morning to north pasture, where they'd folded two fine stolen rams – Catania walking up the mountain with a slender peeled pine branch in her hand. When she'd seen them, higher, poised to run away, she'd called, "Stand still."
And they had. She'd walked up the slope to them, loosed their belts as they stood, then yanked their sheepskin trousers down. And as they still stood, not moving, not avoiding, she'd whipped them until their legs and asses were striped, and bleeding here and there.
"Steal," Catania'd said, tossing the pine branch aside, "steal – and pay the thieving bill." Then she'd said, "In these times, those who are men find better things to do."
That night, sore and stiff-legged, they'd taken the rams back down the mountain to Macleary's place – and the next day, went west to serve under Gary Jeunesse, fighting the Empire's soldiers.
Sam and Ned had recalled and laughed… claimed scars still from the whipping. Ned's mother had been long dead then, and it had seemed to Sam at the time that while he might have run after the first few blows, Ned never would, so hungry for a mother's attention, even though punishment.
They'd laughed, splashed, and not spoken of the war at all.
Sam – for some reason never at ease in fortress chambers – had dried, dressed, went out the postern gate, and trudged over frozen mud to his tent, finding Margaret there amid possibles, garments, and a large cedar chest.
"What's this?"
"A clothes chest."
"We'll leave it. Duffels will do."
"Sir – Sam, you're going to a kingdom, a queen's court! They'll expect you to look like a Captain-General. It will hurt us if you look otherwise."
"No."
"Why? We have gold and silver, jewels and jeweled weapons. We're not savages."
"Why? Because, Margaret, they will have more gold, more silver, more and finer jewelry, furs, and velvets. If we try to meet them on that field, we will seem savages."
"Alright… Alright. What do you want me to pack? Just tell me and I'll do it."
"Don't be angry."
"Sam, I'm not angry. What do you want me to pack? I don't give a damn how I look before those ladies."
"We pack as if for campaigning. New woolens, warm and clean. Good cloaks, ponchos. Best-quality leathers and good boots. Plain fine-steel weapons, plain fine-steel armor – showing signs of use."
"Going too far the other way…"
"Yes, it would be, so I'll take one set of rich cloak-and-clothes for ceremony, and each of us will also wear a ring from the treasury – one of the imperials' we took at God-Help-Us. Gold, with a considerable stone."
"So, at least something."
"And a matching bracelet for you."
Margaret gave Sam a wife-look. "And that's to bribe me to silence about appearing in Middle Kingdom looking like a file of lost troopers?"
"That's right. Margaret, it's our army standing behind us that they'll see. We dress to remind them of that army."
"Well, I'm not going to argue with you. I'm tired of arguing." She dropped the chest's lid closed with a thump.
"Good. Finish packing, then go to Charles' people and wrestle that treasury jewelry from their grip. They'll want a signed receipt."
"They'll want several receipts."
Margaret gone unsatisfied, Sam had lain on his cot, holding a vodka flask for company – and found, oddly, that even holding it helped.
He'd tried to sleep, but only planned dispositions in Map-Arkansas. On the border, really, between North Map-Arkansas and Map-Missouri. He'd seen, as he lay there, how quickly the Khan was certain to act when he realized what they'd done. Toghrul wouldn't hesitate, wouldn't consider – he'd turn back from Kingdom's river and attack. There would be no delay.
By then, Howell must have brought the army up into place. In proper country – steep, but not too steep, and wooded. There'd be barely time to prepare for the blow…
Sam had lain awake long glass-hours, the war's possible futures folding and unfolding like one of the decorated screens the Empire's ladies were said to love, colorful with signs, secrets, and portraits of their families and lovers intertwined with painted flowers.
He'd risen before dawn in cold and darkness, set his flask aside, draped his cloak, and strapped his sword on his back. Then walked icy ground to north stables and the brute imperial charger from Boca Chica – Difficult. The stableman, Corporal Brice, had tacked the big animal up – kneeing the horse's belly to burp air out of him for the cinch – stood aside while Sam mounted, then reached up to touch his knee. "Good luck, General."
"Jake – you people, the army, are my luck."
… Sam saw the camino from the ridge. Six people mounted, with four packhorses on lead, were waiting at the roadside, their cloaks blowing in a cold wind. The rising sun threw their shadows sideways. – As he'd seen the riders, they'd seen him, and watched as he spurred down the slope.
When he trotted up, Margaret heeled her horse to meet him… seemed troubled.
"Sir – "
"What is it?" Sam said, then looked past her at the others. A lieutenant of Light Cavalry, and three sergeants – one each, apparently, from Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, Heavy Cavalry. The army's four divisions represented… There was also a grinning civilian, very fat in a stained red-wool cloak, holding the packhorses' lead. Undoubtedly one of Eric's dubious people, acting as cook, hostler, strangler on occasion…
Sam knew the lieutenant. And two of the sergeants.
"Margaret, what in the fuck did you think you were doing? I said, 'presentable'!"
"Sir, the brothers, and Eric, and Phil Butler – they all insisted."
"They ordered these men here?"
"Yes, sir, ordered them with you as escort."
"I gave you a different order, Margaret. And I want it obeyed."
"… Sam, I agree with them."
He reined Difficult past her. "You men get back to camp."
The young lieutenant of Light Cavalry saluted him. "Sir, wish we could, but we've been promised hanging if we don't travel with you." The lieutenant, Pedro Darry, was wearing a marten cloak as costly as a farm. Son of one of the richest merchants in North Map-Mexico, handsome and spoiled, he'd ornamented the Emperor's court in Mexico City while serving as a factor for his father, before destroying two marriages and running one of the husbands through in a duel.
"I see, promised hanging… Then go back and be hanged, Lieutenant. And take these other men with you."
"Please, sir – if we swear to be presentable?" Red-haired, green-eyed, and slender, with a pale and elegant face, Darry smiled winningly while managing a restless gray racer.
"No," Sam said. The lieutenant, sent back north in disgrace, had managed to fight three more duels in the last four years – while on leave, so permitted though not approved of – and had killed all three men, Pedro being not only a spoiled son of a bitch, but an accomplished swordsman… And, to do him justice, one of Ned Flores' favorite troop commanders.
"Sir, if we swear word-of-honor? Otherwise, well… I'll have to resign my commission, and these men desert, so we can follow after you."
"Might be useful, sir." Margaret, behind Sam – and meaning, of course, Darry's skills at court as well as with the sword. His looks… his manner. Not the sort of young man to be considered a back-country barbarian – as another young North Mexican surely would be, ruler or not.
And it was possible that the three sergeants – professionally expressionless, and sitting their saddles at attention – though not presentable, and obviously chosen for ferocity, might also prove useful as visible reminders of the army they represented… Sam knew David Mays, a silent, squatly massive Heavy Infantryman with a face like a fighting dog's, a man avoided even by those considered dangerous themselves. Sam knew him, and Sergeant Henry Burke, a tall, lank, hunch-shouldered Heavy Cavalryman. Burke was known for his savage temper – and the ability, on a sufficient bet, to bend his knees, reach both arms under a horse's belly, and lift the animal slightly off the ground… holding it there for a count of five.
Sam didn't recognize the third sergeant – a Light Infantryman, lean and boyish, so pale a blond his hair looked white, his eyes a very light gray. He carried a longbow on his back, a short-sword on his belt.
"Name?"
"Wilkey, sir. Company of Scouts."
He smiled at Sam, seemed perfectly relaxed and at ease, containing none of the fury the other two sergeants carried locked within them – and for that reason, was perhaps the most dangerous of the three.
Sam looked past him. " – And you?"
The fat man saluted badly, with a flourish. "Ansel Carey, milord. Cook, hostler, rough-medic, and… what you will."
'What you will' Sam supposed, included any necessary murders, though the man wore no weapons… Phil, Eric, and the others must have enjoyed choosing these guards and companions. A dandy and duelist, three dangerous sergeants, and a servant with certain skills. And, of course, Margaret Mosten. On consideration, a useful party… though not perfectly presentable.
"Darry…"
"Sir?"
"If you cause any trouble in the Kingdom – any problems with women, any embarrassment at all – you will wish to Lady Weather you hadn't."
"Understood, sir."
"And the same for you men! If trouble comes, it had better come to you, not from you."
"Sir."
"Sir."
"Sir."
"Master Carey?"
"Hear an' obey, milord."
" 'Sir' will do." Sam hauled Difficult's head around, and spurred the charger down the road and into its customary punishing trot. Four days, at least, to the Gulf Entire, with a boat pigeoned to wait for them. Then, a two-day crossing to the mouth of Kingdom River… and what welcome the Kingdom chose.
It was odd to ride where no mountains rose in the distance… oddly calming, dreamlike, as if riding might continue forever.
Howell turned in his saddle, as he'd done before, to confirm that more than four thousand cavalry rode behind him, raising no dust on the prairie's frozen grass and ground. Carlo Petersen at the front of First Brigade, with his trumpeter and the banner-bearer – the great flag restless in the breeze, its black scorpion threatening on a field of gold… though scorpions were deep-south creatures. The only scorpion Howell'd seen had been in a glass bottle, looking furious.
Petersen, then the banner, then three brigades coming after, side by side in long, long columns of ten – regiments broken into squadrons, then troops, then companies. Light horse, Heavies, and militia troops as well. The horse-archer companies deployed Warm-time miles east and west. And deployed the same distance behind them.
But ahead, only two scouts rode, nearly out of sight in high, frost-killed grass, and out of sight completely when they rode down the other sides of long soft swells of land.
Howell would have preferred no scouts before him, nothing but distance with no stopping place, no purpose but going.
After almost four days over the border, guided by an iron-needle compass and two ancient Warm-time copy-maps – an Exxon (mysterious word) and half a BP (mysterious initials) – they were fifteen, perhaps twenty miles south of Fort Stockton. He could, of course, choose to ride wide around it, lead on north and north to the Wall. Perhaps ride up onto the ice itself – there must be canyons, melt-slopes that horses could manage. Then all four thousand and more might ride over endless ice to the turning tip of the world, until they slowed… and slowed… and the horses froze, the riders were frozen fast in their saddles. An army of steel and ice – shining in sunlight or coated in blizzard white – that could not harm or be harmed, could not lose or win.
In nearly four days riding north in absolute command, a command that might end with the destruction of all the army's cavalry, Howell had begun to learn the lessons he'd seen traced on Sam Monroe's face. Sadness, and necessity. All these people following behind the banner, behind Howell Voss – sole commander, and responsible.
It took much of the pleasure out of war. Not, of course, all the pleasure.
He heard grass-muffled hoofbeats coming up behind him. A cuirassier drew up on his right, hard-reining a big bay. "From Colonel Petersen, sir."
Howell recognized the man, but couldn't remember his name – then did. "You're one of the Jays – Terrence."
"Yes, sir." The corporal pleased as a child to be recognized. How was it possible not to take advantage of the innocence of soldiers?
Jay wrestled his bay to keep it close. "Sir, the colonel suggests holding the column here. Cold camp."
"Cold camp, yes, Corporal – but not here. Tell Colonel Petersen" – as new a colonel as Howell was a general – "tell him I've changed my mind, decided to move closer. Tell him I want to be able to take the Kipchaks in darkness, a glass before dawn. They're horse archers; no need to give them good shooting-light."
Corporal Jay hesitated, digesting his message. "In the dark before dawn. Yes, sir."
As he started to rein away, Howell said, "And be easy with your mount, Trooper. Later, you'll want all the go he's got."
"Yes, sir." The corporal, carefully slack-reined, cantered away back to the Heavy's column, and Howell noticed some chaff rising where the big horse went. I want a light snow – very light, but enough to weight this dead grass. A prayer, he supposed, but asked of what Great? Lord Jesus? – still, the shepherds thought, hanging spiked to a pinon pine somewhere in North Map-Mexico's mountains. The shepherds, and the bandits there, thought he might be found someday and rescued, taken down and brought to Portia-doctor for healing… In the Sierra, they used to think Catania-doctor could certainly heal Mountain Jesus when he was found – and the man or woman who found him made Ice-melter in reward, and ruler of a new-warmed world.
No use now, though, for a new-made general – come north into enemy country – to pray to Lord Jesus, fastened in early Warm-times to his pinon and left there asking why, and saying, 'Please not.'
Portia… Portia. If we were together now, and some savage stuck a blade point in my only eye – or a piece of this dry chaff was blown into it – you would have a blind oaf stumbling after you, mumbling love, and asking where his cup might be, since there was still some chocolate in it. A burden added to a thousand others wearing you away.
Sam might have earned you, might be sufficient. No one else.
…What Great, then, to send us a very light snow? Lady Weather? The Kipchaks' Blue Sky brought snow or clearing, but undependably. Some savages worshiped one of the old All-makers, a Great too busy doing – and often doing badly – to listen to any prayer. And the white-skin tribesmen up by the ice-wall, their red-skin shamans and chiefs, called to the Rain-bird for weather they wanted, which seemed to make as much sense as any.
Howell closed his eye as he rode, picturing the Rain-bird in his mind. He saw it flying. Not big as a mountain – only large as a small lake, green and blue as that same lake in Daughter Summer. Its wings rising and falling, all wind and breezes blown from those wings…
They camped at sunset. Cold camp. But though there'd been no snow, neither had Kipchak horsemen – though four had been met – escaped to warn Map-Fort Stockton.
Howell walked the high-grass swales in failing light, his boots crunching, breaking dead stems. He chewed mutton jerky and talked with the troopers – all of them cheery, all apparently pleased to be in the Khan's country, and readying for battle… Howell joked with them, especially with the women – the lean Lights in their fine mail and leather, smiling, girlish, some sharpening their curved sabers with spit-stones, and the fewer bulky older women serving in the Heavies, ponderous in cuirass, with long, scabbarded straight sabers, and helmets hinged with neck and face guards. The perfect images of war, but for cooing altos as they groomed their big horses.
Howell chewed the last of the jerky as he walked the lines. He found Carlo Petersen sitting in deep grass, playing checkers with his captain, Feldman.
"Not for money, sir," Petersen said, as he and the captain stood. In the army, only equal ranks could play for money, horses, or land. All could play for sheep.
"Who do you have out, Carlo?"
"Same as the march screen, sir. But rested."
"Send riders to them. Remind them they're to avoid the enemy tonight, as before, but kill any they can't avoid or take prisoner. No Kipchak is to ride out from Fort Stockton, then back to it."
"Still retire before force, though?"
"Yes, still retire before company strength or more. Send a galloper, and fall back on us."
"Yes, sir. Billy, see to it."
"Yes, sir," the captain said, saluted, and trotted away, acorn helmet under his arm, mail hauberk jingling.
"We hit them in the morning, dark, and no trumpets?"
"Yes. I know, Carlo, that there'll be some confusion, even going in brigades-in-line. But the Kipchaks will be even more confused. I don't want whatever garrison is there, to have the chance to hold fortifications or buildings against us. I want them surprised and scattered… I'll be with Second Brigade. Make certain, certain that your officers know to keep contact with our people to their right and left – no gaps, darkness or not."
"Not easy."
Howell said nothing, and Petersen grinned. "Okay, I'll remind 'em. – Do we take prisoners? Major Clay supposed not."
"We'll take no fighters prisoner, Carlo, but if your troopers catch a coward – or wise man – running, then that's a Kipchak I'd like to speak with. And remember, by Sam's order, women and children are not to be harmed in any way."
"Yes, sir. And you'll be with the Second."
"Right. First Brigade's yours, Carlo. I'll be trying to hold Reese back."
Petersen laughed. Willard Reese was more than forty years old – a moody man, cautious as an infantryman before he was engaged, then almost insanely aggressive. Fighting, the man foamed at the mouth.
Howell returned Petersen's salute – Sam was right, the saluting had certainly set in – and walked on in the last of sunset light. The western horizon was colored rich as a deep-south orange, though the air was weighty with Lord Winter's early cold.
He kicked through dead grass, wishing Ned were commanding at least the First Brigade's Light Cavalry. Not that Carlo Petersen wasn't a fine officer, and a driver. Only he lacked that instinct (wonderful Warm-time word) that told an officer – not that something had gone wrong – but that something was about to go wrong.
Ned had that – or used to, before This'll Do. And Sheba Tate, Third Brigade, had it. No need, this evening, to find Major Tate on the right flank, advise her…
A group of horse archers called to Howell as he walked past. "There he is – a general!" they called, and laughed, delighted as he gave them the so-ancient finger. A tribal sign, but one all people seemed to know.
Valuable men… and only men, those troopers. No women could draw longbows on horseback, the six-foot bows looking so odd and awkward with their long upper arms and short, deep-curved lowers. Valuable men, who could outshoot even the Khan's cavalry – once they'd spent a young lifetime learning to work their longbows at a gallop – shooting fast to either side or to the back, over the horses' cruppers. If he had more of them, if they didn't take years to train… If Ned had had more than two files of archers with him in the south, they might at least have covered his retreat.
Howell found a place as night came down, thick frost-killed grass in a fold between slight rises, with no tethered horses, no murmuring soldiers.
It was cold and growing colder, Lord Winter strolling down from the Wall… It was supposed to be hot in summer, deep south in the Empire – hot enough in those weeks to burn and kill a man lost under the sun. Probably true, considering the Warm-time vegetables they grew with no warming beds, no flat-glass frames… but still difficult to imagine.
Howell decided to sleep for only three sand-glass hours. He'd wake then, though no one tapped his shoulder. The little librarian, Neckless Peter, claimed these hours were not quite the old Warm-time hours. Perhaps… perhaps not, though twelve of them still made a day, though a dark day in winter. What did the poem say? Winter, that turns in snow like a tiger.
Howell spread his wool cloak on brittle grass… Phil had seen one of those snow tigers. 'Big as a pony,' he'd said, 'all yellow and black so he looked on fire.' A tiger in the reed brakes along the Bravo, likely come down hunting wild spotted cattle. Something to see.
Howell unbuckled his scabbarded long-sword, drew it, then lay down with the blade beside him and gathered the cloak around them both. A one-eyed soldier, and his cold, slender, sharp-tongued wife.
Sam had seen the Gulf many times before – had seen the wide Pacific Sea as well – but never lost his wonder at such lovely water, that seemed to beg traveling over. Lovely even now, gray, rough, hummed across by an icy wind… As a boy, he'd dreamed of sailing in a fishing schooner across the Pacific, sailing to islands with sweet Warm-time names… sailing on and on, living his life over water. Coming to his death there, finally.
His Second-mother, Catania, had told him of the great wind-sailors of Warm-times, that she'd read of in Or the White Whale. And the great machine-engine sailors, later. The Queen Elizabeth… the Harry Truman.
Perhaps from those stories, from that imagining, great water had always been a pleasure to him, though he'd never been out for more than a few sand-glasses in small boats… It had occurred to him, the last few years, that small coastal navies – east on the Gulf and west on the ocean – might be a means to secure North Map-Mexico's water rights. Might be a means to transport troops north and south as well.
Not a subject to bring up at Queen Joan's court. But a temptation. The Kipchaks had conquered a long western coast – a coast vulnerable to attacks by sea. Horsemen who'd come by riding across from Map-Siberia to the Alaskan ice, the Kipchaks used curses and charms to protect themselves from open water, running water. Thought them full of devils.
No question that navies, even small navies, were a temptation… What if he mentioned to merchants, to fishermen at Carboneras – and across the country at La Paz – that some ship-won plunder might become legal plunder? That flags of Warm-time piracy might become flags of profit if taken from the Kipchaks' coast of Map-California in the west… if taken from the Empire's coast, south, along the Gulf. With, of course, government paid its share and fee for licensing such ventures, shares that might lesson reliance on taxes raised by reluctant governers.
It was a notion…
"Dust," Margaret said.
Young Sergeant Wilkey called, "Dust."
A troop of welcome was riding out of Carboneras. Fifteen, twenty people, their mounts raising dry-sand dust, even in the cold. Sam knew who, without seeing them. The mayor. Town councillors. District militia commander – that would be Ed Pell, very competent, a harsh disciplinarian who had, perhaps, too many close relatives serving in the militia companies. The local garrison commander would be Major Allen Chavez, an older man who didn't care much for Ed Pell.
Pigeons, of course, had had to come so a boat would be held for them. But pigeons would have flown in any case. It had proven a great annoyance that pigeons flew to warn of his coming on every occasion, no matter what he ordered to the contrary. An annoyance to set beside many others.
"It'll be the mayor," Margaret said. "Mark Danilo. And local city people, couple of their wives. Ed Pell will be with them; his cousins, too. And Major Allen Chavez and his officers. Trooper escort."
"Right," Sam said. "Let's ride to meet them and get this over with, then down to the docks. I want to be on the water well before evening."
"Boat's the Cormorant," Margaret said… It took a while to reach the Cormorant, though Sam – by refusing to rein in – forced his welcome to be one of conversation moving at the trot. They rode past people lining narrow streets of low adobe houses… past occasional taller mansions of red and yellow brick, where men, women, and little children stood by wrought-iron gates, calling out, applauding in the old style. Pigeons had certainly flown – and as certainly flown to New Orleans as well, then up Kingdom River to its ruler's island.
A crowd, and more applause, at El Centra. A priest of Edgewater Jesus stood off to the side, watching with two of the Weather's ladies.
Sam reined Difficult slowly through the people to them, swung down from the saddle, bowed, then took their hands in turn and bowed again. Great applause, and a smile on the oldest Weather-lady's pale, crumpled face, framed in her purple hood… Purple, Sam supposed, for storm clouds. It hadn't occurred to him before.
Remounted, he moved steadily along. Flowers sailed through the air, little red summer flowers from some magnate's glass-windowed garden. The expense that must be…
What was that wonderful line from a poem or acted-play? – translated from the Beautiful Language in one of the Empire's copybooks, though it had seemed perfectly at home in book-English: 'Is it not passing brave to be a king, and ride in triumph through Persepolis?'
Passing brave – as long as there were flowers thrown, not stones, not crossbow quarrels. And those, important flowers in this province, little messengers that no hard feelings remained over the dead at This'll Do.
Once out of the market square, Ed Pell wished to speak privately. Margaret, not Sam, regretted there wasn't time – reducing Pell slightly, as intended, and pleasing Major Chavez and his officers, also as intended.
… The caravan of welcome turned away at last by the dock gates, Sam and the others rode out on echoing tarred planking over shallow gray Gulf-water flecked with small shards of floating ice. A beamy fishing schooner lay waiting one dock-finger over, and they dismounted and led their horses to it.
A large two-masted boat, painted a near-midnight color, the Cormorant's name was painted along its bow, the last letter becoming a black eye over a black beak. As they led their horses to the ramp, a gull, silver-white with dark wing tips, sailed by and shit neatly as it went.
An elderly man with a large nose and red woolen cap appeared above them at the rail, turned his head, and called hoarsely, "Cap – it's the big cheese!"
"You watch your fucking mouth!" Margaret called up to him, and the old sailor smiled down, toothless, and blew her a kiss.