"My regiments…!"
Queen Joan had cried this out several times through three days and nights, but not as if requiring comfort. And even men and women who ordinarily weren't wary of her, hadn't dared offer it.
It seemed to Martha that the Queen's rage, like a lightning stroke near a bee tree, had set the hive of Island humming.
Officers of both bank armies – very senior and important men, usually seen allied at court – were suddenly absent. And very different officers, lower-ranked, harsh-faced, and grim, suddenly appeared to take up posts, positions, responsibilities… work they never seemed to rest from.
So, in only three days and three nights, Martha saw what queens were for.
"A poor time," the Queen said, holding a green velvet gown out at arm's length to see what window light did to it. "A poor time for that puppy Captain-General to decide to come calling."
"But you invited him…"
"Martha, don't use my past actions against me. I might have invited him – and I might not."
Distant trumpets and drums, preparing welcome at the Silver Gate, sang softly through the tower's stone.
"The young jackass." The green velvet was dropped to the floor. "I'd look like some pricey whore, rowing up to Celebration. Well" – she smiled at Martha – "perhaps more like the whore's mother, along for bargaining."
"No, ma'am. The whore herself, and beautiful."
The Queen, at the wardrobe, turned with a look. "So, I'm flattered and put in my place at once. I've come to suspect, girl, you've a brain along with your muscles." She rummaged, disturbing pressed gowns. "Probably should have you whipped… What about this?" A long dress striped black and silver.
"Seems… gaudy, ma'am."
" 'Seems gaudy, ma'am'! Well, what then?"
"The dark blood-red."
"Hmm. Worn several times before."
"And worn well, Majesty."
The Queen found the gown and hauled it out. "Pressed, at least. I'm amazed it's cleaned and pressed. Lazy bitches…" She held it up to the light, then held the dress to her and went to stand before her long mirror's almost perfect silvered glass.
"That fucking stupid Merwin dog," she said, examining her reflection. Martha had heard her say it before, referring to General Eli Merwin, dead with his men at Map-Jefferson City. The Queen had written and sent a letter to the Khan's general, Shapilov, thanking him for ridding her of a fool.
Queen Joan turned a little to the left, a little to the right. "I suppose it might do."
"Do nicely, ma'am," Martha said, and with Fat Orrie, began to dress her.
"Well, this Small-Sam Monroe deserves no better. Get it on me. The black shoes – I'll freeze – and only jet for jewelry, as mourning for my poor dead soldiers." Cascades of band music now drifted into the tower. "Who in Lady Weather's name do those people think they're greeting? Jesus come rafting by?"
"We need to hurry, ma'am."
"Don't rush me." With both hands, the Queen lifted the Helmet of Joy from its silver stand and settled its weight carefully on her head. "Terrible for my hair…"
Then the Queen was rushed, though apologetically, by Martha, her waiting women, and finally the chamberlain, Brady, come panting up the tower stairs in as much temper as he dared to show.
"For the -! Ma'am, we have a head of state now landing!"
"Calm yourself, old man." The Queen made a last pass before her mirror. Then, satisfied with red and black, led out and down the flights of stairs, her soldiers saluting as she passed.
Princess Rachel, wearing a simple, long, white-wool gown, with a thick goat's-hair shawl paneled in blue and green – and with only one lady in company – was waiting for them at the tower door. Her dark-brown hair was ribboned down her back in thick braids.
"Dressing to be plain?" the Queen said. "Fear rape, do you?"
The Princess didn't seem to hear, took her mother's hand and kissed it, then stepped back beside Martha as they walked down the long north staircase, past the glass Flower House. The Princess's lady – a blue-stocking named Erica DeVane – waved good fortune as they went.
Martha had seen Island's Silver Gate – had become familiar with almost all of Island, as Master Butter had advised her – but never with nine or ten thousand people, Ordinary and Extraordinary, packing its cut-stone landings and docks. Men, women, and children, all dressed for holiday, and so many that she saw stirs here and there where someone, shoved by crowding, had fallen into the harbor and had to be fished out before the icy water killed them.
The Queen's throne had been perched on the wide first-flight landing of the Gate's middle staircase. She settled into it, warmed by an ermine cape and lap robe, and crowned with the Helmet of Joy, its thirteen human hearts – shiveled knots bound in fine gold netting – dangling, swinging in the bitter wind.
Deep drums rumbled as a warship – Martha thought she saw the name Haughty as it turned – swung in to tie at Central Finger.
"Well-handled," the Queen said. "But certainly with more important duties… better things to do." Martha could hardly hear her over the band music. One dull-voiced instrument in there sounded very like a plow-horse farting.
As she watched past the Queen's heavy helmet of hearts, gold, and yellow diamonds, Martha saw the warship put out a broad bow-gangway, as if a great sea beast had stuck out its tongue.
A little group of six appeared there, and the crowd cheered all together, a tremendous almost solid weight of sound, so even the bands seemed silenced. Martha thought the Queen said, "My, such enthusiasm." And she must have said something, because Martha saw Princess Rachel, now standing beside her mother, smile.
The little group came down the gangway, cloaks blowing in the river wind. They marched up the dock to the harbor steps with one man walking slightly ahead, then climbed the stairs between lines of soldiers, to shouts and tossed women's favors of bright kerchiefs and painted paper flowers.
In an almost-hush of cheering between one blared march and another, Martha heard the chamberlain say, "Seem pleased to see the man."
"Jefferson City," the Queen said, "has frightened them. So they look to even improbable friends." She said something more, but the bands had struck up Warm-time's 'Semper Fidelis' – or its fair copy – and Martha couldn't hear her.
But the bands and crowd quieted as the group climbed closer to the Queen.
"For God's sake, Brady… he's a boy."
"Twenty-seven years old, ma'am. And experienced."
"Experienced, my ass." The Queen ruffled her ermine cape and loops of jet beads. "Experienced at hanging sheep thieves – which he was himself, once."
"But is no longer, ma'am." Martha noticed the chamberlain had kept his voice low, apparently to encourage the Queen to do the same.
"Is to me; I changed his shit rags. Very noisy baby…" The Queen was drowned out by a last blare of music with cymbals and rumbling drums, as North Map-Mexico came up the last steps.
Monroe – bare-headed, well dressed in dun velvet, with silver on his arm and a fine ring on his finger – seemed handsome to Martha, in a way. Broad-shouldered, a little shorter than she was, he looked tough and tired, like any young officer who'd seen fighting. He was wearing only a fine cloth cloak – dark brown as imperial chocolate – against the cold, and was armed with a long-sword down his back, even coming to greet the Queen. He looked strong to Martha. Long arms and big hands. I'd have to close with him. Short-grip the ax, stay inside the swing of his sword. And quickly, quickly.
He stood at the foot of the throne. His people had stopped well back. To Martha, almost all of them – the soldiers, the woman, too – looked Ordinary, but dire fighters. Only one, a tall young man in black velvet, and very handsome as the court judged handsomeness, seemed well-born though not dotted.
The music having crashed to a stop, the Queen raised her voice over crowd noise. "How very welcome you are, Captain-General, to Middle Kingdom – and in time for our Lord Winter's Festival!"
"I look forward to it, Majesty." A young man's light-baritone, raised to be clearly heard. He sounded a little hoarse, to Martha. Perhaps from shouting battle orders. "Look forward to it… and with heartfelt thanks for your kind invitation to visit your great and beautiful river country."
"Your pleasure, Lord Monroe, is our pleasure!"
Martha supposed the Queen was smiling, to show how pleased she was.
" – And we hope your visit with us will be the longest possible, so we may come to know one another… as our people and yours may come to know one another."
Monroe bowed to the Queen, then turned a little to bow to Princess Rachel. Not, it seemed to Martha, really graceful bows. They were too… casual. She supposed he wasn't used to it. "Your Majesty's welcome reflects your own graciousness, kindness."
Martha thought Queen Joan must still be smiling, but heard her mutter, "Is this shit-pup making fun of me?"
"No, no." A murmur from Chamberlain Brady. "All in form."
The Queen stood up. "Then come, welcome guest, and those you've brought with you, to rest in comfort from your journey!"
"Should say more, ma'am." Brady's murmur.
"Fuck that," said the Queen, stepped down from her throne, and offered Monroe her arm. He was smiling – Martha supposed he'd heard the 'Fuck that' – took her arm, and swung a slow half-circle with her as the crowd began a rhythmic clapping, loud, and with shouts.
Following the Queen close as they climbed the steps – the Princess had dropped back to walk beside the chamberlain – Martha glanced over her shoulder to be sure Monroe's five fighters were coming well behind. Then she set herself to watching those bowing as they went by, those clapping and cheering in the crowd, watching for anyone a little too tense for the occasion.
They passed Master Butter as they climbed to the second Grand-flight's landing. He was standing with Lord Vitelli's man, Packard – blew an almost-hidden kiss to the Queen, then winked at Martha as she went by.
"In the old days," the Queen said to Monroe, raising her voice through the crowd's noise, "Chamberlain Brady would have welcomed you naked, or nearly naked, with the 'My Sunshine' dance."
"Really?" Their guest looked over his shoulder. "Chamberlain, I'm sorry to have missed it."
"Just as well, milord. Not what I used to be, prancing."
"Oh," Monroe said, "I imagine you still step lightly enough."
Martha heard the Queen's little grunt of humor through the cheers and shouts around them, and there came a shower of perfumed paper flowers, tiny twisted petition-papers, and candies wrapped in beaten silver foil.
Ordinaries in the crowd were shouting, "Mother! River-mother!" and grinning at the Queen like – as she always said – the great fools they were.
"Thank Mountain Jesus that's over."
"The Jesus here floats, sir," Margaret said. "But Weather, this place is big!"
"Oh, I'd say these rooms are proper," Darry said, "a suite commensurate with rank."
"I think Margaret meant Island, Lieutenant, though these rooms aren't nothing."
Chamberlain Brady had led them a long way, commenting to Sam on the warmth of the people's greeting, and mentioning the banquet of welcome at sunset. They'd come a great distance through granite passageways and up granite stairways, to this 'suite.'
First, a high-ceilinged entrance chamber with a long, beautifully-carved table set in it – and woven tapestries along the walls, with scenes of men and women hunting animals Sam had never seen or heard of, dream animals from copybooks… There was this great room, warmed by two corner Franklins with fires rumbling in them, and lit by lanterns hanging from its ceiling on silver chains. Then, on both sides of a wide hallway – its walls decorated with painted pictures of river people at common tasks – were six more rooms. The first was a small laundry room with both bath and wash-tubs. On the stove were kettles of hot water, already steaming. The other five were sleeping chambers, each very fine, with polished wood furniture, beds with duck-feather mattresses and pillows, and flower drawings on fine paper on every wall.
These rooms, also, each held a stove burning. And the last chamber, largest and most beautiful – with two glassed arrow-slit windows cut through yard-thick stone – was warmed by two stoves.
"This is all to impress us," Margaret said, and making a face of not being impressed, joined Sam and Darry sitting at the entrance room's big table. The three sergeants stood at ease along the near wall. Behind and above them, a woven hunting party of people wearing feathered cloaks rode after a six-legged elk.
"Well, it impresses me," Sam said, "to afford such warmth and comfort in this huge heap of stone in winter. Island does impress me, as that warship did. Great wealth, and great power – and they make it plain."
Master Carey came in with two liveried servants carrying the last of the baggage… and saw it stowed. His and the sergeants' gear in the two bed-rooms nearest the entrance. The lieutenant's in the next. Then Margaret Mosten's. Then Sam's.
"We should have brought finer things to wear," Margaret said…
"No, we shouldn't," Sam said. "Decoration won't win us anything, here." He waited for the last of Island's servants to leave and close the door behind him. "Now, first, remember that what we say in these rooms may be overheard, stone walls or not."
"Right," Margaret said.
"This is what I want done…" He paused to pick an apple from a silver bowl.
"Apple should be tasted, sir." Carey, come to stand with the sergeants.
"Oh, I don't think I'll be poisoned today. That would be a little abrupt." Sam took a bite and chewed. "It's sweet. Wonderful, a sweet apple… Now, Sergeants Burke, Mays, and Wilkey, you'll take Lieutenant Darry's orders as to guard-mount. But there is always to be a man on duty at the entrance, here. And, I suppose, I should have someone with me."
"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 should 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."
After a moment, the Queen's voice sounded out of darkness. "The only things I wish to dream of, Martha, are the Trapper mountains, and the Trapper days…"
Sam woke to a savage wind – Lord Winter's serious wind – whining past stone walls like a great dog begging to be let in. There was a sandy shush and rattle in it as well. Hard-driven sleet and snow.
Strange he'd been dreaming of summer. Summer in the fourth week, when it was perfect in the fields of August, leaf-green everywhere, so winter seemed only a story that might not be repeated.
He reached under thick wool blankets to touch his long dagger's hilt. Sergeant Wilkey would be sleeping at the room's door. Carey'd wanted the man in the room, had gone round the walls under the tapestries, looking for any secret entrance.
The fat man's ways were Eric's. Secret, sly, often useful… often ineffective.
The Queen wouldn't send a killer to his room, certainly not before she'd heard him out, and likely not after. His death would be no advantage to her now, though it might be later, once – if – the Kipchaks were beaten. Now, she'd make him wait a few days, then be dismissive, just short of insult. It would be interesting to see how Queen Joan ruled and decided. Interesting to see how she managed a court that might kill her on a notion… how she managed a people who still occasionally ate people.
The duck-feather bed was too soft; it was hurting his back.
Sam got up with his dagger, tugged the blankets with him, and padded through the dark to a carpet near a stove's dimming coals. He rolled himself in wool, felt the support of cut stone stacked deep beneath him, and went to sleep… hoping for more dreams of summer.