The woman stopped laughing, and said, "Fuck them and forget them is the rule for you, Gregory. You're not deep enough for love!" She had a strong alto voice, like a temple singer's; it rang down the room.
The person she was talking to was tall, mustached, and seemed to Martha beautiful as a story prince. His long, soft copper hair lay loose, and he was dressed all in velvets, coat and tight trousers made in autumn greens and golds. " – And that very shallowness, ma'am, I've confessed to Lady Constance, and asked her pardon. It's her brothers who concern me. They, apparently, believe in true love and marriage. In fact, they're insisting on it. Marriage, or my head."
People standing near Martha laughed – but not the Bad-lip Lord beside her.
"Well, you naughty man." The Queen was smiling. "You can tell the fierce Lords Cullin that I would be displeased to be deprived of your company."
"Thank you, Kindness," the tall lord said, and bowed graceful as a harvest dancer.
"Um-hmm. Now, go and get into more mischief." The Queen shooed him away, then looked down the length of the room and called out loud as a band horn, "You! Tall one! You must be the strong-girl. Ordinary… Martha, isn't it?"
Martha looked around as if another Martha must be there.
"Answer her!" a woman said.
Martha nodded and said, "Yes," but too softly to be heard.
"You come closer. Come closer to me!" Queen Joan's voice seemed younger than she was.
The Bad-lip Lord took Martha's possibles-sack and rolled cloak from her. A hand – she didn't know whose – shoved at her back, "and she stumbled, then walked down the room as people stepped aside. She felt everyone looking; their looks seemed to touch her. A woman said something softly, and laughed. They'd be looking at her shoes, the poor leather, and the mud. Looking at her hair… her ugly, ugly dress. A big stupid up-river girl, in an ugly dress.
She stopped almost at the step and made a bow, then began to get down on her hands and knees, in case bowing wasn't enough.
"Stay standing, girl. We're not Grass Barbarians here; a bow or curtsy will always do." The Queen, though sitting, looked to be tall as a man if she stood, and had a man's hard blue eyes set in a long heavy-jawed face. Six dots were tattooed on her left cheek, six on her right. There was a scar on her pale forehead, one on her chin, and another at the left corner of her mouth.
Martha bowed again, very deeply, then straightened up. She saw the Queen was smiling, and supposed she'd bowed wrong after all… Queen Joan's hair, its dark red threaded and streaked with iron gray, had been braided, then the long braids coiled like slender snakes crowning her head. There were many, many jewels – little red stones, blue and green stones, and strange bright stones clear as water – pinned to her braids here and there, and fastened to her deep-red robe in intricate patterns, so she seemed to shine and glitter in the lamp-light as she sat.
"No, no," the Queen said, still smiling, "you bowed very well… And the shining stones you see, ice-looking, are diamonds. They are old as the world, and change never."
Martha understood the Queen had read her mind by reading her face, and supposed that was a skill all kings and queens must have.
"Now." Queen Joan leaned down from her throne, and held out her right hand. "Now, since you are so large, and supposed to be strong and a bone-breaker, come take my hand in yours, Martha-girl… and try your best to break my bones."
But Martha just stood and shook her head no. Her heart was beating hard as the boat's drum had sounded. "No – I'd hurt you."
But the Queen didn't seem to understand 'No.' She didn't appear to have even heard it. She held out her hand.
Martha reached up and took it – hoping that gripping firmly might be enough. The Queen's hand was white and long-fingered, warm as if fresh from hot-water washing.
They held hands like friends, for a moment. Then, slowly… slowly the Queen's grip tightened. The long fingers seemed to slide around Martha's hand as if they were growing, and the Queen's grip, terribly strong, tightened and tightened as though Martha's hand wasn't there at all.
It was uncomfortable. It hurt… then hurt worse – and Martha, frightened, began to squeeze back. Her hand was losing feeling; it seemed separate from her, and she had the dreadful imagining that the Queen was going to crush it, break its bones. Martha tried to keep that from happening – gripped against that happening with all her strength.
Suddenly, there was no pain, no terrible pressure – only the Queen's long white hand lying relaxed in hers.
"Strong enough, Large-Martha." The Queen took her hand away, and sat back on her enameled throne. "And no tears. You do please me."
Some people in the room said, softly and together, "And should be always pleased…"
"You're seventeen years old?"
"Yes… Queen," Martha said, though 'Queen' didn't seem enough to call her.
"I'm told – by those I almost trust – that you beat three strong men down with a smith's hammer. Is that so?"
"…I did. I did, Queen – but none of them died. I'm sure none of them has died!"
"Don't be frightened. I don't care if all of them have died."
People laughed at that.
"But you did it, Martha? And you did it alone?"
"Yes. They were hurting Pa."
"Mmm… And did you enjoy what you did with the hammer?"
Martha looked around her for a friend – but she had no friends here, as she'd had none at home. Her hands were shaking, and she put them behind her so the Queen wouldn't see.
"-I don't ask questions twice."
"I didn't want to… but I was angry."
"Alright. Good. And I understand your mother died of insect fever years ago?"
"Yes… Majestic Person."
Queen Joan laughed. It seemed to Martha she had good teeth for a woman her age, teeth strong as her grip. "Please, please don't ever repeat that 'Majestic Person.' I'm manured with enough titles."
A man in the room laughed.
"Michael, don't you dare!"
The man laughed again, and said, "The court won't use it, ma'am. We promise."
There was a murmur of promises.
"So, Large-Martha," the Queen said, then said nothing more for a while, but only sat looking into Martha's eyes as if there was a secret there she must find out… Then, she nodded. "So, you have no mother. And, I'm told, not much of a daddy. But what if I promise to be nearly a mother to you, if you will come and live with me? If you will serve me, stay by me always, and guard me with your life until the evening I lie, a very old lady, dying in my bed?"
It was such a strange thing to hear, that Martha waited for someone to explain it to her. It seemed the Queen could not have meant 'guard,' since there were soldiers standing against the room's walls, and a soldier in blue-enameled armor standing on one side of the throne, a green-armored soldier on the other.
"Yes, I have guards, Large-Martha, but they are men. And there are occasions when even a queen must be with women only. I'm tired of having to guard myself at such times… lying in my bath, sitting on my toilet-pot with an assag across my lap." She tapped her short-spear's butt against the stone floor, and raised her head and her voice. " – And if it were not in the River Book that soldiers must be men, I'd have women soldiers, as The Monroe has in North Map-Mexico… Proper in that, at least, though our currents might, were matters different, have flowed to drown that boy – as they will the fucking Kipchak Khan! I knew Small-Sam when he was a baby, carried him tucked in his blanket… wiped his ass." Silence in the Red Room.