Toghrul reined Lively to the left to avoid a deep runoff ditch half-hidden in the grass. A trace of short summer's melt.
… And of course, the North Mexicans would not go into Blue Sky alone. There were others, a troublesome few of a ruler's own, that in time must join them. Manu Ek-Tam, that so-brilliant young officer. And two or three of his dear friends. All brilliant young officers, perfect at everything but keeping silent. Was there any spy or agent so effective as kumiss in revealing disloyalty, arrogant ambition? Disrespect?
So, the treacherous cut their throats with their own tongues.
And the Uighur tuman, of course. Foolish, grumbling tribesmen, needing to be worn away by enemy lances – as, in the past, the Cuman and Kirghiz had been. So, an army of many differences, many purposes, was shaped and whittled into an army with one purpose only. Obedience.
But was any great man ever brought down except by those closest to him? The generals, the ministers, the great of Caravanserai with their velvet tents, musicians, women, and fuck boys – it had been many months since one of these was peeled and stuck on a stake". – Now see the result of forbearance. Murmurs, judgments made, requirements of the Khan's wife that she produce a boy.
Expectations impudent in themselves.
The sheriff of the camps was just such an impertinent man. Who, after all, would miss him? Who miss the lesson he presented, perched screeching on a stake?
All so tedious. Was it impossible men could be ruled by reason? Old copybooks claimed, improbably, it had been done – by which they certainly meant not by reason at all, but greed, and its parceled fulfillments…
Sul Niluk, a Guardsman galloping a hundred Warm-time yards away, whistled and pointed. Toghrul saw movement ahead at the side of a slight rise, a stirring through the grasses' tall ruined stems.
Jack the rabbit. And up and away he bounded, already mottling snowy into his winter coat. Toghrul, spurring from a canter to the gallop, lifted his left arm so his hawk's jesses jingled. Reaching over, he tugged the bird's yellow velvet hood away and launched him into the air.
The prairie hawk spiraled high, saw the rabbit going, and slid after it as if the air were ice. Toghrul pulled Lively in to watch.
Jack the rabbit jinked swiftly here and there, going away. Not even wings could carve those sudden angles after him, and the hawk didn't attempt it. It flew, it sailed straight to a place just past the runner – suddenly stooped, and struck as Jack came fleeing to it, sure as if there'd been an appointment.
The rabbit screamed – Toghrul had heard two children screaming just so at Map-Sacramento, when his father took it. He'd been no older than the children, but much safer, sitting on his pony in the midst of the Guard. The children had been put into fires, held there with spears while they blistered and shrieked, burning. The old Khan hadn't been cruel, only very practical, and people frightened by frightful things were easier to manage. A sort of applied reason, after all.
Sul Niluk rode on to bend from the saddle and lift the hawk hissing from its prey, a tuft of fur already bleeding in its beak. Sul bent down again, picked up the rabbit as well, tucked it in his saddle-bag, then rode back to bring Toghrul his hawk.
… And by winter's end, with the campaign against Middle Kingdom completed, then, in just such a way as the hawk's – as Monroe defended his border with quick and clever little strokes and dodges – in just such a way the tumans would sail over the grasslands to meet him where, sooner or later, he was certain to go.
When that was accomplished, of course, the world would become a little less interesting.
Well-balanced, her laced, low boots as firmly planted as flooring brushed with oil allowed, Martha grunted with the apparent effort of an ax-swing that was not. Master Butter accepted it for fact, raised a swift sword-parry against it – and was, by surprise, backstroked across the face with her ax's heavy handle.
He staggered away, calling, "Wonderful!" in a goose's honk, since she'd broken his nose.
Martha came after him fast, mimed a finishing stroke across his belly, then set her ax aside, said, "Oh, poor Sir," and went to him with her yellow handkerchief to stop the bleeding.
Master Butter set his sword into the rack, pinched and tugged at the bridge of his snub nose to painfully straighten it, and said, "Owww!" Then he took her handkerchief and held it to his nostrils. "No one has had as much blood out of me in months – and that was a West-bank captain quick as a cat."
"I'm sorry."
"You would be sorry, if you hadn't so correctly followed to kill me. Never, never let an opponent recover, whether in duel or war. If someone is worth fighting with fist and foot, they're worth kicking unconscious. If they're worth fighting with sharp steel, they're worth killing. Always fight to finish."
"Yes, sir."
"I think now 'Butter-boy' will do. It was a hurtful nickname – you know those Warm-time words, 'nick-name'?"
"Yes."
"Sit down… sit on the bench; I'll get some vodka. Practice is over today; I'm bleeding like a pig." The handkerchief to his nose, he went to the table, picked up a blue-glazed bottle, pulled its stopper, took several long swallows, then brought it back and sat beside her. "I have no cups; I apologize… Well, I took the nick-name they'd used to hurt me, and made it my True-name. Master Butter-boy. One deals with insults as one deals with any opponent who possesses a long and punishing reach. You close as soon as possible, grapple him to you – then use the knife." He took another long drink from his blue bottle, then offered it to her.
"No, thank you. Is your nose alright?"
"It'll be alright, Martha. A good lesson, though, for both of us. Should only the mildest corrective injury be required, the nose is as good a thing to strike as any other. In a more serious case, involving weapons, you will keep in mind that a person struck hard on the nose is blinded for an instant"
"'Blinded for an instant…'"
"Yes." Master Butter took another swallow. "After which, of course, more will have to be done. Never strike a first blow without having prepared a second. Each stroke, each slash, is an introduction for the next… and I am ruining your handkerchief."
"It will wash."
"I hope it will." Master Butter sighed, then took the cloth away and examined it. "And how do you go on in court, Martha?"
"Oh… I mind my own business."
"Well, that may do for a year or so, but not forever. You're with the Queen day and night; that's too close for some lords' comfort… some generals' comfort, too. And what makes great men – and women – uncomfortable, is sooner or later set aside."
"The Queen will keep me safe," Martha said, "as I will keep her safe, for certain."
" 'For certain.' " Master Butter threw his head back and laughed. "You are young." Then he said, "By the way, a very good time to reach over and cut someone's throat – while they're laughing."
"Yes, sir."
"For certain…" Master Butter sighed, and took a deep drink from his blue bottle. "Still, properly said. Our Queen is a wonder, but wonders may grow careless. You may not. Particularly not with this war to the west, since it has certainly occurred to the horse savages that our Queen presents an obstacle."
"I won't be careless."
"See to it… So, you two deal well enough together – must, for good guarding. And the Queen's daughter?" He handed over the vodka bottle.
"I like Princess Rachel. I don't know if she likes me or not, but she's kind." Martha held the vodka bottle, but didn't drink. Her father had given her tastes of potato vodka, but she hadn't liked it.