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."