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.
CHAPTER 17
After days of wandering, walking through glassed gardens, examining walls, fortifications, the great stone-built entrance harbors – the Silver, the Gold, the Bronze, the Iron – his inspections never seeming to disturb the officers and men guarding those places, Sam had seen enough of Island.
It lay, a mountain of snowy, wind-struck stone in an ice-flowed river, and seemed to him about as useful as any natural mountain might have been. A great redoubt, no question, and would be very expensive to reduce – but by that time, with an enemy having won to its walls, the war would already be lost. It seemed a poor substitute for a veteran field army, well led, an army not divided into East-bank and West, with a fleet uncomfortable with both of them.
After those inspections, Sam saw what Toghrul had seen, even though far away at Caravanserai in Map-West Texas. The Khan had seen – had sensed – the Kingdom as a giant, but bound in chains of long habit and regulation, often slow, awkward, and shambling… All a hunting call to the Kipchaks, so numerous, so neatly swift, so wonderfully well-commanded.
And, of course, that very instinct, that eagerness, had exposed them. Toghrul had paid no heed – after his one warning attack south – to an enemy left behind him. As a wolf pack, chasing elk, might run by a bowman waiting in a snowy wood, with nothing but glances and a snarl as they passed.