There was no scent of perfume – the Princess apparently didn't use it. The only odors were of fine laid paper and best black sea-squid ink.
Princess Rachel stood silent, watching him, pen and copybook in hand. She had her mother's lean height and length of bone, but what must have been her father's features, blunt, brown-eyed, with wide cheekbones. A handsome face, in its way.
"Forgive me, Princess, for intruding, but it's proved necessary." Sam walked over to a shelf, read copybook titles on fine sewn top-bindings. "Otherwise, you'll continue avoiding me all over Island, and I'm sorry to say we don't have the time for it… Martian Chronicles. I've heard of Dreaming Bradbury, but not read him. I have read one copybook supposedly by G. Wolfe. Some argument whether it's really a dream of his. Might have been written of our time, in some ways."
Sam glanced over at her, saw no welcome in her face. "The View from Pompey's Head…"
"We have two of Basso's." Grudging, but a response. Sam supposed this princess could not not speak of books.
"Haven't read him."
"We have that – and the Light Infantry Ball."
"Really? Well, light infantry, at least, is a subject I know something about." Sam looked for an empty chair; there seemed to be copybooks or copy paper stacked on everything. It was a room Neckless Peter would have loved.
"Not that sort of light infantry."
"Oh? What sort is it?"
A little color in those pale cheeks. "It… it is about social relationships before and during the very ancient Civil War."
"The Map-America civil war?"
"Yes," the Princess said, and certainly wished him gone.
"Not much use of light infantry there. Skirmishers, scouts, that sort of thing. Of course, the bang-powder bullets must have influenced all their tactics… Have you read the Right Badge of Courage!"
" 'Red.' " Definitely blushing – and of course, very shy. What else could she have grown to be with such a mother?
" 'Red'?"
" 'Red' Badge of Courage."
"Really? You're sure?" Sam set a stack of paper on the floor and sat on an uncomfortable little stool set against the wall by the bookshelf. "I've seen the copybook. Book-English, though traded from Mexico City."
The Princess opened her mouth to say she was sure, then must have noticed something in his face. "…But you knew it. You knew that was wrong."
Sam smiled at her. "Yes, I did. There is no 'Right' Badge of Courage." He leaned back, stretched his legs out, and crossed his boots at the ankle. His sword-hilt tapped the wall behind him. Shouldn't have worn his sword. It was a mistake to have come up to her chamber armed, a long bastard blade slanted down his back. Think first, was the rule at Island.
"I apologize, Rachel." The Princess blinked at the familiarity. A formal court, they held. "I shouldn't have come to your chamber armed."
A little smile. "I didn't consider your sword rudeness, milord." She went behind her work desk, and sat looking out at him over a low barrier of copybooks – as Charles Ketch so often did. Gentle people finding refuge behind written walls. "- Everyone goes armed at Island."
"You don't, I've noticed. Not even a lady's dagger."
"I have guards."
"You have guards, yes – each man from armies kept deliberately separate. West-bank and East. Guards commanded by ambitious generals. West-bank generals… East-bank generals."
"It has worked for us very well."
"And will, until the day a really formidable general joins the River armies together. Perhaps is forced to join them to meet the sort of threat that, for instance, the Kipchak Khan is posing now. That general will be king – and all the more easily if those who ruled are dead."
"I don't think… I don't think you need concern yourself with that, milord."
"Oh, but I do. You see, Princess, the government of Middle Kingdom depends not only on the strict separation of your two armies, not only on the Fleet as a third force. It depends on a ruler being strong enough to maintain them in balance."
"You being such a ruler, of course."
"Your mother being such a ruler."
"Then you had better discuss your ambitions with my mother." An angry face over the stack of copybooks. Now, Sam could see her father in her.
"I wish… Rachel, I wish we'd had the time to know one another better. If there'd been a year or more for visits, so we didn't meet now as strangers, and all this so… awkward."
No answer from the Princess. Her pale face, dark eyes, seemed to float above stacked white paper.
" – But, lacking that time, shall we have plain speaking?"
"Very well, milord. Plain speaking." She touched the papers before her. "My interests are my books and those people also interested in books and learning. Ours is an ignorant age – and forgive me, but you're an example of it. A provincial war-lord, who seems to wish to be a king! And assumes… assumes that everyone will fall in with those wishes!"
There was quiet, then, almost restful. Sam saw one of the river gulls, come up from the Gulf Entire, sail close past the room's south window. Its shadow marked a white wall for an instant as it passed.
"You're mistaken about my wishes, Rachel. Only an ass wishes to rule anyone. As only a coward… avoids necessity. – You know, I drink too much." He saw her a little disconcerted. "I have to be careful, at dinner and so forth here. I have to be careful not to drink too much – but not drink so little that it's noticed I have to be careful. I drink… to rest for a while from what I'm becoming." Sam waited to see if the gull would fly back, leave another quick shadow of its passing. "I'm becoming… an instrument, a tool for the work my people set me. And I saw the same in your mother, when I first met her, then again this morning. I saw that burden in her eyes."
The Princess listened, her head cocked slightly to one side, as if to hear him better.
"Of course, I knew the Queen, in a way, before I came to Island. My Second-mother mentioned Joan Richardson often, admiring her courage, and always spoke of her with love. As she spoke of your father. – You would have liked my Second-mother, Catania. I was told my First-mother was beautiful, but Catania was brave. She was the sort of person we all would wish to be."
The Princess looked down, cleared her throat. "You suggested we speak plainly. I didn't mean to be rude to you, milord."
"Rachel, my name is Sam Monroe. I am not your 'lord,' and never will be. But I hope, in time, to become your friend."
Still looking down at her desk-top, as if solutions had been inscribed there. "My mother is Queen. I have no interest in being one – in being like her."
"Thank every Jesus for that! As to your becoming queen, it's surprising how little choice we have in these matters. I won two, three battles after older commanders had been killed. Before that, I'd been a shepherd – and occasionally, a sheep thief and near bandit. I was very young, and very foolish… Then, because better men were dead, I was looked to when unpleasant decisions had to be made. I made just enough decisions rightly, to trap myself into becoming Captain-General of North Map-Mexico – a slightly ridiculous title."
"Not ridiculous."
"You're too kind. But that's really all I am, a very good military commander, and a fairly good ruler otherwise. Though I probably use force, sometimes, when force is not quite necessary… I also used to read a good deal; my Second-mother saw to that. She was afraid I'd pick up poor book-English, or the mountain tribes' signs and chatter. So, I've read, though now I have little time for reading – and by the way, you must meet Neckless Peter, our librarian and informational. The old man was the Khan's tutor, and he'd love this room."