Kingdom River

gone with it – I wandered the hill-top, asked questions of those few left behind, was given no answers, and returned to my tent for a nap. It did occur to me that trouble might have come to the northern border while the army's commander was occupied here… That trouble, of course, would be of my previous master's making, with the appearance of horse-tail banners, and horse archers with angled eyes.

I had, I suppose, convinced myself that my unimportant defection would be pardoned, if the Grass Lord ever met me again. But that conviction proved fragile as smoke when I tried to sleep in the quiet of an almost empty camp, and I realized that I would certainly be casually strangled by my student – Evgeny Toghrul being not a bad loser, but no loser at all. Not even of elderly librarians.

I slept at last, dreamed of perfect painless poisons milked from lovely vines – droplets certain to provide ease and freedom's easy end. I dreamed of dark doses through the afternoon, could taste them… then woke to early evening. I drew a cloak over my shoulders against the chill, and trudged over an encampment scored by horses' shod hooves, dappled with their manure, to a lamp-lit mess tent almost deserted.

The walking wounded, unfit to ride, had been left behind – left behind to cook supper, as well, a grim portent. A corporal I knew, called Leith, was limping among the pans and great kettles, blood spotting her bandages, while she spooned and stirred this and that, exchanging obscenities with two soldiers still staggering from injuries.

Portia-doctor, darkly handsome in a stained brown robe, and seeming weary, sat eating at a bench-table in the big tent's back left corner – and I was interested to see the Boston girl sitting across from her. The girl's tin platter was piled with the army's dreadful Brunswick slumgul, stew enough for two hungry men. This evening, apparently, boiled goat and halved turnips.

Patience saw me, nodded me over… and was well into her supper when I came from the serving kettles to join them.

I bent to kiss the doctor's cheek, a privilege – and sensible precaution – of age, and sat beside her to watch Patience Nearly-Lodge Riley eat. It seemed important eating.

Portia-doctor smiled. 'Fuel after flying, I believe.' And I saw that of course she must be right.

Patience nodded, swallowed a large bite, and said, 'Nothing comes of nothing. – Where have the soldiers gone? People won't tell me.'

'South,' Portia-doctor said, and poked at a piece of goat with a two-tine fork. 'South through the mountains, to hunt down the cataphracts.'

'Good God.' Perhaps my favorite Warm-time phrase. 'Can they catch them, three days gone?'

'Probably.' The doctor ate her piece of goat. 'The imperials will be leisurely, have no reason to hurry.'

'Impatience, I thought you would have followed the soldiers south.'

'I would have, NP. I wanted to see fighting, but they refused me permission – cited my safety and that sort of shit. The Big One-eye wouldn't lend me a horse to follow them.' More spoonfuls of turnip eaten.

'Ah – Voss. Howell Voss.'

'Yes, the Big One-eye. But I'm going to get a riding horse of my own – buy it out of my expense fund. Then, fuck him, I'll go where I want!'

'But you could have Walked-in-air.'

Patience had very good table-manners; she finished chewing, and swallowed before she answered. 'NP, I'm not a stupids' witch. I have just come over two thousand Warm-time miles. And I've stopped traveling, and said to myself, 'I'm here. I've arrived.''

'And therefore?' Portia-doctor, interested in this phenomenon.

'Therefore, Doctor, if I air-walk again too soon, my head might ache, and I might fall.'

'So, a rest.'

'Yes, a few weeks, then I'll be able to say to myself, 'Now, I'm going. I'm going somewhere else. Then I'll do it, and my head won't ache, and I won't fall.'

'I see.'

'The piece in the brain doesn't like to be hurried, Doctor. One thing at a time is what it likes, with a long rest between.' She demolished a last piece of goat meat, then attacked the rest of her turnips – which, frankly, were barely edible.

'And your beast?'

'The occa's risen and gone north. I had to kick her to get her up and going; they depend on you, then they want to stay. She'll wander awhile, but end with her mother.' Salt sprinkled on turnips. 'They're better than pigeons, for going back where they come from.'

I tried the most promising piece of goat. 'And how are the wounded, Doctor?'

Portia turned those sad brown eyes to me, eyes into which too much of others' suffering had reflected. 'We've saved some – saved some of those for sitting, blind or legless, to beg in town squares.'

'An army doctor is, I suppose, something of a contradiction.'

'Yes, 'something of a contradiction,'' Portia said, and smiled – was almost beautiful when she smiled. Then she took up her platter, stood, and was gone.

'Is it true,' Patience said, 'that Big One-eye likes her?'

'Howell Voss? Where did you hear that?'

'I scented it from him while he was telling me I couldn't follow. He talked to me, but looked at her for a moment when she walked by. Then, he smelled of sad desiring – as you did, NP, when I mentioned the ancient Harvard library.'

More Boston tinkering, apparently, and for sense of smell!

'Impatience, I believe we'll all be happier with you if you don't sniff around us like an eager hound.'

'Well, then…' A slight pout. 'Then I'll keep it to myself, what I discover that way.'

'Please do.'

'Why aren't you eating?'

'They have not peeled the turnips.'

She smiled. 'Do you know the Warm-time word 'eccentric'?'

'There is nothing eccentric about wanting turnips peeled.'

'How are your teeth?' Patience showed me her small white teeth in illustration.

'I still have my teeth.'

'Here.' She reached over quickly, took my platter, and began to peel the halved turnips on it. She'd reached very quickly, and she peeled very quickly, so the blade of her knife flashed and flickered. 'Now, eat them. They're good for you.'

I ate them, and could only hope they were good for me, since they were good for nothing else. I do not imagine there is any more reliable sign of civilization than food that is a pleasure to eat, not simply grim forage. In Gardens, we had bird stews flavored with little forest friends…

Having finished my slight platter as the Boston girl finished her weighty one – Corporal Leith had limped over and snatched the tin dishes up, muttering – I walked with Patience out into darkness and a cold wind come down from the mountains.

'Isn't this an adventure, NP?'

'If it ends well.' Stepping carefully to avoid horse manure.

'Oh, adventures are ends in themselves.'

'And what is it you want here, Impatience – besides adventure?'

'Want? Here, I want to watch warlords' grand clockwork tick, whir, and turn – have you ever seen wind-up clockwork?'

'No. Read of those time-pieces, of course.'

'We have a large weight-wind-up clock at the entrance to Ice-clear Justice, though it keeps uncertain time… What I wish, is what Boston wishes, NP. I wish for perfection, as Boston wishes for perfection – and we will have it, or make it, so the sun is satisfied at last and comes to us as it did before, hot as fire.'

'I see…' But I didn't, then.

CHAPTER 5