Kingdom River

Turquoise Path to his great yurt of oiled yellow silk, spangled with silver… set its entrance cloth aside, and stepped into the smell and smoke of cooking sausage.

His wife, and the slave named Eleanor, were preparing dinner at the yurt's center stove. – The caravanserai cooked and served for hundreds… thousands, if need be. But Toghrul had learned to avoid those kettles of boiled mutton with southern rice and peppers, though he would poke and fork at the food on occasions of state. The old Khan had loved that sort of cooking.

His wife looked up from cluttered pots and pans, through smoke rising to the ceiling's small Sky's eye. 'What today, sweet lord?'

'Oh, Ladu, the tedious usual – causing fear and giving orders.' He tossed his horse-whip onto a divan, then sat while Eleanor wrestled his boots off. Eleanor was a handsome woman with braided hair the color of autumn grass. Once, she had looked into Toghrul's eyes in the way a woman might gaze at a man while offering, while considering possibilities, advantages.

Toghrul had then had Chang-doctor remove her left eye – it had been done under southern poppy syrup – with no explanation offered. But Eleanor had understood, and Toghrul's wife had understood. So now, the slave offered no more impudent glances of that sort, and seemed content.

'We have pig sausage and onions and shortbread cake. Will those help?' His wife smiled.

'They will certainly help.'

Where the old Khan had mounted any pretty female oddment the armies found – enjoying the novelty, apparently – Toghrul, after some experiment, had decided on a traditional wife. Ladu, a Chukchi, somewhat squat and a little plump, had been chosen from the daughters of several senior officers – officers safely dead in battle, so dynastic entanglements were avoided.

Toghrul often considered that choice his best proof of good judgment, since Ladu had not found him frightening, then had come to care for him. One morning, waking beside her and watching that round, unremarkable face still soft in sleep, her short little ice-weather nose, the deep folds over slanted eyes closed in dreaming, he'd been startled to find that he loved her. This still surprised and amused him. It warmed him too, in a minor way, on winter rides, campaigning… Only sons were missing – or had been. Ladu's little belly had been swelling for months, and properly, according to Chang-doctor.

So now, of course, there were expectations of a son. The staff had expectations… the chiefs and generals, also. Toghrul could disappoint them, and they would bear it… Ladu could not. She, and old Chimuk, were the only ones who never stood before him without anticipating a possible dreadful blow. That fear, its wary distancing, was certainly tedious, certainly made ruling more difficult, but Toghrul had found no way to remove it, since it was what the clans, the troops, expected and had always expected. In that sense only, he was the ruled and they the rulers. They were certain to be afraid of him; and what they required, he must perform.

… Ladu and Eleanor set hammered brass platters on the green carpet, a campaign spoil, and one of the last of its kind, with wonderful figures of racing blue-gray dogs woven into it. Toghrul slid off the divan and sat cross- legged to eat. The women stood by the stove, watching him, his appetite their reward.

'Delicious!' The sausage was wonderful. Bless the pig herd, though many of his men – those still worshiping Old Maybe – wouldn't go near the animals, certainly wouldn't eat their flesh.

Both women had nodded, smiling at his 'Delicious!' The Great Khan, He Who Is Feared and Lord of Grass, had paid for his supper.

***

'They're inside, came down yesterday.' Margaret Mosten, by torchlight, motioned to Sam's tent.

'Charles and Eric?'

'Yes, sir.'

'No quarters of their own?'

'They wanted to speak with you.'

'Nailed Jesus…' Sam swung down off his horse. Not his horse – Handsome was dead, left in the mountains, south. This was a nameless hard-mouthed brute, one of the imperials' big chargers… They'd ridden back north by slow marches – more than a Warm-time week – the last returning days hungry, and all but the wounded taking turns on foot.

'Sir' – Margaret's eyes shone in the pine-knot's flaring – 'what a wonderful thing.' She'd been left behind to mind the camp.

'Killing their people, did not bring ours back to life.' Sam walked sore and stiff-legged to the tent's entrance, put back the flap, and stepped into lamplight.

Charles Ketch, tall, gray, seeming weary of the weight of administration, sat hunched on Sam's locker. Eric Lauder, livelier, alert, perched cross-legged on the cot. A checker-board was propped between them. In age, they might almost have been father and son, but in no other way.

'Make yourselves at home.'

'Ah' – Eric jumped a piece and took it off the board – 'the conquering hero comes.'

Sam swung his scabbarded sword's harness from his back, set the weapon by the head of the cot, and shrugged off his cloak. 'Get off my bed, Eric. I'm tired.'

'Are you hurt?'

'No. I avoided the fighting.' Sam waited while Lauder stood and lifted the checker-board away. 'Been injured in my pride, of course.' He sat on the cot, then lay down and stretched out, boots and all. It felt wonderful to be out of the saddle.

'You seem to have made the best of a bad blunder.' Eric emptied the checkers into their narrow wooden box.

'I was winning that game,' Charles, annoyed. 'You owe me five pesos.'

'Would have owed – had you won.'

'I suppose the best of a bad blunder.' Sam thought of sitting up to take his boots off. It seemed too great a task.

'Yes.' Eric set the board against the tent wall. 'But what sort of blunder was it?'

'A serious one – sending Ned Flores and a half-regiment to do a larger force's work.' The tent's lamp smelled of New England's expensive whale oil, and seemed too bright. Sam closed his eyes for a moment.

'And what 'work' was that, Sam?'

'The work of winning a fight here, Eric.'

'Winning a fight?' Eric sat on the locker beside Charles, nudged him to shift over. 'You know, there is nothing more stupid than keeping a secret from your chief of intelligence.'

'Except,' Charles said, and winked at Sam, 'telling him all of them.'

'I made a mistake, Eric, doing something that was necessary. I was clumsy, and it cost us good people.' Sam sat up to take off his boots. 'What I could do to retrieve the situation has been done. Now change the subject.'

'Fine,' Eric said. 'What subject shall we change to?' Smiling, his voice pleasant, softer than before, his dark eyes darker than his trimmed beard, he was very angry.

'Sleep.'

'Before sleep, Sam' – Charles leaned forward – 'there are questions in the army. Not complaints; more surprise than anything.'

'Charles, the army is to be told this: We fought a battle, lost it – learned – then fought again and won. We will likely fight more battles, and may lose another, then fight again and win. Only children are allowed to win every time. That's what the army is to be told. Any officer with more questions, can come to me with them.'

Charles sat on the locker, looking at him. '…Alright.'

'A good answer,' Eric said. 'The fucking army thinks it's Mountain Jesus come down from his tree.'

'Anything else?'

'Yes. Sam, there's serious fighting now, in the north. The Kipchak patrols are already in Map-Arkansas – and probably up into Map-Missouri as well; going to be trying for the river fairly soon. The major clans – Eagles, Foxes, Skies, and Spring Flowers – all gathered into tumans. It's to be winter war, no question… Merchants we talk to, say Middle Kingdom is spending gold in preparation, particularly on their fleet. Frontier