Kingdom River

towers, and wide two-storied timber docks on square stone pilings set marching out into the current. Slaves – still naked though Daughter Summer had died – were working on them, stowing and transferring the goods come in, the cargoes going out. Her father had called slaves 'the Ordinaries' bane' and said they took fish and honey from free men's mouths… A band was playing on some pleasure boat, horns and flutes.

There seemed more to see than Jordan-Jesus could have noticed, though he was a river god, with all drops of water for his eyes.

The sun's egg had sunk west to almost touch the water when the Brown-cloak Captain said, 'Passing Vicksburg bluff.' Martha looked over and could just see a line of green and perhaps a fortress, east, high along the bank.

Soon after, the Captain said, 'Island.' And Martha saw, downstream, and far, far out into the current, what seemed a great walled town rising from the river, its stone gray and gold in early evening light.

Amazed, she clapped her hands – thought it might be magic – and looked up to see if the Bad-lip Lord was also astonished. She pointed it out to him.

He looked there, nodded, and said, 'Island.'

It was a place Martha'd heard of all her life, but had never thought to see. She swayed where she sat, then swayed again as the rowers' slow steady beat shifted, and the blood-red boat swung farther from the shore. They were going out and out where the great town grew from white water.

After a while, she saw fewer boats, fewer sailing ships… And later, almost none, but huge tarred barrels floating, with signal masts on them flying flags of different colors. Martha noticed that what ships there were, steered by those flags and no other way.

Now, she could see the town was made of walls and towers, all built on hills of heaped boulders, each larger than a house. Everything was heaved up and up out of the river, so the cold current foamed white and struck in waves against the stone.

'Two hundred years of granite rock brought down from the Wall's lap by ice-boat and wet-boat, with a good man lost to the savages for every Warm-time ton.' The Bad-lip Lord was looking at the distant walls and towers. 'And those tons dropped into the river there to make the kings' island.'

'What a wonderful thing!'

'Do you think so, Ordinary? Clever, certainly…'

A horn sounded, deep and distant as a pasture bull's crying out. Martha looked that way and saw, over the ship's red rail, another ship just as blood-scarlet but much larger, with two rows of oars on a side. It was coming toward them so fast that it carved white water with its black iron ram. Ranks of oars flashed, rose, beat, and fell, seeming only to touch the river's skin as it came, banners streaming from its masts, gulls wavering in the river wind above it.

The deep horn sounded again, calling to them. It was the most wonderful thing. Martha stood and stepped to the low rail – though no one had said she could – to see it better. She could hear drumbeats, now, even the soft spanking as its oars struck the river. It was coming terribly fast, and it was very big. There were men… men in ranks standing along the two decks, one above the other. These were soldiers, and each man's armor was enameled in halves, helmet to hip, left side blue, right side green. 'Soldiers,' she said.

'Marines,' said the Brown-cloak Captain – and shouted, 'Still… oars… to heave to!'

There were machine things on the great ship coming to them – things like giant hunting bows, but lying on their sides and fastened to timbers – and fire was burning in bronze braziers alongside them.

Martha clapped her hands and jumped a little up and down. It was worth everything to have come to see such a ship. Beside it, all the other river boats were nothing.

Another horn sounded behind her. She turned and saw, much farther away, two more of the great ships, both blood-red and flying blood-red banners.

'Three of them!'

'Three of the Fleet's two hundred and more,' the Bad-lip Lord said. 'Now, sit down, girl, before you fall overboard.'

Martha sat on her step again, but still could see as the great ship came to them, drums rolling and thundering so the gulls' cries sounded like music above it.

It came almost to smash into them, so Martha held up her arm to ward it – then swung suddenly sideways in spray and clashing currents. Spaced along its hull, the iron fittings for its winter runners were massive as great tree-stumps… and as it turned, rows of white oars rose dripping, folding up together so it loomed over, high as a riverside cliff, blood-red and ranked with two-color soldiers. The ship was named in dark metal at its bow. QS Painful.

At once a long, narrow wooden bridge fell from beside a mast, came swinging humming down through the air and crashed across the rail paces from Martha and the Bad-lip Lord.

Soldiers – marines – came running the steep planking with battle-axes in their hands, and two officers – their helmets striped blue, green, and gold – came running with them, short-swords drawn, and all jumping to the deck so it shook under Martha's feet.

One of the officers, the bigger one, stopped near her and called out, 'Who comes toward Island? And why?'

His sword was shaped like a butcher's knife, but bigger.

'I come,' the Bad-lip Lord said. 'Sayre. And on the Queen's business.'

'And come properly? With nothing and no one hidden on this ship?'

'Properly. Nothing hidden.'

The officer unfastened a little latch at his throat, and took his helmet off. He had four blue dots on one cheek, three on the other, and a round pleasant face spoiled by eyes with no color… It seemed to Martha the helmet must be uncomfortable. None of the soldiers who'd brought her to Landing had worn their helmets. They'd kept them strapped to their packs.

'Afternoon, milord.' The officer bowed a little.

'Afternoon, Conway – how does your father do?'

'Dying.'

'Sickness… a sad end for an admiral.'

'Yes, sir. He would have chosen otherwise.'

Martha saw the marines with axes going here and there about the boat. Some of them went downstairs, under the deck. The other officer was talking to three sailors; they stood barefoot before him, their heads down.

'We'll look through, and question – but quickly. Won't delay you, milord.'

'Better not. I'm bringing Her Majesty a present… of a sort.'

The officer looked down at Martha, and raised an eyebrow. 'Don't ask,' said the Bad-lip Lord.

CHAPTER 8

'This vessal to the Iron Gate,' the big officer had said, speaking to the Brown-cloak Captain in a different voice than he'd used in conversation with the Bad-lip Lord. ' – To the Iron Gate, directly and in order, otherwise at your peril.'

'Understood,' the Captain had said, 'and will be conformed to.'

And, after the officers marched the marines back up their ramp, the great two-decked ship had lunged away, its ranks of oars striking all together, its drums sounding slower beats, its trumpet a different call.

Soon, Martha saw much closer the cliffs of gray stone, the river's milky rapids foaming against them. Along those stone walls, another boat came in order behind them… then a second one, and a third, so there were four in line. Martha stood to see them better, and was told to sit down.

Then there was slow steady rowing into the river's wind, Island's gray wall, on their right, seeming endless as they passed – and high, so the gulls looked like snowflakes along the spaced stone teeth at its top.

'Big,' she said.

'Very big.' The second thing the boat's captain had said to her. 'More'n a Warm-time mile long; near a mile