Kingdom River

CHAPTER 12

'Get that damn rat off the meat!'

Elvin, quick for a dying old man, picked up a roll and threw it down the table. It missed Butler's dog – a yapping single-handful – and hit Sam as he was carving. The mutton seemed tenderer than usual, and had little bits of pepper stuck in it here and there. Oswald-cook grown enamored of southern spices, after cooking a thousand dull kettles of Brunswick slumgul.

'Don't hurt my Poppy!' Phillip Butler wore ground-glass imperial spectacles held to his eyes on thin, twisted wires that curled behind his ears. He looked over the spectacles more often than through them. Short, gray- bearded, he seemed more a children's tutor than a colonel of Heavy Infantry.

Poppy scurried down the table with a mutton scrap in tiny jaws, jumped a platter, and leaped down into Butler's lap. 'There, Candy-lamb,' the colonel said, looking still wearied by the five-day ride from Hermosillo Camp to Better-Weather.

'What's this about Howell going up into Texas,' he'd said to Sam that afternoon, 'and what nonsense are you up to, sir?'

'Serious nonsense, Phil.'

Sam stooped, found the roll on the floor, then threw it back, sidearm. The brothers leaned apart so the roll flew between them, and Sam went back to carving mutton – cutting Ned's portion into small pieces, for one-handed eating. Oswald-cook had put many little peppers in the meat… Sam handed the loaded pewter plates to Margaret to pass down the long, narrow table. They were eating in a room of stone walls; ground floor in the fort, therefore no windows.

Around the table were all those close to him – except Portia-doctor, still with the wounded at Clinic, and Charmian, already gone west to annoy the Khan's people come over the border.

Margaret sat to his left, looking somewhat harried, preoccupied. Below her, Howell, looming eye-patched over his plate. Then Phil Butler, then Ned, eating one-handed and looking grim. The Rascob brothers at the end of the table, backs to the iron stove – called a Franklin, after some Warm-time person. And up the other side, Eric, who seemed annoyed, then Charles, then the little librarian, shy and silent, on Sam's right.

His friends, and only family… though there'd been others through the years. From the Sierra, and later. Paul Ortiz… Lucy… John Ott. All dead. Paul killed at Tonichi. Lucy caught by imperials, raped, then burned to death tied to the Jesus tree in the temple at Malpais. And John Ott lost for nothing, wasted for what had seemed a useful notion.

'I'm glad I'm dying,' Elvin said through his bandanna, as if he'd mind-read Sam's thoughts. 'Better death, than these fucking dinners with those dogs!'

Jaime elbowed him. 'Be quiet.'

'Don't tell me to be quiet.' Elvin, his plate arrived, settled to mutton and potatoes, tucking forkfuls under a flap of bandanna to prove his good appetite.

The plates went round. Sam sliced and served, Margaret passed… and with thanks to Lady Weather or Mountain Jesus by those who cared to give it, they ate spiced mutton, broken potatoes with mutton gravy, and broccoli steamed with garlic. They ate this main course quickly and in silence, from campaign habit… then took second helpings for the same reason.

Margaret got up from the table-bench twice to go round, pour barley beer for them. She bent beside Elvin to whisper in his ear. 'You don't have to eat what you don't want, Old Sweetheart.'

'Mind your own business,' Elvin said, then put down his knife and two-tine fork – like all their mess silver, a spoil from God-Help-Us. 'I've had enough. Those little rats of Phil's have spoiled my appetite, running around the damn table.'

'You can have some custard, El,' Jaime said.

'You have some fucking custard.'

… When – after the last of mutton, almost the last of potatoes and broccoli – the custard bowl was passed with a cruet of honey, conversation came round with it.

'Anything at the races, Howell?' Charles and Howell both placed long-running wagers on the races at El Sauz – though betting only with civilians.

'I won on Barbershears, Charles. I'm sorry, pigeon said Snowflake didn't show.'

'Surprise me,' Charles said. 'Amaze me. A horse with three first finishes – and for me, no show.'

Ned was eating a dish of chicken-egg custard with his left wrist's bandaged stump held carefully away from the table's edge. 'Lesson, Charles – don't bet on white horses. Does anybody here know of any white horse winning consistently? There's something wrong with their bones… more white a horse has on his hide, the more easily broken down.'

'Silver,' the little librarian said, the first thing he'd said at dinner.

'What?'

'The Warm-time horse,' Neckless Peter said. 'Hi-yo Silver was extraordinary.'

'Oh… Well, Warm-times.' Ned poured honey on his dish. 'Different breeding.'

Sam listened to horse talk for a while, then set his beer-jack down, pushed his custard dish aside. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'to break the rule of no war conversation at mess.'

There were several small sounds of metal on oak, as knives and forks were put down. The duller taps of horn spoons… Margaret stood and went to the dining-room door, by the weapons rack.

'Empty corridor,' she said, 'except for two of Charles' silent people on guard. One dog. Louis.'

'Louis?'

'The dog, Sam. Name's Louis.'

'Okay… What's said here, is not repeated.' Sam waited for nods. 'You all know that Howell's going north into Map-Texas.'

'With all the cavalry we've got.'

'That's right, Ned. Picking up the divisions on his way. Every mount, every man and woman.'

'And if he loses those people? – Excuse me, Howell. But what if all those people are lost?'

'Then, Ned,' Sam said, 'we go for a swim in Sewer Creek. So Howell is ordered not to lose those people.'

'Takes care of that,' Howell said, and cut a small chew of tobacco.

' – Also Howell, when you reach Map-Fort Stockton, kill what fighting men you can, of course, and any women who fight beside them, but otherwise, harm no women or children.'

'That's tender, Sam.' Howell tucked the tobacco into his lower lip. 'Tender… But why?'

'Because, in the future, I want the Khan's troopers fighting only for him, not for their families' lives.'

'Good policy,' the little librarian said, then closed his mouth when the others looked at him.

'But bad policy' – Eric drummed his fingers on the table – 'bad policy to have one here who was the Khan's… and still may be.'

'My Second-mother, Catania,' Sam said, 'found Neckless Peter to be a good friend, and honest. Is there anyone now in North Map-Mexico with better judgment in these matters?'

Sam waited through what Warm-time copybooks called 'a pregnant pause.' A small gray moth, alive past its season, fluttered at a hanging lamp.

'… None I know of,' Eric said. 'Librarian, I apologize.'

'Unnecessary,' Neckless Peter said. 'A chief of intelligence should act the part.'

'Okay. Charles, any problem with the staging of remounts – any problem with payments, with moving the herds up the line?'

'Lots of problems, Sam. Lots of angry ranchers. But your horses will be there, Howell.'

'Eric?'

'Sam, fodder's already wagoned and waiting. Hay and grain at Ocampo and La Babia. Rations, horseshoes, spare tack, sheepskin blankets for the horses. Sheepskin mitts, cloaks, overboots, and sleep-sacks for the troopers. Ten of Portia's people mounted to accompany with medical kits and horse stretchers.'