Kingdom River

'Sir?'

'If you cause any trouble in the Kingdom – any problems with women, any embarrassment at all – you will wish to Lady Weather you hadn't.'

'Understood, sir.'

'And the same for you men! If trouble comes, it had better come to you, not from you.'

'Sir.'

'Sir.'

'Sir.'

'Master Carey?'

'Hear an' obey, milord.'

' 'Sir' will do.' Sam hauled Difficult's head around, and spurred the charger down the road and into its customary punishing trot. Four days, at least, to the Gulf Entire, with a boat pigeoned to wait for them. Then, a two-day crossing to the mouth of Kingdom River… and what welcome the Kingdom chose.

***

It was odd to ride where no mountains rose in the distance… oddly calming, dreamlike, as if riding might continue forever.

Howell turned in his saddle, as he'd done before, to confirm that more than four thousand cavalry rode behind him, raising no dust on the prairie's frozen grass and ground. Carlo Petersen at the front of First Brigade, with his trumpeter and the banner-bearer – the great flag restless in the breeze, its black scorpion threatening on a field of gold… though scorpions were deep-south creatures. The only scorpion Howell'd seen had been in a glass bottle, looking furious.

Petersen, then the banner, then three brigades coming after, side by side in long, long columns of ten – regiments broken into squadrons, then troops, then companies. Light horse, Heavies, and militia troops as well. The horse-archer companies deployed Warm-time miles east and west. And deployed the same distance behind them.

But ahead, only two scouts rode, nearly out of sight in high, frost-killed grass, and out of sight completely when they rode down the other sides of long soft swells of land.

Howell would have preferred no scouts before him, nothing but distance with no stopping place, no purpose but going.

After almost four days over the border, guided by an iron-needle compass and two ancient Warm-time copy- maps – an Exxon (mysterious word) and half a BP (mysterious initials) – they were fifteen, perhaps twenty miles south of Fort Stockton. He could, of course, choose to ride wide around it, lead on north and north to the Wall. Perhaps ride up onto the ice itself – there must be canyons, melt-slopes that horses could manage. Then all four thousand and more might ride over endless ice to the turning tip of the world, until they slowed… and slowed… and the horses froze, the riders were frozen fast in their saddles. An army of steel and ice – shining in sunlight or coated in blizzard white – that could not harm or be harmed, could not lose or win.

In nearly four days riding north in absolute command, a command that might end with the destruction of all the army's cavalry, Howell had begun to learn the lessons he'd seen traced on Sam Monroe's face. Sadness, and necessity. All these people following behind the banner, behind Howell Voss – sole commander, and responsible.

It took much of the pleasure out of war. Not, of course, all the pleasure.

He heard grass-muffled hoofbeats coming up behind him. A cuirassier drew up on his right, hard-reining a big bay. 'From Colonel Petersen, sir.'

Howell recognized the man, but couldn't remember his name – then did. 'You're one of the Jays – Terrence.'

'Yes, sir.' The corporal pleased as a child to be recognized. How was it possible not to take advantage of the innocence of soldiers?

Jay wrestled his bay to keep it close. 'Sir, the colonel suggests holding the column here. Cold camp.'

'Cold camp, yes, Corporal – but not here. Tell Colonel Petersen' – as new a colonel as Howell was a general – 'tell him I've changed my mind, decided to move closer. Tell him I want to be able to take the Kipchaks in darkness, a glass before dawn. They're horse archers; no need to give them good shooting-light.'

Corporal Jay hesitated, digesting his message. 'In the dark before dawn. Yes, sir.'

As he started to rein away, Howell said, 'And be easy with your mount, Trooper. Later, you'll want all the go he's got.'

'Yes, sir.' The corporal, carefully slack-reined, cantered away back to the Heavy's column, and Howell noticed some chaff rising where the big horse went. I want a light snow – very light, but enough to weight this dead grass. A prayer, he supposed, but asked of what Great? Lord Jesus? – still, the shepherds thought, hanging spiked to a pinon pine somewhere in North Map-Mexico's mountains. The shepherds, and the bandits there, thought he might be found someday and rescued, taken down and brought to Portia-doctor for healing… In the Sierra, they used to think Catania-doctor could certainly heal Mountain Jesus when he was found – and the man or woman who found him made Ice-melter in reward, and ruler of a new-warmed world.

No use now, though, for a new-made general – come north into enemy country – to pray to Lord Jesus, fastened in early Warm-times to his pinon and left there asking why, and saying, 'Please not.'

Portia… Portia. If we were together now, and some savage stuck a blade point in my only eye – or a piece of this dry chaff was blown into it – you would have a blind oaf stumbling after you, mumbling love, and asking where his cup might be, since there was still some chocolate in it. A burden added to a thousand others wearing you away.

Sam might have earned you, might be sufficient. No one else.

…What Great, then, to send us a very light snow? Lady Weather? The Kipchaks' Blue Sky brought snow or clearing, but undependably. Some savages worshiped one of the old All-makers, a Great too busy doing – and often doing badly – to listen to any prayer. And the white-skin tribesmen up by the ice-wall, their red-skin shamans and chiefs, called to the Rain-bird for weather they wanted, which seemed to make as much sense as any.

Howell closed his eye as he rode, picturing the Rain-bird in his mind. He saw it flying. Not big as a mountain – only large as a small lake, green and blue as that same lake in Daughter Summer. Its wings rising and falling, all wind and breezes blown from those wings…

They camped at sunset. Cold camp. But though there'd been no snow, neither had Kipchak horsemen – though four had been met – escaped to warn Map-Fort Stockton.

Howell walked the high-grass swales in failing light, his boots crunching, breaking dead stems. He chewed mutton jerky and talked with the troopers – all of them cheery, all apparently pleased to be in the Khan's country, and readying for battle… Howell joked with them, especially with the women – the lean Lights in their fine mail and leather, smiling, girlish, some sharpening their curved sabers with spit-stones, and the fewer bulky older women serving in the Heavies, ponderous in cuirass, with long, scabbarded straight sabers, and helmets hinged with neck and face guards. The perfect images of war, but for cooing altos as they groomed their big horses.

Howell chewed the last of the jerky as he walked the lines. He found Carlo Petersen sitting in deep grass, playing checkers with his captain, Feldman.

'Not for money, sir,' Petersen said, as he and the captain stood. In the army, only equal ranks could play for money, horses, or land. All could play for sheep.

'Who do you have out, Carlo?'

'Same as the march screen, sir. But rested.'

'Send riders to them. Remind them they're to avoid the enemy tonight, as before, but kill any they can't avoid or take prisoner. No Kipchak is to ride out from Fort Stockton, then back to it.'

'Still retire before force, though?'

'Yes, still retire before company strength or more. Send a galloper, and fall back on us.'

'Yes, sir. Billy, see to it.'

'Yes, sir,' the captain said, saluted, and trotted away, acorn helmet under his arm, mail hauberk jingling.