Kingdom River

'We hit them in the morning, dark, and no trumpets?'

'Yes. I know, Carlo, that there'll be some confusion, even going in brigades-in-line. But the Kipchaks will be even more confused. I don't want whatever garrison is there, to have the chance to hold fortifications or buildings against us. I want them surprised and scattered… I'll be with Second Brigade. Make certain, certain that your officers know to keep contact with our people to their right and left – no gaps, darkness or not.'

'Not easy.'

Howell said nothing, and Petersen grinned. 'Okay, I'll remind 'em. – Do we take prisoners? Major Clay supposed not.'

'We'll take no fighters prisoner, Carlo, but if your troopers catch a coward – or wise man – running, then that's a Kipchak I'd like to speak with. And remember, by Sam's order, women and children are not to be harmed in any way.'

'Yes, sir. And you'll be with the Second.'

'Right. First Brigade's yours, Carlo. I'll be trying to hold Reese back.'

Petersen laughed. Willard Reese was more than forty years old – a moody man, cautious as an infantryman before he was engaged, then almost insanely aggressive. Fighting, the man foamed at the mouth.

Howell returned Petersen's salute – Sam was right, the saluting had certainly set in – and walked on in the last of sunset light. The western horizon was colored rich as a deep-south orange, though the air was weighty with Lord Winter's early cold.

He kicked through dead grass, wishing Ned were commanding at least the First Brigade's Light Cavalry. Not that Carlo Petersen wasn't a fine officer, and a driver. Only he lacked that instinct (wonderful Warm-time word) that told an officer – not that something had gone wrong – but that something was about to go wrong.

Ned had that – or used to, before This'll Do. And Sheba Tate, Third Brigade, had it. No need, this evening, to find Major Tate on the right flank, advise her…

A group of horse archers called to Howell as he walked past. 'There he is – a general!' they called, and laughed, delighted as he gave them the so-ancient finger. A tribal sign, but one all people seemed to know.

Valuable men… and only men, those troopers. No women could draw longbows on horseback, the six-foot bows looking so odd and awkward with their long upper arms and short, deep-curved lowers. Valuable men, who could outshoot even the Khan's cavalry – once they'd spent a young lifetime learning to work their longbows at a gallop – shooting fast to either side or to the back, over the horses' cruppers. If he had more of them, if they didn't take years to train… If Ned had had more than two files of archers with him in the south, they might at least have covered his retreat.

Howell found a place as night came down, thick frost-killed grass in a fold between slight rises, with no tethered horses, no murmuring soldiers.

It was cold and growing colder, Lord Winter strolling down from the Wall… It was supposed to be hot in summer, deep south in the Empire – hot enough in those weeks to burn and kill a man lost under the sun. Probably true, considering the Warm-time vegetables they grew with no warming beds, no flat-glass frames… but still difficult to imagine.

Howell decided to sleep for only three sand-glass hours. He'd wake then, though no one tapped his shoulder. The little librarian, Neckless Peter, claimed these hours were not quite the old Warm-time hours. Perhaps… perhaps not, though twelve of them still made a day, though a dark day in winter. What did the poem say? Winter, that turns in snow like a tiger.

Howell spread his wool cloak on brittle grass… Phil had seen one of those snow tigers. 'Big as a pony,' he'd said, 'all yellow and black so he looked on fire.' A tiger in the reed brakes along the Bravo, likely come down hunting wild spotted cattle. Something to see.

Howell unbuckled his scabbarded long-sword, drew it, then lay down with the blade beside him and gathered the cloak around them both. A one-eyed soldier, and his cold, slender, sharp-tongued wife.

***

Sam had seen the Gulf many times before – had seen the wide Pacific Sea as well – but never lost his wonder at such lovely water, that seemed to beg traveling over. Lovely even now, gray, rough, hummed across by an icy wind… As a boy, he'd dreamed of sailing in a fishing schooner across the Pacific, sailing to islands with sweet Warm-time names… sailing on and on, living his life over water. Coming to his death there, finally.

His Second-mother, Catania, had told him of the great wind-sailors of Warm-times, that she'd read of in Or the White Whale. And the great machine-engine sailors, later. The Queen Elizabeth… the Harry Truman.

Perhaps from those stories, from that imagining, great water had always been a pleasure to him, though he'd never been out for more than a few sand-glasses in small boats… It had occurred to him, the last few years, that small coastal navies – east on the Gulf and west on the ocean – might be a means to secure North Map-Mexico's water rights. Might be a means to transport troops north and south as well.

Not a subject to bring up at Queen Joan's court. But a temptation. The Kipchaks had conquered a long western coast – a coast vulnerable to attacks by sea. Horsemen who'd come by riding across from Map-Siberia to the Alaskan ice, the Kipchaks used curses and charms to protect themselves from open water, running water. Thought them full of devils.

No question that navies, even small navies, were a temptation… What if he mentioned to merchants, to fishermen at Carboneras – and across the country at La Paz – that some ship-won plunder might become legal plunder? That flags of Warm-time piracy might become flags of profit if taken from the Kipchaks' coast of Map- California in the west… if taken from the Empire's coast, south, along the Gulf. With, of course, government paid its share and fee for licensing such ventures, shares that might lesson reliance on taxes raised by reluctant governers.

It was a notion…

'Dust,' Margaret said.

Young Sergeant Wilkey called, 'Dust.'

A troop of welcome was riding out of Carboneras. Fifteen, twenty people, their mounts raising dry-sand dust, even in the cold. Sam knew who, without seeing them. The mayor. Town councillors. District militia commander – that would be Ed Pell, very competent, a harsh disciplinarian who had, perhaps, too many close relatives serving in the militia companies. The local garrison commander would be Major Allen Chavez, an older man who didn't care much for Ed Pell.

Pigeons, of course, had had to come so a boat would be held for them. But pigeons would have flown in any case. It had proven a great annoyance that pigeons flew to warn of his coming on every occasion, no matter what he ordered to the contrary. An annoyance to set beside many others.

'It'll be the mayor,' Margaret said. 'Mark Danilo. And local city people, couple of their wives. Ed Pell will be with them; his cousins, too. And Major Allen Chavez and his officers. Trooper escort.'

'Right,' Sam said. 'Let's ride to meet them and get this over with, then down to the docks. I want to be on the water well before evening.'

'Boat's the Cormorant,' Margaret said… It took a while to reach the Cormorant, though Sam – by refusing to rein in – forced his welcome to be one of conversation moving at the trot. They rode past people lining narrow streets of low adobe houses… past occasional taller mansions of red and yellow brick, where men, women, and little children stood by wrought-iron gates, calling out, applauding in the old style. Pigeons had certainly flown – and as certainly flown to New Orleans as well, then up Kingdom River to its ruler's island.

A crowd, and more applause, at El Centra. A priest of Edgewater Jesus stood off to the side, watching with two of the Weather's ladies.

Sam reined Difficult slowly through the people to them, swung down from the saddle, bowed, then took their hands in turn and bowed again. Great applause, and a smile on the oldest Weather-lady's pale, crumpled face, framed in her purple hood… Purple, Sam supposed, for storm clouds. It hadn't occurred to him before.

Remounted, he moved steadily along. Flowers sailed through the air, little red summer flowers from some